Hello, my name is Clinton "FearDarkness" Loomis, from southern Oregon. We recently joined Team compLexity, and we were formerly known as clan PluG (PluG Pullers Inc.). We've been together for about 6 months as a clan but have known each other for a year, if not more. We’ve been competing in DotA leagues like the IGS since cycle2, and now we’re doing the CAL league.

Being one of the few sponsored DotA teams, what luxuries and advantages have you found being merged with compLexity? Are your players' mindset for the game more serious than before?

Merging with compLexity has not only made us a stronger team, but definitely a more serious team. Before, we would just practice whenever we had enough on, but now we practice with a roster size of about 8 players (7 for CAL games), have set times to practice, and take it much more seriously. As for luxuries compLexity is a well known clan so we get the best support plus we get praise from people that are just coL fans, from whispers on bnet to pms on forums and much more.

Who are your 7 players on your team currently?

Our team currently consists of: Myself, DOGKaiser, warr1ck, Kainin, jcm3, Throzz and inDe_eD .

Let's move on to the hot topic issues:
1) Necronomicon. What is your opinion on the mass Necronomicon strategy?

The Necronomicon strat, usually the other team will get intel heroes and lvl up these books and push while keeping the other teams key heroes manaburned to become useless ( i.e. manaburning a Tauren or a Faceless Void so they cant lead with their ults). But as far as the strat goes BOTH teams have the option to do it, it's hard to counter unless you know the other team is going to do it, but... I think the better team will still win in the end.

Do you believe there should be changes to Necrobook, league-wise and for the next version? If so, what changes?

I DO agree there should some changes with the Necronomicon book.
1) The mana burn destroyed too much mana.
2) The exploding necromicon deal 600dmg if you kill and its invulnerable to magic at level 3 which makes it so you can't really get rid of it w/o taking a monstrous amount of damage to yourself.

So what would your version of Necronomicon look like?

It would still be able to see invis units, would still have a manaburn but.. it would have LESS range and burn LESS mana, the exploding necromonicon would do LESS damage when killed and they would not be magic immuned at level 3.

Currently, should a limit be placed on Necrobook for league play?

As of now, it wouldn't hurt to put a limit on it, but BOTH teams do have the option of using them.. I currently think in most cases the better team will still win in the end if fully prepared. But I do still find the mass Necronomicon strat to be a little too imbalanced as it is.

Wouldn't DotA just turn into a mass book battle in league play? You don't know if the opposing will go mass books or not so it is not easy for you just to pick counter heroes like Keeper of the Light to counter manaburn. How can you prepare against it?

Personally, I think DotA would be better off without Necronomicon, but it's here so we have to deal with it. Well, few signs to look for if they are going Necronomicon 1) they get an unusual amount of intelligence heroes or if they have a history if doing it. But yeah, as for preparation keeper is a good choice to replace mana or just mass books to counter their books and keep them mana burned and still have aoe to defend vs the necronomicons untill they become magic immune. But you really have to go out on a limb and pick the right heroes because its not easy to guess if they are going to do it while you’re picking your heroes.

2) CAL league: The scoring in CAL league at the moment does not really give an accurate comparison for scoring. How can you decide between multiple teams tied with the same score? What is your opinion on this dilemma?

Well I think the rpi should be able to handle this inconsistencies with CAL. Hopefully the admins will make sure that the most deserving teams make playoffs by whatever means necessary to run a fair league.

Many gamers do not give DotA merit as a platform for professional gaming. Do you believe this is true? What changes will you make to make this game succeed as more than just a fun mod?

I think it has what it takes to become one of the TOP competitive games, requires chemistry between teams, teamwork and individual skill. The reason I think most people don't like it is because it wasn't released by a big name company and was made through a community and mainly played through that community as well and now is skyrocketing in its success. As far as making this game succeed better I think if Blizzard decides to be more involved with it would become even larger.

The question regarding whether Blizzard should be more or less be involved can be seen as the next step for DotA. Should Icefrog let Blizzard take over for DotA? Or should Icefrog be looking to remove the Battle.net dependency of DotA?

I think the game should stay with icefrog and let blizzard become more involved in terms of adding it to ladder and let them give there advice to icefrog in terms of balance. But if you give the game to Blizzard then the game will have less influence from the community on it. Also I think Blizzard seems more concerned about other games such as the wc3 ladder, sc ladder and WoW and I don’t think they are that concerned about DotA yet, even though I think they should be. DotA has a chance to be put up there with the other top competitive games on the professional circuit such as CS and Q4. I hope Blizzard begins to take interest in this ever growing game and become helpful to whatever extent they can. I know Valve (Half-Life) picking up Counter-Stike helped the company’s success tenfold.

Any LAN tournaments for coL.DotA scheduled?

As of now, we do not have any lan tourneys scheduled, but we're keeping our eyes open.

Will coL matches be broadcasted with waaaghtv anytime soon?

It’s not possible right now because you need an observer in the game to be the recorder. If this can be changed by Icefrog so we can still do 5v5 games with an observer then we would broadcast live. As of now we will be posting our replays from all our CAL matches at the top of compLexityclan.com as soon as the games are finished.

What specific aspects are missing from most teams you have played that would let them step up their game?

Most teams don't like to stay together for a long period of time and don't build up the chemistry with each other needed to become one of the best teams. Too many people just swap around from clan to clan just because they lost on their old team or had a dispute.

What aspects does your team need to work on?

Well, I think we just need to continue to find counters to the new strats, and continue to play with each other daily.

Can you describe some of the weaknesses of your older strategies, and what you did to improve or change them?

We used to use a "wave strat" on scourge which mainly consisted of AOE spells brought together by magnus ult (i.e. here are some typical wave strat heroes: Magnus/Lich/DP/Razor/Sandking.) but since like Silencer came out and just owns a wave strat with all his silences, we were forced to switch to other leading heroes like Faceless void and clinkz so we can kill the silencer before he can own us with his aura and his global silence.

For the last question, give a tip to the readers that reveals a hidden aspect or overlooked aspect of DotA that could become crucial in league play.

Well, one little secret that can be used for league play, is when you do -lm at the beginning of the game you can kill the neutral creeps that spawn at 2:00, and before the creeps already come you will already have an advantage over your opponent.

Shoutout and final comments?

Shout outs to our loyal sponsors: Icemat, Steel-Series, Hi-Def Servers and Gamecomm.