Why is Wraith King more popular in the meta than Chaos Knight?

They both have stuns. At level 4, Wraith King's stun is 2 seconds. Chaos's stun is 2-4 seconds. So, no matter what, it won't be any less of a stun. Edge: Chaos Knight

They both have a passive big hit ability. Wraith King's is 15% crit with extra crit damage. Chaos Knight's is 10% with extra crit damage. At level 4, both have an extra 300%. Edge: Wraith King



So, Wraith King has his lifesteal aura. I guess this is why he's so popular, combined with his ult. 30% lifesteal is nice. But then, so is Chaos Knight's teleport/move. If someone is running away, it allows Chaos Knight to catch up, and possibly bring it back to the team. In one of those situations where there is a 5v5 about to happen, he can do this, get one of their team out of position, be burned down, and suddenly its 4v5. Chaos Knight's ult is awesome. At level 4, its 3-4 other copies that deal 100% damage that you do.

Why is Wraith King so much more popular?

Are you asking about the pub meta, or the pro meta? Chaos Knight isn't too popular in either, but it might change the answer a little.

Speaking generally, the problem with both heroes is that they're pretty slow famers compared to most other carries - their attack speed is pretty low and they have no real farming mechanism other than hitting creeps one after another. Because of that, they're easily out-farmed by the opposing carry and generally rely on snowballing off kills to really get their farm going. They're generally not the kind of carry who wins a game solo once they hit a certain amount of farm.

If you look at their other skills Chaos Knight is pretty much a one trick nightmare horse thing - he's all about jumping on top of someone with his swarm of illusions and melting them. If you're playing an aggressive game and picking up plenty of kills, Chaos Knight can be great - his damage potential when his ult is up is ridiculous, and his illusions let him push towers incredibly fast.

However if he falls behind or had a bad start, Chaos Knight struggles. If he's not farmed enough for his illusions to be dangerous (or if the enemy has a way of quickly clearing his illusions), he doesn't really offer anything else other than the stun. With the long cooldown on his ult (140 seconds at all levels) he also has problems if forced to fight when the ult is off cooldown.

Wraith King on the other hand still contributes quite a lot to the team regardless of his farm. 30% lifesteal is pretty ridiculous later on, but the real prize is his ult: It's already a free Aegis every 60 seconds which is pretty huge in itself (especially if he does manage to snowball), plus it's a 75% move / attack speed slow on everyone for 5 seconds. The cooldown at level 3 is pretty low (60 seconds), meaning it'll usually be up during the late game whenever a major fight is going on.

In pro games, Wraith King also gets picked up as a support since his stun, aura, and ult are still effective even outside of the carry role. Chaos Knight can't really do that, so is really only played as a safelane carry.

In pubs, a Wraith King pick also solves the often difficult problem of how you initiate a fight with a team of uncoordinated strangers - Wraith King can just walk or blink in, hit some people, soak up a load of damage, and then 'cast' his ult for the massive slow before joining the fight again. While Chaos Knight can initiate, he's not as comfortable with being focused as Wraith King is. His pub winrate makes the comparison pretty stark - 56% this month, compared to 46% for Chaos Knight!