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caspian

Primarch Posts: 2253 Joined: 27 Mar 2007 60889 gold

Was Kelen forbidden to escape after all? -Kelen's Dagger-

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 11:09 am

Among Icefrog's 6.51 DoTA reforms, the change to Kelen's Dagger would be voted the most controversial given the prevailing mood among players and forums dedicated to his masterpiece.

I would not deny it is most certainly controversial, but if you searched for my posts prior to the release of 6.50, I had predicted that a change would be done towards the Kelen's Dagger of Escape (referred as Blink Dagger from now on). And I knew I was not alone. League players were the most attuned to the signs of the times - they knew very well that they were guilty of an addiction, and Icefrog was planning to punish them for it.

By now I need not say that that addiction is the Blink-Stun strategy.

Despite commendable efforts by some very well-established teams like MYM and VP to introduce fresh strategies that did not depend on Blink, the fact is humans are both reactive and inert at the same time (thinking in chemistry terms). The initial introduction of Blink-Stun got everyone so excited at a new guaranteed way of victory that everybody soon copied the same tactics over-and-over. At the same time people have been lax in their vigilance, because they have not devised any countermeasures to the Blink-Stun. Instead poison is used to counter poison - both sides of the great divide were competing to counter blink with stun, stun with blink, in truth making themselves guilty of this addiction that never seems to die out in 6.48b. Kelen the fabled assassin just got his way too many times.

Hence Icefrog's response.

But before you actually start condemning Icefrog for making what used to be a powerful item so "useless", consider what the league players have been guilty of. Many (not all) of them are shamelessly addicted to that strategy, and the worst of all, they admit being addicted, and have no plans to stop their addiction - in fact, before the 6.49 versions were revealed, they even had plans to perpetuate their addiction. They made it clear to Icefrog that the DoTA world would soon revolve around the sun of Blink-Stun, unless Icefrog did something that would remove it from orbit. Ironically, 6.48b, being the stable map, did not show in any way the signs of a stable and vibrant DoTA. The number 6.51 is the very proof 6.48b was not the final answer to the perplexing challenges of DoTA.

In trying to dismantle the Blink-Stun, Icefrog had several options to consider:

a) Nerfing Blink Dagger
b) Nerfing Blink-type heroes
c) Buffing Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse

It is obvious that out of the 3 possible choices, Icefrog settled heavily on nerfing Blink Dagger in such a way that it could not (presumably) feed league player's addiction satisfactorily anymore. Choice (b) only applied to one (overused) hero, while Guinsoo suddenly became the rich man's toy and was denied to the poor in 6.51. The attack-disable annoyed many players, to say the least, until it seems, for a while Kelen was put out of his dagger-selling business.

But was Kelen forbidden to escape after all?

In my opinion the 6.50 nerf to Blink Dagger is really more of a reaction than a solution. It is a reaction that Blink Dagger seems to have been abused for using it too much to escape, and to stop this abuse, the way is to stop people using it to escape. The response then was, put something that stops people from escaping. So far I have to admit it has put off many people from using it. That's only because most people who play games for the sake of amusement, like me, think it's only for escaping. But this reaction has not been the solution to dismantle the stranglehold of the Blink-Stun strategy. So far league gamers do not have much to say, but the general feeling I get is that the Blink-Stun problem has not been adequately resolved. League games in 6.48b have been known to utilize Blink Dagger offensively very often, and one small change to Blink Dagger in 6.51 (ie. the cast range increase) serves just that purpose. Furthermore, the cooldown of 30 seconds indicates that this offensive nature of Blink Dagger will not let up anytime soon.

I believe that it is the offense that has led to the persistent addiction to Blink-Stun., not the defense. It is not the ability to escape that makes it attractive - yes that is a factor, but it does not explain why Blink Dagger has been gotten so often on Sand King when the presence of many stun heroes would have been sufficient to stop Epicenter or remove his Sandstorm, it does not explain why European players justify getting a Blink Dagger on Shadow Fiend when his triple Shadowrazes allow him to attack safely from a distance (plus he is ranged), it does not explain why a Blink Dagger on Earthshaker (sometimes featured in 6.48b games) works, and it does not explain why Lina the Slayer (why is she called a slayer?) strategies in 6.48b often feature a Blink Dagger. It is precisely the offensive nature of Blink Dagger that is at work.

I did propose that to resolve this problem fruitfully, the Blink Dagger would have to be reworked so that its cooldown had to significantly increase to somewhere between 150-180 seconds. This allows the use of it to escape while being attacked or for attacking without allowing it to be abused too many times. Also it removes the irritation that many players harbour towards the 6.51 item. I sincerely believe that my solution is not a reaction, but is a better (I'm not claiming perfection here) approach than the reaction we have now. But I know that Icefrog may not even be reading this, so whether it remains a suggestion or could be considered by the map-maker is anybody's guess.

I would like to conclude that Kelen was not forbidden to escape; but was merely forbidden to make his dagger-selling business more lucrative. That's all. I am not convinced that the 6.50 nerf to Blink Dagger will bring about any acceptable antidote to the disease of Blink-Stun.
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Last edited by caspian on Tue Apr 15, 2008 6:41 am; edited 4 times in total