Dota 2

Yesterday, according to Dotabuff, Naga Siren's pub win rate went up by 6%. I wonder if there was a bug that benefited Naga and few people noticed it.

EDIT: And now it seems to be gone. Probably just a glitch with Dotabuff.

edited 9th Apr '15 11:50:46 AM by MightyMatilda

I think a main issue with OD is that he requires an extremely high amount of farm, even for a carry, add to that he's easily ganked with his relatively low HP, and he's rendered completely irrelevant with even a 4-second BKB. Competitively he'd be overtaken too easily to be viable in the current meta, especially when other mid heroes like brew can easily tank through OD's int-stealing early game.

If I buy an item set for Slardar (one of my favorite Heroes), then he gets a near-inevitable model remake, one that really alters his appearance like what Shadow Fiend got, will that item set be made worthless?

My Wraith King and Faceless Void items still apply, so no they won't be made worthless. Even if they change the model, they'll probably keep the body structure the same.

True, but I would have expected it to be mentioned as at least a situational pick vs SF or Wisp + Tiny mid. Well, w/e, pros know best I guess.

Actually, I just realized even Elder Titan should have been great in this Agility Carry/Physical DPS meta, but even he's disappeared. Though I suppose you can only run him as support, since offlane isn't as easy for him right now.

That's good to know.

Elder Titan feels like a Hero who isn't bad at all if you're good at timing your spells, but he's really boring even when you've got that down. Thus, his bottom-of-the-barrel pick rate in pubs. Then again, I've only used him about twice.

Well, yeah, but OD primarily functions as a mid hero, and with the current meta, there are a lot more viable, and less situational, heroes to choose from for midlane. I don't think I've seen a lot of games where OD managed to get as reliable farm from the safelane, even with two supports babysitting him.

All in all, he's just too situational and easily countered to be of any real use for the current meta.

I don't play Elder Titan much myself, but I find he works best as a counter initiator. You just sit as far back as you can, and the instant they go on your front line heroes, you drop the spirit on them, stomp, and then throw down your ult.

Works particularly well against enemy heroes that have to jump in. Storm Spirit, Faceless Void, Queen of Pain, etc.

So I've been gone a while, but now I'm back. If anyone still cares, here's my Warlock Build:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=422278097

Well, my computer was bunked, but now it's less so, so I'm back (sorta).

Can anyone tell me what's up with this bug◊ over here? I took that screenshot because it was the second time it happened to me, though the last one was a few weeks ago. Besides that floating item icon (that can change whenever you use the shop), I couldn't sell items, move them on my inventory, use them without using a hotkey or even buy them through Quick Buy. It was really annoying and I have no idea what caused it.

That's the item shop bug. I am afraid that to fix it, you have to exit Dota 2 then restart the game. Make sure to pause and tell everyone "item shop bug".

Oh, well. Thanks for the info. At least it's widely known enough I can just say that and hopefully people will wait.

Earlier today, I suddenly really wished that when Abyssal Underlord finally shows up after 8+ years, one of lines will be, "The abyss gazes also into you". Then I released that this was Dota 2, where no pun is bad enough for a Hero to refrain from saying it every five seconds. So, it's presence is basically inevitable.

. I think Enigma already makes that joke.

I stare also into you.

So, Dota 2 has decided to hang as soon as the window loads. Oh, this is sad day.

IceFrog, our lord and savior, showing up out of nowhere to tell us grand news!

...so 26th April or later? That's still quite a while off.

A commentary on the state of the Dota 2 scene.

Today I learned I can't play Doom. At all.

I can, but I'd rather not. But...you sure it's not a meta thing? It's not really a farming meta right now.

Doom is like incredibly useless right now aside from essentially taking out someone from a teamfight every few minutes. Whoopee. Like the hero itself doesn't have much going for him at the moment.

He just needs too much. Needs blink for mobility, Needs Aghs for ult to do real damage, Needs medallion/mek/shivas/assault to cover abysmal armor, and needs refresher so the guy you doomed doesn't just buyback and rejoin the fight.

Well, apparently I've been playing Doom wrong the whole time.

Midas is off-meta, yeah; you really can't farm passively right now unless your side has really good team-fight/ganking potential. I personally never went tranquils on him, since Phase is always superior for chasing down heroes (It gives Doom an average of 367 ms, while tranquil gives you 350 once you start attacking).

The Mek nerf also hurt him since that mana cost increase hurts him early, which is the best time to get a Mek. It went from being a really good purchase to being kind of questionable. The armor is good since he has none, but that heal leaves him with no mana.

Yeah, farming Doom isn't really effective right now. Buying a Midas essentially says, I want to let the rest of my team carry me for 20 minutes while I go farm creeps. When he was stronger, this was something you could get away with, but not anymore. Capitalize on his other strengths, like being able to use jungle creep's abilities.

Back when Doom was stronger, I think I assembled Tranqs whenever I jungled Doom, but not all the time. Generally I built Tranqs when I played Roamer or a more support oriented Doom. I prefer Phase most of the time.

edited 21st Apr '15 12:16:21 AM by Marioguy128

Oh, I can see the merit in Tranqs, it's just that I feel I could farm jungle faster with Phase + casual Ro B, if at the cost of more health (but that's what Scorched Earth is for).

I'd totally forgotten the Mek mana cost increase, that was pretty bad for him, yeah.

edited 21st Apr '15 1:06:00 AM by Elfhunter