"Hello, and welcome to a new Dota 2 Report!"
The Dota 2 Reporter by Wronchi Animation
is an animated Affectionate Parody of Dota 2, starring Nigel the Reporter. The first few episodes took on a gag-a-day format, but it quickly became more focused on a single round, with established teams, each episode progressing towards the end of a "typical" round of Dota with Nigel playing the role of Radiant's Courier, until Season 3 when he became a spectator (and later took control of Phoenix). Also starring are Enigma and Rubick, with Pudge as a recurring side character who has appeared in every season so far. All other characters have swapped out each season.
Is currently on indefinite hiatus as the creator has hit a creative block.
The characters in each season are;
Season 1
- Radiant: Enigma, Rubick, Anti Mage, Pudge and Dazzle
- Dire: Dark Seer, Windranger, Faceless Void, Huskar and Bane
- Radiant: Enigma, Rubick, Bristleback, Invoker and Gyrocopter
- Dire: Pudge, Nyx Assassin, Io, Spectre and Nature's Prophet
- Radiant: Rubick, Kunkka, Axe, Timbersaw and Juggernaut (With mini-Pudge as courier)
- Dire: Enigma, Crystal Maiden, Tidehunter, Phoenix and Terrorblade
- Radiant: Tiny, Enigma, Rubick, Skywrath Mage and Invoker
- Dire: Shadow Fiend, Spirit Breaker, Tidehunter, Lion and Gyrocopter
- Radiant: Enigma, Rubick, Tiny, Shadow Fiend, Legion Commander
- Dire: Lion, Spirit Breaker, Gyrocopter, Storm Spirit, Techies
Provides examples of:
- Adaptational Badass: In Season 1, Roshan is much more powerful than in the game.
- A Lighter Shadeof Grey: The Enigma group is usually a bit more friendly than the opposing team.
- Anti-Climax: The opening of season 4 has the heroes declare that the game "is in the bag" only for it to end immediately when Invoker rage quits upon seeing Enigma.
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Badass Decay: Roshan. - Borrowed Catchphrase: Rubick, upon being hit with Frostbite, quotes Lich.Rubick: Frost bitten, twice shy... oh uh, that's not my line.
- Brick Joke: In Season 1, Pudge only remembers to call "Missing Middle!" after it's too late to do any good. In season 2, Pudge is on the other team, opposite Invoker. After Invoker aids in a successful gank, Pudge stares blankly before calling "Missing Middle!"
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Gyrocopter isn't all there in the head.
- Cluster F-Bomb: When most of the Radiant team gets ganked because Pudge didn't warn anyone Huskar was missing, Enigma teleports to him just to unleash one of these.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The early episodes are just a single moments in different Dota 2 games, it is only when episode 9 comes out does the series encompasses a single game on a single season.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When his creeps pointed that he was leaving a trail of red rectangles, Enigma was recalling the spell that causes that effect and realizing that it would return him to the enemies he was escaping from.Enigma: Hey I know that spell! That's X-marks the- shit!
- Flanderization: Rubick was a wacky but competent character in early episodes, but later his competence is played up while his wackiness is dialed way back.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Repeatedly throughout the series.
- Foil: The "New Faces" on Radiant and Dire in season 3 Tidehunter and Terrorblade for the Radiant, and Kunkka and Timbersaw for the Dire, are all examples of various less-than-helpful players. Radiant's duo are less harmful to their team than Dire's.
- Both Tidehunter and Kunkka appear relatively stupid and unskilled, and despite Tidehunter being the stupider of the two, his choice of hero and synergy with Enigma and Phoenix compensate for it. All he has to do is be somewhat near the fight, then hit Ravage, to contribute meaningfully, while Kunkka's high complexity kit requiring timing and positioning to make the most use out of, make his lack of skill more noticable.
- Both Terrorblade and Timbersaw are greedy, rarely leave their lane, and have an inflated sense of self-worth. Where they differ is that Terrorblade is an Item Caddy with Magikarp Power who can legitimately scale very well with his constant farming, while Timbersaw is a Crutch Character who simply ends up as a bulkier Stone Wall that still has no damage scaling. Terrorblade is also noticably more of a braggart who simply loves to talk himself up once he's farmed, whereas Timbersaw constantly berates his team to make himself feel better.
- Friendly Enemy: In season 3, Rubick and Enigma, being on opposite teams, shares a good laugh and friendly chat after their 1v1 which they both died.
- Hypocritical Humour: According to Bristlebacknote ;Bristleback: I never turn me back on a fight!
- Infinity +1 Sword: The Divine Rapier becomes the catalyst for the final confrontation of season 2.
- It's All About Me: Invoker, oh so very much. Every second line out of his mouth is about him threatening to feed the enemy team if he doesn't get his way.
- Jerkass: Nature's Prophet is heavily implied to be a muted player, only quoted lines from the chatwheel. Fitting, his hero was the then-overpowered split pusher, and his strategies are essentially griefing writ large.
- Several characters could qualify, really. Enigma, Invoker, Timbersaw, Kunkka, Shadow Fiend, Storm Spirit...
- Jet Pack: Nigel, as a flying courier, has one of these.
- Lampshade Hanging: Much of the humour comes from pointing out how nonsensical some Dota mechanics can be. Nigel learns to just accept it and move on.
- The Leader: Enigma and Rubick becomes one in season 3 for each of their respective teams as they try to keep their other members from killing each other.
- The Load:
- In season 1, there was Pudge, who literally rots himself to death, doesn't react to getting attacked, and needs to be reminded to not rot himself to death in the fountain, and Dazzle a "support" who spends more time farming a dagon and using it to killsteal than anything else.
- In season 3 for the Dire, we get Tidehunter, whose defining character trait are his literal-mindedness, slow reaction time, and huge pile of cosmetics, and Phoenix, who completely fails to do anything useful, And then he abandons the game. If Nigel didn't step in, the Dire would've had to fight a 4v5. The Radiant on the other hand, has Kunkka who really just can't aim nor time his abilities at all, along with Timbersaw, tunnel-visions onto kills and hogs xp and gold despite his Hero's poor scalings, and whose overall toxic attitude makes him difficult to work with.
- Downplayed with Tidehunter,despite his obvious incompetence, his ultimate is so powerful and easy to use that he manages to be useful anyway.
- No Kill like Overkill: After Radiant make an early attempt at killing Roshan, Axe dies, alerting Dire to what's happening. They're all low on health, and refuse to abandon the attempt, allowing Enigma and Nigel/Phoenix to easily land Black Hole and Supernova, either one of which could have finished the remaining Radiant heroes. But combined?Enigma: Well. That was overkill.
- Oh, Crap!: Spleen's reaction to the 6.85 patch heavily nerfing the Techies.
- Offscreen Momentof Awesome: In the episode 55, Juggernaut manages to defeat Roshan by himself, but the fight happens off-screen..
- Only Sane Man: Rubick 3rd season trying to keep his team together to accomplishing something before they waste too much time bickering amongst each other.
- Pokémon Speak: Dazzle and Nyx Assassin, to comical effect.
- Precision F-Strike: Crystal Maiden, who up to that point only spoke in her quotes from the game, drops one upon remembering how Axe's Berserker's Call works, as he's about to use it on her.
- Running Gag: When Nigel questions some Fridge Logic about the game, he is always told "you're just going to have to accept this and move on". Eventually he stops questioning things, but the gag still gets referenced.
- Combining items together involves either a nonsensical action like banging one's head into them repeatedly, or taping/gluing them together. This results in things like Force Staff always being depicted as a Staff of Intelligence with a Ring of Regen and a recipe attached haphazardly.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Phoenix('s player?) abandons the game part way through season three. Nigel, the spectator of the game decides to step in and take control of Phoenix to help out. Which isn't possible in a real game, but;
- Silent Antagonist: The Dire team from season 2 doesn't really speak any original voice-acted lines. Spectre and Wisp are completely silent, Nyx Assasin only speak his name, Pudge only speaks through in-game lines while Nature's Prophet only speaks through chat wheels.
- Small Name, Big Ego: When Terrorblade has just last hit one creep, his reaction is immediate delight, or when he scores an ultra killnote , he boasts about becoming the new International champion.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Enigma and Rubick get a lot more screen time than Nigel. Particularly in season 3, when Nigel becomes a spectator instead of being a courier. Partway through he takes control of an abandoned hero, which almost seems like an excuse to give him some scenes without having to cut away from the other heroes.
- Too Dumb to Live: Tidehunter went to the enemy fountain and went to look for his blink dagger (even after the courier that holding it got killed) ignoring the fact that he is getting zapped to death.
- After he respawned, he didn't realize that he was alive again, making it a case of being too dumb to realize he's alive!
- Took a Level in Badass: In Season 1, Pudge can't hit a stationary target with his hook. In Season 2, Enigma is willing to resort to "Tactical Pause" to dodge a hook from him, now on the other team.
- Enigma himself is showing signs of this. Before he had a lot of fail moments such as completely whiffing Black Hole and blinking into trees and getting stuck. He hasn't missed a Black Hole in episode 2 & 3 as well as showing advanced tactics such as baiting the enemy team and turning a sure death into killing the hero that killed him at the last second.
- Webcomic Time: In the episode 55, Terrorblade says: "Well, uh, this match has been going on for almost half a year now"
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Timbersaw's fear of trees is still present, but he has a handle on it.Terrorblade: Timbersaw, look! A tree!
Timbersaw: Oh sorry? A tree? Oh, that's really funny, I've Never Heard That One Before (forced laughter) Oh no, a tree! I'm scared! Happy? - Xtreme Kool Letterz: Nigel's screen name is [TD2R]reporterman420nosc0pe¯\_(ツ)_/¯¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
