How to routineley practice basic mechanics?

Hey guys,

I've never played MOBAs before in my whole time of gaming. I got into it when my friends played it and I gave it a try. It took a while to get the hang of things, but now I'm quite okay with the game.

My friends take the game very seriously, which I understand. No one likes to lose in a competitive game. They play almost everyday, at least one or two games. And I want to improve my skills to be able to participate in their serious matches.

TheWarOwl, a popular CS:GO YouTuber, who gives tutorials on the game, says that there are 3 components that needs to be practiced when wanting to become better in the game. The one I want to talk about is the first one, which is practicing basic mechanics, which need to be done routinely and deliberately.

What are the skills and mechanics that need to be practiced routinely in Dota 2? I'm guessing last hitting and denying is one of them, but I'm pretty sure there is more.

Last hitting and denying is indeed one, but in addition:

-Map awareness and checking minimap - this comes with time

-Micro management - not needed on all heroes but a large number require control of two or more units. Control groups are your friend.

-Reflex skills - which basically means chaining your abilities and actions, cancelling backswing animations, reacting quickly to situations and events.

Those I'd say are the main ones, barring Hero-specific skills like... playing Invoker or Earth Spirit. Dota is also about learning what each Hero does, and then learning a Hero's strengths and weaknesses, timing windows, counters and who they counter, where they fit in a team composition, their relative level of power (most are pretty even, but there are some very weak ones ( Phantom Assassin, Doom) and very strong ones ( Invoker, Chen)... and that's before we get to heroes that 'scale with skill' like Meepo and Tinker). Then you've got to learn the many different kinds of team strategies and how the Heroes fit into those strategies.

Once you've got all that knowledge, it's a matter of learning how to apply it to games and thus make informed decisions about what to do at each specific moment of the game. If it sounds complicated, it is.

If you're not concerned about reaching 6k MMR, you can skip a lot of that and just pick heroes you enjoy, kind of like me picking an illusion hero every second game. In all honesty, you don't need to actively practice skills aside from last hitting and denying just because you'll gradually pick them up as you play. The time-consuming part is to do your homework!

There are quite a few, and many of them get overlooked when people start playing DOTA. For now I'll just go into:-


This is based around calculating a few different numbers:-

• your Attack Damage / Spell Damage as well as any damage that is being dealt by other sources
• your Attack / Cast Point and Attack Time
• Creeps' HP + Armour / Magic Resistance

Melee Creeps have 550HP (+10 every 7 and a half minutes), 2 Armour and 0% Magic Resistance, so they only take 89.3% damage from your Auto Attacks, i.e. if you hit for 50 Damage, you need to Last Hit them when they drop below 40HP (7.2%). Ranged Creeps have 300HP (+10 every 7 and a half minutes) and 0 Armour, so go for the Last Hit when their HP matches your Damage, i.e. if you have 50 Damage, go for it when they have 50HP (16.7%). Siege Creeps have 550HP, 0 Armour and 80% Magic Resistance, so pretty much the same as Ranged Creeps, if you have 50 damage, go for the Last Hit when they have 50HP (9.1%).

Your Damage, Attack Point and Attack Time are determined by what Hero you are playing and how high their Agility + Primary Stat is as well as any Bonus Damage or Attack Speed they have. Let's take Juggernaut as an example, as an Agility Hero, his Base Damage and Attack Speed are affected by his Agility. Of course this can be increased by Items as well, let's say you're a lvl 7 Juggernaut and you have a Ring of Aquila and Power Treads (on Agility), you have put no points into Stats so far, only your Skills, so you have the following Stats:-

• 26 Base Agility + (2.4 * 6) from levelling up + 9 from Ring of Aquila + 9 from Power Treads == 58.4 Agility
• 24 - 28 Base Attack Damage + 58.4 from Agility + 9 Bonus Damage from Ring of Aquila == 93.4 Damage
• 58.4 from Agility + 25 from Power Treads == 83.4 Increased Attack Speed
• From Juggernaut's Base Attack Point of 0.33, you have an Attack Point of 0.18 seconds
• From Juggernaut's Base Attack Time of 1.4, you end up with an Attack Time of 0.76 seconds

You can view some of these Stats by using a calculator (http://devilesk.com/dota2/apps/hero-calculator?id=Bj7ThVA5aGRT3gx8) or by hovering over the little Sword icon in-game:-



What this means is that you hit for 93.4 Damage, your Attack takes 0.19 seconds to land, and you have to wait 0.76 between 2 Attacks. So, against a basic Melee Creep, you will take off 93.4 * 89.3% == 83.4HP. If you're stood next to the Creep you want to Attack, you will do this in 0.19 seconds, then have to wait 0.76 - 0.19 == 0.57 seconds before attacking again.

That's where the hard part comes in, gauging when that Melee Creep will drop down below 83HP. It depends on how many Creeps are hitting it, whether anything else is hitting it and whether there are any damaging / healing Auras affecting it. The only way to learn this is by practising as there's too many variables to account for reasonably.

In order to practise this, start by going into a lobby with no Bots, no other players and choose a Hero, don't level any Skills, don't buy any Items, go Mid and just get used to their Auto-Attacks trying to get 41/41 Creeps (10 waves) in a little over 5 minutes.

Once you start practising this for a bit, you'll run into problems like having 2 Ranged Creeps on your side, giving you less time to go for the Last Hit, Siege Creeps hitting for around 40 Damage at unfortunate times, Last Hitting under your Tower, getting focused by the enemy Tower. Eventually, you'll also have to learn how to Last Hit against other Heroes, and that is affected by your mastery of the next basic skill:-

Aggro

Coming soon to a DOTAFire near you... 8{3

What I think to do is to learn a certain routine in watching the minimap. Go into a lobby with bots and think beforehand your routine. For example: after every lasthit you watch the minimap and see if every hero is present. After finishing a full wave you click on someone to check his items.
If you practice these things in a lobby you will start doing it automaticly and you will see which hero is missing and what items they are building.

The hardest part to start with probably is learning the heroes and items. And the mechanics between them. Nowing the different types of damage and resistance, the different types of disable and other boring stuff like that.

Dota is like on of the most noob unfriendliest games I have ever played to be honest.

So, continuing on from before:-

Let's start with Creep Aggro. Lane Creeps will march down their Lane, stopping to hit anything in their path, i.e. Heroes, Creeps, any other non-friendly units and Towers. However, Creeps will change their target if a friendly Hero is attacked. If the attacker is within 500 units of the Creep(s), they will move to attack the attacker. Once a Creep has been "Aggroed" it will not switch targets for another 2 seconds.

I won't go into how to use this to effectively Harrass Heroes as a Support, but this guide does a great job of that anyway:-

https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1lk4g6/a_quick_guide_to_lane_control_harassing_properly/

Using Creep Aggro effectively in Lane can give you a huge advantage and is something you should try to learn as soon as possible. It is overlooked by a lot of players and can cause a lot of problems when not taken into account. One way to use it, is to draw the Aggro of the Melee Creeps while stood behind your Ranged Creep to make them run towards you, if you do this properly once the Aggro runs out, they will now target your Ranged Creep, causing your Creep Wave to take Damage faster (since the ranged Creep does more damage). This can cause the next set of Creep Waves to meet closer to your Tower and is often a much better solution for Pulling the Wave than Pulling the Creeps into the Neutral Camps (another use of Creep Aggro).

There are other ways you can manipulate Creep Aggro, such as using Treants or Spirit Bear to Pull a Creep Wave through the Jungle and under your Tower, but I won't go into those. I'll let you have fun learning different ways to manipulate Creep Aggro yourself.

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If you want a list of basic skills to learn, off the top of my head there's:-

Last Hitting/Denying
Creep and Tower Aggro
Farming paths - plotting the most efficient routes through the Jungle and Lanes to get the most Farm possible
Itemization - when do you buy which Item on which Heroes?
Map Awareness - keeping track of where your teammates and opponents are (Warding and Dewarding is a part of this as well)
Timing - making decisions based on the game timer
Rhythm - being able to chain stuns/slows/roots/etc. efficiently and who should go 1st so you're not wasting your Skills
Sieging and defending Highground - Tier 3s are hard to take if both sides know what they're doing
Prioritizing Objectives - too many times will people throw the game by diving the fountain for kills when there's undefended Rax to take 8{(
Jungling + Stacking Neutral Camps - how to get the most Farm from your Jungle
Damage Calculation - knowing when you can get a Kill or not on a certain Hero can save you from dying in a pointless Gank/Teamfight

That's about all I can think of for now.

The only good feature in Reborn is that you can try your hero, which opens up the game in the mid lane and you practice last hitting. I would do that to practice last hits and denies. You can also spawn some enemy heroes to practice creep aggro.

The other thing you should do is watch games in player's perspective and pay attention on every movement and click. You should focus on one type of player at a time, for example just spec the mid player for one game then for another game just spec the support and see how he is harassing + controlling the aggro. This will make you improve a lot.