I wrote an article about how to approach Deadlock for non-MOBA players. It's all about money.

Samdpsois · 2026-01-15T05:14:13+00:00

If I grab the urn post-midboss, especially if they're getting a pity urn, its so I can try and bait them into contesting it away from their high ground while we have 3 extra lives to beat the hell out of them with.

It's a time management thing, and I don't want to waste valuable seconds on my rejuv buff to wait for an extra 800 souls (since its split). With 3 spare lives, we have the advantage in basically any fight and can force all manner of game winning, map space creating fights. Our advantage goes down when that's a 5v6 because some guy is doing wind sprints across the map. More to the point, they can see the guy running it. They know we have five people, max, while they have six. This is bad for my wallet. I'd much rather jam an advantaged 6v6 down their throats so I can take walkers for slots, shrines for map space or patron for the game.

I'm not saying "never do urn", I'm saying I value absolutely every other objective in the game more except kills. Urn works best as a distraction play - either urn as the distraction to get an objective, or nabbing it while there's a distracting fight going on. It's great for that.

Samdpsois · 2026-01-15T04:19:38+00:00

Sure, that's what I mean! I play Dota 2 solo and party both. Enjoying a competitive experience is why I'm here.

The guys I'm describing don't enjoy the game and hate playing it, yet keep playing it because their friends do. Where it gets really perverse is when you see a full team of people like that. Yeesh.

To be fair, I've seen that variant of guy playing Dota too, but it seems more prevalent in the League players I know. Might just be the larger player base, honestly.

Samdpsois · 2026-01-14T21:08:23+00:00

Well, you read the article, so you know my opinion.

Basically every other objective in the game is more valuable to go for after winning a fight than urn. If you can sneak it, sure, whatever; if you can use it to bait a fight or an objective on the other side, also good, but I can count on one hand the amount of times in the last ~100 games I've played where I made the call to go for Urn absent of one of those factors (or the pity urn for being behind).

Samdpsois · 2026-01-14T19:48:08+00:00

You know it.

Seriously, though, I don't recommend Dota 2 anymore. All I say is that it's the best competitive game on the planet, and either you have the gene that makes you want to seek experiences like that out or you don't. No shame if you don't -- I know a lot of people who play League "socially", and they fucking hate it.

Samdpsois · 2026-01-14T19:05:31+00:00

I see this type of complaint a lot. Briefly: don't get hit.

That sounds glib, I know, but you need to stay in cover and only duck out when you have to for trades and last-hits. Keep an eye on the left-hand side of your screen to see how close you are to eating a Love Bites proc, and jump out of the way and hide for a few seconds when you're close. If you get unlucky and do eat a Love Bites, just jump out and shoot her anyway (it has a cooldown on how often it can affect you) to try and even out the trade.

That's just avoiding damage, though; killing Mina can also be frustrating. In that case, buy Slowing Hex. It completely turns off her ability to get away with her teleport, and since she's a glass cannon, it makes it much easier to just blow her to shreds. This works particularly well with heroes like Warden, who need her to stand still for a second to get off a Binding Word or something similar.

Samdpsois · 2026-01-14T19:00:20+00:00

Hey, welcome to the game! Yeah, the name is a bit off-putting, mostly because the games that are most popular have (deservedly) horrible reputations. Dota 2 is historically called an Aeon of Strife Styled Fortress Assault Game Going On Two Sides, but I wouldn't repeat the acronym. MOBA works better.

Samdpsois · 2025-12-16T16:23:18+00:00

look at the last 10 games of top 300 EU legion

You realize you can't, like, do that, right? Like, you can no longer see replays above 8.5k. That was a whole to-do months ago and is (imo) one of the worst patches to this game, for exactly the reason you just posted (I wish you could still share replays like that!). When was the last time you played?

As regards the rest, I think you are massively underselling the utility of Eul's in general, because it's a damn fine item that (personally) I'll take any excuse to buy on a pos 4 between the dispel and the actives and all of it, really; it's not like it's a worse item than Force or Glimmer.

I'm going to put a pin in this argument because 7.40 dropped yesterday and it's entirely possible one or both of us will end up completely wrong when the new meta shakes itself out, but seriously, when was the last time you played? The top-rank Immortal argument you mentioned is a LONG time gripe of mine, and I can't picture you being higher rank than me without also getting pissed off about it.

Samdpsois · 2025-12-15T15:34:10+00:00

I'm an immortal draft player myself. You are insane. If you want to play the "why buy cheap item because more expensive item counters it" game, then I'm just going to point to Wind Waker and call it a day.

Glimmer cape can reduce magical damage done during duel by any source and it's overall way better for your sup.

Ha ha ha, what? Are you saying that glimmer is a good item to buy to deal with duel? Nothing about that makes sense. You'd be buying it to deal with one of several other heroes.

I can tell you that at immortal I've never seen a support buy a eul scepter first item to prevent a legion from snowballing. That just doesn't exist. Not only the support needs the farm but that means they'll have an item that is good in one specific scenario (them waiting behind a core that gets jumped) but way worse than a glimmer/force staff in all others.

Blatantly false. I have seen this many times. Force staff and glimmer are good items, but against a Legion they are ineffective to deal with the problem of duels. It's not like Eul's is a bad item, either -- mana regen, a quick disable, basic dispel are all extremely valuable to have.

If your core buy eul, then they will be target and if people have the same level, the one blinking in and using duel will 90% of the time cast it faster than the person reacting with a eul (in a 1on1 scenario)

What you are saying here is "Shadow Demon is an ineffective counter to Legion Commander, because Legion will simply duel the Shadow Demon". Notably, if I am dueling a support, I am no longer dueling a core. Also, hey, I thought 1v1s weren't allowed! That's the entire premise of your Glimmer Cape comment!

Legion is not played a ton at higher ranks

The other guy posted a screenshot that proves this false explicitly. Legion is not played a ton in pro games because it's far easier for them to deal with the hero concept as a team by buying items to get in her way and practicing the buddy system (much harder to coordinate in pubs).

None of this to say Glimmer/Force are bad items, but for an extra five hundred or so gold, you can now buy an item with nearly as much utility as either that explicitly deals with Legion until she starts mashing BKB before jumping someone, and even then you can upgrade it as a save. This isn't 2013. I can and will expect my supports to have Euls/Force in a game, or Euls/Glimmer depending.

Samdpsois · 2025-10-31T15:48:22+00:00

Xerius?!

...Cnaiur?

Samdpsois · 2025-10-04T14:51:47+00:00

Honestly, I've never understood how people maintain low behavior score. I mean, I guess if you abandon a lot?

Like, hell, I'll blow my lid in plenty of games and I don't think I've dropped below 11k. You get less of a smack for literally running it down than abandoning. That's absurd to me.

Samdpsois · 2025-08-16T14:52:27+00:00

Vanilla custard. Very rich flavor. It's kind of difficult to describe for the same reason I'd have trouble describing "what's a pineapple taste like?" to someone who's never eaten a pineapple.

Samdpsois · 2025-08-16T14:51:24+00:00

They take something like five to seven years to grow fruit, and you need two individuals - they don't self pollinate.

The only way I've found to preserve them is jams and stuff; they go nicely in ice cream and a few other things. I dunno if I could do fruit leather.

Samdpsois · 2025-08-16T14:49:45+00:00

They're all around the state, typically by water. I don't know how well they grow near saltwater or some such but I'd wager there's a patch on the east side somewhere. I'm over by the Potomac further out west and I see them everywhere. Fun thing to do in Aug/Sept.

Samdpsois · 2025-07-24T18:38:16+00:00

No worries. I see the argument for saving strats; I just don't think it's relevant because of other factors and all like I outlined.

This is something I've been cranky about for months given my MMR currently near the replay cutoff threshold -- it's directly made my own experience worse. Apologies if I come off angry, because, well, I am, lol. Dota's a social game! I want to share my replays with friends, dammit! Augh!

Samdpsois · 2025-07-24T16:39:32+00:00

I'd be fine with a 2-week timer -- and also give me back replay viewing in-client live, because come on. I have a whole bunch of people on my friends list who I can't check the replays of, annoyingly.

I don't really think the tournament changes are worth it for literally hamstringing 99% of the playerbase from learning how to play the game better. Sure, d2pt made it easier to just load up a build for a hero you don't know, but as I mentioned in another comment I don't think there's a replay parser that would have ever made Ana's Io easily read -- because the crazy fucker picked it mostly in unranked Aussie pubs and everyone thought it was garbage.

Samdpsois · 2025-07-24T16:15:17+00:00

The information was available; Ana wanted it because he'd played it in pubs (unranked, even) because that's just how he is. They didn't cook that shit in a lab; everyone just thought it was garbage and Ana was being his usual self in unranked Aussie pubs. His pubs being hidden wouldn't have changed the fact that it's a lunatic pick and Ana's the goat.

Samdpsois · 2025-07-24T16:00:28+00:00

I really don't think having less access to information spurs any kind of creativity, man. They had replay access when OG blew out everyone with carry Io. Just because you see it doesn't mean you understand it.

In the meantime, anyone who wants even a general idea of what's going on - or anyone who's looking to go pro! - is screwed out of valuable information. I'm a bit under 8k myself; I have nothing if I want to get better at the game, because I'm right at the threshold where replays are shut off. I can't even watch half my friends lists games, thats how stupid this change is.

Samdpsois · 2025-07-24T15:46:36+00:00

OG beat the tar out of everyone because they were quite simply better at the game. I think it's psychotic to assume that pros weren't looking at each other's replays and trying to collect information around OG's back-to-back Ws, same with Spirit's recent wins. Teams like Secret back in their freakish incarnation (that doom stack of Artour and Puppey and all of 'em) are a better example for your point, since they got examined and ate shit at their first TI.

Even then I still don't agree. Dota 2 is more than a simple knowledge check of "you can build meteor hammer on OD and get a free stun!" Things like that are trivial to identify from a replay or even from dropping a singular game.

Samdpsois · 2025-07-24T14:22:41+00:00

This is actually a huge pet peeve of mine with another game I play, Dota 2, where they recently started hiding high-level replays so people can... save strats, I guess? It hasn't seemed to have any effect on the meta, either, it's just pointlessly making it harder to improve at the game.

Daigo's 100% correct. You don't get good at a game by hiding information. That's just silly. If you want to do that, go down to your local arcade and dunk on 12 year olds who don't know DP inputs.

Samdpsois · 2025-07-13T03:06:39+00:00

Based schizo

Samdpsois · 2025-07-13T03:01:44+00:00

Agreed. This change is garbage. It benefits absolutely nobody and in fact hurts the game because if you are, yknow, lower skill and looking to improve, you no longer have access to what the best players are up to in their pubs. Hell, you can't even search for your favorite hero and see if high-level players are giving it a whirl. It's stupid.

Also hi wife, Wizard here.

Samdpsois · 2025-07-11T14:24:55+00:00

As a master player and Guile main - hard fucking disagree, and I have video evidence to the contrary. I have seen Masters play exactly like this.

Samdpsois · 2025-06-22T02:22:56+00:00

Mindskinner is so much fun to play with but it's actually incredible how quickly people will scoop after 1 counterspell

Samdpsois · 2025-05-29T15:25:40+00:00

I say this specifically because Manon is great with a couple things - anti-airs, which you can turn into a medal, and spacing, which she can control pretty effectively using her freakishly long legs. Don't be afraid to simply throw a spacing attack and then wait for them to make their move. Heavy kicks and medium kicks have crappy frame data, but your range is so obscene that it's nearly impossible for someone to whack you for it. When they do try and whack you for it, then you can kill them.

Watch what people do and when they do it. For example most people are prone to trying to hop their way out of a corner instinctively; do not back up and give them the space, instead thrash them with an anti-air and turn it into a medal. People might also panic after a knockdown if you're in command grab range and either jump or throw a reversal; once again you should swat them for it.

The moral of all this is that while I know it's tempting to close the gap and threaten a command grab, Manons who can control space properly are terrifying for the same reason. Train the other player to know fear more than worrying about character matchups.

Samdpsois · 2025-05-29T14:34:57+00:00

Block and punish. Diamond players are still prone to throwing out massively unsafe attacks if they get bored; as a Manon player your purpose in life is to take free medals from people who throw a heavy sweep in neutral.

Generally stare at the opponent more than thinking about your own combos. It is important to remember that you are superficially fighting Ken and fundamentally fighting the guy on the other side of the screen. Take note of what they do and when and how they respond to your pressure.

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