eGamer » DotA

DeMoNiK’s Truth About Gaming [Column]

Richard — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:00:51 +0000

I have a problem. The problem is a simple one, but in the end it is the stereotypes we see again and again that are counter-productive to gaming actually moving forward with the technology we have. (This is the part where you prepare for paragraphs of loathing hatred, hopefully in an intellectual manner.)

First of all, let’s talk about the essence of gaming itself. Why do people play games? At the end of the day, we subjugate one reality for another. We as participants take ourselves out of the reality of the world around us and surround ourselves in the reality of another game, whatever that game may be. If you’ve read my columns before, we also strive for “epic wins” in our games, or otherwise put, shiny things, loot and chievo’s.

These 2 things combined is probably the broadest definition of gaming. If both these check-boxes are checked (no matter how terrible the game) it can still be classified as a game. Now in terms of graphics, it’s gone pretty much 2 ways. It’s either cartoony, or realistic.

Think about it. Let’s take me for example, I’ve played the following games in the last month or so: Starcraft 2, Dota, LoL, CoD MW2, Borderlands, TF2 and that’s before I get to the indie games. Out of those, only MW2 went for any sort of realistic graphics, and the rest is toony. To be honest, besides the new FPS games that are striving for as much realism as possible (looking towards Battlefield 3 here); everything else is toony in its own right.

So why then, I ask, do people hate on graphics that have gone the full toony route, say for example, League of Legends. I’ve had multiple people say that they won’t play it simply because of the “toony” graphics, and then go play Warcraft 3, which is AS or if not MORE toony, just in a slightly different style of animation because the game was made in 2002, whereas LoL came out in 2009.

Just looking at net code alone, games that are coming out nowadays are WAY more up to date than games of the past, even allowing us South Africans to take part in an international community in some games. The technology exists for us to compete on an international scale, and we are beginning to see it come through the woodwork, and benefit from it.

Valve has announced a new counter-strike, CS: Global Operations, aka CS: GO. Now I am very worried about this game, and for a few reasons. Firstly, I don’t think most CS players will have the computers to actually play this game, as they haven’t updated or seen a resolution higher than 800×600 since about 1998. Secondly, if it isn’t EXACTLY what 1.6 and CS: S players both want for the game, it is going to be a total failure, and the CS community will do what they always do, and go back to the old game. Thirdly, it is competing in a now flooded market, and is to be honest, a bit behind. So many CS players have moved over to other franchises only a skeleton community exists of what CS used to be, simply because people realised that there are better games out there.

I really hope CS: GO is awesome, and valve have yet to disappoint post CS: S, so I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a winner. But in both of these instances, people keep on going back to old games, and I honestly don’t understand why.

It’s a comfort zone thing. On the internet, being called a noob is the ultimate insult, and playing like one makes you feel even worse. Coming into a new game and getting pawned for hours and hours on end isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s something that has to be done. Because once that learning curve is over and you come to fruition, you realise that it wasn’t so bad after all. And once you start owning, that’s when the real fun begins.

And game designers have really made gaming quite simple. Most games have a very simple and quick learning curve to get over (except E.Y.E – Divine Cybermancy… it’s actually ridiculous, more on this later this month), and get you going in the right direction quickly.

So, what is the truth about gaming? It’s really quite simple. Gamers will always stick to their comfort zone so that they can throw abuse when they pawn, because that’s how we get our kicks. But for gaming to succeed on a level that all gamers want it to be at, on a huge competitive level, we have to move forward with the technology and try new things, otherwise we are doomed.

FarmVille And WoW Are Latest Weapons In Court

Taahir — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:55:51 +0000

According to an article, in USA Today, Social sites and massively multiplayer online games aren’t just a great place to catch up with friends and be entertained, they’re also a great place to dig up dirt on a soon-to-be ex.

According to the article:

The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers say that 81% of its members have used or faced evidence from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social networking sites, such as YouTube and LinkedIn, over the last five years.

Evidence Like this:

Father seeks custody of the kids, claiming (among other things) that his ex-wife never attends the events of their young ones. Subpoenaed evidence from the gaming site World of Warcraft tracks her there with her boyfriend at the precise time she was supposed to be out with the children. Mom loves Facebook’s FarmVille, too, at all the wrong times.

So the next time you do something like, say, sext on DotA or WoW or logg 10 hours on FarmVille on Facebook you might want to remember that someone could be watching… and taking notes.

[Source:Kotaku]

ESWC Is Back For 2010 — Yes, There’s CS 1.6 & DotA On The Line Up!

Dean — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:57:14 +0000

Yesterday we wrote about Dreamhack dropping DotA for HoN, where we then commented ‘so what?’

We’ll, rightly so as the Electronic Sports World Cup is back and they are adding DotA to their games list.

For those unsure, the ESWC is pretty darn old and we like it!

Anyway, the games, and prize, list for ESWC 2010 is as follows:

Counter Strike 1.6

Prize Money :
1. $ 36,000
2. $ 18,000
3. $ 9,000

Counter Strike 1.6 Women

Prize Money :
1. $ 14,000
2. $ 7,000
3. $ 3,500

Warcraft 3 TFT

Prize Money :
1. $ 8,000
2. $ 4,000
3. $ 2,000

Quake Live

Prize Money :
1. $ 8,000
2. $ 4,000
3. $ 2,000

Trackmania Nations Forever ESWC

Prize Money :
1. $ 8,000
2. $ 4,000
3. $ 2,000

DotA

Prize Money :
1. $ 14,000
2. $ 7,000
3. $ 3,500

Fifa 2010

Prize Money :
1. $ 8,000
2. $ 4,000
3. $ 2,000

Street Fighter 4

Prize Money :
1. $ 8,000
2. $ 4,000
3. $ 2,000

Virtua Tennis

Prize Money :
1. $ 6,000
2. $ 3,000
3. $ 1,500

Guitar Hero

Prize Money :
1. $ 6,000
2. $ 3,000
3. $ 1,500

Need For Speed Shift

Prize Money :
1. $ 6,000
2. $ 3,000
3. $ 1,500

Good old games back on the list. Counter Strike 1.6 and The Frozen Throne.

I’m really happy about Virtua Tennis. Seriously.

Dreamhack Drops DotA… But Do We Really Care? No.

Dean — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:04:02 +0000

Dreamhack has dropped its support for DotA as they are moving towards the new comer, HoN. There doesn’t seem to be an exact reason as to why this is happening but it could be due to a big backing from S2 Games.

Other reasons might include that Dreamhack was never really a good DotA competition, as there were other major DotA tournaments running at the same time.

Will we ever know the truth? Doubt it, but then again who cares. HoN is good, but so is DotA.

With all the sensational news regarding HoN, there might soon be a few new players in the market, despite the fact that DotA isn’t really dead… Just yet.

South Africa might still however be quite far away from a HoN future.. I mean, if our SAT-3 cable keeps breaking who knows what might occur.

New DotA AllStars Version 6.66b

Dean — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:01:52 +0000

The First Online Syncidy Cup For DotA — Play To Win!

Dean — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:58:26 +0000

You’ve heard right Cape Town, Syncidy LAN is back!

Following some tragic ‘irregularities’ from our venue’s side end-September last year, Syncidy was forced underground. Have no fear though, time spent wasted is never time wasted! We are back and better than ever.

Being as excited as we are to see everyone again, we have decided to kick the embers under the Dota community in anticipation of our relaunch:

In co-op mode with Twilight Gaming and eGamer, we are running a fast paced competition the first weekend of February. Entry will be free and open to everyone from the community, but act fast as we will only allow the first 8 entries to take part. The winning side will pocket themselves an ice cold R500-00 courtesy of Syncidy Gaming.

Syncidy Site Here

Syncidy Cup – February 2010

When:

Saturday – 6 February 2010
14:00
Fight for 3rd and 1st place:
Sunday – 7 February 2010
14:00

Where:

Server – Twilight Gaming
Channel – Clan sNc

Entry Process:

Registrations open Saturday – 30 January 2010 @ www.syncidy.co.za
Entry is free, and open to all players within RSA
Only the first 8 entries will be accepted

Sponsored Prize:

The winning team will receive R500-00!

Competition Structure:

Double Elimination
Map version: 6.66

DotA Replay of the Week: DIPS vs TeG

DaekinHO — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 11:25:14 +0000

From the GosuCup Tourney: the Swedish powerhouse, DIPS vs the Romanian Devils, TeG (The Elder Gods).

Introduction

An interesting tourney as all matches are to be played in -CD mode (Captain’s Draft).

For those of you who do not know what -CD mode is all about:

Captains Draft. 24 random heroes are selected. Then Blue and Pink take turns banning heroes, then picking heroes. Then the players on each team pick from their team’s heroes.

This brings about pro’s and con’s to the DotA game as teams have to adapt and the strategies and teamwork of each side will be tested thoroughly in their DotA knowledge.

Pro’s for me are that heroes that are forgotten or rarely used are brought into the frame as teams can only choose from the pool of 24.

Con’s are that sometimes the pool is a bit unlucky and bad so it will make for an unexciting game.

The Game

Download the replay here.

Game Length: 48:40

Map: DotA Allstars v6.66.w3x

The Bans/Picks

TEG BANS (1st)

DIPS BANS

Scourge: TEG

The Scourge

TeG-Ly0n^ (Top) [DP]
freezer1905- (Mid) [Panda]
TeG-S0ny4ce (Bot) [Jugger]
TeG-Coco (Bot) [WD]
TeG-RMP (Jungle) [CM]

Sentinel: DIPS

The Sentinel

DIPS|Sword_777 (Top) [Puck]
DIPS|Spear_666 (Mid) [Bane]
DIPS|BeNTZER (Bot) [Riki]
DIPS|Daegosaur (Bot) [Lich]
DIPS|pepp3 (Jungle) [Tiny]

The Squeeze

87 Kills overall, so this game brings a lot of high action and fast ganking and movement. Just over 2 kills per minute on average :D
DIPS and TeG are quite an evenly matched side in terms of skill so its quite a fairly even match.
Trilane vs Trilane interesting to see which 3 heroes win

What To Look or Look Out For

In the first few seconds of the game, take a look at bot lane and the warding position of TeG. This position is becoming very overused if not always used when tri-laning. So as you can see DIPS is countering by already not going to the lane but hanging in the bush together so they do not get caught out with their pants down.

Interesting to see at the 10min mark is what items the carry heroes are … carrying. Rikimaru has a stout shield for tank/survivability, boots of elevinskin and finally boots of speed. The reason for the elevinskin is to increase his damage for last hitting. Remember the more damage you can do the better your last hitting will be, and in the case of agility — it does increase his armour slightly (but maybe some would say insignificantly).

Juggernaut on the other hand has increased his last hitting and damage output dramatically. This was obtained by going phase boots, accompanied with slippers and branches (every little bit of stats increases your output). Stats are very important in the early game so you can farm/damage. Remember if you do very well early game, your late game could be made a lot easier in terms of items, so this is very important to get a good start by getting the right items.

Regen is almost important, but in these lanes sentinel are obviously the ones getting harassed more (with cm aura scourge are having a lot of fun) so that is why maybe Jugger could relax on the regen items. Later both heroes do buy poor man shield’s as well as healing salves.

Watch at the 8:30 min mark! pepp3 get away from S0ny4ce with 9HP!!!

And seconds later Sword_777 and Sony4ce are lucky to get away with their lives, freezer1905- wasn’t so lucky.

If you find yourself in an AOE-storm like this one, you better hope you have a way out!

Summary

This game is a must watch, such an exciting game that really reminds me of why I love and play DotA.

Thanks to DIPS and TeG for bringing us such an exciting game and to all of you.

Twilight Tournament Winners 18 Jan To 23 Jan 2010

Dean — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:24:55 +0000

Tournament winners for 18 January – 23 January 2010 on Twilight.

Hungry Hungry Felhounds FFA Competition

First Place

Lexiol

Second Place

R34p3R–X

One versus One DotA Tournament

First Place

Raikiri

Second Place

CheeseBurgaEddy

Two versus Two DotA Tournament

First Place

.SnoW
GeNo_CiDe

Second Place

mR_SmurF
BlAcK-Fly

Random DotA Team Tournament

First Place

GRIM
Nox
eezy
HaXeD
Uncreation

Second Place

Thund3r
Echo
ElectroSphere
HoBo-BoB
CreamCheese

Congratulations to everyone who took part in the respective tournaments. We’ll post results each week for everyone to see.

First place winners received 150experience, while second place scored 100 experience.

Visit the full Twilight schedule here.

Previous results available here.

DotA Weekly — Pro Tip From A Top: Killing Creep Is Very Important, Remember To Last Hit!

lemon-grass — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:53:55 +0000

Don’t underestimate the importance of killing creeps! Just remember, no matter how frowned upon the strategy of “turtling” is, it wins matches… time and time again.

The truth is that, every hero needs some gold to do well. Often people miss a great deal of gold from simply being lazy. Missing free creeps in an unattended lane (also known as free farm) is quite serious. A little more focus can and will make the game a LOT easier, for yourself and for your team.

If you are in a tough lane, especially one where you aren’t expecting to make any kills, don’t be afraid to use your mana (spells) to kill the creeps [last hit]. Most of the time, that amount of gold can be extremely helpful to buying regeneration and survival items.

Referring back to carelessness. Farming creeps is actually easy. Some focus and logic, along with some repetition is all it takes. If you want to stay in a safe part of the map, while in your lane, simply try hit an allied creep for every enemy creep. This will essentially keep the creep in the same area as they die at the same time.

So, the tip is, just because there isn’t a hero in your lane, doesn’t mean you must LOSE FOCUS. If you creep correctly, you can make the enemy pay for giving you even 5 minutes of free farm.

Hard work pays off.

Other pro tips here.

Twilight Tournament Winners 11 Jan To 17 Jan 2010

Dean — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:51:43 +0000

Tournament winners for 11 January – 17 January 2010 on Twilight.

One versus One DotA Tournament
First Place – .SnoW
Second Place – Mortal

Random Team DotA Tournament
First Place

GRIM
.SnoW
Frenzy
RipInc
Mr_Miagi

Second Place

Mortal
clitsybananas
STR1D3R
Xenophyl
Nox

Melee Warcraft Frozen Throne Tournament
First Place – inDoMiTable
Second Place – vlerkies
Third Place – Fancy-Pants

Two versus Two DotA Tournament
First Place

GRIM
Frenzy

Second Place

.SnoW
GeNo_CiDe

Congratulations to everyone who took part in the respective tournaments. We’ll post results each week for everyone to see, and remember to sign up to play!

First place winners received 150experience, while second place scored 100 experience.

Visit the full Twilight schedule here.

DotA Version 6.66 Is Out — View The Changes, Download The Map, Discus!

Dean — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:15:15 +0000

DotA Weekly: Pro Tip From A Pro — The Wonders Behind Replay Analysis & How To Do It

DaekinHO — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:49:08 +0000

Replay’s are fun, exciting, entertaining and can tell/teach you a lot about DotA, so they are definitely a must if you look to improve yourself as a player and at the same time want to just enjoy great DotA games at their best.

Replay Analysis is important for DotA development and improvement as a player, as there are a lot of things to look out for. You can watch a replay over and over again to see it from so many different angles, and this can make your head spin, but in the end, the effort put in will be worth the discovery regarding the difference in being good, or just being another unk.

Remember in DotA the person with more guts, determination and information will be the victor.

Now I see a lot of people reply to replays where they say stuff like, “OMG 6 items on PA = GG”, or things like “Sjoe, Troll lategame = instawin”. This makes me so confused, because what about the rest of the game? Better questions could be asked about this. For example, why not ask “how did PA get so farmed?”, or “Why did the other team let him get so farmed?”. Perhaps even, “Why didn’t they buy ghost scepters?”.

So, lets get you on the way to Replay Analyzing.

Firstly you need to download a replay parsing program, one that I prefer is this one: DotaHIT by Danat (click the word DotaHIT). The reason is simple that when looking at the parse of the replay it should look like this:This will give you a lot of stats/information about the game and it can even provide you with an overview of how the game panned out in terms of items/farming/ganking/kills/lanes. Now I know you must be saying “WHO CARES IF YOU CANT SEE THE GAME?! OMG NOOB”, but lets take this very parse for instance. We can see the game is between Ks.int vs Rush3D; it is 77mins long. We can see what heroes started in the respective lanes and what Ks.GO[blin].ua went for, in terms of skills and items. Finally we can see who actually won the game. The Sentinel.

These facts are very valuable as it can give you information as what to look for, or look out for. When comparing yourself to the professionals this is very important as you obviously want to become as good as they are, so things to analyze and look out for are in the parsing (eg. around what time Jolie/Spectre gets radiance). If Jolie is getting radiance on Spectre, in 20minutes, you should try to push for that as well when playing Spectre. At first it may seem impossible but with better practice, determination and the understanding of DotA — It is very possible.

Remember there is a lot of information on the scoreboard when watching a replay (I know some replays do not have) but when there are observers/referee’s it automatically -oi’s it and you can see all the interesting facts and statistics. For those of you who do not know what it looks like >.>

Fast Fact: Consumables are like tangoes/clarities/salves, things that can be “consumed”

REPLAY ANALYSIS TIPS

Laning

The early game of DotA is very important, and in watching replays we can see what heroes are better suited to solo/dual combo etc. When parsing or watching a replay we can pick up on what heroes to use. After this can you then ask your friends, or a pro, why are they chosen?

Also just a side-tip, I see a lot of people not being aggressive enough in the laning phase of DotA. Remember when you have the advantage in a lane with a superior combination you must take advantage of that. For instance in this picture we can see bottom lane Scourge has a superior advantage over Sentinel lane and takes full advantage of that with the roaming Furion. If you want to watch the game you can download it here (click on “here”).

This replay shows you how farming/laning should be done — when the advantage is with you.

Farming

My opinion of watching a replay for farming is simple:

For watching carries: to see how fast you should be farming and what items to buy to boost farming capabilities. My gauge for farming is to look at the creep stats and then look at the minutes.

For instance, in this picture look at the creep stats then judge how fast the player is creeping per minute. An average/okay creep stat is 3 times per minute, but you are definitely looking to improve on that if you want to carry for your team.

Support/gankers: I would see how much farming needs to be done in order to be effective and what creeps I’ll need to last hit (neutrals&lane wise). For support you can keep to about 1 creep per minute followed by a few neutrals here and there.

You should look out for how well the carry farms and where he finds experience and gold. Watch how well he avoids the ganks, and where he runs to for support.

Ganking

It’s important to see how professionals move around the map whilst avoiding enemy vision and observer wards for a successful gang bang. Watch the Tribal.int vs Blight.int game to see how Puppey moves around the map with Furion. He constantly adds pressure to the lanes with his “fakey” transportation animation.

Also understand how patient the DotA professionals are. They hold onto their spells until it is the right moment to throw them. Remember, once you do a spell you cannot do so again until your cooldown wears off.

Be patient when ganking and using spells, this requires experience and understanding of the game. You will learn how to become patient from watching more and more games.

Warding

Look out for the support players warding positions. It is good to learn the normal spots which can be found in this comprehensive and excellent guide to warding by Nyad here.

Everyone knows where wards can be placed so it is interesting to see where the professionals can place wards so the other team cannot counter them or know where they are.

Items

This is an obvious one. See which items the professionals are using on their respective hero. This is important as I’ve seen/heard a lot of people say “I always get Manta on PA coz IMAGES+CRITICAL=GG” or “Vlads on dazzle is just imba”. This is not always true (and may never be ) as every game is different. It is important to look for is why the pro bought that particular item, and why they go for that particular build.

Every game is always different and thereby the circumstances change. You need to learn how to adapt to the changes. For instance hood blocks magical damage (against casters), ghost scepter can be used against melee carries etc.

The counters are endless and you will need to learn them in order to counter/beat your opponent.

Comparison

Take a hero that you enjoy playing or want to improve on. Play a decent game (maybe a -cm or high level 35 game). Don’t play EM! After this, watch a professional replay of someone playing that hero, then watch your replay with that hero and compare. Evaluate the difference in skill builds/item builds/positioning/ganking/farming/everything. See what you are doing wrong and what you can do to improve it.

Conclusion

Use all the information that is in front of you, whether it be stats/figures/colours/pictures. The key to success and victory is right there, at your finger tips! :)

Finally, remember to analyze the replay and analyze yourself over and over :)

Thanks to Nyad with his guide to warding and DotA friends and family!

View the rest of the Pro Tips here

Under The Spotlight With SlightOfHand – AKA Smke

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 15:02:49 +0000

Name: Justin Probyn

Age: 19

Occupation: Student

Twilight user level: Slight of hand 43 / smke 11

How long have you been playing DotA

I have been playing casually for about 7 years, but only competitively for 3

How did it all start?

Haha, well I used to play Yu-gi-ho up at stadium on main (a mall in Cape Town) and right next to the playing area was an internet cafe. We used to spam play Tides of Blood, Darkness falls and CS 1.6 until my friend brought DotA on a flash drive for us to try out. Been playing ever since.

On average how long do you spend playing DotA a day?

Depends if I go out.. if I do not go out then about 6 hours a day.

Tell us about your clan, the players and their roles?

The infamous scant is our leader/dictator, he drafts and assigns hero’s if we are being too indecisive, he normally plays semi-carry/gank/support.
Radox aka n3komata is the carry player of the team, makes fighting and pushing decisions.
Bonkers is our new recruit he normally players carry/semi-carry/support/collar.
Nakor aka the gp god aka doctor dota is our support/gank player and on the odd occasion plays semi-carry.
Then me, I play gank/support/semi-carry…Or anything that’s missing really.

Who do you believe is the best clan in S.A and why?

At the risk of sounding arrogant/pretentious I would say us… I heard on the grapevine that mint recently had a fallout of sum sorts and there’s animosity between some of their players. This will obviously weaken their team… But its all speculation (SO DON’T RAGE AT ME IF I AM WRONG.)

JJ is a strong team , but many of their players BARELY play DotA, you need to play a lot to stay on top.

dedA is very competitive and a well anchored team but like everyone else they have faults.. and I think their faults (even though they can be easily corrected) have a big impact on the outcome of the game.

We have problems between our players, and I think many people know we do, but as soon as we play a serious game, they sort of fall away.

Do you see any clan breaking into the 4 top clans, being DedA, JJ, TankH and Mint?

I can honestly say I don’t know. Many teams refuse to play top level teams. I actually don’t know what teams are out there that are good and have potential…
P.S If u play stronger teams, you will definitely learn more, even if u get utterly thrashed. Just all get on ts, watch the replay and discuss what went wrong where, when and how.

What are your views on the latest map?

I love the new hero’s, not are they only EXTREMELY fun to play, but they are also rather imbalanced. Playing against them makes any game, be it a pub or not, a good challenge.

The changes to TP scrolls and the addition of the urn is definitely going to encourage more roaming of the map. Which means more ganging, more fighting, better use of player skill, finding better warding spots and of course less turtling.

If u sit back and look at it (which I encourage u do) most of the spell changes work extremely well in gangs/big fights and pretty useless when it comes to farming. I hope we can use this version, with the new hero’s, in the competitive scene soon.

Probyn out.

DotA Weekly: Pro Tip From A Pro — Using The Scroll of Town Portal

DaekinHO — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:32:46 +0000

Behold the wonder of a “Scroll of Town Portal”

Now many of you might be thinking, “OMF, NOOB TIP, WTF! TEACH ME HOW TO STACK ORBS RATHER” but pay close attention as this little item is one of the most important (besides skadi, radiance & mjollnir OFC BRA!!! ).

THE FACTS

Cost: 135 gold

Bought from: Ancient of Wonders (Also found on Scourge side)

It can also be bought from Goblin Laboratory shops in the side lanes

Use: Teleports you to a friendly building

Cooldown: 65 seconds

THE USES

There are many uses for a TP scroll but many players lack the understanding of how to effectively use a TP scroll. It is not simple, as I have seen many times in pubs, when you die to grab one and TP straight back into the lane. The uses are endless and to cover these I hope by the end of reading this you will have at least become more aware and humble to the great TP scroll item.

Ganking

The main idea behind this would be to effectively use a TP scroll to gank another lane in order to free it up to farm/push/harass and take no prisoners.

Support

This is by far the most important I think, because a lot of players do not understand the concept of support let alone support TP scrolling.

You would effectively either be “TPing” in to:

Cover a carry or another player. Example of this would be if 2/3 heroes are ganking your carry player, you TP in to either save him with a timely stun, create a presence to make the gankers flee or sacrifice yourself in order to save him losing any gold. Either way your TP scroll will save the day.

Supporting, if a lane is under immense pressure TP in and provide support. This can come in the form of a solo player going against a dual-stun lane. TP in to provide support in the form of stun/slow/healing salve/tangoes/hang out.

Push

To mass TP into a lane (Yes that means you and your teammates, 5 Heroes) and push the creeps and take down the opposing tower.

Farm

The most commonly used TP, is to farm. The idea is simple, you just TP into your allied tower and start hitting the creeps! This is the most commonly frowned upon use, but as a solo player you will have to use this effectively if say you fall to first blood. It would be important to get back into your lane and start farming asap as you do not want to fall behind in the exp/farming race.

Evade/Escape from Certain Attacks

It is very effective against enemies who have devastating nukes but cannot disable/stun you. A good example would be dual laning against a Viper. Once he reaches level 6, you can carry a TP scroll on you to evade his Ultimate + poison + nether strike combination. Once he Viper Strikes you, just TP back to your fountain, and now he has wasted an Ultimate, no gold for him. You’ve saved your ass and possibly, the day.

The Squeeze

The above points are to open your eyes to what other ways there are to TP into a lane for, but there are many other things to think about before you click away and wait for 65 seconds before you do it again. Always think about why you want to TP in and for what reason. Don’t think now, “YES TP AWAY COZ I WANNA GANK/SUPPORT/FARM DAEKINHO SAID SO!” Always think before you TP to an allied tower/lane: why and for what reason am I TPing?

Also to have good communication and map awareness is key, I remember when I first began playing DotA and I read (somewhere) that it is important to be watching your mini-map every 5 seconds so almost the same thing you do when your practicing for your drivers to look in the rear-view mirror :P The same sort of concept.

The reason is simple, that you can see more on the mini-map than that of your main screen with your hero. This is very vital in order to TP in to cover/harass/gank as most times it is faster to react than to listen to a command and react.

Also I know when I play support that it is far better to walk to a lane from your base than TP into it. Reason? Because take this example:

You are playing Lion (support/ganker type hero), you are inside your base. You TP into top lane, but the opposition decide to gank bot lane. What do you do now?

There is nothing you can do, but apologize: “I just TP’d top , can’t help you soz”

Now, if you had walked to top lane and on the way there they started ganking bot, you could’ve easily TP’d bot and saved your teammate. In the process you might have even scored some kills and free’d that lane up to farm for yourself, or the carry.

So remember THINK before you SCROLL. No that doesn’t rhyme. But REMEMBER to always think about why you want to use a scroll.

Now if you don’t take my words for it, here are some of SA pro’s to tell you what they think of TP scrolling and how it rolls.

Glitch

Plays for and captain’s: clan dedA

In this version tp scroll is probably the most important thing in the game, because there is so much farm and if the opposition wants to gank your carry 3 tp’s to save him and the other one just stays in lane and farm. It gets used to save towers and save carries or just to counter gank. Because warding is such a big issue in the game now, it’s hard to gank by just walking around so tp ganks is the most effective.

ClitsybananaS

Plays for and main carry: clan dedA

Tp scrolls are the way of dota, becuz boots of travel is like 2200 gold most people dont get it in a team, tp scrolls cost 135 and are very effective, they can change games and end games, if people use a tp scroll well u can effectively mass tp to a tower, save it , win a battle and get ur carry some kills, u can also tp in the fog and hide and bait it with the carry on ur team ( the hero the people want to kill)

Freez

Plays for: JJ DotA

The tp scroll has always played a big part in dota, especially when trying 2 escape, its great when the other team doesn’t have a lot of disable and with skilful fog hugging 1 can survive ganks. The current version is very farm oriented, with more passive and reactive play style’s being used because of the effectively of carries which are hard 2 kill and survive long enough so there team can tp in.

Never tp to a lane to farm, unless the creeps are at your tower and the lane is open. Always carry a tp scroll.

I hope this has at least opened your eyes to the power of the scroll of town portal!

Thanks must go out to scant, glitch, clitsybananas and freez for helping me with this post.

OC LAN Sees An Eventful JJ vs dedA Game

DaekinHO — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:34:04 +0000

As SMM comes to a close and the Alienware 30-day Tourney taking over, another tournament fell over the month of November –

THE OC DOTA TOURNEY OF COURSE!

Garena was unfortunately down during this time period, but the following replay has been released!

THE GAME

dedA vs JJ – Replay

Game Length: 57:08

The Sentinel – dedA (1st Pick)

The bans:

The picks & lanes:

DedA.( •)<*(Top) [POTM]
DedA.BurNing~(Top) [SVEN]
DedA~CryT_T.(Top) [VS]
DedA.YMT(Mid) [WL]
DedA.longdd(Bot) [QOP]

The Scourge – JJ

The bans:

The picks & lanes:

6iS(Top) [BM]
Freez(Mid) [LICH]
Aion(Bot) [CM]
PLEASE(Bot) [SF]
nrg(Jungle) [ENIGMA]

THE SQUEEZE:

The reasons to watch this replay are simple, this is an exciting game which is a lot of fun to watch but for those of you who want a more detailed explanation keep reading otherwise just download and DISCUSS?

Banning pipe (The captains of both teams before the match came to the decision to ban pipe) to make the game more exciting.
Scourge going for a level 1 roshan strategy with overpowering AOE, whilst dedA looking to dominate in lanes from the get go with trilane top and strong solo’s mid and bot.
AOE watch the ulti’s and spells go BOOM!
Roshan level 1, wanna see kills before the creeps are out? THEN THIS REPLAY IS FOR YOU!
Tri-lane top, watch 6is soak up the pressure of 3 heroes on 1.
8min mark, watch how Saidin literally raze his way out of a tight gank.
32min, wanna see a double triple kill? 2 heroes left? wtf?
Did I mention ULTI’S GO OFF = BOOM!
DISCUSS ALREADY

DOWNLOAD, WATCH & NOW DISCUSS

MYM|MaNia- Interview

HamstaDawG — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:04:08 +0000

Hi MYM|MaNia-, Tell us a bit about yourself and how you started off with DotA.

Hey all, in Dota you know me as MaNia-, but in my private life my name is Brian and I am at the moment studying to be a multimediadesigner, which is pretty much making commercials or creating websites etc. I started playing dota about 4 years ago. It started out as just being an outlet after playing intense warcraft 3 matches. I used to play on a pretty high lvl of normal warcraft, but I started playing more and more dota, and in the end I didnt play anything else than dota. As you know it is a quite addictive game. :)

How do you view of the future of international DotA?

Things are looking really good in the competetive world of dota. More and more tournaments are appearing with bigger prizepools, which really makes it more worth traveling around the world to join these events. Theres not many organisations that are able to send dota teams to events around the world, so we are really blessing that our organisation is so generous.

Can you tell us about your team, the players, their roles etc?

Our main lineup is Kuroky, PusHer, Miggel, Angel and myself.

Me and Miggel normally play the hard gankers while kuroky plays the semicarry/ganker and angel normally plays our lategamer, but he also helps gang around the map. Pusher is mostly defined as being in the support category, but hes been really active in the ganks and has improved alot. I think with our current playstyle it allows all the members of the team to reach their potential.

How is the European gameplay different to that of the Asian gameplay?

I dont really see big differences between european and asian playstyle, its only few teams in each region that differs from the rest of the teams. Like cybertime is using alot of different heroes, and are trying to mix melee agility heroes in their lineups.

How much time does MYM spend practicing together?

Its not really scheduled but we just prac when all are online. Eventhough we have tried putting in more hours of training, since the arrival of Kuroky, since there is allways a transition period when a new member joins the team.

About SMM. Are you looking forward to it? How is MYM preparing for this event and what do you expect from other teams in terms of preparation and performance?

Im really looking forward to playing against all the asian teams, since we dont get the chance to play vs them normally. We havent done some speciel training up to the event, since people are very busy with their studies, but we have tried praccing as much as possible to be ready for the event, and we feel that we are in great shape atm. I heard that the asian teams are spending 12 hours a day preparing for smm, plus they also spend some days up the event analyzing the different opponents, so thats real dedication. I heard all asians are like that in every sport they play. I saw some program once with chinese gymnasts that were training like robots all days every day, which is how i picture the asian dota teams, when I think of them.

Have you ever watched a South African replay?

Unfortunately I haven’t had the pleasure of watching south african replays, I dont even know a place where I can download them. (edit: well now you do :D)

Lately we have seen some exciting picks from MYM and other international teams. Are there any unorthodox heroes you would like to try out in a game?

Theres many heroes I would like to try out, but I cant disclose this information up to the event

What would you like to see changed in 6.65?

I dont want much changes, mb add some new heroes to make it interesting. Would be cool with a hero that has an aim skill, since they are most fun to play.

Have you seen the Nightcrawler teaser? What’s your opinion on it?

Yea I have seen the teaser, the hero looks imba :)

Favourites:

Hero? Pudge tiny

Item? dagger

Spell? Techies suicide

Strategy? offensive

International Player? Darkarax4

Local Player? Flaskehals/41-eyes they are twins :)

Food? Chinese duck

Drink? Guld tuborg(danish type of beer)

Movie? The butterfly effect

Song? The temper trap – sweet disposition

Quote? What are you a gay fish?

Lastly, any shout outs you would like to send to fans?

I wanna make a shout out to two of my favorite fans: Clitsybananas and xeRa! Im really glad to hear that we have fans in South Africa, I hope I can learn more about the SA playstyle and culture. Keep supporting us, you make us stronger!

All photos taken from mymym.com and gosugamers.com. Captions for images are from the top of the page to the bottom:

Image 1: MaNia-

Image 2: Top left to bottom right: Maelk, Angel, Pusher, Mania-, Miggel

Image 3: Right: MaNia-

Image 4: Left MaNia-

UCL Week 1: Replay of the Week

HamstaDawG — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:49:32 +0000

Written by Michael “Orange” Masson

Week one of the UCL got off to flyer last week with wins going to clans Star, PhD, dedA, DUC, 8or9 and Crap. One of the weeks highlight replays was the clash between CraP and NsF, captained by Magicman and Doppl3r respectively. NsF are a recently reformed clan, looking to get back into the competitive scene, sporting the likes of Doppl3r, Ryuu and Vsdgkk. The expectation was on them to win this one, with individual skill and experience exceeding that of Crap. However, a determined Crap kept cool, calm and collected throughout the game and with some well coordinated team play, managed to give NsF a lot more than they bargained for. NsF were downed by the good communication and synergy of Crap and out muscled late game by the TenQâ€™s in axe and necro.

The Draft

Bans

NsF:

Dark seer has, of late, become more often used â€“ and used well with his flexibility be it ganging, laning or even late game support, thus he was banned. Bane was also elimed, a powerful ganger and solo lane. Stratting for a Rasta solo mid, bane wouldâ€™ve been an obvious threat to the success of the rasta. We can also note at this pointÂ the tide ban, a mass AoE disabler, was benched with the stratting of a Chen, who thrives off less AoE to disable his creeps.

Crap:

Na and es, known trouble makers,Â were banned by Crap. Veng being the roaming problem child â€“ going 2 solos, CrapÂ were probably thinking whats best for someone trying to hold a lane/farm.Â Slardar was Craps more unorthodox ban, a hard to control super carry.

Picks,Â Assignments and Lanes:

NsF:

Chen [Doppl3r] â€“ Bush/Gang
Doom [BearGrills] â€“ Bot Solo
Rasta [Ryuu] â€“ Mid Solo
CM [_Pies4ng] â€“ Top
Panda [Vsdgkk] â€“ Top

Doppl3r went for strat based aroundÂ Panda and him getting his scepter as early as possible (with cm to babysit andÂ harass in his lane) and the silence doom to farm up as much as possible (noteÂ the early midas). Opting for a ganging chen that could help cm with the supportÂ role was a risky pick but allowed for some early kills to the favour of panda.Â The rasta played a more aggressive game than what we are used to seeing, takingÂ on the solo mid and controlling the pirate. Lucifer in the bottom lane had aÂ tough time controlling the conventionally feared axe/wl lane and eventuallyÂ farmed less than expected.

A cm laning top supporting panda, aÂ bushing chen ready to gang and a relatively frail necro laning top, sentinelÂ were planning on dominating an early lane (top) whilst Doom farmedÂ up bot andÂ Rasta defended mid. Things obviously didnâ€™t go as planned.

Crap:

Axe [Magicman] â€“ Bot
Admiral [Lighten] â€“Mid Solo
Warlock Â [h0nd] â€“ Bot
Necrolyte [-Eraser-] â€“ Top Solo
Enigma [Nowhere] â€“ Top Bush

Many new strats have emerged lately
and have been tried and tested. Last week, Crap kept to what they new optingÂ for a more conventional strat. A bushing enigma to assit a top solo, farm someÂ stats/wards/blink was not so surprising from Crap. Pirate is also a known solidÂ farmer when soloing â€“ of which can also make some kills with his disable. HeÂ also some decent late game AoE. Necro (who soloâ€™d top) can be a deadly forceÂ late and early game, and after Nsf picked semi tanks in Panda and Doom, havingÂ someone who could eliminate one the higher hp battle heros could greatlyÂ influence the outcome of battles! The idea of Necro versus a Panda in battle isÂ to focus his ulti on a lower hp panda before he can use Primal Spirit, the deadly,Â tanking three pandas from hell that can single handedly win battles.Â Necro had a hard time in his lane and hisÂ farming was halted by some constant deaths and harassing. Axe/WL is known toÂ pay dividends if executed correctly, and was a good lane bot (with themÂ assuming Chen would bush bot).

Early On

After some Rasta nets to attemptÂ solo kills, a few missed torrents by pirate, and doom not letting up versus hisÂ tough axe/wl lane, first blood predictably went to NsF top lane with theÂ cm/panda slows and chen rushing (frightening) poor necro into a dismal corner.

Enigma
had quite a tough job in the farms and was gunned down by the cm/panda/chenÂ combo as often as necro. He ganged effectively and attempted to help recoverÂ top lane but, even after making 2 kills, couldnâ€™t hold panda back from aÂ farming spree (note there were wards planted in his primary creep pulling campÂ early on).

Meanwhile,Â bottom lane,Â axe was farming it up with the help of wl. An almost untouched,Â unganged lane by NsF â€“ a criticalÂ mistake in my opinion. Their over-commitment

top blew Dooms farming expectations to smithereens, yet he did well for theÂ situation he found himself in, even earning a kill when chen madeÂ the trekÂ across the river! Axe was yet to be killed and sported a large wad of cash to
show for it. Doom was also hauling it in.Â Rasta andÂ Pirate were also farming it up a bit mid, with even creep scores for a whileÂ and 1 kill a piece (pirate had a death and an assist).

These areÂ the following aspects to note 10 mins into the game:

Score: 7/4

TowersÂ lost: 0

Creep
Scores:

1^st	48	MagicmanÂ (Axe)
2^nd	39	Vsdgkk (Panda)
3^rd	32	RyuuÂ (Rasta)
4^th	30	LightenÂ (Pirate)

Wards
Purchased (sets):Â 2(cm)/2(wl)

Midgame

Midgame,Â things seemed to go all NsF for a long while, with multiple lane pushes,Â takings of towers and well coordinated gangs. This went hand in hand with someÂ decent mid-game warding by chen. However, a big negative for NsF were the 3 lowÂ hp intel heros. As much as NsF seemed to dominate, Crap often snatched one orÂ two kills from a gang. This kept them well in touch score wise.

Axe wasÂ already well farmed and on his way towards super tanking (with blink). Many NsFÂ gangs, however, were ill coordinated and lead to nothing. This gave Crap theÂ break to farm up â€“ pirate with battle fury, enigma with blink, wl with necroÂ book. Crap started comboing up with axe blink call, enigma ulti, wl ulti. TheyÂ started winning 5v5â€™s and gaining the upper hand (with the odd battle victoryÂ going to NsF). NsF had the rasta pushes on their side and successfully tookÂ some towers, gaining gold all along and allowing them more space to farm.

NsF,Â although on the backfoot, also began to come back with some well timed aghanism-inducedÂ ultis from Vsdgkk (Panda) that won them many kills in various battles.

The game remained tight throughoutÂ the middle of the game with both teams trading kills every 5 or so minutes.

Mistakes were made by both teams, however it was evident at this stage thatÂ Crap were gelling well as a team, with some really well timed ulties andÂ farming management.

NsF were burdened by some lazy mapÂ awareness by cm at times, and over confidence in many pushes. With cm buyingÂ wards and chen planting them, NsF were showing doubt in their supportâ€™sÂ capabilities, never a good sign. Communication also brought them down at timesÂ with some people speaking over Teamspeak and others not.

Another big issue was the divisionÂ of farming in NsF. With only a panda to carry them through fights, piling himÂ with items seemed a plausible option. However, with doom farming his aga andÂ refresher, rasta soloing (for a long time) and raking in gold from towers andÂ creeps and cm carelessly pushing lanes every so often, he did not get enoughÂ chance to farm as much as he shouldâ€™ve. Late game turned out interestingÂ indeed.

Late Game

Some interesting stats (at 40 mins):

Score: 30/32

Creep Scores:

Necro	74Â (with a guinsoo, treads, stats)
Cm	84 (with blink, treads, stats)

Wards: 18 /16

Wl	16
Chen	8
Rasta	6
Cm	4

We began to see some late gameÂ pushes after NsF took a few vital kills. This severely dampened Crap defense andÂ NsF were able to take a (melee) rax at 52 mins.

NsF continued some power pushes withÂ pandaâ€™s ulti and rasta wards, taking another rax. 2 raxâ€™s down and the creepsÂ having pushed bottom scourge tower, scourge were on the backfoot, and if thisÂ pushing was to continue, they were sure to lose. It was time to act for Crap.Â After roshing (2^nd rosh â€“ 2^nd aegis to necro), theyÂ pushed a few times themselves, the first few to no avail. Finally, one lastÂ massive push, Crap cleaned most of NsF out, continuing to rax mid. SlippingÂ past defences, they raxed both bot and top, inducing super creeps. Nsfâ€™sÂ defence was weekend by consecutive deaths and no synergy. Pandas idea to saveÂ cash for a possible push of this sort, bought back 3 times trying to defend.Â Crap was already way too powerful and tanked up for vsdgkkâ€™s primal spirit.Â They took the tree. Very persistent play from both teams lead to a classic!

Very powerful 5v5 heroes from bothÂ Crap and NsF lead to some decent late game turtling, and it was nice to see aÂ tight replay for a change!

Well played Crap! Look forward toÂ seeing both these clans back in action this week =P.

End game screenshot:

DotA Parse
Date: 09/11/2009 21:17

Patch version: 1.24

Map: DotA Allstars 6.64

Game name: [12]nsf v crap

Game mode: Normal mode

Host name: Vsdgkk

Replay saver: Doppl3R

Game length: 1:25:32

Players: 5v5

Game score: 52/43

Observers: Sacred_Warrior, The_Protagonist

Sentinel:

Doppl3R, level 20, K/D: 14/11, CS: 208/4, build: 9353 gold, items: , APM: 94

BearGrills, level 21, K/D: 7/13, CS: 149/10, build: 16258 gold, items: , APM: 94

Ryuu, level 19, K/D: 21/5, CS: 302/10, build: 12487 gold, items: , APM: 67

_Pies4ng, level 20, K/D: 0/0, CS: 0/0, build: 13265 gold, items: , APM: 65

Vsdgkk, level 21, K/D: 5/14, CS: 37/0, build: 17530 gold, items: , APM: 86

Scourge:

Magicman, level 19, K/D: 3/13, CS: 157/6, build: 19149 gold, items: , APM: 109

(Pirate)Lighten, level 25, K/D: 8/15, CS: 95/4, build: 21733 gold, items: , APM: 99

h0nd, level 25, K/D: 8/14, CS: 147/4, build: 12871 gold, items: , APM: 101

-Eraser-, level 21, K/D: 5/10, CS: 95/13, build: 19214 gold, items: , APM: 74

Nowere, level 19, K/D: 0/0, CS: 0/0, build: 12459 gold, items: , APM: 64

Article Source: www.GoodDota.za.net

DotA Version 6.65 — The New Nightcrawler Hero?

Husain — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:16:18 +0000

IceFrog announced in his blog that 6.65â€™s release is just around the corner. Everyone seems to be wondering as to what are the changes?

Not helping everyoneâ€™s curiosity, and speculation, is this video posted on his blog. IceFrog has everyone wondering what the new hero is, as it looks powerful in this short 52 sec video.

IceFrogs’s Blog

It seems that IceFrog keeps his ears pealed and listens to his fans.How do we know this? Well, this was a hero idea posted on DotaStrategy.com, and from what we see there the person who designed the hero has it pretty well worked out.

Though their seems to be a slight change in the hero from what is shown in the video to the original idea. The lightning was very weird, as it is not in the skill build given. We’re guessing that IceFrog took the idea and put work into it.. On the whole this is one hero you do not want to run into at night.

Haha — And you all thought the smoke from Lost was bad.

AGASA Looking To Phase Out DotA — HoN To The Rescue?

Dean — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:26:50 +0000

South Africaâ€™s largest online league, AGASA, has announced a contentious decision to phase out support for the popular game Defense of the Ancients (DotA) in 2010. This is, according to the AGASA Committee, in order to orientate the organisationâ€™s full resources towards a potential replacement in the hero-based RTS genre: S2 Gamesâ€™ Heroes of Newerth (HoN). DotA has a significant local following; however, most local players choose illegally pirated installations instead of purchasing the legitimate game. This has made the title almost impossible to source sponsorship for.

This week, in an exclusive interview, an AGASA representative told eGamer:

â€œWeâ€™ve spent over 4 years trying to source a viable sponsor for competitive DotA, but nobody wants to touch it. Piracy was the major reason why we were not able to lobby for DotA to be held at rAge. Despite the presence of an enormous local community and the arrival of a number of stable competitive teams, itâ€™s a risk which sponsors arenâ€™t willing to take â€“ and rightly so.â€

Heroes of Newerth might offer the local community an opportunity to build the hero-based RTS genre into something which dwarfs the likes of Call of Duty and Counter-Strike.

â€œThe potential is there. Itâ€™s a rapidly growing community and a game which has already begun to prove its worth across the world. Aside from the chance to revive the DotA communityâ€™s reputation, HoN offers players heaps of functionality which the non-standalone alternative never will.â€

Being dropped from a match mid-game (one of the major downsides to competitive on-/off-line DotA) is alleviated in Heroes of Newerth through the gameâ€™s ability to let you rejoin a game after being dropped. The netcode (the language which the game uses to transmit game data to other players) is also substantially improved which means that local teams are able to compete against overseas teams on a more equal playing field. Heroes of Newerth also offers players and spectators a big step forwards in terms of graphics and gameplay dynamic, although this does require better graphics and processing capabilities.

S2 Games also recently released their online clan management facility, which allows players to easily manage their clans and players, along with stats tracking and easy matchmaking. The ESL, Europeâ€™s largest online gaming league, also recently got their first HoN Competition underway, with over 80 teams taking part.

â€œWeâ€™re not happy to say goodbye to DotA, but we have to be realistic. The community will never really have an opportunity to reach its full potential with the reputation it currently has. I doubt that HoN will ever replace DotA as a free-for-all title, but competitively, I hope that the community makes the shift towards something sustainable.

We want to push for HoNâ€™s inclusion in the Do Gaming leagues next year, which will mean that it will see major sponsorship and prizes â€“ possibly to the extent of Call of Duty 4. All that has to change is the mindset. For the fun and enjoyment you will get out of it, buying HoN for 30 dollars is really worth it in the long run. â€

AGASA will continue to offer support for DotA for the first half of 2010, although it will no longer offer the free weekend cups which became a monthly event this year. After the phase-out period, DotA will be moved to the archived games section and will no longer be supported.

Although Heroes of Newerth is still in its beta testing stages, many of the countryâ€™s top DotA clans have already begun to form HoN teams as the title aims for full release later next year. AGASA has already started working towards an introductory competition to be held in Q1 2010 and registrations will open in January.

AGASA would like your feedback, so let us know by adding comments.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Let the battle begin! Twilight’s Unofficial DotA League

Dean — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:34:48 +0000

The Unofficial DotA League will start on the 2nd of November, 2009. The league will be a ‘warm-up’ for the official Twilight League which should kick off in a couple of months time.

The league will see 14 teams face off in a 14 week long race to become the champions. The 14 teams included differ in experience and reputation, and it will be interesting to see whether there are going to be any upsets or whether the big clans will easily triumph over the lesser known ones. Either way, this league promises a great deal of competitive gaming and all round fun for those taking part.

Teams will play one game per week, and will earn points for a win and bonus points are available should a team win or lose with specific conditions being met. After having completed all of their matches, the team with the most points wins the league. The weekly standings of the 14 teams will be updated as the replays of the games are uploaded and reviewed.

Check out the details of the league here
Check out the results and scoreboard here

To all the teams involved – all the best and letâ€™s try to put on some top notch performances!

The 45 Day Chinese DotA Marathon-League-Thing

Dean — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:27:31 +0000

One game – Eight Teams – 45 Days — You read that correctly – don’t worry.

China’s eSport growth is said to be absolutely phenomenal, where it is apparently so big that they are willing to host a 45 day DotA marathon. The event does not yet have a title, but it will however run from the 1st of December until the middle of January.

There will be a prize of 10,000 euros and the tournament will pretty much just see eight teams of DotA staying in Beijing and having fun.

While only top teams are invited, it won’t be as hectic as it sounds, in fact we’re expecting it to be a couple of games a week where the rest of the time the players can just do their own thing — similar to the Korean StarCraft proleague tournaments.

Although this is a good idea for a competition, and it’s really enthusiastic, there are problems. European players might not be able to obtain a passport for such a long period of time, and the tournament is during the Christmas season.

The tournament will award players with accommodation and also computers to practice on.

All we can say is… Overseas DotA players, uhm, easy life?

Week 25 – Koth Game 24 — The Last Game — Results and Voting!

Dean — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:16:26 +0000

Vote for the team which you would like to challenge the King!

Rules

You can view the full rule set and how the tournament works over here.

KOTH Admin Team:

Alcardu â€“ Admin Head & Commentator
Contact him by email here

Blink â€“ Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Demonik – Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Slobber â€“ Dedicated Host
Contact him by email here

MortaL â€“ Helpline
Contact him by email here

fluKe â€“ Audio Recorder & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Demraz|B| – TeamSpeak & Bot Host
Contact him by email here

Hallow – Commentator
Contact him by email here

Nitrate – Deity & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Admins are reachable in our IRC channel: #egamer [shadowfire.org]

If you feel that you have been treated unfairly or have a complaint, contact Alcardu.

Voting

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Exclusions:

JJ is excluded this week as they lost their last game.

Results

05 May 2009 – Exhibition Match -> tankh vs dedA -> Winners -> tankh -> Replay -> Post game article
12 May 2009 – The Beginning -> tankh vs miNt -> Winners -> miNt -> Replay -> Post game article
19 May 2009 – One or None -> miNt vs dedA-> Winners -> dedA -> Replay -> Post game article
26 May 2009 – First Blood -> dedA vs mmk-> Winners -> dedA -> Replay -> Post game article
02 June 2009 – Two To Tango -> dedA vs SF-> Winners -> dedA -> Replay -> Post game article
09 June 2009 – New Kings on the Block -> dedA vs miNt-> Winners -> miNt -> Replay -> Post game article
16 June 2009 – Clash of the Titans -> miNt vs tankh-> Winners -> tankh -> Replay -> Post game article
23 June 2009 – New Blood has been Shed -> tankh vs Ks`za -> Winners -> tankh -> Replay -> ~~Post game article~~
30 June 2009 – Match 8 -> tankh vs JIMP -> Winners -> tankh -> Replay -> ~~Post game article~~
07 July 2009 – Match 9 -> tankh vs miNt -> Winners -> miNt -> Replay -> Post game article
14 July 2009 – Match 10 -> miNt vs KsZa -> Winners -> miNt -> Replay -> Post game article
21 July 2009 – Match 11 -> miNt vs dedA -> Winners -> miNt -> Replay -> ~~Post game article~~
28 July 2009 – Match 12 -> miNt vs Tankh -> Winners -> miNt -> Replay -> ~~Post game article~~
04 August 2009 – Week Break – Check out the Article here
11 August 2009 – Match 13 – miNt vs JJ.dota -> Winners -> miNt -> Replay -> Commentary -> Post game article
18 August 2009 – Match 14 – miNt vs Tankh -> Winners -> Tankh -> Replay -> Post game article
25 August 2009 – Match 15 – JJ vs Tankh -> Winners -> JJ -> Replay -> Post game article
01 September 2009 – Match 16 – JJ vs dedA -> Winners -> JJ -> Replay -> ~~Post game article~~
08 September 2009 – Match 17 – JJ vs mmK -> Winners -> JJ -> Replay -> Post game article
15 September 2009 – Match 18 – JJ vs dedA -> Winners -> dedA -> Replay -> Post game article
22 September 2009 – Match 19 – miNt vs dedA -> Winners -> miNt -> Replay -> ~~Post game article~~
29 September 2009 – Match 20 – miNt vs JJ -> Winners -> miNt -> Replay -> Post game article
06 October 2009 – Match 21 – miNt vs Tankh -> Winner -> miNt -> Replay -> Post game article
13 October 2009 – Match 22 – miNt vs dedA -> Winner -> miNt -> Replay -> Post game article
20 October 2009 – Match 23 – miNt vs JJ -> Winner -> miNt -> Replay -> Post game article

The full scoreboard, updated weekly, can be found at KothSeries.

Week 24 – Koth Game 23 – Results and Voting!

Dean — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:55:14 +0000

Vote for the team which you would like to challenge the King!

Rules

You can view the full rule set and how the tournament works over here.

KOTH Admin Team:

Alcardu â€“ Admin Head & Commentator
Contact him by email here

Blink â€“ Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Demonik – Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Slobber â€“ Dedicated Host
Contact him by email here

MortaL â€“ Helpline
Contact him by email here

fluKe â€“ Audio Recorder & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Demraz|B| – TeamSpeak & Bot Host
Contact him by email here

Hallow – Commentator
Contact him by email here

Nitrate – Deity & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Admins are reachable in our IRC channel: #egamer [shadowfire.org]

If you feel that you have been treated unfairly or have a complaint, contact Alcardu.

Voting

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Exclusions:

dedA is excluded this week as they lost their last game.

Results

The full scoreboard, updated weekly, can be found at KothSeries.

Week 23 – Koth Game 22 – Results and Voting!

Dean — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:47:16 +0000

This tournament is proudly sponsored by Rectron, Powered by Twilight and Run by eGamer!

Vote for the team which you would like to challenge the King!

Rules

You can view the full rule set and how the tournament works over here.

KOTH Admin Team:

Alcardu â€“ Admin Head & Commentator
Contact him by email here

Blink â€“ Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Demonik – Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Slobber â€“ Dedicated Host
Contact him by email here

MortaL â€“ Helpline
Contact him by email here

fluKe â€“ Audio Recorder & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Demraz|B| – TeamSpeak & Bot Host
Contact him by email here

Hallow – Commentator
Contact him by email here

Nitrate – Deity & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Admins are reachable in our IRC channel: #egamer [shadowfire.org]

If you feel that you have been treated unfairly or have a complaint, contact Alcardu.

Voting

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Exclusions:

tankh is excluded this week as they lost their last game.

Results

The full scoreboard, updated weekly, can be found at KothSeries.

King of the Hill Dota Series: Week 21 â€“ Koth Game 20 — Mint V JJ

Dean — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:58:33 +0000

This tournament is sponsored by Rectron, powered by Twilight Gaming and run by eGamer

This has been written in the opinion of Lemon Grass.

This is a post-game article of the latest King of the Hill DotA game between Mint Gaming and JJ.Dota on the 29th of September 2009

Mint

The Draft

In the drafts we see jj eliming heroes that miNt uses particularly well in the past namely; chen bambi and clock followed by one â€œimba heroâ€ elim (tc). miNt is seen eliming two heroes that we simply hate playing against (tide and viper) followed by another two â€œimba heroâ€ bans. miNt dominated the picks having a very all rounded strat. Plenty gang, plenty AoE, plenty carry, and plenty push, enough support, not too many farming intensive heroes. miNtâ€™s lanes were extremely strong (ill get back to this later). The strat is an early-mid game one, but still can manage late game. JJ chose a VERY item intensive strat (aka rice aka turtle). Four out of the five heroes are all item dependant (this means that the heroes are reliant on getting expensive items â€“ required to farm a lot.) So their strat is considered a late game one. JJ relied on the Avernus and NA to ward (which really nerfed the NA). JJâ€™s lanes were not very strong, the only gang they had was NA and they lacked AoE with undying being their only push. Overall miNt won the draft and took great advantage of this from the word go.

I have the replay of the first part of the game, up to where jj..notouchthis dropped. I will include it here.

The Lanes

Top: POTM (LeMoN-GrAsS) vs Undying (sAidy)

Mid: Darkseer (MrAsSmAn) vs Sniper (freez) + NA (Machine)

Bot: Syllabear (Waz_maC) vs Morph (Blizzy) + Avernus (Sixis)

Roam: ES (kspr) + CM (sLoJ)

As you can see from the lanes, sentinel had stronger lanes overall. Top and middle had constant gangs from the two roamers which resulted in many kills and huge amount of pressure. Waz_maC soloâ€™s bottom without problem (one of the beauties of Syllabear is that it can solo against almost any lane). Although very little pressure was put on him (only one gang from the NA which did not result in a kill). The action of this game happens mid and top. Having two heroes dedicated to roaming creates a huge amount of pressure on the other team. Having to provide vision of more than just the river. miNt had a very aggressive strat but at the same time it allowed for the Syllabear, Potm and even the DS to farm. This is a perfect combination. miNt took advantage of jjâ€™s lack of early game dominance from the word go.

First Blood

First blood top is a perfect example of the two roamers making a huge impact on the game. The first gang top occurs when the undying attempts to claim a creep kill, before he knows it, he is blocked and frozen shortly after. One his last attempt to escape, he finds him self smacked in the face with a dangerous arrow of death. (lol). This early gang is one of the many that the es and cm controlled. This game can play as a great example for anyone who is keen to see how roam. They communicated very well, the skill of ksprâ€™s es and experience of sLoJ led to a deadly combination. These gangs were made possible with very good counter warding.

Throughout the game, the only hero on JJâ€™s side that was not being ganged and was managing to farm decently was Blizzyâ€™s Morph. He managed to pick up a large amount of kills, and farmed quite a lot. He would capitalize on the contrasting movement speeds of miNts heroes â€“ Syllabear and DS would chase very far and the CM and POTM would try to as well, only to be picked off by the Morphling. So with morph being miNts only fear, we pushed hard. The combination of Syllabear (with images) POTM and DS wall, towers dropped extremely fast. JJâ€™s lack of AoE prevented them from stopping our pushes. Before JJ knew it, we had raxed. The POTM farmed

Throughout this game there are large amounts of individual skill shown. This is a game to watch.

Week 22 – Koth Game 21 – Results and Voting!

Dean — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:10:53 +0000

This tournament is proudly sponsored by Rectron, Powered by Twilight and Run by eGamer!

Vote for the team which you would like to challenge the King!

Rules

You can view the full rule set and how the tournament works over here.

KOTH Admin Team:

Alcardu â€“ Admin Head & Commentator
Contact him by email here

Blink â€“ Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Demonik – Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Slobber â€“ Dedicated Host
Contact him by email here

MortaL â€“ Helpline
Contact him by email here

fluKe â€“ Audio Recorder & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Demraz|B| – TeamSpeak & Bot Host
Contact him by email here

Hallow – Commentator
Contact him by email here

Nitrate – Deity & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Admins are reachable in our IRC channel: #egamer [shadowfire.org]

If you feel that you have been treated unfairly or have a complaint, contact Alcardu.

Voting

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Exclusions:

JJ is excluded this week as they lost their last game.

Results

The full scoreboard, updated weekly, can be found at KothSeries.

Week 21 – Koth Game 20 – Results and Voting!

Dean — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:04:08 +0000

This tournament is proudly sponsored by Rectron, Powered by Twilight and Run by eGamer!

Vote for the team which you would like to challenge the King!

Rules

You can view the full rule set and how the tournament works over here.

KOTH Admin Team:

Alcardu â€“ Admin Head & Commentator
Contact him by email here

Blink â€“ Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Demonik – Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Slobber â€“ Dedicated Host
Contact him by email here

MortaL â€“ Helpline
Contact him by email here

fluKe â€“ Audio Recorder & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Demraz|B| – TeamSpeak & Bot Host
Contact him by email here

Hallow – Commentator
Contact him by email here

Nitrate – Deity & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Admins are reachable in our IRC channel: #egamer [shadowfire.org]

If you feel that you have been treated unfairly or have a complaint, contact Alcardu.

Voting

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Exclusions:

dedA is excluded this week as they lost their last game.

Results

The full scoreboard, updated weekly, can be found at KothSeries.

King of the Hill Dota Series: Week 19 – Attack of the Clones

Flipi — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:18:29 +0000

Koth, I want, to be with you all of the time!

Match 18 once again gave me a reason to live (: The reigning kings, Just Juking [Scourge], were taken on by the voted challengers, Dedicated`Abuse [Sentinel]. Last week Just Juking had pocketed their second Koth point, bringing them up to a total of 2 points and tying them in second place with Dedicated`Abuse and tankH.

Shockingly enough, this week by the time I was sitting down and pulling a glass closer, the game was hosted – the players were ready – and I was being told we wereÂ actuallyÂ ON TIME! Almost fell off my chair.. but we went at it and enjoyed itÂ thoroughly.

The replay for this week is available here:

Replay – HERE

The Bans help:

JJ: dirge tide rhasta NA

dedA: bat bane bambi TC

As you can see most of the trouble makers were eliminated. Tidehunter is not a standard ban at all though, and must have been JJ reading into dedA’s likely strat and trying to upset their plans. The only real surprise here is that Tide must have replaced ES as an elimination, which is strange because it is well known that dedA like their ES medium to rare.

The Picks, Assignments and Lanes:

JJ:

Lina [Notouchthis] – Bot
SF [sAidy] – Top Solo
SK [SixiS] – Bot
clock [Midas/Blizzy] – Mid
Veng [nrg/Machine] – Mid/roaming

JJ opted for a slightlyÂ unorthodoxÂ strategy, using the (now old school) SF and Veng in their draft. SF is by definition a solo hero, geared for farming and late game destruction, and we saw JJ employing him as such. Veng on the other hand is a slight all rounder. With her nice stun and useful-without-items ulti she garners favour as a roaming ganger and warder. Alternatively she functions very well as a supporting carry, should she acquire the necessary farming time. Her ulti also makes her quite dangerous to an untrained team as aÂ surpriseÂ initiator, swapping a vital hero out of allied reach and sacrificing herself for the kill a lot of the time.

ClockÂ of courseÂ would be a solo as well, and lastly the SK Lina lane (Still one of my all time favourites, with Drow Viper, Viper Huskar and Lina CM) bringing up the rear with its classic dual stun action.

dedA:

Potm [glitch] – Bot
Morph [ClitsybananaS] – Top Solo
Viper Â [WingSter] – Mid
Abba [BonKerS] – Mid
ES [CryT_T/Xera`] – Bot/Roaming

On dedA’s side things looked slightly lessÂ surprising, but still quite interesting. Morph would be sitting in a solo lane, but here again we have a second solo, this time Viper. This leaves ES Abbadon and Potm. ES and Potm can form quite a destructive lane, while Abbadon is one of the most irritating and surprising babysitters that Dota has to offer. With his Apothic shield and heal he can save team mates from near death experiences and at the same time his Ulti gives him the freedom to not worry about himself.

The Kick-off:

Straight out of the boxes JJ did what I like to call a KS.Int move and had 4 of their heroes running down into the Sentinel bush to try and score a pre-creep kill, with only SF going straight top to block his creeps upon them spawning. Unlucky for JJ, dedA was also moving in a direction, which was that of the top Rune spot. This meant that before the match started we had a lot of ground being covered, with 0 clashes.

The top rune spawned, and ES picked up Invisibilility. This resulted in the first gang (and fail) of the match, as Viper, Abbadon, ES and Veng tried to take out Clockwork mid. Unfortunately ES blocked Clockwork backwards and fumbled firstblood for his team.

Pictured: As usual, xeRa’s unsure about who’s side he’s on…

Interestingly enough both mid solo’s in the match had accompanying baby sitters: Clockwork had Veng running in and out of the area while Viper had Abbadon by his side. Thus mid was notÂ actuallyÂ solo.

The Meaty Midsection:

The match itself once again gave us a great show of the communication taking place in both teams. With many a TP scroll being bought and spent as the teams fought to gain the upper hand in kills across the map. Gangs, counter gangs, warding, juking and surgical assassinations were running rife through the game, as neither team wanted to give an inch and always came back that much harder uponÂ concedingÂ a kill.

Pictured: Saidy says put your hands up in the air!

SF farmed blink and BKB as his primary goal into mid game, while no other hero was doing nearly as well at the time. Morph had a tough time through the first part of the game – being ganged repeatedly and losing a lot of his farming time and already farmed gold in the process.

And so JJ was taking the lead into the first half of the game. Although the kills were close still, and only 1 tower separated the teams on the map, JJ were pushing theirÂ aggressiveÂ advantage with their farmed SF and dedA were looking to be in for a lot of trouble, with no real items yet to bolster theirÂ defense.

Equilibrium and over:

And so there came a time, when JJ was pushing into the second mid tower of dedA: SF was slaughtering wave upon wave, while the rest of his team hid in the bush by his side, hoping to take the opposition unawares.Â At this time the whole of dedA were forcing their way to the first top tower of JJ.

Top tower went down faster than mid, as it was already damaged, and so dedA’s mid tower was still in the red. Instantly we saw a blooming blue pattern form as one after the other the whole of dedA kicked TP scrolls into action (Morph used a replica he had sent mid earlier). What ensued was an incredibly intense battle with all 3 commentators trying to keep up, all over each other ^^

Pictured: Errrr beam us down Scotty.

As soon as the first TP completed, SF blinked, BKB’d and initiated his ulti, while the rest of his team came charging around the bottom corner of the trees. Potm was one of the first heroes on the ground, and upon seeing the situation, placed an incredibly useful ulti (I believe this is why dedA didn’t simply all die). Thus SF ulti went off, hit the whole of dedA, but they were all invis and JJ had no one to focus down. Meanwhile dedA were quickly reforming and getting into position. One second, another, a hit here, and suddenly Potm ulti was done and dedA popped back into sight, hurdling for JJ’s throat.

Pictured: Saidy: “MARCO!

This was the first fight that dedA came out victoriously of. With no dust or sentries, JJ had no way of hunting dedA down as they came down on the tower, and so were unable to take the battle.

After this battle we slowly saw dedA starting to push back JJ and take back some ground on the map.

Me, myself and my double:

So what made dedA win at the end of the day? Was it their determination, sheer force of will, big mouths and small w*****s? No, they had a million copies of themselves! Morph’s copies alone were able to push lanes and towers (Watch top as he does just that with the base tower). With manta upon manta dedA overwhelmed JJ in the end with numbers and survivability.

Pictured: It’s like playing dota after a few tequila’s but seeing tripple instead of double…

JJ’s SF and clock simply could not generate the amount of damage necessary to take on such odds and so were pushed back again and again (You see, SK Lina and Veng have no late game carry potential. And JJ’s mid-game focused strat did not succeed). Bot rax fell to the onslaught, top rax fell to the onslaught and mid rax soon followed. dedA were congratulated ‘good turtle wd’ and the match was over.

And so we now have a newÂ reigningÂ king team, our original point scorers are back, ladies and gentlemen – Dedicated`Abuse!

We hope all the watches andÂ listenersÂ had as good a time as we did bringing you another week of Koth’y goodness and we hope to see all of you again next week. Please stop by the poll for next week and cast your votes – mmK has unfortunately left us, but I am happy to announce that miNt is back! So drop by and vote for who you want to see taking on our new Kings next week.

I’m alcardu, and Checkers_Bag and Hallow owe me their virginity ;) Goodnight!

P.S. Thanks to the fattest guy I know for some of the pic’s, some captions and for posting.

Twilight Gaming Announces The New Ops, Mods & More For War3!

Dean — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:22:19 +0000

Twilight Gaming has finally, and officially announced the new trial admins for the server restructure which will hopefully take place by the end of this month. Behind the pretty smiles and abusive banning, a team of troops have been working hard at creating new rules and regulations for a new system which will hopefully change the way people see gaming-support.

With most of the current admins ending their run as a player in charge, Twilight is happy to announce around 50+ trial additions to the team. Out of 130+ candidates a team of highly trained work horses battled their way through various applications in search for those worthy of the title.

The full list has been attached below.

Well done to everyone that has made it this far. Remember, the next few weeks will all be trial based, where everyone will be under some sort of monitoring.

Now.. In no particular order!

Operators:
——————–
DrGreen
biTshifT
Storm
VeNGeNCe
DeMoNiK
UnderPanT
ShaMbLeS
rOxOr
Shoprite_Packet
Radox
CyBeRmAn
Cheeezy
xSolmyRx
DeAtH-rOaD
[dL]Zwetch
Whitewolf2
MichiKo
[OptiMum]
Eleyna
GoOd_FoRcE
PiTi
Frenzy
Nitricity
GhB

Community Activists:
——————–
Fry_Guy
Ratthing
scant
Glitch
D-phil
1337Bunny

Inquisitors:
——————–
Blink
Slobber
Gabrielus
SoloBoom
Shingami_Ryu
HamstaDawG
Snake2804

Moderators:
——————–
Beaverbob
Send01
Xenophyl
Blou_Aap
Mental-Tree
x_DroP_DeaD_x
AmB3r
Lady-Lark
Sticky_rabies
BaNDiTMyT
SchwifT
Spekko
Death-Blade (a.k.a Tody)
TSR

Developers:
——————–
Pada
1337Bunny
Necrolis
BedLamp
edg3
Supremacy

Post Game Article For Match 17 â€“ JJ.DotA Vs mmK

Dean — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:35:24 +0000

-The King of the Hill DotA Series is sponsored by Rectron and powered by eGamer and Twilight Gaming-

Week 18 Match 17 â€“ JJ.Dota vs mmK

This week we saw reigning Koth champions JJ.Dota take on mmK, in what could only be described as an extremely fast paced and exciting match. mmK havenâ€™t featured in the King of the Hill Series since week 4, having been bested by dedA at that time.

ELIMS

JJ started the drafting, and the elims were nothing out of the ordinary: Viper being elimed by mmK thanks to his recent buff and both new heroes being removed as well. You will see that JJ was eliminating very quickly (Probably letting a single person do the drafting and maybe deciding ahead of the time on a few standard heroes to get out of the way.) while mmK was taking out the most popular trouble makers.

mmK

PICKS:

Some of you might wonder why Blood Seeker did not feature, however with a little reflection and some attention during the drafting phase you can come to a rough conclusion.

mmK opened the picks with Dirge, the fun loving tank with good farming and solo potential. JJ kicked off their own drafting with Clockwork and ES, thus making an Enigma pick a much weaker choice.

In total JJ seemed to try a slightly more fun approach to defending their title, using both CM and Sniper.

JJ.Dota

MmK

Overview:

I could tell you on a blow by blow basis what happened in the game. I could tell you about the warding, the battles, and the mistakes. I could give you some screenshots and substantiate my opinions. But I donâ€™t believe that this game is worth that. The article would be pages upon pages long if I ever got to finish it and the list would be countless.

This game is a textbook on mobility and ganging. Exceptional use of TP scrolls turned many a gang, and even counter gang, into a full on battles. This fast pace was kept up late game as well, with more than one Boots of Travel making an appearance in the inventories on both sides. Both teams played exceptionally well, the scores neck and neck, with JJ eventually coming out just on top, mainly because of item difference and teamwork.

The only thing I can say is you HAVE to watch this game. Every single minute, right to the end, is action packed and filled with amazing play. The warding is good, the teamwork is good, the (counter) ganging is good and the communication within both teams was definitely also of the highest quality!

ITS GOOD. WATCH IT!

DeMo~

Syncidy has Launched! The first event has come and gone

Flipi — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:19:26 +0000

Ahoi one and all! Well I’m back from the Syncidy LAN held this past weekend, and what fun it was (:

What you have before you is a review of the Syncidy: Dota Tournament run at the event, so dig in and enjoy!

…
We launched, we gamed, and now we have even more work than before! WHAT! Nway let me fill you in on how our dota competition went:

The Dota tournament was scheduled to kick off at 11am Saturday morning, however it was postponed till around lunch time to ensure the players who didnâ€™t spend the night Friday made it in time to compete. Happily the tournament kicked off with a total of 5 entries, with even the Syncidy admins jumping in to rumble with the attendees.

The teams who entered were:
Spar-letta
WEARECOOL
Syncidy
Gaming Logic
Babtism In Fire

With our focus on providing the maximum amount of fun in the tournament, the structure was adjusted to that of a Round Robin, thus ensuring all teams 4 full games minimum, with any tied prize-spots having their own play-offs afterwards.

The first matches kicked off around 2pm, with one team receiving a bye every round. The atmosphere was a mix of social trash talking, serious strategising, good fun and many an outburst. Having swapped some of the registration computers over to gaming stations, it was also possible to view a few of the admin players showing their (lack of) skill throughout their matches.

Around 7pm the dust settled around the battlefield and WEARECOOL [above] was standing victorious on top of the scoreboard. However second place was being contested by 3 teams and so a second bout of gaming ensued as these 3 teams started fighting over who gets the money and who gets the burger, coke and chips! Late into the night the battle was fought, with some of the best games of the tournament resulting from this.

Finally Babtism In Fire [above] was seen emerging from the dust clouds, victorious, leaving Gaming Logic [below] to place a final blow to the jaw of Syncidy [no picture] to secure third place.

Final Standings:
1st ] WeAreCool
2nd ] Babtism In Fire
3rd ] Gaming Logic

Congratulations to all 3 teams on their victories and we hope you enjoy(d) your Prizes! WEARECOOL received a total prize of R1500, with Babtism In Fire receiving a prize of R500 and Gaming Logic taking home (or devouring right there) the coveted Burger, Coke and Chips!

In total the tournament resulted in many a good memory and laugh (: From Syncidyâ€™s side, a huge thank you to all you guys and girls for competing! We really enjoyed laughing, screaming and gaming with you all, and we look forward to doing the same the first weekend on November at our next event!

As a final word, please note â€“ We received various questions regarding out prizes and how they might change depending on the turnout. As you can all see we did not alter the prizes at all. We pride ourselves on supplying the experience we advertise, and this policy includes our prizes.

Syncidy â€“ Gaurenteed! (:

For a behind the scenes look at the LAN, directly from mr Gareth ‘Cidic’ Kropman, just follow [this link]

The full player list:

WEARECOOL
BonKerS
ClitsybananaS
frenzy
HorrorCast
Radox

Babtism In Fire
DoNuTT
OptiMum
SheLookedLvl18
Shr00m
Xaro

Gaming Logic
ab0rt3d
bronny
M1cron
SlynCky
Zh3nK

Syncidy
Ajay
Arcanius
Flossie
syn
cidic
lokix/berserk/alcardu

Spar-letta
ci3la
Thai_fighter
Hyper10n
Zelphar
|337BuNNy

WaaaghTV comes bearing Gifts

Flipi — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:38:20 +0000

As those of you not living under the proverbial cobblestones of the Twilight community know, eGamer Koth uses the fantastic rough diamond WaaaghTV to broadcast our matches live each Tuesday.

Unfortunately, with more than a mouse click or a stick wave comes the inevitable need to idiot-proof a program, and so it is also our pleasure to inform you that WaaaghTV is now easier to use than ever! Thatâ€™s right, no more will you be required to download and explore a vast interface with 3 buttons! No more will admins be queried with lines containing the words â€˜cannotâ€™ and â€˜understandâ€™ within the same sentences!

We present to you the WaaaghTV Java Applet, an even easier alternative to using the full WaaaghTV program! Simply point your browser to the WaaaghTV website, look in the â€˜Gamesâ€™ section for the specific Koth match being streamed, click the green >> button next to it and youâ€™re off to a world of Koth adventure!

Of course, in our effort to accommodate everyone we are also providing a guide to using the Java Applet to watch your favourite local players in action.

And the good news just keeps on pouring in: On the second of this month WaaaghTV acquired a brand spanking new Master Server for themselves. And so we say goodbye to the majority of our technical streaming problems as well!

See you guyz Tuesday night ;)

The official WaaahTV comment can be viewed on their website
The WaaaghTV Games page
Our guide to using the Java Applet HERE
And as always our Weekly Koth Poll

Week 18 – Koth Game 17 – Results and Voting!

Dean — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:07:29 +0000

This tournament is proudly sponsored by Rectron, Powered by Twilight and Run by eGamer!

Vote for the team which you would like to challenge the King!

Rules

You can view the full rule set and how the tournament works over here.

KOTH Admin Team:

Alcardu â€“ Admin Head & Commentator
Contact him by email here

Blink â€“ Co-Admin — Inactive
Contact him by email here

Demonik – Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Slobber â€“ Dedicated Host
Contact him by email here

MortaL â€“ Helpline
Contact him by email here

fluKe â€“ Audio Recorder & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Demraz|B| – TeamSpeak & Bot Host
Contact him by email here

Hallow – Commentator
Contact him by email here

Nitrate – Deity & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Admins are reachable in our IRC channel: #egamer [shadowfire.org]

If you feel that you have been treated unfairly or have a complaint, contact Alcardu.

Voting

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Exclusions:

dedA is excluded this week as they lost their last game.

Results

The full scoreboard, updated weekly, can be found at KothSeries.

Post Game Article For Match 15 – Make It or Break It [JJvTankh]

Tips — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:22:58 +0000

-The King of the Hill DotA Series is sponsored by Rectron and powered by eGamer and Twilight Gaming-

Build up

So last week we saw TankH and miNt battle it out in an awesome game that saw TankH dethrone the reigning Kings, miNt, who had won 4 weeks in a row up to then. Will this game be as good, or even better? I sure do hope so. After a few delays due to one or two members of the Koth Admin Team running late, the game kicked off at 21:10. Another unfortunate event was the inability of the brothers Horrorcast and Radox being able to play. Their connection gave considerable trouble, and so they were replaced by Phobos and JimmytheHand. [Admin Note: We adjusted the rules to allow the match to continue with these 2 subs as we felt this was in the best interest of all, rather a tweaked match than no match at all.]

Spoiler Warning: If you have not watched the game yet and want to watch it before you read this article then download the game <HERE>

The Bans

TankH started the bans by eliminating Enigma, which they have been seen doing in previous Koth games. The rest of TankH’s bans were Tide,Â Â Zombie and Bambi, all becoming rather standard in the current version.

Sentinel – TankH

Scourge – JJ

JJ banned Batrider and Tauren Chieftain, both new heroes in the current version which are quite strong. The other two bans were Nerubian Assasin, who is a huge pain in the ass, and Earth Shaker, who is a counter for the Broodmother and Chen which they planned on picking.

The Picks

TankH’s picks were as follows – Clockwork (Death), Puck (Remixdanny), Warlock (JimmyTheHand), Bloodseeker (Nakor) and Sven (Phobos).

Sentinel – TankH

Scourge – JJ

JJ’s picks were as follows – Rhasta (Nothouchthis), Chen (Nrg), Kitty (Midas), Sand King (Sixis) and Broodmother (Saidy).

The Lanes

Top - Sven/Puck V Rhasta

Mid - Clock V Kitty/Sand King

Bot - Warlock/Bloodseeker VÂ Broodmother

The Game

RemixdaNNy (scant) uses defensive wards to stop the creep spawn and pulling from scourges top lane, Chen (Machine), very intelligently counter wards it after he sees the neutral creep spawn has not spawned yet.

First-blood: as soon as Blood-Seeker (Nakor) hit level 6, Warlock got sentry wards from the hasted flying courier. After Warlock had placed the sentries and revealed the invis nesting Broodmother, Nakor let loose Rupture and Broodmother went down to Nakor for first blood.

Around 8 minutes Puck placed another defensive ward in the bush, which stopped the roaming SK and the bushing Chen from ganging top lane. Vision is crucial when you plan to turtle against a push strategy.

20 minutes we saw JJ’s push strategy coming into play with Chenâ€™s creeps, Rhastaâ€™s wards and Broodmotherâ€™s spawnlings combining powers. TankH were leading the kills by 1 while JJ lead with 3 towers to TankH ‘s one. Rhasta, POTM and Broodmother were farming considerably well for JJ with creep scores ranging from 59 to 6, while Nakor had 69 for TankH.

At 23:44 POTM sent an arrow speeding towards Warlock while the SK‘s stun kept Warlock at bay. JJ had aggressive wards and applied pressure to TankH by farming the Sentinel bush and taking down Roshan.

At the 34/35 minute mark, TankH are were feeling the pressure when SK and Rhasta both got blink daggers. TankH lost all outer towers and had the brunt of JJ pushing top lane while Broodmother was pushing bot solo with the help of his spawnlings.

Last straw: At the 40 minute mark, TankH lost their first base tower. Soon after Midas (Blizzy) showed off the results of his farming by taking both TankHâ€™s bottom and middle rax, with the help of his Manta and teammates, Brood (saidy) and Chen (Machine). And so the game was ended with TankH finding themselves rolling down the hill once more.

Week 17 – Koth Game 16 – Results and Voting!

Dean — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:36:55 +0000

This tournament is proudly sponsored by Rectron, Powered by Twilight and Run by eGamer!

Vote for the team which you would like to challenge the King!

Rules

You can view the full rule set and how the tournament works over here.

KOTH Admin Team:

Alcardu â€“ Admin Head & Commentator
Contact him by email here

Blink â€“ Co-Admin — Inactive
Contact him by email here

Demonik – Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Slobber â€“ Dedicated Host
Contact him by email here

MortaL â€“ Helpline
Contact him by email here

fluKe â€“ Audio Recorder & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Demraz|B| – TeamSpeak & Bot Host
Contact him by email here

Hallow – Commentator
Contact him by email here

Nitrate – Deity & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Admins are reachable in our IRC channel: #egamer [shadowfire.org]

If you feel that you have been treated unfairly or have a complaint, contact Alcardu.

Voting

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Exclusions:

Tankh is excluded this week as they lost their last game.

Results

The full scoreboard, updated weekly, can be found at KothSeries.

Week 16 – Koth Game 15 – Results and Voting!

Dean — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:35:32 +0000

This tournament is proudly sponsored by Rectron!

Vote for the team which you would like to challenge the King!

Rules

You can view the full rule set and how the tournament works over here.

KOTH Admin Team:

Alcardu â€“ Admin Head & Commentator
Contact him by email here

Blink â€“ Co-Admin — Inactive
Contact him by email here

Demonik – Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Slobber â€“ Dedicated Host
Contact him by email here

MortaL â€“ Helpline
Contact him by email here

fluKe â€“ Audio Recorder & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Demraz|B| – TeamSpeak & Bot Host
Contact him by email here

Hallow – Commentator
Contact him by email here

Nitrate – Deity & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Admins are reachable in our IRC channel: #egamer [shadowfire.org]

If you feel that you have been treated unfairly or have a complaint, contact Alcardu.

Voting

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Exclusions:

miNt is excluded this week as they lost their last game.

Results

The full scoreboard, updated weekly, can be found at KothSeries.

King of the Hill DotA Series: Week 14 – JJ.DotA V. miNt Gaming

Dean — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:25:28 +0000

The King of the Hill DotA Series is sponsored by Rectron and powered by eGamer and Twilight Gaming

King of the Hill Dota Series: Week 11 â€“ miNt Gaming VS JJ.Dota. An EPIC Game. By far the best game this series.

Gather round children, tonight we have storytime with with Nicholas â€˜Lemon-grassâ€™. He tells of heroes, blood curling battles, risk, fear, reward and victory. So snuggle up and enjoy!

[You, fat kid in the back. If you donâ€™t want to listen then go watch the game yourself and listen to the commentary!]

Replay

Commentary

I am writing this article from my point of view, of course with as little bias as possible, but it being the first â€˜inside scoopâ€™ game review: prepare yourselves! I recommend you watching the replay if you donâ€™t like spoilers because, you can ask scant, the ending is not expected, and is what makes this an epic game. As GosuGamers puts it, â€œRRâ€. — Lemon-Grass

MiNt
Batrider â€“ ES â€“ Kiti â€“ Rhasta – CM

JJ
Puck â€“ Chen â€“ WL â€“ BS – Lion

The drafting went as follows:

There was nothing special in the elimination phase, things were pretty standard. We (miNt) laughed about the morph elimination, as sLoJ rates he was the reason for it ^_^ This was one of the few games where we didnâ€™t have Clock/Avernus/Morph, we were using a new lineup. We were confident picking ES, having a very good ES player (kspr). Our Batrider pick was influenced by Waz_maCâ€™s recent love with his high base damage (allowing easy farming).

The Lanes:

Top:
ES (kspr) + PotM (lemon-grasS) vs BloodSeeker (sAidy) + lion (Machine)
*note* Lots of action, probably the lane to watch. Gang mania for everyone.

Mid:
Bat (Waz_maC) vs Puck (sixis)

Bot:
Rhasta (sLoJ) vs WL (freez)

Bush (Scourge)
Chen (Wingster)

Roaming
CM (MraSsMan)

First blood
First blood results from a gang from the roaming CM on the lion. A good fissure followed by an arrow secures the blood of Machineâ€™s Lion.

Later another gang from the CM and another good ES stun results in BS dying. Waz_maC was out farming the Puck middle, with 19-15 CS while puck had 5-5.

Wingster played a very good Chen throughout the game; the most memorable part of it for me must have been the frustrating mana burn, it prevented us from engaging quite a few times.

8 Minutes: Bottom

Here we see some very clever play by sLoJ using his wards at the right time to scare the WL, clear the creeps (including the wagon) and make it in time to deny the tower. Interesting fact was how WL out pushed the Rhasta, but of course with creep pulls and WLâ€™s bas damage it can be explained.

*Note for those who are still young in DoyA using spells (even ultimates) for creeps or denies is very acceptable and often better than the melee attack of the hero, of course its all situational and experience is the key to success

sLoJ shows his experience and skill here, denying the scourge 1000 gold.

10 Minutes – The Creep Stats

1 — Waz_maC with 53-31
2 — freez with 42-11
3 — sLoJ with 30-7
4 –Â sAidy with 24-2

As seen Waz_maC farmed very hard and had his radiance in under 15 minutes. Although it was impressive, we unfortunately didnâ€™t utilize it to its full potential.

Warding

This game is very ward intensive, with a war raging between MraSsMan and Machine. At almost any time in the replay, Machine has provided his team with very useful vision which is probably why many consider him being the best support in the country.

* Note Chen was buying a large amount of the wards as the hero is not item dependent

His ability to give his team vision really makes life difficult for any sort of gang. It also helps tremendously in every battle. Vision is key. This is seen top at 10:55 where CM and ES are engaged on by the Scourge, ES makes an escape but a large push is created by the scourge. Without the ward placement, Scourge might not have been so keen to engage. Messy fighting takes place after the push is defended and miNt clean up some chase kills, some miss communication from both teams as mini engages and withdrawals frequently occurred.

*Note Waz_maC was bottom farming/pushing the whole time (73-35 creeps) and soon takes the tower

Communication

9 out of 10 times when you cringe in a replay, itâ€™s because of a lack of communication or confusion with the communication. 13:32 is a perfect example; miNt has the opportunity to kill Chen or WL, but because of confusion neither WL nor Chen dies. These failed 4 man gangs really start to hurt the team because a huge amount of exp and gold is wasted while the other team is left to farm.

14 Minute Battle

This battle is easily won by scourge; once again the WL and Puck catch two of miNt heroes separated from the team and swiftly engage on them. The warlocks infernal allows a large amount of tanking to be done by the scourge and the nuke of puck makes mince of the cm. Good co-ordination from the scourge as spells were not stacked and no deaths occurred on their behalf.

Teleporting

When you see this, you get scared..

… Because at the other end of this is:

The other main reason to be scared is that when you have a chain TP it usually means its coordinated (not individual decision) which means that everyone has an idea of their plan in the battle (which often leads to a successful one). The last reason is that when playing against ES, you have to be ultra careful that you donâ€™t get â€œESâ€™Dâ€ which basically means that many of your team get caught by ES in his ulti with creeps around.

*Note how fast spells are cast, and how quickly the scourgeâ€™s hp dropped

The battle only resulted in the WL dying and the tower was not denied, however from this we can learn another big mistake miNt made in this game:

Chasing too far

After the death of the WL miNt choose to chase the Scourge heroes and after the PotM misses her arrow (if it was 1mm longer: P) they still continue to chase. Big mistake. The JJ takes advantage of the error and end up with a few picks leaving miNt with nothing but a bleak TS channel. From many errors that occurred like this, the blood seeker benefited and the scourge farmed up slowly. Later JJ can be seen as chasing too far (but probably more justified to be doing so â€“ having BS) but are out played by a brilliant piece of skill from Waz_maC. This good play (with the reactions of miNt result in BS and WL dying AND Waz_maC escaping.

20 Minute Battle

This battle seeâ€™s miNt being out played. JJ initiate well again. miNt make the mistake of separating (communication again) and end up very hurt after this battle. This is a turning point in the game â€“ after this battle JJ start to dominate completely with miNt making silly mistakes and JJ capitalizing on them. JJ farmed up while miNtâ€™s game play worsened. It is important to try remaining focus after losing such a big battle, because it can easily lose you the game, when it doesnâ€™t have to.

29 Minute Battle

miNt lose 2 and JJ lose 2. miNt gains tower. This battle teaches you how much rupture hurts while leaping. :)

31 Minute

This is called being baited. Another huge mistake made by miNt, engaging on a target very far away, with no vision of the surrounding area (while they have Chen). This turned out badly too and JJ dominated for a while after this farming freely.

By 45 minutes JJ were completely on top, pushing towers, dominating us in battlesâ€¦ Things were really looking grim and doom for miNt. JJ had basically out farmed us overall. Soon miNt was raxâ€™d too and it all looked like it was over. I mean even scant stopped watching. But there is one thing a few of the players in miNt are known for (mainly mrasssman and myself, but kspr is included in this) is our positive/happy attitudes. This combined with our controlled captain who manages to refocus us at dire times (such as this) led to an epic game. We knew the only chance of us winning from where we were was to turtle and play extremely well in our next few battlesâ€¦ We needed to engage at the best time on the right heroes and even then we would need JJ to make some mistakes for it to work out. And so we didâ€¦

The 52 minute push was held off by miNt and we managed to do decently in the battle with some survival. From this battle we felt that we still COULD win. The 55 minute battle was the ultimate turning point. We had turtled enough, a very intense battle began, we were lucky for the blood seeker to have missed his ulti, and engaged on the puck, our engagement led to a rough battle in which we were victorious. We managed to kill the blood seeker quite quickly without him being able to do a lot of DPS (thanks to bat riders ulti + arrow). Our position in this battle was very good, we had the hills and very well placed wards helped us win it. This victory led to us wanting to frantically push. Bottom was the only pushed lane, and our base was full of creeps. sLoJ made the decision for the CM to defend and for Rhasta, PoTM (manta) and bat (high base damage) to mission for the rax. With no one to defend (except chen) We managed to rax bottom and middle in one go. Now we had the momentum we needed to win.

We ended with one last push top where the final rax was destroyed.

This game truly was epic. A really good gameâ€¦ Itâ€™s a lesson to all teams out thereâ€¦ Do NOT give upâ€¦ Never â€“ff before the endâ€¦ Because you never know what can happen. I really recommend watching the replay. It was really awesome to play. A magnificent play from both sides, truly top tier teams!

â€œGood gameâ€

LemOn-GrasS

Week 15 – Koth Game 14 – Results and Voting!

Dean — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:37:02 +0000

This tournament is proudly sponsored by Rectron!

Vote for the team which you would like to challenge the King!

Rules

You can view the full rule set and how the tournament works over here.

KOTH Admin Team:

Alcardu â€“ Admin Head & Commentator
Contact him by email here

Blink â€“ Co-Admin — Inactive
Contact him by email here

Demonik – Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Slobber â€“ Dedicated Host
Contact him by email here

MortaL â€“ Helpline
Contact him by email here

fluKe â€“ Ingame Admin & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Demraz|B| – TeamSpeak & Bot Host
Contact him by email here

Hallow – Commentator
Contact him by email here

Nitrate – Deity
Contact him by email here

Admins are reachable in our IRC channel:
#egamer [shadowfire.org]

If you feel that you have been treated unfairly or have a complaint, contact Alcardu

Voting

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Exclusions:

JJ.dota is excluded this week as they lost their last game.

Results

Syncidy Gaming launches new LAN

Dean — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:21:01 +0000

The buzz around the water cooler seems extra intense this month; the MSSA debates are picking up once more, rAge 2009 is around the corner!!! and Syncidy Gaming will unveil its long awaited Competitive LAN in the Western Cape.

The first weekend of September (4th-6th) will see Syncidy ‘The Next Level’ launching at Proteaville, Bellville. They will be running both a Dota and COD4 tournament with prizes held for the winners of each.

When investigating the reasons behind this new lan, the ‘About Us’ page at www.syncidy.co.za had the following to say:

SynCidy was born in October 2007 when a group of gamers, tired of the lack of interest with regards to competitive game play in South Africa, banded together to make their dream of a competitive monthly LAN event a reality. Read further…

Looking at the table layout available [here] the LAN looks to be catering for 100-160 gamers, and with the monthly OC event rumored to not taking place during the month of September, seats are expected to fill up fast.

The official notice looks like this:

So don’t be left behind (like some of us were with rAge tickets), booking can be made online (discounted to R100) straight from their homepage, Syncidy Gaming!

eGamer gets down with the KOTH head and his right hand (h3h3 pun)

Nitro — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:50:44 +0000

I’m back yet again with another interview.. Mostly thanks to flipper who has been busting my balls about it.

After all of the hype around eGamer King of the Hill, the tournament, the teams and players, I thought that the people responsible for all of this ought to be mentioned. :P

Before we get down to the questions lets start with some background information.

Dean ‘Nitrate’ is one of the root admins alongside Serenity, Ganymede and Saidin. A root admin is any admin with direct server control. They are able to over-rule any other decision made, while they also boast level 100 and the admin status on the server.

Their other responsibilities are :

Keep the community alive
- Facilitate hardware and bandwidth
- Deal with sponsors and advertisers
Facilitate development
- Work closely with developers to help them apply their code

Dean has been with the server ever since its creation, no one in the general public really knows how much work and effort gets put into keeping Twilight running. In my associations that I’ve had with Dean, both business and leisure (DotA, etc) I’ve found him to be a very positive oke, friendly, straightforward and down to earth.

Flipi ‘alcardu’ Portman on the other hand is one of those cool people that you just have to know. Flipper is very helpful and always finds time to separate his gaming from his personal life. Flipi is currently the head admin of the KOTH team and his job includes planning each week and delegating the workload. (Just like my interview! t.t)Â In my associations with Flipper I’ve found him to be very helpful, kind andÂ generally a happy guy whose words brings wisdom and insight to debates.

Q:Â How are you currently involved in SA gaming?
Dota-wise I used to be in the old tX, then clan fuQ(t) and now I am with Koth. At the University of Stellenbosch I’m part of a group trying to get gaming back on campus and lastly I am part of the new SynCidy LAN, coming soon to the Western Cape. Ps. new gf > sex. Ever since I traveled up to rAge in ’08 with tX I’ve had a taste for the admin/business side of gaming.

Q: How has gaming evolved since you started playing?
Gaming has changed quite a bit. There are so many more players, and so much more competition. There are people that actually sponsor teams now, there are more lans, more involvement etc. It’s absolutely crazy how things have changed over the years The games have changed, and the attitude of the people.

Q : What is your most conspicuous role in KOTH?
For the actual Koth matches themselves I co-commentate with Evan ‘Hallow’. It is an absolute blast each week (: I think we might actually be getting kinda k with it.

Q: Do you feel that all your hard work in the Twilight community is worth it?
Yea, sure. Look where we are today: Various tournaments, a stable leveling system, etc.

Q: You are the current owner and founder of eGamer what made you start this
website ?
We were thinking about starting a site, but being lazy… We never did. So
after having a few other sites I came up with an idea for it and tried it out. It seems to be working at the moment. We also needed a new site without having to use the Warcraft 3 Server.

Q:Â Have you quit competitive gaming?
I’ve swapped over to the admin side of gaming, where i hope to do a lot of good for the ppl that share my passion for gaming. Personally I have no plans to start playing competitive Dota again, but I have subbed occasionally for other teams with varying results.

Keeping a competitive team running is a lot of work and after a few years of playing dota socially, and then competitively, and seeing how all compettive gaming in sa runs into a ceiling I don’t know how I feel about tackling that task again.

It’s a very predictable story: If there is no dream to dream then why run all the way just to realise ur going in circles. Every team starts with a dream, runs into the truth, and the majority quit instantly. The remainder usually follows suit soon after, with only the most daring teams really sticking together for any amount of time.

As u can see teams have nowhere to go when they peak right now. We cannot play overseas online really. Last year we tried playing the MyM Pride Cup. It was fun, the lag was bad, and we all fell out eventaully well short of real spots.

Q: How long have you been in the gaming industry for ?
Starting playing games when I was younger, just LAN etc. Been online for
about 9 years or so. Started online gaming about 6-7 years ago.

Q: Do you have any plans or changes that you wish to implement to the server in the future ?
Well
Wait and see..

ooooooohh

Apart from Dean and Flipper there are other names that need to be mentioned. These are the guys who are part of the KOTH admin team and put in all the hard work required so that the games can run smoothly every week. A big hand to all of these gentlemen!

KOTHÂ Admin Team:

Alcardu â€“ Admin Head & Commentator

Blink â€“ Co-Admin

Slobber â€“ Dedicated Host

MortaL â€“ Helpline

fluKe â€“ Ingame Admin & Streamer

Demraz|B| – TeamSpeak & Bot Host

Hallow – Commentator

Nitrate – Deity

Thanks for stopping at Cafe` Nitro -

Peace

King of the Hill Dota Series: Week 10 – Kingsuft.ZA V. miNt Gaming

Dean — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:58:34 +0000

The King of the Hill DotA Series is sponsored by Rectron and powered by eGamer and Twilight Gaming

Match Article For – Ks^ Vs Mint

Warning
Iâ€™ve experimented with the use of more images to better describe some situations. If you donâ€™t like this new method just shout it out :D! Also for those that haven’t figured it out you need to click on the images to enlarge them :P

Donâ€™t like my fish? Get the replay for yourself by clicking here.

After the match we pulled James ‘SloJ’ aside for a quick word, hear what he had to say [2.3mb]

Picks & Bans

Sadly due to a reload I was unable to extract the ban/pick order, but the real question everyone should be asking is how Mint were able to get both CM and Necrolyte while Ks^ had nothing equally game breaking. Looking at the picks Ks^ had a noticeably lack of placement stuns (eg. Impale). I feel they relied too much on the Enigma ulti + Pirate boat combo, while the only thing Mint had to do was farm and charge in. A crude strat but very effective as portrayed by both Slardar and Necro during this match, they both charge forward madly and break up the backlines of Ks^.

Looking at the lanes Mint won mid and bot lane hands down. Mid lane saw Necro vs Zeus, this is where Necroâ€™s heal+Range and the use of magic stick easily won him the lane. Bot lane was basically a free farm for Slardar while Khunka had to back off or risk dying.

The Build up

Above you can see CM anticipating the bush warding done by Lina and Naix.

We see first blood going to Mint after a botched gang bot by Enigma. The reason the gang failed was because of Enigmaâ€™s reluctance to stun first, which forced Khunka to initiate with torrent, which Slardar easily dodged. A counter attack by Slardar and Lion resulted in Khunkaâ€™s demise.

Despite Lina carrying a ward Ks^ saw little warding early game and allowed CM and Lion to wreak havoc across the map. A note should be made of the good team work seen here, with Mintâ€™s players buying eachother TP scrolls to allow continuous ganging and mobility. Soon Mint leads the kills 5-2 following some good ganging while the Necro and Slardar are both farming strongly.

As night draws to a close we see Zark narrowly escape a gank by CM and Lion, only to madly dash back in with Enigma as backup even after spotting Necro running to engage. This results in the death of both Enigma and Zeus while bottom lane sees Slardar taking out Khunka with good use of 4 LvL Crush and Sprint.

16 Minute Bot battle

While Cm, Slardar and Lion chase Ks^ back to the presumed safety of the tower we see the Necro and Abba teleporting in. This battle turned out to be one of the major fights of the game with Mint walking away the victor of the 4v5 battle.

The Hunt

Not 10 seconds later we see Slardar tower diving the Zeus with Enigma and Lion closing in to join the fray. Slardarâ€™s ability to tank Enigmaâ€™s ulti+Zeus+tower and still live allow Necro andLion to clean up after him and increases Mintâ€™s lead by a further 2 kills. Sadly Lina who was armed with haste cancelled her TP top when Enigma was in the process of ultying. Should she have TPâ€™d things may have turned out differently here.

The Mopup

As the game further shifts in their favour we see Mint pushing bottom with Necro while Lion, Abba and CM hang back in the fog. Naix oversteps himself, going to close to the Necro and allowing Lion to rush in to initiate a gang. This forces Ks^ to TP in and leads to the situation you see below.

The Last straw

The final major battle happened mid with Ks^ engaging without Khunka and Mint lacking CM, clearly not a fair trade.

The last battle results in Ks^ -ffâ€™ing and Mint earning their first well deserved point in the Koth Series.

End Game screenshot

All comments and suggestions are welcome, either here on the site or via PM on IRC at #egamer.

-Convergence

PS: All team captains should please check their inboxâ€™s and we want to give a congratulations to the following winners of HoN user keys, courtesy of eGamer. Thanks for listening in on Mumble!

Insert
Da_Legend
visrucis
baKteria
KaMoS
sugar
ViLiS
Xenomath
golden_biizzard
-blizzard-
-satyr-
c0nfu3
Nsanity
HamstaDawg
whiskey
Divinitus

King of the Hill Dota Series: Week 9 – Tankh V. miNt Gaming – Take Three!

Dean — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:44:20 +0000

The King of the Hill DotA Series is sponsored by Rectron and powered by eGamer and Twilight Gaming

miNt Gaming V. Tankh

Donâ€™t want a foreign opinion? Get the replay at Week 9: miNt v tankh

Picks & Bans

Mint was randomly chosen to start the drafting, going through some standards like ES, Necro, DP, Rhasta. Some might have raised their eyebrows at the Broodmother elimination. What I read into this elimination was that following the Bane, Axe and ES elims brood had far less counters left, plus recently Scant has loved his Broodmother again.

The first pick by Mint was Undying, definitely a first as Undying is one of the default elims since his appearance. Tankh responded to undying with CM Puck, both strong picks. Mintâ€™s Enigma + Clockwork picks gave them a strong bush, a second solo as well as taking out the default counter to Enigma by picking him themselves. What followed was the Lion + Pirate pick, another support hero and a strong carry. The picks resolved with Mint selecting Niax + Lina to finish their lanes and Tankh making a nice pick, Slardar.
I feel Tankh got outpicked as their initiating power is fairly counterable by a good Enigma player while Clockwork can easily initiate one of Tankhâ€™s weaker support heroes.Undying is also one of those heroes that can run straight into the fight like a madman, drop tombstone and start tanking. A note on Enigma for our less experienced readers: A common mistake is initiating with Enigmaâ€™s ulti, it is far more powerful as a follow-up once the battle has already started and the enemy is starting to focus their damage and bunch. Also after the first clash the majority of disables are in cooldown, thus making a channelling ulti easier to pull off.

Final Assignments
MintÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â TankH
Waz_Mac â€“ Undying (Solo Bot)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Nakor-Lion(Top)
MrAsssMan-Engima(Bush)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â HorrorCast-Khunka(Top)
Blizzy-Naix(Top)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Angel-Puck(Solo Mid)
Sloj-Lina(Top)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Radox-Slardar(Bot)
Lemon-Grass-Clockwork(Solo Mid)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Scant-CrystalMaiden(Floating)

First Blood
At the start Tankh immediately rush with CM+Khunka+Lion top lane to get first blood. They camp the area around their neutrals, waiting for the inevitable attempt by lina to ward their bush. However when lina finally arrives Scant loses his cool and rushes her. This leads to the situation described in the picture below and a botched first blood. First blood is then gotten top lane on Horrorcast by Lina/Naix when Nakor is absent from lane and pulling creeps.

Bottom Lane sees Radox warding up Enigmas bushes to hamper his bushing. However MrAsSsman anticipated the wards and bought sentry wards at start allowing him to easily counter ward and bush without problems.

The next big event is Angel killing Mintâ€™s courier mid lane and starting to outlevel the opposing Clockwork solo. Unfortunately this advantage soon slips away as 2 attempted gangs top by Angel fail, setting him back quite a bit. At this point in time Tankh have much better map control and use it to their full potential with Cm/Puckâ€™s gangs slowly chipping at Mintâ€™s game.

The Art of Stacking Stuns

At 8 minutes we see a gang bot-lane on Undying. Sadly whether due to bad communication or luck TankH end up stacking their stuns on the Undying. At one point as you can see in the picture Undying is stunned by all 3 of them. Thanks to Undyingâ€™s ability to bounce back with Soulrip and Enigmaâ€™s speedy reflexes the 3v1 situation turns into a 3v2 situation, resolved in Mintâ€™s favour with both Puck and Slardar falling.

The fight For Top Tower

Before Mint launched their push on TankHâ€™s top tower they warded the surrounding area, always a good idea. Note how well the single ward behind the tower serves to warn of Tankhâ€™s advancing defence.

At 23 minutes we see Mint taking top tower, with Undying baiting and Engima + Clokwork hanging back waiting to spring the trap. Tankh ignores top though and instead gangs the Lina mid, as Puck has already used his oh-so-important ulti.
After Lina falls we see Mint moving into top and catching Pirate, Tankh tpâ€™s to try and salvage the fight but Lion unfortunately has to walk all the way, lacking a TP scroll, and serves no purpose in the fight. Pirate falls to Niax as the Tankh players arrive, and chaos ensues. The lacking counter for engimaâ€™s ulti at this point becoming fatal.

26 Minute Battle

With Mint gunning for towers they start bushing bottom lane hoping to take TankHâ€™s bottom tower. TankH is there to meet them minus a lion whoâ€™s healing at base but ready to TP in.

Undying immediately takes the advantage and initiates the fight at Tankhâ€™s tower, dropping his tombstone, rushing forward and drawing focus fire from the Khunka, Slardar and CM. Slardar gets separated slightly and goes down. Lion has tpâ€™d in, but finds himself in the middle of the advancing Mint line and goes down rather fast. Puck and Khunka finally go in with Ship/Coil combo on Undying + Enigma but itâ€™s too little to late as theyâ€™re fighting a 3v5 battle now.

End Game

After the previous battle Mint had opened a gap wide enough to allow some breathing space, Niax farmed off Tankhâ€™s weaker support heroes using blink and rage well. Tankh got steadily pushed back until 48 minutes at which point the game was called.

This was definitely a good game to watch, with several standard drafting and strategic decision being challenged. Mint Gaming claimed a convincing victory and now leads the miNt v tankH games 2:1.

Final Score

Iâ€™m Convergence, thanx for reading. C

KotH 8 – Results and Voting!

Dean — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:56:29 +0000

This tournament is proudly sponsored by Rectron!

Vote for the team which you would like to challenge the King!

Rules:

You can view the full rule set and how the tournament works over here.

KOTH Admin Team:

Alcardu â€“ Admin Head & Commentator
Contact him by email here

Blink â€“ Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Slobber â€“ Dedicated Host & Resident Journalist
Contact him by email here

MortaL â€“ Helpline
Contact him by email here

Fluke â€“ Ingame Admin & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Demraz|B| – TeamSpeak & Bot Host
Contact him by email here

Hallow – Commentator
Contact him by email here

Nitrate – Deity
Contact him by email here

MumbleÂ tutorial for commentary available here.
WaaaghTV tutorial for live streaming of games available here.

This poll will decide who faces off against tankh for our seventh game in the KotH DotA series.

Oh yeah! You need to be logged in to vote… So sign up! Noob! Register to vote here!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.
Exclusions:

KingSurfZA is excluded this week as they lost their last game.

Results:

This tournament is proudly sponsored by Rectron!

King of the Hill Dota Series: Week 6 – Clash of the Titans

Bob "Fatbob" Smith — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:30:32 +0000

The King of the Hill DotA Series is sponsored by Rectron and powered by eGamer and Twilight Gaming

The Build up

Another week, another KotH round. This week’s KotH was contested between two old rivals Mint and Tankh. If you’re a little confused as to why Kings of Surf didn’t play, check out http://egamer.co.za/2009/06/king-of-the-hill-week-6-preview/
This was the second meeting between Tankh and Mint, the first time being in the very first KotH match. Mint prevailed the first time round, beating Tankh 34/27 in 46 minutes.

Admin Log:
Due to KingsOfSurf being notifying us the Friday before the game that they will not be able to field a team, Tankh in second place will play in tonights KotH. – KotH Admin team

This week saw some commentary stability issues as we weren’t quite expecting over 25 folk on teamspeak. It’s great to see KotH getting such great support and we will be looking at something to accommodate the demand for next week. It’s not all bad news however, as we do have a commentary that you can download and sync up with replay. This week’s commentary is courtesy of of Alcardu and Hallow (Ed: No ladies, it’s not Brad Pitt’s voice it really is Hallow).

Links

Commentary: http://www.savefile.com/files/2131693Â - 5.5mb
Replay: http://www.dota-allstars.com/download/replay/133955

The Overview

This week the good guys (the sentinel) were represented by Tankh with Mint representing the bad guys (the scourge). The game did start slightly later than usual and kicked off at 8:49pm. Tankh were randomly selected to go first and as always, your match official was fluKe (See Jesus I got it right.)

The Bans

So who are the three heroes you’ll never see in KotH game? It’s the Zombie, the Tauren and the Necrolyte as they were banned for the 6th consecutive week. Not really much to say about the bans as it contained the usual suspects.

Sentinel – Tankh
Scourge -Â Mint

The Picks

Â
Well looking at the last couple of weeks, the first pick game as no surprise, as Rhasta seems to be the number one pick of late for his pushing ability. Tankh took two strong strength tanks (cos that’s what Tankh does) as well as Zeus for spam and Chen who at the time I was a little surprised to see picked, but more on that later. Mint on the other hand decided to focus a little more on the stun and initiating Heroes with Sandking/Pirate/Puck.

Sentinel – Tankh
Scourge – Mint

The Assignments

Sentinel – Tankh	Scourge – dedA
Scant – Rhasta – Shadow Shaman	SloJ – Puck – Faerie Dragon
Radox – Naix – Lifestealer	Blizzy – Morphling – Morphling
Angel – Rattletrap – Clockwerk Goblin	Waz_Mac – Coco – Admiral (Aka The pirate)
Nakor – Chen – Holy Knight	MrAsssMan – Lion – Demon Witch
HorrorCast – Zeus – Lord of Olympia	Lemon-Grass – Crixalis – Sand King

The Game and the Kills

Â
Having played each other quite a few times in the past, this fixture always produces some fireworks. And the fireworks started early this time, with first blood coming in just 36 seconds. SloJ was caught poking around in the sentinel bushes by Radox/Scant and punished for it.

Pictured: SloJ – likes it 3 on 1.

The lane setups were also slightly different to what we’re used to seeing. Mint went for the classic 2-1-2 with Was_Mac/MrAsssMan top, new recruit Blizzy Middle slowing with Morph and SloJ/Lemon-Grass bottom. Tankh decided on a triple solo strat with HorrorCast (Zeus) solo top, Angel (Clockwork) soloing mid, Nakor(Chen) in the bush and Scant(Rhasta) bottom with Radox (Naix). I was quite surprised that Tankh would try something like this against Mint, as Mint aren’t the sort of team that leave a jungle hero alone to… well errr jungle. After 5 minutes the score was 2/1 in Tankh’s favour, with SloJ having been involved in all 3 kills, twice on the receiving end. The farming was still very close at this stage 54/49 with Tankh just a few creep kills ahead. Early game saw Blizzy’s usual farmathon being hampered by the Clockwork, as Blizzy only had 5 creep kills after 10 waves of creeps.

Pictured: Angel fishing for pirates

Blizzy wasn’t the only one having trouble with Angel’s Clockwork, as SloJ, Waz_Mac and Lemon-Grass were all ganked early game with the assistance of Angel. 15 minutes in and the score was now 9/6 to Tankh who were also 1 tower up. Tankh’s focus was on early gangs and it still seemed 50/50 as to whether this would pay off or not. In their previous meeting with Mint, this had been their downfall. Both teams were still farming away, with Mint having the slight edge now 150/164. Still pretty close. And for the Blizzy fans out there, he was 49/10 at this stage.

The battle stayed fierce and things were pretty close. The team fights were really getting going now with each team trying to break the deadlock. The break came just after 19 minutes, when Angel with his annoying Clockwork took down 3 Minty fellows. This took the score to 14/11 and from here the floodgates seemed to open. In the next 6 minutes, Tankh racked up another 7 kills to Mint’s 1 and also took both the level 1 and 2 bottom towers and the level 2 tower top as well as the level 1 tower middle.

At the 25 minute Mark it was now 21/12 to Tankh and the towers were 5/1 to Tankh as well. Mint’s minor lead in CS wasn’t going to make much of a difference 286/269 wasn’t going to make a difference (Blizzy 96/14). Mint did put up a fight right until the end, but Tankh had stronghold over the map were never going to give an inch.

The End Game Screen

End game

The Summary

And that’s all she wrote folks. Week 6 (Ed: Isn’t it Week 7 already?) sees Tankh back at the top after dispatching of SloJ’s Blizzy enhanced Mint. It was a tight game, but Mint never really had the upper hand and in retrospect didn’t have the best pick to combat Tankh’s hero lineup.Â My advice? Blizzy get those lazy folk from Bvd back in action and show these chuckleheads how it’s done. GGWP to both Mint and Tankh this week and good luck to all the teams for the vote.

Gank you in the bushes – FatBob

Â P.S. Don’t blame egamer/twilight/Fatbob for the article being late this week, blame the fantastic pr0n on a certain NZB site. ;)

KotH 7 – Results and Voting!

Bob "Fatbob" Smith — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:16:50 +0000

This tournament is proudly sponsored by Rectron!

Vote for the team which you would like to challenge the King!

Rules:

You can view the full rule set and how the tournament works over here.

KOTH Admin Team:

Alcardu â€“ Admin Head & Commentator
Contact him by email here

Blink â€“ Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

Slobber â€“ Dedicated Host & Resident Journalist
Contact him by email here

MortaL â€“ Helpline
Contact him by email here

Fluke â€“ Ingame Admin & Streamer
Contact him by email here

Demraz|B| – TeamSpeak & Bot Host
Contact him by email here

Hallow – Commentator
Contact him by email here

Nitrate – Deity
Contact him by email here

TeamSpeak tutorial for commentary available here.
WaaaghTV tutorial for live streaming of games available here.

This poll will decide who faces off against tankh for ourÂ seventh game in the KotH DotA series.

Oh yeah! You need to be logged in to vote… So sign up! Noob! Register to vote here!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.
Exclusions:

miNt gaming is excluded this week as they lost their last game.

Results:

This tournament is proudly sponsored by Rectron!

King of the Hill Week 6 – Preview

Bob "Fatbob" Smith — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:34:50 +0000

So who is going to be challenging Mint this week? The poll this week was pretty close, with three teams taking almost 90% of the vote. The final finish was

KingsurfZA (36.0%, 25 Votes)
tankh (27.0%, 19 Votes)
pX.^ paCman Xtremists (26.0%, 18 Votes)

KingsofSurf had already confirmed late last week that they would not be able to field a team. With KingsofSurf being eliminated, just Tank and PX were left to win the vote. In a real nail biter, Tankh clinched it by one vote. So this week sees old rivals Tankh and Mint take to killing grounds. These two teams have already met once in the King of the Hill series, with Mint getting the better of Tankh. Tankh however do lead mint in DC cups by 2-1 so anything is possible.

As always KotH will kick will kick off tomorrow night between 8:30pm and 9:30pm. Hopefully both teams have no connectivity issues, so we can have things run smoothly. There will be commentary and streaming so check out the voting page for more details.

Fatbob

SA Gaming on the up

Daniel Balusik — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 04:19:11 +0000

With the current state of the community, many gamers would say the competitive e-Sports community in South Africa is going through a rough patch. A lot of people are focusing on the negatives at the moment, such as Ben “Equinox” Greenwood leaving the SA Gaming community, the number one TeamFortress 2 team, Brazen, are inactive and there are rumors that they could split, many of the good players are moving overseas, and lastly the problem tournament administrators have with the lack of enthusiasm and gratitude gamers show towards their tournaments.Â

While most people are focusing on the negatives lets take the time to reflect back on the positives.Â

In 2008 we saw the very first installment of the BOTC Call of Duty 4 and Counter-Strike: Source competitions, arguably the most premiere online tournaments to date, it could even rival some international competitions, in terms of prizes, organisation and of course the competition. Although it was a rough start for Robert “iNFy” Hart he weathered the storm and pulled through, showing that with enough perseverance and determination, dreams can become a reality.Â

Most of us also saw, or heard of the most notable sponsorship in South African gaming history go to BFB (Big Fat B*stards). Where Incredible Connection sponsored them R60 000 worth of gaming hardware. Again part of the community were negative, and retaliated out of jealousy asking why they had been sponsored as the team hadn’t won anything of note or placed well in any of the premiere online and offline tournaments, and that there were far more deserving teams. BFB too weathered the storm and now boast one of the strongest lineups the Call of Duty 4 community has ever seen. All they need to do now, is learn how to work as a unit, and soon they should be unstoppable.

For Â the rest of the story head on over to theÂ miNt Gaming website.

King of the Hill Dota Series: Week 5 – New Kings on the Block

Bob "Fatbob" Smith — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:27:27 +0000

The King of the Hill DotA Series is sponsored by Rectron and powered by eGamer and Twilight Gaming

Warning: I wrote this at 5am so if you’re offended by cheap shots and sarcasm, you probably shouldn’t read this.

The Buildup

Before we get started, just so you all know; I Fatbob did not choose this week’s KotH game name. It was chosen by Nitrate who is a HUGE New Kids on the Block fan (Ed: Some 90s boy band for those of you who don’t know). Now that we’ve got that out the way, yes we’ve got a new King of the Hill. With some server issues (courtesy of some Iranians haxing our host and some 200 odd servers), we didn’t get all that many votes. Ol’ SloJ and friends (wait SloJ has friends?) beat out tankh by an eyelash, winning the vote 11 to 9. There have been some rumors that Tankh will never win a vote again due to the fact that Scant called a certain member from the egamer team “king of the n00bs”. Of course there is no truth to this. Good Luck for the vote this week Tankh, and good luck to all the teams.

To vote for this week’s challenger press the voting button right at the top of the page, or click here.

There is a replay and yes I recommend watching it right up until a certain player drops. I won’t ruin the surprise of who this is, but I will tell you we had to restart the game 9 times because of the bongle (Ed: Isn’t that punishable?). I suggest you never ever let this player into a pubbie, because he will drop. Replay link http://www.dota-allstars.com/download/replay/132082

The Overview

Now this week was the second meeting between Mint Gaming and Dedicated’Abuse (dedA) in the Koth series, of course with Mint having 5 players this time things should have been a lot closer than last time. To check out what happened last time check out http://egamer.co.za/2009/05/king-of-the-hill-dota-series-week-2-one-or-none/

Unfortunately due to some connection stability issues, we only got started at around 21:30pm on Tuesday. However the stream was stable and we had quite a few spectators this week. Mint represented the Sentinel this week and also was randomly selected to begin the draft.

The Bans

For a second week in a row, both Rhasta and Krobelus were banned. Â Along with this, the remaining “unpickables” (Tauren, Necrolyte and Zombie) remained banned. Enigma was also banned, despite having little impact in last week’s game. And not surprisingly, Mint banned Bane who has been a stable in the dedA picking diet.

Mint – SentineldedA -Â Scourge

The Picks

Now the picking started off fairly normal, with both teams getting a little creative at the end. This was also one of the longest picking phases we’ve ever had, as Mint needed to use all of their picking time as well as every last bit of overtime. And yes, I’m still convinced that dedA misclicked on their last pick and picked blood seeker and no one is going to convince me otherwise. ;)

Mint – SentinelÂ dedA -Â Scourge

The AssignmentsÂ

Sentinel – Mint	Scourge – dedA
SloJ – Anub’arak – Nerubian Assassin	Phobos – Mirana Nightshade – Priestess of the Moon
Waz_Mac – Aiushtha – Enchantress	Azen – Strygwyr – Bloodseeker
SwissRoll – Puck – Faerie Dragon	Bananas – Mogul Kahn – Axe
MrAsssMan – Zeus – Lord of Olympia	CryT_T.zz – Crixalis – Sand King
Lemon-Gr^ss – Mangix – Pandaren Brewmaster	BonKers – Rylai Crestfall – Crystal Maiden

The Game and the Kills

Both teams picked great combos this week which produced at least 20 minutes of exciting dota. Both teams also opted for 2-1-2 in the lanes, although the game was quite volatile and from early on there was quite a bit of lane switching going on. Although I’m still not entirely sure why bloodseeker (Azen) was soloing Zeus (MrAssMan).Â

Both teams played very aggressively. Â In one of the never ending remakes, we actually saw a first blood before the creeps spawned, however a certain player’s unreliable internet connection saved Bambi (Waz_Mac) the shame. Some early escapes by by SloJ and CryT_T (also known as xera the n00b) drew out first blood a little longer this time, with Mint getting it in the 3^rd minute, Lemon^Grass boxing Xera into a bit of a corner and introducing the Sand Kings head to the end of his bamboo stick (wow that sounds kinda dirty). Lemon Grass fell shortly after however keeping the scores tied at 1-1. Just a minute later it was again Lemon Grass picking on the scourge, killing Phobo’s kitty. However again this was short lived, as Xera/Bonkers were waiting in the bush and had a little surprise for Lemon grass bring the score back to a tie at 2-2.

After 5 minutes, Mint were leading in the farming war with 64 creeps to dedA’s 23, Zeus and a jungle bambi racking up loads of creeps, however neither team was giving an inch on the hero kill front. A 3 on 1 gang was dedA take a brief lead as Xera dispatched of MrAssMan’s Zeus, only to have MrAssMan return the favour to Bonkers’ Crystal Maiden.

Both teams regrouped and got back on to the farming, however it wasn’t long before the deadlock was broken in the 10^th minute with an epic 3v3 battle. Xera/ClitsyB/Azen picked a fight with Sloj/SwissRoll/MrAssMan in a battle for Mint’s top tower. Some bloodrage to shut the Zeus up and a call from ClitsyB’s Axe along with some fancy footwork from Xera saw dedA take this mini battle 3-0 and after the 11^th minute dedA had taken the lead 3-6. Oh and the tower survived unscathed. :)

Mint regrouped and both teams teleported all over the show, looking to further increase their kills and try to swing the game in their favour. Mint pulled one back in the 13^th minute, finding a stray bloodseeker who obviously didn’t get the memo to push top. The score was now 6-4 to dedA.

Â So yes dedA soldiered on after Azen’s tragic death to push Mint’s top tower and were first to take a tower 13 minutes and 44 seconds in. Of course the party was short lived, as those sneaky folk from Mint Gaming also had some plans to take a tower and pushed dedA’s bottom level 1 tower just 13 seconds later keeping the game even steven (And if you’re reading this, Hi Steve!).

The next 30 seconds were filled with peace and tranquility but the peace and tranquility was short lived. Waz_mac had decided that one tower was not enough, and got started on dedA’s level 2 bottom tower. Of course dedA weren’t going to take this lying down mass teleported down to bottom to have “a word”. Bloodraged and Ruptured, Waz_Mac made a run for it but was caught by Xera’s spike. Xera began an epicenter; preparing to give Waz_Mac a 30 second break and a one way trip to his fountain. Of course Waz_Mac had all of this planned, and who should spring out of the bushes to “have his back” but his old pal SloJ giving Xera’s SK a spike of his own. And of course where there’s a SloJ, there’s an AssMan and a Swissroll and even a shot of lemon grass. DedA were caught on the back foot this time, with Mint taking the mini battle 3-0 and bringing the score to 7-6 in Mint’s favour. Yes that’s right, Waz_Mac’s bambi survived. Mint’s lead didn’t last long, as an unaware AssMan was caught by Bonkers bring the score to 7-7 after 15 minutes with the towers at 1-1.

Things were still neck and neck, with really just Mints lead on creep kills (195-107) separating things. Another epic battle was fought middle around 17 minutes, this time Mint handing out a 4-1 panking, bringing the score up to 11-8. This also left dedA vulnerable with only Kitty to defend and Mint quickly capitalized on this taking dedA’s level 1 tower middle. dedA did strike back quickly to bring the score to 12-10 however keeping Mint’s kill lead to a minimum.

And that’s where it ends folks. Xera’s troublesome connection which was the main cause of the 9 restarts died again and with this in mind, a very late start and lots of players writing exams a decision was taken not to load. A very disappointed dedA played on but 4-5 the outcome was inevitable. Mint started on a pushing frenzy taking towers all over the place, while dedA defended and picked off heroes where they could. After 23 minutes the score 12-12, although Mint were leading 4-1 on towers and were just pulling the game away from dedA. After 31 minutes Mint were leading 22-14 and dedA conceded, surrendering the game and the hill.

The Vital Stats

Click here for the final scoreboard

The Summary

And there you have it, Mint are King of the Hill after beating a 4v5 (Ed: Ironic isn’t it) dedA. Unlike their first meeting, this match was filled with 20 minutes of really great dota and who knows how it would have gone down if Xera hadn’t dropped. Both teams played really well, and I’m sure both will hypothesize about how they had the edge and they would have won it. I think it was too close to call, Mint were better farmed but dedA were strong in the team battles and still had a strong hold on the control of their side of the map. Both teams played extremely well and produced some of the best dota we’ve seen this far. I don’t know if we’ll see another game as close as this soon, and with Mint’s main rival’s bvd pulling out of KotH due a shakey starting lineup, I think it’s going to be up to dedA or Tankh to unseat the new Kings on the Bloc… errr Hill.

Gank you in the bushes – FatBob

P.S. Bukris is NOT champion, and whoever believes this is a . *hint it starts with a P.

DotA Version 6.60 Released!

Azhar — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:51:27 +0000

The long awaited DotA Allstars version 6.60 has finally been released today. Be warned though, the changelog is massive in size and it can be found below for those eager to read. Below are two links: the first leads to the official DotA map page while the other takes you to a local download link for those who are either capped or can’t get onto getdota.com. Some huge changes include two new heroes and an entirely reworked “Razor”. So what are you waiting for? Get the map, start playing and enjoy!

1) Official download: GetDota.com
2) Local download link: here

###########
## Heroes ##
###########

* Added a new hero Batrider to the Scourge [details below]
* Added a new hero Tauren Chieftain to the Sentinel [details below]
* Lightning Revenant: Reworked [details below]

* Medusa: Replaced Chain Lightning with a new ability Mystic Snake [details below]
* Medusa: Replaced Purge with a new ability Stone Gaze [details below]
* Netherdrake: Replaced Frenzy with a new ability Nethertoxin [details below]
* Rogue Knight: Replaced Toughness Aura with a new ability Warcry [details below]
* Slayer: Replaced Ultimate with a new ability Fiery Soul [details below]
* Twin Head Dragon: Replaced Autofire with a new ability Liquid Fire [details below]
* Troll Warlord: Replaced Rampage with a new ability Battle Trance [details below]
* Rogue Knight: Reworked how Stormbolt works [details below]
* Morphling: Reworked how Morphiling’s Adaptive Strike works [details below]
* Crystal Maiden: Replaced Frost Nova with a similar new ability Crystal Nova [details below]
* Phantom Assassin: Changed Blink Strike to a new ability Phantom Strike [details below]
* Ogre Magi: Reworked Multicast chance mechanism [details below]
* Sniper: Replaced Scattershot with a new ability Shrapnel [details below]
* Troll Warlord: Replaced Fervor Aura with a new ability Fervor (works like Beastmaster’s passive used to)
* Beastmaster: Replaced Beast Rage with a new ability Inner Beast (works like Troll’s old attack speed aura)
* Anti-Mage: Reworked Mana Void damage mechanism (now deals equal splash damage to units near the target)
* Silencer: Recoded Last Word to properly detect animation canceling and silence after a spell is casted
* Treant Protector: Reworked Eyes in the Forest [details below]

* Admiral: Lowered Agility (18->14) and Agility Per Level (1.7->1.3)
* Axe: Lowered Base Armor by 1 point (2.8->1.8)
* Bane Elemental: Improved cast range on Enfeeble (800->1000)
* Bristleback: Improved Base Intelligence growth by 0.6
* Bristleback: Improved side angles on Bristleback (90->110)
* Bristleback: Returned the Bristleback passive Quill Spray release cap back (300->250)
* Broodmother: Changed spiderling’s armor type from medium to normal and now take damage from first towers (50->100 %)
* Crystal Maiden: Lowered Brilliance Aura (0.75/1.5/2.25/3->0.5/1/1.5/2)
* Dark Seer: Improved Vacuum cast range (600->800)
* Dark Seer: Lowered Ion Shell cooldown (15->7 cd)
* Dark Seer: Vacuum no longer goes through magic immunity
* Dark Seer: Vacuum now drags the units in over 0.3 seconds rather than instantly
* Death Prophet: Witchcraft no longer gives movement speed bonus
* Geomancer: Changed Poof damage (60/80/100/120->50/80/110/140)
* Geomancer: Lowered Poof cooldown (20/18/16/14->16/14/12/10 cd)
* Invoker: Improved Alacrity duration (6->8)
* Keeper of the Light: Changed Mana Leak stun into a slow (2 seconds, 60 %)
* Keeper of the Light: You no longer lose control of your hero when knocked back with Blinding Light
* Lifestealer: Removed the initial stun effect from Open Wounds
* Lion: Voodoo duration reduced from 1/2/3/4 to 1.25/2/2.75/3.5 seconds
* Lone Druid: Added Battle Cry to all level of True Form and scaled the bonus damage/armor (20/2->20/2, 40/4, 60/6) and lowered duration (10->8 seconds)
* Lone Druid: Changed Spirit Bear’s ability progression (Lv1->Adds Inventory, Lv2->Adds Return, Lv3->Adds Entangle, Lv4->Adds Demolish and Spell Damage Reduction)
* Lone Druid: Improved True Form’s melee attack range (100->150)
* Lone Druid: Rabid now goes on both the Spirit Bear and Lone Druid when casted instead of requiring a target
* Lone Druid: Removed One from True Form
* Lone Druid: Spells now last the same duration on Spirit Bear as they do on heroes
* Lord of Avernus: Lowered Death Coil cooldown (7->6 seconds)
* Lord of Avernus: Gets the Mark of the Abyss buff on his first attack instead of on his second attack
* Luna: Increased Lunar Blessing aura range (300->900)
* Magnataur: Lowered Reverse Polarity cooldown (120->120/110/100 seconds)
* Magnataur: Improved attack animation time
* Magina: Undid recent buffs to base strength (21->16)
* Naga Siren: Reduced collision size (24->8)
* Naga Siren: Lowered Mirror Image cast time
* Naga Siren: Lowered Mirror Image cooldown (50->40 seconds) and manacost (85/105/130/150 to 70/80/90/100)
* Necrolyte: Rebalanced Heartstopper Aura from 0.5/0.75/1/1.25% to 0.4/0.6/0.8/1% and range from 700/800/900/1000 to 1000
* Necrolyte: Lowered Strength per level (2.0->1.5)
* Obsidian Destroyer: Lowered Astral Imprisonment cooldown (20->18/16/14/12 seconds)
* Pandaren Brewmaster: Improved Fire Panda’s Immolation (10/10/30->15/30/45)
* Pugna: Life Drain max range improved by 50 and its cast range is now equal to its max range
* Rhasta: Voodoo duration reduced from 1/2/3/4 to 1.25/2/2.75/3.5 seconds
* Rogue Knight: Improved Great Cleave damage (10/20/30/40->20/30/40/50 %)
* Sacred Warrior: Removed the cap on Burning Spears
* Shadow Fiend: Improved Presence of the Dark Lord armor reduction (1/2/3/4->2/3/4/5)
* Shadow Priest: Lowered Shallow Grave cooldown (80/60/40/20->54/40/26/12 cd)
* Silencer: Lowered Last Word duration (1/2/3/4->0.75/1.5/2.25/3)
* Slardar: Slithereen Crush damage type is now Physical type
* Spectre: Restored some vision back to Spectral Dagger path
* Spirit Breaker: Improved AOE on Empowering Haste and added 2% more movement speed bonus
* Stone Giant: Craggy Exterior now gives armor bonus (3/4/5/6)
* Stone Giant: Craggy Exterior now triggers off of units with 300 range rather than just based on melee classification
* Templar Assassin: Changed Refraction duration/cooldown (20/23->17/17)
* Templar Assassin: Changed Psi Blades spill range (80/160/240/320->320) and attack range bonus (50/100/150/200->40/100/160/220)
* Templar Assassin: Refraction is now an instant cast ability
* Terrorblade: Now gets a movement speed bonus during Metamorphosis (+20)
* Tinker: Restricted Black King Bar from refreshing
* Troll Warlord: Rebalanced Blind. Miss from 15/24/33/42 -> 20/28/36/44% and Cooldown from 8 -> 15/12/9/6 seconds
* Twin Head Dragon: Rescaled Ice Path (0.5/1/1.5/2->0.8/1.2/1.6/2 seconds)
* Undying: Lowered Base Armor by 3 points (6->3)
* Undying: Tombstone no longer spawns zombies to attack fogged units
* Ursa Warrior: Rescaled Overpower from 100/200/300/400% IAS with 5 attack count to a constant 400% IAS with 3/4/5/6 attacks
* Vengeful Spirit: Improved Strength Per Level by 0.5
* Vengeful Spirit: Improved Command Aura range (450->900)
* Vengeful Spirit: Improved Wave of Terror a little and added some minor damage (25/50/75/100). Lowered AOE slightly (350->300)
* Vengeful Spirit: Now has normal Base Attack Time (1.77->1.7)
* Windrunner: Lowered Base Attack Time (1.6->1.5)
* Zeus: Arc Lightning becomes available for casting immediately after cooldown rather than wait for the Lightning to finish traveling. Cooldown increased from 2 to 2.5 seconds.

###########
## Items ##
###########

* Added a new basic item Ghost Scepter [details below]
* Added a new basic item Quelling Blade [details below]
* Added a new basic item Talisman of Evasion [details below]
* Added a new recipe item Poor Man’s Shield [details below]
* Added a new recipe item Force Staff [details below]
* Added a new recipe item Khadgar’s Pipe of Insight [details below]
* Added a new recipe item Magic Wand [details below]

* Aghanim’s Scepter: New Recipe [details below]
* Manta Style: Reworked [details below]
* Diffusal Blade: Can be upgraded once. Original stats adjusted [details below]
* Maelstrom: Recipe and stats adjusted [details below]
* Linken Sphere: Rewrote parts of the following abilities to be compatible with Linken Sphere: Shackleshot, Brain Sap, Spirit Lance, Test of Faith, Malefice, Poison Touch, Shadow Word, Astral Imprisonment, Life Break, X Marks The Spot, Battle Hunger, Open Wounds, Electric Vortex, Paralyzing Casks, Multicast, Adaptive Strike Strength>Agility, Nether Swap, Rupture, Stifling Dagger, Sprout, Lightning Bolt, Lion’s Impale, Nerubian Assassin’s Impale, Ravage, Burrow Strike, Unstable Concoction, Mana Leak, Sven’s Storm Bolt, Reaper’s Scythe, Nether Strike, Gush.

* Assault Cuirass: Lowered recipe cost (2000->1500 gold)
* Assault Cuirass: Positive and negative armor auras now work on structures
* Blademail: Returns pure damage type
* Bloodstone: Lowered regeneration per charge (2->1.5) and passive regeneration (200->150 %)
* Cranium Basher: Uses Belt of Giant Strength along with a slight increase to stun duration (1.1->1.4 seconds). Total cost is unchanged.
* Divine Rapier: Improved damage (200->250 dmg)
* Eul’s Scepter of Divinity: Can be used to target yourself
* Eye of Skadi: Lowered recipe cost (1250->750 gold)
* Gem of True Sight: Lowered item cost (750->700 gold)
* Headress of Rejuvination: Lowered recipe cost (225->200 gold)
* Linken Sphere: No longer interrupts your teleportation when it blocks a spell
* Lothar’s Edge: Added 125 backstab damage
* Lothar’s Edge: Lowered cooldown by 2 seconds (20->18 cd)
* Lothar’s Edge: Requires Claymore instead of Mithril Hammer
* Magic Stick: Added a 25 second cooldown (it now has a buildup)
* Manta Style: Can now be disassembled
* Manta Style: Increased cooldown (40->50 cd)
* Mask of Madness: Lowered recipe cost (1050->1000 gold)
* Mithril Hammer: Lowered item cost (1610->1600 gold)
* Monkey King Bar: Now has an extra new passive ability True Strike that can be toggled on and off [details below]
* Phase Boots: Changed the duration/cooldown (5/10->6/12 seconds)
* Phase Boots: Lowered armor bonus (7->5 armor)
* Planeswalker’s Cloak: Lowered item cost (650->400 gold)
* Radiance: Removed the 8% evasion and improved burn damage (35->40), AOE (550->650 AOE), and recipe cost (1525->1350 g)
* Refresher Orb: Mana regen is now the total sum of its components (150->200%)
* Ring of Regeneration: Lowered item cost (375->350 gold)
* Sange and Yasha: Removed the recipe requirements
* Satanic: Changed Unholy Rage active (+15% lifesteal and +30 damage for 20 seconds -> +150% lifesteal for 3.5 seconds)
* Satanic: Now retains the bonus damage from Helm of the Dominator
* Stout Shield: Changed damage block system [see details below]
* Stout Shield: Lowered item cost (300->250 gold)
* The Butterfly: Now requires Talisman of Evasion instead of a recipe
* Vanguard: Improved block chances (65->70%)
* Vanguard: Improved health regeneration (5->6 hp)

* Heroes that use scepter now have the information about the upgrades they would get on their ultimate tooltips.

* Aghanim’s Scepter: Upgraded Chain Frost doesn’t improve bounce count, only damage
* Aghanim’s Scepter: Upgraded Eclipse cooldown no longer improves, only the Lucent Beam count gets upgraded
* Aghanim’s Scepter: Upgraded Laguna Blade level 3 damage reduced by 100
* Aghanim’s Scepter: Upgraded Life Drain cooldown removed and damage reduced (170/200/300->150/200/250)
* Aghanim’s Scepter: Upgraded Mass Serpent Wards bonus count nerfed (12->10)
* Aghanim’s Scepter: Upgraded Sonic Wave cooldown reduced from 120/100/75 to 110 (Still improves from original 135 cd and via damage)
* Aghanim’s Scepter: Removed from Ogre Magi (Might return it later after the rework has time to settle in first)

* Added Bane Elemental to Aghanim’s Scepter. Deals more damage
* Added Butcher to Aghanim’s Scepter. Deals damage based on his strength and aborbs that to heal himself. Damage from a constant 75/125/175 per second to 75/125/175 + 0.75 x Strength per second
* Added Clockwerk Goblin to Aghanim’s Scepter. Allows latching onto allies and reduces cooldown from 80/60/40 to 20 seconds
* Added Faceless Void to Aghanim’s Scepter. Lasts 1 second longer and slightly less cooldown
* Added Holy Knight to Aghanim’s Scepter. Dramatically reduces cooldown from 120 to 30
* Added Invoker to Aghanim’s Scepter. Improves Cooldown and Manacost (30/25/12/5-> 16/8/4/2 cd, 20/50/80/110->0 manacost)
* Added Juggernaut to Aghanim’s Scepter. Improves Slash Count and Cooldown (+2 slashes, -20 cd)
* Added Lord of Avernus to Aghanim’s Scepter. Increased duration by 2 seconds
* Added Nightstalker to Aghanim’s Scepter. Gives unobstructed vision at night
* Added Pandaren Brewmaster to Aghanim’s Scepter. Improves the power of the Pandas and adds more duration
* Added Sacred Warrior to Aghanim’s Scepter. Improves Damage and cooldown (50->65% damage, 45/30/15->24/16/8 Seconds)
* Added Sand King to Aghanim’s Scepter. Adds an extra pulse and lowers cooldown (+1 Pulse, -20 cd)
* Added Shadow Priest to Aghanim’s Scepter. Increased Weave duration by 6 seconds. Added 200 AOE
* Added Spiritbreaker to Aghanim’s Scepter. Dramatically reduces cooldown from 75 to 20 seconds
* Added Techies to Aghanim’s Scepter. Improves Damage and Cast Range (300/450/600->450/600/750 damage and 500->900 range cast range)
* Added Twin Head Dragon to Aghanim’s Scepter. Improves spawn time and damage (75/125/175->125/175/225 dmg)
* Added Vengeful Spirit to Aghanim’s Scepter. Improves Cooldown (45->10 cd)
* Added Windrunner to Aghanim’s Scepter. Does not reduce damage from secondary item effects. Cooldown from 60 to 15.

* Summary of heroes that now make use of Scepter: Lord of Avernus, Bane Elemental, Holy Knight, Clockwerk Goblin, Shadow Priest, Sacred Warrior, Invoker, Juggernaut, Tormented Soul, Slayer, Demon Witch, Moon Rider, Necrolyte, Nightstalker, Pandaren Brewmaster, Butcher, Oblivion, Queen of Pain, Shadow Shaman, Crystal Maiden, Spiritbreaker, Sand King, Twin Head Dragon, Vengeful Spirit, Venomancer, Faceless Void, Windrunner, Witch Doctor, Lord of Olympia.

####################
## Misc Highlight ##
####################

* Reorganized heroes into taverns based on hero class. There are now 3 taverns per class, the “good” tavern has the heroes that are easier to recognize as “good”, the evil tavern has the heroes that are easier to recognize as “evil” and the mix as the ones that are in between. In each tavern the heroes are organized inside of it by alphabet. The Taverns are colored according to the class. For example, the good Intelligence tavern is Blue with the color darkening as it goes to the evil side.

* Side shops are now organized independent from their item slot in their original stores. This also fixes hotkey conflict issues.
* Reworked the side shop item layouts. There are now two shops there, a Goblin Laboratory and a Goblin Merchant. New items have been added to these shops. Here is the complete listing of the items in there:
Goblin Laboratory: Scroll of Town Portal, Magic Stick, Sobi Mask, Stout Shield, Ring of Regeneration, Ring of Health, Cloak, Helm of Iron Will, Mask of Death
Goblin Merchant: Slippers of Agility, Boots of Elvenskin, Belt of Giant Strength, Robe of the Mage, Quelling Blade, Gloves of Haste, Blades of Attack, Quarterstaff, Talisman of Evasion, Kelen’s Dagger, Ultimate Orb
* Reorganized all the recipe shops. The goals are both to make room for the recently added items and more importantly to organize them in a manner that makes guessing correctly where an item is an easy task for both existing and new players. I know none of us like to relearn item layouts, but this is a good thing to do for the long run.
- There are 6 recipe shops now in the following order:
Gateway Relics: Misc items that are primarily early game upgrades
Supportive Vestments: Various support style items that you get for your team
Arcane Sanctum: Castable or spell heavy themed items
Protectorate: Has mainly defensive/survival style items
Enchanted Artificats: Mostly orb effect items (with the exception of Yasha)
Ancient Weaponry: All other weapon items.

Note: I’m aware that Aegis is no longer needed in the shops, but I’m keeping it there until we need the space to help new users be aware of its existance through Roshan.

######################
## Modes & Commands ##
######################

* Added a new game mode -cd (-CaptainsDraft) [details below]
* Added a new game mode -rs (-randomside) to randomize which side your team starts in. This does not shuffle the players. It just places a team randomly as either Sentinel or Scourge.
* Added -random Intelligence/Strength/Agility. It gives you 100 less bonus gold than the 250 bonus gold the regular -random gives you.

* Added a new -tips system.If you enter the command, the game will give you 5 pointers (at various stages in the game) that are unique to each hero to help you get the basics down. These are not intended to imply guideliens on how to play a hero, but rather as simple tips if you are new with that hero. These are a work in progress.
* Added -water random
* -water now supports any color combinations using -water r g b format

* You can now change the terrain using -terrain snow on a per user basis. It is no longer a game mode. The “-terrain” or “-terrain default” command reverts the terrain to its normal state. Some of the other terrain modes you guys have emailed me about are still being worked on. I disabled them from this version because of some glitches they cause that haven’t been fixed yet. I will work on them more in the future if you guys want them.

* Added -disablehelp to Force Staff
* Added a command to display bonus gold received from Goblins Greed (-gg)
* Added -aa (Arrow Accuracy) for Elune’s Arrow hit percentages
* -disablehelp now prevents items from being picked up by non-owners from the fountain area
* -oi is turned on by default in observer games. Using -oi will disable it instead.
* Added a sub command to -om that disables neutral spawns
* Added a player only command “rollhero” or “-rh” to randomly display a heroname. This has no actual functional effect in the game, just a small easy command that some players wanted for their play groups.
* AFK detection no longer considers a player to be AFK during the drafting phases of some game modes

* Switch is disabled by default. Added a new temporary game mode -switchon (-so). Haven’t developed a new replacement system for switch yet. There are a few ideas I experimented with but nothing final yet. Based on the feedback I’ve gotten, I think the best thing to do is to disable it by default and allow a mode for it until a more suitable usage of it can be implemented.
* Improved the text presentation of -switch a little bit so the text is less intrusive

############################
## Gameplay & Performance ##
############################

* Added a few new terrain paths. Here are the rough areas that a change has been done in:
- To the right of the Sentinel Secret Shop above the ramp
- Above the Sentinel Goblin Shop
- Between the forest and the top Scourge lane
- Right side of sent jungle
- To the right of the second top Sentinel tower
- Added a new tree to the Scourge jungle
- In the area between the pair of Scourge neutrals near the powerup

* Range rax no longer has extra regeneration
* Added a new regeneration armor mechanism for towers and rax.
- The “regen armor” is stripped away whenever there are nearby creeps (or corpses). It gets restored once 15 seconds elapse without a nearby unit.
- If a tower or rax takes damage without the regen armor, that life lost can never be naturally regenerated. If it does have the regen armor, then it will regenerate at a rate of 40hp/seconds and take only 25% damage from illusions.
- Flagged areas are 1) All places considered in or near base 2) second Top Tower 3) second Mid Tower 4) second Bot Tower.

* Increased the non-splitting portion of the xp/gold from 8/level xp & 40 gold to 12*level xp & 30+5*level
* The non-splitting xp/gold bonuses are now doubled for EM like the rest of the xp/bounty system is

* Changed the damage type of the first tower to be Siege like the rest of the towers. Adjusted the damage table to keep the damage creeps take in the laning phase unchanged.
* Tower does not regenerate from allied damage (when trying to deny)

#####################
## Cosmetic & Misc ##
#####################

* Added two new hero kill sounds for 4x and 5x kills
* Added hero and creep stats to the scoreboard title by default
* Deny visual effect is shown by default now. -cson/off toggles it on and off. -di functionalities (and some extras) are now enabled by default.
* The upgrade mechanism of courier has been changed. You no longer lose the hotkey bindings you have when it is upgraded to crow.
* Many passive icons have been replaced with proper passive borders (will do the remaining in the near future)
* Improved color/text presentation for runes
* Adaptive Strike now displays the stun duration as overhead
* Added a joke name to Dragon Knight
* Added a new ability on couriers “Return Home” that sends your courier back to base
* Added a new ability on couriers “Transfer Items” that transfers your items to your hero directly
* Added a new visual effect for Death Pulse
* Added a new visual effect for Last Word
* Added a new visual effect for Mana Void
* Added a warning message when an old unsafe version of Warcraft is detected
* Added a player only sound effect and a text message when your hero respawns
* Added allied-only text message when an ally bottles or picks up a rune
* Added Armor Aura to Neutral Creep Enraged Wildkin
* Added joke name to Axe
* Added text for observers to show what abilities heroes are leveling
* Added the “Allied hero has fallen” sounds
* Added the music that plays in single player when typing “TenthLevelTaurenChieftain” to “-music special”
* Adjusted neutral creep active abilities to all be on the bottom left most spot
* Blackhole now uses an AOE targetting interface
* Bottled Runes now show color coded icons
* Changed Bottle and Captured Rune Icons
* Changed Magic Stick Icon
* Reduced maximum AFK time from 10 to 5 minutes
* Changed Omnislash hotkey from N to E
* Changed the cosmetics on Razor’s attack
* Improved the Cooldown animation so it is much easier to tell when a long cooldown spell is available
* Lothars windwalk icon is now the same as the item
* Lycan’s attack while in Wolf Form now properly plays an attack sound
* Normal mode can now pick from their team’s heroes plus neutral heroes
* Removed Furion teleportation restriction into enemy base (no need because of the new regen system)
* Rot no longer triggers Last Word
* Rune of Regeneration now expires once it you reach max hp and mp
* Silencer Intelligence stealing is now displayed as green for the +1 and red for the -1
* Splitshot no longer automatically turns off when you get disabled
* Stout Shield has a new icon now. Poor Man’s Shield uses stout’s old icon.
* Terrain snow now morphs regular trees into special snow trees.
* Updated Illusion Rune tooltip
* Updated Morph’s tooltip to reflect the recent attributes bonus added to it
* You no longer lose vision if an ally or yourself that is targeted with Astral Prison
* Improved icon for Soul Steal (172705)
* Added a new icon for Sunder (172705)
* Added a new icon for Tombstone (263561)
* Added a new icon for Lycan’s Feral Heart (180452)
* Changed the icon for Ring of Protection
* Decreased model size of Spirit Bear and True Form slightly
* Added a new visual effect to God’s Strength
* Enigma returns to the Scourge alliance
* Linken Sphere now plays a sound when the cooldown is ready and its active on you

##########
## Bugs ##
##########

* Diffusal Blade automatically fixes itself to burn properly on images when it reaches 0 charges (you used to have to drop and pick it up)
* Fixed a bug with manavoid damage (it dealt less damage than it should at higher levels)
* Fixed a rare bug with Open Wounds allied lifesteal
* Fixed a bug with Open Wounds and Infest
* Fixed a Moonlight Shadow not working on allied magic immune units
* Fixed a rare suicide bug with Terrorblade
* Fixed a recently introduced bug with Ursa’s Enrage not properly triggering fury swipes
* Fixed -hhn to not get reset when a new hero enters the map
* Fixed some bugs with Last Word when Silencer was dead
* Fixed Illusions created from Bottle not showing bottle in inventory
* Fixed Meat Hook not interrupting channeling if the target is fogged
* Fixed Open Wounds heal not working properly with some custom spells
* Fixed Replicate not removing the image when it errors due to backdooring
* Fixed some minor potential bugs with Ion Shell
* Fixed some -switch issues when combined with -ah
* Fixed some very minor inconsistencies between Sentinel and Scourge buildings
* Fixed spells like Laser and Brainsap to work with Decrepify
* Fixed spells like Zeus’s Wrath of God from reseting the AFK counter
* Fixed the attachment effects on Invoker, Lina, Lich and Chaos Knight from disappearing and reapearing 1 second later after attack actions.
* Fixed the creep upgrade timer to be in sync with the recent game start time for modes
* Fixed Tiny’s Illusions appearing small

#############
# Languages #
#############

The game is now available in 9 languages (5 new ones). English, Russian, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, French, Czech, German, and Brazilian Portuguese.

###########
# Details #
###########

Captains Draft:
===============
24 Heroes are randomly allocated in a circle (like RD). The 24 consist of 8 random Intelligence/Agility/Strength heroes, sorted in that order along the circle.

Each team has a total time bank of 2.5 minutes. Blue/Pink draft the heroes for their entire team.

Blue and Pink start off by alternating 1/1/1/1 ban picks.
It then goes into a 1/2/2/2/2/1 hero draft.

Once a hero picks/bans a hero, it immediately switches to the other player to act.
Your timer is shown in read when it is your turn to act.

I am considering implementing a new order for the bans for this mode in the future. The bans would not all happen before the pick process, it would be in between picks. I decided to keep it the traditional way for now and get some feedback on alternatives.

Quelling Blade:
================
+36% bonus damage to non-hero units (12% for ranged heroes)
Tree Chop
- Kills a Tree
- 40 Cooldown
Cost: 250
Has no sell price
Available at the Goblin Merchant

Can only carry one

Talisman of Evasion:
====================
+25% Evasion
Cost: 1800

Stout:
======
250 Gold
+60% to block 20 (10 for ranged)

Note: It has the same statistical value as before for melee.

Poor Man’s Shield:
==================
(250) Stout Shield
(300) 2x Slippers of Agility

+60% to block 20 non-hero damage (10 for ranged)
+100% to block 20 hero damage (10 for ranged)
+6 Agility

Force Staff:
============
(900) Quarterstaff
(1000) Staff of Wizardry
(300) Recipe
Total: 2200

+10 Intelligence
+10 Damage
+10 Attack Speed
Force (active)
Cooldown: 30
Manacost: 100
Castrange: 800
Mechanic: Pushes a unit (enemy, allied or self) 500 units in the direction that unit is facing.

This does not interrupt channeling spells

Khadgar’s Pipe of Insight:
==========================
(2050) Hood of Defiance
(909) Natherzim Buckler
(800) Recipe
Total:3759

A powerful artifact of mysterious origin, this pipe gives the bearer the insight to summon fields of null energy which envelop nearby allies, protecting them from 400 spell damage. Buff lasts 8 seconds.

+30% Magic Resistance
+8 HP Regeneration
+5 Armor
Barrier (Active)
Cooldown: 60
Manacost: 100
AOE: 700
Mechanic: Provides a 400 damage magic damage shield on nearby allied units. Affects Heroes and non-player creeps. If a unit already has this buff when another barrier is casted, it will override the buff with the new one instead of stacking additively. Buff lasts 8 seconds

Note: The 400 damage is before any magic reductions, not after. So a 300 damage spell removes 300 life from the shield, and not the 225 basic spell resistance. It is taken off the shield before it hits you, thus before any magic resistance is taken into effect.

Ghost Scepter:
==============
1500 Gold
Ghost Form (Active)
+7 All Attributes

Ghost Form: You change form for 4 seconds, taking 44% bonus damage from spells but being immune to physical attacks.
Duration: 4
Cooldown: 25

Monkey King Bar’s True Strike:
==============================
Makes your attacks never miss.

True Strike Does not stack properly with orb or chance abilities like Frost Arrows, Headshot, etc.

True Strike can be toggled on and off.

Note: MKB still has proc effect

Magic Wand:
===========
(159) 3x Ironwood Branch
(200) Magic Stick
(125) Recipe
Total: 474

+3 All Stats
Energy Charge (15 Charges)

Aghanim’s Scepter:
==================
(2000) 2 of any of Blade of Alacrity, Ogre Axe or Staff of Wizardry
(1200) Point Booster
(1200) Recipe
Total: 4400

+10 All Attributes
+200 HP
+150 MP
Improves Ultimates (see list of ultimates in log or on the ultimate tooltips for the heroes it improves)

Diffusal Blade:
===============
(2000) 2x Blades of Alacrity
(450) Robe of the Magi
(850) Diffusal Blade Recipe
Total: 3300

22 Agility
6 Intelligence
Feedback (20 mana)
Purge 8 charges

Diffusal Blade Level 2:
=========================
(3300) Diffusal Blade
(850) Diffusal Blade Recipe
Total: 4150

26 Agility
10 Intelligence
Feedback (36 mana)
Purge 8 charges (upgrading to level 2 restocks your charges back to 8)

Note: You cannot restock charges by buying the recipe again. It only upgrades once.

Old Maelstrom:
==============
1400 Claymore
1400 Recipe
450 Boots of Elvenskin
Total: 3250

+25 Damage
+6 Agility
Chain Lightning

Maelstrom:
==========
1600 Mithril Hammer
900 Recipe
500 Gloves of Haste
Total: 3000

+24 Damage
+15 Attack Speed
Chain Lightning

Manta Style:
=============
2250 Yasha
2100 Ultimate Orb
500 Recipe

Gives:
+26 Agility
+10 Strength
+10 Intelligence
+15 Attack Speed
+10% Movement Speed
+Mirror Image (same as old one)
Images deal 33% (previously 40%)
Images take 350% (previously 300%)

Shrapnel:
==========
Fires a ball full of shrapnel into the air. which promptly explodes, showering the target area. Enemy units that walk in this area get damaged and slowed. Deals 30% damage to buildings. Shrapnel lasts for 10 seconds.

AOE: 450
Slow: 15/20/25/30
Slow Duration: 2
DPS: 10/20/30/40

Cast Range: 900
Cooldown: 15
Manacost: 120

Crystal Nova:
==============
AOE Damage: 80/130/180/230
AOE: 400
Slow Duration: 5
Attack Speed Reduction: 20%
Movement Speed Reduction: 30%

Cast Range: 700
Cooldown: 15
Manacost: 100/120/140/160

Adaptive Strike:
================
It now always stuns and damages.
The amount of the damage and stun varies depending on how much of each attribute you have relative to the other one.

If you have 50% more agility than strength, it deals the maximum of the damage and the minimum of the stun
If you have 50% more strength than agility, it deals the maximum of the stun and the minimum of the damage

Everything in between the two is a smooth transition from one to the other

Damage(lvl1): Min: 0.25x Agility Max: 0.75xAgi
Damage(lvl2): Min: 0.25x Agility Max: 1.5xAgi
Damage(lvl3): Min: 0.25x Agility Max: 2.25xAgi
Damage(lvl4): Min: 0.25x Agility Max: 3.0xAgi

Stun(lvl1): Min: 0.25 Max: 0.75
Stun(lvl2): Min: 0.25 Max: 1.5
Stun(lvl3): Min: 0.25 Max: 2.25
Stun(lvl4): Min: 0.25 Max: 3.0

Min Knockback distance is 100, Max is 300

Storm Bolt:
============
Targets an area around an enemy unit and releases a magical hammer dealing damage and stunning enemy units.

Damage: 100/175/250/325
Stun Duration: 2
AOE: 250
CD: 14
Manacost: 140
Cast Range: 600

Warcry:
=======

With the righteous anger of one wielding justice, Sven lets loose a mighty Warcry, heartening his allies for battle. Sven and nearby allies gain movespeed and increased armor.

Movement Speed: 12%
Armor: 3/6/9/12
AOE: 350
Duration: 6
Cooldown: 36/30/24/18

Battle Trance:
===============
Jah’rakal unconsciously uses dormant magic to awaken the savagery of every warrior on the battlefield. Greatly increases attack speed for a short duration, and lasts an additional 4 seconds on Jah’rakal.

Attack Speed Bonus: 60/80/100
Duration: 4 seconds
Cooldown: 20
Manacost: 75

Note: This is a global spell.

Liquid Fire:
============
Straight from the belly of the beast, Jakiro slowly harnesses Liquid Fire when he attacks to burn his victims (175 AOE), and slow their attacks.

Damage Per Second: 10/15/20/25
Attack Speed Reduction: 20/30/40/50
AOE: 175
Duration: 5 seconds
Cooldown: 20/15/10/5

Note: Works on buildings

Fiery Soul:
=============
Passive
Whenever she casts a spell, she will gain temporary movement and attack speed bonus.

Duration: 5 seconds
Attack Speed Bonus: 20/30/40/50%
Movement Speed Bonus: 2/3/4/5%
Stacks with itself

Phantom Strike:
===============
Teleports to a unit and attacks it. Gains 100% attack speed for 3 seconds while attacking that same target. Maximum of 4 attacks.

Cooldown: 30/20/10/5
Manacost: 50

Old Multicast:
==============
lvl 1 – 20% for 2. [Scepter: 30% for 3]
lvl 2 – 20% for 3. [Scepter: 30% for 4]
lvl 3 – 20% for 4. [Scepter: 30% for 5]

New Multicast:
==============
lvl 1 – 30% for 2.
lvl 2 – 45% for 2 or 22.5% for 3
lvl 3 – 60% for 2 or 30% for 3 or 15% for 4.

No scepter upgrades

Example: Level 2 has 50% chance for at least 2x and a 25% for 3.

This displays overhead showing which multiplier of multicast was achieved.

Eyes In The Forest:
===================
Creates an enchanted tree at a target point, allowing Rooftrellen to see the tree’s surrounding area at all times. Vision improves slightly per level.

Cast Range: 100
Cooldown: 300/225/150/75
Manacost: 100/75/50/25

Note: Creates a regular tree if cast on the Sentinel side and a dead tree if cast on the Scourge side. The trees are slightly brighter when they are enchanted.

Nethertoxin:
=============
Passive. Adds bonus damage to your attacks based on how low the target enemy is.

Level 1: 80-100=>2 60-80=>4 40-60=>8 20-40=>16 0-20=>32
Level 2: 80-100=>4 60-80=>8 40-60=>16 20-40=>32 0-20=>64
Level 3: 80-100=>6 60-80=>12 40-60=>24 20-40=>48 0-20=>96
Level 4: 80-100=>8 60-80=>16 40-60=>32 20-40=>64 0-20=>128

The equation is rather simple, it starts off with 2/4/6/8 bonus damage, and doubles each 20% missing hp.

For example, if this is level 3 and the target has 30% health, then you have 48 bonus attack damage.
If this is level 4 and the target has 15% health, then you have 128 bonus attack damage.

Gives half the bonus against creeps and buildings.

Mystic Snake:
=============
A mystic snake made of energy jumps from target to target dealing damage and stealing some energy. After it reaches its last target, it jumps back to Medusa to replenish her mana. The snake deals more damage and steals more mana per jump.

Jumps: 3/4/5/6
Damage: 60/100/140/180 + 20% each successful damage jump
Mana: 20/30/40/50 + 20% each successful mana drain jump

Example:
Target A: Unit with mana
Target B: Unit with no mana
Target C: Unit with mana
Target D: Unit with no mana
Target E: Unit with mana

At level 4:
Target A takes 180 damage and loses 50 mana
Target B takes 216 damage and loses 0 mana
Target C takes 252 damage and loses 60 mana
Target D takes 288 damage and loses 0 mana
Target E takes 324 damage and loses 70 mana

In this example, at level 4 cast spell, with a ranged creep and 2 heros both getting hit by it, you regenerate 50+60+70=180 mana

Manacost: 140/150/160/170
Cooldown: 12
Jump AOE: 475
Cast Range: 700

Stone Gaze:
===========
Any enemy units staring at the Gorgon will slowly turn to stone, removing status buffs and slowing all speed properties.

Gaze Duration: 5
AOE: 800
Speed Factor: 2/3/5
Damage to summoned units: 600/800/1000
Cooldown: 70
Manacost: 100/50/0

Doesn’t affect units that are not able to see Medusa directly (if medusa is fogged or invisible, then enemy can’t see her).

Direct line of sight is required.

#########
# Razor #
#########

Strength: 17 +1.9
Agility: 22 +2.5
Intelligence: 19 + 2.2

Attack Range: 475
Movement Speed: 295

Plasma Field:
————-
Razor releases a wave energetic plasma which grows in power as it extends outwards. Deals damage to units both on expansion and on contraction. The further the plasma is from razor the more energy it has.

Minimum Charge Damage: 40/60/80/100
Max Charge Damage:70/105/140/175
Speed: 800
AOE: 600

Cooldown: 16
Manacost: 125

Note: This can hit a unit once going out and once coming back in. Charge increases to max going outwards, then decreases to min coming inwards. This is a full circle AOE effect, a radius of small electrical effects travel outwards. It spawns from where you are and moves out with you.

Unstable Current:
—————-
Passive. Increases the movement speed and reflects a static charge whenever targeted, dealing damage and purging the unit briefly.

Movement Bonus: 3/6/9/12%
Damage: 40/60/80/100
Purge Duration: 0.3/0.6/0.9/1.2

Note: Does not trigger on attack orbs like Poison Attack or Frost Arrows

Static Link:
————
Taps into the energy of a target hero, creating a charged link between Razor and his foe. As long as this link is maintained, Razor will continue to steal damage from the target and adds it to his own.

Attack damage stolen per second: 5/10/15/20
Max link time: 10
Stolen duration: 13 seconds from link break.

Cast Range: 600
Break Range: 700

Manacost: 20/30/40/50
Cooldown: 45/40/35/30

Note: If you target a point on the ground, it will move in that path and lock onto the first hero it reaches. You have vision over the link itself.

Eye of the Storm:
——————
The Lightning Revenant calls upon a powerful storm of crackling energy, which strikes weakened enemies with deadly bolts of lightning. The storm is charged with Razor’s malevolent will, and will seek out only the most injured targets for its armor shattering blasts.

Damage: 37.5/50/62.5
Interval: 0.85/0.75/0.6
AOE: 500
Armor reduction per hit: 1 (stacks)

Duration: 20/25/30
Manacost: 100
Cooldown: 80/70/60

Damage dealt is physical. Only targets units in your vision.
This storm stops if Razor dies. Targets the lowest HP unit in the area.

############
# Batrider #
############

Strength: 23 + 2.5
Agility: 15 + 1.5
Intelligence: 24 + 2.5

Attack Range: 375
Movement Speed: 290

Cast Point 0.3
Attack Point 0.5
Hero Class: Intelligence

Sticky Napalm:
==============
Targets an area and drenches it in oil. Slows the movement speed and turn rate of units in that area. Extra casts of this on the same targets stacks.

Any fire damage from batrider will ignite the napalm, dealing damage for each stack.

Fire damage is any regular batrider attack, flamebreak or firefly

AOE: 375
Damage: 10/15/20/25
Slow: 3/5/7/9%
Turn rate reduction: 30%

Lasts 7 seconds (refreshes on hit)
Stack max: 10

Cast Range: 700
Manacost: 15
Cooldown: 3

Flamebreak:
==========
Hurls a highly explosive cocktail of dangerous chemicals at the target position. Upon impacting with an enemy the missile explodes, dealing damage and knocking all nearby foes away from the impact. Any unit who has been Napalmed will take additional damage from the blast.

Knocks back all units in the explosion area proportionally to how far they were from the center

Damage: 75/150/225/300
Max knockback: 400
Explosion AOE: 375
Detection AOE: 100
Damage: 75/150/225/300
Travel Distance: 1600

Manacost: 80/100/120/140
Cooldown: 11

Firefly:
===========
Flies high leaving a burning trail behind. Enemies who dare follow will get burned by the fiery napalm. Nothing can take the skies from him.

Trees in your path are killed by the fire.
Gives you flying pathing

Damage: 20/40/60/80 per second
AOE: 200
Spell Duration: 15
Pathing: Flying

CD: 40
Manacost: 100

Flaming Lasso:
===============
Snags a target with a constricting lasso, allowing the Batrider to drag them behind him as he moves.

Does not drag units over cliffs or impassable terrain.

If you TP or blink away or get ported away, the lasso breaks.

Cast Range: 175
Bind Range: 300
Manacost: 150
Cooldown: 130/90/50
Duration: 3/3.5/4

####################
# Tauren Chieftain #
####################

Strength: 24 + 2.7
Agility: 14 + 1.5
Intelligence: 23 + 1.6

Attack Range: 150
Movement Speed: 300

Cast Point 0.4
Attack Point 0.35
Hero Class: Strength

Since ancient times it has been prophesized by the Tauren elders that a Chieftain will come, strong as the mightiest warriors and wise as the eldest shamans. After many years of wandering the sacred lands, seeking wisdom from his forefathers, Cairne Bloodhoof has proven himself as the long awaited hero. Cairne carries with him the spirit of his mightiest ancestor, and now the ground shakes with the combined strength of the Chieftain and his guardian spirit. No physical nor magical barrier can reduce the power of his enchanted halberd, the weapon used by his guardian in ancient times. Such is the power of this axe that it can split the very earth itself. Seeking revenge for the ravaging of his homeland, Cairne will soon bring his wrath upon the Scourge.

Echo Stomp:
============
Calls upon the spirit of his ancestors to join him in an earth-shattering echo, rendering nearby foes unconcious. The spirit and Tauren Chieftain both deal 80 damage in the area, the Spirit dealing magical damage and the physical form dealing physical damage. Unconscious enemies will wake if they get hit. If the spirit is seperated from you, it will still perform its part of the spell.

If you damage a knocked out unit, it no longer becomes knocked out/immobile.

There is a spirit version of you doing the stomp animation with you at the same time (you can see it as well). You deal physical damage and it deals magical damage.

Physical Damage: 80
Magical Damage: 80
Channel Time: 1.4 seconds
AOE: 500
Knockout duration: 2/3/4/5 seconds
Manacost: 100/115/130/145
Cooldown: 15

Only player based damage can wake heroes. Damage dealt during a brief period after the stomp will not awaken heroes (0.65)

Ancestral Spirit:
=================
The Tauren Chieftain sends forth his guardian ancestor to bring ruin upon his foes. While seperate from the Chieftain, the spirit will mimic his movement and damage any unit it passes through. When it rejoins the Chieftain, it grants him bonus damage and movement speed for each enemy it has struck.

Magical Damage: 120/160/200/240
AOE: 275

Damage per creep: 3/6/9/12
movement speed per creep: 1%
Danage per hero: 10/20/30/40
movement speed per hero: 5%

Cooldown: 19
Manacost: 110
Max Charge Time: 8

If the spirit has not rejoined with you before that period, it will charge towards you to move back into you and enchant you.

Enchanted Time: 9 (The duration you have the buffs after the joining of the ancestral spirit)

Natural Order:
==============
Passive.

The Tauren Chieftain uses wisdom gathered throughout the ages to reduce everything to its most basic level. Removes base Magic and Physical resistance.

AOE: 250
Percentage nullification: 25%/50%/75%/100%

Note: This exists on the spirit as well.

Ultimate – Earth Splitter:
==========================
Using his mighty axe, the Tauren Chieften rends the very earth itself, sending a jagged crack under the feet of his enemies. After several seconds the earth implodes, sending his foes tumbling inwards. Any unit caught in the implosion will take damage based on their maximum life and have their speed slowed for a short time. Implodes after 3 seconds. Deals 35% of a unit’s maximum HP.

Cast Range: 1600
Travel speed: 600 ms
Delay after maturity: 0.5 seconds
AOE: 350
Damage: 35% of each unit’s maximum HP (half magical, half physical)
Slow Amount: 30/40/50%
Slow Duration: 3/4/5

Cooldown: 90/75/60
Manacost: 175

Example: You target a point, from where you are towards 1200 in the angle you click on, the split starts growing.
The split grows at 600 ms, so it takes 2 seconds to reach the end.

After it reaches the end, it plays an animation preparing for the implosion for 0.5 seconds and then it pulls everyone in and does the dmg/maim.

KotH 6 – Results and Voting!

Dean — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:24:09 +0000

This tournament is proudly sponsored by Rectron!

Vote for the team which you would like to challenge the King!

Rules:

You can view the full rule set and how the tournament works over here.

Your admins are:

Alcardu â€“ Admin Head
Contact him by email here

Blink â€“ Co-Admin
Contact him by email here

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Contact him by email here

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Contact him by email here

fluKe â€“ Ingame Admin & Streamer
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Contact him by email here

hallow – Commentator
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Nitrate – Deity
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TeamSpeak tutorial for commentary available here.
WaaaghTV tutorial for live streaming of games available here.

This poll will decide who faces off against miNt Gaming for our sixth game in the KotH DotA series.

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Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.
Exclusions:

dedA is excluded this week as they lost their last game.
Bravado.dota have pulled out of the KOTH.

Results:

This tournament is proudly sponsored by Rectron!