Rework Invoker's Tornado, it's confusing for our children and my son now thinks Dota was made by a moron.

So I wanted to start off by saying, I think the development team has done a pretty great job with the cast of male hero's in Dota 2. They are diverse, interesting, and compelling. From Bloodseeker to Antimage to Mirana the male cast reflects a large spectrum of personalities and player fantasies.

With that being said, lets talk about Invoker. From a marketing standpoint, he's the star of the show. He's a great hero. When we look at the way he's portrayed in promotional media, lore, and art in game we know a few things about him..

He's a wizard.

He's a wizard.

He's a wizard.

He's a good Friend.

His body seems to be comprised of about 95% autism.

Almost all of his art reflects this. He's got cool cosmetics. He's got fun spells. He's got amazing balance. All of this reinforces the great character you've built around invoker.

Then out of seemingly no where we have this spell: Tornado.

WHAT? What about this pose has anything to do with the character you're building in invoker? It's not scientific, its not intelligent, it has nothing to do with being a dank meme wizard. It just reduces invoker to another bland magical spellcaster.

We aren't looking at a earth spirit spell here, this isn't a hero who is in part defined by his ability to ruin entire games. This spell says to the player base, oh we've got all these cool diverse heroes, but at any moment we are willing to reduce them to magical meteorologists to help boost our investment game.

Getting art into a triple A game isn't a small task, it has to go through an implementer, a team lead, an art director, and a creative director. This is a team effort. And I believe the team is responsible for upholding the great example dota can set to the rest of the industry for creating strong male characters.

I have a young ant colony that everyday when I wake up wants to watch the TI3 finals again. It knows who invoker is, and as it grows up, it can grow up alongside these characters.

What I'm asking is that even though you'll never add pit lord to the dota cast, you double down on your commitment to create strong wizard characters. You've been doing a good job so far, but shipping with an invoker spell like tornado undermines so much of the good you've already done.

/r/DotA2 Thread