Monday, February 23, 2015

Team Theme: Close is Dead!

Heroes you don't want to stay close to:
  • Undying (Tombstone + Golem)
  • Phoenix (Supernova)
  • Doom (Scorched Earth)
  • Warlock (Infernal)
  • Shadowfiend (Ult)
  • Bristleback (Quill Spray)
  • Dark Seer (Ion Shell / Wall)
  • Tusk (Ward)
  • Witch Doctor (Ward)
  • Omniknight (Purge)
  • Axe (Helix)
  • Juggernaut (Spin)
  • Clockwerk (Battery Assault)
  • Pudge (Rot)
  • Razor (Storm)
  • Leshrac (Edict, Pulse Nova)
  • Necrolyte (Aura, AOE)
Team Ideas based on above theme:

#1:
Mid:  Phoenix
Safe:  Omni + Tusk
Jungle:  Doom
Offlane:  Dark Seer

#2:
Mid:  Pudge
Aggro tri:  Phoenix, Undying, Omniknight
Safelane solo:  Razor

#3:  (greedy dual-lane lineup)
Mid:  Leshrac
Safe:  Axe + Necrolyte
Offlane:  Bristleback + Warlock

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Team Ideas by Winrate - Jan 2015

Top Heroes of this meta, by Dotabuff winrate of the month, and some team ideas based upon those rankings:

Best Supports Jan 2015

  • Abaddon
  • Omniknight
  • Crystal Maiden
  • Silencer
  • Venge
  • Lich
  • Warlock
  • Earthshaker
  • Witch Doctor
  • Ogre Magi
  • Dazzle
  • Veno
  • Treant

Best Mids Jan 2015

  • Necrophos
  • Zeus 
  • Silencer
  • Warlock
  • Spiritbreaker (situational)
  • Sniper
  • Medusa
  • Veno (situational)

Best Carries Jan 2015

  • Spectre
  • Troll
  • Juggernaut
  • Riki
  • Medusa
  • Axe
  • Sniper
  • Sven
  • Slardar
  • Luna
  • Ursa

Best Offlaners Jan 2015

  • Omniknight
  • Slardar
  • Centaur
  • Undying

 Team Ideas based on Hero Winrates Jan 2015

 #1:
Tri-lane:  Spectre + Lich + Omni
Mid:  Zeus
Offlane Solo:  Centaur

#2:
Tri-lane:  Juggernaut + Crystal Maiden + Warlock
Mid:  Necrophos
Offlane Solo:  Riki (just soak XP)

#3:
Dual offlane:  Silencer + Axe
Mid:  Sniper
Dual Safelane:  Medusa + Witch Doctor

#4:
Dual offlane:  Juggernaut + Crystal Maiden
Mid:  Zeus
Dual Safelane:  Sven + Vengeful Spirit

Team Idea: Hard-hitting melee w/stuns

I had the idea that if you had some hard-hitting melee, you really want your opponents to stay still while you beat on them.  Hence, hard-hitting melee carries with lots of disables on the team.
 I personally prefer stuns to slows.

Melee-Favourable Teams:  

#1:
Trilane: Sven + Venge + Windrunner
Mid:  Leshrac / Lina (followup stun, pusher)
Offlane: Centaur

#2:
Trilane:  Wraith King, Disruptor, Ogre Magi
Mid:  Medusa
Solo Lane:  Undying

#3:
Trilane:  PA, Sven, Disruptor
Mid: Slark
Offlane:  Beastmaster

#4:
Trilane:  Sven, Warlock, Venge (or Troll?)
Mid:  Puck
Offlane:  Centaur

#5:
Trilane:  Sven + Venge + Crystal Maiden
Mid:  Tiny
Offlane:  Enigma

Hard Melee w/ slows


#6:
Sven + Disruptor + Elder Titan
Warlock mid
Undying solo offlane
Idea:  Warlock and Disruptor allow Tombstone to stay down unmolested using Kinetic field and Upheaval, and yet keep enemy heroes in range of the zombies.  Meanwhile, Sven can lay waste with right-clicks and Elder Titan can follow up with an Earthsplitter, which should be difficult to dodge.
Counter:  This team is countered by split-push (Nature's Prophet, Tinker), and BKB heroes (Luna, Dragon Knight).

#7:

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Teams with varieties of disables

Types of disables:

  • Silence
  • AOE Stun
  • AOE Slow
  • Slow
  • Primary Stun (targeted)
  • Secondary (delayed) Stun

see Heroes by Disable Type

Silences:  Bloodseeker, Death Prophet, Doom, Drow, Earth Spirit, Invoker, Puck, Silencer, Riki, Skywrath

Team Ideas:

by Ability:
Slow:
Stun:
Secondary Stun:
AOE Disable:
Silence:

#1:
Slow:  Venomancer (support)
Stun:  Wraith King (carry)
Secondary Stun:  Lina (support)
AOE Disable:  Magnus (offlane)
Silence:  Death Prophet (mid)

#2:

Stun:  Ogre Magi (support)
AOE Disable:  Gyrocopter (carry)
Secondary Stun:  Leshrac (mid)
AOE Damage:  Tidehunter (solo offlane)
Slow + Silence:  Skywrath Mage (support)

#3:
Slow:  Jakiro (support)
Stun: Sven (carry)
Secondary Stun:
AOE Disable:  Warlock (support)
Silence:

#4:
CM + AA + Sven
Tidehunter solo offlane
DP mid

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Dota 2 Patch 6.83 Review - Part One

From the recent Shifting Snows Dota 6.83 update...

Summary of Gameplay changes:

  • Barracks destruction provides more team gold, less individual gold
  • Some buffing abilities now affect magic immune.  'bout time...
Here's a quick summary of hero changes and what they mean:

Who got buffed:

  • Abaddon:  slight buff to ultimate.  Meh.
  • Alchemist:  Greevil's Greed buffed.  Alch can farm faster, should be relevant sooner.
  • Windranger:  Focus Fire & Power Shot buffs.  Higher semi-carry potential, easier skill shot
  • Bounty Hunter:  Buffs to Track cooldown & self-gold.  Teamfight buffs, ganker buff.
  • Bristleback:  buff to Quill Spray dmg.  Slightly better laning.
  • Chaos Knight:  Reality Rift dmg buffed, Phantasms last longer.  Comes online earlier.
  • Chen:  more units, can now summon units to you.  Large buff.
  • Clinkz:  slight attack range boost.  Slightly better laning.
  • Crystal Maiden:  buffs to all damage skills.  Better ganking, teamfight.
  • Dark Seer:  slight armor buff, cast time buff.  Meh.  Are they hoping to see more of him as an offlaner?
  • Dazzle:  slight attack range buff.  Slightly stronger lane harass.
  • Disruptor:  cooldowns decreased, mana cost of Glimpse rescaled.  Slightly stronger overall.
  • Dragon Knight:  Corrosive Breath now stays for Levels 2,3 Dragonform.  Slightly better push mid to late game.
  • Drow Ranger:  Illusions now benefit from Marksmanship.  Carries slightly harder with Manta.
  • Earthshaker:  Buff to Enchant Totem (mana cost reduction).  Slightly better early game with Enchant Totem + Aftershock.
  • Enchantress:  now moves even faster (335!).  I have no idea why a speedy prancing Dryad needs to be even faster..
  • Gyrocopter:  Buffs to ultimate, slight buff to homing missile (using Force Staff).
  • Huskar:  slight buff to Inner Vitality.  May result in stronger laning.
  • Juggernaut:  More agility = better early laning, Blade Dance ult slighlty early-mid game.
  • Kunkka:  Buff to "X" skill. Icefrog attempts to encourage more use of this powerful skill.  Mostly affects Kunkka as a support, and late-mid game.
  • Leshrac:  slight buffs to Edict and Lightning.  Slightly better for push and positioning.
  • Lifestealer:  An interesting buff to infest, where you can now use a creep as transportation.
  • Lina:  Fairly large damage buffs.  Lina likely to return as a ganking support or mid.
  • Lion:  better early right-click for harass, slight utility optimization on Mana Drain
  • Luna:  slight buff to Glaives and Eclipse.  Not sure what Icefrog was trying to fix here, but the problem is usually Luna getting to the higher levels, not doing damage once leveled and geared...
  • Morphling:  buff to Adaptive Strike stun.  Slight utility improvement.
  • Nightstalker:  Buffs to early laning and to Crippling Fear.  I view the Darkness changes as a slight buff, allowing more frequent use and the standardization to enemy vision is a boon.

Who got nerfed:

  • Brewmaster:  Armor & Thunderclap nerfs
  • Death Prophet:  nerf to strength growth (2.2 to 1.9).  Snowballs less hard, slightly weaker later in game compared to previous.
  • Earth Spirit:  Rolling boulder nerf
  • Elder Titan:  nerf to Astral Spirit damage.  Slightly less strong in lane.
  • Faceless Void:  Time Walk debuff nerf, Chrono cooldown nerf.  Hero offense slightly weaker.
  • Jakiro:  Liquid fire damage nerf.  Slightly weaker push and lane harass
  • Meepo:  slight nerf to respawn time after level 16.
  • Ogre Magi:  Nerf to Fireblast damage and range.  Booo!

Who got rebalanced / small fixes

  • Axe:  Changes to Battle Hunger
  • Bane:  Nightmare cooldown now static by level
  • Bloodseeker
  • Broodmother:  nerf to Broodling vision (1400 --> 1100 daytime)
  • Io (Wisp):  No turning required - slightly less delay on cast, nice fix because how can you tell which way he's facing, anyway?

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Drafting Practice: Day Eight

Draft #1
I'm the Dire player.

I think Radiant is going to have a really bad day.

Razor and Puck are tied middle, maybe with a slight advantage for Puck because of his mobility and evasion.

Spectre is going to flat-out lose his lane.  Veno is food - his low range, low speed and squishiness will spell his doom vs an aggro tri.  Even Disruptor alone would be able to zone out both Veno and Spectre.  Enchantress will come online with a few levels and be able to help out, but by that time, the tri-lane would be lost (if she's not simply ganked in the jungle a lot).  With some aggressive warding of both the large and pull camps, the downfall of Radiant's bottom lane would be complete.

Top, I think it's fairly even, and although I usually favour a ranged laner over a melee one, Weaver's low hp pool won't allow him to harass a Centaur with Return (at least not for very long).  Centaur, being melee, might even be able to get some denies with a Quelling Blade (56 base damage + 32% = 71), although Weaver has decent early base damage (55, or 61 with some items), plus Shukuchi.

Dire have a better midgame, with Razor and Lifestealer online, although Radiant has some decent teamfight ults, with Veno, Centaur and Puck.... but little to combo their mobility ults with, and Veno's L6 will likely be delayed.

I believe Dire also have a better lategame, even though Enchantress, Veno, Puck and Centaur can all scale well... they aren't all that likely to do so given the earlygame setup.

Advantage Dire.

Draft #2:

I can't remember, but it's likely that I'm Dire again.

I favour Radiant's heroes for counter-picking, but I don't think the lanes will go well for them. Spectre just isn't very strong before level 6, and even with the possibility of a side-pull from the Dire hard camp near the top lane, Dire should be able to contest these pulls and harass from range, zoning out Spectre almost completely.  While early points in Nether Ward and Mana Burn will do work against the Dire supports, Dire has a LOT of early burst (Lucent Beam + Arcane/Concussive + Nether Shock), and have 3 ranged heroes versus 1 ranged and 2 melee.

I think the mid lane is pretty close to equal, possibly slightly favouring Viper (because he's just a pain to lane against).

Bristleback will probably do well against Faceless, given his Quill Spray harass, although he's unlikely to get a kill, and even at Level 6, Faceless is unlikely to be able to kill Bristle in a Chrono.

Given that I early-picked Void, I probably should have gone for a different carry, such as Gyro, who's ult and abilities would combo better with Chrono.  I also liked the Invoker pickup, as he has several abilities that could mess with Void inside of Chrono.

Draft #3


Despite the laning definitions shown, I think what we're really looking at here is an aggro-tri from Dire.  OD will do well against any Int hero mid, although he's unlikely to get a kill without a rotation from supports.

Anti-mage + Lich, with Enigma, is a great combo, but Enigma is not very helpful against an enemy tri-lane, and is likely to get ganked a lot in the jungle, especially at early levels.

I actually think the new Bloodseeker will do surprisingly well against Bat, and might even manage to get a kill if he can silence Bat before he pops Firefly (or if it's on cooldown), or after level 6 (Bat is terrible against Rupture).

Mid and late game, Dire's strengths are that Venge can be used to Swap allies out of Black Hole, and WK doesn't really care if he dies once to a Black Hole.  Both DP and Bloodseeker have silences to deal with Anti-mage's attempts to escape via Blink.

Radiant strengths are that both DP and OD are quite squishy, and Bat should get enough farm for a decently-timed Blink Dagger, meaning pickoffs are quite likely on Dire's two cores (Lich, Invoker, and Enigma supply the damage).  Invoker, Enigma, and to a lesser degree, Bat, can stall pushes while Anti-mage farms, as Dire really doesn't have that much push other than DP (until WK get a Maelstrom).

During the draft, Radiant did well to ban out a lot of strong pushers, while taking some decent anti-push.  Dire banned out the tough offlaners, in anticipation of a roaming pair and/or aggro-tri.

I favour the Dire draft for aggression, but I think the Radiant side has a good chance of delaying long enough for Anti-mage to come online, who will do very well against the Dire cores.

Draft #4:

I'm the Dire player, again.

Radiant wins mid, as some Cog spam should keep Pudge low on mana, and Clock is tanky enough to survive any of Pudge's burst.  A roaming Rubick or NP isn't going to change that situation much, whereas a rotation from AA + Sky could be very bad for Pudge.

Bottom lane, AA + Sky should be able to zone DS out of xp range, but he might still get some farm with ion shell spam (which is also annoying to Slardar).  Rubick will likely stay top and stack and pull for DK to improve his farm, though DK would do decently well solo vs. Tide (Dragon Breath spam vs. Anchor Smash spam).

Midgame, I think Radiant will have trouble dealing with NP's split-pushing, unless Clock can get some really good Hooks to gank NP, together with a well-placed Ice Blast from AA.  In the same vein, Pudge could be really deadly to AA and Sky, both of whom would easily die to a Pudge hook + combo.

I think Dire picked up DS too early in the draft - Wall of Replica won't be all that effective against any of the Radiant cores, and Tide and Clock can easily jump on a Pudge that initiates with a hook.

I favour Dire's late game slightly, but I think this game should be decided before that, as one team (probably Radiant) snowballs heavily toward a win.

Advantage Radiant.

Spotlight on Bane: The Tough Support

Intro to Bane

Bane has higher starting damage and EHP than any other ranged support.  He (it?) can also make enemy’s life in lane into a living hell with Enfeeble and Brain Sap.  He is one of the most aggressive laning supports in the game as of 6.82b, on par with Skywrath Mage and Lion.  He can also one of the support heroes that can be played as a mid semi-carry, and scales well until lategame, but still has Fiend's Grip, and thus will stay relevant even after BKBs become prevalent.

Needs mana to sustain casting-harass (clarities or Soul Ring), and is weak against push lineups (where he needs a Necronomicon ASAP).

Support Bane

As a support Bane, you will almost always start with a point in Nightmare to set up aggression in a tri-lane.  After that, you'll either choose Brain Sap (defensive tri-lane) or Enfeeble (aggressive tri-lane, to shut down enemy carry's farm, when you don't think you can outright kill them). An early 1-1-1 build sounds okay on Bane, except that you won't have mana (short of chugging Clarities) to continually spam abilities.  Given that your right-click harass is pretty good, I favour a 0-2-1 build, where you can harass and then recover a good chunk of your own hp with a Brain Sap (and possibly get a kill, too).

Mid-Late Game Blues


Bane's main problem mid to late game is that he's such a good controller, that he tends to get focused heavily, but usually only get Position-4 or 5 level of farm, so he starts to be squishy despite his decent Str gain.  Thus, positioning becomes all-important with Bane.  If you are without a Force Staff or Blink Dagger, it is better to hang back at the start of the fight, coming in to use Nightmare, Fiend's Grip, or an Enfeeble after all the nukes and big ults have been cast.  Brain Sap can be used for burst, but again, you shouldn't be going first...

Counters


Bane is countered by multiple stunners on a team, which make his Fiend's Grip useless in teamfights, since it is channeled.  A draft-counter to Bane could be Rubick, as it becomes very easy to steal Fiend's Grip.  Pushing line-ups can also "counter" Bane, as he has virtually no push or counter-push.

Items:

Bane benefits from most typical support items, but the following are built especially often on him, because of synergy with his abilities or stats:
  • Soul Ring (Laning)
  • Necronomicon (Luxury)

Builds:

Typical Support Bane (defensive tri)

L1 - Nightmare
L2 - Brain Sap
L3 - Brain Sap
L4 - Nightmare (for increased range)
L5 - Brain Sap
L6 - Fiend's Grip
L7 - Brain Sap
L8, 9 - Nightmare
L10 - Stats or Enfeeble*
L11 - Fiend's Grip
L12 to 15 - Stats or Enfeeble*
L16 - Fiend's Grip
* if the enemy team is relying on magic damage, and doesn't have a right-click carry that has become dangerous, stats (for survival) might be a better choice than Enfeeble.

Support Bane (aggro tri)

L1 - Save point - spend on Brain Sap for aggression, Nightmare for setup stun, Enfeeble for laning


... I tried to create the rest of this build, but it's too situational.  All his abilities are good - you just have to know which ones to prioritize by situation.

Bane Mid (ganker & semi-carry)

You MUST be able to either shut down the enemy mid, kill the enemy mid, or go ganking after L6 to make a mid-Bane work.  He does NOT benefit from "afk farm", and should be active after L6.  Once Fiend's Grip is active, and with a full mana pool, Bane should be able to 1v1 kill almost any hero.

L1 - Enfeeble
L2 - Brain Sap
L3 - Brain Sap Rank 2
L4 - Nightmare
L5 - Brain Sap Rank 3
L6 - Fiend's Grip
L7 - Brain Sap Rank 4
L8 - Nightmare Rank 2
L9 - Nightmare Rank 3
L10 - Nightmare Rank 4 (mostly you level this up for the increased range)
L11 - Fiend's Grip
L12 - Enfeeble (or stats if enemy team is magic instead of right-click focused)
L13 - Enfeeble (or stats)
L14 - Enfeeble (or stats)
L15 - Stats
L16 - Fiend's Grip
L17+ Stats