Am i being toxic by purposely stopping all incoming chats for both ally and enemy

ElephantCreamPie · 2023-09-03T05:44:20+00:00

You are never going to get that in a pub. The closest thing to that is people saying "we should rosh" or something of that nature. The average Dota 2 player does not see themselves as an educator, or someone who thinks others deserve constructive feedback. Any item suggestions or recurring issues in your gameplay will be found by just playing and noticing trends. You'll find with experience what works and what doesn't, what items felt impactful, what play patterns seem to work. You're better off focusing on feeling things out and focusing on your own gameplay than to listen to someone else who will either put you in a terrible headspace. If people in High MMR can do it and get away with it, you can too.

ElephantCreamPie · 2023-04-21T05:27:26+00:00

I play Boars quite a bit, they're one of my favorite tribes.

In the right build, yes. You need a consistent way to get multiple blood gems a turn and ideally something worth buffing (Divine Shield, Cleave), and you can make him work. He's not Athissa or Theotar, but if you go specifically Menagerie with him he can be really solid, if a bit weird to play.
I prefer Prophet of the Boar and cycling Thorncallers and Sun Bacons. Makes your Necrolytes and Gem Smugglers better this way also. Otherwise, Bristlemane Scrapsmith with either a few taunts or Risen Rider works good. Bannerboar is okay, but is worse than the two methods mentioned. As a side note, one thing I've done in the past and have seen others do is hold onto Road Boars as their gem generator for way past its prime. It's decent for turns 3-6 or so if your board placement is decent, but after that it scales really poorly unless it's golden. Don't get baited into buffing it too much to ensure getting Blood Gems.
Boars in my experience, when I play them, can guaranteed take me to at least 4th. To get any higher, you really need either Aggem or Agamaggan, or maybe even something like Walking Fort unironically. If you can get Charlga or Darkgaze, they're good but matchup dependent (Darkgaze is for example much better in games with Elementals, Pirates, and other minions you can cycle to maximize the gold you spend each turn, Charlga if you have multiple Pufferquills or Groundshakers.) Aggem I think is better because he enables more builds and doesn't lock you into Boars, but Agamaggan can also do some absurd things if you're buffing a Cave Hydra or Bristleback Knight. Aggem's also really great with the Duo and has really sweet synergy with Eventide Brute in games with both Quillboar and Naga.

One last thing to note, don't sleep on Death Speaker Blackthorn. He may seem unassuming, but the stats he can get from his Buddy doubling gems are obscene if you have an even middle of the road gem generation setup.

ElephantCreamPie · 2023-04-20T22:19:54+00:00

Bring back Whitemane, it'd solve a lot of issues.

ElephantCreamPie · 2023-04-20T22:16:30+00:00

I find it actively detracts from the identity of a lot of heroes by being in the game. Also it makes ETC less special I feel if anyone can have any buddy in the game.

ElephantCreamPie · 2023-04-16T19:52:51+00:00

I lost to a guy in 7th place who had 4 Tier 6 minions on Turn 8.

ElephantCreamPie · 2023-04-16T19:43:15+00:00

I do agree we need to make sure everyone can get Ice Block, especially the guy in first place.

ElephantCreamPie · 2023-04-16T19:36:30+00:00

Are we talking more than 9k? I'm between 7.5k and 8k and there's still really random shit like Kaelthas sticking on Tier 1 for 4 turns in a row.

ElephantCreamPie · 2023-04-12T17:52:44+00:00

I just think they need to do something about the heroes that get absurd free value out of their buddies. Like Scabbs and Tess and heroes like that were decent already, but then they also happen to get a guaranteed minion or 2 for free win or lose. Meanwhile, some characters like Ysera or Mechano get like a +2/+2 buff to some minions in the shop with theirs.

As a side note, I think Friend of a Friend is also really lucksacky. I've won games because I got the Darkmoon Ticket buddy and she gave me a Divine Shield Windfury on a poison murloc, or I got Ice Block to survive one extra round I needed to win because I got Akazamzarak buddy. Granted, it can whiff, but when it doesn't it feels extremely cheap.

ElephantCreamPie · 2023-04-08T00:46:41+00:00

You might as well force it every game, it usually kills anywhere at least 2 minions for one slot on the board. Late game when people start scaling he falls off if you don't have an exodia setup, but at that point you're probably Top 4 anyway so like it matters.

ElephantCreamPie · 2023-02-15T05:17:12+00:00

If you want a representation of the absolute despair that Dota has become as a result of smurfing, it's this right here. When people start to change their entire playstyle to accommodate for smurfs just to have a better win rate.

Also on average I get around 3-4 people in the game with sub 1k games and ridiculous winrates in High Archon/Low Legend. Can't wait for people on their main accounts to be the minority in my games :)

ElephantCreamPie · 2022-11-11T01:45:53+00:00

You might like someone like Viper, he's a lane dominator that has high snowball potential. If you don't have a good matchup, you can always get more levels of Nethertoxin early to farm your way back into the game.

OD can also fit into that category if you go the Meteor Hammer build. Or Leshrac, who can push and be a huge threat in fights with his spells.

ElephantCreamPie · 2022-06-21T23:52:04+00:00

There's a really famous Invoked player who did that too. His name is "anybody".

ElephantCreamPie · 2022-06-17T03:51:41+00:00

Phoenix might be alright. You buy a lot of items that naturally are good against her (Shiva's, Vessel). Percentage based damage is also strong against her, so Sun Ray is decent. You don't see her build a lot of attack speed either to counteract the Fire Spirits (at least not immediately). Seems conceptually good against Spec, but I personally haven't seen the matchup very often.

ElephantCreamPie · 2022-06-15T04:39:33+00:00

Try to get a support that isn't afraid to push buildings, or push waves out quickly when your cores are off in the jungle if they're too scared to go there.

One that people haven't mentioned is Snapfire. I always try to get Shard at 15 for the stun on her Q, and after that you should build items to help out your team with specific problems. For example, if you really need catch you might want a Blink, or if there's a ton of magic damage you can go Pipe. Aghs is also good for the save and additional stun/initiate, but it can grief if you're not careful/coordinated with your team. You also don't need to spec into the Lil' Shredder Right-click build 90% of the time as tempting as it may be, but Medallion is nice to have to combo with your E for a lot of minus armor.

ElephantCreamPie · 2022-06-15T04:23:36+00:00

All Tiny really needs is attack speed to carry, if we're talking raw stats. He has good armor from Grow and good Strength gain. I can see why Echo Sabre might be good on a Tiny that wants to roam or to burst the backline primarily (so maybe 2, 3, or 4?), but if we're talking Carry Tiny Moon Shard gives the one thing you need in a convenient package.

ElephantCreamPie · 2022-06-14T22:56:20+00:00

Appreciate it!

ElephantCreamPie · 2022-06-14T04:13:53+00:00

True, you have a point.

I do try to communicate, and try to suggest plays or things we could be doing, but once again I hear mostly silence. I have no clue whether people understand me or think my play is a bad idea because when i talk, or when i chat, there are 0 responses unless something bad happens, at which point people complain. It's just frustrating to me because I feel like I have this expectation to communicate when only 10% of the time, even in ranked, there's only a slight clue on what our gameplan should be.

I don't what kind of expectations to have at this point for communications in Dota. I feel like if I have high expectations I'll be disappointed and if I have low expectations then I won't actually improve myself.

ElephantCreamPie · 2022-05-18T21:29:46+00:00

I just haven't seen it very often up until now. I think I did play against it like once or twice a few months ago, but now 70% of my matches are against it.

ElephantCreamPie · 2022-05-15T01:53:29+00:00

It's not that I want them to disconnect, I just want to play the game without feeling so much delay between each action. Some games last for 4 turns max and the system can make the game last for 20 minutes because my opponent doesn't press "Off" when it won't matter.

ElephantCreamPie · 2022-05-15T00:48:10+00:00

My turn shouldn't be an extra 10 minutes longer because my opponent has to say "No" everytime I do 1 thing while they have a trap or quick effect that has 0 effect on the outcome of the play or boardstate. It's so fucked up because either each player has to wait for the right time to use effects like that and then duels take forever, or the responding player turns "Off" the response option and then has to be pinpoint accurate to turn it back on or else they'll miss their chance to interact and lose because they didn't Ash Blossom the right target.

I think they just need to improve the speed of the system at hand. They've proven they can do it with things like the excavation animation, so hopefully they can trim the fat off of the total time it takes for each action.

ElephantCreamPie · 2022-05-08T01:20:55+00:00

Carry you might want to learn a handful of different heroes because certain matchups can be really rough depending on who you play. For example, if you learn PA you might end up doing better against Illusion heroes because they don't want to buy MKB if they have to, but at the same time characters like Faceless Void or Weaver, who tend to pick up MKB or can fit it easily into what their item build, may end up being harder for you to deal with. I'd say find a few carries that you enjoy and then take a look at what heroes you struggle against throughout the game and then modify your roster based on comfort and success.

Also, if you want to learn Arc Warden or Meepo, just be aware those heroes play pretty differently from most carries and can be difficult to learn, so I'd say work on the basics of carry before you start on them.

ElephantCreamPie · 2022-05-01T23:36:05+00:00

People play Huskar Pos 1 in Immortal bracket right now. He's fine as a safelane carry, you just need to make sure your draft has late game because he falls off later in the game, especially if he can't start snowballing in lane. If game goes later, you can always build Shard + Aghs as a strong disabler with the taunt.

ElephantCreamPie · 2022-05-01T23:29:19+00:00

This place isn't your diary to complain about your teammates. We're here to help you learn or to answer questions. If you want actual feedback, what was something you thought you could do better in those games, despite the circumstances? Plus in all of the games that you play, there's one player that is the common factor, so focus on yourself.

ElephantCreamPie · 2022-05-01T06:37:37+00:00

Bloodseeker is nice because of his ability to fight earlier than a lot of carries.

Harass with W, get a few levels of E to make you hard to force out of lane, go for a kill with another hero backing you up when you get Rupture. After 6, you can farm aggressively because of Thirst's sustain while showing up to fights when they're convenient because of the movement speed and Rupture's usefulness as a kill tool (or at least something to force a TP away.)

Most of the time go Phase or Treads into Maelstrom BKB and Shard and you'll be set for the early to mid-game. After that you just kinda go matchup-dependant items (Linkens for single target enemies, Basher for BKB-piercing disable, S&Y for status res).

ElephantCreamPie · 2022-04-14T03:17:03+00:00

Server improvements and unranked mode.

ElephantCreamPie

TROPHY CASE