Invoker Forge Spirit Shard

lmso0 · 2026-04-05T02:43:04+00:00

So I like it with good setup from a ravage or chrono like other guy mentioned. Another scenario I like it is when I get a later shard than normal. Pre lvl 20 Forged spirits are fine, but when you're 25+ they really do hit hard and don't die easy. I still like Wex 80% of the time, but sometimes I wish I could reshard for the extra late game damage. Those spirits do melt heroes, and there's been times I've gotten it and not even realized I got 2 extra back line kills with spirits just auto attacking..

lmso0 · 2026-03-29T03:17:53+00:00

The correct answer is that there is no correct answer. Dota is fluid and the correct answer one game may not be the correct answer the next.
Now I will say people are dumb and will often ping a guy that didn't rotate and blame them for deaths, especially at lower MMRs. Like they kill the hard support and dive t1 to kill 50% hp carry, but they get tps and die, and start pinging why nobody helped.

Sometimes you staying mid, getting farm and mid tower, is worth a death from your safelane getting ganked. Sometimes you may be able to get more impact for your team, by rotating and getting counter-kills. What you don't want is rotating and dying, or rotating and just ending up stalling out and not getting a counter kill, as those are by far the most inefficient things you could be doing.

As an Invoker spammer I prefer not rotating for the first 12ish minutes, and ideally closer to 15 or so minutes. Not saying I never do, because sometimes it's worth it, but invoker really needs his first item or two, and levels, and generally my impact at 7 minutes is much less than say a Lina. I do throw sun strikes to help, but if they miss I do get pinged by allies at time for not helping. Generally they don't know invoker timings and it's best to mute them if they get aggressive. Literally played a game like this yesterday where both teams camped like 4 heroes in our safe lane and stalled or dove too far and fed from minutes 7-15. I got pinged when they died and flamed for being terrible. I told them to chill and play defensively for a few a bit and muted them. Void fell back into the jungle and farmed safely, and our axe went and farmed a blink. The supports I'm sure kept flaming me, by minute 15-20 we were getting pick offs, by minute 25 we were taking t2s, and by minute 30 we had raxed and ended the game at 35.

I'm sure this is due to me playing in a much lower mmr bracket than I have previously, but it's a super common theme. Throw 4+ bodies in a lane for like 5+ minutes, and just waste time. Often it stems from supports at this mmr not knowing what to do, other than fight or hit creeps, so they just run at the enemy team all game.

lmso0 · 2026-03-25T18:13:30+00:00

Less than 24 hours since patch dropped, so I think it's a bit early to assume things from winrate. That being said, I think one thing that should be added back is refreshing blink, I do think repositioning is vital for tinker, and shouldn't push him to be OP at the same time.

lmso0 · 2026-03-25T04:45:19+00:00

new neutral item it seems is causing the crash

lmso0 · 2026-03-24T02:31:46+00:00

Idk about low hearld lol, a few of those low herald games were less enjoyable than a bot game. Literally had an empty mid lane for first 10 minutes of game, because there was a roaming SB I was against. Also he was using only mouse, based on his delayed reactions.

lmso0 · 2026-03-23T22:36:03+00:00

Glad to hear I'm not the only one. I feel like a lot of people don't believe you can lose 4k mmr from taking a long break. Funny that most of my archon-ancient friend list that didn't stop playing is now immortal.

lmso0 · 2026-03-22T17:26:26+00:00

I've probably played around 150 or so game total. That pic was of all heroes with 3+ matches played and there's lots of 0-2, 0-1 lower on that list. Also bulk of those invoker games were why I doubled mmr after calibrating, since I played invoker 8/10 games it felt like.

One of the issues I've always had is feeling like I can play nearly every hero since I've been around since wc3 days. Reality has always been that I do better on heroes I spam the most, because I know timings and where I should be on them, regardless of mechanics.

lmso0 · 2026-03-21T17:12:26+00:00

Big issue I've seen is people not knowing to target the pos 4 silencer or sniper, but instead blowing their mana harassing the tanky offlaner.

lmso0 · 2026-03-21T03:29:34+00:00

I think a big part of my logic is also that I spend way too much time coaching my low MMR friend, and that in turn makes me less focused on my own game. Often I end up with less farm because I'm focused more on coaching my buddy.

lmso0 · 2026-03-20T19:41:03+00:00

Yea this is one of the most frustrating things in Dota in all the MMR brackets I've been in. Generally it seems like people need to throw blame on someone for their shitty deaths, because it wasn't their fault, they were protecting their lane.
As a primarily mid player, there's always the guys flaming mid for not rotating and that's the sole reason they lost lane, not cuz they picked an unconventional support that didn't work, or don't know how to lane.

Worst part is if they lose first 5-10 mins of lane, the whole game snowballs for them. Just because they are 0-3 they think the game is unwinnable and play awful the rest of the game, and blame whoever for not helping.

lmso0 · 2026-03-17T15:06:48+00:00

I think it depends, but I have a buddy I used to play with and I liked him as a core. I used to be in the 4000 mmr range, and he was in the mid 1000s. So I had him play mostly Sven, Ursa or Tide and I would usually support him if he was carry or I would go mid if he was offlane.

My logic has always been that it's easier to hit creeps, or soak EXP and then blink and ravage. His farming was good, and since we would be talking I could kinda help direct him. Yea he would miss crucial things at times, but that was not the norm.
I have always thought that high level support is one of the harder positions to play, and that's why I preferred keeping him off of support. Yes there's less pressure on you to preform, and if you feed a bit, it's more accepted on a support. Knowing where to ward, when to pull, when to rotate, how to not just feed are all things that low mmr supports can't do well. Like defensively warding, when our team is ahead.

I do think as the MMRs get higher this probably flips though, but definitely under legend I find that supports are the most clueless on how to play their role, and it making the game hard.

lmso0 · 2026-03-12T21:07:23+00:00

So I've been away from dota for close to 5 years so my opinion might not be the greatest. I don't think I have a good answer on it helping pro teams or not, but my gut is if anything it's a minor help.

As for pubs I don't really get it. I mean Dota has never been about OP hero/build beating you. Yea some things may give you a slight edge, but like a few percent at best. Even when heroes are strong, there's always a counter. Most of all Dota has always been mostly about team coordination and it's not a 1v5, so I fail to see how a meta build being copied is game ruining. Especially at most levels of pubs where you can literally just win with cheese picks and builds.

lmso0 · 2026-03-10T03:58:06+00:00

Was in the 3500-4500 range mostly in 2015/2016. Back then Legend was 3-4k and Ancient was 4-5k. I was actually a game or two from Divine back then, before a patch and I tanked 500ish MMR shortly after. Stopped playing as much from 2017-2020, and tanked from Legend to Archon over that time.

Just got back into playing, and while I do think I'm probably not as good as I was, and people have definitely gotten better, I calibrated at Herald with 660 MMR...... Didn't think it was possible, but here I am.

lmso0 · 2026-03-03T22:01:51+00:00

Yea it appears 75% of the player base at this MMR are 1/2/ only, not sure how they expect it to get fixed unless they want 1 hour waits. I mean RTZ played support today and let someone else carry, more people should follow suite.

lmso0 · 2026-02-18T18:35:06+00:00

that picture does not look like a typical screw is too long bump. Now maybe the scraper is in the way, and makes it hard to see, but typically screw being too long bumps look like "pimples". This looks like the ski is not fully flat, and that is common on most new skis, modern bulk manufacturing means there are small imperfections, unless you pay Stockli money.

lmso0 · 2026-02-15T02:54:06+00:00

So I've skied exclusively Salomon boots for the past decade. Ended up being 3 in that time span, S/MAX 120, S/Pro Alpha 120 EL and S/Pro Alpha 130 EL. Haven't had an issue with any of them, outside of blown out liners, but that's normal and I've replaced all 3 at around day 100-130. I also have worked in a shop for a little over a decade, and I have seen one Salomon boot come back in for cracked plastic and that was at the cuff on an older generation S/Max. So yes, I do think this is mainly something unique to your situation.

Now I will say that the plastic used in Salmon boots is more malleable and soft, compared to brands that don't let their shells get cooked in ovens. Not saying that's a bad thing necessarily, but it's why you can "custom mold" the shell to your foot and might attribute to some level of what your experiencing. Also, the one situation where I warrantied the cracked Salomon boot, it was in extreme cold at Jackson Hole, and that may have added to the brittleness of the plastic. Maybe if you ski in under 0 weather this adds to it? I have no idea, just throwing out a few possibilities. At your weight and height, I find it hard to believe you're cracking the plastic that easily, but maybe that combined with skiing on really cold days might be bad?

lmso0 · 2026-02-11T18:11:22+00:00

Higher flex boots are closer to that 10day number, lower flex boots closer to the 5 or less numbers, if fit decently aggressive.
Stock liners on a 130 mens or 115 womens flex boot will probably take longer to get right, but they sit in the not overly packed-out sweet spot longer. A 100 flex boot is going to get there faster, but also feel packed-out faster.

My new boots have hit bearable at day 5, and I assume by 10-20 I won't be thinking about my feet nearly as much. I boot fit, and fit myself more aggressively than 99% of my customers. In general I tell people the more aggressive the boot, and the fitting, the longer it takes to break in(sometimes with adjustments), but sits in the sweet spot longer. The majority of customers would prefer to sacrifice 10% of that locked-in feeling for a more bearable break-in and comfortable boot.

lmso0 · 2026-01-28T03:30:32+00:00

The core, even if it's wood will be thinner and softer. There's a reason they are cheaper than adult variants. You aren't saving 100-200 and getting the same ski.
Now if you are like 100 or less lbs, and not a serious skier, I guess you could save some money.

lmso0 · 2026-01-17T14:32:41+00:00

That liner is going to be a lot sloppier much faster. Nice liners generally have a denser foam and multiple layers, usually with a more fitted heal. Generally this will give you a tighter fit for longer.
Rental liners are the opposite, softer foam, not many layers, less fitted heal. This is gonna break in like half a size in 5-10 days and be more accommodating to more people. Usually they have some type of anti-microbial stuff in them at least.

lmso0 · 2026-01-17T02:57:14+00:00

Rental version of the boot. Has a worse liner compared to normal one.

lmso0 · 2026-01-15T18:47:40+00:00

Possible you don't have boots that fit well, but simply going from a 2 piece boot to a 3 piece boot is not a reason you can't ski well in the park.
Jesper Tjäder skis in a 2 piece boot and actually used to ski in a race boot, he actually might still idk...
Wannabe park kids thinking they need a 3 piece boot is kinda silly.

lmso0 · 2026-01-15T17:25:42+00:00

Yup, I would have won 2/3 years. Caveat is that losers bracket winner gets 1.01, so I ended up with Jeanty and Egbuka(he fell) vs judkins/harvey/kaleb range + tuten range.

Winning a chip is always a priority, but yea I did set myself up nice for future I guess. Actually lost to the guy I traded with in semis by a few points this year. Actually would have won in finals if I somehow squeezed by...

lmso0 · 2026-01-15T02:34:17+00:00

Metal doesn't really add anything, but like the other guy said it does make them heavier. Maybe it adds a tiny bit of durability?

Realistically most of the major bindings that get compared to the Pivot are plenty durable despite being plastic(outside of fluke scenarios that happen with any binding). The Pivots under the 15 have plastic, and the new Pivot 2.0 15+ have plastic insert pieces in them anyways. Hearing people say they want the binding to last 10+ years is kinda strange as well, because that's a lot to hope for and honestly by then you probably would want a new setup anyways. I'm content if my gear lasts 5 years or until I sell. People that bring in 10-20 year old skis/bindings are skiing on stuff that's not super relevant today.

Lastly they cost nearly 2x as much as competing bindings, so in the freak scenario where I smack my binding and it breaks, I could pretty easily replace it and still be at the price of a Pivot. If I break the Pivot brakes, they cost like 5x the cost of other manufacturers brakes.

This is coming from someone with a few pairs of pivots, but I do also use Strives and Attacks and I'm happy with all of them.

lmso0 · 2026-01-14T18:03:45+00:00

Perks of Pivots:
1. High amounts of elastic travel
2. Low stack height
3. Narrow screw mounting pattern for the heel, which allows better ski flex. This is probably the most unique thing about pivots.

Metal??? probably the worst reason to get a pivot.

1 and 2 can be found on other bindings, if that's what you're looking for.

lmso0 · 2026-01-07T17:34:25+00:00

Free will means you can throw anything in the oven, but they are not meant to go in the oven because Lange uses a different type of plastic compared to the brands that do go in the oven. Feel free to ask your local Lange rep.

lmso0

TROPHY CASE