[Megathread] DotA 2

[Deleted]

How exactly did the SF even see the sentry placed? In either case, if they decide to push some other lane, assuming they are the ones who push in the first place, that's not really a big deal as they will just respond in kind and fight at that place instead. Won't make any difference, SF won't get close with SB.

Sentries cost 100 gold each.
Not even ward bitches can spend 600 gold every 3 minutes to just make sure SF can't fight.

That would depend on the location, and really, the invisibility on SB doesn't last that long. If you would have seen him with Blink Dagger he will either have been seen using Shadowblade, or he will be invisible when he's close to you anyway. And as I mentioned, if it's just about ganking then there are other heroes better suited for that.

Standard movespeed with brown boots is what, 340.
Even not counting the bonus mspeed, you can move 340*12 = 4080 units before it ends. That's twice blink range.
No wait holy shit I keep thinking blink range is 2150. It's more like 3 and a half times blink range.
Jesus that's pretty long.


I got bored and mathed it SF with treads and Sblade active can move ~5200 units before it ends.
That's like 4 and a half times blink range holy shit.

You can also put down sentry wards, they cost 100 gold each, easily worth it when expecting a team fight over losing several hundred gold per hero lost when you die, along with all the gold he gets from the kills, no? If you can afford a ghost specter as a support then you could have afforded 16 counter wards on that.

Except you can build up Ghost Scepter slowly but if you need sentries every single fight after Sblade gets built you're gonna run out of gold quickly.

You should really not be playing ward bitch on Lina, would be much better on Crystal Maiden... Lina can definitely help out supporting with wards etc, but unlike Crystal Maiden she's not a lane support hero. I suppose you could play her like that if you really want to but, there are better heroes suited for it, Lina actually needs some items to get the most out of her spells. Be it Forced Staff, Blink Dagger or Shadowblade, that's your call depending on your playstyle.

Replace Lina with whatever ward hero bitch you want.

What exactly do you mean DS never goes past his tower? Your lane is pushed up to it?

He is literally too scared of the supports to leave his tower and the wave is at its natural position, way out of his reach.

Even so, you won't get anywhere near 1600 gold for that ghost scepter, and a tripple stacked easy spawn for your carry would have been a lot more useful than a little bit of extra gold on the support, especially if your team mates are dying, they are going to need the gold to catch up.

You keep saying stack.
Please never mention stacking again.
I've told you literally 3 times now that you're not supposed to kill camps when you could be stacking.

[Deleted]

Sentries cost 100 gold each.
Not even ward bitches can spend 600 gold every 3 minutes to just make sure SF can't fight.

You won't be anticipating a team fight every three minutes for the entire game...

Standard movespeed with brown boots is what, 340.
Even not counting the bonus mspeed, you can move 340*12 = 4080 units before it ends. That's twice blink range.
No wait holy shit I keep thinking blink range is 2150. It's more like 3 and a half times blink range.
Jesus that's pretty long.

It really isn't, let's say Shadowfiend is on the Dire side and wants to enter the Radiants forest, because they have a ward somewhere at the bottom rune he has to use it by their ancients. By the time he's inside the Radiants forest the Shadowblade will be about to expire. With Blink Dagger he could for example have blinked across the gap by the ancients into the forest, probably avoiding the ward entirely.

Except you can build up Ghost Scepter slowly but if you need sentries every single fight after Sblade gets built you're gonna run out of gold quickly.

That's usually the case for a ward bitch. A Ghost scepter isn't even that strong either, you dodge all incoming physical blows for a couple of seconds, I mean it's not bad, but it's not a game changer either. So even if you do get your hands on it, say 30 mins in, so what?

Replace Lina with whatever ward hero bitch you want.

Still doesn't change anything.

He is literally too scared of the supports to leave his tower and the wave is at its natural position, way out of his reach.

Then he shouldn't be on a suicide lane. Send Lich, Puck or Mirana who can actually handle it.

You keep saying stack.
Please never mention stacking again.
I've told you literally 3 times now that you're not supposed to kill camps when you could be stacking.

You keep saying kill camps, please never mention killing camps as a ward bitch again.

[Deleted]

You won't be anticipating a team fight every three minutes for the entire game...

And what if the enemy team just keeps the pressure up so you pretty much have to?

It really isn't, let's say Shadowfiend is on the Dire side and wants to enter the Radiants forest, because they have a ward somewhere at the bottom rune he has to use it by their ancients. By the time he's inside the Radiants forest the Shadowblade will be about to expire. With Blink Dagger he could for example have blinked across the gap by the ancients into the forest, probably avoiding the ward entirely.

I almost wanna say ancients staircase to radiant ramp is like 1800 range tops. The range you get uphill after that is maybe ~1000. Sblade lasts a longass time.

That's usually the case for a ward bitch. A Ghost scepter isn't even that strong either, you dodge all incoming physical blows for a couple of seconds, I mean it's not bad, but it's not a game changer either. So even if you do get your hands on it, say 30 mins in, so what?

So you survive a bit longer and cast a few more spells. Spells are pretty strong still by the 30 minute mark. Maybe not damagewise but they provide a lot else.

Still doesn't change anything.

Then why didn't you just say "I disagree" instead of writing a paragraph about how Lina isn't a wardbitch?

Then he shouldn't be on a suicide lane. Send Lich, Puck or Mirana who can actually handle it.

Against the right heroes, neither of those are safe either.

You keep saying kill camps, please never mention killing camps as a support again.

See mine was actually an argument because I've explained why it's a good idea.
You're just being a meanie.

[Deleted]

And what if the enemy team just keeps the pressure up so you pretty much have to?

Then you're in a tough spot. Shit happens, worst case scenario someone else will have to help out with the wards, still better than dying and giving them kills, gold and experience on top of losing even more gold, wouldn't you say?

I almost wanna say ancients staircase to radiant ramp is like 1800 range tops. The range you get uphill after that is maybe ~1000. Sblade lasts a longass time.

And even then all you will have gotten out of it is a simple gank that happens all the time anyway, something, say, Bounty Hunter, Nyx Assassin, Spirit Breaker, or any other hero good at ganking could have done easily even without Shadowblade. Shadow Fiend usually doesn't specialize in ganking, but carrying.

So you survive a bit longer and cast a few more spells. Spells are pretty strong still by the 30 minute mark. Maybe not damagewise but they provide a lot else.

Disables, yes, but unless the enemy is focusing your ward bitch you will get your spells off anyway, assuming you don't charge into them and stay with your team mates.

Then why didn't you just say "I disagree" instead of writing a paragraph about how Lina isn't a wardbitch?

You seemed to think she was one.

Against the right heroes, neither of those are safe either.

Running on a suicide lane isn't supposed to be safe, hence the term suicide. You win such a lane by simply staying alive and obtaining experience, something Lich especially, and even Lone Druid can do easily. Lich has a constant counter push by denying creeps, even creep pulling won't do much in the long run, Lone Druid can use his bear to pull the enemy creeps to his tower so he can safely farm from there (not sure if this tactic is used in Dota, but it's very common in HoN and works just as well).

See mine was actually an argument because I've explained why it's a good idea.

No you did not explain why it was a good idea, you get a little bit of extra gold and experience at the cost of helping the team succeed with something else. Your main focus should always be to make your allies stronger, be it by ganking for them, helping them with pushes, or saving their asses from tight spots, all of those are more important than getting 80-100 gold, especially if you lose mana and health doing it which renders you less able to help out in the near future should something happen.

You're just being a meanie.

I have no intention of being mean, if that's the way I come across, then I apologize.

[Deleted]

Then you're in a tough spot. Shit happens, worst case scenario someone else will have to help out with the wards, still better than dying and giving them kills, gold and experience on top of losing even more gold, wouldn't you say?

Yes, and then people who are more reliant on gold than the wardbitch have to start spending money and SF's team wins out goldwise.

And even then all you will have gotten out of it is a simple gank that happens all the time anyway, something, say, Bounty Hunter, Nyx Assassin, Spirit Breaker, or any other hero good at ganking could have done easily even without Shadowblade. Shadow Fiend usually doesn't specialize in ganking, but carrying.

So if you have a carry and there's a guy standing there waiting to be ganked you wouldn't gank him just because you're not a ganker? Added benefit of item =/= main focus of item.

Disables, yes, but unless the enemy is focusing your ward bitch you will get your spells off anyway, assuming you don't charge into them and stay with your team mates.

It's not too difficult to simply kill him with incidental AoE. Sure you could outposition them but they could outposition your outpositioning. At this point it's more about which team plays better.

Running on a suicide lane isn't supposed to be safe, hence the term suicide. You win such a lane by simply staying alive and obtaining experience, something Lich especially, and even Lone Druid can do easily.

Lich naturally pulling the lane doesn't really have anything to do with being attacked in lane though. Both Lich and LD do the exact same most of the time and camp their towers. If you attack them there, you're not scaring them off, you're diving them.

No you did not explain why it was a good idea, you get a little bit of extra gold and experience at the cost of helping the team succeed with something else. Your main focus should always be to make your allies stronger, be it by ganking for them, helping them with pushes, or saving their asses from tight spots, all of those are more important than getting 80-100 gold, especially if you lose mana and health doing it which renders you less able to help out in the near future should something happen.

You won't cost your team anything if there was never a potential for doing something else in the first place. Especially if you're pulling. If the tower is unpushable and the lanes are unassistable, why would you not go and get some gold for yourself?

[Deleted]

Yes, and then people who are more reliant on gold than the wardbitch have to start spending money and SF's team wins out goldwise.

And the reason for this? Because Shadow Fiends team already has an advantage, and uses that advantage to gain an even greater one. It's a basic strategy to win and has nothing to do with Shadowblade specifically. If they are spending that much gold on the ward they might as well buy a gem and they won't have to spend a single extra gold on it, nor fear that SF will get close to them.

So if you have a carry and there's a guy standing there waiting to be ganked you wouldn't gank him just because you're not a ganker? Added benefit of item =/= main focus of item.

Of course I would, I'm just saying that it would be ridiculous to build a ganking build on a carry hero. Picking off extra kills is always great, focusing on ganking over farming, probably resulting in less farm due to deaths every now and then, not so great.

It's not too difficult to simply kill him with incidental AoE. Sure you could outposition them but they could outposition your outpositioning. At this point it's more about which team plays better.

Yup.

Lich naturally pulling the lane doesn't really have anything to do with being attacked in lane though. Both Lich and LD do the exact same most of the time and camp their towers. If you attack them there, you're not scaring them off, you're diving them.

And your point is? Both of them can make something out of the situation, unlike Dark Seer who was hugging the tower losing out on both experience and gold.

You won't cost your team anything if there was never a potential for doing something else in the first place. Especially if you're pulling. If the tower is unpushable and the lanes are unassistable, why would you not go and get some gold for yourself?

Such scenarios are very rare, you can almost always position yourself to help out at a lane, even in your proposed scenario when the mid laner had just gone back due to almost dying, you could position yourself out of sight by the mid lane to help out with a kill once he comes back. But if such a scenario does happen, that you can't help your team with anything, anywhere on the map, within the next two-three minutes, then sure, knock yourself out in killing some spawns. It still won't buy you a Ghost Scepter, and the Ghost Scepter will still not have a big effect on the game.

[Drunkenvalley]

I would love to see Riki or Crystal Maiden with Shadowblade, it would be such an awesome waste of 3000 gold that it's laughable.

I think you're being a dick if you're going to take the message that literal as to "playfully" suggest it for Riki while we're at it. With that said, Shadow Blade on CM is in and of itself not as crazy, since her ult can be channeled while she's invis if I remember right.

That is in and of itself not critical in teamfights when you know where she's positioned and all, but some spells and such won't bounce to targets that're invis, etc.

[Deleted]

I think you're being a dick if you're going to take the message that literal as to "playfully" suggest it for Riki while we're at it.

Really?

Hey guess which item is really good on any hero! [...]SB works on any hero on any game on any given time. There's always some cool reason to buy it regardless of the hero you are playing.

How else would I take this message?

With that said, Shadow Blade on CM is in and of itself not as crazy, since her ult can be channeled while she's invis if I remember right.

That is in and of itself not critical in teamfights when you know where she's positioned and all, but some spells and such won't bounce to targets that're invis, etc.

You would be correct that she can channel it while invisible, but she will have to activate the Shadowblade after the ultimate which means the enemy knows exactly where she is. Furthermore that's 3k gold she could have spent on a Force Staff, Mekansm, or even a Blink Dagger, which would all, at least in my opinion, be better choices. Even BKB would be a better choice if you really want to channel that full ultimate, and only costs 900 gold more.

[Drunkenvalley]

You would be correct that she can channel it while invisible, but she will have to activate the Shadowblade after the ultimate which means the enemy knows exactly where she is. Furthermore that's 3k gold she could have spent on a Force Staff, Mekansm, or even a Blink Dagger, which would all, at least in my opinion, be better choices. Even BKB would be a better choice if you really want to channel that full ultimate, and only costs 900 gold more.

Unless it's a very stompy pubgame, yeah, sure, support items all the way. I don't condone CM with Shadow Blade, just saying it does fulfill an odd niche opportunity. As for your mention of BKB that's an even worse choice imo. CM has way too low health and no form of escape; imo she'll just get right-clicked to death. This is the niche Shadow Blade gives, where the true vision is required to even target the person.

But Shadow Blade has no place in a lot of heroes' builds. Not because it'd be a bad item on them, but because there are items that will serve them and/or team better for the situation.

[Lysah]

Hey guess which item is really good on any hero!

shadow blade

Seriously people here need to loosen their tryhard boots once in a while.. SB works on any hero on any game on any given time. There's always some cool reason to buy it regardless of the hero you are playing.

I agree completely, can't think of a circumstance in which the item is an actual waste. For 3000 gold you still get a movespeed boost, a 150 damage nuke, some damage and some attack speed. SA might be a hero I'd say never buy it on, but it's not because he's already invisible. He simply gets such a ridiculous amount of damage for agility stacking that you should pretty much totally avoid buying items without agility on them, except maybe BKB.

Lothar's was even great on BH back when the damage got added pre-crit, though they had to fix that because of heroes like lolkunkka abusing the hell out of it.

[Deletedaccount1]

dark seer master race

[Longview]

dark seer master race

whast your ds build

[Deleted]

So what happened to those plans for a dota 2 subforum?

[Hermanni]

I'm just skimming over last 2 pages now since there's still not one real point being made against Shadowblade. You know what, you should totally buy this item on any hero if you can afford it if your team doesn't have a single stealth user. The economical impact that will have on the enemy team alone makes it worth it. Even your joke suggestion of Riki can benefit a tiny bit from instant fade time and 15% movement speed with no collision and an extra 150 backstab damage, not to mention the stats SB gives. Hell, Shadowblade Bounty Hunter was the hottest shit even among pros for a while and they actually went and nerfed the Jinada interaction because of that.

I'll just tell you a story of a game I played a while ago. I was on Radiant, supporting with some common hero for that role, Lina I think it was, and our team had decided to 5-man push our advantage down to the tier 2 tower in mid lane. I knew the enemy had a well farmed carry Dragon Knight with a Shadowblade so I used what gold I had left to buy 2 sentries to aid in that push. I had already observed that said DK seemed like a good player and expected that he would attempt to flank or backstab my team with his SB, so I place one ward in the center of the lane near where Dire's tier 1 was and rush up to plant the other near the enemy tier 2. I then hastily backed off so I wouldn't get caught in the enemy teamfight ultimates and could be in position for the possibly incoming fight. I expect the DK to come from the direction of Roshan and avoid being too close to the set of trees near the enemy tier 1 position.

What happens in a few short seconds is that I see a 460 MS Dragon flying at me through the sentry from the direction of the riverside ramp of the Dire jungle, but there's not a fucking thing I can do even if I had had Lysahlike reflexes. I get stunned and finished off before it wears off, and at the same time the enemy team is initiating on top of my team who now are 4 against 5 with a tower in their front and an angry dragon at their back. Think maybe one guy somehow survived it.

Do you see the issue in here for me? There's next to nothing I could have done better without being able to guess exactly where he is coming from and hiding from it. Even if my team had a gem he was about to circle around them anyway, even if I had a gem it would be too late for me to stop him when I saw him. I knew exactly what was about to happen and I still couldn't stop it. The only real decision would have been to admit the enemy had too much positional control with SB DK and not push at all until we had an ever bigger advantage, or for me to bring 2 more sentries and 2 more observers and even then the DK player would probably have seen them in my inventory and avoided that trap. Or just not even given a fuck and still charged me down with his 460 MS.

That really shows you how difficult a good player with SB is to deal with. In HoN people were so bad with stealth that often all you had to do was stick a sentry down and wait for an invisible enemy to walk into it for a free kill, in high level Dota people often know to expect your true vision (because they want to make you waste gold in it in the first place) and how to work around it.

[NotValidAnymore]

I think we should try to get Dota 2 it's own section on these forums, so we can have separate threads for Shadow Blade posts, diary posts, "ward bitch"-posts and just regular chat.

So what happened to those plans for a dota 2 subforum?

fug you beat me to it

[Longview]

So what happened to those plans for a dota 2 subforum?

I think we should try to get Dota 2 it's own section on these forums, so we can have separate threads for Shadow Blade posts, diary posts, "ward bitch"-posts and just regular chat.

the only argument against it is that there might not be enough activity to sustain a forum

once you add a forum, you cannot really remove it (because there's a few people still posting there)

i hope im ok with saying it (plz dont be mad @ me oh great leaders) but itll happen you just gotta be patient

[Deleted]

I don't think there will be enough activity for it to be an own section. It's the same 5-7 people posting in this thread with some random popping in every few days.

[Longview]

that is the thing though

i know a couple of people who do not post because discussing anything is hard when you are contained to a single thread

answering something from a couple of pages ago is awkward

there is little to no potential to ever getting good-ass discussions when you have a single thread (believe me i tried some six thousand posts ago) because the topic shifts the moment someone decides to talk about something else (unless people get mad in which case they will quote each other for pages)

i have at least ten individuals on my steam friends list who are dota players and post on this forum frequently but do not post in this thread

everyone in curse is a league of legends player though maybe it was not meant to be

[Deleted]

text

From the sounds of it, it wasn't really the Shadowblade item which did it, now was it? But rather, as you yourself said, you guys got caught out in a bad place when you tried to push without enough advantage. In such a scenario, the best thing to do would be to at first get a gank off or two to expand the lead further, and then when you know they won't be able to stop you, push. Something you should know if you really were as good as you claim to be.

That really shows you how difficult a good player with SB is to deal with. In HoN people were so bad with stealth that often all you had to do was stick a sentry down and wait for an invisible enemy to walk into it for a free kill, in high level Dota people often know to expect your true vision (because they want to make you waste gold in it in the first place) and how to work around it.

Right, ehm, no. I call bullshit on that. If you play on the lower MMR levels then sure, putting down a ward and hoping he walks within range will very well work, it works in Dota 2's lower levels as well.

In high level HoN they expect the exact same thing, which is the whole reason not to go Shadowblade on a hero which initiates the teamfight. I really don't understand how you can take such a piss at HoN, when you played it yourself just a year ago, even claiming you were what, 1900 MMR? First I call bullshit on that, secondly if that were true that would mean that you actually really liked the game, and now all of a sudden it's the cancer of the universe or something? Bull-freaking-shit.

I doubt there's really much difference between high level dota players and high level HoN players, they are extremely similar in almost all areas, with minor differences in items and abilities. The biggest challenge I had with adjusting to Dota, the same thing I've heard a lot of others say as well is how freaking slow everything is. The movement, the ability orders, everything is so much faster in HoN, and faster is really not easier, the opposite in fact.

I also seem to recall you calling HoN completely unbalanced, yet you had, as always nothing to back it up with. I'm guessing you're going to ignore this line completely, because you have nothing to come up with. The fact is, HoN is more balanced than Dota 2, because they have removed a lot of the RNG that DotA 1 had. Be it Spirit Breakers bash, Sange's slow, or many of the crit abilities, those are entirely left up to chance in DotA 2, and have been reworked into different reliable mechanics in HoN. Even Maelstrom and Mjollnir are no longer proc based.

But I really didn't come here to preach about HoN, and it's derailing the thread, so I would prefer if we could leave that out completely, if possible.

[Drunkenvalley]

Honestly, this is the sort of group that I think would be better served merging with other similar groups from other forum, not to form a subforum here but to form a proper forum of our own.