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DOTA2 |OT15| anime only please

twobear

sputum-flecked apoplexy
wings were just not in the groove for either game. idk what changed between TI and now but they've not been playing at the same level at all.

EG gotta be the team with the highest ceiling right?

i don't think so, VP are just on another level rn. tho in the second game they did look like a team that might be able to force VP to a 2 - 1 instead of their usual 2 - 0.
 
Maybe wings would have a chance if they didnt pick stupid shit like lycan

Wings wins with stupid picks: "There's no meta! Wings are so good they win with everything! All heroes are viable!"

Wings loses with stupid picks: "Wings needs to stick to the meta! Why are they picking stupid shit heroes???"

o_O
 

twobear

sputum-flecked apoplexy
wings can make off-meta drafts work.........but not when they play like soggy farts......which they did
 

kionedrik

Member
Wings wins with stupid picks: "There's no meta! Wings are so good they win with everything! All heroes are viable!"

Wings loses with stupid picks: "Wings needs to stick to the meta! Why are they picking stupid shit heroes???"

o_O

You can pick off-meta heroes but at least have coherent drafts. Look at their 2nd game draft: Lycan is trash, Disruptor and Dazzle don't work together at all and neither is able to pressure the offlaner out of the lane or any other lane or do anything besides babysitting, plus they don't provide anything to Lycan or Weaver (which was also a questionable pick).

The whole draft was mess.
 

Kopite

Member
Guess my 3K SEA is worth 5K NA
laugh.gif
 
Kids, don't get type 1 diabetes and have a low blood sugar attack. Shit's exhausting.

DC/EHOME/AF/LGD tomorrow. I would love FL to win but I'm not sure about them and I have faith in the Greeks.
 
More like how long will Wings stay together instead of being poached by LGD/iG/VG/Ehome

Member CDEC?
Member Agressif?

Wings won a TI which means they have historically had better success than any of those organizations. On top of that, I think historically Chinese organizations take a higher percentage of winnings than most Western organizations--they tend to favor high salaries with a larger cut going back to the parent org I believe. Wings got lucky during TI6. I swear to god, how nobody banned defensive supports or just sucked it up against Drow is a god damn mystery.
 
Yeah, wings were exceedingly lucky to play some of the best dota ever played, for sure.

They looked especially good against Na'vi and TNC. But nobody paid attention to those games, and instead focused on games where Wings blew teams out. Oh look, they stomped with Drow in an event 2 months ago, better ban Drow every game and let through the 2 defensive supports they haven't lost a single game with! They had excellent execution, but so did CDEC at TI5. The different is PPD found a flaw in CDEC.
 

twobear

sputum-flecked apoplexy
When I think of Wings I mostly think of them winning fights that in paper looked borderline unwinnable for them, maybe even more so than their off-meta lineups. The fights where it goes from 'oh no it's a disaster for Wings' to 'wait Wings just team wiped them' in the space of five seconds. If you want to call that luck it's fine, but I tend to think that when it keeps happening it's because they're actually really, really good at playing the game.

Wings yesterday just played badly for most of the games (with some small exceptions like defending the bottom lane in game 1). You can't look at those games and tell me with a straight face that it was business as usual for Wings and that they won TI by playing at that same level and getting lucky that they were against opponents who just happened to play even worse.
 
Wings yesterday just played badly for most of the games (with some small exceptions like defending the bottom lane in game 1). You can't look at those games and tell me with a straight face that it was business as usual for Wings and that they won TI by playing at that same level and getting lucky that they were against opponents who just happened to play even worse.

They've always had hints of playing like idiot savants. Remember Techies/Pudge in TI? They picked Pudge like 3 times and lost every game but just kept going with it. People remember when Wings goofy drafts work, but conveniently forget all the terrible results. Wings had a good run this patch, that's undeniable, but they have clearly not been a top 3 team since TI6. VP, EG, Newbee, and OG are definitely better, and I would even say LGD and Ehome are on par or better. Yea, Wings won Beat Invitational and Nanyang, but they were honestly pretty weak at Summit 6, and as this meta has settled they just aren't a top tier team.

But lets go back to TI6. Let's look at a few matches. Wings vs. Na'vi. Na'vi 2-0'd Wings during the Group Stage, and the drafts show a few of the things that Wings was weak against. The first game has Na'vi letting Drow through in favor of banning Oracle, and Wings immediately ban it because Na'vi can play a solid Drow. Banning Oracle was the best thing a team could have done, Wings finished Ti6 9-0 on Oracle. From that point on Na'vi took aggressive heroes that didn't reveal too much--Wisp and SK. It's a versatile pick that means Wings can't really counter it so they have to lock themselves into a non-committal draft as well, and from that point on Na'vi is beating them every step of the way. Now the even bigger thing to take away from this match, was Chen. Chen is the kryptonite of Wings Gaming. It represents everything that counters Wings style, and if people had dug into their history they would have seen that--the issue is everyone was so focused on Drow and Mirana strats they didn't bother trying to play their opponents, they were playing the meta.

The other important series that Wings lost was against TNC, and whether Jimmy realized it that time, he outdrafted Wings so hard it was comical. First game, Wings bans ET/VS, and TNC bans Mirana/Kunkka. TNC then takes Wisp, an open pick that gives them options, and Wings immediately snatches the Drow/Dazzle. In most peoples minds this was a huge mis-step because the thinking going into this even was that Wings were basically the pioneers of Drow, and you had to ban it against them. TNC counters with Axe, the hard counter to Dazzle and a hero that gives Drow a hard time and can pair decently with the Wisp. TNC immediately bans out Huskar and Storm, which means their options for a mid are basically WR/QoP/Medusa, or someone bad. Wings takes WR, fully committing to the Drow Strat and Jimmy snags KotL for depush. At this point Wings needs a roaming hero so they take NS, and TNC take PL. That pick basically ends Wings chances of winning. They have nothing to deal with PL. They ban out Sven hoping it's a mid PL (big in SEA) and then TNC takes Naga. Wings has literally no choice but to take a ranged hard carry that can deal with 2 illusion heroes--that are both direct counters to her--in Medusa. TNC gave Wings everything they could want with this draft, a nice defensive support, Drow, WR, and Medusa, and still won.

The second game was basically the same story, but even more revealing. TNC forced Wings to commit to a Drow strat by giving them Drow/VS first phase, after taking an IO, and then banned out the 2 defensive supports that Wings loved--Dazzle/Oracle. The key to beating Wings was not letting them control the draft, and everyone was so caught up in how effective Mirana and Drow were, they jumped at the chance to play them immediately. Wings wanted to play against Drow and/or Mirana. They then took DK and Axe, and TNC wins the whole draft with a 4th pick Timbersaw--a hero that counters most of Wings cores and Wings has no real answer for.

Wings was not unbeatable or "anti-Meta" at TI6, people were just distracted by their crisp execution of playing against the "in Meta" strats that everyone else ran. When pushed out of their comfort zone they looked lost and the key to that was defensive supports. Without them Wings couldn't play aggressive and it broke their ability to perform. Wings didn't win exclusively by getting lucky, but the fact that only 2 of the more aggressive and "lower tier" teams were the only ones to try and force them to make early commitments to strats.
 

Gaaraz

Member
Bristle's one of my comfort heroes, I normally play him as a greedy offlaner. Normal build I go is Tangoes, Salve, Stout Shield, Mango, Ironwood Branches, then Treads -> Magic Wand -> Vanguard -> Echo Sabre -> Basher -> Abyssal. From there I like Octarine, because Octarine goes so well with spamming your skills/Warpath getting more stacks/decreased cooldown on basher/echo sabre procs, but it's definitely super greedy. Blademail is good, as is AC. If you prefer to get your team to push with you rushing Greaves first is ok, but I think the other item build is generally better.

General tips: Bristle's pretty good at ensuring you get decent CS even in the offlane. Bristleback passive from level 2 onwards makes you pretty hard to kill, and you can CS relatively safely even with just 1 point in Quill Spray. At level 3 I normally have 2 points in Quill Spray and one in Bristleback. At 4, if I think I can get a kill I'll get a point in Goo, otherwise I'll get more points in Bristleback. As a rough guide: if you manage to get 2-3 quill spray stacks on the enemy, have a healthy amount of mana, and they aren't backing up, don't have a mobility skill like blink, and you have boots, you should be able to chase the guy down with goo and quill sprays and kill him. Make sure to account if the enemy has stick charges from you spamming your skills though!

Once you get Wand/Vanguard, you're pretty tanky, so try to get your team to fight with you as the frontliner. Bristle thrives in long, drawn out engagements, so try to spray the enemies a bit, look like you're backing up/draw the opponents back into your team, turn back around, etc.

Things to look out for: Heroes that build Silver Edge (losing Bristleback passive hurts and throws off your ability to calculate how aggressive you can be), heroes that make you face them (i.e. Axe and LC), and heroes that kill your mana (KOTL, AM, Invoker, etc).
Thank you so much for the advice! :) I'm really looking forward to playing as Bristle again now, and I'll try the build you recommended. I've never built echo sabre or octarine on Bristle before but am keen to try them!
 
What about BB mid? Would it work?

I'm sure it would, I don't play mid much but I don't see why Bristle wouldn't be at least ok in mid. Getting a bottle helps a lot with mana problems you get from spamming quill spray. MVP run Bristle mid with Io I believe.
 

Hylian7

Member
Played Abaddon the other day for the first time in a long time. I forgot how much fun it was to go ham with shield and harass with passive in lane. Also my friend playing Sniper was out of position many times and I was still able to keep him alive.

Tried Aghs for the hell of it, didn't feel like it had much impact, but it was fun.
 

Hylian7

Member
aghs on aBadOne is super funny during base sieges

I hate playing the dude because the mana management is incredibly frustrating.
I laned with my friend on Jakiro, and I got Mana Boots pretty fast and so did he, so it wasn't really an issue in this particular game.
 
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