[Megathread] DotA 2

[Lysah]

http://dotabuff.com/players/93874877
I don't always play page 1 anymore since I tend to queue with awfuls, but hey.

I'll be happy to solo queue, get page 1, go shadow blade on any hero, and win, whenever anyone feels like watching.

[Deleted]

I want to see this White Whale ("Shadow Blade works in the highest MMR. I get page 1 games on a daily basis when I solo queue and Shadow Blade isn't uncommon.") everyone seems to be talking about but nobody has seen it except Ahab.

Then watch that profile. Basically every game has a SB in it.

[Deleted]

And if the enemy makes sure you're unaware? You're just gonna give up map control because they're standing in fog?

That only means that the enemy already has map control...

Hence why I said situation X as opposed to game X. It's like telling me I can't use a Force Staff to initiate because I bought it to kite people so I should have Blink.

It's nothing like that... It's more like "in this particular scenario Item X would have been better than item Y, even though item Y is usually better.

Wait what if they know you have a gem.
And they smoke and kill you when you go dewarding.
There, countered your counter.

For starters, gem see's through the fog, secondly, the supporter shouldn't be alone when doing it unless 100 % certain that they aren't close enough to kill them, even then it's risky. Third, if they still manage to pull it off, good for them, well played.

Carry is standing in lane lasthitting, time is 8:53.
SD stacks a camp and runs over to another camp, clears it, time is 9:40.
Carry is still casually killing creeps.
SD stacks again and the camp he killed respawns.
Carry didn't notice a thing.

If the carry is able to farm alone like that by all means, but don't be surprised when the enemy makes use of that and kills him.

[Pantelija]

Then watch that profile. Basically every game has a SB in it.

I will humor you

Batrider game, Sing is building MoM and Shadow Blade, legit?

Troll game, Sing is building Shadow Blade instead of Bkb and he fed and lost (Lion was building SB aswell)

QoP game, Doom buys gem which makes Alchemist with SB useless and alchemist losses a game with only 5 kills

Shadow Fiend game, Sing doesnt build SB but buys Blink Dagger and a gem that makes that SB Natures Prophet useless


Reason why i said White Whale is because you are making an outrageous claim that you are solo que on page 1 in very high and that "Shadowblade works in high MMR" and that it isnt uncommon in such games when the truth is quite the opposite, 180 gold item with 2 charges makes shadow blade useless during fights and Gem makes shadow blade useless in a 1100 radius


EDIT: I am not saying Shadow Blade as a whole is a useless item i am saying its very easy to counter heroes with Shadow Blade especially in High and Very High brackets where people are more skilled/gameplay aware

[Hermanni]

Reason why i said White Whale is because you are making an outrageous claim that you are solo que on page 1 in very high and that "Shadowblade works in high MMR" and that it isnt uncommon in such games when the truth is quite the opposite, 180 gold item with 2 charges makes shadow blade useless during fights and Gem makes shadow blade useless in a 1100 radius


EDIT: I am not saying Shadow Blade as a whole is a useless item i am saying its very easy to counter heroes with Shadow Blade especially in High and Very High brackets where people are more skilled/gameplay aware

Have you like actually not read the last 3-4 pages or what? And it's not really an outrageous claim to be in page 1 games, I've been there often and it is exactly as he says. Shadowblade is an extremely popular item in the top MMR games even when people aren't trolling.

Actually considering that you're suggesting that dust counter SB in teamfights I'm not even sure why I'm replying to this at all.

[Deleted]

That only means that the enemy already has map control...

idk it's pretty hard to spot people when they're all afk in their own jungle and you don't dare go ward because they're all gone.

It's nothing like that... It's more like "in this particular scenario Item X would have been better than item Y, even though item Y is usually better.

Depends on what counts as 'usually' but that's pretty much exactly what I said.

For starters, gem see's through the fog, secondly, the supporter shouldn't be alone when doing it unless 100 % certain that they aren't close enough to kill them, even then it's risky. Third, if they still manage to pull it off, good for them, well played.

Gem radius is 1100. Also correct me if I'm wrong but the movespeed lasts until ~1000 so it's not very hard to jump people just because they have gem.

Secondly, if the supporter has a train of people after him while he goes warding, who's currently not farming?

If the carry is able to farm alone like that by all means, but don't be surprised when the enemy makes use of that and kills him.

I thought you said something about just reading the enemy's intentions.
I mean if you know DotA-fu you probably play against people who know DotA-fu so surely the carry would just dodge the gank at the last second. And then the gank would succeed anyway. But the carry would dodge it. And then Invoker would sunstrike him. While he was Shallow Graved. Then he'll see Ice Blast coming towards him. But SD will disrupt him.
I mean at some point you gotta stop theorizing about the game and just play it.

[Deleted]

And I'm not going to go back and look for quotes because quite frankly looking at that shit would probably make me feel quite embarrassed, and I feel embarrassed enough for you as it is. Up to you, really.

It's really up to you, you're the one who made the claim yet you're not backing it up with anything so.

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Except people have been pointing out that you're wrong for, like, the entire past two pages of posts.

Go away, please.

Sorry but I'm not going anywhere, nor have you proved me wrong on any of the points either. Just because you don't like what I have to say doesn't mean that I'm wrong.

[Hermanni]

It's really up to you, you're the one who made the claim yet you're not backing it up with anything so.

No it's kind of up to you if you want to stop looking like you're terribly uninformed and maybe stop embarrassing yourself further than you've already done. But I'm sure if you keep trying you might actually manage to quote the right person, I'm not sure how you managed that mishap.

You're yet to bring a single fact into this discussion. I admit I can't be dicked to write the same posts I've already written a dozen times about Battlefuries and Shadowblades to yet another stubborn newb, but I've put at least some effort into looking up match details and statistics in dotabuff and dota-academy and I've given you accurate information and knowledge of where you can go look it all up if you don't believe me.

But no, please don't go away, watching you embarrass yourself way more badly than I ever did is entertainment enough for me.

[Deleted]

Is this argument ever going to end

I have no input other than in my shit tier games shadow blade is way better than blink

[Drunkenvalley]

It's really up to you, you're the one who made the claim yet you're not backing it up with anything so.

What claim? All the quote nests are getting nasty to keep track.

Sorry but I'm not going anywhere, nor have you proved me wrong on any of the points either. Just because you don't like what I have to say doesn't mean that I'm wrong.

You realize that by default Blink Dagger doesn't let you do anything, right? It doesn't enable you to initiate. It doesn't enable you to gank (outside of crazy skill landing Razes). Your entire point here hinges on getting a BKB as well, which requires 8 minutes if we assume a 500 GPM.

Meanwhile, a Shadow Blade allows you to farm safe. It allows you to gank. It allows you to initiate (whether you survive or not being irrelevant to that equation). And it delayed your BKB 2 minutes if we still assume the 500 GPM.

But there is simply no logical item progression in all of this where Blink Dagger > Shadow Blade. There is none to my memory. Give us one and maybe you "prove" anything.

Yes, we're still using Shadow Fiend here in this example. If I see anything vaguely resembling a different hero in your response...

[Deleted]

I will humor you

Batrider game, Sing is building MoM and Shadow Blade, legit?

Troll game, Sing is building Shadow Blade instead of Bkb and he fed and lost (Lion was building SB aswell)

QoP game, Doom buys gem which makes Alchemist with SB useless and alchemist losses a game with only 5 kills

Shadow Fiend game, Sing doesnt build SB but buys Blink Dagger and a gem that makes that SB Natures Prophet useless


Reason why i said White Whale is because you are making an outrageous claim that you are solo que on page 1 in very high and that "Shadowblade works in high MMR" and that it isnt uncommon in such games when the truth is quite the opposite, 180 gold item with 2 charges makes shadow blade useless during fights and Gem makes shadow blade useless in a 1100 radius


EDIT: I am not saying Shadow Blade as a whole is a useless item i am saying its very easy to counter heroes with Shadow Blade especially in High and Very High brackets where people are more skilled/gameplay aware

How is it outrageous claim? Sing is in page 1 games. Shadow Blade is bought plenty. The Spirit Breaker also had Shadow Blade in the Troll game. The QoP game the Jugger in his team had SB, seemed to work out pretty well. The SF game Prophet has SB. As you can see, in every game you linked there was one or more SBs in it. People build it all the time in high MMR games.

If it was very easy to counter, people wouldn't build it. We're talking top MMR here, page 1. There is no higher than that. Only pro games are higher and even they build SBs.

[Hermanni]

Heroes that need to have Blink: Batrider, Sand King

Heroes that usually should have Blink: Earthshaker, Brewmaster, Magnus, Puck, Enigma

And the rest is really just situational. Actually I rather disagree with rushing Blink with Enigma, doesn't seem to work in most games, but it's still a nice item to buy eventually.

[Deleted]

I want to see this White Whale ("Shadow Blade works in the highest MMR. I get page 1 games on a daily basis when I solo queue and Shadow Blade isn't uncommon.") everyone seems to be talking about but nobody has seen it except Ahab.

Here are a few:

http://dotabuff.com/matches/295371019
http://dotabuff.com/matches/295408333
http://dotabuff.com/matches/285834082
http://dotabuff.com/matches/293473937
http://dotabuff.com/matches/295281680 < this one has a shadow blade SF in it.
http://dotabuff.com/matches/294827249
http://dotabuff.com/matches/293420103

I could go on. DotaMetrics also made this post a while back, it's still pretty relevant. Full article

[Lysah]

Is this argument ever going to end

I have no input other than in my shit tier games shadow blade is way better than blink

This was the argument I first started with 400 pages ago because I honestly think it's the only one that matters.

Okay, let's agree for a second (I won't actually agree for longer than a second but let's play friends for this post at least) that pros totally counter shadow blade 100% of the time and it's an awful item in page 1 games. How many pages are not page 1? About 4000 at any time of day? If you're one of the 200,000 people playing in games that aren't top of the line, does it really matter how an item stacks up against pros?

This whole argument reminds me of top 10 hunters telling people they can't play beastmaster in WotLK because it was 3% behind marksman and that was just WAY TOO DAMN MUCH, MAN. Yeah, okay. If you're not a top .01% player then you don't have to play like them. Shadow blade will absolutely crush most average players who can't farm effectively enough to ever buy a gem and still have items, let alone funnel out 2000g for sentries and dust. For 99% of the community, SB is a far better item than blink. For the other 1%, it's still a better item, people just argue about it more.

[Drunkenvalley]

This whole argument reminds me of top 10 hunters telling people they can't play beastmaster in WotLK because it was 3% behind marksman and that was just WAY TOO DAMN MUCH, MAN. Yeah, okay. If you're not a top .01% player then you don't have to play like them.

I remember this gem from raiding in Cata: "DJ's inspecting you. 3. 2. 1..." "AKULINA Y U HAVE AGI WEAPON UR BLOOD DK"
This was in the patch before agi was changed, wherein an agi weapon was still BIS pre-raid for Blood DK hah.

Anyhow, I'm not fond of your argument. But it doesn't take a genius to notice that Shadow Blade kind of works. If folks want to argue otherwise they haven't seen a lot of tournaments, 'cause Alch+Shadow Blade is so stock it's not even really funny anymore.

[Lysah]

I remember this gem from raiding in Cata: "DJ's inspecting you. 3. 2. 1..." "AKULINA Y U HAVE AGI WEAPON UR BLOOD DK"
This was in the patch before agi was changed, wherein an agi weapon was still BIS pre-raid for Blood DK hah.

Anyhow, I'm not fond of your argument. But it doesn't take a genius to notice that Shadow Blade kind of works. If folks want to argue otherwise they haven't seen a lot of tournaments, 'cause Alch+Shadow Blade is so stock it's not even really funny anymore.

Which is funny, because a year ago I was the only person in this thread advocating Shadow Blade on any hero. Everyone just spat out the "easy to counter with 180g two charge item" crap I'm seeing today. And yet, almost every single person from a year ago who argued with me now agrees with me, I wonder what happened.

(best part is, the item has actually been NERFED since then)

[Deleted]

idk it's pretty hard to spot people when they're all afk in their own jungle and you don't dare go ward because they're all gone.

Indeed it is, but risking to go and die alone isn't really all that much better.

Depends on what counts as 'usually' but that's pretty much exactly what I said.

My point being that going SB just because you might be in a situation where you can't use BD isn't a good excuse...

Gem radius is 1100. Also correct me if I'm wrong but the movespeed lasts until ~1000 so it's not very hard to jump people just because they have gem.

Secondly, if the supporter has a train of people after him while he goes warding, who's currently not farming?

And who's farming in their team if they use smoke bomb to gank the support? The supporter doesn't need the entire team with him/her, but at least two to make sure nothing happens.

I thought you said something about just reading the enemy's intentions.
I mean if you know DotA-fu you probably play against people who know DotA-fu so surely the carry would just dodge the gank at the last second. And then the gank would succeed anyway. But the carry would dodge it. And then Invoker would sunstrike him. While he was Shallow Graved. Then he'll see Ice Blast coming towards him. But SD will disrupt him.
I mean at some point you gotta stop theorizing about the game and just play it.

It was you who wanted to go away and clear a creep camp, to do that you must know where the ones that would normally be on your lane are.

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HAnd the rest is really just situational. Actually I rather disagree with rushing Blink with Enigma, doesn't seem to work in most games, but it's still a nice item to buy eventually.

Something we agree on! =)

Rushing Blink is seldom worth it because by the time you have it you will probably not be able to make full use of it anyway. It's usually better to go something else first, like mekanism, arcane boots, or whatever it is you fancy on Enigma, and get a Blink Dagger when your team is ready for it.

[Deleted]

Indeed it is, but risking to go and die alone isn't really all that much better.

And now nobody knows nothing. What now.

My point being that going SB just because you might be in a situation where you can't use BD isn't a good excuse...

It's not a good excuse but an added benefit. Just like how you can initiate with Force Staff as well as kite.

And who's farming in their team if they use smoke bomb to gank the support?

Doesn't matter too much if you get a kill and a gem. Worth the time of at least 3 people.

It was you who wanted to go away and clear a creep camp, to do that you must know where the ones that would normally be on your lane are.

Which I would because I know DotA-fu so I can magically estimate where everyone is at all times.

[Drunkenvalley]

My point being that going SB just because you might be in a situation where you can't use BD isn't a good excuse...

Err, what? Blink Dagger does nothing if you can't do something now. Blink Dagger is excellent for Batrider and Puck because if they blink in they can make things happen now. For those the Blink Dagger is an obvious choice. Heck, their viability depends on that stuff.

But for most heroes a Shadow Blade is plain better.

[enchanted]

She literally posted last page saying "Going Battlefury on PA is a guaranteed way to lose."

Care to explain why? I got 39 kills 10 deaths with BF on PA. I think preserverance too is great for PA.

I seem to like playing nature's prophet alot these days so my question is: should I form Hand of Midas asap? Like at first I start out with RoB + tangos and clarity then keep farming but sometimes my team is ahead and I say to myself I should form other items instead to catch up. So which is better? Focus HoM or just get other items? Sorry if this seems like a noob question, just start playing NP.