DOTA 2
- Thread starter Bels_sl
- Start date
Penance
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 5,164
- 5,030
Cyni
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 549
- 192
Slardar doesn't really surprise me, he's pretty squishy and I don't think there are (m)any cases where you'd choose him over Centaur. CM also dropped off the map a few months ago so /shrug To me the surprising two are KotL and to a lesser extent Bloodseeker who seems a good counter to Slark which has been picked pretty frequently.
Personally I'd be curious to see Huskar, in pubs if he gets slightly ahead he becomes an unkillable monster.
Slardar is a strong hero.
His ult is spammable and makes any target its on squishier than Crystal Maiden, even farmed carries. It also gives vision, goes through BKB, and can let him practically one shot supports with blink crush. Oh, and it makes Roshan cake with any lineup.
Sprint gives him rune control early on and perpetual max MS later in the game. Add blink and he is one of the most mobile heroes in the game.
He has an relatively large AOE stun/slow that is spammable in team fights. He has a built-in skull basher. He's a strength hero, so early game aggression is his thing. He scales decently into the late game. His biggest weakness is lane presence, but he can do fine mid against a lot of heroes. He certainly won't die and will get enough last hits to put him in a good position for early mid game aggression.
He's getting ignored because of trends and the fact that he is a pretty forgettable hero. But he has been getting buffs pretty much every patch. Eventually he is going to get noticed and you'll see him make a splash.
His ult is spammable and makes any target its on squishier than Crystal Maiden, even farmed carries. It also gives vision, goes through BKB, and can let him practically one shot supports with blink crush. Oh, and it makes Roshan cake with any lineup.
Sprint gives him rune control early on and perpetual max MS later in the game. Add blink and he is one of the most mobile heroes in the game.
He has an relatively large AOE stun/slow that is spammable in team fights. He has a built-in skull basher. He's a strength hero, so early game aggression is his thing. He scales decently into the late game. His biggest weakness is lane presence, but he can do fine mid against a lot of heroes. He certainly won't die and will get enough last hits to put him in a good position for early mid game aggression.
He's getting ignored because of trends and the fact that he is a pretty forgettable hero. But he has been getting buffs pretty much every patch. Eventually he is going to get noticed and you'll see him make a splash.
Fall off would mean that he was meta to being with, I've never seen KOTL really played in DOTA2 pro games (don't think he was in game for T1 and don't remember any Ti2 games) and apparently the latest round of buffs haven't been sufficient which is a shame I LOVE KOTL; I'm more concerned about Crystal Maiden; she was pretty much instapick Ti3 and now nowhere to be seen.
Maybe in pubs. In any pro game, any slark who's facing a bs would carry a smoke at all times, or only go in when his ult is up.
Zaphid
Trakanon Raider
- 5,862
- 294
CM gets demolished in jungle by skywrath or enigma, unless you just rush boots, which means your other support has to buy all the shit. She needs to get like 2 kills in the first 5 minutes to not be a free kill for the rest of the game. Maybe some push strats could make her work ? But usually shadow shaman offers more and reliable CC
Sutekh
Blackwing Lair Raider
- 7,489
- 106
KOTL has been picked. A lot.
datdota: Keeper of the Light
Maybe less so recently, but he's always been a part of the meta.
As far as Slark carrying around a smoke in a progame? That's just retarded why would you waste a smoke (That has a CD to purchase) when you could just keep a Slave that does the exact same thing.
- 11,072
- 2,267
I don't know how a smoke helps you. BS can silence you at any point and you're fucked. Slark does his shit over time, not instantly. I mean with a blink you might get a quick support kill by unloading your shit, but you're gonna die right after if you can't get out, which is what the silence does. It's not like you can smoke in front of the BS to escape either, that's not how smoke works, if he's in range to silence you, then he's in range to dispel the smoke instantly.
I'm more surprised at the Lina not picked than any other hero personally. Kotl/CM I could have seen in some setups, the mana regen and counter pushing as well as jungling potential of both heroes is valued in certain setups(example if you want to 5man push having a CM is pretty good since she can't do her own stuff in the jungle so you get more xp out of the first 10mins and then she can buy an urn and provide strong mana regen to everyone for the push, kotl works when you have like a bunch of healers, feed them mana constantly, never run back).
Lina on the other hand is just a solid support. She's not like top tier to solo babysit someone obviously, but she's near top tier for roaming ganks, she scales fairly well and her agh upgrade is actually super good now since you can still laguna blade a bkb carry and that shit hurts. I would have expected her in agressive support roams strats and against natural bkb carriers and shit. She also soft counters EB shenanigans as long as she's not the one getting EB one shot since laguna trades well with Dagon. She has good counter push/push and you can just stack utility on her and still get good damage and control. I wouldn't say she's like really strong as a support but I'd say she's fairly decent so not being picked even once is a bit strange to me.
As for kotl in the meta, you must not have been watching very long. There was a time a few years back when kotl would even get banned sometimes. He was in every fucking games, and a lot of times he was with PL too, fucking cancer PL era. Every game was cancer and people were bitching left and right about it.
I'm more surprised at the Lina not picked than any other hero personally. Kotl/CM I could have seen in some setups, the mana regen and counter pushing as well as jungling potential of both heroes is valued in certain setups(example if you want to 5man push having a CM is pretty good since she can't do her own stuff in the jungle so you get more xp out of the first 10mins and then she can buy an urn and provide strong mana regen to everyone for the push, kotl works when you have like a bunch of healers, feed them mana constantly, never run back).
Lina on the other hand is just a solid support. She's not like top tier to solo babysit someone obviously, but she's near top tier for roaming ganks, she scales fairly well and her agh upgrade is actually super good now since you can still laguna blade a bkb carry and that shit hurts. I would have expected her in agressive support roams strats and against natural bkb carriers and shit. She also soft counters EB shenanigans as long as she's not the one getting EB one shot since laguna trades well with Dagon. She has good counter push/push and you can just stack utility on her and still get good damage and control. I wouldn't say she's like really strong as a support but I'd say she's fairly decent so not being picked even once is a bit strange to me.
As for kotl in the meta, you must not have been watching very long. There was a time a few years back when kotl would even get banned sometimes. He was in every fucking games, and a lot of times he was with PL too, fucking cancer PL era. Every game was cancer and people were bitching left and right about it.
At least at TI4, it seems like the supports chosen are those that have some kind of big teamfight ult and usually at least one reliable disable. Lina has an unreliable short range stun and her ult is high damage but single target. That's probably why she wasn't being picked.
But the main event is a different animal from the group stages. In the groups you just need reliable wins, and playing the meta will give you that. But in the main event, playing standard dota isn't going to give you a good chance at winning. You need something to set you apart from the other 7 teams, since you aren't just vying for the top 8 of 16. The meta won't do that, but innovative strategies might.
But the main event is a different animal from the group stages. In the groups you just need reliable wins, and playing the meta will give you that. But in the main event, playing standard dota isn't going to give you a good chance at winning. You need something to set you apart from the other 7 teams, since you aren't just vying for the top 8 of 16. The meta won't do that, but innovative strategies might.
Sutekh
Blackwing Lair Raider
- 7,489
- 106
Did you really miss how he was saying BS counters Slark?
Thirst gives vision of low heroes on the map, Slark's ulti heals him when he's out of vision. Slark cannot get out of vision when he's low unless he uses his ultimate. Yall mother fuckers are stupid.
- 11,072
- 2,267
Oh that's what you meant when you said counter, I see, I didn't even consider you'd pick Bloodseeker to counter Slark healing up when he's low hp in another part of the map, that's so situational and would only happen early on, if Slark ultis earlier than the treshold it doesn't even do anything. The bloodseeker counter isn't the vision, which I guess is nice sometimes, it's the fact that once you get the silence on slark, that's it, he's done, can't do shit anymore, since he can't remove it and most of his damage comes from his spells(to at least stick to people/survive so he can right click long enough).