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Hi All,

I've had a few thoughts about the International - and some of the common issues was the 'repetitive use of heroes' at least 3, maybe 4 - sometimes 5 heroes, were re-used in the same lineup against the same team, throughout the tournement.
I'm not complaining AT ALL - I love a good competitive game, that's the beauty of Dota - same team, same heroes, different game every time..

However, some heroes saw 1 use, or 0 uses throughout the whole tournement. surprisingly being one of them. Here are a list of heroes, that saw less than 3 games in the whole of the international - apart from the obvious, any thoughts as to why!?!?!

- 0 games! wow.. becuase he's melee support perhaps?
- 0 games, same issue, and he has a terrible win rate in the competitive scene.
- 1 game, and lost - obv, he's ****
- 1 game, 1 ban - surprisingly little use for Axe - I was expecting more - not sure why?
- are better supports to do the same job (shut down blinkers/escapists)
- 1 game with Navi when they destroyed LGD - 648gpm! are there better carries? not really - but the main issue is the meta version is a still an average of 35 mins, and void doesn't really become a powerhouse until 30min< mark..
quite surprisngly - with a heavy nuke, and 2 disables. perhaps was so rarely banned why pick lion?
- 1 game - targeted killer, like spirit breaker - no real synergy with a team fight
- I was expecting more, perhaps like there are just too many ways to find invis heroes now, why pick them?
- 1 game - smoke of deceit has basically ended his career as a top tier carry
- like alche, just bad..
- I LOVE this hero, but clearly the pros do not - WHY?!?! (just 1 game)!
2 games, tho banned 5 times. A strong early game hero, and with the meta heavily focused here - but doesn't offer enough offensive skills to be useful.
main issue with a few carries, takes too long to be a real powerhouse.
as above
- i felt could have been used more 2 picks, 3 bans - a possible turtle/counter gank specialist, but obv wasn't enough to be picked - WHY?!
a big surprise at only 3 games, a great semi carry, great stun and vision - perhaps 's track and use in the suicide lane was a factor?
only 3 games each. Death prophet really surprising as after 6 she can push, and still posses a great threat if the game drags out, perhaps her lack of disable and escape making her chicken feed in the competitive scene?

So why weren't some of the pub favourites like axe, FV, death prophet - getting no action AT ALL in the International.. and here is the big question - with so few heroes to be released, that will have a huge impact on picks and ban (except maybe medusa) how could we change this!!??

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(4) |

I think the reason that heroes are picked/not picked in championship games like this are because of strategy. You can't take a hero like Ogre Mage (who I really enjoy playing) and build a strategy around him when you have other characters with more reliable disables or more team wide support benefits.

Upper-level play is all about strategy. If you are a great player you can use any hero with great success, but strategy is about synergy between heroes and being able to work together as a team. It's why picks like Faceless Void and Nyx Assassin got such big cheers from the crowd when they were picked, not because the heroes were different or better, but because the strategy involved in using those characters effectively spoke to having an incredibly entertaining game to watch ahead.

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(16) |

I'm keen on the idea of a Random Draft Tournament, but it's quite unlikely that one will be held. I don't see very many players choose that game mode.

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Slardar was the biggest surprise for me, he's really durable, has a very reliable aoe stun/slow, and low cooldown mini double damage ulti along with anti invisibility. By the way he is one of the best 1v1 heroes thanks to bash and has a great carrying potential. He can also escape from sticky situations with Sprint or chase really really well.

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(21) |

The average game at the international lasted 35 minutes. the average first rax went down in 20 minutes. - not enough time for any carry to really be strong - hence the mid to late game carries, rather the uber late game carries like are popular - slithice and morph for example.
To give you an idea how fast a 20 minute rax is, have a look at your farm, the map and general point in your game when you play a pub match, and see where you are in 20 minutes. probably only knocked down 1st towers, maybe a 2nd, with an extra 1 still up.

smoke of deceit shut down becuase, without an escape skill, and being so squishy, you just perma gank him - you can't ward to defend him, and he can't tower hug to survive.
Atlas, you mentioned a few good things about all the heroes - that weren't used, but you hit the nail on the head with and all the others you mentioned - they each have a job, and the top tier picks at the moment, do the same jobs but better. hence they don't get picked!!

A random draft tournement would be fun, with a 3 minute counter, to give teams a chance to pick and plan. but that would need to be for a specific tournement!

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I actually disagree with you about Nyx Assassin. He can be very good in lane with a clarity or two since he has spammable stun and mana burn (granted mana burn is spammable until late and impale has 11 sec cooldown) And he didn't really get a chance to be played to his full extent since he needs decent levels but with coordination he can be a really good initiator since if the enemy team is close together, you can get 3-4 and sometimes even 5 heroes with impale, and if you initate on a squishy support, suddenly the fight is 5-4 in your favor before it's even started and most of your team is stunned. You can get really good fights out of his initiation and he's really an undervalued hero but he isn't chosen often since he doesn't always do that great without team support in teamfights and isn't very helpful if he doesn't initiate and bkb's basically make him useless.

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(16) |

wrote:

I think Dazzle is pretty viable, both as a pusher/babysitter/teamfighter. Big issue is his ulti is a lot like Silencers -- an obvious back up and play safe notice.

All the others just don't have the push power or burst to be great in 6.74.

As Sp12 says would be a viable choice. But like most casters he's very easily shutdown from silences, preventing him from aiding his team with , and most importantly

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(25) |

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(117) |

I guess I'll go down your list and give you my best answer...

: He can work in a tri-lane, but even then he isn't consistently strong. He can be annoying at times, but I don't feel that he is consistent enough to be picked. There are better supports, and if you're looking for a nuker, you'll more often see a Lina pick.

: He is hard to fit into a spot on the team. He is melee, and some-what farm reliant, and at the same time a support. Not that he isn't useful, but there just isn't a good lane for him unless he is taking the carry's spot.

: He isn't **** at all, actually, infact he used to be a top-pick in the tri-lane meta. He just needs his farm to become the potential powerhouse that he can be. And he needs a very strong lane that can be there to babysit him for the entirety of his farming stage.

: He just isn't powerful. His battle hunger can be annoying, but unless he gets really fed, he just doesn't impact the game enough.

: He's actually not a bad hero, infact I think he could have seen more play. He makes life hell for anyone against him in a lane once he gets soul ring, and he can completely shut down 2 targets in a fight. There are better heroes, but he definitely shouldn't be overlooked.

: Needs too much farm to become effective.

: He needs levels to be effective. This means he really needs mid-lane, but since he isn't very mobile or strong in the lane, he just gets destroyed by a good opposing mid.

: Just not a very reliable hero. He's good for taking out a squishy support really fast, but really he just has problems in the lane.

: It's not that there are too many ways to see invis heroes, otherwise Gondar wouldn't have been picked so much. It's just that he is squishy. However, he is a great counter to certain heroes, like QoP and Anti Mage.

: Not enough team-fight presence.

: Smoke of deceit ended him? How? It's just that he does great damage with max souls, yes, but once he dies he has to farm for his stacks again. With no escape ability, he gets ganked really easy, ending in him losing a lot of souls.

: He just doesn't bring much to a team. Really only viable with the whole Juggernaut, Enchantress, Witch Doctor combo for epic pushes.

: A decent support, but he needs levels to be really effective.

: Too easy to expose. He really is capable of some great damage though, yeah he needs a little farm, but it does surprise me he wasn't picked up at least once against an Anti-Mage or something.

: Just kind of a bad hero. Really easy to kill in teamfights.

May write more later. :P

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(16) |

You have to admit competition matches will become very interesting if they decided to play under that game mode. Well that's my own opinion anyway. It'd make a nice twist.

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(21) |

wrote:

I honestly couldn't answer that question Jaslam. However I do think we could change this..... by having Random Draft as the game mode. It would force the uncommon hero picks and interesting team line-ups.

not sure bro - the pro's won't like that, because you can't choose/plan line ups properly. the problem is there are about 25 heroes, which fall under sure pick/ban (primary, secondary and last) which is more than enough to fill a 5v5 team. adding bans will make the game boring. and probably won't change much unless you add 10 bans each. Each team must pick 1 hero to autoban prior to a match? particularly a factor for best of 3 / 5 matches as the hero will be autobanned throughout.

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(16) |

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(21) |

A few other 0 heroes I forgot -
WOW
meh
Skeleton King surprising - but again, too long to be affective.
obviously

necrolyte

soft, no real impact in game obv..

As you can see, lot's of heroes not being used - it would have been faster to post the heroes that were used!!
all info is from dota academy..
http://www.dota-academy.com/tournament/58/

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