DOTA 2

gmstbfla_sl said:

You also get to play with a flag and base icons. The downside is it's not a functionality that's really encouraged all that much. I would like to see something like monthly tournaments where teams are able to compete for items, bragging rights, special effects, etc.

Have different tournaments for each skill bracket and each geographic region. Give better rewards for bigger tournaments at higher skill levels to help prevent smurfing. Maybe even require 50 matches before qualifying as a team, to ensure teams are in the right place MMR-wise. You could also implement some kind of system of promotion/relegation where the top several teams in one tournament "league season" get a chance to compete in the next league up the following season. Heck, give the top pub team of the year in each region an invite to the TI Qualifiers.

There are a lot of ideas that could work, and really the game presents the perfect platform for it. They just need to take a small break from hats and do it.

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Please don't turn this into LoL, I think some minor stuff like differently colored blink/dagon/teleport/fountain that you get for a month if you win these automated tournaments would be nice, but expecting more than a 10% of the playerbase to take part would be a mistake in my opinion.

Zaphid_sl said:

Please don't turn this into LoL, I think some minor stuff like differently colored blink/dagon/teleport/fountain that you get for a month if you win these automated tournaments would be nice, but expecting more than a 10% of the playerbase to take part would be a mistake in my opinion.

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Does League do something similar? I've never played that game. Anyways, I was thinking different colored effects, in game titles, special colored fonts, maybe something like a crown or border around your icon. That sort of thing. Nothing too obtrusive but still noticeable.

10% would probably be a pretty good amount of activity, considering how many people play the game on weekends. That's around 70,000 players or 700 teams. Cut up into 4 regions you have and 3 skill brackets, you have 12 tournaments with around ~60 teams in each. And that's assuming only 10% participate and the game stops growing. With a good system in place, I could see it as high as 25% eventually with an even bigger player base.

The idea is to foster team-based play and a more interesting/competitive environment than you can get with just thousands of random undifferentiated pub games.

You're absolutely insane if you think 10% of dota players will play a tournament every weekend.

Not 10% of all players, just 10% of those online on any given weekend. I don't think that's too unrealistic if is it is well promoted and has rewards that you can't buy or get through ordinary pub games.

an accordion_sl said:

whoa bro whoa

Are you a 5k dota master yet?

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BEEN 6k bro!

Personally I love playing support but am nowhere close to the skill level of some here. I am starting to think the only way to really get better though is to play with a competent group. My play tends to get better playing with better people.

gmstbfla_sl said:

Does League do something similar? I've never played that game. Anyways, I was thinking different colored effects, in game titles, special colored fonts, maybe something like a crown or border around your icon. That sort of thing. Nothing too obtrusive but still noticeable.

10% would probably be a pretty good amount of activity, considering how many people play the game on weekends. That's around 70,000 players or 700 teams. Cut up into 4 regions you have and 3 skill brackets, you have 12 tournaments with around ~60 teams in each. And that's assuming only 10% participate and the game stops growing. With a good system in place, I could see it as high as 25% eventually with an even bigger player base.

The idea is to foster team-based play and a more interesting/competitive environment than you can get with just thousands of random undifferentiated pub games.

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LoL ranked play are SC2 leagues but more strict, every so often you end up playing "promotion games" so you have to win at least like 3 games out of next 5 and you get promoted. You get fancy portrait or something for your troubles. The issue is that it's all playable solo, so you can e playing games of your life and some troll will just shit all over it. It goes all the way to the top where the best teams can play for promotion to qualify for their pro circuit. Your ranking is visible, so that gives trolls more ammo to flame if something goes wrong. If it's 5man team only, it would be much better imo.

Necro is pretty bad support once you go up and end up with games where you have to buy wards, chicken and are lucky with brown boots before 10 minutes.

I recommend Bane, because you have two CCs, pure nuke that turns fights, your ulti ignores bkbs and enfeeble is a pain to lane against.

Shaker is really good, but he is meh in dual lanes, but if you know you are with a ranged carry, so you don't get simply lose the lane, he is one of the best.

Crystal Maiden is the goto, can jungle reliably from lvl 2 and your aura makes helps win all lanes, however you fall off real fast and if they have a good ganker, you are walking kill by 20 minutes.

Shadow Shaman starts pretty badly, since if you end up buying chicken/wards, you can't do the pro move by starting with boots, so you rely on somebody being really out of position to get kills, but once you hit 6, your solo kill potential is really high and the tower gold let's you get a few items.

POTM - one of the best supports, especially with setup, but if you are an arrow whisperer, you can turn into carry very easily and the ultimate only gets better.

While I agree with those supports being good, several of them are rather hard to play. With Shaker it's really easy to harm your team more than you help, and if you miss two early fissures you're worthless for the first 5 minutes. Maiden is mechanically easy, but the low movement speed makes her dependent on good positioning to be able to contribute (that's an important lesson, though). POTM is fantastic, but requires good gamesense to hit arrows and good map awareness to use ulti right.

My suggestions for newer players:
Lich - Good movement speed, simple abilities, will always contribute with sacrifice and with tranquil boots never has to go back to fountain. One of the weaker supports in experienced hands, but great for newbies.
Tidehunter - Tanky, simple abilities, and has a fight winning ultimate that is easy and fun to use. Scales surprisingly well if you have a good game.
Wraith King - Tanky, one simple active, actually helps the team by dying (in team fights). Scales very well.

After those three, I'd learn:
Abaddon - Extremely tanky, kind of complicated abilities if you want to maximize his potential, but just using the shield on whoever is taking damage works well enough. Scales very well.
Vengeful - Simple, powerful abilities. Scales pretty well.
Warlock - A ranged, less powerful Tidehunter.
Disruptor - You won't play this hero well, but if you can only manage one job you'll still be an asset to a team of better players: Glimpse a hero running away from your tower. Bonus points if you can catch someone in a field/storm combo in team fights.
Witch Doctor - A stun and an ulti in a team fight will mean you still contribute more than 90% of bad supports even if the ult gets interrupted.
Shadow Shaman - Two stuns and an ulti in a team fight will mean you still contribute more than 90% of bad supports even if the shackle gets interrupted.

Zaphid's list is good, but imo harder to play.

Aghs on necro is so bad too... hahah.

My bad Cyni about last night. I was away from my computer for most of the night.

Jackie Treehorn_sl said:

Yet in that screenshot of my last 20 games, I have 85 percent wins with him, and almost 65 percent in almost 100 games, all played the same way. (Faulty logic, not saying it wouldn't be better to get meks first, just saying what I do.) Granted I'm only at 3100 MMR and rising fast and not pro levels, but it works quite well. And I ALWAYS buy courier, upgrade, and the majority of times I buy wards the entire game, and place them.

All that said, I should start experimenting with buying bloodstone more often, I dunno. I never have mana issues though.

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I have 85% winrate with Visage over like 24 games. Anything works in pubs, the question is why it works. If you kill a target outright thanks to Aghanim and manage to spam heals the whole fight, you have a massive advantage, because initiation wins pubgames. You buy and place wards, therefore helping your team to not get murdered. If you run into good shadow demon or a clock manages to latch onto you, you are gonna have a bad time rushing Agh. Also it seems like carries in your games don't farm nearly well enough, thereby making kills relatively much more valuable.

I wonder how Dagon would do in your scenario, less HP, but that extra damage really makes the ulti hurt and you can fire it off even earlier knowing that extra nuke is on the way.

Who buys back at 3k rating? Only the guy who is 20-1 and has 6k gold sitting there when he dies pushing T4. Item is just a waste of gold at that rating. I'd take a dagon or shivas any day over it. Even worse if you built it instead of a Mek/Pipe.

The reason the hero is so strong is that he sustains a team so well over long fights, all while dealing a shitton of dmg to the enemy. You want items that help with that. I'm not surprised you're winning that much though even with Aghs. Hero is crazy good if teams dont deal with you. (Reth yells a lot when we play against Necro "KILL HIM NOW, BLOW HIM UP. KILL THE NECRO FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK CYNI WHYYYYYY".)