[Megathread] DotA 2

[Jester Joe]

Everyone talks about OP Storm Spirit is and it just reminds me of how awful I am with him.
Literally got wrecked by a Queen of Pain yesterday. I would of felt bad for my team if they weren't so quick to let me know how autistic I am.

[Charge me Doctor]

I would of felt bad for my team if they weren't so quick to let me know how autistic I am.

That's gold.

I can see how QoP can be a problem pre level 6 (can't reliably remnant spam because bottle is blocked 24/7), but at level 6 you can (correct me if i'm wrong) juke her dagger with your ult and be fine

[Jester Joe]

That's gold.

I can see how QoP can be a problem pre level 6 (can't reliably remnant spam because bottle is blocked 24/7), but at level 6 you can (correct me if i'm wrong) juke her dagger with your ult and be fine

Yeah, you could I'd imagine, problem is she reached level 6 far faster than me because I handled it terribly and backed up instead once I'd have the dot on me. It got to the point where she just blinked, ulted, and I melted.

[Lysah]

"Saying xx non meta hero is strong and people called me retarded" is getting old

People telling other people they're bad/stupid/etc because they don't follow the pro meta is getting old as well, and it happens quite a bit on this very forum

I'll take the chance to remind those people how wrong they are any time I can.

Also QoP who levels dagger definitely beats Storm in lane, but he can kill her pretty quickly once they're both 7 and she loses in the end.

[Sorcereria]

When will people stop talking about that sumail storm game. It was a game where they had LITERALLY 0, NULL, ZERO disable, silence or control. It was storm spirit gallore there not becouse hero was op. He just had the means for that stupid comeback under current mechanics. If they had any silence or reliable stun, that storm would continue to be a damn food for another 20min at least.

[Hermanni]

DP was arguably perfectly balanced in 6.82, where Exorcism had gone from an initially 100 sec cd up to 135 sec. And then she keeps getting nerfed, completely pointlessly. She was already balanced! But she was getting nerfed because no one was counterpicking the DP and playing heroes and strategies that are strong against her, and she was still getting picked constantly in pro.

I don't think that's the case, Exorcism got a massive buff in 6.79 while DP was already a strong hero. They nerfed her ability to snack on towers every 1,5 minutes without nerfing the potential of the ult, made sense to me.

[Deleted]

Muahahahha team secret.

Team Secret's current form is what happens when you combine 5 players based on renown instead of compatibility. Arteezy is a mid and Zai is a 4 position, which conflicts directly with S4 and Kuro. Also Puppey's drafting is still in 2012.

[Sorcereria]

I'd say secret is similar to DK and thats why I'd consider VG not to be a TI5 direct contender.
You build up your peak of performance for a while, just to have a rest period inbetween events. Thats how it is in proffesional sport. You dont want to peak before the event. It is very sophisticated game of the body and mind.

Especially Arteezy, lost his game when speaking about Team.MY which unfortunatly was broadcasted live on sings stream. First talk, than ask sing if he is live. LOL.

[EqualWin]

I'll take the chance to remind those people how wrong they are any time I can.

look at pizzashark i dont think theres a hero that isn't op for him, but when he said troll warlord is op (before dac and him being picked like hes now) tons of people here were "nah".

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Everyone talks about OP Storm Spirit is and it just reminds me of how awful I am with him.
Literally got wrecked by a Queen of Pain yesterday. I would of felt bad for my team if they weren't so quick to let me know how autistic I am.

farm jungle, if u're behind just max q and e forget about W. and farm mid and jungle like sf, if shes snowballing u go for euls and then u rekt her. usually a good qop will own u and snowball..


I love storm and hes my 3rd hero most played, I'm bad with him but as long u know how to farm u'll own.

[Jester Joe]

farm jungle, if u're behind just max q and e forget about W. and farm mid and jungle like sf, if shes snowballing u go for euls and then u rekt her. usually a good qop will own u and snowball..


I love storm and hes my 3rd hero most played, I'm bad with him but as long u know how to farm u'll own.

In my defense, that's probably the one thing I did try to do that was alright, farming the jungle, but we had a sand king and medusa who were also clearing out the jungle.

[EqualWin]

When will people stop talking about that sumail storm game. It was a game where they had LITERALLY 0, NULL, ZERO disable, silence or control. It was storm spirit gallore there not becouse hero was op. He just had the means for that stupid comeback under current mechanics. If they had any silence or reliable stun, that storm would continue to be a damn food for another 20min at least.

which one? (if its the one vs VG, they had shadow shaman idr the other heroes) and sumail storm vs lockdown or not he owns.

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In my defense, that's probably the one thing I did try to do that was alright, farming the jungle, but we had a sand king and medusa who were also clearing out the jungle.

oh that happens a lot as well, the only option left is farm offlane+enemy jungle// split pushing is always good too since most team 5 man in pubs, so u'll end up farming more and easily get pick off or ez team fights 5v4

[Sorcereria]

Shadow shaman is not counted as disable for a simple fact you aint gonna inniate on anyone else beside him first if you play smart. Solo shaman cant reliably disable storm becouse he dies in a single remant, vortex, remnant combo. You cant hex him during ball lightning and storm can vortex during ball.

This is what you see in most pub. Someone pick storm, innitiate on a random hero and get trashed by a single disable hero on enemy pool and it is exacly what sumail did. No shaman, storm gallore.
Hero is strong but it takes often team effort to lock&protect and some counterpicking.

Is the hero strong in a way that you almost must have 2 strong disables during pick stage? Probably yes, but so are many other heroes in the pool.

PS. I dont remember exact lineup, it was sumail first lan and first storm spirit game in EG I think.

[PizzaSHARK]

When will people stop talking about that sumail storm game. It was a game where they had LITERALLY 0, NULL, ZERO disable, silence or control. It was storm spirit gallore there not becouse hero was op. He just had the means for that stupid comeback under current mechanics. If they had any silence or reliable stun, that storm would continue to be a damn food for another 20min at least.

No, they picked Rhasta last because they knew they needed an instant disable to handle the SS. They also roamed the Rhasta all game because they knew they had to ensure SS had a slow start.

It paid off. It worked PERFECTLY. SumaiL feeds first blood and then dies three more times in less than four minutes. You literally cannot win mid harder than that unless the enemy mid is intentionally feeding. VG's draft was fine. They recognized a hole in their lineup that the SS could take advantage of, the Lion and Batrider were banned, so they plugged the hole with a Rhasta and adjusted their strategy to deny SS the early start he allegedly needs.

And it did not matter, specifically because Storm Spirit is a broken hero. EG played extremely well to recover from a bad start like that, and VG made some bad choices (it all started going downhill for them after they tried to dive past 2 towers and ended up giving SumaiL 3 kills), but that recovery would not have happened with literally any other mid hero in the game. Queen of Pain, Shadow Fiend, Templar Assassin, whatever - NONE of them can just blatantly ignore the absolute worst start any player in the entire tournament experienced like a Storm Spirit can, because those heroes aren't completely fucking broken.

That's why everyone refers to that game, because it's as clear an example of Storm Spirit being overpowered as you can get. It's practically tailor-made to showcase how broken that hero is. VG did everything right as far as dealing with the SS pick is concerned - they picked an instant hard disable and absolutely destroyed SS in mid - and it did. not. matter. That's as clear a definition of "overpowered" as you're likely to get.

I don't think that's the case, Exorcism got a massive buff in 6.79 while DP was already a strong hero. They nerfed her ability to snack on towers every 1,5 minutes without nerfing the potential of the ult, made sense to me.

Understand I'm talking about Exorcism after the cumulative nerfs it received up to 6.82, going from 100 sec cd to 135 sec. Increasing it to 145 sec was fine, it's a small enough change that it probably wasn't a big deal. The issue is the Crypt Swarm nerf and then the incredibly pointless STR gain nerf. Once Exorcism's uptime was nerfed down, DP was honestly totally fine. But they kept nerfing her because the pros wouldn't stop fucking playing her. Hence, patch changes made specifically to force the pros to do something else.

look at pizzashark i dont think theres a hero that isn't op for him, but when he said troll warlord is op (before dac and him being picked like hes now) tons of people here were "nah".

Most heroes are pretty well balanced. Some need some boosts, some need some nerfs, but most aren't overpowered. But that makes the overpowered ones and underpowered ones (are there even any underpowered heroes left now?) very obvious when they present themselves.

I'd probably describe overpowered as being a hero that not only dominates within their niche, but also tends to dominate outside of that niche as well. A hero that has a lot of very powerful strengths, and few if any major weaknesses.

Most heroes in DotA tend to operate in a niche. Within that niche they're super super strong, but they're balanced out by having some glaring weaknesses you can take advantage of in drafting or tactics. Drow's a great example - if you don't keep someone chained to her butt the entire time she's going to ruin your team with that insane free AGI she gets from her ulti, but if you can consistently keep someone sitting on her, she's pretty weak. She operates within that niche and is very strong inside that niche, and is balanced by having some severe weaknesses outside of it.

Bambi's another great example. Untouchable and her crazy move speed and her heal make her really hard to kill with right-clicks until late game, but her godawful STR makes her really vulnerable to getting nuked. So she's really effective against right-click heavy lineups, but tends to feed relentlessly if they've got something like QoP+Lina+Lion or something - she'll walk up, they'll press a button and click her and receive a sack of gold.

Most heroes are like this. There are also some heroes that are generalists, rather than specialists, heroes that can do a little bit of everything - Profit, Gondar, Lucy, etc. You can play these heroes virtually any way and with virtually any kind of item build order and be effective, but the tradeoff is that they'll never be as good at anything as a more specialized hero will be. Profit is great at ratting, but he'll never be as good at backdooring as a Clinkz or split pushing as a Wolf. Gondar can be a competent, sneaky carry but will never be more effective at that than, say, a Riki, and a Shuriken+Dagon Gondar will probably never outperform a Nyx Assassin running a Dagon. These heroes are therefore balanced.

Which is why it's very easy to see when a hero isn't balanced, because you'll realize they're either too good at damned near everything (Troll Warlord), or that they don't have an appropriate number of equally potent weaknesses to counterbalance their strengths (Sniper.)

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Shadow shaman is not counted as disable for a simple fact you aint gonna inniate on anyone else beside him first if you play smart. Solo shaman cant reliably disable storm becouse he dies in a single remant, vortex, remnant combo. You cant hex him during ball lightning and storm can vortex during ball.

If you're using that logic, literally no hero in the entire game is a suitable counter to Storm Spirit. Silencer can get zipped onto before he can use Global Silence (or just BKB/Eul's out of it!) Lucy ain't gonna Doom you if you zip him first. etc etc etc

Lion was banned, Rhasta is a suitable substitute. Get him a blinker and he can blink initiate on the Storm Spirit just fine - he just needs to hold the Storm Spirit down for long enough for Dubstep to get his stun off, SF to get his ulti off, whatever. Hell, SF could even go Orchid instead of Eul's if they really needed to.

VG's draft was perfectly fine. It had a hole and they plugged it. EG just outplayed them, and were able to do so in large part because of how fundamentally overpowered Storm Spirit is.

[Sorcereria]

Is the hero strong in a way that you almost must have 2 strong disables during pick stage? Probably yes, but so are many other heroes in the pool.

Let me requote this again. If VG had another disable, it wouldnt happen becouse neither of this scenario could potentially ruin you:
a) shaman is forced to save disables on storm, so he cant use on anyone else...
b) makes him more vurnuable to other 4 heroes to die
c) storm can innitate him first, paper hero is paper making it even more vurnuable.

With 2nd disable, storm has to choose, innitiate on A or B hero, where if a backup hero disable him, the primary can do too likely. With just 1 hero, its a FAIL-FAIL situation.

The early game was terrible for storm, yet we see other mid heroes recover games. It doesnt matter if you turn the game in next 10-15-60min. It is not all about first 10min.

[PizzaSHARK]

With 2nd disable, storm has to choose, innitiate on A or B hero, where if a backup hero disable him, the primary can do too likely. With just 1 hero, its a FAIL-FAIL situation.

Only in teamfights, and only until he has BKB.

The early game was terrible for storm, yet we see other mid heroes recover games. It doesnt matter if you turn the game in next 10-15-60min. It is not all about first 10min.

Yes, and those heroes don't have Storm Spirit's map presence. Queen of Pain, Shadow Fiend, Templar Assassin, whatever else is popular... NONE of them have that kind of presence. They can recover from a bad start, but unlike Storm Spirit, they pretty well rely on having a gold and XP lead over enemy heroes to do their jobs effectively.

That doesn't apply for Storm Spirit because zip means he gets to ignore virtually every gameplay mechanic in the game, at will, with very little cost.

[Lysah]

TA can't recover from a bad mid, hero is awful at farming. QoP could but it would take a while. SF can but SF is also overpowered and shadowraze needs a massive nerf.

I still don't think troll is overpowered. Only thing I don't like about the hero is the fact that he gets all 3 lanes of rax in 30 seconds if you dare lose a single team fight against him. The hero is just too "safe" of a pick for me. You can be losing the entire game and score is 20-50 but if enemy team makes a single mistake they lose the game.

Sniper is probably fine where he is, I haven't decided. Maybe change headshot to scale proc chance as well as damage so it isn't such a great 1 point wonder in lane phase.

Anyway, the VG/EG game isn't just quoted because it's a showcase of how broken Storm is. It's not that Storm recovered, and it's not that he ended up having a great game. It's that he started out like 0-4, got relatively zero gold in his lane, and then ended up with one of the fastest bloodstones in tournament history regardless. It's not that he recovered - it's that he recovered instantly. You literally cannot leave towers with this hero in the game, anyone who drops below 80% life is dead instantly and once he has more than brown boots he becomes impossible to kill.

Let's not forget, Vici almost gets rax at 18 minutes. They back up with a Storm buyback but it's already too late - a quick ult from the fountain and he teleports 4000 units and kills two heroes without even attacking, then teleports another 1500 to chase down WD. No other hero can do such ridiculous things. Then, when he goes on SS over at Rosh, he doesn't even contribute anything, barely does half his health spamming his ult in circles. But, what he does do is force VG to react to him, because they have a completely-fucking-immune Storm Spirit flying through their team dropping nukes and stuns and Orchids, which lets ES and Enigma and Jugg come in with their ults for free. Could they have split up, yeah sure, then Storm gets to kill whoever he wants unchecked. It's a no win situation for them simply because this hero is on the enemy team.

Did VG get outdrafted? Yeah, massively. But DotA shouldn't be a game where you have to specifically build your team around the fact that Storm Spirit might get picked or lose when he does. "They didn't draft 3 hard stun heroes, so they deserved to lose." Yeah, real solid logic, I'm glad you think it's totally okay that Storm requires multiple heroes to counter him. Luckily there are still 4 other heroes on Storm's team, but you're already down to 2-3 picks. You can counter Slark, but you don't have to, he's a strong hero and he might get a lot of kills but he won't wreck your entire team solo just because you didn't pick Leshrac. Storm isn't like that, if you don't have the heroes to counter him the game is already over. There's a reason the people who want to climb ranked have Storm in mind even more than Troll.

[Sorcereria]

We can aswell whine if enemy team turtles with 3 cores vs 2 cores. It will be always about the draft.

Not the way to go.

[PizzaSHARK]

We can aswell whine if enemy team turtles with 3 cores vs 2 cores. It will be always about the draft.

Not the way to go.

The point is SS forces drafting in a way that only overpowered heroes do, and SS is probably pre-eminent among all of those kinds of heroes. Completely, totally broken hero right now.

[Hermanni]

Understand I'm talking about Exorcism after the cumulative nerfs it received up to 6.82, going from 100 sec cd to 135 sec. Increasing it to 145 sec was fine, it's a small enough change that it probably wasn't a big deal. The issue is the Crypt Swarm nerf and then the incredibly pointless STR gain nerf. Once Exorcism's uptime was nerfed down, DP was honestly totally fine. But they kept nerfing her because the pros wouldn't stop fucking playing her. Hence, patch changes made specifically to force the pros to do something else.

Is there any argument for DP being balanced before the nerf? I thought DP was, for the longest time, one of the overlooked powerhouses (like Lina) in the game that got buffed until she got too much attention. I don't see anything wrong with the nerfs.

[EqualWin]

9/11 never forget