I have been playing DOTA2 for about a year and a half now. Ever since it was available on Steam, and the multitude of patches that came in. For the past 3-4 months, one thing that I have seen in the DOTA2 community is the hype of Techies.
For the uninitiated, Techies is a hero which specializes in laying traps (mines) and demolitions. This is a team of goblins who happily skitter over the map laying explosive mines for an unsuspecting hero to walk on, they also have the ability to put stasis traps and to commit suicide (with a large area damage).
Now, interestingly, the launch changes game play drastically.
How Techies impact the meta game
Techies do not need a lot of farm. At the start of the game (before they hit Level 6), you are most likely going to lay a lot of mines. Not only mines all over the place, but rather stack mines in strategic locations (3-4 in one stack) so that one trigger will end up in a kill!
What this means, is that when Techies kills a hero, they do not necessarily have to be at that location. Most likely at that point they are busy stacking mines at some other location.
How this impacts the meta game, is that when Techies are happily laying traps at different choke points (more on this later), the off-lane hero is getting double the XP (since there is no sharing of XP). Which results in two powerful heros (the mid-lane solo, and the offlane solo).
Meanwhile, Techies also are going about playing a mental game with the opposite team.
The mental game
In DOTA2, you have to roam the map. In doing so, there are some popular routes that people take within the map. On these routes, you also have choke points. Whenever the Techies is not seen in lane, the obvious inference that you would come to is that they are busy laying mines.
When this happens, the team is forced to either buy Observer Wards or to take chances against being blown to smithereens.
Even if they do see Techies, and if the hero suddenly starts charging towards you, then would they commit suicide or are they bringing on a sudden team gank, thats the next likely question going through the opposite team’s minds.
All in all, Techies are a great little twist in the Meta and in the hands of a good player, this can turn the tides of a game.