Is Storm Spirit now a badge of douche?

Seems like last few games everytime someone on my team picks this hero, locks in mid, we're almost guaranteed to have a preening, self-important egotist on the team.

One we had gave up on mid at about 6 and decided to come into the jungle to take all my carefully nurtured stacks away from me and our carry. I was Sand King btw, and had been fliting between ganking mid/safe and jungling for my Blink Dagger. Lovely quad-stack...all gone...well ok I think, maybe he's having a bad time in lane, despite me getting him FB.

Nope, he proceeds to AFK for almost the entire game, building his items up while our Phantom Lancer has to get by on scraps and actually turns up the for the fights. If he dies due to stupidty (and lack of BKB)...well that's our fault. A non-ganking storm, obviously with a terrible attitude too, moaning about our PL's lack of farm while he's been strip mining every bit of safe farm on our side of the map while the enemy carry goes unmolested in the jungle.

The annoying thing is, we won as the rest of the team did well, and he ended up with what looked like great stats as he'd only turn up to KS and would bail at the first sign of an actual fight brewing.

Almost the same thing again a little later - a self-important egotist who shouting at his supports in caps (I was actually playing carry for a change) for a brief lull in wards, and the fact he couldn't play the hero properly. Again we won, again he had great stats "on paper".

It's such a shame, as Storm Spirit as a great, fun hero (at least if you're not playing against him without long disables or silences) and everyone who plays him seem to:

1) Have poor skills with him. Poor jumps, bad skilling, terrible mana managment and decision making.

2) Be incredibly arrogant and bad mannered.

3) Spend the whole game glory hunting for stats and leaving their team to hang.

Anyone else experienced this?

I play Storm Spirit. I don't think I'm that bad... I just don't chat. :P

Maybe the hero's flamboyant voice is affecting them?

Yeah there are many guys who try to copy the cocky playstyle of pro players (SingSing) they see on Twitch in pubs. The problem is that they have no fundamental understanding of the game, when to farm lane and when to farm jungle and when to fight. This results in them trying to farm their stuff as safe as possible (because only noobs die), but still ending up behind, because they get neither EXP nor gold from the fights that happen.

Basically they want to be cocky, but can't really be cocky to the enemy team, because they'd die so they're cocky to their own team and **** up.

I think Doom's point of view on the hero is pretty close to my own.

Yes, players of certain specific heroes tend to resemble their heroes' characters and I think Storm's overgrown ego and narcissism seems to have had bad effects on some...

It's similar to the average Sniper picker sounding like an annoying dwarf...

or the average Mirana picker sounding like a *****y tryhard and a sore loser.


The most funny part is that the max Static Remnant AFK farming Storm build is only done by Singsing on stream to troll EternalEnvy, because EE has made up the build and it's pretty clear that Sing thinks that this build blows. That's why you see Sing saying "stun on cooldown" and pathetically trying to gank people with a Storm without stun :)

I think a lot of it is that the hero is a very flashy tempo controller with the potential to swing and control games through constant ganks and the like, and can very much be a 1 man show hero.

And thus certain people want to feel like they are godly on the hero, and are controlling to entire game, and thus blame there own short-comings on the rest of the team.

Them not knowing how to play him is probably a case of not enough practice, and relying on what they've seen happen. It's the same with a lot of heroes, people expect to being godly without having put in the hours of practice. Like they see Sumail and think 'This kids 16, if he can do this, I can' without realising the kid's both probably better than them naturally, and has definately practiced the hero more than they have.

Can't remember who it is that said this but one of the pros said that they make every play with the mindset that they are better than everyone else they are playing against, which allows them to remain confident and make flashy plays. I think the problem with people who try to emulate this is that they AREN'T better than everyone else in the game which means they fail flashy plays and then their team loses confidence in them.

Side note: what hamstertamer said is interesting. Do you guys think that the voice acting and narration for the heroes affects the people who play them?

That is an interesting topic to discuss. Well, in my opinion, dota has some elements of an RPG, where the characters have certain personalities, as suggested by the hundred or so of voice lines per hero, and sometimes people subconsciously empathise with these virtual characters, which could influence some of their own behaviour. In an immersive environment like dota, I'd suggest that it's very likely to happen, although I don't really know for sure.

Remember RTZ plays at DAC on SF?

yea i remember, i also remember the insta lock sf mid picks by complete idiots for the next 3 weeks! OH OH OH if RTZ did it then i can also and if im not then obviously its a team problem.

Remember the FEAR Rampage 1v5 on Sven?

i do, i also remember the nutjockeys that tried to 1v5 with sven with no bkb and then be like "y u no halp?"

You remember the sumail plays at Qualies for TI?

i do and now your all feeling the pain that comes after where complete ****osauruses think they can do what he did at 6 minutes in then run outa mana after jumping in from the ****ing fountain to river.



Example 1: mid sf insta locked 2 days after the rtz rampage, says in all chat " 2 tangoes from supports pls" i give him one and wait for the second guy to give him one ... 3 seconds later " Noob ES u must give me 2 tangoes T W O not O N E" i eat my words which describe the type relatonship his mother had with a bovine creature to produce him and give him a second one. all g.

i put a ward on our high ground mid for ganks and i see venge and SD rotating through around 4 minutes in.

i ping 2-5 times.
type in all chat
"SF care mid"
a couple of seconds later
"hey SF, venge is coming on your left back to tower"
venge and SD are in vision and sitting right there on the high ground ... RIGHT UNDER OUR WARD
i type again
"SF care mid they ganking you back to tower"
"shut up ES i kill them all"
he then proceeds to walk RIGHT TOWARDS THEM....

RU***INKIDDINMEM8

i tp in he dies i get a double kill.

sf types in all chat

"Noob ES no help, no wards, pls report"

he then proceeds to cop an absolute bollocking from my team ripping him a new one by spam pinging the ward that i placed, he then screams THIS into the MIC "IM TOO GOOD FOR YOU NOOBS I BET RTZ DOESNT HAVE TO PLAY WITH COMPLETE ****Y ****S" and abandons.

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beware the "PPC" the pro player copycat.

The average Pudge player being a dumb tub of lard.

also look at this: Most Played Heroes

WR is SECOND most played! Looks like pubs have started picking less pubstomper heroes!

WR is a pub stomper though?