I play mostly with friends and whatever they want to play but I also play a fair bit of solo queue.
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Dota 2
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http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=369505543
The Steam community can be very awesome sometimes.
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To this day I'm still amazed at the genius that the workshop is.
Sad that Tiny banana didn't make it into the game.
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Made it today to 4.3k solo queue posi 5 support(after dropping from 4.3k to 3.7 trying to support).
I have to say it's interesting but also kind of the worst experience I had in the game. It's literally soul draining and I didn't really feel like I improved a ton(mostly I learned to value heavy regen early in favor of super early wards).
So the things I learned is always pick last, and ensure with your last pick you win that 1 lane(This is like the most important thing picking something that can outlane their solo offlane or at least win against their duo lane). This is purely an experience thing but the most common picks that worked for me were Jakiro, Silencer and Witchdoctor.
Accept that ingame your impact will only be felt in the first 15 minutes so you need to have impact outside the game which means you have to talk and be positive no matter what people you get on your team and be a leader. -> Calling when to go for Rosh, knowing when to call for smoke ganks, knowing when to push.
So that everyone listens to you be as friendly as possible, don't feed and be encouraging.
At least 40% of my matches I spend being a peace maker quelling people flaming and encouraging people to use the mute button to only listen to me.
I've won at least half of these matches after being successful in getting everyone to shut up and concentrate after being behind, but I had also a few games where nothing helped. Something that also helped was warding more risky areas and telling my carry to farm there with me standing behind.So all in all it was interesting to learn this new side to dota but I don't really like how powerless you feel when things really don't go your way at all.
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http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/03/16/the-goat-from-goat-simulator-may-come-to-dota-2
The Goat from Goat Simulator could be coming to Dota2 as a courier
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Hahahahaha that's amazing and the funny thing is, it doesn't even look out of place xD
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I think goat should be playable
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I think goat should be playable
Pudge - Goat Arcana
Hook = Tongue
Rot = Farting gas
Passive = Passive
Ultimate = excessive licking -
Doesn't fit the 'lore' theme that we are heavily invested in 0/10 will not buy and will report volvo plox
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Dear god just read the new patch.
There is this meme in LoL how everything in Dota is so OP.
First time since I started I've actually felt that way I mean what will happen to my pubs with Bristle, Lesh octo core and Slark silver edge…. Maybe not that much with TP/Ghost changes and this whole Break/Mute business. Also how do I even autohit anymore with so much new evasion.
But no way to know for sure before playing, that said I'm scared help...!Certainly the most massive patch that has come since I've started even more so than the introduction of new heroes.
All these new items... is this even dota anymore?My favorite change Invoker going full anime on the new max deafening blast.
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The saddest part is that some of the epic bugs that were in the first version of the test client will never see the light of day.
Lotus Orb replacing your ultimate with spellsteal, moon shard stacking on Balanar, a bunch of other stuff.
Still, quite like the buffs to int heroes, doesn't solve their BKB issue which will always haunt them, but at least they don't drop off late game too much now, and I can start spamming OD/Silencer/Timbersaw.
Break/Mute were always in the game before, just not named that.
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^Was talking more about the Break/Mute changes not about the mechanic. Like I know Hex doesn't have break anymore. I think there are some other specific changes to this that I haven't learned yet as well(cause I was just flying over the interesting changes not going into the nitty gritty like trying to understand gold changes).
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Dota Reborn - Source 2 - Kreygasm.
After having to suffer the atrocity that was the Bnet 2.0 client(It was so bad it made me abandon the game I literally got mad at how it fucked up the custom game community) and general Blizzard shit client policies(like no invis)
I'm just that weird person that really appreciates good clients. It's insane to me that we're getting a huge update on that front when I haven't seen a better client than the Dota 2 one anywhere. -
The 2nd page is up.
They fixed a bunch of bugs that were plaguing the alpha. Added lots of useful functions, this could be as good as wc3's custom game were. Easily the most important part, even if it is text heavy.
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15 million with almost another month to go. crazy shit.
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Couldn't care less about the prize pool, we had 10m last year, can't even be surprised or caring if we reach like 30m, as that's still a reasonable growth projection. Maybe if it hit 50m I'd get surprised.
Custom games though. Source 2 engine is currently a broken piece of #$%^ with basic problems and there's nothing else to describe it. It's sad when a game 15 years out later from a supposedly good company cannot beat battle.net 1.0 . To be fair on Warcraft 3, the RTS genre died shortly after so there's few competitors, but Dota 2 or Starcraft 2 have no excuses whatsoever.
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Couldn't care less about the prize pool, we had 10m last year, can't even be surprised or caring if we reach like 30m, as that's still a reasonable growth projection. Maybe if it hit 50m I'd get surprised.
Custom games though. Source 2 engine is currently a broken piece of #$%^ with basic problems and there's nothing else to describe it. It's sad when a game 15 years out later from a supposedly good company cannot beat battle.net 1.0 . To be fair on Warcraft 3, the RTS genre died shortly after so there's few competitors, but Dota 2 or Starcraft 2 have no excuses whatsoever.
Well I agree that starcraft 2 has no excuse especially because blizzard hasn't done shit for years even with the community complaining, but source 2 is still in beta for dota 2 so that's a pretty legit reason to be partially broken.
And this is not a bullshit beta either like a lot of MMOs do.Also it's not like they shut source 1 down yet everyone can use source 2 out of their free will.
Also it's working pretty ok for me, Overthrow, Dota strikers, Skillshot wars are a pretty fun time.
Pretty sure they'll patch host issues and other stuff.Although it's hard to say without customs integrated in source 1 but I'm pretty anal about clients and I think source 1 is pretty equal in it's functionality to bnet 1.0. Chat system is not amazing but ok. There are actual communities unlike it starcraft 2 especially when you join pro player channels or sub communities. People actually talk back and you can find people to play.
I used to play with the giantbomb dota subcommunity and it was pretty nice all the people were super nice, only downside the level of play can get frustrating it's pretty low but was great to relax.
I mean hero builds, replay system, the ease of finding games it's all damn good. -
Also it's not like they shut source 1 down yet everyone can use source 2 out of their free will.
Also it's working pretty ok for me, Overthrow, Dota strikers, Skillshot wars are a pretty fun time.
Pretty sure they'll patch host issues and other stuff.The sad part is that is obviously more close to alpha than beta, there's a shit ton of easy to find bugs, weird interface and source 1 is flat out better with lobby options. Some of which has been fixed, naturally, but not all. Usually betas will have done some internal QA, and it's just ironing final bugs, but here they are pratically using the community to do all of the QA, including shit they should have done interally.
The main issue is something to do with networking a large amount of units, that basically raises ping and packet loss to unplayable levels. Basically all players are screwed if they are lots of units on the field. Because of this, certain map types such as dungeon crawlers or TDs are virtually impossible. A very sad state of affairs with the engine.
Other minor gripes are the lobby options and GUI, which feels like it was made for a console or TV with the amount of screen button to space efficiency and all the menus you need to go through. Source 1 is flat out better, and common sense would expect the new engine to at least be better than the old one in regards to all three points.
I guess they need to push their steam controller for the living room? and it was funny being able to join perfect world servers for 1 day.
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I don't think you've tested alphas yet. Of course it's going to be different everywhere but there is just too much functionality in Source 2 that actually works okayish to classify it as alpha. I'm used to way more barebones stuff and lots more brokeness.
Like actually early closed beta of dota 2 was kind of like an alpha. Like it was only 30 heroes or something? I don't even remember. Tons of playholder art. Some functionalities missing that one would consider basic.You also have to consider this is software where millions of users are getting their hands on.
I can't even imagine that shit, I really don't want to sound like a fanboy or anything but since I've learned a lots more about software it's actually impressive how well it's been going so far.Gui wise I actually like Source 2 more not to say it's perfect but simply for the fact that I can instantly click search game instead of clicking to a tab.
Source 2 feels less clunky in the usability department. Things like testing heroes, the way custom games work and rotate, etc. Most stuff was pretty intuitive for me.On the readability part people are going to differ, everyone has their own sense of aesthetics.
I don't have any feelings beyond that its functional for me, like it's better than PoE, LoL, Smite, Starcraft 2 and CS.Only thing that really annoys me is that every patch seems to break my autoexe config.
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My point was it felt more like they just added all the features they wanted, did no internal QA, slapped a beta name on it and threw it out. Some core issues should not have ever made it past internal development, mainly the network issue. They are using the community as a subsitute for internal QAs. Generally betas will be ironing out final bugs, or server stress testing. But it seems any company can slap beta in front of a no QA game and throw it out. Granted they get less flak cos it is a free to play game after all, but one should expect better of Valve, given that they also have a record of delays and polishing.
As for millions of players? What does that matter? Shouldn't they be doing more internal QA to satisfy their larger audience? Or does that give them the right to use them as free QA? And calling it alpha is hardly a valid argument if you had enough functionality for a 1 million dollar tournament at that time. It's not like they are doing single instance a la Planetside 2, it's just a few matchmaking servers + loads of smaller game servers.
The issue with the GUI is that it takes more button presses to find a custom game compared to battle.net. (granted only about 1 or 2 more clicks but still, that bugs me loads), and there are lots of parts such as the chat function hidden at most times. Basically prefering cleaniness over function. Some prefer it that way, but I do not and the loads of blank space or things taking up way more/less space than they should be bugs me. If you want examples: The two recommended custom games + tutorial take too much space, for things are rarely used, unless you happen to like only those two, plus tutorial already has another button. The chat and friend lists are always hidden every time you do something, despite them being very frequent use stuff. There is a really large border (of space) around the boxes in the middle. Connectivity is shown via a useless bar rather than actual ping numbers. The server matchmaking options you chose do not get shown as a full list, instead hidden inside a small tab. Well, you get the idea.
But if you prefer clean to functional, then that's your preference and there's not much more to be said. I just feel like it fits more on a console/mobile interface than PC. And this is especially evident compared to dota source 1's functionality over cleaniness.
The instant search is convenient and likeable, other than two core problems:
- it doesn't have limits on region, ping, etc. Have fun playing with 400 ping (or when it was first released, dropping you in ghost 9/10 lobbies, though fixed now, but it wil still prioritize player counter over ping)
- it promotes the idea of playing the same maps over and over to death, making it harder for new maps to gain ground. Yeah, some people might not care, and valve did try to remedy this with a random vote button. We'll see if that's enough.
For being a lazy button, it doesn't make the actual game any more enjoyable, I'd rather have a dedicated button to bringing up the lobby explorer before the maps page.
Not to mention Warcraft 3 is flat out better in the engine, both when handling games or coding it (certain things done in 5 mins in wc3 required annoying workarounds for dota 2, e.g. shops or even basic skills), and battle.net 1.0 is better too. Maybe you could say that they had years to patch it or whatever, but it is still sad a game cannot equal another game in core features released nearly 15 years ago.
Basically, both Source 1: Dota 2, and Warcraft 3 had better functionality to cleaniness ratios, as well as overall stability, and I dislike that. It doesn't help that the PC is a platform where functionality should get priority over cleaniness, unlike mobile. Also basically: wrong QA time.
Maybe you can say I am nitpicking, or expecting too high standards, or the reverse for you (too low standards from bad games, too much glossing over), and you'd probably be right either way, but currently I am disappointed.
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And I'm telling you that's not how software of this kind works. Million of users matters because the higher the number of people the higher the complexity of everything going on, on your network side. It's impossible to internally test for that. I mean it's unfortunate that you were one of the people that got affected by more bugs than the usual but that's just the nature of it.
And Source 2 isn't just a few features thrown together it's massive.
As I understand it they revamped their network structure(not only on the software end but hardware end as well) and wrote their own dota 2(or even game optimized?) network protocol to be more efficient and it works for a lot of people reducing the ping for playing world wide(People on EU get better ping to US E and W).
The massively complex backend. Source 2 had to work with items, the old graphics stuff and a lot of other things and offer at least about the same amount of functionality withing the dota 2 client.Basically your expectations are impossible. And I say this as someone that was insanely critical of how the Diablo 3 launch went with a company behind it with MMO experience that should have the know how to prevent it.
But as I've learned since then, it really is insanely insanely difficult. You actually just kind of accept that things will break and focus your efforts fixing things fast. -
The issues I mentioned have nothing to do with networking a a large number of people, and everything to do with the fact that the engine plain sucks for what occurs inside single 10 player custom match. Again, that has nothing to do with how many other millions of players may or may not be playing. Heck, those custom games are not even hosted on Valve's servers. Like I said before, just matchmaking servers, and loads of small servers.
The engine has basic problems with multiple units inside a game(monsters or heroes or creeps or whatever). Think 50-100 units, exceptionally common in any RTS, though not so much in dota, and the engine bumps ping and packet loss to unplayable levels. It happens inside one match, it has nothing to do with any other games that are playing. It's the networking within that one game instance, has nothing to do with the overal matchmaking, steam server, backend or whatever.
That shit should not have passed internal testing, ever. There were some other silly issues that also do not have anything to do with networking. And the GUI issues do not have anything anything to do with networking.
And I did mention that "betas are normally for server stress testing" before, so I do not know how you got the idea that I was complaining about that.
All I expected was something that had a GUI at least equal to source 1 dota 2, and an engine that can support the usual number of RTS units you expect in any normal game.
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My point was it felt more like they just added all the features they wanted, did no internal QA, slapped a beta name on it and threw it out. Some core issues should not have ever made it past internal development, mainly the network issue. They are using the community as a subsitute for internal QAs. Generally betas will be ironing out final bugs, or server stress testing. But it seems any company can slap beta in front of a no QA game and throw it out. Granted they get less flak cos it is a free to play game after all, but one should expect better of Valve, given that they also have a record of delays and polishing.
You didn't go exactly into detail before so with that sentence you shouldn't be surprised I came to the conclusion that you were talking about the super common host issues for customs which are network issues. And all network issues get more complex if you add a large user base to them. Even if all customs are hosted on your side I'm pretty there are certain network calls the system makes.
The issues I mentioned have nothing to do with networking a a large number of people, and everything to do with the fact that the engine plain sucks for what occurs inside single 10 player custom match. Again, that has nothing to do with how many other millions of players may or may not be playing. Heck, those custom games are not even hosted on Valve's servers. Like I said before, just matchmaking servers, and loads of small servers.
The engine has basic problems with multiple units inside a game(monsters or heroes or creeps or whatever). Think 50-100 units, exceptionally common in any RTS, though not so much in dota, and the engine bumps ping and packet loss to unplayable levels. It happens inside one match, it has nothing to do with any other games that are playing. It's the networking within that one game instance, has nothing to do with the overal matchmaking, steam server, backend or whatever.
That shit should not have passed internal testing, ever. There were some other silly issues that also do not have anything to do with networking. And the GUI issues do not have anything anything to do with networking.
And I did mention that "betas are normally for server stress testing" before, so I do not know how you got the idea that I was complaining about that.
All I expected was something that had a GUI at least equal to source 1 dota 2, and an engine that can support the usual number of RTS units you expect in any normal game.
In what games have you encountered those? I for one can tell you it's not a problem that's omnipresent. I had no problems on the few survival maps I played(mostly played the one with the sven picture that was in the top custom list) with max players. It might be hardware related also a parameter that's hard to test for. You can't test for every system configuration on earth.
My point holds, the way you think about betas is pretty ridiculous and super far from reality.
The way you paint it as almost an alpha thing and assume how these things should never have escaped internal testing, it's pretty much based on ignorance.
I mean I don't hold it against anyone since it's hard to understand why these problems exists and it always seems lazy from the outside without the know how.
But anyone with knowledge in software engineering will tell you that it just ain't that easy.
And it's also not something you can solve by throwing money at it. It takes time and a real world testing environment.
Hence why this is a beta and from my experience a pretty normal one at that.And don't get me wrong it's okay to be mad that things are broken and all that stuff. And even good to complain about it.
I just wanted to highlight some of these misconceptions that people have.
Stuff that I used to think, like again "Blizzard with their WoW experience should never have network overload problems".
"Or this bug is so obvious it's so lazy of the devs to not have fixed that". Etc, etc…Just be aware that a normal game has already a ton of complexity, add to that all the backend support that valve has... like I'm in awe at what they build. And it's a testament that no one else(even the giant Riot who are still stuck on adobe air) has imitated it to the same level of competency in a field where imitating stuff is pretty normal. And I feel safe assuming that this isn't just a money thing, actually having the right people is probably not easy either.
There is already a shortage of programmers and now limit this to the amount of programmers that are actually exceptional(something that I probably won't ever be) sad face. Now reduce further to people that actually want to work in the industry that has a pretty bad rep and basically reads "only for super passionate people".
Yep I'm implying the reason why Riot's backend rehaul takes so long is also because of a lack of qualified personal + the dimnishing returns of adding people to a software project. -
Ah, hrmm I failed to finish that specific sentence for some reason…:getlost: sorry. I meant to put "networking between large number of units".
Basically, placing more units onto the map when there's already a few, say 20, would cause sharp ping spikes, packet loss and lag. Sometimes temporary summons would flat out freeze the game until they despawned, and sometimes every unit added after say the 40th one would add exactly 2 ping and 1% packetloss. It was silly cause it could occur with as little as 10 heroes on the field, or say 50 creeps.
As for specific maps, mainly warchasers, esdetor TD, and fate/another (during mass summons). That and several modders I know were complaining about it. There's speculation it has something to do with pathfinding or memory leaks. The main disappointment being that nearly every other RTS can handle networking or pathfinding with many units just fine. Some castle defence styled maps do avoid it if the units do not move, or are scripted to only follow one simple path (i.e. move up to castle and atk). Source 1 is also speculated to have similar problems, if you watched really long games where things started to glitch out.
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So the international is going to be up in a few hours..starting with the qualifiers for the wildcards. Any expectations?
I personally think cdec and mvp will take it, but vega might surprise. -
Rooting for Archon and MVP.
Archon because I learn pubtricks and MVP because I want more koreans in dota.
My point whoring prediction are cdec>mvp>vega>archon though. -
ez +25 darth
Although the matches were really close through! I mean we saw like bo3 continuously. I'm also glad that mvp.march got a chance to compete since he won't be playing again (thanks national service)
Glad to see a few unorthodox heroes (e.g. ember winning/omni niche picks), showing that flexibility is still possible. We'll see if it will continue in the playoffs through, expect to see lesh/gyro spam xD -
MVP vs Vega game 2 was really really close, I was already thinking R.I.P predictions, but then they pulled through.
I'm pretty sure we're going see more ember during the tournament I quite a few players pub grind it right before TI5.
TA was a nice surprise. -
I can't wait to see the first LGD vs Secret matchup during group stages.
As it stands right now LGD, Secret and EG(considering that they always have a rough first day) are probably the favorites.
Complexity seems like a team that could cause an upset although I don't see them making it to top 4 still they could kick out one of better teams like Empire, C9, VP during the main event. They seem very well coordinated. -
Seeing lots of big plays in the group stages, and a very wide variety of both heroes and items. Quite enjoyable, although I keep finding myself missing a few old meta heroes and teams/players. Doom and invoker are not seeing much play, and some of my favourite teams aren't as strong as they used to be.
Also, this meta + the previous one (6.83+6.84) has managed to bump the likes of pub only heroes such as bloodseeker (aka pubseeker/bloodcyka), sniper, spirit breaker + a few others to the competitive scene. Now we just need pudge to be in nearly every game somehow.
And I wish the dota 2 website or youtube would load for me, I'm stuck with twitch.
But otherwise, very enjoyable.
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There never are pub only heroes(well except if they're not available in Captains Draft). It's just fav of the month changes all the time with the patches.
Spirit breaker already used to be in competitive during TI3 times, same goes for a lot of the pub only heroes you mention pretty sure all of them have been there at one point.
As for the heroes that haven't been used yet or are used very rarely just happens that their strengths are really specific for this patch so it's harder to draft them. -
SB was an okay pick against certain "gank-able" heroes, I guess. And I forgot about that time when he had a delayed ultimate with no cast point, sadly I was even playing him often back then, but I wasn't watching tournamentw at that time.
As far as I know, Sniper and bloodseeker were never viable before their reworks, as they had fatal skillgate flaws.
Sniper was basically a postion 1 carry who had no tanking ability or mobility, which is way too fatal for position 1 in the old meta. It's just his Q rework & 6.83's turtle + rapid comeback mechanics largely negated that flaw.
Bloodseeker's old abilites were completely geared towards lack of communication and knowledge, but his rework changed that. All his old skills had fatal flaws that only took a little knowledge to counter.
Q amp'd the target while silencing and doing small burn damage, which made it not very good to use on either allies or enemies.
W was an unreliable heal at best.
E would be virtually useless as no pro player would stay under 50% hp while bloodseeker was in play.
R could simply be tp scroll'd out.And yeah, doom is just weaker than Lina currently (as the dedicated "remove 1 hero from enemy team" role hero), and invoker is not a particularly good mid atm.
My dota knowledge is a bit lacking, so maybe some info is wrong. I don't really play it with the right mindset. Maybe I should stick to topics I'm more comfortable with.
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I'm not talking about them being flavor of the month and being picked/banned like lycan, bat or now lesh, gyro.
I'm saying they've been in the competitive scene and have been picked for certain strategies.I've been watching competitive dota since TI2(although I've since then watched a few dota1 things because of Kuro stories) and lesser picked heroes have always been very niche and it that way they've always been viable when the occasion calls for that niche.
And then there is the fact that patches often buff a hero enough that they break out of their niche. Or things often become a thing due the demands of the meta. Like we didn't see Sven for quite a while leading up to TI4 and then he came back as support as an answer to death prophet.
In short, all heroes generally have been viable in the right situations it's just these situations have to occur during the draft/meta requirements, and this has been never more true than now. But if you don't believe me listen to a few interviews of anyone working in dota (player, casters).As for Doom not being used more it has more to do with, that he doesn't apply map control and thus pressure. The same goes for Invoker.
All the currently favored heroes have ways to clear creep waves on their own or have super strong fighting capability(or both :ninja:leshrac, gyro) and usually compositions mix both.
Clearing waves = delaying pushes/putting pressure with pushes = map control. When you have wards up and look at the map and see who is pushing back or not pushing back that tells you a lot(like if they're smoking, if they're roshing, etc etc).
That's why we see very little/no doom, chaos knight, tide, etc(heroes that are shit at pushing out the wave solo), except for weird pocket/counter strats.
Of course there are cases where you could make a case for it being an exception to the rule because dota is that complex, like IO a hero that's picked because he just screws with the whole concept of map control. Or batrider who does the same and is still an amazing hero in the later stages of the game but it's just hard to fit him into lineups because games are so full pressure from almost the very beginning and he doesn't offer much until he gets his core up which has gotten way harder for him due a ton of changes(not just his firefly change).Note: And that's very likely not even half of it.
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On a very different note, I think the player profile videos are really cool but I can't help but laugh at the overuse of slow mo in all the ones I've seen. Feels very student project like. -
Ugh damn losing streaks at nights… can't go sleep until I win otherwise I have to go sleep pissed... so stupid and sometimes clock is 5 AM when I get to sleep. pub games are serious business.
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Ugh damn losing streaks at nights… can't go sleep until I win otherwise I have to go sleep pissed... so stupid and sometimes clock is 5 AM when I get to sleep. pub games are serious business.
Dota is 999999999x more enjoyable when you don't give a shit about winning. I did the no sleep till u win thing a few times, but honestly? Didn't even care that I won. You don't feel much when winning, but losing on the other hand.. Plus if you win, then you have to debate whether to play another and risk losing, "forcing" you to play more.
My top 3 heroes are Nyx, Bounty Hunter and Pudge, in that order. Should tell you a lot about how wrong my mindset for playing dota is. :sad: Especially if I can go 20-3-10 or something, and still lose.
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The way to go is to play solo ranked 5 position support. Even if you win you lose. So in a way it's win win because you always can go to sleep.
Pubs actually break you when you've played long enough you just learn to laugh at these games that get so stupid. -
Pubs actually break you when you've played long enough you just learn to laugh at these games that get so stupid.
Well, yes I have reached that point.
I've tried position 5, but honestly the only three supports I can play with any decency are cm, rubick and wr, and even then, I feed too much. Plus I'm not really good with knowing when to ward, pull, rotate and stuff. I can stack and pull reliably, and rotate to punish tower dives. But, smoking, living on poor gold and some other stuff I am not really good at. And I have a tendency to be matched with bad carry players so I always end up going supports that can transition into a semi-carry.
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Well, yes I have reached that point.
I've tried position 5, but honestly the only two supports I can play with any decency are cm, rubick and wr, and even then, I feed too much. Plus I'm not really good with knowing when to ward, pull, rotate and stuff. I can stack and pull reliably, and rotate to punish tower dives. But, smoking, living on poor gold and some other stuff I am not really good at. And I have a tendency to be matched with bad carry players so I always end up going supports that can transition into a semi-carry.
Well it's not like I'm picking shadow demon/shaman. I usually go supports that can to stuff regardless of teammates, like WD, Lion, support Lina.
As for pulling you always do it to reset the wave so lane equilibrium favors your side(so you want the creep waves always to meet around the wood passage/entrance near your tower) and for that you prepare stacking the small camp at 00:53 and after that whenever you think you can. Always tell your carry before you stack/pull so he doesn't die from being stupid. He might die anyway but at least you told him and while he's dead you have free farm. Never pull when the creep wave is near your tower. If it suits you you can do a single small camp pull every 7th wave to have a double wave with catapult for pushing pressure.And if you're an avid carry/mid player that understands how to play the map, understanding warding becomes way easier you basically want to ward so you open up the maximum possible areas for your carry/mid to farm. E.g. if you are really ahead and have their safelane tower down you ward enemy jungle so your carry/mid can farm that and leave lane farm for your team. If the game is normal and you want to leave your carry alone to do other stuff you ward on the opposite lane your carry is on(so when he sees that nobody is top he knows a gank is coming). Etc, etc. Basically just think about what ward you would need to farm safely. The mind games then come with counterwarding that shit can be obnoxious.
Dunno maybe you already knew all that but that's the stuff that wasn't really apparent to some of my friends, that just used to ward river and call it a day or pulled without any thought on what they're trying to accomplish. Especially the warding thing was pretty eye opening when a friend thaught me that when I was still newish(which is in dota like about a year :P). Of course there is and can be more to it but that's the general guideline for at least up to 4,6k supporting.
Like I used to do it just by feeling and orientating myself around important objectives. But that's not necessarily optimal you only want to ward objectives if you actually plan on taking them soonish.I have no advice on smokes cause to me at least it feels like an experience thing you just gotta try and fail and learn, but maybe if you're hardcore I guess the most important thing to learn about smokes is vision and how and where you walk to abuse it. I think smoke ganking mid T1 is especially hard if you don't spend time in lobbies to memorize the vision around day/night around all the spots. Smoke ganking through woods/secret shop is easier you generally know the vision around trees.
Truth to be told all that stuff can be useless a lot of times though. The way I win my games is actually by captaining, I call roshes, call out ganks, suggest my carry where to farm safely, take ability timers and most importantly I try my best to kill all flaming attempts(urgh…).
When people actually don't waste time typing flames they actually have time to actually play and win. If I see though that the game is a bust from minute one because everyone loses his lanes I steal away farm from my carry and proceed to get a midas and then try to abuse highground defense 50/50 success with this.Still fuck pubs.......
TLDR: My ability to win pubs as p5 support hinges on my ability to contain/limit the stupid.
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Yea, smokes should be optimized around the usage during night time (lesser vision to play with makes it easier to surprise gank). It cuts both ways through so i'll always recommend a night-vision support (only bounty) or rely on wards to give you a heads-up on where they are. I used to ward badly by putting them immediately off cooldown and in repeatedly similar positions but its not easy to know. Your lineup vs their lineup is really important to see if you want an aggressive or defensive ward to see where they are. Of course….your ally could see your enemies entering your jungle but still ignore them (and blame you later on) @_@
Anyway i'm somewhat surprised (in a good and bad way) about the picks in the international so far. Glad to see razor, ember and pugna picks, especially since people thought that they were shit after the nerfs in ti4. There's still some good representation all the way to the bottom picks in the hero pool.
The bad thing is....wow leshrac. What a hero. I mean, his 8-5 win rate is bad enough, but when you realize that he's actually the highest banned hero and no sane team wants to deal with him? I thought he was too good but with 17 million dollars on the line, i guess you want to have as much safety as possible. What was icefrog thinking about when he gave some of the top heroes buffs like 0 cast time for gyro? Both heroes were on the verge of being broken (maybe leshrac already was) and now..yea
Would love to see icefrog's mentality on balancing dota in general but thats a discussion for another time. -
Well I dislike it when pros start realising certain heroes are strong, inevitably it just ends with them nerfed. Troll warlord used to be a favorite 1v1 manfight hero niche pick of mine for 2 years before 6.83 and he didn't get any major buffs during that time. But then 6.83 and suddenly every pub/pro started picking him left and right and I just didn't want to play him anymore.
Troll warlord, tinker and lesharic were all pretty strong before pros started noticing them. There wasn't even any real buff to troll warlord during his time, it just so happened sniper synergises well with his ulti. Lesh only got a small buff and I can't remember what changesd tinker had, besides the chronosphere synergy.
I was reading some dota sites and there are a few other heroes who have been steadily recieving small buffs and stuff, there are a few strong heroes just waiting for pros to notice.
I can't really remember the detailed list of said heroes, so yeah, sorry if I can't provide hard facts to back up this.
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That's not true though. He received small tweaks here in there but what made Troll Warlord really overboard was the general increase of the attack speed cap for a 100 in 6.83 that was a major major buff to him, bashing for days.
It's always like this heroes get small buffs over time and then they suddenly explode in popularity in competitive.
Like Juggernaut, Leshrac is pretty much the current Juggernaut being a hero that received small buffs over a long period of time.
Anyone that played pubs/read patchnotes before TI4 had a good inkling that Skywrath was going to be huge for similar reasons.I always get impressed by how much the small changes can count like the decreases in cast point of 0.1 sounds like nothing but when I play it feels way different.
What's most important though is while some of these heroes are really strong and hard to deal with I rarely feel like they're unbeatable(pub and competitive). That said 6.83 was probably my least favorite patch way to many changes and it made playing support actually awful. -
Oh right forgot about that one change and the fevour starting at 1 stack buff. Did remember the 0.1 cast point change but that wasn't much.
I still remember doing easy 1v1 or even up to 1v3 manfights with him about 1.5 years ago with just a hotd (+ some cheap items like phase/PMS/aquila/wand/etc). But now that 15 base damage nerf and everyone in pubs having played against him, it just makes me no longer want to use him, ever.
Tried a bit of ranked support and well, it wasn't bad. Lost all games, but maybe that's cause I suck at cm and went 4 games with her (WR was picked in every game so she was out). We can get 5-0 or so in the laning phase, then things just go bad. Have to try and improve on it, I guess.
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I know it's one of the shittiest feelings bein X-0 early and then it all goes to shit.
I think as a support you have to be aware that early game is only important because it determines what you can do midgame.
But it's not that significant when it comes to securing strong advantages. It sucks, but it's a cold truth staring back at you when you look at exp/gold graphs.
Those 5 kills early? ~1000 gold advantage. That lost midgame fight ~/>2500 gold advantage.Midgame is the hardest as support cause you kind of need the big picture and really need to know the win condition for your team setup. Only then you can make decision like, am I going to sacrifice exp and protect my carry from the fog? Am I going to stack every minute because my carry has his peak at this item?
Am I going to farm myself because I need to survive so our team doesn't lose fights? And all of that while being efficient in movement, meaning you want to fit all those decision in your warding routes/stacking routes.To be honest I'm really bad at that in the sense I don't have the tenacity to keep the concentration for that up. So I halfass a lot of that stuff and mostly rely on decision making. Like I kind of know oh if I did that movement at those times I could have gotten +10 stacks in the game.
Especially fuck ancient stack position, like I walk so rarely in that area of the map naturally it never fits into my routes except when we take the safelane tower. Dire is a bit better on that because rosh wards are important sometimes
I think it might be a bad habit from playing with a friend that never needs help mid. -
Well I dislike it when pros start realising certain heroes are strong, inevitably it just ends with them nerfed. Troll warlord used to be a favorite 1v1 manfight hero niche pick of mine for 2 years before 6.83 and he didn't get any major buffs during that time. But then 6.83 and suddenly every pub/pro started picking him left and right and I just didn't want to play him anymore.
Troll warlord, tinker and lesharic were all pretty strong before pros started noticing them. There wasn't even any real buff to troll warlord during his time, it just so happened sniper synergises well with his ulti. Lesh only got a small buff and I can't remember what changesd tinker had, besides the chronosphere synergy.
I was reading some dota sites and there are a few other heroes who have been steadily recieving small buffs and stuff, there are a few strong heroes just waiting for pros to notice.
I can't really remember the detailed list of said heroes, so yeah, sorry if I can't provide hard facts to back up this.
Juggernaut/axe/faceless/tide were heroes that were really good, and used in a ton of unique ways that was never anticipated! Like if you told me that fv offlane was a thing i would have called you a troll. What i don't like from patches is that good heroes get overnerfed to the ground till they never get used, or receive nerfs even through they're not overpowered according to win rates.
For example, stuff like tinker/void never got anything beyond 50% winrate, yet they got hit really bad (tinker was completely ignored afterwards and void continued to receive nerfs that…seemed weird? Like the no refresher-cause-no-mana one).
Then you get stuff like jugg which got a variety of nerfs that just hit everything without leaving any good points. No sympathy to sniper/troll nerfs through.I feel that stuff like cast points/flying vision/turn rate are probably the biggest buffs/nerfs in any context due to the way they affect the game. Like the 0 cast time thing on gyro was the biggest red flag for him to go from zero to hero.
Anyway TI hype soon! Can't wait for clown 9 to continue entertaining us :ninja:
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Nooooo Empire :sad:
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Want to be so pissed right now for this shit(stream is dead) but it seems it's dead for the whole key arena. Shit happens I guess still awful.C9 destroyer of predictions had them in the top 6 but I don't believe they can succeed in losers.
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This TI is crazy. Games are so fucking goooooood.
Also CDEC causing upsets left and right.
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Fingers crossed for MVPWhat is this TI?????
Predictions rekt wtf O_oFeeling pretty meh about the 10v10 mode, I guess it's cool for customs to have a higher limit.
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TI begins with CDEC and ends with it.
I really don't mind EG, CDEC or LGD winning it since there's alot to support for all of them. Let's see how it pans out! -
So far dota has won the most, so many amazing games.
CDECs tusk plays yesterday literally blew me away.
Hope the finals are as amazing as well. -
Yeah, ever since Tusk's W got changed it basically became a 5 sec invunability spell. Add that to his other 3 spells that can sorta support a little and he's a pretty solid "melee support". Didn't like those changes in pubs since it makes ganks harders and noobs tend to wait the entire 5 seconds because they dont know you can roll faster. But it's nice to see that W exploited in pro games for saving plays.
and secret just won game 1.
Comon, director8, you can do a 2-1 comeback!
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you mean EG :D jia you EG!
I think the tusk play that was "wooooow" for me yesterday was the split team add chokepoint mit shards.
Holy fuck these games :OEG vs CDEC rematch, west vs east that's a super hype story.
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HYYYYYPPPEEE!!!!
CDECS TUSK is just godlike O_o
THESE FINALS ARE TOO FUCKING HYPE O_o some of the most amazing games ever. The advantages are so close for most of the game.