General DiscussionNeed some advise on playing consistently better?

yup me too, from 3.2 suddenly dropped to 3k, with 6 slotted carry who can;t kill -_-

To get out of 3k you just have to be better, almost win the game by yourself, being it support/mid/carry. Doesn't matter, you're better you get to 4k, you're not then well thats your case and unless you're playing op heroes you're not gonna reach 4k because you're not good yet.

u want to win consistently?

then pick 3-5 heroes that covers all 3 lanes and master them.
Thats how u get wins consistently.

pa, void, spec pretty much perform the same role
and holy fuck 500 games of drow.
While i understand how drow works, dam i hate that hero..too easy to crush

@Benao you are right, maybe I am just not good enough yet to do that. I can play a carry/support ect, and if I focus on myself. If I do so and my team gives me enough time (not feed like crazy to a decent team) I usually (not always) manage to pull out the win. But if I do that then I am flamed for not warding, stacking, ganknig as a support. If I pick a hero that needs farm but my team insists on pushing or team fighting I die when I am not ready to fight. We then we lose. But if I don't go in with them so that I can farm then I'm the ass*** who didn't play/help his team. I am/was trying to find a middle ground to the extremes of just doing my own thing and trying to win vs playing as a team (which I enjoy more) and risking to lose because I depend on my teammates to a certain extent in order to win (like playing solo support and buying wards/sentries/dust/smoke and not having brown boots til like min 20+), and still moving up in the rankings. I haven't been able to find it and maybe the answer is just as you said that I'm not good enough yet. If anyone else has any other suggestions or if you do they are much appreciated. Thanks.

@Micro Jackson, yeah drow can be easily countered but at the same time she's very flexible. She can be played as a straight damage dealer (mid at least a 3,5k games I rarely lose mid to anyone with drow), a ganker with sb, or split pusher, and she can also support if necessary by zoning out enemies with frost arrow without drawing aggro. So that's why I played her so much because she's flexible and mostly because she is one of the best pushers in the game to me more so than np or tinker (so long as you can stay alive). I usually have the highest tower damage when I play her. But thank you for your advise. It's definitely appreciated.

I post this everywhere. Last bullet seems to pertain to you. These bad/toxic players could be on the other team when you are winning, but you don't notice it at all. Focus on your game, because that is the common denominator in every game. You'll win and lose games that are out of your control, but if you truly are better than your current mmr, you WILL win more times than you lose.

-Always be doing something. No matter what role, you should always be doing something. Farming, ganking, getting runes, warding, pushing, roshing, healing, baiting, stacking. Literally the only time you should be doing nothing is if your trapped in you base or if you're sitting behind your farmer. There may be a couple more situations, but thats all I can think of.

-Watch replays. You can see if your instincts were correct. Could you have prevented a death from an obvious gank? Could you have seen the gank on the minimap? Did you need more ward coverage? It's good to know what the fog/day-night effect has. Watch yourself in a team fight from your perspective. Were you tunnel visioned? Should you have gone after another target? Game sense is hard to learn, but it can be reviewed and improved by rewatching fights at all speeds and angles.

-Watch streams, not of the pros though. When pros play pub it's a very different situation. Maybe someone who's 1k higher than your current mmr. Watch how they play, what they're looking at, their item choices, their game decisions, how they farm, how they use their skills.

-Understand the game. Know when to push. Know when to fight. Know when you have to force the game to end. Know when you can stall out and farm. Know when to rosh. It's hard to know what's right, and it's even harder to force teammates to agree with you, but do what you can to force the game it should be played. This is probably the root of why people are so mad at each other, but try to understand what should be accomplished instead of aimlessly going through the motions without knowing whats coming next.

-Never blame your team. Not really, games have definitely been lost because of your teammates. Don't break into the habit of blaming teammates every time you lose. There are almost always something you could have done better yourself, even if you still would have lost. You'll win your share of games because of bad play on the other side as well. Just focus on yourself and what you could have done better to succeed.

^This dude is right, don't blame teammates when you lose but in won games too.

Look a this.

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1024975064 In this game we stomped hard, i was like a immortal dude. But we had this invoker, this fucking moron just made orchid and try to kill weaver alone, and died. Lost mid, no ganks, no helps in teamfights. Srsly, only 1k from him in hero damage, and invoker have 5 fucking aoes. Fucking patetic.

And then, i got him and ursa in team again (Matchmaking it's fine my ass) in this game

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1025091774 Same, lost mid, no ganks and no helps. Now in top score hero damage for some reason, maybe this time he come in teamfights, who knows. Btw, shitty plays and he have over 200 games played.

Sometimes, feel free to blame your teammates.
He just broke my 4win row.

@JRS

you are right the one thing I don't do is watch my replays I probably need to start doing that. I do watch the pros as much as I can (not their streams but the real matches). I definitely am guilty of flaming my teammates sometimes. I try not to and 99.9% it works out better that way but I become furious when we are up big time and throw because someone decided to go rambo. I mostly agree with your paragraph #4 "-Understand the game" I have a hard time sometimes closing out games when we are up big won early/mid game but wipe 3-4 times trying to go highground. Also deciding when to split push vs rotating to help team. I really try to work on my cs/positioning in fights. The hardest thing for me is coordination with teammates. Like staking disables focusing on the same target to burst down etc. Also team composition. Sometimes I have a hard time deciding which support (when playing support) will have the most impact based on the my teams carries and the other teams line up. It's hard to learn that without a point of reference. That's why I watch the pros but obviously their strategies are not easily implemented (lack of skill on my part and team work in general). If you have any streams to recommend to watch I would appreciate any suggestions. Thank you for your response.

@HAHA Honestly most of the times I feel bad afterwords when I flame teammates. The only time I really have a problem and I don't think that will ever go away is when people just quit. I play dota to win always. You can't always win and that's ok but I have "fun" playing competitively and trying to win. I absolutely hate it when we give up first blood or lose a couple of towers and the team or particular person just stops playing. That mentality is something I cannot accept (that is my fault I should relax more). But in retrospect flaming the team/player really didn't make any difference so it's best not to and I try my hardest not to do that. I'd rather be encouraging I find that brings out the better in the players. Thanks for your input.

Yes indeed encuraging brings out better play in team. If the team is more into blaming eachother and flaming there is not enough focus on the actual game.

This game is a good example: http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1005314172 . We was loosing hard and I was getting owned QoP vs TA mid. Drow and Zeus was flaming Elder titan for he's play half the game. Axe player was a very good player which tried to keep the calm. The second half was going much better with better teamplay when people was actually focusing on playing togheter.

I rarely flame the team cause I know that only takes the focus away from the game.

@zadizz same here games usually run much smoother if there is team play involved.

If anyone knows of any good streams out there to watch please let me know. Thanks.

I think watching streams of pub play is good because there is a huge difference of pub play and competitive play. Since most likely most to all of us will not be playing competitively, just learn how to be successful in the pub play. I'd say watching competitive games are more for entertainment than learning.

If you ever have the need to flame teammates that are bothering you, I found it best just to mute them and move on. If you're the aggressor then.... there's nothing you can do. Just calm down, remember it's a game to have fun.

You mention about coordination and how it doesn't work. I agree, and again this brings up the competitive vs. pub games. You aren't a cohesive group of 5, so try to be as encouraging as possible. If you feel like your team should 5 man and push instead of saying "stop farming, we're going to lose" try say "lets group and push!" and ping on the tower. If the coordination isn't there it isn't going to happen, but try your best. Also, it's important to spot your faults and communicate it. If your team thinks you think of yourself as a god, they aren't going to even try to listen to you.

Personally, the "regular" streamer I watch is Aliastar. He's pretty good (he's 6k I'm currently 4.8k) The reason why I think people should watch streams of regular players instead of pros is because when pros are streaming pubs, most likely their teammates will be either trolling or sucking up to the pro. They'll pick whatever hero and their team will make it work for the most part. The enemy team will be ghosting or constantly gunning for them. Also, there are going to be multiple things that you just won't get if the skill/knowledge gap is too high. It's sort of like when pros were going midas every hero every game. People of every skill bracket were picking up midas and had no idea why. Even if it was a support and they got it 25 minutes into the game. It'll be easier to understand what the player is doing if they're closer to skill as you. Maybe go on twitch and look for a 4.5k streamer with 3 viewers or something haha.

@JRS I agree that's why I don't watch pro streams because of the trolling (other than Sing Sings because it's usually funny so that's for entertainment purposes only). I think one of my biggest faults when playing is the fact that I see the "team" as a cohesive unit as one and obviously in pub games that's not the case but that's what I'd like it to be. Once in a while it happens and we finish game in 18-25 min even with the other team trying. It's hard to learn movement patterns spots for placements etc without seeing someone else do it. So that's why I try to watch better players to learn from them but implementing those things, especially team cohesion, can be very difficult. Thank you again for your input.

@Lila Gardisha

I have had that happen before especially because I try to play a lot of support I enjoy it. But honestly it wasn't always so much that my carry was bad (which does happen from time to time) but the fact that they other team out picked my team and so late game we lost because we lacked damage compared to the other team's line up. So we should have finished game early but if you don't have a push line up and you are going to be out carried late game sometimes you (me) just have to learn from the draft and pick more efficiently. Still trying to learn all of the synchronizations between the different characters.