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

[you know what time it is]

Anyone else watching TI? It's funny to see so many pub cancer heroes present, "pro meta" my ass. All of the usual suspects are there, clinkz, ench, spectre, pl, wr, necro, ursa etc.

Some quality games tho and a few upsets to boot, production issues aside, first day was pretty solid. Liking LGD's and VP synergy in teamfights. VGJ. Storm looking solid, Serenity too, even Winstrike got themselves a 2-0, nice to see new teams having some success against veterans.

 

[Malakal]

Production quality is atrocious so far but some fun games.

Not sure why you are surprised by 'pub' heroes, everyone kept saying this patch is about lane domination and weaver and co work like that. On the other hand we have tiny who had what 30% win rate in pubs?

 

[you know what time it is]

Production quality is atrocious so far but some fun games.

Not sure why you are surprised by 'pub' heroes, everyone kept saying this patch is about lane domination and weaver and co work like that. On the other hand we have tiny who had what 30% win rate in pubs?

Yeah but Tony pub stats are heavily skewed due to him being used by griefers, besides people tried to play him as a carry for quite some time in lower MMRs before figuring out his new role. And I don't think lanes matter as much as they used to, whoever picks the most well rounded or op heroes - wins or pulls something cheesy like drow strat, all about them drafts now (a.g. VP vs Serenity game 2, vp are absolute monsters in terms of mechanics, laning and fights, yet they picked sven and lost handily to an inferior, but META picking team). In general though, all of the currently popular heroes have barely any downsides, lane well, transition between game stages well, fight well etc. Get a bunch of those, spruce it up with a bit of cancer like Ench and you gucci.

The power creep is real.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I'm watching but not as many games as in previous years. The only surprise for me so far was the team that was first picking Nyx.

Lane domination is very much a thing because denies are too overpowered. I only saw one game yesterday where a drow that got absolutely crushed in lane came back because of double aura and 4 ranged heroes. Otherwise laning is extremely important - something that can be verified by the lack of courier kills and early support rotations.

 

[InspectorRumpole]

I like the diversity of the picks this TI so far. Sure there's a few being picked a lot more than others, but that will always be the case.

It's also very close at the top in terms of who takes it this year.

 

[Malakal]

I am a fan of the IO - gyro combo thats sometimes popping up. Good times once IO reaches 25.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I hadn't played WK in a long time and decided to give it a try yesterday - the skellies are crazy strong with the talents. They hit for 75 damage and you can spawn 16 (!) of them at level 20. Even if you can't control them directly, you can use them for farming too and they're quite efficient as they have 50% magic resistance.

However, the talent choice at level 15 is really tough - either +35 damage for skellies or +15 str. +15 str is really good, especially at that stage in the game.

 

[curry]

On top of WK's lings being strong, he is a really strong laner in a dual offlane setup and the enemy team doesn't want to commit their resources into killing a pos 3 twice in team fights. He's basically a much better version of Beastmaster right now.

 

[Urthor]

 

[Great Deceiver]

On top of WK's lings being strong, he is a really strong laner in a dual offlane setup and the enemy team doesn't want to commit their resources into killing a pos 3 twice in team fights. He's basically a much better version of Beastmaster right now.

Well, I wouldn't go as far as saying that because Inner Beast is one of the stronger auras in the game and BM has a bkb-piercing disable. Plus you pick him for the vision aspect more than anything. He's just not popular right now because even pro teams suffer from groupthink and fads. He's still a strong hero that fills a different role than WK - doesn't scale as well but has better utility. I still don't know why drow lineups aren't picking BM. Triple aura owns.

But yeah, WK is much stronger now in the 2-1-2 meta. Another aspect that made him a lot betterr is the no-mana ankh being a level 20 talent instead of a level 25 now.

 

[Ninjerk]

OG vs. LGD game 3 had a great finish.

 

[Life of the Party]

 

[InspectorRumpole]

It was fucking hype that series.

After that I won an Arcana from the Battlepass worth $30. Not a bad day for an OG fanboy.

 

[Saark]

Ame basically lost that game cause he didnt buy refresher after buying back and BoTin in again. He had 9.8k gold before he died, couldve easily bought refresher+bots and go in again with full meta+bkb. Instead they'll have to go through the LB now. :/

 

[Great Deceiver]

Some great series in this TI even though I think the hero pool has been pretty lame on the main stage.

Great decision making by OG and I've always thought Jerax is the best pos. 4 in the business. Topson is playing some non-traditional shit and being original is very hard. I'm cheering for them to win this year.

Has anyone had the chance to try out the new hero? He's always banned in my games.

edit: I don't usually like Tobi's casting but he was really great in OG vs LGD.

 

[InspectorRumpole]

Agreed. I was saying earlier that I liked the hero diversity, but that's not the case really.

There's a shit ton of heroes that hasn't been picked, or only picked very rarely.

I like the intensity and the speed of the current meta, but Icefrog needs to make early ganks, offlaners, roamers ect viable again.

 

[flyingjohn]

So what do people think of the new hero?The ult seems ripe for some shenanigans.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Agreed. I was saying earlier that I liked the hero diversity, but that's not the case really.

There's a shit ton of heroes that hasn't been picked, or only picked very rarely.

I like the intensity and the speed of the current meta, but Icefrog needs to make early ganks, offlaners, roamers ect viable again.

I feel that the main issue with the game right now is that denies are simply way too strong. Although denies are a very important aspect of Dota and part of why laning is so intricate and rewarding, the xp differential right now is through the roof: the person being denied only gets 25% of the xp (therefore, 75% less) and the person denying gets 25% extra xp (that they would not get at all otherwise). It's crazy when you think about it. Simply denying the first ranged creep in the first wave in your lane is already enough to have a significant advantage. So when a support leaves a lane to gank or roam, the person who's alone in a disadvantaged position will simply get near-zero xp and the opposing lane will snowball really quickly. That's too costly in a fast meta that rewards early pushing.

There are exceptions to this rule in broken heroes like Ench. She can handle a 2v1 just fine.

Going back to denies giving 50-70% xp to the person being denied would go a long way to equalizing this massive difference. This simple change would open up the map and make roamers viable again - especially since bottles are now better and bounty runes are so valuable.

 

[unfairlight]

Is playing on EU servers still a pointless endeavor of fighting against your own team more than the enemy? Dota is way more fun to watch than play with the cancer community.

Guess we'll see now if the China curse holds up. Rice calculators have had some warmup for today, but might be more tired too.

 

[Explorerbc]

Bros, I don't play or watch DOTA, I just watch the International every year.

Can somebody explain the Fly vs n0tail drama in a few words? Chat spamming TRAITOR got me intrigued

 

[unfairlight]

N0tail said that he cannot play Dota without Fly because they have been together for a long time, and Fly left OG for Evil Geniuses and someone else did too from OG, I forgot. OG quickly found 2 pub players who could join the team and now they are at the grand finals.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Is playing on EU servers still a pointless endeavor of fighting against your own team more than the enemy? Dota is way more fun to watch than play with the cancer community.

Guess we'll see now if the China curse holds up. Rice calculators have had some warmup for today, but might be more tired too.

Unfortunately, the only way to have fun playing Dota is playing in a full 5 stack, with 4 other friends who don't suck at the game. Tough but true. Don't feel bad for not playing a good game - it's an amazing game at the highest level with competent players, but an absolute shitshow at the level most people play at. It's simply an utter waste of time that produces aggravation in 99% of the cases.

 

[unfairlight]

Guess I'm not going back to playing then.
I unironically peaked at 1k mmr because I got calibrated at 500 since I rushed to play ranked. Tons of smurfs at those ranks too. Wonder what rank I would be now. Played a ton of Visage mainly carry by just forcing my enemy out of lane 100% of the time. Ended one game with like 48 kills or something, it was fun at times. My winrate with Visage was 62% which I think is acceptable, I was lucky since no one knows how to play against the hero or compete in lane against him, least played hero after all. Could have gotten to a decent rank if I just decided to keep playing, but the MMR gains are so fucking slow that it would take me at least 300 hours to get to that point.

 

[InspectorRumpole]

Time for the Grand Final: Chaotic Dota vs Lawful Dota

 

[Great Deceiver]

I'm cheering for OG, but unfortunately I think bucktooth chinks who don't close their mouths are gonna win another TI. LGD are the superior and more consistent team, even though they lost in the winner's finals.

OG is gonna have to pull some weird shit out of their ass - it's possible, but not likely.

edit: holy fuck, OG is playing out of their minds.