[Megathread] DotA 2

[EqualWin]

holy shit I can't win a game with mirana, I've to win 10 games to get 250 cp cause i choose her as my favorite hero, sad thing and for some reason im not playing THAT bad with her I hit arrow (1/10 lel) and farming well but end up losing because my carry is shit, just had a game hard carry ember spirit. 25 min bf, game before that one a tidehunder carry (yeah trolling) he farmed well but useless shit, the game before that a fkn doom insta dying after buyback and we lost the game.

[PizzaSHARK]

What happened to qop? Was watching the D2CL games and Ayesee and the other guy on cast with him were talking about how they'd spoken to pro players while they were at the BTS studio or something, and the pros were saying qop was regarded as a very weak hero, one of the worst.

Why? Girl's gotten nothing but straight buffs for many, many patches. Shadow Strike is disgustingly good (4 sec cd nuke that does 425 dmg over time and slows for 50%?), Sonic Wave has enormous damage potential with a skill like Vacuum or Black Hole or Reverse Polarity, she just seems like a straight up better Storm Spirit the more I compare the two. Yet Storm Spirit sees more use (barely; and he has an almost 10% lower win rate.)

Is it just because how of ludicrously OP bottlecrow is? Heroes like Panda, DK, etc can completely ignore the enemy mid and just bottlecrow all game for nearly infinite mana/health regen and not give a fuck about who gets the rune, and there's no way a hero like qop could harass them away from creeps if they're just bottling up constantly.

Especially with how focused on towers and shit teams seem to be lately, you'd think this would be the perfect time for qop to become popular again. She's amazing at turning tower dives into a 3 kill advantage for her team and she can flash farm really well if she goes with a scream of pain build (especially if supports stack camps for her.)

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Except Lich ulti is fail proof for the duration of the. It is strong yes, but you can still disable it.

This is also funny how Tidehunter has his comeback year to year NO TIDEHUNTER !!!

Teams are more focused on early teamfighting over towers etc. Ravage has always been amazing, blink dagger is disgustingly OP now, Anchor Smash got a completely unwarranted buff, etc.

Tide was totally fine beforehand, but Icefrog has to babysit the meta otherwise the pros would never do anything but copy each other. I'm hoping for blink dagger nerfs soon, honestly. 12 sec cd with no mana cost is just way too good, something needs to change.

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Go GO TA Arcana!

Why are there still teams picking QoP at pro level? I understand in pubs you can win mid-->gank-->snowball easily with her, but at competitive level it seems unless you have the early game of your life(on all 3 lanes) that hero is just a burden. The buff to auto gold gain(which means supports have much more,faster) and the buff to blink dagger make QoP such a questionable pick.

Massive damage output potential. Shadow Strike has 4 sec cd and does 425 dmg over its duration, and with the mana cost reduction for lvl 3/4, she can easily flip daggers at the entire enemy team and win through attrition. If she goes old school scream build, she gets great lane presence and farm potential and higher burst damage, but that build can be hard to manage if you don't get good farm because of the mana costs. Wave+scream+Veil is ENORMOUS damage if you can tag multiple people with it; it's feasible to hit an entire team for almost 1000 mitigated damage if you have something like vac or RP to set it up.

I'm wondering if qop should be sent mid anymore, though. She's pretty XP hungry, but I could see putting her in safelane core farming position simply to guarantee her good farm (IMO, farm > XP for her despite her usual position), and she'd probably be very strong against some of the more common offlane picks like Doomy, Tide, Centy, Tree, and Clock (none of them would do well against a shadow strike qop.) Core farming qop sounds like something very doable. Could give her Veil and Agh's and just play the waiting game with enemy BKBs, or build her for right-click with skadi or deso or even maelstrom. She doesn't have any right-click steroids, but neither does Profit.

BKBs shut her down hard, but they do that to Skywrath Mage, too, and there was a game I watched where support Skywrath still routinely gibbed the enemy DK in the late game as soon as the BKB fell off. QoP doesn't have that kind of damage output (lvl 3 Mystic Flare + Ancient Seal is 1500 damage by itself after 25% MR is factored), but she's a lot more mobile and far better at farming.

Unless they nerf bottlecrow for tanky melee heroes like panda, DK, etc, I don't think harass mids are going to be much of a thing anymore. They're just too tanky to harass out of lane with fresh bottle being flown in constantly and panda at least could very easily kill qop once he hits 6 if he can catch her with her blink down.

[Hermanni]

QoP is just a seasonal pick, for a hero that has seen very little changes over the lifespan of Dota 2 she's gone from a never picked hero to a top tier hero and then fluctuated somewhere in between for a while. Even without buffs she'll probably become popular again, sooner or later, and people who said she's bad will forget having ever said such a thing.

[Deleted]

Massive damage output potential. Shadow Strike has 4 sec cd and does 425 dmg over its duration, and with the mana cost reduction for lvl 3/4, she can easily flip daggers at the entire enemy team and win through attrition. If she goes old school scream build, she gets great lane presence and farm potential and higher burst damage, but that build can be hard to manage if you don't get good farm because of the mana costs. Wave+scream+Veil is ENORMOUS damage if you can tag multiple people with it; it's feasible to hit an entire team for almost 1000 mitigated damage if you have something like vac or RP to set it up.

I'm wondering if qop should be sent mid anymore, though. She's pretty XP hungry, but I could see putting her in safelane core farming position simply to guarantee her good farm (IMO, farm > XP for her despite her usual position), and she'd probably be very strong against some of the more common offlane picks like Doomy, Tide, Centy, Tree, and Clock (none of them would do well against a shadow strike qop.) Core farming qop sounds like something very doable. Could give her Veil and Agh's and just play the waiting game with enemy BKBs, or build her for right-click with skadi or deso or even maelstrom. She doesn't have any right-click steroids, but neither does Profit.

No upset, but according to you, #1 position farm should go to almost every hero because they all need experience and free farm. A shadowstrike qop has no aoe clear so you literally have to autoattack creeps.It doesn't really matter how good the #1 position hero is against the offlane hero imo since its the supports doing the zoning out. While NP doesn't have any right click steriods, he ends up #1 Net Worth starting on the offlane.

@Hermanni. QoP hasn't been top tier since the passive gold got buffed ages ago. Arteezy said on stream she's literally the worst hero in the current meta.

[PizzaSHARK]

Arteezy said on stream she's literally the worst hero in the current meta.

Spacecow. No one is worse than spacecow.

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No upset, but according to you, #1 position farm should go to almost every hero because they all need experience and free farm. A shadowstrike qop has no aoe clear so you literally have to autoattack creeps.

Like basically every other hero in the game, yes.

[Charge me Doctor]

Isn't the whole point of shadow strike QoP ganks and lane bullying? Like, you wither your opponent down with constant poison damage, have all runes and are free to gank w.e. lane and your 50% initial slow is more than enough to do so. Why does she needs to have AoE clear? And the only mid laners who don't "literally have to autoattack creeps" is Shadow Fiend and Puck. To some point off course

[Maruka]

i always get shadowstrike on her early over maxing scream, i usually get called a newb for it by the peruvians but then i start ganking at 6 and its just so strong.

[veiledy0]

Why doesn't Fnatic just move excalibur to a support once his 2 heroes are banned in the first round? He doesn't seem to play any other carry hero better than your average 4k pub. Especially not space creators like Slark. And they want this sh*t to replace Era.

[Maruka]

Does anyone elses compendium not have choices in the drop down menus of the wildcard and main event predictions?

[PizzaSHARK]

Why doesn't Fnatic just move excalibur to a support once his 2 heroes are banned in the first round? He doesn't seem to play any other carry hero better than your average 4k pub. Especially not space creators like Slark. And they want this sh*t to replace Era.

Reminds me of AdmiralBulldog when he first started seeing pro attention. Dude could play, like, three heroes and that was it.

I'm more curious about why Fnatic is getting mad that they're expected to bring Era instead of Xcalibur. Xcalibur is very good, but very limited. Era is not quite as good, but a lot more versatile.

Considering how good EG has become, I think it's fair to say that versatility matters maybe more than anything else now. Alliance's lack of it is definitely costing them some trophies.

[Jester Joe]

holy shit I can't win a game with mirana, I've to win 10 games to get 250 cp cause i choose her as my favorite hero, sad thing and for some reason im not playing THAT bad with her I hit arrow (1/10 lel) and farming well but end up losing because my carry is shit, just had a game hard carry ember spirit. 25 min bf, game before that one a tidehunder carry (yeah trolling) he farmed well but useless shit, the game before that a fkn doom insta dying after buyback and we lost the game.

Probably should of thought that over before picking then :P
I tried Mirana once, it's really annoying if you have no practice or luck. Maybe try getting a friend to play Bane with you?

Personally I picked Legion Commander and I've been doing pretty well with it, I think I catch people offguard thinking I'll get Power Treads like every other LC, but suddenly I'm running at ridiculous speeds through creepwaves at them

[minteK917]

QoP problem is that she does not fit that easily. Storm is mentioned here, but they couldnt be more different. Storm has control ability, beyond those of QoP. QoP only has damaging ability, a single slow is not that useful against team on the pro level they help each other beyond what dota pubs do. Ganking as a middle is not as easy as it is in pubs. Storm value scales better into late game as well.

She just does not bring much at all, she does not have huge advantages in middle. Her nuking is not the most impressive and her right click is mediocre. You can cover most of her perks with heroes that are more useful overall. If you want a middle that bring nukes, shadow fiend is more useful and bring about the same amount of nuke damage, while being one of the best right click in the game and an agi hero. You have just too many heroes that play mid that are too useful and bottle crow just makes most of them impossible to really stop farming. You just need a good gank, which happens often for pro, the problem is that QoP is not any better than anyone else at team ganking the other middle. Its all about situation and positioning.

Shes not the worst, shes just meh?

[LiiLoSNK]

Probably should of thought that over before picking then :P
I tried Mirana once, it's really annoying if you have no practice or luck. Maybe try getting a friend to play Bane with you?

Personally I picked Legion Commander and I've been doing pretty well with it, I think I catch people offguard thinking I'll get Power Treads like every other LC, but suddenly I'm running at ridiculous speeds through creepwaves at them

Feels like phase are the better buy due to move speed+ mob phase. That and IAS doesn't benefit moment of courage at all, unlike attack dmg. I've never seen an LC go treads unless they went brown boots -> blink -> situational STR treads.

The funniest thing is an LC who tries to phase armlet before blink. Never catches anyone.

[Jester Joe]

Feels like phase are the better buy due to move speed+ mob phase. That and IAS doesn't benefit moment of courage at all, unlike attack dmg. I've never seen an LC go treads unless they went brown boots -> blink -> situational STR treads.

The funniest thing is an LC who tries to phase armlet before blink. Never catches anyone.

I honestly haven't gotten blink on her yet (Don't hurt me)
With all the speed I usually have no issues catching people, but usually that's because I'll dash out from the fog with speed running already, and someone will stun them.
Next time I play I'll get a blink though.

[veiledy0]

Xcalibur is very good, but very limited.

This is is contradictory as it gets. If you're very limited, you simply can't be very good at the same time, 'cause you're limitation stops you from it.

Considering how good EG has become, I think it's fair to say that versatility matters maybe more than anything else now. Alliance's lack of it is definitely costing them some trophies.

Every player on Alliance is way more versatile than excalibur. Bulldog included. Not to mention EGM who can play literally every single hero in the game, or S4 who's hero pool is so large that even using all 5 bans on him would leave an "S4 hero" in the pool.

[Jester Joe]

This is is contradictory as it gets. If you're very limited, you simply can't be very good at the same time, 'cause you're limitation stops you from it.

How? I could be very good at a few heroes, making me very good when I play them, yet limited in where I'm good.

[Deleted]

This is is contradictory as it gets. If you're very limited, you simply can't be very good at the same time, 'cause you're limitation stops you from it.

Every player on Alliance is way more versatile than excalibur. Bulldog included. Not to mention EGM who can play literally every single hero in the game, or S4 who's hero pool is so large that even using all 5 bans on him would leave an "S4 hero" in the pool.

Excalibur is similar to Bulldog because he has a couple of really strong heroes(Tinker/Meepo) that the enemy team would like to ban/not play against similar to how Bulldog had Nature's Prophet/Lone Druid last year and this opens the hero pool for his team.

I don't think you need everyone on your team to be 6+ hero versatile.

[veiledy0]

How? I could be very good at a few heroes, making me very good when I play them, yet limited in where I'm good.

I don't see how you can't understand something that simple. If you're limited, you're not good. Simple as that. It's like saying I'm tall but I'm short. Being good overall means having no limitations at all.

Excalibur is similar to Bulldog because he has a couple of really strong heroes(Tinker/Meepo) that the enemy team would like to ban/not play against similar to how Bulldog had Nature's Prophet/Lone Druid last year and this opens the hero pool for his team.

I don't think you need everyone on your team to be 6+ hero versatile.

That's my exact point. Hence I'm wondering why he still plays the carry role once the enemy has used their bans on his heroes and his job is basically done. There must be at least someone in fnatic who can actually play a proper carry, and they can move excalibur to a semi-support type of hero which isn't expected to have as much impact on the game as a Slark should.

[Deleted]

Sick game @ ESL one between Alliance and C9. C9 could of won but they messed up, was an insane Bulldog Nature's Prophet game.

[Sorcereria]

Kill C9 for stupid decision making. THX /my rares

A single REFRESHER void would secure the damn game.