How to deal with "How should one counter X ?" questions in MOBA?

Question

I've encountered several times now questions about DotA 2 which can be formulated as follow : "In this particulare scenario, How do I counter this character ?" or "How to counter this character ?". Exemple :

• How do I counter Bloodseeker mid?
• How to counter Earth Spirit

As an experienced player I can't help but to think of the many ways to do it and how much it depends on the situation. It depends on your level (in the game or as a player), on which version (patch) of the game you are talking about, on the heroes on the field, and many other things.

I always give a more "general" answer and I tend to give tips and advices more than actually answering for this particular situation.

Shouldn't the question "How to counter X ?" be concidered "too broad" ? But then, thinking of the many scenarios you can encounter in a MOBA, there would be as many infinite questions on "How to counter X ?" as there are of situations which I think would be way too specific and generate too much questions. I feel like I shouldn't ask 10 questions like :

• "How to counter Batrider mid ?"

then

• "How to counter Batrider in the offlane ?"

then

• "How to counter a jungling Batrider ?"

and so on... for every characters in the game (Which are more than 100 in DotA and as many in League of Legends).

Can anyone enlighten me ? Thanks

Answer 1

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I agree with you in the idea that the core answer to these queries is "It depends on the gamestate and a whole lot of other factors". That said, I also feel that answers like yours (in the ES question) and Decency's (in the mid Bloodseeker question) are actually really good, and would be the correct way to handle a more proper query - something more like "What are some ways to cope with Earth Spirit?"

The problem, though, to play my own Devil's Advocate, is that "What are some ways to cope with/deal with Earth Spirit?" is really open-ended, and would probably be closed as too broad in and of itself. I also agree with you in regards to the worry of a deluge of every X hero, Y lane, Z situation if allowed.

It's a really rough thing to suss out. I know we hate subjective handling of questions here (nearly as much as we hate subjective questions!) but I almost feel like this is best handled with a case-by-case analysis of the 3Ks that look at it.

Answer 2

I'm going to look at this from a different perspective, because I can think of an additional game where it could apply, and I have a little more experience in that game.

In Team Fortress 2, there are hard counters to every class. Snipers counter Heavies, Pyros counter Spies, Demomen Counter Engineers, et cetera.

The TF2 Wiki lists the hard counters TO those classes, or rather, it lists how each class measures up against it, because "which class should I use against X" is a common question.

The breakdown of which class works/doesn't work on different classes takes up a fairly substantial length of page on that Wiki, especially against complex classes with different loadout options.

And there are only 9 of them in this game.

I would consider a question of "How do I counter X class" for TF2 to be too broad, because there is no way to know what type of class the ASKER wants to play against them, and their ability to counter it is directly dependent on which class they are playing.

I haven't played much (okay, ANY) Dota 2, but I imagine the situation would be the same - it depends on which class you play, there are many classes with many different builds and strategies that can be employed against X class, and there are a LOT of Dota 2 characters. The question is too broad to answer all at once, and any 'definitive' answer will wind up being based on effectiveness, which is essentially an opinion answer.

Now, there is a legitimacy to this type of question, because players will very often get frustrated at not being able to deal with a particular character in a particular situation that is giving them trouble. So, what can we do?

We can answer for that specific situation

If a person wants to ask how to deal with Dota 2 Character on Mid when you're playing, say, a Support Class that said character might target frequently, and want to know how to avoid dying constantly to such a character or better yet, characters LIKE that character, that's something that can be answered very specifically without basing it too much on opinion. It's narrow enough that a person can offer an effective strategy in a single post, and not worry about veering into opinion-based answer wars.

This is fairly effective in TF2 answers, where there are specific classes that do specific things that you need to know how to counter, such as the Spy's ability to disguise, and how to tell if a friendly player is really a disguised spy. Each class has different ways to do this, but it's a very specific thing that they do, and they each have fairly reliable responses for that specific situation.