DOTA2

[Bann]

Thrawn, I didnt realize it till the game was over and I saw your pic on the scoreboard, but we just got matched against one another in ranked. You were Slardar, I was Dazzle. Sent you a friend invite on steam if you ever want to party up for some games sometime.

[Thrawn]

Thrawn, I didnt realize it till the game was over and I saw your pic on the scoreboard, but we just got matched against one another in ranked. You were Slardar, I was Dazzle. Sent you a friend invite on steam if you ever want to party up for some games sometime.

That explains the invite, I was wondering about that last night when I noticed it later and the name didn't click until now.  That was a painful game, Dazzle shuts down our aggressive tri so badly and that was my second time ever playing Slardar.  We were a three stack (I was with Clock and Lesh).  I'll accept it when I get home tonight.  I think we got out drafted that game pretty badly (why did we take Weaver as mid with QoP in the pool??) and then we just got out played on top of it.  My Slardar was poor, it was a horrible team for Clock to try and initiate on, our Weaver rushed Linken's when he probably didn't need it and we needed damage, our support Naga was fighting for farm and rushing a Diffusual.  Yuck, you guys deserved to win and crushed us appropriately.  

[Margalis]

So I installed this and tried it out.

Uh...this game is awful. The fuck? Nearly every game has someone leave in the first 10 minutes. Then you're either free to leave yourself or you can wait out the 30 fucking minutes it takes for a team to win. Of course if you leave you don't get "battle points" or whatever they're called, which means you don't go up levels and get closer to playing ranked games.

So I've played about 8 games and maybe 1 or 2 were legit 5 on 5. Is this supposed to be enjoyable? Because it appears to be a huge waste of time. Maybe the underlying game itself is good but the new player experience is abysmal. (I won't even get into the shitty tutorial video - lol)

[K9]

3/10

[Margalis]

I honestly don't understand how anyone can play this. Does it get better if you play ranked or go up in levels? Or maybe it's worse now than it was in beta?

It seems like the way to get enough points to play ranked is to join games then alt-tab out. After the post I made yesterday I played two more games, both had immediate AFKs. Again, maybe the underlying game is good, but the experience of playing is terrible. It's a team game where the teams are nearly always unbalanced.

[Kail]

I honestly don't understand how anyone can play this. Does it gets better if you play ranked or go up in levels? Or maybe it's worse now than it was in beta?

LoL kind of has the same problem these days; since the game is free to play, and a fairly high pressure environment, there's a lot of incentive for people to just say "fuck it" and suffer no repercussions.  If your free account gets banned or whatever, who cares, you can make another one.

I think it does get better at higher levels, since the games I watch (as opposed to the games I play) don't seem to have the same problem.  I can't speak from experience, though, since I generally only play with people I know or co-op vs. bots (which is why I have over 150 hours /played and am only level 3).

[Margalis]

In LoL people do rage and start talking endlessly but going AFK isn't that common and generally doesn't happen in the first 2 minutes.

In most of my games someone would AFK basically immediately. I don't even understand what was going on - were they unhappy that they didn't get the lane they wanted? Is it common practice to AFK the moment someone dies? Did they look at their teammates, immediately assess they were noobs and just quit? (I'm a new player, of course I'm a noob)

I'm not talking about people quitting after one team is clearly losing. I'm talking the game starts, it's 1-0, then you realize that 2 people are just sitting in your base doing nothing and you get the "blah blah has disconnected in 5 minutes you can leave" warning.

Both games do have a problem in that games you watch bear very little relation to games you play. In some ways watching games makes me want to play less because I know the experience is so different. I recently uninstalled LoL because I came to the realization that only about half the matches were at all fun and to me that's a huge waste of time. In DOTA2 I played for 6 hours and maybe 1.5 hours of that was at all enjoyable. The rest was just waiting for 5 v 2 stomps to end.

It seems like, at least for where I am wrt matchmaking, that the culture is to immediately disconnect for basically any reason. Not a good culture.

[Hoax]

Never seen that. I'd say a full blown rage disconnect is less than 5% of my matches at this point and of those many are someone quitting a game that they were going to lose for sure anyways and certainly they are not in the first 10 minutes usually.

However, I believe that if you leave a game once it is "safe to leave" you get the BP and the win/loss of the game when it ends however it ends. So you will still level up and unlock ranked and shizz though you also get losses if someone leaves and your team all quits then the game auto ends as a loss for your side.

[Bann]

Its pretty bad when you are a brand new account. My wife tried a few games on her account, and its very, very obvious that most of the players were other brand new players. You'll get alot of stuff like no boots, long afks in fountain (Im assuming these are tab outs) and quite often 0 communication.  Alot of what you you describe are probably just kids who don't really know what a moba is in their first game or 2.  I'm not sure how long it takes before you are no longer a "new player" or whatever. It obviously gets better once you move out of that tier.

If you do happen to stick with it or give it another shot, Id recommend trying out as many different heros as you can. Even the ones you are pretty sure you hate (just to learn what their weaknesses are.) If you are coming in with a bunch of Moba experience, you can probably crush your lane no problem. Try to figure out some of the specific dota things during these annoying games: Jungle (how to stack your pull camp. How to pull your camp. How to pull through to the 2nd camp.) Denying (OH  THE HUMANITY.) Rune Control. Couriers. Heros with minions (or any hero with a necrobook.)

[Margalis]

I'm not talking about people who don't know what they are doing, I'm talking specifically about people going AFK or outright disconnecting almost immediately. Maybe there were server issues or some sort of time of day thing?

One thing I noticed played LoL is that if you play on weekend late nights the experience is about 10x worse than playing at more normal times. Maybe weekend late nights in DOTA is similar. Maybe I was being matched with people from other regions since it was like 4 AM US time and they had connection problems or something.

I've played DOTA style games before so I have decent grasp of what I am doing. In the games that weren't immediate 5 v 2 stomps I did pretty well just picking random supporty heroes. I tore shit up with fire and ice dragon dude.

[Thrawn]

Never seen that. I'd say a full blown rage disconnect is less than 5% of my matches at this point and of those many are someone quitting a game that they were going to lose for sure anyways and certainly they are not in the first 10 minutes usually.

This is my experience as well.  In well over a thousand games I can count on one hand the number of games I've had where someone full blown trolls or goes afk from the start.  I can't remember the last game I had with an abandon that wasn't someone who was crushed so badly they just rage quit or what appeared to be an honest disconnect of some sort.

Weekends are certainly much worse in DotA though just like LoL.

[Margalis]

I just played a bunch of games that were much better.

Maybe it is just a weekend nights thing. In LoL playing late on Friday or Saturday night is terrible - lots of trolls and everyone you get matched up with is like a full league lower in skill than they are at other times.

[Brennik]

What game modes are you queuing (do new accounts get Limited Heroes and All Pick or something else nowadays, I have no idea)? And which cluster? It's probably the time you're queuing too and you may get people from out-of-town who are on crappy connections then. And the whole DotA2 network's been having some issues the past week, so could partially be that too.

[Thrawn]

I just played a bunch of games that were much better.

Maybe it is just a weekend nights thing. In LoL playing late on Friday or Saturday night is terrible - lots of trolls and everyone you get matched up with is like a full league lower in skill than they are at other times.

It could also be that it took a few games as a new player for it to sort out that you actually had a clue how to play the game.

[Johny Cee]

One thing I noticed played LoL is that if you play on weekend late nights the experience is about 10x worse than playing at more normal times. Maybe weekend late nights in DOTA is similar. Maybe I was being matched with people from other regions since it was like 4 AM US time and they had connection problems or something.

I think that's your problem.  Holy shit,  can't even picture the type of player on at that hour.  Probably a mix of drunk Americans and the usual people queuing up for a game from a country far, far away (who then have awful lag or disconnect problems all game).

If someone disconnects right away, you can pause the game by hitting F9.  Sometimes a player will have disconnect issues, no one will pause, and they will come back a second before abandoning because no one paused.

If someone abandons early just quit when the game is safe to leave....  unless things are going really well or someone on the other team then disconnects.  Just find a new game.


My experience has been not nearly that many abandons and I almost never see an afk without someone saying something ("door, can we pause?", or "phone, pause").

[Megrim]

Oh god, the ranked matchmaking. Oh the pain. The pain.

[Margalis]

I had to AFK the other night because of an earthquake. Actually I just sort of half stood up in my chair for 3 seconds then said fuck it and went back to playing while hoping that a bathtub didn't fall through the ceiling and crush me.

Was worth it, I stunned someone with Spirit of Vengeance (?) and we won the team fight and then the game.

[Der Helm]

I had to AFK the other night because of an earthquake. Actually I just sort of half stood up in my chair for 3 seconds then said fuck it and went back to playing while hoping that a bathtub didn't fall through the ceiling and crush me.

Was worth it, I stunned someone with Spirit of Vengeance (?) and we won the team fight and then the game.

You should think really hard if you have your priorities straight. 

[Thrawn]

Meepo's ult should really be taken out of Ability Draft.    If the person that gets it is at all competent it's a free win most games.

[Falconeer]

So, the movie "Free to Play" just got released (for free, of course) on Steam. For those who have no idea, it's a documentary by Valve about DOTA and pro gaming. It seems pretty awesome, can't wait to watch it.

[Johny Cee]

Step 1: Pick Witch Doctor.
Step 2: Buy Agh's.
Step 3: RAAAAMPAGE.

Was tanking the two ancient towers at the time, so I died right after, but nothing is more satisfying.


I usually don't get upset about what is considered OP at the moment, but I am fucking tired of Terrorblade.  Reflection (the slow) plus Metamorphasis (the ranged/damage transform) mean he is really frustrating to lane against, and he is basically played as a split-pusher/ratter which is really frustrating after the laning stage.  He is incredibly frustrating to play against as a support, since he can kill you nine times out of ten even after level 3.

[Thrawn]

I usually don't get upset about what is considered OP at the moment, but I am fucking tired of Terrorblade.  Reflection (the slow) plus Metamorphasis (the ranged/damage transform) mean he is really frustrating to lane against, and he is basically played as a split-pusher/ratter which is really frustrating after the laning stage.  He is incredibly frustrating to play against as a support, since he can kill you nine times out of ten even after level 3.

Got to play Luna vs Terror recently.  He was diving me to the second tower and killing me at level 3.

[Johny Cee]

I usually don't get upset about what is considered OP at the moment, but I am fucking tired of Terrorblade.  Reflection (the slow) plus Metamorphasis (the ranged/damage transform) mean he is really frustrating to lane against, and he is basically played as a split-pusher/ratter which is really frustrating after the laning stage.  He is incredibly frustrating to play against as a support, since he can kill you nine times out of ten even after level 3.

Got to play Luna vs Terror recently.  He was diving me to the second tower and killing me at level 3.

At one skill point, the slow starts at 5 seconds duration.  That's insane.  Combine that with one point in Metamorphasis and it is basically ranged double damage that you can't run away from.  First time I played against a Terror was with an offlane Windrunner and he murdered the shit out of me until I sat out of xp range.  Combine Terror in lane with a good initiation like a Rubick lift or other ranged stun and it's a nightmare lane.

He seems to be much weaker late game, but usually laning gives him enough advantage he can annoyingly split-push all day and often leads to the games where you are up on the scoreboard but are getting your base pushed in...  especially since you need to send more than one hero to deal with him unlike someone like Nature's Prophet or Tinker where an aoe hero can just nuke the wave back after they back off.  Terror will just hop into your jungle and turn it around on a weaker hero pretty easily.


Luna is squishy as hell, but her damage aura really gives her an advantage.  You should have a range support with you and harass the shit out of any opposing melee whenever they come up for last hits.  Even one level of damage aura (14 damage) basically negates a stout shield, but you have to play a bit aggressive to start out while also not going full aggro (too squishy for that).

[Thrawn]

Luna is squishy as hell, but her damage aura really gives her an advantage.  You should have a range support with you and harass the shit out of any opposing melee whenever they come up for last hits.  Even one level of damage aura (14 damage) basically negates a stout shield, but you have to play a bit aggressive to start out while also not going full aggro (too squishy for that).

Should have added, was forced to mid and got no ganks or help.  Can't think of any other game where I felt so helpless from the start.

[Johny Cee]

Luna is squishy as hell, but her damage aura really gives her an advantage.  You should have a range support with you and harass the shit out of any opposing melee whenever they come up for last hits.  Even one level of damage aura (14 damage) basically negates a stout shield, but you have to play a bit aggressive to start out while also not going full aggro (too squishy for that).

Should have added, was forced to mid and got no ganks or help.  Can't think of any other game where I felt so helpless from the start.

Ahhh.  I'd still say that you need to pressure, unless he took Meta level 1 and popped it immediately.  Had a Terror solo offlane do that to our dual lane (AM/me on Lion) and it was ridiculous.  Basically couldn't do anything because if we went near the creep wave he would right click us for 20% of our health bar a pop, and neither of us had any real damage.  The danger zone is really level 3ish, but if you can bait out a Meta then you should just be able to have your way with him after the (stupidly long) spell duration is over.

That being said, yeah I hate teammates that don't rotate or look for ganks or just go into afk laning/farming mode.  In the future, say something to your allies if you are having trouble.  I forget this myself too, but if your lane is shitty ask for a swap (like, viper vs silencer....  there is nothing you can do there, give up the lane to someone else).  While players are bad at showing initiative, if reminded many will try to help.

I actually fed a death to a solo mid Terror on QoP the other day (I rarely play mid).  Was bullying him pretty good and got complacent, tried to trade and burned through my mana, then got Reflectioned/Meta'd to death.  My team gave me a giant ration of shit.  It was dumb of me, but up to that point I had been shutting him down really well and forgot for a moment how OP those two skills are a low levels.  The game was still a fairly easy win because we had alot of carry potential and only fell a little behind in the early game, and my allies stopped being abusive after I had a couple pretty good Agh's buffed ults on 3-5 in teamfights.


Speaking of broken combos:

Centaur.  Centaur plus Slark is HILARIOUS.  Between stomp, double-edge, pounce, and dark pact you can just wreck lanes if you go aggressive after level 2-3.  Just played a Centaur plus Lina (me) against an enemy trilane (Ogre, WD, Omni) and averaged a kill a minute until our lane opponents peaced out and gave up their tower.  Centaur plus Tiny is a classic as well....  just incredible burst damage on top of the gap closer in Toss.

[Hoax]

Best decision I ever made was to not play AllPick anymore. In fact I'm very much partial to the gamemodes where there is actual drafting. The two captain modes and Random Draft are very much superior to Single "Draft" and the other 10 people pick simultaneously shit modes.

[Thrawn]

Best decision I ever made was to not play AllPick anymore. In fact I'm very much partial to the gamemodes where there is actual drafting. The two captain modes and Random Draft are very much superior to Single "Draft" and the other 10 people pick simultaneously shit modes.

My experience is that the worst cesspool of players by far is All Pick - Ranked.

[Megrim]

Best decision I ever made was to not play AllPick anymore. In fact I'm very much partial to the gamemodes where there is actual drafting. The two captain modes and Random Draft are very much superior to Single "Draft" and the other 10 people pick simultaneously shit modes.

My experience is that the worst cesspool of players by far is All Pick - Ranked.

 

[Margalis]

I like the mode where you have 20 heroes total and pick across them. It allows you some leeway to try heroes you know, but can also force you to try new stuff, has some strategy, and also allows you to compose a team that makes sense.

The number of modes is pretty silly overall though, and the naming of them is terrible as well.

[Thrawn]

On a completely different subject why am I seeing more and more Doom players building Aghanim's?  Am I missing something? If you're crushing and you want to build it, or you're kind of a three slot or even support, I guess I can see it.  But if you're supposed to be the 1/2 and you rush Aghanim's you're just throwing the game.  Doom is already 15 seconds, if that isn't long enough to let you win the fight chances are you weren't winning it anyways.  Or worse, he Dooms someone then spends the next minute chasing that person around the map while the rest of his team gets killed.

That same amount of gold could buy you a BKB, or almost a Mek and Yasha,  or a Sange and Yasha, or 1k short of an AC, or a Basher with 1k left over, etc. etc. etc.

[Hoax]

I'd take Aghs Doom over Rad Doom. Stop building Radiance of anything that isn't Naga or Specter or PL pls. Yes not even Lone Druid unless its an insane free farm going super late type game. Radiance is not a good item in a vacuum.

[Hoppala]

I prefer tank / dps build w/o Radiance ... AC, Daedalus, Basher ... But depends, in some games also Radiance could make sense.

[Johny Cee]

I'd take Aghs Doom over Rad Doom. Stop building Radiance of anything that isn't Naga or Specter or PL pls. Yes not even Lone Druid unless its an insane free farm going super late type game. Radiance is not a good item in a vacuum.

Rad Doom isn't great, but Agh's Doom is awful. 

1. Rad is good for dealing with illusion heroes. 
2. A Rad means Doom will farm like a maniac, so his other items will come more quickly.
3. Agh's just doesn't do anything beyond an extra long ult, and a mediocre amount of stats.  A good ult on the right team fight hero means that the team fight should be won before it wears off. 
4. The only time I feel like the Agh's ult pays off is if it's a 4 protect 1 type strat with a hypercarry.  Yah, if you make their stacked carry kind of useless while your team murders his underfarmed teammates it's solid.

But yeah, Radiance just isn't a good item on most heroes, but especially if it means your Doom is afk farming for 20-25 minutes and not helping out.  Doom is much better with some fast tank and being active from level 6.

Of the worst Doom builds I've seen...  There was one guy who I think just hadn't played in years/since Dota 1 and rushed a Battlefury and was useless.  Another guy was a crack farmer but went Agh's/SB fast, so got blown up repeatedly whenever he showed up to a fight.


What is it with people burning Slark's ult to rush forward and force a bad fight?  Played a game the other day where literally every time I saw the guy use his ult it was to dash forward to try and catch a guy just slightly out of position.  Of course, no ult, so when he caught the guy his team was way behind him and he had no escape when everyone focused him....  At least he didn't build MoM and Vanguard I guess....

[Johny Cee]

Ugh, had a frustrating game.

So, wanted to play Sand King since I haven't in a while and want to add another good disabling hero to my roster of heroes I'm pretty comfortable with.  Teammates pick SF, Terror, Doom and Mirana.  Great, all carries, but at least we can slot them in a way that vaguely makes sense (Mir off, SF mid, Doom jungle, Terror and me safe).  Up against an Ogre and an Ursa?  lulz.

Get 3 kills by 5 minutes because Burrow into Reflection/Metamorphasis is broken and Ogre and Ursa are scared to leave tower.  Fucking Terror.  He's farming alright and gets 2 of the kills so goes Midas by 7ish minutes, then sits on his gold.  And sits on it and continues to farm as the enemy teams lineup of early/mid game heroes starts wrecking us everywhere else across the map.  The guy decided to go Radiance after his Midas for the uber greedy build.  Needless to say, we have our towers pushed in and keep getting ganked everywhere because that's what Ursa and Bloodseeker do.

If Terror had just gone treads into manta/S&Y and left his lane, that game could have been a ridiculous stomp.  Yah, SF and Mirana were losing their lanes, but no one else had multiple kills plus a freefarm lane and early tower.

I had jack all items due to having to buy every courier, upgrade, obs and sents (plus tp supporting) because everyone else was playing a carry so didn't bother with that stuff.  To be fair, Doom did gank safe lane a bit early but as soon as the other team abandoned he mostly afk farmed.

[Kail]

What's the deal with Rubick, can someone explain him to me?  He keeps popping up in pro games, and people keep suggesting him as a support for me to play (because I always get stuck as the ward bitch in these games) but I always fail hilariously as him and even on paper I don't see how he works.  I mean, Telekenesis is fine, sure, but the spell everyone seems to get giddy over is Spell Steal. Which, if you time it right, you can steal Enigma's Black Hole or something and drop it in the middle of a team fight and pwn all, but that Enigma can use the same skill every fight, more reliably, and if you'd picked him instead, the other team wouldn't be able to use it against you in the first place.  And it's not like there's some shortage of supports with good ults, that's all half of them itemize for.  I don't get why he's so popular.