Dota 2

Bloodstone is only good on him if you can get ahead with him. Otherwise, that gold is best spent on other things. Now that stuff is for a semi carry Leshrac. If you're going mid with him, his E is good for clearing out creep waves and driving out the enemy mid. In most matchups anyway.

Bloodstone is situational. If you're surviving teamfights and not getting ganked much, then it's great. If you're dead at the end of each engagement, then it's terrible.

Generally I find a Euls works better. It provides you a lot of mana regen, some good movement speed, and allows you to set up your stun.

Euls is good value on a lot of heroes anyway.

Leshrac can be played support or carry. He really needs to get ahead and stay ahead if you wanna support. You can burn down towers, though, especially as carry.

Hm. Axe, Troll Warlord, and Juggernaut are very dominant in the current metagame. I hope Axe doesn't need to get nerfed.

So far, in the best game I played as Leshrac, each time I got into a fight, all the enemies dropped dead. I was left with less than 5% of my HP and mana, but they were all dead. One of my favorite moments was Dragon Knight chasing me down the bottom lane, stunning me and hitting me while his allies came. Too bad I had already activated my second skill and my ultimate. When he wanted to run away he had nothing to stun me with, and I escaped. Again, with 5% of my HP left, but alive.

But nothing is better than activating Diabolic Edict, and then just standing around the enemy base while their buildings expontaneously explode.

I don't think I can play support Leshrac. I have no idea how I would get around his need for items and survive.

The Dota Asia Championships are tonight! Well, technically they're 4:30 AM GMT tomorrow, but that's tonight for me.

Also, new hats! Time to go spend some money on DAC points....

Yes! They finally added the new hats!

Sadly, I didn't get the Claddish Cudgel.

edited 27th Jan '15 5:00:09 PM by Pannic

Matches haven't started yet, but stream's on!

Divine Rapier. The End.◊

Hm. It could be possible to do a team that uses the new hats, excepting Tidehunter. Juggernaut in safe lane, Ember Spirit mid, Weaver offlane, and Wraith King and Mirana as supports.

Also, anyone see the wildcard game with Na'vi? That was fun.

edited 28th Jan '15 3:24:52 PM by Pannic

I have a question: what to do when the other team is straight up better than yours? I'm not even talking about having a hard time, or having teammates that don't know what they are doing (though that could also be the case), I'm talking about the other team being strictly better than yours. Yesterday I had a great game in which I died zero times even though I was soloing mid as Pugna against a Pudge. Two games later, I was soloing mid against a Pudge again when he killed me when we were about level 3. "Okay, maybe the other Pudge just wasn't good, that doesn't mean I can't take this one." Cue that Pudge killing me five more times before I got the hell out of the middle lane. Then, in the mid game, the Pudge was hiding in the trees, blinking unseen and hooking from where people couldn't see him, killing me a few more times. My team also had an Axe that was scared of attacking, a leeroy jenkins Faceless Void, and a Techies that... I suppose he was doing a good job, it's just that his mines were very close to our towers, which meant the enemies had to attack our towers if they were to die to our mines, instead of putting them in a more offensive way. The enemy team also had a Crystal Maiden counter-warding us all the time.

Right now I just finished a game which started with an Axe and a Phantom Lancer killing my team's creeps (I was Radiant) in between our towers. They did this to our first wave of creeps, which meant their first wave was free to attack our tower, and me (Shadow Demon) and a Slark could do nothing against them. We tried killing them, but the Slark died twice and by the time everyone else was level 8, me and Slark were level 3, because we had barely farmed at all. They managed to scare my team/push our middle lane so far we stopped pushing the other lanes. The Slark and a Medusa eventually quitted the match, and ultimately we lost barely even reaching past their outer layer of towers. At least I was pleased with my perfomance as Shadow Demon in this match, differently from my Pugna in the match I told you about above.

The short answer is, in all honesty, you lose.

The long answer is, you fight as well you as you can and make them work for it. Look for strengths and weaknesses to exploit and move around. Sometimes, you need the other team to throw the game. But every now and again, the other team throws. Not all throws are stupid dives or Rapier drops. Sometimes a throw is not applying enough pressure.

As for your personal improvement, just play your best. Playing when you're down is a lot harder, and it really makes you think about your map movements and itemization.

As for creep cutting, which is where you stand behind the tower to intercept creeps so your creeps can push, sometimes you need to ask for a rotation or gank to deal with them. Sometimes that's not possible or practical, however. The most important thing to do, however, is don't die. This is true for heavy pressure lanes in general. Losing the tower early is bad, yes. But in the grand scheme of things, if you're not giving up kills, the lane is not lost too horribly, especially if you have the better late game.

The most important thing to do, however, is don't die.

I never understood it when people say this. Is there any point in a game where dying is strategically optimal? Otherwise, it sounds equivalent to saying, "If you want to win, then try not to lose".

Incidentally, I only ever heard of or saw Axe doing that creep cutting strategy. Is there anyone else who can do it well?

Perhaps if you're Pudge, Techies, or bait?

EDIT: I tried to ask for help, but the team was unresponsive. Or they were also having trouble, I couldn't pay attention to it. It's just that after a really great game I hit a streak of losses, and while I was pleased with the way I played in most of those games, winning is just more fune

edited 29th Jan '15 12:51:14 PM by Victin

Well, in some cases, you want to apply pressure with your supports so your carries can farm, and sometimes that leads to them dying, which is perhaps not optimal, but given the alternative of not applying pressure and not dying, the former is superior. Put it another way, you trade your life for space; if your carries make good use of that space and you didn't need your life (you're playing a very selfless support, for example), it's a good trade.

In fact, there is an important distinction between "winning" and "not losing." As an example, if all your outer towers are down and you stay inside your base, you're "not losing," but you're not "winning." Sometimes, taking the safe play is "not losing," but taking the risky play is your only hope at "winning."

On the specific counter point, however, I emphasize not dying because that should be your priority. If you were playing against, say, a very passive lane, not dying is still important. For example, if a gank rotation happens, you should still be aware of it. However, that is not the priority, so to speak. Put it another way, if you die against a passive lane without a rotation, you are losing the lane horrifically.

On the other hand, lanes that apply a lot of early pressure, lanes that creep cut, have very early-game goals in mind. They want to take your tower, and they want to kill you. If you deny them your life, even if it means you cede farm, you're still "winning" the lane in an important regard, even though you've lost it. Even if you die once or maybe twice (twice is pushing it), it's not awful, especially if you have the better late game and deny them that snowball.

Axe is probably the easiest example of creep cutters. There are others, but I can' think of them off the top of my head.

edited 29th Jan '15 1:14:48 PM by MetaSkipper

And Techies secures his first competitive win with Secret versus Cloud 9! Although, it was more sheer outplay than Techies. In all honesty, Secret could have played four verse five with the lead they got early game and probably won.

Actually, it's not the first. Techies got picked in a JoinDota season 5 game the other day, HeHe versus NR. It was a crazy and short game.

I think Techies kinda makes sense at this point in the meta game. The big heroes are really aggressive heroes like Shadow Fiend, Juggernaut, Axe, and Troll Warlord. Techies is a hero that can really punish over aggression. I think it makes sense.

Also, comboing him with Pudge or Tiny is priceless.

edited 30th Jan '15 11:26:40 AM by Pannic

Well, if DAC is any indication, core Warlock and support Morphling are new meta confirmed.

Core Warlock has always been a thing. He doesn't really contribute much with no farm, and his ultimate is his biggest contribution. Support Morphling is new though.

Yeah, I think I've seen Warlock as a mid in a game or two. Blink Dagger's important on him.

We've also seen support Nightstalker emerging. Frankly, it's nice that that hero is being used at all after he was at the bottom of the meta in the last two patches. Now he's being played as both a core and as a support.

edited 30th Jan '15 6:50:35 PM by Pannic

Good, I love Night Stalker. So satisfying to gank people so easily.

Does Night Stalker count as a semi-carry, or am I getting my terminology wrong?

Eh. I don't find "semi-carry" a particularly useful distinction. Cores and supports, sure. But when you start trying to pin things down as "hard carries" or "semi-carries" or "anti-carries" it starts getting silly.

Also, there's a new hat. Eternal Radiance Blades for Alchemist, if you got your compendium to level 150.

I think I am gonna need a break from Dota 2 for a while. Holy shit.

I question the Drow Ranger's build.

"I need to build a pipe. Crystal Maiden's ult hurts." - Actual only slightly edited quote from Drow Ranger.

edited 1st Feb '15 2:17:37 PM by Eldrake