Time to end Rat Dota?

I agree with the "illusions do no damage to buildings if their creator is at more than 900 range of the building".

Rat dota is a very important part of Dota and it *needs* to be left alone. If you nerf rat dota then Dota will only be about perpetual 5-man Dota and it will be boring as hell to watch and play. Dota is all about solo farming, ganking, and 2 vs 2 ganks/chases and not only about massive 5-man teamfights. There's no point in having a big map and 3 lanes if the meta is only about ending the laning stage at 9 minutes and abusing 5-man from this point on until the team who has the most kills wins. This is like playing a strategy game on a 1-dimensional map. Ratting is the only counter to this. Honestly from my point of view hiding behind your team and 5-manning all the time is even more cowardly/anti-fun than ratting. Remove the rat and the whole food chain collapses. Squeak squeak.

However I do agree that ratting with illusions is a bit OP. I play Phantom Lancer a lot and indeed he can harass down towers with illusions alone and I think it's a bit broken. To avoid it you should ask for PL to be next to his illusions for them to do damage. "Illusions do no damage to towers" would be bad because this would actually make PL/Naga/TB *worse* pushers than other heroes. If you do that it would be just like this nonsensical rule that illusions explode when they attack Roshan which actually makes illusion heroes worse at soloing Rosh than other heroes. Illusion heroes should be able to push fast, but they should be forced to commit to pushes and not just sit back and send illusions.

I think a solution like that would be much better than those silly recent Naga Siren nerfs. Reducing Naga illusion damage and Rip Tide aoe makes no sense at all and doesn't nerf Naga ratting at all, it just makes her more of a support and less of a carry...but a Naga with Radiance and Manta Style isn't really a right-click carry anyways, she's just an illusion spammer and a Furion-like rat.
Naga Siren's meta is all about being a carry who creates her own space by split pushing lanes with illusions. This is a great concept of a hero, and if we prevent Naga from ratting towers with illusions (making her just like Tinker who can push lanes very fast but can't destroy towers), then Naga becomes actually a balanced hero who can be re-buffed to recover her old status as a right-click carry and stop being an overly nerfed rat queen sitting below 45% winrate in pubs.

This idea of preventing illusions from attacking towers on their own isn't new : it's exactly how Lone Druid works. The bear can only attack when he's near LD, so the bear can split push lanes with Radiance but not take down towers on its own. And Lone Druid is the very definition of a balanced hero : he hasn't received any significant change in a pretty long time (fixing the Armlet bug and increasing the bear bounty is nothing compared to the huge changes on Naga and TB)

Rat dota is despised due to the fact that it severly punishes people for making the wrong decisions.want to gank that farming Luna at top lane? BOOM no bot tower. BOOM.BOOM.BOOOM. GGWP EZ RAREZ NO RE.

So.... I have been pondering some ideas with regards to illusions and here are a few ideas within the realms of normal mechanics :

1/. As mentioned originally - damage type change to "Chaos" which would make illusions 20% less effective against buildings (50% down to 40%)
2/. Strip all illusions of magic resistance, except Chaos Knight ultimate Phantasm, and also Phantom Lancer in so much as they don't get the inherent base 25% resistance but they gain Phantom edge resistance - illusions are meant to be imperfect - this would buff AoE spells, which are often on supports.
3/. Change illusions armoured type to "unarmoured" rather than "Hero"
4/. Link Illusions to the Hero in so much as if the real Hero dies, all illusions are instantly purged

A few more new mechanical ideas:

1/. degradation idea as originally suggested (but perhaps some more specific rulings to differentiate rather than blanket).
2/. How about a toggle ability on tier 3 & 4 towers that switches off the normal tower attack to a radiance type ability that specifically burns down illusions and summons in an AoE?
3/. Give tier 3 & 4 towers a means of detecting the difference between illusions and real heros

This is still the best one

A few ideas that have been floating around in my head, I haven't dug super deep into the mechanics of DotA 2, and I "only" have about 200 hours into the game so I am a bit on the inexperienced side. Feel free to improve upon (read: tear me a new ******* with my own stupidity) my ideas.

1. Split Radiance damage evenly between your hero and all of his/her illusions (obviously wouldn't solve the whole problem on its own)
2. If an illusion takes damage, the hero takes a portion of that damage. (May break illusion heroes due to being able to spot them out of the crowd)
3. The Hero and all illusions take damage when an illusion dies, depending on the current health of the hero/illusion (or maybe total health of the hero, depending on what seems more appropriate)
4. True sight reveals illusions. (May potentially break illusion heroes, maybe only towers reveal illusions?) -I have been thinking that this should be in the game for a while now.
5. Towers have a second, Radiance like attack that only targets illusions and/or minions. (Maybe similar to what you guys said earlier with that it stops when the hero is within the attack radius of the tower.)
6. Also the obvious, reduced damage when illusions attack buildings.

I don't think any of these would solve the problem on their own, but some combination of 2 or 3 of the suggested by us may help the problem. I see it as a perfectly legitimate way so play the game, so I don't think it should be ruined for us.

(P.S., two of my favorite heroes are Terrorblade and Lycan, and I also enjoy playing Anti-Mage, even though I realize that he is les of an issue. I would be sad if my sadistic, sneaky style of playing these heroes were broken completely.)

1st idea is really interesting, but then Radiance damage should be much higher, because then I can see no point in building that item. How it would work on Lone Druid? Since Bear is not a hero, but he can carry items. Clarify that.

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2nd and 3rd idea is a big no-no in my opinion. Such hero as Phantom Lancer would be overnerfed due to this, and he is not that strong anyway.

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I can't see a point in your 4th idea. How True Sight might not reveal invisible illusions? Honestly, I am not sure if any illusion except Riki can be invisible.

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5th idea is probably the best. By minions you mean controlable units like Treants or Eidolons?

I don't see why we really need to nerf Illusions vs buildings.

There was a game which escapes me in the TI4 playoffs (I think it was Alliance vs. Na'vi, but I apologise if I'm wrong) where Alliance drafted a Naga Siren. Na'Vi had a very powerful team fight draft, and they were winning the early game. Alliance then flawlessly managed to slowly turn the game around and into there favour with Naga Siren illusions, and then took said game through the illusions.

Note I used the term flawlessly - The strategy was only effective because it was executed without mistakes. It was not because the strategy was more powerful than Na'Vi's 5 man teamfight, it was simply Alliance never giving them that team-fight through amazing positioning. If they hadn't done that, then it wouldn't have mattered about the Illusions, Na'Vi would've been able to capitalize on them and probably take that game instead.

It's one of the things about the game, that really no strategy is over-powered because of the depth of ways you can play it. If you're opponent has a tonne of team fight, you aren't forced to fight into it, you can go for pick-offs, or yeah just split push. It helps keep the game diverse as opposed to just being focused on 5 man fights. Which is great, because not everyone wants that.

Also just a couple of little pick me ups:



You can't use these as objective arguments. They're very blatant opinions. I mean personally I love watching Split-push line-ups because a successful execution has to be so surgical and precise.

I mean, I get that it is your opinion, but generally an argument that wants to remove/nerf a major play-style of the game (Since that is what split-pushing in) needs objective evidence supporting it. Instead, this has come about from what is your personal view of fun play. Not evidence that it's unhealthy for the game.

As for your proposals (Since I may as well discuss them anyway)



1st idea: I don't that would really have the affect you think it would. Instead of the Illusions doing the damage to the buildings, they'll simply farm out each creep wave the moment it leaves the base and let the creep waves doing the job instead. You'll still have to deal with the illusions every time because well you'll have no creep momentum to support your base pushes.

2nd Idea: That one probably needs a change, since otherwise it changes things to much. I mean, Creeps pushing into the base is something that should remain important, otherwise where's one of the major advantages of taking a lane of racks? It's that momentum swing which is forcing you to push out the lane, which should stay. I mean if it were just Illusions or Hero summoned units that's fine, it affects the playstyle you want to hurt without changing the entirety of the game.

3rd idea: I'm wouldn't mind it per say, I just worry about how it would affect things in the wider sense than just dealing with illusion pushing.

Probably should have clarified some of this, but I was tired when I typed it out. For the first idea, I was referring to illusions only, so if a Lone Druids bear had a radience, it would do all of the burn damage, but if a naga was in the jungle, and her 4 illusions where in a lane, the creeps in the lane would take 80% of the radience damage, but the creeps in the jungle would only take 20% of the burn damage (not the attack damage, but burn damage)

For the phantom lancer thing, it would have to depend on the amount of illusions, so if a Terrorblades illusion died it would do more damage than if one of PLs 15 illusions died.

Again, I should have clarified more. By reveal illusions, I meant reveal the fact that they are illusions, and not the hero. But like I said earlier, this may ruin illusion heroes.

Yes, I was referring to eidolins, treants, wolves, etc. this may be a bit of overkill though, due to summons/minions not being especially powerful without the hero.

I don't think rat should be buffed or nerfed at all. It is a part of the game, and you need to learn to adapt to it. Rat only works if the enemy team executes it well, be it with illusion heroes or just Nature's Prophet or Lone Druid.

Just learn to adapt, against illusions, just drop the hammer with outworld devourer. Do you actually need a carry? Just get Legion Commander and use Overwhelming Odds and Duel the rat. Agaist the others? Just contain them early, Nature's Prophet usually jungles, so get early ganks, and Lone Druid just offlane, so don't let him pull with the bear.



There is a reason why Axe or Tidehunter are in the current meta, they provide good defense against rat and teamfight capabilities.

Just wait until pit lord comes out, rat is going to be taken to a next level. Cause this hero is like the deffinition of having rat in your team, but having anti rat too.

I used to be anti-rat... then I saw the alternative at TI4. I am now a fan of the naga, np, etc. type 40 minute games, rather than the 15 minute GG pushes.