The Unusual Gamemodes (comment for mod games)

Introduction

I don't consider myself a guide writer but I felt the necessity to "vent my spleen" in this tips guide to everything, mostly everything, not all pick or captains draft. I consider all pick and captains draft the two most normal game modes because they are available in ranked matchmaking.

Early disclaimer: This is going to be a lot of text. Please try to bear with me and add any comments you think would be helpful to breaking up walls of text in this context.

This is my first guide, i hope you like it!

Summary

I feel like there are sooo many guides for all pick or captains draft style games, but most of these builds are less effective in other game styles, even single draft. I am going to go through each game mode and talk about generic strategies that should get you through most games even when your teammates are the worst players DOTA has ever seen.

This guide will hopefully limit the number of times I see an ability draft in which Bane picks Counter Helix or a single draft where the consensus on my team is he got Riki who's OP so we can't win. Both situations were responded to by a brief face palming.

Eventually I will cover Random draft, single draft, Ability Draft, All Random Deathmatch, and whatever else I can think of to make sure I never have to see that again, ever.

I can also cover modded clients if people express interest in this. I have played many of the modded client games and would further "dip my toes" should the request be made

Problems that show up. Always.

Playing in these game modes is mostly a hit or miss depending on your hero and/or abilities due to a lack of structure. These game modes rarely have a support system because people always want to play carry. I see this in ability draft the most: Lion taking Overpower because it's the best ability on the board. NO! my response: Congrats! instead of having stuns and disables you can do 6 hits of 80 damage (480 damage) to that double HoT Axe while he walks up to you and one shots you with Enchant Totem.

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in reality as long as you are playing DOTA some basic elements must be covered. You must have carries and you must have supports. It doesn't matter if you are playing single draft, all random, ability draft (all random deathmatch may be kinda ish different).

In ability drafts invisibility kills --> nobody ever buys detection --> nobody ever plays support. Invisibility is such an easy counter but nobody is willing to spend 200 gold on some wards or dust so those people can sit around and pick off whomever they want to.

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The way I see it all teams should have a pretty solid mixture of the following categories:
Health/Mana, Solo enemy damage/team fight damage, attack speed/ movement speed, stuns/slows/gap closure, pushing power/antipushing power, and of course carry/support.

Rules of the Road

Before you ever start a build look at your team and ask yourself this one crucial question:

Does my team have all of the above categories filled? If not, how can I adapt to fill any holes?

Let's say you are playing an all random and have a team comprised of Leshrac, Drow Ranger, Puck, Dazzle, Bounty Hunter. Your team has damage, attack speed, push, slows/stuns, and carries/supports. All of those things are great except that when the opposing Lone Druid buys a Radiance for his bear, you guys are toast! Your team has no health, and you should definitely bulk up a little bit.

I can't tell you how many times i've seen someone who can do thousands of damage, but always get perma-stunned and killed. If you don't have a stun or a slow it doesn't matter how much damage you do.

A good defense is the best offense

Certain heroes wreck pub games because nobody counters them. When you see an opposing Riki, kill him before he hits level 6. He's weak, really weak. If you wait until he hits 6 and then he ganks and snowballs that's pretty much gg. If you kill him 2-3 times before 6 and then everybody buys wards/dust, you are untouchable! It doesn't matter what hero you are playing, if you are the "hard carry" or not. If you're the hard carry Anti-Mage does that mean Riki won't attack you? Of course not!

When facing A Broodmother or Phantom Assassin, or even just a hero with a Butterfly, you should consider a Monkey King Bar for true strike. I'm pretty sure that backtrack will still proc even if you have a Monkey King Bar.

Adapt, Adapt. Adapt!

I cannot stress this enough. I will never give you a surefire build that works because it just doesn't exist! If you come into a game knowing what your build is then you are leaving yourself vulnerable. Sometimes your team has too many carries and you need to be flexible. Sometimes, very rarely and probably only in all random, your team has too many supports and needs a carry. I love watching carry Earthshaker and Carry Silencer, I even played a carry Keeper of the Light once! (ok, i wasn't me playing carry so much as I just bought a lot of items and hit hard with Illuminate.)

I used to think that waiting until you get to your lane before applying skill points was a waste. Everything was fine and dandy until that one time I was playing a support Tidehunter laning with a Weaver. I took so much harass from the opposing Leshrac and Dark Seer that I was kicking myself over not using Kraken Shell at level one. Ding! Light bulb went off.

In ability draft this is even more important because you don't know what abilities the opposing hero has. If you are getting a lot of harass maybe the points in Geminate Attack were not the best investment...

In these ability draft games watch how I was able to coordinate with teammates to get a good variety of abilities that would be helpful throughout the game.
Play Video Play Video

Exceptions

The only real exceptions to these rules are when you play all random deathmatch. If you don't know how to access All Random Deathmatch you need to open your console commands, which is a process on its own. Once you find out how to open console just copy and paste dota_match_game_modes 1048576 into the console and you should be all set.

Explanation for this game mode:

Each team starts with 40 extra lives. You can win either by lowering their extra lives to zero and killing every hero on their team or by destroying their ancient. Sounds easy right? Problem is, there's a catch. You start the game as a random hero and every time you die you are randomly chosen a new hero, keeping your level and items and that many unused skill points.

For this game mode pretty much everyone needs farm because their next hero could be a carry.

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There are a few things to keep in mind when designing a build for your hero(es):

If you are feeling risky go with:

Aghanim's Scepter, you may get a hero that uses it or you may not.
Generic items such a power treads, bracer, even SnY are good choices because they help most if not all heroes.
Sometimes it is necessary to make sacrifices of your own life to kill off a potentially dangerous enemy hero.

(One thing to be aware of: I once saw a Lone Druid who built up his bear really well, but died and lost all of his items. Bear items do not transfer back to you!)

Updates to the guide

This is my updates section, to be edited over time.

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7/1/14 - guide created and published.

7/15/14 - edit to "problems that show up. always." section.

7/21/14 - Added second video

7/27/14 - Question to audience about addition of modded client section

Conclusion

If you read down to here give yourself a gold star!

This is my first guide. As such, it will not be perfect but I can change it. The only way I can make this guide better is by getting comments that lead me on the right path.

Please subscribe to my youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/SoloBrow1/feed. It would mean the world to me. I am also going to be posting more helpful videos, some of which I may add to this guide at a later point.

If you feel as though this guide helped you please leave a like as it makes me feel good about myself.

Lastly, thank you guys so much for taking the time to read my guide and I hope you learnt something.