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OgreChubbs wrote:
no one needs a beta key?

I'll take one, if only to see how Blizzard interprets Puck and Nyx Assassin.

Storm Vermin wrote:

OgreChubbs wrote:
no one needs a beta key?

I'll take one, if only to see how Blizzard interprets Puck and Nyx Assassin.

Brightwing is a mobile sustain support: She(He?) does not gain a mount, but instead her Z allows her to teleport to any minion/hero on the map after a long cooldown, has a damage AoE, ability to polymorph a hero, can grant a hero ability to block a few hits and movement speed and her ultimates are a "Blink Heal" and "Self-Centered AoE Blowback move" while her passive is a heal every 4 seconds in an AoE around self

Anub'urak is a Disruptive Warrior who can use Impale to knockup enemies, a barrier shield, underground charge that knocks up enemies when he appears at the location and his Ultimates are Locust Swarm (same as in war3), and Webbing (Traps a hero for X seconds) with his passive creating beetles everytime he uses a skill.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
That's not exactly what artificial skill gap means, it's mostly just the factor that it was a previous limitation of a system (warcraft3), where there was nothing better

It was not a limitation of the engine as XP was gained irregardless of whether or not you last-hitted stuff. It was already a conscious decision.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
How was Strife before anyways? It's one of those I haven't really played yet, along with dawngate though that one's dead anyways, I never really saw much distinction for Strife.

Come try it! With my referral !

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
That is true, though I suppose I am biased here because I often was playing what was considered the "Ward Bitch" and as a result if I wasn't spending all my gold on wards I was being a full detriment to the team, I just never liked the mechanics behind farming in the game and how they pushed things towards an odd tier of either "Carry or Babysitter to Carry".

While Strife does not remove last hitting, with shared gold from last hitting and no wards being available to buy, this will never happen there.

 LordofHats wrote:
Definitely agree with this. One of the reasons I just can't get into DOTA2, on top of in LoL I already understand the champions and items and don't need to look through them all figuring them out xD

That is what I really liked when starting Strife: there was few heroes, and the items were quite easy: no strange combination tree, just basic components that affects only one characteristic (health, mana, power, health regen, mana regen, attack speed, …), and recipes that takes some component and add a few more fun effects on top of the one already provided by the components.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also playing as Sergeant Hammer is fun (It is a girl, in a tank. Where are the goddamn kangaroo ?!?). But I am forced to use Wine because there is no Linux version, there is way too much grind involved with the need to unlock heroes (and getting quests that you cannot even do because they require a type of character you do not have access to is stupid), and I generally enjoy Strife better. Also Strife has Jin She, and she looks so good ingame! I just love her!

I played Arthas first, then swapped to Anub'arak.

I enjoy playing it from time to time but I do so extremely casually.

I enjoy the serious competitive aspect of DOTA 2, which makes it a lot harder for me to really get into any other MOBAS.

Plus, I know the Mechanics really well, and understand every hero.

It just makes other MOBAS seem a lot more "Casual" to me.

However, my biggest gripe with HOTS is crap like seeing Diablo riding on a Unicorn......

I didn't really know my main problem with it till yesterday, honestly;

Got into a game against Thrall, the little panda healer chick, Stitches, and two other guys who both took "Activate to Heal" abilities.

In any other MOBA, you can buy items that cut healing in half, allowing you to keep the health gain down to a manageable level. In HOTS, no such thing exists because there are no items; We were out healed so badly and there was nothing we could do about it.

 Slarg232 wrote:
I didn't really know my main problem with it till yesterday, honestly;

Got into a game against Thrall, the little panda healer chick, Stitches, and two other guys who both took "Activate to Heal" abilities.

In any other MOBA, you can buy items that cut healing in half, allowing you to keep the health gain down to a manageable level. In HOTS, no such thing exists because there are no items; We were out healed so badly and there was nothing we could do about it.

What was your team composition?

Don't really remember, I know we had Gawzlo and Azmodon (Me), but other than that I dunno.



Team Comp shouldn't really matter though; as even in DotA/LoL if you get counterpicked you are still fully capable of picking up items to counter other people.

This isn't to say HotS is a bad game for a lack of items, just that it's a new thing that isn't really being done to the best of it's potential, I think.

 Slarg232 wrote:
Don't really remember, I know we had Gawzlo and Azmodon (Me), but other than that I dunno.



Team Comp shouldn't really matter though; as even in DotA/LoL if you get counterpicked you are still fully capable of picking up items to counter other people.

This isn't to say HotS is a bad game for a lack of items, just that it's a new thing that isn't really being done to the best of it's potential, I think.

That is somewhat of a problem, but the thing of the matter is from what I've seen is that people get locked too much into a standard coming from dota/league, if the enemy team was too tanky, you should have rat doto instead as Azmodan and Gazlowe are very good pusher heroes and could've locked down the backlanes and kept them from deathballing.

Talents may not fix the overall issues with such, but it does allow for some better unconditional thinking and does allow for some interesting comebacks, I've found that in Dota that if your getting curbed your not even going to have enough money to counter, let alone get what items you need to succeed as a team without some sort of odd team style that doesn't depend on items.

Though I'm a pretty low ranked player, I play with sasori sometimes but I'm not exactly good at dota, as it is though Hots has some slight issues with balance, Stitches for example is just one of those heroes that needs some nerfing as he's good in far too many ways, but that is what a beta is for after-all.

Stitches is very difficult to balance. On the one hand, he offers a high amount of CC and tankiness. On the other hand, if you nerf him too much, he ends up being a big walking blob that's hard to kill but poses little to no threat.

Honestly I think Stitches would be balanced if you forced his heal to have to be used on a neutral creep, and increase it's damage to compensate.

Just so that you force him out of the lane every once in a while.


And we did Rat Doto, but the Thrall could easily solo Gaz, and at the slightest CC Azmo loses 90% of his damage. Those aren't problems in and of themselves, just the fact that A) We couldn't split because the enemy team said we couldn't, and B) we couldn't fight because we couldn't stop the healing.

Even more than Pub DotA, we were beaten at the character select screen.

 Slarg232 wrote:
Honestly I think Stitches would be balanced if you forced his heal to have to be used on a neutral creep, and increase it's damage to compensate.

Just so that you force him out of the lane every once in a while.


And we did Rat Doto, but the Thrall could easily solo Gaz, and at the slightest CC Azmo loses 90% of his damage. Those aren't problems in and of themselves, just the fact that A) We couldn't split because the enemy team said we couldn't, and B) we couldn't fight because we couldn't stop the healing.

Even more than Pub DotA, we were beaten at the character select screen.

Well as said, it's currently in beta and balance issues are abound, it's not like Dota 2 where quite a bit of balancing has taken place.

Of course hopefully it just doesn't end like league, where heroes in desperate need of balance are never updated because of reasons (Urgot. ) and that balance isn't done except to keep things with "flashy plays" like the Veigar nerfs.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Slarg232 wrote:
Honestly I think Stitches would be balanced if you forced his heal to have to be used on a neutral creep, and increase it's damage to compensate.

Just so that you force him out of the lane every once in a while.


And we did Rat Doto, but the Thrall could easily solo Gaz, and at the slightest CC Azmo loses 90% of his damage. Those aren't problems in and of themselves, just the fact that A) We couldn't split because the enemy team said we couldn't, and B) we couldn't fight because we couldn't stop the healing.

Even more than Pub DotA, we were beaten at the character select screen.

Well as said, it's currently in beta and balance issues are abound, it's not like Dota 2 where quite a bit of balancing has taken place.

Of course hopefully it just doesn't end like league, where heroes in desperate need of balance are never updated because of reasons (Urgot. ) and that balance isn't done except to keep things with "flashy plays" like the Veigar nerfs.

Or we go through a year where 12 characters come out with the exact same moveset....

 Slarg232 wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Slarg232 wrote:
Honestly I think Stitches would be balanced if you forced his heal to have to be used on a neutral creep, and increase it's damage to compensate.

Just so that you force him out of the lane every once in a while.


And we did Rat Doto, but the Thrall could easily solo Gaz, and at the slightest CC Azmo loses 90% of his damage. Those aren't problems in and of themselves, just the fact that A) We couldn't split because the enemy team said we couldn't, and B) we couldn't fight because we couldn't stop the healing.

Even more than Pub DotA, we were beaten at the character select screen.

Well as said, it's currently in beta and balance issues are abound, it's not like Dota 2 where quite a bit of balancing has taken place.

Of course hopefully it just doesn't end like league, where heroes in desperate need of balance are never updated because of reasons (Urgot. ) and that balance isn't done except to keep things with "flashy plays" like the Veigar nerfs.

Or we go through a year where 12 characters come out with the exact same moveset....

That much Hots has been avoiding it seems, they seem to be trying to make heroes unique from each other and actually does care about differencing heroes, using the unique team leveling to introduce heroes like Abathur that wouldn't be possible in Dota or League, and even using the "passive" slot for actives like Hunter's Mark or innervate.

Though as I haven't really been paying attention, which 12 heroes?

Abathur would actually be possible in Dota. Case in point; Techies.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Slarg232 wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Slarg232 wrote:
Honestly I think Stitches would be balanced if you forced his heal to have to be used on a neutral creep, and increase it's damage to compensate.

Just so that you force him out of the lane every once in a while.


And we did Rat Doto, but the Thrall could easily solo Gaz, and at the slightest CC Azmo loses 90% of his damage. Those aren't problems in and of themselves, just the fact that A) We couldn't split because the enemy team said we couldn't, and B) we couldn't fight because we couldn't stop the healing.

Even more than Pub DotA, we were beaten at the character select screen.

Well as said, it's currently in beta and balance issues are abound, it's not like Dota 2 where quite a bit of balancing has taken place.

Of course hopefully it just doesn't end like league, where heroes in desperate need of balance are never updated because of reasons (Urgot. ) and that balance isn't done except to keep things with "flashy plays" like the Veigar nerfs.

Or we go through a year where 12 characters come out with the exact same moveset....

That much Hots has been avoiding it seems, they seem to be trying to make heroes unique from each other and actually does care about differencing heroes, using the unique team leveling to introduce heroes like Abathur that wouldn't be possible in Dota or League, and even using the "passive" slot for actives like Hunter's Mark or innervate.

Though as I haven't really been paying attention, which 12 heroes?

It was more of a crack (That the LoL community often talks about, or at least did when I played it) was that every champ was a bruiser, and they all had

Q: On Hit
W: Gap Closer
E: Steroid
R: Random Ability.

It's the casual MOBA.

The mario kart of MOBA's if you will

 Soladrin wrote:
Abathur would actually be possible in Dota. Case in point; Techies.

Techies has to be in lane or roaming to place it's mines, it would still gain usage out of items and still needs EXP from lane/runes, and can still deny/last hit.

I have no clue how a Hero in dota that would never actually enter lane, last hit, gain no usage of items, or be deny would be something that would work. Even the most hands-off heroes in dota still have the measure of those main requirements.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
Abathur would actually be possible in Dota. Case in point; Techies.

Techies has to be in lane or roaming to place it's mines, it would still gain usage out of items and still needs EXP from lane/runes, and can still deny/last hit.

I have no clue how a Hero in dota that would never actually enter lane, last hit, gain no usage of items, or be deny would be something that would work. Even the most hands-off heroes in dota still have the measure of those main requirements.

Obviously you cant 1 to 1 copy him and it would be dumb if you could because it would the mechanics in place are not required. Which they are.

That said, Techies actually can win a game without items, exp or laning, because techies can make the early game so terrible for the enemy team they either quit or lose.

 Soladrin wrote:


That said, Techies actually can win a game without items, exp or laning, because techies can make the early game so terrible for the enemy team they either quit or lose.

Not sure if Techies were massively changed since I stopped playing, but Techies always were an auto-lose in all games vs. decent opponents and forced the game to essentially be a 4v5.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:


That said, Techies actually can win a game without items, exp or laning, because techies can make the early game so terrible for the enemy team they either quit or lose.

Not sure if Techies were massively changed since I stopped playing, but Techies always were an auto-lose in all games vs. decent opponents and forced the game to essentially be a 4v5.

It really depends on team comp, and the players willingness to buy a gem/Sentries.

I've seen Techies both single handily win games, and single handily lose games.

Techies are also one of the best heroes in the game for turtiling.

As I said, decent opponents. You can easily win any game with any hero against sub-par opponents. Highly disagree with Techies being among the best at turtling as GotS (if it's still in the game) greatly and completely countered the entire hero.

 Sigvatr wrote:
GotS (if it's still in the game)

It is. Techies and Sand King are both brutal against bots, but I wouldn't expect their most powerful combos to work against real players.

 Sigvatr wrote:
As I said, decent opponents. You can easily win any game with any hero against sub-par opponents. Highly disagree with Techies being among the best at turtling as GotS (if it's still in the game) greatly and completely countered the entire hero.

Well, Techies was picked by one of the top teams in the world, in a major tournament, and still won. So that argument really isn't valid. He is also picked in the Very High Skill bracket fairly often.

and GoTS will not prevent turtling, since you have to attack uphill to get the mines. In addition, the mines will generally wipe out the creep waves, triggering backdoor protection and making the enemy unable to damage the tower. Enemy teams are not going to be able to stay there in the low ground for that long, unless they are significantly stronger than the enemy team.

Well, I think I've been put off DotA 2 for good. The final straw was that after 25 games Valve deigned to give me a drop - a cosmetic item for a character I have never played.

"That's okay," I thought. "I'll just sell it to somebody who would like it."

That is when I discovered that, as of last month, anything that drops is not tradeable and not marketable. The only thing that made their gakky system tolerable, and it's just a figment of the wiki being out of date.

 Sasori wrote:


Well, Techies was picked by one of the top teams in the world, in a major tournament, and still won. So that argument really isn't valid. He is also picked in the Very High Skill bracket fairly often.

and GoTS will not prevent turtling, since you have to attack uphill to get the mines. In addition, the mines will generally wipe out the creep waves, triggering backdoor protection and making the enemy unable to damage the tower. Enemy teams are not going to be able to stay there in the low ground for that long, unless they are significantly stronger than the enemy team.

My DotA times are long past, so take my opinion on it with salt. You should never fight up a ledge, though, unless you want to enter the enemy base and thus have to; 25% miss chance, lack of vision etc. Unless that was what you were referring to?

Wait what, drops no longer tradeable? What's the point then?

 Sigvatr wrote:
Wait what, drops no longer tradeable? What's the point then?

To offer false hope? If it was to make the game better it wouldn't be a 1-in-25 chance of a drop for one character out of a hundred that cannot be swapped for another, more relevant drop. So I can only assume it's to keep players on the knife's edge where they're sufficiently annoyed that they don't want to deal with your free to play experience, but not quite annoyed enough to quit outright.

I've played it today. It was rather fun, unlocked Li Li. Panda healing for everyone. :3

 Sigvatr wrote:
Wait what, drops no longer tradeable? What's the point then?

To play the game? If you were in it for the random item drops, then it's actually good you stopped playing because holy feth, you were doing it wrong.

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Wait what, drops no longer tradeable? What's the point then?

To play the game? If you were in it for the random item drops, then it's actually good you stopped playing because holy feth, you were doing it wrong.

The point of the item drop system is to play the game...but...then...it's wrong to play it for the item drops...huh? I don't get your logic.