I immediately regret my decision

I use this blog to complain about how bad I am at Dota 2. My main's over at dontturnyourbackonthecity This is not an RP/ask blog. But I guess I could try if you really wanted me to.

[purist-thunderwrath]

I immediately regret my decision turned 1 today!

ohhhhh

[purist-thunderwrath]

let me just tell you how fast ancient apparition went from being one of my least favorite characters to one of my favorites as i played him a lot

[purist-thunderwrath]

I haven't used this in a while. Simple list this time, though: My top 10 and bottom 5 heroes in Dota 2.

My Top 10 Heroes in Dota 2:

Folks, this list was NOT easy. There are just so many characters that I love playing too much. I mean, yes, this list is also all but devoid of strength heroes, for example, so that combined with the other list may make you think I hate strength heroes -- and that's just not true. Characters like Doom, Omniknight, Earthshaker, and definitely Legion Commander are tons of fun to play. My preferences just seem to end up lying with agility heroes a lot -- okay, fine, I don't really like Medusa that much. It's tough. There's a lot of characters I like -- I had to cut Gyrocopter because I forgot how good Phantom Lancer was. But this is a rough estimate of my ten favorites.

10. Disruptor

Oracle got nerfed hard on April 30, but there's still some great supports out there. Disruptor's an easy fave: he can restrain and silence the whole team with his Kinetic Field and Static Storm combo. Glimpse can send an enemy away to help an escape, undo an enemy escape, or even just kill an illusion. He rounds this set off with some good stats and a great nuke that also allows him to keep an eye on a retreating hero. Disruptor can pick up a nice chunk of gold, too; I usually end up with him carrying a bunch of healing aura items and Scepter. His Scepter buff gives him the monstrously powerful ability to mute enemies' items with Static Storm.

Glimpse alone should get him on this list, though. You can use it when an enemy teleports in and undo it completely. That is one of the biggest, yet also funniest, dick moves in the game.

9. Outworld Devourer

Outworld Devourer hit my list pretty quickly when I first played him. He looked really scary at first -- his autocast didn't do much, his Astral Imprisonment could be too much of a double-edged sword, and all around, he just seemed to get worse over time in the short AND long term. However, the thing that makes him great is, quite simply, Essence Aura. At level 4 Essence Aura, autocasting Arcane Orb means you will very rarely run out of mana. You can use your Astral Imprisonment ability to not only disjoint projectiles (like Storm Hammer!). His ult, though it requires you to build a lot of items, can absolutely shred some enemies. Pugna and Skywrath Mage, or a fed Silencer, are about the only heroes that can be safe from it. With Scepter, too, you can use it to take the entire enemy team out of combat for four seconds -- either allowing your guys to retreat or to prep -- plus you steal some Intelligence from each target. Very handy.

8. Phantom Lancer

Somehow I left this guy off the list at first and forgot that Gyrocopter, my original #8, wasn't quite as good as he looked in online games. Phantom Lancer is THE illusion hero. Left to his own devices, Phantom Lancer can turn into a hero who summons an entire team to help him -- with enough stats, his illusions can be very nasty all by themselves, and he can summon them with his lightning-fast right-clicks. An enemy who suffers against large groups or doesn't have something like Echo Slam to deal with them will easily get swept up in a wave of angry blue cats. For bonus fun, give him a Manta Style. Phantom Lancer is generally believed to have a bad early game, but his Spirit Lance ability can help you secure easy first kills -- it's surprisingly strong and slows the enemy a good deal. It's just that you can't cast it in rapid succession -- you need a partner who's really on the ball to get things done.

7. Witch Doctor

Sure, Maledict is mediocre, with many people in higher-level games not even taking it until they can't take anything else, but otherwise, Witch Doctor is great -- a stun that can knock over the whole team decently, a great area-of-effect regeneration ability, and of course, his ult, Death Ward, which lives up to its name, doing tons of damage to the opponent's team. It's channeled, meaning he CAN be knocked out of it, but even then, it's great. With such a solid kit, he only ever needs to bother with three things: Arcane Boots, Agahnim's Scepter, and Black King Bar, before he can wipe half the enemy team or more by himself -- not bad for a support. They don't call him "The Walking Fountain" for nothin'. What keeps him from getting any higher, though, is that he can, especially in the early goings, be kind of mana-hungry, which stops him being the absolute best he can be at all times.

6. Silencer

Pudge is one of the most famous heroes in the game. He has a passive that gives him bonus strength when heroes get killed near him. Silencer takes it a step further, though; he instead outright STEALS two intelligence from a target when he kills them or they die near him. Being an Intelligence hero with a powerful autocast that deals bonus pure damage based on his intelligence, Silencer can quickly turn into a particularly deadly fighter. With a good build and enough feed, he can even overcome his titanic weakness to Black King Bar! Silencer's carrying ability can easily get screwed over without, though. He's reliant a bit on luck, but with it, he's a real monster. His activated abilities are nothing to sneeze at, either -- burning mana and health with Curse of the Silent, slowing and silencing with Last Word, and, of course, the self-explanatory Global Silence.

5. Treant Protector

Treant Protector is a great support who can also be a good physical fighter if the need arises. But mostly, his best upside is that he can use Living Armor on an ally who's anywhere on the map. Being able to heal from anywhere is amazingly useful. His ult, too, can hold enemies for a good long time. With Scepter, it can even do damage or lock enemies almost anywhere on the map; it grants him Eyes in the Forest, which lets him turn any tree into a pseudo-Observer Ward. Treant Protector is a great asset to any team, even if he often doesn't hurt a lot of opponents. He can give himself or his allies long-lasting invisibility as long as they're near trees. With his flexibility, massive health pool, and massive range of effectiveness, Treant Protector is a top-of-the-line bodyguard, a welcome addition to any team.

4. Enigma

Enigma is a bit of a farm-dependent support, but he can farm like a pro with his Demonic Conversion -- which can turn most jungle creeps into allies. He can even do it with siege creeps, too. Enigma can farm and push tremendously, but his main skill may just be his gigantic contribution to teamfights. His Black Hole may just be one of the most powerful abilities in the game, dealing solid damage and holding the enemy for four seconds. His Midnight Pulse drains a percentage of the enemy's max health as pure damage. Combine these two for massive damage. Giving him Agahnim's Scepter causes him to deal Midnight Pulse damage over the duration of Black Hole. Even by himself he can destroy an entire team in four seconds flat; give him a good partner and you can all but guarantee it. Enigma is a truly terrifying force -- borderline self-sufficient in the early game if he's not stopped, with the ability to utterly crush enemy teams later on, especially with good items.

3. Bounty Hunter

Bounty Hunter is all about the one-hit kill, with his passive Jinada -- a guaranteed crit every few seconds that also adds a pretty good slow -- and Shadow Walk bonus damage. Unlike most other agility-based physical fighters, he stacks raw damage instead of attack speed or hefty agility, aiming to make a huge dent in the enemy to start off the encounter -- and with a bit of luck and the right tools, to end it at the same time. To get those "right tools," he comes with Track -- giving him and his team bonus gold on any hero kill. If your enemy's trying to teleport away, the Shuriken Toss can break it, or put major channeled spells like Epicenter and Freezing Field on cooldown, as well as hitting all nearby Tracked heroes.

Bounty Hunter is probably one of the glassiest heroes that a Divine Rapier is still a great choice on; with a level 4 Jinada crit it provides an additional 700+ damage! This doesn't even count all the other attack damage buffs Bounty Hunter has or the possibility of a Daedalus crit. Sure, he has a major, major weakness to detection, but if you can't off Bounty Hunter before he catches up to you, you'd better run. If you can.

2. Faceless Void

Is Faceless Void's ultimate, Chronosphere, the most well-known ability in the whole game? Very possibly -- and for good reason. It summons a bubble where time is frozen, but which Faceless Void can freely move around in and beat people up in. What Void doesn't come with on his own are the stats to really make the best of this. However, give him a Mask of Madness and level up his Time Lock ability and he'll tear down entire teams in the bubble. His other abilities are nothing to sneeze at, either -- only Time Walk isn't ridiculous; it's a pseudo-blink to a target location. If he passes through enemies, he slows them and their attacks a little. He comes with two passives, though -- the aforementioned Time Lock, giving him a chance to deliver a one-second stun and some extra damage with each attack (up to 25%!); and Backtrack, which lets him dodge ANY source of damage, again, with an up to 25% chance. Faceless Void needs some farm, but he's truly a nasty piece of work if you get him good items. Even without, his passives are among the most insanely good in the game.

1. Necrophos

In a game full of ridiculous, unbalanced bullshit, Necrophos' ultimate, Reaper's Scythe, has some of the cruelest gimmicks in the entire game. Characters killed by Reaper's Scythe take an extra thirty seconds to respawn. If you have Agahnim's Scepter, Necro kills people so hard that they can't even buy back in! It deals damage to the enemy based on how much health they've lost, making it a powerful finisher. However, it has a very long cooldown. Since so much rides on his ult, he'd better have some other stuff to back it up -- and he does. Death Pulse is spammable by the late game, dealing damage to enemies and healing allies in one fell swoop. He also carries the deadly Heartstopper Aura, which reduces nearby enemies' HP by a percentage of their total health per second. To keep him in the fight, he carries Sadist, a passive that lets him recover health and mana with kills. Necro is a prime target -- but with his abilities and a tanking item like Mekansm or Heart of Tarrasque, that may not be even remotely possible.

My Bottom 5 Heroes in Dota 2:

Okay, quick bit of introduction: this list was hard. This list was even harder than the top 10. I don't think I actually hate anyone except Wraith King. I took out heroes that I actively have a grudge against, like Bloodseeker -- who's a good character, if boring, but I'm sick of seeing because you fight one in pretty much every pub game by law -- so basically, this list ends up being more of a list of "what are the four heroes I most dislike the prospect of playing other than Wraith King, and also Wraith King." So, as the name implies, this isn't so much "worst" as, uh, "least best," I guess. I guess if any agility heroes would have made it, Bloodseeker would be the easiest first choice. I am sick to death of seeing that sack of shit. Playing as him isn't terribly exciting, either. And honestly, that could make him SO MUCH BETTER just by cutting the voice lines for Thirst proccing. Okay, it wouldn't kill how uninspiring it is, but it would make it tolerable. I guess Medusa isn't far off, either, because, like Ancient Apparition, she fulfills a role whose use I'm... not too sure of. She's not awful to play, either.

5. Ancient Apparition

Am I doing something wrong here? Ancient Apparition seems like he just can't get it going. He has cool abilities (hurr hurr), like Ice Blast, but I can't get him to actually put them to any real use because I don't get started fast enough and can't quite catch up with him.

From what I've heard, Ancient Apparition is a good mid, but he's so glassy that that's not something I'm really inspired to check into. I don't know if that'd be enough to knock him off this list, though, unless mid AA is just that good. Actually, it might be, since Ice Blast can be shot anywhere.

4. Magnus

I cringe playing Magnus. I cringe for all the lost potential on this guy. He feels like a lot of great ideas for great characters mashed together awkwardly, resulting in a guy with a cool ult and a neat buff, but that's it. Shockwave looks alright on paper, but its thin area of effect is uninspiring. Skewer, too. A charge? Cool. Sends you in the direction of where you click, and not to that point? See, maybe this is the result of playing a lot of Slark, Faceless Void, and characters with Blinks, but that is kind of a pain in the ass. And a cooldown of 30 seconds always? Look, I know it's a powerful offense move too (it drags enemies with it), but that sucks, since it's both initiation and escape move for you. What you end up with is a character with two good, if disparate moves, and two mediocre moves. It can make you feel like you're not very useful most of the time.

I get the feeling this guy gets played in competitive a lot, though, for some reason.

3. Ogre Magi

Ogre Magi's abilities are not bad, and he has a good health pool, but in addition to a bad design (I'm not just talking about the obvious -- his default club looks like a leg of ham with fire slapped haphazardly on the end), with his ultimate he begins to rely on luck. A luck-based character CAN work -- Chaos Knight doesn't COMPLETELY eat dirt -- but Ogre Magi doesn't feel useless without good luck -- and even with, he still can, since his multicast targets are randomized. His abilities are basiclly solid, though. But imagine briefly playing him without his ult -- he would fall off massively in the lategame. Since he is so luck-based, the urge to play him like this makes him horribly unlikeable unless you like gambling for some reason.

Also, his Unrefined Fireblast ability -- added with Agahnim's Scepter -- is hotkeyed to, in a massive fuck-you to the concept of muscle memory, D, as opposed to R or even something in that general vicinity like F, which makes your left-hand placement awkward as hell.

2. Puck

I hate playing as Puck so much. Basically, though Puck has some pretty incredible abilities, the player has to master the timing perfectly. And by "master," I mean "I Wanna Be the Guy-like precision is in play here." I hate the idea of playing I Wanna Be the Dota, so I hate the idea of playing as Puck. Puck is disgustingly frail, so there's no way to cover for that precision without good farming, which Puck isn't really that great at in my experience. At times it feels like the best thing you can do is just Phase Shift away for a bit. A lot.

I know Puck is pretty popular. However, the learning curve doesn't seem worth it. It's either do it right or become El Feedo, Dota's worst superhero ever.

1. Wraith King

Being a well-leveled Wraith King is great! With enough mana and a couple of strength-up items, you can just keep coming back from the dead over and over and be an annoying piece of crap! The problem is getting there. Playing as a low-level Wraith King is not fun. Your stun eats over half your mana pool early-game, making you pretty useless in protracted early-game fights if you're not lucky enough to end them fast; Vampiric Aura over-pushes the lane if you level it too early but isn’t that great if underleveled, making it mostly good for jungling; and the crit feels unreliable and uninspiring when it could be Blade Dance or a bash, especially with low attack speed. From a design perspective, Wraith King is dumb -- Skeleton King wasn't exactly the most creative thing, either, but Wraith King is just a big green Leoric with a tiny head. He's poorly realized in terms of model, with his hands looking especially bad. He has basically no personality except being smug and referencing an admittedly-still-pretty-funny memetic guide -- but him making those references is grating as hell. Wraith King is not fun to play until you reach the point where you start to ball out of control -- and you might never reach that point.

I think what I'm going to end up doing is that I'm going to play a round as every character, then rebuild these lists based on how I liked playing people.

[purist-thunderwrath]

picking random and getting rolled lone druid

[purist-thunderwrath]

Malefice (Q): Causes the target unit to take damage and be stunned for (level/4) seconds right after the spell is cast, then again two seconds later, then once more another two seconds later. At high levels, this is quite solid, but even at lower levels, it can break teleports and interfere with opponents' fighting, meaning that it doesn't have to be at max level to be useful, even if a quarter-second stun sounds like crap.

Demonic Conversion (W): Turns a target creep into three Eidolons. If one of those eidolons attacks six times successfully over their duration, they split in two, recovering their HP, but not resetting their timer. They can split once per cast of Conversion. Eidolons have 50% magic resistance. This doesn't work on certain high-level creeps; as hilarious as it would be, you can't just explode Roshan instantly, sorry. They last for 35 seconds (i.e. as long as the spell's cooldown). I don't know if they get boosts from Assault Cuirass's aura, but since they can only split once and getting six attacks in is not that hard, it doesn't really mean too much. The stats of the Eidolons scale with the level of this move. You can use this on any creep (as long as it's a low-enough level), letting you deny EXP and gold from the enemy in the very earliest goings, boost a push, or eat up jungle creeps with surprising efficiency, especially if they're in the camps with smaller populations.

Midnight Pulse (E): Creates a field (of a decent size) that deals pure damage to anything in the area equal to a percentage of their max HP. This lasts for 11 seconds.

Black Hole (R) (Ult): A channeled ability that lasts for four seconds, Enigma summons the spell's namesake to suck in nearby units. Enemies in the area of effect are silenced sucked into the center of the void, can't move, can't attack, and can't use abilities, being functionally stunned (they MIGHT be able to use items, but they're trapped; they can't be moved by Force Staff). They take damage over time, too, with the damage increasing the closer the targets are to the center of the hole. It's a good idea to drop this inside a Midnight Pulse, as it will REALLY fuck up anyone unlucky enough to get grabbed. Using an Agahnim's Scepter adds damage based on the level of Midnight Pulse (roughly equal to the total damage Midnight Pulse causes, but magical damage in this case). You can activate Shadow Blade or Shiva's Guard while channeling, too. The big downside, of course, is its cooldown, which is never any less than THREE MINUTES. Consider picking up a Refresher Orb to have this ability far more on demand; it's a big part of why you're so much of a beast.

Enigma is a solid jungler, and despite appearances, doesn't need THAT much skill with micromanagement to get a major edge in gold. Unfortunately, since most of his jungling power comes from casting a targeted spell, he's useless against the ancient camp (and in general, his eidolons are too slow to get over there if you make them from something else, and won't last long anyway) and the smaller golems, who are ALL magic-immune. Also, due to the level limitation on Demonic Conversion, he's not the best with large camps, but he can still eat them up at higher levels and get solid gold gains. This means that an early-mid-game Radiance is both (vaguely) viable and a huge boon to his farming abilities, depending on the speed the game is going at. It also gives him extra damage per second during Black Hole and makes his pushing power even stronger. Of course, the main power that Enigma boasts is to absolutely wreck face in teamfights. He may not boast a lot of kills (my one round as him offline, though, I netted a goodly amount, many of them multi-kills from Black Holes), but the boost a well-applied Black Hole and Midnight Pulse can give WILL turn the tide. Add to that a set of aura-heavy items and he can easily strike fear into the hearts of the most well-organized teams. One of the biggest, most fearsome parts of how Enigma plays is that his Midnight Pulse deals pure damage equal to a percentage of the enemy's max HP. See that Axe over there with all those Hearts of Tarrasque who just. won't. DIE? Pin him and Pulse him and watch him lose life at a terrifying pace. Add in a Black Hole and the rest of your team wailing on him (a Necrophos is a good asset, too, since he deals damage based on how much health the enemy has left with his hook, meaning that, with good timing, it can finish the job nicely) and he's done like dinner. With so many mighty abilities, how can I do anything but give this monstrous black hole gijinka a pass? For bonus points, Enigma with Agahnim's Scepter and Refresher Orb can kill almost anyone with one simple combo executed quickly enough: Midnight Pulse -> Black Hole -> Refresher Orb -> Midnight Pulse -> Black Hole. With both abilities maxed and Agahnim's Scepter, an enemy with base magic resistance caught in both black holes loses 105% HP and may take as much as 800 more damage. This will kill even some enemies with enhanced magic resistance. Terrifying. Hard to pull off and probably a really bad strategy, but terrifying.

[thedeepestposts]

"I need some goddamn money! I don’t want to share my money with Captain Purple and fuckin’ water pants!"

[purist-thunderwrath]

Time Walk (Q): Leaps to the target point. If you cross over an enemy, they lose some movement and attacking speed over time. Be warned: this is NOT a blink. You can't just use it and jump in some direction. If you don't remember this, you will probably get killed a few times trying to use this! Thankfully, though, while jumping, Faceless is invulnerable.

Backtrack (passive): Gives our purple pal a 10/15/20/25% chance to avoid damage of any type except the now-defunct HP removal, even True Strikes. However, it does not allow you to dodge stuns and other secondary attack effects; if you get hit by a Storm Hammer, you WILL still get stunned even if you dodge the damage. Be careful.

Time Lock (passive): Gives you a 10/15/20/25% chance to stun an enemy for one second (or two if the target is a creep!) and apply bonus damage. Unlike many bashes, this has no cooldown, so with luck and a lot of attack speed, you CAN stunlock enemies and completely wreck them with no abilities but Time Lock. (DON'T BUILD THIS. IT'S JUST THEORETICAL.)

Chronosphere (R) (Ult): Stops time for an area. Everything but Faceless Void freezes until the timer expires. Time won't stop for the map, of course. Grants vision and true sight over the area. If Faceless Void himself casts it, he has 1000 movement speed (making this one of the few instances where you can break the move speed cap of 522) and walks through units. This applies also to any other units he controls. If Rubick casts Chronosphere, he doesn't gain the movement buff but he is still not frozen. Time Lock's bonus damage is doubled inside a Chronosphere. Do be aware that you can still be nuked inside the bubble. (So can your enemies, though!) Make sure your team knows how to play with this. (Scepter makes it last slightly longer and lets you cast it more often, but usually, you'll want to just make the few you have count and focus on being able to demolish everything inside it.)

Faceless has an arguably pretty simple skillset, but they give him a bit of versatility; he can start a teamfight, end it, or get away from it. Heroes encountering him by themselves have good reason to feel terror with regard to Darkterror. He is fully capable of tearing up most solo enemies with his stuns, his ability to avoid danger, and if worst comes to worst, just stopping time and either wrecking them or making quite sure that they can't do the same to you. Even an underleveled Faceless Void can be an enormous threat. Of course, you need a lot of practice, too. It's very easy to accidentally pen half your own team with a Chronosphere, allowing them to get eaten up by that Lion you just missed. Learning good placement is essential to Faceless Void. Also essential: the right item build. You almost must build Mask of Madness on Faceless Void. The ability to hit fast is key with Faceless. He doesn't have to hit hard for his Time Lock to be effective. Mask may make him more susceptible to damage, but the boosted attack speed and the ability to stunlock means you'll probably recover any bonus damage you take. Mask is relevant through the entire game. After this, other handy choices are Daedalus and Butterfly for damage per hit (and attack speed and evasion, for Butterfly), Monkey King Bar to add the chance for even more stun, or Mjollnir to crank up your attack speed to insane levels (Battle Fury is a good choice, too; both are great for crowd control and teamfighting). I even sometimes build Ethereal Blade on him, because it gives him a little of everything (40 agility, 10 of your other core stats) and isn't too expensive, but ultimately, it may not really be worth it compared to other utility items. It's a good choice if other members of your team can take advantage of the magical damage buff. Plus, it even functions as a decent unit-target damaging ability (with Butterfly, Power Treads, and level 25, its base damage is about 450) and partial disable (it also functionally disarms your target, though it makes you useless against them since they can't be hit by auto-attacks either). Agahnim's Scepter is probably still better, but I like it for its utility. (I also tend to have poor enough max mana and mana regen to really be able to take advantage of being able to ult more often). The basics of Faceless Void are really, really easy. The thing that will screw you sometimes is Chronosphere. Or, more accurately, it will screw your partners. If you're going to play online with Faceless Void, make sure you know what you're doing. Practice with him. In fact, that'll also help you get to know what items you should be building in what situations; Faceless scales rather poorly with experience and needs some items to bring out his full potential. Faceless Void gets a pass. Easy. I play this guy a lot for a damn good reason. He's pretty popular in competitive, too, if I'm to understand right. Again, for a damn good reason.

[purist-thunderwrath]

Earthshock (Q): Slams the ground, dealing damage to and slowing all enemies nearby. Simple.

Overpower (W): This is the big money right here. This gives Ursa maxed-out attack speed for 3/4/5/6 attacks depending on level. It wears off after fifteen seconds and has a cooldown of ten (you can't have it activated more than once, though). Definitely Ursa's bread and butter, and a big reason why attack speed/agility items aren't a big deal for him.

Fury Swipes (passive): Causes consecutive attacks to deal more damage to the target for fifteen seconds (or 6 seconds for Roshan). This used to be a unique attack modifier, and then Valve changed it because why not let him carry Desolator and fuck people up even worse?

Enrage (R) (Ult): This one doesn't cost anything to use and gives Ursa a damage increase based on his remaining health for 15 seconds. Nice and simple.

Ursa is made mostly to take on Roshan, a super-powered neutral creep that coughs up an item called the Aegis of the Immortal whenever it dies. It's an item that revives you once you're killed, functionally doubling the length of Ursa's life and enabling him to survive big teamfights better, whether that means to run away or to tear up the entire team. As a result, Ursa is generally built in exactly one way: max out his passive by level 7, have Vladimir's Offering by then, then go beat up Roshan at your earliest convenience using the bonus gold to piggyback onto items to help you chase heroes, then beat people up until your Aegis is broken, then get ready for the next Roshan fight. As such, it should be quite clear what his weakness is -- if the opposing team has even the vaguest skill in denying creeps, Ursa is going to be losing out on a lot of gold. Thus, laning against Lich, or an Enigma who's smart enough to turn his own creeps into Eidolons, is a horrendously bad time for Ursa. Ursa is extremely easy to "call," too. If the opposing team has an Ursa, he is probably playing to that exact strategy. Cutting off his farm and generally making it so he must fight Roshan later -- thus making it harder for him to do so, as Roshan gets harder as the round goes -- is something that can and will happen in any round against Ursa. There aren't really that many ways around it, but you can play Ursa as a jungler to help make things less of a pain for yourself. The easiest way to do this is by doubling up on Overpower. Basically, you use Overpower once, then wait for it to go off cooldown, use up all its attacks, and activate it again. With the addition of a liberal helping of Fury Swipes, you can wreck higher-level neutrals earlier in the game. Add Vlad's, and beating up the highest-level neutrals becomes a handy way to get some quick cash if you have nothing else you're doing (probably a pretty rare occurrence, to be fair). I'll give Ursa a passing grade even if he is a complete monomaniac from a strategy perspective. I like him.

[purist-thunderwrath]

Smoke Screen (Q): Throws down a smoke bomb that engulfs an area around the target point for 6 seconds. Enemies in the smoke screen are silenced, have their attack and move speeds dropped by 25%, and have a miss chance attached to their attacks -- as high as 70% at max level.

Permanent Invisibility (passive): After a fade time, does exactly what it sounds like -- makes Riki invisible until he decides to attack someone. The fade time can be pretty hefty -- 8/6/4/2 seconds depending on level. It also adds bonus HP regeneration while you're invisible, which is a new feature of the reworked Riki.

Backstab (passive): Riki deals extra damage -- a multiple of his agility -- when he hits a unit from behind.

Blink Strike (R) (Ult): Switching places with Permanent Invisibility and becoming Riki's ultimate, the new Blink Strike now carries several charges (depending on level), with one regenerating every 30 seconds, allowing you to easily chain hits against escaping enemies, in exchange for some damage. When you use it, Riki teleports behind his foe and slashes at them with a damage bonus (other than Backstab).

Now, let's talk about the rework. To reiterate: Riki's Permanent Invisibility is no longer his ultimate, Blink Strike is. Permanent Invisibility had 3/2/1 seconds of fade time, while the new one has 8/6/4/2. The new Permanent Invisibility can't fade as fast as the old even when both are maxed out, but the new Permanent Invisibility adds extra -- and much-needed -- health regen while you're invisible (even if you can be seen), meaning it's probably a lot better. I was very apprehensive about the new Blink Strike being his ultimate, but since you carry a set of charges instead of only being able to use it once before it hits cooldown, it's a more versatile tool, being a means of tearing apart escaping heroes, initiating a one-on-one fight, or even escaping (by targeting an ally). Overall, I actually like reworked Riki more than the original. Riki is pretty slow-moving, with a base 290 speed, down from his original 300. This makes him one of the few heroes that I feel I can readily recommend Tranquil Boots for. They allow him to keep up with more heroes while inactive and, while active, provide him with a solid movement speed and regeneration buff, allowing him to heal up easily and then run out to go shred someone else. He's also one of the few heroes I build a Diffusal Blade on, which I definitely upgrade to level 2. Its 35 total bonus agility is a huge boon to the Stealth Assassin, and its bonus Intelligence is handy as well. Purge can be used to remove many buffs from enemies and can even, in a pinch, be used to remove Dust of Appearance from yourself. It means you have to move your left hand a little more, but Riki barely uses the keyboard anyway in most cases, so that's not a big deal. Riki also benefits massively from Sange & Yasha, gaining extra movement speed and a chance to slow his enemies on a successful hit. It may not even be necessary, though, once he hits a high enough level and a large enough quantity of gold that he can build many Eaglesong-based items (my best game with him ended with him holding both an Ethereal Blade and a Butterfly). Riki is one of the simplest heroes in the game, and despite his glaring weaknesses, can still prove to be a powerful fighter. He gets a pass, easily. He may not shake things up on the tournament scene, but he can still be pretty powerful.

Also yes, this is going up very early for me. I wrote this yesterday and felt I didn't need editing since Riki is so simplistic of a character. Looking at it, there's not much meat on its bones. Oops.

[purist-thunderwrath]

Charge of Darkness (Q): Spirit Breaker targets a hero and charges straight for his enemy, passing through everything (units, terrain, Spirit Breaker don't care) to reach his mark. Any units passed through or hit take his current level of Greater Bash. The charge can be canceled by right-clicking the ground or doing most other things mid-charge (some items, like Shadow Blade and Black King Bar can be activated mid-charge). Greater Bash damage is calculated based on SB's actual move speed, not his charging speed. If the target is killed before he hits it, the charge targets the nearest valid target (any enemy unit) instead. This ability has a global range.

Empowering Haste (W): Passively grants bonus movement speed to allies nearby. Casting it costs no mana and temporary adds a bigger buff, at the cost of cutting the effects of Empowering Haste in half while it's on cooldown.

Greater Bash (passive): Grants a 17% chance for SB to stun the target when he hits it for up to 1.6 seconds. You gain 15% extra move speed for three seconds when you successfully bash. You also knock the enemy back a little on a successful bash. You can only bash once every 1.5 seconds. (Yes, this does mean that, at max level and with extreme luck, you can stunlock an enemy with your base attack.)

Nether Strike (R) (Ult): Spirit Breaker teleports to his target with a 1.2 second delay, delivering a Greater Bash of the current level with bonus damage. Carrying Agahnim's Scepter boosts the range, decreases the cooldown to 20 seconds regardless of level, and causes the bash to be applied to all nearby units upon hitting the enemy.

Okay, I think you can see the first issue with Spirit Breaker. Before writing this sentence, Notepad searching tells me I've used the phrase "Greater Bash" five times, even without counting up the number of times I directly avoided the phrase. Unlike other heroes who have bashes (Slardar, Faceless Void, Troll Warlord), Spirit Breaker outright relies on his bash. If he doesn't have his bash, he loses out on so much. This isn't a big problem, but it does direct your build a lot. You'll probably want to max Greater Bash first -- meaning, of course, that you will and you will probably never choose any other type of build. Early game, Spirit Breaker is a monster. At level 7, he can charge from mid to easily turn laning into some free kills with his mighty charge, holding solid chance of proccing a powerful stun with his physical attacks that adds about 100+ extra damage per hit, allowing him to terrorize the unaware. By late game, though, he will need some serious boosts to mess your opponents up the same way, especially if they travel together. Additionally, a smart team will prepare for SB with wards and other detection methods, or even just staying in the fog where possible. If opponents do pop out of the fog, though, it can save you on teleport scrolls by charging from the fountain if you have to retreat and heal. You can also use it to instantly and globally put a Linken's Sphere on cooldown if you can see the enemy hero who has it, since Charge gets sphere'd on cast. Late game, this may be one of his more important uses, because, as stated, a prepared team will be able to counter him easily. Although Spirit Breaker falls off hard in the late game, he's still so good in the early game that it's easy for him to net a huge number of kills and pick up lots of great items like Scepter and Sange & Yasha that can make him remain a rough customer in the late game. Overall, he's not half bad, for a space cow. I don't know if I'd play him online extensively (last I played him, I did net about 20 kills, but I think I died about 9 times, and my first 10 kills were all on the first life), but I give him a passing grade nonetheless.

[purist-thunderwrath]

Thunder Strike (Q): Hits a targeted enemy with four lightning strikes for minimal damage each over a period of 6 seconds. Each strike hits everything else within a 240 radius. It grants vision (not true sight as I'd initially suggested to a friend -- that's Zeus's bolts, if I'm not mistaken) over the target for its duration.

Glimpse (W): Teleports a targeted enemy hero back where it was four seconds ago. This effect cannot be dispelled, and the target will stand still after being teleported. Illusions die instantly.

Kinetic Field (E): Creates a fenced-in area after 1.2 seconds; enemies can't go through the fence. It lasts up to 4 seconds at max level.

Static Storm (R) (Ult): Creates a field that deals damage per second to enemies inside it for 5 seconds (7 with Scepter). Enemies inside the field are silenced. The DOT increases over time to a given maximum. Carrying Agahnim's Scepter causes it to also silence an enemy's items.

Disruptor is, overall, a pretty good hero. Set up properly, you can lock entire teams in place (or even just one enemy) and drop Static Storm on them while your teammates wail on them to not only add damage, but make it really hard for them to defeat your team, as well (Scepter'd Static Storm in a Kinetic Field is basically the next best thing to stun for that period of time -- I get the feeling he and Enigma would be a solid combination of supports in a teamfight, too, just for pure damage). Thunder Strike is a pretty solid nuke even in the early goings, and it stays handy in the lategame. I didn't really notice it managing a lot of AoE hits, but if you catch a large number of units in a Kinetic Field, then yeah, you will probably get a lot of them. My main complaint about him is, other than his reliance on Kinetic Field as a big part of his usefulness, lies with Glimpse. Glimpse is not instantaneous (even discounting the time you spend travelling to get within range of the target, and four seconds is a long time (meaning that effective use has a high learning curve compared to Disruptor's other moves), but it does mean that you can toss an enemy back into the end of a Static Storm, for a little extra damage. It also has an initial cooldown of 65. Granted, it's good and all, but it's (to me) a lesser version of a similar skill (Kunkka's X Marks the Spot). I think I used it maybe twice during my round as Disruptor, and neither time to any really useful effect. I'm sure a better player can pull it off better, but I, ultimately, just kinda sucked with it. But hey, it's hard for me to not like Disruptor. I picked up on how to play him pretty quickly, his ultimate is really handy (especially with Scepter, where, played correctly, it's a 7-second AoE mute), and come on, he rides a motherfucking DINOSAUR into battle. How cool is that? (Yes, I know it's not really a dinosaur, but it kinda looks like one. Good enough.) My record the one game I played him as was 9/11/(some double-digit number of assists), and while, yes, 11 deaths is pretty crappy, that's some solid work otherwise, proving that Disruptor can be a dangerous fighter in addition to an effective supporter. He gets a pass for sure.

(By the way, let me know if you feel I've gotten something horribly wrong or if you feel there's something I should talk about in these that I didn't, such as sample item builds or even something like character lore. Future entries won't have the same amount of personal shit unless something really awful comes up in my life.)

[purist-thunderwrath]

September 24

Tonight I played as: -Invoker (All Pick) (NEW) -Queen of Pain (All Pick) (NEW) -Riki (All Pick) (NEW) -Night Stalker (NEW) -Axe (NEW) -Razor (NEW) -Bane (NEW)

(unless otherwise stated, all games were offline Single Draft; anyone I haven’t rambled about is marked NEW, even if I’ve played them before)

Invoker is commonly known as one of the hardest heroes to play. He's definitely one of the weirdest, anyway, but he's also one of the most versatile. Instead of directly learning spells, he gains points in three "reagents" (Quas, Wex and Exort). He can equip three instances total of any of those at a time. Starting at level 2, he learns Invoke, which lets him acquire a spell based on what reagents are active at a time; he can hold up to two spare spells. For example, if you have three instances of Quas active, you can invoke a spell for them, then activate an instance of Wex and invoke another spell. If you were to take an instance of Exort and Invoke again, you would lose your first spell until you invoke it again. This means that Invoker is one of the most versatile characters. If you know what you're doing, he's not actually that hard to get rolling with, but juggling his abilities takes a LOT of practice -- more than I have, so I just ended up most of the time with his invisibility and buff spells invoked. Queen of Pain has a Blink ability built in, allowing you to position yourself easily and cheaply -- and you will probably need it a lot. Queen of Pain's nukes rely a little bit on positioning, but they're fairly good. On top of that, one of them is a fifteen-second-long slow/poison that deals damage every three seconds. It's pretty handy even early on. Sometimes, even if an enemy hero gets away through the slow, they'll die of poison damage a few seconds later, making for a pleasant surprise (for you, anyway). She also has a decent-ish, short-range nuke that hits the area around her, and a very powerful AoE nuke for her ult. In general, she has strong carry-ish leanings, she needs a lot of items and leveling to be at her best (her slow's range is pathetic early on), but she is very, very capable of steamrolling single enemies and teams alike. Be careful, though, as she does kind of need fast reactions at times to activate all of her abilities in rapid succession. Riki might be the simplest character to pick up in the game yet -- which is surprising since he's based on stealth. His most notable ability is his ultimate, Permanent Invisibility, which does exactly what it sounds like. After a fade time of three seconds (at first -- by the time you max the ability out it becomes one second), you go invisible, and do so every time it gets broken. This makes Riki sound truly terrifying, but this can be defeated by several cheap methods -- Dust of Appearance, Sentry Wards, or a Gem of True Sight. This is why he tends to not be widely picked in tournaments, but against bots and new players, he's great. He also has a smoke bomb that slows enemies and silences them as long as they're within its smoke cloud (using it doesn't break invisibility, which is great), a passive that gives him a damage boost when he attacks a target from behind, and Blink Strike, which allows him to leap to a target and attack them, conveniently, from behind. Riki's major downside is that he's a serious glass cannon; if he's detected, killing him is pretty easy, especially if he's alone. However, his passive scales with agility (and he's an agility hero!), meaning that if he can get a good amount of farming, his ability to shred enemies can snowball easily. Night Stalker, as you would expect, is at his best at night, especially if you level his "Hunter in the Night" passive. This means that the very earliest part of the game can be kind of rough up until night. Night Stalker is a little... weird. His early and late games are about equal, being affected more by the time of day than anything else. The main difference between late-game and early-game NS is that late-game NS can call the night almost whenever he wants with his ult, Darkness, which turns day to night for up to 80 seconds or extends nighttime by as long. He also carries a slow and a silence, both of which last longer at night (at night, his silence, Crippling Fear, at max level, is the second-longest-lasting in the game!). He's not the worst fighter during the day, but nor is he great. At night, though, he's a monstrous opponent. (He also makes a great fighting partner for Luna, who can also temporarily turn day to night.) Axe is a tank to the core. Most of his abilities are about starting fights. His passive delivers a counterattack to all nearby enemies if he gets hit -- it's good, but it requires him to take damage. One of his two non-ultimate activated abilities causes nearby enemies to attack him for a brief period while giving him an armor buff (a tremendous 40 points!) for the duration, while his other gives a debuff to a target which deals damage over time until they kill an enemy or until it fades away. Lastly, his ultimate deals minimal damage to a nearby enemy, but can instantly kill them if their HP is low enough -- which is a higher threshold than the ability's base damage. A successful instakill provides a buff to nearby teammates for a few seconds. Axe is a little unique in that he has a base health regeneration of nearly 4 points, to help alleviate the fact that he generally will NEED to take damage to be useful. He needs a lot of strengh items or max HP/regen-boosters, like Vanguard, to really be at his best. Razor is another hero that leans tanky. He is, however, an agility hero with mediocre agility growth (2 points per level). He leans a bit carry-ish but sort of serves as the "anti-carry," too. He can counter casters sligtly with his passive (which also provides a movement speed buff! with that and Phase Boots, Razor can serve as the ideal hero to chase down squishy casters.), temporarily drain attack damage with one of his abilities, and deal damage in an area around him (twice per cast) based on how far his enemies are from him with his nuke. Lastly, his ultimate damages enemies near him and drops their armor temporarily. Razor is overall pretty great, but scales questionably in the longest of games without an early advantage -- but with it, he can tear up enemy teams nicely. Furthermore, Agahnim's Scepter make his ult able to hit buildings, enable him to push even harder. Bane is a mid through and through, sitting somewhere between Nyx Assassin and Witch Doctor -- in that he's a powerful ganker and not great at everything else, and that he borderline-relies on his powerful, channeled ult to get his kills. Bane's ultimate, Fiend's Grip, deals, over its five-second duration, a LOT of damage and eats its target's mana (and can serve as a channeled stun). Getting him to a high level early on allows him to get a huge advantage, but unfortunately, he tends to fall off even at his best in the late game. Bane's stats are all equal by default, which is pretty neat in its own way. By the by, Riki is being reworked. His ultimate and Blink Strike are being swapped, meaning that yes, he can have Permanent Invisibility from level 1! Don't lose your shit yet, folks. The fade times are being changed from 3/2/1 seconds to 8/6/4/2 seconds. So yes by level 7 he can have, functionally, his second-level ult, but he won't get any better in that area. The expectation is probably a lot of evil cackling and steamrolling, while the reality will be spending a lot of time hidden in the trees, licking wounds and wondering just how long 8 seconds actually are. To make up for Blink Strike being his ult, it will deal more damage and have multiple charges that can be used before cooldown (lengthened, of course) kicks in.

[purist-thunderwrath]

September 23

Tonight I played as: -Lina (online All Pick) -Gyrocopter -Abaddon -Nyx Assassin -Witch Doctor

[purist-thunderwrath]

I may as well cover these two now.

[purist-thunderwrath]

September 22