[Megathread] DotA 2

[Longview]

Question: How is Warlock? Is he a good hero? I heard he got nerfed when he was ported into Dota 2.

Fantastic hero for new players. There's even a filter in the learn-tab for noob-friendly heroes. What makes a hero "good" is all relative to your current MMR, your individual skill and your team composition.

[Deleted]

Fantastic hero for new players. There's even a filter in the learn-tab for noob-friendly heroes. What makes a hero "good" is all relative to your current MMR, your individual skill and your team composition.

Full team bonds + aoe comp = gg.

[Underskilled]

Full team bonds + aoe comp = gg.

Could not be said better. Go Warlock+Venomancer, end every team fight in seconds.

[Mouzfun]

I would go with ES, dunno why did they buff his ult. even before it was ridiculous.

[Deleted]

I would go with ES, dunno why did they buff his ult. even before it was ridiculous.

How often do you see a ES overfarmed in games? If that happened, then something went terribly wrong.

You must be above their levels to make the ulti deal a lot of dmg..

[Finear]

ES is my best (performance bar wise) hero
im not sure if its good or not ;s

[Deleted]

ES is my best (performance bar wise) hero
im not sure if its good or not ;s

My highest performance used to be Alchemist, until I played a game-winning Refresher Tide.
Sure feels good to get double 5-man Ravage.

[Underskilled]

I'm not 100% sure what the performance bar is based off of, but I wouldn't let it dictate whether you play a hero or not. As long as you're not heavily feeding, there's no way you can really be "bad" with a hero.

[Deleted]

My best Performance hero is Void.. Such a hard hero to play ._.

[Longview]

I don't mean to brag but you know

[Lysah]

Bonds + refresher scepter warlock ult is like 900 damage per person if you hit all 5, I've seen warlock 1v5 an enemy push like this, solid hero. When I played CAL I went warlock 6 games in a row, always babysitting in the safe lane. Send Lich as a support for the hard lane and you've got two solid supports for lanes and bonds + chain frost for team fights. Bonds turns chain frost into like 8000 total damage, such an insane skill (bonds that is). Of course, chain frost was heavily nerfed since then and is so easy to run away from now....

[Deleted]

Bonds truly are a great skill. Too bad that in my experience people either need to snowball (rofl!) with Warlock or they end up having 2/15/10. Also I do not understand why but alot of people seem to think his channeling slow is better than bonds

[Lysah]

People expect Warlock to support but he is naturally fragile. A hero like Lich has 315 speed and several slows and hard nukes to keep people away. CM is probably one of the easiest to kill heros and she still has a semistun and a long range AoE slow. Warlock can heal himself for a tiny amount....and that's about it. RoC cooldown is too long he can't afford to use it for the tiny stun to try to save himself and his other two spells won't do anything to someone on top of him. People expect the poor Warlock to buy courier and wards and die for their kills and when he has 900 health mid game it's really hard for him to not feed. In my opinion, Warlock should not be the only support on his team and should devote his gold to scepter/etc and only buy wards if the other support can't.

[Underskilled]

Is the heal from Shadow Word really that insignificant? Looks to be a free salve every 16 seconds at level 4, though I'm unsure what its priority is leveling him. Still though, even at 1 it'd be ~135 health for a fairly low mana cost, definitely not enough to stop a gank, but very nice to keep the carry sustained in lane, or to patch up any harass done.

Of course this is all hypothetical, as I've played a whole zero games with Warlock, but it doesn't look too bad for him, even in the hard lane, just playing defensively with him.

[PizzaSHARK]

Is the heal from Shadow Word really that insignificant? Looks to be a free salve every 16 seconds at level 4, though I'm unsure what its priority is leveling him. Still though, even at 1 it'd be ~135 health for a fairly low mana cost, definitely not enough to stop a gank, but very nice to keep the carry sustained in lane, or to patch up any harass done.

Of course this is all hypothetical, as I've played a whole zero games with Warlock, but it doesn't look too bad for him, even in the hard lane, just playing defensively with him.

Well, it's -25% as a damage spell, and as a healing spell it has a long cooldown and only heals over time. Omniknight blasts a target for 360 healing immediately on a much lower cooldown, and Dazzle heals for up to 700 total damage across 6 targets on a very brief cooldown. It IS basically a free salve at level 4, but it has a somewhat lengthy cooldown and it's still only healed over time... I think I'd rather have the 360 on demand. As a nuke, it's a mere 300 damage over 9 seconds on a single target, and it allows denies.

I dunno. I think Warlock's really only brought along for Fatal Bonds and little else. His ulti is fun, kind of a ranged Ravage, but the golems are way too slow to chase players and aren't as good as just plain old Necrobook for pushing, and it has a very long cooldown. Upheaval is pretty sweet, but it has a godawfully long cooldown (seeing a theme here?) and unless you put multiple points into it, it takes several seconds of channeling before it reaches that "everything inside this screen-wide AOE moves at 100," point.

[Underskilled]

I was hoping to back up Warlock compared to Dazzle and Omni, but wow, I really can't after looking at the numbers.

That being said, I still wouldn't be surprised if he was still picked solely for Fatal Bonds, it can't be denied, that spell is amazing for almost any situation, and works so well in conjunction with most AoE heavy heroes. My friend and I have already been talking about running a Medusa/Warlock lane when she's out, and just going nuts with Fatal Bonds and Split Shot.

[PizzaSHARK]

I was hoping to back up Warlock compared to Dazzle and Omni, but wow, I really can't after looking at the numbers.

That being said, I still wouldn't be surprised if he was still picked solely for Fatal Bonds, it can't be denied, that spell is amazing for almost any situation, and works so well in conjunction with most AoE heavy heroes. My friend and I have already been talking about running a Medusa/Warlock lane when she's out, and just going nuts with Fatal Bonds and Split Shot.

Yeah, Dazzle pumps out more healing than anyone or anything else in the game. 140*6 every 6 seconds is pretty incredible. I don't really think there's a better babysitter than Dazzle, and he's good on his own, too.

Warlock gets pretty funny once you have Refresher. Multiple casts of Fatal Bonds stack, so you can 40% damage sharing on linked targets, which can lead to some pretty hilarious results if you have a teammate with a major AOE nuke. Zeus, Sand King, Qop, Lesh, etc.

The golems are actually phenomenal at pushing if you have Agh's as well since their auras stack (four golems together is equal to 200 DPS to everything in a 250 radius), but there's no way you'd have Refresher+Agh's unless that game was won, anyway.

I think Warlock would be a lot better if his golems lasted longer and/or were just better. They're worth a whopping 200 gold at level 16 (or 100 apiece if you have Agh's), and 360 move speed just ain't enough to catch heroes at that stage of the game... nor are 320 or 340 enough at the level 6 and level 11 stages of the game. They can do some impressive damage if they can get next to something and stay next to it, but that doesn't really happen much, and with a nearly 3 minute cooldown on the ulti, the golems don't last very long in comparison.

[Rivenda]

How does the matchmaking work in Dota 2? Is it like WoW Arena where you gain points for winning and lose points when you lose? Or is it just fixing you up with people on your level..
Yesterday my friends and I hit a wall we own 1 out of 8 games, which was completely outrageus. It made us wonder how the matchmaking does work, we got pretty much woop ass despite being on TS..
We are around 7-8 in the level.
Cheers...

[PizzaSHARK]

And because I really want people to play Dazzle more since he's so fun, do this:

Start with tangos, clarities, and 3 branches. You can buy a 4th branch if you want, expect to buy chicken or wards.

Buy sobi mask and then basic boots in lane. Find out who's getting drums. If you're getting drums, buy a bracer. If you aren't getting drums, finish urn. Build medallion of courage afterwards regardless of which. If you're getting drums, finish drums after medallion.

Finish phase boots. Urn/Drums give you HP, phase boots and medallion make your damage notable, and the stats combine with your naturally high INT to eliminate mana issues. Make Agh's next, start with either ogre club or point booster, you can buy point booster before finishing drums or whatever if you'd like.

Assuming you're being pigeonholed into a support role like in your average pub, take E at level 1 and max it at 7, take W when you can't take E. Take ulti at 6, 11, and 16. Get a point in Q at level 8 and forget about it, max W at 10. Stats when you can't take ulti, finish Q after you've got maxed stats. We're skipping Q in this build because it needs to be maxed early for best effect, and you need those stats to stay alive (and keep grave available for teammates instead of yourself) once late game starts rolling around and carries can start hitting for 400 damage a pop. Q carries a microstun on impact and that's the only reason we're getting it at all.

Makes it virtually impossible for your lane to get fucked between Shallow Grave and your heal. You probably won't get a lot of kills unless your lanemate has a lot of control skills or your mid ganks, but your lane will be very hard to gank. You can use your E to quickly nuke down small and medium jungle camps for extra XP and gold, and combined with medallion and weave it can actually produce a respectable nuke (probably in the 200ish range on a debuffed STR hero or low-armor INT) and you can spam it to keep creep waves healthy during pushes.

Mekansm is another really good item for Dazzle, but since we're talking about pubs, I don't like playing supports as "I am 110% reliant on my team for anything," urn gives you a dot to finish people off with in addition to the stats, and phase boots + medallion and weave allows you to right-click pretty hard for someone without damage items, at least through the midgame.

Weave is really underestimated, it makes a colossal difference. Weave your team and you can dive towers. Weave an enemy and slap him with medallion and he's instantly into negative armor unless he's an agility carry.

Since you're maxing heal and grave first, play really aggressive once you leave lane. Setup ganks constantly, the low cooldown and huge range on grave allows your teammates to do frankly suicidal shit and get away with it, just don't do it near an Axe (his ulti will kill you, grave or not.) If you're going urn, you should leave lane and begin roaming around once urn is done, otherwise you should probably wait until 6-7. In the earlier stages of the midgame, don't underestimate Dazzle's damage. He has good range, fantastic animation, and his stat growth means he has high base damage. This combines very well with Medallion. Don't forget that all of his spells do physical damage - always debuff the enemy with medallion and/or weave before you start in on them.

If you get solo mid, get a point of your heal at 4 for utility purposes and instead aim to have Poison Touch maxed at 7. Get boots first and otherwise stick to the plan; don't bother with bottle, you don't need it, and early boots will make it easier for you to prevent enemy mid from getting runes. Use Poison Touch like Qop uses her daggers - get close, right click, poison them, and continue stutter-stepping (attack, move while on attack cooldown, stop and attack, repeat) after them to get more hits in. At level 7, poison touch has 100% uptime as long as you have mana, and you have a minor heal and grave to bail yourself out, so be aggressive. Dazzle's harass becomes surprisingly good once you finish Medallion.

Not the only way to play Dazzle, but I reckon it's the best for pubs at my level. Pros can probably get away with no-items hard support, but that's due to teamwork you aren't going to get in a pub.

[Deleted]

Yeah, Dazzle pumps out more healing than anyone or anything else in the game. 140*6 every 6 seconds is pretty incredible. I don't really think there's a better babysitter than Dazzle, and he's good on his own, too.

I'm inclined to say that Lich can rival him, simply because of Sacrifice (And also Frost Blast of course). I love me some Dazzle, he's currently sitting as one of my most succesful heroes, but the main problem he faces is getting decent levels as a lane support. Which is why I prefer playing him mid or in a kill-lane, rather than babysitting people.

...Speaking of most succesful heroes, I'm curious about you guys, mind sharing?