Tools
HellGreen's Auto Scene Change application for streaming - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=269995
My Own3d.tv channel - http://www.own3d.tv/Live/259165 - Where i'm streaming all of my gaming to.
My YouTube account - http://www.youtube.com/user/c10fnr?feature=mhee
My Clan - Channel 4 News Team - http://www.c4nt.net
My Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/seeton_
Razer Equipment - Blackwidow Ultimate, Naga Hex
The Game
This evening I opened up with the focus of my upcoming blogs game of starcraft for round1 of the SASL, however as the night wore on, I decided I'd fire up DotA2 which i'd recently been invited to. The game is linked at the top of the page, and the replay is linked just below.
Game 1 - Replay - Game ID 8802693
It should be noted that DotA2 isn't a completely uncommon beast to me, I've played DotA back in the day, and I've played well over 2,000 games of Heroes of Newerth. However it will be a small adjustment for me. Especially being that I'm yet to play with all of my keys bound to the Naga Hex. That's going to change.
To start with I pick a not o difficult hero that I'm already familiar with, Vengeful Spirit (HoN's Andromeda) And purchase a courier. I buy some tango's and some pots, straight up i find I don't have enough gold for a ward. The concept of having to buy 2 wards at once seeming instantly foreign to me after all those games of HoN. The laning phase goes as expected, I'm up in the top lane for the Dire(Hellbourne) babysitting our Anti-Mage(Magebane) when the Kunkka(Gladiator) dives slightly too far. I pop off a stun in the hopes we'll get a kill. AM blinks behind the Kunkka as opposed to in front of him. Unfortunately this results in the Admiral getting an escape.
Next time Gadget....Next time!
Shortly after a moments indicision our AM gives up first blood to Drow Ranger (Arachna - Sort of), No sweat he doesn't get a double tap, it's a simple mistake to make. Already the game feels a little slower. The graphics that i at first found little lacklustre have grown on me, the animations are quite good. however the hero's aren't scaled as large as they are in HoN and are a little harder to see. I do some non-double stacked creep pulling. And Zedar, playing EarthShaker (Behemoth) roams up top for a double tap. Sniper does the same thing and by 10 mins we're looking very good at a 5-2 Kill lead.
An interesting point I've found is while warding the common ward spots actually have little eye glyphs on them so you can actually see the good spots.
Handy
The shop however did feel a little unintuitive to me, but that's a familiarity thing with it, I also don't know how to use the quick by function as yet, that will come in time. Another feature i did like was the hot keys on the courier, Transfer items makes the courier bring to me and then return home, I don't however like the need to buy a recipe from the shop to make it upgrade. I like that be a gold costing ability baked into my courier, but that's simply a convenience element baked in to HoN.
The Radiants BloodSeeker gets on a roll and by the 30 minute mark is at 20/3. In HoN at this point i would have conceded, however that doesn't appear to be an option in DotA2. I'm not sure there's any negative repercussions for just leaving however. However the game isn't looking good at this point.
10 Minutes later the AM has started to reclaim some of the lost ground and we turn around from a hopeless situation to a Mid Lane Rax
Not Pictured - Radiant Rax
Shortly after we take their top rax but linger too long, Radiant demolishes our team, they then proceed to take Roshan (Kongor). The BS continues to rip us apart, finishing a Butterfly(Wingbow) which proves to much for AM. We lose our shrine shortly after.
So what seemed like a certain defeat turned around to be a really close fun game. Interestingly if that had have been HoN we likely would have conceded at 15mins. So in that respect it will be very interesting to see where games will go when you're forced to play until the objective. I for one and very interested!