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

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

1-2 months back I consistently placed on 1st page (i.e. very high, top mm), and people there still play selfish / make noob mistakes / don't wanna "tryhard" etc. The only difference you occasionally get matched with or against pros, which is great e.g. going mid against Scandal and getting owned. Dunno how it stands now (maybe standards have improved?) as I only play on alts when I have time, funny still matching vs. pros (rarely) with ~50 games played on an acc.

If someone asks me for advice, I usually ask "what would *insert great player name* do?" in this situation, in a serious match. If you lower the bar, no valid things at all can be said about Dota IMO. "I went middle with Storm, bought Blink Dagger and Force and owned everybody LOL", anything applies when enemy's skill is lower.

The one thing that does apply - if everyone is indeed "lower" than you, then pick a mid rapist hero and carry yourself up to where you belong (in "very high" people might indeed be bad but at least they know when and how to use skills and respond to "PLS STUN NOW"), so you don't find yourself in a "im good everyone else is terrible" - unless you are on their level yourself ofc

 

[alkeides]

Can someone send me an invite? I'm also alkeides on steam

 

[Captain Shrek]

Can someone send me an invite? I'm also alkeides on steam

Accept my friend request.

EDIT:

Can't find you. Find me on CDS and send me one. Captain Shrek.

 

[alkeides]

It seems like I need to add some games before I can use some of the features. I'll just install something now.

 

[alkeides]

Can someone send me an invite? I'm also alkeides on steam

Accept my friend request.

EDIT:

Can't find you. Find me on CDS and send me one. Captain Shrek.

Sent you one. I am now
Mr. Douchemeister Wigglesworth

 

[alkeides]

I just got an invite courtesy of Captain Shrek. My favourite hero in Dota was always Night Stalker. I'm decent using him against my friends in LAN, but my friends aren't very good anyway. Just practising a bit now. Should I try out different heroes for different roles if I want to play competitively?

 

[pocahaunted]

I'm no expert, but the best (or rather more intuitive) way of knowing what you'll be up against is to play as the other heroes yourself.

 

[Damned Registrations]

pocahaunted is right. You'll never be familiar with enemy hero cast times, ranges, mana pools, movement speeds, etc. unless you play as them somewhat. As much as I hate seeing people random heroes in my games, it is a great way to learn the game in that regard. Though just picking a wide variety of the most popular heroes is helpful too. Random stuff like knowing that Tiny needs 240 mana to combo you or that Shadowfiend can't actually use his ult next to clockwork rocket barrage is very important. Individually it means little but when you add up hundreds of little facts like that it's what makes good players edge out victories when mediocre players thought they had the advantage by the obvious indicators.

 

[Merkwürdigliebe]

Medusa is up on test servers.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Excellent. My extreme clown lvl 1 hatchet ranged hero jungle strat for dire will have another candidate. A better one even. Too bad it's going to be at least another week before she goes live.

 

[Malakal]

I cant find any damn reason for adding Medusa of all the heroes that wasnt yet in. She is as bad as Drow was before her changes, needs a lot of farm and doesnt really have much carry potential (what with split shot being mostly random on what split shots hit). Tanky with mana shield but thats it. I miss Phoenix, Tauren Chieftain and other good heroes but have to suffer the dev team adding random carries.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

I agree. Fuck Medusa.

 

[Kane]

Medusa is up on test servers.

is that black dynamite?

 

[Ulminati]

 

[Malakal]

Ugh, horrible. I do like the dota design though, very nice. Not oversexualized too.

 

[JohnTheRevelator]

I got a key thanks to Wulfstand. Played some against bots. Horribly sucked at first (well still do), not a shocker considering that last time I played LoL with any kind of regularity was like what, 2 years ago? I'm really liking it so far. Very nice client with easy access to replays and live games (although as anything steam related it's slow as fuck). Instead of reading guides on internet I can just watch games to learn what players build and what they do. My favourite hero so far is spirit breaker, dude has crazy mobility and is pretty beefy on top of that. I'm still playing against bots only, I have a lot to learn before I venture into pvp waters.

 

[Merkwürdigliebe]

Have to agree that the Dota medusa design is pretty good, though the textures do need some work before getting it on live servers. To bad they didn't use the earlier model were she was wearing a hood and would take it of for the ult, that was pretty neat.

Medusa is up on test servers.

is that black dynamite?

No idea were it from, you will have to ask some one with more knowledge in comics to find that out.

 

[alkeides]

I've only been playing practice matches with a friend for now, but I find aiming harder than in the original DotA. Also, why the bloody hell are there no barriers or any form of markers at the fountains?

 

[Merkwürdigliebe]

Markers and barriers? You will have to elaborate on that.

 

[Castanova]

Man, after like 500 games of solo queue or grouping with one friend, this game is starting to get to me. I dumped a lot of time into it but it has reached the point where it's just no fun like 75% of the time. I'd rather not play at all than play a game and lose because of terrible teammates. And half the time I win, it's not even that fun because it's a fucking stomp. I think the only way to have consistent fun in this game is to play with a 4 or 5-stack... or to dominate your lane with a friend (but my friend is kinda bad and he can't play good lulzy support heroes like Wisp).

 

[Damned Registrations]

This is kinda of an issue with multiplayer games. with 10 people involved, even if you're the best (or worst) player, your impact is still going to be dwarfed by the interactions between everyone else in the long run. You'll often get games where you feel impactful because everything goes the way you'd expect it to elsewhere and you tip the balance, but you'll just as often get games where even if you were far more skilled than you are you'd still lose, either because the enemies are better than you'd expect or your allies are worse (and telling the difference is often pretty much impossible; people always rag on whoever loses mid, but for all you know the guy who went mid was the best on his team and just got beaten by an even better guy on the other team) and it's easiest to notice an ally being worse than expected (bad ward spots, awful item/skill builds, generally awful decision making) while you'll probably never notice the amazing juke your ally made to survive a gank you weren't aware of.

Tons of online games are like this. It's why I generally prefer 1v1 games, but most people seem to vastly prefer having teammates to blame, so 1v1 games are a smaller niche with less quality to choose from. Bloodbowl is fun, but pretty random, especially in a tournament where you might be the first guy to go up against a bloodthirsty team and squish eachother while everyone else gets a free pass and ranks higher just because of seeding. MtG is pretty fucking expensive to play sealed, which is the only really fair format since everything else is essentially pay to win with a huge pricetag. Starcraft just isn't really my cup of tea. Then there are various online games where the outcome is often determined by lag, or plagued with cheaters/unfair matches *cough*darksouls*cough*.

 

[SkullSplitter]

The funniest part about DOTA is people complaining about their teammates and never thinking that maybe they were the problem

 

[Damned Registrations]

Well, like I said, it's easier to notice someone having retarded items or skill decisions than it is to notice their precise movements at all times on a huge map in a busy game. This gives the illusions that they make mistakes by fucking up stuff like items or ward placement, but almost never do anything impressive. On top of that, people often don't even bother pointing out when someone has a shit item build or skill build or whatever unless they're losing badly and have time to waste chatting, so your own mistakes hardly ever get pointed out in the same way. The game just happens to be made in such a way that it makes you seem more skilled than you really are compared to people around you. By comparison, if you were playing 2v2 in starcraft, you could look over at your ally's base and think to yourself: "Holy fuck. He was way more shit than me. I must be fucking something up."

 

[Angelo85]

If some of you bros played up to 500 games total you surely have added enough people to your Friendslist / Steam Contacts from good games that fixed teams with other good players shouldn't be an issue - thus tipping the odds for an enjoyable experience into your favor?

 

[Damned Registrations]

I've been trying Slark for a few games now and... how is this not a massively popular hero in competitive circles? The hero can farm a stacked jungle very quickly and efficiently if you max pact first. When you hit 6, you can ruthlessly deward the enemy without risking a gem or even having highground vision. The burst damage you add to a gank is massive even assuming the target has sentry wards to counter you. Once you farm enough to get decent hp you can basically make it impossible for anyone to ever be alone, since even if you can't kill them in a single attack, you can hurt them very badly and fully recover from any damage you take within seconds. You basically force the enemy into a playstyle of grouping up and playing without observer wards. It's insane. And Slark isn't even weak in lane, since he has both good burst damage, a snare, and an escape, all at a very low mana cost on a single skill. It's not even possible to stun him for more than a second if his reaction time is good because pact clears stuns too. Which, incidentally, makes him excellent for initiating teamfights by dumbfucking in, eating a stun and then leaping out and healing to full while the enemy chases you into your entire team that hasn't wasted spells trying to kill a slark.

Why the fuck is this not a top picked hero? Is it like Scout in HoN where everyone just plays him wrong in pubs and he wasn't popular until someone realized you could just rice faster than an antimage and the invis=noob thing wasn't actually relevant since you ran like a fucking roadrunner anyways?