[Megathread] DotA 2

[Deleted]

So since Tinker got changed i decided to change up my item and skill build (dagon never really worked for me anyway). I've found going blink into aghs is pretty effective for the first 30 minutes while i farm up hex and shiva.

I'm not sure if it was just because the people i was against were not very good or what but it seems to work pretty well i guess.

I usually played laser / rockets tinker anyways, so not much changed for me regarding the tinker nerfs. Maybe the urn cancelling blink dagger nerf hurt my tinker the most. I keep going for the bottle - BoTs - soul ring - blink dagger - dagon and ghost scepter / ethereal somewhere along the way, it still worked for me without any real difference. Granted, I've played only around 3 tinker games since the patch hit.

I'd ask about how to improve my laning however I get the feeling its not a straight forward answer.

I mean I do find myself in the odd game where a lane just feels outright lost, where it feels like getting a kill is nigh impossible and getting last hits is going to net you getting smacked by the enemy. Or when I'm a support and it just feels like the enemy has far greater poke.

So I'm obviously doing something wrong.

What really helps is what Ariadne said - try to play 1v1 mid matchups. They might be a bit different from what you encounter on other lanes (mostly different heroes), but it teaches you the basics of controlling lane, harass, last hits, denies and survivability. What I would add is when you go safe lane again try to stick to few heroes at a time, find what works for you. I for example love supporting with CM, Lina or venom (and I hate treant, omni and shadow demon) just because I love to be active on lane and harass the hell out of enemy and/or am also quite effective at early rotations. It also helps to know how aggressive can you be, if you can afford to trade blows with certain hero, how much mana can you count on, how strong your attacks are etc. When laning against solo offlaner try to be aggresive, don't let him earn xp or even worse LH and denies when you are 2v1 on lane and you can force him behind tower. Learn how to control the lane using passive last hits (deny as soon as you can), but not in situations when enemy creeps would get under your tower (that repushes the lane back). Learn when to pull creeps, when your hero needs to tank the enemy creep wave under tower, it's bad and many active players can exploit that. If you are not going to push with double creep wave, first stack and then pull or pull two camps at once. All of these things are small, but they make the difference between average and great lane support.

Other than that, it highly depends on the actual game. Some lanes are really hard to win and you can't do much about that with individual skill.
How can you resolve that is:
- abandon the lane and let one hero alone leech xp and farm woods or rotate. This leaves the laner more vulnerable and won't probably get much farm, you might get something off woods or successfully gank which may in the end offset the loss from the lane.
- change up the lanes. Let that durable offlaner handle it and move your carry to offlane where he may get some farm. Let carry go mid and the mid player with levels safe lane when he already has his basic items and levels. Good luck forcing people to do this on pubs though.
- call for gank. Really, if you are losing lane hard, people from your team should rotate and help, be it ganks from mid player or tp reactions.
- start to 5 man. Easier said than done as well.
More or less in situations where you are losing the lane be it by your mistakes, hero disadvantage or skill difference, you need to play as a team and try to make up for it. What you shouldn't do is return to the lane at all costs when you just get farmed there.

[Jester Joe]

http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/1394

I love how Invoker is used for this. Although reading some of the posts sometimes here makes me think I should just stick to playing how I am rather than seeking to improve, so much work it's rather impressive...but on the other hand, Rubick too fun.

Also I hope no one takes offense to that like it's being pointed at them, it's meant for an all around laugh.

[veiledy0]

I love how Invoker is used for this.

His narcissistic behaviour is the #1 reason he's my favourite hero

[PizzaSHARK]

Every game I get when solo queue is this, I don't even pick and the team is already flaming about that we don't have sky void razor and shit

Razor should be first ban, hero is way too overpowered and shuts down too many playstyles and heroes to be allowed through. I'm honestly amazed he didn't get nerfed in 6.82, as popular as he was during TI4.

Probably the only annoying thing are people that try to get captain that don't know crap about drafting. It's not very fun to be stuck in a 30+ minute game when you're playing from behind before creeps even spawn.

[Deleted]

Razor should be first ban, hero is way too overpowered and shuts down too many playstyles and heroes to be allowed through. I'm honestly amazed he didn't get nerfed in 6.82, as popular as he was during TI4.

Probably the only annoying thing are people that try to get captain that don't know crap about drafting. It's not very fun to be stuck in a 30+ minute game when you're playing from behind before creeps even spawn.

If I remember correctly, at day 1 group stages he had around (give or take few %) 75% winrate when on day 2 he has fallen to under 40%, so he is probably not as dramatic. Not to mention with deathball falling out after the new patch, his aghs refresher probably won't be as sought out as it was.

[PizzaSHARK]

If I remember correctly, at day 1 group stages he had around (give or take few %) 75% winrate when on day 2 he has fallen to under 40%, so he is probably not as dramatic. Not to mention with deathball falling out after the new patch, his aghs refresher probably won't be as sought out as it was.

I don't think he was ever picked solely because of deathblob. He dominates his lane and his passive virtually guarantees you can never just casually harass him; a purge that lasts TWO SECONDS, does a little damage, is a purge, and it's completely passive with no cooldown? It's ridiculous. It's why I consider him overpowered, not his other skills. His passive is just way too good.

Dragon's ascension set for DK is insane. Looks great, especially like how the artist uses little armor plates to cover spots on the legs that wouldn't otherwise match the rest of the set.

[minteK917]

http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/1394

I love how Invoker is used for this.

Because he is first in everything!

[EqualWin]

I can't believe how fun drow is.. have a good lane -> rekt every1/rat. bad lane get 6 afk farm jungle -> rekt every1/rat

[PizzaSHARK]

Drow's a hero that's been really undervalued for a long time, maybe because blink dagger meta was so dominant in TI4, and that's one of the few things that she can have issues dealing with.

Gust is just batty mcfucknuggets levels of godly, she has tons of damage and IAS (that also scales with things like Vlad aura, DD runes, etc) as long as no one's in touching distance of her, and Frost Arrows... effectively permanent 60% slow, jeez.

Drow+Repel is pretty hard to deal with early on for most teams that aren't expecting it and drafting accordingly.

[EqualWin]

treads midas blink yasha crit mom yolo



picked QoP we were getting rekt early game but some how I ended out carrying a luna, I even had more gpm.. and I have half of her cs rofl. comeback gold boys

[PizzaSHARK]

I definitely would like to see more qop, but I'm just not sure if she's as good as chickenmage if you want a solo mid lane bully/ganker. I guess if qop knows how to maximize windows to get some farm in between ganks she'd come out ahead.

[Deleted]

Drow's a hero that's been really undervalued for a long time, maybe because blink dagger meta was so dominant in TI4, and that's one of the few things that she can have issues dealing with.

Gust is just batty mcfucknuggets levels of godly, she has tons of damage and IAS (that also scales with things like Vlad aura, DD runes, etc) as long as no one's in touching distance of her, and Frost Arrows... effectively permanent 60% slow, jeez.

Drow+Repel is pretty hard to deal with early on for most teams that aren't expecting it and drafting accordingly.

Drow is powerful if left alone.....and brings ungodly levels of dmg to the team.

But can be shut down easily. All you need is to initiate on her with a durable melee hero and she is totally negated and squishy as hell.

If you team can protect you and your positioning is good then drow is great, if not you are easy kills to a ganker.

Which I why, like sniper, I dont like drow in pugs, but she can shine in organised teams.

[PizzaSHARK]

Spacecow and balanar are the only real concerns I'd have with a Drow or Sniper pick, especially now that Crimson Guard is in the game (logical progression for both heroes out of Vanguard), but I'm not sure if spacecow is even playable anymore and people still haven't figured out how to lane balanar yet (protip: fucking duo lanes.) Slardar could be another major problem (hard to kite, often gets blinker.)

Omni and Abba are really good at shoring up weaknesses for both Drow and Sniper. Repel makes you immune to most control effects and nukes, so nothing's stopping you from just walking away from enemy heroes, while aphotic shield will remove slows/stuns etc that prevent you from running away and blocks a bit of damage. Could maybe use LC for that role, too, but she's not ideal for it.

But yeah, I wouldn't pick Drow or Sniper unless you can run them in MoM yolomode, might as well pick a different hero if that's the case... MoM is so ridiculously good on them and plays to their strengths, but if you're worried about a blinking Lion zapping you for 5000 damage you might want to reconsider the Drow/Sniper pick.

[Lysah]

I love how you go blink dagger on Drow because everyone else goes blink dagger to kill you. Solution to blink dagger being ridiculous? MORE BLINK DAGGERS

When it isn't uncommon for 6+ people a game to have blink I think something needs to be done. The mana cost removal was a good change, I still think, but the cooldown needs to be a lot longer.

Also Omni was broken 5 years ago and got buffed ten times since then, wonder when people will start playing him. His aura is just beyond the levels of fair play now. Not sure why you think Razor is so good when Omni could dance circles around him and permanently cut his movespeed down to 250 without using any spells.

[Deleted]

IAlso Omni was broken 5 years ago and got buffed ten times since then, wonder when people will start playing him. His aura is just beyond the levels of fair play now. Not sure why you think Razor is so good when Omni could dance circles around him and permanently cut his movespeed down to 250 without using any spells.

I think Razor just thanks the Omni for the free damage while his ultimate is killing Omniknight unless Omni wants to use both Repel and Guardian on himself all to just slow down the Razor a bit.

[EqualWin]

I love how you go blink dagger on Drow because everyone else goes blink dagger to kill you. Solution to blink dagger being ridiculous? MORE BLINK DAGGERS

When it isn't uncommon for 6+ people a game to have blink I think something needs to be done. The mana cost removal was a good change, I still think, but the cooldown needs to be a lot longer.

Also Omni was broken 5 years ago and got buffed ten times since then, wonder when people will start playing him. His aura is just beyond the levels of fair play now. Not sure why you think Razor is so good when Omni could dance circles around him and permanently cut his movespeed down to 250 without using any spells.

you either go blink/force or rambo mode with bkb mom her silence is really strong. Also blink and force staff always will be too good, you can't remove it or nerf, many heroes need it and its fun I hope they dont nerf them.


omni is good but a single difusal pretty much counters him..

- - - Updated - - -

also sf boots->bottle->aquila->treads->mek->blink->skady/bfury/bkb 2 strong lmao i'm not any good but my 2 last game as sf mid i was able to carry the game easy xD

[veiledy0]

I'd much rather buy Force Staff than Blink on Drow. Force Staff will literally enable your ultimate every single time. Always. But most of the time neither are really necessary. Casual Yasha will make you outrun everyone, and speeds up your farm more than both. Plus if you get Yasha first you don't need lifesteal early, because you kill jungle creeps so fast that they don't get to hit you at all, and if someone tries to gank you alone you can turn it around with Gust and run him down. Yasha's MS is really godlike on Drow/Luna.

[Drunkenvalley]

How do you deal with matches like this? :/

Felt like such a trainwreck, but we scraped together the beef to kick back until Lifestealer began to get into things more...

[Longview]

How do you deal with matches like this? :/

Felt like such a trainwreck, but we scraped together the beef to kick back until Lifestealer began to get into things more...

you need more crowd control to win pubs

[PizzaSHARK]

omni is good but a single difusal pretty much counters him..

It really doesn't. It just makes Repel balanced instead of gamebreakingly overpowered. Until someone on your team wastes 3800 gold on Diffusal Blade, enemy carry gets a free 12 second BKB. By time you get the Diffusal Blade... well, they probably have a real BKB by now, except they don't have to waste their early charges on unimportant things, because they have Repel for that.

It's also worth noting that most heroes that want Diffusal Blade want it so they can purge their target so they can keep pounding on them - old PL, Riki, Spectre, etc. Now it's either purge the Repel/GA off someone your team needs to focus/interrupt, or purge your target. There's a cooldown on the purge, so you can't do both.

You also can't reload diffusal blade. You get 16 total charges across both versions and can't refresh it - you'll have to build and buy a completely new one.

Best solution to enemy Omni is Rubick, SD, or Panda. Rubick with Agh's looooooooooves Omni. Or just ban Omni since, once you know how he works, you can probably see an Omni-centric lineup coming a mile away (and you can't draft Omni early because he'll get counterpicked.)