The Idle Thumbs Lords Management Consortium - Dota 2, LoL, other Lords Managers unite

[Twig]

  On 8/16/2012 at 3:23 AM, TheLastBaron said:

I guess Valve because they list him as one. Though, a lot of the roles they give heroes are questionable

Haha Valve is dumb.

[Brannigan]

Of course huskar is a great initiator, if the target is completely alone, and not expecting him, and isn't looking at the screen.

[Sully907]

Gabe newwel said on GTTV he's played 2000 hours of dota 2, and icefrog makes him play random haha

[Twig]

Real men play random.

[TheLastBaron]

  On 8/16/2012 at 3:45 AM, Brannigan said:

Of course huskar is a great initiator, if the target is completely alone, and not expecting him, and isn't looking at the screen.

I think then it's just considered ganking, unless in this situation your whole team is there and they need you to initiate to know to attack 5v1, which is probably not unlikely in some games.

[Sully907]

I dunno. Huskar is a pretty good anti tank weapon, if we can leap into the start of a team fight and drop their tank by 50% right of the bat, you could call that initiation

[Orv]

Sort of, but not really. The point of an initiator is to force a teamfight on your terms, and lock and destroy a specific hero, or any hero you can get alone. Huskar just kind of leaps in and starts chucking spears and his team has to come in behind. Real initiation like Sand King or Tidehunter is all about that initial hero removal and keeping the ball in your court if you can't do that. I'm sure there's a more elegant/correct way to explain this.

[Brannigan]

Yea a real initiator is about locking down and disrupting the team. Huskar doesn't do that, he's a ganker. Having him ult in first just means he dies, unless he's super mega fed.

[Sully907]

Yea I definitely know all about the role of initiator, I was just trying to play devil's advocate for the argument that he's some kind of semi-initiator, kind of like how people use that semi term for certain carries or supports.

[bakka bakka bakka]

Let's talk about the real best initiator, Vengeful Spirit.

[Twig]

Oh god I love people who initiate with VS.

I'm serious!

BALLS TO THE WALL.

Of course they only qualify for ballsy if they actually realize VS is a shit initiator.

[Sully907]

axe is the best initator, because axe has the biggest balls. Fact.

[Brannigan]

Real men initiate with clinkz, as I proved last night with gward.

[dibs]

Man, Riot added the single lane training map and a new spell to custom, so now people can have ARAM in style. I love that mode. nomnomnom. I had an awesome ranked game as taric last night as well. I pulled two major saves out of the bag. I never really played him much, but he was pretty sweet.

Also, PSA. If you abandon a dota game and get put in the naughty queue, don't accidentally abandon another game and get put in there for even longer:( I'm in the naughty queue. It isn't actually any worse than the regular queue tbh. I just had a pretty sweet game there, and i feel less bad about insta-random when i'm in the naughty queue.

[bakka bakka bakka]

  On 8/18/2012 at 6:31 AM, Twig said:

VS is a shit initiator.

Nonsense. She isn't Earthshaker or Tidehunter but the ability to trade VS for an important enemy hero is incredibly useful.

[Twig]

She is not a good initiator, but she is a good take-advantage-of-the-situationer.

[TheLastBaron]

  On 8/18/2012 at 2:04 PM, dibs said:

Man, Riot added the single lane training map and a new spell to custom, so now people can have ARAM in style. I love that mode. nomnomnom. I had an awesome ranked game as taric last night as well. I pulled two major saves out of the bag. I never really played him much, but he was pretty sweet.

Hopefully at some point people will be able to make custom maps for Dota and put them in the workshope, like a custom map for Pudge wars. Speaking of which, after finally getting used to the new Pudge, I now hate the new-new Pudge.

[Laxan]

I just looked up a video of Pudge Wars and now I am truly baffled.

[Twig]

I can't wait for Pudge Wars. D:

Also Valve has "leaked" at least one minimap version of an alternate map they're working on. I'ma see if I can find it!

EDIT: I CAN'T FIND IT. I know it exists somewhere. Or it was a hoax. Possibly.

However, something occurred to me while searching for it... Adding a new (non-novelty) map to Dota 2 is kind of like adding a new court to basketball. I wonder if it's really doable?

oh god i just compared dota to sports i have become that which i hate ):

[Orv]

A new non-minigame map for DotA 2 will probably never happen. Look at how well it went for LoL and HoN. Even with a complete shift in how the game is played for Dominion in LoL, no-one plays it.

[Twig]

I loved Dominion, but the balance is completely different. The OP champs in regular mode are usually not OP in Dominion. At least, they weren't when I still played when it had just come out.

But I think Dominion fails not because of the balance shift - but because people hate change. LoL was never much of a balanced game to begin with, so it's whatever.

[Orv]

I think it's less that people hate change and more that the changes are shit. Dominion, Twisted Treeline, whatever the names for the two HoN maps were. They're all terrible. Give me a 5v5 map with good balance and an interesting new layout, not 3v3 or multiflag KotH.

[Twig]

Except Dominion isn't shit, so that's where you're wrong!

  Quote

not 3v3 or multiflag KotH.

These words alone pretty much encapsulate the "I hate change" audience of the genre. You're asking for more of the same. Which is fine, and can be great. But it's still just more of the same.

[Orv]

  On 8/18/2012 at 10:07 PM, Twig said:

Except Dominion isn't shit, so that's where you're wrong!

Except that's an opinion!

If the new maps didn't completely fuck the balance equations, making different people unstoppable jugglenobs, I'd be fine with them. Dominion having the same balance for all heroes as Rift just means instead of champion A being a murderous madman/woman, champion B is. If they went to the trouble of a separate balance for the new maps/modes, then bring 'em on. As it is, the few times I played Twisted Treeline it was Heimer/Amumu/Blitzcrank every, single, time. (This was a while back when Heimer was a bit nuts.)

[Laxan]

Dominion was a much less interesting game than original lording. Compared to lording, psuedo-Arathi Basin has so much less depth or tactics. I don't think any other mode will ever eclipse lording, but putting out a lame 10 man capture scramblefest and then saying "The audience just doesn't want any other mode" is a bit of a stretch.