DOTA2

[Fordel]

Why not just a poorman's on slark?

[Johny Cee]

Why not just a poorman's on slark?

Vanguard is silly because if any hero doesn't need health regen, it's Slark.  Poorman's isn't awful, but generally I've found myself selling the shield pretty early most games because you want to be going on someone and bracer, stick, robe for some mana is far better.

Thankfully, one of my old pet peeves (every melee carry going quelling blade first) is mostly gone.  You need to have a shield in lane to start, unless you are trilaning and/or not contested.

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.

Doom has insane stat gain, he's going to have the right click anyway.  My usual strategy with jungle doom is shoot for Soul Ring into Phase, Ogre Club (can go towards BKB or Sange later) and Platemail (Shiva's or AC later).  With that you can show up and cause some havok without sitting in the jungle afk farming for 20 minutes.

Whenever I have a Doom on my team, he afk farms for 20 to 25 minutes and comes out with a Midas, Agh's, and maybe a Shadowblade and then is completely ineffectual.

[Thrawn]

Thankfully, one of my old pet peeves (every melee carry going quelling blade first) is mostly gone.  You need to have a shield in lane to start, unless you are trilaning and/or not contested.

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.

Doom has insane stat gain, he's going to have the right click anyway.  My usual strategy with jungle doom is shoot for Soul Ring into Phase, Ogre Club (can go towards BKB or Sange later) and Platemail (Shiva's or AC later).  With that you can show up and cause some havok without sitting in the jungle afk farming for 20 minutes.

Whenever I have a Doom on my team, he afk farms for 20 to 25 minutes and comes out with a Midas, Agh's, and maybe a Shadowblade and then is completely ineffectual.

Do I even have you on Steam?  Always looking to try and find people to play with since Hoax ditched me. 

[Fordel]

http://blog.dota2.com/2013/12/matchmaking/

Giant post about Ranked Games inc. I know some folks wanted that for Dota2, won't effect me in the co-op vs bot tier of gaming though 

[Johny Cee]

Thankfully, one of my old pet peeves (every melee carry going quelling blade first) is mostly gone.  You need to have a shield in lane to start, unless you are trilaning and/or not contested.

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.

Doom has insane stat gain, he's going to have the right click anyway.  My usual strategy with jungle doom is shoot for Soul Ring into Phase, Ogre Club (can go towards BKB or Sange later) and Platemail (Shiva's or AC later).  With that you can show up and cause some havok without sitting in the jungle afk farming for 20 minutes.

Whenever I have a Doom on my team, he afk farms for 20 to 25 minutes and comes out with a Midas, Agh's, and maybe a Shadowblade and then is completely ineffectual.

Do I even have you on Steam?  Always looking to try and find people to play with since Hoax ditched me. 

The only f13er I have on Steam is Schild, I think.  Generally I play at odd times whenever I can throw a game in so it really isn't conducive to playing with folks.  Too much going on unfortunately.

[Der Helm]

I'd happily play with anyone from the F13 group. We even have a guild I think ? Pretty sure I joined something a few weeks ago.

I might even be semi competent as a support. Gotta love witch doctor

[Bann]

I did make a guild called f13, and always invite/promote people I recognize from here to a level where they can invite as well. I'm also up for groups whenever Im on as well.

[Fordel]

Oh noes: http://www.dota2.com/wraithnight/

Bunch of changes, new hero (Legion Commander), the X-mas event etc.

Most important note for some of you though:

-Added option to display the Minimap on the right side of the screen. Some HUD skins may have issues in this mode

[Lounge]

I fired up the test client with some friends last night and played a few matches of Wraith Knight.  Had a blast and hope volvo turns this into a more fleshed out mode ala Mann vs Machine.

[Johny Cee]

Oh noes: http://www.dota2.com/wraithnight/

Bunch of changes, new hero (Legion Commander), the X-mas event etc.

Most important note for some of you though:

-Added option to display the Minimap on the right side of the screen. Some HUD skins may have issues in this mode

Earth Spirit also caught a bunch of nerfs.  Perfect timing.  The hero has a high skill cap so there weren't many good ones yet, but the few good ones I played against were frustrating as hell.  Instant long range stuns and five second silence at level 3?  UGGGGGGGHHHHH.

[Fordel]

I have no idea what you mean! Earth spirit is fiiiine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBP17XI7MfA


 

[Bann]

TI3 merch back in stock (as of the evening of the 19th) at the valve store.

http://store.valvesoftware.com/

Looks like lockless luckboxes have dropped in value (I managed to sell one during ti3 for 50 bucks) but are still holding around $20.00 - and you can buy the microplushies at ten. 

[Fordel]

Terrororororororblade : http://www.dota2.com/newbloom/day2/

[Megrim]

..... and here I was about to complain about them not releasing actual content.

[Fordel]

Phoenix: http://www.dota2.com/newbloom/day3/

and this:

Grab your friends and rewrite history! Now you can take control in any replay created after the New Bloom update, then act out the rest of the match from that moment forward. During a replay, hit the Takeover button to create a lobby where everyone can choose which hero to portray. Resume the match, and become the one to turn the tide of a favorite pro play, discover a way to escape an impossible setup, or relive a cherished team fight again and again.

Takeovers are considered a new match and have separate replays, which are recorded from the moment you assume control.

[Bann]

The thing I'm most excited for is the random ability draft. Essentially, everyone hero is chosen at random, and then all of their abilities are thrown on the table. You take turns drafting your skills (cannot choose more than 1 ult.) Im slightly worried about how long the draft might take. Seems like a lot of opportunity for  combinations.

[Thrawn]

The thing I'm most excited for is the random ability draft. Essentially, everyone hero is chosen at random, and then all of their abilities are thrown on the table. You take turns drafting your skills (cannot choose more than 1 ult.) Im slightly worried about how long the draft might take. Seems like a lot of opportunity for  combinations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbUNtmPBuV0

[Johny Cee]

Has anyone played through their calibrating ranked matches yet?  Finally did this last week and ended up at 3700 mmr, which sounds a bit low (my calibration matches were fucking terrible, 3-10) but reasonable.  Had the one actual case of intentional feeding I have ever had in a DOTA game when our shadow shaman got pissed on a minute 1 mid gank where our mid Magnus had leveled empower (what???) so the enemy mid slipped away with 50 health, so ran down mid feeding the rest of the game.  He made it to 30 deaths.

Just played against someone tagged as "Twisco", who if he isn't trolling, is one of Purge's real life buddies and shows up in his videos.  Profile was private, so who knows with the internet.  I pissed him off with a Finger of Death and he shit talked me, which was amusing, considering how badly our team got stomped that game.

[Megrim]

3700 is like, top 5% or something, so that's fine if you've played before. The win/loss rate in the qualifiers doesn't seem to make much difference, as I went something like 3-7 and ended up at ~3600, whereas a mate went in with 7-3 and got placed at 3400ish.

I can't say that there is a distinct pattern to the retards, but the last few ranked games I've played have had some quality windowlickers, but the pub 'practice' games have been full-on tryhard wcg 2014 counter-counter-counter-counter warding slugfests. Which is weird. But iirc it tends to even out over time, and as usual, the more you play, the more the quality of the games will rise, ranked or unranked.

[tazelbain]

Phoenix: http://www.dota2.com/newbloom/day3/

and this:

Grab your friends and rewrite history! Now you can take control in any replay created after the New Bloom update, then act out the rest of the match from that moment forward. During a replay, hit the Takeover button to create a lobby where everyone can choose which hero to portray. Resume the match, and become the one to turn the tide of a favorite pro play, discover a way to escape an impossible setup, or relive a cherished team fight again and again.

Takeovers are considered a new match and have separate replays, which are recorded from the moment you assume control.

Words fail me how head up your ass that is. If you takeover for TeamJockItch in the final against TryHardsPro and win that proves nothing because you aren't playing TryHardsPro.

[Johny Cee]

3700 is like, top 5% or something, so that's fine if you've played before. The win/loss rate in the qualifiers doesn't seem to make much difference, as I went something like 3-7 and ended up at ~3600, whereas a mate went in with 7-3 and got placed at 3400ish.

I can't say that there is a distinct pattern to the retards, but the last few ranked games I've played have had some quality windowlickers, but the pub 'practice' games have been full-on tryhard wcg 2014 counter-counter-counter-counter warding slugfests. Which is weird. But iirc it tends to even out over time, and as usual, the more you play, the more the quality of the games will rise, ranked or unranked.

I think my losses definitely hurt (and the fact I only played hard supports) because I recognized a bunch of names from previous games in my first batch of ranked games, but none of the names after I started the losing streak.  As far as the bad play in ranked, I can just assume it's the only way people can troll and actually get a response....  people don't care about pubs, even though you will see lots of hissy fits like calling "gg" at five minutes, or "report x", or whatever.

Only really had the one troll.  Got stomped once from terrible picks.  Mostly people were pretty serious and played well in my games, but holy shit there was alot of counter warding and tp support and smoke ganks on mid at minute 1/2 and all the stuff you don't usually see so much of in pubs but see in good players videos.

Phoenix: http://www.dota2.com/newbloom/day3/

and this:

Grab your friends and rewrite history! Now you can take control in any replay created after the New Bloom update, then act out the rest of the match from that moment forward. During a replay, hit the Takeover button to create a lobby where everyone can choose which hero to portray. Resume the match, and become the one to turn the tide of a favorite pro play, discover a way to escape an impossible setup, or relive a cherished team fight again and again.

Takeovers are considered a new match and have separate replays, which are recorded from the moment you assume control.

Words fail me how head up your ass that is. If you takeover for TeamJockItch in the final against TryHardsPro and win that proves nothing because you aren't playing TryHardsPro.

It's just a fan/vanity thing.  I never understood why people wore football jerseys of their favorite pro, but that doesn't stop it from being a giant merchandise cash farm.  I can imagine lots of people would love playing out a finals game from the international or whatever.

On the other hand, played a game today with a Faceless Void with the Battlefury cosmetic.  That's like an $80 fucking cosmetic....  who would buy that?

[tazelbain]

Seems like there is a craft-able version of it.

[Brennik]

There's a lot of the "rarer" models on the market now thanks to New Bloom chests.

[Johny Cee]

There's a lot of the "rarer" models on the market now thanks to New Bloom chests.

Yah, just checked the market.  Some battlefury models are starting at as low as $17, which I still find a bit crazy.  The only thing I've ever bought was the Venge claw and Kunkka sword that gave new animations....  well, and announcers. 

Announcers to me are worth the $8.  The better ones you get hours of enjoyment out of (Bastion, PFlax, Portal). 

[Thrawn]

Announcers to me are worth the $8.  The better ones you get hours of enjoyment out of (Bastion, PFlax, Portal). 

Even those you can mostly get way, way cheaper off the market now.

[Hoax]

Yeah you can get Lina, which is the best one, for $1.00 now thanks to the new bloom glut and at the perfect time you could have gotten it at $.50 or maybe even $.40

[Fordel]

Got Glados for like 30 cents. 

[Fordel]

Someone give me a TLDR on Legion Commander, I fooled around on her in a bot match just to see what she does and I'm not sure what her job is in a lineup.

Sorta weird tanky isolating carry without initiation?

[Bann]

Ive most often seen her used successfully just hiding in the jungle till she has boots+blink+ult then ganking a ton, but I play at a level where hiding in the jungle doesn't get punished. I think against the right matchup mid she can do well.

[Johny Cee]

LC is basically a snowball hero, like Slark or Storm.  Get a blink or a Shadowblade and gank shit or pick off supports/jungler.  Your ulti gives you lockdown plus damage, so a few successful ganks go a long way to increasing your effectiveness.  You can play her as a mid, and lots of people seem to think that's her best role especially since you can then skill up her nuke over her jungle skill (the lifesteal).  Basically, if you have 4 successful ganks before 20 minutes you should have like 40-48 extra damage....  which is a decent damage item without spending any gold.

Playing her mid you can go bottle/runes and max out her nuke, which hits really hard at low levels, and gank sidelanes/jungle.  Obviously, an LC with a haste/dd/invis rune and an automatic lockdown with Duel is a beast to have show up in a lane for a gank.  The downside is playing the mid matchup as a melee against (probably) a ranged.

It's another hero that gets played "wrong" quite a bit....  sitting in jungle afk farming for 20 minutes and going Midas first.  You should be really active with her, and try to make things happen.  I've seen way too many games lost by passive farming LCs....  NP can do it, because he's going to come out of the jungle and have a huge map presence with his split-pushing.  Heroes like LC too often just leave their team to get crapped on 5 v 4 for 20 minutes and then complain about their team when the other side is so far ahead.

[Hoax]

She's a horrible horrible pub hero. She needs to ult from 6 on as often as possible and win them all then she just balls out of control with thousands of gold in free damage. If she doesn't get that she is a quite subpar hero in general.

Basically the team needs to set up her duels and get her going and then she can just go nuts. But dota is full of heros that can just make their own plays and then go nuts so the appeal is pretty marginal.

She can win some 1v1 matchups, Brood and NP for example I think she is pretty strong against but though she wants to mid and basically act like an active mid ala Pudge, BS, Storm etc. she isn't very strong at all mid so its tough unless you are picking against some kind of silly/greedy mid pick the other team has made.

[Fordel]

So blink dagger, great item or greatest item?

I never appreciated how much it's like 20 mana cost actually limited it before.

[Hoax]

tbh I wouldn't even mind if the mana cost comes back its just too damn strong without it. It either needs to go up closer to 2500 gold or it needs some mana cost.

[Fordel]

I wouldn't be surprised if something changed back at this rate yea. Watching Pro-games where there's like 8 daggers across both teams now. 

[Thrawn]

Well, that's it, I think I have to quit DotA.

I will never have more fun or a weirder game than the one I just played as support Lich (Ranked, about 3500MMR).  I bought wards, I bought courier, supported Gyro and.....

http://dotabuff.com/matches/552991205