Phoenix Agh's Upgrade (6.82b)

So Phoenix now has this Agh's upgrade where she can refresh OTHER heroes' cooldowns on non-ultimates.  What goes well with this?

"Refresher" Hero List:

Doom (Devour & Scorched Earth)
Juggernaut (Blade Fury & Healing Ward)
Lone Druid (new Bear)
Lycan (Howl, Wolves both >30 secs)
Techies (Suicide Squad, upon respawn)
Terrorblade (Metamorphosis)
Undying (Tombstone)
Warlock (Upheaval and Fatal Bonds)
Invoker (so many things... meatballs come to mind)
Drow Range (similar to Lycan, refresh Precision Aura active)

<link to Google doc with table of hero cooldowns>

"Channeled Ultimates" Hero List:

Non-Channeled, persistent spells now "resume" once the egg breaks.  This includes:

Naga - Song of the Siren
Luna - Eclipse
Razor - Eye of the Storm
Sand King - Epicenter
Leshrac - Pulse Nova

Links:

Reddit guide of "when to build agh's on Phoenix"

(has since been patched):  Channeled spells screenshots:  http://imgur.com/a/amssO 

Relevant Phoenix Build / Guide:  http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/guide/not-just-kfc-updated-with-aghanims-scepter-7340 

Item: Dagon (on what heroes?)

Dagon seems to be a great item, giving an extra nuke to any hero.  Who uses it best?

In most cases, the "good" heroes that could make use of the stats + nuke would need another item first, as a source of mana regen (Arcane Boots, usually).

Good Dagon Hero Candidates:

Ogre Magi - has toughness already, needs Int for mana pool
Nyx - needs burst for better ganking, needs bigger mana pool
Skywrath Mage - Int buffs existing nuke and needs big mana pool
Tinker - more nuke for ganking

Rejected Heroes:

Necrolyte - Int carry, but needs toughness
Storm Spirit - likes burst & int, but needs mana regen really badly
Zeus - more burst would be good, but needs mobility more
Pugna - would be good, but Pugna too squishy - needs hp items more
OD - too squishy - needs mobility, already heavily dependent on magic dmg
Queen of Pain (more burst would be good, but Orchid better)

Unusual Candidates:

Windranger (as semi-support, could use an instant nuke, Int buffs right-click for Focus Fire)

Shadow Demon (as semi-support or mid, he could make very good use of it)
Clockwerk - could use the mana pool and burst damage
Tiny - if someone else is carrying, this would increase your nuke a lot

List of Pure-Damage Heroes by Role

The following heroes have one or more abilities that deals Pure damage, or deal pure damage with an Agh's upgrade.

Also shown on dota2pedia in a different format.

Pure Damage Dealers by Role (ability)

Carries

• Outworld Destroyer (Arcane Orb)
• Phantom Assassin (Stifling Dagger)
• Spectre (Desolate)

Semi-Carries & Mids

• Silencer (Glaives)
• Invoker (EMP, Sunstrike)
• Lina (Agh's + Laguna Blade)
• Bloodseeker (Rupture)
• Phoenix (SunRay)
• Pudge (Meat Hook)
• Templar Assassin (Psi-Blades)
• Tinker (Laser)

Supports

• Lina (Agh's + Laguna Blade)
• Bane (Nightmare, Brain Sap)
• Omniknight (Purification)
• Phoenix (Sunray)
• Silencer (Glaives)
• Vengeful Spirit (Wave of Terror)

Initiators

• Doom (Doom)
• Enigma (Midnight Pulse, Aghs + Black Hole)

Junglers:

• Enchantress (Impetus)
• Doom (Doom)
• Enigma (Midnight Pulse, Aghs + Black Hole)

Solo Offlaners:

• Timbersaw (Whirling Death*, Timberchain, Chakram)
• Nyx Assassin (Spiked Carapace)
• Doom (Doom)

ITEMS that deal pure damage:

• Urn of Shadows (on enemy)
• Blademail (Damage return)

List of Healers, Lifestealers and Self-Healers

List of Healing Heroes:

• Abaddon
• Dazzle
• Chen
• Enchantress
• Io / Wisp
• Huskar
• Juggernaut
• Legion Commander
• Necrophos
• Omniknight
• Phoenix (Sun Ray)
• Treant
• Undying
• Winter Wyvern
• Witch Doctor

Anti-Healers:

• (any burst hero)
• Ancient Apparition (Ice Blast)
• Axe (Culling Blade)
• Necrophos (Scythe)

Heroes with Health Restore / Lifesteal

• Alchemist (Chemical Rage Healing)
• Bane (Brain Sap)
• Bloodseeker
• Death Prophet (return of Exorcism spirits)
• Doom (Scorched Earth Heal)
• Io (Tether + Heal)
• Legion Commander(Counterattack)
• Lifestealer (Open Wounds, Feast)
• Pugna (Life Drain)
• Terrorblade (Sunder)
• Weaver (Time Lapse)
• Wraith King (Vamp Aura)

Viable team ideas with many healers:

#1:
Weaver + Bane + Abaddon aggro tri
Necrophos mid
Huskar solo safe

#2: (pushing team - greedy)
Death Prophet mid
Chen jungle
Undying solo offlane
Juggernaut + Pugna safelane

Countering Terrorblade (Dota 2 v6.82b)

So Terrorblade (TB) has hit the Dota 2 scene, and suddenly he's a pick/ban nearly every game.  In pubs, he's especially hard to deal with, due to the lack of team coordination (except sub-3k MMR, where apparently Terrorblade players feed very hard).

How do you deal with Terrorblade?

1. DO NOT give the enemy TB safe farm for 20 mins!
2. DO NOT try to out-carry him!  He is effective both mid and late game once he's got his core.
3. Aggressive Laning (aggro-tri or dual mid) with Spammy Nukers (Skywrath, Zeus)
4. Counterpicks:
• High damage nukers:  Lina, Lion, Skywrath, Zeus, QoP
• 1v1 lane:  use Timbersaw or Darkseer as solo offlaner
• Elder Titan to reduce his massive agility-based armor to nothing
• also helpful:  Vengeful Spirit and Shadow Fiend
• Gankers and Isolation Initiators:  Batrider, Nyx, Bounty Hunter, Bloodseeker, etc.
• Axe (esp. with Blademail) can manfight TB pretty easily
• Earthshaker to use his illusions against him (especially if he goes Manta, which is currently a popular item on TB).
5. Silences:  TB relies on Sunder to stay alive, the use of low-cooldown illusions, and Manta.  Helps if you can delay his use of illusions or Sunder with Doom or Silences.
6. Kiting:  Sunder has a short range, and the rest of TB is all about auto-attacks.  If you can play keep-away-and-nuke, he doesn't last long.  
• Weaver is good for this, especially since Time Lapse vs. Sunder = fight reset.
7. Use his illusions against him:  Dark Seer or Shadow Demon work well.  Copies of TB, with his high damage, can destroy him.
8. Pure Damage:  Outworld Destroyer, Enchantress, Silencer (orb attacks)
9. Finding the Real Terrorblade:  TB usually goes Power Treads, to mitigate his low hp, so the real TB will attack slightly faster than his illusions, since the latter don't benefit from the attack speed increase.

More Tips from Reddit (c+p from /u/Zenotha), posted by sourdonut

Counter him by pushing early and taking map control while preventing trades
He gets countered by strong early team fight lineups + one hero capable of stopping pushes (timber, sand king, kunkka, lina, leshrac etc etc) since his team will often be starved early.
Counter him by picking him off whenever he tries to find farm mid game (pre-manta)
He gets countered by pick off oriented lineups (riki, slark, QW orchid rush invoker, clinkz etc); controlling his jungle mid game will starve him significantly.
Counter him by having more scaling cores, while using supports that hard-counter him
He gets countered by ultra-late line ups combined with lion/enchant/sd, support picks capable of neutering most of his farm advantage.
Counter him by laning aggressively
TB is paper and doesn't fare well in tri v tri lanes. His only call to fame is being able to dodge nightmares with illusion transfer and projectile stuns by committing his cast of Meta, otherwise laning aggressively against him and controlling his jungle will slow down his start significantly.
Counter him with with heroes that hit structures faster
All things even, TB is never going to win a race against specific heroes such as Meepo. Speaking of Meepo, this is the true king of split-pushing, the bane of TB.
Counter him with specific picks that easily shut down his contribution
He gets countered in general by % damage like static field and midnight pulse because of interaction with damage amplification on illusions.
He gets countered by picks like Pugna which pushes well early and can one shot his illusions late.
In a nut shell, TB is actually very similar to Meepo. Very strong in the right hands, but easily countered with the correct lineup/playstyle. Meepo is hardly what one would call broken competitively, yet people don't accord TB a similar level of respect ban/pick wise and inevitably fail against him.

Other Resources:

Here's a video by Luminous on the subject, as well as the related anti-terrorblade reddit post.

Team Ideas based on Hero Synergies (Continued)

see also:  Hero Synergies

There are certain hero combinations that work well together (per my "Hero Synergies" post), and you will see teams draft these heroes together frequently.  Here are some team ideas based around hero synergies, with a brief explanation of their combos and required bans.

Team Ideas from Hero Synergies:

#1:

• Drow mid (or Shadowfiend)
• Alchemist + Windranger + Visage aggro tri.
• Elder Titan (or Bristleback) solo safe

Combo:  Acid Spray +  Base Armor Reduction + Precision Aura (+ WR Focus Fire & Familiars)
Disables:  Slow, Silence, Stun, Secondary Stuns x 3
Ban:  Omni, Faceless, Spectre, Terrorblade, or Brewmaster

#2: (very greedy)

• Troll mid
• Faceless offlane
• Medusa + Slardar + Venge

Combo:  Armor reduction + Medusa Ult + Right-click with Troll Ult.
Ban:  Omniknight, Dazzle, Shadow Demon, Spectre

#3:

• Huskar mid
• Luna + Wraith King + Windranger
• Beastmaster offlane

Idea:  Huskar ganks make space for Luna to farm up.  BM + Luna + WK all have aura synergies.  WR Focus Fire ult is buffed by Luna aura.  BM and Luna ults for teamfighting.  BM and WR give push and anti-push until Luna comes online with Glaives.  All heroes scale well.

#4:
Undying + Bane + KotL/Warlock aggro trilane
Necrolyte / Medusa mid
Invoker / Broodmother / Nature's Prophet solo safe

#5: (pushing line-up)
Undying + Leshrac + Jakiro aggro trilane
Venomancer mid
Lycan solo safe

Phoenix combos (now that Phoenix is in CM!)
#6
Huskar mid (go Pipe if appropriate)
Gyro + Phoenix safelane
Enigma jungle (go Mek) - pick this guy last or ban Rubick!
Elder Titan offlane
Idea:  Huskar makes space for this greedy lineup with L6 ganks.  Rotate Phoenix to mid when possible for extra farm / levels.
Combo:  (Echo Stomp + ).. Blink-Hole into Earthsplitter + Calldown + Supernova
Ban:  Rubick, Naga, (Silencer)

#7:
Leshrac mid
Naga + Crystal Maiden + Phoenix
Elder Titan offlane
Combo:  Song into Supernova + Earthsplitter + Pulse Nova
Bans: Early gankers (Venge, Ogre, etc).  CM and Phoenix are both squishy and slow.

#8:
Phoenix mid
Luna / Medusa + Witch Doctor safelane
Axe jungle
Dark Seer offlane
Combo:  Vaccum into Taunt, while Death Ward + Eclipse + Supernova
Ban:  Naga, Faceless Void

#9: (greedy teamfight lineup)
Undying solo offlane
OD + Warlock + Phoenix (two greedy supports)
Pugna solo mid
Combo:  Upheaval + Tombstone + Supernova + Nether Ward + OD ult, while Golem and Fatal Bonds boosts damage, and Phoenix slows right-clicks.
Notes:  Line-up is low on stuns.  OD chosen because of the pseudo-stun Astral Imprisonment, and big teamfight ult.  Alternate carries include Luna, Kunkka, Dragonknight, Wraith King

#9a: (more Phoenix)
Doom jungle
Pugna safe farm + Warlock / Lich support
Phoenix offlane

Leshrac mid
Idea:  Lich or Warlock ult discourages/punishes enemies who clump up to beat on Phoenix's SuperNova, and opponents may have to choose between a farmed Leshrac who is spamming Pulse Nova, and a Phoenix egg.  Meanwhile, Nether Ward punishes nukes and Doom runs rampant.
Weakness:  There's really nothing preventing enemies from leaving the AOE area.
Bans:  Rubick, Centaur, Naga

More combos:

#10:
(aggro or defensive) tri-lane:  Luna + Gyro (greedy support) + Crystal Maiden (hard support)
Faceless Void solo offlane
Shadowfiend mid
Idea:  Area lockdown with Chrono + ranged AOE damage
Ban:  Rubick, Naga
Combo:  Chrono over top of Luna Eclipse, Call Down + Freezing Field + Razes over Chrono, SFiend & Gyro right-clicks.  Luna buffs SF, and SF debuffs armor on enemies for Luna.

#11: (physical dmg team, combo'ing with Medusa Ult)
Tri-Lane:  Medusa + Dazzle + WitchDoctor
Death Prophet Mid
Beastmaster Offlane Solo
Pick:  Death Prophet, Witch Doctor, Dazzle, Beastmaster, Medusa
Ban:  Omniknight, DragonKnight, Terrorblade, Faceless, Axe/Necrophos

#12: (lots of range with boosted right-click)
Solo safelane: Undying
Aggro Tri-lane: Luna, Windranger, Venge/Visage
Mid:  Drow (or counterpick)
Picks:  Venge, Windranger, Undying, Luna, Drow
Note:  This team could probaby do a Level 1 Roshan kill.

Article: the first 3 months of Dota2

What I learned in my first 3 months of Dota 2:

• How to last hit and deny.  With each small improvement, your gold income increases dramatically, and you can start to pull ahead of your opponents in XP as you deny better.  Remember always that last hitting > denying.  Always choose a last hit on a creep over a deny.

• When to last hit and when to push.  Even when pushing, you should attempt to last-hit as much as possible.

• to stay alive:
•  Learn how to move back and forth to be a harder target for ground-targeted spells
• Learn that when you’re on low health, you need to retreat and heal, even if it means going all the way back to base.  Lost laning time is better than dying
• Learn to juke into the trees and use your Town Portal scroll to escape a gank (you DO always carry a TP scroll right?  RIGHT?  Stop being a noob and carry one).

• A general idea of how most of the (popular) heroes play, and their abilities.  This involves playing a lot of vs-bot games, and being really terrible at heroes for most of the game.

• That the default hotkeys are NOT your best friend.  You really need to rebind the courier and your items to more-convenient keys.

• How to use the courier without thinking about it:  create your own lobby-game and practice nothing but using the courier.
• What the most-common items are based on their icons.  You do not have time in game to read every item description!  Create a lobby of your own, or read the Learn tab online, and get familiar with the items and how to build them.
• How to stack and pull creeps into the safe lane to pull back your creep line.
• Respect for tower damage, especially at low levels
• How to use deny to back up your creep line.  You can only attack your own creeps when they are less than 50% health!

• What different roles mean, and how they affect how you play:

o   Carry:  weak early-game, dominates late game if farmed up (need items to be any good, and need superior last-hitting skills to get the gold in the first place!)

o   Support:  a character that doesn’t need a lot of items to be viable, and thus should take care of putting down wards, buying Dust if necessary, and generally helping a carry to stay safe and get last hits.  You buy the team-supporting items like Drums of Endurance, Mekanism, Pipe of Insight, and possibly Arcane Boots.  You DO NOT steal last-hits from your carry to get these items!

o   Initiator:  In team fights, it’s your job to go in first and set up an advantageous situation for your team, using your abilities (usually your Ultimate, but not always).

o   Pusher:  You excel at pushing lanes and taking down towers.  You need a game-sense of when the time is right, and when you have enough levels and gear to successfully take down an enemy tower.

o   Ganker:  you get yourself a few levels, maybe a few key pieces of gear, and then you go kill enemy heroes for most of the rest of the game.

• Observer and Sentry wards are valuable
• You do not stay in an area where you are outnumbered by enemy heroes unless you have allies, a tower, or an escape route closeby, or a nearly-failsafe escape.
• Places where enemies can get behind you or pincer you are bad places
• Know where the enemy team is, and where you allies are by looking at the minimap frequently.  TP to defend your allies.
• Don’t fight battles you can’t win; you’d be surprised how many people do this, just because they have a full mana bar, their ultimate off cooldown, and they are just itching to use their abilities.
• Fight only battles that are unfair in your favour.
•  “Fair” 5v5 fights are won through superior timing or positioning
• Learn what to buy to stay in lane.  Saving for big items doesn’t keep you safe in lane.  Buy regen and branches at the start, generally.
• The suggested starting items are generally good picks.  When you’ve played dozens of games, you can start making your own choices.
•  If you’re forced to return to base, buy and use a TP to get one direction; it is worth it to trade the cost of a TP scroll for the XP and last hits that you will otherwise miss by spending all your time running.
• Participate in team fights whenever possible!  If you don’t think your team should be teamfighting, say something instead of just being absent or hanging back.  Your lack of participation is the same as if you were ganked pre-team fight, forcing a 4v5 against your team.
• Do not dive towers directly into a fresh enemy creep wave before around level 8, when creep damage starts to matter less.
• Physical damage is king in late game, but burst nukes are king in mid-game.  Stuns or disables are useful pretty much all the time.  The deadliness of burst nuke damage tends to fall off after level 12-14, as people gain gear and levels.