[Blizzard]

As a complete noob, two of the few champions who seemed fun to me are Nature's Prophet and Zeus. Nature's Prophet has free global teleport every so often, and hauls trees around, and can help teammates with fights, and farm/push whatever. Zeus can ult to see enemies, he has funny lines, and he generally seems like an amusing jerk of a champion who tries to screw over the other team.

[inky]

Shadow Shaman is super fun as well.

[HenryHSH]

Aaaaand steam is down for maintenance.
Is team chat broken for anyone else?

[orangecaramel]

Game just d/c'd.. fml

[The_Player]

Pusher Lycan is the best Lycan.

Aaaaand steam is down for maintenance. Is team chat broken for anyone else?

Confirmed

[blitz64]

steam goes on and off. You need to shut down steam and restart it. sometimes it works.

dota2 game seems down right now.

Even when I connect, Matchmaking seems to fail 80% of the time with someone not loading into the game.

[Deadly]

Managed to play one game tonight. Victory!

[Haly]

The Lord Gaben giveth, and the Lord Gaben taketh away.

[The_Player]

No more Ih for today?

[Finalow]

I want medusa. she seems pretty good.

[Swag]

The addition of Lone Druid has made playing Windrunner a lot of fun.

[RaGMasTeR90]

Is anybody else stuck in the "Connecting to the DOTA2 network ... " ?

[Dmax3901]

Just played the best game as Dazzle, went for 1:12 and was dead even for most of that.

[The_Player]

Is anybody else stuck in the "Connecting to the DOTA2 network ... " ?

Restart Steam.

Just played the best game as Dazzle, went for 1:12 and was dead even for most of that.

It's ok, as long as your teammates are alive.

[Lirlond]

Update releasing right as I go to sleep? Yesss

[Nemo]

I'm pretty nooby and think it would be cool if gaf held/had some noob inhouse matches or something.

Yeah, we can also meet up later on if you want :) I finally have some time to play this game

[zombieshavebrains]

Was reading this guide on shackleshot/powershot and had a question about powershot. I know powershot reduces damage for each person it hits, but does it reduce damage for each tree it hits? Also, what happens if you kill a creep that a hero is shackled to right after it gets shackled?

[Artanisix]

Zenith destroying AL right now.

<3iceiceice and hyhy, asia's finest

[Balehead]

They shut AM down completely.

[Artanisix]

Oh god I just realized that AL don't even have one tower with Prophet AND Shadow Shaman :lol

[BeesEight]

Was reading this guide on shackleshot/powershot and had a question about powershot. I know powershot reduces damage for each person it hits, but does it reduce damage for each tree it hits? Also, what happens if you kill a creep that a hero is shackled to right after it gets shackled?

I don't believe trees reduce damage. And if someone is shackled to something and it dies, they still remain shackled for the full duration. This also includes trees that get destroyed before the stun duration expires.

[Archie]

Oh god I just realized that AL don't even have one tower with Prophet AND Shadow Shaman :lol

They've been taking notes from GAFhouses.

[close to the edge]

Was reading this guide on shackleshot/powershot and had a question about powershot. I know powershot reduces damage for each person it hits, but does it reduce damage for each tree it hits? Also, what happens if you kill a creep that a hero is shackled to right after it gets shackled?

No damage reduction from trees (or anything that isn't a unit) as far as I'm aware.

Shackleshot still holds, even if you kill one of the shackled units.

[zombieshavebrains]

Oh god I just realized that AL don't even have one tower with Prophet AND Shadow Shaman :lol

Absolute Losers? Yuck yuck yuck.

[Balehead]

aL just picked Lycan!

[throwawayname]

Finally I'm going to see some pro Dota 2 Lycan action. Hope it delivers.

[Archie]

I'm lycan AL's picks.

[The_Player]

Europe is down? Again? FFFFFU.

[tuxor]

big bashes. no ult for sk.

[ksan]

So much fun watching Zenith play, and great seeing Chuan play again :)

Hahaha, and hyhy just consistently amazing. DAT ESCAPE

[close to the edge]

hyhy is a badass. That TP

Beautiful WR play as well. Zenith are a great team.

[Balehead]

That Slardar is doing amazing.

[Guesong]

Ugh.

"Oh my we can firstpick Lycan? LET'S DO THIS!"

And then give the NP and WR to Zenith. Not going their way atm.

EDIT : And then they win a teamfight and now it's equal ground. That'll teach me.

[close to the edge]

This game is awesome.

[Balehead]

Full team wipes going back and forth...

[undu]

so intense, love it.

[inky]

That was a great game.

[JustinBB7]

5 on 1, still throw a Black Hole on him, and he STILL escapes. Hot damn.

[Gully State]

I don't know if this has always been there but apparently if you put items in the quick buy box and you accrue enough gold to buy any of those items, the game plays an audibly ping to remind you to spend it. Pretty useful for someone like me who has a bit of tunnel vision/concentration when it comes to this game.

[Finalow]

damn I missed the game with lycan.

[HenryHSH]

Yeah, if anyone has a link for the aL lycan game I'd appreciate it.

[undu]

I don't know if this has always been there but apparently if you put items in the quick buy box and you accrue enough gold to buy any of those items, the game plays an audibly ping to remind you to spend it. Pretty useful for someone like me who has a bit of tunnel vision/concentration when it comes to this game.

It was added last week and it's really nice.

[Finalow]

this sk is doing very good.

[Guesong]

MuSica trying out the Maelk strat.

It's not working.

[Balehead]

MuSica trying out the Maelk strat. It's not working.

Maybe he's just warming up for the IGMM grand finals, might work there. Could to be rough to come back from this and go straight to another final game.

[SnakeswithLasers]

Hey guys, one more cry for help. =)

Played a bit more last night and it's still not clicking. I feel like I very much COULD enjoy it, but I'm just sprouting question marks from my hairline.

I need a very basic, “here is what your game SHOULD look like” up until it hits the fan and the game becomes super dynamic.

It’s like I’m playing Starcraft without an opener, and no idea what the mid-game is supposed to look like or how to transition into it, and no idea about timings or pushes.

Can anyone give me or point me to a "Dota 2 for Dummies" intro? Example, something like 'here's your general support role how to:'
Start by purchasing the recommended items
Go to the bottom/top lane with another hero
Get xp with them, but let them get last hit for farm
Try to last hit your own guys to prevent enemy farm
Once you get to level [x] … ???

Because the thing is, I REALLY don't understand the timings at all, when do you start pushes, when do you start ganks, at what point should you roam instead of just straight lane farm. This is all completely bonkers to me! But it seems so damn intriguing!

[Risible]

The biggest problem with this game is that it's super hard to learn just from reading or viewing Youtube videos. I found I only got better (and I still suck) by getting my ass kicked over and over.

Don't get me wrong, you still have to do due diligence and look at resources outside of the game as well, but nothing is going to beat cold hard experience in learning Dota.

[BigAT]

Hey guys, one more cry for help. =) Played a bit more last night and it's still not clicking. I feel like I very much COULD enjoy it, but I'm just sprouting question marks from my hairline. I need a very basic, “here is what your game SHOULD look like” up until it hits the fan and the game becomes super dynamic. It’s like I’m playing Starcraft without an opener, and no idea what the mid-game is supposed to look like or how to transition into it, and no idea about timings or pushes. Can anyone give me or point me to a "Dota 2 for Dummies" intro? Example, something like 'here's your general support role how to:' Start by purchasing the recommended items Go to the bottom/top lane with another hero Get xp with them, but let them get last hit for farm Try to last hit your own guys to prevent enemy farm Once you get to level [x] … ??? Because the thing is, I REALLY don't understand the timings at all, when do you start pushes, when do you start ganks, at what point should you roam instead of just straight lane farm. This is all completely bonkers to me! But it seems so damn intriguing!

This set of guides helped me a fair amount with the basics early on. Unfortunately a lot of what you're looking for though is stuff you can only really pick up with experience. Because of the large amount of variance due to the number of potential heroes (among other factors), you're not going to find hard timings or builds like you do with Starcraft. You just need to get used to the "flow" of the game and be ready to make adjustments depending on how each game goes.

I'd recommend picking a hero you might be interested in learning, then finding a good replay. Go to watch, filter by the hero name and "high" skill bracket, then search through the games until you find one in which your hero did well (high K:D ratio is the easiest to look for). Select player perspective and just watch that person for an entire game. It should give you a better idea about positioning, when to push/when to retreat, etc.

At the absolute worst, just pick a support hero and stick with your teammates.

[SnakeswithLasers]

A lot of the guides at playdota are two or three years old; is that ok? I know that if I got two year old Starcraft info, it would be borderline useless.

[Nirolak]

A lot of the guides at playdota are two or three years old; is that ok? I know that if I got two year old Starcraft info, it would be borderline useless.

Check when they were last updated as opposed to when they were last posted.

It should say what version number the guide was last updated for somewhere on the right.

If it's a fairly recent version, it should still be mostly fine, even if some things changed.