[Megathread] DotA 2

[LiiLoSNK]

I really wish you would have said that frozen sigil thing first so I could have stopped reading off the bat. Have you ever seen sigil used? you say that pub games don't matter but then you say he's built around overpowering his opponents via combo, yet less than 5% of pro teams are playing him in that manner. you are such a confusing person. You seem like the very last person in this thread to decide which types of games/heroes matter.

@puffler: Everything about the hero screams early game strength. all 4 of undying's skills remain annoying easily into midgame with his damage amp ult being useful all game long, as mentioned by someone above.

decay is great because you only need 1 point in it and it goes a long way. I don't think it falls off quickly because 4 str stolen per hero is a fuckton until quite later into the game. catching 2 people in it is almost like throwing an invisible ogre club into your inventory every 10 seconds, and that's just for catching 2 people.

tombstone can make teamfights impossible early game, but the new meta does seem like it can make it completely useless by midgame (leshrac, bristle, es, gyro, qop, sf are really common). In the pro scene, i'm guessing that playing undying is pretty much like saying, "Hey I'm gonna force the other team to possibly draft a lesh, so get a strong/mobile bkb carry to counter midgame". Then it's undyings job to use his strong early game to make space.

[Jester Joe]

I don't know, in my experience Ember is not a late game hero at all. Sleight has a cooldown and any other carry can jump on him and kill him in two seconds. Ember only works if his team can hold your team back long enough for him to cast it multiple times, as he's usually not literally one shotting people with sleight unless they all stack up for cleaves. He's got a lot of damage, but the cooldown on sleight has lost me games plenty of times when I'm just hiding behind a tower waiting on the cooldown watching my team get slammed by a real 6 slotted carry.

I feel like Ember is one of the scariest heroes if they snowball a bit though, especially if you play support. There's like, no escaping a solo gank from him it feels when sleight does one shot you. Of course PA being more scary in general actually though. Too many scary heroes when I play mostly support.

You seem like the very last person in this thread to decide which types of games/heroes matter.

That's my job...

[EqualWin]

I really like ember in a match up that i know i'll farm (so usually safelane or mid vs pudge or any melee) getting fast treads/phase drums/aquila, to start fighting and snowballing is the key, lategame u just get x2 bf and they can't push.. they can't kill u either. if they 5 man they die,

[Deleted]

I really like ember in a match up that i know i'll farm (so usually safelane or mid vs pudge or any melee) getting fast treads/phase drums/aquila, to start fighting and snowballing is the key, lategame u just get x2 bf and they can't push.. they can't kill u either. if they 5 man they die,

Or, you know, you run into a team that understands the idea of silencing Ember and you're forced to get Manta and BKB and all sorts of other items just to actually get to do something in fights, and now you do nothing as a hero and your team would literally be better off if you just abandoned. It's funny how heroes that look great against terrible players fall apart very, very fast against teams that understand how to deal with them. He's literally 100% dependent on being able to cast his spells. He needs BKB in most games, but doesn't want to get it because now you're an Ember Spirit with a BKB.

Ember is a fucking awful hero currently against all but 5-melee lineups or something. Searing Chains is so, so bad right now until lvl 4, but you have to level Flame Guard first or he just fucking dies instantly the second someone chucks a stun his way. He's unbelievably bad against players that understand how to counterplay the hero.

[LiiLoSNK]

He literally says "in a match up that I know i'll farm" lol. There's tons of matchups where the other team just doesn't have the spells to stop a farming ember. You aren't gonna get an orchid before an ember can farm a BF. At that point, cycling through fully stacked jungle/ancients alone will have him spiraling out of control.

[Deleted]

He literally says "in a match up that I know i'll farm" lol. There's tons of matchups where the other team just doesn't have the spells to stop a farming ember. You aren't gonna get an orchid before an ember can farm a BF. At that point, cycling through fully stacked jungle/ancients alone will have him spiraling out of control.

One Skywrath/Puck/etc is all it takes to fuck up your day. Literally the only way to make the hero work is last-picking it against the rare team that simply can't deal with it late, and if they roam on you early your game impact = 0. You basically have to play it in a defensive trilane these days, and even then it's very far from a sure thing. It's not that you can't win games with Ember, don't get me wrong - if you can win games with WK in DotA these days, literally any hero is viable - but the hero is just so unbelievably shit compared to the realistic alternatives.

And for the record, at least the way I interpret it, there's a very large difference between "games where I know I'll farm" and "games where I'm playing with 1.5k MMR friends/enemies aren't trying to win".

[LiiLoSNK]

There's games when you see those heroes or a disruptor or even sometimes a LC and tell yourself, this is not the time to ember. Sometimes there's not a lot a team can do. I'm saying if the other team is like, DS, zeus, WD, PA, EShaker (earthshaker being the only fairly legit ember trap), then it's possible to do really well still.

He's not played much in pro games these days, but his win rate is high because he can do well if the other team isn't built to stop him.

[Deleted]

Ironically I'd actually much rather see an LC than a PA since it's extremely hard to blink uphill against a well-positioned Ember and land right on top of him so you can Duel, whereas a PA is just going to Blink Strike no matter what and first-hit bash you

I really feel like one of Ember's HUGE issues right now is completely overreliant he is on SoF. You can be 2-3 major items ahead of a hero like PA as Ember and she'll still just bend you over and ram you in the ass in a "fair" fight - now, granted, Ember isn't really supposed to be taking fair fights in the first place, but it feels retarded that you can be 10k networth ahead on the hero and still potentially just get your ass handed to you because you have Alchemist-level awful stat growths and no armour at all.

[LiiLoSNK]

I watched some gimmick game where the low rank cdec team slaughtered the new iG dota gods using incredibly aggressive early game ember/tusk/dazzle. It looked so incredibly fun to play, but it'd never work twice against an actual team.

[Sorcereria]

Dreamleague final BO5 (BO10 if you consider Navi vs VP in upper bracket) were one of the most amazing games played for a very long time.

WP both teams, especially Sonneiko and Godz.

If you missed them, worth watching all the pennies.

[PizzaSHARK]

Ironically I'd actually much rather see an LC than a PA since it's extremely hard to blink uphill against a well-positioned Ember and land right on top of him so you can Duel, whereas a PA is just going to Blink Strike no matter what and first-hit bash you

I really feel like one of Ember's HUGE issues right now is completely overreliant he is on SoF. You can be 2-3 major items ahead of a hero like PA as Ember and she'll still just bend you over and ram you in the ass in a "fair" fight - now, granted, Ember isn't really supposed to be taking fair fights in the first place, but it feels retarded that you can be 10k networth ahead on the hero and still potentially just get your ass handed to you because you have Alchemist-level awful stat growths and no armour at all.

It's almost like the hero has long range and so many mobility tools for a reason.

Your shit don't fly. Xin's extremely strong. Stop being bad and trying to manfight with him.

[EqualWin]

And for the record, at least the way I interpret it, there's a very large difference between "games where I know I'll farm" and "games where I'm playing with 1.5k MMR friends/enemies aren't trying to win".

or games where i last pick him keepo

[Deleted]

Ember is a great hero, he just sucks against people that have big gap closers, the likes of storm, AM, QoP etc.

He is kinda like Enigma, you really want to last him.

[LiiLoSNK]

ESL started up at 2am my time... Fnatic trying to do the tusk/ember early pressure game strat mentioned earlier and got stomped. Mainly because they played it so poorly, but also because treant protector.

Tusk will probably be 100% pick/ban the entire tournament, but same with lesh/qop/sf/dazzle.

Because they're strong/versatile heroes.

And meta.

[Jester Joe]

ESL started up at 2am my time... Fnatic trying to do the tusk/ember early pressure game strat mentioned earlier and got stomped. Mainly because they played it so poorly, but also because treant protector.

Tusk will probably be 100% pick/ban the entire tournament, but same with lesh/qop/sf/dazzle.

Because they're strong/versatile heroes.

And meta.

Tusk was used by Pyrion Flax to showcase the Rick and Morty Announcer, confirmed for OP.

While I'm just joking, here's the video if someone didn't see it yet

[PizzaSHARK]

ESL started up at 2am my time... Fnatic trying to do the tusk/ember early pressure game strat mentioned earlier and got stomped. Mainly because they played it so poorly, but also because treant protector.

Tusk will probably be 100% pick/ban the entire tournament, but same with lesh/qop/sf/dazzle.

Because they're strong/versatile heroes.

And meta.

Tusk Snowball is just way too strong on a coordinated team. Similar to a defensive Disruption but it can be used for so much more than that. It also lasts long enough to guarantee blinkers come back online so someone that's about to die can jump into snowball, camp for 4 sec and then blink out of it after it lands.

Hero is overall well balanced though. He's just kind of like Batrider in that he's just super super good with coordinated teams due to a single skill (Snowball/Lasso.)

[LiiLoSNK]

While I'm just joking, here's the video if someone didn't see it yet

This is a must buy.

[Crackleslap]

Australian servers are literally unplayable at the moment. Lag like crazy and every one is constantly disconnecting, even had a game that literally crashed and ceased to work after.

[Sorcereria]

My golden basher disapeared... Any idea how to check HOW ?

[Sorcereria]

I think I know where my golden basher might be. Might have deleted it by a mistake...