DOTA 2: The Game and the Mind

How the right perception can help you win games

Do not let your enemies shatter your sanity

This is really a very simple question, but the process is not simple. Perception affects how you act.

Perception leads us to analyze. We analyze a situation before acting upon it. We can either analyze it right and act right or we analyze it wrong and act in a way that does not help the situation.

The chain goes like this:

Perception - Analysis - Awareness - Adoption of strategies - Execution.

You analyze a situation with your perception, that will make you aware of the situation. Right perception gives you the right analysis and awareness (Example: PA is fat. Analysis: she is free farming in mid. Awareness: we need to gank mid and stop her from farming), and wrong analysis gives you the wrong awareness such as "I am aware that my mid is noob and we will lose the game".

This awareness leads you to the stage where you adopt a strategy. In this scenario the right strategy would be ganking the PA and stop her from farming, or if she is already fat, the plan would be playing around her or focusing her while the wrong strategy based on wrong awareness would be "throwing the game" or blaming your mid laner.

In the end, you will execute your strategy be it negative or positive. The only thing that was changed in the entire process was the perception, and it changed the whole outcome. So now you know how your perception affects your game.

One more advice would be to never play on tilt. If you are tilted, take an immediate break. Tilting or being angry or being frustrated clouds your judgment and focus and you end up making the wrong decision and as a result, you lose your games.

Always judge your mental state before playing ranked. Do not play ranked if you are drunk, sleepy, tired or unrelaxed. You need your body to work as much as your mind to judge the situation properly. A bad mental or physical state can cloud your judgment and perception.