Building a Hero Pool

It's been a long time since I last posted here. I'd like to update this thread with some new questions.

I calibrated at 1479, but I've won 58% of ranked matches since then. I'm at 1775. It's taken about 1.5 months to do this, and I've done some really dumb things along the way. There are huge holes in the play of my opponents - although I don't take advantage of them. I'm also quickly learning what I can and cannot do at this point in time.

http://www.dotabuff.com/players/46981084

What I've learned (when selecting a hero):

1. If you're picking 3rd or later, take note of lane compositions. I went 1-19-15 as Batrider because I picked him in a BAD spot (played him as a 5 on a team with no other supports). If you can pick something in your pool that elevates your lane partner, then do so.

2. A simple hero played well is a lot better than a complicated hero that is played inefficiently. Vengeful Spirit and Lich are good streak-busters since it's not hard to be generally correct in your play.

3. At my MMR, you can actually play passively early on - and let the opponents make the big mistakes for you. Whenever I try to dive in early for plays I start 0-3-1. Good things happen when I bide my time.

4. A big part of playing the 3/4/5 roles is reminding your big carries to knock down towers after a good fight. A friendly ping has saved me games where our entire team was outplayed.

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I've been playing too much support lately. My hero pool includes almost no super-hard carries. The thing is, when I play core BAD things happen... ...and when I play support we seem to win 60-70% of the time.

When I play the 1:
- My CS levels are putrid, mostly because my lane gets overrun and I start wasting resources.
- I don't know how to deal with aggressive duo-offlanes that look to farm YOU instead of the creeps.
- It's hard to tell when my supports/initiators are going to do their job. I'll often dive in early or late.

When I'm playing a support I feel comfortable with, I'm able to step back from the rest of the game and assess situations. I HATE Lich but when I play with him I start to manipulate armor, regulate tower/wave control, ward and de-ward, and judge the outcomes of fights before they happen. The other players in my range don't normally do this so it puts me at an advantage. (http://www.dotabuff.com/players/46981084/matches?hero=lich)

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Current Pool:

Signature: Visage

I hate you for making me play position 5: Lich, Vengeful Spirit, Phoenix

Position 4: Sand King

Position 3: Clockwerk, Bristleback

I don't play enough mid or carry yet. I'm also testing a few other heroes out. I love the new Demo Mode where you can practice timing plays.

Just a quick reply as I have to go out soon:

- Thanks for the update! Interesting reading.

- As you probably know, common team compositions at your level are 5 x core, 0 support. You playing support is doing a lot for your win rate, but I understand you don't want to get stuck in it. (bear in mind, there's always time to learn later too)

- This means it's **** trying to play hard carries. You pretty much require 2 reasonable supports to lane the likes of Spectre against an aggressive duo...you'll be lucky to get one. This doesn't mean you're a bad player, just it's an inappropriate pick usually. Try something with more threat/lane control that still is a core.

- Don't hate on Lich!! :). You don't want to play a hero so much you get bored of them, but there is still a high skill ceiling on every hero. Try some different items if you need to pick him - e.g. Veil of Discord which requires some extra micro to use well.

- Also, branch out into similar heroes who can #5, or try playing him as a solo offlane #3, he's actually quite good at it - and people are so used to seeing him as a hard support they massively underestimate him.

Never play Phoenix as possition 5. EVER. He's best as a pos 3 or 2.

Who plays position two Phoenix? It's like giving your mid-lane to a Pudge - You don't scale with items or gold at all beyond like a little armour and HP, just levels, thus it's kind of a wasted lane. Sure he lanes better than the Pudge, but still.

He's an alright 4, but 3 is his literal best position.

In response to the aggresive dual lanes part; Just don't die. Like, you are able to catch up on CS as the game goes along presuming you are at a kinda meh skill level where eventually the pressure die down, so play safely whilst still getting something from the lane. Like, getting the odd CS when the wave goes under your tower, and just getting levels is generally good enough there.

Since I'm assuming you are at the level where people just kinda group mid for minutes because no one can initiate. Just use that time to cs, to pressure the tower, and TP in when the action actually starts. Part of being a core is making use of the space others on your team create for you.

Even if you miss your nominal hero timing, you can probably make up for it by turning up to fights with an item advantage on the opponents because you were actually farming.

Phoenix wins literally every single matchup 1v1. Nobody right now can outlane Fire Spirits on the mid lane. Maybe excessive try-hard qop dagger spam. But even then, he can win the lane.


It's not about scaling, it's about keeping the other midlaner down. And he scales very well with utility items. You can just buy mek, guardian greaves etc. You don't have to do a ton of damage.

Somehow, even without offensive items, just with Shiva's, Phoenix often does second-first most damage in a lot of matches, so why not? What are you going to do vs a 17 minute Shiva's, spirits and sun?

Though he doesn't win every mid matchup that hard even if you just count the meta. Lina can lane vs him decently just because of huge range of Q, SF can do something after lvl 5 or even 3 if he had a good start.

Sf has pretty high ms to try and dodge the spirits, and as soon as lvl 3 he will have 3 decent 10sec nukes in case he gets hit with the spirits. maybe lina can do something similar with her high range and 1st skill, but other than those 2 i agree that there isn't much that other mid heroes can do against phoenix

Icarus Dive slows. You get at least 1 spirit off because you'll be on top of SF when you dive. It's more than enough. If you stand your ground and fight from that point, all he can land is a single Shadowraze because Phoenix's model is not big enough to overlap the AoE(unless they both have perfect possitioning for that to happen).

But Fire Spirits has a really long cooldown; You get it every other wave basically, which means unless you are getting kills with every usage (Unfeasable till 5 unless they really **** up), you can't stop the enemy laner from getting semi decent CS even as a melee, and if they have a form of spam, they are gonna be cs'ing even when hit by Spirits. And once it's down you can't trade harass very well, or really contest cs that well.

So I don't see you shutting them down that completely in lane, so they'll be somewhat even in farm, which works out better for them because they are going to be better with gold.

I just don't see his ability to win the lane being worth it; Because you'll win the lane by out cs'ing them, not by shutting them out entirely.

And I still disagree that the hero scales with gold; There's not a single item on him that can be consider 'core' or even close to it, because he doesn't gain anything special from any item relative to any other hero.

Agreed with the first point. But I never said Phoenix scales with gold. He scales with levels. Gets those easily mid with a favorable matchup that it may or may not win (he should again, most of the time) than the offlane where he's just ditched. Deals a lot of damage via Supernova and Fire Spirits early. There's a lot of heroes that can mid and are not farm machines.


Can your mid hero win his lane and farm? Good, that means he is in the current meta. I never said anything about the meta. I only said it is viable. Hella viable if you come to think about it a bit. If you want some sort of a reference, check out Slahser's way Io. He plays mid Io, a hero that really doesn't scale at all with gold(arguably, sort of like phoenix).