u/Pixelpaws

For the ones that don't explicitly say ranked, are these available in unranked games as well?

How long is the season? Am I overlooking something, or is that just not stated right now?

black/x control becomes a thing

This is basically how I've been playing in some casual drafts with friends. It's been reasonably effective at that tier, but I'm sure people who are good at the game would know how to play around it pretty effectively.

If facebook [...] had better access to the product

This is the big one, far as I'm concerned. Unless you were logged into Facebook, the stream was unwatchable. I don't trust Facebook, but could maybe have found it tolerable as a (mostly) anonymous viewer if that was an option. But it never was so I never gave it a chance at all.

I can't speak to being THAT low, but a friend of mine has 1500+ games played, an MMR that bounces between 700 and 950, and has never gotten any sort of behavior related penalty.

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As such it's kinda fun duo queuing with them if only because the game is going to be a glorious clusterfuck. No matter how ridiculous your strategy is, the other team won't have the coordination to counter you. Granted, your team won't be able to help you either, but at least you can _try_ anything without getting flamed. Except maybe Techies.

When do we get a skin where he just rides Centaur?

Always neat to see more parts of the world getting into esports. Hopefully this works out well for everyone involved.

To the people making bad jokes in this thread: Why not pick on the ESL involvement instead? With the backing of ESL I'm sure there will be tens of people watching a laggy, 360p Facebook stream that asks you every 15 seconds if you want to log in.

So, with the treasure odds now being posted, I came up with this table for your odds of getting a treasure of a certain rarity within X number of chests. Feel free to reference this next time you're feeling salty about not getting a rare set.

You have the chance of getting at least one of the item at that rarity within the listed number of pulls. For example, your odds of getting a rare are better than 50/50 if you open 13 treasures, more than 95% if you open 20, and so on.

If anyone wants, I can post a chart showing it visually.

Keep in mind that these odds assume you're starting from zero and just want to know how many treasures you can expect to open so you can plan how much it might cost you to get a certain item. Once you start opening them, each pull is independent within the odds Valve posted. If you still don't have the extremely rare after opening 49, your odds of getting it on number 50 are still only 1 in 2.2 (about 45%).

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Footnote for the stats nerds - I computed it this way, based on a vague recollection of stats class from years ago:

1. Chance to NOT get item by first pull: 1 - % chance of first pull
2. Chance to NOT get item by Nth pull: % chance you don't have the item yet \ (1 - % chance you get the item on this pull)*
3. Chance to get item on Nth pull: 1 - Chance to NOT get item by Nth pull

Like so many other things, it's a trade. Taking all four bounty runes is generally about the same value as taking a tower. For example: If taking the mid tier 1 at 10 minutes means we lose the four bounties that spawn, we lose 300-400 gold in value in exchange for map control. To me that's usually an acceptable trade.

You can still take the game seriously while acknowledging you're terrible at it. Sure, if you're doing anything for a long time, you should try get better at it. But some people just find it much harder to improve and there's nothing wrong with them having fun while celebrating reaching Guardian tier.

Lion, Spirit Breaker, and Venomancer.

If they reduce this to making it 1/5 or 1/10 what you'd earn in XP, maybe. Otherwise it just gives too much value to maxing out a single hero.

Is there a vod of the game anywhere? It looks like r/DotaVods isn't putting anything up for the regional major qualifiers.

This is kind of like baseball teams claiming they had the highest attendance of any major sport.

Well no shit. The season is 162 games long. You don't have to fill the stadium every night to get more attendance than sports with a shorter season.

This is kind of like baseball teams claiming they had the highest attendance of any major sport.

Well no shit. The season is 162 games long. You don't have to fill the stadium every night to get more attendance than sports with a shorter season.

OG also was first place in the EU regional qualifier, granting them the only spot from that region. Even under the new system they would have qualified.

But it can still stack (multiplicatively?) with the additional reductions from the shields and the amulet, right? So given 75% reduction from each would you take 1/64 of the original damage from a projectile if you had your shield up?

It depends on how much you like the weapons, though. I really don't enjoy trying to use the broadsword or the sandals, for example, while some other folks may not enjoy the bow-heavy builds I've been enjoying. Giving players the option to remove the items they don't have fun with would make the game more fun for everyone.

since you pretty much want to ignore half of the items in the game.

I wish there was a mechanic in which you could spend cells to _remove_ items from the pool, in case you unlock something new and decide you hate it.

How do you even get X level equipment? I don't think I've seen anything above VII yet, though I'm still struggling with one cell difficulty.

> all champs are unlocked from the start (is this still true?)

Yes, with one catch: The highest complexity heroes (of which there are 13) are locked until you've played 25 games, at which point they too are free to use. Trust me, you _really_ don't want to try playing something like Rubick or Invoker until you have the basics down, so this is not an unreasonable lock.

Also, just remember they're called heroes in DotA. Some folks (who you should block) will flame you for calling them champs just since that gives away how new you are.

Do Slark and Slardar need buffs to be viable? Or is it just a meta that somehow went so far against them?

Of course he can't. He's from League of Legends.

This. Next weekend is Labor Day in the US, so letting the pass continue for a couple extra days to encompass that holiday weekend would only add four days to the originally announced end date (September 1) while being a good-will gesture.

It's also impossible now that both teams are in the lower bracket. If VP and Liquid win each match until then, they'll meet in the lower bracket semifinals with the loser taking fourth place.