[Megathread] DotA 2

[PizzaSHARK]

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.

I believe it's intentional. I know that Drow's aura affects things like Visage's familiars. Almost makes them worth using!

[Hermanni]

I know that Drow's aura affects things like Visage's familiars. Almost makes them worth using!

Familiars not worth using? I've heard this one before, and it was a stupid thing to say even then. Guess you didn't learn anything.

[Finear]

Almost makes them worth using!

l2micro...
there is huge potential in familiars you just need to know how to use them
global ganks
rune control
chasing

[PizzaSHARK]

l2micro...
there is huge potential in familiars you just need to know how to use them
global ganks
rune control
chasing

And they're terrible at all of that relative to any other hero that uses summons extensively. They aren't useless, but they're pretty awful compared to literally every other summon except maybe warlock's golem.

[Lysah]

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

I tell myself that every day, but inevitably I log back in. Actually PLAYING the game is very fun, controlling your hero and farming gold and getting strong and feeling good. It's the team play and the meta game that gets old fast, for me. I still have fun omnislashing people. Mostly I consider the MMR system very broken, still.

@Manni
Stomping players you know are good can be fun, but even then it's over so fast that it's over so fast. I was 2 man queueing with my most common mate and we got queued against a guy we recognized from DotA1 public leagues, he had something like 96% wins over 1400 games in the league we played in at the time. He always team stacked and was just pub stomping but hey, still a good player. The first game was pretty close and we managed to win, so when we got them AGAIN the next game we decided just to screw around and 5 man ganked their carry/leader mid at level 1. Ended up going top and killing wolf in the jungle and I was something like 9-0-6 as Jugg in the first 8 minutes of the game. They ended up pulling their entire team top lane to try to stop us but we just killed them over and over because the game had already gotten out of hand at that point. One of the most funny games I've ever played, smashing players I know are fantastic in a way I haven't smashed anyone in a long time, but alas, they forfeited at like 14 minutes and that was the end of the fun =p

[Finear]

And they're terrible at all of that relative to any other hero that uses summons extensively.

>flying units
>3s stun (4.5 with agha)

[Lysah]

EG.Maelk just went lothar's gyro against me.

Soon everyone will be buying it and I will have to start arguing it's a bad item! If a pro player does it it must be okay, I think we can all safely agree that Lothar's gyro is the new best build.

Edit:
And they seriously just made a halloween mini game for DotA2. Time to take a break.

[PizzaSHARK]

>flying units
>3s stun (4.5 with agha)

>fragile
>high bounty
>slow
>neutral creeps are automatically hostile
>low DPS
>long cooldown on stun
>stun pulls double duty as heal
>long resummon time
>tiny attack range
>tiny sight range

It all combines to result in familiars that require an enormous amount of micro for considerably less gain than pretty much all other controlled units. They don't provide auras, they can't tank for creeps or heroes, their DPS is awful outside their first few shots, they're effectively melee and blind, they're worth considerably more gold than any other summoned unit, they're incredibly fragile, and neutral creeps will automatically aggro them. Their stun is great, but it has a pretty long cast time and it pulls double duty as the only way to heal them, and it has a fairly long cooldown.

It wouldn't be an issue, but Visage himself requires a lot of micro because his role is to hover around in teamfights while popping off his skills as often as possible. His passive makes him virtually impossible to burst down, but it's useless against any kind of sustained attack, so you can't just attack-move him in or he'll get shit on. He requires constant supervision and micromanagement to stay in range of all his spells but out of easy attack range for the enemy because Visage is going to be a priority target if they have any sort of idea of his capabilities if allowed to hang out in a fight like he wants to (he's like Dirge in that respect.)

Familiars aren't like other summons. You can't just right-click them on something and let them be like Lycan's wolves, and while they're considerably easier to position than Chen/Enchantress creeps, they're also a hell of a lot more fragile. Because they're flying, they can't be used to bodyblock (which is a major thing other summons can do), and because neutral creeps just seem to hate them, you have to be really careful about how you're flying them from place to place unless you want them to get there at half health - again, this goes back to the "requires way more micro than other summons," thing.

They're also effectively melee range and have virtually no vision radius. You can't use them for scouting and just flying them around in the enemy jungle blind (hah!) is usually a really great way to feed the enemy 100-200 gold. Level 6 summons can be instantly killed by Tinker, Bane, or Omniknight (all can do 300+ pure damage) and all familiars at all levels can only soak a few hits from even supports; carries can probably kill them in one or two. That's obviously a problem for any summoned unit, but familiars reward considerably more bounty than any other except warlock golem, even the biggest Chen/Enchantress creeps are only worth about 75-85 gold and they're a hell of a lot tankier to compensate. And warlock's golem has at minimum three times the HP and five times the armor of a familiar, and warlock scepter upgrade reduces the bounty.

[08nolanni]

Hi guys,

Are there still people in this thread giving away keys ?

One can only play dota 1 so long lol. The new updates are lots of fun though.

Thanks!

[Hermanni]

They aren't useless,

Then why would you call them useless?

You yourself admit Familiars aren't like other summons, so why compare them to to Alpha Wolves instead of looking at their strenghts? And they barely require more micro than Necronomicon summons - Because they don't expire, a lot of the time you can just hide them where you think you will need them until you need them and leave your enemy guessing which lane they're at, and in combat they only require a few actions to do their job.

However there's plenty of things you can do with familiars that you can't do with any other unit in the game. Can you send Alpha Wolves from offlane to your mid or safe lane to offer decent protection against ganks without your enemy knowing it? How many other units give you teamfight presence across the map? How many summons fly, allowing you to anti-juke or flank enemies in teamfights or be hidden in a bunch of trees?

Familiars aren't for pushing or farming, they're about burst damage and their stun. You call their "dps" low, but with their 0.4 second BAT, 2 level 1 familiars together dish out 500 physical damage in roughly 2 seconds after which they're worth 150 more damage over the next 2 seconds and/or another 120 magic damage and two stuns. Familiars have easy time sticking to a target slowed by Grace Chill or any other disable, are phenomenal for ganking and they're what allows Visage to pretty effortlessly take down a lot of heroes solo as they're guaranteed to generate you full stacks of Soul Assumption in a blink of an eye. Not to mention that if you're not rushing to throw them away, you can actually resummon Familiars in an important teamfight for refreshed damage stacks and new stuns.

Familiars can be killed with some focused attacks or a few abilities, but in the context of a teamfight they still help your cause. Enemies focusing your familiars aren't focusing on your heroes, and a Laser used to shoot one down isn't used to shoot a hero on your side. Either situation can help you win a teamfight unless you were a tool and flew them in before either team had initiated. The only situation in which Familiars should be "free kills" is when you lost a team fight and your enemy can sit around and wait for Stone Forms to expire, but even then if you head straight for trees it's very probable you can save one or both of them.

If you're still having hard time conceptualizing the utility of Familiars, think of them as a global flying Laguna Blade + LSA.

@Lysah Pretty sure Black^ went SB on Gyro in WB finals in Starladder LAN finals against Na´Vi. The Halloween map is alright but I'm going to be missed if this means +1 week on waiting for Gorgon. Which it probably does.

[Lysah]

Free items man =p
Mythical panda weapon rare morph hat and some other garbage so far. Good enough for me.

Anyway, familiars are bad because flak cannon immediately counters them. You pick visage they pick gyro and it's already 4v5. I just can't get over it, I won a game as gyro because enemy visage went scepter. The gold I got from him was obscene, I think he fed me over 2000g through the course of the game.

[Hermanni]

Yeah, Flak Cannon and Tidebringer (and maybe BB) do counter them pretty hard. It would obviously still be possible to wait for FC to expire before sending them in or hunting for supports are the side of the fight, but when a lot of people play like that guy it's not very amazing that people seem to think Visage is a bad hero.

[Lysah]

Yeah it wasn't a great game. Oh look, Visage ulted again, +300g.

Personally, I think they should be changed to be a /attacks health bar similar to snowball rocket or supernova. 4 attacks or something so they can't die to incidental AoE, spells like laser, or people with 600 damage. That would make them easier for supports to kill and harder for carries, and it would make Visage a top pick.

[PizzaSHARK]

Then why would you call them useless?

You yourself admit Familiars aren't like other summons, so why compare them to to Alpha Wolves instead of looking at their strenghts? And they barely require more micro than Necronomicon summons - Because they don't expire, a lot of the time you can just hide them where you think you will need them until you need them and leave your enemy guessing which lane they're at, and in combat they only require a few actions to do their job.

All of which require timing and positioning, and hiding them in trees doesn't work if the enemy knows how Visage works. Hell, just buying a quelling blade (or having anyone with tree-destroying spells) can pretty much eliminate the majority of safe hiding spots for them.

However there's plenty of things you can do with familiars that you can't do with any other unit in the game. Can you send Alpha Wolves from offlane to your mid or safe lane to offer decent protection against ganks without your enemy knowing it? How many other units give you teamfight presence across the map? How many summons fly, allowing you to anti-juke or flank enemies in teamfights or be hidden in a bunch of trees?

Flying is a double edged sword because it means you can't bodyblock, which is fairly significant. Granted you can drop a stun on someone, but that's got a cooldown and in almost all cases they don't move fast enough to outrun someone and then drop a stun on them. Using familiars to counter juking is questionable because their vision radius is extremely small. To effectively counter juking they would need to be following the target to begin with.

Familiars aren't for pushing or farming, they're about burst damage and their stun. You call their "dps" low, but with their 0.4 second BAT, 2 level 1 familiars together dish out 500 physical damage in roughly 2 seconds after which they're worth 150 more damage over the next 2 seconds and/or another 120 magic damage and two stuns. Familiars have easy time sticking to a target slowed by Grace Chill or any other disable, are phenomenal for ganking and they're what allows Visage to pretty effortlessly take down a lot of heroes solo as they're guaranteed to generate you full stacks of Soul Assumption in a blink of an eye. Not to mention that if you're not rushing to throw them away, you can actually resummon Familiars in an important teamfight for refreshed damage stacks and new stuns.

The only impressive damage I've ever seen out of familiars is due to Drow aura, which I doubt will ever make it into Captains Mode. Their burst potential is impressive, but they're so fragile it's like saying Dirge's zombies do a ton of damage as long as people don't attack the Tombstone.

Familiars can be killed with some focused attacks or a few abilities, but in the context of a teamfight they still help your cause. Enemies focusing your familiars aren't focusing on your heroes, and a Laser used to shoot one down isn't used to shoot a hero on your side. Either situation can help you win a teamfight unless you were a tool and flew them in before either team had initiated. The only situation in which Familiars should be "free kills" is when you lost a team fight and your enemy can sit around and wait for Stone Forms to expire, but even then if you head straight for trees it's very probable you can save one or both of them.

Yeah, I wouldn't expect Tinker to blast a familiar in a teamfight, but if they know where the familiars are cooping it's not hard to ambush them. Omniknight will almost certainly kill one or both of them without even trying since being close enough to attack/stun means they're easily inside Purification's blast zone. Come to think of it, Omniknight in general seems like he'd be a strong pick against Visage since Repel blocks both Grave Chill and Soul Assumption and his ulti and heal either negate or outright kill the familiars.

Yeah it wasn't a great game. Oh look, Visage ulted again, +300g.

Personally, I think they should be changed to be a /attacks health bar similar to snowball rocket or supernova. 4 attacks or something so they can't die to incidental AoE, spells like laser, or people with 600 damage. That would make them easier for supports to kill and harder for carries, and it would make Visage a top pick.

Interesting concept, though I'd guess that'd still make them really fragile against heroes with high attack speeds. How would it handle creeps attacking them?

The only change I really think they need right away is to have fucking neutral creeps stop randomly taking a shot at them as they fly by. Crossing the map with them safely is a real chore.

[Kuntantee]

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

No1 said they have different hp clever guy I just said armor means no shit because nuke comes from magical damage at early game where draw is easy target.

You can't even understand the discussion and form a good answer...An ability that most users/players lack in mmo-c thesedays. I'm done with Trax discussion.

[PizzaSHARK]

No1 said they have different hp clever guy I just said armor means no shit because nuke comes from magical damage at early game where draw is easy target.

You can't even understand the discussion and form a good answer...An ability that most users/players lack in mmo-c thesedays. I'm done with Trax discussion.

Invoker and Drow have pretty similar STR; 19+1.7 versus 17+1.9. Invoker might have a slight edge if he's stacking Quas but Drow will usually buy Wraith Bands for stats which will also pretty much even them out again.

They're both really vulnerable to ganks, especially while Invoker's still low level and doesn't have many spells on hand at any given time.

[Lysah]

Interesting concept, though I'd guess that'd still make them really fragile against heroes with high attack speeds. How would it handle creeps attacking them?

Good point, though I don't see why creeps need the ability to attack them at all. As usual, they could just make it so that creeps do 1/4 of an attack or something.

[Hermanni]

All of which require timing and positioning, and hiding them in trees doesn't work if the enemy knows how Visage works. Hell, just buying a quelling blade (or having anyone with tree-destroying spells) can pretty much eliminate the majority of safe hiding spots for them.

Nope, because spotting familiars in the treelines on the sides of sidelanes is next to impossible without flying vision, and in mid it's easy to hide them in the major tree formations or the ancient areas. In general as long as you know the rough positioning of your enemy, it's very hard for them to even know where your familiars are.

Flying is a double edged sword because it means you can't bodyblock, which is fairly significant. Granted you can drop a stun on someone, but that's got a cooldown and in almost all cases they don't move fast enough to outrun someone and then drop a stun on them. Using familiars to counter juking is questionable because their vision radius is extremely small. To effectively counter juking they would need to be following the target to begin with.

And the other side is that you can't get body blocked by your familiars. Stunning around Visage is easy considering you have Grave Chill, and any snare or stun from a teammate makes it easy for you to chain the familiar stuns. Even without external CC, however, Familiars do actually outrun most heroes and because they fly you can cut them off over trees and cliffs. Juking is mostly a thing you do to escape so it would be pretty safe to assume you've got familiars following them to begin with whenever possible.

The only impressive damage I've ever seen out of familiars is due to Drow aura, which I doubt will ever make it into Captains Mode. Their burst potential is impressive, but they're so fragile it's like saying Dirge's zombies do a ton of damage as long as people don't attack the Tombstone.

Then you haven't been paying attention. Unlike Tombstone, Familiars don't even need to survive for long because they do 80% of their damage in the first 2.4 seconds after which you're virtually free to Stone Form them. 500 physical damage in 2 seconds is a lot at level 6.

Yeah, I wouldn't expect Tinker to blast a familiar in a teamfight, but if they know where the familiars are cooping it's not hard to ambush them. Omniknight will almost certainly kill one or both of them without even trying since being close enough to attack/stun means they're easily inside Purification's blast zone. Come to think of it, Omniknight in general seems like he'd be a strong pick against Visage since Repel blocks both Grave Chill and Soul Assumption and his ulti and heal either negate or outright kill the familiars.

Yes, there's counters to everything, but again a good Visage player wouldn't just fly them on top of someone when Omniknight is near or hasn't used his heal.

The only change I really think they need right away is to have fucking neutral creeps stop randomly taking a shot at them as they fly by. Crossing the map with them safely is a real chore.

One word: waypoints. Might slow you down but it's safer and not difficult. Same goes to courier usage, I've seen too many guys send a walking courier through the woods to its death because waypointing it through the lane is apparently too hard.

[Jinto]

No1 said they have different hp clever guy I just said armor means no shit because nuke comes from magical damage at early game where draw is easy target.

You can't even understand the discussion and form a good answer...An ability that most users/players lack in mmo-c thesedays. I'm done with Trax discussion.

Says the pro Dota player who ganks with only magical damage

btw @PizzaShark good catch on the base str + str gain. I remembered it wrong. Now that would have been a valid point of contention.

[PizzaSHARK]

One word: waypoints. Might slow you down but it's safer and not difficult. Same goes to courier usage, I've seen too many guys send a walking courier through the woods to its death because waypointing it through the lane is apparently too hard.

Yeah. Waypoints work but god help you if you have to make a correction after issuing it because an enemy hero happened to be in the area.