Are Dota Teams very well Balanced?

Question

Peers often tell me that Dota is more about skill of the player, and not really on the heroes themselves.

This talk happened after the epic win of Alliance versus Na'Vi, with me agreeing that Na'Vi had the better lineup in terms of hero strength. One thing I didn't consider was that the Alliance lineup can travel all over the map REALLY well.

I am skeptic though. Is it safe to say, that any dota hero lineup can win against any other hero lineup fairly?

for example, a team picks a lineup of Chen, ezalor, wisp, slayer and rylai. Does that team have a fair chance of winning against Doom, Magina, Sven, Treant, Warlock ( much more rounded team in my opinion)?

Assuming all teams are incredibly skilled at each hero, are the both teams of heroes evenly matched?

Can I have an example of a dota 2 lineup that can NEVER win, or a lineup that's a GUARANTEED win?

Answer 1

Your example lineup is viable and can win depending on which tatic is going to be played and player skill of course. However your lineup is forced to go an all in tactic since it will not outcarry the second lineup.

If they can manage to push one lane of rax around the 20 min mark they have a solid chance of getting another lane and win the game around the midgame. Since they have a solid global ganking strat combined with push it will be hard for the enemies to get a solid early to midgame.

But if they play with mapawareness and defensive they will not get picked of too much and stop the first rax push since they could farm their midgame items on their carries.

So in conclusion: Your lineups are not a good example of extreme cases of lineups and therefore can both win.

There are lineups that are unlikely to win. Those are present in AtoD tourneys (DotA reversed) where people pick the lineup for the enemies (making it extremely bad). For example an 5 hero lineup with no early game presence like spectre, riki , etc.

Those will most likely not win vs a rounded or a strong early game team.

And to answer your final question: There is no lineup for a guaranteed win if we are talking competitive CM mode. If you are talking about AP there are good synergy lineups but nothing that would not be counterable. Dark Seer + Naga Siren + any more aoe heroes was once considered extremely hard to beat and navi did it with a fast bkb on enigma and an naturally magic immune hero like juggernaut.

Final conclusion:

Picking lineups in CM mode is taking away a lot of the game already. Forcing enemies into tactics that they expect to beat is an extreme advantage.