Levelling Up - How to Improve your Play

nice guide ...learned a lot keep om doing thanks

Just wanted to thank you for writing this post. It really has inspired me to try to improve my dota game.

Keep up the great writing friend.

Sando very nice guide..I just started playing a week ago..I play most of the time with sniper..played the hard mode and defeated plenty of times..I am finding it diff to play with other characters and also not able to use hot keys..I occasionally play with drow,Luna and viper..

I have some questions.
How do I play other characters ..I am very poor with mana type heroes..

And also if I could find some help on what characters I need to use for mid lane, top lane and bottom lane ..it would help me alot ..and I play sniper midlane

Realy nice guide upvoted! I m a veteran player but i learned a lot from this guide especialy stuck in their ways section.i m sometimes realy not versitle enough but i try to be more diverse lately

I use QWER for skills, z for boots(Unless Boots of Travel, which is usually on c), space for most used item, then mouse 2, then x>c
Got 9/10 on quiz, missed the SF one
But you need to remember that tiny toss also ignores bkb - it's just waaaaaay harder to do it

I believe that the best way to improve this is by playing.
You said you've only tried easy and medium, try to go for hard sometimes(even if you lose, there will be a day when you'll win).
I mean...
"Pain is the best teacher" - Queen of Pain
I'll use another game(age of empires) as an example.
Few months ago, I could 1v7 on medium easily on that game. But couldn't really win ANY game on hard(unless I put more bots into my team)
Then I started to play everyday vs hard bots, usually 2v2.
1 or 2 weeks later, I won my first match! The feeling was so... good I went screaming like crazy in my house telling my family "I win" (later they took my computer out of my room for 2 days, but that's irrelevant)
Why did I improve? I could see what I was doing wrong and started to think of what I could do about it.
If you don't have the patience, you can also ask for a better player to analyze your match and tell you your mistakes.

Actually from my point of view your team did not have a proper carry. If you are taking nukes to dominate mid game make sure you end game fast or have a good carry to counter them in late game.

I'm a bit late to the guide! I really enjoy reading them btw. I started playing in December, and now I wish I'd been playing much earlier. I use QWER, and for items I use the same except I replaced N with T and put important things like blink on it using quick cast. I hit Z-B with my thumb so I can use items and abilities at the same time

Great guide especially for beginners like myself. I have Dota . But Ican only play in offline mode since my WiFi ranout. I've only bots on easy and tried medium... needless to say, I've got quite aways to go. Anyway +1

P.S. could you or aanyone else give me some tips on improving my reaction time?