[Megathread] DotA 2

[Deleted]

I just had the most entertaining game of my life.

I was playing an in-house with my clanmates, Captain's Mode. I was thinking to myself "Oh just a silly inhouse, we're just gonna goof around have fun" So I make some silly bans, Clockwerk, Alchemist, Weaver, Witch Doctor, Nyx Assassin.

Opposing clan stack takes the game super fucking serious. Lycan, Tinker, Enigma, Venomancer, Dark Seer, all top tier picks. Bans goes along the lines of Chen, Invoker, Enchantress, Queen of Pain etc.. Meanwhile my team is sitting with Visage, Ezalor, Dirge, Ogre Magi and Lion because we just picked what we felt like. So I was already annoyed going into this game, because we are by no means a "pro clan" or looking to get involved in the esports team, yet these guys were like "YEP, GOTTA PLAY LIKE THE PRO'S".

We're dominating the early game, which was sort of expected. Not many kills, but the ones that come were in our favour. At about 15 minutes I decide to throw everything out of the window and tell my team to rush Rapiers. Which we did, expecting to get completely rolled over mid-late game by the Tinker/Lycan.

62 minute long game short, we ended up with an overwhelming victory.

I'll never let them live this down.

TL;DR Feel good story.

[Lysah]

Top tier heroes are only good when used precisely for the reason they are top tier. I always laugh when people try to copy professional gamers and miss the target by a mile.

[PizzaSHARK]

Top tier heroes are only good when used precisely for the reason they are top tier. I always laugh when people try to copy professional gamers and miss the target by a mile.

Probably because a lot of the reason those heroes are considered top tier is because it's based off of how they perform as part of a coordinated team. You don't have that coordination in pubs, so a hero that has immense potential in pro games (Lycan, Dark Seer, etc) isn't nearly as strong in a pub. Lycan can't split push if his teammates are bad and can't handle a 4v5, etc.

[Lysah]

I wager Lycan is still pretty stupid strong in pub games. Uninterrupted jungle + roshan at 8 minutes + proceed to stomp on faces.

[PizzaSHARK]

I wager Lycan is still pretty stupid strong in pub games. Uninterrupted jungle + roshan at 8 minutes + proceed to stomp on faces.

Yeah but my MMR is apparently high enough that it's not uncommon to see people warding the jungle or interrupting pulls. Ultimately though, even if Lycan had a flawless jungle and got a fast Rosh, he's still going to have issues if the game is 25-4 and they're threatening rax at 20 minutes.

[Lysah]

I don't understand why people even try. Scourge side? You spend all 4 wards on one side of the map and you can block both pulls, ward the river, and you get to pick one of 3 more jungle spots to block. Big deal, he still has two more spots and can just run between them forever. What a waste of wards.

But yes, Lycan isn't unstoppable, that's why he's balanced =p
He's still the type of hero that smashes pubs, kind of like Ursa or SA.

[Deleted]

We trilaned Dirge, Ezalor and Visage on the Dire Bottom lane, just so that we could mess with Lycan's jungling, with a solo safe lane Lion and a Ogre Magi mid. Our intention was to gank Lycan as many times as possible before he got his ulti. We warded the Jungle, not only to block neutral camps from spawning, but to check for assistance coming from other lanes. It saved our behind's plenty of times and we managed to kill Lycan three times before he hit level 6.

In the end it boiled down to a lot of miscommunication on their side, their biggest mistake was telling Lycan to go top top push and then initiating a teamfight bottom where they actually got a 5-man Black Hole, but Tinker was dead at that point, so the only real damage dealers were Veno and Dark Seer, which we lived through, Lycan came in late to the fight and we could all focus him. Also they didn't notice that we dropped a Rapier at one point and we managed to salvage it.

Anyway, I digress. That game was also my first as Necro'lic and my eyes have been opened as to how poweful this hero is if you micro his familiars. There were several times that game where we went to gank Lycan as he was pushing the lane, where he popped his Ulti in hopes of escaping, but with Ogre Magi, Lion and my familiars we literally stunlocked him to death a couple of times.

Soul Assumption is crazy as well... Actually his entire kit is just really good, he just takes some micro... And yes I know he ideally wants a trilane at all times to get those Soul Assumption stacks, but at my level of play I think you can throw him anywhere and do fine if you use your brain a bit.

You guys ever play Necro'lic?

[Lysah]

I carried pretty well as Visage just a couple of days ago. He was better in the past. I'm not a fan of his new grave chill, and his ult is pathetic after about 20 minutes.

[Jangri-]

Top tier heroes are only good when used precisely for the reason they are top tier. I always laugh when people try to copy professional gamers and miss the target by a mile.

This very much seconded.

[Hermanni]

Somehow I feel like this discussion is going in circles. Maybe I should start quoting myself from 15 pages ago and see if anyone notices.

[Ultraviolet Harmonies]

Somehow I feel like this discussion is going in circles. Maybe I should start quoting myself from 15 pages ago and see if anyone notices.

http://i.imgur.com/h8uNH.png


Even though that meme is on-topic, they're still discouraged (especially when they could be construed as nation-bashing).

[Lysah]

I highly disagree with the use of "Americans" in that piece =/

[Deleted]

I highly disagree with the use of "Americans" in that piece =/

Sorry but you have bias we can't trust you on that one.

[PizzaSHARK]

First game of the night has two leavers on my team and their team had an enchantress that died once and then sat in fountain and spammed couriers all game. sigh.

---------- Post added 2012-08-18 at 11:20 PM ----------

Is there a trick to keeping Clockwerk relevant past the 30-40 minute mark? He does so little damage and cogs can even cause issues if your carries are melee (I know our NS at least couldn't attack the person I had cogged.)

Wish more people would queue for random draft. Such a fun gamemode without the potential for ruined games that CM has.

[Lysah]

Is there a trick to keeping Clockwerk relevant past the 30-40 minute mark? He does so little damage and cogs can even cause issues if your carries are melee (I know our NS at least couldn't attack the person I had cogged.)

Wish more people would queue for random draft. Such a fun gamemode without the potential for ruined games that CM has.

Get farmed. Radiance is great on him, he's just not the best at getting items because he needs to spend his starting gold on tanky initiator items and then the game is over. In my opinion, CW needs mid or solo side lane, which is his downfall as a hero right now.

Personally I don't understand why people won't duo mid more often. I played a game as Clinkz and went mid against Bloodseeker. We had BH who wanted to solo bot (dire side) so I told my friend as Ogre to go mid with me. BS was zoned and 0-3 within minutes. By the time I was item capped he still had nothing but force staff. A hero with 600 range like Invoker can sit back all day, sure, but plenty of teams send heroes mid that would get smashed by a stun combination mid.

[PizzaSHARK]

Get farmed. Radiance is great on him, he's just not the best at getting items because he needs to spend his starting gold on tanky initiator items and then the game is over. In my opinion, CW needs mid or solo side lane, which is his downfall as a hero right now.

Personally I don't understand why people won't duo mid more often. I played a game as Clinkz and went mid against Bloodseeker. We had BH who wanted to solo bot (dire side) so I told my friend as Ogre to go mid with me. BS was zoned and 0-3 within minutes. By the time I was item capped he still had nothing but force staff. A hero with 600 range like Invoker can sit back all day, sure, but plenty of teams send heroes mid that would get smashed by a stun combination mid.

Because they're pubs and 1/1/2 or 2/1/2 is the "standard" way to play. Might as well ask why people will queue together and not run a combo like Lesh+SK or Juggy+CM.

Randomed Silencer today. Kind of a fun hero, reminds me of WR in that he's a sort of carry-like but seems like he's more useful played as a support. Is Curse of the Silent worth getting for laning? I've read a lot of people saying it's garbage but my teammates were raging at me for going glaives/last word.

[Hermanni]

Silencer is an awful support, there's literally nothing to him if you don't have items. Go solo/dual mid or farm safelane and build glaives-stats-glaives-aura-glaives and win the lane with ease. Curse is usually not worth putting more than 1 point into, I usually skip it entirely. It's easy to get rid of, useless in fights and leveling and Glaives/Aura/stats is more efficient.

[Lysah]

I would agree that CoS is not the best skill. It's very useful in some lanes but even against people like SB who can't do anything about it it won't win you the lane for free. I consider it more defense, don't look at it as a skill you pick to win a lane, take it when you need it to stop yourself from losing one. Against lesh/crix, if you can spam it on crix and keep his mana low you stand to keep them from double stunning you to death. It's also absurdly annoying to play against and that does count for something, some players will hold back once you start spamming it just to try to dodge it which already puts you in a better position.

You do lose levels in stats/glaives/aura though, which is why it's not a great skill.

[PizzaSHARK]

Just had a game where someone instalocked sniper and demanded mid and then proceeded to lose his lane vs morphling and insist he only lost the lane because he got ganked by their Tiny once. I don't fucking understand people, why are they so hostile when you're pointing out where they're mistaken? It's like "you lost your lane because sniper has no lane control or rune control abilities," is a personal attack or something.

[Lysah]

Did I mention I have a friend who refused to ever talk to me again after I told him that pipe was a bad item on kunkka in a game where he was the only carry option?

You see, when you're God's gift to DotA, anyone criticizing anything you do is a raging insult. It makes sense to me.