Originally Posted by
Lysah
Zeus does more damage than Leshrac to a single target...where Leshrac needs to be near melee range for edict to do anything, zeus can sit behind trees spamming lightning bolt. With his passive, simply casting arc/bolt/ult in the middle of the enemy team can easily dish out 700 or more damage a person, depending on their max health, and at near instant speed as well. Zeus is also a fairly reliable mid, simply because bolt at level 5 can send someone to the fountain in two casts. He doesn't get picked because the game is based around the first 20 minutes and he's slow slow slow and therefore can't gank well. I would say he and Lesh do fill similar roles, Zeus just has a lot more range and more reliable damage.
I think Leoric is a lot better than DK. DK gets no damage boost from his skills, Leoric's kit is almost perfect for what I would expect of a carry. Free lifesteal, free crits, a free aegis, and he STILL has a spammable stun/slow. He falls through where a lot of other strength carries fall through right now, games are being played early and he takes a while to become unstoppable. DK wins in picks because he can get a soul ring and spam flame breath to farm a lane even 1v2, and of course because he can farm ancients, although that can still be stopped fairly easily.
Leoric used to be a big thing, look forward to the future I suppose. As the rest of the heroes get added and people eventually man up and try new things you can expect any of the old favorites to become high picks again.