[High Skill] Mentor willing to help

Hello Angelo!

I am pretty new to DOTA 2, and I made this account because I wanted to reply to this thread!

I am really enjoying the game so far, most of what I've played against are medium level bots, but I've played a few games that were against people. So far I am really liking the support heroes, Lina is my favorite but I've tried out Lion and Windranger too. I feel as if the items I buy are good/okay...but I want to make sure that I can really benefit the team as a support character.

Normally I try to raise Lina's mana and mana regen, but like I said I am pretty new. Is there any advice you can give me about rolling with Lina?

Thanks for replying to my thread, Apottzy. Here are a few tips for those heroes.

Lion is probably my most played hero since DotA 1, so I can give you some great advice. If you click my account name, you'll see I currently have made three guides. One of them is on Lion. Check that out if you want to learn more about him. I'm happy with how it turned out.

Lina is a support that relies very heavily on early activity to create momentum for your team (And stop momentum of opposing carries) to give your team a large gold/exp advantage through ganks (And hopefully towers off of those ganks). She falls off a bit mid game, and falls off significantly late game. This means that you either need to end the game quickly, or at least have a GREAT start with Lina.

Let's look at Lina's kit. She has three spells and a passive. If you calculate how much damage she does per spell with each mana point spent, she is one of the most mana efficient heroes in the game (If you take damage and divide it by mana cost). This balanced because her spells have little impact late game. If you like Lion, you're familiar with Finger of Death. Lina's ult does more damage and has about half of the cooldown by comparison. This means she needs to be very active and constantly ganking. She also relies on a reasonably fast level 6. Lina does not play well from behind.

Lina has one of the highest intelligence growths in the game. This means she will have a high mana pool, and benefits highly from mana regen. Items like Euls are very good on her because of the sustain that she gets from it. A lot of people like blink dagger (It's great), but it doesn't help her push. A few stun/nuke combos and she's out of mana. The push is over. Euls sets up for stun, and the spam not only helps push down waves faster, but towers (Because every time you cast your combo in succession, you gain attack speed from her passive. This means more hits on the tower per wave of creeps).

Windranger is usually used as an off lane hero. She can support, but it is not her best role. You can long lane solo and still pick up some wards here and there. She's just not a hard support like Lion is.

WR's early playstyle is very passive in lane generally. When the supports are in lane, just leech experience. When they try to push your tower, hit the creeps from far away with powershot and pull the creeps to you. This will slow their push down significantly. You have great base damage, so when the supports are stacking/pulling or ganking, you can be very aggressive.

WR is all about positioning and utility. She can use any support item just as efficiently as a 5th position support. Most people pick up things like force staff, blink, orchid, mek, etc... Blink is especially helpful because to land a good shackle, you need to change your position instantly, and sometimes the travel time from force staff will make you miss game changing shackles. Landing shackle on two heroes will almost always win you a team fight. It's THAT important to land them.

That's all I've got for now. Add me if you need more information on anything.

gl hf!

-Angelo

Hi AngeloBangelo!
My absolute favourite support in the game is Crystal Maiden, I really want some help with her though!

I can manage okay in the laning phase, but when it comes to pulling off an ultimate, It doesn't work well, it always leads to my death, and often me and my team gain nothing from it, no kills or anything. I understand that if you use it when hidden, like up slopes or in the rosh pit it is good, but when a teamfight is going on on one of my lanes, how can I contribute successfully with my ultimate?
Thanks,
Bunkansee.

Hi Bunkansee.

CM is a little too squishy and slow for my taste, but to each their own! ^_^

There are a few ways you can land a good Crystal Maiden ult:

1. Hide in fog. Like you said, this is probably one of the hardest to pull off. Most big fights occur in the lanes, where there aren't many trees. Or when you're breaking base, you REALLY can't hide anywhere. Best used for ganks, or counter ganks. Maybe if you and your carry are being dove, you hide in the trees and instantly ult. This will slow their approach into the trees (From slow), and their lack of maneuverability will make it hard for them to go through the woods to find you.

2. Get a BKB. This is probably the least likely of all of the options, but it guarantees you won't be interrupted by most stuns (Beastmaster ult, blackhole, etc are exceptions). The only problem is that if your opponents have strong right click (Like Weaver with deso) you'll die in 2-3 shots anyway.

3. Combo off of another ult. Big ults like Chronosphere, Black hole... Even some spells like Paralyzing cask can set up for a big CM ult.

4. This is probably the best way to land a good CM ult, honestly... Just pay attention to stuns being blown. Here's a game I just played:

http://dotabuff.com/matches/805555965

So if I were CM instead of Lion, what would I change? I would still try to get blink and I would get a ghost scepter instead of a force staff. What is Dragon Knights combo in team fights? Ult, stun, nuke, auto attack. Right? So that's that. Tide will follow up with ravage (Or tide starts and DK follows). The last stun would be the mini stun from Anti Mage. Now this stun CANNOT be waited on, because it is usually expended at the tail end of a fight, so you'll just have to cross your fingers that he doesn't target you.

So Tide ults, DK combos. You blink in, ghost, ult. Only one stun is available, and if AM blows his ult for yours it's a very good trade.

Last thing I will comment on is that CM ult is especially effective vs teams with a low number of stuns, but also against melee heavy line ups. In this particular game, I would most likely be landing my ult on DK, tide, and AM. AA is likely to be ulting from fountain while NP split pushes. So you will hit 3/3 heroes in the team fight. The more ranged heroes on the opposing team, the less effective your ult will be.

-Angelo

Thank you, one more thing to ask. I know you are more of a support person, but if you have played any Luna before, I just want to ask what it the best ways to enter fights, and not die most importantly. I have only played 8 games with Luna, and I have manage to drop my winrate down to a horrible 25%. I've had an awful losing streak with her, and I change the items I buy, skills I level, methods I use and I still can't claim a sweet sweet victory. If you could maybe give me one tip or two that would be handy, I mainly play in pubs anyway, so any helpful hints you might have picked up along the way would really help me.

Sorry for the inconvenience,
Bunkansee

Luna literally just walks into fights and right clicks. When there are little to no creeps around you ult.

The main thing is that she needs someone to hold opponents in place to maximize her DPS. Some heroes have HUGE DPS potential, and rely on their MS to chase (Like Lycan or Luna). But outside of chasing for a long time, they have poor ways to get kills. Landing something like a big blackhole will allow Luna to melt a team in only a few seconds.

Luna needs to really tank up. Not only because she's really squishy with no range, but because she is typically frontlining in a push. Even if she's not technically front lining, she is always very close to the tower during pushes. That's where she really excels. Again... heroes with huge DPS but rely on chasing (Lycan, Ursa, Luna) can melt towers or rosh, but have difficult getting kills. You need a set up hero for Luna to truly shine in a team fight. Items like drums, HotD... Into manta or BKB are usually pretty good.

It really depends on the opponents. The more stuns they have that go through BKB, the more worthless it is. If their disables are all normal skills (Lion, Shadow Shaman, Disruptor) then a BKB is a great investment.

Make sure your supports are stacking the ancients constantly, or you get a creep to do so. If you get a creep to stack your ancients, ask your supports to stack the hard camp. Tell them they can have some of the last hits so they get items (This isn't a good idea, but most people won't stack unless there's something in it for them).

gl hf!

-Angelo

Hi - budding support player here just wanting some advice on some... less conventional supports as it were, and just general advice on supports. (Even if I understand that you might not have played every possible support know to man but hey, worth an ask)

Basically three things I wanted to get your opinion on:

1) Which supports fall as position 4 and 5 solely (Since I know some basically are set in which role they are), and which can be whichever depending on the game of choice. (Or if this isn't something that can easily be quantified, that's fine as well.)

2) What is your opinion on support Silencer? (If you have one, since it is an unconvential support at best, but I've seen Fnatic I think run it to decent success, I've recently been trialing it out.)

3) The necessity of Blink Dagger on Shadow Shaman - Due to Shadow Shaman's move speed and short range on his abilities, in order to truely fufil his potential with his disables, I view Blink Dagger as being the core item he really wants. Which generally means I don't go for utility items when I'm using him. Do you feel this is bad form for me to want to be going for that item in place of team-based utility items first? Should that be left to the other support on the team whilst you get an arguably more important item that will age better into the game? Or does the Blink Dagger qualify as one of those items because of the inbuilt disables you carry?

Sorry if they are kinda dumb questions or anything, but I'd love to get your opinion on that. Hell even just to discuss through various support hero's would be awesome sometime.

Hi Sanvitch.

The answer to your first question, which is "How do you decide which hero plays 4 and which hero plays 5?" is a good question. Heroes can play either role. It depends on the opposing teams composition.

I'm just going to pick a random game from my dotabuff and examine it.

http://dotabuff.com/matches/805849441

So in this game, we have 3 potential supports: Crystal Maiden, Disruptor, and Earthshaker. Who buys the wards? Not Angelo! Why is that? Disruptor is the strongest pick versus their team. Mainly Shadow Shaman, Lion, Panda, and Luna (But only if I can combo before BKB with my aghs)

What can a Crystal Maiden do to a Panda? She can slow him, she can hold him, or ult him. But the thing is, none of these stop him from ulting, and that's pandas biggest contribution to team fights. What about Lion and SS? Both great disablers, but they can both kill CM immediately, while she CANNOT kill them immediately. Earthshaker suffers a similar role. He can do well in a team fight, but Panda and Luna are the big threats here late game, so it's important to keep them down, and ES cannot do that. They buy the wards, courier, etc... And I take as much farm as I can because versus this team composition I use it the most efficiently.

Let's say in another game, we were playing together. We were against an Anti Mage. I pick Crystal Maiden as a support, and you pick Lion. Who should 5 and who should 4? CM should 5, because all she needs is a ghost scepter. Meanwhile Lion with a blink can devastate an AM when paired with a high DPS hero during a gank.

Silencer is a very good pick versus certain heroes. Here is a game I recently played. I am SD, my friend is ES, and my other friend is silencer.

http://dotabuff.com/matches/801414688

Look at their team composition. Silencer counters literally their entire team. All of their initiation. Heroes that rely on mobility through their spells to survive are best for a silencer pick. Support silencer can be okay, but he's really squishy. I feel like he needs farm usually. He CAN support, but it's difficult. Just because a professional team does something, doesn't mean other people can pull it off as efficiently.

Blink Dagger on Shadow Shaman is a very nice luxury item, but not 100% necessary. It can be a great ganking aid versus heroes that are difficult to kill (Qop, SS, Slark, AM). If you're not against those heroes, invest in more utility items to aid the team and help push. Look at SS's disable against Lion's disable. Lion has the best burst kit for killing heroes. So why do people pick up SS right now?

The change in tower gold has shortened the duration of games. It really comes down to early activity and team fight to gain momentum, get towers, and establish map control. Even though Lion can kill most heroes better than SS, SS offers more utility. He can kill heroes almost as well, but the main thing he offers are:

1. Fast towers

2. Fast Rosh

These are SS's strengths, not necessarily his blink disable combo.

MATCH ID ADDED
Dear Angelo,


I am a 1.6 k MMR dude who likes to pay supports. I do not babysit well, and therefore I am more comfortable at setting up kills in ganks. One of my favorite hero is shadow shaman, who I particularly love for his amazing disables . In lane, I did not do very well and during kills with my assist we usually lose a man or two (which almost always me).

I want to ask you, on how to roam good. I tried roaming once and I secured two kills that time. All I did was running from my tower with the element of surprise, and yes that is not effective because they might see me coming. I was wondering about when to roam, how to roam, and direction of roaming paths. I will post a dotabuff link when im kn my laptop. And is it worth it learning about roaming in my MMR? And who is the best disablers in the game?

EDIT
http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/807748853
In this match, its kind of weird because one of my team dsiconnects and didnt came back. Still, we swapped razor to offlane and silencer mid, wkth me dual laning with rubick. The reason I roam well was probably the lack of laning presence tidehunter brought among us. It was very passive, and roaming was eligible.

Also, Blink is always my core, which is followed by scepter.
And when should i start taking down towers with shadow shaman?

I dont expect you to coach me personally, im just looking for advices.

Sincerely, Unscathed

Hi,

I main support - Rubick mostly - and was looking for help with all support heroes and Dota 2 in general, in addition I would like to try Shadow Demon and learn heroes like Chen, Enigma and Sand King (my least played supports - i have never played shadow demon). I've already added you on steam and we have spoken slightly. Any advice - besides your guides :) - you can give me would be VERY much appreciated, I have skype and i'm comfortable going over replays/talking on skype, thank you.