[Megathread] DotA 2

[pierakor]

Stupid question, but what changes did Axe receive that suddenly made him a better laner than a jungler? Lots of people seem to be saying this, but aside from Battle Hunger finally being useful (and even so it still looks extremely easy to counter) I can't think of anything else.

If it's true, which it likely is, then I'll have run out of junglers that I can play reliably. Any recommendations? I'm not fond of Enigma at all so he's out of the question.

battle hunger was buffed several times (6.63, 6.68, 6.69, 6.71, 6.72, 6.73) and is probably his strongest spell now. A dot with slow, ms buff, high dmg overall, low cd, no deny... I remember axe mostly being played as initiator who levels berserkers call and counter helix and rushes dagger but he was very weak at that compared to proper initiators. Now once you get mana boots you can spam battle hunger and if you can pressure your enemy into not being able to last hit you will win your lane.

Storm and Tinker can jungle nowadays maybe give them a try.

[Lysah]

Battle hunger is definitely absurdly strong, and let's not forget, with just a stout shield he can easily afford to run circles around you drawing creep aggro. The second you stop focusing on him to frantically try to last hit and clear hunger he's on top of you roflhelixing away and you're dead. Not to mention if you don't have a teleport scroll and he can get you to 200-300 health and hit you with another hunger you're also dead.

I still prefer him in the jungle, though, just for the virtually guaranteed gold/exp..it's easy to keep up with the solo lane in levels and ganking mid/side at 6 with hunger/culling can get a kill pretty much all the time. I'm not really sure what kind of team you would put Axe on, but he's not the blink/caller he used to be. Energy boots support Axe is definitely more his niche now...

[Strah]

Oh, they feared it and did in fact ban tiny. The more you speak though, the more I’m perplexed as to why he is not picked. I have not denied tiny’s strength, but hearing it is another matter. He is quite versatile in many regards when considered and even excels in areas.

I would like to add, I don’t believe melee carries are so dominant, as much as it is people playing in that fashion. They often have abilities which grant them some bonus dmg, leading people into believing that’s where they excel. I’m not saying melee carries aren’t good but people play accordingly to what they believe is powerful and in certain manners which can ignore or inhibit true strength. For example, I don't think void is a hard carry per se. Perhaps if this was a solo game, but many heroes on his team could have a harder carry potential if given the opportunity as they all benefit from chrono. yes void has back track but he must be amidst fights and in more danger. He has time lock, but it does not quite compare to a guaranteed stun. Void can at least farm in dangerous situations.

I’ll admit tiny, sniper 1v1 is a bit iffy given his stun, and if tiny wasn’t a str hero, id discount it. the full benefit probably only kicks in towards later game, for sniper is free to go stats. I do think sniper is harder to stop in a sense. 810 range is quite big, leaving him able to be active far outside typical range. Tiny may be fast but you will waste time having to move and between switching targets regardless of whether they escape. In terms of taking people down, especially in a prolonged engagement, sniper can clean house. If you build him right that is, which I don’t believe happens imo, but that’s besides the matter.

You don't see void as a hard carry?

Odd, he's probably one of the hardest carries out there, being able to kill 2-3 people within one chrono when he had farm.


I wouldn't say sniper is a hard carry though. Yes he's got the range, yes he can deal some damage, but he hasn't got any form of cc or an escape mechanism, which is why he's extremely squishy. Hard carries tend to have a proper escape mechanisms - void, spectre, morphling, PA, Magina - they all have got some sort of escape, while range carries do not, which is why melee are preferred.

[Kerdoz]

Oh god how i love when you are on a ownage streak!
My last 3 games has gone like this:

Enchantress 15/1/12
Night Stalker 16/0/5
Pudge 29/1/8

I am finally getting the hang of the speed after playing HoN since closed beta. I have played about 120 games in Dota2.

[Sorx]

You don't see void as a hard carry?

Odd, he's probably one of the hardest carries out there, being able to kill 2-3 people within one chrono when he had farm.


I wouldn't say sniper is a hard carry though. Yes he's got the range, yes he can deal some damage, but he hasn't got any form of cc or an escape mechanism, which is why he's extremely squishy. Hard carries tend to have a proper escape mechanisms - void, spectre, morphling, PA, Magina - they all have got some sort of escape, while range carries do not, which is why melee are preferred.

i did not say void is not a hard carry. I'm merely stating that once an enemy is chrono'd his entire team benefits, leaving possibility for some else with equal farm or better to be the greater carry.

sniper can be squishy but this remains to be a team game. It's a minor issue that can be remedied through composition or strategies etc if need be. Many of these melee heroes often uses these escape mechanism to initiation as well, which does put them in further danger. In doing so, they operate within a window of time where they have no advantage. Furthermore, nothing is also to say there won't be situations where escape is not needed thus making increased range more advantageous.

I'm not at all saying sniper is the hardest carry and honestly used him as an example off a whim.

[icerus]

I'm disappointed in the beta of dota 2 played 2 weeks and i doesn't get me to play more and more so i quited.

[Jaxi]

Must be awful being you because just about every series in the Winner's Bracket was phenomenal. As were many in the LB, LaNm's Tiny outcarrying Morphling and Broodmother in a 60 minute game with 750 gpm after his team had been in 15k+ gold disadvantage was one of the best things I've ever seen in dota.

I was there at the International, and that was the single most enjoyable game for me by far. Got to love the tiny/wisp pair up! It's unfortunate that the LGD vs iG games were so very boring, I was hoping for more from that match up.

[Vampirion]

I'm disappointed in the beta of dota 2 played 2 weeks and i doesn't get me to play more and more so i quited.

That's a really constructive post...oh wait ~.~
If you would at least say why it disappointed you we could discuss with you but posting like this makes you come off like a LoL/HoN guy who likes to bash DotA 2 for whatever reason without any valid argument.

[PizzaSHARK]

I dont see a need to ban carry Tiny since he can easily be dealt with if you get Morph/SD or DS on your team

How does Morphling beat Tiny? Tiny has high STR growth so isn't vulnerable to shotgunning and if Morph is running around with low STR he's liable to get gibbed in a Tiny combo before he can do anything about it. At high levels Tiny tanks up and Craggy Exterior will proc stuns on Morphling if Tiny is close enough to hit Morphling with his stick.

Stupid question, but what changes did Axe receive that suddenly made him a better laner than a jungler? Lots of people seem to be saying this, but aside from Battle Hunger finally being useful (and even so it still looks extremely easy to counter) I can't think of anything else.

Axe can do most anything, really. Guess he's not top tier, but he's versatile and useful. Battle Hunger is extremely strong for the first 20-30 minutes of the game and is still fairly useful after. He's virtually impossible to harass (you're just helping him farm) and he's good at controlling creep waves (common practice is for Axe to just camp between enemy t2 and t3 towers.) Later he can be used for initiation/control by blinking in and taunting. Arcane Boots are increasingly common on him as a replacement for Tranquil Boots (I usually disassemble Tranqs and make Arcanes by 25 mins) and he's actually a pretty decent Meka carrier once spamming Battle Hunger on everything becomes less important.

His ulti is great at ensuring (in pubs, this is more like "stealing") kills and if he gets scepter, he can ulti a creep to give his team a 25% movespeed boost to help them position prior to and during fights.

If it's true, which it likely is, then I'll have run out of junglers that I can play reliably. Any recommendations? I'm not fond of Enigma at all so he's out of the question.

You can't go wrong with Profit. We saw teams handle him well in TI2 but he's still easily a top-tier hero who is disgustingly strong when played properly, and who can fill virtually any role as long as it involves getting at least SOME farm.



Played a game as Mirana today where I split farm with Slardar in our lane, and things ended up pretty well. I usually play Mirana as a sort of semi-carry, getting Mjollnir instead of typical carry items. Dunno if it's ideal but it's fun.

Is there even a reason to put more than one point into Mirana's stun? Literally the only thing she gets with extra points is a fairly small amount of damage, and just putting points in stats would result in more total damage from attack speed, damage, and more mana for Starfall spam. Seems like Icefrog's next goal after getting Dota 2 "done" should be to sweep every hero and try and rebalance skills so that none of them are "one-point wonders" or have a situation like Dazzle's Q where putting a 4th point into the skill is effectively wasted.

I'm also wondering about redistributing skill allotments per-point so that some skills are top-heavy - where you get the most benefits from the 3rd and 4th points rather than the 1st or 2nd. Wouldn't mind there being more than one or two ways to build a hero, especially if the multiple ways can all be considered equally viable.

[Lysah]

Max starfall first but arrow second if you're going for gank/damage. You leap into melee range of someone, facecheck them with arrow and get a melee range starfall off and you can win a duel against most heroes outright. Go farm supports who can't do a damn thing about the up front 700 damage + decent auto attacks/chase ability for gold.

As far as burst goes for duels/skirmishes leveling arrow is definitely worth it. I find going for max stuns unreliable anyway, even if you're good with skillshots it's pretty much luck once you start standing 2500 yards back, they have a solid five seconds to just step to the left and most people are always moving in lane anyway. Max damage on both nukes and you won't even need the stun for a successful gank anymore.

I would argue most/all heroes have multiple ways of being built. Even "simple" heroes like Leo/SB. Leoric might generally go stun/stats for early game, but I've built him aura/stun as lane support/semijungler to another melee hero before. SB can max his aura first for a more hyper carry farm style, or he can max his charge and get gold by ganking everyone on the map all the time. Juggernaut typically goes BF/stats, but I smashed a game going ward/BF and rushing orchid for storm spirit.

19/20 games you might go stun/BF + stats on leoric/juggernaut, but that doesn't mean it's the ONLY way to play by any means. Not to bring other games into it...but there is much more diversity in DotA2 builds than, say, LoL =p

[PizzaSHARK]

Max starfall first but arrow second if you're going for gank/damage. You leap into melee range of someone, facecheck them with arrow and get a melee range starfall off and you can win a duel against most heroes outright. Go farm supports who can't do a damn thing about the up front 700 damage + decent auto attacks/chase ability for gold.

Close range arrows make me rage against Mirana. ~1.5-2.0 sec stun from what seems to be about 400-600 range away just feels ridiculous, it's so easy to hit at that range, but I guess there's a reason for it given the huge cooldown.

I would argue most/all heroes have multiple ways of being built. Even "simple" heroes like Leo/SB. Leoric might generally go stun/stats for early game, but I've built him aura/stun as lane support/semijungler to another melee hero before. SB can max his aura first for a more hyper carry farm style, or he can max his charge and get gold by ganking everyone on the map all the time. Juggernaut typically goes BF/stats, but I smashed a game going ward/BF and rushing orchid for storm spirit.

Most heroes seem to only have one or two "good" builds and everything else is pretty much garbage. Like with Veno, you can max W first or E first and each is viable, but maxing Q first is almost never viable, not even in a tri-lane setup. Likewise, there's literally no reason to get more than 3 points into Dazzle's Q - even just +2 stats is better than that 4th point. Likewise, Tree's invisibility really feels like it's best with just the 1 point. You get really long duration with extra points, but fade time, mana cost, and tree distance (how far you can stray from trees before it breaks) all remain constant, so most of the time I just put one point into it and just get stats instead.

I'm also not a fan of some skills providing enormous benefits for just one point. PA's Blur (1800 gold worth of evasion for 1 point), things like that. Seems like they could be rearranged so that the first point (or first two points) provide less benefit per-point than the last two or last point.

19/20 games you might go stun/BF + stats on leoric/juggernaut, but that doesn't mean it's the ONLY way to play by any means. Not to bring other games into it...but there is much more diversity in DotA2 builds than, say, LoL =p

Well, yeah, LoL's biggest pitfall is that there's no real depth to the game... items are all mostly passive so it's just a matter of calculating best gold-per-stat.


Where's the balancing factor for Chaos Knight? I know he has mana issues early on but by time he's level 11 those are mostly eliminated through more stats and his team having arcanes, and he's so fucking strong once he starts taking his ulti. Free crit, he's a fantastic armlet user, almost impossible to escape from, and his ulti... man, just fuck his damn ulti. It seems like there's no real easy way of countering him because he's strong even when his ulti is down.

And how are you supposed to handle Morphling? He's so goddamned hard to gank without sending your entire team there, and if you do that... well, free lanes for the rest of his team, right?

[Ichy]

Where's the balancing factor for Chaos Knight? I know he has mana issues early on but by time he's level 11 those are mostly eliminated through more stats and his team having arcanes, and he's so fucking strong once he starts taking his ulti. Free crit, he's a fantastic armlet user, almost impossible to escape from, and his ulti... man, just fuck his damn ulti. It seems like there's no real easy way of countering him because he's strong even when his ulti is down.

And how are you supposed to handle Morphling? He's so goddamned hard to gank without sending your entire team there, and if you do that... well, free lanes for the rest of his team, right?

Agree with both points, but for debates sake here we go. Chaos Knight is difficult to counter, especially when he has his ulty up. that said, CC heroes or CC items, or both just to be super annoying. Witch Doctor (voodoo shaman) is a good pick. Maladect doesn't fade from the real CK when he ulties and ward shreds his illusions quickly. Tide is another good one with AOE ulty easy to find the real Chaos, then there's Riki with smoke before he can ulty.

God I hate Morphling, playing him or being against him. When some one else on my team has him he's shit, but every time i'm against him hes one of the better plays on the enemy team. But blink heroes in general are difficult to gank, best counters are CC and/or Silence. I love Drow and usually when I play against a Morph I will favor a longer silence. ie: Frost/Aura (depending on the other heroes i'm with)>Silence x2> opposite of level 1>Silence>Ulty. After this I resume building normal- aura for damage and arrows for slow, though you can argue that at 10 and 15 to get stats and max frost arrow last, even going as far as up to 18 doing stats instead (getting ulty where applicable). Her slow won't be as strong but she will hit quite a bit harder than the standard build.

[PizzaSHARK]

Most Drow builds I've seen max aura and silence and just put 1 point in arrows until everything else is done. Silence is basically the only reason to take Drow over almost any other ranged carry (Clinkz is usually taken otherwise, since Orchid is standard on him) and her silence is pretty good.

Morphling is just impossible to gank because his stat swap skill is overpowered as hell. Using it through disables is fine, but it converts so much agility to strength and for fairly low mana that even if you can silence him to prevent the waveform out, he can tank two players almost indefinitely until he can waveform away. If it's an entire team, he can still probably stay alive for a good four or five seconds; he might die, but he can probably last long enough to let his team open up on yours, especially since you'll have blown so much just to kill morphling alone.

I dunno. It just seems like a well-played Morphling is virtually immune to ganks; he can't be ganked by just one or two players, and wards/communication will give him time to TP out if they're sending a full team after him. Plus he can use replicate to hop back into the lane/jungle after a recharge at the fountain or to cross the map without notice... ugh. I guess that's why Morphling was the #1 boy for all the 4-protect-1 teams in TI2... he don't need all that much protecting.

[Ichy]

Normaly- early game I favor Aura till max over silence, and 3 second silence till about 6 / 7 is fine to get by (for me any way- rank 1). Getting a 4 second silence early helps mid game as it just enough to stop a major player from contributing to much in team fights or ganks/counter ganks (my opinion). I miss the old veno, could go 1 point nuke, then stats n Poision sting (attack modifier) till 9, at 10/11 get ulty. Could make just about any hero leave the lane, and if by 3 no one had FB'd, I was guaranteed to get it. Hate the new way to build him, where its one or the other and wards- hated wards were so easy to kill back in the day that it left a bad taste in my mouth, but he was a hard carry then, now hes more carry/support.

[Lysah]

Ironically, orchid Clinkz is good for morph because you can silence him BEFORE he starts spamming strength. Plus, with his ult up and fire arrows you will be hitting hard.

I never considered CK all that strong, it surprised me to see he was a popular ban lately. His lane phase is absolutely dangerous, and he's a fairly reliable stun since you're not likely to burn him down, and his blinkstrike is great, but, his ultimate dies off too easily and it's too easy to just walk away from him. All of his damage happens in the two seconds he has you stunned/blink strikes his images to you so if you survive that he's out of the fight. He got 325 movespeed, like other high movespeed heroes, because he absolutely needs it to be balanced. Says a lot about him, imo.

[Sorx]

Normaly- early game I favor Aura till max over silence, and 3 second silence till about 6 / 7 is fine to get by (for me any way- rank 1). Getting a 4 second silence early helps mid game as it just enough to stop a major player from contributing to much in team fights or ganks/counter ganks (my opinion). I miss the old veno, could go 1 point nuke, then stats n Poision sting (attack modifier) till 9, at 10/11 get ulty. Could make just about any hero leave the lane, and if by 3 no one had FB'd, I was guaranteed to get it. Hate the new way to build him, where its one or the other and wards- hated wards were so easy to kill back in the day that it left a bad taste in my mouth, but he was a hard carry then, now hes more carry/support.

Poision sting could be still somewhat potent and will provide you more personal dmg than even Drow's aura for quite a while. not to mention it comes with a 14% slow and is not a unique attack modifier. it's a free 140 dmg over 7 secs. I'm not particularly ecstatic, but i'm not complaining either.

heck, if you really want to harrass, you could buy an early orb of venom. I'm not reccomending it, but 12 dmg for 350 isn't that bad. not sure how you were spening your gold anyways.

[Ichy]

Poision sting could be still somewhat potent and will provide you more personal dmg than even Drow's aura for quite a while. not to mention it comes with a 14% slow and is not a unique attack modifier. it's a free 140 dmg over 7 secs. I'm not particularly ecstatic, but i'm not complaining either.

heck, if you really want to harrass, you could buy an early orb of venom. I'm not reccomending it, but 12 dmg for 350 isn't that bad. not sure how you were spening your gold anyways.

I've tried that, it doesn't have the same power as it did before- usually had standard laning items, bought boots first chance I got, which with the way veno was, could be done at 3, and thus the guaranteed FB.

[Sorx]

tried with early orb of venom you mean?

In any case, I can't say i believe it be strong as before or enough for a gauranteed lv3 FB. I really haven't even tried it personally. but it is still quite a lot of harass if you maintain it. coupled with gale, there is definitely FB opportunities or pushing out of lane. just not as strong.

There's sometimes quite a benefit with dots as well, and especially among inexperienced players who miss-estimate exactly when they're in danger. lvling gale could be useful as your mostly slow siegeing and it provides some "burst".

[PizzaSHARK]

Ironically, orchid Clinkz is good for morph because you can silence him BEFORE he starts spamming strength. Plus, with his ult up and fire arrows you will be hitting hard.

I never considered CK all that strong, it surprised me to see he was a popular ban lately. His lane phase is absolutely dangerous, and he's a fairly reliable stun since you're not likely to burn him down, and his blinkstrike is great, but, his ultimate dies off too easily and it's too easy to just walk away from him. All of his damage happens in the two seconds he has you stunned/blink strikes his images to you so if you survive that he's out of the fight. He got 325 movespeed, like other high movespeed heroes, because he absolutely needs it to be balanced. Says a lot about him, imo.

CK's laning phase is dangerous in the sense that he has no escape mechanism but that makes him a good choice for a babysit/supported lane, and while he has no escape mechanism, he has the advantage of being a STR hero, which means a naturally high HP pool. I don't see him as easy to escape from, but I'm not looking at it from an "a wild Chaos Knight appears!" viewpoint, I'm looking at it from a "CK and his team are pushing, you must defend" viewpoint, where his stun can be stacked with other disables while he's doing enormous damage to you. If he blinks with his ulti up at level 16+, it's basically a free ward trap and you're pretty much guaranteed to die unless you happen to have an Earthshaker handy to blink on top of everyone and echo slam the illusions to death immediately. Illusions are also ridiculously good for taking down structures, making CK a viable back door option (not as good as Clinkz but no one is as good as Clinkz at that except maybe a hard carry Profit with Deso.)

I wouldn't call CK a priority ban, not like fucking Naga, but he's a pretty high-tier hero (I think most people put him on the second tier, below the game-breakers like Naga, Lycan, Profit, etc) and is also very easy to play, like most STR carries. He's a hero you could give to a relatively weak player on your team without endangering your team's chances of winning - his stun is one of the best in the game (stormbolt that lasts at least 2 sec and up to 4 sec) and he doesn't really need items to start stomping people in the midgame; just treads, armlet, maybe drums. All very cheap items, and his illusions at least partially reduce his reliance on BKB since it's a Mirror Image type illusion spell, and even if you disable the real CK, his illusions still do full damage. Armlet provides enormous survivability if you're able to use it properly (free 665 HP heal every 7 sec.)



Related to LoL: Any idea if Valve has plans of expanding Dota beyond the simple 5v5 format once Dota 2 goes live? I'd really love to see Valve's take on the Dominion playstyle. I really think Riot nailed something there with that gamemode, just a shame they decided to continue focusing on their shitty "we wish this was Dota" Dota clone mode.

[Lysah]

I meant dangerous for enemies, nothing is funnier than blinking someone into tower range and then LOL4SECONDSTUN.