Hi everyone,
I played "Dota" way back when it was a wc3 mod and it first came out (I'm old), with a clan, so I was insulated from the "community" aspect. Now that I'm old, I won't get into any real Dota 2 clans. So I have a bunch of questions and I'd like to ask you for your help, as follows:
(i) I play public games "all pick". I've noticed a trend: on the opposing team, plenty of people wait for my team to fully pick, and they pick hard counters. Even when the timer expires and you start losing starting gold, a minimum of 1 person on the opposing team does not pick. I give up after a while and say, I pick Lich and that person will pick anti mage. Question: should I care about hard counters? I'm spectating high mmr games to learn and it seems like nobody there does this - they pick a balanced team composition and that's it. What can I do in the starting phase to help balance the team?
(ii) Nobody ever seems to pick support. In one game yesterday one guy on my team picked Wraith King. He proceeded to exclusively jungle until level 25 but by then many of us were ganked - he would never even help in team fights near him, just run off to protect his farming process. We lost that game, and it dragged on to 70 minutes. By then the opposing heros (their whole team were hard carries) were unstoppable. Should I suck it up in pub games and play support? This links to my third problem:
(iii) It's hard to coordinate teamwork. I'll have an anti mage ping a pudge, so I go over to help, then he blinks away as soon as we engage the pudge, I get ganked by a slark + pudge there and he goes to jungle to farm while I die. Then shouts at me for being a noob feeder, and I explain to him that his "ping" was vague, and not always a sign to "RUN". This lack of coordination makes me not really want to pick support.
(iv) It's toxic. I de-linked my server selection from the Russian ones because they are joining in solid groups, like omniknight + tank, and they steamroll through us consistently. Everyone on my team always picks a hard carry and I have played games where (if I don't buy a courier even as a carry) nobody does, they just scream at each other "Courier noob" and ping whoever is in the base like crazy.
I am not saying I am a great player - I'm learning outworld devourer now and some teammates have said that I messed up their combos by using Astral Imprisonment. But I tend to use it when an enemy hero is about to get away, or if we are 2v2 I use it on the 2nd hero so we can focus down the first. I use it both as CC and as damage. And nobody is trying to explain a strategy - linking to the elements above for example, it seems like in pub games everyone just wants to get killshots. Example, I'm laning 1v1 against a lich and on my team there's a zeus in another lane. He sees me dominating the lich and at the last second he uses his ult to get the killshot I need to farm items. I think this is a killsteal - do you? Is Zeus expected to take killshots where I'm obviously winning? I thought Zeus was meant to use his ult when low hp enemy heroes are getting away, same as invoker if someone tps to base with like 100hp he can meteor their fountain etc.
When I play with bounty hunters I find it incredibly toxic, they try to take all last hits even if I play a hard carry, they do not help in team fights at all, only coming in to gank AFTER the team has pretty much engaged fully - is that their role?
Maybe I'm still just a noob at this game, but when I watch the high mmr games I see way more teamwork. I even see carries buying wards. But in pub games they try to define one person as support to be courier/ward machine while everyone else just competes for kill shots. I'm pretty good with the Lich, and I've had people on my team encourage one another to report me because my ult was getting a lot of kill shots. My ult - it's not like I had a dagon 5 and I'd rush in to kill and then run away (like the bounty hunters I play with).
I feel like I'm doing something wrong - and I hope that it's not just 'accept that public games are toxic'. I'm not at level 20 so I can't play mmr matches, but is my only option to have a clan or list of friends to play with or else...just eat this toxic environment? Is MMR better? Will people want to play support? Will people understand that it's not really up to ONLY 1 person on a team to buy wards? And on wards whenever we play and get owned it's typically because opposing heroes (who are not stealthy/invis) buy that sword that lets them run around invis, and we don't have sentry wards, so ganks come, our team spirit breaks, and that's it. Instead of buying wards people blame each other to buy wards. So then I ward my lane and then the carries come to my lane to take last hits instead of warding their own lane.
Sorry if this reads like a rant, maybe I should be playing with bots for a while longer to get better. But when I team up with people in a pub who communicate a bit with one another and we share some ward purchasing we do a lot better - so good that usually people on the enemy team just leave the game. I've played about 25 games since I restarted - any tips you guys have would really help me a lot.
I played "Dota" way back when it was a wc3 mod and it first came out (I'm old), with a clan, so I was insulated from the "community" aspect. Now that I'm old, I won't get into any real Dota 2 clans. So I have a bunch of questions and I'd like to ask you for your help, as follows:
(i) I play public games "all pick". I've noticed a trend: on the opposing team, plenty of people wait for my team to fully pick, and they pick hard counters. Even when the timer expires and you start losing starting gold, a minimum of 1 person on the opposing team does not pick. I give up after a while and say, I pick Lich and that person will pick anti mage. Question: should I care about hard counters? I'm spectating high mmr games to learn and it seems like nobody there does this - they pick a balanced team composition and that's it. What can I do in the starting phase to help balance the team?
(ii) Nobody ever seems to pick support. In one game yesterday one guy on my team picked Wraith King. He proceeded to exclusively jungle until level 25 but by then many of us were ganked - he would never even help in team fights near him, just run off to protect his farming process. We lost that game, and it dragged on to 70 minutes. By then the opposing heros (their whole team were hard carries) were unstoppable. Should I suck it up in pub games and play support? This links to my third problem:
(iii) It's hard to coordinate teamwork. I'll have an anti mage ping a pudge, so I go over to help, then he blinks away as soon as we engage the pudge, I get ganked by a slark + pudge there and he goes to jungle to farm while I die. Then shouts at me for being a noob feeder, and I explain to him that his "ping" was vague, and not always a sign to "RUN". This lack of coordination makes me not really want to pick support.
(iv) It's toxic. I de-linked my server selection from the Russian ones because they are joining in solid groups, like omniknight + tank, and they steamroll through us consistently. Everyone on my team always picks a hard carry and I have played games where (if I don't buy a courier even as a carry) nobody does, they just scream at each other "Courier noob" and ping whoever is in the base like crazy.
I am not saying I am a great player - I'm learning outworld devourer now and some teammates have said that I messed up their combos by using Astral Imprisonment. But I tend to use it when an enemy hero is about to get away, or if we are 2v2 I use it on the 2nd hero so we can focus down the first. I use it both as CC and as damage. And nobody is trying to explain a strategy - linking to the elements above for example, it seems like in pub games everyone just wants to get killshots. Example, I'm laning 1v1 against a lich and on my team there's a zeus in another lane. He sees me dominating the lich and at the last second he uses his ult to get the killshot I need to farm items. I think this is a killsteal - do you? Is Zeus expected to take killshots where I'm obviously winning? I thought Zeus was meant to use his ult when low hp enemy heroes are getting away, same as invoker if someone tps to base with like 100hp he can meteor their fountain etc.
When I play with bounty hunters I find it incredibly toxic, they try to take all last hits even if I play a hard carry, they do not help in team fights at all, only coming in to gank AFTER the team has pretty much engaged fully - is that their role?
Maybe I'm still just a noob at this game, but when I watch the high mmr games I see way more teamwork. I even see carries buying wards. But in pub games they try to define one person as support to be courier/ward machine while everyone else just competes for kill shots. I'm pretty good with the Lich, and I've had people on my team encourage one another to report me because my ult was getting a lot of kill shots. My ult - it's not like I had a dagon 5 and I'd rush in to kill and then run away (like the bounty hunters I play with).
I feel like I'm doing something wrong - and I hope that it's not just 'accept that public games are toxic'. I'm not at level 20 so I can't play mmr matches, but is my only option to have a clan or list of friends to play with or else...just eat this toxic environment? Is MMR better? Will people want to play support? Will people understand that it's not really up to ONLY 1 person on a team to buy wards? And on wards whenever we play and get owned it's typically because opposing heroes (who are not stealthy/invis) buy that sword that lets them run around invis, and we don't have sentry wards, so ganks come, our team spirit breaks, and that's it. Instead of buying wards people blame each other to buy wards. So then I ward my lane and then the carries come to my lane to take last hits instead of warding their own lane.
Sorry if this reads like a rant, maybe I should be playing with bots for a while longer to get better. But when I team up with people in a pub who communicate a bit with one another and we share some ward purchasing we do a lot better - so good that usually people on the enemy team just leave the game. I've played about 25 games since I restarted - any tips you guys have would really help me a lot.