[Megathread] DotA 2

[StrawberryZebra]

Well, that works i guess x)
https://gfycat.com/CoarseIdioticIcterinewarbler

That had me spraying Tea all over my monitor. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Anyone noticed Matchmaking queues being more uneven than usual since Underlord was released? For whatever reason it's been throwing me, and some other poor guy, into a game where we're miles ahead of our respective teams, but in a configuration that, on the face of it, looks balanced. Just had to lane with a Juggy who was almost half my MMR, it was not a fun experience. Even with a Battlefury and 3 early game kills, he only managed 340 GPM. Lucky it wasn't a ranked match, but it's still bloody annoying. Naturally he queued up with his Russian speaking buddies, so it was a complete waste of time even trying to explain that he should go spin on CM while he's shackled for some super easy gold.

Would also be nice if they looked into how they get games started too. An "oh god no, I do NOT want to play with these guys! Let me out of here!" option before the game started would be fantastic. Lets you requeue into another team, without ruining the game for other people. Adding a Pre-game Lobby where you could sort out who's doing what, who you want to pick and ban etc before the game started, then pick your heroes and go straight into the game would be a huge improvement over what we have now. I'm not even sure why there isn't one already, its a win for everybody involved.

[PizzaSHARK]

True, had some people counterpick me with SD and Sky, Offlane didn't go that good in those games.

Though wrecking heroes like Lion is fun, don't give a shit about mana drain, just hit him in the face with buffed damage.



In regard of their early game, yeah they quite similiar.

Tide is usually stronger because his Ultimate but Pit Lord has the advantage of being a decent farmer and afford a lot of items, Survival Items make a real impact on this Hero due his Ult, Crimson Vanguard + Atrophy Aura is just insane melee damage reduction.

But one Hero will probably be auto banned once someone picks Pit Lord: Lycan.

His Invis Wolves + Pit Ult make the entire Map unsafe, you can't go solo unless you have a gem (which won't always safe you) or be covered in sentries.

Lycan and Rexxar will be common bans if there's a hint of a Pitlord pocket strat. Bird isn't invis (unless it's sitting still), but it's flying and pretty small. I mean, Rexxar's a common ban if they're going to going for a Tinker for that reason.

[7empest]

10/10 mog

[Hotmail]

It's all fun and games until double Echo Saber crits cleave up your entire team. FML.

[StrawberryZebra]

If someone like Sven gets to the point where he's got a MoM, Daedalus, a Blink Dagger, a BKB and an Echo Saber then you're probably already losing badly anyway. Badly enough that him cleaving up your whole team in two crits is going to be the least of your problems. Tiny is even worse, he needs an Aghs in there too. It's entirely on you and your team if the game gets to that point.

[Deleted]

If someone like Sven gets to the point where he's got a MoM, Daedalus, a Blink Dagger, a BKB and an Echo Saber then you're probably already losing badly anyway. Badly enough that him cleaving up your whole team in two crits is going to be the least of your problems. Tiny is even worse, he needs an Aghs in there too. It's entirely on you and your team if the game gets to that point.

Oracle is my go to hero if i see enemy going for heavy hard hitting "in your face with bkb-mom up" heroes. If you have a hard carry that can deal enough damage it will take down a MoM+deadalus sven before false promise runs out, sure your carrry dies but so does theirs.

If they dont bkb you just disarm into root, you can even purge the mom. If you're running some damage of time carry you're probably fucked

[Hotmail]

Whatever... Echo Saber is too cheap for what it does and, when paired with the ability to Crit, introduces an unnecessary amount of RNG to the game (which is especially evident on heroes like Sven). OP is OP and 4k forum heroes aren't about to change my mind.

In other news I found this picture while doing a backup of my old HDD:

Spoiler: 

Even at the tender age of 10 I already had a talent for carving up unsuspecting noobs.

[PizzaSHARK]

Echo Saber isn't RNG, what're you on about?

[StrawberryZebra]

Echo Saber isn't RNG, what're you on about?

Sven getting a double crit with it is RNG, but the fact that Sven has enough items to to double crit and destroy your entire team means your game has already gone so far south that it's hanging out with Penguins. I'd look more at working on that rather than complaining about RNG, but thats just me.

[PizzaSHARK]

People still building Vlad's on AM. So dumb. AM runs out of slots super fast and the reasoning for buying Vlad's - increased sustain while farming and some pushing/fighting potential - are done better by Vanguard. 32 damage block on every single incoming attack is ridiculous and basically means supports can't touch you, and even some mids (like agh's potm or basically any spellcaster mid) will have serious issues. The damage aura is great for the team, but not very good for AM because his base damage is awful and he doesn't build stats, he builds raw damage.

For sustain while jungling, Vanguard is better. For sustain during fighting, Vanguard is better. The only thing Vlad's is better at is pushing and a marginal (less than 10 damage before enemy armor is factored) boost to your autoswings. But you get those same benefits whether or not you're the one carrying it, so it makes no sense to have AM waste time and critically important inventory space on an item an offlane or greedy support could easily afford.

[Lysah]

I agree...not much more to say. Never understood vlads on AM, very dumb. The whole point of the hero is to get manta abyssal before the enemy carry has items and end the game, and you want to delay that timing by another 3 or 4 minutes? The only thing vlads helps with is farming ancient stacks, but nobody stacks anymore, not even the pros (I failed almost 100% of my ancient stacks predictions, because I figured SURELY with a Sven on the team they'll stack 5 times - nope (actually I'm pretty sure several games were lost because they ignored ancient stacking, not sure what happened at TI where everyone totally forgot about that aspect of the game)) and you can just get a mask of death for 900g instead of a full vlads for 2300 or whatever it is.

[PizzaSHARK]

It's just part of the problem of adhering strictly to what the pros are doing, because the pros don't usually change builds or strategies until it's been "proven" to work. I don't blame them when so much money is on the line, but it does mean that they may be slow to react to changes that aren't overwhelming in scope.

Like... manta-core Alchemist was clearly not working very well in TI6 main event. Teams had very clearly practiced against it in the interim period and had developed ways of counterplaying it. Lots of teams went manta-core Alchemist, and lots of teams lost games with manta-core Alchemist. Yet people kept picking him and kept using that build and a lot of teams got eliminated because they refused to change strategies, even when it was becoming clear it didn't work. And then, you noticed the teams that weren't getting eliminated weren't using Alchemist much anymore... and when they did, most of the time they didn't do manta-core.

I wouldn't be surprised if Vanguard AM is seen at the next big pro tournament, at which point people will reflexively say it's the best build because the pros do it. Sure, that might be true - but WHY are the pros doing it? The why is arguably even more important than the what, because if you are able to understand why some things become trends you can sometimes predict those trends and maybe understand the game a little better.

[Lysah]

Maybe by TI7 we'll stop buying linken's first on morph and weaver and medusa no matter what spells the enemy team has - bonus points if they have literally nothing for linkens to block or have a spell like stifling dagger that has 1800 range and no cooldown to break it with.

[M1r4g3]

i just go for vanguard>echo>mjolnir on AM cause i can just assume i wont have any support, so i just sacrifice a bit of farm speed for a guaranteed decent early game.
pros: You cant be ganked because that would require a 3+man smoke rotation which doesn't happen in 4k games, you can start teamfighting and going for solo pickoffs as soon as you get that echo(which has the same cd as your blink), and the extra magic damage from mjolnir helps vs high armor heroes.
Tho i doubt this would work in anything over 4k.
As for linkens, yeah i get triggerd when i see a medusa going for linkens when the enemy team has 0 targetable ablities.

[Kralljin]

Maybe by TI7 we'll stop buying linken's first on morph and weaver and medusa no matter what spells the enemy team has - bonus points if they have literally nothing for linkens to block or have a spell like stifling dagger that has 1800 range and no cooldown to break it with.

My favorite.

Farming 20min for an Item that gives stats that are worth ~3k (Or Less) in total and the effect itself blocks can only block shit like Mist Coil.

Linkens is probably useful on a lot of heroes if you can counter the enemy pick with it but is never an auto include on any hero.

Had a game once with BM and LC while no one else could break Linkens, Game went south once Medusa and their Mid had Linkens.

[Deleted]

Builds are important but if you have a carry that starts with linkens when its clearly not needed the problem isnt the build but the 100% useless player in carry role.
Someone that can't even understand when and when not to build a linkens or a vlads on AM will be a anchor for the entire team, that is rest of the team tied around that anchor is dropped into the deep sea. If your core doesnt even understand when to or not to build an item that player will most likely don't understand things like positioning, farm order, team fights.

It's a bit like Slark players that always have to build a shadowblade even when its not needed and just S&Y would be better to stay alive with.

[Lysah]

Well, carry is the easiest role to play, any idiot can right click with enough gold and win, even with the wrong items, as long as they get far enough ahead.

[Deleted]

When/what do you swap out echo saber with on sven?

[Kuntantee]

Well, carry is the easiest role to play, any idiot can right click with enough gold and win, even with the wrong items, as long as they get far enough ahead.

I disagree. Carry is the hardest role to play against a better team.

[Lysah]

I disagree. Carry is the hardest role to play against a better team.

I just mean in terms of what heroes you play. Carry heroes very rarely have abilities that require any aiming or timing, most of them are loaded up on passives and their ultimates are press r once and watch people die. There are a few exceptions but the vast majority of carries simply require you to right click on an enemy and watch, so they are not very difficult to play in team fights and sieges. You have to know how to last hit and that's pretty much it. Of course you can argue that it takes map awareness, decision making, strategy, etc, but so does every other role, so it's pretty subjective at that point and everyone can form their own opinions on what is "hard" or "easy." At the end of the day though, it's hard to argue against the fact that most carry heroes are mechanically very very simple. And, they tend to be the strongest heroes in the game so they pay for their mistakes much less. A carry that steps out of position will get a force staff and a glimmer cape and saved by his teammates, a support that steps out of position gets one shotted.