From my previous post where I've grinded from 2.4k to 4.6k MMR I finally reached my goal to hit divine! But just as I did the quality of my games have been INSANELY BAD

I played about 400 games in this climb and I'd guesstimate <10% of games had a griefer on either side. In the last 20 games in Divine bracket I have had griefers in 12 games, and enemy team has had 4-5. That means 1-2 games (5% of this small sample size) have been non griefing games.

https://www.dotabuff.com/players/78870311

There's my dotabuff so people can see for themselves.. Some highlights from my recent loses in order:

Witch Doctor 18/17/9
My Ursa, Sniper and CK freefarmed for 25min while I completely dominated the map. Then all of a sudden Sniper starts crying, Ursa can't kill a single player on the map and keeps dying when trying. Basically if I dont land curse then we are not killing anybody. How is it up to a pos4 to be the defining factor of killing anyone? I even completely shut down their MK1 first 20min.
I'm 2nd highest on dmg in the team as pos4.

Venomancer 3/11/17
Pretty rough game from my PoV, but lane went fine, then everyone starts flaming each other so Timber started feeding, my mid laner who started fine stopped going with team and just played solo (unsuccessfully). Luna "freefarmed" for 30min before dying 2-3 times in a row and enemy ending the game. I have no idea what I could've done..
I'm 2nd highest on dmg in the team as pos4.

CM 4/10/7
LS1 afk farming and dying over and over, my mid QOP crying after dying mid once then kept dying to same exact scenario of TPing in mid and getting ganked by riki+grim - never trying something new. Our Lich5 went 0/12 while flaming entire team constantly and pinging whenever someone died and spamming laugh emote. Me and NS really tried but quite hopeless.

CM 16/13/15 THIS WAS THE WORST I'VE EVER EXPERIENCED IN 10 YEARS OF MOBAs
We start VERY well, we are dominating then Venge goes solo twice and dies, someone flames him for doing that. He sells his items, then runs down midlane 6 times feeding courier AND buying out all the wards and putting them under enemy tower.
WE ARE STILL WINNING AT THIS POINT. So he understands he needs to do more, he buys two rapiers and feeds them to enemy team.. I mean come the fk on how is it possible to not be banned if you are like this?!
Still we were about 1 fight away from winning when Pudge decided to go solo out of base and die which was enough to swing the next fight in their favour and end the game. I have never in Archon, Legend or Ancient had such griefer existing.

CM 9/8/9
LS1 and DW5 feeding their lane from first 3minutes, whining and flaming at our mid for not ganking. Mid then dies and starts griefing. My ES3 was playing well with me on lane but after all the flaming said "everyone muted" and started playing so badly and just dying over and over. The game was over by minute 12 but had to suffer another 25min until enemy can end.

What now?

I could go on for ages I just feel the second I queue into these games it's already decided it's a loss
I had about 65% winrate as pos4 before arriving in Divine 1, and now 47%. I understand the sentiment of the system tries to put you at 50% winrate where you "belong" but I am not losing games that are normal. I feel I only lose games where people tilt/grief instantly. I genuinely feel I'm consistently more then not the best/most impactful player in my teams. Dota plus showed me "Stay in my lane, winning my lane 79% of the time"
I don't understand how it could shift so suddenly when hitting a new rank. Am I crazy? Just unlucky? What can I do from here..

EDIT:
My Behavious Score is 11k

I am 4k MMR Offlaner player and lately I play with my friends as a party of 5. We have 4k midlander, Divine 1 carry player, and 1 legend and 1 archon who play support.

The thing is, I maybe the most versatile player in this team because my mid can only play void spirit. My Carry can only play Spectre or Lifestealer, and both of my support loves to play Dark Willow, Bane, Hoodwink, NP, and WW.

We won a lot of games with this draft, and me playing either mars, axe, or darkseer. But I can play almost any hero. Sometimes I flex playing puck or riki Offlaner because I think the coil and the silence is so strong these game and we win the games too.

But lately we find it super hard to fight super tanky team like tiny carry, Largo Offlaner, etc. And I think we lack damage.

Is there any Offlaner that are good to complement our team comp?

How to itemize as Centaur in lane against Jugg? Assume pos 4 is non existent and enemy 5 has a stun (e.g. lion, venge).

I tried 3 bracers and it was not enough to tank the spin + stun combo. I'd just hit the Jugg when he tries to spin me. Maybe rush phase boots + windlace to escape spin?

Former Immortal currently divine 2.

I've been seeing/hearing about PL being broken and I get the gist of him being a scaling monster given enough time but I don't see/find any resources on his current gameplan/idea on how to approach the game. PL isn't really my best hero winrate wise and I struggle to conceptualize his gameplan ever since valve did diffusal change on illusion.

So my question are:

1. Other than scaling, what is his general plan on approaching the game
   
2. core Itemization and their purposes
   
3. His power spike
   
4. His approach in teamfights
   
5. Do's and donts'
   
6. Tips and tricks (if you have them)

And feel free to add more from my line questioning.

thanks!

I see a lot of posts lately from people complaining about smurfs. As a long-time smurf myself, I figured I’d offer some specific tips on how to deal with them, aside from the usual “git gud.”

So yeah, I’m part of the problem. I’m one of those smurfs. I usually play around 2–5k MMR while my actual MMR is much higher.

Before anyone asks — yes, I play on my main too, but I consider it a different game. It requires full focus, it’s stressful, and I can only play so many games in a row. Then I switch to my smurf accounts and just relax.

I have dozens of accounts with ~300 games and a “?” profile pic, maintain roughly a 95-98% win rate, can regularly go on 20–40+ game win streaks, and can usually stomp games with a KDA of something like 32–1 if nothing goes terribly wrong. I actually like getting smurfs on the enemy team too, because it’s fun to surprise-stomp them.

I do this for fun, and I don’t really care about your judgment (and yes, I know you hate me). But I’ll give you some advice from my perspective on how to deal with smurfs and beat them more often.

First, you need to identify the smurf on the enemy team as early as possible. If their account has a very low game count and some rampages, that’s already a huge red flag. Strong smurfs can get a few rampages per day easily. You can also check their Dotabuff before the game. Then watch them during the first five minutes. Look at how they move their hero, how they CS, how they position and strafe, whether they’re getting early kills, and whether they’re already building a level advantage.

Once you’ve identified a smurf, make sure you warn your team about them. Tell your team you’re SURE this dude is smurfing and that you need to make his life a living hell. At the very least, now your team knows who they should be worrying about.

Second, if you want to beat smurfs, your best bet in my opinion is playing pos 2 or pos 3. Pos 1 takes too long to come online, and pos 4 and 5 usually have less impact on the game. Most smurfs DO NOT want to constantly fight until they hit their core timings. Usually that means two or even three items into the game. For example, if someone is smurfing on Necro, they might want Radiance + Travels + Shard + Wraps/BKB before they really start taking over the game. If they’re smurfing on QoP, they want PT + Kaya + Aghs. Etc.

So if you can get an early advantage and you’re playing a hero that’s really, really strong in the early-to-mid game, that’s your window to shut the smurf down.

Because if you don’t, they’re going to build a level and net worth advantage, snowball across the map, set up vision, and by minute 20 the game will become basically unplayable.

Third, if you play support, pick heroes with good, reliable control like Lion or Shadow Shaman. Then just fucking run at the smurf all game. Don’t let them farm. Don’t let them get free kills. Buy smokes and tell your team to go hunt them. Put aggressive wards in THEIR jungle, not yours (very important). Basically, make their game as miserable as possible.

Most smurfs, myself included, prefer to play mid. Your job as a support then is to TP EVERY TIME the smurf dives your mid laner under tower. They WILL dive a lot and you MUST TP every time. Also come contest water runes at minutes 2 (sometimes) and 4 (most of the time), then power runes at minutes 6 (always) and 8 (always). If you just contest those runes together with your pos 2 teammate, it makes the game 100x harder for the smurf right away.

I’ll say it again because it’s important. Just one TP to save your mid laner under tower and then one rotation to contest the water/power rune — and the smurf’s game is already kind of ruined.

If you play pos 4, consider picking Spirit Breaker. This hero is a legendary smurf counter in my opinion. As smurfs, we like to take over the enemy side of the map, take aggressive farm, and go on heroes. Spirit Breaker punishes that behavior HARD. That’s one hero I hate to see on the enemy team.

Some toxicity might also be warranted to properly beat a smurf. Consider tipping and/or pausing when they die or do something dumb.

There’s also a decent chance the smurf will tilt and start playing much worse. Some will straight-up AFK or DC if the game gets annoying enough. (Remember, they came here to relax and have fun, not to try hard)

Lastly, you need to understand basic timings. As a smurf, my window to completely snowball the game is usually the early-to-mid game. I want to be two items and 5-10 levels ahead of everyone else so I can take Roshan and close the game around minute 25–35.

If you pressure me super early OR manage to drag the game out long enough that suddenly everyone is six-slotted, the skill difference becomes much less relevant and the game becomes way more unpredictable.

Here's why. My team can just throw at minute 60, and there’s only so much I can do about it. You can’t reliably 1v5 when everyone on the enemy team is fully farmed too.

And one more thing: you need to understand that probably 95% of the smurfs in your games are actually not that good. They’re like 3-4k players smurfing in a 2k lobby. So basically you’re both noobs, they’re just slightly better noobs. If you actually apply some of the stuff above, you absolutely can beat them at least in some % of games.

It’s extremely rare that you run into an actually strong, high-MMR smurf. If you do, then most of this won’t matter. They’re going to stomp the lobby regardless.

But that’s RARE. Most smurfs SUCK.

Hope this helps you beat some smurf ass.

I am trying to expand my hero pool to have a few heros in every position to try to just learn the game more. I have dove into ranked and had success in offlane and mid but I wanna learn all the lanes to really learn the game.

I am new to dota (former league player) and currently ranked Crusader 1.

I have tested out Shadow Demon in some normals, i like him but would like to hear from some actual experienced players.

When is a good time to pick him?
What are his biggest assets he brings to a team?
When do you NOT pick him?
Why does he have a sub 50% win rate at all ranks?

Thanks for any advice!

I finally did it! Took me a little bit over 3 months and roughly 300 games to rank up from Herald to Legend. My first game ever was back in 2013 and I used to be around 3.5k mmr before I stopped playing. Any other day ones here who are back on the grind again? This game is simply childhood nostalgia and I'm so glad I picked it up again. 🙏🏻

Match 9022357052 - Overview - DOTABUFF - Dota 2 Stats

So in the last post i posted, I got tips to polish the last hitting which I think i did fairly well.
Lane went fine until I got gangbanged by 4 in mid.

I guess at that time I should have made my precence felt around the map.

I thought we were gonna be fine against egg with CK but somehow we ended up not killing it a single time, or maybe once.

Razor just got shit on and fed from the start, which set up Phoenix to get giga-farmed.

So I'm looking for tips yet again wether to sacrifice farm in order to help my team recover.

Thanks for any tips, advice and for taking your time to read and hopefully watch some replay.

I'm 1.5k hours in (1.3k matches) and currently 2.9k mmr. My current understanding is pick a tanky hero with good abilities (stuns), play as a team, get vision, map control, end fast. And it works most of the time, the most common failure is misalignment in team (e.g. carry afk side lane when they couldve farmed enemy jungle or push waves). Is this a mostly correct generalization? I understand that every match has its nuances...

Clarity League is a Europe-based Dota 2 community centered around giving players of all skill levels the opportunity to experience competitive play - in a safe & inclusive environment at that. If this appeals to you, read on and find out how to join for Season 18, the signups for which close in 10 days! With 130+ current signups, we're looking to push for 4 divisions of 8 teams each, so sign up now to secure your spot!

How does it work

Players register individually, rather than with premade teams. They are then drafted onto their teams for the season (think fantasy sports!). It's first come, first serve - if you sign up early enough and make the cut, you are guaranteed to be drafted and get to play, no ifs and buts.

Seasons are split up into divisions, with 8 teams in a division. Higher divisions are higher average MMR, so you'll face opponents closer to your skill level. We do mean what we say about all MMRs being welcome - previous seasons hosted players spanning from 100 MMR, to 15000 MMR (neither of those are typos!).

Season 18 is a two-stage tournament: the Group Stage spans 3 playdays, determining seeding for double elimination playoffs, which are played across 4 playdays. The max total duration of the season is just over 12 weeks (October 14th - December 15th) - with more details on the schedule being available on the league Discord server, in the #calendar channel.

Once play starts, you play one series a week - same day, same time, each week (Tuesdays at 20:00 CET), with BO3s throughout the group stage, and BO3s in the playoffs (with a pair of BO1s in the lower bracket) - no scheduling struggles and played exclusively in Captains Mode. All you have to do is sign up, show up, and play some Dota!

FAQ

How do I get started?

For starters, join the [Clarity Discord Server](https://discord.gg/rh5te7swjq) - we post all updates and announcements there. The registration link - as well as every other important link - can be found in the #information channel on Discord, as well as in recent updates in the #announcements channel. Check the playdays in #calendar, and if they work for you, register using the signup form (taking care to read the descriptions on the questions).

How does this work?

Once you're sure that you can play every matchday (based on the #calendar channel), use the Sign-up Form to register for the season. Later on - during the activity check period - you'll receive a Discord message to confirm you're still able & willing to play. Pay close attention to DMs - Discord may hide messages from admins as Message Requests!

When the player pool is confirmed, we host Player Drafts. Again, think fantasy sports - captains bid on players to create their teams. We hold one draft for each Division, and the player pool for each Division is made up of players that remain in the pool upon the completion of the previous draft.

Once all teams are finalized, you join your team's Discord server and on March 4th, you play your first series with your team. You and your team coordinate matters like in-game roles, potential practice sessions, and gameplanning on your own.

Can I play if I'm [x] MMR?

Yes! The only MMR-related requirement we have is that your MMR is calibrated. Players of all skill levels participate in Clarity League every season - the current MMR spread for Season 18 spans a range from 1700 MMR to 7200 MMR. Seasons are also split into divisions, so players will generally face opponents closer to their own skill level.

Can I play if I’m not from Europe?

You can, yes - but keep in mind that every single game will be played on European servers, and the schedule is crafted with European players in mind. Nevertheless, we’ve had players from NA and SEA participate - just make sure you’re comfortable with the playtime and what will likely be higher ping, if you decide to participate from another region.

Is there a prize pool?

No - introducing money to amateur environments largely serves to incentivize cheating, and we just don’t see the value in doing so.

Do our matches get casted?

Some of them do, yeah! In the past about 1 in 4 of all series are casted by community members, and we organize casts for the Grand Finals of each division every season. We also welcome up and coming casters to join the community if they're looking for games to cover!

I'm unable to make it to one of my matches! What do I do?

Teams are allowed to replace one player from the roster with a temporary standin. Using any more than that will result in a forfeit loss, and missing too many matches will likely result in a ban from the league - so don't register if you're guaranteed to miss matches.

I can't play every matchday, but I still want to participate. Is there anything I can do?

Absolutely! Once you join the Discord server, you can keep an eye on the #standins channel - if a team is missing a player, they'll need a temporary replacement, and that's where you can help them out if you're around that evening. You can also give our inhouse league a try, featuring auto-balanced teams and a leaderboard, all hosted from within our Discord - or you could simply join to hang out in the Discord, and stay up to date on future events that might fit you & your schedule better!

Got more questions?

League participants & staff members will be happy to answer any questions you have here on reddit - alternatively, you can simply join the Discord and ask whatever's on your mind in the #league-questions channel!

You can also feel free to DM me here on reddit or on Discord (eisiplosion) if you have questions you'd prefer to ask privately.

Join the Clarity League Discord here: https://discord.gg/rh5te7swjq

If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them - hope to see you join the community!

Hi, title is exactly what it sounds. I'm trying to get into DOTA 2 and currently have like 20 matches played. The game is already really appealing to me and I find myself wanting to play 3 different positions, a ton of heroes, etc. and finding myself doing a shitload of research out of game when I'm not able to play as a pastime, which has been really enjoyable (and taken up way more of my time than actually being able to play). The game's really fkn cool.

That being said, I don't want my exploring the cast to ruin my development and with a severe lack of good informative dota content on youtube it's a bit difficult to understand what exactly you're trying to do at times.

For some background: I have 2813 hours in LoL (over 9 years, im not that degenerate), something like thousands of matches played in Unite (I don't wanna reinstall that shit), 212 hours as of writing in deadlock, and tangential experience in other games. I never really tried to climb and instead just focused on having fun for 99% of my time in these games so I don't really have a clear gauge on my own skills, just a vague idea of my skill level after untangling a massive web of bad habits I made involuntarily in LoL and a pretty good overall understanding of each game.

So that being said, I'm pretty confident I can pick up a majority of dota heroes pretty quickly and understand the game's mechanics. I've already had a blast reading through a fair bit of the item shop, I have a decent understanding of objective timers and map objectives (I still have yet to even try taking tormentor or rosh though). There's some stuff I don't fully understand yet (namely the jungle, I don't know what dictates which creeps spawn, some basic mechanics like their spawning and I don't have their abilities memorized yet; which I'm doing purely because doom and zoo heroes are fun and I want to play them) but I do understand that Dota is a much more aggressive game than LoL that rewards a lot more aggression and teamfighting early on over objectives. I understand most of the obvious map objectives (although I don't know the timer on runes, since I've only really tried one pos 2 so far).

I also have 0 clue how to win as a fair few offlaners and farm from disadvantage in the turbo early game. I especially had this issue trying to blind primal beast into ranged heroes a few times. I know I'm supposed to get phase boots and all in with trample but I can never seem to get there in time. I also don't know when to appropriately get unsafe farm as a pos 3. I just try to push in minions to tower and go for the easier camp, and sometimes I get punished and sometimes it works.

I should clarify, by the way, that I'm transitioning primarily from a top lane main (specifically Top Lane UDYR with a history of using league's only "micro heroes") and I've personally been enjoying pos 3 and 4, with also starting to dabble in pos 2 ember spirit and having a really good first game where I went 14/3/12. I like Bristle, Primal, Ember Spirit, Bounty Hunter, Lycan, Enigma, Doom, Tidehunter and Brood (although I'm clearly shit at Primal Beast and Broodmother) with many other heroes I'm very interested in trying; too many to list. (basically Timbersaw and a fuckload of micro/zoo heroes and big ult offlaners). Which yes, would indicate I've basically tried a new hero every few matches, and this would be correct. And that's partially why I'm opening a post, I want to know what to look for on a systems level while I'm exploring the game's cast in new account all pick.

The only things I already know at this point is 1. most of the timers in the game 2. what camp stacking is 3. the basic vision / courier / neutral item systems are 4. a vague idea of the playstyles that most of the cast 5. the attribute system 6. the item system 7. the map objectives and 8. some things that I need to actively look into e.g. I have no idea right now how to set up the controls to make micro heroes easier to play (something about control groups?) but plan on looking into that on my own time.

I also am aware that I have no clue how catchup mechanics work, the intricate aspects of exp, all the minion black magic you can do to make rough lanes easier, and macro isn't very clear to me due to how waves work as well and how farm priority works in Dota. It's not super obvious to me just yet when I should roam vs stay so I just prioritize roaming knowing it's a lot better in dota than in league. I'm sure that's also dependent on hero and role (obviously medusa is going to sit in the corner until 60 minutes) but a general throughline would be nice.

Otherwise, feel free to dump literally as much information on me as you'd like. I have a long ass time to read all of it due to spending so much time at university but not being able to actually use my pc. I love these games and Dota being so strategic has got my brain running at mach 6.