Situational Analysis #1

[totallnewbie]

Greetings all,

It’s been a while since I’ve been involved with DotA at all, let alone since I’ve contributed to the DotA community. For those who don’t know who I am, I have written some premium miscellaneous gameplay guides in the past, namely “The Art of Mindgames”, and “Using Your Hero to its Full Potential” which can be found on the dota-allstars forum. I also have a relatively popular youtube channel containing many videos showcasing strategies, tactics, for learning and entertainment purposes.

The purpose of this thread is to examine a situation from a recent competitive game, analyze the decisions that were made by the players, and recommend alternative actions. In every replay (be it competitive, public, IH, whatever), and every dota highlight video on youtube that I watch, there are countless number of situations where poor decision making takes place, and things could have been played out much better for both teams. I’m not talking about hero picks or bans, but rather how the players are playing their heroes. DotA is a game where teams slowly try to build up incremental advantages in order win the game, and there is no doubt that these small, but important decisions made by players could have changed the outcome of the game completely. I believe these little things are overlooked by lots of people, and should be brought out onto the floor for discussion.

This idea has been in my mind for a long time, but I’ve never got around to doing this. I believe that by examining these situations closely, it will slowly lead to better decision making abilities by the dota population (both new and professional players). Yes, examining plays after the fact may have some hindsight bias present and may not be valid, as every different action will cause the players to react differently. However, I will try my best to cover everything as I still believe this is a good learning tool/experience. Also, it isn’t my intention to say <insert well known player here> sucks at making decisions in the spur of the moment or anything along those lines. Everyone makes mistake and we wouldn’t get any better if we didn’t make any.

Well no more delays, today’s situation is from game 1 of the F4F 2.3 Finals - Blight.Int vs. MciTY

The Sentinel, Blight.int

[B]Puppey!SGATE (Top)
[B]Ben!SGATE (Bot)
[B]KuroKy!SGATE (Mid)
Blight.DeMoN.us (Mid)
[B]Amar!SGATE (Top)


The Scourge, MCiTY

MCiTY^Shatan (Mid)
JohnnyUtah (Top)
MCiTY^Chawy (Bot)
MCiTY^Tonton (Roaming)
r1sk~ (Top)

This battle takes place 25:00 replay time in mid lane. Hero items/levels/positions, along with the clip, is shown below. The tidehunter had just respawned with ravage on cooldown, and is about to teleport mid where the battle ensues.



Permanent Link

Hero kill count: Sentinel lost 2 heroes (Kunkka and Vengeful Spirit), Scourge lost none.

While the Scourge did come out ahead in this battle, they had the potential to do much better. Also, the Sentinel could have done much better as well had they had done something different. I will go over each player’s point of view and their actions.

Blue Dark Seer: ([B]Puppey!SGATE)

After the slardar blinked up and the tidehunter TP’ed in, blue should have instantly vaccumed the two heroes closer to the tower. This is so purple will take less damage and can survive. Instead, blue decided to cast surge on a pretty much perma-stunned kunkaa (after the arrow from priestess landed) who has no chance of surviving, and vacuum shortly after. It also wouldn’t have hurt to cast ion shell on purple or a nearby creep so the slardar and tidehunter take extra damage. Had he not casted surge on purple, yellow would have been saved if the scene played out the way it did.

Teal Windrunner: ([B]Ben!SGATE)

Windrunner doesn’t have many crucial spells to help out in this battle besides shackleshot, which was used quite late into the battle. I am really surprised Ben didn’t use shackleshot when slardar was perfectly in front of the incoming tidehunter. It would have disabled both of them and again, would have taken some fire off purple. Other than that, powershot is cast whenever it is off cooldown, and the spacing was good.

Purple Kunkka: ([B]KuroKy!SGATE)

I think it’s safe to assume that Kuroky didn’t know slardar had a blink dagger. It is very importantly to always be checking your opponent’s HP, Mana, and items to know exactly what they are capable of. Had he known, I don’t think he would be that deep into the enemy’s territory. Anyway, a good reaction to the tidehunter TP would have been to cast a torrent on top of the TP area. It would have hit both slardar and tidehunter, again reducing the damage taken from their heroes. The ship was also cast incorrectly and none of his allies received the pirate rum buff (which also could have saved venge in the end). Other than that, he didn’t have much to do being perma stunned and all...lol

Yellow Vengeful: (Blight.DeMoN.us)

The initial stun on slardar and wave of terror was excellent. What followed afterwards wasn’t... yellow just right clicked and auto-attacked slardar. After the arrow landed on purple, there was only one way for him to survive with the heroes present. Yellow HAD to run to the bottom of the cliff and swap him out of there. Venge was the only one on the team with the potential to save purple, and he had failed to do it. He already threw stun and wave, and as Vengeful, his job is pretty much done. It is better if he dies instead of purple. Also, by swapping purple out, it will screw up the Scourge’s coordination, and may buy the window of opportunity for purple to cast a clutch torrent and boat to turn the tide of the battle. I actually believe his chances of survival would be pretty good if he took purple’s place and just ran for it after the swap. Near Full HP, Bottle, and wand would have been more than enough to run away back down the cliff afterwards IMO.

Assuming the scene played out the way it did until purple died, vengeful went back for a stun on the tidehunter when it wouldn’t do jack shit. Purple was already dead, his allies were retreating, and tidehunter wasn’t going to die from anything. With DP and Dazzle’s ult on him, this definetly wasn’t a good choice to make. Simply by running away they would have cut their loss to only 1 hero. Even if yellow gets focused down, he still had the option to swap places with blue or teal who can surge/windrun away easily with full HP.

Orange Avernus: ([B]Amar!SGATE)

Nothing much to say here. It was unfortunate that he wasn’t there for the battle, but there is no way he could have known it would take place when it did. I don’t blame him for not being there. You can see on the minimap he went to secret shop, but there was no point teleporting over at that time because the battle was pretty much over. A preventive measure would just simply be to have a TP with you at all times. Most people know to do this, but ironically, orange was the only person on the team without a TP at the time, and the team paid the price for this.

Pink Death Prophet: (MCiTY^Shatan)

Came just in time to steal the kill XD. Afterward exorcism and run alongside enemy heroes. Nothing wrong with what pink did.

Grey Slardar: (JohnnyUtah)

Initiating with blink was the right thing to do, and everything else was done right. The only gripe I have with JohnnyUtah’s play is the premature use of magic stick. Maybe it’s just a matter of personal playstyle, but I believe items and spells shouldn’t be wasted. Magic stick should be saved for clutch situations to keep commiting the opponent to fight the battle.

Light Blue Priestess of the Moon: (MCiTY^Chawy)

Very nice arrow, but a follow up of leaping into the battle to create more DPS as well as give the team a movespeed buff to chase down remaining heroes would have been a good choice. Venge had already used stun, kunkka is pretty much permastunned, so Priesstess should have no hesitation at all to use leap to get into battle. He would not be putting himself in danger in any way. Even if he gets focused down, there is a dazzle to grave and heal.

Dark Green Tidehunter: (MCiTY^Tonton)

Good shift-gush after TP, and very smart to move down incase Ben decided to throw a shackleshot at slardar. However, Tonton just stuck around running in circles doing nothing in front of the shadow priest until he was pulled into the action by vaccum. If Ben had again cast a shackleshot there while tidehunter was in front of the shadow priest, it might have turned out disastrous for the scourge. Tidehunter is a caster as well as a tank. There should have been no hesitation in engaging the enemy heroes. Attacking kunkka was fine, but I would have went for either blue or teal below the ramp to damage them and stay in range to cast a gush. It was pretty much guaranteed that the scourge was going to kill purple given the way the scene played out, and it would have been more optimal for tide to focus on another hero and try to prevent their escape.

Brown Dazzle: (r1sk~)
The Dazzle’s overall play was solid, but there are improvements that could have been made. Excellent placement of ult, but a poison touch on purple? Why? Using the same concept I mentioned for tidehunter, poison would have been much better if cast on someone like yellow. Yes, more DPS, but again purple couldn’t do jack in the situation he was in. It was overkill already.

The things I’m going to talk about now are not really mistakes in the situation, but have the potential to become mistakes. I’m talking about the unnecessary shallow grave on slardar, the use of magic stick when you’re nowhere near short on HP or mana, and the poison touch on teal at the very end. These spells got wasted.... What if the tidehunter had played more aggressively like I had suggested and would be closer to death? Dazzle wouldn’t be able to save him with grave anymore... Also, why would you cast a poison touch after all your teammates had realized there was no hope in catching any other hero? Not only does this lower your own mana, but it also gives the opponents charges on magic stick/wands. And believe me, one charge can make all the difference in battle. I hope you see my point here: if there is no need to use the spell why would you do it? It limits your potential way more than it does damage to the opposition in most cases.

Conclusion
Overall, this was a very sticky situation for the Sentinel. They definitely had the disadvantage fighting this 4v5, but it was definitely possible for them to all survive the ordeal, and maybe even kill a hero or two at the same time. Almost everyone could have improved at something, but the key hero here was Vengeful Spirit. Had Demon played it differently than he did, the outcome would have changed entirely for the better.

I would love to hear all of your comments regarding my comments about the decisions, as well as what you believe could have been done in the situation to make it better for either side. I would also appreciate feedback and whether or I should continue posting these situations every week or so. If this had helped you in any way, whether it was realizing all the mistakes being made even on professional levels, or my little random bits of dota advice, please say so if you believe this is a good way to learn and improve. If you would like to recommend some replays or higher level highlight videos for me to analyze next time, please do so as well. Let's keep this discussion friendly and clean

[Swiftkick]

Originally Posted by totallnewbie

It’s been a while since I’ve been involved with DotA at all, let alone since I’ve contributed to the DotA community. For those who don’t know who I am, I have written some premium miscellaneous gameplay guides in the past, namely “The Art of Mindgames”, and “Using Your Hero to its Full Potential” which can be found on the dota-allstars forum. I also have a relatively popular youtube channel containing many videos showcasing strategies, tactics, for learning and entertainment purposes.

First off, really liked your vids.

Had to watch the video on youtube, the embed was a bit small to catch all the details. My first thought was that Admiral really misjudged the Ghost Ship placement. It's natural to go overkill on disables, after all, it can be very demoralizing if someone escapes from a good gank by a fog juke or some such. But since purple was out in the open, and was taken out by Crush + Arrow + Crush, Poison Touch was overkill.

Spot on about Dark Seer, Ion Shell and Vacuum might have pushed the edge and got Slardar killed. Swap really could have saved purple's life. Think Yellow should have hung back just a little bit further from purple early...

Originally Posted by totallnewbie

I would love to hear all of your comments regarding my comments about the decisions, as well as what you believe could have been done in the situation to make it better for either side. I would also appreciate feedback and whether or I should continue posting these situations every week or so. If this had helped you in any way, whether it was realizing all the mistakes being made even on professional levels, or my little random bits of dota advice, please say so if you believe this is a good way to learn and improve. If you would like to recommend some replays or higher level highlight videos for me to analyze next time, please do so as well. Let's keep this discussion friendly and clean

Does this mean you'll be more active? Think it might work better in the future if you post the situation/items/heroes and let the forumers talk about what hero did what, and then add in your thoughts and comments after the first wave of responses. As it is, I think you pretty much covered everything. And yes, it was a good read and quite enlightening.

[ka1i]

I'm a big fan of your videos too!
Nice to see you active around here and looking forward to more.The analysis was spot on.Would like to add more but were pretty extensive.

[iser]

OMG!!! i haven't started watching the vid yet, but i had to tell you right now that i am a huge fan of yours. your guide/vids on bristleback made me fall in love with the pig and the art of mindfucking.

k. watching the vid now.

[Zieth]

Hindsight is 20/20 >_>

[wutwat]

i agree. not 100% sure but i think both teams had some lag issues in those games, but still.

imo the major point was that sent didn't know slardar already had his dagger, and kky was cought off guard. but yeah when i watched the replay i also thought that they kinda failed in that situation. amar farming top without tp, he could easily save everyone with shield+heal, and demon could swap kky (mb it was on cd? dunno).

also, i'm interested in more analysis threads, go for it =)

[iser]

pretty much, it came down to venge fail. venge should have swapped out kunkka to the back, and from the backline, kunkka would've been able to launch a nice ship.

on the second viewing just, seer fail stood out a lot to me also. instead of surging kunkka, who wasn't going anywhere, he should've casted a better placed vacuum. that would've bought kunkka an extra second or two.

but in the end, yea, the biggest fail is still venge.

it's feels so weird for me to criticize the pro players since i would've probably done something dumber if i was in the same situation. yea, it's all hindsight 20/20.

[Meur]

I think it's a great idea to bring these insights to the less experienced people, who don't realise there is always room for improvement, grats on finally getting the motivation to help these people.

[Ivanns]

Very nice analysis!!
P.S. Love your videos, make moar!!

[totallnewbie]

Yes, hindsight is 20/20...but truthfully speaking, it's not asking too much from the players. I would expect that players of this caliber should be able to make the right decisions in crucial moments like this. It is very hard to see everything that is going on from only 1 viewing, but when it comes down to it, there is no excuse for some of the things the players did.

I'll admit that the first time I saw the scene, I only noticed how tide was just running around doing nothing, and how venge failed to swap kunkka out of the battle. I was literally in shock how venge could just auto attack after casting missle. Not that it matters (or whether you believe it), but I myself would have instantly swapped kunkka if I was playing the venge. But even this analysis after the fact is still useful because there are always things you could have done (and will keep in mind next time because you looked back on it) to improve the situation. It will register in your mind for use next time you are put in a similar situation.

[disrup3]

Hi totallnewbie, long time no see, how have you been?

Looks awesome, as usual, gotta read it again tho, skimmed too much ;/

[painful_smile]

hm i think it is better to show lvl, items, etc in the board.
there you can see everything and you don't have to switch and if there is some music in the video or you just saying all these things, you wrote here in the forum, it is better. Then you can say thinks while they are happening.
greece

[Zieth]

Originally Posted by totallnewbie

Yes, hindsight is 20/20...but truthfully speaking, it's not asking too much from the players. I would expect that players of this caliber should be able to make the right decisions in crucial moments like this. It is very hard to see everything that is going on from only 1 viewing, but when it comes down to it, there is no excuse for some of the things the players did.

I'll admit that the first time I saw the scene, I only noticed how tide was just running around doing nothing, and how venge failed to swap kunkka out of the battle. I was literally in shock how venge could just auto attack after casting missle. Not that it matters (or whether you believe it), but I myself would have instantly swapped kunkka if I was playing the venge. But even this analysis after the fact is still useful because there are always things you could have done (and will keep in mind next time because you looked back on it) to improve the situation. It will register in your mind for use next time you are put in a similar situation.

This is true but I don't think Blight was trying very hard. Mcity was lagging on that host, I think a closer game would've been better to analyze.

[doppelpils]

This is true but I don't think Blight was trying very hard. Mcity was lagging on that host, I think a closer game would've been better to analyze.

But that doesn't apply for the very situation itself. If you're in the same situation, be it pub, league or tournament game, "sloppy" play is not an excuse. You still want to kill, you still don't want to die and usually you're still doing the best you can. And if things go fast, you're anyway just running on instinct and reflexes, not on thoughts.

@newbie:

nice to see you again. Really nice topic, detailed analysis is what dota is really lacking because most people (including myself) rarely bother with details and just say "good arrows by potm!!!11". Dota is very complex, but still can be deciphered if you invest a bit time. The biggest problem i usually have is that there is no real "replay a scene"-function, so in most cases you're just "wtf happend, uh that was fast" even at 1/2 speed.

Well written, strategy needs some quality contribution.

[3955elits]

iirc demon had some personal issues with kky...he mentioned it once in his blog (although it's pretty much joking). but yeah. the biggest fail here imo is kky. he's in too deep and yeah..perma stunned. but venge didn't swap him too...so both are fail at that battle.
is it just me but I think that checking your opponents items regularly (if you have vision on them) is common sense?

oh and there was a time when venge swapped someone that was supposed to be torrented.

[Doovad]

You hit all the points pretty much. I feel that Kunkka not torrenting was a very big (but not key) factor, it looked like he had the time to get it off. Watching Venge sacrifice herself was painful to watch.

[icehsm]

not what i was expecting at all, a fairly superficial analysis (no offence), i was hoping you would go into deeper motivations as to why people did what, and why fight there, also as for mcity in thiss fight/game they were suffering from sever lag/delay, which would explain premature magic stick use, and unessacary spells casted.

Still a good idea, and i love your other work, however not nearly as detailed in the ways i was hoping it would be.

[EternityPala]

Another quality analysis by totallnewbie.
Always liked you guides.

[Thanatism]

Do you think that it might have been possible that the players were less responsive upon seeing Tide Hunter? Could it have been possible that the Sentinel were expecting a ravage at some point and decided to move?

I also think that Windrunner missed opportunities to do damage. Even if she failed to fire a more useful Shackel Shot at when tide first appeared I beleive more damage could have done to Slardar if a shakel shot was used at around 16:16 or 16:17 on him. This could have given Kunkka a split second to do maybe a torrent for or use his magic stick.

[willalwaybenoob]

Dammit, I am in China....where youtube is banned, but i think i watched mind game somewhere...where like, mangixwalked into shadow then stunned and killed then blinked away.