Brannigan

DOTA 2

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I dunno, in Hearthstone/Netrunner I'll maybe look up cards in advance but I won't _learn_ all of them till I've encountered them all in enough games. Lots of times you play in a more competitive atmosphere with a self made deck that uses less used cards and your opponent will go "Wait what does this card do?". 

 

My point was this:

 

There there was a lot less room to lose specifically because you didn't know a card existed (you'll often lose because the opponent had a card, but knowing it existed wouldn't have helped).

 

If the opponent played a card that made me lose life whenever I attacked, I learned about it when they put the card into play. not when I attacked and said to myself "Hey, why am I losing life?"

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Yeah, when you're starting out it's hard to be fast enough and actively looking for opponent's items. Even good players won't notice someone having a blademail built if they kept it hidden and were then found in the jungle. It's a legit strat to hide crucial Blink Daggers on stuff like supports, earthshakers, sand kings, etc. Most anything with a good AOE stun is a good hero to hide a blink if the enemy's going to be pushing your towers very soon.

 

You can look up enemy heroes abilities here (http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Heroes) when they're picked/you see them in your lane. Very few heroes will instantly kill you at level 1 (level 2 there's batrider and ursa that can go very badly if you don't know what they do). Here's an item list http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Items

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The learning curve is similar to EVE but probably less punishing given the time involved to come back from defeat.

Anyway, I'm still wondering about good offlaners for beginners.

Also if there are some supports that are generalist enough to almost always be good picks regardless of comp like WD, Dazzle, etc

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Anyway, I'm still wondering about good offlaners for beginners.

Also if there are some supports that are generalist enough to almost always be good picks regardless of comp like WD, Dazzle, etc

 

Assuming you'll be alone in lane, Dark Seer has probably the easiest laning phase. You just ion shell a creep, stay at the edge of XP range, and you should get nice XP gain and decent gold gain without having to venture into harms way. He's a little trickier to play in team fights, but not overly complicated. Basically just put up your wall, try to vacuum the other team across it, and focus the illusions you get on whoever you really want dead.

 

If you have an offlane support, as is common for beginners, you basically just want someone who can absorb some hits without being forced out of lane. Bristleback, Tidehunter, Abaddon, Tusk, and Centaur Warunner all are pretty decent in that role.

 

As for supports that are always good to have, Omniknight has been the highest win rate hero for some time now. He's also an excellent counter for Witch Doctor since his ultimate blocks all physical damage, and Witch Doctor's ultimate deals physical damage. Lich and Warlock also fit really well into just about any team composition. I found Lich especially good as a beginner support because his sacrifice ability helped get me in the mindset of manipulating lane equilibrium before I had the timing down to do stuff like reliably stacking and pulling creep waves.

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Hey thanks for the advice!

I got back into it with a weaver game which was decent.

Then a friend of mine asked for a match or two so after two games where our entire team abandoned by 7 minutes for pretty flimsy reasons we ended up with a decent long game.

I had a decent run of Abbadon until the team left but the real gem was Mirana. I was pretty crap with the arrows and we were crushed by the enemy offlane but I managed to do less of a bad job as our mid so the flames didn't get too hot hah. Still had some good moments like I managed to just ward the entire jungle while we were pushed to t3s which evened the game a lot with some choice tfs. Had some clutch ability moments too while I had no clue what I was doing but the team seemed to think it was deliberate so I'll take the credit :{D

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Yeah? How's the meta coping now?

 

I'd start playing and see for myself but my mouse is Borked right now : (

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It's a lot of fun to play right now. It's doing what a new patch should do where people seem to be picking just about any hero, and seeing how things go. Kinda hard to figure out what are good items to pick up on people right now, I like it. :-)

 

Probably the most obvious big deal is Axe feels ridiculously strong, and most of the XP of a wave of creeps is in the ranged creep now, so having Lich in a lane with you is kind of a big deal.

 

But there's a lot of stupid fun things you can do right now like the aghs upgrade for Earthshaker, and a hurricane pike (new item that basically forcestaffs you and an enemy opponent in opposite directions) on just about anyone.

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It's a lot of fun to play right now. It's doing what a new patch should do where people seem to be picking just about any hero, and seeing how things go. Kinda hard to figure out what are good items to pick up on people right now, I like it. :-)

 

Probably the most obvious big deal is Axe feels ridiculously strong, and most of the XP of a wave of creeps is in the ranged creep now, so having Lich in a lane with you is kind of a big deal.

 

But there's a lot of stupid fun things you can do right now like the aghs upgrade for Earthshaker, and a hurricane pike (new item that basically forcestaffs you and an enemy opponent in opposite directions) on just about anyone.

Yeah Lich is kinda crazy good now. Such an EXP advantage just by his existing.

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He's still really good in the laning stage even with the nerf. When you deny the range creep you are denying like 40% of the XP of the wave to the enemy team. If the cooldown of sacrifice is such that you can only deny every other range creep that's 20% XP. In other words, not ridiculous, but still strong.

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Yeah, as an occasional Lich picker I am still happy.  He's definitely more viable in this patch than in the last couple even with the nerf. 

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I watched most of a 12 hour stream from one of the guys who used to play with Brad on Giant Bomb. It seems like the game is completely different now?

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10 hours ago, njoos said:

Patch is live. Thoughts?

 

 

 

Once they tweak the UI a bit, and fix the stability of the thing (I thankfully haven't been getting dropped frames and game crashes in the middle of a match like a lot of people, but the game does consistently crash at the conclusion of a match for me) I'll be pretty happy. I doubt it is well balanced at all, but I like Dota when it is really chaotic, and this patch definitely makes the game more chaotic and exciting.

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Hey everybody. I've been teaching myself how to program, and I created a web app that lists players from the DOTA 2 leaderboards that are currently streaming on Twitch (sorted by MMR). If you're interested you can check it out here:

 

dreamstream.herokuapp.com

 

I still have a lot to learn so any feedback is appreciated, and hopefully some people find this thing cool.

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Oh man, thanks for the heads up. My least favorite thing about this type of BB code is I always screw up posting links. Should be fixed now.

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How do people feel about Offlane post-7.00? Specifically, as heroes like Slardar who sometimes have to leave the lane (creeps are under enemy tower etc), what do you fill your non-laneing time with?

You can only grab runes so often. Does anyone have any good tricks for pulling your lane to bring the creep line back so you can farm again? Or do people just roam and show in other lanes when you can't lane yourself?


I'm ~3600 MMR for context.

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I've continued to focus on offlaning since the above post, especially as Slardar.

 

I am absolutely in love with offlane Slardar this patch (solo or dual lane), despite never playing him pre-7.00. He's pretty versatile & can be built as a pure initiator & semi-support (initiation items into vlads, crimson/pipe, etc), or if you team needs a core you can fill that role too (initiation into echo, BKB, etc).

 

Even better, he excels at fighting *all the time* thanks to his 8 second AOE stun, and with his ult he can get kills really easily with just 1 or 2 other players helping. His "up time" as an initiator is second to none (no waiting for long CDs), and with sprint, blink, and force staff you can cover the width of the map in no time. Everything about him is amazing in this fight-heavy meta; he can be damn near anywhere on a moment's notice, initiate and re-initiate in a single fight easily, and burst down key targets very quickly with corrosive haze. 

 

I got off to a bit of a rocky start with not knowing when it's safe to sprint etc, but after I watched Purge's offlane Slardar commentary & practiced a bit things have really come together for me. I'm now 9W : 3L over my last 12 Slar games, and I'm feeling supremely confident playing him these days. Win or lose I almost always have a great time playing him since he's just so active & fun to play. 


9jXxiER.png

 

Thanks to Valve for a really fun meta this patch! Some stuff to fix for sure (Radiant ~8% win advantage etc), but I'm excited by the faster pace of the meta & what it might mean for future patches. 

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Yeah the event is cool. I've only gotten past wave 8 once. But wave 8 of a sea of Kunkkas and Tidehunters is insane. You only need to reach wave 5 to get the daily bonus of 35k, enough for a spin on the wheel. 

 

In regular games, Lycan seems pretty broke with the howl giving +400 HP and +50 dmg to the whole team. The 400 HP actually heals. I end lycan games with more healing than damage but that's mostly because it counts off necro and HOTD creeps I think.

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4 hours ago, Jutranjo said:

Yeah the event is cool. I've only gotten past wave 8 once. But wave 8 of a sea of Kunkkas and Tidehunters is insane. You only need to reach wave 5 to get the daily bonus of 35k, enough for a spin on the wheel. 


Agreed; it's a fun break from regular games.

 

I got to wave 12 or 13 (Alchemist) with a lineup of Sniper, Winter Wyvern, Ember, Underlord, and Tiny (the Tiny pick was the least effective, I feel). It seems like Underlord is just mandatory in that mode honestly - amazing early wave clear, he's a great tank, and his ult is actually really really good for repositioning the team quickly. I think Sniper is also really important for his ult, which is one of the few things that can blow up targets from really far away (great for the Warlock wave, for instance). 

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Sniper is probably 100% mandatory. Either WW or phoenix so you can heal, because lifesteal alone is not enough. Ember seems also badly needed but rushing a BF with him is garbage, you don't do enough damage. Maelstrom on the other hand has a good chance of proccing when one sleight causes you to hit 50 targets.

 

PA has a counterattack thing whenever she evades after using blink strike, blink strike giving another 15% on top. Even with 50-60%+ it doesn't seem enough. The dagger spam is pretty good, can actually lifesteal back enough HP sometimes.

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