First foray in to Pro Dota: It's Exciting AND Boring?

On one hand I enjoy it being consistent, as rather than the game being decided simply by the draft you get to really see who executes their team comp better. On the other hand, I love seeing teams bring up a new hero in a specific strategy, and sometimes even that changes the meta.

The professional scene for Dota 2 at the moment, apart from the fact its based virtually, is very similar to Professional Soccer or NFL... now i know before you say anything let me explain.

NFL and soccer are games where you have a team strategy based around core plays which are in turn based on core players. This similarity is most evident in the basic roles of dota, Support/Initiator/Carry (i know there might be some disagreement upon the three but thats how i see it) these three roles are what the majority of heroes fall under, now you have a support whos job it is to provide for, protect, and set up the carry until he can make an impact upon the game. this role directly correlates to the defense and defensive midfield players (supports) in soccer. their role is to set up and provide for the attacking midfield and strikers. they rotate the ball from wing to wing they transition into close mid to bait and draw the defensive mid off their man which then in turn allow them to set up the play for the attacking mid (initiators). there job once the defensive mid is broken is too force the defensive line to have to react to them, they Initiate upon the defense forcing them to react pulling them off the strikers or forcing them to focus upon them in case they break the line themselves. This is a perfect example of how a Dota Initiator works. Initiate the fight and force the enemy team to focus you lest you deal damage/cc. once the attacking mid has either forced the defense to react to them or had the chance to go for goal themselves (which sometimes happens in Pro games in Dota too as the initiator gets farmed and non focused then basically destroys the other team in teamfights, but back to the point) ... once the defense reacts to the attacking mid the strikers are left free which then allows the mid to pass the ball to them.. they then proceed to do what they do best and "strike" at the weakness in the defense and break through and score. this is like what happens when a carry is allowed to farm or not be focused, just by being farmed he forces a weakness into the enemy team allowing him to come in after the initiator and strike at the enemy team focusing on the initiator.

now i know ^^^^ why the hell should all that matter to this question of why Pro games are at the same time exciting AND boring?

soccer and NFL are at the same time Exciting AND boring... the slow build of each team testing weaknesses, teasing mistakes, slight changes in style of play is boring to the untrained eye, that transition of the attacking mid to playing a defensive role behind the center defensive seems innocuous but if you saw how it will allow the center defense to enter into the mid unchallenged it would be HOLY **** THERE GOING FOR IT and then BOOM EXPLOSIVE ACTION massive plays all round triangles happening everywhere balls over heads into unseen space beautiful rotations of the midfield and then SNAP GOOOAAAALLLLL... its the same in dota.

the small changes in strategy are to me the most exciting because your seeing something before it happens and then when the MASSIVE play comes in your jumping and shouting cause HOLY **** DID DENDI JUST FORCESTAFF OUT OF AN ULTI THEN STEAL THAT ULTI THEN COUNTER INITIATE WITH THAT ULTI ....

to me none of it is boring ... it may seem boring with the same heroes and then slow pace sometimes and then seemingly same strategies again again and again ... but look deeper ... if you can see the changes the slight adjustments that will have a massive impact upon the game then its never boring .... it just seems that way.

That was a beautiful description Smuggels, and I agree on almost everything. The only part I find "boring" the correct word would be underwhelming,im never bored while watching a game, is that we have over 100 heroes, and I just want to see more than a select group go in and out.

Same thing: people will start picking him less and less, and eventually he'll become a casual ban for the second stage. He's still super strong, but I feel like everyone knows how to play against him now.

By the way, what about Mirana + Shadow Demon + Dazzle? Abuse Shadow Wave and the illusions from Disruption, plus the Sacred Arrow. SD and Dazzle make a good roaming duo, too. :D

AA did slowly lose picks in SL9, not sure how he'll do in upcoming tournaments.

Oh no. Professional Dota 2 is NOT boring people, not at all.

...At least if you've been watching from around the TI1 or TI2 era like me. Back in our day, "Chinese teams' strategies are almost entirely based on long farming" was a fairly acceptable sentence.

Now things have changed, and even the chinese teams who loved to use farming strats oh so much are picking gank/push heavy lineups.

The meta is REALLY balanced because a lot of heroes are powerful especially when you compare it to when AM was dominating, when lancer was cancer, etc

I also find the pro scene really exciting :D

What would you think of a combination of Venomancer and Ancient Apparition? Both of them just throw ults and that's easy kills. But I wonder if that only works in low skill games. I also think that it would kind of lack reliable stuns :/

Oh its very legit. Its not always the best against mobility heroes but this is one of the deadliest support combos in the game.
The combo has seen play on the pro scene and they are very aware of it, if a team picked one of them the other team would almost always pick or ban the other.
Ofcourse it is negated a bit by pipe and mek if you manage to use it before ice blast but its such an overwhelming amount of damage it will always do work.

If the supports can keep up in levels every non BKB'ed hero has to fear for his life.

And if one of them gets a scepter? ...... Prepare your anus.

Veno hasnt seen much play though in the pro scene the couple of weeks. Its mostly the 'mini meta' created by starladder. These tournaments always favour a select hero pool and other pro's follow these trends. For example dazzle, sand king and treant are the bomb now, while the succesfull support shadow shaman was picked less, these picks just rotate over time.