[Megathread] DotA 2

[Lysah]

yea, every other week i'd be fine with. it's confusing when I see PL videos about him being released and all that then i don't see him in game for like 4 days

Test server gets them earlier; honestly, I don't know why they wasted time with a test server anyway. It's a bloody BETA, why does it have to be "stable" for it's released to the BETA. They're treating DotA like it's already released and it has to stay tournament-ready at all times.

They should really stop trying to push DotA2 as an esport before it even fully exists. My opinion.

As an aside, HoN will never be half of DotA or LoL. There are probably more people playing DotA1 right now than HoN, and let's not even in go into DotA2's near maximum retention rate with beta keys.

[Hermanni]

Test server gets them earlier; honestly, I don't know why they wasted time with a test server anyway. It's a bloody BETA, why does it have to be "stable" for it's released to the BETA. They're treating DotA like it's already released and it has to stay tournament-ready at all times.

They should really stop trying to push DotA2 as an esport before it even fully exists. My opinion.

You're right, the test client does seem a bit stupid in the sense that the main game client allows you to choose between "Latest" and the stable "Tournament" version anyway when making a custom game. The thing is though, Dota 2 does have to stay tournament ready, because they want the DotA competitive scene to migrate into their game and most of the competitive scene (at least in the west) wants to migrate over to Dota 2 (well, they obviously already have.) And for that the game needs to be stable enough. There was and is lot of features missing in the game that people need (tutorials, couching system, in-game guides) but as long as it's in the beta their focus will probably be to get (almost) all the old heroes into the game and get to where DotA is before they start fully focusing in stuff the non-pros need.

If you hit Joindota.com, you could observe that even today there's going to be 12 Dota 2 tournament games in 5 separate leagues. I don't know about LoL, but that's a lot more than HoN and probably more than DotA.

As an aside, HoN will never be half of DotA or LoL. There are probably more people playing DotA1 right now than HoN, and let's not even in go into DotA2's near maximum retention rate with beta keys.

I used to play HoN on-off for over a year and while HoN had its merits it ultimately failed because S2 is a horrible company. The game was really cool in the late beta but it started going downhill hard after release. Firstly because some of the heroes designed by them were completely retarded (well, that's my opinion) and they really had trouble adjusting game balance (they often just copied changes made into DotA while steering the game away from DotA.) Most of the time their patches contained no bug fixes, balance adjustments or new features but new alt skins and announcer packs. Then they decided that they absolutely need to get a new hero that isn't a safe DotA port out every 2 weeks while completely disregarding game balance and making even more retarded heroes. Then they decided their new heroes need to be even more powerful and you don't get to play them for a month unless you pay for "Early Access." Around this time I was desperately trying to get myself a Dota 2 key and since I got one I have never felt like logging back to HoN and I'm definitely not alone in that.

Among other things they also deployed the LoL-style F2P pay-for-heroes model which is something I really loathe. I don't have any other beef with LoL and I assume LoL heroes (sorry, champs) are more tailored to fill certain roles that you don't need access to all of them for game balance, but the idea is still rather appalling to me. Like someone on reddit put it once it feels more like a game built around a business model than vice versa.

[Servion]

I presume you speak of LoL? Never having touched it I wouldn't know. I'm not surprised by that one bit though, LoL is bad and is played because it's free. If HoN had the same model at the start it would have CRUSHED LoL. Dota will likely not make a dent in either of them. People are far to complacent and stuck in their ways.

Stupid to bring that up mate, i play HoN myself, and i've played both LoL and Dota2 quite alot, its just about personal preferreds. HoN was at the start bigger than LoL, until Riot began with their advertisements everywhere, when HoN did nothing. HoN has a steep learning curve, and the community from the start is filled with hostility and so on, the game is not made for casually gamers, and it takes quite a long time to get used to. No need to bash other games, its just comes down to what you prefer, and i prefer HoN, because of the fast gameplay and how responsive it is. Btw the game is far from dead, and has almost always 100k online at their peak, compared to LoL its nothing, but its decent for a game.

[Lysah]

You're right, the test client does seem a bit stupid in the sense that the main game client allows you to choose between "Latest" and the stable "Tournament" version anyway when making a custom game. The thing is though, Dota 2 does have to stay tournament ready, because they want the DotA competitive scene to migrate into their game and most of the competitive scene (at least in the west) wants to migrate over to Dota 2 (well, they obviously already have.) And for that the game needs to be stable enough. There was and is lot of features missing in the game that people need (tutorials, couching system, in-game guides) but as long as it's in the beta their focus will probably be to get (almost) all the old heroes into the game and get to where DotA is before they start fully focusing in stuff the non-pros need.

I don't disagree, they are a business first after all. I would just highly prefer it if they focused instead on getting the game finished as quickly as possible. It's not a bad thing, in my opinion, to release six heroes at once. Even if there are a ton of bugs, that's what a BETA TEST is for. At least that's what I used to think. These days betas are just publicity stuns.

Although I do respect the fact that apparently Icefrog works with Valve making DotA2, so if he thinks it's best for the community to release DotA2 slowly so that all the DotA1 vets can play it without any bumps, well, it's basically his game at this point. I'm still pretty pissed off that Guinsoo isn't referenced anymore, though.


As far as finishing up the game war discussion; I really wish Valve would just release DotA2 to the public. Once people see 3 million logged in on DotA2, perhaps the brand war will end =p

[Freezymcgee]

Too help out my fellow Dota2 players frustrated by the chat bug, for a band-aid fix just click the icon in the top left to go back to the main Dota2 screen, type something in that chat box, hit enter, then return to the game. Should allow you to type in the in-game chat once again.

Hope this helps.

On a side note Im sticking with Ogre Magi as my prediction for the next hero

[llDemonll]

So how would you guys counter a high-HP team?

Such example I played earlier was Earthshaker, Pudge, Axe, Dazzle, Sand King (pick any combo with 1 support or true carry)

If you take 1-2 disables then you lose DPS needed to take any of them down, if you take 2-3 carries then you have one carry getting nuked at the start almost right away, etc., etc. Seems like you either need to dominate them right off the bat and get a full push team (Venomancer, Shadow Shaman, Nature's Prophet, etc., etc.)

[Nightfury Treann]

Too help out my fellow Dota2 players frustrated by the chat bug, for a band-aid fix just click the icon in the top left to go back to the main Dota2 screen, type something in that chat box, hit enter, then return to the game. Should allow you to type in the in-game chat once again.

Hope this helps.

On a side note Im sticking with Ogre Magi as my prediction for the next hero

oh this is working for me man, thanks

btw, uuhhm not sure if Ogre Magi be the next hero on the beta i mean... well there's always some bugs on the latest heroes they make so, if there's the situation that the multi-cast gets bugged or something like, 30 firebolts on a target or infinite bloodlust or things like that, but it would be great to see a next hero soon
(next one techies please :P)

---------- Post added 2012-05-09 at 09:21 PM ----------

@Demon

the silencer would be good for that situation with the global silence, a hex to someone else, that doesn't make you lost too much damage on the hero you're gonna focus, or keep the CD of the hex to interrupt the pudge, not sure if the sprout of the prophet should be casted against the Axe or pudge better, i don't think that Blademail works on that situation, and Stun the Sandking to interrupt the Epicenter, that's all what i can help you at the moment

[Hermanni]

So how would you guys counter a high-HP team?

Such example I played earlier was Earthshaker, Pudge, Axe, Dazzle, Sand King (pick any combo with 1 support or true carry)

If you take 1-2 disables then you lose DPS needed to take any of them down, if you take 2-3 carries then you have one carry getting nuked at the start almost right away, etc., etc. Seems like you either need to dominate them right off the bat and get a full push team (Venomancer, Shadow Shaman, Nature's Prophet, etc., etc.)

In terms of hero picks, you might want to consider carrying with Huskar, N'aix or Necrolyte (or maybe Ursa) who all are particularly effective against high-HP targets, Huskar and Necrolyte together being particularly funny. Considering they don't have that much damage against a single target an appropriately built Spectre or Viper could outlast and end them. Or if you want to be a huge nerd they probably couldn't even kill Antimage. In terms of semis or utility you might want to consider Shadow Demon or Zeus, but my favorite pick against that particular line-up would be Ancient Apparition because their heroes aren't very likely to build BKBs and Frost Blast would just suffocate them. Or if you really want to see their HP disappear you could go for something like the Warlock&Venomancer combo.

In terms of general strategy you would want to have a Pipe of Insight in your team to avoid taking too much damage from SK and ES and mind your positioning so they can't hit your entire team. You shouldn't be focusing Pudge or Axe unless they're really far out of position and if you're going to focus anyone but Dazzle they would probably get Shallow Graved so your best bet in teamfights would be to try and catch Dazzle and after he is dead deal with the rest of the team.

Generally you should exploit Axe because if he goes into the jungle he is going to need a lot of farm before he is useful to his team but he isn't even going to that great late-game with any amount of farm (read: he isn't a carry) so the window in which Axe is an actual asset to his team is rather narrow. Axe was the most useless hero in the game before he was buffed and even he isn't as terrible he used to be it's still a bad pick most of the time.

Also, following Cyborgmatt with the next hero predictions isn't particularly hard, I mean, that guy's been wrong like once :>

[Freezymcgee]

Also, following Cyborgmatt with the next hero predictions isn't particularly hard, I mean, that guy's been wrong like once :>

I made my original prediction before Cyborgmatt posted that he is also predicting Ogre, I based my prediction off of the completeness of his portrait which has been seemingly the predominant factor in the "completeness" of a given hero.

[llDemonll]

ooo warlock, didn't even think of him, that soul link thing he has would be good..

[Lysah]

High health strength heroes, gotta pick N'aix.

Strength carries will also do well in general. Slardar, Leoric, Lycan. They have the sustained DPS and a matching high health pool to boot, they can't be just shut down like an agility carry can. Grab OD if he knows how to play, a scepter ult from him can easily cut their entire team in half and make kills real easy for your strength carry, as well as his having the ability to shut down his lane with astral (two casts and pudge has 40 mana, wot).

Spectre is good for breaking blinks and preventing the SK/ES crash but only if he's good at predicting it. Zeus or even Weaver would be more reliable and less prone to screwing up the whole team fight by blowing their ult too early.

A good viper would be a pretty good pick.

Strength heroes in general have low armor, this is very easy to exploit with heroes like Slard, SF, even BH. Consider a medallion for the team. If pudge has 2400 health but 6 armor and you have SF who cuts his armor to 0 just by being near him, you can see what several 100-200 damage auto attacks will do to his health pool in two seconds. Add in his ult or slardar or medallion and SF who hits for 200 ends up doing a solid 300+ a shot.

[llDemonll]

so you're saying going negative in armor actually has a +dmg% effect? never thought of that, i just figured it'd stay at 0% mitigated

[Freezymcgee]

so you're saying going negative in armor actually has a +dmg% effect? never thought of that, i just figured it'd stay at 0% mitigated

A very large damage effect as you put someone to increasingly negative armor

http://www.playdota.com/mechanics/damagearmor

[Kurdiern]

International 2 announced, "held during the last weekend of August, from the 31st to September 2nd" in Benaroya Hall, Seattle. I am pretty damn excited,

[llDemonll]

International 2 announced, "held during the last weekend of August, from the 31st to September 2nd" in Benaroya Hall, Seattle. I am pretty damn excited,

except this is at PAX which sold out in 5 hours. gg

Also, servers are down. I looked forward to playing when I got home from work, and now I'm disappointed >.<

[Lysah]

so you're saying going negative in armor actually has a +dmg% effect? never thought of that, i just figured it'd stay at 0% mitigated

The damage can actually get extremely intense extremely quickly. When you're used to ~30% damage reduction, ~30%+ damage boost is insanely excessive. With 100 base, a hero like pudge takes about 70 damage mid game. Now you're slardar and drop his armor by 15, suddenly you hit him for 140, literally twice as much. Add in the attacks from allies, even your support heros start doing a lot of auto attack damage.

Go look at most strength heroes and their biggest weakness is armor, very easily exploitable. Lucifer starts out with 0 base, and if he's not careful is very prone to being stomped if he lanes against anyone who realizes this. Their picking dazzle to support a heavy strength lineup is very intelligent, as his ult can make up for this weakness. However, with heroes like viper, you can easily just back off until weave wears off.

[Freezymcgee]

Thought this was cool.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/05/09/do...-even-out-yet/

[Deleted]

Hi, I'm Zyfoh and i've recently started livestreaming on Twitch, Starcraft 2, LoL, WoW and Dota 2 aswell ofc. And i have a spare dota 2 key laying around so I'm going to give it away to one of my followers when i reach 100 followers on my livestream. So if you want to have a chance to win a beta key or if you just enjoy my livestream please follow me.

If you for any reason don't belive that i have a beta key i can send you a picture.

< snipped. if you want to give away a key that's fine, but don't advertise it here if you're requiring us to follow/subscribe/friend/etc. on another site >

[Alraml]

A lot of spells don't have clear animations - take torrent

Though is a little bit subtle i've played enough kunkka's to see it every time so I don't know if it's an issue.

I think Sand King's Epicenter needs to be a bit more obvious since it's a team wiper at times

[Lysah]

Though is a little bit subtle i've played enough kunkka's to see it every time so I don't know if it's an issue.

I think Sand King's Epicenter needs to be a bit more obvious since it's a team wiper at times

On which team? If you're his enemy the only thing you can see is him raising his arm, which can also easily be a fake cast depending on how good he is.