DOTA 2

    Quote from Erratic

    My most played valve game bahaha

    I still have way too many hours with DOD but DOTA2 is nearing that very very fast. Such a good an exciting game because I know I'll never master it.

    yeah now that you mention it I've definitely played wayyyy more cs than dota2, if you file it and dod as valve games.

    But if I combined my war3 dota hours with dota2 they would start to stack up pretty considerably.

    steam has been generous enough to spare me 2 copies of this game, which apparently no longer is a beta but the real deal. if anyone is interested, let me know

    Hopefully this'll bring a little influx of players and the tutorial matches won't be people with 200 wins calling everyone noobs.


    Not that I'm bitter or anything.

    I think I'm gonna give this a try. I'm probably going to suck hard and get blasted by "pros". But we'll see! I'm liking it so far after having killed my first tower in the tutorials. Very nice style to the game. I can see how people get addicted and rage hard though!

    It's definitely the best time to get into it. There are a lot of us newbies floating around now it’s been released so the matchmaking is better. And yeah, unfortunately the rage is kind of a side-effect of the mechanics; it’s full of feedback loops, highly susceptible to the Dunning-Kruger effect, and people are trapped together for 30-60 minutes, but I've not seen anything that has really shocked innocent little me.

    I can't get over the terrible UI. The picking phase is a disaster compared to HoN. Hero names don't show up when hovering on enemies, when your enemies pick their heroes or your ally ( unless they random their hero, THEN it is shown in the chat... how dumb is that?) If you use the grid view to show all heroes, the top row name expand outside the screen ( cant see the damn hero name AGAIN). Creep kill/deny in bottom right corner with a font of 2 pixel.

    I have played over 2000 games of dota wc3 and then I switched to HoN. At first, I thought HoN was too fast but you soon realize how "fluid and reactive" the movements are compared to Dota 1 & 2. I don't want to start a debate about which moba is better but if only Valve could fix all the annoying issues of the UI, maybe I would stop raging! (should have been fixed day 2 of beta in 2011 in my opinion)

    One thing I'd like to know is it possible to assign the movement controls to WASD and then look around using the mouse? Rather than using the current set up?


    I'm still doing the middle lane tutorials, done it with 4 heroes now I think and I'm getting the hang of it. I randomise every time so I don't worry about skills, I just learn as I go.


    The hardest bit I find is deciding what items to buy. There are so many! The recommended items are handy on the left of the shop though. Need to start learning what each stat does methinks!

    Quote from Beck

    I'm still doing the middle lane tutorials, done it with 4 heroes now I think and I'm getting the hang of it. I randomise every time so I don't worry about skills, I just learn as I go.


    The hardest bit I find is deciding what items to buy. There are so many! The recommended items are handy on the left of the shop though. Need to start learning what each stat does methinks!

    Yup, random pick (single draft, random draft & all random) are very good to learn fast the game : each game will have a different draft and you wont see same heroes again and again. I leveled up when i switched from "all pick" to "all random" !

    And you'll learn also by seing others playing heroes nobody plays, you will see redundant items on certains heroes / roles, etc..

    If some macpcorians want to play few games, maybe we could setup a "clan or group", don't know exactly the ingame-name for groups.

    I am by no means a super great player, but I have played quite a few hours of Dota 2. If anyone wants some help or coaching, feel free to send me a private message with your steam name or something. I think Dota really rewards experience and knowledge, so tips from someone who knows about most (i think) aspects of Dota might give you a better start than I had (learning from scratch).


    In the earliest beginning, there is something to be said for sticking to one or two or three heroes (like Lich, Dragon Knight, Tidehunter, Lion, Viper), so you can focus on the general aspects of the game (farming, creep flow, ganking, vision, etc.) instead of having to focus on "what the hell do my skills do?" and "what items should I get on this hero?".


    Re: Terrible UI, other moba's: I have never played the original Dota, nor League of Legends, nor HoN, though I have seen some gameplay videos from all of the above. I think that if you haven't played those other games, you might not miss some of those features. For example, the last hit/deny counter is plenty big for me. It doesn't matter that much (you can generally tell how well you are doing by looking at your gold, level, items, etc.) so the numbers do not need to be in your face imho.

    Regarding the names of the heroes being cut off during grid view pick phase: yes, that is silly and should definitely be fixed, though I never noticed.


    Controls: I play with WASD to control the camera. Years of playing FPS make that feel very natural for me. Downside: you lose 4 hotkeys that you could otherwise use for skills or items. Upside: you can always keep your cursor on a creep you want to last hit, or the enemy you want to target, even while moving the camera. And you can always use edge-pan anyway if you want to in a certain situation.


    Items: there are quite a few items, but generally every item has a pretty specific place in the game, depending on type of hero (support/carry/ganker/etc,, ranged/melee), stage of the game (early/late), etc. When you play different heroes, you will experience what items are good in different situations.

    The main difference in responsiveness comes down to turn speeds. But the lack of them in League is also the reason nobody will ever pick a melee carry.

    Beck: I think for the mid challenge you're probably best off getting an early bottle, spamming all day, and using the runes to refill it. In a real game people will contest the runes, though. Recommended items are never terrible and you'll get a feel for what's optimal later.

    Ack, I made a new page. Sven made a good post if you've missed it. <<<

    Here's a few points I can talk about (been playing dota since '07):


    • The game expects you to know a lot about the different heroes, their lane matchups and what items are best.
    • Likewise, on higher levels the game expects you to keep track of enemy movement, best done through wards. I would consider wards perhaps the most important item in the game.
    • The second most important item you can get is a magic stick (cheap version). It can and will save your ass on countless occasions if used correctly.
    • These things are important because the absolute worst thing you can do in the game is to die. And you WILL DIE A LOT. Don't trade kills for deaths, it's like playing a lost game. Even if that Lion on the other team gets away with just 20 HP, he is never going to be worth your death.
    • There is a lot of "art of war" elements to the game that new people won't notice, and you can tell a lot by how the enemy heroes act in lane. If they're moving towards you, ignoring the creep line, there's a good chance they've got a friend in the woods right next to you and looking to kill. Move back ASAP.
    • Learn to juke. It's the quintessential skill in surviving ganks and avoid getting killed.
    • Teamwork is more essential than having an "OP" hero.
    • Play to negate the other team the most possible. If you find yourself dying a lot, get more health. If the other team uses only magic damage, get a black king bar. If the other team has a strong single target stun get linken's. The more you negate the other team the less they can do against you, and the more chances you'll have of winning teamfights and thus the game.

    There's much more than this, but these are essentials that work for pretty much any hero. There should be tutorials on youtube that teach you juking, though you probably won't find any on analyzing enemy movement, so you'll have to figure that yourself.

    Map awareness is key to success in dota. Sure Wards are VERY helpful, but you need to "try" to keep track of your closest enemies (your lane) as well as the 2 other lanes. I pretty much move around the map not looking at my hero, but AHEAD of where I'm going, while looking at the mini-map. why? because you can spot enemy color in the map quickly, even if they are only seen for 0.5 sec. Always look at your mini-map ALWAYS!

    Rune spawns at 2 minute interval 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, etc. Make sure you know what you're doing if you are close to a rune spot in that timeframe.

    Learn to pull neutral creeps into your friendly wave of creeps.

    Learn to stack neutral creeps. ( doubling, tripling the amount of neutral creep to increase farming if you have enough nukes or a carry to support )

    Like Sentura mentioned, learning the map and it's hidden foggy paths will save you numerous times, and if you die, you will have gained maybe that 3-4-5-6 seconds necessary for backup to arrive and make 2 kills for 1 death.

    Communicate with your teammates, ping in the map, draw lines, say predetermined messages with the radial menu (not sure but I think it's T or Y by default)

    One last thing, try to buy your items as soon as you got the money, if you know you're going to die 100% and you have only 200 gold in your bags, try to buy Teleports (probably the most important item in the game as you get matched with better players) ALways try to carry a Teleport if you are doing your things in the jungle, farming in a distant lane or even when you are pushing in case shit hits the fan and you gotta run(little juke and hop double tap teleport to tp back to base) ---> Enable Double tap self activating key in the options. Works with potions, tp, and few select skills.

    If you beat someone they're a noob and conversely if they beat you they're a tryhard. Your worth in team fights is determined by how many ultimates you were hit by, a number you should report in all chat (i.e. “3 ults to kill me lol”). If an ally walks into your mid-lane before the 20 minute mark communicate by spamming pings until they leave. Always rage buyback after you die. And if you demand commendations after the game people will definitely give them to you.

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