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Dota 2 Weekend!; CAUSE YEAH
Topic Started: Feb 12 2014, 02:32 AM (18,088 Views)
Olinea
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I guess this'll have to be fairly comprehensive so let's dive in:

By now I've repeated the camp mechanics ad nauseum but just for reference I'll leave them here again:

Neutrals first spawn at 0:30 (when the second wave of lane creeps spawns, they spawn every XX:30 and XX:00), and from then on, if the nearby area of their camp is empty, a new set spawns. If the camp is blocked by other neutrals, a hero, or something like a summoned unit, ward, or other unit, nothing happens.

Neutral camps are divided into easy, medium, and hard. I marked up a map since they changed the layout recently and no maps I could find are accurate to the current patch. Green = easy, yellow = medium, red = hard, and blue = ancients (not necessary to know for jungling, but eh)

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For a list of the different creeps, you can look here.



Okay on to business:

Jungling isn't strictly defined but I believe the commonly accepted description of jungling is "using your hero to kill neutral creeps starting at level 1, instead of getting experience and/or gold from a lane". There are a few reasons you'd do this:

~Putting a player in the jungle means you get another hero to get solo experience. If you can handle the 1v2 it means you can have that level advantage, and exploiting it correctly means you can further that advantage.
~With someone getting money in the jungle full-time, you now have 4 heroes getting reliable sources of gold instead of our conventional 3 + 2 supports.
~The jungling hero doesn't function as well in a lane as they do in the jungle
~A jungling hero would technically be considered constantly missing, since nobody is reliably able to keep tabs on them. This pressures lane opponents since the jungler could potentially gank anywhere (provided they are healthy enough).

Criteria for a jungler vary, but not every hero can jungle. In short, to jungle properly you need to be able to survive neutrals (because they are much, much stronger than a level 1 hero) and still keep up with the level pacing so as not to fall behind. These criteria often overlap, because the quicker you can kill a jungle camp, the less damage you'll take from them. If you spend your time running back and forth to the fountain you will fall behind.

The pool of viable junglers is small, but here's a small list of people who can do it:

Posted ImagePosted Image

I lump Chen and Enchantress together because their jungling style is very similar. In my opinion it'd be best to learn on them because there is very little risk to your hero in doing this, and it helps familiarize yourself with neutral capabilities. Chen and Enchantress have the power to take control of any non-Ancient neutral creep to fight for them - which means not only do you have the damage output of a giant neutral creep added to you, you can use its abilities, and it tanks the damage for you - and when it dies, you just grab another one. Chen is more supporty in his skillset but his persuaded creeps stay under his control until they die or are replaced (he can only have 3 max), Enchantress's creeps have a timed life and then die at the end of it, but she can control as many as the cooldown allows. In both cases, it's very easy to go out to a hard camp, control the biggest creep you see, and autoattack your way through the jungle. They tend to be very healthy during the entire time, and the dominated creeps form a powerful squad for overwhelming early ganks, in terms of damage output as well as lockdown. I would recommend starting with one of these - the skillcap is high for microing your controlled creeps to use abilities and whatnot, but it's very easy to take a creep and roam around without having to watch your health, or even mana, too much.

Posted ImagePosted ImagePosted Image

Enigma, Nature's Prophet, Lycan. These three have a similar playstyle as Chen/Enchantress in that they rely on other units to tank and provide extra damage output, but these are their own summons from abilities.

The best advice I can give for these is that watch the health of your summons and move them back if they're about to die. Letting the neutrals kill one of your Eidolons, Treants, or Wolves reduces your damage output on the neutrals - no bueno. Watch the health of your unit, and if it's going to die, pull it back so the neutrals attack a different unit, then have your weakened unit go back to attacking. That's very minor levels of micro, though, but it helps a lot. Don't start on a Hard camp unless your units are healthy, because Hellbears/Centaurs/Satyrs have abilities that provide some nasty AoE that eat up your units. By level 5 or so, your units will be so large in number/power that jungling becomes very easy, and while the initial start may be slow, your clearing speed only gets faster and faster.

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Axe is one of the biggest bullies in a lane ever, so it's kind of a waste to stick him in the jungle, but he is definitely capable of it. True to the style of Axe, your method of clearing includes taking Counter Helix, letting the neutrals hit you, and praying to RNGesus that you get the much-needed spins. Stack camps liberally for more helixes and levels.

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Dark Seer is also pretty great in a lane, but this still can work. He's kind of like Axe in that he's supposed to tank it all on his own, but his Ion Shell provides a crapload of AoE damage to clear quickly - the neutrals don't run away, and instead will opt to take the full damage of it. Stack camps and keep that shell running.

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Doom can jungle thanks to Devour allowing him to eat creeps over time, so it's like damaging a creep without letting it hit you back. You also inherit its skills, which can be really helpful for clearing in some cases, either on a sustainability side or on a damaging side. He's also pretty bulky so he can take a hit in the jungle.

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Some people don't like Legion Commander in the jungle but she can't exert a whole lot of pressure in a lane before level 6, and sometimes you just feel like jungling her. Thanks to Moment of Courage giving extra attacks and lifesteal, and Press The Attack giving great regen and attack speed, she can sustain her life pretty well in the jungle and kills neutrals at a decent pace. Duel ganks are just absurd. She's also fairly easy to jungle, imo, just by taking E at level 1, going to an Easy camp, moving to Medium, and moving back and forth between them. Good starter one if the threat of micro turns you off of the idea of jungling.

There are a few others who have their own ways of jungling such as:

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(use Firefly to bait neutrals into following your fire path)
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(Feast gives percent-based damage and lifesteal)
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(naturally bulky, Return deals extra damage, can stack camps and abuse Smoke of Deceit + Double-Edge to mow through camps with little risk)

... but it really just depends on if you think a teammate can handle the 1v2, as well as if you expect your enemies to react appropriately, either by dropping wards in key camps or sending someone to try and kill you (because the last thing you want to see while tanking neutral creeps is an enemy hero). Jungling takes some getting used to, and it's by no means required for a team to do it, but some heroes (Chen, Enigma) absolutely should be assumed to be in the jungle due to them being so much better at jungling than laning. Good to familiarize yourself with the neutrals, and it's a nice way to shake things up.
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Snowman
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That map is nifty. I never really paid attention to the layout of the jungle. I'm guessing it varies a bit with different heroes, but at what level would you recommend that junglers start ganking? I'm guessing 6, but idk. Also, should Junglers buy lifesteal items or Bottle if they don't have any abilities that give them good regen? Or should they just buy a bunch of tangos/potions?
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dwestfan13
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When I've Jungled with Enchantress, I rarely, if ever, need salves/tangos. I save that money for boots or whatever.
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tfghost92
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swag on this dick, bitches
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYI5SUdPBco&feature=youtu.be


Our 5v5 that Oli wasn't in. the one that lasted an hour
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Olinea
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Snowman
Apr 20 2014, 04:24 PM
I'm guessing it varies a bit with different heroes, but at what level would you recommend that junglers start ganking? I'm guessing 6, but idk. Also, should Junglers buy lifesteal items or Bottle if they don't have any abilities that give them good regen? Or should they just buy a bunch of tangos/potions?
Depends on the hero, but I'd say the biggest limiting factor is your health, because if you go into a lane with 1/2-1/3 health intending to gank, the enemy might be able to just outright kill you and run. Chen and Enchantress stay healthy for the entire thing, and their dominated creeps are really powerful, so they can gank whenever the opportunity presents itself (provided they have creeps). Enigma is very mana-intensive (mana is a bigger limiting factor, and often people will rush Soul Ring so he has the mana to continue jungling) but Malefice and Black Hole can be good. Nature's Prophet may be able to take Sprout but Teleportation is so good that you really should be taking it at level 2, so the earliest you could gank is 4, and Nature's Prophet just farms so well thanks to global teleportation, massing treants, and a global ult, that he might be better off just farming more. Lycan can gank, I forget how good he is at that. Everybody else you need to gauge your health and ask yourself what the most you can contribute to a gank is. If I gank as Legion Commander and all I have is Press The Attack and Moment of Courage, I contribute very little outside of a few autoattacks, so it's not going to heavily tip the scales.

On Chen/Enchantress/Enigma/NP/Lycan I'll typically do a Ring of Basilius (for the armor aura to buff your units) (EDIT: Wow I just tried jungle Lycan and the nerfs really got to him, do not open Basilius) and some clarities so I can have my spells on-demand - everyone else Stout Shield is almost definitely required, and I'd say Tangos (so you can eat a tree mid-combat instead of waiting between camps, because getting hit stops salves, and tangos provide more overall HP - plus, you can do things like cut certain trees to move around easier. You can opt for Quelling Blade (Legion Commander in particular likes it) since you're only killing non-Hero units, so you always get the autoattack boost. Once you have the money for Tranquil Boots or something you'll be either at a good enough level to where it's not nearly as difficult.

While we're on the subject of Tranquil Boots - a trick I learned from watching a Purge video recently that I didn't know about involves dropping your Tranquil Boots on the ground in between camps, like here. Without them in your inventory, they won't "break", and after the camp you can pick them back up to immediately get the regen instead of waiting for the duration that they're "broken". The video is pretty good to watch if you're interested in learning a bit of how Axe plays, but nonetheless, small trick to learn. Jungling isn't particularly hard after level 5-6-7 or so, but getting to that point takes a level of finesse. To make it easier I'd be happy to let you pull creeps to get a headstart or breathing room (because it helps that lane, too), but the process of leveling up and getting gold is one with a lot of acceleration - it starts off slow but after a certain point it gets much, much easier.
Edited by Olinea, Apr 20 2014, 11:14 PM.
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DarkFlashlight
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Ghost
 

52:10. So legit.


Also, that Dwest kill at 47:33 was way more clutch than I thought it was. I take back that time I made fun of you right after it.
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dwestfan13
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Never would've happened if I didn't fuck up and miss with my stun. sigh...
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Romanticide
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It's one thing to read about jungling and another to actually do it.

I don't think I was great, but I was able to stay alive and figure out the basics of how to jungle. I'm sure there are things I don't know, and I definitely screwed up more than once (lol keeping an easy camp in my vision at XX:00), but my number one priority in that game was staying alive and practicing the technique. I think I did that well enough, even if it probably wasn't very efficient. (level 11 after 22-24 minutes of jungling = blah)

I probably stayed in the jungle a bit longer than I should have, but it was easy bots and I had never done it before, so whatever.

Also this was apparently night of the micro for me. Enigma and Lone Druid were both interesting heroes, to say the least. Again, that's another skill I probably need a lot of work on, especially if I intend to play any of those heroes. Could stand to improve the micro on my Brewmaster, too. The Brewmaster clones will attack whoever Brewmaster chooses to attack, which is nice, but I feel like I need to be able to take advantage of their abilities to improve at him.
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Olinea
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Fuck these took a while. 480p jungle runs. Barely readable text. Radiant is way easier than Dire, imo, unless you're Chen/Ench. These could have gone a lot smoother (especially Axe/Enigma, and Sniper blocking my spawn with NP) but they illustrate that you don't need to play perfectly to jungle. Still, here we go:

[utube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvFLOZU4fpU[/utube]
[utube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJR6iwJiBgw[/utube]
[utube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3z4SyunDEU[/utube]
[utube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jge0gAHcqJ8[/utube]
[utube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuuOxnG6nQs[/utube]
Edited by Olinea, Apr 21 2014, 11:36 PM.
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steelfire81
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For the most part I've just been observing this thread since I figure it'd be best to let you guys learn the mechanics at your own pace but since there was a good 50-75 game stretch half a year ago when I pretty much exclusively jungled in pubs I think I could give you guys some good advice.

Oli did a decent job of naming the heroes that can jungle and why. Most junglers fall into three groups, (1) heroes that have the ability to gain back of health quickly and/or regularly, (2) heroes that have other units to tank damage for them, and (3) heroes that can do consistent damage to an area of effect without long cooldowns or high manacosts.

Group 1 (health return) includes:

  • Lifestealer (Feast, Open Wounds)
  • Legion Commander (*) (Press the Attack, Moment of Courage)
  • Doom (Scorched Earth, Satyr Unholy Aura to an extent)
  • Wraith King (Vampiric Aura)
  • Bloodseeker (Blood Bath)


Group 2 (heroes with other units to tank) contains:

  • Beastmaster
  • Lycanthrope
  • Lone Druid (*)
  • Nature's Prophet (*)
  • Enchantress (*)
  • Chen
  • Enigma (*)


Group 3 (heroes with consistent AoE) contains:

  • Axe (*) (Counter Helix)
  • Storm Spirit (Static Remnant)
  • Dark Seer (Ion Shell)
  • Batrider (Firefly)


Please note that this list is not an end-all list for jungling; these are just the heroes you'll see occupying the jungle most often. Sand King can use a level 2+ Sandstorm to clear stacked camps quickly. Tinker does perfectly well stacking and killing ancients with his March of the Machines, sort of like a group 3 jungler. Terrorblade can summon illusions to tank but mostly uses his own tankiness to jungle (though fairly inefficiently). Crystal Maiden can use her long duration ensnare on neutrals to jungle from level 1 with a stack of clarities. You can get creative, but for now I'd suggest sticking to the ones I marked with a star (the most common beginner junglers) since they're the best to learn the ins and outs of the jungle.

Another thing to note is that it's not always a good idea to take the jungle. Heroes like Lifestealer, Storm Spirit, and Legion Commander will often want to have much more farm earlier on so they can get their core items before they become irrelevant. The gold you get from the jungle is less than the gold you would get from the lane. Additionally, heroes like Lycanthrope, Doom, and Wraith King will often be at very low health in the jungle. While the bots will never gank you, attentive pubbers will often leave the lane to scout around your jungle (or even ward your camps before the game begins to block spawns). Especially worth noting is that Bloodseeker has the ability to see low health enemies globally, meaning his team will know where you are and how low your health is if you're struggling in the jungle.

EDIT: Just realized I forgot to mention that bottle crowing makes a lot of heroes significantly faster in the jungle. Heroes like Batrider and Doom need constant refreshing of mana and health so having the courier bring out a bottle and keep ferrying you regen is nice.


MORE IMPORTANT:
Also I'm going to really encourage at this point pubbing instead of playing bots. Yes, you're going to lose a lot early on, but that's what everyone goes through at first. The bots stop being a challenge eventually and let you get away with things that you can't get away with in a pub against competent players. Not to insult anyone, but I see a lot of you guys making huge mistakes in bot games or the scrims like skilling/using abilities without thinking much about them, buying questionable items, and being way out of position. The way I learned all of those were wrong was by dying and getting destroyed in pubs. Also I had an experienced friend call me out every single time I did something like that which was annoying at first but eventually helped me get better at the game. Learning against bots is nice for the mechanics, but Dota is far more than mechanics.
Edited by steelfire81, Apr 22 2014, 02:53 AM.
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dwestfan13
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I know I'm always out of position and purchase questionable items =P
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DarkFlashlight
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it will take a toll
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Just make sure you buy as many Oblivion Staves as you can and your build will be good 100% guaranteed.
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Romanticide
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Thanks for the jungling stuff.

As for the last paragraph, I do agree that easy bots are, well, easy at this point. I don't notice much if any difference between the easy and medium bots. I wonder if playing even a few games against the hard bots would be worth it.

I also wonder if the idea of reviewing some of our games might help. I mean, we have you and Oli posting here, who are far more experienced at this game/genre than any of us. I'm sure I've bought bad items, leveled up skills in a bad order (you/Oli probably cry every time I level up skills evenly on a new hero, but that's my default for a new hero), been punished for my aggressive tendencies (yes, humans will punish this more), etcetera. I don't doubt for a second we've all massively fucked up some games, but without useful criticism of specific examples, nobody's going to improve. Everyone linking their shit to Dotabuff would probably help here.

Also, I hate sentences that start with "I'm not a *insert negative trait*, but" and "Not to *insert action*, but". They're generally things that should not be said or things that could be said in another way. This is the latter; it is something we need to hear if we are to get better. In short I'm telling you to constructively criticize our play and not to dance around the fact. Dancing around that fact will only serve to piss me off.

I think the idea of going to pubs could divide us into two camps: One camp that is more casual and doesn't really *care* about "getting good" (for whatever reasons), as the obnoxious internet kiddies might say, and another that wants to improve and step up to human competition. I'm probably closer to the first camp. It's not that I don't want to improve because I'd love to get better; it's that I don't want to improve if the price is putting up with a toxic community. If that means I stay bad, fine, I have the occasional game with you guys and a whole slew of other games I need to play. Sure, the toxic element might be a minority, but most of us will remember one toxic game more than a hundred "normal" games. For me, all it'd probably take is a handful of toxic games, or perhaps one especially toxic game, before I come to the conclusion that I don't need this in my life.

This said, I haven't decided if I want to play pub games or not. I see the benefit, but that downside is most of the reason I don't play many online games.
Edited by Romanticide, Apr 22 2014, 05:31 AM.
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DarkFlashlight
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I've played some pubs, and I can tell you that most will probably be at least a tad toxic, even if it's not aimed at you. What you might not suspect is that it's your team you have to watch out for. The other team will largely not talk to you at all. Sure, we had that one game where the guy was all like, "oh wow, man, our ember spirit is just too good, gg guys" and it was annoying, but it didn't make the game not fun (Ember Spirit's play kind of did because he massacred us) and it didn't attack anyone personally. The problem is your teammates. Like every online video game community ever, they love blaming people for anything bad that happens. Every once in a while you'll get that hardcore rager on your team who will readily lash out at anyone who does...well, just anything really. Best example is that Pudge I still reference, who insisted everyone report me and Snow. One of his reasons for reporting me was that I bought Vlad's at 40 minutes as Ursa (basically his main item). The problem being that, I had bought that waaay earlier and he just didn't notice. I told him that, but he didn't care and just kept spewing, "noob ursa", "report pugna; report ursa" (keep in mind he was the same level with only a slightly better K/D). He also first told my team to report me after I didn't Rosh when he told me to. Because I had done it like 2 minutes earlier and he wasn't back yet. People like this are cancerous and take away the fun. (Basically anyone that instapicks Pudge is guaranteed to be like this.)

Not every game is like that though. We reference that game because it's the worst one that I, at least, have ever seen. We actually had a really nice CK once who congratulated people when they made good plays and didn't belittle anyone despite being the only reason we didn't get wiped really fast.

Honestly, I don't think you/Dwest would have any problems with the community if we did a full party pub match, so that you know your teammates aren't assholes. Maybe I just haven't had one, but typically the other team is indifferent towards you. That might be the best way to try pubs, if you want to.

You can also mute whoever you want if it's obvious they're just going to be a dick.


This post reminded me of the hilarity of when people ask for commends. Because commends are just like reports in that apparently nobody has any fucking idea what they do. Commends are nice/helpful players. Not good ones. Literally, the categories for commending are Friendly, Forgiving, and two other things that are basically the same. There is no commend for "Totally pwned". Asking for a commend is guaranteeing that I won't give you one. Likewise, there is no report for being bad. I can see a small justification in that, joining a pub seconds after finishing the installation would be annoying to your teammates, since you're basically guaranteeing a loss and distracting them from their game by asking things that you can/should learn the answers to by yourself, but that doesn't really happen all that often (GHHHOOOST).
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Olinea
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DarkFlashlight
Apr 22 2014, 06:32 AM
Honestly, I don't think you/Dwest would have any problems with the community if we did a full party pub match, so that you know your teammates aren't assholes.
That's the biggest thing right there. The worst is when your teammates are angry at you, because they're losing and need someone to blame, but queuing as 5 means you're guaranteed you won't have some asshole yelling at everyone. Hell, even 4 is cool too - the Pudge in question kept telling us to report Darkie and Snow, and Lightning and I just said "lol bro you're missing a bunch of hooks yourself". When you play alone and find an asshole it sucks not having backup. When you play as 4 or 5 and someone's yelling at you, you all just say "lol, he's an asshole". The rager Pudge tried to get the enemy team to report us and the enemy team was nothing but sympathetic to us ("He's a Pudge picker, that should tell you everything"). You get assholes once in a while but yeah, if you don't want to put up with that shit you just mute and move on. Our funnest games are ones where we play together. And not everyone is a rager - the Ability Draft game where I grabbed Legion Commander and the Heat-Seeking Missile we were playing as 4, and our Shadow Shaman was a cool guy, humble and everything. A bad game can stick with you but idk, perhaps it's just me but I mark them off as "what an asshole" and it's a story for later. When I took up LoL after years of hiatus from DotA, I had played like 3 games against bots before jumping into a game against humans with my roommate. And I threw the game really hard. And my teammates were yelling that I was the worst player they had ever seen, and I just laughed with my roommate. I actually missed laughing at players who took the game so damn seriously. It's weird.
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