Tensei

140-160 apm terran, 110-130 zerg/toss Also I don't know about casting, it seems like too much of a hassle to set up at the moment. Also you people are thinking too complicated: I can record the replay using aviscreen and just record post-commentary :/ Also brushfire would be a terrible co-commenter because he would just be making fun of me for knowing that much about mechanics. Also my Terran is better than both of them >=|

Important notice to all people that want to play with us: Unfortunately, at the moment it seems like clan invites don't work, so you can't enter the clan chat. However, I'll be idling in the channel ocremix (type /join ocremix) and should be able to add you to my friends list, invite you to games, etc. Edit: Seems they fixed clan invites (I managed to invite someone), so next time I see you online, I'll be sure to send you an invite, bladiator.

I've started to like Single Draft gamemode the most. Of course it still feels kind of cheap if you get Jereziah, but it does kind of force your team to consider their class choices.

I think the beauty of having a 25-level cap is the whole concept of carry-type heroes. Even when you're forming your team, you have to decide whether you want to sacrifice that one spot for a hero that won't be very good at anything until lategame, or whether you want to secure a (relatively) quick win by ganking the opposing team's carry enough times, before it gets too strong/rich to stop. If the level cap were lower, this entire dynamic would have to be completely different.

Added to friend's list. Next time we're both online I'll send you a clan invite. In tier-related news, I think it's pretty safe to say that Defiler is an S-class rather than an A. Her AoE silence + ultimate can easily shut down an entire team.

Yeah I think he excels at farming on neutral creeps, if you get elementals on level one you can basically spend the first 20 minutes farming tons of gold and xp without having to deal with enemy heroes. On an unrelated note, me and donut just played a 5v5 pub game, with me and donut laning together, as respectively voodoo jester and chronos. We had to lane against Behemoth and Succubus, who are both like god tier, whereas Chronos is absolute crap for the first 30 minutes and voodoo jester is crap tier according to zircon as well. I think donut got like 3 kills on both of them before the laning phase had even ended. Absolutely ridiculous.

I swear I'll keep playing tempest until I'm at least decent with him, he seems so versatile.

Just got a message that the NDA is basically over, so we're free to post screenshots or even vids of our mutual asskickings.

To prevent my hero from attacking I just click back and forth, preferably to make him run up and down the ramp. This means you're safe from getting harassed by enemy heroes with range for most of the time (since they can't see up the ramp) and just move closer to the creeps once there's an opportunity to last hit or deny. I just love clickspamming I guess *shrug* Also I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that picking stats on level one is a bad idea with 90% of the heroes. Unless your hero is AMAZING at last-hitting with his auto-attack (demented shaman maybe?), it's always advisable to get a nuke or disable first in case you end up against a someone who is great at denying, just so you can at least get a few more last-hits. Personally I only get stats on level 2 at the earliest when I play one of the more squishy heroes (Arachna comes to mind). Oh, and Jereziah is like beyond God Tier. Kicks Magmus' ass.

I HAVE AN ELECTRIC PERSONALITY I HAVE AN ELECTRIC PERSONALITY I HAVE AN ELECTRIC PERSONALITY *cringe* I'd rate Moon Queen a solid B. She is kind of similar to Arachna, but has higher movement speed and a pretty strong nuke, as well as an ultimate that's basically insta-win as long as you use it when there's only a single hero around (it does 7x350 damage to random targets in your vicinity). Her biggest drawbacks are a lack of disables (her nuke has like an 0.3 second stun time so it's only useful to interrupt spellcasting), and her reliance on her two passive skills. (multi-hit and a damage boosting aura, which will only really start to matter once you've farmed up enough damage dealing items)

We had a pretty great 5v5 earlier, with me playing as a scout, and yeah, like I thought, his playing style requires him to start ganking asap, while having wards set up around the rune spots to grab them as soon as they spawn ( I remember snatching one right from under donut's nose ). I fell behind in levels eventually due to our team not being THAT well coordinated with setting up ganks (which should become your main source of income and xp after you hit like level 6), but having wards all over the place, hogging the runes, and generally doing a good job of initializing team battles were still quite a credit to the team I think. As of now, I'd rate him a solid C or B. He requires a very different mindset to be effective. Also, about Arachna: I think a big part of her strength is the psychological aspect of having to face hero that has the potential of killing you if you venture a bit too far from your tower. I notice many people tend to play very conservatively against her, and even rush back to their tower as soon as you take a mere potshot at them with a single web. After level 6 she does start to be a serious threat to single targets with her ultimate, but if she's laning against 2 heroes, she loses a lot of her shine. Her true strength is in lategame: once you get shieldbreaker, your ultimate will start doing insane amounts of damage due to the armor-reduction on shieldbreaker and you're basically able to take down most people 1v1.

Add another one for the crap tier, scout! (Actually I'm pretty sure he can be at least decent if he's played properly, so I'm going to practice him a lot)

A carry-type hero is generally a hero that's considered to scale very well into lategame, at which point his role is to 'carry' his team, but at the same time he might not be very good in early-midgame so he often needs to be protected ('babysitting') to grind xp and gold for the majority of the game. A typical example would be Nighthound or Chronos, who are really so-called hard-carries, as they're basically useless for the most part of early and midgame. Defiler, Moon Queen and Arachna are all sort of semi-carries. They aren't as dominant in the lategame as hard-carries, but they can fulfill other roles earlier in the game.

I noticed it's really important to learn how to lane properly, especially if you're planning on farming creeps for a longer time. Many of the times I've won were simply because at the start I was able to move the creeps close to my tower so I was somewhat protected from ganks, while I could easily harass the enemy heroes in my lane. For starters, you should NEVER just stand there and auto-attack unless you're deliberately pushing the lane (which shouldn't be happening at the start anyway). I usually just micro my hero around by running back and forth and ONLY trying to get in last-hits on creeps, i.e. waiting until their hp is low enough to one-shot them (this gives you some gold as well. Another thing is denying; if there's no enemy hero in the lane I often just start attacking my own creeps once they reach 50% health because this will move the lane closer to my tower. If there is an enemy hero, things get a little tricky because I want to be last-hitting, while at the same time finishing off my own creeps so he can't last hit them. It takes some conscious effort to be consistent at this but it definitely pays off. Ideally you want to control the creep waves in a way that their battles happen just down the hill near your tower. The height advantage gives you lots of opportunities to harass the enemy hero as well. Finally, you can deliberately 'pull' the enemy creeps towards your tower (causing your creeps to follow them and thus moving the entire lane back towards you) by spamming right click on the enemy hero (even if he's out of range), this will cause his creeps to attack you so if you're fast, you can manage to run back a bit and kite them for a short distance before they re-engage your own creeps. Edit: also, ALWAYS use your first bit of money to buy stat items (minor totem or pretender's crown) as well as consumables. It's extremely important to stay in your lane for as long as possible without having to run back to the fountain because this can easily set you back at least one or two levels if you do it too early. I personally try to stay in my lane until I have farmed up an item that can give me a big advantage at that moment. (E. Marchers for example, or maybe Fortified Bracelets if I'm getting my ass kicked). Oh, and that's also why you need to prevent as much damage as possible unless you can make it worth it (i.e. ganking an enemy hero early). Do not engage enemy creeps by yourself, wait until a wave of your own creeps has arrived before you attack. And save your mana. Don't use skills on creeps and don't use them on heroes unless you're sure you can either make them retreat to their fountain or outright kill them. More info: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=2625 I'll be playing moon queen a lot today. I noticed I prefer to play semi-carry/gankers, i.e. heroes that scale pretty well into lategame but have some good ganking potential in midgame as well.

I'd rank her A probably, it takes some time to get her rolling (she's a so-called carry-type hero) but if you can avoid getting ganked a lot in the beginning she will start to dominate. Edit: to clarify, the way to take down behemoth in my experience is to keep at least one big damage dealer seperated (maybe in the forest) when you're pushing so that as soon as behemoth uses the portal key to jump in and activates his ulti along with fissure, he has blown his load and you can hit him with something ridiculous like Arachna's ultimate. I got at least one kill off on c3lly this way.

Defiler gets pretty overpowered too once you've farmed up a sacrificial heart and are around level 16. She has a ridiculously long ranged AoE nuke, AoE silence, and an amazing ultimate that decimates towers in seconds. Also yes, swiftblade is so crazy, I definitely hate playing against him more than against behemoth. Behemoth can be stopped by good positioning of your heroes so both of his stuns miss at least one hero. I think key with playing Voodoo Jester is to combo his abilities to gank people, he doesn't strike me as a very good liner/farmer. Stun with Acid Cocktail, Cursed Ground into Mojo (on the enemy hero) should do a huge amount of damage and be very helpful in team battles.

We hang out in the ocremix channel in the chat, just type /join ocremix when you get online. In other news, Arachna is pretty much the tits.

This game is definitely the most fun when it's just a group of people I know from IRC, I don't think I'll ever play this with a group of pubs.

I don't want a sig because my stats are so much worse than yours donut

Well, I guess I'll just post this then (news about the next update): Can't wait for the pandabear guy! Either way, last game we played was the best one so far IMO, teams seemed quite balanced for most of the time and nearly all of us got up to level 25 with some crazy teambattles.

Someone who has pre-ordered the full game gets 3 beta invites to send out. There's lots of people here who have already done this, so someone might be able to send you one.

Yeah about the NDA, that basically means we can't really talk about heroes and game mechanics and stuff in this thread? Eitherway, this game is tons and tons of fun. I guess it's sort of a combination of tower defense and WoW pvp, with maybe the whole team-aspect from tf2. Definitely worth trying at least.

Next time, on a very special episode of ocrtf2...~

Eh, why the hell not. I'm interested in this, tentatively.

Guilty as charged :[