DOTA 2

I wouldn't put DK in that list. He's not a very good lategame carry, and definitely not a hard carry. I think he's most useful early when he's very tanky, can tank tower, initiate fights for you and push towers with his good creep nuke and his building dot. On the other hand, if he's not fully geared he does jackshit for damage and isn't that tanky either lategame and if he's fully geared he's still only so so. He's a good secondary carry to support your true hard carry by providing stuns and slow as well as complimentary damage, but you're never going to run a 4+1 strat with a DK, that's like really idiotic.

For example while I don't think Naix is a hard carry either, he's still a better carry than DK. He does a lot more damage due to having built in attack speed, BKB(which while primarily a defensive item always increase your DPS as a melee hero since it means not getting CCed while attacking someone) and damage via feast. That makes him a lot more deadly than DK with a lot less items. That's why you won't pick a DK for the dmg but for the initiation/support he brings. He's kind of like Slardar in competitive, and in fact both of them require about the same amount of gear to actually be used as carries.

Gyro definitely not a hard carry, but at the same time one of the strongest lategame carry, which is why his balancing is probably a bit off. Mostly, Flak cannon lategame is one of the best carry "passive" damage boost because it basically kills all the supports while you're firing at the prime target/building. It's like split shot from Medusa, but better and it's not on medusa so that's even better. He's strong early, he's strong mid, he's strong late and he has turn around potential if you grab a rapier, which isn't the case for most other carries.

Also important to note that a lot of the hard carries are in fact a lot more useful than they used to be back in the days, due to accelerated farms and stronger midgame items like tranq boots+drums which gives them regen, health, damage, movespeed, attackspeed so they can actually participate before they have 2-3big items. They still take 20mins in general to actually be useful(used to be hard carries were worthless for 30+) while other carries can be useful earlier.They will generally make up for it with 30+mins dominance but if you lose too hard the early/mid, you're never gonna get there so they're not as safe a bet as say syllabear, naix and gyro.

Well we can agree to disagree again, because I don't actually think a DK with only a satanic and a daedelus is scary. You'd need an AC too, at least. Even then with no bkb, you're not that scary, armor is cute early game but lategame it's not that great of a defensive mechanism(better than no armor obviously but still). The problem of DK as a hard carry is he needs ridiculous amounts of farm to actually carry, and even when he does have that amount he's not that super scary. Want a hero that does splash and stupid dmg? Sven? Tiny? I'd take either over DK as a hard carry, even though they're melees, because the amount of base damage they offer, as well as both having an aoe stun makes them a lot stronger.

I checked Loda's stats with DK. He's 4-3 with DK, which is one of the lower scores for him as a carry and the lowest since he's joined NTH. In his 4 wins, the games were all under 30mins duration, one sided stomps if you will, and 2 of them had Wisp when he was solo carry and the other 2 had Syllabear as a secondary carry.

I'm not saying he's a bad carry, I'm saying he's not a hard carry. By your own definition, a hard carry is useless early game(DK has a long range very strong stun, lots of early armor and regen, pushing power and a strong nuke) and at the same time rapes everyone lategame, which is the case for DK only if he's been constantly keeping up with farm as he needs a lot of items to actually be useful as a primary carry, since otherwise he just does no damage. You basically need 3 items that increase your dmg for him to do good endgame damage, being tanky by stacking tanky items doesn't work if you're the only carry because your whole team will die and you won't be able to kill shit. Even if we assume he's the best lategame, that still wouldn't make him a hard carry because of his early game which contradicts your point about gyro not being a hard carry because of his early. DK's early is easily as good as gyro.

calla_sl said:

early dk as good as gyro? lol

Click to expand...

Early isn't all about your laning. Sure Gyro lanes better than DK in a solo lane, barrage can zone people really hard. When it's 10mins and you want to push an early tower though, it's not even close which one is the better hero. Gyro has good aoe damage assuming you land your ulti, otherwise he does jackshit. DK rapes towers with poison dragon and if you engage you're fighting a high damage hero(cause breath fire is actually good at that point) with like 15armor which early game is absolutely stupid. He will win you the early game more likely than Gyro will, in fact Gyro will most likely keep farming instead cause there's no point in him coming to push shit. On the other hand DK should definitely be pushing shit and abuse his green dragon form and his early game power peak.

calla_sl said:

if dk were as good as you make him out to be, why dont teams use him anymore.

Click to expand...

You haven't been reading anything? I didn't say he was very good once. I said he was good early and meh late. That by definition makes him not that good, and it makes perfect sense he's not picked all the time or even often at all. He has a window of time where he's very strong, around 10-15mins, and from then on he just fades away in usefulness unless you can heavily farm(which to really keep up is gonna either require your team plays 4man or you made a midas but then your early suffers). He's a great initiator/tank/utility hero lategame, for your actual carry, but that's a role that's fairly limited in use and can be done better by Magnus or Sylla.

The argument was on wether or not DK was a hard carry. My point is that he's not. However wether he is or not is irrelevant to his power overall in the game. Medusa is a hard carry and she's a pretty awful hero for example.