DOTA 2

[Hermie]

Wow, a lot of crazy stuff. I'm currently mostly a spectator, so I'm excited to see Legion Commander and Terrorblade in Captain's Mode. Will also be really interesting to see how they use the map changes in the pro games.

[njoos]

Yep. Luckily there is both ESL and Starladder LANs after this patch. 

[aeolist]

Doesn't Radiant vs Dire have an almost exactly 50-50 pro record though? The Roshan advantage is good but always seemed to be offset by the superior Radiant offlane and jungle layout. With the new Rosh access it looks like Dire might just be inferior now.

 

Map changes worry me, balancing that asymmetric layout has to be insanely hard but it looked like they just about had it before this.

 

edit: Reading the changes now, they at least nerfed Radiant offlane and buffed Dire, so that's good.

[Jutranjo]

Doesn't Radiant vs Dire have an almost exactly 50-50 pro record though? The Roshan advantage is good but always seemed to be offset by the superior Radiant offlane and jungle layout. With the new Rosh access it looks like Dire might just be inferior now.

 

Map changes worry me, balancing that asymmetric layout has to be insanely hard but it looked like they just about had it before this.

 

edit: Reading the changes now, they at least nerfed Radiant offlane and buffed Dire, so that's good.

 

It's really hard to say. There's 2 new uber cliff wards near T2 towers now. Pro teams that were dire drafted around taking Rosh before.

[njoos]

Doesn't Radiant vs Dire have an almost exactly 50-50 pro record though? The Roshan advantage is good but always seemed to be offset by the superior Radiant offlane and jungle layout. With the new Rosh access it looks like Dire might just be inferior now.

 

Map changes worry me, balancing that asymmetric layout has to be insanely hard but it looked like they just about had it before this.

 

edit: Reading the changes now, they at least nerfed Radiant offlane and buffed Dire, so that's good.

 

http://www.datdota.com/blog/?p=28

 

tldr; Dire kills Roshan 70% of the time in pro games. Radiant has a 52.5% win percentage. Hard to predict how it will change now. 

[sclpls]

My impression with the map changes is that the purpose is more to change the game's meta rather than address any perceived imbalance between the two sides (I agree that as the game currently exists it feels pretty balanced). I don't think the changes proposed are really gonna create some new imbalance, but time will tell I guess.

[Dewar]

Wait, is Shadow Fiend new, or is it just getting a complete re-work?

Edit: Wow, that's a lot of changes.

[Dewar]

I usually play support, but I'll try just about anything that doesn't require a ton of micro. I tend to play random draft and captain's draft because the limited hero pool forces me to try new stuff all the time.

 

 

Did you see they added an all-hero challenge with the Techies update?

 

Oh, I didn't realize they did a random hero instead of the A-Z challenge where you have to do them in order. That sounds pretty cool, but it doesn't sound like you get any real rewards for doing it, or the option to skip and come back if it's a hero that you just have a bad time with.

[sclpls]

Yeah, it is kind of brutal, like, the first hero I have for my all hero challenge is Windranger. Cool, that should be no problem. But then I look at the next hero I have: techies. Ugh... do I really want to put in the time to learn techies (the answer is no).

[Irishjohn]

Yeah, it is kind of brutal, like, the first hero I have for my all hero challenge is Windranger. Cool, that should be no problem. But then I look at the next hero I have: techies. Ugh... do I really want to put in the time to learn techies (the answer is no).

 

See, I'm a beginner and will be one forever (I haven't had time to dedicate to a DOTA game in ten days) so I more or less have no choice but to be THAT guy, running around as Nature's Prophet doing nothing in particular.

[prawks]

Yep. Luckily there is both ESL and Starladder LANs after this patch. 

 

Kind of interesting, teams qualifying for ESL One NYC will have played a very different game that what will be played at the LAN event.

[Jutranjo]

See, I'm a beginner and will be one forever (I haven't had time to dedicate to a DOTA game in ten days) so I more or less have no choice but to be THAT guy, running around as Nature's Prophet doing nothing in particular.

 

Look on the bright side, there's 10 people that are THAT guy in your games. In all games. Sometimes it works out, sometimes you're that guy who has an 80% winrate with Void but air balls 4 chronospheres on your teammates.

 

I can't wait for this to get released on the main client, I've tried a few games on the test client, they're usually 15-20 minutes of game then people start leaving. Also the skill levels are totally random. Bloodseeker is great fun to play. Bloodrage now gives +40% damage taken and received, both spell and physical. If anyone kills the unit it's on, or the unit kills anything, the killer heals for 25% of the unit's max HP.

 

Bad things to do with blood rage #1:

Putting it on a shadow fiend 3 people are hitting so you'd all get 40% bonus damage on him, as he has BKB on and casts ulti, wiping a double creep wave for an instant 2k hp heal as well as a triple kill.

The kill bounty seems really high, I was playing a 3v4 game on the test client, game lasted 45 min, I had something like 17/12/10 score with around 220 CS and I had 813 GPM.

[njoos]

Shadow fiend is one of my favorite heroes. Very strong if someone rotates mid to help him get a kill (very weak if someone does the same though, so he needs some good protective wards). Glass cannon early on. 

 

Re micro heroes. Just tab through your units, and use control groups. Using 3 units is hardly micro I would say. Also ancients doesnt have any activated abilities. Rush aghanims on chen to get easy mode. 

[sclpls]

So with the changes that are happening to the fountain, it occurred to me that fountain camping is much more difficult now, which is an elegant way of gently addressing one of the problem of teams that are stomping but not really doing a whole lot to finish up the game by taking away one thing those teams like to do.

[Twig]

Yeah now they'll just go farm up some items with their complete map dominance instead!

[sclpls]

Well sure, but that's happening anyway.

[Twig]

Yes. That was my point.

[Jutranjo]

You know how horrible mistimed OD astral imprisonments and SD disruptions are? Bloodseeker's blood rage can backfire so much more. It also helps pugna blasting towers a ton.

[sclpls]

Yeah now they'll just go farm up some items with their complete map dominance instead!

 

According to the DOTA 2 subreddit, they can't even do that anymore, but people there are basically acting like a bunch of scrubs. ;-)

[Mawd]

Well with this patch I've finally started to invest serious time in Dota 2. Before I used to just appear for a go at Viper or Omni once or twice a month but now it's game after game.

 

Been really enjoying the map changes on radiant side as well as my newfound love, Weaver.

[aeolist]

The map changes seem good so far but I think they're going to nerf the kill gold pretty soon. Some of the situations I've seen in pro games have been utterly ridiculous.

[barichnikov]

Duuuuudes. We just played our Rektreational games, and it was pretty intense. Our casters were MIA, but a dude volunteer to observe the game and stream it.

 

It's Poutine King Bar (Square Enix Montreal) VS Venomancer?, A bunch of UK journalists with Pyrion Flax and Shane. Pyrion flax had a last minute problem, and couldn't play, but they had 2 standins (and frigging good ones at that!!)

 

Those games aren't good for my blood pressure... http://www.twitch.tv/rektreational/b/572960535

[monkehhh]

Venomancer's captain is Chris Thursten (PC Gamer) who does the Crate and Crowbar (generally PC) gaming podcast with Tom Francis (Gunpoint's creator), Graham Smith (Rock Paper Shotgun), Tom Senior (PC Gamer) and Marsh Davies (freelance artist?). I think Thumbs folk would like it!

[sclpls]

The map changes seem good so far but I think they're going to nerf the kill gold pretty soon. Some of the situations I've seen in pro games have been utterly ridiculous.

 

Yeah, as far as comeback mechanics go, I would rather see a large XP bonus than gold bonus. Not being able to predict what your opponents will be buying because of huge gold swings makes the game waaaay too unpredictable.

[njoos]

They toned the gold gain back now, XP is still huge. I think it is a lot better.