I wrote the actual post before, and it was twice as good and twice as long (well, not really), but because of Blogger's mistake, I had to suffer. The scheduled maintenance was on the 25th, but they postponed it to 26th without updating the notice. Anyway, here's the post. I've probably missed out a few lines, since I've had to retype the whole thing again without any backup.

One of the most hotly debated hero choices, we've seen this topic sprouting up on discussion forums dozens of times. Yep, we're talking about Puck and QoP. Both of them play similar roles in a team. Both of them are top league heroes. Both of them are my personal favourites. Here are just a few points I can make on this topic.

First, Puck.
Puck is an overall fantastic hero, with an awesome skillset and excellent spell synergy. He works as an initiator, which is a rare trait for an Intelligence hero. He can lane well with most heroes and functions well both solo and in a dual lane. His AoE is HUGE because of his blink-like Illusory Orb (both an initiation tool and an escape mechanism in one neat spell) and Dream Coil. Puck is noticeably stronger than QoP early-game, and by level 7 his combo is already devastating. His skills are also easy on his mana pool so he doesn't have mana problems like the QoP does.

His trademark initiation combo viz. the Orb + Rift + Dream Coil combo, is gamebreaking; and coupled with the silence, is considered one of the deadliest combos in the game, which explains why he's banned in almost all competitive games. Phase Shift, is one the best skills in the game in proper hands. Puck can dominate with just a few items at his disposal. The recent July 2008 PDL list by MYM Ruven shows that Puck is the most banned hero. He works wonderfully well with most other league heroes and requires a fair bit of cooperation from the team.

Basically, Puck's main role is to initiate, do as much damage as possible with his combo, and then Phase Shift. Your allies then follow up. Enemies can either decide to wait for you to come out of Phase Shift, or they can move to attack your allies (which they probably will do, because any time wasted here gives your team the upperhand in the combat situation). Nevertheless, your job is done and you can rest in peace. If you do survive, you can easily single out low-HP heroes and finish them off. In one line, Puck is a powerful AoE early game initiator and ganker, and can offer tons of support late game.

Agreed both QoP and Puck have similar roles, but in some ways, QoP is better. Here are a few instances:

1) Puck does not have the adaptability that QoP does. He's an initiator/ganker, but that's the only thing (of course, he's excellent at this.)

2) Bad attack animation compared to QoP's, but can be overcome with enough practice.

3) Gets weaker during late-game, where his spells barely scathe enemies.

4) As an escape mechanism, the Illusory Orb + Phase Shift + Ethereal Jaunt is not as effective as QoP's low CD blink.

5) Banned in competitive games almost always.


Next, the QoP.

The Queen of Pain is, in other words, the Queen of Unmatched Mobility. She was a notorious league pick during the 6.48 days and was always banned. The game progressed, new updates came along and IceFrog decided to nerf her. This made an impact, but a good one in fact. She moved from the list of ALWAYS BANNED heroes to PICKED heroes. Players started to think of new ways to bring her back to the glory days, and have been quite successful with the carry QoP.

What sets her apart from Puck is her mobility, versatality and adaptability. She can take on any role the team throws at her. Want a carry? QoP's there for you. Want a nuker? QoP's there for you. Need support? She's there again. She can chase indefinitely and can also serve as bait, which is priceless. Her best ability is to quickly sneak up behind enemies and slowly, but surely, remove their HP with SoP. And when the battle is almost over with just a few survivors left, she can kill all of them with the SoP + SW combo. Blink is THE best skill in the game. Period.

As a theorycrafter, I'd say that all the enemy's have a blind spot (region near your enemy where they can see, but can't notice because of the intensity of the current team battle). QoP can easily get into their blind spots.

She has one of the best attack animations in the game and can easily get last hits. She can turn the tide of the battle with her massive AoE damage, and turn the hunters into the hunted. A potential gank can be countered if you successfully get off your SoP + SW, and quite possibly even counter-gank them.

In some situations Puck is better than QoP -

1) Puck has better ganking ability early-mid game.

2) Dream Coil is much better than QoP's Sonic Wave because. At level 16, a 600 damage constant AoE nuke cannot compare to Puck's 200 + 200 damage 3.5 second stun. Dream Coil is much better in team battles. It also has a lower cooldown and mana cost.

3) When playing QoP, having a bad early game usually means that your whole game is more or less messed up. This is because QoP needs to have a level and gold advantage to be powerful. Puck, on the other hand, can make a relatively quick comeback.

4) Puck is better suited to the current metagame because he's much better than QoP at mass team battles and skirmishes.

5) Puck has marginally better lane control.

6) Is not as mana-intensive as QoP and has a better mana pool.

7) Puck isn't as gold-intensive as QoP and functions well with just a few items.


So this was the basic idea. Here's a simple analogy on who's better.

Early game - Puck
Mid game - Both of them are more or less equal
Late game- QoP

As you can see, it's difficult to give a clear cut answer to this question. But we can say that Puck has a slightly upperhand and is a notch better because of his Silence and better chemistry between allies. Also, Puck has more team presence. Again, it depends on your allies as well, but if you want to compare the two heroes like this, this would be my point of view.

I've seen some people laugh at the very idea of a mid solo Magnus. This is a post to prove them WRONG.
In fact, Magnus is one of the most powerful choices for the mid lane and can actually outcarry a Spectre, despite being a melee STR hero with a bad attack animation, and a hopeless attack swing.
But that doesn't matter, because you'll hardly be melee hitting much. You just need to make sure that you have a good early game, and that you do -- by going mid solo. =)
The key to soloing mid lane with a Magnus just as good as a Nevermore, if not better, is Shockwave.
Yes, just one single usable spell - Shockwave. Let's see why --

Shockwave has a pretty good AoE damage (300), but the cooldown and mana cost is just plain AWESOME. With a 90 mana req. and 11/10/9/8 second cooldown, it's as spammable as it gets.
But the real reason why we need middle lane is for the runes. And the Empty Bottle is the key item for this strategy.
When you start off in the mid lane, make sure you ALWAYS get a bottle, and a set of tangoes. Get the first rune that spawns. Head back to your lane and last hit normally till level 3. Try to get in a few melee hits on the enemy as well. After you reach level 3, start using Shockwave such that you hit the enemy hero AND get your creep kills while doing so. You should spam Shockwave from level 3 to 5. Spam like there's no tomorrow. Rune race to either side of the river and refill your bottle with the runes that spawn every two minutes.
If luck was on your side, and you happened to have a newb opponent laner, then you should have gotten a kill or two by level 5. If you did your 'Rune Racing' well, then your opponent just doesn't stand a chance.

If you're still not convinced, then just try it out. Works wonders.
Here's a replay of me playing Magnus mid solo (Sentinel) in a pub game on Garena

http://files.filefront.com/FeynorMagnusMidSolo/;13447931;/fileinfo.html

Observe the early game part of the game, which is the most important part of your play. I lane with an opponent Mirana who doesn't have the time to hit me because I'm always moving around for runes and spamming shockwave (plus, she wasn't exactly the best Mirana I've known. :P)
I get a quick godlike spree, followed by two silly deaths, and then a few kills again. Watch, and see for yourself how powerful a Magnus can get.

Note: Where I play, people still use v1.20e. So if you want to watch the replay, just use the 'Warcraft TFT Version Switcher'. Click here to download.

Oh, and I won't be discussing item builds or anything in this post, because there are guides for that. For items, I think it's pretty obvious that you get a Blink Dagger and maybe something along the lines of Armlet of Mordiggian.

Finally done with my exams, and here's a post to celebrate it. =)

Okay, so here's a new concept which I guess some of you already know, but I'll be presenting it differently. I'm sure it hasn't been brought out as a separate tactic elsewhere, so this should be interesting.

Terrain and fog of war is an extremely important aspect of playing DotA and is often overlooked by new players. Tree manipulation is just as important.

So here's the basic idea: You use skills and items which destroy trees to establish and maintain lane control early game, and also use it whenever necessary; if the situation calls for it. Here's what I think is one of the most basic types of tree tactics (but useful nonetheless)

Side Lane Tactics (top lane for Sentinel and bottom lane for Scourge): This one involves destroying trees near the first tower and occupying that region, so that you can stop the enemy laner from entering into your AoI (area of influence), denying him both EXP and gold. It works with most heroes, but EXCEPTIONALLY well when you're a ranged hero with 'tree-chopping' techniques (Power Shot, Wild Axes, Lightning Strike Array, Split Earth) allied with another ranged hero.

There are basically two ways of destroying trees. You can either use your hero's skills... or you can depend on one of my favourite items - Tangoes. Using tangoes to destroy trees takes a longer time, but you can regen HP. It isn't so bad if you can get your ally to help you with this.

To explain this, I'd like to do it with a hero as always. For this post, it'll be Alleria the Windrunner in the top lane. You can do this solo, but it's better to have an ally. Take a look at these pictures I made. (Click to enlarge if you can't see them clearly)


STEP 1: The AoI (Area of Influence) is the region in dark gray where both your AoE's overlap over each other. An AoI is stronger than a single hero's AoE. Also note that your range is just enough to cover the creeps and the trees, but not the enemy hero. So he still can get a lucky creep kill when you're trying to get last hits. He uses his tower as a safe base from your harassment.


STEP 2: Next, use Powershot or Tangoes to destroy the trees. Both work. Move your hero into the empty region.

STEP 3: Now your AoE shifts position and you have better spatial control. The pink area (your AoE) covers your opponent, so he moves back to avoid harassment. Now you've accomplished the task of forcing your opponent to move back. The position you're in, right now, is a very favourable one. You can keep your opponent in check, AND farm effectively at the same time. You have absolute lane control.

P.S: Note that AoI is different from AoE. AoE is a single hero's range capacity, whereas an AoI is the region of overlapping of two different AoE's. If two heroes with similar AoE are just next to each other, then their AoI and AoE would be almost equal. If they're farther apart, like in my images, then the AoI is lesser.

Notice: I will not be posting till 6th March because of my exams, although I may still check my blog once in a while to reply to comments. Sorry for the inactivity =(
Meanwhile, you can subscribe to feeds or submit your email in the 'Subscribe to posts by email' menu so that you know when the blog is back up and running.


Okay, so it's been half a month since I started this blog, and I'm going to be inactive for a few days as stated above. So I'd like to know how my blog has been so far. How do you like my blog's theme? How are the posts? Do you want any changes in blog layout? What kind of posts do you want to see in the future? Anything.
Comments and suggestions to improve the blog are greatly appreciated and I will try to implement them if they seem appealing.

This post will also serve as a permanent comments and suggestions page and I will link it to the blog's main page.

Here's a list of links to all the posts:
1) Introduction: First Post
2) Linear Skill Growth vs. Exponential Skill Growth
3) Understanding hero combos
4) Top 5 Most Useful DotA Programs
5) Advanced Last-hitting strategies
6) Garena and B.net comparison
7) v6.59 Update commentary
8) Analysis post -- Tanks: The DotA Meatshields
9) Warcraft 4... is there ever going to be one?
10) Earthshaker - most accountable team hero
11) Sun Tzu's Art of War and DotA
12) DotA Actions Hierarchy
13) INT Heroes' late-game potential

Common idea: INT heroes are good early-mid game but they become quite useless late game. Wrong. Actually, INT Heroes are strong early-late. It's just their usage and playstyle that changes. In the laning phase, they're important because of the sheer power of their nukes and stuns which is extremely useful for any team situation. Not to mention their ability to arrive on the scene and kill quickly (which gives flexibility for planning strategies spontaneously.)

In fact, I believe that INT heroes are 'carry carries', because they're the ones that hold the game long enough for the true carries to get powerful. Which is why they're picked in each and every game.

So let's get to the topic: How INT heroes can be useful late-game (even in public games)
For one thing, we know that some of the INT heroes can become semi-carries (sometimes, the main carry) late game. Examples are Nortrom, Obsidian Destroyer, QoP, Alleria, so on.

Though some may disagree, nukes are still powerful late-game because of their RELIABILITY. Look at my 'Understanding hero combos' post for more details. Nothing beats arriving to the scene and dealing quick and instant burst damage. I'd like to call nukes as the early game 'EARLY GAME OBLITERATORS' and the 'LATE-GAME CARRY COUNTERS'
Early game, you dominate by relying on your nukes' damage. But how they're useful late-game is what's interesting.

Late game is when most carry heroes rely on their physical attacks (Troll, Morphling, etc.) and have to stand and trade hits to deal damage. So when you're up against such a hero (farmed), standing and trading hits with him is not the best idea. A better idea is to stall for time and waiting for the initiators/nukers arrive. Nukers don't have to trade hits; because they can quickly and efficiently deal damage regardless of how strong the opponent is. This is what makes them important 'carry counters'. When it's an AGI vs. AGI it depends on who has more DPS (bash chance, lifesteal, etc. also comes into play; but let's keep things simple). The weaker person can't hold his own in a stand-ground duel vs. the enemy carry. But NUKERS can ninja a spell from afar.

Let me illustrate this with an example: Zeus, an INT nuker.
Early game your nukes hurt hard, and if you play your cards right, the game shouldn't last very long. Mid-game you take on the role of a ganker. Late-game (where most people believe you're weak) is where it's different. Now, heroes can take on your spells and still survive. So you have to move into the 'second-line' of attack and change your playstyle to 'ninja' mode. Before the bulk of the battle begins, try to get in a Lightning Strike on a key hero; it helps more than you think it does. Even a -200 HP to start with makes your team target that hero first. Also you're good at initiating a 'focus-fire sequence' because of the huge casting spell effect. Improvise.

There are loads of other things which you can do late-game as well. Here are a few:
Initiate 'focus-fire sequence' with a Guinsoo (which most people buy for INT heroes); provide solid support to your team in the form of a Shiva's Guard; massive AoE, mind games (because of your low cooldown-spells and a disable if you've purchased a Guinsoo), ability to counter carries, so on and so forth. The possibilities are endless.

Sometimes, overfarmed carries tend to think gung-ho and look down on their team's casters and nukers. And you know what'd happen to such a team.

3) Outfarming your opponents: A sure-shot way to win, and just a LITTLE less important than the above. Items often determine a game. They're what allow a carry hero to carry. Watching an overfarmed Troll killing you like ants isn't an uncommon or surprising sight. Ganking and killing is all well and good, but if you don't atleast TRY to farm, you're going to lose out on items (unless you're getting all the hero kills). Farming this way is good, because you have a back-up in case your enemy Troll just escaped a few ganks with 5 hp and is now saving up gold.