Dota IMBA is like normal Dota turned up to 11. In the words of its creators, it s what would happen if Icefrog went mad, and buffed every hero 100 patches in a row . Sniper s ult hits everything in its path. Pugna s ward can steal spells. Techies mines can move.

Discovering new versions of each spell is fun in and of itself: it recaptures the feeling from when you first started playing and it seemed like Dota s box of tricks would never run out. At the same time, because nearly everything is a tweaked version of something from the main game, the experience is rarely overwhelming. The roles of each hero are the same for the most part, and you ve got a rough idea of what each hero is capable of—it s like jumping in after missing a dozen patches. A dozen ridiculous, whimsical patches made in a world where Dota doesn t have to be a serious, ultra-balanced competitive sport and can instead embrace its silly side.

The same philosophy is applied to items: Shadowblade gives you free pathing, Force Staff pushes people twice as far and Magic Wands can gather charges from across the map. Dagons can be upgraded to level ten, and multiple Divine Rapiers get assimilated into each other while increasing all the damage that you do—not just right clicks. As with hero abilities, reading the new item descriptions invokes a similar excitement to going through patch notes, delighting in the myriad of new possibilities on offer. There are a bunch of entirely new late game items too, which combined with all the other changes means you can t rely on your usual builds. (Pro tip: Because Branches only cost 5 gold, it s worth starting with a wand and filling up any gaps in your inventory with branches.) Again, existing knowledge provides a framework to go off on while improvising around and adapting to the new stuff.

Don t get me wrong, Dota IMBA is still a competitive game. Playing well requires using all the same skills as normal Dota. Given just how much more deadly everyone is, I d even say it punishes mistakes more harshly: put a toe out of line in lane and the chances are your opponents will take you apart. The importance of each last hit and deny is increased too, as each creep kill grants a lot more gold. While this is a neat way of adding more tension to otherwise slow parts of the game, it does mean that teams and individual players tend to pull away from each other faster. You can feel the lack of skill-based matchmaking hurting IMBA more than other custom games, with matches often turning into stomps.

Fortunately, the pain of being trampled on—and the boredom of trampling over others—is offset by the host of comeback mechanics IMBA introduces. Killing heroes of a higher level gives you much more gold, increasing dramatically the further they are ahead and the longer their killstreak. Towers get stronger with each one that gets knocked down, firing faster and gaining versions of some hero abilities such as cold snap or fury swipes. I especially like how the ancient itself turns into a boss fight, throwing out ultimates as its health gets whittled down. It gives the defending team something to rally around, potentially tipping the scales back in their favour if the attackers aren t careful. I d say the ancient might actually be a bit too tough to kill, but the devs agree with me a recent patch toned down its abilities so teams don t feel punished for winning too quickly. Even without these changes, the fact that each hero does much more damage means that it s easier to kill opponents when playing from behind, using positioning and teamplay to compensate for the power gulf.

Increasing the power of each hero tends to exaggerate the roles they play. Heroes that traditionally have an early game focus will dominate even more than usual at the start, while hard carries can become unstoppable. Snowball heroes fair particularly well: characters like Templar Assassin and Storm Spirit do better and better the more momentum they manage to gain. I ll cop to being a little biased, given that it s the playstyle I always gravitate towards. Still, I had a lot of fun supporting too Witch Doctor s paralysing cask is one of the most excruciating stuns in the main game, and in IMBA, with the number of jumps doubled, it s obscene. Admittedly, trying to stop an immortal level 35 Anti-Mage later in the same game was less fun.

You could say it would be a bit silly for me to complain about balance problems in a game mode literally called Imbalanced , but look, they walked right into it. All heroes are overpowered, but some heroes are more overpowered than others. Some heroes haven t had their abilities entirely reimagined, though they ll usually have drastically altered cooldowns, damage values or mana costs. Still, the ones with orange text in their descriptions to show that new effects have been added are generally more powerful. Omniknight in particular is a nightmare, with the workshop forum page calling for a much needed nerf.

In fairness, that s all part of the fun. If you ve ever wanted to fulfil your fantasy of stomping around as an Invoker with no cooldown on invoke, or a Pudge with the size and strength of Roshan, then Dota IMBA is a custom game worth checking out.

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Don t be scared, it s just esports! Ok, no, wait, there is quite a lot of it, maybe you should be mildly concerned. This Halloween weekend is stuffed fuller than a trick or treater s cheap plastic candy basket with professional gaming action. Unlike a Jack O Lantern full of off-brand Mars bars, this week s matches are guaranteed to get you hyped without the associated sugar crash afterwards. It is unknown which of these two options is better for your teeth, though. It s the season finale of League of Legends and Counter-Strike s yearly dramas, as well as some prep work for Blizzard s festival of electronic sport next week. There is literally something for everyone, so get a pail of candied corn in and celebrate death (or whatever Halloween is about) with some fine esportsmanship.

League of Legends Worlds 2015 Finals

Worlds comes to a creepy close this All Hallows Eve, as finalists SK Telecom T1 take on their surprise contenders KOO Tigers in Berlin. Though not the all-Europe final many were hoping for after the elimination of both Fnatic and Origen in last week s semifinal bouts, this still promises to be a thrilling conclusion to the LoL year. KOO, the Korean rejects , will be looking to prove their fellow countrymen wrong to pass over them when putting together this year s rosters. SKT, however, fill the role of the infallible professionals with Faker the final raid boss before KOO can lift the Summoner s Cup. It all ends Saturday at 04:00 PDT / 11:00 GMT and you can catch it on the official Riot Games Twitch or Azubu.

Counter-Strike: DreamHack Cluj-Napoca

Throughout this weekend, the world s best CS:GO teams will be fighting their way through the final Major of the year, and the last chance to bag glory in 2015. Things are already looking a bit shaken up for this one as Luminosity Gaming have gotten out of their group and into the playoffs ahead of the year s reigning champs, Fnatic. The ESL Cologne winners now have one more match on Friday 02:00 PDT/09:00 GMT against the massively improved US Cloud9 side to determine if they continue on with a chance to defend their title. After that, the quarters play out on Saturday, starting 02:00 PDT/09:00 GMT and the last at 11:00 PDT/18:00 GMT. Then Sunday concludes with the semis from 02:00 PST/10:00 GMT and the final at 09:00 PST/17:00 GMT, all streamed via DreamHack s Twitch channel.

Dota 2: Nanyang Championship 2015

The conclusion of this month s Nanyang Championship plays out over Friday and Sunday this weekend, with Team Secret already overcoming a shaky start to the new season and finding themselves in the final. Friday s losers bracket playoffs will decide who faces them in that final (Sunday 01:00 PST/09:00 GMT—watch that daylight savings change, America) and Vici Gaming, Team Liquid and EHOME are all still in the running to do so. You can catch all of those on the BTS twitch.

Hearthstone World Championships group stages

BlizzCon proper isn t until next weekend, but there are quite a few matches to get out of the way before those grand finals. For Hearthstone, the groups have already begun and will continue until Saturday as players bid to secure their spot on stage for the quarterfinals on November 6. Some standout matches include ThijsNL vs Kno (Friday 09:00 PDT/16:00 GMT), the Japanese contender who finds himself second in Group A after edging out JAB 3-2 in his first match. The top two battles continue with Kranich vs Zoro at 10:00 PDT/17:00GMT and Ostkaka and Hotform face off just after at 11:00 PDT/18:00 GMT. Chinese and Taiwanese competitors Zihao and Pinpingho round out the battle for the top of their groups at 12:00 PDT/19:00 GMT. You can catch all matches on Friday and Saturday on Blizzard s official stream.

StarCraft: WCS Global Finals 2015

Also on the BlizzCon prep list is the StarCraft Round of 16. These start on Sunday, with the top-vs-bottom matchup of herO vs FanTaSy (10:00 PST/18:00 GMT) and continue down the WCS rankings, pitting the top players against their inverse rank qualifiers every 90 minutes or so. This leaves Europe s wonderchild, and the last remaining non-Korean competitor in the competition, Lilbow playing against last year s champion Life at 14:30 PST/22:30 GMT. Tune in then to lend him your energy by pasting those same four BibleThump emoticons over and over in Twitch chat on the official stream.

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

I've written a whole lot about playing support over the years. It's one of the most interesting and challenging ways to play Dota 2 and, traditionally, the least appreciated. "Nobody likes to play support, yet everybody likes to win" is the pertinent Bastion announcer pack quote here (there's one of those for every occasion, it seems.)

Appreciation of (and eagerness for) support play increases with the engagement level of the Dota fan, I find. This is a community that valorises difficulty in almost all of its forms, and playing support is difficult—particularly in pub games, where you have a whole bunch of other social stresses to deal with too. Professional supports are often seen as underdogs, and appreciating their performance is something that tends to come after a viewer has learned to follow, say, a professional carry.

Both of these things make it appealing to cheer for, and to be seen to cheer for, supports. Universe's $6m Echo Slam was a rallying cry for cash-strapped position four Earthshakers everywhere, a moment when the underdog got to suddenly and dramatically become the overdog. I could go on about how great fy is again, but I probably don't need to at this point. fy is the best.

It's here that you bump into one of the Dota community's defining contradictions: read Reddit or Twitter or watch streams for long enough and you'll see a lot of appreciation for excellent support play. Play actual Dota for long enough and you'll come to see the person who willingly picks support as a precious golden angel: an island of sense and magnanimity in a sea of people who are going to play mid or carry or jungle and that's the end of it. Everybody likes to cheer for supports, yet only a handful volunteer to play them.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately in the context of a different game: Overwatch, which entered closed beta on Tuesday. I'd played the game before at Road to Blizzcon in Prague, but this week has been the first chance I've had to see it in the wild—to assess it in the unforgiving light of actual online matchmaking. There's a lot I love about Overwatch (and I plan to write a bunch more about it) but I think it fails support players. In thinking about the reasons why, I've identified something that Dota does particularly well.

First, let's do the disclosure dance.

• Overwatch is in beta! It's not finished yet. Things will likely change!
• Overwatch is in beta! The current playerbase is small and self-selecting. Things will likely change!
• Overwatch is in beta! The current playerbase is new to the game. Things will likely change!

I don't think the problems I have with Overwatch's support characters are mitigated by the second two points on that list, incidentally—but we'll see. These are first impressions, after all.

As a hybrid of FPS and MOBA, Overwatch's characters inherit design ideas from both. They get movement powers and guns from the former, special abilities and ultimates from the latter. At its best, the two enhance each other: you get to enjoy both FPS finesse and MOBA drama, the satisfaction of landing a headshot matched with the satisfaction of deploying a clutch ult.

The majority of characters blend these two. Pharah plays like a rocket-flinging Quake 3 character with a jetpack most of the time, but her channeled ult feels like dropping the Death Ward of your life when you get it right. Zarya is a tank with the ability to shield herself and others, but she matches that relatively passive power with a gratifying energy grenade launcher and an ult that is basically Overwatch's version of Black Hole.

In this context, Overwatch's support design feels rather flat. Mercy is designed to attach to another character and either heal them or enhance their damage with a beam of energy. Her movement power is interesting—she can fly to any ally she can see—but it only serves to reinforce the idea that her job is simply to glue herself to a friendly and not die. This Mercy 'play of the match' is currently glued to the top of Overwatch reddit as an example of how anticlimactic it can be to play this way. She's a bit like TF2's Medic, but she doesn't have an 'Ubercharge' moment: there's no point where she crosses a threshold and becomes the most important person on the map, even with an ally's help. Her ultimate revives every currently-dead teammate: very useful, certainly, and sometimes clutch, but it s about recovering from a disaster rather than spectacularly bringing one about for the other team.

Lucio is similar, as much as I want to like him. He has an aura that he can toggle between speed and healing, and he can activate a power to boost the aura for a time. His sonic weapon is rubbish compared to what everyone else gets to play with (except maybe Mercy's pathetic pistol) and his ult grants a shield to everybody in an AoE around him. Again, useful—but only insofar as it allows your allies to get more done.

Zeynatta and Symmetra both have higher skill ceilings and are slightly more diverse in their roles. Symmetra is good at locking down an area but is ineffective if the enemy goes a different way, and Zeynatta has good damage potential but drops quickly if he draws attention. Again, both ultimates feel rather passive: Symmetra builds a TF2-style teleporter, Zeynatta becomes invulnerable, loses his ability to attack, and heals allies in an AoE. That said, I like them a lot more: they offer room for greater successes and deeper failures than Lucio or Mercy.

I'm confident that, given time, players will find creative, impactful and effective ways to use Zeynatta and Symmetra. I'm less confident about Mercy and Lucio, yet it's notable how one-sided the game becomes as soon as they arrive. The healing they put out is a huge advantage to the team that has it, often ending games outright: yet it's a boring way to play, with few opportunities to be a playmaker in your own right. Overwatch's shooter heritage manifests as a tendency for players to pick snipers and assassins over every other type of character. Often, winning is a case of being the only person willing to play the babysitter role. You end up in this strange hinterland: useful to your team, but limited to going through the motions. You know how sometimes people get their newbie friends to pick Crystal Maiden, max her aura, and just hang around giving everybody mana regeneration? It feels a bit like that.

Dota 2 taught me that being a babysitter doesn't also need to be boring. Often, the characters who are asked to take the most on in terms of supporting their team are also given powerful, teamfight-turning ultimates to balance it out. Warlock is a slow, rather passive-feeling character in some ways: he has a heal-over-time, a big slow, can force enemies to share damage. But he's also a playmaker. Chaotic Offering, when it lands, is a big moment. You have to buy wards and the courier, more than likely, but you also get to bring the hammer down every now and then.

Imagine Warlock if his ultimate was just a souped-up Crimson Guard. You heal, you shield, you cast your debuffs, you try not to die and hope your team wins. That's how it feels to play support in Overwatch a lot of the time. You simply aren't given access to the big toys.

What it comes down to is this: in Dota, I think the people who sneer at playing support are wrong. I think there is a vast amount of evidence, from the pro scene down, that shows that support play is just as gratifying and just as big a demonstration of skill as any other way of playing the game. Crystal Maiden is a support, but also a playmaker. So is Earthshaker, Warlock, Io, and so on. You're not just a robot that dispenses healing, mana or damage mitigation: you get power spikes too.

I sigh whenever another Overwatch draft rolls out as Hanzo, Reaper, Widowmaker, Bastion, Bastion, Soldier 76—but I also get it. These characters are where the clutch snipes and unstoppable killing sprees come from. They are the ones that, more likely than not, you are going to see in the end-of-game highlights reel. They get rockets and grenades and grappling hooks and magic dragons and one of them can turn into a tank. It makes complete sense to me that, given the choice, you'd choose this over holding RMB and LMB over an ally for fifteen minutes.

To return to that disclosure: this is a game in beta. It's also a very promising game. This is the one area where I want to see a major change, where I want to look back in a year or so and say "man, remember Mercy's ult in beta? That was so boring, I'm glad they changed it." All of that is possible. But I'd like Overwatch, and any other role-based team game, to learn this lesson from Dota 2: nobody likes to play support, so give them big, powerful reasons to try it.

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Following three earlier parts in this series, we have finally gotten to the four best teams in the world who are most likely going to be competing for the title of world champions at DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca, which had its first group matches today (here's the schedule). Three of these teams are old champions—though EnVyUs s win featured two different players—while TSM are still hoping to score their first elusive major championship. Let s take a look at the four biggest favorites, in no particular order.

fnatic 

Sweden — flusha, JW, KRiMZ, olofm, pronax

fnatic are the defending champions, having won the last two majors at ESL One Cologne and ESL One Katowice. However, in the past couple of months their level of play has seemingly decreased, with losses piling up against all of the teams they will be competing with for the title. The competition is only going to get tougher, and sometimes what you need to get a boost of motivation is to lose a couple of times, in order to want to put in work again. It is surprisingly easy to get complacent when you are at the top, and if fnatic end up winning their third straight major title, they will be the first ones to tell you it was key to lose some tournaments leading up to it.

In Cologne, fnatic was the clear favorite going in. This time it should be a much closer affair. Any of the three other teams here—TSM, Virtus.pro, or EnVyUs—could realistically take down pronax s squad in a best-of-three series. In a vacuum I would still pick fnatic as the likeliest champions, but the world is not a vacuum—and things like motivation matter. I do not think fnatic will lose to Virtus.pro or EnVyUs, but if they face TSM earlier than the grand final, it is possible that the Black and Orange may miss on a three-peat. On the other hand, if they get to grand final and someone else has already knocked TSM out, they could complete a three-peat, which no one will, most likely, ever repeat in CS:GO. Talk about a legendary team.

Team SoloMid

Denmark — cajunb, device, dupreeh, karrigan, Xyp9x)

TSM is obviously going to be competing for the title at Cluj-Napoca. The team has an incredible record in Romania—not that it really matters—and has been trending up in recent months. They still seem to have fnatic in their back pocket, but their kryptonite is EnVyUs, and their record versus Virtus.pro is not much better either. As a result, device s and Team SoloMid s final placing at the next major, if they do not significantly improve on their game, will likely depend heavily on the bracket draw.

In simplest terms, you would pick TSM as a slight favorite versus fnatic, an underdog versus EnVyUs, and a 50-50 shot against Virtus.pro. That is a great situation to be in, considering those are your main competition for the title, but at the same time it still shows how much this major s title is up for grabs. If the trio of device, dupreeh and cajunb play like stars, karrigan has the occasional impact round he s had recently and calls well, and Xyp9x continues clutching big rounds, I could easily see this being TSM s event. And when you think about what each team has going for them motivation-wise, I think that only makes sense. My money is on TSM at this coming major.

EnVyUs 

France — apEX, Happy, kennyS, kioShiMa, NBK

EnVyUs won their first tournament with the new roster—IEM Gamescom—with four map wins over TSM. They placed second, only to fnatic, at ESL One Cologne, and aside from the sloppy play at ESL ESEA Dubai Invitational, have mostly looked like the kind of team who might make another grand final run at Cluj-Napoca. I still believe this may be the most skilled roster ever assembled, and while Happy s playing style comes under scrutiny at times, there s no denying his system works, and that he is the most skilled in-game leader in the game. The ceiling of EnVyUs, when firing on all cylinders, is incredibly high. That is the number one thing they have going for them with the amount of skill this roster packs.

On the other hand, kennyS has not been the force we became used to since the AWP update, apEX remains very up and down, and while both kioShiMa and NBK are star lever players at times, both also have the occasional bad series. This team s problem is that they do not have a single go-to guy who is able to win them terrorist rounds when needed—which has a lot to do with the fact their lurker is their in-game leader. It has not been much of a problem in the past, but I would bet that a team doing their homework would have it the easiest versus EnVyUs out of these four teams. If they are on fire, they can win it all, and the trio of Happy, kioShiMa, and NBK can secure their second major, a year removed from the first one. But if multiple players have a bad series at the wrong time, these guys could exit in the semis, or even in the quarter-finals.

Virtus.pro

Poland — byali, NEO, pasha, Snax, TaZ

Virtus.pro is the ultimate underdog team. Their form comes and goes, and while Snax is the team s best player over the long haul, any one of their five players is capable of being the best player in any series. Out of these four squads, it s possible that Virtus.pro match-up the best against the others overall. After the win over fnatic at the PGL Season 1 Finals they overcame the mental block of dropping the ESL One Cologne semi-final, and should feel very confident going into this event. It is a clich at this point to say the Poles play better at the majors, but it still holds true—and there is little reason to expect that to change.

If pasha is able to step up his game and become the kind of force he was in early 2014—when he was briefly considered a top five player in the world—this team could become world number one. Without him putting up huge numbers, there is not enough consistent firepower. TaZ and NEO still come and go, though the latter has improved a ton in recent months, and byali s ups and downs are legendary at this point. Snax contributes constantly, but one player is not enough to overcome the likes of fnatic, TSM, or EnVyUs. I expect Virtus.pro to make the semi-finals, and it would not be at all surprising to see them in the grand final. But that will depend on what kind of performance kuben is able to draw from his players over a five day period.

You can reach @lurppis_ on Twitter.

PC Gamer Pro is a new channel dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Every two weeks, PCG Pro sifts through Dotabuff s extensive stats to unearth an unsung hero of Dota 2 matchmaking: a hero that matches an above-average winrate with a curiously low pick rate. This week that s Abaddon, who sits on an extremely-healthy 58.86% winrate this week alone while being picked in only 6.65% of games. It gets more impressive if you look further out, too: across every game ever tracked by Dotabuff, Abaddon has the highest winrate of any hero in Dota.

A common theme of these unsung heroes (our first two were Omniknight and Warlock, if you missed those articles) is characters that are impactful because they force the enemy team to play differently. In a game where the vast majority of players value stuns and chunky nukes, these are disruptive characters that require an on-the-fly change in strategy. Abaddon fits that profile down to the letter.

What does Abaddon do?

Abaddon is a melee strength hero who can be played as a support or as a core. He tends to move between position 3 and 4, rarely hitting the extreme ends of the farm pyramid, but there s value in assigning him a higher position from time to time. His abilities emphasise damage mitigation and control, and he s most effective on the front line of any given fight.

Mist Coil (Q) is a single-target spell that is either a heal or a magic damage nuke depending on whether the target is an enemy or an ally. Regardless of how it is used, casting it damages Abaddon by a fixed amount of pure damage. While the amount of healing/damage doesn t scale particularly well, the short cooldown and low mana cost of Mist Coil makes it spammable within sustained fights, which is where Abaddon excels. Time it right and it can also be used to deny Abaddon, reducing the benefit the enemy gets for killing him.

Aphotic Shield (W) is Abaddon s most useful ability and the reason he is sometimes played as a support despite lacking any form of reliable lockdown. This allows him to place a damage-absorbing shield on a friendly character, including himself, that detonates causing AoE damage after mitigating a certain amount of damage or when it expires. The reason Aphotic Shield is so useful, however, is that it also applies a strong dispel to the target. This means that it removes stuns and other debuffs. If the enemy is reliant on lengthy single-target lockdown to secure kills, Aphotic Shield can be game-changing.

Curse of Avernus (E) is a passive that triggers whenever Abaddon strikes an enemy. Not only does it reduce the enemy s movement and attack speed, but it has the opposite effect on Abaddon and any ally who also hits an enemy affected by the curse. It doesn t stack (it d be ludicrously overpowered if it did) but it costs nothing to apply and it can be maintained for as long as Abaddon can stay in melee range of the target. As a support you're unlikely to max this until after Abaddon s other abilities, but a value point can help secure early kills and the attack speed slow keeps Abaddon relevant later into the game.

Borrowed Time (R) is Abaddon s ultimate. It s an active ability, but triggers automatically if Abaddon is reduced below a certain amount of health. While under the effect of Borrowed Time, all damage that Abaddon takes is converted into health. If the enemy team doesn t stop attacking him, or if there is AoE damage for him to bathe in, this can quickly restore him to full. Furthermore, when activated Borrowed Time dispells debuffs and stuns from Abaddon much like Aphotic Shield. The main reason you d manually activate Borrowed Time is to achieve that effect: it can even be activated during a stun to break free.

Why Abaddon?

Abaddon is a magic mist ghost riding an unusually small horse and deserves your respect on that basis alone. He looks like a scary Nazgul, and even sounds a little bit like one, but really he s a giant sweetheart. Few heroes can protect a carry as comprehensively as Abaddon can, and when geared up for fighting his power manifests as a desire to hug every single member of the enemy team for as long as possible. He even likes it when you hit him. Bless.

He s one of the game s best babysitters

Abaddon s strength as a lane partner comes from his ability to shut down the enemy s ambitions quickly and, in the event of a prolonged fight, slowly turn the odds against them. Aphotic Shield is a hard counter to the single-target disables that are often crucial to early-game ganks, and his cheap spammable heal allows him to sustain an ally against harassment too. He s not the best at proactively setting up kills, however, and the incredibly long cast time on all of his spells make timing and positioning crucial. If you re in the wrong place or too slow to act, Aphotic Shield is worth a lot less.

It takes effort to take him down (and people are lazy)

Key to Abaddon s winrate, I suspect, is the fact that he almost never dies unless the enemy makes a concerted effort to take him down. At lower levels of play, it s likely possible to charge face-first into a confused enemy and survive simply on the basis of Aphotic Shield and Borrowed Time alone. Even when players become more experienced, Abaddon requires special consideration. If you rely on a lot of AoE ultimates, he ll lap up lots of free healing during a fight. If you try to burst him down one-on-one, you ve still got to be attentive to his ultimate and successfully disengage when it activates. He s far from indestructible, but it takes an iota more thought to efficiently take him out than it does for other characters: and that iota is often what makes the difference in pub matches.

Borrowed Time wastes their time

In the event that the enemy does successfully focus Abaddon, Abaddon is doing what he is supposed to. Every bit of damage and every disable that Abaddon eats up is a victory for his team, because (a) it ll still take longer than normal to take him out and (b) that damage and those stuns aren t going on a more valuable target. If the enemy acknowledges this and ignores Abaddon, he ll have free reign to shield and heal up allies. Like Omniknight, he becomes a target that is important to eliminate quickly but is hard to kill, who can badly disrupt a teamfight but who is happy to absorb your wrath because doing so spares their allies. In an even fight where both teams are content to mash buttons at each other, the team with a half-awake Abaddon should win.

Items to consider

Abaddon makes a natural aura carrier because of his survivability. Stick a Mekansm, Vladimir s Offering, Drums of Endurance or Assault Cuirass on him and his team will benefit for much longer than they otherwise might. Those are mid to lategame considerations, however. As a support Abaddon, you ll likely want Tranquil Boots and a Soul Ring so that you never have to leave the lane. After that point, be reactive: go for a Mek or Pipe of Insight as the situation demands, and consider a Solar Crest if you can pull together the gold. As a carry Abaddon, try to beef up your damage while taking maximum advantage of your natural toughness. Radiance is decent, here, as is Assault Cuirass, Heart of Tarrasque and Necronomicon if you need more utility.

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

In the third part of our DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca preview series (here are parts one and two), we finally take a look at teams who are expected to still be competing in the $250,000 tournament when it reaches the playoff stage. These four teams are, by odds, expected to go out in the quarter-finals—or, in other words, there are four teams at the event who are expected to do even better. We'll go over them tomorrow, but from here on out, anyone could win if things break out right.

Gamers2

Europe dennis, fox, jkaem, Maikelele, rain

Much like for NiP, for Gamers2, at least in its current formation, this major will effectively be its last hurrah. We do not know how these two rosters will look in January, but it is a given at this point that some of those rumors will come true. Kinguin defeated Cloud9 after a Tec-9 round win at 13-14 at ESL One Cologne, giving them a spot here. They added jkaem—who impressed at the DH Cluj-Napoca qualifier—to replace ScreaM, who was reportedly bought out for 150,000 to join Titan during the period in-between the majors. This team has a lot of skill, but that will only get you so far.

With four players speaking Swedish to some degree, fox is obviously the odd man out. In fact, getting your average, pretty good Swedish player likely would improve this team. However, since the team s days are numbered to begin with, there is probably no point in making changes anymore. I think the skill of this team will get them through the lower tier teams, but at the same time it would not be at all surprising if a team like Cloud9 or Titan knocked them out. They simply have the higher seed to guard them from having a tough group. I m willing to side with G2 and assume they have what it takes to make the playoffs, but there is no faith in them making the semi-finals.

NiP

Sweden — allu, f0rest, friberg, GeT_RiGhT, Xizt

The NiP farewell tour has been mostly a success—their run at ESL ESEA Dubai Invitational was their best result in who knows how long, and they have had some decent results online as well. This team will not yield this roster come January 1, but we still have some two months left where the legendary NiP core will, together with allu, try to add an international title to their resume. And, interestingly enough, in my opinion this team is now more dangerous than it has ever been, save for the first two months or so after allu joined the team in late February.

Everyone on this team is now, to some degree, playing for themselves. This team is not staying together, so while winning would be great, what these players care about, or should care about, is how they portray themselves going into 2016—as that will largely decide their future. GeT_RiGhT will have takers no matter what, but what are allu or friberg going to do if they have poor showings? Those players must play well in the last months they have with NiP, which is exactly why I believe this team will be dangerous. Xizt s calling and leadership will never win them games, let alone events, but the individual skill of these five players combined? It s possible. Expect NiP to cruise through to the playoffs, and honestly, I would not be at all surprised if they made the semis.

Titan 

France  Ex6TenZ, RpK, ScreaM, SmithZz, shox

Titan are an odd bunch. The addition of ScreaM definitely added considerably skill they did not have with Maniac on the team, but at the same time they still have three players who are not ever going to blow up the bank with their individual efforts. RpK s comeback has been disappointing, SmithZz is not a top tier player, and while Ex6TenZ does his job when it comes to leadership, he has never been much of a contributor on an individual basis. That leaves an awful lot of pressure on shox and ScreaM to bring it day in and day out, but that duo just might be able to do it.

While Ex6TenZ s teams have not made it out of the group stage at a major in what feels like forever—nearly two years by the time this event kicks off—they are still a dangerous group to go up against simply because of the Belgian s leadership and tactics. They often cause issues for the very top teams in the world, and the addition of ScreaM should be enough to put them over the top against lower level of competition skill-wise. I think Titan will finally get out of the groups and, if shox is as motivated as I assume him to be, could even scare a team in the quarter-finals. This team makes sense on paper, and it seems they are much more motivated than one would have assumed after the former EnVyUs duo s ugly exit from the team that led to them joining Titan in July.

Na`Vi 

Ukraine  Edward, flamie, GuardiaN, seized, Zeus

Natus Vincere s future largely depends on how the ex-CIS powerhouse does at Cluj-Napoca. The leaked screenshot of GuardiaN s chat with STYKO revealed that the team was close to replacing both Edward and Zeus. That never wound up going through, and now STYKO is playing for HellRaisers as a stand-in, but that may be temporary. Rumors say Na`Vi s future will be decided after this event, so an exit in the group stage or even where I am assuming they will go out—in the quarter-finals—will likely mean this team will not look the same in 2016.

Na`Vi have had a strong year overall, being ranked in the top two at their peak. However, they have had multiple instances where seemingly they allowed constant bickering and complaining get to them—an issue that existed in Zeus s Na`Vi teams going as far back as at least 2011—and it seems they are not going to be able to fix those issues. Instead of Zeus leading, the task will be on their coach and former member starix, which could help alleviate some issues in-game, but the issues of whining and not playing as a team are likely too prevalent to fix. Those rumors have existed about Edward for a year, and it s hard to see them being fixed for good. Expect Na`Vi to be good, but not great. Base case is quarter-finals exit, and if things go well, they could reach the semis.

You can reach @lurppis_ on Twitter.

PC Gamer Pro is a new channel dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Roshpit Champions: Survival is a strange name for a hugely impressive custom game. It doesn't have much to do with Roshan (or his pit) but it has everything to do with a team of four heroes ('champions', in this case: hi Riot!) taking on waves of increasingly tough NPC monsters. There are plenty of custom games of this kind, but what makes Roshpit Champions stand out is the number of new features on display, the relatively high level of polish on show across the board, and the clever design work that has gone into creating lots of new characters and enemies.

Each character has access to burst damage, movement, and crowd control of some kind, but these operate very differently in each case. The party isn't expected to fulfil traditional healer-damage-tank roles per se: this is a little more like co-op Diablo, all about chaining together massive area attacks to wipe out waves of enemies as efficiently as possible. I liked playing as The Red General, an analogue for Axe capable of flinging himself around the map as a whirling engine of destruction. One of his abilities fires backwards: an unusual choice, perhaps, but one that acknowledges how much time players spend kiting enemies in a game like this and something that interacts well with Dota 2's existing turn rate mechanic.

A completely bespoke World of Warcraft-style talent system has been bolted onto Dota 2's existing levelling mechanics, allowing you to spend points to customise your character's abilities to match your playstyle. You also earn item drops as you slay monsters, and Dota 2's inventory system is treated like a backpack: your gear is now slotted into a completely new 'paper doll'-style equipment panel, another impressive bit of custom engineering.

There's a village area with shops where gold can be exchanged for items, a set of sprawling, intricate maps with custom enemies and bosses, and even a handful of dungeon instances accessed through the overworld. Approach one of these portals and a voting interface flashes up to ensure that your entire team is ready: I have no idea how you go about achieving this in a Dota 2 custom game, but I m glad somebody did. Of all of the mods that I've played, Roshpit Champions is the single most impressive demonstration of what Dota 2's scripting engine can do.

Unlike the online RPGs it takes after, Roshpit Champions is session-based rather than persistent, and this is key to its charm. It's more like a roguelike in that regard: if the entire party dies it's all over, so runs can feel very different based on the composition of your party and how lucky you're getting with the loot RNG. It's capable of scratching your cooperative RPG itch without demanding any kind of long-term commitment, and deserves a place in your custom game library simply on that basis.

It's not perfectly balanced or bug-free however: this is very much a work-in-progress, impressive as it can be. There are encounters that are too difficult or too easy, some items, abilities and stats are more essential than others, and those custom interfaces can sometimes wig out. It's also a weaker experience if you play with strangers, because it has been balanced for four players and a sudden drop-out can ruin the time investment you've made into a particular run. Although this is true of all custom games to a degree, Roshpit Champions is something to play when you're one person short of a proper game of Dota and your friends feel like trying something new. That said, this is a sufficiently well-executed idea that I can imagine it breaking out of the Dota 2 client entirely, some day.

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

A brief lull descends over the esports scene this weekend in the calm before next week s storm. The LoL Worlds finals, Dota 2 Frankfurt Major, BlizzCon and CS:GO s last Major of the year at DreamHack Cluj-Napoca all loom close on the horizon, so it seems only right to get some respite before then. Despite there being no trophies to hand out this weekend, there are still plenty of top flight games to tune into as both the CS:GO ESL ESEA Pro League and Dota DreamLeague seasons continue their early group round robin stages. And let s not forget the penultimate stage of Worlds as the European road trip to the Summoner s Cup draws to a close.

Here are the biggest esports fixtures of the weekend.

League of Legends Worlds 2015 Semifinals

Having shed all but four teams from their tour around Europe, the Riot banterbus rolls into Brussels this weekend for the semifinals. It s a very EU affair, too, as Origen and Fnatic have made it through the gauntlet on opposite sides of the bracket, meaning a home continent derby finals is still on the cards. For that to happen, however, Origen would have to best SKT Telecom T1 who have been on striking form this season. And Fnatic will need to send home KOO Tigers, who staged a surprise coup against their Korean rivals KT Rolster who swiped the second seed spot from them in the playoffs. The quarters at Wembley were a bit of a whitewash, with three of four matches resulting in one-sided sweeps, but the talent seems closer in these matchups. Find out when Origen face SKT on Saturday at 07:30 PDT/15:30 BST, and KOO take on Fnatic Sunday at the earlier time of 05:30 PDT/12:30 GMT (watch out for that British daylight savings change, folks). You can catch it all on the official Riot Games Twitch or Azubu.

Counter-Strike: ESL ESEA Pro League Season 2

In the interim before Cluj-Napoca, you can catch HellRaisers, Titan, Ninjas in Pyjamas, TSM, Virtus.pro and EnVyUs in some regular season matches. This weekend s specific matchups in the round robin pit all of the North American teams against one another over the course of two days. Starting from 15:00 PDT/23:00 BST until 20:00 PDT/03:00 GMT on Saturday night Cloud9, CLG, Team Liquid, EnemyGG and Coastless will face off against one another before repeating the matchups again on the Sunday. The rest of the European action takes course earlier each day, from 08:00 PDT/16:00 BST on the Saturday and 08:00 PDT/15:00 GMT on the Sunday. You can catch those on ESL s Twitch channel. 

Dota 2: DreamLeague Season 4

Another run-of-the-mill round robin bracket continues this weekend to determine who will get a crack at the $150,000 prize pool at November s DreamHack Winter finals. Though the Frankfurt Major is around the same time, many of the invited and qualified teams are competing which has led to some clenchworthy finishes in recent games. Don t be surprised to see scenes reminiscent of Alliance battling back against megacreeps to defeat NiP during the Major qualifiers. Matches begin at 04:30 PDT/12:30 BST on Saturday with 4CL versus Monkey Freedom Fighters and finish at 12:00 PDT/20:00 BST with MFF facing off against NiP. Catch the action on the DreamLeague Twitch channel.

Dota 2: The Summit 4 American Qualifiers

Sunday s Dota fix comes in the form of The Summit 4 s American qualifiers, also Saturday s, if you want to catch the winner s bracket final of ROOT Gaming play Digital Chaos at 14:00 PDT/22:00 BST (which, of course, you do). Sunday s matches represent the final chances in the loser s bracket (14:00 PDT/21:00 BST) for Cloud9 and whoever survives today s game between paiN Gaming and Elite Wolves. And after that, at 17:00 PDT/midnight GMT, Wizards & Priests will take on the victor s of today s compLexity versus Team Archon showdown. You can catch all of those games on Beyond The Summit.

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

In the second part of our four-part DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca preview, we take a look at four more hopefuls who are not favored, but unlike the earlier bunch, could realistically all make it to the playoffs. Here comes the next tier of competition at the $250,000 major.

Luminosity

Brazil  boltz, coldzera, FalleN, fer, steel

The Brazilians had a solid showing at ESL One Cologne, scoring their second consecutive top eight finish at a major. In the group stage they bested Kinguin, and after multiple overtimes, FlipSid3, before ultimately being knocked out of the event by fnatic in the quarter-finals. Luminosity has a strategic approach to the game, and that combined with the fact Europeans don t see them play too often and them now getting quality practice in North America helps their game tremendously.

In the right group Luminosity could have a very good shot at advancing—think having the likes of Gamers2 or Titan in theirs—but unfortunately a lot of it will come down to luck. What they do have going for them is the legend-seed, due to their top eight finish in Germany. FalleN s troops will be hoping for another top eight finish, one that would definitely solidify them as a top eight team in the world despite being fairly inactive as a team outside of the majors.

mousesports

Europe  chrisJ, denis, gob b, nex, NiKo

I d been saying for months that NiKo would replace either Spiidi or denis in mousesports after the major, and that their ceiling would, as a result of getting the highly skilled Bosnian rifler onboard, increase. However, so far it seems that the fragging load has simply moved towards NiKo, while nex has seemed to struggle individually after the change. Obviously some spots and roles had to be shuffled around, but if mouz want to compete for a playoff spot, they need nex to get back to the level of play he showcased during the late spring and throughout the summer.

chrisJ has finally started playing like a top level AWPer should, more consistently. He has a very explosive playing style that can win rounds for mousesports at any point—not unlike NiKo s, though the latter is far more consistent. If nex can step up his game and gob b comes into Cluj-Napoca sleeves filled with new tricks, I would not be at all surprised to see mousesports continue through to the playoffs. However, at this point based on what we have seen, it is more likely that they will once again fall short. And if they do, I m not sure this team can continue as it is.

Cloud9 

USA  fREAKAZOiD, n0thing, sg@res, shroud, Skadoodle

Every North American s favorite team has officially started struggling badly right after the incredible streak of top two finishes in July ended. Following second place finishes at ESL ESEA Pro League Season 1 Finals, ESWC and FACEIT Stage 2 Finals, they first went out in the semi-finals at the CEVO Professional Season 7 Finals, then crashed out in groups at ESL One Cologne against what should have been an inferior Kinguin team, and then went out in last place at the ESL ESEA Dubai Invitational. In other words, the magic, if there was any, is far removed from this team.

Skadoodle is the team s star and will always put up the necessary numbers for Cloud9 to have a chance. The issue, therefore, lies elsewhere. Shroud is still incredibly inconsistent and until he figures out how to show up more often, must be considered one of the most overrated players by today s fans. Sure, in Cologne in July he had an incredible showing, especially in the grand final versus fnatic, but it s been nearly four months since then. Sg@res will have to make all the right calls, while fREAKAZOiD and n0thing will need to put up impact rounds. There are a lot of question marks here, which is why I do not expect Cloud9 to advance from its group.

dignitas 

Denmark — aizy, Kjaerbye, MSL, Pimp, schneider

Dignitas looked promising throughout the summer with Nico on the roster, though there were probably a grand total of zero people who expected that to last, even if the final blow was not his choice this time around. On paper schneider seems like a strong pickup, a former fnatic player who has won the first major ever held for the game. However, it is unclear how effectively he can communicate with the rest of the team due to only speaking Swedish, and this team actually seemed to be quite reliant on their tactics. Besides, Pimp moving to an AWPer role has not worked out whatsoever.

There is potential here for sure. Kjaerbye will someday put it all together—remember he is still incredibly young at just 17 years old—and he can become a fourth wheel if this roster sticks together. They have four capable fraggers as it is, and MSL has proven to be a decent leader in this situation. This team will figure all their issues out sometime in the next twelve months, most likely, and start competing for semi-final spots. In the past they would have become a farm team—someone the top tier teams poach players from—but stronger contracts have changed all that. Expect dignitas to go out in the groups, but not without a fight.

You can reach @lurppis_ on Twitter.

Update: After this article was written, dignitas removed schneider and added tenzki as a stand-in.

PC Gamer Pro is a new channel dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

I'm the sort of person who orders games into to-do lists. For a long time I acted on the misguided notion that arranging my Steam backlog into neat categories would eventually somehow lead to me playing and finishing the dozens of games I've picked up and never touched. I instinctively believed that clearing my backlog held value regardless of whether I liked the games themselves: I regarded it as a lower-order sort of chore, something that I might not enjoy a huge amount but that I'd be glad I did later, like doing the vacuuming.

I don't think I'm alone in that. Turning games into chores is a consequence of taking them more seriously, which applies to trying to acquire a comprehensive knowledge of every game that has ever been 2 in a Steam sale just as it applies to attempting to get better at Dota. Don't get me wrong: I still valourise the process of slow improvement that competitive games offer. I still want to become a better Dota player. But lately I've realised how I've managed to turn doing so into a chore.

Solo ranked is something that needs to get done, because solo MMR is something that needs to get raised. Certain heroes need practicing, others need checking off lists: compendium challenges, A-Z challenges, and so on. These things have their place, but as I get back into Dota in the aftermath of Reborn I m conscious of how much air they can suck out of the room. Over on Game Is Hard we frequently answer questions about MMR and solo queue woes with if you re not enjoying solo queue, don t play solo queue . I ve realised that I need to start applying some of that logic to myself.

Way back during my last holiday from trying too hard I found myself playing a lot of All Random, and that s where I find myself again. Of all of the unpopular ways to play Dota, this is among the most unpopular. That s one of the reasons I enjoy it so much, and why I recommend it to anybody who sometimes wishing that they could just play Dota without all of these attendant issues and expectations.

It is typical of Dota to turn expectations upside down, and All Random is an example of that. On paper, it is the game s riskiest mode: you have no say in which hero you play and are expected to cope with it. Roles, strategies and lanes have to be assembled on the fly, and you have to trust that the strangers that you re matched with (assuming that you re playing solo) will be up for that. Yet somehow, this makes it more accessible. Everybody is out of their comfort zones.

I ve found All Random to be friendlier and more cooperative than other modes, and I suspect that it s because it represents a self-selecting group of people. Although you do get the odd person who checked every mode because they wanted to play right now, for the most part you find people who get that not every player/character combination is going to work. There s less fighting over specific roles, most of the time, and less finger-pointing when a draft goes south.

Similarly, it works because the results of the game are to a large part up to chance. Sometimes, you get screwed in the draft. There s no way around it. You got Lone Druid on a guy who can t play Lone Druid and four other hard carries with no disables. You get rolled by Tusk and Nightstalker in twenty minutes. It happens, you got unlucky, and you move on. Because here s the thing: when you and everybody on your team has fallen foul of the random number generator on that scale, there s not much to learn from it—and nobody, really, to blame. You just got to play some Dota, and it didn t go so well, and maybe you learned something, maybe you didn t. To quote hot take headlines the world over, "...and that's okay."

I find this really refreshing: All Random is a way to encounter the game outside of a pattern of play and improvement that can start feeling like an exercise regimen. If you worry about your winrate or Dotabuff stats or that Reborn skill hexagon thing then you probably shouldn t play All Random, but I suspect that most players could benefit from caring about those things a little less.

All Random is an example of Dota 2 stepping briefly into a design space occupied by less stressful games. Luck plays a much bigger factor in accessible competitive games: the new Battlefront, for example, hands killstreak-empowering power-ups out like candy. It is a dispenser that you plug into for a few hours, mine for enjoyment, and then move on from for a while. All Random, for me, allows a Dota match to become something similar: a roll of the dice, an excuse to just play without reading too much into it. That won t be necessary for everybody who plays, but it s been a huge relief for me.

PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!