Tips for DOTA

[Bowser]

Lately I've been getting back into playing DOTA and I was wondering if anyone had some good tips on playing? as I clearly suck.

[Jingles]

I think the best advice, especially when new to dota is not to push forward, but try to hang back. The longer you're around the fighting, the more you will level. Using ranged heroes for this is a good idea.

Also, try to be on the lookout for flanking attacks (especially when in enemy territory), or a suspicious lack of the enemy on the minimap- they could be grouping up to take someone out :)

[her0n]

Get a chicken courier as one of your first items to ferry you stuff whilst you whore xp in the lane you are in :D

[Joey[kins]]

don't die.

it sounds simple enough, but you'd be amazed at how many people think "ah it doesn't matter if i do get killed because i'll respawn" and take unnecessary risk...

[afty]

Originally posted by Bowser
Lately I've been getting back into playing DOTA and I was wondering if anyone had some good tips on playing? as I clearly suck.

1] Don't assume you always have to be fighting to win the game.
2] You get experience for being about 2/3 of the screen width away when something dies, you don't have to kill it yourself.
3] You get gold from a kill if you make the final, killing blow on it.
4] Early on, getting experience is more important than getting gold.

Therefore : Early in game, stand nearby action but don't be involved all the time, don't make yourself a target for enemy heroes. Sit levelling up for a while and you gradually get a small amount of gold in the "background". If you make a few creep kills you get even more gold.

5] Killing enemy heroes gets you 100 - 200 gold and some experience.
6] Dying costs you a %age of your gold, and means your opponents level ALOT faster than you.

Therefore : Always try to be staying alive, don't go for the jugular until you are sure of your capabilities, and the enemies. A 0/0 record is ALOT better for you then a 7/7 record. You will have more cash and experience with 0/0 than with 7/7, and will therefore be more powerful and better for your team.

7] Towers hurt alot early on.
8] Towers target ANYTHING which is attacking a friendly hero.
9] You have to take towers down, but it is much easier late game than early.
10] The final hit on a tower gets you hundreds of gold.

Therefore : Do not bother about hitting towers early and DO NOT attack an enemy hero when you are in range of a tower. Kill enemy towers later in games when you are grouping more.
Try to get the last hit on a tower.

10] When you have little health early on, creep hits on you hurt alot.
11] If you don't have much health and you stick around near combat, the enemy will try to ambush you.
12] Your skills are weak early on, and it takes many hits and spells to kill a hero
13] Skills increase along with damage and combat later in the game can be brutally fast.

Therefore : Early on keep your life total high and if it gets to half or below, heal either by potion or returning to the fountain. If you find yourself returning to the fountain more than once every 5 minutes you are taking TOO MANY RISKS, and as such you are levelling much more slowly than your enemy. This will lose you the game.
Run away when you start getting hit by creeps and/or heroes. They will stop targetting you quickly, go back in after this has happened.
Don't bother trying to kill enemy heroes early in the game unless their health is in the red zone. It's pointless.
Later in the game you must group up as 3/4/5 players and push one lane, usually the middle to take barracks down. Once you have done this, go another lane. If your team starts grouping you should NOT be alone unless you know what you are doing and why and when. (hint : if you need to read this post, you are dozens of games away from knowing what, why and when.)

14] Heroes abilities decide games.

Therefore, if you don't recognise the hero you are against in your lane, ask your teammates what to watch out for. They will tell you the nastiest things you will face.

15] Sometimes no matter how hard you try to play well, you will get beaten on.

Therefore : If you are levels behind in your lane and getting hurt badly every time you go into combat, CALL IT EARLY and request a swap. Other people in your team doing better may be able to swap with you and stop the rot. There may be cases when the whole team is suffering like this. If this is the case, you have probably lost :/

16] The game is won by the team that levels well early, and groups well later.

Therefore : Follow the above tips early, and later on group up. Do *NOT* cross the river alone after about level 10, no matter how much health you have. Crossing the river is dangerous because it is VERY easy for enemies to come behind you and gangbang you.

17] Buying items suited to your heroes helps quite a bit.
18] Buying the wrong items just plain sucks.

Therefore : if you are not sure what to buy, ask a team mate with more experience for a build order. Even among experience players there are disagreements and opinions, but they won't be significantly different. Remind them it is a build for a new player so they don't make it too ambitious for you.

Safe Buys, appropriate for every hero :

The appropriate "cheap talisman" for your class:
-] Strength : Bracers x 2
-] Intelligence : Null Talisman x 2
-] Agility : Wraith Band x 2
Power Treads
Perseverence

After this lot, it gets a bit more specialist. In general for STR or AGI characters if you aren't sure what to buy, Sange And Yasha is fairly safe, and cheap to assemble.

If you are getting beaten down on alot, try to buy items and recipes that are made from cheaper items, rather than single expensive ones. This is because many MANY games are lost by a player needing 2000 gold, and dying every time he gets to 1950. This means he gets no more items for the rest of the game. Instead, if you are dying a bit, swallow your pride and buy cheap stuff.
If you are getting beaten down early and can't make lots of cash don't be afraid to buy power treads and 5 appropriate talismans - you can always sell them later as you need to free up your slots, if you find you make more money.

[Bowser]

Thanks Afty thats the kind of reply I was hoping for :)

[Ryvita]

Play in -ar games (all random) rather than -ap's. you may be less familiar with some of the characters but at least you won;t get owned by people who can only play one obscenely broken character well.

Strength heroes have lots of life and tend to survive a bit easier. early on, this can help. Get them strength boosting items to maximise this. If you do have someone with a glass jaw, consider going for a soul booster early, to get the life total up.

Repick can be very useful if you really don't like the look of what you get given in random, but it costs you gold.

Play, play and play some more. experience is the only way.

Ryv

[Joey[kins]]

made this thread sticky since it's got handy info, I'd agree with ryvita's comment and also add that you'll generally enjoy -ar games more than -ap ones anyway. -ap tends to bring out the worst in people in my experience...

[afty]

I have since changed my mind on AP and AR, I feel that AP is more suited to beginners as they can pick the same character over and over again until they get a feel for his skills, which ones they prefer etc.

Our Handicapping system, due to come into operation at StratLAN, should help to alleviate the issues with AP games a little, and with balance at LANs in general.

[Jingles]

The only 'problem' with AP is that imo the people playing this type can be very strong at the hero they pick - making for tough opponents

Of course a good player will be strong in an AR game also :)

I think that AR is a good choice for beginners, since you experience a wider range of characters - there's no better way to understand your enemy than to have played with their character

[afty]

Put a beginner against a vet, and give the begginer a strong hero, and the vet a weak hero. End result, the vet destroys the beginner.

At least by having AP for beginner games, the beginners receive a ranged hero (for safer levelling) that they know. They already know what item builds, skill builds etc. to take. In the several games they play with this hero, they will notice other heroes that they want to try, and will pickup plenty of info about them along the way.

AP for beginners all the way.

[DaeMord]

tbh i prefer ap games all the way, not because i still consider myself a beginner, which i do btw, but because i belive ar games, across 2 relatively even teams, are mostly decided before they begin, based on what hero's everyone gets. In ap you might get broken hero's but at least BOTH teams have broken hero's, which makes it a little more even.

[Joey[kins]]

the reason i enjoy dota so much is because of the variety; you don't really get that when everyone picks the same 10 broken heroes each game

hence why -ar rocks


i do agree with afty that it should be -ap when there's fresh meat playing, but the vets should do -random to keep that interesting feeling thang

[DaeMord]

i will admit i do like -ar for the variety, i just hate seeing the enemy team get <5 stupidly powerful probably stunners here>
and for your team to get <insert 5 pointless char's here>
and to then spend the next hour being on the team with 5 nothings knowing what the end result is no matter how you play.

[Dan]

This -ap with -random for pros should be quite interesting at StratLAN :)


Who are the pros tho?

[her0n]

Please can someone bin the posts from the trolls? We don't go dissing their games in their forums....

:rolleyes:

[Aardvark]

Aye, it's a lovely attitude they have. And they call US antisocial... :rolleyes:

[adrianne07]

helloo guys! i'm new here, ok? just bear with me. all of the advices i've heard so far are great. i think -ap is for beginners and -ar for vets. and to know more on the right seqence of what should be first to upgrade on what hero you choose, go to dota all-stars site. the recipes are also there so you can print and study what's the best or the first that you should buy. :)

[Rippsy]

Well since I just got into dota looking fwd to meh next larrrrrnnn... :P

On a more serious note, just played a pickup game of total and utter LOSE

4 stun hero's + Balanar vs 4 hero's w/o stun + me (the aoe group together stun wotsit)

Basically we just got splatted. in a nasty horrible way. :-(

[Baz]

had a game similar to yours today rippsy

Our team were all agility and intel heros - the only disable we had was furions trees.

They had troll, slardar, rylia, ogre magi, and someone else.

It was hard going, and we lost lots of early lifes, but furion grouped with clinkz. We fed clinkz as a team and soon he had gone completly broken. We'd push as a team, lure the enemy out, and then clinkz would appear, grab a triple kill and then flee, while we all went back to damage control.

Clinkz ended up with 2 burize and a butterfly, and after a particularly successful gangbang, we won!

So just because all you face a tricky team doesnt mean that all is lost :)

[Lucifa]

Originally posted by Baz
So just because all you face a tricky team doesnt mean that all is lost :)

Indeed, 2 games I had over the last few days were like that.

First game was a complete mismatch.

Sven, Sand King, Lycan, Siren and me as Zeus. So a pretty heavy melee team, with 2 x stun and 2 x disable...except we were against:

Furion, Crystal Maiden, Necro'lic, Drow and Omniknight. So a pretty nasty ranged team with 2 x disable and 3 x slow down.

After seeing that selection we even talked about conceding due to complete lack of ranged on our team.

We were getting pretty dicked at the start, I was getting whomped in the middle vs furion and maiden, I was 0-4 by level 6 and lycan 0-2.
Slowly but surely though, we were turning it around. Sven was giving drow a run for his money, sand king was farming like a pro (helen) and I was still dying :(

In the end we won, party due to a rather pimped out sven and a sand king with 3 hearts of tarrasque and on his way to a 4th (5.1k hp ouch). Oh and a few nicely timed ultimates from me :)


Second match I can't remember any of the teams, but basically we were getting dicked constantly, I'm talking the scores were like 7-35. All hope was lost, all 6 lane towers were down and the mid base tower as well, while they still had the last 3 lane towers up.
To cut a long story short, we managed a nice gangbang in the middle lane near our base killing most of their team, gathered up a nice creep push and won the game in that one push.

[draconas]

Hell yes, never underestimate yourself - an XW game for a laugh we played all casters: I was zeus, we had tinker, keeper of the light, lena and morphling.

Thus we were extremely powerful in the early game where nukes and ultimates can be result in instagib combos but weak in late game as our spells don't improve at the rate of those of strength/agility heros.

We absolutely raped levels 3-11 when we were all getting our ultimates - i was on a golike simply from wrath of zeus.

Then levels 12-20 they came back and the situation reversed itself, we were forced to play ultra defenisve and usually ended up losing 4 of our guys to blunt their group rushes.

Towards the end we knew that we couldn't sit on our asses or we'd be killed, so we did 2 pronged attacks - 2 would take the right lane, 3 would take the left to keep them off balence, and eventually the right managed to take out one of their barracks. After that we had them on the backfoot constantly and were finally able to drive a wedge through the centre and win the game.



As for what type of game is best for a newbie:

I would say all pick initally or just plain pick. So you can take the same hero a few times and just get used to how the game plays - razer is a good one for that as he is fairly simple to play and once you give him a ring of health he's quite forgiving of mistakes that don't kill him and can farm creeps easily so you can learn the item combos.

But as soon as you are confortable with the general tactics you've got to get out on those -ar games. Otherwise you get stuck in a rut and frankly, will suck.
Even heros that you think are sucky - when i was first doing -ar i got stuck with leviathon who frankly I thought was pants. So i bought some power treads and a few bracers in the early levels and wandered into battle expecting to spend a lot of time waiting to respawn.

Then I realised - i was duking it out with heros who I thought would slaughter me in an instant, but in the end I was creaming them since levithan is a basterd to kill in melee anbd that was before i got my ultimate. I ended up having a great game, lumbering through the battlefield and i knew it was working because the guys I was against switched my lanes 3 times, it wasn't till they had a ranged and a caster against me (who bypass my my damage reduction) that i had to play defensibilty. All from a character who I had thought sucked.

[west4]

Anyone knows how to beat sand king with Juggernauth??

[afty]

Originally posted by west4
Anyone knows how to beat sand king with Juggernauth?? The game really isn't that simple :)

[Lucifa]

Originally posted by afty
The game really isn't that simple :)

True, but to answer the question anyway.
You would need some sort of magic avoiding item (linkens or bkb) to avoid his stun/ulti. Then some damage items, something like burize + MKB + hyperstone.
Juggernaut has crazy damage output because of his huge passive criticial chance, rivalled only by Naga siren for sheer DPS.
Oh and omnislash would help.

Lucifa

[west4]

So what items are you going to buy early in the game in a 1v1?

[Lucifa]

I don't think any of us play 1v1. It's a team game, designed to be played using ambushes and combinations of stuns, disable and nukes to win the game.

[afty]

Indeed, it's actually quite an awful experience 1v1, kind of like the difference between a premiership game, and a 1v1 kick around in the local park.

[west4]

True.But my friend challenge me for a 1v1 against him.

I want to show him that Juggernauth can win:D

[Jingles]

All the heroes have their strengths and weaknesses. Some heroes will have a very tough time against other heroes due to these differences.

This is why its much more a multiplayer game - your allies help balance out your characters' weaknesses.

I'd say your friend is going to win personally :D

[afty]

Well, Juggernaut vs Sand King at low levels will be massively biased in favour of the Sand King, but once you've spent 15G or so on items and reached level 25 you should destroy him...

Survive early, evade and get experience and gold, then rape him later.

[Baz]

Juggs blade fury makes you magic immune, thus, when SK impales and starts to epicentre, just hit blade fury, ride out the epicentre and finish him with omni.

OR go basher with jugg (who has late game attack speed on win)
OR go attack speed to get thopse extra hits in whilst omnislashing

there are a few ways of doing it. Just stay away from the creep waves late game - SK's explosiove finale will rape your hp!

[afty]

OR go attack speed to get thopse extra hits in whilst omnislashing? Omnislash is a defined number of hits?

[Bonkers]

they also made it a fixed amount of damage now I belive

[Killy]

it is a set amount of hits

[afty]

Eeek, fixed amount of damage is an enormous nerf :/

[Semajal]

Play lots of -ar games. This way you get to know different Heros. If you really want to an -ar -dm game will let you see more and more heros and learn their abilities. Once you know alot about what heros can do what you learn how to counter it or escape from it :D

Item build is also important. Too often you see someone with no idea and a Fisher Price "my first build"(tm). Making a single player game of dota (just hit single player instead of battlenet) is useful to have a real chance to experiment with items. If you type greedisgood 100000 into the speech box and hit enter it enables cheats to give you lots of gold. This is a brilliant way to buy and try items though there wont be any enemy heros to fight.

[Baz]

http://forums.dota-allstars.com/index.php?showtopic=34206

Premium guide detailing juggy

extra attack speed DOES allow for extra omnislash hits, k thnx.

[Dan]

Too often you see someone with no idea and a Fisher Price "my first build"(tm).


Ohmy! Phrase Stealer! :(((

[Lucifa]

http://forums.dota-allstars.com/index.php?showtopic=34206

Premium guide detailing juggy

extra attack speed DOES allow for extra omnislash hits, k thnx.

Haven't read the post, cba to log in.

But iirc, omnislash is a set amount of hits BUT he can do normal hits while still omnislashing.

Or something.

And for those still giving tips to the OP, this thread is a year old :)

[Baz]

bloody thread resurrection!

[El_Pablo]

yeah semajal's right i think, cos knowing the skills of the hero ur up against is half the battle, and if u keep playing the same char over and over u dont get any range of skills and will continually underestimate ur opponents... so -ar/-arem games and lots of them to get overall experience and learn suitable builds according to their strengths weaknesses.

[Marcosll]

Just use Bara all the time till you're good.

Shouldn't be hard to start dominating from early on then when you get bored of winning get a different hero.