DotaStrategy.com - A look on

Counter_Force[X]

Selling this. PM me. Bitches. No. What?
Beyond Godlike Posts: 6830 Joined: 13 Aug 2007 Warnings : 2 6750 gold

A look on - Bristleback

Posted on Sat Nov 14, 2009 6:45 am

In the 6.63 version, Rigwarl received notable changes both directly and indirectly. His ulti was changed from IAS to damage buff, the nerf/change to phase directly improves all of his skillset, the improvements given to some items(radiance, heart) and the fact that 6.64 is a ‘ganker’ oriented map gave him more usability then he used to have. While it is insufficient to bring him back to the scene(comparable with his 6.48 era), I honestly believe that Rigwarl is a strong pick and deserves more mention, just as the Prince thought he should be.

Why are these considered as buffs?

One may say that. Phase losing armor bonuses will surely have an impact towards tanks, which is Rigwarl’s class, and the change of Warpath bonuses from IAS to damage just doesn’t synergy with your favorite item builds(SnY, Mjolnir, MKB, Buriza). The answer to this is that, why would you want attack speed when you’re spamming spells each second and always tilting back and forth in battles? This would be the same for both IAS and damage but damage would serve a better purpose in ganks, which is 6.64’s highlighted playstyle.

A nerf of armor on a staple item will cause tremendous effects to the metagame. Rigwarl, having his whole skillset being physical damage oriented is surely one of those to rejoice in this change.

While the fact that Magic Stick/Wand is still a great item to abuse against Rigwarl, the armor nerfs essentially balanced the effects. Personally, I believe it benefited Rigwarl more. Stick/Wand isn’t really his counter; it’s merely an aspect to abuse against Rigwarl.

A simple explanation of play you should try with Rigwarl; pick him, get some cores and go on ganks. Use goo, spray and goo. Once you’re close, you should have a window of dealing 1 hit after each goo while waiting for it to cool down again. Just try it and see just how obnoxious your damage is after 3-4 goo’s. Of course it’s not as challenging as using Troll or PA, but I find it more intellectual.

The Radiance and Heart buff, as well as the introduction of Pipe made it even more accommodating to play Rigwarl. Radiance, being his core item finally had the useless evasion removed and the immolation buffed. Though it looks minor, it is essentially a 13% effectiveness buff. And Rigwarl is no normal tank; he can easily push and farm, so items builds within the cost of 8-10k’s is rather easy to achieve.

Rigwarl also synergize well with common picks. Rylai, Lion, Tide, Venge, Dazzle, are all decent lane partners and they form strong lanes as well. Picking Rigwarl is also a good setup to a strong ganking-push styled play; with the buffs he is harder to overcome, and he can handle some obnoxious heroes such as Brood(who is insanely strong in this version) and famous AoE’s such as Tide and Crixalis.

I also believe that Rigwarl is a strong team finalpick option. As you might know in the drafting phase, teams often tries to predict the style of play their opponents are up to by referring to their bans/early picks. Firstpick is often a disadvantage, in which the first hero often gives a hint of a team’s general strategy, and then when the next 2 hero pick is done by the opponent, they could take away essential heroes from that strategy. However, firstpick does allow you to secure the strongest remaining hero within the pool which can be a good way to disable a team’s top hero(Proudmoore for AEON, Bane for dmZ, Crixalis/Storm/Lion for MYM). Rigwarl is less likely to be considered as a firstpick now, will most likely have the advantage as a later pick; assuming that teams went on standard drafts, lastpicking Rigwarl will usually give no room/only 1 pick to respond. This should give the team an element of surprise as Rigwarl isn’t a common pick and is therefore, harder to counter.

So where is the love he should be getting?

It is to be noted that Rigwarl haven’t received much mention since 6.48. And in that particular version, he was a permanent ban material. I can only speculate that not much of the top players are well acquainted with him due to this, and the exact powerful synergy has not yet been discovered, but those are just my thoughts. The 6.64 era features the usage of a wide array of heroes, in which more dynamic drafting styles are often seen, and players now tend to lean towards strategies with carry players using their favorite heroes rather than the stereotypic Morphling or Specter which have been overused for ages. Perhaps if we can abduct KuroKy, we can force him to play Rigwarl.

Also to be noted, the anti-armor strategy is a very common strategy in the 6.64 stage, in which the heroes concerned with those types of play are often banned(dazzle, Tide) and teams can easily counter-react with picking heroes that screws the system early. Most of these heroes are also strong gankers and supports. They are an asset to a team in any types of strategy. Unless there are other varying and strong strategies with Rigwarl, leaguers will remain to abandon him. Perhaps we should abduct KuroKy anyway.

All in all, we can only hope that he will get his chance. Rigwarl is a fun hero to watch; his playstyle demands exceptional reactions and awareness, and he’s surely more fun to watch than Morphling or Specter who wins the game after 40 minutes of farming. I hope leaguers would pay more attention to innovation rather than tradition in order to make DotA a more colorful and lively game.