DOTA 2

[Dewar]

Interesting, does self-damage from Overcharge break tranquils?

[undermind9]

i dont think so, not technically taking damage, might be treated as health removal

 

 

my 5 stack just beat another 5 + coach in <20 minutes.  ended up 5-0 Io...they were ready to kill me and i warped to base, salved, started wisps & took an abbadon back with me w/shield.  killed 3 more.  something like a 8 minute mek & healing boots

[Reyturner]

Yup Tranquil Boots aren't broken by HP removal, which Soul Ring uses.

[Forbin]

Got Rikki as my daily hero challenge. For some reason I'd never played him before. I picked first, then 3 other cores were picked, so I spent the laning phase as a support. Worked out well though, we won by a large margin. I really like being forced out of my comfort zone.

[Henroid]

My favorite Tranquil Boots trick is, if you're farming like in the jungle, you drop them on the ground, then go get hit / hit something. Pick them up; no waiting for the HP regen.

[Twig]

And then someone walks by and steals them.

[Henroid]

And then someone walks by and steals them.

It could happen yes.

[Twig]

Sorry I didn't mean that to sound dismissive, if it did. It just always cracks me up when I see it happen.

[taterdactyl]

It happens...

I laughed so hard the first time I saw this. Then again, I'm easily amused.

[sproutella]

It's fun to use general knowledge of the game against people.

 

Earlier tonight I played a match as Lycan (my absolute favorite lord now, Spirit Breaker is on the bench). He's known for being a strong pusher, especially with a Necronomicon right? So my team wanted to push a lane, but we weren't quite at the level of taking the enemy out in direct 5v5 fights. So I ran to a different lane before my team gathered for their push and started my own. My hope was to draw at least one of the enemy away so that when my team does their push they have less to deal with - and since I'm Lycan I can pop my ult and get the hell out with no problem.

 

It worked. Lifestealer was waiting at the enemy T2 and KotL warped in to help him, but I was already out. My team was able to push a lane fully to the enemy base, all the way from T1, after taking out the remaining 3. It felt very good. I just wish the game had a way of measuring this kind of shit rather than just "how much shit did you kill?"

 

As for general "I like Lycan discussion," seriously I love the way this guy flows. I can jungle it out to let someone level up a little better, I can chase run-aways, push very well, buff my team for fights I'm not even at yet. Not to mention scouting with the wolves while I do whatever farming I'm on. I'm actually good with him is the best part, on top of enjoying playing him. Oh plus, as someone who likes wolves (the animal itself and any / all culture surrounding that animal) it just comes up all Henroid on this.

 

Edit - Oh and the best part about the feint I pulled is if it didn't work (attract attention) I could've just made it an actual lane push anyway. The only way it could've failed is if I was stun-locked by someone (or an entire team; but I had vision of most of them on the mini map) smart enough to cut me off but that would take some crazy odds.

 

 

Congrats! You discovered split-pushing aka rat dota! Do this enough and you might get some nasty post game messages from enemy players! Now you just have to learn Nature's Prophet and Phantom Lancer to fully embrace the rat! It works really well in disorganized pub games where decisions aren't well coordinated. 

 

For real though I really enjoy Lords that can operate more autonomously in a useful way, having to always be around pub teammates can be frustrating when no one is communicating.  Playing with these solo pusher types lets you play matches where you get to make 'higher' level decisions, instead of trying to predict whether your void teammate is going to chrono you in a team fight.  

 

btw If you actually want some measure of what your doing check out dotabuff, they list Tower Damage stats. 

[Dewar]

I'm starting to get the hang of Ogre Mage. I had him in my 10 hero challenge, then rolled him again as my first daily. Having a stun and a slow both is so awesome. Sure, I died, but not before I stunned and slowed their carry, then bloodlusted ours.

[undermind9]

if the RNG deities are on your side during a match it can snowball hard.  a quick blood stone and some charges & he becomes a serious force.  the range on the ignite is amazing w/a few levels into multi-cast

 

if you arent babysitting a carry, his attack animation is great for last hitting & denying

 

in my weird 5stack team we sometimes run him mid.  fast levels and solo gold yields quick mana boots & can come gank fast against an under-leveled squishy

 

 

long & short, huzzah for playing new lords!  ever figure that Io out?

[Dewar]

Didn't have the chance to try it yet, but I plan on giving it one more go before I just skip it and re-roll.

[Henroid]

Congrats! You discovered split-pushing aka rat dota! Do this enough and you might get some nasty post game messages from enemy players! Now you just have to learn Nature's Prophet and Phantom Lancer to fully embrace the rat! It works really well in disorganized pub games where decisions aren't well coordinated. 

 

For real though I really enjoy Lords that can operate more autonomously in a useful way, having to always be around pub teammates can be frustrating when no one is communicating.  Playing with these solo pusher types lets you play matches where you get to make 'higher' level decisions, instead of trying to predict whether your void teammate is going to chrono you in a team fight.  

 

btw If you actually want some measure of what your doing check out dotabuff, they list Tower Damage stats. 

Why is it called "rat dota"? I saw this used during the qualifiers and had no idea what people meant.

[Hermie]

I find it frustrating that the community uses these kind of hyperbolic juvenile terms.Split-pushing is a completely legitimate strategy that Alliance utilized to full effect at TI3, but by referring to it as "rat dota" it makes it sound cheap, sneaky or unfair. By extension the "real" way to play would be to teamfight ("manfight", perhaps), betraying the bullshit alpha male mentality behind this attitude.

In the same way, I've seen commenters refer to lords as "trash tier", instead of saying "not viable for competitive play" or something like this.

 

 

On a similar note, Riot has banned two professional LoL players because of their toxicity when matchmaking. I wonder if Valve would have the stones to do the same? I feel I've watched streams from pro players that behaved like real jerks.

[Twig]

I don't think anyone really cares about rat doto. It's just a thing people say when they're frustrated about losing. I'm not so bothered by rat doto. It's five-man doto that makes me want to kill myself. At any rate, I don't think it's worth getting upset about at all.

 

This is though.

 

 

Welcome to my hell.

I guess on the bright side, I've got a new record on Dotabuff, for losing streak.

 

I never though, in all of my thoughts ever, that in the A-Z Challenge, it's the Tidehunter that would make me want to quit. I'm so close, now, and I'm not sure I even care. Wow. It hurts.

[Hermie]

I don't think anyone really cares about rat doto. It's just a thing people say when they're frustrated about losing. I'm not so bothered by rat doto. It's five-man doto that makes me want to kill myself. At any rate, I don't think it's worth getting upset about at all.

 

That's just it, though, it's an angry term. One thing is jerks in random matchmaking yelling about it, but when "professional" players and casters use it, it seeps through to the rest of the community.

 

 

Sucks about your losing streak, it's so demoralizing.

[Twig]

But casters use it legitimately to describe a strategy. Like, if that's the term being used, what does it matter what a bunch of people (I don't know why you assume they're jerks just because they're frustrated) say in a pub game? I've never considered it an angry term. I'm surprised anyone would describe it as such. Maybe that's why I don't understand where you're coming from.

[Hermie]

Ah, I see. I read "rat" as a negative/condescending word, especially compared to the term "split-pushing", which sounds like a word that could be used in Actual Sports.

[Henroid]

Wow okay, that DotAbuff thing is great. I like seeing the thousands of damage I did to towers in games as Lycan.

 

In a twist of fate though, I actually did a piddling amount this match I just played. I tied with the Weaver on my team for 3.5k each. Which is REALLY low for Lycan as far as I'm concerned.

 

Also I found a new hobby on Lycan: Camp my stealthed wolves at the enemy's secret shop and snipe their courier.

[Forbin]

Of the terms that the DOTA community uses I find "rat" to be fairly tame. It's definetly used negatively by people, and it's frustrating to play against. But it also is used to describe the behaviour of the team as skittish, like a rat. I'm sure some people use completely without judgement.

Also natures prophet looks a bit like Splinter from TMNT.

[Jutranjo]

I don't think anyone really cares about rat doto. It's just a thing people say when they're frustrated about losing. I'm not so bothered by rat doto. It's five-man doto that makes me want to kill myself. At any rate, I don't think it's worth getting upset about at all.

 

This is though.

 

 

Welcome to my hell.

I guess on the bright side, I've got a new record on Dotabuff, for losing streak.

 

I never though, in all of my thoughts ever, that in the A-Z Challenge, it's the Tidehunter that would make me want to quit. I'm so close, now, and I'm not sure I even care. Wow. It hurts.

 

You sure about going AC on tide? Armourr's good but a shivas fits him a lot more. Blink and arcanes are pretty needed, drums are cool if the team doesn't have any yet. But basher seems like a joke item to build on tide. Abyssal could be made but hex costs 1k less for a pretty similar effect.

 

Have you tried making an urn or force staff? Ghost scepter might be good vs certain physical hero teams and you can upgrade it to an ethereal blade to save team mates from being focused. I think I saw someone in a tournament game eblade a BKBed ally so he could escape.

[Twig]

Yes I'm sure about going AC on Tide. It's a very good item to get on Tide when your carry isn't going to build one. The shivah's wouldn't have helped nearly as much. Also the basher was to build into an abyssal because the entire enemy team had BKBs. Hex wouldn't have helped. I'm 100% positive that most of my item choices were the correct choices. I couldn't have done much to save the games because they were ruined by my teammates, who were in my party but... very new to the game. I'm not looking for criticisms. I know I played well in most of those games, and I know what I did wrong in the few I didn't.

[TheLastBaron]

As far as the term rat Dota I think there's a difference between that and split pushing, at least at the pro level (outside of that, yeah, it's pretty much people in pubs complaining that they lost to a team with a split pusher). Rat Dota isn't just having someone on your team split push, it's completely avoiding any team fights at all and just running away from anyone that shows up (hence the rat part). It's been a while since I saw the game with Fnatic vs VP where the term was coined, but from what I remember Fnatic basically had a total global line up with Furion, Meepo, Kotl, Naix, and someone I don't remember. There were basically zero team fights in the entire hour long game. Fnatic would just push lanes and as soon as they saw someone from VP they would tp out. They didn't even defend their own towers, when VP went all five mid Fnatic let then and just went top and bottom and took two towers for every one VP got and when VP would tp back Fnatic would just run away. Even Fnatics carry, naix, was just pushing by infesting meepo so that VP would have to completely back off and defend as 5.

Basically what annoyed people I think was just how non-confrontational the game was. It wasn't just a game where one team has a lycan pushing down towers with a necrobook, it was a game where nothing happened for an hour and then VP finally just went for a push instead of defending and lost a base race.

[Henroid]

Ha! It only took 88 games but I finally got a win while playing the support role!

 

... granted it was my 2nd time trying. 1st time playing Lich. The failed attempt was Disruptor.

 

BUT! With Lich it's easier to fund the whole "wards plz" thing we need to have going. Because I can actually kill shit.