DOTA 2: Disbanded or Terrible Associations 2: In Loving Memory of PGG

[Azruelli]

What a bad day for early leavers. Played five games, four of them had two or more leaves in the first ten. One had two leaves in the first two minutes after first wave.

My steam should be in my sig if anyone wants to play, be alert of the fact that I am a scrublord with only about 20 games of LoL previous to Dota, but I'm learning and watching competitive Dota with some plan to enter during the summer.

[forkinyoureye]

Haven't posted here for a while, but I guess I should say why I haven't played Dota 2. It's mostly because the experience gained for each kill you get really just kinda nullifies your chances for any late-game comebacks, so if you have a newbie that screws up and feeds the enemy team at the start, you're almost certainly going to lose even if that person fixes their mistakes after ten minutes of the game. The only exception is if the enemy team is on a lower skill level than you or someone on the enemy team disconnects. In the first case, it wouldn't happen anyways, and in a good match, neither would the second. League of Legends doesn't do this, therefore my preference for LoL.

[Bandages]

LoL couldn't be more casual :B

I'm sure it's fun if you never played dota, but I just can't bring myself to play a watered down version of a game I love. Also, having someone feed isn't always gg, it depends who they feed to (a fed cm won't break your team, for example), and you can come back from pretty much anything if you're coordinated enough...

[Milskidasith]

No, even a fed CM is GG if she isn't stupid, because a fed *insert anybody here* can easily transfer feeding and experience from kills to any other lane. If you feed CM 4 kills and a ton of last hits early, unless she's building aura+stats (in which case, how the everloving fuck did she get 4 kills), she can lock somebody down for three seconds, dealing about 600 guaranteed damage without even ulting before other champs get their ult; if, at that point, the teams are roughly even, CM should be able to easily keep the enemy locked down and force her lanes to win.

The excuse of "you can come back from anything if you are coordinated" is also a silly one. "You can come back from being worse if you're better" is really bad advice. Yeah, it's theoretically *possible* to win sometimes, but if the enemy team has a fed Drow Ranger, a Dazzle, and multiple stunners, all the coordination in the world can't keep them from simply letting Drow Ranger kick you in the face (with arrows!)

As for LoL.... yeah, making this thread into a Dota vs. LoL topic is stupid, and nobody in this thread should do it. The only comment I'll make is that they're different games, and comparing them in the same way they're usually compared is like comparing Halo to Call of Duty, and saying Halo is worse because it takes more bullets to kill somebody.

[forkinyoureye]

I wasn't going to turn this into Dota vs. LoL thing. I was just saying, hey, I've started playing LoL instead and I'm probably not going to play this again, and here's why.

LoL couldn't be more casual :B

And I'm a casual player.

[Bandages]

:|

well okay, a 4-0 cm with a lot of last hits will still be nothing more than a puddle of free exp/gold to any hardcarry worth their salt

The game isn't so simple as to say "someone feeds - you lose" but I think you know that

I'll be around dispensing wisdom in this thread, it won't always be teamfriendly, but it's for everyone's benefit. :B

Nothing wrong with playing LoL, but if you want to step up to DotA, I would be happy to answer any questions you might have : )

e: I have no problem with casual players, btw. It's not a derogatory term. I don't try to always come off as a raging asshole, I think I do have some good advice and maybe telling that through the lens of truthfulness might be harsh, but... okay. I don't really want to alienate anyone or make anyone feel unwanted in the dota community. I just like helping people be better so they can have more fun and so everyone can??? yes

[zeratuljo1291]

No, even a fed CM is GG if she isn't stupid,

clearly you have never met the sange/yasha CM with bkb and blademail (fed so hard)

joking aside, any early advantage can be taken away. thats what lategame is for. even in LoL, the way to win is to build on your advantages and snowball your way to victory. a kill early game never means gg, but a kill mid game at a critical moment can mean barracks. a kill late game will assuredly get you roshan.

[Bandages]

Terry gets it, and Terry is a really good gamer :B

I know it's a touch unorthodox, but if anyone is feeling adventurous, the /vg/ board on 4chan always has an active dota 2 thread. It's 4chan, so you never know what to expect, but it's supposed to be a worksafe board, and the advice is usually pretty good, and if someone posts something wrong, it will be corrected/mocked pretty quickly. It's not for everyone, but you get a lot of insight in those threads, and they let you know when the tournament games and other streams are up, which are super fun to watch

[forkinyoureye]

Nothing wrong with playing LoL, but if you want to step up to DotA, I would be happy to answer any questions you might have : )

e: I have no problem with casual players, btw. It's not a derogatory term. I don't try to always come off as a raging asshole, I think I do have some good advice and maybe telling that through the lens of truthfulness might be harsh, but... okay. I don't really want to alienate anyone or make anyone feel unwanted in the dota community. I just like helping people be better so they can have more fun and so everyone can??? yes

To be honest I'm mostly using Dota 2 and LoL as games for me to play when I get tired of TF2. I'll be sure to come here for help if I need any, though.

[Bandages]

Yeah! TF2 is great. I played every day until I got my dota invite. I hope you have fun playing any game you endeavor to, of course. And if you ever want to try dota again, I will be here to lend a helping hand :)

[zeratuljo1291]

updated op for better resources.

the /vg/ board is really skilled stuff and has mostly tips for those who are good but not great to great but not perfect. its also a hive of scum and villeny and etc etc. peruse at your risk.

the /r/dota2 over on reddit is also good with newbies as most of the questions and tips coming in are for newbs. some of the discussions isnt as good as some of the stuff coming out of /vg/ but it is a good segue for people who want to get in. a lot of the discussion is focused around newb questions.

aaaaannnd incoming best segway into another topic of discussion:

your team has windrunner, darkseer, invoker, mirana and you. enemy team has antimage, leshrac, lion, sand king and enigma.

what would be a good hero for you to pick? :3c

[Bandages]

well your team is sorely lacking a hard carry, and so I'd pick something like DK or even spectre or drow or something. Dunno why my team has invoker and mirana since they both excel as mid heroes, but hey. Gotta shut down that AM as much as possible to prevent farm, because if not, they have good pushing power (leshrac) and a fuckload of stuns/disables...

[zeratuljo1291]

well your team is sorely lacking a hard carry, and so I'd pick something like DK or even spectre or drow or something. Dunno why my team has invoker and mirana since they both excel as mid heroes, but hey. Gotta shut down that AM as much as possible to prevent farm, because if not, they have good pushing power (leshrac) and a fuckload of stuns/disables...

i've never heard a mirana mid before. usually she's a soft carry. does she need to the extras levels to be effective?

i would argue that you need some more mass dependable CC like vengeful spirit or tidehunter or sven to help with early game. thing is, because AM is on the enemy team, you essentially have a 30-35 minute timer on which you need to delay AM carry stage. you have enough right click power in mirana if you build fast agi carry to scare the fuck out of the rest of the team. lion, SK and enigma are all squishy as hell.

[Tensei]

your team has windrunner, darkseer, invoker, mirana and you. enemy team has antimage, leshrac, lion, sand king and enigma.

what would be a good hero for you to pick? :3c

Your team will have trouble laning and lacks synergy, but something like a Shadow Demon would probably be the best pick here so you can have a dedicated support that can also keep Antimage in check. In terms of lanes (assuming Radiant side), Windrunner solo top, Invoker mid, Mirana bottom with a Jungling/Roaming Dark Seer and a roaming SD would be decent. The annoying thing is that the enemy team has better lanes overall but also better lategame and teamfighting, so your team has to play to their strengths and be super active with map movement, and gank a lot. Dark Seer/SD+ Invokers Sunstrike are a decent combo for that purpose, and the three other heroes are decent at holding solo lanes.

E: Tide would be really good too yeah, but if the game goes late that Antimage will mess you up hard.

Haven't posted here for a while, but I guess I should say why I haven't played Dota 2. It's mostly because the experience gained for each kill you get really just kinda nullifies your chances for any late-game comebacks, so if you have a newbie that screws up and feeds the enemy team at the start, you're almost certainly going to lose even if that person fixes their mistakes after ten minutes of the game. The only exception is if the enemy team is on a lower skill level than you or someone on the enemy team disconnects. In the first case, it wouldn't happen anyways, and in a good match, neither would the second. League of Legends doesn't do this, therefore my preference for LoL.

This cuts both ways though. I'd argue that LoL has worse comeback mechanics because of linear scaling on every hero and the lack of gold loss on death. It's simply not feasible to truly 'shut down' a carry in LoL when you're at a disadvantage because they will pretty much farm up their items no matter what. Many competitive League games get decided during the laning phase by racking up small advantages which then culminates into a decisive teamfight, and if you have a feeder on your team it will still drag you down a lot.

Dota has something like breaking points for heroes where their effectiveness suddenly skyrockets after they pick up a particular item and possibly lets them turn teamfights. I've seen tons of games where a team was getting destroyed in the laning phase and then suddenly started winning after their Sand King picked up Blink Dagger, or after Spectre farmed up Radiance.

One of the more memorable games in recent memory was EG vs Na'Vi where EG took down the top rax (=inhibitor) at 15 minutes into the game because their line-up was super focused on pushing. The mid lane rax went down before the 30 minute mark, but somehow Na'Vi managed to keep on winning teamfights and slowly pushed the game back into their favor as their Antimage was getting more farmed up, even though it seemed at all times that it would only take one misjudged teamfight and EG would have been able to push for the win.

[Softspoken]

This cuts both ways though. I'd argue that LoL has worse comeback mechanics because of linear scaling on every hero and the lack of gold loss on death. It's simply not feasible to truly 'shut down' a carry in LoL when you're at a disadvantage because they will pretty much farm up their items no matter what. Many competitive League games get decided during the laning phase by racking up small advantages which then culminates into a decisive teamfight, and if you have a feeder on your team it will still drag you down a lot.

This is part of the reason I stopped playing both games: it's inherent to the genre that there's sudden tipping points, otherwise matches can't really be won. Or at least, not in a timely manner. If the entire team has to screw up to allow for a loss, you may end up waiting an awful long time.

[Bandages]

@Tensei: That Na'Vi vs EG game was crazy. EG hadn't really even been playing that well, though, so the AM comeback wasn't too surprising. He's just such a broken hero in the current game..

[zeratuljo1291]

speaking of crazy good games:

the brawl: mouzsports vs aL-Game 2: down by 4 towers and a barracks and still comes back.

the clash: n9 vs mtw: mtw has to win in 38 minutes or else they get knocked out. they do so. down to the wire

[Tensei]

I dunno, AM has lately been relegated to the second round of bans a lot. He's still strong and can no doubt win games by himself, but he's no longer an autoban when Riki, Morph and Lycan are equally capable of carrying. OD and Shadow Demon work decently against him too. Brewmaster will be another strong pick against AM (Attack Speed reduction, 75% miss chance debuff with constant uptime, passive dodge). I'm actually glad that he hasn't gotten nerfed into oblivion so far because it already seems that most teams are adapting to him, but he still remains very strong in the right hands.

[Bandages]

I'm looking forward to the growing roster. PL's character model looks fantastic. My main problem with AM at the moment is that you have to constantly focus on keeping him from farming, and even then it might not be enough to keep him from becoming nigh indestructible.

What are y'alls most anticipated heros? I'm looking forward to abbadon and pl most. And techies. I wonder why they haven't implemented centaur warchief yet. He's such a straightforward (boring) hero

[zeratuljo1291]

I'm looking forward to the growing roster. PL's character model looks fantastic. My main problem with AM at the moment is that you have to constantly focus on keeping him from farming, and even then it might not be enough to keep him from becoming nigh indestructible.

What are y'alls most anticipated heros? I'm looking forward to abbadon and pl most. And techies. I wonder why they haven't implemented centaur warchief yet. He's such a straightforward (boring) hero

brewmaster, techies, goblin shredder, tuskarr and ember spirit

brewmaster is on the way and i cant wait to fail at properly using his ultimate
techies is going to be so awesomely fun
i love shredders design and i really want to find a place for him in the meta
tuskarr is straight up trololo
emberspirit op pls nerf

[Azruelli]

Haha, joined an All Random this morning and played Clinkz for the first time. Laning partner wound up being a Batrider, and his Ult is the best with Clinkz. Funny shit watching Tidehunter and Earthshaker getting dragged away while plinking them with W over and over.

[zeratuljo1291]

Haha, joined an All Random this morning and played Clinkz for the first time. Laning partner wound up being a Batrider, and his Ult is the best with Clinkz. Funny shit watching Tidehunter and Earthshaker getting dragged away while plinking them with W over and over.

oh batrider how do i love you, let me count the ways:
1) you poop fire
2) you throw oil around like its 1970
3) you can drag people around like a boss
4) you cause chaos
5) you ride a bat

a blink on bat is beautiful

but it makes me sad that with the new and faster turn rates on all heroes in dota2, the oil turn rate and slow doesnt ammount to much.

[Milskidasith]

Tinker is incredibly... entertaining if you can get teleboots quickly.

[zeratuljo1291]

brewmaster is out:



as well as this sexy new ultimate


BV dat ultimate

god i love valve

[Bandages]

I really hate using Brewmaster's ult since my micromanaging skills are nonexistent, but I'm glad that there's finally a nifty little counter to lycan and am and any other carry that doesn't like missing.

Or at least it will force them to get an MKB instead of a manta or basher or whatever it is that they normally use to turn my butthole into a gaping chasm

Also, is it bad that I'm really excited for hats and reskins to be part of the game? I can't wait to customize my heroes. I just really hope that meta-items don't actually affect gameplay in any way that isn't purely cosmetic.