[Megathread] DotA 2

[Deleted]

okay let me try

Slark has mirana leap and puck ultimate in 1 skill on 8 second cooldown and a no cooldown no manacost melee shadowraze without cast animation with a free diffusal purge you can use when stunned and his passive is like decay and astral imprisonment combined with a negative agility morph that gives you a free eaglesong after 6 attacks and his ultimate is a free permanent regen and haste rune and invisibility on 'roids. so. fucking. op.

Convinced yet?

Mannishark please.

[Hermanni]

Mannishark please.

I'm starting to wonder why I thought Essence Shift rewarded 4 agility though. That or I might need to re-take a few courses of math.

[Lysah]

@Longview
Arguing that a strength of NA is that he puts his team at a gold advantage since they are forced to waste gold on true sight? Where have I heard that before...I'm glad I taught this forum something with our arguments about invisibility/lothar's oh so long ago

@manni
It was 4 agility in data 1, got nerfed a while back, might've actually been during d2 that it got nerfed.

[Longview]

@Longview
Arguing that a strength of NA is that he puts his team at a gold advantage since they are forced to waste gold on true sight? Where have I heard that before...I'm glad I taught this forum something with our arguments about invisibility/lothar's oh so long ago

huh

did i ever say anything else

[Hermanni]

huh

did i ever say anything else

No, but I'm afraid I did :x

[Lysah]

huh

did i ever say anything else

hey bro relax I just thought it was funny

Manni knows he's stupid.

[Deleted]

well that rox.kis vs EG game was by far the best game ive seen so far. Most games ive seen tend to get decided within 10 minutes, that one was so close right up to 76.

That game killed my Rapier+Roshan Deaths+Match Duration predictions and I didn't even feel bad.

[Coffer]

LGD v TongFu, game 1: Spectre pick! And a successful one at that. Super nice to see. Pretty surprised to see LGD lose a game, but that Magnus was exceptional.

[Longview]

No, but I'm afraid I did :x

ah well

at least you admit it, which is more than what most people would do itt

hey bro relax I just thought it was funny

Manni knows he's stupid.

i am the most relaxed person in here

i just didnt understand sorry

[PizzaSHARK]

Slark is picked now that people realize how good he is. The hybrid carry/gank support role is just now being explored by the professional scene, expect many other heroes, such as SB and BS, to also be looked at soonish.

BS still needs a little something extra. His cast time is outrageously long, makes his silence pretty hard to use effectively in a lot of situations.

Why'd Clinkz fall out of favor? Such a strong hero... not even really that squishy if you use his ulti properly, and you can easily be orbwalking for ~150 dmg a pop at level 6. Think it's just because it's hard to solo vs a trilane?

[Deleted]

BS still needs a little something extra. His cast time is outrageously long, makes his silence pretty hard to use effectively in a lot of situations.

Why'd Clinkz fall out of favor? Such a strong hero... not even really that squishy if you use his ulti properly, and you can easily be orbwalking for ~150 dmg a pop at level 6. Think it's just because it's hard to solo vs a trilane?

Clinkz has no place in a meta that favors 5 man doto.

[PizzaSHARK]

Clinkz has no place in a meta that favors 5 man doto.

Why not? He still does enormous damage even with very few items. I guess he doesn't come with a free BKB or something that scales as ridiculously well as Flak Cannon, though... or a bear.

On the subject of bears. Any idea what's gonna be done about Entangle? It's really boring watching pro games with Sylla - once he hits 5 and the bear has entangle he pretty much just leaves the bear on the enemy hero, and they either leave the lane or die to an entangle proc, and they can't run from the bear due to orb of venom and the bear being fairly fast itself. Like... if Entangle doesn't ever proc, Sylla is a bit of a joke and can't kill anything, but when it procs it's basically a guaranteed kill for a large portion of the game.

There was a funny moment during one of today's TI3 games where Black was getting ganked by like 3 people and he just leaves his bear attacking a shadow demon and ends up killing the shadow demon (due to entangle of course) before they could finally get through his like 1200 HP or something. Just seemed really silly since it's not like he was really microing the bear much - just right-clicking something and then kind of tabbing out to watch porn or whatever.

[Lysah]

Clinkz has no lane. He belongs to a set up that would involve something along the lines of carry mid/clinkz + supports or solo safe/rest hard lane and yet, currently, everyone sends their carry to the safe lane like 95% of the time so Clinkz has nowhere to go. His mid is average and, since he is a roamer at heart, will be pretty much wasted once he stops farming the second he hits 6. His hard lane is pathetic at best and he will feed against any organized lane - his windwalk doesn't even give him movespeed without multiple rank ups.

Once SF mid gets popular again you might be able to see some Clinkz solo safe lane as a backup but until then, Clinkz pretty much falls into the same category as BS, SB, Slark (except Slark can hard lane and even mid), etc.

Also, his big weakness is that if you just watch the buff timer on his ultimate and hit him with a stun as it wears off he's dead. Against skilled players his window of effectiveness is really only a few seconds, if the enemy team can turtle until you have to run to the jungle to get the buff back they can easily win a team fight.

[Deleted]

Why not? He still does enormous damage even with very few items. I guess he doesn't come with a free BKB or something that scales as ridiculously well as Flak Cannon, though... or a bear.

First off, Clinkz needs levels. He needs his ultimate skilled, his arrows maxed and at least one point in Strafe and Windwalk at higher levels. Where do you want to lane him and how do you want him to function as a hero? Carry? Ganker? Support? You can put him him easy lane and go aggressive tri lane and rely on your strong early game to win you the game. But if opponent survives that, Clinkz doesn't really stand a chance against most carries late game and he is overly reliant on having a creep and can only really fight during that time. And Clinkz playstyle usually revovles around roaming around the map, farming opponent woods, picking off heroes. This doesn't work against 5 man doto so well. And in team fights, Clinkz isn't nearly as strong as other heroes.

[Hermanni]

Clinkz has no place in a meta that favors 5 man doto.

And Anti-Mage and Weaver do?

Clinkz isn't even a particularly bad team fight hero compared to many right clickers, with his invis and speed you can get into position to kill 2 heroes from the sidelines of a clash the moment they spend their disables on the rest of your team or you can just man up and kill a high priority target or two before they can get you.

[Deleted]

And Anti-Mage and Weaver do?

Clinkz isn't even a particularly bad team fight hero compared to many right clickers, with his invis and speed you can get into position to kill 2 heroes from the sidelines of a clash the moment they spend their disables on the rest of your team or you can just man up and kill a high priority target or two before they can get you.

As far as I'm concerned, Anti-Mage isn't very popular right now just because of this. Did you see TongFu vs LGD? TongFu were playing from behind right from the start and all they could do was see their towers fall and hope AM gets farmed. Now, most teams don't want to put themselves in such a disadvantage from the start. But at least Anti-Mage has split push, which Clinkz lacks.

What Clinkz also doesn't have is farming ability compared to other right clickers. Catching a Clinkz in a team fight is way easier than catching a Weaver. And as said earlier, unlike Clinkz, Weaver doesn't rely on roaming the map and finding kills. And Clinkz is still overly reliant on a creep to be able to fight.

[PizzaSHARK]

As far as I'm concerned, Anti-Mage isn't very popular right now just because of this. Did you see TongFu vs LGD? TongFu were playing from behind right from the start and all they could do was see their towers fall and hope AM gets farmed. Now, most teams don't want to put themselves in such a disadvantage from the start. But at least Anti-Mage has split push, which Clinkz lacks.

Instead, Clinkz has "hi I show up out of nowhere and ignore backdoor protection and oh looks like you just lost 50% HP on that t3 tower before anyone could even finish channeling a TP." Clinkz basically has 522 ms once he has 4 points into his windwalk so he can move around very quickly.

Also, will the meta ever shift away from teamfight carries much? Like, Gyro and Luna both have enormous teamfight presence and also obliterate creep waves etc very quickly. Why would those heroes ever fall out of popularity? I guess a Luna with 6 slots does less DPS than an Anti-Mage with 6 slots, but she does damage to more or less an entire team with each attack while AM can only hit one target.

Sylla's limited to one target, but he has the lolbear, and he has some additional utility in that the bear does a lot of damage to buildings. I guess Tiny would be another single-target monster, but again has the huge bonus damage vs buildings.

I guess I just don't see the value in doing a 4-protect-1 strategy anymore when there are so many carries that don't really require much farm before they start being really dangerous - Luna, Gyro, Naix, Sylla, even Weaver and Slark. Why was 4-protect-1 popular to begin with? Were people just too focused on the Anti-Mage/Morphling thing, or did the currently popular carries get buffs at some point to make them more attractive? Naix's BKB got its duration extended, didn't it?

[Lysah]

Gyro gets dunked by a hero like SB, you just never see SB get picked.

[Longview]

Also, will the meta ever shift away from teamfight carries much?

Why was 4-protect-1 popular to begin with? Were people just too focused on the Anti-Mage/Morphling thing, or did the currently popular carries get buffs at some point to make them more attractive?

I know you don't read my posts (as you told me so after ignoring me on quakenet after little to no provocation), but here's your basic explanation:

In Dota, there are three basic forms of strategies: Push, teamfight and ganking. These counter one another much like rock/paper/scissors.

In order to beat a team that five-mans down towers at fifteen minutes, you pick (split-)push heroes. Get Leshrac, Furion, Broodmother, Rhasta, Pugna, Enigma, etc. Every time they gather up to five-man and take a tower, you take a tower in the other two lanes. Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to fight a team when their teamfight is much better than yours.

How do you beat a (split-)pushing lineup? Ganking. As a rule of thumb, the closer the enemy is to your tower, the easier they are to gank. Ward up in spots where you'll see early on that they are going to push. Rotate your supports. Contrary to popular belief, supports do not have to sit behind your carry while he farms. If there's no enemy heroes there, go elsewhere. Make sure to have a hero in the middle lane that is prone to ganking (Queen of Pain, Pudge, Night Stalker, Storm Spirit, Nyx Assassin, Batrider, Tiny, etc). Get items like Urn of Shadows and Medallion of Courage on fitting heroes. Pick up Magic Sticks (you don't even have to upgrade them!), and perhaps even a Rod of Atos.

Finally, to counter a ganking lineup: mTw dota. When you run as five, there are no heroes that can be ganked. Usually you need a few items before five-manning actually becomes viable: Arcane Boots, Mekansm, Drums of Endurance, Pipe of Insight, and Vladimir's Offering. You want at least your Mekansm and a pair of Arcane Boots, but it depends on your heroes and what you're up against (as everything with Dota). Another viable way to counter ganking (and teamfighting too) is through turtling. This hasn't been popular for a long-ass time, and I can't imagine it being popular again anytime soon.

While these three strategies are far from everything you can plan (I'd argue that it isn't even a fair representation of basic drafting strats), I believe these three are the most basic forms of what you referred to "meta-game" in your post. Heroes are often popular because you can run them in varied strats. A hero like Gyrocopter can fit well with your ganking lineup, it can work in your pushing lineup and it can work fantastically in your teamfight lineup. He's a tier one pick not because the hero is broken, but because you don't know where he's going to be, or what strategy the team is going for. So can Lifestealer, Rubick, Furion, Magnus, Clockwerk, Dark Seer, and most support heroes. Notice a relation? You should, because they're all one of the most picked and banned heroes during the last week. Other heroes like Ezalor and Wisp do not typically fit into all of these three, but they are when paired with the right heroes (Ezalor can help gank by supplying mana to the ganker as well as intitiating the gank through Illuminate, Wisp can stay behind while fivemanning, supplying regen and offering your team the ability to pick off potentially splitpushing heroes). Some other heroes that do not typically fit into all three are Naga Siren, Invoker, Broodmother, Lycanthrope, Anti Mage, and Sand King. There are a ton more, but these are the ones that have been popular iirc.

Heroes also rise and fall in popularity because people are dumb. Remember when Bounty Hunter was a tier one off-laner? Turns out that you needed a pair of sentry wards and at least one (sometimes two) good phasing hero. Who would have thought? People started doing just this and, lo and behold, Bounty Hunter fell off. This does not typically apply to heroes that are good at all three aspects of basic strategy, but more to heroes that fit into two (BH has a difficult time being a pusher unless you build items to make him one, and basing your strategy on needing your offlane hero to get farm isn't usually the most bright idea). Contrary to popular belief, a hero does not need to get buffed/nerfed to rise/fall in popularity.

The reason teamfight carries are popular (and probably always will be) is because you will end up teamfighting sooner or later, regardless of what strategy you play. Few strats work without them, and the ones that do work with them. Come to think of it, aren't all carries team fight carries? Perhaps you meant something different, I don't know.

As a final note I would like to note (lol) that the only thing I actually looked up before writing this post was the most picked and banned heroes in the past week. As such, I'm probably wrong in a few small things. This is simply a condensed summary (on a basic level) of what I've learned while drafting in -cm. Since there are five hero picks and five hero bans on each team, strategies are never this black and white. You pick one or two pushing heroes, one or two team fighting lineups, and one or two ganking heroes. Make sure you have reliable stuns and bam. You have yourself a good draft.

[Lysah]

No that was pretty solid. I tried to point out before that top tier heroes might simply be often picked because they ARE balanced, in the literal definition of the word - they fit well into most, if not all, lineups. That was a good explanation, though.