Dota 2

On Reddit, I heard people complaining about the EXP comeback, which has been nerfed far less than the gold comeback. Granted, gold can get you more of an advantage than levels, but it's not like experience isn't extremely important as well.

Also, I would half-jokingly suggest that most of the people complaining about the gold comeback mechanic are Alchemist fans.

In pubs, maybe, but Alchemist isn't even in the meta right now. I'd be willing to bet a lot of those people complaining are most likely Juggernaut, Axe or Brewmaster who completely failed in snowballing.

People want to get some early kills and coast on the gold and experience lead. That don't work anymore.

The exp comeback I will concede on. It makes playing Meepo way too risky on top of everything else. Granted this is probably the only thing keeping him from being completely OP, because he's a damn strong hero right now.

That said, you have to work for your snowball now. An early gold and exp helps, but you have to keep that up. You can't just slack off. Dying repeatedly will, guess what, give the other team the advantage instead.

edited 29th Mar '15 8:46:29 PM by Marioguy128

It's happening.

In other news, comeback mechanics make leading team more likely to win. That graph is a little funky to read, so here's what it means. If you had a given gold lead (color of line) in a given patch (solid/dashed line) at a given time (x-axis), you have a percent chance to go onto win the game (y-axis). The reason the graph isn't longer is because there isn't enough data on longer games to extend the graph without stuff like error bars. (Fun fact: the median game time is between 35 and 40 minutes... and there still isn't enough data on games longer than that to extend the graph.)

HOHO HAHA. (Not all games in competitive are Captain's Draft, so you might see some funky numbers like a 33% winrate on a hero with two picks.)

edited 30th Mar '15 11:25:09 AM by MetaSkipper

I predict that the next patch will either raise Shrapnel's mana cost to around 120, or reduce his Strength to Enchantress levels.

Any thoughts?

Or give it the Venomous Gale treatment so it doesn't do damage at level 1. Perhaps rescale it to 0/10/25/50 or something (as opposed to the current 12/24/36/48).

Enchantress has Untouchable and Nature's Attendants to enhance her survivability though, so that would be way too harsh on sniper.

EDIT: I wish Bounty Hunter would become more viable again in the next patch, it's been so long since I've seen one that wasn't just picked to disrupt a jungler.

edited 30th Mar '15 8:36:12 PM by Elfhunter

I think one problem - at the very least - is that half of Bounty Hunter's abilities simply replicate the effects of items that aren't difficult to obtain (Sange and Shadow Blade). Combined with a basic nuke and an Ultimate that counters something pro players have no trouble dealing with (invisibility), it's hard for them to see the point of picking him instead of more unique Heroes.

Sure, but those are mid-game items; Bounty has the advantage of being able to use their effects in the early game (plus almost a Daedalus crit every 6 seconds). EDIT: Although...he really doesn't have that much killing potential early, relying on his allies to dish out the damage while he scouts and slows for them. Basically, he's a glorified support early game.

Yeah, Shuriken is pretty underwhelming. It's too mana heavy to spam with Bounty's mana pool, and back before the Deathball meta I used to max it second, after Jinada, only taking a value point for the mini-stun.

However, in the case of track, true sight isn't its main purpose; it's the reliable gold. I mean, the vision it provides is great, even if the enemy doesn't have invis heroes, but the potential for your entire team to snowball is Track's greatest strength.

EDIT: The main problem I feel Bounty has is his lack of team fight damage. Even with the shuriken buff your team is essentially playing 4 v 5, or maybe even 3 v 5 if your carry can't fight early.

edited 30th Mar '15 10:27:09 PM by Elfhunter

Bounty Hunter has one role: Track. Track to provide vision, and Track to generate gold.

Despite this, of all the invis heroes, he is the only hero that isn't terribly farm dependent. While Riki and Clinkz need items like Diffusal and Orchid, as well as levels to be effective, Bounty Hunter can start roaming as early as Level 2 or 3. Bounty Hunter generally wants to grab a lot of cost-efficient items.

The thing to remember is Gondar is a support. You can play core Bounty Hunter, but he simply won't scale nearly as well as Clinkz or Riki.

Is that a popular opinion? I'd switched up my role to support at about the time he started to drop off, and I usually got the reaction of "WTF? Support Bounty?" Might have just been an SEA server thing, though.

But I agree, and position 4 would be the best place for him, just because of the massive track gold he gets.

edited 31st Mar '15 7:07:08 AM by Elfhunter

I'd say it's generally accepted that Bounty Hunter is a support with a heavy focus on roaming. Really, you want to grab Wand and/or Bottle for mana sustain, then a bunch of cost efficient items.

Tip: Desolator is more efficient than Dagon 2... after the third hit, around the twenty minute mark. Math here. There are some nuances, obviously, but some math to know.

I used to go Desolator as the first item when I started out, but like that article says, it's pretty expensive and even the individual components are costly, not to mention Bounty farms like shit. Later on, I only ever reserved it for when I had a really good start.

edited 31st Mar '15 8:28:40 AM by Elfhunter

Battlefury improves his farming, and gives him the regen he needs to roam!

LOL NO!

EDIT: I might have cumulatively spent half an hour by now explaining to my friend why he should stop building battlefury on Bounty, but it seems to fall on deaf ears for him.

edited 31st Mar '15 8:32:53 AM by Elfhunter

Well, turn it around. Why does he want to build Battlefury?

Basically the reasons you stated, just replace "farming" with "damage".

edited 31st Mar '15 9:17:35 AM by Elfhunter

Well, he's not wrong. There was a time when Battlefury was built for damage rather than its cleave.

That said, if he's looking for damage, tell him to build Medallion. If he wants sustain, grab a Bottle or Wand.

True, but I seriously don't see the point to Bounty going straight-up damage as first item considering he...attacks...so...fucking...slowly. I just went and checked, and Bounty's attack point is 0.59 seconds, which means he swings only 0.01 seconds faster than fucking Treant Protector! You'd take too long to even farm the jungle with it.

I'd actually prefer if he went Deso, at least it helps the team more; and I think Armor Redux + Jinada might probably hit harder than Bonus Damage + Jinada.

Tried. I think his response was, "Why are you thinking about this so much? I'm just playing casually, dude." Which, to be fair, is his choice; I'm only telling him to change the build purely for selfish reasons <_<

AHAHAHAHAHAHA, that'll be the day.

edited 31st Mar '15 11:13:41 AM by Elfhunter

BF on bounty is legit, depending on the game. Well, I in general don't buy it, but it's a multi use item that is decent at a lot of things, but not really strong at a single thing. If you just got a single rightclicker I think you can build it. The problem with bf isn't that it's bad, just most of the time other items are better...

And I think I need to gush about winter wyvern. She's so strong. Not that many games played with her, but 12 out of 15 games won tell a story. So easy to dominate a lane with her q, good int growth and mana pool, cheap heal, and a BKB piercing disable that isn't channeled and can also effect the enemy team. What other hero can easily get an enemy down to 50% at lvl 1, without much chance for them to avoid it or retaliate? Only downside is the low movement speed.

edited 31st Mar '15 7:36:38 PM by Uchuujinsan

What's that? You still suck? Well, lucky for you, the "Welcome to Dota 2, You Suck" guide has been updated!

edited 31st Mar '15 7:40:00 PM by MetaSkipper

In that case you have bigger problems than Bounty going bf .

I was just thinking about when I first read about Enigma's abilities. Specifically, the description for his Demonic Conversion says "These eidolons are all under Enigma's control, and repeated successful attacks cause them to multiply." I wondered how that could possibly be useful, since they have such low HP that they'd die in only a few attacks from anything. It's not until I saw a video that I realized that it meant successful attacks by the eidolons cause them to multiply.

I wonder how common misinterpretations like this are.

They're also healed when they multiply. It's useful when you're jungling with Enigma.

Hey guys, why does no one pick OD competitively in this meta? Isn't Astral a good way to stop SF from farming lane (disrupting last hits and sucking away mana)? And I would've thought Arcane Orb + Troll ult would do pretty hefty amounts of damage.