WPC Ace League Week 3 Recap October 16th, 2013 06:36 GMT Text by TanGeng Graphics by riptide WPC Ace

League 2013

Week 3 Recap



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Elder Titan



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WPC ACE League Week 3 Recap



The third week of play drew to a close at WPC ACE this week, with DK still leading the way with a 6-0 (12-0 map score) unbeaten streak. The new iG continue to impress as well, having lost just two maps in the league so far.



We have many weeks of WPC ahead of us, and yet, as we all know, every week matters. When you're playing Dota at this level, you don't get breaks, and with nearly $250,000 on the line in terms of prize pool, you can rest assured that none of these teams will be taking any of these series easy.



As usual, our weekly recap summarises the week's play for you. Who won, who lost, and what can you expect from Week 4? Find out below, as



Also, as always, we have a feature for you, and this weeks piece is timely indeed. Join TanGeng as he takes you through a



We hope you enjoy this week's games. They start in -







Week 3 Recap by TheEmulator





Standings after first three weeks



At The Top



Nothing much has changed this week at the top of the leaderboard. Team DK and iG are still holding up the top two spots, and with the way they are currently playing it's hard to see them giving these spots up. DK had a fairly easy week again, not dropping a single game against Rattlesnake or WPC Team A. These games weren't very interesting, but I would still recommend them just to see some of the tightest Dota 2 play of the year. DK are really a spectacle right now, and if they can keep this up we should definitely expect to see them doing well at TI4. iG also went 2-0 this week, maintaing their spot at #2. They have looked even stronger this week, so the pending rematch between them and DK will definitely be the most looked forward to match of the league.



Going into week 4 the favourites are still iG and DK. One has lost 0 maps and the other has only lost 2 so far. Although iG has a tough week ahead of them going up against LGD.cn and RisingStars, while DK will have an easier road against LGD.int and HGT. Expect to see some great games nonetheless.



In The Middle



The middle of the pack has had some major shuffles this week. Most notably is TongFu moving from third to fifth, and not taking a single series. They just didn't look anywhere near as sharp as in the first two weeks, although they were up against Vici and iG so the pressure could have got to them. Moving into third this week is LGD.cn, who managed to 2-0 LGD.int and tie Vici Gaming. As a result of that tie, Vici Gaming have edged past TongFu as well into the fourth position. New to the middle this week are RisingStars, who are now out of the bottom tier. Their week wasn't too tough, resulting in an easy 2-0 victory against the WPC team A, and a tie against LGD.int.



Coming up in week 4 it looks like TongFu might have the chance of moving up a few slots again. They will travel the easy road against RattleSnake and HGT, which doesn't seem worrisome for them. LGD.cn has a tough week, as we said earlier they will be up against iG. This matchup will be a true test of their skill, and one we should all be looking forward to this week. RisingStars has the hardest week though, taking on Vici Gaming and iG. There is a great possibility of them losing a few spots.



Scraping The Bottom



Like the top of the pack, nothing much has changed here this week. The WPC Team A and HGT still look utterly hopeless, and continue their journey in the last two spots. Rattlesnake are looking stronger, but still have yet to do enough to advance their position. The most notable change of this group is the addition of LGD.int, who are replacing RisingStars recent position after having a not so good week.











Hero Spotlight: Elder Titan TanGeng





Promising Challengers

In late August, Valve opened the gate and allowed four more heroes into Captains Mode. The four heroes, Troll Warlord, Elder Titan, Centaur Warrunner, and Abaddon, enter to make their mark on competitive play, and after a month of experimentation in scrims and trials in league games, three of the four have seen frequent professional play. One Elder Titan has vaulted into first ban first pick status over the matter of two weeks, and the hero looks to be triggering a seismic shift in the competitive landscape and professional strategy.





Previous Competitive History

As recently as 2012, Elder Titan had a prominent place in competitive play in Warcraft 3 Dota by its original name, Tauren Chieftain, in version 6.74c. Chinese teams saw Tauren Chieftain as an stalwart off-lane hero and they gave the hero first pick or first ban priority in the drafting process in the majority games of ACE Dota League. In the intervening year since ACE Dota League, the hero has received some tweaks in version 6.75 and 6.78 that are on the balance buffs to the hero.



Compared to the Tauren Chieftain of 2012, present day, Elder Titan has a fully controllable Astral Spirit instead of a mirror movement of the past, Astral Spirit has ground vision instead of flying vision reducing its sight over tree, and Natural Order aura scales to a full 100% base armor reduction instead of 80% reduction. Dota2 also introduces an engine change that applies the Astral Spirit magical damage after the Natural Order debuff instead of the other way around. This slight order change vastly improves the damage output of Astral Spirit and Natural Order combinations.





Elder Titan Abilities

Elder Titan has two core abilities with high utility in Astral Spirit and Natural Order and two massive but difficult to land team fight abilities in Echo Stomp and Earth Splitter. Combined together, the abilities make Elder Titan a team fight specialist that has massive influence over the Dota2 battlefield.



Astral Spirit



Astral Spirit is Elder Titan's characteristic ability and it spawns a controllable projection of the hero that also propagates Natural Order aura and the Echo Stomp ability. The Spirit has 600/600 ground vision and is useful for scouting difficult and dangerous ground as it ignores map geography and is able to skirt over cliffs and trees as if they aren't there. It can spot out hero rotations, jungle farming, jungle stacks, and incoming teleportation.

On top of scouting, the Spirit deals magical damage to enemy heroes and creeps on first contact and is a flexible nuke and an effective lane push and anti-push AoE ability. Against enemy supports, sending the spirit to chase after them is an effective way to harass them out of the lane. Upon return of the Astral Spirit, the ability also grants the Elder Titan a significant movement speed and damage buff based on number of heroes and creeps damaged.



Natural Order



Natural Order eventually eliminates base armor and base magic resistance. On the armor reduction side of the ability, Elder Titan becomes the premier late game counter against all agility carries in the game. With four points in Natural Order, it completely wipes out the survivability against physical damage granted by high agility. Otherwise impossibly tanky heroes like Morphling, Antimage, and Phantom Lancer all become extremely fragile once they are under the Natural Order aura. Natural Order scales along with the enemy hero, removing each point of armor they get via agility and therefore grows in relevance later in the game.



On the magical resistance side, Elder Titan gets easy access to magical damage amplification. With just three points in the ability, Elder Titan Natural Order matches a Veil of Discord in bonus to magical damage. With the maximum four points, it's even more at 33%, and thanks to Astral Spirit, the damage amplification can be thrown at enemy heroes within 1200 range with up to 240 damage from the Spirit to boot. Early in the game when magic immunity is at a premium, a high level Natural Order aura is a a power steroid for team fights and ganks.



Echo Stomp



Using Echo Stomp, Elder Titan and his Astral Spirit simultaneously stomp the ground and enemy units caught within 475 AoE receive 80 damage and are put to sleep for a duration. However, the spell has a long cast delay of 1.4 seconds that makes it easily dodged by active and attentive enemy heroes, so Echo Stomp cannot be used as reliable initiation. Even so, because of its large AoE, Echo Stomp has good utility in forcing enemy heroes to run or in tight quarters like the Roshan pit.



Echo Stomp is one of Elder Titan's skills that does not scale well for additional ability points. The impact of each additional point in Echo Stomp is a progression of 2/3/4/5 second sleep durations while increasing its mana cost by 100/115/130/145. There is no difference in the cast delay or the damage of the stomp at all levels of the ability. A second point in the skill has good utility because the 3 second sleep gives time for teleportation or as setup time for Earth Splitter, but higher levels of the ability do not have much better utility. Maxing out the ability may actually be a detriment because of the higher mana cost.



Earth Splitter



In Earth Splitter, Elder Titan has another massive AoE ability that is difficult to land. The Earth Splitter propagates for a distance of 2400 and pulls units within 300 on both sides. Units that are pulled suffer 35% of their maximum hp, half in magical damage and half in physical damage, and are slowed for a duration. The difficulty in landing the spell is the 3 second delay between the cast and the effects of the spell. It is therefore helpful to have heroes that can provide setup like Naga Siren, Shadow Demon, or Outworld Devourer.



Like Echo Stomp, Earth Splitter does not scale well for additional ability points. The impact of each additional point in Earth Splitter is 30%/40%/50% slow for 3/4/5 seconds. The lack of change in cooldown, mana cost, and the cast delay makes putting additional points into the skill underwhelming.



Point Allocation

Overall, all Elder Titans should aim to put at least one point in Echo Stomp and Earth Splitter at 10-15 minutes when team fights start to break out, but otherwise max out Astral Spirit and Natural Order. Elder Titan is essentially complete at level 11 with a 2-4-4-1 ability allocation. All additional levels and ability points are basically luxuries.





Item Selection

As a team fight specialist with a nasty aura, Elder Titan is a priority initiation target. The opposing team would like nothing more than to snipe Elder Titan and remove him from the fight before battle even starts. Elder Titan item builds should prioritise survivability and then secure sufficient mana for all abilities and movement speed. As a hero that is essentially complete at level 11, Elder Titan can be played in a variety of roles, from solo mid to hard support.



Low Economy Elder Titan

The low economy Elder Titan is a hard support Elder Titan or an offlane Elder Titan that has been severely contained in the laning phase. This kind of Elder Titan should be particularly safe with hero positioning and keep a distance from the frontline of a team fight. This Elder Titan can use the long range of Astral Spirit and the Earth Splitter to project team fight presence.



Arcane Boots

Arcane Boots provides a good boost to Elder Titan's mana pool and movement speed. Its active helps refill his own mana pool as well as that of the rest of the team.



Ghost Scepter

Ghost Scepter gives good stats and is an excellent buy since it provides fours seconds of survivability against physical attacks from enemy carries. It is especially effective against melee heroes that must run into the Natural Order aura and put themselves at risk when trying to attack Elder Titan.



Bracers

Bracers are cheap survivability items that give Elder Titan a good stats bonus at a bargain price. With sufficient additional gold, bracers can be turned into Drums of Endurance that provide a similar efficient stat gain.



Moderate Economy Elder Titan

The moderate economy Elder Titan is an offlane hero with a decent laning phase or an under-leveled solo mid. This kind of Elder Titan should be cautious with hero position but can occasionally wade into the heat of battle.



Power Treads

Power Treads provide a good movement bonus and an excellent attack speed bonus. Should the Elder Titan get a nice damage bonus from Astral Spirit return, the attack speed can make him a surprisingly good source of DPS. The attribute toggle also gives Elder Titan a choice on whether to prioritise mana or survivability.



Drums of Endurance

Drums of Endurance provides the Elder Titan a good stat bonus for survivability and gives the hero and his Astral Spirit chasing power during team fights.



Black King Bar

Late in the game, Elder Titan's Natural Order is critical in team fights and the Black King Bar provides immunity against most kinds of disables that prevent Elder Titan from getting close to enemy heroes. BKB also providesa 10 strength bonus that helps the hero's survivability.



High Economy Elder Titan



The high economy Elder Titan can be very active in controlling the game. If played by a very successful offlaner or a moderately successful mid solo, Elder Titan can rely on his superior hero levels and his 2.3 strength gain to cover much of his survivability concerns. Thus, Elder Titan can focus on items that maximise his influence over the Dota2 battlefield.



Bottle

An early bottle enables Elder Titan to constantly spam Astral Spirit for safe farming at distance. In the mid lane, the Astral Spirit is also effective in pushing the lane for good rune control and strong punishment, should the opposing mid roam away for ganks.



Phase Boots

Phase Boots has a bonus movement speed that also passes over to Elder Titan's Astral Spirit. The movement bonus thus gives Astral Spirit a huge buff and allows the Spirit to easily chase down enemy supports and harass them out of lane. Phase Boots are also excellent for chasing down out of position heroes during ganks. As an added bonus, Elder Titan also gets better at last hitting thanks to a 24 damage bonus.



Drums of Endurance

For the high economy Elder Titan, the Drums of Endurance comes early enough to factor in ganks in the first 10 - 15 minutes. Combined with Phase Boots, Elder Titan becomes a huge presence in the enemy jungle and can chase down stray enemy supports with both his main hero and his Astral Spirit, and thereby pose a real danger to his opponents. In effect, Elder Titan can zone enemy supports out of their own jungle and safe lane.



Shiva's Guard

Shiva's Guard gives Elder Titan excellent survivability and 15 bonus armor. It also provides the hero with sufficient mana to use all his abilities, and the Freezing Aura and Arctic Black active synergise extremely well with Elder Titan's team fight abilities.







CREDITS

Writers: TanGeng, TheEmulator

Gfx: riptide

Editors: TheEmulator, riptide

Photograph by

Writers: TanGeng, TheEmulatorGfx: riptideEditors: TheEmulator, riptidePhotograph by Eugene Regis The third week of play drew to a close at WPC ACE this week, with DK still leading the way with a 6-0 (12-0 map score) unbeaten streak. The new iG continue to impress as well, having lost just two maps in the league so far.We have many weeks of WPC ahead of us, and yet, as we all know, every week matters. When you're playing Dota at this level, you don't get breaks, and with nearly $250,000 on the line in terms of prize pool, you can rest assured that none of these teams will be taking any of these series easy.As usual, our weekly recap summarises the week's play for you. Who won, who lost, and what can you expect from Week 4? Find out below, as TheEmulator recaps the week gone by Also, as always, we have a feature for you, and this weeks piece is timely indeed. Join TanGeng as he takes you through a Elder Titan hero profile . ET exploded on to the competitive scene following his inclusion in Captain's Mode at the start of the season, and he is without a doubt one of the most talked about heroes out there at the moment. Read on as we dissect him from the ground up!We hope you enjoy this week's games. They start in -Nothing much has changed this week at the top of the leaderboard. Team DK and iG are still holding up the top two spots, and with the way they are currently playing it's hard to see them giving these spots up. DK had a fairly easy week again, not dropping a single game against Rattlesnake or WPC Team A. These games weren't very interesting, but I would still recommend them just to see some of the tightest Dota 2 play of the year. DK are really a spectacle right now, and if they can keep this up we should definitely expect to see them doing well at TI4. iG also went 2-0 this week, maintaing their spot at #2. They have looked even stronger this week, so the pending rematch between them and DK will definitely be the most looked forward to match of the league.Going into week 4 the favourites are still iG and DK. One has lost 0 maps and the other has only lost 2 so far. Although iG has a tough week ahead of them going up against LGD.cn and RisingStars, while DK will have an easier road against LGD.int and HGT. Expect to see some great games nonetheless.The middle of the pack has had some major shuffles this week. Most notably is TongFu moving from third to fifth, and not taking a single series. They just didn't look anywhere near as sharp as in the first two weeks, although they were up against Vici and iG so the pressure could have got to them. Moving into third this week is LGD.cn, who managed to 2-0 LGD.int and tie Vici Gaming. As a result of that tie, Vici Gaming have edged past TongFu as well into the fourth position. New to the middle this week are RisingStars, who are now out of the bottom tier. Their week wasn't too tough, resulting in an easy 2-0 victory against the WPC team A, and a tie against LGD.int.Coming up in week 4 it looks like TongFu might have the chance of moving up a few slots again. They will travel the easy road against RattleSnake and HGT, which doesn't seem worrisome for them. LGD.cn has a tough week, as we said earlier they will be up against iG. This matchup will be a true test of their skill, and one we should all be looking forward to this week. RisingStars has the hardest week though, taking on Vici Gaming and iG. There is a great possibility of them losing a few spots.Like the top of the pack, nothing much has changed here this week. The WPC Team A and HGT still look utterly hopeless, and continue their journey in the last two spots. Rattlesnake are looking stronger, but still have yet to do enough to advance their position. The most notable change of this group is the addition of LGD.int, who are replacing RisingStars recent position after having a not so good week.In late August, Valve opened the gate and allowed four more heroes into Captains Mode. The four heroes, Troll Warlord, Elder Titan, Centaur Warrunner, and Abaddon, enter to make their mark on competitive play, and after a month of experimentation in scrims and trials in league games, three of the four have seen frequent professional play. One Elder Titan has vaulted into first ban first pick status over the matter of two weeks, and the hero looks to be triggering a seismic shift in the competitive landscape and professional strategy.As recently as 2012, Elder Titan had a prominent place in competitive play in Warcraft 3 Dota by its original name, Tauren Chieftain, in version 6.74c. Chinese teams saw Tauren Chieftain as an stalwart off-lane hero and they gave the hero first pick or first ban priority in the drafting process in the majority games of ACE Dota League. In the intervening year since ACE Dota League, the hero has received some tweaks in version 6.75 and 6.78 that are on the balance buffs to the hero.Compared to the Tauren Chieftain of 2012, present day, Elder Titan has a fully controllable Astral Spirit instead of a mirror movement of the past, Astral Spirit has ground vision instead of flying vision reducing its sight over tree, and Natural Order aura scales to a full 100% base armor reduction instead of 80% reduction. Dota2 also introduces an engine change that applies the Astral Spirit magical damage after the Natural Order debuff instead of the other way around. This slight order change vastly improves the damage output of Astral Spirit and Natural Order combinations.Elder Titan has two core abilities with high utility in Astral Spirit and Natural Order and two massive but difficult to land team fight abilities in Echo Stomp and Earth Splitter. Combined together, the abilities make Elder Titan a team fight specialist that has massive influence over the Dota2 battlefield.Astral Spirit is Elder Titan's characteristic ability and it spawns a controllable projection of the hero that also propagates Natural Order aura and the Echo Stomp ability. The Spirit has 600/600 ground vision and is useful for scouting difficult and dangerous ground as it ignores map geography and is able to skirt over cliffs and trees as if they aren't there. It can spot out hero rotations, jungle farming, jungle stacks, and incoming teleportation.On top of scouting, the Spirit deals magical damage to enemy heroes and creeps on first contact and is a flexible nuke and an effective lane push and anti-push AoE ability. Against enemy supports, sending the spirit to chase after them is an effective way to harass them out of the lane. Upon return of the Astral Spirit, the ability also grants the Elder Titan a significant movement speed and damage buff based on number of heroes and creeps damaged.Natural Order eventually eliminates base armor and base magic resistance. On the armor reduction side of the ability, Elder Titan becomes the premier late game counter against all agility carries in the game. With four points in Natural Order, it completely wipes out the survivability against physical damage granted by high agility. Otherwise impossibly tanky heroes like Morphling, Antimage, and Phantom Lancer all become extremely fragile once they are under the Natural Order aura. Natural Order scales along with the enemy hero, removing each point of armor they get via agility and therefore grows in relevance later in the game.On the magical resistance side, Elder Titan gets easy access to magical damage amplification. With just three points in the ability, Elder Titan Natural Order matches a Veil of Discord in bonus to magical damage. With the maximum four points, it's even more at 33%, and thanks to Astral Spirit, the damage amplification can be thrown at enemy heroes within 1200 range with up to 240 damage from the Spirit to boot. Early in the game when magic immunity is at a premium, a high level Natural Order aura is a a power steroid for team fights and ganks.Using Echo Stomp, Elder Titan and his Astral Spirit simultaneously stomp the ground and enemy units caught within 475 AoE receive 80 damage and are put to sleep for a duration. However, the spell has a long cast delay of 1.4 seconds that makes it easily dodged by active and attentive enemy heroes, so Echo Stomp cannot be used as reliable initiation. Even so, because of its large AoE, Echo Stomp has good utility in forcing enemy heroes to run or in tight quarters like the Roshan pit.Echo Stomp is one of Elder Titan's skills that does not scale well for additional ability points. The impact of each additional point in Echo Stomp is a progression of 2/3/4/5 second sleep durations while increasing its mana cost by 100/115/130/145. There is no difference in the cast delay or the damage of the stomp at all levels of the ability. A second point in the skill has good utility because the 3 second sleep gives time for teleportation or as setup time for Earth Splitter, but higher levels of the ability do not have much better utility. Maxing out the ability may actually be a detriment because of the higher mana cost.In Earth Splitter, Elder Titan has another massive AoE ability that is difficult to land. The Earth Splitter propagates for a distance of 2400 and pulls units within 300 on both sides. Units that are pulled suffer 35% of their maximum hp, half in magical damage and half in physical damage, and are slowed for a duration. The difficulty in landing the spell is the 3 second delay between the cast and the effects of the spell. It is therefore helpful to have heroes that can provide setup like Naga Siren, Shadow Demon, or Outworld Devourer.Like Echo Stomp, Earth Splitter does not scale well for additional ability points. The impact of each additional point in Earth Splitter is 30%/40%/50% slow for 3/4/5 seconds. The lack of change in cooldown, mana cost, and the cast delay makes putting additional points into the skill underwhelming.Overall, all Elder Titans should aim to put at least one point in Echo Stomp and Earth Splitter at 10-15 minutes when team fights start to break out, but otherwise max out Astral Spirit and Natural Order. Elder Titan is essentially complete at level 11 with a 2-4-4-1 ability allocation. All additional levels and ability points are basically luxuries.As a team fight specialist with a nasty aura, Elder Titan is a priority initiation target. The opposing team would like nothing more than to snipe Elder Titan and remove him from the fight before battle even starts. Elder Titan item builds should prioritise survivability and then secure sufficient mana for all abilities and movement speed. As a hero that is essentially complete at level 11, Elder Titan can be played in a variety of roles, from solo mid to hard support.The low economy Elder Titan is a hard support Elder Titan or an offlane Elder Titan that has been severely contained in the laning phase. This kind of Elder Titan should be particularly safe with hero positioning and keep a distance from the frontline of a team fight. This Elder Titan can use the long range of Astral Spirit and the Earth Splitter to project team fight presence.Arcane Boots provides a good boost to Elder Titan's mana pool and movement speed. Its active helps refill his own mana pool as well as that of the rest of the team.Ghost Scepter gives good stats and is an excellent buy since it provides fours seconds of survivability against physical attacks from enemy carries. It is especially effective against melee heroes that must run into the Natural Order aura and put themselves at risk when trying to attack Elder Titan.Bracers are cheap survivability items that give Elder Titan a good stats bonus at a bargain price. With sufficient additional gold, bracers can be turned into Drums of Endurance that provide a similar efficient stat gain.The moderate economy Elder Titan is an offlane hero with a decent laning phase or an under-leveled solo mid. This kind of Elder Titan should be cautious with hero position but can occasionally wade into the heat of battle.Power Treads provide a good movement bonus and an excellent attack speed bonus. Should the Elder Titan get a nice damage bonus from Astral Spirit return, the attack speed can make him a surprisingly good source of DPS. The attribute toggle also gives Elder Titan a choice on whether to prioritise mana or survivability.Drums of Endurance provides the Elder Titan a good stat bonus for survivability and gives the hero and his Astral Spirit chasing power during team fights.Late in the game, Elder Titan's Natural Order is critical in team fights and the Black King Bar provides immunity against most kinds of disables that prevent Elder Titan from getting close to enemy heroes. BKB also providesa 10 strength bonus that helps the hero's survivability.The high economy Elder Titan can be very active in controlling the game. If played by a very successful offlaner or a moderately successful mid solo, Elder Titan can rely on his superior hero levels and his 2.3 strength gain to cover much of his survivability concerns. Thus, Elder Titan can focus on items that maximise his influence over the Dota2 battlefield.An early bottle enables Elder Titan to constantly spam Astral Spirit for safe farming at distance. In the mid lane, the Astral Spirit is also effective in pushing the lane for good rune control and strong punishment, should the opposing mid roam away for ganks.Phase Boots has a bonus movement speed that also passes over to Elder Titan's Astral Spirit. The movement bonus thus gives Astral Spirit a huge buff and allows the Spirit to easily chase down enemy supports and harass them out of lane. Phase Boots are also excellent for chasing down out of position heroes during ganks. As an added bonus, Elder Titan also gets better at last hitting thanks to a 24 damage bonus.For the high economy Elder Titan, the Drums of Endurance comes early enough to factor in ganks in the first 10 - 15 minutes. Combined with Phase Boots, Elder Titan becomes a huge presence in the enemy jungle and can chase down stray enemy supports with both his main hero and his Astral Spirit, and thereby pose a real danger to his opponents. In effect, Elder Titan can zone enemy supports out of their own jungle and safe lane.Shiva's Guard gives Elder Titan excellent survivability and 15 bonus armor. It also provides the hero with sufficient mana to use all his abilities, and the Freezing Aura and Arctic Black active synergise extremely well with Elder Titan's team fight abilities. Moderator 我们是个踏实的赞助商模式俱乐部