General Discussion

General DiscussionNavi first to show the power of Skywrath

Navi first to show the power of Skywrath in General Discussion
Relentless

    EG wins game 1. Game 2 EG first bans SWM again. Now batrider, wisp, kotl, and magus get into the game.

    Also Dendi gets to play pudge! EG wins game 2 shutting down pudge hard with wisp-sven map presence.

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    kd

      SD can easily counter SWM .. he can outharras him , and everytime he wants to kill u have decay to evade ult / spams ...

      Sayzee

        I think SD = Shadow Demon, but decay is for undying..
        plz explain
        that day Na`Vi vs EG, Dendi raped puck though puck tried dodging every shit SKM throws at him, but then Dendi started using silence, and threw 2 shits at puck, did it a lot, gained a lot of lane control, and killed puck 3 times at lane

        shuki

          Considering they want to pick magnus, it doesn't surprise me that they ban SKM. I really think it comes down to how demon got raped by SKM the day earlier and they haven't practiced versus the hero.

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          murs

            ya skywrath is a very strong hero

            kd

              @ED^MapzOr

              shadow demon , distruption ... ez to fu*k SKM's ult

              Fire_Sign

                So strong earlygame, but can be easily countered by blademale and force staff later on...

                Tormenta de Cielo

                  "SD can easily counter SWM .. he can outharras him , and everytime he wants to kill u have decay to evade ult / spams ..."
                  It doesn't matter what you have if you're silenced. ;P

                  There is no doubt that Skywrath has most definitely had a large effect on the pro scene. He is fairly prominently picked and banned (as shown by Relentless throughout this thread). Whether he will stay there is the question, but I do agree with the OP in the general, Skywrath Mage is having an effect on drafting.

                  Relentless

                    SD is good at saving from many ganks. The clutch defensive disruption and the purge slowing a magic immune target are the reasons SD is picked at the pro level.

                    But defensive disruption is not the effective against Skywrath Mage for two reasons. One is that it can set up Mystic Flare. The other is more important. The duration of Ancient Seal (6 seconds) is so long that a 2.5 sec disruption is not enough to cover it.

                    Disruption will cover you for so many stuns because they are nearly all shorter than 2.5 seconds. So at the end you come out and can use your escape skill. Disruption will totally negate the stun duration from Fissure, Storm Hammer, Avalanche, Torrent, Hoof Stomp, Burrow Strike, Crush, Ravage, Hellfire Blast, Any bash, Magic Missile, Impale, Light Strike Array, Ice Path, FireBlast, Telekenisis, Spike, Reapers Scythe, Split Earth...and cuts most of the duration of every other stun in the game!!! That is an enormous amount of defensive utility...but, but, but...

                    Even with defensive disruption, Ancient Seal still has over 3 sec of silence left when you come out...its not going to save the target. This is why pros will eventually have to pick up Omniknight, Dazzle, or VS against SWM for their extremely strong defensive skills. Play will need to shift back to more babysitting and since you are going to babysit anyway...you can pick a wider range of carries.

                    Waiting for Fstaffs to be farmed takes to long. The critical time period is before 15 min and setting a support to early farming to get a Fstaff wrecks other aspects of how a team functions so that will never happen.

                    So for a while SWM will just be banned against teams that have proven they can use it. Then eventually strategy and hero picks will shift to more defensive play opening up the pool of carries and semi carries that can be employed in pro games.

                    SWM is going to win solo mid over and over until someone figures out that what you really need is a strong defensive support to port in like Chaun and save the mid solo when the attack comes. You have to port with Jedi reflexes and pretty much need to be either Dazzle or Omniknight...but its possible. Until that happens we will keep seeing shoutcasters missing SWM kills on the opposing mid solo because its too fast and he doesn't move much on the mini-map to kill them. His spells dive the tower for him so you can't easily tell that its happening when watching the tri-lane.

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                    near

                      i like the idea of a changing meta game and swm getting into the scene or indeed any new heroes dont think we'll be seeing omniknight even though he has a very strong spell set his weakness has been that he needs some farm and levels and he has no disable and a nuke that without strong setup can be very difficult to land but the current meta is getting a little boring so change would be welcome. dazzle would be welcome maybe a slight buff to his ult or shadow wave could make him a strong support or even a mid solo hes a really interesting hero and shallow grave is still game breaking in the right circumstances

                      IlIlIlIl

                        Any1 know where I can see this "domination" of Dendi with SWM?

                        Relentless

                          ^^links already posted to some of the games earlier in the thread.

                          Omniknight only needs level 1 to do his job on a defensive tri-lane during the laning phase. He just needs to be there ready to cast repel and make killing the carry impossible. He can get soul ring with no farm at all in the first 3 min and that is enough mana for the first 15 min of the game.

                          No disable is really the reason Omniknight is not used instead of SD who has both offensive and defensive abilities. However, when repel will save you and disruption will not which one do you want?

                          Eventually repel can be purged with diffusal blade from the carry or a gank target, but bkb will come by the time the carry needs to teamfight anyway. The carry will be able to farm early with no possibility of ganks. And repel provides a free 3900 gold item to an initiator who now does not need to farm bkb to be effective.

                          When it comes to late game Guardian Angel lasts longer than a late game bkb and blocks all physical dmg on the entire team...What? you have Gyrocopter with divine + 3 other dmg items? Still he does no dmg until his bkb is over...then he dies. Mag hits a 4 man RP, Sven crits them for 3,000 dmg!!! and it still does nothing if Guardian angel is there.

                          Omni is not as good as offensive supports...unless you really need the strong defense early and no other hero can do it.

                          Dazzle can't totally stop a gank cold the way Omni can, but he can still keep someone alive long enough for them to juke away and heal up. He also does have a lot better slow than Omni, but his armor-ult is no where near as good at the pro-level where teamfights are so much more dependent on the 5 sec burst of damage since they revolve around bkb timeing.

                          If you let your carrys skip bkb they can get more dmg...ie 4 divines
                          http://dotabuff.com/matches/46813995

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                          Workman

                            Dendi SWM vs. Fnatic. in the WePlay tournament, casters are hella interested and haven't had a chance to see him yet. Looking forward to the match and their reactions, assuming he continues to dominate with SWM.

                            Edit: Fnatic. sends a Treant mid to counter SWM!

                            Edit2: Dendi gettin' his butt kicked so far, no kills and ganked successfully twice so far.

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                            kd

                              treant vs swm ... gg :D

                              Relentless

                                Very smart of Fnatic to take my suggestion from 2 days ago to use living armor spam against SWM. Though I'm sure they came up with it themselves rather than reading my post.

                                Ooh we see storm rushing the Fstaff to save Naix from SWM. He gets it at 17 min and has already saved Naix once at 18 min.

                                Storm not always paying attention...Naix dies to SWM again at 21 min.

                                Doesn't seem to be enough Dendi SWM still almost teamwipes them at 24 min

                                gg called 30 min...need more fstaffs maybe?

                                They tried to use Bristleback as a distraction for split pushing with Lycan and NP. I don't think it worked very well, but it didn't matter since storm and Naix could not do anything when they jumped in except kill one support and then die.

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                                shuki

                                  Pretty sure the naix and bristle were pretty important in that game.

                                  kd

                                    Fnatic play really bad lately ... first game they gave away at lane setup (they had to put DS against Prophet bcz DS can easily 1v1 almost every hero, and Brood + Dazzle + nyx can outplay Naix + rubick easily ... they would had T2 pushed at 8th minute, and Chen would no longer have his forest , and game won afterwards ... ). second they gave away bcz they had no dmg to right-click lycan and bristle ... undying pick was "wtf" to me ... u have defensive support in treant .. why do u need one more? ... and why pick SD if u have no follow up for distruption? and storm's force staff fu*ed them ... he had to go orchid asap .. not fs ...

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                                      Hard to say if it's bad play or perhaps they're focus is on something else. TI3 is coming up so they may be using these matches as more of a scrimmage to try new things out, new combos etc. It's like pre-season for sports teams. They'll play games against other teams because there's only so much you can do practicing against your own team mates.

                                      Some games are just more important than others, so it's hard to tell but it could be they just viewed these as a chance to try out some new things.

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                                        Guess the circle is complete, SWM first pick for Qpad.. wonder if he'll make the banned for round two.

                                        Sayzee

                                          BM + SWM was a nice combo, but that wasn't the reason dignitas lost, its because their carry had no farm, and when got only a bit of farm, they got a trade 3-4, and the score was 19-36 I think, so a 3-4 trade is rly nice, u can say 3-5 trade, because puck died with aegis, and then died again

                                          Relentless

                                            Lol 5 hero gank on SWM and Mag still dies.

                                            Relentless

                                              Whew! QPAD manages to throw game 2 on Select naix getting picked off 4 times in a row. And Wagamamas NP eventually getting out carried by Aui_2000 on Luna. Lots of confusion for both teams this game. Skywrath takes his first pro loss. Now 9-1.

                                              gromoChichoBranche

                                                Yeah i agree, swm strong hero, he will actually be picked and banned in the pro scene for now. We'll se how it goes.
                                                @ yeah reantless ur right, select throw that game badly, he must be aware of his positioning, even he got cut 4 times he could be much more becouse he was greedy for the farm.
                                                And Sing sing did well that game, not perfectly but OK.

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                                                TicTac
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                                                  Relentless

                                                    QPAD goes with a bizzare offensive tri-lane of SWM Kotl and Weaver (really no stuns in an offensive tri-lane?) They give up 3 quick kills and then flail around all game in confusion.

                                                    Dignitas shows how SWM is not good as a comeback hero. Being 5 levels and 3k gold behind puck, puck can beat SWM rather easily. SWM now 9-2.

                                                    Aui_2000 on LD crushed Waggamama on DS in the bot lane. I saw some very nice Rubic play by Fogged as well this last game.

                                                    It looks like QPAD needed a lot more practice on this hero and in general as a team. They often seem like they don't know what the plan is, where they are going or when, who is the top priority target. Someone on that team needs to take control.

                                                    Drafting a team with 1 single target stun...apparently Navi can pull it off, but at this point the Red Pandas clearly cannot.

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                                                    Totentanz to The King: M ...

                                                      Mother of text walls.