if you're first pick and don't know what the enemy is going for, you want a hero that's hard to punish. i ran 8.7M ancient-divine games from 7.41e/f through a model to find those heroes for each role.

how to read the table:

- the big number on the right is how much better the hero does than an average pick for that role when you don't know the enemy yet

- "worst vs" is the one commonly picked hero that hurts it the most. if that hero gets picked early on their side, think twice

some takeaways:

- dawnbreaker (pos 3) and nyx (pos 4) have no hard counters among the 40 most picked heroes, they're the safest first picks right now

- necrophos is the most common "worst matchup" in the table. if your team first picks WK or DK, keep an eye on him

- PL is strong but not a blind pick, tidehunter destroys him. save him for later in the draft

- OD is the best blind mid, his only real problem among popular heroes is PL

off-role heroes and heroes whose winrate is mostly carried by one-trick players were left out.

your own hero pool matters more than any table, but if you're stuck on first pick and comfy on one of these, it's a solid default.

(the numbers come from a draft tool i'm building, happy to answer questions about how it was calculated)

I usually buy soul ring + arcane on Timbersaw, but I usually sell the arcane boots in the late game so I'm wondering if arcane boots is even worth it on timber. It costs 1.5k gold while Kaya costs around 2.1k gold. And I usually use that boots alone when I'm farming, so do I even get much value from that item?

I went from 3900+ to 3400+ mmr and been on a lose streak and don't know what to do at this point, feels like I'm in hell lmao

But I do love the game and want to continue, any advice?

I have this build where my core items are:

Threads

Silver Edge

Bloodthorn

Then these are optional/luxury:

Shiva's Guard

Assault Cuirass

Linken's Sphere

Manta Style

Octarine Core

Aghanims

I first buy tangoes, wand, quelling blade. Then threads, oblivion staff, shadow blade, then either build into silver edge or buy orchid first. Then bloodthorn

My gameplay is offlane, once i get my core items i gank solo heroes with silver edge, bloodthorn, dragon form

Please rate it and give tips to improve it, thanks

So Dota is my first serious MOBA. That being said, I spent a significant portion of my beginning time learning last hits / denies, items and such. Currently I have reached the point where I try out heroes that seem fun and try to understand why my build guide suggests this or that item. So all is a natural part of the learning curve and SHOULD be fun.

However, the matchmaking got to a point where I'm seriously dreading queueing up again because the next 30 minutes will most likely be spent getting absolutely rolled with 0 learning potential and even less fun.

I queue Unranked All Pick and yes, I've heard that the matchmaking is not so great. It hasn't bothered me greatly before because it would feel like I have a game against even bigger noobs, then the game "ranks" me up a bit and I get matched better, until I lose and play against weaker players again. But currently, 2 out of 3 games are absolute losses and it's nowhere near fun. It started to feel like the other team is playing a whole different game the entire time.

I know I'm not farming correctly. I know I'm just "blindly" following my guides and not thinking too much if there's currently a better item. I know that I haven't quite grasped the positions and team compositions yet and don't really know which role I should be playing with my character. But this is something I feel like I should be able to figure out naturally and not by getting bullied so hard that the only way out seems to be to sit down and watch fucking guides on YouTube. Yes this is a good way and yes, I have already watched some things but this is a game and I should be able to discover by playing and not by turning it into a lecture for myself! At no point has it ever been so frustrating as it is now.

Genuinely, what do I do? Is there no way than to watch guides so I don't get rolled anymore? How do I get back my fun? How do people have thousands of hours and not cry themselves to sleep each night?

Edit: The 80 hrs refer to the amount of time spent in Unranked All Pick against real players. In total I have around 130 hrs which include bot games, tutorials, newplayer mode etc.

I'm trying to learn how to play Void Spirit, and I'm having trouble deciding when to build certain items.

Mage Slayer, for example, seems like an obvious choice when against heroes like Invoker, Storm, Puck... But should I ALWAYS build it against these heroes?

What about Parasma? It seems great as well, but is it a must? Can I mix it with Desolator/Daedalus?

Should I always go raw damage or can I build utility and things to survive in tough games?

I want to understand how I should be thinking when playing him, and the occasions I should be considering certain items?.

What mid do you think you would go with:

1 - jugg

3- hoodwink

4 - rubick

5 - lich

other team has venge, clinks, sniper (Mid), crystal, ogre

I went ember bc I felt I had to initiate on sniper Or clinks, but was very difficul. I think Pango could have been better or maybe a mars or timbersaw though I usu only play them offlane. The game felt cursed And it felt impossible to go in bc of stun and damage.

All abilities and items are set to quickcast. I use the left mouse button to move, the right button to drag the camera, and the middle button to select targets (basiclly no use at all).

Malr1ne has just played his first BO3 series with Team Liquid, so I decided to go through the games and look at the small details in his gameplay.

Not just his big plays, but the things that are easy to miss when you're watching a pro game how he moves his hero, where and when he clicks on the map, how he positions himself

These little habits might not look important at first, but they can tell us a lot about how a professional player approaches the game at the high level

In this video, I'll break down some of the details I noticed from Malr1ne's first series with Team Liquid and explain why they matter.

Link: https://youtu.be/fqIojMyYZ-I

This is a very big, negative outlier for me in terms of performance
This is likely one of the worst games I've ever had
I want to see if I missed anything about it, because in the middle of it, I was completely lost and could not fabricate a scenario where my team or myself could win if I tried.
Match: https://www.opendota.com/matches/9057247586
Profile, if you want: https://www.opendota.com/players/889840917

Hello everyone! I'm writing this post to ask for your advice on how to play Crystal Maiden better.

I've already reached Tier 30 with this hero, but I feel like I'm falling short in many situations.

So I'd like to ask for your help.

Here's my Dotabuff.

If you have any advice on item builds, positioning, macro or general sup tips, or if you can point out my overall support mistakes, please share them in the comments.

If you're planning to watch replays, stick to the 'All pick' matches where I play as CM (very often, when I play other heroes, I get flustered and make silly mistakes because I'm focusing on learning that hero)

I'm open to any criticism.

Thank you in advance

I’ve heard several times that you shouldn’t always go the same build, but I feels like butterfly and skadi is mandatory (unless you go MJOL build).

The stats are just too good and is everything Medusa needs? Sometimes I go crystalys before skadi if we are losing space quickly but I always buy skadi. You have catch + all stats (health/dmg).

I’m not saying I’m right - but what is the argument for the other builds? What other builds do you go other than the mjolnir build against PL?

In this sea (not SEA) of toxicity, sometimes the best remedy is laughing at yourself: https://youtube.com/shorts/qHmQYzrKQyQ?feature=share

Hello everyone! Just wanted to share a historic match from my public matchmaking archive, which features one of the highest XPM records ever achieved on Anti-Mage in a regular All Pick match.

• Player Nickname: Аерфора
• Player ID: 399910453
• Match ID: 5129455698
• Hero XPM: 1600 XPM
• Hero GPM: 801 GPM
• Last Hits: 552
• KDA: 8 / 0 / 9 (0 deaths)

The match data is fully public and verified on Dotabuff and OpenDota. Feel free to check the stats!

Sup everyone today I'm bringing a new guide for the support series on my YouTube channel, and today's hero of choice is Nyx Assassin

In this game I'll be playing vs a hard lane and explaining you how you could itemize when you find yourself in this position so that I can show you how you should be approaching the game from the laning phase to the early to mid game.

I'll be walking you in depth on map movements and things that I'm considering as the game progresses so that you can maybe apply these concepts to your own games and help you make better decissions overall.

I appreciate you all people who drop some nice comments on my videos, I do understand many might not like them it's just fair that some people do and improve with them, I also appreciate the ones who provide me with kind and respectful feedback and positive criticism, I'm not here for nothing but to help you by sharing a bit of the experience I have and the little knowledge about this wonderful game.

You can find the full video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB8-oCGPkUI

For any coaching inquiries or more dota related content you can find it on my page:

www.skylightcoach.com

Thank you all for viewing, let me know what any other heroes or any other kind of content you would like to see on further videos.

I was told many times that things get harder as you climb, and I am sure that is true at much higher ranks. I was told that if I have a bad support or bad team if I lose its still mostly my fault as a core. I came over from League and loved the game so decided to try Ranked and main offlane. I started in Guardian, and have had to drag my teams most of the time kicking and screaming to wins. I finally hit Archon after a monthish thanks to a 70% winrate on Slardar 63% WR on chaos knight and 62.5% on Abbadon and a lot of losing cause of trying to play other heros.

I have noticed since hitting archon my games feel way more in my control. I lose lane because i fucked up, i lose games because our team got outplayed. I lose so many less games to my support just feeding in lane or not understanding their responsibilities in lane. I die way less to 4 man dives under my tower because my team actually tps in like the avengers. I lose way less games because the enemy sniper mid has 2 full items and my ogre magi mid has boots.

I just feel way more like in most games i have a fighting chance and if I lose its truly my fault. As such my winrate has gone up. And it feels great. I am currently on a 4 game winstreak and currently 8/2 in Archon and went 25/3 last game and got called a smurf. This game finally is starting to feel good.

I know i still have a ton to learn on the fundamentals of dota and still regularly make stupid mistakes. But i no longer feel like I must play perfect for my team to have a fighting chance. I finally feel like if i need it my team will actually be there to back me up.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? Like when they finally got out of the rank basement games actually felt easier? Not cause the other team got worse but because yours got better?

Most toxic players don’t really care if they get reported. To encourage more players to stay with game and encourage new players to keep playing, should we consider using AI to detect toxic behaviour and chat thus increase punishment?

You finish a game knowing what you did wrong. Then you queue again and make the same mistake. “Watch the map more” sounds right, but it’s hard to remember when a fight is starting.

Try one check for five games. Before you walk into a fight, ask who you’re trying to reach and which enemy spell can stop you. If you don’t know, take a second and look again. After the game, ask whether you remembered to do the check. The win or loss doesn’t tell you that.

I build DotaSense, a Windows app for habit reminders and postgame reviews. That’s why I’m interested in this. You can try the check with a note on your desk; you don’t need the app. What’s one thing you remember after a game and forget in the next one?

First time posting anything. Currently stuck a low immortal and feels like I've stagnated. I'm not sure what to work on.

https://www.opendota.com/players/1626394312

https://dota-2-trivia-1420b.web.app/share/c/45bea93ffc31482c8a8c0e491fa91654/meteor-hammer-essence-distil-aghanim-s-scep-tranquil-boots-hydra-s-breat

If you have Android, play my challenge, I had to think about this one for awhile before eventually getting it. Don't see this build very often.

I love having the community play my challenges, thanks everyone who plays!

It's a fun way to learn builds too. You can also learn hero biographies, or item lore!

Title, new-ish returning player wanting to play Centaur, I don't think my Micro is good enough to be able to control Helm's minion very well and efficiently, so wondering what to start building first before I rush Heart into blink?

Also any tips on how to create space as centaur when the whole team is being forced to play in base from early on?

Hey guys. Hope you all enjoy what I've got here for some educational and "why did the pro team do that?" content.

If youre looking for direct matchups, the pro and public stats comparing 2 specific heroes, please go check out the https://dotadrafter.com/matchups arena.

If you want to see how or why the pro games are going in a certain direction, then rather stick to https://dotadrafter.com/fanzone where you can get a full breakdown of the games played in the Pari Universe and what lane combos, individual matchups, and skill diff contributed to predicting the outcome.

I would love feedback on the predictor, and if you can think of any refining that I need to do, or perhaps balancing the criteria in the draft itself.

Im personally hoping Marline can 1. Beat ATF and 2. Get Liquid to top 3.

Hello everyone, I recently finished recalibration and got guardian rank. During calibration games I was mostly getting the hard support (which is my primary role anyway) and time to time some core roles - mid couple of times, offlane and safe lane may be once each. But after I got my rank assigned I am getting mid, safe lane, etc. I think only one game I had support. I have preferred heroes in all roles for such scenario, but still quality of game for me isn’t same anyway. Is this normal thing to happen? How to be ready to play any role? Or only choice is to not have all roles selected ?
Thanks!