How To Avoid Unserious/Crap Teammates?

The last four games I've had either a feeder that should NOT be playing ranked or someone playing techies (never goes well). I'm sick of being on teams that crush my MMR with little I can do about it, i.e. a lifestealer that would jump inside someone and then go AFK all game. I always report them, but that doesn't mean I won't have them on my team next game.

Is there any way to block someone so that you don't get stuck with them again after they've made it clear they either aren't serious or have no clue what they're doing? I must have at least 50 hours of **** games because at least one teammate had NO clue what they were doing, or seemingly were just throwing the game to watch people get angry and report them, and it's preventing me from getting to the kind of MMR when people who know how to game are interested in having you join a team.

If you just lose, it's fine, but if you lose because someone is AFK or playing for the first time in ranked, it's pretty unfair and there should be something that you can do about it.

There is no way I'm afraid, even at some pretty high MMRs there are plenty of useless players around. It can seem like a lottery at times.

I would say though, your "visible" and "invisible" MMR are connected, at least before you first calibrate. So if you can get your "invisible" MMR high (through playing standard games), when you calibrate, you'll be placed somewhere around this for your "visible" (ranked) MMR. It's a good reason not to calibrate too early.

It's a team game, mate. There's nothing you can do about it.

We are all a noob to someone else.

Carrying garbage teams in 1v5 games is what raising MMR is all about. Better get used to it. You can't expect your teammates to be any good if the whole point is that you're trying to get above this tier in the first place.

You can always win by playing well if your teammates are just horribly bad. The only cases where you can't win is when a teammate is throwing on purpose.

But then game ruiners can be on both sides. So they make you gain MMR as much as they make you lose MMR. Keep that in mind :)

Realistically, to win, you need at least 1 teammate that is good.

To get out of the trench, you have to dig yourself out with one of 2 types of heroes. I did it by using a bit of both. (Unranked: Lich, SK, Necro, Ranked: Abaddon)

1. Heroes that make it so your allies can screw up and you'll still win.
Basically, anyone that makes it so that your allies can do badly, and you can still save the game, other heroes with heals, big aoe stuns, or a massive power spike at some point.

Examples: Omniknight, Abaddon, Necrophos, Earthshaker, Spectre

2. Heroes that are much better against bad players. Heroes in the first category are often here too.
Basically, heroes that snowball easily, and pub players usually don't make any effort to counter in their level, whether it's not buying invis detection, standing close together, being alone, or not properly drafting.

Examples: Centaur Warrunner , Riki, Sand King, Lich, Chaos Knight

You can't deal with ******ed teammates, but you can make them have less impact on your chances of winning a game. If you want to raise MMR, you can do it differently in different situations.

Situation 1: You are miles ahead of your rating(500+ MMR)

Not just because you think so(those 0/10/2 mids in your team also think that they deserve 5k MMR), but because you are really much better. If you are mid, you should win even unfavorable matchups and often finish the lane with 2 or even 3 solo frags on your enemy, and if you're the carry you should have a solid farm advantage over the enemy carry even if you had worse farming conditions. If you are sure you deserve a way higher rating you can just firstpick any mid/carry heroes you are comfortable with and spam them. I got 400 MMR in one week(played like 3 games a day) just by instapicking Kunkka mid/ Ember Spirit safelane(and throwing other heroes into the mix occasionally) depending on my mood to play either of them. If you have heroes you are comfortable with and perform well with you can do the same and not even care about counters. Just don't pick support heroes, in that case you're flipping a coin instead of just taking a win in your hands. Don't communicate with your team beyond bare necessities(like telling them to put a ward somewhere or getting smoke) or direct orders of what to do in that exact moment(like "stun that guy!").

Situation 2: You are slightly better than your rating(up to 500 MMR)

You should feel you're entering this "bracket" when you can't pwn noobs so hard and enemies start screwing you over/outplaying you more often. In that case you still want to focus on core heroes, but avoid instapicking them(unless you're REALLY good with that hero, like, I dunno, Ar1se with Magnus) and widen your hero pool a bit. Also change your attitude, don't be so reckless and have a little respect to your enemies, they are pretty capable of outplaying you if they get a chance. To communicate or not is your choice, personally I insta-mute anyone who annoys me(or just might annoy me) and doing fine, providing one-sided stream of info when I have to.

Situation 3: You are more or less on your skill level

Aside for "git gud" stuff you also have an option of choosing from first pick-ban heroes/strong pub heroes at this rating/situationally picking your very best heroes that do not fit into meta if you need to raise your rating beyond your level. This is where stuff like Omni, Aba, Slardar works. Meta heroes basically work everywhere and you can pick them in two previous cases, but I'd recommend you to stick to heroes you enjoy playing rather than OP/very strong heroes of the patch.


If you want more concrete answers you may as well throw in your Dotobuff so we get a picture.




Suck it Xyrus, I can answer simple questions with 10 paragraph stories too.

Thanks for the advice guys, I feel like I should elaborate on something though: I almost always play Lich, he's very basic and a great support, but there's no way for me to carry from the 5th position; it sounds like I should join in on the pub-stomp mentality, give up on support and just always play 2-3 hard carries to make sure it's me who either wins or loses the game.

I'm going to start learning Juggernaught and Huskar, playing BloodSeeker and just tell the guys that are getting in the way to move aside: being an unselfish support is just not appreciated in low MMR games, and I'm challenging myself to get up to 1K and join a competitive team if possible.

If anyone wants to check out my DotaBuff account it's at http://www.dotabuff.com/players/60745579.

In the interest of fairness, DOTA really should make some sort of block to prevent or at least lessen the chances you'll get stuck with someone who ruined a previous game for you: everyone's allowed to be new, but I waited like 3 months before I took my first ranked game, and I really hate it when some idiot is busting my MMR because that's a couple hours of my life just to undo the damage that last guy did

honestly not to ruin your faith that things get better but i had a game last night with a 5 k average and our mid fed 0/8 in 6 minutes died 4 times in the first 4 minutes. then just fed hard.

it was GG so quick.

you just have to work through it.

Sounds horribly unpleasant, but at 5K I'm willing to bet, with the exception of the ***-clowns that buy accounts, once you get to that level the feeders are at least less common and you have more luck finding people that want you on their team. I wouldn't want anything to discourage new people (and at 450 hours I suppose I'm at least semi-new) but there really should be some way of black listing that guy from matchmaking with your account so that he doesn't ruin another 30 minutes of your life that we will never see refunded

in the old client you could drop down the score board and see who was muted since mutes carry over and dodge before everyone was loaded in. used to do it a lot since once you mute someone they are left muted. now you can see the scoreboard until everyone is loaded in and it sucks :(