/r/TrueDoTA2
A community for DotA 2 players to share informative and in-depth content including strategy discussions, balance discussions, build theorycrafting, and much more!
TrueDota2 is a community for both Dota veterans and new players alike to discuss gameplay — everything that happens from the pick screen to the closing scoreboard.
For strategy discussions, balance discussions, build theorycrafting, and much more, TrueDota2 is your #1 source for in-depth Dota analysis.
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/r/TrueDoTA2
Basically the title. What am i missing, she really feels like a sh*t hero to me.
I know it's never just one thing. But for those who climbed out of 1k mmr, what's the most important thing you did that helped you CONSISTENTLY win games, thus climb out of that bracket?
Dota 2 is a strategy game that has been evolving over 20 years.
What's going to happen if you continue to replace its signature pacing on anticipation with more and more 'action content'?
Turbofication of Dota2?
Tiktok ruined it all and 'anticipation gameplay' (and screenplay for that matter) is slowly but surely squeezed out for entertainment purposes.
"Entertainment" a.k.a "screen time" a.k.a. "glued to the screen time". After all that's the only metric we care about, no?
A while ago I mentioned the 'Operation Black and Dagger' design trend in Dota 2.
(I outlined what happens with gameplay after 20 years of power creeping it),
Very promptly afterwards 'Black King Bar' had been reworked, so the trend is now towards a different direction.
What we are seeing right now, is a trend of 'Just Get Buttons'.
In order to explain it in simple terms, let me bring your imagination to the world of Dota 2 Turbo for a minute. In Turbo, you pick Skywrath Mage Mid and approximately at 3:30 minute mark you buy your 'Rod of Atos' (which provides a 2 second single target root) and you unleash your magical arsenal onto the nearest core, getting an easy kill.
Now, in a 'normal' game that can't really happen because even getting that kill is extremely risky, costly and ultimately inconsequential.
But Turbo is a different game, because of its different pacing. And that pacing skews the gameplay away from strategic map control and towards raw firepower.
And as in the example above - you don't even need brown boots.
And so.. that's exactly where Dota 2 is heading right now: 'Just Get Buttons', as opposed to stat sticks and passive utility. What's the point of your Storm having 3 stat sticks but no BKB to play the game against Atos, Orchid and alike?
We can't say it's a meta evolution of the 'black and dagger' era, because the BKB has been changed which in turn enabled this new paradigm.
Case in point:
OG Esports vs. G2 x iG - ESL One Birmingham 2024
Game 1, Watch from around 18 in-game minutes
I'm not claiming to be correct, just interested in a having conversation.
Thoughts?
https://www.dota2.com/patches/7.09
In Patch 7.09, the range creep attack acquisition range was reduced from 800 to 600. If I remember correctly, this was to prevent offlaners from pulling the first wave of enemy creeps before they pass their T1 tower.
Exactly 6 years ago, in Patch 7.14, the first wave could no longer be aggroed before passing their T1 tower.
So why wasn't the ranged creep attack acquisition range reverted to 800?
This is the sole reason why when you try to pull a wave behind your tower, the ranged creep de-aggoes and stays to attack the tower, which is extremely frustrating.
I'm a returning player currently in the 1k bracket slowly moving up (was in 500).
There have been too many games where I'm 18-8-21 something and still lost the game due to teammates griefing/throwing/quiting/noob, etc. You know, the typical 1k behavior.
Which heroes in the current meta can 1 man carry despite having 1 or 2 really bad teammates?
I recently coached an Ancient 2 Lifestealer. I've coached him before and helped get his laning up to speed.
He had an excellent lane - over 1k up on the enemy offlaner, over 60 CS @ minute 10. However, he ended up being unable to close the game quickly enough against an AM and lost the game.
This is a very common dynamic I see in Legend / Ancient / Divine games. If this situation sounds familiar to you, here's what you can do to avoid this problem in the future:
Farm More Aggressively on the Map
Better Item Choices
There's a lot more we went over and you can get all the details in this video. Hope this helps!
No matter how much they nerf him, he's still relevant on the scene. Is the concept of his ult just too strong?
Personally I thought about changing his Aghs and Shard so his ult is not indirectly augmented in any way, and/or pumping up the cooldown on the ability.
Hi guys, BalloonDota, 8k MMR player here with yet another educational advice to share with you all.
This time, we are looking into the Dota 2 settings to optimize your gameplay. Do note that while some settings are bound to self-preference based off years of habits, unless it is working for you, you might possibly want to look for better ways to optimize your gameplay for faster and more consistent improvements over time.
I made this video after having witnessed the player perspective of many players such as how their map looks like, how they press their buttons, how they move their mouse and many other factors as well. In order to tackle these flaws in gameplay, here are some of the main settings you should be putting extra attention towards in order to better your gameplay.
Settings to consider optimizing:
Hotkeys
Options (Minimap)
Options (Game)
Options (Camera)
Options (Interface)
Enable holding ALT shows neutral spawnboxes -> for stacking and watching spawnboxes
Enable holding ALT shows tower attack range -> for checking tower attack range and target to dive towers
Enable Show ability rangefinder while casting (not working atm, just enable)
Cursor size -> average cursor size, around 125-150 to have easier pinpointing
Among these settings, the most important setting to consider would be optimizing the minimap. The faster and more information you gather from the map to assess actions to make, the better you will become in the game of Dota.
These explanations are further broken down in the video I had just released. I hope these settings help you guys to optimize your gameplay and become better in Dota. Thank you!
Video link: https://youtu.be/x8KgW-wAgAo
Initially, I thought that when a team gets first blood before someone abandons, the game is already counted. However, I had a game a few months ago where someone on our team dc'd at the start and some of us died level 1 and our teammate reminded us not to pause at 3 mins and let the dc'd teammate abandon so it won't be counted. I was hesitant at first since enemy already got first blood but was eventually convinced by my teammate to not pause and the teammate abandoned and it was actually not counted.
I played a game a while ago where an enemy dc'd the moment the creeps spawned. All lanes were winning and we got a couple of kills until the enemy paused at 3 mins. My teammates were arguing whether to unpause or not. One guy was arguing that the match won't be counted if the enemy ended up abandoning the game since he dc'd before first blood. Another guy was saying that the game will still count since he dc'd right after the creeps spawn. The enemy eventually reconnected on the first pause so I wasn't really able to find out which of them is correct.
So what are the conditions for an abandon to make the game not counted?
Ame has been making the old Barrage build look nice in games. Rushing 15 minute Shard and Maelstrom, going for Gleipnir and eventually Daedalus.
This build seemed kind of dead with the 7.33 rework moving Barrage to Shard, but it's gotten some buffs since. It's less gank focused than Orchid, Khanda, or Deso, but with only 40 mana cost on Barrage it's great for farming. Maybe he doesn't get as early of ancient stack timings as he used too, but having the farming tool up ASAP makes him not reliant on kills and towers for snowballing.
Gleipnir and Daeadlus both work well with Strafe also, and his fights look very fluid bouncing between the two attack skills. It's less instant kills than it used to be, but with all the heroes tools is consistently high damage. The hero looks stronger late game than I think most would have assumed, especially once he hits the Strafe multishot at 25.
Hello all, just wanted to make a post about chaos knight, a surprise meta pick for me which is feeling extremely reliable in most drafts I've played it in. I'm pretty confident he can be played from POS 1-3 (less from mid, but his high DMG and lifesteal makes it hard to lose lane)
So just getting straight into I'll talk to what I believe makes this hero work so well currently, firstly with his laning stage. CK SOMETIMES has a level 2 powerspike which is extremely punishing if they step up a little too far up, one stun into reality rift is enough to 100-0 supports, low armour cores - especially if you're paired with any of the good supports right now (shaman, bane, disruptor). In lanes where this not possible, (razor, timbersaw, any early mobility hero) you can just level passive twice at 3 and go for this play when you have treads and LVL 4-5, it usually still is a trade in your favour into bad lane match ups.
There are a few important things to value when laning as CK, an early wand is very important as well as contesting every lotus, this should be easy seeing you have the stun rift combo that threatens any solo hero. Why wand? Obviously wand is an item that benefits every hero but for CK, his chaos strike lifesteals 90% of the harass you take in lane so you can build a wand up exceptionally easy, paired with lotus you're looking at a surprise near 600 HP heal at any moment you or the enemy goes for a kill attempt, if you look at any of arteezys CK pub games you'll see a fair share of his games start with wand triple branch I believe it is for this exact reason.
The next spike on the hero is armlet, but if your game is NOT convincingly easy at this stage it's important to recognise you running at people with armlet will not be good for your game. Instead you can go to the triangle and stack ancients for yourself, phantasm, and tank the ancients while your illusion hits with you. If the game is not in your favour you must do this until your next item and try fighting only then. I cannot stress how strong CKs ult is when it comes to farming early, his illusion can cut a wave behind tower and clear 1-2 waves without you being even close. This also can bait TPs, as if you're microing your illusion while hitting waves, it looks like the real CK - this happens way more than you'd think it does.
Okay so far we understand:
Next is the items, if I'm to look at Ck without taking in the enemies draft his item build looks like this:
Wand > Null / Bracer > Tread > Armlet > Orchid > Blink > Shard / Bloodthorn > Bloodthorn / Shard > Heart > Windwaker > Nullifier > Upgrade blink (Any of the three work on CK)
The absolute must haves of this standard build are thorn, blink, and shard. This is due to how reality rift works with blink dagger, if you spot the enemy POS 1, you can phantasm and stay far enough away that you're about blink range, then blink stun Bloodthorn rift the carry and they will nearly always die regardless of what they built. This is the win conditions of the hero in this meta, just burst off of rift stun Bloodthorn on any susceptible target - and as I said this is extremely easy to kill even farmed cores with.
There are SO many variations to CK and I believe a good chaos knight player will always have slightly different items or build order game to game. Some games you can just go silver edge heart after the armlet and end the game off of your ability to burst from the silver edge active alone, other games your aghanims is super value and getting that changes the outcome of a fight (Treant ulti can be dispelled from using phantasm for your whole team, silencer ultimate, any basic debuff essentially is globally removed).
In all honesty it's hard to tell you exactly what makes the hero good as I said the items should deviate game to game, I suggest looking at dota2protracker to get an idea of this.
If you dont hit a timing where your hero is able to 1v5 end their HG, you just play defensive and wait for them to either HG you, in which case you do the thorn rift combo, or you play under vision and do the same thing. It is a literally instant death if someone gets caught by your stun. It's also important to add when using your phantasm in mid game / late game that you cut waves that enemy is trying to pressure as well and pushing another lane with the real CK, I just played a game where the enemy kept going for towers and just my hero alone traded every tower they went for - and again the only reason I favoured phantasm split pushing is because my timing of Bloodthorn Shard blink wasn't online or my team was dead / not able to fight yet.
Some final quick tips for those who haven't played much CK yet:
Try to ult in 15 second intervals (10:45, 11:15 but not 11:30) this is so your illusion/s can clear a whole wave, and cut behind their next tower for the next wave Infront of the T3 (your ult last 30 seconds so if you ult as the wave spawns it's impossible for an illusion to kill more than one wave)
If unsure where your hero needs to be, hold your tp scroll and always walk to ancients and farm those till a dive happens elsewhere on the map
When playing from behind prioritise getting behind the enemy for phantasm split pushing / cutting wave - as fighting in base and dying is a sure loss
Use silver edge to run around the map and avoid observer wards this way, this allows you to use tip 3 to more success
You should nearly never go base when you've almost died from a fight, instead farm something close by and in about 2-3 camps your hero will be healthy again due to passives lifesteal
If versing a save hero split your disables up so you can absolutely kill your target (blink stun the core, silence the ABA/ oracle / dazzle) or you just focus their save hero with your blink stun combo
If there's any questions about matchup/ builds, why I build certain items etc please ask below! I'm happy to answer
Just hit lvl 25 on dotaplus for brewmaster. He is my second most played hero. I love this guy. So fun, But he has some reallllly bad matchups. You can somewhat get around them but man is it tough. What do you guys like/dislike about your most played heroes?
I just played leshrac and I realised how much I hate it knowing I can't do jack on my own...
Would much rather farm with PA, or even Draw ranger in the safety of my jungle, than hanging around mid as lesh waiting to get ganked.
At what point/what elo does this seem to stop, and heroes become equal?
I can't imagine wanting to pick LESH over some of the giga farm heroes for now (esp if they have gap closers/escape and 1 shot potential).
right click attack farm seems alot stronger for my current "rank" ( im 90 hours in so no ranked)
I really feel like mana heroes fall off becaouse they cant giga farm jungle. ill be lvl 19 to their 21 at best
Dotabuff : https://www.dotabuff.com/players/171932054
Currently on a massive losing streak. Here's what I learnt from watching my own replays [over 20+ replays]
- Laning is completely fine, seems to be my strong point.
- Midgame is where shit hits the fan. I seem to make the wrong decisions all the time.
- Lategame is a cointoss, sometimes I seem to pull it off and clutch wins, otherwise I make game-losing plays.
I've got nothing to lose at this point, so I've started learning new heroes and experimenting on the lower brackets. Would appreciate help.
I can't think of a single scenario in which you choose this item over other tier 3s. Is there any hero it's actually good on? What changes could actually make the item useful?
D2PT shows that currently about half people builds phylactery while the other half goes the classic echo blade, we've also seen collapse build radiance as well. Which do you think is better? Also how much impact does building into khanda does? Assuming you only build it after finishing blink BKB
Hey guys, i need some tipps for abaddon pos 3/5 (mb even 1) skill build and itembuild wise and some general tipps if u have. Thx in advance
Hello r/TrueDoTA2, I hope you are all enjoying your games atm whether you are on the mmr or crownfall token grind.
Me and a group of the usual party que suspects have gotten the idea that we want more of the competitive side, than ranked que can offer. Discussing drafts, watching replays and having captains and coach roles within the team. We have no ambitions of being the next OG or TS (three fathers and everyone pushing 30), but we just want to take the game to a level above the normal pub experience.
All was going well until we remembered that valve took Captains Mode out of the ranked game modes. We are aware of Battle Cup, but most players want to keep the Saturday open for family and social events.
So my question for you good Dota fiends is if there are any other platforms other than FaceIt (which seems a bit dead from initial impressions), where you can find other stacks to play CM against? It could be subreddits, discord servers or if you yourself has a stack that wants to play you can PM me.
We play EUW/E Tuesdays and Sundays at 21:00 CEST - Skill level vary from Legend to Divine.
PS to the mods: I hope the part asking if anyone wants to play does not break your rule about recruiting, if it does i will ofcourse remove that part :)
According to the wiki, the passive triggers from Ascetic Cap before the debuff, and it certain reduces the duration of Doom.
LC's duel duration certainly is reduced by status resistance (eg. buying S&Y).
So with these two facts combined, is the titular issue a bug?
my three things for good doubledown.
Obliviously doubledowning should not make you better at dota, but it can make you climb twice as fast to your true rank, or at very least inflate mmr by few hundred or so points.
Trying to expand my offlane pool right now and found Razor more and more interesting. In what games is he good? What are his weaknesses?
Also i found that a magic dmg Razor with bloodstone doesnt to be played at all in high mmr. Why is that? Thanks for any tips.
Too many players picking horrible heroes in ranked to complete this Crownfall quest. Valve should make it that ONLY Normal MM or Turbo count towards Crownfall.
This will help separate the casuals who are playing for fun from the sweaties like me that want to play good Dota with good picks to get that sweet sweet MMR.
Your thoughts? Have your Ranked MM quality been worse due to this Hero Challenge?
Not gonna lie i am a bit disappointed that we haven't got a new hero and gameplay changes. As most of you guys it seems like i had a bit of too high expectations.. but the whole event is about flying bird-like creatures, 2 new lore characters are bird creatures which makes me think they are gonna realese Bird Samurai hero and surprise us. The hero has been leaked in a past throught a game files.
I am not a fan of casual stuff and cosmetics but it is better than nothing. Game needs casual playersbase as well so it is good that they are doing things like that. We have to get over that the game is not going to be something huge or even bigger as it was in the past unlessbsome miracle is gonna happen.
I don't know how about you but i still love to play the game and i am gonna play it as far as i will enjoy it as i do right now
Still super hyped for a new hero (probably 2 if i am correct about my theory)
Honestly, for me I have and unless they release a dramatic update that pulls back a lot of the changes over the last 5-6 years its hard to get excited when I really enjoyed early Dota 2 over what its become. Some changes id personally like to see:
Thats my take, im not sure many people who play today agree though. It would be interesting if we got a patch that finally changed the heavy push towards 5 manning we have had for the last 5-6 years and actually changed how we play.
Wondering how the community feels about this or if im mostly alone in these feelings. Does anyone miss anything about old Dota 2? Do you enjoy the infinite deathmatch feel of the game today? Do you feel like it hasn't changed nearly as much as I do? Do you exclusively like the new changes and wish for a game where we eventually all run it down mid for highest action per minute?
Thanks for listening.
In this article, we'll touch on the main concepts and mechanics in Dota 2, with tips and important information for those who intend on starting to play the game and to spark interest in those who aren't familiar with it.
Dota is an acronym for Defense of the Ancients, the name of a modification made by fans of the strategy game Warcraft III. In the classic Dota, players teamed up in groups of five and defended their base while trying to destroy the enemy team’s base using the Heroes.
Dota 2 is a spiritual sequel to this mod, and the matches work basically in the same way. Each hero possesses unique abilities, and you can choose to control anyone among the more than 100 available characters, planning strategies with your teammates to win the game.
https://umgamer.com/en-us/p/1111
In this article you will find:
What is Dota?
Farm
How do Matches Work in Dota 2?
> Heroes and Team Roles
Carry
Mid
Tank
Supports
> Items and Effects
Dispel
Disable
Buying Items
Aghanim
Neutral Items
Other Important Items
> Tips and Final Thoughts
Hi guys, BalloonDota, 8k MMR player here to share with you guys a new resource I had just created.
In view of the lack of simplified laning guides out there nowadays, I have decided to create a simple yet practical and effective laning cheat sheet for the pos 1 carry role for you to assess your own performance and track your own progress overtime. Many of the concepts shown in the document are also easily applicable to other roles as well. I'm sure that this document will be of great help to you guys that are serious about improving your laning phase to always nail the lane.
This laning phase cheat sheet consists of 24 laning concepts that uses a 5-point grading system (Likert-scale, 1=very poor to 5=excellent or 1=never to 5=always) as summarized below:
Secure ranged creep
2v1 trades
Assess lvl and health to trade
Last hitting ability
Match partner in lane
Aggressive/defensive items to play lane
Courier efficiency
Determine lead
Maintain lead
Sending regen
Wave positioning
Aggro ability in lane
Global aggro usage
Pulling camps when required
Prioritizing lane creeps
Applying forwards pressure
Soak XP and throw spells in bad situations
Wave size management
Health and mana
Ability to be patient
Assess enemy's positioning to play weak/strong
Plan items ahead to leave lane
Leave lane when dangerous
Return to lane when safe
To show you a better understanding of these criteria, I have highlighted each of these points in a case-scenario from a live coaching session with one of my Archon carry students. I'm confident that the session will help you guys to relate these pointers shown here and how you can also apply the concepts into your own gameplay to dominate the laning phase as a pos 1 carry and other roles.
You can get the laning cheat sheet document from my video linked below to start grading your own games today. Thank you!
Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uufRZB-A4gQ
Hello, I'm 30 level on Slark, 2.5k MMR, and I haven't played much slark since the change to Echo Saber (I felt very comfortable with that build)
Tried to get into slark again since it was a very comfy hero for me and I see all the guides suggesting like rushing Diffusal Blade, later going for aghs and stuff like that, some even suggest Echo Saber into Harpoon. And what I've been feeling is that one of the biggest problem for Slark is his stat growth and how little agility and strength he has alone, and if I go for the most recommended items in the guides I feel like I'm getting destroyed each teamfight since I lack so much max health and with like 2 nukes I'm done.
I started doing my own thing going for survivability, like if big magic damage just go Mage Slayer first, and mostly always go Sange and Yasha, after that either go Skadi, if the game is really easy, Aghanim or if I need more safe, Linkens or Bkb. And I've been having alot more success. I can go in and out of combat, and survive teamfights since I have alot more health overall.
Also with the buffs of Shadow Blade I was considering building it again, like the old times. But I fall into the same problem with going diffusal and stuff like that.
So I want to know what you guys build. Am I the only one with this problem on dying on the teamfights becosue of lack of Max Health...
And what do you guys do overall to find success on Slark, mostly when your lane is avarage or bad, if the lane is good is ez pezy for slarky malarky.
I know this discussion is about to maybe become obsolete becouse of crownfall, but I wanted to play again my favorite hero and I'm struggling to see the viabality of the most popular builds. Wanting to improve on it or if I'm missing something.
When playing solo, i mostly play 4 or 5. When playing with my brother i mostly play offlane. What heroes can u suggest me that can be played as either. I tried Winter wyvern, spirit breaker, et, nyx. I was thinking about learning marci.