[Megathread] DotA 2

[PizzaSHARK]

What? Gale is dirt cheap harass. 50% slow means that there is no way for a melee to catch up meaning you have free harass during that period which will mean a lot of dmg. Gale + 1 auto attack have eaten refraction.

Gale costs 90 mana per pop and has a long cooldown. You might get an extra couple of autoattacks off, but you're taking damage from creeps, and what happens if TA just Melds? Grats, you did minimal damage in exchange for taking damage from creeps, blowing a crucial cooldown, and maybe setting yourself up to eat a Meld hit, which is gonna do more damage to you than you did to her.

I'd pick Veno as a general counter to TA's Refraction, but I definitely wouldn't lane him against her. Not alone, anyway. You could probably run a dual or triple lane against a solo TA to deny her farm, but even if she's hugging the tower, she'll be able to get at least SOME creeps with Meld and Refraction damage boosts, and once she hits lvl 9 and has lvl 4 Refraction and lvl 4 Meld, she's going to rake in tons of kills with the frankly overpowered burst damage.

[Deleted]

Gale costs 90 mana per pop and has a long cooldown. You might get an extra couple of autoattacks off, but you're taking damage from creeps, and what happens if TA just Melds? Grats, you did minimal damage in exchange for taking damage from creeps, blowing a crucial cooldown, and maybe setting yourself up to eat a Meld hit, which is gonna do more damage to you than you did to her.

I'd pick Veno as a general counter to TA's Refraction, but I definitely wouldn't lane him against her. Not alone, anyway. You could probably run a dual or triple lane against a solo TA to deny her farm, but even if she's hugging the tower, she'll be able to get at least SOME creeps with Meld and Refraction damage boosts, and once she hits lvl 9 and has lvl 4 Refraction and lvl 4 Meld, she's going to rake in tons of kills with the frankly overpowered burst damage.

Just one right click with Poison Sting is enough to remove all Refraction stacks..

[PizzaSHARK]

Just one right click with Poison Sting is enough to remove all Refraction stacks..

And what then? The damage block is separate from the damage bonus, so you aren't impacting her ability to farm at all. Poison Sting will also take an extra five seconds to remove the other five stacks - that's a LOT of time.

---------- Post added 2012-07-23 at 08:51 AM ----------



Sorry, there's no fucking defending TA. Her damage is completely, totally fucking overpowered and judging from the way Tobi's laughing, I'm pretty sure he knows it is, too. Check TA's items when those two-shot kills are happening - NO DAMAGE ITEMS, ANYWHERE. It's like PA's crits with her ulti, only it's consistent and controllable and your team benefits as well (from the fucking insane -8 armor.)

[Hermanni]

And what then? The damage block is separate from the damage bonus, so you aren't impacting her ability to farm at all. Poison Sting will also take an extra five seconds to remove the other five stacks - that's a LOT of time.

You're doing a lot of assumptions that make no sense. Veno is one of the hardest counters to 1v1 solo mid TA and you barely need any skill for it.

First of all, you're assuming TA getting damage to lasthit out of Refraction is a huge deal. It isn't. Just like almost any melee, TA can outlasthit a ranged hero like Veno with rather normal attack damage and projectile time, even without Refraction. The advantage Veno has is that he can pressure TA out of lane, making her miss lasthits when they're too low or in disadvantageous position and spend more gold on regen. Venomancer enters the lane with rank 1 Poison Sting and her 3 (not 5 or 6) stacks of Refraction are gone in 2 seconds and then Veno is free to harass the living shit out of TA every time she even looks at the creepwave. By level 3 TA finally has Psi Blades and perhaps Rank 2 Refraction, but Veno has Gale and another rank in Poison Sting.

Any time TA overextends a bit to lasthit, Veno follows his Poison Stings with a Gale (and for a solo Veno there will be mana for plenty of them) and either eats majority of her health or gets a kill. If TA escapes into Meld, Veno repositions either to catch her with a new Poison Sting when she un-Melds or just to have easy time with the creep wave. If TA is low and chooses to sit in Meld, unless she gets help she'll only survive until Veno ferries dust while planting Poison Wards around the meld spot. And unless TA chooses to sit at either rune spawn, Veno will likely win the race to a rune when he has skilled rank 1 Poison Ward.

You also assumed TA can actually land some kind of 'harass' through Meld. Unless TA ranks up 3-4 ranks of Psi Blades, there's absolutely no way you'll score a direct Meld hit to a half-decent Veno player without Blink, level 6 or either Haste or Invis Rune. And if TA ranks up Psi Blades, there isn't much to be worried of. Veno is likely to hit level 6 before you do and by that time even if TA manages to kill him she'll probably die as well. By the time TA has enough levels to even consider trying to do something, she should be seriously behind in gold and somewhat behind in xp.

And what's this racket about -8 armor? Sure, it's great, but have you met Slardar? Or Shadow Fiend? Sure there's a bug live now that makes Meld do a bit more damage than it should, but especially after the Blink Refraction fix I don't find TA too powerful. And I'm not even sure what to say about your suggestion to remove Phantom Assassin from CM.

[PizzaSHARK]

And what's this racket about -8 armor? Sure, it's great, but have you met Slardar? Or Shadow Fiend? Sure there's a bug live now that makes Meld do a bit more damage than it should, but especially after the Blink Refraction fix I don't find TA too powerful. And I'm not even sure what to say about your suggestion to remove Phantom Assassin from CM.

Are you just not watching these games or something? TA just casually wanders around and literally two-shots people 10 minutes into the game because of how fucking stupid her damage boosts from skills are. There isn't any sort of fucking skill involved, especially not with trap having a 2k range. Throw a trap on them, pop it, and then gib them with a Meld combo. You don't have to spend money on items for damage or survivability because you get all that shit for free. Just get your Blink Dagger and now you can't be kited, and you're free to buy... whatever you want, really. I mean, christ, Quantic took a game off of Na'Vi and it wasn't like they were even trying. They pick TA and TA just shits on Na'Vi the entire game no matter what they tried. The damage is fucking broken and it's even more fucking stupid when she gets Deso.

And you say Veno's a solid counter to her. Okay, what if they run a dual mid lane? What if they run TA in a different lane from mid? ... What if they ban out Veno, or pick him for themselves? Hell, Veno would probably be fantastic to pair with TA because between Veno wards and TA traps you've got a crapton of free map vision and Veno's gale and ulti would make it really damn easy for TA to finish people off. And, of course, you don't have to be concerned about TA having to deal with Veno.

Slardar's armor loss is an ulti and doesn't come with a 200 fucking damage boost and doesn't double as a temporary escape button. Shadow Fiend's is an aura and comes on a hero that's pretty well known for being extremely damn squishy.

The issue isn't Meld's armor pierce, it's the absolutely fucking INSANE damage that comes with it. 280 damage free for the first swipe, on top of the armor pierce, which is further increasing the damage. TA basically gets a free swing with a Rapier every 7 seconds, and once she gets her Deso she pretty much invalidates 1400 gold worth of armor.

Seriously dude. Watch the fucking videos. Try and fucking tell me that damage isn't a complete fucking joke.




PA needs to be out of CM because Stifling Dagger is OP as shit right now. Increase the cooldown, increase the mana cost, do something to it, PA should not be able to farm effectively from the safety of her tower like that. It's fucking stupid.

[Finear]

PA needs to be out of CM because Stifling Dagger is OP as shit right now. Increase the cooldown, increase the mana cost, do something to it, PA should not be able to farm effectively from the safety of her tower like that. It's fucking stupid.

dark seer needs to be out of CM because ion shell is OP as shit right now, DS should not be able to farm from the safety of his tower like that. wololol

its not going to happen if anything you can expect buffs of underplayed heroes

and TA is strong
OP?
nope

[Hermanni]

Seriously dude. Watch the fucking videos. Try and fucking tell me that damage isn't a complete fucking joke.

I don't need to. I only argued that Veno should beat TA in mid, I wasn't denying that TA is powerful. 10 minutes is well after when mid-laning is relevant and if TA runs around killing people then she obviously won the lane or plays bads. That being said, TA doesn't scale that great into late-game and is fairly squishy if you can deal with Refraction. Powerful yes, OP not.

And PA is barely picked in scrims/tourneys, like someone said you can expect her to get buffed if anything. Stop pretending you've expertise in the matter of gamebalance or start arguing with something else than absolutely shitdonut megafather insanefuck.

[Kuntantee]

and once she gets her Deso she pretty much invalidates 1400 gold worth of armor.

You keep saying that but meld doesn't stack with desolator.

Btw how did you come up with the idea of Stifling Dagger being OP?

[Finear]

You keep saying that but meld doesn't stack with desolator.

wait
it does stack ?

[Lysah]

TA has a horrible lane phase and is completely shut down by anyone with casual AoE. Crushed a blink/desolator TA just yesterday with kunkka, though I admit I didn't do much, most of the team fight was stand outside and let radiance/SE lucifer clear her refraction (takes about .5 seconds), then run in and one shot her with a 2000 crit tidebringer, pretty easy hero to smash. Their fed sven/slardar were much, much scarier. TA was a joke the entire game. They even tried giving her aegis when they roshed and I had a good laugh, aegis on slardar might have won them the game.

Is TA mega retarded when you have 600 health? Well, of course she is. Maybe it's about time people stopped hiding behind their 5 man metas, 600 health at level 9 was never acceptable in DotA1, it's only worked in DotA2 because heroes like TA haven't been introduced. Well, now they have, no more wand/wards/phase boots CM, you will get one shotted. If the "pro meta" refuses to adapt, hell yes I'd pick TA every single game. The fact remains that all you need is enough life to survive a meld and she's dead.

[Hermanni]

it does stack ?

Of course they stack, but I didn't feel like disputing him because he'd just say he knows they didn't stack once upon a time so he is right anyway.

[cudomix]

Bracer or two should help with her burst early game, as lysah said she's deadweight if you survive meld. Slardar with armlet is a much scarier sight tbh. I guess dazzle would shut her hard (poison touch and shadow wave have multiple hits which negate refraction), shallow grave is most irritating spell in game, and if weave is allowed to tick for a few seconds her meld is useless.

[Kuntantee]

It does indeed stacks...My mistake. I need to update myself it seems.

[Valedus]

Gale costs 90 mana per pop and has a long cooldown. You might get an extra couple of autoattacks off, but you're taking damage from creeps, and what happens if TA just Melds? Grats, you did minimal damage in exchange for taking damage from creeps, blowing a crucial cooldown, and maybe setting yourself up to eat a Meld hit, which is gonna do more damage to you than you did to her.

I'd pick Veno as a general counter to TA's Refraction, but I definitely wouldn't lane him against her. Not alone, anyway. You could probably run a dual or triple lane against a solo TA to deny her farm, but even if she's hugging the tower, she'll be able to get at least SOME creeps with Meld and Refraction damage boosts, and once she hits lvl 9 and has lvl 4 Refraction and lvl 4 Meld, she's going to rake in tons of kills with the frankly overpowered burst damage.

She won't get ANY kills with that. Meld almost NEEDS Psi Blades to be any good, you can just not let her into melee. Especially if she's double slowed by Veno.

[Deleted]

This might sound stupid but is DOTA 2 released? I got 2 DOTA games in my steam library and one is named "DOTA 2 TEST".

[Dachiz]

No it is not. Still in beta

[Deleted]

Nope, still in "closed beta."
DotA 2 test is 1-2 days or so ahead of the other in the patch cycle, AFAIK that's the only difference.

[Lysah]

Gotta keep the main client balanced and esports ready lololololol

[PizzaSHARK]

I don't need to. I only argued that Veno should beat TA in mid, I wasn't denying that TA is powerful. 10 minutes is well after when mid-laning is relevant and if TA runs around killing people then she obviously won the lane or plays bads. That being said, TA doesn't scale that great into late-game and is fairly squishy if you can deal with Refraction. Powerful yes, OP not.

And PA is barely picked in scrims/tourneys, like someone said you can expect her to get buffed if anything. Stop pretending you've expertise in the matter of gamebalance or start arguing with something else than absolutely shitdonut megafather insanefuck.

I'm only going off of what I see in pro games and both times I've seen those heroes picked it was a complete fucking curbstomp for the team that had them. Every single time.

So if I can't base my opinion off of pro games, what the fuck am I gonna base it off of? Fucking pubs? Get real.

---------- Post added 2012-07-23 at 08:32 PM ----------

TA has a horrible lane phase and is completely shut down by anyone with casual AoE. Crushed a blink/desolator TA just yesterday with kunkka, though I admit I didn't do much, most of the team fight was stand outside and let radiance/SE lucifer clear her refraction (takes about .5 seconds), then run in and one shot her with a 2000 crit tidebringer, pretty easy hero to smash. Their fed sven/slardar were much, much scarier. TA was a joke the entire game. They even tried giving her aegis when they roshed and I had a good laugh, aegis on slardar might have won them the game.

Is TA mega retarded when you have 600 health? Well, of course she is. Maybe it's about time people stopped hiding behind their 5 man metas, 600 health at level 9 was never acceptable in DotA1, it's only worked in DotA2 because heroes like TA haven't been introduced. Well, now they have, no more wand/wards/phase boots CM, you will get one shotted. If the "pro meta" refuses to adapt, hell yes I'd pick TA every single game. The fact remains that all you need is enough life to survive a meld and she's dead.

That's not how pro games go with her in them. Supports simply do not fucking have the HP scaling to survive a Meld without making major sacrifices along the way. Meld combos will eat 80%+ of their HP and after that it's just one or two swipes from ANYONE and they're out of it. Mek isn't enough, Bracers aren't enough (and buying Bracers delays other necessary items like Force Staff and Blink Dagger), TA will just farm them anyway. That's the point, that's why Meld is OP as fuck. If the game goes late, TA does weaken, but simply having the TA means their team absolutely dominates the early and mid game because of the power of Meld combos.

[Lysah]

That's not the point, the point is that the meta was never about supports and it will not be in the future. DotA2 is only being played the way you're seeing in pro games because many heroes are missing. Heroes like TA who force people to change.

I can't even remember playing a game in DotA1 that had more than one support, now 2 a team is extremely common. You see why that's a problem - heroes like TA cut through them like butter with a hot knife and that whole thing. The meta will change and TA will not be picked much anymore, eventually.

Personally, I can't wait. I've hated the current meta for a very long time. It's almost a copypasta of LoL meta, a game I left for a reason. How many games are sololong/ganker(spellcarry) mid/support+hyper(AD anyone?) carry short/jungler? Like every single one of them? Luckily heroes like TA and NA and cent and TC and kotl can completely change and shut down this type of play.




As far as agility heroes go, if anyone is more powerful than he should be it's Morphling. That hero is absurdly stupid and impossible to kill, even if you have CC, a simple trick that shuts TA up pretty fast. But I still wouldn't call morph OP, I just think you should be able to silence him to stop morphSTR. I still think he's way better than TA.