Defenders of the earth! dun dun...........Wait no! Ancients! i mean Ancients!! OH LAWDY

**nix** · 10-14-2014, 07:46 AM

Anytime i say defenders of the ancients (in my head) its in the exact way in the theme above, oh memories!

Anyway, who here plays dota2? I've recently started playing it, although i am bad at it im finding myself alot better than most i play with, but then there are people you come across that just have it down and tear it up.

My favs so far are clinkz, bane, medusa, phantom lancer (the only melee i was good with), viper, riki

I hated probably dark seer the most, just couldn't figure out how to use him at all.

I still have about 75% pf the other classes to play, been playing from the pick from 3 pool to familiarise myself with the classes, instead of copping out and just going with the above favs

So....anybody else play? Any tips/secrets ya do?

**Rowan** · 10-14-2014, 03:25 PM

Just keep playing all different heroes. The most important thing when learning is to understand all heroes and what they do/what role they play. So you know what you are up against. Next would be undertanding your role in the game, what is expected of you from the team and what you need to focus on. Then I would say understanding what all the items do, because most of the time its upto your discretion what you will purchase.

Unfortunately Dota is full of assholes. You can mute players from the little drop down menu on the top left of your screen that shows the players.

**nix** · 10-14-2014, 05:13 PM

Yeah thats the idea, and what i do when i get "stuck into" a new game, i absorb as much info as possible. Just alot to take in with this game, like 100 classes hehe

playing slark atm now, hes a bit crappy

**Rowan** · 10-14-2014, 05:20 PM

Slark has a very powerful skill called "essense shift" where you basically steal the stats of enemy heroes with every attack. With the correct farm, he is formidable 1v1. Stealing 1 of every stat from an enemy at max level for 2 whole minutes and taking 3 agility for your own. His ulti gives him an invis that cannot even be revealed by sentry or dust, allowing him to avoid all except magic damage. It passively also grants a huge regen/movement bonus if he is not being seen by enemy heroes. Slark's dark pact debufs negative buffs while also dealing DOT. His pounce can be used to initiate a fight, or escape. It also prevents an enemy from running away if you manage to latch onto them with it.

He is used primarily for hunting, given his massive movement speed bonus from ulti. So what you wanna do with him is hunt the enemy jungle for junglers and catching enemies on their own.

**nix** · 10-14-2014, 05:37 PM

ha, thats exactly what i ended up doing, running around like a lunatic, rare i hit anything with leap, only if chasing.. he was surprisingly fun to play, i thought i was in for a shit time..

But then some guy on our team went afk at lvl 9, wanker, i hate that shit

**loaf** · 10-14-2014, 05:42 PM

You're actually playing Report Simulator 2014.

**Rowan** · 10-14-2014, 05:48 PM

Originally Posted by nix

But then some guy on our team went afk at lvl 9, wanker, i hate that shit

You're gonna cop that a fair bit until you hit a higher MMR. You are constantly being evaluated by your wins, losses, ratio's, people you defeat, people you play with, people you lose against etc. Soon you'll advance and be playing with people that care whether or not they get an 'abandon'.

Reporting was better when you had unlimited number of them. Im constantly using my 3 reports before the week is out.

**Rocky** · 10-15-2014, 12:40 AM

I can give you some advice on how to win games, but I don't really have tips on how to play. I don't mean to toot my own horn but I'm probably one of the luckiest "good" dota2 players.

A few months back I started playing dota2. I have some moba experience (floated between diamond1-masters in LoL, but zero HoN exp and very minimal dota wc3 exp). I actually started playing it on a bet that my dota friend said his game was much harder to play.

I taught myself how to play by basically watching high mmr streams (EternalEnvy was really fun to watch because he's a huge tryhard and destroys people in pubs) and emulating their playstyle. I found 3 good champs that either I clicked with or were just overpowered (LoA, Phoenix, Tree), and I spammed the hell out of them. I live in NA, so I would queue NA in the morning/early afternoon hours, then I would queue Europe in the evening. Eventually I peaked out at about 5350 mmr and got to top 200 in North America in about 4 weeks of starting to play from being unranked, thus I was able to prove my friend wrong. After I played the game a couple more weeks, I quickly realized no matter how high my mmr was, I would always be matched up with people that had no idea how to play the game. This made the game extremely unfun for me to the point where I sold all of my dota items and jumped back to League. To me League was more fun overall + I could make a supplemental amount of extra income doing elojobs for players.

As far as dota - league comparison goes, Dota was actually easier to play and win even though it had a higher skill floor and skill ceiling. If you were good enough at what you were supposed to do, you could pull it off flawlessly and win the game for your team. It's much much harder to do that in LoL because the company that made League actively makes sure that their heroes have a very limited form of hard-carrying a game, and most of those heroes capable of doing so are either almost always banned in every draft ranked game, or are very binary in being able to carry and being easy to shut down.

Both games report systems suck.

**nix** · 10-15-2014, 05:06 AM

So i should maybe frequently play games with champions im good with to get my MMR up? and do the odd random character for learning?

**loaf** · 10-15-2014, 10:52 AM

Just play the game

I've been playing dota for 10 years and I still suck.

( I actually know what to do but compared to people who actually compete and do tournaments, I will get rekt. I know how to play every role and about 95% of the heroes)

Experience. Rocky has years of League which helps him play dota, same with me when I play League. I only play about 5 heroes and I only play them, dota 2 I'm mostly support but I know it all.

Dota has more penalty.

League just says "It's okay."

While dota 2 says "Don't Die"

The gold system is great once you understand it.

Tons of stuff go to the dota wiki and

These this video helps understand support a bit. It did for me when I was learning how to play better a year ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN_NLKrwJos

EDIT: The MMR sucks until you're really really REALLY high up there. You will be playing the same heroes for a long time before it gets to be not that bad.

Just play everything, because, it's all there at the start; for free.

**Rowan** · 10-15-2014, 02:40 PM

Nix, dont concern yourself with getting a high MMR, concern yourself with learning about all the heroes and game mechanics. Have you learned about denying creeps yet? Denying allied heroes about to die from DOT afflictions? Also, I always make sure to ask everyone playing dota for the first time, you are using hotkeys to activate your abilities, right? You arnt just clicking on them with your mouse then targeting?

Loaf, I been playing for as long as you and while I admit that im not league material, I will never assert that I suck, neither should you. Just because we dont waste every spare moment of our lives studying and strategizing as a team to try and make the internationals, doesn't mean that we suck. TBH, congrats on the people that win the tourneys, but what a fkn waste of time for those that get there and get no money. How much time of their lives and money have they wasted trying to compete against others when they could have been working a job and having sex with their non-existent girlfriends.

bro, I play dota for fun and im ballin'.

**nix** · 10-15-2014, 03:34 PM

yeah i know what denying is, i just haven't figured out which button to hit to attack friendlies, ill google it now. Need to know how to ping mini map too haha

And im not overly concerned with getting a high mmr, but id like to get away from the noob bracket tbh

Oh and yeah i use binds, i play wow so used to using alot more binds than this, have yet to set my own yet, i have a naga hex and really should be utilizing it alot more

**Rowan** · 10-15-2014, 03:50 PM

Originally Posted by nix

yeah i know what denying is, i just haven't figured out which button to hit to attack friendlies, ill google it now. Need to know how to ping mini map too haha

And im not overly concerned with getting a high mmr, but id like to get away from the noob bracket tbh

Oh and yeah i use binds, i play wow so used to using alot more binds than this, have yet to set my own yet, i have a naga hex and really should be utilizing it alot more

use 'a' to target your attack to an allied unit. Keep in mind, that only allied heroes may be denied if they are under the effects of a damage over time spell/ailment. Ping the mini map by holding alt + press left click (I think).

**loaf** · 10-15-2014, 04:43 PM

DOTA is literally like playing an RTS, A for Attack, M for Move, H For Hold Position, S for Stop.

Start getting in the habit of using S to stop your character in the middle of a casting animation (Like Magnus's Shockwave/Reverse Polarity)

I'm proud to say I've taught a few people the basics of what to do and what not to do in a moba (was Heroes of Newerth at the time) and my friends got pretty high up in MMR and surpassed my level of skill.

We can teach you so much here, the rest is all up to you.

**Rowan** · 10-15-2014, 04:54 PM

Originally Posted by loaf

DOTA is literally like playing an RTS, A for Attack, M for Move, H For Hold Position, S for Stop.

Start getting in the habit of using S to stop your character in the middle of a casting animation (Like Magnus's Shockwave/Reverse Polarity)

Nix, you can also use that to help you last hit, but i strongly advise against it. Learn to move back and fourth and time it.

**loaf** · 10-15-2014, 05:50 PM

I use S for cancelling my skills.

**nix** · 10-15-2014, 06:20 PM

cheers guys, we should all hook up and play sometime!

I was using S, but i soon preferred the moving around as if im spamming S alot ill use it in error at panic situations by accident more, so i stopped

**Rowan** · 10-15-2014, 06:24 PM

Yeah using 's' for skills is fine (and the only way to cancel most skills mid animation), but last hitting with 's' is not the best way to last hit. Yeah i'd play with you guys but im concerned about the lag im gonna cop. When you are playing a game where the importance of timing is measured in the decimals, having 200 latency is gonna affect my performance.

**nix** · 10-16-2014, 06:59 AM

Leaving games, is there any big penalty on it really?

There are some games you just get stuck in and theres no hope of winning due to afk's/dc team and all i want to do is leave. Should i refrain from this or is it not that much of a penalty?

**loaf** · 10-16-2014, 07:06 AM

Yeah don't last hit with S.

I spam right click for that.

I only use S for stopping Animations on skills

Leaving a game multiple times puts you in Low Priority where people don't care about the game. People will leave, You have to complete the full game like 5 times to get out of low priority.

**nix** · 10-16-2014, 07:33 AM

Ok sweet and how many games can i leave before being thrown into low priority?

**Rowan** · 10-16-2014, 02:35 PM

Originally Posted by nix

Leaving games, is there any big penalty on it really?

There are some games you just get stuck in and theres no hope of winning due to afk's/dc team and all i want to do is leave. Should i refrain from this or is it not that much of a penalty?

in the case of DC's, you must wait until the game states that its safe to leave before you can leave it without penalty. This will happen when a player;

A). Is AFK for 5 minutes
B). DC's for a total of 5 minutes (they can recon, but if the total time DC amounts to 5 minutes, they will be assesed with an abandon and it will be safe for everyone to leave)
C.) The player abandons.

If you want to avoid getting abandons, dont leave until the game says its safe to leave. You can check this from the disconnect screen also.

If you are having a bad game, please refrain from leaving otherwise its just as loaf says. You will be put in LP for a set amount of matches. It used to be timeframe, but that was easily avoidable since you can just not play the game until your time ran out. Now it legitmately makes you play in LP for a set amount of matches if you want to get out of it.

We've all copped it at one stage.

And it generally depends. I think you can leave a game once a week without penalty, but I do believe that if everyone reports you for doing it, you will certainly cop LP.

**loaf** · 10-17-2014, 08:19 AM

Low Priority is about 5 games you have to stay in an complete. Even if someone leaves a Low Priority and Abandons it you have to complete it. (Unless that was changed recently)

**nix** · 10-17-2014, 02:55 PM

I only had to play two games to get out of low prior, but only left 2 to get in it, I think slarks my fav, i absolutely tear it up whenever i play him, i just dominate everybody >=)

**Rowan** · 10-19-2014, 02:57 PM

We had a couple of good games nix, haha.

**nix** · 10-19-2014, 05:50 PM

lol that we did, <3 your voice btw haha

I just had a shit game, i have been put into low priority que for 3 games without abandoning, i was giving out to my team, can being reported get you put in low priority?

They were running around like idiots for ages, i kept saying to push the mid, i ended up giving it a bit of a rage, but then they followed my direction and 5mins later we win, and they could have just done that 30mins before hand, lame!

**Rowan** · 10-19-2014, 06:22 PM

Originally Posted by nix

lol that we did, <3 your voice btw haha

I just had a shit game, i have been put into low priority que for 3 games without abandoning, i was giving out to my team, can being reported get you put in low priority?

They were running around like idiots for ages, i kept saying to push the mid, i ended up giving it a bit of a rage, but then they followed my direction and 5mins later we win, and they could have just done that 30mins before hand, lame!

Haha yeah,sorry you had to hear me talk like that. You get players like that often, who just think they know everything and that they can make no mistakes and if the team is failing, that its their fault. Ironically, they are always carries who say this crap.

yes, you can be put in LP by reports. It takes multiple reports though for it to trigger. Im not sure the exact amount though. Thats why I said to you its best to mute most people when playing dota, especially when you're just starting out because most people dont want to help you and only care about winning (never understood that) so anything that have to say will probably not be of any interest to you.