Its unbelievable how good jango of endurance is. god I love that item.

Although I've only played dota I know people who played both hon and LoL. From what they told me hon and LoL balance issues are much more severe. I believe LoL also has free tp scrolls or something which is just ridiculous if you ask me.

Dota is constantly evolving such as restricting how often you can buy back, adding +2 seconds per tp to the same building, and smoke of deceit. All of these were huge changes that altered the game completely. A lot of pros even felt that smoke of deceit changed dota into a new game because of what it added. Some liked it and some didn't. Personally I think it makes people better so I like that addition.

Dota's best hero is arguably invoker. He has been nerfed quite a bit over time. The last 4 - 5 games i've watched of pros playing him resulted in his team losing because the other team took advantage of his one weak point, the amount of levels and farm he requires. I think this is a good example of how important balance is to the dota community.

Note: the very new heroes which are extremely strong are not in the Captain's Mode game to unsure that pro teams are not winning by flukes and to make sure the heroes are stable (no bugs).

ugh i remember the invoker, he was so OP. his meteor was the most absurd thing ever, it just crushed everything in its path. it was awesome that he had so many skills, but most of them were very rarely used cus metoer and like 2 others were just amazing.

Other spells would just be used to do cool combos. So difficult, but really the ultimate hero since he potentially had every tool you'd ever need as a caster.

The main thing that made invoker dominate at least recently was his quas + wex build. Nado from 2500 range and EMP to remove 400 mana from enemy heroes in a huge AOE. Throw in cold snap and how fast invoker could move with wex + jango + phase and you have a juggernaut. People eventually learned that arcane boots mitigates the problem and now he is not as dominant .

It's not too bad of a game atm. I think I'm just too use to HoN and it's cleanliness and knowing what level my team mates and the opponents are at (MMR). Been playing against some pretty bad players, probably should of ticked on experienced even though I haven't played for 2 years or so.

Weeee key! "Congratulations! You have been invited...."

Player perspective observer mode is so much fun. I love that, amazing feature Valve... along with the ability to watch any game.

Do you guys have your scoreboard mapped to a hotkey? I'm not used to not having it up all the time, just mapped it to Tab for quick viewing.

valve doin good work following everything hon has already done

i would like to try out this beta. anyone have a key

Dota 2 DB iPhone app is pretty cool. Shows you the old and new DotA items side by side for learning.

A little lame they don't have the dota 2 names for things though.

nevermind. beta is fun

Wow. This is a great discussion on mana mechanics. For instance, if your INT is 33 or above, it's better to get Sobi mask than Ring of Basilus. Also, opened my eyes up to tread switching for more mana a lot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsoKx...utu.be&t=4m22s

tread switching works for life too so if you have both treads and say bottle then you should be switching tread type while drinking from bottle for max efficiency.

i have one invite to the beta. PM me your steam account or email if you want.

for free, merry christmas.

claimed!

Obviously put threads on agi. Also for trees and pots switching helps a ton.

On the subject of lesser known Dota tricks, I suppose most people will know this one, but just in case, you should be using Night Stalker ultimate during the night as soon as its off cooldown and as often as you can during the night due to the mechanic of the ulti acting as a time stopper.

Got it, thanks!

FANBOYS GONNA FANBOY.

I am looking forward to get into rts gaming, but I have basically no experience in that genre. I like how DOTA 2 looks, but I heard its very unfriendly for a new player. Is it very hard to understand what you are doing in this game and is it fun to play when you are just a newb?

IMO first thing to do is to read a few guides, this one is particularly good, had a lot of new stuff in for me even when I've played for a few months.

http://www.playdota.com/forums/46290...dota-you-suck/

The low level pub community is really **** as you will frequently be bashed/flamed for doing stuff wrong, but there will be friendly people out there somewhere who are able to provide so constructive criticism.

Feel free to drop me a PM for steam ID if anyone here wanna play together etc.

NS ult trick is true for the most part, however it is important you do not just waste it when it is about to turn day for the sakes of "extending night". Extending night for x amount of time may not help if it is almost day time and you are now useless.

Dota2 and any game of this genre is extremely unfriendly imo. I have been playing these games for close to 10 years now so the only time I was a noob was when others were noobs also. This made it easier for me to learn the game since I would never get stomped.

I suggest if you want to learn the game, start some practice games with some friends. Let them guide you and just learn the skills together. They can be complete noobs or experienced players as long as you can learn together.

It is probably also a good idea to just view some replays of how people play in order to see what is good and what is standard. When new heroes are introduced I am able to tell what abilities are good and which are bad. That all comes with experience and knowing the elements of the game. There is no way for you to know 100+ heroes (around 50 in dota2) in a couple of games.

Also definitely observe matches and use the player perspective mode, you see exactly where they are clicking, it's really cool. And livestreams are nice too.