[Megathread] DotA 2

[PizzaSHARK]

Okay, I haven't been able to watch many of the majors games yet, so forgive me if I've missed it.

But where the fuck is Omniknight? We're in a physical-focused meta with a massive amount of lane flexibility (we're seeing dedicated roamers, duo mids, and all kinds of other shit that would've been considered insane even 3 months ago), and Omni got a fucking massive buff in 6.85 with Purification cast time cut nearly in half. Diffusal Blade is buffed to shit and back, but this just means Omni doesn't even need to spend more than 1 point in Repel anymore. It's still 6 sec of magic immunity before DB, and even after DB it can be used to purge buffs/debuffs.

Add to that, where the hell is PA? PA has always been phenomenal at dealing with a physical-focused meta because of her free evasion. And she also makes a disgustingly good pairing with Omni, just not in lane.

[Deleted]

Okay, I haven't been able to watch many of the majors games yet, so forgive me if I've missed it.

But where the fuck is Omniknight? We're in a physical-focused meta with a massive amount of lane flexibility (we're seeing dedicated roamers, duo mids, and all kinds of other shit that would've been considered insane even 3 months ago), and Omni got a fucking massive buff in 6.85 with Purification cast time cut nearly in half. Diffusal Blade is buffed to shit and back, but this just means Omni doesn't even need to spend more than 1 point in Repel anymore. It's still 6 sec of magic immunity before DB, and even after DB it can be used to purge buffs/debuffs.

Add to that, where the hell is PA? PA has always been phenomenal at dealing with a physical-focused meta because of her free evasion. And she also makes a disgustingly good pairing with Omni, just not in lane.

I'm actually similarly confused as to why we're not seeing more Omni pairings in the offlane. 2-1-2 is so popular right now and IMHO Omni has always been best as part of an aggro dual lane. I can't help but feel like DS/Omni would basically just be a better SB/DS lane.

PA, on the other hand, I can absolutely understand not being popular. Heroes like Lina and QoP are still very popular picks, and the hero just doesn't lane well in a meta where lanes are incredibly important. There aren't really any of the current popular mids that it feels like she can play the lane even remotely even against, and there aren't really any dual lanes with her that don't get destroyed by stuff like SB/DS dual offlane. It feels like if you want to play PA in the current meta you have to either commit to a trilane (which is generally not favoured atm) or you have to somehow be gifted a joke of a matchup mid.

[PizzaSHARK]

I'm actually similarly confused as to why we're not seeing more Omni pairings in the offlane. 2-1-2 is so popular right now and IMHO Omni has always been best as part of an aggro dual lane. I can't help but feel like DS/Omni would basically just be a better SB/DS lane.

PA, on the other hand, I can absolutely understand not being popular. Heroes like Lina and QoP are still very popular picks, and the hero just doesn't lane well in a meta where lanes are incredibly important. There aren't really any of the current popular mids that it feels like she can play the lane even remotely even against, and there aren't really any dual lanes with her that don't get destroyed by stuff like SB/DS dual offlane. It feels like if you want to play PA in the current meta you have to either commit to a trilane (which is generally not favoured atm) or you have to somehow be gifted a joke of a matchup mid.

Slardar+Omni would probably be a terrifying lane to deal with unless you're running a trilane or prepared to devote a lot of effort to dealing with it. If you get stunned, you get nuked, and a point in Repel combined with Sprint means you'll almost never avoid the stun, especially if Slardar gets fast boots. Alternatively Omni gets fast boots and orb and has degen aura so you can't outrun Slardar anyway. Slardar is super tanky and Omni isn't particularly squishy, and in most cases Slardar would be the man forward, anyway.

I'm not sure I'd want to do that lane, though, because both Slardar and Omni really need some early farm (like 1500 gold worth) to excel, and that's definitely not a lane that will be good for farming, only for punishing certain safelane/offlane combinations.

But with lanes being so variable now, you could probably put Omni almost anywhere. Hell, you could pick a safelane that can transition to jungle and then have Omni take over safelane to catch up after sending him as support duo in a different lane. Omni's been buffed to the point that I think he'd even be a powerhouse duo mid support. You simply can't jump on an enemy mid if it means they get healed for 90/180 HP and you eat 90/180 pure damage, and Repel can completely shut down gank attempts or let the friendly mid go balls out for a few seconds, not having to worry about Rubick hiding in the trees.

Omni also demands Diffusal Blade or his team are just going to walk all over in fights. I'm like 95% certain DB has been getting so many motherfucking insane buffs (no cooldown on purge?) just to keep teams from turning Omni into first pick/ban in every single game. Even without a cooldown, you only get 16 purges before you have to drop another 2800 gold on a new DB. 16 sounds like a lot, but when you're popping out 2-3 in every fight (purge repel, plus using the purge to slow enemies) and even more than that for major teamfights (where you also need to dispel GA), you burn through them quick. And if you can't purge repel/GA, Omni's team wins fights by default.

I'm sure that we'll see him picked, played as a 5 position support, and then ignored for another year because apparently even the pros can't be bothered to learn that he's a core and not a fucking support.

[Lysah]

Omni isn't big because mobility in this game has grown out of control. People will just disengage during his ultimate and once that is over he is trash. PA isn't popular because, as stated, there are too many popular heroes who can global her. Even Gyro and SF will trashcan her and they are huge picks. She also can't take on Alch and Slard is actually very good against her. As far as supports go, Dazzle and Wyvern are still meta and they are both counters to PA.

[PizzaSHARK]

Can't Omni just buy a blink and have the same mobility? Heroes like SF and Gyro have zero mobility, Gyro never gets blink but SF frequently does.

[StrawberryZebra]

Omni also demands Diffusal Blade or his team are just going to walk all over in fights.

-snip-

I'm sure that we'll see him picked, played as a 5 position support, and then ignored for another year because apparently even the pros can't be bothered to learn that he's a core and not a fucking support.

Omni only demands a diffusal if he's picked last, otherwise you can easilly pick SD or Panda to deal with him. Since he can only repel one ally at once, Invoker can remove it from the rest of Omnis team with Tornado, and you can also remove it with Eul's too. Lastly Chen, Enchantress or just anyone with a Helm of the Dominator can grab a purge from the Satyr jungle creeps too which will do the trick.
BKB Piercing effects are gradually becoming more and more common too, so Repel isn't as great as it used to be. Its still good, of course, its just not as good.

If you don't put Omni as a support where do you put him? Sure, he's more effective with farm, but the same is true of all other supports. When picking a support you asses them for the utility in their kit and Omni measures up well with Heroes like WD, Dazzle or CM. Omni has a lot of unique skills which can really make him shine regardless of his item builds, which is great, it frees him up to buy things his team needs not things he personally wants. When picking a core you asses them almost exclusively on what damage they bring and at what phase of the game they do it in. Omni really falls short in the damage catagory compared to almost all other Heroes you could have picked for the same role, and while Purification might swing an early duel with an enemy core in his favour it quickly loses relevance once items enter the picture.
He's always been at his best when whacking people with his hammer, but I don't think he should really be built for doing it. Aura based and active items are probably the best use of his gold, they spread the effect across all allies in range and Omni himself is pretty tough to kill so his team is going to benefit from them for much longer. Things like Vlads or Pipe are far more efficient use of his gold than just selfish damage in my opinion.
He does make a great ganking buddy for Melee heroes though, especially ones with short range stuns who are likely to be kited or anyone who can quickly close distance for him to drop a Purification on for some juicy burst.

[PizzaSHARK]

Omni is a core in the sense that he gets gold and XP priority, not in the sense that he builds as a carry. He builds support items but can't be played effectively as a zero-farm support like Dazzle or WW.

[Teebu]

Omni is a core in the sense that he gets gold and XP priority, not in the sense that he builds as a carry. He builds support items but can't be played effectively as a zero-farm support like Dazzle or WW.

That's called position 4 support. Still a support, just not the wardbitch. Still don't fathom how you see him being more effective at pos 4 than most others that are being put in that position.


Omni is pure and simple a pos 5 hero. No catch/CC of any kind, support oriented skillset, zero farming potential unless you want the enemies to know when to gank you/your lanepartner (hint: it's when you're out of mana) and scales well only with levels. Doesn't have the manapool to build mek and be able to use his skills. He is wasted as anything but the least farm prioritized position because he doesn't justify taking it over others who are more effective.


Your arroganze regarding "pros not picking up on my ideas" is completely asinine and the ideas you had involved a few too many "if's". "If Slardar gets fast boots its a good lane" isn't a reason to pick something. If Slardar doesn't get fast boots, what then?. Don't pick a lane where you NEED something to win it or else its lost.

[PizzaSHARK]

Omni is pure and simple a pos 5 hero. No catch/CC of any kind, support oriented skillset, zero farming potential unless you want the enemies to know when to gank you/your lanepartner (hint: it's when you're out of mana) and scales well only with levels. Doesn't have the manapool to build mek and be able to use his skills. He is wasted as anything but the least farm prioritized position because he doesn't justify taking it over others who are more effective.

Flatly, completely wrong.

Omni can easily afford to use Mek if given some farm and with Mek he has the potential to drop 600+ healing on a single target pretty much instantly and is very tanky.

You are why people think Omni is bad when he's damned near gamebreaking - you don't know how to play him.

[Lysah]

Can't Omni just buy a blink and have the same mobility? Heroes like SF and Gyro have zero mobility, Gyro never gets blink but SF frequently does.

The issue isn't Omni's mobility, it's everyone. You have a team fight start and you ult your team when blink slardar goes in and he sees the GA and just sprints or force staffs back out and waits for it to expire. Tons of other picks are like this, QoP ember doom etc. Plus, they keep making every spell in the game pure damage, which hurts Omni more and more. If you are looking at Omni for his ability to heal and cleanse allies, Abaddon does a better job of it and has certainly been picked several times.

The problem with Omni is that this is a very lock people down and melt them before they can move meta. It's why Tide, the worst hero in dota, is getting some action again. People can't survive more than one second in a team fight anymore, and Omni isn't going to change that for most lineups. I think he could be situationally good as a last pick if you can get him when the enemy can't grab a natural diffusal carrier or pure damage nuker, but that will already be a rare occurrence, and how often do people save one of their support slots for last?

IMO, they should let Omni cast his aura on allies and pass it to them for a short time with a decently long cooldown, would solidify his position as an offensive healer support. Might be broken but Omni isn't likely to see use in the pro scene until he is flat out obviously overpowered.

I think Omni could work with a super yolo strategy, like MoM Tiny, abusing the repel early game for huge dives and kills, but nobody practices that so it would be suicide to try in a real game since it's way different from how they play now.

[StrawberryZebra]

Omni is a core in the sense that he gets gold and XP priority, not in the sense that he builds as a carry. He builds support items but can't be played effectively as a zero-farm support like Dazzle or WW.

He should be getting more than enough Murder gold to buy cheap aura items without the need for any kind of farm. While he does require some XP to reach full effectiveness, he doesn't really require being a core to get it.

If he's going to be getting farm and building support anyway, is there any point in him getting farm in the first place? Its better off on someone who can put it to better use.

[PizzaSHARK]

He should be getting more than enough Murder gold to buy cheap aura items without the need for any kind of farm. While he does require some XP to reach full effectiveness, he doesn't really require being a core to get it.

If he's going to be getting farm and building support anyway, is there any point in him getting farm in the first place? Its better off on someone who can put it to better use.

Because it maximizes his output during a time frame when his output is at its most valuable.

[PizzaSHARK]

Why did CDEC ban Huskar vs OG? The casters were saying Huskar was an OG hero, but why ban him? He's slow, squishy, barely qualifies as ranged, and while he can have insane MR, it also means he has like 400 HP left. Even if they felt that Huskar would make QoP weak, why wouldn't they just pick a strong physical/pure burst hero to instagib Huskar when he has low enough HP to have the MR to make QoP unhappy?

Last pick Viper felt really bad, too. I was also really surprised that Tiny didn't take 1 pt in his passive early on, it allows you to basically entirely invalidate both BM herself and her babies because the stun procs before the attack actually launches.

- - - Updated - - -

Lysah you should be happy to hear that the analyst desk just made a crack about Storm Spirit being utterly broken in 6.84. People finally realize it! Just... after he finally got nerfed

[Lysah]

Yeah, and now they'll realize Tiny is overpowered, too. As someone who "mains" Tiny and has a 72% winrate with him, I can safely say that there is no reason craggy should work the way it does.

I think their picks game 1 were fine, the alch pick into meepo was just terrible though. I think they just knew they didn't know how to play any heroes that can deal with meepo so they tried to outfarm him. Doesn't work, sadly, because if meepo doesn't get stopped he is actually the highest gpm hero in the game. Just goes to show that CDEC is not a good team and China is not a good region at dota. They are too stuck in their ways, they practice the same lineup of heroes to death and they might be very good at those heroes, but if you just play around it and pick something else they fall apart so fast. Looking forward to the ehome VG series personally. Who can out-meta the meta!

[Mellomania]

Yeah, and now they'll realize Tiny is overpowered, too. As someone who "mains" Tiny and has a 72% winrate with him, I can safely say that there is no reason craggy should work the way it does.

I think their picks game 1 were fine, the alch pick into meepo was just terrible though. I think they just knew they didn't know how to play any heroes that can deal with meepo so they tried to outfarm him. Doesn't work, sadly, because if meepo doesn't get stopped he is actually the highest gpm hero in the game. Just goes to show that CDEC is not a good team and China is not a good region at dota. They are too stuck in their ways, they practice the same lineup of heroes to death and they might be very good at those heroes, but if you just play around it and pick something else they fall apart so fast. Looking forward to the ehome VG series personally. Who can out-meta the meta!

Was an alchemist earlier that went armlet first, and then more fighting items. Was that how you think alch should be itemized or?

And ye, they seem to have no idea really how to handle meepo. VG did manage to win vs Secret when they picked meepo in the nanyang tournament by picking timber though.

[Lysah]

Was an alchemist earlier that went armlet first, and then more fighting items. Was that how you think alch should be itemized or?

Yeah, and it would've worked against OG I think. Armlet/blink or shadow blade/abyssal/AC, you pummel a meepo before he can move and get away and the rest of OG falls apart.

And ye, they seem to have no idea really how to handle meepo. VG did manage to win vs Secret when they picked meepo in the nanyang tournament by picking timber though.

That only worked because icecube is a notorious timber player, if you just ban timber and pick meepo they will be screwed.

[Mellomania]

Yeah, and it would've worked against OG I think. Armlet/blink or shadow blade/abyssal/AC, you pummel a meepo before he can move and get away and the rest of OG falls apart.



That only worked because icecube is a notorious timber player, if you just ban timber and pick meepo they will be screwed.

Really confused as to why more teams aren't trying to get good with meepo, when he can screw over people teams that much. It's the same with huskar, but i guess he's way easier to play. Haven't tried meepo myself, but is he really that hard for the pros to learn as well?

[Lysah]

I think learning meepo is kind of a waste for them, and they probably see it that way. If everyone learned to play meepo, everyone else would learn to counter him, and you would have wasted all that time learning to play him. It's the kind of thing where it only works if nobody does it, I think. Even now the times he's been picked they set their whole draft up for it, ensuring they either had ember or he was banned, and usually doing it after support slots were filled with not-earthshaker or WW. Such a niche pick he probably isn't worth practicing that much. I don't think he's fundamentally that hard to learn, but he will certainly take practice to learn his little nuances like split pushing with 2 clones/stacking and jungling while laning/throwing nets with the right clone/even just landing poof combos, I am decent at the hero I would say but I still have a problem with landing all 5 poofs on a blink, I have a habit of leaving 1 of them behind.

[Mellomania]

Oh and just remembered secret vs VG game 2, huskar and meepo, such a nasty combo when you don't really have the setup to deal with em.

[Lysah]

Huskar is definitely a great niche pick, but luckily you just click r on someone and you won already. That's what surprises me most, I don't see why CDEC didn't just pick Sven. They don't ever play Sven...okay...how hard is that hero to play? We're talking about 7k MMR players and they can't play a hero that is effectively just a right click machine and has a built in cleave for farming?