[Megathread] DotA 2

[Drunkenvalley]

So you're saying you'd need to play a bunch of Viper or Leoric to be able to make the assertion that they're brainless, simple heroes to play? Because Storm Spirit isn't exactly complex.

No, only that you play it at all.

[StrawberryZebra]

i think its important to distinguish between "hero depth" and skill ceiling

I take the view that "depth" is how many meaningful choices you have available to you at any one time. It encompasses everything from your positioning choices, target choices, item choices and so on. I don't consider choices alone to be depth, but having lots of them available within a single rule set - Something that Dota in general does extremely well. There are lots of potentially different outcomes for the same situation were it to be played out hundreds of times over hundreds of games. Players can think around the same problem in lots of different ways and can end up with a different solution.

Wraith King is light on complexity, you need just a two buttons to be able to play him. He's got a lot of depth because he has lots of things he can be doing while the game is in any given state. Making the right choices can lead you to victory, making the wrong ones can lead to defeat and your teammates reporting you for feeding.

Hopefully I've explained well enough to make sure we're all on the same page.

Yes, but Leoric's skill ceiling isn't much higher than the general "how to play DotA" skill ceiling is, if it is at all. Him and Viper are unquestionably the most basic, simplest heroes in the game and require very, very little hero-specific knowledge to do well with.

The same is also true for a lot of other Heroes too. I'd even go as far as to say that practically all carries require nothing more than the basic "how2Dota" skills to play at a functional level. What really separates good players from bad is not how mechanically skilled they are, but them being able to make the right choices in any given situation. That is entirely based on your experience and mastery of the Hero you're playing.

[Charge me Doctor]

I take the view that "depth" is how many meaningful choices you have available to you at any one time. It encompasses everything from your positioning choices, target choices, item choices

It's about how many meaningful choices you have available exclusively to this hero. Positioning for Magnus and positioning for Witch doctor is two completely different things.

But to follow your SK example, he has one button and it's a hard CC spell. All the "depth" he can get as melee initiator with 1 hard CC spell is when and who he is going to stun, how much mana he has to reincarnate (removed by having a soul ring) and when to initiate (removed by blink dagger). All other stuff is basic stuff, body blocking, animation canceling, stacking wood (giggity) creeps and farming is not depth of SK, etc, its depth of the game itself.

Compare SK to, say, Oracle, depth of this character skyrockets compared to SK. Instead of just 1 ability which is brainless hard CC (either use it on high priority target to kill it or assist allies to kill it, or use it to save ally and buy them some space, or stop/start initiation), he have 4 complex abilities.
Fortunes end, deals damage, roots target depending on how long you channel (quite rare mechanic) it and purges target (grants synergy with other abilities from his kit).
Fates edict, grants 100% magic resistance (can be used to save allies), stops from attacking (can be used to stop enemies from murdering you whole team) and makes target to take extra 50% damage from attacks (helps to murder enemies faster with attacks instead of spells). Any "positive" thing of this ability can backfire you, when you will try to save Sniper from enemy Lina (and will succeed in that) you hinder his ability to do any damage whatsoever.
Purifying flames, deals big amount of damage but heals for more over time afterwards, damage can be blocked by spell immunity but healing will go through, can be purged by Fortnues end to deal damage and deny healing on enemy target.
And i don't even want to go to his ult because it was discussed not long time ago.
This hero has a lot of depth by itself, plus, depth that is provided by general "rules" and gameplay. It doesn't mean that he is extremely hard to play (you don't need to know everything and use everything he can to win games, but knowing everything and using everything in appropriate situations will defenitely help you win games), it just means that he have a lot more options and answers to enemy actions built in his tools, not in the items he has.

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The same is also true for a lot of other Heroes too. I'd even go as far as to say that practically all carries require nothing more than the basic "how2Dota" skills to play at a functional level. What really separates good players from bad is not how mechanically skilled they are, but them being able to make the right choices in any given situation. That is entirely based on your experience and mastery of the Hero you're playing.

I agree that many carries require nothing more than the basic skills to play at functional level, but look at easiest thing - last hitting, look at pro games and low ELO games and how big -cs difference there is. And even if you are good at last hitting, there is enemies around that will deny and interfere, and you (and your teammates) have to react properly to give you enough space to perform this basic "how2Dota" skills.
And i think that it's both mechanical skills and making right choices that makes you a good player, Drow ranged with 20 farm (can't last hit on free lane) 0 deaths (escaped all ganks) won't do much even in perfectly initiated fights with all the space she needs to do damage - she just doesn't have items because he was too bad at that trivial task - last hitting.

But even if we don't go to extremes, all players who play at all levels make terrible decisions gameplay-wise, it's the deal of how often they do so. And being able to get 100% gold and exp of possible amount (implying you were denied, zoned out, ganked, and you still managed to be in exp range, farm stacks, contest runes, etc) is generally going to help you to make these right decisions (opening you more freedom to make it, because, say, you've got power treads you can take on this fight now, but if you would lose these 6 last hits 30 seconds ago you couldn't afford these treads)

[Drunkenvalley]

It's worth mentioning that Soul Ring does not give the mana required for Reincarnation anymore. I think it's around 10 mana short?

Although 90% of circumstances it should still pan out fine.

[Jester Joe]

SS is one of the easiest to play heroes in the game. Go mid, spam Q on creeps, E on enemy hero, instantly beat 90% of the heroes in the game, tie at worst with the rest. In the event they 3 man you to shut you down, just go jungle a bit. Click R slightly behind enemy heroes, W them while you're in the air, Q and right click they're dead. If it's a strength hero, ult in circles around them a few times. Buy items, keep killing people before your stun wears off, carry game 1v5.

I just went 28-3 in a game where 3 of my allies had negative KDRs and pretty much won the game by myself, so my opinion matters. It wasn't even fun. I can't believe people pick this hero on purpose, there is no challenge to it, people literally cannot fight back.

They pick him for his amazing voice obviously.

"Where's the party?"

[PizzaSHARK]

They pick him for his amazing voice obviously.

"Where's the party?"

Definitely top 10 voices.

[Jester Joe]

Definitely top 10 voices.

The first round of Storm Spirit nerfs need to be aimed at his voice.

[Deleted]

The first round of Storm Spirit nerfs need to be aimed at his voice.

Storm does not need any nerfs. Just had a game where I shut him down so hard it took 30mins to get his orchid! By which time our carry had twice his networth (and more networth than the other 4 players on their team together) so we just rolled over their base....

dont let him snowball.

[Charge me Doctor]

Did he went to woods to stack and farm? I bet the answer is "no".

[Drunkenvalley]

As much as I generally disagree with people's descriptions of the ease of playing Storm Spirit, he definitely needs a nerf of some description. Even if it takes 30 min for orchid he can become very relevant again if his enemy's supports aren't significantly ahead, as his damage output is pretty out of hand.

There's just no way for fragile heroes to stand up to him if he balls in with Orchid and kills them before the silence is over.

[EqualWin]

Did he went to woods to stack and farm? I bet the answer is "no".

still, hes rly easy to shut down if u gank mid before 6. I think hes op as well, even i own with him.

I can even 1st pick him and still win thanks to euls it need a nerf as well.

[Charge me Doctor]

you have to pick certain (hard CC) supports to gank him pre 6, otherwise he will just bait you into his remnants on HG and just walk away. It's really hard to gank ranged heroes mid pre 6 if they know what they are doing

[Lysah]

Agreed, the only way to stop storm is to have very specific lineups. He won't always be first pick/ban in competitive, but even the few times we've seen him make it into professional games he usually stomps the hell out of them quite handily. If you don't have the heroes to deal with him you just plain lose, period. Instant CC like Shadow Shaman is nice, and usually what I would recommend, but even that becomes food once he has Orchid.

Stopping him mid works, somewhat, depends on how good the player is at making comebacks. It's just so damn easy for even a naked Storm to teleport to a tower, ult 3500 units, and blow someone up for free gold. You can't leave your base with less than full health or you die, you aren't safe anywhere against Storm, and even if you constantly 5 man to stop his ganks he is one of the fastest jungle clearers in the game and doesn't even need kills.

[Deleted]

As much as I generally disagree with people's descriptions of the ease of playing Storm Spirit, he definitely needs a nerf of some description. Even if it takes 30 min for orchid he can become very relevant again if his enemy's supports aren't significantly ahead, as his damage output is pretty out of hand.

There's just no way for fragile heroes to stand up to him if he balls in with Orchid and kills them before the silence is over.

And thats different from any carry/ganker with initiation (or just a blink) how exactly?

[Drunkenvalley]

And thats different from any carry/ganker with initiation (or just a blink) how exactly?

Go ahead and list the heroes. Go on.

[Sorcereria]

There is 1 thing working vs storm no matter how bad the game goes.

Doom

[Lysah]

Storm is the only hero who is completely immune to damage and status effects while he initiates. And he can use items during this immunity, and use his stun.

[Deleted]

Go ahead and list the heroes. Go on.

That can kill fragile heroes before they can react......do you want me to list virtually every ganking and carry hero in the game?

[PizzaSHARK]

still, hes rly easy to shut down if u gank mid before 6.

Demonstrated to not matter a single bit with EG and SumaiL. There isn't any other hero in the entire game that can get dominated that hard in lane and then be on top of the board five minutes later.

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And thats different from any carry/ganker with initiation (or just a blink) how exactly?

Storm Spirit completely outclasses all of the other pickoff/assassin type heroes. Clinkz, Nyx, Gondar, Riki, Balanar... they can't farm well, so if you shut them down in lane etc, they actually have a hard time clawing their way back in since they generally rely on having a level advantage. You can shit all over Storm Spirit and he'll just fuck off to the jungle for 5 mins and catch right back up on gold and XP. This didn't happen in the EG game much because it's EG and their teamwork is nuts, but in a regular game, you would've just seen SS walk off into the jungle and get his gold there.

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Even though the meta doesn't matter much anymore with 6.84 coming by the end of the month (allegedly), why haven't we seen a bunch of Panda? Troll and Sniper are both utterly fucked by Drunken Haze, Panda himself is pretty chufty, and split is split. Panda also does well in mid against Sniper (Drunken Haze yo), QoP, etc, and can lane elsewhere, too.

Pros always seem to skip Drunken Haze in favor of his passive, and it's never made any damn sense to me. Even if the miss chance isn't super important, it's still a moderate slow in an AOE at long range and basically no cooldown and mana cost. Insanely fucking OP skill, yet never gets used. It's like when they play Bane and skip Enfeeble.

[Charge me Doctor]

Demonstrated to not matter a single bit with EG and SumaiL. There isn't any other hero in the entire game that can get dominated that hard in lane and then be on top of the board five minutes later.

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Storm Spirit completely outclasses all of the other pickoff/assassin type heroes. Clinkz, Nyx, Gondar, Riki, Balanar... they can't farm well, so if you shut them down in lane etc, they actually have a hard time clawing their way back in since they generally rely on having a level advantage. You can shit all over Storm Spirit and he'll just fuck off to the jungle for 5 mins and catch right back up on gold and XP. This didn't happen in the EG game much because it's EG and their teamwork is nuts, but in a regular game, you would've just seen SS walk off into the jungle and get his gold there.

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Even though the meta doesn't matter much anymore with 6.84 coming by the end of the month (allegedly), why haven't we seen a bunch of Panda? Troll and Sniper are both utterly fucked by Drunken Haze, Panda himself is pretty chufty, and split is split. Panda also does well in mid against Sniper (Drunken Haze yo), QoP, etc, and can lane elsewhere, too.

Pros always seem to skip Drunken Haze in favor of his passive, and it's never made any damn sense to me. Even if the miss chance isn't super important, it's still a moderate slow in an AOE at long range and basically no cooldown and mana cost. Insanely fucking OP skill, yet never gets used. It's like when they play Bane and skip Enfeeble.

Hey, Bala can farm with Voids when he gets bottle! at least 3 -cs per bottle refill!

And on drunken haze - they skip it for better farm and to be more safe, passive works against everyone everytime, Haze you have to spend time and mana on