Dirge saw some competitive play and I wouldn't be surprised to see him again. When he was picked up it was as an offlaner. The thing is they changed the medium and small jungle camps, as a result it's not as easy to creep pull in safelane without it getting interrupted and also your mid hero has a harder (a lot of times can't) time farming his jungle camp if he's losing in lane. As a result the pace of the game has quickened and in competitive play your supports roam much earlier in the laning phase, to help insure your other lanes can get an advantage. What all of this means is heroes like Dirge have fallen out of the meta due to the fact his former roll was to solo offlane and he's not a great support for roam ganking. That said he's still strong and I believe his tombstone got buffed in a recent patch, so I wouldn't be surprised to see him in some pocket strats.
Broodmother is ass, they need to revamp her. Her broodlings just turn into free farm for the opposing team if you try her in a split push strat.
Pudge only gets picked up competitively by Na'Vi and it's usually when they are trying to be really tricky or when they could demolish the enemy team with pretty much any 5 heroes. They scrubbed their way into grand finals last year through chen fountain hooks, you should look it up it was entertaining. Anyways, pudge is more of a pubstomp hero (because most pubs contain players with shitty map awareness) and doesn't see much comp play.
Lastly invoker is just plain decent. He always has been, he's a safe pick for almost any strategy because of how versatile he is. You can play him as a support with quas/wex build. You can carry with him with an exort build or you can split push with him using his ember spirits. Heroes similar to him are Skeleton King (Wraith King now), Alchemist and Vengeful Spirit who can all be played as decent support heroes early game but can easily evolve into carries going into the late game.
In general and I'm sure statistics back me up on this, I feel the overall meta has a more diverse hero pool than it ever has.
I play Dirge in pubs in offlane when they triple is kinda of hard but I usually take two with me, just because of the tombstone, but still not a good trade.
1vs1 with him is easy especially against str like naix or DK.
I last saw him in competitive indota1 with pitlord giving ministun to every dead body.
I saw this pudge match it was cool.
Yeah I don't think Broodmother will ever see competitive play again. I think if her webs didn't get her invisible then she would be allowed in captains mode (Maybe give her extra regeneration/mana when shes in her webs so she can be an offlaner), the invisibility and unobstructed movement is too much, there needs to be some things changed with her skillset.
Actually she is weak, not strong.
Her sustain is stupid high with just soul ring,early and late orchid, she doesn't ever go to base unless dead.
And her only place is offlane she needs the solo exp, she can farm safe and kill supports, that stay alone or go for pulls, and she can steal their whole jungle with ease.
They made when opponents had vision she lost freepathing but it was too bad for her so they gave a blink like and it's actually more balanced for her.
In my vision the spiders give a lot of XP and Gold and in the late game she is too weak.
By 20 minutes you start to become less and less effective as split and die a lot more, unless it's 1vs1 and they get initiated.
And whoever counters her makes her tottaly whortless. Bounty, Slardar, Bara, kunkka, alche, gyro or shaker are the worst IMO.
ofc this is all just what I experience in low level and I suck. Would be happy if anyone also mained her and could share tips.
