[Megathread] DotA 2

[Lysah]

What's lothar's on lycan for? Is that a new thing or is that just your continued obsession with that item?

Even with the speed boost, Lycan loses a lot of his ult chasing people down. Without blink or Shadow Blade you have the issue where people see you coming and run - you do far less damage to a moving target because Wolf's attack animation is...meh. Not bad but, not really good either. Shadow Blade gets you on top of people before they know it's coming and you can kill most people before they can react with Wolf's insane damage with howl+ult. Blink is also acceptable but I'd rather have the stats. Also, being able to invis through wards when I know where they are is nice.

[PizzaSHARK]

Why isn't Kunkka more popular in comp? Even with just a rushed buriza he can crit like 500+ on Tidebringer and it's not hard to tag 2-3 heroes on the enemy team with it. Ship is really hard to land without setup but it sure seems like his potential to right-click half the enemy team for 40% of their HP every 4 sec and his other skills being very strong would make him worth picking.

[Lysah]

Good Q, especially since early torrent/X is almost game breaking good at times. I would say his biggest issue is finding gold.

[minteK917]

Good Q, especially since early torrent/X is almost game breaking good at times. I would say his biggest issue is finding gold.

People forgetting the X had a huge early game nerf/buff. Sure the duration is easier to combo, the range however is very bad now. LVL 2 X is so small smokes breaks way before you can cast it on someone. Kunkka is not popular in comp because hes like pudge in the regard that hes not reliable early, when its the part when hes at the strongest and his utility is stopped by BKB mid game. Kunkka stats are also pretty shitty for a right clicker, with that shitty base armor. Hes a class canon, while most right clickers become unstoppable stone walls.

Hes not bad, hell i play him all the time i think hes awesome, but its easy to know why hes never been and probably never will be highly favored. Hes just too much effort for little gain compared to too many heroes. He only carry games when its a total stomps, otherwise he is food for the other right clickers as soon as 2-3 items come into play.

[PizzaSHARK]

Good Q, especially since early torrent/X is almost game breaking good at times. I would say his biggest issue is finding gold.

How so? Tidebringer and Torrent are both very effective farming tools.

People forgetting the X had a huge early game nerf/buff. Sure the duration is easier to combo, the range however is very bad now. LVL 2 X is so small smokes breaks way before you can cast it on someone. Kunkka is not popular in comp because hes like pudge in the regard that hes not reliable early, when its the part when hes at the strongest and his utility is stopped by BKB mid game. Kunkka stats are also pretty shitty for a right clicker, with that shitty base armor. Hes a class canon, while most right clickers become unstoppable stone walls.

Hes not bad, hell i play him all the time i think hes awesome, but its easy to know why hes never been and probably never will be highly favored. Hes just too much effort for little gain compared to too many heroes. He only carry games when its a total stomps, otherwise he is food for the other right clickers as soon as 2-3 items come into play.

He's a STR hero with 3/lvl stat gain, all he needs is armor. He's like almost every STR hero in that way.

[Deleted]

I feel like kunkka as a support is a slightly worse version of disruptor.

[Lysah]

How so? Tidebringer and Torrent are both very effective farming tools.

He doesn't have the mana to spam torrent and tidebringer has a cooldown which prevents him from cleaving down jungle and such. Most of your hard farm carrys either have real cleave, the ability to farm more than one area at a time, or the ability to teleport around the map.

[PizzaSHARK]

I feel like kunkka as a support is a slightly worse version of disruptor.

I'm not sure why you'd pick Kunkka as a support role. I can get not picking him to be your main source of damage, but making him play low farm/no farm just seems like a really bad idea.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure why you'd pick Kunkka as a support role. I can get not picking him to be your main source of damage, but making him play low farm/no farm just seems like a really bad idea.

Its the only role i've ever seen him play in pro games, not seen a team run him as #1 in years.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure why you'd pick Kunkka as a support role. I can get not picking him to be your main source of damage, but making him play low farm/no farm just seems like a really bad idea.

He's an extremely item-independent hero when played in the support role; pros used to pair him with SD for Torrent setups, and Boat is a disgusting ultimate even if it never hits the enemy team due to the Rum alone. All he really needs is perhaps a Eul's.

[Grable]

Honestly, if you want farm on Kunkka you kinda need battlefury + it's great for mana regen. With early blink + tidebringer + BF cleave you're almost like Antimage with clearing jungle and lanes. Kunkka in the game I linked got like 10 minute battlefury due to some early kills, the only thing holding him back was that wild Lycan going to our jungle with Shadowblade and literally melting our tanky heroes in seconds.

[Scummer]

Its the only role i've ever seen him play in pro games, not seen a team run him as #1 in years.

I think the last time teams played him in a farming position was when everybody decided to replicate !Attackers pub success with the hero, and that only lasted a very short time cause nobody was as good with the hero.

[PizzaSHARK]

Its the only role i've ever seen him play in pro games, not seen a team run him as #1 in years.

Well you'd probably run him mid, which would make him a #2, wouldn't it? You have some ganking/countergank ability at 6 with a TP into Torrent->Boat with maybe an X in there somewhere, but mostly for a quick item. I know Lothar's is a really popular choice but I love Armlet on him. You can toggle on for Tidebringer and then toggle it off, or leave it on when you need to keep smacking someone. Just an extremely efficient item on STR heroes.

Or you could really just rush buriza or 2x crystalys. Bottle handles mana issues, or just get a soul ring.

I think the last time teams played him in a farming position was when everybody decided to replicate !Attackers pub success with the hero, and that only lasted a very short time cause nobody was as good with the hero.

Yeah, he's definitely a hero that requires some hero-specific ability. You couldn't, like, just draft him and hand him to Loda or S4 or whoever and expect them to do as well as they do with other heroes, unless they've spent a lot of time practicing with him. I feel like having a teammate practice with Kunkka would make for a good wild card, though. I really feel like he's a strong hero that goes unnoticed because he can be pretty tricky to play.

[Hermanni]

Well you'd probably run him mid, which would make him a #2, wouldn't it?

I like how ever since the 'Chinese' farm priority simplifications were posted in reddit a couple years back everyone's become an expert on the matter. "No, you can't put the highest farm prio in mid, and you absolutely can't change the priorities mid game, if you try to Riot will fine you for breaking the meta. And this new team with the best players from EU will never work, look at them they have a #3 player playing #4 they're just destined to fail!"

If something works worse in Dota than categorizing it would be oversimplifying. Sure drafting and such are easier to communicate to spectators but half the time I see anyone outside casting talking about #3's and #5's it's pretty terrible.

Nothing personal, just think that system is way overused.

[Deleted]

To me the number 1 - 5 system is perfect ( at least how i think of it)

1 - Highest farmer, or intended highest farmed

5 - Ward bitch and lowest farmer.

[Deleted]

Well you'd probably run him mid, which would make him a #2, wouldn't it? You have some ganking/countergank ability at 6 with a TP into Torrent->Boat with maybe an X in there somewhere, but mostly for a quick item. I know Lothar's is a really popular choice but I love Armlet on him. You can toggle on for Tidebringer and then toggle it off, or leave it on when you need to keep smacking someone. Just an extremely efficient item on STR heroes.

Or you could really just rush buriza or 2x crystalys. Bottle handles mana issues, or just get a soul ring.



Yeah, he's definitely a hero that requires some hero-specific ability. You couldn't, like, just draft him and hand him to Loda or S4 or whoever and expect them to do as well as they do with other heroes, unless they've spent a lot of time practicing with him. I feel like having a teammate practice with Kunkka would make for a good wild card, though. I really feel like he's a strong hero that goes unnoticed because he can be pretty tricky to play.

Chinese teams picked Kunkka quite often a few years ago. He was very, very rarely run mid; more often run as a greedy 4 with a Shadow Demon for setup.

His impact even with low farm priority is terrifically underrated. X can up the farming efficiency of your carry tremedously, Torrent is a fantastic early-game skill with setup, and Boat is a completely fucking ridiculous ult on an even more ridiculous CD.

[PizzaSHARK]

I like how ever since the 'Chinese' farm priority simplifications were posted in reddit a couple years back everyone's become an expert on the matter. "No, you can't put the highest farm prio in mid, and you absolutely can't change the priorities mid game, if you try to Riot will fine you for breaking the meta. And this new team with the best players from EU will never work, look at them they have a #3 player playing #4 they're just destined to fail!"

If something works worse in Dota than categorizing it would be oversimplifying. Sure drafting and such are easier to communicate to spectators but half the time I see anyone outside casting talking about #3's and #5's it's pretty terrible.

Nothing personal, just think that system is way overused.

It doesn't really apply anymore since 4protect1 isn't the go-to strategy these days, but I think it's just become a sort of shorthand for referring to how much farm priority that person will receive throughout the game.

[Lysah]

I disagree with the notion of farm priority to begin with, and I'm with manni on this one for one simple reason:

As I've been trying to teach all of the people that talk to me about DotA on a regular basis, when you are playing heroes that are not intended to be supports, there is nothing wrong with being supporty. People always get confused when they see a Drow get a Mekanism, but this makes much more sense than anything else if you think about it. If your ward bitch support got stomped in his lane and has no more than brown boots at 15 minutes, are you going to wait for 30 more minutes for the hero that gets no CS or jungle time to farm 2300g? You still want one of the most powerful team fight items in the game on your team, so it makes sense for one of your good farm heroes to buy it.

Item choice should be handled as a team, as should farming. Smart players will let their Ogre Magi farm Arcanes before they go back to being greedy, because that item will help you win your lane and allow Ogre to go roaming. But people get this "NO IM THE 1 ON THE TEAM" mentality in their head and bitch about their "#5" taking even one creep of gold, it's stupid. There are, at most, two heroes on any given team that need to maximize their GPM to win the arms race mid and late game, and the rest are expendable. That means the real "positions" should be more like 1/2/2/2/2 or 1/1/2/2/2.







On Kunkka:
He should probably be played as an offlane now. He doesn't need items to do the most of his team fighting early game and he is tanky enough to survive a hard lane. He can spam torrent with bottle alone because he can cast X on himself, teleport to base and be instantly back in lane. Even rank 1 lasts the full duration now so he doesn't even have to spend more than 1 point in it. And you thought the Puck orb > tp > jaunt trick was neat. He'd make a good mid against a lot of heroes with this as well, but I still think he'd get majorly dumped on by a lot of other mid picks, like pretty much any ranged hero. SF would have a field day with Kunkka mid.

[Tenjen]

just faced off against a team with one very good rat dota player. So very annoying, we lost when we thought we were in the lead.

[PizzaSHARK]

just faced off against a team with one very good rat dota player. So very annoying, we lost when we thought we were in the lead.

I still don't know whether to respect a good rat player or despise them. Like... ratting is no easier than any other kind of playstyle, but at the same time it's just so goddamned frustrating to play against :-/