Post-techies doto : the return of AFK doto?

You know those people who say "hey the meta is shifting much more towards deathball and mid game teamfights and hard carries don't work anymore"?

Well, the kind of games I'm getting right now are more like this :

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/879018180

Man, this is extreme. I mean, just look at those picks. 3 rats on the radiant side, a Medusa mid on the Dire, and the obligatory Techies, wow.

I was playing the offlane Nature's Prophet and when I saw the picks I thought "maybe I should tell my supports to not bother making a Mek...it's not a very good item in this game ^^".

The game lasted for more than 1 hour *without a single teamfight*. It was pretty much AFK dota all game long. Nothing happened in this game, and I really mean...nothing :)

So...Radiant had Anti-Mage...so we played 4 vs 5. Venge disconnected very early...so 3 vs 5. But...Dire had Techies..so it's 3 vs 4 now, better! Oh yeah and they have a Medusa mid, so it's actually a 3 vs 3 game. AFK hard carries, AFK Techies, AFK Tinker, actual AFK Venge...wow this sounds exciting.

So I rushed my Necrobook on Furion and I tried to push with my team and minesweep techies. Didn't work, they had way too much counterpush. That's the issue with techies, they can one-shot creepwaves. There's no way you will die to their mines if you're not screwing up horribly, but they still clear every creep wave in 1 mine and you can't do anything about it. And Dusa counterpushes really well also...and Rubick...and Clock, etc.

So since I couldn't push I tried to gank. Split pushing made no sense whatsoever in this game because they were always split up. Really, there was absolutely no 5-man dota in the whole game. But ganking was also almost impossible because our AM was AFK farm and our Tinker was AFK farm. Not to mention that you don't simply gank Medusa (too tanky and escapes with ult), you can't really gank Techies either (they just blow themselves up so it's not a kill and they respawn instantly, and they even had bloodstone for yet another suicide and zero respawn time...), and you can't gank Rubick with Blink Dagger who has stolen Antimage's Blink. So...I went for some ricing because yeah can't do anything else.

So...extremely awkward game where it was a stalemate all along and no team could do anything. It's not just because Techies, it's also because having Furion, Tinker and AM in the same team is just ridiculous, but...that's how it is. So yeah, I made up my mind, Techies is not a counter to rat dota. Techies is yet another rat dota hero, who keeps one-shotting creepwaves to split push sidelanes and clear the creeps of anyone who tries to push.

The most funny thing is, we still won the game despite playing against a 6-slotted Dusa, because a 6-slotted Dusa is slow as hell and useless outside of teamfights. So it was all about forcing their Clock and Techies to defend the base all the time, while me and Tinker were either picking off the rest of the team that tried to push...or ratting the base.

To my knowledge Techies is the only hero who can one-shot creep waves from a safe distance. Closest is Queen of Pain with Aghs but it's not *that* spammable xD. And Techies is on a 10-second cooldown. He's pretty much another rat, solo split pushing and mining endlessly and just blowing himself up if he gets ganked.

Since Techies can counterpush better than Keeper of the Light by just oneshotting the creep waves on a 10s cooldown, is this the return of counterpush + rat dota + hard carry lineups? I mean, I don't think it makes a big change honestly, but if something can screw up this stupid deathball meta then I'm all for it.

Let's hope the pro's are too good to be too bothered by techies stuff, although as you say, they can anti-push really easily.

This is the real issue I have with rat DOTA and heroes like Techies - it's just dull, dull, dull. The game is meant to be fun, hardly ever seeing or fighting the other team isn't fun (at least to me). It all ends up going on for hours and often rests entirely on one person getting bored and making a single mistake, or who can base race better...zzzzzzz

I really hope the meta doesn't degenerate into this nonsense again, it's no fun to watch, to play or even to talk about. Try selling it to a new player - "Yeah guys, the game is basically about calculated tedium, you need to farm for as long as possible and try to wait for the enemy to make a mistake". Compared to "OMG look at the skill on that hook! Fast paced team fights! Action! Death! RAWR!". Don't get me wrong, strategy and calculation should always have a part to play, but some action is necessary too.

I refuse to give Techies enough credit to cause a major shift in the meta. I did outline some of their perks in another thread somewhere, Sando's I think, but I still feel like they're a pretty worthless hero.

They're really really good at stopping a push dead in its tracks, but easily countered so it doesn't matter. At least most counterpush heroes can actually push the lane in the opposite direction after stopping the wave ( Jakiro, Keeper of the Light, Queen of Pain). Techies is too slow and squishy to venture outside of the radius of their team's towers. Once you're out in the open, you're a sitting duck just waiting to be killed. Hypothetically they can push the lane with the mines, of course, but they just can't risk getting that close to the enemy base. They are just waaay too easy to gank.

Even suicide squad isn't that big of a deal to any hero with a silence, hex, or any decent kind of lockdown + burst (which is a lot of heroes).

My thoughts on Techies as a whole is that it will be like most new heroes. They'll be played every match for the next month or two and then fall into the "very situational" pool. Low-level pubs, however, will probably never get rid of them I'm afraid :(

***

I actually don't mind rat dota coming back, and I also would be open to the whole 4 protect 1 style that used to be popular way back when (or at least something similar to it). Rat dota can be tedious, but I appreciate a well-organized splitpush. I'm not a fan of Voidball, er sorry, deathball dota because it's just too fast to me. A good chunk of heroes have no place in this meta because they never get their footing until after the game is won in most cases.

Even the games I've been playing in all pick have adopted the deathball style, and I've noticed that it causes a ton of players to just give up. One teamfight goes bad, their Razor has a scepter and is 5-0, and my teammates will start calling GG. Nevermind that it's 20 minutes in and there's plenty of time to come back, that Razor is SCARY.

It isn't always a Razor, but you get the point. In this style it usually only takes one fight, or even a tower falling, to give one team a major advantage. As we saw in the finals of TI4, that makes teams just give up. I'd much rather see a team win by taking 1/8 of a tower's hp every couple of minutes than by getting the other team in a metaphorical chokehold until they tap out.

TL;DR- When is Oracle coming?!?!

I'm with Sando: I don't think Techies will ever be used in the competitive scene, but even if they were a simple Necro 3 or a Gem would screw them up really hard. And I love today's meta, it has one of the widest Hero choices ever and isn't boring to watch at all.

Talking about Techies, with proper warding (so you see if and where they plant their mines) and true sight when pushing they're 100% useless. Or well, 90% useless since they can still suicide and do a lot of damage in teamfights.

What a bunch of haters towards Techies. I still say they are really good when performed well, and no necrobook or gem will stop those people from performing well with them. As I said, they're like the new Io and Earth Spirit.

Playing against Arteezy must've been hard :)

A good Earth Spirit is really annoying...and really hard to play. I admire anyone who can use him well, it takes skill and practice. Dumping mines on places where people might walk if you're lucky? Not so much. I'm not saying playing techies well takes no skill, but it's nothing like as technically challenging.

If I get beat by an Earth Spirit, I feel like he's earned it. Randomly 1-shotted by mines? Neh.

The thing is that I can't see good Techies anymore like on Garena.

Techies is a very tactical hero. Despite his apparent stigma, he is actually fairly weak at the start, but with well though-out tactics he can kill many heroes fairly easily with his mines. But Techies' real strength is his amazing tower defend ability. Pushes onto tier three against a (good) Techies is really, really hard. Split pushing with a Nature's Prophet becomes a almost impossible feat because Techies in the base simply blows everything up. Not to mention he can kill most NP's without really trying with a good combination of stasis and mines.

But, Techies probably won't change the meta, though he(they?) might contribute slightly.

Of course I was being a bit provocative in the title and I don't think it will change the competitive meta, although Techies HAVE been picked in competitive in the past, obviously as a niche pick but I remember seeing old pro games with Techies e.g this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUu4AEaS0xI



Well, I know the theory, I mean I asked our Tinker to make a necrobook in this game for God's sake (^^). It IS indeed extremely easy to not get killed by mines with gem or better mass necro 3 *but* he can still throw mines at you on a 10 second cooldown to stop your push. The thing is, putting Remote Mines in front of towers and hoping to get ultra-kills this way is only good for pwning n00bs BUT insta-clearing your creepwaves and your necrocreeps by just hurling mines in your face to stop your push while his teammates are pushing other lanes is annoying as hell.
The thing is, Remote Mines is basically Sonic Wave with no cooldown and far lower mana cost. You think Techies is a sneaky miner a la Riki and you say hey let's just get detection, but then he just comes out and starts throwing mines at you.

Essentially right now I see Techies as another rat dota support a la Keeper of the Light. Kotl/Tinker have no escape mechanism either if you think about it, still they're very hard to catch. Just a Blink Dagger or something makes Techies hard to gank, AND they can blow themselves up when ganked so you don't actually kill them (this is annoying as hell), AND they have stasis traps to block ganking paths...


Oracle and Arc Warden sound like lots of fun though, even though AW looks like the ultimate rat dota hero :)