Let’s Talk About EHP

One of the most hotly debated topics right now is the HP pool inflation. Over the years, the baseline and potentially achievable survivability skyrocketed, resulting in a much lower lethality of Dota engagements. Today we want to add our voice to the discussion, highlighting what we consider to be the pros and cons of the current Dota approach to time-to-kill.

More space for counter-play

This is what we consider to be the biggest benefit of higher average HP pools. Getting caught out of position on a tanky hero means you still get to react. Since targets are much harder to blow up and hard crowd control doesn’t last as long, the possibility of counter-play is much higher.

This results in more dynamic fights, where brawling is potentially a lot more back and forth. Thinking of Health Points as a resource that can be spent on baiting the enemy to overcommit and get out of position is a potential extra layer allowed by higher survivability.

Heals are also more pronounced when you get a target that doesn’t evaporate in a split of a second. Similarly, save items and heroes are a lot easier to utilise effectively. All this makes the game more engaging, in our opinion. Instead of fights being decided by good initiations, we get a game that is balanced around smarter ability usage and itemisation.In theory, it is also a very strong diversification tool. Tanky heroes can get very tanky, while squishier heroes feel even more squishy by comparison.

The negatives

However, there are several problems that are especially noticeable at the highest level of play. The first move advantage is still very strong, but it is no longer a viable strategy as a whole. Previously, vision heroes could be the cornerstone of a team’s draft, where quick pickoffs on priority targets would lead to a teamfight victory. The current level of tankiness simply doesn’t allow for it, hence heroes like Night Stalker are mostly ignored.

Moreover, heroes who could previously boast unparalleled tankiness are now weaker in comparison. In trying to diversify tanky heroes from squishy ones, the current balance made historically tanky heroes less relevant. Tidehunter is still a very tanky and survivable hero, but when compared to other offlane heroes he no longer stands out as much.

Glass cannons are also not having the greatest of times, though there are some examples of heroes who fit this category and are in the meta. Glass cannon-punishers, though, are fully irrelevant. Heroes like Spectre, Bloodseeker and Juggernaut who have a safe amount of burst damage simply don’t offer anything, when their burst is not killing heroes.

The only style of carry currently viable in the meta is survivable, sustained damage carry. It is not even necessarily a Gleipnir problem, though it is a part of it. Simply put: a fair fight against targets that may have half your DPS, but have three times your survivability is just not mathematically a good option.

What we end up with is an undeniably EHP-dominated meta, which isn’t bad on its own for a time, but it does limit the pool of viable heroes. Hopefully it will change in the next patch.

Potential solutions

There are several obvious solutions to the problem. One is a blanket decrease in the efficiency of HP items. It is by far the easiest and the most intuitive one. Toning down Strength to 20 HP per point and decreasing flat HP values on some of the artefacts could go a long way.

At the same time, we are afraid it will result in the loss of potential counter-play options. Current brawling team fights are fun to watch and are fun to play, in our opinion. Dota is balanced on a knife’s edge and it is easy to skew it too hard in the other direction with minor changes.

Making risky heroes more rewarding could be another way to go. Let tanky heroes be generally tanky, but make sure that glass cannons deal enough damage to cut through all that survivability, if they see an opening.

This, however, can lead to a problem where support players will once again suffer. For example, Juggernaut’s Blade Fury is currently irrelevant against most meta targets. If it was reasonably buffed, it would still be irrelevant against very tanky heroes, but could make support play slightly more miserable. Which, honestly, doesn’t sound like too bad of a balance issue, but could lead to less enjoyable support experience.

Finally, balancing the game on a per-hero basis is an option. It is generally the most common option in Dota, where overperforming heroes get slight nerfs, while underperforming ones get stronger. The problem with this approach, though, is it frequently leads to power creep.

Power creep is more or less how we got to where we are now. It is not necessarily a bad thing: this power creep did make playing support more interesting and impactful, it made the game more engaging and it does result in heroes’ strengths and weaknesses being more pronounced.

However, we feel like the start of the season is when a massive shake-up is desperately needed. Game-wide economy and attribute changes will be painfully unbalanced, most likely, but it is a band aid that needs to be ripped off sooner, rather than later.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Do you feel like Dota needs a game-wide “ruleset” change that deals with the EHP issues, or do you think that balancing around the current levels of EHP is a better solution? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.