The VOD is up here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k4pQ2HRW9Vo. Special thanks to Luminous for casting and uploading the VODs.
I just watched the VOD to get the caster/commentary perspective on the game. I know I made some minor mistakes this game. I definitely should have been more active in using the hawk and pig, especially during team fights. When I made the decision to go BKB, I should have skipped Arcane Boots and gone straight BKB---that 1k gold delay made it a more-or-less useless item. Toxin suggested after the game that it would have been better to go Force Staff, and, having seen the VOD, I agree.
This game is a good example of a team executing well early and then throwing away the win by executing poorly down the stretch. Our early game was pretty strong. I definitely didn't like having to play the Beastmaster "throwaway" lane at bottom, and giving Pugna a free Arcane/Mek definitely hurt us, but since it took Pudge ganking/a silly mistake by me (if I had been more active with the pig I would have seen Pudge much earlier and nullified the gank) to get the kill. This gave our Invoker some extra farm mid which was integral to our strong early team fights and his 9-0 spree. When we took a good advantage in fights early we were all pretty confident that, if we executed well for the rest of the game, we would take the win. The hardest carry for Scourge side was a Panda, and he would have to go up against Chaos Knight, Invoker, and Dark Seer('s wall) late.
Unfortunately we executed really poorly down the stretch. There were three team fights that should never have happened: the one at bottom river where we engaged, threw some stuns, and I ran through the enemy team to escape through the other side only to turn around and come back because my team was still fighting them; the one at mid where Pudge was able to walk around behind us and we scattered and got picked off; and the one at top where we ran out of our base to chase a hero and ES/Pudge were able to use fissure to split the team and hook the Invoker out and focus us down one at a time. Every one of those engagements was a silly one by our team. When the bottom engagement happened, we had taken a good lead on kills early already and were poised to transition into the late game on even ground in terms of levels and gold. Instead of engaging we should have just backed off. Ditto for the other two fights. In particular, the third fight was silly. We could have simply defended base. With Invoker and Darkseer, it's possible to rebuff almost any push. Every one of those fights was a loss and gave team Mist the one thing that would let them beat us: level advantage. The gold they got from those fights didn't translate into much that could beat us, but the huge level advantage that they got over our team meant that they could simply outlast our damage and grind us down with Thunder Clap/Rot/Blast spam.
Overall I think it was a really fun tournament, and, for a team that was basically a pick-up group (the first time I played with our five was our round one match), we played really well. I'm considering uploading the replays from all our games, but the VODs are online, and, frankly, rounds 1-3 were one-sided stomps that probably aren't worth watching (unless you have a huge desire to see a 5 minute midas/9 minute Dagon into Heaven's Halberd on Ancient Apparation...).
Monday, January 30, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
DC.DT Finals
Well, we lost to Febby's team in the finals. Congrats to Febby and company. I think we played really well throughout the tournament and had a lot of fun playing together. We just weren't able to execute down the stretch.
Semifinals (Update)
Wish us luck!
Also good luck to team Fire vs AL in the finals of Infused Cup! Tune into the stream here http://www.joindota.com/en/matches/17200-absolute-legends-vs-fire and when Fire is done crushing on AL you can come check out our semifinal/final games over at Dotacommentaries.
UPDATE: We won our semifinal game so now we're watching the other semifinal game while we wait for our finals match-up. As Toxin put it, "Febby, I'm coming for you!"
Also good luck to team Fire vs AL in the finals of Infused Cup! Tune into the stream here http://www.joindota.com/en/matches/17200-absolute-legends-vs-fire and when Fire is done crushing on AL you can come check out our semifinal/final games over at Dotacommentaries.
UPDATE: We won our semifinal game so now we're watching the other semifinal game while we wait for our finals match-up. As Toxin put it, "Febby, I'm coming for you!"
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Round 2
We won the remake in resounding fashion. I got to solo mid AA (probably one of my top three favorite things in DotA) and had a fast Midas into Dagon. It was a lot of fun!
Shout out to our round 2 opponents for being good-natured and mannered about the whole situation.
Tune in tomorrow for the semi-final and final games!
Shout out to our round 2 opponents for being good-natured and mannered about the whole situation.
Tune in tomorrow for the semi-final and final games!
Round 2 issues
And we have a remake!
15 minutes into our round 2 game the DotaCash bots freaked out and dropped our whole team. Despite Purge saying it wasn't "completely one-sided" yet, we had a huge xp and gold advantage (10,000 gold, 12/10/10/9/8 against 9/9/8/6/6 in levels).
It's okay though we have a remake with new picks so we'll just have to play well again and ride our talent and friendship to victory!
15 minutes into our round 2 game the DotaCash bots freaked out and dropped our whole team. Despite Purge saying it wasn't "completely one-sided" yet, we had a huge xp and gold advantage (10,000 gold, 12/10/10/9/8 against 9/9/8/6/6 in levels).
It's okay though we have a remake with new picks so we'll just have to play well again and ride our talent and friendship to victory!
Time for Round 2...
In a game that lasted way longer than it should have, zzzz were able to beat OD, so we're finally going to be playing round 2. Stay tuned!
Blogging the Dotacommentaries Diamond Tournament (DC.DT)
I'm playing in a pick-up group for the DC.DT tournament today. Gotta win those beta keys! We finished our round 1 game before the teams opposite us in the bracket finished picks, so we've got some time to kill. Luckily, their game is being streamed so we'll get some sick intel---so far looks like neither team knows how to pick.
First game was over after our first set of picks when we grabbed AA+CK. Ended up almost shutting them out---I fucked up and died once because I didn't pop stick. Presumably the competition will ratchet up as the tournament goes on, but then again with RsF matched up against Mist in round 1 there goes one of our two main competitors for the top spot.
First game was over after our first set of picks when we grabbed AA+CK. Ended up almost shutting them out---I fucked up and died once because I didn't pop stick. Presumably the competition will ratchet up as the tournament goes on, but then again with RsF matched up against Mist in round 1 there goes one of our two main competitors for the top spot.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
More Midas on Naix
Just thought I'd point out that Universe had an early Midas on Naix in one of GoSu's games today and ended up having Midas, Treads, Armlet, Heart in 25 minutes. GoSu hadn't even taken all the tier 1 towers yet. Midas is a really strong item in the right scenario.
Making Ogre Mage relevant
My roommate and a confusing number of public-level players really like Ogre Mage as a hero. I personally dislike the fact that Multicast ruins Fireblast. Reducing the time between casts and giving it a chance to do bonus damage and stun for a longer time? Sounds great! For more than double the mana? That's less exciting.
Fireblast without multicast is pretty amazing, actually. It compares favorably with Magic Missile (at level 4: 50 less damage, .25 second less stun time, and +2 seconds of cooldown for 35 less mana and +100 range) on a hero with a better mana pool. Ogre Mage lacks the same all-around punch of Vengeful Spirit (since Command Aura, Howl, and Swap all scale favorably to the late game), but that doesn't mean we can't find him a place.
My first thought is to skip levels on Fireblast and favor Ignite through level 7. My second thought is to skip Multicast and max both damage spells by 8. Multicast isn't worth the +30 mana on Fireblast when you only have the Mana to cast 1 or 2 Fireblasts anyway. Depending on how items pan out for Ogre it could also be beneficial to sandbag Multicast until after getting a few levels of Bloodlust or even stats.
As far as items go, Ogre Mage doesn't need a whole lot for himself. I dislike Soul Ring even though it seems like the item was made for him. Before Multicast you "waste" 45 mana, and after Multicast your Soul Ring won't even cover the cost of Fireblast. Soul Ring is better the more efficient it is on the hero, and it's frankly not very efficient on Ogre Mage.
Arcane Boots seem necessary. It's good to be able to replenish your allies' mana, and having the expanded mana pool gives Ogre a lot more capacity to utilize the reduced Fireblast cooldown after getting Multicast.
Beyond that there are some options. Naturally, he wants some mana regeneration, especially since time spent going to base is lost experience. There are a number of mana regeneration options. On the cheap end, you have Urn (combos nicely with Ignite) and Medallion (which is just a good support item in general). On the more expensive end, there's Eul's Scepter (which helps with his below-par move speed), Orchid Malevolence, and even Guinsoo's if the game goes long enough.
Veil of Discord could be good on him. Soul Ring into Veil is one build where Soul Ring actually seems like a pretty good choice.
Rod of Atos is too expensive and inefficient. Ogre Mage has plenty of health built in--it's cheap mana and regeneration that he lacks.
I'm going to be playing around these builds in public DotA1 games. I will try to update as I flesh it out.
Fireblast without multicast is pretty amazing, actually. It compares favorably with Magic Missile (at level 4: 50 less damage, .25 second less stun time, and +2 seconds of cooldown for 35 less mana and +100 range) on a hero with a better mana pool. Ogre Mage lacks the same all-around punch of Vengeful Spirit (since Command Aura, Howl, and Swap all scale favorably to the late game), but that doesn't mean we can't find him a place.
My first thought is to skip levels on Fireblast and favor Ignite through level 7. My second thought is to skip Multicast and max both damage spells by 8. Multicast isn't worth the +30 mana on Fireblast when you only have the Mana to cast 1 or 2 Fireblasts anyway. Depending on how items pan out for Ogre it could also be beneficial to sandbag Multicast until after getting a few levels of Bloodlust or even stats.
As far as items go, Ogre Mage doesn't need a whole lot for himself. I dislike Soul Ring even though it seems like the item was made for him. Before Multicast you "waste" 45 mana, and after Multicast your Soul Ring won't even cover the cost of Fireblast. Soul Ring is better the more efficient it is on the hero, and it's frankly not very efficient on Ogre Mage.
Arcane Boots seem necessary. It's good to be able to replenish your allies' mana, and having the expanded mana pool gives Ogre a lot more capacity to utilize the reduced Fireblast cooldown after getting Multicast.
Beyond that there are some options. Naturally, he wants some mana regeneration, especially since time spent going to base is lost experience. There are a number of mana regeneration options. On the cheap end, you have Urn (combos nicely with Ignite) and Medallion (which is just a good support item in general). On the more expensive end, there's Eul's Scepter (which helps with his below-par move speed), Orchid Malevolence, and even Guinsoo's if the game goes long enough.
Veil of Discord could be good on him. Soul Ring into Veil is one build where Soul Ring actually seems like a pretty good choice.
Rod of Atos is too expensive and inefficient. Ogre Mage has plenty of health built in--it's cheap mana and regeneration that he lacks.
I'm going to be playing around these builds in public DotA1 games. I will try to update as I flesh it out.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Shoutout to TC
Sorry for a lack of posting recently; I've been an active participant in the drama surrounding the Fire vs N9 match and it has been hurting my desire to blog about DotA.
However, I have finally gotten around to watching Fire's other games from the qualifier. My plan is to do a post sometime this week about the "Fire strat," the strategy that Fire used to roll through the qualifier. Right now, though, I'd just like to give a big shout out to TC from Fire for making some exceptional skill plays in their games. I haven't seen Rhasta played that well in a long time. Very impressive.
However, I have finally gotten around to watching Fire's other games from the qualifier. My plan is to do a post sometime this week about the "Fire strat," the strategy that Fire used to roll through the qualifier. Right now, though, I'd just like to give a big shout out to TC from Fire for making some exceptional skill plays in their games. I haven't seen Rhasta played that well in a long time. Very impressive.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Prodigious Picks, Part 1
The word "outpicked" gets thrown around a lot, especially after a particularly one-sided game (and it's even more likely if it was one-sided in favor of a team viewed as the underdog). Most of the time it's used by people who have no idea what they're talking about, and on a certain level an argument can be made that the idea of "outpicking" an opponent is ridiculous (because picks set the stage but play unfolds the events of the game). ArtStyle has said as much before. While games are never won the picking phase, good/bad picks can make winning much easier/harder. As such, it's important to understand what goes into "good picks."
Inexperienced/lower-level captains often consider the draft portion in terms of banning/picking individual heroes rather than picking a single to fill out a coherent strategy and game plan. While it's possible to win games this way (after all, that's the style of picking that most players will be going up against most of the time), it's very difficult to win tournaments by just haphazardly grabbing whatever "good" heroes fall through the draft.
As a general rule, you want to be able to answer the following questions about any strategy:
- How/when can this strategy take towers? How strong are this strategy's pushes?
- Does this strategy defend towers well?
- Does this strategy take advantage of the jungle?
- Does this strategy deny the enemy resources? (e.g. Dark Ritual fully denies a full creep each wave; blocking the enemy lane camp stops them from pulling creeps)
- How/when does this strategy win the game?
- When can this strategy do Roshan?
- How many Arcane Boots does this strategy need?
- Who gets [item]? Some items, such as Mekansm and Pipe of Insight, are almost must-haves in every strong strategy. Other items, such as Orchid Malevolence, are conditionally important and it's good to have the option to get them.
- How strong are this strategy's lanes?
- Who is the 1 (hardest support), the 2, the 3, the 4, and the 5 (hardest carry)? (My numbering system might be different from 2009's; in my system, the numbers are analogous to the basketball positions.)
While this isn't an exhaustive list, it's a good starting point for understanding DotA on a strategic level. Next time will be less abstract as I delve into what "metagame" actually means and get into some real-world examples of strategy decision/picking situations.
Inexperienced/lower-level captains often consider the draft portion in terms of banning/picking individual heroes rather than picking a single to fill out a coherent strategy and game plan. While it's possible to win games this way (after all, that's the style of picking that most players will be going up against most of the time), it's very difficult to win tournaments by just haphazardly grabbing whatever "good" heroes fall through the draft.
As a general rule, you want to be able to answer the following questions about any strategy:
- How/when can this strategy take towers? How strong are this strategy's pushes?
- Does this strategy defend towers well?
- Does this strategy take advantage of the jungle?
- Does this strategy deny the enemy resources? (e.g. Dark Ritual fully denies a full creep each wave; blocking the enemy lane camp stops them from pulling creeps)
- How/when does this strategy win the game?
- When can this strategy do Roshan?
- How many Arcane Boots does this strategy need?
- Who gets [item]? Some items, such as Mekansm and Pipe of Insight, are almost must-haves in every strong strategy. Other items, such as Orchid Malevolence, are conditionally important and it's good to have the option to get them.
- How strong are this strategy's lanes?
- Who is the 1 (hardest support), the 2, the 3, the 4, and the 5 (hardest carry)? (My numbering system might be different from 2009's; in my system, the numbers are analogous to the basketball positions.)
While this isn't an exhaustive list, it's a good starting point for understanding DotA on a strategic level. Next time will be less abstract as I delve into what "metagame" actually means and get into some real-world examples of strategy decision/picking situations.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Illinois 79 > (5) Ohio State 74
How it happened: For the first time in conference play, Meyers Leonard played like the 7'2" man he is instead of like a big baby... at least for the first half or so. Brandon Paul made up the difference by scoring 43 points on 15 shots (8-10 3FG), the third highest single-game total in Illinois history, and blocking 4 Buckeyes shots inside.
Interesting tidbit: With neither team's bench able to find the basket, this game became about the match-up between two star big men, Leonard and player of the year candidate Jared Sullinger. Then it became all about Brandon Paul.
Looking ahead: Major concern for Illinois fans as long as point guard Sam Maniscalco is out, since the half court offense looked stagnant at best and was downright awful at worst tonight. The inability of perimeter players to find Leonard with good position on the low block was heartbreaking (as it robbed the viewer of at least four monster two-hand jams). Ohio State's starters looked good: Aaron Craft did Aaron Craft things and Jared Sullinger played like a man, looking like he was back to early-season form after coming back from that injury. But the Buckeyes' bench let them down, shooting a combined 0-6 from the floor and failing to contribute in any meaningful way. While Illinois's bench was also scoreless, they at least came up with three big steals that lead to Illinois buckets in transition.
I'd like to give a big shout-out to the morons at the Associated Press and the Coaches Poll for consistently ranking Wisconsin and fucking Harvard over the Illini this year. So what if Harvard is 13-2? They play in the fucking Ivy League! And Wisconsin? Really, Associated Press and Coaches Poll? They opened the season 12-2 with 11 home games, losing to the only two good teams they played (North Carolina and Marquette), and then dropped a fat deuce in conference play (1-3 with their only win coming against Nebraska, which we all know joined the Big 10 because of its basketball program). Nice back-to-back-to-back losses against Iowa, Michigan State, and Michigan, Wisconsin!
Interesting tidbit: With neither team's bench able to find the basket, this game became about the match-up between two star big men, Leonard and player of the year candidate Jared Sullinger. Then it became all about Brandon Paul.
Looking ahead: Major concern for Illinois fans as long as point guard Sam Maniscalco is out, since the half court offense looked stagnant at best and was downright awful at worst tonight. The inability of perimeter players to find Leonard with good position on the low block was heartbreaking (as it robbed the viewer of at least four monster two-hand jams). Ohio State's starters looked good: Aaron Craft did Aaron Craft things and Jared Sullinger played like a man, looking like he was back to early-season form after coming back from that injury. But the Buckeyes' bench let them down, shooting a combined 0-6 from the floor and failing to contribute in any meaningful way. While Illinois's bench was also scoreless, they at least came up with three big steals that lead to Illinois buckets in transition.
I'd like to give a big shout-out to the morons at the Associated Press and the Coaches Poll for consistently ranking Wisconsin and fucking Harvard over the Illini this year. So what if Harvard is 13-2? They play in the fucking Ivy League! And Wisconsin? Really, Associated Press and Coaches Poll? They opened the season 12-2 with 11 home games, losing to the only two good teams they played (North Carolina and Marquette), and then dropped a fat deuce in conference play (1-3 with their only win coming against Nebraska, which we all know joined the Big 10 because of its basketball program). Nice back-to-back-to-back losses against Iowa, Michigan State, and Michigan, Wisconsin!
Na'Vi vs. N9
I wouldn't put much stock in this game. When there is obvious delay on both sides the team with the simpler strategy wins more often than not, and that's what happened here. I did, however, want to address a couple of points made by zMuffinMan over on NADotA.
"Against a majority of teams na'vi would have pulled a game like that off. The reason why the draft is weaker is that by having naix in the jungle it weakens their lanes by stretching 4 heroes out over 3 lanes (naix isn't a ganking jungler like chen) and going midas on naix(very poor move) weakens their early game, allowing N9 to exploit a huge early-mid game hole in na'vi's power in order to gain a ridiculous advantage. Of course, N9 must play tight and make minimal mistakes and take down early towers, which is what they did, because if na'vi were given even an inch of room they would have been lethal. I think a lot of teams wouldn't have done so well in this draft match up as N9 did. It isn't as simple as saying ns+furion = autowin."
I'm not exactly sure what he means by "the draft" being "weaker," but my guess is that he means Na'Vi's picks are worse than N9's. This is wrong, but I'm not going to harp on it since I'm not sure that's exactly what he meant.
I strongly disagree with his assertion about Midas on Naix. I think Midas on Naix was an essential move, something that Na'Vi were planning on from the beginning, and that it in no way cost them the game. There's no way for Na'Vi to fight profitably during the first night against Nightstalker/Furion with Ravage protection and Dazzle keeping everyone alive. Na'Vi's strategy sacrifices early towers against N9 with the intention of dragging the game out until Naix and Slardar can more-or-less solo the N9 team (which would happen earlier than you might think). Naix's Midas lets him reach that gold and experience advantage much faster than he otherwise would farming the jungle and bottom lane, sacrificing an early Armlet (which would have done nothing against N9 anyway) to have more items when he would have an opportunity to really do the first damage anyway. Unfortunately the execution by Na'Vi ended up being really poor (in some ways I'm sure this was due to delay; just watch Puppey's Puck make misplay after misplay), and they never reached the point where Naix and Slardar would be the difference-makers. That doesn't undermine the fact that Midas was the right choice for Dendi's Naix, however.
"Against a majority of teams na'vi would have pulled a game like that off. The reason why the draft is weaker is that by having naix in the jungle it weakens their lanes by stretching 4 heroes out over 3 lanes (naix isn't a ganking jungler like chen) and going midas on naix(very poor move) weakens their early game, allowing N9 to exploit a huge early-mid game hole in na'vi's power in order to gain a ridiculous advantage. Of course, N9 must play tight and make minimal mistakes and take down early towers, which is what they did, because if na'vi were given even an inch of room they would have been lethal. I think a lot of teams wouldn't have done so well in this draft match up as N9 did. It isn't as simple as saying ns+furion = autowin."
I'm not exactly sure what he means by "the draft" being "weaker," but my guess is that he means Na'Vi's picks are worse than N9's. This is wrong, but I'm not going to harp on it since I'm not sure that's exactly what he meant.
I strongly disagree with his assertion about Midas on Naix. I think Midas on Naix was an essential move, something that Na'Vi were planning on from the beginning, and that it in no way cost them the game. There's no way for Na'Vi to fight profitably during the first night against Nightstalker/Furion with Ravage protection and Dazzle keeping everyone alive. Na'Vi's strategy sacrifices early towers against N9 with the intention of dragging the game out until Naix and Slardar can more-or-less solo the N9 team (which would happen earlier than you might think). Naix's Midas lets him reach that gold and experience advantage much faster than he otherwise would farming the jungle and bottom lane, sacrificing an early Armlet (which would have done nothing against N9 anyway) to have more items when he would have an opportunity to really do the first damage anyway. Unfortunately the execution by Na'Vi ended up being really poor (in some ways I'm sure this was due to delay; just watch Puppey's Puck make misplay after misplay), and they never reached the point where Naix and Slardar would be the difference-makers. That doesn't undermine the fact that Midas was the right choice for Dendi's Naix, however.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Dark Seer
When J4T came out with that Dark Seer pick against Na'Vi, Synderen mentioned that it was a "German pick," and then explained that Dark Seer has been showing up in the Germans' games for the past few weeks. Apparently a top League of Legends player who switched over to DotA2 had been talking to him about Dark Seer and asking why the hero wasn't picked more in competitive games.
My gut reaction after watched J4T pull out a strategic win (in other words, one where both teams made roughly the same number of mistakes and the other team simply won due to a strategy advantage) was that Dark Seer was a strong hero who could probably see play in a lot more lineups. Wall of Replica was alright as a spell that scaled with the strength of your opponents, but the fact that they could simply back off and wait for it to dissipate before pushing drastically reduced its potential effectiveness. Being able to use Scepter to copy yourself and allied heroes takes it to an entirely new level. Now, Dark Seer teams can throw a Wall up a safe distance away from a base tower, copy themselves, suicide push with the images, and repeat until the Wall goes away. As the defender, killing the images isn't effective unless you deal enough damage to kill them before they can damage the tower, since every image is immediately replaced when it dies. The only way to "stop" a Wall of Replica push is to go out and kill the enemy team, at which point you're fighting around Wall of Replica, which is exactly where the Dark Seer team wants you to be. Seems strong, doesn't it?
Then I took a step back. The key to the success of the Dark Seer strategy is not Dark Seer himself, but Enigma, and, to a lesser extent, Death Prophet. Baiting the enemy out to a fight near the Wall is good, but not great. Baiting them into chokes where they are going to have to be nigh-perfect in their play to avoid eating a full Black Hole is great, and baiting them out into the open where there are no buildings or creeps to soak up Exorcism damage is what gives the strategy its killing potential (at least in the mid game). Dark Seer may have been the catalyst that set up J4T's team fights in this case, but using Enigma to disable and kill the enemy team isn't exactly metagame-shifting.
What do you guys think? Is Dark Seer/the Wall of Replica push the foundation of J4T's strategy, or is it really the Enigma/Death Prophet combination?
My gut reaction after watched J4T pull out a strategic win (in other words, one where both teams made roughly the same number of mistakes and the other team simply won due to a strategy advantage) was that Dark Seer was a strong hero who could probably see play in a lot more lineups. Wall of Replica was alright as a spell that scaled with the strength of your opponents, but the fact that they could simply back off and wait for it to dissipate before pushing drastically reduced its potential effectiveness. Being able to use Scepter to copy yourself and allied heroes takes it to an entirely new level. Now, Dark Seer teams can throw a Wall up a safe distance away from a base tower, copy themselves, suicide push with the images, and repeat until the Wall goes away. As the defender, killing the images isn't effective unless you deal enough damage to kill them before they can damage the tower, since every image is immediately replaced when it dies. The only way to "stop" a Wall of Replica push is to go out and kill the enemy team, at which point you're fighting around Wall of Replica, which is exactly where the Dark Seer team wants you to be. Seems strong, doesn't it?
Then I took a step back. The key to the success of the Dark Seer strategy is not Dark Seer himself, but Enigma, and, to a lesser extent, Death Prophet. Baiting the enemy out to a fight near the Wall is good, but not great. Baiting them into chokes where they are going to have to be nigh-perfect in their play to avoid eating a full Black Hole is great, and baiting them out into the open where there are no buildings or creeps to soak up Exorcism damage is what gives the strategy its killing potential (at least in the mid game). Dark Seer may have been the catalyst that set up J4T's team fights in this case, but using Enigma to disable and kill the enemy team isn't exactly metagame-shifting.
What do you guys think? Is Dark Seer/the Wall of Replica push the foundation of J4T's strategy, or is it really the Enigma/Death Prophet combination?
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Leading your team
A few days ago Lust made a great post over at NADotA.com about how to improve individually as a DotA player (I highly recommend it for anyone who is really trying to improve their play). The discussion in the thread was pretty good, but then derailed into talk about coordination and team play. I wanted to take a little bit of extra space to answer a question posed in the thread:
"In my case i (sic) have trouble communicating with my team. Sometimes one tries to call the shots but that ends up losing a teamfight, other times people try to lead the teamfight and completely ignore the captain of the team. Any suggestions as to how to lead a team properly?" -- candypuddin
To be a good leader of a team you have to command the respect of your teammates (in terms of your decision making and general, well, leadership), and understanding the personalities of your players is a big part of this. Some players will be extremely deferential (sometimes too deferential) and rely on you to tell them where to go and what to do, especially at the lower levels of play. Other players are confident in their own abilities and will sometimes disregard the call of the captain in order to try to make a play that they deem correct. The captain or leader of a team simply cannot manage the actions of every single player. What becomes important, then, is to guide your teammates along the paths outlined by your strategy, "macromanaging" rather than micromanaging your players.
The level of management that a leader has to take on is also dependent on the skill levels of the players on his team. At highest levels of play, support players know where to ward and counter-ward in the context of their team's strategy and the evolving game state. At lower levels, though, it might be necessary for the team leader to identify specific areas that need to be warded and/or counter-warded. Similarly, it can be important to outline target priority in team fights. Earlier today, Panzer played against mouzsports for the group stage of The Defense. A major factor in mouzsports's loss was a failure to prioritize targets correctly: while a fragile Panzer Broodmother was doing the vast majority of damage to mouz in fights, they were consistently prioritizing Kuroky's Dragon Knight. As a result, they lost a number of team fights that they should have won, resulting in an insurmountable Panzer advantage.
Other times it's up to the leader of a team to call the support heroes together to go Smoke ganking or to protect a farming carry in a lane. This translates well across levels of play; there is a reason the hard carry players are not also the in-game leaders for many top teams.
The best suggestion I can give, though, is to lead by example. Especially at the low- and mid-skill levels of play, the leader has to be able to demonstrate through his play that he "deserves" to be leading. If you as leader are consistently leading your team into bad fights and losing games, maybe it's time to hand the reins off to someone else and try letting them lead for a few games. You should always be reviewing your games and the decisions you made to see where you can improve. When I was leading Perplexity, I usually tried to lead my team through the in-game chat. Not only did this circumvent possible Ventrilo difficulties (e.g. Ventrilo lagging, people talking over each other), it imprinted a record of my decisions on the game replay so that I didn't have to try to remember what I was saying to my teammates as the game unfolded.*
I hope this was able to help candypuddin and any other in-game leader aspirants. Leave feedback and questions in the comments; I'll be happy to expand on any unclear points or things that I neglected to touch on in the post.
*It is also important to be able to lead using voice chat, especially for tournament games. Using text chat to lead is simply a good way to record your actions for later review.
"In my case i (sic) have trouble communicating with my team. Sometimes one tries to call the shots but that ends up losing a teamfight, other times people try to lead the teamfight and completely ignore the captain of the team. Any suggestions as to how to lead a team properly?" -- candypuddin
To be a good leader of a team you have to command the respect of your teammates (in terms of your decision making and general, well, leadership), and understanding the personalities of your players is a big part of this. Some players will be extremely deferential (sometimes too deferential) and rely on you to tell them where to go and what to do, especially at the lower levels of play. Other players are confident in their own abilities and will sometimes disregard the call of the captain in order to try to make a play that they deem correct. The captain or leader of a team simply cannot manage the actions of every single player. What becomes important, then, is to guide your teammates along the paths outlined by your strategy, "macromanaging" rather than micromanaging your players.
The level of management that a leader has to take on is also dependent on the skill levels of the players on his team. At highest levels of play, support players know where to ward and counter-ward in the context of their team's strategy and the evolving game state. At lower levels, though, it might be necessary for the team leader to identify specific areas that need to be warded and/or counter-warded. Similarly, it can be important to outline target priority in team fights. Earlier today, Panzer played against mouzsports for the group stage of The Defense. A major factor in mouzsports's loss was a failure to prioritize targets correctly: while a fragile Panzer Broodmother was doing the vast majority of damage to mouz in fights, they were consistently prioritizing Kuroky's Dragon Knight. As a result, they lost a number of team fights that they should have won, resulting in an insurmountable Panzer advantage.
Other times it's up to the leader of a team to call the support heroes together to go Smoke ganking or to protect a farming carry in a lane. This translates well across levels of play; there is a reason the hard carry players are not also the in-game leaders for many top teams.
The best suggestion I can give, though, is to lead by example. Especially at the low- and mid-skill levels of play, the leader has to be able to demonstrate through his play that he "deserves" to be leading. If you as leader are consistently leading your team into bad fights and losing games, maybe it's time to hand the reins off to someone else and try letting them lead for a few games. You should always be reviewing your games and the decisions you made to see where you can improve. When I was leading Perplexity, I usually tried to lead my team through the in-game chat. Not only did this circumvent possible Ventrilo difficulties (e.g. Ventrilo lagging, people talking over each other), it imprinted a record of my decisions on the game replay so that I didn't have to try to remember what I was saying to my teammates as the game unfolded.*
I hope this was able to help candypuddin and any other in-game leader aspirants. Leave feedback and questions in the comments; I'll be happy to expand on any unclear points or things that I neglected to touch on in the post.
*It is also important to be able to lead using voice chat, especially for tournament games. Using text chat to lead is simply a good way to record your actions for later review.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
The Defense: Praeter Cunctas vs. Team Shakira
As Grant pointed out over at NADotA yesterday (and as should be obvious to anyone who watched dignitas vs Shakira), Shakira is bad. So when a team loses this poorly to Shakira, they must be really terrible.
For anyone who appreciates high level DotA (e.g. anyone who wake up at four in the morning to watch Russian language re-streams of G-league), this game was painful to watch. Arguably the most important skill for a DotA player to have is situation assessment and reaction, commonly referred to as decision-making. From the beginning, Praeter Cunctas (as the Radiant side) put on a clinic of terrible decision-making. Starting at top, before the majority of heroes had even reached level 2, pC's Earthshaker and Crystal Maiden were hanging out to the right of top lane, presumably to keep vision against Shakira's Venomancer and Tidehunter, and give their Razor some space to farm and harass Spectre in the lane. However, instead of using their positioning to threaten Shakira's heroes off the pull and protect Razor, Earthshaker decided to look for a kill. While not an incorrect decision in and of itself, his excitement to drop a fissure that would block Venomancer's possible retreat path ultimately cost his team first blood, as Razor was too far off in the lane to come kill Venomancer quickly enough, and forcing the 3-on-3 fight meant Crystal Maiden had to come over and tank Venomous Gale, Gush, and Spectral Dagger. It seemed later on that Earthshaker would continue trying to be too cute with his fissures, opting to go for blocks when it would have been better to throw a stun on two or more heroes. At one point Shakira's Nightstalker inexplicably leaves middle lane before the first nightfall, probably hoping to get some kills against pC's tri-lane at top. For pC, this decision is a boon: your solo mid Slardar now gets free gold and levels over Nightstalker, and since they had knowledge of Nightstalker's position the entire time they could easily back off the lane while he wastes his time. When pC's Razor got caught out by the tri-lane of Shakira, a simple fissure into the block of three heroes would have given Razor enough time to back off to tower, where the positioning becomes significantly in pC's favor, even in the 3-on-4 situation. Instead, Earthshaker decides to throw his fissure into the river, blocking Nightstalker's path to the lane. This ends up not mattering, as 3 heroes for Shakira easily dispatch the lone Razor, and Nightstalker simply walks back to mid lane.
Earthshaker wasn't the only player making poor decisions, however. At one point during the first night, Nightstalker is playing very aggressively in the middle lane. Slardar, who is low on health, lucks out and finds a double damage rune at top to refill his Bottle. Earthshaker and Crystal Maiden are both hidden behind pC's middle tower, with Nightstalker farming on the Radiant side ledge. Earthshaker makes a good block against Nightstalker to block his path of retreat into the lane, forcing him to run up and towards the Slardar with double damage. Slardar, however, simply activates his rune and doesn't drink his full Bottle to restore his health. What ends up happening is Nightstalker is able to kill Slardar before being finished by Crystal Maiden, resulting in a 1-for-1 trade.
As an aside, trading 1-for-1 on heroes is bad in general, but it's especially bad if you're trying to come back from a disadvantage. Picking Nightstalker off in the first night is very strong, and getting it 1-for-0 is an excellent way to generate some momentum and start coming back from a disadvantage. Picking Nightstalker off in this situation would have given pC the chance to bring five heroes mid and take the tower, getting some much-needed gold for all their heroes and reducing Shakira's map control. Trading 1-for-1, however, doesn't enable a push from pC, and giving Nightstalker the kill greatly reduces the advantage generated by killing him in the first night.
Later, pC catches Nightstalker in a 2-on-1 that quickly turns into a 3-on-1 situation, when Nightstalker goes to the Radiant secret shop to buy his Point Booster then foolishly roams down into fog, presumably looking for a kill on heroes hiding behind the Radiant's tier 1 top tower. He runs right into a Slardar who is low on health and full on mana. Now, I personally feel that the correct decision in this situation is for Slardar to Crush and walk back towards the lane and the tower where he has additional help. He was low enough that two Void's plus an Urn charge would grant Nightstalker a kill. Instead, Slardar decides to fight, thinking that because he has an Earthshaker with him and a Windrunner nearby that they can pick off the Nightstalker 3-on-1. Slardar and Earthshaker do a good job chaining their stuns, but Nightstalker's levels and items give him too much health for these two heroes to kill him quickly enough. Nightstalker, realizing that he is out of position, starts to run back towards river, at which point Slardar decides to chase him. Slardar is able to get off a second Crush, but Windrunner misses Powershot against an unmoving target, and Nightstalker is able to finish Slardar off again before dying to the Earthshaker and a newly-arrived Crystal Maiden.
There was a lot of tower diving and overly aggressive play going on this game. When BuLba talks about "shitty Euro style," this game is pretty much what he means.
Also interesting to me is the fallacy of the enormous comeback. For one reason or another, bad teams often think they have a chance to come back from enormous disadvantages. This game was decided by the 20 minutes mark, when pC's Slardar (their most farmed hero, in terms of creeps killed) had Bottle, Boots of Speed, and a Magic Wand, while Shakira's Spectre was sitting on Vanguard, Power Treads, and Sacred Relic (she would finish a Radiance in the net three minutes, while Slardar would finish his Phase Boots). Here are the facts: in public games, it's possible for a team to throw away huge advantages because of a lack of coordination and individual player skill. When your individual players are worse than the other team's individual players, however, and you're playing against a team of players coordinating their movements and actions, there is no chance of coming back from such an enormous disadvantage. I rarely observe this phenomenon in other games. Competitive Magic players will more often than not extend the hand when they realize they have no chance of winning, even if their opponent hasn't yet reduced them to 0 life (and might have to take a number of additional turns to do so). The same goes for Korean Brood War professionals, who have been known to GG a game after losing a single unit for no gain in some situations. Even in WarCraft III, the game whose engine is the basis for original DotA, it is not unheard of for a player to concede early in a match after a harassment goes terribly wrong or a hero gets picked off while creeping.
Even if you admire pC's resolve to finish out the game, the chance of them coming back went from infinitesimally small to literally zero by 27 minutes when they had lost their top barracks. Yet they subjected the Steam servers and the observers to another few minutes of twitching and flailing about, their death throes casting a pall over the events of the afternoon (at least until EG vs Panzer gave us a much better game).
For anyone who appreciates high level DotA (e.g. anyone who wake up at four in the morning to watch Russian language re-streams of G-league), this game was painful to watch. Arguably the most important skill for a DotA player to have is situation assessment and reaction, commonly referred to as decision-making. From the beginning, Praeter Cunctas (as the Radiant side) put on a clinic of terrible decision-making. Starting at top, before the majority of heroes had even reached level 2, pC's Earthshaker and Crystal Maiden were hanging out to the right of top lane, presumably to keep vision against Shakira's Venomancer and Tidehunter, and give their Razor some space to farm and harass Spectre in the lane. However, instead of using their positioning to threaten Shakira's heroes off the pull and protect Razor, Earthshaker decided to look for a kill. While not an incorrect decision in and of itself, his excitement to drop a fissure that would block Venomancer's possible retreat path ultimately cost his team first blood, as Razor was too far off in the lane to come kill Venomancer quickly enough, and forcing the 3-on-3 fight meant Crystal Maiden had to come over and tank Venomous Gale, Gush, and Spectral Dagger. It seemed later on that Earthshaker would continue trying to be too cute with his fissures, opting to go for blocks when it would have been better to throw a stun on two or more heroes. At one point Shakira's Nightstalker inexplicably leaves middle lane before the first nightfall, probably hoping to get some kills against pC's tri-lane at top. For pC, this decision is a boon: your solo mid Slardar now gets free gold and levels over Nightstalker, and since they had knowledge of Nightstalker's position the entire time they could easily back off the lane while he wastes his time. When pC's Razor got caught out by the tri-lane of Shakira, a simple fissure into the block of three heroes would have given Razor enough time to back off to tower, where the positioning becomes significantly in pC's favor, even in the 3-on-4 situation. Instead, Earthshaker decides to throw his fissure into the river, blocking Nightstalker's path to the lane. This ends up not mattering, as 3 heroes for Shakira easily dispatch the lone Razor, and Nightstalker simply walks back to mid lane.
Earthshaker wasn't the only player making poor decisions, however. At one point during the first night, Nightstalker is playing very aggressively in the middle lane. Slardar, who is low on health, lucks out and finds a double damage rune at top to refill his Bottle. Earthshaker and Crystal Maiden are both hidden behind pC's middle tower, with Nightstalker farming on the Radiant side ledge. Earthshaker makes a good block against Nightstalker to block his path of retreat into the lane, forcing him to run up and towards the Slardar with double damage. Slardar, however, simply activates his rune and doesn't drink his full Bottle to restore his health. What ends up happening is Nightstalker is able to kill Slardar before being finished by Crystal Maiden, resulting in a 1-for-1 trade.
As an aside, trading 1-for-1 on heroes is bad in general, but it's especially bad if you're trying to come back from a disadvantage. Picking Nightstalker off in the first night is very strong, and getting it 1-for-0 is an excellent way to generate some momentum and start coming back from a disadvantage. Picking Nightstalker off in this situation would have given pC the chance to bring five heroes mid and take the tower, getting some much-needed gold for all their heroes and reducing Shakira's map control. Trading 1-for-1, however, doesn't enable a push from pC, and giving Nightstalker the kill greatly reduces the advantage generated by killing him in the first night.
Later, pC catches Nightstalker in a 2-on-1 that quickly turns into a 3-on-1 situation, when Nightstalker goes to the Radiant secret shop to buy his Point Booster then foolishly roams down into fog, presumably looking for a kill on heroes hiding behind the Radiant's tier 1 top tower. He runs right into a Slardar who is low on health and full on mana. Now, I personally feel that the correct decision in this situation is for Slardar to Crush and walk back towards the lane and the tower where he has additional help. He was low enough that two Void's plus an Urn charge would grant Nightstalker a kill. Instead, Slardar decides to fight, thinking that because he has an Earthshaker with him and a Windrunner nearby that they can pick off the Nightstalker 3-on-1. Slardar and Earthshaker do a good job chaining their stuns, but Nightstalker's levels and items give him too much health for these two heroes to kill him quickly enough. Nightstalker, realizing that he is out of position, starts to run back towards river, at which point Slardar decides to chase him. Slardar is able to get off a second Crush, but Windrunner misses Powershot against an unmoving target, and Nightstalker is able to finish Slardar off again before dying to the Earthshaker and a newly-arrived Crystal Maiden.
There was a lot of tower diving and overly aggressive play going on this game. When BuLba talks about "shitty Euro style," this game is pretty much what he means.
Also interesting to me is the fallacy of the enormous comeback. For one reason or another, bad teams often think they have a chance to come back from enormous disadvantages. This game was decided by the 20 minutes mark, when pC's Slardar (their most farmed hero, in terms of creeps killed) had Bottle, Boots of Speed, and a Magic Wand, while Shakira's Spectre was sitting on Vanguard, Power Treads, and Sacred Relic (she would finish a Radiance in the net three minutes, while Slardar would finish his Phase Boots). Here are the facts: in public games, it's possible for a team to throw away huge advantages because of a lack of coordination and individual player skill. When your individual players are worse than the other team's individual players, however, and you're playing against a team of players coordinating their movements and actions, there is no chance of coming back from such an enormous disadvantage. I rarely observe this phenomenon in other games. Competitive Magic players will more often than not extend the hand when they realize they have no chance of winning, even if their opponent hasn't yet reduced them to 0 life (and might have to take a number of additional turns to do so). The same goes for Korean Brood War professionals, who have been known to GG a game after losing a single unit for no gain in some situations. Even in WarCraft III, the game whose engine is the basis for original DotA, it is not unheard of for a player to concede early in a match after a harassment goes terribly wrong or a hero gets picked off while creeping.
Even if you admire pC's resolve to finish out the game, the chance of them coming back went from infinitesimally small to literally zero by 27 minutes when they had lost their top barracks. Yet they subjected the Steam servers and the observers to another few minutes of twitching and flailing about, their death throes casting a pall over the events of the afternoon (at least until EG vs Panzer gave us a much better game).
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Inbloguration
I was trying to think of a good topic for a first post, realized I should probably give some kind of introduction, and then couldn't really think of how to break the ice.
I made this blog primarily as a way of recording my own thoughts about a number of things in a public forum, with hopes of stimulating some kind of discussion and information exchange. By no means am I a top player at any of the things I'm going to be commenting on, but I do have a fairly robust understanding of them and good gaming strategies/practices in general, which actually seems like a good topic for this icebreaker.
A lot of people will look at two things that are different (say, basketball and DotA) and assume there is little or no overlap. However, there are a lot of 'umbrella' elements that can be applied generally to any sort of competitive endeavor. The best practices of preparation for a basketball, DotA, Magic: the Gathering, WHFB, Starcraft 2, or 40k tournament are the same. I won't get into specifics now (after all, I need to save some material for future blog posts).
I think keeping the first post short and sweet is probably the best plan. Welcome to the blog. Feel free to leave feedback/flames in the comments. I'll try my best to respond to honest questions and ignore trolls.
I made this blog primarily as a way of recording my own thoughts about a number of things in a public forum, with hopes of stimulating some kind of discussion and information exchange. By no means am I a top player at any of the things I'm going to be commenting on, but I do have a fairly robust understanding of them and good gaming strategies/practices in general, which actually seems like a good topic for this icebreaker.
A lot of people will look at two things that are different (say, basketball and DotA) and assume there is little or no overlap. However, there are a lot of 'umbrella' elements that can be applied generally to any sort of competitive endeavor. The best practices of preparation for a basketball, DotA, Magic: the Gathering, WHFB, Starcraft 2, or 40k tournament are the same. I won't get into specifics now (after all, I need to save some material for future blog posts).
I think keeping the first post short and sweet is probably the best plan. Welcome to the blog. Feel free to leave feedback/flames in the comments. I'll try my best to respond to honest questions and ignore trolls.
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