Dota anyone?

[Artemician]

Except Darkseer is such a bad hero ;_; as far as baby sitting and support go. Don't get me wrong, he has some decent abilities, but he's quite easy to take out with one or two disables.

In terms of combo-ing, Watcher + Ion Shell is superior to Shadow Wave. But yes, Dark Seer can't even be compared to Dazzle in terms of overall power.

In terms of the metagame, it's actually shifted a bit towards late game. So your seeing more support heroes. Favorites include: Lich, Omniknight, Shadow Priest, chen, and of course warlock. But then, warlock has always been top tier and is banned often. As well as Chen was picked a lot to jungle and come in with 3 centaurs for ganks.

What makes me happy, Puck is getting picked a lot. Puck is awesome. Here are some statistics from MYM games MYM's pick stats. Note the lack of techies, poor techies, :-P.

Hmm. I last saw that list a while ago, back in the early part of this year. Well, looking through this one, there are a couple of more things I'd like to note:

1) Magnus, Tiny, Lina and Nevermore really have taken a beating from the Blinkdagger nerf. Seeing Mag and Tiny so near the bottom is really surprising. I wouldn't have thought that they'd be hurt *that* bad. Rar

2) I see that XcN have singlehandedly bumped Meepo up to 28th spot. Whoo!

3) The "Pure Carry Trio" has been split, apparently FV's 1.2 Strength gain is to low for him to go in competitive play now.

4) And yes, Puck top! Whoo!

[Poison_Fish]

In terms of combo-ing, Watcher + Ion Shell is superior to Shadow Wave. But yes, Dark Seer can't even be compared to Dazzle in terms of overall power.

Hmm. I last saw that list a while ago, back in the early part of this year. Well, looking through this one, there are a couple of more things I'd like to note:

1) Magnus, Tiny, Lina and Nevermore really have taken a beating from the Blinkdagger nerf. Seeing Mag and Tiny so near the bottom is really surprising. I wouldn't have thought that they'd be hurt *that* bad. Rar

2) I see that XcN have singlehandedly bumped Meepo up to 28th spot. Whoo!

3) The "Pure Carry Trio" has been split, apparently FV's 1.2 Strength gain is to low for him to go in competitive play now.

4) And yes, Puck top! Whoo!

Or if you do clockwerk + Darkseer. Hasted/ironshelled clockwerk + shield and his machine gun is a death lane. It's also why I hate clockwerk.

1. While they all have taken a beating, Magnus, Tiny, and Earth Shaker are still very useful with initiating, they just have a harder time escaping ganks. Standard builds for them still include the blink dagger.

What surprises me with the list though is to see Void, Magnus, Sandking, and Sven so near the bottom. Void is one of the best pure carries, and the remaining three have had such decent team synergy/ganking for a long time. DK's certainly become a popular carry these days though. Also a stacked sven is frightening.

[Cynan Machae]

I always thought of Void as one of the best carries,but his early game is sooo bad. And so is is HP. And compared to others carries, like TB, DK or Sk.K, void need much more items so carries later. TB with SnY and Sk.K with Armlet are already scary and it really don't take that much to farm.

I am unfamiliar with that "Pure Carry Trio". Not knowing even that FV would be used that much, I'm pretty curious as to who are the other two.

I can see why heroes like Lina get beaten down fromt he Dagger nerf, but really Magnus is confusing. If ES is still as good and his dagger is used like Magnus to initiate, why people don't pick Magnus anymore?

For SK and Sven, it's very sad seeing them drop that much. I've heard it was because of nerfs to themselves and that they didnt become as viable, but I've got a gap of quite some few versions I didn't play so I'm not sure what those are.

[EndlessWrath]

Orb walking, thanks for the info guys.
--------------
On the discussion of banned characters and such & especially imbalanced heroes. All heroes are was imbalanced in this game... which is why the game is was balanced. Now with some hero nerfing and some hero empowering, its become a little unstable. You guys probably won't agree with me, but i find that all heroes could be broken/godlike/imbalanced with the right items. Some heroes are easier than others, it doesn't mean their better.
For example.
When dazzle and Dark seer first came out... they were extremely underestimated by other people. Especially dazzle...being called a support hero more than once. Which yeah he is... but my point is, I can carry a game with just dazzle if i wanted to. The same applies for all heroes. Another good example is krobelus... Everyone I've seen (recently...it might be different for you all) has repicked krobe asap. Krobe is amazing... spam 300 wave damage, Huge area target silence, Synergy for all of it and bonus movespeed. and the exorcism...which I myself..personally love.

I do think icefrog did make a balance in the more recent versions with item updates. Intel heroes generally have more escape options and definitely a little more disabling. I do like the new euls. Didn't like the new requirements for guinsoo though. its definitely a tier 4 item now. definitely harder to rush (at least for me).
--------------------
Ar vs Ap: I've been finding myself playing more AR games over AP for two reasons.
1) I get bored playing the same heroes... so I random.
2) I'm tired of everybody picking the same heroes over and over again.
I swear I either see nightstalker, troll, BH, or Bloodseeker in every game. even the 2v2s and 3v3s. I know they're popular heroes. but we have what... 80 or 90 heroes to choose from? Even sd and rd are better as it filters out the possibility for them.
-------------------
New topic: Sa remade.
My buddy and i were considering a new build for SA... which he perfected. He hates invis heroes... and thinks they're completely noobish. So he decided to build SA without his invisibility ult. Power treads. Wraith band (1x or 2x), MKB, S&Y, Butterfly, vlads/2nd butterfly. Yes the double butterfly occurred... he was ridiculously fed. Didn't get the MKB though.. that might be why.
Cloud/blink/backstab levels 1->12. then stats for 10 levels. He was crazy good. especially since his backstab damage was off the chart.
Your opinion on this guys?

[Poison_Fish]

Orb walking, thanks for the info guys.
--------------
On the discussion of banned characters and such & especially imbalanced heroes. All heroes are was imbalanced in this game... which is why the game is was balanced. Now with some hero nerfing and some hero empowering, its become a little unstable. You guys probably won't agree with me, but i find that all heroes could be broken/godlike/imbalanced with the right items. Some heroes are easier than others, it doesn't mean their better.
For example.
When dazzle and Dark seer first came out... they were extremely underestimated by other people. Especially dazzle...being called a support hero more than once. Which yeah he is... but my point is, I can carry a game with just dazzle if i wanted to. The same applies for all heroes. Another good example is krobelus... Everyone I've seen (recently...it might be different for you all) has repicked krobe asap. Krobe is amazing... spam 300 wave damage, Huge area target silence, Synergy for all of it and bonus movespeed. and the exorcism...which I myself..personally love.

I do think icefrog did make a balance in the more recent versions with item updates. Intel heroes generally have more escape options and definitely a little more disabling. I do like the new euls. Didn't like the new requirements for guinsoo though. its definitely a tier 4 item now. definitely harder to rush (at least for me).
--------------------
Ar vs Ap: I've been finding myself playing more AR games over AP for two reasons.
1) I get bored playing the same heroes... so I random.
2) I'm tired of everybody picking the same heroes over and over again.
I swear I either see nightstalker, troll, BH, or Bloodseeker in every game. even the 2v2s and 3v3s. I know they're popular heroes. but we have what... 80 or 90 heroes to choose from? Even sd and rd are better as it filters out the possibility for them.
-------------------
New topic: Sa remade.
My buddy and i were considering a new build for SA... which he perfected. He hates invis heroes... and thinks they're completely noobish. So he decided to build SA without his invisibility ult. Power treads. Wraith band (1x or 2x), MKB, S&Y, Butterfly, vlads/2nd butterfly. Yes the double butterfly occurred... he was ridiculously fed. Didn't get the MKB though.. that might be why.
Cloud/blink/backstab levels 1->12. then stats for 10 levels. He was crazy good. especially since his backstab damage was off the chart.
Your opinion on this guys?

I'm going to have to disagree about balance, having played the game for a long time, the current game under icefrog is, to me, a bit more unbalanced right now. Granted, there are tons of bug fixes.

See, you can claim you can carry with dazzle fine, but I'd actually say your not carrying at all. Your doing DPS. Dazzle can't carry. He's got far to low health, and if he's being focused on, he will drop fast, no matter what items you throw on him or what abilities your spamming, save for shallow grave saving your butt for 5 seconds. Hence, why it's better to have Dazzle make sure the other carries out there are kicking butt and support ganking. But I've solo'd dazzle fine as well, I just never build damage items on him. Mech is usually #1 followed by a sheep stick. If I get even that far in the game, I'd most likely just get a bloodstone. This is of course assuming you have a team to rely on. If I'm playing by myself, I don't play Dazzle. Earth Shaker or Tiny are far more entertaining.

1. I don't get bored so much with myself picking new heroes as it is that I find myself often picking the same heroes. AR/RD/SD ensures I'm trying out new things, like Bristle Back, who I've been having fun with lately.

And what servers are you on in ap games for people to always pick noobseeker, nightsalker, or bounty hunter? Troll I see a lot in pub ap games, but those three I rarely encounter. Especially since all three are mediocre, nightstalker particularly so.

On SA. Your friend got lucky. Really, the only thing SA has going for him is his cloud and invis. I'm fine with heroes with wind walk/invis type effects (NA in particular), but SA is just another one of those not so good heroes. He's just to low health to go around in the open, even if he's stacked. 2 stuns on him pretty much ensures his death early or late game if you've got decent DPS around. That and the wonderful necro book can make him completely useless.

Side note: I'm sorry if I rail on heroes being not good. I should correct myself, they can be fun to play, and can make sense in public games. But in the competitive scene, they rarely show up for a numerous reasons. So remember, when I'm talking in the context of poor heroes, it's usually in that context. Except Dark Seer and Techies.

[Artemician]

[QUOTE=Cynan Machae;4813743]

I am unfamiliar with that "Pure Carry Trio". Not knowing even that FV would be used that much, I'm pretty curious as to who are the other two.

Spectre and Terrorblade.

I can see why heroes like Lina get beaten down fromt he Dagger nerf, but really Magnus is confusing. If ES is still as good and his dagger is used like Magnus to initiate, why people don't pick Magnus anymore?

I have a feeling it's due to the way Mid soloes are done now. The new style of mid solo are heroes like DK/Warlock/Potm who are incredibly durable and hard to harass. This makes Magnus a very sad hero, since without the shockwave harassing his lane control is pretty horrible.

For SK and Sven, it's very sad seeing them drop that much. I've heard it was because of nerfs to themselves and that they didnt become as viable, but I've got a gap of quite some few versions I didn't play so I'm not sure what those are.

Both of them have had their Ability growths nerfed (Crix especially so), as well as their base armour.

Crixalis now starts with 400 hp, 0 armour, and 2.2 strength gain per level. Sven starts with substantially less hp and 1 armour. Crixalis also has had Epicenter nerfed to the point where neither the damage nor the slow justify the 2 sec channeling time.

[Atomsized]

So i take it that Refresher is a must-have item for Tree. But around what lvl does tree have to be to actually have enough mana to use roots twice?

Oh, and which kind of lifesteal item shuold be good for him. (Vlads, Madness, Dominator.)

[Adumbration]

How powerful is Lanaya commonly considered? It would - from what I just played - appear to have a host of powerful abilities, for both offencive, defencive and supporting. In a -sdem public game I just scored 10-1 with it.

Does anyone else play in Northrend around here? It would be interesting to have a proper game for a change.

[Poison_Fish]

How powerful is Lanaya commonly considered? It would - from what I just played - appear to have a host of powerful abilities, for both offencive, defencive and supporting. In a -sdem public game I just scored 10-1 with it.

Does anyone else play in Northrend around here? It would be interesting to have a proper game for a change.

Lanaya is so much fun to play. I don't think she's picked that often though. She's also one of the harder one's to play. But her traps have good range to place down and can function as mini-wards.

I think most people are on US east, but I'm not sure. I'm on US west and I can host games/provide a ventrilo to help with in game advice and the like. There are usually 1-2 friends of mine around as well, so you'd be getting a team that you can somewhat rely on to practice things, but I can't assure that(Some get frustrated at noob mistakes, others are far more forgiving, I'm the latter, so as long as there aren't leavers ;_; )

[shadowxknight]

Ooo Poison Fish I play on US West too!
Add shadowxheart90 and we'll play sometime

I have to admit I'm pretty noobish(have to practice last hit/deny), but I'm proficient with a handful of heroes.

[Kizara]

DotA ftw!

Star_Moon on west; many here know my DotA skills already, but it sounds like we have a few around now that might compete with me. Great.


And yea, I'm not playing EM.


We should set up a meeting time, say Thrusday night? How's that for everyone?

[Lighturtle]

So i take it that Refresher is a must-have item for Tree. But around what lvl does tree have to be to actually have enough mana to use roots twice?

Oh, and which kind of lifesteal item shuold be good for him. (Vlads, Madness, Dominator.)

Build a necronomicon before the refresher.

About lifesteal: don't.

[Kizara]

Build a necronomicon before the refresher.

About lifesteal: don't.

I go rad, MoM, heart on tree. Mind you, this is assuming you are expected to carry.

For support tree, refresher to hex is a good build. If you have to build necro 3 before your refresher you will get it fairly late and sometimes too late at all for when its needed. Also, there's probably someone else on your team that should be building it and you likely aren't allowed more then 1.

PS: I have a stable LC host.

[Artemician]

DotA ftw!

Star_Moon on west; many here know my DotA skills already, but it sounds like we have a few around now that might compete with me. Great.


And yea, I'm not playing EM.


We should set up a meeting time, say Thrusday night? How's that for everyone?

I'm agreeable, even though I don't really tend to go onto BNet a lot nowadays, because of latency issues. I guess GArena has spoilt me :X

But when I'm on, I'm Windwaker@USWest. I don't pretend to be competive-standard, but I daresay that I'm have a firm grasp of the basics.

If anyone has a GArena ID, I'm Artemician over there.

[Poison_Fish]

My one problem with LC, besides it being awesome, is it gets some buggy lag issues with mac computers ;_;.

[Cynan Machae]

Thursday night could work for me if it's late... EST time. I can't really in te early evening. But I can play on West also.

On the subject of tree, I don't really like the idea of a Tree carry, but meh.

I used to play on GArena tho, but it's been more than one year back. Tho I'm CynanMachae there also.

I'll try to drop by USWest sometime. Will be using same username.

[Artemician]

PS: I have a stable LC host.

You don't have to *use* LC in order to join hosted LC games right? Just checking.

[Cynan Machae]

Nope, only the host needs to use it.

[EndlessWrath]

sadly. I can only get on after school days... say 2-4:30 EST. T_T
---------------------------
Played Undying where I went the horrible 2/5/4. 5 deaths is bad news...I did however become interested in him. If anyone has a good item build with him (besides putting mekk on him.) let me know.

[Poison_Fish]

sadly. I can only get on after school days... say 2-4:30 EST. T_T
---------------------------
Played Undying where I went the horrible 2/5/4. 5 deaths is bad news...I did however become interested in him. If anyone has a good item build with him (besides putting mekk on him.) let me know.

Undying is another one of those meh jack of all trade heroes. He can chase with plague which helps somewhat in team battles, he can push a lane well, and he can baby sit all right.

Personally, when we do have an undying in fun games, we have him jungle and farm up a raideance. Largely because with that and heart stopper aura, his whole purpose is to be there and be annoying/keep his friends alive/nuke a low health hero near tons of creeps. Later builds have shiva's, sheep stick, necro book, whatever the team really needs.

[Kizara]

Undying is another one of those meh jack of all trade heroes. He can chase with plague which helps somewhat in team battles, he can push a lane well, and he can baby sit all right.

Personally, when we do have an undying in fun games, we have him jungle and farm up a raideance. Largely because with that and heart stopper aura, his whole purpose is to be there and be annoying/keep his friends alive/nuke a low health hero near tons of creeps. Later builds have shiva's, sheep stick, necro book, whatever the team really needs.

Personally, although he's annoying to play against I find him to generally be an ineffectual hero. I'd rather have a meepo, chen or lycan as a swarmer. I'd rather have SP for support/AoE creep damage. I'd rather have tb as a jungle carry (also decent swarmer).

Want to stop his zombie spam push? Pick qop/lesh/thd and buy a void early. Free farm all game is thx.

[Artemician]

Personally, although he's annoying to play against I find him to generally be an ineffectual hero. I'd rather have a meepo, chen or lycan as a swarmer. I'd rather have SP for support/AoE creep damage. I'd rather have tb as a jungle carry (also decent swarmer).

Want to stop his zombie spam push? Pick qop/lesh/thd and buy a void early. Free farm all game is thx.

I agree totally with this, except for the bolded part.

Meepo, a swarmer he ain't. AoE Snarer/Nuker yes, but he drops too fast in melee to be a swarmer.

[Adumbration]

Undying soloing a lane against two melee-ers is a good tactic, unless your enemies happen to have some spell-combo that one-shots you. The heartstopper aura and the zombies guarantee that the enemies dare not attack the creeps.

My personal tactic is to get Vladimir, Power Threads and Assault Cuirass, in that order. Start it out with Ring of Basilius as first item - the mana regen combined with the zombies keeps your health up.

[Poison_Fish]

Personally, although he's annoying to play against I find him to generally be an ineffectual hero. I'd rather have a meepo, chen or lycan as a swarmer. I'd rather have SP for support/AoE creep damage. I'd rather have tb as a jungle carry (also decent swarmer).

Want to stop his zombie spam push? Pick qop/lesh/thd and buy a void early. Free farm all game is thx.

Axe as well. But if your ever playing axe, always, always, always, get a blink dagger. He's just one of those good heroes against swarms of melee enemies.

[EndlessWrath]

Axe as well. But if your ever playing axe, always, always, always, get a blink dagger. He's just one of those good heroes against swarms of melee enemies.

I will agree Axe is a phenomenal hero. I don't understand dual Vanguards on him though. I can understand he was made to have one... but there are many better items you can get on him... Anyone care to convince me about double vanguard nonsense? or would you agree to my assessment. Another note on axe... He's the one hero i don't mind being KSed by. I have a colossal problem if Axe uses his ulti and it doesn't kill the person though.. cause he was stupid and used it on them with their over 1k hp. -_-. At that point I'm like... "gimme control.... "

[Kizara]

Axe as well. But if your ever playing axe, always, always, always, get a blink dagger. He's just one of those good heroes against swarms of melee enemies.

Axe doesn't fill the same role on a team that undying would, but I agree he's more generally team-useful.


And yes, Axe needs a dagger. As for the dual-van question: no, that's stupid.
Get one and then build something like a BKB, heart, AC or other such carry str hero items.

I mean, if you want to buy the second vit booster early to turn it into a heart later, I could see that being extremely viable.


As for meepo being a 'swarmer', I would claim he is. It is difficult to deal with him unless you have a powerful burst effect or good aoe (IE lina rapes him) because he overwhelms you with his clones. Also, I forgot brood in my list there, probably one of the best swarmers in the game.


EDIT: Tomarrow (thursday) I am going to be hosting games for the GitP DotA group using my LC, starting from about 4pm MST to until I get sick of it (possibly very late). All are welcome that have any idea how to play. I dont expect most people to be anywhere near as good as me, but that's fine. I will be hosting any non-em game mode people like, probably mostly -RDSP or -APSP.

[Artemician]

As for meepo being a 'swarmer', I would claim he is. It is difficult to deal with him unless you have a powerful burst effect or good aoe (IE lina rapes him) because he overwhelms you with his clones. Also, I forgot brood in my list there, probably one of the best swarmers in the game.

But his job isn't to swarm people, it's to sit 1 screen away and throw nets. Or occasionally, poof in peoples' faces for 1k spell damage in a 400 aoe. While he does require AoE to beat, his modus operandi isn't to swarm per se.

EDIT: Tomarrow (thursday) I am going to be hosting games for the GitP DotA group using my LC, starting from about 4pm MST to until I get sick of it (possibly very late). All are welcome that have any idea how to play. I dont expect most people to be anywhere near as good as me, but that's fine. I will be hosting any non-em game mode people like, probably mostly -RDSP or -APSP.

Is this USWest or USEast? If it is USEast, then what is your ID?

[Kizara]

But his job isn't to swarm people, it's to sit 1 screen away and throw nets. Or occasionally, poof in peoples' faces for 1k spell damage in a 400 aoe. While he does require AoE to beat, his modus operandi isn't to swarm per se.



Is this USWest or USEast? If it is USEast, then what is your ID?

My Bnet ID is Star_Moon. I'll be hosting on East, cause most people seem to be there, it is the 'home' of DotA (TDA) and all my friends won't harrass me. :)

[Douglas]

Ah, good, east is where I play. Expect a douglas_m to show up whenever I remember about it. I think I'm fairly good, but definitely not one of the best.

You should probably announce a channel for everyone to meet in, unless you really want to try coordinating by whispers.

[Cynan Machae]

I don't know if I will be able to be there early, but I'll be back at home around 10 PM EST (8 PM MST?). I hope some people will still be there.

Where will people meet? SC and WC3 people use the GitP channel to meet. I think it could probably be good for thursday GitP DotA group.