|
Short Intro: Where do I come from
I've played a ton of allstars years and years ago before sc2 came out. A bit of inhouses/leagues. I did drafting for our little team of friends. We scrimmed and played some games at the dota league tournament.
Now I started with dota2. I did the calibrating matches very quickly and my initial MMR was about 2.5k in both, which i find weird because I had a winrate of about 66% which I still maintain plus I won most of the calibrating matches (if someone wants to answer this side question: how come that I was placed so low while winning so much?).
I prefer playing CM/CD in ranked because I like to do stuff together with my mates and not fight over farm etc. Also the beauty of this game reveals itself n well drafted even games from my experience.
What I've learned so far
I allways drafted laneing and midgame oriented and I still am successful with it. I value reliable initiation from multiple sources and I avoid single point of failure drafts such as 4 protects 1 or heroes who have a special role / playstile because it tends to be risky.
What I also avoid are heroes on whom new/bad players tend to buy shadowblade on instead of bkb/manta for example luna, trax etc.
I allways try to draft as many core/semi carry style heroes as possible (4 or 5/5) so it doesn't matter much who gets farm/kills/towers. The safelane carries I prefer are very few: wk, jugger, dk, razor. Basicly heroes that are hard to mess up with.
I started with an open mindset and often fueled the discussion while drafting to find out which the prefered heroes are in my team, but I had much more success by just drafting what I thought was right so far.
Open Questions
- what strong the heroes I should avoid picking?
- what are the heroes I should ban (I lean towards death prophet, silencer alot)?
- are there heroes who are exceptionally strong at low mmr?
- Should I stubbornly draft heroes without listening to my mates (not prefered) or should I try to draft heroes they like (prefered but not yet successful). When to do what?
|
Would be a lot easier to help you out if you revealed what you are trying to accomplish.
|
On August 07 2014 01:47 Trustworthy-Tony wrote:
Would be a lot easier to help you out if you revealed what you are trying to accomplish.
Just winning games. I basicly need to rearrange my inner list of heroes that are strong/weak and synergies because I didn't play dota for years and never in a system like this. You see the skill variance was much higher back in the day but you mostly knew who you where playing with, so you knew if you could draft freely or adpapt to your mates strengths and weaknesses. Also I'am not so sure anymore about hero strength. I mean one time i drafted wl and the guy who played him raged so hard that he even deliberately body blocked me when I got chased down. WL was considered a very solid pick back in the day.
|
|
|
Thats really helpful. Most of them are on my mind as well but I would have never thought that zeus, bloodseeker and omni are that high up there. It also seems that alot of the highly ranked heroes are actually not played as often or are a bit unpopular.
|
1) Why avoid picking "strong" heroes? If you or someone on your team can play them, pick it.
2) Ban heroes that you think are pubstomp heroes and know your teammates can't handle (your 3rd open question), or if you notice a trend in their picking then ban someone they might need, like mirana bane combos or wisp ck.
3) Strong heroes at low mmr is something i can only theorycraft, but at 2.5-3k mmr i think invis/blink initiators can be extremely effectively.
4) If you're concerned about drafting for pubs, the best bet is to ask your team what heroes they can/willing to play. With that said, you are the only constant on your team (solo queue) so if you can play as many roles your team comp will be more likely workable.
Edit: Just saw the dotabuff winrate link. i would take the top 5 with a grain of salt, those heroes are not easy to play and need lots of farm to be effective. for example don't expect necro to be position 5 support.
|
On August 07 2014 02:20 sushiko wrote:
1) Why avoid picking "strong" heroes? If you or someone on your team can play them, pick it.
2) Ban heroes that you think are pubstomp heroes and know your teammates can't handle (your 3rd open question), or if you notice a trend in their picking then ban someone they might need, like mirana bane combos or wisp ck.
3) Strong heroes at low mmr is something i can only theorycraft, but at 2.5-3k mmr i think invis/blink initators can be extremely effectively.
4) If you're concerned about drafting for pubs, the best bet is to ask your team what heroes they can/willing to play. With that said, you are the only constant on your team (solo queue) so if you can play as many roles your team comp will be more likely workable.
That is reassuring and helpful. I try to avoid invis heroes thought (except mirana) because it seems that alot of players are completely caught up in the idea that they kind of need to sneak around and either solo kill or ks alot with them instead of just plain ganking. With mirana this doesn't seem the case.
blink hereos and fast/strong initiators tend to be successful though because they often hold the team together because their role is very clear. But I tend to have very bad luck with drafting clock for some reason. I'am not sure if that si because the hero is not as strong anymore or if he attracts the wrong kind of players or just bad luck. Initiators that tend to do well in my games include: tide, brew (*), mirana, puck (*). The one's with the star I would only pick if someone is confident with them (mostly my friend or me).
With 4) I had very low success so far. When I pick their suggested heroes they don't even perform with them. People are far too obsessed with 2 things: wombo-combo-synergy and having enough "lategame" (what they mean is snowball single target heroes).
|
Pick Viper and Bristle, get early mek on Viper... Go win.
|
On August 07 2014 02:38 clickrush wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2014 02:20 sushiko wrote:
1) Why avoid picking "strong" heroes? If you or someone on your team can play them, pick it.
2) Ban heroes that you think are pubstomp heroes and know your teammates can't handle (your 3rd open question), or if you notice a trend in their picking then ban someone they might need, like mirana bane combos or wisp ck.
3) Strong heroes at low mmr is something i can only theorycraft, but at 2.5-3k mmr i think invis/blink initators can be extremely effectively.
4) If you're concerned about drafting for pubs, the best bet is to ask your team what heroes they can/willing to play. With that said, you are the only constant on your team (solo queue) so if you can play as many roles your team comp will be more likely workable. That is reassuring and helpful. I try to avoid invis heroes thought (except mirana) because it seems that alot of players are completely caught up in the idea that they kind of need to sneak around and either solo kill or ks alot with them instead of just plain ganking. With mirana this doesn't seem the case. blink hereos and fast/strong initiators tend to be successful though because they often hold the team together because their role is very clear. But I tend to have very bad luck with drafting clock for some reason. I'am not sure if that si because the hero is not as strong anymore or if he attracts the wrong kind of players or just bad luck. Initiators that tend to do well in my games include: tide, brew (*), mirana, puck (*). The one's with the star I would only pick if someone is confident with them (mostly my friend or me). With 4) I had very low success so far. When I pick their suggested heroes they don't even perform with them. People are far too obsessed with 2 things: wombo-combo-synergy and having enough "lategame" (what they mean is snowball single target heroes).
Clocks initation is a skillshot that has amazing range, which in general means clockwork will be jumping in while half of your team is still too far away to follow up. Or he wiffs and now you're out a initiation for the next cd.
I guess most of my advice really revolves around trusting your team. it may be frustrating but players will never be as good as you want them, but at least you can help them play their best with positive attitudes and giving them heroes they can play. Advise them to not worry so much about team stategies during pick/ban because in the end mechanics/gamesense will win you the game more often than outdrafting. Also, laning is probably a huge factor in winning. As captain you have the responsibilty of parsing their hero choices and see how they fit in lanes.
|
On August 07 2014 02:20 sushiko wrote:
Edit: Just saw the dotabuff winrate link. i would take the top 5 with a grain of salt, those heroes are not easy to play and need lots of farm to be effective. for example don't expect necro to be position 5 support.
The strengths of the top 5 in low level play:
Necrophos contributes significant damage to a fight or lane merely by being present. If his lane opponents don't start with regen, he harasses them out of lane, again merely by being present. Also, his ult's death timer effect means kill stealing isn't pointless.
Omniknight has two 'keep the idiot alive' buttons and one 'keep all the idiots alive' button.
Wraith King is hard to feed as.
Abaddon is half Omniknight and half Wraith King.
Zeus is the noob version of a ganking mid. While most mids need to move into position before a gank opportunity, Zeus just ults.
|
On August 07 2014 02:51 sushiko wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2014 02:38 clickrush wrote:On August 07 2014 02:20 sushiko wrote:
1) Why avoid picking "strong" heroes? If you or someone on your team can play them, pick it.
2) Ban heroes that you think are pubstomp heroes and know your teammates can't handle (your 3rd open question), or if you notice a trend in their picking then ban someone they might need, like mirana bane combos or wisp ck.
3) Strong heroes at low mmr is something i can only theorycraft, but at 2.5-3k mmr i think invis/blink initators can be extremely effectively.
4) If you're concerned about drafting for pubs, the best bet is to ask your team what heroes they can/willing to play. With that said, you are the only constant on your team (solo queue) so if you can play as many roles your team comp will be more likely workable. That is reassuring and helpful. I try to avoid invis heroes thought (except mirana) because it seems that alot of players are completely caught up in the idea that they kind of need to sneak around and either solo kill or ks alot with them instead of just plain ganking. With mirana this doesn't seem the case. blink hereos and fast/strong initiators tend to be successful though because they often hold the team together because their role is very clear. But I tend to have very bad luck with drafting clock for some reason. I'am not sure if that si because the hero is not as strong anymore or if he attracts the wrong kind of players or just bad luck. Initiators that tend to do well in my games include: tide, brew (*), mirana, puck (*). The one's with the star I would only pick if someone is confident with them (mostly my friend or me). With 4) I had very low success so far. When I pick their suggested heroes they don't even perform with them. People are far too obsessed with 2 things: wombo-combo-synergy and having enough "lategame" (what they mean is snowball single target heroes). Clocks initation is a skillshot that has amazing range, which in general means clockwork will be jumping in while half of your team is still too far away to follow up. Or he wiffs and now you're out a initiation for the next cd. I guess most of my advice really revolves around trusting your team. it may be frustrating but players will never be as good as you want them, but at least you can help them play their best with positive attitudes and giving them heroes they can play. Advise them to not worry so much about team stategies during pick/ban because in the end mechanics/gamesense will win you the game more often than outdrafting. Also, laning is probably a huge factor in winning. As captain you have the responsibilty of parsing their hero choices and see how they fit in lanes.
Ok this is really helpful. I tend to be too worried about picking some of the harder heroes. This advice really lighted up something in my head. The only worry I have is those who spam their favorite [insert-all-in-dps-hero]. This often seems like a lose-lose situation. I often get flamed hard during the draft and during the first few minutes until they realize the power of the draft when we are succesfully stomping during the first engagements. But sometimes one of these players will straight up sabotage the game by constantly moaning and playing asshole style.
But by bringing in trust from the get go I can maybe help to develop a fun atmosphere.
|
1) Try to avoid picking heroes that rely to much on farm like Spectre or AM and don't pick super pubstomp heroes that are easy to counter like Riki or Bloodcyka.
2) Along with those two ban PA and Void. Both are super powerful acrries yet can get farm relatively easy compared to others and wreck face.
3) Midgame carries are pretty strong as well as heroes with good teamfight like Warlock or Disruptor
4) A mix of both would be best. Have them list heroes they can play and choose from their.
|
how to properly draft at low levels:
1. win your lanes
2. push to extend advantage
if your draft can reliably win two out of three lanes, and you have a good teamfight behind it, you can easily snowball and take a huge advantage. very few teams even at higher levels can rebound from a bad laning phase. Its even more magnified at low levels.
as an example...
lich, venomancer, juggernaut, viper, wraith king
offlane: you can lich the offlane, or dual lich/wk it if they are greedy. a lich lane is essentially a won lane unless they know how to play against it, and at low levels, they definitely dont
mid: viper dominates almost every other mid
safe: jug/veno/wraith king or jug/veno both very strong lanes
after the laning phase, when viper gets his mek, you 5 man down towers with ridiculous teamfight -- veno ult, lich ult, wraith king stuns and slows, viper being viper.
as a bonus, all these heroes are very easy to play
honestly i think if you just drafted around that mindset you'd be pretty easy 'till you run in to some very well coordinated teams or if they have a tinker or something that snowballs somehow
|
On August 07 2014 03:07 Buckyman wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2014 02:20 sushiko wrote:
Edit: Just saw the dotabuff winrate link. i would take the top 5 with a grain of salt, those heroes are not easy to play and need lots of farm to be effective. for example don't expect necro to be position 5 support. The strengths of the top 5 in low level play: Necrophos contributes significant damage to a fight or lane merely by being present. If his lane opponents don't start with regen, he harasses them out of lane, again merely by being present. Also, his ult's death timer effect means kill stealing isn't pointless. Omniknight has two 'keep the idiot alive' buttons and one 'keep all the idiots alive' button. Wraith King is hard to feed as. Abaddon is half Omniknight and half Wraith King. Zeus is the noob version of a ganking mid. While most mids need to move into position before a gank opportunity, Zeus just ults.
Honestly, I'd just say that newer players just have issues with over-committing. Necrophos, Abaddon, Omniknight and Wraith King all punish players who stay and fight too long, and they let the whole team stick around longer than normal. Sort of like an early Mek in an MMR where people don't understand why you'd want a Mek.
Zeus is sort of the opposite end of that. He punishes players who don't know when to go back and heal, and the ones that don't carry TPs to get back to the fountain quickly.
|
1. It doesnt really matter if you draft dual, a trilane or a jungler, just draft accordingly and easy to execute synergies is a good start. Dont get carried away with wombocombos, sculpting multiple small synergies within a lineup is allways nice.
2. Dont pick 5 cores, pick 1 core for every lane that needs some farm/xp to have positive impact on the game.
3. Ban hero's that wreck the hero's and strategies you want to draft. Counterpicking/banning their hero's and strategies is less important then protecting your own.
4. Midlane is the most important lane during the early game because you grant alot of gold and xp to a single hero. Pick an easy laner that doesnt get hardcountered by the enemies midhero & can gank the outer lanes pretty easily and early. Its the most high impact lane in the game.....make.....it......count! Graph from dotametrics on 1v1 lane analysis, could assist when choosing a midhero:
+ Show Spoiler +
5 If you draft a hardcore splitpusher, make sure you got 4 other hero's that can descently teamfight 4v5 with some AOE, else dont draft a splitpusher.
6 allways draft atleast 1 hero that can initiate a teamfight.
Below is a small list of possible synergy examples. i find that alot of trench players seem to know and sometimes even execute them aswell. Its just an example.
+ Show Spoiler +
- Kunkka torrent+Shadowdemon disruption+soulcatcher (shadow demon is a nice setup for delayed aoe stuns)
- Ursa/Jugg+cm/ogre/shadow sjaman/veno for early kills (maybe even firstblood).
- Mirana arrow+bane sleep
- Bristleback Quill spray+warlock fatal bonds
- Bloodseeker thrist+any global presence
- Wraithking reincarnation/blink+Sandking Epicentre/blink and/or Shadowfiend+Reqium/blink etcetc (wraithking is a nice setup for most aoe ultimates, he makes alot of other heros have a bigger impact when he reincarnates).
- Picking treant normally means that sololane hero's die alot less during the early stages of the game. Picking treant means you can draft greedy : 1p(rotect)4
- Troll+hero's that benefit alot from the attackspeedburst and the global presence of trolls ultimate.
- Aurastrats of multiple heros like luna+venge are allways nice, aura's never fail and have a high impact when you teamfight alot.
- lich is nice when you lane him as a babysit for a hardcarry that needs tons of farm/xp and protection during the early game
|
How to draft at low levels? Just pick mass spammable stuns/nukes/aoe + 1 hard carry. Seriously screw all the fancy wombo combos, or the current trends.
|
My 2 cents,
Open Questions
- what strong the heroes I should avoid picking?
Regardless of power level of the hero(other than a few, most heroes have highs and lows) you should avoid high skill cap heroes. Mostly micro related and some requires careful positioning. Visage, invoker and some others come to mind. I think you should avoid those.
- what are the heroes I should ban (I lean towards death prophet, silencer alot)?
In pubs, the most problematic cases for me either teamfight monsters like tide, sandK (people tend to prematurely fight a lot and outpositioned most of the time) or some late game carries which dominates when the game drags long (void, luna comes to mind)
- are there heroes who are exceptionally strong at low mmr?
I believe any hero with large AOE team fight skill is exceptionally strong. Tide, magnus and void always serves well. Regardless of mmr Doom is exceptionally strong.
- Should I stubbornly draft heroes without listening to my mates (not prefered) or should I try to draft heroes they like (prefered but not yet successful). When to do what?
I'd suggest you to stay in the comfort zone of the players. Every player has a play style either aggressive or gank oriented or position oriented etc... My opinion is, have a few heroes in mind and ask which one the player plays better(i.e planning an offlane pick, put doom, tide, bristle on the table, let them choose). Experience on hero is more valuable than the hero itself most of the time especially low mmr.
Other than question in general, it is better to keep core hero count less or equal to 3. If you exceed that number your early game will suffer and you may have a danger to lose the lanes. You can use some farm independent heroes(most of the supports).
My overall game plan in that mmr would be
- stick to a mid game oriented carry which has late potential. Not limited but pick void/luna/LS , avoid spec/AM
- for mid either a lane winner core(razor, od , viper) or a tempo controller either wins the lane or not lose it(storm, puck, qop). Latter would be harder to execute.
- tank xp leecher offlane with the option of escape if possible(tide , doom, centaur even magnus). Avoid hard to execute hard laners like furion, void, puck maybe clock.
- 2 disable heavy good supports like shadow shaman, venge, SD, CM which all requires no farm but some levels. Let them roam when the lane is secured. I'd avoid farm heavy supports like AA.
- Avoid hit-win or miss-lose heroes(silencer comes to mind).
- Avoid dedicated jungle(furion, chen, ench, enigma to some extent) don't play 4v5 unless he really knows what he is doing.
- Avoid putting good 1v1 heroes to position 1 farm like razor, DK.. Put them to mid if you really want them.
Good luck.
|
Pick Lich and dual offlane.
|
On August 07 2014 20:58 Xypski wrote:
Pick Lich and dual offlane.
Dont give our strats away wtf
|
If you want easy wins, just pick a really strong pushing line up and just start 5 manning and taking towers. Look at what vici gaming did at TI (up until finals) and copy the picks. Heroes like death prophet, lycan, bristleback, venomancer, pugna, etc.
At around 10 minutes or so, just start grouping with your team and pushing down towers. This is easy to execute, and all that's required is some basic teamwork. At lower levels, people will struggle to draft around it and there will always be one retard that just tries to go midas on an alchemist or ta or something like that.
Seriously, pushing is really strong right now. I've been watching a lot of inhouse games lately, and this type of shit's been winning games. If your team just groups up and isn't retarded, you win in like 20 mins ez. And snowball is even stronger in pubs because of how much people tend to get demoralized and give up. Just ban out antipush like tinker and probably some split pushers and enjoy the win.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](https://dotametrics.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/1v1matchupchart.png)
