Kamis, 28 April 2011

How to use courier!!

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Must Have Chicken



Introduction

If you never buy the Courier, and don't even use it if an ally buys it, YOU ARE NOOB! Read this guide, learn to use the Courier and you will be one step closer to becoming a good player.

Often referred to as 'chicken', the Courier is an essential tactical asset in DotA. It has evolved greatly since it was first introduced into the game--evidence of its importance.

This guide will cover some basic ideas about the Courier, after which it will move onto how to micro it properly, problems you will experience, as well as advanced uses of the Courier.


Index

1. Basic Facts
2. Courier Abilities
3. Setting Up the Controls
4. Buying Items
5. Upgrading To Flying Courier
6. Problems With the Courier
7. Advanced Uses


Basic Facts

1. The Courier is a consumable item that generates a controllable unit. It can carry up to 6 items.

2. It is bought at the Ancient of Wonders. The upgrade to flying Courier is found at Supportive Vestments.

3. A Courier should be bought at the start of every single game. A team needs exactly one.

4. Whenever you go to the fountain, you lose a ton of XP and the opportunity to farm gold. Instead, use the Courier to buy and deliver your items.

5. Supporting heroes (i.e. Warlock, Dazzle, Rylai, Rhasta, Lich, etc) should buy it; or any hero that requires little gold to be effective in the game. Krobulous, for example, has very solid skills and therefore could afford the burden, even though she is a powerful carry.


Courier Abilities

The courier behaves much like a hero, so it has basic commands like move, stop, patrol, etc and has 6 inventory slots.

Note that it is of type Ancient, and therefore is immune to lots of spells which helps to keep it from dying. The best way to kill the enemy courier is to attack it.


Changes the 3D model used by the courier. I prefer the chicken or the raccoon, so I can see it well. Some people think the opposite, and prefer the penguin which is hard to see.


Transforms the Animal Courier into the Flying Courier. Requires the recipe.


Transfer Items(T) - Moves towards your hero and hands over all items, then goes back to town.


Return Home(E) - Sends the Courier back to town.


Drop Items(D) - Drops all inventory items to the ground. If the Courier is in town, the items go to the circles of power instead.


Burst(R) - Gives a 20 second speed boost to the Flying Courier. 40 second cooldown. Always use this to speed up item delivery.


Shield(C) - An impenetrable shield surrounds the Courier, protecting it from all damage and spells for 7 seconds. 20 second cooldown. Use this after the Courier has finished delivering items or whenever its in danger.


Disassembles items in it's inventory. Only works for some items (i.e. Ring of Basilius).

PlayDotA provides detailed statistics for the courier, such as health, ms, etc:

Statistics for Animal Courier
Statistics for Flying Courier


Setting Up the Controls

The first thing you need to do after you create the Courier, is to share it with your allies. The shortcut to this is F11, which presents to you a list of players you can share it with. If you are in a pub game it would be unwise to share with the entire team. Instead, ask who wants it and give it to the people who answer you.

Next thing to do is to create control groups. In the examples to follow, I will be using the following control groups:

1 = Your Hero
2 = Courier

To configure these, select the corresponding unit, such as your hero, and press Ctrl + 1. These shortcuts will be useful throughout the entire game, allowing you quick access to either unit.

In case an ally buys the Courier and gives you control, immediately set up the control groups.

Note: If a player switch occurs (-so), you may have to re-share the Courier.


Buying Items

Suppose you are in lane, a few creep waves have gone by and you have accumulated a little bit of gold, say 600. This is a great opportunity to buy items. Try getting used to buying items early because the extra stats and regen help you dominate your lane.

Execute the following sequence:

1. Verify your gold and think about what you are going to buy
2. Move your hero a bit closer to the tower so he is safe from a gank
3. Double press 2 quickly. This will move the camera to the Courier
4. Buy your items as fast as possible. They are automatically placed inside the Courier
5. Double press 1 quickly to go back to your hero (safety step)
6. Type the following: 2, T, R, 1 => instructs the Courier to deliver your stuff and moves the control back to the hero. 'T' is the transfer command and 'R' is for the speed boost

Go back to farming and gaining XP. But keep a close eye on the Courier's progress in the mini-map as you don't want to risk it being killed by the enemy. When you see him approaching, retreat a little and stop moving so he can pass the items to you safely.

This is a dangerous moment in the game. You can't afford to lose the Courier and the items, so you have to make sure your enemies aren't tower diving. At the slightest sign of danger, press 2 and tell the Courier to hide in the forest or go back to base (shortcut E).


Upgrading to Flying Courier

To upgrade your regular Courier to a flying one, place the Flying Courier scroll into it's inventory, select him, and click the 'upgrade to flying Courier' ability.

In high level games this is always recommended. In this case all 5 people will be using it, so the extra movement speed pays off. In a pub, however, with a maximum of 2 or 3 people 'maybe' using it, it is hardly worth upgrading.

Either way, never upgrade it at the start of the game. This is completely senseless, as nobody will be using it that early. Furthermore, you don't have to be in town to buy the upgrade.

If you are the primary support hero, buy the upgrade as soon as you can, ideally before anyone needs to use the Courier.


Problems With the Courier

1. Someone else is using it - If you have voice communication with your team, have them notify when they are going to use the Courier. If everyone does this there shouldn't be many conflicts. In a pub, however, the best thing to do is wait for the Courier to go back to town, and then use it.

2. Someone left items in it - Press 'D' to drop all items. They will go to the top of the circles of power. Imagine your teammate's Ultimate Orb is on the damn thing and you get it killed while delivering a Bracer recipe... you will never forgive yourself.

3. Someone left the Courier in the middle of nowhere - Press 'E' to send it back to town.

4. The Courier is delivering more items than will fit in your inventory - sell something at the side-shop or drop something. If you drop an item at the moment the Courier approaches you, he will pick it up then take it back home. Sometimes this doesn't work properly because he can't guess which items you actually want to keep.

5. It is delivering a complicated recipe and command 'T' won't work - Sometimes the courier can't assemble the recipe, and I haven't yet figured out the pattern. It would be great if the recipe was delivered correctly, but sometimes it fails Drop the items next to the hero and pick them up in a more old-school fashion.

6. The Courier has been killed! - Shrug... buy a new one. Better luck next time.


Advanced Uses

1. Bottle Refill - Empty bottle? No runes? Give the bottle to the Courier to refill at the fountain.

2. Consumables - Sometimes sending an extra clarity or healing through the Courier might be better than returning to the fountain.

3. Scouting - particularly for checking Roshan, runes or during a push so you can see where the enemies are hiding.

4. Warding - Send the Flying Courier ahead before placing wards in dangerous locations.

5. Counter-warding - Use the Flying Courier to give you vision on top of cliffs so you can spot enemy wards without having to walk up the ramp.

6. Multiple delivery - If you can communicate well enough with your lane-mate, both of you should buy items at the same time to save the Courier some walk time and therefore free him up to serve other lanes

In dangerous situations, remember to use the Shield ability (C) to protect the little guy. Also remember to drop any items at the town (D) before exposing the Courier to danger.

Selasa, 26 April 2011

My favourite hero ever!!!

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Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, its Batwoman. Wretched Hag is a direct port of DotA's Queen of Pain, Akasha, with a slightly reworked Ultimate. This old, weak and fragile lady may not look like it, but she is able to devastate team battles with her strong Ultimate and is one of the best gankers in the game.


Wretched Hag


1. Skills Descriptions


Haunt

The Wretched Hag haunts a target unit with a bat, slowing its movement speed and dealing periodic damage.

Level 1: Deals 50 initial Magic damage and applies Haunt to target for 15 seconds. Haunt deals 10 magic damage every 3 seconds and slows the enemy for initially 20% Movement Speed, decreasing over 10 seconds before wearing off.
Level 2: Deals 70 initial Magic damage and applies Haunt to target for 15 seconds. Haunt deals 20 magic damage every 3 seconds and slows the enemy for initially 30% Movement Speed, decreasing over 10 seconds before wearing off.
Level 3: Deals 70 initial Magic damage and applies Haunt to target for 15 seconds. Haunt deals 40 magic damage every 3 seconds and slows the enemy for initially 40% Movement Speed, decreasing over 10 seconds before wearing off.
Level 4: Deals 100 initial Magic damage and applies Haunt to target for 15 seconds. Haunt deals 50 magic damage every 3 seconds and slows the enemy for initially 50% Movement Speed, decreasing over 10 seconds before wearing off.

Cooldown: 20/17/14/11 Seconds
Mana Cost: 80/100/120/140

Usage:
This spell has multiple uses for Wretched Hag. As she is a very squishy hero that should focus avoiding getting hit, it helps you to stay out of the range of your targeted enemy, dealing damage to them via Sonar Scream and auto attacking while avoiding damage. As well as slowing escaping enemies for you to kill them easier, or for your allies to reach them in time.

Flash of Darkness


The Wretched Hag disappears in a flash of darkness, only to instantly reappear at a target location.
Level 1: Teleports the Wretched Hag to target position, total reach of 800 with a cooldown of 12 seconds.
Level 2: Teleports the Wretched Hag to target position, total reach of 900 with a cooldown of 10 seconds.
Level 3: Teleports the Wretched Hag to target position, total reach of 1000 with a cooldown of 8 seconds.
Level 4: Teleports the Wretched Hag to target position, total reach of 1150 with a cooldown of 6 seconds.

Cooldown: 12/10/8/6 Seconds
Mana Cost: 60

Usage:
This is what makes Wretched Hag both a very strong ganker and farmer and allows her to remain untouched in team battles while still having the possibility to dish out her very high burst damage combo. This spell helps you to avoid most of the incoming damage and ganks and grants you the easiest way to control runes when you solo mid.


Sonar Scream

Unleashing a high frequency scream, the Wretched Hag damages all nearby enemies.

Level 1: Deals 85 Magic damage in a radius of 400 around the Wretched Hag.
Level 2: Deals 165 Magic damage in a radius of 450 around the Wretched Hag.
Level 3: Deals 225 Magic damage in a radius of 475 around the Wretched Hag.
Level 4: Deals 300 Magic damage in a radius of 500 around the Wretched Hag.

Cooldown: 7 Seconds
Mana Cost: 140

Usage:
The bread and butter skill of Wretched Hag, dealing high magic damage in an area around the Hag while having a very low cooldown, allows her to farm very well and take out enemy heroes really fast. Combined with the low cooldown of Flash of Darkness this spell allows you to blink into enemy heroes, Sonar Scream them for heavy damage, and if needed finish them off or escape.


Bat Blast

The Wretched Hag lets loose a torrent of magical bats in a target direction. Enemies caught within the blast are heavily damaged.

Level 1: A heavy damaging Blast dealing 290 Magic damage to targets in a line up to a range of 700. Applies Haunt to each hit enemy.
Level 2: A heavy damaging Blast dealing 430 Magic damage to targets in a line up to a range of 700. Applies Haunt to each hit enemy.
Level 3: A heavy damaging Blast dealing 600 Magic damage to targets in a line up to a range of 700. Applies Haunt to each hit enemy.

Cooldown: 135 Seconds
Mana Cost: 250/360/500

Usage:
Dealing heavy Magic damage in a line, this ultimate brings devastation to each team battle or otherwise stacked up enemy heroes. Combined with Sonar Scream, Wretched Hag is able to deal a high amount of Magic damage in a second, being able to kill whole enemy teams from a bit above half Health in early and mid game phase. A good Bat Blast+Sonar Scream combo should be a guaranteed kill in the early game phase (around level 11).


2. Skill Build and Usage

  1. Flash of Darkness/Haunt
  2. Haunt/Flash of Darkness
  3. Sonar Scream
  4. Sonar Scream
  5. Sonar Scream
  6. Bat Blast
  7. Sonar Scream
  8. Flash of Darkness
  9. Flash of Darkness
  10. Flash of Darkness
  11. Bat Blast
  12. Haunt
  13. Haunt
  14. Haunt
  15. Stats
  16. Bat Blast

Depending on your team stacking up to check runes or the rune you or your laning partner might get (ideal runes to first blood like Double Damage or Haste), you might pick up Haunt first to have a slow for a safe kill attempt.

After getting one level on Haunt to assist early gank/kill attempts and Flash of Darkness to have a way to escape, you begin to max out Sonar Scream since its damage is comparable to Thunderbringer's Bolt of Lightning and therefore a devastating early game nuke and a solid way to farm. You should focus on getting full Flash of Darkness before getting Haunt since you are very squishy and rune dependent and need it to avoid ganks and travel around the map fast to set up ganks.


3. Item build


3.1 To start with:


1x Health potion
1x Runes of the Blight
2x Mark of the Novice
2x Minor Totem

Since you start of with very low last hitting power and a weak last hitting animation, boosting your damage is priority. You are not as item independent as other comparable intelligence heroes, therefore you need to be last hitting many creeps. You don't need much more regeneration than your 3 Runes of the Blight provide since you can avoid harasses and nukes easily using Flash of Darkness. Do not start off with a bottle. Your last hit power is low, you need the stats. Compared to a Thunderbringer that last hits with Chain Lightning, your Sonar Scream has higher mana costs and higher cool down, which does not make it a good ability to last hit creeps early on.

3.2 Then..


Bottle

Post Haste
OR
Steamboots

2x Talisman of Exile
Power Supply

Flash of Darkness allows you to control Runes like no other hero, so having a bottle is a must. The Talisman of Exiles help your mana pool since an early Blink+Bat Blast+Sonar Scream combo is very mana intensive. Power Supply is a very helpful item, and since you are squishy it helps you survive enemy heroes until your Flash of Darkness is up again to escape. Considering how well your farm, you should decide whether you want to take Post Haste, which allows you to farm lanes very easily, or Steamboots which provide you with more survivability or mana.

The low cooldown on Flash of Darkness and Sonar Scream allow you to push and farm far into the enemies side into the map with the possibility to escape with a Flash into some trees and teleport out. The burst of mana and health regeneration the Power Supply provides should never be underestimated.

Never ever get


Wards of Sight

Once having Post Haste and a maxed out Flash of Darkness as well as Rune control provided by that spell, you can farm fast. However Hag should never buy Wards of Sight. Support heroes on your team should buy the Wards since you are more item dependent.

3.3 Mid-late game items


Kuldra's Sheepstick
Staff of the Master
Nullstone
Puzzlebox

Staff of the Master is a hell of a strong item for Wretched Hag. It boosts your devastating Ultimate's damage fairly and reduces the cooldown, allowing you to use it every team battle and gank attempt from the point of getting the Staff. The bonus stats also help your fragility and your mana pool a lot. Since you can farm pretty easy and fast, it should not be hard to get the components of the Staff of the Master before the 25 minute mark.

You always want to buy a Kuldra's Sheepstick since its utility is unchallenged, as hex is one of the strongest disables in the game. It also fairly boosts your auto-hit damage and, like the other items, your survivability.

Null Stone, and the Sustainer that is used to build this item, is a very strong item on Wretched Hag since it helps her in many ways: the health and mana regeneration help her in her farming and ganking progress a lot, once you reach mid game you cannot depend on your bottle alone to solve your mana problems. Without the additional mana regeneration, farming with Flash of Darkness and Sonar Scream is unnecessarily hard. For team battles or ganks, the Null Stone blocks a single spell every 20 seconds. This helps the squishy Hag a lot.

Puzzlebox is in the right hands one of the most devastating items to get. It goes well with the Wretched Hag since her Haunt spell slows the enemy while your Puzzlebox minions beat them down, and the additional mana and health never hurt to have.

Luxury Items


Frostfield Plate
Harkon's Blade

Depending on the length of the game, you might consider to acquire a Frostfield plate to add a lot of damage to your already painful area of effect damage combo as well as a painful aura and debuff for enemies, weakening especially carries in the later game phases. If you want to carry yourself, you can get a Harkon's Blade. Since there is a Shield Breaker already in the recommended items shop, do not get a Shield Breaker on Wretched Hag over Harkon's Blade. Harkon's Blade reduces the enemies magic armor by a good amount, making your heavy burst damage nukes even more painful. It deals heavy magic damage on auto-hits, has helpful stats such as heavy intelligence bonus and attack speed and does not cost a lot more than Shield Breaker (around 800).

3.4 Optional Items


Team dependent carry items like

Restoration Stone

The ultimate item on Hag is the Restoration Stone. It allows you to decimate your enemies with double ultimate. On the other hand it brings no notable stats bonus, so make sure you have enough mana to spam your spells, refresh and spam spells again.

Charged Hammer

Charged Hammer is a great item on Hag because she always gets focused. On top of that the extra attack speed is always welcome to pick off the squishy heroes.

Remember: You can farm incredibly well, so if you have your core items, go and get those to support your team's damage. You are not alone on the battlefield.

4. Hero Specific Strategies and Techniques


4.1 Laning


Despite having low last hitting power, Wretched Hag is a very effective solo mid hero if not paired with a last hitting monster like Pharoah, Pebbles or Deadwood. She can have excellent Rune control due to Flash of Darkness, the only one who can reach runes as fast as her is Magebane. She is a very good solo laner on side lanes as well since she can just escape out of most gank attempts on her via Flash of Darkness.

It is recommended to let her have a solo lane (even side) since a level advantage and early leveled Ultimate/Sonar Scream combo provides one of the most devastating ganks possible. Clever usage of Sonar Scream to get many last hits on creeps if a whole creep wave is already below the orange/near the red Health Point mark ensures good farm.

4.2 Ganking


With your Flash of Darkness ability, you can just jump into enemies on a lane and either completely destroy them with a Bat Blast/Sonar Scream combo, or damage them heavily with Sonar Scream and slowing them with a good Haunt so your teammates can assist you.

With the insane mobility provided by Flash of Darkness, you are a great chaser and therefore able to chase down most fleeing enemy heroes with low health points, even without having Boots yourself. One important thing is to say that you are insanely squishy, therefore you should play like a ninja: wait for your teammates to engage a gank, jump in, nuke, hopefully take them down and get a kill, blink out. You do not want to tank any damage since you simply can't.

4.3 Team Battles


Wretched Hag is a real team killer. Her ultimate is heavily damaging and can take out unaware or bad positioned enemies in a split second. However, you should never be the one to initiate a battle. You are squishy, even if you would stack 5 Bracers and Strength activated Steamboots you would still be incredibly squishy. That's why you wait in the fog, wait for your team mates to initiate the battles, possibly force some of the enemy teams nukes or disables, then jump in and devastate everyone and everything.

If your damage is not enough, don't stay in the action. Get some distance while attack walking, distance about 300 to 500 units should be perfect to avoid you getting hit by enemy melee heroes or splashes while still being able to use your Sonar Scream.
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