[Megathread] DotA 2

[Hermanni]

I suppose there's little to no point in this thread if we can't discuss things any more then, if your default answer is "use the search function". I'm not going to go through a thread of 520 pages just because an argument might have been mentioned before, if you are so sure it has been then why don't you quote it? I just tried the search function and it's just as I thought, just as terrible as it always has been.

Shadowblade is a great item if your opponents doesn't know what dust or counter wards is, if you're able to run up to an enemy team unseen then that only goes to show how terrible they are. It works on some heroes, sure, but for initiation purposes Blink Dagger is the way to go, be it Shadow Fiend, Enigma, Sand King, Blink Dagger is the best item for the job.

As for whether or not your carry can farm most of the game or not, that really depends on your setup. Either you build an early game setup in which everyone participates and try to push and finish the game as quickly as possible, hence you don't really have any real carry hero in the team, or you focus on dragging on the game for as long as possible allowing your hero, such as Anti Mage or Spectre, to farm as much as possible throughout it. Anti Mage is really not a Hero you want to engage in team fights in early on anyway, he's really damn squishy before he has gotten all of his farm and has terrible damage output compared to many other heroes.

Battle Fury is an amazing item for farming, but quite terrible for team fights as you don't expect to get much out of the splash damage there. You pick it up on heroes you don't expect to win early game on.

It's just boring because every time someone like you pops in and says things that have all been said before, and then other people say other things that have also been said before and then you'll either man up and admit you were wrong or hide away. Most of what you've said now is something I've said before, although I made a much better argument for it.

There isn't a binary option of just 'pushing or farming', and BF isn't what makes or breaks either strategy. You can farm great without BF, as far as I'm concerned anyone who is actually good at playing carry should never even think that they need BF for farming. You pick an item that inherently weakens your hero on a hero that is already inherently weak early, like PA, and against decent players you will get your shit handed to you most of the time. I play in the absolute top of matchmaking, and most of the time people try to build BF on heroes other than AM in games that are remotely even they get they will lose badly. Blink SF is another thing, I really think it's been like 6+ months since I've seen one and I've about 4000 games of 'very high' played total on both my accounts.

[Sarevokcz]

Same goes for the blink/shadowblade discussion. If it makes you feel better then I'll have you know that over a year ago I too was strongly of the opinion that Lothar's is a shit item, literally not good for anything but stomping noobs and is never gonna work vs. master players like me, and then later on had to admit I was quite wrong. Now all I can say is that excluding heroes like Sand King and Bat, most of the time SB is more efficient than Blink and more difficult to use correctly.

comparing those two items is just retarded than saying one is better than the other. they share only a small overlap in both purpose and heropool using them, you wont see lothar puck or tide, you wont see blink barathurm or davion, there are only a few heroes that can consider both where your point holds any merit, like ursa or nevermore and even then, it would be logical to pick one better suited by the circumstances like hero picks on both sides instead of jumping onto Lysahs bandwagon how lothar is the most amazing thing sice wheel invention.

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I play in the absolute top of matchmaking, and most of the time people try to build BF on heroes other than AM in games that are remotely even they get they will lose badly. Blink SF is another thing, I really think it's been like 6+ months since I've seen one and I've about 4000 games of 'very high' played total on both my accounts.

Wow, so you claim how pro meta and stereotypes are bad or irrelevant, but somehow meta and stereotypes barely below that level are the right choice? That sounds logical. not.

[Deleted]

There isn't a binary option of just 'pushing or farming'

When choosing the hero setup, you really should have a plan for how to win the game... Depending on what heroes you pick, yes you have already chosen if you will focus on pushing early or turtling whilst farming.

and BF isn't what makes or breaks either strategy. You can farm great without BF

It's true that you can farm without it, but different items are good at different things, BF happen to be one of the best farming tools for melee carries. It's by no means a must have item, but with that logic neither is BKB.

as far as I'm concerned anyone who is actually good at playing carry should never even think that they need BF for farming. You pick an item that inherently weakens your hero on a hero that is already inherently weak early, like PA, and against decent players you will get your shit handed to you most of the time.

Then your team has already failed. A hard carry is weak early and mid game, no matter what items you pick, that's the design of the hero and it's meant to be powerful in the late game. If you are getting your ass handed to you early on, it's not because you picked up BF, it's because you and your team are doing it wrong. Bad positioning, bad responds to their actions.

I play in the absolute top of matchmaking, and most of the time people try to build BF on heroes other than AM in games that are remotely even they get they will lose badly. Blink SF is another thing, I really think it's been like 6+ months since I've seen one and I've about 4000 games of 'very high' played total on both my accounts.

If you let a Shadow Fiend use an ultimate with Shadowblade, then you are not at the top of matchmaking, or the Dota 2 playerbase is simply a hell of a lot worse than the HoN one.

What you don't seem to get is that BF in of itself isn't what makes a hero like Spectre or Anti Mage powerful, it's the items you get by increasing your farm potential with BF. Later on you will probably even sell it due to lack of inventory space for an even better team fight item. I'm talking late game here.

[Drunkenvalley]

Geez, did I wander into a pubmatch here? I'd say argue with arguments, not bash each other for your bracket positions. -.-

I can see where they're coming from saying Battle Fury isn't a good item for a bunch of carries. PA as an example is honestly pretty solid, since her attack speed starts splendid with her Blink, and damage just goes through the roof past six. Adding the BF into the mix isn't really beneficial at that point unless you want to make the creepwaves your instant-gold-delivery service, but for less than the cost of the BF you could have a Basher and Helm of Dominator, or a BKB. Hell, you're not far off from a Monkey King Bar if it's the damage you want.

I'm not going to claim I'm spouting anything right here, just saying I kind of see where they're coming from. BF is being used as a farm tool, but that's a lot of money you spent on getting more money.

[Deleted]

The issue in here is that the game itself doesn't really need to feature epic mlgpro Vanguard save to be an example of a game where going Vanguard is a good idea. No one really said it was, much like no one said that Vanguard makes you immune to towers.

Arguing that a decision was bad just by looking at the outcome is a bit silly. Like saying "what a bad decision for this guy to buy Buriza, he never landed a crit when it mattered."

No one said that someone said Vanguard makes you immune to towers. Saying that Vanguard was a good decision that game just by looking at the outcome of the game is exactly the same thing as you are accusing me for. Especially when you didn't win because of it and Lysah wanted to use it as an example for why Vanguard is good. You not having an MLG moment with Vanguard doesn't give you an argument for why Vanguard was good in that game, now does it?

We aren't discussing about which games Vanguard can be built in but the usefulness of Vanguard overall. Vanguard didn't change the playstyle nor was there any moment where I saw Vanguard useful and that's why I think it was a useless item. And no, it's more like going Buriza and never hitting anyone and calling it a bad decision, which it is.

When it comes to Brewlings and Zombies, it seems a bit far-fetched to talk about rank 3 Brew ult or Aghs when neither really were in the game when Vanguard was (admittably it was also a bit far-fetched to mention the last minute Refresher at all.) Rank 1 fire brewling and zombies hit for about 40 damage max, rank 2 fire brewling has like 80 max damage. To me it seems like a good amount for Vanguard to block.

I think there was a fight at 20 minute where Brew had Agah and his Brewlings were hitting for 150+. Before that Brewlings were never tanked. You're gonna run away asap from Brewlings anyway, a Vanguard isn't going to help you tank them. Vanguard averages 24 block while PMS around 11 against non-hero damage so if you get hit 10 times by Brewlings, you gain a whopping 130 less damage taken. But that's without the armor given from PMS taken into account that scales as the enemy gets more damage. Don't tell me you're going to tank more than 10 Brewling hits in a fight.

No, it wasn't 2. It was 0. But since you don't want give me a time stamp we're just throwing random numbers really.

Regarding win rates. Well, first off, the hero itself sits at a 41% win rate. Tinker at a bit higher win rate at 43% sits with 53% win on Blink Dagger when Blink Dagger is probably the best choice for Tinker after BoT unless you need Ghost Scepter or Force Staff. BoT sits at 47% on a hero with 43% win rate. And BoT is considered core on Tinker I'd say.

I believe BF AM doesn't work in public games the way Prophet doesn't work in public games sometimes - people aren't on the same page about how they want the game to be played and the fact that BF AM can comeback but people usually give up before that. If your team gets behind and they start whining, you ain't gonna make a comeback.

Look at Alliance vs Na'Vi the game where Alliance just let Na'Vi take towers because they couldn't fight. Take that scenario to a public game where only Loda would have wanted to do what Alliance did and the rest of his team wanting to defend the towers and you'll have the normal public game with AM. If you're behind with a AM that already commited to BF, you should give him space to farm it and probably avoid fights. But people don't do that, they're under this assumption that you have to defend towers no matter if you can fight the enemy or not. And then they start dying and keep getting caught out of position because they don't like playing safe in a public game.

The issue I have with people advocating Vanguard on AM isn't because I think you should always go BF but the fact that I think Vanguard is a pretty shit item and I wouldn't go it even if I skipped BF. I believe Drums PMS give you much more solid team presence if you really have to go a "it's the only chance to win build". But you have to remember those games are already looking grim for your team anyway. I also feel that going such items on a hero like AM that can't fight that well early game doesn't give you team much hope so why not try get that 14 min Battlefury and farm up for 5 more minutes and then fight.

Lysah could easily have gotten a 13-14 minute BF looking at her lane and you could have easily avoided fights for 5 more minutes considering the fact that you lost every fight anyways. You weren't even losing towers at that point but rather you were pushing their towers. Their Spectre didn't even have good farm. Everything in that game was setup for an BF AM. AM has good farm, check. You are outfarming enemy carry, check. Enemy isn't pushing towers, check. You can't win fights even if AM joined, check.

I don't feel that Vanguard was a prime example that game because you couldn't fight with Vanguard regardless. As you can see in the rplay, you weren't even winning fights before 25 minutes into the game. Vanguard didn't enable AM to do anything. Either he ran or sniped targets. The way every good carry player plays. You don't go Vanguard and think you're gonna tank their damage for your team because when you're the only carry and basically the only damage dealer later in the game you don't want to put yourself in those situations.

@Lysah BF is useless on most heroes, yes. But on AM it is amazing simply because of his ability to flash farm and split-push.

[Deleted]

I'm not going to claim I'm spouting anything right here, just saying I kind of see where they're coming from. BF is being used as a farm tool, but that's a lot of money you spent on getting more money.

It's an item you should have 12-15 minutes in, and as a hard carry you're not even close to ready for team fights that early. If you know how to farm well, you will obtain a much higher GPM with BF, than without it, meaning in overall it's worth it if you're focusing on rushing for the late game as quickly as possible.

If you're not however, and wish to engage in early team fights, then BF is a terrible item and you should go for something else. But then you should really not have picked a hard carry anyway.

[luckydevours]

It's just boring because every time someone like you pops in and says things that have all been said before, and then other people say other things that have also been said before and then you'll either man up and admit you were wrong or hide away. Most of what you've said now is something I've said before, although I made a much better argument for it..

As someone who toys with the idea of starting to play DotA 2 i read this thread and as a casual bystander in this discussion let me tell you that i was bound to notice that your arrogance is disgusting. Do you have to be a prick to raid in a professional guild or are you just an exception?

[Hermanni]

When choosing the hero setup, you really should have a plan for how to win the game... Depending on what heroes you pick, yes you have already chosen if you will focus on pushing early or turtling whilst farming.

Yes, and then you adapt to what your enemies are doing. Turtling and pushing aren't the only strategies there are, and how well you can pull them off depends on what your enemy does.

It's true that you can farm without it, but different items are good at different things, BF happen to be one of the best farming tools for melee carries. It's by no means a must have item, but with that logic neither is BKB.

BF is a bad item for >95% of heroes and for the last <5% it's good like 20% of the time. You can get an amazing amount of stuff for the money that buys you just BF, and BF usually takes something like 20-30 minutes to just pay itself back for heroes that aren't AM. BKB, on the other hand, is an item you should at least consider on every carry and hybrid in pretty much every game.

Then your team has already failed. A hard carry is weak early and mid game, no matter what items you pick, that's the design of the hero and it's meant to be powerful in the late game. If you are getting your ass handed to you early on, it's not because you picked up BF, it's because you and your team are doing it wrong. Bad positioning, bad responds to their actions.

Heroes aren't 'meant' to be anything. Very few heroes are 'hard carries' by default, because almost every hero can actually fill several roles. Very few heroes are legitimately weak in the early-midgame unless you specifically build them in a way that makes them be that way. You play a hero however works best for you. A hero like Juggernaut loses to almost every hypercarry with equal farm no matter how you build him, but he can be a powerhouse throughout the game. Building a BF on Juggernaut makes about as much sense as rushing a Basher for QoP.

There isn't a 'your team has failed' in here. You went for a bad build, you're responsible if the game ends and your team never got to even play 5v5 because they don't have a 5th hero.

If you let a Shadow Fiend use an ultimate with Shadowblade, then you are not at the top of matchmaking, or the Dota 2 playerbase is simply a hell of a lot worse than the HoN one.

What you don't seem to get is that BF in of itself isn't what makes a hero like Spectre or Anti Mage powerful, it's the items you get by increasing your farm potential with BF. Later on you will probably even sell it due to lack of inventory space for an even better team fight item. I'm talking late game here.

I played HoN too between DotA and Dota 2. 1900 MMR range as solo before the reset (I had quit and sold my account long before the reset, but I've heard about it), but I mostly didn't get to play solo and my friends weren't very good. Bad game and bad players and I still regret wasting my time and money on that game. And I'm very much at the top of matchmaking in Dota 2, but most good players recognize that unless you're amazing at Blink razing SB makes you a lot scarier to the enemy team. It's not the fact that high level players are prone to getting wiped by Lothars ult SF, it's the fact that when SF gets SB they're stuck to hugging towers or spending a lot of gold on Sentries and Gem to prevent that from happening. Blink isn't scary without BKB, Blink doesn't force your enemies to waste gold, Blink doesn't give you much map control, Blink doesn't give you a good amount of stats and mobility.

Average game length is something like 30 minutes in Dota 2. Average games have several carries. In an even game Battlefury demands a 45+ minute game to be a good investment, assuming you didn't lose map control and all towers and get ganked 6 times because of your greedy build. But if your team got beat because the enemy carry went for smart items you will still lose in farm at 60 minutes. Most players can't assess when the risk is worth taking, and you don't really seem to either.

Actually taking back what I said about Void and BF, Maelstrom is way better of a choice. So it's down to Kunkka and AM, and Kunkka just because one of my friends is convinced it works. Maybe I'll add Alchemist, saw a guy hit over 1000 gpm with it a few days ago, just so that there can at least be 3 heroes for that item when cleave isn't on high demand.

[Deleted]

Yes, and then you adapt to what your enemies are doing. Turtling and pushing aren't the only strategies there are, and how well you can pull them off depends on what your enemy does.

If you have already made a setup meant for late game, then it's impossible to change that plan and capitilize early on unless the enemy makes some huge mistakes... Of course you will take a tower or two if you see the chance, or perhaps even the racks if they messed up real big, but if your overall plan is to rush for the late game then that's the plan you stick to by avoiding picking fights and farming as much as possible.

BF is a bad item for 95% of heroes and for the last 5% it's good like 20% of the time. You can get an amazing amount of stuff for the money that buys you just BF, and BF usually takes something like 20-30 minutes to just pay itself back for heroes that aren't AM. BKB, on the other hand, is an item you should at least consider on every carry and hybrid in pretty much every game.

BF is only good on melee carries/hard carries, and pretty much useless for everyone else, that's true. But if you think it's only good 20 % of those times then you should reevaluate how you play... A BKB is great on heroes who can't afford to be locked down, that's primarily carries, hard carries and disablers. Anyone else doesn't really need it.

Heroes aren't 'meant' to be anything. Very few heroes are 'hard carries' by default, because almost every hero can actually fill several roles. Very few heroes are legitimately weak in the early-midgame unless you specifically build them in a way that makes them be that way. You play a hero however works best for you. A hero like Juggernaut loses to almost every hypercarry with equal farm no matter how you build him, but he can be a powerhouse throughout the game. Building a BF on Juggernaut makes about as much sense as rushing a Basher for QoP.

There isn't a 'your team has failed' in here. You went for a bad build, you're responsible if the game ends and your team never got to even play 5v5 because they don't have a 5th hero.

Juggernaught isn't a hard carry, I would call him a semi carry at best. He's quite strong both early and mid, and can definitely have an impact late. If you think the heroes aren't meant to be anything, then you are not even close to as good as you think you are. All of the heroes have roles they are supposed to be able to fill, that's what they are designed around. An Anti Mage would never babysit a Crystal Maiden for example, because Anti Mage is a hard carry whilst Crystal Maiden is a ward bitch.

Sure, there are some heroes who can fulfill several roles depending on the situation, Hammerstorm aka Sven can if necessary be played as support/tank/carry. But most heroes aren't that flexible.

Yes, there is a "your team has failed", if you pick up a hard carry like Spectre and allow yourself to get killed, then you didn't have enough awareness, you were out of position, or your team failed to respond to the threat. A hard carry is incredibly weak early on and is in a sense carried by the rest, until he is strong enough to carry them. No matter what item you go early on, a hard carry is weak compared to everyone else.

I played HoN too between DotA and Dota 2. 1900 MMR range as solo before the reset (I had quit and sold my account long before the reset, but I've heard about it), but I mostly didn't get to play solo and my friends weren't very good. And I'm very much at the top of matchmaking in Dota 2, but most good players recognize that unless you're amazing at Blink razing SB makes you a lot scarier to the enemy team. It's not the fact that high level players are prone to getting wiped by Lothars ult SF, it's the fact that when SF gets SB they're stuck to hugging towers or spending a lot of gold on Sentries and Gem to prevent that from happening. Blink isn't scary without BKB, Blink doesn't force your enemies to waste gold, Blink doesn't give you much map control, Blink doesn't give you a good amount of stats and mobility.

Average game length is something like 30 minutes in Dota 2. Average games have several carries. In an even game Battlefury demands a 45+ minute game to be a good investment, assuming you didn't lose map control and all towers and get ganked 6 times because of your greedy build. But if your team got beat because the enemy carry went for smart items you will still lose in farm at 60 minutes. Most players can't assess when the risk is worth taking, and you don't really seem to either.

Funny, it's not even remotely noticeable that you played at supposedly 1900 MMR. If you played HoN you should know who Tralfamadore is, and why arguing against his reasoning is rather stupid.

Blink actually allows you to use your ultimate among the enemy team, Shadowblade does not. You already spend gold on wards and counter wards for map control, normally you have a player who's role is precisely and only that, they are usually called a ward bitch. If you know that the SF has SB he should never be able to take your team by surprise.

It's the same reason Night Hound aka Riki is terrible as carry, because invisibility doesn't work all that well against skilled players.

[Deleted]

Do you guys know any guilds that would allow relatively new players in? Does MMO-C have one? I'm sick of getting people that can't even speak english in my team.

[Sarevokcz]

you can try teamliquid, it should be relatively friendly one, if they maintain atleast some level of manners as they enforce on forums.

[Deleted]

Blink actually allows you to use your ultimate among the enemy team, Shadowblade does not.

idk about you but without a setup or at least a BKB I don't see how enemies are gonna eat ult just because you have a blink and with either of those Lothar's would do fine unless you're casually standing at 2150 range waiting.
Also they nerfed sentries recently in case you weren't aware.

You already spend gold on wards and counter wards for map control, normally you have a player who's role is precisely and only that, they are usually called a ward bitch.

True but a support that dies in 2 hits because he can't get a Ghost Scepter is still less useful than a support that can stay around to cast a few more spells.

[Deleted]

idk about you but without a setup or at least a BKB I don't see how enemies are gonna eat ult just because you have a blink and with either of those Lothar's would do fine unless you're casually standing at 2150 range waiting.
Also they nerfed sentries recently in case you weren't aware.

With a Blink Dagger you're able to cast the ultimate amongst them without them doing anything about it, obviously you also need a BKB. With Shadowblade you won't even get close to them before they back off.

True but a support that dies in 2 hits because he can't get a Ghost Scepter is still less useful than a support that can stay around to cast a few more spells.

A ward bitch won't be able to afford a ghost sceptre until late game, 30 min in they usually have boots, a portal, and wards. It can take as much as up to 20 min to get regular 500 gold boots, or 450 in dota. Sometimes even longer than that.

[Deleted]

With a Blink Dagger you're able to cast the ultimate amongst them without them doing anything about it, obviously you also need a BKB. With Shadowblade you won't even get close to them before they back off.

So we're assuming you're just casually ultbombing 5 people and not in the middle of a fight and they're in a position where they've either pre-warded or are likely to spontaneously ward?

A ward bitch won't be able to afford a ghost sceptre until late game, 30 min in they usually have boots, a portal, and wards.

idk I've wardbitched a fuckton and sure maybe if I'm losing or CM but otherwise it's not too rare to get one.
Then again I don't fill the well with smokes and TPs for everyone but if I did I probably wouldn't have the cash for sentries in the first place no matter how good of a player I am.

[Deleted]

So we're assuming you're just casually ultbombing 5 people and not in the middle of a fight and they're in a position where they've either pre-warded or are likely to spontaneously ward?

Initiating a team fight is usually what a SF does, along with Sand King, Enigma and similar heroes. You can't initiate with Shadowblade.

idk I've wardbitched a fuckton and sure maybe if I'm losing or CM but otherwise it's not too rare to get one.
Then again I don't fill the well with smokes and TPs for everyone but if I did I probably wouldn't have the cash for sentries in the first place no matter how good of a player I am.

You're not a ward bitch unless you spend almost all of your gold on wards an counter wards, you will be playing against someone who does the exact same thing and your primary job is to locate and take out their wards, whilst keeping your own up...

[Drunkenvalley]

Initiating a team fight is usually what a SF does, along with Sand King, Enigma and similar heroes. You can't initiate with Shadowblade.

Quick interject: Shadow Fiend's ult does not break Shadow Blade invisibility until the end of the channeling. In case you forgot. And you sure as shit can't initiate with a Blink Dagger as SF. That's just not happening without a BKB on top.

[Deleted]

Quick interject: Shadow Fiend's ult does not break Shadow Blade invisibility until the end of the channeling. In case you forgot. And you sure as shit can't initiate with a Blink Dagger as SF. That's just not happening without a BKB on top.

I'm aware, but against a skilled team who knows you have SB, they won't just let you walk up to them and initiate it, they will have both wards and dust, and possibly gem to see you which renders SB useless. Blink Dagger allows you to move on top of the enemy team and ultimate, which will assuredly with the followup of your team hit at least some of them.

[Drunkenvalley]

Blink Dagger allows you to move on top of the enemy team and ultimate, which will assuredly with the followup of your team hit at least some of them.

You talk about how "they won't just let you" with the Shadow Blade, but make it a Blink Dagger and it magically happens? Really ma'am?

[Deleted]

You talk about how "they won't just let you" with the Shadow Blade, but make it a Blink Dagger and it magically happens? Really ma'am?

You can't prevent someone from getting close to you with Blink Dagger, since it teleports you a great distance. You can prevent them from casually walking up to you.

[Drunkenvalley]

You can't prevent someone from getting close to you with Blink Dagger, since it teleports you a great distance. You can prevent them from casually walking up to you.

You're forgetting the part where you stand still and channel a spell for a second... In the middle of the enemy team.