2013-03-21, 01:26 PM
Raul Wrote:Magnus would not be played as a mid competitively if he wasn't able to bottlecrow. Bottlecrow changes the entire face of the mid lane. Mag would be stuck as a mana-starved offlaner or a 4 position like ES getting blink and arcanes if he wasn't able to salvage his subpar mid lane presence with bottlecrow. He can't deal with a difficult lane without constant bottle because he has no way to farm without spamming shockwave.
OD's problem isn't laning because a well played OD will pomegranate on just about every enemy mid. Bottle won't even be relevant because they'll have so small of a mana pool they won't be able to expend it. Literally no one performs well against him besides maybe Pugna and no one actually plays Pugna. He won't get a kill anytime soon without a gank but he'll make it so that the enemy mid can't do anything. He's a hard carry who is a lane bully.
I know bottlecrowing is big for the mid and defines who is viable there. Mag against a hero like QoP would be hard on him, but he, even without bottle crowing would have a wide range of heroes he could face mid without it. Magnus was picked mid quite some time ago in dota 1 without them using bottle crowing, he did welll against heroes like Nighstalker, brewmaster, broodmother, beast master.
But, silencer has pomegranate surviveability and would be easily shut down, bottle crowing would NOT save silencer from this at all. And yes ODs problem is laning, you can NOT put him mid against top tier teams, he will be shat all over as a hero he would never survive a well executed gank because his base-line surviveability isn't high at all. OD is a strong hero 1v1 but he's not a strong mid. ODs problem and reason for not being picked is in no way his issues with BKB.
Seriously, OD and silencer have the same fate, they are absolutely insane heroes 1v1, but they will lose mid in a top tier environment. Being a strong laner doesn't mean pomegranate if you can't get any farm and will get shut down.
The kind of heroes where bottle crowing makes them viable mid heroes also have something else that makes him viable, which is commonly being able to survive and mostly only needing levels. This applies to magnus, night stalker, brewmaster and so on. If you send OD or silencer mid and only get levels and not farm, you've wasted the heroes entirely and they'll never catch up.