Coaching session with Zap!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgI4Ig3nX2I

I'm still around for coaching if anyone else is interested. I'll be holding another one with Zap! this week.

Anyone remember the chess situations in the newspaper where you were supposed to read the board and solve the puzzle of how to accomplish a certain goal? I'm going to bring that to you, here, with DotA. This isn't an entirely original idea, but something I thought could benefit everyone.

Situation:

Low/mid skill pub game
5-person party with doobs on voicechat, playing against a similarly matched opponent

Your picks (Dire): Lone Druid, Lion, Bounty Hunter, Shadow Demon, Dark Seer
Enemy picks (Radiant): Templar Assassin, Anti-Mage, Sven, Crystal Maiden, Tidehunter

Where do you put each hero on your side, why? How do you expect the enemy to lane, why?

Early Game:
The enemy (Radiant) decides to put Templar Assassin mid, Anti-Mage and Crystal Maiden bottom, and Sven and Tidehunter top. What advantages and disadvantages does the lanes you selected above have during the laning phase.

Mid Game:
Your Lone Druid struggled a bit in lane, but has purchased a relic by the 25 minute mark and is now close to a Radiance. The Anti-Mage didn't have a fantastic time in lane either, but he hasn't been joining teamfights and has been escaping ganks. He's finished a Battlefury and is working on his Manta Style. Everyone else has about the same level of farm, and the kill score is balanced. Everyone has lost their tier 1 towers, with some damage to their tier 2's. Roshan hasn't been killed yet. Gem hasn't been purchased yet, but dust has been used in fights. EXP graph is even and all heroes are between levels 9-12. What is your plan to win the game, why?

If this thread gets some attention I'll post my thoughts in a week or so. Post your ideas! Don't be shy! There's no right or wrong answer. Unless your answer is feed Anti-Mage. That's the wrong answer.

Has he been picked by pros yet? If so, which game? I'd like to see it.

I've got another one with less pauses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTZ9hNMr_wk

Let me know what you think!

3rd Episode, Riki played by Ferarri_430:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTw4Iw17L9Y

I actually don't use it because I have two buttons on my mouse and items on 1-4, but I should probably bind one of the items to space as I usually have at least 3 that I need to hit quickly and sometimes get nervous that I'll miss the number key.

Yeah, but I'm increasingly running into situations where I have at least 4 items I need to be able to use rapidly at any point. I'm still a bit scared to try out a Blink Dagger, Force Staff, Scythe of Vyse Tinker because of the sheer number of buttons I would have to press. Also, you can hit the spacebar while you hit the number keys at the same time, so its probably a tad faster. There's good reason to change.

Just going to do this bullet-point form

-Convert creep, send eidolons to large dire camp to begin their work, head to fountain for mana regen
-Buy mask, soul ring recipe, clarities
-Arrive at jungle, for the troll camp convert the small creep (this makes for two dead small creeps so large creep can spawn skeletons), attack large creep then skeletons for max eidolon multiplication
-Transition to small camp
-Eidolons gone, pop clarity, go to medium (I think its medium) camp to the south
-For the alpha wolf camp convert the large creep, likely because its aura makes for a lot of damage output
-Make sure you don't have vision of the camps for next spawn time.
-For satyrs convert the medium creep, kill camp, continue counter-clockwise
-Skill malefice and conversion, should have soul ring by now with no clarities left (i think i missed a clarity pop somewhere... or maybe not)
-Use soul ring, convert alpha wolf again
-Have enough points in conversions and enough eidolons that it doesn't matter too much which creep you kill first
-Grab a lane creep conversion, Smoke into rosh, get boots
-I think there's some importance to his positioning here, but i'm not sure what. My guess would be that its just far enough that rosh will turn around every once and a while, which is less time he spends beating the shit out of you. Aggro rosh with enigma first.
-No real magic here, just try to get rosh aggro balanced. Only "trick" is that he uses convert on his own eidolons when they are about to run out, which is rather nifty. Stand farther away than the eidolons when you want them to tank, go in with enigma when you want enigma to tank. Make sure you keep far back enough that rosh keeps turning around. I don't think Dota has a command to attack and hold position, so I think the eidolons are happy to stay put since they are within attack range.
-Kill some ancients because why the fuck not? Convert your own eidolons because the laws of thermodynamics do not apply.
-Lay down some black holes, get fingered
-Continue the farm for mek, blink, bkb

I think I lost that one because I didn't upload it to youtube, or something. I tried finding more puck videos and he was either a non-issue in the game, or lost. Puck is very hard to play well as a mid-lane ganker, and he doesn't benefit that much from farm. I decided to go with some other picks. Still trying to find a good game with pros now, but it seems a lot of them haven't been playing too many pubs with their main accounts.