Elder Titan's Place in... DOTA?

There are popular heroes, there's not popular heroes and then there's Elder Titan, one of the three least picked heroes in the game. Granted, Chen and Io see less picks in pubs than everyone's favorite(?) world smith, but those two heroes make up for it by being regular picks and bans on the pro scene, yet Elder Titan isn't so much as a blip on the pro radar.

In the DAC, Io was one of the most picked and banned heroes in the tourney with 113 picks and 203 bans. Chen didn't see as much action, with 59 picks and 98 bans but managed to muster a 61% winrate. Meanwhile, Elder Titan saw a mere 3 picks and was banned just once, only Riki and Huskar had fewer picks and bans in the DAC ( Ursa, Techies and Kunkka also managed 4 picks/bans in the DAC).

So here's I'm curious about; why is Elder Titan so under-picked on both the pro level and the pub level? Has no pro gamer managed to uncover some miracle build on this guy that give pubsters a reason to pick up this hero a bit more? Let the civil, flame-free discussion of this vastly under-picked hero... COMMENCE!

because in a word those heroes require teamwork and skill, something hard come by in pubs, when I play with my team I love playing titan. But in a pub? hell no

He was an incredibly common competitive pick for a time, thanks to a series of gltiches with Astral Spirit.

The issue is with him is that without the glitches that used to be in Astral Spirit it's hard to really be useful with it till you get Eul's Scepter of Divinity (Which kills most of his ability to act as a support). He becomes essentially a passive non-factor without it, even more so than other heroes and Blink Dagger. And that's just a really bad thing to have nowadays, especially when offlaners at the moment tend to be mid-game powerhouses, or tempo controls.

Him being under-picked in pubs is partially to do with the above, and partially to do with him being very team-work centric. Which is a hard thing to find in pub play.

He was also picked in ESL as a counter to the ever-present Morphling and Terrorblade picks (those were the days...)

Now that the meta favours Heroes who do not necessarily have a lot of natural armour, he's kinda fallen by the wayside. Why run an ET when a Tide does a better job of initiating and Natural Order is a non-event?

Morphling is still in style but these new kids run him as a support.Which is good atleast he sees the light of day.

He was picked a lot in Pro-level previously, and you will sometimes see him in higher level games. He's quite tricky and "clunky" to play effectively as you need understanding, micro and co-ordination to land his abilities well.

He has quite severe mana problems early on as his spells need a lot of it, and as a strength hero he struggles to fund it without a Soul Ring. This leaves you picking off occasional creeps and a bit of harassment, but it's hard to power it without levels/equipment, which can be a struggle against a reasonable trilane.

The biggest problem is relying on your team not to break the sleep from his stun, as it wrecks his impact.

Personally, I really like him with KOTL as an offlane combo.

Secret ran it quite a bit when N0tail was still with them I think. He seems pretty specific and situational, most of the time there are people to pick who are better at his job.

I feel like he could have a small niche as a "pseudo-initiator" or rather someone who can follow up a big initiation (i.e. Ravage, Reverse Polarity, etc.). Sort of like how Disruptor does with Static Storm+ Kinetic Field, because the 3 second delay on Earth Splitter prevents Elder Titan from being the "main" initiator so to speak. Though his scepter upgrade is definitely worth taking into account, a 6 second disarm could be a game breaker and don't forget that Earth Splitter's damage does scale. Still, I think if the delay on the ulti was a 1.5-2 seconds instead of 3 seconds, his usefulness would rise 10-fold, but that's just me thinking out loud.

It's not about his ult. It's all about his aura mostly. With some farm, once he grabs euls he can do some pretty clutch plays. He can also scout things up with his q and things like that. People don't grab ET for his ult, even if it scales.

Obviously, pretty good against high-armored heroes. and that's the reason why he's picked.

That is also why he dropped off in the pro meta. He was usually ran as a counter to Terrorblade. But due to the illusion nerf both of them fell off.

ET is just one of those heroes that just doesn't fit in the current meta unfortunately.