Dota 2 Beta Thread 2: Real Talk Discouraged [Magnus, Teams, 6.75b, 150+ Shop Items]

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very simple, one is a better support than the other and as the above was pointed out. CM is item independent

Simple enough. Doesn't change my impression of her game, though. She's a great "take one for the team" pick in a competitive match, but definitely not a character I'll play to have fun. Not at all.
 
Finally jumped back into this and played a couple games as Brewmaster, actually liked his character a lot and am enjoying the game a lot more. Should I keep playing as him and improving and learning, then move onto different characters?

And what items should I go for with him?

Aghanims seems to be universally agreed upon as his core.

I think it was either milk or 1.09 that recommended phase, drums, and blink in addition to aghanims.
 
Simple enough. Doesn't change my impression of her game, though. She's a great "take one for the team" pick in a competitive match, but definitely not a character I'll play to have fun. Not at all.

I could be putting my foot in my mouth, but in my experience, CM is most effective during the first 20 minutes of the game, and then starts to sink in usefulness, having somewhat mediocre utility. The mana aura is less significant in the later game, her spell damage doesn't really get much higher past level 8 or 9 (Frost Bite's Damage Scales really poorly, it goes from 140/140/210/210 total Magic Damage). So despite the lack of HP and movement speed, she should be put in an aggressive lane that can capitalize on the early damage and two fairly high damaging nukes. She can work as a Baby sitter, but you are better off with someone like Lich or Dazzle in that roll. She works really well in the long lane with a Strength Simi Cary. I have a lot of fun with her since I play her really kill happy for the first 10 to 15 minutes. She is also great practice for positioning, since with crappy HP and low movement speed, a few seconds of bad positioning is easily death.

Also, I personally like to skill the Ult at level 6 or 7 (Great for a "Well, I'm screwed, here goes nothing" situation), and grab a level 2 ult between 11 and 14. I useually skip the level 3 ult unless I can get a really large mana pool, since 600 mana is usually too large of an amount to cast many spells after the ult.

Onto anther character, a minor thing I don't get is why so many Wind Runner's skip the ult for a long ass time. While there are many times that it would just be useless, even at level 1 it is great for damaging towers quickly if they aren't being well defended (People leave you alone or can't actually keep you off the tower for a good 5 seconds). Also, something that I think some people don't realize is that you can use spells and not lose the buff.

Finally, no more 5 man randoms for a long time. Oh god, 4 losses in a row, and one game with 5 melee carries.


Edit: You know, I wonder if it would be feasible to calculate for a bunch of support characters and gankers something along the line of "You need this much gold [by this time] to be useful." Some people really do just need a pair of boots, while someone like Omniknight needs a good 3k gold in items to be effective.
 
Tried Doom Bringer, Shadow Demon, and Pugna tonight. Not a fan of Doom Bringer, half his spells have a really long cool down. The LVL death attack seems to really be hit or miss, how am I supposed to guess who is what level. Also there were two empty ability slots that never filled up, did I miss something? Shadow Demon was quite fun to use, I can imagine it takes practice to stack poison and use the disruption move effectively. Pugna was really fun, but I kept doing stupid things like casting my ult when I was barely in range and forgetting the ward auto drops once you use it. I could see me playing him more in the future.
 
You click on the guy, and just check their level. You don't simply guess. And for the empty slots, you can consume neutral creeps and gain their abilities. Some really good Auras and actives mixed in with all the neutrals.
 
Tried Doom Bringer, Shadow Demon, and Pugna tonight. Not a fan of Doom Bringer, half his spells have a really long cool down. The LVL death attack seems to really be hit or miss, how am I supposed to guess who is what level. Also there were two empty ability slots that never filled up, did I miss something? Shadow Demon was quite fun to use, I can imagine it takes practice to stack poison and use the disruption move effectively. Pugna was really fun, but I kept doing stupid things like casting my ult when I was barely in range and forgetting the ward auto drops once you use it. I could see me playing him more in the future.

For the LVL ? Death spell, you can hold \ (on default controls) to look at the scoreboard and see enemy levels, or you can just click on the enemies to check. If you're just taking on one guy though, you might as well blow the LVL ? Death on him no matter what level he is, as some damage is better than no damage.

As for the other spells, read the description on Devour again. You gain the 2 abilities that creep you devour has. The key here is that it applies to neutral creeps! You om nom nom one and you get it's abilities. Also, remember if you have abilities from a creep, and you eat one that has no abilities, you won't lose the abilities you have, so don't worry. However if you eat one that does have abilities, then it will replace the abilities you currently have.

As for which neutral creeps to get, I personally like to get these guys:

Dark_Troll_Warlord.jpg


They have an ability called Ensnare, which is essentially like Crystal Maiden's freezing thing (They can't move, but can still use abilities and items). It's pretty damn useful to be able to hold them down like that when you're chasing. Getting the Centaur is pretty good too, as that stomp would help you if you can get up close and personal with the enemies.

Key thing about Doom Bringer though: Om Nom Nom is a priority early on! He's a carry, and that's a great tool for farming! I pretty much do something like this for him normally (in order of priority).

1. Devour
2. Scorched Earth
3. Doom (take ult as soon as possible, level every chance you get)
4. LVL ? Death
 
Edit: You know, I wonder if it would be feasible to calculate for a bunch of support characters and gankers something along the line of "You need this much gold [by this time] to be useful." Some people really do just need a pair of boots, while someone like Omniknight needs a good 3k gold in items to be effective.

No he doesn't, Omni is useful for Repel and his Ult alone. How exactly does he need 3k of items to be effective?

Also you don't need Windrunners ult early as your other skills are so much better, and you do very little damage with it early on.
 
Omni needs at most a Soul Ring to get going.
 
For the LVL ? Death spell, you can hold \ (on default controls) to look at the scoreboard and see enemy levels, or you can just click on the enemies to check. If you're just taking on one guy though, you might as well blow the LVL ? Death on him no matter what level he is, as some damage is better than no damage.

As for the other spells, read the description on Devour again. You gain the 2 abilities that creep you devour has. The key here is that it applies to neutral creeps! You om nom nom one and you get it's abilities. Also, remember if you have abilities from a creep, and you eat one that has no abilities, you won't lose the abilities you have, so don't worry. However if you eat one that does have abilities, then it will replace the abilities you currently have.

As for which neutral creeps to get, I personally like to get these guys:

Dark_Troll_Warlord.jpg


They have an ability called Ensnare, which is essentially like Crystal Maiden's freezing thing (They can't move, but can still use abilities and items). It's pretty damn useful to be able to hold them down like that when you're chasing. Getting the Centaur is pretty good too, as that stomp would help you if you can get up close and personal with the enemies.

Key thing about Doom Bringer though: Om Nom Nom is a priority early on! He's a carry, and that's a great tool for farming! I pretty much do something like this for him normally (in order of priority).

1. Devour
2. Scorched Earth
3. Doom (take ult as soon as possible, level every chance you get)
4. LVL ? Death

Alpha wolf is also a great one to get if you've got a right click heavy team. Kobold taskmaster is fun for chasing down runners as well..
 
Hey, I watched the replay of that one game we had were we got rolled after a decent start. The biggest problem was that we lost every lane. Even though we were down only three kills and one tower, they had more than 5k gold advantage on us. It just snowballed from there since no one was really getting any farm to keep up with them.

We just did not have the last hits to compete with them.

Funny how obvious it is in retrospect when at the time we were wondering what went wrong.

Playing tonight, I started getting a little more farm in on Omni while mostly trying to deny creeps, but with strategic Purifications on my lane partners.
 
Onto anther character, a minor thing I don't get is why so many Wind Runner's skip the ult for a long ass time. While there are many times that it would just be useless, even at level 1 it is great for damaging towers quickly if they aren't being well defended (People leave you alone or can't actually keep you off the tower for a good 5 seconds). Also, something that I think some people don't realize is that you can use spells and not lose the buff.

It's really not a good skill to get at level 6. I keep yelling at my friend for doing it. The issue is that her three regular abilities just have so much more utility which is far more important at the early levels. You can't be guaranteed you'll get an opportunity to use the ultimate on a tower. And you get nothing from it if it's just sitting on your skill bar unused.

Shackle and Powershot have such great impact on the early game and not scaling Windrun is just asking for death. If someone comes to gank your lane, they are relying on you to have a good length to your shackle stun and for you to provide decent damage with your nuke. What is Focus Fire going to do for you should you ever be caught off guard?

And if you want to just push towers, use her high level Powershot to nuke down the incoming creeps.

Funny how obvious it is in retrospect when at the time we were wondering what went wrong.

Playing tonight, I started getting a little more farm in on Omni while mostly trying to deny creeps, but with strategic Purifications on my lane partners.

Yeah, it's hard to gauge how well the enemy is farming without being able to see their creep score. Often when I play Omni I find I'm getting the primary farm in a lane. Which isn't necessarily bad since he is really annoying with support items.
 
Which items do you guys get on Queen of Pain, and in what order? I usually go in this order: Bottle, Treads, Aghanim, Sheepstick and probably Linken's Sphere. I'm considering replacing some since my success has been so-so.
 
As for which neutral creeps to get, I personally like to get these guys:

Dark_Troll_Warlord.jpg


They have an ability called Ensnare, which is essentially like Crystal Maiden's freezing thing (They can't move, but can still use abilities and items). It's pretty damn useful to be able to hold them down like that when you're chasing. Getting the Centaur is pretty good too, as that stomp would help you if you can get up close and personal with the enemies.

That's good advice. The Ensnare ability also goes through magic immunity and can cancel stuff like Enigma casting a Black Hole when he has a BKB on and the like. Very powerful. Another nice creep to get when you go the melee DPS carry route on him is the Alpha Wolf, he has a Critical Strike passive. The Centaur Khan is great too with his AoE stun.


Which items do you guys get on Queen of Pain, and in what order? I usually go in this order: Bottle, Treads, Aghanim, Sheepstick and probably Linken's Sphere. I'm considering replacing some since my success has been so-so.
Bottle and Treads are definitely core on her and you should always get them. The items you listed are good, but you should consider going Linken's first when the enemies have a lot of disables or silence spells. Aghanim's is really great on her, but it's not always advisable to rush for one. If you're getting pushed hard, Agh's is great because you can just use your ultimate to clear creep waves. You could also go Shiva's guard for the awesome AoE slow and big armor boost (good if the enemies have a lot of minus armor and big physical DPS).
 
When i go Linken's with qop (well, with almost anyone) i try to get it as my first major item since the regen from the perseverance is terrific in the laning phase.

Also Threads are good, but not mandatory. BoT are cool too.
 
Any suggestions for a final Leshrac build?

Personally, I've been going Ags, BoT (after starting with Arcane), Dual Bloodstones (why? because I'm insane. thinking about changing this up though), Veil of Discord, and Shiva's or Blade Mail. I might cut out one of the bloodstones and replace it with an Orchid, but then I'm afraid my ulti would have to come off from the never-off status.
 
False Witness said:
Any suggestions for a final Leshrac build?

Personally, I've been going Ags, BoT (after starting with Arcane), Dual Bloodstones (why? because I'm insane. thinking about changing this up though), Veil of Discord, and Shiva's or Blade Mail. I might cut out one of the bloodstones and replace it with an Orchid, but then I'm afraid my ulti would have to come off from the never-off status.

It's pretty rare that you'll get a game where you'll have a build that like that but BoT, ag scepter, sheep, bloodstone, bkb, blink.
 
When i go Linken's with qop (well, with almost anyone) i try to get it as my first major item since the regen from the perseverance is terrific in the laning phase.

Also Threads are good, but not mandatory. BoT are cool too.

Yeah, I forgot BoTs. Very nice for ganking and pushing purposes.
 
It's pretty rare that you'll get a game where you'll have a build that like that but BoT, ag scepter, sheep, bloodstone, bkb, blink.

Eh, more often than not the only thing I'll end up missing is the boot recipe and armor item in a similar build that I do with my Lesh. Farming is so easy with him.
 
Tried out hand of midas build on Doom on mid. Ah so good with that triple gold income you get from devour/hom/last hitting.


Alalalalallllmighty money $$$
 
welp, Day 2 with Crystal Maiden:


most games have been like that for my CM today. in order (recent to oldest):

15/0/17
5/3/9
11/3/12
7/5/13
8/3/11

All while keeping the map so warded, I'm counting seconds until wards restock. :) Most kills coming off of either "nobody else could do hit them from that range" last hits, unexpected last hits, or 1v1's where I snuck up on some unsuspecting squishy then froze + nuke + ult. People never see her ult coming.

I think...I think I like her now and will continue working on my game with her. Question: can people still cast skills when frozen? I ask because I swear I've seen people cast spells while I had them on lockdown.
 
So I played Lion in a game today for the first time in forever, and noticed in his recommended items (using Sebulon's build), that there's a Scythe of Vyse (sheepstick) in there. Why is this not considered redundant for Lion? I mean I can see sheeping 2 carries late game being useful, but just getting one hero sheeped already does a lot for your team. Couldn't you just save the gold and buy something else?
 
Frostbite interrupts, disarms and snares but does not silence.
So I played Lion in a game today for the first time in forever, and noticed in his recommended items (using Sebulon's build), that there's a Scythe of Vyse (sheepstick) in there. Why is this not considered redundant for Lion? I mean I can see sheeping 2 carries late game being useful, but just getting one hero sheeped already does a lot for your team. Couldn't you just save the gold and buy something else?
What could you buy that is better than:
A chunk of mana
A chunk of HP
A lot of mana regeneration
A 3.5 second disable

The truth is, sheepstick is one of the best INT items in the game. There are few items a support hero should get over it if they can afford it. The main obstacle to getting sheepstick is, of course, the price tag. Certain necessities need to be taken care of first, such as wards, boots, mek, possibly force staff/blink, and maybe a ghost scepter. But after that, your first luxury is pretty much always a sheepstick because it is the best option.

There is no such thing as too much disable.
 
So I played Lion in a game today for the first time in forever, and noticed in his recommended items (using Sebulon's build), that there's a Scythe of Vyse (sheepstick) in there. Why is this not considered redundant for Lion? I mean I can see sheeping 2 carries late game being useful, but just getting one hero sheeped already does a lot for your team. Couldn't you just save the gold and buy something else?

What.

You can sheep 2 guys.

How is that not amazing for your team.
 
My only issue with Sheep stick is I suck at farming, and can rarely get it on a support unless the game goes into the 1 hour mark. Forever stuck with the Poor Man's version, Eul's.
 
Frostbite interrupts, disarms and snares but does not silence.

What could you buy that is better than:
A chunk of mana
A chunk of HP
A lot of mana regeneration
A 3.5 second disable

The truth is, sheepstick is one of the best INT items in the game. There are few items a support hero should get over it if they can afford it. The main obstacle to getting sheepstick is, of course, the price tag. Certain necessities need to be taken care of first, such as wards, boots, mek, possibly force staff/blink, and maybe a ghost scepter. But after that, your first luxury is pretty much always a sheepstick because it is the best option.

There is no such thing as too much disable.

What.

You can sheep 2 guys.

How is that not amazing for your team.

I guess that makes sense then, I was just trying to not be redundant on heroes since I got the lecture on how Blink Dagger on Anti-Mage is a stupid idea (although I actually understand why that's a stupid idea).
 
My only issue with Sheep stick is I suck as farming, and can rarely get it on a support unless the game goes into the 1 hour mark. Forever stuck with the Poor Man's version, Eul's.

I usually don't consider getting it on someone like CM or Omni because it's setting the bar really high.

It's not too hard to get on the int heroes who rely more on auto attack damage and burst nukes like windrunner.
 
I was thinking the veil just made the magic do 25% more damage. Some of these descriptions can be confusing as fuck at times. The orchid collects that added damage and just deals it as burst at the end, while the veil just adds to the immediate damage, right?
 
I'm not sure you do.

It's not an extra disable, just an escape mechanism. On top of that, he's a carry and pretty item-dependent. He needs a Vanguard, and whatever else you're getting so he can actually not die in teamfights. He can't just blow 2150 gold on an escape mechanism that he already has and will probably cooldown in time for him to use it again. Unless it's some situation where Blink Dagger would share a cooldown with his built-in Blink, then I don't see any reason other than what I just said.
 
It's not an extra disable, just an escape mechanism. On top of that, he's a carry and pretty item-dependent. He needs a Vanguard, and whatever else you're getting so he can actually not die in teamfights. He can't just blow 2150 gold on an escape mechanism that he already has and will probably cooldown in time for him to use it again. Unless it's some situation where Blink Dagger would share a cooldown with his built-in Blink, then I don't see any reason other than what I just said.
I'm actually glad you proved me wrong. Most likely by repeating whatever the person who lectured you said. Whoever that was did a decent job I guess. Though, it's not enough to just repeat those specific reasons. The way you speak about Sheep being bad because of some arbitrary idea that it's redundant made me cautious. Even in your description, there's no mention of redundancy, so I'm guessing that you just pulled that part out of your ass.
 
So I played rikimaru today, and... I might be going out on a limb here, but I think the hero is an invisible mid game carry. He's invisible and he scales really well. One of my new favorites.
 
I'm actually glad you proved me wrong. Most likely by repeating whatever the person who lectured you said. Whoever that was did a decent job I guess. Though, it's not enough to just repeat those specific reasons. The way you speak about Sheep being bad because of some arbitrary idea that it's redundant made me cautious. Even in your description, there's no mention of redundancy, so I'm guessing that you just pulled that part out of your ass.

Well way back in the day my original idea was that a Blink Dagger on AM would be so he could blink in, Mana Void, Blink out, but playing the game, I've learned that's not enough and he should be getting kills anyway.
 
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