2013-01-18, 02:55 AM
Quote:What is the significance of the day/night cycle? I'm assuming Radiant favors day and Dire favors night, but is there anything I'm missing other than that? Are there heroes with passives that are affected by day/night?
The greatest significance is vision. Some Day/night vision radii:
| Unit | Day | Night |
|---|---|---|
| 90% of heroes | 1800 | 800 |
| Towers | 1900 | 800 |
| Lane creeps | 850 | 800 |
Basically, it's harder to gank during the day because enemy heroes have more time to react when you leave the lane, and you can be seen coming from further away. The first night is the most significant, because it coincides with when the strong gankers/mid-game carries get level 6-7 and get their chance to create momentum by getting kills and pushing towers. Don't extend as far in lane and expect ganks to happen.
Quote:What happens when the game starts? Do teams fight over runes, try to deny the enemy jungler if there is one, try to snowball a lane right off the bat... In LoL it's usually either help the jungler get buffs or steal/deny the enemy team's buffs, but that process takes up most of the level 1 phase.
In low level play, not much. There will usually be a couple heroes fighting over runes where convenient, but most people don't really capitalize on the 0-minute rune even when they can make something happen. In the level I play at, there will usually be some wards placed in the jungle + one of the ward spots and a bit of early scouting. In high level play and professional games, teams will often gather together to help place the wards and gank anyone they can catch alone.
There are no jungle buffs and no optimal paths for jungling in Dota, and the neutral creeps are significantly harder to kill unless you're a hero with summons/powerful AOEs. Jungle camp spawns can be denied by placing a ward in the spawn box. For these reasons, jungling is much less of a role and more of a way for a ganker to grab slower exp/gold while freeing up space in another lane.
Quote:What do you do when you're behind? Do you just play passive until you can counter-play, or is it too punishing--do you have to fight your way back in?There are several options:
1. If you have a stronger lategame teamfight lineup and good anti-push, you can turtle and attempt to hold your towers for as long as possible, forcing your enemies to fight you in a disadvantageous position and getting your carries time to farm.
2. For 100g, you can purchase a Smoke of Deceit, which provides your team with 40s invisibility that dispels when you get close to enemy heroes. This allows you to sneak past wards and create ambushes. If you can pick off a lone hero or two, you swing map control back in your favor for about a minute, giving you time to push towers or kill Roshan.
3. If you've got a push oriented lineup with good mobility, you can try to split-push (push multiple lanes at once). If you can force your enemies to scatter to defend their towers, you may be able to force a teamfight when they're out of position, or take a tower for free, providing your entire team with a lot of gold.
Quote:How much does control over secondary objectives (Runes, Roshan) have an impact on the game? I know that runes respawn way more often than buffs in LoL (2 minutes as opposed to 5 minutes, 6-7 minutes for bigger objectives). Denying a buff to a laner gives his opponent and the opposing jungler much more presence, as an example, and later in the game the buff granted by Baron (Roshan's equivalent) can inhibit a team's ability to defend a push among other things. Does it work in a similar way in DotA?
Runes are huge. A Haste, Invis or DD buff can easily enable a gank that wouldn't otherwise be possible. Illusion runes are useful for lane control and scouting. DD runes are amazing in late game teamfights. Regen runes can make a huge difference for mid in the laning phase, and can even allow mobile heroes to recover quickly and come back into a teamfight at full health and mana.
Roshan drops an Aegis which gives an extra life, and is usually given to the hero that the enemies want to focus most, in order to draw fire and allow the rest of the team to clean up with impunity. It is often necessary to force a teamfight late game when the enemy team is turtling in base and wiping your incoming creep waves before you can push in. It's a very important objective.
Quote:What are the differences in the roles that carries of different stats have (AGI vs. INT etc)? The primary element that separates most carries in LoL is AP/spell damage vs. AD/AA damage, and then there are different ways the damage is applied, generally on a scale of high burst -> sustained. I would imagine that this is sort of how it works.
Spell damage doesn't scale in Dota for the most part, and heroes that rely heavily on spells tend to fall off in the late game. In general, STR carries tend to be melee and tanky, AGI carries are squishy but more mobile/higher DPS, and INT carries are spell-dependent, vary a lot in playstyle, and rely on winning the game by 35-40 minutes. Every hero is unique to a much greater extent than LoL, though, and there aren't hard and fast rules about what carries are able to do. All that the primary stat really does is affect which stat increases your base damage.