How Not to Throw in Overthrow: A Detailed Guide

Introduction

Hello, I'm Dimonychan, and this is the guide to Overthrow, a custom game in Dota 2 Reborn. Overthrow is the most popular, and more importantly, the only official custom game since it's developed by Volvo Inc, so I think it is worth writing a guide for, especially given that there is not much information in the description of the game.

The Basic Stuff

In Overthrow your goal is kills and only kills. As simple as it sounds, the player/team who has the most kills when time expires or the one that reached the frag limit first, wins. Sounds like a deathmatch version of Dotka 2, doesn't it? Well, good, because it is.

There are three maps: the Forest, where you are at your own against 9 other players, a FFA map if you wish, the Desert, where you are paired with another player to fight against 4 other pairs like yours, and the Mines, where there are three teams with three players in each. Goal remains the same.

Every player/team starts at their own base with a tower, a rapidly(about 3 times as fast as fountains in the main game) regenerating fountain and a shop. In the center of every map there is a Midas Throne and some circular area around it. In this area you gain bonus gold and experience. Also there is some fat kobold that drinks wine and occasionally throws coins around the area. Picking one up will grant you 300 gold.

There are also rune spawns, their amount is different for every map and there are no Bounty or Regeneration runes. These rune spots are visible to everyone, and on Desert and Mines maps there is a bunch of zombies guarding them. If you come close, they will follow you until killed, though they are not very tough and very slow, more of an annoyance than a threat.

Finally, at random moments there will be an announcement that "an item is about to be delivered". After some time, a flying chest spawns at Midas Throne and flies to one of the drop spots, which are also indicated on the map. Upon landing, the chest creates a wave that pushes all those who stand near back(similar to Flamebreak) and remains there until someone picks it up. Once picked up, it will give you a random item, and everyone will be announced which player has picked the chest and what item has he received. It is worth noting that the less kills a player/team has relatively to other players/teams, the better item they will get. All items can be shared among teammates and sold.

Some other facts:

- killing the leader(the player with the most kills or a player from the team with the most kills) will grant you bonus 500 gold;
- Dagon is banned from the game;
- Bloodseeker, Pugna, Lone Druid, Meepo and Undying are banned from the game;
- all players passively get a small amount of exp and gold;
- frag goals are: 20 for Forest, 25 for Desert and 30 for Mines;
- time limit is 10 minutes, if it hits and there are no winners(some players/teams are tied), then the first player/team to get a score higher than the current best wins(for example, two players are tied for 18 kills, the first player to get 19 kills wins);
- an announcement about item spawn always occures and X:14, and the item starts flying towards the spot at X:00(X the amount of minutes left until time limit hits)

Saving Your Time and Nerves

So now that you've got the basics down, you may want to try it on practice. But there can be a problem with statring a game in the first place. Now Valve have fixed most of the issues, but in frist two days it was a complete hell: AFK-hosts, server fails, players leaving when someone doesn't load in the first 10 seconds, etc. Now it's much better, but here are some tips to save your time:

- if a host doesn't start in the first 10 seconds once all 10 players have gathered, leave and search for another lobby - this host if AFK;
- if a host loads for more than a minute and a half, leave and search for another lobby: even if he loads, even if you won't have extreme lags because of his medieval PC, there is a HUGE chance someone had even less patience and left already. Don't waste your time.
- if you don't see all ten(nine for Mines) players on the loading stage(i.e it says "Players: 7/8"), leave and search for another lobby: this means someone has left while host was loading and the game won't start;
- if you see big red "FAILED" next to a player's name while loading, leave immideatly as the game won't start;

And that's it for now, by following this you will save a lot of waiting time. I wish you not having to use them though, may the host be with you, and players... um... too(damn I'm bad at Star Wars references).

Heroes and Tactics for Forest(Solo)

As Overthrow is centered about constant fighting and killing which is only a part of original game, it's obvious some heroes will have an edge while others become useless. I'll list all Dota 2 heroes in a tier list respective to their viability in FFA:

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And that's all of the hero pool basically.

Of course, these tiers don't come from me having played all of these heroes several times, but they also don't come from sheer speculaton - there is a reason why you will see Tier 1 Heroes in every game, and why Tier 5 heroes will only be picked by a player who has entered the game for the first time if he didn't take his time to actually think what type of hero he should pick for a massacre like this.

Basically, a hero that has success in Overthrow has at least some of these traits:

a)they can compete for their place in a Midas Throne area or even bully an enemy out(for example, Viper, Clinkz, Lina, Bristleback invisibility heroes if enemy doesn't have detection);
b)they have good burst damage that can secure them a kill( Bounty Hunter, Lina, Tiny);
c)they can deal constant AOE damage( Leshrac, Bristleback, Tiny);
d)their skills have low cooldown(all of the heroes from Tier 1 except Ember Spirit);
e)they scale well with items and levels(again, all heroes from top tiers can scale well);
f)they can get fast and efficient solo kills( Slardar, Riki, Phantom Assassin);
g)they can compete for runes and, more importantly, items( Queen of Pain, Naga Siren, Storm Spirit),

because these are the actuall things you have to do to achieve victory in this game. Note that heroes from Tier 3 are not neccesarily bad, but they are just worse than top tier heroes, and EVERYONE pick top tier heroes, so you have to be a competition for them.

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Now let's get to the game itself.

As this game involves a lot of spells being thrown around from the very first minute, you should always start with a Magic Stick. Also you should grab an Observer Ward or, better yet, two, and pack of Sentry Wards. Only if you suddenly find yourself in a game where there are no invisible heroes you can skip Sentries. Animal Courier can be purchased too, but it can be killed and it's not far from the base anyway, so take care of it or you will just feed enemy the gold.

Now just play to your hero's strengths: firstly get some space in the Midas Throne area, follow skirmishes if you can steal a kill, bully others out if you can, compete for runes and items, get some areas warded to get an easy solo kill if your hero is suitable for that, etc.

If you want it blatant and simple, there you go, identify your hero's traits(a-g) and for them:
a)take your place in the area and hold it for as long as you can, ideally up to level 6, bully enemies out if you can;
b)try to position yourself near possible skirmishes(for example, near some squishy hero without escapes) and steal the kill when you have the opportunity;
c)same as above, just wait until you can really start dealing seriousdamage(level 6 usually), and then join every fight or "gank" you see, ideally killing all who are involved;
d)this doesn't define your playstyle, it's just a good trait to have so you can kill constantly(and what you ideally should do);
e)if your enemy is a generic late game carry, just wait there near Midas Throne, earn gold, try to go for the kill on the leader and of course, hunt for item deliveries, since you won't be getting much kills mostly, you can get something really good or at least expensive;
f)ward areas near the camps of those heroes that you want to hunt and be ready to respond to what you will see there;
g)well, compete for them, duh.

This is all very general but I think you get the point.

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Now let's get to warding and vision.

In Overthrow wards mostly serve an offensive purpose rather than defensive. Only if you are really hated by some player you may want to place some observers to see them or even sentries to deward if you think enemy has vision there. In other cases, you will be either warding common fighting spot or specific camps of heroes you plan to hunt down and kill. Sentries are even more simple: you place them in the center area and ocassionally on routes you take if you are annoyed by invisibility heroes lurking there.






The best thing about warding... is that your enemy just doesn't do that. Even in original Dota 2 a huge part of players still don't know how to ward even semi-decently and just put their wards in two-three spots they have been told of. What do you expect when it comes to a casual mod that is just a few days old? Of course, some players do... I guess, but I haven't met them(but then again, I never had to deward, so how do I know for sure? Some players(maximum 2 out of 10 though) are smart enough to get True Sight on center idea, maybe they even place observers). So you may enjoy being an all-seeing masterrace until Tusk instakills you via Silver Edge.

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And, finally, something about items. As you get gold very fast, don't waste it on useless stuff like Drum of Endurance, Urn of Shadows, Manta Stule, etc. You need impact - here and now. There is no place for items that give "nice stats" and "great bonuses for a little price", you need an item to pwn n00bs, because you've come here to pwn n00bs. Also consider Blink Dagger on every hero to compete for items and just to close the gap and steal a kill. Some other high-impact items like Ghost Scepter, Scythe of Vyse, Black King Bar, Shadow Blade etc. are also welcomed. You should often get items to counter the current leader or to counter the items your victims have purchased to counter you(what?).

Heroes and Tactics for Desert and Mines(Duet/Trio)

Onto "Team Deathmatch" now.

Having a partner or a whole mini-team makes some heroes significally more viable than they were in FFA mode. Quickly and blatantly, this gives a boost to "buff" type heroes that make their partner much stronger(i.e Io if paired with a good hero will just rek everyone in Desert map), hard disablers to take out one or more enemy heroes while your team beats up the victim, and only heroes that suffer are solo kill heroes like Slardar, but they can still work with an appropriate partner.

Because you now have a partner or two, tossing heroes into Tiers is impossible without mentioning every hero interaction, so I'll just leave a list of heroes to consider picking in Desert and Mines maps. If a hero was in higher Tier 3 before then they are even stronger now, pick 'em!

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Abaddon
Ancient Apparition
Bane
Batrider
Beastmaster
Dark Seer
Dazzle
Earth Spirit
Earthshaker
Enchantress
Io
Jakiro
Keeper of the Light
Kunkka
Legion Commander
Lich
Lifestealer
Lion
Omniknight
Oracle
Phoenix
Shadow Demon
Shadow Shaman
Skywrath Mage
Treant Protector
Troll Warlord
Vengeful Spirit
Venomancer
Viper
Warlock
Winter Wyvern

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Having teammates also opens up new possibilities and strategies to execute and renders some much weaker.

Solo ganking is now not the way to win as enemy will stick to their team especially if they are aware you have an eye on them. You will only feed frags to them.

On the other hand, duet/trio ganking is very good if you have right heroes for that. Put some wards around and look for victims. This is probably the best tactic to go for in team modes, especially in Desert map.

Kill stealing may be dangerous for you and ineffective as there will probably be more organised mini-teams as people will play only team maps if they are stacked(and this is actually the way to play them, if you are solo, go for Forest), so expect some detection on their side abd Vendetta from their teammates. Also this does not capitalise on fact that you have teammates now.

And that's all for tactics I think, other strats remain pretty much the same as they work both for solo and team games.

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Warding now. Same purpose as in FFA, get vision to gank enemy, to protect yourself and to get a control over some area. As some heroes have some additional gold in your team(because only one person buys wards), they can get Orb of Venom and Quelling Blade - one for slow and second for... stuff. I'll explain later.





As you might have noticed, A LOT of vision from these wards is blocked by trees(in Forest too, by the way, but you won't have time for this **** when you are solo). This is what Quelling Blade for. If you fell rich you may also use Tangos for that, they have no cooldown and usually 8-12 are enough for a single ward spot. Heroes who can destroy trees are the best though.








Don't forget about sentries either.

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A word about items: the rule(don't buy useless no impact trash) remains with a few exceptions: in Mines, and only in Mines, Mekansm and Pipe of Insight are kinda viable. In general, one of your team in both team maps may switch to utility items like Orchid Malevolence or Ethereal Blade and other build damage. And mobility. Don't forget abiout mobility, it is still very good in team games.

Closing Words

Well, that's all I guess, I hope this helps you pwn, because this guide was written purely for that purpose. Feedback is welcome, I even released the guide earlier to get it. If you feel you favorite pwn hero is placed in some loser tier, you can also argue about that.

And yes, this guide is detailed, because a basic guide on this custom game should look like that:

A Basic guide to Overthrow:
1)Pick Riki.
2)Win.
gl

To-Do stuff:
* (maybe)Item tiers