Time to end Rat Dota?

I've been pondering what should be done about Rat Dota for a little while now - but a particularly vermin filled game the other day set my mind to potential solutions.

Now don't get me wrong, I think some of the tactical manuovering to setup split pushes, draw off the enemy team with a 4 man fight while another slips in to take rax etc, can be quite well done, and even interesting. This is aimed more at heroes like Terrorblade and Phantom Lancer than Nature's Prophet.

The stuff I'm complaining about is 20 minutes of tiny damage illusion pushing where everyone dies of boredom/old age before the rax finally goes down, or a fight actually breaks out. I think the problem at present is that the game mechanics can potentially reward that kind of play when:

1) It's incredibly boring to watch.
2) It's easy and boring to play.
3) It's irritating and boring to play against.

Team fights are the most fun part of the game, especially when there's rax on the line, and provides a brilliant explosive finale to the game, and also the chance for a team to grab themselves a lifeline and turn it round.

So what do I propose? Several ideas for reasonably major surgery to basically make it much more difficult to play this way. The problem at present IMHO is that pro players will always do everything they can to win (it's their job), and the game should be designed to also make that coincide with the fun way. I don't think you should be able to take down buildings without an element of risk, or at least the enemy team being stretched/inept enough to let a creep only push take it down.

Some ideas:

- Illusions of heroes do no damage to buildings (including Manta Style, Illusion Runes, Passives, etc). The less extreme version would be that they do no damage to base buildings. Basically this forces players to take at least SOME risks when pushing - even minions provide some bounty and XP when killed, illusions provide absolutely nothing, there is currently no downside to pushing with them.

- Buildings take no damage unless at least 1 enemy hero is within say 1000 range of it. A different take on this, it again forces a hero to at least be present, although this would probably end up with them invisible behind nearby trees. Makes illusion pushing somewhat viable, but I'm not sure how I like how it would effect creep only momentum pushes.

- Increase backdoor protection. The simplest change - and I'd make it especially damning against illusions, any damage dealt by illusions to base buildings without both an enemy hero and creeps present would heal almost instantly.

- Some combination of the above. Or something else entirely? Personally, I'd like to see illusion damage completely nerfed against all buildings - they can already power pushes through their damage to creeps and effects like Radiance...their owner can already be off farming somewhere else.

What are people's thoughts on this??

play captains mode ... ban all rats ... simple haha

either that or just pick a nyx or a clockwerk when u see a rat... lol

Are you perhaps referencing to how Fnatic Slooooooowly crushed C9 in ESL with Naga Siren, slowly sending in illusions to gradually kill buildings? :3

Alright, so I have to disagree on the illusion bounty thing (hard to balance considering that it would need a really small bounty which would basically be meaningless. Why care about 16 gold as a Phantom Lancer if you get to reduce their tier 3 tower's HP by 20%? But a big bounty would kind of make illusions really bad, and that's kind of a waste)

Buildings taking no damage unless heroes are present kill the meaning of creep push, so it would make creeps really bad. Controlling the creep equilibrium would be practically meaningless mid to late game.

Backdoor protection change is decent I guess... can't say much without the actual values to balance this nerf to rat dota.

Illusions not doing damage to buildings? Meeeh. Would make Chaos Knight even weaker :(

I did not like how the game I mentioned above ended as well. A solution would probably be something like "Illusions do no damage to buildings excluding Tombstone unless the original hero is in (400 to 600 I guess?) range of that illusion".

I would like to hear other opinions on this.

EDIT: Ab4ddon raised some good points. I still do agree that slowly whittling down buildings with illusions is not exactly the best thing ever, but as he says "rat dota" as a concept should still be strong as always.

Just dont.

"Rat" as u call it just another way of playing the game. The game evolved from DEFENSE OF THE ANCIENTS, the main objective is to kill the ancient building by whatever means necessary.

Killing heroes or winning fights just lets you end faster.

Just think about it, you propose ending or making this style less rewarding, its like saying playing a durable character is wrong and you should be penalized for picking a durable guy. Only picking glass cannons makes the game fun. How ******ed is that.

Just because people struggle against it doesnt mean you penalize those with brains enough to employ this strat. It is risky and easily counterable and requires precision.


To me dota has 3 main core playstyles, each a vertex of a triangle. With the preceding a counter to succeeding strat.
A.Teamfight oriented: 5v5 fights, win through teamwork, always fight with 5 guys.
B.Splitpush oriented: The so called RAT. The team takes fights at a disadvantage while the pusher goes to work.
C.Ganking oriented: You bring out the likes of (in pubs) Spirit Breaker, or (in competetive) Bounty Hunter and you snuff out the rats.

They are all vertices of triangle ABC. Each counters the other. This sort of "FIX" destroys effecively 1/3 rd of the game. It may not be fun for the losing side but it is sweet victory for the victors(who else :P)


Many of your fixes nerf illusions which will drasticly effect the meta. It will not work out in the end.
The other heroes should be present clause will basicly make summons useless without the owner in terms of tower damage. Again effecting the heroes in question.
These nerfs do nothing but make the hero extremely undesirable. Seen any broodmothers around lately? (irony just played brood last night)(won unbelievably)


Sorry for the wall of text but such thoughts against rat makes me uneasy. For those with too much sleepiness :-

TLDR : Squeek Squeak, leave us rats alone! (Do Nothing)

Hehe well I'm being a bit naughty to just start a debate :) "the end of Rat Dota" isn't really specific enough. I'm not actually opposed to split-pushing itself, a Nature's Prophet has to at least be there to get much done, and cleaning up a few Necro units and Treants will net you gold/xp if he leaves early. Versus strong team fighters it makes sense to push multiple lanes at once, or draw them away and then sneak a rax.

- I don't have an issue with these tactics, and understand how they fit into the meta. They're tactical choices to fit your lineup, and they come with a risk/reward tradeoff. That 4 v 5 fight can go badly wrong, split pushers can be picked off, etc.

The specific thing I have a problem with is illusion only pushing - specifically that illusions can do significant damage to buildings at no risk, and/or that they're used to slowly, slowly cause attritional damage over a long, long time.

I have no issue with illusions being used to push lanes - illusion heroes would be too heavily nerfed otherwise. I have no problem with the creeps/minions in a lane pushed by illusions doing damage to buildings - enemies can kill them and get gold/xp.

I DO have a problem with illusions alone doing damage to buildings. There is no downside to this - they're free, spammable (for many heroes) and give nothing to the opposition. There's no "game" reason not to knock 20 hp a time off a building for 10 minutes, avoid fights completely and be anti-fun.

I've put a selection of options up there just for some ideas really - my personal solution would be that illusions do no damage to buildings - possibly with samu's caveat that they will if their actual hero is very close (300-400 range ish).

This specific tactic is totally detrimental to the health of the game in general, it reminds of when an Aghanim's Scepter Wall of Illusion used to let you clone your own heroes. Teams would park up near the enemy base, and just rotate through the wall over and over, sending the illusions over to attack. It got changed. I don't see how this is any different?

Have the illusions do less damage to building. That would probably be the best answer. Seeing that the illusions should be used more on enemy heroes and minion pushing.

Could you not change illusions attack type to "Chaos" ? This reduces their effectiveness against "fortified" armour types (buildings) by 20% (down from doing 50% to 40%).

This way you are using the existing game mechanics and not affecting anything else as far as i can see.

Hmm, illusions doing reduced damage to buildings would seem a sensible compromise BUT I worry that as there's still some gain to be had, it might just make the whole process even more long winded than it already is - there's still a "free" advantage to be had, it's just a smaller one. The problem is even worse then in some ways.

Personally I think illusions should do no damage to buildings at all. You could compromise this back by making it unless either the hero who owns them is nearby, or maybe the hero who owns them has to be attacking the building too, or even just give this protection to base buildings. This would force a commitment/risk of some kind.

BTW - this wouldn't stop illusions from split pushing completely, they can still attack enemy creeps/heroes and get their own creeps in place to attack the building and damage it.

Seems quite reasonable

Ok - here is another suggestion - why not make illusions health degrade over time, if the Hero is not within X distance of them. So for example, a Phantom Lancer Illusion (non- Spirit Lance) has a 20 sec duration from creation - why not have them lose health at the rate of 10% of max health per second so that by 10 seconds they would degrade.

If Phantom Lancer remains within X distance of the illusion, they stop or don't start degrade.

You instantly halve the illusion only push, no micro will mean they die quicker to creep attacks but also weaken them so that if and when they get to a tower, they can be cleared easier by defending Heros.