[DATA]Item usage in competitive games (8th update)

[Gheizen64]

As someone here may already know, i'm not only a player, but i'm also an avid replay viewer. I look a lot of replays from gosugamer every day, especially lately that i've finished my winter exam session. At the end of each replay, sometime there's a window that show you all the informations of the game, kills, items, heroes etc...
I have the habit to take always a screenshot of those windows to keep some data and information about builds/picks always at hand.
Today, i've decided to report some of the data given from those screenshots.

All games are played in 6.66-6.66b and are not older than two weeks.

In the 187 games i've analized until now there were:

(apg means average per game)

Numbers

Power Treads (almost all were strenght)
- 1123 total, 6.005 apg


Phase boots
- 127 total, 0.679 apg


Boots of Travel
- 246 total, 1.316 apg


Bracers
- 515 total, 2.754 apg


Wraiths
- 280 total, 1.497 apg


Nulls
- 231 total, 1.235 apg


Wands
- 1014 total, 5.422 apg


Poor Man's Shield
- 45 total, 0.241 apg


Urn of Shadows
- 123 total, 0.658 apg


Hand of Midas
- 3 total, 0.016 apg


Bottle
- 641 total, 3.428 apg


Blink Daggers
- 434 total, 2.321 apg


Vanguards
- 146 total, 0.781 apg


Black King Bar
- 172 total, 0.920 apg


Hood of Defiance
- 64 total, 0.342 apg


Pipe
- 23 total, 0.123 apg


Aghanim Scepters
- 114 total, 0.610 apg


Force Staff
- 55 total, 0.294 apg


Shiva's Guards
- 58 total, 0.310 apg


Bloodstone
- 17 total, 0.091 apg


Linken's Sphere
- 73 total, 0.390 apg


Skadi
- 45 total, 0.241 apg


Blademail
- 28 total, 0.150 apg


Assault Cuirass
- 30 total, 0.160 apg


Heart of Tarrasque
- 16 total, 0.086 apg


Manta Style
- 180 total, 0.963 apg


Lothar's Edge
- 76 total, 0.406 apg


Battlefury
- 40 total, 0.214 apg


Radiance
- 45 total, 0.241 apg


Butterfly
- 51 total, 0.273 apg


Armlet of Mordiggian
- 13 total, 0.070 apg


Buriza Do Kyanon
- 13 total, 0.070 apg


Cranium Basher
- 10 total, 0.053 apg


Monkey King Bar
- 8 total, 0.043 apg


Diffusal Blade
- 80 total, 0.428 apg


Mask of Madness
- 30 total, 0.160 apg


Stygian Desolator
- 29 total, 0.155 apg


Sange and Yasha
- 12 total, 0.064 apg


Maelstrom, Mjollnir
- 6 and 11 total, 0.032 and 0.059 apg


Guinsoos
- 146 total, 0.781 apg


Eul's Scepter of Divinity
- 21 total, 0.112 apg


Orchid's Malevolence
- 31 total, 0.166 apg


Necronomicon (all three levels)
- 42 total, 0.225 apg


Dagon (all five levels)
- 15 total, 0.080 apg


Arcane Ring
- 9 total, 0.048 apg


Refresher Orb
- 2 total, 0.011 apg


Mekansm
- 82 total, 0.439 apg


Ghost Scepter
- 55 total, 0.294 apg


Ring of Basilus
- 98 total, 0.524 apg


Vladimir's Offering
- 49 total, 0.262 apg


Divine Rapier
- 8 total, 0.043 apg (of which 3 in a single Game on Demon's Kunkka lol)


- 536 Str Heroes were picked, 2.866 apg
- 532 Agi Heroes were picked, 2.845 apg
- 802 Int Heroes were picked, 4.298 apg

Medium game time ~ 40 min

Some comments.
Power Treads are obviously the best pair of boots out there. Cheap and good from early to late game. It's easy to see why. 190 Hp for 1500 gold mean those are like the phase of old, they're cheap and they give good survavibility. New Phase boots, on the other hand, even with the latest buffs, are still underused and need a buff/overhaul. 1 Phase every 8 Treads isn't anywhere a good balance for two boots with almost identical costs.

Then there are the Bracers variants. Here, Bracers are no longer kings. Wand has surpassed Bracers with ease, even with the limitation of no more than 1 wand per hero. Wraith are about as used as Nulls, and both are league away from Bracers/Wands. What strike however, is the fact that while Wraiths are used a bit more than Nulls, there are almost twice as int heroes than agi ones. So Nulls are underused even with the overwhelming number of Int heroes that are picked. Long ago, Icefrog rebalanced the cost on Bracers/Nulls/Wraith. I believe the time has come to rebalance that price again (maybe 120 Wraiths, 140 Nulls, 160 Wands, 180 Bracers?).

If you are interested, i can share with you all the screenshot.

Thx for reading.

EDIT: Latest update, 2/04/2010. 187 Games analyzed.

[Harmless.Kittee]

Oh, this sounds interesting. Is there any more data for items like Lothars, Agha, Necrobook, etc?

[Darkdays]

Lol, nice job. Divine Rapier made me rofl tho

[wutwat]

hmm interesting, btw could you add bot too?
i thought phase is used more often, but seems that most comp. ppl rather choose the extra strength (despite phase also increasing survivability, although indirect, and offensive potential of many heroes as well).

wand is too strong i guess, they are similar to boots in a way (very imba and cheap, but everyone gets them, so it balances out lol).
i was surprised at first that wand was used less that treads, but considering the fact that you use data from the endgame screen it make sense (wand is often sold later due to slot issues).

i would agree to rescale the price of the cheap stat items a bit, and maybe another small buff to phase would be appropriate, even though imo they are pretty good already. it's just that most ppl still prefer the cheap stats from str. maybe readding a recipe (200-300 gold?) for treads would be a good way to solve this.


thanks for the thread btw, i would like to see some updates too

[V-347]

Number of Int heroes is equal to number of Str heroes and number of Agi heroes
But some Agi and Str heroes are useless
This is proved by :
- 2.85 Str heroes Picked
- 2.49 Agi heroes Picked
- 4.66 Int heroes Picked

[Heeg]

Keep up the great work.
I recommend Bottle to be the next item you tackle, as it's use in competitive DotA seems to rival Wand/Boots. Unfortunately, you may have to watch more then just the end-screen of a game to see proper Bottle numbers.

[Nerevarie]

Bottle and dagger^

[Distracting]

Very interesting statistics. The data presented at the moment isn't too suprising in terms of the trends in the current map versions, but it will be interesting to see some of the data for other items such as Guinsoo, BKB, etc.

Awesome job, btw. Really interesting to have resources like these.

[Gheizen64]

Originally Posted by V-347

Number of Int heroes is equal to number of Str heroes and number of Agi heroes
But some Agi and Str heroes are useless
This is proved by :
- 2.85 Str heroes Picked
- 2.49 Agi heroes Picked
- 4.66 Int heroes Picked

I wouldn't analyze the data in a vacuum like that. First, i'd agree that probably the medium agi hero is underpar compared to the medium int hero.
However, imho the real reason for this is the fact that int heroes are much more versatile than agi/str ones. Agi heroes have mostly carries, gankers and some pusher (Lancer, brood, Sniper, Slithice), but no supporters, no initiators (well maybe nevermore), no healers etc...

On the other hand, there are Int carries (Necro, Obsidian), ganker-pushers (Rastha, Furion), ganker-carry (Storm), pusher semi-carry (krobelus), gankers-semicarry (batrider, akasha), pure supporters , healers, pusher (pugna), initiators (Enigma, Puck) etc...

Str heroes are less varied than int ones (no real pusher), but there's still supporters, initiators, ganker, carry, ganker-semicarries, etc...

I'd like some more balance on the numbers of the heroes too, but i don't think it's a thing doable in little time. Most agi heroes are from old versions, and should have their concept completely remaked to change their role, and that's not a painless thing...
Imho, that's not an important point for the balance of the game. Going 4 supporter/ganker/pusher/initiator + 1 carry means that agi heroes will always be slightly underrepresented in such lineups. Unless the meta shift back to 1 supporter + 4 hard carry, those numbers won't change much. And i don't want the meta to shift back. I think everyone prefer the actual one

Thx everyone for the comments !

[Gheizen64]

Originally Posted by Heeg

Keep up the great work.
I recommend Bottle to be the next item you tackle, as it's use in competitive DotA seems to rival Wand/Boots. Unfortunately, you may have to watch more then just the end-screen of a game to see proper Bottle numbers.

I think Bot, Bottle, Guinsoo and Dagger will come next (they're probably the next most used items). Sadly, the only way i have to analyze those replays is to look the screenshot i took. I'm not into relooking every single one of them and noting each time when someone take an item =)

I think that looking at the numbers of bottle may still be interesting. For example, an increase in the numbers of bottle means the game are shorter, and viceversa.

[Harmless.Kittee]

Nice I look forward to this thread. Just hope it doesn't turn into one of those elitist 100% empiricism-based things were statistic is law

[Torilix]

wow i'm amazed that treads where more used that magic wand.

[wutwat]

^

Originally Posted by wutwat

i was surprised at first that wand was used less that treads, but considering the fact that you use data from the endgame screen it make sense (wand is often sold later due to slot issues).

from my replay watching experience 8-10 heroes get a wand (some of them stick to stick though LOL)

[Gheizen64]

Added 3 games, Urn, Bottle, Blink, Bots and Vanguard.

Bottle is interesting. Even if it's the first item usually someone sell when he's short on inventory space (due to the fact it scales badly during the late game), it's still very present, with a whopping average of 3 per game, more than nulls and wraiths combined. Blink is another omnipresent item, with an average of 2.2 per game, and rightly so, as he have there are no real alternative for positioning. Guinsoos, Vanguards and Urns are all under the 1 per game mark, and while this doesn't surprise me in the case of Urn (new item, limit of 1-2 per team), i expected a bit more Guinsoos and Vangs tbh, especially now that most leagues removed the limit on Guinsoos number IIRC.

Also notable a slightly change in int-agi-str heroes numbers from:

Int 4.67->4.62
Str 2.85->2.88
Agi 2.49->2.50

EDIT: forgots Bots. They're the second most used boots, but even if they're used twice the times Phase are used, they're still used less than a third of the times compared to Treads.
Numbers in this case however aren't directly comparable. Bots cost twice as much as treads and phase, and so should rightly be used much less. Phase used less than half the times compared to BoTs is embarassing.

[wutwat]

Bots cost twice as much as treads and phase, and so should rightly be used much less.

that logic is kinda flawed tbh.
also considering that heroes sometimes sell their boots lategame to get bot.


also, urn is imo underused. 0.36 per game :/

[Gheizen64]

Originally Posted by wutwat

that logic is kinda flawed tbh.
also considering that heroes sometimes sell their boots lategame to get bot.


also, urn is imo underused. 0.36 per game :/

You're right. Then let's say then that in shorter games, bots will be less presents than Phase and Treads for said reasons (not everyone on each team can farm it under 30-40 min).

Urn is new, and people aren't used to it. 0.36 per games isn't so low when you consider it's essentially an item that can't appear more than twice each game (while there could be 10 Wands, and, theoretically speaking, 60 bracers lol).

[elsoloist]

Urn's usage is slightly related to how bottle is used. One on a hero that can use it is great, but 2 in a team is not that great ani more, especially for urn, since the charge isnt distributed to the lower charged urn (but randomly to either of the heroes that's in the aoe of the death), making more than 1 urn in a team to be meh. In ani case, it's not cheap either, delaying a lot of other stuff that might be useful. Hope it sees some play soon.

[wutwat]

yeah, making more than one isnt the best idea, but 1 urn is incredibly useful.
if we assume that a team would get an urn every game the urn rate would be somewhere between 1-2.

yeah i guess many ppl prefer other items to urn (bottle or aim for bigger items/cores), but seriously, urn costs 365 gold more than a bracer and it provides your team with free salves for the whole game (and also dots to finish low hp juker off) while adding the same str as a bracer and 50% mana reg which is much better than +3 agi/int for the heroes that tend to use urn.
i dont see why a supporter should buy a bracer instead of getting the urn tbh.

[MonkeyEx]

here are some next overused items in comp replays you might need to check:
* observer wards(I dunno about this, but when me and my frens are having CW, this is a must!)
* bkb!!(everybody gets this!)
* manta style(I've seen a lot of pro players getting this item, even if they are not agi heroes..e.g. Tinker)

this statistics can actually be used as a solid proof in further debates regarding the balance of items..good job!

maybe you should start working on heroes as well:
here are some starter:
+SF
+Kunkka
+Tinker
+PotM
+Raigor
+Slardar
+Viper(not sure)
+DS
+Enigma
+Raijin(not sure)

[Gheizen64]

Originally Posted by d4rk_T4nkR

here are some next overused items in comp replays you might need to check:
* observer wards(I dunno about this, but when me and my frens are having CW, this is a must!)
* bkb!!(everybody gets this!)
* manta style(I've seen a lot of pro players getting this item, even if they are not agi heroes..e.g. Tinker)

this statistics can actually be used as a solid proof in further debates regarding the balance of items..good job!

maybe you should start working on heroes as well:
here are some starter:
+SF
+Kunkka
+Tinker
+PotM
+Raigor
+Slardar
+Viper(not sure)
+DS
+Enigma
+Raijin(not sure)

Hero usages and hero stats win won't be covered here, just because you can go on Gosugamer and spend 2 min looking at all replay preview without the need to actually look the replay how i did (you could argue you could do the same for str/agi/int heroes, and i covered that. Well, i did that just to compare better the numbers of the bracers variant, no other reason).
Also, looking how many observer wards are there at the end of the game is just retarded, as they are consumables. Such number would have absolutely 0 relevance.
As for BkB and Manta, they could be the next item i cover, dunno.

Originally Posted by elsoloist

Urn's usage is slightly related to how bottle is used. One on a hero that can use it is great, but 2 in a team is not that great ani more, especially for urn, since the charge isnt distributed to the lower charged urn (but randomly to either of the heroes that's in the aoe of the death), making more than 1 urn in a team to be meh. In ani case, it's not cheap either, delaying a lot of other stuff that might be useful. Hope it sees some play soon.

Only difference there 10 times as many Bottle than Urns. Bottle's good even if you don't runewhore, and people nowadays base their playstile around bottle. Urn is new and people have to adapt their playstile for it, especially considering is a kind of an item pretty unique that didn't exist before.