Dead Naga Storage

That's a big if. And that's just not happening if you skip manta and micro properly.

Don't take me wrong, this game is going to be a pain in the ***, but it's completely winnable.

Zeus dumps on pretty much any hero early, mid Zeus just means you should turtle for 25 minutes at least. But come late game...they've hardly got anything. And they've got really defensive/counterpush heroes, not heroes that can rax you early.

Essentially they can't prevent you from flashfarming the entire map and come out as a big bad raidboss they can't deal with.

In a team fight micro'ing that well is really, really hard. It is not that big an if. It's not like PL levels of certainty, but it's still a possibility.

Ember and Zeus are still really relevent late game though. In late game BKB's are down to 5s, which means Zeus is relevent in fights with continual % based damage, and Ember is Ember. Terrorblade alone can't punish an Ember who itemises correctly.

Won't your period will be between the mid and late game. So when BKB's are still really long but before Ember Spirit has enough damage to be a physical threat. Aim to get fast Mega creeps because they can scale just as well as you?

Essentially, I don't think it's cut and dry in either direction. Both Ember and Terrorblade are high scaling cores who are very proficient at ratting. Especially when things get really late, and Ember starts picking up Rapier.

Honestly, it's pretty much an easy version of Naga Siren micro, you have only 2 illusions instead of 5. If you play Naga, you can do that without much of a problem.




Ember, definitely. But then he's not a late game counter to Terrorblade the way he's a late game counter to PL or Meepo. TB has less illusions, you don't buy manta, you don't clump up with your team like a scrub. He hits you once and doesn't cleave. So it's pretty much like playing any carry against a late game Ember : Ember badly lacks damage, and if you're sitting at 3.5K HP he can be ignored in teamfights.

Zeus, however, no, not really. Out of his skills only Static Field has any scaling and even Static Field doesn't scale well into late game because at that point he dies in 1 second anyways so he can't even use it. The skill relies on teamfights dragging out, and late game is all about instant burst with BKBs popped, so it becomes weaker in late game as well. And if he uses everything on you at once he just gets Sundered.




That's probably how this match is going to end up, yeah. Lots of farming ending up in rapira Ember against fed Terrorblyat. Would make a fun pro game actually :)


Seriously, I've seen enough games being lost at the picking stage to say this isn't one of them. Probably a slight advantage, and I'm not even sure of that because it's skill based and it'll end up in rapira gaming eventually, and we all know how volatile that is.

We actually did, but if we would remember by heart all of this quotes from movies we saw years ago... Then no space for dota info :)

So this whole Terrorblade- Ember Spirit- Zeus thing is all really hypothetical and heavily depends on the remaining draft. The point is that if you first pick TB, enemies can pick up a Lion or something and you're pretty heavily countered and they've only invested a position 5. Anyways,

I think it's clear that Naga definitely has her place this patch. They don't have identical roles, they are both able to rat. Terrorblade is better at early tower damage, Naga is better at preventing enemies from taking any objectives/getting any farm. Each has their own strategical merits.

Also, it's worth mentioning that Naga is definitely versatile. In pro games it's quite common for her to buy Guardian Greaves and fill a support role. She doesn't exactly have crowd control, and in pro games it's difficult to get in range for a good net. That being said, letting your team stack 3 camps per minute without investing any heroes is a really big deal. The ult is also gamechanging (especially if she can afford an Aghanim's Scepter, but that's unusual). That being said, I expect we'll be seeing plenty of position 1 Naga in the upcoming Epicenter (and if not, then in the Manila Major, when the patch has been more fully explored).

according to DotaBuff:
Terrorblade has solid winrate around 50% in all brackets (peaking in 5k+ with 51,62% wr).
Naga Siren has winrate below 45% in all brackets except for 5k+, where it's 53,11%.

Terrorblade's pick rate is slightly higher (compared to overall) but their pickrates combined together is somewhere around pickrate of disruptor.

My experience has been seeing a lot of "lazy" Naga players. They go the standard Radiance build, but then don't split farm or creep cut at all - send all their illusions to one lane - and when you ask them to, they basically say "it's too much effort to micro". Then we lose.

I'd expect her win rate to be better at higher levels where people "can be bothered". She's also going to become a support beast with much more of a boost to that scepter.

I felt accomplished after teaching a naga to micro, in my 3k game. Asked the player to micro after seeing the lazy Naga, and he said he didn't know how. I asked him to share unit control to me for awhile, and taught him the basics in 2 minutes.

You're fighting the good fight, Masaaki.

Get rep'd my friend