DOTA 2

Julian The Apostate

Vyemm Raider
2,316
2,412
After my initial foray into the game i quickly got discouraged because of the amount of different items and heros and resigned myself to watching competitive dota for fun. Getting fucked and fucking my team because i have no idea what the enemy and ally abilities are is no fun at all.

Ive started trying to play again. This time my plan is to play the computer on every hero. I start on a new hero, pause the game, get the highest rated build from the cloud thingy, read about the abilities and any of the build makers commentary on the items and abilities, play the game and move onto the next hero. Its also helping me get alot better at last hitting and basics. I feel like this is the only way to learn without banging my head against the wall. I just dont know if its normal to play like 100 fucking games against the computer before you know enough to play other people.
 

Nite1

<WoW Guild Officer>
786
65
Limited heroes pool is a great way to play and learn... once that came out I played that and just randomed every game. for the most part they're simpler heroes and you can pick up on all of them pretty quickly and get running
 

Nite1

<WoW Guild Officer>
786
65
Axe? Mana denial or just invade his jungle, he gets low while jungling. Troll snowballs pretty well, but CC at the beginning and ghost scepter in late game rains on his parade. Rubick is surprisingly good against both.
Thanks for the help. Haven't played rubrick yet been focusing alot on wr lina and brew any tips on how to play him?
 

groovy_and_sl

shitlord
53
0
After my initial foray into the game i quickly got discouraged because of the amount of different items and heros and resigned myself to watching competitive dota for fun. Getting fucked and fucking my team because i have no idea what the enemy and ally abilities are is no fun at all.

Ive started trying to play again. This time my plan is to play the computer on every hero. I start on a new hero, pause the game, get the highest rated build from the cloud thingy, read about the abilities and any of the build makers commentary on the items and abilities, play the game and move onto the next hero. Its also helping me get alot better at last hitting and basics. I feel like this is the only way to learn without banging my head against the wall. I just dont know if its normal to play like 100 fucking games against the computer before you know enough to play other people.
This is exactly what I have been doing for the past 2 weeks since my brother got me into the game. I certainly feel like I'm getting better, and the majority of players I have seen at whatever the lowest MM bracket that I'm in often aren't as good as the medium bots. Certainly with juking and last hitting.
 

Dandain

Trakanon Raider
2,092
917
After my initial foray into the game i quickly got discouraged because of the amount of different items and heros and resigned myself to watching competitive dota for fun. Getting fucked and fucking my team because i have no idea what the enemy and ally abilities are is no fun at all.

Ive started trying to play again. This time my plan is to play the computer on every hero. I start on a new hero, pause the game, get the highest rated build from the cloud thingy, read about the abilities and any of the build makers commentary on the items and abilities, play the game and move onto the next hero. Its also helping me get alot better at last hitting and basics. I feel like this is the only way to learn without banging my head against the wall. I just dont know if its normal to play like 100 fucking games against the computer before you know enough to play other people.
So if you are mechanically comfortable with clicking to move - navigating the shop and map. Truly you should spend your time playing people. Match making is going to place you with people on your level most of the time. The thing about dota is that you are never going to master it without playing it - and even then you're still going to have something to improve and something to learn every single game. Spending a game playing computers sure - its safe no people rage, but you won't see "real" dota get played - bots just do not behave like people do (they are both better and worse than the player skill they try to emulate depending on the situation). If you have questions specific or general ask me in pm or the thread - but getting over the fact that you're gonna get your shit kicked in as often as you do the shit kicking is part of the early dota experience. Mute anyone that rages - if they are in a game with you they are as unskilled at the game as you are. Just try to learn 1 thing every game - a hero matchup - skill synergy - a good item you bought - an increased understanding of warding/pulling whatever. Try and just pull one nugget of info. It can be something you did well or something you completely biffed. It can be a clarification on skill interactions. I am a far bigger fan of picking a set of heroes you actually enjoy - and playing them in a focused manner so that you become more versatile and think less about what you want to do - and spend more time executing what you see or plan. You can learn just as much about other enemy heroes by dying to them or killing them when you're playing a hero you enjoy as by playing those heroes and just having fail games. Either approach has its pros and cons - but I think the faster you gain a more global understanding of the dota map the quicker you will improve due to general decision making that applies to all heroes. When you play a new hero - a great deal of your attention will always be manifest in the mechanics of playing that specific hero.
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
Guys, if you haven't been watching, go see every single DK game from the WPC, some of the most impressive performances both individually and collectively I have seen in a while. Navi flair without the throws, Alliance-esque strats that you haven't seen before.

beyondthesummittv - YouTube
 

Sulrn

Deuces
2,159
360
Mayhaps.

For those of you still struggling with the game, and interesting alternative to learning besides the small pool is to watch:

Dota2 - Fails of the Week (alternatively, Top Plays of the Week) // Dota2 -Did You Know? on Youtube.com .
 

jonoki

Molten Core Raider
186
86
Started playing about a week after TI3... just jumped right into MM. I'm still new, but way, way better than I was as far as game sense and mechanics. Didn't experience much rage until I started to get above 50% win percentage. Now it's every game someone raging at someone. Lost my cool a few times and raged back at people raging at me. Really starting to take the joy out of playing... now I just mute the entire team if it starts up.
 

Genjiro

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
5,218
5,066
Not to beat this dead horse, but watching the Na'vi vs Fanatic game I saw this wtf statistic. In a game with this many heroes, I dont think a hero should ever basically be omnipresen......seriously, think about that......6/3,850.......
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
No bad lanes, can jungle, once lvl 6, he wins almost every single 1v1 MU and his disable can't really be countered, save for SD and maaaaaybe venge. He is the Furion of ganking, but he is even harder to gank early. He can also get kills starting at lvl 2...
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,072
2,267
Do you want to waste firefly mana to stack 3camps though when you could be stacking 2 with 1 firefly per 5mins(for tree cutting)? Don't know if it's worth it.

Anyway yeah bat is too strong in various aspects. Biggest issue is you combine very strong gank and very strong teamfight initiation with very strong laning and you have a problem. You NEED a blink dagger pretty much past 15mins, but unlike some other heroes who also require blinks, he can get it easily because he wins or draws most 1vs1 lanes and can jungle. Can even offlane if you're not in a hurry and catch up later, even though imo that's the worst choice. I think at the very least lasso shouldn't pull through terrain, this breaks a lot of things in terms of teamfight initiation balance when he can pull people up cliffs and get them stuck(especially around roshan) or simply pull them through cliffs to his team while enemy has to go around. Making creeps immune to Sticky Napalm would also be a fairly decent nerf to his laning and jungling, without ruining either. It's a bit too easy to last hit as Bat when you hit for 80dmg with no item because you stacked napalm a bit on the creeps. Also a potential needed nerf, making force staff break lasso, so he can't blink lasso forcestaff away to move people around very quickly, but I don't know if that's necessary with the other 2 nerfs.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,072
2,267
Do you want to waste firefly mana to stack 3camps though when you could be stacking 2 with 1 firefly per 5mins(for tree cutting)? Don't know if it's worth it.

Anyway yeah bat is too strong in various aspects. Biggest issue is you combine very strong gank and very strong teamfight initiation with very strong laning and you have a problem. You NEED a blink dagger pretty much past 15mins, but unlike some other heroes who also require blinks, he can get it easily because he wins or draws most 1vs1 lanes and can jungle. Can even offlane if you're not in a hurry and catch up later, even though imo that's the worst choice. I think at the very least lasso shouldn't pull through terrain, this breaks a lot of things in terms of teamfight initiation balance when he can pull people up cliffs and get them stuck(especially around roshan) or simply pull them through cliffs to his team while enemy has to go around. Making creeps immune to Sticky Napalm would also be a fairly decent nerf to his laning and jungling, without ruining either. It's a bit too easy to last hit as Bat when you hit for 80dmg with no item because you stacked napalm a bit on the creeps. Also a potential needed nerf, making force staff break lasso, so he can't blink lasso forcestaff away to move people around very quickly, but I don't know if that's necessary with the other 2 nerfs.
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
I think making blink give force staff 1-3s CD and vice versa would be interesting change....
 

Dandain

Trakanon Raider
2,092
917
I dislike bat as much as the next guy, and I don't think there is much wiggle room for his kit. Even though he's been banned or pick in all those games his winrate is 53% in a really quick sort of datdota.com - I didn't filter for patches or anything. 53% throws him right in the middle of the pack for t1 picks at the moment. 51% in current patch.
 

Cyni

Lord Nagafen Raider
549
192
I've never once been in a pub game where a bat has dominated. Maybe thats just my bracket but he doesn't seem overpowered at all when you're playing with randoms. Huskar seems way worse, and SB too for that matter. At least with bat you need some team coordination to be effective.

75th most popular hero? Usually when heroes are THAT powerful they migrate to top 10.
 

Nutron_sl

shitlord
712
0
Bat is so good because he makes it very easy to break t3 and contest roshan. So in pub games not a big deal, in pro games a pretty big deal.

If his vision wasnt global during firefly he wouldnt be a big deal.
 

Penance

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
5,158
5,024
Dk coming back from a 10k deficit against ig. you would never see that in top level lol matches.