[Megathread] DotA 2

[PizzaSHARK]

there are at most 3 or 4 teams that consistently place better in tournaments

whats your tier list look like if they're not a top tier team

I dunno, a team that doesn't play like it's just a really high-rated pub? So many teams are disbanding and reforming under ridiculous names that it's hard to keep track of them sometimes. Granted I'm probably biased against C9 because I really just don't like EE or his fandom.

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You can easily see on how much pressure he is, was it game 1 or 2 on PA, dont remember vs VG or secret, he died with blink off CD for good 2 sec where he could have escaped easily to fountain with blink to teammate.

I saw a gif the other day of a 4 man chrono+ravage on C9 against VG, I don't know how that happens without some serious lack of game sense. I've heard that VG was ahead all game, though, so maybe they were just tilting and that was the cherry on top.

EE buys Bfury on PA in virtually all his games, so I'm already gonna call bs on his PA play. I've heard people pushing a Medallion->Manta Style build. The medallion makes sense, but I have trouble seeing the manta being better than SnY for her since she doesn't usually build stats to take good advantage of the illusions. Then again, manta removes a lot of buffs when it's activated, so maybe that's the major reason for them doing it. I just think people need to stop wasting 4400 gold on Bfury in games that don't call for it (which is almost all of them.)

Than another topic is playing on LAN. Big LANs are never easy. Discussing the difference what makes LAN so special is hard, unless you did it yourself - at least few times on world level, though even local levels lans are stressfull but you tend to be less stressed about the overall outcome since you might not win or lose so much.

LANs make it feel more "real." You're there in the little booths, the crowd's going nuts, and even if it's a small pool, the impact is more obvious and more immediate than if it's just a regular online game.

Most people can experience this to a limited degree just by playing, like, Magic at the local card shop and then attending a major Magic event. Even though you're playing at the same level and against opponents of a roughly similar level, it's more stressful because... I dunno, it just feels more "real." And that's just playing in the little piles of funsies games, it's going to be a lot more potent if you're actually being watched by others.

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What video cards are you guys using. Personally my games been running flawlessly. But my brother showed me something similar constantly happening to him.

I've got an ATi card, haven't had any lag like that in a while. Used to get a few seconds of freezing when heroes first loaded into the game, but haven't had that for a couple of months now.

[veiledy0]

What video cards are you guys using. Personally my games been running flawlessly. But my brother showed me something similar constantly happening to him.

Nvidia GT9600

[PizzaSHARK]

Easy way to improve ranked matchmaking: when you're locked out of ranked for any reason, like LPQ games, you're locked out of ranked for twice the duration of the penalty. So if you have to play 16 LPQ games, you have to play an additional 16 regular games before you're allowed to queue for ranked again. If you're muted, you should be locked out of ranked games, and you'd be locked out of ranked for twice the duration of your muted status... so if you're muted for 5 hours, it'll be 10 hours before you can queue for ranked again.

Ranked is for people who want to take the game a bit more seriously... so penalties should be harsher there. Right now there are still way too many people in there that have bad manners, and since these people are likely getting slapped with penalties frequently, this will keep ranked clear from them a little more effectively without denying them the ability to play.

[Sorcereria]

Imo get rid of that penalty system for once. Getting in LPQ for 3 games just becouse I made force staff on sniper vs clock with the rest of the team feed and afk. True story.

[PizzaSHARK]

Imo get rid of that penalty system for once. Getting in LPQ for 3 games just becouse I made force staff on sniper vs clock with the rest of the team feed and afk. True story.

You don't get LPQ or muted unless you've consistently been getting reported. If you get sent to LPQ or muted from reports, it's because you've been doing something to earn it, repeatedly.

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Starting to see more PAs skipping the Bfury. I like it, because people are finally realizing Bfury is a very situational item on her (or more likely, the pros FINALLY figured it out and the people are blindly copying the pros), but at the same time, it also means it's much harder to win against PA since more PA players aren't being idiots and afk farming for 20 mins instead of winning the game at 25 mins.

Still not sure if I like the Manta Style trend on her, but I'm definitely a fan of the Medallion of Courage. Barely costs more than aquila but probably provides a lot more damage and versatility, especially by opening up an early Roshan. Medallion -> Desolator is probably really gross.

[Sorcereria]

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[Drunkenvalley]

The assumption that LPQ = you deserved it is getting ahead of yourself. Just because you've either not been in LPQ or not been thrown into LPQ for 'wrong' reasons does not mean it doesn't happen.

Though more comically, people apparently think perpetual LPQ is "deserved", whatever the reason. I got thrown into LPQ once and wound up having to do like 3 times more matches because well into the game the server went "nope, fuck this, we won't record anything this match".

[Sorcereria]

Is bounty rune supposed to give vision high ground when picked?

I had a game where I had a WTF moment:
Pudge picked bounty rune and out of nowhere secured hook from pudge. Before picking rune he had no vision on me, no ward either. Looking at replay the rune gave him a high ground vision around ~1100 radius or so catching me in fog on radiant above stairs. The best part it was night time too... I was like, ok , esange but AFAIK its disabled now unless they already got around loophooking it.

[PizzaSHARK]

The assumption that LPQ = you deserved it is getting ahead of yourself. Just because you've either not been in LPQ or not been thrown into LPQ for 'wrong' reasons does not mean it doesn't happen.

Though more comically, people apparently think perpetual LPQ is "deserved", whatever the reason. I got thrown into LPQ once and wound up having to do like 3 times more matches because well into the game the server went "nope, fuck this, we won't record anything this match".

You really don't get into LPQ for reports if you didn't earn it. You could've made a case for "punishing innocents" during beta, when they were tinkering with the system, but the threshold is now so high that you really do have to work hard at it to get into LPQ from reports.

I mean, you realize you can only be punished once per game, right? It doesn't matter if 9 people report you and you abandon the game, you only get hit once. Abandons will quickly get you into LPQ, but it takes numerous reports within a short period of time to get muted or thrown in LPQ.

tl;dr: if you are in LPQ for being reported, you've been consistently doing something to earn it.

[PizzaSHARK]

Bloodseeker is super good now, especially as a sort of support. You can go to lane with someone and use Bloodrage to help them regen with last hits so they can stay in lane and save their consumables and also means he can kill small and some medium camps for extra gold/XP. I guess he doesn't have much lane presence, but Bloodrage+Blood Rite is still effective early in the game, or he can Bloodrage a hero with more damage output. Giving Bloodrage to a ganking mid or hero like Timbersaw is nasty.

He's good at farming when opportunity presents itself since Bloodrage+Blood Rite is typically enough to almost completely wipe out a creep wave and does tons of damage to stacked camps (easy mop-up with Bloodrage healing.) Rupture is also really, really good now... less useful as a pure damage ability and more useful as a control ability, especially since it goes through BKB, has long range, and a short cooldown. I did notice that using Blood Rite and Rupture on cooldown was pretty tough on mana, but treads+drum fixed that pretty easily. I guess you could run Mekansm on him if you bought manaboots or maybe even Soul Ring, but seems to me that Crimson Guard might be a better choice.

Force Staff is generally useful on him for pushing people into Blood Rite or causing a little extra damage from Rupture in addition to its usual uses, and a Skull Basher or Eul's are nice for preventing people from just TP'ing out when they get Ruptured (though forcing a TP isn't exactly a bad thing.)

Not sure what kind of items I'd get on him if he were being played as a core/carry, though. I guess just the usual things like Basher, Buriza, etc? He could be a strong Armlet user since Bloodrage heals him for so much. Doesn't gain bonus damage from the +STR but still gets the huge boost to HP along with all the other benefits Armlet provides.

[minteK917]

He really did not change much in his role, if anything he was nerfed (if this was possible). His silence is aoe so its better early game, but it does not pass magic immunity anymore. His global passive view was massively nerfed. As a core he still suffer from the same problems he had, hes shitty, scaling like poop and in general is a terrible right clicker vs almost any right clicker. Its just never smart to focus on bs farm, because his passives were already too junk to be a carry, now its even more so. BS team fight with him early, put your other carries ahead, youll never be able to count on a blood seeker accomplishing anything good past the 35 minutes mark.

[Deleted]

I don't like the new BS, its impossible to 1v1 him if he had Blademail and you don't have bkb - really stupid hero.


Also new PL, had 6 slotted as AM and get destryoed 1v1 against a 4 slotted pl, madness.

[PizzaSHARK]

Blade Mail being amp'd by Bloodrage is pretty dumb. I still haven't seen much PL, which is weird - it sure sounds like he's super strong right now, and people usually flock to the really strong heroes when they want to rack up a bunch of easy wins.

Speaking of Blade Mail, the reasoning for getting it on the "new" Profit build is that Profit uses all of the stats it provides - damage, armor, INT, and while he doesn't have much HP, the active could still be useful for adding a few hundred damage to someone before you die. Would this reasoning apply to other INT heroes that benefit from having extra armor and can make good use of the INT+damage? QoP, Silencer, OD? What about a Death Prophet, Lina, or Zeus?

[minteK917]

Blade Mail being amp'd by Bloodrage is pretty dumb. I still haven't seen much PL, which is weird - it sure sounds like he's super strong right now, and people usually flock to the really strong heroes when they want to rack up a bunch of easy wins.

Speaking of Blade Mail, the reasoning for getting it on the "new" Profit build is that Profit uses all of the stats it provides - damage, armor, INT, and while he doesn't have much HP, the active could still be useful for adding a few hundred damage to someone before you die. Would this reasoning apply to other INT heroes that benefit from having extra armor and can make good use of the INT+damage? QoP, Silencer, OD? What about a Death Prophet, Lina, or Zeus?

They dont flock to PL because hes super strong in some situation and super weak in others. His escape move is stronger when your hp is still decent and when you are tanky. But if you are trying to save your life in a crazy clutch way, its shittier then an invisibility. His illusions takes ridiculously huge damage, except the one that doesent do any damage. Hes super OP when nobody has cleave/aoe, hes absolute trash when someone does. He also cant split push anymore, the illusions last too little time.

[Keldarin]

They dont flock to PL because hes super strong in some situation and super weak in others. His escape move is stronger when your hp is still decent and when you are tanky. But if you are trying to save your life in a crazy clutch way, its shittier then an invisibility. His illusions takes ridiculously huge damage, except the one that doesent do any damage. Hes super OP when nobody has cleave/aoe, hes absolute trash when someone does. He also cant split push anymore, the illusions last too little time.

If you pick him against the right line up, he's a real bitch to deal with in any teamfight. If you don't have enough cleave, it's better to just avoid fights completely and focus solely on splitpushing their base.

[Deleted]

Blade Mail being amp'd by Bloodrage is pretty dumb. I still haven't seen much PL, which is weird - it sure sounds like he's super strong right now, and people usually flock to the really strong heroes when they want to rack up a bunch of easy wins.

PL can be pretty hard countered in the draft. He stomps pugs as he is rarely counterpicked and is hard to defeat solo, so the level of teamplay from your normal pub match is not enough, he gets a load of solo kills and snowballs hard, and pretty soon you have an army of PL illusions thats nigh on unstoppable.

Competitive...well, the coordination is there to lock him down and make his life miserable.

[PizzaSHARK]

Is it just me or does Axe seem very strong right now? Nerfs to BKB mean Berserker's Call gets better and better the later the game goes since it has an extremely short cooldown and pierces BKB, and cumulative buffs over a few patches give him a lot of presence in lane (not that he ever lacked it.)

[Sorcereria]

Idk, I always shit on offensive axe if he tries to be remotly usefull on lane with pretty any pick. Not to mention if you offlane and enemy axe offlanes too, 2 TPs, 2 ganks and problem solves itself.

[Jester Joe]

I actually like it oddly enough.

[PizzaSHARK]

Toss Luna onto the pile of heroes that've been rendered pretty much pointless due to power creep. I can't see any reason to pick her over other farm-heavy carries. Spectre requires a bunch of farm but is deadly pretty much as soon as she hits 7 if you max Desolate, Dusa is Dusa, etc. BKB nerfs hit her really hard too since she basically requires BKB to not get bent immediately in any fight, plus blinker being massively overpowered and therefore everyone having blinker kind of makes her ability to scoot around really fast pretty moot.

I guess she has a ton of teamfight damage if she survives long enough to get lots of items, but a lot of heroes have that with less farm or less vulnerability. Dunno what they can do to buff Luna up to be a viable pick again, nerfing blinker may just be a better choice honestly.