[Megathread] DotA 2

[veiledy0]

Cold Snap is just pure, unadulterated horseshit and I'd love to see it get nerfed even more. It's like Malefice on steroids - effectively a 3 sec stun at level 1, 1k cast range, fairly short cooldown. Really good skill. Then again, Invoker doesn't really need any nerfs. Or buffs. Seems pretty okay to me right now, just a pain in the ass to play against if the guy playing him is any good.

Also, wiki's saying that ion cannon pierces magic immunity now. That's a pretty sizable boost to him if that's true. Confirm/deny?

He does need buffs. He's a hero who's main strength is stomping by being way ahead in levels, and the latest patch made that impossible, plus he's countered way to much by BKB, so by the time lategame comes his usefulness is mediocre at best compared to other heroes that can be given farm priority. I think he should get Lina's treatment, so his Agh's makes Meteor and Blast pierce BKB and do pure dmg.

[StrawberryZebra]

Thing is, she's actually pretty safe against ganks. Most damage for the first 3-4 levels of the game is from autos (hence why RoP/stout is considered so good), and together with her high base STR, good base armor, 20% evasion, and the fact she will almost always get PMS... she's really really hard to hurt with autos, and then she can always blink to a creep or friendly hero 1k range away even if you do catch her out. It's the only reason PA mid even works; you literally cannot deny her farm because 1200 range daggers with no cost or cooldown, and even if you get a perfect Fissure block or something on her, she can just blink to a creep a screen away.

There are a couple of Heroes with long enough disable times at low levels to keep her in place for long enough to kill her. Lion, Shadow Shaman, Mirana etc. They're also quite commonly picked together with the main aim of killing the other laners repeatedly. Strong gankers can catch her off guard too, Pudge being by far the most common one, but Batrider and Venge can do it as well and an honourable mention has to go to Distuptor who can stop her escaping with Glimpse.
She's also vulnrable to just being instagibbed by spells too, beyond level 6 but before she has a BKB. People like Lina, Lion and Nyx have more than enough firepower to kill her within a single stun, especially if they have help setting it up. PA may have better escapes than most, but she can, and should, be ganked, ideally with extreme frequency.

I'm not sure what can be done to make her less reliant on flipping coins. It's basically the entire design of the hero - random chance to instagib enemies. She's more chaotic than fucking Chaos Knight. You could easily remove the RNG reliance from her, but then you're probably disrupting the hero's theme in the process. I mean, personally I think all crits and evades in the game should operate like Jinada or at least Drunken Brawler, but that would require a lot of work to balance out properly. You could make her a little less bullshit by only allowing the first crit every X seconds to hit for extreme damage, with all other crits inside that timeframe being relatively normal crits (2.00x-3.00x.)

Ironicaly, I've always considered CK to be one of the most reliable Heroes in the game for what he does. Even if RNG is against him he still has at least a 2 second stun on a short cooldown, a 6 second cooldown gap closer and an ult that multiplies his damage. There's very little "chance" in playing him, almost everything is a calculable estimation. He'll probably even overpower most other carries late game too with his ult up, so its not as if he's a very risky pick either.
The Heroes who really do rely on RNG are the ones where the outcomes can swing wildly depending on which way it goes. People like Ogre Magi (though not quite as much anymore as in the past), and I'm sure we've all seen Voids get streaks of bashes/dodges that have gotten him out of a tight spot where he should have been killed.

As for toning down some of her RNG, there are lots of ways it could be done. Get a crit every X hits? A crit once every X seconds? Maybe even upping the chance of her crits massively, but lowering the damage would help even out her gameplay.

[EqualWin]

He does need buffs. He's a hero who's main strength is stomping by being way ahead in levels, and the latest patch made that impossible, plus he's countered way to much by BKB, so by the time lategame comes his usefulness is mediocre at best compared to other heroes that can be given farm priority. I think he should get Lina's treatment, so his Agh's makes Meteor and Blast pierce BKB and do pure dmg.

that would be too OP lmao, yeah he get countered by BKB like most nukers. but what you want? his combo is retarded in term of dmg, if there's no way to counter his meteor and blast then RIP pubs, Just bait bkb kite with op ice wall and meteor them after, idk bkb is the only way to stop his stupid combo of eul/cyclone meteor deaf blast.

[PizzaSHARK]

Why does the most common Puck build max orb before rift? Orb gains nothing but damage from extra points, Rift more than doubles its silence duration, and both skills do identical damage. I guess orb can be used to harass/nuke from safety, but it's really slow and obvious and easy to avoid, and in fights Puck is blinking into the middle of the enemy team and rolling his face on the keyboard, anyway. Am I missing something here?

[Omertocracy]

Am I missing something here?

I guess orb can be used to harass/nuke from safety

Nope, missing nothing.

[LiiLoSNK]

god tier new puck meta. who harasses these days anyways.

[Noorri]

Illusory Orb:
Has a lower cooldown then Waning Rift, meaning that if you max it first you get to use the damage from your skillpoints more often.
Doesn't increase in mana cost as you level it unlike Waning Rift.
It's safer to get lasthits/harass with Orb and leveling it for the damage makes getting multiple lasthits at the same time easier.

Which you max first should be situational. If you need a long silence, then Waning Rift first is probably better. Otherwise Illusory Orb might be better.

[EqualWin]

Why does the most common Puck build max orb before rift? Orb gains nothing but damage from extra points, Rift more than doubles its silence duration, and both skills do identical damage. I guess orb can be used to harass/nuke from safety, but it's really slow and obvious and easy to avoid, and in fights Puck is blinking into the middle of the enemy team and rolling his face on the keyboard, anyway. Am I missing something here?

farm /10char

[PizzaSHARK]

Wish we'd see more Sven in games. Such a good hero, especially played as a 2 or 3 instead of a 1. He can easily support a lane effectively and transition into a strong semi-carry later in the game and his Agh's is ridiculously good combined with a stats/base damage-heavy carry. I feel like he's a kind of risky pick as a 1, since he's totally reliant on his BKB to get anything done and doesn't really have any mobility tools to address kiting, but as a 2 or 3, it's less of an issue if he gets kited some, because he's not your team's primary damage source.

His stun's awesome, though I don't know why they changed it to be disjointable (wasted voice lines now.) Decent stun in a pretty sizable AOE, it's reliable, does more damage than an average nuke. Warcry is ridiculously awesome, +16 armor to creeps basically means they take no damage from t1/t2 towers, +16% ms is a huge boost, and it costs nothing to use. His ult means that, even if he's low on farm, his right-click is still relevant and dangerous, and it scales really well if you buy stats instead of flat damage. A Sven with just, like, Armlet and Crystalys has a lot of damage potential for very little gold. Add BKB if you need it, but if you're a secondary hero, you might not.

Seems like he'd be a reliable choice combined with any kind of other stats-based carry, whether it's early or late. Heroes like Medusa and Spectre dominate late game and tend to stack stats, so they benefit a lot from his Agh's. Warcry and his general toolkit gives him and his team a lot of early aggression and roaming potential, his cleave and ult let him hit towers hard and give him the option to farm stacked camps for quick gold later on.

I don't think he can offlane effectively, but he can definitely solo mid decently against a lot of heroes, and he can trilane as both support and farming hero, especially if it's part of a roaming duo. Should be fine in duo lanes anywhere, too.

Also, LC and Zeus were picked in a C9 v Secret game recently. Told ya we'd be seeing more of them. Zeus was being played as a lane support, oddly enough, and seemed to do decently in that capacity - soul ring and tranquil boots build. I'm not sure if I agree with support Zeus, but I guess he was selected for his teamfight ult and early dewarding capacity. C9 had the Zeus and Secret had the LC... and a Huskar. C9 lost, but I think it was more due to a bad draft and some bad play than anything else. The support Zeus seemed to carry his weight very effectively, and so did Secret's LC.

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Ironicaly, I've always considered CK to be one of the most reliable Heroes in the game for what he does. Even if RNG is against him he still has at least a 2 second stun on a short cooldown, a 6 second cooldown gap closer and an ult that multiplies his damage. There's very little "chance" in playing him, almost everything is a calculable estimation. He'll probably even overpower most other carries late game too with his ult up, so its not as if he's a very risky pick either.

A lot of his buffs in the past several patches have been to make him more consistent overall, which is kind of amusing since he's supposedly all about randomness.

He's definitely a pick I'm surprised isn't as common since the whole "rubberband" changes make him a little more viable later in the game, since it's a little less important that he can't farm well.

[Sorcereria]

Is this the new meta that VP plays reasonable well and for example Qojqva doesnt shine at all in Tinker is the game meta, player comp and or their picks? Going further Fluff seemed to play extremly well joining SNA, and TC stopped being clowny too after liquid disband.

[PizzaSHARK]

Morphling's stat morphing should be 1/2 rate when he's taken damage from heroes in the past 3 sec. Being able to dive into enemy teams and then just walk away because you're gaining a ridiculous amount of HP/sec passively is ridiculous and has absolutely no place in DotA.

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Amazes me how little people understand about the game at my bracket. People that actually think Ogre isn't gamebreakingly OP at any stage of the game. People that don't understand that PA is OP because her dagger is too good. People that think lvl 4 Repel at lvl 7 isn't good.

Jesus christ.

[Sorcereria]

EG vs C9 Game 1 Dreamleague, Ogre just 1vs5 that game with 4x multicasts. ;d

[StrawberryZebra]

Seems like he'd be a reliable choice combined with any kind of other stats-based carry, whether it's early or late. Heroes like Medusa and Spectre dominate late game and tend to stack stats, so they benefit a lot from his Agh's. Warcry and his general toolkit gives him and his team a lot of early aggression and roaming potential, his cleave and ult let him hit towers hard and give him the option to farm stacked camps for quick gold later on.

I don't think he can offlane effectively, but he can definitely solo mid decently against a lot of heroes, and he can trilane as both support and farming hero, especially if it's part of a roaming duo. Should be fine in duo lanes anywhere, too.

If you're looking for someone to fill that sort of role I'd have said Vengeful Spirit would be a much better and more consistent choice. She might not provide as much of a raw damage boost as Sven would, but she can do it earlier and doesn't need Agh's to do it with. Not to mention she also has Wave of Terror which is a very relevant damage increase in the early game, long before carries have much in the way of stats. She's a much better roamer than Sven is, has a very reliable (if probably fatal) initiate onto key targets and can stop blink dagger initiations from a safe range. But unlike Sven, she works very well without farm, or if she falls behind from failed roams.

She can also have relevant right click damage too. Not as much as an ulted Sven of course, but she does have solid Strength and Agility gains and a very wide choice of offensive items she can opt into, even building on a budget, she can still deal very respectable right click damage. She also has a pretty good fall back option of building support items if she falls behind too, which Sven sorely is lacking in, especially if things are going badly and you're trying to scrape together the gold for an Agh's.

[PizzaSHARK]

EG vs C9 Game 1 Dreamleague, Ogre just 1vs5 that game with 4x multicasts. ;d

But no, ogre is balanced because he's melee. As if that's a disadvantage, when melee heroes have higher eHP and base damage to compensate for limited range, and ogre in particular has the highest eHP in the entire fucking game for like the first 10 minutes of the game. And then you add in his ridiculous agh's upgrade...

If you're looking for someone to fill that sort of role I'd have said Vengeful Spirit would be a much better and more consistent choice. She might not provide as much of a raw damage boost as Sven would, but she can do it earlier and doesn't need Agh's to do it with. Not to mention she also has Wave of Terror which is a very relevant damage increase in the early game, long before carries have much in the way of stats. She's a much better roamer than Sven is, has a very reliable (if probably fatal) initiate onto key targets and can stop blink dagger initiations from a safe range. But unlike Sven, she works very well without farm, or if she falls behind from failed roams.

She can also have relevant right click damage too. Not as much as an ulted Sven of course, but she does have solid Strength and Agility gains and a very wide choice of offensive items she can opt into, even building on a budget, she can still deal very respectable right click damage. She also has a pretty good fall back option of building support items if she falls behind too, which Sven sorely is lacking in, especially if things are going badly and you're trying to scrape together the gold for an Agh's.

Yeah. I'm not a fan of VS, but all of the above is why she's been a little more popular in the past several months. She's just a good all-purpose hero, and with swap interrupting channeling spells, it's also a potential solution to heroes like Enigma or Bane.

[Hermanni]

ogre in particular has the highest eHP in the entire fucking game for like the first 10 minutes of the game.

Spirit Breaker says hi.

I have to say, out of all the heroes you've cried about being out of balance Ogre is by far the most hilarious one.

[PizzaSHARK]

Spirit Breaker says hi.

I have to say, out of all the heroes you've cried about being out of balance Ogre is by far the most hilarious one.

Forgot spacecow even existed. I guess he had to be the best at something.

I dunno why you think that. I don't see how anyone can watch a game with ogre magi in it and not immediately realize how fundamentally broken that hero is now after all of the armor/regen/etc buffs stacked on top of the absolutely massive buff they gave to Multicast.

[Tenjen]

how does one deal with a warlock who got sceptre, refresher orb and necronomicon?

because when i can afford to (ie not be support), i go for this build just for how much fun it is to see the enemy react to 4 demons and skeletons. not that it isnt invincible (if certain heroes are present, i avoid it entirely). but its a lot of fun when you know you can pull it off. You just need to use it at the most effective time.

maybe i should team up with chaos knight and naga siren some time. to fill the screen with us.

[Sorcereria]

Ogre is fine, but the way he can win or lose the game is just - watch EG vs C9 in dreamleague.

I swear, EG was like /tough luck bro, skillshot/ when I think it was Zai, who deleted heros instantly 5 times in a row with 2x 4 multicasts. He even manmode a treant TPing with BoTs into C9 T2 with creepwave just to delete a 1.6k treant and zeus after I think.

I can imagine the rage on C9 side and it would be completly justified.

[LiiLoSNK]

armor and regen matters on a hero that's only option to do well in a game is to duo roam early. #trenchproblems #meleesupport #rng #lottery

[PizzaSHARK]

Ogre is fine, but the way he can win or lose the game is just - watch EG vs C9 in dreamleague.

I swear, EG was like /tough luck bro, skillshot/ when I think it was Zai, who deleted heros instantly 5 times in a row with 2x 4 multicasts. He even manmode a treant TPing with BoTs into C9 T2 with creepwave just to delete a 1.6k treant and zeus after I think.

I can imagine the rage on C9 side and it would be completly justified.

That would be fine if there was high risk in exchange for the high rewards. But there isn't. Ogre is not a risky pick by any stretch of the imagination, and he isn't being risky by putting himself into position to try for those multicasts. Right now ogre is low risk high reward, which is why he's such a common pick.

armor and regen matters on a hero that's only option to do well in a game is to duo roam early. #trenchproblems #meleesupport #rng #lottery

Do you do anything but shitpost? Ogre can lane support fine, roaming is standard in pretty much any game, and he scales well enough with items that giving him farm or even playing him as a core is completely doable and works fine. He isn't a particularly RNG-focused hero anymore because 2x multicasts are very common and cause a lot of damage for the time you get them. By time he's lvl 16, you'll 2x more often than you'll 1x, and 3x isn't exactly uncommon, at 25%.

Two 2x multicasts back to back, which isn't exactly uncommon (60% chance at lvl 3), does over a thousand damage and stuns for almost 4 seconds if layered properly, and he can attempt this every 6 seconds if he wants. A 3x followed by a 1x does about the same amount of damage and stuns for about the same amount of time. There's a reason Ogre Magi is being picked a lot in pro games, and it's because the pros realize how ridiculously overpowered the hero is.

Melee support isn't a drawback. Ranged support isn't an advantage. You people need to get the fuck over this ridiculous, nonsense mindset.

Ogre is most commonly used in trilanes, both safe and hard, and has a roughly 50% win rate in both of those situations. His win rate is considerably lower in duo lanes or heavy roaming setups, so you're clearly full of shit; 30 seconds spent checking a site like datdota could've given you this information.

Ogre is extremely strong in lane. He's extremely strong in mid game. He's still strong later in the game because he scales well, though he's rarely given priority for farm at any point in the game. Being melee is not a disadvantage, because melee heroes are stronger and tougher than ranged heroes, and they also tend to have powerful skills as well, and they're able to buy items like stout shield to dramatically reduce the impact of ranged heroes' harass on them. Ranged heroes are balanced by having low base damage and usually low eHP to compensate for being able to attack without necessarily putting them into harm's way.

Ranged is not an advantage. Melee is not a disadvantage. This is one of the most fundamental, basic concepts in DotA and I can't fucking believe so many seemingly high-skilled players have trouble grasping this.