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Part 1: http://www.liquiddota.com/blogs/489533-on-terminology
Ler gives the commonly accepted usage of core.
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)
But this definition considers nearly every lineup "tri-core" as there will always be at least 3 farmers.
- Lifestealer Puck Tidehunter + Supports
- Juggernaut Shadowfiend Bristleback + Supports
By current popular definition, both these lineups are tri-core, even though it's one carry against three. Isn't a primary purpose of "core" to compare 4-protect-1, dual-core, and tri-core strategies?
Where did the term core come from?
Historically, core was used to talk about item builds, and not heroes. We talked about "core items" for heroes, as in what a hero is especially suited to build.
"Core" as a term to describe heroes exploded in popularity in 2013, when Alliance became known for their dual-core lineups with a utility tempo hero in the mid-lane. You can find a few cases of core heroes before 2013 but not many. Here in September 2012, it is used to describe iG's tri-core and NaVi's dual-core. In January before that, the same poster discusses Centaur as a core hero. In December, HolySKevin highlights Dendi's usage of Jakiro as a "semi-core hero instead of support."
At first, core was synonymous with carry. Later on the meaning began to shift. Here is a thread asking "What Does "Core" Mean" from July 2014.
I was able to figure out what "core" meant the first time I heard it, but why switch from "carry?" All you're going to do is confuse your teammates while you go on a petty little rant about "cores."
The word carry has since its initial usage confused players. Is a Dark Seer a carry just because it's farming? Is a Morphling a carry if it's not farming? Is a CM a carry if it's winning fights for its team, but not farming? Is it a carry if it starts farming? The nomenclature of "cores" and "supports", to distinguish those with farm priority from those without, is remarkably clear and straightforward.
What was once used to distinguish between single-core, dual-core, and tri-core lineups as a synonym for carry is now used to distinguish between farmers and non-farmers.
How did this happen?
I suspect it went something like this. First, core was used in place of carry due to whim of translation. This is adopted by a few people. Then, unconventional carries like Dendi's Jakiro were rightly called "cores" and this became widely adopted by casters such as Godz. Then in a misinformed leap, all farming heroes, including utility, became cores and casters adopted this usage, followed by the public.
I believe this usage to be incorrect and its spread concerns me. By bastardizing terms, legitimate uses lose meaning.
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A regular consequence of things gaining popularity, in a broader sense of globalization. Should I feel bad for feeling indifferent for the whole issue? It feels to me like fighting pop culture, you can show your disapproval, but only a small fraction of people you might reach out to will care.
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everything loses meaning as time goes by
Mr TobiWan invented the term rotate for anything.
Rotate to gank
Rotate to farm
Rotate to push
Rotate to defend
this triggers me
Rotation implies something is moving around an axis.
fuck u tobi and fuck everyone else who caught on the rotate-train
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On July 08 2015 03:25 ChunderBoy wrote:
everything loses meaning as time goes by
Mr TobiWan invented the term rotate for anything.
Rotate to gank
Rotate to farm
Rotate to push
Rotate to defend
this triggers me
Rotation implies something is moving around an axis.
fuck u tobi and fuck everyone else who caught on the rotate-train
I used to have the same reaction back when I played TF2, when people referred to teams having the 'momentum'.
+ Show Spoiler [I even wrote a blog about it] +If there was a contest for the most abused, overused or misused by the community term in the scope of game theory related to TF2, I'd vote for 'momentum', hands down. It's just an easy way to describe how teams deal with the current mental state of their opponents, so whenever one of them starts steamrolling, its being described as 'holding or having the momentum'. On the other hand, when the other team begins to withhold the pressure and attacks back, it 'reclaims, regains or steals the enemy team's momentum'.
And, I mean, what the fuck. This is not classical mechanics, lads.
The reason for which I get so upset about it is because of the misconceptions new players might get regarding flow of the game, as well as the misconceptions the Old Guard already has about it. What it leads to is people thinking they have to prepare a defensive stance in order to take a full brunt in their chests, hold the aggression firmly and then push their opponents back. Which is completely bullshit, even in relation to real life. When there's a fucking 2x2x2m that's about to ram into you, you aren't just going to stand there and wait for the impact. What you are going to do is do a high jump, backflip and then smash him in his back with your feet while in the air, Bruce Lee style. And that is exactly how you should address aggression in TF2 - by taking initiative and striking back, especially where it hurts the most. Many, if not the majority of the tactics you get to see nowadays have some blunt flaws that are just waiting to be exploited - and that's where you should attack. I do believe that the best example of such situations are most of Granary middle fights. Once one team starts losing, it tends to sit in the corner of the middle area and wait for picks' opportunities to arise. What they seem to not realize, every fucking time, is that if just one of the soldiers take their crate (not to mention both of them), they are toasted. That's one of the reasons for which Granary is seen as a team map - people just find themselves lost in situations where additional support is advisable (not to mention that this exact opinion cripples them from the very beginning). What I said about initiative holds true - unconventional tactics and pure aggression are always going to beat sitting and waiting for an impact.
Applying game theory, or any sort of theory in general, to this game only limits your mind if you are unable of thinking beyond the box. Be mindful of that.
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I thought the term "core" originated with Valve's fantasy dota in the ti3 compendium, which categorized players as either core or support. I don't recall hearing the term in the context of heroes/players before then, but I don't really follow things like this.
I had the same feeling about "rotation" before but now I use it in games too. Eh.
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On July 08 2015 03:45 Baozi wrote:
I thought the term "core" originated with Valve's fantasy dota in the ti3 compendium, which categorized players as either core or support. I don't recall hearing the term in the context of heroes/players before then, but I don't really follow things like this.
I had the same feeling about "rotation" before but now I use it in games too. Eh.
That would explain why usage of the term suddenly exploded, good observation
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The term late-bloomer doesn't sound as cool.
Core in a geometric sense implies relative position. This means that the other heroes move around that center. This implies that the core has to have good survivability, or it wouldn't be wise to be the center of attention.
I don't take into account how "core" as a term surfaced here, but in this light a core is a hero that has good survivability scaling into the late-game (when there will be team fights. Which implies that Russian doto has a lot more cores :-) ).
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To me the core definition is fine. I don't have an exact definition for carry, but in my mind it's something along the lines of "the player that goes most above their respective role towards winning the game". I suppose core defines the roles of each player, while to me carry is about the in game performance of each player.
If your AM is 20-0 and is winning the game single-handedly, of course you will say that this player is the carry. Or if your CM is 0-0-25 and won every lane for your team, then this player is carrying. Here's where my definition breaks down though, if your CM is 0-0-25 and won all the lanes and your AM is 18-1-whatever with a majority of the kills and towers, who is the carry now?
I think carry is a tough definition to pin down, especially if we're talking about pub dota. What about the player who called for all the smoke ganks that caught you up in the mid game? Or the player who refused to quit when you were mega'd and you end up winning, or the player who diffused tension between two players or got someone to stop AFK'ing in the fountain allowing for a come back? These people could have as much impact as the 25-0 AM or the earthshaker that ganked mid 5 time causing their mid player to disconnect (is their mid player your carry here??).
Another thought:
-does every game have a carry for both teams? If every lane lost horribly and the opponent wins at 20min, does your team have a carry? Can a losing team even have a carry? Can a team have multiple carries?
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On July 08 2015 04:35 emperorchampion wrote:
To me the core definition is fine. I don't have an exact definition for carry, but in my mind it's something along the lines of "the player that goes most above their respective role towards winning the game". I suppose core defines the roles of each player, while to me carry is about the in game performance of each player.
If your AM is 20-0 and is winning the game single-handedly, of course you will say that this player is the carry. Or if your CM is 0-0-25 and won every lane for your team, then this player is carrying. Here's where my definition breaks down though, if your CM is 0-0-25 and won all the lanes and your AM is 18-1-whatever with a majority of the kills and towers, who is the carry now?
I think carry is a tough definition to pin down, especially if we're talking about pub dota. What about the player who called for all the smoke ganks that caught you up in the mid game? Or the player who refused to quit when you were mega'd and you end up winning, or the player who diffused tension between two players or got someone to stop AFK'ing in the fountain allowing for a come back? These people could have as much impact as the 25-0 AM or the earthshaker that ganked mid 5 time causing their mid player to disconnect (is their mid player your carry here??).
Another thought:
-does every game have a carry for both teams? If every lane lost horribly and the opponent wins at 20min, does your team have a carry? Can a losing team even have a carry? Can a team have multiple carries?
The widely accepted defenition of a carry in terms of dota heroes is a hero who scales better-than-average into the lategame with gold and experience
You're talking about carry in the sense of an actual player (not a hero) who does exceptionally well compared to the rest of his team (i.e. ferrari 430 carried iG for most of the second half of 2014)
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it's almost like words can have different meanings depending on context and sometimes you have to clarify what you mean when you use them ambiguously
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On July 08 2015 05:20 tehh4ck3r wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2015 04:35 emperorchampion wrote:
To me the core definition is fine. I don't have an exact definition for carry, but in my mind it's something along the lines of "the player that goes most above their respective role towards winning the game". I suppose core defines the roles of each player, while to me carry is about the in game performance of each player.
If your AM is 20-0 and is winning the game single-handedly, of course you will say that this player is the carry. Or if your CM is 0-0-25 and won every lane for your team, then this player is carrying. Here's where my definition breaks down though, if your CM is 0-0-25 and won all the lanes and your AM is 18-1-whatever with a majority of the kills and towers, who is the carry now?
I think carry is a tough definition to pin down, especially if we're talking about pub dota. What about the player who called for all the smoke ganks that caught you up in the mid game? Or the player who refused to quit when you were mega'd and you end up winning, or the player who diffused tension between two players or got someone to stop AFK'ing in the fountain allowing for a come back? These people could have as much impact as the 25-0 AM or the earthshaker that ganked mid 5 time causing their mid player to disconnect (is their mid player your carry here??).
Another thought:
-does every game have a carry for both teams? If every lane lost horribly and the opponent wins at 20min, does your team have a carry? Can a losing team even have a carry? Can a team have multiple carries? The widely accepted defenition of a carry in terms of dota heroes is a hero who scales better-than-average into the lategame with gold and experience You're talking about carry in the sense of an actual player (not a hero) who does exceptionally well compared to the rest of his team (i.e. ferrari 430 carried iG for most of the second half of 2014)
Good point.
Here's how I see it now, the cores reflect the true farm priority of the team, whereas the carry reflects the innate scaling ability of the hero. You could have core supports, and in some games this happens; however generally you want to have your cores as carries due to their scaling.
I would divide it as such:
-Roles: Carry and support
-Positions: Core and support
I think this terminology is very useful, however I can't think of another term that is used apart from support in both cases. We have "carry-ers" and "support-ers", and also core positions and support positions. For instance Naga is a carry, undoubtedly, however she can play in the support position while later transitioning to a core position. I definitely think that there needs to be this core/carry duality to describe such a scenario as a core Jakiro or a support Naga, where the old support/carry paradigm just isn't enough. I just think that there needs to be another word other than support to describe either low farm priority or bad scaling heros that currently exists in Dota-speak (unless I'm just not thinking of it at the moment).
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every hero and player is a core
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On July 08 2015 09:53 Kupon3ss wrote:
every hero and player is a core
I've seen some players be pretty 'uncore' at times 
source: My own pubs
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On July 08 2015 05:54 SpiritoftheTunA wrote:
it's almost like words can have different meanings depending on context and sometimes you have to clarify what you mean when you use them ambiguously
Kinda how I feel on the subject.
Plus a bit of wondering why people would object to terms rotating (ka... nevermind dont wanna get banned) in meaning as time goes on.
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I don't get the fuss on this.
Carry
Noun: A hero that takes up #1 farm priority AND scales well late game. Eg. Spectre is a carry.
Verb: A hero/player that played exceptionally well, or a hero/player that was the key factor for the win. Eg. The cm carried us. We turtled enough for the medu to carry us.
Adjective: Implies a hero going for a late game/DPS build, or a hero with high farm priority. Eg. Dendi won with a carry maiden yesterday. I play only carry heroes in pubs.
Core
Noun: A hero that scales well into late game, and is given the farm to do so or has somehow obtained that farm. Eg. Alliance 2013 often ran dual core strategies. This is such a greedy tri core lineup of terrorblade, naga and prophet.
Adjective: A hero given farm/exp priority. Usually used on heroes that have multiple roles, or are usually played as support. Eg. Universe is playing the core jakiro. This look like a pocket core Rhasta pick. Suddenly aui's support naga has become a core naga.
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Carry = Core
Core != Carry
End? :D
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Carry is a hero that scales (in respect to damage/armor/health) with items and exp
core is a hero that you NEED to give resource to be impactful, not necessarily a carry but some one you need to devote resources to for the hero to fulfil whatever role it was required to fulfil.
they are different schools of thought, carry/support is a very linear approach to understanding the resource management of the game, you give resource to the damage dealer.
cores is very timing based. a puck core is not going to be a carry in late game but she will contribute as a core in mid game due to her utilities.
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On July 08 2015 15:27 Ler wrote:
Carry = Core
Core != Carry
End? :D
Democracy!
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SoCal8908 Posts
On July 08 2015 15:27 Ler wrote:
Carry = Core
Core != Carry
End? :D
just like squares and rectangles, exactly.
i personally don't see anything wrong with the terminology "core" when it's used to talk about your 1, 2, and 3 pos heroes. carry, as many people pointed out, refers to a hero that scales really well as the game progresses through farm.
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On July 08 2015 15:18 DucK- wrote:
I don't get the fuss on this.
Carry
Noun: A hero that takes up #1 farm priority AND scales well late game. Eg. Spectre is a carry.
Verb: A hero/player that played exceptionally well, or a hero/player that was the key factor for the win. Eg. The cm carried us. We turtled enough for the medu to carry us.
Adjective: Implies a hero going for a late game/DPS build, or a hero with high farm priority. Eg. Dendi won with a carry maiden yesterday. I play only carry heroes in pubs.
Core
Noun: A hero that scales well into late game, and is given the farm to do so or has somehow obtained that farm. Eg. Alliance 2013 often ran dual core strategies. This is such a greedy tri core lineup of terrorblade, naga and prophet.
Adjective: A hero given farm/exp priority. Usually used on heroes that have multiple roles, or are usually played as support. Eg. Universe is playing the core jakiro. This look like a pocket core Rhasta pick. Suddenly aui's support naga has become a core naga.
Two things I have a different understanding off: the core noun and the carry noun.
A core doesnt have to scale imo, Undying can be a core f.e.. Somewhat congruent with your adjective definition.
For me a carry doesnt have to take #1 priority, Loda and Bulldog often were head to head in terms of gold when Alliance was still the team to beat, and both often played two carries in the same game.
Dual-cores and tri-cores don't make much sense in the way that core is used now, since essentially they mean dual-carry or tri-carry strats. As in carry being a hero that gets farm priority, scales well and farms a lot.
Pudge is hardly a carry, QoP can be played as one and SF pretty much always is. All three are played pretty much exclusively as cores.
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I think it's a mistake to equate carry with farm. Here are some examples to think about.
- If a team runs lich spectre offlane (which the chinese did in the past), and essentially sacrifices the spectre's farm early on in favor of the tempo heroes, isn't the spectre still the carry?
- If a team puts their carries in safelane and offlane (like Alliance used to), in the 1 and 3 farm positions, isn't the offlane 3 still the carry, and not the midlane 2 which is given more farm in the early game? Later on the offlane "3" will transition into the "2" by farm priority, but he was still always the carry and not the mid lane tempo hero.
Carry is not merely determined by farm, but by how the team views it strategically.
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For me,
Core is:
The hero/position that you build your game upon and expect it to impact the game on your favor. Make it a 4 protect 1 antimage, TI3 bulldong furion, storm player in mid to snowball or offlane centaur that you expect to have blink. they don't have to scale in late game either. Think pugna+DK with a 5 man ward push lineup, those 2 core heroes soak XP/gold briefly to obtain some levels/minor items and rain on your tower. It doesn't mean they'll farm a long period of time rather you make your plans according to the performance of those heroes.
Carry is:
The role in which you expect to have impact after soaking some xp/gold. There is no mainstream "early game carry" s far as I remember. The impact is higher the more your secure farm on it. In traditional sense, agi carries generally scales well with items and the game progresses. Some carries have different peak times and performance gradients. I.e void or gyro scale more and more as the farm progress going well. Tiny is another example but shows a very good mid game presence with magic damage, later fall a little bit in physical damage department, then will scale very good approaching 6 slot.
In general carries are cores but you don't generally rely on purely full skill set as carries but you can play a core role with skill set only without farm priorities.
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On July 10 2015 12:49 aboxcar wrote:
I think it's a mistake to equate carry with farm. Here are some examples to think about.
- If a team runs lich spectre offlane (which the chinese did in the past), and essentially sacrifices the spectre's farm early on in favor of the tempo heroes, isn't the spectre still the carry?
- If a team puts their carries in safelane and offlane (like Alliance used to), in the 1 and 3 farm positions, isn't the offlane 3 still the carry, and not the midlane 2 which is given more farm in the early game? Later on the offlane "3" will transition into the "2" by farm priority, but he was still always the carry and not the mid lane tempo hero.
Carry is not merely determined by farm, but by how the team views it strategically.
Well if they farm more after a certain point in time they are still the carry, right? In terms of overall nw and cs they will pass their respective tempo controller almost always, because they farm a lot more.
Spectre is the carry, because she at some points starts farming and will never stop until she is six-slotted. If we use your example and they just didnt give spectre any farm but continue to play her as a tempo controlling offlaner around her ultimate, she wouldnt be the carry imo.
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On July 10 2015 12:49 aboxcar wrote:
I think it's a mistake to equate carry with farm. Here are some examples to think about.
- If a team runs lich spectre offlane (which the chinese did in the past), and essentially sacrifices the spectre's farm early on in favor of the tempo heroes, isn't the spectre still the carry?
- If a team puts their carries in safelane and offlane (like Alliance used to), in the 1 and 3 farm positions, isn't the offlane 3 still the carry, and not the midlane 2 which is given more farm in the early game? Later on the offlane "3" will transition into the "2" by farm priority, but he was still always the carry and not the mid lane tempo hero.
Carry is not merely determined by farm, but by how the team views it strategically.
The term reflects the entire game, not just the laning phase.
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Yes I agree with above posts
But what if they get shut down and the Spectre never gets a chance to break into the top of the farm?
My point is that focusing on the farm aspect is myopic and sometimes even meaningless. The purpose is to be able to think and talk about the larger strategic meta-game.
In other words, saying that "farm is what makes the cores, and the most farm is what makes the carry" is not enough. We can't really discuss anything meaningfully if we stop here.
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On July 13 2015 13:56 aboxcar wrote:
Yes I agree with above posts
But what if they get shut down and the Spectre never gets a chance to break into the top of the farm?
My point is that focusing on the farm aspect is myopic and sometimes even meaningless. The purpose is to be able to think and talk about the larger strategic meta-game.
In other words, saying that "farm is what makes the cores, and the most farm is what makes the carry" is not enough. We can't really discuss anything meaningfully if we stop here.
I think you need to learn the difference between "farm priority" and "farm", because you're arguing against a strawman.
There's no meaningful discussion if you don't understand what everyone else is posting in this thread.
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United States333 Posts
To me, a 'carry' has always meant a hero that can and will scale with XP/gear (hard hitting right-clickers, more-or-less).
Ex:
Anti-Mage is a carry (looking for damage gear and heavy right clicks)
Lion is not (item choices are never based on right clicks and the hero is much more ability-dependent)
This does not mean, however, that a 'non-carry' cannot "carry" you/your team in individual games.
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On July 13 2015 14:37 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 13:56 aboxcar wrote:
Yes I agree with above posts
But what if they get shut down and the Spectre never gets a chance to break into the top of the farm?
My point is that focusing on the farm aspect is myopic and sometimes even meaningless. The purpose is to be able to think and talk about the larger strategic meta-game.
In other words, saying that "farm is what makes the cores, and the most farm is what makes the carry" is not enough. We can't really discuss anything meaningfully if we stop here. I think you need to learn the difference between "farm priority" and "farm", because you're arguing against a strawman. There's no meaningful discussion if you don't understand what everyone else is posting in this thread.
Well originally I was arguing that core has been redefined so as to be rendered less meaningful.
The farm thing is kind of a tangent. Here, I want to say that the reductionism of focusing our lens on farm (or farm priority) blurs the larger picture. It is not that farm (or farm priority) makes the carry. It is the other way around. It is because a hero or position is a carry that we give him the farm (at the appropriate times, depending on our strategy). It's mistaking an attribute for the essential.
I suspect that everyone actually knows what a carry is. He is the one who "carries" you, but you can't very well define it like that. Even people who use the word "core" to mean farmer have an inchoate understanding that it is not the same as carry. But in struggling to define carry, people resort to farm (priority), and I think this is incorrect.
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To me these terms all speak to explain something before the game starts. To me they're like the "Plan." Do plans change? Yes of course they do. But that doesn't mean the terms do in my opinion.
I see these terms as just a quick way of explaining farming priorities, 1,2,3,4 and 5. Before the game starts, the team decides who they are going to allocate the most farm to, the second most, etc. Positions to me are:
1 = Safe Lane Farm
2 = Mid Lane
3 = Solo Offlane
4 = Support number 1 who gets more farm priority than the other support
5 = Support number 2 who gets the least amount of farm priority on the team
To me the term "Carry" means the number 1 role, i.e. the one person/hero the team decides is going to get the most farm priority before the game starts. This doesn't mean a different person/hero can't get more farm then the Carry does, all it means is that if he does then he's doing it while his team is still giving top priority to someone else even though they're not getting as much. That doesn't then make that person the Carry, he's still not the person/hero the team is giving the most farm priority to so he's still not the Carry. It's weird to me that everyone here seems to think Carry means "a hero that scares well into late game" or "the person who actually carried us to the win." Just because you win on the back of a support CM playing really well, she's still a support...not a carry. Also, I've seen teams play and win with number one position Pugna or Slardar who both do not scale well into late game but are still, to me, the Carry because they were given the position 1 role by the team before the game starts. Carry doesn't mean "scales well into late game" to me, it means "person who is given number 1 farm priority before the game starts."
"Core" is just a quick way of saying the 1,2 or 3 role positions on the team, i.e. the 3 people/heroes the team decides is going to get the most farm priority, again, before the game starts. To me these terms have nothing to do with how heroes scale or how the game actually plays out, it has to do with farm priority and planning before anything actually happens.
So the terms don't mean anything really by the mid game, and definitely nothing by the end game. To me these terms should specifically mean for planning, not to give a definition of something as the game is progressing. That's really the only way these terms make any sense to me because once you start trying to apply what's actually happening to defining a word then the terms lose all meaning because ultimately anything can happen.
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EPT
