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As you can see we were absolutely ripped apart in this game, everything went wrong from minute 1. I've played lots of games as Disruptor and that has got to be the worst.
Me and Slark were in bottom lane, and Viper & Sniper just had so much range and slow that they tore us apart, especially when Necrophos came in as well.
We didn't get all that much help from the others, but the picks were just all wrong.
What would you have picked to counter their team instead?
On hindsight I'm thinking maybe a Warlock would have been good, with his Fatal Bonds meaning we could stay at a distance and still do some damage to them. And maybe a Pudge instead of Slark to keep them at a farther distance and hook one in where we could do some damage ourselves. Or at the least perhaps Dazzle should have come and formed a tri-lane?
Faced with a Viper/Sniper lane, what would you have done?
Viper and Sniper are both extremely strong harassers. In a dual lane versus dual lane situation, it's likely that you simply get zoned out of lane with harassment no matter what hero you're playing.
But both heroes have big weaknesses. They're squishy. They're slow as hell. They have no escape mechanism. They are completely snowball-dependent and have no way to come back from a bad start. Essentially...if you gank them, they're absolute free kills.
Call for ganks. Bounty Hunter and Drow Ranger are very good gankers. Ask them to gank your lane. When they do, they get a double kill, lane won, GG. Do that as many times as it takes. Heroes like Viper and Sniper are lane dominators, they completely rely on winning their lane to have game impact. If instead of winning the lane they keep dying to ganks...they're essentially out of the game.
So how to shut down a lane like this?
- Do a trilane. Literally any trilane completely ***** on this Viper + Sniper dual lane. As a 3rd support I'd pick something like Vengeful Spirit or Naga Siren, because they not only add a lot to your kill potential in lane, but they also hard counter heroes like Viper or Sniper at any stage of the game by giving you an easy way to initiate on them in teamfights.
- Play a ganker. Any ganker works. Any decently played Bounty Hunter would have completely wrecked this lane. If you're fed up of people playing dual lanes against your safe lane in pubs, junglers like Nature's Prophet, Enigma, Chen or Enchantress can gank them non-stop in the early game and shut them down completely.
As a solo support you can't do much against this kind of lane. But what you can do is take advantage of the fact that they're playing over-aggressive to gank them. They're literally free kills! If your team doesn't recognize this and take advantage of it...they're just bad players.
Essentially, you don't counter harassers by harassing them, you counter harassers by killing them :)
With Viper and Sniper, as Hamster said they're both very slow and if you pick a faster hero they're free food. My personal favorite sniper counters are Slark, Clinkz, and Storm Spirit. clockwork also works very well as a counter to sniper. Massive burst from someone such as Lina or Queen of Pain also works.
For viper the one counter I feel that allows you to harass him out of lane better than any other is Silencer. He can't dispel your mana burn or stop himself from being slowed until level 6, and even then he has to waste his ulti for 70 seconds.
For both these heroes it is crucial you either a. Ambush them or b. Use a gap closer like a blink to get close to them. They both have insane amount of slows and the only way to get close enough to hurt them is a gap closer. Centaur Warrunner and Queen of Pain are very good in this respect.
Yup, as stated, against harassers you either need to go big or go home. Either kill them, or semi-abandon the lane. I'm not sure you and Slark can go on them effectively without losing at least one of you, so that trilane would be very useful (why did you not run one btw? You had the heroes for it).
The other option is either to rotate (maybe Slark goes mid, Drow Ranger comes bot - a hero with a decent range has a chance to last hit), or to "abandon" the lane. I.e. you go roam and cause trouble elsewhere, Slark soaks XP and stays out of trouble, almost like you would an offlaner.
Personally the best thing you could have done with that lane is just picked better. Like, look at there line-up, they had Sniper, Viper and Necrophos, all really strong in lane harrassers, and strong laners. And one of those combinations of heroes was probably going to happen, since well it's a very pub lane.
Knowing that, the ideal thing to do would have just been to make picks to avoid that lane entirely. Because I don't think even with a tri-lane you'd win that lane clearly (Unless you had a really strong tri-lane, which I don't think you did), because despite being slow and kinda squishy, Sniper and Viper would probably make you pay for going on them, because they are very good at that given the huge amount of slows.
However, without kills, the heroes actually won't transition well. They will compete for CS on lane, and well both of them need the farm, because both of them become pretty ****ty without farm (Neither exactly have catch-up mechanisms and farm creeps really slowly). So, if you went for a jungler like say a Nature's Prophet (Yes, not a great jungler, but you just want the gold advantage here), and a hero who just wants some levels, and can stay far enough away to not die (So really putting the Bounty Hunter against them instead, since he can just sap EXP for a fast level 6 before ganking. Not ideal for a BH, but better than the alternative)
Essentially you beat the greedy by being somewhat greedy yourself, and not given it oportunities. (It's not like Viper or Sniper can contest Furion in the jungle, he just TP's out and they can't kill him 1 on 1, and two people is a waste of a rotation) It also puts more pressure on AM, which is also a good thing.
So for me, it would be down to the laning choices. Since I tend to not like roaming heavily with a Techies there. Except maybe to mid to help Drow Ranger vs presumably the Necro
Well sure viper becomes kind of tanky, but the way to wreck a 2 carry harass lane is to just kill them or force them out at level 1, since they are just 2 carries who are strong at harassing, but bad at anything else since they will have to share farm.
In this game your support duo was kinda.... weird but even then yiu can just go on them as 3, as soon as you allow them to outlevel you the team failed.
There is no reason for a dual offlane, any decent trilane on the top lane should make the game 5v3 in your favour.
First off: the real problem to me, are the core picks ( Drow Ranger, Slark and Bounty Hunter). Not that they are bad heroes, but in combination with Dazzle and Disruptor your ENTIRE team literally does 0 damage whatsoever, apart from rightclicks.
And relying solely on rightclick damage is extremely risky, since - as it apparently happened in this game - if you lose your lanes and dont get items up quickly ....well, you know the rest.
"The core picks were too greedy", would be my verdict.
As for the laning against Viper + Sniper.... not really much you can do there with your 2 offlane heroes. Best thing you could have done imo, was to just sit there and soak exp till level 6 and then MAYBE try to do something with your ults. Altho slark doesnt get much farm out of the lane, having to leave farm for the lanemate does hurt a Viper or a Sniper equally hard
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