[Megathread] DotA 2

[StrawberryZebra]

I agree, MK on release was too strong. Working out if he was strong because of his kit, his numbers or quite simply people not knowing how to play against him is the hard part. It's not like when Bristleback or Techies were new, plenty of people who'd played Dota 1 knew how what they did and how to deal with them and the knowledge spread to players who didn't know very quickly.

A completely new hero adds an extra set of variables that are harder to assess than just raw power. I disagree that it was MK's raw power alone that was giving him huge laning advantages. Thats not to say it didn't play a part, but it's not the whole story. I don't think we'll really know how much was MK's power and how much was his opponents inexperience until he's added to Captains mode and gets into pro play, it's about as close to scientific conditions as you can get.

[6k MMR Lolicon]

Another thing to consider is that the vast majority of DOTA players do not approach a new patch with any sort of plan in mind and this is not something that the game should be balanced around.

When Monkey King came out I went through all of his abilities and even with no prior DOTA1 experience I already knew that his gimmick is to bait the opponent into committing to a gank, get to three stacks of Jingu and then Boundless Strike to collect the tears of his enemies as he lifesteals back to full and they die. This is fine because it can be played around - rush MK down and do not let him get to three stacks (which is easy before he gets Echo Saber) or kite him when he does get to three stacks.

That is not to say that the hero is not overtuned.

The nerf that MK needs is to his ultimate. With the right items Wukong's Command becomes like a double duration Chronosphere where the carry applies his own attack to everyone stuck inside for the whole duration which is completely insane. Yes, you can swap him out with Vengeful Spirit or try to make a Force Staff play, but I don't think that the game needs another Omniknight where the hero singlehandedly wins games unless you go for very specific counters such as dominating a Satyr Banisher or rushing Diffusal Blade on your carry.

[Lysah]

He's a strong laner, no question. I'm not so sure he really is the best though, being brand new he's got the upper hand on people who don't know how to play against him for one. On the other hand, you've also got people who don't know how to play him also picking him so it's also hard to tell if he's too strong right now as well.

I've seen Timbersaw give him a good run for his money however. Being able to chop down the tree he's hiding on nets you a 4 second stun in which to land a solid Chakram, or just to whack him a couple of times, whichever is more appropriate at the time.

I think the issue I have with him is that he doesn't need his tree leaping bullshit at all, I saw that "tip" all over reddit, too - just cut his tree down LOL! As if 99% of players ever even use the tree except for pseudo-shadow blade sneaky ganks, most of the lane phase is him just walk back and forth smacking you until he has jingu and then one shotting you, trees never come into play at all because there's no reason to use them.

[StrawberryZebra]

I think the issue I have with him is that he doesn't need his tree leaping bullshit at all, I saw that "tip" all over reddit, too - just cut his tree down LOL! As if 99% of players ever even use the tree except for pseudo-shadow blade sneaky ganks, most of the lane phase is him just walk back and forth smacking you until he has jingu and then one shotting you, trees never come into play at all because there's no reason to use them.

It's not uncommon to see people using it as a gap closer, particularly on ranged heroes who MK couldn't reach in lane otherwise. I have, and still do, see MK's get caught out by having their tree cut down, but it's becoming less and less regular as people learn how to play him better. You're right in that he doesn't strictly need it to win, but it's a useful skill for him to have. Despite his slippery nature, his real strength is just man-fighting with people, there are very few heroes he won't beat by just trading hits.

[Longview]

the best part about monkey king is how he can two-shot supports before 10 minutes with only phase boots and blight stone from 300 range

yea that parts pretty good i think

[theostrichsays]

Have a 70% winrate so far with Winter Wyvern, my Lich winrate has plummeted. I figured with all the right clickers I see, his frost armor would matter a bit more but so far it hasn't.

I've been trying like crazy to make Magnus work as a support, and some games it works like a charm (one game with an Ursa working our jungle then smoke ganking before heading back to jungles with empower was amazing) while other games, I'm mana starved the whole time and worthless. Plus I ulted and Skewered the wrong way once... I've been nervous to try him since then.

[Lysah]

I think Lich got nerfed pretty hard by the changes. His main benefit is keeping a lane "won" with sacrifice and denying an enemy a significant amount of exp/farm, but the changes to runes and jungle and exp overall makes sacrifice less impactful which really hurts his early game advantage. His ult is still pure garbage, he's still made of paper himself and contributes nothing to a team late game unless he gets 25 and can skill his free skadi passive.

If you want non meta support picks, try Invoker. He's honestly garbage as a mid now that they nerfed forge spirits, but he makes a pretty dynamite support imo. With the right hero that can proc cold snap, you can destroy most lanes and you can transition into urn > euls/aghs and become a carry late game, all he needs is levels for his spells to work. Now that invoke doesn't need to be leveled and he has an extra exp% talent, he's much better at playing from behind and doesn't really need items to work. Quas Invoker supporting a Jugg, for example, is free kills all day (blade fury proccing cold snap the instant the ministun cooldown is up).

[6k MMR Lolicon]

I think Lich's ultimate is not inherently garbage, since the damage potential of a level 1 Chain Frost can reach up to 1680 damage, but it does have the drawback of being very difficult to land without some kind of outside utility spell to keep the enemy players from wandering outside of the bounce range. Lich ends up being a good complement to cores like Faceless Void or Puck, although the cores are providing the utility here while the support is providing much of the damage in this combo, which is a little weird, but it can definitely work.

One of my main pet peeves with Lich right now is that, as you've pointed out, he is inherently better suited for a slower metagame (which 7.0 is not), and using Sacrifice efficiently means that your safe lane is not pushing its tower as fast as it could. So, while the enemy carry has finished securing some map control and gold for himself by pushing in your offlane tower... your carry has more trouble doing the same since his creep waves are constantly one creep short.

Lich is still a very safe offlaner that can be drafted to provide a bit of a survivability buffer against physical damage drafts and desolator heroes, but I would not currently pick him as a catch all support when he lacks silences, stuns, heals or the ability to do any kind of physical damage.

Unrelated: the +damage talents are fun and in some cases batshit overpowered. Tidehunter with +50 damage at Level 10? Yes please!

[StrawberryZebra]

I think Lich got nerfed pretty hard by the changes. His main benefit is keeping a lane "won" with sacrifice and denying an enemy a significant amount of exp/farm, but the changes to runes and jungle and exp overall makes sacrifice less impactful which really hurts his early game advantage. His ult is still pure garbage, he's still made of paper himself and contributes nothing to a team late game unless he gets 25 and can skill his free skadi passive.

It's a shame, Lich has been a favorite of mine for a long time now. Lich himself is the same as he's always been, the problem is the game as changed too much around him for him to be a worthwhile pick anymore. It happens to pretty much all heroes at one time or another, but it's more acute this time due to the huge balance changes we've seen recently.

How do you go about fixing him though? If he just gets straight up numbers buffs until he's strong again then he becomes rediculously overpowered when we get the next set of sweeping balance changes. I think they tried to do this more through his talent choices than direct buffs with the extra right click bonuses at levels 20 and 25, but that's too little too late really, especially for a support who'll probably be lucky to reach 20 by the time the game ends. If he gets a mini-rework of sorts to make him a more suitable pick for the meta without directly increacing his power then there's a good chance he ends up being benched again as soon as we get the next patch and he's in exactly the same situation.

[Longview]

the clan_iraq right click lich build is better than ever

[Lysah]

How do you go about fixing him though? If he just gets straight up numbers buffs until he's strong again then he becomes rediculously overpowered when we get the next set of sweeping balance changes. I think they tried to do this more through his talent choices than direct buffs with the extra right click bonuses at levels 20 and 25, but that's too little too late really, especially for a support who'll probably be lucky to reach 20 by the time the game ends. If he gets a mini-rework of sorts to make him a more suitable pick for the meta without directly increacing his power then there's a good chance he ends up being benched again as soon as we get the next patch and he's in exactly the same situation.

Either revert his sacrifice nerf so that he has more power in the lane phase again or give his ultimate a projectile speed increase and make him more of a team fighter. Right now you can't really expect his ult to bounce more than once or twice before the enemy team spreads out, and I would usually say forcing the enemy team to spread out is powerful on its own, but as long as people are buying hurricane pikes left and right and every hero has 450 movespeed it doesn't really do that much. The rest of his kit does what it needs to do but where other supports have amazing ults chain frost is just sad and unreliable. Back in the dota allstars days chain frost bounced instantly and was faster, and it was a pretty damn scary ultimate.

[StrawberryZebra]

The rest of his kit does what it needs to do but where other supports have amazing ults chain frost is just sad and unreliable. Back in the dota allstars days chain frost bounced instantly and was faster, and it was a pretty damn scary ultimate.

Chain Frost might be a good place to start but, as we've seen with CM, it's a very slippery slope. There's only so much power you can add on to it before it starts becoming absurd, it's already one of the most damaging spells available in game and is far more usable than other big team fight nukes due to it's fire and forget nature. If it does keep just getting buffed to the point where its both hugely damaging and very reliable then it needs to have some way for it to be consistently stopped. Otherwise it'll push him leagues above the likes of CM, WD, Jakiro etc.

Perhaps a good place to start might be by allowing Chain Frost to prioritise bouncing to Enemy heroes before making other changes. It would give Lich a much more reliable way of capitalising on his early game advantages by having a more consistent way to convert it into kills post level 6. At the very least it would stop those awful Chain Frosts that hit the Hero you targeted then bounce harmlessly through the creep wave and off into the jungle somewhere. If that's not enough then sure, buff Sacrifice too. I would be happy to leave him in a poor spot as a team fighter later on in the game, in exchange for cementing him as the guy who can win more or less any lane no matter the match up.

[Hotmail]

And all of this considering that the primary counter to Lich ult is not even spreading appart - it's just to have enough garbage targets (illusions/creeps/treants/whatever) nearby to soak up all 10 of the bounces, so that you can just power through it during the team fight (same as with Luna or Juggernaut's ultimate). This works especially well with a Pipe of Insight.

A good starting point for buffing Chain Frost would be giving it a minor AoE component, rescaling the amount of bounces and then changing the Aghs effect so that it can also harmlessly bounce to allies if there are no other enemy targets nearby.

In the end I still think that if you drafted Lich without at the very least a Disruptor or Dark Seer on the team to mess with the other team's movements, then it was probably not the best pick in the first place.

- - - Updated - - -

Quick update to my fans: I am currently 4400 with a 78% Dazzle pick rate, and I expect to be 4500 very soon. I just wanted to thank you all SO much for letting me win while I'm ironman'ing it up on the HARDEST ROLE IN THE GAME, and I look forward to playing Winter Wyvern all the way to 4.8k <3

[6k MMR Lolicon]

Quick update to my fans: I am currently 4400 with a 78% Dazzle pick rate, and I expect to be 4500 very soon. I just wanted to thank you all SO much for letting me win while I'm ironman'ing it up on the HARDEST ROLE IN THE GAME, and I look forward to playing Winter Wyvern all the way to 4.8k <3

I know, right? It is almost as if someone is reading all the inane bullshit that you post on these forums.

Besides, how do you even know that they are letting you win?

[Lysah]

I would be okay with compromising that chain frost instantly kills illusions/summons no matter how tanky they are.
@above
I actually think support might be the best role to play to gain MMR right now.

[EqualWin]

it never was imo, its always carry/mid


anyway, magic Ember is so FUCKing fun and good, i hope it doesn't get nerfed xD

[Hotmail]

I know, right? It is almost as if someone is reading all the inane bullshit that you post on these forums.

Aw, don't be silly.

I actually think support might be the best role to play to gain MMR right now.

Thing is, how can you have the highest impact on a game when your role has the lowest average net worth? DOTA is a game of gold and items.

Granted, supports that can transition to a semi-carry role are strong at the moment, but a mid that doesn't get roamed on too much is still going to be the queen of the chessboard - unless there are some really weird trades and a lot of feeding going on.

anyway, magic Ember is so FUCKing fun and good, i hope it doesn't get nerfed xD

You know that a hero is strong when all they need is a Veil of Discord to solo just about anyone... and the damage is AoE...

I've been in many games where some 4.1k Ember Spirit and his two supports would have 3v5'd my entire team if I hadn't managed to farm a fast Mek in the offlane.

That being said, I'm not too sure about the Octarine Core followup to the build. There are a lot of games where I feel like a Shivas (for team fight control) or an AC (for pushing) would accomplish a lot more.

[Deleted]

the clan_iraq right click lich build is better than ever

w00t, is this build for real?

[EqualWin]

That being said, I'm not too sure about the Octarine Core followup to the build. There are a lot of games where I feel like a Shivas (for team fight control) or an AC (for pushing) would accomplish a lot more.

octarine his best item by far, at lvl 25 with it you can perma chain two people.

I'm not sure either, im going veils into travels 99% of the games, then i think blink is core but i barely get it, usually i go for radiance/maelstrom (lost most of the games with maelstrom xD) then octarine/manta for the meme, or shivas, dagon etc.


veils dagon is pretty fun as well

[Lysah]

Thing is, how can you have the highest impact on a game when your role has the lowest average net worth? DOTA is a game of gold and items.

Granted, supports that can transition to a semi-carry role are strong at the moment, but a mid that doesn't get roamed on too much is still going to be the queen of the chessboard - unless there are some really weird trades and a lot of feeding going on.


You know that a hero is strong when all they need is a Veil of Discord to solo just about anyone... and the damage is AoE...

It's all about controlling the early and mid game and setting up your idiot pleb teammates to snowball while preventing the enemies from doing so. You can grab bounties and with those and a few assists easily pay for all the support items you need, and often a simple force staff is all you will need to buy before the game is won. There's even a post on top of dota reddit right now about a guy who easily climbed 1k MMR spamming Tree, the ultimate anti snowball hero.