Solo Queue Journey

It's because most of the 3k players don't really play other modes except AP, so you basically are looking for a needle in a hay stack playing like that. Mostly all the players choose to play AP ranked at that MMR because the queue time is much shorter. Or you're just extremly unlucky. 30 minutes in queue? That's unreal no matter what your MMR is.

At 30 mins you'd be queued around the world or some sh**, ahah

So I made to 3k.

What I noticed right off the bat is that there is a huge gap between players skills in this bracket. Some people are struggling to play the heroes they pick and would probably have a hard time beating some of the 1800 matchmaking rating guys that I played against previously.

Some of the players, however, are actually somewhat decent which makes the general opposition a bit more tough. Whether this is a bracket for good or bad players I honestly have no idea, as the gap between players skills is simply way too big.



I am afraid you are right. I fail to find a match with captains mode. I have tried a bunch of different servers, but it just keeps searching and still finds nothing after a long time of searching.

If I search for all pick however, it usually finds a match after 5 minutes. So that sucks. I was having a blast playing captains mode and I was winning most of my games. If I have to play all pick then it leaves me on some pretty rough terrain as Lycan is so easily countered and gets wrecked by most other carries.

So I guess I have to change tactics. Its a bad idea to make a fighting build for lycan if the enemy team has a tougher carry as you will most likely lose the fights and eventually the game. I had the ability to ban some of the said carries in captains mode but they are definitely going to be picked in all pick.

Also, would it possible to make it past 3k mmr with Lycan? It already feels like I have hit a brick wall, but it might just be a question of improving and being good enough to carry myself out of this skill bracket. I really do not want to stay in this bracket for too long as the gap between players skills makes for some really awful games, where as it was more consistent in 2k.

Of course it is, but prepare for the grind. After all, the more you play a hero, the better you get at him.

I have been playing a bunch of AP games lately. I have to say that I am no longer having fun playing dota. I have previously been having a great time playing this game while I was playing CM, I would probably say I was having more fun playing dota than I had with any other game at that time. But this has completely changed after I began playing AP.

It seems that in AP it mostly comes down to which team picks some of the best heroes in the game. I have played a total of 15 AP games lately and in pretty much every single game, someone picks bloodseeker. I have seen only one game where the team with bloodseeker lost, and that was because the guy who was playing as bloodseeker had no idea how to play him, the rest of the games were mostly one-sided stomps. It gives dota a cheap, casual feel to it, and it makes it seem as skill has little impact and most of the games are decided during the picking phase. Its way too casual for me personally and I'm not having fun anymore, regardless if I am playing on the team who is winning or losing.

Another issue is the lack of teamplay. Seeing someone randoming a hero they have no idea how to play, or someone picking puck and feeding, or someone picking a hero to troll with such as wisp, or someone picking techies without contributing to the team is perfectly common in AP. As a result, you often have lanes that makes no sense, and people will give up after being ran over in the lane they are playing, which puts the rest of the team in a disadvantage.

Toxic players are all over the place in AP as well, so flaming and trashtalking happens quite often. If a toxic AP player were sneaking into a CM game, and began trashtalking because I didn't pick pudge for him or whatever, my team would usually gang up on him with reports and send him into LPQ, and I would usually get my reports back. In AP I ran out of reports in a few days and no action has been taken against any of the players that I reported.

This post hits the nail on the head and pretty much sums up my issues with AP.

Is there anything I could do to play CM again? Any suggestions? I'd just like to make sure before switching to AP.

Welcome to Dota 2.

Yes, picks mater much more than skill, Dota has been moving to it for quite some time already, and now with all these new items and net worth kill reward scaling it is much harder to win the game "1 vs 9" by being more skilled as even hobo-supports who were food before 6.84 can buy themselves Invincibility Cape or Anti-Carry Scepter from assist gold, especially the former, as it is really invincibility even without factoring in 100% magic resistance since you have no slots for dust on cores most of the time.

Yes, AP is a dumpster, it always was and it always will as long as Volvo Inc. runs this game. Deal with it.

But I think you are being biased about CM. I never played CM solo so I can't say for sure but it is hard to believe people are less toxic in a mode where a random dude decides everything for you than in a mode where you can at least choose a hero you play.

If you want to play good Dota, find yourself a stack(at least 2 other adequate dudes, 5 stack is perfect) and play whatever mode you wish - it will be much more fun knowing you don't have a chance that you end up playing with complete douchebags.

Other than stacks, there is no cure, even if you get up to 7k it will always be the same FotM-hero instapicks, flamers and feeders.

A Bloodseeker pick isn't a sure victory - and all the discussions around here of that hero and of his place in the TI exemplify that. If you're sick of seeing players picking him and winning you have three choices: either you pick it yourself (you find him boring? proceed to the next alternative), you counterpick it, or you just out play him. Blamming a hero for all your losses doesn't make sense in any bracket, because in all brackets there are heroes that are more complete than others (do I need to speak about Riki for the lower brackets here?), but these pool of "better heroes" is large enough for you to have them in both teams.

Also, you contradict yourself: CM exists because picks matter - this is obvious for every game mode except those that random. Picks matter either in CM or in AP. If you are angry because you can't pick for other people, try to suggest them heroes which you think are best in that situation; if you're angry because you want someone to be picking for you, ask your teammates what they want or just grow in the game and learn to counterpick for yourself. Or just pick Lycan every game because that's your thing, but then don't complain.

As for the toxic environment, to be honest I think a part of it is caused by our own attitude. You listed all the bad things people have been doing to you in AP, but what have you been doing yourself? Because if you're insta picking Lycan in all your games and reporting people (and I'm guessing complaining and blaming them in-game too) that's a toxic attitude for itself. Of course CM will be more organized and probably it has people who like to take the game more seriously, but AP is also a part of Dota, and we shouldn't forget games were made to make us have fun - you're not having it, but other people probably are. I usually think I have a 50% chance that my AP game runs swell - the other day this guy randomed Meepo, which he didn't play, proceeded to feed, but I wasn't a pain in the *** about it because at the very beggining he apologized. But that happens a very few times, usually people know how to play the hero decently at least. There is no contract that you sign that says you have to learn all heroes and smash with them, nor try new ones even if you're in a high skill bracket.

Anyway: if you prefer CM go for it, even if you have to wait for a long time - don't your prefer one quality game over three non-quality games? Spend that time reading foruns and guides or even watching videos - on how to counter Bloodseeker, for instance...

I mostly agree with this.

I have previously never really had any issues with feeders and trolls, and I was never really complaining about it. But, after they got rid of the solo-queue option, and after it became almost impossible to find a ranked captains mode game, most of my AP matches have been infested with trolls and feeders. It seems like there is almost always that one guy on the team who is trying to ruin the game.

It all came down to one game where my entire team was feeding, and after the match was over, I counted my team mates kills and deaths, they had 8 kills and 46 deaths combined. I began paying more attention to the problem, so if I win a game I usually add some of the players on my team to my friendlist if they speak english and knows how to play the game.

As for gamemodes, I have made up my mind. AP isn't fun for me personally, so captains mode is what I am going to play. Only problem is that it seems almost completely impossible to find a captains mode game in ranked matchmaking. I have tried pretty much every server with a reasonable ping, and nothing comes up. So if I am going to grind solo MMR, I might have to play AP until I get the solo MMR I want.

I can still find a captains mode game in normal matchmaking though, so I still have the possibility to play captains mode with some friends.

As for my rating, I haven't really decided yet if I am satisfied with my current rating, but I have a feeling that this bracket is mostly mediocre and bad players. So I am going to spend some time to evaluate if I am going to settle with this rating, or if I am going to try and make it to the next bracket. My solo MMR is 3438.

BTW, sry for the late response, I have been busy lately.

I have made up my mind. I'm going to go for a 4K rating, and then I'm going to be satisfied. I'm going to play AP since it seems pretty much impossible at this point to find a ranked CM game. Once I have my 4k rating I'm going to settle with ranked matchmaking and go back to playing CM with my friends.

I see they have changed the game completely with this patch, a new map, a new hero and new items. So far, it seems that Iron Talon and Tango are the best starting items for jungling? They also completely removed my critical strikes but gave critical strikes to my Necronomicon minions, so that's interesting. I'm going to play some games and see if i can make it to 4k solo MMR, if I get into any problems I will see if i can post some of the games I have played.

So I have been playing ranked AP for about a week now as Lycan. Previously, they slaughtered him with a nerf to his ultimate, however this patch has definitively put a bullet to Lycan's head. The hero is completely useless. Pushing power is almost non-existant since wolves and minions gets wiped out in a split second, plus you have to get to the tower since Lycan is a melee hero which is a dangerous move in such a big and open map where you get assaulted from all angles.

Also, heroes such as windranger and drowranger seems to be superior choices to lycan in this patch in terms of pushing power, as they have the ability to destroy a rax in 1-2 seconds and a tower in a few seconds as well from long range with superior mobility. Lycan is a high risk low reward hero where other heroes are low risk high reward, and he gets beat in his own game by heroes that aren't even supposed to be played as pushers, it is starting to become seriously embarassing. The handicap of playing Lycan this patch is tremendeous.

Fighting as Lycan is straight up suicide, as he is way too squishy to participate in teamfights and his minions (which are now his main source of his DPS) gets wiped out before you get a chance to deal any significant damage. You can, if you have insane reflexes, get 1-2 attacks in a teamfight and then run away with 10-20% HP left, but you have to be ridiciously good at timing it.

Jungling seems to be slower with the increase in map size. The Iron Talon helps a little bit by chopping down some of the tougher creep camps though. Roshing is still possible without a Medallion of Courage because of his wolves cripple ability. It saddens me a bit to see my favorite hero getting a bullet to his head, and I think the nerf in this patch was completely uncalled for, as he had already been brutally nerfed previously FFS and was in a pretty miserable state before this patch.

In any case, I'm giving up. My solo MMR is 3,562 right now and this is as far as I can go with this hero. If anyone have figured out how to make Lycan viable in this patch then please let me know. I'm going to see if I can get some replays going on dotabuff. I will most likely have to succumb to picking FoTM heroes in AP just like everyone else, to grind the remaining MMR, unless someone has any ideas?