My time has so far been split between Diablo and DoTA... My favourite class is the Lich, based on the number of games I've played with him. The route they've gone with DoTA is understandable, considering the wads of money that funnel in through Team Fortress 2.
Hey Quitch, I never knew you played Dota? I think there's more people playing Dota 2 then LoL on BF at this point, at least vocally anyway. I'm one of the aforementioned "both" people though :)
Never played the original, but DOTA2 turned up in Steam a short while back for me. Been thinking about giving it a shot, but what with my lax dedication to the MOBA genre, I think LoL is more my thing.
I haven't even loaded DotA2 up in a few weeks, but Steam was updating it with new characters so I went to the wiki to see what they did. Apparently Luna has terrifyingly uncomfortable powers. Sometimes internet vandalism just brightens up your whole day.
Is asking if anyone has an invite bad form? I was going to sign up on the website but all the questions were about how much you play the original DOTA and none of the answer options were "never but I'm very interested in this new game." If anyone does have an invite and would like to give it to me I promise to make good use of it. My steam name is the same as my forum name.
Don't be turned off from filling out the invite form if you never played Dota. I didn't either and filled it out by saying that I had the least time spent playing and such and I still got a beta key.
I filled it out by saying I only played Omniknight and the highest level I ever got to was 12. If you played any DOTA, you'd know that's hilariously inept.
Nobody has invites anymore, as they are buyable now. I'm not even sure Valve is still sending keys out to those form submissions.
We've been playing Dota again in the last couple of days, mostly playing Single Draft, and have had a couple of amazing matches -- not just stomps, but stuff where either we were convinced we had lost by 10 minutes and turned it around, or the one we just had where the match was well-fought for most of it and either team could have lost. Match IDs if anyone wants to check out the replays: 39748582 - This is the one we just finished, where it could have gone either way. Some amazing escapes and saves. Clinkz was likely about 12 years old ("if you use more than one d in nerd it means you're a chick or a fag" --Clinkz), started off dangerous but we bought a comical amount of dust and sentries and he just got fucked every time he showed up. There was lots of infighting between the enemy team. This was Balla's first time as Queen of Pain. Lineups: Code (Lineups): ShadowPhoenix - Drow Ranger | Clinkz - Sirry Hatta Onry Ballaboy - Queen of Pain | Ogre Magi - Herroo Pree AntiBunny - Sand King | Death Prophet - Whodamans Inigima - Puck | Dragon Knight - Kush (pubbie) - Huskar | Lifestealer - Adderall Admiral 39538613 - Big turnaround. 15 minutes in we had lane swapped like 3 times and thought it was over. Lazy and I got rolled top, Fancy took charge of lane changes. We fed Brewmaster a bunch of kills and he was looking very scary with twice our levels, but we got our act together as soon as laning ended, got some kills under Anti-Mage's belt, and won just about every fight after that. My first game as Gyrocopter, Shadow's first game as Silencer. Lineups: Code (text): Harrbear - Sniper | Silencer - ShadowPhoenix Ao - Visage | Gyrocopter - Inigima Bellit - Bounty Hunter | Anti-Mage - Fancyjamz Dantares - Shadow Shaman | Tidehunter - Lazy Shiftless Bastard N8_Dawg_Regulate - Brewmaster | Sand King - Ballaboy 39467888 - Another big turnaround. Keeper of the Light walked all over us for most of the early game. Pubbies Rubick and Silencer both woeful; our Rubick did all kinds of ridiculous stuff like using Eul's on a guy we were focusing down, and Silencer was, no joke, the worst Silencer I've ever seen. We really thought we were done. Then we started baiting out Riki, and Bunny got fed and became an unholy terror. Bunny's first game as Viper. Also, you cannot trademark rape. Bane has made a mockery of the United States Patent & Trademark Office. Lineups: Code (text): AntiBunny - Viper | Bane - Rape(tm) Fancyjamz - Sven | Queen of Pain - Adouken Inigima - Venomancer | Rikimaru - heitorado (pubbie) - Silencer | Pudge - Nailo (pubbie) - Rubick | Keeper of the Light - tstA Really solid stuff from the BF Mumble crew in all these games. Great work everyone.
Please see match #49731361 for an illustration of Why Buying An Eye Is Almost Always Really Fucking Stupid. Thanks for the victory Clinkz!
Holy fuckballs. I just finished an 80 minute inhouse: Absolutely batshit game. I only knew CK, Beastmaster, and kind of knew Bounty Hunter, the rest were all friends of CK and BH. At 40 minutes we thought we'd lost, and we did indeed spend the next 30 minutes or so losing. CK never really got farmed in time, Weaver was a death machine. We got a lucky break near the end, and then after a game of stealing basically nothing of value, I stole Prophet's ult and it won us the fight. We all bought Boots of Travel. Armed with the third or so Aegis of the game, Bounty Hunter bought two Divine Rapiers. Weaver got sloppy and we turned it around and won. Absolutely jawdropping game.
Two divine rapiers? Oh man, that reminds me of a game where our bloodseeker basically threw it at the end. We were pretty much going to win and should have won. Heck, even I went ahead and thought that as crystal maiden, I might as well spend my gold on something worthless and spent it on a sacred relic because all it was going to take was a small push against the Ancient and that would be it. But as a team, we stayed too long pushing the final towers, our bloodseeker died, losing the two divine rapiers, and it was nothing at the end for the Radiant team to push in and claim the victory for themselves. Talk about a massive turnaround, and unexpected loss. The trouble with Rubik in your game is that it looks like either DP's or Beastmaster's ult would be the only ones worth picking up. But that is one heck of a long game. I'd probably be feeling bored by the end of it!
Its almost like the developers don't want you to play invoker. Be a real man and play more Shadow Shaman
Hey, so I got an invite, downloaded this & started it and the tutorial is greyed out. Is that right? I can't practice at all against an AI just to get to know the maps & where everything is at? The number of heros for a new person to this is overwhelming. Give me 1-2 in each class I should focus on as a noob. I played quite a bit of Demi-God, so know about lanes & trying not to feed. For my first 10-20 games to get my feet wet, I'm thinking of support, so a hero that would be helpful there would probably be best. Oh, and this whole find the trinket in the stream thing? How can I tell my team I have no idea what I'm doing there & don't ever count on me for that? Is there any way for me to get my feet wet in a newbie environment?
I spent rather a long time writing a new player guide that was so big it takes up four full posts at the top of this thread, and it answers pretty much all of these questions. The short version is play Lich when you're starting out. The tutorial is not finished and is not in the game. You can play bot matches (Co-op vs. AI), though. Play with people from here to learn the ropes. (Not me -- I do not have the temperament for brand-new people, I'm afraid.) The thing in the river is a Rune. It spawns every two minutes, starting at 0:00. Whether it's on top or on bottom is random, and so is the type. It is common to send players to both top and bottom rune spots at the beginning, and to ward the rune spots thereafter. Again, I covered all of this.
Hey Tman, I'm not a great player, but I don't mind jumping in and trying to teach you some of the basics. Dota has a steep learning curve that requires a lot of investment to be good. But hit me up on steam if you want to have a few practice rounds. With bots maybe to start with, it avoids the screaming kids that think they are professionals. I like all of what Inigima said, especially with starting as Lich. Support heroes typically don't get picked in pub matches. One of his skills helps to win a lane (sacrifice). Skill it at level one and spam it beginning of the game, to keep your mana high and deny exp and gold from the other team. A guy named Purge has all sorts of useful commentary for the different heroes in game. Some of his videos are better and more informative than others and worth checking out http://www.youtube.com/user/PurgeGamers?feature=g-all-u Also, don't get too used to the bots. They are great at chain stunning, kills and denies, but suck terribly with map awareness and general pushing. I've only ever won two bot games, thanks to the bots on my team stuffing around, doing all sorts of craziness.
Thanks Josh for the vast education you gave me in walking around and letting me get my feet wet. I can tell this is going to be a long education process. If it wasn't for you, I doubt I would have stuck with it for very long. You are so right it is complicated. Inigima - one thing you could add to your guide is how to find lich. After basically running out of time trying to find out which one he was, Josh suggested typing in "L" and it scrolled right to him. The tiled starting area with so many heros is overwhelming, having to select each one just to see their name and it doesn't work for the top row, since there is no offset, their name is off-screen. Hard to imagine this game is as far as it is without that being fixed. It's a wonder there are 150K at any one time playing this on steam.
Oh, yeah, that stupid line view didn't exist when I wrote the OP, no idea why they put it in. Push Ctrl to go back to the grid view. In grid view heroes are divided along both axes in two categories: Left to right: Primary attributes, so Strength, Agility, Intelligence Top to bottom: Radiant, Dire. This has no effect whatsoever, there used to be a mode in Dota 1 where each team only had access to their side's heroes. The division is still useful so the blocks of heroes aren't even bigger. Lich is a Dire Int hero, so he's in the lower right.
The main thing is to avoid getting into a game like this Tman The commentary was a bit rough, but highlights the yawning gap between somewhat experienced players (Purge commentating) and completely new players, which can end up being frustrating for all involved. In fact, this video might help a lot too. Trust me, worth watching The main thing is to get a rough idea of how the game plays, developing map awareness and knowing how to stay alive more than anything. The two ward spots I showed you, they aren't the only ones which are useful. In fact, in that area, there are a few better ward spots, but in time, you will pick that up (or I can show you when you're next on). You will most likely feed in your first games against other pub players, and more than likely, people will yell, blaming all the world's problems on the easiest target, while forgetting that it is a team involvement. And assuming that all players know what they are doing which is frequently an incorrect assumption to make.
See comic (was too big in my post). It really does get better, everyone sucks when they start. Honestly if you queue a few real games and lose them you'll probably end up against worse opponents then the bots :)
I don't have time to watch this whole thing -- I should be in bed, and I'm not only because I can't sleep -- but he's saying some good stuff in the opening minutes. One suggestion I have: he has 113 gold left over after buying items. In my hands that would become two branches. Whether they get used in anything later or not, you buy to win your lane, and an extra +2 to every stat is very helpful in doing that even if they get sold later.
Yeah, not a bad demonstration of Lich. Certainly follow the skill build he went with, which is to emphasis sacrifice and his nuke skill (frost blast or whatever it is). And then harrass and deny in lane, which is how you win the lane. It does get a little more complicated when there are two or three heroes in lane, but the main thing is to try and deny the opponents carry as much farm (ie: creep kills) as possible, which means make it dangerous for him/her to get close enough to attack a creep, and deny as many of your own creeps as possible so they don't get the gold, and earn reduced experience. The early game is a good indicator of whether a game will be won or lost, but it is no guarantee, it is funny how much a few team fights mid to late game can really swing things around. I prefer to never have auto-cast on for frost armour, at all. You saw how he got cancelled a few times. Yeah, that's the reason. Furthermore, he should have spent more time with his team and casting frost armour regularly on them. It is too much of a useful buff. Secondly, I'd have gotten shivas guard over Aghanims scepter, the extra armour will reduce a fair amount of the physical damage that the oppoents had (bloodseeker, faceless void, juggernaut), and the slow ability make it a very useful tool in that particular line up of heroes. The times where an opponent got away could have been countered by him activating shivas guard and slowing them down, to then follow up with the nuke. Thirdly, he wondered what effect bloodseeker's ultimate has when using town portal. To detail a little further first, Bloodseeker's ultimate is called rupture. What it does is apply a pure damage hit on a hero, which generally isn't a whole lot. But then, when a hero moves, he or she will then take significant damage. It is actually a great way of killing new players because they'll take damage and want to flee, and as they flee, take more damage, when really, the best option is to either stand still, or teleport away. A town portal spell back to the fountain does not count in the distance covered, and is the easiest counter to bloodseeker's ultimate. Whenever I play against him, I'm always sure to carry a tp just in case. Fourth, I don't really agree with using the ult to take out a single hero because it has such a long cooldown. When he tried to go on the faceless void on the end of the game, he was unsuccesful in killing him, and then subsequently there was another team fight where the ultimate would have been infinitely more useful. Fifth. Sacrificing creeps is so important. Early game, even at full mana, sacrifice because then the opponents don't get either exp or gold. I remember I had to keep reminding you Tman to sacrifice, get into the habit of knowing when the cooldown is up and sacrifice. He did raise a good point too of keeping an eye on his mana. In terms of what creep to sacrifice, try and go for the full hp creeps as they offer the most mana - it is a skill based on how taking a % amount of hp remaining from the creep. The reason for pushing skill points into sacrifice is it shortens the cooldown and increases the percent reclamation. Where is gets complicated though is to decide whether to sacrifice a ranged or a melee creep. A full HP ranged creep will offer less mana compared to a full HP melee creep as they have less HP. And because of the hp, it means that by sacrificing a melee creep, it will allow the lane to counterpush a little more back to your tower compared to sacrificing a ranged creep. However, any sacrifice will promote counterpushing, unless of course, as you saw in the video, the carry in the lane will autoattack like crazy and push the lane forward regardless. The ideal spot for creeps to attack one another is just out of range of your own tower. That way if a gank comes in, you can quickly fall back to being under protection of your tower and it becomes very dangerous for the opposition to dive in and secure a kill (without dying themselves). Furthermore, being just outside of tower range makes it a lot more easier to last hit the creeps. There is so much more that I could go through. For instance, Lich never actually did any stacking of creeps, which helps with the farm rate of the carries. Nor did he actually do any pulls to bring the creeps closer to his own tower (and halt the push towards the opponents tower). The ward placement wasn't bad, but there are better spots.
Great post Josho. To elaborate on Aghanim's Scepter: Aghs is a newbie trap 90% of the time. It boosts ultimates, but often only in ways like a fixed-amount damage upgrade. It is a lot of money, so it's usually not worth it unless it provides some additional effect. There are heroes where it's absolutely core, like Invoker, but these are the exception not the rule. There are other considerations too, like whether a hero benefits adequately from all the stats on Aghs to justify the investment. It is usually not worth it on heroes like Lich, although it can be situationally effective. There are lots of options for support items to benefit your team, which are very dependent on what heroes on the enemy team and whether they're being played effectively, like Mekansm (armor, AOE group heal and armor buff), Pipe of Insight (magic armor, and creates a large [~400?] HP shield against magic damage, useful against things like, well, Lich ult), Shiva's Guard (small AOE nuke and slows nearby enemy attack speed), and a bunch of others. Using Lich's ult to off a single hero can be worth it depending on who it is, but you better be real sure. In addition to Lich's sacrifice, when playing any hero, if you're good enough at denying/last-hitting (and better at it than your opponent) you can control the lane comically well to keep the creeps near your tower for safe farming by choosing whether or not to deny. If you deny too much or sacrifice too efficiently, you may actually end up pulling the lane too far back, into tower range, which will actually cause the lane to push back out further than it would have if you hadn't done anything. For Lich's sacrifice specifically, choosing to sacrifice melee vs. ranged is actually even more complicated than Josho mentioned. Ranged creeps have less HP and therefore provide less mana when sacrificed, but all other things being equal -- enemy is not killing your creeps and changing the math, etc. -- ranged creeps push the lane more due to their higher damage. So typically you sacrifice melee creeps if you need the mana more, and ranged creeps if you need the lane pulled back more.
I feel like you guys are laying it on a little bit thick considering he's coming into the genre for the first time and probably has less then 10 games under his belt. Not that it isn't good information, just that even I'm finding it a bit overwhelming :)
Yeah maybe. I tend to take a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach -- he won't remember everything, but he'll remember some of it, and if he's trying to decide "oh, should I sacrifice this creep or that creep," he might remember that we talked about it.
I do really appreciate the detail. I've watched quite a bit of vid's, and your commentary is very useful. One question I had in the replay, is that lich was buffing the melee fighters somehow - I thought it was frost shield, but it seemed more broad-based as I saw an entire crowd of melee fighters get buffed. Is there some sort of upgrade you can purchase to make the creeps stronger? I really want to practice against bots for another 10-20 matches. I need to get 1-2 more invites so I can get my kids into this so we can play together against the bots. If you have any invites, PM me and I'll give you their steam names.
When activated, Mekansm provides an AOE heal and armor buff to both friendly heroes and friendly creeps. If I remember correctly, Lich hadn't completed his Mek by the end, but he did have one of the components -- buckler I think it is? I don't remember, I just know the picture -- and you can activate that for the armor buff, no heal. Both have obvious advantages for teamfighting, but are also useful when you have a big creep wave pushing a tower to get them to survive longer. I still have one spare invite. It makes much more sense for you to just PM me the info. My Steam profile: http://steamcommunity.com/id/raiser_ Are you sure you want your kids to play Dota? The MOBA community can be... unpleasant.
Yeah, the buff you saw most likely was the mekansm. Having a mek is considered core on close to any support hero. That burst heal and armour buff in a team fight go a long way. However, don't fall into the trap of buying a makansm when the team already has one. I'll generally announce, or ask if anyone else is getting mek, because if someone else is getting it, I'll then buy a pipe of insight instead. One other thing I also just remembered from that video is that the guy didn't seem to realise, or use his buckler's active ability. It actually provides an armour boost to all heroes which can swing a tight team fight. I have never really noticed anyone use the buckler's active ability before. And yeah, there is a lot, but I like Inigima's way of throwing everything there and seeing what sticks. A lot of it will come together over time as you play more games. I don't really know if there is any sort of start point and good structure of ways to learn the game. Well, besides knowing the basics of the map of course, and the UI.
