All Tier 5 neutral items in Dota 2 seem a bit too good, but some of them just stand out a lot more. Today we'll look at the guilty ones.
They're meant to be broken
Let's get one thing out of the way first, Tier 5 items serve their role better than any of the other items and they're supposed to lead the game to a conclusion. Face it, if a game has been going for more than 70 minutes it's clearly a standoff and a never-ending trade of buybacks. Thanks to Tier 5 neutral items the game usually ends much faster than it would have without them.
Apex: A game-changer
Apex is perhaps the most famous of the Tier 5 items and its greatness lies in its simplicity. The item provides an 80% increase of a hero's base stat – now that's a lot. It's probably the worst for intelligence-based characters, but agility cores double their armor, while strength heroes receive a substantial health boost making them borderline unkillable. In a very recent match of the Leipzig Major we saw Michael "miCKe" Vu from Team Liquid acquire the item on Morphling. To make things even worse for the enemy, the devs buffed him with Fusion Rune giving him all possible river rune effects.
With over 100 armor, more than 1000 damage, and Aegis of the Immortal, Natus Vincere didn't stand a chance. As mentioned earlier, almost any hero will make use of Apex as long as they're either agility or strength-based.
Fallen Sky and Trident
These two items are different from the rest in the current tier we're looking at since you'd actually need to invest gold or already have the required components. For Fallen Sky it's Blink Dagger and Meteor Hammer, a combination that can often be found on the like of Treant Protector. Fallen Sky is totally worth it, though, as it improves both Blink Dagger and Meteor Hammer. Blink is no longer put on cooldown by damage while Meteor Hammer is now instantly applied to the location of the blink. Last but not least, it saves up a slot in your inventory which is huge in the late game.
Trident provides the greatest variety of stats in Dota 2 but also costs the most out of any neutral item, making it very inefficient gold-wise. On the plus side it gives the most status resistance, spell/health regen/lifesteal amp and stats making it a viable choice for any hero, in theory.
The remaining ones
The rest of the items feel a bit lacking when compared to the three we've already mentioned.
- Book of the Dead – Basically a Necronomicon x3, which is hardly any threat at 70+ minutes in. There's one big plus though, it requires no mana and therefore can be used directly by the courier to try and backdoor enemy buildings.
- Force Boots/Woodland Striders – Both pairs have their strengths with Force Boots unlocking movement speed and incorporating a Force Staff while Woodland Striders provide massive health regen (+70) and allow you to spawn trees in your path. The latter can be used to defend the ancient from enemy creeps. Essentially the two items remain just boots and will rarely have more impact than some of the other items on this list.
- Phoenix Ash prevents you from dying and heals you to 50% while also resetting non-ultimate ability cooldowns – It might sound good on theory, but this item is essentially a worse Aegis of the Immortal and it takes a slot in your inventory without actually providing any other passive or active. Basically, it's bad.
- Ex Machina – The item provides the most armor in the game, standing at 25. It also allows you to make some sick combos other items like Scythe of Vyse, Orchid, Abyssal Blade etc. The cooldown is only 30 seconds, so you can look at it as a much better version of Refresher Orb, but for items.
- Fusion Rune – While the effect is still good well into the later parts of the game, it has only 3 uses. On the plus side, it can be used by a support to buff the carry, meaning you don't have to be the wearer of the item to get the buffs.
- Pirate Hat – This item is Moon Shard on steroids, as it gives 240 attack speed. It's good on almost any hero lacking attack speed, but it's especially useful on someone like Tiny. Sadly it's not that game-changing.
- Stygian Desolator – A buffed up version on the classic Desolator, any physical burst carry like Phantom Assassin would love it. Also useful to melt buildings. Desolator and Stygian Desolator stack for a total -19 armor.
- Ballista – Having +400 attack range can be the difference between life and death sometimes and Sniper with Ballista gets to shoot from full screen. Any hero that's not Sniper basically turns into Sniper. It might not win you the game, but it will annoy your enemies.
- Seer Stone – Perhaps the worst item of them all it gives the bearer +450 vision and +450 cast range. These might seem like huge numbers, but it's only useful if you're smoked and looking for a kill. Sometimes the extra cast range might give you the advantage, but it's only an "IF".
Neutral items from lower tiers will probably continue to get toned down as some of them are particularly good on certain heroes. Some examples would be Clumsy Net on Skywrath Mage, Vampire Fangs on Bristleback or Essence Ring on Io. While the tier 5 ones can also be better on some heroes they fulfill their purpose of ending the game quite well. What do you think, is Apex the best neutral item in the current meta or what?
