General DiscussionSo why do people still use 1-5 position system?

There are some problems with your suggestion as well.
You might not have a hard carry.
You might have a dual lane mid.
You might not have an offlane hero.
You might not have a second support.

The farm priority numbers are not that important. They are just there to give a general sense.

What does 1-5 even mean? I've never seen a full definition of it, I thought it was 1 was your hard carry, 2 was your semi, 4 was your support but maybe a nuker/disabler who wouldn't prioritize wards and 5 was your support who did majority of warding. Is that close?

But yea, it's kind of antiquated. Had a 5 man stack match last night we had bristle, invoker, timber, shadow shaman enigma. Who's 1-3 in that line up? Answer is it doesn't really matter.

its only purpose is to help new players understand the basic roles.

i use 5-10 system

Ok cus no one ever used it when I was learning, we just always said someone hard carry, get two supports, and fill in rest with utility/semi carry/nukers.

"What does 1-5 even mean?"
It basically means..
1 Hard Carry, afk jungling whole game omg you made us lose at 10 minute by not helping am!
2 Semi Carry, needs one item to get off the ground, but omg kill stealer!
3 Initiator, typically just needs blink, omg stop taking my farm
4 Semi-Support, Gankers, Nukers, etc. Stop saving your ult to killsteal! Omg!
5 Hard support, where the hell are my wards!? 4? That isn't enough! Do you see all that fog! Omg report noob.

Something like that.

^Examples of 1-5 role:
1. Antimage
2. Drow Ranger
3. Earthshaker
4. Nyx
5. Crystal Maiden

You are confusing the number with a set role.

The numbers merely reflect farm priority.

Which doesn't make sense because you're in different lanes. Really there's three 1's and two 5's. Mid gets all that farm, the other two lanes in a 2-1-2 setup have two guys who get last hits and two who don't. Simple.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=366357

This. Though this is pretty much unapplicable to pubs, I can imagine it being useful in team battles. I never used it, but I suppose some people find it useful to have their farm priorities set up.

^Dipshit ^Wink

3 is the gank leader, usually mid lane hero, examples are lion ns miranda nyx, they go sidelane gank as soon as they lv6.
3 is the soul of the team , whenever he goes, kills happen. 3 is often the team leader.
most of the awarded MVPs in pro games are position 3.

4 is support

5 is the roamer / warder.

that's just general speaking. since often times we have jungler and duo roamer. position 1-5 doesn't always apply

3 is offlaner, wtf whoji, what kind of doto are u playing?

4-5 sometimes swap position. example would be [A]kke and [A]EGM. Akke is 5 but if chen or enchantress gets picked, he plays it and builds mek so he turns to 4.

Wtf why do half the people not know what they are talking about

1. Gets the most farm, usually a hard carry like AM/PL/Spectre
2. Farms at the start of the game then sets up kills. Gets money from kills not AFK farming. Usually has most midgame impact but can snowball into lategame. Usually mid hero too. Examples are : Puck, QoP, Timbersaw.
3. Usually the offlaner, mostly a utility hero. Builds mek if supports aren't, pipe, hex, etc. Examples : Darkseer, Windrunner, Clockwerk.
4. Semi Support, gets some farm from pullcamps or when a lane is empty. Builds bigger supportive items, mek, forcestaff, etc.
5. Hard Support, usually gets no farm at the start of the game, generally the wardbitch.

Also, none of these roles are "Initiators". A 1 position alch can initiate with lothars, a 2 position puck/qop, 3 position clockwerk/tide, 4/5 position rubick/naga can all be initiators.

This 1-5 system is also not set in stone. A carry can let his 4/5 position rubick farm for a while to finish his blink dagger, and a 3-position windrunner despite being the utility hero can also transition to the late game with damage items. Just because you're a 5 pos support doesn't mean you have to end a 50 minute game with boots and stick. Positions can also change in game, say after puck gets his blink, farm priority goes to the darkseer for him to finish his mek. It all depends on the ingame situation.

generally 1 position gets the most farm and becomes the highest net worth on the team. position 2 gets second net worth on the team and so on and so forth. might not always happen since sometimes people go 14-0 on their heroes

many people are getting it confused with roles. it is simply a farm priority as TehMasterSword said. position 1 and 4 passing by a creep camp, position one takes it. position 2 and 3 have an opportunity for an easy kill with time to spare, pos 3 let's pos 1 take it. the number have nothing to do with the role of the hero in the team.

while the roles and numbers have a common pattern they are not true for every game.

1-5 is a much better system than carry-support. some supports scale better than others and some carries are item independent.
most heros can be played with several different farm and xp priorities. where you are placed in a 1-5 scale depends on the two lineups more than the hero.

a good example in recent memory is naga siren who was played pro level in many different roles over the last year or two.