MOBA (Dota, LoL, HoN) Thread

[mckerney]

Introducing the Dota Store | Dota 2

Dota 2 announcement confirms what had long been believed about the game's release; the game will be free to play with a store for cosmetic items, no purchasing heroes or anything else that has an impact on gameplay.

[Matthean]

I have never played one of these type of games, but making it F2P outside of cosmetics has me interested. Now, If I could get myself to play a PC game outside of a couple sessions, I might be really interested.

[Neon_Chaos]

Originally Posted by Matthean

I have never played one of these type of games, but making it F2P outside of cosmetics has me interested. Now, If I could get myself to play a PC game outside of a couple sessions, I might be really interested.

LoL and HoN are also F2P, with rotating free champions.

And permanently purchasing a champion with in-game earned points in LoL is also an option and is relatively easy to do.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Matthean

I have never played one of these type of games, but making it F2P outside of cosmetics has me interested. Now, If I could get myself to play a PC game outside of a couple sessions, I might be really interested.

If you end up picking up LoL I'm Rhiow there, would be happy to play some bot games w/ you and try to help with the early learning curve (which is big)

[Radii]

CBS Interactive sews up pro gaming on Web - CNBC

The most recent MLG tournament in Columbus this past March had over 350,000 concurrent users, and Whitcombe believes the upcoming Anaheim MLG competition could eclipse 500,000 concurrent users.

I follow the LoL competitive scene more than any sport but the NFL and College Basketball at this point, with some of the crazy changes with the bigger NA teams I can't wait for MLG Anaheim. Even though I've not really played lol much since Diablo 3 came out, I still watch streams pretty frequently.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Radii

If you end up picking up LoL I'm Rhiow there, would be happy to play some bot games w/ you and try to help with the early learning curve (which is big)

I tried signing up and playing it some time last year and it ended up being one of the bigger clusterfucks I have come across. I gave up in the process of it all. I think support finally got a hold of me, but I was too annoyed to care by that point.

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by Radii

CBS Interactive sews up pro gaming on Web - CNBC



I follow the LoL competitive scene more than any sport but the NFL and College Basketball at this point, with some of the crazy changes with the bigger NA teams I can't wait for MLG Anaheim. Even though I've not really played lol much since Diablo 3 came out, I still watch streams pretty frequently.

I've watched far more Dota 2 and StarCraft II over the last few months than I have baseball.

[mckerney]

I love the esports features Valve is building into Dota 2. They're having a qualifier tourney for The International 2 and anyone with game access will be able to spectate matches with an audio feed from the caster streaming the game.

[Radii]

CBS Will Broadcast Major League Gaming On TV This Fall - Forbes

I've loved the LOL streams for MLG this weekend, every LAN event it seems like the presentation improves. 4 streams going most of the weekend, two of them with broadcasters that are all light years better than they were a year ago at this time.

[Atocep]

I have 2 Smite beta keys and I know McKerney and Radii are big moba fans. Are you guys interested in them?

If you guys aren't I'll hand them out to whoever else may be interested.

[Radii]

I appreciate the offer but not interested, I'm old and slow and my learning curve is huge, I got very frustrated very fast trying dota and hon, I'm content to stick with what I know in LoL

[mckerney]

Thanks for the offer, but I'm going to have to decline too. Not too interested in Smite currently, better to give the key to someone who will use it.

[Atocep]

So after a few days of playing SMITE I have to say I'm enjoying it quite a bit. It's still very early in beta, but there's a lot to like. The 3rd person view makes it feel like a cross between a WoW battleground and your standard MOBA. I do think it makes it harder to appreciate when watching gameplay as I wasn't all that impressed with the videos I had seen before I actually got into the game and played it.

It moves at a faster pace than other MOBAs and there are some changes which really work for what's trying to do. Last hitting isn't the biggest focus during laning. It's nice, but you're not crippled by an inability to farm last hits or by a single death in lane. The way last hitting works is you get full gold if you get the last hit. You get half of that amount if the enemy creeps get the last hit. If your tower hits a creep that amount is reduced even further. Gold and XP is split between laning partners if you have multiple people in a lane. What this does is give you some incentive to push if you're able to push with the tradeoff being potential ganks from the enemy jungle.

The jungle is full of buffs. Every normal camp has some sort of buff. There are mana, health, armor, cooldown, and movespeed buffs for each team in the jungle. It really puts emphasis on protecting your buffs in the jungle. There's also the equivalent of Roshan or Baron buff from DOTA/LOL and a Dragon type mob from LoL as well.

Right now there are only around 12 gods that are available with 5 permanently unlocked. The system to unlock new gods is identical to League of Legends. There are no runes/masteries or anything like that right now. The developers have stated that their goal is to get the pool of gods up to around 30-35 before release so this game has a long way to go before it sees an official release.

Overall, the game is far better than I was expecting and it's very easy to pick up and play if you're familiar with MOBAs. It definitely needs work in some areas. In game chat needs a lot of attention, it needs to be a bit clearer which buffs/debuffs you have in game, and few other things. I've needed a bit of a break from LoL for some time and I finally found something that can fill the void.

[Radii]

Riot Games CEO Brandon Beck Talks League of Legends Championship Series Season Three - Forbes

I love what they've done with Season 2 and the idea of a weekly league and some more structure definitely sounds like where they need to go.

This weekend there was a 4 team tournament in New York, MLG Summer Arena that was very professionally done. A couple new camera tricks with spectator mode that were interesting, and relatively quick postgame replay analysis, telestrator/Madden style. I don't really care for Dan Dinh and he was doing most of the replay stuff, but I like the idea quite a bit.

EU Regionals are set and will take place in 2 weekends, NA Regionals are almost set and will take place the last weekend of August. For me at least the EU tournament seems almost certain to result in M5, CLG EU, and who cares advancing to the Season 2 Championship. North America seems a lot more competitive right now and I could easily see any of 5 or 6 teams making it out, and wouldn't be surprised in the least if TSM or CLG were to have a bad series and not make it.

I dunno how I never got into Starcraft like this, I guess MMO addiction > eSports.

There's a MLG event in Raleigh the week before the NA Regionals, I'm thinking about being a giant nerd and going.

[Radii]

I bought my spectator pass for MLG Raleigh (August 24th-26th), anyone else going?

[mckerney]

DotA 2

Valve is making a documentary following several competitive Dota 2 players, I'm hoping it concludes with The International 2 that's taking play at PAX at the end of the month.

[mckerney]

Another pretty cool tournament fature for Dota 2, already bought a few pennant for my favorite teams to watch.

Foam Fingers! | Dota 2

First let’s talk about Team Pennants. You can now purchase your favorite team’s Pennant, and proudly equip it in your Player Fan slot. When you’re watching a tournament match, your Pennant will contribute to your team’s Fan Level, which is displayed in the in-game HUD. If you really want to show those opposing team’s fans that they make poor choices in life, you can also upgrade your Pennant’s Fan Level by purchasing a Pennant Upgrade in the Dota 2 store.

Not only do teams benefit from Pennants by getting a share of the sales, equipping your Pennant will also make you eligible for Tournament Class item drops while spectating a match that your team is participating in.

Tournament class items are artifacts spawned by an exciting moment in a tournament match. They capture the details of the moment in a form that easily shown to other players. In addition, they allow you to jump right to the replay of the match, 15 seconds before the highlight occurred. Think of it like catching Babe Ruth’s baseball, except instead of Babe Ruth it’s Dendi, and the baseball is Pudge’s hook.

[mckerney]

Big plays from The International 2.

[Radii]

[S2 Worlds Preview] The Calm Before The Storm

Solidly introduction and analysis of the $2 Million Season 2 League of Legends Championship starting this week.

My hope: CLG.Prime 1st, Dignitas 2nd, TSM 3rd, CLG.EU 4th. I root for the North American teams, CLG.EU is my favorite outside of NA.

Actual prediction: M5 1st, Azubu Frost 2nd, CLG.EU 3rd, Najin Sword 4th.


Group Stage Thursday, Quarterfinals Friday, Semifinals Saturday, Grand Finals the next weekend in a 10k seat arena that sold out long ago.


Free HD streaming on both own3d and twitch by Riot. I'm looking forward to hooking my laptop up to my TV and watching the matches on the big screen.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Radii

[S2 Worlds Preview] The Calm Before The Storm

Solidly introduction and analysis of the $2 Million Season 2 League of Legends Championship starting this week.

My hope: CLG.Prime 1st, Dignitas 2nd, TSM 3rd, CLG.EU 4th. I root for the North American teams, CLG.EU is my favorite outside of NA.

Actual prediction: M5 1st, Azubu Frost 2nd, CLG.EU 3rd, Najin Sword 4th.


Group Stage Thursday, Quarterfinals Friday, Semifinals Saturday, Grand Finals the next weekend in a 10k seat arena that sold out long ago.


Free HD streaming on both own3d and twitch by Riot. I'm looking forward to hooking my laptop up to my TV and watching the matches on the big screen.

Well, quality matches were few and far between the 1st two days, but free HD streams are always great. Unfortunately, Riot shit the bed on day 3 and turned the event into a mess.

The best part of the tournament, for me, was seeing the NA/EU farm until your AD carry can win the game for you approach shut down for the most part by more aggressive early games from the Asian teams. On the other hand it was painful to see just how unprepared the NA teams were (especially CLG.NA and Dignitas).

Watching CLG.EU play is like watching LSU and Alabama play 8 quarters.

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by Atocep

The best part of the tournament, for me, was seeing the NA/EU farm until your AD carry can win the game for you approach shut down for the most part by more aggressive early games from the Asian teams. On the other hand it was painful to see just how unprepared the NA teams were (especially CLG.NA and Dignitas).

Ha, it's kind funny that that's the the opposite of how The International went for Dota 2. I TI2 the aggressive play of the European and American teams was shut down by the farm until your carry can win approach of the Chinese teams.

I would be surprised if western teams are able to keep up with Asian teams in esports anytime soon.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by mckerney

Ha, it's kind funny that that's the the opposite of how The International went for Dota 2. I TI2 the aggressive play of the European and American teams was shut down by the farm until your carry can win approach of the Chinese teams.

You're starting to slowly see some DOTA strats leak over into LoL. I wouldn't be shocked to see some teams try to play without a full time jungler and use the jungle as extra farm for carries.

LoL is still behind DOTA in terms of variation of team strategies and overall skill level, but it's much improved from season 1.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Atocep

Well, quality matches were few and far between the 1st two days, but free HD streams are always great. Unfortunately, Riot shit the bed on day 3 and turned the event into a mess.

The best part of the tournament, for me, was seeing the NA/EU farm until your AD carry can win the game for you approach shut down for the most part by more aggressive early games from the Asian teams. On the other hand it was painful to see just how unprepared the NA teams were (especially CLG.NA and Dignitas).

Watching CLG.EU play is like watching LSU and Alabama play 8 quarters.

The day 3 issues sucked, ugh. 535k concurrent viewers before counting korea and china too, so it sucked in front of so many people. Hopefully the make up day + finals go off better and still get that level of viewership or more.

For the North American teams: Dignitas was a fucking embarrassment, their performance was simply horrible. CLG.NA hasn't been up to par for awhile, they're still ok but clearly 2nd tier. TSM its hard to say, they've dominated North America all year but lost high profile matches against Asia and Europe so I can't say it was a surprise to see them not win any here. At the same time they got an unlucky draw having to play the team widely considered to be the #2 team at the event in Azubu Frost (with Moscow 5 considered to be the favorites)

I like CLG.EU but their playstyle isn't the most viewer friendly. As someone who follows the scene extremely closely, Froggen, Snoopeh and Krepo are all players I really enjoy watching and find it very easy to root for. I tend to blindly root for the NA teams in these types of competitions, but after that I have a clear, strong rooting interest in CLG.EU, despite the "play for late game" boredom they sometimes create.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Atocep

You're starting to slowly see some DOTA strats leak over into LoL. I wouldn't be shocked to see some teams try to play without a full time jungler and use the jungle as extra farm for carries.

Do those strats involve everyone laning or is there a roaming champ? I don't follow any of the other games at all really.

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by Radii

Do those strats involve everyone laning or is there a roaming champ? I don't follow any of the other games at all really.

I think the biggest difference is that you won't see teams typically picking for 5 predefined roles in Dota. It's most common that teams will take one carry and maybe an offcarry, though teams might also might go with two or not pick one at all. There are really 3 types of lineups that exist in dota, pushing, ganking and carry, though there can still be quite a bit of variation or team composition and all of the compositions can be done with everyone laning or with a jungler (and sometimes even two).

The biggest difference you see at there start of the game would be lane compositions. First the outer lanes are designated safe (creeps are closer to your tower, easier to farm) and short (creeps are further from your tower, can range anywhere from harder to impossible to farm) rather than proximity to dragon. There's not really any normal way to set up lanes, teams might put three heroes in one lane to make it easy for the carry to get last hits, they might put two mid, they might put multiple heroes into their short lane so the other team has a tougher time farming, or they could put one there just to get some XP (and sometimes even abandon the lane for everything other than slowing down pushing). Having a hero in the jungle isn't necessary, though who they have in the jungle can make a big difference in lanes too. There are some jungle heroes who just focus on farming, some will try to gank early, and some will be able to push down towers early in the game).

As far as roaming it does happen sometimes. A few times I've seen a team go with three solo lanes and 2 heroes who roam together to gank early in the game, though it's not common since it's incredibly risky. If a team does it and doesn't get kills early they've probably lost the game by the ten minute mark due to how far down they'll be in gold and experience. What's more common is a hero will go solo mid or short lane to start with and then start ganking once they get a certain level or items with either a jungle hero or a support hero from the safe lane switching over to their lane to make up for farm or experience they missed out on early in the game.

For an example instead of seeing most game have both teams have a jungler, a solo top, a solo mid and two bottom like when I'd last played and watched LoL, in Dota you might see the first game of a series the bottom left team plays a solo top and solo mid with three heroes bottom while the top right team has one in their jungle, two top and solo mid and bot, while the next see the bottom right team go solo top, two mid, one in the jungle and solo bottom against top rights lineup of solo top and mid, one in their jungle and bottom has primarily one solo but has another that goes between the enemy jungle and the bottom lane.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Radii

Do those strats involve everyone laning or is there a roaming champ? I don't follow any of the other games at all really.

McKerney would answer better than me. I watch some DOTA tournaments and streams, but not a whole lot. From what I've seen they are much more flexible with their lane assignments and overall strategies in DOTA than the EU/NA teams have been in LoL.

It does seem like there's more roaming and it doesn't break down to 5 on 5 teamfights until later. It sounds like the latest DOTA tournament may have been more like old school LoL, though.

I would like to cheer for the NA teams, but the arrogance and the appearance that they would rather be E-Sports celebrities rather than win makes it difficult for me back them. Unlike times in the past where NA has faired poorly in tournaments this wasn't because their strategies were countered as much as it was a lack of preparation and dedication. Unless teams like CLG and Dignitas start taking things more seriously they're going to be an afterthought and with salaried teams coming into season 3 you're likely going to see more dedicated NA teams that now have some financial backing pass them up.

M5, Taipei Assassins, and Azubu Frost have been entertaining to watch because none of them are making sure that they have late game covered and turtle waiting for late game if they fall behind.

Overall, I like the direction they've got the game headed in and despite the lack of really good games and the issues today I was entertained. It would be nice to see NA more competitive so that I have a "home team" to cheer for rather than just appreciating good play.

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by Atocep

It does seem like there's more roaming and it doesn't break down to 5 on 5 teamfights until later. It sounds like the latest DOTA tournament may have been more like old school LoL, though.

The Chinese 4 and 1 is what did very well at Valve's Dota 2 tournament. After the hard carry gets his first item or two the rest of the team roams together to push or gank while the carry finishes farming.

[mckerney]

After reading about what happened I'm really surprised that Riot didn't have either LAN play where they could pause or just decide to go on if they couldn't stream for an extended period or the ability to load the game from a previous state.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Atocep

I would like to cheer for the NA teams, but the arrogance and the appearance that they would rather be E-Sports celebrities rather than win makes it difficult for me back them. Unlike times in the past where NA has faired poorly in tournaments this wasn't because their strategies were countered as much as it was a lack of preparation and dedication. Unless teams like CLG and Dignitas start taking things more seriously they're going to be an afterthought and with salaried teams coming into season 3 you're likely going to see more dedicated NA teams that now have some financial backing pass them up.

I'm not sure how much you follow the pro scene, but I think Dignitas is probably the team you would find yourself rooting for. They are by far the most professional team in NA. Unfortunately they seem to have really suffered from some lineup changes earlier in the season. Dignitas Voyboy left Dig for CLG which caused CLG Saintvicious to leave CLG for Curse and Curse Crumbzz left for Dignitas. At the time Voyboy was considered one of the best 2 or 3 top laners in the world but his playstyle didn't fit well with CLG, and Dignitas has seriously fallen ever since then, without really helping CLG any. I think all those changes ended up being pretty bad for the NA teams.

However, Dignitas always present themselves the most professionally, they have always appeared to have the best practice regimen, Scarra is a favorite pro and streamer of many people, the team just seems to have not found their way since Voyboy left.

TSM I *think* is behind the scenes just as dedicated as Dignitas. They were the first team outside of Asia to try a gaming house. They chose their gaming house location (New York) so that they would be on the east coast and could have the lowest possible ping to the EU servers so they could effectively scrim both EU and NA teams and try to prepare for different styles. They talk big and their AP Mid Reginald is the face of the team and is a giant asshole... but I do feel that behind the scenes they are as serious as anyone. Reginald actually announced tonight he's not going to play in Season 3 and the team will be finding a new mid player. That may lead me to becoming more of a TSM fan next year.


Despite what I said about TSM above though, I do think that both TSM and CLG have major incentives to be more style and personality and less substance. TSM was founded by Reginald and solomid.net makes a TON of money, Dyrus and TheOddOne are the two most popular streamers in the game and by all accounts I've heard can live very comfortably off streaming income alone, so they are clearly incentivized to do what they can to be as popular as possible and stream as much as possible.

CLG is similar, HotshotGG founded CLG and has turned it into quite the organization. Before two stints in Korea for the OGN tournaments, CLG had streamers just as popular as OddOne/Dyrus. CLG expanding out to CLG.EU and into Dota 2 seems like its been a great success story. Hotshot has a long history as a rager on stream, but I respect the hell out of the guy for the business he's created. But with that, I feel like as long as CLG stays mostly relevant, they are going to make a lot more from forming a brand than from playing the game.


Dignitas is the big US team that seems different, they were signed by a major e-sports organization and need to fit into that by having success.

If you look into following league for season 3, keep an eye on MME.Ferus (formerly mtw.na, formerly goose). They spent most of Season 2 just under the radar, but seem to have solidified a really strong lineup, if I had to pick one team outside of the top 3 in NA who could make a big splash next year, its them. They picked up Aprhomoo late in the season, one of the most exciting AD Carrys around, an extremely popular player on stream and in solo queue, but also a guy that seems pretty grounded and pretty damn serious about finding success. They seem like a team that would be a lot of fun to root for next year.


Curse has consistently been #4, and seem to consistently fail to do anything to make the jump over CLG/TSM/Dig. They might be able to next year, they certainly have the financial backing, but I expect other up and coming teams below them like MME.Ferus and maybe Orbit to have a better shot of leapfrogging everyone instead.



Looking back on the last few days now, I *really* wish TSM had drawn anyone but Azubu Frost. I really feel like Frost is light years ahead of IG and Najin Sword, and probably better than CLG EU as well (CLG EU and Azubu Frost played an amazing 5 game series in the OGN Finals in Korea about 6 weeks ago, CLG EU went ahead 2-0, threw game 3 horribly and seemed to tilt a bit and Frost was able to come back from 2-0 down to win the series). CLG EU beat World Elite and Najin Sword in that tournament to get to the finals as well, so they have absolutely proven they can hang with Asia. I really hope they beat World Elite when that series wraps up.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by mckerney

After reading about what happened I'm really surprised that Riot didn't have either LAN play where they could pause or just decide to go on if they couldn't stream for an extended period or the ability to load the game from a previous state.

Agree completely. Has anything official been announced? I follow lots of rioters and the "media types" close to lol on twitter and saw conflicting info about what the problem really was, and nothing official at all. No matter what it really was... it feels like some seriously poor planning somewhere. WTF wouldn't they be on a LAN? They were for season 1 championships. Did they just think it was ok since the tournament servers are in LA without thinking about ddos possibilities or anything?


Also, thanks for the DOTA info I'm clearly a lol fanboy and love seeing big stream numbers and stuff, but I don't do the dota hate or any of that shit. LoL is just the only game in this genre I like playing.

[mckerney]

I haven't seen anything official announced yet, I'd just read about the restart issues on r/games on reddit. Other than that I haven't really been following the tourney.

I certainly agree abo liking to see the big stream numbers, always great to see growth of esports in any game. I'd love to see the US scenes make up some ground on Korea and China.

[Radii]

DOWN GOES M5!!!!!! Fucking Russians

[Radii]

The "pregame show" for the LoL finals was too long, but other than that everything really went off wonderfully. The presentation was really solid, the crowd and atmosphere was outstanding, I thought they put on a really good show and Taipei Assassins are a great story to win this thing... deemed heavy underdogs going in, they beat the top two teams(Moscow 5 and Azubu Frost) on their way to winning the tournament and showed great early aggression gameplay that is a lot of fun to watch.

I looked at the numbers at the end of the last game, there were over 130,000 people watching the Taiwanese stream on twitch.tv, I assume lots of those were not unique views (people already watching the english streams who just wanted to see the reaction of the Taiwan casters), but still, really awesome.

[Radii]

Reading through my twitter feed, it appears there were 700,000 concurrent views before the games even started, and over 900,000 concurrent views during the matches, as always not counting Korea and China streams. Given that I'm more invested in this as a fan than I am baseball or college football at this point, I'm really happy to see this, can't wait to see the weekly matches that are coming for Season 3 to make it feel more like a set of real pro leagues as opposed to a lot of disjointed circuit events.

[Radii]

It took well over 2500 games, but finally, my first (not counting bot games/ARAMs) pentakill. Normal Draft with a couple buddies, including the Shen at the end who was nice enough to not finish off Alistar while my GA cycled.


EDIT: I'm surprised to see that our team was only ahead by ~7k gold that late, given that I was 17/1 going into that fight heh. Karthus said it was his first time playing that champ and he struggled (just 125 cs).

[mckerney]

Dota is getting a Bastion announcer pack, so excited.

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by Radii

It took well over 2500 games, but finally, my first (not counting bot games/ARAMs) pentakill. Normal Draft with a couple buddies, including the Shen at the end who was nice enough to not finish off Alistar while my GA cycled.


EDIT: I'm surprised to see that our team was only ahead by ~7k gold that late, given that I was 17/1 going into that fight heh. Karthus said it was his first time playing that champ and he struggled (just 125 cs).

Nice play. I'll have to see if I can get a from a Dota game I played yesterday. I was captain and picked a team fight composition that worked out perfectly. I managed to catch all 5 of the enemy in a stun which let our carry kill the entire enemy team in a single hit. It's a good thing I didn't have to keep fighting since I was unable to stop laughing for the next minute.

[Atocep]

HoN was hacked and the hacker was able to get access to all account names since they were in a plain text file and the passwords were encrypted with salted MD5

His method to access this info? SQL Injection...

Nice job S2

[lighthousekeeper]

loving dota2, but really suck right now.

[Radii]

The ending to SK vs Fnatic from IEM Katowice in Poland earlier today, has to be the best finish I've ever seen in a LoL game. I watched another video with some replay analysis showed that Kassadin had 39 health left and olaf was midway through his auto attack animation for the killing blow when Kassadin finished the game. The thread on reddit with everyone going insane about this when it happened reached #1 on r/all in 10 minutes,

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

loving dota2, but really suck right now.

You seem to be doing pretty well for just starting out. At least well enough to realize how strong Centuar is.

Biggest thing to work on to be good early on is last hitting so you are getting enough gold. If you are playing a melee carry and not good at last hitting yet consider buying a quelling blade at the start of the game. Other than that, try to always have a TP scroll on you after the first couple of minutes of the game. You never know when you'll need one to join in a teamfight/gank, defend a tower, or escape once you realize 3 heroes are headed right 4 you.

I'd also recommend trying out Tidehunter too. Skill gush first, but have anchor smash be the first skill you max. Anchor smash is a low mana cost spell you can use for farming if you need to. I usually build magic wand, then arcane boots and finally a blink dagger for core items, though if you think you need health to survive you can always build a bracer or two before finishing your arcanes. Once you have blink you can easily win a teamfight if you get a good opening to ult the other team and have your team with you.

Once you get comfortable with the basics look to learning about stacking creeps and pulling a lane, I'll see if I can find a good guide or I'll do a write up on how to do it. It's something you should only worry about once you have the basics down, but it can really be a big advantage to your team once you know how to do it.

And I'm pretty sure that no matter how good you get at Dota you never really stop sucking.

[Radii]

Playing Ranked 5's with a group of friends, 5 kills at level 1! (I'm cait, I should have had 4 of the 5 kills but my targeting was shit til the end of the fight).

[SirFozzie]

We need to get a DOTA2 group going with the wave of recent beta invites out there.. I've played three games so far.

[Ryan S]

Just in case anyone missed it in the Steam thread, I have a few DOTA 2 beta invites left. PM me your Steam ID if you want one.

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

We need to get a DOTA2 group going with the wave of recent beta invites out there.. I've played three games so far.

I'd be interested in for some sort of FOFC game, though I don't know if playing a regular game with new players would go very well. I would definitely be up for a bot game with people looking to learn though.

[Radii]

I shall continue to ignore the fact that the FOFC community has chosen DOTA2 as its preferred MOBA game and keep posting about League of Legends Its finally been announced that the league of legends team formerly known as CLG.EU has been picked up by Evil Geniuses. I try to primarily root for the NA teams out of some sense of home loyalty, but once all the NA teams prove to be shit and lose early in international tournaments, I always turn my attention to CLG EU. I'm happy to see them picked up by such a big name and can't wait to cheer them on in the Season 3 Europe league.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Radii

I shall continue to ignore the fact that the FOFC community has chosen DOTA2 as its preferred MOBA game and keep posting about League of Legends Its finally been announced that the league of legends team formerly known as CLG.EU has been picked up by Evil Geniuses. I try to primarily root for the NA teams out of some sense of home loyalty, but once all the NA teams prove to be shit and lose early in international tournaments, I always turn my attention to CLG EU. I'm happy to see them picked up by such a big name and can't wait to cheer them on in the Season 3 Europe league.

I'm happy for CLG.EU. Though I find it funny that Evil Geniuses is jumping into the LoL scene now after bashing it for 2+ years.

As for the NA teams, I just find the top NA teams to be completely unlikable. I find my self cheering for any team that isn't NA to do well as I think the NA scene needs a wakeup call and some fresh blood. Hopefully, the Championship Series brings that; even if just a little.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Atocep

I'm happy for CLG.EU. Though I find it funny that Evil Geniuses is jumping into the LoL scene now after bashing it for 2+ years.

Yeah I didn't follow that stuff much but I've heard about it. I don't care for any of the "my game/genre is better than yours" talk.

As for the NA teams, I just find the top NA teams to be completely unlikable. I find my self cheering for any team that isn't NA to do well as I think the NA scene needs a wakeup call and some fresh blood. Hopefully, the Championship Series brings that; even if just a little.

Doublelift is my favorite player to watch, so I find myself rooting for CLG no matter what. I loved watching Aprhomoo in solo queue so I'm hopeful his transition to support will work out and that will be a fun duo to cheer for. I also really like Link, their new mid. So I guess I'm a CLG fan still, despite the frustration I felt with their lineup rotating a lot last season. Its just in a weird bubble because I want to see CLG beat TSM and Dignitas and Curse in season 3, but assume they are all total non-factors internationally. I guess its like cheering for an MLS team?

[Atocep]

Random thoughts on Dota 2 since I've been playing quite a bit lately;

Alchemist is far and away the most fun I have on a hero.

Lycanthrope is a hell of a lot of fun as well.

Lifestealer OP

Laning against Kunkka sucks

Intel heroes aren't my thing

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by Atocep

Lycanthrope is a hell of a lot of fun as well.

You should've played him back before he received a massive nerf. His wolves cost less mana and at level 1 had more health than they did at level 4 now. Farming the jungle was incredibly fast from the start of the game with him not needing to take any damage so he could vlads and medallion by 8-10 minutes, take Roshan and proceed to demolish the other team. If he was shut down and ganked several times early in the jungle he'd still do the same thing, just 5 or 6 minutes later.

Oh, and if you died with aegis and your ult active you'd still have max move speed when you came back. Made solo pushing deep into enemy territory even more fun.

Alchemist is far and away the most fun I have on a hero.

It's even more fun if you can get your support to stack several camps for you, even the small camp stacked 3 or 4 times will make you rich from greevils greed.