Dota 2 is my first ARTS game and I've played about 65 matches of it. The problem though, is that I'm really bad. I've tried watching guides and everything but it doesn't help a bit. Of course, lately I've been doing better but I still have a problem dealing with heroes like Ursa and Riki. I've asked my friend for advice but he can't stop being an asshole and just keeps on telling me that I suck. I really don't know what to do. I don't wanna be super 50/0/10 pro, just better. Please help!
Ursa = Force Staves and Ghost Scepters are life savers. Have ample amounts of stuns. Ward rosh around 7 minutes. Go gank him if he's jungling, he spends his time in time in there around half health all the time.
Riki = Gank before 6, gank after 6 with dust, plop down some sentry wards in key spots and in teamfights. Riki is easy to kill.
#1 thing is don't feed them. It might be hard to do with shit teamates, but just be whiny and yell for ganks.
If you're a fragile hero like Zeus or Lina, never go out alone in the mid to late game because you're pretty much a free-kill. Play within the limits of your hero. Press "s" to stop an attack. This in conjunction with right-clicking creeps will get you better at last-hitting which I hope you know why is very important.
When in the laning phase usually try to go for just last-hits, and don't push the creeps to the enemy towers by autoattacking, this makes it harder for you to farm
It's not always a good idea to cast an ability on an enemy just because they're in range. Keep your mana consumption in mind.
And above all else, remember that there are 100+ some heroes in the game, and you will go through some "wtf! x can do that!?" moments before you get a feel for all heroes.
Riki can easily be countered by basic Warding or buying a Truesight gem, especially if you stick with someone a bit bulkier than you.
You know those awkward mid-game moments where the enemy disappears yet the creep wave doesn't need to be pushed and you're waiting for a teamfight or something to happen? That's the perfect time to get some extra gold and exp in the jungle.
Just a few things I can think of.
Watching competitive dota has shown me quite a few tricks; check out a VoD or two on ww.joindota.com
Be smart about your character picks, try and encourage communication before everyone chooses if it's single/random draft. Certain carries will be terrible to deal with if you all have terrible picks to counter them.
But honestly, above all, coaching is your best bet. This community is absolute shit 90% of the time so you'll really have to put up with it until you get better friends.
Is there anything specific you're having trouble with? (Beginning/Mid/End-game ; Items ; Roles?)
For last hit training go into an empty bot match as Shadow Fiend, go mid, and aim for those last hits until you don't miss one. Focus on Necromastery.
Ursa just requires some kiting, you need items for him or someone with a slow (Veno, Drow, Viper, Dazzle, etc.) Grab a Rod of Atos or a Euls Scepter. Heaven's Halberd is hilarious. PS, if you want to really counterpick Ursa because of a personal vendetta (like I had) go Doom Bringer. Doom shuts off his fury swipes and his lifesteal, so he's worthless. Ghost Scepter as mentioned above works too.
Riki, grab wards, dust, or a gem if you're tanky enough. Remember, silences cancel his ulty. So heroes with a silence, or the item Orchid Malevolence work wonders. Force staff is also great for getting out of his cloud, and honestly, if he is visible and out of his smoke, he's a walking meal.
[QUOTE=Reno360;37544954]For last hit training go into an empty bot match as Shadow Fiend, go mid, and aim for those last hits until you don't miss one. Focus on Necromastery.[/QUOTE]
Morphling with all str :v:
Well it's mostly with getting the kills. I can harass pretty good, but not full kills and I end up as a meal with more deaths than kills. I also have trouble running away. I always run away at what I think is a right time, but I'm always a second too late running away.
Have tons of map awareness, always check that minimap constantly. Map awareness lets you easily escape and gank other lanes effectively. For example if you are Dire bot and haven't seen their mid on the minimap for a little while you can safely assume they are trying to gank and should hide near your tower.
If you know where all the other team is, you can safely play aggressively, when the enemies that would probably gank you are all missing you should play passively/safely and see if your team knows where they are. Being aware of where all the enemies are is a very big part of dota and can make or break a game really easily. Awareness is also how to counter heroes like Ursa because if you always know when he is doing Rosh you can easily stop him.
Get new friends, I hate when people make friends in dota then just shit on them all the time and act superior.
I met this one guy in Dota 2.
We have over 100 matches together now.
[editline]7th September 2012[/editline]
Proof that you can meet good friends on dota.
No he is a real-life friend. And he is a real smart-ass in real-life as well.
There's only so much you can really be taught about this game, only way to get good is to play a lot and watch how your teammates succeed. Tournament games use a lot of good tactics but ultimately its a completely different game than a pub match.
Best advice I can offer is pay attention and try to understand the enemy players. Learn when you can kill them and when you can't. If you can kill and don't you're just letting them farm, if you can't kill them and try you're feeding them.
[QUOTE=Squeaken;37583035]There's only so much you can really be taught about this game, only way to get good is to play a lot and watch how your teammates succeed.[/QUOTE]
i vehemently disagree with this
you can be taught everything about the game but putting it into practice is the hard part, and trying to remember what is and isn't relevant.
and dont try and learn from your peers, as their bad habits can possibly pass onto you. (e.g, mask of madness/basher riki, it's pub cheese but one stun will destroy you).
XVrogue ([url]http://www.youtube.com/user/xvroguegaming[/url]) has a good set of videoes about class mechanics and learning to fix your mistakes, as well as casts of pub games where he points out the mistakes of players, be it items or skill sets, or whatever.
Practice, practice, practice. Don't worry about playing with bots, because you're only going to learn so much from their shitty AI. It's good to play with friends, but you learn the most, in my opinion, by just playing by yourself. Pick heroes you enjoy (as it feels more natural to play as them), but don't forget you're in a team game. If your team of randoms doesn't pick up a courier, drop the 150 and buy one yourself. If you need a support, don't pick the fourth of fifth carry for the team.
I don't think you're going to be playing any competitive Dota anytime soon, so just try and remember: have fun. If people are bothering you, mute them. I've met very few people on Dota that actually do help, so you're not missing out on much by muting foul (or foreign) language. There's no point in arguing with them, and it just ruins your experience.
Some easy heroes that are helpful to the team, just off the top of my head:
Skeleton King
Lich
Zeus
Death Prophet
Lycan
SK is a very meaty hero with an obviously useful ult, and with his stun, he's easy enough to use while still being a formidable force. Lich teaches you the necessity of mana conservation and denying very, very quickly, so he's a good support hero. Zeus and DP are good "how to mid in a nutshell" heroes, especially because they're heavily spell-spam reliant. Lycanthrope is just a pathetically easy hero to play as and teaches you the basics of jungling and FUCK TOWERS.
I, personally, started with Tinker. The best way to learn is to pick a hero you like and stick to the basics, fuck what other people say. You're gonna be bad for a while. But losing can be just as fun as winning in the right conditions!
OH! I forgot. Go Viper. Easiest hero next to Lycan. He can lane anywhere, has two attacks that dramatically increase damage against enemies, penalizes enemies for trying to kill you, and has an ult that slows enemies to a crawl so that either you or your team can kill them easily. I mean, that's why he's easy, so I guess that lets you practice last hitting and denying stuff.
[QUOTE=Unisath;37585603][b]SK is a very meaty hero[/b] with an obviously useful ult, and with his stun, he's easy enough to use while still being a formidable force.[/QUOTE]
but he's a skeleton
skeletons have no meat
[QUOTE=devon_wargod;37586072]but he's a skeleton
skeletons have no meat[/QUOTE]
manliest hero in dota without testicles
Thanks guys! I played a game yesterday as Lina and I went 6-4-9. We won (obviously). Nobody on either team was feeding. And I made it all the way up to Aghanim's Scepter. How's that?
[QUOTE=ajminifigure;37588910]Thanks guys! I played a game yesterday as Lina and I went 6-4-9. We won (obviously). Nobody on either team was feeding. And I made it all the way up to Aghanim's Scepter. How's that?[/QUOTE]
Better than nothing! Do you happen to have the match ID so we can watch the replay or at least look at the stats for the match?
Here is match ID where I went 8-4-12 as Phantom Assassin. What do you think? 39396545
[QUOTE=ajminifigure;37607064]Here is match ID where I went 8-4-12 as Phantom Assassin. What do you think? 39396545[/QUOTE]
Not bad, PA is a pretty good hero for starting players. However, I wouldn't sit on her too much; Phantom Assassin is easily countered by stuns and magic damage. If Radiant Tinker was anywhere even near decent, he would have stomped all over you.
First, criticisms:
Think about when you should level your skills and why. I noticed your first point when into blur, when stifling dagger is a good slow (against an ursa this is important, ursa always has issues trying to catch up to his opponents) and helps to last hit creeps, which is also important since you're in the harder lane.
Also think about skill progression. You put two points into blur in the early game but look at how it scales. You get 20% for the first point but only gain 5% for the next, and you only need one level to be rendered invisible on the minimap (assuming nearby heroes etcetc) Look at stifling dagger: it gives 50 damage per level, an extra second of slow per level, and it reduces the mana cost the more you level it up. Phantom strike always gives you the same amount of bonus attack speed, and always gives the same amount of attacks with the attack speed, but it's cooldown decreases by 3 per extra point you put into it. So in the early game when you rely on abilities to save you or net you kills, why would you max blur first?
You auto attack the lane. While it's ok because you're new you want to only hit the creeps when you can kill them in one hit. Otherwise your creeps will have more health compared to the enemy creep wave, which means more will survive to fight the next creep wave, starting a feedback cycle. This forces you further and further into the enemy side, until it's really easy to gank you and you're suddenly trying to kill creeps while taking tower hits.
A rule of thumb when building battlefury is to buy the ring of health and then buy the broadsword and claymore, and finish it with the void stone. This shows really well with PA because she has two low mana cost spells and a decent mana pool, so you dont really need the regeneration. Also you should really consider buying boots before buying the ring of health because boots give much needed mobility, something you really need past the 10 minute mark.
Also consider alternatives to items. While vlads is an ok choice, vlads is often picked up by people who need auras, or people with unique attack modifiers (think clinkz's searing arrows, anti-mage's mana break, etc). Helm of the dominator costs less and gives you 5 armor and 20 damage, where as vlads gives you a poor amount of mana regen (something you dont need) and the same amount of armor. While 15% bonus damage does scale with items, Helm can build into Satanic, a late game item that gives you a large amount of HP and is the only item that'll let you heal your entire lifebar off a single crit.
You should chain abilities unless it's not really required, for example stifling dagger is a good slow which'll let you get all 4 of your phantom strike attacks in, and has longer range which'll let you get the phantom strike on someone before they can run too far and does 100 damage to boot.
You need to work on your camera control, there was multiple situations where somebody ambushed you because you put yourself on the very edge of the screen. At least you dont make the mistake of centering the camera on yourself, which is actually worse.
Second, praise:
You're trying new heroes. So many people just play one hero over and over again and eventually end up just trying to apply that hero's playstyle to every other hero, end up hating the hero because they can't play it optimally and end up going back to the original hero. (this is why i don't recommend ursa to new people)
Toward the later half the game you started to recognise when it was and wasn't a good time to go in, especially when pushing into their base.
From what I could deduce you were communicating with your teammates to some extent, even if it was just a ping or two. Non-communication is the bane of this game and it causes so many avoidable situations to happen, which end up snowballing into the end of the game
You made ursa ragequit (:v) despite being 4v5
^ holy shit how do you even critique this good
You guys are more supportive of me than my asshole friend ever was :D
Don't hang with assholes or you may very well become one. Not dissing your friend or anything but one of the real reasons why Dota becomes so toxic is because of how nasty the [B]team [/B]environment can get (not just trash talkers). I'm not saying you should totally rule out your friend as a Dota buddy, but don't cling to ego lords all the time.
While it's not the easiest thing to find nonassholes in Dota, there are definitely those people who are very willing to help or are just straight fun to play with.
Just be sure to not get so strung up in the game yourself and you will definitely improve, both mentally and mechanically. I find when I play MUCH better when I am not under stress.
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