[Megathread] DotA 2

[PizzaSHARK]

That's same for most heroes. When you catch, they all die. There are very few exceptions.

Which is the point. TA, Invoker, QoP, and all the others aren't any less squishy than Drow if you prepare accordingly. Sure, Drow doesn't come with a built in escape mechanism, but she farms so fast now it's not hard to buy a lothar's pretty early on. And yeah, it's invis and can be countered, but the same goes for TA's invis, Invoker's invis, and every other escape ability in the game. So why go "oh, Drow's a free kill compared to <insert hero> so she's obviously terrible!"

The more high skill games I watch the more I fall into Lysah's camp, believing that people are playing certain heroes consistently not because the heroes are just that good, but because all the pros play those heroes and better do what the pros are doing!

[Lysah]

Speaking of Lothar's, just went lothar's Tiny and totally destroyed a game. PA ended up being the reason we won, but me having an effective 20:1 KDA certainly helped keep our team alive long enough for PA to finally farm items after 60 minutes to crit people to death.

I can't tell you how many wards/dust they bought. None of it saved them. Leshrac tried to buy a gem, he lost it in seconds. Way too easy for a team to commit to a kill on one person and remove the gem from play. You simply can't ward everywhere, and dust doesn't stop ganks, it only helps chase. I MIGHT have sold it for mjoll after I was at lothar/manta/buriza/scepter/treads/BKB, but the game was over, and even still, it's hard for me to justify Mjoll when windwalk is as strong as it is right now.

You can cry about low skill pub trash games all you want, but there just really is no true counter for someone who knows how to actually use shadow blade. Between the invisibility, the speed, and the backstab, it's just too much for an ability you can spam nonstop. People pretend like blink is a good item for Tiny, 2150g for zero stats and something you can only use to get next to an enemy. Windwalk accomplishes the same thing when you're moving at 522, but also gives you a free auto attack that will hit for Lion ult in damage, and will come off cooldown just in time for you to run away after you get your free kill. Meanwhile, the shadow blade actually gives you helpful stats while it's off cooldown.

You can watch the replay if you want, they had the advantage on us for a very long time. I'm just exceptionally opportunistic and able to pick and choose when and where I strike. I try not to actually believe that I'm somehow a unique player when it comes to this item, but it really is just that easy to smash anybody with. I don't care who they are, skill is not a factor when you're dead before you can move. The only way to actually stop windwalk is to be way ahead already in terms of raw 5v5 team power, in which case, no single item on any hero is very likely to swing the game around. If you can huddle up in a clump of 5 and team push with true sight and end the game, then yes, shadow blade won't appear exceptionally strong. I will continue to argue that in this situation, however, you were winning so hard it didn't matter.

[Kuntantee]

Exactly, so why try to make it out like Drow is walking gold. She's not CM.

I'm not going back to that discussion. I stated why I think like that already.

edit

When it comes to crying you and pizza are topping the forum. One is bitching how lame his mmr is(ever wondered why?) not to mention that hero is OP wall of texts... the other is bitching about how bad players they play etc. and its ironic that you claim people are crying. I've not seen any one other than you two crying in this forum.

[PizzaSHARK]

I'm not going back to that discussion. I stated why I think like that already.

edit

When it comes to crying you and pizza are topping the forum. One is bitching how lame his mmr is(ever wondered why?) not to mention that hero is OP wall of texts... the other is bitching about how bad players they play etc. and its ironic that you claim people are crying. I've not seen any one other than you two crying in this forum.

Only thing I see out of you and Hermanni is whining about people complaining about something without ever actually providing anything concrete for rebuttal besides a "lol stfu noob."

The funny thing is that both sides make good points when they can stop with the fucking stupid personal attacks.

---------- Post added 2012-10-29 at 11:18 AM ----------

Lysah I'm not sold on lothars for Doomy... it just seems like it's not a good buy because using things like armlet or phase boots break the invis so it means you're running around pissing HP away with an active armlet while waiting for the time to strike. Seems like an item that's better for ranged heroes than melee unless you don't care about the backstab.

Plus it's a weird place to build. You can have armlet, midas, and phase boots out at like 15-17 mins... and by then it feels like you need to get Doomy some more mana. Using Doom, LvlDeath and Scorched Earth constantly really sucks up his mana pretty fast.

[Jinto]

Honestly some of the posts here are just hilarious. Anyway is Drow tankier than Invoker? Sure. Similar health pool but Drow has retarded amounts of agi aka armor. Is Invoker harder to gank than Drow? Obviously. Main reason Drow is in vogue at the moment is because of the global push aura which is pretty retardedly good. People just hasn't been QQing about it because there is an ridiculously broken hero named Centaur.

[Lysah]

Plus it's a weird place to build. You can have armlet, midas, and phase boots out at like 15-17 mins... and by then it feels like you need to get Doomy some more mana. Using Doom, LvlDeath and Scorched Earth constantly really sucks up his mana pretty fast.

I don't skill lvl?death at all. And if you pop SE and Armlet at the same time before you go invis you don't really lose HP. You lose some uptime with SE but hey, the whole plan is that you don't need more than a few seconds.

[Kuntantee]

Honestly some of the posts here are just hilarious. Anyway is Drow tankier than Invoker? Sure. Similar health pool but Drow has retarded amounts of agi aka armor. Is Invoker harder to gank than Drow? Obviously. Main reason Drow is in vogue at the moment is because of the global push aura which is pretty retardedly good. People just hasn't been QQing about it because there is an ridiculously broken hero named Centaur.

Your post is hilarious...
pro tip: the burst that makes Trax a easy target is magical

No one is arguing late game potential of those two heroes btw.

[Hermanni]

Only thing I see out of you and Hermanni is whining about people complaining about something without ever actually providing anything concrete for rebuttal besides a "lol stfu noob."

The funny thing is that both sides make good points when they can stop with the fucking stupid personal attacks.

I'm not "whining" about "people complaining about something." The only person I have beef with is you, and it's only when you write absurdly stupid complaints about whatever you decided is broken about the game in a tone that implies superiority. You write walls of texts as arguments against the OP hero of the week, but those walls contain nothing but description of their abilities, strengths and basic strategy. You build utopian comparisons that are way far from the context of an actual game to actually matter and the basis of your rants appear to stem from a very recent mid-level pub games or short-term observation of the pro scene. You repeat yourself endlessly so everyone can be blessed with your opinions and get mad at people who disagree that AP is only for joke games or that PA is stupid. Not to mention you're not exactly above personal attacks yourself.

And above everything else, not only you forget to actually build some basis for your arguments but instead you exaggerate heavily and try to imply your arguments or "facts" are too obvious, too clearly perceptible to be even subject to any dispute and therefore they do not require proof or explanation.

And what's the point in seriously disputing you when you forget about it and come back next week claiming the exact same thing? When you're proven wrong, you brush it off and rush to make another complaint without stopping to think if you might be wrong again, that your point of view might yet again be too narrow? You now declare you agree with Lysah that heroes and items pro players don't use might actually be really good, but earlier you were utterly convinced that the heroes that are picked often in the pro circuit must be so because they are indisputably better than the other options.

Or you can look at the stuff Adriana quoted page or two ago. Can you actually read that yourself and think it's a good argument? That you're doing a fair evaluation and proving a point? To me when the amount of, let's just say, "easily disputable points" exceeds one per sentence I just don't think there's any point in spending more time in writing a serious reply, because it appears that either you really are too self-absorbed or flat-out stupid to see how ridiculous that text is or you're just piling BS on BS to try to keep your feeble argument look like it's alive and well. In either case, I don't think even the most intelligent response I could draft would help, especially since you'd probably forget about it anyway and post it again later or come up with more stuff like that until I have to either give up or go on 2 pages engaging in a very pointless discussion.

Just stop exaggerating, making irrelevant speculations and implying things that aren't and stop to think before you post and it might be possible to take you seriously. About half of my posts never see the light of day because I always re-read what I wrote and often decide what I was about to say isn't worth reading.

[PizzaSHARK]

And above everything else, not only you forget to actually build some basis for your arguments but instead you exaggerate heavily and try to imply your arguments or "facts" are too obvious, too clearly perceptible to be even subject to any dispute and therefore they do not require proof or explanation.

Literally every single time I've said something is overpowered, I have explained exactly why it's overpowered. I don't know what you're reading but it apparently isn't what I'm writing.

And what's the point in seriously disputing you when you forget about it and come back next week claiming the exact same thing? When you're proven wrong, you brush it off and rush to make another complaint without stopping to think if you might be wrong again, that your point of view might yet again be too narrow? You now declare you agree with Lysah that heroes and items pro players don't use might actually be really good, but earlier you were utterly convinced that the heroes that are picked often in the pro circuit must be so because they are indisputably better than the other options.

You're making a lot of generalizations here. Some heroes are picked in pro circuits because they're fundamentally gamebreaking. Some heroes are picked because they're trending, and some heroes are always going to be picked because they're good in almost every situation.

In general there aren't many items or heroes I'd consider underpowered to the point of not being worth getting. In fact, I can't think of any, and I'd say that's good game design there. But I do think there are some heroes or items that are overpowered and need to be adjusted, and there are some mechanics in the game I'd really like to see changed. But that's just me. Everyone has their own opinion.

Just stop exaggerating, making irrelevant speculations and implying things that aren't and stop to think before you post and it might be possible to take you seriously. About half of my posts never see the light of day because I always re-read what I wrote and often decide what I was about to say isn't worth reading.

The vast majority of the time, I don't say anything. I don't make posts on impulse, I make them after watching several games and testing things for myself.

[Lysah]

Centaur is definitely being picked because he is game breaking at the moment. I don't know about the pro scene, but he and Drow are in every single game I play now. Just yesterday I played a game that was pudge/DS/cent/troll bat(MoM build)/axe, yes, four melee tanks and a batrider. Of course, it doesn't matter if they're all melee, because with stampede they can be anywhere at once. Such a troll lineup completely designed around one hero and one ability.

Personally, I'm starting to develop a huge social stigma for Centaur pickers. I have to wonder how many of them are picking him because they know he's stupid as hell right now. Anyone who knowingly picks a broken hero just so they can win deserves all the disdain the world has to offer.

[Hermanni]

Literally every single time I've said something is overpowered, I have explained exactly why it's overpowered. I don't know what you're reading but it apparently isn't what I'm writing.

No, you've always gone off and written a long list about the abilities, what they do and how you use them, always in a manner I described. No fair evaluation, no basis for arguments, no anything. You've still to properly explain why anything is overpowered, even once.

You're making a lot of generalizations here. Some heroes are picked in pro circuits because they're fundamentally gamebreaking. Some heroes are picked because they're trending, and some heroes are always going to be picked because they're good in almost every situation.

Ignoring "gamebreaking", you're only again telling me what I already know. That was not the point, the point I was making was that n pages ago you were trying to convince everyone that heroes that are being picked in tournament games are "OP" in contrast to other heroes that fill a similar role.

You can nitpick all you want, but if you keep ignoring what I said you will continue to not be taken seriously by me or pretty much any critical reader, I expect.

[PizzaSHARK]

No, you've always gone off and written a long list about the abilities, what they do and how you use them, always in a manner I described. No fair evaluation, no basis for arguments, no anything. You've still to properly explain why anything is overpowered, even once.

So define "fair evaluation," and all the rest. I'm describing the skills in detail, including why I feel they're out of whack, which usually boils down to simple numbers. I'm really not sure what else needs to be said, especially since there aren't "official," sources to be cited, unlike things dealing with real life.

[Hermanni]

So define "fair evaluation," and all the rest. I'm describing the skills in detail, including why I feel they're out of whack, which usually boils down to simple numbers. I'm really not sure what else needs to be said, especially since there aren't "official," sources to be cited, unlike things dealing with real life.

You don't need to describe the skills in detail, you can save 5 paragraphs with a playdota or dota2wiki link if you want to provide background information for your readers. How you feel about anything is irrelevant if you're actually claiming that something is broken, you will need to build an actual argument. If you're just parroting your own opinions then don't claim them to be something else.

I'll have easier time explaining to you what a fair evaluation isn't and what a bad or incomplete evaluation is, because you've provided plenty of examples. Claiming that PA is OP because with Stifling Dagger she can get farm under her tower is far from being a complete argument. Claiming that Lion can't effectively gank Drow because Drow has Silence is nothing but theorycrafting a situation that only sometimes (if not rarely) works as expected in the context of actual gameplay. Claiming that Puck is weak partially because Dream Coil is weaker than Ravage barely makes any sense when the reader remembers that barely anything beats Ravage.

Simply put, placing heroes in ideal situations, using a lot of adjectives and neglecting to review the weaknesses or relative power of discussed heroes (or even observe the situation from another point of view) doesn't make a very good argument. Refusing to accept dispute or building messy defensive arguments that defy common sense (Is Drow easier to gank than Invoker? Yes. Is Drow with a SB easier to gank than Invoker? Most skilled players will answer "Yes.") will only make you seem desperate or ignorant. I've disagreed with almost every claim of imbalance you've made yet I'm certain I could have made better arguments for them.

All of this, however, is only tangentially related to the thread so I'll leave you to maybe figure out the rest.

[Finear]

Personally, I'm starting to develop a huge social stigma for Centaur pickers. I have to wonder how many of them are picking him because they know he's stupid as hell right now. Anyone who knowingly picks a broken hero just so they can win deserves all the disdain the world has to offer.

why?
stomping is as fun as even games for me

[Lysah]

why?
stomping is as fun as even games for me

Meh...I find the mast majority of games are boring for one reason or another. Either your team loses so bad you spend 20 minutes running circles around your final tier towers because they have control over both jungles and you have no outside towers left to defend or you win so hard the game is over in 20 minutes and the enemy team is running circles around their final tier towers while you kill an undefended base, basically playing the game by yourself.

The alternatives are close games, the ones you win in which you had to try way too damn hard and go 13-2-26 as Tiny and still barely manage to pull off a win which just leaves you pissed off that your teammates were so bad they almost cost you what should've been an easy game, or the ones you lose in which you're doing everything you can do, maybe you kill 4 of them in a team fight but 3 of them buy back and push down your rax while your team doesn't have the gold to buyback to defend so you lose the game because you won the team fight (I actually had a game where we had lost a lane but had wiped their team and had 2 people left pushing a different lane to even the score and maybe even throne it, until all 5 of them bought back, sold their items for BoT and teleport to our base and destroyed the tree - talk about rage).

Very rarely is a game legitimately fair without feeders/horribly outmatched players on one team or the other and therefore fun to win or lose. I don't enjoy stomps at all and will quit after two of them in a row just like I will quit after being stomped twice in a row. If I wanted 20-0 wins I would just go play bots.

[PizzaSHARK]

why?
stomping is as fun as even games for me

The first time, sure. But when you're in the third game in a row where your team is up 20-4 with all outer towers down and it's not even 20 minutes in... it gets a little boring. There's no challenge, you know? Happens a lot when we stack up, I think because as bad as me and my buddy's MMR is, my buddy's buddies' MMR is even worse, so it pairs us with people at their level more often than not.

---------- Post added 2012-10-30 at 04:52 AM ----------

Very rarely is a game legitimately fair without feeders/horribly outmatched players on one team or the other and therefore fun to win or lose. I don't enjoy stomps at all and will quit after two of them in a row just like I will quit after being stomped twice in a row. If I wanted 20-0 wins I would just go play bots.

Those games are as rare as diamonds, but they're worth it. Had an almost 70 minute game we lost today... I think we lost mostly because our entire team played poorly, but it was a pretty close game for the most part, we did smoke ganks and everything. But most games tend to be fairly lopsided one way or the other. I'm sad to hear that's the case even at high MMR... I was hoping that as my MMR gets higher I'd have more even games than uneven games.

[Jangri-]

Meh...I find the mast majority of games are boring for one reason or another.

Not to sound cliche here, but maybe it's time to take a break?

[Hermanni]

Stomping isn't really fun to me when you're just clearly outmatching your opponents. However it's not always black and white that because you stomp a team it's only because you outskill them heavily - evenly matched games can turn into a stomps when you start snowballing and instead of pulling it together and attempting some kind of recovery you enemy lapse into a state where they spend their time raging at each other and neglect to play as a team. When queuing with friends I've sometimes ended up getting stomped by another group and then proceeded to stomp them just as hard in the next game.

I made an alt account to play with some friends who are almost or completely new to the genre to avoid pulling them too high up the matchmaking - let's just say I feel rather bad for doing it, but at least they learn better than they would if they got killed 15 times in first 10 minutes and constantly raged at by random teammates. But hey, "matchmaking doesn't work" so maybe the games would have been the same on my main account, right?

[juzalol]

I'm not sure if it's intended but the centaur ulti also seems to affect Chen creeps. Just the creeps alone
can easily gank people when they rush in with 522 movespeed and stun on impact.

Surely it's a minor thing when compared to other stuff that makes centaur super strong, but I found it funny
to be able to solo gank people with couple stunner creeps while having myself on a lane.

[Jinto]

Your post is hilarious...
pro tip: the burst that makes Trax a easy target is magical

No one is arguing late game potential of those two heroes btw.

Please think before you post. Invoker and Drow has identical base strength and strength gain. Drow has more armor. So at worst nuked from 100 to 0 they are the same. Realistically you would have auto attack damage which is mitigated by armor. Now back to the hilarious part