r/learndota2

I played 3k hours back in the day probably 5-6 years ago and reached Ancient5, by no means a pro player but pretty decent.

Coming back I've played about 20 games now where my MMR is uncertain and still calibrating. Im jojoing between Ancient games and Crusader games.

But no matter what rank everyone is the games are so incredibly stompy in either direction. In the last 20 games I have not had a single close/"fair" game.

Way more griefers then I remember from when I last played. Will it get better or am I just stupid for soloQing? :)

I'm from Swe and probably should be around Archon level right now if anybody wants to queue up lmk!

I'm Div 3 for context and I mainly play 3/2. I dunno, it just seems to me that like 90% of position 4 players are just griefers or soft griefers. It can't be just role queue farmers, I most often get pos 5 then 3 when farming role queue, 4 is tied with mid in terms of rarity for me. So many of the players who are griefing are spending role queue on this. Most games it just goes like this Pos 4 insta locks Pudge > Pudge was chosen by both teams > then they insta lock one of the Big Four™, so Rubick / WR / Sniper / Hoodwink. Mirana and Furion used to be popular for this, but seemingly not anymore.

During the laning phase they mostly respect farm priority and help by "securing" the ranged or flagbearer creeps with nukes, even if you were mid attack animation and there is not an enemy hero to be seen. But whatever, that's not too bad. What is bad is everything besides the laning. Then they just don't give a shit, my favorites are the Rubicks who steal some AoE nuke and begin nuking every wave with two spells even if a core was appraoching it or, shit, actively farming it. Most of these people then go these shitty semi-carry builds with their timings being off by 10 - 20 minutes. It's so bad that I developed this nervous habit of nuking the wave whenever I see my 4 approaching, even if I didn't have to at that moment.

Some of these guys take it to the next level with quickbuy. I've seen multiple "4" Rubicks having Lotus Orb in quickbuy and starting with Perserverance only to pivot to Phylactery every single time. Or Snipers going Treads into Force Staff to feign a support build, then finishing Pike and building carry items. But sure bro, I guess you killing the entire jungle is not so bad because you placed a free observer ward on the most obvious cliff only for it to be dewarded a minute later.

What even is the alure of this playstyle? Again, some people spend role queue to do this. Why not pick core if you want to play core? Why hold everyone hostage.

As a pretty big axe enthusiast/masochist (47% wr 100 games), I am pretty confident that vanguard is a core item on offlane axe again

While the common objection for vanguard is that its seen as a defensive item and would be counterintuitive to axe's gameplan of kicking the enemy carry out of the lane. However, this comes at two assumptions that

1. ur pos4 is competent doesnt randomly leave the lane when ure strong and,
2. the enemy pos1 + 5 are weak laners themselves.

In reality, offlaners such as dawn, NS, LC have arguably significantly better laning tools than axe and have high kill pressure at lvls 2-4 due to the nature of their spells

tldr

Rushing an early vanguard would be winning u the lane via economy/attrition as u can safely drag creeps to a nearby camp and farm both at the same time. Keeping 0 points in call enables u to farm faster and keep the enemy pos5 hp low enough to think twice about harassing u. Vanguard with boots + 2/3 ring of protection + 110hp neutral item will ensure that u dont die or at least is hard to take down while u live behind the enemy safelane tier1 tower

starting items:

3x ring of protection or 2x ring + wand, ferry out tangoes asap for lane depending on the enemy carry, either get boots first (monkey king, drow, razor, ursa, etc) or just park ur courier at the secret shop n rush ring of regen into Vanguard

the top axe players on d2pt are doing this strat with great success (60%+ wr). i've played two games of it myself and managed to get a <16 min phase bm dagger timing. games are played at 6.3k, SEA server

I dont need vanguard to creep cut though xd

while one could argue that its still possible to farm creeps + a camp at the same time without buying vanguard, you'll be at a lower hp total and are more suspectible to feeding as ure easier to kill. No vanguard would also mean requiring more tangoes and salves to be ferried out

this playstyle assumes that you have fundamental knowledge of playing offlane

enjoy!

Well I can guess the first reply will be "Don't pick two Radiance heroes in the same team lul" but well, I wanted to play Spectre and that guy wanted to play Necrophos so that's how it is.

Anyway, at maybe ~13-14 minutes said Necrophos starts pinging how far away (or rather how close) he is from Radiance and mentions several times that he's gonna buy it - "So don't buy one too, nudge nudge wink wink".

My first reaction was that Spectre kinda needs Radiance more than Necrophos does, but he was admittedly super fat and could definitely get it several minutes before me. And since he was very insistent about it and as I said the game was going very well, I decided I might as well go for BattleFury since I thought I remembered it being a thing not too long ago + it always feels nice against Nature's Prophet (even if Spectral Dagger and illusion-jumping helps with Sprout so it's not like Spectre needs it most)

But now I'm wondering what's the actual good reasoning in such a situation? Does Spectre actually benefit more from Radiance than Necrophos? Should he go for more active items since, y'know he's mid and can already farm super fast with Death Pulse + Shard anyway?. Or should Spectre just go for something more active (does the Phylactery build still work?) and play less greedy than normal? Or is it just "whoever has the best game and can get it fastest should go for it"? Or maybe even just get two? Since there's no overlap while both are farming and it's not like we're hugging each other in teamfights either, I feel like double Radiance isn't nearly as bad as it looks if both get it rather early.

Anyway interested in hearing people's thoughts about this situation.

any insights is welcome

I just played a game where this hero just sat in the trees and just sent copies of herself to hit turrets. And considering they are copies and not the main unit she just sits and farms the jungle nearby while we all had to stop the clones because for some reason they aren’t completely useless and deal chip damage to turrets and heroes.

Although I’m guessing it’s just one of those “welcome
To Dota 2 bitch” type of heroes and there’s a reasonable counter to it.

Basically I have climbed mmr going Viper support. I just bully everyone out of lane. Buy mana boots to always have mana. Scepter or blade mail or survival items then just be annoying to others. I feel like if team plays well we can win early is Viper is really strong early on and more importantly toxic.

Hey there, I just had a game, where Juggernaut kills me (Leshrac) with his ult during Leshrac Nihilism and I do not get it. I tried to recreate the situation in Demomode, but I absolutely can't.

Please help me out, cause I cannot wrap my head around what is going on 😞

Game here: 8808687479

https://preview.redd.it/bquy35k3bp0h1.png?width=1131&format=png&auto=webp&s=21cc7e9f7a2719fa8087fe1191c4a01305c95c56

Feel free to AKA. I had few grim games before this patch. Most losses were from years ago. No , I'm not smurfing.

Today i solo ultied a pa and she just disjointed my omnislash. What is the counter play to this? Why does this exist. Can u really not get a full duration ulti off on pa until she first uses the blur?

Faceless Void is very divided on which farming item to go for between mask of madness/mjollnir, or battlefury. Does anyone play both and can give a reason why you choose one over the other in a game?

I was under the impression that hes better as a mid and support so that he can rotate and get flesh heap stacks. But my friend (self proclaimed pudge expert) says offlane works just fine. You just have to look for hooking opportunities while you farm lane creeps, especially on the pos 5. What do yall think?

I had an opponent last night where he went straight boots and tangos starting items. He got level 1 Upheaval and just do Upheaval things to harass us in the offlane as it is so difficult to stun him when he hides in the trees. Is this considered a bad practice as it shoves the wave or can you just Upheaval the enemy heroes so that they coudn't reach for last hits?

Been spamming Hoodwink lately because I really want to master the hero. My playstyle is mostly staying back, throwing Bushwhack and Acorn on cooldown, bullying whenever I can without overcommitting, and trying not to feed with greedy right clicks. I usually build support items, almost always Force Staff, Atos, euls sometimes damage if we’re ahead.

The weird thing is I often end games withlow hero damage even when I feel useful during fights. I land stuns, poke a lot, and help control fights, but the numbers still feel low.

How do you guys usually play Hoodwink? Am I being too passive or is that normal for support Hoodwink?

Hey everyone, Diamond player from League of Legends here making the jump to Dota 2. Still very early in my learning curve but already noticing some pretty big differences I wasn't expecting.

The biggest one for me is how much more important mana and sustain management seems to be early game. In League I'm used to being able to spam abilities pretty freely in lane, but here I'm running completely dry after 2-3 spells and then just standing there useless. Same with HP sustain Tangos and Salves feel like a core part of the game rather than an afterthought.

I'm also getting my head around the 0-minute shop, denying, TP scrolls instead of recalling, and just how deadly towers are early.

Another thing i´m still struggling with is items and etc but i´m just following guides for now, i guess the longer i´ll play the more it will click on me so i just gotta keep on grinding.

Any tips from former LoL players who made the switch? Or just general advice for someone coming in with MOBA experience but not Dota experience? Would love to hear what clicked for you early on.

I´ve also asked AI to make me a doc comparing each other, would you agree this is spot on when it comes to Dota 2? Overall i do find it more fun than league not gonna lie and i was hoping to progress.

https://preview.redd.it/j0evrbift90h1.png?width=693&format=png&auto=webp&s=998a9d6d084405b3f2d22889300acc6445fb1086

How do you play Drow in this patch? Her win rate has increased this patch so I tried her but I lost so badly.

In every role and ty