1. #3061
    Drow changes were pretty good overall, now she's more useful than before and potentially more damaging but she's still just as easy to shit on as before. For a hero with no escapes, no hard disables and low HP I don't really care if she were shooting 250 damage 10 minutes into a game. With the new TAS she actually has less damage until level 6 and the bonus agility from new Markmanship barely counts as added physical EHP because there's small chance she'll have it up when she's taking damage. Sure, the new Lothars is a lot better than the old one, but if you actually get repeatedly owned by it you still deserve to lose. As for Silencer, I think I'm still going to prefer Glaive + Stats for the early game mid build.

    Part of the reason Silencer and Drow are off CM in Dota 2 is because they were subject to redesign therefore and potentially bugged.
    Last edited by Hermanni; 2012-10-28 at 07:33 AM.

  2. #3062
    I don't know, I just lost a game to a late game drow. As SB, it was pretty easy for me to jump on top of her and break her down, but the TSA bonus to Furion made him kill the rax in about 4 auto attacks. I don't consider her totally broken, but I considered her fine before. Mister Frog seems to be pushing all of the hard carries down earlier game, just waiting to see AM and Spectre buffs, personally. Drow already had one of the highest damage outputs when farmed, the fact that you can kill her early game is what balances her, just like PA.

    Lastly, you should stop being so confident about shadow blade. If it gave no on-use it would still be a good item because it's half a hyperstone and relic combined for about the same price. That already makes it a good item for many heroes, the windwalk that comes with half a dagon for free is just gravy. Pretending like it's so easy to deal with just makes you short sighted, in my opinion. Like I've said in the past, even if you buy a gem that lothar's has affected your game, and that in itself is a win.

    I just had an NA on my team go shadow blade. Was he trolling and did it piss all of us off? Absolutely, but it wasn't a total waste. I really wish he got a "real" item, simply because he can't vendetta and lothar at the same time, but he was certainly able to ult in on someone and then windwalk back out. Storm got a gem three times and I destroyed all of them. Think about what that cost their team. Now, get the item on a hero who can actually use it and it's one of the most dangerous picks. People rain holy hell on force staff when no one is ever afraid of that item, no one changes their game because an enemy has that item, it's just something you have to deal with when it gets used. The second someone buys shadow blade your team has to immediately reorganize or you're going to start feeding, the item really is that strong. Just because you think it's so easily countered doesn't mean that it's a bad buy, it still FORCES you to play in a way that the lothar's wielder can predict.

    Plenty of games I have bought lothar's just to get them to waste their gold on gem. I watch them try to set up a gank on me, it's insanely predictable and just as easy to set up a counter gank. Can't say I've ever had a bad lothar's game in my life. I very nearly consider the item overpowered in its present state, the only reason it isn't changed is because all of the "pros" out their are too far up their own asses to try using it. But that just goes back to the "pros never try anything new" rhetoric.
    Last edited by Lysah; 2012-10-28 at 08:14 AM.

  3. #3063
    Plenty of games I crushed drow with lothar. Let's keep giving our pub games as examples. I'm not saying pro decisions are code of conduct in DotA as they may or may not be as smart as regular players when it comes to strategy(I do believe they are mostly not) but invisibility is easy to counter and you can literally make a drow's life hell until she gets her shadowblade. Also math says there are better solutions in terms of combat efficiency if you are not going to use invisibility of lothar effectively or its countered by enemy. I think its same reason why we do not see luna or trax in games becuase they lack escape mechanism and lothar is not a reliable item. You can babysit drow but thats going to cost a lot. And maybe people are overestimating shadowblade because they are playing against pub trashes?

    ---------- Post added 2012-10-28 at 02:01 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK View Post
    Quick question: You're aware Drow received two enormous buffs in 6.76, right? And you're still gonna go e-thug on us?

    Her ultimate was significantly improved. It's now +40/+60/+80 AGI as long as no enemy heroes are within 375 range, which is a little more than half her attack range and a little bit larger than Omniknight's Degen Aura (for easy comparison.) Remember that as an AGI hero, that means that's +40 damage, attack speed, and about 6 armor (36% effective HP) as soon as she hits level 6; this means once Drow hits level 6, very few heroes can successfully continue to lane against her. Her high attack damage combined with orb allows her to orbwalk very effectively and the large damage boost gives her a very large advantage in creepscore potential.

    The second major change and arguably the more important over the course of the entire game, is that her aura is now global rather than 900 range. This means all ranged creeps and siege creeps are doing up to 26% more damage the entire game. There were some people testing earlier and they were able to get a siege creep up to about 200 base damage; they stacked it up with VS aura and a bunch of IAS skills like Bloodlust for shits and giggles and it was able to take down towers in about four seconds... by itself. Obviously that's not practical in a normal game, but it still means that Drow's team will push significantly harder than the other team because ranged creeps and siege creeps are the high-DPS creeps... and this happens without Drow doing anything besides being alive.

    It means that Drow can farm one lane, and her aura means her team's other lanes are pushing automatically. The aura being global also gives her team a damage advantage over the other team, especially since aura is typically maxed first, before silence.

    Seriously, man. If you haven't played with and against the new Drow yet, you probably shouldn't say anything. If you've played with and against her new iteration... well, I guess that's just your opinion.

    But I don't think taking Drow out of CM was just some random decision. I think Icefrog knew the changes he was putting in were potentially gamebreaking; I'm just surprised him and his team of testers (I'm assuming he has a bunch of people he does internal testing with) thought that the current iteration was close enough to balanced to put out onto live servers.

    Oh and in regards to lothars: it's better than you're giving it credit for. The 150 damage backstab is pretty significant considering how early she can get it, and it doesn't reveal her until after her attack's in the air, meaning by time she's visible and you can react you're probably going to have taken two shots already. When those shots are probably amounting to 500-600 damage when your average support has maybe 800 health, that's a lot of burst, and it means their team now has to make sure they're carrying dust and/or buying sentry wards.

    ---------- Post added 2012-10-27 at 06:36 PM ----------



    Yeah, I was mentioning that earlier when talking about Cent's new ulti. Guy was saying that his new STR gain doesn't quite measure up to what his old ulti gave him (saying that meant he didn't basically have two ults now); I pointed out that since his new ulti hugely reduces his reliance on blink dagger, it meant he could just buy a fast reaver with that gold he isn't spending (or platemail, or hood, etc.)

    I love the concept of his ulti, but I think it either needs to be local area, or only Centy himself should proc a stun. It'd still be an amazingly versatile and powerful ulti if it was just a glorified global Drums active with such a short cooldown.
    Still she's a free kill until lothar and even lothar can not save her ass. What you don't get is she's amazingly easy to kill. You are creating hypothetical 1vs1 situations where most of the heroes can not lane against her due to her damage being OP but that's not how things work in practice. I played against new drow. Enemy team was stupid enough to send drow to solo mid against my invoker. Guess what happened?
    Last edited by Kuntantee; 2012-10-28 at 12:05 PM.

  4. #3064
    Quote Originally Posted by Lysah View Post
    Lastly, you should stop being so confident about shadow blade.
    I already admit it, it's not a bad item any more by any means. The attack speed in it has even made me buy it a few times lately, something I never did in the past if I wasn't going for a joke build. I still smirk when I see my enemies build it, though. You can force Dust but if that leads you to eventually overextending and dying it will be worth it, and you can force sentries or gem but if you walk into sentries when trying to initiate or gank it will again be worth it for your enemy. The thing about dust is it's only 180 gold and it's rarely being wasted - a popped dust often results in a kill which makes for a pretty good return investment. And stealth heroes in general make up for a good enough excuse to buy a Necronomicon

    Of course you can buy a Shadowblade and keep on playing like you don't have one with the result that you just bought a moderately cost-efficient stat stick and maybe forced some dust and sentries on the enemy players - either could be winning that trade, depending on the game.

    Shadowblade however does not suddenly turn a Drow or a Sniper into an Anti-Mage in terms of effort required to pull off a successful gank - on the contrary, on most players Shadowblade actually makes them easier to gank.
    Last edited by Hermanni; 2012-10-28 at 12:59 PM.

  5. #3065
    If you don't assume all 5 of your enemies have dust you have no business buying it anyway. Just because you have windwalk doesn't mean your attention to enemies should just vanish.

    @Kuntantee
    Luna used to be extremely popular because you can't stop her from getting 800 GPM with glaive bounce. Try to gank her while she's jungling? Press eclipse free double kill back to farming. Not to mention she can be auto attacking your entire team at once in a team fight. Drow has also had her moments, and she pairs extremely well in some lanes, toss her a support like Veno and it's free kills all day.

  6. #3066
    Quote Originally Posted by Lysah View Post
    If you don't assume all 5 of your enemies have dust you have no business buying it anyway. Just because you have windwalk doesn't mean your attention to enemies should just vanish.

    @Kuntantee
    Luna used to be extremely popular because you can't stop her from getting 800 GPM with glaive bounce. Try to gank her while she's jungling? Press eclipse free double kill back to farming. Not to mention she can be auto attacking your entire team at once in a team fight. Drow has also had her moments, and she pairs extremely well in some lanes, toss her a support like Veno and it's free kills all day.
    She can but there is also a big chance that she will fail.

  7. #3067
    Well, hopefully next week brings me my Dusa and I can shit on every Drow or Centaur. Been on the verge of installing WC3 just to get to try the Mystic Snake + Stone Gaze Dusa, last time I played her it was still CL and Purge. Can't wait for some Bristleback either, soloing double first blood in the first minute never gets old. Come think of it, Dusa and BB are probably the two hardest to kill heroes in the game and I love them both for it.

  8. #3068
    Drow is to strong atm she just needs to get lvl 16 and healm of the dominator and control a wolf pack creep and she got 300dmg, crit chance and sick attack speed. Just no chance to stop her only two unless you can chain stun.

  9. #3069
    Quote Originally Posted by Hermanni View Post
    Well, hopefully next week brings me my Dusa and I can shit on every Drow or Centaur. Been on the verge of installing WC3 just to get to try the Mystic Snake + Stone Gaze Dusa, last time I played her it was still CL and Purge. Can't wait for some Bristleback either, soloing double first blood in the first minute never gets old. Come think of it, Dusa and BB are probably the two hardest to kill heroes in the game and I love them both for it.
    I never liked Medusa, but I can't wait for BB. She was better when she had CL, but so was everybody.

  10. #3070
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kuntantee View Post
    Plenty of games I crushed drow with lothar. Let's keep giving our pub games as examples. I'm not saying pro decisions are code of conduct in DotA as they may or may not be as smart as regular players when it comes to strategy(I do believe they are mostly not) but invisibility is easy to counter and you can literally make a drow's life hell until she gets her shadowblade. Also math says there are better solutions in terms of combat efficiency if you are not going to use invisibility of lothar effectively or its countered by enemy. I think its same reason why we do not see luna or trax in games becuase they lack escape mechanism and lothar is not a reliable item. You can babysit drow but thats going to cost a lot. And maybe people are overestimating shadowblade because they are playing against pub trashes?
    Drow's only tough to lane if you try to give her offlane solo. She's a decent mid, not the best but not the worst. Longer than average range and slowing orb make it easy for her to harass and her damage skyrockets once she hits level 6 (5-6 mins.) Silence combined with high damage and orb make her a capable ganker - again, not best, but not worst - and while she's squishy, so are a lot of heroes. Her huge damage boost lets her farm up a lothar's or helm pretty quickly to help address that.

    She's strong in an aggressive duo lane, especially with an aggressive support like Veno. Never seen someone run a trilane with her, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work. Drow definitely needs to be able to harass to win her lane, though. Her damage is a little low until level 6 and she definitely can't afford to play passively. If Drow is in a lane where she's getting harassed away from creeps or can't harass the enemy, she needs to swap lanes.

    Still she's a free kill until lothar and even lothar can not save her ass. What you don't get is she's amazingly easy to kill. You are creating hypothetical 1vs1 situations where most of the heroes can not lane against her due to her damage being OP but that's not how things work in practice. I played against new drow. Enemy team was stupid enough to send drow to solo mid against my invoker. Guess what happened?
    Free kill in what way? Invoker's squishy as fuck, too, and even if you're running QW, dust counters your awful invis. QoP is also a free kill if you can tag her with a silence or stun, or force the blink before initiating. Pudge's completely screwed if you get him out of position due to his lack of escape method and terrible move speed. TA's reliant on refraction stacks to tank the hits, any hero that can quickly strip those off can setup free kills on her.

    Saying a hero is squishy isn't really significant, because most heroes are squishy. Even AM is squishy, he's just hard to pin down because of the 5 sec blink he has, but a stun or silence takes care of that. Drow doesn't have an escape button before lothar's, but she DOES have damage that skyrockets at 6, a powerful slow, and a great silence.

    Yeah, I can see her losing mid to Invoker, but the smart thing to do there would be to just have Drow change lanes. Invoker's basically guaranteed to win solo mid since that's basically what the guy does best, only hero that might be better at it than him is maybe QoP.

    We'll have to see how the extra 25 range pans out. I'm still not a fan of it, though, because +40 AGI is just too damn much at 6 minutes. I'd really rather see it be +20 AGI and an extra +20 or however much damage versus creeps and towers. It still gives her the increased farming ability without making her such a beast as soon as she hits 6.


    As far as Centaur... meh. I don't see the changes doing a fucking thing about how inherently broken that skill is. Either needs to not be global range, or make it so only centaur procs a stun.
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  11. #3071
    Only 3 seconds duration at all ranks will probably do the trick, honestly. At 522 movespeed 3 seconds is just enough time to go 1500 range, about the same range as a blink dagger, but people have 3 seconds to see it coming. The reduced AoE on the stun also helps stop you from running a centaur train on someone. Still seems like it'll be insanely powerful early game but that's mostly because stomp and double edge are so insane.

  12. #3072
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK View Post
    Free kill in what way? Invoker's squishy as fuck, too, and even if you're running QW, dust counters your awful invis. QoP is also a free kill if you can tag her with a silence or stun, or force the blink before initiating. Pudge's completely screwed if you get him out of position due to his lack of escape method and terrible move speed. TA's reliant on refraction stacks to tank the hits, any hero that can quickly strip those off can setup free kills on her.

    Saying a hero is squishy isn't really significant, because most heroes are squishy. Even AM is squishy, he's just hard to pin down because of the 5 sec blink he has, but a stun or silence takes care of that. Drow doesn't have an escape button before lothar's, but she DOES have damage that skyrockets at 6, a powerful slow, and a great silence.

    Yeah, I can see her losing mid to Invoker, but the smart thing to do there would be to just have Drow change lanes. Invoker's basically guaranteed to win solo mid since that's basically what the guy does best, only hero that might be better at it than him is maybe QoP.
    Are you smoking something? She is squishy in the way that a gank on her and she is probably dead. A gank on a hero like QoP and Invoker is much much harder. Even if you catch them in a stun, you actually ahve to kill them in the stun else they just blink/tornado/ghost walk away. That is why SF faded away from the pro scene.

    And you do realize that TA mid is super strong? Like, hardly any hero can beat her. And no, refraction is not easy to strip off for basically any hero that would be up against her mid.

  13. #3073
    TA is pie to beat me by just about any ranged hero who knows what he is doing. Viper is a prime candidate because nethertoxin for keeping up with last hitting and corrosive skin for being impossible to kill. Huskar does well because he can just right click her and eat the meld, if she seriously tries to commit to the kill she will lose. TA was not a good hero in DotA1, she is a prime example of how the pro scene latches on to things and boosts up certain heroes above their actual performance level and lowers other heroes below theirs. Most of the current favorite carries were all joke picks shortly before DotA2 came out in beta. You would get flamed for picking AM in DotA, and people would laugh at you for trying to TA mid. And now it's suddenly "unbeatable." Sorry, no, people just have a really hard time adapting. 99% of the world just does whatever Dendi does (in so few words) and the other 1% is so full of itself that it will preserve the status quo just so that it can feel like it is "right."

  14. #3074
    Quote Originally Posted by Ariadne View Post
    Are you smoking something?
    He probably is, that's probably why he is so hasty to suggest someone else is on something. I read those 3 paragraphs like 4 times and am still laughing, I can't remember the last time I've seen so many bad arguments and so much stupidity condensed in such a little space.

    Don't bother, he is just desperately trying to build stupid arguments for his yet another failing "hero X is OP" scheme of the week.

    @Lysah, for me Medusa was the one carry I liked playing a lot more than the other ones, there's just a nice bit of elegance about her. I can't tell you whether I liked the old one or new one better yet, but the improved Split-Shot and Stone Gaze seem great.
    Last edited by Hermanni; 2012-10-29 at 04:38 AM.

  15. #3075
    Quote Originally Posted by Hermanni View Post
    @Lysah, for me Medusa was the one carry I liked playing a lot more than the other ones, there's just a nice bit of elegance about her. I can't tell you whether I liked the old one or new one better yet, but the improved Split-Shot and Stone Gaze seem great.
    Why? =p
    Just not an answer I'd ever expect, so many agility heroes are more fun (luna, jugg, hell even slark or meepo). She really just sits mid for 30 minutes straight, she's like the AM afk in the jungle only she does it in a lane. There's just really no excitement to her...you get a fed jugg and you can have a laugh as you ult around killing three people before they even get to fight back. You get a fed medusa and you just turn split arrow on and attack ground in their fountain =/

  16. #3076
    Quote Originally Posted by Lysah View Post
    Why? =p
    It's hard to explain, she may not be the most exciting hero around but I like turning ganks around or manning up and baiting the whole enemy team. Slowly gaining dominance until the enemy is desperate to gank you only to find out they can't. Don't get me wrong, I like playing pretty much any hero (Techies not included) but the carry I really love playing is Dusa... and maybe PL and SF.

    On the other hand I don't really think there's a hero I feel like is frustrating to play against... maybe a really snowballed Bristleback but that's the reason I like playing him myself.

  17. #3077
    PL is loads of fun, if only because running up to someone/popping manta/suddenly 20 image army surrounding them is hilarious :3

    I find storm frustrating to play against, but only because he has probably the smallest skill ceiling in the game. If you can breathe you can play a good storm spirit, hands and eyes and a brain are just a plus.

  18. #3078
    Quote Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK View Post
    Drow's only tough to lane if you try to give her offlane solo. She's a decent mid, not the best but not the worst. Longer than average range and slowing orb make it easy for her to harass and her damage skyrockets once she hits level 6 (5-6 mins.) Silence combined with high damage and orb make her a capable ganker - again, not best, but not worst - and while she's squishy, so are a lot of heroes. Her huge damage boost lets her farm up a lothar's or helm pretty quickly to help address that.

    She's strong in an aggressive duo lane, especially with an aggressive support like Veno. Never seen someone run a trilane with her, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work. Drow definitely needs to be able to harass to win her lane, though. Her damage is a little low until level 6 and she definitely can't afford to play passively. If Drow is in a lane where she's getting harassed away from creeps or can't harass the enemy, she needs to swap lanes.



    Free kill in what way? Invoker's squishy as fuck, too, and even if you're running QW, dust counters your awful invis. QoP is also a free kill if you can tag her with a silence or stun, or force the blink before initiating. Pudge's completely screwed if you get him out of position due to his lack of escape method and terrible move speed. TA's reliant on refraction stacks to tank the hits, any hero that can quickly strip those off can setup free kills on her.

    Saying a hero is squishy isn't really significant, because most heroes are squishy. Even AM is squishy, he's just hard to pin down because of the 5 sec blink he has, but a stun or silence takes care of that. Drow doesn't have an escape button before lothar's, but she DOES have damage that skyrockets at 6, a powerful slow, and a great silence.

    Yeah, I can see her losing mid to Invoker, but the smart thing to do there would be to just have Drow change lanes. Invoker's basically guaranteed to win solo mid since that's basically what the guy does best, only hero that might be better at it than him is maybe QoP.

    We'll have to see how the extra 25 range pans out. I'm still not a fan of it, though, because +40 AGI is just too damn much at 6 minutes. I'd really rather see it be +20 AGI and an extra +20 or however much damage versus creeps and towers. It still gives her the increased farming ability without making her such a beast as soon as she hits 6.


    As far as Centaur... meh. I don't see the changes doing a fucking thing about how inherently broken that skill is. Either needs to not be global range, or make it so only centaur procs a stun.
    Invoker squishy as fuck? Traxex is a ganker?

    Okay. You need to play with better players so you can see that your theories are useless.

  19. #3079
    Invoker is squishy as fuck. Not being able to catch him doesn't mean he can survive more than two hits, those are different concepts. Invoker survives by being able to run around with 500 movespeed at level 7 and stun you multiple times while he runs away. The invis doesn't help, though it slows him down so much that if you'd just buy dust he's dead. Still, being able to snap/dblast/tornado you and run away with huge movespeed doesn't make him not squishy. Storm is squishy and you don't see storm players die much. Different concepts.

  20. #3080
    Quote Originally Posted by Lysah View Post
    Invoker is squishy as fuck. Not being able to catch him doesn't mean he can survive more than two hits, those are different concepts. Invoker survives by being able to run around with 500 movespeed at level 7 and stun you multiple times while he runs away. The invis doesn't help, though it slows him down so much that if you'd just buy dust he's dead. Still, being able to snap/dblast/tornado you and run away with huge movespeed doesn't make him not squishy. Storm is squishy and you don't see storm players die much. Different concepts.
    I don't think its different concepts. I think you and pizza are differentiating it into irrelevant concepts for no reason. Hero hp is irrelevant when you posses several number of survivability spells. And why everyone is talking about ghost walk in the first place? It's easy to counter. How about ice barrier? Tornado? Defiling blast? Even EMP can help you escape. Unless you have a blink or chain stun him you won't catch invoker. He has number of escape mechanisms which makes him not squishy.

    Anti-mage is squishy but you can't kill him as easy as other heroes fuck that concept.

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