DOTA2

[Malakili]

It's happening!

http://blog.dota2.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/glados_prelim_06.mp3

(Mirror)https://soundcloud.com/yannick-marcotte-gourde/glados-prelim-06

[Samprimary]

ahahahahaha yesss

[Thrawn]

http://dev.dota2.com/showthread.php?t=109826

New patch notes on test realm.  They are....crazy.  I would post the highlights but that would be half of the changes if not more.  If you play DotA it's worth reading pretty much the entire thing.

[Fordel]

DieBacks are going to be really costly now.


-edit-

Oooh they fucked with pooling items.

[Fordel]

Broodmother web change, crazyness.

Blink on Pudge, what is this world.

Rubick scepter is 

[Fordel]

http://www.dota2.com/threespirits

TLDR:
Two new heroes, Earth and Ember spirit.

Storm Spirit visuals changed to match his new brothers.

Diretide is back.

Coaching Mode, lets coach do things like ping UI elements for trainee.

Lane picking added to hero selection. Mid and feed.

Low Priority changed from time based to game based. IE: You can't wait it out, you have to play out X games in the ghetto.

Bunch of cosmetic changes, including crafting and sockets. All cosmetic.

Pro Player based items. Tied to players tourney wins and such.

Diretide is back. 

[Lounge]

༼ つ ◕◡◕ ༽つ

Hero overviews are here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y8SM451Wc8 - Ember Spirit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPWNuRGX06Q - Earth Spirit

[Malakili]

Earth Spirit looks like it could be really powerful in the hands of a competent player.

[Thrawn]

Coaching Mode, lets coach do things like ping UI elements for trainee.

DotA once again leaving League in the dust hoping to catch up some day.

[Malakili]

Coaching Mode, lets coach do things like ping UI elements for trainee.

DotA once again leaving League in the dust hoping to catch up some day.

They even had this mode in Team Fortress 2 a bunch of years ago, it almost surprises me how long it took them to port it over to DOTA.

[Rasix]

Do people actually use this feature?

[Malakili]

Not in TF2, but I can imagine it being a lot more useful here.

That being said, aside from helping friends learn, I don't think we'll see some huge swell of strangers helping strangers.

[Nightblade]

Not in TF2, but I can imagine it being a lot more useful here.

That being said, aside from helping friends learn, I don't think we'll see some huge swell of strangers helping strangers.

...Unless they offer some kind of reward for mentors. In TF2 you got a pair of glasses; judging by how big cosmetic items are for DOTA2; they might do the same here.

[Ingmar]

There are already people who do this (for pay even I think), so I imagine some of the demand for this feature came from them.

[Fordel]

Yea, there are pro players and stuff who sell coaching lessons to people.

[Megrim]

Aaaaaaaand gg to finding normal games now that Diretide is out.

THANKS OBAMA

[Malakili]

So, Diretide mode is utter garbage.  I have no idea why people were so excited about this.  The best thing I can say about the mode is it ended quickly.

[Megrim]

Dear god, Earth Spirit. Level 2, and no lane is safe.

[Thrawn]

So, Diretide mode is utter garbage.  I have no idea why people were so excited about this.  The best thing I can say about the mode is it ended quickly.

It always was, it was fun as a little gimmick to try out once and a while that got boring fast and just annoying when everyone was obsessive about Rosh.  But not at all worth people making such a huge fuss about, I haven't played a single game of it yet.  Have been doing A-Z challenge instead and enjoying it very much...well except for being stuck on Ancient Apparition for 11 games.

[Lounge]

Diretide is about items.  Last year iirc you were guaranteed at least one item every match.  This you get essences but again the core of the game mode is about getting items.  If you don't care about that sort of thing then the mode probably isn't for you.

[Fordel]

It's also the only time I'll have 5 rapiers probably 

[Bann]

anyone else catch the dreamhack Grand Finals? Darude - Sandstorm LIVE from the starcraft 2 stage was overpowering the casters. Notail on Sandking actually pulled off a few sandstorms while this was going on. Twitch chat broke, obviously. I tried to explain to my wife why this was the perfect storm of funny, but it did not go well. Please tell me someone else saw/appreciated this.

[Sophismata]

Weird, all the replays I have watched had visible mana bars; maybe you can toggle it?

Hm, you're right, I appear to be full of shit.  Weird, I could have sworn it wasn't there.

Not sure what the mana bars thing means, then, sorry.

Little late now, but I meant enemy mana bars. You need to click on an enemy unit to see their mana, which is asinine. If the information is supposed to be hidden, hide it, otherwise show it. Don't obscure it with bad GUI decisions.

You don't need to be "sold" on it. Unless I'm mistaken, which I don't believe I am, denial could NOT be removed from the original DOTA.

In this case you're mistaken. The WC3 engine can support removing denials, it's the same anti-grief code that prevents you attacking heroes (since the basic WC3 mechanic underlying denial is that your units can force-attack other, friendly units). When denials became A Thing (widely known about and detrimental to the game's "balance"), it was decided to keep them, but in a nerfed format, such that denied creeps still provided XP.

Trvia - originally you could attack other, allied heroes and buildings at full health. One of the earlier fixes used was to have a fake unit cast hex on the player if they initiated such an attack. This led to some hilarity with people being able to turn themselves into sheep and confusing newbies.

[Fordel]

anyone else catch the dreamhack Grand Finals? Darude - Sandstorm LIVE from the starcraft 2 stage was overpowering the casters. Notail on Sandking actually pulled off a few sandstorms while this was going on. Twitch chat broke, obviously. I tried to explain to my wife why this was the perfect storm of funny, but it did not go well. Please tell me someone else saw/appreciated this.

Yea I saw it, it was the perfect storm. 

[Megrim]

Are there vods of the finals some place? I can't seem to find anything.

[Fordel]

They are buried in the twitch archives.

http://www.twitch.tv/dreamleague/b/483930827 Sandstorm around 10 hours 19 mins.

[Thrawn]

Accepted a party invite a few days ago to find it was a little old and I was the 6th in party.  So I just decided to coach and see what that was like.  It was actually fairly fun other than how terrible some of the team was, lots of "You just missed a free kill and here's why".  (These are guys I play with fairly often, they were asking for advice before someone calls me out for being "that guy".)  It seems insanely powerful though if you were really serious about wanting to queue as a team and win as much as possible.

[K9]

I wonder whether it could become a staple of tournament play; having a sixth team member being an non-playing observer/captain?

[Rasix]

Heh, nope.  Not a chance.

Maybe in another game.

[Thrawn]

I have an issue....I can't seem to stop building Hand of Midas on almost EVERYONE

[Bann]

Hand of Midas right now reminds me of picking Antimage in Pubs - You need to have a team that realizes that the path to victory involves letting you get enough farm to take the game late. If your team insists on fighting in the 10-15 minute range, you are not nearly as effective as you could have been. If you can avoid fighting for a bit and let the midas pay itself off and accelerate your farm,  .

[Thrawn]

Hand of Midas right now reminds me of picking Antimage in Pubs - You need to have a team that realizes that the path to victory involves letting you get enough farm to take the game late. If your team insists on fighting in the 10-15 minute range, you are not nearly as effective as you could have been. If you can avoid fighting for a bit and let the midas pay itself off and accelerate your farm,  .

That actually is a lot of the mindset of why I end up building it.  So many pub games people never push an advantage, never win when they could have because the carry wants more farm so the game goes way latter than it should so often.

But building it on Enigma last night, heh, I think I'm just too much in the habit of rushing it now.  Although to be fair it getting me Refresher was huge in us winning game game since our Lone Druid was so completely terrible and the opposing team was such a bad team comp against it.

[Lounge]

The problem with going for the 45 min farming game is that the current meta of the game has most games over in 30 minutes.  If you cant be effective by then you have already lost the game.

[Johny Cee]

Hand of Midas right now reminds me of picking Antimage in Pubs - You need to have a team that realizes that the path to victory involves letting you get enough farm to take the game late. If your team insists on fighting in the 10-15 minute range, you are not nearly as effective as you could have been. If you can avoid fighting for a bit and let the midas pay itself off and accelerate your farm,  .

That actually is a lot of the mindset of why I end up building it.  So many pub games people never push an advantage, never win when they could have because the carry wants more farm so the game goes way latter than it should so often.

But building it on Enigma last night, heh, I think I'm just too much in the habit of rushing it now.  Although to be fair it getting me Refresher was huge in us winning game game since our Lone Druid was so completely terrible and the opposing team was such a bad team comp against it.

One of my current pet peeves is everyone getting a midas.  In general in my games, it means the other team takes a shit all over you since they know that none of your teammates have any early game items/upgraded boots.  Lost two games today to a PL I'm supporting going early Midas in a contested lane, then we get wrecked at the 6 to 10 minute mark as he has no survivability and no hp regen.

Other pet peeves:

Doom -- Seeing people build him wrong all the time.  Rush straight for Agh's, or building Refresher, or building Battlefury.  DOOM DOESN'T NEED DAMAGE.  He needs tank and mana (early game).  Agh's effect is great and all, but if you get bursted down in 3 seconds who cares. 

Slark -- What is it with people building Vanguard on Slark?  Slark doesn't need it.  If you need hp, get a Sange or a bare vit booster/point booster or an ogre club (which builds into BKB) or anything else.  Slark should be snowballing off of ganks, not farming for real after spending your first 15 minutes getting a vanguard and having a tiny mana pool and no damage items.

[Thrawn]

Doom -- Seeing people build him wrong all the time.  Rush straight for Agh's, or building Refresher, or building Battlefury.  DOOM DOESN'T NEED DAMAGE.  He needs tank and mana (early game).  Agh's effect is great and all, but if you get bursted down in 3 seconds who cares. 

YES!  Doom is one of my most played heroes and I can proudly say I've never build Refresher, never built BF and only built Agh's once to try it after patch.  You get damage from eating an Alpha Wolf and having high strength.  If you can get a really fast Heart you've almost won the game already because you just wade into the other team and start bossing everyone around.