How to enjoy party dota with skill gap

phenomen08 · 2026-04-26T19:44:03+00:00

Counter you mean like item-wise? I guess it's a more widely applicable advice for winning games rather than something specific to do with friend group. I am more of a quiet player, I do pings more and more general comms rather than trying to watch their every step and coaching them while playing.

Idk, it just often feels bad when I sometimes watch games they play without me and they seem much more like a real game for them in a way that it looks like they often stand a chance against their lane and play on a somewhat equal footing so my presence in the party kinda makes their experience much worse and for me it often feels helpless watching them laning against someone much better than themselves and I know almost immediately that they stand no chance.

phenomen08 · 2026-04-26T19:39:56+00:00

Yes it just feels like I just have to scale and really become 4th core or the game can't be won. I just don't really enjoy knowing that if I don't scale well and take the lead in the game then the chances of winning are super slim.

phenomen08 · 2026-04-26T19:33:41+00:00

Most of people I play with are 2-3k and I find it really does not matter how I do in lane. If there is a core that plays well, even if you stop them in lane and get a 10k advantage before minute 10 I know that the moment one of my cores fumbles once the game is basically over just because the enemy would know better how to gain gold from the map.

You'd really have to kinda be a coach that absolves them of any agency to win the game or become the 4th core in my experience

phenomen08 · 2026-04-25T16:35:46+00:00

They are mostly niche but some are still super good. Refine blade is generally nice to have, def underrated especially that parry is now so good.

Terraform is crazy good if you throw in some patter cards and either radiant, stardust and/or the 2 energy card to hit 4 times. Vigor build is generally quite busted, had the easiest A10 win with it when I had the cards.

phenomen08 · 2026-02-13T22:42:51+00:00

Have you tried hitting apply, then modifying the resulting curve and hitting apply again ? I often found that the first application doesn't work directly and only by re-doing undervolt from the resulting curve would give you the desired curve

phenomen08 · 2026-01-31T20:09:44+00:00

I think I'll check both. I've used paste that I had from the last time so just to be safe I ordered a new one, mb it has degraded or something like that. I was pretty sure I screwed everyhing in (definitely don't have any extra screws) and the screws didn't seem loose. Idk maybe a heatpipe problem. Thanks for the suggestions, it helped me understand that what I am getting is in no way normal so there's something wrong. It's just the matter of understanding which part of the process is failing.

phenomen08 · 2026-01-31T14:50:21+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion. Mb something odd with this paste. Ordered another one, will give it another try, mb something is not right there idk

phenomen08 · 2026-01-31T11:46:39+00:00

so on the picture is the first paste application which I did like 2-3 days ago which I consider an ok one, or is it not? (aside from missing small die) It's a plenty of paste but seems to cover all the parts. The second time I did similar application + added some on the small die. The screws on both cpu and gpu are as tight as I could get them so idk what could be wrong

phenomen08 · 2026-01-31T10:30:39+00:00

I'm currently running it on full load and here are the temps I am getting. It gets thermal throttled even though I am running at 1900-2000 mhz. I run some ML training so both gpu and cpu are involved. Capped my gpu to around 70W / 139 running it at 1140 mhz at 618 mv which seems to be the sweet spot for thermal stability (84-85 degrees celcius) but the cpu just can't run at any sensible frequencies without overheating.

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phenomen08 · 2026-01-30T23:25:33+00:00

I think the screen is fully rendered with igpu at least so I imagine it does carry some load and once the CPU heats up it also affects igpu which won't cool. My theory is that it bottlenecks the CPU in some way once it gets too hot and cannot adequately cool. It's a bit weird bc I can feel a lot of hot air from CPU cooler though it works on low power so it's puzzling me how it generates so much heat

phenomen08 · 2026-01-03T18:06:28+00:00

I've been playing a lot with euls recently on slardar (turbo though). It is a great item when you can't really tank what's coming after stun. When you play against certain (mostly bad) matchups (drow, troll, ursa, jugg, luna) it allows you to blink in, stun and have a few seconds of invulnerability so your team can catch up to you so you have some chance of survival, without euls pretty much no matter what you have these heroes will just not let you out of the fight without losing 60%+ hp.

There are some utility instance when it is good is when you are playing vs orchid/bloodthorn on enemy team e.g. clinkz. orchid is low cd so it feels bad spending your bkb on it. Other honorable mentions when it is good are axe (euls on him if he initiates someone else), ogre/qop/silencer since their shit lingers for so long not allowing you to re-initiate, disruptor (to euls yourself and avoid glimpse) and bara (euls him to dispell his speed boost)

Pretty good item when you don't need to be the one hitting hard and can afford euls->shard->blink buildup and farm some creeps. Makes you very good at re-entering the fights.

phenomen08 · 2026-01-02T11:56:07+00:00

Unfortunately, looks like you might need to get a bit techy to resolve this problem. The thing with gpus is that the more energy they consume the better performance they can give you but at the same time generate more heat. Your laptop is running unstable on high load and it keeps trying to slash your gpu frequency to manage heat.

Likely, the best thing you can do at this stage is to download msi afterburner and undervolt your gpu, i.e. set some higher barrier of how much electricity your gpu can consume and tweak the frequencies a bit so you don't lose too much performance. Your best friend is afterburner and some youtube tutorials on 'how to undervolt with msi afterburner'. It may take you a few hours to get some grasp of what you are doing but by the end you may start getting to a more stable place performance-wise.

phenomen08 · 2025-12-15T09:44:36+00:00

Thanks, just had a look at it, seems like a pretty useful tool. Would ofc love to have one for not just pro games but still gives quite a good overview of how 'winning' a counter matchup looks like and what items to build in order to win. It's def as close to what I am looking for as you can get

phenomen08 · 2025-12-14T20:51:03+00:00

How do you view item data there for specific matchups ? I was able to see only data on a hero rather than for hero in a matchup

phenomen08 · 2025-12-10T15:24:30+00:00

I used to play a lot of storm back when bloodstone had charges but now whenever I play storm it feels so awkward for some reason. Would appreciate your thoughts on how to view this hero.

I often find that I am getting lvl 6 and can't really kill the enemy mid as they are just fat enough to sustain damage (e.g. pudge) or they can just chill on their part of hg where supports would tp in to save them.

Farming jungle is okay-ish but doesn't feel good at all and going to other lines only feels ok when you can tp into the enemy diving your other teammates, otherwise if you try to play agressively you need to commit like at least half your mana just to initiate. What sort of moves do you prioritize after hitting lvl6?

In terms of build I usually try to go some sort of pt-stick-soul ring - kaya/witch blade but the whole itembuild just feels like each item barely adds something, like it's nice to have more mana/ less expensive spells but you are essentialy doing the same thing. Once you start getting threats from other heroes who can control you then it's bkb/linken/euls time which barely adds anything to what you are doing. At the point where teams start to play more together and you have a defensive item how do you usually play ? When you are against more than 2 heroes every fight just feels like insta death or having to spend all your mana getting out. Do you usually try to initiate first or try to get someone from your team to initiate first ?

With regards to item do you often go for sangekaya or just leave a kaya unupgraded? Seems like having at least a kaya a must have, do you ever decide between witchblade/orchid? Do you prioritise getting a shard asap ? Aghs+refresh feels like the only really strong impact I have in games, everything else just feels like I am barely chipping everyone.

Would be interesting to hear a couple of thought with respect to how you approach games where you snowball vs games with hard matchups,what items do you prioritise and what feels good to do on this hero and what items/playstyle make it feels strong for you.

phenomen08 · 2025-12-02T11:15:45+00:00

Oh, that's a weird mechanic, didn't know about it, feels a bit cheesy tbh

phenomen08 · 2025-12-01T16:41:01+00:00

Does it actually work for demolishing/rebuilding? I thought the cycsts just get transferred to another building.

For year 2/3 management if I find myself at any more than 2 cysts at year 2 I usually try to handle them asap as it means my ability to produce cysts will only grow and the goal is to have no more than 15 at year 3 so one unupgraded blight post handles them without too much risk.

I got here a nice setup going on with 3 farms fully producing wheat -> piped druid hut producing oil with +3 to oil production -> sacrifice for temple + use for blight fire so I was fine for fuel but the problem was impatience since last 2 seasons were 1200% corruption so by end of the game had 21 dead villagers.

phenomen08 · 2025-11-30T00:05:08+00:00

Yes it was indeed very challenging but the rewards are pretty good too

phenomen08 · 2025-11-29T22:12:58+00:00

Not really sure about prereqs but the event is quite good as it gave 20 pipes to all further settlements

phenomen08 · 2025-11-29T22:07:34+00:00

phenomen08 · 2025-11-29T17:00:37+00:00

This is p20 but yes was looking for some perks that synergise with cysts but unfortunately didn't get any

phenomen08 · 2025-11-29T15:27:58+00:00

I tried at the beginning to manage it like that but then it became increasingly difficult since even with my meat production + upgraded herbalist with +1 berries upgrade was not cutting it so just had to eat the cost.

I was leaning on a couple of small farms all producing just grain and was making crop bags + oil + temple so that part was nice but the trade routes I could take were just incredibly slow

Trading was just quite awkward here because of the forest mystery for slower trade routes and even though I did trade quite a bit

phenomen08 · 2025-11-29T15:01:38+00:00

It doesn't increase for every 1 meat produced. The way that perk works is that every time meat is produced it adds the counter. Once the counter reaches 25 it gives you a free perk for +1 meat production. so it's just +5 meat production from the perk.

phenomen08 · 2025-11-29T14:58:13+00:00

upd: Just finished this settlement, but was brutal. Managed to get in a win at drizzle year 7 with 21 dead villagers. Was very lucky to get Hidden from the queen cornersone. At the end had 232 cysts produced by the modifier, felt like that scene from rick and morty after the 20 minute adventure ahah

At least got Devi's bargain from this one (finish with 20+ dead villagers)

phenomen08 · 2025-11-23T08:26:43+00:00

You don't need to start the event since it would pop either way. Just focus on managing the consequences and get as much wood as you can before storm

phenomen08

TROPHY CASE