I couldn't find the right category for this, so if one of the mods could just move it .

Anyway, how do you guys think South Africa will stack up to the skills of international players? Ive jammed quite a bit on RGC, jammed in quite a lot of in house leagues there. Also played a bit of dotalicious but got very very over that. Started to playing darer recently. From darer what ive noticed, is that they play a very very unusual drafting style. They choose things that will throw you out completely and leave you at a lose for words. However from all the servers, what ive found out, the europeans play a much more aggressive style of play. They are constantly going in for kills never backing down. In a trilane, if you not making a kill every 2minutes then they consider that lane as having failed. This is something i find lacking in local competitive play. Usually you get 1 hero that will sit and farm for 45minutes and then rape everything. This is way Artstyle is my favourite player. He prefers games where people are constantly fighting, ganks are constantly being made, and the thrown is being taken 35minutes into the game like a bawss.

Ive played with a few of the Nav`i guys, prior to the international tournament, and all i can say is, holy SHIT those okes farm. Please dont leave half arsed comments, i am very interested into hearing what your thoughts are

Hey finally spotted you here.
Well i have only played a bit on Rgc
however it is quiet obvious that the europeans
play a lot more aggressive in general.
Artstyle is definitely the guy that takes you right up to the
enemies doorstep as fast as possible instead of farming up
the whole game, losing one crucial battle and losing the game.

Wanna jam some Rgc sometime soon??

Can't discuss much about DotA platforms because i only played on Dotalicious and ICCup.

In terms of picking, I think that geographically the picks are not very different i.e. Europe is more aggressive, or SE lacks gangs; it's all about skill level.

I've played pubs with Dendi twice and I gotta say that I'm not impressed I think Its the teamwork within the team that makes all the difference, not personal skill.

Hahah yeah i kinda miss spelled my name like a chop .

Im so sure about the skill level being that much greater any more hey. I used to think that european players were sooo much better in terms of skill level. However im not 100% sure about that any more. Look if you are comparing our top tier teams against top tier teams like nav`i then sure we stand no chance at all. However if you compare the middle tier teams then skill for skill i think we hold our own. Where we lose it, is in the aggressiveness of the play. I dont think we have skill barrier to climb, but i think we need to change our style of play. I think we need to adapt our strats more towards 6.72f style, where an AA solo mid is hell rather than having a spectre hard carry that needs about 40minutes of farm.

-endzeit- sure thing we can jam on RGC . We should get the clan together and see how we do .

Losters wrote:

Hahah yeah i kinda miss spelled my name like a chop .

Im so sure about the skill level being that much greater any more hey. I used to think that european players were sooo much better in terms of skill level. However im not 100% sure about that any more. Look if you are comparing our top tier teams against top tier teams like nav`i then sure we stand no chance at all. However if you compare the middle tier teams then skill for skill i think we hold our own. Where we lose it, is in the aggressiveness of the play. I dont think we have skill barrier to climb, but i think we need to change our style of play. I think we need to adapt our strats more towards 6.72f style, where an AA solo mid is hell rather than having a spectre hard carry that needs about 40minutes of farm.

-endzeit- sure thing we can jam on RGC . We should get the clan together and see how we do .

You see thats exactly it.
Artstyles mentions that, when he was talking about his own captaining style he said something along the lines of him being the
kind of guy that would take the fight right onto the enemies doorstep in the early phases of the game as opposed to ricing the whole
game and and losing one crucial fight and its GG (ww) at the end..... we simply arnt aggressive enough.
Another quote from some one i cant remember (i think it was fear, Ns or dendi) that made a lot of sense is that it simply not enough for
supports to be ward whores the whole game. So that basically comes down to a lack of items, exp and gold because i suppose they are
constantly giving ALL the farm and ALL the kills to the carries or trade of players...... which is alright i suppose if you are giving it to the carry...
but supports in south africa (from what i have seen) are just not doing well enough. If you look at the games from the international Dota2 tourney.
You will notice that in most cases the supports are also getting farmed. Which makes them more useful during the late game (if it gets to that) as opposed to just being a tasty treat for the other teams carry.
I think this will really help to be honest, lets just take a dual lane as an example with a morph and a cm. Cm gives all the farm to morph ergo resulting in a level gap of say:
Morph - 12
Cm - 6/7
So while the morph is doing well the support is unable to really help out as much as it is required and will most probably be picked off 1st leaving the morph man alone in e,g a 3 man gank.
Now...
Morph - 10
Cm - 8
Cm becomes a little more useful, right? higher leveled spells, longer frostbite more
mana reg even better item AND even more wards... etc so she is able to stand her ground longer
and put up more of a fight because she also has better items... anyways i am starting to ramble now and lose myse;f here... lol not sure if any of this makes sense..



lol i am starting to think i scared all away from commenting here with ^^

Sorry man ive been at work hahah. Anyway, that is exactly why artstyle is my hero. This whole thing about supports needing no farm is complete rubbish. If you take an earthshaker, this hero pretty much only needs mana boots and blink dagger. There is no point in him getting mana boots and blink dagger 40minutes into the game. I think we need to draw a measure between the carries getting kills AND creeps. Personally, i feel that the carries can get the creeps, with the supports taking 1/2 every wave, but then in exchange the supports deserve a few kills simply for the gold + xp bonus.

As said above, a support that is 4/5 levels below the rest of the team is a useless hero and he might as well stay in the fountain because he is just going to die.

Ill add my comment now, not enough time! Watch this space (also Losters you can ask Nexus to change your name for you if you want to Lostears )

Ok, so im not going to brag nor am i going to a dick about this. Mate does dota commentaries and they had a set of keys from valve waiting for him. Managed to get my hands on one. Uhm, first thoughts.....NOT what i was expecting. Its a big change from dota1. Mechanics are all different. Last hitting and denying is really very very hard. Also im not 100% how the chat log works because i _never_ seem to get any chat log until i press enter. Im going to mess around with the settings. Im playing it at high graphics and it really isnt very impressive. Th International made it seem a lot better than it actually is. I have only played 2 heros. Still getting used to hp and mana bars as well as the skills selection.

Once i get the hang of this, i will report back as to how SA compares with international scene

They have good players, but I'm not too sure of their high competitive experience. Maybe Faent can enlighten us.

GravedamN wrote:

They have good players, but I'm not too sure of their high competitive experience. Maybe Faent can enlighten us.

The portal is gonna be more lively now that you and Rachel are back ;)