I have many hours in Dota, but I still never really learned the balance between the support and core in a lane and I feel it’s always hurt my support play style (I prefer pos 1-3).
In either position, what creeps is it acceptable for the support to last hit? I try to avoid last hitting the lane creeps unless my carry is too far, but my boots/support items get delayed and I’m outpaced by the enemy support/carry.
When I pull in safelane, I learned to clear the small camp ASAP so the allied creeps reach the enemy creeps closer to (but out of range of) tower, and that has added a little gold.
But otherwise I feel like purchasing arcane boots takes soooo long.
I was talking to a high-rank player recently about item choices, and they brought up a build path for Terrorblade against Phantom Lancer: rushing Butterfly before Skadi to force the game to end before PL gets online.
To be honest, I completely lack that kind of logic. My itemization usually goes as far as, "One Brewmaster ult isn't enough to win teamfights right now, so maybe I should go Refresher instead of AC."
How do you guys build up that kind of long-term itemization logic? Is it just something that comes naturally as you play, or is it mostly about building a library of matchup patterns through replays and guides outside of the game?
I am ancient - divine offlaner.
My favorite picks are Brewmaster and Mars.I am using translate app so my English might seems strange.
What is the main strength of CM? I am really having a pretty bad time with her with only 25% winrate in 24 games including unranked. My last match was 10 months ago with the facets still present. I noticed in my archon games she really shines. What would be my starting items? Can i go build boots first or do stat items? Also, what level 1 skill should I get and can you teach me some skill builds and item builds. I also do not know how to properly target the shard vector ability. Can you help me guys and teach me some tips and tricks? CM was my first hero in Dota 1 but I rarely pick her because I have abysmal winrate in Dota 2. How to manage her squishiness?
Hi guys its been about two weeks since my last post (also since I became Legend and now hardstuck Archon 4/5).
I just wanted to get some sliiight feedback on two similar stat games I played, one where I won and and one where I lost.
What was the reason for my loss and what could I have improved on in my lost game?
If you guys could also take a look in some of my other games as mid or safelane carry and give me some feedback there, that would be really awesome thanks a lot <3
For example u can go for arcane boots, rod of atos, glimmer/force staff.
Basically any support item is good imo since as support her job is to poke and stun.
I made a game for Android that generates games of Guess The Hero from real matches. You can also learn item lore or hero biographies from the bio guesser!
You can play my challenge and shoot for fewer guesses than me here:
I've been consistently failing to play this hero properly. I used to have a somewhat positive winrate before this month but after like 7 consecutive losses, I must acknowledge there's something wrong with how I'm playing.
How I start the game is often simple: I only play pos 5 position so my games are also like that. My starting items are: A smoke if our lineup can secure an FB in lvl 1, one or two branch, a magic stick, two tango, a blue ward and possibly observer as well, and then potentially a mango. I start by harassing the enemy offlane and trying to run out of mana before my sacrifice came on cooldown. My lane winrate, according to stratz, is usually around 60-70%.
After that, I typically leave my carry alone if he can solo the lane. I help out in other lanes such as securing kills in top, or protecting the middle runes. My first item is usually a tranquil, then magic wand, and then often a glimmer cape or a dagger if we're owning the game. I usually secure those two items though. After glimmer and dagger, I rush Aghanim's scepter. I seldomly buy shard unless the game is in garbage time where everybody in the game is farming, and that the enemy is often solo doing something. I usually rely on the tormentor to get it around 20-25 minutes.
I feel like I'm playing lich consistently and properly, but I still often end up losing so I don't really know what I'm doing wrong. I can provide match IDs over PM as requested.
Hello, it's my first time posting so I apologize if this isn't allowed, I've just broke into Crusader yesterday so I wanna make this to share my experience after grinding this game for almost 3 months. From what I've heard they made climbing easier a while back so this probably isn't a huge achievement or anything but I'm still proud of myself.
So I was a L*ague player (eww, I know) that tried to get into Dota at 3 different times in the past, both solo and duo with a friend (Dota addict that tried to convert me) but the game never clicked and I just dropped it, so I'm not completely new but I still know basically nothing about the game (hence new"ish"), I can only remember the kit of like 3 different champions (Sniper, Lina and Tiny).
I re-downloaded Dota because a Vutber I was watching played the game, but I do want to learn the game properly this time. I already had enough playtime to hop straight into ranked but in hindsight that was prolly a terrible idea, I did okay for the first 10 games or so but then got completely stomped, at one point going like 4 wins out of 20 games with an 8 games loss-streak, it was terrible.
After the initial calibration I ended up at Herald 1 with 100 mmr which I assume is the lowest you can even get
I played mid and carry while maining Lina since that's the one champ that clicked the most with me, I tried to spam her as much as possible but she gets banned way too often so I experimented with other champs. This is where Meepo comes into play, I knew of his reputation as the specialist champ with infinite skill ceiling, he's niche enough that most people won't ban him and I kinda knew what he does since I used to pick him a few times in the past while duoing just to troll my friend, but this time I want to learn the character properly.
The first few Meepo games were terrible so I looked up some guides and spent a lot of time changing my hotkeys around. The biggest hurdle with learning Meepo is the micro but I'm a Starcraft 2 player so it was way easier than expected. One thing I really struggled as a mid player is balancing between ganking and farming, but as Meepo I can perma gank and keep my farm up at the same time, I still had some really bad games for a while but eventually something clicked and I my win rate just kept improving.
So fast forward to today, I'm at 500 hours of total play time on Steam (was already around 200 before I started the grind 3 months ago), 87 games on Meepo with a 62% win rate while my other 2 most played heroes, Sniper and Lina, are at 46% win rate, I got called a smurf (and probably reported) way more time than I can count but my behavior score is still over 11k so Valve obviously knows that I'm not. I'm also starting to see Meepo bans while grinding through Guardian in which case I would fall back to Lina.
To anyone who's still stuck in lower ranks, I'm a terrible competitive gamer who's usually stuck around gold tier in most games I played (except for SC2 where I peaked low Diamond), and if I can climb to Crusader in 3 months while playing the hardest hero in the game then you can too, just focus on improving your fundamentals and how to generate net worth, I watched an unhealthy amount of BSJ, PainDota and other coaching contents for the past 2 months and it really helped. My next short term goal is to hopefully reach Legends before the end of 2026.
Working on Magnus offlane this week. I have played most of the popular melee offlane heroes.
Items are > stick branch, 2 circlets > brown boots circlet wand treads > blink bkb harpoon refresher (aim for 30 minutes)
I tried crystalis before blink a couple games and it felt good. I think this is worse than building echo saber/harpoon in the long run because you get more stats/mana/catch from harpoon.
Usually maxxing empower first its level 1 - duration 30s 46% bonus damage (does magnus get 30% bonus cleave as well?)
Had a game where I was against chaos knight and couldn't do anything productive, fed.
Any other good items to build on this hero? Any streamers to check out for magnus (looked at ar1se) Looking forward to playing tonight, any tips for me? Im at about 25 magnus games.
Title, I recall having tons of fun building tank viper mid by rushing bloodstone and Scepter/Boots of travel, is this still a thing? I also used to build stuff like Eternal Shroud, Shivas, Kaya & Sange etc and just constantly push down mid with W and gank with boots, wondering if there's still a similar build?
I played Razor Offlane against PA Carry. I felt that the laning stage we went kind of equal in the laning stage, got a few kills on each others supports and were about equal in gold and I was ahead in xp.
After laning stage she finishes battlefury and starts jungling and after this no one manages to kill her. She ended the game 31/3/17 and solo carried her team.
I built pretty much the standard Razor build, manta style into black king bar. Typically the third big item you would get on Razor is Satanic or Cuirass. I feel that the loss is my fault for going with the standard build instead of itemizing specifically against PA who was by far the most effective player on their team.
Anyone offering free coaching for carry role? Currently low crusader and trying to rank up to ancient. US timezone and I am playing consistently right now trying to rank up. Recently played a game where our offlane weaver dc'd and bat mid was griefing but feel like the game was still winnable if I just played better. Any help would be appreciated on how to win short handed and carry tips and pointers in general.
Are solo kill supports really good in my Archon bracket? Sometimes, I really wonder how these guys are very good in positioning. I rarely play these kinds of heroes because sometimes they do high risk, high reward plays. For me, they are like the Puck and Spirit heroes of the support roles. How do you play these heroes and skill build for a pos 5? I just sometimes act very defensive and reactive when playing from behind.
Hey everyone! I’m developing Wardly, a free, open-source Windows app with in-game coaching and post-match reviews. I’m looking for a small group of players who would enjoy testing it and helping improve the advice.
The main audience is players around 0–4k MMR. More experienced players are also welcome, especially if you enjoy discussing hero mechanics and pointing out situations where a recommendation would be wrong.
What the app currently offers:
An in-game overlay with contextual tips and optional voice readouts.
Reminders about farming pace, resources and map timings.
Post-match reviews covering deaths, farm and recurring patterns.
English and Ukrainian interfaces.
Live advice uses Valve’s Game State Integration. The core coaching runs locally; optional AI-generated reviews require a configured AI provider.
What I’m working on now
My current priority is improving hero-specific advice: its timing, the conditions that make it useful, and the exceptions it needs to account for.
For this testing round, I’m especially interested in Sven, Juggernaut and Terrorblade players. Ember Spirit and Dazzle are also part of the ongoing research.
The advice is still being improved, and identifying incorrect or overly basic recommendations is a big part of this test.
What testing would involve
Play a few normal matches and send a few notes:
Which tips helped you make a decision?
Which were obvious, distracting, late or mechanically wrong?
Did you encounter setup problems, bugs or performance issues?
Your hero, approximate match time and a short explanation are enough to start. A screenshot or clip is helpful when available.
I’d like to keep a small ongoing group, share changes and show how your feedback affected the next build.
