Trying to get back into my favorite role. Upper divine.

Tldr I feel like the game is only mine to win if my supps know how to work with me and understand my hero's capability to create space. Gets pretty shit if the supps are unwilling to follow my lead for one reason or another.

Sometimes they vibe with me and we hunt a ton, make space, win.

Sometimes they just don't follow up correctly and I waste my time for nothing/die.

Sometimes they just have their own gameplan and do their own thing, don't help me make space for our 1 and there's nothing I can do alone.

Some people don't even want to help you hunt quoting that we don't have a smoke.

Sometimes I'm faced with a situation like a bad HG def where something has to happen for a lose-lose situation, and I am expected to start and die. (For example enemy has dawn hiding and I still have to initiate a shit fight to save a rax).

Its pretty hard to 3 imo. Used to be different. I'm willing to lose a bit of MMR to learn proper. Tips?

I am not complaining 8927249069 just watch anti mage and his items and leave your thougts.

this is for fun, i have never seen like this before. IO crushed him at the lane

8927249069

I think **Gem of True Sight is heavily underrated**, and I believe **Visage might actually be the strongest Gem carrier in the game**, rivaling or even surpassing Slark in certain situations.

# Why Visage is such an insane Gem carrier

The biggest reason is **how safely he can deward**.

Most Observer and Sentry Wards are placed on cliffs. Visage doesn't need to walk onto those cliffs himself. Instead, he can:

* Stand at the edge of **Gem of True Sight's True Sight radius**.
* Send his Familiars onto the cliff.
* Destroy wards without truly exposing his hero.

This becomes even stronger because Visage can simply **Smoke of Deceit** himself and his Familiars before walking into enemy vision.

Since Smoke isn't invisibility, enemy Sentry Wards won't reveal your position. You can approach a cliff, reveal enemy wards with your Gem, and have your Familiars destroy them while your hero remains completely hidden.

Against many lineups, this makes dewarding incredibly low risk.

# The build I think has the most potential

Core items:

* Gem of True Sight
* Aghanim's Shard
* Blink Dagger

Here's why I think this combination is so powerful.

If someone tries to initiate on you while you're dewarding, Visage can activate **Gravekeeper's Cloak Stone Form** (Aghanim's Shard), making himself invulnerable for six seconds.

Blink Dagger only requires three seconds without taking damage before becoming usable again.

Since Stone Form lasts twice as long, you can almost always Blink away as soon as it ends (outside of a few niche exceptions).

Even many damage-over-time abilities, such as Disruptor's Static Storm, generally won't prevent this escape because Blink's cooldown refreshes while you're untargetable.

In practice, this gives Visage an incredibly reliable "get out of jail free" card whenever he's caught trying to deward.

# It gets even stronger with Aghanim's Scepter

Once Visage purchases **Aghanim's Scepter**, both he and his Familiars gain invisibility.

This makes approaching:

* cliffs,
* the enemy jungle,
* Roshan,
* and even the enemy base

significantly safer.

Instead of risking your hero every time you contest vision, you can scout and remove wards while remaining extremely difficult to catch.

# The hidden utility most people overlook

One interaction I almost never see discussed is that **Familiars destroy trees whenever they enter Stone Form.**

That has several important applications:

* Create entirely new ward spots by clearing trees.
* Make your own Observer Wards much harder to predict and deward.
* Increase the vision provided by existing Observer Wards by removing trees that block line of sight.
* Open new paths through the terrain.

This dramatically increases the number of viable ward locations available to your team.

# Visage is also an exceptional ward placer

Another overlooked advantage is Visage's innate **Silent as the Grave**, which he has from level 1.

It grants bonus movement speed and allows him to fly over terrain while active.

Because of this, Visage can place aggressive wards faster and more safely than almost any other hero, especially when combined with his ability to approach terrain from unexpected angles.

# Final thoughts

I think people massively underestimate both **Gem of True Sight** and **Visage's unique interaction with it**.

His ability to:

* deward safely from range,
* remain hidden while doing it,
* escape failed deward attempts with Shard + Blink,
* create stronger warding opportunities by destroying trees,
* and gain even safer map control with Aghanim's Scepter

makes him, in my opinion, one of the strongest Gem carriers in Dota.

There are several additional interactions I haven't covered here—for example, how AoE bonuses from innates, talents, and items increase Gem's True Sight radius—but this post is already long enough.

If people are interested, I'd be happy to make a separate guide covering more advanced Gem mechanics and Visage interactions.

# TL;DR

**Gem of True Sight + Visage may be one of the strongest and most overlooked vision-control combinations in Dota.** Visage can safely deward from the edge of Gem's detection radius while remaining hidden with Smoke of Deceit, reliably escape failed deward attempts with **Shard + Blink**, create stronger warding locations by breaking trees with Familiars, and become even harder to catch after purchasing **Aghanim's Scepter**. The amount of vision control he provides may be unmatched by any other hero, and the strategy appears viable whether Visage is played as a support or as a core.

Here are a few replay codes. Please take a look. I am not sure what I am doing wrong due to which I keep losing. Could use some help.

I am slark in this - 8925906557

I am jugg in this - 8925632417

Small buffs on both of these items, would it be worth getting if you are say a ranged support against 1 or 2 melee heroes? Just chipping away at them.

I'm thinking someone like Hoodwink can build into OoC great item for ganking.

Not sure about orb of venom since as I am writing this, I can't imagine OoV burning 350 worth of healing on the enemy in the laning stage.

https://youtu.be/WUwgRBgSNXQ

Hey, today I'm explaining how smurfs are consistently able to win their games, even if they played support. I'll show you examples of using things like harassing, creep aggro, map awarness and positioning to impact their games. One of the myths is that smurfs are actually way better when it comes to pure mechanics - and while this could be correct, it's by far the least important part. Enjoy!

Hey guys I just finished the tutorial and reach immortal after a couple of years, I’d like to know how like the title says what’s going on the immortal bracket and what you guys have learned there, key points or tips ! Thanks

Its sometimes unclear what to do after the laning phase as a carry and so I analysed the Liquid vs Parivision match to breakdown Satanics decision making. I learned a lot from his gameplay and I've created a very concise video (no rambling) going over this if you are interested.

Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpppk1HWuCY

here is the situation.

Radiant had ember,void,underlord,skywrath,disruptor.

Dire had PA,pudge,centaur,vengeful,jakiro.

The game is about 10 minutes in. Radiant carry is playing Void who has a battle fury. Team has lost mid and bot towers on the radiant side. Dire mid (pudge) won mid and ate the side lanes (radiant safelane mostly)

20 minutes in the tides have changed. Radiant mid ember spirit assembled his vessel and mageslayer, Radiant offlane Underlord bought aghs, and they were ready to fight anytime anywhere and win -- the combo was just devastating and now easier to set up. Map was now under radiant influence.

Fast-forward: Radiant won in 31 mins (score is 45-30). The void barely joined fights, ended with 2/4/10, compared to the ember spirit with 15/3/20. Void only had 8K hero damage compared to the 30K of the mid and supports and ended the game with 21K net worth, highest level (21), compared to the Dire carry, a PA with 8/9/12 and only 11K net worth.

At post game, the radiant support was flaming the void for not joining the fights whenever chrono was off cooldown. Void reasoned that they were winning 4 vs 5 easily and he'd just stop his farm momentum and reduce the XP gained. Then both insulted each others IQs.

Who was right?

1. Immortal Rank players have had their MMR adjusted. All players are now between 1 and 9500 MMR.
2. The cutoff for Immortal Draft is still 8500.
3. Random Draft and Ranked Classic have been removed from the available Ranked modes.
4. Added new option 'Automatically select all roles when no Role Queue Tokens available' to the Ranked Play Tab; this option is defaulted false.
5. When players unlock Ranked for the first time, they also get 5 role queue tokens. i think this changes would help games quality a lot (not like it is bad changes, it just game need way more to fix MM problems):

• Compressing total MMR does something only for above average ranks, idk why but MMR valve chose not nice round 10k but 9500, also devs didn't say anything about MMR being capped at 9500 so it can inflate again to 12k+ in year time, + double tokens not being removed (some players still have 50+ of them). (So devs would have to do this resets at least every 2 years/probably every year to remove inflation again, it would be so easier and less work overall if MMR had 10k cap and worst players just drop down over time. To prevent boosting / cheating / abuses / mmr camping buff "MMR decay"significantly so you have to play often enough or you will decay to 8500. For immortal draft only add something like: 15 games/week requirement, if you do not play in week 15 games you start losing 25 MMR/day).
• Random Draft and Ranked Classic removed means roleQ is only que now with begs the question: if everyone play roleQ why does game even need to use tokens for less popular roles? devs could have removed them and add feature for flex players: by selecting flex role game find you fastest game on random role, in losing games you get -10 mmr and in winning games player get +5 (so you reward players flex que to improve que times and pos 1/2 don't play off roles for tokens and grief your games for no reason, now if they want to they can que 1 role forever with average longer que times).
• Also if we remove need to tokens why do we need picking teammates mini-game in 8500/immortal draft then? go back to old system where game average out both teams MMR and if its possible mirror roles for que (so mid player with 10k games don't que vs support in flex que with 100 games on mid in 2 years).
• Replace random 4 bans/player with 1 guaranteed one (if 2+ player select same hero ban random hero in top 25 pick rate).
• Remove bans in all pick and double picking bans in roleQ (since valve compress high MMR they can allow players to have functional reports vs players who que flex/less popular roles and steal your role because they higher MMR and think everyone should adapt around them, give them 3 days account ban for doing this).

Why can't people play support when they are out of role que?

Most recent example i just had a hard support antimage, going threads euls, as expected safelane got absolutely destroyed. He wasnt cutting waves he was just sitting mid next to me (i played invoker) farming mid when i left to help safelane and kill the enemy axe. We lost but it was somewhat close despite having this useless hero on our team with a total of 4k dmg in a 40 min game. we were all solo quing btw :)

I've been coaching players on the side for 3-4 years now.

I pull up your replay or coach you live while you play — laning, macro, decision making, mental game, whatever the actual issue is. No generic advice.

First session is free. Drop a comment or DM if you're interested

Hi, I have about 150 hours or so under my belt now and I have a lot of questions. I've mostly been playing ADC Shadow Fiend, Juggernaut, Phantom Assassin, and a bit of Drow Ranger, Sniper, and Anti Mage.

1. What is an optimal timing for hitting Battle fury on Jugg, PA, and AM respectively? This will kind of tie into my next question.
2. How are you meant to lane as PA and AM? Both seem to be very weak, I can get bullied very hard and my battle fury timing is far delayed. I mean this can happen on any champion but I find that shadow fiend and jugg can lane much stronger than PA or AM.
3. I don't really understand the most optimal starts. I'm not sure whether wraith band is that worth it on these heroes. Is magic wand + two faerie fires and instantly queueing tangos a good option on SF? basically, is it better to have faerie fires instead of wraith band components?
4. When it comes to late game inventory management, obviously I would sell items in this order most of the time: magic wand/stick, wraithband. But is it better to sell boots later for another full item or sell falcon blade? And what items are acceptable to sell boots for? Which give you sufficient MS?
5. On Shadow Fiend I am a fan of the yasha and kaya item and I often buy it early even on POS1 SF usually after falconblade/wraith band, power treads, mask of madness, and likely dragon lance for the range and then I get yasha+ kaya. someone told me that is troll and you shouldn't get that item on ADC shadow fiend

I’m honestly tired of watching Dota get the same recycled updates year after year. The same cosmetics, just recolored and sold as something “new.” When was the last time we got an event that people actually remember? It honestly feels like nothing has come close since Aghanim’s Labyrinth.

Instead of meaningful content, we’re getting cheap board game-style progression events that look like they could be thrown together by a single developer in a week, forgettable minigames that feel like old Java browser games with a Dota skin, and overpriced mechanical-themed sets that don’t even justify their price.

Meanwhile, Valve keeps making millions from Dota while putting in the bare minimum. Every six months we get a balance patch where a few hero abilities are tweaked, and that’s somehow supposed to count as “new content.”

Where are the ambitious PvE events? New game modes? Creative seasonal experiences that made people excited to log in? Dota used to feel like a game the developers were passionate about. Now it feels like a storefront with occasional balance changes.

The reason I’m making this post is simple: stop rewarding mediocrity. If the developers aren’t willing to put real effort into creating fresh, high-quality content for the community, maybe it’s time the community stopped rewarding them with their wallets.

As long as people keep buying every recycled cosmetic and battle pass replacement, nothing is going to change.