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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?
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Would be a lot easier to help you out if you revealed what you are trying to accomplish.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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Pick Viper and Bristle, get early mek on Viper... Go win.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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Pick Lich and dual offlane.
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On August 07 2014 20:58 Xypski wrote:
Pick Lich and dual offlane.
Dont give our strats away wtf
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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.
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On August 07 2014 20:59 TheFame wrote:Dont give our strats away wtf
Centaur Lich is such a talent-required lane.
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go to dotabuff and pick the heros with the highest win rate
my friend unironically does this and increased his mmr by 400+ points
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Not sure why you are so worried about the strength of heroes at low MMR. Just work on execution. If I were you I would just have fun and work on stuff that you can't practice easily in normal pub environments, wacky stuff like lv1 rosh, 5 man in their jungle for early lv1 ganks, or 1 in each lane + 2 roaming gankers at lv1, aggro tri-lanes, etc.
And I surely would not ignore your teammates wishes and pick heroes they don't know how to play. Don't worry about immediate success, focus on having fun (very important to keep the team playing together) and work on execution. Too much focus is on heroes/drafting/counterpicking when it has much more to do with simple execution. Just figure out what you want to do before the game begins, then just draft around that strategy with heroes your team knows/wants to play.
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Pretty much the only counter picking you need to do is to take note if they have way too many summons for pushing (pick kotl/aoe).
Bans should be cancerous heroes like naga/lycan, which if unprepared is auto win.
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I'm at similar MMR as OP. I find that 3k-ish people are often asymmetrically good at one or a few heroes. For example, I can play clock offlane reasonably well for 3k, but give me QoP mid or enigma jungle and I'll be running around like a headless chicken. So, just let people play what they're good at (or say they're good at).
Some very strong heroes/strats to look out for are:
Jungle Lycan - People are good enough to follow the recipe but aren't good enough to know to try and stop it.
Jungle Enigma - Will farm very quickly and can easily push towers.
Nature's Prophet - Split pushing cancer. Punishes you for not pushing fast enough.
Ursa - Similar to Lycan. Can get out of hand very quickly if left unchecked.
Naga/PL - People don't push as quickly at low levels. Auto-win in a long, drawn-out game.
Viper/Razor mid - Get fast mek, beg your team to fight with mek advantage.
Necrophos - Punishes players for over-committing, which again is common at 2-3k.
Axe + 1 offlane - People don't deal with Axe very well. Auto-win if against 2 melees.
Some stuff to avoid without explicit request from team mate:
Anti-mage - People are too inclined to fight too early with him.
Io, Bane, Shadow Demon - Requires coordination.
Sand king - People are way too fixated on getting off the perfect epicenter.
KotL - Dead weight most of the time. I'd be iffy about picking him even against a push-heavy lineup.
Batrider - You'd think blink-lasso-force is easy, but no. I can't do it. Seems like no one else at 2-3k can do it either.
Sniper/Pudge - Chances are, someone will request one of these. Hit-or-miss. Flip a coin.
Aside from that, just pick a lot of reliable nukes and disables. Heroes like Luna/Jugg/Zeus that have ults that can reliably inflict massive damage are great. It's basically just kill all of them before they can kill all of you.
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seriously just draft to win your lanes with some effective push behind it and you'll get ez mmr
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On August 09 2014 06:16 ahw wrote:
seriously just draft to win your lanes with some effective push behind it and you'll get ez mmr
Yep. Simple concept yet most effective in pubs. Ban heroes that prevents you from pushing high ground when you have an advantage like tinker naga etc.
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On August 08 2014 08:12 Rocket-Bear wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2014 20:59 TheFame wrote:On August 07 2014 20:58 Xypski wrote:
Pick Lich and dual offlane. Dont give our strats away wtf Centaur Lich is such a talent-required lane.
Can't hear you over all my LPCL money.
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On August 09 2014 20:39 Alur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2014 08:12 Rocket-Bear wrote:On August 07 2014 20:59 TheFame wrote:On August 07 2014 20:58 Xypski wrote:
Pick Lich and dual offlane. Dont give our strats away wtf Centaur Lich is such a talent-required lane. Can't hear you over all my LPCL money.
Literally rolling in money.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On August 08 2014 08:00 shizaep wrote:
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.
If you're going push, you can actually take tinker yourself since the march can provide cover for tower pushers.
But everything relies on the lanes. Laning viability is number one concern at every single level of play.
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ok i gained about 300 points in team cm/cd and also learned a couple things:
- like suggested here: pushing is strong and important. heroes that accelerate pushes like rhasta, pugna, razor etc are higher on my list now. also carries like luna or am fit into that.
- iam very big on the tide + mirana combo atm. It never failed me so far. picking those two heroes early means you have a lot of flexibility in your draft since both can fill multiple positions. I end up sending mirana to support and tide to offlane most of the time.
- i adapted lich from the /winning list and from the suggestion to send him into a duo offlane which has served me well. lich has two major strengths: laneing and teamfighting. both are very appreciated in my games.
- i started to pick strong laners for mid like viper and razor and had a fair success with it but it seems that OD carries harder and has a very strong laneing phase as well. I also had relentless success with leshrac and dp who accelerate pushes and have big teamfights.
- when i started i was more inclined to pick gank teams with lots of initiation and semicarries. but its hard to keep the tempo up with some players. now i go for much safer drafts with a weaker early-midgame but better scaling.
I still have a couple of questions:
1. since iam so big on tide+mirana i often have trouble picking a different initiator since he can get banned. I had very low success with clock so far (posters here have provided explanations). I have axe and cent in mind (cent+mirana ult is very strong too). Are there more heroes that fit this kind of hardengage style?
2. I have my list for mid pretty sorted but not so much for the first position carry. I mostly pick wk just because he is safe, but also luna for her pushing power. I really like jugger but I dont like how ppl play him, most ppl have a hard time to find a middle ground between aggression and defense. Anyways I'am up for further suggestions for this position as well.
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1. since iam so big on tide+mirana i often have trouble picking a different initiator since he can get banned. I had very low success with clock so far (posters here have provided explanations). I have axe and cent in mind (cent+mirana ult is very strong too). Are there more heroes that fit this kind of hardengage style?
2. I have my list for mid pretty sorted but not so much for the first position carry. I mostly pick wk just because he is safe, but also luna for her pushing power. I really like jugger but I dont like how ppl play him, most ppl have a hard time to find a middle ground between aggression and defense. Anyways I'am up for further suggestions for this position as well.
1. as far as replacing tide if he gets banned early..
centaur is probably the closest playstyle wise but he is a bit weaker in lane, specially vs tri compared to tide. the global aspect of him would probably be underused in lower level games because you generally need pretty good awareness but its really strong
batrider is a strong offlaner who recovers in the jungle and has high impact after blink. bat again might be harder to play though.
doom is a good offlaner who can grow in to your initiate. he isn't particularly hard to play but he needs to get specific items according to your plan or will struggle.
those are 3 strong offlane initiators who you could use instead.. you could also try something a bit weird like sand king or undying
2.
luna is a beast almost always a good choice
sniper is actually really great at lower teirs because he naturally stays at the back of fights and max shrapnel is amazing for tower pushes. sniper is one of the hardest heroes to go up highground against unless you are coordinated and have a team that can get on top of him. He's pretty easy to play at lower levels, hard if you run across people who understand how to punish it, but thats rare
luna, sniper, lycan, drow, void, all good pushing lineup safe farmers
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i have bad experience with sniper and drow players though. they tend to rush shadowblade and play "ninja". the only time i picked drow was when i needed her silence in a cd against brew and weaver (it detects stealth) in teamfights and i picked her directly myself (normally i pick last).
on sniper its not that of a huge deal who plays him because he is hard to fuckup as long as you stay in the backline of a pushing team. but his damage is so low if you don't get dps items but ppl still buy shadowblade all the time. So basicly it's a gamble there too: if sniper gets fed he will dps. if not then not. void, luna and lycan i like more. lycan can use his wolves to threaten towers early on, luna is a great pusher and teamfighter and void can dispatch a target before the fight starts (base case).
From your offlane suggestions I like sandking alot. Back in the day the mirana sandking lane was a classic offlane which can be played aggressively. a great skirmisher combo. I've seen ppl send crix offlane solo in some tournament games too so i guess that must be a thing. his evasivness paired with a high burst combo fits that lane well.
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Don't you offlane Sandking only if:
He can get FAST lvl 3 from it and thats about it? As soon as he hits lvl 3 he goes to the jungle and gets his dagger asap. No halfway decent Trilane will let a Sandking leech exp for any longer than that anyway?
Kinda like Batrider offlane ---> Get as much as you can early but as soon as things get hard --> JUNGLE (ideally someone should have stacked it for you) to get that Blinkdagger.
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Shadow blade Drow is a comeback build, for when the Drow is so far behind that her best teamfight contribution is pushing a tower somewhere else.
As far as team composition goes, I only like her in lineups that use the global damage aura to win the other lanes, or where Visage or Enigma knocks down towers with super-powered minions.
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I got ranked in 2300 and am currently 3200. Playing mostly CM. What I have learned so far: Ban/pick DP. People SUCK at playing against nukers mid, and she is the best nuker there is. Ban/Pick Void. Don't worry about Doom, Lycan. People jungle these heroes at our level, and when they pick a jungler, you pick an aggro trilane and poop on them. You cannot over-explain enough what you're doing. Aggro tri-lane. We're dire, so that means you, and you, and you go bot lane. Here's a circle and an arrow to help you visualize!
Heroes that can do well on their own are better than the ones that require team work. Heroes that do things by just being present are better than the ones that have to click buttons. Venge! Does amazing things by just being alive. Drow, same thing. Luna, Wraith King, Lycan (make sure they don't jungle!).
Mediating is really important. Complement people on their starting items. Apologize for being an lol noob captain. Be re-assuring. Don't point out mistakes, makes better suggestions next time. Buy dust and smoke yourself, no matter what role you play.
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On August 15 2014 06:30 StaraCroft wrote:
I got ranked in 2300 and am currently 3200. Playing mostly CM. What I have learned so far: Ban/pick DP. People SUCK at playing against nukers mid, and she is the best nuker there is. Ban/Pick Void. Don't worry about Doom, Lycan. People jungle these heroes at our level, and when they pick a jungler, you pick an aggro trilane and poop on them. You cannot over-explain enough what you're doing. Aggro tri-lane. We're dire, so that means you, and you, and you go bot lane. Here's a circle and an arrow to help you visualize!
Heroes that can do well on their own are better than the ones that require team work. Heroes that do things by just being present are better than the ones that have to click buttons. Venge! Does amazing things by just being alive. Drow, same thing. Luna, Wraith King, Lycan (make sure they don't jungle!).
Mediating is really important. Complement people on their starting items. Apologize for being an lol noob captain. Be re-assuring. Don't point out mistakes, makes better suggestions next time. Buy dust and smoke yourself, no matter what role you play.
I have went from about 2400-2900 doing something very similar. Shaman and Venge are easily the best support duo I have come up with. I generally but a strong mid in razor/viper mid with centaur/tide offlane and Luna safelane with the duo support just roaming w/ smoke and ganking. It basically should give you a 10-1ish advantage because honestly people do not learn at this level and continue to get ganked. WK is also a good safelane farmer due to his stun.
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Shaman + Venge is a little low on damage to kill people, though the chain stuns are quite good. Personally, I prefer something like Shaman + Skywrath. SS's great lockdown makes Skywrath's ultimate very easy to hit and basically kill anybody with.
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I am saying purely early game it destroys because you have enough damage from whichever lane you are ganking to get a really early kill lead and then SS hits 6 and you start taking towers.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://dotametrics.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/1v1matchupchart.png)
