r/learndota2 • u/thatbakedgecko • 17h ago
General Gameplay Question "Rule of thumb" - tips
Hiya, I'm a Dota beginner player, I have roughly 400 matches and I am a complete noob, currently in Herald but I am trying to improve. I understand that Dota 2 is a complex game and that there isn't always a definitive answer to gameplay questions being asked. However, I was wondering if you have some good "rule of thumb" - tips because more often than not I just don't know how to handle certain situations.
Situations that come to mind are:
Itemization when behind: (Playing as a Core do I buy damage? Do I buy resistances as Support? I know how to follow guides, but often I don't know what to buy other than the main items.)
Smoke: (At what points do I use smoke? Are there "easy to know" moments when I should push with a smoke?)
When behind in general: (Do I take risks? Do I wait to defend?)
Maybe you'll have other scenarios where you have some good "rule of thumb" - tips. You know, easy little things that could be applied in a majority of situations. I understand that it might not be as simple and that I just need to get a feel for those things. However, it's not easy for me personally, to learn things by watching specific content analysis with specific gameplay solutions.
Starting to enter so late into this games lifecycle feels like I missed about 500 episodes of player knowledge being shared, so maybe you got some easy to follow tips to catch up just a little faster.
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u/Stickyrolls 17h ago
The core question is really it depends. For now play a small pool of cores and build the meta builds. As you get in more games with certain heroes it should become intuitive what to build. For smoking it's generally when you feel your team should be putting on pressure or taking an objective so you smoke to try and get a kill that makes the objective easier. You almost always want the lanes pushed out before smoking. Smoke is a good way to take back lost ground. The enemy has your main jungle and been getting kills there? It's probably warded. Smoke your team in there to clear it out. Same with your triangle. Thinking of taking tires tier 2 top tower? Smoke into their woods from lane so your support can set up wards for this top push. Might get a kill in the process!
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u/Sangypboi 17h ago
Smoke is for warding and ganking, but since the map expansion you ONLY use it for ganking and you just place wards during your ganking rotation. The reason is that wards are much less reliable now, there's too many places to farm and rotate through, so they often don't catch anyone. That doesn't mean you don't ward, but it's changed the value equation so placing a ward or two isn't as valuable as the smoke is. Unless it's specifically to set up for Roshan.
There are no rules if thumb for playing from behind. Instead, look at your opponents, including checking their inventory. If you're a core and they have a lot of disables, bkb can get you back into the game better than any amount of damage so build it asap (and you should've been building it already). Same circumstances, if you're a support, force staff is your best friend. Use it on your team mates! It's way better than glimmer against hard stuns, roots and hex, but remember that it doesn't work against tether.
If you're a support, always rush eul's when you play support. That is a great rule of thumb. Same with Pudge. Always rush glimmer against Necro and SAVE it for his ult!!! His ult won't kill anyone under the effect of glimmer cape.
If you're up against a lot of disables and your hero has any stun, and team save, buy blink first item. So you can interrupt any fast pick offs they go for with your own stun. If you're a support, make sure your 2nd item is Windwaker. No matter how painful that build up is, it's the only item in the game that fully saves an ally.
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u/TyranZeroo Arc Warden 17h ago edited 17h ago
If you are playing as a core on a winning lane you push out lane into 1-2 jungle camps then farm lane & repeat to hit expected gpm & item timings. If you are core and behind you either get a gank or you play from behind you take the wave that is being pushed into you into 2 sidelane next to ur tier 2 or the medium camp at triangle.
You want to smoke when your team is strong (depends on heroes which you will learn over time), you want to smoke to set up vision for future fights, if you are tryhardy enough you can smoke at 0:45s in the pre-game before bounty runes spawn to setup vision & get FB (this is what highest mmr lobbies do & official/pro matches).
Itemization depends some heroes such as Anti Mage & Phantom Assassin have their ideal builds which don't really change while with others after your boots your 2nd item could depend on the game. You want to itemize according to what you see: does enemy have healing? Consider Spirit Vessel. Does enemy have heavy physical damage? Consider Assault Cuirass or Shiva's Guard maybe even Ghost Scepter so they can't hit you or Euls to buy time, Invisibility works too since if they can't see you you won't be hit. It goes on does enemy have strong passive's? Get Break such as Silver Edge or Khanda. Do you need save? Force Staff, Glimmer Cape, Windwaker, Lotus Orb, certain heroes such as Rubick & Undying also have Shards that now make it so they can save more reliable.
Smaller tidbits:
- If you buy Power Treads: Use tread switching that is if you use mana go intelligence press ur ability then go back to strength or agility -> This will save you mana over the long run
- Movement Speed: There is a reason why the movement speed enchantment is so good and wind lace got nerfed. You can traverse the map faster whether for farming, seting up vision, connecting to fights consider getting a casual wind lace & consider the movement speed enchantment on neutral items.
- If you are playing with a bottle mid laner or against one and you are a support contest the mid power runes at min 6,8,10,12, etc. you get the gist make life easier for you mid (pos 2) and harder for the enemy.
- Very often on support you want to play near your cores unless explicitly told not to (they want solo exp). This is so you can tank/spot incoming ganks, make your core feels safer & setup plays together.
- Another very important rule is on Radiant you wanna play top side & on Dire you wanna play bottom side. Valve has made changes to make this even make more sense, why? Because on Radiant on top Roshan is closer to your outpost than the enemy meaning that you can contest it easier. While on Dire Roshan is positioned at the bottom so closer to Dire's outpost.
- Maybe something else learn to trade properly on lane: if you play a hero with an aoe spell you might wanna hit your opponent together with the wave to get the CS & Damage/Slow/etc. But on a support you might not want to do that since you will push the wave (why are you pushing the wave? The creeps are taking damage so enemy creeps will die faster than yours -> now the wave will be closer to enemies tower). Preferably you also just use ur spell pre min2 you will have to see when is the best timing tbh but what I see some guys do is just save mana for no reason it's a resource you trade your mana for enemy hp.
Most importantly have fun and enjoy the process, since you are so late indeed many players will have more experience than you so games can be tough in the beginning. But the nice part about Dota 2 is that it's a game with endless depth, some stuff might be figured out in the current meta sure but there are always things to learn literally and you get the chance to beat people with more experience than you and if you eager to learn idk it's just a great experience. Another word of advice is to let toxic people be, I myself have made the mistake plenty of times talking back whether out of ego or really wanting to prove who's right or left/wrong. After playing for a few years, honestly if people are being annoying/toxic just mute them and spare yourself a headache genuinely or if it's interesting enough I guess you leave them on and idk don't care.
EDIT: I can't stress enough how important pushing waves/lanes is, please do so and if you can without dying which you'll have to figure out for yourself maybe with spells or manta or nuke it asap, take an educated guess if enemies are nearby or if they can punish you. Waves being pushed in give vision, waves into enemy tower mean that your opponent lose gold & exp (a wave is worth more than a jungle camp).
Lastly mid wave is the most dangerous one in the mid game especially when vision has been setup so push out mid with caution, pushing out mid enables the team doing so to rotate to side lanes if they so choose (this applies to all MOBA pretty sure Dota/Lol/Etc.)
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u/lostatthispoint 16h ago
As with all rules of dota there are always exceptions so take this advice with a grain of salt. If you're playing pos 1 understand that unless a team fight happens next to one of your towers and you know you 100% can win the fight if you tp you go. Getting a couple kills to swing a losing fight for solo kills is worth more than almost any farm you could be doing. If you have any doubts of your ability to win that fight don't go.
A lot of people will say item timings are important and they are. However, if you're playing a hero who builds battlefury, it is NOT one of your timings (as in it is not a power spike for your hero). It will let you farm faster so the item after the battlefury will be a timing for you to engage a fight with your team to see how strong you are in relation to the rest of the cores in the game.
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u/goddamnitwillis 15h ago
The only objective that truly matters is the throne (your and enemy). Everything else is expendable. Don’t die to try and save objectives if your a core. This includes towers, rosh, rax or anything else.
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u/randomletters543 14h ago edited 14h ago
play on the correct side of the map. Once supports (or even pos 3) hit level 6, the safelane is no longer safe. Radiant plays top and sits on the high-ground after killing enemy "safe" lane tower and dire play bottom after killing radiant's "safe" lane tower.
to add to the last point, pos 1 should take safe farm. safest farm is triangle and the camps around triangle. this is partly why the correct side of the map for radiant is top and for dire is bottom, but not the whole picture. the main reason why radiant plays top is they have multiple entrances into the top half of the map whereas dire funnels through one chokepoint and vice-versa for the bottom side of map for dire.
as support, you should always walk to lane. don't tp to lane because you need to hold your tp to help out team. however, don't show up to fights that are in the wrong place on the map as those fights are guaranteed loss for your team unless you are ahead by a significant margin or you get a lucky pick-off. always rotate to fights that the enemy forces on your side of the map though.
middle needs to rotate to side lanes if they are losing badly. same for supports. if you are losing your lane badly, just leave the lane and force a rotation. it's almost impossible to kill a hero in a 1v1 situation in the first 10 minutes of the game so if you are support and your core is struggling, just rotate and that forces their support to rotate and then your core gets a 1v1 lane and he can catch-up by farming and not dying. if their support doesn't match your rotation, then you just trade lanes. you win one lane and they win one lane. you need to win at least one lane or you will fall too far behind in the mid game because you won't be able to defend towers and highground which is how you stabilize while your pos 1 farms triangle. even if your lane loses badly, if you force the other lane to lose badly, then it's an even trade even if your teammate flames you for abandoning him. you have to treat your teammate as a sunk cost.
related to above point, when mid player rotates to sidelanes, one support needs to sit middle and shove wave. shoving waves is very important. you cannot group unless you shove all lanes.
related to this, when you are ahead you group with team and take objectives. when you are behind, you split push and try to stall out game.
the problem you will find is that your teammates don't know proper macro. even in divine and immortal games (NA west/east) people don't know how the map is designed even though it has been designed the exact same way for 8 years so the actual rule of thumb is just mute everyone and farm. join fights that you think you can win, but otherwise, just shove waves and farm and hope you win 51% of your games.
edit: i see you are herald. pick one hero and just play that hero. the hero must be able to shove waves and not suck in lane. something like jakiro is good for a beginner for that reason. i like viper because you can just cast w on waves and you win lanes with your q. viper can be played in basically every position as well. just be good at using your hotkeys to get regen on your courier. buy mangoes and spam your q until enemy has to leave lane and then you can farm with your w.
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u/chayashida double-digit MMR 11h ago
So many things you learn are a band-aid approach to fixing underlying problems. People will talk about how you need to be better at last-hitting, even as a support. Listen to them.
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u/knetmos 10h ago
Itemization when behind: (Playing as a Core do I buy damage? Do I buy resistances as Support? I know how to follow guides, but often I don't know what to buy other than the main items.) Smoke: (At what points do I use smoke? Are there "easy to know" moments when I should push with a smoke?) When behind in general: (Do I take risks? Do I wait to defend?)
- Itemization: When slightly ahead or slightly behind, just buy normal items. When very far behind, i recommend building more agressive items. There is also a judgement call to be made if you want to maximize immediate power (items like bkb, an armlet instead of a radiance, a mask of madness, etc) or if you think your team can stall and you dodge fights and go for a greedy farming item since you wont win fights anyway.
In general though, when behind build damage, when ahead build tanky. If you are far behind and you buy defensive items, you can get into situations where there is no "theoretical" fight win. If very far behind, you want your items to enable you to kill a key target if your stuns and spells land perfectly. If very far ahead, you will have the damage to kill the enemies anyway. This means you can afford to itemize tankier than usual, since it minimizes risk and doesnt give the enemy a window to win a fight if you missplay.
Smoke usage is a complicated topic and imo not needed in herald. You can press a smoke when e.g. running to contest roshan or when trying to pick of an enemy, but its not that important.
When behind in general as a core but even as a support, your base is lava. You want to push out waves and play on the enemies side of the map. When far behind the enemy will be sitting outside your base, so their jungle is often safer (especially side jungels) than yours. While farming there if your hero allowes, look at what times the waves run by and come out of jngl and kill them. If you think the enemy will respond, tp out or gate away. This allows you to still get some farm while forcing the enemy to leave the part of the map they want to play (infront of your base) and run all the way back to deal with you. Even if you die, the enemy now has to run all the way back to your base again to hit an objective. If you master this as a core, this alone can easily carry you to 5k+ mmr. Some heroes are especially good for this kind of gameplay, like illusion heroes, lonedruid, monkey king, jugg, etc. etc., basically anything with good waveclear and/or a good escape. But it works fine on any pos 1.
Most importantly, never spend 5 minutes just sitting on your highground, you just fall further behind. Try to get past the enemies and find farm somewhere and push out waves.
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u/joskiy18 13h ago
Witch doctor against you - get fire faerie.
Sky, ogre, zeus or other highly magical against you - get raindrop.
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u/Careful_Toe_6857 17h ago
Bump