[Megathread] DotA 2

[hailey]

Because why should I be forced to have to find a group of people - and then find time where we can all play for hours on end - instead of there being a matchmaking system that's accurate?

Why can't I just log on and queue for a game and have the very reasonable expectation that everyone in the game will be accurately matched instead of it just apparently grabbing people from a very wide variety of skill levels and throw them into the game?



... I never called it overpowered? I just said that I had been told it was considered a bug/exploit, maybe they were incorrect.

No one's forcing you to do anything, but it's like if this was WoW or something and you complained for months that random dungeon finder groups are terrible but refused to try find a group of people to play with. It just defies logic, and further why would anyone want to hear you complain for that long about something? You also have a history of coming here and complaining about random heroes or skills that kill you or you lose to, suggesting they are imbalanced if not outright saying it in many cases.

Strangers are just not going to consistently play well as a team. It won't ever happen. That combined with a pub meta of basically "anything goes" means games are never going to be particularly stable even with good match making. Try adding the people you play well with from match making or something.

[Valedus]

hailey is pretty much spot on. Me and my group of buddies/brothers found a group of 3 good players and now we constantly have 4-5 people who want to play, a full team. It makes it much more enjoyable coordinating with people over Skype/Vent.

[Deleted]

What do you guys think about http://www.facebook.com/FreeDota2BetaKeys and http://dota2giveaway.com ?
It gives dota2 keys at a push of a button (well you need to download a txt file in order to get it). Didn't try it yet, just wantd to see if anybody heard of it and knows if it's legit or not.

[Hermanni]

What do you guys think about http://www.facebook.com/FreeDota2BetaKeys and http://dota2giveaway.com ?
It gives dota2 keys at a push of a button (well you need to download a txt file in order to get it). Didn't try it yet, just wantd to see if anybody heard of it and knows if it's legit or not.

They're probably scams. Only really reliable ways of getting one are the Steam store, Steam trade and giveaways from reputable websites and organizations like playdota. Facebook sharespam or something you need to download are likely not going to get you a key.

You can also download the spectator client for free, and although you can't play with it yourself it'll turn into a proper client once the game is out which might not be that far away from now.

[PizzaSHARK]

They're probably scams. Only really reliable ways of getting one are the Steam store, Steam trade and giveaways from reputable websites and organizations like playdota. Facebook sharespam or something you need to download are likely not going to get you a key.

You can also download the spectator client for free, and although you can't play with it yourself it'll turn into a proper client once the game is out which might not be that far away from now.

TI2 is going to be free for everyone to spectate, right? Even the ones without beta keys?

[Hermanni]

TI2 is going to be free for everyone to spectate, right? Even the ones without beta keys?

Yes and like I said, the spectator client is already live in Steam.

[llDemonll]

I agree on the matchmaking comment...had a Viper go mid against PA last game and by the end of the game he was 0-9-x and PA was stacked as fuck because Viper couldn't harass worth a damn (not because PA prevented it, because he was terrible)

DOTA2 is getting less-and-less fun to solo-queue because you'll get paired with one bad player who will feed a lane and that lane will then run over the rest of the team and ti's GG from there.

[Jangri-]

Demon, that must've been, well, the worst viper ever? I don't quite see how can he lose mid to pa. Sure pa can farm with dagger, but even pub viper should hit 50cs/10m against pa.

Also, i think a research done by valve or some stats website, can't recall the source now, said the best player in team influences win chance more often than the bad one.

Also, bad games happen to everyone. I can play solid with minimal mistakes four games and then go derpshit on 5th game in a row. It happens, I've lost some games solohandedly. And pretty much everyone has, I guess.

[Lysah]

the best player in team influences win chance more often than the bad one.

Are you saying the best player influences the team's ability to win more than the worst player makes them lose? I would love to see the research on that, I don't see how it can possibly be true when the team is made of 5 people. The way individual games end up, it's far more common for the best player in the game to win his lane, but not crush it, and then one of his allies gets totally curbstomped and goes 0-8 in his lane which his "best player" ally simply cannot salvage. If I get 70+ CS in the first ten minutes and am, for all intensive purposes, free farming my lane, but they have a DS or WR who is also getting maybe 2 creeps a wave, this simply is not the same as their mid who not only has the same CS as me but also 5 kills from my horrible ass teammate which leads to a very quick overall team gold imbalance that can't be beaten by one person. Long story short, I'll believe it when I see it :x

To be honest, most of my wins are to someone on the enemy team being horrible. Sometimes it's a combination of several or all of them, but usually they have a good player or two that I feel sorry for because there's just nothing they can do. It's not fun to win like that either, which is why my complain is with the matchmaking system's inability to create even games. Maybe it's not possible to make even games, since "everyone has bad games," but I still have faith. I don't have bad games, really, I just don't. Even when I random Necrolyte, end up not repicking, and go 0-6 in the first ten minutes I will still end up one of the stronger members of my team by the end of the game. And I'm not arrogant enough to think I'm the only person in the world like this, so I have to ask the matchmaking system, where the hell are the other 9 people like me to give me a fun game?

[PizzaSHARK]

So, Chen.

How do you be effective in the early game if you're screwed out of good creeps? Had golems, ogres, and no trolls, centaurs, or wildkin and the only satyr was the pack of two blue and two white, none of the red ones. Just jungle normally and pray for a good creep spawn?

How do you remain relevant past like 30 minutes? Everyone has boots which makes it increasingly hard to get creeps close enough and as lane creeps receive their upgrades, jungle creeps become proportionately less powerful. We won after 71 minutes, but I think we could've won much sooner if I'd been Enchantress. It seems like Chen doesn't offer a lot to post-30 minutes teamfights besides Word of God and Mekansm. 400 global heal every 30 sec is pretty slick, but when people have 2k HP... it's fairly mild. His Q and W are kind of weak past 30 minutes due to their cooldowns, I think, and due to their short cast ranges it puts squishy squishy Chen in range of most enemy nukes - stuns, frost nova, etc.

We won with split pushing because their team was heavy on teamfight and weak on pushing/counterpushing, but I honestly felt pretty worthless past like 45 mins. I was able to save people a few times... but they could've bought back, too, and it felt like if I were Enchantress, I at least could've been spamming imps for fat damage.

Is there a secret to making Chen good past the midgame, or do pros pick him so often because of his powerhouse early game?

[Alraml]

Maybe it's not possible to make even games, since "everyone has bad games," but I still have faith. I don't have bad games, really, I just don't. Even when I random Necrolyte, end up not repicking, and go 0-6 in the first ten minutes I will still end up one of the stronger members of my team by the end of the game. And I'm not arrogant enough to think I'm the only person in the world like this, so I have to ask the matchmaking system, where the hell are the other 9 people like me to give me a fun game?

Yeah I don't have bad games really. My worst of recent times was going 0-3 down as Sand King vs Juggernaut/Crystal Maiden (Words cannot describe how lame that combo is, Sand King is utterly powerless against it) and still ended up like 11-5 by the end of the game

So, Chen.
Is there a secret to making Chen good past the midgame, or do pros pick him so often because of his powerhouse early game?

The simple answer is that pro-level is a different meta-game to mainstream dota. It's rare to see a pro-level game go on for a particularly long time. Most games last between 20-30 minutes

You'll find a lot more happens at much earlier levels and there's a lot more rotation of lanes and ganks that occur. It's just because of how much more organised and well communicated top level teams are compared to public dota.

Most games either work out as:
Tri-lane, 1 mid, 1 off-lane or 2 top, 1 woods, 1 mid and 1 off-lane
whereas in a public game a tri-lane is largely unheard of and most games work out as 2 top, 1 mid and 2 off-lane

It's a much more fluid and aggressive style that i'd like to play but until I get a group of reasonably good people to play with I won't be able to.

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In the late game Chen is nothing more than his Penitence to help your carry damage their carry a lot more, a TP to get people out of trouble and a sheep stick wielder. His heals become negligable eventually and your creeps will simply get gunned down

[PizzaSHARK]

In the late game Chen is nothing more than his Penitence to help your carry damage their carry a lot more, a TP to get people out of trouble and a sheep stick wielder. His heals become negligable eventually and your creeps will simply get gunned down

Yeah, I figured that. I probably wouldn't have taken him if I didn't get three overall shitty picks in SD. Sucks, though, because I enjoy the micro-oriented action he provides, it's really fun to box someone in with creeps.

---------- Post added 2012-08-21 at 01:54 AM ----------



Rubick 2 gud.

[Valedus]

I really think they should change the fact that you can throw people on those cliffs. It's way too easy for some heroes to do it at the start of the game, and screw over a team early in the game.

[PizzaSHARK]

I really think they should change the fact that you can throw people on those cliffs. It's way too easy for some heroes to do it at the start of the game, and screw over a team early in the game.

I may be biased since I play a lot of Rubick, but... why are you fighting in range of a cliff if you know someone can chuck you up there? Level 1 TK's cast range is pretty small, you have to be pretty damn close to the cliff to get thrown up there.

As far as I'm aware, Rubick's the only one that can do it without a lot of timing and coordination, and it's limited by TK's pretty small cast range.

[Demidov]

DOTA2 is getting less-and-less fun to solo-queue because you'll get paired with one bad player who will feed a lane and that lane will then run over the rest of the team and ti's GG from there.

Really much this. My W/L is turning really bad because of this.

[Valedus]

Because in order to get the first rune spawn you have to be next to the cliff? And I don't think the cast range goes up, I think it is just the cc duration.

I mean, I don't care about it late game, but if you are ever in river by rune spots and Rubick comes up he can just throw you up there. When you don't have flying courier, it's extremely bad for your team. Someone has to buy one, then you have to buy a scroll, all the while also losing lane time.

[PizzaSHARK]

Because in order to get the first rune spawn you have to be next to the cliff? And I don't think the cast range goes up, I think it is just the cc duration.

I mean, I don't care about it late game, but if you are ever in river by rune spots and Rubick comes up he can just throw you up there. When you don't have flying courier, it's extremely bad for your team. Someone has to buy one, then you have to buy a scroll, all the while also losing lane time.

Nope, range increases by 25 units per level. Starts at 550 range.

550 range is considerably less than the range of many ranged heroes (most heroes are between 550 and 600, Drow is 625) and also shorter than most other level 1 abilities - Sven's stormbolt, for example, is 600 range. It all basically means that, even if you can't take the rune, you can sure as hell deny it.

Not to mention, with a range that short, Rubick has to be in position BEFORE someone starts heading for the rune, and given how squishy Rubick is, you could easily turn him into a free first blood.

Just seems like one of those "deal with it," things, like when Chen or Enchantress find a troll or centaur right off the dick and basically get a free first blood double kill and then take the t1 tower before 02:00.

EDIT: Buddy's telling me it might actually be a bug. Neither DS nor Rubick are able to cliff people in War3 Dota, so maybe it'll be classified as a bug. Seems odd that Valve wouldn't have said something about it if they're gonna try and remove it, though.

[Lysah]

I was wondering about that, because part of my memory has vacuum not putting people up cliffs, but I wasn't sure if that was just my imagination or not.

[Alraml]

I really think they should change the fact that you can throw people on those cliffs. It's way too easy for some heroes to do it at the start of the game, and screw over a team early in the game.

Well it was their own fault, they should have realised what rubick was doing and gunned him down. They even had a pudge that could hook people back down again

[Ultraviolet Harmonies]

EDIT: Buddy's telling me it might actually be a bug. Neither DS nor Rubick are able to cliff people in War3 Dota, so maybe it'll be classified as a bug. Seems odd that Valve wouldn't have said something about it if they're gonna try and remove it, though.

Common bugs list:

• 15. pushing to inescapable areas
• ['11.12.11] Skills that push the hero power cogs, Primal Roar push the hero to unmovable areas(potentially getting you stuck)
• ['12.07.15] Vacuum and swap moving heroes into inescapable areas

Additionally, you could toss people up cliffs with Telekinesis briefly before 6.72c, in which patch it was fixed.

Right now, it's a debate between staying consistent with DotA mechanics and leaving it in (and enabling Blink Dagger on Vengeful Spirit/Pudge, I presume).