Valve is struggling to balance the newest Dota 2 hero

Dota 2’s latest hero is the long-awaited Chicken Samurai, Kez. The 126th hero is a step up in complexity from the remainder of the solid, that includes two weapons with their very own units of talents. Regardless of his low winrate, Kez was a busted hero in the appropriate arms, in a position to decisively finish fights with a well-sequenced combo.

Now, Kez is among the least picked heroes with a horrible winrate, but nonetheless receives nerf after nerf. Is Valve justified in gutting their latest hero? Or is it merely a precaution earlier than including him to Captain’s Mode? Both means, Kez’s intricate package makes balancing a nightmare.

Dota 2’s latest hero, Kez, was meticulously cultivated via Valve’s Crownfall saga earlier than his official reveal. Teased initially in Act I of Crownfall, extra dialogue snippets of a flightless warrior named Kestrel, chief of the “Kazurai” order, and his feats have been found as chapters progressed.

The massive reveal unfolded at The Worldwide 2024 (TI13), throughout Championship Sunday, simply earlier than the grand finals. In a cinematic hiatus from gameplay, Kez’s hero trailer dropped in entrance of a roaring crowd. Lengthy have we awaited, the hen samurai was lastly activated. 

Kez was welcomed to the roster on November 7, 2024, with the discharge of Crownfall Act IV. The several-month-long Crownfall was Dota 2’s greatest occasion, proving that it might inform a cohesive narrative whereas incentivising gamers with actions, challenges, and bonuses.

His reveal was simple, leaning on the spectacle of the hero relatively than trying to showcase his package. Nobody anticipated that the cool-looking hen samurai could be one among Dota 2’s most complicated heroes.

Kez is an agility-based melee grasp whose distinctive gimmick is having two units of weapons and skills. He isn’t the primary stance character in Dota 2, as Troll Warlord switches between melee and ranged variants of his talents. However what makes Kez totally different is that these are two units of talents, together with an final for every, giving him eight whole talents. 

The Chicken Samurai is healthier in comparison with League of Legends’ champions Jayce and Elise, whose remodeling weapon and shapeshifting additionally give them two units of talents. Kez higher resembles how LoL designs their characters. He has the next APM (actions per minute) in comparison with different Dota 2 heroes due to his decrease cooldowns, and a loaded package that may do virtually every little thing, from crowd management, silence, escape, hole shut, invis, parry, and extra. 

Kez additionally has a minigame the place he wants to use marks with auto assaults or talents, then pop them for bonus crucial injury and a bash. Moreover, the actual fact that his title is Kez and never Chicken Samurai leans away from conventional Dota 2 naming conventions. However his difficult package and variety of situational selections make him a excessive talent cap hero that belongs within the sport.

In hindsight, Kez was busted on 7.37d launch, nevertheless it took some time for the community to figure that out. Kez launched with a low general winrate, even dipping all the way down to 30% winrate in pubs, however in the appropriate arms, Kez was a menace on the server. 

Kez had robust outplay potential baked into his stacked package. Gamers might spam the Shodo Shai parry and rapidly strike again with a assured crucial strike and a stun on high of that.

The Shadowhawk side enabled this playstyle by instantly making use of cooldown discount on his third capability after proccing, which implies that it was straightforward to have a near-permanent uptime on parry. He additionally had a misleading low well being pool due to his constant lifesteal from Grapple Hook and his hard-hitting Katana final, Raptor Dance.

Dota 2’s latest hero boasts an unimaginable burst injury profile with just a few core objects. Gamers have been constructing Orb of Corrosion and Battle Fury and seemed to delete fragile targets by making use of as many marks with Raven’s Veil, then following up with Echo Slash. The quick combo outright deletes enemy helps and chunks everybody else. Once more, Kez’s capability to spam parry was each an offensive and defensive device, holding him secure and aggressive.

He was one of many uncommon heroes to get an Aghanim’s Scepter on launch, with the final occasion of that occuring being means again in 2015 on Arc Warden. Kez Aghanim’s Scepter transforms him right into a beastly character as a result of it permits him to easily swap between his two disciplines, and most significantly, doesn’t set off the cooldown of his linked capability. This was such an enormous energy spike as a result of it took away his resolution on how you can sequence or combo his capability, turning him right into a deadly button smasher.

Aghanim’s Scepter unlocked the complete potential of the hero and confirmed a rewarding talent ceiling that rivalled Invoker’s. Together with his Scepter, combos like Talon Toss into Grappling Claw allowed him to shut the hole on a squishy and finish them with out counterplay. Echo Slash into Falcon Rush was an advantageous technique to begin a duel. And naturally, Aghanim’s Scepter even allowed him to make use of each units of ultimates.

On the subsequent patch, 7.37e, Kez had a 12.48% contest price and a wholesome 51% winrate within the Immortal bracket. The development stays the identical, regardless of excessive gamers choosing him up, lower-ranked gamers couldn’t absolutely utilise his potential. So, regardless of his abysmal general winrate, Kez acquired nerf after nerf.

Since his introduction in patch 7.37d, Kez has been topic to consecutive nerfs. There are numerous knobs to show for this hero and as a substitute of taking it sluggish by tuning his numbers, Valve has nerfed him conceptually as a substitute of numerically, making him much less enjoyable and fewer distinctive with every patch. Patch 7.37e noticed a nerf to Grappling Claw’s hero lifesteal-based heal in any respect ranges, lowering it to 160 from 200 at max rank.

Patch 7.39 noticed an enormous spherical of nerfs for Kez. First, they diminished his base armour to 1, making his mediocre laning section a bit extra depressing. Then, they diminished Kazurai Katana’s assault injury from 20% to 12% to steadiness across the newly added Katana-focused Flutter side. 

Grappling Claw’s lifesteal will get one other spherical of changes, this time eradicating lifesteal-based self-heal to lifesteal. Kez’s Sai Self-discipline and Falcon Rush acquired nerfs to their base assault time.

On patch 7.38b, Kez’s Shodo Sai was in a position to parry and block all incoming bodily assault injury sources. This modification, together with the buffs to the crucial bonus injury to the Shadowhawk side, meant that Kez was incentivised to parry usually and attempt to reset the cooldown by proccing the mark.

At this level, gamers who’ve mastered Kez have exploited his limitless parry playstyle to nice success. Nonetheless, his winrate of 47% within the Immortal bracket means that even high-ranking gamers haven’t caught on but.

Patch 7.39 was Kez’s worst batch of nerfs and hit all features of his package laborious:

Valve is saying that they need Kez to maneuver into a conventional right-clicking laborious carry by growing his agility scaling on Kazurai Katana. Nonetheless, nerfing talents and skills that helped him apply and proc marks for bonus results eliminated a definite gameplay loop. 

The steadiness workforce went straight for the jugular towards Kez with out even attempting to softly tune him down with numerical reworks. Maybe, they’re getting ready so as to add him to Captain’s Mode for the upcoming Esports World Cup or The International.

Earlier than the spherical of nerfs, professional gamers and casters thought that Kez was too broken to add into tournaments, but when they preserve this development up, professional gamers gained’t have an incentive to study him.

As of patch 7.39b, Kez is among the least picked heroes with one of many lowest winrates. Kez struggles to compete with conventional laborious carries who can output sustained injury. Shedding the much-needed survivability from Raptor Dance makes him weak at any time when he engages.  

As a midlaner, Kez has a good time towards most matchups and may shove waves at an obstacle. Whereas the additional ranges are useful for the hero, he wants extra objects than the same old midlaner to have an effect, as a substitute of creating performs and shopping for time in your laborious carry. 

Kez is working with imperfect knowledge as a result of this tough hero relies upon closely on the talent of the participant. The conceptual nerfs are an overreaction that’s diluting curiosity of their latest hero for the final playerbase.

Launch the Chicken Samurai into Captain’s Mode so everybody can see his efficiency towards the most effective groups and gamers on this planet. With sufficient publicity and frequent however smooth steadiness tunings, Kez ought to be capable of be part of the roster because the complicated, high-skill cap character he was meant to be.