Monday, May 31, 2010
Warcraft 3 Themes - Customize Your Warcraft 3 Appearance!
Here comes a set 46 Warcraft 3 Modded Themes (by K-4-iN) which can make your Warcraft 3 stylish by customizing the old background animation and buttons texture, it doesn't change anything inside the game. These themes are available for Normal & Widescreen resolutions and comes with 7 different color chains. Check out the Warcraft 3 Themes preview & installation guide.Some Screenshots:Warcraft 3
Saturday, May 29, 2010
[DotA] Invoker Auto-Hotkey Script Ver.3
Wynthar's DotA Invoker Auto-Hotkey Script
Version 3
Okay, so version three! Man. I have just spent many hours writing this script. I really don't feel like making a tutorial. But, I'm so happy with the way the script turned out ath I'm going to try to create a nice looking well rounded tutorial to support the script.
Credits
kill5link : Code for turning on and off the script in chat rooms/hitting enter/escape.
CerberPl : Pointed out a major flaw in my last script which made this script so much better.
Valarauka : Got some stuff for version one, including the Enter key to toggle.
Newest Feature
So, the thing that I spent hours on this revision is the ability to "remember" which spell or spells are currently invoked. The first tactic I used was to detect what the current spells were by grabbing a pixel at a point of the screen for the spells. I realized I had to get a different color for the spell if it was on the left side or the right side. I also realized I had to get a different color if the spell was currently in cooldown. So, I spent perhaps an hour writing up some code to detect the colors, then one by one I had to cast each spell, get the color, cast next spell get the color, invoke next spell. You get the idea. Eventually it was kind of tricky to get a few of the spells to be on the right side or the left side in order to record the colors.
After spending a long time doing this, I was in window'd mode, and I resized the window. I suddenly noticed that all my colors were off. I did a little bit more experimentation and found out that the colors change at various resolutions. Very upsetting. So I was stumped for a while, but then I thought about something I had seen once. Each time a spell is invoked record it. But there is a problem here too. Because, sometimes the spell doesn't get invoked if the invoke spell is on cool down. So, I grab the colors and determine if the invoke spell actually got casted. If it does, I keep track of the last two spells to be successfully invoked. Rotating in the newly invoked spell and cycling out the spell invoked two times ago. It's working pretty well now.
Known Bug
I know already that there will be one bug. The bug is going to be that if you are only at level 1 of Invoke, and you have invoked two spell so far, the script will think that you have two spells invoked. For example, let's say we've only got one level of invoke, and we invoke sunstrike, and then forge spirits. Well, we want to go cast sunstrike again. The script thinks that we have sun strike, since we can have two spells at higher levels. This will fail then when you try to use F7 to cast sunstrike. Until you have two ranks of invoke, you will have to manually invoke sunstrike (7) before you can cast it with F7.
Features:
How It Works
In this screen shot: F11 would cast EMP, F12 would cast Sun Strike
"Power Ball"
This is the term that I use to refer to the balls that fly around invoker. When you press "E" three times (for Exort) you will see three red balls floating around invoker. You will also notice his damage goes up +3 each power ball. So +9 at level one. If you have trained up to level 7 Exort you will have a maximum of +63 damage if all three "power balls" are red (Exort). This is why it is handy that when the spells are invoked, it reverts back to the "current" power ball. Sometimes you have the Wes power balls set because you want increased move speed. Say maybe you are trying to run away, or get to a battle. Then you want to cast ice wall and keep running, well then it's nice to just press the number 3, and have it invoke ice wall so you have that spell prepared, then it also reverts back to three Wes balls so that you can keep running quickly. Same goes for the other power balls, like with Exort you want to keep the DPS high.
In order to activate your "power balls" for the script to know which set you have, you must use the = key. You can find in the script where this key is mapped and change it if you want. It just is where I like to have it.
Even if you don't have a particular power ball, pressing = will attempt to "press" that button three times. Just press [=] again and it will move to the next "power ball." Hope that makes sense. Just get into a single player game, pick invoker. Type -lvlup 25 and level up his spells and try playing around with the script.
Invoke Spell Keys
Pressing the following numbers will invoke the spell, then it will revert back to your current "power ball."
1 Deafening Blast
2 Chaos Meteor
3 Ice Wall
4 EMP
5 Forge Spirits
6 Ghost Walk
7 Sun Strike
8 Tornado
9 Alacrity
0 Cold Snap
For Example
If your current power ball is Quas, and you press the number 5. The script will quickly "Click" the Exort, Exort, Quas button, then Invoke, then Quas, Quas, Quas. This will result in preparing the forge spirits spell, and then going back to your quas "powerball."
Of course you can remap all these keys by changing the letters in the script. Should be easy enough to find.
(Hint: *1:: PrepBlast() is where it sets they number 1 to cast the Deafening Blast Spell)
Cast Spell Keys
Same numbering sequence, and similar idea to the Invoke spell script. This spell willa ctually cast the spell as well as invoke it if needed. Remember this will have a bug if you only have one rank of the invoke spell. But once you have the second rank of invoke spell it works pretty well.
F1 Deafening Blast
F2 Chaos Meteor
F3 Ice Wall
F4 EMP
F5 Forge Spirits
F6 Ghost Walk
F7 Sun Strike
F8 Tornado
F9 Alacrity
F10 Cold Snap
Attached code as well. (Obviously rename it from Invoker3.txt to Invoker3.ahk)
Downloads:
Version 3
Okay, so version three! Man. I have just spent many hours writing this script. I really don't feel like making a tutorial. But, I'm so happy with the way the script turned out ath I'm going to try to create a nice looking well rounded tutorial to support the script.
Credits
kill5link : Code for turning on and off the script in chat rooms/hitting enter/escape.
CerberPl : Pointed out a major flaw in my last script which made this script so much better.
Valarauka : Got some stuff for version one, including the Enter key to toggle.
Newest Feature
So, the thing that I spent hours on this revision is the ability to "remember" which spell or spells are currently invoked. The first tactic I used was to detect what the current spells were by grabbing a pixel at a point of the screen for the spells. I realized I had to get a different color for the spell if it was on the left side or the right side. I also realized I had to get a different color if the spell was currently in cooldown. So, I spent perhaps an hour writing up some code to detect the colors, then one by one I had to cast each spell, get the color, cast next spell get the color, invoke next spell. You get the idea. Eventually it was kind of tricky to get a few of the spells to be on the right side or the left side in order to record the colors.
After spending a long time doing this, I was in window'd mode, and I resized the window. I suddenly noticed that all my colors were off. I did a little bit more experimentation and found out that the colors change at various resolutions. Very upsetting. So I was stumped for a while, but then I thought about something I had seen once. Each time a spell is invoked record it. But there is a problem here too. Because, sometimes the spell doesn't get invoked if the invoke spell is on cool down. So, I grab the colors and determine if the invoke spell actually got casted. If it does, I keep track of the last two spells to be successfully invoked. Rotating in the newly invoked spell and cycling out the spell invoked two times ago. It's working pretty well now.
Known Bug
I know already that there will be one bug. The bug is going to be that if you are only at level 1 of Invoke, and you have invoked two spell so far, the script will think that you have two spells invoked. For example, let's say we've only got one level of invoke, and we invoke sunstrike, and then forge spirits. Well, we want to go cast sunstrike again. The script thinks that we have sun strike, since we can have two spells at higher levels. This will fail then when you try to use F7 to cast sunstrike. Until you have two ranks of invoke, you will have to manually invoke sunstrike (7) before you can cast it with F7.
Features:
- ` Enable the script. You must run this at least once.
- F1-F10: Cast Spells (Invoke if needed)
- 1 - 0 : Invoke Spells
- = : rotate current power balls
- F11, F12 : click the left and right spots of the invoker spells.
How It Works
In this screen shot: F11 would cast EMP, F12 would cast Sun Strike
"Power Ball"
This is the term that I use to refer to the balls that fly around invoker. When you press "E" three times (for Exort) you will see three red balls floating around invoker. You will also notice his damage goes up +3 each power ball. So +9 at level one. If you have trained up to level 7 Exort you will have a maximum of +63 damage if all three "power balls" are red (Exort). This is why it is handy that when the spells are invoked, it reverts back to the "current" power ball. Sometimes you have the Wes power balls set because you want increased move speed. Say maybe you are trying to run away, or get to a battle. Then you want to cast ice wall and keep running, well then it's nice to just press the number 3, and have it invoke ice wall so you have that spell prepared, then it also reverts back to three Wes balls so that you can keep running quickly. Same goes for the other power balls, like with Exort you want to keep the DPS high.
In order to activate your "power balls" for the script to know which set you have, you must use the = key. You can find in the script where this key is mapped and change it if you want. It just is where I like to have it.
Even if you don't have a particular power ball, pressing = will attempt to "press" that button three times. Just press [=] again and it will move to the next "power ball." Hope that makes sense. Just get into a single player game, pick invoker. Type -lvlup 25 and level up his spells and try playing around with the script.
Invoke Spell Keys
Pressing the following numbers will invoke the spell, then it will revert back to your current "power ball."
1 Deafening Blast
2 Chaos Meteor
3 Ice Wall
4 EMP
5 Forge Spirits
6 Ghost Walk
7 Sun Strike
8 Tornado
9 Alacrity
0 Cold Snap
For Example
If your current power ball is Quas, and you press the number 5. The script will quickly "Click" the Exort, Exort, Quas button, then Invoke, then Quas, Quas, Quas. This will result in preparing the forge spirits spell, and then going back to your quas "powerball."
Of course you can remap all these keys by changing the letters in the script. Should be easy enough to find.
(Hint: *1:: PrepBlast() is where it sets they number 1 to cast the Deafening Blast Spell)
Cast Spell Keys
Same numbering sequence, and similar idea to the Invoke spell script. This spell willa ctually cast the spell as well as invoke it if needed. Remember this will have a bug if you only have one rank of the invoke spell. But once you have the second rank of invoke spell it works pretty well.
F1 Deafening Blast
F2 Chaos Meteor
F3 Ice Wall
F4 EMP
F5 Forge Spirits
F6 Ghost Walk
F7 Sun Strike
F8 Tornado
F9 Alacrity
F10 Cold Snap
Attached code as well. (Obviously rename it from Invoker3.txt to Invoker3.ahk)
Downloads:
DreamDota - advanced micro hack for DotA. version 8
Dreamdota is an advanced micro tool for Dota Allstars.
Can be used on Battle.net and Garena.
You can use free features in multiplayer game, or try out VIP features in single player game without paying.
For VIP features, DreamDota is a private hack and is only available when purchased VIP.
Requirements
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne with version 1.24b ~ 1.24e.
DotA Allstars map 6.63 ~ 6.67c
Where to download
http://get.DreamDota.com
Latest version: v8
How to use
Download and extract 3 dlls, put them into your warcraft folder.
Start game (no matter with exe or with garena), there appears a login window.
You can login with VIP account, or click on trial to test.
If you dont see the login window, check your antivirus setting (probably false kill)
or contact me on MSN: nachtelfen@hotmail.com
How to buy VIP
Price, Payment and contact informations:
http://buy.dreamdota.com/
We are in cooperation with Garenahack.
You may also purchase it on Garenahack, check the following page:
Dream dota - Dota last hit/auto dodge hack
DreamDota Features:
Free Features - UI related functions
- Press Pause to turn on / off all functions.
- Hotkey to toggle score board on / off (hotkey: tab)
- Shows hero damage taken / healing value over unit with different colors:
white - enemy hero takes physical damage
yellow - enemy hero takes critical / spell damage
red - your own hero takes damage
(toggle feature on/off with hotkey: Home)
- Shows your hero's attack range while holding key
(hotkey: ~)
- Camera feature
Increase camera distance: hotkey "-" on numpad, max 3000
Decrease camera distance: hotkey "+" on numpad, min 1650
Change angle of attack between normal and vertical: hotkey "*" on numpad
- Unit model improvement:
slightly modified several hero's 3d model for easier selection / targeting
they are : Venomancer, Atropos, Rooftrellen
- Detection of other player maphack clicking not visible item / rune
- Detection of other player exchange gold using maphack
VIP Features - micro related functions
You can define custom key for last hit and score board toggle.
By default: 256 (tilde) for last hit, and 515 (tab) for score board.
For further informations about key value, please visit:
http://www.dreamdota.com/web/2010/05...pping/?lang=en
* Auto last hit / deny hit (default hotkey "~") *
Hold down the key to use auto hit, release it to move freely.
Ranged hero only hits targets in its range, melee hero will auto move and hits units within 700 range.
Your hero will also last hit towers and neutral creeps
Extra functions while holding down the key:
- when an enemy hero enters your attack range, your hero will automatically
attack it, but last hit action has higher priority.
- if your hero is going to be attacked by creep units, it will try to distract their attack
using attack command on a friendly unit for very short time.
* Auto avoiding spells *
- Pudge meat hook
- PotM arrow
- Windrunner arrow
- kunnka torrent
- use Kelen's Dagger to avoid Tidehunter's ulti skill if available
there will be more in the future !
* Map hacking *
unlike many maphacks, these functions are simple but safe and undetectable.
Both are default off, you can turn on with key End
- Shows enemy hero location on minimap with ping signal
with red or player color depending on ally filter setting
- Rune spawn message
reports location and type of rune when spawned
* Micro improvements *
improves user's action and gameplay.
- Spectre's advanced routing:
when Spectre enters no-collision mode, its move action will be reinterpreted
as a straight path toward destination.
- Pandaren Brewmaster's auto usage of spells:
when your brewmaster uses ultimate skill, the Earth panda will automatically
throw bolt to stun an enemy hero (best target) in its spell range.
Storm panda will cyclone another (stronger one) enemy hero.
- Storm spirit(raijin) combo:
after each spell cast, your storm spirit attacks a best target (enemy hero) within range
this will make best usage of 3rd skill ( overloading)
- Shadow shaman's serpent ward surrounding:
when you cast its ulti skill: serpent ward to location that is very close to an enemy hero,
the action will be adjusted and there is high chance to surround the target directly with wards.
- Advanced 4-units surrounding:
whenever you control at least 4 units that have collisions, select them and
keep using "(M)ove" command rapidly on an enemy unit, just the same as the common surrounding micro,
your each unit goes to the right position and surrounds the target.
Can be used on Battle.net and Garena.
You can use free features in multiplayer game, or try out VIP features in single player game without paying.
For VIP features, DreamDota is a private hack and is only available when purchased VIP.
Requirements
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne with version 1.24b ~ 1.24e.
DotA Allstars map 6.63 ~ 6.67c
Where to download
http://get.DreamDota.com
Latest version: v8
How to use
Download and extract 3 dlls, put them into your warcraft folder.
Start game (no matter with exe or with garena), there appears a login window.
You can login with VIP account, or click on trial to test.
If you dont see the login window, check your antivirus setting (probably false kill)
or contact me on MSN: nachtelfen@hotmail.com
How to buy VIP
Price, Payment and contact informations:
http://buy.dreamdota.com/
We are in cooperation with Garenahack.
You may also purchase it on Garenahack, check the following page:
Dream dota - Dota last hit/auto dodge hack
DreamDota Features:
Free Features - UI related functions
- Press Pause to turn on / off all functions.
- Hotkey to toggle score board on / off (hotkey: tab)
- Shows hero damage taken / healing value over unit with different colors:
white - enemy hero takes physical damage
yellow - enemy hero takes critical / spell damage
red - your own hero takes damage
(toggle feature on/off with hotkey: Home)
- Shows your hero's attack range while holding key
(hotkey: ~)
- Camera feature
Increase camera distance: hotkey "-" on numpad, max 3000
Decrease camera distance: hotkey "+" on numpad, min 1650
Change angle of attack between normal and vertical: hotkey "*" on numpad
- Unit model improvement:
slightly modified several hero's 3d model for easier selection / targeting
they are : Venomancer, Atropos, Rooftrellen
- Detection of other player maphack clicking not visible item / rune
- Detection of other player exchange gold using maphack
VIP Features - micro related functions
You can define custom key for last hit and score board toggle.
By default: 256 (tilde) for last hit, and 515 (tab) for score board.
For further informations about key value, please visit:
http://www.dreamdota.com/web/2010/05...pping/?lang=en
* Auto last hit / deny hit (default hotkey "~") *
Hold down the key to use auto hit, release it to move freely.
Ranged hero only hits targets in its range, melee hero will auto move and hits units within 700 range.
Your hero will also last hit towers and neutral creeps
Extra functions while holding down the key:
- when an enemy hero enters your attack range, your hero will automatically
attack it, but last hit action has higher priority.
- if your hero is going to be attacked by creep units, it will try to distract their attack
using attack command on a friendly unit for very short time.
* Auto avoiding spells *
- Pudge meat hook
- PotM arrow
- Windrunner arrow
- kunnka torrent
- use Kelen's Dagger to avoid Tidehunter's ulti skill if available
there will be more in the future !
* Map hacking *
unlike many maphacks, these functions are simple but safe and undetectable.
Both are default off, you can turn on with key End
- Shows enemy hero location on minimap with ping signal
with red or player color depending on ally filter setting
- Rune spawn message
reports location and type of rune when spawned
* Micro improvements *
improves user's action and gameplay.
- Spectre's advanced routing:
when Spectre enters no-collision mode, its move action will be reinterpreted
as a straight path toward destination.
- Pandaren Brewmaster's auto usage of spells:
when your brewmaster uses ultimate skill, the Earth panda will automatically
throw bolt to stun an enemy hero (best target) in its spell range.
Storm panda will cyclone another (stronger one) enemy hero.
- Storm spirit(raijin) combo:
after each spell cast, your storm spirit attacks a best target (enemy hero) within range
this will make best usage of 3rd skill ( overloading)
- Shadow shaman's serpent ward surrounding:
when you cast its ulti skill: serpent ward to location that is very close to an enemy hero,
the action will be adjusted and there is high chance to surround the target directly with wards.
- Advanced 4-units surrounding:
whenever you control at least 4 units that have collisions, select them and
keep using "(M)ove" command rapidly on an enemy unit, just the same as the common surrounding micro,
your each unit goes to the right position and surrounds the target.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
DotA 6.68 Preview Video Coming Soon!
IceFrog in my last blog, which published an update on new developments in the next DotA 6.68. As we know, IceFrog ready to introduce a balanced result, a perfect balance between characters is proposed brings communities in the new version of DotA to help. He also said DOTA 6.68 is a video preview on the witch, highlighting new content and changes we will see 6.68
That is, his words IceFrog:
I'm still 6.68. We will post a video preview in the near future to see new content. There are a few new heroes, so that the time to ensure high quality. It is also the current contents of the balance between work and many other improvements and features.
If there is something that can be seen and subsequent amendments, please let me know.
Yes guys, it affects our IceFrog comprehensive, balanced and of course, new episodes of Heroes (, cosmetics, etc.). Be prepared to experience something new dota 6.68, video preview soon!.
That is, his words IceFrog:
I'm still 6.68. We will post a video preview in the near future to see new content. There are a few new heroes, so that the time to ensure high quality. It is also the current contents of the balance between work and many other improvements and features.
If there is something that can be seen and subsequent amendments, please let me know.
Yes guys, it affects our IceFrog comprehensive, balanced and of course, new episodes of Heroes (, cosmetics, etc.). Be prepared to experience something new dota 6.68, video preview soon!.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Perfect is Shit Dota Movie | Another Dota Video
Perfect is Shit Dota Movie | Another Dota Video - A must to watch video to all dota fans! Find out why this video is must to watch. Enjoy!
Monster Dota Movie | Dota Amazing Video
Monster Dota Movie | Dota Amazing Video - Another video from a fanmade video which you will surely enjoy to watch!
No More Dota AI Maps From Buffmeplz | Dota AI Map Creator Retires
No More Dota AI Maps From Buffmeplz | Dota AI Map Creator Retires - A very sad news from Dota community! Buffmeplz who known as the developer of Dota AI maps retires. But as per Buffmeplz, he is looking for someone who will take over his work and start developing Dota AI maps. Let's see what comes next and hope for the better. You might want to see what he said below.
After much thought and consideration, I have decided to no longer continue my work on DotA AI maps. Between my increased work responsibilities, advancing on to the next stage of life, my waning interest in DotA, and the frustration from both dealing with thecommunity's demands and the community having to deal with my absences, I believe it is best for me to let this project go and move on. It was a fun two years, with updates on almost every version since 6.49 (we're up to 6.66b now, crazy!), but as lazyfiend/RGB said when he left, I find that working on this map is no longer enjoyable to me, and is in fact quite a burden. I've contacted GoD-Tony (killerbee) about taking over, and if he decides to, I'll try to help him get up to speed as much as possible. If not, I hope whomever takes my place will have as much fun as I did these past two years learning the ins and outs of JASS and the WC3 engine. My passion has always been with the Fun Taverns, and though I will not continue AI development I may occasionally release some maps on myblog with old heroes and/or original creations.
Kingsurf Dota Movie | Another Dota Amazing Video
Kingsurf Dota Movie | Another Dota Amazing Video - Another great video from the dota community by Kingsurf, a dota video movie which has a lot of great skill and teamplay that revealed from this video. Which some fans will definitely love to watch. You can watch Kingsurf Dota movie and keep coming back here to check the latest updates.
House Of Dota Video | Dota Amazing Videos
House Of Dota Video | Dota Amazing Videos - A very entertaining video from House of Dota in which you will surely enjoy a variety of action in dota-allstars gameplay. Worth to watch and it will definitely love this videos of all dota fans and follwers in the world. Watch the videos below.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Let's Welcome Harreke, The New Dota AI Map Developer
We already know that a while ago BuffMePlz has retired from making the Dota AI map and yet GoD-Tony refuse to continue the development. But today however, we got a really good news. IceFrog has approved another person to continue the Dota AI map development. Here is what he said:First I want to thank BMP for all his work on the AI maps. He has worked hard to make DotA players happy, so please show him your appreciation.
As some of you might know, BMP has retired from AI map development, and has finally located a successor to continue the development; Harreke. Harreke has been researching AI map technology for a while now and has been following BMP's work. He is dedicated to building the new AI maps based on BMP's code and to expand the map development process to allow for faster updates for future versions.
He expects to release 6.67c AI soon and then prepare for the 6.68 AI map.
Wow! That's really nice. So if you're waiting for the Dota 6.67c AI, that time is already near. Sit tight guys! But before that, let's give our appreciation to BuffMePlz and Harekke :)
The New DotA AI Map Developer Is Here!
When GoD-Tony refused the proposal of developing AI after the retirement of BuffMePlz, the community was searching for the person who could continue the development of AI. Now, IceFrog has found a new AI Map Developer in task who's name is Harreke. He'll be following the BuffMePlz work and planning to release DotA 6.67c AI soon!Here is what IceFrog posted on PlayDotA Forums:First I want to thank
Nevermore Guide - the Shadow Fiend Build & Strategy
Nevermore Guide & Build, the Shadow Fiend Strategy. Nevermore is a great AoE carry who collect souls to increase his attack damage and maximize his ultimate: Requiem of Souls. This post contains Nevermore the Shadow Fiend guide, item build, skill build and strategy.
A demon of the burning legion so abhorred that he makes the skin of even his fellow demons crawl, Nevermore is a creature of the shadows that consumes the souls of those around him. When the Shadow Fiend comes forth to battle, he augments his power with the souls he has consumed, bearing down on his enemies with spiritually enhanced attacks and powerful spiritual blasts. The Shadow Fiend is a terrifying opponent whom few have survived, and those who have perished under his tyranny have faced the most despicable fate of all.
Strength - 15 + 2
Agility - 20 + 2.4 (Primary)
Intelligence- 18 + 2
Base damage 35-41
Attack range of 500
Base Armor 1.9
Movement speed of 300
Shadow Fiend Skill Descriptions
Shadow Raze (Z,X,C)
Gives the Shadow Fiend the power to desecrate regions in front of him at varying distances.
Level 1 - deals 75 damage
Level 2 - deals 150 damage
Level 3 - deals 225 damage
Level 4 - deals 300 damage
Mana Cost: 75
Cooldown: 10
Distances: 200(Z) / 450(X) / 700(C)
Shadowraze costs very little mana compared to the amount of damage it does. The Cooldown on each Shadowraze are separate which means Nevermore actually has three nukes on his back. This means he can deal a maximum of 900 damage (675 if magic resistance is considered) to a single target in a very short amount of time which makes Nevermore very dangerous indeed especially in the early game, when very few heroes have more than 900 hp.
Necromastery
Whenever the Shadow Fiend kills a target, he stores the unfortunate soul inside of him. For each stored soul he gains 2 bonus damage until his own death releases half of them from bondage.
Level 1 - 16 damage limit
Level 2 - 30 damage limit
Level 3 - 46 damage limit
Level 4 - 60 damage limit
Another one of Nevermore’s abilities that enables him to become a potent force in the middle game, Necromastery is directly linked to his Ultimate, Requiem of Souls and gives his massive DPS (damage-per-second, or just ‘damage’) advantage over other heroes in the middle game.
Unfortunately, Necromastery loses a lot of its effectiveness towards the late-game, as DPS-carries are mostly farmed up and the extra 60 damage become rather minuscule. It is very important, as a Nevermore user, to maintain that ‘edge’ through the middle game as Nevermore tends to be most effective during the early-middle to the middle-late game.
Presence of the Dark Lord
The presence of such a horrible creature terrifies nearby enemies, reducing their armor.
Level 1 - 2 armor reduction
Level 2 - 3 armor reduction
Level 3 - 4 armor reduction
Level 4 - 5 armor reduction
Presence of the Dark Lord is best combined with Stygian Desolator as the armor-reduction becomes very effective against many spellcasters. In an armor-reduction team strategy (e.g. Nevermore with Vengeful Spirit, Slardar and Templar Assassin), Presence of the Dark Lord should definitely be skilled. Otherwise, stick with Stats, especially when the game is not going your way. Think about it this way: -5 armor, or a free Ultimate Orb? (Well, almost an Ultimate Orb anyway).
Requiem of Souls (R)
Summons evil spirits around you dealing damage to units in the area. Number of spirits is related to the number of souls stored and the movement/damage reduction is related to the distance from the Shadow Fiend. Lowers movement speed and damage of nearby units. The closer the units are the greater the effect.
Level 1 - 80 damage for each line, 15% reduction
Level 2 - 120 damage for each line, 15% reduction
Level 3 - 160 damage for each line, 15% reduction
Cooldown: 120/110/100
Mana Cost: 150/175/200
This skill can be used to initiate team battle. The closer Nevermore is to the target whilst he casts Requiem of Souls, the greater damage he unleashes upon that target. If correctly used, Requiem of Souls will create devastating damage in a team fight, especially when combined with items such as Kelen’s Dagger or Lothar Edge.
Shadow Fiend Skill Build
Level 1: Necromastery
Level 2: Shadow Raze
Level 3: Shadow Raze
Level 4: Necromastery
Level 5: Shadow Raze
Level 6: Necromastery
Level 7: Shadow Raze
Level 8: Necromastery
Level 9: Requiem of Souls
Level 10: Stats
Level 11: Requiem of Souls
Levels 12-15: Presence of the Dark Lord/Stats
Level 16: Requiem of Souls
Levels 17-21: Stats
Levels 22-25: Stats/Presence of the Dark Lord
In any case, Shadowraze being Nevermore’s main nuke should be maxed out by Level 7 as it is his main farming and ganking skill. Requiem of Souls should not be skilled until Necromastery is maxed out first.
Max out Presence of the Dark Lord earlier than stats when:
1. Your team is playing aggressively and is winning in terms of towers/hero kills.
2. You’ve decided to buy Stygian Desolator for your first DPS item (BKB does not really count) and the -5 armour can really help.
3. You're playing a clan war and your team mates all have minus-armour abilities (Slardar’s Amplify Damage, for example) and your -5 armour aura can really turn the tide of the battle.
Otherwise, ignore that skill.
Shadow Fiend Item Build
1. 3x Ironwood Branch, 2 set of Tangos, Animal Courier
2. Boots of Speed, Finish Magic Wand
3. Optional: Empty Bottle
4. 2x Wraith Band
5. Finish Boots of Travel
6. Kelen's Dagger
7. Black King Bar
Nevermore's core item should be like this:
The Bottle is important for some quick heals and grabbing the rune. Boots of Speed need no real explanation.
Since Nevermore will be doing a lot of ganking, a Magic Wand can help him pull off some ridiculously awesome escapes, or give him that little bit of Mana for that one last raze. A Magic Wand is a MUST for Nevermore.
Always keep a TP scroll at all times, so he can either help you Allies defend a tower, or farm in an empty lane (the latter part is exceptionally important for Nevermore as he needs a lot of farm before he becomes effective in the Middle Game). Wraith Bands help him get last hits and gives him a lot more damage.
Boots of Travel gives him plenty of speed and much more farm, Black King Bar gives him magic invulnerability for a certain period of time and Kelen’s Dagger can be used as an escape mechanism, or used offensively as a blink to land your Ultimate right in the center of a team battle.
Shadow Fiend Luxury Items
+ 
or 
Manta Style is a good item that increases your DPS by more than 2-fold. In most cases it’s going to be your first DPS item. You gain plenty of Stats, extra movement speed (on top of your Boots of Travel or Power Treads) and on top of that, a temporary-invulnerability activation that allows you to dodge most targeted spells in DotA. Your images do huge amounts of extra damage and the extra damage multiplies when you get other DPS items. The only downside is that your images don't benefit from the +60 damage from Necromastery, however.
The butterfly is a must for any Agility-carry hero. Lifesteal is something that every DPS-carry will eventually need.
A set of Stygian Desolator and Assault Cuirass is a good combo when you’re playing against a lot of vulnerable spellcasters, or if you team is based around an anti-armour theme (such as Nevermore + Slarder + Lanaya Combo). Just make sure that you have BKB so that they don’t nuke you to death before you can even get your hands on them.
Shadow Fiend Strategy
Picking this hero is suitable when your team needs an AoE Carry. Nevermore is incredibly versatile as a hero. Not only is he an excellent ganker, but he also excels as a pusher, has lots of AoE and DPS and can step up as a Carry should the need arise. He’s also incredibly fun to play, which means Nevermore is one of the most often seen heroes in DotA videos and various montages. Unfortunately, Nevermore is not a DPS hero, unlike what most people think of Nevermore. He is an AoE carry, his advantage over other carry heroes (such as Phantom Assassin) being his insane farming speed and the +60 damage thanks to Necromastery.
You need to be supported by:
- Heroes with big AoE Ultimates, such as Leviathan, Raigor, Rooftrellen, Rexxar andMagnus. They can help you landing ultimate perfectly.
- Heroes with mass-disables or Abilities such as Puck, Rylai, Ogre Magi, Rhasta, Lion, Dark Seer and Purist. They can help you land that Ultimate or a couple of razes, so have them on your team never hurts. Ogre’s Bloodlust helps, too. Dark Seer’s Vacuum works wonders with Requiem of Souls. Purist's Repel gives you a free BKB and his Ultimate is a team-saver.
- Heroes having anti-armour such as Slardar, Dazzle and Vengeful Spirit. They are Great anti-armour synergy. Works incredibly well in a team, especially with Stygian Desolator and Assault Cuirass.
Beware of his counter:
- Heroes with some sort of ability that can go through your BKB such as Treant, Rexxar, Atropos, Vengeful Spirit and Pudge. Be very careful in team battles when you see those guys around. With Treant Protector, however, you can actually wait till he casts his Ultimate, and if you then activate your BKB, you will no longer be disabled. Make sure you get the order right! Wait for Treant’s Ultimate, then BKB! (Manta Style works too)
- Insanely fast pushers who can easily push back that massive creep wave you’ve just created/sent, such as Furion, Morphling, Pit Lord, Akasha and Tinker. Tinker is particularly annoying as he can push all three lanes at the same time and his Rearm can be very annoying when he starts perma-hexing you. Try ganking Tinker as often as possible and farm that BKB ASAP.
Before you play in the real game you should practice first for using Shadowraze skill. To some extent, mastering Shadowraze is essentially mastering Nevermore. Practice makes perfect. Pay attention to two thing when you try to mastering Shadowraze:
- Nevermore direction. Don't let nevermore look towards wrong direction from the target.
- Target distance from Nevermore position. Use 'Z' when near, 'X' when average, 'C' when far.
In early minutes, you should put him in the solo lane. Nevermore’s ability to solo lay not in his starting damage, but in his excellent missile speed, his attack range and his Base Attack Time, not to mention his ability Necromastery that gives him a tremendous boost in damage in the early-middle game. Conserve your mana, farm as good as possible and keep survive. Cast Shadowraze when possible both to harass your enemy and to farm fluently.
In the mid game, you should combine gank with farm (around 25 % gank with 75 % farm) and try farm your vital items before the 30th minute mark so that you have the necessary means to unleash your fury in team battles. Once again, one must remember Nevermore is all about his AoE damage, not his DPS. It is important to never over-farm with Nevermore. He can’t beat Phantom Assassin. He can’t beat Drow Ranger. In fact, he can’t even beat Sven. But dealing raw damage isn’t what Nevermore is BEST at. Nevermore can deal a huge amount of AoE damage and that’s what makes or breaks those mid-game team battles. Make sure you get those razes right, get your Ulti out in time, and farm that BKB ASAP.
In team battles, Nevermore is a poor initiator but is a brilliant hero for dealing huge amounts of AoE damage and mopping up the battlefield, so to speak. Check if there are heroes on the other side who have Ultimates that can go through BKB (such as Beastmaster’s Primal Roar, Doom Bringer’s Doom). Wait till those Ultimates have already been used, and/or they are already stunned, before landing your ultimate.
Before take your role in team battles, you should ensure that you have collected 30 souls so your ultimate can be powerful. Here are some steps when you will entering team battle to take your role:
1. Make sure you have a cool head, because the next few seconds can decide the fate of your team.
2. Walk up to the battle, preferably at the maximum distance of your blink (which is around 1150) which corresponds to around two-thirds the length of your screen.
3. Activate BKB FIRST. This means that you’re invulnerable to magic BEFORE you blink in, because you won’t want to get stunned and get totally trashed once you’re in there.
4. Blink in, then quickly press ‘R’ to active Requiem of Souls.
5. Use your Shadowrazes to mop up any resistance, snuck in some normal attacks if possible.
Based on: Playdota Guide
This post contain Nevermore Guide & Build - The Shadow Fiend Strategy. If you have different build or strategy, you can give your comments or make your own guide on the Shadow Fiend Forum.
A demon of the burning legion so abhorred that he makes the skin of even his fellow demons crawl, Nevermore is a creature of the shadows that consumes the souls of those around him. When the Shadow Fiend comes forth to battle, he augments his power with the souls he has consumed, bearing down on his enemies with spiritually enhanced attacks and powerful spiritual blasts. The Shadow Fiend is a terrifying opponent whom few have survived, and those who have perished under his tyranny have faced the most despicable fate of all.
Strength - 15 + 2
Agility - 20 + 2.4 (Primary)
Intelligence- 18 + 2
Base damage 35-41
Attack range of 500
Base Armor 1.9
Movement speed of 300
Shadow Fiend Skill Descriptions
Shadow Raze (Z,X,C)
Gives the Shadow Fiend the power to desecrate regions in front of him at varying distances.
Level 1 - deals 75 damage
Level 2 - deals 150 damage
Level 3 - deals 225 damage
Level 4 - deals 300 damage
Mana Cost: 75
Cooldown: 10
Distances: 200(Z) / 450(X) / 700(C)
Shadowraze costs very little mana compared to the amount of damage it does. The Cooldown on each Shadowraze are separate which means Nevermore actually has three nukes on his back. This means he can deal a maximum of 900 damage (675 if magic resistance is considered) to a single target in a very short amount of time which makes Nevermore very dangerous indeed especially in the early game, when very few heroes have more than 900 hp.
Necromastery
Whenever the Shadow Fiend kills a target, he stores the unfortunate soul inside of him. For each stored soul he gains 2 bonus damage until his own death releases half of them from bondage.
Level 1 - 16 damage limit
Level 2 - 30 damage limit
Level 3 - 46 damage limit
Level 4 - 60 damage limit
Another one of Nevermore’s abilities that enables him to become a potent force in the middle game, Necromastery is directly linked to his Ultimate, Requiem of Souls and gives his massive DPS (damage-per-second, or just ‘damage’) advantage over other heroes in the middle game.
Unfortunately, Necromastery loses a lot of its effectiveness towards the late-game, as DPS-carries are mostly farmed up and the extra 60 damage become rather minuscule. It is very important, as a Nevermore user, to maintain that ‘edge’ through the middle game as Nevermore tends to be most effective during the early-middle to the middle-late game.
Presence of the Dark Lord
The presence of such a horrible creature terrifies nearby enemies, reducing their armor.
Level 1 - 2 armor reduction
Level 2 - 3 armor reduction
Level 3 - 4 armor reduction
Level 4 - 5 armor reduction
Presence of the Dark Lord is best combined with Stygian Desolator as the armor-reduction becomes very effective against many spellcasters. In an armor-reduction team strategy (e.g. Nevermore with Vengeful Spirit, Slardar and Templar Assassin), Presence of the Dark Lord should definitely be skilled. Otherwise, stick with Stats, especially when the game is not going your way. Think about it this way: -5 armor, or a free Ultimate Orb? (Well, almost an Ultimate Orb anyway).
Requiem of Souls (R)
Summons evil spirits around you dealing damage to units in the area. Number of spirits is related to the number of souls stored and the movement/damage reduction is related to the distance from the Shadow Fiend. Lowers movement speed and damage of nearby units. The closer the units are the greater the effect.
Level 1 - 80 damage for each line, 15% reduction
Level 2 - 120 damage for each line, 15% reduction
Level 3 - 160 damage for each line, 15% reduction
Cooldown: 120/110/100
Mana Cost: 150/175/200
This skill can be used to initiate team battle. The closer Nevermore is to the target whilst he casts Requiem of Souls, the greater damage he unleashes upon that target. If correctly used, Requiem of Souls will create devastating damage in a team fight, especially when combined with items such as Kelen’s Dagger or Lothar Edge.
Shadow Fiend Skill Build
Level 1: Necromastery
Level 2: Shadow Raze
Level 3: Shadow Raze
Level 4: Necromastery
Level 5: Shadow Raze
Level 6: Necromastery
Level 7: Shadow Raze
Level 8: Necromastery
Level 9: Requiem of Souls
Level 10: Stats
Level 11: Requiem of Souls
Levels 12-15: Presence of the Dark Lord/Stats
Level 16: Requiem of Souls
Levels 17-21: Stats
Levels 22-25: Stats/Presence of the Dark Lord
In any case, Shadowraze being Nevermore’s main nuke should be maxed out by Level 7 as it is his main farming and ganking skill. Requiem of Souls should not be skilled until Necromastery is maxed out first.
Max out Presence of the Dark Lord earlier than stats when:
1. Your team is playing aggressively and is winning in terms of towers/hero kills.
2. You’ve decided to buy Stygian Desolator for your first DPS item (BKB does not really count) and the -5 armour can really help.
3. You're playing a clan war and your team mates all have minus-armour abilities (Slardar’s Amplify Damage, for example) and your -5 armour aura can really turn the tide of the battle.
Otherwise, ignore that skill.
Shadow Fiend Item Build
1. 3x Ironwood Branch, 2 set of Tangos, Animal Courier
2. Boots of Speed, Finish Magic Wand
3. Optional: Empty Bottle
4. 2x Wraith Band
5. Finish Boots of Travel
6. Kelen's Dagger
7. Black King Bar
Nevermore's core item should be like this:
The Bottle is important for some quick heals and grabbing the rune. Boots of Speed need no real explanation.
Since Nevermore will be doing a lot of ganking, a Magic Wand can help him pull off some ridiculously awesome escapes, or give him that little bit of Mana for that one last raze. A Magic Wand is a MUST for Nevermore.
Always keep a TP scroll at all times, so he can either help you Allies defend a tower, or farm in an empty lane (the latter part is exceptionally important for Nevermore as he needs a lot of farm before he becomes effective in the Middle Game). Wraith Bands help him get last hits and gives him a lot more damage.
Boots of Travel gives him plenty of speed and much more farm, Black King Bar gives him magic invulnerability for a certain period of time and Kelen’s Dagger can be used as an escape mechanism, or used offensively as a blink to land your Ultimate right in the center of a team battle.
Shadow Fiend Luxury Items
+ or Manta Style is a good item that increases your DPS by more than 2-fold. In most cases it’s going to be your first DPS item. You gain plenty of Stats, extra movement speed (on top of your Boots of Travel or Power Treads) and on top of that, a temporary-invulnerability activation that allows you to dodge most targeted spells in DotA. Your images do huge amounts of extra damage and the extra damage multiplies when you get other DPS items. The only downside is that your images don't benefit from the +60 damage from Necromastery, however.
The butterfly is a must for any Agility-carry hero. Lifesteal is something that every DPS-carry will eventually need.
A set of Stygian Desolator and Assault Cuirass is a good combo when you’re playing against a lot of vulnerable spellcasters, or if you team is based around an anti-armour theme (such as Nevermore + Slarder + Lanaya Combo). Just make sure that you have BKB so that they don’t nuke you to death before you can even get your hands on them.
Shadow Fiend Strategy
Picking this hero is suitable when your team needs an AoE Carry. Nevermore is incredibly versatile as a hero. Not only is he an excellent ganker, but he also excels as a pusher, has lots of AoE and DPS and can step up as a Carry should the need arise. He’s also incredibly fun to play, which means Nevermore is one of the most often seen heroes in DotA videos and various montages. Unfortunately, Nevermore is not a DPS hero, unlike what most people think of Nevermore. He is an AoE carry, his advantage over other carry heroes (such as Phantom Assassin) being his insane farming speed and the +60 damage thanks to Necromastery.
You need to be supported by:
- Heroes with big AoE Ultimates, such as Leviathan, Raigor, Rooftrellen, Rexxar andMagnus. They can help you landing ultimate perfectly.
- Heroes with mass-disables or Abilities such as Puck, Rylai, Ogre Magi, Rhasta, Lion, Dark Seer and Purist. They can help you land that Ultimate or a couple of razes, so have them on your team never hurts. Ogre’s Bloodlust helps, too. Dark Seer’s Vacuum works wonders with Requiem of Souls. Purist's Repel gives you a free BKB and his Ultimate is a team-saver.
- Heroes having anti-armour such as Slardar, Dazzle and Vengeful Spirit. They are Great anti-armour synergy. Works incredibly well in a team, especially with Stygian Desolator and Assault Cuirass.
Beware of his counter:
- Heroes with some sort of ability that can go through your BKB such as Treant, Rexxar, Atropos, Vengeful Spirit and Pudge. Be very careful in team battles when you see those guys around. With Treant Protector, however, you can actually wait till he casts his Ultimate, and if you then activate your BKB, you will no longer be disabled. Make sure you get the order right! Wait for Treant’s Ultimate, then BKB! (Manta Style works too)
- Insanely fast pushers who can easily push back that massive creep wave you’ve just created/sent, such as Furion, Morphling, Pit Lord, Akasha and Tinker. Tinker is particularly annoying as he can push all three lanes at the same time and his Rearm can be very annoying when he starts perma-hexing you. Try ganking Tinker as often as possible and farm that BKB ASAP.
Before you play in the real game you should practice first for using Shadowraze skill. To some extent, mastering Shadowraze is essentially mastering Nevermore. Practice makes perfect. Pay attention to two thing when you try to mastering Shadowraze:
- Nevermore direction. Don't let nevermore look towards wrong direction from the target.
- Target distance from Nevermore position. Use 'Z' when near, 'X' when average, 'C' when far.
In early minutes, you should put him in the solo lane. Nevermore’s ability to solo lay not in his starting damage, but in his excellent missile speed, his attack range and his Base Attack Time, not to mention his ability Necromastery that gives him a tremendous boost in damage in the early-middle game. Conserve your mana, farm as good as possible and keep survive. Cast Shadowraze when possible both to harass your enemy and to farm fluently.
In the mid game, you should combine gank with farm (around 25 % gank with 75 % farm) and try farm your vital items before the 30th minute mark so that you have the necessary means to unleash your fury in team battles. Once again, one must remember Nevermore is all about his AoE damage, not his DPS. It is important to never over-farm with Nevermore. He can’t beat Phantom Assassin. He can’t beat Drow Ranger. In fact, he can’t even beat Sven. But dealing raw damage isn’t what Nevermore is BEST at. Nevermore can deal a huge amount of AoE damage and that’s what makes or breaks those mid-game team battles. Make sure you get those razes right, get your Ulti out in time, and farm that BKB ASAP.
In team battles, Nevermore is a poor initiator but is a brilliant hero for dealing huge amounts of AoE damage and mopping up the battlefield, so to speak. Check if there are heroes on the other side who have Ultimates that can go through BKB (such as Beastmaster’s Primal Roar, Doom Bringer’s Doom). Wait till those Ultimates have already been used, and/or they are already stunned, before landing your ultimate.
Before take your role in team battles, you should ensure that you have collected 30 souls so your ultimate can be powerful. Here are some steps when you will entering team battle to take your role:
1. Make sure you have a cool head, because the next few seconds can decide the fate of your team.
2. Walk up to the battle, preferably at the maximum distance of your blink (which is around 1150) which corresponds to around two-thirds the length of your screen.
3. Activate BKB FIRST. This means that you’re invulnerable to magic BEFORE you blink in, because you won’t want to get stunned and get totally trashed once you’re in there.
4. Blink in, then quickly press ‘R’ to active Requiem of Souls.
5. Use your Shadowrazes to mop up any resistance, snuck in some normal attacks if possible.
Based on: Playdota Guide
This post contain Nevermore Guide & Build - The Shadow Fiend Strategy. If you have different build or strategy, you can give your comments or make your own guide on the Shadow Fiend Forum.
Monday, May 24, 2010
IceFrog Q and A Session 4
Hey Dota Addictis!, Few weeks ago IceFrog blogged that he will do Q&A session #4 soon, Now it's here. In this Q&A session IceFrog has briefly answered some of the questions that DotA Fans asked. It's very interesting to read this Q&A Session as compared to the previous ones. Also, IceFrog has revealed about the upcoming new hero Icarus, The Phoenix in DotA 6.68. You must read it!Q: When will we hear more about you and Valve? Some people say it will take 2-3 years, can you give us any clues? (from Zeyall)
A: It certainly won't take that long. There are a lot of very talented people here at Valve that are working hard on it every day to ensure high quality in a timely manner. We'll be making an announcement soon actually, and based on the feedback I've been getting since the last mention, I'm sure you all will be as excited as I am.
Q: Can you tell us how you first met Valve and how you like it so far? (from Sodoes)
A: It started off with an email from Valve where they mentioned that they were big fans of DotA wanted to fly me out to spend some time with them and visit their studio. I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the trip. After arriving and chatting with them, the first thing I noticed was how much of their decision making process was like mine. They shared the same aspirations towards building a long term and sustainable community without having short sighted business goals that end up hurting the quality of the game. One of the most important things for me though was that there wasn't going to be anyone standing above telling me how I should be doing things. They trust the developers that have experience to make the best decisions for their playerbase. The atmosphere at Valve allows everyone to be very comfortable and able to focus on what they love doing. It also doesn't hurt that they are huge DotA fans.. until their favorite heroes are nerfed, then I'm the bad guy for a week!
Q: How popular is DotA these days? (from china_white)
A: I can only give estimates based on getdota.com usage, because I can't track ingame downloads or fansites or downloads from China. It is roughly estimated (based on the statistics from popular Chinese sites) that the Chinese DotA audience is about 40-50% of the worldwide audience. Not counting China, the playerbase is estimated to be somewhere between 7-11 million. I expect the audience to grow even more in the not too distant future.
Q: Is your goal to make everything picked the same amount of times? (from j.walsh)
A: I don't think about it that way exactly. Sure it's good if there is a nice distribution and that is something to work towards, but really the goal in DotA's development is, first and foremost, to make the gameplay quality the best it can be. It is the combination of all the heroes, items and mechanics together that makes DotA what it is and not the individual elements alone. Sometimes that means certain things are carefully adjusted to be more frequent than others, sometimes it doesn't, but ultimately the main judge of a game's quality is not in some artificial balance metric, but in the overall gameplay quality and depth that it has.
Q: Can you tell us something about 6.68? (from Carlos)
A: It is still a work in progress and needs some time, but it will have new heroes, more balance improvements, and some new features as well. Here is one of the new heroes in development: Icarus, the Phoenix
Q: What do you think about DotA's future, will it continue to grow? (from Amir)
A: Definitely. I think players like to spend their time on something they both enjoy and trust. While DotA has a lot to offer now in terms of content and gameplay quality, I will always be working hard to improve it and all that work will be maintained when it matures to something that solves all the other non-gameplay elements that it needs to go to the next level. I think it is a good option for players that want to spend time on a game that will grow with them. It also has a very bright future in the competitive scene. In addition to the already announced SMM ($32,000), ESWC ($24,500), a soon to be announced online ($30,000) event and another huge offline event that will be revealed soon, there will also be an even bigger set of opportunities in the future for players that are dedicating their time and energy into DotA. I think players on all levels of play will be satisfied with their choice and experience with the game.
Q:Why are some heroes unavailable in -CM mode? (from Brandom Lim)
A: It is a largely experimental idea so it may or may not remain for the future. There are a lot of different reasons for it though. In some cases it's balance or bug-potential related. Other times it is done to limit the number of simultaneous changes so that certain changes can be more easily measured. In a lot of cases where the above aren't a factor, it is actually done to give enough opportunity for players to understand how to play with and against them and understand the strengths and weaknesses better. This also makes new versions less destabalizing for competitive gaming while still providing a continuous stream of fresh content. That being said though, I've gotten a lot of requests from players that use the mode for casual or semi-competitive play and miss omitted heroes, so I may add a subcommand to unlock all.
Q: What do you think about the fan support of competitive teams? (from Mooseman)
A: Fan support is, for the most part, very good. I think it's great how passionate many of them are about competitive DotA. At times, though, some of them can be a little too judgmental towards teams based on their last few consecutive wins or losses. They have a lot of pressure on them and sometimes they make mistakes or just want to relax and try something different. I don't think it is always fair to judge them for that. They also face top competition regularly, so its hard to win every time. Teams have a lot of pride and spend a lot of time practicing, so it can be demoralizing to them when some fans change their attitudes towards them so fast.
Q: Are we going to see more visual effects in the future? (from Zikaro)
A: Visual upgrades can be a good thing (and they will come in the future) but is extremely important to not add too much visual noise. You want a scene that has a nice atmosphere and theme but isn't too cluttered or shiny that it negatively affects gameplay by making it hard to tell what is going on.
Q: Should we expect to see any more loadscreens by Kunkka? (from 27302)
A: Yes, he is planning a new one now, but I can't tell you when it will be done since it depends on his free time.
Q: Do you use WC3 Editor by itself or other things as well? (from Sasha200)
A: Most of the map development is done outside of the editor actually. There are a lot of separate script files and program tools that are used together to create the map file.
Q: Any interesting bugs or features that were in beta maps? (from OpyyuRDs)
A: We once had a different ability for Techies that used the same visual art and sound effects from starcraft one for the ghost nuke. When he used it, a red indicator would appear on the ground like in Starcraft and then it would play the classic "Nuclear Launch Detected" audio. It sounded a lot cooler than it played out in practice and it was near the end of a beta cycle and had some balancing and design issues, so we decided to remove it instead of rush it in. As far as bugs go, Chaos Knight could pull towers in one beta version, so you were able to have a line of towers pushing on the enemy side!
Q: Will more heroes get an Aghanim upgrade to their ultimate? (from Akder)
A: Yea, I usually try to add some more every version or two. I think it's a good idea to add them in slowly though, instead of too many at once. I've also gotten more requests for extra graphic animations for the ones that already have, so I'll try to find suitable ones for those as well.
Q: What is the hardest part when developing dota? What risks are there? (from Bannion)
A: The hardest part is actually not the development itself, but in how to measure success. The thing I always try to work on the most is increasing the measurability/prediction of a successful patch. The goal is to be able to improve the development process and feedback systems for better accuracy to what reasonates best with players. The riskiest thing is making a change where it might take too long to discover its true impacts on the game where it becomes hard to reverse. We work really hard to eliminate that stuff early on in the theory phase with either careful analysis or specific beta testing.
Q: How do you decide when to release a new patch? (from VinceX)
A: There are two separate considerations for this. The first is frequency. If you update too frequently players do not get a chance to settle into the previous changes and learn the game, if you update too slowly then you aren't providing enough fresh content. It is a balance between the two that I'm always trying to find a happy medium between as I get more feedback from players. The second is when it's "ready". I usually release it as soon as I feel that the value we get out of more internal testing is too low compared to external feedback we'd get from the larger community. If we are still in the experimenting phase where we are trying out ideas then it's not ready. Once it feels like it needs external testing to be able to make more good decisions, then it is released. From my perspective, the game is in constant development and improvement regardless, it just becomes a matter of what is the most effective way to improve something.
Q: What takes the most time each patch? Researching, Balancing, Implementing or Bug Hunting? (from Enders)
A: The two most time consuming are usually research and experimentation. Research involves more than just playing the game, it's also watching replays, reading a wide range of feedback and talking with players. Experimentation is the other time consuming part. It would be fast to just reproduce a patch if I already knew exactly what to do, but the hard part is usually figuring out what you want to do and doing the proper testing before making changes.
Q: What are you most happy about with regards to DotA? (from Artem)
A: I am really thankful for all the support players have given this game, it is more than I could ask for. I see a vibrant community that, despite the very hard learning curve DotA has, grows through the dedication and passion of its players. That shows me how much more potential the game has and encourages me to work harder.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Dota 6.68 Contains More Than 2 New Heroes?
IceFrog has just post another update on his blog. He is basically saying that he's still working hard on Dota 6.68. But what makes me interesting is these words: "There are quite a few new heroes in development". I'm pretty sure IceFrog won't use these words if there are only 2 new heroes on the next map. What do you think? Check his words by yourself:I am still working hard on 6.68. We plan to release a preview video in the near future to showcase some of the new content. There are quite a few new heroes in development so we are taking extra time to make sure they are high quality. There will also be balance work done for the current content as well various other improvements and features.
If there is anything you'd like to see in the next patch, please let me know.
My guess is there will be 3 new heroes on the Dota 6.68. Some anonymous tipster also saying that the new heroes on the Dota 6.68 will be Icarus the Phoenix (Intelligence), Thrall the Far Seer (Agility) and Krakko the Fire Panda (Strenght). However, there's no confirmation yet about this, so let's keep that as a rumor. And another thing is, he will made a preview video on the near future about Dota 6.68. So stay tune!
Final Update
It released guys!! Check out the Dota 6.68 Download Links and the Dota 6.68 Changelogs.
DotA 6.68 Preview Video Coming Soon!
In IceFrog's latest blog he posted a new development update regarding the upcoming DotA 6.68. As we know, IceFrog is very keen to release a perfect balanced version along with the balanced heroes so, He asked for the suggestions from DotA community to help with him in this new version. He also mentioned that, he will come up with DoTA 6.68 Preview Video in which he will highlight the new content
Thursday, May 20, 2010
GoD-Tony Decision is Made, But is it Final?
After the BuffMePlz announced that he is retired from the Dota AI map development, people are waiting for GoD-Tony decision to continue the map. Yesterday, GoD-Tony a.k.a KillerBee posted on his blog about his decision.
If you're confused reading all those words, let me tell you straight, he is declined to continue the Dota AI Map Project. He feels that it's already too late for that and by the time he finish the map, Dota is already dead beaten by HoN or Starcraft 2. However, he's also saying that if there's another person who can teamed up with him on developing the map, he will reconsider to continue the map.
Well, i can't make Dota map, so let's just support GoD-Tony and maybe he could change his mind. But regardless, i respect his decision and hope we can find another solution for this. Dota AI map is already become an important aspect of Dota. It helps people learn the game and encourage newbie to play Dota. And without it, Dota will never be the same..
Taking this blog in a slightly different direction, I'll write a bit about my thoughts on DotA AI and the retirement of BuffMePlz.
I recently received an email from BMP informing me of his decision, as well as his offer of general guidance to lead my own AI project. My first reaction was "Why didn't I get an email like this sooner?"
I believe that if an AI project had been worked together by a team of people, then it wouldn't have come down to this. It's really too much to take on by one person.
The idea of posting my Pre-Alpha builds of RGB's AI for the newest version at the time was to spark some interest in development in an otherwise dead scene. I knew BMP wasn't interested in wasting his time with people that thought they "could help" but couldn't do anything other than offer another opinion. This was a way of proving that there were certainly people interested in helping, myself and Cipd included
That was almost a year ago when my interest for developing AI was at it's peak, and when I received no response regarding those maps, I moved on to the next idea. This was to create an Open AI for DotA that could be ported to the latest version almost instantly, and Open in the sense that it would be very easy for others to contribute (especially open source).
Even though I completed the code-base for this project, it still needed some real AI to go along with it. This was back in January, and once again with no response or input from the ones I contacted, and the continuation of BMPs' ports of RGBs' maps, I decided that it was a wasted effort.
What I'm getting at here is that it's basically too little too late. I believe DotA for Warcraft 3 is near it's death. With Heroes of Newerth released just days ago, Starcraft 2 coming out this year, and the possibility of IceFrog moving on to Valve, by the time I created a decent AI, DotA would be on a different platform.
I don't see myself working on an AI for DotA now or in the future, and the only way I could see this changing is if some very ambitious developers came forward and teamed up as it should be done.
If you have a comment or question you can leave it in this post and I will reply there as well.
A little side note: I always thought it would be a fun game mode to combine 6v6 DotA with DotA AI. You could even play 12v12 in this scenario! (just for fun of course)
If you're confused reading all those words, let me tell you straight, he is declined to continue the Dota AI Map Project. He feels that it's already too late for that and by the time he finish the map, Dota is already dead beaten by HoN or Starcraft 2. However, he's also saying that if there's another person who can teamed up with him on developing the map, he will reconsider to continue the map.
Well, i can't make Dota map, so let's just support GoD-Tony and maybe he could change his mind. But regardless, i respect his decision and hope we can find another solution for this. Dota AI map is already become an important aspect of Dota. It helps people learn the game and encourage newbie to play Dota. And without it, Dota will never be the same..
allstars dota
Defense of the Ancients
Defense Of The Ancients (denominado por sus siglas como DotA) es un escenario personalizado para el videojuego Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, creado con el editor de mapas de Warcraft III, basado en el escenario de StarCraft "Aeon of Strife". El mapa se juega en dos equipos, y el objetivo del juego es destruir el "Ancient" del oponente. Los Ancients son estructuras fuertemente protegidas, ubicadas en esquinas opuestas del mapa. Los jugadores controlan poderosas unidades conocidas como "héroes", que son ayudadas por unidades controladas por inteligencia artificial llamadas "creeps". Como en un juego de rol, los héroes obtienen puntos de experiencia para incrementar sus habilidades y usan oro para comprar equipo y elementos útiles durante la misión.
El escenario fue desarrollado con el editor de mapas de Warcraft III. Existen diversas variantes de la versión original del mapa; la más popular es «DotA Allstars»,que ha sido desarrollada por diversos autores.
Desde su lanzamiento, DotA Allstars se ha convertido en una característica común en diversos torneos alrededor del mundo, incluidas las competiciones BlizzCon y World Cyber Games, así como las ligas Cyberathlete Amateur y CyberEvolution. Gamasutra declaró que DotA es la «modificación de videojuego gratuita más popular en el mundo».
Actualmente, el juego oficial se encuentra en la versión 6.68c.
Warcraft III es la tercera entrega de la serie de juegos Warcraft, desarrollada por Blizzard Entertainment. Al igual que su antecesor, Warcraft III incluye un editor de mapas gratuito, que permite a los jugadores crear y modificar escenarios personalizados que pueden ser utilizados en modos de un jugador y multijugador. Los mapas resultantes deben cargarse desde el juego, y pueden consistir en sencillos escenarios de batalla para jugarse en una partida normal de Warcraft, o juegos alternativos totalmente nuevos, con nuevos objetivos, unidades, objetos y eventos; Defense of the Ancients es de este último tipo.
El mapa original de DotA fue creado por un jugador y creador de mapas conocido como «Eul» mediante el editor de mapas de Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Luego del lanzamiento de la expansión The Frozen Throne, que añadió nuevas características al editor de mapas, Eul no actualizó el escenario, por lo que fueron otros autores quienes se encargaron de realizar dicha actualización, y actualizar posteriormente el juego.
Numerosas variantes del juego se han realizado basadas en el mapa original, pero Allstars es la versión que volvió popular el juego. A partir de la versión 6.x, otro autor con el nombre de «IceFrog» se puso a cargo del desarrollo del escenario, corrigiendo errores y añadiendo o actualizando características del juego. Cada versión nueva se acompaña de un registro de cambios.
El juego tiene un fuerte apoyo comunitario, mantenido mediante foros oficiales. Allí, los usuarios pueden comentar ideas para nuevos héroes u objetos, e indicar sugerencias de todo tipo. El mapa puede obtenerse de forma gratuita en diversos sitios de descarga, y en Battle.net mediante transferencia directa al iniciar una partida. Al igual que cualquier escenario creado con el editor de mapas de Warcraft III, la distribución de DotA no puede realizarse con fines comerciales de ningún tipo.
Algunas versiones del escenario con oponentes controlados por inteligencia artificial han sido desarrolladas.
Gracias a..
GoD-Tony's Decision On Developing DotA AI Maps!
After the sad retirement of BuffMePlz ex-DotA AI developer. The Community was seeking for an AI developer like BuffMePlz who could carry on with the work. So, God-Tony (killerbee) was asked to continue the development of AI Maps from now on. Recently, he has replied on his blog about the future of the DotA AI. You can read it below:GoD-Tony Decision:Taking this blog in a slightly different
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
BuffMePlz Retires From Developing DotA AI Maps!
BuffMePlz, developer of DotA AI map recently in his blog that he sensing AI known. It is very sad news for DotA community, there has been established that the author of the version of DotA AI map life in the past two years. DotA fans have a great job and thank him for it and good luck in the future!
It is the latest update BuffMePlz:
After much thought and consideration, I decided not to go with the AI Dota maps. My other work got in the next phase of my life, very little interest in DotA, frustration and meets the needs of the community and the community to cope with my absence, I think it's better for me to drive this project and move.
It is nice for two years, and almost all the updates since version 6.49 (This is the sixth 66b crazy now!) How lazyfiend / RGB, said that when he went out, I think this work more fun, the card is for me and is actually a bit difficult.
God, we Tony (Killerbee) turn to take the lead, and he decides, I'll try to help them as much as possible. Otherwise, I hope that my party like the last two years learning the complexity of the engine and the WC3 is the site-specific.
My passion has always been fun bars, and although it develop from time to time to some of the maps on my old blog trademarks and / or the original, so page website and comments will be betrayed by my continued here.
Thanks guys and have fun!
As mentioned above, methionine ask God, Tony (Killerbee) nor DotA AI. I hope that someone start BuffMePlz and Development DotA 6.67c AI and AI 6.68 DotA map.
Agin, BMP Thank you for your time!.
It is the latest update BuffMePlz:
After much thought and consideration, I decided not to go with the AI Dota maps. My other work got in the next phase of my life, very little interest in DotA, frustration and meets the needs of the community and the community to cope with my absence, I think it's better for me to drive this project and move.
It is nice for two years, and almost all the updates since version 6.49 (This is the sixth 66b crazy now!) How lazyfiend / RGB, said that when he went out, I think this work more fun, the card is for me and is actually a bit difficult.
God, we Tony (Killerbee) turn to take the lead, and he decides, I'll try to help them as much as possible. Otherwise, I hope that my party like the last two years learning the complexity of the engine and the WC3 is the site-specific.
My passion has always been fun bars, and although it develop from time to time to some of the maps on my old blog trademarks and / or the original, so page website and comments will be betrayed by my continued here.
Thanks guys and have fun!
As mentioned above, methionine ask God, Tony (Killerbee) nor DotA AI. I hope that someone start BuffMePlz and Development DotA 6.67c AI and AI 6.68 DotA map.
Agin, BMP Thank you for your time!.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
BuffMePlz the Dota AI Maker is Retired! GoD-Tony, Your Call?
Here are the good by letter from BuffMePlz:
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
After much thought and consideration, I have decided to no longer continue my work on DotA AI maps. Between my increased work responsibilities, advancing on to the next stage of life, my waning interest in DotA, and the frustration from both dealing with the community's demands and the community having to deal with my absences, I believe it is best for me to let this project go and move on.
It was a fun two years, with updates on almost every version since 6.49 (we're up to 6.66b now, crazy!), but as lazyfiend/RGB said when he left, I find that working on this map is no longer enjoyable to me, and is in fact quite a burden.
I've contacted GoD-Tony (killerbee) about taking over, and if he decides to, I'll try to help him get up to speed as much as possible. If not, I hope whomever takes my place will have as much fun as I did these past two years learning the ins and outs of JASS and the WC3 engine.
My passion has always been with the Fun Taverns, and though I will not continue AI development I may occasionally release some maps on my blog with old heroes and/or original creations, so feel free to visit and leave comments for me here.
Thanks for the fun times guys!
Before making that decision, he asking people voice on this post:
Decision time
From the playdota.com forums:
"I hear you guys, and I understand your frustration, but you have to understand the limitations of how things work.
Basically, it comes down to this:
1) Regular releases: To put it frankly, you've all been spoiled. Do any of you even remember how frequently the AI maps were released in the past? They would come out months after a stable release, and only on that stable release. The model I've been pursuing is one where the AI map is a vehicle for others to tinker with new heroes, abilities, and items. I've thought about pursuing a model in which I only release once every time a new stable map comes out (3-4 months after a map is declared stable), but it seems that popular consesus is otherwise.
2) Source code: Yes, IceFrog sends me the script changes from version to version, but it still comes down to the fact that I never received any source code from lazyfiend (RGB), who I understand did receive source code from cloud_str, who received source code from whomever was in charge of DotA at the time (and was thus the "official" version of the AI map). All I have to work with is obfuscated code, but people don't seem to understand that. No, I don't have source code. No, I don't have an unprotected map. I have exactly what you guys have when you open a map through an MPQ editor. Do it now, pull out war3map.j from DotA 6.48b AI+, and you'll look at EXACTLY what I had to look at.
I've rewritten parts of the code to make things more usable for me, but in the end it always comes down to 1). If you really want, I'll sit on this, release a nice AI for 6.66b (stable version) in about, say, October.
Alternately, it really seems like people want me to go. I'm willing to step down, but I have nothing to offer any who would want to take up the mantle, as all I have is obfuscated source.
Your call."
Weigh in your opinions.
Well, the decision has been made. Now, let's just hope GoD-Tony a.k.a KillerBee can answer the call. But still, i will respect whatever GoD-Tony decision, because people have their own life. And to BuffMePlz, please accept my greatest respect for all what you've done until know. God Bless You!
BuffMePlz Retires From Developing DotA AI Maps!
BuffMePlz, The DotA AI Map developer has recently announced on his blog that he will no longer be developing AI maps. This is a very sad news for the DotA community as he was the AI Map developer who was keeping the DotA AI versions alive for the past two years. He did a tremendous job for the DotA fans and we thank him for it & good luck for his future!Here is the last update from BuffMePlz:
Monday, May 17, 2010
Skillhackers WUtil Maphack
Features:Downloads :
* Reveal units
* Remove fog (full or partitial)
* Manabars
* TP-reveal
* Safe-Click
* Reveal abilitys of enemy units.
* Different hp-bar color for non-own units.
* Show move speed of hero units in tooltip
* Press tab to show player resources box.
* Ingame maphack settings menu (Game menu --> Options --> Maphack)
* Anti-Detection code
How To:
* Extract all files from the zip archive to your Warcraft root directory.
* Close Warcraft if already running
* Run WUtil_Loader.exe and wait until Warcraft 3 launches.
Can I get banned for using this?
Currently not. There is some code to hide the hack from Warden. But as always, I can't guarantee anything so use it on your own risk.
Note:
It is intended to work only with newest official Warcraft client on Battle.net. So no support for Garena or similar.
Friday, May 14, 2010
[Updated] Garena Cracked By TDT_
He was the last version released GarenaHack: 5.28 *!
This new version works only with the new update is not Garena cqccyh resources.
Entire message bet cqccyh damage has been corrected a mistake, opening the main window of the delay.
Updated only hack update links (UO Easy-Share 4shared SendSpace).
Hi all CYA.
* PS: I dismiss 5:27 but after a while I noticed that an updated version I have is 5.28.
These words are the same TDT_
This new version works only with the new update is not Garena cqccyh resources.
Entire message bet cqccyh damage has been corrected a mistake, opening the main window of the delay.
Updated only hack update links (UO Easy-Share 4shared SendSpace).
Hi all CYA.
* PS: I dismiss 5:27 but after a while I noticed that an updated version I have is 5.28.
These words are the same TDT_
Downloads:
Sniper Guide - Kardel the Dwarven Sniper Build & Strategy
Kardel Sharpeye the Dwarven Sniper Guide, Build & Strategy. Sniper can be a great carry who has the longest range on Dota. Even though he doesn't have a reliable escape mechanism, he can be deadly if got his items. This post contains Kardel Sharpeye the Dwarven Sniper guide, item build, skill build and strategy.
Kardel Sharpeye is a testament to his name and race. Using only his finely honed skills of marksmanship and his trusty rifle, he systematically destroys his opponents from afar. Taking great care to aim for the most vulnerable of areas, he is capable of severely injuring an opponent, and with a little extra time, has been known to simply dispose of an enemy in a single shot. His rifle is equipped with a secondary barrel, capable of launching a short burst of shrapnel at close range, causing massive damage.
Strength - 16 + 1.7
Agility - 21 + 2.9 (Primary)
Intelligence- 15 + 2.6
Base damage 36-42
Attack range of 550
Base Armor 2
Movement speed of 290
Dwarven Sniper Skill Descriptions
Shrapnel (C)
Fires a ball full of shrapnel into the air. which promptly explodes, showering the target area in explosive pellets. Enemy units that walk in this area get damaged and slowed. Deals 30% damage to buildings. Lasts for 8 seconds.
Level 1 - 15% Slow / 10 DPS
Level 2 - 20% Slow / 20 DPS
Level 3 - 25% Slow / 30 DPS
Level 4 - 30% Slow / 40 DPS
• Damage type: Magical
• Casting range: 1200
• Area of Effect: 450
Mana Cost: 120
Cooldown: 15
This skill has good capabilities for fleeing, chasing and defending a tower. Has decent dps and the area slow effect can be very useful.
Headshot (O)
A shot to the head deals bonus damage and stuns for a short duration.
Level 1 - 25% chance to deal 30 damage and ministun.
Level 2 - 30% chance to deal 30 damage and ministun.
Level 3 - 35% chance to deal 40 damage and ministun.
Level 4 - 40% chance to deal 50 damage and ministun.
• Works on allied creeps.
• Stun is blocked by magic immunity.
• Duration: 0.01/0.1/0.2/0.2
Mana Cost: N/A
Cooldown: N/A
A very good skill, especially for canceling channeling skills like Epicenter, Black Hole or even Town Portal. Notice that when you last hitting the creeps, often times, your attack will trigger Headshot.
Take Aim (E)
Kardel uses his dwarf engineering skills to make modifications to his rifle, enhancing the range of his rifle.
Level 1 - Attack Range +65.
Level 2 - Attack Range +130.
Level 3 - Attack Range +195.
Level 4 - Attack Range +260.
• Level 3 and 4 of this skill allow Kardel to out-range towers.
Mana Cost: N/A
Cooldown: N/A
A skill unique to Kardel, gives you better lane control, harass and creeping capabilities. If you are good enough, you can harass the enemies and when you know they're gonna come at you, you can back away easily due the long range. Especially useful against short ranged and melee heroes.
Assassinate (T)
Take time to draw a bead, and then deal a large amount of damage to the target at a huge range.
Level 1 - Deals 355 damage.
Level 2 - Deals 505 damage.
Level 3 - Deals 655 damage.
Mana Cost: 175/275/375
Cooldown: 20/15/10
• Damage type: magical
• Crosshair on target is visible to allies only.
• Invisibility doesn't affect the effect of this skill.
• Interrupts channeling spells.
• Interrupt works on magic immune units.
• Takes 1.7/1.65/1.5 seconds to cast.
• Casting range: 1500/2000/2500
Assassinate has a very long range and decent damage. Usually used as the finishing move when the enemies are fleeing. With only 10 secs cooldown at lvl 3, it can be also used as a nuke.
Dwarven Sniper Skill Build
Lvl 1 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 2 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 3 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 4 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 5 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 6 - Assassinate
Lvl 7 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 8 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 9 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 10 - Shrapnel
Lvl 11 - Assassinate
Lvl 12 - Shrapnel
Lvl 13 - Shrapnel
Lvl 14 - Shrapnel
Lvl 15 - Stats
Lvl 16 - Assassinate
Lvl 17-25 - Stats
Maxing out Headshot or Take Aim first really depends on the player. Headshot is taken because of the additional damage for harass and creeping (as I have explained earlier Headshot has this effect of kicking in when youre about to last hit creeps ) while Take Aim is taken for range, preferably for harassing without getting harassed or for lane survivability.
Maxing any of these two really depends on you. His SS is taken when available, because obviously it’s the only nuke you’ve got. Use it to kill fleeing heroes at low life, if you have mana to spare, don’t be afraid to spam it, it has a very low cooldown for an SS. After this Shrapnel is taken, at about the time you get to this level it would be mid game and shrapnel would be useful for ganks and defending towers.
Dwarven Sniper Item Build
Dwarven Sniper's core item should be like this:
or 
Power Threads is taken for attack speed, kardel doesn’t need to chase nor teleport, so phase boots and BoT wouldn’t be much useful. Lothars is taken early to avoid ganks, trust me this is where it all starts, get this as early as possible. Frankly, with no escape mechanisms, enemy heroes will be surely targeting you above all the others since you will be the easiest to kill. Lothars will help you escape these circumstances and avoid feeding the enemy team. The next item will be depending on you again.
Lifesteal will make you more versatile and will make you able to initiate. Maelstorm will give you good damage and speed and chain lightning, since you’re a fragile heroes, with this item you will have to come in last at ganks and kill of the nukers in the opposing team. Kardel is a good dps hero but has a very small health pool. Manta is built next even whether you are domi or maelstrom build.
Dwarven Sniper Luxury Items
Manta is a good item for kardel since it confuses the enemy of who to attack and gives hp and movespeed. MKB is a good luxury item because it is a massive dps dealer and goes with your headshot. It increases the mini stun probability of the hero and because it has a higher chance than bash, it can have almost the same effect. Basher is another luxury item because with headshot and MKB you will even seem more of a permabasher than troll who has a very small chance of bashing.
HoT or Linken is taken only in the maelstrom build, as you will need some kind of regen and life, take linken if there are a lot of disablers, especially if there’s a POTM and youre not a good dodger. For the Domi build, Satanic will cover your hp needs and lifesteal for regen. Butterfly is taken for attack speed, damage and evasion, which this hero critically needs.
Dwarven Sniper Strategy
At start game, buy boots and tangoes or healing salve. Getting boots early allows you to avoid early deaths. The early game is where kardel hides in his shell, you can either take bottom or top lane but avoid middle lane because you will probably not be able to take the heroes in this lane at the start. Make creeping your priority.
Kardel is a favorite hero of any good last hitter. If you can notice some heroes have a delay animation before attacking, for example, when drow attacks, she first pulls her arrow, and when she releases it, it again takes time for the arrow to reach the target. With no items, drow probably has an attack delay of about 1 sec., which makes it hard for her to last hit without any damage. When kardel attacks, the hit is almost instant. He last hits best among all other range heroes. Your job in early game is to dominate last hits and focus on the gold. Harass only if enemy heroes try to come close but after that go back to last hitting.
First item to focus buying is quatterstaff. Then buy claymore in your base then the recipe. If you’re a decent last hitter, you would be able to farm lothars before mid game starts. Now you can go solo in a lane without getting gangbanged. When in a lane, always stick to the side away from the jungle. When enemies gangbang you, you would be able to see them coming this way, use lothars then switch to another lane. Join ganks whenever possible, but be careful only to come out from invi after they initiate. Try to get last hits on fleeing heroes with assassinate. Slowly build up whichever luxury item you want. I suggest getting manta first for survivability.
When in a clash, just use lothars and go in after your allies initiate, use manta and finish of the nukers. This will help your team a lot since in gangbangs they mostly focus on the tank or the initiator, they leave alone the nukers to spend out all their nukes in a clash, which of course is a bad thing, much more so with disablers. Also, don’t forget to use shrapnel during ganks or clashes, the slow effect can really help a lot.
Well that’s about the only thing with kardel. He doesn’t require much strategy or skill combos but rather just some decent farming, avoiding getting killed and effectively participating in ganks.
Hope this guide helped. That’s all folks!... XD
This guide is written by glennlevi.
This post contain Sniper Guide & Build - Kardel Sharpeye the Dwarven Sniper Strategy. If you have different build or strategy, you can give your comments or make your own guide on the Dwarven Sniper Forum.
Kardel Sharpeye is a testament to his name and race. Using only his finely honed skills of marksmanship and his trusty rifle, he systematically destroys his opponents from afar. Taking great care to aim for the most vulnerable of areas, he is capable of severely injuring an opponent, and with a little extra time, has been known to simply dispose of an enemy in a single shot. His rifle is equipped with a secondary barrel, capable of launching a short burst of shrapnel at close range, causing massive damage.
Strength - 16 + 1.7
Agility - 21 + 2.9 (Primary)
Intelligence- 15 + 2.6
Base damage 36-42
Attack range of 550
Base Armor 2
Movement speed of 290
Dwarven Sniper Skill Descriptions
Shrapnel (C)
Fires a ball full of shrapnel into the air. which promptly explodes, showering the target area in explosive pellets. Enemy units that walk in this area get damaged and slowed. Deals 30% damage to buildings. Lasts for 8 seconds.
Level 1 - 15% Slow / 10 DPS
Level 2 - 20% Slow / 20 DPS
Level 3 - 25% Slow / 30 DPS
Level 4 - 30% Slow / 40 DPS
• Damage type: Magical
• Casting range: 1200
• Area of Effect: 450
Mana Cost: 120
Cooldown: 15
This skill has good capabilities for fleeing, chasing and defending a tower. Has decent dps and the area slow effect can be very useful.
Headshot (O)
A shot to the head deals bonus damage and stuns for a short duration.
Level 1 - 25% chance to deal 30 damage and ministun.
Level 2 - 30% chance to deal 30 damage and ministun.
Level 3 - 35% chance to deal 40 damage and ministun.
Level 4 - 40% chance to deal 50 damage and ministun.
• Works on allied creeps.
• Stun is blocked by magic immunity.
• Duration: 0.01/0.1/0.2/0.2
Mana Cost: N/A
Cooldown: N/A
A very good skill, especially for canceling channeling skills like Epicenter, Black Hole or even Town Portal. Notice that when you last hitting the creeps, often times, your attack will trigger Headshot.
Take Aim (E)
Kardel uses his dwarf engineering skills to make modifications to his rifle, enhancing the range of his rifle.
Level 1 - Attack Range +65.
Level 2 - Attack Range +130.
Level 3 - Attack Range +195.
Level 4 - Attack Range +260.
• Level 3 and 4 of this skill allow Kardel to out-range towers.
Mana Cost: N/A
Cooldown: N/A
A skill unique to Kardel, gives you better lane control, harass and creeping capabilities. If you are good enough, you can harass the enemies and when you know they're gonna come at you, you can back away easily due the long range. Especially useful against short ranged and melee heroes.
Assassinate (T)
Take time to draw a bead, and then deal a large amount of damage to the target at a huge range.
Level 1 - Deals 355 damage.
Level 2 - Deals 505 damage.
Level 3 - Deals 655 damage.
Mana Cost: 175/275/375
Cooldown: 20/15/10
• Damage type: magical
• Crosshair on target is visible to allies only.
• Invisibility doesn't affect the effect of this skill.
• Interrupts channeling spells.
• Interrupt works on magic immune units.
• Takes 1.7/1.65/1.5 seconds to cast.
• Casting range: 1500/2000/2500
Assassinate has a very long range and decent damage. Usually used as the finishing move when the enemies are fleeing. With only 10 secs cooldown at lvl 3, it can be also used as a nuke.
Dwarven Sniper Skill Build
Lvl 1 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 2 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 3 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 4 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 5 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 6 - Assassinate
Lvl 7 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 8 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 9 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 10 - Shrapnel
Lvl 11 - Assassinate
Lvl 12 - Shrapnel
Lvl 13 - Shrapnel
Lvl 14 - Shrapnel
Lvl 15 - Stats
Lvl 16 - Assassinate
Lvl 17-25 - Stats
Maxing out Headshot or Take Aim first really depends on the player. Headshot is taken because of the additional damage for harass and creeping (as I have explained earlier Headshot has this effect of kicking in when youre about to last hit creeps ) while Take Aim is taken for range, preferably for harassing without getting harassed or for lane survivability.
Maxing any of these two really depends on you. His SS is taken when available, because obviously it’s the only nuke you’ve got. Use it to kill fleeing heroes at low life, if you have mana to spare, don’t be afraid to spam it, it has a very low cooldown for an SS. After this Shrapnel is taken, at about the time you get to this level it would be mid game and shrapnel would be useful for ganks and defending towers.
Dwarven Sniper Item Build
Dwarven Sniper's core item should be like this:
or Power Threads is taken for attack speed, kardel doesn’t need to chase nor teleport, so phase boots and BoT wouldn’t be much useful. Lothars is taken early to avoid ganks, trust me this is where it all starts, get this as early as possible. Frankly, with no escape mechanisms, enemy heroes will be surely targeting you above all the others since you will be the easiest to kill. Lothars will help you escape these circumstances and avoid feeding the enemy team. The next item will be depending on you again.
Lifesteal will make you more versatile and will make you able to initiate. Maelstorm will give you good damage and speed and chain lightning, since you’re a fragile heroes, with this item you will have to come in last at ganks and kill of the nukers in the opposing team. Kardel is a good dps hero but has a very small health pool. Manta is built next even whether you are domi or maelstrom build.
Dwarven Sniper Luxury Items
Manta is a good item for kardel since it confuses the enemy of who to attack and gives hp and movespeed. MKB is a good luxury item because it is a massive dps dealer and goes with your headshot. It increases the mini stun probability of the hero and because it has a higher chance than bash, it can have almost the same effect. Basher is another luxury item because with headshot and MKB you will even seem more of a permabasher than troll who has a very small chance of bashing.
HoT or Linken is taken only in the maelstrom build, as you will need some kind of regen and life, take linken if there are a lot of disablers, especially if there’s a POTM and youre not a good dodger. For the Domi build, Satanic will cover your hp needs and lifesteal for regen. Butterfly is taken for attack speed, damage and evasion, which this hero critically needs.
Dwarven Sniper Strategy
At start game, buy boots and tangoes or healing salve. Getting boots early allows you to avoid early deaths. The early game is where kardel hides in his shell, you can either take bottom or top lane but avoid middle lane because you will probably not be able to take the heroes in this lane at the start. Make creeping your priority.
Kardel is a favorite hero of any good last hitter. If you can notice some heroes have a delay animation before attacking, for example, when drow attacks, she first pulls her arrow, and when she releases it, it again takes time for the arrow to reach the target. With no items, drow probably has an attack delay of about 1 sec., which makes it hard for her to last hit without any damage. When kardel attacks, the hit is almost instant. He last hits best among all other range heroes. Your job in early game is to dominate last hits and focus on the gold. Harass only if enemy heroes try to come close but after that go back to last hitting.
First item to focus buying is quatterstaff. Then buy claymore in your base then the recipe. If you’re a decent last hitter, you would be able to farm lothars before mid game starts. Now you can go solo in a lane without getting gangbanged. When in a lane, always stick to the side away from the jungle. When enemies gangbang you, you would be able to see them coming this way, use lothars then switch to another lane. Join ganks whenever possible, but be careful only to come out from invi after they initiate. Try to get last hits on fleeing heroes with assassinate. Slowly build up whichever luxury item you want. I suggest getting manta first for survivability.
When in a clash, just use lothars and go in after your allies initiate, use manta and finish of the nukers. This will help your team a lot since in gangbangs they mostly focus on the tank or the initiator, they leave alone the nukers to spend out all their nukes in a clash, which of course is a bad thing, much more so with disablers. Also, don’t forget to use shrapnel during ganks or clashes, the slow effect can really help a lot.
Well that’s about the only thing with kardel. He doesn’t require much strategy or skill combos but rather just some decent farming, avoiding getting killed and effectively participating in ganks.
Hope this guide helped. That’s all folks!... XD
This guide is written by glennlevi.
This post contain Sniper Guide & Build - Kardel Sharpeye the Dwarven Sniper Strategy. If you have different build or strategy, you can give your comments or make your own guide on the Dwarven Sniper Forum.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
MeepoBot | Poof Bot for Geomaner, Meepo
MeepoBot is small program created for Geomaner, Meepo in DotA. It allows you to cast Poof to your clones in just 1 click. By using this program you can deal mass amount of damage to your enemies in one instant. MeepoBot is helpful for those players who don't like to play Meepo because it is hard to control him. Meepobot should help those players to enhance their gameplay with Geomancer.Download
This Week Dota Videos
Hello guys! Here are the Dota videos for this weeks. Check them out!
The first one is the DVKM: SWEAT LIKE US DotA Movie. A notable move is when Magnus blink to deny the tower while the Tinker projectile is moving on and yet still manage to kill Tinker.
The next one is House.of.DotA.vol.3. You will see the Familiar got a double kill. Awesome. Hope this video can help you spend the time while waiting Icarus the Phoenix on Dota 6.68. As usual, the videos is taken from Dota-Blog Media forums. Check out other awesome video there. Thanks .|c000000ffJK! ;)
The first one is the DVKM: SWEAT LIKE US DotA Movie. A notable move is when Magnus blink to deny the tower while the Tinker projectile is moving on and yet still manage to kill Tinker.
The next one is House.of.DotA.vol.3. You will see the Familiar got a double kill. Awesome. Hope this video can help you spend the time while waiting Icarus the Phoenix on Dota 6.68. As usual, the videos is taken from Dota-Blog Media forums. Check out other awesome video there. Thanks .|c000000ffJK! ;)
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Jakiro the Twin Head Dragon Guide & Walkthrought
Jakiro currently isn't used much, neither in competitive DotA nor in public games. That doesn't mean that he's a bad hero though. He is a fun hero to use, all his 3 active skills require some sort of aiming, positioning and timing for maximum effect. He is a very potent pusher and has loads of AoE-spells up his sleeve to create havoc in clashes. Unfortunately he has trouble with teams that focus on armor reduction, which are rather common these days... His teamfight-presence is easily countered by Blademails, Pipes and Hoods.Skillbuild
Level 1: Dual Breath
Level 2: Ice Path
Level 3: Dual Breath
Level 4: Liquid Fire
Level 5: Dual Breath
Level 6: Liquid Fire
Level 7: Dual Breath
Level 8: Liquid Fire
Level 9: Liquid Fire
Level 10: Macropyre
Level 11: Macropyre
Level 12:Ice Path
Level 13: Ice Path
Level 14: Ice Path
Level 15: Stats
Level 16: Macropyre
Levels 17-25: Statsstatsstats...
Justification:
Dual Breath is ALWAYS maxed first. It's your best skill, its a strong AoE nuke, it slows. Nuff said.
Icepath vs. Liquid Fire: Liquid Fire is a superb pushing skill and doesn't even cost mana. If your team is running a push-strat this spell along with dual breath is gonna help a lot, the fact that it damages and slows tower attacks is invaluable. The first level of Ice Path disables a full second compared to 2 seconds with Ice Path maxed, thats why i threw a level in there. I consider this skill-build fairly balanced, you can ofc screw this proposed skill-build and do whatever the fuck you want. I'm serious, both skills have their uses, the one shines in pushing/farming, the other in ganking/clashes.
Macropyre has a pretty high manacost and little effect on lower levels, especially when you take into consideration that its best used in big clashes, which will not occurr at early stages of the game. After the buffs of 6.65, it isn't completely retarded to get it at 6, i still wouldn't advise it though. Adapt, if you somehow have too much mana (*cough* Maiden *cough*) or you can make good use of it for some reason (e.g. multiple enemies trying to get a tower early) feel free to level it earlier.
Note: Skill- or item builds are not set in stone. Except for Dual Breath. Dual Breath is ALWAYS (!!!) maxed first. Adapt to the game.
Itembuild
I already mentioned THD isn't item-dependant. Hence it doesn't really matter what you get. Get whatever your team needs. That being said, i still want to give you a general guideline, because even if you think your team needs a Battlefury, it probably doesn't. At least not on you.
Starting items:
Jakiro is most likely gonna be the designated support hero, so you will probably buy chicken or wards. the branches will be turned into wand later, and basic regen is self-explicable. In case you don't have to buy chicken or wards, just get a gauntlet for urn.
Core:
optional
Seems very cheap for a core, right? Well it is. You really dont necessarily NEED more for your hero to work. which is one of the reasons why you will most likely spend a good deal of your cash on wards. The obligatory wand for some cheap stats and its awesome active and the newly introduced Urn of Shadows. This item is the shit on pretty much every support hero, Jakiro is no exception. Manaregen, HP, and its active ability make it a worthwhile investment. Bottle is optional, only get it if you're soloing mid, ganking a lot or don't have any good bottle-carriers in your team. "Bottle-crowing" (using a crow to constantly refill your botte at the fountain) is a very cost-effective way to keep spamming Dual Breath during laning. Basilius is optional as well, get it when you really have trouble with physical damage and arent aiming for mek, or when youre aiming for vlads anyway.
Possible extensions:
Just because you don't NEED more doesn't mean you can't GET more. THD is a great farmer and will get some cash.
* Mekansm provides you with moar armor, and THDs intelligence is high enough to cope with the manacost. the most common extension for jakiro, you can't really go wrong with it. *RECOMMENDED*
* Vlads will make use of that basilius of yours, gives a little more armor, some pushing power and hopefully help some allied melee heroes.
* Pipe is gonna help Jakiro a lot against spells, he has high hp so the resistance will be more effective on him compared to most other supports, and the active is very useful against teams with lots of AoE nukes (like yourself for example)
* Blink is a great item, and nearly every hero can make good use of it. It's not crucial for Jakiro, but it certainly helps in landing his spells for maximum effect.
* Euls provides cheap manaregen, movement speed and the cyclone. not particularly great on Jakiro, but not terrible either.
* Necrobook is good to win ward wars and counter heroes that rely on invisibility, and Jakiro has no trouble rushing it.
* Arcane aids constant spamming, which can be crucial in push-strats. Only get it when your allies also benefit from it though.
* For THD himself a single voidstone should be enough regen to keep spamming very liberatly. Personal favourite. *RECOMMENDED*
* Force Staff is situationally really useful, and serves as some kind of substitute to blink. remember that you can use the force on EVERY hero, not just yourself.
* Boots of Travel are always welcome on heroes that clear creeps as fast as THD. Recommended if you plan on farming a lot or need the map-control/mobility. A must come lategame.
Note: ONE meka/vlads/pipe is really enough for a team, so ask your allies if they intend to buy one.
Possible luxuries:
So you had to steal all that farm from your carry, didn't you? Or you just killstealed like mad? Alright, no worries, still lots of items you can get.
* Shivas is great on THD. Moar armor, which makes you incredibly tanky for an intelligence hero, the -AS aura, and, last but not least, Arctic Blast synergizes so well with not only your skillset, but also your theme! Really helpful if those mean carries think they can 3-shot the lil support hero.
* Aghanims' stats are frankly not as useful on jakiro as on others because he has very good stats already, still, it improves your ult.The flamestrikes of Macropyre will be created faster, which helps in actually hurting ppl with it. After the release of DotA 6.65 however, this item isn't nearly is a good as before. I recommend to only get it when you have something like Void or Magnus in your team, which give you an easy time landing a full damage Macropyre.
* Hex is just a great item, and jakiro can farm it easily if its needed. you will never have mananeeds again. hexed targets are easy to burn! *RECOMMENDED*
* Blademail is situational, but considering you have to be rather close in clashes to cast your stuff, this might either save your life or deal significant damage when you're on the receiving end of some AoE spells. the armor helps as well.
* Ghost scepter is a good item if you are dealing with a fat carry that has either high hp or magic immunity, hence wont be affected much by a blademail. push the button and he cant touch you. careful though, dont get nuked into the ground while etheral.
Note: Even though THD is a great support hero by nature, he also happens to be a beastly farmer. This makes it perfectly viable to rush one of those luxury items on him. A fast guinsoo for example is always welcome. Just dont steal farm from heroes that need it more than you do.
Gameplay:
Laning:
Usually you shouldn't solo THD. he can do it np, but he doesn't really need the money and experience. He will, however, most likely be able to push the tower in no time. Jakiro shines in offensive lanes. He can make for some nasty dual-lane with Clockwerk, Juggernaut, Sand King, Sven, stuff like that. Especially clockwerk works great, creeps die so battery is more effective, enemies get slowed so he can reach them. You should usually be the one intiating due to Dual Breaths huge range, then wait for your ally to make his move and follow with Ice Path.
Jakiro is a very strong laner, i advise you to take advantage of that and not leave your lanepartner alone to solo-gank when there is no need for it, let alone roam.
Use Dual Breath rather liberately for harrass, but save mana to go for a kill with your ally if a good situation arises. Try to get at least one creep when harrassing a hero, or even better harrass both heroes with one breath. don't walk up to them like an idiot though, stay rather close to the creepwave and breath them when theyre moving in for a lasthit. That's pretty easy considering its huge range. Use the slow of dual breath to get some extra attacks in for harrass. Be careful with creep aggro, you only have 400 range and mediocre animation. Due to your low armor you might end up taking more damage from creeps than you dealt to your enemy with your attack.
In case you're trying to push towers fast there are other good lanepartners, like Pugna or Pit for example. Liquid Fire combined with creep advantage will get towers down in no time.
Ganking:
THD is a fairly decent ganker if you know how to aim your stuff. Dont forget that your spells are AoE, you can easily hit 2 targets with Dual Breath, same goes for a well aimed Ice Path.
Usually you'd want an ally to start the gank with a stun so you can chain Ice Path, if thats not possible try to start with Dual Breath so its easier to land Ice Path. Both Ice Path and Dual Breath have decent range, keep that in mind. You dont have to put yourself in too much danger to use them effectively. Use Macropyre when you're sure the target is gonna be disabled for some time and actually takes some damage, if the enemy hero isn't very tanky it's usually a waste against a single target.
Pushing:
Quite simple. Use Dual Breath to clear creeps, and always try to get Liquid Fire off on the tower, ideally on both the tower and the creepwave. Pushing is one of the few things THD can do completely on his own, a bit like Brood - just be more careful, you can't spin a web!
If the tower is going to die and your opponents are getting ready to deny, you can use Ice Path to keep them from doing so and gtfo. Alternatively you can blow out Macropyre and Dual Breath afterwards and go for a kill or two, depending on the situation.
Teamfights:
Don't initiate with Macropyre, at least not like your regular initiator (Tide/ES/SK/etc.). Try to read the battle. Do you have an allied AoE disabler? Drop Macropyre where he catched some, dual breath them and extend the disable with Ice Path. You do not have an allied AoE disabler? Well that blows. Jakiro really likes those. No worries though, you're still far from useless. Battles usually aren't stationary, try to foresee in which direction 2+ enemy heroes that are close to each other will move (works great if they are focusing one of your allies), and drop Macropyre there, dual breath before or after, dependant on the situation. Ice Path generally should be used after macropyre, if you cast Ice Path and Macropyre afterwards they will barely stand one second in it. Since 6.65 that isn't such a big deal anymore though.
Another good trick is to cast macropyre from fog and/or on narrow passages. Fights at roshan for example are great, there's little space and people have to stand in it. Same goes for fights at the base entries.
Try to get off Liquid Fire on carries to slow their attackspeed if possible, although that isn't as important as timing/aiming your spells correctly.
Warding:
This is an essential part of playing support in an organized game. However, its basically the same for every hero, you will not need to do it when playing public games and theres a very good guide that covers all the basics about warding on PD. Hence, im just gonna give you a link to this guide: Click HERE to visit Eumellein's Wardposition guide.
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