[Megathread] DotA 2

[StrawberryZebra]

They made CM ult pretty reliable, especially if you're on top of someone. If you blink directly on top of someone and ult they will probably die before they can even react. I don't know if I would say it is hands down the best ult in the game, but it's definitely up there, I would have to give it a lot of thought.

Which is, really, the only issue I have with CM. They buffed her ult to the point where it was just short of game breakingly overpowered instead of buffing her in other areas. They also got it to that point by just adding raw numbers to everything associated with it when what it needed was buffs to make it more usable rather than just more powerful.

I'm fuckin done with Dota. They ain't banning Peruvians, they ain't fixing obvious broken overpowered shit like Invoker... it's fucking incredibly tedious and just plain not fun to play. And because they fucked up 6.86 so bad and because dotaTV is so bad, it's not even fun to WATCH!

Hopefully we'll see a patch to fix some of these issues after the next major is over and done with. Its ends early march I think so not too long to go. Waiting for them to ban an entire nation from the game however is probably going to take much longer than a meta shifting patch

[Kralljin]

CM requires lvl 3 min to gank with nova+frostbite and will also need clarities.

If you're greedy, lvl 2 suffices with one point in Nova / Frost bite.

She's also extremely slow and short ranged so even with smoke it's not actually hard to avoid her as long as you have wards.

The Max Range of Crystal Nova is really big and the slow suffices to allow your mid lane to land some disables or your frostbite.

He's not bad at jungling either, though it's not as efficient as CM.

It's the ongoing problem with Jakiro, he sucks at low level, give him some levels and he's a farming beast.

A lot of creep camps die to one max'd liquid fire + max'd dual breath, but with lvl 1 / 2 Dual Breath or lvl 1 / 2 Liquid fire, it takes way too much time.

I honestly think that Jakiro is currently in the same position as pre buffed Leshrac.

Before 6.83 / 6.84 i have hardly seen any Lesh outside of a Sup role and as a sup he always felt too weak because his skills didn't have enough impact on low levels, Split Earth was his only decent skill for ganking / fighting and was not that easy to land without someone else initiating or having a euls.

Plus an Ult centered around hugging heroes as Int Support is basically worthless, unless it deals as much damage as CM Ult.

I mean the skills of Lesh and Jakiro are kinda similiar, Split Earth => Ice Path ; Lightning Storm => Dual Breath; Liquid Fire => Edict; Macropyre => Pulse Nova.

Played Jakiro once with Octarine Core, feels like Lesh, spam spells all day long, on a huge ass range if you have Lense as well.

Jakiro wouldn't even need the buffs on the same level as Lesh received, fix the animation of Dual Breath and Mid lane Jakiro might actually become a common pick.

He could even get 0 last hits on mid and still recover, with points in Dual Breath / Liquid Fire he just kills every creepcamp of any size very quickly.

With an early euls you can just go around the Map and do Euls -> Macropyre -> Ice Path -> Dual -> Liquid fire, if Jakiro is actually ahead in terms of level, you're dead if you cant get out quickly, which is hard with a 40% slow on you.

[Lysah]

Jakiro is insanely strong right now, but it's because he's the perfect hero for the push meta. He brings liquid fire to his team to help them destroy buildings, and he can spam ice path dual breath and macro to stop enemy pushes. Great synergy with this patch. I think we don't see him much in competitive because he has become stereotyped as "that trilane partner with SD" from previous years.

[Mister K]

I've been being a filthy Omniknight picker to faceroll my way out of 3k.

How do you usually play him? Do you just pretend the team is not there and just play offensively or somewhere in between? I wouldn't mind learning a little about him.

[Crackleslap]

If you want buffs to CM's move speed, mana pool etc, then her spells are going to get nerfed to shit.

[RobertoCarlos]

CM movespeed obviously is terrible but Tranqul's and blink dagger fix that pretty easy. (But blink dagger is expensive) Yeah thats why you do some jungle with her and hero kills

[Deleted]

People who go Tranquils straight into Blink on CM have literally no idea how to play the hero. 9/10 times I see them just blink in and get one tick of ulti off before being right-clicked to death by a lvl 5 Lion or something.

You're far better off getting useful items first. Drums, Veil, Mek are all viable options depending on your team comp, Aether Lens is more or less core on the hero in my opinion, etc. Straight blink means you have 700 HP and no mana pool to work with at all.

[RobertoCarlos]

I didnt say straight blink you still need either glimmer or bkb to get your ult off but its a nice item to have in matches where you get targeted instantly(which is most of them) and positioning is soooo key on CM its not even funny.

Tranquls is amazing on her for sure, don't care what anyone's opinion on that is.

[Crackleslap]

Archon playing a game against EN (Ever Nova?). Anyway, they drafted Morph, DP, Venge and IO and CK. Short story short, the 15k networth CK is 2 shotting all EN's cores and 1 shotting supports.

That's without the illusions hitting.

[PizzaSHARK]

If you're greedy, lvl 2 suffices with one point in Nova / Frost bite.


The Max Range of Crystal Nova is really big and the slow suffices to allow your mid lane to land some disables or your frostbite.

Max range is 1100 (700 cast + 400 radius), but it's only 20% slow at low levels. Most heroes even with 20% slow will still be fast enough to stay outside of Frostbite range (500 units, so she has to walk 600 units closer to use it) before the slow falls off. Not to mention that actually hitting people with her nova at its max possible range is almost impossible unless they're standing still and don't see CM chuffing up to them.

People who go Tranquils straight into Blink on CM have literally no idea how to play the hero. 9/10 times I see them just blink in and get one tick of ulti off before being right-clicked to death by a lvl 5 Lion or something.

You're far better off getting useful items first. Drums, Veil, Mek are all viable options depending on your team comp, Aether Lens is more or less core on the hero in my opinion, etc. Straight blink means you have 700 HP and no mana pool to work with at all.

Veil and Force Staff are super core items on her IMO. Only get Drum if your team is mostly right-clickers. Don't get Mek, CM can barely afford to use her ulti much less use a ridiculously expensive 250 MP Mek heal.

How do you usually play him? Do you just pretend the team is not there and just play offensively or somewhere in between? I wouldn't mind learning a little about him.

Basically go whichever lane you want, probably not mid unless duo mid though (he's a shitty mid.) Solo offlane is best but gl getting your teammates to do that. If you want to be cancer have a buddy go offlane Dirge with you. Omni+Abba is also an insanely frustrating lane to have to deal with too, let alone dealing with those two together in teamfights.

Anyway, most times you want first point in Purification. Second point will either be Degen Aura or Repel - decide based on lane/potential ganks from mid whether or not you can be aggressive. If you're having to play safe and defensive, get Repel, otherwise get aura. Second point in Purification at lvl 3. Lvl 4 can be 2nd point in aura or a value point in Repel - again, it depends on how defensive you're having to play. Degen Aura is great for aggressive play but pretty weak for defensive play.

Anyway, max Purification at 7. In almost all games, skip Guardian Angel at level 6 unless you know you're going to be using it to counter a gank or dive a tower before you hit level 8. Max Degen Aura by level 9, and take ulti at 10 and 11 unless you took a point in it earlier.

Be aggressive in the early game. Use Repel on yourself to allow you to safely close distance on people and get into aura range, once you're there you can easily keep yourself alive and blow them up with Purification. Degen Aura completely dicks all melee heroes and even some ranged heroes - especially early in the game when Purification heals like 3/4 someone's health (and hits them for that much), if you let Omni get into aura range of you and your entire team can't instantly jump on him, you are going to die. You should buy Orb of Venom in lane at some point unless your buddy buys one (I usually have Dirge buy it at lvl 2 when we're being a cancer duo.) Walk into aura range, smack them, and then bodyblock while smacking them often enough to keep orb slow active. Kills for days. This will be the majority of your income in the first 10-15 mins of the game. It can often be worth hanging onto a skill point for an emergency ult if you think you can get a kill by diving a tower. Obviously try to get your buddies in the AOE but if you can't, just make sure you're right clicking the enemy hero so you draw tower aggro away from your unprotected buddies.

I always start with 3x mangos as starting items unless mid needs pooled tangos, in which case it's tangos+2x mango (minus pooled tangos to mid.) You can buy chicken and wards, or sentries, or smoke, or whatever. I'll usually have 75-100 gold leftover if the other support isn't being a jerk (but it can be worth it to start super poor if it means a slow disable spammer like Rhasta or Lion gets to start with boots, that will usually mean tons of kills for your team), I will generally just sit on it in case we end up needing sentries or something.

Item build is always manaboots first, absolutely no exceptions. Basi is nice but you're better off being 500 gold closer to manaboots. You don't need Soul Ring, but it can be nice if you're rushing Mek and won't be rushing Guardian Greaves immediately after. Usually better to be 800 gold closer to greaves, though.

I will nearly always get Iron Talon after manaboots and pretend I'm Goblak. Pubs almost never farm the map with perfect efficiency and I'm frankly better than 1/2 my teammates anyway, I use the farm better than they do because I'm not a retard that overextends and feeds constantly... and I'll need that farm to save their stupid asses when they overextend and attempt to feed. Talon the biggest creep in the camp and pop Purification in the middle of them once you've taken some damage. Works best with maxed Purification but it's still reasonably efficient with lvl 3 Purification, which is about when you'll get your manaboots in most games anyway (lvl 5-6.)

I typically go energy booster into Aether Lens as my first item after boots, and then Force Staff after that. Gives you plenty of mana, helps with Omni's shit cast ranges (esp 500 range on repel), the regen is always nice, and 8% more damage on a massive AOE pure damage nuke is never bad, and Force Staff gives you another way to save teammates or fuck enemies (can be used on yourself if you're magic immune but can't be used on magic immune allies or enemies so be aware of that.) If I'm worried about something I can dispel like Global Silence, I do a straight rush into Guardian Greaves. I'll get Vlad's as first or second item if we're playing aggressive and pushy and have an early right-click hero like CK, PA, Sven, WK, etc that will benefit from the auras. Most common luxury item is Shiva's. I will get Agh's if the enemy team is going to be ratting a lot (basically functions as a second, better glyph since you can't purge buildings), or if I'm playing against an Ursa or LC or other burst physical damage hero and I expect my teammates to be retards and be "farming" past the river when Suddenlybear is off the map. I will almost never get Refresher - I only get Refresher if ratting is a serious issue for our team, since two back to back "glyphs" can allow us to make a trade without losing anything in an emergency.

Remember that you can put Repel on enemies. Usually a bad thing, but Repel will remove all runes from them (great for denying shit like Regen, Haste, or DD especially if you can't fight them anyway), prevents allies from using a few different things on them (can't Force Staff magic immune buddies), and it has some useful interactions with things like Song of Siren - you can repel an enemy and then use Song to leave that enemy in a sudden 1v5 situation with Naga keeping them in place with her net. Extremely useful for picking off high-value supports while their team can't help them.

[Crackleslap]

Nothing better than going beyond godlike, dying then going beyond godlike again. (21 kills 1 death as Mirana)

Then playing another game straight after and go beyond godlike again! xD (20 kills 5 deaths as Necro)

Played well tonight!

[PizzaSHARK]

Nothing better than going beyond godlike, dying then going beyond godlike again. (21 kills 1 death as Mirana)

Then playing another game straight after and go beyond godlike again! xD (20 kills 5 deaths as Necro)

Played well tonight!

Grats

I never have much luck with Necro or when there's a Necro on my team. I think the existence of Glimmer Cape and buffs to Pipe of Insight and Hood of Defiance have made it entirely too easy to counterplay that hero even without specifically counterpicking him (sup Oracle, sup Omni.)

I fucking loathe the trend of turning ults into pure damage, but at this point I wonder if that's what needs to happen to him. Nerf the total damage of his ulti (since it won't need to bypass MR anymore) and turn it into pure damage instead. It's too easy to basically remove that hero from the game with a 1900 gold item.

[Lysah]

Oracle against Necro is as cancer as dota can possibly get. Icefrog is really trying hard to make sure necro is never seen in competitive dota at any point. The fix to Reaper is to probably make it so targets can't be helped by allies while stunned. They will need to make it so it doesn't add respawn timer unless you have aghs, though, and probably remove the buyback penalty on aghs. It's way too game breaking to land a 130 second no-buyback respawn on the enemy carry late game if the enemy can't counterplay it with glimmer/etc.

[Mister K]

<snip>

Thank you for taking the time to write that, I will read it properly tomorrow night or over the weekend, really need to better my overall Dota game and hit 4k. It's definitely interesting hero to play itself

In regards to repel and Song of Sirens, that is absolutely amazing synergy :O

[PizzaSHARK]

Playing DotA again because I can't afford XCOM 2 until next week and I'm out of games that keep me busy. Tinkering with the offlane Sven idea.

One thing is that Sven really does have mana issues. Manaboots could solve this and benefit the team, but then you're missing 30 IAS on treads. Blink dagger is damned nice to have on a slow hero like Sven, but it also gives no stats. Armlet is definitely core, the amount of damage, stats, health, etc it gives him for the cost is just too much to skip.

So I'm looking at items something like this, all totals to about 8k net worth to make them practical to have by 30 mins in an average pub:

Treads 1350 + Blink 2250 + Armlet 2320 + HotD 1900: 7820 gold. Sets you up for eventual Satanic progression, allows creep skills via Dominate or camp stacking with a creep, tons of armor, blink for positioning. Almost no mana, stun+ult alone will eat like 2/3 your mana pool. Doesn't really do anything to help your team other than make Sven himself more effective.

Alternatives include swapping blink with force staff, same cost. Weaker positioning in exchange for 130 more mana (13 more than you'd get from drum) and a more flexible positioning item. I feel like you only NEED blink for chasing down a hero like QoP or AM, for disjointing spells (fringe use), or maybe hunting a hero like Tinker or Profit when they blink into trees to escape.

Can also swap HotD for Vlad's. It bumps the cost up by about 400 gold, but it benefits your team while also giving mana regen, some health regen, and the damage aura. No transition into Satanic, but honestly Satanic is a very late option here I think.

Could sub in Drum for force/blink, saving a few hundred gold but then you have no instant positioning option and instead just a mild movespeed boost. Slightly less INT than force staff but you get a nice boost to other stats and it benefits your team. Maybe good if you don't need the instant positioning but I can't think of a single game where a Force Staff ISN'T a good pickup. A possibility here could be phase boots + drum, which gives you quite a bit of move speed for closing in on someone, and the Drum helps slightly compensate for the loss of IAS on boots.

Could maybe sub in manaboots for treads and prioritize a fast Hyperstone for later Assault Cuirass to make up the lack of IAS? Seems inefficient.



Skill progression to me seems like stun, buff, stun, buff, buff, your choice, buff, stun, stun. I definitely think max warcry is the most important thing to have, the cooldown reduction on it on top of the armor bonus is just absurd. I think in a lot of cases you'll want ulti at 6, but at the same time I could see having 3/3 at lvl 6 being better, depending on if you're pushing towers (towers can't walk away from you so ulti is great) or fighting heroes (heroes can walk away from you so ulti may not be great.) I honestly think like it's not even worth bothering with cleave unless you have teammates stacking camps for you - an Iron Talon will be just as effective at quickly clearing jungle camps. Obviously get cleave later, it's still better than stats, but I'm not sure how much value you're getting out of a single point when just upgrading qb to talon is probably just as good for speeding up clear times on camps.


Starting items have usually been 2x mango and 1x tango with the rest for whatever. You can afford to buy wards or chicken as needed. Probably chicken, 2x mango, 2x tango or 1x tango 1x salve since it's a pub. Clarities are very efficient on Sven due to his lousy base MP, but unless you're playing support in lane it doesn't fit his playstyle. If you're supporting in lane I could see 1x mango 2x clarity. I think you still want at least one mango for the burst mana for an on-demand stun.

[Crackleslap]

Grats

I never have much luck with Necro or when there's a Necro on my team. I think the existence of Glimmer Cape and buffs to Pipe of Insight and Hood of Defiance have made it entirely too easy to counterplay that hero even without specifically counterpicking him (sup Oracle, sup Omni.)

I fucking loathe the trend of turning ults into pure damage, but at this point I wonder if that's what needs to happen to him. Nerf the total damage of his ulti (since it won't need to bypass MR anymore) and turn it into pure damage instead. It's too easy to basically remove that hero from the game with a 1900 gold item.

I rushed greaves and had them by like 18 minutes and then we 5 manned. I just healed bombed the shit out of my team constantly as well as destroying the enemy. They literally just couldn't kill me. Their only way of killing me was if their bane gripped and they nuked me dead before grip ended.

[PizzaSHARK]

Three games of DotA and I'm already fucking sick of it. It cannot possibly be difficult to replace allpick with all draft. Every player gets 10 sec to ban a hero after they pick their hero.

Congrats, Valve, you just solved like 75% of all complaints about ranked matchmaking with a minimum of effort!

[StrawberryZebra]

That defeats the point though. The intention behind All Pick is you can pick whoever you feel like playing without having to worry about it getting through bans or having a Captain that'll draft it for you. As in you can pick from ALL of the heroes, assuming no one beats you to who you want to play, but generally people wait until the last second before picking if they can so its never been an issue for me.

[PizzaSHARK]

It doesn't defeat the point. The point of ranked is to emulate competitive as much as possible. Not even Valve are dumb enough to think that captains mode gets used outside of 5 stacks and RD is an abject failure just like every other non-allpick mode is. I think captains mode and random draft comprise less than 10% of all ranked games played in all regions and skill brackets combined. They might as well not exist.

Competitive DotA is built and designed around drafting strategy but a huge element of that is completely missing from ranked play. This would be like, I dunno, not having the 6v6 setup or getting free armor in ranked CSGO.

If people want to play a gamemode where they can pick whatever they want without any concerns of the enemy team banning it out, they're welcome to go play regular allpick, that's what it's there for in the first place.

Ranked should realistically only have one gamemode (captains mode can stay because it'll still only ever be used by 5 stacks, which is kind of the point anyway), and that gamemode should have each player pick a hero and ban a hero.

[Drunkenvalley]

I don't think ban : pick allpick draft is really what we're looking for, not in its pure form. Too many bans, which makes stacked teams absolutely destroy as they get to basically ban all counters to one or more heroes.

In the current climate though, there's a lot of bullshit with people waiting far too long to pick anyway. I almost want regular all pick back for ranked at this point. I'm so godawful tired of this bullshit.