Counterpicking and tryharding

So I've been playing Huskar as of late and it made me aware of the rampant phenomenon known as "counterpicking." Everyone waits until the last second to pick and I pick Huskar because I really wanted to play Huskar. Sure enough, I encounter ancient appparition, Doom, Riki and things of the like. Mixed results followed (my supports bought a bajillion sentries but didn't use a single one, I was not happy).

And isn't just with Huskar, I tend see alot of Earthshakers and Templar Assassins whenver I'm in a Shadow Fiend kind of mood.

Though I'm no exception: in fact the reason why Abaddon is one of my most played heroes is because of Pudge (it always nice to be able to play mid LoA).


So, what do you guys think of counterpicking? Is it just one of those things you have to learn to deal with or will 6.85/Source 2 fix it?

I never counter pick because I can get away with picking CM and Windranger every game and nobody seems to care about it. Personally though, I think counter picking is a form of strategy, and it's totally cool. You want to make sure your team is stronger than the opponents, so therefore you counter pick. However, I think unranked all pick "counter picking" is slightly obnoxious, since it's basically "see who can lose the most gold waiting for the enemy to pick their mid" etc etc. Ranked all pick is more strategic, but that's pretty obvious I suppose. In pubs it's gonna happen, and it's kinda annoying, but It's a strategy I suppose so it's okay IMO.

So long as they don't pause at the start of the game to allow them to co-ordinate counter picks for you it's fine - The nature of DOTA means that counter-picks are just something you have to take into consideration.

It's not something you can really fix, since in either form of All Pick it can happen, and you just can't prevent it. I also don't think it's something that needs 'fixing', because it's part of the games strategic depth. If you try and minimise the impact of counter picks, you minimise the importance of the draft, and you push the game in the direction of other MOBA's, like LoL for instance.

^^ That's LoL burn tho.

I hardly ever counterpick, except for heroes who need to be counterpicked or they will rampage all over the map( Phantom Lancer). But yeah. Counterpicks are a part and parcel of dota, and is one of the main thing that distinguishes the game from other MOBAs.

I used to really look down on counterpicking because I thought it was about abusing the picking system (which it was)...

But then counterpicking got balanced out in ranked all pick. Now you pick in turns with the enemy team, which means that in every game you can counterpick as much as you can get counterpicked. The ranked picking system is perfectly fair now, so even if you think that the importance of counterpicks in the game is just poor game design (which I do), you have to admit that counterpicking is perfectly fair if you're playing dota in a competitive mindset.

So if you counterpick in unranked, you're kind of a tryhard who's just abusing a bad picking system to win. But if you do in ranked, it's fair game and it's balanced out by the fact that the enemy team can do it just as much and there's no way to abuse the system whatsoever.

(By the way Huskar counters Riki and AA as much as they counter him...maybe even more so. And Doom counters 95% of the heroes and is useless against push strats which is what Huskar is all about. So if they have nothing better there's nothing you can't deal with.)



Still sounds like bad game design to me...I think I should move to LoL :)

As someone who has an unnaturally huge love for the drafting/banning phase of the game, I come down firmly in favor of counter-picking. It's part of the game just as much as anything else.

People waiting until they start to lose gold to pick a hero because they're afraid of BEING counter-picked, on the other hand... THAT. That is unacceptable. Burn it with fire. Then counter-pick Morphling to put it out.

The nature of DOTA is that picking is important, and non-ranked all pick is always gonna be ripe for abuse as it's just "grab a hero and play". Some heroes (Brood for example) kinda need to be countered or they can run rampant.

I'd agree though, I hate when people pause to co-ordinate their counter-picks. The game is setup to make you lose gold for this exact reason, don't try and dodge the punishment for late picking.

This. I just came from another thread where I suggested that in non ranked AP you should have this feature that, when the time expires and the game begins, if you don't have your hero picked it will instantly random one for you (that you can't change). This ought make AP free of all the irritating people that should go to Captains mode already.

Changelog 6.85:

Players who do not pick a hero in All Pick (non-ranked) will be automatically assigned Crystal Maiden. Multiple instances of this buff DO stack. :p