Dealing with broken and overpicked heroes (6.83)

I don't have much input on Storm, he's just annoying as hell, and I think you nailed all of the main counters.

But as for Troll Warlord, I've found some success against him with Sand King, since late game, I can usually survive long enough through his BKB to throw multiple burrowstrikes (and often a Halberd) at him. Plus, he is still vulnerable to burst damage for a bit of mid-game, as he usually delays the BKB for SnY.

DK I've seen also works pretty well. He can tank Troll's damage better than almost any hero, so he's unlikely to die during the duration of BKB, which means Dragon Tail is very useful against Troll. Plus, he can kite him too. I last took on Troll using the same build he did, SnY, BKB, Skadi, and I pretty much demolished him.

ET may be unpopular and gotten nerfed, but in the end, Natural Order completely counters the current Troll build, which builds nothing but stats, suddenly, your carry can kill him very easily.

And the last counter is the same counter I had to Juggernaut when he was still big, Slardar. Amp Damage is disgustingly powerful in the right cases, especially if you combine it with a long ranged damage dealer like Drow, Windranger, or Sniper. Plus, pretty tanky, and very low cooldown stun, so you can actually stun Troll multiple times, you just can't fight him head on very well.

You just pinpointed the very reason why Storm is broken as hell. Nobody goes semi-deathball strat anymore. The degree of ricing I see in my games is absolutely sickening, and pubs are bad at pushing and taking objectives by definition.
So you can't assume he can go in and out of fights as he wants. You need to pick enough disablers so that he can't get out when he goes in, or else GG report Icefraud.
So you're left with the tedious tack of sitting behind your cores all mid-game with a support with disables to punish Storm when he jumps in. Boring but effective.



SnY is still a tank item, and he gets bonus HP from his Q as well. Besides I already mentioned that nukers are a pretty bad idea because a farmed Troll sits at more than 3K HP and this hero always gets a really good start so you have to deal with a late game Troll before you know it.
So you need something that can deal with a late game Troll with farm. SK doesn't deal enough damage, not even close.



Ii should work, but since the point of the post is how to tryhard in order to beat the most broken heroes in the game right now, playing DK mid doesn't really fit the picture :)



It works. Nobody picks ET in pubs so I forgot about him :)
Added.



Why not, but it still assumes that you have a ranged damage dealer because Troll will own you 1 vs 1.
Besides you'll have to go MKB on Slardar...and even then it's not enough :)

storm is getting stupidly popular and he is very very annoying

Actually gets damaged by it, because the damage is applied before the skill is actually cast.

I'm not sure Troll or Storm were ever genuinely weak, so much as unpopular. People are very much sheep sometimes in following the trend setters and whatever's "OP" this week. I think this can be a real problem when it comes to balancing - "unpopular" heroes get buffed rather than weak ones, which often leads to them being nerfed hard back down again.

As much as I respect the opinions of Pro-players and Icefrog's work in general, I think there's too much attention paid to the "trend" rather than the underlying maths and stats. Tbh I think a lot of the issue is that heroes get general nerfs, rather than nerfs to specific OP combinations. A good example of a well targeted nerf was Death Ward no longer working in Chronosphere - it didn't actually nerf either hero directly, and the combo was still usable, just less OP.

Good article btw. I think the thing with both these heroes is that they demand a response - Storm in particular pretty much requires some or several of your team to have good disabling/silencing abilities or items. You'll have a horrible time otherwise. Troll pretty much requires an MKB for your carry, and is not just a threat in himself, but how much DPS boost he offers to other damage dealers on his team.

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1348820746

Recent game against a storm that we completely shut down. Basically we just got mass teamfight and big ults, and I went with the Doom for the hard counter. Tide would blink in and ravage, and I would immediately follow up with the Doom. After that there's literally nothing he can do.

I think getting the jump on HIM rather than him getting the jump on you is really important. Kind of like Pudge or Mirana, if they can sneak to where you are and surprise you with initiation, you're dead. Tidehunter is good because he can blink in and tank up damage, and purge disables with Kraken Shell if it comes to that point. The Ravage stun was more than enough for me to just walk up to him and Doom most of the time (without tide I would have rushed a Blink), and the Black Hole felt like overkill.

It was kind of an easy match tbh, but I think there are some decent takeaways there.

Last time I played storm v kotl, I did get mana drain while balling. Can you check this?

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1350333542

this game is like .... kinda shows how strong those kind of heroes are though...

i was 0-3 at like 6 minutes...

i had no farm i think i had phase and some consumables..

then BOOM

triple kill then another then an ultra...

went from *** to AWWW ****ING YEA

i think jugg needs a nerf to his crit chance its just too high atm.

also troll needs a extra attack before it stacks for fervour

The initial proc will hurt him, yeah, but Ball Lightning triggers multiple hits from a ward, and all but the first will do nothing.

maybe you should add a special section in your pubstomp guide