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In Dota 2, heroes have always had positions they are optimal at.
This is generally dependant on how their skills and stats synergize. A Dota 2 hero can only be a hard carry when they have some innate quality that helps them farm around the map at an above-average rate. This is the underlying principle of the game balance.
A carry that wants to farm to scale exceptionally well in the late game is a "greedy pick" because their need for early game farm leaves them vulnerable.
Thus, Dota 2 heroes are bound to specific roles from the outset. Faceless Void, for example, is a good carry because he scales well with stats and attack speed, making his Time Lock output much more damage.
There is one caveat to these "preset roles": the open-ended nature of Dota 2. In the immortal words of Johan "N0tail" Sundstein, "Everything can work."
Dota 2 in 7.30 enables more experimentation on hero roles than ever
Winning at Dota 2 in the upper echelons of play has always been about experimentation. The in-game meta is formed through successful theorycrafting in the pro tournaments and scrims, and then the other players replicate those strategies in pubs.
Especially until the talent tree was introduced in patch 7.00, theorycrafting in Dota 2 was mostly about build variety. Although some heroes could be played in various positions, only the tempo mids like core Lion were the occasional novelty.
In the current year, however, Dota 2 has made significant breakthroughs in breaking down role barriers. Leading up to patch 7.30, players have already witnessed functional "eccentric" picks like Leon "Nine" Kirilin's mid Wyvern or Kim "DuBu" Doo-Young's support Faceless Void.
There is perhaps an official nod from Valve towards this open-ended approach to hero roles — case in point: Faceless Void's talent changes. Carry Void was directly buffed through Chronosphere cooldown and indirectly through Aeon Disk nerfs. On the other hand, the Time Dilation talents seem clear-cut for the support Void.
So much so that support Faceless Void has become a commonplace pick in the immortal bracket.
The ESL One Fall 2021 is likely dubbed the"'Bootcamp Edition" because it is a 'test run' for the new patch. It has become a gallery of such Dota 2 role-swapping switcheroo that double as drafting phase baits.
Fans have seen mid Keeper of The Light, support Nightstalker, support Gyrocopter, roaming Monkey Kings without Jingu Mastery, just to name a few. These have been enabled by changes and additions from talent trees and shard upgrades in the recent patches.
In a MOBA scene obsessed with metagaming, a new age is finally dawning on Dota 2. For the better, it is an age that embraces the one indisputable edge the game has over other MOBAs: freedom of experimentation.
