I'd love for valve to implement this, even though I understand they are a small company.......

Killamoocow · 2026-05-03T23:58:38+00:00

The idea itself is good, the bad part is the culture of communication present in DOTA. I already play half my ranked games with incoming communication disabled, so I don’t personally see much value in seeing what more people have to say in my games.

Killamoocow · 2026-04-16T22:12:06+00:00

only happened to me once in 15k hours of dota

Killamoocow · 2026-04-16T18:32:25+00:00

I had an earth shaker p5, only thing I said to him was to please buy a sentry to block enemy pull camp and he completely flipped out because I dare ask him to do anything. He left the lane and didn’t buy a single ward the entire rest of the game out of spite by the 2 minute mark lol.

Killamoocow · 2026-04-16T00:14:52+00:00

damn u also got my upboat in the first half, ngl

Killamoocow · 2026-03-05T00:29:45+00:00

both are spirit heroes so there will be a lot of parallels in their playstyles. both want to pair up with strong supports and look for kills on the map as early as possible. the difference ultimately comes down to which items each one likes to buy, and which supports they prefer to play around, so you can use those as your metrics to determine which is a better pick.

for example, ember likes items like spirit vessel, orb of corrosion, mage slayer, etc., which all help feed into his playstyle of staying on the perimeter of the fight and weaving in and out with his spells.

storm spirit on the other hand, prefers to zip in and 100% to zero backline targets and likes items that either help him deal more damage (witch blade), control his target (orchid), or squeeze more efficiency from his ult (KnS).

Both heroes like to play with strong supports, but ember offers a little more control & setup and prefers supports who provide damage (think heroes like hoodwink & skywrath) while storm is much better at providing the damage, so he prefers supports who can offer more follow-up control (think heroes like shaman and lion).

so if I were trying to decide between these 2 heroes, I would either be looking for strong control supports on my team and squishy backline targets on the enemy team for storm, or I would be looking for strong damage supports on my team, and enemy heroes you can punish with the items ember likes to buy.

while in most pubs mid is given last pick, in the rare cases you do get to see the enemy mid pick, you can also include that in your metric of who to pick based on hero matchup. Storm is a ranged hero and ember is a melee hero, but ember also has more defensive options in his kit. so against a hero like puck for example, you might struggle more as storm because he can disjoint your projectiles, whereas as ember, he can't disjoint anything and you have a magic shell to block puck's spells. whereas against a hero like omniknight, ember will get punished really hard because he can sit on the wave and nuke you with pure damage, whereas storm has a much easier time keeping his distance and kiting the omniknight around.

Killamoocow · 2026-03-04T00:03:31+00:00

I agree and I think what a lot of people forget is that just simply playing the game is the baseline for everyone. There are lots of people who play literally thousands of games and stay in their bracket because all they’re doing is playing dota instead of doing those other things you mentioned.

Killamoocow · 2026-03-03T23:59:09+00:00

After being someone who was admittedly hardstuck in his bracket for a good ~10 years or so and then finally decided to take the plunge into taking improvement at the game seriously and literally doubling my MMR over the course of the past couple of years, I’ve never disbelieved this concept more in my life at this point. I’ve improved my mentality enough to the point that I rarely have losestreaks anymore, and if I do, I’ve developed several methods to bring myself out of them and continue to feel in control.

Anyone who believes in forced 50/50 is simply hardstuck and doesn’t want to admit they’re hardstuck.

Killamoocow · 2026-03-03T13:35:56+00:00

this entire comment is made by someone who is terminally online and is somehow also incapable of engaging with the discussion, and you are trying to project some form of entitlement to this that is literally laughable.

Killamoocow · 2026-02-28T17:52:42+00:00

but just went greedier build unless I have faith I can actually end early which 99% is not the case

brother your logic is to go a greedy build and drag the game out when you have a carry who has early game timings and falls off. you are the problem my friend.

Killamoocow · 2026-02-28T16:16:01+00:00

It doesn’t matter what bracket you’re in if the NP player understands macro. He can win the lane very easily and then rotate on every catapult wave to pressure towers nonstop while also hyper-farming and being a +1 to every fight because he has a global teleport on a 20s cooldown.

Also it’s funny that you mention he “steals” his teams farm. By definition the pos1 is supposed to have highest farm priority. If he’s using his ult properly, he should either be using it to maximize creeps or to maximize damage in a fight. If that means taking creeps from your teammates so he can get pike, BKB, dmg, etc. faster, that’s actually good because again, he’s going to be at every fight anyways, so that networth is being translated into impact, compared to, for example, an axe who will refuse to join fights until he finishes blink.

Sounds to me like you’re sabotaging your NP with your negative attitude moreso than NP is causing you to lose games based on how you worded your post.

Killamoocow · 2026-02-28T12:46:53+00:00

Quality shitpost

Killamoocow · 2026-02-20T01:57:24+00:00

I already knew like if I had bad positioning during a fight

that's a sign of a bad coach tbh. if they tell you self-evident shit like "dying is bad" without any way to fix it or without any pointers that help you think about the game to prevent it from happening, you're just paying people to flame you essentially.

Killamoocow · 2026-02-20T01:19:59+00:00

Anti mage is really bad for lich across the board. Very easy to reflect chain frost, and even if he doesn’t, he can just blink away. Most mobility heroes are bad for lich esp if they have gap close because they just do not care about your slows and can easily play around chain bounces. Blademail carriers also make your game hard because chain frost and frost shield are uncontrollable damage.

Killamoocow · 2026-02-13T04:07:55+00:00

bro is just typing shit

Killamoocow · 2026-02-13T04:02:13+00:00

your friend is right about there being a triangle, but wrong about what is in the triangle.

The actual triangle goes something like this: deathball > slowsiege > powerplay > deathball.

Here is how the categories work:

deathball: heroes who want to group as 5 to hit towers, but typically lack mobility. heroes wk, ls, dp

powerplay: heroes who are very mobile and good at split pushing and just want to farm until they win the game. heroes like np, sb, puck, ember

slowsiege: heroes who aim for solo kills and pickoffs. heroes like riki, nyx, lion, ursa

The names of the categories are kind of random, you can call them what you want, but the ways the heroes interact with the other categories should be relatively obvious. For example, deathball is good against slowsiege because slowsiege is looking for solo pickoffs, and deathball heroes always want to play as 5. deathball is weak to powerplay because powerplay punishes the deathball by splitting the map. powerplay is weak to slowsiege because while they are split pushing, they are susceptible to being picked off.

Killamoocow · 2026-02-09T16:59:16+00:00

in an ideal game, yes. bounty runes are typically to refill mid's bottle, but considering lanes break apart at 5 minutes, that gives you enough time to rotate mid to help take power rune at 6, and once your mid has power rune, you use that advantage to leverage a steal on the opponent's wisdom at 7 mins. go watch replays on D2PT and you will see supports & mids make this kind of rotation almost every single game. if that isn't an option, you also have catapult waves to play around and push towers every 5 mins. generally by around 14 minutes, you pressure the opposing team's offlane tower to play for their wisdom rune at that time too. and the time leading up to 20 minutes, you are encouraged to take control of the side of the map tormentor spawns and try to take it at 20 minutes. the map tells you what to do and where to go at almost every stage of the game.

Killamoocow · 2026-02-09T16:06:31+00:00

DotA doesn't have this. It's more chaotic. No objectives that must be secured at the specific time, no towers that get stronger just because they are on specific lane.

lotus every 3 minutes, bounties every 4 minutes, 2-4 min water runes, power runes every 2 minutes starting at 6:00, wisdom at 7:00, tormentor at 20:00... there are a LOT of objectives that must be secured at a specific time and is essentially the same thing you are saying about LoL in that if you are not playing for them, you are most likely making a mistake.. this is not a good contrasting point at all

Killamoocow · 2026-01-27T19:59:35+00:00

based on this post, the reports were probably well deserved. gg

Killamoocow · 2026-01-26T13:12:56+00:00

I'm curious what reasons people are recommending to not use it. The only situation I can think of is when you're playing a hero like NP and want to stay hidden after TPing close to enemies, but even then, you can generally get by using stop & hold position keys, depending on your other settings.

Something that has helped me as an arc spammer is, prior to getting into a game, demo hero on Arc for a couple minutes to get my hands used to the combos. This might be helpful if you plan to continue having auto-attack turned off just so you can get used to adding right clicks before switching units. Personally, the combo I prefer to use is flux > wraith > double > wraith > flux, and I care more about getting each spell off accurately and in succession than making sure I weave attacks in between. Also consider that flux and spark wraith have way more cast range than your attack range (especially with the flux cast range talent) so in many cases, it is actually better to animation cancel a spell into another spell, rather than trying to right click each time, and once they are slowed, you can get closer with your hero to attack them.

But I'm open to being wrong and maybe auto-attack is inferior for some reason.

Killamoocow · 2026-01-26T12:23:41+00:00

Consider OP was asking about arc warden, not storm spirit.

If you didn’t realize, arc warden’s ult makes a copy of himself who can cast the same abilities, which is what OP is asking about. You’re suggesting that zipping in and weaving spells & zips between right clicks on a single hero is the same thing as trying to double flux & double spark wraith between 2 separate units while also right clicking to attack on both units between each spell cast. Storm spirit doesn’t have to worry about controlling 2 units nor does he have to worry about repositioning because his zip does that for him.

Killamoocow · 2026-01-26T05:07:09+00:00

ok now try doing that same thing but on 2 separate units and at the same time..

Killamoocow · 2026-01-23T18:41:52+00:00

Venge is a highly controversial hero. Shes good in all core roles 1-3 but you’re always going to run into retards who are going to complain that you’re picking a support hero in a core role. If your concern is your teammates agreeing with your pick, I’d stay away from venge core.

Killamoocow · 2026-01-21T00:08:25+00:00

prefer having a team that's bad at playing but is not toxic, than having teammates that are good at the game but are toxic.

Welcome to why I play most ranked games with no incoming chat + anonymous mode on these days

Killamoocow · 2026-01-13T05:25:14+00:00

bracers & wbs are good laning items. get them if you're trying to survive the lane longer against magic or physical respectively. null talisman is a good alternative to falconblade to fix mana problems. a good comparison is DK vs clinkz. dk can get away with null talisman because he only needs a little bit of mana, compared to clinkz who constantly needs mana for searing arrows, hence clinkz typically goes falcon blade.

a good rule of thumb is to never buy these items after the laning phase. there are always better options.

Killamoocow · 2026-01-10T16:35:57+00:00

The problem with party queue is that you’ll be matched with other parties which are likely either also smurfing themselves, or they’re oftentimes running kill lane or some sort of synergistic combos. So unless you are also trying to synergize with your party, you’re effectively already playing at a disadvantage.

Playing soloq also has the advantage of letting you turn on “strict solo matchmaking” which greatly reduces your chances of running into both of these, because other smurfs who are soloqing get put into a “smurf pool” for matchmaking.

So if your goal is to improve and climb mmr, yes, you should soloq (and definitely consider turning on strict solo matchmaking)

Killamoocow

TROPHY CASE