Quick update now that I am about 40 hours into DOTA2.
Diretide was a real eye opener and removed a lot of pressure from myself playing the game super competitively. Since people are focusing on getting candy, avoiding Roshan and planning nukes with the entire team, it helps someone learning to play support the team without being two lanes away from the action. I understand that the Diretide game mode might make some of the heroes obsolete, but it let you experiment with other heroes. Not to mention, while you are focusing on balance and item management in regular matches, Diretide could accommodate a lot of different heroes abilities and not make a team seem so out of balance. It was a really great time and I am a little miffed that the game mode has been stripped out of DOTA2. I can't wait for next year.
Here are my go to heroes:
Tinker - I think I just randomed him one of the matches and started to enjoy playing him. The real hidden secret of Tinker is his ultimate. It isn't super critical to how you play the hero and it just benefits your other powers which is super helpful. This also lets you have less to worry about. I would do what I could to get a laser blast off and then hope one of my homing missiles would finish off the enemy. And if it couldn't, smack Rearm and try the missiles again. I quickly started to favor the middle lane and work on getting a bottle set up with runes. I could do a lot of damage by myself but couldn't really find a good time to give up and run. I would always get killed while running away from the enemy and it made it hard to survive nukes. Even with just a small drawback, Tinker seems to be my absolute favorite.
Axe - I love melee dudes, I love stocky characters with short dialogue and really gratifying sounds (like the sound of the Counter Helix). My strategy that I enjoyed with Axe was to start with Counter Helix, level up Battle Hunger and harass those dudes. Then start working on getting my Counter Helix to full power and start to shred out. Again, I have the stuns and other powers that can slow me down a lot and allow for the other team to get a kill. It is hard to know when to retreat especially with slower heroes. Item management was pretty simple, build up to Vanguard and the repel mail (whatever it is called). Axe is my second favorite and I have won a lot of matches with this dude.
I have been playing other characters but nothing has stuck like these two dudes. My next venture in DOTA2 will be to find another hero to latch on to.
A couple things that I would improve on Valve's side:
Tutorial for the courier because that is essential for winning matches.
Better UI for the store, easier to track down the items you want, especially the upgrades. I rely on the search box way to much and the quick select doesn't seem to be the right way to handle it.
I don't play a lot of bot matches because I don't think that I am learning anything, but if they were a little more enticing (with achievements or item drops) that would be interesting to see.
I am really interested in watching matches but am really uneasy about paying for them. So if there was some sort of feed that I could add to DOTA2 and just spectate for a while for really great players that play my heroes, I would get a lot from that.
Anyone else feeling this way?
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