General Discussionnow I can't win on lina, wtf

Lina shouldn't be played as position 5 support. She just sucks at it. Mid is her best role. I don't think she is that hard to play on mid. Only hard aspect about her is proper positioning in team fights. Quick tutorial :

1. Buy Null & get pulled tangos. Rush bottle, brown boots, wand if needed. Go straight for Eul. If u get it fast, u can snowball really really hard. Other items are situational. In late game u probably want to have Hex, Refresher, Scepter, BKB, Travels, Shadow Blade/Blink. That's probably the most common late game Lina build.
2. Always get lvl 1 Stun, always. Then 2 points in Dragon Slave, 1 in passive, max dragon slave then Light Array. You last hit + harass with Dragon Slave & right click enemy hero as much as possible, abusing insane range. If u land a stun on him mid, there is a high probability he will die or will need to go back to base.
3. Bottle crow a lot & stack jungle to farm faster. She needs to constantly have high mana pool so secure runes + crow as much as possible.
4. At level 6 try to gank other lane (by tp or rune, don't just walk like idiot, if u try to walk into them do it at 7-8th minute, coz wards probably expired).
5. In team fights always stay behind. You need to understand that your role is to output dmg without dying, so u don't want to play her like Axe.

It's pretty telling that ur complaining about ur teammates when the avg mmr couldn't be higher than 3600

- don't go arcanes
- don't go aghs before Euls
- don't die 8+ times EVERY GAME
- buy ghost/force as a support (aka don't feed)

if you're a support go 4-4-1, the stun duration got buffed so it's actually a good duration maxed out. there's probably several situations that you could have changed with a more optimal skill build.

in the game where you're complaining about tinker and meepo being garbage, you went aghs first rather than euls which is cheaper and allows you to be way more effective on a shorter cooldown. you're 1-10 for crying out loud and you think you've somehow got one brain cell more than your teammates.

every game you go arcanes where tranquils or treads would probably be better. tranquils give you way more speed that also gets amplified by fiery soul, armour, and HP sustain. arcanes aren't very useful ona hero that has very high int gain per level, treads makes your animation less awful and provides lots of dps in the early game.

in your games you either didn't need them or a teammate already had them.

aghs is fine to go after euls especially if the enemy are rushing bkbs, for obvious reasons, but you can also get veil. aghs is basically a 33% increase in damage dealt vs heroes that have standard 25% resistance. veil is 1600 cheaper or so, 25% amplification but for all your spells, in an aoe, and for your teammates spells as well. plus easier build up which is something to consider when you don't have time/space to farm.

if you go euls and veil rather than aghs first or whatever, you are much more effective with just your setup + stun + dragon slave, even with just those spells and a teammate to help you, you can still get kills quite easily on people out of position, while going aghs makes you more reliant on your ultimate which is bad if you don't need to be reliant on it.

glimmer cape is OP this patch, and lina has the int gain to support the mana cost from just levels and euls.

for support lina i'd probably go tranquils + soul ring or just tranquils for boots, and go euls. soul's super mana efficient especially with your int gain and even a support lina can farm fast as long as she has the mana sustain for it which soul ring provides on an incredibly low cost. plus like with euls and veil it's supposed to make you better without your ult. you can throw out stun + slave more liberally. if it lands, go for the kill. if it doesn't, you've only wasted 2 spells that have less than a 10s cooldown. low commitment, low risk, but high reward if the stun lands.

since euls is almost always gonna be your first major item on lina, that's your mana sorted. you don't need arcanes. hence why tranquils or treads are preferred. by having both mana and health regen sorted you can stay on the map and be more of a threat.

i also like lina and windrunner as supports because their tree-cutting abilities opens up more warding spots, both unorthodox spots that wouldn't be possible, and making already existing spots better, although i'm pretty shit so take what i say with a grain of PJSalt

"in the game where you're complaining about tinker and meepo being garbage, you went aghs first rather than euls which is cheaper and allows you to be way more effective on a shorter cooldown. you're 1-10 for crying out loud and you think you've somehow got one brain cell more than your teammates."

I started like 1-2-2 while mid meepo was 2-6-0. You have to look at the context of the game, most deaths came long after game was decided inside our base from fountain diving and rax diving where of course the squishiest person on the team is going to die every fight.

"- don't die 8+ times EVERY GAME"
My deaths are very in line with the rest of the team and the flow of the game. http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1626181271 axe 4-11-11, veno 2-9-15, voker 6-7-12, slark 7-6-5, me 6-8-9. I don't think dying once more than an invoker who has escapes is that awful. I really don't think I'm dying too much, there's a couple times I definitely got picked stupidly for pushing a wave, but in general it's just cus enemy team is stomping us, I'm usually 3rd most deaths on team. Seems normal for a squishy support.

But I will try different booties. My mentality is usually caster support, go mana boots for team. Only heroes I don't are lion and lich. And I'll max that stun a little sooner and see if it helps.

Does anyone like mek or support items on her at all?

eye cancer. but anything works in 1k so...
http://www.dotabuff.com/players/164676076/matches?date=&hero=lina&skill_bracket=&lobby_type=&game_mode=&region=&faction=&duration=&enjoyment=any&timezone=Pacific%2FPago_Pago

> My deaths are very in line with the rest of the team

why is that acceptable? that doesn't mean you can't die less often. unless you're equally retarded as your teammates, then you shouldn't aim to die as often as they do.

don't get mek, mek is an item for core heroes. you aren't going to get it fast enough and even if you could, a fast euls or veil or blink would in most games be better. mana boots still suck even though they got buffed with guardians. not all supports go guardians because they're too expensive.

if you have to support, just build generic support items that have utility

glimmer
solar crest
force staff
sometimes pipe or vlads
euls
blink
veil
urn
ghost if needed

basically anything in the caster item section that isn't just damage

Saying die less noob is a cop out with no real value and that's not the issue with my play (other than a few specific instances which I already recognized). Dying less would probably mean less fight participation/playing passively which would hurt the team overall. I'm not feeding, I'm dying more less at a rate you would expect a support without escapes to die at in lopsided match. If I were starting mid 0-4 and coming back to like 6-8-10 scores then yeah that would be a huge issue but that's not what has been going on in the games, I'm not feeding, we are losing a bunch of team fights where we all die. Not taking those fights is just going to make my team wipe 4v5 even worse. Context.

Jesus man i feel u...the losin streaks r so depressive.
Imo u should go mid and play lina as a semycarry. I know u said u cant play her but hey can u be worse than those dudes who ruined ur games? And even if u r worse than them well every1 has to start somewhere.

What im tryin to say is that if u w8 to have a good team to win teh match u might probably get the short stick and lose a good amount of MMR on that (which u already have), while if u go mid urself at the worse case scenarion appart from the MMR losin which happens in both cases at least u learn a new mid hero and how to play lina in general, plus its goin to help u to understand her better and know her weak and strong points by a more direct approach.
And thats pretty helpfull in the long run since u r goin to meet alot of mid linas nowdays.

Cheers :)

Maybe give her a shot or two mid. Not unlike Lesh, Lina is better suited to a core role than support

^It's fine as position 4 support. She needs items & lvls badly. I see no reason to pick her as position 5 support, it's beyond bad.

DireWolf - watch some competitive games or high lvl pubs. Look at how many times supports die. If u use all ur spells in fight, u just go back & let ur allies die. I think u can die less.

Octarine Core on Lina is shit, don't buy it. There are many better items for such high price. Hex, Refresher are much better. Never skip Eul, always get it as first item. Scepter is not a must after nerf to range, so u don't need to get it always, but of course it's still great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD0nbZaoszA

specter is definately core... i would get it right after euls shadow blade is also pretty damn good to get off stun and escapes sometimes.

I'll skip oct core, get better boots, finish euls quicker, see if that makes a big enough difference. Try not to die needlessly!

I think lina works well as a 4 because she actually farms fine with spells since you always go euls and that mana regen will let you stun then dragon fire jungle camps and then finish them with right clicks. A lot of supports I feel money starved if I'm not getting assists, like lion and lich. I never feel that way on lina.

blink first meepo

:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Phase/Eul's/Aghs is core.
Usual progression is...
Phase -> (Some item to increase Effective HP) -> Eul's -> (Some positioning item) -> Aghs -> Whatever else you/team need...
The items in parentheses are not necessary if your team has a large early advantage.

Lina is usually a #4, but can be a #3 or even #2 (if given mid). Don't play her as #5 support.

lina safe lane support is really only good if your stacking stuns

sven/lina wk/lina cm/lina/ carry ECT

Phase are not a core. Many players (including me) skips them to get faster eul. After Eul+Blink+Aghs I upgrade brown boots to travels.

Finally got a win. Trilaned with a CM + jug, really good combo since you can drop stun after cm stun for easy landing. Went phase, mana was not an issue cus jug had bought aquila early plus CM aura so nice. CM was pretty good at roaming and we ganked mid couple times. Cores still tried to fucking throw by skipping bkbs vs lion, invoker, sf, earthshaker lineup. LC built bkb as a 5th item after deso and ac, jug never built one (jug's commonly do this, thinking ult and spin are enough, but he also built skadi for a right click jug so bkb makes more sense), storm never built one. Viel before aghs worked pretty well, I still got aghs right after sf got his bkb. Aghs plus viel plus lc duel is quite nice though you get a lot of bitching about ks'ing.

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1636224839