Even though my timing was decent, and I'd push the lanes forward in order to secure myself some space to grab the rune, it didn't matter -- Skywrath and Nyx were always there, working together. The first time I got zoned out of the rune, it wasn't the biggest deal for me. The second and third times it happened, I was really desperate for mana. I can't push the lane out to give myself space without mana. I can't protect myself from ganks without mana. I can't swing into top and bottom lanes for ganks without mana.
When this happens, you need to bottle crow with the courier so that your item isn't becoming a wasted 650g investment.
And if they're devoting 3 people to shutting down your mid, that's usually a good sign for your side lanes to really go ham on the farm and/or pushing the lanes and taking towers.
Dark_Side on
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KlatuAussie Aussie AussieOi Oi OiRegistered Userregular
In stark contrast to a fortnight ago, I have won 15 of the last 17 matches. I've just been playing with a friend of mine and the two of us have just been tearing things up.
Fun combo that we ran the other night, Undying and Veno. Veno would initiate with Venomous Gale and then I'd run in from fog and drop tombstone behind them where they wanted to run. I usually had 2-3 of my decays on them as well, so they just dropped super fast, and they kept falling for it.
That's a pretty strong combo, what did you lane against?
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KlatuAussie Aussie AussieOi Oi OiRegistered Userregular
Ogre Magi and Void. Occasionally void would timewalk out before we could get him, but a lot of the time he was slow on the reaction and by the time he timewalked out he was low enough to die from Venos ticks. Once I hit 6 I just tower dived them when they thought they were safe and got my heal in ulti form.
Bleargh, herding cats is tough. I was wraith king in a random draft, we won our lane (WK+Treant vs. Shadow Demon and DK), but death prophet was running a train on our team, eventually getting up to heart/bloodstone and some other stuff. After 15 minutes of back and forth where they got 1 rax set, we managed to wipe them and push down one of theirs and their throne towers, only to have my team derp out, get wiped and have us lose our other two rax. Fortunately we killed a bunch of them as they were finishing the 2nd rax, so I start just running up mid with the creeps and clearing. Took like 20 pings to get people to follow me, despite it being our only chance to win. Managed to do it.
Man, this is like being level 10 in league all over again. I know I'm not good, but some of these people...
Man, give a Terror Blade 40 minutes of uninterrupted midas farming and prepare to be amazed at how fast he pushes your base in.
I have had that happen. He makes any other pusher look like a chump if you give him room.
Unless I play him. Then I just die. A lot.
Same. Honestly I rarely see them do well enough to carry, so it was a big surprise. Bummer too, because I was playing Gyro that game and probably could have dealt with him had I not had to go psuedo support early on. I need to get better about checking for carries rushing midas, because I had no idea he had one until it was way too late.
+1
Dac VinS-s-screw you! I only listen to DOUBLE MUSIC!Registered Userregular
He has a long cooldown on meta but with meta and 2 illusions he kills tower very fast so he has more money. You could go drums and RoA to get more stats. Once he has items he can keep a lane pressured just with illusions.
Scored 3 of those rare Arcs of Manta packs while purchasing the treasure that's currently on sale. I equipped one set on Anti-Mage and then put the other two up on the Marketplace. Its saying that they've gone for upwards of 15 dollars as early as yesterday, and are pretty consistent at that price or just a bit lower over an extended period of time. I put both of mine up for 10 dollars each, and I expect them to sell sometime in the near future. Feels pretty good to potentially make like 20 bucks while opening treasures.
Scored 3 of those rare Arcs of Manta packs while purchasing the treasure that's currently on sale. I equipped one set on Anti-Mage and then put the other two up on the Marketplace. Its saying that they've gone for upwards of 15 dollars as early as yesterday, and are pretty consistent at that price or just a bit lower over an extended period of time. I put both of mine up for 10 dollars each, and I expect them to sell sometime in the near future. Feels pretty good to potentially make like 20 bucks while opening treasures.
How many did you buy?
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Dusdais ashamed of this postSLC, UTRegistered Userregular
Has anyone written up compendium predictions for the playoffs, or are they all waiting for the wild card? I need a sanity check.
All of them. I wasn't going to. All I really wanted was the Arcs of Manta and the Obsidian Golem, but I got my first Arcs of Manta on my second treasure. Then another immediately following that. Then, when I picked up the Golem, I figured I may as well keep going to see if I got more. Ended up scoring another toward the end.
@Page- I've heard you are quite the QoP player.. how do you like to open with QoP these days? I've been playing her a good bunch and can't decide how I like to build her off the start. Some people seem to work their way up to a fast two talismans + brown boots, I've seen a few people open Arcanes... Personally I've been opening 3xBranch+Tango, rushing my bottle then heading straight to power treads, but I've seen all sorts of stuff. I'm still not really sure what I like as my first big item either... Scythe is great, but it's expensive. I don't really like rushing aghanims since it feels tough to get utility out of the lowered cooldown early on in the game. Right now I'm a big fan of getting Orchid, but it doesn't seem to be that popular. I gather that it's all situational, but under what circumstances does one decide to forgo scythe over Orchid?
A quick BKB seems popular, but I hate rushing BKB super early because it guarantees I'm working around a 4 second cooldown lategame. I was watching an Eternal Envy QoP game and he got his ultimate orb first before bkb, but he stuck with brown boots till waaaaaaaay late, is it crazy to delay treads for that long?
It's generally a poor idea to keep brown boots so long (though there was a guy way back who used stupid math to prove that a blinking qop with no boots at all could keep up with nearly any hero that didn't have their own escape, so she didn't actually need them), but sometimes a qop needs another item more than they need those upgraded boots, and sometimes you just happen to be sitting on enough gold to get a big item, at which point you should almost always buy the most expensive component you can.
I generally went bottle rush (x3 brances, tangos) into null talisman, wand, boots (tp scroll as soon as there's space, especially if I'm not getting all of the runes--need to be ready to gank and counter-gank), another null talisman, finish my boots, and then go for whatever my next item should be. My qop is a pub qop, though, and designed for pure snowballing and to emphasize the carry half of semi-carry. At any given moment, I had to be the strongest unit on the map, which is the reason for the double nulls. I also got phase boots and then almost always rushed a linken's (sometimes with point booster first if I didn't think I could get to the ultimate orb and needed the extra hp and mana) and then aghs.
My plan was always to completely dominate mid (not break even or trade farm, but get first blood and then make it impossible for the other mid to do much until I leave for a gank), and then dominate at least one other lane. A ~20 minute linken's (delayed somewhat because of all the other items I get) into an aghs (really easy to flash farm once you have that linken's mana and never have to return to the fountain). Say linken's, aghs, phase, wand, and whatever by before 30 minutes in a game where you're already beating the shit out of all of their dangerous heroes and at that point you're pretty much never going to die and can win every teamfight before it starts.
That was mostly a means of grinding out wins while having fun, though, and I don't think I'd advocate playing like that against equal opponents. I depended so much on winning mid that I wouldn't even bother doing it against heroes and players that I couldn't dominate. The problem now is that qop's ability to do that has been nerfed, while most other mids have been buffed. These days I would recommend going with the trend and getting pooled tangos and a null (if no bottle rush, or against a hero that isn't going to get bottle faster) or pooled tangos, branches, and x2 mantles and still bottle rushing. What items you get could be up to you and what you like or what is necessary; I focus more on actually playing her properly.
The first thing to keep in your head is how vitally important and completely broken blink is. It is, without contest, one of the best non-ultimate skills in the game, even if qop's isn't nearly as good as am's. It also facilitates qop's positioning, which is so important for her during fights. People get it with storm, because his ball has no cooldown and more range, but it's just as applicable for qop, who is even squishier. You want to blink to places where you will be the most effective in delivering your burst damage. At that point you've already won the engagement (they're too low to put up a fight) and you're doing cleanup, or you need to haul ass and get clear. If you can't win it right away, you should be depending on your teammates to take the focus of skills that are most dangerous to you. After you've delivered your damage, you have two options on what to do while waiting for your cooldowns: right-clicking, and hiding. If you're ahead and you know you can win, or they're obviously going to run, you start right-clicking (remember to orb walk if you hit them with the poison), if they have the potential to be dangerous, or you're in a situation where you could die, you back away, wait for blink and scream (and shadow strike) to be off cooldown, and then try again.
Until you get your items, qop is too squishy, and will die if focused by 2 or more heroes. The most damage you can do is landing consecutive screams, and that should be your goal. That separates qop from supports and big initiators, who land skills with big cooldowns, and then can do whatever without really impacting the fight further, but sometimes you need to treat her just like a squishy support, who should only be in fights as long as they've got mana and skills they can use. On top of that, if you soak up some spells and then retreat without dying, you've as good as forced them to waste their mana and cooldowns, which allows the rest of your team to proceed in the fights. You can then hang outside of the fight, but within walk+blink range, so as soon as your stuff is off cooldown you can find that spot to blink in and nuke again. The takeaway is that qop doesn't need to stay directly in the fight to do her damage, which is essential for playing her against teams that can and will murder her. Don't be afraid to play around your team, that's what she's designed to do. They may resent that you use them as meatshields, but that's how you win, and it's vital that you stay alive if you want to actually snowball.
So work on that. Your mechanics, your positioning, being able to asses the danger of a situation, to know whether blinking in will win the fight or get you killed, whether you can stay in and keep right-clicking or have to run for the hills. Get a feel for how much damage you can do in bursts and use that for pickoffs. Learn how to play as a dominating hero and hopefully you will dominate.
Posts like that gents are why we have some of the best forums on earth.
I was considering picking up phase boots on QoP but it seemed just too crazy. Right now QoP is my pet 1v1 project, I've been running her around all day. Did a bit of experimenting with different builds, maxxing your dagger first makes the lane a pretty miserable experience for your opponent. I'm sure you'd be useless in a real game but it almost feels too easy against someone who likes to get close to creeps (storms, oh how I love to own storm spirit).
So far I would say my key to QoP is maxxing out your aggression. You have such great early game characteristics (great auto attack damage, great animation, DoT power etc) that it puts a ton of pressure onto your opponent.
Here's what you do: set your hp bar segments to either 200 or 225 (should be doing this anyway). That is standard level 4 nuke damage, which is important for most heroes in the game, but vitally important for qop. You will know with 100% certainty that you can blink+scream that hero and they will die. No guesswork, no getting stunned by a 50 hp hero and destroyed.
Phase boots on qop is really a part of my general build for qop (which, as I said, is super pubby and depends on winning everything). With the stats from the nulls, a bottle, and a wand, phase boots mean that at ~10 minutes or whatever you are right clicking for a ton. You can take on any hero (provided you don't get stunned) in a fight, and it enhances her mobility (which is key for how I play qop). It also helps for orb-walking after a shadow strike. Phase boots also means that in the early-mid game, when you're still mana starved, you can do a lot of damage in fights even when you don't have mana for more screams (and need to save mana for blink).
How I make it work is like this: first, I win the lane, get the runes (hopefully), and get the kills (hopefully). Next, I have blink, which is always levelled, and the stats from the nulls to keep my HP up (With a hero like qop, it's most important to hit HP breakpoints: do you have enough to survive their nukes and still blink away? If so, you're going to live 9 times out of 10.), I then start pumping stats after maxing scream and blink, and the first major item I buy is either a point booster or an ultimate orb. Once I've secured that HP and mana buffer I can go back to levelling shadow strike, because then I'll have the EHP to survive the fights, and casting shadow strike will be less of a resource drain (you don't really want to be spending mana on ss over scream). All of that helps make up the difference from losing the tread's stats. However, that means no tread switching, which is important for how many people play the hero. (I also go brown boots into x2 nulls and leave the phase for after that, so it's still possible to switch things up if I need to.)
It's really a matter of feel and confidence. You get used to the items and you learn what they can do. You know exactly whether or not blinking in on X heroes at Y level with Z items will result in their deaths or your death. You know that you can take a couple of hits but still hang around, and be right back in the fight when someone is out of position again. You let your general power level dictate how you take each encounter: if you're still relatively weak and squishy, it's hit-and-run qop pouncing in and out of the fog. When you've got the HP (or bkb) to survive whatever they can throw at you, then it's fine to just get up in the middle of things and stay there.
However, that type of play doesn't do well from behind, unless you can do the hit-and-run stuff to snowball out of team fights.
Personally, I think any game where qop is required to buy a bkb in order to do anything is a game where qop doesn't belong in the first place.
Depends. Linken's is a huge investment and not always worth it. It's mostly there for the stats and regen--you get a linken's so that you can be permanently active on the map. Oh, and the spell block of course.
In a more defensive game, where you can't go out and gank heroes like that, I would sometimes switch to aghs instead. It means you can't fight as freely, but it's great when you need to stop pushes and there will be a lot of team fights.
Sometimes you'll be behind, but qop is able to dance around in team fights, so if you position things properly and get through them without dying, you find you're suddenly sitting on a big wad of cash. She can also split push pretty well. That's when you decide whether it's still worth it to get the linken's or if you've got enough levels and such to go straight for something else.
The nice thing about Linken's is that it never gets any worse. It's useful throughout the whole game. Plus perseverance is a pretty killer early game item, honestly so is the ultimate orb.
The nice thing about Linken's is that it never gets any worse. It's useful throughout the whole game. Plus perseverance is a pretty killer early game item, honestly so is the ultimate orb.
I'd rank ulti orb among the worst early game items. Mek, drums or blink cost about the same.
At this point, Era is out for TI4, but apparently Valve won't let Fnatic name Xcalibur as a sub and may revoke their entry entirely. Some people have seen this as completely unfair since EG had the same issue with Fear and were allowed to sub in Mason.
1) Silence 2) Books must be returned by the last date shown 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality
Valve opened up the emails. The problem was that, while they both had actual health issues, the way Fnatic contacted Valve made it appear that A: they were simply "unsure" if he could play, and B: discussed splitting the prize between their Era and Xcalibur. The (obscured) communication for Fear probably implies that he legitimately could not play due to health, while the publicized communication about Era paints a picture of a team subbing him out because they think his mental health is a liability they can minimize, which is exactly what the "no swapping" rule was meant to prevent; players being removed so the organization has a better shot.
Yeah, Valve and Fnatic are both publishing e-mails, Valve says Era contacted them directly and said he felt like he could play at TI4 but was being shut out by his team, Fnatic is apparently claiming Valve didn't reveal all the e-mails that were sent. Looks like a big mess.
In addition, CIS Game has been denied a second time for visas, so might not be able to go to Seattle for the wild card matches.
1) Silence 2) Books must be returned by the last date shown 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Looks like Era says that he sent the email saying he could play in a fit of desperation and panic, and sent a retraction email five days later, which has been ignored in favour of the original.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Posts
When this happens, you need to bottle crow with the courier so that your item isn't becoming a wasted 650g investment.
And if they're devoting 3 people to shutting down your mid, that's usually a good sign for your side lanes to really go ham on the farm and/or pushing the lanes and taking towers.
Fun combo that we ran the other night, Undying and Veno. Veno would initiate with Venomous Gale and then I'd run in from fog and drop tombstone behind them where they wanted to run. I usually had 2-3 of my decays on them as well, so they just dropped super fast, and they kept falling for it.
Man, this is like being level 10 in league all over again. I know I'm not good, but some of these people...
I have had that happen. He makes any other pusher look like a chump if you give him room.
Unless I play him. Then I just die. A lot.
Same. Honestly I rarely see them do well enough to carry, so it was a big surprise. Bummer too, because I was playing Gyro that game and probably could have dealt with him had I not had to go psuedo support early on. I need to get better about checking for carries rushing midas, because I had no idea he had one until it was way too late.
Playing Terorblade is an exercise in realising he has no health, shit stat growth and is only good when using metamorphosis.
He's got great agi growth. But he is kinda squishy.
How many did you buy?
All of them. I wasn't going to. All I really wanted was the Arcs of Manta and the Obsidian Golem, but I got my first Arcs of Manta on my second treasure. Then another immediately following that. Then, when I picked up the Golem, I figured I may as well keep going to see if I got more. Ended up scoring another toward the end.
A quick BKB seems popular, but I hate rushing BKB super early because it guarantees I'm working around a 4 second cooldown lategame. I was watching an Eternal Envy QoP game and he got his ultimate orb first before bkb, but he stuck with brown boots till waaaaaaaay late, is it crazy to delay treads for that long?
I generally went bottle rush (x3 brances, tangos) into null talisman, wand, boots (tp scroll as soon as there's space, especially if I'm not getting all of the runes--need to be ready to gank and counter-gank), another null talisman, finish my boots, and then go for whatever my next item should be. My qop is a pub qop, though, and designed for pure snowballing and to emphasize the carry half of semi-carry. At any given moment, I had to be the strongest unit on the map, which is the reason for the double nulls. I also got phase boots and then almost always rushed a linken's (sometimes with point booster first if I didn't think I could get to the ultimate orb and needed the extra hp and mana) and then aghs.
My plan was always to completely dominate mid (not break even or trade farm, but get first blood and then make it impossible for the other mid to do much until I leave for a gank), and then dominate at least one other lane. A ~20 minute linken's (delayed somewhat because of all the other items I get) into an aghs (really easy to flash farm once you have that linken's mana and never have to return to the fountain). Say linken's, aghs, phase, wand, and whatever by before 30 minutes in a game where you're already beating the shit out of all of their dangerous heroes and at that point you're pretty much never going to die and can win every teamfight before it starts.
That was mostly a means of grinding out wins while having fun, though, and I don't think I'd advocate playing like that against equal opponents. I depended so much on winning mid that I wouldn't even bother doing it against heroes and players that I couldn't dominate. The problem now is that qop's ability to do that has been nerfed, while most other mids have been buffed. These days I would recommend going with the trend and getting pooled tangos and a null (if no bottle rush, or against a hero that isn't going to get bottle faster) or pooled tangos, branches, and x2 mantles and still bottle rushing. What items you get could be up to you and what you like or what is necessary; I focus more on actually playing her properly.
The first thing to keep in your head is how vitally important and completely broken blink is. It is, without contest, one of the best non-ultimate skills in the game, even if qop's isn't nearly as good as am's. It also facilitates qop's positioning, which is so important for her during fights. People get it with storm, because his ball has no cooldown and more range, but it's just as applicable for qop, who is even squishier. You want to blink to places where you will be the most effective in delivering your burst damage. At that point you've already won the engagement (they're too low to put up a fight) and you're doing cleanup, or you need to haul ass and get clear. If you can't win it right away, you should be depending on your teammates to take the focus of skills that are most dangerous to you. After you've delivered your damage, you have two options on what to do while waiting for your cooldowns: right-clicking, and hiding. If you're ahead and you know you can win, or they're obviously going to run, you start right-clicking (remember to orb walk if you hit them with the poison), if they have the potential to be dangerous, or you're in a situation where you could die, you back away, wait for blink and scream (and shadow strike) to be off cooldown, and then try again.
Until you get your items, qop is too squishy, and will die if focused by 2 or more heroes. The most damage you can do is landing consecutive screams, and that should be your goal. That separates qop from supports and big initiators, who land skills with big cooldowns, and then can do whatever without really impacting the fight further, but sometimes you need to treat her just like a squishy support, who should only be in fights as long as they've got mana and skills they can use. On top of that, if you soak up some spells and then retreat without dying, you've as good as forced them to waste their mana and cooldowns, which allows the rest of your team to proceed in the fights. You can then hang outside of the fight, but within walk+blink range, so as soon as your stuff is off cooldown you can find that spot to blink in and nuke again. The takeaway is that qop doesn't need to stay directly in the fight to do her damage, which is essential for playing her against teams that can and will murder her. Don't be afraid to play around your team, that's what she's designed to do. They may resent that you use them as meatshields, but that's how you win, and it's vital that you stay alive if you want to actually snowball.
So work on that. Your mechanics, your positioning, being able to asses the danger of a situation, to know whether blinking in will win the fight or get you killed, whether you can stay in and keep right-clicking or have to run for the hills. Get a feel for how much damage you can do in bursts and use that for pickoffs. Learn how to play as a dominating hero and hopefully you will dominate.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
I was considering picking up phase boots on QoP but it seemed just too crazy. Right now QoP is my pet 1v1 project, I've been running her around all day. Did a bit of experimenting with different builds, maxxing your dagger first makes the lane a pretty miserable experience for your opponent. I'm sure you'd be useless in a real game but it almost feels too easy against someone who likes to get close to creeps (storms, oh how I love to own storm spirit).
So far I would say my key to QoP is maxxing out your aggression. You have such great early game characteristics (great auto attack damage, great animation, DoT power etc) that it puts a ton of pressure onto your opponent.
Phase boots on qop is really a part of my general build for qop (which, as I said, is super pubby and depends on winning everything). With the stats from the nulls, a bottle, and a wand, phase boots mean that at ~10 minutes or whatever you are right clicking for a ton. You can take on any hero (provided you don't get stunned) in a fight, and it enhances her mobility (which is key for how I play qop). It also helps for orb-walking after a shadow strike. Phase boots also means that in the early-mid game, when you're still mana starved, you can do a lot of damage in fights even when you don't have mana for more screams (and need to save mana for blink).
How I make it work is like this: first, I win the lane, get the runes (hopefully), and get the kills (hopefully). Next, I have blink, which is always levelled, and the stats from the nulls to keep my HP up (With a hero like qop, it's most important to hit HP breakpoints: do you have enough to survive their nukes and still blink away? If so, you're going to live 9 times out of 10.), I then start pumping stats after maxing scream and blink, and the first major item I buy is either a point booster or an ultimate orb. Once I've secured that HP and mana buffer I can go back to levelling shadow strike, because then I'll have the EHP to survive the fights, and casting shadow strike will be less of a resource drain (you don't really want to be spending mana on ss over scream). All of that helps make up the difference from losing the tread's stats. However, that means no tread switching, which is important for how many people play the hero. (I also go brown boots into x2 nulls and leave the phase for after that, so it's still possible to switch things up if I need to.)
It's really a matter of feel and confidence. You get used to the items and you learn what they can do. You know exactly whether or not blinking in on X heroes at Y level with Z items will result in their deaths or your death. You know that you can take a couple of hits but still hang around, and be right back in the fight when someone is out of position again. You let your general power level dictate how you take each encounter: if you're still relatively weak and squishy, it's hit-and-run qop pouncing in and out of the fog. When you've got the HP (or bkb) to survive whatever they can throw at you, then it's fine to just get up in the middle of things and stay there.
However, that type of play doesn't do well from behind, unless you can do the hit-and-run stuff to snowball out of team fights.
Personally, I think any game where qop is required to buy a bkb in order to do anything is a game where qop doesn't belong in the first place.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
In a more defensive game, where you can't go out and gank heroes like that, I would sometimes switch to aghs instead. It means you can't fight as freely, but it's great when you need to stop pushes and there will be a lot of team fights.
Sometimes you'll be behind, but qop is able to dance around in team fights, so if you position things properly and get through them without dying, you find you're suddenly sitting on a big wad of cash. She can also split push pretty well. That's when you decide whether it's still worth it to get the linken's or if you've got enough levels and such to go straight for something else.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
New stretch goals when?
I'm curious about whether Valve had plans in place at the start for this level of success, or if this caught them by surprise too.
I'd rank ulti orb among the worst early game items. Mek, drums or blink cost about the same.
I wonder about that too..though I'm leaning towards they had no idea. Turns out the Compendium was a goddamn stroke of genius.
Care to elaborate?
Steam: adamjnet
So I can understand the team not being sure as to whether or not Era would be able to play or not.
In addition, CIS Game has been denied a second time for visas, so might not be able to go to Seattle for the wild card matches.
http://fnatic.com/content/96135/ti4-closing-words-from-era-fnatic
I see it mostly as fanatic stirring up drama more than a real mess.