I think 5300 is a lot of money to spend for a 2 second stun - even if the AoE is huge.

Don't forget Agh gives 390 HP, 280 MP, 1.4 Armor (8.4%). In general having higher health and mana pools is more important than regen.

So the international prize pool has been announced
http://www.dota2.com/international/home/overview/
40k to 7/8th place
1.3mil to first

well done to everyone who bought a compendium
yay me

Considering moving to America so I can watch the games at realistic times
some of these games are going on at 4 or 5am for me =/

Or get both. Without a doubt Warlock's Ultimate is one of the strongest team fighting ults - on par with echo slam / black hole and Reverse polarity.
The damage comes from 3 sources
#1: The inital explosion with the stun.
#2: Golem Immolation Aura
#3: Golem Flaming Fist procs

So, if you have Fatal Bonds on 5 people and you drop the ult on them with aghs, that is 120 magic damage inflicted. Out comes the 2 golems. Each dealing 50 damage per second aura. So everyone is also taking 120 damage per second with fatal bonds on them, not to mention if both those golems get their flaming fist procs, they deal 200 damage in a 300 aoe around them (100 damage if you are within 301-350 range)
If you refresher aghs - you get 240 burn damage from fatal bonds mixed with immolation aura(They stack with the golems), and 4 chances of flaming fists to proc.

Warlock good hero.

fatal bonds is evil in a teamfight.

throw bonds, drop ult, drop ult.
add in the wombo combo (sanity eclipse, ravage, reverse polarity etc).
watch things die.

warlock just needs to do 2 things to win a teamfight, then can start walking to the shop to buy things with the cash money you made from clicking twice, doesnt even need to micro the infernals.


he meant which to get first.
obviously, 90% of warlock games aim to get both.
tinerr just raised the question of which to get first.


the immolation is overrated, dat cleaving fists is where its at.
attack creeps, kill heroes.
(not saying the immolation doesnt give decent dps, its just the AOE of it isnt great)

Warlock is definitely a good hero but I'm still skeptical. According to dotabuff he's picked a lot in pubs, and according to dota-academy he isn't picked very often in pro games.

In terms of wombo combo and support I think echo slam / black hole and Reverse polarity are all better.

Warlock has a lot of things going for him, long range ulti with huge aoe and sustained damage, awesome damage buff with fatal bonds, heal and dot, even a slow. But compared to ES who has a stun a stun a stun that kills people and only needs blink really... 10K gold on essentially what is a support doesn't make me feel good - but that's more of a problem with how some people play him than how the hero works. So long as warlock doesn't feel the need to steal farm or kills to get money it's fine. (Note that BenD's games are good)

What role is Warlock usually played? 'GG' seem to run him as 3 or 4? His scaling and amount of farm he often gets make his role questionable to me. He is a good utility hero that can't really be counterpicked. And he's a powerful pusher. By himself, he's definitely a good hero.

hes got alot going for him, but he definitely needs the levels and farm to be really effective.
at his core he is a support, so that means pulling, warding, not taking farm or xp, delaying his lvl 6/11/16 and mana boots.
hes also really squishy with no mobility spells, his slow is a channeling, so he cant use that to escape or anything.
so hes really easy to kite pre level 6 and even after that, its really easy to kill him befor he can cast.
and in the late game, when you have bkbs and kunkas and PAs doing 800 damage splash, his golems are just free gold.
massive cooldown on his ulti aswell, so if you dont kill the team in that initial engagement, and they decide to engage on you while your ult is down, youre dead.

really easy to couter with strategy aswell, gang a warlock with 1 or 2, force him to waste the ulti then push while its down.
good teams will never let the warlock play his own game, they would force him to play theirs.
engage him, dont let him use his ulti effectively.

that and its all about the meta, ive seen a few warlock games in the competative scene, and on the SA server, warlock is definitely part of our meta.


i find that ES is even easier to kite in the early game than warlock, and as a support, warlock is just superior.
getting an ags + refresher isnt a must do for warlock, going the support route is just as effective, mek and stuff and stuff.
his ulti is still going to be relevant, he doesnt NEED the ags + refresh, it just makes him better.
same as how ES would be better with ags + refresh.
a better comparison would be to compare how an es without blink, would compare to a warlock.


in the laning phases, we run him as a 4/5, due to the fact that when it comes to teamfight time, he naturally makes cash money.
getting one or two kills and a few assists should get you on your way to a reliable 25 minute midgame aganims.
just dont feed.
realistically, a #4/5 warlock wont finish the refresher, as you can see from msot of my games, so heading for a mek after the aganims, if the team doesnt have one, is probably a better idea.

it is possible to run him on the mid lane, but tbh, if the other mid knows what hes doing, the game is overs.
and having a midlane who can only fight once every 3 minutes is a waste.
and his gangking is not so effective, hes a team fight hero.
when it does work though, ez 15 minute aganims, but putting you that far ahead of your team, puts you almost into a carry position. forces the team to take an early push strategy, moving the farm of your #1 into a secondary role.

as to countering him, its fairly ez.
rubick, clinks, bh, clockwork, kunkka and silencer
all heroes part of the current meta, all of which can kill warlock or prevent him from casting.
outside of those, anyone with a stun or silence that goes aggresive on him

but if those are picked, you run him in the support role, get mek, urn, medalion etc instead of ags/refresh.
tbh, i prefer a support warlock to a core warlock.
i prefer pure supports, AA, disruptor etc, but the team needs me to play an agressive core support that can create space for our #1/2

Awesome info. "Kill him before he casts" is kind of a cop-out counter pick. Doesn't that counter all heroes >_>

Disruptor doesn't seem to have all that much metagame relevance, what's up with that? He seems like a pretty awesome hero to me.


Before you said you like to main support right? What do you prefer? 3/4/5? Heroes?
Specing your games makes me jelly.

its more doable for some heroes.
warlock doesnt have much of an escape mechanism, if someone like sven or nyx stuns him, or drow or clinks silences him, he wont survive long enough to cast.


disruptor gets picked up every now and then, he just doesnt deal enough damage, his lightning is pretty weak and his ulti is about as effective as rikis cloud, except without the slow.
but his glimpse is great for protecting someone and kinetic field is just usefull.
usefull is the best way to describe him really.



i love the 4/5 roles, generally its more the 4 than 5, just because i farm better than the other supports on my team.
disruptor, veno, veng and ancient apparition are probably my choice supports.
it just gives me a bit more freedom to adapt to the game and do like... things, rather than having a set objective like a tidehunter or warlock has.

i dont like the #1 role or solo mid roles too much, too much pressure.
carrys have to carry the game, which basically puts the whole game on your performance.
and the mid role is just pressure from start to finish, having to win your lane and gang lanes that arent doing well at the same time.
also just dont like the heroes you generally face up against mid, like kunkka / pudge / invoker.

in terms of getting farm priority, i prefer to be an offlane semi carry/utility hero. weaver, darkseer, morphling or gyro etc.
i mean, if youre a solo offlane weaver or darkseer, and you lose the lane, its not that bad, cus its the offlane and thats generally difficult to win.
and the semi carry roles dont have the same pressure as the hard carry roles, youre basically a support with farm priority that makes space for the hard carry, but still has presence in the late game.

So TI3 is well under way
havent had much time recently to watch any games, then my PC died last night when i finally had some time... QQ
played Some opening game drinking games which ended up with a friend in hospital, successfull TI3 sofar.

thoughts and comments on the tournament sofar?

Alliance winning 12-0 sofar with navi in second with 10-2
some good performances out of teams like fnatic and LGD

seen some interesting picks, razor moving into first pick/ban position
dazzle, veno and warlock being picked up, which makes me happy
and tide coming back into popularity, seems to be a TI special pickup in the competative scene, lol, most popular hero of TI2 and then completely ignored afterwards untill TI3.

>pick weaver
>win

welcome to the international 3.
also, yeah some pretty exciting matches up