[Megathread] DotA 2

[LiiLoSNK]

Anyone who lets CM jungle is either A) laughing at how stupid of a hero she is and not threatened at all or B) all of the above. She's only strong pre-6 and if you waste that on jungling you've really picked the wrong hero.

Using CM to jungle/roam/multi stack camps is one of the most standard things seen in captains mode/every dota tournament ever played.

Pubs are pretty different.

[Lysah]

Using CM to jungle/roam/multi stack camps is one of the most standard things seen in captains mode/every dota tournament ever played.

Pubs are pretty different.

I can't believe anyone can even stand to play her. Don't worry guys I'll gank bot! Just give me like 15 minutes to get there.

[Deleted]

I'll never understand 1v3 lanes, why would you waste two supports protecting a carry who doesn't even need one support of protection? It's probably time to leave lane and go help mid/off. Being able to jungle part time makes CM a good 3v3 hero, but that doesn't make her anything less than terrible at just about everything else in the game.

Because these supports will be stronger later in the game and are solid picks and can't lane anywhere else. And you do sometimes need 2 supports to completely shut down an offlane.

I remember one game where I was playing Timbersaw vs Slark, Abbadon, Nyx. Now, in a normal game with standard ranked public support players I would be able to get some exp and levels but these guys were pretty good, one of them being that SoNNeikO guy that is consistently page 1 games. I tried my best to make them push the lane if they wanted to zone me out but every time I thought the lane would push and I could leech some experience they just pulled it back. I just thought to myself: "Holy crap, these guys actually know how to play supports. We lost". Very seldom does this happen to me.

The support got levels, the carry got levels and I was completely shut down. This allowed the Nyx to get a fast level 6 and start roaming. Had there only been an Abbadon or just the Nyx I'd crush the lane by just running down the support if he tries to zone me and right click aggro the creep wave back to my tower for easy experience. The Nyx would then have to rely on leeching experience from the Slark to get his 6 and delay Slark's 6 or go pull solo and I'd easily contest that if there wasn't an Abbadon in the way. Same goes for Clockwerk, Phoenix etc. Those heroes can handle an Abbadon or a Nyx solo support pretty easily. But both? Nope.

This is also why Dark Seer has fallen off as an off laner. There are now other heroes who can force a tri lane against them to zone them out. Before it was just basically Dark Seer who could stand solo offlane without getting completely shut down and even if they shut him down he could go jungle.

[LiiLoSNK]

I can't believe anyone can even stand to play her. Don't worry guys I'll gank bot! Just give me like 15 minutes to get there.

She's pretty fast when smoked! Roaming jungle puts her pretty close to mid and safelane for smoke ganks. Pick up a batrider for offlane solo xp soak. Cm can constantly stack 2 camps at once, so have bat come buy and burn up a 7min blink.

[Lysah]

post.

Why would you lane a support against a solo offlane in this first place? When did that become a REQUIREMENT? Plenty of carrys can solo heroes like Phoenix early game, you'd be amazed.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Playing Phoenix first time. Does horrible, :/

The only silverlining is his ult(SUPERNOVA OF DOOM!)

[Deleted]

Why would you lane a support against a solo offlane in this first place? When did that become a REQUIREMENT? Plenty of carrys can solo heroes like Phoenix early game, you'd be amazed.

Because supports still need experience and map presence and the fact that most solo offlaners don't care about farm if they can trade so that the enemy carry has mediocre farm while their carry has good farm. An offensive tri lane always run the issue of having supports underleveled. As you play against better and better people, roaming becomes way harder and basically requires you to smoke to even have a chance of getting kills. It's not a requirement but works and is most likely a good way to play.

For example, Luna doesn't stand a chance against Phoenix. Sure, she can get some farm but Phoenix will just force her to get regen items to keep up with the harass, she can't trade hits and Phoenix just need levels. Clockwerk can just be annoying with cogs to deny you farm and just get a fast 6 and go do work and he still has solid solo kill potential if enemy carry makes one mistake. Timbersaw just runs down a Luna. Most off laners happily trade regen to force you to miss last hits. You don't want that as carry but they don't care about that. Tiny faces the same issues and his low base armor is just food for any strong off laner. Slark? Struggles too. Lifestealer? Same problem.

Most carries aren't strong laners, that's why they are put on the safe lane in the first place and with the creep clash being closer to off lane tower, safe lane isn't that safe anymore.

[Lysah]

Even if you roam and don't get kills, if you force enemies to hide behind towers in their own safe lane you have still impacted their game. And, why would you draft weak hyper carrys if you were planning on solo safe laning? A hero like LC can easily 1v1 and get 100% farm against Phoenix, I know she isn't in CM yet but she will be. Your entire hero list is fotm carry picks, think outside the box some - this is exactly what bothers pizza (and me) about the pro scene, people only know 1 type of DotA and it's all they will ever play.

Also, Timbersaw runs down any hero in the game, so he's a prime counter arugment to pretty much any strategy in the game. Having to spend 3 heroes just to stop him from getting experience is called a win as far as offlane goes. Now if you can figure out how to lane THEIR solo offlane without wasting all 3 of your heroes then maybe you can put up ganks on mid and win lanes when they win 1.

In my opinion dual mid needs to come back, as does dual off. There are tons of 2 man combos that can beat trilanes (like ember+wisp) once they're level 4 and the trilane is still level 2. This leaves your safe lane open for carry + hard support who can defend them from aggressive offlanes like Phoenix and a solo mid, or a solo safe lane and an aggressive dual mid to shut down an enemy mid like OD. Probably wouldn't even be that hard to draft, at least while nobody is used to it.

[Jester Joe]

She's just a garbage hero unless you draft a team around the aura. People only pick her because they're so fucking focused on trends and not actually thinking things through.

She might not be the greatest hero, but I wouldn't consider her garbage, I did pretty well with her a few times, it really depends on how early game plays out though I suppose.

Although I have been having more fun on earthshaker lately.

[Charge me Doctor]

I think some people misinterpret CM "jungling". Clearing pulling camp to stack it and freezing 1 creep when he moved out of camp to get gold+exp from it hardly can be considered "jungling" but it is decent way to not leech exp from carry. Also, range and cast animation of her slow is much better than Jakiros'
And her smoke ganks are awesome, you are capable of landing slow without being detected and the proceed with root.

And after wisp nerfs to tether ember+wisp is not that good anymore against trilanes

[Hermanni]

Using CM to jungle/roam/multi stack camps is one of the most standard things seen in captains mode/every dota tournament ever played in the last few months

I fixed that bit for you since the pro hero choices are pretty largely trend based. CM pick was a rarity not too long ago, same as stacking camps.

[Deleted]

Even if you roam and don't get kills, if you force enemies to hide behind towers in their own safe lane you have still impacted their game. And, why would you draft weak hyper carries if you were planning on solo safe laning? A hero like LC can easily 1v1 and get 100% farm against Phoenix, I know she isn't in CM yet but she will be. Your entire hero list is fotm carry picks, think outside the box some - this is exactly what bothers pizza (and me) about the pro scene, people only know 1 type of DotA and it's all they will ever play.

Also, Timbersaw runs down any hero in the game, so he's a prime counter arugment to pretty much any strategy in the game. Having to spend 3 heroes just to stop him from getting experience is called a win as far as offlane goes. Now if you can figure out how to lane THEIR solo offlane without wasting all 3 of your heroes then maybe you can put up ganks on mid and win lanes when they win 1.

In my opinion dual mid needs to come back, as does dual off. There are tons of 2 man combos that can beat trilanes (like ember+wisp) once they're level 4 and the trilane is still level 2. This leaves your safe lane open for carry + hard support who can defend them from aggressive offlanes like Phoenix and a solo mid, or a solo safe lane and an aggressive dual mid to shut down an enemy mid like OD. Probably wouldn't even be that hard to draft, at least while nobody is used to it.

That's exactly what you get by going safe lane and not off lane. You are impacting because the moment you go pull/stack/jungle/hide you are off the map and that is all because you actually have your own jungle's fog of war to hide in. If you can get a kill mid, moving from safe lane to mid is way easier than standing somewhere near the off lane where they have permanent vision of you the moment you move out the lane.

Shutting down a Timbersaw while getting very much experience, being able to outpace the opponent supports in levels isn't a loss in my opinion. A CM clearing a hard camp while the other support zones out the Timber and then they swap. My Nyx, Abbadon, Slark example showed that.

Yes, picking a strong solo laner if you plan on aggressive tri lane is fine. People still do that. But that's a whole other strategy. Offensive tri lane still has its cons and if you fail the lane you are pretty much in terrible shape and it starves the support if they can't successfully gank mid or get a kill on lane. And there is no way LC gets 100% farm against a Phoenix. Phoenix being a ranged hero makes it a nightmare for LC. You just hit her constantly, forcing her spend mana on W and waste her regen items. Phoenix W can either zone you out or slow you enough to miss last hits. There is also still the problem that there is no way LC can zone out a Phoenix like a tri lane can and you want that sometimes.

You make it sound as if people haven't ever ran dual mid or dual off lane. It all shows the same weakness every time people run it. One of them gets underleveled and the one they lane against still get some experience and it restricts your movement when you don't have a jungle to get off the map with.

[Scummer]

Can I just randomly say how fucking fun Ember Spirit is? I've played a couple game with and my god it's probably the most fun I've had with a hero in a long time, he's instantly jumped up to one of my favourite heroes.
I'm not entirely sure how to build him so I've just been going phase - Aquilla - Drums and then mostly S&Y for the bonus move speed. Any other suggestions? Also I've kinda been playing him in mid or aggressive dual lanes, which lanes do you find he general excels at?

[PizzaSHARK]

Yeah, a solo off lane is just going to take a trip into jungle and kill CM wtih full heatlh. CM is also usually coupeled with another support and bsically function as a semi jungler/tri lane support. And no, Ice Path is not like Fissure. The delay of the stun makes it very easy to dodge and hard to hit for a Jakiro. If you take Ice Path and Dual Breath, at level 3 you will have a level 2 Dual Breath for damage, that's all. A CM will have a Nova with very long range and a Frostbite. Those two alone do more damage than Dual Breath and she has a reliable stun. You still haven't told me how you plan to get levels compared to a CM. CM jungle is extremely strong. She can solo a hard camp at level 1 and get her level 2 easy. A Jakiro has to either stack and pull or leech experience.

Or just kill the enemy lane, seeing as how he has an actual stun with 1100 fucking range. Or he could Liquid Fire at level 1 and ensure the enemy carry doesn't get any last hits.

And why would you trilane against a solo offlane hero? That's fucking retarded, you don't need two supports to zone out an offlane hero. Hell, you might not even need one.

I'm not saying go full jungle like an Enigma or something. CM is strong because she can get a fast level 2-3 and pressure lane while having another support also having level 2 from pulls. It makes roaming extremely more threatening when both your supports are higher level than opponents supports.

CM isn't garbage and you thinking people pick her only because of trend is a joke.

CM hasn't had any significant changes since 6.76, when they changed her aura to give her twice the benefit it gives teammates. Yet she mysteriously went from a joke pick to a top pick despite that.

Trending picks are trending.

I think some people misinterpret CM "jungling". Clearing pulling camp to stack it and freezing 1 creep when he moved out of camp to get gold+exp from it hardly can be considered "jungling" but it is decent way to not leech exp from carry. Also, range and cast animation of her slow is much better than Jakiros'
And her smoke ganks are awesome, you are capable of landing slow without being detected and the proceed with root.

And after wisp nerfs to tether ember+wisp is not that good anymore against trilanes

Wisp hasn't really changed much. He's still a top tier support when used in combos, and Ember Spirit is one of those combos. With Ember Spirit's ult being so fucking stupidly overpowered, just having Wisp on his team basically gives him more map presence than fucking Profit with Boots of Travel.

CM's cast animation is much better but the maximum possible range for Crystal Nova is only 1100 compared to 950 for Dual Breath - not a massive difference. Additionally, Crystal Nova does much less damage and has a much longer cooldown and duration compared to Dual Breath, which is 5/10 at all levels instead of starting at 3.5/15 and scaling with levels.

Frostbite is good for killing creeps and very little else. The damage scales terribly, it has a short cast range, and it's not even a fucking stun. Storm Spirit, Puck, basically everyone that isn't QoP and Anti-Mage can just casually blink right the fuck out of it, plus you can Manta out of it, purge it, BKB out of it, etc etc etc. Just a fucking awful skill that's great at killing creeps but not much else.

[Deleted]

Can I just randomly say how fucking fun Ember Spirit is? I've played a couple game with and my god it's probably the most fun I've had with a hero in a long time, he's instantly jumped up to one of my favourite heroes.
I'm not entirely sure how to build him so I've just been going phase - Aquilla - Drums and then mostly S&Y for the bonus move speed. Any other suggestions? Also I've kinda been playing him in mid or aggressive dual lanes, which lanes do you find he general excels at?

That shield first skill build is the best all around I think. Aquila is a waste in my opinion if you have Drums. Too many slots taken by having two cheap stat items. Phase is good for roaming, Treads are good for mana and decent damage. I wouldn't say S&Y is that good. You ahve your ultimate to run around. Battlefury or Deso are good items. I watched TC play Ember vs Meepo. That shit was hilarious. Meepo died in a Sleight of Fist every time.

[PizzaSHARK]

Can I just randomly say how fucking fun Ember Spirit is? I've played a couple game with and my god it's probably the most fun I've had with a hero in a long time, he's instantly jumped up to one of my favourite heroes.
I'm not entirely sure how to build him so I've just been going phase - Aquilla - Drums and then mostly S&Y for the bonus move speed. Any other suggestions? Also I've kinda been playing him in mid or aggressive dual lanes, which lanes do you find he general excels at?

I wish he was in CM/CD so I could play him more often. Battle Fury stacking with a Buriza and maybe a Desolator is mathematically the best damage output, but I'm just not convinced it's the best way to build him... maybe it's just my hate for Battle Fury interfering with it.

I'm also liking the idea of Veil instead of Drums, especially after the buff. Most of his early and mid game contribution is magic damage, and Veil has a great spread of stats.

[Deleted]

Or just kill the enemy lane, seeing as how he has an actual stun with 1100 fucking range. Or he could Liquid Fire at level 1 and ensure the enemy carry doesn't get any last hits.

And why would you trilane against a solo offlane hero? That's fucking retarded, you don't need two supports to zone out an offlane hero. Hell, you might not even need one.

CM hasn't had any significant changes since 6.76, when they changed her aura to give her twice the benefit it gives teammates. Yet she mysteriously went from a joke pick to a top pick despite that.

Trending picks are trending.

CM's cast animation is much better but the maximum possible range for Crystal Nova is only 1100 compared to 950 for Dual Breath - not a massive difference. Additionally, Crystal Nova does much less damage and has a much longer cooldown and duration compared to Dual Breath, which is 5/10 at all levels instead of starting at 3.5/15 and scaling with levels.

Frostbite is good for killing creeps and very little else. The damage scales terribly, it has a short cast range, and it's not even a fucking stun. Storm Spirit, Puck, basically everyone that isn't QoP and Anti-Mage can just casually blink right the fuck out of it, plus you can Manta out of it, purge it, BKB out of it, etc etc etc. Just a fucking awful skill that's great at killing creeps but not much else.

As I said, it isn't a reliable stun. How hard is that to get through your head? If it was, tell me how Fnatic.Fly managed to miss so many yesterday on the Captain's Draft cup? It isn't reliable. It's great in some situations but to say that it's a guaranteed stun is a joke. Your 1100 range stun doesn't really do much if it takes you the whole duration of the stun to get to the enemy, now does it? Problem with Jakiro compared to CM is that he can't get damage and stun at the same time while CM can. You max Ice Path? Then you are losing out on damage. You max damage? Then you lose out on a lot of stun duration. Jakiro has a 1 second stun at level 2. CM has a 1.5 second stun and a 20% slow. She also has more damage at level 2. Oh, she also gets to level 2 faster.

I just gave you an example in a previous post where you need two supports for an off lane but guess you didn't read that. Tri lane doesn't only shut down an off lane. They also get plenty of experience by chain-pulling. While the game has changed a bit since TI3 tri lanes are still strong. Tri laning also allows one person to roam while still keeping the off laner starved for experience.

A dual lane can't do this and a solo lane will just give the off lane free experience. I don't advocate pulling and stacking as much as I did before 6.79 but I remember a time when I said pulling and stacking was very strong to do as support here on these forums pre TI3 and everyone was against me. Well look how Alliance won TI3: Lose all lanes but just ignore it and let EGM get free levels while Loda got high levels and then counter gank.

You can't look at heroes in a vacuum when looking at why they get picked. The game changes constantly and with some heroes getting buffed/nerfed some heroes become more viable. Just look at Dreamhack Winter when Sven and other single core were top pick. That led to Faceless Void being a decently popular pick even though Faceless received no changes or buffs. There are of course trends but to say that CM is just picked 'cause everyone else is picking her is just plain wrong. She is quite good in many situations.

And it's hilarious that you talk about how you can jump out of Frostbite and BKB out of it. I'm sure Ice Path is way stronger against Storm, Puck, QoP, AM, BKB and Manta. Oh wait... Frostbite is an early game spell. Yes, CM falls off late game but she isn't picked for late game.

[PizzaSHARK]

And it's hilarious that you talk about how you can jump out of Frostbite and BKB out of it. I'm sure Ice Path is way stronger against Storm, Puck, QoP, AM, BKB and Manta. Oh wait... Frostbite is an early game spell. Yes, CM falls off late game but she isn't picked for late game.

This applies to literally every support. The difference is that CM's performance in early game is not so strong that it outweighs how completely, totally useless she becomes at 25 minutes relative to other supports. CM is worth picking if you draft a team around her aura. She can get level 7 in jungle and then park her ass in the fountain and that's about as good as she gets. Also, CM doesn't have a stun.

Otherwise you should pick a real hero that isn't going to instantly be useless by 25 minutes.

Fnatic and Alliance both played like shit yesterday, I don't think either of them were taking it seriously at all. Era threw the entire fucking game for them in the third game with that goddamned fucking awful Juggernaut play. Even I can play a better Juggernaut that that shit and I'm a fucking 3700 MMR scrub. Both teams made so many fucking pub-level mistakes and errors in all three games I'm not going to use any of those games as a metric for anything.

[Deleted]

This applies to literally every support. The difference is that CM's performance in early game is not so strong that it outweighs how completely, totally useless she becomes at 25 minutes relative to other supports. CM is worth picking if you draft a team around her aura. She can get level 7 in jungle and then park her ass in the fountain and that's about as good as she gets. Also, CM doesn't have a stun.

Otherwise you should pick a real hero that isn't going to instantly be useless by 25 minutes.

Fnatic and Alliance both played like shit yesterday, I don't think either of them were taking it seriously at all. Era threw the entire fucking game for them in the third game with that goddamned fucking awful Juggernaut play. Even I can play a better Juggernaut that that shit and I'm a fucking 3700 MMR scrub. Both teams made so many fucking pub-level mistakes and errors in all three games I'm not going to use any of those games as a metric for anything.

Yes, it applies to literally every support. So what's your point about Frostbite being useless late game again? She is strong early game. I already told you why. If you don't want to listen then I don't know. I told you she gets faster level 2. I told you she doesn't jungle like an Enigma but just drop by and get some gold in jungle while keeping map pressure not AFK until level 7. I told you she does more damage than Jakiro early and you say she isn't good early. You say 1100 range is significant when it actually isn't early game because you can't get there in 1 second anyway even if you land a 1100 range stun.

You find me a game where a Jakiro hits all his Ice Paths without hesitation. And no, you can't play better than Era even if he feeds an entire game. I'm quite sure of it.

Here is a recent example of CM played by ixmike88 in a public game: 526949615

It exemplifies almost everything I've said. CM gets a fast level 2, being off map and the offensive dual lane forget about him. Phoenix uses Dive against Lion and forgets about CM and then runs right into her in the woods and dies. After that the dual lane plays very cautiously.

ixmike88 applies some pressure and then goes back to woods to get levels. The Lion meanwhile is pulling. They are both off the map but applying immense pressure everywhere by just being off the map farming. The dual off lane doesn't dare to contest Lion's pull because they don't know where CM is. QoP has to play more cautiously because both supports are missing.

But this is all happening while both CM and Lion get free gold from woods and Arteezy is free farming even though he shouldn't be able to if the offlane knew where the supports were. They get an upgraded chicken and both supports have boots. Had they just roamed there is no guarantee that they'd kill a Phoenix that hasn't used Dive or that they would even have boots. They proceed to smoke to mid and kill the QoP becaues the QoP can't hug her tower forever. Did I mention Arteezy free farming and 3:30 Midas?

[PizzaSHARK]

ixmike88 applies some pressure and then goes back to woods to get levels. The Lion meanwhile is pulling. They are both off the map but applying immense pressure everywhere by just being off the map farming. The dual off lane doesn't dare to contest Lion's pull because they don't know where CM is. QoP has to play more cautiously because both supports are missing.

Cool. This applies to literally every single fucking support and hero in the game. Holy shit, two heroes are missing and you don't know where they are? Better play defensive because they might be coming to gank.

Or they might not, they could just be farming somewhere and you don't have vision because you only have two wards, if they haven't de-warded either of them.