Picking correctly - stat/roles?

[Griddler]

I'll often wait on my hero pick to fill in the "gap" from the rest of the picks in pugs. I.e. we have no ranged, or no str, or no int hero I will try to fill in what's missing.

The question I have is WHY do we need "at least" 1 str and 1 int on our team? I understand the need for a carry and that most carries are agi (I believe there are some exceptions i.e. pestilence can be called a carry?). If you have a team w no agil/carry and the game goes past 20 minutes it will get worse and worse for you as the enemies carries get geared up.

But what is "special' about int and str that you "must" have at least 1 of each? Or is this just a misnomer that you really need 1 of each stat class?

I always hear people blab about "we need a tank". Well this isn't world of warcraft - what exactly is it you plan on tanking? Towers? Most of the time creeps tank the tower dmg, and after like lvl 15 any hero can soak up quite a few hits. Creeps? Again mostly creeps tank creeps and any hero with an iron buckler can probably tank a wave just peachy after lvl 10 or so (not that you should need to?). If its tanking enemy heroes good luck - they choose their target not you. As electrician or accursed I'm almost never the first targeted because they know I'm the hardest one to kill and thus the stupidest to start with.

The only thing I can imagine is you want a str hero to initiate with, on the hope that enemy will blow spells on that hero who can actually absorb more dmg than int/agi alternatives.

Int chars? Here I really dunno... I guess maybe for disables/stuns but there is plenty of that in agi/str... even ranged isn't "necessary" and there are enough agility ranged heroes.


TLDR:

1. Do you need at least 1 each of agi/str/int on your team to be effective and if so why (i.e. what do you "lose" without an int?)?
2. When people worry about having a "tank" what is it they think you're going to be "tanking"?

[dreamex]

1. No you don't need one of each agi/str/int. However, most strong initiators tend to be str, most carries tend to be agi, and most support heroes tend to be int. That's not to say there's no overlap, but a generic lineup is often 1 carry, 2 semi-carry/gankers, 1 support, 1 initiator.

A lineup that could look like:

Madman
Valkyrie/Pyromancer
Nymphora
Magmus

Nymphora + Madman short lane
Valkyrie Mid
Pyromancer + Magmus long lane.

Very strong lanes, very strong aoe, very good carry, 4 aoe disables, 1 targetted disable, and the best babysitter hero in the game. (coincidentally you have 2 int, 2 agi, 1 str)

2. A tank is usually someone who can soak the creep + tower damage if you need to push, rather than directly soaking hero damage. Any hero who would normally stack survivability can tank. Better tanks are those that contribute strongly for the team while they're alive promoting opponents to consider targetting them.

The only guaranteed true tank is Legionnaire via taunt, but heroes like Defiler (with her ultimate), Soul Reaper (with his aura), any hero with Mock of Brilliance, Andromeda (with her aura) contribute a lot to team fights and garnish a lot of attention and can often be considered tanks since they'll naturally want to stack survivability as well, if the opponent doesn't focus them they stand to be hurt a lot in the duration of a team fight.

[Griddler]

Thanks a bunch that's kind of what I thought - its more "roles" to be filled than stat distribution.

As a minimum you want:
1 initiator (often str)
1 carry (often agi)
1 support (often int)

The other 2 can be more or less whatever to balance out your need for AoE, disables, specific counters, ranged.

[Valor2002]

Exactly! Its all about roles in the play.

I had a match like that today. We were 5 melees:
Electrician, Magebane, Accursed, Blood Hunter, Swiftblade --> We were all melee.

Elec and Accursed = Support
Magebane, Bloodhunter = Semi Carry / Ganker
Swiftblade = Carry

They had:
Arachna, Nymph, Pestilence, Plague Rider and Pyromancer.

We won in a landslide victory, even though after the pics, I considered it as a safe loss. Somehow our combo worked out very well.

[Russa]

tbh i played without int some times but u need someone to go the support way (meaning the hero that doesnt need much mana or can stack mana up items).

Also there was a game we lost cause we didnt have an initiator. Making the carrier start cause he had more chance of surviving, but drawing the 1st hits to him aint that smart cause he couldnt dish that much dmg back and normally died without all other team dead.

[bartmasta]

the player matters more than the hero imo

[Kitad1]

I wrote this guide about heroes and the different roles they perform. Should give you some vague ideas

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=21999

[Puchi]

like stated above there is no need for 2 int 2 agi 1 str etc, i played 3 agi 2 str
yesterday and it worked fine setup was:
Axe - tank - with excellent gank in early game
Magebane - Ganker/semi carry
Scout - Ganker/semi carry
Night Hound - Carry
Behemoth, Support/stunner

all the agiheros got Charged Hammer, and constantly buffed me(axe) with the
chargethingy, i blinked in taunted behemoth came after with ulti and the our carrys
handled the rest ;)

and i most recommend trying to use the buff from charged hammer on axe its insane
when u jump in to a big creepwave with heroes in it