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If you're reading this you probably already know what DOTA2 is. No worries if you don't, DOTA2 is the MOBA game owned by Valve. DOTA 2 or Defence OF The Ancient is one of the most complex MOBA games ever created. But that doesn't stop the game from gaining a huge player base. DOTA can be extremely complicated to some players while it's extremely addictive to others. It's not just a game anymore. DOTA2 is the future of e-sports.
Be it a 14-year-old millionaire or a world champion who got kicked out of the house for playing the game, this game has seen it all. Welcome to DOTA2. This game can be very complicated to new players. Even though Valve updated the game over the years to be user-friendly it still is one of the most complicated games even for the players that have been playing for years. Because learning something new in this game is never a bad idea. DOTA evolves with every update and every update changes the game a little.
The new player base sees a huge pool of heroes, even a larger pool of items to make, and meets toxic community. That will scare anyone but hey, if there's a will there's a way.
Over the years I tried to get many friends to play the game, some got addicted, some left and some got bored. But the beginning was always the same and most often I would hear things like, "I am going to die so many times", "why does it have to be so complicated", "this is too complicated for me", "It's too much to learn". I've had enough of that so I decided to write a guide to help the new player base. 10 simple tips to enhance your gaming experience in DOTA2.
Learn to Listen
Not every player you meet is toxic or out there to insult you. People have invested a huge amount of time and money in the game and when they lose games they lose patience. Even if they are rude and mention the part where you played wrong, listen. Understand. They can be rude, they can flame but they have played the game for a longer period than you, ignore the trash-talk and consume the knowledge. You'll slowly start to learn the basics and get better at the game.
Pick Easy Heroes
There are over 100 heroes in DOTA and not all of them are for beginners. Some heroes are extremely tough to play, and some heroes need a huge understanding of the game to play. Ask a friend to suggest you some heroes or simply follow DOTA's inbuilt system. The difficulty level of any hero is written there beside the hero in the Heroes tab. Pick new user-friendly carry heroes like Sniper, Viper or wraith king. Or supports like Lich, Ogre or Spirit Breaker to roam around and gank the enemies when they won't see it coming.
Use the regeneration Items
ALWAYS buy tango and clarity. YES ALWAYS. You need to heal yourself to stay in the lane. Most new players ignore the regeneration items, and as a result, they can't sustain in lane, keep coming back to base or worse keep dying. If you come back to base every time you are low on mana or health in the early game, you will end up losing a lot of XP and get under leveled. Use tango and salve to regenerate yourself so you don't have to run back to base, clarity, and mango for mana.
Always Carry a Town Portal Scroll
Town portal scroll or TP is one of the most useful items in the game. New users seem to avoid it because they don't want to invest in items that are not dealing damage or getting them kills but TP gets you a lot of kills and saves your life too.
If you are stuck on the enemy side and can't come out of the trees, you can TP back to any of your towers or base and start farming again instead of wasting a lot of time hiding or walking back to your side of the river, losing gold and XP both.
Develop a Thick Skin
There's a joke among us DOTA players, people say "we buy expensive headphones to hear how an 11-year-old kid slept with our mother." People will say horrible things to you, they will insult you. It does not matter if you are playing well. They will still insult you, call you out on your mistakes, make fun of you, your sexuality, your family, your gameplay and anything that belongs to you in this universe.
Sometimes in English, sometimes in broken English, and sometimes in languages you've never heard. Get used to it, these are the toxic people stuck in their skill bracket for a reason. Ignore them, mute them and play your game. Don't let ANYTHING tilt you.
Buy Observer and Sentry Wards
Wards are very important. The map of DOTA is always dark. Unless you walk up to a place you can't see it and it looks dark. That's called fog of war. Winning in DOTA depends heavily on seeing and predicting enemy movement. Plant observer wards where your team needs vision, it can be in your area to keep your team safe or in the enemy area to see the enemies and gank them when they are alone.
Plant a sentry ward where you think your enemies have wards and deward them. Wards help you to see everything around the spot while sentries help you to see invisible units such as heroes and enemy wards.
Learn What to Pick and When to Pick
In DOTA, picking heroes and banning heroes is called drafting. Drafting decides 50% of the game. Wrong picks at the wrong time can cost you the game. Don't always play support, don't always play carry. Pick what your team needs.
DOTA has 5 positions. 2 cores, 2 supports, 1 offlane. Your 2 cores are your safe lane carry position 1, Midlaner position 2, Offlane position 3, Roaming support position 4 and a position 5 lane support. The positions are decided by how much gold and XP the role needs to be effective in the game.
Your safelane needs the highest gold and XP advantage and support needs the lowest. However, for new users position 4 is not familiar. In the beginning, people don't have the concept of how useful a position 4 support or position 3 offlane is. Carry and mid farm's the early game, that's their priority. They earn gold, make items and wreck the enemy. While offlane seems to get active earlier than carries, even they can TP to other lanes to save the carry.
Farming is not their top priority. While supports need no farm at all, they rely on the gold from pulling the creep in lane, bounty runes and assists in a kill.
That was all about what to pick. You need to learn when to pick. Picking a carry or midlane super early is not good. Try to pick supports first and let your enemies pick. If you pick carries early the enemies will counter pick and make your life miserable while nobody really bothers to counter pick a support. Learn which hero counters which hero and how. Remember, proper drafting wins you half the game.
Watch replays of Your Own Game
Watch replays of your own game and learn from your mistakes. Check what went wrong in that gank or what you did wrong. DOTA has the option where you can download replays of any game and watch them whenever you want. Download replays of your own game and watch it from a neutral perspective and judge yourself. Learn from your own mistakes and git gud (Get Good) as they say in DOTA.
Defend Your Base
It does not matter how complicated the game is, the core of the game is very simple. Do as the name of the game says, defend your base. New players often go for kills instead of pushing and breaking enemy towers or defending their own. The game is simple. You defend your base and break the opponent's base. That's it. That's how you win a game.
There are games where the team with more kills lose. Even a kill difference of 20-50 did not save the game. You win by breaking their towers and saving yours, it does not matter how much you kill, if you can't defend your base then you are not going to win.
Prepare to Lose a Lot and Never Give Up
Yes! Prepare to lose a lot. I know it's hard to think that you can be a good player by losing a lot but most, and by most I mean almost the whole player base has only a 48-52 % win rate. That's the average win rate in DOTA. Even achieving a 60% win rate is a big deal. So prepare to lose a lot.
There will be days when you only lose but never give up and wait for the green days. At some point, I had a 23-game win streak and right after that a 27-game losing streak. Winning and losing is a part of the game. Sometimes you get a few teammates that are just not sensitive enough and picked the wrong hero for the wrong role or failed their lanes, sometimes they are just brain-dead and toxic and sometimes the enemy just played better. It doesn't matter. You can never win all your games. Get ready to lose and learn and that's how you get better.
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