Ant
01-06-2006, 02:14 AM
Aside from hero balance, perhaps the most heated discussions about DotA are over the rules of a competition. Be it the inclusion of a rule, or the exclusion of the same, somewhere or another, someone will be dissatisfied over it. Do competition rules restrict creative gameplay, or are they neccessary for fairer and more enjoyable gameplay?
Exhibit A: Pooling - The act of using your gold to buy items that will be used by a hero not owned by you.
"Pooling is a perfectly viable and balanced option!" You'll hear. "A single pooled hero will lose out to five other non-weakened heroes!" They say. "Even if that one single hero owns, you can pick on the other four weak heroes!" They justify. "Pooling does not ruin the balance of the game, but removing it restricts creative gameplay." But all recent Singaporean DotA competitions, past the WCG preliminaries and GXL season 2, have completely banned pooling of any form. Why?
Firstly, it is true that a single pooled hero will lose out to five other non-weakened heroes early in the game, before the advent of his/her Black King Bar, his/her levels, and his/her mass of uber level 4 items (I'll assume the hero to be a male now since the only viable female late gamer was the Gorgon and you probably won't use her too much in competitions anyway, although you might go ahead and surprise me), since he can't possibly deal as much damage as five heroes combined (at that stage anyway, at the later game it's highly possible), and the flurry of disabling spells will slaughter that one puny hero.
Meanwhile, the other 4 teammates of that pooled hero will sit by the side doing nothing, never firing any disablers or debuffs, never helping the pooled hero, eh? What many people fail to realise is that a pooled 5v5 (at the earlier stage of the game) is not a 1v5. Since the pooled hero is most likely a pure damager, his damage will most likely be almost as much or much higher than the combined attack damage of the other 4 heroes in his team combined if they didn't pool. The other 4 heroes meanwhile will fire off their nukes, and since their attack damage isn't usually very good (otherwise they would have been pooled), their physical whacks, regardless of items, wouldn't mean much. To top it off, the whole team's physical damage is practically focused on one single enemy hero, so heroes fall fast, while the other team is most likely going to spread the damage somewhat.
Question: Which side will win, a tauren or two grunts?
Answer: The tauren. He grunts away *snort*.
Whether you get the above line or not, the tauren still wins. Let's look at the stats for a while. Assuming the two grunts have more hit points combined than the tauren, and the same combined Damage Per Second, the grunts should win hands down, right?
Right!
Actually, no, wrong.
Here lies the catch. The grunts in terms of total HP and total DPS might be winning at the start. Then all of a sudden, when the tauren has half HP, one grunt falls dead. One grunt, one tauren, same hit points, different DPS, who do you think wins now?
Unpooled, with items of less total value than that of the opposing team, I have seen, heck, even you have probably seen in pubbies, a late gamer clearing an entire team single handedly. At the speed the damage is being done, the total Damage Per Second dealt by the team drops like a... dropping thing, while his Damage Per Second dealt to your team remains consistent, even when he barely has any health.
Between teams of equal skill (we're talking competitive play here, so by equal skill I also mean that both teams are of some standard), pooling is not an alternative strategy when it is allowed. It is a neccessity. If you still can, view the 5.84c replays of the WCG preliminaries 2005, and you'll get the idea of how powerful pooled heroes are, and how important it is to get the correct support hero for that single soul (a.k.a. faceless void in 5.84c).
Lack of pooling also has another very important place in competitive play. It averages out skill levels. A strong team becomes a strong team because each member is strong, not because one member is strong and the rest can pool him. It isn't exactly a gameplay factor, but it sure makes things more fun for the players. It isn't the lack pooling that restricts teams, but to allow pooling forces teams to pool in order to win, restricting them instead.
To be continued... Backdooring and bug abuse, AP Drafting...
Exhibit A: Pooling - The act of using your gold to buy items that will be used by a hero not owned by you.
"Pooling is a perfectly viable and balanced option!" You'll hear. "A single pooled hero will lose out to five other non-weakened heroes!" They say. "Even if that one single hero owns, you can pick on the other four weak heroes!" They justify. "Pooling does not ruin the balance of the game, but removing it restricts creative gameplay." But all recent Singaporean DotA competitions, past the WCG preliminaries and GXL season 2, have completely banned pooling of any form. Why?
Firstly, it is true that a single pooled hero will lose out to five other non-weakened heroes early in the game, before the advent of his/her Black King Bar, his/her levels, and his/her mass of uber level 4 items (I'll assume the hero to be a male now since the only viable female late gamer was the Gorgon and you probably won't use her too much in competitions anyway, although you might go ahead and surprise me), since he can't possibly deal as much damage as five heroes combined (at that stage anyway, at the later game it's highly possible), and the flurry of disabling spells will slaughter that one puny hero.
Meanwhile, the other 4 teammates of that pooled hero will sit by the side doing nothing, never firing any disablers or debuffs, never helping the pooled hero, eh? What many people fail to realise is that a pooled 5v5 (at the earlier stage of the game) is not a 1v5. Since the pooled hero is most likely a pure damager, his damage will most likely be almost as much or much higher than the combined attack damage of the other 4 heroes in his team combined if they didn't pool. The other 4 heroes meanwhile will fire off their nukes, and since their attack damage isn't usually very good (otherwise they would have been pooled), their physical whacks, regardless of items, wouldn't mean much. To top it off, the whole team's physical damage is practically focused on one single enemy hero, so heroes fall fast, while the other team is most likely going to spread the damage somewhat.
Question: Which side will win, a tauren or two grunts?
Answer: The tauren. He grunts away *snort*.
Whether you get the above line or not, the tauren still wins. Let's look at the stats for a while. Assuming the two grunts have more hit points combined than the tauren, and the same combined Damage Per Second, the grunts should win hands down, right?
Right!
Actually, no, wrong.
Here lies the catch. The grunts in terms of total HP and total DPS might be winning at the start. Then all of a sudden, when the tauren has half HP, one grunt falls dead. One grunt, one tauren, same hit points, different DPS, who do you think wins now?
Unpooled, with items of less total value than that of the opposing team, I have seen, heck, even you have probably seen in pubbies, a late gamer clearing an entire team single handedly. At the speed the damage is being done, the total Damage Per Second dealt by the team drops like a... dropping thing, while his Damage Per Second dealt to your team remains consistent, even when he barely has any health.
Between teams of equal skill (we're talking competitive play here, so by equal skill I also mean that both teams are of some standard), pooling is not an alternative strategy when it is allowed. It is a neccessity. If you still can, view the 5.84c replays of the WCG preliminaries 2005, and you'll get the idea of how powerful pooled heroes are, and how important it is to get the correct support hero for that single soul (a.k.a. faceless void in 5.84c).
Lack of pooling also has another very important place in competitive play. It averages out skill levels. A strong team becomes a strong team because each member is strong, not because one member is strong and the rest can pool him. It isn't exactly a gameplay factor, but it sure makes things more fun for the players. It isn't the lack pooling that restricts teams, but to allow pooling forces teams to pool in order to win, restricting them instead.
To be continued... Backdooring and bug abuse, AP Drafting...