DotA2 A to Z Update #1

I've created a separate account to run the challenge so that games with friends don't interfere with the A to Z, and so far I've managed to get through 6 heroes.

I ended up playing a lot more games then I thought I'd have to due to disconnects. A lot of people will just outright leave a game if they give first blood or have a poor early game. I was under the impression that a disconnect of any sort meant that a win would be void. After re-reading the rules, a disconnect is fine as long as the person who disconnected did so as a direct response to your actions.

I.e. If I kill someone repeatidly and they leave, the game is still valid. But if I am mid and two people from top leave the game without me even going over there, then the game is void.

So because of this I actually played a lot more games then I'd have to, specifically with Alchemist.

With that out of the way, here is a breakdown of the events thus far.
DotaBuff Profile

Alchemist - 6.78

As I tend to shy away from playing carry, I had never actually played Alchemist before. With the fairly recent reworking of the hero, he has been thrown back into competitive play and regularly picked and banned.

He wasn't too hard to play. Charge up stun, shadow blade, hit, stun, ulti and go nuts. In fact he is incredibly fun to play. Late game with level 3 ulti, Black King Bar, Assault Curass and a Basher or Maelstorm you can just desomate the opposing team.

He is pretty easy to farm on too. His passive, Greevils Greed and a quick Hand of Midas, the gold just keeps coming in.

I believe I actually cleared this hero in the first game, but with the misunderstanding of the rules, I ended up playing 8 games in total.

Games: 8 [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ]
Average K/D/A: 7.125/5.875/9.625

Ancient Apparation - 6.78

I queued with a friend, and it only took one game to get the win.

I went for Eul's for the synergy with Cold Feet (Cast Cold Feet, use Eul's on the target so that as they land they are stunned) which is quite nice. But without Eul's, Cold Feet is so unreliable, it's almost a must.

With AA's rework, I wanted to try out an Aghanim's Scepter changes. It was pretty strong, but I don't really have the map awareness to be able to snipe off people across the map yet. I'm sure it will come with more game experience.

Games: 1 [ 1 ]
Average K/D/A: 4/11/28

Anti Mage - 6.78

Again it took one game to clear, queuing with my friend. I've played Anti-Mage before, so the game wasn't that hard. Just get those last hits and farm the game away.

My K/D was negative despite having BKB, Battlefury and a HoT. This is partially due to my team's composition of Sniper, Bloodseeker, Alchemist, Anti Mage and Disruptor. Team fights were terrible, and my team seemed slow to help. In hindsight, I should have maybe gone for Manta Style before the HoT and not be over commuting in team-fight initiations hoping that my team would back me up.

I suppose my impressions of Anti Mage is that he is a strong late game carry with a great ability to flash farm with a Battlefury. Pretty boring to play though.

Games: 1 [ 1 ]
Average K/D/A: 2/5/14

Axe - 6.78

I've played a lot of Axe in the past. He is pretty easy to jungle with, and has a nice lane presence. Axe is also incredibly fun to play, and with some early farm he can become pretty tanky.

I played this game with a friend. I went dire jungle, with him playing bristleback solo dire safelane. We got some early kills with Battle Hunger + Snot/Quil spam. I snowballed, got pretty tanky and went into an overconfident mode to just push and finish the game.

Games: 1 [ 1 ]
Average K/D/A: 12/8/5

Bane - 6.78

I've played a lot of Bane in the past. The Heroes of Newerth port was one of my prefered heroes to play, so playing Bane in DotA2 wasn't any different.

His spells are decent, with a sleep (which Bane can now disable from himself), life steal nuke, damage reduction and a disabling ulti that also inflicts good damage, Bane has some nice aggressive and defensive spells.

I did this hero in solo matchmaking and mostly tried to support. After losing two games by not having a BKB and relying on my team maybe a bit too much, I decided to go for a semi-carry build, getting Force Staff into Dagon for Fiends Grip initiations into Brain Sap and Dagon. The burst is great and you can easily pick off single targets. This build would be pretty terrible for a core support, there are always better items to get over a Dagon; saving up for a BKB or Pipe of Insight would have been better because Fiends Grip also disables Bane whilst the channel is active, and without a BKB you can easily be stunned to cancel the channel. This makes one of your most powerful spells useless without great positioning and some means of survivability.

Games: 3 [ 1, 2, 3 ]
Average K/D/A: 8/7.667/16.333

Batrider - 6.78

Batrider is a hard hero to play. The basic principle is to get a Force Staff and Blink dagger. You then initiate a fight by: Firefly > Blink near opponent > Lasso opponent > Turn around > Force Staff back towards your team.

In practice, if you're not used to the flowchart, a lot can go wrong and you can end up with the worse initiations possible and just throwing yourself at the opposition as a free kill.

In at least one game I went mid, got no rune wards from myself nor my team. I wasn't winning the lane and asked for help, which I got none. When I went to gank my team tended to have their lane pushed which left me no opportunity to actually do anything. So with the lack of farm from losing mid, no supports or help across the map and struggling to get core items, it's a hard hero to do anything with.

Eventually I got a clear playing alongside a friend. We went in the same lane and abused Sticky Napalm.

It's safe to say I am not good at this hero. I understand the potential for him to be devastating and pick apart a team with an awesome initiation, but I definitely need practice to last hit and control mid lane.

Games: 3 [ 1, 2, 3 ]
Average K/D/A: 2.667/7.5/8

DotA2 A to Z Challange

Quoting a Reddit.com/r/DotA2 thread;

Hey guys,
With the International coming up, I thought I'd come up with a way to get revved up and get more engrossed into the world of Dota2. Since, I always seem to keep playing the same heroes, I thought I should at least try each hero once. This led to me thinking, why not win with every hero once?
So I present to you, the A to Z challenge. Starting from Alchemist and ending with Zeus, you have to win with every hero once. After a win, you switch to the next hero. Use the default hero picker, it should give you the order you need to pick in. Some basic rules/suggestions:

• Early Abandonments don't count. Exception is either if your team is winning and its almost late game, and a guys decides to give up. Or if it is early game, you have to be the one that is pwning the guys who rage quits.
• Tag yourself as [AtoZ] yourName just to let everyone know that you are on a quest :D
• Don't random
• Limit your matchmaking to All pick.
• Don't have side games with other heroes. That way your stats[1] page should show your progression nicely.
• I have taken to changing my name to my Hero's name; so for my NS game I was [AtoZ] Balanar, for Invoker I was [AtoZ] Karl, for AM I was [AtoZ] Mangina etc.
• from comments - If your hero gets picked already, ask for a swap. If teammate refuses, just pick the next hero in line. Then go back to the hero the next game.

Tell me what you guys think. Since there are no new heroes coming out until the end of the International, now should be the best time to try this out, as you won't be tempted to go for the flavor of the week hero. For newer players this should be a nice learning experience, while for more experienced players it should keep the game interesting and provide a challenge that needs to be completed.
Notes: I'm gonna do a follow up thread in 15 days to see if anyone was able to complete it. We could use Dota 2 Stats[2] to verify our accomplishments It could lead to interesting discussions about which heroes were the hardest to win with and how that speaks for what kind of player you are (do you suck as a carry? can you not gank?) I'm gonna contact Valve about maybe adding a badge for people who complete this challenge, or maybe just a badge for people who play every hero, even if it is out of order.
Reddit Thread

I saw this thread when it was first posted, and it did intregue me at the time. The reason I didn't take up the challange when I first read about it was mostly because I used to enjoy playing with friends. When playing with my friends, we would try to pick heroes that complement one another. However, I have recently been playing in solo queue and enjoying the game a lot more as a result.

I have started playing all the game modes apart from 'All Pick'. So I queue for 'All Random', 'Single Draft', 'Least Played', 'Random Draft' and 'Captains Mode'. The result of this forced me to choose heroes I may not necessarily play with my friends. It works, and can be quite a lot of fun. Since playing these different modes and being exposed to more heroes, I have generally improved as a player. That is what made me want to try the 'A to Z' challange.

I've created a new steam account, put on the [AtoZ] tag, grabbed an A to Z avatar and gifted myself a DotA2 key. I'm good to go!

I do think that before I move on to the next hero, I will most likely practice it in 'Co-Op vs AI' games. This way I will be used to the skill set and have an idea of the standard item progressions to aim for. This has the double benefit of not hurting my team with my own lack of knowledge of a specific hero. So before I start this challange, I'm going to run a few 'Co-Op vs AI' games as Alchemist to get to grips with the hero.

So let's see how this goes!
[AtoZ]Saldejums' DOTABuff page.