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| Topic Started: Feb 12 2014, 02:32 AM (18,090 Views) | |
| MrMarill | Mar 4 2014, 10:36 AM Post #46 |
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DAT STORY TIEM
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Well I understand how the game works in relation to LoL but I don't think there's any point in learning DotA by trying to emulate a different game. |
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| Olinea | Mar 5 2014, 11:15 AM Post #47 |
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No finesse
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I've done some Medium Bots scouting and at the moment I don't think we're ready as a collective team. Today was good for outlining what needs to be targeted to hit the next level. Top of the list is game sense and map awareness. This is the field I think Darkie currently has the best grasp on. Basically what I'm referring to, in a nutshell, is transitioning between the laning phase and the part of the game where people are grouping up, pushing, teamfighting, etc. The bots consistently stay as a pack of 5 after a certain point (at times they'll split 2 if multiple lanes demand attention) which makes it difficult to fight them without every member of the team or a significant range advantage and safe harassment. The same can be true in a real game although the Easy bots tend to be very straightforward in the midgame about their approach (they'll rush you as a group of 5 down the lane, instead of flanking you and sandwiching) whereas humans tend to adopt a more ambush-happy playstyle. Understanding when it's okay (and required) to move around takes practice and it's not always definite when you need to do so, but there are some noticeable signs that it's time to break away from your assigned lane. Basically, you tend to stay in your lane early on because not doing so means you're wandering around and not getting experience, and this sets you behind. Additionally, if you're reliant on items, running around means you're not spending time farming and getting those items. After a certain point, however, wandering around or grouping up won't cripple you guys and while it'll set you a bit behind on experience, you're getting to a point in the game where you can actually hold your own and get stuff done as a group. The bots know this and frequently will group up starting around level 8 or 9 or so. If they correctly pushed the advantage they have from grouping as 5 the games would be a lot harder - they would push heavier and actively put us on the defensive. Still, if you see 5 enemies in the same spot, you seriously need to consider moving over there unless you have a damn good reason to leave your team in a 4v5 or 3v5 position. Fights like that are much harder to win, especially due to the fact that we'll frequently see multiple heroes like Chaos Knight, Sven, Jakiro, Lich, and Lion who possess hard lockdown and/or teamfight damage output. Some heroes like Spectre, Faceless Void, etc. are hard carries and it can be worthwhile to let the team try to fend off 5 if it means that carry gets extra gold. People like Ancient Apparition, Crystal Maiden, Luna, Lina, or Zeus cannot do nearly as much with any sort of money they would get farming a side lane while the team fights 4v5. In general if you see the enemy team grouping up it might be time to do so. For now we can just react to the bots' movements instead of trying to control the pace of the game ourselves. Itemization is a big one too, and I think the major problem with moving forward on this is that at the end of our games you don't end the game with a lot of gold, and it limits the amount of item-building you can do in a game. Most games you'll have enough money for maybe one big item and then it ends. You won't be 6-slotted without either a fuckload of kills or a long, long, long game - but this doesn't mean you can't practice planning and building items. We'll start with the early game because I think that one's the absolute simplest to change given that you always get starting gold. The most common opener I see you guys doing is Boots or Boots + Healing Salve. Boots are nice to have but when playing the early game they really set you back. Boots will make you more mobile in the lane but it provides next to no actual presence whereas more cost-effective items can provide much better benefits. The Iron Branch is the most cost-efficient item in the game - for 50 gold it gives +1 Strength, Agility, and Intelligence. Filling your inventory with 6 branches costs 300 gold and gives +6 Strength, Agility, and Intelligence - the equivalent of a Belt of Strength, Band of Elvenskin, and Robe of the Magi - a total of 1350 gold. These benefits are really noticeable in the early game and are almost certain to be better than the mobility, unless you value mobility over HP, mana, armor, and most importantly, damage for last-hitting and harassing. Let's make a comparison between boots+salve and something else. You start with 625 gold (assuming you manually chose a hero) Player A buys boots and a salve. Boots cost 450 gold and a salve costs 115. Player B buys a Circlet (185), Gauntlets (150), Salve (115), Tango (125), and Branch (50). Comparing the opening stats of the two players: Player A: +50 movement speed (for reference, base movespeed is ~300) +400 HP (from salve) Player B: +400 HP (Salve) +460 HP (Tango) +6 Strength (114 HP + 0.18 HP/second, or 10.8 HP/min) +3 Agility (3% attack speed + 0.42 armor) +3 Intelligence (39 mana + 0.12 mana/second, or 7.2 mana/min) +6 damage (assuming Strength hero - can replace Gauntlets with Slippers or Mantle) Boots first is very situational - only specific heroes with very aggressive early games can take advantage of the movement speed. Another opening item I think you guys should start using is Quelling Blade. At 225 gold it increases melee damage to creeps by 36% which is very useful for last-hitting, and for farm-reliant heroes like Phantom Assassin and Spectre it definitely helps. As far as building with the money you get, it's still a work in progress but you need to figure out the role of the hero you're playing, and the items that take advantage of it. A simple way to do this is looking at the ultimate ability of your hero because it often heavily influences the way your hero is played. Phantom Assassin, for example, has an ultimate which gives her a chance to do a gigantic critical strike. To take full advantage of this ability it would be a good idea to load up on damage and attack speed, so you can crit hard and crit often. Battle Fury also synergizes with it as well, giving 35% cleave so landing a gigantic crit hurts EVERYONE nearby. Hell, damage and attack speed are great for nearly ANY agility hero. Building takes time to learn but you all have certainly come a ways from your first games. I think it's a matter of knowing what items to shoot for (I know you guys like building Butterfly in Agility heroes and it really is a great item - the only caveat being a 3300 gold component) and research can do you good. You guys seriously have come a long way from your first game/s and I'm looking forward to more games down the road. Edited by Olinea, Mar 5 2014, 11:18 AM.
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| Romanticide | Mar 5 2014, 06:36 PM Post #48 |
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Cult Leader
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Thanks for that explanation of when to switch lanes and come help the team fend off enemy heroes. I tend to stay away and farm enemy creeps/push towers because I don't know if it'd be more helpful to come help you guys or stay where I am. Seems that depends on the hero. I guess there were some (if not most) I was playing last night where it'd have been better to come and help you guys out when someone said there were 5 in mid or something. But yeah, I could def use work on map/game awareness. I feel like that's something we should maybe practice on our own, in addition to our games. Without someone to guide us, maybe we'd develop our own sense of map/game awareness? As far as medium bots go, if the rest of us cannot handle easy without you, Steel, and/or some good random player, we're not ready. I don't mean to exclude you guys, but we're lesser experienced and I think we should be able to handle easy bots without someone good to carry us before we move up. As it is, I could see people falling back on their favored heroes just so they feel they have a chance, which in the long run isn't good for developing our games. On early itemization, I tend to go with 2 salves/clarities and a TP scroll so I can heal and stay out in the lane a bit longer, hopefully earning more money/XP. This leaves me with 160 gold, which is enough for 3 iron branches. I suppose I'll pick them up next game too and see what happens. I do like the sound of that Quelling Blade, though, since I find it's harder to time last hits in the early game. Idk. I think an issue with items is that we simply don't know them very well. To that end, I'll just leave this list of items here. It would be MUCH easier for us to study them on our own time and get an idea of what items help what types of heroes and maybe plan a build for a favored hero, at the least. Also, yeah, we might get enough money for one big item. My big item tends to be Shadow Blade or Aghanim's Scepter, but by the point I get the latter, we're nearing the endgame. |
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| DarkFlashlight | Mar 5 2014, 11:33 PM Post #49 |
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it will take a toll
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What I'm getting out of this is that I should buy all the oblivion staffs I can, yes? |
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| Olinea | Mar 5 2014, 11:48 PM Post #50 |
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No finesse
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Oblivion staffs and health potions, yes |
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| Romanticide | Mar 6 2014, 06:53 PM Post #51 |
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Cult Leader
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http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/03/06/three-lane-highway-what-it-means-that-gabe-newells-favourite-dota-2-hero-is-sand-king/ Just leaving this here. I hope future columns are a tad bit more serious, but as it is, I haven't touched Sand King (only seen him as a bot-controlled hero), so this was kind of informative. But yeah, I post this mostly because it's going to be a new weekly feature at PC Gamer and I hope future columns are more informative. |
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| Outlaw454 | Mar 6 2014, 10:26 PM Post #52 |
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Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies
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I think I might dive into this madness here in the near future, I could use something else to do that's not Binding of Isaac. |
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| dwestfan13 | Mar 9 2014, 05:07 AM Post #53 |
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Feeder
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I'm feeling much better about this game now that I've found Wraith King. Love that Hero. |
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| Olinea | Mar 10 2014, 09:10 AM Post #54 |
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No finesse
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Rubick/DK/Bounty Hunter/Witch Doctor/Clockwork. Oh man that game. That game was 55 minutes and we won it while down, like, 30 kills or so. Despite a rough early start and a juggernaut of a Viper to deal with, once we started grouping the game just got immeasurably better. It only took a few fights of isolating Tiny, Omniknight, or some unfortunate soul who wandered too far into the team, killing them, and then cleaning up the 4v5. I still have no idea how we managed to win those fights but I think the sheer amount of lockdown from the group just worked its magic. We grouped up as 5 against what I thought were unbeatable odds and took home the win. Everyone played their hearts out (I saw Outlaw get a double kill basically by himself despite being super behind) and that was an absolutely deserved victory. The overview of the match is here for posterity, and you can watch it in the client if you want to reminisce/savor it. In my opinion this was, bar none, the best game of the night. On to scrims. The first one with Naga Siren I tried to illustrate the fact that a hero going around and ganking should be monitored and prepared to be dealt with. But since this isn't a skill the bots really use against you, it's not something that needs developing right now, and so in scrims I'm going to try and play supports with low roaming potential to try and take a backseat role. Naga Siren has pretty damn good single-target lockdown but groups can manage her more easily, or people with solid AoE abilities. If she loses her illusions her power drops drastically and she's relegated to more of a utility role - a 5 second net is still very strong, not to mention her ultimate which puts people to sleep and can be used either offensively to get a team into position, or defensively to escape people trying to kill her. Part of this was a big snowball as well as a lack of heroes to deal with the swarms of illusions. But like I said, I'm going to try and limit the amount of roaming and ganking I do in future scrims while there are still develop...able skills that have more immediate uses in our bot games. The second one which got cut short was going bottoms-up pretty quickly for my side. Riki is very difficult to deal with if he knows what he's doing. If it was almost any other mid laner I'd have thrown an Observer ward in the river and we'd have known exactly when he was out and about. But Observer wards don't see invisible heroes, so I basically had to ward the lane so we knew when he was coming - and beyond that, seeing Riki doesn't mean he's dead - he's still very powerful even without that element of surprise. The bots don't play him (thankfully). I can't speak to the quality of the other lanes (why we sent Milk + an Easy bot together is beyond me - I do apologize for that, I should have been laning with you Milk) but top illustrated how much dominance a ranged hero has over a melee. Having the support lane with Faceless Void, a hypercarry, meant we didn't have to fight over farm and I could focus my efforts on harassing Darkie to dissuade him from getting the items that turn Phantom Assassin into a behemoth. That said, Darkie played tremendously despite a rough early start, grabbing CS whenever he could and still finding the time to harass me back, and I'm certain he would have gotten back into the game very quickly. Coaching feature is pretty legit, I have to say. Outlaw and I both got to take a spin in it and it's seriously neat. Like 80% of the neat-o factor is being able to draw dicks on peoples' screens but it does come with a few features I think are pretty nifty. The coach has a little box which they can use to click a player's name and basically watch their cursor, as well as what part of the map they're looking at. Coach can also hold Alt and click on things like items, abilities, etc. to signal them to players (I think this feature works, I tried pinging Lightning's Phase Boots a few times) which can help for finding items and reminding people of skills they might have forgotten they have at their disposal. I'd like to use this mode more if we ever have 6 players at once (when we have 5 it's just always more fun to play). Something we should take advantage of more often. |
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| Outlaw454 | Mar 10 2014, 02:52 PM Post #55 |
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Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies
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That double kill felt really awesome, definitely glad I random'd that guy. He had a really slow start, I felt, but by mid- to late-game, I was dealing all sorts of damage. As for my usual runs, I definitely feel the best with Shadow Demon and Viper/Venomancer, though I haven't played as the latter two in a while. I'm really enjoy this game, which comes as a bit of a surprise, because MOBA's have never really interested me, |
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| steelfire81 | Mar 10 2014, 04:21 PM Post #56 |
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Scrub
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Sorry I had to leave early last night after the servers decided to give up on life; I had an 8 AM class today and I wasn't planning on playing any more than one game so starting a new one would have been trouble. Riki is one of the hardest heroes to learn how to play against as a new player, arguably harder to deal with than Bloodseeker. Like Bloodseeker he has huge snowball potential as well as abilities that take a good deal of gamesense to play against. Right at level one his base stats are huge. He starts out with ~5.7 armor, meaning he won't take much damage from physical harassment in lane. If you buy a Poor Man's Shield early game you can negate most physical damage from heroes hurled your way. His base HP is mediocre, however, as he only starts out with 17 Strength. With enough magical nuking power you can kill him in the early game to delay his level 6. His skills are fairly straightforward. His defining skill is his ultimate, Permanent Invisibility that does exactly what it says. As a recent buff, he can cast spells and use items inside invisibility without revealing himself. Only attacking will reveal himself. Keep in mind that silences reveal him. For example, if Silencer casts his ultimate as Riki is running away from a gank, Riki will be revealed for the duration of the global silence. To understand the rest of his abilities and how they combo together, it's a good idea to understand his third skill, Backstab. Whenever Riki attacks an enemy from behind, he gains bonus damage based on his agility. At level 4, Backstab grants him 1.25 times his agility as bonus damage. As you can imagine, it makes him a threat to fleeing enemies. Q is Smoke Cloud - an AoE spell that silences, slows, and applies a miss chance to enemies in the affected area. It's normally used for the silence to make sure an enemy can't use a spell to escape, but the miss chance is notable (70% at level 4). This makes trading hits with Riki in the cloud a bad idea unless you have Monkey King Bar. Lastly, W is a Blink Strike similar to Phantom Assassin's. However, instead of granting bonus attack speed, it gives bonus damage on the next attack and teleports Riki directly to the back of the target to allow for Backstab damage as well. This makes Riki even more dangerous against fleeing enemies and makes him fairly mobile. An important thing to pay attention to when playing against Riki is how close he is to his core item - Diffusal Blade. As soon as he picks up a Diffusal Blade, his solo kill potential against enemies skyrockets, and he becomes harder to gank than before as well. Its main use on Riki is its active - a purge. When used on enemies it slows them for four seconds. Riki likes this because it keeps an enemy in his smoke cloud for longer and makes it harder for them to run away. The active can also be used on an allied unit to remove debuffs. Riki likes this as well since it can remove dust or other sources of true sight from himself, making it harder to gank him. Passively Diffusal also gives Feedback, which removes mana from attacked enemies and then damages the enemy for however much mana was removed, sort of like Anti-Mage's Mana Break. This isn't as important on Riki, though. There are plenty of ways to counter Riki. His blink into Diffusal into smoke combo can be stopped with a variety of items. Any way to remove the slow, like Manta Style, or Eul's Scepter can get you out of the smoke cloud faster to let you cast spells again. Ghost Scepter makes you immune to physical damage, making it impossible for Riki to attack you for the duration of the slow. Force Staff can be used to push yourself out of smoke to safety and lets you go back to casting spells. Lastly, until he gets some sort of lockdown, Riki has no stuns. You could always just teleport away if he jumps on you, assuming he's alone and he doesn't have the damage to kill you during the channel. Another way to counter him is to travel in packs. You don't have to constantly 5-man to beat him, but until he has huge items, traveling in a pack of even just two drastically reduces his solo kill potential. He can't slow two enemies at once with diffusal, as the item has a short cooldown. If he jumps on one person, the other person can help. Sentry wards in lane help around his level 6, since his ability to harass lane opponents goes away. Be careful where you place the wards, though. An astute Riki player can tell when he's seen even if you don't give it away yourself; creeps will attack Riki if he's invisible under a sentry ward. This makes it easy for him to deward his lane as well by buying himself a set of sentries. Last but not least, teamfighting (or looking to teamfight with a decent teamfight lineup) can make a Riki useless before he gets up multiple big items. Riki can't defend a tower by himself with just a Diffusal Blade. Against good teamfight heroes like Sand King and Tidehunter, if there are multiple heroes to worry about, jumping in as a Riki would be suicide. Scare him off with your big initiators and force his team to stop what they're doing to help. There are other ways to counter Riki as well (even as simple as just outcarrying him with a Medusa or Spectre), but you'll learn those as you play against him more. I didn't learn how to counter Riki (or even play him well) until I got my head bashed in by a couple decent Rikis in pubs. |
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| Romanticide | Mar 10 2014, 09:26 PM Post #57 |
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Cult Leader
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Lightning played Riki in one of our scrims. I was playing Drow and laning against him and Outlaw on my own, which was a GREAT situation for me as a carry, not so great in terms of number of deaths. I have to imagine all those early Outlaw kills helped offset the number of early deaths I took. Riki can't push worth a shit (not that you're playing Riki to push lanes), and Outlaw is still learning things about the game, so I was able to push the lane, albeit slower than I'd have liked. I imagine if Lightning was with Darkie or even a bot, I'd have had more issues pushing that lane. But yeah, it was a frustrating experience. I felt like Lightning was using Outlaw to lure me into ambushes, but as it turned out, he was killing me because I was alone. We eventually grouped up and started attacking the Radiant base, which is where Riki lost a lot of his power. Snow and I were also the highest leveled players in that game (think we both finished at 21 or something), which I'm sure helped. There was no way Riki could kill both of us if we were together. I tried Riki on my own against the easy bots and I found him fun enough to play... Once you reach level 6 for dat invisibility. Idk if I'll try him in our bot games yet, but yeah, he's fun enough to play. (I'm not cruel enough to try him in a scrim unless RNGesus gives him to me.) As for the game Oli described/linked to, I think a big problem in that game was Outlaw and me dying a lot and feeding whoever was generally in bottom lane. I want to say Viper/someone else. It's kind of hard to support someone who's dying a lot, and Witch Doctor has little to no offensive presence. When Outlaw and I were together, I was focusing mostly on denies and trying to support him. It got better when we eventually teamed up. I was able to provide support by stunning with Paralyzing Cask and healing with Voodoo Restoration. Beyond that, I wasn't a big fan of the ult, though I suppose an ult that you have to channel to use is kind of difficult to use. Maledict also didn't help a whole lot, but then again my role on the team was support anyway, so whatever. I didn't mind playing as Witch Doctor when we eventually grouped up and starting to attack things. Until then, it wasn't exactly fun. >.> |
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| DarkFlashlight | Mar 14 2014, 05:24 AM Post #58 |
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it will take a toll
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Are there more heroes in the vein of Riki/Phantom Assassin/Slark? Like, initiators who are really good at one on one and can escape. Also preferable to have short cooldowns. I have a very specific type.
Edited by DarkFlashlight, Mar 14 2014, 05:33 AM.
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| steelfire81 | Mar 14 2014, 08:56 PM Post #59 |
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Scrub
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If you like having the mobility of Riki and Phantom Assassin's blink strikes, you could try Anti-Mage, Faceless Void, or Mirana. The first two are hard carries though (hard as in late-game, not difficult), and Mirana is a carry with four actives and her Leap spell has a longer cooldown. The first two thus rely a lot on item knowledge (one of the suggested items on Anti-Mage is Vanguard which is a horrible item on him... go for Battlefury -> Manta 99% of the time because it works better), and Mirana requires you to know when to use each one of your spells. Bounty Hunter and Clinkz are two heroes that have more of the solo pickoff playstyle of the three heroes you mentioned, but both of their escapes rely on invisibility rather than blinking. Both of them suffer from mana problems as well, so unlike Phantom Assassin where you can throw dagger on cooldown, you can't endlessly Shuriken as Bounty Hunter or Strafe an opponent to harass them in lane as Clinkz. Clinkz does have an orb though (Searing Arrows), so you can deal some extra damage with your normal attacks right off the bat. I'd say try Bounty Hunter out before you play Clinkz if you want to go down this route. A lot of newer players tend to like Bounty Hunter, and Clinkz relies more on mana management. The other two heroes I can think of that you might like are Weaver and Windrunner. Weaver's key spell is his Shukuchi (W), which allows him to go invis and gain max movespeed briefly. Its cooldown is long at level 1, but at level 4 it lasts 4 seconds with a 6 second cooldown, meaning with enough mana you can use it on cooldown. His only other active is his ultimate, which returns him to the place he was at 5 seconds ago (with the same mana and health he had at that time), allowing you to effectively gain a second life if you use it fast enough. Weaver is one of my favorite carries in the game as well so he has my official endorsement. Windrunner is an int heroes unlike the other heroes I've mentioned (all agi), but she can carry just as well and has an escape. Also she has a couple other low cooldown spells. EDIT: WAIT also I just thought if you like low cooldowns you could play the king of spamming spells, Bristleback. He's sort of mobile in that his ultimate gives him movespeed whenever he casts a spell, and he only has two spells, but you do need to know when to start spamming and when to save mana. Also he's supposed to be played as a tanky carry unlike most agi heroes (since he's a str hero). But if you like spamming you can't get more spammy than Bristleback. Edited by steelfire81, Mar 14 2014, 09:00 PM.
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| LightningBolt | Apr 1 2014, 08:25 AM Post #60 |
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Boring Person
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Oli and I and some other guys played a match where we imposed a rule on our team that you couldn't attack the towers no matter what. Needless to say this made the game last a lot longer. Late in the match Oli bought a Divine Rapier and purposely died and I picked it up. I already had one. This happened. |
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