[Megathread] DotA 2

[Hermanni]

Good for you?

And, yes, heroes are "designed" for specific roles. You can play them otherwise because of how powerful items are in Dota relative to, say, League of Legends, but it's absolutely ridiculous to say that heroes aren't designed with specific playstyles in mind. You could support as Sniper, but due to his extreme item reliance, it'd be a very poor choice.

The the first part of the problem here is that you are again assuming that you can just split heroes into carries and supports and anything that isn't either is the other one. I know it's just for the sake of the argument, but oversimplifying the matter that far doesn't do it any favors. And the other problem is that you're not entirely correct - a lot of heroes in dota actually predate the time when people started speaking of heroes strictly in terms of supports and gankers and carries and whatnot. Those terms are just part of the 'metagame' or whatever. There's only a handful of heroes in dota that really only have one way. Maybe some day people will decide they don't really need anyone to play a hard support but will still find use for Witch Doctor. There's only a handful of heroes in dota that aren't very good unless played in a very specific way, but even some of those heroes can bend into a hybrid role if you push them.

[PizzaSHARK]

And just how often do you have games where two self-appointed carries have the same gold but one wins out simply because of modifiers when you could've not otherwise just played better to win?

How is this even relevant? "Playing better" is not relevant to how heroes are designed.

The the first part of the problem here is that you are again assuming that you can just split heroes into carries and supports and anything that isn't either is the other one. I know it's just for the sake of the argument, but oversimplifying the matter that far doesn't do it any favors. And the other problem is that you're not entirely correct - a lot of heroes in dota actually predate the time when people started speaking of heroes strictly in terms of supports and gankers and carries and whatnot. Those terms are just part of the 'metagame' or whatever. There's only a handful of heroes in dota that really only have one way. Maybe some day people will decide they don't really need anyone to play a hard support but will still find use for Witch Doctor. There's only a handful of heroes in dota that aren't very good unless played in a very specific way, but even some of those heroes can bend into a hybrid role if you push them.

The problem is that in matchmaking, if you aren't a carry (a hero defined as being a carry), you're a support and good luck convincing 98% of players that it won't kill them to buy a set of wards so the team's support can afford ghost scepter or force staff or whatever, or that they can let that Tidehunter get a couple of creeps in this wave so he can finish his manaboots.

[Deleted]

How is this even relevant? "Playing better" is not relevant to how heroes are designed..

I'm pretty sure the entire point of the discussion is sub-optimal role choice. If this has somehow changed feel free to tell me.

[Longview]

I once played roaming support Brew and had my ass carried by Rhasta.

?

Rhasta carry is legit

[Hermanni]

The problem is that in matchmaking, if you aren't a carry (a hero defined as being a carry), you're a support and good luck convincing 98% of players that it won't kill them to buy a set of wards so the team's support can afford ghost scepter or force staff or whatever, or that they can let that Tidehunter get a couple of creeps in this wave so he can finish his manaboots.

All of this is solved just by communicating and using common sense. Even recently I had games where someone firstpicks SD and says mid, or picks Lesh and says he's gonna carry and everyone's okay with it and games went well. Maybe sometimes there's someone being a dick and says "no me mid with sf" and then they argue about it for a while but usually just communicating your intentions and being flexible and not a dick gets you far. Most solo games I play people just start picking and randoming and saying "im mid" "safe farm" "offlane or jungle" and the last people then try to fill the gaps. If you really want to play hybrid Venge there's really no reason not to, but if you sit on your pick until creeps spawn and notice there's no courier then tough luck.

---------- Post added 2013-04-10 at 11:04 AM ----------

?

Rhasta carry is legit

Evidently, and so is roaming Brew, forcing Dusa off ancients with just one bad look.

[PizzaSHARK]

I'm pretty sure the entire point of the discussion is sub-optimal role choice. If this has somehow changed feel free to tell me.

No, it's about what heroes are designed to do. Any hero can support or carry with the right items, but some heroes are designed to play with little farm and few items, while others are designed to require items and farm to be truly effective. Those roles are generally designated "support" and "carry", respectively.

[Lostprophet]

I'm pretty sure no dota hero is "designed" to be nothing but a support. Nice try. I'm not defending people who make obviously bad choices, I'm simply pointing out that their choices under different circumstances could be right ones. I once played roaming support Brew and had my ass carried by Rhasta. I'm pretty sure it was a page ~2 game too.

http://www.dota2.com/hero/Dazzle/ !

[Deleted]

No, it's about what heroes are designed to do. Any hero can support or carry with the right items, but some heroes are designed to play with little farm and few items, while others are designed to require items and farm to be truly effective. Those roles are generally designated "support" and "carry", respectively.

Outworld Destroyer.
Your move.

http://www.dota2.com/hero/Dazzle/ !

Steam assumes I want the page to be in Swedish. It's terrible.

[Deleted]

I know you're all Dota's fans. But could you give me an advice which is better for beginner: LOL or Dota2?

[Hermanni]

I know you're all Dota's fans. But could you give me an advice which is better for beginner: LOL or Dota2?

If you have friends who can help you learn, or are willing to look for company of your level to play with in here or places like reddit, Dota 2. But if you're new and wouldn't describe yourself as a somewhat hardcore gamer, you'll probably be better off in LoL until Dota 2's tutorials and stuff are properly finished. LoL does require you to pay or grind to unlock critical gameplay elements, but it's still a much easier game for getting into the genre and you can always switch to Dota 2 later on.

---------- Post added 2013-04-10 at 12:08 PM ----------

http://www.dota2.com/hero/Dazzle/ !

What I said in my post after the one you quoted was that many heroes predate the time when people started trying to pigeonhole dota heroes. And those times predate Dota 2, so what a page created for Dota 2 says is rather irrelevant. I've seen plenty of attempts to divide dota heroes into classes or roles and all them have been pretty awkward at best. When Dazzle came out in DotA most people seemed to play him as a carry.

[Morally Grey Storm]

It's too subjective, imo. But I personally, am a sucker for dota2 because dota1 :-)

[Charge me Doctor]

What I said in my post after the one you quited was that many heroes predate the time when people started trying to pigeonhole dota heroes. And those times predate Dota 2, so what a page created for Dota 2 says is rather irrelevant. I've seen plenty of attempts to divide dota heroes into classes or roles and all them have been pretty awkward at best. When Dazzle came out in DotA most people seemed to play him as a carry.

Desolator ftw!

I remember, in dota you could build ANY character as carry. When dota 2 came out and i have seen these horrible lol style labels as "carry" "support" and "jungler" i was disappointed.
FFS, i remember building rapier and skadi on kotl and carrying the shit out of garena

[Deleted]

I know you're all Dota's fans. But could you give me an advice which is better for beginner: LOL or Dota2?

LoL is easier but it won't really make you any better at dota beyond the absolute basics

[Lostprophet]

What I said in my post after the one you quoted was that many heroes predate the time when people started trying to pigeonhole dota heroes. And those times predate Dota 2, so what a page created for Dota 2 says is rather irrelevant. I've seen plenty of attempts to divide dota heroes into classes or roles and all them have been pretty awkward at best. When Dazzle came out in DotA most people seemed to play him as a carry.

Ye I know, but his skillset is pretty much saying that he is primarily meant as support. But sure u can still play him as carry if u want, like for the lulz
I also play most of my time with friends so we pick accordingly.

[hiragana]

Just started playing this over the last few days, i tried LoL a long time ago but didnt get into it, though i only played a couple of games.

Im a complete noob but having fun only had a few dick heads in games so far. I can imagine it being one of those games where the better you get the more annoyed at other people you become haha, but i guess thats what playing with friends is for.

[PizzaSHARK]

Outworld Destroyer.
Your move.

More or less a support carry like many other heroes that function as all-purpose cavity filling for teams. He can't be played as a support, but he doesn't benefit from farm enough to be played as a "hard" carry unless you plan on winning by 25 minutes because of how badly BKB screws him. He requires items to be useful (try playing OD as a 4 or a 5 in an organized AP or CM game and watch what happens), so he can't fill the traditional "support" role.

This applies to several heroes - Silencer, Dazzle, Omniknight, and plenty of others. Maybe they're relics of before people came up with the "support" and "carry" labels, but I don't see there being a major problem with there being heroes that don't comfortably fit into either group. However, it's a problem for pubs because these heroes will inevitably be assumed to be picked as support heroes, and suddenly you have a team of five heroes, all of whom need items and XP, but you don't have any way of giving five heroes that unless your enemy are a bunch of idiots. You can blame that on the pub mentality - and you'd be completely right - but trying to change how pub players think and act is like trying to change the tides.

There are still heroes that are designed to fit comfortably into one of the camps. Sniper is a hero who is very clearly meant to be played as a carry and nothing else at a competitive level. Heroes like Jakiro and Thrall are clearly meant to be played as a support at the competitive level. You can give the Mjollnir, Buriza, and Rapier to Thrall and he will right click people into pieces, but Sniper would do a great deal more with those same items (or their gold equivalent, anyway) than Thrall would. Likewise, you could buy Mekansm, Force Staff, and Ghost Scepter on Sniper, but he wouldn't really be very effective compared to Thrall with those same items (or gold equivalent.)

Anything goes in AR and/or pubs, but the game isn't designed around those kinds of game. Would the game be better if it were? Dunno.

---------- Post added 2013-04-11 at 12:41 AM ----------

Ye I know, but his skillset is pretty much saying that he is primarily meant as support. But sure u can still play him as carry if u want, like for the lulz
I also play most of my time with friends so we pick accordingly.

He's fairly effective played either way, but I personally feel he's much better of buying a Medallion and Mekansm or Force Staff with that 4100 than a Desolator.

[Lysah]

Omni can carry easily and was picked as a mid solo carry a lot in d1. Dazzle makes a great support carry if you build him as -armor and damage, same as SD. I've definitely gone for treads/MoM/etc. types of items as SD and abused curse/purge for kills on anybody all game, just like I've rushed desolator on dazzle to carry my team.

If you want a hero who just CAN'T carry you should pick CM. That hero really can't do anything but hide in the back and cast a spell now and then and place wards. She used to be an int carry but Icefrog put a stop to that the second he took control of allstars.

[Charge me Doctor]

Omni can carry easily and was picked as a mid solo carry a lot in d1. Dazzle makes a great support carry if you build him as -armor and damage, same as SD. I've definitely gone for treads/MoM/etc. types of items as SD and abused curse/purge for kills on anybody all game, just like I've rushed desolator on dazzle to carry my team.

If you want a hero who just CAN'T carry you should pick CM. That hero really can't do anything but hide in the back and cast a spell now and then and place wards. She used to be an int carry but Icefrog put a stop to that the second he took control of allstars.

I remember playing Treant as carry before they removed damage from his ult. And his tree-wards was amazing.

[Lysah]

I remember playing Treant as carry before they removed damage from his ult. And his tree-wards was amazing.

Fact, eyes of the forest was necessary to make him a real hero. And ult damage. Honestly, if they gave his ultimate damage again he'd probably be fine.

[Charge me Doctor]

I think this mentality that in a game must be *someone* playing *support* who don't get exp and gold so he can buy (and where he should get money for it, heh) wards, dusts, gems, smoke AND be able to not being 1 shotted due to level and item disadvantage. There is no hero in dota who don't benefit from getting items. Not a single one.

Even CM if she gets aghanims + BKB can rape the whole team and you can't do anything about even except Chrono or black hole or slowly walking away while getting hits in the back from 4 other guys on her team. Sure, a Mortred with bkb + mkb or whatever todays *top builds* is could destroy the whole enemy team, but if you got a *that one guy* who have -cs 10/0 at 25 minute of the game and 1/4/2 stat? Shall we just ff and alt+tab to forums to complain about noobs picking hyper-carry heroes? No please, i can build a carry out of any hero and i will do it if my team can't do enough damage to win teamfight. Last time i played Treant, we had Tide(with me on easy), Seer (mid), Fletcher (hard lane, haven't leveled ult 'till 10, rushed crits, didn't roamed, died couple of times against silencer+riki) and Enigma in woods.
Needless to say that Fletcher avoided all team fights because "they will kill me if i leave stealth", so i farmed radiance right after getting first boots and we started trapping enemy with stealth and said fletcher to split push. With amount of CC we had from our ults we easily won fights and pushed to mega creeps, and basically, it was victory without a carry, because our "carry" had S&Y, PT, and crits and hyper stone in the end of a game, and he just pushed lanes whole game.


Oh, btw, what hero will be imported in dota 2 next?