[Megathread] DotA 2

[Charge me Doctor]

I don't think that any str carry will work without Armlet. It's just too good to skip

[Nangz]

I don't think that any str carry will work without Armlet. It's just too good to skip

It depends on if you can be active without providing right click early on. Heroes like DK, slardar or sven require other items to make their life easier ( shadowblade, blink, or bkb) before they would consider armlet, and usually after that item its too late. They should go for it if they want to fight early and don't need help initating or tanking up.

Alch doesn't need the health gain and can rush bigger items earlier. ( What goes is a 5 minute armlet if you are farming) and Doom is in the same boat.

Tiny doesn't need it, he needs attack speed.


Heroes like Bristleback, Nightstalker, Spiritbreaker could grab it situationally, its great for tower diving and gives them burst right clicks that they need early-mid game when they should have it farmed.


Only ones i'd say it is core on is Skeleton king and Lifestealer since they needs something to become at least reasonably active midgame. Chaos Knight because of the cheap illusion based properties as well as a cheap fighting item and Huskar for the health and survival manipulation.

[Sarevokcz]

whats the interaction between the ulti and toggled armlet? does it heal you?

[Deleted]

whats the interaction between the ulti and toggled armlet? does it heal you?

Yes but it's only like 200HP

[Hermanni]

Tiny doesn't need it, he needs attack speed.

To be fair, toggled Armlet is 25 IAS.

[Nangz]

To be fair, toggled Armlet is 25 IAS.

Sure, but for less he could buy a hyperstone to build into better items and give double the IAS.

[Deleted]

Tiny doesn't need it, he needs attack speed.

Tiny doesn't need it because he can't be an effective carry without Aghanim's Scepter, and by the time you've farmed Aghs, the game is generally past the point where Armlet is effective. If it's not, you're farming fast enough to skip it anyway.

[Lysah]

i found this to be a pretty good abaddon carry build

I just lost to carry Abaddon yesterday dontcha know

[PizzaSHARK]

Make up your mind.

What did she say that makes those two blurbs contradict each other? BKB isn't a carry item. Blink Dagger isn't a carry item. Both are utility items. You see BKB on carries pretty often because being chain stunned means you aren't walking up to people and right-clicking them to death, and because eating 1k damage from stuns alone is usually a bad thing if you don't want to die. But that doesn't provide anything that actually significantly improves your right-click damage, just your ability to right-click.

Also, I suspect that it was Nyx doing most of the hard work in the game you linked, because if you "decided it was time for carry crystal maiden" on a team like that, you're significantly worse than very low-level pubs.

lol

If your main damage dealer gets targetted by those spells, then your main damage dealer can't do the thing that he's supposed to do, i.e. deal damage. If your main damage dealer gets targetted by those spells, and has them removed in under 1 second, those spells are wasted. I really will say nothing more on this subject now, because I suspect you are being deliberately obtuse.

Abbadon is not his team's "main damage dealer", not even when played as a carry. Abbadon is the same as a Dragon Knight, or a Leoric, or a Bristleback - his job is to run in and be such a nuisance and such a colossal pain in the ass that the enemy team HAS to do something about him... but everything they're to him is something they aren't doing to Abbadon's "important" team members. He isn't there to kill people, not really... he's just there to fuck up the enemy team's positioning and coordination by virtue of being an annoying little shit, which lets his team poop on the enemy team while they're too busy cursing about Frostmourne or whatever.

How is Abbadon's ability to use Aphotic Shield or throw shitcoils around at all affected by him building more aggressively and playing more aggressively? Abbadon's ability to "support" isn't reduced at all by playing him as a carry, but the inverse isn't true - if you build him as a support, you can't play him aggressively.

So knowing that... why would you ever play him as a support?

[Deleted]

Abbadon's ability to "support" isn't reduced at all by playing him as a carry,

Is there a single hero in the game who gets worse with farm.

[Lysah]

You don't have to farm to play a hero as a carry. To BE the carry, maybe, to play like one, no.

[Hermanni]

Sure, but for less he could buy a hyperstone to build into better items and give double the IAS.

True, but finishing up those Hyperstone items is also twice the cost.

[Deleted]

You don't have to farm to play a hero as a carry. To BE the carry, maybe, to play like one, no.

Yeah but there's not a hero in the game on whom buying a Daedalus would stop you entirely from casting your support spells. Maybe Tide if that's all you have but it's not like Abaddon never runs oom either.

[Deleted]

What did she say that makes those two blurbs contradict each other?

She said that the carry is the person that has the most gold. In this specific case, the crystal maiden was the person with the most gold, yet she was unable to carry. Blink dagger isn't a carry item, but I would definitely say that BKB is. Anything that improves your ability to right click improves your damage output, which makes you a more effective carry. I wasn't exactly saying that CM is unable to carry (anyone can carry if they have a big enough gold advantage), I was saying that having the most gold /=/ being the carry.

Abbadon is not his team's "main damage dealer", not even when played as a carry. Abbadon is the same as a Dragon Knight, or a Leoric, or a Bristleback - his job is to run in and be such a nuisance and such a colossal pain in the ass that the enemy team HAS to do something about him... but everything they're to him is something they aren't doing to Abbadon's "important" team members. He isn't there to kill people, not really... he's just there to fuck up the enemy team's positioning and coordination by virtue of being an annoying little shit, which lets his team poop on the enemy team while they're too busy cursing about Frostmourne or whatever.

An Ostarion (see I can use hero first names too) is the sort of hero that you'd want being the main damage dealer, because the only place to lane him is in the safe lane. He's not the best at it, but it's the position he's best at, if you see what I mean. DK is normally played as a tanky initiator right now in the pro scene, but he also has the potential to be a right-click powerhouse - but again, he's not the best. I think the problem here is that we are not agreeing on the definition of a carry. To me, the carry is the hero that someone who doesn't know much about dota is doing all the work for his team, i.e. the main damage dealer.

How is Abbadon's ability to use Aphotic Shield or throw shitcoils around at all affected by him building more aggressively and playing more aggressively? Abbadon's ability to "support" isn't reduced at all by playing him as a carry, but the inverse isn't true - if you build him as a support, you can't play him aggressively.

So knowing that... why would you ever play him as a support?

OK, this is a decent point, but the main reason I would play him as a support is because there is a limited amount of farm available, and it could go to someone who needs it more than Abaddon. Also, in pubs, the ability to do something often does not matter so much as the will to do something. How many normal (or high) bracket publords are going to save the ward bitch who's been winning the game for them so far, when they could keep all their abilities for themselves? This doesn't apply to people with common sense, but I doubt anyone here would actually pick Abaddon in a -cm game if they actually were serious about winning.

[Lysah]

Yeah but there's not a hero in the game on whom buying a Daedalus would stop you entirely from casting your support spells. Maybe Tide if that's all you have but it's not like Abaddon never runs oom either.

Try getting a Eul's on Jakiro to guarantee you set up ice paths or an Atos on AA to combo with cold feet. Plenty of heroes are better with support items, Abaddon is not.

crystal maiden was the person with the most gold, yet she was unable to carry.

Then he bought the wrong items and is bad and lost the game for his team. First rule of carrying is that if you don't know how to do it you let someone else have the gold.

And I would pick Abaddon in a -cm game if I was serious about winning. There are very few heroes I would avoid picking in CM. Meepo is about the only one that comes to mind immediately, and that's only because you would have to build your entire team around him and last pick him, which would only work once before people saw your strategy in advance. There is more than one way to play DotA, even if the professional scene leads us to believe otherwise.

Oh, I would never pick Broodmother. Christ that hero is just godawful. Maybe if you have last pick and you notice your enemy team neglected to pick a single source of AoE.

[Deleted]

Try getting a Eul's on Jakiro to guarantee you set up ice paths or an Atos on AA to combo with cold feet. Plenty of heroes are better with support items, Abaddon is not.

Not counting initiators like Tide there are like 3 support heroes in the pool who would be seriously dependent on items like Atos/Euls/Blink.
Also
Urn, Vlads, possibly Necrobook, Halberd, Drums, Medallion.
All great support items, all of them at least decent on Abaddon. No you're not a 5 but nobody said 5 they just said support.

I'll admit that in the few support games I've played as him I've often been confused as to what to buy next.
If there's really nothing I can just pick up a casual Maelstrom though.

[Lysah]

Go shadow blade armlet mask of madness, you won't have to support because enemy team will be dead.

And I don't see why you would discount initiators. Some heroes like Sand King almost require Veil on top of Blink to do their job. Zeus will do far better with force staff than he will with daedalus (and he's even a carry hero!). Trying to pretend that Abaddon is remotely like any of the actual supports in the game in his item dependance seems to me like you're just playing devil's advocate and arguing just to argue.

And I would absolutely get drums on Abaddon. I get drums on plenty of carrys.

[Deleted]

Go shadow blade armlet mask of madness, you won't have to support because enemy team will be dead.

Buy rapier every game enemy dies enemy can't take rapier flawless plan.

And I don't see why you would discount initiators.

Because the only support item they need is blink and nothing else unless they're Batrider. On a few like Sand King veil would be okay but far from as good as Atos AA

Trying to pretend that Abaddon is remotely like any of the actual supports in the game in his item dependance

What.
All you need is an urn and boots.

seems to me like you're just playing devil's advocate and arguing just to argue.

Or maybe I disagree.

[Lysah]

Buy rapier every game enemy dies enemy can't take rapier flawless plan.

Don't be ridiculous, you have to plan to die as Abaddon. Your hope is to have enough health that killing you soaks most of their damage so your teammates all stay alive. That's what hybrid carrys do for their team.

I would forever disagree that veil is just "okay" on sand king, that hero's ultimate doesn't actually hurt without it, the blink burrowstrike is way scarier.

I don't know, I guess I'm biased because of all the games I play. People build Abaddon as a support and I flatten them, they build him as a carry and they flatten me, pretty much 100% of the time both ways.

Also, you'll be happy to note that Necro + backup healers really is stupidly difficult to stop
I'm not really sure what to do about it, AA ult I guess. Of course, it didn't help that SB had SB in 9 minutes, but I doubt we would've been able to defend barracks anyway.

[Hermanni]

An Ostarion is the sort of hero that you'd want being the main damage dealer, because the only place to lane him is in the safe lane.

This makes so little sense my head is hurting a bit.


And to be fair, there seems to be one one common misconception in all discussions like this. Inverted gold dependency is a good indicator of a hero's ability to function as a (hard) support. Low gold dependency, however, says absolutely nothing about a hero's ability to carry. The fact that a hero can function with low gold does not mean that high gold is wasted on them.