what would have been a better counter-pick?

Hi, I'm new to the these forums, so I hope I'm asking the question in the right place:

I recently played a pub-match (ID 750984573, if that helps anyone?) where I was the last to draw, and since we lost, I was wondering if there was a more suitable choice of hero than what I went with.

The opposing, radiant, team was:

sniper
rikki
huskar
juggernaut
anti-mage

and my team was:
doom
spirit breaker
tinker
naga siren
nature's prophet (me)

I choose np because I thought he would make a good ganking partner with spirit breaker. Unfortunately, the sb was ****, and didn't really seem to understand the whole "gank other lanes" mentality. the only time a joint gank happened was because I specifically told him to. I was wondering if there was a better counter-pick to the radiant line up?

in the laning phase, naga and sb were top against juggernaught and am, tinker was middle against sniper, doom bottom against rikki and huskar and I was jungling. I am thinking that I should have gone bottom instead, and help keep rikki down? I did come down there a couple of times to help push back, but I was forgetting that rikki needs to be punished early.

in the end, we lost, primarily because we didn't have an answer to rikki or sniper. I should probably have gotten a necronomicon for the true sight (I kept thinking that I wouldn't be in the middle of the team fights anyway, but neither was rikki, so in hindsight some portable vision would have been good).

I know one player is not the team, especially not in a low-level pub, but I keep thinking that there should have been a better choice, especially since I ended up as the team's carry, with not too bad farm (though a bit late).

constructive comments are appreciated :)

I would have liked Slardar if he was available. His ult can mess up riki and sniper (assuming shadowblade) and sprint could catch up with anti-mage.

After some items and levels, his attacks and bash and/or crush stun could wreck huskar too.

Uh, so many carries, my eyes hurt :(

Really neither of these teams make much sense, so suggesting counters is difficult. Both teams are crying out for supports, but guess you're unlikely to get them. Slardar seems a reasonable counter (esp vs invis/shadow blade users) and gets going on less farm.

Tbh I'd be tempted to say pick up a strong pusher like Chen/ Enigma/ Leshrac/ Shadow Shaman and just pushing the **** outta them before they get any farm, or alternatively run a nasty ganker like Pudge, Night Stalker etc and destroying them before they get much farm.

Unfortunately whatever you do requires some degree of co-operation from your team, and judging by the picks...that was gonna be difficult :(. Juggernaut and Anti-Mage lane?

Bloody hell, those teams are terrible.

I imagine those lanes... Even with a jungler (" Riki, pls go jungle") that's just awful.

---

On the Dire team:

• Anti-Mage should be a number 1 lane carry
• Sniper 2 mid
• Juggernaut 3 offlaner ( Healing Ward and Blade Fury to escape)
• Huskar 4 jungler
• Riki 5 support (basically for the Smoke Screen)

On the Radiant team:

• Naga Siren 1 lane carry
• Tinker 2 mid
• Doom 3 jungler
• Nature's Prophet 4 offlaner
• Spirit Breaker 5 roamer/ganker/hilarious support

I think that's how it should look like. I do agree with Sando that you could go for a strong pusher that could be a good support (I'd go for Shadow Shaman) and focus on pushing the hell out of them. I am not sure, maybe Venomancer could be a good pick as well.

thanks for the comments :) my slardar experience is quite low, but I guess I might start playing him a bit more, since a rikki & sniper combination is likely to be pretty common for the next many pub-matches.

yeah, I know a few supports would have been nice, and I could have been the support, but the last few times I've done that, I've had to end up trying to retool the support to some sort of solo-debuffer, since no one wants to play co-op (playing a late-game "carry" KOTL was... odd).

would bounty-hunter have worked?

sando, couldn't I have gone heavy-push just with natures prophet?

The big problem (and it's not really your fault) is that everyone in that game is playing carry, and half the heroes aren't going to get enough farm as there simply isn't enough available to everyone. The other is that being the only strong pusher on the team means you won't necessarily get a lot of backup.

Nature's Prophet is a strong pusher, but he comes into his own mid-late game where his mobility means he can pick off towers and drag the other team around. The heroes I'm suggesting are very early pushers - Treants provide a bit of ballast to the lane, but don't do much damage. The likes of Diabolic Edict can melt towers within a few minutes of the game starting!

The idea would be to take all their T1 towers fairly early on (possibly even a T2 if they didn't respond), giving your team a big boost to their gold income, and denying the enemy space to farm. Even if your team are pretty dumb, this should be enough to win the game easily.

Untill you start playng with more cooperative teams i also suggest not picking nature profet when you see invisible heroes on the other side of the map, as their presence make split pushing lot more problematic (when you get necro 3 things get better, but there are quite high chances that you have to face a well fed riki by that time)
I agreed with the leshrack pick, it's a good pusher, not too skill intensive and quite effective against squishy heroes, plus if the game goes late he can turn into a decent semi-carry (won't help if they get a fat antimage, but early game should be lot easier!)

the only one that could actually fit the support role in that match was Naga. Even then not very well.

This is probably the biggest problem you will have in Dota. Everyone wants to be a carry. Not just a carry. THE CARRY!

You'll get a lot of games like this mostly due to tons of people only caring about KDA ratios instead of actually winning the game.

Best advice I can give; once you start running into people who enjoy playing support; friend them immediately. That will help you in the long run.

I would have gone Enigma. If not him then a support pusher i.e. Lesh/Shadow Shaman

1) Being on Dire means you can jungle stupidly fast, with no gank threat it's entirely possible to keep pace with or even outlevel mid.

2) Being against a team with those picks generally means they're bad and 4-5 man blackholes are completely possible

3) One of the better pushing options at all phases of the game.

thanks for the feedback, Leshrac and slardar have moved to the top of my "what to play next"-list :)

(and I actually do enjoy playing support, but I only accept friend requests from sensible people ;)