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[Cyx]

Didn't notice you had double stout shields. I've heard people say it's not efficient in the jungle cause of the way it stacks but I'd say that the quantity of ganks you were able to pull off was worth it .

As to the power treads thing, it's not useful all the time but sometimes (like if you're sven in an offensive trilane) you need the mana that comes with the int item more than the strength. Maybe it's just me though, I tend to do dumb shit like put a skill point in a skill just cause I'm gonna use it right now and feel like I need the 75 dmg (I don't, usually). Still, good things to have in mind.

Edit ; One of my all random problems was rolling Visage and having to set up my hotkeys and lane at the same time because it was the first time I was playing with summons in a mp game :p.

[crazysheep]

I don't know what those are haha. It's been so long. Are you talking about everyone instapicking Faceless Void or something?

Yup.

Also, with double stouts, they're effective early on and then after that their effectiveness tails off in terms of value for effect.

[Glowcat]

All random problems are still better than all pick problems..

I don't know what those are haha. It's been so long. Are you talking about everyone instapicking Faceless Void or something?

In the lower tiers at least you're lucky if your team doesn't consist of Riki, Drow, Sniper, and Phantom Lancer. Though as I've been moving up the quality of teammates and decision making has also likewise improved. Still seem to end up carry heavy most games (especially when I'm really tired of playing support myself) but it's the nature of the beast.

[Thexor]

Drow is in every bloody AP game. Usually owns, too - IIRC, she's the most-played hero, and until recently had the highest win rate in pretty much every tier. There's a reason she's not in tournament CM yet. 

Side-note: there is nothing more satisfying than teaching an enemy Earthshaker + AM lane exactly what Ion Shell is. Seriously, they both auto-attacked the first creep wave, and both ended up at 1/2 HP. We also had a capable Drow, a support CM that bought wards, an SB that ganked first blood in the first ~2 minutes, and a Tusk. You can guess how that match went. 

[umiman]

Heh... I don't think the reason she isn't in CM yet is because pros would have a problem with her. She ain't *that* good. In fact right now I would say she's weaker than her old self. When Icefrog gave her that global creep double damage shit then yeah... definitely overpowered as hell. But right now... myeeeehhhhh. Good pubstomper though, always was.

If anything, I think the reason she isn't in is that her inclusion isn't particularly high on the priority list.

Though correct me if I'm mistaken, but I've heard rumours about people picking her to go mid. Is that true? That'd be goddamn hilarious if it were true. I saw a mid Sniper a few days ago when Matchmaking decided to put a trio of super ultra newbies into our queue. It was hilarious I think he died 5 times in a row in mid and when I asked him about it the response was an immediate "fuck you". Then he started suiciding himself to the enemy and would flame us because we didn't come to support him. I seriously was going "Wtf is going on?!". He would then respawn, and run back down the mid lane right back to where he died and do the exact same thing again. After about 3 times of that I had enough of it and had to actually bait the enemy before he did it so they would spam everything on me instead.

It was so bizarre. It literally felt like I'd been thrown back into my days in LoL since it was about 2 years that I'd seen such behavior.

Here's the match: http://dotabuff.com/matches/125682144 Check out the matches played of Sniper and Gyro compared to everyone else. I thought Valve was trolling me when I first saw it. Guess MM thought we were winning too much hahahaha.

[Simmura McCrea]

Yeah, I've seen her mid numerous times. She's not a terrible mid, although she's kinda squishy early level, but pubs never gank the mid lane.

[Glowcat]

Yeah, I've seen her mid numerous times. She's not a terrible mid, although she's kinda squishy early level, but pubs never gank the mid lane.

It might be the lack of mid ganks but I've always seen (and even played) a strong mid drow. Is that supposed to be a bad position for her? It's not too hard to play it safe whenever there's a missing and her slow orb + silence are great for beating the other mid. If she gets to 6 she can usually take out the other person and then the tower if nobody responds in time. Despite her squishiness she's got great utility + damage output and tends to do well if her positioning is good.

[Korbac]

I remember a game where the enemy team had a Drow mid (I was bot.)

She would have done really well (as you said, nobody ganks mid in pubs. I'm always reluctant because I believe the target can just run the other way,) but she insisted on trying to gank somethin like a CK - Viper lane, and kept feeding us.

I will say, though, if you don't like AP (for obvious reasons), or AR (game sometimes decided before it starts), there is Single Draft and Random Draft, which introduce a decent level of randomness and yet allow for tactical choices.

[Alg]

Heh... I don't think the reason she isn't in CM yet is because pros would have a problem with her. She ain't *that* good. In fact right now I would say she's weaker than her old self. When Icefrog gave her that global creep double damage shit then yeah... definitely overpowered as hell. But right now... myeeeehhhhh. Good pubstomper though, always was.

I don't know about that. In DotA, where she isn't an autoban, she's a top pick. Then again, only pinoys play DotA competitively anymore and those guys are crazy.

[Simmura McCrea]

I will say, though, if you don't like AP (for obvious reasons), or AR (game sometimes decided before it starts), there is Single Draft and Random Draft, which introduce a decent level of randomness and yet allow for tactical choices.

Tactical choices, like 5 carries. Every gorram time.

[ranter]

I promise you umi, the day you have to play mid against a good sniper being storm spirit, TA or any other ranged guy with small autoattack range, you'll cry. It'll be like soloing the hard lane with guys who are not fit for it while getting your runes denied. Better be ready to ask for ganks or lane switching.

And drow isn't that bad mid, specially since mid never gets ganked in pubs. She can use the levels and a 6 secs silence + 50% slow is bananas for ganking. Not the strongest mid ever, but still better than bloodseeker. You have to sacrifice rune control though.
In fact, I've been playing her a bit more lately (Since a recent match when an enemy Puck kited our team for a whole fucking minute TWICE allowing for their team to res and wipe us, I'm instalocking drow, DP or silencer the moment I see that freakin faerie. And I've been seeing a lot of pucks lately) and I think that she is indeed quite strong. She requires loads of ganks to be shut down. Not as many as old lycan, but still too many to be fair. And if she has wards, you are going to have a hard time thanks to that silence and slow. And as I said earlier, god help you if she gets a shadow blade and decides that it's a better plan to gank you.

By the way, I had my first match with tusk. At level 6 I started roaming. Ten minutes later I was 7-1-1. I started to derp though when they started to 5-man and got killed a few too many times (My build wasn't amazing, to be honest), but by then our carries were fed so...

[Korbac]

I will say, though, if you don't like AP (for obvious reasons), or AR (game sometimes decided before it starts), there is Single Draft and Random Draft, which introduce a decent level of randomness and yet allow for tactical choices.

Tactical choices, like 5 carries. Every gorram time.

Even in your skill bracket?

[umiman]

I promise you umi, the day you have to play mid against a good sniper being storm spirit, TA or any other ranged guy with small autoattack range, you'll cry. It'll be like soloing the hard lane with guys who are not fit for it while getting your runes denied. Better be ready to ask for ganks or lane switching.

Considering no one ever does it where I'm at, I'd say my chance to try it would be a long way off.

This is going to sound pretty rude but I think it's a message that must be said and it's extremely common when I watch other people play. So if you want to learn how to roflstomp someone like Drow from now on, read on. If you already know how, feel free to ignore this.

The biggest obstacle to overcome for a lot of players is cowardice. I'm 100% serious. People run away too much. Even for the smallest things. Why I say this is because this is how orb walkers and ranged heroes win their lanes in lower ranked games. I know how it's like. You walk into lane and Drow comes up and orb walks you. What do you do?! She's so far away! Run away! Good she stopped attacking me.

That is the completely wrong choice from every perspective. Even if you're a crappy melee hero like Antimage. Because you just gave her free hits which went completely retaliated. You just gave up your greatest advantage against her. The correct choice would have been to turn around and punch her in the face. Especially if she's on her own. I'll explain why this is the correct answer in two forms. Numerically and psychologically.

Numerically:
1. Drow has one of the shittiest base stats in the entire game. Very few are worse and one of those few is Sniper. 3/4ths of those she is slightly better than have ways to automatically boost their survivability threefold.
2. Drow's base damage is also, again, one of the worst. Prior to level 6 she hits like a weak kitten strangling a giant. Again, one of the few worse is Sniper.
3. Drow has no nukes. That means her base damage is her ONLY damage. To compare, Storm Spirit can do 3 autoattacks worth of damage in one Q.
4. Drow never gets CC early on. Even if she does it won't save her. Her slow is nonexistant until it's level 4 which means when she's level 7 at the earliest.
5. Drow's movespeed is garbage.
6. Drow has no armour. It's 0.64.

What this means should be extremely obvious. Almost anyone can crush her early on, which is when it matters the most. Literally someone like Spirit Breaker could walk up to her and pound her into the ground and there's nothing she could do about it. Just don't ever run away. Because that's how she kills you. The reason I mention Sniper there is because he's basically a weaker version of Drow at this point. To give some idea of just how weak she is at this point, just imagine Crystal Maiden's hp combined with Doombringer's armour and sniper's base damage. That's what you're fighting against. Doesn't seem so scary now does it?

Psychologically:
1. Imagine if you're Drow. Imagine your feeling when you orb walk the enemy and they constantly run away. You love it right? It's a huge power trip. You have complete control of the lane and there's nothing they can do to you. Your confidence soars even after one orb walk volley. If you turn around and punch Drow in the face every time she does this, I guarantee she won't do it as often... or even at all if you manage to kill her. You cannot EVER in any lane... let enemies get free hits on you. If you don't trade damage, you will lose your lane all the time. Even if you trade for the worse, it's better than just absorbing free hits.
2. Drows in pub games are just as misinformed about their survivability as the people fighting her. They have no clue she has no hp and no damage. The first time they see that they lose 1/4th their hp bar from one single autoattack from Treant Protector or Dirge, I guarantee you they will stand very... VERY... far away.
3. You must make the enemy respect and fear you. Right now people automatically fear and respect Drow for no reason so she gets a complete free pass. Turn this psychological advantage around. Show her who's boss. You're playing a hero with literally twice her stats. Pound her into submission and make her your bitch. Why do you even fear her? It's literally unjustified. It's a phobia.
4. If you obliterate her early on, I guarantee she will be completely beat down psychologically for the whole game. Then you can just keep her down from then on.



tl;dr: Punch Drow in the face early game. Win game.






I remember lecturing the LoL guys about this a few years ago. I think it was about that rat guy waaaaay back when he was "overpowered".

[Korbac]

Reminds me of that time Lina and SB dual laned mid and killed Sniper 3 times in as many minutes right out of the gate. He eventually switched lanes with a Viper and the kills became more of trades, but we basically transitioned our advantage over one hero to an advantage over two.

The game was more or less decided 10 minutes in as SB got super fat and I was able to Laguna Blade everyone down with ridiculous speed.

Drow Advice

What if she hits you and then back up under tower when you try and hit her? This is what usually happens in my experience. Then you return to the creep line and she hits you again.

[timferius]

Reminds me of that time Lina and SB dual laned mid and killed Sniper 3 times in as many minutes right out of the gate. He eventually switched lanes with a Viper and the kills became more of trades, but we basically transitioned our advantage over one hero to an advantage over two.

The game was more or less decided 10 minutes in as SB got super fat and I was able to Laguna Blade everyone down with ridiculous speed.

Drow Advice

What if she hits you and then back up under tower when you try and hit her? This is what usually happens in my experience. Then you return to the creep line and she hits you again.

Well, I'm no DOTA expert by FAR, but if you haver her back at her tower, she should be too far to get xp unless you've been killing off creeps (SHAME!), so that sounds like a win to me.