Good Pub 5 Stack Drafts

I said it before when this new patch was realased. It is greedy, but it may be fun:

Tiny farms Assault Cuirass with Io babysitter (Hell, I can play the Wisp), and Alchemist farms Aghanim's Scepter for Tiny. How about this? We can get Alchemist some nice support on safe lane, offlane Tidehunter/ Magnus/ Centaur Warrunner / Axe, and we should be good to go.

u see alche picked?

grab undying ogre and go **** with him :)

That's actually not true in most cases. Granted, there are exceptions like Meepo, but once you have the Basics down, you can play most Heroes reasonably well.

If you're not having any success with Anti-Mage, is this because you're a bad Anti-Mage player? No! AM is quite simple, any issue you have with this Hero is down to you lacking a Basic Skill that applies to any and all Heroes, e.g. you're not having much impact because you can't get Battle Fury before 20:00 and have no other Items until 40:00? Your issue is with your Ability to Farm and recover from a difficult Laning Stage.

There's usually a simple trick to using certain Skills correctly as well, e.g. wait for someone to go out of position, count to 4 and Glimpse them.

A lot of newer or less confident players tend to stick to playing Support primarily, and judging from my 2 and a half years experience, it's because they lack the confidence and decision making Skills to play as Cores. The thing is, you need to play Core Positions to learn how to Farm effectively and make big plays. Yes, you'll make mistakes and Feed and Throw a lot, but it's a learning process everyone has to go through in order to improve.

It's actually better to "try" new Heroes in 5-stacks (just get comfortable with them in Bot matches/lobbies 1st and make sure to read a guide *cough*blatant advertising*cough*), since your team can choose their Heroes to complement the Lineup, and experienced Teammates can often take another Core Position, e.g. Safe Lane/Mid/Jungle, so they're not relying on you to Carry them. They can also offer tips and tricks on how to play your Hero, and how to recover if you're having difficulty.

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TL DR; Never be afraid to try something new in a 5-stack, just improve upon your basic Skills if you're lacking.

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We play Captain's Draft as 5 with Zaop sometimes, it usually works well.

Agreed, I just meant that most 4k+ players are more comfortable with Core positions than Supports, you're probably the only one that prefers Support that much. 8{3


Discussing is good, but encouraging players to stick to the same limited Hero Pool isn't going to help them play better, they need to branch out and have fun with new Heroes, or their Skill Cap will just stagnate.

Drow Ranger Strats are fun <}3 ...until 40:00 ._.

Guys, is there any chance for me to join your matches? I guess that you are playing public matches from what I have read here. I'm fluctuating between 3.6-4.1 MMR for a long time and I have played over 4.000 matches so far so I guess I can fit with you.

I advice you to play Captains Mode if you want to play Dota2 in the most interesting, organized and more look like competitive way.

Sure, there's always the inhouse tommorow

http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/forum/inhouses/dotafire-captains-mode-inhouse-9th-amp-10th-may-33775?page=1#comments

Other than that, you can PM someone a link to your Steam account.

I'm playing a lot less lately due to playing a lot of Heroes of the Storm + work, but I'm usually around a lot on weekends and days off.

We usually queue AP/CM when we group up as 5, which doesn't always happen. Doing it as 4 just gets you that guys who keeps asking for Shadow Field, then abandons when it gets banned. 8{D

Too many solo pub games :). I'm a decent offlaner/jungler too, and can certainly play carry or mid...just relatively less experienced. It's hard to say in that situation whether you're better having a less experienced player in their preferred role, or a more experienced one filling in.

My last hitting is pretty strong (I'm used to denying with ****py base damage and no items) on cores, but probably lack the sharp edge of recent practice, being sufficiently greedy etc :)



I agree with you in general, but not in these cases.

For example, if we have a 2k MMR player in a game with say a few 4K+ players on their team - the opposition is, on average, going to be substantially stronger than they're used to. This ain't the time to be experimenting with new heroes. They're already going to be stressed by the expectations of their team mates, reaction times, positioning, decision making etc.

They're going to learn a hell of a lot just by playing at that kind of standard. Throwing a new hero on top of that is too much. Stagnation is not an option :)



I like this kind of idea, you're setting the team up for a specific strategy...yes it's counterable, but at least we have a definite plan on how we want to proceed - unusual strats can also catch people out more.

I want to play new roles but I don't even know where to begin, I think I'm stuck with support forever.

I've practised the basics, but I can't learn anymore unless I play a real match, but it I play a real match we lose, and it's all my fault...

How am I supposed to go about this?

I don't know what to say except that be confident!

I once played in a 4-stack with 3 4k+ players and went Solo Mid (not my best role), we had an Aggro Tri-Lane top to ensure that Terrorblade did not get Farmed, problem was, he went Mid. 8{D

I got First Blood on him at lvl3, 1 vs 1. X{D

Enemy team's skill level is not always higher with 4k players in the Stack. 8{3

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1030324336

They're going to end up stressed anyway, because they won't understand the more advanced decision making skills of the better players. They won't know why they should be Ganking Mid instead of sitting with their Carry. They won't know why their Ward placement is "bad". They won't know why leaving the Lane to Gank instead of Farming and Pushing is bad.

There will be lots of mistakes that they never realised they have been making for the past few months in every single game they played. Playing something new is not going to change this. If anything, allowing yourself to take on an entirely different way of playing than before is going to help you shake off your bad habits, rather than doing almost the same thing you've done in low skill brackets.

You have to actively take a plunge into unknown and uncomfortable territory before you can really improve.

Besides, who expects much from 2k players, amiright? 8{3

I really don't understand how trying something new in a video game is supposed to be stressful. If anything, having 4 supportive teammates as opposed to 4 angry ******s should encourage you to tinker about and have fun with something new, especially when you know you can rely on at least 1 of them to have good advise for you.

Would you rather try something new by yourself, develop bad habits and then struggle to overcome them after months of practise, or would you rather try something new and be warned about any bad habits before they become habits? Because of this, even if a mistake is explained to them, they can't always break free from it, even if they know they should. Bad habits dig in deep and don't come out if you're afraid to break your usual playing style.

rule]


Do it anyway! No one is going to expect you to succeed at something you're still learning straight away. Tbh, it's little bit...inaccurate to think that you'll hold the fate of the entire teamin your hands, at most you'll be responsible for 30 - 40% of it. Besides, even 3k players screw up when they play Heroes they're unfamiliar with, case in point:-

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1407504040

Before this game, he only played 1 Centaur game in the past 6 months and he has 1k MMR...higher than you, Bunkan 8{3

Look at Centaur Warrunner 's Skill Build. This is a 3k player not taking any points in Double Edge until lvl10. Did we get mad? No! We just laughed our arses off, whenever he started saying "I don't have enough damage to kill this guy!" X{D

He learned a lot from our friendly advice...just not enough since he still waits to skill it until lvl8! X{D

Almost anyone below 4k will make incredibly basic mistakes when they try a new Hero. So try a new Hero or Role next time you're in a 5-stack, cos believe me, it takes a LOT to do worse than some 3k players I know. 8{(

im going to agree with this so much because 4 months ago i was like ....

"i can only play these guys well blah blah blah"

then about 2 weeks ago i said im going to try invoker

4 games later in bots i found out ... hey hes actually easy to play all u need to learn is how to adjust to his play style..

so now i can play invoker which i NEVER thought i would say hahah

but then i randomed TA in a high skilled ranked game and i have played her ONCE and i failed so ******** hard.

BUT BUT BUT i adjusted within 2 minutes to her play style and went 22-4-19. now i can say

i can play TA

once you get to a certain level of skill and knowledge all it takes is adjusting to the heroes playstyle and everything is natural ....

except meepo ....

**** that guy haha

btw drow death ball

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1462814434