Frustrated, but want to learn

There are a bunch of reasons that I want to learn Dota2, but the main ones are that it's popular among my friends and that it's a strategy game (my current genre of choice; I'm coming at this from a SC2 perspective). I don't expect it to become my go-to game—I'd probably only play with real-life friends and not spend a terribly large amount of time out-of-game getting involved with the community game. My entire previous experience in MOBA/ARTS games is a tiny bit of DotA in the WC3 days.

Do I have any chance to learn what I'm doing, so that I don't feel like a fifth wheel in games with friends who have played significantly more than me? Dota2 feels incredibly hostile to me right now. I know that the learning curve is significant, and I'm not expecting to get much farther than "decent," but I would like to get to the point where I understand what I'm doing wrong.

The first problem is that I can't even watch streams without getting lost. I can look up terminology, but it seems like everything's different than the paradigm that I'm used to. Jungling is just creeping, right? So why isn't it called that? What makes a character good at jungling? What benefits does that bring to the team? If the role is called "carry" because it "carries" the team to victory… what does that mean? That sounds like something you want as much of as possible, not a synergistic role. What is a support hero supposed to be doing, anyway?

I'm resigned to the fact that I won't really know how a hero works until I've played a few games with them. So… I'm looking at dozens and dozens of games until I have an idea of what any particular hero I fight can do, right? That actually feels like an underestimate to me right now… because a mistake when I'm learning a hero often leads to a death, and it feels like a few deaths cause everything to spiral out of control. A few deaths mean I'm underleveled, and I'm underleveled that probably means I'm going to die more, and pretty soon I'm just feeding, and then we're screwed, but the game probably won't end for at least 10-15 more minutes because they still have to get past all the towers. Sure, time enough for a comeback, but I'm not good enough to stage a comeback, so it feels like the last half of the game is just lost time.

I don't know how to get a good handle on abilities and items while I'm in-game. I don't feel like I have enough time to read all the text, so I assign randomly to skills that seem good and try to pick random recipes from my "recommended" list. I don't just want to pick a single hero and stick with one thing for too long, because that doesn't interest me—I don't want to learn a hero or three, I want to learn the game. (I play random in SC2 for similar reasons.)

What mostly happens in game is that I spend about 20-30 minutes practicing my timing for last-hitting and denials, running from any confrontation that doesn't seem one-sided for our team, punctuated by someone telling at me to "go here" or "ult now" and not explaining why. (I can't really blame them, I'm not sure how many people are capable of playing a game to full potential and also keeping an eye and explaining things for the newbie at the same time.)

The thing I'd love to find is a first-person stream or videos from a legitimately good player, not playing with a team, who explains what he's doing and why. (What's crucial is that the explanation is not "usually only one person takes mid because it's safer" and more like "mid is safer than bot and top because of the ramps and <insert more reasons here>".)

So… is there a way to learn enough to make Dota2 fun without committing enough time to become as good as possible at the game? Ideally things that I can peruse in my spare time (like newbie-friendly streams), not an intensive 12-step training program. I've tried watching tournaments before, but the absolutely only prayer I have in learning from them (so far) has been that heroes are based on DotA heroes who are based on WC3 heroes, so I sort of have an idea what they do. Otherwise it's just an exploding mêlée of colors, and I find myself completely lost.

AndyJay Australia. July 05 2012 08:34. Posts 481

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Play 20 bot games and everything will magically start making sense. You just haven't played the game enough at the moment.

And as far as I know, no one ever wanted to get addicted to Dota, you just play a few games with friends then suddenly you've been playing it non stop for 3 years and al other games are boring.

cilinder007 Slovenia. July 05 2012 08:35. Posts 3216

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without taking the time to learn what every hero does and dedicating enough time to learn the heros no you cant magically get good by just watching a video

if you want to learn to play all the heros and not start by playing a few and just getting used to the mechanics its just going to take a lot of games

BobbysBack United States. July 05 2012 08:39. Posts 61

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http://www.purgegamers.com/welcome-to-dota-you-suck

May be helpful if you haven't read it yet. Towards the end it explains a little about roles. In general, though, you just need to play and ask questions. Luckily dota 2 has mmr. Although if you don't solo queue I guess you wont play against people purely your level. Bot games will be really helpful as well.

If macro is your main concern when learning sc2, then last hitting is your main concern when playing dota 2. Similarly you need to know a little about lots of heroes to get started, but really it just comes down to knowing how they do damage or how they survive. Don't have to know numbers or anything at the start.

Hopefully you keep with dota :D

shostakovich Brazil. July 05 2012 08:43. Posts 713

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Hey. If you wish, add me on steam (shostakovich; my avatar is a music sheet) or look for me at #reddit.dota2 on Quakenet. I'd love to show you the basics and explain the essential terminology.

LuckoftheIrish United States. July 05 2012 08:45. Posts 1766

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twitch.tv/ggnetpurge

Purge has a lot of Purge Plays Hero X videos which could be helpful. There are also a number of useful guides on team dignitas's website.

On Twitter @GosuGamers_LotI | Come park the Gracken, you newb.

Sublimity United States. July 05 2012 09:04. Posts 11

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I actually looked at "Welcome to Dota, You Suck" before writing this up. I did learn something from it, but then: "…there will then be 2 heroes top, 1 hero in the middle lane, and 2 heroes in the bottom lane." Why? Knowledge dumps aren't helpful. And then… past that, it seems really incoherent. "Always remember when playing a support, someone NEEDS to buy a chicken"—sorry, what? "The ganking phase is ongoing through the course of the whole game"—that's not a phase, then. And it talks about knowing the properties of your hero, like: "Are you a ganking hero that can take advantage of level gaps?" How do I know if I am, without trying it? Lists of heroes that meet the criteria don't help either, unless they tell me why. I probably could benefit from reading the whole thing without getting frustrated at the writer and giving up, but man.

I know that I could brute-force it with mass gaming. I'm just not interested in throwing 10 hours at bot games, even if I get my friends in on them too, in order to get things to start making sense. I'm also not expecting to find a shortcut that makes me decent without having played. What I'm looking for is a way to my time when I'm not playing the game learning a bit about it. (Time with friends is limited, and I am not currently engaged enough in it to play solo.)

I'm serious in that it's impressively frustrating for me to play right now, because of the negative feedback loop.

I picked a random Purge Plays Hero X video, but that's not what I'm looking for. Things aren't explained. Buying items without telling me why, etc.

Last edit: 2012-07-05 09:10:36

ahswtini Northern Ireland. July 05 2012 09:12. Posts 2574

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Sounds like you want everything handed to you on a plate in exactly the way you want it, which isn't going to happen unless you have someone mentoring you.

Smoke and gank Rosh.

bardtown United Kingdom. July 05 2012 09:18. Posts 376

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On July 05 2012 09:04 Sublimity wrote:"…there will then be 2 heroes top, 1 hero in the middle lane, and 2 heroes in the bottom lane." Why? Knowledge dumps aren't helpful.

"Are you a ganking hero that can take advantage of level gaps?" How do I know that, without trying it?

The fact of the matter is you need to collect a lot of knowledge if you want to understand the game and play well. I actually found this post more helpful than Purge's guide, just flicking through the heroes and items sections. It also explains the phases quite well (note - I've never played LoL):
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=345139

I think you just need to relax though. If some unknown ability kills you instantly, look it up in-game while you're waiting to respawn. Know the basic role of the hero you're playing, make sure you're not laning two hard carries together or something silly, and enjoy it.

Garaman United States. July 05 2012 09:18. Posts 487

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pffft. play a lot. only way to get a handle on the game.

Sublimity United States. July 05 2012 09:19. Posts 11

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If by "exactly the way you want it" you mean "in a way that I become engaged and learn from without getting frustrated," then yeah.

I'm a little snarky about this, I apologize. I sort of had this same problem with DotA, and also a bit when I briefly tried LoL. I'm trying to look at the things that frustrate me as just a steep learning curve and not necessarily a problem with the game itself. I'm here because the game is frustrating for me right now, and I'm hoping to find a less frustrating (if possibly less efficient) way to learn what's going on and hopefully ease that frustration.

OuchyDathurts United States. July 05 2012 09:21. Posts 400

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Unless you're some sort of idiot savant with the genre it's going to take lots of time to learn. That's just the nature of the beast. I believe once all heroes are in there are 109 heroes, all with 4+ abilities and a buttload of items. That's going to take tons of time no matter how you cut it. The game is unforgiving and the community is hostile so you've got to want it. Just realize you're going to suck ass for a long time and try and have fun even if things aren't going your way. Eventually things will start clicking.

If you click the "Learn" tab in DotA you can see all the heroes and their abilities. Read them before the game so you don't have to read them when it matters. Like Bobbysback said the numbers really don't matter a whole ton right now. Just what they do, I mean Lion or Lina's ult hits like a freight train, the number is inconsequential, all you need to know is it hits hard as hell and make a mental note of that. You can worry about all the "under the hood" stuff once you have a general understanding.

Creeping is killing creeps, regardless of where they are from, also called farming or ricing, it's just a general term. Jungling is killing the creeps in the jungle specifically. There are 3 lanes and 5 heroes, so 1 lane is solo and 2 lanes will have 2 people. If you have a jungle hero that means you have 2 solo lanes and only one dual lane. Those solo lanes have the ability to get more XP now to gain a level advantage so that's the benefit of a jungler. One hero gets his XP and money from the jungle and doesn't drain it from a lane.

Generally a jungler has a way of either tanking the creeps without losing too much health or does so much damage he kills them before they hurt him too much. Lycan has his wolves, Dark seer's Ion Shell does a ton of damage, Syllabear has his bear pet, Chen can make creeps his pet to tank for him, Enigma can convert a creep into pets, Axe can tank the creeps while his double helix spins them to death, etc.

One of the most important things about dota is to realize it is a game of math not unlike SC2 at it's core. So while it might make sense on paper to have all carries that's actually about the dumbest thing you can do. On the map there is only X amount of money available, a carry needs a lot of money to start taking over the game. If you're trying to spread that finite amount of money between 5 people you're going to lose to a balanced team. There's just not enough dough to go around, which is why you don't steal money from your carry, if he wants the creeps you give him the creeps.

A carry will generally carry through sheer damage. Normally they rape through auto attack alone, they don't rely on abilities like a support would. An AGI carry will usually stack AGI items which makes them hit harder and faster, more damage faster = more dead people faster. A STR carry will stack STR which will give them more HP and more damage so they can stay in fights longer and subsequently throw more damage out. There's some exceptions to rules obviously but that's the short answer.

Support heroes support their team. Their auto attacks are almost worthless, their power comes from their spells. Using their spells they can disable, snare, buff, nuke, etc. Since items, and thus money doesn't greatly help them they're in charge of babysitting the carry to get him as much money as possible while supporting the team as a whole. Items like Mekanism for an AE heal, wards to give map vision, a courier at the start of the game so people can get items to themselves without basing, etc. Everything you do is for the benefit of your team, you're not playing for yourself specifically but by helping your team you help yourself win.

Dying in the game causes a downward spiral. You want to do it as little as possible. DotA is a game of positioning, if you can't see anything (no wards) you're at a huge disadvantage and the map is a scary place, not unlike SC2. But if you can see the things coming before they happen you can either get out or catch the other team offguard. Crossing the river solo is generally not smart unless you know exactly where everyone on the other team is or you can get out 100% safely.

Recommended items aren't necessarily the best items, but for now it'll work. Sometimes they make absolutely zero sense for the hero if you're thinking smartly but it's just a meh set of stuff.

Like you said most of the time people won't tell you why, especially in the heat of a battle when it needs to be a split second decision. It'll come in time.

Watching streams is a good way to learn. Even if they don't commentate to exactly what they're doing you can still learn. IMO the most important thing in all of learning DotA is to ask yourself WHY. You don't really need someone to specifically tell you why, its better to be able to think about it and figure it out for yourself. Why am I dying? Why do I want X item? Why would I pick this hero against that team? Why why why? Stop and think about decisions till they're second nature. A lot of people just vomit out what they're doing with ZERO thought to it, zero reasoning and it turns out the whole idea was dumb as shit but they never took the time to actually ask themselves why and think/learn. "On Y hero I get X item!" Why? "Because it's what I get" well that Item sucks ass compared to this on him since it works well with these abilities "Herp Derp".

If you watch a pro's stream open up DotA, click learn and make sure you're familiar with all the heroes in the game. When he takes a certain skill or item look at it in game if you have to and figure out exactly why they did that. It'll help you more than virtually anything to be able to think for yourself. You don't need his commentary.

Play bot games, you have nothing to lose and you won't drag your team down. There's no reason not to play them to learn shit. Remember you're going to suck and you're going to need to put time in, it's the nature of the beast. Remember that a tower kill is worth approximately the same amount of money as 5 hero kills for your team so don't neglect towers. Remember that if you're support its YOUR job to buy the wards, the courier, to let the carry farm, and to die to save the carries life if you have to. Remember if you're the carry its your job to farm your balls off without screwing your team over by not showing up when they need you. Remember to always carry a Town Portal on yourself. Remember to always ask Why.

Sublimity United States. July 05 2012 09:23. Posts 11

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On July 05 2012 09:18 bardtown wrote:
The fact of the matter is you need to collect a lot of knowledge if you want to understand the game and play well.

Yes, I know that. I'm just trying to do that without tearing my hair out. I don't particularly have a need to do it fast or anything.

On July 05 2012 09:18 bardtown wrote:
I actually found this post more helpful than Purge's guide, just flicking through the heroes and items sections. It also explains the phases quite well (note - I've never played LoL):
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=345139

I'll take a look, thanks.

On July 05 2012 09:18 bardtown wrote:
I think you just need to relax though. If some unknown ability kills you instantly, look it up in-game while you're waiting to respawn.

I don't have a problem with dying to something I know nothing about. I have a problem with feeling like the game spirals out of control after that happens a few times, and then not getting any useful experience out of the rest of it because I'm underleveled and squishy.

On July 05 2012 09:18 bardtown wrote:
make sure you're not laning two hard carries together or something silly

See, I have no idea why that's bad, and just telling me that it's bad doesn't help.

Last edit: 2012-07-05 09:25:20

OuchyDathurts United States. July 05 2012 09:38. Posts 400

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On July 05 2012 09:23 Sublimity wrote:

Show nested quote +

See, I have no idea why that's bad, and just telling me that it's bad doesn't help.

Generally speaking the worst thing to do is to keep on the same course if it's only causing death. If you're a non support and you start dying a lot, maybe it's time to switch to a support role with your hero. Start buying wards or stacking creeps for your carry, just change what you're doing.

BTW stacking creeps is a way of forcing the game to spawn more creeps in the jungle. Creeps spawn at the minute marks so if you pull a jungle creep camp away from its spawn point at the proper time a new set will spawn at that location and the creeps chasing you will leash eventually. Now it has 2 sets of creeps, do it again and get 3 sets, 4sets etc. Now your carry can come through and kill more creeps from one spawn giving him a bigger influx of money. If you stack the ancient creeps (the big tough ones) that's worth about 300ish gold per spawn. So a triple stack is worth 900ish gold in their pocket. The thing is if you let the enemy kill that stack thats 900 gold in their pocket so you have to protect it so they don't steal that money. Generally speaking if you agro a creep camp at :52 seconds and run them off it'll stack the creep camp.

A lane is worth X gold per minute. A carry needs every cent they can get so putting 2 carries in 1 lane splits the money they can get which obviously is awful. Putting 2 carries in one lane makes you fight your own team for money. Also carries are very weak early game and 2 carries together are probably going to get the shit kicked out of them.

Highwinds Canada. July 05 2012 09:40. Posts 723

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On July 05 2012 09:23 Sublimity wrote:

Show nested quote +

Yes, I know that. I'm just trying to do that without tearing my hair out. I don't particularly have a need to do it fast or anything.

Show nested quote +

I'll take a look, thanks.

Show nested quote +

See, I have no idea why that's bad, and just telling me that it's bad doesn't help.

Hard carries need farm (In the form of creep kills). If 2 are in the same lane they are sharing farm. Thus you want to split them up and not have too many or else there isnt enough areas to farm creep kills for your carry to be effective late game. Support hero's generally do not lead many creep kills. They are able to defend the carry so he can freely kill things to get really strong later in the game.

If you are dieing you should play defensive. By that I mean stay with a stronger ally so you stop feeding deaths. If you have some questions you can PM me. I have like 3000 games of dota spread out by now. And in the last 2 weeks I played 190 hours T-T I need a life.

Make sure you have a Town Portal on you all the time! You fall behind in levels so quick if you can't TP around the map to get back to XP areas.

Yes It's a Good Day. 저는 아이유 사랑해요!

Sublimity United States. July 05 2012 09:43. Posts 11

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On July 05 2012 09:21 OuchyDathurts wrote:
If you click the "Learn" tab in DotA you can see all the heroes and their abilities. Read them before the game so you don't have to read them when it matters.

That's like learning English from the dictionary. I will absolutely do that if I pick a few heroes and try to learn them, but it doesn't help me at all for figuring out what an enemy hero does and why he's dangerous. I could look at Juggernaut's ult and get a feel for what it does, but without having the numbers down pat I wouldn't know that it could easily one-shot an underleveled support if no one else is around.

On July 05 2012 09:21 OuchyDathurts wrote:
Creeping is killing creeps, regardless of where they are from, also called farming or ricing, it's just a general term. Jungling is killing the creeps in the jungle specifically.

Ah, see, my hurdle there was that I was only calling the units in the jungle creeps—the rest are AI-controlled units, not neutral creeps.

On July 05 2012 09:21 OuchyDathurts wrote:
Generally a jungler has a way of either tanking the creeps without losing too much health or does so much damage he kills them before they hurt him too much. Lycan has his wolves, Dark seer's Ion Shell does a ton of damage, Syllabear has his bear pet, Chen can make creeps his pet to tank for him, Enigma can convert a creep into pets, Axe can tank the creeps while his double helix spins them to death, etc.

That makes sense, thanks.

On July 05 2012 09:21 OuchyDathurts wrote:
One of the most important things about dota is to realize it is a game of math not unlike SC2 at it's core. So while it might make sense on paper to have all carries that's actually about the dumbest thing you can do.

Nit-picking: if it's a game of math and something makes sense on paper but not in the game, then either it's not a game of math or you're doing the math wrong.

On July 05 2012 09:21 OuchyDathurts wrote:
On the map there is only X amount of money available, a carry needs a lot of money to start taking over the game. If you're trying to spread that finite amount of money between 5 people you're going to lose to a balanced team. There's just not enough dough to go around, which is why you don't steal money from your carry, if he wants the creeps you give him the creeps.

This explanation assumes that I know how scaling in the game works, which I don't. Are you saying that a carry is just a hero that scales better than average with XP and items, so that you really just want to give him as much of those as possible for a lategame advantage? (Because there's no intrinsic reason that spreading money around wouldn't produce a team as equally powerful as that same amount of money concentrated.)

On July 05 2012 09:21 OuchyDathurts wrote:
Dying in the game causes a downward spiral. You want to do it as little as possible. DotA is a game of positioning, if you can't see anything (no wards) you're at a huge disadvantage and the map is a scary place, not unlike SC2. But if you can see the things coming before they happen you can either get out or catch the other team offguard. Crossing the river solo is generally not smart unless you know exactly where everyone on the other team is or you can get out 100% safely.

This is actually why I've resisted the ARTS/MOBA genre for so long. If you lose an army in SC2 badly, then… well, the game's over. Next game, gg, don't make that mistake. I much prefer that over "okay, now you're underleveled and feeding and your team is angry at you."

On July 05 2012 09:21 OuchyDathurts wrote:
Watching streams is a good way to learn. Even if they don't commentate to exactly what they're doing you can still learn. IMO the most important thing in all of learning DotA is to ask yourself WHY. You don't really need someone to specifically tell you why, its better to be able to think about it and figure it out for yourself. Why am I dying? Why do I want X item? Why would I pick this hero against that team? Why why why?

I completely agree, but I don't have the requisite knowledge for that yet. I can make guesses, but without having the experience to back it up it's pure theorycraft. (And, as we all know, newbie theorycrafting is generally shit.) I've kinda written off most streams, for the moment, as "this will probably be good once I'm slightly more than a newbie."

On July 05 2012 09:21 OuchyDathurts wrote:
Remember that a tower kill is worth approximately the same amount of money as 5 hero kills for your team so don't neglect towers. Remember that if you're support its YOUR job to buy the wards, the courier, to let the carry farm, and to die to save the carries life if you have to. Remember if you're the carry its your job to farm your balls off without screwing your team over by not showing up when they need you. Remember to always carry a Town Portal on yourself.

Each and every one of those "remember"s is something I didn't know in the first place. This is the sort of stuff I want to learn. But I don't know where. (I'm unlikely to learn that a tower is worth 5x a hero in-game, for example.) I have not so far played with anyone who will explain conventional things like "it's a support's job to buy wards and stuff" without phrasing it as "hey Sublimity, go buy a ward and put it here."

On July 05 2012 09:38 OuchyDathurts wrote:
Generally speaking the worst thing to do is to keep on the same course if it's only causing death. If you're a non support and you start dying a lot, maybe it's time to switch to a support role with your hero. Start buying wards or stacking creeps for your carry, just change what you're doing.

I know. My point is, by the time I am aware that something's wrong, I'm already underleveled, and I'm not yet good enough to stage a comeback.

On July 05 2012 09:38 OuchyDathurts wrote:
A lane is worth X gold per minute. A carry needs every cent they can get so putting 2 carries in 1 lane splits the money they can get which obviously is awful.

That's not obvious to me, because I don't know why two heroes with half the money is worse than one hero with all the money.

Last edit: 2012-07-05 09:48:04

Shai Canada. July 05 2012 09:49. Posts 553

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On July 05 2012 08:21 Sublimity wrote:
There are a bunch of reasons that I want to learn Dota2, but the main ones are that it's popular among my friends and that it's a strategy game (my current genre of choice; I'm coming at this from a SC2 perspective). I don't expect it to become my go-to game—I'd probably only play with real-life friends and not spend a terribly large amount of time out-of-game getting involved with the community game. My entire previous experience in MOBA/ARTS games is a tiny bit of DotA in the WC3 days.

Do I have any chance to learn what I'm doing, so that I don't feel like a fifth wheel in games with friends who have played significantly more than me? Dota2 feels incredibly hostile to me right now. I know that the learning curve is significant, and I'm not expecting to get much farther than "decent," but I would like to get to the point where I understand what I'm doing wrong.

Yes. Learning to play a few heroes at a "decent" level is possible with only moderate effort.

On July 05 2012 08:21 Sublimity wrote:
The first problem is that I can't even watch streams without getting lost. I can look up terminology, but it seems like everything's different than the paradigm that I'm used to. Jungling is just creeping, right? So why isn't it called that? What makes a character good at jungling? What benefits does that bring to the team? If the role is called "carry" because it "carries" the team to victory… what does that mean? That sounds like something you want as much of as possible, not a synergistic role. What is a support hero supposed to be doing, anyway?

Jungling is farming creeps in the forest - the area between the lanes. Some call this the "fourth lane." If you have a dedicated jungler, it means that you are as a team collecting more farm and experience. Remember, in lane, all experience is divided by the heroes in the lane, and only one hero can get each last hit.

Creeping could be more vague, just farming regardless of where you're doing it.

Carries are heroes that do well with a considerable amount of farm. The more money and therefore items they have the stronger they are. Carries get their power from "right-clicking" - from doing high auto attack damage either passively or through an activatable "orb" on their attack.

You don't want 5 carries because they're only really powerful after 30 minutes (depending - some are good at 20, some not until 50). If you have 5 carries you'll lose the game before you can do anything.

Support heroes generally have great nukes (spells that deal considerable damage early on) and/or stuns. They make sure the carry has room to farm and they find early kills. They also buy things like wards and smoke and other consumables because they have less need for farm - their skills do the work.

On July 05 2012 08:21 Sublimity wrote:
I'm resigned to the fact that I won't really know how a hero works until I've played a few games with them. So… I'm looking at dozens and dozens of games until I have an idea of what any particular hero I fight can do, right? That actually feels like an underestimate to me right now… because a mistake when I'm learning a hero often leads to a death, and it feels like a few deaths cause everything to spiral out of control. A few deaths mean I'm underleveled, and I'm underleveled that probably means I'm going to die more, and pretty soon I'm just feeding, and then we're screwed, but the game probably won't end for at least 10-15 more minutes because they still have to get past all the towers. Sure, time enough for a comeback, but I'm not good enough to stage a comeback, so it feels like the last half of the game is just lost time.

Understanding the flow of the current game largely comes from experience, but a simple question to ask yourself is - does my team have a better late-game potential than theirs? If it does, then you just have to suck it up and play cautiously until your carries start doing work.

If it doesn't then you need to start thinking about smoke ganks and pushing towers. If that's beyond possible, then the game has probably snowballed out of your control. That happens! Some games are just bad. But if you find that you're the only one on your team feeding, then just remember to stick with a team-mate at all times!

On July 05 2012 08:21 Sublimity wrote:
I don't know how to get a good handle on abilities and items while I'm in-game. I don't feel like I have enough time to read all the text, so I assign randomly to skills that seem good and try to pick random recipes from my "recommended" list. I don't just want to pick a single hero and stick with one thing for too long, because that doesn't interest me—I don't want to learn a hero or three, I want to learn the game. (I play random in SC2 for similar reasons.)

Well, you've chosen the hard route, which is fine, but it means you'll feel like you're banging your head against a wall for a long time. Learning all 108 heroes will take some time.

On July 05 2012 08:21 Sublimity wrote:
What mostly happens in game is that I spend about 20-30 minutes practicing my timing for last-hitting and denials, running from any confrontation that doesn't seem one-sided for our team, punctuated by someone telling at me to "go here" or "ult now" and not explaining why. (I can't really blame them, I'm not sure how many people are capable of playing a game to full potential and also keeping an eye and explaining things for the newbie at the same time.)

Farming for 20-30 minutes usually isn't appropriate unless you're a very hard carry (late game carry). By 15 minutes you should be discussing with your team or thinking about ganking, pushing, or teamfighting, depending on your team makeup. If you're ever unsure of what you should be doing, then if it's past 20 minutes you should be with other non-carry heroes helping them (unless you're a carry, in which case you should join sure-thing ganks and teamfights and otherwise farm).

On July 05 2012 08:21 Sublimity wrote:
The thing I'd love to find is a first-person stream or videos from a legitimately good player, not playing with a team, who explains what he's doing and why. (What's crucial is that the explanation is not "usually only one person takes mid because it's safer" and more like "mid is safer than bot and top because of the ramps and <insert more reasons here>".)

Purge pretty much always explains what he's doing. He isn't an S- or A-class player, but he doesn't go particularily weird builds. He's no pubstomper, but he understands the pub meta at least.

I hope I answered all of your specifics.

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Mr. Wiggles Canada. July 05 2012 09:53. Posts 4684

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When I first started, this is the site I used to just look up general things and learn about the heroes/their abilities.

http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Dota_2_Wiki

I'd just read about one of the heroes while on the bus, or while queuing for a game, etc It's not going to give you an in-depth guide of how to play the hero, but it will describe them, give a general overview of how they work, and also tell you things that aren't necessarily apparent from the tool-tip, or happen because of the engine.

That site is also a good place to look up things that are due to the engine and how the game is designed, like how armor or magic resistance works. How crit works, what happens if you build two crit items, etc.

Remember that this is just knowledge though. It won't teach you to play the game, but it will help because you can apply it to when you play the game.

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Yacobs United States. July 05 2012 10:22. Posts 356

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Playing Dota2 well doesn't require a degree. It sounds like you want to crack open a textbook and study the game for 4 years before you feel you can play it properly. The only people who need to study the game are people who play it professionally or people who want to. Most of the stuff you're asking is stuff you learn, you know, by actually playing the game. So, play the game.

Sublimity United States. July 05 2012 10:30. Posts 11

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On July 05 2012 10:22 Yacobs wrote:
Most of the stuff you're asking is stuff you learn, you know, by actually playing the game. So, play the game.

I'm here, on this forum, because playing the game while not knowing how the game works has not worked for me. It's aimless practice. Like I said earlier, what ends up happening is I practice last-hitting and denying for 20-30 minutes, unless someone yells at me to go do something. I'm not trying to get a professional level of understanding. I'm trying to get a clue. (I'm actually frustrated enough right now that it's sort of a choice between this and giving up on the game.)

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