EPTAn awesome article. Very very well done.
Strategy Over Skill: Alliance Ascendant - Page 5
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Adron
Netherlands839 Posts
An awesome article. Very very well done. | ||
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DDie
Brazil2369 Posts
On December 02 2014 04:57 schmitty9800 wrote: Wow, very cool. I bet TI4's analysis won't be so long. "Get some tanky cores and push towers at 12 minutes. Hell, you can even afford a 4 position Doom" You can also "analyse" alliance strat in one phrase "rat till you get ganked, buyback and rat different lane". | ||
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Bisu-Fan
Russian Federation3338 Posts
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DucK-
Singapore11447 Posts
On December 02 2014 09:48 TheYango wrote: Heavy farm allocation to supports was not a concept purely pioneered by Alliance. While most of DotA 2 to that point was highlighted by generally poor support farm allocation, the concept in and of itself was not a foreign one, as it had been explored in DotA 1 to some degree (6.73-6.74 Chinese DotA 1 saw a brief surge in this regard, particularly from the newly merged iG at the time). What Alliance did was 1) recognize that 6.78 was a version suitable for this (contrary to many top teams' understanding of the version), and 2) refine their overall farm distribution to minimize inefficiencies, downtime, and risks. The bolded part above isn't really true. What is true is that Alliance made enormous leaps forward in enabling and optimizing the use of such supports, but the concept itself was by no means introduced to DotA by them. Yea it had been long argued that supports should have some farm, and that cores should sacrifice some of theirs for that purpose. However many teams especially the Chinese never believed in that. Their mindset was that carries should take whatever farm there was, and that supports only get items via bounty/towers gold. After all carries are the ones that will carry the game. Alliance showed how beneficial it was to have supports with 1-2 items by trading with a carry with slightly less farm. And the carries don't really lose out because the teamfights won through having those farmed supports made up for it. Right now eg has brought it to another level by diverting all this additional farm for supports towards just Zai, with PPD having nothing usually on a support that doesn't need anything. | ||
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gulati
United States2241 Posts
so far so good<3 | ||
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elagrion
Ukraine422 Posts
And Sn0_Man, TheEmulator, RabidCH, Nixer - you are all amazing too. | ||
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Tricks
United States252 Posts
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Caladbolg
2855 Posts
Which makes Na'Vi equally amazing back then, because they really brought it to Alliance in TI. | ||
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broodbucket
Australia963 Posts
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Flowsick
Estonia234 Posts
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Laurens
Belgium4557 Posts
The assortment of drafts is hilarious, Prophet/LD in 15/18 line-ups. Mostly Prophet actually. Makes me wonder if the other teams should've just banned that hero and try to deal with the supports. | ||
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RebirthOfLeGenD
USA5860 Posts
On December 02 2014 06:47 TanGeng wrote: The main problem with the title is that Strategy is Skill. The distinction being made is that Strategy is 3rd order skill, whereas Tactics is 2nd order skill and fundamentals is 1st order skill. The fundamentals are your individual talent and on-point execution. Tactics are your combinations and short term decision-making. Strategy would be your draft system and game planning. Your tactics already accounts for team fundamentals. Your strategy already accounts for team tactics. In general, the team with the superior strategy wins. Whether the strategy is the pinnacle of optimization built on top of a tactical foundation that is merely adequate or the strategy is the mindless application of a set of invincible tactics does not matter. I disagree. The team with the better strategy will win assuming two teams skill is equal, or negligible. I think the point of the article is that the difference in skill between each one of the players of Alliance wasn't even close to the best at their position among their peers and would be outclassed by the majority of the players at TI3. However the way they ran supports was completely different to where it completely overwhelmed the skill gap that their individual players may have faced against their peers. | ||
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spudde123
4814 Posts
On December 02 2014 19:33 RebirthOfLeGenD wrote: I disagree. The team with the better strategy will win assuming two teams skill is equal, or negligible. I think the point of the article is that the difference in skill between each one of the players of Alliance wasn't even close to the best at their position among their peers and would be outclassed by the majority of the players at TI3. However the way they ran supports was completely different to where it completely overwhelmed the skill gap that their individual players may have faced against their peers. What is your definition of skill here? I always find it a bit tricky if one starts to separate skill from deciding what to do. In an equal situation someone else might lane a bit better or position themselves better for a teamfight and use their abilities at the right time on the right targets. But that doesn't really matter if you are consistently at the wrong place being inefficient, taking the wrong fights, or if you have set yourself way too far behind by having far less items than the other team. Imo "outplay" can happen just as much through superior map movement as it can through far better execution of teamfights or whatever. I find there to be a similar concept in fps games. There the purest form of "skill" is of course the ability to aim. Players who do incredible shots constantly are often talked about as some of the most skilled in the game. But ultimately aim itself is rather irrelevant, it's only relevant when you combine it together with your ability to read the game, to position yourself, to play off your teammates, etc. If you do the other things well, you put yourself in a position where many shots you have to take are actually rather easy. Is the more skilled player the one who aims better in a vacuum or the one who consistently makes the situation easier for himself by making better broader decisions together with his team? Obviously in cs for example the situation is a bit different, because the advantage of having a superior understanding of the game (other concepts than aim) doesn't really disappear because the game itself doesn't really change as much. Maps or playstyles may change over time, but largely the game is the same. Dota as a game changes due to patches. Some people may gain a far superior understanding of the game momentarily, but it may disappear once others see what you are doing or when a new patch hits and changes the game again. | ||
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Sprouter
United States1724 Posts
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GinNtoniC
Sweden2945 Posts
Brilliant stuff, this inspired me a ton! | ||
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vvjacobo
Spain1 Post
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Mithhaike
Singapore2759 Posts
Your article is spot on in analysing how the hell did Alliance win TI3. It was obvious to anyone, even back then making dream team etc, that Alliance didn't have the best players in each position. There was always someone better, yet they dominated the game during 6.78. They were the focus of every single team and yet, it took nearly half a year AND icefrog's help to finally stop them. I couldn't agree more with how Alliance strategy is just so ahead of the rest of the world, that mistakes are actually a non-issue. I do hope everyone realised how sick that accomplishment is, especially at the pro-dota level. What differentiates pros from the rabble is that their great at exploiting mistakes and turning those mistakes into wins. Alliance was at a level so different from the rest of the world, that it didn't really matter they made mistakes. That's just pure genius right there. Now after TI3, their contributions continued to affect the game and the advancement in strategy they made is still being used. I think the major reason behind the hype of TI3 is because all of us instinctively knew that Alliance is doing something different, but we couldn't figure out what, but we rooted for them and for other teams to try and stop Alliance. TI3 was a magical ride of storylines, of strategy so advanced it defied the entire world. Your article made me recall the heady days of TI2/TI3, of the teams and storylines that made up DOTA. Thank you. | ||
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bagels21
United States4357 Posts
On December 02 2014 17:38 Laurens wrote: Amazing article. The assortment of drafts is hilarious, Prophet/LD in 15/18 line-ups. Mostly Prophet actually. Makes me wonder if the other teams should've just banned that hero and try to deal with the supports. That was the common view back then, ban one of LD/NP and one of bat/wisp and then take whatever's left however, Ver explicitly mentions how Na'vi started beating Alliance when they banned all 4 of their core greedy supports (naga, chen ,enchant, wisp) | ||
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goody153
44252 Posts
Do a newbee analysis next time pls ! (or maybe C9 since they win games weirdly) and the obligatory LIQUID ARE DOING IT | ||
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HolKann
5 Posts
Alliance’s bourgeois supports against DK’s destitute duo. Literary gold :D | ||
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