[Megathread] DotA 2

[PizzaSHARK]

Run utility acid/coco build - you have no farm booster

Nope. You get a value point in passive and that's all you need for a while. 4x value on bounty runes (meaning you should always contest runes with alchemist), up to +12 gold per kill, and it only delays max stun level by 1 level (or max acid level.)

[Sorcereria]

Every penny counts meaning he wont be able to rapidly increase his farm. His farm will be more linear since item progression will come LATER, on top of that you need space to farm. If you are not given it, your farming decreases even if you max out greed, while you are walking creep if it comes to defending or actually making a comeback.

I can count so many games where a 4K people would max out greed EVEN if the lane goes poorly, meaning they have trouble to contest last hits on lane, yet they still max greed first. What happens next, once laning is over due to agressive enemy lineup, you cant even safely farm your jungle. A talent that suddenly DOES almost nothing.

There is so many better heroes that with space given will shine more than alchemist. There is also more heroes that won't be left out to dry to do anything if game goes poorly.

[PizzaSHARK]

I can count so many games where a 4K people would max out greed EVEN if the lane goes poorly, meaning they have trouble to contest last hits on lane, yet they still max greed first. What happens next, once laning is over due to agressive enemy lineup, you cant even safely farm your jungle. A talent that suddenly DOES almost nothing.

Bad players making bad decisions. More at 11.

There is so many better heroes that with space given will shine more than alchemist. There is also more heroes that won't be left out to dry to do anything if game goes poorly.

Wrong.

Alchemist probably outshines every hero in the game if he has space to farm. Anti-Mage can't buy your teammates a 7th item slot. He can't give your mid 2 core items at 13 minutes.

You're focusing too much on Alchemist by himself and not enough on Alchemist as part of a team. Acid Spray doesn't stop being godly just because Alchemist having a rough time. You can't push into Acid Spray, not unless you have an absolutely overwhelming advantage.

[Sorcereria]

You overestimate how much a hero can provide given a space to farm.
You also overestimate his utility and provisions if he is NOT given the farm. Agressive comp can EASILY shut him down and provide space to farm for their carry. Maybe it would be different if it was AGI hero with decent armor aka PAPER even with cuirass.

Dont requote me when I stated 2 post before why the hero win rate is skewed below 5k mmr with bad decisions. News were at 10, you missed them apparently.

[Deleted]

What? Where did you get that?

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Um, sure thing, the only support who has better stun that Alch is Sven

And you speak like acid spray that zones enemy offlaner out of exp range just for 130 mana is nothing. Well, he still can get exp, but he will be murdered if he stays in armour shredding zone that also damages him. Seriously, what other support brings one of the most powerful stuns, zoning and pushing/counterpushing tool, sustain steroid and he can get solar crests, meks and shit faster than anyone else?

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Off course you do, like 99% in pubs who pick him on mid and get shat at by Nevermore. If you want supports to sit without money and fuel it all into one character - there is much better options like Magina, Void or Yurnero than Alchemist. And you shouldn't build aghs because you can, you should build them if they are needed, and you decided that before you even start playing. If you have Zeus on your team - you tell him that you'll get him Aghs and he can go for Refresher or whatever shit he wants instead, and boom, at 7 minute mark he has two core items

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Your point is somehow valid for TI4 times, but now it's totally outdated. Alchemist can always get the farm, question is, if he is able to leech exp from wood camps as well, you just throw it into a FoW and listen to "ding" sounds while staying in safety. Without farm Alch just farms lane and stops enemies from advancing with Acid. He doesn't need to be run as a core, he is perfectly fine as a support, all he needs is, basically, solar crest, mekanism, and w.e. you want at this point

not splitting quotes as its annoying and awkward to read.

1. sven is not a support, just dont go there. And its a reliable stun. You can do much more with lion or WD, or many other supports than Alch, more reliably and with no farm at all.
2. acid spray is not stunning, its a minor annoyance at best. any ranges support can zone better, more reliably, and bring more to the table than alch.
3. sure fast farm an aghs, you have one hero who is ahead, and one fucking useless alch.....you better hope you can compensate for having alch being itemless, my experience is that is seldom works out.
4. You wont get that much farm on aghs in any decent game running as a support as someone else should be taking it. If you are running him as a core, you will get farm, your supports can stack camps and you can max teh effectiveness of your other abilities in farming big stacks.

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You're focusing too much on Alchemist by himself and not enough on Alchemist as part of a team. Acid Spray doesn't stop being godly just because Alchemist having a rough time. You can't push into Acid Spray, not unless you have an absolutely overwhelming advantage.

actually I'm focussing on alch as part of a team entirely. Not the "perfect situation" where he can take farm and not adversely impact on your cores, where the enemy does not gank you, where you manage to be uncontested at all times and get that magic fast aghs.....

You are massively overestimating the power of acid spray, its good yes, but hardly a cockblock to a team thats getting ahead because you are playing useless. Also, any decent team just shuts down alch easy, he is a free kill if you get him in the jungle, his one way out is to stun.....which is so easy to make backfire.


the comment that "Alchemist probably outshines every hero in the game if he has space to farm." is hilarious.

[Hermanni]

So far in 6.84 I've yet to see an Alchemist who buys Aghs for his teammates before he is 6-slotted win a single game. Then again I've not seen an Alch reach 6 slots before game has ended either.

"5 minutes in the jungle for full inventory" is just a myth, even at 1000 GPM that's 5000 gold which buys you 1-2 items, but if you don't already have items to boost your farming speed you're not gonna hit 1000 GPM in the jungle. First couple of weeks of the patch I saw tons of enemies rush maybe 1 farming item and then spam Aghs for their team and not once did their team stand even a remote chance with a completely useless top priority farmer. I still believe you can pull it off with a very carefully thought-out strategy, but I've seen nobody come close yet.

[Drunkenvalley]

I know what you mean, Hermanni. Alch is one of those heroes where, if played in the usual pub style, might as well have been deleted from the game without anyone noticing.

Other heroes of this caliber include Broodmother, Nature's Prophet and Techies. The average player has no idea what they're doing with the hero and clearly aren't exactly intending to learn. They're too passive, only farming slightly aggressively at best.

In one of my previous matches I played a Windrunner, where we had an afk farming alch on our team. We literally concluded we'd just play like Alch didn't exist, and frankly we were probably better off like that. He'd just occasionally pop out with an aghs complete, which was definitely really, really nice for me.

[Keldarin]

Broodmother is so ridiculously powerful if left as a solo offlane on any side of the map. Although, I do prefer being given the Dire offlane. Get a couple of levels and a soul ring, deward the webs and go ham.

[PizzaSHARK]

How the fuck do you deal with PL late game if you haven't drafted a team full of counters? Like, a single counter doesn't stop him at that point - we had a fed Gyro that could wipe out his illusions with Flak Cannon but he makes them so fast that you can't keep killing them (same reason ES doesn't stop him late game.)

I really feel like that hero is really overpowered right now, and almost entirely due to how illusions scale in DotA (illusions in general are very OP in DotA) and the fact that his W gets him out of basically everything for little mana on a short cd. It's like you have to draft 3 heroes that are specifically good against him in order to keep him from facerolling all game.

[Lysah]

Buy Veil and focus real one, only thing you can really do. PL is so damn terrible before he gets multiple items, though, so the simplest answer is to not let him farm. He can't split farm jungle like he used to be able to, illusions last just short enough to be useless for pushing and jungling.

[Deleted]

Axe with bkb destroys a late game PL.

[Sorcereria]

Puffler have you considered how PL laughs at spinning axe with 37-47 armor lategame?

A Skadi/Skadi/BoT/butterfly/Diffusal/Satanic PL has ~37 armor (69% dmg red). Thats 47 armor with vlad/cuirass on the team.
Thats at best 65dmg from culling blade x 0.3 internal CD vs 3000 HP PL - thats AT LEAST 14sec to deal 3000 dmg assuming ONLY 37armor PL.

At that point a BKB does not change the outcome for axe. Axe will be torn apart with or without BKB and refresher CALL.

I understand it is not a solo game, but I would hardly call axe a counter lategame.
Lategame you need like mag/ember/axe and who knows what else vs PL if his team is not really paper and actually contribute to the fight quite some.

[Kralljin]

Axe with bkb destroys a late game PL.

Axe just gets torn to shreds after bkb runs out.

And Lategame PL should have enough items to survive a single Call, unless the entire team instantly knows who's the real one and can focus him without hindrance.

we had a fed Gyro that could wipe out his illusions with Flak Cannon but he makes them so fast that you can't keep killing them (same reason ES doesn't stop him late game.)

ES won't kill PL but the damage from the Echo Slam puts serious pressure on the enemy team, if you hit 3 people + PL Illusions those other 3 will have a hard time.

Against PL you just have to kill his Mates ASAP and then catch the real one before he flees if you lack a way of killing PL quickly.

[Deleted]

Axe is a 100% counter to PL, he insta gibs the illusions, makes it easy for your team to find the real PL and kill him.

[Sorcereria]

How does axe insta gib lategame illusions considering

Illusion 500% dmg taken, 3k HP, 32-42 armor+ (63%+ physical mitigation) =
Maximum 75dmg per spin* 500% illusion dmg taken = 380 dmg per spin max
3000HP illusion HP / 380dmg per spin = 8 spins to clear illusions * 0.3 per sec = 2.5 seconds MINIMUM to clear it FIRST wave.

Spinning doesnt stop creating NEW ONES and lategame PL will create ABUNDANT amount of illusions in 1sec with 50% for hero and 8% for each illusion and amazing attack speed on both main hero and illusion.

Make a gif of 6 sloted PL vs 6 sloted AXE (refresher, blink, bkb + any) - I can guarantee a HoD will regen more HP on PL than axe can do.
I dont remember when I saw a 25k networth axe too, keep that in mind though.

Biggest issue, to me personally, even if you find the real one with Veil or whatever is to actually quite right click the hero within 9-14 illusions...

People seem to like vlad on PL but imo basilius + mask is better early which you transition into satanic lategame. Satanic is a beast.

[StrawberryZebra]

Buy Veil and focus real one, only thing you can really do. PL is so damn terrible before he gets multiple items, though, so the simplest answer is to not let him farm. He can't split farm jungle like he used to be able to, illusions last just short enough to be useless for pushing and jungling.

If you've not drafted a hero who can deal with PL, these are really your only options. Shutting down his farm is simpler than some other carries like PA, and since he can't farm as well as he used to with Radiance, its also easier than it once was. You can also look to close out the game before he can make any real contributions too, he takes time to get the items he needs, but if you've steamrolled all his Rax by the time he gets there its going to be too late for his team to make a comeback. But that does require you to have a strong pushing lineup to really capitalise on.

[Deleted]

How does axe insta gib lategame illusions considering

Illusion 500% dmg taken, 3k HP, 32-42 armor+ (63%+ physical mitigation) =
Maximum 75dmg per spin* 500% illusion dmg taken = 380 dmg per spin max
3000HP illusion HP / 380dmg per spin = 8 spins to clear illusions * 0.3 per sec = 2.5 seconds MINIMUM to clear it FIRST wave.

Spinning doesnt stop creating NEW ONES and lategame PL will create ABUNDANT amount of illusions in 1sec with 50% for hero and 8% for each illusion and amazing attack speed on both main hero and illusion.

Make a gif of 6 sloted PL vs 6 sloted AXE (refresher, blink, bkb + any) - I can guarantee a HoD will regen more HP on PL than axe can do.
I dont remember when I saw a 25k networth axe too, keep that in mind though.

Biggest issue, to me personally, even if you find the real one with Veil or whatever is to actually quite right click the hero within 9-14 illusions...

People seem to like vlad on PL but imo basilius + mask is better early which you transition into satanic lategame. Satanic is a beast.

You let a PL get 6 slotted with an axe on your team then you must have played awfully the entire game.

Also you can still tell which one is real, which is the entire point.

[Sorcereria]

PL just used W, tell me which one is real again? How much time you wasted? Again? By the time you figure it out again you are probably fighting man down.

Tell us how to kill. The only reliable way to spot real PL is Veil of discord but:
- You still have to click PL between 14 illusions.
- You still have to tear through a 3k hp, 70% armor reduction hero with a potential satanic.
Axe doesnt stand even close to being LATEGAME counter unless you try to change a topic now how stopping a PL earlier is an easy task. No it isnt, especially in pubs.

The hero needs no lanes and jungle space to have hard times.

[Lysah]

If you've not drafted a hero who can deal with PL, these are really your only options. Shutting down his farm is simpler than some other carries like PA, and since he can't farm as well as he used to with Radiance, its also easier than it once was. You can also look to close out the game before he can make any real contributions too, he takes time to get the items he needs, but if you've steamrolled all his Rax by the time he gets there its going to be too late for his team to make a comeback. But that does require you to have a strong pushing lineup to really capitalise on.

Yeah that's my point. PL is not really a good hero right now, in my opinion, actually. He shines when you don't counter pick him but I doubt he will be in competitive much because he is so easy to counterpick. Maybe as a last pick when the lineup suits him. I absolutely agree that if your team lacks spammable AoE PL is a nightmare and can win the game by himself, but he's still actually a paper hero, much like Antimage, and only really wins games by either being massively ahead or by having a superior lineup. He's pretty awful at farming and his team fight presence really isn't that great either.

For everyone who thinks he's impossible to deal with, realize that even at 3k hp, once you get the hero down to 1500 hp the illusions spawn with 1500 hp. PL is really only strong when he's at full health, which means if you can just quickly chop him down to 50% or so he has to leave because he will die the second he tries to melee somebody. He's only really dangerous once he gets heart, because then he can spam lances and run around regenning to full to attack again and THAT is hard to deal with. But, he's probably going to get diffusal 1/2 and maybe another item before heart, which means you have plenty of time to deal with him before he becomes a tangible threat. Again, if you don't pick any AOE whatsoever against PL then God help you and you probably deserve to lose.

[Drunkenvalley]

PL just used W, tell me which one is real again? How much time you wasted? Again? By the time you figure it out again you are probably fighting man down.

Buy a goddamn Veil, jeez.