Note: RMAH/AH is the same system. real money is implemented in the AH system, be it activated now or not. I am talking about the whole concept.
130hours in for D3 (yes, doing a master rocks!), i feel like writing a small piece of blog regarding how I concludes this game on my end.
I am disappointed by blizzard and this will be the last time. My wise best friend even told me he is not gonna buy d3 and he warned me, and boy, you know i am going to say 'i should have listened.'.
Just before anyone says 'oh great another whiner on inferno/gear sucks' and stops reading, my main problems with D3 are the same as everyone:
1.Story/act design sucks 2.Class imbalance
but I CAN live with them. Seriously, paying at around 50euro, I have had 100+hours of entertainment, the game is GREAT, solely based on that fact.
Let's see what i said before i played about 70hours in inferno:
come on now diablo is by all means not a console game or something that you can clear in days/weeks. People spent months to clear D2 Hell mode, for some people information.
I go in inferno with very reasonably maxed out gears (WD 24k hp with 13k dps) from Hell, i two shots normal mobs in hell and even elites were highly killable (except some broken affixes which you just cant solo them obv), but when i arrived inferno i get 2 shotted lol.
i like it that way because this is diablo. you are supposed to grind thousands of hours to get the gears to be a king of beating the hardest difficulty. and then they will reset the ladder and then you will do it again.
if you have never played d2 and only play d3 for the hype, please enjoy your time from normal to Hell mode, leave inferno for the not-so-casual players. you dont like being called 'casual'? but you are if you whines about inferno mode.
also, try hardcore for the taste of being a true hardcore :D (fyi i don't play hardcore, except that one innocent time back then for d2
As you can see I fully understand and love the grinding part of Diablo, seeing a gold drop in d2 was literally like hitting a lottery and i don't think anyone can express how happy he is when that happened. Grinding is fine (i dont even want to mention how much time i dumped in for FF4-10, is almost a hallmark feature of gold standard RPG) but grinding in D3 is not.
because, RMAH system is not fine.
I have had my doubts since I got in Nightmare and I give a quick search on internet to see if anyone thought the same, ye, not so surprised I found alot results and this comment pretty summed up what I thought:
The auction house obviously provides an incredible service to allow for very easy trades between characters, and essentially blows out the wide range of items you could have available to you at any one time. So, in fact, the AH has to be a factor in how we drop items. On one hand you have a huge benefit because you can buy and sell items very easily, as opposed to having to post up WTS threads in the old USEast trading forums, but on the other end it does impact the item pool economy with the inherent ease at which you can trade items. If the AH existed but wasn't a factor at all into how items dropped/rolled, the economy would be completely tanked within a matter of weeks.
I feel this deserves its own thread because I think it will get lost in its current. Basically Blizz is admitting that in game drops are affected (read lowered) in order to facilitated the AH economy. Keep in mind that when the RMAH goes live Blizz gets a cut of every item sold, and another cut if you want to actually get that money for use outside of Blizz products.
Think of what changed Blizzard, WoW. And this is what they do in WoW, something similar to D3's RMAH.
I like to ask myself questions when I am tackling with problems:
Why wouldn't they try to manipulate drops?? So you get the gears that are not suitable to you and thus forcing you to use RMAH so they can get a cut? Or may be they needed to do so otherwise the system will be tanked eventually? Either way it sucks, why not just CUT it out from the game???
The last thing is, why would they introduce Tax if they solely made RMAH for the benefit of the players? You dont need 15% tax to avoid abuse. You are just greedy.
Well, that totally put me off from playing further of the game along with the fact that farming boss is not longer legit. Diablo has become a semi-mmorpg, why can't bliz just understand that we don't all the time in the world to play your game.
Make good game = make good money. please don't be greedy. Look at Valve. LEARN from Valve. the thing is tho...blizzard used to be so good....
Greed is not always good.
I will always remember how happy I was back then with your Warcraft2, StarCraft and Warcraft3. Those games were simply amazing in every aspect. Those games were magic.
You disappointed me, again. And this will be the last time.
(or not......i am not sure my zerg blood can resist HotS........but not at launch FOR SURE).
p/s1: some understanding of people is just strange.
I DO NOT ASK FOR BETTER DROP OR ANYTHING DIFFERENT FROM D2.
I want a fair game like D2. completely random. no fcking manipulation. If RMAH really manipulating drops (read what Bishiok said if people still doubt that),
The auction house obviously provides an incredible service to allow for very easy trades between characters, and essentially blows out the wide range of items you could have available to you at any one time. So, in fact, the AH has to be a factor in how we drop items. On one hand you have a huge benefit because you can buy and sell items very easily, as opposed to having to post up WTS threads in the old USEast trading forums, but on the other end it does impact the item pool economy with the inherent ease at which you can trade items. If the AH existed but wasn't a factor at all into how items dropped/rolled, the economy would be completely tanked within a matter of weeks.
it literally means that you are competing your drops with people when alot player play the game at the same time more so if someone got good drop can highly reducing the good drop of others (especially when that drop is extremely rare).
p/s2: my current state of gears allow me to 1-5 shots inferno act1 normal mobs, can kill most elites but not all. have 1.7mil in bank but any upgrade of my gear requires at least 1mil. decided to stay away from the game for awhile and thus i have the time to type this :3
Greetings, everyone! I hereby present you this 'How to play support' guide, or rather, a compilation of many useful tips that I have come across from playing this amazing game all these years, mainly focusing on what kind of mentality/strategic thinking that a support player should keep in mind according to different phases of the game. I may cook up specific support hero guide in future so this is intended to be a 'how do you play support in general' guide.
This guide is recommended for: Newcomers who are learning the game, experienced players who are interested to read some insight about supporting and definitely for the people who feel like supporting suits their play style more. People who mostly play carry/solo laner are highly recommended to have a quick read over, supporting is the other face of the game that many people may have never come across - you may have fun reading it and you would be surprised to find out both sides actually share a lot of similar aspects!
I am going to start the guide with this line: 'Playing support is against human nature.'.
In fact, the major reason that motivates me to sit down and write this out is due to the horrendous lack of support practice in Match Making (MM) games of Dota2. The thing is, these are no longer 'pub games' (like back in DotA) while Dota2's MM games match you with players at similar skills level i.e. your game could go very wrong (in a bad way) if your team didn't play the game 'correctly'. That being said, you can still do fun builds (or commonly known as 'troll builds') or mess around with different heroes all day long as soon as you know what you are doing exactly - playing support role is one of the basics in playing DotA/Dota2.
Now back to the 'Playing support is against human nature' part - it can be extremely disheartening to play support at times: there is almost no chance for personal skill showing off from you, that shiny high gpm doesn't belong to you, those glorious godlike/beyond godlike/RAMPAGE are never yours; in the worst case scenario, when the game is losing, some mentally incompetent players will flame or blame you for your 0/8 kill/death on score board (while totally ignoring your assist counts and your effort of doing all these background support works). Nobody wants to play support and there is no real reason ever to play support.
Well, except for one reason, you play support because you play to win, you play support when you WANT TO WIN the goddamn game. Or maybe, just maybe, supporting is actually fun.
The standard concept of playing support is rather simple: resources in any game is limited and thus resource distribution is prioritized to your carry/mid/hardlane players while support players are generally regarded as 'ward bitch' or 'babysitter' who requires minimal income/level advantage to function. At the competitive level, generally speaking, supports are usually played on position 5 or 4, or even 3 sometimes.
Now we are not going to discuss on what player who plays on what position should have priority farming during different phases of the game here (simply put, farming priority can be interchangeable throughout a game but the position of the player is usually static). In this guide, I'd like to stress the concept of supporting should always be kept in the mind of everyone in a team. In fact, in order to become a good support player you need to be a decent carry/mid/hardlane player yourself and a decent understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of most if not all heroes.
You may say, 'That seems odd, new people should always play support!'. Yes, newcomers are recommended to play simple support hero while learning the game - the thing is, do you see many of these horrible carries from non-newcomer players in your games? I am sure the answer is 'Yes.'. Which brings to us to one of the major points I am going to make here: in lower tier games, anything works, any build on any hero works, support is meaningless in lower tier game, killing heroes is the only way to win (which is also why most people love DotA/Dota2 in the first place).
I am talking about the 'hard games' that you get from Dota2's MM or some highly competitive IH (in house games) or CW (clanwar) or tournament games - ever wonder why Burning from DK almost always ended up with over 9000gpm in his games? A good team made that happen, a good team supported Burning.
You need to have decent understanding and experience in playing carry/mid/hardlane heroes so that you'd know what exactly does your team need - good support knows how to make the game comfortable for his carry to farm, good support makes kill/s happen by knowing when to setup gank or use that emergency tp to help out other lane, good support dies for the team in a meaningful manner (to trade for opponent heroes/tower/save the carry), professional support tanked the creep waves so the carry can come and clear the waves*. Good support makes easy games, good support wins games.
And some people wonder why 820 is a fun name of VS.
Again, for this guide, I'd like to stress that good support is not one man's work. Good support comes from everyone in team.
If that 200g+ of flying courier could compensate your mistake of losing one rune (so you could save a trip back to base or prevent yourself to get killed in the next minute), why not just spend that gold? It is really not the worst deal in the world (1 death costs you the same if not more than that omfg 200g+). If that goddamn 180g of dust can net you a sure kill and hinder the opponent carry, why not? Why do you need to think twice before buying that 700g gem to kill that Rikimaru who is going to have a godlike soon if nobody stopped him? Godforbid anyone in team picks up an extra pair of wards so the team can fight with positioning advantage at critical moments.
When a support bought a critically important dust/sentry/smoke and beg his team to carry one for him because he has no slot available but still nobody gives a bloody care (where obviously a stout shield/quelling blade is more important than that support item at 40mins), that team does not deserve to win.
Let's not forget that this guide is aimed for us common folks playing DotA/Dota2, when you see a carry player buying support item in a pro tier match, you'd have guessed that the support player will be in big trouble after game but generally it wouldn't happen in the first place except some rare occasions.
Good support makes easy games. Good support wins games. And well, DotA/Dota2 is a team game.
You do wonder if it was worth it that you spent every gold from the first 13mins solely for the team. When your 700gpm AM showed up at 22mins and tear every cells of the opponent heroes apart - be proud of yourself and enjoy that smile on your face. + Show Spoiler [Match Scoreboard] +
The central principle in supporting is that you put yourself in the shoes of the carry/core heroes in your team and ask yourself, for example: 'If I were mid, what help do I need from team mates so I can perform my role brilliantly?' - As a support you make these things happen to build a comfortable game for the core players in team, some support heroes can even go very aggressive to the point that they are the ones who lead the rhythm of the game.
As I mentioned above, experience and understanding of the game are the key abilities as a support player while the strong game sense and observation on everything happening in game make you a great one.
'Playing support is against human nature.' - if you decided to play a support hero in this game due to whatever reason , I wish you best of luck and hope everything I wrote here will be useful for you.
GLHF!
III.i. Basic
III.i.i Survivability Yes, simply surviving. Most of the support heroes are naturally fragile (and are mostly so called early game heroes in which most of their strengths lie in early game) so learn to position your hero during every phases of the game (not too far away or too close to your enemies so you would be in range to cast your spells when your team needs you or don't die straight away because you stand at the front) and learn to build your support heroes not to die too quickly before you could help out your team (this is highly dependent to your playstyle, the opponent line up and will be briefly covered in the below Items section).
Don't die meaningless (aka feed) and due to the nature of being support equals to low or non-existent income from farming, dying less is the best way to maintain your good income and generally speaking if you survived the team fight/s you will get a very nice portion of EXP and assist gold.
Fat supports = scary supports, under the condition that your allied core heroes are fat in the first place.
Last hitting: The days of being 0 farm support are long gone. As a support you NEED farm and especially some support heroes have some core items which are best to get within a timing window. HOWEVER, PLEASE, don't ever intentionally fight last hit with your carry, please. Or ruining the last hit so that both the carry and you can't last hit anything.
On a side note, if you needed that a couple of the last hits to get a boots/ wards/ courier/ arcane etc, just ask nicely and I am sure any good carry player will understand that. Yes, I did say that any GOOD carry player will understand that losing a few last hits is not going to lose him/her the game, and of course that is under the condition that the support player knew what exactly he/she is doing. Keep in mind that a carry with good farm on lane is highly due to the fact that the support is doing a good job.
Deny and harassing are probably the most basic skills of all DotA basics.
Denying reduces the EXP/Gold gain of the enemies and harassing is a must and especially when you are 2v1 or 3v1 or 3v2 on lane, PLEASE, harass the hell out of the opponent/s forcing them to lose (a huge chunk of) EXP/Gold income. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do that because I have lost count of all time seeing ignorant support who just stand back with the carry and watch the solo opponent happily last hit and getting EXP. Whenever you do 2v1 or 3v1 or 3v2 on lane, you are sacrificing the EXP (split between multiple allies) to ensure the farming of your carry so if you didn't achieve the purposes of doing so, you are bringing more harm than benefit to your team.
For an example, you commonly do a 2v1 on safelane with your carry so if you didn't deny creeps or harass the opponent enough, the opponent will hit lvl7 by the time two of you are lvl4 - some heroes can kill both of you straight away with that level advantage or when you left the lane to do something else your carry will be 1v1 an opponent with 3 levels advantage (and proceed to get killed in the next 30 seconds if the opponent was good or at least the farm of your carry will be disrupted).
This part of support practice is pretty much self-explanatory if you have played enough carry heroes. Just remember, as a support you should always try your best to give what your core heroes in team wish for.
III.i.iii Minimal warding Buy first set of ward after you got your boots. Buy 2nd set of ward at 15mins. Buy 3rd set of ward at 30mins. Buy again at 40mins.
While this timing might not be optimal for various reasons, don't worry about that for now because I simply want people to get used to the habit of buying wards!
And remember what i say here, wards win games. We will talk more about this soon and I have prepared some beautiful pictures for you.
'Do you need courier/flying courier?' (common abbreviations are cour/fly cour) 'Do you need dust/sentry/ward?' 'Do you need this rune?' (ask whenever you see someone in team has a bottle) 'Do you need arcane/mek/pipe this game?' (Position 5 hard support almost never have the need to get mek/pipe but position 3/4 are indeed expected to have at least a mek, more details in the Items section) 'Do you need help mid/top/bot lane?' (do this when you see all/many/couple of opponent hero dots aggregate near one of your towers and ready to tp to help when you see fit)
Keep calling useful information:
The 'missing' information from your lane and give a glance to mid lane from time to time. Do you like to get hooked (and dismembered) by that monstrous Pudge? No you don't, so remember to call miss and keep an eye on the map!
Tell your team is your ultimate (common abbreviation: ult/ ulti) ready or in cooldown (common abbreviation: cd): '25s ult' '50s ult cd' '15s ulti rdy' Many 'supportive' heroes come with amazing ultimate (Lich, Warlock, Tidehunter, Sandking etc come to mind) and it is very critical for the team to know when is your ultimate ready (albeit Dota2 now has an ultimate cooldown indicator under each hero). In contrast, reminding your team about the key ultimate from opponent team whether in cooldown or not is also very helpful at times (Enigma's Blackhole comes to mind). Same thing applied to calling out the key items from opponent team:
'Pudge gem/dust' (when you have invisible allied hero/es) 'ES/Tide/Enigma dagger' (To avoid getting initiated by surprise and team wiped) 'Bear radiance' etc whenever a key item is acquired by opponent hero/es.
Write down Roshan timing (abbreviation: Rosh), you can write down the time that the rosh was killed or the next rosh spawn time: 'next rosh 2830' '1750' '3840'
Oh and if that was the first time or you are not confident enough on using certain hero, please inform the team. This is a common Dota-etiquette so that people in team won't rely on your hero to make good play and some of them will help out on how to play or build the hero.
That's all the must-know basics when you play support. There isn't a lot here but you would be surprised that most people I have come across in pub don't have a clue about these simple and very doable basics.
Now if you are new to the game then you are sorted to play support in MM games. The guide technically ends here for newcomers or casual players and it is designed this way to keep you interested to get to know more about playing support (and you just did if you read all the way down here! GJ!). Go have fun now!
'What's the rest of the guide?', you ask, well, you can come back here anytime after you get used to the above mentioned basics and you can't wait to know more about supporting in DotA/Dota2. I simply hope that newcomers do not get overwhelmed by information at this stage, bare in mind you will need time to digest what you have read and definitely some practice with them in real games.
The rest of the guide will go deeper into the role. I suggest that you should try out all heroes at this stage and at least have a total of 200 games played (and should have about half of those games played as carry heroes) otherwise the below guide would not be much use for you. But still, of course you are welcomed to read on if you liked
While I absolutely love the good old solo mid Lich, I have no doubt that Lich is the definitive support hero who is best to be used to learn and practice a lot basic mechanics. End game score: 0/0/14 while the whole team had 19kills in total. + Show Spoiler [Match Scoreboard] +
III.ii.i Vision Maphack is technically allowed in DotA/Dota2 because it is purchasable in game - through Wards . The good vision on map from warding can win the game singlehandedly because your team will never get caught off guard, your team can do anything with a plan by knowing the location or movement of enemies on map and most importantly your team will always have the best initiation/ counter-initiation in fight due to you know where exactly are the positions of enemies (if you team could utilize the vision that's it).
Simply put again: Wards win games.
Remember the ward timing I outlined above in the III.i.Basic? Now that you have the basics down you can be ready for the real support duty: Wards buyout should be ALWAYS on cooldown.
Support failed when your team has no clue where is the enemy team about due to poor vision on map (under normal circumstances). That said, keep an extra eye on the warding while you watch some pro games next time, the performance of warding by support from Eastern teams is usually about five times more impressive than Western teams.
Use this gorgeous picture reasonably (or wildly if you could) to help you for warding:
Click picture to magnify
The picture is pretty much self-explanatory so I am not going to talk much about it, you will have to do some trial and error on your own to find out which spots you prefer to use during different phases of a game. Don't blindly copy the ward spots but think about why and when do you ward that spot to provide strategically useful vision (during different phases/situations of a game). Warding is highly dependent to your personal playstyle and it is related to your team playstyle.
Naturally, the location of wards should be close to the river in early game (aka rune wards/lane wards) and slowly moves closer to your or opponent base as the game progresses (aka defensive/offensive wards).
On a side note, the major reason I chose that picture is due to it included the spawn box for Neutral creep camps. Simply put, Neutrals only re/spawn when there is no object within their spawn box, use it wisely for blocking/anti-blocking creep spawn and stacking creep camps (or mass stacking for some heroes in your team that can clear them easily). One common confusion is that ward vision has nothing to with blocking creep spawn, as soon as the ward (i.e. an object) is inside the spawn box, the Neutral camp will not re/spawn. Also note that for the large creep camp near Radiant base it is blocked by lowground wards in the rectangle, but not by highground wards.
You can ward in/near the opponent/your neutral camps to disrupt their jungler hero farming (regardless early or mid game but rarely in late game), whether to provide vision so your team can catch the jungler hero in the jungle or you block the creep spawn completely (to denying income for the jungler). Alternatively, you can also use wards to counter pulling which will be discussed in the next section.
Note: The circled areas are the approximate ward spots.
All credit goes to Spacebear for providing the gorgeous original map (and thanks to him did a quick update on it after I contacted him <3). I am not going into talk more about neutral/jungling mechanics here, you may find some useful information in this original picture from him: + Show Spoiler [Original Map by Spacebear v1.5] +
All the map pictures that I used in this guide will probably not be updated once I finalized this guide (except some rare conditions) but I will update Spacebear's original map whenever he released a new version. Current version is v1.5.
III.ii.ii Lane control During laning phase, you want to strategically manipulating EXP/Gold distribution in favour of your team in order to win game.
Lane control basically means you keep the creeps at a fairly close distance to your tower (but not within the tower range so your carry is not fighting last hit with the tower) allowing your carry able to farm comfortably and safely while the enemy hero/es would be uncomfortable to get close to the creeps (to farm or getting EXP) because their lane would be a 'long' lane and can be easily ganked by our allied hero/es.
Lane control can be achieved by 1)Creep deny and 2)Creep pulling.
1) You start to hit your own creeps when they are below 50% hp so your creeps die faster i.e. your lane will be constantly 'pushed' to your tower but you don't want to overdo this (otherwise the creeps would get too close to the tower range). This takes some observation and calculation and it is dependent on how the enemies do their laning (spamming spells or auto-attacking is one way to ruin your lane control).
2) Technically you only do a creep pulling when your lane is pushed (to enemy tower) but creep pulling is situational at times and it is related to the fact that this is usually the major EXP/Gold income for Support during laning phase. To stack the creeps, you attack the creeps at around 52s, lead the neutrals away from their spawn spot so a new neutral creep camp will spawn on the spot (due to there is no object within the spawn spot). Note that you may need to pull slightly earlier if you saw the Satyr family of four.
With the discussed III.i.Basic in mind, you need to decide when should you do a creep pulling - the key is communicating with your laning partner and again it is dependent on your playstyle and previous experience to dealing with different opponent laning (combo), just remember your priority is to ensure your carry farm well and not dying while denying opponent EXP/Gold or getting the extra income from creep pulling is icing on cake but never your objective.
You should always keep in mind that pulling without stacking = bad because the lane will be further pushed away when the next wave arrives (well, UNLESS you are doing chain pulling or looking for some quick cash and you want to make a push together with next wave or you simply couldn't stack for whatever reason). Last hit the neutrals and deny your creeps when you see fit. When the opponent hero/es decided to come to disrupt your pulling, don't panic and keep a nice distance from them and focusing on last hitting the neutrals - that way they are wasting their time and losing EXP/Gold on lane which further jeopardizing their own economy.
A nice tips is that drop a ward to provide vision so you know the opponent are coming to you and react according (you may even use it as a chance to net a kill). Don't hesitate to get a sentry to deward when necessary at times.
Inversely, when you see the opponent is pulling (and if you didn't ward to block their pulling), you can choose to either kill/harass the hell out of the lonely carry or go clear their stack quickly (if the situation allowed). And yes, more gorgeous pictures:
Click picture to magnify Dire side pulling map.
Radiant side pulling map.
Quick notes: The numbers are the pulling timings from each side, for example: You attack neutral creeps at around 15th second at dire side and lead them to your creep wave. Since your creep spawns every 30seconds so you can pull them at X:15 or X: 45. You need to attack the creep slightly earlier than the suggested pulling timing when you are a melee or close attack range hero so basically ±1second from the suggested timing depends on the hero attack range.
* marked timings are the tricky ones that requires you to get hit by the range neutral creep in order to aggro your creeps. It works like when you target enemy hero within 500 AoE of creeps will draw aggro. Note that it is '-2s' at the radiant mid lane pulling, i.e. 2s before the creep started to march (X: 58 or X: 28). X marked where you need to cut or eat the certain tree/s in order to do the pulling. Orange dashed line indicating chain pulling is possible from that neutral camp to the other one/s. You will need to time the chain pulling by estimating your allied killing the last neutral creep and 'lead' them to the next neutral camp.
III.ii.iii Rune control and Ganking The part is supposed to be included with Lane Control but I cut it out for easy reading.
Rune control is the one of the basics of playing on mid (commonly you see solo mid at current metagame) but as a support you can help to control the rune. You should guard it for your mid to come to take it or notify him/her for the rune spawn at top or bottom of the river; if your mid wouldn't take it in time, you may take it or destroy it to prevent the enemies take it. Your mid player will love you for doing this for him/her!
Ganking: Literally, go gank! If you have done your initial lane control very well, your carry would be able to solo the lane without any problem, then it is time, to make gank happens or help out the other lane which at disadvantage. It is literally this simple. Lets talk more about this in the next section.
I especially dislike playing VS. She is fragile, she is so fragile, she is so so fragile. She is so so so so so fragile. Yet. Deadly. + Show Spoiler [Match Scoreboard] +
'Life is worthless to me until my last enemy is dead.'
A small disclaimer to make is that, I am not a progamer and this guide was never intended to be that kind of 'pro guide'. I simply wish that my guide can be useful to some/many people then I'd be happy enough. For this part of guide I will add in whatever I feel like missing from the Basic and Intermediate parts and all of these come from my personal experience (I am highly influenced by my CW year between 07-09 if you wondered). And always remember, different players have different playstyles on different heroes, you have to be creative and try thinking out of the box because this is what makes DotA/Dota2 so much fun (with limitless replayability).
Have you ever been in some situation that, the opponent team jumped and slammed everything on a fragile support in a team fight? Sometimes it is even funnier when that support is sitting at the back of his/her allies but the opponent team still decided to jump on him/her instead. And the consequences? The opponent team traded their whole team for a (rather useless) support. As a support you want that to happen though because trading one for four or five of the opponent team = delicious trade but of course life is tough when you keep dying and get no EXP/Gold.
There are two main reasons that caused the said situation happens:
1) Your level is lower and they thought they can kill you instantly, taking out your support/s instantly is very bad for your team and give edge to the opponent.
2) They just hated you. Due to you are the key hero or, they are simply haters or they just hated you because you are irritating, annoying and bitchy. Ya, DotA/Dota2 is all about mind games and people take things happened in game quite personally at times (even in pro tier games).
People always take the games personally. If you ever played with your real life mates in a slightly serious manner (say playing some CW etc) you would definitely know that. Same to these 'hard' games in DotA/Dota2, people always take the games personally to certain extent, USE THAT or rather, ABUSE THAT.
In any 'hard' game (where everyone in game knows exactly how to play each of their own heroes proficiently and effectively), you need to be the one who knows how every hero works so that you can do your support job adequately (as above discussed support concept of 'try your best to give what your core heroes in team wish for') and so that you can come to this third section of the guide - your goal as a support is ultimately to be irritating, annoying and bitchy (to the opponent team).
You force the opponents to play their heroes out of their comfort zones - You go mess with them by knowing what exactly they want for their heroes, go mess with their last hitting habit, go screw up the timing of their key items, you don't easily give whatever the opponents wish for, you make the game very hard for them. And when you start to do that while keeping in mind that 'People always take the games personally.', these opponents will start to make mistakes, it doesn't matter how good they are at playing that hero or how uber good they are in last hitting, when you force the opponents to spend their energy on something that they don't normally dealing with - you are technically fucking their brains killing their brain cells and that can only be a good thing for your team.
Simply put, when the opponents need to spend effort to deal with the support hero/es, how much more effort do they need to deal with your core heroes? Not to mention while the opponents putting their attention on you, your carry player/s should be free farming happily without hassle.
At this stage you need to be very confident and comfortable with playing the support role (covering every aspects that I have mentioned so far in III.i.Basic and III.ii.Intermediate and as I said at the very beginning of this guide, you need to have alot of experience in playing most if not all heroes at a decent level.
So it is time, to make kills happen. It is time, to alter the rhythm of the game in favour to your team. It is time, to destroy everything that the opponents wanted for their team. You can do all that by being a mere Support.
The part of the guide will literally be a compilation of small tips about mentality/strategic thinking that a support player should keep in mind according to different phases of the game.
Early game: Starting items: You need to know exactly what your hero (and your team) needs before the game started, I barely have any items when I leave my base nowadays (as in rarely have 5/6 slots of items) when I play support heroes - I have a plan in mind before I leave my base e.g. do I expect to play aggressive HP trading and chances for me to base for healing because opponent laning combo would be hard to deal with, should I get tango or 2 healing pots etc.
Feed your carry/hardlane hero a regen item or ward when needed. The mindset here is that better spend those goddamn gold to prevent early problems. More feed from your team = hard game = more hard work to do for a support.
Know the strength of your hero and expect what hero will you lane against and buy your regen items according to your plan. Remember that you buy regen items because you are planning to use them, please find a way to spend (abuse) them.
Laning is about doing (dirty) business: Trade and spend your tango/healing pot smartly, keep an eye on the enemies inventories to calculate how much can you trade with them, 2 pots should always come out ahead of 1 pot in this kind of malicious trading. Find a way to force them to use regen items and then go trade HP (fiercely) to kill them or announce that you own the lane from now on. Sometimes you need to be patient when you saw opponents have crazy laning combo, play defensively and prepare well for them to overextend or overaggressive so you can find a chance to kill them when they made that mistake.
Remember you are the disposable support so you are 'worthless' and you can die 100times for all you care as soon as you bring down enemy hero/es with you whenever you die and your carry doesn't die, farms well and gets fat. I love to do insane trading on hopeless lane (aka enemy laning combo is impossible to lane against) because the farm of you/your laning partner is ruined anyway, if you didn't make lane switch or getting effective ganking from ally, your lane will be screwed forever and the farmed enemies will snowball even bigger in game later and it can be a fairly game over if you didn't have any backup plan or real good reason to give up the lane like that.
Obviously you don't suicide or something like that - you either wait patiently or force mistake out of the enemies, remember these players are not god tier pro players, they will make mistakes, big or small mistakes, USE THEM, ABUSE THEM at the right timing. Remember you are a bitch(y support) and you use people like animals.
Simply put, every second you watch their carry farming creeps freely on lane - your game becomes harder and harder. Conversely, if you keep seeing yourself or your laning partner getting free gold every seconds, your game becomes sweeter and sweeter. Simple business.
Early-Mid/Mid game: At this stage there are usually two situations:
1)Your lane failed and your carry has poor farm. 2)You owned the lane and your carry is high level and full of shiny gears on him.
Generally speaking: 1)If your team fell behind, most of your team should stick 24/7 and make kills on their stupid lonely hero either on lane or forest to slowly gain back leverage. Avoid teamfights if you knew your team couldn't win (usually you have a hardcarry and lack of team fight hero) or force team fight madly (when you lack of endgame hero and have stronger team fight hero), this is highly dependent on opponent heroes line up. Do a smoke gank from some tricky position. DO something, anything to can give your team a chance to come back. If you just sit there and wait for the loss and you will lose.
2)All carry players are greedy bastards, they want gold and exp, ALOT OF EXP AND GOLD. Well you should know better because you are just like them when you play carry heroes. Let them mind their own business and you can go help to gain more leverage by joining the team mates from the won lane/s. Just make sure you dropped enough vision wards to ensure your carry comfortably farming at his lane/jungle. That comes from your experience of playing enough carry heroes and being a decent one so you should know the map awareness/game sense. And please, GOOD hardcarry players always bring a TP to be there if their team needs them to come clean up (you can even remind him/buy him one if he was a real sick bastard).
The bottom line is, be useful. Be very useful. Ward/dust/smoke etc for getting more kills and do some quick farm when you see a free lane (the timing of when to farm or when not to farm is affected by the mindset of different roles, you can always tell some people farm like a carry when they shouldn't lol). Generally speaking the only chances that you show up on lane to farm is when you defending the tower or your team wants to push that lane.
Your economy: One more thing I should mention again is that poor support is very bad for your team, you want to have adequate gears on you to be able to support your team. Your major income should always come from laning, assist gold and tower gold so feel free to whine abit when you needed some gold (e.g. can we please take that tower, I need GOLD!). And ya, you will need to kill that tower denier from enemy team at least 10 times by your hands to avenge your gold loss.
BUT PLEASE, don't ever say something like 'oh i need to farm X item so I won't die 15times' and hinder the purchase of ward/sentry/dust for your team - 'dude, you are still gonna die 14.5times even if you got that ghost scepter.'
The whole point of buying any item beside the basic items as a support is because you get that item for your team and maybe, extend your survibility for 5-10seconds so you can be more help in a team fight. Hard life? That's exactly the life of a support.
You are a support. Metaphorically, you ARE the supporting actor in a movie, you are not the main characters, not even close. But we all know there is no good movies without good supporting actors/actresses.
You will have the luxury to go for a Pipe or BKB or even Heart as a position 5 when you team had massive advantage but please, please, please,when your team is losing, don't fight for the already very limited resources because you want your Forcestaff etc, get more ward/sentry/smoke because every 200 extra gold sitting in your bank = helping the enemy to kill your team.
Late game? What late game? There is no late game for support!
Generally speaking, the usefulness of most support heroes gradually declines when the game progresses. Say, for example when i play that Gandalf hero, I still believe that me leaving the game at 30mins is a legit strategy if your team has not won the game already (my income will become theirs which is an awesome deal).
If you truly wanted to know what can you do in late game, ask your team about who needs to die first in the opponent team then you'd know what to do - kamikaze with the said opponent hero in team fight. No, I did not just suggest that you should pick Techies and play him as a support.
On a slightly serious note, you just do your basic jobs a support should do, providing vision etc as mentioned in the III.ii.Intermediate section but beware your support service will be slightly different from Early/Mid game. Notably, wards at rosh and defensive/offensive wards inside/near your base or enemy base are the most useful ones. I have seen enough teams win fight with good vision. So trust me on that.
The truth is that support heroes often barely matter in Late game, what can you can do with a hero with magic wand+bracer+boots+wards+sentry+TP that just dies to 3 hits from enemy late game hero? That's why as a support you want your team to be successful in early, you give your best for the team in early to mid game because everything snowballs from there - ensuring early advantage = most certainly easy late game. And one more thing on playing support in late game is probably DIE SMARTLY for your team, remember what I said in the very beginning of this section? Trading one for four or five of the opponent team = best trade ever.
Well, we can also say that it is highly related to your items and depends on different heroes. Please see the below Items and Heroes sections.
So I was with NA on hardlane vs SD+Slardar and at around 5mins my cs was 1/0. Decided to have a walk around the map and coincidentally I saw SF! And then.....hey! I earned my bkb and BASHER by blood and sweat ok?! + Show Spoiler [Match Scoreboard] +
Scoreboard: GPM doesn't count in gold loss (aka death), it is gold earned per minute. It is very easy to tell if you have done a good support job or not:
1.Common sense, you want low death count and high assist count. 2.Your gpm should be (as expected) at position 4 or 5; if it wasn't (and you were the support and definitely not playing position 1-3), then it could that mean you did a brilliant job in squeezing in some nice farming time despite you are the support or it could be you are stealing farm unnecessary from your team; if it was, then have a look at how many times you die (i.e. you boost opponent's gpm) and compare to the gpm of the others, there is a huge difference between 260gpm with 4/2/9 and 360gpm 5/12/11.
Dota-etiquette: Saying 'gj' 'well done' 'you are good player' to your team mates can make some positive effects on your team.
Commend and sincerely praise the good players in team. 'Thanks for carrying us hardcore' is not hard to type especially when it is true. And yes, I love to hear 'pro warder' ~_~ when the ward that I risked my life to ward it made a huge impact on the team fight.
Never ever ever ever piss on your support players. You may advice him how to play better but NEVER ever blame or flame him. Remember 'Playing support is against human nature.'? Try to play support for once in a while, and ask yourself honestly how do you like it when people did that to you.
Be nice and be forgiving. When you are playing a game, please keep in mind that you are a part of a team together - Win or lose, 5 of you are a team in a game for about 30mins to 1hour, why not let's make the best out of it?
The thing is you should always keep in mind that your opponents are not uber chinese pro players - they made mistakes, they make mistakes and they will make mistakes, just like you. There is always a chance to come back. Always. Albeit that chance can be 0.1%, there is still hope in any circumstances, please fight till the end as a team.
Gandalf has arrived.
And I remember that bastard Riki keep trying to kill the leader of our team. Too bad ally chat doesn't record in replay. + Show Spoiler [Match Scoreboard] +
IV. Let's talk about items As compact and concise as I want my guide to be (so far), the title of this section is self-explanatory, I will talk about my favourite support items!
Discussion: Almost always buy courier at start but timing to buy flying courier is situational and not always necessary for you to get it.
For most support heroes, 1 salve = HP recovered from 1 trip back to base. 1 Tango + 1 Salve = Common startup 2 Salves = You expect high HP trading will happen. 1 Tango + 2 Salves = You expect high aggression from either side. You will trade HP like mad.
You don't need clarity potion most of the time because 1 GG branch at 53g is often more useful (depends on the hero) and can be used to make magic wand later. 1 Clarity/ 1 GG branch = when you feel like it. You usually get maximum of 3 GG branches anyway. 2 Clarity = You are going spam spells 2+ Clarity = You are going to do early roaming. The extra Clarity potion sometimes can be used on ally.
Generally you buy GG branch or clarity potion after you spent your gold on critical Lvl1 items.
Discussion: Gauntlets for your maximum HP boost and Mantle for Mana pool boost.
There is no reason to get RoR or RoP first except you are planning to upgrade them to certain Lvl2/3 items.
Magic stick for extreme (early) spammer on lane. Rare but viable.
Boots first is extremely rare but can be a viable choice for slow MS (Movement Speed) heroes or against slow induced opponent/s or you planning to outrun opponent/s at the start of the game for various reasons. Technically you don't ever have a passive reason to get boots, is just that everyone will get boots sooner or later, you don't want to put yourself at a huge MS disadvantage.
Stout shield is rare but can be used by melee semi-support/support (especially on hardlane) such as BeastMaster, Tidehunter, Treant, Undying, Sandking etc.
Discussion: Gauntlets can be upgraded into Bracer and Mantle into Null Talisman which give you some stats boost, the former focusing more on maximum HP boost while the latter for Mana pool boost. Note that you technically never need to make gauntlet/mantle+circlet into Bracer/Talisman unless you needed that extra slot.
Gauntlets can also be made into Urn, for support who prepares to spend alot of time running around the map with ganking line up, such as VS. Try to avoid multiple purchases of urn in team if possible.
RoR can be upgraded into Headdress (commonly upgraded into Mekansm or Pipe) or Soulring (a great item used by spell spammer who usually is a little bit beefy such as Orge, ES, Undying etc).
RoP can be upgraded into RoB (used by pusher hero or can be upgraded into Vlarmir) or Tranquil Boots (basically a reusable Healing pot with cooldown and a nice movement boost, suitable for fragile heroes without mana demanding spells).
Magic wand is a natural upgrade from Magic stick and clear up your GG branches in inventory.
Bottle is a nice option for a support who take mid or often place him/herself at danger of life so he/she needs to go back base frequently for healing. It is a good option for VS.
I am actually not sure where to put Medallion in this guide so I put it here instead (you usually see it on semi/carry heroes). It can be a situational supportive item to compliment your team that go for early aggression/ganking orientated strategy. Medallion and Urn are always good to have one in team.
The timing for these basic items are highly dependent to your playstyle and the rhythm of the game. Obviously the earlier you get what you want is better and for general reference by 15mins you should have gotten at least 2 Lvl1/2/3 items. For example, Boots+bracer+magicwand+wards+TP at 15mins looks fine.
Discussion: There is almost no reason to get PT on support heroes nowadays except you really feel like that extra 8Str or 8Int can really help your hero in your game. Oh, and that 30+ attack speed.
Arcane boots is good for any support hero to maintain his/her mana pool and a great little help to your allied heroes. Get it especially when you have stunner/s in team.
Tranquil Boots (basically a reusable Healing pot with cooldown and a nice movement boost, suitable for fragile heroes without mana demanding spells). Get it especially when your team doesn't lack of mana supply (already have 1/2 arcane boots).
Phase Boots for support playstyle which willing to cut down on HP/Mana regeneration (giving up Arcane boots or Tranq Boots) but emphasizing on mobility.
BoT is for posh support that I only dare to dream about it because I'd rather save that gold for buyback.
Wards win games. Wards buyout should be ALWAYS on cooldown. BUY THEM, MH IS GOOD! Use the wards wisely but not with a waster attitude - Having 2 wards in your inventory is bad (unless there is really no reason to use one on map atm) but having 1 ward sitting in your inventory is fine. Remember whenever you dropped 1 ward you need to utilize that vision for the next 5mins to make it worthwhile, otherwise just save the ward for next time.
If your support did some decent job in your game please reward him with a gem. I mean you don't even need to give him/her the gem, just hold one in hand and he/she will love you. And please, anyone can get buy dust/sentry when some pub abuser picked invi heroes to screw with you - they are expecting no detection from pub game, surprise them with constant detection since 1min and make them regret that they picked invi heroes. Gem is the ultimate support item while probably being the most cost-effective one, 700g to counter all invisible heroes/wards/sentry once and for all.
1 Dust is 180g or 1 sentry is 200g (and you get to use them twice), and 1 kill is 200g+. Do this complicated maths to see if the dust/sentry is a cost efficient item. + Show Spoiler +
BUY THE GODDAMN DETECTION WHEN YOU SEE INVISIBLE HEROES. Seriously I hate seeing 2 or more invisible heroes in opponent team, game is so boring (because it is supposed to be autowin) but these games often ended up very tiring and sad because you were the only one who cared about about detection. And sometimes throwing some sentry to de-ward can be incredibly helpful for your team.
You buy smoke whenever you feel like your team at disadvantage and you want to make a small comeback or when you feel like your team is ahead and you want to get further ahead. Smoking is good. Be creative and make plays. In highly competitive games you can see some heroes get Smoke at the start to allow early ganking.
Even after the nerf from 6.75 Janngo/Drum is still the best all-rounder supportive item. It is so good and because it combines Bracer+Robe of Magi which give you a nice str and int gain and it has 4 charges of giving you extra boost on AS and MS (on top of the already very nice basic aura that comes with it). This is the (only) item that you can get 5 of them on each of your heroes in team. I don't recommend buying the recipe to renew the charges because you can make better use of that 750g somewhere.
Note that I use 'supportive item' in the title, Mek and Pipe are technically not a position 5's item (under normal circumstances) but definitely commonly seen on position 3 and 4 which are pretty supportive to the team (and you can make both of them from Headdress anyway).
If you got a Mek before 10mins and able to use it effectively since then, the game is won. This is not even an argument but a simple fact. You don't need to save up and activate it only when you need that the small amount of healing, the armor boost comes with it is very good in helping for pushing etc. + Show Spoiler +
On a slightly serious note, IT IS THAT GOOD.
You need a Pipe when opponent has strong AOE damage, notably SandKing, QoP, Tidehunter etc. There is nothing here to discuss.
Dagger generally is necessary for some initiation heroes (and for flashy play of course) and forcestaff is self-explanatory (still a very good item after the nerf from 6.75). Either of them can give you a nice escape mechanism - you can even go both of them on some heroes.
Eul is a nice semi-disable item and you can definitely get it for its +30 MS.
I am not sure where to squeeze in Lothar/Shadow Blade so here it is. It is an escape mechanism and may come in handy for some hero to use his/her channeling ultimate because activating it doesn't cancel channeling. I do not recommend this item because with 3k+ gold you are close to many other useful items and believe it or not it can be easily to be countered by a 180g dust.
All of these are luxury items. You only get them AFTER you have fully done your support job beautifully, remember you are not going to win games by rushing these items (under normal circumstances) -
'Fat supports = scary supports, under the condition that your allied core heroes are fat in the first place.'
Necrobook is my first choice of item to get as a position 5, it is very affordable and it is a very nice (pushing) item for your team and to boost your Str+Int and allow you to have the permanent vision on invisible heroes (from Lvl3 Necrobook). Not to mention when huge damage when someone killed the summons. Notably that 1250g recipe is the perfect price for a position 5 - you don't want to banking too much gold and 1000-1500g is probably the 'healthiest' amount of gold that you can have until 45mins.
Scepter, Shiva, Refresh are self-explanatory. Scepter can actually be a core item for some supportive heroes like Rhasta and Enchantress.
Hex, Halberd, Orchid and Atos are all high class single target disable item and they are EXPENSIVE. Expensive stuffs seem to be good though. I personally prefer Halberd among them, you can get it when opponent has a melee carry that makes you headache. Obviously I wouldn't mind go straight to Hex if I could. 2700g Mystic staff always seems to be very far from me when I was playing as a support, the 2150g of sange plus 1600g of talisman are much more affordable. And then followed by Orchid and then maybe.... Atos.
Special mention that you can also get Vladmir (damage aura+melee lifesteal) or Veil (amplify magic damage) only when you think that they are worthy for your team.
Is there anything to ASSIST a kill better than Dagon?! Who needs HP/Survibility when you can kill the enemies before they can kill you?? That said, I am not responsible for the games you are gonna throw away if you rushed Dagon 5. What I can say is that the effectiveness of different level of Dagons scale with different timing in a game. I love ZAP. Get Eblade for more zappiness.
Come to think of it, Dagon is probably the best way to make yourself to be irritating, annoying, bitchy^^. Who likes to get zapped all day? ZAPPPPPP
Discussion: Again, all of these are luxury items. You only get them AFTER you have fully done your support job beautifully, remember you are not going to win games by rushing these items (under normal circumstances) -
'Fat supports = scary supports, under the condition that your allied core heroes are fat in the first place.'
I still facepalm to this day whenever I think of that CM who rushed Linken without any warding throughout the game. Ya, get a 5000g item and proceed to get killed in 3hits please. One ward is more valuable than that 5000g purchase.
Bloodstone is a good item mainly because you can build it from Arcane boots and you can get its affordable component slowly throughout the game so it is by all means not a bad item to go for (under the condition that you are doing all your support job nicely).
Ghost scepter is an amazing against enemy crazy dps dealer/s and it is (very) cheap. BKB and Heart are self-explanatory. Situational (and posh) but viable. Notably BKB is highly viable on some heroes like Leshrac.
Blademail is very situational, you only get it against high burst damage (or very very high dps burst) because the purpose to hurt the damage dealer a tonne before you die. Manta gives you some nice MS speed and stats boost but the only reason you get it is to dispel some single targeted spell.
Have you seen WD or Tidehunter with Armlet? Well it is still stupidly better and more cost effective than Linken I guess.
There is no reason ever to get Linken (a BKB is about 100times better than Linken on any support heroes) mainly due to that one slot better gives it to ward. I still wouldn't get Linken as my 6th slot item because I'd rather have this:
TP best defensive item, hands down. Use it wisely and it can save your life for such a low cost. You have access to this 135g item since the start and IT IS THE BEST DEFENSIVE ITEM. Well, it is the best item in game after all.
And ya, I hate position 5 buying Linken so much to the point that I'd buy ask my team mate to buy me a TP so I can have 2 slots used up for TPs.
1.Spend minimal gold on passable warding service 2.Save gold and sell all items to get Divine Rapier 3.In/directly feed your carry the item 4.GG NO RE
I have done couple of time this build back before the change of Divine mechanic: Farm Divine-> Suicide at Roshan-> Carry pick it up but it doesn't work like that after the change of Divine mechanics.
I suppose you can still do it in current version, just make sure your carry can get the divine back from enemy. BEWARE, only the manliest support should use this build, so don't attempt this build lightly. You may or may not get flamed/grieved by your team and end up in low priority for your next game.
Some people may ask 'Why wouldn't I just kill everything with my divine rather than feeding it to my carry?!'. Well, people, if you did that you would be the carry of your team and make your carry looks bad since you might ended up more kills than him. Hmmm.......
You know the secret of coming back from 27:15 at 19mins to 43:51 at 49mins in a teamwork orientated game? The BIG secret: Teamwork.
Guys if you ever saw this guide, like I promised I will use this amazing game in my guide Thank you so much again for taking advice and made one of the best games of my life. Love. + Show Spoiler [Match Scoreboard] +
'Warriors of the night, assemble!!! RAWR'
Rubick fighting last hit with me since beginning (albeit he lost the last hit battle). I proceed to go on my semi carry way AND ganking AND supporting. Because why not. Many thanks to games like this motivate me to produce this guide. And yes I truly wish these nice players who gave me these epic games have real good lives ahead. + Show Spoiler [Match Scoreboard] +
Generally speaking any hero that can be played on position 3-5 are supportive heroes but depends on different line up and item builds on the heroes, you may find that sometimes any hero can be support or some support heroes are not that 'supportive' at all! There are limitless ways to play all these heroes and here I will throw in my brief insight regarding their supportive roles, this will be my own ranking for supportive heroes from my understanding to the game.
I will try to use only 5 heroes for each of category below but always keep in mind that anything can work in DotA/Dota2, be it at a competitive level or lower tier pub games, there is always a way to make something works in DotA/Dota2 - If you could pull it off that's it. 'Be creative and try thinking out of the box because that is what makes DotA/Dota2 so much fun.' .
Discussion: These are my Top 5 Best supportive heroes, they are my 'when in doubt go for one of them because they are the best supportive heroes'. Technically I only used 4 for the list because nothing can take away TC's 5th place. I will always reserve one spot for him, always. Always.
As you can see all of the above mentioned supportive heroes have something to do with their key ultimate and usually their amazing CC abilities (crown control). 'If he could pull his shit off then it would be a HUGE help for the team but he can go die for the team after that') - that's the life of a support, you die for the team but your team wins game.
Details will be discussed in their related sections below.
Discussion: The most valuable point of support heroes is arguably their laning ability. The mentioned heroes are the heroes that I do not want to face them if they were played by good players. I'd rather go jungling or roaming than staying on my lane if I saw them. They are sickeningly good on laning in the right hands.
CM is hands down the best laning hero. And she is designed to be the Queen of laning - if it wasn't because her weak presence outside of laning phase, she would be in my Top 5 for sure. But that's the part of balancing in DotA, she is the hero with extremely strong laning abilities but other than that she is pretty weak. Pick her when you have many core heroes in team that most of them can't guarantee to come online in Early-Mid game, you want to ensure you have a stable lane for your laning partner and by using your aura you are helping the rest of the lanes. Yes, her aura was made global to enhance her laning power to affect her whole team, more mana = more power for your team mates to dominate their lanes (obviously everything is dependent on your allied/opponent line up).
And you know who is the hardest support to master in DotA (imo)? CM. One mistake and you are dead. And the next thing you know you are feeding the opponent team. However, a good CM is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.
Lich and Lion are common sense while Veno and Undy are strong in the sense of being flexible, they can do aggressive laning or being able to maintain their lane with lane control ability (namely their anti-push ability). I could have used Ezalor in the place of Undy but then Eza is a double edge to your team (and can do nothing when the enemies man up and dive him).
Discussion: Disruptor, Enig, Tide, Puck and Treant are the definitive Team Fight CC heroes because when they get picked for their CC abilities, what they do is literally providing their precious CC abilities in team fight (and usually come with some small damage) while the team line up should involve a lot of damage output dealers.
Disruptor is my No.1 CC hero, one nice combo of his spells he can singledhandedly take away around 50% HP of the entire opponent team in 5seconds. While he is also being a very flexible hero to play with: if you chose to go for Thunder Strike you get a very strong laning ability and if you chose Glimpse then you can be a big help in ganking from very early phase (it is probably the most broken spell in the whole game). If you gave him some level advantage he can wipe any team fight happened in early game (to late game) by fighting 2v4 or 3v5 or even 2v5. That said, he is a very high skill ceiling hero that requires not only perfect positioning but also insane game sense - you need be a very ballsy opportunist to play this hero and not only that, your team will need to be very ballsy opportunists too due to you can't really initiate with this hero, you always need to wait for a good timing to work your magic. After all, he is the manly Trall, the warchief of the orcish Horde.
No team fight when you know the ulti of Tide or Enig in the opponent team is up. Just no.
Puck is probably the best hero to show off your flashy big play (he is rarely played on position 4/5 though) and just like Treant they provide moderate team fight CC and can be very devastating at times.
WD and ES are unique in this category because they are high risk high award supportive heroes. I used the word 'supportive' here because they can kill everything in the right situations.
And oh something popped in my mind, if you survived the team fight after blinking in ulti
VI. My analysis for selective VODs: Support Edition WIP. Please come back later! + Show Spoiler +
I have been thinking to do some recommendation of pro games vods/replay for people to watch. But since tournament replays are not freely accessed by anyone so I wasn't sure about this. I guess I can look some nice replays from TI2 but what truly motivates me to do this is due to the amazing games from G1. This is just a little personal project I wish to do anyway, I can write down some thoughts whenever I watch some nice replays so don't expect frequent update.
I use 'VODs' in title for the sake of making the title short, I am mainly looking for replays because you can't really see much in vods.
Some words from the Author: I am not a progamer and this guide was never intended to be that kind of 'pro guide'. I simply wish that my guide can be useful to some/many people then I'd be happy enough.
After all, I write this guide because I love Dota/DotA2 so much (while we are at it, please VALVe improve Slardar model in please!!!) and I have been playing for so many years the DotA maps from Icefrog technically for free - I do this simply as a paying back to the people who worked very hard for making this game and many many people that I have come across who taught me or gave me alot of advice on many different things or the people who produced amazing guides that I have read and learned from them (and all these good players that I have come across giving me good games), you all have improved my enjoyment to the game for all these years. Thank you all again for you all good people.
Special thanks to VALVe/Icefrog who gave me the access to Dota2 for about 1 year time now. I have enjoyed every moments of it (Just don't get me started on the MM). Great work and well done so far. I understand that the game can never be perfectly close to DotA (I have to say that I miss a lot of little things from Warcraft3 engine'd DotA) but I guess it is time to move on from a 10years old engine. I hope you will continue to keep your good work up, for many (many) years to come. And I am sure you will. <3 Dota.
Lastly, thank you all for reading. Hope you enjoy this trip of 'How to play support'. Thank you.
GLHF and have many GGs ahead!! Thank you for your time again.
'Thank you!'
*Special credits to my fellow mates who read and give me some useful comments especially thanks to evo for yelling at random mistakes and flamewheel for yelling at evo to yell at me <3
**And I have to mention that this old BB code guide from wo1fwood helped me alot on editing this guide. And Spacebear again for providing the amazing map. Thank you all.
***All screenshots used in this guide are purely for entertainment purposes. Please take them lightly and they are lighthearted funny pictures.+ Show Spoiler +
Diablo being a semi mmorpg? More like a hack and slash, like it always was. Did you play Diablo 2 and know what you were in for? Also people selling items for real money back in D2, D3 just brings it in-house
On May 29 2012 21:34 nebffa wrote: Diablo being a semi mmorpg? More like a hack and slash, like it always was. Did you play Diablo 2 and know what you were in for? Also people selling items for real money back in D2, D3 just brings it in-house
jesus christ, many people uses forumgold to trade back then but no where near game breaking as if it is now.
it is a semi-mmorpg because you cant farm efficiently within 30minutes.
I'm still pretty sure my buds would link a good item to me before putting on the AH for 3 bucks....
Whining about class imbalance after 2 weeks is pretty ludicrous, don't you think?
Here's the Bishiok post the OP mentioned
This isn't a new concept. In Diablo II gear was randomized and so absolutely ridiculously rare that you could almost be guaranteed to never find the exact item you were looking for just by farming for it yourself. To be the best you had to trade items with others, as you might find an extremely rare item, they may be willing to trade for yours. If you wanted to get ahead within any reasonable amount of time you had to trade. Now, Diablo II had one thing going for it which was the mass proliferation of dupes for the rarest items, which completely tanked its economy and quickly allowed anyone to gear themselves in the best possible items for nearly nothing. In Diablo III you don't have that luxury, you need to actually find the rare items, or trade for them.
Now, you have a couple options, you can jump into our Trading Forum, post up your item/s and then meet someone in-game and barter a trade. You can also use the in-game Trade channel, and again barter trades. Or you can use the auction house system. How you trade items is up to you, bartering out of game, bartering in-game, the AH for gold, or real money once it launches. We're not forcing anyone to do anything, and if you don't ever want to trade with other players that's your choice as well, but due to the nature of drops in Diablo games, if you want to be the best you need to trade.
Wouldn't you in theory be getting drops just as good for other classes, and over a long enough period of time break even on the AH? I just don't understand why you're so grievously hurt about this. I remember having to save up 40 Stones of Jordan to get Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye. You want to go back to THAT economy?
On May 29 2012 21:43 BurningSera wrote: it is a semi-mmorpg because you cant farm efficiently within 30minutes.
It is a morpg. One m. The first m is for "massively", and D3 only has up to four people in a game together, which is not such a massive number. That piece of terminology has nothing to do with farming.
TC, I think you might have misunderstood that Blizzard post. They will not be constantly tweaking item drop rates to control (RM)AH economy, or to try to force you to shell out real dollars to remain competitive. They just reduced the item drop rates across the board in an attempt to keep uncommon items uncommon for a longer period of time should be obvious that once you get to 60, the entire game of Diablo is about getting better gear. If the drop rates weren't very low, then within a very short period of time, everyone would be able to very cheaply and easily buy tip-top level gear on the AH, and then the replay value of the game plummets.
Why wouldn't they try to manipulate drops?? So you get the gears that are not suitable to you and thus forcing you to use RMAH so they can get a cut? Or may be they needed to do so otherwise the system will be tanked eventually? Either way it sucks, why not just CUT it out from the game???
The last thing is, why would they introduce Tax if they solely made RMAH for the benefit of the players? You dont need 15% tax to avoid abuse. You are just greedy.
Well, that totally put me off from playing further of the game along with the fact that farming boss is not longer legit. Diablo has become a semi-mmorpg, why can't bliz just understand that we don't all the time in the world to play your game.
This is beyond misconstrued. First off: the RMAH hasn't even been released and you're complaining. Secondly, you entered inferno with the most abysmal stats known to man (WD with double that and I'm still struggling).
Thirdly: The cut is to remove an inflate amount of gold. The 15% is to take away money from the system and help deflate prices (since there is a lot of gold coming in and being circulated). The 15% in the RMAH is the same as money comes in, but never comes out (it also helps slow down price-rising).
The AH and the RMAH is to help both regulate sales of in-game items (something Valve achieves) as well as avoid scams and issues that plagued all of D2. That's two-for-two while you label the whole thing as personal issue about greed is which flat-out ridiculous and making things personal.
I'm so sorry that the reptitious nature of farming bosses is no longer legitimate, bots could do it better and sell it on the black-market and derail prices to a record high anyways. The reason the AH is factor in with drops is to add both diversity, ensure rarity and create an actual competition amongst players to achieve the best items they could. There aren't limited amounts of a certain legendary or rare blacksmith recipe, there are just rates at which these items appear.
There are a lot of reasons to bitch and moan about Diablo III, but the ones you chose are 100% not gameplay related and just money banter I'm all for the cause of damning a game when it's earned to be shitted on (server issues on the Auction House is something I'll get on-board for). But this is by far the worst thing you can complain about and the best part about it is that it is something you can entirely avoid by 1. playing without the use of the auction house. The game does not change more or less in your favour knowing or not knowing about the auction house and 2. Hardcore removes the RMAH from existence.
If you're going to complain about the game, find legitimate points about the game rather than complaining about personal fairness or objective equality from both a company-standpoint, amongst players and in-game currencies or items.
On May 29 2012 22:10 Holytornados wrote: I have no problem with the AH. It just took the economy from D2jsp and brought it in-house. I don't have a problem at all.
i used jsp back then too the problem is AH is manipulating item drops.
Why wouldn't they try to manipulate drops?? So you get the gears that are not suitable to you and thus forcing you to use RMAH so they can get a cut? Or may be they needed to do so otherwise the system will be tanked eventually? Either way it sucks, why not just CUT it out from the game???
The last thing is, why would they introduce Tax if they solely made RMAH for the benefit of the players? You dont need 15% tax to avoid abuse. You are just greedy.
Well, that totally put me off from playing further of the game along with the fact that farming boss is not longer legit. Diablo has become a semi-mmorpg, why can't bliz just understand that we don't all the time in the world to play your game.
This is beyond misconstrued. First off: the RMAH hasn't even been released and you're complaining. Secondly, you entered inferno with the most abysmal stats known to man (WD with double that and I'm still struggling).
Thirdly: The cut is to remove an inflate amount of gold. The 15% is to take away money from the system and help deflate prices (since there is a lot of gold coming in and being circulated). The 15% in the RMAH is the same as money comes in, but never comes out (it also helps slow down price-rising).
The AH and the RMAH is to help both regulate sales of in-game items (something Valve achieves) as well as avoid scams and issues that plagued all of D2. That's two-for-two while you label the whole thing as personal issue about greed is which flat-out ridiculous and making things personal.
I'm so sorry that the reptitious nature of farming bosses is no longer legitimate, bots could do it better and sell it on the black-market and derail prices to a record high anyways. The reason the AH is factor in with drops is to add both diversity, ensure rarity and create an actual competition amongst players to achieve the best items they could. There aren't limited amounts of a certain legendary or rare blacksmith recipe, there are just rates at which these items appear.
There are a lot of reasons to bitch and moan about Diablo III, but the ones you chose are 100% not gameplay related and just money banter
torte i simply do not want anything (other than the in-game mf and rng) to influence my drop.
Why wouldn't they try to manipulate drops?? So you get the gears that are not suitable to you and thus forcing you to use RMAH so they can get a cut? Or may be they needed to do so otherwise the system will be tanked eventually? Either way it sucks, why not just CUT it out from the game???
The last thing is, why would they introduce Tax if they solely made RMAH for the benefit of the players? You dont need 15% tax to avoid abuse. You are just greedy.
Well, that totally put me off from playing further of the game along with the fact that farming boss is not longer legit. Diablo has become a semi-mmorpg, why can't bliz just understand that we don't all the time in the world to play your game.
This is beyond misconstrued. First off: the RMAH hasn't even been released and you're complaining. Secondly, you entered inferno with the most abysmal stats known to man (WD with double that and I'm still struggling).
Thirdly: The cut is to remove an inflate amount of gold. The 15% is to take away money from the system and help deflate prices (since there is a lot of gold coming in and being circulated). The 15% in the RMAH is the same as money comes in, but never comes out (it also helps slow down price-rising).
The AH and the RMAH is to help both regulate sales of in-game items (something Valve achieves) as well as avoid scams and issues that plagued all of D2. That's two-for-two while you label the whole thing as personal issue about greed is which flat-out ridiculous and making things personal.
I'm so sorry that the reptitious nature of farming bosses is no longer legitimate, bots could do it better and sell it on the black-market and derail prices to a record high anyways. The reason the AH is factor in with drops is to add both diversity, ensure rarity and create an actual competition amongst players to achieve the best items they could. There aren't limited amounts of a certain legendary or rare blacksmith recipe, there are just rates at which these items appear.
There are a lot of reasons to bitch and moan about Diablo III, but the ones you chose are 100% not gameplay related and just money banter
torte i simply do not want anything (other than the in-game mf and rng) to influence my drop.
I edited in some more points. You don't know how it affects your drops and you don't know if it improves your declines the rate of your drops. You also don't know how much it affects your drops. You don't know when nor in what area it affects your drops (more gold, more gear specific to your class, less legendaries??)
It's like saying that you don't want the amount of light to affect how far you can see. The light is obviously a bulb affected by a dimmer switch, dictated by someone else rather than relying on the natural light of the sun to help see your ways.
Either way, you just don't like the idea that your game is being regulated and refined based on statistical output because its something you can't control (with MF and RNG, you have an illusioned feeling that the more MF you put on, the more control or improvement you get on your drops, something you think the auction house and regulation contradicts or rends irrelevant). Why complain about something you know so little about and can't see a direct affect in the game? If you didn't know if the AH affected your drops and if you didn't or ignored the AH in its entirety, the game remains the same
I think this is what we call complaining on a moot point.
On May 29 2012 22:14 Azzur wrote: People missing the point - the OP wants D3 to be much harder in terms to getting good gear - i.e. the OP wishes the AH never existed.
Anyways, the OP missing the point - there were always trading posts and forums for gear trading, the AH simply made it more efficient.
The OP sounds like someone talking about the "good-old-days" where things were much harder to do.
Lol, even I missed the point of the OP
This was because the OP is complaining about meaningless things
no, the op's point was that droprates are somehow changed by or because of ah basically he's complaining about something that doesn't actually exist lol
your drop rates aren't influenced by anything other than ingame mf and rng droprates are "manipulated" by the ah in the sense that they are lower across the board, but they're still completely random this is because ah makes it much easier to trade items
for example, imagine in d2 a certain mob drops an uncommon 50% of the time a rare 5% of the time and a legendary .5% of the time now in d3 the same mob will drop an uncommon 5% of the time a rare .5% of the time and a legendary .05% of the time
EPT
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the problem is AH is manipulating item drops.
