Xyrus's #RoadTo4k Thread

I'm not usually one for New Year's resolutions, but what the hell.


_{(and maybe Party Ranked...if I can ever get a regular 5-Stack for Captain's Mode)}

It's gonna be a bit of a grind, and probably some hard work, but I will not rest until I reach it!

So...what made me suddenly want to start playing Solo Ranked again? Well, I never really enjoyed Solo Ranked much since at best, it felt like I was 2 vs 8, and looking at average 4k players...I don't think it's much better. However, I've been playing Osu! lately and I remembered something about the way I like playing video games:-


Whenever I boot up a game, I set the "difficulty" to the highest level, I do one gun runs, low level runs, I'm always looking to challenge myself. When I first played Dead Space, I chose to go through the game with only the Plasma Cutter on the highest diifficulty available...because I didn't know Telekenesis only was possible, until AFTER I completed the game... ._.

...and after a while of playing Osu, I started trying to play some of the harder maps I've completed with HD HR DT and even a little FL for higher scores (just nod your head and read along if you have no idea what Osu! is) and I realised, Solo Ranked is DOTA's hardest difficulty. Instead of playing with Cores that will Carry you and Supports that will be as effective as possible with minimal Farm, I have to Carry my entire team to victory while dealing with their complete and utter incompetence!


After realising this, I realised that I can enjoy Solo Queue once again. No longer are my team deadweights trying to pull me down, they are the additional challenge along with the other team that I must overcome!

---

0 Ranked games
2.303 Solo MMR
2,944 Party MMR

---

_{I will be updating this thread with various games, stats and thoughts as I go. Why post it? Because how else will someone find the replays and quotes to make a Xyrus fail compilation if I don't give them the material?}

8{3

1st things 1st, before I start diving into the whirlwind of...skill...that is 2k Solo Ranked, I must get up to par with a decent Hero Pool. I believe that regular practise with about 7 Heroes should see me to victory. The question is, which 7 will I pick?

First of all, the way to win in DOTA is to Kill the Ancient. In order to Kill the Ancient, you need to Right-Click it. So traditional Hard Supports are out...including most of my most played Heroes... T-T

I also need Heroes that can win Lanes by themselves, or at least survive the hardest ones while still finding Farm. The Last thing I need is a Hero that's completely dependent on having a good Lane. I will inevitably have to deal with "Supports" and "Carries" contesting me for Farm...as well as the Offlane for the other team...

Finally, I need Heroes that can have impact, getting Kills, and turning those Kills into dead Towers, preferably capable of Soloing Roshan.

From my 10 most played, Crystal Miaden is out, Leshrac...can Push...but I don't feel I'll get particularly far with him, he's no longer a goliath of 6.85, Windrunner definitely fits the bill, all I'd have to do is get used to Shackleshot and Powershot, Lion is out, Lich is out, Juggernaut is too easily crushed in Lane 1 vs 3 with little to no way of recovering, Nyx Assassin is out, Vengeful Spirit is...a possibility, Bane is out, Witch Doctor is out (I doubt I will be able to get Mid Lane with this Hero without my team intentionally Feeding in rage...sry Zaop 8{3 ).


Well, that's one Hero I can consider, but I feel like trying something new before I start getting back into playing Windrunner...and I think I found just the Hero for me:-

That's right! I've been watching EE lately, and I'm ready for some EE style PA with mah shiny new set and Arcana!!! 8{D

So, I started by playing a few Unranked AP games, experimenting with the various Items I see EE-sama building these days:-

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2047468306

This game quickly became 4 vs 5 after CM "lagged" then failed to reconnect...thankfully, I had a good start in the Safe Lane, I actually had a decent Support in Witch Doctor, not only did he Harrass, not only did he Zone the Pugna out, but he actually got a Town Portal Scroll and helped other Lanes as a Solo Support! I easily dived the Pugna a few times, gaining easy Kills and Snowballing pretty hard. In the end, I feel I amde up for our lack of a CM, finishing 2GPM behind our Alchemist on a respectable 762 <}3

However, this was an easy game, a rare treat compared to what I'll have to deal with in Ranked, so I needed a game that isn't so easy to Push me to my limits, and after a couple of Overthrow games with Wulfstan and ChiChi:-

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2047593771

This was somewhat harder, getting Harrassed by a Windrunner and Weaver while my Ogre sits there looking blankly on is the kind of Lane I expect to encounter more of down the line (welp, at least he gave me Mana when he got Arcane Boots...that's Supporting, right? ._. ). It got even harder when there were constantly 3 Heroes bot, presumably due to Clinkz having a much better time than me.

P.S. 20% of the time, you evade 100% of the time 8{D

---

If anyone would care to watch the replays and offer advice on my Item builds and my choice of SKill Builds, feel free, I'm still experimenting with PA, trying to find which Items have the most impact for me...and yes...I will eventually go MoM on PA! 8{D

Ummm, Xyrus, I hate to be the anti-PA guy but :

- PA got nerfed this patch. Significanly even. She's really not that good of a hero right now, even in last patch she was meh and she's much, much weaker now.

- EternalEnvy is feeding on PA right now. He was on a 15 loss streak a few days ago. He's gone in complete BabyRage mode over his lost MMR. He even disabled shared match history and you can't even see his matches with PA on his dotabuff, according to dotabuff he stopped playing dota 20 days ago. But I saw the streams and he got massively rekt.

- There are other carries you can pick that deal with useless supports and have the ability to solo the safe lane. I'd go for those instead. Actually...any carry can do that if you know how to abuse creep aggro and buy the right laning items. I've seen people get almost-freefarm on Anti-Mage with useless feeding supports against Lich/undying/doom/whatever dual lanes.

I completely agree with the "you have to play 1v5 dota and carry your scrub team and it's challenging to do that". I keep saying the same thing...solo queue is not that bad if you view it as a challenge :)

GL on your grind!

I fail to see the indirect nerf. Is this to do with the rise of Invoker? She certainly hasn't received any direct nerfs, but has instead been buffed in 6.86 and 6.85, and most of the Items she uses have been buffed in some way in 6.86...except for casual Yasha...

At any rate, even if she has been indirectly nerfed in some way, it's not about picking Heroes that are strong in this Meta. It's about finding Heroes I can have fun with that allow me to go from 2k to 4k...and let's face it...that's any Hero I can have fun with an have an impact with. Not to mention, 6.86 saw the rise of Invoker, who knows which Hero will be OP next in 6.87? There's no sense worrying about the Meta if it's going to make me shift Heroes every few months. Besides, I'm going for more than 1 Hero, I'm just starting with PA. <}3

I think the indirect nerf includes silver edge not being purgeable, kind of a rise in invoker yes, and the reduction in damage given by the damage items.

Also, when's the dotofiro inhouse new year Mr. #roadto4k ?

I shall spectate your games with a lot of buttery popcorn :D

Why would you go safelane PA this patch? It's 2k alright, but there are still some people that may have read the patchnotes and just get a Silver Edge(especially since invisibility = invincibility in 2k).

Go mid, get a fast (MoC+)Deso and whatever you may need afterwards and finish the game when you can. After all, if you are shut down, there is a chance your *****tain carry will be able to do something.

Also I've never seen trilanes when I was at 2k(half a year ago, so it's still relevant), so you may pick Jugg freely in this bracket.

Also try Omni mid, nobody expects that, with OoV you just run at the enemy mid and beat them to death.

Or, you know, learn a legit mid hero and just instapick him and this will get you to about 3.5k on its own, maybe further(I stopped ding that after I got to that rating).

Gl and don't forget to ☑ Mute All Chat.

Edit: also weren't you a fan of Zeus? This hero works everywhere and it is impossible to contest his farm midlane.

PA would destroy Invoker by easily 3-shotting him before a fight starts...if the hero was any good. I only remember owning invokers as PA when she was playable, invoker has no armor and goes down easily to an abyssal or BKB pop. Even just a dust pop really. But she's not. No, invoker is not the problem. That's the problem :

- Silver Edge makes the hero unplayable. And it's not a way of saying. Literally *unplayable*, it's worse that a 5 second Hex, it turns a 6-slotted PA into a melee creep. No evasion. No crit. 40% less damage so zero manfight potential. And *completely unpurgeable*. And I mean completely. You get hit by that, you're screwed. Playing against Slark or any hero that'll buy a SB in the 2K bracket? Instalose. You'll even get rekt by drow...isn't that something. EVEN BKB DOESN'T REMOVE IT. I tested that in lobby just to be sure because of how ******** this is. Extremely fair and balanced item OSFrog.

- And she even got another hidden nerf. She lost a significant part of her damage output. Abyssal Blade lost 15 crittable damage. Her crit increases PA's damage by 50% so that's 7.5 damage lost forever on each hit. And Monkey King Bar lost 22 damage, so that's 11 damage lost as well. PA lost 18.5 damage because abyssal and MKB are pretty much core in this mass evsaion meta. On a carry that only scales with damage, there's not even such a thing as a damage item in dota anymore.

Did I mention that PA gets literally one-shotted by Sanity's Eclipse and OD is tier 1 pick now? And OD is also a natural Silver Edge carrier in case you dind't see Slahser.

Any thoughts on Gyrocopter?

He's one of those carries that I believe is a decent laner - while the range isn't exactly impressive, he can dish out decent harass via Flak Canon, can farm fast and fight early as well ad scale well into late game.

I used to play pa alot to raise mmr just like you are doing but it doesn't do anymore. She is still pa but since 6.83 she isn't the same pa anymore. Due to the ARCANA event people picked pa every game. Because of that people learned how to counter here. Also she got nerfed every patch after that. Items like Silver Edge, Solar Crest, Monkey King Bar are all items that counter here and are purchased most games. Also items that are common build on pa got nerfed. for example battlefury and Abyssal Blade they used to give good and really good rightclick damage but now they give less damage. Which means less crit!!! Also pa gets countered by Tiny which is a common pick this days.

Also has you seen that EE loses most of his pa games. At the same time of you want to play pa just go pa but I don't think she is the best hero to play in ranked.

What I don't get is that you don't want to play Juggernaut he is really strong in lane and can solo lanes easily. If he got some levels and items he can zone an oflane hero solo. With his healing ward he get good substain and he can farm fast with Iron Talon or battlefury or Maelstrom. There are alot of different juggernaut build and you can just find the build you like the most and do that.

Other heroes you can opt to play is Necrophos he is not the traditional rightclick hero but he can do all lanes and all roles, pos 5 to pos 1 and has a big game impact. I even roamed with him once and we won the game. Because 2k mmr has easy mids to gank but really easy. With playing roamers I got out of the 2k mmr **** really fast. And even heroes that aren't roamers work like I did with Necrophos. So play vengefull spirit, Night Stalker, Mirana, Crystal Maiden or just any high impact hero like Death Prophet. A rightclick farming hero doesn't allow you to rise in mmr that well because of the common dual lanes and the **** supports and the failing mid. You need to play a hero that is good all stages of the game, that can have impact at minute 1 untill minute 60.

Necrophos, Death Prophet, Invoker, Zeus, Omniknight, Abaddon, Wraith King, Enigma, vengefull spirit. A good support player can win as support to be honest in 2k mmr. If you support like a 3k to 4k person, by zoning, pulling, setting up kills, being dominant in the chat by telling your team what to do, smoke ganking, perfect warding. You will win most of your games because everyone in your team will get farmed, they won't get ganked and you are ganking the enemy team so they can't farm.