[Megathread] DotA 2

[StrawberryZebra]

Only way I can see them helping the support role is by adding extremely stat inefficient items that increase passive GPM, like the stat sticks that supports buy in league of legends. And you can imagine the tears that will happen if DotA copies league. No to mention, with the way DotA works and how heavily the game is based around having a gold lead, it would probably get massively abused by semicarry heroes that don't need early game items like Leshrac etc.

It would certainly be one way of doing it. I personally like the idea of the Spellthief's Edge item and its upgrades that LoL has. Its got a nice balance of risk vs reward and actively encourages supports to do more than just stand around watching the lane play out.

If Dota was to lift anything from LoL, it should certainly be their pings. They're far clearer and intuitive than the ones in Dota at the moment. Unfortunately we're not allowed to have nice things simply because LoL has them. I don't think I'll ever really understand that attitude, good ideas are good ideas no matter where they come from.

[Deleted]

I was going with the assumption that they'd be slightly less useless on account of being higher leveled. Most people I see tri laning end up either spending most of their time in lane and doing nothing, therefore causing their carry to be underleveled, or spend their time messing about in the jungle causing them to be underleveled and their carry to be on the receiving end of a beat down from Centaur. Very rarely do I see the other teams offlaner zoned out of XP range so they usually end up getting ahead in levels which almost entirely defeats the point of having a tri lane in the first place. As Lyssa said, if you're not winning your trilane, you're losing.

Come to think of it, the only time I really see tri lanes doing well is when they spend their time aggressively looking for kills on the other teams offlaner.



You and me both. I think the main issue here really is that playing a support, especially a teams only support, can be extremely unrewarding. If your team is losing I'd go as far as to say its an outright miserable experience. Couple that with your team mates having unrealistic expectations about what you can ward and the responsibility that comes along with it and its easy to see why people would want to avoid it. Also having practically no gold income means probably the most exciting item you can look forward to is a pair of Arcane boots. I think Support as a role should probably be looked at more closely, players tend to avoid it for good enough reasons for it to warrant it.

I get through support games my getting in character with voice chat, especially with Witchdoctor we may not always win, but I'm going to enjoy myself nevertheless. And I've noticed I get more commends and invites from games where I mess about a bit and make sure we all have fun, regardless of the actual game outcome.

Then again I like playing support. Carry is fine and all, but its generally a bit boring with all that farming, and not very interesting fights. Roaming ganker is more interesting, and supports contribute to that really well, add in warding, zoning, pulling, stacking....I always have plenty to do to keep me interested. With heroes like AM, PL, etc, I get bored for the first 20mins or so.

[Sorcereria]

Finnally we are gonna see* empire on TI. Last year it was a huge disapointment how it went down.

*99.999% direct invite now.

[Crackleslap]

I was watching EE cast that game 3 of EG v Empire. Said Empire would lose almost immediately. \o/

[Sorcereria]

Blitz(? was it him?) calling almost all pick/bans on 5th slot for most teams... Whole new level of foreseeing.

[Charge me Doctor]

Guyz, srsly, pick Lion rek Troll. Ez gaem.

Also, wyvern+troll ult = fun.

I didn't played that much on the "new meta" and haven't seen anything changed much, just bullshit like Sniper and Troll is now picked instead of bullshit like Yurnero and Void. But, basically, all problems with Troll can be solved by picking Lion, Wyvern or Ymir.

[PizzaSHARK]

People whining that CK and DK and Syllabear are weak and need buffs. Fuck no, they're fine. People need to just learn how to play those heroes properly and stop buying shit items on them. DK's an anchor, not a carry, so you build auras and tanky utility items like Pipe/Crimson Guard, Shiva's, and Halberd on him. People complain that CK can't farm (no shit, Sherlock, he farms heroes not creeps and would be insanely OP if he farmed well) and he has mana issues, forgetting that Soul Ring, manaboots, or even just treads+bottle completely eliminate all of those mana issues before 10 mins.

Sylla's definitely the hero that's had to change the most as a result of changes to the game itself. Radiance bear is pretty crappy. Momma bear works pretty good in pubs but probably makes the bear too squishy for competitive. I think Necrobook is now core on him though, because Necrominions with +100 damage is kind of insane. Probably build him somewhat similar to Wolf, vlad's at some point, necrobook, cuirass, etc.

[Kralljin]

all problems with Troll can be solved by picking Lion, Wyvern or Ymir.

Funny thing is, it happened to me twice already that i got flamed for suggesting to pick Tusk.

In other words, a hero that relies on teamplay is no hero to some people.

Personally i've also discovered that Treant is actually quite useful against sniper / troll, especially if Troll uses Bkb, you simply use Ult and there goes his Bkb, with 4.75 max duration it will cover good part of Trolls bkb.

They could get Manta to counter this, but most people seem to prefer S&Y.

[PizzaSHARK]

Funny thing is, it happened to me twice already that i got flamed for suggesting to pick Tusk.

In other words, a hero that relies on teamplay is no hero to some people.

Personally i've also discovered that Treant is actually quite useful against sniper / troll, especially if Troll uses Bkb, you simply use Ult and there goes his Bkb, with 4.75 max duration it will cover good part of Trolls bkb.

They could get Manta to counter this, but most people seem to prefer S&Y.

Tusk feels like a "sleeper" hero. I think people are beginning to figure out how to use him effectively and he seems to be, well, pretty effective when they do that. Snowball is just so good.

[Kralljin]

Tusk feels like a "sleeper" hero. I think people are beginning to figure out how to use him effectively and he seems to be, well, pretty effective when they do that. Snowball is just so good.

The problem in most games is just that Snowball requires too much communication to be good, or that most people fail to realize how powerful Snowball is if there are 2+people loaded into it.

[PizzaSHARK]

The problem in most games is just that Snowball requires too much communication to be good, or that most people fail to realize how powerful Snowball is if there are 2+people loaded into it.

Yeah. I think it also kind of requires a certain kind of draft, to really take advantage of the quick positioning. Like being able to drop a Tiny or Ursa or something on top of people.

[Lysah]

Syllabear is fine now that his bear has mana. Rush a quick MoM in the jungle with phase and venom on the bear and you will get kills. You WILL get kills. Finish the bear off with basher and start stacking the hero to be godly. You can also go shadow blade bear and BoT on hero and teleport your hero into ganks, but in my experience people tend to buy gems even for that.

[PizzaSHARK]

I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been a hotfix to nerf Shrapnel. Minimal mana cost, effectively no cooldown because of how charges work, incredibly long cast range, it's a potent slow, it gives vision, it's a large AOE and it does a huge amount of damage over its duration. It's 100% of the reason Sniper is so popular now and basically ensures the hero requires no relevant skill to play.

But then again, I honestly think Valve doesn't even care about balance anymore, no more than they do porting over the rest of the heroes or fixing the numerous acknowledged bugs still in the game (Sylla alone has like 30 bugs/discrepancies between DotA and Dota 2 behavior, some of which are pretty significant.) They're turning into Blizzard :-/

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Why are pro teams playing musical chairs with their rosters? Is it their sponsors refusing to accept that even the best teams will occasionally lose a few tournaments, or what? I was thinking about it, and I think that's why I find pro games so boring - teams don't have consistent rosters, so they can never really develop a full playbook. Instead, all the teams just copy each other, resulting in "the meta." If teams had their own playbooks, I don't think there'd be "the meta" in the sense that we have one now... instead, it'd just be a series of "well this strategy works well against this one, but has problems dealing with this one" situation where every game really would play out differently from every other game.

I feel like, since emphasis in Dota 2 is on pro teams, they need to figure out some way of incentivizing teams to stick together instead of trading each other out constantly.

[Lysah]

Fans get bored of the same team forever. Shuffling players around is a great way to keep people watching (OH man! They replaced X shit player with Y godly player now this team is gonna be off the chart!). Valve's focus is obviously on getting people to watch tournaments, they're pushing this as a main source of money because the hat game is already taken care of for them in the workshop. Balance updates aren't important, people will watch the pros no matter what heroes they pick. Gameplay updates aren't important either for the same reason. All that matters is pushing tournaments.

[Sorcereria]

After being myself in one of the most succesfull CS1.5/1.6 team in the world with quite stable roster it all comes down:
a) not being able to cope at some point with certain players
b) people need change
c) people grow up
d) people simply have their limits, and either they cant progress more or just plain get BORED.

Every 2-3years I change job and it is amazing way to get new contacts and actually better $$$.

I dislike only the fact if team completly dies like DK

[StrawberryZebra]

I feel like, since emphasis in Dota 2 is on pro teams, they need to figure out some way of incentivizing teams to stick together instead of trading each other out constantly.

I think that having Dota seasons with Transfer windows in them like they have in other none e-sports could be a possible solution. Maybe not one that works for everyone, but certainly one that works well enough.

Fans get bored of the same team forever. Shuffling players around is a great way to keep people watching (OH man! They replaced X shit player with Y godly player now this team is gonna be off the chart!).

Its one way to keep things fresh. Is it the best way? I don't know. You have to wonder what would happen if teams stopped being comprised just of Pro players who just happened to play the position you need and were made up instead of five Pro players who had a proven track record of working well together. I don't think it would be as stale as people imagine, having a solid team would allow them to drill all kinds of strategies. A team that could reliably play every type of Dota imaginable, and probably inventing a few new ones along the way, would definitely shake things up enough to earn themselves some fans.

[Charge me Doctor]

I was soggesting Ymir because of his AS slow and cockblock that gives 0 fuck on BKB and makes Troll a fried potato for ganks, but snowball is good too

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I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been a hotfix to nerf Shrapnel. Minimal mana cost, effectively no cooldown because of how charges work, incredibly long cast range, it's a potent slow, it gives vision, it's a large AOE and it does a huge amount of damage over its duration. It's 100% of the reason Sniper is so popular now and basically ensures the hero requires no relevant skill to play.

Before changes to headshot and shit i used to skip Shrapnel completely, went for passives and stats because didn't wanted to waste any mana on shitty vision/blinkblocking spell

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Why are pro teams playing musical chairs with their rosters? Is it their sponsors refusing to accept that even the best teams will occasionally lose a few tournaments, or what? I was thinking about it, and I think that's why I find pro games so boring - teams don't have consistent rosters, so they can never really develop a full playbook.

Isn't consistency = boring?

[PizzaSHARK]

Before changes to headshot and shit i used to skip Shrapnel completely, went for passives and stats because didn't wanted to waste any mana on shitty vision/blinkblocking spell

A lot of people did. A lot of people underestimated how good it was. It's even better now, even if it can't be used to chip towers down anymore.

Isn't consistency = boring?

I don't think so. I think the only way a sport of any kind can mature is if it remains consistent for a long time. Between seasonal patches which dramatically change how the game is played and team rosters being a fucking revolving door, there's no stable ground for teams or players to begin to develop real strategies and tactics on, so all they can do is just copy each other.

I personally think that's extremely boring, but I guess I'm in the minority since Valve is clearly doing what people want

[Charge me Doctor]

I personally would love to see more new players and teams on pro scene, because they often bring something new to meta

[PizzaSHARK]

I personally would love to see more new players and teams on pro scene, because they often bring something new to meta

The two ain't mutually exclusive though