games

Does anyone ever do inhouse CHA games or anything like that? I really like this map and want to play it more often.

EDIT: Just saw the CHAO parties thread, that pretty much answers it for me. Though if anyone wants to play at another time, let me know.

I was about to link you the chao parties thread, before I actually read your post.

https://chao.forumotion.net/t1400-chao-parties-are-back#19135

had it copied and everything.

We also do inhouse games most nights of the week; a lot of 1v1 games though. Channel Clan CHAO, usually after 5 PM US-Eastern time, on server US-East we have people floating around.

Verti (our bot owner) has been having troubles with his bot timing out and is working to get it fixed.

Yeah I noticed the bot went down recently. I've been trying to get better at 1v1s on there against randomloser, but I get heavily outfarmed most of the time. I probably need to get better at that before I go up against you guys in 1v1.

Thanks for the info, I'll hang around in the channel later on.

There are a lot of stickied tips in the tips and tricks section. Some are outdated, but for the most part, they all hold true. If you read and understand them, you will prolly be 3-4X better at the game. If you dont feel like it, just know that farming is a pretty key element of the game. If you are less than 5 in a public game, you are doing something wrong (or your allies havent left base) in a 1v1, you need to be 7-9; you can be 6 if you know what you are doing and have a heavy PVP build. In a clan team game, 6-7 for your team is the goal. If you have a harasser (ganks the other team) 6 is completely acceptable, so long as your opposing team is 5.

Just a general outline of where you *should* be, for competitive play.

I'll have a read of those. Usually the problem is after the second or third duel, but that may just be because the last two builds I tried were awful and I only recently learned that it's best to go around killing the lowest level creeps rather than dying to the higher levels. Last game I was using magic barrage for farming and impale on a blademaster and it didn't seem to work.

Also, channel clan CHAO seems to be restricted so I can't join it.

if it is restricted, it means that no one is in there. Normally we have a bot in there. Also (I noticed you are Euro) make sure you are on US-East battle.net.

Blademaster doesn't have the mana to support a build that has that many spells. Swap out Magic Barrage for Shockwave. Shockwave shoots a blast in a straight line. The best way to use it, is to attack a creep, so the whole spawn starts to run at you. Run back a few paces and the creeps will form a line, running towards you. Then cast shockwave so it hits all of them.

^^That should provide all the leveling you need for a public game.

If you really want to have a strong build, pick Guardian Ward as your Misc Skill, and absorb mana as your Defensive skill. Invest only 1 point into absorb mana, as your level 2 skill point. It allows you to take mana from creeps or players. This will help you farm with shockwave.

Guardian ward is a very strong skill. You should invest your first point at level 4. Shockwave should be main leveled until it is rank 5. Guardian ward should be main leveled after that. It makes for a very strong mid and late game ability.

If you find yourself running out of mana too much on this build, aim for a Crown of Ages as your first item. It is Glittering tiara+totemic Glyph, the recipe is in Early Game 1 shop.

^^Try it a few times, see if you can get the feel for it; and then swap out a skill or two, or the hero. Make small changes at a time to learn new skills while still having a build you understand how to use.

I'm pretty much always on US-east.

I'll try that build next game I can find. I used to always pick a troll axe master with passives and adrenaline rush, it seems to be a very good mid/late game build, at least against pubs, but I'm trying out other stuff since I often neglect the importance of the earlygame.

Shock wave could of definitely worked out better for you in that game. Also you had a bit of a delayed start. By the time you left your base I already cleared a spawn. Couple of notes set your hero to control group 1 and your peon to control group 2. When you need to buy items use your peon to buy or make them and leave them by the door so you can grab them and get back to creeping as soon as possible. Also the build I was running was Poison Nova, Shadow Strike, Poison Sting, Bonus Health, Element Mastery. There is a lot of spell damage in that and an extreme danger of kiting. A-M-S potion would of helped you a great deal and a greater orb of frost would help keep me from kiting you after the initial stun of impale.

I'm better at getting out of base quickly now I know a bit about earlygame items. Also, I just tried shockwave in a singleplayer to see if I could get to 7 before first duel time, and shockwave is absolutely amazing for the mana cost. I think I'll use that a lot more often.

Might try out poison nova on an int at some point too, you seem to use that rather a lot and it seemed to farm spawns really well.

Poison Nova is a rather tricky ability to farm well with. It is very mana intensive. you need to go in close to cast it, then run away and wait for a few seconds, so the poison weakens all of the units; then you need to last hit the creeps.

Shockwave is the best early-mid farming ability in the game, if you are good with it. chain light is the best field ganker/mid game farmer; but is weak early on compared to most other farmers.

Acid rain (the misc skill) is luck based. You can hit 9 for first duel with it, and you can also hit 4; using the exact same build in both situations. It has potential to be the top damage ability in the game. It also has the potential to single handedly cause you to lose the game.

I usually go for autoattackers, but this game I decided to go for a support/hard nuker and it worked really well. The build was chain lightning for farming, holy light for general boost to defence (thinking of switching that out if I see something else better, but it worked well), banish and silent night. The only thing I was worried about was magic resistance, but I played 2 1v1s with it and both times they built heavy resistance without hurting my effectiveness too much. The first one even had avatar but I managed to stall long enough every time.

Would this be considered a good build? Or would better players counter it too well? The people I was up against seemed to know what they were doing, but they weren't amazing or anything.

EDIT: turns out it really fades out against tanky death strike builds later on

it is a good build, and for a long time has been one of the better builds.

Tanks strength builds are super weak to this build, actually.

Aggressive play is the name of the game. with chain light, you need to spawn steal. It gains damage as it bounces. If you can bounce it 5 times and hit a player; at max level that is about 7000 damage after banish. Banish+silent night is also amazing, until your opponent gets immortals boots.

The trick in duels is to cast chain light twice, and then banish+silent night right after the second chain light. This way a lot of damage will break through the AMS shield they will have.

^^that and ganks. Get 1 good gank before the 3rd duel, and you shouldn't lose the game.

I probably wouldn't have lost, but in the game against the death strike/mana shield guy, it was a 2v1 due to a leaver and the guy on my team got into 90% of the duels and lost all of them, meaning the enemy had a chance to get to the very lategame and get immortal boots. after that point, I couldn't kill him at all despite the early ganks.

Thinking of trying a ranged with death strike and using doom roots/skeleton summons to allow me to do heavy dps while being unharmed.

Tried a game of gladiator mode today, it was actually really fun. Thunderclap/consume/whirlpool paladin worked really well too.

lol, you liked that whirlpool+consume idea, eh?

If you ever get the chance for a larger gladiator game (10+ people) use tidal rush. That is by far the most powerful skill you could ever pick in gladiator mode.

Yeah, I'll admit that idea was a little bit inspired by you. I'd like to play it more often, but people often seem to get mad when I pick gladiator mode in the bot.

Aw, the bot went down again, this makes me sad. ;_;

vertiiiiiii. It is usually on an auto reconnect; if it isnt up 5 minutes after it goes down, PM verti. Tell him you love him deeply and that his bot does not share the feeling mutually.

Ah, it's back up again. Back to stomping pubs.

It's kind of annoying being at this level of skill, I stomp all over pub players with ease, but I get completely stomped on by people who really know what they're doing. I guess I need to either get better, or worse. I think I'm slowly getting better anyway.

lol, I will log on and give you some training.

Best advice for public games is to random every game. OR learn to use a single new skill. Practice with shockwave, acid rain, ect. Test out item builds. Pubs can give you a feeling that something terrible is good though; so all you can really do is compare your progress to your progress at other times.

The best way to challenge yourself is to jump onto the downloader's team. If they're all downloader's -random.

I usually am, a lot of the time though, an enemy leaves, it becomes 2v1, the enemy has something that allows him to escape ganks easily and the downloader happens to get into every single duel.

That has happened quite a few times indeed.

In the case of leavers usually this happens when your in the advantage. So what you do is position yourself in the enemy territory where you can make a last minute grab for their flag just before a duel. By taking their spawns you limit their farming advantage and by grabbing a flag you give your ally gold to where they eventually stop feeding in duels. Worse comes to worse buy a greater orb of fire kill the fire boss and hand your ally that orb. It will increase the rate at which they farm which in turn increases your level gains.

Ha, it just happened again. Apart from this guy wasn't actually that bad, but he was a timmy with consume against a str hero with wolf summons, which really hurt. I had vortex so I could kill him, but I didn't get into a duel until there was an 8 level difference. I still almost killed him, but it was way too late by then. It started out as a 2v1 becaue the other guy instantly lagged out, but I probably should have been more aggressive like you said while I had the advantage.