It's taken from Final Fantasy. It's a pretty standard concept that's been around for a long, long time. I don't understand what it has to do with fluff. Does Shuriken need a fluff reason to mini-stun? Does Blade Fury need a fluff reason to have magic immunity?
The real problem is that Lvl? Death no longer fit with Doom's overall play styles. Back when Scorched Earth was a targeted AoE--and this is way, way back--and nobody levelled it, Doom was played mostly as a solo lane dominator and ganking hero. Lvl? Death was very important to his play then, with every decent Doom player holding skill points for the bonus damage. As soon as they hit 6, they'd look at the scoreboard, find the hero with the right multiple, level (or not) Lvl? Death, and get a sure kill. He spent the game as a target hunter, always focusing on whichever hero was the right level for the bonus damage. That's when Doom rushed blink, dagon, shiva's, etc. It was fun, but once Doom lost his armour and went into the jungle, that type of play died.
Being an 'old, standard concept' means nothing. Lots of ill-fitting ideas defend themselves by being old.
Every other spell has effects that would have in-world justifications of some kind. Like if you could speak to a DOTA hero they'd be able to explain with their own vocabulary - not the game vocab - what some spell kinda did. You could explain magic immunity as some kind of magic spell or ability - like casting a dispel or a magic barrier or some shit. But "this Juggernaut was level X, while my hero level multiplier was Y, and 5 times Y is X" does not make any kind of sense to an in-game character.
Meanwhile, Lvl Death is like "I could just SENSE that this hero was at the right level of power - not too much, not too little. Just the right multiple of...something. Y'know?" Levels DO have an in-game justification in a sense - they're a representation of a hero's growing experience and power. But the exact level they have to be to sustain max damage from Lvl Death is completely arbitrary in any in-game sense.
It's fourth wall breaking. The only way to explain Lvl Death in-game would have to refer to hero levels and skill points and shit. If you don't mind, that's cool, but Lvl Death is different from whether or not Blade Fury grants magic immunity or Shuriken does a mini-stun.
And in some small way it did still fit with his playstyle - as a Linken's popping spell. Also for the TP cancel without needing Doom off cd. But it did have some value as part of Doom's kit, even if that still probably didn't justify its existence.
The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
Shuriken has a small electric charge that jolts people to ministun them. Blade Fury is an ancient sword technique of the Masked Isles that also doubles as a potent anti-magic ritual. That stuff can be explained, Lvl Death is way too much of a stretch.
And sure, you don't NEED fluff stuff for a MOBA. But it's certainly nice for the people who do care about fluff and lore (like me), because that makes the game a hell of a lot more interesting and attractive. I haven't put much time into DotA simply because I don't have the time to deal with the learning curve, but what keeps pulling me back to wanting to try is the really cool character design and the very cool potential for awesome lore stuff that Valve is starting to integrate in with the comics.
So Lucy is the a death-dealing demon and can read life-lines or something. If you can make an excuse for an electrical throwing star, you can have Lucifer the Doombringer able to tell if someone is susceptible to his soul-destroying attack. I don't see the difference there.
and hearing Blitz give props to the CIS style pubbie 1 position carry VS made me stop and think about it. I've always hated the venge carry but I had no idea how good venge's stat growth was. Overall second best in the game??? +2.6 STR and +3.3 AGI per level is bonkers. See: http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Table_of_hero_attributes
I'm sure the aghs and the push mets/rosh importance sort of matter here too--more than the stat growth I imagine.
In an effort to jump MMR, I have become a filthy viper picker.
I feel unclean.
It might be all the poison.
0
Dac VinS-s-screw you! I only listen to DOUBLE MUSIC!Registered Userregular
It turns out I cannot escape DOTA for too long and despite being an awful shitter with horrible micro and farming skills I a) play Chen and b) get tipped for playing Chen.
Send me your Chen tips. Other than "use smoke to gank mid" since I got that covered.
Because if you're going to attempt to squeeze that big black monster into your slot you will need to be able to take at least 12 inches or else you're going to have a bad time...
Guys, I went full retard. I was an offlane Tiny and struggling. I decided to buy Arcane's. Don't ask me why, I don't know. Then Drums because it's a solid Tiny item.
I then said "I think I need Blink but in this game I don't think I can save 2250g; also I have health regen problems."
"..."
"I know! Aether Lens!"
At this point I accepted that I was going full retard. I went Phase Boots. Who needs Blink with Phase, Drum, an 800 range stun and a 1500 range Toss for your slow-ass Riki and OD?
Then I realised my nuking build was struggling a little from my cooldowns. Fuck it. Octarine Core bitches. In hindsight, I regret not taking E Blade instead. They had a lot of glass cannon right clickers so it would have fixed my attack speed problem AND increased my magic burst AND added a disarm.
Right? Games seem to take on a life of their own. 1 game I'll decide, I'm ganking top, tp top or walk there, get 2 kills and go back to my lane. Other games, same thing, but then we have 3 people dead on our side and I'm thinking wtf just happened!
It's always so bizarre.
signature goes here
0
Dac VinS-s-screw you! I only listen to DOUBLE MUSIC!Registered Userregular
The support quest where you have to get an aghs on a specific hero before the time limit is dumb.
Having fucking Treant Protector be a hero you can get for this quest? Utterly vile.
On a more positive note, a bounty hunter raged at me after one too many living armor save.
I'm thinking maybe switch Eblade and Orchid around to fix the mana regen issues you suffer around that point, while still getting a disable, attack speed, and damage amp. Maaaaaaybe I should build utility or mobility instead, but screw that.
Other options include Octarine Core and Aghanim's.
I went basher - abysall on weaver this weekend because no one had any lock down VS an ember & QoP.
Actually, I just bought abysal since it was already past 60 min... That ember was surprised as hell I can tell you that.
PSN: Canadian_llama
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Dac VinS-s-screw you! I only listen to DOUBLE MUSIC!Registered Userregular
edited February 2016
match id 2127157748
presented without commentary other than it being the worst dota experience of my life.
i had a quest in the bag. i had the game in the bag.
e: Good thing is, GOD DAMN does it feel good for my next game to just relax and get myself carried by some absolutely crazy Tinker and Abaddon player. Oh, and I completed that dewarding quest too!
In pro DOTA news, Resolut1ion, one of the top mid players in CIS, has left Team Empire and moved to North America to join Digital Chaos, probably one of the most impactful region jumps ever. I watched him sub for DC yesterday in WePlay against Team Archon, one of the NA qualifiers for Shanghai, and DC just destroyed them with him playing mid. Small sample size, but he instantly makes DC more of a true contender than they've been since forming. I like the players on DC and Sunsfan, so hopefully they do well going forward now.
1) Silence 2) Books must be returned by the last date shown 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality
how much of that is him being great, or the fact that much of NA Dota not being as mature a scene as CIS/EU/Asia
I don't think I understand. You mean how much is it Team Archon not being that good? I mean, whether or not that's the case, if Resolut1on raises DC's game I figure that's significant, just because DC is a team that is and was capable of taking a game off EG in a BO3. Any team that can do that and still improve their lineup should be happy.
So do you mean that beating TA isn't really a sign of improvement at all?
Archon is up there for non-EG NA teams, they did qualify for the Shanghai Major.
It's just outside EG most of the teams are pretty even in strength and aren't very consistent, but that goes for a lot of other regions as well once you look past the top 2 teams.
Dac VinS-s-screw you! I only listen to DOUBLE MUSIC!Registered Userregular
edited February 2016
More DOTA 2 REBORN woes: the replay browsing interface in general.
The original source 1 barely had any kind of method for browsing replays, but I always liked how you could search for replays with a specific hero in it. More precisely, it's how I got to play Chen - search for replays with Chen to see how he's played at a very high skill pub level, then go through the replays one by one until you find what seems to be a well fought battle involving Chen. It was actually kind of arduous - tons of stilllbirth games with an abandon at the start, a fair bit of stomps too - but it did the job and could be improved with more filters.
In Reborn? You can set specific hero filters for live games but strangely replays only have an esports tab, a friends tab (@Drake's wonderful adventures with Luna!) and a search by match ID probably meant to go with Dotabuff. It feels like a placeholder, an afterthought Valve hopes nobody cares about so they won't have to retouch it. And of course I can't use it to look for Chen replays.
Some days I think "You know, I should really practice my carry game, eve if it's just so I know how to support my carry better in Ranked."
And on those days, everyone else picks carry. Or maybe it's all days, and me picking support all the time just makes things work out. The point is, playing DOTA is like playing team games with a team full of That One Friend - the one who's so completely self-absorbed that he ALWAYS picks the flashiest role and never even thinks that it might be some other friend's turn. You either play ball or everyone loses the ball game.
In good news though, I had a great Visage game that really showed me the fun of the hero and why I need to play Visage more to enjoy him. Some games you have a good game where you know you still haven't even tapped 10% of a hero's potential. It's a great feeling.
Dac VinS-s-screw you! I only listen to DOUBLE MUSIC!Registered Userregular
After playing a few games with and against Arc Warden:
I fucking hate Arc Warden. Everyone was telling the apocalyptic scenarios of the double midas double necronomicon split pusher of doom, and that's fine, other than he gets necro 3 way too early and I kill myself on it.
But the fucking divine rapiers.
You know, I thought the entire point of the rapiers was being a high risk high reward item you got because you got confident and wanted to taunt/deal a decisive blow to scrub enemies, or when you're way behind with nothing to lose so you gamble the entire game on one final stand, or for whatever reason, really. Of course you've got heroes which utilise said item more effectively than others - looking at you, Ember Spirit - but in every case the game takes a new meaning once a rapier is in play. Now there's excitement, now there's danger, the game has now become cool.
Unless you're Arc Warden, then throw everything I said out of the window and replace it with dull. I don't blame players for doing it : it obviously works, and at nearly all levels of skills. It's the entire philosophy clash that irks me the most: a rapier on Arc Warden dooms him as the safest, most boring hero in a long while. Stay in your fountain, create a clone, send your clone to push with single midas single necronomicon, repeat until you win or lose, above all do not exit the fountain unless you have a really fucking good reason to do so (like a base race). And if anyone tries to stop you, eh, big deal. they're getting nothing out of it, risk getting murdered for their trouble, and your double is back up in a minute anyway. Just push that lane while you're comfortable in your fountain.
And Riot devs thought they knew what anti-fun was. Oh, the poor saps.
Oh god look at all this ramble. tl;dr I wouldn't be surprised if Arc Warden got hit by changes in 6.87.
IN HAPPIER NEWS THOUGH
I am finally getting the hang of Winter Wyvern. Other than having to explain to my carry "bro they're invincible when I ult them" and being slow as molasses, I get to finally win with her, and that pleases me to no end.
Fear played an Arc Warden in Captain's Draft yesterday. It is twice as disgusting when played by a pro who knows exactly how to exploit it. EG literally threw themselves at Liquid to distract them while Fear sat in the Radiant jungle farming and split-pushing at the same time. 4 minute Midas, then necro, BoT's, double rapier. Liquid was up on kills most of the game, but it didn't matter because Warden does so much damage it breaks backdoor protection.
1) Silence 2) Books must be returned by the last date shown 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality
I have no idea if this is a recent thing or not, but oh my god if I run into one more game with a Nature's Prophet on my team who thinks teleport is only to get to the ancient camp ridge and spend the entire game jungling there...
I've run into this about 10 times now (out of 12 games with a NP on my team) and it has never, ever worked. Our team gets slaughtered. 25 minute mark and he's still there planted on the jungle camp. Team fights he could have easily teleported to and picked up a triple kill but nope gotta keep farming those 2 camps. Pushing lanes? As NP? That's absurd!
I have no idea if this is a recent thing or not, but oh my god if I run into one more game with a Nature's Prophet on my team who thinks teleport is only to get to the ancient camp ridge and spend the entire game jungling there...
I've run into this about 10 times now (out of 12 games with a NP on my team) and it has never, ever worked. Our team gets slaughtered. 25 minute mark and he's still there planted on the jungle camp. Team fights he could have easily teleported to and picked up a triple kill but nope gotta keep farming those 2 camps. Pushing lanes? As NP? That's absurd!
I played a Ranked game against a (probably smurf) NP who cliff jungled to rush-Rapier. We killed him and took it. My team did not push off that. We lost the Rapier. One of their supports picked it up. NP bought another rapier, and lost it again. We played a game of musical rapiers for another ten minutes before he bought his final rapier and ended the game.
But it was a fun game and the rapier did make it memorable.
Unless you're Arc Warden, then throw everything I said out of the window and replace it with dull. I don't blame players for doing it : it obviously works, and at nearly all levels of skills. It's the entire philosophy clash that irks me the most: a rapier on Arc Warden dooms him as the safest, most boring hero in a long while. Stay in your fountain, create a clone, send your clone to push with single midas single necronomicon, repeat until you win or lose, above all do not exit the fountain unless you have a really fucking good reason to do so (like a base race). And if anyone tries to stop you, eh, big deal. they're getting nothing out of it, risk getting murdered for their trouble, and your double is back up in a minute anyway. Just push that lane while you're comfortable in your fountain
It's kind of dumb it isn't treated like an illusion for that exact reason. At least then you could draft or buy an item to deal with it. I will say though that the little dude hits like a wet noodle until he's got a couple of high tier items, and even then still hits like a wet noodle unless you've got a rapier. His cool downs are long too, I think you just have to focus on rushing him down early and/or invading his jungle.
Finished catching up on MDL this weekend. Not sure where this EHOME has been but they were playing so good as to be unaffected by even targeted bans. I will say though that Lone Druid is far too strong, even against targeted drafts, early deaths, and repeated bear kills, the hero still seemed to find 600 gpm averages with ease. I feel like the bear respawn spell needs a longer CD, although shit..it's already at 120 sec...
Lone Druid is the premier pushing carry (even better than Lycan), he does a much better job of hitting towers than he does hitting heroes, and a large part of having high gpm early and hitting good Radiance timings is that he goes into drafts that will have all your T2s down by 20 minutes. That's an extra 2160 gold, plus ~200 for each one that you last hit.
Posts
Being an 'old, standard concept' means nothing. Lots of ill-fitting ideas defend themselves by being old.
Every other spell has effects that would have in-world justifications of some kind. Like if you could speak to a DOTA hero they'd be able to explain with their own vocabulary - not the game vocab - what some spell kinda did. You could explain magic immunity as some kind of magic spell or ability - like casting a dispel or a magic barrier or some shit. But "this Juggernaut was level X, while my hero level multiplier was Y, and 5 times Y is X" does not make any kind of sense to an in-game character.
Meanwhile, Lvl Death is like "I could just SENSE that this hero was at the right level of power - not too much, not too little. Just the right multiple of...something. Y'know?" Levels DO have an in-game justification in a sense - they're a representation of a hero's growing experience and power. But the exact level they have to be to sustain max damage from Lvl Death is completely arbitrary in any in-game sense.
It's fourth wall breaking. The only way to explain Lvl Death in-game would have to refer to hero levels and skill points and shit. If you don't mind, that's cool, but Lvl Death is different from whether or not Blade Fury grants magic immunity or Shuriken does a mini-stun.
And in some small way it did still fit with his playstyle - as a Linken's popping spell. Also for the TP cancel without needing Doom off cd. But it did have some value as part of Doom's kit, even if that still probably didn't justify its existence.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
And sure, you don't NEED fluff stuff for a MOBA. But it's certainly nice for the people who do care about fluff and lore (like me), because that makes the game a hell of a lot more interesting and attractive. I haven't put much time into DotA simply because I don't have the time to deal with the learning curve, but what keeps pulling me back to wanting to try is the really cool character design and the very cool potential for awesome lore stuff that Valve is starting to integrate in with the comics.
I had NO idea LV? Death was from FF: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Level_5_Death
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
and hearing Blitz give props to the CIS style pubbie 1 position carry VS made me stop and think about it. I've always hated the venge carry but I had no idea how good venge's stat growth was. Overall second best in the game??? +2.6 STR and +3.3 AGI per level is bonkers. See: http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Table_of_hero_attributes
I'm sure the aghs and the push mets/rosh importance sort of matter here too--more than the stat growth I imagine.
I feel unclean.
It might be all the poison.
Send me your Chen tips. Other than "use smoke to gank mid" since I got that covered.
You also have to decide whether you want to come out of the jungle at lvl 2 and 3 for banks, or just power farm until 6 and start taking towers.
I then said "I think I need Blink but in this game I don't think I can save 2250g; also I have health regen problems."
"..."
"I know! Aether Lens!"
At this point I accepted that I was going full retard. I went Phase Boots. Who needs Blink with Phase, Drum, an 800 range stun and a 1500 range Toss for your slow-ass Riki and OD?
Then I realised my nuking build was struggling a little from my cooldowns. Fuck it. Octarine Core bitches. In hindsight, I regret not taking E Blade instead. They had a lot of glass cannon right clickers so it would have fixed my attack speed problem AND increased my magic burst AND added a disarm.
I love how wacky DOTA games can be.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
It's always so bizarre.
Having fucking Treant Protector be a hero you can get for this quest? Utterly vile.
On a more positive note, a bounty hunter raged at me after one too many living armor save.
The worst part is it's bugged and doesn't always register the first time. Even if you get the aghs in time and win you might have to do it again.
Arcane's->Aether->Phase->Veil->Eblade->Orchid
I'm thinking maybe switch Eblade and Orchid around to fix the mana regen issues you suffer around that point, while still getting a disable, attack speed, and damage amp. Maaaaaaybe I should build utility or mobility instead, but screw that.
Other options include Octarine Core and Aghanim's.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
Actually, I just bought abysal since it was already past 60 min... That ember was surprised as hell I can tell you that.
presented without commentary other than it being the worst dota experience of my life.
e: Good thing is, GOD DAMN does it feel good for my next game to just relax and get myself carried by some absolutely crazy Tinker and Abaddon player. Oh, and I completed that dewarding quest too!
I don't think I understand. You mean how much is it Team Archon not being that good? I mean, whether or not that's the case, if Resolut1on raises DC's game I figure that's significant, just because DC is a team that is and was capable of taking a game off EG in a BO3. Any team that can do that and still improve their lineup should be happy.
So do you mean that beating TA isn't really a sign of improvement at all?
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
I agree that that makes them way more of a threat to the more established teams.
I think DC, coL, and maybe Leviathan are the top of NA (besides EG) but everyone else is not nearly the same tier
Honestly I'd put the NA pro scene at at least the level of EU and CIS these days.
Lvt is playing very badly this patch.
I agree with the rest. Sometimes one of the South American teams (either infamous or E wolves) picks it up and plays well.
It's just outside EG most of the teams are pretty even in strength and aren't very consistent, but that goes for a lot of other regions as well once you look past the top 2 teams.
The original source 1 barely had any kind of method for browsing replays, but I always liked how you could search for replays with a specific hero in it. More precisely, it's how I got to play Chen - search for replays with Chen to see how he's played at a very high skill pub level, then go through the replays one by one until you find what seems to be a well fought battle involving Chen. It was actually kind of arduous - tons of stilllbirth games with an abandon at the start, a fair bit of stomps too - but it did the job and could be improved with more filters.
In Reborn? You can set specific hero filters for live games but strangely replays only have an esports tab, a friends tab (@Drake's wonderful adventures with Luna!) and a search by match ID probably meant to go with Dotabuff. It feels like a placeholder, an afterthought Valve hopes nobody cares about so they won't have to retouch it. And of course I can't use it to look for Chen replays.
e: can is not can't
And on those days, everyone else picks carry. Or maybe it's all days, and me picking support all the time just makes things work out. The point is, playing DOTA is like playing team games with a team full of That One Friend - the one who's so completely self-absorbed that he ALWAYS picks the flashiest role and never even thinks that it might be some other friend's turn. You either play ball or everyone loses the ball game.
In good news though, I had a great Visage game that really showed me the fun of the hero and why I need to play Visage more to enjoy him. Some games you have a good game where you know you still haven't even tapped 10% of a hero's potential. It's a great feeling.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
I fucking hate Arc Warden. Everyone was telling the apocalyptic scenarios of the double midas double necronomicon split pusher of doom, and that's fine, other than he gets necro 3 way too early and I kill myself on it.
But the fucking divine rapiers.
You know, I thought the entire point of the rapiers was being a high risk high reward item you got because you got confident and wanted to taunt/deal a decisive blow to scrub enemies, or when you're way behind with nothing to lose so you gamble the entire game on one final stand, or for whatever reason, really. Of course you've got heroes which utilise said item more effectively than others - looking at you, Ember Spirit - but in every case the game takes a new meaning once a rapier is in play. Now there's excitement, now there's danger, the game has now become cool.
Unless you're Arc Warden, then throw everything I said out of the window and replace it with dull. I don't blame players for doing it : it obviously works, and at nearly all levels of skills. It's the entire philosophy clash that irks me the most: a rapier on Arc Warden dooms him as the safest, most boring hero in a long while. Stay in your fountain, create a clone, send your clone to push with single midas single necronomicon, repeat until you win or lose, above all do not exit the fountain unless you have a really fucking good reason to do so (like a base race). And if anyone tries to stop you, eh, big deal. they're getting nothing out of it, risk getting murdered for their trouble, and your double is back up in a minute anyway. Just push that lane while you're comfortable in your fountain.
And Riot devs thought they knew what anti-fun was. Oh, the poor saps.
Oh god look at all this ramble. tl;dr I wouldn't be surprised if Arc Warden got hit by changes in 6.87.
IN HAPPIER NEWS THOUGH
I am finally getting the hang of Winter Wyvern. Other than having to explain to my carry "bro they're invincible when I ult them" and being slow as molasses, I get to finally win with her, and that pleases me to no end.
I've run into this about 10 times now (out of 12 games with a NP on my team) and it has never, ever worked. Our team gets slaughtered. 25 minute mark and he's still there planted on the jungle camp. Team fights he could have easily teleported to and picked up a triple kill but nope gotta keep farming those 2 camps. Pushing lanes? As NP? That's absurd!
I played a Ranked game against a (probably smurf) NP who cliff jungled to rush-Rapier. We killed him and took it. My team did not push off that. We lost the Rapier. One of their supports picked it up. NP bought another rapier, and lost it again. We played a game of musical rapiers for another ten minutes before he bought his final rapier and ended the game.
But it was a fun game and the rapier did make it memorable.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
It's kind of dumb it isn't treated like an illusion for that exact reason. At least then you could draft or buy an item to deal with it. I will say though that the little dude hits like a wet noodle until he's got a couple of high tier items, and even then still hits like a wet noodle unless you've got a rapier. His cool downs are long too, I think you just have to focus on rushing him down early and/or invading his jungle.
Finished catching up on MDL this weekend. Not sure where this EHOME has been but they were playing so good as to be unaffected by even targeted bans. I will say though that Lone Druid is far too strong, even against targeted drafts, early deaths, and repeated bear kills, the hero still seemed to find 600 gpm averages with ease. I feel like the bear respawn spell needs a longer CD, although shit..it's already at 120 sec...
1k gpm.
Pretty damn happy about that.