Looking for help/mentoring for next level

Right now I find that I'm pretty decent in normal matches, holding my own and often leading in level, but I've lost 3 out of 3 ranked matches so far, taking a thorough spanking personally in two (though one of those losses I can honestly say wasn't my fault).

I watch the Sun's Fan basic guides and I've been into RPG's for years so the mechanics are familiar even if I don't always have the most in-depth understanding of every stat.

Does it sound like I would need coaching on this, and if so, where would I go? It feels like maybe I could use a few tips from more experienced players with good communication that maybe a team would offer, though I'm not sure if I was looking to grow a competitive team I would take one someone with as little experience, though on the plus side I work on my own schedule and would be able to devote a couple hours every day to get good.

Thank you,
- Ryan

Hi Ryan!

Welcome to DotaFire. You've come to the right place for tips, coaching and mentors :)

We currently have an in-house mentor, Smuggels (pm him), with which you can talk for more specific coaching. I am also coaching a bit at the moment, though in more specific areas.

It would help if you could give us more information on yourself! Do you have a dotabuff account, or a visible mmr? What positions do you play? And in what server?

Anyway, just because you lost a few games in a row doesn't mean you need coaching - it happens to everyone. Being blamed also happens a lot, unfortunetelly. Playing in a stack really helps - why don't you search for people to play with in our Forum section "Matchmaking"? I'm sure you will find there people with the same interests as you.

Any question you might have about this site or Dota in general feel free to PM me.

Good luck!
ChiChi

Thanks for the quick and informative response man. Right now I'm concentrating on queen of pain mid since there was a good instructional video on it, and I've had some good games with Lion, Zeus, Spirit Breaker and Bloodseeker, though it looks like controlling minions or clones is still a bit out of my league, i.e. I'm pretty bad with Meepo and just couldn't get it together properly with Enigma.

In general I tend to do best solo mid, though I have a tough time telling at what point I can get ganked, which is tough since my best mid solo characters tend to be uber-squishy.

I'll have to make a Dotabuff account and look into MMR, I've been playing for a couple months but I'm only really delving into the details of how to become a much better player now and, as much as I hate to admit it, I'm pretty bad with math so the numbers just don't come particularly naturally to me.

If you do a Dotabuff account, we can have access to some games you might want some insight in - we can see the replay and comment on it, which is one of the best ways of helping new players. Also, in Dotabuff you can see all kinds of information on the heroes, and find replays of the best heroes who play them.

I would also recommend you looked up some guides we have here on those heroes you mentioned, and in the mid positions. Some examples of guides with great quality:

Goo Guide to mid: http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/guide/full-dense-goos-guide-to-mid-lane-now-with-over-70-pictures-11850

OldKainen's guide to QoP: http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/guide/oldkainens-guide-series-queen-of-pain-6-84c-9958

Sando's Levelling up guide: http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/guide/levelling-up-how-to-improve-your-play-8902 (and his guide on noob's mistakes)

As for avoiding ganks mid: you have to train paying attention to both your lane and the mini map. There's only two ways for you to avoid a gank: To see the heroes come up to you (and in order to do that you will need your supports placing Observer Wards) or to foresee they might be coming, since they are missing from their lanes (and you shouldn't rely on your teammates calling it only, but be attentive to other lanes throughout the whole game).

Dota's learning curve is very deep, you will see you will quickly improve once you get your mind to it and start playing more attention to some details. You don't really need the hard math, at least for the first stages of leveling up, except for simple things as knowing how long some disables last, how much HP you have in a certain point at the game and how much damage you can deal by using all your spells. Heroes that need micro (more than one unit) are to be avoided at first indeed (I actually still avoid them to date ahah).

To improve, there's no way around this: read, experiment, repeat. But it's worth it.

I took the long way around it by playing solo for almost half a year, and when i finally started going into forums and actively discussing, i found that i could learn so much, and my play started to improve at incredible speeds. I feel that to improve faster, you need to have somebody to teach you what you can do in a game, and we have many people who are willing to help here. Coaching, after-game analysis, and even reading guides and discussing on strategies and builds help you to improve so fast.

Thanks for the advice guys, and I'm looking to do the same masaaki: I'm naturally a really competitive person (used to compete in martial arts, even took a cage fight) and I want to actually get good and have a team instead of having some random dude cursing me out in Russian for sucking lol. Hopefully the community is easy to navigate and it seems pretty friendly.

Would you guys happen to know if it's possible to find players in a particular area? There's gotta be a ton of gamers in NYC I could meet and game with in person, and that seems like it would bring teamwork to a higher level.