SteveWinwood
Member
Drow. Ranger. Every. Damn. Game.
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Dota 2 Beta Thread 3: Gunnar Optiks Required [Faster Loading]
- Thread starter Artanisix
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maniac-kun
Member
Started playing again. I noticed I am often a little behind regarding my heroes level. What is the most efficient way to level? I use Omniknight at the moment.
Hand of Midas.
Complex Shadow
Cudi Lame
Randomly got put into a game with a gaffer and his friends? All go caries. >_>
Played kunkka after a long ass time. Boat still handles like shit.
Played kunkka after a long ass time. Boat still handles like shit.
I know, right? It's like the last nerf to her only took care of half the problem. Now she can't push all the lanes at once by turning the ranged creeps into fucking mini-Drows, but she still does a billion damage on her own without shit for items.
I learned recently that if you get two Wraith Bands and a HotD, by 10 minutes, you can SOLO ROSH! I don't have an issue with heroes that can solo Rosh early, but on Drow it's way overkill. The other Rosh soloers have some inherent weakness. Slows and ranged attacks wreck Ursa. Lycan requires more time now to get his BKB. With Drow, it doesn't seem like she has a weakness like that. Obviously stuns, but that's for everyone. Slows? She has a long attack range. You better bring two or three people to gank her too, because she can handle one pretty early by herself too.
Here's a random idea to buff her, if they nerf the aura and ult: make Silence have an Orchid effect on a random unit in the AoE. This would accomplish what IceFrog seems to want to do with Drow: make her more interesting. I didn't think she was really underpowered before, just kind of boring to use.
maniac-kun
Member
I still struggle with the basics 
regarding items:
If I want http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Arcane_Boots
and have http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Boots_of_Speed - are arcane boots cheaper? Or should i buy the other required components then?
regarding items:
If I want http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Arcane_Boots
and have http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Boots_of_Speed - are arcane boots cheaper? Or should i buy the other required components then?
maniac-kun
Member
Ah thanks!
Ingame, just leftclick on the item you want from the shop. It will list its components at the bottom end of the shop menu.
Funchameleon
Banned
How do you counter Phantom Lancer's teamfight + solo pushing presence without ridiculously outgearing+outstrategizing and/or outpicking him (cleave/aoe heroes)? I never enjoy playing games he gets picked in.
It seems like for whatever reason I was actually playing well yesterday. I somehow finally figured out how to play bane in this match - https://dotabuff.com/matches/103579395 - for whatever reason bane has just been something that never worked for me.
On top of that I actually played a half decent nyx as well - https://dotabuff.com/matches/103722482 - which I was also surprised about.
Random was somewhat kind to me over the past weekend. I wonder what trouble it will bring next.
On top of that I actually played a half decent nyx as well - https://dotabuff.com/matches/103722482 - which I was also surprised about.
Random was somewhat kind to me over the past weekend. I wonder what trouble it will bring next.
You don't. You have to pick against him. I was a random draft game where PL was picked first. I picked Undying for his AOE team fight and another picked Outworld because of his strength against illusions. Their team sucked, but Phantom was enough to give us a run for our money. We won because we had a plan to counter PL.
Funchameleon
Banned
So it's a hero balanced for captains mode? I'd play that if it didn't tack 5 minutes onto the start of every game.
dota's always gonna be balanced around the meta.(ie, captain's mode) It's why heroes like drow and silencer exist in pubs to grief games, and why overhauled heroes and new heroes are never immediately in CM. Icefrog releases new heroes/big changes, and uses public mode as a sandbox to balance.
Imp the Dimp
Member
No kidding. Is there any way to counter her effectively?
Dreams-Visions
Member
I mean, she has no escape and she runs very slowly (relatively speaking). So you know...gank her. Part of the problem in pubs is that they don't gank her ass and keep her down. Ganking her once or twice, then letting her free farm for the next 30 minutes won't get it done. If she's not hugging the tower, she's a pretty good target to get picked off. Heroes that can close distance quickly are the best counters. Slarks, Ursas, Nyx, BH, Riki, Slar, etc. Anyone who wants to be up in your face and has the means to close the distance quickly or undetected (invis) gives Drow big problems. Otherwise, Blademail, Halberd and Ghost Scepter are good items for dealing with fat right-clickers.
Basically Valve tests rancid meat on us, see how many of us get sick from it, make changes, and then finally serve the gourmet steak to Navi.
Funchameleon
Banned
What percentage of people do you think play this competitively? Why balance it exclusively for them? Why is this popular to play outside of that scene?
This isn't the genre for me anymore. I'm sick of queuing alone or with a friend or two only to be completely robbed of personal agency for 40-60 minutes. Concede button? No, just sit there and take it.
This isn't the genre for me anymore. I'm sick of queuing alone or with a friend or two only to be completely robbed of personal agency for 40-60 minutes. Concede button? No, just sit there and take it.
Except you're free to queue CM mode whenever you wish.
Also, even the most ridiculous pubstompers are relatively simple to knock down. Currently, all of the troublesome heroes can easily be ganked, and constant sitting on them makes them kind of moot. Some of the more troublesome times were probably the refraction blink bug (with op TA), OP morphling, OP Naga, OoV Batrider bug, Anti-mage (when there were much less heroes in the pool and he had no counters in the game), old scepter DS. The game's fine as it is, and its one of the more 'balanced' patches Icefrog has created in a while.
Because it's the only way to balance a game properly. Expert players will do whatever it takes to win, so if something is off you can be sure they'll find and exploit it. Balancing around low or mid-level players doesn't make any sense, they can't play the game correctly so you can't trust their experience to make a decision.
And I'm saying that as a total noob.
Funchameleon
Banned
False dichotomy; you could balance for both in theory.
The problem is that newer players don't know proper strategies to take down specific heroes. That's why invisible heroes eat newbies alive, because they don't know how to counter them. Super OMG carries can easily be deterred if you put in the effort, but a lot of new players don't know that or don't know how to execute it properly.
No you coudn't, in relatively complex games it's impossible.
Risible
Member
In theory? Perhaps. I think it would be a very complex task at best and maybe impossible at worst.
If you balance for the noobs (and I'm one of them) I think you would have to destroy a lot of the variety and complexity. Heroes with weird meta will always give noobs fits because you have to pick against them, and if there's one thing noobs hate to do is pick according to what the team needs.
Think about it - how often do you see in pub games where the game starts and 3-4 members of the team just lock in their characters without seeing what their teammates or the other team is going? Most noobs go into a game thinking "I'm gonna play Slark this game" rather than "I'm gonna play whatever role I need to play to win."
In theory. Obvious example: different heroes have different learning curves. Noobs think that Meepo is weak because he's hard to use, with all that microing (hell, I tried him and all I could do was auto attack with all of his clones). Anti-Mage is weak because he requires farming and noobs can't farm fast. So should they be buffed? I don't know, but afaik AM is considered quite strong. I can't see how you can make everyone happy in this situation.
Funchameleon
Banned
What would removing PL do to the pro metagame because it would sure as fuck be one small step to making public play more bearable. Does he even see that much tournament play because I don't remember any in DotA1 but then the meta was always shifting.
If the game is balanced for captains mode they should try to make it attractive for public play by making the process less arduously slow.
If the game is balanced for captains mode they should try to make it attractive for public play by making the process less arduously slow.
lionelhutz
Member
I was excited to see that I already owned Dota 2 in the Steam store only to find out that it's a spectator version. How quickly are the invites released from Valve? Do they do it in batches, or is it random?
Funchameleon
Banned
Hit up all your steam friends that have it because most people should be absolutely saturated with invites, or just PM me your steam page or email if you want one of the 7 invites that I can't even begin to get rid of.
I just check single draft, random draft and least played hoping for the best because all pick is always the same shit
TheThunder
Member
I have 11 invites that I don't even know what to do with, send me a pm of your steam id if you want one.
Can't you also just lift him up before he reaches his target.
lionelhutz
Member
Thank you. PM sent.
lionelhutz
Member
Thanks for the offer. I sent a PM to Funchameleon since I saw his post first. I didn't expect responses so quickly.
I switched myself as well. I picked Owned because Singsing and tobi were on there, singsing switched from twitch to owned so I thought it was better. But it's only because they pay more he switched. Owned constantly lags hard, and their vod system is horrible. I don't get why owned doesn't see that problem..
Ugh, just had a game where I randomed Drow and partnered with a Treant in hard lane. He proceeds to steal all my farm because he "needs mana boots" and refuses to buy wards until he has them.
They have 2 in hard lane and 1 in jungle. We get ganked CONSTANTLY and he still won't buy wards. We win the game but everyone has a go at me (despite the fact that I was reasonably well farmed and 5-5-12)
So frustrating...
Also, they all laughed when I got Vladimir for Drow. I thought that was fairly common, am I wrong?
They have 2 in hard lane and 1 in jungle. We get ganked CONSTANTLY and he still won't buy wards. We win the game but everyone has a go at me (despite the fact that I was reasonably well farmed and 5-5-12)
So frustrating...
Also, they all laughed when I got Vladimir for Drow. I thought that was fairly common, am I wrong?
TheThunder
Member
Own3d vods have stopped working for me a month or so ago and I tried everything but no dice. Wouldn't surprise me if the company only has 2 dudes working there and they are about to bounce with all the money.
Shame really, I don't want twitch to be the only option when it comes to video game streaming.
Shame really, I don't want twitch to be the only option when it comes to video game streaming.
You won because of those Mana Boots. I hope you thanked him.
Adventures in Dota my past two games:
Wisp feeds the enemy team by solo warping into places
Pudge has some of the worst hooks I've seen, followed by no dismembers
Luna maxes the bouncing blades first and has beam at level one when she's level 6
I sucked too, but at least it was a coherent suckage
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Good teamwork shuts her ass down hard. So yeah, good luck getting that consistently in pub games.
Phantom Lancer is the more annoying hero to me at the moment. I'm currently at the level where if I try to organize my team to focus on Drow 3 out of 5 times at least a few of them will listen. But when it comes to PL I am apparently the only one who ever buys Dust for killing him, and I'm getting sick of it.
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