Alliance vs Liquid Game 3 (Frankfurt qualifiers lower bracket)

hamster neither does personal slavery...

if 99 people are walking on the left path there is an obvious reason for not walking on the right. but dota isnt about right or left. it has multiple different paths overpasses tunnels and a bloody blimp :P

but it does stand to fashion that if 99% of pro players are playing a hero in a certain way there are a LOT of reason for them doing so.

like i wouldnt tell a professional engineer how to build a bridge because i know even though i am decently informed on the general idea of bridges i dont know it to the Nth degree. there is a reason they are pro's and you and me arent.

also loda has been playing alche a lot and you think they just start to suddenly play alche ? no you scrim and scrim and scrim and practice for hours and hours and hours.

to just brush off informed views made by a variety of people is both belittling and also ignorant and not to bash the nail past the bead but in life sometimes people know more then you, thats just what happens. acknowledge that some people are in some areas more informed and accept it.

http://www.datdota.com/hero.php?q=Alchemist&p=items

Octarine Core bought by 19.1% of Alchs in this patch.

With an average timing of 31 minutes.

Exactly the time where the hero starts falling off as a carry...and just bought his 3rd farming item with no impact in fights. And this item is not even good for farming in the first place, it just does...nothing. It gives 450 HP, which is pretty much the impact of a Vanguard if you factor in the damage block, that's it...you just bought a 6K gold vanguard.

It's not even meta slavery at that point, it's minoity slavery.

Don't. Ever. Buy. Memecore. on. carries.

On alchemist, only if you want a 100 minute free for all farm fest. Maybe you will sit on 100k gold and 6 slots then.


Also, Kudos to you smuggles. Where did you go when the world needed you? (Like an hour before, then10 months before, then in 2007, then in 1992, then 1941, then in 1914...argghhh im rambling)

I've been trying to express this for a while xD

Can I just steal this quote and use it from now on Smugs?

http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/forum/theorycrafting/alchemist-the-meta-build-52884

here i explain why.

hope it helps

and

@ chichi of course as long as you use it wisely.. like pizza...

memecore is quite the fantastic item on naga, and i believe that build is not for support naga if you get what i mean

Can I just point out something you aren't noticing Hamster - Alch is not being run as a right clicking carry. Is it so hard to understand? He is being run as a 2 position utility core with early team-fight presence, who furthers the rest of your team by increasing the networth and utility of the whole team, not just himself.

You are right; Radiance Manta Style is a **** right clicking build. But given that's seemingly not why the hero is being run, because the times he is successfully picked and ones where there are line-up that synergies around him, and that use his traits of flash farming and gifting utility to have these big team-fight items and abilities up an early time than normal and play off of that advantage to win.

And yes, the casters of the games did highlight when the Alch's weren't achieving much. They did it to Era when he went Blink Dagger and Solar Crest and as you say did nothing. But they also noticed the times where this exact build and strat caused massive amounts of impact.

If you are accusing us of meta slavery (I'm technically just trying to evaluate the build from what I've seen of it in use and consider why it's being used, rather than blindly adhere to it because pro's do it. Which probably surprises you), you should really look at your preconceptions of heroes. Because this isn't the first time you've seemingly ignored a heroes strength because of some preconviced conception you had about the hero. (Yes, 6.83 Sniper. Remember the big debates about that? Even towards the end of the patch you insisted the hero was piss easy to deal with and to shut down)

And even if you ignore the fact he's being picked for these specific line-ups (I keep emphasising this, because it matters. The line-ups are defining the hero here. A 'conventional' Alch build would not do **** in these line-ups), he still offers utility; Minus armour and kind of tanky, meaning he's a solid Rosh hero, and he brings elements of team-fights. Whilst his stun is meh on it's own, the synergy is has with Acid Spray and Medallion of Courage means it does a lot more damage than you'd expect. And an early Radiance is impactful in team fights because of the damn miss chance. Alch's ****ty armour also gets mitigated by the Medallion of Courage/ Solar Crest that supports will be able to afford, because they aren't forced to buy there own Ag's.

In effect; There's a lot of combinations and synergies that are being worked around this item build and the hero, that are defining how it's meant to work. Because it's competitive play, you can rely on these things more than you can in pubs or solo que. You can work around the timings of line-ups, not heroes.

And if some of the best players and drafters are building around this playstyle of the hero (That's not players being rusty on the hero and choosing weird items, that's people like Puppey, or s4 actually making whole line-ups around this aspect) then there's probably some merit to it.

And the fact still remains; You should not talk about observations of the pro scene, because you cite things that simply aren't true. It's not the first time either. We had this same point come-up in the old Sniper discussions.

EDIT; And KDA is not an accurate metric of game impact - Not on supports. Not on cores. You should know better than to suggest that.

Hamster, I agree with you.. I've never liked Octarine Core on a core Alchemist.. I'd rather see an alch go Radiance Manta Style Boots of Travel into something like a Heart of Tarrasque (if you need survivability) or Abyssal Blade if you need the lockdown.

The only reason Octarine Core can even be considered on an alch is for the reduced cooldown on his ultimate, without which he is squishy as hell, but even then, it seems suboptimal to spend 6k gold on an item which slightly reduces the cooldown on one skill. A heart might be better in this case, since it gives so much more.

Alchemist's skillset gives far less utility than a position 5 Vengeful Spirit. Because Venge has armor reduction, Venge has a stun, but then Venge also has an aura, and has an awesome ultimate. Played as a utlity hero, Alchemist doesn't have an ultimate, because all his ultimate is about is right-click, since the best part about it by far is the increase to his BAT.

I know that pros are trying to play him as a utility hero and not as a right-clicker, I'm not blind. I'm actually saying that it's the very reason why it's so terrible! Alch has never been a utility hero because his skills offer almost no utility (the only real utility from Alch is the ability to give away Aghs but a right-click carry Alch does that just as well).

So again, there's the Bounty Hunter argument that a position 1 or 2 Alchemist has the game impact of a position 5 support. Even less than a position 5 support if you consider the stun and armor reduction, because a support Venge or Naga do everything he does better.

So again the utility thing doesn't really hold. If the argument is that you pick alch for a stun, armor reduction and give away aghs so that Necrophos, Doom or whatever can carry the game...you're playing Alch as a position 4 support. This doesn't *at all* justify the radiance/manta/octarine position 1 or 2 alch, on the contrary, it shows that it's a waste of space because a support does what core alch does just as well if not better.

Essentially you take more space than an Anti-Mage only at the end to have the impact of a position 5 bounty or Venge...

Also, Sniper has nothing to do with this discussion so I'd like to see actual arguments, not uninspired ad hominem that clearly show the lack thereof. Thanks.

The Sniper remark was based around the fact we've had a very similar set of arguments in the past where you were set around a preconceived notion of how both a hero worked, despite there being strong evidence to the contrary in the professional scene. It is somewhat relevant to the discussion as a result of that. But sure, here's a different route of argument to keep things from being personal. (Speaking of that, if you want to call out people for comments being personally directed, try not to do it the in same topic where you've labelled people as 'Meta Slaves' that can't be reasoned with. It undermines the point)

You seemingly have this notion that a team should be carried by it's 1 and 2 positions, and that if they are not carrying you, they are under-performing/being carried themselves. That's the impression I have made from a few of the remarks you've given, and from the way you seemingly define hero impact.

But I disagree, I think there's no preconceived notions of who should carry whom in a game, because in the end it is a team game. There are 5 heroes, any of them have equal opportunity to 'carry' the game in a certain fashion. Is making the right initiations on a hero like Clockwerk that directly allow your team to consistently win fights not in a sense carrying? Is a Lion making the right Impales in fights, or using the right Force Staff's, draining the right target not in a sense carrying? Is Fy on Rubick not in a sense carrying games? (Last ones a bit more of a joke, but you should understand the point I'm making)

So why do you consider allowing your supports to have X utility item + Ag's at a given timing instead of just one of those things considered to be no impact? Especially given how strong utility items like Solar Crest, Glimmer Cape, Guardian Greaves or the traditional Force Staff, Ghost Scepter, Blink Dagger, having more of them on your team is a huge advantage. Being able to both get those, and to get the big power spike Ag's upgrade is surely large game impact in a sense?

Or allowing your Doom or Necrophos to pick up an Ag's and another big item a few minutes earlier than there counter parts? You inflate there networth, accelerate there timings, but you still have core items that allow you to do things to ***it the team. (Part of Radiance/ Manta Style pushing is not about sucking all the gold off of the map, but about applying constant pressure the enemy team to dictate rotations and movements, and the 17% miss chance is pretty damn big in fights)

Simply explain to me, why that cannot be consider game impact, and why for some reason that means the hero is being carried? (Implying he is at fault for being underwhelming)

Because that's like a fundamental difference in our viewpoints here I feel.

EDIT; Technically your example of Bounty Hunter supports my argument; That was a hero who had incredible game impact in 6.84, in an unconventional sense. (Also to make the post a little more brief)