Welcome to Double Damage, the premier weekly Dota 2 podcast! This week we introduce ourselves, as well as get into the specifics of the Dota 2 metagame. SquareOne gives us his take on how to effectively play a hard carry, Zugare brings us a Dota 2 hero Tier List, and Dirtyjoe tells us how NOT to play Pudge. Leave your questions and comments below and we will address them on the next episode, we would love to hear from you! Make sure to subscribe with any RSS feed aggregate of your liking.
Direct Download / Stream - Double Damage Episode 1
3:46 – (Go Back to League) Hard Carries
18:52 – (Pro Zone) The Defense tournement and the current Metagame
31:46 – (Dota Dudes) Hero Tier list http://www.esfiworld.com/feature/dota-2-competitive-hero-tier-list-march-2012
51:12 – (Dotarito) Pudge Discussion
62:46 – (AFK) Fortune Summoners, To The Moon, Mass Effect 3, Community
Listening now after seeing your post on reddit. Enjoying it so far! However, your rss link doesn’t seem to work. I realize it’s only your first episode, but I’d really appreciate if you guys got a working feed ready, so my podcast application can subscribe to your show. Thanks!
Thanks for the comment, and I fixed the issue with the RSS! iTunes is still a bit buggy as we are transitioning from our old podcast, but we should have all the kinks worked out soon.
I’m a long time MHS listener and I am glad you are back, even if you are talking about a game I dont have (yet). Well, thats all I can really say because I am typing this while the show is downloading! Ill check back when I finish listening with a real comment.
Glad to have you listening! Going to be doing some beta key giveaways so maybe you will get lucky
Champs
Glad to see you guys are back! I stopped playing LoL and have a DOTA2 beta that I haven’t played much yet. I hope you guys do more to describe why DOTA2 is worthwhile, because 20-30 minutes of farming required for hard carry and the 0 CS support descriptions sound like it focuses on the more monotonous aspects of LoL. Also competitive scene: did you guys hear about the LoL team that cleaned up all the other LoL team at a recent tournament with aggressive teamplay right from the start with little focus on farm? It was a blast to be a spectator for. Anyway, I hope you can keep explaining why DOTA2 is better and not just rip on LoL as a baby game!
Its easy to get mixed up when discussing both games in a short span of time
About league champs and what’s used-
This is one thing I really hate when people say about League. “League is imbalanced most champs aren’t used in competitive play because they’re so bad/useless” In fact, most of the champions in LoL ARE used competitively. I play both DOTA and LOL now, more so league than DOTA just because if I’m alone I’d rather play something I know I can carry in. However, 70 out of the 94 champions in League were just used in the last tournament, sure some more than others, but that’s a lot of different champs to be used with tens of thousands of dollars on the line. Not only that, but most of the other 20 or so champion that weren’t used got picked in the tournament before that. And then you have some that people know are really strong, just no one is comfortable playing in competitive games when money is on the line because they’re so technical or skill based. (Xerath and Viktor.)
Another reason I play League over DOTA is because of the way DOTA games progress. Everyone complains about League being passive, but league is passive more around team fight stage when people are roaming for objectives because games are usually tight and no one wants to lose a fight then have baron taken by the other team. DOTA’s laning phase, literally nothing happens in most games I play in or watch. It’s just a farm fest with the occasional gank. This is probably because 4 creeps are one kill, there is almost no point in taking major risks like that. In League, there is a lot of harassing in lane and trying to get that lane control and focus on junglers and ganking. Sure that stuff happens in DOTA, but not as much from what I’ve seen.
M5′s League team is the single most aggressive team in League, and they have been stomping everyone in the last few tournaments, games looking like they’re not even close in the finals because they’re just so good and aggressive and force a ton of action.
Another thing is Baron. It’s something that, if you can do right and take at the right time, or steal, can turn a game around or make it more even if you’re behind. Or make a team near unstoppable
I personally like both games for different reasons, and I’m also a fighting game player myself, along with FPS and even goofy little puzzle games/Tower defense from time to time. It’s just completely unfair to say League isn’t balanced, when it’s actually really balanced, people just don’t see it completely because of Solo Q and most of the easier to play champs get used a lot more often than anything else and there is very little change there, but that’s just one aspect of the game and they’re really only used more because people get bored playing the same thing over and over, so FOTM (Flavor of the month champions) get picked on like a rotation in a sense, strong picks that are used at certain times to carry most games because it’s slightly easier to do.
Good to hear from you Ashe
1. Its cool that 70 of the 94 champs were picked in the last tournament, I wasn’t aware of that. However after playing dota 2 for 400+ games and then going back and watching some competitive lol the thing that strikes me most is the design of the champs themselves. In Dota it feels like each hero is unique, and 1 if not all of their abilities are individual to that hero. Where as in lol it really felt like Riot was dialing it in in their champion design.
2. In pubs in may be the case that people just farm, but in games I play as well as every competetitive game I watch it is always a main objective to make sure the enemy teams carry isn’t getting any farm. The mid lane champ will typicallt establish rune control and use those runes to shut down the enemy carry from farming. While this of course happens in lol too, it is just too easy to be safe while farming (flash, gap closers, etc)
3. Going to look into the M5 team, as I haven’t seen anything from them in a while, and the new playstyle sounds interesting.
4. One could argue that Roshan is an even bigger deal than Baron in that Roshan control has to be established from about the 15 minute mark on, where as Baron is typically something that happens once a game towards the end.
But at the end of the day they are obviously different games, and it seems like people like one or the other based on preference. Simply put I just find Dota 2 to be the better game all around.
1.) I agree there. although I chalk that up to League being balanced around actual champs, where as DOTA is balanced by items and counter picks, which allows for more intense and crazy skills. Morello said something about making new champions more unique, but that’s been said time and time again.
2.) Perhaps I just don’t have enough experience to see it and the few competitive games I’ve seen are exceptions.
4.) Well, in League, Baron is usually pushed earlier and more times nowadays in competitive and in higher elo, but I see the point. I just feel like the Aegis isn’t a huge huge deal as much as Baron buff is in terms of power. Though I did get Aegis last game I played a coupe hours ago and it completely helped me carry and get a quadra as we pushed for the win.
The other thing with Nashor is I feel like it’s much harder to sneak by if you’re behind to get yourself back in the game. With all the crazy skills it’s easy for the other team to stop you and get in while you’re doing it, as well as wards lasting longer giving a shorter time when they are down to have the opportunity to do it without them knowing.
I’m definitely putting more time into DOTA the last couple weeks and trying to learn it better, Because I do think it’s better and has things to offer that League doesn’t.
@AsheIsElite
You can find us on steam if you ever want some help or partners for matchmaking in Dota2.
Reasonably, our previous LoL casters haven’t played a game there in many months, so most of the references are referring to the state of the game from last year.
From some of the previous posts, it sounds like the game has evolved.
Thanks for the comment
I really like that fact buy wow gold, They’re so vogue and all sorts of great. The only donwisde is that we have fell a few moments as a result of lack of traction.
@asheiselite Lets play some games!
“I just feel like the Aegis isn’t a huge huge deal” -AsheIsElite
I am offended! I am a pretty big deal!
Back on topic, great podcast! I’m glad to hear those sound bumpers (that was my idea btw). Your podcast sounds very official (save for a few slip ups like “champ” instead of “hero”). With the change to DotA 2, you guys have little competion. I’ll have to check again but last I saw, there were only 2 DotA podcasts including yours. The competition has no into/outro/bumpers or anything (last episode I heard).
Now for my question for the show:
What is a funny/quirky team compisition or pair of heroes?
In LoL, Katarina+Morgana is a good combo because Kat can’t be interrupted. Tell me a few examples of fun combos to run.
Thanks for the input and thanks for listening to the new podcast! We too saw this as a prime opportunity to make a product that we are truly proud of. Basically we took all the things we wish we would have done with Minions Have Spawned and applied them to Double Damage, hopefuly the results will speak to themselves. And it looks like you will have the pleasure of being the first person to have their question answered on the podcast!
Well I believe this situation deserves a “FIRST!!!1!!!one!!!1!!!”
(I’m commenting a lot so I can save my password and stuff on all my machines, just now got gravatar to work on this post, so sorry for the spam)
(BTW I am Aegis, but my Aegis was taken on gravatar >.<)
From MHS here i am!
Good luck with the new Podcast guys! I hope is great as MHS was b4! I am just waiting someone to invite me to Dota2 so i can follow up here =p
Gonna sign the feed on itunes and keep it updated!
Glad you guys are back. Long have I missed your dulcet tones!
(hrmn… to troll or not to troll?)
I think if I don’t log into wordpress I can have the name Aegis and my profile picture. This is a test.
Epic fail. Typed my email in the name box.
DONT EMAIL ME PLEASE
@Aegis
I lol’d
fixed
I used to listen to Minions Have Spawned and my podcast program grabbed your first episode. Good show, the parts I understood at least. I haven’t played DOTA2 but I got an invite saying I can! And then ignored it… Seriously I’ve been meaning to get back to it!
Thanks for the reminder. Out of curiosity, should I expect the same horrible community that surrounds every other MOBA? I’m assuming yes. Perhaps a discussion of what LOL players need to know to not fail horribly their first few DOTA2 games would be a good discussion for the first few episodes. Or at least what’s the mute everyone command so I can pretend I’m not failing horribly while I figure things out?
@Dane Dread
The community is about the same, except the competitive scene and overall wealth of information available is massive.
It is easy to find a community where players are all of the same caliber to facilitate learning. If you have any trouble, hit us up on steam or here, and we can play a game with you to show you the ropes.
FYI iTunes rejected out podcast, I think due to the fact that I was using the Minions Have Spawned page for the Double Damage Podcast. Going to have to submit it under a different feed name, so once it gets accepted all the iTunes users will have to resubscribe. APPLE IS TERRIBLE
I just listened to the dotarito segment again and when I went to eat lunch, I called my doritos “dotaritos” much to the suprise of my friends who were looking very confused.
I dare you to pick Invoker for the dotarito next week -evil laugh-
Hey guys, glad to see you back in the podcast scene again. Wish you were still in LoL but glad you found a game that better suits your style. Last few MHS podcasts I started thinking “Why are these guys still doing this if they hate Riot so much.”
You guys are always fun and easy to listen to; dialogue is never forced and its good to hear about the new DotA.
A friendly pointer here: if you want to motivate people to try DotA who are in the LoL scene please don’t be so derogatory to them. Many LoL players who played DotA for years find it offensive to hear people jumping ship to the new DotA and start the elitist jerk bit after a month or two of play. I enjoy playing mage characters so for me, I like LoL better because you can actually hard carry a game (there are other reasons but I am giving an example). Just tone it down a bit; I know you guys aren’t jerks but it certainly came off a bit gruff.
Since the game is in beta phase and people like myself aren’t there to experience it yet, you can get more rudimentary with your descriptions of the game. Many LoL players who haven’t played DotA may need to hear “basic” things such as deciding who will buy courier (assuming they still do that beginning of game) or what a courier even is. Those such as myself who haven’t played a DotA game in ages wouldn’t mind hearing about mechanics and items we have forgotten about.
I will patiently await my invite to DotA and add you guys asap. Big question for me is this: how much fun is organized team play over pugs b/c if I remember correctly pugs were #1 reason I quit. Every single pug goes 1.5 hours and the teams are usually venomancer, antimage, drow, weaver, and viper vs soulstealer, sniper, riki, broodmother, and myself as dazzle. Are pugs still in a similar state and what % of your time do you guys play arraigned? Also, do they match you up with partial arraigned if you are a partial?
Thanks guys, sorry it’s a long post but you don’t have to talk about it on show. Just wanted to pass along my congrats for another great podcast and hope all the best in its future.
Oculus Sinister
Edit: I guess it is unfair to say you only have “a month or two” under your belt when everyone else but Autech has tons of experience with DotA. I just think of Autech as representing the podcast since he is the host. The main point is just please don’t fall into the trap so many DotA players do and look down on LoL players just because their game isn’t as “technical.”
I think the balance issue between games is interesting b/c LoL and DotA have such different approaches to balancing. Morello is afraid to introduce new and radical game mechanics that “aren’t fun” and so they try to balance heroes with a smaller pool of ability types. DotA believes the best way to balance a game is to make everyone imba in their own right.
Example: everyone can agree that Black Hole wins games but if Tempest/Darchow gets hooked and ulted before he can start his channel or he misses a hero with a stun then he’s screwed. Could you imagine how imba Blitz would be with Devourer/Pudge’s ult? DotA is often seen as more hardcore than LoL because map awareness and reflexes are so much more important due to the fact that whoever initiates first usually wins.
So while I do agree that DotA is for more hardcore gamers, that doesn’t mean LoL isn’t just as fun. Some people prefer hardcore drugs like cocaine, other people just like meth. Some people do both!
Very good points and good to hear from you Oculus. Honestly most of the League bashing is in jest, we all played lol for multiple years. Its kind of fun to play up the whole league vs dota aspect, since we are so intimately familiar with both.
The whole “go back to league” segment is basically the part that is aimed towards explaining basic aspects of Dota to those coming from League.
Oh, HAHA. I mean premade or arranged not arraigned. Man, I need to stop posting when I am tired…or just posting in general.
OCULUS!!
I play a lot of solo, teams seem quite varied with 1-2 people usually randoming. Having that feature really sets solo que apart from what you would see in league where everyone tends to revolve around the “top tier” champs. I’m making Autech read your entire post on the next cast
If anyone has seen some spare DOTA 2 keys laying around give us a heads up and we could help out some listeners!
Call that lucky or w/e, the day i decide to listen the podcast i get my Dota 2 invite.
@DrFox
It seems like another wave was sent out. It also seems like the players with a large number of hours also go a friend invite. We plan on giving these away soon on our show, stay tuned!
What do you mean “large number of hours”?
lots of hours played :O
Just steam games in general?
It might have nothing to do with it. A few people on reddit were saying they had 150+ hours of dota 2 and got invites, and all of our podcast got them as well ( we play a lot)
Nothing confirmed though
I wonder how guilty I will feel when I check how many hours I’ve played DotA 2 after one week…
I need a beta key first though!
After scouring the /r/sharedota2 website and entering 10+ contests for beta keys, I now have a beta key.
It’s downloading as I write this this =)
If any of you can put up with my lack of knowledge about dota, then please play some games with me!
I really wanna understand how this game is any better than LoL. Its only more confusing thats all of it…
Dota 2 have 10~12 Heroes that are actually good or OP. Other heroes are just bad and ppl complain with u for picking them.
There is no strategy, just stun someone and he is dead. You’ll NEVER get away from any kind of cc alive.
1, 2 dcs per game…i hope it improves alot till is released, cuz all Dota 2 is right now is a better graphic version from Dota 1 and i thought it would have evolved.
And the camera is this game is TERRIBLE, feels like i am playing RTS from 90′s
I prefer the 90′s camera angle instead of 90′s graphics
Good post and will definitely address on the next episode, which we are recording and releasing tonight!
I hope you can get iTunes to work in time. Otherwise I won’t be able to listen to it
I can understand your complaints. I have been playing DotA 2 for a grand total of 2 days after being addicted to LoL. I don’t know what it is but I have been enjoying DotA 2 a lot more then I was LoL.
I agree that it is more confusing, but the fact that it is confusing is the same reason that it is fun. I don’t mean to stereotype but in LoL, there are so many gap closers, targeted diables, and single target nukes. In DotA, one hero is very different from another.
I disagree with your idea that 10-12 champions are actually good. On the podcast, they addressed this exactly. In LoL, there is a tier of champion that doesn’t exist in DotA 2, the crap tier. This tier has Twitch, Eve, (until recently) Dr. Mundo, etc. DotA 2 doesn’t have any hero that is as incredibly useless as evelynn.
The DCs are being addressed when the game comes out. They are a big problem with the new players, I agree. It kind of evens out since there are leaves on both teams.
I love the LOL bashing! This is a Dota podcast after all. As long as DirtyJoe keeps it “fair and balanced”, lulz. But seriously, i feel it is an entertaining way to highlight the differences between the two games. Only the most crazed LoL-boys would take offense at a bit of good natured ribbing. I just have to mention the sweet, sweet, bumbers( stingers?) used throughout your show. That is some serious production value fight there. Where can I find the character voices other than youtube? (in one giant torrent file!) Keep up the great work gents!
Great podcast! Cant wait for next episode.
Hey, is there any way to download this as an mp3?
Check the hard drive and see if it is full or almost full. Your cotmpuer will start to slow down when you get much below 1Gb of space left. Usually anything below 600Mb. If that is the case delete some files. Also it won’t defrag without a cerint percentage of free spce and that depends on the size of the hard drive. Check the size of your virtual memory in control panel/system/advanced/settings and the value that is there uses free hard drive space for swap files. It acts like ram memory. Click on the change tab at the bottom and check custom and decrease the size to increase the amount of hard drive available for defraging. Thats if your system won’t defrag due to lack of space. If that’s not the problem then you have a virus or malware most likely. Update your virus software and do a complete scan.