NS Interview

You're one of the oldest players in the Dota scene. What was your favourite period of Dota over the years? What are your most memorable moments, both in Dota 1 and Dota 2?





The most memorable moment in Dota 1 was the battle against City Hunter from China in the ADL 2009 semi-final (Alien DotA League). It was such a crazy bo5 match which will forever stay in my memory. It is more difficult to pick a moment for Dota 2; there has been a lot of interesting stuff, but nothing that is imprinted in my memory. It's probably because our team hasn't been performing very successfully in LANs, and the brightest impressions come from LANs. It is difficult to highlight a most interesting period. Every time that I was in a strong and trustworthy team, it was interesting and nice to play. There were a few of those periods: first one was in Virtus.pro in 2007, second one was DTS in 2010, and of course right now I'm in my current team under the Virtus.pro tag once again, which is meaningful.The most memorable moment in Dota 1 was the battle against City Hunter from China in the ADL 2009 semi-final (Alien DotA League). It was such a crazy bo5 match which will forever stay in my memory.It is more difficult to pick a moment for Dota 2; there has been a lot of interesting stuff, but nothing that is imprinted in my memory. It's probably because our team hasn't been performing very successfully in LANs, and the brightest impressions come from LANs.

You wrote a very influential article about the Dire side Roshan advantage . After nearly a year of play, various minor side changes, and a reduction on the Aegis timer, do you think the imbalance still exists to a substantial degree?

Over time people understood that it was crazy imbalanced and Aegis was changed into what we have right now. It drops from Roshan, it doesn't have 4 charges anymore of course, but the fact that it still brings the chance of resurrecting someone often turns the game into something weird. In my opinion the reduction of Aegis's duration from 10 to 6 minutes is a good nerf, but it is not enough. I believe that the problem is in the Aegis itself. This item brings some kind of imbalance in Dota. A long time ago, you could just buy Aegis, it wasn't expensive and had 4 charges. A lot of people don't even remember those times.Over time people understood that it was crazy imbalanced and Aegis was changed into what we have right now. It drops from Roshan, it doesn't have 4 charges anymore of course, but the fact that it still brings the chance of resurrecting someone often turns the game into something weird. In my opinion the reduction of Aegis's duration from 10 to 6 minutes is a good nerf, but it is not enough.

What changes would you like to make to Dota? Anything regarding hero balance, Roshan, etc?

Sometimes you think that you could make changes in Dota to achieve great balance, buff this, fix that, but then you realize that IceFrog is already always buffing something, fixing something. I think it's impossible to achieve ideal balance, and perhaps this is one of the reasons why Dota is so interesting and popular. There is an infinite amount of possible strategies. I already talked about Aegis. I don't know exactly what, but something needs to be done about it. Another item that can bring a critical change in the balance is BKB. Because of the presence of BKB in its current form, we don't see almost a third of possible picks and heroes. The logic is always like, "what will those heroes do when enemy buys BKB?" And really, heroes like CM, Venomancer, Zeus, ES are almost never present in drafts, because they don't have a single skill that goes through BKB. Meanwhile, Lifestealer has become almost firstpick material for half the teams in the world, and his strength primarily comes from his Rage, a skill that imitates BKB.

Virtus.Pro has been performing pretty well lately. When did you feel the team was getting really competitive?

We started to fight for the top just a month after the creation of the team in September. It was a great success for us. I wouldn't even imagine that a team of new players would be able to compete against top teams that quickly. We managed to get on the Starladder 3 LAN Finals in October, and from that moment onwards teams started to respect us, and closer to the end of the year we had become tough opponents for anyone. I think that we became a true top team at the beginning of 2013. Right now, I believe that if we show our best play then we are able to compete against any opponent in the world.

You brought a bunch of heroes into the so called "metagame" of European Dota, such as Lifestealer, Clockwerk, and Dragon Knight. What other currently forgotten heroes do you think you might want to "rediscover"?

Inventing new strategies and bringing forgotten heroes in the game is one of the reasons for the success of any team. Surprising your enemy is half of the victory, so we always try to remember that Dota doesn't have only 30 heroes that everyone picks, but around 100 heroes, and almost every one of them can be used in one way or another. At this moment we have a few interesting ideas with heroes that no one uses, but I won't reveal all our cards yet.

What about non-standard skill-builds, like the infamous Illidan's no-breath DK? Does he have any other secret builds like that?

Professional players must always think big. Dota has an unbelievable amount of opportunities, and you can always improve on things that are generally used by default. Illidan's idea of building DK without the Fire Breath is quite interesting, and indeed, if you are farming on the easy lane as a hard carry without participating in fights for a long time, you don't really need the Breath. On the other hand, the almost-4 second stun with 9 second cd is very attractive, plus you will always have enough mana for the stun. You often do not have enough mana for both the Fire Breath and the stun anyway, especially if you face heroes like AM or PL with Diffusal. Maybe Illidan will surprise everyone with his Zeus build with passive + X. Who knows, you just have to watch him play.

Statistics show that most Nature's Prophet players in the West follow the "Midas/Mekanism-or-Shadow Blade" build, meaning that he needs a lot of time before becoming active in the map. Despite this big window of weakness, Nature's Prophet's winrate is quite high. Why don't teams punish such a greedy build?





Quick Mek is very useful as well. Mekansm is a very important item. If one of the teams gets it quickly and the other one doesn't, then the team with it has a giant advantage in teamfights, which is obviously very good. On the other hand, Shadowblade is an item for which the meaning is hard for me to see. In my opinion it is a very pub-ish item, which can be easily punished by a strong team. Nevertheless, the statistics shows otherwise indeed. Maybe I am wrong about this. If Nature's Prophet buys a quick Midas, then he becomes very useful thanks to his quick level growth. It is very difficult to punish this kind of NP, and if he and his team plays well, then, most likely, if you try that they will punish you instead.Quick Mek is very useful as well. Mekansm is a very important item. If one of the teams gets it quickly and the other one doesn't, then the team with it has a giant advantage in teamfights, which is obviously very good. On the other hand, Shadowblade is an item for which the meaning is hard for me to see. In my opinion it is a very pub-ish item, which can be easily punished by a strong team. Nevertheless, the statistics shows otherwise indeed. Maybe I am wrong about this.

What do you do IRL outside Dota? Anything interesting that the community doesn't know about you?

For me, Dota is a hobby and a job at the same time. A lot of people have boring jobs and look for a hobby on the side that brings them enjoyment. I got lucky, I don't need to look for anything. However, outside of Dota, I am very fond of History and Travel. I dream of visiting some interesting historical places, but unfortunately, I cannot afford it right now. I believe I will definitely do some of that in the future. Dota is the most important part of my life, almost as important as my girlfriend.For me, Dota is a hobby and a job at the same time. A lot of people have boring jobs and look for a hobby on the side that brings them enjoyment. I got lucky, I don't need to look for anything. However, outside of Dota, I am very fond of History and Travel. I dream of visiting some interesting historical places, but unfortunately, I cannot afford it right now. I believe I will definitely do some of that in the future.

Thank you for this interview! Any shoutouts?

Shoutout to all our fans, thank you, you're the best! And, of course, shoutout to our haters, you are great as well! Also shoutouts to KozaDereza, Smile, v1lat, Toby, n0tail, Jolie & Tevton! And thanks to our main sponsor - BenQ! Thank you for this opportunityShoutout to all our fans, thank you, you're the best! And, of course, shoutout to our haters, you are great as well!Also shoutouts to KozaDereza, Smile, v1lat, Toby, n0tail, Jolie & Tevton! And thanks to our main sponsor - BenQ!