DOTA 2 Catch-all

I played one game over the weekend, we won but some jerk DCed. Thrilling.

I played weird times since i was on vacation. Solo queued my way to like a 13-3 week somehow.

Atomicvideohead wrote:

And I'm back as of tonight! How'd last week go? Any replays I should check out? How'd new people do?

Seemed pretty quiet. I was out of town but didn't really see too many folk when I was on during the weekend.

I got a new mouse guys, look out.

edit: case of mistaken identity.

Anyone know what last nights update was about? Was it to fix the weird thing that was going on with match making?

Also Gambit. I don't mean to sound like jerk, but I think I need to take a break from playing with you. You just fed so hard last night.

This posts links to a great collection of images that show you distinguishing features on the map that you can use to judge the range of towers. http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/commen... There are some great, subtle map design queues for every tower.

Patch Notes: http://dev.dota2.com/showthread.php?...

More about Pseudo random distribution: http://www.dotacinema.com/news/pseud...

I am so glad this is changed. So sick of not getting any bashes or crits while being obliterated by multiple crits or stuns from enemies, one after another.

Nice 4 game losing streak, over which I have had absolutely incapable teammates. I guess my lucky solo queue pub time is over.

I'm not sure how I feel about PRD. I guess I'll have to see how I feel about it tonight after a few matches.

I mostly view solo pub queuing as a exercise of trying to find reasonable people who speak English and have a microphone to add to my friends list.

You'll probably like PRD, it prevents things like 3-4 crits/bashes in a row for the most part. Straight RNG can be so streaky.

Just a gut feeling, but I think it s a good idea...except for Chaos Knight. I feel like he should be purely random. That's his bag, right? Also counter Helix might need son PRD.

Since it will only affect his critical strikes I don't think it's too bad.

Atomicvideohead wrote:

Just a gut feeling, but I think it s a good idea...except for Chaos Knight. I feel like he should be purely random. That's his bag, right? Also counter Helix might need son PRD.

1 in a 1000 chance he swings and sends him back to the fountain. CHAOS

That'd be pretty great actually.

Also digging the new BM model.

Good games tonight guys. Felt like we really had to work for some of those wins. And I saw some great individual play. Though now that I think about it, there may not have been too many GWJers on the team.

Xanta, so sorry I missed your message. I didn't see it too hours later when you were in another game. I totally would have botted it up with you at the time.

Carry undying with 1 kill! FTW!

Also, sorry about the hulking out. As a player, not as undying.

I'm not a fan of the 3 new skins that are coming out with this most recent patch -- they're a little to beholden to the whole colour theory thing, and lose a bit of character in the process. Well except for Wisp I guess. Shifting hues doesn't exactly change it much.

I am excited for the release undying model -- I finally get to try modelling the sketched items I drew a couple of weeks back.

Atomicvideohead wrote:

I'm not a fan of the 3 new skins that are coming out with this most recent patch -- they're a little to beholden to the whole colour theory thing, and lose a bit of character in the process. Well except for Wisp I guess. Shifting hues doesn't exactly change it much.

I am excited for the release undying model -- I finally get to try modelling the sketched items I drew a couple of weeks back.

I don't mind the Death Prophet recolor too much. The Silencer is going to take some getting used to. I think the intent may be to differentiate a bit more from Dragon Knight, but it's a little too pink for my tastes. Oddly enough, it was Nyx's profile pic that I mixed up with Dragon Knight for the first month and a half playing.

Hulking...out...captain's...mode

Who hulked out? Me? You?

Are you the Hulk and am I his, nemesis, the Leader?

I'm going to watch that replay sometime this week to figure out what happened.

So I've been playing almost every night, 2 or 3 games a night and now I have a little over 100 games under my belt. I have 57 wins and 53 losses. I guess that's ok, but I do feel I'm still in the lower bracket if there is such a thing.

I've been playing with 3 or 4 friends, also completely new to DOTA/Mobas. We are having some fun, but this game can become frustrating really fast as well. I decided to play mostly the support role, because when I'm solo queuing, nobody seems to play that. I hate a game without wards, courier, nobody working towards a Mek... you know, all support stuff.

I like Jakiro the best so far, but I also like Vengeful Spirit, Venomancer, Windrunner and a few other heroes to support my team. I'm not sure if I'm setting up myself for failure, since I'm only focusing on half a dozen heroes and only one role. I only play All Pick games, because the thought of playing anything else scares me. What if I'm forced to pick someone like Invoker? I'd be screwed. A lot of people say that I should be playing random heroes to learn the game better... I'm not sure how I feel about that.

And sorry I haven't been able to play with some of you guys. I appreciate the invite, but at this point, I feel I'm way below your skill level (I've been watching your games) and I would end up messing all your games. I know how frustrating it can be to have that clueless guy on your team.

Nah, we play with me, we're totally fine with clueless people.

But seriously, a 100 games isn't nothing to scoff at.

You should play with us so I don't have to play support. Just kidding, it's my favorite.

Atomicvideohead wrote:

Who hulked out? Me? You?

Are you the Hulk and am I his, nemesis, the Leader?

I'm going to watch that replay sometime this week to figure out what happened.

*I* was hulking out. Usually I can keep relatively mellow despite, but those matches last night - likely combined with a frustrating day at work, and a recent losing record in dota - got me worked up. I'm calmer now and I'm not carrying any resentment, but I can explain a bit about how I saw things...

First off, from my perspective, Captain's Mode is tryhard mode. So, when we end up in CM, I want to win and I assume that the team is trying their best to win. Possibly the wrong expectation, but that's where my mind goes.

For the first CM match you picked a really bad team (Zeus, Witch Doctor, Bloodseeker, Enigma, Sven). We ended up with heroes people weren't really great at playing. After 100+ games with both myself and Barash, I would have expected you to know some of our better heroes. The last pick of Sven at least gave me something to work with, but up until that point it was pretty grim, and both Barash and I were worried we weren't going to have a hero going into the last pick.

But even ignoring that fact, we ended up with a really poor team composition. Four melee heroes. No support. No lane control. Not a lot of team fight. And not matched up particularly well against our competition. And then having a lane with 2 melees vs. 2 ranged was a nightmare. The first two kill attempts had problems chaining stuns that led to early deaths. Things just snowballed from there with no real hope for a turnaround. But it was demoralizing to be screwed pretty much from the outset, barring the possibility of incompetent opponents.

The picks were a bit better in the second game, but we were still outpicked by our opposition. It didn't really seem like we'd thought enough about lane make-up with our picks. And we probably should have left SB alone against the tri-lane to press the advantage in our other lanes. The witch doctor definitely helped make that lane safer for me, but if we'd been able to get a kill or two on the naga, it would have been worth a couple deaths on the Spirit Breaker. I know that you didn't want to go with the boring picks, but we can't leave them the boring picks to dominate us with. Of course, by that point I was already in a bad mood so I wasn't making your life any easier.

But, what's done is done. I've picked poorly in CM too. I was ready to go into another match right away to try for redemption. Thankfully people left so I could make the right decision and go to bed. But I better get some winning dota in this weekend.

Bah, I'm sorry about the picks. I clearly wasn't thinking clearly last night. I think I'm gonna make a cheat sheet for who you guys like to play. I clearly should have picked bane for you. Durh.

KillTrash wrote:

So I've been playing almost every night, 2 or 3 games a night and now I have a little over 100 games under my belt. I have 57 wins and 53 losses. I guess that's ok, but I do feel I'm still in the lower bracket if there is such a thing.

I've been playing with 3 or 4 friends, also completely new to DOTA/Mobas. We are having some fun, but this game can become frustrating really fast as well. I decided to play mostly the support role, because when I'm solo queuing, nobody seems to play that. I hate a game without wards, courier, nobody working towards a Mek... you know, all support stuff.

I like Jakiro the best so far, but I also like Vengeful Spirit, Venomancer, Windrunner and a few other heroes to support my team. I'm not sure if I'm setting up myself for failure, since I'm only focusing on half a dozen heroes and only one role. I only play All Pick games, because the thought of playing anything else scares me. What if I'm forced to pick someone like Invoker? I'd be screwed. A lot of people say that I should be playing random heroes to learn the game better... I'm not sure how I feel about that.

And sorry I haven't been able to play with some of you guys. I appreciate the invite, but at this point, I feel I'm way below your skill level (I've been watching your games) and I would end up messing all your games. I know how frustrating it can be to have that clueless guy on your team.

That's plenty of play, and a great record for your first hundred games. You are certainly not far beyond our skill level (at least not mine) and you have to remember that the matchmaking will be balanced out, so even if you were, the skill level of our opponents would be in the ballpark.

I've played a lot of support myself and share your frustration with weak support play. There's no harm in having a preference for role or even heroes. And I wouldn't say that you are setting yourself up for failure , but I would strongly advocate expanding your repertoire. First, you won't really know if you like a hero or a role unless you try it. There are some heroes that I found myself surprised that I enjoyed and could play well. And you'll never really understand how to play against (or even with) a hero that you've never tried yourself.

I would definitely recommend adding random draft or single draft to your regular rotation. You'll still get a chance to play your favourite heroes when they come up, but you'll also be forced to stretch. And the most exciting thing about this game is how much there is to learn.

Atomicvideohead wrote:

Bah, I'm sorry about the picks. I clearly wasn't thinking clearly last night. I think I'm gonna make a cheat sheet for who you guys like to play. I clearly should have picked bane for you. Durh.

There are dozens of heroes I like and play reasonably well. Emphasis on the "reasonably" part. And I don't even mind trying something new if it's needed by the team. It was really the combination of multiple factors that made me question the choices last night. Like in the second game, my record with Spirit Breaker is a bit uneven and I wouldn't say he's one of my best heroes, but I'm completely willing to play him. But I questioned whether he needed to be our first pick, as he was unlikely to be picked by our opponents.

But mostly I just have to trust the captain, offer my opinions, and then do what I'm told to the best of my ability. I just want to get my record over 50% and I've been backsliding recently.

Cask, hit me up in google. I'll send you my email. I want to share my cheat sheet.

Or when the captain makes an "all xxxx team" rule, after the game starts. hate when that happens.