General Discussion[Help] Help a newb get out of trench tier (and win a prize)

Keep your items I have enough.

The problem with people in 2-3K is the actually think they were handed some rotten deal by Valve and that life is unfair because they are secretly Eternal Envy but for some reason they are the only ones who see this.

A common trend with people in this bracket is the severe lack of good support and smart team play with everyone clammering to pick a carry or a mid hero and if these are unavailable they think they are doing people a favor by picking another carry and going into jungle to slow farm a midas.

Lets go through a couple of your games to show you the difference between how a 2k player and a 4k player thinks and again I am sure there are people higher than me who have some niche thing they will want to impart but I can at least help you reach a higher average of critical game thinking.

http://dotabuff.com/matches/592341696

Your team was horribly out played and out built. Take Axe for example with Boots | Vanguard | Pipe | Blademail. Does he think that with slows and stuns and disables he can just walk up to people and get away with it? Where is the initiation? Crystal Maiden played it right here as trying to build a durable CM never works and what you need is mobility cause like it or not you will always die if you aren't able to move around with relative ease. I have no clue what happened to Shadow Demon but the quelling blade and lots of deaths tells me he was forced to offlane cause Axe wanted the jungle and he just fed because what could he do. Desolator on the Invoker which isn't all that bad if you are a confident Invoker player but he is not good at all sitting on 30-40% winrate on most of his mid heroes. You seemed to do alright but considering their team I would have gone for a BKB which would have helped you fight for longer and avoid hard hitting spells.

Like I said before you just got outplayed by people who built/picked correctly.

http://dotabuff.com/matches/592281636

Midas gaming at its very worse. Lets make this one quick cause it pains me to look at it.

Bounty Hunter battle fury as a first big item.
Vangaurd/blademail on ember
How did their two carries get that much farm did you not gank them that much?

All your games show real trashy item builds which I think is the majority of the issue with your lost games. This isn't on you but as a general rule a lot of people in that bracket just go for items with no utility forgetting that the current meta favors the mid game and if you are playing a hard carry you want to be sure you can make it through the mid game to reach the late where you will shine.

This is an issue with you now. You pick almost 100% heroes that do nothing but right click and offer so little to a team early and mid. While you might not be playing that bad and you are trying to do your bit you are inadvertently fisting yourself because of the heroes you pick. This is one of the reasons I stopped trying to play heroes like Doom I used to love this hero and held a decent winrate but then after a few patches and changes to the meta Doom started becoming increasingly hard to take off the ground in pub games.

Look at the heroes you play and ask yourself how much you offer to the team in the early game and mid game. While it is hard to gauge cause you have such a low amount of games look at the following.

All of your top heros by winrate are early impact and supports. DK and DP namely as well as Veno and Lich. Good teamfight, good push, good early, good mid, some good late. My advice is stop picking heroes that require so much farm to be good pick heroes instead that help the team.

Stop carrying, stop going mid. Try some offlane or support as in a lot of your games that is what is severely lacking. Do things right. Don't build greedy. Go for auras, for debuffs, for AOE, for teamfight. No more of this one man right clickers.

Stop building Midas, at least for now till you improve your game.

Play the following heroes for now and see how it goes.

Death Prophet
Shadow Demon
Terrorblade
Puck
Mirana
Outworld Devourer
Venomancer
Lich

Give me a particular game if you want me to watch and I can give you at least a decent perspective on how you play. Example of one I did for another player http://dotabuff.com/topics/2014-03-24-i-need-someone-to-watch-my-last-clock-game-for-me?page=1

^ That Axe/Doom/Mirana player is right. =)
Play more supports (but don't be greedy support).

Hey Havoc,

Thanks a lot for the detailed comments man. And thanks for offering to look at one of my games.

I enjoy playing support but the only reason I don't is because in my 2.8k shit bracket you often end up supporting braindead carries who go rambo 5v1 and I often end up thinking fuck if I had picked a carry at least I could have had a chance of winning... Regarding DK and DP I agree I just got tired of playing DP and my last game with DK was so terrible I sort of gave up on him. Might try him again.

I don't think there's any point you looking at games where I stomped so let me choose two games where I did ok but didn't win instead as I have no doubt that had I played better I could have won these easily.
http://dotabuff.com/matches/590361218 Ember game
http://dotabuff.com/matches/592341696 TB game with the shit axe building a pipe from this morning (I was infuriated as I left for work but hey).

Thanks!

Every time you blame teammates - your skill decreasing.

Checkout, have you heard about braindead supports too?
I only read TLDR, and I'd say you're far away from getting out of "shitbracket" cause the whole 3k bracket is shit too. Better win some games in a row, mate.

guess badger gave u some good insight doe.

Hold on guys, how's that being misinterpreted? I was only saying that it's easier to win as a carry with farm and a positive kda if your supports are feeding than with a support in the same situation if your carries are feeding - don't think anybody will disagree on that one.

To sum it up, don't pick carries

No, pick supports that can become carries if you diagnose braindeath on your teammates.

CRYSTAL MAIDEN MoM RAPIER

@Spitzl1
Maybe. =)

But I thought about Venge, Veno, Silencer etc.

Visage is a great one as well

Will have a look at the games when I get home this evening.

Let me summarize:

For most people with above average skill in the game the rule of "it doesn't matter who you play but how you play it" applies as most (using the word most losely) people are skilled enough to get away with doing odd or strange builds.

In a low bracket picks are everything and in the 2-3k bracket simply being a smart player will set you apart from the denizens of people that just go mid or carry. There is not a lot of point going for a support just because....however I would suggest maybe grabbing a friend and laning with him offlane with you as the support, or carry.

The reasoning is that most 2-3K players don't know how to come back if you shut them down and will continue to go for the same battlefury 40 minutes into the game because somehow they think that will help them win. You MUST adjust to each situation, your ability to adapt and play out the game with pace will again set you above your peers and you will pull yourself slowly upwards.

If you are solo go offlane so you are your own boss and can make your own calls. Rotate, be proactive, make sure you ward their camps, deny their farm, harass the carry to the point he will change lanes. It works 99% of the time every time.

TIP: My top heroes are all supports/pushers/ and early game....bar Luna but Luna is sexy and can do whatever she wants.

@OA | Havoc Badger
Actually you have many strong pushers at the bottom of the list: Leshrac, Drow, Tinker, Invoker (forge spirits+necro build), Broodmother, Shadow Shaman.

the best tip is to stay humble, because people like you easily find people who respect them, and thus easily find teammates.

Also, 10 points to havoc for replying to wall of text with helpful wall of text

Leshrac - The easiest support to kill after KotL so a very situational hero and I don't like or have experience with him.
Drow - Utterly hate this hero and find her useless and detestable.....however that was many patches ago so may retry her.
Tinker - A niche hero that is a mid hero and I am by my own analysis not a good mid player
Invoker - In Dota1 I was really really well known for being a good invoker but sadly that didn't carry over and I have not played him so recently but have a low win rate on him cause I started on him and viper and just fell off the invoker fast cause it wasn't working for me and I thought my dota1 skills would work in dota2 but found it a different game.
Broodmother - Never will I genuinely pick this hero. All the games I have played were random and a 100% split pusher is not what a team needs.
Shadow Shaman - I play him quite a bit in lobbies but haven't really used him all that much in pubs due to me picking more situationally viable heroes. However, I do agree this hero is exceptional at pushing, disabling and supporting all round so may play him some more.

^ Havoc your wall was really nice to read, all constructive which is a change. About Rhasta, you made the point that new meta is early to mid and I fully agree, Shadow shaman has massive lane presesnce with a nuke and 2 disables, has insane pushing and team fight potential (especially in lower bracket, team fight around the wards). He is so easy to farm with and with the wards around towers early I often view rhasta as quite a rich support.

Ive seen pro teams 1st tier ban him of late so going back to play him a bit more will be great I think and it could be a great hero for .......Checkout........... to try supporting with, mana boots, blink, aghs in pubs and you are gold. Currently my favourite support.

Checkout another useful tip might be to pick last in your games. You view yourself as a competent player and thus when the situation arises that the 1st for picks are carry/semi carry heroes its best just to get what the team needs. You might not want to play support or offlane all the time but I promise you will win more games playing the role needed in your teams setup. There will be bad games and you will lose nonetheless but people will also appreciate that last CM pick who buys wards courier a lot and I guarantee you will pick up the more wins like this.

Don't always be the hero, just be the smartest and most responsible. It will also teach you what to expect from these different positions when you play a carry role. my 2 cents.

http://www.playdota.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1398477

Not valid. A 5K really good player playing an account up to his level is not the same a 3k player trying to acheive a level he isn't skilled enough to be in. While impressive that experiment was not really valid in my books.

Tanks a lot to all of you who answered by the way!