DOTA 2 : FLUFF Interview

Recently Raid Call Dota 2 League interviewed FLUFF from Team Liquid. Below is the detailed information:One of the most interesting young minds in western Dota 2, Team Liquid's Brian 'FLUFF' Lee has sat down for an interview with D2L's Justin 'Clever' Groot to talk about his new teams development, growing pains, their recent record at the D2L and some of his thoughts on hero balance. Here are some excerpts, enjoy!  All of TL’s Dota 2 roster had experience playing together as part of complexity’s team except for Bulba and Korok. How are they assimilating into the team? Bulba and Korok fit right in. Mike has been really good friends with the both of them and there was only a slight bit of awkwardness in the beginning. As far as teamplay goes, the addition of Korok and Bulba has offered our team a versatility that was previously unachievable. I feel that it gives our team an edge because of the curve balls we can throw, as opposed to our very standardized complexity-style drafts and lanes. Korok understands his role very well and I feel that I can trust his in-game decision making ability. Bulba is very thoughtful and considers several different options to impact the game. I really enjoy the new perspectives and they significantly strengthen our core. At this point, it’s all about playing to our strengths and patching up our weaknesses.  Despite your youth, you’re the captain of one of the most prominent Dota 2 teams in the world. How do you handle all the pressure? The pressure is immense, for sure. In the past I would take all the blame and it affected me a lot. I fell into a really terrible pattern of thinking up really creative strategies and then indefinitely discarding them after losing once or twice. I always believed it was draft over play, simply because it was a lot easier to criticize. Teams always want to believe that drafts make the games, but they always forget to account for mistakes and playing to their lineups potential. For example, a team might pick more for split-pushing and ganking, but they might feel pressured to respond to enemy pushes. Then they get confused and ask for reinforcements via tp and take fights where their heroes do not shine. You wouldn’t want an early game storm to fight 5v5 against a Chen, Beastmaster, Tidehunter, Luna, and Venomancer lineup. So they end up responding to fights where their heroes don’t shine and then blame the losses on picks, instead of pushing sidelanes for pressure and picking heroes off to slow their pace. This has happened to us multiple times, but these days we realize why our approach was flawed rather than discarding the ideas themselves. As for how I deal with the pressure, I just take a lot of time to reflect and think. I like reading about philosophy and self-development. I’m very introspective approach to life and it helps me keep calm. Ultimately though, experience is king and I would still be just as weak if I didn’t commit to being a leader. Actualizing ideals is the best way to progress, in my eyes.  If you had to play a Best-of-99 against Empire, what do you think the final score would be? I honestly don’t know. I’d imagine if it was all in “one day”, then we’d lose all of them after getting tired and losing all momentum. If it were spread out over a week or two, then we’d definitely find our footing and understand how to play their game. It’s the same way with LGD.int and their scrimming results in China. I asked Brax about it, in person, and he told me that they simply couldn’t win for a long while. Their recent results speak leaps and bounds about how work ethic, practice and the proper environment can spur on success.  Are there currently any heroes that, in your view, need to be buffed? If so, which ones, and why? I find it really questionable that our support heroes are simply solo mid heroes that can get away with having nothing. From patch to patch we see core heroes getting massive buffs and supports like Crystal Maiden/Witch Doctor remaining virtually untouched. A lot of the older core supports are being phased out because their abilities simply aren’t as good. I don’t know how, but there has to be a way to make these heroes much more relevant. Here’s an example, Earthshaker, one of my favorite champions can hardly hit two effective fissures in one teamfight. It would make him much more effective to reduce the cooldown of his Fissures, instead, he received a buff to enchant totem which he hardly lands as a support. But a champion Gyrocopter or Sven can be a support since their abilities are buffed greatly.Sources: RaidCall Dota 2 League