Warcraft 3 DotA 6.79 update

[EdgeOfChaos]

Nothing sees slark.
As a player who plays slark very often, I approve of this patch . I can already imagine the potential. But, balance wise, this patch is complete garbage.

All pubs will be a race to pick Slark now. Lucky that I'm a fast clicker.

[obloquy]

Lol

IceFrog's updates/patches have never been about "balance" or anything in the interest of making the game more balanced as a whole

It always has been and always will be about constantly changing things so people must re-adapt strategies, tactics, assumptions

This is the essence of keeping competitive games fresh and alive and keeping people playing them

Any game architect or designer understands that in order to keep the game alive (and keep making money, which is the bottom line, even for free games that rely on donations, it's even more true, because you must keep your donators interested) this must be done. The mass public, the players, must be carefully manipulated. This isn't evil or bad or shameful, it's just reality--this is the way the world works, politics, economy, it's the same exact thing as keeping people playing your shitty game, just bullshit over and over and over

If you look carefully at the history of "balancing" going back years and years and years you will see that half the time the same nerfs and buffs are re-done over and over and over. You're a blind man trying to argue about colors if you think that new versions and releases are about "balance". You don't understand; in fact it's the opposite--it's about creating and maintaining IMbalance because there is truly no such thing as "really balanced", it's an illusion

Seriously look back at 500 updates and patches and check the changelogs and you will see the same numbers being tweaked over and over, the same hero getting buffed and then nerfed and then buffed again, it's an endless cycle which is important to keep because otherwise you the player would become bored and uninterested and play another similar game instead

And when it comes to high-level skilled play, league play, this is even more true--things must be kept constantly shifting in order to encourage freshness and change, otherwise you'd have the exact same hero teams and item builds year after year because that was the "best". The only logical solution is constantly making new "best", get it?

Anyway, this update sucks. But it achieves exactly what IceFrog wanted. If you think any of the nerfs here won't be buffed later on, you're funny. If you think none of the buffs will end up getting nerfed in the future, you're funny.

As it has been for years, you accept the bullshit changes and then once you become accustomed to it, it changes again. That's the genius of a skilled game designer. Deal with it, admire it, and keep playing the shitty game he's getting rich off of

[Dust]

People in this thread have no idea which heroes are actually good and which are bad.

[NutzSucksHard]

You're wrong blackspade thinking they do patch for high skilled only. Keep thinking you're a pro-player and that this patch is for 'you'. Honestly, you doesn't know a shit about me and how good/bad I'm at dota. I'm talking that slark can be a pain in the ass in exactly PRO play (the fact that you deny it is that you're not). Hero that are good or bad, none btw. All hero are great in their play. All hero are usefull and all hero have a weakness! So stop telling me what I should 'know' in your mind. Play your game and if a day you face a great team with a slark, you'll see.

Pub with slark sucks honestly and if you wanna know why some hero doesn't appear in PRO play, it's ban picks but an other things. Pro player play average 3-5 hero and only play these to be perfect with it. That's a range (maybe more). They can play all hero, but for exemple, iG.Faith is really good with visage, don't tell me he just play it one time a week... They're training and just play hero they're used to play, that's the main reason you don't see some hero.

[aRt)Y]

Or pros do not play him because of his win rate

Slark
Escape
17th Most Played
50.97% Win Rate

[nabo.]

Too many nabs here keep crying about the soon to come updates........

"WOW BARA IS OP"... he has never been op. Nabs simply dont know how to disable him LOL

Certain heros yes are a bit unbalanced, but they are not so bad that u can describe em as "op".

Slark cannot be revealed in this new patch. So WAT? Longer cooldown+shorter ult duration now.
If he is too unbalanced, he will be fixed during a b c patch updates, so stop crying girls =]

Also, brood's update will be amazing.

[whatafaka]

65 sec cd and it lasts 4 sec. old slark >> new slark

[BlackSpade]

You're wrong blackspade thinking they do patch for high skilled only. Keep thinking you're a pro-player and that this patch is for 'you'. Honestly, you doesn't know a shit about me and how good/bad I'm at dota. I'm talking that slark can be a pain in the ass in exactly PRO play (the fact that you deny it is that you're not). Hero that are good or bad, none btw. All hero are great in their play. All hero are usefull and all hero have a weakness! So stop telling me what I should 'know' in your mind. Play your game and if a day you face a great team with a slark, you'll see.

Pub with slark sucks honestly and if you wanna know why some hero doesn't appear in PRO play, it's ban picks but an other things. Pro player play average 3-5 hero and only play these to be perfect with it. That's a range (maybe more). They can play all hero, but for exemple, iG.Faith is really good with visage, don't tell me he just play it one time a week... They're training and just play hero they're used to play, that's the main reason you don't see some hero.

Why don't you just ask icefrog to ban all players who are better than you???? because if player is better than the player who plays slark!! the player who is playing slark is always going to get crushed.... so heroes isn't really the problem for you here it seems. Just learn to adapt and figure out how to play vs every hero. have diversity of play style instead of having one dimensional style of game play!! dota is and always team based game, people just need to understand this and game gets so much easier!! instead of idiots playing dota and going "MEMEMEMEME IM THE BEST, I PLAY CARRY, I NEED ATTENTION" ECT..

BTW, i always considered my self as an average dota player because i actually know/have played vs/with players who are actually "HIGH SKILLED" instead of people judging other players skill in some random pub games.

[NutzSucksHard]

What you're saying is right. But please, tell me when I did say Slark was a one-man game? Never, I just said the update can be OP. Ofc he can be crushed, but he can be also a real-annoying-b*tch.

o heroes isn't really the problem for you here it seems. Just learn to adapt and figure out how to play vs every hero. have diversity of play style instead of having one dimensional style of game play!! dota is and always team based game, people just need to understand this and game gets so much easier!

Wish people to listen to that message. I'm playing with pub and I always see multiple carry picker... when I do play the only support because I'm not the only dumbfuck down in my team.

I'll just make something clear about the update of maps. IceFrog do put change for multiple things but also for his community and not only pro-play.

If something bothers you and you email me about it explaining why, you can be sure that I will at least have an open ear to your concern and will do my best to respond. I develop this game for the players afterall, so I don't gain anything by doing something that makes the game less enjoyable.

Third and last point, I did play with/against high-skilled too. I'm not telling that slark is a hero I play or that he's the best, I just said his ultimate, if well played with PRO player, can be really annoying and turn out OP. Pro player always play with pro? No they do pub and they can always have fun crushing pub player with it.

I'm not a pro player, I'm like you and proly in the average range of player level. Has for an exemple, someone with 1995 win (playing over 2k game on dota2) I just owned him mid and I ate his 'skill' but more than that, my team just played well and thus we won this really quick.

BlackSpade, I like what you've said above in the quote. Dota is a team game, and 3/4 of the time it's the reason people lose game. Not playing in team.

[child]

I'm not a pro player, I'm like you and proly in the average range of player level. Has for an exemple, someone with 1995 win (playing over 2k game on dota2) I just owned him mid and I ate his 'skill' but more than that, my team just played well and thus we won this really quick.

I don't agree/disagree with either of you, only time will tell as so much is changed in this patch. But I would like to interject that blackspade- is not "average" lol.

[EdgeOfChaos]

Lol

IceFrog's updates/patches have never been about "balance" or anything in the interest of making the game more balanced as a whole

It always has been and always will be about constantly changing things so people must re-adapt strategies, tactics, assumptions

This is the essence of keeping competitive games fresh and alive and keeping people playing them

Any game architect or designer understands that in order to keep the game alive (and keep making money, which is the bottom line, even for free games that rely on donations, it's even more true, because you must keep your donators interested) this must be done. The mass public, the players, must be carefully manipulated. This isn't evil or bad or shameful, it's just reality--this is the way the world works, politics, economy, it's the same exact thing as keeping people playing your shitty game, just bullshit over and over and over

If you look carefully at the history of "balancing" going back years and years and years you will see that half the time the same nerfs and buffs are re-done over and over and over. You're a blind man trying to argue about colors if you think that new versions and releases are about "balance". You don't understand; in fact it's the opposite--it's about creating and maintaining IMbalance because there is truly no such thing as "really balanced", it's an illusion

Seriously look back at 500 updates and patches and check the changelogs and you will see the same numbers being tweaked over and over, the same hero getting buffed and then nerfed and then buffed again, it's an endless cycle which is important to keep because otherwise you the player would become bored and uninterested and play another similar game instead

And when it comes to high-level skilled play, league play, this is even more true--things must be kept constantly shifting in order to encourage freshness and change, otherwise you'd have the exact same hero teams and item builds year after year because that was the "best". The only logical solution is constantly making new "best", get it?

Anyway, this update sucks. But it achieves exactly what IceFrog wanted. If you think any of the nerfs here won't be buffed later on, you're funny. If you think none of the buffs will end up getting nerfed in the future, you're funny.

As it has been for years, you accept the bullshit changes and then once you become accustomed to it, it changes again. That's the genius of a skilled game designer. Deal with it, admire it, and keep playing the shitty game he's getting rich off of

hmm.. why can't I have the old Spiritbreaker back with 15 second stun? or the old SA with unchanneling death ward?

There's is a certain balance you need between balance and interest. Because, do you want to know a faster way to drive away your fanbase than being disinterested? Having mega-OP heroes. We'll see how this goes, but Slark can deal a *lot* of damage in 4 seconds with MoM.

[ipwnipwn]

ok girls a simple question, if bara, slark, bs and all the heros u guys talking about (i havent see all the post they r too long) r so "op" why pros dont pick them as much as they pick alch, gyro, naix, wisp, furi, chen, puck, ta, seer and all those other heros that no1 here has mention?

[child]

ok girls a simple question, if bara, slark, bs and all the heros u guys talking about (i havent see all the post they r too long) r so "op" why pros dont pick them as much as they pick alch, gyro, naix, wisp, furi, chen, puck, ta, seer and all those other heros that no1 here has mention?

The answer is fairly simple... almost all of the heroes people commonly refer to as OP in pubs simply are heroes that require very little mastery and often very little farm to be effective killers AND (edit) are fairly strong throughout the game. Additionally, the "OP" heroes are ones that only need utilize one or two item builds to be able to counter whatever heroes they face. They're simple and easy to learn to the point that even a nub can go beyond godlike in a high level game etc . But such heroes are often incredibly easy to counter or do not scale well into late game.

Some heroes people don't often describe in pub as op, but instead like you said "pro pick" heroes, are difficult to master mechanically in order to be effective at a high level (a few aren't difficult in terms of mechanics, but require a wide understanding of counter item builds). To add on to that, many times such heroes require not only lengthy but effective farming techniques in order to keep up with the pace of the others and hopefull pass end game. "Pro" heroes, like the ones u listed above, thus require either pwnin skillz or farmin skillz - or both. Two heroes I think of off the top of my head that exemplify "need a lot good fast farm" and the other category of "need skills" are anti-mage for farm and heroes like puck pudge lina potm (lol I'm not a fan but the heroes that Dendi plays fall under this 2nd category mostly).

[ipwnipwn]

i agree with art)y when he says "These changes are to balance the game - mainly competitive gaming, which is the future for DotA 2." they dont really care about wc3 or newbs pubs game.. for them dota2 is where the real money is at xD

[NutzSucksHard]

For a pool prize of over 2 million... [A]lliance last win 2013 The International Tourney ---> 1,437,190 USD... That's money...

Split in five = per player : 287 438 USD$

They can buy their own house just with that tournement... Crazy shit.

Yo Uakf.b, for when is this pool prize on dota1? XD