DOTA2

[Falconeer]

Side irrelevant note for those who are curious: s4 (from Alliance) won the solo Championship, beating iceiceice, Arteezy and then Ferrari 430 in the final.

[Thrawn]

No, evil definitely triumphed this year, VG and Newbee are the two least likable teams from by far the least likable region. On the flipside it sure was a treat seeing Alliance completely choke on dick. Fuck those guys. Such a better tournament without them.

I would have had no problem with Alliance in the finals, but then again Nature's Prophet is also my most played hero sooooo....

Although even I got bored by that Naga Radiance split push game vs NaVi.

[Fordel]

Side irrelevant note for those who are curious: s4 (from Alliance) won the solo Championship, beating iceiceice, Arteezy and then Ferrari 430 in the final.

This isn't really surprising, s4 is an extremely good player. There was a time span where giving s4 batrider was an autowin for A.

[Johny Cee]

I really dislike all kinds of nationalism and I don't want to feed the anti-China sentiment, but looks like Newbee are the biggest assholes in the whole tournament. Turns out Banana and Hao have been very vocal against team IG (at the time) for allowing non-Chinese players (Mushi and iceiceice) into their ranks because CHINA IS THE BEST AND SHOULDN'T RELY ON FOREIGNERS, but they went further. According to this video (skip to 0:50, but the taunting goes on and off through the whole game and especially the final part), they have been openly taunting them in a live game and while I cannot testify for what is being said or if there are other reasons unknown to us, I think it's safe to say that I'd be happy if these guys fell into a pool of guano with their mouth open. Instead, they beat everyone and walked home with 5M and their fuckin China Pride bullshit intact.

Meh.  This has been discussed in other places and it's been really difficult to tell how much of this is exaggerated typical internet behavior since teams like DK are really popular, so fans tend to blow things out of proportion.  Especially since these are pretty young kids.  YES, asshole internet behavior is awful and should be eliminated.  I just have a problem taking Newbee to task over it (and we aren't 100% how much is exagerated, how much is serious, how much is stupid douche behavior but not egregious asshole at the game of life behavior) when so many others get a free pass on things that are really pretty awful.  

For instance:
- Pegasus/Demon/Jimmy on Liquid is well-known dick.  Mostly gets excused as "oh, Jimmy is being Jimmy"
- RTZ is another guy who just is kind of douche.  Recently, on his stream, someone linked him to one of the "hot chicks play dota/video games and cosplay"-type streams.  Lead his stream followers over to her channel, then asked if he could get some shots of her thong.  He got banned, so his stream basically went ape-shit on the lady including freeze framing and blowing up shots from the video of her underwear and posting it around and all the usually wonderful internet behavior towards women.  RTZ did try to control the matter after the fact, and one of his mods took the fall for the bulk of it, but it smacks of damage control after he incited the incident in the first place.
- Tobi (caster) has had a couple really, really bad incidents including some creepy behavior with women and using a racial expletive.
- Many pros do the whole talking bad about Brazillians/Russians/other country de jour....  like all the time.

Also, how much of it is typical teen/early 20s backlash to the kind of hate they have been getting from Western fans over the years?  Chinese teams have been demonized a bit in the West, and that was even a prevalent complaint about the Free to Play documentary in that the Chinese teams were presented as kind of a monolithic block/ the Other.
___________
I'm not saying that shit is right.  I'm just saying, when most of your Pro community acts like giant douchenozzles (because young, and grew up in internet no-hold-barred community combined with internet problems with racism, sexism, and sexual orientation) making a giant stink about this incident (which we don't even have great details on) is kind of ridiculous.  Hard to brand them scum of the earth when their behavior is pretty on-par with everyone elses.

People should call out ALL the shitty behavior.  


There is a good reason why I don't follow Pro Dota, and I don't watch any of the streams of pro players.  Mostly just stick to Purge, Blitz, and Merlini if I watch a stream which isn't that often.

Also, as you said, there are alot of Western people looking for an excuse not to like two Chinese teams in the Grand Final.  

[Falconeer]

People should call out ALL the shitty behavior.  

I am not disagreeing with anything you wrote. In fact, I agree with what you said. Just wanted to add, in reference to your quote, that I am known around here to do exactly that: I call out ALL shitty behaviour and usually get mocked for it. In short, I wasn't linking that suff about Hao and Banana because they are the only bad people (if they are), but just because they won and so their shitty behaviour was connected to the topic at hand: the International. But again, I agree with you.

[Johny Cee]

People should call out ALL the shitty behavior.  

I am not disagreeing with anything you wrote. In fact, I agree with what you said. Just wanted to add, in reference to your quote, that I am known around here to do exactly that: I call out ALL shitty behaviour and usually get mocked for it. In short, I wasn't linking that suff about Hao and Banana because they are the only bad people (if they are), but just because they won and so their shitty behaviour was connected to the topic at hand: the International. But again, I agree with you.

1. It's a context thing, mostly.  The "in" thing to do, even before the Grand Final, was to call out specifically Newbee for poor behavior basically as soon as they started winning and beating people's favorite teams.  It really feels like people were looking for a reason to shit all over Newbee, and this is what they went with.

2. Newbee's purported behavior doesn't occur in a vacuum.  There is a ton of shit flung by other nationalities about the Chinese (and the Russians, and the Brazillians, etc.) which then leads to reactions and reactionary behavior.  Just holding their actions up for criticism both misses those interactions and excuses what is generally accepted behavior by others.

Of course, on the flip side, there is some of the same shit flung at Americans.  Fuck, I'm sure some Asian players have gotten in trouble for intimating that Americans underperform because they are lazy.

3. Intent matters.  Alot of it was around Newbee/DK, supposedly, and I can't imagine that many Chinese teams were too thrilled with DK for cherry-picking talent and organizing a dream team (not to mention there was reportedly some bad behavior by DK towards the other Chinese teams).  Specifically, that Newbee organized a boycott of scrimming with DK over the presence of two SEA folks on the team.  Some of what is attributed to nationalism/racism may just be anger at that, or picking the SEA thing to harp on as the lowest common denominator insult. 

Basically, how much of it was die-hard racist and how much of it was typical internet-kid spewing the worst shit they can think of?



Summary:

Yah, I get your point Falc, and I appreciate that you're willing to call everyone on their bad behavior.  Just kind of want to detail why this instance has been a bit suspect...  especially in light of the prevalent ethnocentrism and casual racism that gets tossed around in any kind of online game.

Are Newbee shitty people?  Probably.  Most of the pros are shitty people...  it comes with being ultra-competitive, young, and growing up on the internet.  I just get frustrated that every now and then one example or group is taken to task for their behavior while not mentioning the GIANT problem online games have.  And usually the people really pushing it have pretty petty ulterior motives (Newbee beat DK?? THEYRE RACISTS!1!)

[Ingmar]

Basically, how much of it was die-hard racist and how much of it was typical internet-kid spewing the worst shit they can think of?

I don't think it actually matters. These types of transgressions - meaning when it's purely verbal abuse type stuff - are not really about intent, but about the effect that they have on the people who hear them, whether that's someone who is hurt by it or someone who comes away with the impression that that sort of shit is OK.

[Johny Cee]

Basically, how much of it was die-hard racist and how much of it was typical internet-kid spewing the worst shit they can think of?

I don't think it actually matters. These types of transgressions - meaning when it's purely verbal abuse type stuff - are not really about intent, but about the effect that they have on the people who hear them, whether that's someone who is hurt by it or someone who comes away with the impression that that sort of shit is OK.

It matters in the context of "Are Newbee awful racists and the scum of the earth?" which was the topic of discussion.  Not that we would know that because you decided to quote a single line from both of my fairly lengthy posts.

Even better, by stripping out that single line it makes it look like I condone ethnocentric bullshit as long as they don't really mean it!  You know, despite the fact that I was saying that the entire professional Dota community (and the online community in general) has serious problems with asshole behavior and shitty casual racism (and sexism, and etc.) that they get a pass on.

Rather than demonizing one team, we should point out that a large portion of the players/teams have real issues here and call them all out on it. 

[Ingmar]

FWIW, I wasn't accusing you of anything. That point just stood out to me, and I used it as a springboard to make a point I wanted to make about these kinds of discussions.

[bhodi]

When talking about maturity, racism, trash talking, and all the other horrible things about the community, remember that all the people in pro dota are in their early 20s or even younger. That doesn't excuse them, but it does put it in some context.

I'm personally disappointed at the Newbee win, but mostly because the head of the team is the son of a billionaire, financed the group himself, and so the prize money means nothing to him or his team.

This is really worth a watch, btw, about the level 1 rosh - if you weren't aware, sound bleed is kind of a uh, "known issue". In TI4, valve took out the audio for rosh's slam to try and mitigate it, but there's honestly not much you can do when both players on the same stage.. I think it was nerves; the pressure really makes you do funny things, where you think playing consistently and executing well just isn't going to be enough and you have to do something crazy. The lineup screamed rosh and I'm not surprised at all that they got scouted out.

The thing about navi in that video was really interesting though. I almost want to go back and watch and see if I can guess where it was happening.

[Rasix]

When talking about maturity, racism, trash talking, and all the other horrible things about the community, remember that all the people in pro dota are in their early 20s or even younger. That doesn't excuse them, but it does put it in some context.

This is where perhaps Valve can take more ownership of their pro scene. Riot has given significant bans and fines to players for being toxic shitheels.   This isn't saying LoL has a less toxic player base as a result (both communities are really shitty), but they hold their pros/celebs to a higher standard. 

[Johny Cee]

When talking about maturity, racism, trash talking, and all the other horrible things about the community, remember that all the people in pro dota are in their early 20s or even younger. That doesn't excuse them, but it does put it in some context.

This is where perhaps Valve can take more ownership of their pro scene. Riot has given significant bans and fines to players for being toxic shitheels.   This isn't saying LoL has a less toxic player base as a result (both communities are really shitty), but they hold their pros/celebs to a higher standard. 

I think it's more difficult with Dota since it's more decentralized.  LoL pros are really employees of the company, with the salaries and what not, and aren't the big tournaments run directly by Riot?  Valve only runs the game and one big tourney, while providing a shitload of tools so that everyone else can run tourneys and design cosmetics and all that.  Valve just seems really hands off in general.

That being said, banning pros from TI for shitty behavior would be delicious!

[Rasix]

EU and NA pros are employees, that is correct.  However, they've banned high elo/challenger level players that weren't currently on a team.  There's a particular European player that would probably be on a team right now but he can't stop from being a raging douchebag in solo queue games.  I think he's currently on his 3rd permaban. 

They have less control over the Korean/China/SEA geos, since they run their own leagues and thus handle their own player policing. 

Hands off does have it's own benefits, I suppose.  League used to have a lot of interesting tournaments every year outside of worlds, where you'd get to see NA/KR/EU/CN teams all competing. Now they just get all-stars and Worlds due to the highly structured and restrictive aspect of the LCS/OGN/Garena.

[Johny Cee]

I am not allowed to play Rubick ever again.  Pulled off the perfect Agh's combo:

Our Void massively whiffs on Chrono, the other team goes in with Tusk and Axe, followed by ES and AM.  With stolen AM blink I blinked in.  Stole ES's just used Echo Slam.  Re-gifted the Echo Slam to 3 players, with Agh's.

Also, sooooo many great spells to steal.  My favorite was Tusk's Walrus Punch, but Blink, Fissue, Echo, etc.  Had NP's teleport for a bit, pulled a tp to enemy fountain to get a kill.


Usually I am the worst Rubick ever, too!

[Brennik]

So, some of you have probably heard of the many WC3 DotA mods people have made over the years (Pudge Wars, Legion TD etc.). Valve launched the DotA 2 Workshop tools alpha yesterday, meaning modders get proper access under the hood. The bigger news is that it's not just the tools, it's Source 2 engine alpha packaged to run DotA 2. Expect great things.

[Thrawn]

Expect great things.

The two suggestions I'd most like to see done are a full 1 to 1 League of Legends mod with all heroes being free and a Warcraft RTS mod to bring everything full circle. 

[K9]

That'd be brilliant

[bhodi]

Someone in china already did league of legends and was streaming it.

 

[Johny Cee]

Had a two rapier game today:

Other team pick all farming heroes.  We had a more balanced lineup with a carry and two semis plus two support/semicarries.  Their SF wrecks our mid WR, goes Rapier.  We had been pushing them around the map but SF 2-3 shotting everyone makes things difficult.  We killed him before he finished Rapier #2, put it on AM. 

Then begins the long battle of throws and almost-throws.  Traded Rapiers back and forth a few times.  We are pushing their last rax.  Big team fight, bad initiation and good chrono from them, and we have a near two team wipe with just one friendly up. Our WR,  the only guy left alive, burns his Windrun to run away from the rapiers lying on the ground when their Sniper buys back.  Our team goes apeshit, and he runs back to rapiers now that Sniper is there and our WR dies leaving the sniper two rapiers.

The enemy team dwaddles and is late pushing our ancient, we manage to kill 4 including Sniper with both Rapiers.  Turn around and push for the win.


Fucking crazy.  The enemy was a stack and they were all asking us to Report SF for buying the rapiers in the first place. 

[cmlancas]

This post is the reason people still play this game.  I am having more and more fun trying to find a way to get people to be nice to each other.  It's like Diplomacy DotA2!

[cmlancas]

Back to back posts, because  .

Techies is out today.  http://www.dota2.com/techies/

This is the best day.  Troll DotA is best DotA.

[Thrawn]

Seems like a good time to take a break from DotA for a week or two.

[Fordel]

Dreamhack Moscow, Russian Doto is the best Doto. 


The games between VP and NVMI are super clowny in the most enjoyable way. These long stretched out messy team fights that last for minutes and minutes because retreating is for pussies!

[Brennik]

Patch 6.82 went up on the test server yesterday, official patch notes at http://www.dota2.com/rekindlingsoul/. Big map changes, Roshan pit moved and the surrounding area molded. Nerfs on the top picked heroes as expected, Bloodseeker and Phantom Lancer got complete skill overhauls (and bumped out of CM) and more. Merlini's patch analysis has most of the important stuff I think.

[Johny Cee]

Lot of minor hero tweaks up and down, mostly, besides the big Bloodseeker and PL changes.  

Also, Riki's invis is now a basic ability but he lost a shitton of base damage (10!!)  Tried it in a bot game and he has 40 base damage now.  He seems even more shitty, but likely will still pub stomp in low skill queues.  I mean, it's really really hard to last hit with 40 base and he has no damaging abilities so his kill potential is kinda low without items so ganking is going to be an issue even with a smoke cloud and the 275 gold poison item I can't remember right now.

Another major change is TWO runes every two minutes, one of which is a bounty rune that basically gives you a last hit's worth of gold/xp.  There will be bottles everywhere now, maybe even on supports, and rune control becomes both more important and easier for your mid to get a rune.  Bottle is now more expensive and bottle crowing has been nerfed.

Edit:

Oh yeah, Chen with Agh's can now take over ancient creeps. He can have one per level of his ulti.  So Chen with scepter can now be running around with 3 Ancients to ruin your day!

Edit 2:

Mek change is really big.  Cost to use goes to 250, which means that all the tanky heroes that used to farm a quick mek (razor, viper, bristle, etc.) won't do to mana problems.  It pretty much has to go on either an int core (silencer, OD, etc.) or on a support with arcane boots.

[Fordel]

Riki is going to be Slark levels of pub stomp now, the way blink strike works is just evil against anything squishy.


Treant Protectors Aghs is funny, in that it's how Treant worked many versions ago.  


-edit-
Also I think a lot of those heroes that used to use mek will use the new item now, it's apparently zero mana.

[Thrawn]

Also I think a lot of those heroes that used to use mek will use the new item now, it's apparently zero mana.

Yeah, on Doom, Bristle and other low mana heroes that Mek could fit well on the mana cost increase is going to be a big deal and really make the new item appealing.

[Johny Cee]

Riki is going to be Slark levels of pub stomp now, the way blink strike works is just evil against anything squishy.

I'm not really sure.

Slark is pub stompy because he is actually a caster early game that transitions into a good right-clicker.  From 7-11 he deals really good damage with Pounce/Dark Pact, and his ulti gives him staying power to hang around for another round of Pounce/Dark Pact.  He doesn't really need farm to be effective.  Slark just needs xp.  Slark was my go to off-laner pick for a long time.

Riki's damage is really bad now and he doesn't have any damaging abilities besides his ult, which is low damage.  In low skill games, people will run from him which will give him backstab damage.  But he has really poor damage and needs some items to be effective, which he now has much more trouble getting. 

I mean...  his base damage is now 40.  Even with a quelling blade its tough getting those last hits in a safe lane if you are contested at all (considering you can't get a stout and quelling unless you completely forgo any other starting item but tangos).  I hate getting quelling, and 95% of the time you should have a stout or a ring of protection, but holy shit is it tough for a farming melee with damage that low.

Permanent invis is still really good.  And if he manages to farm up a Diffusal in a reasonable time he will roam and shit on supports/squishies.  Some folks were throwing around that you could play him as an off-laner like Bounty, go Orb of Venom/Boots, then go ganking with invis and smoke cloud but I'm not sure he brings enough to ganks to guarantee kills and he doesn't have Track which makes BH ganks so lovely.

-edit-
Also I think a lot of those heroes that used to use mek will use the new item now, it's apparently zero mana.

The new item is kinda underwhelming.  Just basically slaps a buckler on a vanguard.  It's awesome on Bristle or Undying, who just need to stay alive and who still build vanguard, but otherwise....  maybe on Alch or new PL?  Both those guys need the hp and PL now needs some health regen, and Vlad's seems shitty since his illusions are pretty low damage and spawn like crazy anyway.

The big nerf this hits, along with a bunch of other minor nerfs, is "deathball" push strats that we saw in TI4.  No longer is a tanky mid going to be able to have a mek online in 9 minutes to back up his team in pushing down all the lanes.  The Glyph reset each time a tier 1 goes down is going to slow that down even more.


Played a couple games with new PL, and he is actually really fun.  He's more like the Agi version of CK now, and you can really mess up people.

[Brennik]

That was fast, patch is live now. Today's games are going to be hilarious, I assume.

[Fordel]

I love Aghs on Treant, but I'll be damned if I know how to get that much farm on the tree. Going to want mana boots, then probably a blink and now an aghs... while still probably being support in most games.


Also the bots use your cosmetics now, that's cute 

[Johny Cee]

Whoops!

Crimson Guard activated blocks 50 damage per instance of damage for the 8 seconds it's up, so it is basically a Buckler buff plus a slightly buffed Vanguard passive for your team.  I thought it just blocked 50 damage total so that it was terrible.  Makes it a great item on a tanky initiator-type.  Bristle, Undying, probably even Centaur.  Some other heroes also might build Vanguard if things are going less than well (a Dark Seer having a meh game, if he doesn't go mek, for instance) so it gives a clear upgrade path.


Forgot about the CM buffs!  I like playing support CM, and Frostbite buff is pretty good.  Can now reliably neutral easier, and deals out a shitload more single target damage in early ganks.  If they would just fix her GODAWFUL FUCKING MOVESPEED AND ATTACK ANIMATION.

Also, no one has mentioned Void nerfs?  Really good, balanced nerfs to Void's chrono, which was his most broken spell.  Now evasion characters and pretty well farmed carries won't just get blown up in chrono.  I had just been picking Silencer and mashing global silence whenever bad Voids jump in to chrono and hoping my team could fuck him up.  It keeps him down in early/mid game if he doesn't go fast BKB.

[Fordel]

That whole right side of the map now, I don't know whats happening. I was trying to explore it a bit in some bot games, and there's like, a rune spot above roshan that covers dires tier 1 off lane area.


I really wish I was better at farming on Treant to get an Aghs while it was still relevant. I need to git gud or something. 

[Johny Cee]

That whole right side of the map now, I don't know whats happening. I was trying to explore it a bit in some bot games, and there's like, a rune spot above roshan that covers dires tier 1 off lane area.


I really wish I was better at farming on Treant to get an Aghs while it was still relevant. I need to git gud or something. 

Previously, Dire had an advantage.  Roshan pit was better covered from their side, and also Dire ancients were close to the off-lane tier 1 tower which meant that lots of different Dire off-laners could soak xp and also stack/gradually do the ancient camp.  For instance, Beastmaster could axe the ancients from the tower, causing them to stack and dealing damage.  Or tide could run over and stack then go back to soaking xp until level 7/8 when he could solo the large ancient stack and accelerate his farm and xp.

Basically not too much of a concern for non-pro matches, but it gave a definite advantage to Dire. 

Bigger concern is the new juke paths and approach paths around tier 1 towers.  Should make both juking and ganking easier in early game as supports can now try sneaking right up on top of enemy heroes, but now there are more ways to fog opponents.

[Fordel]

I haven't seen them all, but every ESL game I've seen so far has been entertaining. New patch has done wonders for making the game exciting again, instead of one sided and static.

http://www.twitch.tv/esltv_dota/profile/past_broadcasts

[Thrawn]

I haven't seen them all, but every ESL game I've seen so far has been entertaining. New patch has done wonders for making the game exciting again, instead of one sided and static.

http://www.twitch.tv/esltv_dota/profile/past_broadcasts

Out of my last dozen or so games only a small handful have felt like one sided stomps.  Many more comebacks and close games where it felt like "next team to get wiped loses" since the patch.