[Recon]

Yay bloated OP. At least we have a OT now.

[dave is ok]

Zeus bot sucks when he's on your team, and kills you from the other side of the map every time you get low when he's on the other team.

[Ridli]

Happens to me every time, even in games without bots. I also get occasional "source stutters" in game, but it's not that bad. Speaking of picking, is All Pick the only one available right now, or are the other modes hidden somewhere else?

Yeah I've been curious whether or not Valve was going to implement any Radiant/Dire affiliations. I don't know enough of old school Dota to determine if all pick was standard for competitive play or if they just enabled it at the moment due to the limited amount of heroes.

How do people like the core/starter item recommendations in the Dota2 wiki though? Items are one of the things I worry too much about with a new hero, so it's nice to know if the recommended info is "good enough."

[Hylian7]

net_graph 1 make an autoexec file and it automatically load the desired settings when you launch the game

More importantly, how do you access the console in this game? The ~ key does not work and I can't find an "enable developer console" option anywhere.

Also, I'm doing terrible, I'm 0-4 right now. Ugh.

[Hylian7]

Zeus bot sucks when he's on your team, and kills you from the other side of the map every time you get low when he's on the other team.

I'm curious to see a Tiny bot. Enjoy getting tossed into all 5 members of the other team.

[x3r0123]

More importantly, how do you access the console in this game? The ~ key does not work and I can't find an "enable developer console" option anywhere.

right click Dota 2 on your Steam library, click Properties, and click Set Launch Options. There must be a space after each option. In the space, put -console. That will enable the console next time you launch dota2

Some of other useful tips in launch options

-novid
-windowed -w # -h # (windowed mode, -w for width and -h for height)
-noborder (sets the windowed mode to borderless)

-threads 4 (i dont know how many threads dota2 uses and if you have 4 cores, use this option)

In console: (from joindota)

net_graph 1 Displays network information such as fps and ping. dota_camera_accelerate 49 This will make the camera stop exactly where you want it, 0 will make you unable to move your camera. Thanks uw_NB and Pyros. dota_force_right_click_attack 1 This will enable right click deny. dota_minimap_hero_size 600 changes the hero marker size in minimap dota_hud_health_bars 3 0 = disable hp bars, 1 = no dividing blocks in the healthbar, 3 = the default with the blocks dota_health_per_vertical_marker 250 changes the block size in health bars, 250 = new block every 250 hp

[AbortedWalrusFetus]

I think when I start playing Dota 2 after playing HoN for so long there are going to be some heroes I will miss a lot. Particularly Rhapsody, Armadon, Tremble, Rampage (although I could swear he was copied from a Dota char, it's just been too long) and a few others. Some of the newer heroes in HoN, like Cthuluphant are pretty damn clever. I almost hope valve takes a page out of S2's book and basically just copies them, haha. Rhapsody is by far my favorite support in HoN.

[Cheeto]

I think when I start playing Dota 2 after playing HoN for so long there are going to be some heroes I will miss a lot. Particularly Rhapsody, Armadon, Tremble, Rampage (although I could swear he was copied from a Dota char, it's just been too long) and a few others. Some of the newer heroes in HoN, like Cthuluphant are pretty damn clever. I almost hope valve takes a page out of S2's book and basically just copies them, haha. Rhapsody is by far my favorite support in HoN.

I think BatRider's ult is basically Rampages ult, but he doesn't share anything else as far as I know

[Neki]

Rampage is a different flavour of Spiritbreaker. Rampage used to be a carbon copy of old spirit breaker until they changed him.

[Aesthet1c]

So I got in over the weekend and wow this game is amazing.

I played Dota like 6 years ago for about a month or two and haven't been back since. So my previous Dota experience is almost non existent. Although I have been actively playing LoL for the last two years.

My first main point is that LoL players need not be scared off. I've read so many posts on how LoL players are going to be crying about the difficulty, and really, I don't feel like it was hard for me to catch on. My fourth game was with Anti-Mage and I went 4/0/16 (it was awesome).

That doesn't mean there isn't a ton of stuff to learn. There are a million items, and a million activate items. It took me like 3 matches to even realize the power treads can be cycled through the different attributes.

Also, last hitting is alot harder than LoL, it will take some practice, I'm also not great at denying, I probably deny like 5-10 creeps in a game. Overall damage seems slower in Dota, but stuns and snares seem to last longer. Also because abilities cost so much mana, there seems to be less harrassing in the early game. It's also alot easier to get caught over extending than LoL, and tower damage on heroes is a lot lower.

I may be judging this too early, and maybe I'm only getting pitted against other noobs, but the transition seems to be fairly painless. If you are good/decent at LoL, there is no reason you can't do the same in Dota.

I'm really looking forward to getting into some GAF games and playing with everyone. Hopefully you guys don't mind playing with a Dota noob.

[x3r0123]

Also because abilities cost so much mana, there seems to be less harrassing in the early game. It's also alot easier to get caught over extending than LoL, and tower damage on heroes is a lot lower.

lol thats called passive play

[dave is ok]

I prefer the last hitting mechanics in DOTA. I found myself spamming the S key in LoL yesterday

[Ikuu]

Also, last hitting is alot harder than LoL, it will take some practice, I'm also not great at denying, I probably deny like 5-10 creeps in a game. Overall damage seems slower in Dota, but stuns and snares seem to last longer. Also because abilities cost so much mana, there seems to be less harrassing in the early game. It's also alot easier to get caught over extending than LoL, and tower damage on heroes is a lot lower.

Not really true at all.

[Hylian7]

I prefer the last hitting mechanics in DOTA. I found myself spamming the S key in LoL yesterday

What does the S key do in LoL? I haven't touched that game in a long time.

I really like the audio and visual effects of Dota 2 over HoN. The gold coins and sound is a better effect than just a yellow number, it's just more satisfying. I also like the subtlety of the deny effect just being an exclamation point, although I also liked HoN's deny effect too.

Dota 2 is DEFINITELY nowhere near the visual clusterfuck HoN is. In fact Dota 2 is easily the best in this department.

[Archie]

Play Lich if you think the laning phase is too passive. :p

[dave is ok]

What does the S key do in LoL? I haven't touched that game in a long time.

Nothing. I just kept thinking I could stop my autoattack like it does in DOTA

[Hylian7]

Nothing. I just kept thinking I could stop my autoattack like it does in DOTA

Ohhh, you can turn off autoattacking in Dota 2 though. Definitely the nicer option. I really hated the way HoN's autoattack was.

[Ikuu]

Turning off auto-attack stops you from being able to spam stop to get your last hit in, if you like doing it that way.

[Setreal]

I think when I start playing Dota 2 after playing HoN for so long there are going to be some heroes I will miss a lot. Particularly Rhapsody, Armadon, Tremble, Rampage (although I could swear he was copied from a Dota char, it's just been too long) and a few others. Some of the newer heroes in HoN, like Cthuluphant are pretty damn clever. I almost hope valve takes a page out of S2's book and basically just copies them, haha. Rhapsody is by far my favorite support in HoN.

There are still a lot of heroes from Dota 1 that haven't been ported over to Dota 2 yet.

[AbortedWalrusFetus]

There are still a lot of heroes from Dota 1 that haven't been ported over to Dota 2 yet.

Yeah. And it's been so long since I played Dota that I don't know anything about the newer heroes it may have. I just don't remember there being an equivalent for those characters. If I am wrong that is probably only a good thing.

[Akia]

62 hours played and no end in sight :)

[Aesthet1c]

Not really true at all.

Well I'm just saying these are my early impressions. I'm sure I could be wrong on alot of my accounts. But it just seemed that way to me. I was playing Windrunner and I would OOM after firing off two or three of her arrows. And nobody was really using their abilities either, just focusing on last hitting and denying. The only way I really harassed was attacking the melee champs that went in for their last hits. Maybe we were all playing really passive, but from a LoL players perspective there is alot more ability spamming and harrassing in the early game than what I have seen in Dota so far.

[Brettison]

Well I'm just saying these are my early impressions. I'm sure I could be wrong on alot of my accounts. But it just seemed that way to me. I was playing Windrunner and I would OOM after firing off two or three of her arrows. And nobody was really using their abilities either, just focusing on last hitting and denying. The only way I really harassed was attacking the melee champs that went in for their last hits. Maybe we were all playing really passive, but from a LoL players perspective there is alot more ability spamming and harrassing in the early game than what I have seen in Dota so far.

I'm not in yet, but some of my LoL crew got in this weekend. I was asking one of them about it last night, and he seemed to echo your sentiments. He never said the game was hard per say, but that things did play out differently. He said games seemed to go at a slower pace, towers seemed to do a lot less damage, and there seemed to be a bigger focus on last hits and denying with creeps verses players going at it in the early game at least.

[throwawayname]

net_graph 1 make an autoexec file and it automatically load the desired settings when you launch the game

Thanks.

[Cheeto]

I've swapped S and H in HoN and its great

[dorkimoe]

Thanks for this thread, going to be reading some guides and general hero information. Maybe that can help me win

Always looking for people to play with me, i'm not bad but i need to learn :(

[Procarbine]

Well I'm just saying these are my early impressions. I'm sure I could be wrong on alot of my accounts. But it just seemed that way to me. I was playing Windrunner and I would OOM after firing off two or three of her arrows. And nobody was really using their abilities either, just focusing on last hitting and denying. The only way I really harassed was attacking the melee champs that went in for their last hits. Maybe we were all playing really passive, but from a LoL players perspective there is alot more ability spamming and harrassing in the early game than what I have seen in Dota so far.

Lich can spam pretty well because of sacrifice, as archie mentioned, as can Zues with his arc lightning because of it's very low mana cost.

It's not crazy to think that though, you certainly can't spam as much, so at first glance it might seem that way. Harass in dota and hon early in laning comes from auto attacks, it just takes a little bit of experience to know when you can do it safely. Most newer players will play passively in lanes because they don't know whether or not they're able to step up without getting killed. Once you get a better feel for the game and the items you'll know when it's safe to apply pressure and when it isn't.

With regard to skill spamming, you can get items to help yourself maintain mana. Basilius is a good choice, passive aoe mana regen for allies, Arcane Boots gives you an active aoe mana regen, and Soul Ring lets you burn some health for a temporary mana boost.

Also, some of the famously spammy heroes from DotA haven't made it into the Dota2 beta yet. Bristleback with his quills, Ezalor with his mana battery skill, and Obsidian Destroyer with his essence aura, which is a chance to regenerate a percentage of your max mana on spellcast, haven't been added yet.

I'm not in yet, but some of my LoL crew got in this weekend. I was asking one of them about it last night, and he seemed to echo your sentiments. He never said the game was hard per say, but that things did play out differently. He said games seemed to go at a slower pace, towers seemed to do a lot less damage, and there seemed to be a bigger focus on last hits and denying with creeps verses players going at it in the early game at least.

Early roaming and ganking are a big part of the play in high level dota, and certain lanes if played properly will give you a ton of kills. Newer players will almost always play passively though. It is correct to say that very early there is less action, because this game doesn't have summoner spells.

[Aesthet1c]

I'm not in yet, but some of my LoL crew got in this weekend. I was asking one of them about it last night, and he seemed to echo your sentiments. He never said the game was hard per say, but that things did play out differently. He said games seemed to go at a slower pace, towers seemed to do a lot less damage, and there seemed to be a bigger focus on last hits and denying with creeps verses players going at it in the early game at least.

Yeah tower damage was another big change. One of my first matches I was Drow going against Pudge at mid, and he has full health and I had like 1/4 health. He tower dived me at like level 5. I thought for sure I would be safe under my tower and I just stayed and attacked him. Needless to say he killed me, he took like at least 6-7 hits from my tower, along with me attacking him and he still walked away with like 1/3 of his life.

[Aesthet1c]

Lich can spam pretty well because of sacrifice, as archie mentioned, as can Zues with his arc lightning because of it's very low mana cost. It's not crazy to think that though, you certainly can't spam as much, so at first glance it might seem that way. Harass in dota and hon early in laning comes from auto attacks, it just takes a little bit of experience to know when you can do it safely. Most newer players will play passively in lanes because they don't know whether or not they're able to step up without getting killed. Once you get a better feel for the game and the items you'll know when it's safe to apply pressure and when it isn't. With regard to skill spamming, you can get items to help yourself maintain mana. Basilius is a good choice, passive aoe mana regen for allies, Arcane Boots gives you an active aoe mana regen, and Soul Ring lets you burn some health for a temporary mana boost. Also, some of the famously spammy heroes from DotA haven't made it into the Dota2 beta yet. Bristleback with his quills, Ezalor with his mana battery skill, and Obsidian Destroyer with his essence aura, which is a chance to regenerate a percentage of your max mana on spellcast, haven't been added yet. Early roaming and ganking are a big part of the play in high level dota, and certain lanes if played properly will give you a ton of kills. Newer players will almost always play passively though. It is correct to say that very early there is less action, because this game doesn't have summoner spells.

Thank you for the help!

Yeah definitely my biggest hurdle is going to be learning all the heroes and what each of them can do. As well as learning that gigantic list of items. I'm still just building heroes based off of what the game recommends : /

[Neki]

Lich can spam pretty well because of sacrifice, as archie mentioned, as can Zues with his arc lightning because of it's very low mana cost. It's not crazy to think that though, you certainly can't spam as much, so at first glance it might seem that way. Harass in dota and hon early in laning comes from auto attacks, it just takes a little bit of experience to know when you can do it safely. Most newer players will play passively in lanes because they don't know whether or not they're able to step up without getting killed. Once you get a better feel for the game and the items you'll know when it's safe to apply pressure and when it isn't. With regard to skill spamming, you can get items to help yourself maintain mana. Basilius is a good choice, passive aoe mana regen for allies, Arcane Boots gives you an active aoe mana regen, and Soul Ring lets you burn some health for a temporary mana boost. Also, some of the famously spammy heroes from DotA haven't made it into the Dota2 beta yet. Bristleback with his quills, Ezalor with his mana battery skill, and Obsidian Destroyer with his essence aura, which is a chance to regenerate a percentage of your max mana on spellcast, haven't been added yet. Early roaming and ganking are a big part of the play in high level dota, and certain lanes if played properly will give you a ton of kills. Newer players will almost always play passively though. It is correct to say that very early there is less action, because this game doesn't have summoner spells.

I'd say the opposite. Summoner spells in league has stifled the competitive meta game into a defensive farming game during the laning phase. A defensive summoner spell used in retaliation to an offensive summoned spell almost always means the defender wins, which is partly why league games have such low kill counts.

[kazabi]

Yeah tower damage was another big change. One of my first matches I was Drow going against Pudge at mid, and he has full health and I had like 1/4 health. He tower dived me at like level 5. I thought for sure I would be safe under my tower and I just stayed and attacked him. Needless to say he killed me, he took like at least 6-7 hits from my tower, along with me attacking him and he still walked away with like 1/3 of his life.

I don't know that much about LoL and it's early game, but something that I notice when playing with new dota players is that they tend to get low hp during lane play and forgetting to use regen items. In dota it's really important to stay at high hp early on, if you take some light damage, use a tango. If you survive a gank, use that healing salve. If you run out of regen items, send some more with chicken and stay back while you wait for it. The faster you get up your hp again, the better. New players tend to forget that you can easily die from 2 spells and a few auto-attacks at 3/4-1/2 hp early on in the game.

[Ferrio]

I don't know that much about LoL and it's early game, but something that I notice when playing with new dota players is that they tend to get low hp during lane play and forgetting to use regen items. In dota it's really important to stay at high hp early on, if you take some light damage, use a tango. If you survive a gank, use that healing salve. If you run out of regen items, send some more with chicken and stay back while you wait for it. The faster you get up your hp again, the better. New players tend to forget that you can easily die from 2 spells and a few auto-attacks at 3/4-1/2 hp early on in the game.

You're pretty much safe if you're anywhere near a tower in LoL earlygame, especially if you have your flash spell (free blink dagger skill) ready. The towers do insane damage, and auto target heros if they attack you.

Starting to think I prefer LoL over Dota now (something I thought never possible). I just think LoL has a more creative stance on characters and mechanics.

[Swag]

Yay bloated OP. At least we have a OT now.

NP your on page 2, don't have to see it again.

You should put a list of GAFfers in the beta in the OP so we can meet up.

I think this would be too long, I'll add a link to the Steam group in the OP, or everyone can join the NeoGaf channel, I however cannot join the channel as it crashes my Dota 2, if you would like to play with me, just add me on steam, Sebulon3k

Yeah, Tinker is listed as a Carry and Slardar as a Ganker.

Ah I must've looked wrong, I wrote most of this OP late at night so I was super tired, but after playing both of them extensively I feel like Tinker would work better in the early -> mid game as a Ganker because of the Boots of Travel refresh, as well as his nuke damage, and Slardar is almost always expected to initiate, but I did try to explain multi-role heroes in the description.

http://www.youtube.com/user/DotaCinema has some nice hero overviews.

Oh I saw these when I was writing the descriptions, and was going to add them to the heroes that had a guide done, but then as I was going through it I realized a lot weren't completed yet, so I didn't bother looking again. I'll edit and add them in, but the guides I'm talking about is geared more towards the roles, for example;

When playing support, how to ward, how to assist your partner in laning, what to do during different stages of the game, etc.

[AbortedWalrusFetus]

NP your on page 2, don't have to see it again. I think this would be too long, I'll add a link to the Steam group in the OP, or everyone can join the NeoGaf channel, I however cannot join the channel as it crashes my Dota 2, if you would like to play with me, just add me on steam, Sebulon3k Ah I must've looked wrong, I wrote most of this OP late at night so I was super tired, but after playing both of them extensively I feel like Tinker would work better in the early -> mid game as a Ganker because of the Boots of Travel refresh, as well as his nuke damage, and Slardar is almost always expected to initiate, but I did try to explain multi-role heroes in the description.

I don't know how people can complain about the OP when instead of it being PR bullshit you actually made it useful to learning and playing the game. There's a shitton of stuff to learn about in this game and you hit all of the basics pretty damn well.

If I were you I would use that last post you reserved to fill some stuff in about the basics of laning, map awareness, juking, etc. Always handy to have to people who are just starting out.

Edit:
I found that this guide was REALLY helpful for newer players. It's HoN based, but it's basically the same principles as Dota.

HoN Strategies and Terminology

[Wrekt]

Nothing. I just kept thinking I could stop my autoattack like it does in DOTA

What? S stops you from moving and from auto-attacking in LoL. Watch the Wukong champion spotlight, Phreak spends some time talking about using it for jukes.

[TheExodu5]

Yay bloated OP. At least we have a OT now.

I usually bitch about bloated OPs, but it definitely serves a purpose in this case.

[Swag]

Yeah I've been curious whether or not Valve was going to implement any Radiant/Dire affiliations. I don't know enough of old school Dota to determine if all pick was standard for competitive play or if they just enabled it at the moment due to the limited amount of heroes.

The Competitive games are played in Captains Mode, which is pretty much Banning Pick from HoN, not sure if LoL has an equivalent, but it allows you to ban certain heroes from being picked, I'd assume the Matchmaking system is AP just because new heroes don't get put into the CM pool until a week after release currently in the beta, and they don't want to split an already small pool of players into two different MatchMaking groups.

How do people like the core/starter item recommendations in the Dota2 wiki though? Items are one of the things I worry too much about with a new hero, so it's nice to know if the recommended info is "good enough."

A lot of those items are fairly safe pick ups, but generally if your playing a hero that has to cast spells and doesn't have a natural way to regain mana ( i.e Lich Sacrifice skill ) then you want to pick up some clarities, Iron Branches for stats and so you can build it into a Magic Wand, a Salve, and tangos.

Quelling Blade / Stout Shield are also good pick ups, if your a melee hero that expects to farm get a Quelling Blade, get a Stout Shield if you think your going to go against a lane that is heavy on ranged harass.

[Cheeto]

What? S stops you from moving and from auto-attacking in LoL. Watch the Wukong champion spotlight, Phreak spends some time talking about using it for jukes.

*sometimes

try standing next to a creep wave and holding S

[Hylian7]

*sometimes try standing next to a creep wave and holding S

You have to keep hitting it, don't you? I thought holding it didn't work.

[dorkimoe]

I love the OP, seriously thank you very much. Much appreciated, the hero details with the abilities is awesome

[Pinko Marx]

For the HoN players out there, how does Clockwerk compare to Pharoah?
I've been playing him lately in HoN and kicking ass.
For extra fun lane with a slither/venomance. Poison spray, wall, then just destroy him. Its damn near unfuckwithable.

[Cheeto]

You have to keep hitting it, don't you? I thought holding it didn't work.

Yeah I think so, which is why I switch Stop and Hold position on my bindings, stop is pretty useless in a dota-like game while hold position is extremely useful

[Haly]

Those top 10 plays on WoDotA are amazing.

[mr. puppy]

Tinker is a ganker early-mid game. He only becomes carry late game if he gets amazing farm. That's what you're supposed to do with Tinker, gank because he has the highest single target nukes in the game.

no. your goal, and only goal, with tinker is to get boots of travel. your job is to stay mid, farm, and have allies push a side lane to get him tower money so he can get to boots. you cannot run around the map early on and hope to win big with ganks while you let middle farm out. i'm aware he has the highest damage nukes, but if you run around ganking you're falling behind in levels and the character is completely useless without items later on.

[Lirlond]

If I melee champ I almost always take shield, blade and tangos. On melee supports I'll sometimes pick up the two cheap components of a soul ring, but shield, blade, tangos is a solid starting setup.

[zlatko]

I got in, but I've just been swamped with games. I had one big weekend session with a buddy I helped get in.

:( Skyrim owns my soul right now, but I'm fully set to play more when December rolls around I'm sure. The only hero I can half ways play is Rikimaru and a little bit of anti mage.

[Haly]

For the HoN players out there, how does Clockwerk compare to Pharoah? I've been playing him lately in HoN and kicking ass. For extra fun lane with a slither/venomance. Poison spray, wall, then just destroy him. Its damn near unfuckwithable.

I believe they are identical, there hasn't been any significant changes to Pharoah after he was ported.

[Pinko Marx]

I believe they are identical, there hasn't been any significant changes to Pharoah after he was ported.

Okay one more question. How about Dazzle compared to Demented Sham?

[Swag]

no. your goal, and only goal, with tinker is to get boots of travel. your job is to stay mid, farm, and have allies push a side lane to get him tower money so he can get to boots. you cannot run around the map early on and hope to win big with ganks while you let middle farm out. i'm aware he has the highest damage nukes, but if you run around ganking you're falling behind in levels and the character is completely useless without items later on.

If you successfully gank you've made up the experience lost from the lane, if you kill a hero you've gained an entire wave of creeps in gold and more importantly killed an enemy hero, if your team is side pushing lanes and facing opposition from the enemy team, and forced into bad fights, while the Tinker is farming BoTs mid, your going to lose the game.

Tinker mid is the perfect example of a Mid hero because he is able to control the runes, has an easy harass tool with his rockets, and can effectively gank lanes quickly and easily with his high range / high damage nukes, he outputs 675 damage at level 8, and can easily kill a hero in the sidelane with a rune such as Invisibility or Haste, and disable assist, prior to that.

I don't think there is any true mid hero (by true mid I don't mean sending something like Anti-Mage mid), that shouldn't gank, the whole purpose of going mid is to give a hero some type of advantage, be it level, or gold in the case of 2v1 mid setups. Rune control with ganks equates to map control because side lanes will be wary and play defensively when the mid is off the map. There are very few heroes that I can think of currently in beta that would go mid and not roam to gank at some point, and those would be the un-orthodox mids, for example Void, and even then he should still use Chronosphere to setup a kill somewhere.

I believe they are identical, there hasn't been any significant changes to Pharoah after he was ported.

Clockwerk is currently bugged in the beta, his ultimate will hit anything including buildings, or allied creeps, and neutrals, I would highly avoid playing him.

Okay one more question. How about Dazzle compared to Demented Sham?

His second skill is different.

[Haly]

Okay one more question. How about Dazzle compared to Demented Sham?

Identical except for Shallow Grave vs Unbreakable.

Unbreakable is much easier to use, but Shallow Grave is potentially stronger.