Xyrus's #RoadTo4k Thread

Short version for those that don#'t want to read entire text wall:-

• Phantom Assassin is the 1st of at least 7 Heroes that I am considering playing in Ranked....this does not mean I will be playing her every game, hell, I may not even play her in 10% of my games, she's just there because I have fun with her, and I can have an impact even if my Lane is heavily contested
• I need Heroes that can Farm 1 vs 2 or 1 vs 3 as I'll be in the Side Lane, since Solo Mid is hard to come by in my bracket
• I may also Roam <}3

---

Aha, I see it now. However, the solution is simple, grab Black King Bar + a Gem of True Sight. If they try to Break me, activate Black King Bar when they're mid=animation and block the Break effect. This is 2k we're talking about, so it won't be that hard.

Honestly, I'm not worried about players who pick Meta Heroes in 2k...they pick those Heroes because they feel they can win with them without learning the hero properly, trust me, I'll easily get Black King Bar off at the right time to block the Break...now to find a game where someone builds Silver Edge against me...

The change to Abyssal Blade feels more like a Buff to me tbh. Do the math for a lvl25 with Phase Boots, Sange and Yasha, Helm of the Dominator, Black King Bar and Abyssal Blade in 6.85 and 6.86:-

In 6.85, you have 118.6 Base Damage + 24 + 32 + 20 + 24 + 85 for a total of 303.6, or 1366.2 when you Crit. With Pseudo Random Distribution and assuming you get a Crit every 6 attacks gives you roughly 480.7 Damage per attack on average.

In 6.86, you have 118.6 Base Damage + 24 + 32 + 20 + 24 + 70 for a total of 288.6, or 1298.7 when you Crit. With Pseudo Random Distribution and assuming you get a Crit every 6 attacks gives you roughly 456.95 Damage per attack on average.

So overall, she lost about 20-30 Damage before reductions on average depending on how often you Crit and how many times Stifling Dagger gets the Crit. However, this is before taking into account the increase in Bash Damage. Assuming you get a Bash once every 5 hits (being moderately unlucky), you are practically guaranteed a Bash with Stifling Dagger and the faster Auto-Attacks from Phantom Strike. Going from 60 to 120 Damage, you get an extra 12 Damage back.

Overall, you're only losing around 20 Damage per average attack at most from this change. Hardly a significant nerf...

---

I can play Queen of Pain well enough to reach 3.5k and learning Invoker to the same standard isn't hard...problem is, getting the other 4 players to leave Mid to you. I'll end up with a "Dual Lane" at best if I just instapick a Mid hero and set the icon Mid, so Solo Offlane is probably going to be my best choice...beleive it or not, you get more Farm there than Safe Lane with a "Support" most of the time...it's almost as good as Solo Mid in 2k...

Yeah, he's on the list, I can go 10 minutes without dying against 6.86 Invoker and Bounty Hunter in "Very High Skill" while still Farming <}3

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2044816508

*Rolls on floor laughing* X{D

You'll occasionally see another Support or the Mid Laner rotate in about 6 minutes into the game if another Lane is won/lost hard...it's not a real Tri-Lane...just the 2k equivelant.

Well, I haven't tried it with Orb of Venom] but... 8{D

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/692360209

Only problem is, I'm screwed if my "Support" tries to get Last Hits since Jugg has no decent method of Farming 1 vs 3. Yes if I'm 2 vs 2, or 1 vs 1, I can easily Farm up, but in 2k, your "Support" if you have one is usually working against you, not to mention, if you have a Jungler, you can easily end up, 1 vs 2 or 1 vs 3. This has happened a lot in my games, so I need a Safe Laner that doesn't suffer in these Lanes.

As a Jugg, I lose 2 or 3 CS per Wave...if I can even manage to reach it. As a PA, I lose 1, maybe 2 CS per wave so long as I can get within 1200 Range of the Creep Wave. If I lose too much CS, I need space or Kills to catch up. In order to get Space, I have to ensure I don't lose Towers, which I can't do by myself, in order to get Kills, I need to find pickoffs or rely on my team...neither of those are good options with Jugg sadly T-T

No, I need to learn all the Item builds, so that I can adapt to the Situation. Sticking to 1 Item build is just going to get me crushed.

Again, this Hero is great 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2, but 1 vs 2 or 1 vs 3 and he gets shut down too quickly.

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1840680550

I ended up losing the game, because...what else could I do when all Lanes were lost and our Towers disappeared? If I'd had Farm 10 minutes in, I probably could have fought back with his Skillset and created space for myself, but I needed an Item or 2 to be able to do that. I don't think I'll get far with Gyro until I reach a higher MMR.

Mirana was my old go to Hero for grinding Solo MMR, I usually went 1-0-3 in the 1st 6 minutes <}3 ...

...and that is why I rarely mute All Chat, salty tears are just too delicious. They motivated me enough to get +200MMR <}3

I just need to get back into playing her, and to learn the ideal timings for sniping Neutral Camps.

I will probably pick Pudge instead though, Meat Hook has much more impact than Sacred Arrow and can easily turn into a game winning skill if you can use it correctly. You also get more Exp and Gold with Rot than Sacred Arrow. Problem is, Mirana is much better at taking Towers once she gets a Desolator...so I'm kind of torn...

Don't forget that Troll Warlord went from OP to unplayable because he lost 15 damage on his Q, all the other Troll nerfs were insignificant. And because Silver Edge was introduced.

So PA was nerfed in this patch as hard as Troll was nerfed in 6.84. And was she as dominant in 6.85 as Troll was in 6.83? Nope, she was just meh, slightly underpowered even.

And you only did the math for Abyssal Blade. You forgot Monkey King Bar. PA needs MKB. Every carry needs MKB. This is a mass evasion meta. So double the nerf.

But well, I did my part, I warned you of OSFrog's sneaky "make it look like I buff a hero but actually I'm backstab nerfing him into oblivion despite him being already underpowered" move that hit so many heroes before PA, so do what you will. After all if you join fEEd sama in making PA's winrate plummet to <40% then she will get buffed, right? Keepo.

Alright so I won't even take Black King Bar+ Gem of True Sight as a counter to Silver Edge seriously, that's a joke, and you should understand why(or I can give my reasons if you don't).

You're too afraid to get denied mid in 2k. Epic "Me Mid" Battles of History usually happen in 4k bracket, and even there, if you write "mid pls ty" in pre-load screen and quickly put icon mid, you will be able to get it like 80% of the time. It was EXTREMELY rare for some ****** to try and take my lane all the way to 4k. So do it freely. Or don't, since you lose a Viper- Kunkka mid matchup hard 4Head



You are also overestimating enemy laners in this bracket. Hard lanes happen(hell, now in pubs the actual safelane is your offlane with Bara/Tusk or **** carries face every ****ing game), but it;s not so bad. You don't have to pick a Rambo hero that can survive everywhere, even if you pick an average carry like Jugg, Gyro, even PL, you'll be able to win much more games than with PA just because they are better and if you are a good core you can recover from a bad start most of the time.

Supports are also aren't a problem as long as you get Quelling Blade.

Also who the **** gets auras and support items on Mid Omni, that's not how he is supposed to be played, you go Phase-SnY and then get what you need, Radi, AC, Basher etc.

Also you can try Arc Warden, this should be non-counterable in 2k.


Lmao that was not the reason at all. The true reasons were Glimmer Cape, Solar Crest, Winter Wyvern, solo Rosh nerf with Quelling Blade change and meta change because of buffs to other heroes. And hero fashion ofc. His direct nerfs were the least important and deciding factor.

You know 2k mmr europe isn't that bad that you will end up with a dual mid. It will happen but it isn't like every game. I don't think you should have trouble with claiming the midlane, just be fast enough and pick your mid hero immediatly. That way there is no doubt about who goes mid. If someone says he want mid to just say him to reconsider his pick. I think that that will work honestly. People are *******s but they aren't mongoloids, most of the time.

so many flawed logics. you overthink the hero picking thing way too much.

instead you should focus on actually improving your game, watching or letting your replays be analysed by people that are 5k+ atleast.
getting 4k is not about picking the right hero, its about actually improving so you are actually good enough to be 4k.
sure you might be able to graze 4k by spamming certain heroes, so if you only care about the number and not about being good enough to stay in the bracket then 'have fun'. Dont know how thats possible that way but good luck.

Learn Viper, Razor, Lina, Zeus and Necrophos. If you can play them well you can at least to go 3k+ pretty fast.

For roaming the famous booty hunter and Shadow Demon are good.

Time to unveil the 2nd Hero. Now, I was sceptical when I was told that you can instalock your Lane in Ranked, however, I have been surprisingly successful in Unranked, so I decided to try playing Mid for a few games. In doing so, I have found the perfect Mid hero for me:-

This Hero is a complete arsehole, who runs around the map Ratting and Farming. So naturally, I love him. 8{3

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2052831947

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2052883511

I got easy 1st Bounty Runes in both games, but was only able to secure more after that in my 1st game. I ended up getting a fairly standard 11 (and a bit) minute Radiance in both games and from there proceeded to make the ohter team's life HELL! >Game is NOT hard! Hell, the games were so easy, I managed to secure a win in the 2nd game in under 30 minutes! Without any additional Bounty Runes! I get the feeling I'll run into some difficulty when I start playing against Romaers or Support with the brains to Gank me, so, I'll play a few more games and see how I go when I get contested.

EDIT: k, I found the game I neede, now I just need to figure out how I could have won it:-

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2052932347

Dual Mid with an Axe. I was surprised to learn that a Quelling Blade does not help you much against this guy, he managed to slow down my Radiance to a measly 17 or so minutes. After that, the ohter Team started snowballin out of control, we lost Towers, we lost Rax, and we eventually lost the game. Any advice on how to win this game would be appreciated.

*clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* Congratulations Xyrus, when I thought you couldn't have found a ****tier carry for ranked, you came up with this. You never cease to amaze me. How about Dazzle carry? A lot of -armor and can save your idiot teammates when they play bad.

Apparently Xyrus wants to throw his MMR. Maybe make a list of decent cores in this patch instead of flaming him, but the point stands firm.

Timminator, I think you're overestimating high rated players. Almost every single one of them got where they are by spamming meta heroes. Ask a 6K player how to improve, he's going to tell you some almost useless advice about positionning, map awareness or some "get good" patronizing ********. Look at his dotabuff, you'll see 100 Void games in the Void patch, 150 Troll games in the Troll patch, and 175 Lesh games in the Lesh patch. To win at dota you need to pick good heroes, that's more or less a proven fact. Or at least be really good at *decent* heroes.

Gyrocopter, Juggernaut, Wraith King, Templar Assassin, Invoker, Shadow Fiend, Windranger, Ember Spirit, Slark, Riki?, Silencer?, Ursa, Phantom Lancer?, Arc Warden, Sniper?, Lone Druid. A lot of them. No, better pick PA and Alch.