DotA2 - Original Thread

[Malthe]

To be fair, roof and terror blade are in the same boat, they've never been 'okay'. They've always either been pomegranate or OP.
BB has been competitive material in the past, and with these buffs he most definitely is again.

And BB is currently a top pick in DotA1 IIRC.


Anyway, QPAD red pandas had their first official series against the russian powerhouse Empire yesterday.

Spoiler

Series was 2-1 in QPAD pandas favor with second game being lost at draft for the pandas. First and last game was won due to Kunkka+Faceless void combo from the pandas, was quite brutal to be honest. Now to see if they are more than a one-trick pony and how they hold up against Team Liquid tonight.

[Raul]

Dota X2 is pineappleing hilarious. I couldn't get into Random OMG mode though.
Nukers like QoP, KotL, and Timbersaw are permanently banned. It's a bit hard to understand why Timbersaw is banned until you realize his Timber Chain range is doubled. Comes out of nowhere and two-shots you since his nukes are obscene early (at level 2 with 1 2 1 he does 390 pure damage almost instantly-- in normal dota. that turns into 780 pure damage in dota x2) and then both the stack amount and the stack values from Reactive Armor are doubled so he gets 64 armor and recovers 64 hp/s if he gets full stacks.
Oh, and Pugna is a bit wacky too but he's not banned. Ward makes someone like Troll Warlord's mana regen be about -10/second. And his Nether Blasts chunk towers for about a quarter of their health and heroes for about a third of their health.
Best game mode ever.

[Malthe]

http://howdoidoto.com/
This blog is suprisingly well done and good for new players.
Kudos to the guy making it, thought it'd be another generic bad guide blog, but it's pretty good.

Also i couldnt' make it through this without laughing:


Although: "I never played WC3" WHAT IS THIS HERESY.

[Raul]

Test Client update!


...And no new heroes!

http://dev.dota2.com/showthread.php?t=79031

We do get some new cool stuff like:


New Markmanship effect for Drow


New Dagon effects at various levels

along with v6.77c parity, and Timbersaw in -CM (wooooooooo).

Timbersaw being added to -CM reminded me of something.
Apparently, a while back, a guy was posting long walls of text about hero developments under the title Break the Metagame. He called a number of things including the resurgence of Gyrocopter, the rise of Alchemist, how goddamn good Shadow Demon would become, and the terror that is PL+KotL. 3 months ago.
He's now calling Dark Seer becoming useless with splitpushing coming into vogue, Zeus becoming strong (Bottlecrow has one good thing about it I guess), Necrolyte+Warlock+Timbersaw all seeing a fair amount of play within the near future, Abbadon seeing virtually no play when he gets added, Bristleback seeing a fair bit of play when he gets added, Slark seeing some love as a solo pick, and Tusk seeing tons of play when he gets into -CM.
If this guy is right, I'm pomegranateting my pants.

[IllegallySane]

New Dagon effects at various levels

I must now rewatch the Mass Dagon match. It'll be like watching Dagon action in HD!

(Bottlecrow has one good thing about it I guess)

What.

*googles*

MOTHER OF GOD THAT'S FREAKING GENIUS!

[Raul]

I must now rewatch the Mass Dagon match. It'll be like watching Dagon action in HD!





What.

*googles*

MOTHER OF GOD THAT'S FREAKING GENIUS!

If you want to re-watch the Mass Dagon match, purchase the WePlay ticket if you don't have it already and wait for patch to hit. Download the showmatch replay even if you already have.

Also,


I don't quite get what you mean about bottlecrow.
Edit:
Oh, you said Googles. Not goggles. That makes what you said make a bit more sense.

[IllegallySane]

If you want to re-watch the Mass Dagon match, purchase the WePlay ticket if you don't have it already and wait for patch to hit. Download the showmatch replay even if you already have.

Also,


I don't quite get what you mean about bottlecrow.
Edit:
Oh, you said Googles. Not goggles. That makes what you said make a bit more sense.

Eww. Do I really want to pay money to rewatch the Dagon match?

Yah. I had to google it since I didn't know how it works. That's how noob I still am at the game, these small tips and tricks.

Also, that's amazing. Invoker Potter and the Bloodstone, coming 2014.

[Raul]

Realistically, you can probably wait for someone else to upload it. If I see it floating around on /r/dota2 I'll make sure to post it for you.
And yeah there are all these non-intuitive mechanics in the game like bottlecrowing, stacking, pulling, armlet/tread toggling, orbwalking, shift-queueing, max range blink dagger decrease, and heck everything related to bkb and linken's sphere.
Like yesterday I realized that Spirit Breaker's bash goes through magic immunity.
It seems like people expect you to either go through 10 years of innovation and testing by yourself or to look it all up on the incomplete wikis and memorize it all. Like, pineapple, Skadi's explicitly states that it doesn't stack with lifesteal. Yet it does (but only for melee!).
Like seriously, something like that is actually a bunch of bullpomegranate. People say that "oh it raises the learning curve and makes the game less casual," but pineapple that. I'm all in favor of having the game be complex and having weird interactions but flat-out lying on the item description and never announcing it is flat-out stupid. It's artificial and it adds nothing.
/rant
But yeah, if you think you've figured out what you're doing in dota, if you're not competing in the international you're probably missing something.

[Malthe]

Skadhi actually works with ranged as far as lifesteal goes, it also worked with clinkz orb as an exception. It working with melee attacks in Dota2 is so far... unconfirmed if it is intentional. A lot of interactions in DotA2 aren't the way they should be yet.

The ingame description is actually also:

Eye of Skadi is a Unique Attack Modifier, and does not stack with other Unique Attack Modifiers. On ranged heroes, Eye of Skadi can be combined with a lifesteal Unique Attack Modifier.

IIRC. But it works with melee too for some reason, and intentionally works with searing arrows.

The way bash works both damage and the stun aren't like dota1 either, ranged bash is physical damage and magical stun(Blocked by BKB) in Dota1 (Talking about skull basher here) but in DotA2 unless they fixed it lately it's always magical damage and physical stun for both ranged and melee.

Also dota is a game of exception, i still learn new things occasionally (Juggernaut spin allows him to attack towers whilst active, but it doesn't allow him to attack other units, but siege units are an exception, so you can spin and attack siege units and cleave around it. Pretty funny)


Also small rant(Not really a rant) regarding the guy predicting stuff:

Spoiler

Apparently, a while back, a guy was posting long walls of text about hero developments under the title Break the Metagame. He called a number of things including the resurgence of Gyrocopter, the rise of Alchemist, how goddamn good Shadow Demon would become, and the terror that is PL+KotL. 3 months ago.
He's now calling Dark Seer becoming useless with splitpushing coming into vogue, Zeus becoming strong (Bottlecrow has one good thing about it I guess), Necrolyte+Warlock+Timbersaw all seeing a fair amount of play within the near future, Abbadon seeing virtually no play when he gets added, Bristleback seeing a fair bit of play when he gets added, Slark seeing some love as a solo pick, and Tusk seeing tons of play when he gets into -CM.
If this guy is right, I'm pomegranateting my pants.

SD has always been a top tier support since he was added to CM in DotA1, honestly no predictions here.
And tusk is an amazing hero in DotA1 and Warlock finally had his skills fixed, warlock still has some key flaws that make him weak against teams like the chinese, who will instantly abuse his flaws(Same reason why bounty hunter and wisp wont work well against the chinese, too easy to shut down because of key flaws)
Gyro also recieved a huge buff and almost immediately after saw play, that's again not really a prediction. Both 6.75 and 6.76 showered gyro with buffs.
Slark could see play but again, suffers from one key flaw, his laning is ass and his teamfight contribution is also equally bad. In teamfights pounce isn't the best especially not later on, you'll rarely be able to hit the same target repeteadly without it dying fast due to allies hitting it too, and if you're attacking the enemy carry for a prolonged amount of time you'd probably have won the fight regardless. Abaddon has a remake on his way IIRC and in his current state he's just a bad version of omniknight(More or lses) and omniknight already has keyflaws that he shares with abaddon. Zeus could see play but again, key flaws in regards to laning handicaps him against top tier teams. It's the same reason why a monster laner in 1v1 scenario like OD isn't picked, laning him is horrible since his vulnerability to ganks is high. Zeus with bottle crowing would get farm, but any smoke ganks would set him out of play and he'd be a bad pick, Dragonus is a zeus that trades global ulti for more damage, a silencer and even better laning and they share equally horribly surviveability. I could however see him(zeus) be picked for a trilane involving something like visage where quick burst leads to big soul assumption damage. Alchemist is another hero that ALSO recieved buffs up the ass, 1.0 BAT and even quicker farming than what was already the quickest farmer in the game isn't anything to scoff at. Also necrolyte has always been a situational pick for the chinese, really strong hero, just very situational in which situations he can be picked.

Honestly most of his predictions are just logic. Also timbersaw has potential to be picked as a solo laner against an enemy solo laner, granted that the enemy isn't bat rider or syllabear(Or something with equally insane laning, put him against a solo Luna or something and he could do alright) since they'll zone him out completely since they have nearly all advantages possibly against him.

[Dusk]

Yeah, it's pretty easy to call some of the metagame changes. PL agi buff from 2.8 to 4.2? Flak Cannon range 800 to 1000 and Rocket Barrage 19 to 23 per hit? The changes just typically take a few months to take root and show up in big matches.

Funny thing is how a lot of people pass off skills or heroes as useless and ignore the massive buffs. I remember when Rocket Barrage scaled 10/12/14/16 and everyone left it at level 1. Gyro didn't have much of an early game presence or late game carry potential, so people didn't consider that he could with the right buffs. I read through a Gyro discussion on r/dota2 (obviously not the place for cutting edge metagame discussion, but hey) late last year after the buffs and people were still like, "Rocket Barrage doesn't scale that well so max the other skills first." That's how you end up with people surprised when a previously useless hero like Nyx Assassin starts showing up in every pro game.

[Raul]

Skadhi actually works with ranged as far as lifesteal goes, it also worked with clinkz orb as an exception. It working with melee attacks in Dota2 is so far... unconfirmed if it is intentional. A lot of interactions in DotA2 aren't the way they should be yet.

The ingame description is actually also:

IIRC. But it works with melee too for some reason, and intentionally works with searing arrows.

The way bash works both damage and the stun aren't like dota1 either, ranged bash is physical damage and magical stun(Blocked by BKB) in Dota1 (Talking about skull basher here) but in DotA2 unless they fixed it lately it's always magical damage and physical stun for both ranged and melee.

Also dota is a game of exception, i still learn new things occasionally (Juggernaut spin allows him to attack towers whilst active, but it doesn't allow him to attack other units, but siege units are an exception, so you can spin and attack siege units and cleave around it. Pretty funny)


Also small rant(Not really a rant) regarding the guy predicting stuff:

Spoiler

SD has always been a top tier support since he was added to CM in DotA1, honestly no predictions here.
And tusk is an amazing hero in DotA1 and Warlock finally had his skills fixed, warlock still has some key flaws that make him weak against teams like the chinese, who will instantly abuse his flaws(Same reason why bounty hunter and wisp wont work well against the chinese, too easy to shut down because of key flaws)
Gyro also recieved a huge buff and almost immediately after saw play, that's again not really a prediction. Both 6.75 and 6.76 showered gyro with buffs.
Slark could see play but again, suffers from one key flaw, his laning is ass and his teamfight contribution is also equally bad. In teamfights pounce isn't the best especially not later on, you'll rarely be able to hit the same target repeteadly without it dying fast due to allies hitting it too, and if you're attacking the enemy carry for a prolonged amount of time you'd probably have won the fight regardless. Abaddon has a remake on his way IIRC and in his current state he's just a bad version of omniknight(More or lses) and omniknight already has keyflaws that he shares with abaddon. Zeus could see play but again, key flaws in regards to laning handicaps him against top tier teams. It's the same reason why a monster laner in 1v1 scenario like OD isn't picked, laning him is horrible since his vulnerability to ganks is high. Zeus with bottle crowing would get farm, but any smoke ganks would set him out of play and he'd be a bad pick, Dragonus is a zeus that trades global ulti for more damage, a silencer and even better laning and they share equally horribly surviveability. I could however see him(zeus) be picked for a trilane involving something like visage where quick burst leads to big soul assumption damage. Alchemist is another hero that ALSO recieved buffs up the ass, 1.0 BAT and even quicker farming than what was already the quickest farmer in the game isn't anything to scoff at. Also necrolyte has always been a situational pick for the chinese, really strong hero, just very situational in which situations he can be picked.

Honestly most of his predictions are just logic. Also timbersaw has potential to be picked as a solo laner against an enemy solo laner, granted that the enemy isn't bat rider or syllabear(Or something with equally insane laning, put him against a solo Luna or something and he could do alright) since they'll zone him out completely since they have nearly all advantages possibly against him.

Spirit Breaker's bash got changed to pierce bkb in 6.75 along with a host of other buffs including removing the indicator visible to the enemy hero that the rape train had left the station.
You can actually attack any magic immune unit during spin, not just mechanical units like catapults. Actually, you can attack any unit it just won't do damage if you're hitting them with spin. But with something like a Maelstrom or Mjolnir, that means you can get free procs off during your spin. I think you can even get basher procs or diffusal manaburn during spin. You can also TP during spin, which Juggernaut even has special VO lines for.

For SD, good tier support != S Tier which he is now. Really, he's one of the most contested picks right now.
Warlock still has only seen minimal play besides the dig game with Spectre even in western games.
Omniknight suffers mainly from having godawful cast animations, he can play as an offlaner with soul ring if need be.
And I'm pretty sure the thing about it was that he called all of this way before it happened.
Most of his predictions are just logic but so was the prediction that Silencer would be a top pick/ban and look how that turned out.

[Malthe]

Spirit Breaker's bash got changed to pierce bkb in 6.75 along with a host of other buffs including removing the indicator visible to the enemy hero that the rape train had left the station.

SB bash has always been a special thing though, as i said, i am talking about the bash effects from skull basher and abyssal blade(Which is the upgraded skull basher so their mechanics are shared).

You can actually attack any magic immune unit during spin, not just mechanical units like catapults. Actually, you can attack any unit it just won't do damage if you're hitting them with spin. But with something like a Maelstrom or Mjolnir, that means you can get free procs off during your spin. I think you can even get basher procs or diffusal manaburn during spin. You can also TP during spin, which Juggernaut even has special VO lines for.

I know he can trigger on hit effects, but when i say can't attack i mean that he wont deal any damage. Lifesteal procs too, but any % of 0 is still 0.

For SD, good tier support != S Tier which he is now. Really, he's one of the most contested picks right now.

Which he was in dota1 too, SD was always an absolutely top tier pick, but the way bans and picks works was changed, which changes when you pick what you pick. I don't consider this a change at all, some european teams might've started picking him slightly less(Some of the same european teams have problems handling wisp and still haven't figured out how to handle him it seems) but he was always valued highly by the chinese.

SD has a period(2 or so months) where barely anybody touched him(Even then he'd still pop up in 20%), for god knows what reason, because he was still an insanely strong pick.

In DotA1 he remained a top tier pick all along. Him and rubick are sick supports.

Warlock still has only seen minimal play besides the dig game with Spectre even in western games.

Dignitas picks him occasionally, and he still has massive problems, his laning is ass when it comes to being shut down, if you put him mid and he's shut down, he's near impossible to get back into the game and he'll become a wasted mid pick.

Omniknight suffers mainly from having godawful cast animations, he can play as an offlaner with soul ring if need be.

Yes, but omni's primary role when he was picked was support, because he's a god tier support as far as skills go, but all melee supports share the same flaws, if ogre was ranged he'd be amazingly insane.

And I'm pretty sure the thing about it was that he called all of this way before it happened.
Most of his predictions are just logic but so was the prediction that Silencer would be a top pick/ban and look how that turned out.

I still don't get why people considered the new silencer a top tier pick, people who got stomped by him might've thought so, but he's a bit weaker than OD in lane and has lower surviveability(Prison can buy you some time) and even as a support he has inherent flaws that the buffs he recieved didn't fix at all. Most people i talked with agreed, he's a strong 1v1 laner in a lot of match-ups, and CAN snowball. But apply pressure and contest him and he's near impossible to get back into the game as a carry or mid, and other supports outclass him.

[Raul]

You're talking about shutting down mids and I just look at bottlecrow and laugh. Shutting down mids doesn't happen without smokeganks these days. That's why Magnus is a viable mid.
OD's problem is that he does virtually nothing against magic immune heroes. If you pick him and Lifestealer or Jugg he doesn't do pomegranate and he doesn't do pomegranate if Gyro or Sven gets a BKB. And there were pros that were calling Silencer an instant first pick/ban. Like Puppey I'm pretty sure.

[Malthe]

You're talking about shutting down mids and I just look at bottlecrow and laugh. Shutting down mids doesn't happen without smokeganks these days. That's why Magnus is a viable mid.
OD's problem is that he does virtually nothing against magic immune heroes. If you pick him and Lifestealer or Jugg he doesn't do pomegranate and he doesn't do pomegranate if Gyro or Sven gets a BKB. And there were pros that were calling Silencer an instant first pick/ban. Like Puppey I'm pretty sure.

No, Magnus isn't a viable mid because of bottle crowing, skewer and shockwave are the main reasons, bottle crowing helps him and heroes like night stalker out. But if he didn't have an escape in skewer and good base surviveability, he'd have no position in mid at all, silencer doesn't have any terms of escape and is far too easy to kill. He is incredibly bad mid against top tier teams. And no, ODs problem isn't that he does virtually nothing against magic immune units, ODs problem is that he needs his laning phase to go flawlessly because he can't spend time past the early game sitting around farming, because, he has no flash farming abilities. An OD should get mek drums and his choice of boots and start participating in fights, but the problem with him is again, put him solo mid and he's shut down and put him in a safe lane and enemies will aggressive tri against him shutting him down and he contributes pineapple-all to a trilane himself outside of low chance to give allies mana, and prison is a poor man's disruption until level 5. Really, ODs ineffectivity against Magic immunity isn't his problem, or rather, it's not the reason why he's such a rare situational pick, he's an amazing pick if you can ensure his laning phase is flawless with super quick midas(Which should only be done if you're certain you wont possibly be able to have an impact with real items in the next 10+ minutes, that or absolute free-farm.

Yes and puppey was whining like a madman about sven too. Puppey is a good drafter, but he's incredibly fast to call OP on something, i believe he also talked about roof becoming top tier pick and ban with the rework? Puppey also called wisp OP and impossible to ever balance due to how he worked, then wisp recieved buffs and he's still relatively untouched by the chinese, why? Weak laning.

[Raul]

Magnus would not be played as a mid competitively if he wasn't able to bottlecrow. Bottlecrow changes the entire face of the mid lane. Mag would be stuck as a mana-starved offlaner or a 4 position like ES getting blink and arcanes if he wasn't able to salvage his subpar mid lane presence with bottlecrow. He can't deal with a difficult lane without constant bottle because he has no way to farm without spamming shockwave.
OD's problem isn't laning because a well played OD will pomegranate on just about every enemy mid. Bottle won't even be relevant because they'll have so small of a mana pool they won't be able to expend it. Literally no one performs well against him besides maybe Pugna and no one actually plays Pugna. He won't get a kill anytime soon without a gank but he'll make it so that the enemy mid can't do anything. He's a hard carry who is a lane bully.

[Malthe]

Magnus would not be played as a mid competitively if he wasn't able to bottlecrow. Bottlecrow changes the entire face of the mid lane. Mag would be stuck as a mana-starved offlaner or a 4 position like ES getting blink and arcanes if he wasn't able to salvage his subpar mid lane presence with bottlecrow. He can't deal with a difficult lane without constant bottle because he has no way to farm without spamming shockwave.
OD's problem isn't laning because a well played OD will pomegranate on just about every enemy mid. Bottle won't even be relevant because they'll have so small of a mana pool they won't be able to expend it. Literally no one performs well against him besides maybe Pugna and no one actually plays Pugna. He won't get a kill anytime soon without a gank but he'll make it so that the enemy mid can't do anything. He's a hard carry who is a lane bully.

I know bottlecrowing is big for the mid and defines who is viable there. Mag against a hero like QoP would be hard on him, but he, even without bottle crowing would have a wide range of heroes he could face mid without it. Magnus was picked mid quite some time ago in dota 1 without them using bottle crowing, he did welll against heroes like Nighstalker, brewmaster, broodmother, beast master.
But, silencer has pomegranate surviveability and would be easily shut down, bottle crowing would NOT save silencer from this at all. And yes ODs problem is laning, you can NOT put him mid against top tier teams, he will be shat all over as a hero he would never survive a well executed gank because his base-line surviveability isn't high at all. OD is a strong hero 1v1 but he's not a strong mid. ODs problem and reason for not being picked is in no way his issues with BKB.

Seriously, OD and silencer have the same fate, they are absolutely insane heroes 1v1, but they will lose mid in a top tier environment. Being a strong laner doesn't mean pomegranate if you can't get any farm and will get shut down.


The kind of heroes where bottle crowing makes them viable mid heroes also have something else that makes him viable, which is commonly being able to survive and mostly only needing levels. This applies to magnus, night stalker, brewmaster and so on. If you send OD or silencer mid and only get levels and not farm, you've wasted the heroes entirely and they'll never catch up.

[IllegallySane]

Is it just me, or does something as seemingly small as killing Roshan can completely turn a game around? My team was getting stomped and unable to push without getting destroyed, so I figured might as well farm up gold so Lone Druid can carry harder. 1st Roshan I gave Aegis to Viper. We were then roughly tied with the other team. 2nd Roshan, things picked up in our favor and we were starting to rock the team fights. Then we lasted long enough for a 3rd Roshan, and it was just a stomp right there as a few minutes after that we entered their base as the following:

-3.8k HP Bear Druid with an Assault Cuirass Bear Spirit
-A Butterfly Manta Viper
-Daedelus Manta Troll Warlord
-Abyssal MKB Battlefury Deso Bounty Hunter
-Agha Shiva Crystal Maiden


Not even a Heart Cuirass Doom and Deso S&Y Razor could stand up to us.

[Dusk]

Killing Roshan is like 1.5k for your team, a good amount of exp, an aegis, and possibly a cheese. That ain't small.

Relative farm of each team and team composition matters a lot more than the kill score. You can be 10:25 and still winning if you're ahead in farm and have better teamfight.

[IllegallySane]

Killing Roshan is like 1.5k for your team, a good amount of exp, an aegis, and possibly a cheese. That ain't small.

Relative farm of each team and team composition matters a lot more than the kill score. You can be 10:25 and still winning if you're ahead in farm and have better teamfight.

1.5k? Wow when you put it that way it's a load of gold. That's actually more gold distributed than a tower, isn't it? And I see. It's definitely quite good to know being ahead of farm and better teamfight capabilities can indeed turn around a bad initial game.

[Raul]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong with Morphling. I can farm with him, I can survive laning as him, I can get Ring of Aqula, Eblade, and Linken's up and running in a decent amount of time, and I can shotgun well. I do well in teamfights with him, and I can even splitpush decently with him. I end up with a good score even when most of my team is feeding pretty hard but I still usually lose playing him. Should I be getting BoT's? And if so, when? I always feel like my ulti is useless before rank 2 or 3. Maybe it would be more useful if I got BoT's but I don't really get how to use replicate+BoT combo. I really enjoy playing the hero but before I reach critical mass, other lanes have already lost pretty hard.