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

[Dr1f7]

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehehehehehehehehehehehehe~!

wish valve would ban my account and put me out of my misery

 

[Axel_am]

Ah, what a beautiful day. Maybe I should a play a game of DotA or two.

>watches video
nvm i'm good

 

[luj1]

Bloodstone such a crazy item right now. Spell lifesteal aside, it gives you +75 AoE now and is cheaper. Get it on Sand King, Leshrac, Axe, Pudge, Skywrath, Shaker, etc. The AoE upgrade alone is worth it, it's the only item which gives you this.

 

[luj1]

I noticed I get Lotus Orb almost every game, when playing pos 3, 4 or 5. Incredible skill-based item to use on your initiators and counter-initiators, pure twitch. When I reflect Chain Frost or something like that I almost piss my pants. And the dispel is always nice, especially when playing a 3.

 

[ind33d]

would dota be better if instead of heroes it was themed as naval combat and each player commanded a different ship?

 

[luj1]

Wisp insane rn

Just survive early game.. holy locket 1st item (even before mek), max spirits for dmg

Taking lotuses from the pool is VITAL

After holy locket and mek I go Aghs. Shard u can get from tormentor

After Aghs I get heart or Radiance

In lategame this hero is a nightmare. Can save any team mate, global presence, crazy damage with talents... Also dont forget u can share spell lifesteal at full efficiency. Really want to try getting Bloodstone and linking to Bristle, Pudge or Lesh

 

[luj1]

Wisp insane rn

Just survive early game.. holy locket 1st item (even before mek), max spirits for dmg

Taking lotuses from the pool is VITAL

After holy locket and mek I go Aghs. Shard u can get from tormentor

After Aghs I get heart or Radiance

In lategame this hero is a nightmare. Can save any team mate, global presence, crazy damage with talents... Also dont forget u can share spell lifesteal at full efficiency. Really want to try getting Bloodstone and linking to Bristle, Pudge or Lesh

addendum

- use relocate to farm lotuses (!), take outposts, ward the map and take runes, etc.
- for safety reasons ghost scepter is a great transitional item between locket/mek and agh/radi/heart (and everyone is focusing you anyway so its an excellent save)
- this is very important. dont try to stay tethered for a single hero, dont be inseparable, but instead try to tether as many different heroes in different situations as possible (overchange also gives spell amplification (!) and can share spell lifesteal (imagine turning on your bloodstone and linking to pudge or bristleback))
- highly suggested to NOT buy shard, as a low net worth hero you will almost always get it from tormentor
- getting spirits at lvl 1 to harass is more useful than tether or overcharge
- you have potentially 5 burst heals - stick/locket, mek/GG, lotus, faerie fire (heals for 120%) and Dagon

 

[hajro]

Patch when? Dead game

 

[Lucumo]

would dota be better if instead of heroes it was themed as naval combat and each player commanded a different ship?

 

[luj1]

Patch when? Dead game

Any day now

New hero, 2 Arcanas, new items and an ingame event

I think it's going to be big

 

[hajro]

today or tomorrow

 

[KVVRR]

today or tomorrow

it was yesteday
and uh. well, it's just all cosmetics lmao. looks like we won't be getting the new hero or new gameplay until after this event ends which means at least 4 more months now. i thought the whole point of not being tied to TI anymore was so they wouldn't have to delay content like this?

 

[The_Mask]

I'll be honest, I kind of like cavern crawls.

 

[InspectorRumpole]

So with Crownfall it looks like Valve is moving towards some sort of Season Pass things, and ditching the Battle Pass. Which means they are not getting anymore of my money.

I'll still play the game ofc, but last TI felt really whelming with the shit prize pool.

 

[Saark]

I think that's their goal. The big prizepool will come from the Saudis now, with the esports "World Cup" event in Riyadh rumored to be a $50mil prizepool in 2025 (across all games). No need to compete with that when they can just drag their feet and do a smaller event for TI that is no longer the biggest tournament of the scene.

 

[soutaiseiriron]

valve and letting ESL/Faceit group (aka saudi public investment fund) buy out every single one of their esports games
name a better duo
hint: you can't

 

[Saark]

Not a Valve-specific issue though, esports bubble burst years ago and most circuits and professional scenes that aren't subsidized or fully funded by the developers as part of the marketing budget, are struggling financially and/or dying. The only people throwing money at esports at this point are the Saudis. Sportswashing at its finest.

 

[soutaiseiriron]

idk, i'd say that using specifically ESL's (saudi's) rating system for teams in doto 2 is a very valve-specific issue when that's an issue they don't have in csgo. it seems like selling the game out to me. then again valve's an incredibly shit company that puts in zero effort into anything unless they can monetise the community, and doesn't have any sort of backbone at all, so it is what it is, isn't it. when dota 2 is what valve's "high effort" looks like, then what "low effort" looks like is honestly an absurd embarrassment.

 

[InspectorRumpole]

Hard to say what might've been.

People say the bubble has bust, but TI was crowd funded nad not based on investors nad outsiders. And it had ben growing each year.

Sure, people are saying that Chinese scene is moving to mobile games, and that next prize pool would have been low, but that could just be Valve covering the bases as to why they sold TI to the Saudi's

 

[Saark]

People say the bubble has bust, but TI was crowd funded nad not based on investors nad outsiders. And it had ben growing each year.

TI having a lower prize pool ultimately ends up better for players, because it forces teams to pay actual salaries and benefits whereas previously they could essentially just say "just win TI lmao" or one of the other major tournaments. While that approach worked for a handful of teams who already had money up the wazoo, it's not something that any new team can just jump into, and it created a large gap between the top-end teams and orgs and the amateur ones.

The main issue is that even if Valve were to continue having insane TI prizepools, it wouldn't change the fact that there isn't that many tournaments that have prizepools that can sustain 20+ professional teams. Now that winning the tournament is less of an incentive, orgs have to consider whether they want to actually jump into having a DotA roster by spending proper money on it, which was a rarity in the formative years of DotA 2 esports. Professional DotA is in a much better space now from a sustainability point of view, and most of the people you see playing professional in T1 and even T2 tournaments these days, can do so without relying on prizepool winnings.

 

[soutaiseiriron]

Professional DotA is in a much better space now from a sustainability point of view, and most of the people you see playing professional in T1 and even T2 tournaments these days, can do so without relying on prizepool winnings

it's worse than cs2 is with how much the PIF has the scene by the balls
if you wanted the scene to be not so TI reliant, just cap the prize pool with 5m and 3.5m for winners

 

[Saark]

if you wanted the scene to be not so TI reliant, just cap the prize pool with 5m and 3.5m for winners

That's essentially what they did by no longer having insane crowdfunding happening for TI. Imagine the outrage if Valve kept making the old battlepasses that brought in tens of millions, but capping the prizepool "for the sake of the scene". So the new no-battlepass situation is a win-win for them. They have to spend less work on this shit (and from everything that is being said, the amount of people who still want to actively work on DotA2 at Valve has declined quite a bit over the years), while also getting the benefit of a "healthier" professional scene, that is being upheld by gambling orgs, sportswashing oilers and the yearly majors and TI.

 

[InspectorRumpole]

People say the bubble has bust, but TI was crowd funded nad not based on investors nad outsiders. And it had ben growing each year.

Professional DotA is in a much better space now from a sustainability point of view, and most of the people you see playing professional in T1 and even T2 tournaments these days, can do so without relying on prizepool winnings.

Interesting take, with how make teams have quit dota recently.

 

[Saark]

Interesting take, with how make teams have quit dota recently.

The difference is that the teams that still exist, can actually play, practice and even decide to not participate in certain tournaments or end up placing badly, without having to worry about their livelihoods. Obviously there's a risk of getting replaced if you keep on sucking, and most orgs still expect long-term goals to be met. The problem with the old pro-scene was that many teams kept dropping their squads after 3-6 months of non-performance, or signed up new promising squads just before TI in order to get a slice of the pie. That's not healthy, and players basically *had* to win tournaments to justify putting their lives, education and careers on hold. With the last few years of >30mil prizepools for TI, getting knocked out first round of TI was more profitable than a full year of playing, and that was something many orgs exploited.

The scene is better off, because having ~30-40 teams globally where all the players get decent pay and benefits regardless of placements, with the top teams making 5-figure monthly salaries on top of the prizepool earnings, is preferable to one where you have 60+ teams but only a dozen or so of them were able to sustain themselves, and only did so by consistently placing Top 8 at tournaments/qualifying for TI. With the esports bubble having burst and prizepools going down, this situation would've only worsened, so in my opinion, this is a straight improvement. Less focus on performance, more focus on player brands. The chinese learned that lesson a long time ago, which is why most of their pros retired at a much earlier age than western pros, and made a hell of a lot more money streaming or moving onto bigger things in life than trying to take home the big money bag by placing Top3 at TI once a year.

 

[InspectorRumpole]

Interesting take, with how make teams have quit dota recently.

The difference is that the teams that still exist, can actually play, practice and even decide to not participate in certain tournaments or end up placing badly, without having to worry about their livelihoods. Obviously there's a risk of getting replaced if you keep on sucking, and most orgs still expect long-term goals to be met. The problem with the old pro-scene was that many teams kept dropping their squads after 3-6 months of non-performance, or signed up new promising squads just before TI in order to get a slice of the pie. That's not healthy, and players basically *had* to win tournaments to justify putting their lives, education and careers on hold. With the last few years of >30mil prizepools for TI, getting knocked out first round of TI was more profitable than a full year of playing, and that was something many orgs exploited.

The scene is better off, because having ~30-40 teams globally where all the players get decent pay and benefits regardless of placements, with the top teams making 5-figure monthly salaries on top of the prizepool earnings, is preferable to one where you have 60+ teams but only a dozen or so of them were able to sustain themselves, and only did so by consistently placing Top 8 at tournaments/qualifying for TI. With the esports bubble having burst and prizepools going down, this situation would've only worsened, so in my opinion, this is a straight improvement. Less focus on performance, more focus on player brands. The chinese learned that lesson a long time ago, which is why most of their pros retired at a much earlier age than western pros, and made a hell of a lot more money streaming or moving onto bigger things in life than trying to take home the big money bag by placing Top3 at TI once a year.

But, like you said yourself - Riyad Masters is the new TI with an insane prize pool, so I don't really see the different.