A Week With Underlord
Pub players have had a week to experiment with Underlord, the newest hero released in Dota 2. He currently has a win rate of 53.22%, which is one of the most successful among new hero releases. Both Earth Spirit and Ember Spirit dwelled around a 40% win rate during their releases. Oracle wasn’t exempt either. But while those heroes weak debuts could be due to their complicated skill interactions, at least Underlord’s concept is fairly straightforward. An AoE, an area stun, an aura, and a teleport—far from the novel interactions of Oracle’s purges and Spirit remnants.
Underlord’s win rate over this past week
Underlord’s Role In Pubs
Across all skill brackets, Underlord is played the most in the offlane, which is also where he is most successful, at a 53.14% win rate. He is least played in the jungle, where he has the lowest win rate compared to all other lanes, at 46.20%. He’s a hero that needs levels more than farm, so his current natural fit is in the offlane.
Atrophy Aura also activates on enemy denies, which can create favorable matchups against melee carries. Despite a starting base armor of 2, he does have some tricks with Pit of Malice to survive against potential ganks. But even so, he can still retreat to the jungle, since Firestorm can be used to clear stacks, as well as protecting the offlane tower.
Because of the mobility of Underlord’s ultimate, drafts and strategies will naturally center around this mechanic, such as in the case of Nature’s Prophet or Io lineups. With team synergy and coordination being necessary factors for Underlord’s effectiveness, it’s a surprise how the hero has been finding such success in pub games. It’s a testament to the strength of his other core abilities and his function as a utility hero.
Item Builds
Underlord’s most commonly built items
A few of the most common items built on Underlord have some logical sense: Blademail for a hero that wreaks havoc the longer he is on the field, Blink Dagger to give him some catch and an imitation of Io's Relocate-Save, and Arcane Boots to Guardian Greaves round out the essentials for supports and offlaners.
What doesn't make sense in his most built items is Battlefury. This seems to be a trend carried over from his Dota 1 days, much like Battlefury on Bounty Hunter, Battlefury on Tidehunter (it's happened), or Battlefury on Earthshaker. It’s also the residual effect of Valve's suggested builds on the public.
Luxury Items: Battle Fury, Satanic, Halberd, Heart, Silver Edge, Blink & Moon Shard replaced by Guardian Greaves, Radiance, Scythe, Crimson Guard, Pipe, Linken Sphere and Lotus Orb.
Radiance is hard to ignore as one of the suggested items here. Firestorm is strong enough to clear waves, especially on a short, 12 second cooldown. And Radiance shifts Underlord to a carry role, which boxes him into a playstyle that’s too passive to maximize his utility. He should be making space, rather than taking it. But then again, can you argue against Fenrir, who went Radiance and maxed Atrophy Aura first?
Ability Builds
Underlord’s most popular ability builds
The most popular ability builds prioritizes maximizing in the order of Firestorm, Pit of Malice, then Atrophy Aura. The main variations are in the first few skill points. Firestorm is like Midnight Pulse, in that it does high, scaling damage, should you stay in it. At level one, however, it provides little damage and laning leverage. Atrophy Aura or Pit of Malice tends to be the top skill picks for Underlord’s top players in our guides. If you’re in the safelane, Atrophy Aura does have a disadvantage since it destabilizes the lane and pushes it by default, but it’s trivial if you have effective supports pulling.
Underlord tends to be more level dependent than other cores. IO’s tether, at any level, is just as essential as its Relocate, but Underlord’s spells are rather underwhelming at low levels. Dark Rift is also on a very long, 130 second cooldown, so Underlord becomes even more of a high-risk, high-reward hero, if he can’t contribute via his other skills.
Firestorm is easily dodged. Pit of Malice benefits greatly from the cooldown reduction of its levels, where it only has a 5 second downtime at level 4. Then there’s Atrophy Aura, which can be excellent to extract laning advantages, but it requires more levels to provide a discernible impact in a team fight, especially a protracted one.
Though Underlord is still being tinkered with in the grand experiment of Dota’s public games, it won’t be until his release in Captain’s Mode where we’ll see a more definitive role and build. For now, we have the pub meta, and Underlord has found his place.
Need to nerf it
second :) but yeah need nerf it so damn hard
since no one mentioned..im 1st or 3rd..
NO im first
A mixture of Od andp Pudge, be creative Valve!
Firestorm shouldn't effect rosh, other than that I really enjoy playing him. But w/e I'm a scrub
Buff him Volvo Plz
More buff less nerf in Underlord Volvo
the pit of malice is so goddam strong
"The Pit of Malace is so Strong"
everything is
@BlurryBob indeed the desing.... well, oracle and terrorblade where just perfect, then this fat lizard resembles the bloodseeker F@k1ng ungly and failed desing... and.. i think he must be nerf.. porcetual dmg, bkb piercing low cooldown aoe stun, 42% dmg reduction and aoe teleport.. maybe is just me, but looks like an OVERPOEWERED mixed fat lizard made of crystal maiden, tide hunter, io and enigma..
A very good role in team fight
The reason why he has a good win rate is because the hero is very simple, almost WC3 quality. All of the skills are easily understandable and very straightforward except his ultimate in certain situation.
Damn fuckin pricks that say nerf him get a rope, find a tree and hang urselves in it. he isnt a strong hero it's just u who suck at this game who cant counter a damn pit lord with nothing buta harassing flamestorm. fuck u dumbfuckin useless players that make dota worse
How the fuck are people asking for a nerf? KYS
I don't think he is overpowered. He's ult should not work with summoned units and maybe his aura could be nerfed a little bit. But yea, I'd kick everyone's ass playing him.
pit should not pierces magical immunity. now it's like a spammable treant ulti.
I hope volvo didn't nerf this fucking ladder hero so much
I agre underlords e needs to have a limit or kinda like shadow fiends necromastery cause it is just the most op shit
this is just going to be like arc warden again, he'll get nerfed and everyone will forget about him
Arc warden only really got nerfed because Fear demonstrated in a pro game in CD what can happen if you draft him. Granted I don't think Underlord is that OP but he could do with some minor needs. Perhaps a range nerf on the aura?
Everyone forgets about Arc Warden? Maybe with 1k players who rush Divine. Above 5k bracket, he has a 56% win rate with 11% pick rate. Underlord doesn't need a nerf, he is functioning like that since forever in Dota 1, going through so many balancing patches before going to Dota 2 unlike Arc Warden.
arc warden was in dota 1 lmfao. and pitlord isnt over powered you just have to know how to play against him.
Shitty builds ... best underlord build: travel silver edge mjollnir abyssal ac bkb (or butterfly) ... Rape
He's too big.
knowing how to play against a hero, or, if the hero can be countered with other hero doesnt mean that a hero isnt overpower. A hero is overpower when in comparison with other balanced heroes he is too strong or have abilities that left in ridiculous spot to normal abilities of other heroes, ex:
crystal maidem ULTIMATE (chaneled magic dmg) vs fat lizard normal ability (magic dmg NOT CHANELED with porcentual dmg)
treant protector ULTIMATE vs fat lizard normal skill (pit of malice)...
tidehunder anchor smash (close range active skill) vs fat lizard atrophy aura (pasivo WIDE RANGE skill)
etc etc etc
u have a good point demon soul.
Buff your skills before asking for nerf.
Model is waaay to huge compared to the whole rest of the heroes
+
Passive is simply too strong, needs a nerf
His Aghs will be TP available with neutral creeps. I'm IceFrog friend. He told me.
Good hero
Both 4 skills are very powerful.His is good at teamfight.This hero makes enemy feel sick.
aura is OP
>being a support hero
>have no moment to spend wards
This hero just need full support items to be OP such as guardian greaves, Crimson guard, pipe, and some desolator or SnY (less cost parts but more expensive) for effective pushing and harrasing
The weakness of this hero is non right-clicker heroes that relies on magical damage and something that prevents hero for casting spells. Pugna and Skyrat Mage also OD could be a good idea against Underlord.
Underlord has a very good win rate, because he is very simple. The current popular picks also aren't great in to match up against him, since his aura has a 900 range. He's definitely a great choice, because he doesn't really get countered and he isn't a counter himself.. I guess he's a great match up against split pushers and against lineups that rely on base physical damage ( drow ranger, sven, .. ). Not to mention that his farming ability is very reliable, even in offlane, simply because he can put his rain of fire on the closest large camp to his lane on either side of the map.
This is a good hero, I think he needs a little nerf, but regardless he should remain the same in terms of win rate.
One thing to keep in mind is that, Pit Lord, can be very greedy just like heroes such as Tinker and the like, which can leave the rest of the team suffering. He can easily overtake other teammembers farm which can quickly lead to the teams downfall.
@marko good point, as the article says, "He should be making space, rather than taking it"
I think that pitlord should be played as safelane support. It's very easy to counter a carry underlord, but a support underlord is simply a nightmare.
You get tranquil boots for hp regen, and soul ring for mana regen. That way you can farm the jungle while the safelane carry farms the lane. And if the safelane carry is having trouble or needs help, you can setup kills with the pit of malice followed by firestorm, or simply scare the enemy off if they get too aggressive and attack your carry with either of the first 2 skills. The main thing to understand is that this is a hero that mainly needs levels, and as a result, he's a perfect utility (position 4) support. After tranquil boots and soul ring, I typically go vlads if no one else has is buying it, and then crimson or pipe, and a mobility item, preferably force staff, followed by shiva's.
I've been playing him support for 9 games with the above build and have won 8 of them, and I'm not a good dota player.
Unrderlord support is best support m8. I even can make skyrat mage carry the game later after accompanying him at offlane in early game. After my support items finished, time to build desolator XD.
I dont know man, his 3rd skill is annoying as fuck as level 4 reduce 42%
its fking insane dude
nerf it into 8/16/24/32 is more reasonable
and.. pit of malice shouldnt bypass spell inmunity.. bkb is pettry crap right now..
If you tards honestly think he needs a nerf then you can't play the game
LOL...xD