Is Oracle the best support in the meta?
We generally refrain from analysing the tournament meta until after the tournament is over, but there is a hero we feel should be covered immediately. Oracle is currently the most popular pick and one of the most successful heroes in DreamLeague Season 11 with a win rate close to 70%.
History of Buffs
Purely defensive supports aren’t particularly popular right now, but Oracle actually offers a lot of damage and aggression during the laning stage. Ever since the damage on Fortune’s End was increased in 7.20, it became one of the best laning nukes in lane—120 damage for 75 mana is a good deal.
The hero also has decent starting HP and Armor, as well as one of the highest intelligence growth in the game, allowing him to continuously use his spells even without a heavy investment into mana items.
While his starting attack damage is pretty low, he also has 1.4 BAT for some reason, making him great at attacking things like Phoenix Egg, Tombstone and Will-o-Wisp in the earlier stages of the game.
Fitting the meta
Oracle is good in vacuum. As a support, he offers decent damage and lane presence, while having one of the most powerful saving ultimates in the game. But a big part of the reason the hero is currently so popular, is how he fits against and with some of the most popular cores in the game.
Heroes like Dark Seer, Ursa, Necrophos, Doom, Batrider and many more struggle immensely against purge effects, especially the ones on a decently low cooldown. Dark Seer is close to unplayable in lane against Oracle, since he won’t be able to utilize his Ion Shell to farm up, while Ursa doesn’t have his burst damage, courtesy of either Disarm from Fate’s Edict or Purge on Overpower.
Against the vast majority of heroes popular in the meta, either Disarm or the Purge can make a lot of difference: heroes often rely on self-buffs or auto-attacks to deal damage. Moreover, Oracle can purge off most effects from his teammates as well, decreasing the value of silences and roots.
Heroes with sustained damage are also pretty popular right now and that means False Promise becomes a lot more appealing. Heroes like Death Prophet, Razor, Leshrac and even Viper generally prefer longer engagements in which they can maximize their damage output. They don’t necessarily have burst, but they will out-DPS many cores if left unanswered and False Promise extends the duration of their life long enough, for them to potentially snowball the whole fight.
Playing Oracle Well
Oracle has four actives spells, three of which can be cast on both allies and the enemies, making him quite hard to play. All these spells also have relatively low cooldowns, so Oracle generally has to be very active in his spell usage to be effective.
At the same time, his cast range is among the best on all heroes: with all his abilities maxed out, the lowest cast range ability is at massive 850 cast range, so there is very little reason for the hero to ever show in the enemy’s line of sight.
His skill build, unlike his skill usage, is pretty straightforward: by level seven you want to have Purifying Flames maxed out and a point in each other ability. This maximizes the hero’s damage and healing potential, without sacrificing too much utility. Talent-wise, rushing for level 15 talent of +120 GPM is generally preferable and that means taking +25% XP gain at level 10.
When it comes to actually playing the hero, it has to be well understood that Oracle can harm his team and you need to be both cautious and restrained in your spell usage. Yes, using Fate’s Edict on your teammate will allow you to heal them with Purifying Flames with no initial damage, but it also prevents them from attacking. Yes, Purifying Flames is a powerful nuke, but when not dispelled it can heal the target pretty fast and should be used cautiously on heroes with increased magic resistance or 
Holy Locket.
There are numerous game states and conditions that should be constantly kept in mind of the Oracle, for him to truly shine.Luckily, however, his most powerful ability is actually pretty straightforward and we would estimate that hero is at least 50% effective if only his ultimate is used perfectly.
Closing thoughts
Times when heroes are slightly overpowered are the best times to learn the hero: you deny this overpowered hero to potentially experienced on the hero opponent and you can also practice on the hero, without being too much of a burden on your team. It is a potential win-win situation for you and we strongly recommend spamming Oracle right now, before he gets some well-deserved nerfs.
one me
Oracle is good when you have good communication else you want to use your skill for yourself, like when using ult you either need to heal them out or going all in (since it's pretty mucha glorified shallow grave). Using his ult for running without healing is pretty a waste
This is actually correct in all sense and this requires heavy thought. Nice analysis
thirst!!! :)
Once had enemy MK rq a ranked game, because of repeated jingu mastery purge.
He's my most-played hero. The change for Fates Edict making it non-disjointable a while ago was probably the biggest change on him becoming viable.
I should play him more but it's a little bit long to master his spells. He has 4 skills but so many possibilities
ahhh so good..im currently using oracle..still training
This hero should be removed from the game.
Last part of article made me cry don't do this to my favorite hero. It was a nice time when this hero was also good but was never mentioned as overpowered
Honestly anybody with quickcast turned on can play this hero now.
Most broken pos 5 rn, waiting for nerfs ;)
Lol ppl still playing this game?
Hope they wont nerf him too much...
I'm spammimg oracle as support right, now truly effective! Makes me reach 5k faster.
Purifying flames does pure damage why would it be affected by MR?
Purifying Flames is Magical damage and does not go through MR
This is the problem with icefrog. When a hero doesn't get picked too much in the pro scene he will assume that it's too weak and buff it until it becomes way too strong. Then proceed to nerf it again. Idk about you guys, but I generally prefer heroes' power levels to stay the same throughout. I don't really like this "flavor of the month" thing or "meta heroes" tbh. It gets old too quickly.
Uh... just pick axe?
actually the only reason Oracle is good is because he is one of the few heroes in the game with a purge that targets enemies
I wish he had an Attack Speed or Damage talent so he could make use of his 1.4 BAT like Crystal Maiden and her silly 250AS
Having a small amount of experience with the hero myself and a regular teammate who....well at this point he just calls the entire game 'Oracle' instead of Dota, I feel very much like Oracle is the Invoker of supports. It's all about the application of the skills that makes the hero insane. Things to keep in mind: your ultimate has a STRONG dispel. Fortune's End purges in a 300 unit radius upon reaching the target, on top of the damaging and rooting. Edict lasts about as long as Chronosphere. You can deny your own creeps with flames if you coordinate with your lane partner. You cannot kill your own teammates with flames, but assuming you get aghs, it is possible to stack too many flames during false promise (I think it's 6 or more begins to reduce total healing). If you lane with a close quarters carry, the enemy is more likely to misjudge the damage output of purifying flames and escape the range of your carry but not you. In other words, you have a fantastic probability for netting first blood.
Oracle spammer chiming in, been playing him for over a year now, ever since he got the Fortunes End not being disjointable his viability became even more powerful, in addition to now cancelling TP's. I think his healing is fine, but i believe his mana costs are a bit too low for what his hero does as well as him having a bit too much magic damage in the early game.
Been saying this since months. Only problem is it doesnt work under 3k bracket. Lost so many games with score 20-1 cause u own laning phase and cant do much after that when your cores suck. They do not even realise you can heal up to 2000hp and run instead of man up and win fight.
Are you kidding me? Hey KimoiSocks where's the credit on the image?