WTF? Signed up for Beta the day it was possible and still no beta key? How can I be that ****ing cursed?

Me too. You're not alone.

Hey, anyone got free beta key? I cant get one for so long time

don't you dare pick sk or drow for your first game

Just got an invite from a friend last night.

hey inso0 i am definitely down for playing with a prearranged team. I feel that i am good but not at the competitive level you say you were at.

Which SK and why shouldn't you pick either for the first game...?

I forgot to mention when you play with an arranged team do you play against other arranged teams or random pubs?

I'm in the beta. I don't really want to say how I got a beta key, but I got in through a very generous person. If I ever get my own keys to give away, 2p2 will be the first place I go.

I've only had time to play 4 games so far, 3 last night. I actually like this game a lot more than HoN. It's a lot of fun when you win and really annoying when you lose.

I started off just picking Intel heroes in a row, so I've been Lich, Lion, Witch Doctor, and Enigma.

I won with Lion and lost with the other 3. I liked Witch Doctor more than the other 2 I lost with. He just fits my playstyle a little bit. I'm not really a fan of those heroes that have more aura and healing type abilities as I don't know how to play them. I like the nukers that do burst damage.

On the other hand, I think Pudge is so OP. I don't really know how to judge balance in this game, but I don't think I've ever seen anybody do bad with Pudge. Pull you back with his hook and then he just smacks you a few times and you're dead. For a big fat guy he can also run pretty fast.

Last night I faced a team of Pudge, Morphling, Sniper, and Riki and we lost the game in about 25mins. All 4 of them are super strong. I'm not even sure how to stop them - but i'm a noob so I don't know anything.

And the last annoying thing in this game is, well 2 things. 1. People who think everyone knows how to play this game. It's not as bad as HoN, but a lot of people expect that everyone knows how to play this game and what they are doing. I just go into the games telling people I'm not very good. And 2. So many people disconnect from this game and then you're down a man. Last night I lost a game 3v4 because of so many disconnections.

It's a fun game though. I'm glad I got a chance to play it and hopefully I can get better and figure out what I'm doing. Right now I'm just trying to play every character and figure out what they all do. Maybe by the time I get through half of them I'll finally start to figure it out.

I think if you have 5, you get matched vs 5. If you have less than that then I think you get matched against randoms. I could be wrong though.

The reason why pudge is not considered OP is because it is hard to land hooks. The more you play dota the more aware you will become at dodging hooks / arrows. In my opinion most pudges are quite bad but there are definitely some really good ones out there. Pudge also has low armor / mana which prevents spamming hooks a lot although arcane boots on pudge is very strong.

The team of pudge, riki, sniper, and morphling which is quite bad picks wise. They have three carries and basically 0 synergy. From what i've heard so far, the people in dota2 either are very good or beginners like you. Perhaps your team was full of beginners?

If you like lion there is a similar hero called Lina Inverse. She has more nuking potential compared to lion but her stun is very hard to land. You will see pros missing lina's stun a fair amount of the time so do not be discouraged.

Based on all the game's i've played in my life there is no doubt that dota has the largest learning curve. There are simply too many heroes and too many items for beginners. On top of that you have recipes for combinations of items which further complicates things. The only thing that may be easier in dota2 is probably the mechanics issues that regular dota had.

On a side note I just ran a practice game. The camera scrolling is horrible compared to dota. It has a completely different feel and I can not get used to it.

I don't have much of a problem with newbies as long as they take direction well, but my friend gets a little upset over stupid ****. The competitor in him wants a 100% winrate. I realize that it's not going to happen.

Printingmoney, you should PM me your steam profile and I'll add you to my friend list.

god i love pudge so ****ing much, i think the hook is actually easier than **** to land with a minimum of practice. pudge is just awesome, i dont know which i like better, solo mid and just pwn these idiot SF's all day or just go boots first, find first rune and just shut down all lanes with roam

this is 1 not 2 tho, F 2 i can't ever get a match and i am not a fan of the graphics, and the scroll is most definitely worse. its just so sick how hard blizzards old ass engine holds up, i dont want to play any of this bull**** besides pure pure WC3 engine

lion/lina are dope but i can't stand it when i'm like lvl 18 and my effectiveness is starting to wane but no one on my team knows how to farm using the advantage i've given them, so we lose late game. -_-

That's what a Dagon5 Lina is for. =)

lol, im a big fan of dagon5 furion, but lina is one of my least favorite heroes ever. that animation and damage is just like -_- and i need to win my lane

I logged on to the game for the first time last night, just observed a game since I was getting tired.

+1 oh my god the mouse scrolling/camera is so ****ing awkward and weird. Even if you turn off mouse accel, you can still tell that it's there. That is my biggest problem with the engine so far.

Going to run some games tonight (hopefully). I've been looking forward to the game for a while, so I'm hoping I don't end up disappointed.

I don't mind the camera. I like it. It feels smooth to me, but I don't play a lot of these types of games to get my routine down. Even so, I like it better than just the regular camera scrolling.

As far as the Dagon goes, how does that work? In my game using Lion I bought a Dagon and saw something about it being upgradeable. Do you have to pay another 2k gold to upgrade it?

I've been trying to stay away from that Scepter (the ult upgrade) as a few people said that it was a bad item to buy in HoN.

I first buy all the recommended items and then I try to get the boots asap, and then whatever else is next.

One person was bitching at me the other night for not buying armor when I was an Int hero. I don't know the proper builds outside of going with whatever they recommend. I don't know the game situations.

EDIT: Oh yeah, one of the greatest things about DOTA is being able to spectate games. I've gotten my use out of the beta just through watching people play. I go to the shop and look at the items and look at the hero abilities, etc. Awesome tool.

tiny is the best hero. that is all.

jk, he's the hero i play 95% of the time. consistently fun in pubs

Armor raises your effective HP a lot. The more armor you have the less damage you take from PHYSICAL attacks (mostly the regular attacks, like getting hit with a sword or arrow).

It doesn't help if they are nukers, in that case you need magic resistance.

For int heroes, maybe some armor is good. Ring of basilus gives you mana+armor, great early game item.

Vita booster is pretty good on INT for surviving... also consider Ghost Scepter and Force Staff (for escaping up cliffs, unwalkable terrain).

Scepter is a pretty awesome item IMO, it's good in DotA. Not for everybody of course. The nice thing about it is that it has an easy build up that really helps casters out (go point booster first for it), since it gives a lot of HP and stats.

I picked tiny yesterday and wound up solo bottom (dire) against Storm Spirit and Dazzle.

EL OH EL talk about a lane from hell. I actually managed to get first blood because they suicided into my tower to kill me, but the creeps were otherwise completely unapproachable and they basically played on my side of the wave, keeping me out of exp range. We did not win that game. I switched with Queen of Pain thinking she could do better down there as a ranged hero with nukes. But the combination of those two heroes wrecked her too.

I agree though, Tiny is awesome.

ItalianFX, dagon starts at level 1 and can be upgraded 4 times at 1300 each time for a max level of 5. Each level increases the damage, gives more stats, and lowers the c/d. At level 5 it is the most expensive item in the game. It is generally considered a noob / pub item since really the only time a pro will get it in a pro game is on furion because of his ability to gank. Unless you are owning, dagon is very rarely the most optimal item but hey a pub game is a pub game. Aghs (scepter) is a good item depending on the hero and type of play style you want to incorporate.

Lol why is tiny soloing the long lane to begin with? At least that lane wasn't enigma + lich which is the most imba combo for laning ever.

Yeah that was a game where we had a level 7 windrunner with 6 sobi masks when everyone else was level 14ish. Doomed from the start imo. His friend picked Spectre and managed a 45 minute relic as first item.

We win most games where we can get a 4th to queue with. The 2 randoms have been KILLING us lately.

Armor is more important to heroes who have less armor such as doom and tiny. I know doom has 0 base armor but i am not sure about tiny. It is also important to get armor if the other team has negative armor skills to negate them. A good combination of armor and raw HP is the best typically in addition to magic resistance. If a low based hp hero such as weaver masses armor it doesn't provide much. Thats why vit booster into vg or into heart is core.

Yea dumb random pubs ruin games far too often. I am not hating on noobs but rather people who are just busy trolling. I remember losing to a 4 yasha potm one game because my team was more incompetent than that.

Just finished my first game of dota2. Went 9-0 with weaver rushing rapier after RoH for jokes. That was a really low skill level game. I am still not used to the shop and the camera. The overall feel of the game is a huge turnoff for me but I'll get used to it eventually.

Inso0 I'm in for playing with ya guys. I'm pretty competent and definitely better than randoms. Don't have beta yet, but will let you know. Oh, and hope you don't mind me playing Tiny all the time looool.

O-M-F-G

An angel has just gifted me DotA 2. YAY

(someone in this thread... dunno if they wanna be named, but they know who they are and they are awesome)

Funny thing is, it's my 1 yr anniversary today and I have to go out to dinner in 30 minutes. Gotta wait to play but still, yesssssss.

Just finished a long game with Bloodseeker. I like his power. First time I've played an Agility character. It took me awhile to figure out what his abilities did. I think his one ability is for your allies to increase attack speed? whatever....I was sitting there casting it on the other team thinking that it silenced their ranged abilities. haha

Finished 12-6-6, had the Monkey King Bar. I was doing a lot of damage, but I would get nuked on a few occassions and it hurt. I didn't know what to do to mitigate that damage. More armor? Sacrifice agility? I don't know. I always try to build towards something and then I never have enough room in my inventory.

My build was the Poor Man's Shield, 2 Wraith Bands, Power Treads, Monkey King Bar, and Talisman of Evasion. I don't even know what Evasion does, tbh, but I was working towards getting the Butterfly. I was farming like a madman trying to make some money, but just didn't get there in time.

One guy on my team was playing Shadow Shaman and he was bitching all game. Every time we would push as a team we would rape the pants off of them. But then they were like "let's push mid!" and they would go one at a time and die, so it never got us anywhere. Or, they tried to coordinate us together and one would go back to the shop, one would go off on his own to lane. Pretty poor teamwork. I tried to stay with them, but then go and farm when I had a chance.

I might have been able to help a little more, but it sucks when 4 of your team die. I can't just jump in the middle of that.

Also, I never play melee characters so it's scary to get right in the middle of fights not knowing what is going to happen, get stunned - can't get away, whatever.

But anyways, so that guy was bitching and telling me to stop farming. I told him I was trying to get the Butterfly. He kept bitching and then my team died and we just got rolled then. I check the score at the end and he was 4-11-6. WTF? Bitching at me and he died the most on my team! He was also the one going off to a lane on his own while we're all pushing up the middle.

Was a fun match though. Back and forth. It would be nice to see the replays and watch how the game changes.