i think i decided on my goal for dota 2. i want to finish the all hero challenge one time. raising mmr is a lame goal and one that just makes you mad at everything. the all hero challenge is an incentive to sincerely try and learn a bit about everything while utilizing your fundamentals in the game. you get assigned heroes in order. when you finish one the game tells you your next one. i'm probably going to write a bit about each one (or most of them) since it'll be a fun way to talk about the game and the heroes. gonna make each post a reply to this one and also tag it with "d2ahc" and "[hero name] (dota)" in case anyone wants to find these later for some reason. technically i started this years ago and forgot about a couple of the early ones...

i'll probably also try and get in some games with my favs from time to time in the middle still. especially bc i've still gotta figure out how you can win with morphling. i think he's the #1 hardest hero in the game to play...

i've always liked playing everything, in fighting games too. being so close to competitive scenes kinda beats that out of you unless you really play only one game and are really smart, which does not describe how i feel about myself in fighting games. but maybe this'll teach me something about that. i'd like if it did. but the first one i got...is "wisp"

there are 124 heroes in dota, and i'd done a few before i "officially" started this, so i'm calling this roughly the 10% complete mark for now. also the new hero announced at TI ("ringmaster", apparently voiced by john de lancie) will surely come in before i finish this. anyway, this hero may actually have have gone the longest time without getting new spells. in allstars she was the warcraft 3 succubus with modified stock spells and a custom ultimate. shadow strike, a slowing poison dagger throw; blink, the short-range teleport you can buy (but the skill version is MUCH stronger), scream of pain, a simple damaging area around you, and the ult "sonic wave", a giant, high-damage blast that goes out in front of you and pushes enemies back. and her skill upgrades don't give her new ones either! they just make shadow strike an AOE skill that throws shit at everyone inside of it, and make blink...an AOE at both ends that silences everyone inside it. also, you can't target single enemies with the ult, which is actually really funny. there's enough delay you see people miss it all the time even at high levels.

she's also the first hero that's come up who's the ideal of a "true" midlaner, in that she basically never gets played outside of the role at higher levels. you use the mid lane to get ahead, then start running around getting kills with your spells to get your team going and slow down the enemies. you have to farm some, but mostly on the way to other things or while waiting for resources or opportunities. and of the heroes in that role, she's one of my favorites, and probably the "simplest"/easiest hero i like a lot.