Dota 2

[Requiem]

Anyone who knows what the hell they're doing wanna teach me this game?

[Extreme Angle]

Currently rocking 350 hours played... It's addicting stuff!

[Requiem]

I am struggling with knowing what to buy. I get the whole last shot thing to make money, and denying. But there's just so much to buy and upgrade, and what you need varies for the different heroes, so I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment.

[Extreme Angle]

If you click the book at the top left it comes up with a list of builds. Just choose the highest rated one because it's usually fairly good.

If you're just starting out i'd recommend choosing either Sniper, Drow Ranger, Lich or Rikki.



You pretty much just buy each item from the top down, as you get comfortable with one hero you'll start making changes to what items you buy.

A handy trick I use for making sure I know what i'm buying is to SHIFT-Click which item i'm building. All of its components will appear in the bottom right of the screen, then I just buy them piece by piece.

[Extreme Angle]

Well our 2 games went REALLY REALLY well...

[road doggy dogg]

I love Dota 2. I'm not particularly good but I have a decent enough understanding of the game to know what's going on. I don't play ranked games, mostly just public matchmaking crap, and I at least manage not to embarrass myself too much.

The community can be pretty bad, nowhere near as awful as LoL's though.

[road doggy dogg]

I haven't been playing as much lately because of RL and other gaming commitments, but I try to get in a few games a week still, sometimes more sometimes less. If you wanna play some time we can dick around if you want... I'm tonavin on Steam.

I usually like to play support roles because I'm a pretty awful carry. I don't have the whole "self awareness" thing down and focusing proper targets ETC ETC, plus constantly worrying about maximizing gold and shit is a bother. Support is nice, just ward and creep stack and disable and heal or w/e, a lot more relaxed (like playing a healer in an MMO)

[VSG]

I played well over 1500 hours on the original Dota, gave Dota 2 a shot but never liked it as much. The map and all the items/wearables just seem overdone compared to the original version.

[Extreme Angle]

Originally Posted by road doggy dogg I haven't been playing as much lately because of RL and other gaming commitments, but I try to get in a few games a week still, sometimes more sometimes less. If you wanna play some time we can dick around if you want... I'm tonavin on Steam. I usually like to play support roles because I'm a pretty awful carry. I don't have the whole "self awareness" thing down and focusing proper targets ETC ETC, plus constantly worrying about maximizing gold and shit is a bother. Support is nice, just ward and creep stack and disable and heal or w/e, a lot more relaxed (like playing a healer in an MMO)

Support FTW. Witch Doctor's my favourite Hero, though i'm able to pick up anything and have a solid go really.

[road doggy dogg]

I tend to avoid all the cosmetic stuff. Get all these items and shit after game and I honestly ignore all of it unless it's for a character I actually use ever. Idk.


I love WD too, probably my most-played hero. Can be a very potent ally with minimal financial investment, so you're well-suited to babysitting a carry in the early stage of the game. His ult can be devastating when paired up with, say, Faceless... but then again so could most heroes so whatever lol

[Extreme Angle]

Originally Posted by road doggy dogg I tend to avoid all the cosmetic stuff. Get all these items and shit after game and I honestly ignore all of it unless it's for a character I actually use ever. Idk. I love WD too, probably my most-played hero. Can be a very potent ally with minimal financial investment, so you're well-suited to babysitting a carry in the early stage of the game. His ult can be devastating when paired up with, say, Faceless... but then again so could most heroes so whatever lol

Yeah his ultimate is insane, and his stun is incredible for pushing lanes and farming mid-game.

I'm rocking this set:



I got a mythical drop a few months back and traded for it.

We'll have to play some time

[Requiem]

Got a real life friend to give it a shot, and he's bad too but it gives me someone else bad to play with and learn a bit against bots.

[road doggy dogg]

Bot matches are great for learning heroes and items and the map etc... I suggest getting really familiar with about 4-5 heroes, so that way you have options when you play and someone snags your fav hero right away, etc. Helps to learn as many heroes as possible so when you play against them you know how to counter them. That kinda stuff comes with time though.

[Extreme Angle]

I think I started with Sniper/Bounty Hunter then Slowly added new heroes to my pool. I've pretty much tried every hero now. Ursa is fun!

[Requiem]

Originally Posted by road doggy dogg Bot matches are great for learning heroes and items and the map etc... I suggest getting really familiar with about 4-5 heroes, so that way you have options when you play and someone snags your fav hero right away, etc. Helps to learn as many heroes as possible so when you play against them you know how to counter them. That kinda stuff comes with time though.

Yeah, gonna try and stick to a few if I can. Have definitely tried quite a few that I didn't like at all, but a few have been golden and really fit my playstyle.

Big fan of Sniper and Doom. Just played Broodmother for the first time and really liked it by the time I got the hang of what I was doing with it.

Also, Zeus is awesome, especially for finishing off entire groups of wounded heroes with his ultimate once the end-game pushes start.

[road doggy dogg]

Zeus is a fantastic hero to piss a whole lotta people off... highly recommend going Refresher Orb on him

[Extreme Angle]

Maybe we can get a full team going some time!

Also this:

[Requiem]

Originally Posted by road doggy dogg Zeus is a fantastic hero to piss a whole lotta people off... highly recommend going Refresher Orb on him

Played Zeus in a pub game earlier and actually went 13-3-24 with him. Got the refresher orb, and that staff of whatchacallit that buffs your ultimate, and some other lesser items. Enemy team was apparently worse at the game than me, because they kept throwing themselves at me and just camping lanes without taking me seriously as a threat. Got so many kills that way, and my assists were just off the charts. I had the lowest last hits on my team and it didn't even matter. Was just a hero killing machine.

[Requiem]

Figuring out the items better now as I try other heroes. Just ended a hard bot match as Razor with over 3000 hp and went 13-2-19, so I'm starting to get the mechanics, and am getting faster with hotkeys already. Also learning survivability and learning NOT to ever ever ever get ballsy.

[road doggy dogg]

One of the most difficult things to learn is the nuances of when to be aggressive and when to back off. Positioning and "picking your battles" is very difficult to learn, and a lot of it will depend on your laning partner/teammates etc. It's an incredibly difficult thing to learn, and really is the crux of the skill level of the game.

[road doggy dogg]

Binding your hotkeys to easily accessible buttons is crucial. MOBAs benefit from having generally very few hotkeys to bind so it shouldn't be too difficult. You should have your 4 abilities (some annoying heroes may have 5 or 6), then at least 3 or so item slots bound to keys that shouldn't make you think

[Requiem]

Ya, I left my main attacks defaulted, but I changed my item slots to asd and zxc for top and bottom row. May change them around again soon to something more efficient.

And yeah, I'm noticing some classes I can probably only learn so much in bot matches, because it's impossible to coordinate with an AI. I tend to pick more middle lane heroes/builds because of this, so I look forward to actually playing with people more soon.

[Requiem]

Fuck yeah, just played a few hours of 4 player with a bunch of people who are also new at the game. It went pretty well and they really enjoyed it. We lost several times, as most people were choosing new heroes every time, but I had a great night. I like that even though you lose sometimes, you can feel accomplished just by how well you personally did in the match.

[road doggy dogg]

I find that being a few beers in at time of playing makes losing much more tolerable.

[Requiem]

Definitely getting the hang of this. I can solidly win medium bot games even with a hero I've never played before. But hard is where it really starts to throw me for a loop. I have to play a character I'm familiar with in order to get anywhere really. Hard is where the AI starts using denials, and really comes at you aggressively to try and push you out of the lane.

It's kind of funny that in most games, playing with a friend would make the game easier. But when you're both new, if even one of you fucks up it makes the whole thing go straight to hell. I'm sure that's not the case once you know what you're doing, but at the moment it actually makes medium bots challenging at times. Hell, a group of 4 noobs and 1 bot couldn't beat a team of easy bots to save our lives the other night.

[Extreme Angle]

Cheeky win last night!

[Requiem]

Yeah, thought we were done for. Good stuff. That was Phyxsius' first non-limited online game, and only my like 3rd or something.

[road doggy dogg]

I've been experimenting lately with playing more carries since I typically tend to stick to support roles. Getting more comfortable being a BAMF and wrecking faces. Granted, unranked pub games are what I'm playing, but I've been having lots of fun as Huskar just leaping into bitches and fucking shit up.

Been playing as Lifestealer against bots to practice, he is pretty boss.com once he gets going

[Requiem]

Sent you a friend request so we can play some time. I already have over 140 hours in this, definitely understanding the game now, just not understanding the intricacies like matchups, specific positioning, or creep farming. I understand how to stack camps, but it's ridiculous trying to micromanage that during a game so I haven't been good at it.

[road doggy dogg]

I should be on a bit tonight, I have softball at 8 though so maybe not... tomorrow for sure though.


Lotta that stuff just comes with more time (matchups etc). I still don't know shit-all about who counters what or whatever. Usually when I'm playing with my friends they know wtf they're talking about. But again, I play unranked so it really doesn't matter at all anyway.

Creep stacking and all that stuff really isn't super important at this level either. It's one of those things where people make a huge deal and flip out if you don't do it right but they're cunts who watch a few pro Twitch feeds and expect every pub game to emulate that shit exactly. They're more "advanced strategies" really. I mess around with it a bit but nowhere near fluent enough in it to really see any tangible benefit.

[Requiem]

Keeper of the Light is probably my favorite so far. I dunno, he just really makes sense and I get how to play him. I don't mind playing support classes, but I hate support classes that can't sustain themselves. Gandalf just rocks hard though. He is more of a semi-carry when it comes down to it. If he is present in a team fight, the fight will typically always lean toward your team. He just does crazy cone/nuke damage, his ulti + aghanim's is fantastic. Blinding light is great to initiate with or to escape with, or even just to reposition enemies so your illuminate will hit them. I just go Tranq boots, Aghanim's, force staff, and that's pretty much all you need. Just grab some wards for map control, and once you get agh's, it's safe to start pulling friendlies to fights to help out.

[Requiem]

I guess I get why he's support though. His power tapers off the longer the game goes on, as the enemy team becomes more geared. He is super powerful in the beginning, and his presence can tip the scales in your team's favor really early on.

[Requiem]

Mothafuckin techies.

[Extreme Angle]

Ah man I haven't had the chance to play in ages... Started a new job at a studio during crunch, so have close to zero free time right now . Glad you're getting into the groove

[Requiem]

Ya, put 200 hours into this game already.

[Requiem]

I haven't been this addicted to a game in years.

[road doggy dogg]

I'm sorry for BLOWIN' YA OFF the other night. Whenever I'm on we usually have a 5stack or more, makes it difficult to get into other games.

However comma our motley little group of folks is growing and we're at a point now where we might start just playing inhouse games. None of us are terribly great so you'd probably be able to tag along and shoot the shit with us and Skype it up and whatnot. We usually play more on weekends than anything

[road doggy dogg]

I've been playing a lot more true support roles lately. Really trying to get a good feel for warding to better benefit the team. Before, I would typically just ward the river or w/e but lately I've been focusing more on creating better map control for the team. Between buying wards on cooldown, liberal use of sentries/smokes (when necessary) and always having a TP or two on hand I'm finding that playing with a gold deficit provides a few more challenges than I'm accustomed to. So easy to fall in the trap of "rush Agh's!" when playing most Int heroes but then you end up handicapping your team more than helping. It's satisfying when you do the little things that help your team out. Provided, of course, that your carry(ies) know what they're doing and farm properly and can take advantage of this thankless work.

Been trying to learn more heroes to support with as well. I love playing Witch Doctor but feel he's a bit one-dimensional. The ult is nice but obviously falls off a bit late-game. The stun, if unreliable, is nice, and Maledict scales decently enough. The heal is decent but not significant.

Not sure what other supports I really really like. I play Venomancer as a support sometimes but he is better served as an initiator I guess. I don't know. Tried a game as Dazzle the other night but did pretty bad. Always so slow on my Shallow Graves.

[road doggy dogg]

Been trying to consciously stack creep camps when I can. Always forget to look at the game timer though. Need to start trying to stack camps while the team is busy elsewhere, but I'm never around the jungle at x:40 or so... once I get more comfortable warding I'll probably work on that

[road doggy dogg]

HERPDERP our first game tonight was fun. I never play Mirana so I was like duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh but our random team was kinda shitty comp so I just played her like a position 5 and landed a couple arrows to set up easy kills. You rocked that Spectre.

Our next game, my buddies played kinda like shit. I was getting so agitated in Skype lol... kept telling them we need to teamfight and whatever. I don't know. Usually the one guy (who was playing Lich this game) is a lot better than that, our Enchantress is probably one of our weakest players and spent way too much time farming. C'est la vie. I had a horrible start myself so can't pass the buck too much.