[Megathread] DotA 2

[PizzaSHARK]

CM's really fun. We had an enemy Luna raging about losing due it being 4v5 and for some reason said that CM was the worst support.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/59...D0DF7E23F9D7F/

12/11 as Luna with barely more gold/min than I had as a damn support. She died at least a few times by running up to a 4v1 with Lothars and dying because I had a gem... and she died like this more than once, she had to have known I had a gem after the first time (BH died more than once like this too.)

Yeah, Gyrocopter raged after he fed Lion a few times, but that gives them two solo lanes, and freaking Axe was running mid solo vs Luna.

Why the hell is it so hard for people to admit they lost because they played like shit?

EDIT: DK and Luna both bought Helm of the Dominator and neither ever dominated any creeps.

[Lysah]

CM is definitely the worst support, hate that hero. Ultimate costs way too much mana and is pure RNG, you can do zero damage to someone with it. Aura sucks, two CCs are okay but don't enough to make her a worthwhile pick. She's nothing more than free gold to just about any other hero in the game, way too much of a liability when her only two useful spells can't match up to dazzle/omniknight/etc

CM is only useful for a very aggressive lane. However, the lane phase isn't even all that important, even if you win your lane they will just feed off of her and catch up later.

That luna should be more mad that his team picked nothing but carries and all went lothar's (even BH).

[Nightfury Treann]

have anyone got a game with/against the Puck on the last days?

i haven't encountered with the puck for like more of 3 weeks

also, there's a glitch on the servers due of the update about the cheat commands enabled

[PizzaSHARK]

CM is definitely the worst support, hate that hero. Ultimate costs way too much mana and is pure RNG, you can do zero damage to someone with it. Aura sucks, two CCs are okay but don't enough to make her a worthwhile pick. She's nothing more than free gold to just about any other hero in the game, way too much of a liability when her only two useful spells can't match up to dazzle/omniknight/etc

She's a lot more useful than Omni because she can actually cast spells. Her ult wins games when you use it right, but it's tricky to get off. If you can have a Ravage or a Black Hole to get it setup, it's ridiculous damage.

Her aura's a free 2 MP/sec regen for her entire team, allowing all of the team's lanes to be more aggressive, and I'd say her Q and W are plenty good - maybe they're not on WR's level (Powershot and Shackle), but WR gets picked/banned a lot because she's pretty much the best generic support in the game at the professional level.

Honestly, all CM needs are phase boots and a couple of bracers and that's it. I got Shiva's because I didn't expect to be able to afford a Heart and needed survivability, but Luna kindly fed us enough that I could've gotten one after all. All CM really has to do is show up for her W->Q combo and then she's free to go elsewhere. Combined with the free mana regen for her team, I can't really see her as being the worst generic support - that's Omni's job.

[Hermanni]

Why the hell is it so hard for people to admit they lost because they played like shit?.

Because it's more convenient to put the blame on someone else than admit your mistakes and face the things you need to improve at. Every time you lose, you did mistakes or you could have played better but it just feels easier to find someone who did more mistakes or more influential mistakes and shrug it off as the ineptitude of others. It's really common to see 4 players of a team find a scapegoat for their lack of success, often their solo mid, carry, solo support who got boots at minute 15 and died often trying to ward or their hard lane solo who heaven forbid let their trilane carry get freefarm.

Let me tell a little story for you. A guy picks a Pudge (or something like that) and asks if he can go solo mid, and his team agree that Pudge should indeed go mid for fast levels to gank efficiently. The enemy mid hero is a Queen of Pain or Invoker or Storm Spirit or something similar. So Pudge does the best he can, using his regen items to withstand some harass to get a lasthit here and there and a few denies and staying inside the exp range when he's too low to get close to the creeps. The enemy is lasthitting and denying with impeccable precision, mercilessly barraging Pudge whenever he dares go near the creepwave but never giving the Pudge an opportunity to line up a hook.

Finally Pudge gets his levels and the night falls, but the enemy has already warded carefully, and when a rune is about to spawn Pudge gets outpushed and outrun to the rune by the mid or enemy supports. Meanwhile Pudge's team has shown no interest to ward the map or roam about but are insisting that the underfarmed and slightly underleveled Pudge ganks their failed lanes without a rune. So the Pudge obliges and either tries to gank the enemy safe lane but get greeted by enemy Enigma and support from 2 lanes before he even gets near the enemy carry, or he tries to gank the enemy hard lane but unfortunately they all retreat behind their tower before he even gets close. The game goes on like this for a while, things escalate and 20 minutes later the score is 7-22, the enemy is pushing into the your base and nobody in your team disagrees that the SOLO MID PUDGE WITH 1-8 is not to be blamed for everything. Sound familiar?


Another thing that always amused me is how people get mad when they get ganked because "no one called miss." It really sounds more like an excuse for not paying attention than an actual blame, and funnily enough you sometimes even see people blame each other and then have it pointed out to them that they were actually given a warning. When playing alone there's no reason to assume that people you know nothing of are up to holding your hand and keeping track of the enemy movement for you. It's nice to warn people, but when get surprised and die it's because you didn't pay enough attention to the rest of the game. At least I never flamed anyone for that reason and just blamed myself for tunnelvisioning my lane when I get caught out.

[Lysah]

She's a lot more useful than Omni because she can actually cast spells. Her ult wins games when you use it right, but it's tricky to get off. If you can have a Ravage or a Black Hole to get it setup, it's ridiculous damage.

I'm rarely out of mana with any hero as it is, that's just the way DotA goes. You also hate omni way too much - he's one of the best heroes in the game, you have to get over his "slow" cast time of like .4 seconds. I rarely if ever see a good CM ult - at best, she can use it on a hero like jugg who has his ult on cooldown and just used blade fury while she prays that it hits him enough times to scare him off so that she doesn't feed him his 8th kill in a row.

Past about 30 minutes I have never been in a game where CM on my team wasn't a HUGE liability. Too many games we get in a team fight and 5 of us die and 3 of them die and the remaining two have 20% of their health and are raxing and you can't help but think "damn if this CM picker was ANYTHING ELSE." What did she do in that team fight? She slowed them down for a second with frost nova and then got instantly blown up by their AoE spells or one shotted by their carry.

It doesn't help that your team is going to buy ZERO wards if you pick CM, which means that if you want to do your "job" you're going to have MAYBE boots at 15 minutes and zero other items the rest of the game.

[PizzaSHARK]

I'm rarely out of mana with any hero as it is, that's just the way DotA goes. You also hate omni way too much - he's one of the best heroes in the game, you have to get over his "slow" cast time of like .4 seconds. I rarely if ever see a good CM ult - at best, she can use it on a hero like jugg who has his ult on cooldown and just used blade fury while she prays that it hits him enough times to scare him off so that she doesn't feed him his 8th kill in a row.

How is Omni one of the best? If he was one of the best, you'd see him in the majority of pro games, picked or banned. Yet you never see him picked, and never see him banned - you don't see him at all! It's because he's SO EASY to counter, his stats are terrible, his animations are slow, and all he can do is provide passive support since Degen Aura isn't practical early on and he won't have the survivability in the late game to really maximize it.

Once CM gets her boots, she's a fantastic roamer, her aura means her teammates can be more aggressive in their lanes (you aren't winning one lane, you're winning EVERY lane), and her W->Q combo basically guarantees a kill with support. Phase boots and Bracer(s) are cheap and all you really need for the early and middle game. Her farm sucks, but so does Omni's, and Omni's a lot more likely to either be useless or die in the early game because he's a melee STR hero with terrible stats. I've never had issues with her ult - it's unreliable if you're trying to bomb a single target, but it isn't meant for single targets. Just drop it on top of the enemy team in a team fight, especially following something like a Ravage or Black Hole, and you're going to do horrific damage to everything in the area - I've seen supported CM ults wipe out entire teams when it's done right - at lvl 3 it does a theoretical maximum of 10,000 damage and slows everything it hits, making it more likely something already hit will continue to take more hits.

Past about 30 minutes I have never been in a game where CM on my team wasn't a HUGE liability. Too many games we get in a team fight and 5 of us die and 3 of them die and the remaining two have 20% of their health and are raxing and you can't help but think "damn if this CM picker was ANYTHING ELSE." What did she do in that team fight? She slowed them down for a second with frost nova and then got instantly blown up by their AoE spells or one shotted by their carry.

It doesn't help that your team is going to buy ZERO wards if you pick CM, which means that if you want to do your "job" you're going to have MAYBE boots at 15 minutes and zero other items the rest of the game.

And yet CM is seen relatively often in pro games! Usually not as a ban, but you see her picked from time to time, and it's never been a bad choice. Any competent team will have two supports, and both mid and jungle are also partly responsible for warding or otherwise providing vision (for their own sake if no one else's.) CM can't farm very well but she's immensely strong in the early game after she gets her boots and in the mid-game after she finishes Phase Boots for mobility. She does taper off in the late game, but a CM team would be playing highly aggressively in the early and mid game anyway, so if the enemy team makes it to the late game with more than a couple of t3 towers left, you weren't doing your job anyway.

[Lysah]

CM as lane support versus Lich or Warlock...from what I've seen of "pro games" the team that picks CM loses quite a bit.

Like I said pages ago, omni isn't huge right now because a ton of auto attack heroes are missing. The current meta is all about spells.

CM's aura is still garbage. It only starts actually giving decent mana regen at level 5 - oh wait this is when lane phase is about to end. I'll give you that nova/bite make for great gank spells, but if you get ganked by a 280 movespeed CM it's your own fault. You go nova level 1, even if you go aura/aura toward 3 you're still giving your team a whopping one mana per second. A hero like sven? That's a free storm bolt every two and a half minutes - he will be level 5 before he sees an actual return from that aura. A hero like veno? He gets a couple of free wards - game breaking! The aura really doesn't give you very many extra spells, no matter who you are, it hardly helps people be more aggressive. No to mention, extra spells don't make for an aggressive lane regardless, so much of the lane phase comes down to picks and ganks flat out.

And of course, even with two bracers CM peaks at a solid 800-900 health mid game, still very easily two shottable by most carries at that point. Trying to push? Morphling just eth/adaptive's you for a free kill and then backs up and waits on cooldowns to engage the 4v5 that your team has to suffer through because you picked CM.

Anything CM can do someone else can do better. Want gankability and lane support? Lich is simply unbeatable in lane, his deny makes it impossible to keep the creep wave anywhere but his tower. He's also twice as durable as CM and is FAST. His nova is the strongest consistent ordinary nuke and his ult is infinitely better. As an added bonus, he does a lot more auto attack damage than CM and has a much better animation. If Lich gets ganked in the woods, he chain frosts for a double kill. CM? More free gold.

If an omniknight dies at pretty much any point of the game he is bad. I can see some deaths due to late game team fights, running in and trying to soak, that's about it. Purification/repel are just way too damn strong early game. He can also utterly shut down a lane with any movement speed hero. Give him a partner like crix/CK/SA/AM and you'll see how hard a double melee lane can smash any counter. CM can't protect an SA like omni can, and she's ranged.

If you're not doing well with omni it's because you're trying to be dazzle when you should be playing like earthshaker.


But I'll give you that CM isn't completely useless. Her two spells are very strong at the very early stages of the game - if she skips her godawful aura she might even have the damage to flat out change and spellcarry skirmishes. But if you don't inflict serious damage by 25 minutes you will lose because it will be 4v5. I have played games where all CM did was afk at fountain and run out every 6 minutes to ward - she was more helpful to her team that way than feeding my team gold and they started doing better when she stopped playing. She still needs a more reliable ult, she needs more stats, and JFC she needs more movespeed.

As an aside, I still find it comical that syllabear's summon is the same as CM, only it has max movespeed, near 3k health, and a lot more damage. Between an orb of venom and entangle bear can do everything CM can do.

[Kuntantee]

It's true that CM is worst support right now.

[PizzaSHARK]

And you can say the same things about Omni and his weaknesses. He's got awful animations and an absolutely abominable cast range on his heal, which is really the only reason you take him in the first place. Someone that can't see him trying to nuke you by casting on a creep or friendly hero from a mile away is just an idiot. Repel can be purged and prevents him from healing people (half the damn reason you take him at all!) and while his ult is amazing, it also has a tiny little radius, which means he needs to be right in the middle of things unless you don't want some of your teammates getting it (at which point they're gonna get eaten.) It also means your team has to bunch together in order to receive it, making you wonderfully packed together for a nice Ravage or Epicenter or Black Hole or...

In lane, Omni's even less useful than ES because he can't help people get kills. He can't fissure someone from behind the treeline, and he can't even sneak up to drop a heal on someone from the treeline because the heal's cast range is so short. Degen Aura is worthless without boots, and because of his pretty lousy stats, Omni can't really afford to facetank until he's in aura range. Repel is really good against double stormbolt lanes to prevent them from getting first blood (and potentially to turn the tables on them), but it requires amazing timing and they can still kill the person you repelled since you can't heal them while it's up.

And we're already seeing some of the right-click heroes beginning to show up - Chaos Knight is undeniably a right-clicker, Morphling is a right-click hero once people start having more HP than he can shotgun down, and the few times Lycan doesn't get banned, he's a right-clicker, too.

Yet you NEVER seen an Omni as a counter-pick to when these heroes are in play. Hell, Repel could prevent a shotgun entirely by blocking AS and the EB hit at the same time, and Guardian Angel would just make CK look like a jackass (not to mention Repel'd block his stun and blinkstrike.) If Omni was as good as you say he is, you'd see him taken as one of the two supports... but you don't, because he sucks.

If you solo lane Omni, he will lose his lane to virtually ANYONE. He probably won't feed, but he's not gonna get jack for farm or denies, and he's going to be immensely vulnerable to ganks if he doesn't hide at his tower. He doesn't have panda's innate tankiness or snares, he isn't ranged, he doesn't have veno's wards for extra vision, he doesn't have a blink like potm, etc. All he can do is heal (which is pitiful until lvl 3-4) and then bend over and grab his ankles. VS ain't gonna give two shits that you can heal - her stun does more damage than your heal heals for and you can't heal while stunned, anyway. And since you don't have the stats of a panda (panda can leave the fountain with easily more than 700HP at lvl 1), you can't really tank it either.

Re: CM. Yeah, Lich is basically CM without the suck, which is why you see him so often. But stronger heroes are also more likely to get banned or stolen, which is why "weaker" heroes like Omni and CM exist in the first place, IMO.

[Servion]

I find Huskar a pretty good hero to start playing DOTA2.

Honestly, starting out playing a carry if you're a new player is quite stupid, playing a carry requires you to carry your team, thats not what a new player should start out with, and not even Huskar which is a risky pick in generel and for new players.

And for you new players out there, try playing some gankers, or support heroes.

heroes like:

Sven, Vengeful Spirit, Crystal Maiden, Ogre Magi, Venomancer, Lich, Lion, Witch Doctor, Dazzle

And if you absolutely want to try some carrys out, heroes like:

Dragon Knight, Juggernaut, Skeleton King, Viper, Luna

[PizzaSHARK]

Honestly, starting out playing a carry if you're a new player is quite stupid, playing a carry requires you to carry your team, thats not what a new player should start out with, and not even Huskar which is a risky pick in generel and for new players.

And for you new players out there, try playing some gankers, or support heroes.

heroes like:

Sven, Vengeful Spirit, Crystal Maiden, Ogre Magi, Venomancer, Lich, Lion, Witch Doctor, Dazzle

And if you absolutely want to try some carrys out, heroes like:

Dragon Knight, Juggernaut, Skeleton King, Viper, Luna

New players are usually best off playing STR heroes since they tend to be the simplest. Leoric, Doomy, Sven, Nessaj... they're all pretty much impossible to screw up as since they generally have only one role (stun->right click, Doom anything, stun->right click, stun->right click.)

[Deleted]

New players are usually best off playing STR heroes since they tend to be the simplest. Leoric, Doomy, Sven, Nessaj... they're all pretty much impossible to screw up as since they generally have only one role (stun->right click, Doom anything, stun->right click, stun->right click.)

I personally found INT heroes to be more easy to start with. With shadow shaman I could harass, last hit without repercussion (as he's ranged), and at level 6 instagib the opposing champ if I placed my ult right.

I actually have troubles with Sven and Juggernaut (basically any melee champ), as I find it hard to farm when I'm against ranged opponents. I guess one solution would be to have a good support that harasses the enemy or something, but haven't experienced that yet. It's true that Sven has a good escape when needed, but then you're also immediately out of mana.

[Valedus]

New players are usually best off playing STR heroes since they tend to be the simplest. Leoric, Doomy, Sven, Nessaj... they're all pretty much impossible to screw up as since they generally have only one role (stun->right click, Doom anything, stun->right click, stun->right click.)

Best heroes for new players are Tidehunter, Skeleton King, Ogre Mage, Venge, Bloodseeker, Sven, Papa Mags(Magnataur), Centaur Warchief, and Abaddon. Last two aren't in the game yet, though, sadly.
But yes, mainly strength heroes with a couple passives or easily aimed skills and heavy defensive capabilities.
Started a WoW guildie of mine on DotA 2 and he's gotten the hang of playing through Tidehunter.
I actually disagree that Doom is a good starting hero. He is a squishy STR hero because of his lack of armor at the beginning of the game and planning LVL death levels can be tricky.

[PizzaSHARK]

Best heroes for new players are Tidehunter, Skeleton King, Ogre Mage, Venge, Bloodseeker, Sven, Papa Mags(Magnataur), Centaur Warchief, and Abaddon. Last two aren't in the game yet, though, sadly.
But yes, mainly strength heroes with a couple passives or easily aimed skills and heavy defensive capabilities.
Started a WoW guildie of mine on DotA 2 and he's gotten the hang of playing through Tidehunter.
I actually disagree that Doom is a good starting hero. He is a squishy STR hero because of his lack of armor at the beginning of the game and planning LVL death levels can be tricky.

LevelDeath is a crap skill to begin with, don't bother with it. Just Devour/stats until 6, finish Devour and pick up your W on the way to 11, finish your W, and just keep pumping stats. LevelDeath's never worth the mana, not when you can eat a creep and use that mana for much better skills (warstomp, mana burn, net, etc), and in the early and midgame you won't have the mana to Doom, use creep skills, cast LevelDeath, AND keep Devour on cooldown.

EDIT: Lack of armor is brutal, but you probably want to get Basilius on Doomy anyway (+2 armor leaving base) and it's compensated by his high strength and top-tier STR gain (3.20.) Doomy has the highest starting STR of all the heroes at 26 and is tied with Pudge at highest STR gain at 3.2. Realistically Pudge has more STR over a game due to Flesh Heap but Doomy certainly starts with more.

[Valedus]

I personally found INT heroes to be more easy to start with. With shadow shaman I could harass, last hit without repercussion (as he's ranged), and at level 6 instagib the opposing champ if I placed my ult right.

I actually have troubles with Sven and Juggernaut (basically any melee champ), as I find it hard to farm when I'm against ranged opponents. I guess one solution would be to have a good support that harasses the enemy or something, but haven't experienced that yet. It's true that Sven has a good escape when needed, but then you're also immediately out of mana.

Sven's warcry only takes 25 mana, so that shouldn't be too much of an issue. One way to prevent being harassed is buying a stout shield and as you said, have a support/nuker that can scare the opposing heroes away from you. Today me and my brother were able to keep Chaos Knight and Puck pretty much away from the lane (dead, hurt, or scared) for the first 9-10 minutes of the game. If your lane partner isn't harassing or supporting you, tell him to step up his game. As the carry it's your job to be hitting the creeps and his to be hitting enemies or helping you line up kills.

---------- Post added 2012-07-04 at 05:09 AM ----------

LevelDeath is a crap skill to begin with, don't bother with it. Just Devour/stats until 6, finish Devour and pick up your W on the way to 11, finish your W, and just keep pumping stats. LevelDeath's never worth the mana, not when you can eat a creep and use that mana for much better skills (warstomp, mana burn, net, etc), and in the early and midgame you won't have the mana to Doom, use creep skills, cast LevelDeath, AND keep Devour on cooldown.

EDIT: Lack of armor is brutal, but you probably want to get Basilius on Doomy anyway (+2 armor leaving base) and it's compensated by his high strength and top-tier STR gain (3.20.)

Oh, I don't even play doom anymore, but I'm saying its hard for people who are new at the game to pick up on things like that. I never really enjoyed playing Doom like I enjoy playing other heroes.

[Deleted]

Wall of text.

And then Omniknight presses ult in the teamfight and all is good again.

[PizzaSHARK]

And then Omniknight presses ult in the teamfight and all is good again.

It's using the ult that's the problem. Short radius means everyone has to be close together for it to stick on everyone, which puts you in a wonderful spot to have your entire team eat a Ravage or Black Hole or Chronosphere or Epicenter or Echo Slam or... And if you avoid that, someone's gonna miss the ult and they'll just bury them while the rest of you stand around looking bored. Unlike ES, Omni can't hide in a line of trees and throw out ninja heals - range on the heals is too short unless you can get someone to be dumb and stand right next to the damn trees for you so you can nuke them.


Where would you lane a Tiny? Solo mid or trilane bot? Seem to remember him primarily being a ganker in the early stages of the game since he has a stun and a well-placed throw is an easy kill. Also fun to grief jackasses by throwing them into enemy towers.

I should play Tiny more.

[Kuthe]

Rant: Why can no one use IO's ulti right.
I'm sick of some silly fool teleporting to the team fight, tethering me, or a carry, and teleporting back to base after the 12seconds is up, and so we lose 3/5 of our team because we get overwelmed.
ALWAYS HAPPENS.
I swear I just need to always pick IO, just to stop people from doing this. Wah.

Any guesses on this weeks hero?
I want Nyx Assassin!

[Finear]

sorry but CM>all