[Megathread] DotA 2

[Deleted]

I think the main issue with audio in DotaTV is that they want to use quite high compression because of replay sizes in addition to what Longview said. When you play in games the voice doesn't get saved to replay anyway so quality can be higher there I think or the servers are less loaded.

[PizzaSHARK]

I think the main issue with audio in DotaTV is that they want to use quite high compression because of replay sizes in addition to what Longview said. When you play in games the voice doesn't get saved to replay anyway so quality can be higher there I think or the servers are less loaded.

It's weird that it almost feels like you're discouraged from buying tickets to tournaments that are covered by the professional streamers, since you can just watch the stream and VODs if you couldn't watch live. Plus for some streams, you're missing out on a lot of other content by only watching DotaTV :-/

[veiledy0]

It's weird that it almost feels like you're discouraged from buying tickets to tournaments that are covered by the professional streamers, since you can just watch the stream and VODs if you couldn't watch live. Plus for some streams, you're missing out on a lot of other content by only watching DotaTV :-/

I think the only reason to buy a tournament ticket would be to watch from player perspective.

[Deleted]

So, uh, I'll admit to thinking the Necro last pick by Secret against Na'Vi made no sense when Tiny and other heroes commonly paired with their first-pick Io went unbanned.

And then Necro + Io just started walking at bitches. How exactly is Necro + Io balanced, exactly? How the fuck do you deal with a 500 HP heal whenever Io is tethered to him on basically no CD?

I sure as shit don't know.

[Deleted]

So, uh, I'll admit to thinking the Necro last pick by Secret against Na'Vi made no sense when Tiny and other heroes commonly paired with their first-pick Io went unbanned.

And then Necro + Io just started walking at bitches. How exactly is Necro + Io balanced, exactly? How the fuck do you deal with a 500 HP heal whenever Io is tethered to him on basically no CD?

I sure as shit don't know.

That game was hilarious. I'm very impressed whenever N0tail plays wisp, I would never guess and I have never seen it in pub games for it to work so well in so many lane combos, but this game was just beyond awesome.

[Deleted]

So, uh, I'll admit to thinking the Necro last pick by Secret against Na'Vi made no sense when Tiny and other heroes commonly paired with their first-pick Io went unbanned.

And then Necro + Io just started walking at bitches. How exactly is Necro + Io balanced, exactly? How the fuck do you deal with a 500 HP heal whenever Io is tethered to him on basically no CD?

I sure as shit don't know.

Burst the Wisp first

After giving up that triple at bot they couldn't really but before that they tried taking down Kuro and n0tail just tanked Dark Pact with him to get low then they both popped wands + Death Pulse

Kuro played necro to an extreme level, no fear due to a farmed Wisp backing him up, I thought they might have thrown diving towers at some points but Wisp always survived with virtually no hp lol

[EqualWin]

well Necro destroy trilanes, wisp + necro is even worse.. Wisp is killeable but not when the'yre snow balling, navi got outplayed.




today's a good day, a lot of matches team tinker vs team secret and eg vs na'vi (if navi win their next game).

[Omertocracy]

Burst the Wisp first

They tried that a couple times. Ended with a dead wisp for an ultra kill on necro. #worth

[Deleted]

!Attacker's Kunkka, boys: http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/983486780

Can't deny that he is good on that hero though I made some crucial mistakes that game that stopped me from carrying my team.

[Jester Joe]

!Attacker's Kunkka, boys: http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/983486780

Can't deny that he is good on that hero though I made some crucial mistakes that game that stopped me from carrying my team.

Were you the Storm Spirit? Freaking 32 kills though.
The risky double Divine though on their team. That must of been a fun match.

[Deleted]

Were you the Storm Spirit? Freaking 32 kills though.
The risky double Divine though on their team. That must of been a fun match.

Yeap. I bought one of them and lost it.

[Jester Joe]

Yeap. I bought one of them and lost it.

Ah I see. 32 kills though, most my matches only get like, 12. Even 16 is rare to see lol

[Deleted]

Mason said it once in some interview don't delay your Orchid timing on Storm if you're close. Just farm it. I made the mistake not to that game. Lesson learned.

[veiledy0]

Should've changed the account name to !Defender for that game

[PizzaSHARK]

Has anyone mentioned Ogre Magi lately? Such a great example of why balancing exclusively around the pro meta is a bad idea. Look at this guy, it's ridiculous.

7 base armor, 600 base HP, fucking 2.5/sec base HP regen, mana cost on upgraded Fireblast reduced significantly, base cast time significantly reduced. Dude was good like five patches ago, but wasn't picked because he was "risky." Like PA is "risky", amiright? Funny thing is, he's being picked often enough now - 5th most-picked in 6.82(all) according to datdota. Multicast received a ridiculously huge buff in 6.82, bringing 2x cast up to 40/50/60 percent from 25/40/50, but I'm not convinced it made OM go from "too risky" to "godlike." More like "pretty good" to "too good."

Something else to consider about this guy:

Ignite's 400 lethal damage (no deny) and 26% slow on affected units, cast at 700/850/1000/1150 range, with 0/150/300/450 AOE. Short cooldown and very low mana cost relative to similar spells. If you proc a multicast on Ignite (very common now), you can easily carpet an entire team and their creeps in Ignite. Add in a Veil and that's 500 damage plus the slow.

For context, KotL has to channel Illuminate for 5 fucking seconds to get that much damage, in a narrower angle and it basically requires people to either be standing still or not paying attention. And it doesn't slow. And it costs a lot more mana.


But, no, they're definitely doing a great job balancing the game. We'll ignore PA for the time being, that could be like another ten posts about how much bullshit that hero has become due to rampant unnecessary buffing.

[Deleted]

Something else to consider about this guy:

Ignite's 400 lethal damage (no deny) and 26% slow on affected units, cast at 700/850/1000/1150 range, with 0/150/300/450 AOE. Short cooldown and very low mana cost relative to similar spells. If you proc a multicast on Ignite (very common now), you can easily carpet an entire team and their creeps in Ignite. Add in a Veil and that's 500 damage plus the slow.

For context, KotL has to channel Illuminate for 5 fucking seconds to get that much damage, in a narrower angle and it basically requires people to either be standing still or not paying attention. And it doesn't slow. And it costs a lot more mana.


But, no, they're definitely doing a great job balancing the game. We'll ignore PA for the time being, that could be like another ten posts about how much bullshit that hero has become due to rampant unnecessary buffing.

How can you say it has 1150 range when it has still 700 and 450 aoe on level 16, so you need to be still pretty close to cast it, only the aoe hits further away. Way to twist the facts.

Difference between illuminate and ingite is range, that the damage is instant, that you can cancel it early and that they don't even have to see you channeling. If you stand in front of your enemies and start to illuminate, you are doing it wrong. Not to mention ignite can be disjointed and dispelled. The higher mana cost is all about balance - with chakra magic, Kotl doesn't really have mana issues like that, it's the same reason why frost blast from lich costs shitload of mana while being nothing special - because he has sacrifice. Comparing two skills without any context of the hero is almost always stupid. Take tiny for example - his stun has mediocre damage, bad animation, short stun and long cooldown. Lion is in all ways superior. But take toss bonus damage into account and the fact he can one shot heroes on level 4 and you will get different story.

Not to mention Kotl fulfills a bit different role in a team.

[PizzaSHARK]

How can you say it has 1150 range when it has still 700 and 450 aoe on level 16, so you need to be still pretty close to cast it, only the aoe hits further away. Way to twist the facts.

Multicast increases Ignite cast range by 150 per level and adds +150 AOE to the effect per level. It's 1150 cast range and 450 AOE at lvl 16.

Comparing two skills without any context of the hero is almost always stupid.

Bullshit. You can't directly compare the two, but you can contrast similar abilities across similar heroes and compare their relative power together - it's called gameplay balance. KotL and OM don't necessarily fill the same role, but there is certainly overlap between the two: they're both often run as a support, but both can also be run as a core, because both scale reasonably well with items (OM more than kotl) to a point. Both have enormous magic burst as a major feature of theirs. They have as many differences as they have similarities, but there is overlap where they're similar, and that's why you can make a comparison between skills on each hero.

Sure, Illuminate is instant, but Ignite automatically hits the target. How much difference in damage potential would there need to be before you accepted that there might be an issue with Ignite causing so much damage? What if Ignite did 500 damage? 600? 700? What if Illuminate only did 400? Or 300?

What about spells like Crypt Swarm or Dragon Slave? Those two spells have nearly identical function for both heroes, and are almost identical in mechanics as well (I believe Dragon Slave has a slightly higher maximum range, but does a fair bit less damage and I'm pretty sure it's narrower.) Crypt Swarm is pretty much conclusively superior to Dragon Slave when you factor in Witchcraft, but this doesn't mean Death Prophet is overpowered, or that she's flatly better than Lina. I also wasn't making that comparison with OM and KotL.

But I'm pointing out that balancing exclusively around the pro meta, and especially buffing underutilized heroes when they may not actually need buffs (see: Leoric, PA, Sven, many others) instead of simply nerfing heroes that are overperforming and/or are being used far too often results in a ton of power creep and is overall negative for gameplay balance in the long term.

I mean, you'd have to do something like Cata-era Frost Mages to get people to stop playing DotA, but I think they can do a better job of balancing the game while still maintaining the "perfect imbalance" concept.

[Deletedaccount1]

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/982356203

I'm Spectre. The Peruvians told me this game was my fault, was it?

That was Medusa's rapier, I held it for a while and also held the aegis so that is why my inventory might look a little thin.

[Deleted]

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/982356203

I'm Spectre. The Peruvians told me this game was my fault, was it?

That was Medusa's rapier, I held it for a while and also held the aegis so that is why my inventory might look a little thin.

Well, among other things, I'm not sure why you don't have a Diffusal on Spectre against Medusa. There are a few game situations in which Diffusal isn't necessarily a great choice on Spectre, but this absolutely isn't one of them - you needed that Diffusal to deal with Medusa's shield, and you needed it a hell of a lot more than you needed a critstick.

[Deleted]

Multicast increases Ignite cast range by 150 per level and adds +150 AOE to the effect per level. It's 1150 cast range and 450 AOE at lvl 16.

You are right, sorry, missed that somehow.

Bullshit. You can't directly compare the two, but you can contrast similar abilities across similar heroes and compare their relative power together - it's called gameplay balance. KotL and OM don't necessarily fill the same role, but there is certainly overlap between the two: they're both often run as a support, but both can also be run as a core, because both scale reasonably well with items (OM more than kotl) to a point. Both have enormous magic burst as a major feature of theirs. They have as many differences as they have similarities, but there is overlap where they're similar, and that's why you can make a comparison between skills on each hero.

Sure, Illuminate is instant, but Ignite automatically hits the target. How much difference in damage potential would there need to be before you accepted that there might be an issue with Ignite causing so much damage? What if Ignite did 500 damage? 600? 700? What if Illuminate only did 400? Or 300?

What about spells like Crypt Swarm or Dragon Slave? Those two spells have nearly identical function for both heroes, and are almost identical in mechanics as well (I believe Dragon Slave has a slightly higher maximum range, but does a fair bit less damage and I'm pretty sure it's narrower.) Crypt Swarm is pretty much conclusively superior to Dragon Slave when you factor in Witchcraft, but this doesn't mean Death Prophet is overpowered, or that she's flatly better than Lina. I also wasn't making that comparison with OM and KotL.

I actually find the two to be nothing alike. Yes, they are often played it similar roles, but the difference is immense. Kotl seems more of a position 5 lane support who is able to force enemy out, support his carry with mana and if needed stack and farm woods. Doesn't need that many levels or farm either. OM seems more of the ganking position 3-4 hero who needs farm to be useful - you need both levels and gold because of how mana intensive the spells are. I can see OM being played as a core (and EG did this recently), but letting Kotl farm seems like a waste to me.

You say that you can compare two spells by themselves. Ok, let's do that - ignite without multicast does 400 damage on one target, 26% slow and has a duration of 8 seconds with 15 seconds cooldown. Shadow strike from QoP does 425 total damage with 125 being insant and has 50% reducing slow over the duration, 15 second duration and 4 second cooldown and costs less mana. If we take into factor the reducing slow, it averages at 25% over the duration. What the hell, ignite is total shit!

I understand your point with the dragon slave, fair enough, you are right. But that's exactly what you are doing here - you compare spell boosted with level 3 ultimate to a spell you can have at level 7 maxed and say it's OP. It isn't.
For example, you say that ignite has 1150 range, but thats only on level 16 while illuminate has greater range from level one. You can cast very few spells without any items as OM, while Kotl can keep nuking with illuminate and never run out of mana. Ignite doesn't do that much damage on lower levels and you usually want to max out fireblast first, so the earliest you will have it maxed is level 9. It also has a rather long cooldown. By the time the level 3 multicast ignite comes into play, BKBs already come into game and ogre, besides bloodlust, becomes quite irrelevant while Kotl still maintains most of his usefulness.

We could talk about this endlessly, my main point is - Ogre Magi is all about that burst magic damage. If you take that away, little to nothing remains.

But I'm pointing out that balancing exclusively around the pro meta, and especially buffing underutilized heroes when they may not actually need buffs (see: Leoric, PA, Sven, many others) instead of simply nerfing heroes that are overperforming and/or are being used far too often results in a ton of power creep and is overall negative for gameplay balance in the long term.

I mean, you'd have to do something like Cata-era Frost Mages to get people to stop playing DotA, but I think they can do a better job of balancing the game while still maintaining the "perfect imbalance" concept.

I agree with you on that point. But maybe that's what's needed to keep the meta moving. I don't really see much difference between buffing heroes which have not been picked in serious pro game for a year or more and nerfing heroes that are picked / banned every game.