Yep, doing this would be a good way. Or if you see a player who is known to do that kind of things: Keep an extra eye on your portal flags, buy yourself a Capture Lock and if you see that he's going to your base port there with a scroll and lock your flag before he can do it. Normally he have to run trough half of you base, so you should be able to see his attempt more than fast enough.

Noob sauce just got pwnt by the community.

IMO the flags should have a chain of control.

But yea, always have a TP (never played dota? =o)

HEY COOL.  YOU DISCOVERED A VIABLE STRATEGY.

baww banlist for backdooring etc.

~_~

No offense, but a high powered rook can knock down a tower before enemy DG's can respond assuming zero reaction time, much less before they can kill him or with a human reaction time.  Other DG's have similar advantages.

Short version: LEARN TO PLAY THE GAME

Uhh this is a completely fair strategy, and in fact the only map you can really do it on is cataract. First off... do you have any idea how much money/time it takes to produce giants? If you've let them get giants, chances are you've already lost. this strategy minimally needs  catapults before its even remotely viable.

Second, cap locks only last 30 seconds. That's enough time for exactly 1 full wave to get through the portal. If you don't respond to them taking your portal within that amount of time you're oblivious to what's going on in the game and once again deserve to lose.

Third, based on the amount of money they've had to spend in order to get giants, you can safely assume their gear sucks pretty hard. assuming you've spent money on yourself the whole game it shouldn't be that much of a challenge for you to kill them.

This strategy is hard enough to pull off against an incompitent player, against a compitent player it almost never works. You'd have to be up against like 2 level 20 rooks who completely barricade up the flags with towers.

As everyone else has said, you found a new strategy, learn to use it and learn to counter it. Don't whine about it being overpowered.

I don't think the concept is OP, but the execution may be slightly too powerful.  Frankly, it doesn't take very long to get through the towers, capture the flag, and lock it.  This isn't really that much of a problem.  The lock lasts just about long enough for a creep wave.  Again, this isn't really a problem.

The problem is that once the lock is worn off, you can lock it again.  This may not sound like a problem, but considering you can tele scroll to the falg (since it is under your control) and lock it againas soon as it comes unlocked, this becomes somewhat of an issue.  If you time it properly so you pop out of tele just as the flag is unlocked, there is very little the opposing team can do to prevent you from locking the flag again.

Just brainstorming on the spot, but I can think of two obvious options that could be used to stop this without removing portal locking as a strategic option.

1)  Make it impossible to teleport to a locked flag.  While you could still run in and lock the flag as soon as it became unlocked, it would be much more difficult than simply tele scrolling in.

2)  Give flags a Lock Immunity similar to Stun Immunity.  For perhaps... 10 seconds after a flag is locked, it cannot be locked again.  This forces the offending team to actually hold the flag for short periods of time to prevent it from falling back into enemy hands.  Right now, you can just pop in real fast and lock it again.  If there was a short period of Lock Immunity, it would be significantly more difficult to hold on to an enemy portal.

For the record, I have never lost to this strategy.  Don't come in here and ignore everything I said assuming I'm some whining n00b complaining over a game where the other team out-played me .

I don't know what the actual flag behavior is while they are locked and I can't convince the AI to help me test it (yes, I tried).  What I do recall is a specific match where a Reg decided to stand next to the locked flag the entire time and I was still able to port in and lock it again.

Also, the Flag Lock is 45 seconds and the Tele Scroll cooldown is around 30 seconds.  That is not an issue.

Firstly, using Erebus nullifies all your points as he can stun them with Mass Charm and run away with Bat Swarm.  Other Demigods, while not quite so aptly suited, still have things they can do.  Rook and Ice TB can stun the enemy while you lock, QoT has great survivability with Mulch and Bramble, Sedna is tough to kill with massive regen and Heal, and Oak can use Shield to either cap undisturbed or run away.  Additionally, minion build generals are only slightly inconvenienced if the actual Demigod is busy locking the flag.  (For example, Oak can pop in and quickly Surge and Penitance before starting the lock while his minion swarm does all the damage.)  Also, if the timing works out, there may be allied Giants/Catas in the exchange.

And this is all assuming there is only one Demigod dealing with this on each side.  You can throw some nasty Demi combinations together for an unstoppable flag re-lock.  For example, Erebus starts to teleport.  Oak Shields Erebus.  Erebus finishes teleporting.  Erebus stuns all nearby Demigods with Mass Charm (this cannot be stopped/interrupted due to Shield).  Erebus locks the flag.  Erebus runs/Bat Swarms away.  Even if the entire enemy team is sitting on the flag, they can't stop this from happening.

And here's the best part.  You don't even have to kill the defender.  Its a win for you if the enemy falls back or you can manage to run away after the flag is locked.  Just get in and out without getting yourself killed.

O rly?

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8373/clipboard01uhh.png

And either way, you could just have a second Demigod port in and lock it anyway.

Give me examples because I honestly can't think of any.  If the strat is executed properly, it would be extremely difficult to stop.  Maybe even impossible if the proper combination of Demigods is executing it.

Now you are discussing the initial cap/lock, which I don't have a problem with.  The problem comes up once you get a successful lock.  Getting the first lock can be difficult, but keeping it locked is too easy imo.  My suggested change is to introduce Lock Immunity.  Sneaking in and ninjaing a portal will be just as hard and will still cripple the enemy, at least for the next creep wave or two.  (I'm not really sure how frequently creeps spawn, but I imagine you could probably get two waves from this if you time it correctly.)  The problem comes in once that lock expires, as there is virtually no way for the defending team to retake their portal.  Lock Immunity would force the offenders to actually hold the portal, at least for a short while, between flag locks.

It would still be doable, it would just be a little more difficult.

Erebus is actually better at this than oak.  Remember Oak's invulnerability lasts only 6 seconds at most and has about a 30 second cooldown.  He is hardly invincible for a long time.  So you should be able to protect your flags and drive him out of your base fairly easily in most situations.  Erebus can just batform past the towers in the places where this works.