Heroes of Newerth

[Thief]

I have a terribly hard times against invis heroes in pub games. They are annoying as hell and good kill stealers too... I absolutely loathe them, madman, scout and night hound. What are good counter against them? I know there is the gem but it's 750 gold and drop on death.

Other than that, I'm really enjoying Soulstealer to damage and Pollywog when I want to support. Oh and I'm BTS0x0 in-game.

[possible]

Early wards make them a joke, especially if you're in lane with a stunner.

Fuck Madman though. Lost a game last night because he could right click our team without losing HP.

[Goltana_R-Zek]

Originally Posted by Thief

I have a terribly hard times against invis heroes in pub games. They are annoying as hell and good kill stealers too... I absolutely loathe them, madman, scout and night hound. What are good counter against them? I know there is the gem but it's 750 gold and drop on death.

Well, if you're playing like an all pick game, or maybe even a standard draft if you have the picks available - Pestilence (slardar from Dota) is a good pick, his ult basically lowers their armor and gives vision of the unit, even if they go invis. Also, keeper of the grove is another hero, he can plant enchanted trees that give sight of an area which will see invis. And I think scout can place a static ward that will reveal invis units in the area also.

Less expensive means than a gem are dust (I think 180gold), 2 charges that will reveal invis units in the area, and is also a debuff so if the unit is visible he'll still be revealed for a set amount of time - it's not too long though, i wanna say like 10 seconds, maybe less. Also there are wards (200gold), or should be at least, that you can place down in an area which will reveal units similar to that keeper of the grove ability, except they have a time limit by which they then expire.

[Hathe]

Originally Posted by possible

Early wards make them a joke, especially if you're in lane with a stunner.

Yes. All of these heroes are agility and have fairly low hp. Not to mention most people don't build HP on them. Wards will push them hard if you manage your money properly.

[Fog]

Originally Posted by Thief

I have a terribly hard times against invis heroes in pub games. They are annoying as hell and good kill stealers too... I absolutely loathe them, madman, scout and night hound. What are good counter against them? I know there is the gem but it's 750 gold and drop on death.

Pushing them out of the lane at the start is a great approach, but sometimes it's impossible. Scout, for example, gets a pretty cheap wind walk, and can just sit in experience range until he hits 6, which is all he needs to be able to gank people acceptably. Also, in pub games, your lanemate will often just autoattack and push the wave back to the opponent's tower, and then you can't control the lane at all.

The best counter is to play on an organized team. It doesn't have to be a good team, but a team with team members that you trust and with whom you can communicate about strategy, and who pick heroes that complement each other well (i.e. not all melee heroes, have some healing, have some disables, have some AOE.)

If you do that, you'll find that most stealth heroes played in an "annoying" fashion simply are not a problem. They will get a bunch of kills and then lose the game when you move as a group in the midgame, because they are poor at contributing to their team in group fights. (This might not be true for people who play them and are great players, who farm quite well, etc. but those people would give you difficulty with any hero.) There are better and worse stealth heroes. Scout is really bad. Madman is OK (I haven't played him since the change, but he looks similar to a melee Nerubian Weaver.) Night Hound is solid, since his smoke bomb is a very strong ability.

Carry a portal with you at absolutely all times. One of the very biggest differences between lousy players and good players is that the good players will have BoT (Post Haste) or a TP scroll (Homecoming Stone) with them at absolutely all times after about the 20 minute mark. If someone is attacked, be aware and ready to TP to their location and help them out, so if someone chases them back to the tower, that someone will die. Many "gank" heroes don't even have a stun, or have only one stun, so if they attack you, you can just port away anyway.

If you're serious about winning a game, buy wards and ward the rivers and important forest crossings. It makes a huge difference. (Of course, if you don't have a teleport, you probably won't be able to escape anyway.) I don't usually take up that task, but that's because I'm really lazy and couldn't give a shit about my teammates most of the time. It's not optional in any kind of vaguely serious game.

If you're playing against a really ganky invis hero in a pub game, and your teammates are disorganized newbies who feed him all game, there is no real recourse. You will probably just lose the game. Sorry.

[Elerion]

I'll finally be able to fire it up tomorrow. Can't wait. I have to say, as a dota veteran, the permanent stat system sounds like the dumbest thing ever. As if dota needed more incentive to stat whore instead of helping the team.

Fuck that noise. All a healthy dota public system needs is a ladder mode where teams are automatically shuffled and rearranged to set the combined rating of both teams equal, and then you get rating for wins and lose it for losses. Nothing more.

Keep a separate, non-rated matchmaking system where teams aren't shuffled so friends can be guaranteed to play on the same team if they want.


Saying "good support players get 1:1 k:d" is naive as shit. Good support players avoid feeding, but they will still get their ratio decimated in a long game. Just like shitty carry players get great k:d ratios in long games. It's the nature of the game.

They've succeeded in adding incentive to killsteal, incentive to fountain camp, incentive to build support heroes with dagon, incentive to farm the forest with your carry for 45 minutes, etc. Good fucking job.

[Believe]

Originally Posted by Elerion

I'll finally be able to fire it up tomorrow. Can't wait. I have to say, as a dota veteran, the permanent stat system sounds like the dumbest thing ever. As if dota needed more incentive to stat whore instead of helping the team.

Fuck that noise. All a healthy dota public system needs is a ladder mode where teams are automatically shuffled and rearranged to set the combined rating of both teams equal, and then you get rating for wins and lose it for losses. Nothing more.

Keep a separate, non-rated matchmaking system where teams aren't shuffled so friends can be guaranteed to play on the same team if they want.


Saying "good support players get 1:1 k:d" is naive as shit. Good support players avoid feeding, but they will still get their ratio decimated in a long game. Just like shitty carry players get great k:d ratios in long games. It's the nature of the game.

They've succeeded in adding incentive to killsteal, incentive to fountain camp, incentive to build support heroes with dagon, incentive to farm the forest with your carry for 45 minutes, etc. Good fucking job.

Holy fuck, someone who finally understands my gripes with the game. The game mechanics already encourage players to not use team work, the stat systems just solidifies it. I have to be honest, I think many of DotA's mechanics are horse shit. They reward players to be selfish, and players have for some reason accepted them and claim there is some type of veiled strategy with these retarded mechanics.

Anyways, I think they do plan on having some type of match-making system (Called Ranked Play), but atleast in beta, the regular games do add to your stats.

I will say that another DotA based game's match-making system works EXACTLY how you mentioned.

[mek]

One of the issues with stealth/agi heroes ATM is basically all of them got ported over, while a lot of their counters (nuke-heavy INT heroes) did not get ported over.


Give me tinker and I will happily rape agi heroes early game. Wards make missile awwwwesome.

[Aamina]

Exactly. EXACTLY. .8:1 is just absolute bullcrap. I can go 0-9 in a game we stomp the other team by letting Pudge get kills because his strength goes up, and all I get for that is more negative score. And then, what if we did really well, it was a close game, but then LOST the game I went 0-9? Fantastic.

Also, being a dick at the end of the match and farming kills at the fountain because it doesn't kick near enough butt is retarded.

[Draz]

Does this game make you memorize the super secret patterns to building items like DotA did?

[Faille]

Originally Posted by Draz

Does this game make you memorize the super secret patterns to building items like DotA did?

don't think so. They have a recipe page where you can just click on the items to buy to get that super item

[Believe]

Originally Posted by Draz

Does this game make you memorize the super secret patterns to building items like DotA did?

When you click on an item that requires multiple items, it shows you the items you need to make it, and you can use those icons to purchase those items.

It's pretty convenient.

[mek]

It's actually hardcore dota players that are at somewhat of a disadvantage, as they renamed all the items and mixed up the shop layout to confuse them.

[Fog]

OK, some comments on stats to inspire discussion:

- I believe they've stated on the beta forums that in the future, they're going to have a pub skill measurement that's based on some kind of win/loss/ELO ratings, and they're going to have automated matchmaking based on that. I think that's a great idea.

- It seems to me that if they just recorded which heroes you play and tracked that in your stats, the problem would be largely solved. If you have 5:1 K/D as Scout, people would see that, and if you have 0.8:1 K/D as Nymphora, people would see that too. That would solve a lot of the problems with stats (but maybe not the "prolonging games artificially" problem people complain about.)

- I don't empathize at all with the people who are complaining about that, however. I've played 57 games, and probably 20 of those have been totally pub games (where I didn't know anyone.) In not one single game did I feel like the other team was prolonging it to pad their stats. Not even once. Nor has my team.

I do know that I've seen my teammates moan and groan when the other team was (in my opinion) taking reasonable care to make sure they didn't lose their advantage. I don't want to say that any of you guys are sore losers, because I'm sure there are people out there padding their stats like that. But I have met a lot of really sore losers who are just looking for any excuse to insult the other team and get the game over with when they realize they've lost, and "fucking finish it assholes" is a pretty good excuse.

[Ain-Soph-Aur]

I have 1 beta invite left....first person to message me with their email get it