Lightning talks Dota II — February 16, 2015

If you were to ask me after work, I would tell you flat-out that AUI is the single best farming support in the world and nobody else in the scene can even dream of comparing, but we’re not allowed to make blanket statements like that in journalism because journalism is paralyzingly terrified of ever saying anything meaningful. That in mind: AUI_2000 is arguably the best farming support in the world.

Back when we were younger and less thoroughly versed in this inscrutable game, a friend of mine and I had a conversation about Invoker builds to the effect of:

“You can go QE, the carry Invoker, or QW, the support Invoker.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would you ever play Support Invoker.”

“Well you see, you *support* your team by making lots of money and killing all your enemies.”

Since then, we’ve come to understand that the core role doesn’t necessarily imply having fearsome right-clicks or even doing a lot of damage (we live after all in an age in which 1-role Silencer is not unheard of). It simply means the team allots gold and XP to that hero — This takes the form of the exclusive right to last-hit in one of the lanes in the early stages of the game, hence the names of the three cores: The safelane carry (or hard carry), the mid, and the offlane.

This leaves the two supports, the 4- and 5-roles, to make money primarily off hero kills. This means that support players, like AUI_2000, generally end games with substantially less farm than their core teammates, and often even less than enemy cores whom they beat.

G1 of DAC Grand Finals: AUI_2000 wins with more gold than two of VG’s cores and one of his own

In most cases, a team’s 4 and 5 are largely interchangeable. The two players split the pool according to which heroes each is good at, and they’ll on average get about the same amount of farm.

AUI is different. Like Puppey, BigDaddy, and Akke, Chen drafts on any team including AUI are exclusively his domain. Unlike those players, AUI gets Chen not just because of his strong micro skills, but also because of his ability to find enormous amounts of farm on a map picked clean by three hungry cores. For this reason, he is also given Enigma, the greediest support of all, and is the last remaining player for whom Visage is a respectable draft (due respect to the memory of FLUFFNSTUFF’s glory days).

We’re all rooting for a comeback, Brian

While everybody else in the world marveled wide-eyed at Suma1l as the 15-year-old prodigy took DAC by Storm, PPD was probably smiling to himself, reveling silently in the value he was getting out of his other new tool: AUI_2000, the support who thinks he’s a mid. Having access to AUI (the highest GPM Enigma of all currently active support players with more than 25 games on the hero) gives EG a strategic option that other teams don’t have. Game 1 of the DAC Grand Finals against VG demonstrated this well (Match ID #1223581106).

Enigma is an interesting hero. He’s probably most famous for his ult, but Black Hole is honestly a pretty terrible spell in a vacuum. A 4-second disable is nice, but Hole needs to be channeled and has the single longest cooldown in the game at 200/190/180 seconds. Enigma doesn’t rely on his ultimate to create value for his team, rather he does so with the items that he farms faster than any other support.

Rest assured, we’ll examine AUI’s Black Hole usage (one particularly impressive ult decision arguably decides the game), but we’re going to focus more on how his farm dictates the tempo of EG’s play.

After a relatively quiet beginning of the match, AUI finishes Mekansm at 10:44. Immediately after completing it, he begins making his way from his jungle to loop behind Iceiceice’s Tidehunter at top. As the courier begins the trip to him, he steps into VG’s secret shop, testing whether they have wards in his path by observing whether Tide would retreat. Satisfied that they don’t, he returns to the top rune spot to receive his Mek at 11:08. This is the beginning of EG’s first “timing attack.”

Timing attacks are a concept more familiar to followers of RTS games. The theory is that you should attack as soon as possible after achieving a spike in power (such as Mek, a major damage item on a core, lvl 11 on a support with a big teamfight ult) because every second that passes makes it more likely that your opponent matches your advantage or acquires an analogous one. The situation above is a particularly apt example of this, EG begins to posture for a gank the second AUI completes Mek, while VG’s Shadow Fiend is only a few hundred gold away from getting his own (note that he has Buckler and Headdress completed).

The gank turns out to be something of a failure. AUI is blown up before having the opportunity to Mek or ult because of prompt TP reactions from VG. Nonetheless, EG ends up trading two kills for four because Black^’s SF does not join the fight. EG attempted a precise timing on the back of their Mek but ended up succeeding for completely unrelated reasons; you take what you can get in Dota. The point is that this is the first case of EG treating AUI’s Enigma like a core, playing according to his item timings by playing conservatively while he farms and trying for objectives the moment he completes important items.

Fast forward a little bit. It’s now 22:00. EG sneaks Roshan and pokes down bottom T1, but they’ve avoided forcing 5-mans in the past 10 minutes because they need BKB’s on Fear’s Troll and AUI to take objectives. At this time, AUI uses his second Black Hole of the game (the first was a routine 2-man ult during a defense of Mid T2 at 16:00), a solo Hole on Super’s Ember to save Fear.

Other than the first, every single ult AUI burns this game is a solo Hole on Super or Black^. Black Hole, we would do well to remember, is not about how many people you hit with it, it’s about whom you hit with it and when. This will be important later.

For now though, more timing attacks. AUI picks up his BKB at 24:28 and EG immediately smokes to take Roshan.

Item > Objective, Item > Objective. Now we’re playing #SystematicDoto

Also EG looks really cool in the next fight

Now for the play that wins the game.

Troll picks up his Daedalus at 33:43. This sets up EG’s final timing attack. They smoke as soon as the courier delivers it and look for a teamfight. Fortunately, VG is happy to oblige. They happen to be pushing bottom T2, knowing that Roshan is going to be up in the next minute and they need to get as much gold from objectives as they can before contesting EG for Cheese and the third Aegis.

Fy, because he’s Fy, senses the smoke coming and begins pinging behind VG. Iceiceice repositions himself, moving from EG’s T2 toward the river. Fy stands furthest back so smoke will break long before Enigma is in range to ult SF and Ember. Their adjustment works — Iceiceice blinks and lands a 3-man Refresher Ravage on AUI, Fear, and PPD’s Tree. This sets up the following scene:

You’re AUI here. You have 209 HP left after popping Mek. Four of VG’s heroes, including SF and Ember, are still standing and they have almost full HP. You’re almost certainly going to die here. Do you Black Hole where you’re standing and get out as much damage as you can before going down? Or do you save the tremendous cooldown for the high ground and/or Roshan defense that will follow if EG loses this fight?

That’s right you win the game by walking up and barely catching Super in a 1-man Ult, allowing Suma1l to kill him.

The rest of the match from this point is a formality. EG heals up, takes Roshan, and marches their way onto VG’s high ground for rax.

EG’s fight execution here was of course impressive, but we need to look at the numbers leading into that last tower defense to really get the full picture. Here’s the gold graph as Iceiceice lands his double Ravage:

EG is ahead by a little under 5k gold. If you look at the net worth numbers in the screenshots of the fight, you’ll see that the two teams’ cores are actually almost tied; VG has 40,721 while EG has 42313. The crucial difference is that AUI has more gold than both of VG’s supports combined.

Grass grows; birds fly, and AUI will find farm. It’s a fact of life. Flashy plays and strong teamfight decision-making will win games in the end, but you won’t ever get the chance to make those plays if you’re dead because you don’t have enough gold. By leaning on AUI’s prowess on high-GPM supports, EG can maintain pressure with precise timing attacks, or simply win and trade even repeatedly in fights they would lose with a less farmed 4. You’ll need to watch his replays to fully understand the countless tiny efficiency-maximizing habits that allow him to generate the income he does, but as a fan of pro Dota, all you really need to understand is that AUI’s presence gives EG a fourth core of sorts to snowball off of if they draft for that strategy.

So what I’m saying is AUI_2000 supports his team by making lots of gold and killing all his enemies.