DOTAFire Blogs

Snowballing

Snowballing is a concept where once a hero gets enough momentum, they become much more stronger (relative to other heroes at that stage) due to that momentum. The general definition of snowballing can be found here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_effect)

In DotA2 snowballing can be used in many different contexts. When a hero is said to be good at snowballing this means that when the hero gains enough of an advantage (usually in early or mid game) this allows them them to completely dominate the enemy team. When a team is said to snowball, this implies that due to a teams certain composition, when a team acquired an advantage they are able to keep (and increase) this advantage.

Note that heroes that snowball are not the same thing as Carries. Carries are heroes that scale very well with items (and hence they become quite strong late game when they acquire these items). On the other hand heroes that snowball are ones that are able to maintain and increase their mom…
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Bug fixes in 6.78b

- Fixed a bug that allowed some players to control two heroes
- Fixed being unable to easily tell when Tombstone was Decrepified
- Fixed False Promise interaction with Shallow Grave
- Fixed Quelling Blade doing damage to allied wards
- Fixed the passive regen missing on Spirit Bear's Armlet
- Fixed Empty Bottle courier slow lasting a couple extra seconds after it is filled
- Fixed Buyback cooldown display not always being accurate
- Fixed Rupture hurting couriers
- Fixed some issues with targeting near units with Stone Caller
- Fixed Flak Cannon vs Gem
- Fixed Panda with Bloodstone being unable to revive
- Fixed swapping costing you an extra 100 gold if you swap after repicking a new hero
- Fixed multiple swaps costing you more gold
- Fixed Bloodrage removing Doom and stuns from allies
- Fixed Bloodrage removing Elder Dragon Form
- Fixed various tooltips
- Fixed a bug with Courier haste speed when interacting with slows
- Fixed Bloodstone charges being slightly inac…
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My old pc went to the ****per about the time i got dota 2, now it wont start. I installed steam on my lappy now. How do i get dota 2 now? Can sm1 send me a spare key? Every1 gets 2 every month or so. Can sm1 plz send me 1?
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Although you might not play them a lot, Captain's Mode games are actually pretty fun to play when you get the hang of it. Usually better with friends, this mode allows for Hero drafting, which is basically two teams taking turns to ban and pick heroes for the game. But I'm sure many of you guys don't know exactly how it works, so I thought I'd enlighten you.

How it works

If you are a five stack, the party leader will always be the 'Captain'. This means he will be the one making the choices. But it's always good to talk it out with your fellow team mates to maximize your chances by getting good input. Drafting are started Radiant, who gets the first Ban. A ban is simply choosing hero that neither you or the enemy team can pick. Usually those heroes that are considered very powerful gets banned out first to prevent the other team from acquiring them.
In the current Meta some common first bans are Io, Magnus, Dark Seer, Batrider, etc.

After Radiant's first ban, comes Dire's first, t…
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I will be going over the recent changes here and evaluating them. I'm going to skip the new heroes, they're interesting but I have no idea whether they are effective/ineffective/OP/Weak without seeing them in game.

I'll skip heroes that aren't in Dota 2 yet as well, as they aren't relevant to me at the moment.

Axe
- Counter Helix cooldown decreased from 0.65/0.6/0.55/0.5 to 0.55/0.5/0.45/0.4

I don't think this is a huge change to Axe, however it will make him proc his helix more in big fights if you land a large call. I still believe the proc chance is too low, being at 17% at all levels. This buff will really only help if you use Berserker's Call in a large group of enemies, in my opinion. Still, a welcome buff.


Ancient Apparition
- Ice Vortex cooldown decreased from 6 to 5
- Ice Blast base AoE increased from 225 to 275
- Added Aghanim's Scepter

• Ice Blast duration increased from 8/9/10 to 17

The Ice Blast changes here are pretty large, especially the aghs upgrade. That is …
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Inspired by Angelo's example I decided to have a go at recording a short vid and uploading it for your amusement/information!

It's a game I played earlier on tonight and turned out as quite a nice example. Vid is below - comments welcome, but please be kind - this is my first go! :)
Play Video
Unfortunately I've only got the trial version of Bandicam and didn't realise it cut out after 10 minutes! Fortunately that was most of what I wanted to show you - the full game is here if you want to see the rest...
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I'm actually a little reluctant to write this. But, I feel so bored so I decided to do it anyway. Yasutsuna and Kurin are the names I use in DotA2. The current account I'm using is actually not mine, so the records and stuff are a bit... off.

Mm, I decided to go into more detailed about my opinion of LoL and DotA.

DOTA Merits: Easy to learn, hard to master. An anti-leaving system, thanks to STEAM. Very competitive, many people playing, so challenge yourself! Teach you the Art of Teamwork. Demerits: It gets boring after some time. STEAM is annoying as FUQ. Competitive matches tend to be rigid.

LOL Merits: Bushes! Different gaming methods. AI seems smarter. Demerits: A lot of leavers. Too many abilities, gets frustrating. Too many things to learn.

This is what I basically thing about the difference between Defense of the Ancients and League of Legends. No offence to both sides, I come in peace.

Anyone heard of Legends of …
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The concept of branding is not a new one. Every business whether new or old is familiar with the advantages and the repercussions of branding the product or service. Branding is a process whereby a product or a service is made unique and is differentiated by others in their category. This is done by associating the product or service with certain things that condition your offerings with those particular things.

Following the success of branding, there have been many ways as to how to make the process innovative and add new and creative ideas to the concept. Each day a new concept is bought by a company and through that target market’s attention is tried to seek. Among many ideas having your own professional logo design is a very crucial one.

The reason behind saying this is that a logo design is what makes a business unique identity. It gives you the feel that you are different from others and though you sell what others do buy even then you are different or superior in your own …
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Being in the 50th percentile of the great Dota 2 player base, accented as "Normal", doesn't mean that you need to play like an average player. In fact, one of the reasons you continue playing Dota 2 (enjoyment hopefully being the most important reason), is to improve yourself. What better way than to watch the pros do it.

There is various ways to do this. Going on Twitch.tv will give you various streams that you can watch which features all the major tournament games between pro Dota teams. All games of the large Dota 2 tournament hosted by Valve, The International, is free to watch inside the client itself. Not only is this a lot of fun, its a great way to learn tactics that you otherwise wouldn't normally encounter in public games.

But just because you only play soloques doesn't mean that you have to play like a solo quer. That extra TP support, that random call for a smoke gank. It can all help you and your team improve and win, even if it might not always synchronize well with o…
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I was trying to get an article together to follow up on the "pick a support" guide - but the sheer number and variety of carry heroes has made this extremely difficult. Even trying to get a Top 5 list together is taxing!

I originally wanted to do some comparison groups together that reflect groups of heroes who usually outcarry others...this is kind of in my head, but very difficult to get down on paper.

Trying to break down the situation using stats is of limited help - quite often the stats growth of some hard carries isn't that great - so this is more about passive skills, or extremely potent active right click skills.

This is my "top 5" list, vaguely in reverse order of who I consider the hardest (i.e. best hero with maximum farm and levels):

5. Morphling is a stats monster, growing strong and able to shift points to where they are most needed. 3 escapes give great mobility, and the ability to make a strong illusion of an enemy hero also helps with scaling.

4. Medusa lackl…
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