I guess its my duty to do this.

Why is Fountain Hooking even an issue or a complaint? Some of DotA 1's mechanics were just bugs and people accepted it. The only one I remember at the top of my head is Tiny's avatoss combo, it was initially a bug but icefrog made that combo part of tiny's playstyle.

It's part of the game and it's confirmed by Valve/Icefrog themselves. The only people I honestly see complaining are players who haven't played dota1 long enough or at all. Source

For those of you who are complaining about the mechanics, and I'm not just talking to the community here. The RISK of using this combo is huge, if you mess up it's basically a 5v4 in favor of the opposing team. It's a HIGH-RISK vs HIGH-REWARD scenario so I personally have no complaint against it the tactic, it's WORKING as intended and if not Icefrog would of changed it like he did with a lot of mechanics going from dota 1 -> dota 2.

There are far scary tactics to worry about and I'm going to quote a post from reddit (source)

"Naga STILL being able to take a guaranteed Rosh steal with Song is far more ******** than fountain hooking, which requires actual skill and timing and has a significant degree of risk involved.

I suppose Icefrog could make the interaction riskier, but I really don't see fountain hooking as that much more problematic than many other potentially OP hero combos that are available. It's situational, requires practice and good timing, and can potentially leave one of your heroes massively out of position.

Fountain hooking only looks broken because Dendi is so good with Pudge. Don't want to get fountain hooked against Na'Vi? Ban out Pudge or Chen.

As far as "OP strats" goes, I'll take fountain hooking over brain-dead, no-skill interactions like TI2's Song + Vacuum any day."

For those of you who haven't played DOTA 1, take a look a Pitlord. If he wasn't changed too much from the last time I played him, he's the very definition of push strat and global domination. People complained about WISP being OP since he was being used correctly? Imagine teleporting your entire team into one lane OR AWAY FROM A TEAMFIGHT LIKE CHEN'S TEST OF FAITH Pitlord is banned out in CM mode which is reasonable since he does A FAR better job than wisp and any other support hero combined.

So please I would like to stop seeing these complaints on a valid tactic, I don't want this game to end up like League of Legends where creative strategies are destroyed by RIOT themselves.



Of course the fountain hooks alone didn't win the game but it was the very combo that SAVED the game and gave a FIGHTING chance for Na'Vi. If Puppey and Dendi did not use this strategy, they would of lost BIG time. Puppey said it himself in an interview with Kaci that this was the strategy that saved Na'Vi, if he didn't use this strategy to give space and time to let xboct farm, the game was done.

Naga Siren's Rosh steal still need some timing. I have to agree with you though, if someone learns a skill, why not use it?

IceFrog most likely made the game as it is. Someone has said before that there is a risk of Fountain Hooking. What if Pudge missed? You'll still go back to base and waste 135 gold to go back to the game.

I have played DotA 1 for a long time and seen more gay (gayer?) tactics than Fountain Hooking.

Like Loda, Maelk & even Puppey who called it a bug? Do they not know enough about Dota? Have they not played long enough for your standards?


To paraphrase Puppey "There are a lot of bugs in Dota 2". One that springs to mind was Sniper's Assassinate which has been changed in the last couple of patches. Remember how he could lock on to you and you could teleport back to fountain, be sitting there on next to no health and get killed by a never failing bullet. It was a bug and they changed it, they are working their way through taking these bugs out. As I said earlier judging by the overwhelming opposition to this "tactic" from everyone from normal pub players to pro's themselves it will eventually be taken out or nerfed significantly. It ruined that match and made it unenjoyable to watch.



Your "valid tactic" was described as a bug by the very team that used it, rather than a valid tactic or a bug I would call it an exploit. Exploiting a weakness in the games mechanics.


Absolutely and that's what ruined the game and made it extremely boring to watch for everyone except the Na'Vi fan boys.

Well I just read through all of this , went and watched these so called "fountain hooks" (new to me as I am reasonably new to DOTA) and after watching them, I am glad Na'Vi did not win the final.

Whilst it may will require skill to pull off, it is a massive exploit of a bug in the game mechanics - it really looked cheesey and not at all in the spirit of the game.

To use a different football (soccer) analogy its like when a player goes down injured and usually the opposition would kick the ball out so the said player can be treated - this is then followed up with the ball being kicked back as thanks, here have it back. What if the team exploits that injury carries on and scores or does not kick it back but carries on and scores - just because it is not "fixed" through rules / coding does not mean that it is simply against the spirit of fair play and competition.

I have no idea about the Na'Vi history or what I have seen with some comments about "Fan boys" etc etc but from a newbie observer POV, it looked a cheap and desperate trick.

This reminds me of Lone Druid's Spirit Bear's Armlet of Mordiggian bug. If this is really such an underhanded tactic, then it will most likely be banned in Tournaments, and eventually "fixed" in a patch.

Personally, I don't think Na'vi should be criticised for finding an inventive new Combo, even though I would like to see it nerfed in a future patch. There are plenty of bugs in Dota 2 at the moment, such as Abaddon's Ult healing damage from HP Removal, which is different from the behaviour in Dota 1.

Huh? You've missed the whole point of the post, there are bugs that are accepted and made a part of the game. If the bug was deemed needing to fix, the bug would of been fixed already but Icefrog and Valve deemed it "too hilarious to fix" since this bug has been around for a long time already so I don't understand the point of this post?



Right and I'm not saying bugs cannot be fixed, are you assuming I am doing so? This bug with Fountain Hook won't be changed at least for awhile, it's already confirmed they won't change it since it was deemed too hilarious to fix. So what's the point of this part of the post?



Yes it's a bug but it's also part of their strategy, why did you think they used it? It was a last resort since none of their previous attempts worked. That's like saying "Oh you can't bottle charge after using Invisibility since that's abusing mechanics".



That's subjective and I found the game quite hilarious but am I a Na'Vi fanboy? No I don't have a favorite team but I was cheering on for Mouz but they flunked pretty damn quick.



This comment re-enforces my point since Fountain Hooking is not a big deal at all. This bug compared to Fountain Hooking is far more game breaking since for one, EVERYONE can do it. There are no repercussions to using this build and barely any negatives compared to other builds.

Fountain Hooking is extremely risky since it also makes it a 4v4 for awhile if successful but even then, if Pudge misses then it's a 5v4 like I've said.

To address the people bashing on Na'Vi and their fans. I thought I made it pretty clear that TongFu was at fault for losing with poor execution of a lead and bad teamfight tactics. The strategy used was still very risque and pretty difficult to execute on Vincere's behalf and by itself could not win the game. To go even further anyone said it made the game "boring" is lying to themselves, every single person was on the edge of their seats when this was live and the casters were going nuts.

Another team in the same position would utilize the very exact exploit, it is something that is in the game's tournament approved patch and as such it is not a tactic that you should expect them to avoid just because it is a controversial thing. The players are here to make a career out of this, a lot of money and rosters are at stake and this isn't a sportsmanship debate, unsportsmanlike behavior would include something similar to unpausing without the other team's approval, talking smack, or an entire team staying silent at the end of a match without a "GG" or "Wp".

And just so everyone understands that exploits are in the game and utilized by professional players constantly, let me point out a few high tier competitive exploits:

• Naga Siren's ability to Song of Siren to steal Roshan has been mentioned and utilized almost every game with a Naga Siren when the team needed to engage at Roshan.
• Batrider's ability to Firefly out of the map and become untargetable was used quite a bit, and even used vs Na'Vi by Alliance to avoid first blood.
• (Obviously) Pudge's Meathook + Chen's Recall to utilize a base gib, which still required someone with a disable to keep Gyro and Doom in the fountain.
• Spirit Visage's ability to be a top tier pick because you can't stun his familiars, which allowed two 3 second stuns to be landed without interference.

Yup, my point exactly and thanks for listing the bugs, just woke up and I'm still sleepy :(.

I might sound harsh saying this but please don't for whomever is reading; I could care less if anyone found the game boring since that's a subjective statement. If anything the match between iG and DK that lasted 90+mins was extremely boring but again that's my opinion.

I also just woke up, I didn't even see your post, I revised my wording quite a bit so it took me awhile to get that post up. But we pretty much see eye to eye in this and both have somewhat unbiased views, hopefully others will realize this.

In regards to boring being subjective, in this debate thread that's irrelevant, boring means not interesting or tedious which is why I said everyone who thought it was boring was lying to themselves because here they are taking an interest in the match in this thread and taking time to dissect it.

Offtopic: You streaming some more dishonored later? :3

yeah, trying to be a Pacifist but IT'S NOT HAPPENING!