Saturday, August 22, 2009

DotA

So on Friday as normal, I played Dota with my friends. This time I had a really good time. Both games were well balanced and it easily could have gone either way; that’s something that doesn’t happen every game.

First game I played Avernus and let me just say how much I love this hero. He really is a good unit. His passive rocks for chasing, his heal/nuke is good for support and his shield is by far one of the best spells in the game. That and borrowed time is just… epic. 7 seconds with scepter at lvl 16. AMAZING.

Anyways… I won that game. It was interesting. 4v4 and my team had Bone Fletcher, Bounty Hunter and Viper, plus me. Our problem was that in the mid game me being a strength hero, I wanted to push and fight in team battles. But my allies, being the frail agi heroes that they were didn’t. Bounty and Fletcher were all over the map with windwalk and viper (played my Manik) was played in Manik’s usual carry style: slowly, surely creep in the lanes and never stay anywhere too long so that he can’t get ganked.

The second game I played Spirit Breaker, another hero I really like. Its really fun running around the map at 417 MS and bashing people o death. Once again the game was really balanced. My team didn’t have any support hero or real carry, but the opposing team had an axe who played badly (instead of him, viper ended up the tank. Go figure). That being said, in the end my team lost (after 70 minutes of fighting!) because Viper and Omniknight were just too good of a combo. Viper had Khadgar’s Pipe, Omniknight had repel and his ulti and that meant that Viper was pretty much unkillable for much of the team battles. Still I had some pretty amazing moments in that game. I charged axe from my base and killed him before anyone could come for help, that was fun. Then Twice I had amazing battles with Specter. First time we both started at the same amount of health, but he was doing more damage. It was after a team battle so neither of us had much mana. However, I risked that my regen was good enough for me to be able to charge at the last minute. It was close, but when I had about 200hp I killed specter with my charge of darkness.

Second time similar situation. Little mana and low health, except this time Specter was attacking me. I knew I was gonna die, but I hoped that if I turned and attacked I’d manage to get a bash. I didn’t, but I swear if I had gotten 1 bash Specter would have been killed.

Anyways… really awesome time I had. I can tell that I’m improving in DotA, and learning my play style. I play strength heroes, it would appear. I mean, I can play agility heroes and probably should branch out into some Intelligence heroes, but basically I like Strength heroes. Avernus, Nightstalker, Spirit Breaker, Pit Lord, Earthshaker (need to practice with him a bit), Admiral, those are my favorite heroes, all of them are strength heroes.

Anyways… nothing much else going on. I go to Thailand on Wendesday, that should be a fun holiday. I’ll write more later.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Politics and College

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8202275.stm

*sigh*

You know what is sad about democracy? Everyone gets to have a say. Now, I realize this is a much needed right, but, sometimes, I wish people would shut up or get thrown in jail for not doing so. Not for long, but just a few days.

I mean, it’s great that people are talking about the health care system in the US, because, frankly, it NEEDS reform. When people can’t afford to take care of their health, we have a problem. I’m not saying what the democrats may or may not be proposing (I’m not sure what they’re proposing, but it’s the dems, and they’re Pro-big government, something I’m not) is the answer, but I don’t at all like how people are reacting, AT ALL.

I told one of my friends that the politics that are happening remind me of politics here. Politics here in Bangladesh involve two parties fighting, often violently, all the time. Neither side is interested in what the other has to say; it’s a miracle that they get as much done as they do. That’s what I’m beginning to see in the US. It hasn’t gotten to that level there just yet, but it bears a scary resemblance.

On a brighter note: I think I’ve gotten a bigger scholarship from Mary-Hardin Baylor (UMHB). 8k, which is double the old one (IF I’m remembering correctly). Now, I don’t particularly want to go to UMHB but… that’s a big chuck of my tuition. I’ll just have to see what kind of money I can get out of Baylor and St. Edwards.

Also, I’ll be able to participate in an Overnight stay at St. Edwards! I’m very happy about this because I think I should be able to ask people a lot of questions.

College… is going to be a big step for me. I’ve begun to realize this for the past few weeks as I’ve began to fill out college applications for St. Edwards and Baylor. These are big, life changing, decisions I’m going to have to make and I don’t want to make the wrong choice. Not only that but I’m going to enter into a completely different stage of life. I’ve had different changes and stuff but none of them as radical or as sudden as moving to the States (for what will be the foreseeable future. I’ll visit Bangladesh but I don’t intend to live here after College). I suppose the only thing I can do for now is fill out the applications and pray. I have an idea of what I want to do in College… but making those decisions and then succeeding are going to be challenging for me.

Anyways… I should get ready for bed. I’ll write more later.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Played a Pro

So… yesterday I played DotA as usual, but with one exception: two of the games were played with a DotA pro (whom Jacob called Werewolf… his screen name was ).

Anyways, two games, first one was All Random. I repacked Ogre Magi and proceeded to work with Manik (who played Razor… not amazingly well but he did okay). The two of us faced off against Specter and Phantom Assassin in what was actually a very heavy killfest.

Now, the pro player, werewolf, played Tinker and faced off against Derick (forget who he was playing…). In the words of Derick, werewolf had “constant Double Damage”. I never watched them but I assumed he had a bottle and put wards around the runes and was grabbing them like crazy. The first thing Tinker did was farm travel, and he then proceeded to move around the map killing and pushing like the amazing player he was. Twice he just walked (or TPed) into my lane and killed people. He was amazing.

The thing was, Tinker is an early game nuker/ganker dude. As the game continues he gets worse because, like most Intel heroes his spells just don’t do enough damage late game. So, we were able to push long and hard and pwn them in the long run. Still, it was a good match.

So… the second game was AP. I think I knew from the beginning my team was gonna lose because it was AP. Anyways, we picked Lich, Sandking and Drow and then Werewolf pulled out Invoker. We then picked Naga Siren (cuz Manik is epic with her) and I took Tidehunter because we needed an AoE stunner. We faced off against Treant (Mumu), Jakiro (my bro), Earthshaker (Saad), Invoker (werewolf) and Skeleton King (Marcus… someone I’ve never played with before but appeared to be Derick’s friend).

From the beginning, we were going to lose. There wasn’t a whole lot we could do about it really. Werewolf played Invoker FRIGGIN GOOD. I mean seriously… he knew all 11 (I think 11… not sure) of Invokers spells and on top of that made the most imba build for him. I think his first item was like… heart of tarrsque. He also made Guinsoo and Shiva IIRC.

Oh… and Saad… Saad was a ever evil Earthshaker who built and played his hero perfectly. At least twice he used his blink dagger and ulti combo to get like a double kill.

Anyways… we managed to make the game last seventy-five minutes, but in the end we knew we would win. It was really inevitable.

So… what can I say? Well first off… I felt like I did really horrible in both games. Maybe if I had played a hero I’m more comfortable with, like Nightstalker, Razor, Dark Terror (actually he has a new name but I forget what it is) or Dragon Knight then I would have done better. However, I don’t think it would have mattered that much really because I just died a lot. I couldn’t farm because Invoker would nuke me if I did and I couldn’t kill because I was often the first death in the battles, as a result I had a crap build. It took me the entire game to build one battlefury and one heart. If I had played well I would have managed to get Power Treads, Heart, Battlefury, Satanic and maybe even Buzi or Hyperstone.

So… what does this teach me? It means I need to learn to play Tidehunter better. Play him with a Blink Dagger, actually. I think that might have helped some. Not a lot, but some.

Anyways… it was a good game. If given the chance I’d love to play with the guy again.