DotA2 - Original Thread

[Dusk]

I'm also terrible at Morphling but one thing you can do with low level Replicate is to clone an ally while your team is pushing and go farm in another lane. Keep the clone with the team and farm or split push another lane. Another use is to send a clone to a lane where you're planning to farm next. Quickly clear whatever lane you're in and teleport out. You can choose to farm dangerously close to the enemy and bait ganks if you want. The best thing about Morphling is basically that he can pretty much be wherever he wants on the map, so you can be farming non-stop and join in teamfights when needed.

Also, the shotgun build isn't always the best way to build him. It murders supports, but it doesn't give you that many stats for cost. If you want more carry potential, look into building items like Heart, Manta, and Butterfly.

[IllegallySane]

I haven't randomed a hero in a long time. Gets randomed Treant Protector.



WHY


My team then gets stomped by a Visage/Omni/Witch Doctor/Necro team. What the hell man.

[Raul]

I'm also terrible at Morphling but one thing you can do with low level Replicate is to clone an ally while your team is pushing and go farm in another lane. Keep the clone with the team and farm or split push another lane. Another use is to send a clone to a lane where you're planning to farm next. Quickly clear whatever lane you're in and teleport out. You can choose to farm dangerously close to the enemy and bait ganks if you want. The best thing about Morphling is basically that he can pretty much be wherever he wants on the map, so you can be farming non-stop and join in teamfights when needed.

Also, the shotgun build isn't always the best way to build him. It murders supports, but it doesn't give you that many stats for cost. If you want more carry potential, look into building items like Heart, Manta, and Butterfly.

Yeah but clone seems to last such a short time at rank 1, it's only 30 seconds. I just don't feel like it's long enough to get anything important done while remaining safe.
Shotgun is so fun though. I'm consistently the only one putting out significant damage and it's usually against a team of 4 carries so I feel like Eblade is actually the best pickup most of the time. I'm usually building Ring of Aquila into treads into linken's and eblade, it varies which I get first but I'm usually getting both, then manta then whatever (games usually don't go past 350 or so CS). I feel like Heart isn't something I really need since I have str morph which gives me ~4.4k HP with manta eblade linken's RoA and treads and waveform usually comes back up in time to get out of a disastrous fight if I started with shotgunning someone (which, since there's usually not too many supports at my level of play, is usually done on a right-clicking carry to take them out of the fight).

Also, @IllegallySane; just push people out of lane. You take like half their health with a right-click at level 1. Treant kinda sucks in pubs where people don't know how to use Nature's Guise or Living Armor.
That's a really good comp they had though. Drags out teamfights amazingly well and Omni can repel on Witch Doctor for free BKB. Lacks a proper carry though (it seems).

[Even]

Yeah but clone seems to last such a short time at rank 1, it's only 30 seconds. I just don't feel like it's long enough to get anything important done while remaining safe.
Shotgun is so fun though. I'm consistently the only one putting out significant damage and it's usually against a team of 4 carries so I feel like Eblade is actually the best pickup most of the time. I'm usually building Ring of Aquila into treads into linken's and eblade, it varies which I get first but I'm usually getting both, then manta then whatever (games usually don't go past 350 or so CS). I feel like Heart isn't something I really need since I have str morph which gives me ~4.4k HP with manta eblade linken's RoA and treads and waveform usually comes back up in time to get out of a disastrous fight if I started with shotgunning someone (which, since there's usually not too many supports at my level of play, is usually done on a right-clicking carry to take them out of the fight).

Also, @IllegallySane; just push people out of lane. You take like half their health with a right-click at level 1. Treant kinda sucks in pubs where people don't know how to use Nature's Guise or Living Armor.
That's a really good comp they had though. Drags out teamfights amazingly well and Omni can repel on Witch Doctor for free BKB. Lacks a proper carry though (it seems).

You build linkens before eblade? If you are, thats why you are losing with this hero, eblade looses its effectiveness after 30 min, if you cannot get eblade before 20 min dont bother going for it. Also try to buy straight up wraith band at level one, pick morph for the extra 3 str/dex, morph yourself down to 400-450 hp and hf with 75 lasthit dmg at LEVEL ONE. Theres no way to miss lasthits in this situation if you are mid, theres only a few heroes who can beat this, like batrider (but he beats everyone).

I know linkens seems like the perfect item for morph, but I totally disagree. The easiest way to kill a morph is usually through silence (since you can still activate morph while you are stunned), not many heroes have a single target silence or build orchid, it might be useful for hex but I normally do this:

- Straight up wraith band and tango at lvl 1
- Finish ring of aquila
- Treads
- Eblade
- Skadi/manta

I buy magic wand depending on the enemy team, if theres a bat rider you buy it before finishing treads. Picking your ultimate at lvl 6 is very situational, the only effective use of it is escaping at this point, chasing would cost you too much mana, but if you are laning with someone else and you need to go heal, buy yourself a tp, copy the ally and tp back. You spend 100 mana doing this and you can teleport back to your image when you got full hp again, free healing for 135 gold.

[IllegallySane]

Also, @IllegallySane; just push people out of lane. You take like half their health with a right-click at level 1. Treant kinda sucks in pubs where people don't know how to use Nature's Guise or Living Armor.
That's a really good comp they had though. Drags out teamfights amazingly well and Omni can repel on Witch Doctor for free BKB. Lacks a proper carry though (it seems).

Dear god, I looked up both abilities. I didn't know you can cast spells and use items while invisible. HOLY pomegranate THAT'D HAVE KEPT ME ALIVE SO MUCH IF I KNEW THAT. Living Armor being global, totally forgot. Well, at least I'll know better the next time I random him. Or... maybe I'll actually pick him just so I can try to play him better this time and see if we can actually win.


Also, I forgot to mention the remaining hero, Lich. It was no fun at all fighting that much magic damage. Couldn't build up a Pipe in time.

[IllegallySane]

Oh I freaking give up. How can there exist such a terrible hero? My god, Treant Protector. This is one nature hero that I don't aim to voluntarily use ever again. Yes I'm that mad at being terrible with him, and him having such terrible abilities.

[Malthe]

Yea, treant is pretty... problematic. He's just very meh at the moment.

Also on the topic of morph, linkens sphere is a farming item that most of the time really doesn't fit the style of dota most people play nowadays. If you're heading for an e-blade that needs to be your first real item. If you're not, i'd advice building something like treads into drums, yasha and then diffusal if the purge is needed(Like if you're against a warlock, an omni, a skeleton king, ghost scepters etc.) and if not get your manta and then build appropriate items. E-blade is obviously good if you got a god laning phase and there are enemy heroes you can pop.

Also the ulti is fully skippeable, you don't have to touch it at level 6, you can leave it till you can get level 2 ult and even then you'll mostly just be using it to get back to base or back into lane, it's when it becomes level 3 that it needs to be used to follow your own team whilst you split-push and solo kill people.

And if you're against a hero where Heaven's halberd would be amazing(New HH against anti-mage is great for example) you can turn your yasha into an SnY temporarily. Because the yasha on its own is amazing for morphling and you don't need to rush a manta, but you can just build a HH afterwards. Removes the option of going butterfly though, but it's still worth considering if you're not planning to extend the game past 40~ minutes.

[IllegallySane]

I think I got so mad that my next match, first time as Death Prophet I pretty much rolled the entire team. Ended with a Bloodstone and grabbed a Heart just because I could. Other team didn't have a chance against Crypt spam and Exorcism pushing.


On a more relevant topic, any idea when the next patch will be out for the game?

[Malthe]

6.78 should be just around the corner. I can't wait. Hoping for some sweet changes to everything.

[Raul]

I keep hearing reassurances that 6.78 is coming this month and I'm pretty sure it's mathematically impossible for it to hit Dota 2 this month. I think we might be running on Valve time now.

[Malthe]

Well yeah, i doubt it'll hit dota 2 this month. But 6.78 is probably out this week or next week.
Plus a lot of the heroes that haven't been ported yet are getting a remake (Tauren chieftain has been up for a remake for a while for example) which could explain why there has been no heroes for a while.

[Raul]

I'm confused as to why Valve would have made particles for all his skills if he was going to be remade.
Arc Warden and Winter Wyvern have only been around since 6.75 which was around TI2 time, right? That's only been like 6 months. Pit Lord (or I guess Abyssal Underlord now...), Terrorblade, and Phoenix got some major changes then too (Pit Lord less so than the others). None of those heroes seem ripe for a remake exactly.
Maybe we'll see changes to Xin during 6.78, but I don't really know what his state is right now so I can't really judge (except for the string of nerfs that he's gotten). Maybe the ever-sad Treant will see yet another remade skill or might get an Aghanim's Scepter upgrade that could help with how lackluster his ult is. I do remember the leaked data on some new heroes from a while back. I kinda hope we get Sissy.

[Raul]

I deeply apologize for double posting.

But holy pomegranate, Treant just got picked by LGD.int.
I mean usually it's the western teams picking weird heroes but holy pomegranate. I guess like 5 subsequent buff patches will eventually get you picked by someone.

[Malthe]

There's a VERY good reason he isn't picked
As was demonstrated by LGD.int LMFAO.

[Raul]

He did a good job of controlling syllabear early on, you've got to admit that.
But jesus, he's useless in the midgame. His ultimate literally prevents approximately nothing. You have no reason to use it to set up a harder to land spell like Black Hole because you can just pick Naga for that and she actually gives you something useful.
I hope Icefrog stops buffing Living Armor and starts buffing his other skills because Living Armor isn't the problem at this point.

[Malthe]

Treant is in a stage where his skill-kit is the problem.
Same with some other heroes like blood seeker and huskar.

Tweaking numbers wont help it really, needs a rework.

Treant has early game, sure, he has absolutely incredibly base stats. But then comes the phase after laning where skill-kit is often more important than base stats.
Base stats are insanely important for laning and the early-game.

Also been working on 'perfecting' my build for pub-spectre. It's 2 gud.

[Raul]

Armlet Skadi Manta or Mjolnir first?

[Malthe]

On spectre?

My build is something like:

Tranquil early on if you need it during laning, you most likely will need it. If not, just get phase boots.
Build up an urn, can swap urn for bottle if you have another urn carrier but urn is optimal.
Now get a diffusal blade and drum and start ganking, pineapple farming a radiance.
Then snowball off mid-game teamfight gold and then you can get a radiance if you don't think you can end game soon and need to farm. Toss in a yasha whenever you feel you can.
After this you'd get a heart and then the situational items are: Butterfly, manta, heaven's halberd(If you need the disarm badly and you wont be going for butterfly), abyssal blade, AC, MKB(If they have HH or bfly) and last but not least
satanic.

I just vastly prefer getting active early on, not to mention that sitting back and farming a radiance in pubs can be such a gamble. Use dagger+phase to chase targets down with your team and utilize desolate's great damage boost.

[Raul]

I usually go tranqs+PMS+manta into whatever seems good. Butterfly, Heart, Diffusal, Maelstrom/Mjolnir, Skadi, or BKB usually.

I've been tempted to try Armlet-rush Spectre lately. It makes her incredibly beefy and apparently there's some magic you can work with the toggle and Dispersion.
Skadi and Maelstrom are the other two builds that I've heard of but I just feel like Skadi would take way too long to get off the ground. Better as a second or third big item.

I usually prefer to have someone pick up Vlad's rather than get a Satanic as a rule so that I can use Diffusal or Mjolnir. I think I would only get Satanic if I was going Skadi+Satanic.

Honestly though I don't think anyone who knows what they're doing with Spectre rushes Radiance anymore. It just doesn't help her at all anymore.
In fact, the only hero I can think of that would benefit from a Radiance rush anymore is Alchemist. Bristleback too when he comes out. Maybe Doom too but I never really loved radiance rush doom.
Oh, I guess on the Spirit Bear too.

[Malthe]

Mjolnir and maestrom don't synergize too well with spectre and neither does BKB and diffusal is too valuable to get skadi. Skadi is fine if it goes super late and you can abuse the fact that skadi works with lifesteal(Satanic) for melee heroes at the moment.
Manta first is no go though, doesn't give good enough teamfight early on and doesn't do much for farming either. Yasha and diffusal do more for earlygame teamfights and killing and radiance is better for farming regardless of the worse build-up(100 gold difference).
Also vlad doesn't nullify why satanic is amazing on spectre, even with vlads it's still an amazing lategame item on spectre. Strength, damage and armor combined with massive lifesteal on demand is god-tier for her. And BKB is sup-optimal for spectre, you shouldn't get it unless there's something that you crucially need to stop like an with an enemy team with sheepsticks up the wazoo.

And saying that rushing radiance doesn't help spectre is flat out wrong, the problem is that being allowed to rush radiance is rare and in comp play next to impossible. But if you WERE to be allowed to rush it, it would be absolutely amazing. Radiance is still an amazing item on spectre for farming and teamfights, especially with the buffed haunt. Same with weaver, if a weaver was allowed to get that radiance as his first item it is absolutely amazing. Weaver is different though, he doesn't use radiance to farm, but to fight(Common misconception that radiance weaver was stable on him due to it being a farming item, weaver is an amazing-midgame fighter and radiance has perfect synergy with his fighting style). Going treads drums and urn is far superior in the current pace of the game on weaver though.

And no, BB doesn't need radiance rush at all, that's a waste. He needs to gank, not farm.

Disclaimer: Not saying people can't build whatever the pineapple they want, i build sup-optimal items myself on a lot of heroes.
Sup-optimal items can be anything from personal preference(I prefer medallion to urn on weaver, but i know why urn is superior) to wanting to pineapple around(Dagon says hi) or to being forced into a corner(BF on anti-mage is optimal, but there are games where you're forced to build a vanguard, vlads and yasha and fight with your team, odds are that you'll lose because you were forced into that situation, but it's better to try and help your team if there is no other way than to keep trying to get a BF if that is also a guaranteed loss.