Last edited by Kuntantee; 2013-01-02 at 09:10 PM.
I just realized that I have like 12 games and one loss on Drow. But as I stated before, there are several carrys that wreck her completly even when she is fully farmed. Do you have a good farmed carry all you need is one stun on her and she will drop instantly. She is a good pubhero only cause teams often suck at working together.
= CAN never happen. This game is impossible to balance
I agree, but when a hero has a huge winrate by the majority of players I feel someone should look into it. Trying to say "those are just pub games they don't matter" is the exact same attitude that gets any other game in trouble. How much fun is WoW PvP, which is balanced around arena and BGs be damned? Vast majority of people DON'T participate, as opposed to those who do. Are we going to say that, because we're so elitist about the esports, that DotA2 should stay at 100k players forever? If a hero like Drow is an auto-win in low skill games, it doesn't matter how bad she is in pro games, average players will quit the game because in THEIR queue the team that clicks Drow faster wins, and that is not fun. It's a game, not a sport. At least, that's how it should be. I realize the entire world revolves around making money first and having fun second.
As far as heroes who stop Drow, of course there are many. The problem isn't that she's uncounterable, the problem is that the heroes that stop her either aren't in the game or aren't ever used. SB is great for the job, he can get next to her (cancelling half her ult) and then bash her to death, his ult will also do half of her HP since she's a low health ranged carry. SB also has a high win rate, but when was the last time you saw him in a game? I seen him 1/50, MAYBE. Invis heroes are great for the job (they can stop her from jungling, too) but they're easily stopped with true sight. I'd argue for a hero like Wolf, but his strength isn't in being a strong hero, it's getting farm quickly from the jungle. Late game a hero like sniper can easily stand toe to toe with him and win (lolpermastun).
We run into the problem where Drow is simply going to farm, you cannot be on top of her 100% of the time. Even with just buriza she does so much damage when she has her full ult up. If she can bring a TH and tag your team with even 2 seconds of stun someone's dead, every time. A counter pick like Wolf might work really well in a 1v1 situation, but give her a hero like VS who can stop him for two seconds and, even better, has a -armor +damage and position swap kit, and he falls over too. You bring a sand king to help wolf and Drow brings Enigma. We get to the point where almost all of Drow's counters are melee, which is already a disadvantage because in a 5v5 lineup her range allows her to do damage before the enemy carry even gets in range, logically, and she has a lot of it.
My favorite moments are ganking feeder Drow top who is 0-4 and only has treads and branches, just for her to get shallow grave and kill two people in those few seconds.
Last edited by Lysah; 2013-01-02 at 09:42 PM.
No hero needs to 100% completely balanced, and the game can still be balanced, that's the glory of it. As it's a 5v5, hero balance doesn't matter, as much as player synergy with each other, and hero synergy with each other.
Also, I feel like Drow would get crushed by Axe mid-game. A well timed blink, taunt, and Blade Mail would have her killing herself in seconds, Culling Blade possibly not even needed.
Correct me if I am wrong but as far as I know DotA is balanced around competitive scene for years and seems like it's going pretty strong to me. Also, the Idea of balancing heroes for players who have no idea what that particular hero capable of is the worst idea ever.
Does anyone have a spare key that I can have?
Thanks in advance.
Last edited by Torched; 2013-01-02 at 11:32 PM.
“A man will contend for a false faith stronger than he will a true one,” he observes. “The truth defends itself, but a falsehood must be defended by its adherents: first to prove it to themselves and secondly, that they may appear right in the estimation of their friends.”
-The Acts of Pilate.
I think a game should never, ever be balanced around the average player
The average player is completely awful. I dont know how long its been for you guys since you played an average skill level pub but I dont think balancing heroes for a demographic that starts boots tango on mid Clinkz would work.
The vast majority of players play at a level where skill is so over the place that in order to make heroes balanced there they would all have to be the same because a simple mechanic like "dont move when BS uses rupture" is already too complicated for them
If we went down that path we would eventually make the game into LoL where half the heroes have the same mechanics because everything other than gapcloser, nuke, stun, shield, steroid is too complicated
There are limits of course, >60% winrate is probably too high, which is why Drow no longer has her global push aura, which puts her at 56% winrate now.
It's a balance. I do think drow is a bit overpowered to be honest, she farms up to easily. This may not be the case in the pro games and that's fine but that doesn't mean lower levels of play should all but be ignored. If you want a game where everything is balanced around the pro level go play starcraft 2. It didn't help that games community none and it won't help dota 2. Having said that we should also take into account what happens at the pro levels as well. It's a balance between the two really.
If you're implying that this is the reason SC2 is dying I have to disagree. SC2 is dying because of awful custom map support, the balance has nothing to do with. BW was already balanced about the pro scene and it was massively popular.
I agree with your general idea, there has to be some kind of balance even at low levels, which is why Drow no longer has her global push aura. Now she's sitting at 56% winrate, which is completely fine in my opinion.
I just think that if we nerf every hero that forces you to play in a specific way if he's on the enemy team, or heroes that are really strong in some aspect we end up with a bunch of very similar heroes. If we took away drows free stats and aura for example, she'd be just another sniper just instead of a single target stun lock and long range nuke she'd have an AoE silence and inbuilt skadi
By that logic we should probably take away AMs mana burn because he is way too good against STR/AGI heroes that use abilities. Or we should nerf Pudge because its total BS that he can 100-0 almost everyone early on by just hitting 1 hook
The balance is a part of the mentality that exists in the game and in the development team. To much emphasis on league and competitive play. Balance is a reflection of this as anything to "strong" is immediately nerfed into the ground. Sc2 is all about cut throat competition and if you can't step up well toodles. If you exploit anything remotely powerful to assists you well expect a nerf. Poor custom map support is also reflective of this. Anything that isn't ladder or league play is a back seat.
As an experiment with Drow I ended up picking her after reading this thread. I was mid and about 5 minutes in I was already 0-5. By the end of the match I was 22-10. A couple of things that I noticed. Her ultimate is a bit to good at killing creeps. Her slow is a bit to good at slowing. And she has just a tad to much range. It's not that shes insanely broken it's just that shes a little bit to effective.
Last edited by Leonard McCoy; 2013-01-03 at 04:23 AM.
I never really followed SC2 after release so I cant comment in depth, but that is essentially how I felt about the game. They pushed the competitive aspect too much while providing nothing for the casual player.
That said I dont see Dota having this problem. The game is pretty casual to begin with, and knowing Valve it will probably have a good mod scene.
Match ID? Without seeing the game I can only say one thing: they probably didnt have anyone that could just blink on top of Drow and murder her in 2 seconds, because thats the standard way of dealing with her. TA, SB and Cent are all good at that, just off the top of my head.
She is probably the best hard carry to play in Pubs because those game are usually over at the 20 minute mark, before real hard carries even take off. She just needs levels to carry and can even gank with frost arrows.
Only time I've ever wanted to forfeit is when I'm solo queued and end up against a 5 man stack of tryhards. Game's not even fun then, and most of the time they're too busy trying to get their perfect full inventory to actually push rax. Those are pretty much the games I invariably bail out of if it becomes apparent my teammates (lich that doesn't buy chicken, doesn't buy wards, doesn't stack/pull for his lanemate, whines about our solo bot dying to an aggressive trilane he wasn't expecting, then feeds 3 deaths when he KNOWS there are four heroes top and they will just dive the tower when he TP's back in) aren't going to be good enough to pull it off. Anti-fun games like that kill my interest in Dota for the next few days, anyway, so the low priority isn't even a punishment.
As far as Sven, I really like Soul Ring on him. Lets you spam the crap out of his stun. Crazy 325 damage in a large AOE is as useful for wiping out creep waves as it is for wiping out heroes.
That's why I think Drow is silly right now. It's not really that you can't kill her, it's that if she has even a couple seconds of breathing room, she's going to gib someone on your team. Oh, got hit by Fireblast/Storm Hammer/Magic Missile/Burrowstrike/any stun? Grats, Drow just killed you before the stun ended. She also farms creeps/jungle extremely fast once she hits 6, fast enough that I think it's highly unlikely most other carries can keep up with her. Like Lysah said, you can gank her, but then you're pulling a lot of your teammates out of lanes (XP/gold) to gank her, and even if you successfully gank her, she's just going to explode the second you're forced to back off and defend towers or whatever.
Her aura is still really good, too. Once she hits level 7 and has maxed aura (assuming 1-1-4 build, which I think is standard now), that's about +20-24 damage to ranged allies just for being alive. That can't really be underestimated, especially if you have aggressive supports like WR or SD.
I'd say the decline of SC2 in popularity is simply because of the difficulty and the focus on the 1v1 format combined
with no real rewards for playing ladder.
It's extremely high effort + low to no rewards.
If they would want to make the game more popular they would need cosmetic unlockables and stuff. I personally don't
care about that kind of stuff but there is no real point in laddering SC2 than getting better at the game.
In terms of balance, I think SC2 has done an amazing job.
And about Drow. Shes a great pub stompper. Just get fast Helm of dominator + treads, mind control an alpha wolf, use it to
stack ancients while you farm a lane [or jungle if the lane is too dangerous] and it's super easy 500 GPM very early
on in the game.
I wouldn't mind seeing the ulti get changed completely. The earlier %chance to instantly kill creeps was super lame in Dota 1
but I dislike passive stat bonuses even more. I don't really see her as OP hero as it's pretty easy to shup her down with agressive
warding / ganking, but changing her ulti and / or the aura to some defensiveISH active skill would make her more interesting hero
and would greatly reduce her effectiveness in lower level play.
Right know shes just very powerful and very easy to play at lower level.
Dont you unlock decals and portraits and that kind of stuff? Its not very enticing, but I doubt I would play ladder even if I could unlock unit skins or w/e
Ladder is just not a very interesting concept for many players. 90% of players in BW played custom maps. Same as in WC3. Just ask anyone on the internet what they remember about WC3. Most players will cite custom maps or the campaign.
Well you cant really shut her down. She only need levels to carry, really. She hits like a hard carry without any items because 80 agility for free+ some of that agiliy as an aura. Its just that she has no escape and is very squishy so you just blink on top of her and murder her.
Oh and if you want to build a team around aura whoring get Doom with Vlads, eat a wolf + Drow who dominates a Centaur
Its hilarious when every ranged hero has like double damage from all the auras
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Man I was so shit in that game to can't lie. I had slark and I swapped for drow and I forgot to buy items at the start. Still can't believe we came out of that game.
I don't see dota having the same problem YET. That's why I do think they need to keep in mind that all levels of players play this game. If drow is raping face in pub games but under represented in league play then maybe she does need to be looked at. Honestly she just has to much range. It's okay for her to have silence and slow but 625 range as well... like if they come for her she lothars out and then sits back and kills fools in like two hits. She needs to trade something for having all that dmg slow and silence.
That's another thing. They kept drows ulti from dota 1, flat agility buff and in fact they made it better beacuse it used to just be agi and not the double the effect (which is huge for farming btw). Okay but they got rid of centaurs flat str buff? I like centaurs new ult but man I miss that flat str bonus.
Last edited by Leonard McCoy; 2013-01-03 at 07:02 AM.
The tradeoff is, she explodes if a decent chaser looks at her funny. She's down for the count, crushed, bamboozled if more than one hero tries to gank her. If someone actually buys dust (Not the most common thing in pub games, but it does happen) she has no escape tools, and really just gets to die if a gank is attempted.
Of course, if the Drow's team is watching her, they can keep her relatively safe, but she's stomping pub games, meaning her team may not be doing that.
I've always wondered about buying a blink dagger or even fucking force staff on a hero like Drow or Sniper (squishy, ranged, no escape mechanism.) I mean, I guess it sounds silly, but they're reliably mobility/escape tools. I doubt any item would help much if you've got a night stalker diving you at night, though. I guess if that happens you just bend over and grab your ankles and hope for a quick respawn.
Force staff costs too much, carry heroes can't waste that kind of time.
That's why you build her lothars. It's a pub game and people don't ward so she ends up having the total package. If shes fast enough shell lothars out and then be ready to get back in the fight when it's a better opportunity. Hell if shes fast enough she catches the gank before it happens with a silence and runs away. By no means is she invulenarble but for pub games and lower level of play shes is just a tad bit to strong.