The Strange Story of Dota 2's Worst Hero

[@AdamSandlerFan]

axe never seemed like a hero who was genuinely bad, but this video perfectly made it clear that he had issues. maybe my favorite video of yours yet.

[@Fanboy_of_everything]

I have no shame in admitting I was the 70th like, but it was a good comment so you can’t blame me

[@thelolimans5906]

ive never played dota before and have zero idea whats going on but your videos are always a treat to watch, its interesting to see a documentary of the history of moba characters

[@KvngLeroy1]

Nugga what is that name

[@Bagginsess]

@@KvngLeroy1I think it means firewood.

[@KvngLeroy1]

@@Bagginsess no it's something much much worse

[@Bagginsess]

@@KvngLeroy1 lol think Wicker Man or Salem Witch Trials. I know what it means and I detest it.

[@Walldasher]

I did play a bit of dota1 and 2 but maybe 20 games in my entire life. Really just like this documentary format and the way its represented.

[@pureevil6047]

The thing about Axe is that he is a hero that has dominated pubs. Whenever he is too strong he just destroys in pubs.

[@Dracinard]

Yeah, I'm surprised he didn't mention that. He was on the ball about that in his Sniper video. Maybe Axe isn't quite as much of a pub superstar, but I remember him being a menace even before Helix was changed to pure damage. Top tier counter harassment, reasonable survivability and great initiation - if you weren't prepared to adjust your playstyle to mitigate Helix, Battle Hunger and Blink/Call, Axe could always dominate.

[@spudz69]

@@Dracinard cutting enemy wave with double stout shield and tango and getting solo double/triple kills min 1 xd

[@roiking2740]

He depends on a good early game so he can survive late game.

[@TheAweDude1]

Great vid, for some reason I always thought that the Culling Blade's cooldown reset was a core mechanic of the spell. I think Rubick would be an incredibly interesting hero to do next, because while his kit remained basically the same for most of his time, he still has always felt so dynamic.

[@screwtokaiba]

Its genuiny baffling how bad Culling Blade say 1 was It was like 300 damage kill threshold and no cd reset. I always think Centaur and Axe are 2 similar hero with Double Edge being Cents Culling and Edge was just Culling 1 but mostly better

[@ACEYGAMES]

You say rubick's kit remained the same, but he's the hero that received the most changes in the game, as every spell was his spell.

[@TheAweDude1]

​@@ACEYGAMES I know, it was somewhat ironic. Over his entire history, the only major change to him as a standalone hero was changing Null Field to Arcane Supremacy. But, also, even if he is not even named in the patch notes, every patch directly impacts his play. Also, he was one of my first "main" heroes, and Rubick is like one of the top five most complex heroes for someone to start with.

[@Jaxxstrikez]

Rubick is in an all time new meta now that he can steal two spells at once; that small difference isn't so small depending on the two spells you manage to snag.

[@jirehtheprovider]

While cool, it also means many more buttons to manage. Man it hurts my brain just trying to manage two more extra active spells.​@@Jaxxstrikez

[@KitsuneFaroe]

I totally forgot during the Stream chat but I think Axe giving temporary INSANE armor by Culling Blade instead of Speed might be a great step in the right direction.of making his ult more usefull!

[@lMarcusl]

I don't think it would do what it needs to. The idea of having Culling Blade grant offensive bonuses is good in concept. Ideally, you initiate a fight, get someone low in collaboration with your team, then you Culling Blade them, giving your team the ability to keep the edge in the fight even after Axe has blown his load. Giving Axe insane armor after he's already likely taunted someone and gotten a kill doesn't help since after the taunt expires, nobody has any incentive to attack Axe. He's a low threat hero, in fact the way you make him more dangerous is by attacking him. So giving a ton of armor to a hero that nobody wants to prioritise already is a waste. You want him super tanky during the taunt, not after. IMO Axe needs a major redesign. The taunt is good, does the job of a disable ult except it's accessible earlier, has a lower cooldown, but has the downside of small AoE and the fact it forces enemies to hit you instead of truly disabling them. Helix is also good, though perhaps it could become an innate ability or something to open up more space in his kit, or, at least, it could become trigerrable on both attack and getting attacked again to reopen the option to build Axe offensively if need be. Battle Hunger needs a rework, having an ability that turns off when an enemy kills something, in a game that's all about killing stuff all the time just doesn't work, and Axe doesn't even have the mana to keep fishing for damage with such an unreliable ability. IMO it'd be better as a nuke that does high damage, but if the enemy kills something within a certain period afterwards, they start regenerating the damage they took. So you could use it as a long-distance nuke against a low-health enemy, or use it after your taunt initiation since during that the enemy would have to be able to kill you to recover the health back. The downside is, it kinda steps on Oracle's design with the nuke/heal. Culling Blade could then perhaps work in the opposite manner it does now. Instead of using it to finish off an opponent once they're almost dead, it could reduce enemy max health temporarily when used, perhaps in an AoE. So it would do more work when enemies are at high health (i.e. when you're initiating) and would make it easier for you and your team to kill enemies (rather than just stealing the kill for yourself). Alongside the AoE max HP reduction (which only works on enemies while they're healthy), Culling Blade would also provide an offensive buff in an AoE to push the idea of Axe being a dangerous initiator. Jump in, Berserker's Call to disable, Culling Blade to weaken enemies and buff allies, and try to kill enemies before the Taunt runs out and Culling Blade buff/debuff drops off. It would also work nicely together with the reworked Battle Hunger, as Culling Blade would drop enemy max HP so that you have an easier time nuking enemies to death with Battle Hunger before they can kill something and start undoing the damage. Axe would be all about getting kills within a short window before his effects wear off. Culling Blade would reduce max hp temporarily so you want to get the kill before it's undone, and Battle Hunger would nuke enemies down but you need to get the kill before they can trigger the regen.

[@1Seanmb]

Your brilliant idea is to give him armor *after* his target is already dead?

[@harryweisner4356]

It already does this lol, you and allies get like 20/25/30 armour and 20%/25%/30% ms. In my opinion it should remove the armour buff as after a kill it doesn't matter all that much, and instead restore health to allies in an AoE equivalent to the kill damage threshold Dunk. I'd go further and all temporarily make the mana cost 0 whilst effected by the MS buff. Axe is nowhere near as bad as this video makes out.

[@KitsuneFaroe]

@@1Seanmb I said "might" because I don't know if it is the right step, not becuase it might happen. I said this because it happened

[@Jaxxstrikez]

Okay I havent been on in like two months, but come on guys, the updated Culling Blade that gives you stacks of PERMANENT armor isn't that new.

[@T0B1A541]

Videos worth just to get to "Ceeeeeeeeeeb! He gets the call of his lifetime"

[@SelenTatsukiSimp]

The Ceb Axe play is honestly one of the best plays in esports i hope it gets immortalize

[@skok8951]

Just to clarify - the Culling Blade's buff from the TI 2022 segment of the video, I believe it still works the way it did (i.e. it just KILLS instead of dealing damage) which is still a unique mechanic as it not only can surpass any damage mitigation (I understand it's pure damage, but who knows what changes to the dmg types will come), but allows the skill to keep countering Shallow Grave.

[@iskander0725]

You just like.... Turned my entire world upside down. I know Pugs are different from Pro, but hearing Axe was actually bad astounds me. My old roommate and I used to duo queue as Axe and Tusk and just run over people back when I played with him. As the Blink initiating Axe of that duo, I am shocked to learn he was actually pretty bad in pro. I know he had more than a few good outings to other tourneys back in the day outside of TI when I was paying attention to pro, but seeing his only okay results at TI is shocking

[@TheRealCHIMShady]

Yeah, axe was a pretty fun lane bully back in the day for pubs

[@jimke5101]

Ti isn't the only dota pro scene, axe shine in other competitive matches throughout the history, dont let the video fool you

[@guigolum]

already being 2 with a mic vs 5 people who don't know each other is allowing you to synchronize, even with bad heroes.

[@Paper762]

You know if you look at Dotabuff Stats for Axe. He is better than Mars and DK, who are the meta pick of the pro scene. He got better pick rate and win rate. Pub is different just look at IO no one say IO is good in pub, no one. But it is the most banned in TI. Stats/number do tell a different story about Axe nightmare. Even when you compare Axe to ES the best for stun. He still shows way better result in Pub. Big ult is a two-way dagger, you miss. You lose. Look at Axe, he got an AOE call with limited range that is low CD. Sure it is not as flashy, but I haven't seen anyone calling LC who can disable one person bad.....

[@snowshow6207]

Even today, he's just so slow. LC and Axe need blink + blade mail to really get off the ground, whereas other top offlaners like Centaur just need the Blink to achieve similar levels of impact. Just kind of a cursed hero design, works great in pubs where everyone is slow but in coordinated play they suffer bad

[@ryanv5]

For me, i honestly think that it isn't the ultimate that's the main issue here, it's the 2nd skill. For those who play HON, they know how a power house axe iteration there. Instead of tick dmg Legionnaire has a flat dmg depending on his str, making him more of a one combo burst hero. If valve would rework him, i wish they would do this since he is such iconic hero from the old days of dota.

[@proin111]

Also he charges at max movement speed. increases enemy's atk speed while reducing atk dmg. Better for early game without bd and he spins more often. It's one of the few designs that felt better in hon than the original dota counterpart

[@Jaxxstrikez]

Battle hunger is way better than it used to be as well, for a very long time, not only did it NOT scale with axe's armor, now that it does, Axe is also able to achieve stacks of permanent armor unlike any other hero in the game reaching the maximum possible highest armor value in the entire roster, so get good at your culling blade stacking, and you will notice the true potential come out.

[@digwydd101]

Battle hunger is only bad when people don't know how to use it, legitmately one of the best lvl 1 spells in the game when used properly

[@Cheesusful]

Love the puns, new drinking game: take a drink every time baumi says "axe-shall" or "axe-ident"

[@blasphemer_amon]

Miss my boy Moraxus

[@smellpower1828]

Axe was fixed when Icefrog ported him to HoN. Battle Hunger was removed entirely and replaced with a short range charge that inflicted a 'panic' debuff, giving the enemy double attack speed..... but half damage. Totally changed the hero for the better, suddenly his toolkit all fell into place, both balance-wise and theme-wise.

[@ufuk5872]

That kinda cool, Battlehunger does feel out of place but the value of forcing them to aproach the creep wave or get tick is also fun.

[@lucasliotti3423]

let's not forget that his counter in hon had a "fixed" chance to proc after a few hits, so axe could kill stacks from medium/small camps at lvl 1, making him able to actually skip laning and go to the jungle, getting lvl 3 in the first couple camps and do some nasty ganks. But the charge allowed him to skip blink and go for early vanguard, and in HoN vanguard had a charge system, so getting hit consumes a charge to block dmg, no RNG, just block the first 4 or 5 hits

[@ufuk5872]

@@lucasliotti3423 oh, counter helix is counted hit instead of pecentage now. Making leveling q and argo creep for a quick helix on hero is alot more consistent.

[@fodolocraigo8426]

Dota was awesome. I felt Hon was the real dota 2

[@DoodlesD]

"Attentive viewer you are, im confident you noticed that this didn't address any of Axe's issues." "Keen listeners among you may have noticed this is how every damaging ability works, but i suppose for Axe this is special" This series is incredible😂

[@markelovalexander5423]

14:00 I believe a lone energy booster + tranquil boots was an old strat, where you could disassemble tranquils, make arcane boots, replenish mana, disassemble arcane boots back into tranquils, use them for healing, e.t.c. Great video, never thought axe was that bad in pro games. -_-

[@DragN_H3art]

1:15:43 Culling Blade actually uses its raw outgoing damage to calculate kill threshold, which makes it ignore all damage reduction (Dispersion, Bristleback) and barrier abilities (Aphotic Shield, Shield Crash), netting you kills that it otherwise couldn't. That's also the only reason why you could one-shot the stupid snake lady despite her 98% damage reduction. So, no, it is in fact not the same as other abilities.

[@imanjx2914]

It is the same tho. Medusa sooner or later gonna HP item and you need to put her HP at his Culling blade threshold damage before he can execute medusa....which mean putting her mana at 0, which also mean medusa will take normal damage from any other abilities that has even more damage than axe culling blade. Basically trying to steal kill from Axe is easy since their abilities deal more damage to enemy without needing to make it as low as 275 HP

[@Mad_Rowdy_]

53:31 this was also called "wave cutting" as well. I've never heard anyone call it "creep skipping" but after some quick research it seems both where used so it may just be a regional/environment thing.

[@jsonnalamat2361]

Quality Content! thank you for sharing!

[@NoobMicesters]

The issue with axe, is hes put all his eggs in 1 basket. He relies on finding grouped enemies making a mistake, a similar hero to this is earth shaker, BUT earth shaker has a multitude of stuns. Axe has to face down the damage and tank, a similar hero to this is centaur, but centaur has a spam nuke, and global haste. Meanwhile axe has 1 thing he does and this is it

[@jorgefreitas5983]

don't forget to mention Axe has no ult - an ability that 'kills the target if his health is below its damage threshold' is the definition of basically EVERY DAMAGING THING in the game

[@ACEYGAMES]

ALso earth shaker's idea of a group of heros is both much much larger, benefits from all enemies in the area and have two different area sizes, as well as a smaller version. Axe needs the enemy team to try winning by hugging it out before he can achieve his dream, while Earthshaker needs the enemy team to share roughly the same screen to achieve his.

[@Jaxxstrikez]

The flaw of this logic is not being able to adapt your build around this with utility items, of which there are more in Dota than literally ever before now. The biggest power spike is obviously to many people a Blink, adding mobility and initiation potential; But the less obvious Axe builders will use things like E-blade, dagon, shivas, and make him a magic damage hybrid who provides his own kill potential; If you don't want to hunt physical damage dealers because you can't outpace them, you can blink and taunt on spellcasters who are separated from their teammates, and one burst of dagon will most likely kill 70% of them until the late game when used with your ultimate and/or blade mail.

[@jorgefreitas5983]

@@Jaxxstrikez ... I have been playing Dota for 20 years now, and I have only once seen an Axe with a dagon, and that was at a meme game at a lanhouse...

[@Jaxxstrikez]

@@jorgefreitas5983 if you've been playing Dota for 20 years, I shouldn't have to say that dagon isn't even functionally the same item it was two years ago, either.

[@GeoffTheG]

Fantastic production value as ever - Good job Baumi!

[@notabene9804]

Axe was introduced to me before even playing the game much in the same way you talked about Shaker last time: "This couldn't be a toon in any game but dota."

[@pasqualedestefano84]

Axe is one of the most funny hero to play

[@thoriumbrother]

Would love to see videos on bat and Lycan, two heroes who seemingly stayed viable forever

[@erfanmz1748]

Watched the whole video for the "CEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEB!" part. Nicely done and thank you for leaving the ODPixel call in it.

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

I literally just stomped Axe as Dazzle 2 games in a row in 5k mmr. I expect to reach immortal this week.

[@skar9556]

I love how every hero that is seen widespread use in Pub matches are shown to be useless on the biggest stage of the game.. Be it Sniper, PA, Pudge or Axe.. They're the most picked heroes at one point or another in pubs and yet they're not considered viable in Pro scene.

[@KUNAIfever]

pub sniper build was used last year ti

[@stevedaguy9639]

dota needs more content like this

[@hundemeister1]

Really enjoyed the voice acting in this one. Great job

[@streetguru9350]

Best* hero ***You mentioned something about his newest shard reducing the damage given by blademail? The shard damage reduction doesn't seem to have any effect on blademail damage returns.

[@mayzerify5525]

Yeah it doesn’t, blademail damage reflection is applied before axe’s damage resistances

[@mskain4896]

THe one problem with these videos only focusing on the internationals is that it misses those crazy patch periods when heroes get super OP being having to be nerfed down again, major flash moments. Axe had one between TI4 and TI5, being buffed to the point that he dominated DAC as one of the 'Spin Lords' or 'Spin Doctors' (Along with Troll and Juggernaut--all three were mediocre [at best] fringe heroes for all of dota before suddenly becoming dominant core heroes at around the same time. But all three got nerfed fast after that tournament and by the time TI5 rolled around, they were back to being relatively mediocre.

[@Zictive]

I do agree that it would have been cool to expand the video to factor in other aspects outside the International, but I also understand that it would require an immense amount of work to do, even more than what the current iteration needs. The video is already huge as it is, needing a ton of hours just for research alone. At some point you just have to make concrete scope and limitations for large projects like these, or else videos won't come out right if at all. Maybe they could make a separate series detailing the stuff outside the International at some point?

[@albuspercivalwulfricbriand5363]

While the idea is there, the videos of this scale are expected to come from big channels, or organizations, who have enough money to support these videos. A video as throughout as this takes a lot of time, careful insights and preciseness, which cannot be overlooked. It takes Baumi a whole month to watch TI’s, analyze and write a script. That’s because the channel can only feed one man, thus only 1 man is working on one video.

[@daddysempaichan]

So from what I understand, Axe, as he is right now, has effectively two and a half kit. Call and Counter is his bread and butter. Hunger is ok? It's good against supports who'll have a hard time finding something to kill and does decent damage and slow but it kind of just, doesn't scale. And his ult is bad, at least, in the context of the Pro Scene. Like, it's a pretty cool ability and it works and all, but at the highest level people just aren't gonna let you get those stacks for free, you got to work for those stacks. This ain't a pub game with over 100 kills, after all. And as the game goes on it get's harder and harder to get those stacks as players get tougher and tougher, and the amount of damage getting thrown back and forth between teams gets larger and larger. Heros like Legion, Lion, and Necro doesn't have that problem as they have a window of time after using their ult to get the kill and gaining stacks. And Heroes like Slark and Silence just needs to hit the enemy once and be close enough to get their stacks. Axe? Dunk too early, miss the kill. Dunk too late, get your kill stolen. And sometimes they just die instantly and not giving you even a chance to use your ult. As far as buffs goes to these two abilities, a simple change to Hunger would be to needing more kills to to disspell it the higher level Hunger is. So at lv2, Hunger will require the player to kill 2 things to get rid of it, lv 4 requires 4 kills. The idea is to makes it more useable during the laneing stages against the enemy carry, and during the mid game since it's harder to get rid of it it'll do more damage and be more debilitating. A bigger change might be to just remove and replace Hunger with another ability, and instead integrate Hunger with Call. It makes it so even after Call ends it'll be hard to get away from Axe since you're slowed from Hunger. As for his Ult, a QoL change would be to give some kind of visual indicator for when Axe can successfully ult someone. It lowers the skill floor of his ult, making it easier for new players to understand his ult, but also means you don't need to pay super close attention to the enemy HP bar to get your Ult to work, freeing your eyes to look elsewhere around you. Maybe you spot someone dunkable and pivot your movement to dunk them, or maybe you realize you're getting pulled out of position and pull back. Really it's to make it easier to use while retaining the strict requirements, and thus, the hype factor of a successful dunk. If you want to buff it even more, give the Ult a lunge when the target is in dunk range. You can also just make it always lunge in general, I just think it's thematically appropriate for the lunge to only happened if it's a successful dunk. This increases the range of the ult, and put's Axe close to the enemy for him to go for another dunk.

[@Jaxxstrikez]

People who say battle hunger doesn't scale either can't read the description of the ability for over a year now, or can't successfully use culling blade.

[@vjbd2757]

@@Jaxxstrikez Battle Hunger damage now scales with Axe's Armor. So what? Axe still sucks overall at the pro-scene with just a few TI's where he's relevant and being immortalized by Ceb in TI8 where he's not that great in.

[@Captain1nsaneo]

I don't know if I missed it but one of the things that makes Axe valuable is that his call ignores magic immunity and it's an area of effect. There's only about 2 other initiation skills that do both and they have massive cool downs attached to them.

[@cookiewithlove2081]

The problem and issue is he can't tank enemies with massively strong auto attacks/Items that buffs it. He literally dies like a muppet attempting to tank anything that has crit or anything that bypasses armor. Ehem... [Pure damage] Or simply just out-farms him due to snowball from a kill streak Though I had to ask ice frog, why didn't they just literally give him a bloody 50%-75% damage reduction buff on himself when activating his call. It coulda saved his ass competitively. They could have attached this to his aghanims or shard instead but I just cringed at the skills they provided him that only help his survival with miniscule properties. (They must really hate tank based heroes.) Call was his only main skill and they couldn't prioritize fixing the main issue of it going obsolete when late-game hits. I mean most champions has this niche and axe needed something to survive especially in the late-game while taunting foes to hit him with his only reliable CC, it coulda at least made the battle fairer since he gets that tankiness for only like 1-3s before being utterly blown up to bits by skills for taking so much risk. The sheer lack of reward is the problem with his kit being too melee-centric. Most axe's just unintentionally feed without realizing it in pub teams. Though solo que, he's fair game and fun.

[@otrof6203]

in HoN this hero has very nice timings, but he is also mostly played as a junlker beside lane cutting. when you get dagger on him (lets say usually its 11 minutes), enemy hp is mostly around 800 mark, and his W in Hon does flat dmg instantly, one or two spins with W (which also increqse enemy attack speed and reduce damage) makes it so you can kill somebody with ult in 1 second even with just 3 4 things attacking you, which results in snowball effect were you gain reflection for enough dmg to kill carries, and to make others not attack you and then bkb for supports to be unable to touch you in just the right time. all his spells go through magic immunity and ulti even kills through invicibility. though in HoN he was never picked in tournaments either, as there junglers arent as popular.

[@jdc673]

@@cookiewithlove2081ey man if their carry dies in a big fight from you calling on him, and you die with him, whatever. As an offlaner and axe spammer That's a win for me

[@taariq4561]

I thought I recognised the voice! It's the ability draft guy😂

[@cuet19archives5]

In my opinion axe is a situational pick . If u pick it into right heroes like Melee heroes who always wants to Brawl all time like Slark or squishy support heroes or counter heroes with big saves like Dazzle, Oracle even Troll ulti ... most of the time it is guaranteed Axe will stomp the game and because if he acquires a good Culling blade stack there is no way u can stop him in late game scenario. He will always come for u to kill. And if u pick him into huge Magic damage dealers like Lina , Necro , OD and annoying supports like Shaman , Shadow Demon , Lion who can chain stun ,disrupt u then u r useless in the whole game . Carries which are great in late games counters axe smoothly like void . So its up to u what r u picking in which moment . Tbh Axe is the greatest fun hero to play , doesn't require that farm to activate u just need a good blink call that's it

[@parham1023]

Moghul Khant touch this. Love these videos. Shame in valve for not appreciating content creators like you.

[@michael_hutchie]

Just wanna say that this was really interesting, I only started playing dota 2 in 2017, so it's interesting to learn about all the details of dota 2 that came before that. Thanks!

[@microblast3700]

I know he was trash in competitive, but i for sure stomped a lot of pubs when battle hunger lasted for a million years and creep skipping was a thing

[@goink3368]

8:16 What’s going on guys, it’s Danny here

[@braverzero3709]

VERY interesting history!! It's interesting how much not just lore, but history is not actively pursued in the Dota community. Such quality content!

[@penguinplaya2445]

I’m really hoping for Pangolier after Earthshaker vid. Pango is one of my favorite heroes and would like to see him in the competitive scene. Your videos are great man keep it up!

[@DotaTextbook]

Axe is so strong & impactful after level 6 its awesome - keep up the great Stories bud

[@farhanjawaid5969]

lovely effort loved it

[@aronic6030]

love the video, cant wait for a ogre magi video :p

[@filipjosse5697]

It always surprises me how the pub feel was different from TI hero performance. I would have never guessed Axe of all heroes was so bad xd

[@StrobeFireStudios]

I can't wait for your Oracle video. Its the fist hero I got to level 30 to use that nasty chat line. Anyway, keep up hte great work!

[@dutamulia]

One of best dota channels

[@oiermartinez8602]

I never had this perspective, interesting video👍

[@elliejohnson2786]

Axe absolutely dominates low elo and turbo games, and I'm surprised pubs and non-tournament matches weren't brought up at all in this video. Even though the video is already quite long, it felt like a missed opportunity, ESPECIALLY when my personal experience of both playing with, as and against axe has always shown him to be quite powerful. Obviously there are lots of heroes (Like sniper) that radically shift in power above and below certain elo ratings, and axe doesn't shift quite as drastically as some examples, but he still shifts from mediocre to game stomper in these lower brackets.

[@filipjosse5697]

It bothered me as well at the start of this series. Especially when they covered Sniper, but if they wanted to do Pub experience hero analisys the vid would probably be twice as long, so we sadly won't get that probably

[@killuafan4365]

The reason behind this is because he isn't even the best stomping hero in low MMR. The best booster hero for the longest time is actually Brood. Most dota boosters spam Brood and Meepo which stomp games harder and yield better results.

[@dytona1223]

If i had to design a rework for Axe i would do it something like this: *Berserker's Call* -- Replace bonus armour with general damage resistance. Fitting for a barbarian rage-esque ability, and makes it more versatile for surviving spells. *Battle Hunger* -- Remove the slow and shorten the duration, but if the victim fails to dispel it, the rage takes them over and aggros them to the nearest visible enemy (like Troll ult). Adds actual pressure to the spell, making it a timed disable which forces the enemy to act. *Counter Helix* -- Give it spell lifesteal. Ensures Axe's survival in the thick of the enemy team. *Culling Blade* -- Increase cast range. Upon cast, Axe runs towards the target with increased speed and dunks after reaching them (if cancelled, goes on a 12 second cooldown). A successful cull heals Axe for a significant amount (talking like 40% max HP). A failed cull deals 100 damage and stuns the target for 0.6 seconds. This makes the ability much more flexible, shaping it into a gap closer and a quick stun to combo into taunt/cancel a TP, but most importantly, makes it better at its job as a finisher. Now Axe can quickly switch his attention to damaged opponents in the heat of battle, finish them off and heal to keep fighting. Some of these could be Aghanim's upgrades, some numbers could be tweaked, etc. but the core ideas should be clear. Basically make his kit more versatile while keeping his identity. Better at what he's already supposed to be doing.

[@SirMD93]

That would be so broken lol

[@dytona1223]

@@SirMD93 let my red boy have it

[@dytona1223]

@@SirMD93 Also bro he's ASS none of that would even make him half as good Magnus or Tide

[@MazuiLakon]

Nah make him a darius dota 😂😂😂 Much better late game

[@pawepaczek6653]

Finally! I waited long for another quality material

[@akasunanosasori6385]

Sotry: Axes axes and the devs axe Axe

[@magnomori9963]

Nice video Baumi

[@agiler99]

Excelent video as always

[@tehsavage]

The biggest issue with Axe is battle hunger. The spell is a complete nothing burger. You get a level of it early to harass the supports and then it's near useless for the rest of the game. It should be rolled into his taunt as a lingering debuff slow after the enemy is taunted. Nerf the numbers or whatever, but replace that slot with a new ability that feels more brawly, which would be closer to Axe's identity.

[@Jaxxstrikez]

Battle hunger scales with your armor; learn to build armor and land your culling blades and you will notice it gets a lot stronger. On the second point, his aghanims scepter literally adds battle hunger to berserker's call now.

[@Jaxxstrikez]

Lastly, battle hunger encourages the enemy carry to go for last hits; this is obviously better against melee heroes than ranged heroes, who can outposition you; but if you are up against enemy melee heroes, they literally need to kill something to get it off of them; this is when you do your job as a core hero and deny as many last hits as you can, preventing their chances to purge it, as well as hopefully landing a taunt on both the enemy hero and their lane creeps to trigger helix as much as possible.

[@smellpower1828]

Axe was fixed when Icefrog ported him to HoN. Battle Hunger was removed entirely and replaced with a short range charge that inflicted a 'panic' debuff, giving the enemy double attack speed..... but half damage. Totally changed the hero for the better, suddenly his toolkit all fell into place, both balance-wise and theme-wise.

[@tehsavage]

@Jaxxstrikez sorry dude but even with the level 25 talent and 60 armor hunger is still a trash ability. You can't convince me otherwise. I'm practically an axe spammer at this point and the spell is very easy to talk about its effectiveness but in practice it's borderline ignorable.

[@tehsavage]

@@smellpower1828 see that sounds awesome and thematic..hunger is just fucking bizarre in its current form.

[@bIeed]

Axe is the worst hero? I thought that was Troll... literally and figuratively. You can't tell me Ceb made one of the most iconic plays with the worst hero ever? No shot.

[@poodle101]

i think he meant that axe was the worst hero on average throughout dota 2 history. usually heroes come and go from the meta, maybe axe is the hero who is out of the meta for the longest.

[@BricklayerDreDOTA]

1 game from a 1 pro player doesn't disregard years of axe being trash

[@screwtokaiba]

​@@BricklayerDreDOTAim pretty sure during cast of that game they even mentioned how bad Axe was. Ceb just go mental and dexided to pick it

[@screwtokaiba]

Troll track record was quite good and was the best of the spinlords so at worst troll did better than Axe since hes the goat during the time when Axe was good lol

[@Jaxxstrikez]

@@BricklayerDreDOTA In this meta? to call him the worst after all of his changes, years later? kind of ignorant, and kind of off meta discussion, tbh. not even close to playing the same game you were a decade ago.

[@Valabool]

Excellent video, please keep it up.

[@jasonsamson2547]

I liked and subscribed when I realized its BAUMI doing the video :D OG dota youtuber

[@sinajoinical]

good but I'm steel waiting for the story of wraith king

[@Lanoom]

I've been a casual follower of Dota 2 for a long time, but I never really paid attention to Axe. Now I see why. Imagine a character being so bad in the early days that his biggest contribution was *legitimately serving as bait.* Amazing. Keep up the incredible work!

[@genethebean9729]

Baumi I love these, can you do an invoker documentary pls?

[@melancoliemelancolie9081]

as a League player since too long and Warcraft III enjoyer, i have no idea why i decided to watch this video but it's realy well explained keep up that quality !

[@NooqGaming]

Few heroes can dominate a lane more than Axe, one of the simpler ways to shut down an enemy hard carry early and create space for your team

[@ShivanSnake]

Thanks for another great video

[@Anxiou5Panda]

I always had an issue with Battle Hunger. In my opinion, it should be a buff Axe can apply to himself and his allies. My idea is to make its effects similar to Armlet of Mordiggian. Axe is an initiator so it makes sense he needs to be able to protect himself. Berserker's Call already offers Armor so what if Battle Hunger offers a temoporary Strength boost instead? Let's say it gives 25 Str at max level, that's a lot of HP and maybe some additional resistance (not sure about today) and a decent regen. The downside? Axe or a buffed ally will start losing HP IF they do not attack an enemy unit. Culling Blade is also something I believe is out of place as well. I mean sure it fits the mercenary warrior theme but the effect seems like it should be for a damage dealing carry like PA or Jugg. For me Culling Blade should be like Laguna Blade or Finger of Death kind of ability, deals a decent amount of damage, let's say 600 physical damage, and then to make it a bit different, it also applies a strong debuff as well that reduces the enemy target's resistances making them even more vulnerable to Counter Helix and other sources of damage. I feel like those can help him become a proper initiator. For me, initiators do not intend to make the killing blow themselves but rather pave a clear path to victory.

[@rockoob]

These videos are so awesome please never stop

[@ssjgoku276]

Great video as always, Baumi. Next video is Earthshaker? Only one thing to say. ECHO SLAMMA JAMMA!!!!!!!!!!! BTW still eagerly waiting for Faceless Void (and his infamous Chronos). Any idea how long we have to wait?

[@patrouski]

Always look forward to these videos!

[@zilosis3794]

A wild Patrouski appeard. Hello!

[@sublime8159]

It would interesting to see different types of strategies winning team utilized during internationals as well.

[@MultiHydrogenPeroxid]

Skipping the ending of TI8 game 4 straight to the ancient exploding in game 5 is criminal...

[@archmagemc3561]

So to fix Axe, just make it so his culling blade outscales Medusa's hp and make him a hard medusa counter. And give him an active on his counter helix that gives him Iron Talon back.

[@francopereyra6659]

Is counter Helix still pure damage?

[@the_odr9166]

Your videos are amazing as always keep going king

[@aofukai9978]

Bro slandering Axe in the title 🥶🥶🥶. Great video tho! Love the series!!!

[@Cricket0021]

off topic here about the next hero you're going to tackle. i remember silencer being the hardest counter to ES in early dota 1 days. basically you're never chain stunning as ES back then if silencer was on the enemy team because silencer silences enemies everytime they use a skill.

[@BricklayerDreDOTA]

these days pretty much every hero is a couple stat gain and number tweaks away from being S tier. I remember axe being S or A tier and pros/casters saying call is basically an RP on a 10 second cooldown. If he had like +1 armor and culling blade did 25 extra damage he'd probably be viable enough to be pick/banned most games

[@m.m.dehghani]

battle hunger is physical and deal damage as same as axe’s armor 3:40 per sec

[@greenale6145]

Please do a video on the History of Silencer, i'm curious to know why he feels so bad to play in so many match ups, love your videos and i look forward to more heroes having light shed on them!

[@Cheesusful]

It's largely because he depends on his right click for damage yet doesn't make a good carry (because he can't farm easily) and doesn't make a great support because he has no stuns/saves or other hard disables, not to mention all his abilities are removed by basic purges. (+ theres several weird mechanics which can make his "e" kind of useless) Team fighting is the one thing he is good at, but he's very squishy and very weak to disables.

[@greenale6145]

That was very informative, thank you!@@Cheesusful

[@Closed1405]

Axe is the only reinforcement this army needs!

[@renanod]

This video is amazing. I'm ashamed I didn't knewed it before. I love Dota 2 community for this kind of content right here.

[@MatthewTheUntitled]

"No wonder the red mist army ran out of soldiers if this was their leader" The red colouring of their skin was result of being roasted like that

[@DirtyPhlegm]

IMO Axe is one of the best Pub offlanes because he can destroy the Offlane most strongly if off to a good start. Also he offers a nice kit that is not easily countered, and he is relevant and is a good pick for most situations. Because pub carries like to pick heroes like slark, AM, morph, it's more often than not a solid offlaner Also he has one of the best solo kill and solo play potential with blink and blademail against carries

[@asummerday4448]

I remember lane cutting or "creep skipping" back in dota allstars with axe

[@Notllamalord]

Im so excited for stories of league these vidoes are incredible

[@alexbrailean8934]

What makes you think there will be any?

[@Volksgeist]

This channel is dope

[@magnusop5773]

Bumi if you read this id like to make a suggestion regarding this type of videos. Wouldn't it be good to also cover the effect of heros on the public lobbies after each patch.

[@Eliot_Ness]

I can't wait for Earthshaker, but man what I think I'm sad about is that I don't think my all time favorite hero will ever get one of these spotlights. Crystal Maiden just had so few changes ever that I don't think there's any point in talking about her over the years except for the amount of memes there were about her lol. I think Earthshaker might honestly be the story about the hero I enjoy most out of probably any hero that's gonna end up covered lol

[@archilious]

great episode

[@turtle-bot3049]

Looking forward to the next video, earthshaker has always been one of my favourite heroes, with echo slam being such a satisfying ability to land.

[@sebastianstjohnston]

sad to not see HoN's Legionnaire talked about here.

[@BattleBoots]

Possible to add the videos on the channel to the playlist you made for it, thanks.

[@NguyenNguyen-xp3yc]

i think they should buff the current counter helix buff change move it into agh and maybe change his shard to make his ult do more damage base on how many counter helixes the enemies taken in a set amount of time.

[@dewin50]

i cant for you do a video on phantom lancer, from ok to unrelenting force nightmare to good

[@Calley07]

This might be a hot take, but while Axe may have been designed to be a tank, he never actually was a tank in the classic sense. Axe is a counter-engage CC support. In the early days, you couldn't afford the items you needed to fulfill his role, but in reality, Axe's strength was never in being in the front lines and soaking up damage, but in staying nearby but out of vision and maintaining the threat of a potential counter-engage. I used to find massive success playing Axe this way. The ability to threaten an enemy carry to effectively kill himself was all you really needed, by engaging, you'd hand over the potential advantage. Stay out of vision, maybe smoked up, and simply wait for the enemy carry to get out of position. Then you blade mail, blink in and taunt that guy, and boom, their carry will never dare to play the game for the rest of the match. Think of yourself as your own teams anti-carry bodyguard, and you will have more success.

[@turquoisephoenix9931]

Always a good day when you upload🎉

[@anirudhnair9322]

This was awesome! Do OD next! The broken hero with no niche, and no permanent name

[@Kolt461]

I remember the days on 1v1 Mid and one guy went Axe and the other guy went Centaur, they both just backdoored each other lmao

[@WEIRDxGRIM]

If i was Valve i would throw culling blade into the bin and make axe a real armor scaling hero, like his ulty gives him armor if any enemy hero that was hit by any of axe abilities died within a time limit and that he shares a part of his armor with his allied heroes in a aoe and then nerf the damage of counter helix and make it gain damage based of axe armor.

[@Xlyylol]

great video cheers

[@JoyBoy-yi2iw]

Yay, new vid!

[@PseudoP69]

the only good thing about axe is the ability to disable through bkb via calls, wasting half of the duration on the call and if he lucky enough to survive he can repeatedly re initiate

[@Dezdichado1000]

lmao my man REALLY hates axe cause he was trash. love it

[@ak11yanora]

brewmaster next? great video though!!