Visage

Nobody. Nobody is talking about him. Not a single tier list from the current patch period even mentions his name. After the Great Reset dropped with ninety different hero changes, Terrorblade at 56.8%, Night Stalker dominating headlines, and Ursa hitting the highest carry win rate in the game, Visage quietly went from an already low-priority pick to a hero that the community collectively forgot exists. And here is the thing, guys. He is not bad. He was never bad when played in the right hands—historical Dotabuff data shows a near 60% Immortal bracket win rate when specialists pick him, and the D2PT 7.41 data shows a 59.5% win rate across the matches that exist. The sample sizes are small because almost nobody is playing him, but the people who ARE playing him are winning at an obscene rate.

Gravekeeper's Cloak is now his innate—and this matters enormously for the pos 4 identity. Previously, Gravekeeper's Cloak required an ability slot and a level investment. Now it scales passively with Visage's innate level, providing layered damage reduction protection on both Visage AND his familiars within a 900 range simultaneously, for free. Up to five layers at max level, each providing incoming damage reduction that stacks to up to 80% total reduction at full stacks. What this means as pos 4 is that Visage arrives in the safe lane already protected by a substantial damage barrier that the enemy support has to chew through before they can threaten him meaningfully, with zero ability slot cost. The enemy support attacks Visage to zone him, depletes layers, and then Visage simply waits for the layers to restore while the enemy wastes time hitting a hero who absorbs most of the damage. Meanwhile, the Familiars with 900-range Gravekeeper's Cloak protection from Visage are also substantially more durable than the enemy expects, allowing them to contest the lane without dying to incidental AoE harassment.

Grave Chill at level 2 is the kill setup. You cast it on the enemy carry—the target gets slowed in movement and attack speed simultaneously, Visage and the Familiars receive the inverse bonus (movement speed and attack speed boost), AND the Familiars automatically receive an attack order on the debuffed enemy. Your carry chases a slow target while Familiars with boosted attack speed stack their charges on it. That is a level 2 kill setup from a position 4 with zero items. Soul Assumption charges from every damage instance nearby heroes take over 100—and in a lane with active Familiar harassment, Familiars constantly whittling the enemy, and Grave Chill trading damage, the Soul Assumption charges accumulate so quickly that by level six the nuke is fully stacked and ready for a devastating single cast. The level 15 talent making Soul Assumption hit three targets turns it into triple-target burst damage that charges off every damage instance in the fight—a teamfight with multiple heroes all taking hits simultaneously stacks. Soul Assumption to maximum charges in seconds, and then a single cast nukes three heroes simultaneously. He is great at lineups with squishy supports in the safe lane who cannot absorb Familiar harassment, into physical damage drafts where his Familiar chip damage and Soul Assumption stacking synergize, and into games where the enemy team has no AoE burst that instantly kills Familiars before charges stack. Avoid him in heavy AoE magic burst lineups that kill both Familiars instantly before they contribute—Jakiro, Earthshaker—and in heroes who build Lotus Orb to reflect Soul Assumption back at Visage.