Invisible heroes, how you ruin the game

First of all, Im at around 200 games only in public machmaking, so im not a veteran player by any means.
I would like to express how frustraing it has become to play with random persons against even one invisible hero on enemy team, and 2-3 invisibles in one team are not rare at all. I started to play random draft, so there is less chance of facing invis.
Anyway.
Invisible heroes force a strict playstyle on the opposing team, while having no negative effect on the team with the invisible character. This is not something i can called balanced.
I mean, to face invisi heroes, u will have to buy wards, dust, gem or need hero with true sight.
This sounds like more than enough, but in reality it is a burden and hinders the other team in a financial way that they get behind very early in the game. Also, the invisibility is a double gain, because it speeds up the hero in most cases wich is insane. The wards are way too expensive and short duration, not to mention the dust with its ridiculous duration and CD, while the invisi heroes can go invisible any time with little to no time restrictions and even get damage bonus!
I would suggest to have their movement speed nerfed to 75-50 % while invisible, and /or at least have the wards last double the time, and half the price. This may sound too much, but if you think about it, most of your gold will be spent on wards in the laning phase, and that means no other items to buy, wich means the invisi hero can spend his gold on items, you will get behind and killed eventually. And after that, its feeding time.
Also if the random team does not buy wards (they usualy dont), they will feed the invisi from the early game, and the match will be lost in most cases.
To compensate the movement speed nerf, there could be "trap" items, wich the Invisible hero could lay and help him in gaining kills. This would equal the fight, because now the invisi will have to pay for items in order to keep him competitive, just like the non-invisibles, who are spending a fortune on wards and stuff.
Probably this is a problem only existing in pulic machmaking, but i would appreciate your toughts about the idea.
Please keep your opinion in case of: NOOB, ******, L2P, BUY DUST/WARD/GEM etc....

"Also, the invisibily is a double gain, because it speeds up the hero in most cases wich is insane."

?

Not all invisibility spells / abilities give additional speed.

"while the invisi heroes can go invisible any time with little to no time restrictions and even get damage bonus!"

Same here, not all invisibility spells give additional damage.

Listed here: http://puu.sh/5Q30N.txt is all the dotabuffs of heroes that have a natural invisibility ability ( Shadow Blade not counted.). I would never use dotabuff as proof but if what you were saying was true, wouldn't all of these be above 50% in winrate, and by a big margin? The highest is 53% and that's Treant Protector which is a hero I'd say you don't pick just for his invis.

I understand your frustration, in lower brackets (and I mean no offense by that, we all start there!) people are less probable to pick support roles and pick up support items but you can't change the entire game based on one part of the experience.

Your suggested changes are also a bit too vague to be taken seriously, how would the traps work? 50%-75% movement speed loss is pretty heavy making the invis close to pointless in most cases. Just imagine Riki crawling around the map at 25% movement speed, poor guy.

The only advice I can tell you is start playing slardar / bounty hunter. They both have natural detection with their ultis and Bounty Hunter is going to earn you extra gold, since that seemed to be a problem :-)
Eventually you'll escape the lower brackets and people will take supporting seriously since it's a big part of every good dota game. Good luck!

I didnt look up exactly all the invi parameters, but there are too many beneficial factors sticking to it, that can be like bonus damage and move speed -thats how i ment, not both and always, just they gain too much plus besides being invisible.

The movement speed nerf of course not 25 %, i meant having 50-75 % of original speed.

The traps i imagine to be the shape of drawn rectangle ( like 50% of the width of a lane) and there would be a limit how much a team can buy, also only visible by wards for the enemy team.

The pick /winrate is based on organised teams if im correct, and my problem is -as you have written- is based on public matchmaking and im sure there is no point of taking invisi hero against an organised team of friends, who communicate and do it properly.

The hero pick you wrote is working, i especialy like slard, but to force me to pick one or two specific hero only because of invisi is unbalanced imo. I know that every hero needs to be countered by an other, its just invisibles are special beneficiaries of the game at the moment.

Im a straightforward guy, probably thats why i despise invisibles so much.

The consistency of pub teams is another issue, but i cant expect to have all the matches with half decent players in my team.

Thanks for answering!

When you get 2-3x your current games, I think invis heroes will pose much less of a threat. Invis heroes are balanced with a very squishy HP pool, so they are easy to burst down. Also, their invisibility is a waste of a skill slot, so if you have detection you're basically silencing one of their skills. Let's say you're in a big 5v5 team fight.

It's between two teams that are equally matched, and have equal picks as well. They have a great late game carry, 1 support, 1 jungle, 1 off lane, 1 mid. OH MY GOD. HUGE FIGHT OCCURRING IN MIDDLE! NO TOWERS NEAR BY! IT'S MADNESS!

Team A has: Enigma with BKB and boots
Team B has: Riki with Diffusal, 1 wraith band, boots

(Tried to make the gold even)

Personally, I'd rather have the Enigma.

Riki excels against beginners because people don't buy enough detection and they play to his strengths. They farm on their own, getting their gold... OMG RIKI PICKED ME! CAN WE GET SOME DETECTION U SCRUBBY SUPPORT PLAYERS?!" Respawn, back to farming. Now maybe Riki doesn't kill you, since you're full HP/mana... But he just clouds and stabs you a few times. Now you're 2/3 HP and it's no longer safe to farm.

I propose a different scenario. Imagine it!:

You pick... Oh. I dunno. Let's say:

Pugna, Leshrac, NP, Veno, and KotL. Actually, no KotL. Actually, yes KotL. It doesn't matter. Shadow Shaman for the lulz.

Grab a gem and push. Have NP farm necro 3. Put a sentry at the choke for your woods. Now, are you ready for this new meta? Newer than Dagon on every hero?

First item: Gem.

Yep. Grab a gem and 5 man. Blow through some towers and tank up. Take Rosh after outside towers are gone. Now be aggressive. Take over their jungle, and ward their jungle. Farm their jungle. Make them split 3 lanes of farm between 5 heroes. They get no tower gold, and share exp as well.

Even if it's not against Riki. Maybe it's against BH. Getting an aba or something and farming a gem, followed by 5 manning, negates most invis heroes entirely. They're normally designed to pick off stragglers or weak supports. Play 5 man doto with a gem, and continue to take towers/farm their woods.

The only weakness to this strat is one that plagues most strats in general: If you're not with you friends, or people that you know... Not everyone will follow your ideas. If that's the case, it's just the luck of the MMR draw my friend. :/

Pretty much exactly what Angelo said. Sure they might be able to go invis, but there are many ways to counter them. Most invis heros are quite squishy and rely on that invis as an escape mechanism. When you have detection and a lane with any decent lockdown, these kind of heros are pretty easy to take down. All those invis heros need substantial farm to be really useful anyway. For example, a Clinkz may get bonus move speed while invis and all, but if you're putting points into that skill early game to reduce cool down and increase move speed, you're taking away from points in skills that are going go to be doing damage. If you're detected it's quite easy to kill a clinkz, especially early game. If you hold off his farm so he can even afford his Orchid, he's for the most part, useless. So basically by making that initial investment on wards and detection (which feels like you're getting the shaft at first when you have to buy them) it pays for itself quickly when you start dominating the laning phase. Eventually you turn it into a 5v4 and it usually becomes fairly easy. This is assuming you have a team with strong communication

I stil dont agree.

Last match: random draft. enemy picks riki and brood ofc, no slard in draft.
Riki is squishy, mybe, but with high dmg items on him and stunners in other team its just unplayable.

Wards are double the price they worth, they last less than i can hold my breath. Also i cant buy as many as i want, cuz invisi can walk the whole map, i can just ward like 10 percent of map max. Nerf invisibles movement speed ffs, the destroy the public matches!

My only solution atm is i will go all pick, pick slard all the ****ing time and my only purpose of playing will be to destroy invisible heroes in every damn game and have my revenge :)))

I will be the most trained slard pub ever.

The solution to riki is not even to litter the map with sentries. The trick is to either get force staff to escape from him. If he chases you down it is your fault for being a support who is not even near a tower.
Or, and this is maybe even more important, to NEVER TURN YOUR BACK ON HIM. He does very little damage when not attacking from the back.

Ofcourse this doesnt always work becouse players in low matchmaking can suck causing riki to snowball. But he is not really that strong if you are just playing well AND NOT TURNING YOUR BACK.

Angelo is exactly right.

I play a lot of Bounty Hunter, and I normally do quite well with him. The times I don't? The enemy is 5-manning early. They don't even need detection. Just the fact that they're 5-manning early makes Bounty nothing more than a creep with Track.

Invis heroes are almost exclusivly designed as roaming gankers ( Broodmother is the only exception I can think of). Since teamfighting beats gankers, your best response to a team made up of gankers is to stick together and push towers agressively. Maybe have one hero with a functional escape farming solo while everyone else pushes hard together, but in a pub match, no-one will pay attention if you want that hero to be you.


The alternative is to run a counter-ganking team, but this requires more teamwork than a teamfighting team. The basic concept is to set a trap for Riki by having one hero farming the lane too far out, but have enough wards to see Riki coming, and have 3-4 heroes hiding nearby. Then when Riki tries to gank the bait, you turn it into a 4v1. Do that enough times, and he'll be scared to gank you.

TL;DR?


sentries,nukes and gems and you will be alright ;-)

Really though, Angelo was right, his best point: you will look back in 4-500 more games and these heroes won't be an issue. You're still in a bracket where people won't even reliably buy a courier. Keep playing, buy detection, and stomp.