Spectre Wins The International 10 Arcana Vote

Spectre has finally done it. The hero managed to beat Faceless Void by just a few million votes to win 1^st place and the honor of having an arcana created just for her. I think it’s going to look awesome and perhaps even better than some of the great sets she already has. But what’s important is that Spectre managed to win the admiration of millions and become a highly popular hero. But what does it mean?

Implications for Pubs

Spectre is one of those heroes you really don’t want to play against. Especially at low MMRs, where people don’t understand that they have to win the early game and then push non-stop in order to prevent the enemy carry from becoming a scary monster. If Spectre gets to level 20, the game is often lost unless the net worth difference is huge and your hero composition is great against her.

With the talents and abilities she has, Spectre is a very hard and very costly kill after level 20. The +5 stats at level 10 and +400 Health Points at level 20 really add up. Put on top of that a stats giving neutral item and an item build that enhances her stats even more and you get a hero with something like 3000 – 4000 HP, a lot of armor, a lot of damage reduction, and a lot of damage return. And when you also have to kill her illusions, your whole team is below half HP by the time you’ve done enough damage to seriously threaten Spectre’s life.

Win Rate, Nerfs, Popularity, and Strengths

No doubt, after winning this highly important community vote, Spectre is going to become a lot more popular than she already is. Right now, Spectre is the 19^th most picked hero in Dota 2. In other words, she’s somewhere in the top 15% percent. My expectation is that it will climb at least a few positions on that ladder after the arcana is released and possibly even sooner.

Spectre’s win rate is huge right now: 54.3%. It may not seem like an exaggerated number, but it’s actually quite high. If it goes any higher, the expectation is that we will see a nerf. But it might not happen, because IceFrog is definitely not interested in voting against the whole community with such a change that would inevitably lead to a lot fewer people picking the hero. On the other hand, it’s unlikely that we’ll see a buff either, because Spectre is already a little bit too strong.

In pubs, the key thing to realize about Spectre is that people like to play with her around the ultimate and around certain item timings: boots plus Drums is the first power spike. The second one is Manta. The third is Diffusal. When Spectre has all of these items, she’s a menace when you cast Haunt. Any support hero will be on the run and likely get killed if it gets isolated.

 

Photo credit: Valve