[Megathread] DotA 2

[StrawberryZebra]

Lysah said Techies would never make it in the game unless he was reworked, which obviously wasn't the case, a nerf isn't a rework. Techies isn't garbage either lol. You guys keep saying x hero is garbage because it's popular to do so. There is no hero that is unplayable or "garbage". The issue here is that if a hero isn't OP, it's called trash. What's funny is people said Medusa was trash a while back, I would still play her. People would cry and say she was OP.

What do you think Techies brings to a team? Their attack damage is pitiful, their stats are horrendous and their utility is practically none existant. They can't push worth a damn, they can't really contribute to a team fight, nor roam, gank or really engage in direct combat at all. That leaves you in a severe disadvantage later on in the game when you're looking to group up and fight.

They can help stall out a game if you've got a super late game carry they desperately needs more farm, but a simple Gem or some Sentry Wards will be a real blow if you do. And if the other team is that far ahead, then they're absolutely going to have a Gem and be looking to close the game. You can also, maybe, argue that their ult has a small sight radius too which might come in handy in certain situations, but is no subsitute for having actual wards. That leaves setting up mine fields and hoping someone blunders into it by mistake. You're a damage dealer that relies on your opponents being unaware. Sure, they can get easy first bloods by suiciding, but thats not going to win you the game.

While Techies does have a very small niche role, they bring nothing that other Heroes can't do better, safer and far more reliably outside of that niche.

[Bapestar]

Techies is objectively a garbage hero that makes it harder for your team to win than if you had picked just about any other hero in the game right now. If you're actually seriously disputing that and not just being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian I have to question why you're even bothering to contribute to the forum.

Not necessarily, sometimes he is a good pick. It also depends on the player.

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I don't think anyone is actually disputing you can win games with Techies. Hes just a shit hero full stop. Hes not fun to play with and hes defiantly not fun to play against. He essentially makes the game a 4v5 and drags on the game for potentially 30mins+ especially if the team has shit high ground push

He is fun to play with sometimes lol. I'm not gonna lie I hate going against him but that doesn't mean I'm going to say hes trash. People always say gg 4v5 when hes picked but he doesn't always make the game that way.

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What do you think Techies brings to a team? Their attack damage is pitiful, their stats are horrendous and their utility is practically none existant. They can't push worth a damn, they can't really contribute to a team fight, nor roam, gank or really engage in direct combat at all. That leaves you in a severe disadvantage later on in the game when you're looking to group up and fight.

They can help stall out a game if you've got a super late game carry they desperately needs more farm, but a simple Gem or some Sentry Wards will be a real blow if you do. And if the other team is that far ahead, then they're absolutely going to have a Gem and be looking to close the game. You can also, maybe, argue that their ult has a small sight radius too which might come in handy in certain situations, but is no subsitute for having actual wards. That leaves setting up mine fields and hoping someone blunders into it by mistake. You're a damage dealer that relies on your opponents being unaware. Sure, they can get easy first bloods by suiciding, but thats not going to win you the game.

While Techies does have a very small niche role, they bring nothing that other Heroes can't do better, safer and far more reliably outside of that niche.

Eh those things you listed can go to plenty of other heroes as well. I said this before but a Gem or Sentries isn't always a counter to techies.

[Deleted]

Quoting your detractors and essentially responding three times with the equivalent of "Nuh-uh" does not a cogent argument make. Techies can't lane, can't roam - effectively cannot do anything unless his opponents are incompetent. You go lvl 1 Q and you're bullied out of the lane by literally any heroes, you go lvl 1 E and rely on some other hero to initiate for you once every roughly 120 seconds, and you pray to God that your opponents are in fact drooling morons who will walk into your mines (of which you now require an absurd amount to kill any hero not named Crystal Maiden) or freely let you suicide them because God fucking help you if they have so much as two spare brain cells to rub together.

The hero relies on the incompetence of his opponents to work in his current state - this makes him trash, completely independent of the player; nothing more, nothing less. Any game that is won with a Techies could have been won in a far simpler and less excruciatingly painful way without said Techies, as opposed to before the nerfs where Techies was a lane-destroying terror that required the constant attention of ranged heroes to deal with from minute 1.

[RobertoCarlos]

Speaking of techies, heroes like Lycan/NP are another counter that come to mind. Basically any hero with summons that you can control. Or hell even helm of Dominator and make the creep run over key areas

[Bapestar]

Quoting your detractors and essentially responding three times with the equivalent of "Nuh-uh" does not a cogent argument make. Techies can't lane, can't roam - effectively cannot do anything unless his opponents are incompetent. You go lvl 1 Q and you're bullied out of the lane by literally any heroes, you go lvl 1 E and rely on some other hero to initiate for you once every roughly 120 seconds, and you pray to God that your opponents are in fact drooling morons who will walk into your mines (of which you now require an absurd amount to kill any hero not named Crystal Maiden) or freely let you suicide them because God fucking help you if they have so much as two spare brain cells to rub together.

The hero relies on the incompetence of his opponents to work in his current state - this makes him trash, completely independent of the player; nothing more, nothing less. Any game that is won with a Techies could have been won in a far simpler and less excruciatingly painful way without said Techies, as opposed to before the nerfs where Techies was a lane-destroying terror that required the constant attention of ranged heroes to deal with from minute 1.

Lol your opponents can be good and Techies can still shine, get over it. If your saying is even a tiny bit true, than many heroes are trash, because good players can counter them. Seems to me that Techies is so hated because people feel like he shouldn't exist in Dota. Techies can give a team map control and stall out games for late game carries. There are many games where my team would've lost without techies. The aghs upgrade that makes his bombs invisible is also good, when it comes to that techies is one of the best heroes for this role. One or even a few nerfs doesn't make a hero trash or unplayable. Idk how we got sidetracked to techies, when we were talking about arc warden. Now arc warden can at least be more helpful than techies.

[PizzaSHARK]

Sniper is such a nonsense hero that shouldn't be in the game. What dumb fucking cunt thought giving a ranged hero bash was a good idea? How the fuck do they not see how fundamentally broken that is? Maybe if shit like blink dagger, BKB, and basically all the other counters to things that let you get close didn't exist, and Shrapnel wasn't a fantastic farming skill.

[Lysah]

I love Sniper, he is ez fucken MMR right now. I had a friend go with me offlane Lich/Sniper last patch, it was pretty nuts. You can flat out destroy the era of ember spirit pickers, we kept people in the single digits of last hits at 15 minutes and just ruined their life while I free farmed from behind the tower.

You'd love this game Pizza
http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1961954167
I actually have the replay saved too, it was a good one. Losing the whole game, Ember ridiculously fed and hitting half my life in one sleight, say fuck it and go rapiers, suddenly enemy team can't play the game anymore. He's pretty funny once he gets attack speed, melee carrys literally can't fight back anymore, they never get to swing their weapon.

@Bapestar
Techies was reworked extensively when he was added. His abilities weren't changed, no, but he got a lot more than small tweaks.

Land Mines
Can no longer trigger on and damage flying units
Changed damage type from composite to physical.
Reduced damage from 300/400/500/600 to 225/300/375/450.
Reduced cooldown from 25/20/15/10 to 19/16/13/10.

Stasis Trap
Increased trigger radius from 200 to 450 (matches stun radius now).
Increased trap duration 270/300/330/360 to 360 on each level (from 4.5/5/5.5/6 to 6 minutes).
Reduced stun duration from 3/4/5/6 to 2.5/3/3.5/4.

Suicide Squad, Attack!
Changed damage type from composite to physical.
Reduced damage from 650/850/1150/1550 (350/400/450/500 partial) to 500/650/850/1150 (260/300/340/380 partial).

Remote Mines
Reduced vision radius from 900 to 700.
Increased damage radius from 400/410/425 to 425.
Increased mine duration from 480 to 600 (from 8 to 10 minutes).

He also got the minefield aghs, which was a big change, huge buffs to his activation delay on every ability, and more!

[Deleted]

This is your daily PSA that Veil of Discord is now an obscenely broken item that should basically be gotten on every int hero. It's like a Drums for int heroes that also gives armour and regen now except the active is 10000x better. How an item that gives:

6 str
6 agi
6 damage
6 health regen
6 armour
EIGHTEEN INTELLIGENCE AND A 25% DAMAGE TAKEN INCREASE DEBUFF

... only costs 2270 gold and has a ridiculously efficient buildup is beyond me. It's like Icefrog has just decided he's had it with people ignoring the item and is going to buff it until it's literally Skadi for a third of the cost.

I've had a lot of success recently with Eul's -> Veil -> Agh's Invoker, obviously with BKB and other such items before Aghanim's as fit and the odd early Force Staff against particularly obnoxious teams. It's flat-out broken. You can't fucking kill the hero any more and it makes your Tornado -> Meteor -> EMP combo in large-scale teamfights hit for a completely absurd amount, never mind the fact that even farmed 1-position heroes aren't safe from your Eul's combo at 40 minutes because Eul's doesn't purge the Veil debuff and it does well over 2k damage if you get multiple meteor ticks.

That shit broken. Veil's gonna get nerfed into the ground in 6.87 if ever pros catch onto how fucking absurd the item is. In its current state I'd literally get it after upgraded boots, wand and Aquila on Gyrocopter because it's just that fucking obscene. The stats alone on the item make it worth it on basically every goddamn fucking hero in the game.

Edit: And just when you think the item can't possibly get any more broken you realize the CD:uptime ratio is 20:16. 4 seconds of downtime for every 16 seconds of uptime on 25% magic damage taken in a drawn-out fight. But no, o' omniscient chilly amphibian, please do buff Veil of Discord even more.

[PizzaSHARK]

This is your daily PSA that Veil of Discord is now an obscenely broken item that should basically be gotten on every int hero. It's like a Drums for int heroes that also gives armour and regen now except the active is 10000x better. How an item that gives:

6 str
6 agi
6 damage
6 health regen
6 armour
EIGHTEEN INTELLIGENCE AND A 25% DAMAGE TAKEN INCREASE DEBUFF

... only costs 2270 gold and has a ridiculously efficient buildup is beyond me. It's like Icefrog has just decided he's had it with people ignoring the item and is going to buff it until it's literally Skadi for a third of the cost.

I've had a lot of success recently with Eul's -> Veil -> Agh's Invoker, obviously with BKB and other such items before Aghanim's as fit and the odd early Force Staff against particularly obnoxious teams. It's flat-out broken. You can't fucking kill the hero any more and it makes your Tornado -> Meteor -> EMP combo in large-scale teamfights hit for a completely absurd amount, never mind the fact that even farmed 1-position heroes aren't safe from your Eul's combo at 40 minutes because Eul's doesn't purge the Veil debuff and it does well over 2k damage if you get multiple meteor ticks.

That shit broken. Veil's gonna get nerfed into the ground in 6.87 if ever pros catch onto how fucking absurd the item is. In its current state I'd literally get it after upgraded boots, wand and Aquila on Gyrocopter because it's just that fucking obscene. The stats alone on the item make it worth it on basically every goddamn fucking hero in the game.

Edit: And just when you think the item can't possibly get any more broken you realize the CD:uptime ratio is 20:16. 4 seconds of downtime for every 16 seconds of uptime on 25% magic damage taken in a drawn-out fight. But no, o' omniscient chilly amphibian, please do buff Veil of Discord even more.

It's because the pros are so focused on blink daggers, which means they also need force staff to get away from the blink daggers, and...

It's like people ignoring Armlet. Armlet gives essentially a Heart's benefits while active for less than half the cost, and gives tons of passive benefits and a simple buildup that can be bought entirely from the side shop except for the recipe. Armlet+Vlad's is incredibly strong, efficient damage on any STR hero. 10 armor, lifesteal to compensate for the life drain, etc.



And new OD is less shit than I thought. Max AI first, ignore ulti entirely until late, max aura second. 10 sec cd on AI is actually pretty good when it does 300 dmg and prevents their cs for 4 sec. treads -> force staff -> dragon lance -> orchid/bkb (whichever is more important) -> moonstone/sheeper

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Riki however is every bit as shit as I thought. Anything that hero was once good at has been taken away and he's left with absolutely nothing now. I am well and truly pissed at how irresponsible and incompetent Valve's development process is. 6.85 was a very well balanced patch with only a handful of outliers, and instead of patching to address those outliers, they throw the entire thing out because... why?

[Bapestar]

@Bapestar
Techies was reworked extensively when he was added. His abilities weren't changed, no, but he got a lot more than small tweaks.



He also got the minefield aghs, which was a big change, huge buffs to his activation delay on every ability, and more!

Before he was added you were so adamant on saying he won't be added until he was reworked. Most of that looks like mostly small tweaks/nerfs. I wouldn't call it a rework. These tweaks didn't "destroy" techies. When it comes to techies and arc warden I will agree that compared to other heroes they are on the low end in their ability to assist the team. But they are certainly not unplayable or trash.

[Drunkenvalley]

Why is someone even pretending that techies is a good hero? He has shitty stats, his abilities are now actually just terrible, his ability to farm or splitpush is mediocre compared to just about anyone and literally his only benefit is that he can avoid losing his single-kill streak by suiciding.

I mean, before he could require 4-5 mines to kill someone. That was already a significant commitment for techies to put down that many mines in exactly one spot and pray someone would walk onto it. Now he has to use twice as many, and a sentry completely invalidates .it entirely because mines no longer explode when killed, and even give some gold I think?

Techies got destroyed.

[Crackleslap]

Carry Venge fucks sniper a new anus.

[StrawberryZebra]

Lol your opponents can be good and Techies can still shine, get over it. If your saying is even a tiny bit true, than many heroes are trash, because good players can counter them. Seems to me that Techies is so hated because people feel like he shouldn't exist in Dota.

But unlike a good specific hero counter to a specific problem, say Lion's instant CC to deal with Storm Spirit, Techies is countered by simply taking an alternate route. An option that is availible to absolutely everyone. You cannot mine every choke point and every blind spot on the map, and there will always be a way to destroy your minefields before they detonate if you take some care. Techies simply cannot get involved in combat and expect to achieve as much as another hero would, leaving his team down a Hero in fights. Sometimes literally down a Hero if they go and Suicide into someone like Centaur or Tide who are just going to shrug it off.

You don't need to draft special around them, you don't need to buy expensive items like MKB's to deal with them, you don't have to worry about them warping the game the way heroes like Tinker can. All you have to do is watch where you're walking. Thats it. After you've played against him long enough you know where all the common mine spots are too, so avoiding them almost becomes an invoulentary responce.

You like Techies, we get it. Thats cool, you have fun playing them. But if you can't provide any arguements for them being a good hero on their own merits, you're not going to convince anyone else that they are as good as you think they are.

This is your daily PSA that Veil of Discord is now an obscenely broken item that should basically be gotten on every int hero. It's like a Drums for int heroes that also gives armour and regen now except the active is 10000x better.

Its been a great item since 6.85 when it had its cost reduced. It's got all the stats you'd want for an Int hero and has a great build path now. You can even build most of it at the side shop too as a bonus. Armour items for Int Heroes are quite hard to come by early game if you're not building a Mek. I'd even buy it along with a Mek, its just that good right now.
What makes it even more absurd is that its potentially useful to the rest of your team too. I've been getting a lot of Earthshakers, Invokers and Zeus' in my games recently and all of these guys just love this item's active. I'm sure its going to get nerfed in the near future, especially if the pro's start picking it up.

[Lysah]

Riki however is every bit as shit as I thought. Anything that hero was once good at has been taken away and he's left with absolutely nothing now. I am well and truly pissed at how irresponsible and incompetent Valve's development process is. 6.85 was a very well balanced patch with only a handful of outliers, and instead of patching to address those outliers, they throw the entire thing out because... why?

I don't know, being able to level backstab and invis at the same time and having blink strike pre-6 is huge, it's everything his old kit was with a free new ultimate that makes him immune and invis at level 1 instead of 6. Seems to me like he is much better than last patch, but I haven't tried him yet.

Before he was added you were so adamant on saying he won't be added until he was reworked. Most of that looks like mostly small tweaks/nerfs. I wouldn't call it a rework. These tweaks didn't "destroy" techies. When it comes to techies and arc warden I will agree that compared to other heroes they are on the low end in their ability to assist the team. But they are certainly not unplayable or trash.

I would consider the fundamental changes to how the hero is played big enough to be considered a rework. They definitely put more thought into this hero than any of the others they've ported. I will admit, though, that I half expected them to just never add him at all, but I think the bitching on reddit won through in the end. Too many people jokingly begged for techies and now nobody plays it, as expected. It'll be the same with pit lord, people keep begging for this hero but his current design is trash tier, if they don't rework him (or massively buff) before they port him he will be even worse than techies.

To be honest, considering he was released instantly with an arcana with added TI hype, I think Valve really just used techies as a quick cash grab, and it seems to have worked marvelously. So many unused techies arcanas in the world now.

[M1r4g3]

Holy crap doom is nerfed to shit, seriously you cant devour anything in the jungle anymore without replacing your aura cause all creeps have that magic rest crap ability, aswell as his E doesn't remove linkens. Hero literaly worse than techies

[Deleted]

Holy crap doom is nerfed to shit, seriously you cant devour anything in the jungle anymore without replacing your aura cause all creeps have that magic rest crap ability, aswell as his E doesn't remove linkens. Hero literaly worse than techies

Are you on drugs? The hero is obscene now that there's a hard camp by the offlane so long as he has at least one hero on his team that can break Linken's for him.

Hell, if you absolutely need to, you can just get an Atos.

[M1r4g3]

Are you on drugs? The hero is obscene now that there's a hard camp by the offlane so long as he has at least one hero on his team that can break Linken's for him.

Hell, if you absolutely need to, you can just get an Atos.

Did doom ever have a problem devouring creeps in the enemy jungle before tho? The large camp in the dire jungle nearest to the radiant T1 tower had the same purpose.

[Lysah]

Eul's would be great on Doom too, infinite mana and insane movespeed and can be used defensively if needs be, force staff too. Funny how many ways there are to break linkens that are far cheaper than the item itself and provide other benefits as well.

Movespeed has gotten out of hand, but nerfing all the common boots only nerfs supports more. The initial boost to base movespeed of boots of speed was to help supports out who would sit on brown boots for a long time, and now they revert this change in the end anyway. Maybe it's time to start considering having boots upgrades actually decrease the movespeed, so that brown boots are the best choice for flat out speed, while the various upgrades provide other benefits?

[StrawberryZebra]

Movespeed has gotten out of hand, but nerfing all the common boots only nerfs supports more. The initial boost to base movespeed of boots of speed was to help supports out who would sit on brown boots for a long time, and now they revert this change in the end anyway. Maybe it's time to start considering having boots upgrades actually decrease the movespeed, so that brown boots are the best choice for flat out speed, while the various upgrades provide other benefits?

Movespeed is perhaps the one stat thats always useful regardless of the situation. Theres never a time you don't want more, provided it doesn't come at the cost of other stats. If it comes bundled with a nice Int and Mana regen boost along with a useful active you get the kind of item thats picked up extremely regularly by just about anyone who can make use of it.

Nerfs to boots affect different supports in different ways. CM is outpaced by passsing snails, while Lich is Usain Bolt by comparison. While they're both going to get the same upgraded pair of boots in the end, Lich can postpone them in favour of other items, if CM does it she'll move around the map at a crawl for most of the game. The problem is that any universal buff to support move speeds to bring them on par with just brown boots is going to lead to them outrunning everyone with upgraded boots without other changes being made. Having upgraded boots reduce your movespeed is an idea with some merit to it, but it does run the risk of people just skipping the upgrade all together

The underlying reason its an issue is that supports are usually dirt poor and funnel whatever gold they do get into Wards and other vision first and foremost. Maybe its time to consider putting more gold in the hands of hardworking supports? Not enough for them to dive into like Scrouge McDuck, but enough for them to have more than just brown boots and a magic stick at 20 mins. Naturally people will complain about Dota having nice things, but being a solo support when your team is losing, and not even having enough gold to buy a TP, is a miserable experience. So help you if you need Sentries or Dust, you're probably not ever going to complete as much as a single Bracer.
There's lots of interesting ways they could reward good support play too. We already get a small bounty for killing enemy wards, which is a good start. Adding a little gold here and there for supporting your team could go a long way.

A much less elegant solution would be to shove some extra move speed on an item that a support would be interested in, with the assumption that its so good you'd get it every game. Not Euls, which has other utility, but something like Drums maybe, that gives less stats but has enough move speed to make up the difference along with a useful active. I would have said something like this would have been the most likely choice, but given how much things are being shook up each patch, you never really know anymore.

[Lysah]

Most supports are the slowest heroes in the game, is it really an issue if they end up moving about the same speed as the heroes that two shot them? I'm not so sure. The only danger I see is every hero in the game just sticking with brown boots unless they want BoT.