Why do you think riki is so lame?

I probably wont get a lot of credit for starting this topic, but why do you get shouted at so much, when choosing Riki in UR pubs? Even people on your own team will throw all kinds of **** at you, even before the game has started.

Here's my situation:

I just started playing since a few weeks, and together with my mate I have a lot of fun doing a CM and Riki combo. We are pretty easy to counter tho, with stuns/silence/dust/wards etc... The thing is, nobody is even trying to counter it. Then stop crying and take your loss.

Also, I do understand that Riki feels like cheating when he is fed, but what hero actually isn't OP when fed?

Riki is not that OP even though he is fat. Remember his Permanent Invisibility can be easily countered by as you say, dust and silence. I remembered playing against this fed Rikimaru. Our support got so pissed that she (I think it was CM) sold everything and bought HH, after that, with Death Prophet's Silence we actually turned Rikimaru's KD upside down.

The problem with people in pubs is the lack of teamwork. So, remember that no matter how OP a hero is, it can be easily countered, with certain teamwork and/or items.

From what I can gather, people rage when Riki is picked in the lower bracket is because normally new players who have barely started the game decided to pick a Riki, when the team hopes he gets fat, he keeps dying over and over. So when you pick Riki in low bracket, they will normally assume you're a noob trying to act like a pro. Just ignore them if you're doing fine. You will always meet this type of people in your life.

riki is is very squishy.i have actually seen a lina-zeus lane win against him.. (zeus ult + lina ult=dead riki)

Riki was one of those feared hero's when I first started playing, along with the likes of Drow Ranger. At the beginning of my DOTA journey these 2 just seemed auto-win for the opposition and that is still felt today at that low level, but in reality Riki (like Drow Ranger is ridiculously easy to counter - IF - you have at least one hero prepared to buy lots of sentry wards through out the game - that usually ends up being me in games !

I actually get a perverse satisfaction warding Riki out of a game because he can effectively feed your carries really easy as he is quite weak, relying on invis, smoke and blink (which 9 times out of 10 most Riki players never think to use as an escape on their on team or creeps).

I had a single draft game the other day where I got Riki, and they never bought dust or any sentries - I went 11/1/7 - an easy game with me and Spirit Breaker combining to lethal effect (although just checked out Dotabuff, I bought Eye of Skadi and Diffusal Blade for double noob unique attack modifiers...... doh ! (in all fairness, the heros i play never get Eye of Skadi so was not aware - 264 games in and still learning) :o) - the stats were useful.

Riki has a legitimate place as a counter to some specific carries, but generally he's used as a pubstomp hero. New players hate him because nobody buys detection, counter items ( Force Staff or Ghost Scepter are usually enough to get away from him), don't gank early on and stand in easy to kill positions on their own. He'll absolutely own them once he gets 6 and a bit of farm, and it doesn't take much skill at all.

At higher level people hate Riki because he's easy to counter and squishy as hell - also usually played badly. Hence people on his own team don't like him.

Exactly, people have some great expectations when teaming together or either some really bad experiences when playing against Riki. It is not fair to judge people in such a way.

Either way, what also bothers me a bit, like in a game from yesterday: A pudge on the enemy team was shouting at me, obviously for playing such a lame hero. They were losing really badly, but they were at least 'playing heroes that require skill'. I am not claiming that I was playing like a pro, but I was certainly not rolling my face on the keyboard. And also not a single disspell or dust revealed me.

The problem is that Riki is OP in low levels because people rarely buy detection, and they don't know how to counter Riki smoke, while he's pretty much useless in high levels because people DO buy detection and they group up a lot.

At one point Riki + Io became a thing in competitive, but then Io was nerfed, nerfing pretty much everyone associated with him.

Riki is not a lame hero. The people who shout RIKI OP and dont buy any dust in the process are lame.
He is not a bad hero since his 3 skills are good, his ult CAN just be removed by cheap items.
To be honest you can defeat him easily in lane when playing pubs. By some coincidence whenever im against riki i play a slardar or timbersaw and get to lane against him. Then just like playing against sniper you just have to be passive at first and really agressive whenever you see an opening.
If you do it correctly he can hardly come to lane anymore.

But if you dont feed a low level riki in lane, and i cant really see how you could when you have a semi-good lane yourselves, he is not much of a problem. Low level riki's dont farm much and just snowball from kills. A few months ago i had a game where i was a support venge and started to buy dust whenever i could. Coupled with some hp and armor from treads and mek i think, i could just stand under the cloud facing him, becouse his damage is pretty bad without backstab.
After i got a deso for the LULZ i did more damage to him then he did to me even under smoke cloud.

Just remember to NEVER TURN YOU BACK ON HIM EVEN WHEN UNDER THE SMOKE!!!! He will do less damage to you if you wait out the cloud duration then if you try to walk out of it. Or you could just buy a ghost scepter, force staff, or maybe even BKB.

As everyone has been saying Riki may seem extremely daunting at first because for one you can't see him after he gets lvl 6. However he is very easy to counter.

Lots of low level people I have played with assume there is no way to counter him but the list of counters go on and on. Sentry Wards are a good investment early game. Getting Dust of Appearance is also a good counter in a teamfight. Gem of True Sight is not the best idea. Only get it if you have a significant gold advantage. Also there is a good list of hero counters to Riki. First up those heroes that give true sight such as Bounty Hunter with his Track] and [[Slardar with his Amplify Damage. Earthshaker is also not a bad choice with his good aoe abilities. In addition heroes with natural cleaves are really good in the early game such as Kunkka with Tidebringer and Sven with Great Cleave.

The key to bringing down Riki is teamwork and if a team doesn't have that then they don't deserve to win. So don't let those people bring you down.

Riki is a gimmick that works in low level pubs that's countered easily, but can be successful even with vision with well placed smoke, he just doesn't fit any team comp and is squishy as hell, he falls under the list of pub stars generally because invisibility blows people's minds when they're newer to the game. If you want a carry with invis go Slark or Clinkz, true sight doesn't work on Slark's ulti, and clinkz is a murder train vs squishy supports. Clinkz also doesn't rely on skeleton walk for invis (in pubs he does), more for the movement speed to position himself to strafe someone with flaming arrows and orchid.
Also bounty hunter is rather effective as a nuisance in the offlane, used for his track and dps.
Stay away from Riki, it's a hero that teaches really bad habits.