[Megathread] DotA 2

[Kjalar]

Right-click from outside tower-range. Now for the next few seconds right-clicking the enemy hero does not change the tower focus. Additionally, clicking a hero and then rapidly attack-move'ing a friendly creep will direct the focus to the creep, and you take a whopping single tower hit. This also grants the short grace-period before tower retargets you, unless the creep dies.

Are you saying you always play against people that do that? Holy crap, I'm impressed. You and your opponents are better than pro's.

Also, "orb walking" (Drow's frost arrows or Clinkz' flame arrows) or using targeted spells do not refocus the tower.

Good point. Now, how many heroes can do that?

Tower dives aren't difficult. And trust me, you'll call bullshit when you see someone who knows their mechanics such that they can abuse it.

My point is this: you had a couple of bad games, where your support was too busy farming his shit and at the same time for some reason (god hates you?) you were facing a setup that can harass you easily from range. Now guess what: shit happens. And when it happens, you should try and minimize its effect on you by playing as safe as possible and staying as far away as possible from the creep wave, while still getting exp.

[Drunkenvalley]

There's a very de facto line to be drawn. Creeps just out of your tower range? That's good. It means you've got a safezone to run back into. But if the creeps are directly under tower it's far too easy to misdirect aggro and open for a dive.

I'm not one to die a lot, but it sure as shit doesn't help my already poor farm.

[Kjalar]

Also, I'm not.

Then I guess we understand each other. Sometimes games go not as we want. Sometimes our allies are utter shit (have you ever seen somebody being killed by the Tidebringer spam? I mean, nothing but the splash till like 100 HP and then a single nuke - and the guy didn't even try to eat his Tango's). The only thing we can do when this happens is to try and adapt. Sometimes that guy is your support. Sometimes that guy is your carry. Sometimes that guy is you (me). Shit happens.

[Drunkenvalley]

Are you saying you always play against people that do that? Holy crap, I'm impressed. You and your opponents are better than pro's.

No, but it becomes glaringly obvious when they know how to evade tower-hits. And those people are made much more glaringly obvious when you're "solo" (with a support over at the pullcamp doing nothing but pulling creepwave).

Good point. Now, how many heroes can do that?

Orb effects? Well... Huskar, Drow, Clinkz, Viper and Outworld Devourer. As for any ability used under tower, that's gonna be a too long list to bother putting here, don't you agree?

My point is this: you had a couple of bad games, where your support was too busy farming his shit and at the same time for some reason (god hates you?) you were facing a setup that can harass you easily from range. Now guess what: shit happens. And when it happens, you should try and minimize its effect on you by playing as safe as possible and staying as far away as possible from the creep wave.

And I did. Then we obviously lose horribly because my opponent can farm freely. And I have no farm. Just a bit of "welp fuck me rite" moment, you know? Anyhow, the aggression in huge part comes into play because I don't have an actual lane-partner.

As for "you had a couple of shit games"... I wasn't even going to make this an actual conversation. It was literally just going to be a single post of gripe about trends I see with the shitty supports I sometimes get. And then y'all went into an absolute fit calling me a scrub, fuck's sake.

[Kjalar]

As for "you had a couple of shit games"... I wasn't even going to make this an actual conversation. It was literally just going to be a single post of gripe about trends I see with the shitty supports I sometimes get. And then y'all went into an absolute fit calling me a scrub, fuck's sake.

Of course. Because it's not like people lose games because of shitty supports ONLY. People lose because of bad plays GENERALLY, regardless of roles. Trying to make it look like a trend that supports are shit and people lose because of them will always get you flamed. What else did you expect from making blanket statements like that?

[Drunkenvalley]

Trying to make it look like a trend that supports are shit and people lose because of them will always get you flamed. What else did you expect from making blanket statements like that?

Trying to make it look like a trend? No! All I have said, in all of this, is that some supports out there, that sometimes occur, have certain tendencies. If you guys are literally flaming me because you didn't read then that's pretty frigging rude, innit?

[Deleted]

Tower dives aren't difficult. And trust me, you'll call bullshit when you see someone who knows their mechanics such that they can abuse it.

Never seen this happen in my ~2000 games. Do share replay.

[Deleted]

Never seen this happen in my ~2000 games. Do share replay.

I've played ~500 games of Dota 2 and have seen the skillful version of a Tower Dive a handful of times. Have you never really seen a ~100 HP hero retreat from an enemy tower, only to survive because he reset the Tower's focus on his creeps? Of course, if your Tower Dive takes too long (speaking seconds) then the Tower will hit you for more than once.

[Deleted]

I've played ~500 games of Dota 2 and have seen the skillful version of a Tower Dive a handful of times. Have you never really seen a ~100 HP hero retreat from an enemy tower, only to survive because he reset the Tower's focus on his creeps? Of course, if your Tower Dive takes too long (speaking seconds) then the Tower will hit you for more than once.

Yeah, but that's normal. That's not abusing. That's just dropping aggro after you kill the enemy. I meant while you are killing enemy.

[Longview]

Yeah, but that's normal. That's not abusing. That's just dropping aggro after you kill the enemy. I meant while you are killing enemy.

Even if you perfected tower aggro, it wouldn't be that effective. Tower aggro would still go back to you every single time you attack-commanded an enemy hero, given that the cool down on aggro change has come off. I cannot remember the exact number, and I am unable to check since my computer broke down (looking it up on my phone would cause this entire post to disappear), but at best you would be able to dodge every other attack. That is, of course, if the creeps are hitting something, and not chasing the heroes due to aggro.

What you're describing needs a lot of variables to even happen, and is at best ineffective to the point of where you would be wasting your attention.

[Hermanni]

Again - I agree. But trying to imply that pulling makes it easy for opponents to gank a carry is... rather strange, to say the least (I'm talking about Drunkenvalley's posts).

Pulling does make it easier if your presence is all that is keeping your enemies from taking an opening on your carry.

What people are kind of not accounting for in here is that different kind of lanes have different priorities, even for traditional support-carry safelane setups. If you're playing 2v1, your priorities as a support are to prevent the enemy hero from getting much gold/xp, preventing the enemy hero from disrupting your carrys farming and maybe putting some pressure towards runes/mid if you're not needed for the first two. If you're playing 2v2, your first priority is to make sure that your carry can't be killed, then to make your carry space to farm through your presence and then to somehow try to minimize what your enemies are getting.

In a 2v2 you shouldn't be pulling unless the lane is pushed far out, and even then you moving back to pull often means that your carry can't risk going close to the creepwave when backup isn't near. If you pull unnecessarily when creeps are at your tower, you're still risking that your carry gets dived or loses too many lasthits to tower or takes too much damage. If 2 players contest your pull while your carry is farming you can't do anything, and a ruined pull pushes the lane back to enemy tower again.

In 2v1 if you really want that courier upgrade by 1:30, then you'll have to pull the second creepwave. That means you barely get to show your face on the lane after creeps clash, giving the enemy solo hero plenty of space to piss your carry off and get some easy farm. Pulling the second wave also means that you don't even know if the lane is pushing out or not, and even top tier carry players can miss lasthits to tower early on. I'd say it would be much easier to just ask to lasthit off your carry at this point than giving the enemy offlane that much space while potentially hurting your carry just so you can kill a few jungle creeps. It's good to remember that if the enemy hero is being kept out of xp range and thus can't mess with the creeps then half the reason for pulling is null. You normally shouldn't start pulling just for your own benefit until you're certain that the enemy hero isn't going to be a problem or if there's nothing else you can do about them.

[Deleted]

Timbersaw is so god damn op in pubs!

Played him last match. http://dotabuff.com/matches/280826044

I had complete free farm from the start, was in safe lane with AA against solo Slardar

[Deleted]

Timbersaw is so god damn op in pubs!

Played him last match. http://dotabuff.com/matches/280826044

I had complete free farm from the start, was in safe lane with AA against solo Slardar

I wouldn't say OP, but it's really a lot of fun. Unfortunately 90% of the time in pubs people pick 2-3 carries immediately and I prefer to go for something more supportive then Timbersaw, but on the rare occasions I got to play him I really enjoyed him regardless if the game went well for my team or not. I guess it's because he is so spammy and you are constantly throwing something or yourself around which makes him feel much more action packed then most heroes.

[reighnman]

I find timber and storm to be the most fun, storm just takes a bit longer to get going.

[Hermanni]

I find timber and storm to be the most fun, storm just takes a bit longer to get going.

Wouldn't recommend Skill Spirit to anyone, you literally have to be Dendi to pull off this challenging hero.

[Archangel Tyrael]

Anyone else having ridiculously long queues today?

Searching for a game for the past 15 min and nothing, what the hell

[NotValidAnymore]

I think matchmaking has been wonky for everyone recently. Queues seem to be a lot longer these days.

Also, is there any hero that's viable, and that isn't hated by everyone for some particular reason?

[Deleted]

I think matchmaking has been wonky for everyone recently. Queues seem to be a lot longer these days.

Also, is there any hero that's viable, and that isn't hated by everyone for some particular reason?

Yesterday i had a game where the enemy team had someone playing their first game. I've played 500 games, so you'd think i'd get enemies a bit more challenging, but there was also a guy in my team with 1300 games - so yeah, the MM is a bit broken at the moment i think. I felt sorry for that Visage though, we decided to stop ganking him in the end since he was already bearing the full force of his team.

[Archangel Tyrael]

I think matchmaking has been wonky for everyone recently. Queues seem to be a lot longer these days.

Also, is there any hero that's viable, and that isn't hated by everyone for some particular reason?

what do you mean? I don't particularly hate any hero (besides techies, fuck techies.)

[NotValidAnymore]

Storm "Skill" Spirit, for example. A lot of people seem to hate him. Same with Spirit Breaker, I hear a lot of people say he's OP.

I also played Weaver and Treant a bit before they were suddenly overpowered. It just seems people have beef with a lot of heroes.