2 weeks in, requesting any advice

I have been playing dota 2 for about 2 weeks, I probably have 25-35 games against bots played of varying difficulty. I transitioned to co-op hard bots about 5 days ago. First match was brutal, but I have "stabilized" since then - I am no longer the worst on my team, not massively feeding (most of the time).

I random my hero every game, I want to learn them all in order to know how to play against them all.

I stopped following the in-game guides in order to force myself to read/understand hero abilities as well as learn/understand item builds. I am not sure if this is a good idea at my skill level (or lack there of).

My concerns are this:

I am usually the lowest level on my team, if not in the whole match - even if I have the least amount of deaths. I stopped trying to attend every gank, I started using TP scrolls for long travel. Things got a bit better, but I am still behind for the most part.

I die in almost every team fight or I am being a ***** and running away. I feel like there are usually 3ish outcomes to team fights:

1. I die instantly, my team cleans up - doesn't matter if I am the first to engage or last, I die.
2. I avoid the fight and stay alive - my team asks wtf am I doing running away.
3. I run away and my team cleans up. or I poke my head to try and help.. I die instantly.

obviously there are times when there are exceptions to this, but for the most part I see myself as the only person on my team dying every team fight.

Part of me thinks the lack of ability to survive or attend a team fight is why I am so far behind in levels. Catch 22 type thing, I cant level if I die, If I team fight I die.

Any advice, tips, ideas would be lead me to be most grateful!

While I commend you randoming every game (a time will come when you should do that), at the moment it's probably bad for your game. IMHO you'd be better off picking 2-3 heroes who you like and can specialise in initially. This way you can start working on where you fit into the team, what you need to be doing, and getting a baseline for your decision making. By constantly chopping and changing it must be hard to know what you're supposed to be doing...!

It is hard to start with knowing when to fight and when to run, and you will get it wrong. Generally if you're underlevelled and underfarmed you will go down easy in a team fight, work on the rest of your game and this part will start to sort itself out.

Sando is absolutely correct.

Randoming is good for learning heroes, but hero abilities and maybe items are all you are learning every game. If you just play one hero 15-20 times, you'll beat unfair bots (or whatever the highest difficulty is) every single game if you have competent teammates. You're ready to play against other people with that hero too.

After that, other heroes will take you less time to learn, and you'll understand their roles simply by watching other people play them.

By playing one hero at a time, you'll learn what role you play in a lane, in a team, in a teamfight. You'll know what items to get, where to be, what to be doing, depending on the situation. This is really important.

this mindset is fantastic and i think its the right thing to do. I wouldnt play ALL PICK and random though.... play singledraft and randomdraft. An explanation on "why?" would be too long, so i just hope that u trust me here^^.

Since u random every game, its hard to give any advice on gameplay or itemization. BUT there are are things that might help u.

"Drums of Endurance" for example provide +9 to all stats (meaning more HP, more Armor and more regen) + movementspeed (which actually helps survivability a lot) + attackspeed. Furthermore its helpful on ANY hero.

try to analize the enemy team:

do they have lots of physical damage? --> buy armor or maybe even a "ghostscepter".
do they have lots of magical damage? try to go for a "pipe of insight" or "black king bar"
what about a mix of damage types? go for raw hp --> a simple vitality booster is a huge advantage in the early game (and the HP from stat items as "drums" is also quite good)
in any case avoid buying items that involve an "ultimate orb" though. it has the lowest "Stats per gold"-efficency in the game and may take a long time to farm for a new player.

and this may seem a bit harsh, but if u really dont contribute much to teamfights, for the sake of ur team, DONT go for essential heroes (like hardcarry or solo-laner)

#1 rule for new players imo: even if u feel, that u dont do any damage --> dead heroes do even less damge --> therefore survivability > damage !

hope this helps in one way or the other

cheers

One thing that happens to me a lot is that once I get out of the 'laning' mindset and into the mid-game, I tend to forget to keep farming when I get the chance. If you find yourself underleveled, spending a few minutes in the jungle (if it's safe) can help.

Also, try to stick with a few heroes, like others before me have mentioned. Start expanding your repertoire of heroes once you understand the philosophy behind the roles that heroes fill. For example, once you have a firm grasp on what carries are supposed to do, then you can start to play different carries.

Hopefully this is helpful to you.

Thanks for the responses. I think what you guys have said is good information. I'll have to consider sticking to only a few heroes. The massive amount of heroes is one of the key reasons it took me so long to begin playing dota 2, I think I got my beta invite sometime in 2011 and just finally started playing. I had accepted there would be some downsides to randoming every game, but I didn't think it would lead to being so far behind every match. I will work on farming during down time and buying more defensive items in order to stay alive.

Despite feeling like I am playing horribly, I've yet to be yelled at by any players, other than the occasional "why did you run away from the fight?" So maybe I am "okay" for being 2 weeks into the game. I have read that people in this game aren't afraid to tell you when you suck, and either I've yet to meet those players, I am doing "okay," or people in bot games are more relaxed.

Thanks again!

Dota has a fairly steep learning curve, so struggling a bit at the start isn't a big thing.

I do suggest when starting to learn heroes, to pick Support heroes (the ones that have the Support tag icon). The reason for this is that they are not completely necessary to win a game, and they are generally easier to play with because they don't require a lot of farm to be useful. Click the link to see a list of the Support heroes as set out by the Dota 2 Wiki.

And I agree with the others. Pick a few heroes you like, and stick with them, figuring out how you can be good at them.

i dont agree with this. a supports job in the early game is far more difficult and crucial than that of lets say a hardcarry.

where a hardcarry "only" needs to farm and not get killed the jobs of a support cover a wider area:
placing wards and buying courier for example already mean, that the support player has less startitems and is more vulnerable at the beginning of the game.

Secondly supports should harass the lane and try to let the carry farm, which does 2 things
a. they arent getting any items soon and therefor fall even more behind in statgain (and therefor survivability)
b. since they should be the main aggressors on the lane, the chance, that they get initiated on is rather high --> a good support player has to see, when to be aggressive and when its better to retreat, else wise they will just feed.

playing a good support is harder than playing the carry in the early stages of the game since a supportplayer needs high mechanical knowledge (both of his lanemate and the opposing laners) and good decisionmaking.

Its true that the need for supports fall off later in the game, but a support that gives the enemy carry 3 freekills in the first 15 mins of the game, may already have lost u the game.

More good advice, thanks guys.

I think the general take away from your comments is "just play the game and learn what you can." I see why the majority of you suggest to pick a select few hereos, but I think I will stick to randoming. I plan on playing many, many bot games before playing against real people, so I don't see an issue with "holding my team back." I see bot games as for learning, not for "serious, gotta win, life or death scenarios."



I'm not sure I've been in any bot game where strict roles were actually observed. People seem to do whatever they want and build how-ever they want. So I am unsure how actually sticking to a role will fair.

At some point you just have to jump in. I personally have played probably one bot match to work on last hitting. There's match making for a reason. Bots will never give you that unpredictable move from actual people (both on the other team and your own). If you've read a guide on the machanics and your hero you should be good to go play some low level games. I hear you on playing any hero, its a necessity of the game to understand what you're up against and you should be ready to play the counter. Just go for it.