DOTA 2

[Irishjohn]

So last night, although I was kinda tired, I logged in to Dota 2 and promptly chickened out in order to play against bots instead.

 

Is there any kind of pavlovian virtual gift for "finishing" the training? Also, is this chickening out thing a thing or am I mad?

 

I may have been more affected by two matches in a row of being called out by strangers than I thought.

[sproutella]

So last night, although I was kinda tired, I logged in to Dota 2 and promptly chickened out in order to play against bots instead.

 

Is there any kind of pavlovian virtual gift for "finishing" the training? Also, is this chickening out thing a thing or am I mad?

 

I may have been more affected by two matches in a row of being called out by strangers than I thought.

 

 

I believe you get a sniper cosmetic for each training mission you complete. As far as chickening out, I'd say make sure you feel comfortable with a hero/lord in co-op bot matches before entering competitive games. 

 

Don't be too afraid though, people love to complain about other players, even if they are the ones messing up worse than you. You could be having a great game and making smart choices, and still get pinged by the guy who just died diving an enemy past their t3 towers. Just mute and move on if it affects you too much. 

[Irishjohn]

I believe you get a sniper cosmetic for each training mission you complete. As far as chickening out, I'd say make sure you feel comfortable with a hero/lord in co-op bot matches before entering competitive games. 

 

Don't be too afraid though, people love to complain about other players, even if they are the ones messing up worse than you. You could be having a great game and making smart choices, and still get pinged by the guy who just died diving an enemy past their t3 towers. Just mute and move on if it affects you too much. 

 

Cheers! Yeah, I'm not very good at all but I'm not awful. I don't die a HUGE amount so far and I tend to sneak in assists here and there. I'm quite comfortable with Warlock and I like playing support. I've mucked around with Keeper of the Light too but I have yet to play him with humans.

 

I must say, people have been cool for the most part. I'm not a great communicator (because I don't really know what I'm doing yet) but the community doesn't seem THAT bad. It's just funny that there are too many people out there prone to freak out.

[Reyturner]

Play with friends if possible. If not possible play solo and friend people who aren't assholes as you meet them.

Approach the game like you're learning a skill. Research the basic mechanics. Practice against bots. Read guides and watch VoDs.

Mute anyone who's shitty to you for at least the first 100 games. If they're getting matched with you, they also suck and their insights and communication aren't worth the abuse. After that, you'll at least be able to tell the real criticism from the pointless whining.

Dota 2 is a very good game, but it isn't a fun game until you're at least competent. That'll take dozens if not hundreds of games and more hours beyond that watching and reading about it.

Does that sound appealing?

 

EDIT: I think this  sounds unnecessarily hostile. Sorry. 

[Irishjohn]

Play with friends if possible. If not possible play solo and friend people who aren't assholes as you meet them.

Approach the game like you're learning a skill. Research the basic mechanics. Practice against bots. Read guides and watch VoDs.

Mute anyone who's shitty to you for at least the first 100 games. If they're getting matched with you, they also suck and their insights and communication aren't worth the abuse. After that, you'll at least be able to tell the real criticism from the pointless whining.

Dota 2 is a very good game, but it isn't a fun game until you're at least competent. That'll take dozens if not hundreds of games and more hours beyond that watching and reading about it.

Does that sound appealing?

 

EDIT: I think this  sounds unnecessarily hostile. Sorry. 

 

It didn't come across as hostile! Thanks. It does appeal to me, but my time is limited for a number of reasons. I actually enjoy the game in my own way. I'm not sure how good I'll get considering I'm not sure I'll ever have time to play three games in a row or even play every day (and there's the issue of time to play other games too) but doing some research ahead of time has helped a huge deal. I tried once without the research and it was just mystifying. Like, as if I'd never played a video game or something.

 

I'm actually surprised how accessible it is compared to what I thought it would be, but then again I'm a nerd and am totally fine with reading suggested builds and guides for various supports when I should probably be working.

 

Oh, and thanks for confirming that I'm being matched with people at a similar skill level. I presumed so, and am deliberately staying within the limited heroes option to try and ensure that. I've come to recognize a certain type of Dota player: s/he wails about teammates, complains that we're screwed, makes no effort to actually encourage people to coordinate apart from yelling at people and dies in incredibly stupid situations.

 

Honestly, as a completely new player, I'll say this: learning to hang the hell back and be very cautious has made me much less of a liability to a team I'm on. It's partly why I like playing support. I'd be fine with just chipping in with creeps and giving a lane-mate heals.

[Jutranjo]

I'd say that warlock is a very hard hero to play support with. He has a heal/DOT he can toss on people but getting a good fatal bonds is very hard and upheaval is pretty slow acting until it's high level. The golem is great though.

 

Heroes like Vengeful spirit, Lina, Bane, Lion are easier heroes to learn supporting with. Unlike warlock they're all pretty good even without massive levels though they'll still benefit from lvl 3 Death Ward. Warlock is a bit tougher to kill than all of the listed ones but all of them have some stun to bring value to team fights. Their abilities have low enough cooldowns that staying in a fight and living pays off a lot more than Warlock's 3 second sequence of casting all 4 spells then waiting 30 seconds for another cast of anything. Also all of them love blink dagger. Try them in at least one bot match though, at least around 15 minutes, to get a feel on animations for autoattacks and spells. Lina is horrible at animations.

 

Who's expecting a Goblin techies release this year?

[sclpls]

I still mostly play with bots at the moment. I think there is no shame in that while you are still new to the game, and still learning new heroes. On any particular day when I load up DOTA I always do one match with all medium bots, and I random a hero just so I can learn different heroes. Afterwards I make a note of how well I did as the hero, and maybe watch a video of someone playing the hero that knows what they're doing so I get a better understanding of builds. I still try to play against actual people, but only if I have two friends I am playing with. My rule is at least two friends because at my level without two friends the game is just not fun at all. It only takes one person on your team for a game to get totally wrecked, but the odds are reasonable enough I feel like with 2 friends for the game to mostly be fun.

[Professor Video Games]

Ever since the International last year (3 I guess?) I've had an itch to get into this game, and I even went as far as to play through the tutorial and some bot matches before I got sidetracked by other things. I'm not intimidated by the games inscrutability or community as much as I am by the sheer time investment it requires. Irishjohn's approach seems encouraging...maybe time to give it another shot.

[Reyturner]

Oh, and thanks for confirming that I'm being matched with people at a similar skill level. I presumed so, and am deliberately staying within the limited heroes option to try and ensure that. I've come to recognize a certain type of Dota player: s/he wails about teammates, complains that we're screwed, makes no effort to actually encourage people to coordinate apart from yelling at people and dies in incredibly stupid situations.

 

Actually, due to the nature of the match making system, it'll be several dozen games before you're being matched with people who are at your skill level. Right now, 90% of the people you're being matched with are "technically" better than you at Dota. "Technically" much better. You'll be the worst person on your team, if not the game, for many many many games. You'll probably even be the reason your team loses. 

 

The biggest hurtles are map awareness and game sense and the only way to develop those are to play. A lot. 

 

BUT.

 

Being competent at what you're doing, and knowing exactly what everyone else SHOULD be doing are two very different things. They might know how to last hit, or creep pull, or ward, but they won't have the game sense to boss anyone else around. Once your confident in your own abilities, the venom will roll off your back and you'll be able to pick out the useful tidbits. 

[Jutranjo]

Thinking about it, if you're a new player, maybe not all advice given will be relevant to your games. 

 

Smoke ganking in the early game or 5 man smokes are out, initiating team fights with sand king epicenter, tide ravage, earthshaker echo slam will never work if people don't want to move in after you. 

 

If you want to play the game and get better at it just play the game, a lot of mistakes you can see for yourself moments after you do them (this never stops). 

[Irishjohn]

Thanks for all the great advice everyone.

 

I like Warlock a lot, as I actually have some sense of how to play him, but I'm definitely going to look into those other heroes.

 

Map awareness is a major weakness for me. I've just about got to the point where I feel fairly confident holding a lane and helping someone push, but these things switch up A LOT. I'm trying to be a bit better by buying the courier and my next bit of research might be on sentry ward positioning.

 

Spork, give it a shot. I will say, I've always been weird with online games. I once wrote a blog post double-posted on profiles at Giantbomb and 1UP about essentially being afraid to talk to people online when I play that got LOTS of posts from people utterly mystified. I'm better now. I have a six month old son and I have a very busy job, and random dudes giving out to me online really doesn't bother me much. Plus, I know I'm not great but I feel vaguely competent and have accepted I'm unlikely to ever be "good." The game's atmosphere is really a lot better than I expected. I think I'm bothered less by people being jerks than I am by people taking it way too seriously. I mean, for me, I'm enjoying the game no matter what. The guy tearing a hole in his mouse clicking on a tower or ALL CAPS telling me I should be mid (when I know damn well the last place I should be right now is mid) is still a bit irritating. Advice here helps with that.

[Jutranjo]

Everyone's bad at DOTA. You, me, the 2nd place team at TI4 this year (their drafting was really bad in the finals). But everyone slowly gets better as they play.

 

Sentries can tough to use. For invis heroes, ok straightforward but for dewarding it's tricky. 

 

Usually (in my experience) I know where to deward based on when enemies react to my movement ahead of time, you generally don't want to spend 4 sentries (400g) hoping you'll find an observer ward on both spots at both rune locations. If mid goes to gank a sidelane and they obviously move back just in time and then don't show their face until mid goes back past the ward it's easy to tell the team "HERE IS OBS <ping><ping><ping>".

 

If you're not even sure if the enemy team is using wards sentries are a waste most of the time. You 100% want to use at least one if not two is when your team goes to Rosh. Ideally ahead of time you go there to check for observers and place your own so you see the enemy coming. If you're radiant you want one on the dire ramp that closes the Rosh pit on the left and somewhere near their secret shop. If you're dire you're good with one observer since radiant mostly come from their jungle to look at you do Rosh.

 

Eventually trying out how mid and farming roles play helps a lot in understanding how to better protect your team when playing support, most of the time this defence being observer wards. 

 

Map awareness and wards are almost the same thing. Sorry for harping about warlock, he's not a bad hero but he's a lot worse at wanting map awareness beyond "Where is teamfight?". You can't walk in behind someone and turn a 1v1 into a 2v1 or a 2v2 into a 3v2. Or you can, but only every few minutes when the golem is ready, and even that takes level 6. Vengeful spirit appearing and stunning the agility melee hero who isn't a blinking antimage from behind some trees at 2 minutes is an easy kill. Eventually you'll have a game where all you did from minute 0 was run around lanes and kill/help kill people as a support and not even sit in a lane for a minute.

[undermind9]

lich is good support too! sacrifice helps with mana control, nuke/slow, armor is always good & a banging team fight move

 

also, if the game doesnt go as planned and are gold-poor its ok.  show up with a good chain frost and team might clean up the rest.

 

 

i end up playing a lot of bot matches at night because i dont like playing a FFA random group & my reg team only plays 2-3 times a week.  i'd be happy to play bots with whomever new-or-experienced to talk through some interesting ward placement, skill build, items, etc.  Im usually practicing last hit/different heroes 

 

steam: undermind9

[BobbyBesar]

Irishjohn might have meant observer ward positioning rather than sentry ward.

 

At low levels, people actually buying and using observer wards effectively are rare, so de-warding probably won't come up much.

[Irishjohn]

I did in fact mean observer ward. Still interesting stuff,

 

I don't know, my map awareness is bad. I got it up to passable in Starcraft 2 though (Silver!) so there may be hope.

 

I might try Lich. I'd like to play support though, it's not just because I'm a beginner.

[pkirkner]

Assuming you're playing Limited Heroes, Lion is also a very straight-forward support that shouldn't be too hard to pick up.

[Jutranjo]

Irishjohn might have meant observer ward positioning rather than sentry ward.

 

At low levels, people actually buying and using observer wards effectively are rare, so de-warding probably won't come up much.

 

And I'm an even bigger asshole for putting up the obs not sentry image, sorry.

 

Man if you got to silver in SC2 you're already way better at games than most people that play DOTA2. Like, you know where the minimap is on the screen and look at it occasionally.

 

For learning to ward, just try placing them on the big white chalk outlines of eyes near the rune spots on the river and keep an eye on the minimap to see if anyone is coming to ruin your lane. Then ping and alt click the portrait on the top of the screen to call Missing Pudge in team chat.

 

Basic wards for starters depend on time but they'd be this:

 

Runes on river are great always, most important at start due to mid wanting runes (eventually they'll want runes) and mids going to sidelanes to kill you. They can't kill you if you see it coming.

 

Mid to start of late game, when people farm lanes and the jungle, place the wards at the entrances to your jungle. On radiant that's the enemy T1 bottom and the bottom rune ward, for dire it's rune ward at top rune on your side, the enemy T1 top and the little cliff to the left and above your middle T1.

 

Late game Rosh is good and whatever you feel's good. 

 

Buying wards is always better than not buying wards. Placing is also good anywhere in comparison to nowhere, unless it's in a bunch of trees with a 10 degree line of sight out of them. Warding enemy jungle is great, the big cliff at top Dire T2/bottom Radiant T2 gives huge vision. Uphill vision is a precious thing.

[njoos]

I assume the enemy team isn't counter warding. Placing them on the eyes on the map is probably fine for now. Don't get murdered when placing wards. Place it before the old ward runs out so you still have vision. 

 

There are different kind of wards, here is a very brief overview:

Lane wards: Placed in a lane (duh) to get vision of your opponent. Place it towards the enemy tower so you can see what your lane opponent is doing. Being able to see your enemy at mid when he is on his high ground when creeps are in the river is very useful. Must have if you are up against a pudge. Useful if you are invoker so you can do your bullshit from a safe distance. Kind of situational in the side lanes, but you see it sometimes in pro matches and high brackets. 

Rune wards: Gives vision of runes and lane rotations coming through the river

Jungle wards: Gives vision of the jungle without blocking camps. Use these if they have a jungler and you want to kill him (or prevent him from ganking your lanes). Also useful late game to see their movement or gank a solo farming carry. 

Creep Blocking wards: Blocks creeps from spawning to deny the enemy from farming the jungle effectively (you can also do this on ancients to prevent cheesy shit like beast master and tinker ancients)

Push wards: Place them behind the enemy tower that you want to push down so you can see the enemy teleporting in. Extremely useful if you are pushing and they have some very strong counter initialize hero like Treant or Tidehunter. 

[Irishjohn]

Thanks for all the advice guys. Practiced against bots with Lion a bit before diving in with him, and had my most enjoyable game this morning. I had a rough idea what was going on. Ended up with 19 assists and a couple of kills. Unfortunately I was completely owned by Bounty Hunter, including two STUPID deaths (overextended, and stopped to teleport back to base when I thought I was ok). If I could have avoided a couple of deaths (I ended up with 8) we probably could have won the game. We lost, but it was really, really great.

[Jutranjo]

There's gonna be a patch next week!

 

http://blog.dota2.com/2014/08/step-lightly-the-techies-update/

[undermind9]

oh boy... AR DM is a very strong personal favorite (just missing -ID aka Item Drop!), a-z challenge score sheet, 

 

i hope this taunt move isnt global griefing at the beginning of a game.  i suspect that will be annoying and fuel the hostile/asshole players some more

 

 

there has to be a big balance patch coming behind this, i hope they dont wait till halloween diretide for pitlord & something worth while.  techies are swell, but not a major game changer...just get more wards/gem on a range.  maybe more hoods because of the remote mine magic and land mines are composite

[Reyturner]

The victory prediction taunt is kind of neat. It increments a counter when you win and resets it to zero if you lose. Spamming it and losing only griefs yourself.

Maybe, just maybe, it'll get people to dig a little deeper when things get tough.

[BusbyBerkeley]

I'm just wondering what kind of crazy metrics and graphs Valve is going to get from the victory taunt things. 

[Forbin]

I haven't played much in the last month, but I started up again last night.  I was playing skywrath with a naga in safe lane.  None of us even thought of the combination until she threw a net the first time.  Then the other team just started to lose.

[njoos]

A very awesome game. El classico indeed.