what would you have picked?

match: http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/824465891

I picked as the very last, after the other team had taken bh and rikki almost immediately. I picked slardar, focusing on countering their invisibility (them having also a templar assasin). I think my pick worked out well enough, even though we lost. The primary reasons for our loss were:

the tusk was useless. I don't remember if s/he picked tusk randomly or what, but it seemed pretty clear that the person had never played tusk before. and s/he did not communicate at all. however, the opposing team were not without their faults either, so it's likely we could have won anyway. we were ahead in kills almost the entire match.

we did not manage to push the lanes properly. we did not have a dedicated pusher, and it is hard for a non-pusher (aka me) to do so with both a rikki and bh roaming around. I did it a few times, but that rarely amounted to much.

at the end of the match, our base was getting flooded by creeps, we were absolutely slaughtering any enemy heroes who dared turn up, but eventually lost simply because we couldn't keep up with the waves.

I guess my question is whether there was anything I could have done better? I didn't really have the farm to make a radiance until it was too late, but it's possible I could've made a maelstrom early enough to speed up the process. Alternatively, I could've picked a different hero remedying our weak push, but wouldn't that have opened us up too severely to the invis heroes? I can't think of a hero which is both an invisibility-counter, and who pushes well?

anyway the game was super fun, it was ok loosing to the creeps when we were pwning the heroes ;)

Items in your team were **** m8, looks like not a single person had idea how to play heroes they picked.
Tusk forgot to buy any boots, started with crystalys and ring of health, idk why.
Phantom Assassin bought Battle Fury and Vladmir's Offering (lol).
Slardar without blink, but he have Vanguard (XD) and Orchid.
Pudge had SOME idea with this blink dagger, but that was the only item he bought in whole 1 hour game.
And last comes Abaddon with meka into SnY and Satanic, I'm pretty sure he did nothing whole game.

always always ALWAYS get a blink on slardar.

slardar fits decently into your lineup, just abbadon should have focussed on support items.

and if you want creepclear on non illusion heroes you get mjollnir, not radiance.

Treads > Blink Dagger core on Slardar. Don't get a Radiance, and most of the time don't get a Vanguard. I honestly don't think it's worth the price on any hero in comparison to a Blink Dagger/Mekansm for the same approximate price.

slardar's pretty much an ideal pick, not because of the reveal, but because he's a tanky blink stunner who hits hard against a team of squishy AGI heroes. I probably would have picked Centaur but they're essentially the same role. Problem is you didn't buy blink.

Really good job picking Slardar. Seems like less thought was put into the rest of the picks (on both teams) though. Not much support on either side, which is a problem.

A few things to note about your build:

1. Blink- explained above
2. Vanguard- Kind of an outdated item that people are starting to move away from. You're better off with a Mek or saving for something better like a Heart later on.
3. Armor- or lack thereof. On STR heroes you don't need to pile on more STR with a Heart before you get some kind of armor. Since PA had an Assault Cuirass, a Shiva's guard would be a nice pickup. Blade Mail would be excellent against most of their team as well, especially QoP. Armor protects the already large amount of health you have, so if you just have a bunch of HP with no armor, you still melt like butter.
4. If your base is getting flooded by creeps, one person just has to stay back and defend while the rest push. When you see them attacking your buildings, go up and draw their attention and bring them to your fountain. It will kill them much faster than the towers, and they stop damaging your base. It only takes one hero to do this.
5. You don't really want a Radiance unless you get it around 20 mins. It falls off pretty bad, and is better on illusion heroes. Maelstrom and Mjollnir are both really good on Slardar because you want attack speed on him to proc more bashes.


I think you probably played pretty decently. Your GPM wasn't bad, and your item choices could've been worse. Always room to improve, though.

Slardar was probably the optimal pick against 2 or possibly three invis heroes. Blink dagger is a core as said before and against 4 squishy agi heroes and 1 squishy int hero, a blademail in this situation wouldn't have been a bad pick.

I'd probably pick Ogre Magi because he: 1. Is fairy item independent allowing hint o buy wards / dust/ gem without getting to far behind 2. Has a good disable for disabling the invis heroes when you can see them, allowing your team to go in for the kill 3. Is fairly tanky compared to other supports, so he won't fall as quickly to such heroes like Riki