I note with an amount of sadness that some of the followers of my old blog were disappointed that I was no longer writing there. Rest assured that I myself must suffer the greatest pain of not being able to write with a full amount of freedom, and that I am highly grateful to Drew and the rest of the staff that at least I can still have a lease of blogging life even though I no longer write on my own.

On that old blog, I issued a challenge 4 versions ago - 6.59 - that Dota-ers should prove to the frog that certain buffed heroes back then would really make it into the league. And I myself predicted that one such hero would be highly used (and banned) by leaguers - even though, I can tell you, I have no s**t amount of league experience at all. My crystal ball of looking into the future is my own gut instinct, and common sense.

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It’s a joy to write this post as I take some time to reflect on the new version. In fact, the new version gives me a lot of encouragement to write this very post.

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Get it here.

Changelog:

* Fixed an exploit possible with Puck
* Armlet recipe now changed to include Quarterstaff instead of Blades of Attack (bonuses and total price unaffected)
* Fixed Wrath of Nature from targeting couriers
* Fixed a bug with Spirit Bear’s entangle and overgrowth
* Fixed Heart icon on the endgame scoreboard
* Undid a couple of the fun names recently added
* Fixed a rare abuse that could cause other users performance to drop

DotA 6.63 is out!

Download it here.

Changelog:

HEROES

Anti-Mage
- Mana Void AoE increased from 275 to 325
- Strength changed from 16 +1.5 to 20 +1.2

Axe
- Battle Hunger duration reduced from 10/15/20/25 to 10/13/16/19 and increased damage to keep the same total damage output

Bane Elemental
- Fiend’s Grip manacost increased from 100/175/250 to 200/300/400

Batrider
- Reduced base damage from 64-70 to 48-52
- Sticky Napalm fixed from doing a higher constant slow instead of stacking and starting lower
- Sticky Napalm manacost increased from 15 to 20

Blood Seeker
- Base armor reduced by 2 points

Bone Fletcher
- Strafe changed from 50/60/70/80 AS for 10 seconds to 90 AS for 4/6/8/10 seconds

Bounty Hunter
- Imported a custom model for him that has his selection box fixed

Bristleback
- Warpath’s attack speed increase changed to bonus damage (10/20/30 base with 4/8/12 bonus per stack)

Broodmother
- Insatiable Hunger lifesteal increased from 40/55/70% to 40/60/80%
- Insatiable Hunger duration increased from 12 to 14 seconds

Centaur Warchief
-Double Edge manacost removed
-Double Edge can no longer cause a suicide
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by the talented barrierbreak

LULS! Parts 2 and 3 soon!

I wanna marry meet this guy… seriously.

As part of our efforts to be more hands-on with you people, we have an official Twitter page at:

http://twitter.com/dota_strategy

So what does Twitter do that will make DS more hands-on? Well, unlike Facebook and blogs (including this one), Twitter allows people to post short, simple, but relevant messages fast and in real-time. Meaning I could be at some DotA scrim and I wanna ask questions but I hate having to wait for a long while waiting for a reply to my thread (which is usually the case for many people)

Or I got something real interesting about Dota but that’s not long enough for a blog post or announcement, or I’m just plain lazy to post it.

Did I also mention that I prefer keeping it short and sweet?

Or maybe one of the mods are attending some big Dota event and they want to post updates real quick.

This is where Tweetown steps in, by

1. being free of charge
2. simpler to use than Facebook
3. faster in updates than anything short of IRC
4. keeping it short and sweet at 140 characters
5. addictively fun

I highly encourage you to register for an account at Twitter’s official website and follow us to get real-time updates, hints, and your Dota questions answered asap. Since some of our staff aren’t very good with twitting, that implies I’ll be there most of the time. So I hope you guys keep it real at

http://twitter.com/dota_strategy

*Driving to Tweetown now*

In a survey thread recently concluded in DS, we had the opportunity to gauge the popularity levels of Heroes of Newerth, League of Legends and DotA itself among DS members. The results were as follows:

1. League of Legends - 534
2. Heroes of Newerth - 348
3. Neither - 659

All right, before I’d say anything about the results, I gotta admit that the “Neither” option was a bit ambiguous. It could have meant only DotA, or both LoL and HoN or all 3 since there sincerely might be game geeks who will love DotA and all its succeeding ripoffs. Therefore it is not surprising to me that “Neither” got the most number of votes.

Lesson for the mods: make clear vote options. But that will be for next time.

Now, having said that, the numbers for LoL speaks volumes. Just ONE, clear-cut option gave it as much as 534 votes, indicating very much that LoL is bound to get a lot of fans and players from DS itself right after its official launch. Also, it’s openly known that Pendragon aka Steve Mescon, as well as Guinsoo aka Steve Feak were (and are) very much involved in DotA. It’s obvious they’ve been riding on the DotA tsunami to crash land LoL on our shores, presenting it as an attractive diversion. It is still unknown why a fallout happened between Icefrog and the two guys, but I bet gold it’s definitely got something to do with the thought-of notion that LoL will supersede DotA to oblivion.

May I suggest somebody go undercover to find out what’s really happening? You could start at their official website, http://www.leagueoflegends.com/

And then HoN. First things first, I think that HoN has several glaring weaknesses in terms of marketing and presentation. As of this moment, nothing concrete is being presented on their official website at http://heroesofnewerth.com/. Other than some eye-candy and a link to Facebook, we don’t know what hot stuff is going to take place on HoN and how. It’s true that Facebook is notorious for viral marketing and so the strategy of having an FB (not “a”, “an”) spotlight helps a lot, but you still gotta have a PROPERLY functioning website or blog first. Bad move.

Then the accusation that HoN is literally a clone of DotA. In this respect I have to admit that a perception battle is being waged and guys at S2 don’t seem to have it their way. The battle is not yet concluded, but if anything I think that HoN had better do something to avoid charges of unoriginality at the people’s court. The way I see it, the frog will never admit defeat. He is definitely adamant at making DotA stand out and make people who contend that LoL or HoN will eclipse DotA swallow their words. Remember, Blizzard has a stake in this battle too. If Dota gets less popular this equals very much less WC3 players. In other words, this is WAR and it is not just about defending the ancients anymore.

In this respect, it maybe why HoN got lesser votes than LoL or “neither”. I also noticed with a slight amusement how our DS member Blarfles consistently prepped up LoL at the expense of HoN. Maybe I’m thinking a little too much, but somehow LoL is really lucky to have free propaganda.

As for me, I’m relishing the opportunity to catch both HoN and LoL in action. I don’t care about the tripartite war, all I care for is profit. And a dose of entertainment.

A video featuring SK and MYM players doing imba escape moves to survive…

by EndMyLifeNow

Download it HERE

6.61 Changelog:
===============

###############
## Heroes & Items ##
###############

* Batrider: Lowered Strength gain from 2.5 to 2.0
* Bloodskeer: Bloodbath no longer regenerates from images
* Bone Fletcher: Improved Searing Arrows damage from 10/20/30/40 to 20/30/40/50
* Bone Fletcher: Rebalanced Strafe from 20/40/60/80 IAS with 30 seconds cooldown to 50/60/70/80 IAS with 60/50/40/30 seconds cooldown
* Centaur: Reduced Double Edge cooldown (25->12 seconds)
* Faceless Void: Improved base Strength (17->23)
* Furion: Lowered Sprout cooldown from 11 seconds to 11/10/9/8 seconds and manacost from 115/140/165/205 to 100/120/140/160
* Magnataur: Reverse Polarity now pulls units slightly infront of you instead of all around you
* Medusa: Lowered Stone Gaze cooldown (70->35 seconds)
* Medusa: Minor improvements to Mystic Snake speed , cast range and cooldown
* Medusa: Improved Mystic Snake’s damage from 60/100/140/180 to 80/120/160/200
* Meepo: Rescaled Geostrike from 4/8/12/16 to 5/10/15/20 damage per second
* Nerubian Weaver: Reworked Watchers [details below]
* Nerubian Weaver: Lowered Shukuchi cooldown from 13/11/9/7 to 12/10/8/6 seconds
* Night Stalker: Improved Intelligence growth from 1.25 to 1.6
* Ogre Magi: Reduced Multicast from 30%2x/45%2x+22.5%3x/60%2x+30%3x+15%4x ->25%2x/40%2x+20%3x/50%2x+25%3x+12.5%4x
* Pandaren Brewmaster: Increased Drunken Brawler critical from 1.8x to 2.0x
* Razor: Lowered Intelligence gain from 2.2 to 1.8
* Rooftrellen: Casting Nature’s Guise on an allied unit (or other spells) will no longer take you out if you have it on you
* Silencer: Transferred Glaive of Wisdom’s secondary effect of +1/-1 Intelligence from hero kills to Last Word. If an enemy hero dies under the Last Word effect, that hero will lose 1 intelligence and you will gain 1 intelligence.
* Silencer: Increased Last Word AoE from 700 to 900
* Rebalanced Curse of the Silent from 10/20/30/40 HP and 5/10/15/20 mana per second for 10 seconds to 50 HP and 25 mana for 2/4/6/8 seconds.
* Sniper: Increased Take Aim range from 55/110/165/220 to 65/130/195/260
* Spectre: Decreased Spectral Dagger cooldown from 25 to 16 seconds
* Tauren Chieftain: Lowered base damage by 10
* Tauren Chieftain: Lowered Strength gain from 2.7 to 2.3
* Tauren Chieftain: Decreased Natural Order percentages to 20/40/60/80%
* Vengeful Spirit: Improved base Agility (22->27)
* Viper: Nethertoxin now only works on enemy units
* Witch Doctor: Increased base Intelligence from 19 to 24 (base damage adjust to remain the same though)
* Aghanim’s Scepter (Queen of Pain): Restored original cooldown improvement
* Aghanim’s Scepter (Shadow Shaman): Undid part of the nerf on Mass Serpent Wards. It now gives +3 (up 1 from 6.60, down 1 from 6.59d)
* Buriza-Do Kyanon: Improved the critical value from 2.2x to 2.4x
* Helm of Dominator: Converted creeps now gain the Resistant Skin ability, making spells duration on them the same as heroes or Spirit Bear.
* Quelling Blade: Minor reduction to bonus damage (36->32)

########
## Bugs ##
########

* Fixed natural regeneration on rax
* Fixed an area where you could get stuck using TP scroll on the minimap.
* Fixed -ns mode
* Fixed a chance for duplicate heroes in -CD

* Batrider: Fixed Radiance from triggering Sticky Napalm
* Medusa: Fixed Splitshot triggering Essense Aura
* Razor: Fixed an error in the damage calculation method for Plasma Field that caused it to be slightly off sometimes
* Rooftrellen: Slightly increased Eyes in the Forest cast range (+25) to fix some order issue bugs
* Rooftrellen: Fixed Living Armor not regenerating structures properly
* Tauren Chieftan: Fixed bug with Natural Order sometimes instantly killing Forged Spirit summoned units

* Aghanim’s: Fixed minor incorrect sell value on some versions of the item
* Khadgar’s Pipe of Insight: No longer places the buff on units that already have it
* Bottle: Usage no longer removes Curse of the Silent.
* Linken Sphere: Fixed to properly block Mana Void and Nasal Goo
* Poor Man’s Shield: Fixed bug with -swap
* Quelling Blade: Fixed bug with -swap
* Quelling Blade: Fixed triggering Curse of the Silent
* Rune: Fixed Regeneration sometimes not being removed when you are full if you use bottle at the same time
* Rune: Fixed Double Damage visual effect to properly show when the user is using low graphics mode

####################
## Gameplay & Cosmetics ##
####################

* Removed the int/agi/str distribution in -CD. It is now like RD in its hero distribution.
* Bottle: Now autorefills at fountain if it isn’t fully used (2975)
* Reduced FPS drops when using Shiva’s Guard and Plasma Field with some custom import files (PGRu-Unexpect3D)
* Sound Effects: Removed the “Allied hero has fallen” (heavily requested for removal due to annoyances)

* Invoker: Added a new Icon for Sun Strike (5312)
* Juggernaut: You no longer lose control while using Omnislash. You can use items like Dagger while Omnislashing (4938)
* Slardar: Added a new icon for his Bash (3587)
* Tidehunter: Added a new Anchor Smash visual effect (4393)
* Gem of Truesight: Changed hotkey from T to I to help against some common misbuys
* Increased the transparency a little more for the Circle Of Powers that aren’t yours.
* Fixed -SP moving your camera away from taverns
* Fixed various minor inconcistences between sentinel and scourge units/buildings
* Fixed some very minor inconsistencies with acquire ranges on some heroes
* Observer Board colors now alternate between white and grey to make it a little more readable

Old Watcher’s:
==============
Cooldown: 30/20/10/5 seconds
Movement Speed: 522
HP: 1
Bounty: 10-13
Vision: 1400/1400
Invisible

Urna Swarm:
============
Summons scarabs from corpses. The Scarab can burrow and become invisible.
While it is unburrowed, it is visible to the enemy and has an Infestation
ability. Has collision when unburrowed.
Magic Immune.

Cooldown: 14/11/8/5
Movement Speed: 450
HP: 200
Armor: 6
Bounty: 26-38
Burrowed Vision: 400/400
Normal Vision: 1400/1400

Infestation: Can suicide to Silence enemy units 275 aoe around it for 3 seconds and deal 20 damage per second (non-stacking).

Enjoy.

If you have being living under a rock for the past year or so, you would not know that the DotA concept has been taken by a  number of game companies, had the wc3 elements and restrictions removed then revamped into a whole new game.  So far the only one of these that was sold to the general public is Demigod which sadly enough was a bit of a flop in my opinion.

Do not fret, there are more on the way which look quite promising, I am (naturally) talking about League of Legends. While browsing this site in recent times you will probably have noticed the same two ads flashing at you relentlessly. On the topic of LoL, I can’t say much more than this: yes there is beta, and I am participating.

Riot staff (the makers of League of Legends, including the maker of DotA Allstars – ‘Guinsoo’) have taken a very open approach to the development of the game throwing the doors wide and asking the question: What would you like to see in this game? Thus far this has being highly successful and LoL has gained popularity (definitely helped by the witty internet meem abbreviation.)

It is no surprise, perhaps that the secret S2Games project ‘Heroes of Newerth’ was announced, not only that, but you can get a beta key if you are willing to try. This covers the 2 new games that are cited as being DotA-like (and thus largely denied a wiki page on the topic of MOBA genre) and now it is time to try and draw comparisons without breaking the NDA I signed… or ticked the box really, but it is still a legally binding document.

A quick comparison or two…

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