So I've been toying around with Shadow Demon a bit today. He came out in Dota 1 after I had moved on, so I didn't really know anything about him till he got put into 2. Just went 10-3 and can safely say that I am now a fan.
Pretty cool. It looks like the matchmaking works pretty well, at least when queuing solo. Everyone seems to be around 50%. Queuing with more than one other person seems to break it a bit though.
I just had the harshest mid lane I have experienced in a long time. I was Huskar against Zeus, which would have been an even lane if not for the runes. I am never that great at rune control, but this time my team had not even warded giving him free reign, and in six minutes he had got 4 runes, two of them regen runes and two of them haste. I played defensively enough that he never killed me, but every time I peeked out from under the tower he lightning bolted me down to half health, over the first 7 minutes of the game I had barely 100 GPM and the gold I did get went into an early cloak and health potions.
It was so incredibly satisfying when I came back after doing a couple of successful ganks and killing the hell out of him. Our team pulled together and we won convincingly, and at the end of the match my GPM had gone up to 450.
If you're going mid with Huskar you may as well do the stats build.
And if you want to get better at runes learn to push your lane and always check the top rune first.
That is good advice when it comes to runes, yes. I don't really see how a stats build would be worthwhile though, his skills are all so powerful that I would hate to delay them. I will agree that berserkers blood is not that vital early, but I would hate to delay inner vitality even further than the normal build does.
If you're going mid with Huskar you may as well do the stats build.
And if you want to get better at runes learn to push your lane and always check the top rune first.
That is good advice when it comes to runes, yes. I don't really see how a stats build would be worthwhile though, his skills are all so powerful that I would hate to delay them. I will agree that berserkers blood is not that vital early, but I would hate to delay inner vitality even further than the normal build does.
this post is so backwards it's insane. You want Berserker blood maxed as soon as possible. a single point in inner vitality is all thats needed. Burning spear is nice, but that's are nicer, as you won't even get a lot of auto attacks off early game to make burning spear all that useful. Stats give you more hp, and more damage, which in turn gives you more damage from berserker blood.
"If a cherry pie filled cape is wrong, I don't want to be right.
I'm dead serious."
Plus, you're not using burning spears to last hit and unless you're up against a Pudge mid you don't have the range to harass them, especially if they're staying uphill (which is easy to do against Huskar). If you go stats then at least you'll get the damage to beat them in last hits and denies, along with more hp, more mana for inner vitality (and more strength for healing with it) and more passive regen.
You follow the only successful gameplan Huskar really has: hope they're dumb enough give you free damage and attack speed. With stats and blood if this Zeus is dumb enough to put you bellow half health then you can basically kill him in 4 hits.
For the record: stats build means completely skipping burning spears and just getting stats and blood, then a point in inner vitality and rushing a hod.
I've always thought that the generic Huskar build is burning spear, blood, blood, heal, blood, ult. Putting a point into burning spear at the start has more to do with having an orb for harassment than anything else.
How does the stats build go? Heal first, then alternate stats/blood? Or blood/stats all the way to level 6?
honestly, I find burning spear to be a very subpar skill, and I don't even takr it a lot of times, not untill stats are maxed. Berserker blood gives you INSANE damage all game, no other skill huskar has is anywhere near as good. vitality is nice, but also overrated until you get a good amount of str, it's only good for random regen early game till then, and as something to spend his mana on. I already said why stats are great for huskar. More of everything.
"If a cherry pie filled cape is wrong, I don't want to be right.
I'm dead serious."
I like to put at least one point in burning spear so I can avoid creep and tower aggro when harassing. But you're taking damage either way so I guess it's not a big deal unless you plan on doing a lot of tower diving.
in case people didn't investigate this site thoroughly - if you create an account for the website you can see detailed hero statistics for your steam account - w/l, average gpm, your k/d ratio. it's really slick, especially because the performance bars made it impossible to see your w/l on heroes that aren't in your top 3 most played
If you're going mid with Huskar you may as well do the stats build.
And if you want to get better at runes learn to push your lane and always check the top rune first.
That is good advice when it comes to runes, yes. I don't really see how a stats build would be worthwhile though, his skills are all so powerful that I would hate to delay them. I will agree that berserkers blood is not that vital early, but I would hate to delay inner vitality even further than the normal build does.
this post is so backwards it's insane. You want Berserker blood maxed as soon as possible. a single point in inner vitality is all thats needed. Burning spear is nice, but that's are nicer, as you won't even get a lot of auto attacks off early game to make burning spear all that useful. Stats give you more hp, and more damage, which in turn gives you more damage from berserker blood.
You misunderstand me, I max Berserker Blood and Burning Spear first and then do Inner Vitality, but I find IV so useful in fights that I did not want to delay it until after level 14. I never even considered skipping Burning Spear, thanks for the clarification guys!
in case people didn't investigate this site thoroughly - if you create an account for the website you can see detailed hero statistics for your steam account - w/l, average gpm, your k/d ratio. it's really slick, especially because the performance bars made it impossible to see your w/l on heroes that aren't in your top 3 most played
in case people didn't investigate this site thoroughly - if you create an account for the website you can see detailed hero statistics for your steam account - w/l, average gpm, your k/d ratio. it's really slick, especially because the performance bars made it impossible to see your w/l on heroes that aren't in your top 3 most played
Did the refresher orb brewmaster, getting perseverance then scepter then refresher. Worked out very well, only died twice in a 50 min game and it turned the tide of every team fight we were about to lose late game.
Brewmaster's ult is basically like Skeleton King's in the way that the enemy team is fucking up if they do target you, but because of your burst damage and Q ability they're also fucking up by not targeting you. They basically need to put a long CC and/or insane burst damage on you.
My top 5 friends are: Llama, GS, Hoz, Furion, Ur-Quan
also I'm 0-6 with lion. my god, why am I SO bad with this hero. I couldn't play him in dota1, I couldn't play witch slayer in HoN, WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME????
1. When is a good time to ward? As Dazzle I tend to build Courier - Flying Courier - Magic Wand - Boots - Mek, should I just keep wards up during all that?
2. What is a good GPM to be aiming for? My best heroes average around 350, which is probably a little low
I like that stat site because the only times I've played Void and Slardar I got no deaths, so there's a nifty little infinity sign under the K/D ratios :P My K+A/D with WR and Weaver is 3.5 which isn't great, but 5.5 with Leo seems good? It's not my 15 with Naix, but again that's just on one game.
3DS: 2234-8122-8398 | Battle.net (EU): Ladi#2485
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
I can't speak for every "support", but I know when I play Veno, I leave the fountain with wards from the get go. Of course, he is a "ward support", so that may be different for chars like Dazzle.
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited April 2012
Has anyone produced a ward/counter ward map for this yet? I don't mean a video or tutorial about warding, but a simple map I can put on my second monitor with common ward/counter ward spots. Google searches turn up a lot of Dota1 resources, which are kind of close, but not exact.
One exists for LoL, and it was super super handy when I was learning the warding side of the game.
Has anyone produced a ward/counter ward map for this yet? I don't mean a video or tutorial about warding, but a simple map I can put on my second monitor with common ward/counter ward spots. Google searches turn up a lot of Dota1 resources, which are kind of close, but not exact.
One exists for LoL, and it was super super handy when I was learning the warding side of the game.
Might as well share a good resource: 4chan's DOTA 2 readme. For your case, check out the ward section, it's got around five or so different guides about it.
Has anyone produced a ward/counter ward map for this yet? I don't mean a video or tutorial about warding, but a simple map I can put on my second monitor with common ward/counter ward spots. Google searches turn up a lot of Dota1 resources, which are kind of close, but not exact.
One exists for LoL, and it was super super handy when I was learning the warding side of the game.
Might as well share a good resource: 4chan's DOTA 2 readme. For your case, check out the ward section, it's got around five or so different guides about it.
I've actually read all the Dignitas ones, and until now, didn't realize the Team Dignitas "basic" one has exactly what I want. How I missed it the first time, I'm not sure.
My top 5 friends are: Llama, GS, Hoz, Furion, Ur-Quan
also I'm 0-6 with lion. my god, why am I SO bad with this hero. I couldn't play him in dota1, I couldn't play witch slayer in HoN, WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME????
seriously guys, how to play Lion?
are you buying mana boots? do that
are you putting points in mana drain? Don't do that.
are you q+r for kills? do that
are you w enemy carry q supports in team fights? do that.
lion can pretty much lock down the entire enemy team every 12 seconds with q and w.
The skill Mana drain is only there to confuse you. never put points in it.
"How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
warding 101:
someone should buy wards at the start of the game so you can block the enemies pull camp. if you don't do this, your long lane (radiant's top lane, dire's bottom lane, also called suicide lane...) will lose lane almost automatically against competent players. use the second ward in the stack to see the rune near your long lane.
if the game is 'serious', you'll want to have at least one set of wards going continuously (i.e: purchase + place wards every 6 minutes). after 6 minutes you don't necessarily need to block the enemies pull camp - it depends on how the game is progressing. if people are still laning, and there's very little grouping and fighting, continue warding their pull. otherwise put both your wards on the runes or where ever they are needed
where you put your wards has to do with what's happening with the game and your team composition. if you are playing defensively, you want ward coverage to shut down enemy ganks (you'd need sentries to stop smoke ganks, but those aren't very common in public games) - wards to watch both runes, and the entrances to your jungle. if you are playing aggressively (you're trying to push into the enemy base, or to shut down the enemy carry/jungler) you want to ward/counteward the enemy jungle so that you can gank enemies farming the woods, or make them so scared that they don't come out to farm at all.
when you are pushing a tier 3 tower (base tower) it's really useful to place wards up the ramp so that you have vision on the enemy team - just make sure you don't put the wards in sight of the tower.
if you are playing support seriously you pretty much only get 3 items - like boots, bracer, magic wand. maybe a(n) urn/mek/drum/vlads/pipe if you can swing it. your other item slots wind up devoted to wards/counterwards/sentries
other things to note: radiant jungle blows and the dire can block three of their camps and still see the rune with their initial 2 wards. this is a good way to slow down enemy junglers, and is something you should do as dire. it's impossible to do something comparable to dire jungle. dire op
1. When is a good time to ward? As Dazzle I tend to build Courier - Flying Courier - Magic Wand - Boots - Mek, should I just keep wards up during all that?
2. What is a good GPM to be aiming for? My best heroes average around 350, which is probably a little low
I like that stat site because the only times I've played Void and Slardar I got no deaths, so there's a nifty little infinity sign under the K/D ratios :P My K+A/D with WR and Weaver is 3.5 which isn't great, but 5.5 with Leo seems good? It's not my 15 with Naix, but again that's just on one game.
1. Yes and I would get wards over a flying courier given that pubs don't use the courier that much.
2. If you aren't support 350 is ok, 450 is good, 550 and above is exceptional. Subtract 100 if you buy a midas or have a gold farming skill (doom, furion and alch) and if you lose without killing a bunch of towers/raxes subtract about 50. If you are support then 250-300 is fine.
In a meta where manta is king, skipping mana drain completely is not a good idea.
I just did the best farming of my life with doom, getting radiance by 20 mins after getting midas, 55 cs by 10 mins I believe. I was like 3-5 levels ahead of everyone mid game. And it all went to shit because my teammates were brazilians who were trying to coordinate with me by shouting constantly in Portuguese over voice chat, which I told them I didn't understand but I guess they themselves didn't understand that.
I don't recall if I asked this before, but if I'm forced to play alone, who should I pick to try and win the game (all by myself?). Furion? Anti Mage?
There are two positions that are really potent in a pub if you can handle them.
The mid position with good rune control can make or break a game.
The jungler can farm and gank with general impunity. This one can be dangerous as jungling can put stress on now under-manned lanes. Communicating early can help alleviate this, if people know that they are going to get a solo top they can measure their pick on it. Sometimes it doesn't matter, people random anyways and send Faceless Void to solo top against Lion-Lina.
Both of these positions get better gold and experience than any other with the right characters. Anytime you can flush your character with power you can better control the flow of the game.
All that being said, I don't suggest playing alone and playing to win. It doesn't work out. There are too many factors out of your control, I generally get frustrated or feel marginalized if I go into the game with the sole intention of winning.
Instead, if you want to play alone, get inspired. Watch some other people playing characters that interest you. Monitor games or look up interesting item/skill builds. Get a baseline of information, then try something new with that information guiding you. Or attempt to refine something you already know. Make sure you go into a game with something more than "I want to win". It is more gratifying to come out of a game and examine what you learned about what you went into than to just go in for a win. In a team game, a win can be completely out of your control.
The rare times that I've gone solo I've generally had some goals and aspirations: "I'm going to try a creep stacking strategy with jungle Dark Seer.", "I'm going to rush that Force Staff on Jakiro and use it to really gank!", "I just watched Tulex rush a Dagon on Necrolyte for some dirty burst in combination with Reaper's Scythe. I wanna blow people up like that!", "I need to learn a new initiator. I'll follow this guide for Clockwerk this game."
That way, if you end up staring down that defeat, instead of your mind racing about how stupid or dumb your team was you can reflect on what you went into the game to learn. It's a far more fulfilling and advances your play, which is always nice.
I just did the best farming of my life with doom, getting radiance by 20 mins after getting midas, 55 cs by 10 mins I believe. I was like 3-5 levels ahead of everyone mid game. And it all went to shit because my teammates were brazilians who were trying to coordinate with me by shouting constantly in Portuguese over voice chat, which I told them I didn't understand but I guess they themselves didn't understand that.
According to my brazillian friend, "eu nao falo portugues, desculpe" means "I dont speak portugues, sorry" so at least they'll know. It sucks when theres a language barrier, but what're you going to do.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
My impression of Dota 2 solo-q is the same as the one I've got for LoL. While I've not played that much Dota yet, I've played a ton of LoL solo-q and I think the team-mate experience is very, very similar across the two games.
When I click play to go into it solo it's never, ever my goal to win the game. To try and achieve that goal is an excercise in frustration that's best avoided. I click the 'play' button with the goal of playing a perfect game, for myself. I don't care if my team-mate is going Scepter on Faceless Void because 'stats hurr durr' (I've not actually seen anyone do this, was just trying to think of an example of extreme retardation), as long as I've done my best to fulfill my own role within the game. As long as I've tried to do my best in a game, I can live with it. Sometimes things will click and you win, sometimes the other guy will be better than you and you lose. Shit happens.
I've been having quite a bit of luck with Random Draft solo queue the last couple days. I beat a Lycan + Nightstalker team that was a 4 stack with random pubs in 25 minutes everyone listened, cooperated, and picked good pushy early game heroes. We ended up going 21 to 3 by 20 minutes so they sat in the fountain with no towers and no place to farm big scary Lycan couldn't get beyond Vlad's.
It was a lot of fun and two of the dudes invited me to queue up with them and we won another.
Then again I just carried a team who when I asked Venge or ES to buy a courier told me, "No only you use courier," and they had no idea what a TP scroll was for. I was mid DK, but ended up getting farmed and winning anyway.
Posts
awesome, awesome dota 2 stat site.
I'm dead serious."
Pretty cool. It looks like the matchmaking works pretty well, at least when queuing solo. Everyone seems to be around 50%. Queuing with more than one other person seems to break it a bit though.
It was so incredibly satisfying when I came back after doing a couple of successful ganks and killing the hell out of him. Our team pulled together and we won convincingly, and at the end of the match my GPM had gone up to 450.
And if you want to get better at runes learn to push your lane and always check the top rune first.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
I agree.
(I feel exactly the same way about Karthus in LoL, who has the same ult).
That is good advice when it comes to runes, yes. I don't really see how a stats build would be worthwhile though, his skills are all so powerful that I would hate to delay them. I will agree that berserkers blood is not that vital early, but I would hate to delay inner vitality even further than the normal build does.
this post is so backwards it's insane. You want Berserker blood maxed as soon as possible. a single point in inner vitality is all thats needed. Burning spear is nice, but that's are nicer, as you won't even get a lot of auto attacks off early game to make burning spear all that useful. Stats give you more hp, and more damage, which in turn gives you more damage from berserker blood.
I'm dead serious."
You follow the only successful gameplan Huskar really has: hope they're dumb enough give you free damage and attack speed. With stats and blood if this Zeus is dumb enough to put you bellow half health then you can basically kill him in 4 hits.
For the record: stats build means completely skipping burning spears and just getting stats and blood, then a point in inner vitality and rushing a hod.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
How does the stats build go? Heal first, then alternate stats/blood? Or blood/stats all the way to level 6?
I'm dead serious."
I'm dead serious."
You misunderstand me, I max Berserker Blood and Burning Spear first and then do Inner Vitality, but I find IV so useful in fights that I did not want to delay it until after level 14. I never even considered skipping Burning Spear, thanks for the clarification guys!
man this is lame
my Top Friend is
It's OK, llama. You're not my top friend.
Brewmaster's ult is basically like Skeleton King's in the way that the enemy team is fucking up if they do target you, but because of your burst damage and Q ability they're also fucking up by not targeting you. They basically need to put a long CC and/or insane burst damage on you.
also I'm 0-6 with lion. my god, why am I SO bad with this hero. I couldn't play him in dota1, I couldn't play witch slayer in HoN, WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME????
seriously guys, how to play Lion?
I really enjoyed playing some lina last night.
despite accidentally buying a bracer first i did pretty well i think consider it was like my 3rd match ever
1. When is a good time to ward? As Dazzle I tend to build Courier - Flying Courier - Magic Wand - Boots - Mek, should I just keep wards up during all that?
2. What is a good GPM to be aiming for? My best heroes average around 350, which is probably a little low
I like that stat site because the only times I've played Void and Slardar I got no deaths, so there's a nifty little infinity sign under the K/D ratios :P My K+A/D with WR and Weaver is 3.5 which isn't great, but 5.5 with Leo seems good? It's not my 15 with Naix, but again that's just on one game.
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
i mean i guess cyborgmatt hasn't been wrong in the past few months but man if he is wrong about this one
i will hurt someone
Looks like he'll be joining us this week.
One exists for LoL, and it was super super handy when I was learning the warding side of the game.
Might as well share a good resource: 4chan's DOTA 2 readme. For your case, check out the ward section, it's got around five or so different guides about it.
I'll also add this one:
I've actually read all the Dignitas ones, and until now, didn't realize the Team Dignitas "basic" one has exactly what I want. How I missed it the first time, I'm not sure.
are you buying mana boots? do that
are you putting points in mana drain? Don't do that.
are you q+r for kills? do that
are you w enemy carry q supports in team fights? do that.
lion can pretty much lock down the entire enemy team every 12 seconds with q and w.
The skill Mana drain is only there to confuse you. never put points in it.
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
someone should buy wards at the start of the game so you can block the enemies pull camp. if you don't do this, your long lane (radiant's top lane, dire's bottom lane, also called suicide lane...) will lose lane almost automatically against competent players. use the second ward in the stack to see the rune near your long lane.
if the game is 'serious', you'll want to have at least one set of wards going continuously (i.e: purchase + place wards every 6 minutes). after 6 minutes you don't necessarily need to block the enemies pull camp - it depends on how the game is progressing. if people are still laning, and there's very little grouping and fighting, continue warding their pull. otherwise put both your wards on the runes or where ever they are needed
where you put your wards has to do with what's happening with the game and your team composition. if you are playing defensively, you want ward coverage to shut down enemy ganks (you'd need sentries to stop smoke ganks, but those aren't very common in public games) - wards to watch both runes, and the entrances to your jungle. if you are playing aggressively (you're trying to push into the enemy base, or to shut down the enemy carry/jungler) you want to ward/counteward the enemy jungle so that you can gank enemies farming the woods, or make them so scared that they don't come out to farm at all.
when you are pushing a tier 3 tower (base tower) it's really useful to place wards up the ramp so that you have vision on the enemy team - just make sure you don't put the wards in sight of the tower.
if you are playing support seriously you pretty much only get 3 items - like boots, bracer, magic wand. maybe a(n) urn/mek/drum/vlads/pipe if you can swing it. your other item slots wind up devoted to wards/counterwards/sentries
other things to note: radiant jungle blows and the dire can block three of their camps and still see the rune with their initial 2 wards. this is a good way to slow down enemy junglers, and is something you should do as dire. it's impossible to do something comparable to dire jungle. dire op
1. Yes and I would get wards over a flying courier given that pubs don't use the courier that much.
2. If you aren't support 350 is ok, 450 is good, 550 and above is exceptional. Subtract 100 if you buy a midas or have a gold farming skill (doom, furion and alch) and if you lose without killing a bunch of towers/raxes subtract about 50. If you are support then 250-300 is fine.
In a meta where manta is king, skipping mana drain completely is not a good idea.
There are two positions that are really potent in a pub if you can handle them.
The mid position with good rune control can make or break a game.
The jungler can farm and gank with general impunity. This one can be dangerous as jungling can put stress on now under-manned lanes. Communicating early can help alleviate this, if people know that they are going to get a solo top they can measure their pick on it. Sometimes it doesn't matter, people random anyways and send Faceless Void to solo top against Lion-Lina.
Both of these positions get better gold and experience than any other with the right characters. Anytime you can flush your character with power you can better control the flow of the game.
All that being said, I don't suggest playing alone and playing to win. It doesn't work out. There are too many factors out of your control, I generally get frustrated or feel marginalized if I go into the game with the sole intention of winning.
Instead, if you want to play alone, get inspired. Watch some other people playing characters that interest you. Monitor games or look up interesting item/skill builds. Get a baseline of information, then try something new with that information guiding you. Or attempt to refine something you already know. Make sure you go into a game with something more than "I want to win". It is more gratifying to come out of a game and examine what you learned about what you went into than to just go in for a win. In a team game, a win can be completely out of your control.
The rare times that I've gone solo I've generally had some goals and aspirations: "I'm going to try a creep stacking strategy with jungle Dark Seer.", "I'm going to rush that Force Staff on Jakiro and use it to really gank!", "I just watched Tulex rush a Dagon on Necrolyte for some dirty burst in combination with Reaper's Scythe. I wanna blow people up like that!", "I need to learn a new initiator. I'll follow this guide for Clockwerk this game."
That way, if you end up staring down that defeat, instead of your mind racing about how stupid or dumb your team was you can reflect on what you went into the game to learn. It's a far more fulfilling and advances your play, which is always nice.
According to my brazillian friend, "eu nao falo portugues, desculpe" means "I dont speak portugues, sorry" so at least they'll know. It sucks when theres a language barrier, but what're you going to do.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
When I click play to go into it solo it's never, ever my goal to win the game. To try and achieve that goal is an excercise in frustration that's best avoided. I click the 'play' button with the goal of playing a perfect game, for myself. I don't care if my team-mate is going Scepter on Faceless Void because 'stats hurr durr' (I've not actually seen anyone do this, was just trying to think of an example of extreme retardation), as long as I've done my best to fulfill my own role within the game. As long as I've tried to do my best in a game, I can live with it. Sometimes things will click and you win, sometimes the other guy will be better than you and you lose. Shit happens.
It was a lot of fun and two of the dudes invited me to queue up with them and we won another.
Then again I just carried a team who when I asked Venge or ES to buy a courier told me, "No only you use courier," and they had no idea what a TP scroll was for. I was mid DK, but ended up getting farmed and winning anyway.