General Drafting Thread

The Team Liquid DotA 2 Drafting Discussion Thread

While we see a lot of discussion on playing heroes, I find that a lot of information is missing when it comes to what happens before the game: The Drafting Stage.

Being a competitively minded player myself, I thought we could use this thread to discuss the draft. Maybe you saw a crazy draft in a tournament, or have a cool lineup you would like to use. Whatever you want.

I want to encourge everyone to use this thread to find oppenents to practice drafting against. A great Web resource for this is the site http://dota2draft.the-cluster.org/ .

Another thing I wanted to do is have a featured draft pictured in this post that would serve as a discussion topic for everyone, similar to the outpicked thread we had going. If you would like yours up here, send me a PM with the picture link. Be sure to include some thoughts!

Featured Draft

The Yango vs Some Guy

+ Show Spoiler [Yango's thoughts, spoiler alert!] +

Last edit: 2012-08-09 02:47:39

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Mr. Wiggles Canada. August 08 2012 15:20. Posts 4685

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Here's two drafts GreYMisT and I did. I chose Dire in both drafts, and he chose first pick. GreY wanted to try to draft some odd heroes/line-ups against me, to see how a couple strats he wanted to try would go down in the draft. I don't really have much experience with drafting, so I decided that I would just try to come up with a general idea of what I wanted to do, and then pick a solid line-up.

For both of us, our roaming heroes (SK/Ogre) are starting bottom.

My idea with this draft, is that I wanted to pick heroes that would allow for a lot of flexibility in ganking and fighting the opponent. This was after GreY picked Lycan though. I wanted to either take Lycan for myself, and make a team around him, or else make a team that would be able to shut him down or at least be aggressive enough to not allow him to hit a good tempo early on.

So, my first pick was QoP, due to her strong laning, rune control, mobility, and the idea that she provides a lot of backbone for the team in the mid-game and adds some physical dps to the late-game. My second pick was SK, for his stun and team-fight. Third was Enchantress, for her ability to push and gank early, as well as the possibility of invading radiant's jungle and harassing Lycan or helping gank bottom. Next, I needed an off-laner, so I choose Silly Bear for his tankiness, the possibility of taking the enemy top tower quickly with Enchantress, and to add some more push to my line-up as well as late-game physical damage. Lastly I needed a hero to lane with SK bottom to start, so I chose potm because she'd be able to hold her own in lane after SK left, as well as providing push, and also a lot of ganking utility.

My plan would be to try to take the radiant T1 tower top very quickly with Sylla and Enchantress, and after that depending on how the enemy team reacted, either continue to push or have enchantress back off and invade the radiant jungle, letting sylla farm the lane. SK would initially lane with potm, before roaming to gank.

One of my worries with this draft and game plan is getting levels up on SK due to him roaming. It seems like he might be late in getting to a point where he can be most effective. On the other hand, I feel this draft allows me to shut down lycan, and have a strong early game into a very solid mid-game.

This is the second draft we did.

Here, my veno will start top initially, before roaming.

My plan with this draft, was to construct a team with decent push and team-fight. My game plan this time was to have tide, veno, and enchantress quickly push down the opponent's T1 on top, and maybe even the T2. After this, Tide would farm the lane until he could get up key items, while veno and enchant moved to pressure the bottom and middle lanes. GreY is doing a really weird trilane here, but I feel that sylla shouldn't have too much trouble against it. He might not get as much farm as he would normally, but I don't think the trilane is actually going to accomplish that much. My thoughts are that the pressure in the lane might be alleviated due to the radiant having to support top to stop the push. As well, I don't feel that they have much push to take the tower, especially if Veno rotates down to help stop it. Finally, the heroes he has in the trilane don't seem like they'd be that scary until they get levels up, which won't happen that quickly. So, I feel that I will have a good early game leading into a strong mid-game, where I can use the level, and hopefully farm, advantage my team will have on key heroes to press my advantage against the enemy team while they're still weak and snow-ball from there.

This relies somewhat on Tide getting good enough farm up top, but I don't think he'll have incredibly too hard a time doing so, especially if QoP is able to threaten the lane sometimes to keep DS honest. Another thought, is that while the radiant team has a lot of disable once they get levels up, it doesn't seem like they have much damage to back it up. I feel that naturally tanky heroes like Tide and Sylla, as well as enchantress creeps will be a problem for the other team. Lastly, QoP's and Tide's ultimates, if placed well, have the potential to be devastating to the enemy team.

Like I mentioned before, I don't have a ton of experience drafting. This is mostly stuff I've gleaned from watching streams, and thinking about strategy on my own. As well, my own knowledge and skill at the game isn't exactly high-level. If I've said something horribly wrong or have a terrible thought process somewhere, feel free to correct me, I'm willing to learn.

So, what are your own thoughts on these two drafts? Which team do you feel has an advantage? Would you have laned the heroes differently, chosen a different game plan, completed the draft differently?

Input is appreciated. Let's get this thread rolling.

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Soluhwin United States. August 08 2012 18:12. Posts 1111

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Now, I don't have much experience as a team captain either, but just for sake of keeping this thread alive I'll provide my input.

For the first game: I don't like the fragility of your first few picks but I think your opponent let you get away with it. QoP first is just saying "I want early kills" to which your opponent can respond to by playing a more defensive draft, and SK roaming is also a style of playing that hero that needs a good start or he will just not have a blink->ult later on. It just seems to me like showing your hand that quickly is a bad idea in general. I say your opponent let you get away with it because it looks like they responded to your aggressive opening with aggression of their own, committing to the hardcore push with Leshrac but more bewilderingly picking up a Gondar as a way of saying "I can out-gank you". Towards the end of the draft, there are things I do and don't like about your composition: I do like the overall security you ended up with by picking up the carries at the end there, but I don't like the fact that you don't have a hero that can function with 0 gold, forcing the ward purchases to go onto SK and Enchantress. This means late Mek, late Blink, and a more fragile mid-game despite having 2 huge teamfight pics. Again, I think the Radiant let you get away with this simply because that Viper 4th pick is him/her saying that they would rather out-kill you than secure late game, and the Ogre pick just makes no sense to me.

In summery, very early push through Lycan/Lesh may be either hard to defend or easily shut down by the first few aggressive picks, mid game teamfight is completely won as long as Lycan doesn't get out of control and SK doesn't get a horrible start, which should secure lategame.

Second game: My first impression after seeing the picks boils down to a shallow analysis of "Wtf is GreY doing?". I think this is a scenario where good lane control out of Sylla and Veno spending most of his time killing mid lane will completely stomp the plan that Radiant had, but looking at the finished comp is a terrible way to think about captaining so I'll try to take this one-by-one: Dark seer first is a bitch to draft against because not only is it a flexible yet stupidly strong hero, it's also a hero that seems impossible to "shut-down" or "counter-pick", so in a sense I like that you kept your own plan in mind after seeing that. I'm guessing you saw the DS pick and just said "Fuck it, I'm sticking with the teamfight/push plan I set for myself from square one." and I think that's the perfectly right choice. Again, I think an early QoP kinda shows your hand a bit early but I don't think it's a huge issue, I probably just would have gone Tide 2nd QoP 3rd as it's very unlikely your opponent is going to jack that from you, but very likely they'll jack the Tide. End of first 3 picks looks very solid on both sides, GreY has Push through SS and aggression to open up lanes to push through CM/DS. You have a good mix: Teamfight Tide, aggressive QoP, pushing Ench. Your bans here I think are a bit questionable: Why ban the Siren when you have the big ults to set up? I guess it doesn't matter that much, sense GreY shot himself in the foot with his 4th/5th pick. Now, I will never know what's going through GreY's mind at the time of these picks, but I look at the draft up to the point of the Visage pick and I don't think "Mr.Wiggles is trying to aggressive tri-lane!" I don't really think much analysis is necessary at this point because GreY tried to set up a lane aimed at getting kills and nothing else, and your set-up is simply safe against that.

In summery, GreY's tri-lane won't get anything done even if they get a few early kills on Sylla, they just have no means to take a tower and no late game security. I think this is an easy out-pick in the favor of you.

edit: After thinking about it a little bit more, maybe I was too quick to say GreY is screwed in game 2. IF, and it's a very bit IF, two heros pull out of that tri-lane and get loads of kills early on as a roaming duo, it is conceivable that GreY could have an early victory. The reason I think this doesn't quite fit together as an early win strat is the simple fact that the only big tower pushing ability the Radiant has is Serpent Wards. If kills happen and SS puts those on a tower every 110 seconds, sure it's GG and Radiant wins in 20 minutes, but I think heros like QoP, Sylla, and Tide are going to be very difficult to kill early either through tankyness or mobility.

Well, I guess I'm obligated to post my own drafts after providing criticism on someone else's... I'll try to get that post done later today.

Last edit: 2012-08-08 18:45:37

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GreYMisT United States. August 09 2012 00:00. Posts 4666

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Thanks for your input!

In the second draft I really had a very vague idea of what I would be doing, and after thinking about it more I would improve the following.

1) the familiar/power cogs combo is only possible at visage LV 6, which is hard to get in that trilane. And realistically with a rhasta, I should not have problems landing their stuns.

2)I do need more push with this aggressive lineup, so with more thought I think I would replace the CM with a venomancer, and clockwerk with someone who benefits from the map control that push gives you, such as NS.

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chaosfreak11 Singapore. August 09 2012 00:00. Posts 234

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I am not good with writing, but I will be there if you need someone to draft against.

5-s United States. August 09 2012 00:20. Posts 880

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The fact that naga got through the first pick phase of both drafts is completely bonkers.

Sand King shouldn't be picked so early, he can be easily drafted last pick and in many cases Earth Shaker is better anyway. It feels like both of you are being gimmicky with your supports. Realistically you won't see a viper->ogre last 2 picks anywhere. Dire also don't have a dedicated support game 1, all of those heroes are pretty gimped without items. Getting both Sand King and enchant is in this way greedy, since u might be better off with a support venge cm or es.

CM and Visage can roam game two your opponent, and can very likely pick up some kills.

Tide won't be able to farm well against a good darkseer. Darkseer will double spam shell each wave, and tide will get ~2 cs a wave and ds will get all 4. On the other hand, there's little reason to stick your syllabear on the hard lane in this situation. Bear is one of the best heroes to solo against DS, since he can take out the shelled creeps without too much problem. He'll get freefarm top, while tide can go bottom / roam with veno to shut down rhasta mid.

Overall these drafts are a bit too gimmicky, but mainly I think grey: your picks will probably get rolled by most cooky-cutter lineups, and for mr.wiggles: for enchant lineups, you need way more aggresive pushers to knock down towers early, or else you're almost always better off with a chen by mid game.

Last edit: 2012-08-09 00:21:13

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Soluhwin United States. August 09 2012 00:43. Posts 1111

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Chen was banned both games, I think the logic behind Enchantress was "Damn, I really wanted Chen, but I guess I'll have to settle with the less imba sister Enchantress."

GreYMisT United States. August 09 2012 00:43. Posts 4666

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On August 09 2012 00:20 5-s wrote:
The fact that naga got through the first pick phase of both drafts is completely bonkers.

Sand King shouldn't be picked so early, he can be easily drafted last pick and in many cases Earth Shaker is better anyway. It feels like both of you are being gimmicky with your supports. Realistically you won't see a viper->ogre last 2 picks anywhere. Dire also don't have a dedicated support game 1, all of those heroes are pretty gimped without items. Getting both Sand King and enchant is in this way greedy, since u might be better off with a support venge cm or es.

CM and Visage can roam game two your opponent, and can very likely pick up some kills.

Tide won't be able to farm well against a good darkseer. Darkseer will double spam shell each wave, and tide will get ~2 cs a wave and ds will get all 4. On the other hand, there's little reason to stick your syllabear on the hard lane in this situation. Bear is one of the best heroes to solo against DS, since he can take out the shelled creeps without too much problem. He'll get freefarm top, while tide can go bottom / roam with veno to shut down rhasta mid.

Overall these drafts are a bit too gimmicky, but mainly I think grey: your picks will probably get rolled by most cooky-cutter lineups, and for mr.wiggles: for enchant lineups, you need way more aggresive pushers to knock down towers early, or else you're almost always better off with a chen by mid game.

Thanks for your thoughts. Hopefully we can get a more stable draft in here next to talk about

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TheYango United States. August 09 2012 01:49. Posts 15740

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On August 09 2012 00:43 Soluhwin wrote:
Chen was banned both games, I think the logic behind Enchantress was "Damn, I really wanted Chen, but I guess I'll have to settle with the less imba sister Enchantress."

That's the thing though. Enchant isn't strong enough to be haphazardly picked like that.

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GreYMisT United States. August 09 2012 02:49. Posts 4666

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Just put a new featured draft up in the OP. And one thing I am curious about is picking OD. I have seen him chosen in lineups that have a lot of spell spammers, but that's not necessarily what you have here. What situations do you feel OD excels in?

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shostakovich Brazil. August 09 2012 03:23. Posts 715

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On August 09 2012 01:49 TheYango wrote:

Show nested quote +

That's the thing though. Enchant isn't strong enough to be haphazardly picked like that.

Come on, Enchantress is super strong, ESPECIALLY if Chen is out. If you have a jungler like Enchantress (who can be very active in lanes and return to jungle to farm) and your opponent doesn't (no jungler at all, or a passive jungler that does nothing but farm), you're already ahead.

Mr. Wiggles Canada. August 09 2012 03:44. Posts 4685

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Thanks for the input guys, it's really nice to learn from.

What would be the considerations of choosing Chen versus Enchantress?

EDIT:

I have an idea, but I'd like to see other opinions.

Last edit: 2012-08-09 03:47:34

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igotmyown United States. August 09 2012 03:58. Posts 2883

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On August 09 2012 03:23 shostakovich wrote:

Show nested quote +

Even Navi enchantress hasn't performed very well in the last month or so. There's too many heroes with extremely high burst damage (tinker, ck, lesh, even rubick and morph with support) that she gets picked off very easily.

I thought enchant was underrated compared to chen a few months ago, but not with the current heroes.

Kupon3ss United States. August 09 2012 04:04. Posts 2765

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On August 09 2012 02:49 GreYMisT wrote:
Just put a new featured draft up in the OP. And one thing I am curious about is picking OD. I have seen him chosen in lineups that have a lot of spell spammers, but that's not necessarily what you have here. What situations do you feel OD excels in?

OD is a late game 1st position carry that is also extremely strong mid (should beat almost all int heroes mid) and is exceptionally good in damage output as well as instagibing illusions/summons. Generally his strengths are quite situational but devastating when played correctly (+200 pure dmg and an instant 1k aoe ult es pretty good) His aura also provides a rather silly amount of synergy in certain situations, providing infinite mana for spam-based heroes (I've always conceptualized about some sort of OD/Tinker/Nec lineup that is able to just roll into the enemy base at will at lv 7)

His main drawbacks are the fact that he is squishy and that his ability to escape/disable is subpar, as well as the fact that he is highly reliant on farm and disables from the team to reach and fuction lategame in which he is still unable to scratch bkb'd heroes, combine that with his below average farm speed (no mobility and no aoe waveclear) and you'll see why he isn't a common pick despite his extremely high damage potential.

In my opinion if one is to go for a int-based carry hero, more flexible heroes like Leshrac, Furion, or Tinker are preferable (also the big MoM coldsnap/alacrity Invoker for best int carry), tho there are lineups against which one can go "oh wow OD is really good here"

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GreYMisT United States. August 09 2012 04:11. Posts 4666

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On August 09 2012 04:04 Kupon3ss wrote:

Show nested quote +

Thanks, I'll consider playing him when the other team has a weak mid, or when I don't have a carry yet.

When deciding between chen and enchantress it comes down to how strong my lanes are. Chen gains his momentum and max ability when he gets more creeps, which means he needs to farm more and stay out of lane (barring a lvl 1 gank with a troll or something). After this Chen continues to be usefull due to his heal, sendback, as well as his creeps. Enchantress has a period where she is not very effective between the time you take all of the enemy teir 1 towers, and when you can put some good items on her.

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shostakovich Brazil. August 09 2012 04:21. Posts 715

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On August 09 2012 03:58 igotmyown wrote:

Show nested quote +

Enchantress is one of the most relevant heroes on the game right now, and for a reason.

About Chen and Enchantress: it's all about understanding why then and where they're strong. They're both good because it allows you an optimal economy (if you have a jungler and the enemy don't, you'll go ahead on economy). That's the main reason. And then, each hero has it's particular edges. For example, Chen is great to counter team-fights with Hand of God + Mekanism, and it's particularly good together with mobile heroes. He can quickly return then to base and save a lot of time. On the other side, Enchantress is probably the strongest lvl1 hero in the game. Chen can only have one creep at lvl1, Enchantress can have two. She excels at the very early game, she's good at diving, and you can play a lot of mindgames on the fact that the enemy needs to focus/burst them down, like baiting the other team into a bad fight.

Both heroes have excellent theoretical edges, it's all about if you're able to execute them or not.

Soluhwin United States. August 09 2012 13:56. Posts 1111

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Okay, never got that post I promised up because life happened, and since no one has provided full input on the Featured Draft yet, I guess I'm up again.

First round bans are reasonable, I don't see issues there. Maybe the Brood ban is a bit old fashioned but it's perfectly understandable, as some teams just don't like dealing with her and would rather the other team pick a different "imba" hero. What is really questionable and equally old fashioned is that WR first, which you commented on and stated perfectly: It wasn't worth giving up Brew/CK. AAA then manages to puzzle me even more by investing in two hard carries. Sure they both have some presence in the early game, Wave damage/Open wounds slow, but that's it. Looking at AAA's first 3 picks I immediately shiver, he/she just has no early game if that WR gets a hard off-lane. Now, I personally think Lesh is a just plain stronger hero than Lina all-around, but I understand your logic for picking her and agree. Now you have a solid early game, mildly strong late game security, map presence, stuns, spell damage, and a bit of counter-push. What's left on the list? Nothing really. I guess you lack an Epicenter or a Black Hole but you certainly don't lack teamfight, whereas your opponent scans down that list I just put up and only has counter push, minor spell damage, and late game security.

This is where second round bans can make or break a draft. Your opponent had no hard supports, so that's obviously what they'll be looking for. For this reason, I don't agree with the Prophet ban because how on Earth would AAA lane that? In fact, I think you hurt yourself more so than AAA because it's you that should be looking to push, the radiant just wants to turtle. Come fourth/fifth pick, if I was in your shoes, I would instantly grab Tinker and go super aggressive. In fact, if I could swap that OD out for top solo Tinker, I think your lineup would be impossible to stop for the Radiant. This is where you screwed up, I feel. In my post of the previous drafts I mentioned how your Viper/Gondar picks weren't that great because it was you looking at a heavy gank lineup and saying "I will out gank you!" This draft has the same issue with the OD pick. You let your opponent get two solid supports, fixing the lineup issues they had, and decided to play for late game, putting yourself in the same awkward spot the Radiant was in a few picks ago. OD just does nothing for a very long time, even less than Morph/N'aix. Sure your other 4 picks have good all-around-everything, but I just can't see a particular phase in the game where you have the decisive advantage. Especially not after that Lesh/Veno pick. During the first round picks I applauded you for having a balanced composition, but come the last few picks it's time to commit to a strategy rather than be completely middle ground.

Looking at the final result... well it looks a lot like a LoL game: The winner goes to who wins their lanes. I just don't see an early tower advantage going to either side. Sure some early kills can happen but that's just the thing, the winner is whoever's carry gets more fed. The entire game plan for both sides just looks so out of focus that I don't think this one can be called by the draft, not even a little advantage. It would come down to the players.

One last little note, I would switch up the positions of AAA's carries. Morph+Veno and Lesh+N'aix just makes more sense to me.

Last edit: 2012-08-09 13:56:59

TheYango United States. August 09 2012 14:49. Posts 15740

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After the draft, I was considering that Sylla or QoP would have been the better last pick, instead of trying to be cute with OD.

Thoughts on either?

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Soluhwin United States. August 09 2012 14:57. Posts 1111

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QoP I like, because it gives you a game plan. Even though I think the super aggressive get lots of kills without a means to push is a bit weak as an overall plan, it's better than having no plan. Sylla is the other side of the coin in that he won't contribute as much to the early kills, but will let you push after the openings you get from early kills. I feel either pick would have shut down AAA's double carry strat. Definitely better than OD, that's for sure.

chaosfreak11 Singapore. August 09 2012 19:06. Posts 234

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Chen is normally played on role number 5 while enchantress is normally played on a 3 or 4. I feel that enchantress is a great dpser but not really great in teamfights as compared to Chen. Pushing wise enchantress has the edge in the first 3 levels but after Chen gets lvl 7 that's when he is really powerful and can pressure tier 2 towers.

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