Dota Underlords - Valve's Auto Chess

Here you go, in depth of the whys and hows of this particular strat if you’re interested. Only game I played today, but they are all more or less always the same flow.

Troll Rope A Dope DOTA

Does anyone know if the higher difficulty AIs cheat, or do they simply access different build strategies?

Is it still fun when you’re trying to go for a certain build? I enjoy the randomness.

Necro wasn’t my first choice, but it was the best the RNG gave me. The 30% lifesteal synergy & extra heals on the front line worked out really well that game.

He’s not that good, but he certainly looks like he is watching the fights. I wouldn’t put him out unless he’s 2* for a bigger stun.

From what I can tell they play smarter, but I don’t know if they cheat at all. Challenging level puts up a good fight for me, and while I routinely win or finish in the top 3 I also have rounds where I don’t do that well.

Even if you don’t think a 1 star Kunka is worth fielding (even late game I suspect he probably is with a Heart of the Tarrasque or something, but I can see it being a real argument to make), he’s still worth drafting and benching to both deny others from building up theirs and to hold out for when other players are eliminated and new copies open up in the rotation.

There shouldn’t be a hero I draft every time regardless of current game state. To me there is. I admit there is a possibility I am completely clueless. Perhaps a new strategy will emerge that has yet to be seen to be believed. But I think drafting every Kunka you see is probably the correct move >99% of the time. And that’s just poor balance, really. They rushed this thing to market I wasn’t expecting perfection on the first public release build.

To be fair to them, he is pretty much the same in the mod.

I suspect I would have considered it poor design there as well, had I played it.

Eh, there are so many AOE powers that are at least as good. Alchemist has a 35 per tic dot that covers 9 squares, and reduces armor to boot. Enigma does 9% total health per second in a 12 square for 10 seconds lol…that’s so much more powerful than kunka it’s laughable. Lich has an orb that bounces 12 times, slows attack rate by 65% AND does 400 damage…that’s not even in the same stratosphere as kunka. Tidehunter, 12 squares, 3 second stun, 350 damage to all enemies.

I really believe people focus on kunka, because it has that giant boat graphic, and it’s the easiest to spot when it’s happening. Meanwhile, these other heroes are ganking you for twice the damage, and twice the stun length lol.

The only thing they really need to do to him, is maybe increase the cooldown, he becomes more problematic if you have the reduce cooldown by 50% trinket on him. From a damage/stun standpoint, he’s just a weaker Tidehunter. If you put the instant refresh ability trinket on Tidehunter, that is truly an iWin button, kunkka is a close 3rd to that maybe.

I think CC in general could be toned down in the game, as DPS happens so fast, being out of action, especially AOE, is a bit too powerful. I just don’t think Kunkka is really that much out of line with the other AOE stun/damage heroes.

I get your point, and why it bugs you, but it’s a bigger problem than just that one hero.

I’m definitely not trying to argue that AoE in general isn’t too powerful. But the stuns are more problematic in general than the damage (outside of Keeper), cause the damage ults won’t get cast if they are stunned.

I figured I would try the hardcore AI once to see how bad it is, and I actually won. Almost seemed easier than most challenging rounds. Started out warriors and druids, then added shadow fiend and trolls. Rounded it out with tide hunter, enigma, and kunkka and stomped them pretty well.

Is there are way to get a 3 star level 5 hero? It just doesn’t seem possible at that point in the game.

If it goes on long enough. I had 2 2 star tide hunters and enigmas. My last opponent also had a tide hunter so possibly not in that case.

Most games end by round 35, so it’s pretty tough to complete 3 stars on a 5, especially if you’re unlocking 10 slots for your heroes, as that takes quite a bit of gold. You’re usually lucky to get a 5 to 2 stars.

I’ve generally found getting three stars a lot more difficult than it is in Auto-Chess, but I rarely went after the top-tier heroes in that game so not sure about how easy it was to level one of those up.

Patch incoming with a good amount of (unspecified but larger scale) changes and reworks.

I hope they keep the constant change schedule from the mod which regularly reworked content and added and tried out new stuff all the time.

Units seem to be moving slower. I noticed when my melee guys kept trying to chase down a bunny mirana.

Yeah, it seems like it will be hard to do. Your only real chance will be hitting level 10, or getting the global that bumps your level for unit selection, and would still need to get to 9 for that probably to matter. So a ton of money to level up, then another 45 to get the 9 units, unless you get the global that lowers unit prices by 1. I’d made it to 2 2 stars after 38 rounds, but I was low on cash at that point after the round re-rolled and got the 2nd 2 star.

I’m looking forward to when they add replays. It would be nice to go back and look at parts of a game again, or to look over the play of some higher rated people.

If the numbers here are correct, then there can at most be 1 of a lvl 1 tier 5 unit owned by someone else for you to have a chance at completing a lvl 3 tier 5. There apparently are 10 copies of a tier 5 unit in the pool.

Heck, I’m always thrilled when I get my tier 4 units to 2 stars.

Yeah, it is pretty rare that I get a lvl 2 tier 5, usually if any it is a lvl 1.