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Gank for Glory
Posted by Vincent "em0_llama" Nunes 2 years ago
Papa Dray is back yet again to share his seemingly neverending wisdom. This week: the ganker isn't rewarded enough.Drayich, along with a majority of the community, have a great deal of respect for Icefrog and his team of beta-testers, but at the end of the day, someone will always find a way to turn a relatively "balanced" version into an overpowered struggle, be it with item choice or different line ups. So the question remains; what is this pivotal item in the modern day game? According to Drayich, it is none other than the versatile Magic Stick.
Upon arriving to this conclusion, Drayich took a trip into the past. In the days 48b, the first team to farm up their blink daggers won. Well, most of the time. In the days of mouse-sports, or the Black King Bar era, Dray and his team would play with atleast two BKB heroes and no matter how much they got pummeled early on, once they had their BKBs it was over. Even now, by winning one team battle, a team can go from having a twenty kill deficit to actually winning the match; merely because they had more farming power than their opponents. Drayich now poses the question: Is this how we want competitive DotA to look?
“
If cooldowns were lower, would we fight more?”-"I don't have many ideas on how to make the game more "fighty", more action packed. But something I have thinking about is having cooldowns shorter depending on what time it is in the game. What would happen if the cooldowns on ultimates, for example, changed over time. 200 seconds for Enigma's ultimate is fair later on, but early on, it makes a player very selective about when to use it. If say, for the first twenty minutes of the game, the cooldown was less - would Enigma fight more?"
Now back to Magic Stick. This is a highly useful and defensive item as it basically provides everyone with an extra 150HP during a team fight; making fragile support heroes, who have no items whatsoever, a lot more resilient. This then creates a vicious cycle of support heroes having more money for wards, therefor avoiding more fights and encouraging a farm based game.
On to the laning stages. If a Magic Stick user survives ten hostile spells, he has an automatic 150HP ready to use. This makes him that much harder to kill in a gank, making it less appealing to run around, ganking people.
An extremely controversial topic, but one cannot deny the fact that the version is more in favour towards the defensive aspect of the game. All Papa Dray is asking is that the ganker is rewarded for his early game endeavours, rather than losing to the passive farmer.
| Links |
| Drayich.blogg.se - Original blog |
| Comments \ Paging |
 1, 2, 3, 4 
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1
| #46 +9999 too much farm and too little farm both make dota boring. i don't like pub PA hiding and farming for 40min then owns everyone, but i love how pro carries farm up imba items under heavy pushing, and i'm sure everyone loves to see a tinker with 6 active items :)) |
| what about boots? everyone buys them |
| if u want to reduce the defensive usage, just implement an cooldown like on dagger. so focused heros cant use magic stick, but those chasing (normally not taking dmg) can use the stick to get another spell rdy. |
| #56, 56 On the contrary, these are excellent discussions to have and the game improves this way. Part of the greatest aspects of DotA is the community's role in its development. And contrary to your outlook, not everyone is obsessed day and night with Asians vs. Europeans. "Euro people are whining bitches." Very good slur. Maybe go join an anti-immigrant militia or something. |
| ^ ok hahaha |
| 2007 : OMG game is too gank oriented - we can't win lets whine and nerf dagger. 2008 : OMG game is too farm oriented - pick luna/tb and jungle 40 mins nerf plx. 2009 begin :OMG game is too gank oriented - stupid asians playing their razors and vanguards 2009 end : OMG game is too farm oriented - 3 carry too imba ''Pro opinions'' or not, NONE of those versions needed a nerf/buff. Seriously if magic stick is so imba why aren't theshit best team ever? I wish Icefrog would stop making dota then people will HAVE to LEARN TO DEAL with things that annoy them and achieve a new level of gameplay instead of crying about everything and asking for changes. |
| I thank god that drayich isn't the one balancing this map. and i hope that icefrog doesnt take drayich or any similar player's comments into any consideration. |
| I'd like to repost my comments on this issue here: Drayich takes it for granted that the direction DotA must head is towards more fighting, excitement and aggressive style games. I agree with him. But I think there are those who believe there is nothing wrong with a defensive, long-term farming style of play. The heart of the issue remains this debate, which I think from Ice's position tends to be stalled in a de facto stance at 'balancing the two'. Is it a case of mediocrity resulting from a compromise? I disagree with him about the magic stick, though. People love this item and it's become a positive part of the game in general, allowing the presence of more, interesting heroes in the early game (CM, VS, Sven) than it does remove some (BB and Zeus being the two big spammers nerfed by this item). The stick is a small aid and it is powerful, yet on balance I think it in fact tends to strengthen early game action heroes / gankers. Hence the problem with the strength of defensive play and turtling tactics lies elsewhere. The source of this problem was correctly identified by EHOME after the latest SMM, I think. Namely, when a lot is at stake it is simply a far more beneficial strategy to ward defensively, retreat, wait, wait, farm and farm more until one's side is a threat to win the game, than to engage in an aggressive ganking style. In a nut shell, the problem is this: a highly offensive side can thoroughly dominate the first 20 minutes and yet if the defensive side gets enough farm it can organize a multicore push with some powerful tanks and supporters that wins the game easily. They can do this even if they were annhilated in all the preceding action. This phenomenon is prohibitive of a highly offensive playstyle. It's just not worth it. That is the core, overall problem, rather than particular items. How to fix it? That's another topic, but for starters the simplest answer would be to reward kills and offense more and make creep farming less beneficial. |
| i dont agree with dray magick stick can be used to restore MP for lasthit with some spell ....not only for saving  its fine now imo ... |
| #59 Dray and others of his kind have been involved in the development of DotA from the beginning, so I think you're pretty much screwed already. |
| OMG ICEFROG UR DOING IT ALL WRONG FFS!!! but seriously, appriciate what he's doing and just play with what you've given imo. |
| NOOOO magicstick is LODA's starting build |
| 98% of people commenting on this page only read the caption of articles? |
| I read this interview earlier at Papa's Blog. I agree with him except the part of removing magic stick, the experience system in team clashes should be improved to make the game more gank-oriented. Nuke #41 please?  |
| I would say I like the map as it always is isnt it same for the both sides ? |
| i dont know but i can see more gank than previous version. where most people whine watching football matches. |
| @ everyone bad mouthing Dray. This article is based on Dray's blog, therefor it is his own opinion, which he is entitled to. And he's not particularly saying that magic stick should be removed, maybe just reworked. But my point is, THESE ARE ONLY IDEAS. Without them, we would still be living in the stone age. Not all ideas are valid or in the best interest of everyone, but hey, the more ideas the better right? I for one love magic stick, but I do agree with Dray that gankers should be rewarded more. It is very frustrating for those we own in the first half of the game and end up losing even though they used a better and more tactical/exciting approach. |
| I'll keep it short. Magic stick is not the problem. There are many other things that need to be reworked/rebalanced. And that for the master IceFrog to decide... |
| "Shit red HP. Zeus cast ulti!" *Magic Stick* "ZOMFG 20hp survival" Magic stick killed Zeus. In games where I play ward bitch I usually go in jungle looking for Rikimarus to purge me giving me charges on magic stick.  Solution: Remove Recipe (Magic Wand). Increase Magic Stick price by 200. Magic Wand = Magic Stick + 3 Branches for a total price of 559. Making Magic Stick more expensive holds off support heroes from buying them early but not changing the total price by much so that it won't lose it's viability as a item to buy. |
| rofl why whining about magic stick ? It´s a great part of DotA and Icefrog did a great job on it . Magic stick also needs some skill to use and i think in every pro game is one really nice magic stick scene which is nice for the observer and fans , but we all know thats the point ... drayich lacks skill so he wants a smart cool item to be removed so you can always be sure the opponent dies? It´s just a nice item everyone can get it and it makes DotA more attractive so why the fuck should u remove it ???? Really dont get you drayich |
| Here's a good idea! Remove the fucking ancient apparition from dota. no one likes it. except the pubstompers |
| i think every heroes should just sit down and talk to each others, let the creeps fighting! less war and more LOVE ftw  |
| Wand just might be the most powerful item after boots and it doesnt cost jack shit. Its ridiculously cheap and far from balanced at the moment! Also it counters certain heroes wayyyyyyy too much which should be fixed somehow. The existence of an item shouldn't remove heroes like bristle completely from the game. Adding a cooldown or a some sort of a spell restriction will do the trick. It might not be a bad idea to copy the Urn and make it so that by casting 1 spell u only give 1 charge to the closest magic stick/wand. This way the stick wouldnt be so powerful in big clashes and all the heroes involved would have less survivability making it easier to kill them. If this was implemented it would also mean that deciding when to actually use the stick would become a lot more important and difficult. I dont agree on removing the whole item since imho it created a lot of new possibilities in terms of juking and outplaying. It also made more heroes viable than it actually hindered to being crap. |
| I think the drayich talks about a serious issue in the game, the only problem is that I'm not content with his solution. Removing Magic Stick from the game could fix some problems, but the other way round it would do one certain thing: it would make the role of a support hero even less enjoyable, what is not a good thing to do, because we need to reach exactly the opposite. To solve the magic stick problem (what exists only because it improves the surviveability of carries imo) I would suggest to implement a certain gold cap on magic stick (and rename it poorman stick or something ofc ;)), so that you can only bear the magic stick, if your total amount of gold (the price of the items you have bought plus the current gold you own) is less than 2000 for example (it's just a random number, it also depends on whether you want to make it usuable for gankers not only supporters). Once you overspend this goldcap, the stick is destroyed (additionally you could lose some gold too). It's just an idea, that came to my mind, I did not evaluate it in every single way. Furthermore Drayich mentioned the ward problem, what can, in my opinion easily be solved by a reasonable system of warding and counterwarding, because one thing I've noticed in many games is that counterwarding has gotten quite ineffective since the last sentry change. So this means that supporters, who are used to being short on gold anyway, have to do much "effort" (paying much gold, risking their live etc.) to guarantee the possibility of a gank for their teams. And the conflict even increases by the time one supporter gets more money than the one of the other team, making it unable to help his team out. So there certainly are several solutions to this problem, but right in this moment there are two of them comming to my mind. The first one is to increase the endurance of sentry wards, and to lower their costs. Pros and cons of this should be clear. The second one is to implement a new item something like a "ward destroyer" which is either a consumeable item or has a high cooldown. Using this item you can destroy every ward in a certain (small/large) area. However it should be quite cheap, so you have a good cost ratio to sentry wards. I'm not saying my propositions are perfect or even good, but I think the essence of them is, what can improve gaming experience in dota. Anyway this has gotten way too long, so I stop right here, greetings everyone ;) |
| magic stick allows some cool mind games.. pls.. don't remove it! |
its just simple if you cant adopt to the latest patches then stop playing dota simple isnt it?  |
| Bristle is such a punkass bitch hero anyway so I'm glad magic stick counters him nicely. However, less gold for creep kills and more gold for hero kills + slightly weaker towers will make ganging and tower diving more attractive to players. Aka shorter and more action packed games. Un problemos solvedios! AMIRITE?!?! |
| if you don't like magic stick, buy a bra or wb, null instead. it makes you harder. and i still have a stick for my own |
| I totally disagree! A support hero will not necessarily survive a fight while carrying magic stick. Imo it just saves the skilled and well positioned supporter in a fight.( I know he meant it increases the possibility of him surviving yet I believe the difference ain't that much) Having more ward could mean playin more aggressively based on where you put them. Plus it's a fun item to play with and you could do some versatile jukes with it so I think it should stay. |
| http://ddt-ducky.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html I gave my point of view on this case on my new blog. You are more then welcome to give it a read and comment on it. Tell me if there is anything you would like me to talk about and I will consider it for next time i sit down and write on it |
| why remove stick? if an item is imbalanced per se just increase its price... everybody can buy stick, like everybody can buy boots. about the more ward situation. clearly i dont understand it. the great way to gank is not to blindly enter a fogged area and just throw ur stun to anything u can see. nowadays everybody use ward, whats the point of ward not making dota more gank friendly? really, are we supposed to play dota without buying wards at all (ward is not allowed), well that way u have more clash and blind fight. ward is bought to provide vision and therefore, avoid unnecessary clash. if both teams prefer to light the entire map with wards and avoid any kind of unnecessary fight ( which happens a lot). thats entirely their choice. i see 1 game with less than 30 kills, mainly because both team turtling and just destroying each other base... the way of ganking is never dead. but ganking itself is not the ultimate panacea, sometimes to win we need different measures. we must accept that there are the other facet of the game, the farming method. team put on their defensive mode, lights up the map and tower hug, stick together, whatever else. Just like in footbal, we cant expect the team playing beautiful football win all the time. thats the reality. ganking can only be achieved if opponent also give room to gank |
| n.c. remove the item , so supporters can build +1 bracer again .... |
| i need my magicstcik, poor support cm just cant take too muchdmg |
agree ith ducky. to win dota u need to master all aspects (including farming). thats why killing creeps got gold and we 'lasthit'. if dota is going to become more gank friendly, double the gold from heroes and halves the gold from creeps, there u go  |
| read ducky's blog. I think he made some good points. Made me become a fan. plus rly nice idea on the delay charging. it's so hard to land a torrent!!! gotta say the range of heroes being used this version rly shows the game has progressed in good way |
| Ducky: Some interesting points are made, but I think you're getting a bit emo in response to Dray merely giving his thoughts. That is, "take a pill and relax" as if he is spazzing out and going nutzo. #90 Apparently, you have serious difficulty with reading comprehension. You are also dead wrong that no one prefers a style with 30+ minutes of farming. They consider it a more complex and thoughtful style of play, resembling chess. BTW, do us all a favor and drop the personal insult bullshit, OK? |
| drayich balanced the dota map? lolwut yosnail? you gettin old or some shit? btw no1 prefers a farming defensive game, but when thats what wins u games, then thats whats adopted. stop spreading false info. |
#3 /facepalm  |
| If the problem is people surviving because of it why not make it give mana only? Would need some adjustments then but it should fix the problem. @Donald: Like the idea of the delayed charges, would help a lot of heroes like KotL as you pointed out. |
| #1 Agreed. but,imo Stick less cd much better.. and refilling bottle with crow sux, it should be remove. heheheh |
| #2 Agree |
| - Make it pay more gold to be near and inside herokills - why not even more experience? And make the one not lasthitting also get gold for the actual kill. Even if they are 5. i like that idea. |
| Sorry I don't have the time to make a long thorought analysis of this, lots of work to do on my hand, but I would say this : Icefrog can't make an easy decision on this because unfortunately, most top pro players have a different opinion on that matter. But, on the other hand, they are some changes that have been asked of him (Icefrog) for ages, on which most pros agrees, and that still haven't seen their ways into the game. One such simple thing is this : Give more gold to assists. And WITHOUT sharing or lowering the gold reward for the last-hitter. This would bring a HUGE positive change to the game, especially for poor weak support heroes who can't farm much and struggle to buy just their boots/bracers/wards. This simple choice wouldn't impact the total balance of income from a metagame point of view as some other proposed solutions like "lowering creeps income" or "increasing hero kills gold" (althought increasing hero kills gold should be considered in the long-term if the game is to really become a spectator plateform, but it's an E-Sport political decision that only Icefrog can take) because the money gotten by the assisting hero is created "ex nihilo", exactly like when you take the killing streak money or when you take gold for killing a hero that already had no gold. The game create that money for you, from an economical balance point of view. So, more money for assist. Especially "Heavy assist". I think some way of calculating the impact of the assist player on the kill process should even be devised by Icefrog (%age of Damage, Stun/slow duration in number of seconds BEFORE hero death, etc ...), effectively creating that "Heavy assist" category. Because weather you play competitive or pub, it's not right that during a team gank, a support Lion finger some guy, removing him 80% of his life, then the carry comes, just last hit the guy and get all the money while the support get almost nothing. This is not right. I'm all for strategy and leaving the last hit to your carry is strategy and skill, but what would it change for this carry if he would STILL get the last hit and the gold, but his poor support player would get, for example, 80% of the gold he got. What wrong would it do to the carry ? Nothing. And what wrong would it do to the Economics of the metagame ? Nothing. Supports are always poor anyway, and they already let all the lane creeps to their carries, anyway. It's a win-win situation, noone would lose, the game would be more nervous and more action packed (because better equiped supports plays better, it's simple), without making the games all too much about early games ganks, as Ducky pointed. One simple change. |
imo DOTA is a unique game,why? it is updated frequently than FIFA or any other game...so when a new version is out, the player need to adapt to changes of that version...that's make DOTA not boring game,game play changes in every version,player need to find out how to deal with that version like strategy etc...about magic stick,maybe it will changes later in the future version who knows 7.00 maybe,hopefully when it changes,nobody say 'new magic stick suck! i like old the one', ' what makes me retire from dota scene is that the game now is more farm oriented' etc...like i said,adapt to changes  *lesson from china! |
| #89 It simply makes me sad to see pro players judge thinks so fast without breathing in and consider it from other point of views. Instead of blaming the version we should adapt to it faster and with more thoughts. Just because you are not strong in some aspects doesn't mean the version is unballenced, it means you have something to work on.. |
| papa dray ! |
| #73 +100 I totally support you on that! |
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