My first game ever in Dota2

gogosox8

Member
So I recently played my first game ever in dota2. Now I been playing in practice mode and co op mode against bots because I heard that it was good to practice with heros your interesting in. So even though steam says I have over 50 hours in dota2, most of that is just in co op or practice mode against bots.We were able to win because I think we had a better team comp than the other team but I'm kinda new to dota so I'm not entirely sure (if anyone's brave to watch the match id# is 415161878).

Anyway I basically wanted to ask this thread to ask Dotagaf how to get better since I think start playing more regularly. I didn't do that well (I went 4/8/8 with windrunner) but i didn't feed so I look at it as a positive. I read a few guides and watched a bunch of yt video on how to build her etc. Skill wise I maxed out power shot and then shackleshot and the windrun and the ulti last. Is that ok or did I miss something up? I built phase boots, mek, force staff, and was working on orchid malevolence before we had a final push that won us the game. Not sure about the item build honestly. I ended up going mid so that kind of messed me up on what to buy since when I play in practice mode, I always go to the side lane.

Like I said, any help would be appreciated. I'd like to get to a point where I'm decent in most games (ie basically I don't feed and am the reason we lose). I like windrunner, Vengeful spirit, and Luna that helps anyone (also like the hero with the horse. Mirana I think it is?) if that helps.
 
I would also like to know this. I tried twice. Both times I assume I did really bad because this one angry dude kept calling me and I quote " a fucking shitbag".

I've stuck to counter-strike since then.
 
I would also like to know this. I tried twice. Both times I assume I did really bad because this one angry dude kept calling me and I quote " a fucking shitbag".

I've stuck to counter-strike since then.
But from what ive heard the dota community swears at you if you win or lose
 
So I recently played my first game ever in dota2. Now I been playing in practice mode and co op mode against bots because I heard that it was good to practice with heros your interesting in. So even though steam says I have over 50 hours in dota2, most of that is just in co op or practice mode against bots.We were able to win because I think we had a better team comp than the other team but I'm kinda new to dota so I'm not entirely sure (if anyone's brave to watch the match id# is 415161878).

Anyway I basically wanted to ask this thread to ask Dotagaf how to get better since I think start playing more regularly. I didn't do that well (I went 4/8/8 with windrunner) but i didn't feed so I look at it as a positive. I read a few guides and watched a bunch of yt video on how to build her etc. Skill wise I maxed out power shot and then shackleshot and the windrun and the ulti last. Is that ok or did I miss something up? I built phase boots, mek, force staff, and was working on orchid malevolence before we had a final push that won us the game. Not sure about the item build honestly. I ended up going mid so that kind of messed me up on what to buy since when I play in practice mode, I always go to the side lane.

Like I said, any help would be appreciated. I'd like to get to a point where I'm decent in most games (ie basically I don't feed and am the reason we lose). I like windrunner, Vengeful spirit, and Luna that helps anyone (also like the hero with the horse. Mirana I think it is?) if that helps.

There's no real shortcut to getting better, just keep playing matches until you get a basic feel for most of the heroes in the game (not necessarily playing as just playing against), watching pro games sometimes helps as well in terms of learning about sensible positioning, good ward spots and such

I would also like to know this. I tried twice. Both times I assume I did really bad because this one angry dude kept calling me and I quote " a fucking shitbag".

I've stuck to counter-strike since then.

One thing I've learned is that most of the people who act like that are generally the worst players on the team.
 
Gotta get mauled to get good. Goes the same for any high learning curve game.

Just keep playing. And hopefully you learn from your mistakes.
 
Watch replays. Challenge yourself. Read about the game. Profit.

I'm not a pro but I have 900 games split between Dots 2 and LoL.
 
Item choice is fine, you want one point in windrun early on to make sure you can escape from ganks. 3-1-2-2-2-1-2-1-4-1-4-3-3-3 is my usual skill build for WR. Can get ulti earlier if it's useful for you but I generally find myself needing mana for shackles and windruns until level 10-ish.
 
We have a community thread too if you want to sub to it for lols and information :)
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=693517&page=300

It took me ages to start getting half decent with dota2. Bot games and co-op bot games are great for not just jumping in, feeding and being yelled at. But it will take a few hundred games to start getting to the point where you know roughly what every hero can do and basic ways of countering them.

A fun thing to do is to play every hero at least once. Either in bot mode or in queue. Playing with friends is where this game really shines as you can hopefully count on them to not be total dicks to you if you do end up feeding and loosing to snowball pubstomp. :)

Watching streams like Merlini and SyndereN can also really help on picking up tactics and learning tricks you may otherwise take months to figure out. Watching pro games is also a great way to see how heroes can be played at a high level.

There are some great ingame community channels and guilds you can join. Off the top of my head, dotainsight or dota101 might still be running. Also DiH (dota is hard) is a great all skills types, aussie guild that does weekly inhouse nights.
Ofcourse there is the Gaf Guild. We play together and do inhouses and stuff. Totally join that :D
 
Just play play play. Solo is fine, but if you manage to find a group of people to play with that talks over teamspeak/mumble or whatever it's gonna be more fun and you're gonna progress faster.

And grow some really thick skin. Don't let the shitty vocal bits of the community get to you. And mentioning you're new to the game/genre to your teammates is actually a good idea, at least from what I remember people will generally act friendlier when they know you're still getting into the game. Just take their advice with a grain of salt, there's as many noobish know-it-alls as there's rude shitbags, so yeah.
 
The hell, you put 50 hours into training?

I went straight into the deep end, not that I'm good or anything although I had this amazing game on Thursday:

29B097D555C0522B7AA4BDC8628AEF223811F3C6
 
I would also like to know this. I tried twice. Both times I assume I did really bad because this one angry dude kept calling me and I quote " a fucking shitbag".

I've stuck to counter-strike since then.

You play other online games and have not learned to ignore trashtalkers? WTFm8
 
Not a pro or anything but I consider myself decent at the game, can help since I have some free time these next few days and I'm looking for more people to play with. Steam ID is the same as my gaf username, so feel free to add me.
 
This may sounds daunting but try to play every hero.

I remember when I first started playing Dota 2 and I'd only pick from a pool of a select few heroes. Let me just say that it sucks when you don't know the opponent hero's spells and what affect they have. I still remember the fear of going up against a Riki for the first time haha. It was only until playing the hero that I realised that it wasn't the imba force that I'd perceived it to be.

You won't be able to gameplan unless you know your opponents heroes strengths and weaknesses. And the best way to know that is to have tried the hero yourself.
 
Look up video guides/info on:
-jungle/ancient stacking (timing, tips etc)
-rune timers (every 2 minutes)
-last hitting/denying (seriously watch a video on this there are some tricks to making sure you get last hits under your tower for example)
-try to always always always carry a teleport scroll

And then go from there
 
I'm not very good only 150 wins but I love talking and helping at the same time, what time zone are you?

What's your steam name and we can play a few games together
 
You play other online games and have not learned to ignore trashtalkers? WTFm8

Lol I think its more to do with the fact that Dota is pretty damn different from most other competitive games i've played, and there are so many characters/items and what not that I wasn't really getting into it so much and felt a bit overwhelmed about where to start. I'd like to, cause obviously there is a big fuss about it for a reason.
 
Gotta get mauled to get good. Goes the same for any high learning curve game.

That is true. I just don't want to feed really badly and basically wasn't 40 minutes of 4 other peoples time.

Just keep playing. And hopefully you learn from your mistakes.

Yeah, I noticed that I forgot to check ruin spots so Viper kept on getting them. I'll try to remember to do that next time if I go mid.

There's no real shortcut to getting better, just keep playing matches until you get a basic feel for most of the heroes in the game (not necessarily playing as just playing against), watching pro games sometimes helps as well in terms of learning about sensible positioning, good ward spots and such

I've seen some yt videos from a guy (can't remember his name) but he doesn't pub game commentaries and the one on windrunner was really helpful. I basically followed his skill build and well I didn't get blown up.


Just play play play. Solo is fine, but if you manage to find a group of people to play with that talks over teamspeak/mumble or whatever it's gonna be more fun and you're gonna progress faster.

And grow some really thick skin. Don't let the shitty vocal bits of the community get to you. And mentioning you're new to the game/genre to your teammates is actually a good idea, at least from what I remember people will generally act friendlier when they know you're still getting into the game. Just take their advice with a grain of salt, there's as many noobish know-it-alls as there's rude shitbags, so yeah.

Yeah, I know there's gonna be a guy who's gonna be an asshole about it. It hasn't happened yet but hopefully it won't happen too often.

We have a community thread too if you want to sub to it for lols and information :)
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=693517&page=300

It took me ages to start getting half decent with dota2. Bot games and co-op bot games are great for not just jumping in, feeding and being yelled at. But it will take a few hundred games to start getting to the point where you know roughly what every hero can do and basic ways of countering them.

A fun thing to do is to play every hero at least once. Either in bot mode or in queue. Playing with friends is where this game really shines as you can hopefully count on them to not be total dicks to you if you do end up feeding and loosing to snowball pubstomp. :)

Watching streams like merlini and SyndereN can also really help on picking up tactics and learning tricks you may otherwise take months to figure out. Watching pro games is also a great way to see how heroes can be played at a high level.

There are some great ingame community channels and guilds you can join. Off the top of my head, dotainsight or dota101 might still be running. Also DiH (dota is hard) is a great all skills types, aussie guild that does weekly inhouse nights.
Ofcourse there is the Gaf Guild. We play together and do inhouses and stuff. Totally join that :D

Subbed to the thread and I'll check out some of the streamers. Thanks for info : )

Watch replays. Challenge yourself. Read about the game. Profit.

I'm not a pro but I have 900 games split between Dots 2 and LoL.

I've read quite a few guides on the heroes I like but there's a lot of heroes in dota. In this game I played against a slark. Had no idea who he was or what his skills were. Apparently, he can go invisible. The lifestealer on our team said we needed to get a gem for him. Had no idea what that was either. I've got a long way to go before I'm decent.
 
The hell, you put 50 hours into training?

I went straight into the deep end, not that I'm good or anything although I had this amazing game on Thursday:

29B097D555C0522B7AA4BDC8628AEF223811F3C6

LOL yeah I know but I find the game to be a bit intimidating so I just wanted to make sure I was ready to play with a hero I was somewhat comfortable with.
 
I would also like to know this. I tried twice. Both times I assume I did really bad because this one angry dude kept calling me and I quote " a fucking shitbag".

I've stuck to counter-strike since then.

I'm a casual Dota2 player, I've learned to play with Russians, Asians and South Americans; then I cannot tell when they are rude to me.
 
Don't be too nervous about being awesome.

You need to lose games and most importantly figure out why you lost. Also, if you won, you might want to think about what you did to help win, or if you fed, how your team managed to pull through anyway.

Another important thing to keep in mind is team composition. Some games will naturally be in favor of a team because they have more bases covered. For example, a team that picks all AGI melee hard carry heroes is going to get destroyed early by a team that has all INT stunners/burst damagers. Pay attention to your team's (and the enemy's) composition and make a wise choice to fill in gaps. Obvious ones are ranged heroes and stuns. If your team doesn't have stuns you'll definitely have issues. Not to say you'll lose, but having stuns is pretty fundamental, and I've noticed in solo queues no one cares about what other people are playing.
 
LOL yeah I know but I find the game to be a bit intimidating so I just wanted to make sure I was ready to play with a hero I was somewhat comfortable with.

I did the same thing as well. Put a lot of time into bot matches before I tried my first pub. I just didn't want to suck.
 
I'm not very good only 150 wins but I love talking and helping at the same time, what time zone are you?

What's your steam name and we can play a few games together

CST Steam ID is gogosox82

Not a pro or anything but I consider myself decent at the game, can help since I have some free time these next few days and I'm looking for more people to play with. Steam ID is the same as my gaf username, so feel free to add me.

Will do.

Edit: Anyone in the thread who wants to teach my noob ass how to get better can add on steam as well. ID is gogosox82
 
So I recently played my first game ever in dota2. Now I been playing in practice mode and co op mode against bots because I heard that it was good to practice with heros your interesting in. So even though steam says I have over 50 hours in dota2, most of that is just in co op or practice mode against bots.We were able to win because I think we had a better team comp than the other team but I'm kinda new to dota so I'm not entirely sure (if anyone's brave to watch the match id# is 415161878).
Just by the stats, looks like your team won because the other side had a Slark and Dragon Knight with lousy builds that were basically food. I'm guessing they had no coordination in the later part of the game since they could have still pulled through with a Viper that buff. Dota 2 is usually more about how people build up their heroes and work together than the initial choices, at least outside of the pro level. For me at least most games have been won or lost based on team coordination.
 
Just by the stats, looks like your team won because the other side had a Slark and Dragon Knight with lousy builds that were basically food. I'm guessing they had no coordination in the later part of the game since they could have still pulled through with a Viper that buff. Dota 2 is usually more about how people build up their heroes and work together than the initial choices, at least outside of the pro level. For me at least most games have been won or lost based on team coordination.

Not sure on the slark but Dragon Knight didn't do so well. He kept getting killed by our sniper in the top lane.
 
Wind Runner is kinda hard to use, you need to constantly pop your abilities and be fully aware of your positioning along with the enemies. Supports generally have a higher skill ceiling and require more 'active' items.
 
Wind Runner is kinda hard to use, you need to constantly pop your abilities and be fully aware of your positioning along with the enemies. Supports generally have a higher skill ceiling and require more 'active' items.

I totally get what your saying. I kept trying to position myself to the side so I could shackle them all for the life stealer guy and the sniper but it wasn't that easy and I had all these items that I never used. Maybe I should try a carry that doesn't a lot of micro managing maybe? But then I'd have to be really good at farming and I'm not so idk honestly.
 
I'm not great at it but I'm starting to get a hang of it.

First of all, you are talking about getting good but I don't think you have said much about roles. From your item build I guess you are going for Support-ganker. If you are confident or familiar with Wind Runner already, try to see which other role she can do and go outside your comfort zone a bit. Try Hard support or Pusher as well. Hard support is welcomed by most people (Wards, courier, smoke, useful shits most people doesn't wanna buy) and very useful in a game, your role would be provide visibility, help carry farm for last hits in early game, stack camp for your carry if possible, and most important of all is not dying. Pusher sole reason is to do menial task of pushing the creeps wave when everyone else going ganking and getting all the kills, also not getting yourself killed in the process.

The reason for trying out other roles is that unless you always play with a team of 5 friends, you will run into a team where everyone wanted to carry and kill then you need to act as stunner and support. If you can help them carry the game, getting all the fame, you successfully play your role. Then perhaps moving on to try other heroes.

All of that, is just you learning about what you can do with your hero. Then another aspect is counter-hero, who you should or shouldn't initiate. Which hero can really stop you from being useful, which you should shackle first out of all five. Which item should you pick to counter them. Those will help you progress further. Watching commentary and tutorial is also nice, sometime there are skills that difficult to comprehend as well.

Also I prefer to have my team WR pick up Hex if possible. Much better for ensuring a kill than Orchid imo, You can even shackle two then hex one to initiate.
 
I did the same thing as well. Put a lot of time into bot matches before I tried my first pub. I just didn't want to suck.

This simply doesn't work. Same thing for RTS really. Sure you can read up on strats and learn the basic mechanics and so on but for the vast majority of people you're going to suck when you first play it. Better off just jumping in learning how to play and not put too much thought into the trash talk.

Also i think in a game like dota getting some friends together to start with would help.
 
Sorry to hijack the thread but I also have a vaguely related question.

I play a lot of LoL and I hear that people call it simple and easy in comparison to Dota 2. I've play a couple of games of D2 and I can see mechanical differences, but are they so different that it'd be worth playing Dota 2 as well as LoL?

Is it a stick-with-what-you-know kind of deal, or more of a COD and Battlefield comparison? As in the same, but with subtle differences to how they're played.

I love MOBA though, so would like to give Dota 2 a proper try too.
 
This simply doesn't work. Same thing for RTS really. Sure you can read up on strats and learn the basic mechanics and so on but for the vast majority of people you're going to suck when you first play it. Better off just jumping in learning how to play and not put too much thought into the trash talk.

Also i think in a game like dota getting some friends together to start with would help.

That certainly helped me with LoL - the notorious attitude of these MOBA gamers put me off, so much so I was genuinely terrified with my first game of Dota 2 and ended force quitting when I didn't understand what I was being asked (pathetic, I know)
 
Also buying hats totally gives you an upper hand in learning dota2!

>.>

just kidding! :p

Only yours though, right? :P

Edit: Back on topic. You should also check out this page and read the entire thing. Purge also has a YouTube channel where he plays various heros and provides tips on how to play them well. I highly recommend looking those over.
 
I've read quite a few guides on the heroes I like but there's a lot of heroes in dota. In this game I played against a slark. Had no idea who he was or what his skills were. Apparently, he can go invisible. The lifestealer on our team said we needed to get a gem for him. Had no idea what that was either. I've got a long way to go before I'm decent.

Well the lifestealer doesn't seem to have much of a clue since slark isn't revealed by gem, sentries, dust or necromicon units (true sight) anymore since the last balance patch.

I've watched a bit of your game and I think there are two areas where you can make pretty fast progress. First of all, controls. I'm not sure what your settings are but it seems to me that your "Camera acceleration" and "Camera speed" settings are set way too high, I'm sure you'll benefit a lot from lowering them a little bit so that you feel a bit more in control of your camera since it's one of the main tools you have to gather a maximum of information around you and act accordingly. You went mid and were in a 1v1 situation, yet the camera most of the time was centered in such a manner that you wouldn't be able to see the enemy hero and the creeps were at the far edge of your field of vision. Generally, you want your camera to be positioned so that your hero is to the far edge of the field of view. This is where the camera was during this whole creepwave when you were playing that particular game:


The issue with this is that you are not gathering any useful information on the opposite hero's movements, and thus you react much slower.

This would be a better spot to have the camera centered on:


This way, you have vision on the two main objectives in the lane. The opposite hero, as well as the creepwave. You can last hit and deny effectively, while still being able to react to the opponents movements by retreating if needed or moving up to play agressively. There's also a huge area on your cliff around your creepwave's archer where you are free to move without too much hassle.

Think also a little bit more about your controls setup and how comfortable you really are with them. One easy trick is to have specific items that you buy often always on the same slot. Bottle for example is always in the bottom right slot for me (keybind "C") and Blink Dagger is always in the upper second slot (keybind "S").

So yeah my first advice would be to try to move the camera much more and try to always center it on your objectives and not always your hero. Do not hesitate to change the settings I mentioned until you feel very comfortable moving the camera around. It shouldn't feel like a burden or something that handicaps you. I know it is a bit difficult to do at the start, but the faster you get used to doing this, the better you will play.

Another advice I can give you and that helps a lot is to always make a habit of clicking the enemy hero when you arrive in the lane. That way you know which items he bought and how he is going to play during the first minutes of the game. He bought a shit ton of regen and no stats? punish him by going for more last hits. No regen at all? Try to harass him a little bit more.

Another simple trick is to slow the creeps at the start of game. You can stand in front of them to slow them a bit. That way, the first creepwaves meet much closer to your tower giving you a much needed advantage early on. Uphill advantage is pretty big in this game, you can often easily exchange hits that you wouldn't be able to in normal circumstance with a hero that is downhill (because of the miss chance when attacking uphill).

Finally, every two minutes, make a habit of checking the rune. Wards and teammates camping runes help but that doesn't mean you should be ignoring them if you have no vision. A good way to make sure you can grab a rune is to use your skills (for example power shot) to push the lane right before it spawns. For example, you can nuke the creepwave at around 1:40 to push the lane. That way, your opponent has to make the choice between sacrificing gold/xp from the creeps at his tower or giving up the rune to you.

The second area where you can make fast progress is game knowledge. This comes from playing a few games, talking to friends who play dota and watching a few streams. You want to be in a position where you know what's the strengths and weaknesses of the hero you are playing in the particular match up he is in. Sticking to one hero for the first few games can be a good idea, but once you are a bit more comfortable with the game you should try as many heroes as possible. In the case of Windranger, I've seen you miss a lot of last hits with your power shots on creepwaves since you weren't gauging the damage it would do correctly. This should come with a few games.

You'll noticed that these small advices focus almost exclusively on the laning phase. Winning the laning phase puts your team in a great spot for the rest of the game and this is the area where you need to focus your efforts. Team fight sense and to a lesser extent "gank" sense comes mainly with games.
 
This simply doesn't work. Same thing for RTS really. Sure you can read up on strats and learn the basic mechanics and so on but for the vast majority of people you're going to suck when you first play it. Better off just jumping in learning how to play and not put too much thought into the trash talk.

Also i think in a game like dota getting some friends together to start with would help.

In my defense I was completely new to the MOBA scene when I first started playing Dota 2. It took me ages just to work out how the game worked, not to mention last hitting, towers etc (I'm a slow learner). Plus while I like to think that I'm above it, I don't deal with trash talk too well. I'm a bit sensitive like that :(

You're right though, having friends would have made the early transition a lot easier. Only found that out later.
 
Just don't feed and do what your role should (support? buy the courier and some wards) and I'd be happy to have you on my team.

Also helps to be MAP AWARE and to call out missing when someone departs your lane. Nothing worse than having mid come up and gank you unknowingly because nobody called missing...
 
Just keep playing. I suggest mostly against real people. I have friends who play practice games for hours, watch countless pro videos, look at countless guides and strategies, and they are still quite frankly really bad. You can't learn much more than the absolute basics if you don't play real games.

The friends who get good relatively fast are the ones who suck it up and play with the abusive jerks you will meet in this game. Mute and report people if they get really abusive, and if you feel down, remember every single other person to ever start playing a moba solo had to deal with a ton of abuse for at least their first 50 games or so and you will always have an occasional game where you get verbally abused no matter how good you are. It is almost an initiation. Eventually you will get and better and hopefully be able to find a group of people you can play with semi regularly with.

Don't get down on yourself if you do really bad. Just try to figure out what mistakes you made, and work on improving from there. At the same time don't become content with always doing bad, because then no one will want to play with you. And as hard as it is, try to avoid arguing with people. Even if you are right, there is nothing to gain from it. Even I have trouble following this rule. But nothing good ever comes out of two people on the team yelling at each other. Most of the time the game will be better if you just ignore insults, and keep playing as if nothing was said.

For basic play, just pick one of the higher rated skill builds to follow from dota's built in guides and follow their item and skill builds. Once you understand what all the items and spells do, you can experiment a lot to find what works best in different situations. Look up the role for the hero you decide to pick and try to stick to the books until you get used to the game. Then you can experiment like crazy.

Never go more than a few seconds without glancing at your minimap. Try to be aware of what is happening in every lane. And for most games a tp is arguably the most important item to have. In every pub game there are probably 20 opportunities where you can easily save your teammate from a gank with just a tp and 15 out of those 20 times no one has one to do so.
 
I would also like to know this. I tried twice. Both times I assume I did really bad because this one angry dude kept calling me and I quote " a fucking shitbag".

I've stuck to counter-strike since then.

wat

CS is just as bad if not worse

Had some dude try to kick me because he died peeking and got mad at something and blamed it on me. no one knew what the hell he was bitching about so of course I didn't get booted but still, there are some real shitheads in this community.
 
I was keen to play/try out Dota2/ LOL but could never play an online match because the community is so toxic towards new players.
 
Reading guides is good and all but I've found the best way to improve is to watch how pros play and to understand why they are doing what they are doing.

No doubt the learning curve is steep but that's what makes the game far more rewarding than FPSes. Fortunately, to be decent at the game you don't need massive twitch or mechnical skills like for RTSes or fighting games. You just need to know and understand the game's mechanics and strategies.

Stick with it.
 
Also helps to be MAP AWARE and to call out missing when someone departs your lane. Nothing worse than having mid come up and gank you unknowingly because nobody called missing...

Missing calls help and should definitely be done but it is still mainly your fault if you die to a mid ganking without a missing call. You need to be aware of the map at all times just as much as anyone else.
 
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