We tested out the new items and here’s the stats after the jump:

Armlet of Mordiggian - 700g (+ 950g + 550g + 650g = 2850g)
Gives:
+9 Damage
+15% Attack Speed
+5 Armor
+3 HP/sec
Unholy Strength (active, caster-only, 10 second cooldown)
Requires:
Helm of Iron Will
Gloves of Haste
Blades of Attack
When Unholy Strength is activated:
+40 Damage
+25% attack speed
+5 armor
+3 HP/sec
+25 Strength
-30 HP/sec

Note the activation ability, it gives more damage, attack speed, and a whole lot of strength for a total of -27 HP/sec. This item stacks well with Satanic, and the strength boost on activation is awesome for strength-based heroes. Otherwise it’s just a 3-slots-for-price-of-1 item. I’d recommend this if you’re a high-damage dealing strength hero.

Shiva’s Guard - 600g (+ 1400g + 2700g = 4700g total)
Gives:
+30 Intelligence
+15 Armor
Freezing Aura (passive -25% Attack Speed Aura)
Arctic Blast (active, 1000(?) area around caster, 30 second cooldown)
Requires:
Plate Mail
Mystic Staff
Arctic Blast stats:
-40% Enemy movement speed for 4 seconds
Deals 200 damage
Units hit by this cannot be affected again for 30 seconds.

This item is awesome. Every hero who is alone or at least one member of the team should get this. The negative attack speed aura seems to be calculated after all bonuses are applied to the hero, but this needs to be confirmed; I had Beastmaster against a Techies with Shiva’s Guard and it took forever to land a hit even with Beastmaster’s attack acceleration. Arctic Blast is a great nuke for slowing down pursuers and its extremely large area and half-decent damage is good for farming and defense.

Orchid Malevolence - 1000g (+ 2700g + 1925g = 5625g total)
Gives:
+25 Intelligence
+35 Damage
+40% Attack Speed
+150% Mana Regeneration
Soul Burn (active, single-target, cooldown 40 seconds)
Requires:
Mystic Staff
Oblivion Staff
When Soul Burn is activated:
Silence for 4.5 seconds
15% Amplify Damage for 4.5 seconds

In my opinion, this item compliments the sheepstick (Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse). Both this and the sheepstick keep an enemy from using skills and provide an opportunity to either kill an enemy hero or run away. Getting this alone might not be as good since the enemy can act and use items, but this will depend on your team’s dynamics.

Javelin - 1400g
+16 Damage
20% chance to deal 40 bonus damage with each attack

This is the bastard child or counterpart to the Stout Shield. Nothing combines with it currently, but it may be useful for a fast-attacking hero.

Conan - 360 - Action/Adventure

Mutant Storm Reloaded - 360 Live Arcade - Shoot-em-up

Now granted the other team actually played well together. One of their signature moves that pretty much obliterated us was when we pushed or defended, their Tauren would blink in and do his ultimate and then his Fissure. At this point, PitLord would walk in while we are stunned to perform his area stun. So we would sit there for a few seconds already hurt by Tauren’s ult, and Scourge would just rip through us. Now this could have been prevented had our team not fed or played smarter.

When we lost our middle raxes, the game was pretty much over. Everyone started leaving. Unfortunately, dark-green on the other team started bragging. He thought he was awesome. I reminded him that he had been fed and that it was due more to his team than to himself that he had done so well. I can remember several instances where Tauren or PitLord saved Dark-Green or stunned us enough to allow Dark-Green to rip through us. He started to say that I was just jealous of him because he was good. Actually, the only person I envied was Tauren. He played so well. If we had him on our team, they would have been owned. Imagine: Tauren stun + ultimate + Rhastar’s wards + Razor + Sniper fast attacks + Phantam Lancer’s images. Honestly, almost every time we fought them it was Tauren that turned the tides so fast because of his area spells.

Anyway, at this point everyone had left except me and Dark-Green. Now I had nothing better to do and I felt like teaching the arrogant prick a lesson or two. He had crazy items at this point. Pretty much what shows in the screenshot is what he had at this time. Yes, he was fed to the point that he had his best items before the game was even over. Anyway, so I tried to get better items for myself because at that point all I had was Manta. Since we had lost middle raxes, I had to defend it as well, so I placed Razor and Sniper to defend, and had Rhasta follow me. I needed Rhasta because Dark-Green could still cut through me 1-vs-1 (all I had were Manta, Radiance, and Butterfly after using the leaver gold and items).

He had immediately pushed through middle, as it was easy since the Scourge creeps were higher level than the Sentinel creep. I was barely able to take him out, as I was only getting used to controlling multiple heroes at this point and my images. After defending, I pushed middle up to his base. Now his base had been pretty much untouched, so it was an uphill battle. He had all the other heroes there, and well, we got pretty much owned. PitLord and Tauren make a great combo as their spells are area based. Rhasta’s snakes were mere nuisance, and our creeps got eaten up so fast.

I had to buy back immediately as he pushed middle again. I defended and killed him. I think he learned his lesson not to push middle. I didn’t want to push middle again as I knew it is impossible given the tough defense so I opted for getting better items. He kept buying back as I guess he had didn’t need to spend the money on anything else. He kept pushing as soon as he was able to. It is hard to concentrate while defending a broken lane, with all the heroes and images, and building the right items. I lost the top tower because he pushed so fast and I had my guys at middle. When I moved them to defend top, the middle creeps would surge in. It was a frustrating balancing act. Loosing middle was giving me so much trouble as I had to keep pushing them back enough to get a breather so I can do other things.

As we were fighting back and forth, my buildings started to get more and more damaged. I would push and back off because of the tight defense, and he would push and do some damage because of the split defense. He didn’t even other attacking anything else except the buildings. So I decided the only way to win was to pull a trick.

I pushed middle all the way to the entrance, and then sent my images in. His defenders were busy for a couple of seconds, so I ran to the bottom entrance of his base, turned on Manta, and took out the tower. He started saying “wtf”, “you fukin bitch”, “backdooring asshole”, etc. You know, the usual crap that some one who has been dumbfounded spits out. As you can see, he had been taking it too easy by having his heroes at just 1 place. Ofcourse it is easy to defend if you got your base in tact, but now he is feeling the pressure. He calls me “typical white man”. I was LOLn at this point. I didn’t realize calling someone that is an insult. That is so funny.

Anyway, he got desperate and started to backdoor as well. Ofcourse this makes it harder for me as he can be invisible any time, so if I don’t keep my eyes on my base, I could loose it fast. I already had gem on Sniper but it was a matter of figuring out which part of the base he would attack (top or bottom). I put Rhasta by himself at top, and the other 2 at bottom. I also had boots of travel so I was able to warp back whenever he backdoored. He died lots of times that way. He was able to take out 1 rax on the top, and the tower on the bottom. I got better at just using Phantam Lancer to attack his base. I would push middle (so as to give me time to cause some damage without needing to teleport back and defend the middle). Then I would send in my images into his base, walk around to the other 2 sides, turn on Manta, and just focus on buildings. I took out his bottom raxes at which point the battle was now more even. Now when he died he had to spend some time pushing back the bottom lane.

Also I was able to kill him 1-vs-1 at this point, as I had good items. For the last push, I bought Rhasta boots of travel, and then I pushed middle by myself, and decided to go all the way in. Because he had to split his defenders, I was able to kill off PitLord who was the only one there, and do some damage to his middle raxes. He did a desparate push backdoor at bottom and died to Rhasta, Sniper, and Razor. He bought back to fight me in his base only to get raped by my images. I then teleported Rhasta into throw his snakes to get the buildings and push into the Throne area. The game was really over now. He said “I will post this replay” and quit. I laughed because I couldn’t care any less.

If anyone does care to watch the replay, they will realize that the game was over when everyone had left, and that we Sentinels had lost. It is obvious Dark-Green wanted to “pwn” me because I called him out on his arrogance.

Check out the screenshot for the final scores. See the time everyone had left at. Remember Dark-Green was 15-1 when everyone left, so look at the scores now. He only had 2 more kills after that, while I gained 8. The reason I say this is because it proves my point that Dark-Green only ‘pwned’ because he got fed and had a good team.

Summary: Brag, brag, brag. I would’ve kicked orange but by then the game was already soured.

If you’re completely new, play it by yourself. Understand how the game flows and get used to how items work.

Then forget how the game flows and go into a pub (public) game. Plenty of custom games with the word “DOTA” in them.

A FAQ with this kind of newbie information will be created.

Seriously, man. Kids Players will just shout “NO DL,” “boot,” “kick,” anything to get that downloading player out.  Usually it’s not worth the time to let them download.  Even if they’re good.  Even if you don’t know the guy yelling “KICK” sucks royal ass.