enigma is a black hole. that's his lore. that's his ult. people anywhere near where you cast it get sucked towards a spot, take tons of damage, and can't do anything. this hero kinda grows in popularity during teamfight metas and then slowly falls out when the long cooldown becomes too much of an issue. there's a lot of cycles like that. right now pushing is really difficult and takes too long relative to respawns so he's kinda not great at top level. at lower levels the fact that black hole always gives you a chance to turn the game around or seal it in one spell feels pretty strong most of the time. unfortunately, everyone else in the game will be aware of this as well
so it also makes you the ultimate victim. when you start losing, any hero with a stun or invisibility knows that as long as they keep killing you, they'll never lose the game like that. that's what happened in the first game. windranger built aghs and it was impossible for me to play the game anymore even though we killed her like 4 times in the lane. i loathe the upgrade it gives, because as far as i can tell it's the current strongest Build That Kills You Within About One Reaction Time And There's Only One Item You Can Actually Buy As A Support To Have A Chance Of Countering It. (your teammates will never save you either. also she's one of the best carries in the game right now in general it seems like.) but this isn't about that. not that i was trying to be a support, but i never really got going enough due to the fact we were under pressure from techies the whole game. techies is also ridiculously frustrating to fight against and i might start banning them every game i don't have some much more obvious threat in mind
so i banned her next game (i was REALLY salty, the right ban is always silencer. but she is really strong right now so i felt a bit of a portent), and lost the coinflip anyway, so i had to lane against her again. i thought this game was going to be kind of impossible since i was also up against a bigger AOE stun that beats black hole when cast before or during it unless the hero gets stuck in it (it's got a comparably long cooldown as well). fortunately, the only particularly strong player on the other team was a snapfire. who's also threatening and i think never actually got holed, but we eventually grouped up and crushed the game because tidehunter kept throwing out his shit too fast. at the end i just walked up and ulted 4 guys and a bear (i forgot to bkb and i didn't use my blink), and then stood in the snapfire ult and almost died. and that was about it. they really did try pretty well on that defense but none of them ever really got strong enough to win fights. including wr, thank god. we also had a coach that game for some reason, but if i have to cheat (this is a joke, it's not against the rules and in fact is a mechanic in the client) to get a decent win for this hero i will
anyway, he's got another damage field he lays on the ground which acts passively for a much longer time (and has a % of hp damage component, allowing it to damage high-hp heroes significantly), a recurring stun/damage spell which debuffs the enemy for a little while, and the eidolons. they're tiny versions of himself that spawn more of themselves if they attack enough times. they used to use up your team's creeps, but over time the devs have decided everything* that denies creeps with no possible counterplay from the other team was just too strong and i think every example of such a thing has been phased out by now or changed to be based on enemy targets. except for the eidolons. you use up your health to cast them now instead, which is pretty cool and flavorful, and also makes the process of using them early in the game a bit trickier and more exciting
*(this doesn't apply to summoned units and controlled creeps, which you can generally "deny" by resummoning/controlling another one if you're at the control cap (which the eidolons don't have, though the reproduced ones can't reproduce themselves so there are practical limits). in this way you can prevent yourself from "feeding" the other team too much if your hero makes a lot of these kinds of things as part of a gameplan)
i actually thought about writing out a fair bit of a defense for denying in this post since it's one of the game's most contentious mechanics, and admittedly a kind of strange and "weedy" one that arose out of warcraft 3's odd ally-attacking mechanics. but i kind of don't feel like going too far into it. suffice it to say i think it's a fun part of the early game dynamic most of the time, and creates weird little mindgames about what you might "trade" them for; should you deny and let the other hero deny? do you both take your own last hits? should a support help out on denying and pressuring, or do other things? although it's possible to look at drafts and view one side or the other as having a strong advantage early on, the game isn't ever "solved" because of the complexity of options and interactions on both sides. i had a lot of fun playing the early game because of things like the ones i've mentioned, because i would try to set up eidolons and dupe them on the creep wave before trying to hit a camp with them so that windranger wouldn't be able to shoot them all for money.
i dunno, i feel like there's nothing else to say. he's strong conceptually and pretty interesting to play because you're always trying to figure out the situations you can capitalize on, but it's also frustrating if you aren't dedicated or super next level because people are aware of how dangerous you are