Alchemist

• 2 games to win
• A brute like LoL's Mundo
• Like Abaddon, his ult makes tower tanking easy but seems to have more utiliy
• The VO is fun; the goblin and the ogre banter. Best line: "Failure is just another kind of success...the wrong kind!"

After reading his abilities, I get the sense that Alchemist is supposed to be a bully. His AE poison (Q) is great for defending towers and for zoning out enemies in a team fight, largely because they're scared to death of his throwable concoction (W) which can be tossed onto someone to stun them. The Q/W combo was really effective. The side effect was that if you don't toss that stun potion in less than 5.5 seconds it blows up on you, and stuns you. I had that happen several times near the end of team fights, when all the enemies would be dead or fleeing and I had no one to stun. Embarrassing, but I'll get over it. At least the bad guys were dead.  By the end of the match I was trying to tune my stun timing earlier in team fights rather than later.

The Q by itself was great because it did so much damage, could clear creep waves when needed, just in general was most useful in the most situations. The gold bonus is pretty nice, but you have to be paired with someone who's not going to snake last hits on you. I was with Lich and I think I made decent, fair use of it.

The ult is a crazy health regen, which saved my bacon on several occasions, in some cases withstanding a full on Phantom Assassin juicing session where she tried to juice my entire body like an orange. And as I said in the bullets, it's another ability for tanking towers.

For items I went with Assault Cuirass for the attack speed and defense, and the magic wand I can't remember the name of, mainly to recharge mana.

We had a Sniper calling the shots (sorry), and again I'm pleased with how positive an effect one guy directing the action can have on the whole team's performance. 

Two down.

Abaddon

• 1 game to win
• A little like LoL's Scion, only Abaddon doesn't look like a total derp
• His ult is solid and makes tower tanking easy, but his shield seemed to be most beneficial over all
• Satisfying "wha-BANK" sword sound

Went bot lane with Clockwerk against Terrorblade and Bloodseeker. Seemed weird to me to have no ranged but it played out in our favor. Once Clockwerk had his sparkplugs and explosives, he’d initiate to trap one of them, I’d drop Aphotic Shield on him and then assist from outside with Mist Coil while I repositioned myself so the victim couldn’t get away. Repelling the second enemy bot laner was easy because he’d have to stick his neck out so far to assist, and by the time he engaged, his buddy was pretty much dead. Once I had my ult, I could take the full brunt of a Bloodseeker attack and walk away full health, while Clockwerk ate poor Terrorblade again.

This tactic completely shut down Terrorblade and frustrated Bloodseeker to the point where they bailed three-quarters of the way through the game, paving the way for my first Dota 2 Alphabetical Challenge win!

I should discuss what I consider a “win” in this challenge. Basically, if I am on the team whose Ancient still stands when the game ends, it counts. If a team DCs and I solo the whole map, it counts. If a team just can’t take it psychologically and ragequits, it counts. I figure it’s a loss if any of those happen to me (and I know those things WILL happen), so it might as well be a win the other way around. It’s really the most objective measure of victory. There’s no room for interpretation, like “Well, their Dragon Knight was AFK for 3 minutes, but our Riki was a noob, so it was mostly even, but then again their Doom had 15 deaths, but he said he was DK’s little brother with eczema and was whacked out on Nyquil because he had a cold and had to leave to do homework and their mom is on drugs, but we killed the Ancient.  So…..did I win???” If the enemy Ancient dies, I win. I do have to witness it though (i.e. I have to be online, in the game).

Alphabet! I will fight you.

Hi, I’m Todd of War. I’ve just taken up Dota 2 and I’m embarking on a journey of education and wonder. 

I will play all the Dota 2 heroes, in alphabetical order, until I win once with every hero.

I’ve played League of Legends for 3 or 4 years now. I am known there as “Todd of Ages.” The group of guys I play with prefers ARAM, which is all for the best since we’ve usually had a few drinks and ARAM involves the least strategy: forward or reverse? Push or retreat? There’s not much guile, few sneak attack options, and generally just less going on than other game modes. Like I said, that suits our drunken Friday night LoL time just fine.

But I do like the three-lane highway, and figured well, if I’m going to play a game mode none of my friends want to play, I might as well play a game none of my friends want to play. So, I have established residency in Dota 2.

Over the past few months, I’ve played through all the tutorial missions, the training missions in Limited Heroes mode, and a few dozen All-Pick matches. I think right now I’m at 55 games, with 32 wins and 23 losses.

I watched The International 2014 pretty much end-to-end and really enjoyed it. I think that makes up about half my in-game time according to Steam (120-ish hours). I also bought a Compendium; most of my games played so far have been because of the 10-Hero, Daily Hero, and Favorite Hero Challenges.

Some of my favorite heroes:

• Luna -- I love the bouncing batarangs, and I’ve finally gotten over thinking she’s a tank

• Outworld Devourer -- aka Outhouse Devourer. Didn’t understand the spam mechanic of his Q. I understand it now and it is wondrous. Not to mention the mana regen. He’s kinda ridiculous, honestly.

• Phantom Assassin -- Does anyone NOT love Phantom Assassin? She plays a lot like Akali, my favorite LoL champion.

• Clockwerk -- Basically Robot Amumu, which is lovely.

So that's that. I'm blogging this because what the hell. People blog stupider crap, which is about the lowest bar a man can set for himself: Be less stupid than the rest of the internet. I win already!