[Megathread] DotA 2

[BaconBitzszs]

What did everyone think of the Frankfurt games today?

[Mister K]

did anyone see the stream last night around midnight GMT of that Alchemist vs Windranger game? 73 minutes ... of ...ultimate farming simulator lol.

[PizzaSHARK]

Which is a shame really, CK is so much more than just a subsitute Tiny. He's perhaps the only Hero in the game who's illusions are tanky by default, and they're going to be even tankier with his usual item builds, and they deal 100% damage! He can get the items he needs extremely quickly and take over games before other carries can really get going. Come late game he can brute force down most other carries, or outright instagib them if he gets a crit thrown in there. He's also one of the few melee who doesn't need a blink dagger to close distance, meaning he can start terrorising the other team much earlier than most other melee and allowing him to get away with buying more damage items.

Glad people are picking him with Io though at least, they work amazingly well together if you're looking to go ganking. If CK starts trending from it I wonder if we'll be seeing CK teamed up with KOTL more in the near future? Mana issues are all that really hold CK back from murdering whoever he pleases early game and KOTL just loves having friends with long duration stuns so he has an easy time landing fully charged Illuminates.

There's a really easy way to eliminate CK's mana problems: buy fucking manaboots. Ever since his ulti started getting buffed, making it good to take it at 6, manaboots have been the "secret" to making CK godly. And then manaboots got that huge buff, too! The raw mana practically doubles his MP early on, and the mana restore affects his entire team... which is great, since CK is a decidedly aggressive pick. Hell, if paired with a Wisp, that means CK gets 270 MP back (like 1/3 his fucking pool at lvl 8ish) every time he pops boots, and he'll get those boots way before Wisp could ever think of doing it. CK ulti is just so damn strong basically all the time - it's guaranteed +100% damage at lvl 6, with a half chance of being +200% damage. Except unlike a DD rune or Sven ulti, that extra damage comes in the form of ridiculously tanky illusions (they take double damage compared to the usual 3x-4x damage illusions) that can be used to do all kinds of things in addition to just more damage.

Hell, you could even disassemble the boots to make Octarine Core later if you wanted to. Considering how important his ulti is to his teamfight presence, and the fact that he often wants Manta (because he's already an illusion hero and you want as many illusions as possible for Reality Rift dick pits) would make it a seemingly useful item for him. Besides, it means CB is now a 3 sec average stun on a 7.5 sec cooldown... that's pretty fucking insane.

This is probably going to surprise a lot of people on Reddit, but most heroes have been completely fine and very competitive for a long, long time. Plenty of them have room for small buffs or changes, but they don't need them. CK has been incredibly strong for a really long time. Tanky, incredibly fast, very high-right click potential early on (huge range but his top-end is very high, like 70+ dmg), and he's almost unique among right-click STR heroes in that he doesn't need or even want blinker to do his job. I'm sure you could justify one at the pro level, but he certainly doesn't need it.

His main weakness are teams that can quickly clear illusions or otherwise do massive damage to them (Medusa completely hard-counters CK in teamfights if she isn't kept underfarmed all game, and LC can also do massive damage to them with her Q), or teams that have the ability to easily hurt him bad before he can pop his illusions. His MP isn't a weakness if you aren't retarded, and you build manaboots. Pros can probably get away with bottlecrow and other options (manaboots would still be 100% superior if using him with Wisp, though, especially since Wisp is the one likely to get bottle anyway), but for pubs... stop buying treads and start buying manaboots.

As I recall, this is exactly what was said to me when, many months ago, I said CK was a strong hero and I didn't understand why he wasn't being picked. And yet now we have people here saying "wow, CK's great, I wonder how long before the pros notice?"

[Mellomania]

Tinker, wut? D:

[Hermanni]

RTZ curse strikes again best carry in the world ayy

[Lysah]

CK is insane yeah, soul ring is enough to solve his mana issues, just rush that real fast in lane and you're good to go straight armlet/HH/heart/satanic/AC

Also, RTZ curse strikes again best carry in the world ayy lmao

I gotta say though for real right now, Fear would not have gotten picked off and made so many fail blinks if he was the antimage. If they had fear on AM sumail on QoP and universe on mags that game would've been a straight 15 minute win stomp.

[Strangebrew]

Holy shit im dying from laughter.
I wanted to see EG get destroyed, i got what i wanted.

[Mellomania]

8k alch too stronk

[Lysah]

I hope that last game at least shows the pub alch pickers that the radiance build is utter trash, this Alch outgrew AM was killing him before cask wore off the entire game, even when AM was 5 slotted he couldn't survive a 2 second stun. Right click alch is insane, afk farm alch is just retarded.

[Mellomania]

Next major announced:

[Drunkenvalley]

Nice, draft is starting. http://www.twitch.tv/dotamajor

[Deleted]

Honestly as much as RTZ died in some situations he shouldn't have died in, Suma1L's Mag was decidedly lacklustre. The ONLY hero he needed to RP in the game-losing fight was the Alch (who RTZ was perfectly capable of killing in the duration of RP), and instead he RP'd two decidedly irrelevant heroes on the periphery of the fight. Notail played an absolute stinker of a game and was completely irrelevant for the entirety - they could literally have ignored the Gyro in every fight for the last 20 minutes or so and it wouldn't have mattered because quite frankly Notail had nothing.

EG was unbelievably far ahead in every position but the 1 position and should easily have taken the game, but RTZ got picked off once or twice where he shouldn't have and Suma1L RP'd the wrong shit. It was like watching Burning Doom Bristleback over and over again against EHome - I don't know why it happens but sometimes even pros seem to misread the flow of the game and importance of specific heroes in a lineup for an entire game. All they needed to do was kill the fucking Alch and OG had nothing.

[Longview]

moonmeander is so fucking good actually

hope OG wins

[Mellomania]

Went to do something fast before start, missed 5 kills. NotLikeThis

[Longview]

ENVY ON SUICIDE WATCH capsblox

[Mellomania]

8 0 0 0 MMR invoker x)

[Drunkenvalley]

Game 2 time! A bloody Slark, huh.

[Mellomania]

Holy shit OG

[Crackleslap]

Game 2 time! A bloody Slark, huh.

Slark was a good pick, just took too long to do its job.

The green dream is real!

Moon has been playing phenomenal today.

[Drunkenvalley]

I liked the pick, but it was certainly out of the blue. Was a real intense game. Game 3 drafting now..