Hero's, compositions, their counters for inhouse drafting

[NeVeRWiN]

Now that I have a Mic (again), I am able to play some inhouses a bit more again, as a little free time has become available to me. I've also been captaining (a lot) more as well. One thing I have noticed is everyone seems to hate captaining, where as I personally enjoy it, however I just suck at it (most of the time). But, I do tend to make a fast draft, even if it is a shapty draft at that. Now that I think about it, drafting should be an easy and fast process. But I think a common issue is peoples general lack of knowledge on hero's, their counters, and common compositions used to counter other compositions, ect, ect. I use myself as an example, I will draft fast, based upon their hero's, and the information I do know, the rest I wing it, and hope the other captain is a worse drafter than I. This is why I believe the drafting process takes 5 hours (with most people, draft vs. Me, and it'll be fast, as well as you likely out draft me!), only to play a 20 minute game. This due in part to the general lack of knowledge about hero's and team compositions. People just take their sweet time, because they haven't the slightest idea Wtf they are doing. At least this is my hypothesis, on the long drafting process. I will say this though, captaining and winging it as I go lately, I have learned more in a one week about hero's and their roles than just reading some guides, so I do recommend to everyone, don't be shy about captaining, you'll get the gyst of it, eventually... However I still lack understanding and some people's advice, tips, informations about hero's, compositions and anything else would be of great use to improving as a drafter, and even overall player.

 

Now before I proceed, know this. All things mentioned here are on the presumption people have a decent understanding of Ginosaji's guide, if not, at least read it. Here is a link to it:

 

http://www.aeonofstorms.com/index.php?/topic/4793-from-pubstar-hero-to-inhouse-competence/

 

I decided to start this thread in part due to my captaining a bunch more lately, and a big factor last night. I played an IH last night, I was not captain however. But we essentially got curb stomped into the pavement and it was final of like 25-4ish give or take? Anyways Revision and Adamantium were on the opposing team, with Adam as their captain. Team composition was this from what I remember.

 

My team:

- Balrog

- Cow

- Nova

- Darpa

- For the life of me I can't remeber

Adamantium's team:

(pretty sure this is right)

- Brine

- Vorp

- Jakk

- Tosh

- Ling

First of all, a question came up during our unholy destruction, and comments were made that we got we got out drafted, while others argued we got simply got out played. I have no input as I'm actually not sure, but we all played poorly. I'm curious as to what people think of this match up on compositions. Another thing worth noting is someone brought up having grunty over Nova would have been better. At first I disagreed then thought about it, and was like maybe not actually. But it was pointed out that Tosh would shut down Grunty, but I wasn't so sure because of grunty's rocket and shotgun to blast away his minions. Any thoughts on the grunty and tosh argument we had as well??

 

I guess my goal with this thread is to gain input as to about last nights match up as well as others giving team compositions they have faced, and got shut down because of out drafting. Seeing some examples would help, at least provide me with what comps mesh well, and counter other comps as well as what individual heroes counter other individual heroes as well.

 

Another thing is mini combos and how to counter such combos.

-Brine/LZ, what is a good counter to that combo?? Borrowing some of Gino's examples what are good counters to this list below:

- Tosh/Toxi

- Brine/Toxi

- Brine/Jackson

- Brine/Justicar

- Raynor/Rancor

- Cain/Rory

- Unix/Another slow/stun

 

Also if people can add mini combos to this list that would be of help to me, and I'm very sure it would help others here or newer players at least. Another thing is individual hero's, their counters and potential contributions to team comps.

 

What are the common team compostions as well? Is there any basic team comps a captain uses to create an overall team composition? From my person observations I've seen common:

- 3 Tanky heroes, and 2 agi carries

- 2 Tanky, burst, or maybe 2 burst, with 1-2 agi depending on slots available.

 

Any additions to these? I'm hoping to get this topic rolling with people's personal experiences win/loss and compositions they faced and lost to, or won against. Even close games, or shut outs. As well as maybe individual hero's counters and such, but that could be asking a lot.

 

Basic strengths weakness of a lot of common picks would be nice.

- Null anti push, but what counters him?

- Jakk anti push, good counters though?

- Queen/MK/Unix, is imagine jakk or null to be good counter picks?

- I once faced a Unix/Brine and I drafted brawler as thought brawler is a good counter to that combo.

 

That's all I can think of right now. Hopefully we can get this rolling with some great input! I am trying to improve as a player, but also a drafter so hopefully you all have some great input, for this thread!

Edited March 14, 2014 by NeVeRWiN

[herman]

Here's my 2 cents.

 

You absolutely go out drafted. Nova and Darpa are great Carrys, however they had a very tanky comp mixed with argueably the best burst dps in the game as Ling. Jaxx's passive plus chilling really shuts down Nova and Darpa hard. It makes them have to get way more attack speed then they normally want to get in order to have max speed. This mixed with Vorpals Surge + Stun, Brine's pull, and Tosh CC and stun, Jakk CC and stun. You really stood no chance. Balrog is a great choice for debuffs i.e if your team is playing a rory and you have a squishy team that doesnt want to all have parallax. Otherwise Balrog is really not a good tank he is more of an Aura holder. You didn't post here what the bans were nor did you comment on what your team's items were, but I have a feeling you could have done much better using this strategy. You needed to have your Balrog rush Spell buffer as this is the majority of the other team damage on you. Your cow needed to rush Gravity and harass their jakk out of mid lane. But Adam and Rev are both great players and with this draft they both could easily take advantage of your team's comp. You had 2 hard carry's, a burst caster, and semi tank/aura whore. You had no initiation, no pulls, and no real cc. I'm assuming they went Tosh & Brine for their 1st 2 picks and you went Nova and Darpa for yours. If they chose Tosh and Brine that is an incredibly hard lane to be in against your first was fine in Nova but your 2nd needed to a strong solo lane hero to hold up against tosh Brine. Queen, LZ, (if MK weren't autoed), Bio, and several others. Your first job when someone gets a powerful combo like tosh/brine is to decide who you are going to put in lane against it. To answer your question about what the good counters to the heroes below, I really just think you need to consider working a taser into your team mix. Almost all of those combos are shutdown fairly hard by it.

Edited March 14, 2014 by herman

[Hogwarts]

dont draft both nova and darpa, i can all ready see how this played out

 

brine tosh lane won

 

ling got fed ganking the brine tosh lane

 

ling 1 shot nova / darpa / cow

 

while summers split pushed and back door and got fed from 250+ creep kills and then could solo darpa / nova 2v1

 

 

- game over

[NeVeRWiN]

I don't remember the bans at all, except the usual drake, micro. Yes tosh/brine were first pics. And I think we knabbed Nova and Darla pretty early. I wasn't captain, so I don't remember the bans as much. You know after that game I was thinking, we really couldn't do squat to their composition. We didn't have much for initiation as you pointed out, and not much for stuns that I can remember. It was a mass casualty slaughter overall. But the team was arguing over out played or out drafted and while I had my own opinions I wasn't sure if it was correct. So it lead me to open up this topic in general.

[Hogwarts]

I don't remember the bans at all, except the usual drake, micro. Yes tosh/brine were first pics. And I think we knabbed Nova and Darla pretty early. I wasn't captain, so I don't remember the bans as much. You know after that game I was thinking, we really couldn't do squat to their composition. We didn't have much for initiation as you pointed out, and not much for stuns that I can remember. It was a mass casualty slaughter overall. But the team was arguing over out played or out drafted and while I had my own opinions I wasn't sure if it was correct. So it lead me to open up this topic in general.

 

its rly hard to stop ling if you have no initiation and or cc . you picked 3 squish heroes to let ling just snowball

[herman]

I don't remember the bans at all, except the usual drake, micro. Yes tosh/brine were first pics. And I think we knabbed Nova and Darla pretty early. I wasn't captain, so I don't remember the bans as much. You know after that game I was thinking, we really couldn't do squat to their composition. We didn't have much for initiation as you pointed out, and not much for stuns that I can remember. It was a mass casualty slaughter overall. But the team was arguing over out played or out drafted and while I had my own opinions I wasn't sure if it was correct. So it lead me to open up this topic in general.

 

Yea I would argue that because you were outdrafted you got outplayed. I think that Quid's remark was exactly on point.

[Adamantium]

His last hero was dustin. Ling roamed and got fed and they put cow solo long against brine tosh.

[NeVeRWiN]

His last hero was dustin. Ling roamed and got fed and they put cow solo long against brine tosh.

Ahh yes, that's right. I guess if I was stuck with the composition we had I would have put 2 bottom instead of just 1 solo.

 

I guess if it were me, id consider Virgil for tosh, Cain for his stun, some DPS and strength. Maybe Boros for some initiation (and to counter ling??), and darpa for some silence and carry, and say Rory for some zoning, stuns and tanking abilities? This under the assumption, drake, micro and justicar are all banned along with null, which i believe they all were. Im not really sure to be honest, as I said captaining I just picked up because no one else wants to, but I enjoy it. Would that be effective at all as a counter?

 

What hero's would you more experienced drafters use to counter the enemy composition?

Edited March 14, 2014 by NeVeRWiN

[Indo]

Boros is a good idea, but you sure gave them a lot of stuns and roots/slows maybe rory

[Straighter]

It's really hard to explain drafting without bans...

However ill try to, the reason ppl don't like to capt is because it's a 1 man job and ppl can always blame u for losing a game and it's pretty hard for new ppl to learn drafting as their are so many factors to consider ...

how tanky is my team? Do I have enough initiation?What heroes have a higher tier and need to get drafted earlier? who lanes where? how to counter this comp? What heroes can be played very well by my enemies? how good can my comp carry? do i have a good combo?Do i have enough pushing/ counter pushing? do i have a good mixture of spell/phys damage? Can I deal with their combo lane? And so on ....

 

ok so what we know: micro/drake banned, nova is your first pick and they picked tosh/brine,

nova is an excellent first pick, still tosh brine is strong too ...

They are an excellent combo lane, decent initiation and very tanky,

what u need is ofc to get tanky, initiation, spelldamage and very important: a hero that can solo the lane vs brine tosh,

If he wasn't banned the best next pick would be lz imo, great solo hero, initiation and support, and he would make your team tanky, I would never consider picking darpa, neither cow because u face a very tanky team so far. Another nice pick would have been rory later as support imo or vorpal later. I cant show a whole draft because idk what they picked when plus idk the bans and both is very important.

However I can say that darpa was a bad early pick, balrog was a bad pick in general imo, a tosh doesn't justify to get balrog, cow was an ok pick but I don't like dustin as u desperately needed more cc.

To show some examples u could replace darpa with toxi, grunty. Get lz instead of balrog and maybe vorpal.

[taznkid]

I'm no great expert on drafting, but perhaps giving my 2 cents on drafting thought process can help.

 

When I start banning, I find out what my team can play. Then based on whether we have first or 2nd pick, I will ban. For example, if we are first pick and my team can't play Micro but can play Drake, I will ban Micro, which will generally force a counter reaction by banning Drake (which works to our favor, since we forced them to ban something they might not have wanted to ban initially).

 

For picks, my first pick I ALWAYS pick something that we will definitely need, which will either be a tank or carry.

 

Now if I am 2nd pick, I will generally pick a combo between a tank/carry and a cc hero/counter (to the opponent first pick).

 

The next pick depends on what they pick and what we need. If we happen to need a initiator, I might pick that, but if I see something that could definitely skew things against us (such as a Zeratul) I might immediately pick a counter (ex. Rancor).

 

When I do my 2nd ban, I will either ban something that could counter our composition (for example, if we have Brine-Zeratul-Rancor I might ban Raynor or Dustin, etc.), or something that the enemy team lacks (if they lack a tank, I would ban the best tank available for them).

 

My final picks revolve around picking counters (usually not unless I was 2nd pick) and filling up gaps in our composition.

 

My personal ideal team composition:

 

Tank

Sustained DPS

Burst DPS/Semi-DPS Carry

Burst Caster/Caster Carry

CC Hero

 

With one or more of the above being a initiator, and one of the 4 below the tank being a semi-tank.

 

Now I will provide a example from a IH I just played today.

 

Capts: Not Revealed (2nd pick) v taznkid (first pick)

 

Ban Micro (We had 3 members who could play Drake, 1 who could Micro)

Ban Null

Ban Boros (eliminate a DPS and initiator, since we have Drake for initiation, we were also aiming for Zeratul)

Ban Tosh

Ban [Can't remember]

Ban Nova

 

1.

Pick Infernal. Mandrake (We definitely wanted a tier 1 tank)

Pick LZ-Darpa

 

2.

Pick Rory-Jakk (Rory is a very good semi-tank, support cc provider. We hoped to keep LZ at bay with Stevie, and lock Darpa down with CC. Jakk provides additional minor CC, and DPS, which we definitely needed. Furthermore, Jakk DPS is done through Spell Damage, which is more effective against LZ than Physical Damage due to his Passive. We avoided Zeratul to avoid being countered on the next pick).

 

Pick Raynor

 

3.

Ban Rancor (combos well with Raynor, and a counter to Zeratul, which we planned to get after bans. We wanted Zeratul for his burst which would be effective against Darpa, and his Chronosphere would combo well with Rory's Stevie, Drake's Lance, and Jakk's Mines)

Ban Zeratul (Damn! They caught onto us!)

 

4.

Pick Leo (we needed a burst DPS to deal with Darpa. Darpa and Raynor would definitely stick close behind LZ, so Leo could swing around and kill both quickly)

Pick Cain

 

5.

Pick Jackson (frankly we didn't know what to pick at this point. Another tanky-cc-support was not a bad choice in our opinion. Also, Jackson's R would combo well with Drake's Lance, Jakk's Mines/Splash Damage Grenades, and Leo)

Pick Tychus

 

The result: The other team took a small lead before we reached level 6. However, once we reached level 6 and began building some items, we quickly caught up, and soon took the lead.

 

The result?

 

20-7 Leo

16-5 Jakk

 

Drake would buy enough time for Rory and Jackson to get their CC onto the enemy team. Not only did they have their own abilities, they also had Taser and Swordbreaker. Even in equal exchanges, we would usually come out a bit ahead due to either Leo or Jakk cleaning up after team wipes. With 2 heroes dishing out CC, simply having Raynor was not enough. With the mass CC, Jakk and Leo had enough time to focus down Darpa, who could not do the same due to the threat of Mandrake's pull. Or, the CC would cause LZ to unintentionally overextend, allowing Jakk to quickly cut down his health, often forcing a unwanted use of his ultimate. Once LZ or Darpa went down, the rest of the team simply did not lack the synergy to stand up to the firepower of both Jakk and Leo supported by Mandrake.

 

Split pushing was shut down by Jakk's Remote Mines (I think I got around 3-4 mine kills) and the swift roaming Leo. Even when the other team won a team fight, their team push was stopped by well-placed mines twice (having said that, we lost all but our Tier 3 towers and 1 Tier 2 tower...I think...maybe we lost that one too...)

 

Hope this helped.

 

[Indo]

This would so get wrecked by a push comp.

 

Even if you'd win most teamfights, you couldn't rly stop them from pushing and this is what makes this game rather sad

[Yaldi]

http://www.aeonofstorms.com/index.php?/topic/1530-drafting-guide-by-shablagoo/

 

Suprised no one has linked this yet..

[NeVeRWiN]

http://www.aeonofstorms.com/index.php?/topic/1530-drafting-guide-by-shablagoo/

 

Suprised no one has linked this yet..

Holy shap, didn't know such a thread existed. I did some searching but nothing back that far. I appreciate that link.

 

Also, I did realize when starting this thread I was shooting for the stars on this topic, as I fully understand how intricate drafting can be. I figured I'd just start it anyways and hope for the best. Given the help on that ih I already learned some things, even though I wasn't that captain. So it's going a bit better than I expected on this topic, since no one really likes to discuss it, but I've gotten some feedback, more than I expected so hopefully I'll get more.

Edited March 16, 2014 by NeVeRWiN

[Yaldi]

Holy shap, didn't know such a thread existed. I did some searching but nothing back that far. I appreciate that link.

 

Also, I did realize when starting this thread I was shooting for the stars on this topic, as I fully understand how intricate drafting can be. I figured I'd just start it anyways and hope for the best. Given the help on that ih I already learned some things, even though I wasn't that captain. So it's going a bit better than I expected on this topic, since no one really likes to discuss it, but I've gotten some feedback, more than I expected so hopefully I'll get more.

 

You should pm red and ask him to sticky that guide. I did that like a month ago and he never replied.

[EterNity]

The more you play, the more you know.

 

There's not a set way of drafting since you have to consider your teammates as well.

 

Not everyone is all around players and I've only seem a few that can play all hero equally well.

[NeVeRWiN]

I totally agree EterNity. I was just Hoping to get common hero comps that people try to shoot for. Basic compositions and such to see what's popular, what works and what doesn't work. Tazn id basically did actually what I was hoping for in responses. I know it's a tough subject I was just hoping for more, but was filly aware of the tough subject matter because it's not exactly linear when you draft.

[ginosaji]

You won the draft in terms of late game dps (Nova/darpa). The other team won in every other category (tankiness, initiation, cc, laning, mobility, split push, early game, mid game, gank potential, map control, boss control, and burst damage-ling). It's not a surprise you lost.

[herman]

So all in all after Adam said your 5th was Dustin, you really did get majorly outdrafted. It sounds like it wasn't because the other team out-picked and out-banned you. Without hearing the order I am just speculating here but it looks like you went something like 1. nova 2.darpa 3.cow/dustin 4. balrog 5. cow/dustin. So the final out come is you had 2 hard carry squishy DPS 2 squishy burst casters and a semi tank/aura whore. Personally I would have put balrog and dustin together let Cow go mid and then take your pic on either Nova or Darpa going solo and trying to stay away from tosh/brine. The problem with all of this is that Ling(one of the best gank/burst DPS in the game) can really roam free without any kind of threat. Nova/darpa/Dustin/Cow are all easy targets to feed on. Having either an LZ which you said was not banned and not picked, an Erekul, a Tychus, or a Kerrigan to solo/stay alive in solo lane would have been the easiest fix for you draft. LZ in particular would have solidified your comp. LZ could go solo then either pick Dustin or Pick Cow and put them mid then Darpa jungle, then Nova Balrog combined long lane. I personally would rather have had just a Nova or a Darpa, but in this instance have a really strong solo lane in LZ would have enabled you to have both and it be viable.

[atomheartman]

I heard that Drake as 1st pick is very bad move. What ya think?

And in last ih we played Drake as a last pick seemed very good.

Edited March 17, 2014 by atomheartman

[herman]

I think Micro, LZ, and Dehaka currently are better first picks... However Dehaka is sometimes autobanned and I could see Micro and LZ making it into one of the first 3 ban picks. If Drake is the only true tank left I don't think its a bad first pick. I would pick any of the other 3 first 3 stated above along with Null, Nova, MK(if not autobanned), Tosh, and Brine.

[Spooky]

I wouldn't pick Drake first - he is relying on his ultimate which is very easy to counter. If enemies has too much CC then forget about Drake, because with high probability he going to be useless. Similar problem has Micro, but he may rush Parallax and still do his job. Drake doesn't have such a privilege. So picking Drake first usually isn't very good idea.

[Indo]

If you pick drake first you will ensure to have them pick either tosh raynor etcetc. They will get 1-2 heroes to lock him down when he'd want to ulti and to focus him down fast

[ginosaji]

If you pick drake first you will ensure to have them pick either tosh raynor etcetc. They will get 1-2 heroes to lock him down when he'd want to ulti and to focus him down fast

You don't need a hero to counter Drake, just get a tazer.

[Adamantium]

You don't need a hero to counter Drake, just get a tazer.

 

Or get an impact dial and push him away while he's using his ult so its wasted.