Monday, November 12, 2012

Team Spotlight and Breakdown: Vitriolic Gaming



Vitriolic Gaming (vtL)

Vitriolic is a team who has been around in some way shape or form for basically the last year. They really started to come together in late January/February and have gone through many many roster changes. Miikeys has always been at the help of the project, but aside from that I think Zaxirok is the longest standing members. Of course most people will remember vtL for two things: their first round loss to Fun in the Sun Gaming (former HoN/DOTA 2 pros like Tarano, PaintitGold and Korok) in the DreamHoN Summer NA Qualifiers, and their more recent success in the DreamHoN Online Summer Championships which landed them a Top 8 finish. Their current starting lineup consists of Miikeys, Zaxirok, Parakletos, Bitchzlapped and FearTheZap. Vitriolic Gaming has attained much success thus far in the tournament having already secured a spot in the Diamond Division of HoN Tour Season One Cycle One. I have been keeping an eye on this team for a few months because of the affiliation of some of their members with the SBT (Super Beta Testers) of Heroes of Newerth, namely Parakletos and Bitchzlapped. The SBT guys are always talking about strategy stuff with S2 employees, namely wza, and run interesting lineups compared to what people are used to seeing.

Key Heroes: Sand Wraith, Chipper, Kinesis, Bubbles, Empath, Tempest, Glacius

I'm not exactly sure what the deal is with Chipper and Sand Wraith and why it's been so successful. I'm not sure if it's a situation of them not really playing vs anyone good or just that there is some secret combination between the heroes. Being the diligent researcher I am, I went into their past few games to try and uncover the secret this team is hiding. I guess it helps that Sand Wraith has always been considered the hardest of hard carries, offering very little in the early game to get to that late game stage. The thing is, with the psuedo-trilane meta, there is always one carry getting nothing but free farm. While many teams choose heroes like Silhouette and The Dark Lady to assist them come late game, Vitriolic has chosen to utilize Sand Wraith. In each game that I watched of theirs with Sand Wraith picked, Parakletos was able to get his Mock of Brilliance at around the 20 minute mark or earlier (depending on his assists and kills after getting his ult.) He maxes Desert's Curse and Deserted first, then maxes out Dissipate after. Pretty standard overall.

I don't know if people really paid attention when the hero was buffed in the past when S2 added the Bonus True Damage to Heroes under the affect of Desert's Curse. The change in this ability means he can be more influential in early team fights and helping to set up ganks with additional damage output. 45 True Damage + Standard Damage means that most Sand Wraith players at Level 9 are putting out about 115-130 Damage per hit. This will shred most supports, and because of the increased assist gold you get, it means your already stellar free farm from the safe lane is getting larger.

Vitriolic runs Chipper mid, this has good parts and bad parts. The bad part is that you're in a 2v1 lane typically, meaning that the other team likely has a ranged hero who is going to try and keep you out of experience range while their mid gets the farm. Most of the time this hero is someone like Pebbles or Magmus looking to get that fast Portal Key. The good part about this is that Chipper can CS pretty well with Rocket Barrage. Level 1 Rockets only cost 40 mana and have 80 damage, allowing you the ability to CS from a safe position while also not pushing the lane like Thunderbringer's Chain Lightning would. His E ability "Focus Buffer" also allows for massive Magic Damage absorption, up to 500 at Level 4. This is typically what vtL will max out along with Rocket Barrage. This actually meshes very well with Sand Wraith's E ability "Dissipate" as he's already getting additional Damage Reduction. The slow affected of Desert's Curse helps Chipper land Rockets as well as keeping enemies on Sawblade Showdown for a bit longer allowing for massive damage at pretty much all stages of the game.

Almost all of this teams strategies are based on AOE teamfight and initiation. FearTheZap plays a lot of Tempest and Keeper and is known to land some decent sized ults when need be. Kinesis is another favored hero of this Vitriolic, typically played by Bitchzlapped and let me say, this guy on Kinesis makes Jeppin's Kinesis look like AMXZaku's Chipper. Again, because this team plays with AOE heroes, Kinesis is able to really show his effectiveness when paired with heroes like Tempest, Keeper of the Forest and Bubbles, all of which Vitriolic can and will use when allowed to.

ZaxiroK wins a majority of his suicide lanes when he plays Bubbles as well, often times getting the Bloodlust kill, even against heroes like Silhouette. He also does the early warding for Vitriolic and typically wards the same two places in every game. One inside the pull camp trees, as mentioned earlier, and the other depends on what faction he's playing. If he's playing Legion, typically he will ward the top Rune near the Hellbourne ramp to the mid lane. A small side note: I noticed that he takes a path through the Observatory then up the ramp nearest the mid lane, then to the left towards the jungle entrance and then up next to the easy camp and will ward from the right of the pull camp instead of beneath it. If he's playing Hellbourne, it will depend on whether or not he is playing vs a jungler. If he is, he will ward the top medium camp to get Rune vision as well as block the spawn, however he places the rune in such a way so as not to have vision of the jungle beneath him. This leaves that side lane open to ganks from jungle heroes as well as roaming supports. Basically early game this is one team you won't be worrying about not being able to buy counters until 1:30 if your goal is to roam and gank.

Vitriolic's warding in mid-game is usually defensive even when their team is doing well. Miikeys tends to ward along the river throughout the mid-game, making sure that their hard carry can see everything that's going on. He also tends to ward spots "in the moment" instead of warding with a future plan. So if they are going to attempt a tower dive on the Legion's bottom tower, even if the goal is to kill people there and immediately take the tower, they will probably ward prior to. It's not always in the lane however, Miikeys will ward in the jungle as well to keep vision on the pull camp as well as possible players waiting for Vitriolic to take the bait. One thing that is very consistent is that they will ward the opposing teams suicide lane to watch for incoming TP's to help take the lane back. Vitriolic has done this upwards into the 20 minute mark in some games. Another thing I've noticed is that Vitriolic doesn't usually upgrade the chicken if they are running a jungle hero. Even when Miikeys gets 200 Gold, there is typically some delay before he will upgrade. A well time jungle gank could lead to an early courier kill. 

The key to Vitriolic is mostly Parakletos, as the drafter and play-caller for the team as well as the hard carry. Bitchzlapped plays carry as well from time to time, but he typically fills the solo mid role on heroes like Chipper and Kinesis. ZaxiroK as already mentioned is just a super solid suicide player and FearTheZap does well on initiation style junglers. The weakest part of the team is actually the "captain" Miikeys, who fills the support role. Teams scheduled to play vs Vitriolic would best be served by looking for opportunities to try and keep Parakletos down and capitalizing on Miikeys often poor positioning and defensive mid-game warding. Play aggressive vs Vitriolic to put them on tilt, as they are the one of the least experienced Top 10 teams and are susceptible to teams who force them to play at a different pace than they are used to.

22 comments:

  1. Miikeys is talking to Brized on his stream atm about quitting competitive hon

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  2. parakletos isnt the drafter ....

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  3. "Vitriloic top 16 lol"

    Phil you posted the above in the hontour seeding thread, and yet you go ahead and suck off each and everyone of the players here?

    Inconsistency's everywhere

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  4. Anyone who can elaborate on AMXZaku's chipper? don't think i was around when whatever happened happened.

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  5. miikeys is terrible, focus on him, he goes on tilt extremely hard and his warding is very poor

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  6. miikeys seems to be an average ~1850 player. Played on his team once and he sucked vs others in his rating. Is he even considered "top tier"? Why is he in comp scene?

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  7. tmm'ing and competitive games are completely different game plays . How can you rate someone by their "mmr" ? I believe that miikeys is a very knowledgeable player when it comes down to picking and laning heroes. He is also very solid support player

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  8. Can you explain how you are able to offer competitive insight when you were never part of the competitive scene? I understand you are just some wannabe pro faggot that casted a few games on honcast (probably once every 7 months), but it doesn't seem like you have a grasp of the current competitive scene. Sandwraith is outdated in the current meta, picking him only makes you automatically lose early game 90% of the time since he is basically fucking worthless. Not to mention he doesn't farm as fast as other heroes such as TDL or MB. So you saying SW is an amazing hero just proves to me how little insight you have to bring to the scene. Just gtfo you passive aggressive fat ass. stick to bashing players on forums and leave the competitive stuff to real players. I doubt you even broke 1700 on TMM matches judging from the last time you stream your tmm game

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  9. ^ Yo idiot, Vtl has been running empath/sw for global ganks for a long time and doesn't play him late game. Shut the fuck up before you run your dumb mouth when you're too ignorant to know what the fuck you're talking about.

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    1. Yo fucktard no one cares about your opinion. You are a fat piece of shit that needs to get out of your basement. Get out of your house you are pale as fuck kid. You could definitely use some sunshine you dumb fucking jew

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  10. ^ Yo idiot, there is a reason why Vtl is garbage and isn't considered one of the top tier teams in the competitive scene. Their line up is completely shit and outdated in comparison the current meta-game.If their strategy is effective then wouldn't you think more teams would be running the line and and Vtl would be better they are now? Fucking clueless dumb shit think before you talk shit next time kiddo.

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  11. Phil you blog sucks shit holy fuck stop posting you fat ass fucking jew

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  12. The amount of trashtalk in this thread is so damn high o.O

    To the guy writing an essay about how Phil isn'y a compedetive player and so on, are you? How can you say its false what Phil is saying, if your not a compedetive player yourself?

    And btw, you cant call people "passive agressive fat ass".. "Passive" and "agressive" is two opposites...

    To me, trashtalking like that in a random thread, as Anonymous even, just proves that your not mature enough to handle a situation outside the game.

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    1. You are a fucking dumb ass. It's spelled aggressive not "agressive" you dumb faggot. Passive and aggressive combined is a vocabulary used to describe a behavior. Learn English instead of sucking Phil's hairy, microscopic dick you worthless shit.

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  13. Now I wish that I could edit my posts, so that I could fix all my grammatical errors, but hey, I'm sure someone will do it for me.

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  14. ^
    First of all, you are either an uneducated piece of shit or you are just someone who doesn't know how to speak English. Passive-aggressive is used to describe someone with a certain behavior, you clueless fuck. Look it up before you embarrass yourself.
    Secondly, I am a 1900 + mmr player so I regularly play against high-tier competitive players as well as playing in tournaments/in-houses. So I dare to say I have more competitive insight than this fat piece of slob who is unemployed b/c he got kicked out of the marines. Obviously his opinion is false, not to mention he can't even break 1700 without sucking others' dick to carry him.
    Thirdly, stop trying to kiss his ass and defend his argument which is completely bullshit and false. We know you are gay and you are hungry for dicks, and judging from your horrendous usage of grammar, I can also infer that you are a fucking Brazilian. B/c you can't even fucking speak English, your opinion doesn't matter. You don't matter to the competitive discussion nor to HoN, shoo you fucking Brazilian faggot. Stick to cutting grass like all the beaners do.

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  15. Who gives a fuck what phil thinks, he is a fat piece of fuck and just another king raven wannabe. Get out of your basement phil you dumb shit. Just because you are suffering from depression since you are 30 with no pussy and got kicked out of the marines doesn't mean you can bash on competitive players, faggot.

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  16. Well vtL just got their ass handed to them by DoP.

    Watching the game gotta admit Phils analysis above is pretty spot on.

    Wtf 40 min mock on sw in game 1........

    PS: Miikeys support was just horrible in both games and almost looked to be feeding on purpose.

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  17. Phil your blog is completely garbage and shit, just saying

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  18. What i find the most fun part you guys say you dont care about him.... Yet all of you read his story.

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