Dota 2 Discussion (~Boston Majors & Road to TI7~)

Drow drafts are very risky, if she doesn't get a decent start she just gets rolled over. Plus no visage means reduced cheese, VP has no chance.

 

stomp stomp

 

Yeah they're just getting steamrolled, Drow can't do anything against Clock/Tusk.

 

0/9/0

 

Carries should have downsides, like we're seeing with Drow. Gyro has zero downsides. Fuck that hero.

 

I survived the dark days of basher stacking balanar, gyrocopter doesn't phase me

 

加油

 

I have no idea why icefrog doesn't balance heroes by giving them downsides instead of nerfing them to the ground.
All it does is create the flavor of the month heroes who always get picked.

 

Release day Chipper O.o

 

I actually think Icefrog's method of balancing is very good, he usually buffs the shit out of everything else before nerfing anything. But stuff like Lesh and Gyro is just inexcusable.

 

chicken strips, potatoes, such godly ambrosia, manna from the heavens

 

That's how you deal with a Storm Spirit.

 

That filthy neckbeard tho.

 

good, gyro sf banned. was getting bored of those.

 

Lesh ROFL

 

Why is leshrac broken this patch? Too much damage?

 

and bounty / lina (again)

This should be good.

 

The issue with the way Icefrog approaches the balancing of heroes is that it is nigh impossible to predict how impactful all the changes are for each and every hero/item. Look at the discopony, he wasn't really picked except as a support in a couple of sd+lesh strats, and a couple of SEA teams ran him as a core before 6.84 hit. He got buffed the 3 previous patches, was already in a good spot before, but it takes a while for good heroes to actually get noticed.
Look what happened to sniper @DAC, the patch was out for months and only VG actually picked him up during the tournament which was what got them to the finals. It's the same for Leshrac: He already was a good hero before the patch came, the new items only amplify this power and now he's at a 100% ban stage.

If you ask me, he's actually quite overrated. There are a couple of pretty good picks that work well against him, bounty/tusk to gank him early or phoenix since lesh sucks at destroying the egg to name a few.

Edit: Leshrac isn't necessarily broken, but he wins pretty much every single midlane. Lightning storm got buffed 4 times in a row now (manacost reduced, castrange increased, damage increased, cooldown reduced, it slows now), his base movespeed is pretty high (also got buffed), and his ultimate is something you actually skill now (the manacost reduction one or two patches ago was a huge buff).
What made him rise to the top imo, is that two of the new items are incredible on him: Octarine, for obvious reasons, and glimmer cape aswell. Having an invisible discohorse chase you down without even having to cast a spell is just stupid. He doesn't require 2 mana items nowadays to be able to use all of his spells constantly, which was the case just a year ago.

 

WHY PICK PL

 

He was buffed 3 patches in a row, it's impossible to lane against him because of lightning spam and lightning + stun is actually guaranteed if you time it properly. He was also indirectly buffed because of the introduction of Octarine Core and the latest Bloodstone buff. He farms insanely fast and does infinite aoe damage; he is countered by BKB but he's paradoxically very good lategame once BKB duration is down. He usually wins the game before that point though.

 

thanks for the info, I really have to get up to speed with the dota 2 scene

 

Can anyone give me a fast rundown of the new items (or major item changes) introduced the past 14 months? I quit Dota cold turkey around April '14.

 

G is getting clocked by this TA

 

The most important items to know about are Octarine Core - introducing two new mechanics to Dota, spell lifesteal and cooldown reduction; great item for Lesh, Naga, Zeus; Glimmer Cape - a (borderline broken) support item that gives invisibility and +55% magic resistance to any friendly target for 5 seconds; and Solar Crest, an upgrade of Medallion of Courage which ups the Armor to +10/-10 and gives your target 30% evasion if it's a friendly unit and 30% miss chance if it's an enemy unit.

There's another one called Lotus Orb but it's very situational, it's a castable armour item that reflects a spell back to the hero who cast it (the castable part works similar to Linkens Sphere), but it also works as a purge, which not a lot of people know about. You can dispel Sheep with it.

 

Glimmer cape also works great on a couple of cores that can either disassemble it into a shadowblade or simply need some survivability when the earlygame hasn't gone the way you expected (dragonknight and leshrac respectively come to mind). Trying to kill leshrac while he glimmers himself and he turns on you with pulse nova running and occasionally spamming lightnings can be a bitch).