As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
DotA! Penny-Arcaders Unite!
histronic
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This thread is for those of us who play the fantastic Warcraft 3 mod that is DotA! You can post strategies, thoughts on your favorite/least favorite heroes, what you think of updates, etc. Also, PM me your battle.net ID's and I'll add them to the thread so we can all befriend each other and play together sometime.
PA1 is the channel we will be hanging out in when we are on.
Also, does anyone know where I can get a good banlist/auto refresh program? I tried banlist.nl but it wouldn't work for me (couldn't detect my NIC).
Battle.net Nicknames
histronic - hyperhist (U.S. East)
Mr Blonde - hatethe405
Battle Jesus - Aarnog (U.S. East)
Sebbie - Gazillion (U.S. East)
Fleck0 - Fleck0 (U.S. West)
chasehatesbears - chasehatesbears (U.S. East)
kingkhan - kingkhan
Page - good.times or krob.times (U.S. East)
iusehappymod - iusehappymod (U.S. East)
kime - kime (U.S. East)
PILL - P1LL (U.S. East)
CSeraph - cseraph (U.S. East)
Capuano - Capuano (U.S. East)
Docshifty - Docshifty (U.S. East) or RunsOnDudePower (U.S. West)
Drakmathus - Drakmathus (U.S. East)
Valiance - valiance. (U.S. East)
TheBog - FeIdspar (U.S. East)
Zen Vulgarity - AnotherRedShirt (U.S. East)
Heartlash - Heartlash (U.S. East)
GogoKodo - GogoKodoo (U.S. East)
ThugsBunny - PatCastles (U.S. East)
UrQuanLord - uncle_lothar (U.S. West)
Razeblade - Razeblade (U.S. East)
BlackRedTie - brt
histronic - hyperhist (U.S. East)
Mr Blonde - hatethe405
Battle Jesus - Aarnog (U.S. East)
Sebbie - Gazillion (U.S. East)
Fleck0 - Fleck0 (U.S. West)
chasehatesbears - chasehatesbears (U.S. East)
kingkhan - kingkhan
Page - good.times or krob.times (U.S. East)
iusehappymod - iusehappymod (U.S. East)
kime - kime (U.S. East)
PILL - P1LL (U.S. East)
CSeraph - cseraph (U.S. East)
Capuano - Capuano (U.S. East)
Docshifty - Docshifty (U.S. East) or RunsOnDudePower (U.S. West)
Drakmathus - Drakmathus (U.S. East)
Valiance - valiance. (U.S. East)
TheBog - FeIdspar (U.S. East)
Zen Vulgarity - AnotherRedShirt (U.S. East)
Heartlash - Heartlash (U.S. East)
GogoKodo - GogoKodoo (U.S. East)
ThugsBunny - PatCastles (U.S. East)
UrQuanLord - uncle_lothar (U.S. West)
Razeblade - Razeblade (U.S. East)
BlackRedTie - brt
PA1 is the channel we will be hanging out in when we are on.
Also, does anyone know where I can get a good banlist/auto refresh program? I tried banlist.nl but it wouldn't work for me (couldn't detect my NIC).
WiiU Friend Code: rlinkmanl
PSN: rlinkmanl
PSN: rlinkmanl
histronic on
0
Posts
I didn't think a community could ruin such a fun game.
That said, I'd love to play with some PAers if I can find my disks/keys.
Ah fucking finally were full.
*5 seconds pass*
WTF we haven't started yet?
User Blahblahblah 1 has left.
User Blahblahblah 2 has left.
User Blahblahblah 3 has left.
User Blahblahblah 4 has left.
User Blahblahblah 5 has left.
PSN: ChemENGR
Plus the new characters are ridiculous.
10% of finding a game that actually starts.
30-60 seconds into that game, someone is going to fuck up and die.
Said person will quit the game.
1-2 additional people on the quitters team will also quit, because they think they're at a disadvantage.
1-2 people will see that they've now lost half their team, and see no point in playing anymore, and quit.
This is why I stopped playing DotA.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
DOTA is not great when you hit public games and expect anywhere near the same experience >:
Battle.net: Fireflash#1425
Steam Friend code: 45386507
My favourite characters:
- Zeus
- Silent Assassin
- Bounty Hunter
- Vengeful Spirit
- Avernus
- Sniper
- Techies
- Drow
They are all pretty classic heroes. I've tried branching into other characters but I just never end up having as much fun as with these guys. I'm an APEM player, I don't like having to stick with a hero I don't like in the case of AR games and I don't have the time to play AP games (heck, even APEM games last a good hour).
Edit: Damn how could I forget that I'm awesome with Demon Witch. A lot of people find him cheap because his ult is a one shot kill when you first get it but he's so much better than just that. I was soloing a lane against Omniknight and Axe and I got a double kill on them. It is my proudest DotA moment EVAR
I can play any carry hero, but I'm trying to master a supporting role now. So for now, I really enjoy playing as tide, slardar, atropos, rhasta, and tree. I do not play heroes that require micro (meepo for instance).
And I'm so so so sorry but:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OzWIFX8M-Y
I love the new -switch feature as well! It is a great way to make pub games last longer when an idiot leaves at the beginning. Also banlist is nice in stopping this from happening as well.
I'm trying to get better at micro-ing so I've been playing with Chen, Meepo, and Techies a lot lately. Still getting used to it but sometimes when I do combos just right and get double/triple kills I feel so good.
So anymore battle.net nicknames so we can hopefully set up some games in the future?
PSN: rlinkmanl
Plus, learning all of the new heroes is really intimidating
You should try Avernus if you want to play support. He's pretty good on his own but when you're playing his to support (shield, heals) he is godly.
Anyways, I don't really think the banlist does anything. Plus, you always get power hungry hosts that will ban you when you kill them for the 10th time. Unless they've changed the banlists mechanics recently and I am not aware.
My alias is Gazillion on US east.
Now to find my discs...
Starcraft 2: jawaka.947
As a new player I would strongly recommend that you read a few beginners guides on the official dota forums. They have a few good ones and they will help you. The thing is, dota's learning curve can be pretty steep and since you can't really practice without actually joining a game you will find out that the community is complete shit from the get-go. So just bite the bullet and go through the thrown insults for the first few games (until you get the hang of it) and you'll find a really fun game.
The way I started playing was by picking one character and overplaying him so I knew his strategy really well. This allowed me to understand my role in the team, which items to get, etc... Once that's done I also learned what other heroes do and which one I should gank/harass/or just plain runaway from.
PSN: rlinkmanl
ardm best mode np np lol
ps: Watching competetive DotA replays is pretty good for learning strats/tactics, even if a lot of it doesn't really apply in public games due to wildly differing but generally low level of skill and lack of teamplay.
pps: phaseboots imba lol
I am honestly suprised it wasn't untill post #13 for this to come up...
That's not what you guys do all day?
I read that all the clubs in Sweden are basically massive LAN parties/orgies.
That's what their tourist board says.
Sweden: Come for the LAN parties, stay for the ORGIES!
That's hard to say no to.
If you're just starting out, your best bet is to pick a strength hero, or a hero with an excellent escape mechanism, or both. This makes your hero a lot harder to kill, and saves you a lot of frustration at constantly dying. Rooftrellen is a great hero for this. Not only does he have a lot of health, but he gives up to +12 armor with one of his abilities (which usually leads to a 50+% damage reduction), and he has an ability that lets him turn invisible, so he can usually escape without dying.
There are two important things to learn in DotA: what the heroes can do, and what the items do. If you have a friend to play with it makes it a LOT easier, because they'll already know and can prepare you
For items, well, know how to work a recipe (buy all the parts, THEN buy the recipe), and build items to your character's strenghts. For instance, I am a stats-guy for the most part. If I have a strength hero, I try to get as much strength on him as possible, if I have an agi, as much agi as possible, etc. Secondary to that comes abilities.
Examples: if I am playing sniper, he is severly lacking in movespeed, so it is difficult for him to escape, so I usually go for a Lothars. That way when the enemy gets close to kill me, I hit the ability, turn invisible and bugger off.
Example 2 (significantly more complicated): Say I'm playing Leoric. His abilities are as follows: Stun (140 mana), lifesteal aura for melee, critical strike, resurrection. I want to maximize the potential for his abilities, so I usually go for Power treads right off the bat (actually, 98% of the time power treads are the first item I buy, because they are so retardedly useful), which gives him +10 strength, 30% attack speed and +55 (or is it 65?) movespeed. Then, I usually get a bracer or two to give him a little more strength, and a little bit more mana (so you can use your stun more than once without sacrificing your ult). From here it can go two ways. If I'm being really aggressive and needing to use my stun a lot, I will go for a battle fury first, because it gives +60 damage (which means every hit, you regain an additional 15hp with your lifesteal aura), and +150% mana regen, and +6 hp/s regen. So you are able to stun more, without risking your ultimate, and you get more lifesteal. If I am using my attack damage more than anything, I will get a helm of the dominator before I get a battle fury (helm of the dominator gives an additional 15% lifesteal and +20 damage, for a total of 35% lifesteal). I also like to get a Vladimir's offering in there, too, for an additional 16% lifesteal, and 16% damage increase. I usually get that after I get the battle fury, though, so the damage increase given by the Vladimir's offering is boosted even further. After I've finished the bfury, vlads, and helm of the dominator, I usually turn my helm of the dominator into a Satanic, which ends up giving me a wad of strength (hitpoints and damage!), and 56% lifesteal (which means that you are regenerating probably 80-90 hitpoints every time you attack). If the game is still going by this point, you can further amplify Leo by getting either a hyperstone (to attack much, much faster), or a Sange and Yasha (attack faster, move faster, and get some strength and damage in there).
Those are really just to give you basic ideas with heroes, and I can guarantee people here have completely different builds for Leoric. It really is a matter of personal preference, and what your playstyle is like.
Another tip for new people: PLAY CONSERVATIVELY. Aggression and greed make you die, a lot. If there is any doubt in your mind about whether you will be able to kill someone, then don't go for it, because it will very likely backfire. Until you learn the flow of the game, and have a general feel for when it's a good idea to be aggressive, and when it's a bad idea, just don't be aggressive. It'll save you a lot of headache.
Then there's last hitting/denying creeps. That's pretty important if you want gold (and want to deny your opponents gold - which you do!). It's useful to have health bars on all the time in order to do this.
Other useful tips: If an enemy (particularly melee heroes) come within attack range, especially if you're a ranged hero, attack them once or twice, then back up a little bit. The creeps will come to you for attacking their hero, and for a good chunk of the game you don't want them hammering away on you, because you need the health, so by backing up you cause the creeps to attack your creep wave instead of you. Repeat this as often as you possibly can - if you can get a hero's health low enough this way, killing them gets ridiculously easy.
There are two secret shops on each side of the river, know where they are (look up a map on google).
when a hero has disappeared from your line of sight for more than 5 seconds, particularly in the first 15-20 minutes of the game, call them missing, because it's likely they've gone to gank.
Communicate with your teammates. Make plans with them (eg: at level 3, we start nuking the hell out of hero X, or "get hero x now" are the most common ones I use). It makes coordination a lot easier, and in spite of what you will hear almost EVERY time 3 or more of your teammates gang up on one hero to kill them, you are not a "bunch of noobs" for doing that. It's a team game. You're doing exactly what you're supposed to do.
The community are a bunch of douchebags, so any time a DotA player ever says anything, you are pretty well justified in disregarding it.
That's all I can think of. I need to get going to class now. I'll probably be on later.
don't think this game is anywhere near balanced
it's hella fun, but there are heroes that are simply awesomesauce (lion, bloodseeker, drow) and heroes that are just fucking worthless (i am looking at you dark seer)
the other thing i would recommend is actually DON'T take a melee hero starting out; ranged heroes have a huge advantage in DotA, especially ranged Agi heroes, so if you're playing all pick, i recommend a character like Drow, because she's absolutely retarded good and probably the easiest hero to play because she doesn't have any fancy tricks - she puts out great damage and has a slow effect, which is just plain awesome.
however if you really like melee, take a hero with invisibility of some kind. rikimaru or bounty hunter are both very good beginner heroes for their ability to move about the map freely.
Not pointing directly at your reply but a lot of players see a character and think they'll counter it a specific way right off the bat. The thing is, characters can be played very differently depending on the player so you can't always counter the same way. That being said the game is very well balanced because any style of play can be countered. It's a hell of hard game to play as Stealth Assassin if the opposing team decides to get a gem or plop some wards because he doesn't have that much HP.
and yes they exist
they are called outliers
i am damn good at dota. i can play any hero in this game, and i can tell you for a fact dark seer is fucking terrible.
as for it being hard for riki if they get a gem or wards? just swap lanes. if they all invest in wards and gems? waste of money.
i've been playing dota for a long time, and it's a totally awesome game, but icefrog is absolutely terrible at balancing.
I've played all the characters and I'm pretty good with most all of them (save the micro and some casters). I used to play TDA and occasionally DXD so I'm no slouch.
I hate Avernus' new auto heal ult, it's too imba. The old way was much better and required skill.
edit regarding banlist: Banlist went down so there are no lists anymore (unless you were sharing with someone, but I don't think that works anymore). So if somebody bans you, then you're just on their local list. I ban leavers just so I don't have to play with them and it's also good to know when a host is a lagger so you don't play with that host. Banlist doesn't kick, that is a separate program.
amen brother
I saw a retreating dark seer summon max necro creeps, ion shell one of them and then vacuum the creeps and the half health guy that was chasing them onto a ledge. No escape for the poor sap. That was massive skill.
Suggestion if your playing on USEast: Play TDA. Basically same as public games, but significantly less leavers due to running a safelist, so you cant quit just re-make a new account every tiem you get banned. Dosnt really do much for half the players being douchebags, and you wanna have a decent idea of how to play from pubs first, because most people making the effort to play tda are at least somewhat serious abotu dota, so they tend to be a bit less suck. Info for it can be found on the official doters forums at http://www.dota-allstars.com
Also, anyone whos interested in playing, I will undoubtedly be on a bunch this weekend while I am home on a non-suck net connection. BNET name is same as PA name.
Unless someone has a battle fury.
Also, I don't think it's the fact that the game is imbalanced, so much as the fact that no one ever seems to pick to counter, they just pick to play their favorite heroes.
Speaking of balance - WHY DID THEY BUFF VENOMANCER? He was retardedly good before, and now he's just ridiculous.
You can't be that good.
I mean, you're calling drow and bloodseeker imba, when the high level consensus is that they're pretty terribad. Hell, even dark seer has seen some league play (and won) now that people have been picking less mass AoE and more gankers, since in push strats his ulti is pretty "lol gg" when it comes to raxing/towering (not to mention Surge being a pretty nice support spell and Vacuum an okay nuke with some pretty cool synergies with other AoE spells). The thing to understand about DotA is that the skill gap between even the experienced pubbers and, say, mid level public league players is absolutely massive.
For newcomers, I'd suggest, when picking a hero, to take a ranged, high HP support hero like Twin Head Dragon (actually it's the only ranged high hp support hero).
He has below average MS and weak armor, but he has a good nuke/slow (and a mediocre but hard to land stun, worthless passive skill a damaging but hard to land ultimate) and an okay but, large mana and hp pool as well as a good attack animation and average damage.
His basic itembuild, thanks to some new items, is pretty easy to farm and fixes what flaws he has as hero fairly quickly: for starters, you buy a chicken (share this with your team mates), 4xGG branch, a flask/tango and clarity potion. Don't let your mana sit at full, use spells whenever you have full mana, as well as when your lanemate decides to go and attack the enemy. Share the chicken with your team mates if they want you to, and use it to bring you more heals, clarities and a Ring of Basillus (remember to turn the aura off until you start pushing and ganking instead of just laning). After that, you should buy boots, bottle, upgrade to phase boots and start assembling Mekansm. When you've got phase boots, RoB and bottle you should probably stop active farming and start ganking other lanes and help your team in pushes.
Your job is to basically help your team mates get kills with your slow/nuke and stun (if you can land it) and try to save them from death by healing them with Mekansm and slowing/stunning people who chase them. Whenever there's a big fight drop your ulti on where the action is and hope for results.
Btw, they buffed venomancer because DoTs are the worst type of damage and in higher level games the old venomancer reached his first peak at level two, then again at six and declined rapidly after that.
ps: the trouble with LoA is that he's really nice support between levels 1-14 and crap after that. Compared to the other melee strenght support hero, Omniknight, he loses out because repel is awesomesauce and well timed Guardian Angel can actually win a teamfight, while Abaddon's ulti mainly ensures that he dies last, which would be pretty useful if he was actually worth attacking.
I stayed to spite them. You can't stand me, so why should I leave?
Whenever people on my team starting acting like assholes, I would just give the other side a few free kills before I quit.
been a while since I played though.
Hamlet will be Hamlet
An ineffable tragedy of the human spirit that still resonates, even today.
Fucking Omniknight. I hate playing against him so damn much. Not many heroes manage to just flat out win games like he does. I play -CM whenever possible just to ban him.
Hamlet will be Hamlet
An ineffable tragedy of the human spirit that still resonates, even today.
Also, I much, much, MUCH prefer arcane on jakiro, provided you get it quite early in the game. Constantly nuking from level 4-5 onwards is so much fun. Now that I think about it, I like an arcane ring on a lot of heroes - techies, krob (who, by the way, is far too strong), tiny, omni, lucifer, etc. It's just a great item all around, and it's only 1600 gold, so it's pretty easy to farm.
edit: I miss old naix. He was so broken, but so much fun.