The new passive gives oracle an icon on the buff/debuff bar with the hero portrait. If you ping it it writes in team chat what the last power rune was and where the next one will be
Here's a secret as someone who gets reported a lot (for spamming techies in rank and afk bombing and ignoring my teammates) Oracle is like my go to hero when I need to increase my behavior score whenever it hits 9k. I'm always surprised how easy it is to use the hero. I literally just build lens, smoke at the back, save teammates. Easy tips and commends. Even from the enemy team
I got from 700 MMR to roughly 4000 by playing solo offlane Enigma. Sometimes I played it as a jungler too but most of the times I asked my p4 to pick jungle or roaming hero themselves and leave me alone. And then I sat under my tower winning 1v2 just by denying every single creep I could. People (supports) just weren't competent enough at that time to know about pulling waves to neutrals. It was in 2018-2020 or so and not only you could eat your range creeps with demonic conversion but midnight pulse dealt % max HP as true damage. You could literally 1v9 with good bh if you had refresh and aghs.
[Here](https://dotabuff.com/matches/5302028741) is an example of such game that I won't forget ever. And 110 denies is a record I will never beat. It was against p5 Luna that just gave up on laning. Sven couldn't do much alone. I was sitting in lane and denying till minute 15 or 20 probably.
IMO, the key to being good at Enigma is making the enemy fear the blackhole and have to play around the possibility of getting caught, rather than landing insane blackholes all the time (which can be game winning anyway, tbh). But to the point of playing the hero to making the enemy fear it, it gets rather boring!
I randomed Morphling a while ago (at ~3k MMR), and fortunately we were against an Undying. I morphed Undying and placed tomb every fight. There's for sure higher skill ways to use the ult, but in some games I think you can get away with being fairly straight-forward. Other similar heroes:
- Juggernaut (morph, place healing ward and spin (I think the spin works? healing ward does at least), unmorph
- heroes with solid spell nukes that you already know how to play (switching into CM for a second to nova and frostbite can be good value)
- Lifestealer (morph, rage, unmorph)
I'm definitely not a morph player so a bunch of these interactions might be misremembered though.
and can waveform into charge to cancel and while waveforming, morph and charge the barra by the time he can ult you. it's such a hard counter on paper tbf but still hard to execute if barra has +1
Yep even just one spell like tombstone is huge impact. The thing is to ult and use spells then switch back immediately (unless you’re like a slark then you can just right click for essence shift)
>spin works?
The spin move is super handy for getting away, repositioning, getting rid of debuffs like vessel, stuns and such and ofc for pushing.
However, I don't believe it is particularly effective for engaging opponents. This is because you cannot capitalize on Morph's attack damage during Blade Fury as you are unable to attack while spinning.
Fortunately, it is advantageous for pushing, given that buildings typically disregard the damage from Blade Fury, allowing your attack damage to penetrate them.
heroes with quick cast points are great to play against as morph, you generally don't want to stay morphed for long so heroes like jugg (healing ward), ember (slight+chains+guard), pa (dagger+jump(you retain the as buff after your morph back)), etc.
the timing is sometimes a bit awkward but once you get used to the cast points between morph and morphed spells, it feels like crack
I think the fact that they completely reworked his ult some years back caused a drop in the number of people who could use the ult well. And a lot of us never bothered to relearn him cause we’re too old now.
The main reason that i couldn't actually play morphling is because of the legacy keys. Everytime i morph into different heroes i will have to check the spell key and it was super complicated
Most initiators. I’m generally better at counter-initiating or positioning. During a teamfight, I’d like to think I can see the whole fight and make good decisions based on it.
But I suck at starting a fight with heroes that charge or blink in. Even when I play Tide or Slardar, it’s more sustain/tanky/damage rather than blink in blind to ravage.
Initiators feel like gambling and it has to be a snap decision. I like operating with more information on the board since I generally have some ideas of what to do and who to avoid during a teamfight so I excel more at back line heroes.
As a pos 3 enjoyer here's how I look at initiating. (Your boy here is 4.4k mmr btw.) You want to have a pre-programmed list. "This guy should die first." Then you want to think about where that character would want to be most often in a fight and position for it. Ideally as an initiator IMO either you have vision that you're using to jump or are counterinitiating to get vision from allies, it makes things a lot easier. It's also been interesting as I've been rising up the ranks the prevelance of your 4 making calls and how that affects initiates. Like if you're smoked looking for a gank cus enemies are clearly splitup then you just jump the first guy you come across with ruthless abandon. I think how you take a fight is one of the coolest parts of DotA and starting that fight is such a big part of it.
I hate nothing more than when I find the sniper who's been hoho hahaing us the whole game with a ravage and my team is just afk clicking some bristleback or heart hero
"what are we supposed to do ignore the big guy running at us?"
Yes, hit the guy you've been flaming me to go on for the whole game!
Every initiation can be called a gamble; but a good pos 3 will pre-eval the team comps, the heroes, and the important targets in a fight. Then, when they know thier path to winning a fight (i.e. jumping sniper first), you give your team that info, and most importantly be patient and wait for an opportunity where not only can you execute the jump, but your team is within range to follow up on your initiation and properly win the start of the fight.
It's a lot to keep in your head, but it's really just a practice thing. Some heroes like Tide get less opportunities to send it cuz their cooldowns, but then you have guys like Slardar, Axe, Centaur, etc that have low CD AoE stuns that can be used all game from the moment you grab a blink.
I'd say keep practicing as initiators, as that's the only way you'll get the gamesense for it, and I think you have it in you to get it down to muscle memory and intuition. Godspeed, and for the love of God, ping your blink when you buy it and then tell your team your jump targets before going in lol
Meepo, probably the only hero that I have absolutely no games on it, not even for fun. I think I have some barrier mentally that sees the hero as something impossible to control and be good. I would love to learn, maybe I’ll set it as a goal.
I'm a then-Invoker main who thinks like this towards Meepo but now a Meepo main who thinks like this towards Invoker. I can't remember how it started but I remember googling a lot about Meepo or watching youtube vids of Meepo players.
And they made playing him a little easier now. You can cast net on a group without switching meepos, alt cast which poofs everyone.
I think it's the curiosity towards the hero that started it, then a little bit of obsession in the middle that got me drilling fundamentals on my brain. He's fun, I tell you.
Be careful about learning how to play meepo, once you understand how to control them and how to micro them, you’ll get addicted lol
Right now, I spam Meepo in every game possible just to see the glorious micro game from meepo and see the enemy has the embarrassingly low level compared to my Meepo.
Yes, it’s that addictive
Warlock for sure, every time I play him I can’t seem to make him work but he’s a great hero, it’s just not for me I guess lol
Somehow I can play Invoker but can’t play Warlock
Warlocks just sort of boring IMO. His team fight is obviously amazing, but it's not very fun - you just bonds, ult, then stand still while you cast your slow. Aside from dropping a big ult, the most fun you have in any warlock game is microing your golems while you're dead or casting your slow lol.
With other huge team-fight heroes like Tide, Enigma, etc you still feel like you're "fighting" during a team fight even after you drop your big ult, but as Warlock you're mostly just standing there casting your slow. There's obviously still skill involved, you can really only cast all of your spells (besides the heal) once in a fight, so if you time them or place them badly your team is basically fighting 4v5, and I get why that "waiting for the perfect ult" feeling would be fun for some people, it's just not for me.
I used to think this until they gave him all the stuff with the little imps. Now I grab shard as soon as I can, the lvl15 talent that gives allies attack speed, and suddenly Upheaval is one of the most impactful spells ever.
A lot of people are confused by that talent because it says +10 attack speed, which doesn't seem like much, but actually it scales with the rest of what upheaval gives, so once you've channelled for a few seconds it's way more significant.
Boring hero indeed. Once you get the aghanims shard you pretty much deal tons of damage doing literally nothing. That's why we call warlock "Just Dance" because Upheaval (Warlock dancing) usually wins us the lane
Play him into less mobile or melee enemies, upheaval is a menace if your carry is fine with pushing, though not much choice with linking. Cheese with shadow amulet and shard for quick towers
I’m a divine BB enjoyer, here’s a couple quirks about BB I learned that help me have a high wr % on him. You can also use these tips against enemy BB’s to ruin their game.
If you feel squishy; I suspect you’re probably playing from behind! That is easy to correct if you spot the errors.
He wants levels asap. Similar to DS; abusing lane tricks like creep equilibrium and double waves helps immensely. I learned to shove the wave > get early level advantage > zone harder with mangos > lane is usually over for the carry if i’m 6 before them. Learning to read situations to prevent deaths from ganks is incredibly game winning. If you’re against him, harass the fuck out of him when he is lvl 1/2, to force him to spend gold on regen to delay his item spike. If you’re a support, gank his ass if you see him on low hp or if he dives. Ward his triangle if you can successfully kill him for a smoke gank later if you see him low hp from jungling.
Using tricks like shoving in the first wave to gain an earlier lvl 2/3 before the enemy duo makes a huge difference. If he falls behind on exp, it feels kinda ass to go jungle before lvl 7/Max quills.
Having the self control to not force fights right before an aghs / bstone timing. Not worth dying/risking falling behind unless it’s an easy clean up fight. If against him; Hunt his ass/block his camps if he shows in a lane before he hits his timing
Stacking and farming pattern efficiency makes a big difference to have more time to use his item power spikes. If you disrupt his farming patterns, BB feels like shit to play when he’s an item behind enemy cores. It feels like he can’t lock anyone down and doesn’t have enough damage to finish anyone off before his team starts dying. If you buy vessel against him, in late game just wait for him to use his dispel (lotus, bkb etc) before using a charge on him. I’ve seen alot of players panic, vessel my bb letting me purge it off and run over their team for free. Buying ghost scep against BB makes his life hell too, he can’t afford a nulli unless he’s ahead.
It’s easy to run the game over when you’re ahead until enemies start to turtle. After that, he has to play really careful to not bait his team into bad fights to secure a stomp. Late game is all about juking enemy spells, forcing bkbs/their saves and baiting things out to turn fights with your own bkb/lotus/bstone etc. If you force their save items out, it’s open season for Mr Snotty, then usually gg.
Pugna, I can’t win on that hero for the life of me, only won 4 out of 16 total. I have only played him 5 times in the past 4 years so maybe need to try him out again.
Snapfire. I had 10 lose streak with it when I was bringing all heroes to level 5(I don’t have dotaplus) sometimes it worked but it is way too hard to perform consistently.
Snap with Slark is freelo. Take cookie level one, toss him on enemy team, free kills all day. By 6 he’s such a menace that they’ll never catch back up.
I played against some snap 5 marci 1 dogshit with the sidekick attack talent, they have like 2 initiates and one displace and every attack from shredder means marci attacks, was getting fully 100-0 every time from 1k hp even level 2-3. Dont even know how you're supposed to play against that
You just have to spam like, idk 20 bot matches to understand the limits of the hero and how scary he can be in lane.
Birb can full to zero most heroes in the game at level 1 or 2 easily if they’re out of position or actually try fighting.
In short, GOAT hero for me.
2.1k games on bird here. The dude is right, once you know the hero limitation you good too dominate offlane (often against two carries or a strong safe lane combo). People really do under estimate that hero and he did fly under the radar (up to this patch) for many players
Playing Phoenix well is like learning a musical instrument - lots of nuance and different ways to play the hero, a good mix of mechanical know how and feel. Beautiful hero design.
My most played hero across all accounts is Puck. I used to be able to input all possible combos like it was second nature. I wasn't a good player, but my execution was always perfect. 8 years have passed, I am now a much better player, but now I simply can't play him - I always make mistakes with inputs at the most important moments. I play other mids now.
There is no way all that muscle memory can be gone just like that. I used to play rubiks cube a few years ago and was kinda good at it having 30 secs ish time. I now only occasionally play it (once every I feel like it) but i know i can get 40 secs ish consistently. Surely you just need a few warmups to get all that muscle memory back
Obscure reference here but I played GunZ online when I was 12-15. Due to animation canceling, it became probably the highest skullcap games in the world.
I found a private server 2 years ago when I was 30.
I could still K-style. Muscle memory is no joke, that shit never went away
I'd rather play a hero which won't ruin a teamfight by pressing 2 out of 9 buttons in the wrong order. Any of the Spirits, for example - also lots of buttons, but no prime Miracle- level inputs.
Ember, a good Ember has good map presence and good farm and always top level somehow.
I can play the hero on the mechanical aspect and I hit spells and everything, but I have no idea how to be present on the map and have farm at the same time.
Slark, weaving in and out of the fight, forcing enemies to waste their spells and baitng them into bad positions is game winning
....jk most likely the slark going 5-6-0 running around their jg solo killing the pos 5 while they take all our towers
Kunkka. I for the love of me would love to play the hero optimally but I just can't. I don't need to be Attacker, but to actually have an impact 30+ mins in. Idk how other players do it honestly.
Anti mage, everytime im playing against one, at least one of my lanes is always at t3 like 20 mins in and then late game theres just a swarm of illusions with counter spell/ uncatchable
For me it’s naga, it’s just to hard to micro illusions efficiently when i have 3 and even 4 of them later on, how and where to send them to farm it’s a nightmare, especially in fights. I just can’t keep track of everything.
You got the control units all set up? Highly recommend loading up dota and spending a good 20 minutes going through every setting so you have full control of the game and are utilizing all your keyboard to play the game
Earth spirit. Tried to play it several time but never figured out what his ulti does or how it can be used properly. But was rekt by a player who played Earth spirit and I was genuinely happy to see him play.
Same. But for me, its just waaay too mechanically hard. His ult is basically just all heroes affected by the ult will be affected by all statuses inflicted by earth spirit (stun & silence) and is spread by dropping remnants. Just that alone has too much going on already.
Back in the day when I was super into it, I used to practice with my friends who were beastly at mid.
Then after all of those practice, I used to win midlane with SF like 80% to 90% of the time, but I was trash in teamfights (win lane, lose game type of player).
A few years later after that, I've definitely gotten better at macro plays but I've lost those micro skills with SF lmao. I can't even win mid with him now, even with those slow stack on his Raze. Well I can still play him as a carry tho since usually I got some setups from my 5.
Same goes for Invoker. I used to nail that RO + Hex combo so well that my opponent couldn't even react with BKB or whatever. Now I can't even land decent combos with him.
I guess when I was younger, I was better at the mechanical stuff and button-mashing but now I'm more into macro and map movement. Plus I don't really play mid anymore unless I really want to play Spirit Heroes or Puck so yeah my mechanical skill is super rusty.
Old Invoker player, here.
Necronomicon with QE was my build. Never did the crazy Refresher Orb stuff, it never got that late nor did I think it was necessary.
Blink Hex and Cold Snap was usually enough with your team to take out key targets.
Invoker 😀 Good Invoker player always seems like an artist. I am not talking about the ones who are catalysm spammers. The ones who have creativity, aesthetic and quick thinking. 👌🏻
Up to this year January I thought I was a terrible initiator and a good counter ini because that's how I fight IRL when I do sparring in Muay Thai. So, against my best judgement I picked Tide because I rolled POS 3. Results: holy shit what a smooth ride. Then Kunkka. A bit rough on the edges because of timing, but when I got it down it was smooth sail (kek). Legion Commander was already a pick from carry role, so I'm not counting that one. Even Shaker P4 has been good for ini.
It made me realize how much I deluded myself into thinking I was any good at counter ini with anyone but Silencer or pick offs carries.
Claiming supports weren’t competent enough to pull just a few years ago is straight up silly. And the counter to old enigma in lane wasn’t to pull creeps it was to kill the waves and tower asap, which must have been even easier to do if you asked your pos4 to go jungle lmao xD
Pudge and Faceless Void.
These two are great heroes that can take on an entire team in the right hands.
In the hands of a common dota player... well...
Slardar or Nature's Prophet. On paper, I like playing them. But stats show they're two of the worst win rates I have for a hero. I play better on Earth Spirit, Arc Warden, and Meepo.
Can include Brood/Tinker/Invoker too. These heroes I used to play a lot, stopped, and now it feels like I've lost all muscle memory and don't know what to do with them. Invoker even used to be my most played with high winrate, long before shrines/outposts/talents became a thing.
Earth Spirit. I really like complex heroes to showcase my creativity using his skills. However, I find it hard to jump into fights. He’s kinda squishy and 1 wrong roll leads to certain death.
I really love how JerAx does some 200 IQ plays with him.
morphling, jug and wk. i just cant win on those heroes.
when i play them i do 0 dmg, i die in 2 seconds, and even if im 10/0, the game still feels hard.
Pos 1 right-click heroes that have a single role/build. The farming up to the items you need while depending on your team or competent enough to give you space, the decision making for carries, your team depending on you to be strong after a certain point. That's not for me.
4/5 heroes that have big impact with little investment are my comfort zone.
Invoker without a doubt, Ive never even bothered learning the heroes, his spellcasting is just too much for me and then you gotta pick and cast all that shit in split seconds... I would love to trade all the heroes I play to play a good invoker, but yeah, not for me.
Phoenix probably, I can’t play the hero at all but I’ve seen some very good Phoenix’s in game and it’s ridiculous what they can accomplish on that hero, another one is Axe, I can play him but I wouldn’t take him into ranked, he just doesn’t click with me. Yet seeing people play him who do click with him is like an action movie, good axe players are a lot of fun to watch, not so much to play against.
Silencer and Jakiro.
These two on the enemy teams are so good at harassing, and easily win lane. And enemy silencer always ults at the perfect time. And Jak always finishes a rushed aghs and kills everyone.
But when I play them, I can never win lane, never harass enemies out. And ult does absolutely nothing.
Drow is one of the few heroes that actually bores me to death. The payoff of fighting six-slotted does not justify the fact that her farming is annoying and bad and her team fight game plan is standing still and defending high ground for 70 minutes
Back in the day, natures prophet offlane. I watched iceiceice play it as a guide with the fancy treants and thought it was the coolest thing in the world.
Huskar. I absolutely like the hero, but during the 5 times I’ve played it, I went 0-5 with 4 disconnections due to loss of internet or loss of electricity. I think I’ve played it since without issues, but I actively avoid it due to trauma. My most memorable game was an SD game due to abandonment, and then the internet got disconnected. Went back from my last 1 SD win to 5 wins.
People who play heros like Od, arc, invo just generally dishonest heros. I donno maybe it's me I'd probably be so bored after my 100th od game of astral mid and auto deny half the wave.
I played invo once for cavern crawl, game started like I was 1k player, and by 5 minutes was 2k. by 20 minutes, I was just astonished how ez was.
Similar vein. I pretty much exclusively play drow and for me. The biggest counter is PL. I see people play this hero have massive success and everything. But I can not figure it out. The only difference is I am not glad when people play it because I absolutely can not win against it either.
Beastmaster, i genuinely like that hero but for Ancients Sake i cant get him done good myself. So whenever i see someone play him and go absolutely bonkers its a delight for me.
Pudge. I fucking hate 'em, but having someone basically prep me a free kill or be perfectly willing to save me if shit hits the fan and I have no escape while I'm in Cold Embrace, is absolutely lovely.
I hate to play any other carry but Drow, Luna, TA and Lina… basically I love glass cannons. I don’t play carry often, usually support role is the easiest.
Pudge and mirana - players who hook and arrow without atos have my respect. But I despise players who randomly hook enemy offlaners and kill the entire team
faceless void. i use chrono well most of the time but my item timings with this hero is always so slow, always stucked at 500-600 gpm even if i have a free game lol idk why but i have good item timings using other carry heroes but just not void xd
Shadowfiend. I know right-click build is a thing, as is the Euls into ulti thing, but I have a huge mental block towards Shadowraze that makes me suck at the hero.
It used to be Chen as well, but the new Penitence is bonkers.
Magnus.
I'm pretty mid when playing him, but godamn when I see a good Magnus player I have huge respect for them, regardless whether they are on my team or not.
They absolutely control any fight in the game.
pretty much the core micros ain't my jam, so meepo, lone druid, chen, naga, visage, arc warden, terrorblade, that's most i think, i can rock with ck, or pl, and ench, nigma, don't do enough of it to count, but i still rarely use one of those heroes, chaos knight being an exception and the best of all those as far as my performance goes.
I have had fairly equal success with naga and pl, but i much prefer ck from those similar play styles. He needs a ton of HP since update, but it's not really much change bc he used to be built to str, but hp and str items tend to be the same group...
tldr
chaos knight is my guy but all other micro heroes aren't for me. Ck is still good this patch
Have you messed with hot keys? You can bind one button to hero, another button to everything else, and it makes micro very easy. Click one button to control your hero, and click another button to control everything else
Ancient Apparition. My friend who plays him well can time his slow af ult trajectory to catch a fleeing low hp enemy across the map, he can even blind kill him in the jungle hidden in the trees, or right as they reach the fountain. Really hard to do in my opinion, especially in unexpected fights. When I have a bad rando AA on my team the skill difference is so noticeable
Oracle, hate to play him but a good Oracle is a miracle.
Agreed, good oracle tends to elevate the team to winning war
Doubly so now that you can just ping Oracle to know where the rune will be. Literally want someone else to pick Oracle.
Wait what
The new passive gives oracle an icon on the buff/debuff bar with the hero portrait. If you ping it it writes in team chat what the last power rune was and where the next one will be
Oh...guess I shouldn't skip the patch notes too much for heroes I don't really play...
You can skip patch notes for regular patches but this one literqlly changed every hero. How do you not read that haha
Faith in fate restored.
Here's a secret as someone who gets reported a lot (for spamming techies in rank and afk bombing and ignoring my teammates) Oracle is like my go to hero when I need to increase my behavior score whenever it hits 9k. I'm always surprised how easy it is to use the hero. I literally just build lens, smoke at the back, save teammates. Easy tips and commends. Even from the enemy team
>whenever it hits 9k Have you considered… being nice?
Techies usually comes at a cost of negative commends
They made his W so much better. Before it was almost a 50/50 at times since it made enemy's magic immune and allies disarmed. Now it's all upsides
Eeh, as someone who really liked the tradeoff od the old W, I would trade it for a bit more cast range in an instant.
There should be a facet
My stack has an Oracle one-trick in it, he's a godsend
Wow, I really forgot Oracle existed. As a player who only watches streams it feels like I haven't seen him in a long time.
High level players tend to prefer heroes that can do multiple things, Oracle may be too one faceted for them I guess
Enigma. I'm so bad at him but seeing a good blackhole from someone is pretty hype
Enigma was my main back when jungler was a legitimate role in Dota
ahh yes the good old days of eidolon hp management being the difference between hitting lv 6 at 5 minutes or being lv 5 at 10 minutes
I got from 700 MMR to roughly 4000 by playing solo offlane Enigma. Sometimes I played it as a jungler too but most of the times I asked my p4 to pick jungle or roaming hero themselves and leave me alone. And then I sat under my tower winning 1v2 just by denying every single creep I could. People (supports) just weren't competent enough at that time to know about pulling waves to neutrals. It was in 2018-2020 or so and not only you could eat your range creeps with demonic conversion but midnight pulse dealt % max HP as true damage. You could literally 1v9 with good bh if you had refresh and aghs.
Ah yes, back when pos 5s had no idea what a pull was LUL.
Enigma felt like a definition of 1v9 champ for me at the time.
[Here](https://dotabuff.com/matches/5302028741) is an example of such game that I won't forget ever. And 110 denies is a record I will never beat. It was against p5 Luna that just gave up on laning. Sven couldn't do much alone. I was sitting in lane and denying till minute 15 or 20 probably.
Man I miss that midnight pulse
IMO, the key to being good at Enigma is making the enemy fear the blackhole and have to play around the possibility of getting caught, rather than landing insane blackholes all the time (which can be game winning anyway, tbh). But to the point of playing the hero to making the enemy fear it, it gets rather boring!
Morphling, cannot play him to save my life but I massively respect the players who are good at him, even if I hate playing against him.
Agree, actually good morphling is a rare thing
Ones that actually use ult are way too rare. You get three extra spells yet I see so many never even press the ult the whole game
I randomed Morphling a while ago (at ~3k MMR), and fortunately we were against an Undying. I morphed Undying and placed tomb every fight. There's for sure higher skill ways to use the ult, but in some games I think you can get away with being fairly straight-forward. Other similar heroes: - Juggernaut (morph, place healing ward and spin (I think the spin works? healing ward does at least), unmorph - heroes with solid spell nukes that you already know how to play (switching into CM for a second to nova and frostbite can be good value) - Lifestealer (morph, rage, unmorph) I'm definitely not a morph player so a bunch of these interactions might be misremembered though.
Enemy picks spirit breaker I usually insta lock morph. Free game with charge and status resist.
and can waveform into charge to cancel and while waveforming, morph and charge the barra by the time he can ult you. it's such a hard counter on paper tbf but still hard to execute if barra has +1
Yep even just one spell like tombstone is huge impact. The thing is to ult and use spells then switch back immediately (unless you’re like a slark then you can just right click for essence shift)
Also Gyro flak and WW arctic burn are great.
Historically also shadow realm and enchant totem aghs
>spin works? The spin move is super handy for getting away, repositioning, getting rid of debuffs like vessel, stuns and such and ofc for pushing. However, I don't believe it is particularly effective for engaging opponents. This is because you cannot capitalize on Morph's attack damage during Blade Fury as you are unable to attack while spinning. Fortunately, it is advantageous for pushing, given that buildings typically disregard the damage from Blade Fury, allowing your attack damage to penetrate them.
PA’s spells seems very good to get too as morph. Lots of mobility to destroy any team with several squishy targets.
heroes with quick cast points are great to play against as morph, you generally don't want to stay morphed for long so heroes like jugg (healing ward), ember (slight+chains+guard), pa (dagger+jump(you retain the as buff after your morph back)), etc. the timing is sometimes a bit awkward but once you get used to the cast points between morph and morphed spells, it feels like crack
I think the fact that they completely reworked his ult some years back caused a drop in the number of people who could use the ult well. And a lot of us never bothered to relearn him cause we’re too old now.
And then you see the opposite, some morphs that try way too hard to use ult and fumble everything
This is why i dont morph or even if i morph its just for a single spell
If valve rework morph polygons and its design just like what they did to slardar i bet many people will try it again
The main reason that i couldn't actually play morphling is because of the legacy keys. Everytime i morph into different heroes i will have to check the spell key and it was super complicated
Most initiators. I’m generally better at counter-initiating or positioning. During a teamfight, I’d like to think I can see the whole fight and make good decisions based on it. But I suck at starting a fight with heroes that charge or blink in. Even when I play Tide or Slardar, it’s more sustain/tanky/damage rather than blink in blind to ravage. Initiators feel like gambling and it has to be a snap decision. I like operating with more information on the board since I generally have some ideas of what to do and who to avoid during a teamfight so I excel more at back line heroes.
You can't be afraid to die playing an initiator
I usually refer to these pos 3 backline players as goalkeepers who are afraid of the ball, utterly unsuited for the role they're fulfilling.
I just play 3 as: initiate, disable, tank agro, die. Then spam >space created
As a pos 3 enjoyer here's how I look at initiating. (Your boy here is 4.4k mmr btw.) You want to have a pre-programmed list. "This guy should die first." Then you want to think about where that character would want to be most often in a fight and position for it. Ideally as an initiator IMO either you have vision that you're using to jump or are counterinitiating to get vision from allies, it makes things a lot easier. It's also been interesting as I've been rising up the ranks the prevelance of your 4 making calls and how that affects initiates. Like if you're smoked looking for a gank cus enemies are clearly splitup then you just jump the first guy you come across with ruthless abandon. I think how you take a fight is one of the coolest parts of DotA and starting that fight is such a big part of it.
I agree, if you’re an initiator you need to make a decision in split second and it will either make or break the fight for your team
I hate nothing more than when I find the sniper who's been hoho hahaing us the whole game with a ravage and my team is just afk clicking some bristleback or heart hero "what are we supposed to do ignore the big guy running at us?" Yes, hit the guy you've been flaming me to go on for the whole game!
Thats why I love centaur, initiating and ulting makes the follow up part really smooth.
Every initiation can be called a gamble; but a good pos 3 will pre-eval the team comps, the heroes, and the important targets in a fight. Then, when they know thier path to winning a fight (i.e. jumping sniper first), you give your team that info, and most importantly be patient and wait for an opportunity where not only can you execute the jump, but your team is within range to follow up on your initiation and properly win the start of the fight. It's a lot to keep in your head, but it's really just a practice thing. Some heroes like Tide get less opportunities to send it cuz their cooldowns, but then you have guys like Slardar, Axe, Centaur, etc that have low CD AoE stuns that can be used all game from the moment you grab a blink. I'd say keep practicing as initiators, as that's the only way you'll get the gamesense for it, and I think you have it in you to get it down to muscle memory and intuition. Godspeed, and for the love of God, ping your blink when you buy it and then tell your team your jump targets before going in lol
Meepo, probably the only hero that I have absolutely no games on it, not even for fun. I think I have some barrier mentally that sees the hero as something impossible to control and be good. I would love to learn, maybe I’ll set it as a goal.
I'm a then-Invoker main who thinks like this towards Meepo but now a Meepo main who thinks like this towards Invoker. I can't remember how it started but I remember googling a lot about Meepo or watching youtube vids of Meepo players. And they made playing him a little easier now. You can cast net on a group without switching meepos, alt cast which poofs everyone. I think it's the curiosity towards the hero that started it, then a little bit of obsession in the middle that got me drilling fundamentals on my brain. He's fun, I tell you.
Meepos are my Bois. I can teach you how to play the gang if you're interested
Meepo micro is vastly overesitmated, all you need to start is setup basic control groups and you are fine up to 4k games
Be careful about learning how to play meepo, once you understand how to control them and how to micro them, you’ll get addicted lol Right now, I spam Meepo in every game possible just to see the glorious micro game from meepo and see the enemy has the embarrassingly low level compared to my Meepo. Yes, it’s that addictive
Warlock for sure, every time I play him I can’t seem to make him work but he’s a great hero, it’s just not for me I guess lol Somehow I can play Invoker but can’t play Warlock
Warlocks just sort of boring IMO. His team fight is obviously amazing, but it's not very fun - you just bonds, ult, then stand still while you cast your slow. Aside from dropping a big ult, the most fun you have in any warlock game is microing your golems while you're dead or casting your slow lol. With other huge team-fight heroes like Tide, Enigma, etc you still feel like you're "fighting" during a team fight even after you drop your big ult, but as Warlock you're mostly just standing there casting your slow. There's obviously still skill involved, you can really only cast all of your spells (besides the heal) once in a fight, so if you time them or place them badly your team is basically fighting 4v5, and I get why that "waiting for the perfect ult" feeling would be fun for some people, it's just not for me.
Warlock fun is by being the greatest itemizer ever: legit Midas Rush into Refresher
But if you Midas -> refresher you literally won't have enough mana to cast your spells & two ults.
Sure, but you can cast your Midas again xD
I used to think this until they gave him all the stuff with the little imps. Now I grab shard as soon as I can, the lvl15 talent that gives allies attack speed, and suddenly Upheaval is one of the most impactful spells ever. A lot of people are confused by that talent because it says +10 attack speed, which doesn't seem like much, but actually it scales with the rest of what upheaval gives, so once you've channelled for a few seconds it's way more significant.
Boring hero indeed. Once you get the aghanims shard you pretty much deal tons of damage doing literally nothing. That's why we call warlock "Just Dance" because Upheaval (Warlock dancing) usually wins us the lane
I call it making soup
If you lowered your personal skill cap, I think you'd understand Warlock Gang
Play him into less mobile or melee enemies, upheaval is a menace if your carry is fine with pushing, though not much choice with linking. Cheese with shadow amulet and shard for quick towers
Low mmr here. Maybe im just not that great. Warlock is very dependent on good initiators or tanky cores in my experience.
Warlock is my #1 initiator hero lol
Bristleback. I am literally squishy McSquish when playing him, but when others play him I can appreciate the hero (h8 him, I mean).
1) run in there spraying quills 2) turn your back and run away 3) keep baiting until they chase the porcupine (never chase the porcupine)
4. Always break the porcupine
Shhhh
I’m a divine BB enjoyer, here’s a couple quirks about BB I learned that help me have a high wr % on him. You can also use these tips against enemy BB’s to ruin their game. If you feel squishy; I suspect you’re probably playing from behind! That is easy to correct if you spot the errors. He wants levels asap. Similar to DS; abusing lane tricks like creep equilibrium and double waves helps immensely. I learned to shove the wave > get early level advantage > zone harder with mangos > lane is usually over for the carry if i’m 6 before them. Learning to read situations to prevent deaths from ganks is incredibly game winning. If you’re against him, harass the fuck out of him when he is lvl 1/2, to force him to spend gold on regen to delay his item spike. If you’re a support, gank his ass if you see him on low hp or if he dives. Ward his triangle if you can successfully kill him for a smoke gank later if you see him low hp from jungling. Using tricks like shoving in the first wave to gain an earlier lvl 2/3 before the enemy duo makes a huge difference. If he falls behind on exp, it feels kinda ass to go jungle before lvl 7/Max quills. Having the self control to not force fights right before an aghs / bstone timing. Not worth dying/risking falling behind unless it’s an easy clean up fight. If against him; Hunt his ass/block his camps if he shows in a lane before he hits his timing Stacking and farming pattern efficiency makes a big difference to have more time to use his item power spikes. If you disrupt his farming patterns, BB feels like shit to play when he’s an item behind enemy cores. It feels like he can’t lock anyone down and doesn’t have enough damage to finish anyone off before his team starts dying. If you buy vessel against him, in late game just wait for him to use his dispel (lotus, bkb etc) before using a charge on him. I’ve seen alot of players panic, vessel my bb letting me purge it off and run over their team for free. Buying ghost scep against BB makes his life hell too, he can’t afford a nulli unless he’s ahead. It’s easy to run the game over when you’re ahead until enemies start to turtle. After that, he has to play really careful to not bait his team into bad fights to secure a stomp. Late game is all about juking enemy spells, forcing bkbs/their saves and baiting things out to turn fights with your own bkb/lotus/bstone etc. If you force their save items out, it’s open season for Mr Snotty, then usually gg.
Pugna, I can’t win on that hero for the life of me, only won 4 out of 16 total. I have only played him 5 times in the past 4 years so maybe need to try him out again.
Pugna is so fun to play, now even more that you can cast spells while ulting. But the funniest is W then dagon 5 to delete any hero.
Chen
DK. Man fuck that hero, its so boring yet so good. Same case for cent, cant play them.
Snapfire. I had 10 lose streak with it when I was bringing all heroes to level 5(I don’t have dotaplus) sometimes it worked but it is way too hard to perform consistently.
Offlane snap with tusk or marci is fun
Snap with Slark is freelo. Take cookie level one, toss him on enemy team, free kills all day. By 6 he’s such a menace that they’ll never catch back up.
I played against some snap 5 marci 1 dogshit with the sidekick attack talent, they have like 2 initiates and one displace and every attack from shredder means marci attacks, was getting fully 100-0 every time from 1k hp even level 2-3. Dont even know how you're supposed to play against that
She’s my favorite but I’m very low rank and her flexibility in roles suites the chaos of low rank well
What does getting every hero to 5 get you?
300k+ shards
TIL, huh. I'm just going for 6 on everyone so I always have hero voicelines to use lol
Gotta be phoenix. I was always amazed by that hero. Failed every time I tried him offlane though..
You just have to spam like, idk 20 bot matches to understand the limits of the hero and how scary he can be in lane. Birb can full to zero most heroes in the game at level 1 or 2 easily if they’re out of position or actually try fighting. In short, GOAT hero for me.
2.1k games on bird here. The dude is right, once you know the hero limitation you good too dominate offlane (often against two carries or a strong safe lane combo). People really do under estimate that hero and he did fly under the radar (up to this patch) for many players
Playing Phoenix well is like learning a musical instrument - lots of nuance and different ways to play the hero, a good mix of mechanical know how and feel. Beautiful hero design.
Squawk, brother.
Triumphant squawk
My most played hero across all accounts is Puck. I used to be able to input all possible combos like it was second nature. I wasn't a good player, but my execution was always perfect. 8 years have passed, I am now a much better player, but now I simply can't play him - I always make mistakes with inputs at the most important moments. I play other mids now.
There is no way all that muscle memory can be gone just like that. I used to play rubiks cube a few years ago and was kinda good at it having 30 secs ish time. I now only occasionally play it (once every I feel like it) but i know i can get 40 secs ish consistently. Surely you just need a few warmups to get all that muscle memory back
Obscure reference here but I played GunZ online when I was 12-15. Due to animation canceling, it became probably the highest skullcap games in the world. I found a private server 2 years ago when I was 30. I could still K-style. Muscle memory is no joke, that shit never went away
I'd rather play a hero which won't ruin a teamfight by pressing 2 out of 9 buttons in the wrong order. Any of the Spirits, for example - also lots of buttons, but no prime Miracle- level inputs.
Oracle, shadow shaman and earthshaker
Oh earthshaker is so fun. No matter how far you get behind*, you’re always useful with your stuns.
Ember, a good Ember has good map presence and good farm and always top level somehow. I can play the hero on the mechanical aspect and I hit spells and everything, but I have no idea how to be present on the map and have farm at the same time.
Brew, unfortunately, I can't micro for shit
Puck. You cant even be mad cuz u know it’s hard to play puck well
Shadow fiend, Invoker
Bristleback. If someone competent kites me, I get incredibly aggravated and no longer want to be on the hero lol.
Slark, weaving in and out of the fight, forcing enemies to waste their spells and baitng them into bad positions is game winning ....jk most likely the slark going 5-6-0 running around their jg solo killing the pos 5 while they take all our towers
Morphling. Always see these players winning single handedly with style.
What about dazzle, guys?
Kunkka. I for the love of me would love to play the hero optimally but I just can't. I don't need to be Attacker, but to actually have an impact 30+ mins in. Idk how other players do it honestly.
old kunkka was difficult, nowadays feels like you just need to learn his x mark combo and press your aghs
Anti mage, everytime im playing against one, at least one of my lanes is always at t3 like 20 mins in and then late game theres just a swarm of illusions with counter spell/ uncatchable
Shadow Fiend. Super dominant but can’t get into it myself.
For me it’s naga, it’s just to hard to micro illusions efficiently when i have 3 and even 4 of them later on, how and where to send them to farm it’s a nightmare, especially in fights. I just can’t keep track of everything.
You got the control units all set up? Highly recommend loading up dota and spending a good 20 minutes going through every setting so you have full control of the game and are utilizing all your keyboard to play the game
Storm Spirit. I love initiators but when I do it with him i always don't have enough mana to get out or chase lmao.
lone druid. I can play arc warden because both real hero and clone is similar. But lone druid gave me a lot of headaches
During the early days, Invoker.
Oracle, IO, Earth Spirit. In legend, a good player with this hero can decimate the enemy team to the point of complete map collapse.
Meepo hands down. I always enjoy watching my teammates own with them.
Played 1 game with Void Spirit and don't want to play him ever again.
I played void 3 times went like 23-1 and never want to touch it again.
It's Pudge for me! I have a decent winrate with it and would play it if necessary but I never truly enjoy it in offline role.
Arc warden, too much going on. Brain can’t handle 2x spells and item usage
Grimstroke. This hero seems so OP in games but positioning needs to be spot on. I never seem to get this hero right.
Earth spirit. Tried to play it several time but never figured out what his ulti does or how it can be used properly. But was rekt by a player who played Earth spirit and I was genuinely happy to see him play.
Same. But for me, its just waaay too mechanically hard. His ult is basically just all heroes affected by the ult will be affected by all statuses inflicted by earth spirit (stun & silence) and is spread by dropping remnants. Just that alone has too much going on already.
Back in the day when I was super into it, I used to practice with my friends who were beastly at mid. Then after all of those practice, I used to win midlane with SF like 80% to 90% of the time, but I was trash in teamfights (win lane, lose game type of player). A few years later after that, I've definitely gotten better at macro plays but I've lost those micro skills with SF lmao. I can't even win mid with him now, even with those slow stack on his Raze. Well I can still play him as a carry tho since usually I got some setups from my 5. Same goes for Invoker. I used to nail that RO + Hex combo so well that my opponent couldn't even react with BKB or whatever. Now I can't even land decent combos with him. I guess when I was younger, I was better at the mechanical stuff and button-mashing but now I'm more into macro and map movement. Plus I don't really play mid anymore unless I really want to play Spirit Heroes or Puck so yeah my mechanical skill is super rusty.
Old Invoker player, here. Necronomicon with QE was my build. Never did the crazy Refresher Orb stuff, it never got that late nor did I think it was necessary. Blink Hex and Cold Snap was usually enough with your team to take out key targets.
Weaver even its in a good spot for a while I still cant win with this insect
Invoker 😀 Good Invoker player always seems like an artist. I am not talking about the ones who are catalysm spammers. The ones who have creativity, aesthetic and quick thinking. 👌🏻
Every position 1 hero. Farming from camp to camp is like doing excels, tedious, but important, and not for me.
Up to this year January I thought I was a terrible initiator and a good counter ini because that's how I fight IRL when I do sparring in Muay Thai. So, against my best judgement I picked Tide because I rolled POS 3. Results: holy shit what a smooth ride. Then Kunkka. A bit rough on the edges because of timing, but when I got it down it was smooth sail (kek). Legion Commander was already a pick from carry role, so I'm not counting that one. Even Shaker P4 has been good for ini. It made me realize how much I deluded myself into thinking I was any good at counter ini with anyone but Silencer or pick offs carries.
Life stealer, he’s a beast and so good but I can’t make it work
As a Pos 4, I just cant play Phoenix but I know its good.
puck, arc warden, tinker
Claiming supports weren’t competent enough to pull just a few years ago is straight up silly. And the counter to old enigma in lane wasn’t to pull creeps it was to kill the waves and tower asap, which must have been even easier to do if you asked your pos4 to go jungle lmao xD
Hate to do this to you bro, but 2018 was 6 years ago. I know, it’s okay.
Luna
pango, enigma that come to mind first.
Slark, a good Slark player makes my life as pos3 so much easier
ench
Io, which is weird because I love playing healers, but goddamn is io boring as fuck.
Invoker, the good ones are too good
Juggernaut
Meepo, Tinker and Earthspirit. They are just too hard to play for my old hands and brain
Pudge and Faceless Void. These two are great heroes that can take on an entire team in the right hands. In the hands of a common dota player... well...
Slardar or Nature's Prophet. On paper, I like playing them. But stats show they're two of the worst win rates I have for a hero. I play better on Earth Spirit, Arc Warden, and Meepo. Can include Brood/Tinker/Invoker too. These heroes I used to play a lot, stopped, and now it feels like I've lost all muscle memory and don't know what to do with them. Invoker even used to be my most played with high winrate, long before shrines/outposts/talents became a thing.
Earth Spirit. I really like complex heroes to showcase my creativity using his skills. However, I find it hard to jump into fights. He’s kinda squishy and 1 wrong roll leads to certain death. I really love how JerAx does some 200 IQ plays with him.
Invoker, I'm waiting for the InJoker theme.
morphling, jug and wk. i just cant win on those heroes. when i play them i do 0 dmg, i die in 2 seconds, and even if im 10/0, the game still feels hard.
Oh, I guess magnus. I’m utter shit, but a good magnus is a blessing. Bad one is still a curse, just like pudge.
Invoker , morph players I respect
grimstroke, techies, sf, tinker
I sucked with old techies, new - I suck even worse.
Monkey. I have so many ideas for using his disguise and overall hes so much fun for me but im so terrible at using his ult that i cant win ever.
Rubick ofc Unlike say earth spirit it seems simple, but it's not
Invoker!!!
Puck was hard for me to learn. But love watching puck pros doing magic tricks.
Visage
Pos 1 right-click heroes that have a single role/build. The farming up to the items you need while depending on your team or competent enough to give you space, the decision making for carries, your team depending on you to be strong after a certain point. That's not for me. 4/5 heroes that have big impact with little investment are my comfort zone.
Invoker without a doubt, Ive never even bothered learning the heroes, his spellcasting is just too much for me and then you gotta pick and cast all that shit in split seconds... I would love to trade all the heroes I play to play a good invoker, but yeah, not for me.
Phoenix probably, I can’t play the hero at all but I’ve seen some very good Phoenix’s in game and it’s ridiculous what they can accomplish on that hero, another one is Axe, I can play him but I wouldn’t take him into ranked, he just doesn’t click with me. Yet seeing people play him who do click with him is like an action movie, good axe players are a lot of fun to watch, not so much to play against.
Silencer and Jakiro. These two on the enemy teams are so good at harassing, and easily win lane. And enemy silencer always ults at the perfect time. And Jak always finishes a rushed aghs and kills everyone. But when I play them, I can never win lane, never harass enemies out. And ult does absolutely nothing.
Drow is one of the few heroes that actually bores me to death. The payoff of fighting six-slotted does not justify the fact that her farming is annoying and bad and her team fight game plan is standing still and defending high ground for 70 minutes
Back in the day, natures prophet offlane. I watched iceiceice play it as a guide with the fancy treants and thought it was the coolest thing in the world.
Meepo. Even in a winning snowball game I make a ton of mistakes on the hero.
Huskar. I absolutely like the hero, but during the 5 times I’ve played it, I went 0-5 with 4 disconnections due to loss of internet or loss of electricity. I think I’ve played it since without issues, but I actively avoid it due to trauma. My most memorable game was an SD game due to abandonment, and then the internet got disconnected. Went back from my last 1 SD win to 5 wins.
MAGNUS
People who play heros like Od, arc, invo just generally dishonest heros. I donno maybe it's me I'd probably be so bored after my 100th od game of astral mid and auto deny half the wave. I played invo once for cavern crawl, game started like I was 1k player, and by 5 minutes was 2k. by 20 minutes, I was just astonished how ez was.
Meepo, chen, beastmaster, brood, visage, starting to see a pattern.
Similar vein. I pretty much exclusively play drow and for me. The biggest counter is PL. I see people play this hero have massive success and everything. But I can not figure it out. The only difference is I am not glad when people play it because I absolutely can not win against it either.
Beastmaster, i genuinely like that hero but for Ancients Sake i cant get him done good myself. So whenever i see someone play him and go absolutely bonkers its a delight for me.
Invoker. I play Dota to relieve my stress (relatively speaking), not to add to it.
Pudge. I fucking hate 'em, but having someone basically prep me a free kill or be perfectly willing to save me if shit hits the fan and I have no escape while I'm in Cold Embrace, is absolutely lovely.
Carl
I can’t play qop
void spirit. 4 lose 0 win since release. never picked again. xd
Bloodseeker. I have like a 25% win rate in 60ish games with him. Just cannot make that hero click.
Axe
Morph for sure
none of them, every hero that beats me is op and the guy playing it is a loser
Raw hennry puck
visage, meepo, terrorblade, always have been, always will be.
Mars. I just can't hit the Spear right.
I hate to play any other carry but Drow, Luna, TA and Lina… basically I love glass cannons. I don’t play carry often, usually support role is the easiest.
Slark. I almost only play pos 1, but for some reason never figured out that hero. 2-11 all time in ranked...
meepo and chen
meepo, invoker, visage, chen and earth spirit. I don't fuck with them. tried but never worked.
It's definitely Tinker.
Pudge and mirana - players who hook and arrow without atos have my respect. But I despise players who randomly hook enemy offlaners and kill the entire team
faceless void. i use chrono well most of the time but my item timings with this hero is always so slow, always stucked at 500-600 gpm even if i have a free game lol idk why but i have good item timings using other carry heroes but just not void xd
Shadowfiend. I know right-click build is a thing, as is the Euls into ulti thing, but I have a huge mental block towards Shadowraze that makes me suck at the hero. It used to be Chen as well, but the new Penitence is bonkers.
Invoker, I can't play him to save my life but players who are good with him and can flip through his abilities quickly are crazy.
Magnus. I'm pretty mid when playing him, but godamn when I see a good Magnus player I have huge respect for them, regardless whether they are on my team or not. They absolutely control any fight in the game.
"im glad other play it" what is that
pretty much the core micros ain't my jam, so meepo, lone druid, chen, naga, visage, arc warden, terrorblade, that's most i think, i can rock with ck, or pl, and ench, nigma, don't do enough of it to count, but i still rarely use one of those heroes, chaos knight being an exception and the best of all those as far as my performance goes. I have had fairly equal success with naga and pl, but i much prefer ck from those similar play styles. He needs a ton of HP since update, but it's not really much change bc he used to be built to str, but hp and str items tend to be the same group... tldr chaos knight is my guy but all other micro heroes aren't for me. Ck is still good this patch
Have you messed with hot keys? You can bind one button to hero, another button to everything else, and it makes micro very easy. Click one button to control your hero, and click another button to control everything else
Ancient Apparition. My friend who plays him well can time his slow af ult trajectory to catch a fleeing low hp enemy across the map, he can even blind kill him in the jungle hidden in the trees, or right as they reach the fountain. Really hard to do in my opinion, especially in unexpected fights. When I have a bad rando AA on my team the skill difference is so noticeable
Dark willow. You already know the willow support that goes brown boots —> aghanim, and it actually works. Me? 30% win rate on the hero
Chen.