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Dota 2 Weekend!; CAUSE YEAH
Topic Started: Feb 12 2014, 02:32 AM (18,059 Views)
dwestfan13
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We've been owning bitches lately.


Also, that was my first-ever attempt with Cancer Lancer. I'd never even used him in bot games. He's a blast.
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DarkFlashlight
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it will take a toll
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That makes you a bad person.
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dwestfan13
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Not even gonna argue with that. I totally understand how OP he is now. There were times I was down to ~100 HP and I could turn a fight on somebody with full health. Q + W then hack away. I also had no fewer than 6 kills stolen by either Oracle or BH just waiting until they were low enough to finish off with Dagon. Can't blame them though, I'd do the same thing.
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tfghost92
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swag on this dick, bitches
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Olinea
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Guess I should put in my two cents on the super active/lively discussion:

Early Game
I think strength in the early game comes from the ability to abuse the fact that lanes generally have a set configuration and it's rare to see a hero break away from their assigned lane early on. Strong early crowd control like Mirana, Wraith King, Shadow Demon, etc. provide a lot of opportunity for heroes to chunk each other down, and that's where a majority of damage is coming from early on - autoattacks are super strong at level 1, 2, even 3. Mana is scarce so you need to make every spell count. Early game is pretty limited in scope considering how confined it is, but anybody with the ability to abuse a skill early on fares well. I kinda think of it as "if you picked a hero knowing you would DC for the first 15 minutes and then return, who would you pick?"

Midgame
The kings of midgame, to me, are playmakers and gankers. People who now have the levels they need under their belt and can start skirmishing with multiple heroes in different spots. Timbersaw, Puck, QoP, Necrophos, etc. don't need a bunch of core items to do their job and their nukes are most potent here while health pools aren't capping out but you have the power to nuke people down. Teamwork is the core for being strong in the midgame, a few heroes can do their job solo but a kill means very little if you don't do something with it.

We can talk more item-wise here too. Midgame items would be the stepping stones like Armlet, Aquila, Drums, Blink, etc. with a price tag in the 2k-4k range. It means you're power spiking more frequently and keep pressure on. Winning midgame means you need to be relentless and farming up 3200 gold for a Reaver or something is only making you lose valuable time.

Lategame
Big numbers. Big attacks, big health pools, big respawn times, big stakes. My rule of thumb is that the best lategame spells are those with percentages attached, or those which can abuse the larger numbers in lategame. Percent-based chance to stun on autoattack (Void, Slardar) only gets more effective as you attack faster, crits are bigger, flat 300 damage nuke means less and less. I'd brand a hero as strong in the lategame if they have something that can deal with big numbers - it seems general and unspecific but it's hard for me to phrase it otherwise. QoP has flat damage nukes so she's forced to build carry items if she wants any lategame relevance. Omniknight gives his team valuable immunity to powerful spells and autoattacks, in fights where the tides can turn in a few seconds. Necrophos has percent-based health loss and an ult that deals damage based on a percentage of their missing health - mind you, Heartstopper isn't going to break a teamfight given how long it takes to do significant damage through health regeneration and heals like Mek, so Necro isn't exactly super strong lategame, but he does provide a valuable utility spell in his ult.

Of course items like Butterfly, Heart, Daedalus, etc. are your lategame items since they give the biggest bang for your buck when you've only got 6 slots to work with.



It's hard to point to any two heroes and say "X is better than Y early/mid/lategame". Some comparisons are obvious - Undying rips through early game when his Strength steal means the most and he's way more valuable early on than Spectre who can't do much in a skirmish beyond Spectral Dagger, but you can't easily say something like "Ember is definitely a better lategame carry than Tiny" because they just... do things differently. Personally I favor heroes who can get things started early which is why my favorite supports tend to be SD/Rubick, my preferred offlaners are midgame playmakers like Clock/Timber, and I like my carries to contribute to early kill attempts with CC/nukes like Ember/Sven/Juggernaut but I guess everyone's got different opinions there and Dota's great because every hero does, and can be made to do, such different things.
Edited by Olinea, Nov 23 2014, 08:35 AM.
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dwestfan13
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Early game Heroes I really enjoy are Undying, Shadow Demon, Treant, Crystal Maiden, and Shadow Shaman. They are all pretty good at setting up a kill for the carry they're laning with. Undying's strength steal is obviously key because fewer HP = easier to kill. Shadow Demon's Q/W combo is great early game because, as Oli said, auto attacks are rather strong early and the added damage from SD's W only enhances that. Treant is useful simply from the fact his early autos are as legit as they get. I think they're somewhere around 90 at Level 1. Crystal Maiden is in the same boat as SD with her W/Q combo being one of the strongest in the early game. With good positioning, it should be a kill every time. Shadow Shaman I really like early since his E is a big 'fuck you' to the enemy. One of my favorite moments in Dota was with a Level 1 mid gank with SS. Oli was Shadow Fiend and grabbed the first DD rune. I thought to myself 'hey, let's not waste this' and immediately went mid. I E'd the enemy mid and Oli autoed them to death. It set off a giant snowball and it was amazing.

Related, I've noticed that we have gotten much better at tri-laning. I remember being absolutely miserable about tri-lanes because I just didn't get it. Now that we're actually somewhat proficient at it, it's one of the most viable ways to get shit started Early game. When we decide to go in, it's a kill prolly 75% of the time, and the other 25% we've created enough room for the safelane to farm. Either outcome is ideal.


Mid-Game Heroes I have no fucking clue, honestly. I would guess Pudge if somebody was actually good at that garbage Hero. I also suppose this is where PA really starts to take over so long as early game went well for her. Mid-game is easily my weakest aspect of Dota so I could use as much help with this as possible.


Late Game is what it is. We all know the standard late-gamers that tend to fuck shit up. PA, Cancer, Ember, Void, etc. These Heroes all are exceptional at individual pickoffs and invaluable in teamfights for their damage output. I'm not sure what else to say here.
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tfghost92
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me and darkie had an interesting conversation the other day, and it started out with me having the revelation that Chaos Knight is not a support (I don't even wanna discuss this >.>)

our conversation was about the roles of heroes, and what we define as a hard carry, and a support.

When I look at the roles of heroes, I see one of two things. Carry and support. When it comes right down to it, every hero is at least one of these two, no matter their more specific role in a game (initiator, ganker, mid, utility, etc)

when I look through the hero list, I see these heroes as supports: Abaddon, Ancient Apparition, Bane, Batrider, Beastmaster, Chen, Crystal Maiden, Dark Seer, Dazzle, Disruptor, Earthshaker, Earth Spirit, Enigma, Io, Jakiro, Keeper of the Light, Leshrac, Lich, Lina, Lion, Nyx Assassin, Ogre Magi, Omniknight, Oracle, Phoenix, Rubick, Sand King, Shadow Demon, Shadow Shaman, Techies, Tidehunter, Treant Protector, Undying, Vengeful Spirit, Venomancer, Visage, Warlock, Windranger, and Witch Doctor. Anyone not mentioned here I consider carries and some mentioned here I think can be very good carries if given the opportunity to farm (Undying, Tidehunter, Batrider, Abaddon, Leshrac, Oracle, Earth Spirit to name some) and some heroes that I consider carries can probably support very well (Kunkka, Mirana, Invoker, Pugna, Alchemist, Silencer (though you should never support Silencer unless you're forced to))


We then, from this point, discussed what the definition of a hard carry is. My definition, which does have some exceptions for some heroes would be this: any hero who requires lots of farm to max their potential, and can take over a game and lead a team to victory. As such, this, for me defines these heroes as hard carries: Anti-Mage, Death Prophet, Dragon Knight, Drow Ranger, Ember Spirit, Faceless Void, Legion Commander, Luna, Medusa, Meepo, Morphling, Naga Siren, Phantom Assassin, Sniper, Spectre, Templar Assassin, Tony, Troll Warlord, Ursa, Wraith King.


Lone Druid, Slardar, Terrorblade and Tinker are a few exceptions that I don't really know if they're hard carries or not because they don't totally NEED farm to be really good, but they both have lots of items that only enhances their ability to carry. Its like a "I don't need it, but you bet your ass I'll buy it" kind of deal. Any of these heroes can get by well with just one or two items outside of their boots, but all of them could hard carry a game if they got that kind of farm.

Alchemist, Broodmother, Doom, Enchantress, Phantom Lancer, and Sven are all heroes I think would fall under the category for hard carry if only for one thing: they don't totally NEED farm. they hold every other definition of the hard carry but they don't actually need buttloads of farm to carry well. Broodmother is the ultimate push hero, and I think that almost excludes her from this list, but she still takes over games and can run trains on anyone playing against her.


Darkie and I also discussed what role Pudge provides. Darkie believes that, though he'd never in a million years pick Pudge to do this, Pudge would be more classified in a support role, if you had to pick one or the other. I disagree. Pudge doesn't have any stuns or silences and I don't consider his ult as true lockdown. Pudge doesn't fit any type of support role and he also runs under the idea of "this hero can take over a game if given the opportunity" but not like a hard carry where he'd need farm. He only needs an item or two to fully max his potential. The reason I don't mention Pudge anywhere under the hard carry discussion is because he can't lead an entire team during fights unless he is well well fed and that isn't usually the case. Pudges are generally pretty killable.

Anyway, it was an hour long very interesting conversation, and it shed some light into how darkie thinks when it comes to heroes and drafting, and I wondered what you all thought too.
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Olinea
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I generally class heroes by three roles: support, ganker, carry. You can definitely have heroes who are able to be played in different roles, heroes who have elements of 2+ of those roles, and a few oddballs who don't quite fit the bill for any of these, but at the most basic level these are the three roles I'd lay out:

If you pick this I expect it to be a support
Earthshaker, SK, Treant, Io, Undying, Venge, Veno, CM, Bane, Lich, Lion, WD, Enigma, Shadow Shaman, Warlock, Jakiro, Dazzle, Ogre, Rubick, AA, Disruptor, KotL, SD, Visage, Oracle

Tell me if you're playing this as a support or not
Tidehunter, Omniknight, Abaddon, Earth Spirit, Mirana, Nyx, Windginger, Lina, Skywrath

Can support if you really want, imo probably better in a farm-reliant role though
Sven, Kunkka, WK, Alch, Tusk, Phoenix, Naga, Pugna, Leshrac, Techies

Really don't like these heroes being played as supports
Zeus, Necrophos


Gankers would be people I don't trust to carry a team, but still need levels/gold to accomplish their tasks. Middle of the road here for me, some heroes are very straightforward with the job (Clock, BH, Batrider) but others can lean in a different direction - Beastmaster has kind of a supportive ganker role and trades 1v1 gank potential for team utility, Clinkz can either push hard or abuse his invis to gank, Storm Spirit still has carry elements to his name, Techies gains indirect map control which constricts the enemy team, Puck/QoP rely on bursting targets and superiority in skirmishes, etc. I class gankers differently from carries if they don't have real means to make their midgame strength as effective in the lategame - typically because the nukes of people like Pudge/Timber will fall off eventually, or because the hero's damage is concentrated in burst damage instead of sustained DPS that can scale well with items. I class gankers different from supports because they need levels and/or money to do the job well. I wouldn't try supporting with Timbersaw because I expect a diminished amount of experience with him and he has very little utility to his name otherwise.


Carries come in a bunch of varieties but like I said earlier, it's hard to say a hero is definitively better at carrying than another lategame. DP doesn't really gank and definitely doesn't support, but I wouldn't have her be lategame insurance because items can't scale the DPS her ult puts out and she's VERY reliant on getting the ult off - if she's silenced or stunned out before she deploys it, you've lost that damage. Strength carries (DK, WK) can be hulking behemoths that pump out damage and take forever to bring down, Agility carries can get the job done in a lot of ways (PA crits, PL army, Drow kiting, Weaver survivability, Medusa teamfight). I also lump anti-carries in with the 'carry' role - anti-carry meaning someone who makes the opposing carry's job more difficult. Axe, Razor, Necrophos are three that have the potential to take out a team's greatest lategame asset, but still need farm to get the job done consistently. A good anti-carry can also just be a strong early/midgame team.



You can always run unorthodox stuff - dwest plays the best support Bloodseeker out of all of us, Earthshaker can be built to abuse Enchant Totem and megacrit someone, whatever. As far as things I see in a hero, that's about my list of conventional/acceptable supports and my baseline views of a hero.
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dwestfan13
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Just for the record, Support Bloodseeker is not a good idea and never, ever draft it intentionally.


That said, we're 2-0 when I do it, so.....
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DarkFlashlight
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Lone Druid, Slardar, Terrorblade and Tinker are a few exceptions that I don't really know if they're hard carries or not because they don't totally NEED farm to be really good

TB is definitely a hard carry. He has like 400 base health, but once he gets enough items is almost virtually unkillable. For an example of both of those states: http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/932365826
I died a ton early, but once they let me just solo farm for a while, I killed their entire team by myself repeatedly. TB is great fun 10/10 hero.


I classify heroes into basically four categories. With examples, they are:

Carry: Spectre, Broodmother, Kunkka
Support: Rubick, Bane, Warlock
Ganker: Tusk, Night Stalker, Queen of Pain
Utility: Batrider, Beastmaster, Enigma


The most confusing thing there is probably the difference between ganker and utility, which I define basically as:
Gankers are focused on doing damage and getting kills by themselves. Even if they just get assists, they're dealing a large portion of either the damage or setup of the kill. They also fall off really hard. Think of them as like early game or flat-damage carries.
Utility on the other hand, may not do much damage, but set up kills or positioning for their teammates. The biggest difference though, is that utility doesn't fall off. Utility heroes don't usually scale well enough to be carries, so instead they exist mostly to do whatever their big trick is and then don't do much.

Bat's ult will also have the same impact whether you use it at 10 minutes or 120. Compare that to NS's play. NS at 10 minutes will obliterate heroes with the attack speed and nukeslow just because it's good early. At 120 minutes NS can't do anything to anyone with considerable farm.


There are weird heroes who stick out of those categories (Pugna, Techies, Zeus), but for the most part those work.




EDIT: me in one pic
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Edited by DarkFlashlight, Nov 24 2014, 06:04 AM.
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Olinea
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what has this event unleashed

darkie youre forbidden from using this

EDIT: Pic is kinda small - http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Forsaken_Beauty_Set
Edited by Olinea, Nov 25 2014, 09:15 AM.
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DarkFlashlight
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And earlier, Ghost, csc, and I got this Lina set. Event confirmed legit.
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tfghost92
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swag on this dick, bitches
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DarkFlashlight
Nov 25 2014, 09:43 AM
And earlier, Ghost, csc, and I got this Lina set. Event confirmed legit.
only thing that makes me sad is that I don't think there is a Skywrath Mage set to be won, so meh
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DarkFlashlight
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it will take a toll
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:' (
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dwestfan13
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But you're a good safelane carry! =D


And let's be cereal, that's a far bigger job than supporting.
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