DOTA2

[Rasix]

The worst is starting off watching and trying to follow Tobi.  Guy just speaks screams in acronyms.  KOTL QUOP BKB MKB RAX GG! Ayesee and LD/Lumi are a lot easier on the brain/ears. 

It took me a while watching and playing to be able to follow DOTA2, even after playing a lot of LoL.  The casters don't dumb it down as much as they do for LoL, but that's just Riot having a shorter leash on their brand.  Plus, they're aiming to be more accessible.  Although, it ook me a while to make sense of LoL too, but I had never played a moba before.  The entire genre was just very foreign.  Sure I could see who was winning and what the objectives were, but I couldn't see much more than that.

[Samprimary]

Come dota with me!

steam username Zeal

[Fordel]

Ayesee/Draskyl are easily my favorite casting pair. Ayesee has the big booming radio voice and Draskyl has the game knowledge to keep it all together.

[K9]

timewise I find the biggest difference is that their is no surrender option.

Actually you can surrender in private lobbies, just not in ladder games. If enough people on a team type GG then the throne self-destructs. A decent number of games at TI3 have had surrenders, although DOTA has a lot of capacity for comebacks so there's no equivalent of the 20min surrender like you have in LoL.

I tried to watch this.  Unfortunately you need an understanding of Dota to appreciate anything about it.  Since I have no real knowledge of Dota it was an undecipherable mess.  I have played WC3 and similar games, but that was not enough.  How long until they can bridge that gap?

It does take a while to make sense of it; but I'm finding the more I follow it, the better it gets, and TI3 has become a lot more exciting to watch than SC2 matches for me. I mainly follow Purge's Channel, I think he has a very listenable voice (I hate the over-exaggerated shoutcasty-style) and he makes a real effort to explain how the heroes work, what their abilities do and why different players on a team do certain things. That said, DOTA is full of unintuitive gimmicks (e.g. pulling creep waves, stacking, bottle-crow) that can be confusing until you get a sense of how the meta-game works.

[MrHat]

Come dota with me!

steam username Zeal

4,135 Zeals.

[Trippy]

The worst is starting off watching and trying to follow Tobi.  Guy just speaks screams in acronyms.  KOTL QUOP BKB MKB RAX GG! Ayesee and LD/Lumi are a lot easier on the brain/ears.

Tobi and his partner also don't even bother talking about what's going on in the match at a strategic level.

Edit: they need to fix Ayesee's setup, though. When he's shouting you get an echo cause his mic is picking up the external speakers.

[Viin]

Anyone know of a good transition guide for a LoL player? Looking at some tutorials for DOTA2, it looks pretty much exactly like LoL - any major differences in gameplay?

[Fordel]

http://www.purgegamers.com/welcome-to-dota-you-suck

Think that's still one of the best intros to the game. 

The game itself has a tutorial now that will teach you all the little mechanics, it's well done and cute.

[Fordel]

The Aegis  

-edit-

[Trippy]

Grand championship starting.

[Fordel]

This pause. It's ETERNAL.

[Ceryse]

How did he deny it, anyways? It was never explained beyond 'he just screwed up!'

Still, when Na'Vi plays well.. they are very entertaining to watch; though I doubt they beat Alliance, just based on how well Alliance is playing.

[Fordel]

He was A moving on rosh and managed to click just as rosh died, right onto the aegis.

[Megrim]

Wisp is dildoes.

[Fordel]

So Navi is pretty good at doto still.

[Malakili]

Two heavy weights exchanging major blows in the first two rounds.  Just bonkers and fun to watch!

[Fordel]

Both teams pulling out their dicks in the drafts.

YEA YEA YOU CAN HAVE WHATEVER YOU WANT, WE'LL WIN WITH ANYTHING. 

[Kail]

I completely don't get the strategies here.  

[Azuredream]

From someone who follows LoL: The 'range' of engagement is really crazy. Wisp has some kind of relocate teleport where you can port on top of someone and bring an ally with you for an instant 2v1 gank. Like TF on steroids. Batrider can fly over terrain and use a flash/Blink Dagger to get on top of a hero, then drag them back and use Force Staff to yank them even farther. Like Skarner on steroids. It seems like giving those two heroes to any team at all is an instant GG. The only counter-play I can see is trying to bait the opponent into bad ganks, otherwise you have to play so far back that you'll just get run over because you're so poor and underleveled.

[Fordel]

More or less. You are never safe, not even in the well. It's also why Dendi Pudge is so respected/feared/anticipated. If he can land those hooks, he can do what Batrider does, but every like 10 seconds instead.

There are lineups and playstyles that shut it down though. If you can remove the wisp's vision and/or targets, it turns into a ranged creep. If you just pick a 5 man push lineup, there's nothing to gank and you makeup the difference in early towers. Earlier in the tourney, the first Bo3 between A and Navi, you can see A just make Navi's wisp a non-factor.


-edit-

Batrider has been picked/banned in every single game of the tourney I believe.

[Trippy]

That bear

(Yeah I know it has Blood Lust on it)

[Fordel]

Admiral Bulldog has a 90% winrate with that bear. 

[Trippy]

Losing now, though. Navi is making a big comeback.

[Fordel]

They couldn't deal with Alch in the end yea. Too much healing from Wisp and DamageSteal from Razor.

[Fordel]

Haha, that Nightstalker!

[Fordel]

More Hero Kills then Creep Kills, legit.


-edit- Best game of the tourney and it isn't even over. 100%

[Viin]

That was an exciting game.

[Malakili]

So, ban wisp.

[Fordel]

Ban s4 more like it.

[Samprimary]

now that was a gaaame

[Fordel]

Million Dollar Dream Coil.


-edit- Literally. 

[Malakili]

Ban s4 more like it.

s4 is good, but in all seriousness, wisp won them that game when they were able to push down 2 rax at once, Navi had their backs against the wall the entire rest of the game.  Alliance just out played them with their mobility in the final game.

[Samprimary]

Come dota with me!

steam username Zeal

4,135 Zeals.

Gdi, I didn't even know this was a thing.

friend the Zeal with the name Sam Rixey. That's me.

[Fordel]

Ban s4 more like it.

s4 is good, but in all seriousness, wisp won them that game when they were able to push down 2 rax at once, Navi had their backs against the wall the entire rest of the game.  Alliance just out played them with their mobility in the final game.

Wisp doesn't mean shit if s4 doesn't interrupt those 3-4 TP's during that. He won the game with that dream coil.

[Malakili]

Ban s4 more like it.

s4 is good, but in all seriousness, wisp won them that game when they were able to push down 2 rax at once, Navi had their backs against the wall the entire rest of the game.  Alliance just out played them with their mobility in the final game.

Wisp doesn't mean shit if s4 doesn't interrupt those 3-4 TP's during that. He won the game with that dream coil.

K, whatever.  I'm feeling like you're just looking for an argument here so I'm not going to bite.  I was just saying Teams with wisp won a fuck load of games in this tournament, and was instrumental to the win in the final game.