It's almost time for that new patch smell

Many people have hopes and dreams for the next patch and rounds of balances. The big ones that come to mind are:
- Reworking buybacks interaction with reliable gold, experience, and the comeback mechanics and
- Balancing some of pub stars: Troll, Juggernaut, Lion, Sniper, and Axe come quickly to mind.
Outside of those two things glaring straight at The International, DOTA2 is in a good place. The support hero pool is large and diverse. www.DOTABuff.com just ran a three part series highlighting 10 of the most viable supports you can pick (you can find part 3 here: http://www.dotabuff.com/blog/2015-04-02-introducing-top-tier-supports--part-3). To that list I would add the Ogre Magi, Treant Protector, and Sand King. There are only a few heroes considered unplayable (Sorry Kunkka). The mid lane is seeing a Rock- Paper-Scissors-Hammer-Blade-Scream… between Shadow Fiend, Sniper, Storm Spirit, your magic nuker of choice (usually Lina or Queen of Pain) and the maverick picks ( Ember Spirit, Brewmaster, Magnus, Viper, and even Artzeey on the Razor). With that said, there are still somethings that need fixing so here’s my wish list.
There are a few abilities that need to receive minor nerfs. Sniper’s shrapnel is crazy good at 50 mana and a 40 second recharge rate. Either the mana cost needs to increase enough to where you actually have to consider the cost of casting it, the recharge rate should be increased, or a combination of the 2. I don’t think it’s that far off from being viable but not overpowered. The other ability that stands out is Lion’s Impale. This spell is targeted so as long as you reach the cast point, the stun will land unless they are super far away. This leads to some stuns that are a bit on the questionable side. The solution here is to either have it remain targeted but once you cast it, it goes a fixed distance in the direction of the target or make it a skill shot but increase its range a little. The trend has been to make things more skill intensive; think Fissure for the Earth Shaker or Impale for Nyx.
A few heroes would really benefit from a bump because they are narrowly situational, they are a worse something else, or they are just unplayable. Visage best fits the narrowly situational pick because you almost never see him without a Drow or another pushing hero. Chen has pushed out almost every other pushing hero except for the Enigma. The buff to his abilities is a welcome change, however now the situation exists where Enchantress is a worse something else. Maybe she needs a rework to compete like buffing the damage her creeps have or increasing her healing effectiveness. Finally, the unplayable heroes: Kunka, Alchemist, Leshrac, Chaos Knight and Lifestealer just cannot be picked because they are situationally worse than everything else. A buff to these heroes would be welcome, especially Leshrac. He puts out a ton of damage, but has to compete with QoP, Lina, and Storm for the position of mid int. hero and he can’t. He’s also not a good support because he damage is reliant on being alive for the duration of a fight. A buff in either direction would be most welcome and I think it starts with Lightning Storm.
Hopefully the next patch freshens up the current meta, bringing new heroes to prominence and pushing down some of the current stars. What are your picks for heroes that need nerfs? Buffs? Let me know in the Comments.

More Efficiency

I go to school for electrical engineering and am on course to graduate this May. A topic often covered and talked about in engineering is efficiency. The efficiency of your engine, dispersing heat and processors are all important to understand for their applications. For example, your general - and I mean general, not just internal combustion - engine can only be about 20% efficient because of the inefficiency built into the system from things like friction. Don't be dissuaded from using an engine, however, because we are transferring one form of unusable energy into another, more usable one. In DOTA, efficiency is also extremely important; allocating damage, farming, purchasing items, movement, et al contribute to the efficiency of a player.

The more efficient a player is, the more impact he will have on the game. This is because he is optimizing his outcomes from each decision. The easiest way for me to visualize this is to think about using town portal scrolls (TPs). When used correctly, TPs allow a player to move about the map more efficiently because it takes about 3 seconds to port from top lane to bottom lane instead spending a long time walking and risking being caught out of position. Still, TPs are only so efficient like the engine because they cost gold to use. Thus a player converts gold into less travel time and a lower risk movement.

The contrapositive is also true: the less impact a player has on a game, the less efficient that player is. The carry or 1 position players for each team illustrate this the best. Generally, the carry which is more efficient and able to accrue a bigger advantage over the other carry will take their team to victory. Another way to think about this is to visualize two Anti-Mages: one with level 4 blink and the other without blink. The AM with level 4 blink will be more efficient at all aspects of the game - except, perhaps, mana usage - than the AM without because of the advantage blink offers.

Often players get hung up on efficiency, causing them to become inefficient. Don't let this be you. When considering the cost of a decision, it is often the case that there is an asymmetry of information; it is literally impossible to know all possible differences between and outcomes of two courses of action. Don't let this hinder you. Many players will get hung up on item choices, missing stacks, missing pulls, taking unnecessary creep damage, not spending their gold before they die and the list goes on. All these contribute to small game inefficiencies but psyching yourself out will contribute to large ones because not all inefficiencies make meaningful impacts on games. There is a caveat: the higher the skill game, the more those matter and can snowball into a game loss because players are better at leveraging small advantages created by these inefficiencies. With that said, psyching yourself  out is not allocating your brains processing power efficiently and can lead to tilting: the definition of poor and inefficient decision making.

The next time you find yourself looking for an aspect of your game to improve, consider efficiency. Look for ways to minimize wasted gold and movement then move on to things like allocating damage in team fights or stacking stuns on an elusive target. By improving your efficiency, you will help your team and, hopefully, translate more games into wins.

Foreseer's Contract Update and Nemesis Assassin Event Thoughts

The Foreseer's Contract has been issued. After a cool digital comic which offered a peak at the newest hero to sign their name in blood for ancient's struggle, the Oracle was made live. I'll highlight some of the additions, positive and negative.

• The new Phantom Assassin arcana looks awesome, but disappointing that it's only a weapon. The model change, alternate animations, and in-game icon are well done. My disappoint with it only being a weapon stems from wanting to use a whole set, not just 4 of the 5 piece or whatever the case may be. Maybe Valve should add an "augment hero" equip slot for occations such as this.
• The Oracle as a hero seems underwhelming in power level, but I don't mind. At least for the moment, the Oracle isn't breaking pubs the way some previous heroes have (Terrorblade I'm looking at you.) I would much rather have the Oracle start a little under-powered and get tuned once it's better understood how he interacts with heroes than the alternative.
• Buying the prediction item every time seems a little greedy for Valve. If it were me, buying the PA arcana would give you one everyday for the duration of the event (as long as you used it up the previous day.)
• Playing with the in game contract idea with reward is super fun. It introduces an objective that doesn't create an advantage for either team. Creation of such an objective with a sought after reward (an awesome set)  adds dimensions of freshness and fun to the game.

Drafting the PA because of the event and Oracle because of new hero infatuation at higher rates is warping the pub metagame. Some pub analysis: Level 1 is the Oracle and PA. They are bad against level 2 heroes and sharing the Razor and Sand King. Level 3 heroes, then, are those good against both the Razor and SK, which are the Bloodseeker and Sniper. However, the Sniper is not a true level 3 hero because of his inherent weakness to PA. This leaves only the Bloodseeker seeing an increase in popularity. It should also be noted that SK is strong against Razor making him the most likely to see more play and an increase in win percentage. It will be interesting to see what tomorrows number from DOTABuff bring.

Level 1	PA:	Oracle
Level 2	Razor	Razor
	Omniknight	Earth Spirit
	Sand King	Phantom Assassin
	Centaur Warrunner	Magnus
	Ogre Magi	Sand King
	Lion	Leshrac
	Axe	Pugna
	Crystal Maiden	Undying
Level 2	Razor:	Sand King:
	Drow Ranger	Zeus
	Sniper	Techies
	Techies	Spectre
	Viper	Bloodseeker
	Meepo	Juggernaut
	Bloodseek	Phoenix
	Sand King	Sniper
	Ember Spirit	Elder Titan

The Top 5 support picks in pro DOTA

Gone are the days of the brown boots supports. Thank goodness. Not only are the games more exciting with supports who have their force staff and blink dagger at the ready, but their team contributions to these games can tip the scales of a close game in their favor. In no particular order, my top five supports for current pro play are: Skywrath Mage, Ogre Magi, Mirana, Elder Titan, and Vengeful Spirit.

The Skywrath Mage (DOTA buff profile) is probably the best support in CM currently. His instant silence in the hands of a pro player makes Pandas look silly as they blink on to shake hands with Ancient Seal. Seal also makes heros like Storm, Weaver, Puck, and most supports over glorified creeps. Concussive shot is the other spell which needs mentioning here. The range on this spell is a ludicrous 1600 units, which makes it perfect for setting up ganks or zoning heroes during the laning stage and beyond. This spell, like Mirana's sacred arrow, takes advantage of being cast from the fog of war; mid heroes beware.

The bra-less wonder. Ogre McGee. Our favorite melee support, the Ogre Magi (DOTA buff), received a buff of last patch (6.82) to his 2X multicast, allowing him to make an impact on the game earlier, and base HP regen to 2.5, increasing his ability to harass. These seemly small buffs create a larger window of time for this hero to maintain relevance, propelling him to a tier 1 support. The Magi signature spell is his fireblast, which also received a decrease in damage but an increase in the duration between each proc thus stunning a target for longer. This reliable, instant cast stun provides the burst damage necessary to gank and blow up other heroes. The other reason to pick up this hero is to boost a right-clicker's dps and movement speed with bloodlust. At level 4, the 50% increased attack speed and 16% movement speed is like having 1.5 yashas equipped (with out the bonus states).

Mirana (DOTA buff) is the most polar hero in this pool. She fluctuates from unbeatable to a waste of space, all depending on how prepared people are for the arrow. A team constantly on guard and placing wards will make a roaming Mirana look embarrassing. However, if those arrow are hitting and translating into kills, the early game lead, and probably the game itself, is yours. Mirana also pairs well with other supports who can set up arrows like Ogre, Venge, Shadow Demon, and Rubbik to name a few. Lastly on the ability front, Moonlight shadow adds a unique dimension to team fighting and ganking. The other thing about Mirana that is unique among these 5 supports is that she can play any position, from farming carry to brown boots support so picking her early or late isn't a liability and reveals very little about your strategy.

Team Secret's Big Daddy has been playing out of his mind on the Elder Titan (DOTA buff)recently in the support role rather than as an offlaner. This hero offers unique effects which only get better as the game goes on, namely Natural Order. Removing 100% base armor cripples stat based carries, like Morphling and Drow, as well as amplifying your teams damage. This hero also scales well with items, but is not dependent on them because of Astral Spirit. His stomp offers a long range initiation that sleeps units for a full 5 seconds, allowing your team and an earthsplitter to set up for a complete blow out. The only weakness of this hero is that his laning presence early is poor because stomp takes time to channel and he is melee so he has trouble harassing and zoning enemy heroes.

The Vengeful Spirit (DOTA buff) is well positioned right now because she works well with farming heroes that rely on physical damage - like Razor, Death Prophet, and Lycan, offers a bat rider-like ability to remove an enemy hero from play at instant speed via swap, increases the teams damage and has a reliable stun. Nether Swap and the increased damage through vengeance aura and wave of terror are the reasons to pick the Venge. She also facilitates Roshan with all the minus armor she's packing, especially if you get a medallion of courage. This item seems to have the DOTA communities consensus on being a core item for her. Shendelzare (yes, that's her name) can also play more of a core role, but operates just fine without items.

These 5 supports the best at what they do. Items aren't a necessity and they all add a dimension to your team which creates space for the team's cores to farm. Next time you play have to play a support, keep these 5 in mind; they won't steer you wrong. 

More Midas, More Problems

                Is midas really worth it? This item embodies many of the great aspect of DOTA. Are you behind in farm? Grab a midas.  Are you really far ahead from the 6-15 minute mark? Grab a midas. Your game has degenerated to a farming war? Grab a midas. The opposing team is going to pressure your towers from the 10 minute mark on? Don’t grab a midas. The item itself represents an investment of time and gold which you hope will pay back dividends in the future. Once purchased, the repayment period for the midas is 11 uses or 16 minutes & 40 seconds. Assuming that a player is averaging 400 gold per minutes (gpm) prior to purchasing it, the initial time investment 2050 gold / 400 gpm = 5 minutes 7 seconds to farm it. Let’s assume that our hero continues to farm 400 gpm plus their newly acquire midas - who’s added gpm is 2050 gold/16.66 minutes = 123 gpm. This makes for a grand farming total of 523 gpm. This changes the 16 minute and 40 second payback period to a true repayment period of 2050 gold / 523 gmp = 3 minutes and 55 seconds. To sum it up, the time it would take to save enough gold to purchase a midas and then farm up enough gold to where it paid for itself would be 9 minutes and 3 seconds. A player gains or loses about a minute for each 100 gpm difference from the baseline case of 400 gpm.

                With all these numbers, let’s try to make sense of what’s going on. The initial time investment is the period of time when the player is working toward getting their item. This is the point when the player is most vulnerable to having their farm disrupted. Each minute of decreased gpm, from deaths for example, during this period adds another minute that the game must go on in order for the midas to generate value. The repayment period is the amount of time that the game has to go on for the midas to break even. It needs another use after that (100 seconds) to generate value. Therefore the game must go on for 18 minutes and 20 seconds for the midas to turn a net profit in isolation. The true repayment period of the midas represents the aggregated affect the item has on a players farming with a players gpm. Finally there is a roughly 9 minutes of cost to break even on time investment that is, to have 2050 gold again.

All these tangibles are important to understand when thinking about purchasing a midas. If you won’t have about 5 minutes of uninterrupted farm, it doesn’t make much sense to purchase a midas because it will push back the true repayment period, delaying your relevance in the game giving. The repayment period gives us an idea of how long the game needs to last from point of purchase it to have a positive return on investment. If the game ends before the 16 minute and 40 seconds window is up, you would have been much better off purchasing a different item which would have improved your hero in some way other than gpm and slight attack speed increase. If the game does go the distance of 18 minutes and 20 seconds from point of purchase, then the true cost of the midas is what we need to worry about. This tells us how long after the purchase of the golden hand we can expect to start getting other items and begin impacting the game in a more noticeable way.

Many of the things discussed here are tangible and easy to quantify. There are still many aspects of the midas worthy of discussion, like the impact of the extra experience or the increase in the value of a creep wave, but weren’t touched on here. The inspiration for this post is to get a rough idea on the worthiness of purchasing the golden hand and a starting point for making sound decisions. Obviously I can’t factor in every variable; however a baseline has been established and will be built upon. Below I have provided a table and graph for quick reference when deciding to purchase a midas.

Player GPM:	Initial Investment	Player GPM with Midas	True Repayment time	Total Time invested
100	20:30	223	09:12	29:42
150	13:40	273	07:31	21:11
200	10:15	323	06:21	16:36
250	08:12	373	05:30	13:42
300	06:50	423	04:51	11:41
350	05:51	473	04:20	10:11
400	05:07	523	03:55	09:03
450	04:33	573	03:35	08:08
500	04:06	623	03:17	07:23
550	03:44	673	03:03	06:46
600	03:25	723	02:50	06:15
650	03:09	773	02:39	05:48