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[KojiKnight]

Zagara was only 4000g, so I still have a ton left over... Early morning queues are long as always, just now trying to get into a game to try her out.

(edit) Not impressed so far after one play, going to try and play with the builds a bit... she seems squishier than I'd like and the gaping map special is way way too slow to activate.

(edit 2) Tried focusing on baneling and they made for great seige weapons and the nydus worm ultimate is definitely the only ultimate worth getting, but the time to get into the worm is a little too high. Hard to hit and run when your dead by the time you load into it (or they smartly focus down the worm which has 2 hits to it)

(edit 3) She's terrible at seige which is a little sad given banelings and their primary use in SC2. If she was better at hit and run that would make up for it... but Nydus Worms have just too long of a cooldown to get into them. It's about 4 seconds which is more then enough time to kill/stun/block Zagara or the worm itself. She's great at capping merc camps. I'll continue to play around with her today, but overall I think I'm a bit disappointed... as specialist go she's pretty weak.

 

[shysaursoft]

Daily quest: play as a hero from Diablo. Play as the Demon Hunter. Does not complete quest. Odd.

 

[Proven]

Zagara seems like a hit and run hero, who uses creep primarily to run away and give vision. A number of her talents scream run in, hit an ability at max range, run out, and let your creep help you either get away faster or let your abilities run further.

There's also issues with the new score screen. One example is that an ability like Vampiric keeps counting towards your Healed stat even if you're at full health. Another example is that any damage done by Zagara's minions (and all of her abilities count as her minions) doesn't show up on her stats.

 

[KojiKnight]

Zagara seems like a hit and run hero, who uses creep primarily to run away and give vision. A number of her talents scream run in, hit an ability at max range, run out, and let your creep help you either get away faster or let your abilities run further.

There's also issues with the new score screen. One example is that an ability like Vampiric keeps counting towards your Healed stat even if you're at full health. Another example is that any damage done by Zagara's minions (and all of her abilities count as her minions) doesn't show up on her stats.

Playing with Zagara more (basically dedicated all of today to her) I'm starting to appreciate her more. For a seige hero (as per her description) I feel she's still rather lacking in that. Her seige damage is rather low.

As for hit and run, I'd say her creep makes that rather difficult. Your planned escape route is glowing and purple, if your enemy just puts them between your escape route and where you're at, you can't escape. A dedicated slowing ability would be great, as would a stunning ability (say when your roachlings first land). One or the other would GREATLY enhanced her survivability. As is, my most successful run with her was with Nydus worms and diving in the very moment I see anyone enter my field of view. Otherwise a stun or any decent combo of attacks will completely kill you or the worm and leave you for death.

Like I said, I'm enjoying her, but she just feels like she needs a slight survivability tweak.

 

[Nirolak]

With Zagara I find she's actually very good at defense and then killing minions and mercs to push. Like I can usually hold off 2-3 players in a lane solo if they're trying to push early in the game and then wipe out minions quite quickly afterwards.

For team fights you usually want to stay behind the rest of your team and support like you would with an actual Broodmother hiding behind a zerg army.

For talents I usually get the three locusts, improved damage against non-heroic, baneling damage, baneling amount, the maw (to take a hero out of a team fight), the range/damage increase to her base attack so she can stay further back while still doing things, and I'm not entirely decided on the one where you upgrade the hydralisk.

But basically I use her to flood in minions for lane control while striking from medium-long range.

I haven't played a ton of matches with her, but it felt quite effective while trying her.

I would not suggest charging into the enemy with her almost ever unless you're clearly going to win. Let your army do most of the work.

 

[Proven]

Playing with Zagara more (basically dedicated all of today to her) I'm starting to appreciate her more. For a seige hero (as per her description) I feel she's still rather lacking in that. Her seige damage is rather low.

As for hit and run, I'd say her creep makes that rather difficult. Your planned escape route is glowing and purple, if your enemy just puts them between your escape route and where you're at, you can't escape. A dedicated slowing ability would be great, as would a stunning ability (say when your roachlings first land). One or the other would GREATLY enhanced her survivability. As is, my most successful run with her was with Nydus worms and diving in the very moment I see anyone enter my field of view. Otherwise a stun or any decent combo of attacks will completely kill you or the worm and leave you for death.

Like I said, I'm enjoying her, but she just feels like she needs a slight survivability tweak.

Surprisingly, unless they actually kill the creep Zagara can just run past. They have to have stuns or be great at body blocking to actually stop her from just walking away. It's like when the game first came out and people complained they couldn't kill anyone.

 

[KojiKnight]

Surprisingly, unless they actually kill the creep Zagara can just run past. They have to have stuns or be great at body blocking to actually stop her from just walking away. It's like when the game first came out and people complained they couldn't kill anyone.

Not true in my experience., Zagara is made of paper and the speed boost from creep isn't very high (20% maybe?) so any ranged hero will easily be in range long enough to kill him.

 

[Proven]

Not true in my experience., Zagara is made of paper and the speed boost from creep isn't very high (20% maybe?) so any ranged hero will easily be in range long enough to kill him.

True, but a ranged hero shouldn't get perfectly positioned behind you no matter who you play as. Otherwise you'll outrun their auto attacks and should be zoning them when you can. Also, it feels like they've finally got every ranged hero to a good auto-attack point. I'm actually afraid of Demon Hunter again (until I CC her).

 

[KojiKnight]

Man is the game buggy today (missing talents, blocking out characters you own, telling you you have to be level 4 TRILLION+ to get quests)

Playing purely defensive with Zagara has been working fairly well early game, as is focusing heavily on creep spread. The problem becomes mid and late game when the distance between places gets much much larger. Getting caught off of creep is a death sentence, and it's impossibly time consuming to place creep tumors near endlessly along an ever growing path.

So, the results seem to be for ultimate that you either choose Nydus to be able to keep up your forward momentum and focus purely on lane pushing/demolision or you choose maw and give up mobility in favor of playing more defensively around towers and only coming out when your team makes a big push together.

 

[Nirolak]

Blizzard put up a blog post with a variety of Zagara strategies: http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/14569140

 

[lyrick]

The more games I play, the more I notice that this patch really switched the scale to be whoever rolls the better tuned deathball wins.

It's almost as if they cut any of the strategic ways to win off at the knees.

It feels like Early D3 again, where they want you to play a very specific way and they will alter the game until you change your playstyle or just quit playing.

 

[Alur]

The more games I play, the more I notice that this patch really switched the scale to be whoever rolls the better tuned deathball wins.

It's almost as if they cut any of the strategic ways to win off at the knees.

It feels like Early D3 again, where they want you to play a very specific way and they will alter the game until you change your playstyle or just quit playing.

I dunno about better tuned deathball, depends on the matchup a lot is how it feels to me. On the other hand, I think they kind of hosed any casual players with the "Underdog" mechanic. I have came back with it all of twice, and have never had someone come back with it against me in about 20 games.

I feel like I missed the message on the EXP change there...it looked like they said if you fall behind even one level and increasing with each level the main way to gain EXP back was to engage in team fights and win, right? But what I've seen is people avoiding team fights all together once they get a lead, plus it's not exactly a simple task to beat a dude 2 or 3 levels higher than you.

The EXP bonus to minions in a lane (20%) is nice, but so far I'm not seeing this being any better than the trickle system. Maybe others have fared better, though.

 

[Proven]

For most games, unless my team feeds into the deathball, the underdog system and increased minion experience means that I still always stay within 1-2 levels at the very worst. Beating the deathball is one thing, but it's not hard at all to keep experience levels even with the new systems. And then if you do manage to wipe the enemy team, you quickly find yourself ahead on levels.

It feels closer to something like SC2, where you should only have a small advantage/disadvantage between the two sides that keeps flipping depending on how the last fight went. Then again, I also treat the game as finding ways to keep your experience up rather than finding ways to get ahead of your opponents.

 

[KojiKnight]

Another match another try with Zagara and I still feel the same. She's strong early game, but it's just so hard to play her effectively late game without taking talents that greatly effect her DPS/survivability negatively. I tried my best, but I think I have to go back to playing a proper support instead. Going to give the improved malfurion a try again for awhile. I gave Murky a shot, but he seems to be a bit all over the place right now.

 

[Alur]

For most games, unless my team feeds into the deathball, the underdog system and increased minion experience means that I still always stay within 1-2 levels at the very worst. Beating the deathball is one thing, but it's not hard at all to keep experience levels even with the new systems.

Your experience has definitely been different than mine, then. Granted I probably played 12 or so of those 20 games in at least a 3 person team, but the vast majority we had at least 3 levels and often 4 or 5 level lead just destroying teams and ending games much earlier than prior to the change.

And then if you do manage to wipe the enemy team, you quickly find yourself ahead on levels.

This is what I was referring to. One wipe of the enemy team once you reach a certain stage and it's pretty damn hard to come back in the new system. If the team couldn't kill you before you gained all that EXP, how are they going to now?

I just think it's a bad idea for the casual aspect they are going for. Telling players they need to kill other players to catch up when the level disparity is so great is not good, IMO. I think they need to tone the level disparity down a bit. Just two levels is license to wreck at this point. A smaller curve would help a lot.

 

[Proven]

It just takes one good engage. And every hero has tricks that only turn on later in the game. Similar stuff has happened in SC2, and it's the primary reason why you never give up when you're on the losing end for most of the game.

From the perspective of the team that was winning and then quickly losing, all you can do is try to end the game earlier, or get a more concrete advantage (take down some inner keeps or try to get a good push on the core so you can backdoor later).

And did you play before they had the bonus trickle xp system that came in during the May patch?

 

[Technosteve]

why are the controls so floaty and laggy. I have auto cast on and it still super laggy

 

[Alur]

why are the controls so floaty and laggy. I have auto cast on and it still super laggy

I haven't noticed anything too off-putting myself, though I have heard others say this.That said, the obvious answer is...it's Alpha. Everything has already changed quite a bit and I've barely been in the game a month, from the UI to talents to the leaderboard and on down. Even the store purchase screen is new this patch.

Not something I'd worry about being an issue in the future is all I'm saying.

 

[Raxus]

New Murky kind of sucks IMO.

 

[Technosteve]

I haven't noticed anything too off-putting myself, though I have heard others say this.That said, the obvious answer is...it's Alpha. Everything has already changed quite a bit and I've barely been in the game a month, from the UI to talents to the leaderboard and on down. Even the store purchase screen is new this patch.

Not something I'd worry about being an issue in the future is all I'm saying.

it's important to the game when you don't get the response you want from the commands you input to the game. Either the actions are missing animations or this numb response is on purpose.

 

[KojiKnight]

HotS is based on SC2 which has a bit of control lag in built by design to help mitigate any small network hiccups. We don't know if they plan on tightening up the control inputs any before formal release or not. It's not so bad that the game feels to floaty to me, but the input lag is undeniably there and thus you have to "skill shot" aim ahead of where you think someone will be versus exactly where they are.

New Murky kind of sucks IMO.

As someone who maxed out his progression, yes. New Murky is terrible. He felt like he was already on the razor's edge between too good and too bad... it really only felt like he needed to have his murloc ultimate nerfed (which they did). Everything else just felt like overkill. Though I wasn't sad that they removed his bomb when he dies either since that was frustrating as hell to deal with.

 

[Miletius]

I think there's still work to be done with the back and forth. In some matches I just feel outclassed, and am waiting for death. In others, I just feel like we are firing on all cylinders and we stomp the opposition badly. There are very few games that feel like anything other than that output, to be honest.

Otherwise I'm enjoying myself, and I think it's pretty decent system. I saw somebody playing a pretty mean Illidan today, kind of wish I was that good at him, seems like a really solid pick up if you can get somebody like that on your team.

 

[Alur]

I think there's still work to be done with the back and forth. In some matches I just feel outclassed, and am waiting for death. In others, I just feel like we are firing on all cylinders and we stomp the opposition badly. There are very few games that feel like anything other than that output, to be honest.

Otherwise I'm enjoying myself, and I think it's pretty decent system. I saw somebody playing a pretty mean Illidan today, kind of wish I was that good at him, seems like a really solid pick up if you can get somebody like that on your team.

For me, it seems like each week we get further into Alpha there are more and more coordinated groups running. Even a pickup group from Gen Chat is several degrees better than a random queue. I think that's why it seems you either dominate or don't...you're probably getting into games with or against parts of other groups. This is just my experience, though, you may just be seeing the results of all randoms.

Li Li is still pretty strong. The nerf to the run speed boost from damage does help with killing her, but the healing doesn't seem terribly affected. That new Brightwing Blink Heal change is insane, though.

 

[Miletius]

For me, it seems like each week we get further into Alpha there are more and more coordinated groups running. Even a pickup group from Gen Chat is several degrees better than a random queue. I think that's why it seems you either dominate or don't...you're probably getting into games with or against parts of other groups. This is just my experience, though, you may just be seeing the results of all randoms.

Li Li is still pretty strong. The nerf to the run speed boost from damage does help with killing her, but the healing doesn't seem terribly affected. That new Brightwing Blink Heal change is insane, though.

That's probably true. I wondered if the queue separates groups and PUGS, but there probably isn't enough people in the pool right now to do that kind of separation. Maybe when the full game releases.

 

[Proven]

Closer to primetime (when there's 2k or so people playing) you'll definitely see separation of groups and people. The matchmaker prefers to match 5s against 5s, and 2s + 3s against 2s + 3s. You'll notice it when you're in a small group while there are less people on and the matchmaker feels forced to match you against some of the same people for a few games in a row, and you'll notice when you queue in 2s or 3s and ask your teammates to often find that they're in a group too.

 

[Miletius]

Maybe it was the teams I was on last night but Malfurion is pretty good, as far as I can tell. Root is really nice and Tranq is amazing. The other ultimate is also really good for stopping channeled spells like DH strafe.

 

[Gryph]

For most games, unless my team feeds into the deathball, the underdog system and increased minion experience means that I still always stay within 1-2 levels at the very worst. Beating the deathball is one thing, but it's not hard at all to keep experience levels even with the new systems. And then if you do manage to wipe the enemy team, you quickly find yourself ahead on levels.

It feels closer to something like SC2, where you should only have a small advantage/disadvantage between the two sides that keeps flipping depending on how the last fight went. Then again, I also treat the game as finding ways to keep your experience up rather than finding ways to get ahead of your opponents.

I've had a couple of games recently that really went back and forth, almost to the last second with pushing and counter pushing. Team fighting all the way down the lane and getting pushed all the way back...

However I do still see a good number of games where my team just gets mercilessly pounded...

My only problem with that is I'm not sure I understand why I sometimes lose so badly. Is it just about composition?

 

[Alur]

Maybe it was the teams I was on last night but Malfurion is pretty good, as far as I can tell. Root is really nice and Tranq is amazing. The other ultimate is also really good for stopping channeled spells like DH strafe.

Seems to have been buffed decently. I don't remember 'em being much before patch but I see them a lot now.

I sent you an invite last night right after you logged in, Miletius, but you had joined a game about 3 seconds before apparently.

My only problem with that is I'm not sure I understand why I sometimes lose so badly. Is it just about composition?

It seems to be a little wonky on that part still...there's no cut and dried way to win so it could literally be anything. I've lost because the whole team went team fighting and no one gathered EXP in lanes and we had 15+ kills on the other team and in the end, they just ate our core. Also won games this way.

Several losses due to poor team comp. In the new patch there are many more specialists running (Sgt. Hammer and Zagara's everywhere when I play) as well as a Tassadar (who is awesome now) in nearly every game so I often get 2 specialist, 2 support, and 1 assassin or tank. Other common variation is 2 tank 2 specialist 1 support. Strangely I rarely have more than 2 assassins on a team when I pug...but MMO wisdom says everyone wants to DPS. What gives?

My team has went for the golem on the mines map and the curses on the Cursed Hollow map and been thoroughly decimated by teams that more or less ignored all the objectives. This is especially viable on the mines map. That golem just isn't that great, and if you can't utilize the curse to push forward immediately it was a waste.

I've also lost because my team split and cleared through top lane, then cleared through bottom lane later with some mercs to the core...only for the opposing team to late game push straight down the middle and blow up the core before we could theirs. Dragon Shire is good for this due to how much stronger the Knight is late game.

I love that there are objectives, but they are certainly ignorable at times if you can coordinate and control the mercs and etc. I'm still learning when the best times are though.

 

[KojiKnight]

Maybe it was the teams I was on last night but Malfurion is pretty good, as far as I can tell. Root is really nice and Tranq is amazing. The other ultimate is also really good for stopping channeled spells like DH strafe.

Malfurion was a good support, but the changes made him a great one IMO. Especially his new healing seed talent which essentially doubles his healing ability every 15 seconds AND auto casts to most hurt ally in range.

 

[Gryph]

Several losses due to poor team comp. In the new patch there are many more specialists running (Sgt. Hammer and Zagara's everywhere when I play) as well as a Tassadar (who is awesome now) in nearly every game so I often get 2 specialist, 2 support, and 1 assassin or tank. Other common variation is 2 tank 2 specialist 1 support. Strangely I rarely have more than 2 assassins on a team when I pug...but MMO wisdom says everyone wants to DPS. What gives?

This has certainly been my observation as well. I play as Brightwing and Gazlowe mostly, so I'm part of the problem, but I haven't seen many pure DPS characters at all lately...

 

[bakeray]

Just got into the Alpha today, will probably get into this pretty heavily over the weekend, if anyone else recently got in and wants to add me for some games my blizz id is bak3ray#1515

 

[Proven]

Most DPS characters have technically gotten nerfed in the last several patches. Zeratul is pretty much the only one untouched over the last couple of months.

 

[Miletius]

Just got into the Alpha today, will probably get into this pretty heavily over the weekend, if anyone else recently got in and wants to add me for some games my blizz id is bak3ray#1515

Added. Hit me up for games if you are available.

 

[Alur]

Played a couple with Vegetable and Miletius finally! We lost, but they were kind of out of role as it seems all of us play a support.

This lack of assassins seems to be a real thing. I thought it was just me, but I guess not.

I guess you'll have that though when Tassadar is putting out so much damage.

 

[Raxus]

I really wish they would reassign some ultimates in this game. Uther's invincibilty ultimate is nearly useless IMO.

 

[SargerusBR]

More invites have been sent? I noticed couple of my friends received one yesterday

 

[Gryph]

Played a couple with Vegetable and Miletius finally! We lost, but they were kind of out of role as it seems all of us play a support.

This lack of assassins seems to be a real thing. I thought it was just me, but I guess not.

I guess you'll have that though when Tassadar is putting out so much damage.

Hahaha, thanks for joining in on that. It's always good practice. I'm going to conquer my fears and learn Kerrigan so I have a good DPS to pull out when I need too...

More invites have been sent? I noticed couple of my friends received one yesterday

Looks like, a whole bunch more people in there than usual. Looks like they added some international folks as well...

 

[yo_soy_el_topo]

Yea they accepted me and I've never played WoW or bought any expansions! Didn't expect to get in.

 

[Alur]

Hahaha, thanks for joining in on that. It's always good practice. I'm going to conquer my fears and learn Kerrigan so I have a good DPS to pull out when I need too...

Yep, we'll have to do it again. Kerrigan was pretty great before the patch. Not sure what the patch did to her/for her, however.

I logged back in a few minutes ago and did some with Tassadar. Maybe I'll just do that. He does great damage anyway, plus the shielding.

Yea they accepted me and I've never played WoW or bought any expansions! Didn't expect to get in.

You hit the jackpot, sir.

 

[Rokam]

I really wish they would reassign some ultimates in this game. Uther's invincibilty ultimate is nearly useless IMO.

His ult needs to either be like omniknight from dota where it's an aoe immunity, or a devotion aura that reduces damage taken for everyone.

 

[Kioshen]

So apparently I just received an invite for the technical alpha. The op is pretty lean so is there a page/site I can read like "Hey Dota 2 player, check this out". Are there good youtube/twitch channels to check out too ?

 

[KojiKnight]

So apparently I just received an invite for the technical alpha. The op is pretty lean so is there a page/site I can read like "Hey Dota 2 player, check this out". Are there good youtube/twitch channels to check out too ?

Now's the best time to just jump in. There is no ladder, so there are no rank points you have to worry about tanking and the in-game tutorial is pretty good to get you started with what's different.

Without complex item systems and what not, there is very little you have to study beforehand.

 

[Kioshen]

Now's the best time to just jump in. There is no ladder, so there are no rank points you have to worry about tanking and the in-game tutorial is pretty good to get you started with what's different.

Without complex item systems and what not, there is very little you have to study beforehand.

I see. Other than Stiches being obviously a rip off of Pudge, are there other heroes that fit an archetype already established in Dota 2 ?

 

[shysaursoft]

I see. Other than Stiches being obviously a rip off of Pudge.

Wasn't the original All-Stars Stitches based on a WoW mob, which is what Pudge was then based on? (Or was the original Stitches based on the Butcher from Diablo? Not clear on that one). So technically, Pudge is a rip-off of Stitches Not like the "get over here" archetype was unique to DOTA either... but I get what you mean.

 

[Miletius]

Played a couple with Vegetable and Miletius finally! We lost, but they were kind of out of role as it seems all of us play a support.

This lack of assassins seems to be a real thing. I thought it was just me, but I guess not.

I guess you'll have that though when Tassadar is putting out so much damage.

Yeah, I'll probably spend a bit of time learning some dps, then we'll do it again. We need a balanced comp I think, everybody likes support!

 

[Kioshen]

Wasn't the original All-Stars Stitches based on a WoW mob, which is what Pudge was then based on? (Or was the original Stitches based on the Butcher from Diablo? Not clear on that one). So technically, Pudge is a rip-off of Stitches Not like the "get over here" archetype was unique to DOTA either... but I get what you mean.

Yeah he was based on a w3 mob so it has gone full circle. I typed that in a hurry.

On a side note, how do you kill that freaking murloc thingy that pushes towers like a train ?

 

[KojiKnight]

Yeah he was based on a w3 mob so it has gone full circle. I typed that in a hurry.

On a side note, how do you kill that freaking murloc thingy that pushes towers like a train ?

He has an egg hidden, usually in one of the forward bases (though he can play it anywhere). Usually best for someone with stealth to go into their base and kill it.

 

[Raxus]

Tassadar is beyond crazy now. They really got to reel back his Psionic Storm by a lot.

 

[Miletius]

Played a couple of matches with Tyeral and kind of like him. He's got a good mix of abilities, shield is kind of supporty while being useful as a singular cooldown for yourself, and then you have sword teleport plus his charge ultimate to do a lot of damage quickly. First melee character and tank that I kind of "get." Hopefully I can learn more.

 

[Alur]

Tassadar is beyond crazy now. They really got to reel back his Psionic Storm by a lot.

You aren't kidding. I've played 10ish matches with him now and it's just filthy, particularly with the slow. I'm usually at or within striking range of the top in damage and always first or second in healing with the shields...he'll definitely be getting a nerf. To me, this is worse than Li Li was last patch. At least she only dominated "one side of the ball" so to speak.

Played a couple of matches with Tyeral and kind of like him. He's got a good mix of abilities, shield is kind of supporty while being useful as a singular cooldown for yourself, and then you have sword teleport plus his charge ultimate to do a lot of damage quickly. First melee character and tank that I kind of "get." Hopefully I can learn more.

Tyrael seems fun with all of those charges/lunges or whatever they are. Very, very, very freaking durable too. If you're around tonight I should be as well, maybe we can do a few more.