Oracle as a #2-3

Yes, I'm actually suggesting that Oracle should be played as a core. You can play him mid, dual offlane or dual safelane, or even in a tri-lane. You can easily farm Orchid Malevolence in 15 minutes or less, thanks to the newly-buffed Purifying Flames. If you don't already know, it has been buffed such that it can now be used on creeps. In essence, with its 50 mana cost, it can now be used as a cheap means to last hit like Chain Lightning on Zeus, except that it doesn't mess up the creep equilibrium as much. You can literally get every single last hit from a lane without fail if you get a Soul Ring and level 2-3 Purifying Flames.

Why core Oracle, you ask? As a core, Oracle does not face mana problems like he does as an underfarmed support. That means you can keep your teammates' health topped up at all times without worrying about not having enough mana for a fight. Oracle also benefits greatly from the 1.4 BAT. Once you get orchid, his attack speed is comparable to that of an Anti-Mage with Yasha, and that's saying something. Combined with the silence and his spells, he can easily solo-kill heroes. Later on, Oracle can skip on intelligence items and go for damage and survivability, like Black King Bar, Monkey King Bar, Daedalus etc. depending on the game, as his good BAT allows him to rely on his basic attacks to deal damage ( Scythe of Vyse is still a really good option, though).



Some examples:
http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1542291944
http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1541316802
http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1542023352
http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1541316802


These games are not representative of the idea that I stated. In around half of the games, I started out as a support but then managed to get some farm while my team was elsewhere. In all the games, I was experimenting with item builds and the ones I tried were ineffective. Today, I will experiment more with the build.



If you have any thoughts or anything to add, leave a comment!

Like Core Rubick.

Or Core Skywrath.

Works, might try!

How would the core rubick work?
Arcanes, Blink, Aghs, Force and Hex?

I think it's terrible. Like, instantly game-losing kind of terrible.

- For me, anything that Oracle doesn as a right-click carry, Lina does it way better. Fiery Soul is a billion times better as a steroid than 1.4 BAT.
Besides Lina has more burst damage than Oracle...by far.

- Oracle has no stun, or slow. He's literally the easiest hero to kite in the game. Easily kited heroes are terrible carries.

- Orchid Malevolence is a horrible item on kiteable heroes, since it's nether a stun or slow and the orchided hero will just walk away. There's a reason why nobody ever goes orchid on Windranger or outworld devourer : good orchid heroes are those who can't be kited like Queen of Pain.
Rod of Atos sounds much better.

- There's a reason why Oracle's winrate is at 37% or something, sometimes even lower than Wisp or Alchemist : bad, bad builds...

- Support Oracle doesn't have mana issues. Just go Arcane Boots, tranquils on a hero who has a heal makes no sense.

- Core Rubick is garbage. The hero is completely level-independent and he deals pretty much no damage - if that's not a support then I don't know what is. As a core he does literally nothing : no damage, ganking ability is a joke, nothing that he doesn't already do as a support. If you can't get your Blink Dagger or Aghanim's Scepter at a decent timing on a support like Rubick with a native farming skill Fade Bolt (ultra-spammable with a Soul Ring or arcanes), then I'm sorry but you need to work on your farming skills. Just watch DeMoN play him or something.

- Core Skywrath Mage is really good because the hero is one of the best snowballers in the game. He can solo kill any hero with a level advantage and/or a Scythe of Vyse, and he scales incredibly well with levels and farm.

Hate is real



EDIT:
Some of your points are valid, but I don't agree with some of the points.

- Lina has more burst damage, but way less utility. I'd say its a decent tradeoff.
- Easily-kite-able heroes can't be carries? See Wraith King and Sven.
- Rod of Atos sounds fair, I'll give it a try.
- His winrate is garbage because everybody is playing him as a hard support, in my opinion. Either that, or very few people know how to play Oracle or play with an Oracle on their team, or maybe both reasons lead to that winrate. I could be wrong, though.
- If you have to constantly heal your teammates, you run out of mana quickly. Arcane Boots doesn't really completely solve the mana issues. Maybe with Soul Ring it becomes possible though.
- Unfortunately, Fade Bolt doesn't become "ultra-spammable" with just an arcanes, and as a support buying wards you'll probably get both items by 35-40 minutes, assuming you don't feed too much. But feeding is pretty much what a support does, so I'd expect a later timing unless you somehow don't die (enemies suck or your team is owning).
- Core sky = best

It's not hate, it's just annoyance.

It takes literally zero skill to take a support and play him as a core.

It takes tons and tons of thinking and game sense to take a core and play him as a support.

There's a reason why NOtail is playing support Meepo and not core Rubick.

Just FYI, BDN played support meepo like 2 times and that was during the captains draft tournament.
Core rubick has been played A LOT during TI2, I think dendi played it 1-2 times even in the grand finals.
Also, tucker often plays core rubick in a 6k mmr bracket and wins with it... so yea it's not garbage.
It has fallen off since TI2 that's for sure, but not garbage.

On the core oracle: I think he can be played as a mid as he can win almost every single lane and he has AMAZING burst so at lvls 6-7 everyone is food for you and you can easily gank. But he isn't going to carry very hard so you need a good safelane carry. Try it in 5 stacks, in pubs it probably isn't going to go well.

This thread is in the theorycrafting section for a reason. I'm not sure if it can be viable, but at least I can make the idea known and make people THINK out of the box. Not too long ago, Juggernaut was considered to be a trash-tier hero, until some people were brave enough to try the Mask of Madness build. I'm pretty sure that if you looked at the build on paper before you seen it in action, you'd have said it was a trash build that only low-level scrub-pubbers can ever conceive. In the end, it led to tons of jugg picks/bans and his winrate shot up.


What I'm saying is, before dismissing an idea as "terrible. Like, instantly game-losing kind of terrible," and being annoyed, maybe you could try it first or stop reading the theorycrafting section, because that's the kind of thing you'll be finding in here.


BTW edited my previous response. Forgot to mention that Blink Dagger helps a ton to make you less kite-able.

I'm kind of going with Hamster on this one.

I was writing my Oracle guide (spoilers, in case anyone cared) and basically my conclusion is he lacks the chops to really carry, and the 1.4 BAT is just a nice little bonus attack for when you disarm heroes like Ursa and not something to be built around.

Every benefit of his aside from the BAT is grantable to his allies, and his mana problems, although noticeable before Arcanes, is not really big compared to heroes like Shadow Shaman or Ancient Apparition. Also, he has to channel in order to unleash his purge-root, which is time not spent attacking. Fate's Edict amps all non-magic damage, not just Oracle's, and False Promise goes much better on a hero who does a lot more innate damage.

Like, all Oracle needs is Arcane Boots and he's high impact just because his spells have massive cast range.

So, Coracle, although seems good in theory, does not have a way to farm, and even though he can have some decent dps, there are a lot of better core heroes that are much more reliant on farm that can achieve better results due to higher damage or farm rate, like Slardar and Leshrac.

And although Orchid-Manta on Oracle is fun, it's not something you can expect to win with, just like the useless Dagon build.

The idea has been known since Oracle got into the game.



Nope, because I was playing Mask of Madness Jugg 2 years ago. And lots of people were too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWQkRL-hyq4

Singsing playing this in 2013.

Nobody was brave or innovative in any way by going for Mom Jugg. They just recycled an old build which has always been good.



I did try it. Right when the hero was released. It sucked.



Yes, people trying out new stuff and asking opinions about it.
- Carry Oracle is not new stuff.
- You asked people for their opinion so you can't blame me for giving my honest opinion.
It's nothing personal, just that the idea is really, really freaking bad.



Kind of, but it's still kind on a weaker version of Lina.