Dota 2 Discussion (~Boston Majors & Road to TI7~)

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

The most reliable way to check your rating is to see on which "watch" page your games are on. If you get placed on page 1 constantly among "top live" matches it means you're among the top. (getting placed there once or twice doesnt mean much since the search bar can make it quite random).

There's also high/mid/low brackets but that's very tentative. You can check your "bracket" by typing your name into search bar then filtering for "game rating" or something like that. Note these brackets mean little in reality. Mid/low are both beginner-tiers where people don't know what skills their heroes have. High includes both first page games and really low level games where people make basic beginner mistakes have 0 map awareness etc, so it's not "high" at all either.

Maybe you set your level as "low" or "mid" in the beginning, this means you get to stomp your way past noobs until MM places you where you belong. This also means that %winrate isn't really indicative (pro player SingSing is at the very top but like 57% win, whereas I know a guy with 65% and he's good but by no means pro and loses to pros in MM).

 

[Damned Registrations]

Pretty sure I put myself in the high bracket when it asked.

Had a game as AA. First time playing him. Misread his E and levelled it last. We won, but I don't think thats a hero I want to play in a pub ever again. Relies massively on the rest of the lineup and coordination, and has pretty much no presence when alone. I was especially useless this game since the enemy had both antimage and lifestealer. And although you'd think BS would be an awesome person to combo with, the enemies were so retarded they just ran themselves to death whether I was there or not.

 

[meh]

Whats with the rating system? I keep getting ~2.1 for everyone I play. Am I supposed to finish the match in 10 minutes with 6 rapiers to get a high rating? Or is it just broken?

The rating represents how "good" are you with that specific hero in comparison to other players of your "skillpool". 2 bars are the average/starting point. I have only two heroes just below the 2 bars, while f.e. mentioned SF, SK, QoP, Storm, Doom are 4 bars and a half.

It's fun to compare hero performances with friends, like, he totally fed with that spectre, but he still got 3 bars, how bad should other players be? Not much else though, just a gimmick.

 

[kingcomrade22]

AA is one of my favorite heroes, and once you get a few games' practice with him you'll realize he can be played in pubs. I think he's one of my most successful heroes, I'll have to check. Cold Feet and Vortex are very powerful, but where he really excels is his ult. It's a great teamfight spell kind of on the magnitude of echo slam (see what I did there) and spells like it. He would only be a okay hero if not for his ult.

 

[kingcomrade22]

DR they just changed Spectre's attack animation, says in patch notes, so hopefully it will help once the patch goes to the main version.

I hate Phantom Lancer, he's one of those bitch heroes for bitch players who will feed of the retard on your team and become unstoppable.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Free armor reduction is pretty fucking awesome, you must admit. Back when I played dota 1 a lot my noobtastic build was to go Point Booster >MoM > Skaadi. Point booster gave enough mana to spam the shit out of nukes for farm/kills, MoM sped up farming even more because then you could farm a camp or wave for 25 mana and get all your health back to boot instead of spending 150 mana, and early Skaadi made you right click king, since there was no fucking phase boots and few heroes had +movespeed shit (and everyone thought yasha was shit even though it had like better stats than it does now.) These days I got for treads blink bkb like a good little boy but it's fairly dull to play because you can't chase worth shit so all the fights tend to either be lost or won within 5 seconds, depending on if the enemy ate some razes. MoM was way more fun. Also between the lifesteal, innate damage, madness speed and armor reduction you could solo rosh pretty early too.

Did the increased soul cap on SF come with a base damage nerf or something? Even at 30 souls max that was a pretty fucking awesome ability. Now it's 36... that's kind of fucking insane for level 7/8. Trying to keep up with power creep or something?

I like PL as a hero mostly because he has/is such strong counters for a lot of heroes. Like Earthshaker pretty much makes him a liability. I'd imaging shadow bonds would be a bitch of a counter as well, assuming it prioritizes illusions more than creeps. But on the other hand someone like Bane gets fucked really really hard by all those extra dicks flailing around, and his ult is basically suicide near a phantom lancer.

Played as Clockwerk. Never played him in dota 1 but I loved him in HoN and my game went really well. I just hate his concept and voice. Goblins are so fucking lame and the whole mecha thing doesn't even fit the theme of the game at all. I only other heroes with that theme were tinker and techies, who were both ranged casters at least and were mostly about explosions rather than clankity shit. Anyways, maxing Q ftw makes my day, so I'll probably play him a lot anyways. Maybe I'll buy a skin for him when they start doing that if there's one that's nice.

Also had a total fail game as Syllabear. Didn't realize until the game had started that I didn't have anything bound for control groups in a useful location. Kind of makes him utter shit, especially if you fail at using the mouse like me and rely on hotkeys for everything possible. Though it was still a close game because Sylla has beyond retarded rightclick damage and pubbies are too stupid to do things like gank the jungle or tp to buildings being torn down.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Oh god, just had the worst game I've ever won.

Selected Bloodseeker in lobby, wanting some nice relaxing pubstomp in mid + lots of ganking. Some douche with a bunch of gibberish letters for a name (eastern euro I guess?) picks him instead. Fuck.

So I pick morphling, who I've enver played before. I have to buy the courier because everyone else doesn't give a flying fuck about couriers or wards, of course. I got top with Tardhunter, who proceeds to waste his gush like he's playing fucking zeus or something. After about level 3 he leaves to bottom lane so I can solo (with a severe xp and gold deficit) against a batrider + invoker dual lane. Fucking fuck. Time to sit under the tower.

Meanwhile, this guy has been in our jungle the whole time and just picked up his hand of midas:

I manage to not die until they just dive me and kill me at the tower, then destroy it.

So at this point I spend what meagre gold I've collected on a morbid mask, dump all my stats into agi, and begin farming the jungle, with Furion (Who had Jew in his name, go figure) still there. Of course stealing his last hits with 150 damage was pretty easy, and the retarded enemy team never thought to look for the 400 hp morphling. Team calls me useless while I solo push a tower down from full hp while they lose a teamfight elsewhere. So now I spend the next 15-20 minutes in the jungle trying to play catchup with whats left of the farm, until I have a Satanic. Wee.Would have taken half that except my team blocked our own camps with wards and furions treants for a significant period of time, so I had to wander between jungle and ancients, and compete with furion and bloodseeker and jugg.

So now I join them in a push into mid, hammer down half the tower hp, and the enemies finally show up to defend. I pop Satanic and start laying into them... only to realize everyone else has fled at top speed. I now spend the next 10 minutes trying to solo down towers and solo rosh so I can 1v5 the fuckers while my team decides they need more farm at the 40 minute mark.

 

[MMM]

Is it just me that European players are the worst kind of human being ever?
Not playing their role, no communication, feeding and the list still goes on.
Everyfuckingtime I queue up in US servers in the morning I always end up pairing with those fuckers.
Not mean any discrimination but this shit is getting on my nerves.

 

[Metro]

I will queue up when you are and noob up your games.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Oh man I'd forgotten just how insane Jugg's ward is. How is this not a broken broken fucking hero? Everything but his ultimate is fucking amazing and would be useful on almost any other hero in the game. He can crush the early, mid, and late game, and is useful with tons of farm or very little compared to other heroes. Even his ulti isn't bad, just average. And he has no trouble farming and is just as difficult if not moreso to gank than someone like magebane.

 

[kingcomrade22]

Shadow Fiend was buffed because competitively he was very rarely picked, down from being one of the top picks. This was because of smoke of deceit and how relatively easy to gank he is (no escape, low HP).

Like Earthshaker pretty much makes him a liability.

Echo Slam doesn't account for illusions. It will hit them, but you don't get echos off them. I used to think the same thing.

Clockwerk is one of my favorite heroes, back in Dota 1 and now in 2. I don't think Dota 2 really has a theme besides weird fantasy, so I don't mind at all. Also I don't think he's a goblin specifically, just an unspecified short race like alchemist and tinker. (edit now that I think about it, both of whom have science themes, so they're probably blizzard gnomes or some shit)
One of his best strengths competitively is he can solo a hard lane, using basilius and rocket spam to last hit and harass. It's honestly really effective if he's soloing and gets a level advantage. It's my favorite way to play him.

snip about jugg

He is a great hero, and his ultimate is also very good, dunno why you thought it wasn't. I'm actually not really sure why he's not more popular competitively. I do know during....one of the bigger tournaments a month or two ago one team picked him and maxxed his ward first and, with a heavy pushing lineup, they got every single tower in like 20 minutes

 

[Damned Registrations]

Well, it's better than an outright bad ult like necrolyte or antimage, but it's not even close to something like Ravage, Black Hole, Chronosphere, and shit in that vein. It has a middle of the road cooldown so you can't spam it for ganking like bloodseeker's, and it's situational and can be fairly useless around lots of creeps or against certain heroes. It puts out decent damage in a team fight, lets him win most 1v1 fights when creeps aren't around, and you can do some tricky shit with it using weapon attacks late game when your speed is high enough and the ult long enough that you get more than just a couple in, something like popping a satanic for a full heal during your ult would be pretty sweet.

But there are a ton of ults I can think of that I'd rather have than omnislash.

 

[Malakal]

Jugger isnt nearly as good as you make him to be. He doesnt really fit into any roles in a good team. He is a weak carry - relying on his skills to deal damage, a weak nuker - with only bladefury and perhaps situational ulti, cant push alone due to his wards cooldown, isnt a great farmer either. Yes, he can heal his entire team in few seconds (provided enemies dont one shot his ward) and is a solo killer but guess what, that doesnt matter competitively. Comparing him to void is just a joke, which commonly picked hero could he replace? AA? CM? ES? Spec? No way.

This is why he is and will remain to be a pub hero. Quite fun but not really powerful.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Yeah, never heard that line before.

His right click damage is fine, 35% crit is quite high, especially on a hero that needs as little attention as he does. And he is a great fucking farmer, because the ward can heal himself too, which makes tanking a fucking creep stack trivial without having to build lifesteal or a vanguard first like pretty much every other fucking melee carry in the game. He doesn't rely on his skills for damage lategame at all; he uses them for survivability. He has a built in BKB and god damned invulnerability. The fact that he can use those skills to rape people in the midgame when every other hard carry is a useless pile of shit that can at best hope to escape to the fountain without dying is just gravy. He scales just as well as others do with items but has the luxury of being survivable and dangerous before getting them.

The thing is, nothing about him relies on the enemy being disorganized pub feeders. He's not an invis hero or some ganker you can escape from with a tp scroll. He's a carry that has potential to get early kills, defend early pushes and dominate lanes instead of being just a passive farmer.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Jugger is a pusher / semi-carry(barely) that needs to get fed early and his team to be at map control advantage or he sucks. The only thing that scales for him (i.e. his steroid) is his crit. Even Brew has a better steroid, and no one in their right mind plays Brew as a carry. And Jugger is melee. How the hell does one die to him unless you get caught badly out of position (and get ulted)?

The only times he's been played succesfully in competitive match was when Na'Vi picked him and abused his healing ward to push early with their lineup and end the game before 30 min. Not as a carry or ganker.

Wanna "counter" a Jugger picker in pubs? Pick a solo hero and go hard solo, Jugger is almost always safe lane with someone like CM, Veno, Lich, SD etc.. With a good solo like Mirana or LD + wards you won't die, while your safe lane is won 3v2/3v1. A farmer Jugger with 0 kills becomes less and less relevant as your own team gets items. In fact I can't think of any carry or semi-carry in the game who gets beaten by a Jugger with equal farm.

 

[kingcomrade22]

I don't remember exactly what the ranking was, but I think once Naga Siren lost her crit ability his was the second best in the game, after Mortred's ult. I really don't remember the ranking well.

In fact I can't think of any carry or semi-carry in the game who gets beaten by a Jugger with equal farm.

I think you're undervaluing how hard he hits with his crit. Mostly his main disadvantage is his melee range. He will lose to hardcore carries, but his high power early and mid game can make him compete with most semi-carries like mirana and so on (who have similar skill sets, that is they mostly rely on heavy nuking early on then transition to damage items).

According to an article I found which is kind of old, Jugg actually has the best crit in the game. Morted is #2, Naga is 3 (she doesn't have this any more, of course), then Leoric, then Buriza/Daedalus, then Chaos Knights (I do think Chaos Knight's crit has been buffed at some point, I forget). I think this article is wrong though, I think Mortred does edge out Jugg, and the reason Chaos Knight's was bad is because his images crit as well.

 

[kingcomrade22]

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

I don't remember exactly what the ranking was, but I think once Naga Siren lost her crit ability his was the second best in the game, after Mortred's ult. I really don't remember the ranking well.

In fact I can't think of any carry or semi-carry in the game who gets beaten by a Jugger with equal farm.

I think you're undervaluing how hard he hits with his crit. Mostly his main disadvantage is his melee range. He will lose to hardcore carries, but his high power early and mid game can make him compete with most semi-carries like mirana and so on (who have similar skill sets, that is they mostly rely on heavy nuking early on then transition to damage items).

According to an article I found which is kind of old, Jugg actually has the best crit in the game. Morted is #2, Naga is 3 (she doesn't have this any more, of course), then Leoric, then Buriza/Daedalus, then Chaos Knights (I do think Chaos Knight's crit has been buffed at some point, I forget). I think this article is wrong though, I think Mortred does edge out Jugg, and the reason Chaos Knight's was bad is because his images crit as well.

It's not really about the crit, or the numbers on it.

It's about the fact that he is melee without any chasing skill (unlike say Spec, Void, AM, PL etc.) or huge teamfight skill (like Spec and Void). It's not about who can 1v1 out-dps one another since teamfights are never 1v1 fights between carries, it's about which carry can more efficiently take of the the enemy team's supports. Say, a Spectre with Radiance casts her ultimate in a teamfight and already supports are down half HP if not more. Or Void with his 5-second bubble (that lets his team cast all kinds of sick shit on top of it, not to mention free kills for a farmed Void). What can Jugger do? Cast his ultimate? Well, firstly the damage from it doesn't scale (well yes, technically Jugger attacks in between the ulti swipes but that's not a big deal), secondly you need to catch the enemy team in the jungle or at Rosh (away from creeps) for it be effective, thirdly its luck-based (you can have him jump on everyone so they just pop a Mek and everyone's back to full HP), fourthly its MIXED damage meaning its mitigated BOTH by armor and magic resistance.

You mention Mirana, but Mirana offers HUGE utility. 750 damage at level 8 just with her nukes. Great escape. Huge ultimate for initiation/escapes. 600 range. Moreover a full farm potm (Daedalus, MKB, Manta, Skadi, Satanic) will take down a full-item Jugger with Daedalus crits / Skadi slow in seconds (not to mention one-shotting his supports).

Jugger is by no means a "bad hero", but he is by no means a traditional carry, he is a hero that needs to be on a heavy pusher team abusing his healing ward to the max early to succeed. (I'm talking at competitive level, at pub level of course you can get away with anything...)

 

[Damned Registrations]

Jugg doesn't need to compete with a hard carry with equal farm, if the enemy hard carry has the same farm the rest of your team has played poorly. The fact that jugg can help push or defend or gank when it happens to be convenient, and can generally defend himself against anything but an overwhelming gank, means that his team should be on the offensive early and mid game, taking towers and stopping the enemy carry from farming. And being able to go bfury as your first item makes your farming explode much earlier than most other hard carries who need to get shit like a vanguard or lifesteal item before anything that ramps their damage, or have to wait all the way until a relic for any damage boost, and then the radiance after that before it's really a decent farming tool.

Compared to the kind of steroid most ranged heroes get like an aura or weaver's extra attack every 50 years, 35% crit is huge. And evasion isn't actually that great on a carry. It helps you win a right click fight with another carry, but realistically the role of the carry is to wipe out the other supports before yours die so you can chain disable and nuke the fuck out of the other carry. Your attacks are better spent on people with less armor and fewer hp who can do troublesome shit like stun your ass. Pumping out more damage before your supports die or your bkb wears off is a lot more important than having an edge in a 1v1 with another carry.

Antimage would be the analogue for who a jugg could replace. You're just as survivable early game against most lanes, but you have more kill potential, so given equal support your lane would win. Jugg can farm faster thanks to healing ward + earliy bfury and his damage amp actually working when he farms, unlike mana burn, and become a proper carry that lets his team win fights and get map control before antimage can get a manta and bkb, both of which he needs to be a serious threat.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Bfury is bad item choice on Jugger, you are probably confusing him with his HoN's equivalent (where Bfury ala Runed Cleaver was indeed viable). Need regen? you have your ward (HoN's Jugger didn't have that option, ward was replaced with another steroid). Need mana on demand? buy soulring. Need to farm quickly? You already have spin for clearing waves/jungle (and soulring to spam it). Anyway you shouldn't be AFK farming with Jugger (like you would with Bfury AM). In fact I can't recall Jugger ever getting a Bfury in a competitive match (and Jugger is almost never ever picked at competitive level - I recall him only getting picked once in the near past - this probably means something).

Jugger will not deal damage in fights outside his ultimate unless supports stun/disable people for him. He'll just get kited. You need to run up to people and hit them, unlike proper melee carries like Spec, AM etc. who have actual ways to chase.

AM is completely different from Jugger... Not only his role, but also his playstyle (both the classic farmy Bfury AM and the Vlad/Vg AM popularized by Na'Vi/Darer). Jugger doesn't carry anywhere near as hard.

If anything he's like an Ursa (who's also completely reliant on his team for disables), only he hits nowhere as hard but can push better to compensate.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Except you can murder the shit out of an ursa with a single stun or slow and a buddy to help right click.

There's no point arguing about theory craft or what happens to be the meta. Shit changes all the time, and heroes people thought were absolute trash suddenly become hot shit in need of nerfs overnight when someone actually uses them differently than what everyone previously thought was the 'only' way. The idea that the only way to play the game is the way it's currently being played in tourneys is retarded.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Jugg isn't just being picked "in the current meta" whatever that means. He was a pub hero from day 1 thanks to his design and was never picked at competitive level (except that one time for Na'Vi to pull of a suprise push strat, but that was early in the beta and the hero pool was much more limited than it is now - there are better heroes now to fill that role).

 

[kingcomrade22]

Current meta is a baffling idea to you?

 

[Humppaleka]

KC, Damned Registrations, Metro and whoever else, feel free to invite me (changed name to Humppaleka in Steam too) for sum gamez of dewta 2, I'm not saying I'm very good but I'm not very bad either.

On another note, what do you guys think about PL? I've always thought of him mostly as a "fun hero", not as much a serious pick. I played HoN for a year or two and now I only follow D2 scene so I have no memory of his role in D1.

 

[Malakal]

Phantom Lancer? Hard to kill carry with a good chasing skill/nuke and big potential late. Very random though. I personally dislike playing him and he cant compare to other better carries, but against a pub team that wont effectively counter him can be deadly.