[Megathread] DotA 2

[Deleted]

I said it on reddit and probably got downvoted but I don't think heroes need nerfs so much as items need nerfs. Items have been subject to absolutely fucking absurd power creep over the past three or four patches and it's causing issues. Blink dagger needs a MASSIVE nerf now that heroes like SK and ES have Agh's that give them initiation options. I mean, people are buying blink on potm when she already has a mobility skill. They buy it on Slark. They buy it on Timbersaw. I'm surprised they don't buy it on fucking Antimage and Qop. Hideously overpowered item.

The items are available to all heroes. Blink dagger has been unchanged for over 2 years now, the last big change for it(removal of mana cost) was in January 2014... Its really hard to "MASSIVE"-ly nerf blink dagger without making it completely useless and without killing a lot of fun for both players and viewers. Remember that its a 2250 gold item that provides absolutely no stats.

[PizzaSHARK]

The items are available to all heroes. Blink dagger has been unchanged for over 2 years now, the last big change for it(removal of mana cost) was in January 2014... Its really hard to "MASSIVE"-ly nerf blink dagger without making it completely useless and without killing a lot of fun for both players and viewers. Remember that its a 2250 gold item that provides absolutely no stats.

Who cares if items are available to all heroes? Buriza has been nerfed repeatedly because it was OP as hell yet it was "available to all heroes." Drums got nerfed because they were OP, but they were "available to all heroes." Just because everyone can buy it doesn't make an item less OP.


It provides no stats... except it provides movement, which as Lysah already said is the best "stat." Why do you think people get Wind Lace AND boots? Why do you think heroes like Razor get Boots of Travel as their first or second major item? Because mobility trumps nearly everything else. Movement allows melee heroes to stick on their target, it allows supports to kite those scary cores, it allows you to get into or out of position faster, it allows you to escape imminent death shit like Earth Splitter with less precise timing.

So while it doesn't give damage or health or mana it gives arguably the best "stat" of any item in the game. Why else would it be so popular that people are buying it on heroes that already have so much mobility?

If a non-basic item (basic items being shit like wand, boots, consumables, basic stats like basi/bracer/aquila/null, token orb/stone, etc that basically every hero will be buying regardless of role or position) is being bought almost habitually regardless of either team's draft, that item is probably overpowered and needs to be nerfed. Blink dagger should be a decision and a careful judging of value versus cost, yet it isn't because it's almost wholly superior to other items of its relative cost, because mobility is unquestionably the game's best "stat." And that goes back to its RTS roots, where mobility is pretty much guaranteed to be the best feature of any unit (and there's a reason Blink was a hero ability and not a basic unit skill.)



Huntress spam was super popular for Night Elf players because Huntresses were so damned mobile. They'd lose horribly both for-cost and in sheer strength compared to most other races' tier 1 units (Grunts would destroy them for raw damage output, Footmen would overwhelm them with raw numbers, Ghouls would overwhelm them, etc) yet they were by far the most popular opening because you could use their mobility to kite the slower tier 1 units in circles and win through superior micro. Archers were far from bad, but why build slow and vulnerable Archers when you can just build another fast, mobile Huntress? Stalkers were and still are a primary Protoss unit in SC2 because of their high native mobility and access to Blink with tier 2 tech despite being quite terrible from a raw numbers standpoint (low DPS, burst, and health for their cost.) In PvT, Terran has to be very careful with their Marines because despite absolutely destroying Stalkers from a DPS and cost standpoint, they'll get absolutely ruined by a tiny number of Stalkers because the Stalkers possess simply superior mobility - the Marines can't chase the Stalkers, and they can't run from them, so if the Marines are caught out, their owner might as well delete them.

Anyway, this all comes back to mobility being the best "stat" in any kind of RTS-like game... and that includes Dota. Hell, back when I played LoL years and years ago, the Flash (blink) summoner skill was basically used by every single player regardless of hero or role because blink is just that good. They nerfed it to like a fucking 7 minute cooldown and people were still using it on almost 100% of heroes in 100% of games because it's just THAT. GOOD.



We're seeing the same shit with Blink Dagger here. Personally I'd rather see the item just straight up deleted and any heroes who are now "literally unplayable" because of this retooled to not be reliant on a single item for their effectiveness, but I know that'll never happen. I'd probably increase the gold cost to 2500 and reduce the blink distance to 1080, and remove the dumb "whoops you clicked 1 pixel too far, you only get 960 units!" nonsense because it fucks pubs for no justifiable reason.

I mean, consider that Force Staff is 2300 gold for only a handful of generally inferior stats. Why is Blink Dagger cheaper than Force Staff?

[Drunkenvalley]

Blink dagger is like LoL's flash. It is such an important factor in games that everyone buys it, with only the occasional exception of a Shadowblade instead.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

DC played 7 games in total in the main event, all except 1 game they were underdogs. They played out of their minds in 5-6 rounds, mental fatigue really showed at the end for w33 but all of them stepped up their performance massively during the TI. Wings on the other had played 4 mediocre games for their standards, in general the big teams (and experienced teams) failed to perform during TI.
OG, wtf? I kinda hope TI lasts for longer or have a harder qualifying process so less teams get to play but the qualifyed teams gets to play more. Not seeing Secret, LGD, EHOME, Na'Vi, OG or Alliance (to name some) in the later stages is sad. also a winner after 3 matches in a week? should at least be best of 5 in all winners bracket games...

[Deleted]

Blink dagger is like LoL's flash. It is such an important factor in games that everyone buys it, with only the occasional exception of a Shadowblade instead.

true. it is very strong.

Nowadays we even see it on sniper, drow ranger, mirana regularly.

Maybe in 1 year we see it on Anti Mage and Queen of Pain aswell lol

[Deleted]

Who cares if items are available to all heroes? Buriza has been nerfed repeatedly because it was OP as hell yet it was "available to all heroes." Drums got nerfed because they were OP, but they were "available to all heroes." Just because everyone can buy it doesn't make an item less OP.

Actually Daedalus was last rarely nerfed(the biggest nerf was the 270% to 240% crit strike dmg 4 years ago).

Since the reduction in dmg provided 4 years ago(after they were added to the game), drums were only buffed(and recently slightly reworked with the addition of the Wind Laces).

I mean, consider that Force Staff is 2300 gold for only a handful of generally inferior stats. Why is Blink Dagger cheaper than Force Staff?

Force Staff is cheaper than Blink Dagger(by 25g) and can be upgraded to a Hurricane Pike. I don't think increasing the price of blink dagger more is a good idea.
Heroes like Sand King/ Earthshaker, while having their mobility boosted by Aghanim's would be shit without Blink Dagger(Aghanim is 4200 gold also). They are not exactly first picks atm either. It would be far harder for supports to get a more expensive Blink Dagger also(and considerably harder for supports of the losing team) - supports aren't exactly popular to play as is.

Beyond that, the ability to blink around is really a fan and player favorite. The game would be less fun for players and viewers if it was a really situational item.

[StrawberryZebra]

We're seeing the same shit with Blink Dagger here. Personally I'd rather see the item just straight up deleted and any heroes who are now "literally unplayable" because of this retooled to not be reliant on a single item for their effectiveness, but I know that'll never happen. I'd probably increase the gold cost to 2500 and reduce the blink distance to 1080, and remove the dumb "whoops you clicked 1 pixel too far, you only get 960 units!" nonsense because it fucks pubs for no justifiable reason.

Realistically, I think this is the best solution to the problem. Simply giving the heroes who absolutlely rely on Blink Dagger (think Tidehunter, Enigma etc) a way for them to initiate without it and removing it solves a hell of a lot of problems all round. I mean, its never going to happen simply because other mobas have it and we can't have nice things, but I can keep my fingers crossed for it anyway.

Beyond that, the ability to blink around is really a fan and player favorite. The game would be less fun for players and viewers if it was a really situational item.

But when its getting to the stage where everyone has a Blink Dagger to escape from everyone else who has a Blink Dagger it just ends up getting stale. Its moved well outside of a niche item for initiators to a mandatory one you have to buy if you want to be effective at that point. Overexposure to it is just going to lead to the game as a whole becoming stale for the viewers, as well as the players.

[Hermanni]

Now you know why I quit Dota 2.

Why don't you quit talking about it too while you're at it...

I mean it's been like a month since I last dared look in here and sure enough the first page is full of you with EVERYTHING IS HIDEOUSLY RETARDEDLY AMAZINGLY OVERPOWERED TO ABSURD MAGNITUDES... except the game is more balanced than ever and will probably continue to be so even without a Blink Dagger nerf. Even pubs are more fun than they were a year ago.

But while everyone else is happy here you rant trying to seek validation while hiding your ineptitude behind walls of text comprising of filler words, hyperbole and fallacy. As you have for the last 3+ years. If you don't enjoy the game, don't play, but why not for a change consider that maybe you're wrong about, well, everything, and instead of blaming the game and other players start look for a ways to better yourself. You'll never learn if you don't accept that you don't know everything, and no one ever improved while looking for fault in others instead of themselves.

[Lysah]

Yeah, I played an ability draft game and got Slardar, so I grabbed Fiery Soul and build around that. Got war cry, amp damage, and crush, and it was actually a pretty solid build. With armlet basher phase boots shadow blade I was already hitting 500 attack speed with fiery soul stacked and with amp damage the DPS was real. Also had a Sven on my team who took greevils greed and farmed like his life depended on it. Too bad the enemy had Gyro and Medusa, both of them went dragon lance skadi and we literally couldn't fight back. You get tagged with slows, drop to 100 movespeed, and that's it, you're done. Doesn't matter if we are 10x tanker and do 25x the DPS, they just kite kite kite and you can't catch them. Try to run? Hahahahaha, as if you can get away when you're down to crawling speed. You're just stuck because nothing in this game matters more than mobility.

[Kralljin]

Perhaps to shift the discussion into a different direction:

Pit Lord will finally be released, while i loved to play the hero in DotA 1, since they removed Expulsion and replaced it with Atrophy Aura i'm not really sure what items / role this hero is supposed to be going for.

Originally, you mostly went for a caster build and turtled on around towers.

With the Atrophy Aura however i feel like he would benefit from at least some tanky items, +2.6 STR aren't enough to make a hero really tanky, but starts off with 700 HP.

Probably support role might fit him best, he can certainly farm once he has Soul Ring / Arcane boots, perhaps Mek / Greaves might be decent on him? He is a teamfighter after all.

He feels like a weak early Support pick that might pay off later on, simply because he can become an okay Farmer / pusher which allows him to buy Greaves / Pipe / any kind expensive Support items while his Pit and Aura remain strong in Late as well his Gamebreaker Ult.


Also, Dota will see a new Hero for the first time in Years, Mr. Monkey King, probably another Illusion Hero, at least abilities from the Warcraft 3 Map suggest that he will have a more active use for Illusions than PL.

https://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/dot..._Abilities.jpg

[Lysah]

Pit lord's role is feeding. The hero is garbage tier and should never be picked in any lineup. He's probably legitimately worse than techies. Just don't do that to your team. Unless they remove blink dagger his ult has no purpose, you can just easily blink sheep someone to gank them as you can teleport your entire team to a creep with a huge cast time.

[Deleted]

Agreed. Underlord is going to need pretty large buffs in the next patch to be competitive viable. Its insane that in a 10 vs 10 format where none farmed and it was 24/7 teamfight, the hero still didn't excel.

[StrawberryZebra]

I seem to recall Pit lords, err... Pit preventing blinks and going through BKB's similar to Naga's Net. It might be enough for him to see some play in a ganking support role at least, being able to TP to a creep, and bring your carry with you, is reasonably strong early game although you're counting on the other team going too deep early on if you want to TP in behind them. Unlike other supports with disables it'll still be useful when BKB's come into play, so there is that.

But outside of some lolsy team comps with Chen or a Stealth Hero for some cheesy backdooring, he's probably not going to see a whole lot of play I don't think. He's a slightly more independent version of Io, with some added complications thrown in to keep him in line.

[M1r4g3]

I want mobility to get nerfed in general including tp/bots both cd and cost, and blink having a longer cd/less range or even a mana cost, also a smaller vision nerf.

[Kralljin]

Unless they remove blink dagger his ult has no purpose, you can just easily blink sheep someone to gank them as you can teleport your entire team to a creep with a huge cast time.

While i agree with most stuff, but i think there's a slight difference between being able to drop your entire team on the enemy and trying to sneak up on with your entire team and then land blink + hex.

The difference is simply that the enemy team needs to be out of sight for like ~5 seconds to work, you can't possibly bring up your entire in this short timeframe even in range of an enemy carry that is remotely paying attention.

I think the Ult is pretty much the strongest Skill on the Hero, simply because it's flexibility.

Enemy team blows Big CD's? Get us out.
Enemy defending T2 Tower? Just port to another lane and push that one, at least one of the enemy team won't be able to TP there.
Someone doing rat? Just drop the cavalry on him.

Dark Rift is simply a great skill in terms of mobility, the problem is that the rest of the toolkit doesn't cut it, Pit is nice but Firestorm is not strong for early game and becomes just a farming tool later on.

Atrophy Aura is just misplaced on that Hero, probably would be better on any tanky hero that can actually take advantage of the damage or stay in fights.

But outside of some lolsy team comps with Chen or a Stealth Hero for some cheesy backdooring, he's probably not going to see a whole lot of play I don't think. He's a slightly more independent version of Io, with some added complications thrown in to keep him in line.

Best combo is probably BM Hawk / Lycan wolves.

I always took him as a great hero to punish rat strats, while they're not exactly common, he is one the few support heroes who can defend HG on it's own and gives some mobility to fight back.

[Lysah]

He was actually a pretty good hero with expulsion, wish they found a way to let him keep that. I just don't think the ult is going to be as good as it seems, I never found a good use for in dota 1. I do admit it's been like 10 years, though, maybe the game is different now.

[PizzaSHARK]

Why don't you quit talking about it too while you're at it...

I mean it's been like a month since I last dared look in here and sure enough the first page is full of you with EVERYTHING IS HIDEOUSLY RETARDEDLY AMAZINGLY OVERPOWERED TO ABSURD MAGNITUDES... except the game is more balanced than ever and will probably continue to be so even without a Blink Dagger nerf. Even pubs are more fun than they were a year ago.

But while everyone else is happy here you rant trying to seek validation while hiding your ineptitude behind walls of text comprising of filler words, hyperbole and fallacy. As you have for the last 3+ years. If you don't enjoy the game, don't play, but why not for a change consider that maybe you're wrong about, well, everything, and instead of blaming the game and other players start look for a ways to better yourself. You'll never learn if you don't accept that you don't know everything, and no one ever improved while looking for fault in others instead of themselves.

fucking lol

Do you even listen to yourself? How the fuck does one person contain so much rage? I did stop playing, because I didn't find the game fun. But I came back because TI was on and the TI games were pretty fucking good and this is the only place I see folks like Lysah and Jester Bro and Longview. Nice to see you too, man :*

I want mobility to get nerfed in general including tp/bots both cd and cost, and blink having a longer cd/less range or even a mana cost, also a smaller vision nerf.

Yeah, it's weird how they seem to be increasing mobility with most patches. Like... why did we need Wind Lace? They spend multiple patches over a long period of time very incrementally nerfing boots... and then add in an item that essentially reverses all of those changes? I mean, sure, it costs an extra item slot and a bit of gold, but you only need that extra move speed until you have your blink dagger, force staff, eul's, etc anyway.

He was actually a pretty good hero with expulsion, wish they found a way to let him keep that. I just don't think the ult is going to be as good as it seems, I never found a good use for in dota 1. I do admit it's been like 10 years, though, maybe the game is different now.

It sounds like a hyper specialized Wisp ulti. Or just free Boots of Travel for any heroes nearby. I can see plenty of uses for that, but if he's essentially dead weight outside of that use, it'd be hard to justify picking him.

[Lysah]

It sounds like a hyper specialized Wisp ulti. Or just free Boots of Travel for any heroes nearby. I can see plenty of uses for that, but if he's essentially dead weight outside of that use, it'd be hard to justify picking him.

He's got a nuke that does like 500+ total damage over like 7 seconds, so it can clear creep waves at basically any stage of the game, but it's garbage against heroes. He's got a good root with a sizeable AoE but it has a long ass cast time...so it's also pretty garbage against heroes if you don't have a setup. He has a damage reducing aura like VS when she dies except he has to be on top of people for it to affect them, and since he isn't fast, tanky, and doesn't have a defensive ability that means he will feed. His ult has a pretty big cooldown and is hard to really make plays with.

[StrawberryZebra]

It sounds like a hyper specialized Wisp ulti. Or just free Boots of Travel for any heroes nearby. I can see plenty of uses for that, but if he's essentially dead weight outside of that use, it'd be hard to justify picking him.

Unfortunately it also has all the same issues as an Io ult. Namely needing you to have teammates who are on the same page as you are, thats fine if you're on TS or Vent or something with them, but not ideal if you're in a pub.

His AoE is good if you have someone like Enigma or Void who can force the other team to stand in it, but is otherwise only good as a wave clear tool. If you were going for the AoE Wombo Combo with Enigma or Void, you'd pick someone else for it anyway, like Jakiro or Earthshaker. So chances are he's not going to see much play on these kinds of teams either.

I still think his ace is going to be his pit though, the fact that its a BKB piercing none-ultimate disable might just be strong enough alone to get him picked against the right kinds of team. Though admitedly its a very small niche for him to fill that won't see him picked often outside of his inital release.

[Veftala]

Is Monkey king a new hero or skin for PL??