DOTA 2

I would start by playing Lich or a similar uncomplicated hero with low farm dependency until you have a firm grasp of the basics. After that, do whatever, but I recommend playing each hero at least once.

Start with sac on lich, immediately kill lane creeps whenever they are up with it to deny xp. Manually last-hit-deny from there for even more grimacing from the enemy lane. If they harass attack you, harass attack back and chase a little to get a hit or two in.... ping them and frost nova when you sense a kill.

Pal and I (when he would actually commit!) would duo lane PA + lich and frost nova+blink then time the dagger toss from when nova was fading and rinse/repeat. It worked too well for pugs and was much easier for the same pay off as the trickier combos. It also involved bringing up one of the hardest carriers no prob just about every time. PA is lawls.

Yeah PA can get pretty stupid if she gets off like two crits in a row and just kills an enemy hero. Though I always preferred AM/Void as the classic hard carries since PA lacks a movement spell to help her navigate and farm the jungle in a flash. I also like how Void can manmode a team fight with Chrono and just take down 2 heroes without the other team being able to do anything. Though dagger does make PA much better for ganking in lane than void/am.

As a noob, the problem with sticking to one hero is that you will never be all that familiar with the hero's you are up against or the ones on your team. Having a wide breadth of knowledge is always going to serve you better than playing one hero a little bit better. It takes time, but after about your 25th game or so, you will be 100 times better.

As a new player, you are going to have the best luck with support hero's. You can play Treant Protector and have a big impact by just throwing Living Armor all around the map to your allies and towers. I love Lich, Enigma, Shadow Shaman, Crystal Maiden, and just serving up kills to your team. If your team is smart, they will appreciate you more than the guy getting the last hits.

Watching iceiceice play invoker versus a pub is pretty amazing.

Derp for mannering up. Other team pauses because a player is lagging, we wait 5 minutes, one of ours is afk, we pause and they unpause. Our guy decides to sit in fountain and gets an abandon.

Just gonna be a silent dickhead from now on. Mute everyone, listen to music, and don't allow pauses.

I attacked the game for my first 100'ish games as not even really giving a shit if the team wins or loses. Until you really know who the heroes are and what they do it doesn't matter. Select the hero next on my list, don't care if it doesn't mesh up with the team's picks (though generally I was the first one to pick anyways), and play the game. If someone abandons then oh well I still learn all the spells of this hero.

For new players, it might be beneficial to queue into the Limited Heroes pool. It plays just like all pick with the limitation of only have 20 or so heroes to understand what they do and what they will do to you in a game instead of needing to have knowledge of 100. Most of the heroes in this pool are also fairly simple and straightforward without complex interactions.

If you ever solo queue, you have to not give a shit whether you win or lose. My EU games have for the most part been pretty solid with nice (or at least quiet) people, but the games I played on US east were total shit.

I have played probably 1000 games of Dota and Dota2, and I still don't know a damn thing about the Invoker. True story bro.

Fight_sl said:

I have played probably 1000 games of Dota and Dota2, and I still don't know a damn
thing about the Invoker. True story bro.

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Lol, same. I understand the concept, but playing Guitar Hero while I play DOTA doesn't appeal to me. Him, Meepo, or Io are almost always repicks/swaps for me.

For me the way I learned was play A-Z. I didn't go to the next hero unless I won, or unless I was playing with a premade.

Anyone want to practice mid vs me? I know there aren't many RR mid players other than myself, but i really need practice in a few matchups (QoP vs Puck and QoP vs OD are two that come to mind). Would be nice to just bang out a bunch of 1v1's until first kill over and over until we both feel comfortable with the duel going forward.

A good Puck is going to shut down a good QOP any day of the week with phase shift and silence. Mid isn't really a 1v1 endeavor, your support's roaming ability factors a lot into winning any lane.

Cyni_sl said:

Anyone want to practice mid vs me? I know there aren't many RR mid players other than myself, but i really need practice in a few matchups (QoP vs Puck and QoP vs OD are two that come to mind). Would be nice to just bang out a bunch of 1v1's until first kill over and over until we both feel comfortable with the duel going forward.

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Timbersaw really needs a nerf badly to his armor passive.

Timbersaw is stupid OP'd. Short cooldowns, low mana cost, and completely indestructible.

LOL

Fucking iceiceice in his stream playing videos of some chick teaching Russian and saying hes joining Na'vi

He fades badly lategame, his damage is completely nullified by a bkb (he can't even attack while his chakram is out), and he has no disable. He only seems invulnerable when he is allowed to disengage and regen, or when it's the laning phase and he has some points in armor to completely nullify harass. In a teamfight the regen is never really a factor, and the +16 armor only kicks in after 16 physical attacks, which is frequently enough to kill him anyways. Basically, he has a few specific scenarios where his mobility, aoe pure dmg, and passive can make him a beast, but if he doesn't have a good angle to chain through trees, or you stay spread out so his chakram can only tag one, or you focus him down right after he chains, he's not as intimidating as he seems.

Timbersaw is one of my favorite and most played heroes, and there are definitely times where I feel invulnerable. Those times mostly occur because he needs to be approached differently than other heroes, where you have to strongly consider the surrounding trees and consider that his chain is a 4 second cooldown. It's hilarious when a chain around through 3 heroes trying to gank me and they don't time their disables. Getting stunned or hexed right after I chain is fine, because I'll just build up armor stacks and once the disable wears off I'm chaining off the screen. Unless you know you can burn him down before a disable wears off, it's usually better to anticipate his chain, nuke him to force the chain without building up his regen, then burn him down and disable him a few seconds later when his chain is coming off cooldown. There's nothing worse than initiating with a stun and physical dps, then having him chain away and regen up hundreds of hp while you chase him around the forest. Prolonged fights without heavy focused spell damage are Timbersaw's bread and butter.

I do think his spells cost too little mana, considering they all have some sort of utility (stat steal, mobility, slow, aoe) as well as pure damage (or at least the potential for pure damage). I rarely have mana issues before I'm buying arcane boots, and from then on you'll rarely get low mana again unless there is a prolonged fight. The passive is probably a bit too strong in the early / mid game, but it tapers off so badly later that I don't think it's imbalanced.

When I offlane I generally go armor / whirl / armor / chain, or some variant of those. Sometimes I'll have 2 in chain by level 4, but generally 2 in armor early makes you immune to harass as long as you steal creep aggro every now and then to keep your stacks at 8. Against two nukers, however, or a lane with strong disables, Timbersaw is pretty fragile still.