No. No no no. Don't. Please don't.

I haven't even said anything yet.

You don't need to. The fact that this is a blog with your name on it speaks volumes already. Why would you do this? To me? To the people of Dotafire? TO THE HUMAN RACE?

Because sometime's there are mathematical curiosities that don't fit neatly into a guide, and need separate posts to delve into?

You're sure it's not because you're a sadistic bastard?

Well. That too.

At least you're honest about it.
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To start off, I'd like to crunch some numbers related to a subject I covered in the Zeus guide: magic amplification.

You mean what you got called out on for calculating incorrectly?

Yeah. That one. I put some thought into it to make sure my numbers were 100% right after that, and the research gave me some pretty interesting ideas that I'd like to share. The main question we'll be asking today is... well, ok there are two. The first is: what is the maximum amount of magic amplification you can apply on a hero? The second, and arguably most important is: is the team composition required to make such a thing happen viable at all?

Prooobably not, just from what I'm doing in my head.

I'm inclined to agree with you, but I haven't crunched the numbers just yet, so let's see what we've got. For starters, it's best we lay bare some of the basic mechanics of magic amplification and resistance in Dota 2.

1)All heroes start off with a base magic resistance of 25%. There are, of course,…
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Most of us, those of us who have played the game for any appreciable amount of time, anyways, have what I like to call an " Earthshaker Story." One of those rare, beautiful instances where the stars align just right, where your reflexes allow you to blink in at that perfect moment. You press R, and carnage ensues, your announcer of choice screaming TRIPLE KILL, ULTRA KILL or, perhaps, if the moment is just beautiful enough... RAMPAGE.

And you want us to believe that you have such a story?

Oh, I could spend all day spinning yarns about the Phantom Lancer's I've wrecked with a well placed Echo Slam and an Aghanim's Scepter, but this blog isn't about bragging, you know?

I was under the impression this blog wasn't about anything.

Shush. No today, as I do most every day, I would like to take you on a journey through absurd mathematics, to try and see just how powerful we can get Raigor Stonehoof to be. This will require far more estimation than I typically like to employ in our …
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In my previous blog entry, I tried to figure out the maximum amount of units you could cram into a single team, in order to maximize the damage of Earthshaker's Echo Slam. It was a lot of fun! Dealing with numbers that don't technically have a cap and seeing what their actual limits are is cool to me, so when I saw a comment about Lich's ult, I immediately knew the next question I had to ask.

What's the maximum amount of damage you can force out of Chain Frost?

Um... is this a serious question? If you get an Aghanim's Scepter it bounces an infinite amount of times, so you get an infinite amount of damage. Boom. Blog post done. Thank goodness.

Not so fast, buddy. It's all well and good to say that an ability with an infinite damage cap does infinite damage, but that's just on paper. We're better than that here, man. We want to figure out how much damage you could ACTUALLY get from it, not just theoretically.

I don't follow.

Any team worth its salt is going to Delta Sp…
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Stiiiill waiting on that part two to the Lich post man.

Look, there's a LOT of math to sort through on that one, ok? Plus, I have the sneaking suspicion that the answer might actually be infinity like you said. With a Pudge that has enough stacks of Flesh Heap, an Anti-Mage, a Rubick, and the now-stacking Pipe of Insight on everyone, I think... I think you can just tank it forever, like Ancient Creeps. But I'll have to triple-check.

So what's this for then?

Boredom! I thought I'd pay tribute to the first hero I ever attempted to write a guide on, and give Clinkz and his Death Pact a shake-down.

You... tried to do a Clinkz guide? Really? I mean... you just get Orchid/MKB and win, right?

Dota is COMPLICATED. There are times you might want to get a Blink Dagger, or maybe an Assault Cuirass, to say nothing of the potential windfalls of a Refresher Orb but... that's... yeah, that's not what we're here for. We're here for math, and Death Pact! So let's dive in, sha…
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The change to the day/night cycle from 6 to 4 minute intervals has had a lot of interesting effects on our fair game. Supports can now rotate under cover of darkness even earlier in the game than before, catching out important targets and disrupting their farm. It also serves as somewhat of a buff to heroes with above average night vision like Luna, Slark, Sniper, and Bounty Hunter.

Sniper and Bounty Hunter have above average Night vision?

1800/1000 as opposed to the average 1800/800. The more you know, eh?

You left Night Stalker out of there, y'know. For a reason, I'd assume.

Y-yes... Night Stalker. My old friend. There was a time when this hero was the only non-support I played. I'd rush into mid lane, survive until nighttime, and go balls deep on everyone, wrecking face and stacking urn charges like nobody's business. He was a good hero for a noob like me: his very mechanics gave me direction with what to do with my time. Whereas with other heroes I might wander ab…
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Hello one and everyone! Been a while, huh?

Dang right it has. What's your excuse this time, eh? Still job, girlfriend, and the like?

Well that. But also Guild Wars 2! It's super fun! I have a little guild called Mahou Shoujo Fight Club (the tag is [chan]!) and everything is super relaxed and casual.

I... I'm you, and I can never tell when you're kidding.

I'm... why would I be kidding? Do I not seem like the type of person who would run that kind of guild?

... valid point. Anyways, what are you on here about? You realize a lot of your guides are out of date now, right?

Yeah... yeah I need to go back and update those. Particularly Ogre Magi... friggin' Valve, changing the damage values a mere week after I go through all that beautiful, beautiful mathematics. But yeah, I'll get to that. The reason I'm doing this is, now that I'm back playing Dota on a semi-regular basis, I want to answer the age-old question: Am I at all qualified to be giving advice on how to play heroe…
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I felt a little silly when I clicked the 'Ranked Match' option. Not because the idea of me playing in Ranked mode is inherently hilarious, mind you (though for some of you, it surely is), but because as I was waiting for the queue to pop I couldn't help but feel nervous.

As much as I love to think about this game, study its complexities, and rage at the rampant ineptitude of both myself and my friends (typically just myself), it is, at the end of the day, just a game. The fact that there were butterflies in my stomach is a little embarrassing, I think.

But hey, on the flip side: free Butterfly. Can't argue with that.

A full three and a half minutes later I finally get into a game. Graciously, all 10/10 connect on the first try, so I can't give into the temptation to close the game and hide. #Prettypathetic.

The first thing I notice is the average team MMR, both just a little over 2800. As a guy who doesn't specialize in any one hero an…
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Before I start in on the match itself, I think I should make one thing clear, namely my system for deciding when I want to play a Ranked game. Many of you probably played ten games in a row to get your rating, maybe even on the same day. But my mind doesn't work that way; I'm the type of person who peels the bandage off slowly instead of yanking it off all at once, firmly believing it actually IS less painful that way. That being said, this is the system I used to decide to play my second Ranked game.

1) Are friends on? --Yes--> Play unranked. --No--> Proceed to step 2

2) Is there a hero you're itching to practice? --Yes--> Play against bots. --No--> Proceed to step 3

3) Have you had lunch? --Yes--> Proceed to step 4. --No--> Go make lunch.

4) Was lunch a yummy pizza veggie burger? --Yes--> Play Ranked. --No--> Loop back to step 1.

As you can see it's a very complex, meaningful system that always leads to a good outcome. I like it. But since I had a pizza burger the other da…
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Given up the MMR climb already, eh? I don't blame you, you're not cut out for competitive Dota.

I'll have you know I'm one hundred percent committed to finishing my calibration, THANK YOU. But I've been back for a bit and it's been a while since I've done something... mathy, you know? It feels wrong. So I'll be taking a brief interlude from dying to Sniper and Troll Warlord and spend some quality time in my old math corner, with one of my favorite heroes to boot: Treant Protector.

When Treant's Aghanim's Scepter upgrade was first announced, I didn't really understand how good it was. To my credit, I knew that it basically gave him free wards on a 20 second cooldown that could see into roshpit and that the enemy would need a Quelling Blade or Tango to get rid of (or Timbersaw. Friggin' Timbersaw), but I was a little confused by how Overgrowth interacted with it.

What, something about whether the damage goes through magic immunity or not? Because it doesn't, scrub.

No…
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6.84 is here. Caught me with my pants down, it did.

And you're using it as your excuse to not do your third MMR match yet?

It's COMING, it's COMING, gosh. I'm a busy guy, y'know, cut me some slack.

You could be playing it LITERALLY right now. While you're typing this.

Eh... fair. I'll admit I'm procrastinating a bit, but I do wanna put something up in the meantime, and what better way than addressing the item that's almost surely going to be nerfed in 6.84b: Silver Edge.

Silver Edge is downright diabolical, and is INSANELY cost effective for what it brings to the table. Strength, damage, attack speed, invisibility, a slow, BONUS DAMAGE, DAMAGE REDUCTION, and a GODDAM BREAK. A BREAK! Why the hell would a Doom ever farm an Aghanim's Scepter when he can use this to disable passives? It even doubles as initiation FOR the ultimate!

It's... I mean, the break only lasts 5 seconds, whereas Doom would last 16 seconds or longer depending how long Doom stays nearby, yeah?

I rea…
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Enough stalling. The time to strap the big boy pants back on has come, ladies and gentlemen. My latest adventure into the abject horrors of solo ranked matchmaking is complete, and here I am but a poor, shaken vessel with a keyboard, typing things out if only to keep my sanity.

So you had a pizza burger for lunch?

No, actually, I had leftover frozen pizza and a Guinness. Why do you care?

Because last time... you said... never mind, just get on with it.

The first thing I noticed this time when queuing up was that one of the players are teammates had an MMR of 3170. Apparently, these random, come from behind victories are only serving to place me even MORE out of my league. Q freaking Q.

I was Radiant this time, and we picked first. Since I had an idea of who I wanted to play this time, I scrolled over and hovered over my hero. I waited for a bit for the time to dwindle down, and when nobody objected or selected a hero, I first-picked Undying.

Sweet, wonderful, gummy bear lov…
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I have not been having luck lately when it comes to Dota.

You NEVER have luck when it comes to Dota.

More so, though. Noticeably moreso. Over the last few days I have lost a grand total of SIX matches in a row. It was discouraging. Humbling. And the perfect reason to play another game of ranked!

I... what?

I'm a huge sucker for Gambler's fallacy, man. I made that clear in the last post. I was on a 'cold' streak, so it only makes sense that I had a win 'coming to me', you know? So I decided to lock myself in my room, slip into something comfortable, and play another match of that MMR calibration.

The sample MMRs for this match were 2665 on Radiant (us) and 2657 on Dire. I now fully understand that these are the MMRs of the people whose portraits the numbers are under, and not an average for the team, so I know better than to think that my 6 game un-ranked losing streak caused me to drop out of the 3k bracket I was in last time. I know better... but I couldn't help thinkin…
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Hello everyone! I know, I know, this isn't MMR match 5, but I promise you it's coming in a bit, don't worry.

You think anyone cares?

I'm sure at least like... five people care? Maybe? At least three...

Uh huh.

Shush. Anyways, it's been a while since I did a 'suggested balancing' thread... I think the last one was on Night Stalker all the way back when. In the time since then, the game has shifted towards early game aggression and people have begun to build NS more late-game centered, and he's sort of found a niche place in the meta again. This meta in general I'm finding almost every hero in the game has some role to play at some point... sure we're seeing a lot Queen of Pain, Gyrocopter and Earthshaker, but I'm pretty satisfied with how diverse the qualifiers have been. I even saw Tinker again at one point!

That didn't go well.

No. No it did not. There's one hero, however, who doesn't a place anywhere anymore, which is a shame because he was one of my favorite carr…
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Everyone! All five of you who read these! Hold on to your hats and prepare to assume the position because IT. IS. TIME.

Woo. Hooray. So exciting. I'm literally dying of excitement, see? See how excited I am. So excited. Woo.

Why don't you add a 'kappa' to the end there, make the sarcasm even MORE obvious?

Don't have the energy. Cause I'm so excited.

Shush. Anyways, I finally got around to making myself a veggie pizza burger, so I also finally got around to playing my next ranked game. This signals the halfway point of this little series, and we've had some good times, yeah?

Oh yeah. So many...

NOT. TALKING. TO YOU.

Hmph.

When I loaded into my game this time, something... peculiar happened. Something that I've always wanted to happen, yet never actually thought would. Someone recognized me.

Like, someone you knew?

No, I mean like... from this site. They fingered me as 'that guy who writes funny guides on Dotafire'. And I gotta say, when someone recognizes you for yo…
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Hey there, one and everyone. Safecyn here.

I thought today I'd share a bit of the stuff I work on that you never see, for one reason or another. This in particular comes from a guide I was writing on Clinkz, just... just in case you hadn't guessed that from reading the title.

And? Are you going to tell the good people of Dotafire why you never FINISHED your guide for Clinkz?

I... I am literally the worst Clinkz who ever Clinkzed. I just couldn't ever do well enough to feel confident giving advice.

Didn't stop you from writing the Brewmaster guide, though.

I'M GOOD WITH BREWMASTER NOW OK GOSH.

Anyways, on to the meat of this thing. Be sure to click the link that shows up for appropriate music!
____________________________________________________________________________________



Hello one and everyone! Safecyn here, bringing you a guide to...

I knew it. I knew right after that freaking blog post that this was coming.

And... this is a problem? You don't …
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Both life and Dota put up a lot of resistance to me playing this match.

On the life spectrum: I've been busy working on my grandparents' new apartment, and have spent more time away from my computer than I like to. Between spackling, sanding, painting and what have you I've been a busy beaver. And tired. Very tired. It's been a while since I slept this well.

Nobody cares, talk about Dota.

Thank you, voice of reality. ;_; On the Dota spectrum, when I finally set aside time to do this match, there were a LOT of hiccups. The first time I loaded into a game one of our teammates just sat in fountain until he received an abandon. Thankfully, Valve detected poor network conditions and the match wasn't scored or this would be a very, VERY short and somewhat angry blog post. After that, people failed to load into my game not once, but TWICE. I finally decided to take a break, play some Sunless Sea (amazing, by the way, you should ALL PLAY THIS), and then return to matchmaking, and I…
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Hello one and everyone! Safecyn here. How about them grand finals, huh?

USA! USA! USA!

I... I'm sorry. We're American and he's been like that since Universe's six million dollar echo slam. It'll take awhile to un-break him.

USA! USA! USA!

Annnnyways, with an absolutely insanely huge tournament on our heels, it's time to start looking towards the inevitable 6.85 patch. I'm anticipating some big, big changes, because while the grand finals were fun to watch, I think everyone has to admit they were a little... stale.

The game as it stands right now heavily favors heroes that can fight early on, but also have decent scaling into the late game. As such, teams were forced to limit themselves to a specific strategy and a smaller pool of heroes than usual in order to stay relevant. Leshrac and Gyrocopter has a ONE HUNDRED PERCENT pick/ban rate this meta, even more ridiculous than the pick/ban rate of Lycan during last year's infamous deathball TI. When a team can pick Gyrocopt…
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Hello one and everyone! Safecyn here. It's been a while, I know, but there was moving Grandparents in and then TI5 and then blah blah blah I PLAYED ANOTHER MATCH, OK?

Yeesh.

That's pretty much how I felt after it ended, yeah.

The MMR standings this time were an average of 2615 on Radiant, our side, and 2616 on Dire. Now I know what you're thinking: "gosh, Safecyn, if you were that outmatched by the enemy team, why didn't you just throw in the towel right then and there?" Well perhaps that's the normal and acceptable reaction, but we Cyndaquils are made of sterner stuff.

I was forced into picking first this match, choosing my hero literally as the timer was about to hit 0 and we were going to start losing gold. Not wanting to bank on any of my teammates picking a support, I went for one myself, opting for Winter Wyvern since she's strong all around and can have a pretty big impact even in the later stages of the game. A few minutes later, and the combatants were set:

…
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Well you've certainly taken your time on this one.

It's not my fault, I swear. Between my job, family issues, and the fact that Dota 2 Reborn wouldn't let me do Ranked matches for a while? I've had some work to do.

Wait... really? You weren't high enough level? That's HILARIOUS.

Shut. Up. At the very least, it didn't reset my calibration matches, so this is in fact Match 8 and not a second Match 1. If it had been reset I... I think I would have just rage quit. XD. Anyways, there's a veggie burger in me, so let's get to... NOPE REBORN CRASHED WHILE WATCHING THE REPLAY AGAIN. GG VULVA. GIVE DIRETIDE. ༼ つ ._. ༽つ

Since it had been a while since I'd played a ranked match, I decided to go with my ultimate comfort pick: Lich. He may not be my BEST hero (an honor that goes to either Undying or Jakiro depending on which I've lost a game with most recently) but he's my most-played hero, and is one of the safest picks in the game, in my opinion. With the recent buffs to…
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I've been wanting to write about Spirit Breaker lately. I don't know why. Something about the hero's caught my attentions and I can't get it out of my mind.

Oy. This isn't the kind of site for you to work out your weird cow fetishes.

... I'm not even going to dignify that with a defense.

Cause you don't have one.

Annnyways, my original plan for this article was to see how fast you'd have to get Spirit Breaker attacking in order for you to guarantee that, once Greater Bash came off cooldown, the Pseudo-Random Distribution would be primed in your favor to get you another one immediately. So I loaded up a Bristleback with 6 hearts, gave Spirit Breaker five Moon Shards and a 6th eaten one, and had at it.

The result was that the Pseudo-Random Distribution isn't calculated at all while Greater Bash is off cooldown. I was disappointed at first, but ultimately I find this result kind of satisfying. It means that attack speed items can only help Spirit Breaker up to a certain …
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Ranked matchmaking seems to have a REALLY hard time deciding what to do with me.

Hot off a three game losing streak (which is really an eight game streak with a nice breath of fresh Zeus pub-stomping air in between), I figured it was as good a time as any to queue up and see if I can get this thing done I promised I would. And I waited. And waited. Ten minutes later I stopped waiting, went and took a shower, did some stretches, set my alarm for work, and queued back up again. This time it only took five minutes. Hooray?

I'm somewhat encouraged by this: after all, longer wait times means there aren't as many people at my level to queue with, right? Then again, the guy who insta-picked Spectre on my team was only 2.7K so... maybe I shouldn't get my hopes up for a 3K+ calibration. 2.4K was my initial prediction, after all.

I was pleasantly surprised by how communicative our team was during the drafting phase: a nice change from previous matches I've played. Our orange said righ…
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There comes a time in the life of every human being on this planet where they must say 'enough is enough'. No longer can things be put off. No longer can dreams be allowed to remain dreams. There is an imperative set by the gods that every man worth his salt, who wishes to prove himself in the ring of honor, must be weighted. Must be judged. And most definitely, must finish what he started.

So this man goes forth upon his final battle, back into the ring for the tenth time, to put an end to the sinister demons of waiting, uncertainty, and the unknown. Beckoning to the gods for their aid, he picks a hero wrought in their image: Zeus, the divine emissary of lightning, lord of thunder, rage, and pub stomps. Perhaps this facsimile of strength will transfer some of its digital splendor upon the man behind the keyboard. Or perhaps he shall be smitten for his arrogance. The combatants are set. May the game begin.

…
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So I'm a numbers guy, yeah? Lemme drop a little stats on you.

No one talks about stats like that. You are NOT the cool, young fresh Nahaz.

Shush. Anyways, in my many years of playing Dota 2 I have engaged in 1227 matches. A lot of Dota, for sure!

Jeeez. How many hours do you have logged to Steam on this thing?

Only... 3000 plus... shush, I have a life I swear. Anyways, that's not the statistic that matters, here. What matters is this: as of this writing, I have never played more than 43 games on a single hero.

... what? How the heck is that possible? You don't have a main hero? Something you spam to try and win games?

The only hero I spam is the random button.

You are the worst kind of filthy casual game-ruiner in existence, you know that?

Fair enough. It does have its advantages though: when Dotabuff released their arbitrary achievements, I was ASTOUNDINGLY close to the Every Hero Challenge. I've won games on practically every hero there is: I'm versatile like that.
…
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War. War never changes.

Sure, the faces may be different from time to time, as Icefrog's mighty hand buries some into the trash tier while invoking others to positions of prominence. Hell, even the terrain itself may be swept clear and remade as seasons come and go. But at the end of the day, it's always a bunch of scared kids charging out into a senseless bloodbath, defending a hunk of magical rock that never did a damn thing for 'em.

It's times like this it's good to have a friend by your side: someone to watch your back. Because the world isn't nice to small, fragile men that waddle from place to place. Who was stupid enough to follow me into battle, you might ask? None other than the master of all cuttlefish himself. Damn fine soldier.



Cuttleboss:

We had Sniper planned beforehand, Cyn hoped for a miracle. I was prepared to give him the next best thing, Abaddon, a hero that can pair very well with Sniper, since Sniper really just needs a tank who can lead charges wi…
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I'm going to try something a little different here: no, this is not the followup to Safecyn's Sinister Six where I attempt to play Legion Commander, that's... coming? Probably? I don't know, because I don't actually have any desire to play this hero.

This column is primarily going to be an opinion piece with some off-kilter sense of quasi-analysis as I ask a question that may be obvious for some, but utterly baffles me like I were a kindergartner asked to do quadratic expansion. Why the hell is Legion Commander so damn popular?

Legion Commander is the third most played hero this month and the fourth most played for 6.87, and will most likely eclipse Phantom Assassin for third place in that category as well if trends continue unaltered. And like Invoker metaphorically and Pudge literally, she is a festering, bubonic plague on the pub dota scene: a malignant tumor so thoroughly rooted in one of the team's jungles that it can hardly be compared to cancer since she takes so long …
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