http://dotabuff.com/players/96162575 - How can this guy has ~56 Win rate ? Man dont tryhard and pick a carry every game, look at the team composition first.
But on topic:
PL is not unballanced. You all just have a LoL syndrome, because if hero is killing you, read: Raping you think that he is OP, but to be clear it is your own fault. You cant let him farm, if you pick support then dont sit on your lane and fight with your carry or other player for CS, buy dust and smoke then get another support use smoke and gank the carry. But you need to remember that you need getting kills on carries not supports, if a support kills support that means nothing, and if u fail at ganking, and get killed in the process you just feed the carry even if it is a gold form assist. In other words you need to make a proper execution, and I am not saying that I am an expert because I have up and downs like everyone, mostly when I am in braindead mode :)
As for drow, when she gets lv 6. All u need to do is get close to her, she will lose all the profits form her ult. But dont go alone you need a help as always, some kind of stun or disable.
@Toeffelhelten
Well there was Dota 1. And amount of games does not determine the skill level.
@Rape
The ideas about how to "ballance" the PL, would render him useless.
@bliss i agree. key is don't let PL farm. and keep his level at least 2 below average.
PL is definitely OP in low tier (maybe mid tier) matches when most people don't pay much attention to anti-farm. just like riki is the most super OP hero among noobs, who never thought about anti-invis
I think dotabuff should have winrate stats for different tier games, if that's possible to implement (which i don't think ).
@whoji - but the problem is ppl dont know how to play pl properly in low bracket games either, lol. So drow/riki/bh and that sorts of heroes are better stomps.
Thanks captain obvious, we already know all the carries are extremely powerful when they are farmed well and not killed.
Problem with PL:
He is stronger than all the other carries with SAME farm and level. He burns all the team's mana with diffusal, he splitpushes, he farms too quickly, he has lots of escape mechanism, he distracts with illusions extremely well, he outdpses all the carries etc. etc. And we are not discussing competitive vs pub. Situation is same on all the levels.
Or let me give a clear example. First car travels 300 km, but second car travels 500 km with SAME fuel, all the other properties same and they are sold with SAME price. Then what is the purpose of existence of first car? Who buys first one?
Now stop giving useless advices like "gank him and you will be fine" or "don't let him farm" and try to understand why people think pl is overpowered.
Yeah ok ReGuardz, so why isn't he top pick/ban? He is barely picked at the moment at all actually. And even when picked, its not uncommon for him to get either shat all over in tri-lane vs tri-lane, or loses all his towers and a rax 20 minutes into the game.
You want to know who is top/pick ban right now though? Naix, LD, Bat, Magnus, KOTL and Nyx. No one gives 2 shits about PL in competitive at the moment.
@dude above, there is some degree of merit to what you say, however there are a decent amount of heroes that can gank him extremely well right from the early stages, Puck is a really good example.
Now obviously without heroes that can efficiently gank him, just go ahead and push as much as you can, because PL can't defend that well against strong pushes.
Having played my fair share of Phantom lancer games, Against co-ordinated teams the character is completely useless. After 20 minutes I'm barely at diffusal and raging like a virgin.
As a pub stomper yeah he is ridiculous, but just look at competitive, the hero is not broken at all.
PL can be beaten as other carries are beaten. You gank and pressure him early so he never gets strong. However if you screw up early PL is far harder to deal with late than other carries. Late game carries can be countered late by kiting them with ghost and fstaff during their bkb and then using hex and other disables. But these tactics are totally ineffective against PL because the images do almost all his dmg at no risk. So unlike other carries, if PL gets out of control the game is just over...barring PL playing stupid and letting you kill him.
Icon, PL is even stronger in competitive play...assuming your team is also competitive. Bloodseeker is a pubstomp hero, Slark is a pubstomp hero, PL is the kind of hero you pick or ban in the grand finals of the tournament when the big $$$ is on the line.
It should be obvious that PL is an anomaly. PL averages the least deaths by far in pubs. (4.6) thats compared the the 2nd least which is Mr.FreeAgeis. SK has 5.75. PL is simply way way to hard to kill.
PL has the 2nd highest KDA between spectre and zues, which have far more assists than are legit because of their ults. The fact is PL has the strongest game impact of any hero in the game because if you are not a feeder you will do well with PL, because he is not balanced.
And his highest game impact does not stem from kills (about halfway) nor from assists (near the bottom), its just his deaths. And I don't see a problem with that.
And I still think its hilarious how you ignore how easily some heroes take a dump on him, and how weak he is when it comes to defending pushses 20 minutes into the game where he literally cannot enter fights.
And no he isn't stronger in competitive play, in fact he is much worse. Because your opponents pick heroes that shit on him throughout the game like Panda, Puck, SD, or decide to rax 20 minutes into the game with LD + Jugg/Leshrac.
Are you watching competitive games now? Because PL is almost completely ignored at the moment. And no he isn't imba, imba heroes are ones that are being first banned/picked all the time, and when PL isn't even picked at the moment, maybe banned occasionally in the second phase, I don't see what kind of argument you have.
I'm sorry you can't tell the difference between competitive games and walkovers, pub games and pro games...also how you clearly are unable see that nothing you have said actually addresses the reason PL is stronger than other carries.
I realize that, like your unending whining about how all games are unfairly stacked against you by matchmaking, you simply don't want to accept that you are wrong because you don't like admitting it to yourself. No reason or evidence will penetrate. I could go on to show by tons of examples that you don't have the slightest clue what pros are picking and banning but really everyone who actually cares about it already knows this.
These are the only games in which he was picked out of the last 45 games in the G1- league, and he lost all of them, despite having really good farm in a lot of them.
Ok, sure PL didn't win any one of these matches, and I am not trying to say he is a bad hero or something, but he isn't anywhere near OP at the moment. Maybe he was for a period, when people didn't know how to deal with him too well, but now people do, and he is no longer a great pick, not when there are so many other better options available.
edit: "unending whining about how all games are unfairly stacked against you by matchmaking", do you mean my confusion as to how the mm system decided to throw me in my 8th game against a 5 person stack with 300-1500 games with 49-52% win rate when I have an ally who is 0W-5L? yep, ok.
Here is more evidence too nerf pl, the guy was absolutely hopeless, granted our void was using his chrono on solo kills 20 seconds before they pushed our barracks, this pl basically just fed all game. They turtled hard and we couldnt force barracks cause prophet would just tp and counter us. A disgusting game, NERF ASAP OMG PL OMFG.
lol just kidding, but yeah pl is just a disgusting character, very difficult to deal with :(
markel, you are correct. However the buffs didn't make PL so much as call attention to him. The impact of those buffs was to allow PL to reach his late game power sooner. Juxtapose got a nerf limiting the images then was buffed back up, also until last patch dota 2 was giving PL 1 extra image in error. However a few pro teams had used the Kotl-PL combo even before all this. At that time the build was vanguard into radiance. Basically this build took to long. What produced the current domination of PL was actually the idea to switch to the soul ring and tranquil boots build. This allows supports to leave PL to farm much earlier and go gank or push to establish map control and PL can get diffusal first instead of radience first because his lane farming is so much easier to protect. Soul-ring and tranquils did not exist before so it was very hard to get PL started, basically no one even tried without having Keeper of the Light. So if kotl was picked you just banned PL and vis versa. PL was still impossible to beat late game, but he often did not make it to late game so it was too risky to choose him as a carry.
Now however Pl and several other less used carries have had their early game made far easier by tranquil boots so its possible to get them started in the face of a lot of pressure and with less support.
Since there is at least one interested newer player...here is an example of how not to play PL or how to beat PL, whichever way you want to look at it. It important to understand what really does beat PL and it is not counter picks, there are no real direct PL counter-heros but Shadow Demon and that's not even to reliable.
Game 1 Defense grand finals Fnatic fail PL strat, first picks PL
They try a ganking hero lineup -- PL with BH, Rubic, TA, Lion...bad strategy, no counter push
Virtus pro clearly understands that what PL needs is support counterpush they ban Kotl, Tinker, Chen, Qop. 4 bans spent ensuring a short game. The result is that VP crush Fnatic early and and get an easy win over PL.
Game 5 Fnatic fail at PL again, VP proves they understand PL has to be beaten early
Fnatic get Kotl, puck with PL, but then take brood and SD...this is strong push, weak counter push. PL needs counter-push support.
VP bans Tinker, Beastmaster, Chen, LD and takes NP, Leshrac, Bat, VS, Gryo this allows them to aggresively tower dive early and then take the towers easily. The first rax is down at 18 min with mega creeps at 31 min. Virtus pro gives PL no chance to get to late game. They take risks and push their heroes to the limit to win asap.
Don't listen to garbage about gyro, ES, magnus, sven, luna, or whatever the supposed late-game image clearing hero is supposed to be. It doesn't work unless you are just so far ahead or have a far better team that any picks would win. When the teams are close in skill and the heroes are close in farm PL will win late because he does not have to take a risk to do his dmg.
For correct use of PL see Navi lose to Mousports in Starladder 5
Mousports takes PL with Kotl, DS, Tide, Puck...4 strong counter push heros
Navi tries to counter with tons of cleave and aoe taking Sven and Mag, tries to track PL with BH and it fails. For those who don't understand why cleave does not effectively counter PL watch this game and learn. Even Navi can't do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eyoE3JkhiVc To save time watch late game PL crush late game Sven with Mag buff also. Fight at 48 min. XBoct sven gets his butt kicked again at 49 min for good measure. Result --- Navi does not even make the finals at Kiev for the first time ever.
Right Navi didnt want to go to Kiev. They didn't think Mousports was a serious opponent. They were trolling. That totally makes sense. Navi didn't lose because they under estimated the power of Phantom Lancer sure sure. It must be that they didn't seriously want to win it. Or I know, they must have forgotten that this game would eliminate them from the tournement if they lost so they didnt try very hard. Or maybe they were all drunk that must be why PL beat Sven and Mag not because PL actually does beat cleave heroes.
Go ahead continue to refuse to admit you are wrong no matter how obvious it becomes.
ppy played bad, hvost always plays bad, getting fury on a sven while he had a mag with him, funn1k feeder, and fed the whole enemy team like no one ever did, while mouz were taking down the top tier 2 tower, he probably saw that kotl had a sentry ward or he is too fucking dumb to check the enemy items while playing a bounty hunter, and he decided to give one hit to kotl, maybe to let them know he is there, 1 sentry placed, gush, spirit lance, illuminate(was still lvl 2 illuminate) and BH dies..
that was one of the sickest plays of his life, only Dendi was the one who was alright, not that amazing, but still played fine in respect to his team's performance..
I don't think you even know who na'vi are. Mouz are not a serious opponent, if you honestly believe that they are, it shows how little you know about the competitive scene. The vast majority of bigger teams, ones that can possibly win or do well in the TI3/G1-League and stuff, they don't care much about these smaller competitions. They'll enter them, sure, but you can see them trying out weird stuff, or like in this game, not giving a fuck at all, which is very common for Na'Vi especially, who have had extremely little competition from other western teams in general. I guess they decided Mek would be ok on BH despite him having like 0 mana pool because, wait no I can't think of any good reason. They bought battlefury on Sven because?
No, fact is, they picked an overall shit lineup (4 melee, lmao) and fed as well. There is no surefire counter to anything, if you still have an overall eh lineup, and don't play well either, you won't win.
Now you can go up a bit, see all of those replays, and see just how people are dealing with PL. And yes Cleave does work, just don't try and use a troll game where 1 team feeds and goes troll builds against a proper lineup + 2 hex that somehow manages to win.
This is how people began to deal with PL when he was a top pick.
Now people have learnt that although its possible to deal with him with cleave/flak cannon, its much more effective and reliable to either push heaps or contest him with an offensive tri-lane.
I think was has changed is not Xboct's penchant for taking risks with the carry. He always did that. What changed is that more and more teams are good enough to punish him for it. Navi is a lot better now than when they won TI1. The competition has simply caught up and in some cases passed them.
People have not "learned cleave/flak cannon beats PL". Mostly they have not learned this because its not true. Some people however have learned that PL absolutely must be defeated early. All of your examples are games way way out of control early. Extremely lopsided wins because someone has correctly identified the way to beat PL is to win before he has a chance.
Just consider the kill scores alone.
19-10
16-5
30-6
25-12
Massacres all, these are games were PL has no chance to get started because his team lost the game so badly so quickly.
Thank you for the compliment. Though really I'm not very good at typing, just composition. And if by feed you mean had less kills than deaths...well. I know I should not have to buy wards and such as skeleton king, but some games no one else is willing to do it. Some people think 33 assists is nothing and would count my score as 5-8 and declare me a feeder.
More broadly I would love to address the subject of what feeding really is and how it should be determined from play and never from stats...but that would really be best discussed in another thread. I think the tiny and NP games could correctly be characterized as feeding. The other 5 games I really played quite well including the silencer game where kda stats are very bad, but I played well.
yeah i can say that i played really well (and lost) and died 22 times with 5 assists and no kill. yeah.
you say that because nobody really bother to watch your previous game.
and i still stand up to my point, u guys wanna argue, go do it in lobby. not typing walls of texts here which proves nothing
If you do not want to read what I write, please don't feel compelled to do it. Also, it seems you are unaware there is no lobby. This is not dota 1 or a hotel, both of which do have lobbies.
I'm sure people who don't really care won't check. However, if anyone wants to watch my 5-8-33 SK game and decide for themselves if they think I was "feeding" they wont be disappointed. Its a very aggressive game, fun to watch. I think I will re-watch it myself.
i think from the fact that pl is largely absent from g-1 and g-league can help draw the conclusion that pl is not thoroughly imbalanced at the highest level of play
however if u look at his games between even skilled western teams, and high level matchmaking, he tends to dominate in a fashion most other carries do not
Its just easy. Absolutely pl need to be nerf, i suggest this.
-illusion dont have that burn mana effect. so that supporter or main carry no need too afraid of tank the ilusion damage.burn mana is the case why the team no dare to fight against otehr when war,especialyl supporter.
^
check my last game, we just pwned a fat pl (diffu and heart) , a ck with manta , and a fucking fat meepo.
all we had was 1 fucking tanky doom, 1 ultra nuker ta, and 1 sneaky weaver.
by sneaky, he never entered the front lines, he just stood behind to pick off all those low hp enemies.
and we won.
Illusions that don't get mana burn would make a big difference to support heros mid-game, but late game most of the dmg is not the mana burn. PL would still be able to do huge dmg at no risk. Again I point out all carries get to the point they easily kill supports...but all besides PL take some risk, have some cost to do it.
Dotaguy points to how the best chinese teams have come to understand how to draft and play against PL. Since you oan't beat him late game you draft to win early and ban counter pushing supports that delay the game. Then you play aggresive during the early-mid trasition, gain map control, get early rax and choke off PL farm leading to a win at 30 min or so before PL illusions can tank much dmg.
Meanwhile the western teams are still trying to fight PL late and losing badly. Most recently VirtusPro attempted to out farm Loda's PL with a gyrocopter in the Starladder Finals. But even though the gryo had total free farm for the first 20 min of the game, PL was already solo pushing towers, diving and killing gryo or forcing him off the tower to take it at that point. It just kept getting worse and twice Loda killed Virtus Pro's entire team solo, after his team had already died. In the final battle PL took everything VP had and trashed it despite buy backs on their carries. He just killed them again in a couple more seconds. This game Loda does a great job of demonstrating how PL illusions alone can kill not only supports, but very farmed late game carries. Meanwhile PL is not in range of taking dmg any time there is a real threat.
Final score 25-24. PL team losing all game long, then at the end just 1 v 5 for the easy win. The only way to beat PL is to do it before he gets items...unless PL is stupid and throws. All other carries can be countered and defeated by items, tactics, and teamwork no matter how late the game goes. This is how PL is truly IMBA and why he should be nerfed. The nerf needs to be to the low-zero risk aspect of using illusions.
Also, Starladder Grand Finals, game 2...Fnatic fears PL so much that even though they have Mag and Gryo already picked, they still ban PL immediately when NTH bans the only real counter to PL (shadow demon)
Also Mapzor is exactly right, even understating how absurd Matthias characterization of PL as "fat" really is. This PL had the same net worth as your teams weakest support heroes. He was totally irrelevant to the game.
This is a player who has 5 games of PL total and lost 3 of them. He was just very bad at PL. Matthias, you only think PL is weak because you don't know how to play him. Clearly you have not tried much and failed when you did. 0-4 on PL out of your 1000+ games. I would encourage you to watch one of my PL games and see how to do it. It's not that hard if you know what to do.
PL absolutely cannot be defeated late game if the PL player is smart...continuing on with Starladder grand finals. As I said at the begining of the thread. PL is the hero you pick or ban in the grand finals of a big tournament when the big money is on the line.
Game 3...Fnatic gets PL this time, at 44 minutes NTH kills all the rest of Fnatic before PL gets to the fight. But then Era's PL goes on them 1 v 5 killing 8 heroes in a row by himself with the buybacks. At one point a single PL illusion raxes mid and they can't stop it.
While what dotaguy610 says is correct...a pro PL who is not seriously pressured gets that 3rd item at 20 min. Few lineups can win the game that fast. When I play PL, you might be able to beat me in a 35-45 min game if I fail at farming, but a pro player will not miss a ton of last hits like I do.
And of course Starladder Grand Finals game 4, the deciding game, PL is again banned. Anyone who actually understands how the drafts were done and games played will clearly see that they revolved around who got PL and what was attempted (and failed) to counter him. Or, if a team thought they could not fight PL he was banned and the draft shifted to a secondary, more diverse meta game.
There are no other carries like this that can't be countered late game, that force the drafting to center on them. This is because PL is not properly balanced.
Also, nukers are COMPLETELY useless to a PL. Like, when going up against a normal carry like PA or Void or whatever, then Nyx can go down and nuke him, Pudge can work his way down and hook him, Lion can pop a stun and ult or even a hex. But, how will you do this against pl? You cant even nuke him. You dont know if its an illusion, and when you make doppelwalk you confuse him even more. I dont even bother picking a hero with nuke when going up against pl, because a good PL player will just farm and push at no risk, and meanwhile PL will laugh at u when Sand King blinks in with ult + stun, when tidehunter pops ravage, when Earthshaker blinks and pops ult, when nyx pops stun after hitting etc. If you go up against a "normal" carry like AM, PA and FV or whatever, it will be no problem to go hex and then hex and nuke him down like madness. How will you do that against a pl? You can't. A good pl player will not show up on the map if theres a risk.
^Except that both PA and Void have BKB as part of their core? You can't even nuke him? I guess that's why Puck shits all over him in the early-mid game? Maybe if you opened your eyes you would see that the Dust, Sentries and Gem exist. Stop being a retard, and buy them if you are playing a hero capable of shitting on PL. And its not like Puck is the only one, NS can do it, Brew with a Dagger, Magnus (with support). Plenty of other heroes give him a lot of problems too, a roaming Nyx can make it very difficult for him to be farming in the jungle, and plenty of other heroes with silence cause him plenty of strife. Now obviously if they are warding (with sentries as well, as you should be smoke ganking most of the time), then at the very least you are forcing PL to play defensively and lose ut on some farm.
Of course in unorganized games in the shit-tier bracket that you play in he is difficult to stop if he knows how to farm, but at the same time anyone could pick any hero, farm, and rape because beating people with 20k more gear than them because they auto attack creeps is not relevant to balance.
And if you happen to have a team which can't gank him too well? Then say fuck it, because its not a big deal. Nothing is stopping you from picking a strong pushing lineup and taking down towers all over the map. PL won't be entering fights until at least 25-30 minutes of pure free farm. Assuming you go for the bare minimum TB + Diffusal in 12 minutes (despite a lot of players going for Soul Ring and/or Janggo), farming at 500GPM would take you ~11 minutes to finish that HoT (~9800 gold total). Let's keep in mind that at this stage, Lone Druid can have Phase + Armlet + Maelstrom + Hyper stone and a Tranquil boots on himself (~9800 gold), and has probably taken all your outer towers while he was at it and got those items even faster than you. And the vast majority of players don't even build Heart second on him anyway, most go for Manta -> HoT. Oh wait that doesn't even matter, he could just sit in the offlane, get half that money, still push like a monster and build up these items, while he also has a carry in his safelane free farming against PL's solo offlane ally. But PL can't do this because he needs to be baby sat in a tri-lane, giving you very little flexibility. Speaking of flexibility, you may notice how a lot of the top picks/bans are flexible heroes, its a very strong trait to have, and PL doesn't have it at all.
A "good PL player", mate you play in the normal bracket, there is no such thing is a good player unless its a smurf moving on up.
For a hero so weak to aggression and pushes in the early-mid stages of the game that must be babysat to get a decent amount of farm, is it supposed to be surprising that he is a little more than decent lategame? Spectre offers incredibly little early on, but if you leave him alone, he is going to wipe your entire team while you can do nothing to stop that. Nerf spectre too? What about Naix moving around with Phase + Janggo + Armlet + SNY (~9900 build) raping half your team? Meracle and iG.YYF are literally just walking around the map at almost max speed,and solo pushing tier 2 without vision of the enemy without giving a fuck.
You scrubs are so caught up with looking at just one hero's strengths to realise that not only does he have weaknesses, but other heroes have strengths too, ones which you completely ignore.
The very fact that you are talking about PL being imbalanced at the current point in time is just plain sad, right now the top pick/ban for carries is LD and Naix. Get with the times.
Games should not be balanced around the idea that 9/10 players in the game are shit.
if illusions dont mana burn (which is alrdy there for ranged heroes), then PL is going to become extremely useless, manaburn removes 36 mana, at lvl2 diffusal, and damages with 60% of the amount of mana burned, so it gives extra 21.6 damage to illusions which isnt reduced by them, and PL is like antimage in a worse image, antimage needs to hit alot to get u out of mana, whereas PL needs 1 hit from each illusion, or maybe 2 if u r a mage, and u will have no mana at all, PL will give at least 87 dmg at lvl 11, and there 26 agility from lvl 2 diffusal, so minimum of 113, 25% of this is passed to the illusions, so 28.25, add the dmg from the mana burn, so it becomes 49.85 minimum dmg that each illusion got, if u got 4-6 illusions, which u can get it to 9 without any item (8 from juxa + 1 dopplewalk), so by 1 hit from illusions
PL dmg if you get diffusal as your first dmg item at maybe 20 minutes at level 11 (decent farm, but not quite pro level)...at this point in the game the mana burn on the images is a huge % of his dps. But late game PL images still hit very hard without the mana burn. When PL is level 17, has diffusal 2, manta, bfly...agi is at 175 so images are still doing 43 dmg per hit and so 9 images will still kill a 1,200 hp support hero with 10 armor on between their 3rd and 4th attack set or in 2.4-3.2 seconds depending on how long it takes for all the images to actually move in and start whacking away. With the mana burn included killing the same hero occurs between the 2nd and 3rd attack set so 1.6-2.4 seconds.
Anyway this would be a very big nerf to PL, but would not make him unable to carry. It is possible to play PL and carry very hard without getting diffusal. But nerfing diffusal does not address the imbalanced aspect of the hero. The problem is not his dmg output, many carries can get super high dps. The problem is that PL does not have risk anything to do his dmg.
@Matthias...all hard carries are "weak" early. They depend on support. This is the most effective way to play them. Heroes that require little help early are incapable of effectively carrying late game no matter how much farm they have. That is why a hero like Crystal Maiden or Orge Magi is played best taking almost zero farm and buying support items. Such item independent heroes protect the item dependent heroes farm early so the carry hero can in-turn protect the support hero late game.
I realize that this won't work very well in low level pub games. But...assuming at some point you learn and improve you will get to play dota as its really meant to be played and you will see that there are really no "weak" heroes. Each one has its own role that it does very well, its own area where other heroes cannot excel.
...and You_Got_Fukt still doesn't understand the basic concept of how to deal with late game carries...though its probably been used against him hundreds of times in those games he thought he lost to unfair matchmaking.
Toeffelhelten clearly understands what all good supports know. Super late game, when bkbs get to 5 seconds, multiple supports have hexes, when ghosts, and force staffs abound...any carry but PL is still easy to focus and kill. What you have heart, bkb, manta, blfy, and divine on...PA, AM, LD, Gyro, Niax...etc does not matter. Blink-hex-chain disables...gg, no one in the world is fast enough to bkb before a shift click blink hex hits.
so a lvl 11 PL with diffusal lvl 2 working, beats a lvl 17 with 4 late game items?
maybe not in the attack speed, or dps, but still gives same amount of dmg..
if feedback doesnt work on illusions, this means that mana burn is not cared about, and diffusal will never be bought on him, as it is gonna be useless as fuck, he counters many heroes because of the mana burn and not the dmg output, for example, Antimage would rape him if feedback is removed, as he only cares about having 60 mana to blink away, and one PL with 36 manaburn in one hit wont remove much mana from antimages mana pool, and antimage would EASILY outfarm a PL, he can get almost double the farm of a PL
@Toeffelhelten, kidding me, right?
just get a sentry, and u can easily know if the real PL is there or not, unless u r so blind that u cant see the difference between a hero with 150 dmg to creeps, and a bunch of illusions who give 30 dmg..
u might not know who is the real one, but u will know that he is there, and just place a sentry, nuke his illusions to death
Yeah I don't like it either. Trying to nerf a hero by making it a lot weaker is the wrong way to do it.
All that is required is that PL be in some way at risk to attack with images.
Naga can do a bit more than PL level of image damage but she has to be fairly close recently and has to wait an entire creep wave to make more images. PL could port back to base and his images keep going until there was nothing left to attack. If he stays even a couple screens away from the lane during a siege he can send in images (dopple,lance,manta) 7 separate times in one creep wave and any one of those images can make enough to kill your entire team.
Or consider the vastly greater risk Lone Druid must take to siege with the spirit bear. Starladder Grand Finals game 2. Admiral Bulldog, arguably the best Lone Druid player in the world was picked off 4 fights in a row late game by a blink-ult-fstaff out from "Crazy" on Batrider with bkb...no one could stop him from instantly taking the carry out of the fight. Such things can't be done to PL because he does not have to be there. Lone Druid was immensely powerful, tons of farm buffed with bloodrage and Empower...but he did almost zero dmg in the fight because disables trump dps when experts are playing.
Mapzor...didn't you earlier post a comment about a game where Zhou.IG could not figure out which image was real in TI2? If he can't how can you expect pubs to do it. And besides late game the problems become 1) the images can't be nuked down by anything less than an ES ult. 2)PL won't be there 3) If he is there his images can kill you and drain all your mana in 2 or 3 seconds while he is disabled and its almost impossible to kill a late game carry in 2 or 3 seconds.
this game, was out of control, and VP thought that they would make it letting a PL free farm like hell, maybe Gyro beats a PL, but if PL got almost double farm then ofc PL will win, and watch the team fights, they didnt let Gyro hit them freely, and most fights were around Rosh, they were abusing fog of war, by standing uphills, and PL killing their supports, who were maybe 5-7 lvls behind him
http://dotabuff.com/players/96162575 - How can this guy has ~56 Win rate ? Man dont tryhard and pick a carry every game, look at the team composition first.
But on topic:
PL is not unballanced. You all just have a LoL syndrome, because if hero is killing you, read: Raping you think that he is OP, but to be clear it is your own fault. You cant let him farm, if you pick support then dont sit on your lane and fight with your carry or other player for CS, buy dust and smoke then get another support use smoke and gank the carry. But you need to remember that you need getting kills on carries not supports, if a support kills support that means nothing, and if u fail at ganking, and get killed in the process you just feed the carry even if it is a gold form assist. In other words you need to make a proper execution, and I am not saying that I am an expert because I have up and downs like everyone, mostly when I am in braindead mode :)
As for drow, when she gets lv 6. All u need to do is get close to her, she will lose all the profits form her ult. But dont go alone you need a help as always, some kind of stun or disable.
@Toeffelhelten
Well there was Dota 1. And amount of games does not determine the skill level.
@Rape
The ideas about how to "ballance" the PL, would render him useless.
@bliss i agree. key is don't let PL farm. and keep his level at least 2 below average.
PL is definitely OP in low tier (maybe mid tier) matches when most people don't pay much attention to anti-farm. just like riki is the most super OP hero among noobs, who never thought about anti-invis
I think dotabuff should have winrate stats for different tier games, if that's possible to implement (which i don't think ).
@whoji - but the problem is ppl dont know how to play pl properly in low bracket games either, lol. So drow/riki/bh and that sorts of heroes are better stomps.
PL needs a slight nerf but not because he is OP but to stop powercreep (~30 other heroes should be nerfed).
Decrease his Agi gain or his base damage. Original post would make him < 40% winrate and he would disappear from both pubs and competitive.
Thanks captain obvious, we already know all the carries are extremely powerful when they are farmed well and not killed.
Problem with PL:
He is stronger than all the other carries with SAME farm and level. He burns all the team's mana with diffusal, he splitpushes, he farms too quickly, he has lots of escape mechanism, he distracts with illusions extremely well, he outdpses all the carries etc. etc. And we are not discussing competitive vs pub. Situation is same on all the levels.
Or let me give a clear example. First car travels 300 km, but second car travels 500 km with SAME fuel, all the other properties same and they are sold with SAME price. Then what is the purpose of existence of first car? Who buys first one?
Now stop giving useless advices like "gank him and you will be fine" or "don't let him farm" and try to understand why people think pl is overpowered.
Xin and Tresdin will be good counters I suppose.
Till then?
Don't gank him. He is not easy to gank. You will spend too much time and gold to get him, and his team can still outfarm/level you.
Try pushing hard and finish the game before he gets too fat.
Or get a carry that has Cleave. Gyro is also a counter that can also carry pretty hard.
Yeah ok ReGuardz, so why isn't he top pick/ban? He is barely picked at the moment at all actually. And even when picked, its not uncommon for him to get either shat all over in tri-lane vs tri-lane, or loses all his towers and a rax 20 minutes into the game.
You want to know who is top/pick ban right now though? Naix, LD, Bat, Magnus, KOTL and Nyx. No one gives 2 shits about PL in competitive at the moment.
@dude above, there is some degree of merit to what you say, however there are a decent amount of heroes that can gank him extremely well right from the early stages, Puck is a really good example.
Now obviously without heroes that can efficiently gank him, just go ahead and push as much as you can, because PL can't defend that well against strong pushes.
I see so much autism in this thread.
Having played my fair share of Phantom lancer games, Against co-ordinated teams the character is completely useless. After 20 minutes I'm barely at diffusal and raging like a virgin.
As a pub stomper yeah he is ridiculous, but just look at competitive, the hero is not broken at all.
PL can be beaten as other carries are beaten. You gank and pressure him early so he never gets strong. However if you screw up early PL is far harder to deal with late than other carries. Late game carries can be countered late by kiting them with ghost and fstaff during their bkb and then using hex and other disables. But these tactics are totally ineffective against PL because the images do almost all his dmg at no risk. So unlike other carries, if PL gets out of control the game is just over...barring PL playing stupid and letting you kill him.
Icon, PL is even stronger in competitive play...assuming your team is also competitive. Bloodseeker is a pubstomp hero, Slark is a pubstomp hero, PL is the kind of hero you pick or ban in the grand finals of the tournament when the big $$$ is on the line.
It should be obvious that PL is an anomaly. PL averages the least deaths by far in pubs. (4.6) thats compared the the 2nd least which is Mr.FreeAgeis. SK has 5.75. PL is simply way way to hard to kill.
PL has the 2nd highest KDA between spectre and zues, which have far more assists than are legit because of their ults. The fact is PL has the strongest game impact of any hero in the game because if you are not a feeder you will do well with PL, because he is not balanced.
Welcome back Relentless
LONG LIVE THE KING. THE SAND KING
And his highest game impact does not stem from kills (about halfway) nor from assists (near the bottom), its just his deaths. And I don't see a problem with that.
And I still think its hilarious how you ignore how easily some heroes take a dump on him, and how weak he is when it comes to defending pushses 20 minutes into the game where he literally cannot enter fights.
And no he isn't stronger in competitive play, in fact he is much worse. Because your opponents pick heroes that shit on him throughout the game like Panda, Puck, SD, or decide to rax 20 minutes into the game with LD + Jugg/Leshrac.
Are you watching competitive games now? Because PL is almost completely ignored at the moment. And no he isn't imba, imba heroes are ones that are being first banned/picked all the time, and when PL isn't even picked at the moment, maybe banned occasionally in the second phase, I don't see what kind of argument you have.
I'm sorry you can't tell the difference between competitive games and walkovers, pub games and pro games...also how you clearly are unable see that nothing you have said actually addresses the reason PL is stronger than other carries.
I realize that, like your unending whining about how all games are unfairly stacked against you by matchmaking, you simply don't want to accept that you are wrong because you don't like admitting it to yourself. No reason or evidence will penetrate. I could go on to show by tons of examples that you don't have the slightest clue what pros are picking and banning but really everyone who actually cares about it already knows this.
You talk a lot, but really say nothing.
http://dotabuff.com/matches/157219631
http://dotabuff.com/matches/162605871
http://dotabuff.com/matches/155508187
http://dotabuff.com/matches/153914153
also 151067751 but that doesn't appear on dotabuff for some reason
These are the only games in which he was picked out of the last 45 games in the G1- league, and he lost all of them, despite having really good farm in a lot of them.
There is also these 2 matches which I found while looking for that last game
http://dotabuff.com/matches/161563539
http://dotabuff.com/matches/163635192
Ok, sure PL didn't win any one of these matches, and I am not trying to say he is a bad hero or something, but he isn't anywhere near OP at the moment. Maybe he was for a period, when people didn't know how to deal with him too well, but now people do, and he is no longer a great pick, not when there are so many other better options available.
edit: "unending whining about how all games are unfairly stacked against you by matchmaking", do you mean my confusion as to how the mm system decided to throw me in my 8th game against a 5 person stack with 300-1500 games with 49-52% win rate when I have an ally who is 0W-5L? yep, ok.
http://dotabuff.com/matches/165188500
Here is more evidence too nerf pl, the guy was absolutely hopeless, granted our void was using his chrono on solo kills 20 seconds before they pushed our barracks, this pl basically just fed all game. They turtled hard and we couldnt force barracks cause prophet would just tp and counter us. A disgusting game, NERF ASAP OMG PL OMFG.
lol just kidding, but yeah pl is just a disgusting character, very difficult to deal with :(
"They turtled hard and we couldnt force barracks cause prophet would just tp and counter us"
wut u said doesnt support wut u mean, NP and kotl won the game, and not PL..
I'm a noob but nobody complained about PL being OP before the the buff to 4.2 and when he started to show up in pro scene.
not only the 4.2 agility gain, but also his juxtapose was buffed too
markel, you are correct. However the buffs didn't make PL so much as call attention to him. The impact of those buffs was to allow PL to reach his late game power sooner. Juxtapose got a nerf limiting the images then was buffed back up, also until last patch dota 2 was giving PL 1 extra image in error. However a few pro teams had used the Kotl-PL combo even before all this. At that time the build was vanguard into radiance. Basically this build took to long. What produced the current domination of PL was actually the idea to switch to the soul ring and tranquil boots build. This allows supports to leave PL to farm much earlier and go gank or push to establish map control and PL can get diffusal first instead of radience first because his lane farming is so much easier to protect. Soul-ring and tranquils did not exist before so it was very hard to get PL started, basically no one even tried without having Keeper of the Light. So if kotl was picked you just banned PL and vis versa. PL was still impossible to beat late game, but he often did not make it to late game so it was too risky to choose him as a carry.
Now however Pl and several other less used carries have had their early game made far easier by tranquil boots so its possible to get them started in the face of a lot of pressure and with less support.
Since there is at least one interested newer player...here is an example of how not to play PL or how to beat PL, whichever way you want to look at it. It important to understand what really does beat PL and it is not counter picks, there are no real direct PL counter-heros but Shadow Demon and that's not even to reliable.
Game 1 Defense grand finals Fnatic fail PL strat, first picks PL
They try a ganking hero lineup -- PL with BH, Rubic, TA, Lion...bad strategy, no counter push
Virtus pro clearly understands that what PL needs is support counterpush they ban Kotl, Tinker, Chen, Qop. 4 bans spent ensuring a short game. The result is that VP crush Fnatic early and and get an easy win over PL.
Game 5 Fnatic fail at PL again, VP proves they understand PL has to be beaten early
Fnatic get Kotl, puck with PL, but then take brood and SD...this is strong push, weak counter push. PL needs counter-push support.
VP bans Tinker, Beastmaster, Chen, LD and takes NP, Leshrac, Bat, VS, Gryo this allows them to aggresively tower dive early and then take the towers easily. The first rax is down at 18 min with mega creeps at 31 min. Virtus pro gives PL no chance to get to late game. They take risks and push their heroes to the limit to win asap.
Don't listen to garbage about gyro, ES, magnus, sven, luna, or whatever the supposed late-game image clearing hero is supposed to be. It doesn't work unless you are just so far ahead or have a far better team that any picks would win. When the teams are close in skill and the heroes are close in farm PL will win late because he does not have to take a risk to do his dmg.
For correct use of PL see Navi lose to Mousports in Starladder 5
Mousports takes PL with Kotl, DS, Tide, Puck...4 strong counter push heros
Navi tries to counter with tons of cleave and aoe taking Sven and Mag, tries to track PL with BH and it fails. For those who don't understand why cleave does not effectively counter PL watch this game and learn. Even Navi can't do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eyoE3JkhiVc
To save time watch late game PL crush late game Sven with Mag buff also. Fight at 48 min. XBoct sven gets his butt kicked again at 49 min for good measure. Result --- Navi does not even make the finals at Kiev for the first time ever.
Using a troll na'vi game in an argument. This guy.
Right Navi didnt want to go to Kiev. They didn't think Mousports was a serious opponent. They were trolling. That totally makes sense. Navi didn't lose because they under estimated the power of Phantom Lancer sure sure. It must be that they didn't seriously want to win it. Or I know, they must have forgotten that this game would eliminate them from the tournement if they lost so they didnt try very hard. Or maybe they were all drunk that must be why PL beat Sven and Mag not because PL actually does beat cleave heroes.
Go ahead continue to refuse to admit you are wrong no matter how obvious it becomes.
ppy played bad, hvost always plays bad, getting fury on a sven while he had a mag with him, funn1k feeder, and fed the whole enemy team like no one ever did, while mouz were taking down the top tier 2 tower, he probably saw that kotl had a sentry ward or he is too fucking dumb to check the enemy items while playing a bounty hunter, and he decided to give one hit to kotl, maybe to let them know he is there, 1 sentry placed, gush, spirit lance, illuminate(was still lvl 2 illuminate) and BH dies..
that was one of the sickest plays of his life, only Dendi was the one who was alright, not that amazing, but still played fine in respect to his team's performance..
hvost is rly good dunno why he throws so many games
In the past, he was a gd player, now, i lost my trust in him
I don't think you even know who na'vi are. Mouz are not a serious opponent, if you honestly believe that they are, it shows how little you know about the competitive scene. The vast majority of bigger teams, ones that can possibly win or do well in the TI3/G1-League and stuff, they don't care much about these smaller competitions. They'll enter them, sure, but you can see them trying out weird stuff, or like in this game, not giving a fuck at all, which is very common for Na'Vi especially, who have had extremely little competition from other western teams in general. I guess they decided Mek would be ok on BH despite him having like 0 mana pool because, wait no I can't think of any good reason. They bought battlefury on Sven because?
No, fact is, they picked an overall shit lineup (4 melee, lmao) and fed as well. There is no surefire counter to anything, if you still have an overall eh lineup, and don't play well either, you won't win.
Now you can go up a bit, see all of those replays, and see just how people are dealing with PL. And yes Cleave does work, just don't try and use a troll game where 1 team feeds and goes troll builds against a proper lineup + 2 hex that somehow manages to win.
http://dotabuff.com/matches/140937120
This is how people began to deal with PL when he was a top pick.
Now people have learnt that although its possible to deal with him with cleave/flak cannon, its much more effective and reliable to either push heaps or contest him with an offensive tri-lane.
These are all his picks from the last 50 or so games from the G1-League
http://dotabuff.com/matches/157219631
http://dotabuff.com/matches/162605871
http://dotabuff.com/matches/155508187
http://dotabuff.com/matches/153914153
also 151067751 but that doesn't appear on dotabuff for some reason
Yeah, he lost them all.
I think was has changed is not Xboct's penchant for taking risks with the carry. He always did that. What changed is that more and more teams are good enough to punish him for it. Navi is a lot better now than when they won TI1. The competition has simply caught up and in some cases passed them.
People have not "learned cleave/flak cannon beats PL". Mostly they have not learned this because its not true. Some people however have learned that PL absolutely must be defeated early. All of your examples are games way way out of control early. Extremely lopsided wins because someone has correctly identified the way to beat PL is to win before he has a chance.
Just consider the kill scores alone.
19-10
16-5
30-6
25-12
Massacres all, these are games were PL has no chance to get started because his team lost the game so badly so quickly.
why dont you faggots fight in a lobby instead of typing fucking walls of texts here
@relentless
when it comes to typing you're champion. but fed the last 7 games?
Thank you for the compliment. Though really I'm not very good at typing, just composition. And if by feed you mean had less kills than deaths...well. I know I should not have to buy wards and such as skeleton king, but some games no one else is willing to do it. Some people think 33 assists is nothing and would count my score as 5-8 and declare me a feeder.
More broadly I would love to address the subject of what feeding really is and how it should be determined from play and never from stats...but that would really be best discussed in another thread. I think the tiny and NP games could correctly be characterized as feeding. The other 5 games I really played quite well including the silencer game where kda stats are very bad, but I played well.
yeah i can say that i played really well (and lost) and died 22 times with 5 assists and no kill. yeah.
you say that because nobody really bother to watch your previous game.
and i still stand up to my point, u guys wanna argue, go do it in lobby. not typing walls of texts here which proves nothing
If you do not want to read what I write, please don't feel compelled to do it. Also, it seems you are unaware there is no lobby. This is not dota 1 or a hotel, both of which do have lobbies.
I'm sure people who don't really care won't check. However, if anyone wants to watch my 5-8-33 SK game and decide for themselves if they think I was "feeding" they wont be disappointed. Its a very aggressive game, fun to watch. I think I will re-watch it myself.
hello!
i think from the fact that pl is largely absent from g-1 and g-league can help draw the conclusion that pl is not thoroughly imbalanced at the highest level of play
however if u look at his games between even skilled western teams, and high level matchmaking, he tends to dominate in a fashion most other carries do not
Its just easy. Absolutely pl need to be nerf, i suggest this.
-illusion dont have that burn mana effect. so that supporter or main carry no need too afraid of tank the ilusion damage.burn mana is the case why the team no dare to fight against otehr when war,especialyl supporter.
^
check my last game, we just pwned a fat pl (diffu and heart) , a ck with manta , and a fucking fat meepo.
all we had was 1 fucking tanky doom, 1 ultra nuker ta, and 1 sneaky weaver.
by sneaky, he never entered the front lines, he just stood behind to pick off all those low hp enemies.
and we won.
so pl op = invalid argument
By fat u mean?
because i checked it, he got 2 items only at minute 40+, maybe meepo was fat but rest r meh
Illusions that don't get mana burn would make a big difference to support heros mid-game, but late game most of the dmg is not the mana burn. PL would still be able to do huge dmg at no risk. Again I point out all carries get to the point they easily kill supports...but all besides PL take some risk, have some cost to do it.
Dotaguy points to how the best chinese teams have come to understand how to draft and play against PL. Since you oan't beat him late game you draft to win early and ban counter pushing supports that delay the game. Then you play aggresive during the early-mid trasition, gain map control, get early rax and choke off PL farm leading to a win at 30 min or so before PL illusions can tank much dmg.
Meanwhile the western teams are still trying to fight PL late and losing badly. Most recently VirtusPro attempted to out farm Loda's PL with a gyrocopter in the Starladder Finals. But even though the gryo had total free farm for the first 20 min of the game, PL was already solo pushing towers, diving and killing gryo or forcing him off the tower to take it at that point. It just kept getting worse and twice Loda killed Virtus Pro's entire team solo, after his team had already died. In the final battle PL took everything VP had and trashed it despite buy backs on their carries. He just killed them again in a couple more seconds. This game Loda does a great job of demonstrating how PL illusions alone can kill not only supports, but very farmed late game carries. Meanwhile PL is not in range of taking dmg any time there is a real threat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NCTtWl0m81c
NTH vs VP Starladder Finals
Final score 25-24. PL team losing all game long, then at the end just 1 v 5 for the easy win. The only way to beat PL is to do it before he gets items...unless PL is stupid and throws. All other carries can be countered and defeated by items, tactics, and teamwork no matter how late the game goes. This is how PL is truly IMBA and why he should be nerfed. The nerf needs to be to the low-zero risk aspect of using illusions.
Also, Starladder Grand Finals, game 2...Fnatic fears PL so much that even though they have Mag and Gryo already picked, they still ban PL immediately when NTH bans the only real counter to PL (shadow demon)
Also Mapzor is exactly right, even understating how absurd Matthias characterization of PL as "fat" really is. This PL had the same net worth as your teams weakest support heroes. He was totally irrelevant to the game.
This is a player who has 5 games of PL total and lost 3 of them. He was just very bad at PL. Matthias, you only think PL is weak because you don't know how to play him. Clearly you have not tried much and failed when you did. 0-4 on PL out of your 1000+ games. I would encourage you to watch one of my PL games and see how to do it. It's not that hard if you know what to do.
i think hes balanced competitively but not for pubs ;)
i dont think iceforg balances for public
pl is beyond useless without at very least diffusal yasha, and doesn't become a major threat until he finishes his third item
u guys need to apply pressure and defend ur towers against the lancer's split psuhing
If you focus on chasing him before he get his farm, you will probably fail...
PL absolutely cannot be defeated late game if the PL player is smart...continuing on with Starladder grand finals. As I said at the begining of the thread. PL is the hero you pick or ban in the grand finals of a big tournament when the big money is on the line.
Game 3...Fnatic gets PL this time, at 44 minutes NTH kills all the rest of Fnatic before PL gets to the fight. But then Era's PL goes on them 1 v 5 killing 8 heroes in a row by himself with the buybacks. At one point a single PL illusion raxes mid and they can't stop it.
While what dotaguy610 says is correct...a pro PL who is not seriously pressured gets that 3rd item at 20 min. Few lineups can win the game that fast. When I play PL, you might be able to beat me in a 35-45 min game if I fail at farming, but a pro player will not miss a ton of last hits like I do.
And of course Starladder Grand Finals game 4, the deciding game, PL is again banned. Anyone who actually understands how the drafts were done and games played will clearly see that they revolved around who got PL and what was attempted (and failed) to counter him. Or, if a team thought they could not fight PL he was banned and the draft shifted to a secondary, more diverse meta game.
There are no other carries like this that can't be countered late game, that force the drafting to center on them. This is because PL is not properly balanced.
You are so right about this Relentless.
Also, nukers are COMPLETELY useless to a PL. Like, when going up against a normal carry like PA or Void or whatever, then Nyx can go down and nuke him, Pudge can work his way down and hook him, Lion can pop a stun and ult or even a hex. But, how will you do this against pl? You cant even nuke him. You dont know if its an illusion, and when you make doppelwalk you confuse him even more. I dont even bother picking a hero with nuke when going up against pl, because a good PL player will just farm and push at no risk, and meanwhile PL will laugh at u when Sand King blinks in with ult + stun, when tidehunter pops ravage, when Earthshaker blinks and pops ult, when nyx pops stun after hitting etc. If you go up against a "normal" carry like AM, PA and FV or whatever, it will be no problem to go hex and then hex and nuke him down like madness. How will you do that against a pl? You can't. A good pl player will not show up on the map if theres a risk.
@relentless
i dislike playing weak carries, especially those who are too much dependent on supports
^Except that both PA and Void have BKB as part of their core? You can't even nuke him? I guess that's why Puck shits all over him in the early-mid game? Maybe if you opened your eyes you would see that the Dust, Sentries and Gem exist. Stop being a retard, and buy them if you are playing a hero capable of shitting on PL. And its not like Puck is the only one, NS can do it, Brew with a Dagger, Magnus (with support). Plenty of other heroes give him a lot of problems too, a roaming Nyx can make it very difficult for him to be farming in the jungle, and plenty of other heroes with silence cause him plenty of strife. Now obviously if they are warding (with sentries as well, as you should be smoke ganking most of the time), then at the very least you are forcing PL to play defensively and lose ut on some farm.
Of course in unorganized games in the shit-tier bracket that you play in he is difficult to stop if he knows how to farm, but at the same time anyone could pick any hero, farm, and rape because beating people with 20k more gear than them because they auto attack creeps is not relevant to balance.
And if you happen to have a team which can't gank him too well? Then say fuck it, because its not a big deal. Nothing is stopping you from picking a strong pushing lineup and taking down towers all over the map. PL won't be entering fights until at least 25-30 minutes of pure free farm. Assuming you go for the bare minimum TB + Diffusal in 12 minutes (despite a lot of players going for Soul Ring and/or Janggo), farming at 500GPM would take you ~11 minutes to finish that HoT (~9800 gold total). Let's keep in mind that at this stage, Lone Druid can have Phase + Armlet + Maelstrom + Hyper stone and a Tranquil boots on himself (~9800 gold), and has probably taken all your outer towers while he was at it and got those items even faster than you. And the vast majority of players don't even build Heart second on him anyway, most go for Manta -> HoT. Oh wait that doesn't even matter, he could just sit in the offlane, get half that money, still push like a monster and build up these items, while he also has a carry in his safelane free farming against PL's solo offlane ally. But PL can't do this because he needs to be baby sat in a tri-lane, giving you very little flexibility. Speaking of flexibility, you may notice how a lot of the top picks/bans are flexible heroes, its a very strong trait to have, and PL doesn't have it at all.
A "good PL player", mate you play in the normal bracket, there is no such thing is a good player unless its a smurf moving on up.
For a hero so weak to aggression and pushes in the early-mid stages of the game that must be babysat to get a decent amount of farm, is it supposed to be surprising that he is a little more than decent lategame? Spectre offers incredibly little early on, but if you leave him alone, he is going to wipe your entire team while you can do nothing to stop that. Nerf spectre too? What about Naix moving around with Phase + Janggo + Armlet + SNY (~9900 build) raping half your team? Meracle and iG.YYF are literally just walking around the map at almost max speed,and solo pushing tier 2 without vision of the enemy without giving a fuck.
You scrubs are so caught up with looking at just one hero's strengths to realise that not only does he have weaknesses, but other heroes have strengths too, ones which you completely ignore.
The very fact that you are talking about PL being imbalanced at the current point in time is just plain sad, right now the top pick/ban for carries is LD and Naix. Get with the times.
Games should not be balanced around the idea that 9/10 players in the game are shit.
if illusions dont mana burn (which is alrdy there for ranged heroes), then PL is going to become extremely useless, manaburn removes 36 mana, at lvl2 diffusal, and damages with 60% of the amount of mana burned, so it gives extra 21.6 damage to illusions which isnt reduced by them, and PL is like antimage in a worse image, antimage needs to hit alot to get u out of mana, whereas PL needs 1 hit from each illusion, or maybe 2 if u r a mage, and u will have no mana at all, PL will give at least 87 dmg at lvl 11, and there 26 agility from lvl 2 diffusal, so minimum of 113, 25% of this is passed to the illusions, so 28.25, add the dmg from the mana burn, so it becomes 49.85 minimum dmg that each illusion got, if u got 4-6 illusions, which u can get it to 9 without any item (8 from juxa + 1 dopplewalk), so by 1 hit from illusions
With Diffusal:
199.4 dmg/144 manaburn (if 4),
299.1 dmg/216 manaburn (if 6),
398.8 dmg/288 manaburn (if 8),
448.7 dmg/324 manaburn (if 9)..
Without Diffusal: 113 hero dmg, 25% passsed to illusions, 28.25 dmg to illusions
113.0 dmg/0 manaburn (if 4),
169.5 dmg/0 manaburn (if 6),
226.0 dmg/0 manaburn (if 8),
254.0 dmg/0 manaburn (if 9)..
I dont support PL being OP, but without feedback on Diffusal, he is the most useless hero in this world
PL dmg if you get diffusal as your first dmg item at maybe 20 minutes at level 11 (decent farm, but not quite pro level)...at this point in the game the mana burn on the images is a huge % of his dps. But late game PL images still hit very hard without the mana burn. When PL is level 17, has diffusal 2, manta, bfly...agi is at 175 so images are still doing 43 dmg per hit and so 9 images will still kill a 1,200 hp support hero with 10 armor on between their 3rd and 4th attack set or in 2.4-3.2 seconds depending on how long it takes for all the images to actually move in and start whacking away. With the mana burn included killing the same hero occurs between the 2nd and 3rd attack set so 1.6-2.4 seconds.
Anyway this would be a very big nerf to PL, but would not make him unable to carry. It is possible to play PL and carry very hard without getting diffusal. But nerfing diffusal does not address the imbalanced aspect of the hero. The problem is not his dmg output, many carries can get super high dps. The problem is that PL does not have risk anything to do his dmg.
@Matthias...all hard carries are "weak" early. They depend on support. This is the most effective way to play them. Heroes that require little help early are incapable of effectively carrying late game no matter how much farm they have. That is why a hero like Crystal Maiden or Orge Magi is played best taking almost zero farm and buying support items. Such item independent heroes protect the item dependent heroes farm early so the carry hero can in-turn protect the support hero late game.
I realize that this won't work very well in low level pub games. But...assuming at some point you learn and improve you will get to play dota as its really meant to be played and you will see that there are really no "weak" heroes. Each one has its own role that it does very well, its own area where other heroes cannot excel.
...and You_Got_Fukt still doesn't understand the basic concept of how to deal with late game carries...though its probably been used against him hundreds of times in those games he thought he lost to unfair matchmaking.
Toeffelhelten clearly understands what all good supports know. Super late game, when bkbs get to 5 seconds, multiple supports have hexes, when ghosts, and force staffs abound...any carry but PL is still easy to focus and kill. What you have heart, bkb, manta, blfy, and divine on...PA, AM, LD, Gyro, Niax...etc does not matter. Blink-hex-chain disables...gg, no one in the world is fast enough to bkb before a shift click blink hex hits.
so a lvl 11 PL with diffusal lvl 2 working, beats a lvl 17 with 4 late game items?
maybe not in the attack speed, or dps, but still gives same amount of dmg..
if feedback doesnt work on illusions, this means that mana burn is not cared about, and diffusal will never be bought on him, as it is gonna be useless as fuck, he counters many heroes because of the mana burn and not the dmg output, for example, Antimage would rape him if feedback is removed, as he only cares about having 60 mana to blink away, and one PL with 36 manaburn in one hit wont remove much mana from antimages mana pool, and antimage would EASILY outfarm a PL, he can get almost double the farm of a PL
@Toeffelhelten, kidding me, right?
just get a sentry, and u can easily know if the real PL is there or not, unless u r so blind that u cant see the difference between a hero with 150 dmg to creeps, and a bunch of illusions who give 30 dmg..
u might not know who is the real one, but u will know that he is there, and just place a sentry, nuke his illusions to death
Yeah I don't like it either. Trying to nerf a hero by making it a lot weaker is the wrong way to do it.
All that is required is that PL be in some way at risk to attack with images.
Naga can do a bit more than PL level of image damage but she has to be fairly close recently and has to wait an entire creep wave to make more images. PL could port back to base and his images keep going until there was nothing left to attack. If he stays even a couple screens away from the lane during a siege he can send in images (dopple,lance,manta) 7 separate times in one creep wave and any one of those images can make enough to kill your entire team.
Or consider the vastly greater risk Lone Druid must take to siege with the spirit bear. Starladder Grand Finals game 2. Admiral Bulldog, arguably the best Lone Druid player in the world was picked off 4 fights in a row late game by a blink-ult-fstaff out from "Crazy" on Batrider with bkb...no one could stop him from instantly taking the carry out of the fight. Such things can't be done to PL because he does not have to be there. Lone Druid was immensely powerful, tons of farm buffed with bloodrage and Empower...but he did almost zero dmg in the fight because disables trump dps when experts are playing.
Mapzor...didn't you earlier post a comment about a game where Zhou.IG could not figure out which image was real in TI2? If he can't how can you expect pubs to do it. And besides late game the problems become 1) the images can't be nuked down by anything less than an ES ult. 2)PL won't be there 3) If he is there his images can kill you and drain all your mana in 2 or 3 seconds while he is disabled and its almost impossible to kill a late game carry in 2 or 3 seconds.
PL should be weakened to the point that he does 1dmg, even with 6 divine rapiers equipped..
btw,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NCTtWl0m81c
NTH vs VP Starladder Finals
this game, was out of control, and VP thought that they would make it letting a PL free farm like hell, maybe Gyro beats a PL, but if PL got almost double farm then ofc PL will win, and watch the team fights, they didnt let Gyro hit them freely, and most fights were around Rosh, they were abusing fog of war, by standing uphills, and PL killing their supports, who were maybe 5-7 lvls behind him