Dota 2

Ok. THAT is scary.

Say Chris, how's Lo L doing in Indo?

Alas, it was never meant to be, and they fixed being able to channel spells while in Supernova. A shame, really. I do miss fountain hooking....

edited 25th Sep '14 9:07:28 AM by MetaSkipper

Awww. RIP Brosun.

Dota 2 is updating! It's happening!

While we're all waiting to update, let me link you all this!

edited 25th Sep '14 3:04:04 PM by Eldrake

Really excited for this patch. The PL rework frankly looks amazing. I'm a little sad about the nerfs to LC, but I think they're fair. Also, new map! =D

I'm also disappointed that LC got nerfed, but that's overwhelmed by my excitement at seeing how professionals will use her. The map's not really different enough for me to call it "new", but I'm grateful that it will make getting to the Radiant secret shop less of a pain.

I expected Zeus to get a new model this patch. I'm not sure why I expected that, though.

LC did not get nerfed enough IMO. She's a bit OP and I imagine that she's gonna be a first ban in some pro games. Not to mention that change to her ult lets her get other items such as even more lifesteal, and more importantly, Blademail. Her heal is like super good.

Okay, there is no way Bloodseeker is not getting nerfed. The new Bloodseeker is really strong. Draskyl is streaming and he single handedly CRUSHED the enemy team with the hero.

Also I was wrong about Meepo not getting nerfed. If he gets killed once while he's snowballing (which is easy to do), he's a MASSIVE pinata of exp and gold to the enemy team.

edited 25th Sep '14 3:55:13 PM by Marioguy128

It seems that the developers think Mute is overpowered. I wonder if players share that sentiment. I mean, Doom now needs to pony up 4200 gold and Legion Commander loses it entirely.

On the site learntocounter.com, there's a series of articles I love to read. It's called Why Dota Sucks. You see, there's this guy who hates Dota (his term for the genre, though he mostly discusses DOTA itself) so much that's planning to write a 600-page book on how awful the genre is, released online as weekly installments. The sheer idea of it, combined with its amount of pretentiousness, odd assumptions, and elitism makes it hilarious to read.

Mute doesn't refer to removing passives. Silence cancels skills. Mute cancels skills and item actives.

Oh dear god. If you Bloodrage yourself and the victim, Blademail returns 384% of the damage they do to you.

I'm not sure how the math works out, but you're saying we'll see a small fix soon?

Blademail reflects the damage you take back at your attack. Basically using that Bloodrage buff on both yourself and your attacker means that the attacker takes almost 4 times the damage they dealt to the Bloodseeker.

Yeah this is so getting nerfed.

Also thanks Icefrog for buffing the number one pubstomper! I really have to wonder what Necro's winrate looks like now.

edited 25th Sep '14 4:55:56 PM by Marioguy128

Obvious Rule Patch imminent.

Those were all things she could do before. Mute doesn't remove items' passive abilities, just their active ones and auras. I you had a Hot D and Dueled, you would still have your lifesteal from it, you just couldn't Dominate a creep with it. Besides, there were a lot of exceptions to Duel's Mute anyways. It's probably for the best that they just removed all of them.

Or do you mean to tell me that you tried to turn on Blademail during the Duel?

edited 25th Sep '14 5:25:47 PM by Lionrider

That's from a certain point of view. More accurate is to say that bloodseeker takes twice the damage, and reflects twice the damage he takes. Still adds up to 4 times the damage, but it isn't as bad as you make it sound.

@Styryder: Huh? Do I know you or something? Sorry, got a short memory term. At any rate, seeing that I am currently for these series of month trying to bet on my future and fortune in Singapore, I probably don't do much Lo L Indo. But NA Lo L? That's the alternative.

DOTA is unaffected, and heck, I can play much looser because my account is not on the stake.

@Bloodrage: Wait, you can bloodrage yourself and another target in the same time?

edited 26th Sep '14 1:30:07 AM by ChrisX

The cooldown is short enough that you can.

In other news, published my first guide! It's... not very good. But still, yay.

Could you at least tell us what site it's on?

I love how the new map makes it easier to reach the secret shops. Also, the bounty rune is nice, but it unfortunately encourages me to run off the lane to check the runes more often, even when not playing support. I might lose out on gold and XP from not killing creeps, but I also might nab a bounty rune. It did help my struggling Mirana, who was struggling because Mirana + Phantom Assassin is a terrible idea.

In the previous 40 or so matches I've played, one of the most annoying things is to use a spell on Riki, but he disappears while the projectile is in the air. That might actually be more common now.

I believe that the bounty rune exists to encourage rotation and roaming, and to exist as a consolation prize for the mid laner unfortunate enough to not get the other rune.

So it seems the most significant change, by far, is how they reworked how the gold and xp bounties work.

Basically, you get a lot more XP if you get a kill on someone who's several levels higher than you, and a lot more gold as well.

Obviously, this was implemented to change the meta after the disappointment with TI 4. Speaking for myself, I don't like it when I can load up a pro game, skip to a quarter of the way through, and predict who's going to win based on kill counts. But some people are complaining that this overly favors hard carries and punishes heroes like Viper.

It's only been a day, so it's too early to say for certain, but it's certainly contentious.

I also love how people seem to complaining about Riki more because the changes apparently make him semi-useful outside of trash tier.

edited 26th Sep '14 9:55:52 AM by Pannic

It's been one day. I think it's too early to judge the impact of the patch on the pro games.

I admit, it'll be disappointing if early/mid-game and snowball-oriented heroes completely drop off.

Like, a while ago I watched a really neat pro game where a team won with a Zeus pick-up. That was awesome.

My guide is in the Steam Guides, It's probably nowhere near popular enough to be seen in game, so subscribe here. Be warned, it's not amazing and I'm still editing it.

The rune mechanics now really encourage mobile, Bottle-carrying mids, while discouraging bottle-crowing.

There are two interesting ideas about the more-swingy bounties on death that I saw.

• The large swing demands more perfect play, since being out of position and picked off means more now.
• The large swing is a counterbalance to the new anti-early-deathball meta. The mechanics reduce the potential loss and increase the potential gain, incentivizing the losing team to try to make something happen. This dissuades teams from just farming up, dragging games out.

Blood magic rocks!◊

@Chris X: Well, no. I found your name on the "tvtropes Indonesia" and I was curious on how Lo L game goes, seeing that Indonesia has a large fanbase for Dota.

edited 26th Sep '14 1:55:08 PM by Styryder