It's pretty much always the same few heroes being selected. That doesn't usually make for very exciting games, so when Mouz threw the curveballs in there, you could really see that the other team had no idea how to properly counter it and those games were a lot of fun to watch.

It would be nice to see a little more diversity in hero selection.

What is the point of drafting Ancient Apparition? He basically doesn't do anything all game unless I'm missing the point of what he is there for.

You crush in trilanes with chilling touch early, counter every healing based hero with your ult all game, and generally just win team fights with a single ult once you get aghs.

You can even stop split pushes globally.

why are compendium points on the market in lots of more than 25. can you get a 2400 compendium points drop?

Ninja Edit: You can buy compendium points so people are probably buying them and trying to make a profit. You can buy them in lots of 500, 1100, and 2400. You can also get drops in game of 25 points.

well, it's 9.99 for 2400 points on the store, and they were going for 10.70 on the market. steam takes a cut, so i can't imagine it's profitable, and if it is, it's like really really marginal.

AA is like the best all round hero atm. Really, really strong everywhere he goes.

my 10 hero challenge is going rather well; prob like 8-5

brood mother, centuar, mirana, NP, antimage, qop, lion, PA

still have luna (should be easy) and silencer.

im 0-3 with silencer . . . Can someone get me a slight clue how to use him?

note: im only level 13 and play bad players.

Silencer is best played as mid/carry currently, IMO. Build him W-Q-Q-E-E-R-E-E most of the time, then max W. If your opponents in lane have super cheap spells, probably better off just going max E from the start. Orb walk with W to harass in lane in addition to casting Q after opponents use spells if you have mana sustain. Lots of players at low levels don't understand that casting a spell removes his Q damage/mana over time, so you can max Q first in those cases (or against heroes like Viper that don't have any spells to actually cast until 6)

Global silence timing is really important, but also difficult to use at lower skill levels due to how nebulous teamfights can be. Basically you want to get your opponents in a position that commits them to a teamfight then use global, or use it when your team is initiating. Try not to use it when teams are doing that asinine jousting at mid for minutes on end but both teams still have easy escape routes. You can also pop it to finish off highly spell-mobile carries in mid-late+ game like QOP, AM, Weaver.

Items that I almost always build on him is treads, 2x null talisman, force staff. Rod of Atos is awesome on silencer against weaker players, and is typically the next item I build. Using force staff offensively then rod of atos can really isolate individual opponents in a bad position.

Try to show up to all teamfights once you hit 6 so you start getting that INT bonus. His attack range is really good, so no need to get caught in the front lines of the fight.

Also, if you do end up playing mid, your team will almost certainly expect you to gank. Unless you get a haste/invis rune and the side lanes are pushed in pretty far, just ignore them. Make sure you always have a TP scroll on you once you hit 6 so you can global -> TP -> destroy any tower divers.

i like mah silencer with forcestaff and eul's

Last word at lvl 1 is 150 dmg, and a guaranteed 3s silence. Even full duration curse only does 120 dmg, and realistically it's not going to be full duration against anyone but like skeleton king. Curse will only be useful against dual or tri lanes, maxing last word first and even getting it at lvl 1 or 2 is almost always going to be the best choice. Even skipping curse in favor of stats is good, as long as you don't plan on getting aghs- need max curse for aghs to be any good, and right now aghs+refresher is a decent although rarely optimal build.

My reasoning behind that is that silencer has effectively zero kill potential early on, and you're better off trying to win the lane via attrition than burst at the skill level we're discussing. I agree with everything you said at higher skill levels.

Watch merlini silencer games, he's very good with him.

silencer mid sucks ass. I still think he is best as a support, ya ya I know your talents are wasted as as support or a low impact hero but there is where he shines most. He doesn't need much farm, just know when you need to ult and you will teamfights. His orb is great for harassing and dominating lanes as well.

Also, apparently NAR is getting picked up by fnatic. tabako u got anything u want to tell us?

Nah. Silencer support is good for nothing. He needs, farm and items to be effective. Yes, he has a great lane control but he doesn't have a disable for ganking or a push type skill. Also, laning only lasts for just 3-6 minutes. Rotation of players happens fast. His AoE skill is not that powerful but his target skill(if used properly) is broken. He needs fast exp to get fast ulti and he has a bit of low hp which means prone to ganking. Hence, mid is the best lane for Silencer.

Prone to ganking so mid is best? Whut. Empire run a very effective silencer support. If you play him mid you will lose your lane against anyone slightly competent. He also scales really well for a support because of his innate intelligence stealing. Besides pubs already have 4 carries so if you play a hero who can do both, it's better to suck it up and take one for the team.

thanks all, i tried poppaTman's build. Killed Drow Ranger before 5 min (they were super bad, but i think it was more not knowing what my W was) and was prob over 90% last hits . . . by the time i got lvl6 my team was 0-3. i remember looking at the score board and i was lvl 14 the next highest on my team was 8, while the other team was all between 11-13.

i obv wasnt a superstar or anything - i was slow to rotate/teleport, i ended up just wasting 2 early TP's. tried to force team fights and ending up feeding a PA. and built an oblivion staff, mistaking it for rod of atos. and my worst crime - got the courier killed.

but i think i like the mid silencer over lane. a lot of team fights gave me a lot of early INT. wish i had a team with more stuns/ didnt feed

Why would he lose mid? He can orb walk (there isn't a single hero with an orb skill that is a weak laner) and he has a nuke with a silence and possible disarm. Only a handful of the strongest mid heroes or a few direct counterpicks would beat him. That said, he's strong in almost any lane playing any position (just don't stick him solo offlane) so you definitely don't have to run him mid when he's flexible enough to do something else.

Curse is awful after laning ends, he has no disable or even slow, and he tends to put your team in a position where you can't win any fights unless global silence is ready. So I don't know how I feel about running him as a position 1 or 2 competitively, although I always play him mid myself. My biggest issue with playing him mid is that he has zero mobility, so even if your team needs you to gank or w/e that's easier said than done. But I don't think I've ever lost mid as silencer.

:O

NAR = Na'vi NA now

Two navis for the price of one at TI4 ^.^

USA USA USA


tho not the biggest fan of NAR. they'll have to beat some of the real contenders before i like em.

wonder why Navi got them.... i'm thinking so they can have a good/secret strat scrim partner whenever they want? DK getting blacklisted from chinese scrim drama has been going on r/dota2 for the past few days (ugh racist hao).

What's not to like about NAR?

Yeah he can orbwalk which is nice, but he has zero lane control. You're never gonna get a rune with him unless you sacrifice exp/gold. I don't know what tier u play in but in my trench supports don't help you rune control so that means you are pretty much ****ed. I also think most conventional mids beat him very hard.

you can beat pretty much every mid hero that dont have a cheap spammable skill

much like heroes like necrophos you have no way to escape ganks and not much to gank urself.

but hes soooo ****in strong farmed and leveled lol

So far I've gotten 3 wins out of the 10 for my 10 hero challenge.

Once someone abandons the game and it says the game is safe to leave is there any point in staying? Does it automatically end all stats or just make the game a wash? If I stay until the end by just idling in the fountain will I still get a loss or have a chance for drops?

I'm not worried about the loss as I don't care about the stats, but I'd rather it lower my MMR for the next game (still playing unranked in lvl 6), but I like the chance to get drops at the end of the game too.

If you leave, you won't get any battle points. If it is an early abandon, there is no point in staying other than to play a weird 4v5 game at best. Stats are not recorded for early abandons. If it's a normal abandon, and you think your team can win, then stay and play.

so they rereleased the old purple color, which was considered quasi legacy until now. Screws me over, I had 4 couriers with that color.