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

[Malakal]

Did they have lycan and he howled? Or other damage buffs? Because spiderlings by themselves have quite a lot of health for tanking tower hits but arent very deadly.

 

[polo]

Nothing, broodmother offlane. I don't know what to think, he was not even level 6 either, actually we first blooded him, then the nightmare began.

 

[curry]

That was a 6k mmr game? With techies achieving that score and puck feeding so much? Woah.
Are you sure, everyone else was 5kmmr? Cause it wasnt a rated game.

The game doesn't allow bigger gap than 2k between players

 

[polo]

Didn't know that, makes sense anyways. But what about non rated players? Are they given a specific placeholder mmr, like 2k or something?

 

[Damned Registrations]

The change to broodmother was that now the spiderlings have no unit size, so they don't need a surround to lay into you (the flipside being, they can no longer surround you to keep you from escaping, but that many spiderlings tends to be deadly anyways.

The really tiny spiderlings (spiderites) only hit for like 6-8 damage, but the ones actually spawned by the spell aren't that weak, and a decent number can fuck up a low armour hero pretty quickly. The listed damage is 18-20, but unlike most creeps, it's chaos damage, so they do full damage to heroes the way other heroes do, while other creeps only do 75% or even as low as 50%. At any rate, consider 6 spiderlings (two spawns from a level 5 broodmother) hitting you to be equivalent to a hero with ~110 damage right clicking you non stop. Pretty hard to ignore unless you're a melee hero with a stout shield.

 

[polo]

Yeah well shit. I thought something like that, 18 pure damage at a kind of fast pace x 5. At low levels is just crazy.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Chaos damage isn't pure damage. The equivalent to chaos damage was Divine damage.

You can see the different hidden armour/damage types here: http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Damage_types

Divine/Pure damage bypasses all that shit entirely, including even your actual armour number. For example, OD does that type of damage on his orbs, and it'll murder you even through Guardian Angel. Ditto for Silencer or Enchantress.

The confusion between the two is because by default, Chaos damage in WC3 did 100% damage to all types, and listed that in the tooltip. It still didn't ignore armour values, but it'd do way more than the same amount of hero damage to a building, for example. But they rebalanced a bunch of that shit in DotA eventually anyways and now Chaos is basically hero damage that is less effective vs buildings (where heroes already suffer a penalty.)

 

[Jasede]

Recently started playing DOTA 2, am level 13.

My normal winrate sank below 60% so to get it up again I played 9 games as Ogre Magi. 9 wins.

Play Ogre Magi. 80.77% winrate, 26 games with OM.

 

[polo]

Great hero, but kind of boring after some games.
I've been playing some invo lately, so much fun. It might be my new fav hero along with Kunkkawesome.

Also, im tired of that PA event in pubs. Please make it stop, please. Sets are cool, but i don't really care.

 

[Jasede]

He's definitely boring, but he's certainly highly useful.

And it sucks to have all these shitty PAs feeding.

Edit: My 100% Omniknight winrate continues. (7 games only) -- it's fun to have the enemies rage in all chat when their fed as fuck Faceless and PA hit your teammates uselessly for 8 seconds while I chillax in the fountain.

 

[Greatness]

Guys, I think I figured out the secret to getting free MMR.

Spoiler

 

[you know what time it is]

Boredom?

 

[polo]

So much IO, so much boredom. Good for you tho.
Been playin' sum Axe lately, so much fun. Also still practicing with Invo, now Exort early EUL build.

 

[Orma]

All random deathmatch is extremely fun.

 

[Hoodoo]

Pit lord out yet?

 

[Ninjerk]

Pit lord out yet?

oracle

 

[kingcomrade]

I can never win at Dota. I have two big strikes against me. I play only with friends who are far lesser MMR'd than me (it's a social game where people are on Skype) and I generally only agree to play if I'm drunk. The sad part is, I still end up with highest GPM on my team because bad players don't understand how important that is. High strategy can get fucked, just have more gold on more people who matter. This is why the strategy in pubs of ganking mid so your mid hero gets fed over and over is the best pub strategy. There's better stuff for coordinated teams, but who the fuck are you kidding? Just gank mid over and over and even if it fails your mid gets freefarm because the enemy has to be a bitch and run away and stand back

 

[Hoodoo]

High strategy
High gpm
U must be high

Only thing that matters is the plays

 

[Ninjerk]

I haven't played since September, and I wasn't that great back then.

 

[Greatness]

New patch: http://www.dota2.com/shiftingsnows/

In other news, playing solo matchmaking at high MMR feels like a lost cause. Every game it puts me with 4 teammates who are 1000-1500 MMR below me (so the match is "balanced") and every time they will instapick stupid shit like sniper or pudge. You're pretty much forced to pick some snowball mid and hope you can somehow win the game 1v9.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Some thoughts about new patch:

- Alch buff is nice, but doesn't really fix his problems - after all, it's not that he can't farm, it's more about him having weak presence in the lane (if he goes for the early greed). I think that concoction needs to be reworked (so it can be used as a self-defense tool without making Alch an imba-ganker).

- BM's 1st lever boar is pretty nice - it's weak but it's 15 extra damage and 10% slow when earlier there was none of these. Probably better than the first level axes.

- 42 sec of CK illusions is a freaking lot. Sure' they're not as good at taking down the buildings but they're as adept as they were at slaughtering everyone else.

- This new test of faith is a great boon for the Chen's aghs. Previously, with ancients being slow as they are, it was almost impossible to push rax without actually losing them on the retreat (which was a great loss of time & plenty of gold fed to the enemy). 1 extra creep is also great news, though the most important thing there is 2 creeps at level 3 - that's insane early ganking power. And even if you can't gank, you still can do a lot of shit with that extra creep - farm with one & stack the ancients or the second hard camp with the other, for example. Or just send him to help your lane - like, any lane will appreciate a Tornado-casting wildwing. Or one of the spellcasting small creeps, like the harpy or that 2 mana regen aura troll healer. Too bad I have shit micro.

- Curious buff for the ES. So if you max out the passive early, cheap totems give you a lot of procks which can be used to either harass the living hell out of melee opponents on the lane or to farm some jungle.

- So Enchantress without boots now outruns the CM with the boots. Yeah. Anyhow, that's a pretty cool change, especially for those radical MOM-wearing Enchantresses - 500 speed without anything else, 519 with drums. Can we consider a hardlane enchantress now? Boots first and you start with the whopping 385 speed - very hard to chase and it should give you enough time for some sweet raids to the enemy jungle.

- I play a lots of support gyrocopter recently and that call down buff is pretty sweet. And it's not even the radius, it's the slow buff - let's not forget that the second missile's debuff lasts 3 seconds so anything that gets caught in the center of the ult isn't escaping easily. Forcestaffing homing missiles is also lulzy.

- Huskar's builds now suddenly got much tougher. Early levels of inner vitality were crap previously and now they're guaranteed 160hp (+ some scraps from the percentage healing). Yeah, it costs a lot of mana but it's not like Huskar has much opportunities to spend it. Also makes bottle much better for him (as previously that mana regen got wasted). I guess 1 level of passive can be sacrificed for that, no?

- Juggs looks like an awesome carry now. His last remaining weakness was his pathetic right-click damage but with this 6 extra agility that's no longer the case. And let's not forget that he's a 1.4 base attack time right-clicker - these should never be underestimated.

- KOTL is probably my best hero and it's pleasant to see him buffed even more - that chakra magic discount is actually greatly helpful as, despite all the mana regen powers, KOTL himself is quite a mana hungry hero. 1 extra second on the blinding light is also rather annoying for the enemy right clickers.

- Kunkka got much better as a midder now (which is something that he once was), no? That teleport/X marks combo to get regenned at the base (probably with the help of a bottle) is very potent. Previously, it wasn't really viable as you had to invest way too much into X early and that killed your fighting potential. But now it's just one point there and a hundred gold on a tp scroll (which can be provided by your support) to stay relevant in the lane. Looks nifty.

- 10 seconds diabolic edict is pretty ridiculous. That 2 sec buff may not sound like much, but that's 8 extra explosions against the buildings which result in ~400 extra damage. That sounds over the top, tbh.

- Lina buffs are pretty sweet.

- Luna buffs are pleasant too.

- Balanar got a weird one. So he has a little bit less of darktime now at the high levels, but more in the early game (which is his reigning period) and the interval between his ults is smaller so it's harder to catch him with his pants down. He also is not as good at blinding most heroes (they got extra 75 vision), but is much better at blinding the wards. And some early game buffs, of course - his right click got so good.

- QoP is an actual solo hardlaner now, I guess. Her blink is now a potent escape mechanism even at level 1 and, well, what else a hard laner needs? And her ult is pretty awesome now - does more actual damage and screws with all the bkb-dependent heroes (and there's a whole lot of them in the game).

- Sniper's new shrapnel sorta changes his focus. So, previously, he was an in-and-out of fashion midlaner who was quite adept at destroying the opposing tower (and, once he got MOM, could've also split push the tier-1s quite successfully). Now he's more about mass-teamfights, I guess - 3 shrapnels spammed in rapid succession cover a lot of ground and, while they don't stack with each other and cost a lot of mana (that's an issue), it won't be easy to fight in all that 30% slow and constant damage.

- I totally want to see a Techies + Meepo in the same pro-team pick.

- Windranger got a huge buff in this one. Dunno about pro-games, but one thing I love doing in the pub is clearing some trees at the medium camps with powershots & jungling a bit. Sorta like doing the ancients, but works on the both sides. And, generally, you don't go straight into that, but only if something abnormal happens (too greedy lanes with too many farming heroes, shit pick providing zero ganking opportunities, etc.). And so, the 2600 powershot is really good because you can pretty much hit their mid-laner from those positions. Maybe with a minimal adjustment, like a second of movement or so. And, well, that's pretty radical because it's gonna be hard for them to dodge it - they don't see you shooting. You can combo it with your midlaner's stuns (that'll require some skype, though) and it's quite a decent amount of damage. Lots of pressure on the opposing mid without actually leeching xp and gold from your mid (on the contrary, while farming in the process). And I'm sure you can also double-stack some of the neutral camps with this range rather easily. And, of course, her ult is even better now - just rush that Desolator and towers will melt even faster (Rosh is easier too).

- Blink buff should return the TA in the top-heroes list. Let's not forget how crazy she was until her "refraction protects blink" got fixed. And now it is unfixed again. And it's not like she suffered any capital buffs or debuffs in the process. Sure, they can counter her by all the double-mid crap or just mid-Jakiro, but that also has its issues (especially now that Jakiro got nerfed a bit).

- Non-orb diffucal is pretty cool though I'm not sure who wants that.

- Helm of the Dominator buff looks solid in the early game - it's a big difference between the 600 hp alpha wolf and a 1100 hp one. As well as the 950 wildwing and a 1450 one. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if someone like Luna went for a dominator rush (getting it even faster than the boots) if only to grab an relatively early harpy stormcaller (1050 hp stormcaller) or satyr mindstealer (1100 hp mindstealer) or even a 1000 hp Ghost to do something while the laning stage lasts still.

- Medallion buff is also decent. I love this item and I think that no lineup should go without one and now it's either an even faster roshan/hero kill or 7 more item to your core carry (for something like a Doom it can mean a lot in the early game).

 

[Orma]

4 creeps(ancients) for chen

 

[Greatness]

The new chen should be pretty fun to see. Blink dagger with 5 tomato creeps + your first 2 spells = ~1500 dmg.

Or of course just blink into 5 centuar stomps for 10 seconds of aoe stun.

 

[polo]

Kunkka's X buffed, thank you valve

The new lifestealer control skill... Interesting.

Pudge's hook level 1 is now scary with 1000 range! I always felt it was kind of too short but 1000 seems a bit much.

Also, i predict huskar being totally broken if there is no decent counter in a game.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Enjoying the living hell out of the Tree's new aghs:

Of course, this was the not so typical game as our pick was sorta retarded (so was theirs, though - it's a low priority queue) and I went easy lane (no one else to do that, lol) and got lots of farm. Midas > Aghs (which, once you ward all the small & medium neutral camps, gives you 0.5k gold per ulti) > Shiva > Refresher > Assault > Halberd. Plenty of wards on the maps (untypically for a pub, they have tried to counter them with the WR's shots but kinda sucked at that), sudden death anywhere, anytime. Maybe not exactly death (though the damage is pretty good), but good initiation anyways. Good setups for enigma too. And just disables for the banshee's ult. Can't say my plays were perfect but whatever.

Anyhow, Tree with the new aghs is really fun. Of course, I'm one of the few players who think that even the old tree was fun, but now it's even better. Almost makes me want to switch my nick to the "Angry Molesting Tree", y'know.