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On Terminology

Blogs > aboxcar
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aboxcar
Profile Blog Joined May 2013
United States447 Posts
July 06 2015 23:56 GMT
#1
In the real world, oftentimes many wrongs do make a right.

If an untruth is repeated, it becomes history. If a mispronunciation is voiced enough, it becomes accepted. If a term that once meant something else is borrowed enough, it becomes appropriated. Perception becomes reality.

I have a few questions for those who believe words have meaning. How would you define core in Dota? What is the difference between core and carry?

Is Tidehunter considered a core?

If a lineup consists of Lifestealer, Shadow Demon, Dazzle, Puck, and Batrider, how many cores is this lineup and which heroes are they?

What about a lineup consisting of Shadow Shaman (farming safelane), Dazzle, Chen, Puck, and Tidehunter. How many cores is this lineup?

Naga Siren, Rubick, Dazzle, Templar Assassin, Furion. How many cores?
everything that rises must converge
Tephus
Profile Joined May 2011
Cascadia1753 Posts
July 07 2015 01:01 GMT
#2
I think the word core has less to do with heroes, and more to do with how the team uses them.

Generally, any hero given farm priority in a lane that can maintain a decent gpm the rest of the game is a core. 4s that can farm really well can become cores (enigma, midas on some other junglers/supports).

Carries are heroes who's game impact heavily scale with items.
AdministratorDirector of Esports
Fleetfeet
Profile Blog Joined May 2014
Canada2573 Posts
July 07 2015 01:22 GMT
#3
I don't find the terms to be that muddy.

A core is a hero that's looking for farm towards a specific timing or series of timings and is allocated farm priority and space suited to that. An example is Puck or Zeus, who will get items and more or less immediately try leverage that advantage to secure a further advantage via ganking or pushing or fighting or whatever. While they won't necessarily farm at the exception of teamfighting or ganking, they won't stop farming either, because they still benefit from further items and there is no carry that can farm the whole map at once, so there's farm to spare.

A carry is a hero that gets a farm accelerator early and uses that plus a natural skillset to secure yet more farm in the pressing quest to get gigantic and steamroll the other team.

A support is a hero that puts their own farm as secondary to the rest of the team's, and is looking to pick up items to help cores and carries achieve their goals faster.

"Is Tidehunter considered a core?" - He can be. If you stick him offlane solo against another melee he's a core, but if he's offlane against a trilane he's a watermelon that explodes into tentacles without blinking in first.

"lineup of Lifestealer (Carry), Shadow Demon (Support), Dazzle (Support), Puck (Core), Batrider (Core)"

"Lineup of Shadow Shaman (if farming safelane, core), Dazzle (supp), Chen (supp), Puck (Core), Tidehunter (depends)"

"Naga siren (Core/carry), Rubick (supp), Dazzle (supp), Templar Assassin (Core/carry), Furion (Core/carry)"

The last one depends how the game goes and how the enemy team plays against you. You've got three heroes capable of carrying but they're obviously not all going to carry. It could end up that TA/Furi/dazzle/rubick end up making space for the naga to get huge, but it could also be that the TA and supports get enough of an advantage early that naga just joins in on the push and ends up more as a support to TA's early/midgame potential than the lategame carry she otherwise would be.

I guess part of what would make the terms seem muddy is that there are a ton of heroes that can really be anything, like Lesh or Drow and stuff, but for the most part I find carry / core / support to be relatively clear guidelines.
Verniy
Profile Joined May 2015
Canada3360 Posts
July 07 2015 04:54 GMT
#4
Pretty much what's been stated above. A carry is any hero that scales well with items and looks to be their team's overwhelming lategame presence. A core is any hero that's given space to farm.
Offlaners like Tidehunter or Clockwerk are usually cores, but rarely have the potential to truly carry.
Heaven's Halberd is the most criminally underbought item in Dota. Together we can stop this.
DucK-
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
Singapore11447 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-07-07 05:28:51
July 07 2015 05:19 GMT
#5
I would say to view the terms in context. Sometimes core would refer to heroes that will take up farm, regardless of their ability to carry. For example, Yoky pioneered the offlane core Shaker. Or core veno/silencer. It means these heroes are not played as supports. Also important that in this context, we put the term core because the hero can be and would most likely be played as a support role. Hence we don't bother saying 'oh Dendi is playing a core puck'.

You can't really put an absolute meaning to the term because otherwise by default there will be always 3 cores on each team.

That's why sometimes core and carry are interchangeably used. For example, we could say that alliance 2013 often ran dual core lineups, with prophet and loda hero as the core, and s4 on the playmaking solo mid. Or a 4 position WK/mirana has become a core. In these case, we are referring to the carrying ability.

So for the scenarios you have given, I would say 1) this is a single core lineup, 2) the lineup is running a core rhasta, but this is a zero core lineup, 3) this is a tri core lineup.

For carry though, I personally would exclusively use it to refer to heroes that need farm to function, and will likely be farming throughout the game.
ChunderBoy
Profile Joined August 2011
3242 Posts
July 07 2015 09:00 GMT
#6
core is someone u put in a lane to get gold//xp
"mmr is a social construct" - tumblr
Ler
Profile Blog Joined August 2012
Germany543 Posts
July 07 2015 11:54 GMT
#7
Cores = Heroes that get a lot of exp and farm distributed by their team.
Carry = The Position 1 of every team (the hero that gets the most Gold/Exp distributed by his team)
Twitter: @Ler_GG | Facebook: lergg | youtube: lerlolgg | Twitch.tv/gg_nore | #ArtOfSupport
aboxcar
Profile Blog Joined May 2013
United States447 Posts
July 07 2015 16:12 GMT
#8
On July 07 2015 20:54 Ler wrote:
Cores = Heroes that get a lot of exp and farm distributed by their team.
Carry = The Position 1 of every team (the hero that gets the most Gold/Exp distributed by his team)


By this popular definition, basically every lineup is at least a "tri-core" lineup.

Lifestealer Puck Tidehunter + Supports
Juggernaut Shadowfiend Bristleback + Supports

Are you going to call both of these lineups tri-core?

DucK- (I assume you're Chinese?) realizes that this cannot be right, and explains that core has two definitions, one meaning farmer and the other meaning carry:

2) the lineup is running a core rhasta, but this is a zero core lineup


Don't you see that this is silly?
everything that rises must converge
DucK-
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
Singapore11447 Posts
July 07 2015 16:30 GMT
#9
On July 08 2015 01:12 aboxcar wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 07 2015 20:54 Ler wrote:
Cores = Heroes that get a lot of exp and farm distributed by their team.
Carry = The Position 1 of every team (the hero that gets the most Gold/Exp distributed by his team)


By this popular definition, basically every lineup is at least a "tri-core" lineup.

Lifestealer Puck Tidehunter + Supports
Juggernaut Shadowfiend Bristleback + Supports

Are you going to call both of these lineups tri-core?

DucK- (I assume you're Chinese?) realizes that this cannot be right, and explains that core has two definitions, one meaning farmer and the other meaning carry:

Show nested quote +
2) the lineup is running a core rhasta, but this is a zero core lineup


Don't you see that this is silly?


Yep I'm ethnically Chinese.

I do agree it is silly. Maybe you could view them as adjectives and nouns.
makmeatt
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
2024 Posts
July 07 2015 17:14 GMT
#10
I don't think I'm watching enough competitive Dota to pick up on the issue you are trying to present here, for me personally it's rarely a head-scratcher to look at a lineup and have multiple possible role assignments (that is without looking at players who play them). I'd go as far as to call the one/two heroes who will scale well into late game while the others' ability to fight (without items) will falter, and call a core everyone whose farm is prioritized. If a strategy revolves around a Sand King wrecking everyone with an early dagger+epi, then even if he's not farming much after getting a dagger, but still plays a major role in fights, then calling him a core hero makes sense.

In either case, and this is taking a stab at a reason this popped up, whatever you hear from casters has to be understandable by most people and so, commonly used. In this age, when Reddit supposedly influences the dev process, it's hard not to expect things to be tailored for the lowest common denominator.
"Silver Edge can't break my hope" - Kryptt 2016 || "Chrono is not a debuff, you just get rekt" - Guru 2016
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