Dota 2

On slightly different news. This seems to be the upcoming new Shadow Fiend model◊

I've heard that this game has a very steep learning curve. If I'm already familiar with the genre by playing lots of League Of Legends, will that significantly lessen the learning curve?

Hearing about this game, I never thought it would replace LOL as my primary online game. But since it's free-to-play, I figured I might as well give it a shot until I figure out if it's my thing or not.

Yes, but actually no. You will be familiar with some of the terms and concepts, but even those are executed considerably differently in Dota 2. Last hitting requires stricter timing, the way lane presence works and flows is more complex, the roles a given hero can play aren't as set in stone, and more. But I think, if you give it a shot, you'll find it fun.

There are several good guides and such to help you on your way, but may I suggest Liquid's Dota 2 for LoL Players as a starting point? The top comment from here has more resources as well.

What kind of champions do you usually play in League? Might help find a potential first hero in Dota. That said, you can just bounce around and try different ones.

Also, are you watching The International 4? Here's the "noob" stream if you want a more in-depth explanation of the mechanics.

There isn't really a single type of character I specialize in. I was thinking of playing one of the simpler Intelligence Heroes, though. I heard they make some pretty good crutch characters. The idea of abilities not scaling from anything but rank will take some getting used to, but hopefully not too much.

...I must say, that Courier thing sounds awesome, even if it's a sitting duck to enemies. I wish LOL had something like that to speed things up. At least the shop system is thousands of times better than what Dota 2 seems to use.

edited 19th Jul '14 8:06:47 AM by doctrainAUM

Flying couriers are faster than most heroes and cannot be hit by spells, so they're not exactly sitting ducks unless you leave them out in the open. That said, there's heroes like Nature's Prophet that couriers must watch out, because that guy can snipe them if he gets the chance and knows where they are.

Plus, they spend most of their time in your base, so it's very rare than you'll get any courier kills in a given game.

The three recommended starting Heroes I would suggest are Lich (Support), Viper (Mid), or Wraith King (Carry).

http://www.dota2.com/international/watch/July19/

The second day of the main event is starting soon.

Not all intelligence heroes are crutch characters, or rather, supports. And that being said, not all supports fall off. Really lots of different heroes have different times when they're at their peak. Some heroes are strongest before 10 minutes, and some get far stronger as the game goes on. However, they're usually pretty weak early on, so one of their weaknesses is teams that can end the game early.

Couriers really aren't sitting ducks unless a player is really careless with one. Courier kills rarely happen in games and most of the time it doesn't affect TOO much. Of course there are situations where a courier kill can really change the tide of a game or affect a lot. (i.e. they were delivering a very expensive and strong item to a hero, but got killed in the middle of the delivery.)

Yeah the shop UI really isn't that good. It's best to learn the names of the items and just search for that quickly in the search bar.

edited 19th Jul '14 8:53:27 AM by Marioguy128

Welp, Na'Vi got eliminated.

Seriously though, B One 7 played out of his mind with all of these hooks.

edited 19th Jul '14 12:44:56 PM by Eldrake

Really is an end of an era, with Na'Vi not making it to grand finals again. I do hope that Na'Vi doesn't restructure; I think it was more a combination of a lack of practice and the meta just not favoring Na'Vi's playstyle.

At least they had it better than Alliance. Oof, they did not adapt well after 6.79, which was pretty much tailor made to nerf them.

HELLO TECHIES!

They actually did it! They added the Techies in the All-Stars match!

And of course, Techies feeds like no tomorrow.

This is the end, the end of pubs as we know it. All will be obliterated in a storm of invisible minefields and tactical suicides. The era of instalocking pudge and sniper has ended...

...there are only Techies now.

edited 20th Jul '14 6:41:53 AM by Locoman

The C9 vs VG second game has to be one of the most entertaining Meepo games ever.

Edit: Get ready. The grand finals are in about ten minutes.

Edit 2: And it's over. Victory goes to .........Newbee!

edited 21st Jul '14 1:41:55 PM by Eldrake

What a shitshow of a grand final. Last year's grand final was amazing. Yes, let's go ahead and pick the same heroes over and over even though that didn't work out for us before!

edited 21st Jul '14 2:50:19 PM by Marioguy128

I didn't watch yet, but from what I hear, both players have a "early-deathball-snowball" strategy. It's more execution than drafts in that case, presuming proper drafting. Those kinds of games don't offer much comeback potential, unlike games where one team is playing for a mid- or late-game, since it's much harder to have a "magic teamfight moment" that leads to a turnaround.

After this, I wouldn't be surprised if Icefrog nerfed Deathball in the upcoming balance patches.

I have a question that I tried to find the answer to, but couldn't.

I heard that Attribute Bonus can be chosen at odd levels from 1 to 19. Does that mean that if you upgrade all your abilities to the max first, you can only choose Attribute Bonus twice? It feels like I'm missing some info here.

It just means that attribute bonus has a level requirement much like any other spell. You can't level your Q the second time before you are level 3, you can't level it a third time before level 5, and not a fourth time before level 7.
It's exactly the same with attribute bonus. You can't take it a second time before level 3, not a third time before level 5 etc, and taking it the tenth time is available at level 19.

Maximum level is level 25, giving you 25 skill points - 10 for attribute bonus, 4*3 = 12 for your normal abilities and 3 for your ultimate. 10+12+3 = 25

All the guides I read worded that just vaguely enough to leave me confused. League Of Legends doesn't have something like it, in case you didn't know.

edited 26th Jul '14 9:07:17 AM by doctrainAUM

Yeah, the minimum level for maxing out all the abilities is 16, 4 points in each of the regular abilities, 3 points in the ultimate, and one point in stats at 15, leaving 9 points of stats for the trip to 25. Heroes can only take their ultimate levels at 6, 11, and 16. Two heroes are exceptions to this though (Meepo, who used to run off that rule, but got it changed as a buff) and Invoker, who follows a completely different skillset in how leveling up works. Yeah I wouldn't touch him just yet. He's not actually too complicated, but for a player starting out, he's just gonna be a massive barrier to entry on actually learning the game.

Also just because a hero can take their ultimate at 6, doesn't mean they should. Some heroes like to skip taking that for various reasons. (it eats up mana like crazy for little benefit, ultimate at level 1 is too weak and points in other stuff is more worthwhile.) But there's only a tiny handful of heroes who do that.

edited 26th Jul '14 9:01:02 AM by Marioguy128

Funny thing about Invoker is that, from the stats I read, he's very often picked in pubs, but he throws in nearly every match he's used in. You'd think anyone could take a brief glance at his kit and realize that they should at the least spend a couple dozen fights against bots before even thinking of using him against humans.

Yeah, I can't wait until I get that gaming computer at Christmas. If I find it fun, I'll actually be able to contribute to conversations, rather than just asking questions.

You'll probably be still asking questions even when you start playing, it's fine. DOTA is a complicated game. Don't be afraid to ask them.

Well, thanks to a Beta tester for WC3 being mad, we just got some BIG news. For one thing, WC3 DOTA won't be updated anymore, 6.81 is the last patch they're getting.◊ Parity is finally broken. Also, the new hero, Sun Wukong, got leaked. The guy got so mad that WC3 DOTA wasn't being updated anymore, that he leaked the hero and the news on Playdota and Reddit.

First League of Legends, then Heroes of Newerth, then Smite, and now Dota. It's like MOBA developers really have a thing for Sun Wukong. Good thing the guy had, like, several thousand superpowers, so they all play differently.