Disclaimer : Once again, I apologize for the audio-video sync problems as I had to re-fraps the video because fraps messed up on me the first time I got the audio in. Rather than focussing on the gameplay, I hope you can listen to the insights I give in order to learn. Please read before watching : The video/commentary guide covers the following aspects:
Tinker's Skill builds ( at its highest complexity involved - to only pump skills according to needs) Tinker's Item builds ( situational items ) Tinker- using laser to eff up your opponent's last hits Tinker's ability to counter kill when getting ganked Tinker's decision to farm/gank Tinker - the blink dagger revolution Tinker- the micro to bottle up while getting ganked Tinker - the usage of all resources of the map to farm Tinker - helping your team secure roshan by pressuring lanes Tinker - split pushing while your team sieges a tower Tinker - EFFING YOUR OPPONENT UP WITH THIS SKILL CALLED REARM
Please leave your questions / comments and I will try my best to answer them
Thanks. Much appreciated if you could like / comment / subscribe if you learnt something / enjoyed.
youtube.com/NewWorldDotA ( the next Luminous cause I'm Chinese)
On skill build, I always try to get 1 or sometimes nil in laser before going max rocket > max march. In my mind, I like playing tinker as a long range artillery kind of hero by spamming rocket with some march support to blanketing the fighting field.
Why is your preference for laser? I feel it is a very strong laning skill but in teamfight, it is very difficult skill to use due to its short range which puts you in a dangerous position prior to dagger which in my case I like the cowardly way of maxing rocket for spamming and laser is close to max when I get dagger.
Item-wise, I usually follow the same i.e. bottle first (laning) or soul ring first (ancient) into BoT and getting the other item not gotten before getting blink dagger.
I HATE Forcestaff with a vengeance because I feel that if I get caught with blink cd-ed by damage, I am just badly positioned. Dagger allows blinking into trees and much faster gap closing. Any situation where forcestaff is much superior to dagger?
From the video, I do about the same actions, i.e. farm lane, farm nc and rinse repeat. Do you ever feel that you are sometimes overpushing the lanes which then gives the enemy a safe farming lane?
Currently only 58% wr on tinker playing on VH solo. I feel like either for close games, the win is all predicated on tinker getting the BoT asap and if I get screwed early by lots of ganks or blocked ancient, the game is well beyond me and only rests on my teammates (which can be unreliable at times). Is there anyway for me to remedy that (on an individual level)? Stack nc to farm? Marching lanes from far?
Laser is pure damage. More painful. I went laser march to farm pressure lanes quicker. You should never worry about overpushing. Overpushing grants map control for your team to farm ancients and jungle. In the long run you would outfarm the opponents. Also it allows your team to secure rosh. Force staff is a utility item excellent for kiting enemy melee heroes like sven and lifestealer which is an item you can consider to help your team.
On July 18 2013 13:38 lazyitachi wrote: On skill build, I always try to get 1 or sometimes nil in laser before going max rocket > max march. In my mind, I like playing tinker as a long range artillery kind of hero by spamming rocket with some march support to blanketing the fighting field.
Why is your preference for laser? I feel it is a very strong laning skill but in teamfight, it is very difficult skill to use due to its short range which puts you in a dangerous position prior to dagger which in my case I like the cowardly way of maxing rocket for spamming and laser is close to max when I get dagger.
Item-wise, I usually follow the same i.e. bottle first (laning) or soul ring first (ancient) into BoT and getting the other item not gotten before getting blink dagger.
I HATE Forcestaff with a vengeance because I feel that if I get caught with blink cd-ed by damage, I am just badly positioned. Dagger allows blinking into trees and much faster gap closing. Any situation where forcestaff is much superior to dagger?
From the video, I do about the same actions, i.e. farm lane, farm nc and rinse repeat. Do you ever feel that you are sometimes overpushing the lanes which then gives the enemy a safe farming lane?
Currently only 58% wr on tinker playing on VH solo. I feel like either for close games, the win is all predicated on tinker getting the BoT asap and if I get screwed early by lots of ganks or blocked ancient, the game is well beyond me and only rests on my teammates (which can be unreliable at times). Is there anyway for me to remedy that (on an individual level)? Stack nc to farm? Marching lanes from far?
Anyway, that accent... so xin jia bo... lol
if youre getting ganked too much, nothing you can do but improve your map awareness. otherwise its up to your team to support you. but once tinker gets his travels i feel that hes very similar to shadowfiend. if you play him correctly you cant stop him from farming, even more so after the blink. if youre still losing then its just your team getting out played. or you dont have fast enough hands for tinker
as for skill build. am i the only one who still prefers rocket laser? rocket march is a good build, but its so much more boring compared to rocket laser.
On July 18 2013 13:38 lazyitachi wrote: On skill build, I always try to get 1 or sometimes nil in laser before going max rocket > max march. In my mind, I like playing tinker as a long range artillery kind of hero by spamming rocket with some march support to blanketing the fighting field.
Why is your preference for laser? I feel it is a very strong laning skill but in teamfight, it is very difficult skill to use due to its short range which puts you in a dangerous position prior to dagger which in my case I like the cowardly way of maxing rocket for spamming and laser is close to max when I get dagger.
Item-wise, I usually follow the same i.e. bottle first (laning) or soul ring first (ancient) into BoT and getting the other item not gotten before getting blink dagger.
I HATE Forcestaff with a vengeance because I feel that if I get caught with blink cd-ed by damage, I am just badly positioned. Dagger allows blinking into trees and much faster gap closing. Any situation where forcestaff is much superior to dagger?
From the video, I do about the same actions, i.e. farm lane, farm nc and rinse repeat. Do you ever feel that you are sometimes overpushing the lanes which then gives the enemy a safe farming lane?
Currently only 58% wr on tinker playing on VH solo. I feel like either for close games, the win is all predicated on tinker getting the BoT asap and if I get screwed early by lots of ganks or blocked ancient, the game is well beyond me and only rests on my teammates (which can be unreliable at times). Is there anyway for me to remedy that (on an individual level)? Stack nc to farm? Marching lanes from far?
Anyway, that accent... so xin jia bo... lol
if youre getting ganked too much, nothing you can do but improve your map awareness. otherwise its up to your team to support you. but once tinker gets his travels i feel that hes very similar to shadowfiend. if you play him correctly you cant stop him from farming, even more so after the blink. if youre still losing then its just your team getting out played. or you dont have fast enough hands for tinker
as for skill build. am i the only one who still prefers rocket laser? rocket march is a good build, but its so much more boring compared to rocket laser.
Laser Rocket is really fun if your sidelanes are gankable, and you can snowball pretty hard if you get some good early ganks off. The thing about Laser Rocket though is that you don't farm as quickly once you get the travels since you will be on lower levels of March for a while, so you need to make those early kills happen or you can fall behind.
Laser-Rocket is just also better in pubs. March-build Tinker is only really good in a game where going March lets you farm it out and come to your first teamfight with a major item in hand (otherwise it only farms and applies map pressure, which pub teammates tend not to be coordinated enough to take advantage of). The superior ganking and solo-killing ability of Laser-Rocket is just better for the way pubs typically play.
On July 19 2013 02:13 Shootemup. wrote: Laser Rocket is really fun if your sidelanes are gankable, and you can snowball pretty hard if you get some good early ganks off. The thing about Laser Rocket though is that you don't farm as quickly once you get the travels since you will be on lower levels of March for a while, so you need to make those early kills happen or you can fall behind.
The flip side of this is that March build doesn't have any ganking presence and unreliable teamfight presence (decent AoE sustained damage, but no burst damage which is what typically decides early-midgame teamfights), so being able to farm fast isn't useful if your team loses every teamfight, and all your T1s go down really early because the mid hero had no presence in said fights.
With the way the game plays right now, you just can't go into pub games with a farming mindset. Whenever the option to kill people and take advantages from that are available you have to do it. As 2009 said about this version, "if you're not killing people, you're just waiting to die."
On July 18 2013 13:38 lazyitachi wrote: On skill build, I always try to get 1 or sometimes nil in laser before going max rocket > max march. In my mind, I like playing tinker as a long range artillery kind of hero by spamming rocket with some march support to blanketing the fighting field.
Why is your preference for laser? I feel it is a very strong laning skill but in teamfight, it is very difficult skill to use due to its short range which puts you in a dangerous position prior to dagger which in my case I like the cowardly way of maxing rocket for spamming and laser is close to max when I get dagger.
Item-wise, I usually follow the same i.e. bottle first (laning) or soul ring first (ancient) into BoT and getting the other item not gotten before getting blink dagger.
I HATE Forcestaff with a vengeance because I feel that if I get caught with blink cd-ed by damage, I am just badly positioned. Dagger allows blinking into trees and much faster gap closing. Any situation where forcestaff is much superior to dagger?
From the video, I do about the same actions, i.e. farm lane, farm nc and rinse repeat. Do you ever feel that you are sometimes overpushing the lanes which then gives the enemy a safe farming lane?
Currently only 58% wr on tinker playing on VH solo. I feel like either for close games, the win is all predicated on tinker getting the BoT asap and if I get screwed early by lots of ganks or blocked ancient, the game is well beyond me and only rests on my teammates (which can be unreliable at times). Is there anyway for me to remedy that (on an individual level)? Stack nc to farm? Marching lanes from far?
Anyway, that accent... so xin jia bo... lol
if youre getting ganked too much, nothing you can do but improve your map awareness. otherwise its up to your team to support you. but once tinker gets his travels i feel that hes very similar to shadowfiend. if you play him correctly you cant stop him from farming, even more so after the blink. if youre still losing then its just your team getting out played. or you dont have fast enough hands for tinker
as for skill build. am i the only one who still prefers rocket laser? rocket march is a good build, but its so much more boring compared to rocket laser.
Map awareness comes from having vision up to counter said ganks. Which is I ask why what else can I do when teammates are shit tier (even at VERY HIGH MMR)? I dont suppose you want to sit in lane and just let mid free farm if one of the enemy supports go missing and you are teamed with an indon 4-stack that does not courier and does not ward. If you have actual constructive advice, would be much appreciated.
The usual way I lose is I get ganked/ ancient blocked/ camped repeatedly while supports all aspire to be carries. Even if other lanes get free farm from the missing lane opponent, they still manage missing last hits and is not even top of networth.
The only way that I usually try to remedy that is to march from afar like I am offlaning tinker or just go do some stacking in hopes the supports go back to their lanes so I can go back to laning. Other than that, Ima try getting my own wards after bottle if I get camped to let the supports waste time.
The other is lanes losing despite being on equal numbers and asking why mid no gank.
Difficult to remedy for a march rocket build except that occasional good rune but it still requires teammate to have game sense.
There's actually a surprising amount of prediction you can do purely with your game sense and without vision. You don't honestly need wards all the time to have some idea of what the enemy is going to/wants to do.
On July 19 2013 11:42 TheYango wrote: There's actually a surprising amount of prediction you can do purely with your game sense and without vision. You don't honestly need wards all the time to have some idea of what the enemy is going to/wants to do.
I agree with you. A tinker without a dagger is undeniably more susceptible to ganks though. I think what he was trying to say was that farming for the dagger might require some good team support such as nicely placed wards or tp support.
On July 18 2013 13:38 lazyitachi wrote: On skill build, I always try to get 1 or sometimes nil in laser before going max rocket > max march. In my mind, I like playing tinker as a long range artillery kind of hero by spamming rocket with some march support to blanketing the fighting field.
Why is your preference for laser? I feel it is a very strong laning skill but in teamfight, it is very difficult skill to use due to its short range which puts you in a dangerous position prior to dagger which in my case I like the cowardly way of maxing rocket for spamming and laser is close to max when I get dagger.
Item-wise, I usually follow the same i.e. bottle first (laning) or soul ring first (ancient) into BoT and getting the other item not gotten before getting blink dagger.
I HATE Forcestaff with a vengeance because I feel that if I get caught with blink cd-ed by damage, I am just badly positioned. Dagger allows blinking into trees and much faster gap closing. Any situation where forcestaff is much superior to dagger?
From the video, I do about the same actions, i.e. farm lane, farm nc and rinse repeat. Do you ever feel that you are sometimes overpushing the lanes which then gives the enemy a safe farming lane?
Currently only 58% wr on tinker playing on VH solo. I feel like either for close games, the win is all predicated on tinker getting the BoT asap and if I get screwed early by lots of ganks or blocked ancient, the game is well beyond me and only rests on my teammates (which can be unreliable at times). Is there anyway for me to remedy that (on an individual level)? Stack nc to farm? Marching lanes from far?
Anyway, that accent... so xin jia bo... lol
if youre getting ganked too much, nothing you can do but improve your map awareness. otherwise its up to your team to support you. but once tinker gets his travels i feel that hes very similar to shadowfiend. if you play him correctly you cant stop him from farming, even more so after the blink. if youre still losing then its just your team getting out played. or you dont have fast enough hands for tinker
as for skill build. am i the only one who still prefers rocket laser? rocket march is a good build, but its so much more boring compared to rocket laser.
Map awareness comes from having vision up to counter said ganks. Which is I ask why what else can I do when teammates are shit tier (even at VERY HIGH MMR)? I dont suppose you want to sit in lane and just let mid free farm if one of the enemy supports go missing and you are teamed with an indon 4-stack that does not courier and does not ward. If you have actual constructive advice, would be much appreciated.
The usual way I lose is I get ganked/ ancient blocked/ camped repeatedly while supports all aspire to be carries. Even if other lanes get free farm from the missing lane opponent, they still manage missing last hits and is not even top of networth.
The only way that I usually try to remedy that is to march from afar like I am offlaning tinker or just go do some stacking in hopes the supports go back to their lanes so I can go back to laning. Other than that, Ima try getting my own wards after bottle if I get camped to let the supports waste time.
The other is lanes losing despite being on equal numbers and asking why mid no gank.
Difficult to remedy for a march rocket build except that occasional good rune but it still requires teammate to have game sense.
If you think wards are a must if you want to survive midlane, then you are playing it wrong. Even with lack of wards if you see heroes missing from the lane you should be able to deduce whether or not it is safe for you to farm. And like i said before, if it isnt a map awareness problem theres nothing you can do but rely on your teammates. If you know theyre shit tier, why are you looking for a way to win?
Tinker was the hero I used to climb out of low skill mmr (with many 3x-3-xx games along the way).
As I get into higher skill games, and especially captains mode, the laser/rocket build is MUCH harder to pull off, where the march build gives reliable farm and lets you hit your timings, counterpush, and apply pressure. Also, choosing where to push/farm with him MUST be a conscious decision, lest you pull the metaphorical kotl who nukes the wave early game so the carry he's babysitting doesn't get farm. this just means having a team who can take advantage of pressure be it split pushing, roshing, or w/e -- this needs to be communicated in pubs especially
On July 19 2013 13:26 lazyitachi wrote: Thanks for your constructive posts. I know now to just type FF and ask enemy to end.
they DID give some good advice: map awareness. there's no magic bullet, just fundamentals. you can't control other people and you're looking for advice on how to do exactly that, you just wanted to QQ from the start.
I usually adapt my build depending on the hero I face mid. Against a squishy hero like SF mid, I'd go laser/rocket build every time. Just a tiny bit of harass and the combo can kill him off rather early, and it's just going to be more impossible for the SF after that. This way I can secure free farm mid, which is the most reliable way to get your BoT fast enough. Against a bottling strength hero I'd probably go for march.
Also about blink, even if you're damaged and it comes on cooldown, you can rearm into shift blink. Works most of the times and makes people go wtf ^^
On July 19 2013 17:05 KurtistheTurtle wrote: Tinker was the hero I used to climb out of low skill mmr (with many 3x-3-xx games along the way).
As I get into higher skill games, and especially captains mode, the laser/rocket build is MUCH harder to pull off, where the march build gives reliable farm and lets you hit your timings, counterpush, and apply pressure. Also, choosing where to push/farm with him MUST be a conscious decision, lest you pull the metaphorical kotl who nukes the wave early game so the carry he's babysitting doesn't get farm. this just means having a team who can take advantage of pressure be it split pushing, roshing, or w/e -- this needs to be communicated in pubs especially
On July 19 2013 13:26 lazyitachi wrote: Thanks for your constructive posts. I know now to just type FF and ask enemy to end.
they DID give some good advice: map awareness. there's no magic bullet, just fundamentals. you can't control other people and you're looking for advice on how to do exactly that, you just wanted to QQ from the start.
I am asking what I can do. Like I cant see that supports are missing. Not sure if you cant read or bad comprehension skills.
I am solo queue very high mmr 58% winrate. How good is your "map awareness"?
On July 19 2013 02:38 TheYango wrote: Laser-Rocket is just also better in pubs. March-build Tinker is only really good in a game where going March lets you farm it out and come to your first teamfight with a major item in hand (otherwise it only farms and applies map pressure, which pub teammates tend not to be coordinated enough to take advantage of). The superior ganking and solo-killing ability of Laser-Rocket is just better for the way pubs typically play.
On July 19 2013 02:13 Shootemup. wrote: Laser Rocket is really fun if your sidelanes are gankable, and you can snowball pretty hard if you get some good early ganks off. The thing about Laser Rocket though is that you don't farm as quickly once you get the travels since you will be on lower levels of March for a while, so you need to make those early kills happen or you can fall behind.
The flip side of this is that March build doesn't have any ganking presence and unreliable teamfight presence (decent AoE sustained damage, but no burst damage which is what typically decides early-midgame teamfights), so being able to farm fast isn't useful if your team loses every teamfight, and all your T1s go down really early because the mid hero had no presence in said fights.
With the way the game plays right now, you just can't go into pub games with a farming mindset. Whenever the option to kill people and take advantages from that are available you have to do it. As 2009 said about this version, "if you're not killing people, you're just waiting to die."
I totally disagree with this. Laser rocket has burst potential but your team fight presence is much bigger with max march. At low levels people can't stand in march, a tinker can hold a tower against certain lineups completely alone.
Laser rocket also puts you in compromising positions in team fights which can get you killed several times early and completely stops any snowball potential you had even with early kills from your burst damage. And then you have no farming ability because you don't have march.
On July 19 2013 17:05 KurtistheTurtle wrote: Tinker was the hero I used to climb out of low skill mmr (with many 3x-3-xx games along the way).
As I get into higher skill games, and especially captains mode, the laser/rocket build is MUCH harder to pull off, where the march build gives reliable farm and lets you hit your timings, counterpush, and apply pressure. Also, choosing where to push/farm with him MUST be a conscious decision, lest you pull the metaphorical kotl who nukes the wave early game so the carry he's babysitting doesn't get farm. this just means having a team who can take advantage of pressure be it split pushing, roshing, or w/e -- this needs to be communicated in pubs especially
On July 19 2013 13:26 lazyitachi wrote: Thanks for your constructive posts. I know now to just type FF and ask enemy to end.
they DID give some good advice: map awareness. there's no magic bullet, just fundamentals. you can't control other people and you're looking for advice on how to do exactly that, you just wanted to QQ from the start.
I am asking what I can do. Like I cant see that supports are missing. Not sure if you cant read or bad comprehension skills.
I am solo queue very high mmr 58% winrate. How good is your "map awareness"?
YOU CANT DO ANYTHING. IS THAT DEFINITIVE ENOUGH FOR YOU god, you sit here asking people how to improve "on an individual level", and then you claim that you have nothing more to improve. if you really feel that you cant do anything without having better supports, stop playing on your own or get your shit together and stop crying. otherwise, take our advice and learn to read the game better. if you dont see supports, let mid free farm if thats what it takes, because thats all YOU can do on an INDIVIDUAL level
I'm brand new to dota (~100 games played), and Tinker is my favorite hero. I always went Force Staff and no blink dagger because I thought the Staff was better for getting out of ganks. I can't BELIEVE it never occurred to me that Rearm lets you shift-queue the blink, so even if people are wailing on you (and keeping blink from cooling down), you'll still blink out.
On July 20 2013 03:11 Hurricane Sponge wrote: I'm brand new to dota (~100 games played), and Tinker is my favorite hero. I always went Force Staff and no blink dagger because I thought the Staff was better for getting out of ganks. I can't BELIEVE it never occurred to me that Rearm lets you shift-queue the blink, so even if people are wailing on you (and keeping blink from cooling down), you'll still blink out.
Thanks!
Glad to hear that you learnt something. Keep improving mate!
EPT
