Arc Warden Is Back With A Vengeance
The Dota 2 Community never really got warm with Arc Warden. Quite early did players find out, that the hero was one of those cases where you would not want to play against him and playing him yourself wasn’t that exciting either. He’s a bit like Techies in that regard, though not as infamous.
6.87 nerfed the at the time dominant way of playing him--split pushing with the Tempest Double without putting yourself at risk, allowing yourself to even pick up a Divine Rapier. Along those nerfs, Icefrog introduced some buffs as well, but in the grand scheme of things, it seemed as if the hero was dead. It seemed as if he had gotten the Techies treatment; the community didn’t like the hero, so he had to go.
Whether it was 6.88 or just the whims of some pub player, but something has changed recently. Games in the 5k bracket have been haunted by Arc Warden appearances and players deem it worthy enough to ban the hero outright. One of the least played heroes of the past six months (6th least played) has a whopping 10% pickrate in the 5k+ bracket and is sitting at a 57% winrate. Arc Warden is back.
Midlane Crusher
A large part of why Arc Warden is viable is his superb laning stage. There are only a few midlane matchups he doesn’t win, as the low cooldowns on Spark Wraith and Flux allow him to harass other mids. Arc Warden may not have an innate escape spell, but the vision and thus safety provided by Spark Wraith (50 sec duration, 300 radius flying vision and even triggers on invisible heroes) make it difficult to gank the hero.
It should be noted that classic midlaners with a lot of reliable waveclear (Lina, Queen of Pain, Puck etc.) can deal better with him, as they can avoid his harassment by pushing out the lanes. A lot of currently popular midlaners, especially melee ones, are not as lucky and often suffer at the hand of Flux.
It becomes even more difficult to truly contest Arc Warden once he reaches level 6. The sustain provided by his Tempest Double with a Salve and an Enchanted Mango make it difficult to force him out of lane.
Farming Ahead
Arc Warden has a similar midgame as Invoker. After acquiring a 
Hand of Midas, Arc Warden will look to farm as much as possible, while still trying to participate in fights if convenient. 
Maelstrom into 
Boots of Travel is a pretty common build to accelerate and maximize the farm early on and it also adds split pushing power.
After these items, the item build is split. Some prefer upgrading the Malestrom straight into a 
Mjollnir, some prefer building a 
Dragon Lance or 
Orchid Malevolence first.
As with every item build, it depends on the state of the game. If farming the map is totally fine and the team doesn’t need Arc Warden to fight with them, going Mjollnir is suitable to increase farming rate. Orchid and Dragon Lance are items to fight with and their upgrades are quickly acquired.
There’s another item build that relies heavily on fighting early on, which would see a 
Blink Dagger into a 
Scythe of Vyse right after the Maelstrom. It’s a strong ganking and fighting build that utilizes the benefits of the Tempest Double (double hex) perfectly.
The world is Arc Warden’s oyster and quite frankly any usual carry item will do on the hero.
What changed?
What made Arc Warden viable again? Quite frankly, a lot of Arc Warden players didn’t know any other way to play the hero than the split pushing Rapier style Warden. So when that particular playstyle got nerfed into the ground, a lot of players lost confidence in the hero’s abilities. In that sense, 6.87 was definitely a huge nerf. However, if we look at Arc Warden as this midlane dominator, that thrives on getting a significant item advantage and has huge solo kill potential early on, then 6.87 and the following patches were quite the buffs.
- Reduced Flux cooldown from 20 to 18.
- Tempest Double
- Increased duration from 12/13/14 to 12/14/16.
- Reduced cooldown from 50/40/30 to 40/35/30
- Increased base attack damage from 25-35 to 29-39
- Increased strength gain from 1.9 to 2.3.
- Increased intelligence gain from 2.1 to 2.6.
Spark Wraith
- Now slows the target's movement speed by 100% for 0.4/0.5/0.6/0.7.
- Now applies a basic dispel on the target.
- Reduced mana cost from 100/110/120/130 to 80 on each level.
- Reduced activation delay from 3 to 2.
Tempest Double
- No longer costs 30%/15%/0% of max health and mana to cast.
- Reduced cooldown from 65/60/55 to 50/40/30.
His stat gain and base damage increase were significant, they allow him to last hit more reliably and be more sustainable in lane. In addition, his spells now cost less, which allows him to be a midlaner with basically spammable spells, yet he does not require a bottle.
The improvements to his spells have made it much easier for him to harass the opposing midlaner and the buffs to Tempest Double allow him to be more efficient around the map.
Meta wise, as more melee heroes take on the midlane, it becomes increasingly easier for Arc Warden to win his lane. Additionally, his damage is sustainable and reliable, as it is physical and does not rely on burst.
Ready for the meta?
If Arc Warden was thrown into Captain’s Mode without any other balance changes in the game in the current meta, he’d probably be a strong pick. It’s by no means a must pick, at least not the way the meta is right now.
As for pubs, Arc Warden is definitely worth a ban. The hero has strong traits of a classic pubstar with his solo kill potential, so look out.
If you ever get a lead try experimenting a Midas + Rapier + BKB with Max Flux ;)
Note: Make sure your team are good enough to defend you or coordinate with you. End it Fast!
Aaaaaaaaand he got nerfed again. Stay classy OSFrog
Annnnnd he is gone
HAHAHAHA nerfed shit ty osfrog
arcdogshit
I like how immediately after this post he got nerfed ... hmm Icefrog has eyes everywhere
Arc Warden just died
get nerfed kid
rip again :D
Lel, got the nerf by gold from ulti
aaaaaaaaaand nerfed rip arc warden (again)
am sorry dude,but god curse you,icedog readed your post and nerfed the poor hero,die of aids EZ HATE EZ 25-FOR ME
I would suggest having a native English speaker revising this text, because it is filled with grammatical errors that make it hard to read (even for someone who is not a grammar nazi).
just hire a good roamer and play 3 2 man doto on mid
for newbee as me, play arc is so fun, really fun, hahahaha