Looking for tips for a few specific things here...

Ok. There's a couple of things to ask about here.



Firstly, I've been focusing alot on playing/learning support (particularly since it seems alot of players DONT do this), but I'd like to learn other roles as well, although support will remain my central focus.

The two roles that I know the least about, in terms of how to play them, are carry, and jungler.

So, for learning those in a general sense, can anyone suggest some heroes that might be good to start with? As well as just some tips in general. Jungling in particular is the role that seems a little confusing to me.


Second, for specific heroes, could use some tips for playing as Dazzle. I love his spells and that ultimate, and he seems like he can be pretty effective, particularly if he's able to get certain items, but even if I'm doing tons and tons of healing and debuffs and getting lots of assists.... I still die an awful lot with him. Now, granted, some of those deaths could be prevented if I could stop squashing the wrong hotkeys for his spells (I dunno why but that ONLY happens with him, and it happens often), but still, even when I'm not screwing that up, he does seem to melt easily. I read guides and all, but still, tips would be very welcome.


And finally, items. This has been the hardest aspect of the game for me to learn, since my memory is just absolutely terrible. Not to mention that I've mostly done support so far, so I dont always get to buy many items that arent wards, scrolls, and cheap-ish things like Magic Wand and whatnot. Are there any specific items that should always be considered for specific roles? I dont know many yet, for support I use Mekanism whenever I can afford it, and Urn of Shadows is great too, and I know Quelling Blade seems very useful for carries... and some of the more basic stat items like Bracers and whatnot. Beyond that though, I still havent learned enough about items in general yet.

So, yeah, are there any items that are particularly super good for whatever reason, or that have alot of versatility, and are there any that I should mostly just avoid? One in particular, Aghanim's... it SEEMS like such a major thing, but I dont see many using it much at all, and it also seems way too blasted pricey, so that's one I was wondering about.


Thanks in advance!

You'll have to be more specific about that "carry" role you want to learn, does that mean hard carries or semi-carries ?

As for jungling, the most approachable active jungle hero would be Enchantress, gank your adjacent lane and push it if successful, that's what you generally do with her, she's also ok-ish mid late even without the jungle because of her impetus and heal.

There aren't many complications with ench in the woods rly, just go to a big camp, convert the big creep and farm or gank depending on current situation, you'll probably have to check a guide or two for proper starting items though.

Dazzle is a hero that is all about positioning (like a lot of support heroes), I love playing him too, but he only seems to work when you have a frontline carry (like lycan,sb,slardar,dk,etc...) to "bond" with, otherwise if there won't be any meatshields, then he'll go down fairly fast. He's a lot like wisp imo, you need to get a strong killer hero with you & you stick with that guy all game long basically (in teamfight & in lane controlling i mean, midgame you can go help your team while he keeps farming if he has an easy lane), ofc you don't always need meatshields to make daz work, you just generally need heroes that can hold the line.

Personally I played slardar+dazzle combo with a friend back in dota1 in cms, it was when dual lanes were still popular, we basically killed our lane at lvl 3 a lot of times, slow + stun + heal (which damages) was usually enough.

Another problem that dazzle has is prioritizing your skills properly, as in, what will you have to work with at lvl 3 ? if the enemy lane is not very likely to kill you/your ally, mb skip shallow grave and get 2 lvls in poison touch with 1 in heal, if you're expecting a fb attempt from the enemy, get shallow grave first, and so on & so forth.

You can keep poison touch at lvl 3 btw, it doesn't get much more effective at 4. Also, I tried playing a extremely defensive dazzle once because I was laning with a faceless void vs a fairly killer enemy dual lane, so I maxed grave & heal first and god I was so useless in those midgame fights >.<, so yeah, don't play him without poison touch lol.

One this I saw the pros do, is keep heal at lvl 1 or 2 and focus on his other skills instead, this is mostly to reduce mana usage since as a support he won't get a whole lot of items and he is a extremely mana hungry hero early on if you max heal first. ( soul ring can help)

I'm guessing you're not interested in solo mid daz so I won't go over that.

You'll learn items in time, plenty of descriptions of them everywhere, won't go over that, as a support player you should probably check out, Force Staff (ok surviability item, can use it on allies to save them or on enemies to put them in a bad spot), Pipe of Insight (expensive item, great vs magic aoe dmg) and Eul's Scepter of Divinity (selfish support item :P, gives a good amount of ms and mana regen, cyclone is awesome).

If you get more cash though, the big item to get is always scythe of vise though, because of hex basically.

hope this wall of text isn't too boring to read :P

*edit*
aw yeah, another problem with dazzle, he needs quite a bit of levels to be truly effective, unlike venomancer/tide who can be really powerful from lvl 1 (a good support hero can generally function really well even with low xp levels: venom gale + nova, tide with gush+anchor smash + ravage, cm with aoe slow/sun, etc... | there are other awesome ones that need a lot of levels: warlock with ult+max fatal bonds+max unpheaval, omniknight with ult+max heal+ max repel, wd with ult+max stun + max maledct, etc...)

Ah, a detailed response like that is always appreciated, thanks :)

For carries, hmm... it probably couldnt hurt to learn both semi and hard at least somewhat, though the impression I get is that hard carries are much tougher to learn and use. Is certainly how it seems anyway. If that's the case, I'll mess with the semi-carries more than the hard ones, but practicing with the hard ones isnt a bad idea either.


Some good info on Dazzle there. I have indeed noticed that he's kinda not very good at the earliest levels, and very definitely noticed that he tends to just go splat if there isnt someone tough between him and the enemy. I'll definitely try to keep all that stuff in mind. Hadnt realized that Poison Touch was so important with him.

I'll give Enchantress a shot as well and start practicing with her, looks interesting without being super complicated.

Semi-carries = They're pretty good early game compared to hard-carries and usually have a nuke of some sort. Semi-carries dominate the mid-game since that's where they peak in power but as time goes on and late game arrives, their strength wanes and that's usually when the hard-carry takes over. (Unless you've shut that hard-carry really good) To your surprise, semi-carries are harder to play than hard-carries.

hard-carries = They're more of a midlate-lategame insurance to winning the game, they start off very weak and then power-up really well if farmed/fed. They require much more farm that semi-carries with a goal of reaching around 50cs at 10 minutes, 100cs at 20 minutes and 150cs+ at around 25-30 minutes. This might of changed from that last time I remembered but these are the goals to reach when you play a hard-carry. You must master last hitting, map-awareness, grow big balls(no hesitations), know how to maintain lane equilibrium by yourself if you're freefarming, play smart and carrying TPs. Semi-carries also follow this rule

Dazzle starts to get stronger around level 6+, his early game spells are pretty wack D:! You must get Shadow Poison to at least level 3 by level 5 or you won't be as useful as you think.

If you want to edge your way into another role from support than I would suggest Earthshaker. He is good for you, because you can practice initiating while playing Lane Support! Though it is not always recognized as a role I like to consider Earthshaker as Crowd Control. After you learn how to play Earthshaker if you want a carry try playing Sand King. Personally I learned how to play carries and nukers first which helped me figure out what my teams needs are and when.

If you wanna learn more about what to get and how to play Earthshaker try watching dotacinema and purge on YouTube. They got some guides for him on there. They helped me a bunch! And if you want you can also try some strategy guides on here too.

You seem like a player who likes being proactive. Enchantress/Chen are the best proactive junglers.

However, I personally suggest you STAY AWAY from Enchantress/Chen, unless you have previous experience playing micro-intensive games. Even pros struggle to master gank timings, neutral creep micro, push timings, etc., along with the usual creep pulling and stacking. Enchantress is particularily hard since her creeps expire.

Heros like Axe, Ursa, Naix, and others can farm in jungle, but I assume they're not your type.

Instead try Enigma or Nature's Prophet. They can both come out of jungle into the lane with a disable and spawns to kill/push a tower down very effectively. Get a hang of creep pulling and stacking, especially if you're Dire, and you're good to go! Just don't forget your roots as a support player and always be on the lookout for ganks, which can then be translated into pushes.

Yeah, personally I'd stay away from heroes like Enchantress/Chen as a beginner you've got enough to worry about without microing extra units. Dazzle is probably a reasonable starting hero, even if his build and powers aren't super-straightforward (I'd normally recommend a hero like Lion, you might also like Warlock).

*Cough* not advertising *cough*, but this could be worth a read for info on carries as I don't want to repeat myself! Carry Guide

tl:dr - you've got to be able to last hit well, or don't play carry.

Yeah, I kinda got that impression about Enchantress after messing with her a couple of times in AI games. Microing is a bit much for me at the moment. Warlock and Lion I might try out, I think. I hadnt really considered either.

As for the carries... well, it didnt take too long before I started finding last-hitting to be fairly easy (it really is just a matter of timing, after all), but I still havent messed with carries much for one very simple reason: the fact that at low levels, everyone and their grandma and their grandma's dog all pick freakin' carries ALL THE TIME. Argh. When there's already 3 or 4 carries on the team, I'm not going to pick one. And this makes it tough to get any practice as that role. Granted, I enjoy playing support and such anyway, but still. Do want to learn all roles at least somewhat, but.... yeah, the low levels dont make it easy to do so!

^IF you can play support well, you will be loved by almost everyone.