General Discussion

General DiscussionRadiance terrorblade?

Radiance terrorblade? in General Discussion
Corvo

    Terrorblade is a hero i have played for a very long time now on all positions except support. I have tried out numerous builds on him in numerous skill brackets but have found to have most effect when building treads drums sny early on to fix his squishy nature or alternatively going for gimicky builds when ahead which include items like linkeln sphere or diffusal blade, even desolator in certain scenarios (yasha and quel blade are a must have early on any item build).

    I have found him to be the most effective when picked offlane versus heroes in safelane with unique attack modifiers such as antimage or spectre where i would max Q>E in that order sometimes even skipping sunder if i don't have clean openings to use it.
    I would spam reflection as soon as it is off cooldown and as soon as at least level 2, I use that space to either harrass their carry or farm using metamorphosys as soon as off cd to finish off kills or farm when its a possibility.

    The main reason i don't see him as a better safelane than offlane is that he is extreemely team dependant if you decide to go for a greedy item buildup that leaves you squishy and on mercy of your laning phase and greedy builds are a must do as a safelaner, this is leaving you only the option to push as soon as you get manta which you pretty much will have to do if you are running him as a safelaner. But your team's fights will suffer and you are most likely to find yourself with a winrate bellow 60% after more than 30 games.

    Now my question here is why do many people still build radiance almost every game on him and how do they even have positive winrate?

    even puppey on his smurf:
    http://www.dotabuff.com/players/233863249/matches?hero=terrorblade

    as well as some of the top 10 terror players:
    http://www.dotabuff.com/players/21289303/matches?hero=terrorblade
    http://www.dotabuff.com/players/109758944/matches?hero=terrorblade
    http://www.dotabuff.com/players/3940262/matches?hero=terrorblade
    http://www.dotabuff.com/players/51684352/matches?hero=terrorblade

    (and numerous random pub people)

    What is the general idea here? If you were to split push with your illusions they would lose their ranged form as soon as they leave your hero's sight, and keeping them together makes going for radiance pointless. Not to mention if the enemy team has last pick they would make short work of your illusions with heroes like OD for example. It comes down to 5150 gold thrown away kinda like getting midas on doom, it doesn't greatly increase your farm rate it just makes the game a bit longer and less teamfight oriented for your team which is usualy not good.
    The only way i see radiance viable is when you get absolute free farm, and even then it is kind of pointless to get as you are already ahead when you could literaly end the game at that point with such great pusher. I think even stacking agi and buying ethernal blade like in the old days would end up having more impact.

    Besides why use this game strategy if naga siren does the same job but better?

    Why does such a situational item that i buy only when vs broodmother and other heroes that include but are not limited to Natures Prophet have such high usage and seemingly high impact?

    Androgynous

      most of those links where they built radiance were old games and those players don't have many games on the hero, the reason they're rated so high is because they're in the professional division.

      imo you'd get a better idea of what to build from looking at people who have several hundreds of games on their heroes instead.

      i think the reason they're successful with radiance is just because their overall skill is better, so they can still win with suboptimal builds. e.g. singsing building phase + mask of madness on every hero and still being able to win games.

      Pale Mannie

        Murranji

          It's more game losing than game winning. He's one of the few hereos who radiance is built on comparatively often and has one of the lower winrates on it.

          In general going radiance means that you are running around on 700hp or so about 20 minutes in. Extremely reliant on your team to be able to hold the early and midgame which almost barely happens with randoms. Last game I've seen a radiance TB nearly broke me.

          http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2098162528

          He somehow manages to farm fairly well solo safelane against a cm/pudge. We already had TB/Zeus/Razor so I picked a support I don't normally feed on, last guy last picks jungle bloodseeker. Whoy boy. Starting out top with razor with points in stun rather than sandstorm (we assumed they would solo offlane pudge and have 2 top so I went top so razor wouldn't be zoned etc) it meant that I was unable to stack and farm my items at normal sk jungle speed which meant a 19 minute arcane's blink dagger.

          Ursa already had 9 kills by the time I got my blink dagger. He already had Vlads, blink and boots of travel by 16 minutes. Bloodseeker didn't get any points in his ultimate until level 9. When I saw TB getting a radiance at 20 minutes I lost it and reported him since he legitimately could just be picked off by ursa at any time.

          Game was looking like an easy loss as they rapidly built up a 12,000 exp lead by 36 minutes.

          Then there are two things which turn it around. Fight breaks out in the Dire jungle. Bloodseeker, Zeus and TB pick off the Ursa, but Zeus and Bloodseeker then die to tinker and windranger. TB kills windranger. We have a ward on the high ground so I see pudge walk up behind the TB on the highground - the rest of the team are fighting at the part to the west and northwest of the middle dire camp.

          I am running up from the midlane. I wait until pudge hooks TB who is on fairly low health and starts dismembering. He would have killed the TB in the duration - except I blink in and stun, allowing the TB to sunder the pudge get back to near full health and then we rejoin the rest of the team. If I hadn't stunned the pudge and saved the TB the fight would have been over 3 dead to their 2. Instead we team wipe them though lose 3 (bloodseeker, zeus and myself).

          Then a few minutes later they pick off Razor in the mid lane while he has no buyback. They push high ground. I am hiding behind a tree so they can't see me. Ursa and Windranger jump in on the TB and the rest run in after them. I land a 5 man epiccentre and we team wipe them. Then TB promptly TPs to their bot lane, rapidly takes the tier 2, 3 and barracks, the rest of us have pushed mid and take the tier 2 so he takes their mid tier 3 and barracks, then we go top and take that lane of barracks (then he dcs and bloodseeker feeds a rapier so we have to mount a defence against their gg push, luckily we are able to do it despite the bloodseeker also controlling and feeding the TB).

          Morale of the story - going radiance on TB is a bad idea and we only won because of 2 game clutching plays which I was able to make as a sandking which I wouldn't have been able to make if I had picked some squishy loser support like witch doctor or shadow shaman or whatever.

          Kaidax

            >But your team's fights will suffer and you are most likely to find yourself with a winrate bellow 60% after more than 30 games.

            Dunno where you pulled that from

            Corvo

              @Murranji well this basicaly is just an example proving my point, i don't think the fights would have mattered much because the terror is simply making himself worth more when killed, his power level is pretty low (teamfight contribution) where he could have gone for something much more useful.
              @Kaidax "most likely to" means exactly what it is supposed to mean, i see you like terrorblade too and your skill and item builds suggest that you probably agree with me for the most part but simply like him as a safelane more than an offlaner. I used this sentance to point out that success without a good laning phase usualy does not exist and in solo queue you are most likely to find none in my opinion.

              Kaidax

                @empty

                > i see you like terrorblade too and your skill and item builds suggest that you probably agree with me for the most part

                Eh, my skill build in those last few unranked games is like that because I played him mid. Usually I max illusions by lvl 10.

                Corvo

                  Whatever lmao :D

                  Corvo

                    It's not like illusions deal 60% of damage and take 430% which makes it utterly useless to take them so early on in the game unless you have for some god forsaken reason decided to jungle.

                    Kaidax

                      > It's not like illusions deal 60% of damage and take 430% which makes it utterly useless to take them so early on in the game unless you have for some god forsaken reason decided to jungle.

                      Eh, wtf? This hero can take both jungles and both ancients every minute and farm at 25 cs/m. And why wouldn't you farm the jungle after laning stage is over? What are you doing when meta is on cooldown, afk?

                      LeFlash

                        Been trying to learn the hero recently, it feels super fun to me, that ult allows you to make big plays, extremely strong push and great dps.
                        I sucked with him first games, but now that I feel more comfortable playing it I also wondered if radiance was good to get, I havent tried yet but I feel like that 60% damage is enough reason to just build agi items and some strenght.

                        Anyways you are much more experienced with him so Id like to ask you for some advice when playing him. Im skipping treads and just rush drums, aquila, then Bots, manta, skadi, etc.
                        Should I consider treads + s&y? Keep in mind Im only playing it in the safe lane, tried junlging with him once and I actually won the game with huge impact eventho I was really inefficient in the jungle (never tried before on bots).

                        Kaidax

                          > Should I consider treads + s&y?

                          I only builld SnY when I get super rekt by magic damage but there's still hope to win if I just manage to not die in fights. Treads on safelane imo are only an option for afk farming, you don't need to summon illusions as much, your hero deals more damage to camps on his own and you can tread switch to conserve mana. But if you want to play actively you need a high ms boot to chase. Don't think I ever won with treads on safelane, on offlane treads are good versus magic damage; I build phase on offlane/mid if I'm versus a physical lineup or travels if I got fed.

                          arin

                            one word

                            matrice

                            i don't think that there's anyone on dotabuff who knows more about this hero than him

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                            matrice

                              Exactly same as spectre.

                              If for ever reason you achieved to build radiance in a good timing, you would have won with basically every single other (decent) build.
                              It's not radiance that win you the game. It's enemy who letted you get so much gold fast enough.

                              dunce

                                i didnt read a shit but puppey on his smurf went radiance like every game on terrorblade and he has 80%+ winrate and like 130 games
                                but all the games were played in 6.84 i think
                                http://www.dotabuff.com/players/233863249

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                                Kaidax

                                  Puppey is absolute worthless shit on TB though.