Dota 2

[Rhezuss]

Is there any chance to have fun in this game for a newb that never played DOTA, LoL or any other games in the genre?

 

[smackababy]

Is there any chance to have fun in this game for a newb that never played DOTA, LoL or any other games in the genre?

Sure there is. The problem is the first 20 or so games are gonna be rough. Don't let it discourage you though. You will die a lot and not really help your team out. Just buy wards and ask your team where to place them.

 

[Zeze]

Is there any chance to have fun in this game for a newb that never played DOTA, LoL or any other games in the genre?

Yes, many ways.

1. The game comes with a work-in-progress single player tutorial. This will give you basics of attacking & using spells.

2. You can play with bots. you + 4 bots vs 5 enemy bots. You can set their difficulty from easy to hard to unfair. Easy makes them dumb as fuck, pretty much you can test out all the heroes & get the feel of the game alone.

3. Then you can play co-op game with bots. This is you + 4 people like you vs 5 bots. This gives you the chance to see how others play and no one will flame you because you fight against 5 bots. Because the game matches you with same hidden ranking, your first 50-100 will be with newbie players just like you. Nothing to fear.

4. You can finally play a regular 5v5 with 10 people. The game will throw you into people same skill as yours, don't worry.

The Dota 2 wiki, read up on all heroes, mechanics, and items.

The #1 amazing guide for newbies, compiled by a famous commentator.

This is also good.

Pro game replays by BTS. This is where you watch how pros play (and see how game works). There are also many other Youtube channels for Dota 2.

Dota 2 subreddit- probably the biggest Western Dota 2 community. Great for reading up on trends & questions.


The invites are flooded in a surplus. It's free to play. Let me know if you want to give it go, I can give you an invite.

 

[Rhezuss]

Wow thanks Zeze, great help. I'll give this game atry as soon as I can.
Look fun though and seeing there's some SP tutorials and matches it'll be great to learn the basics.

Thanks smackababy! I'll try not to logoff permanently after my second death heheh.

Thanks again!

 

[Olikan]

He is the ultimate mana hungry glass cannon.

He's worse than Timbersaw for mana requirement. His ult is 800 mana at every 20 cd. LOL.

He can barely cast it 2x with Bloodstone + Arcane, forget other 3 spells.

and beware of pugna ward, it will one shot you at lvl 16, if you don't have any hp item D:

 

[CrackRabbit]

Wow thanks Zeze, great help. I'll give this game atry as soon as I can.
Look fun though and seeing there's some SP tutorials and matches it'll be great to learn the basics.

Thanks smackababy! I'll try not to logoff permanently after my second death heheh.

Thanks again!

Also join the AT Dota 2 steam group and friend the people in it.

 

[smackababy]

Wow thanks Zeze, great help. I'll give this game atry as soon as I can.
Look fun though and seeing there's some SP tutorials and matches it'll be great to learn the basics.

Thanks smackababy! I'll try not to logoff permanently after my second death heheh.

Thanks again!

Oh, the 2nd death will happen pretty quickly. It is the 22nd you get really frustrated. Mostly because your team is a bunch of trolls who will scream at you the whole game. Although, the Dota community is a bit better than the HoN community, which is comprised of the scum of the earth, some brazilians, and like 4 decent people.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Yes, many ways.

1. The game comes with a work-in-progress single player tutorial. This will give you basics of attacking & using spells.

2. You can play with bots. you + 4 bots vs 5 enemy bots. You can set their difficulty from easy to hard to unfair. Easy makes them dumb as fuck, pretty much you can test out all the heroes & get the feel of the game alone.

3. Then you can play co-op game with bots. This is you + 4 people like you vs 5 bots. This gives you the chance to see how others play and no one will flame you because you fight against 5 bots. Because the game matches you with same hidden ranking, your first 50-100 will be with newbie players just like you. Nothing to fear.

4. You can finally play a regular 5v5 with 10 people. The game will throw you into people same skill as yours, don't worry.

The Dota 2 wiki, read up on all heroes, mechanics, and items.

The #1 amazing guide for newbies, compiled by a famous commentator.

This is also good.

Pro game replays by BTS. This is where you watch how pros play (and see how game works). There are also many other Youtube channels for Dota 2.

Dota 2 subreddit- probably the biggest Western Dota 2 community. Great for reading up on trends & questions.


The invites are flooded in a surplus. It's free to play. Let me know if you want to give it go, I can give you an invite.

You should make a guide or something for people who want to learn to play.

 

[Clinkster]

You should make a guide or something for people who want to learn to play.

That would be a ton of work for a game like this.

Also, given this game has been a decade in the making, there are tons out there by now anyway.

 

[Rinaun]

Is there any chance to have fun in this game for a newb that never played DOTA, LoL or any other games in the genre?

I'm probably going to be feeding myself to the wolves here, but I'd advise you to start with DOTA2 last. If you plan on playing DOTA2 be prepared to learn all the heroes, item combinations, etc to be anywhere near good. I have yet to find more than a handful of friends who enjoyed starting with DOTA2 compared to the friends I know who learned MOBAs by playing LoL. DOTA's skillcap is incredibly high; a good comparison would be CS. LoL is a bit more dumbed down and also IIRC still has a larger pool of players.

If you have ever played CS 5v5 or even 8v8, you will know that the average player has fun until someone who is super experienced joins the server and stomps everyone. I'm sure someone is going to counter about how ELO prevents this, but please stop kidding yourselves. ELO works at making the players who are terrible become worse via queueing with foreigners/griefers, yet correctly sorts skilled people at the top of the tier until they lose a few solo queues and get bumped back to "mid-high". This isn't even factoring in how new players get dropped off in games to figure out their personal skill level in a 5v5 game. It's a great game to get into if you have the actual time to learn every single mechanic. For me, I chose between learning how to play DOTA and investing in personal hobbies. I couldn't bring myself to have a plethora of knowledge based on a game I'd never professionally play.

If you do plan on playing, play with friends. Solo queueing is asking for mental health issues. I think I played a handful of solo queues and realized I was grouped 99% of the time with foreigners (I play in the early mornings).

 

[smackababy]

Dota is like playing guitar. Once you learn the mechanics, it is just learning to not have to think about what to do next. You just react and since you have the muscle memory you don't mess up. Guitar players, once they know a song, don't have to think about what strings to press down or chords to strum. They already do it, if they have the mechanical skills in order to.

 

[Rinaun]

Dota is like playing guitar. Once you learn the mechanics, it is just learning to not have to think about what to do next. You just react and since you have the muscle memory you don't mess up. Guitar players, once they know a song, don't have to think about what strings to press down or chords to strum. They already do it, if they have the mechanical skills in order to.

That is a terrible analogy. You can learn chords in like a week, at tops 2-3. I'd love to see you learn every hero and their corresponding abilities in a month without making it a job. This isn't even counting how the abilities are used, item combos, team combos, etc. Guitars do not require anything but counting in terms of math, compared to the spreadsheet zoo that is high-level DOTA.

Dota is more like picking up a super easy major in college and getting a C in it. If you feel comfortable playing DOTA that way that is fine, but from my experience the only people whom seem to be "easy learners" for DOTA are people who played DOTA1, LOL, HON, or other MOBAS like Smite. Anyone else and it's like watching my grandma try to play Bioshock.

Dota is like any hobby: you become better with more time investment. The question is, is it really worth investing multiple hours to play a single video game mediocre? Unless you have 4-5 friends into DOTA I can't see why you'd want to learn it. It'd be comparable to trying to become a professional CS player solo when there are teams that have been playing for over a decade.

 

[smackababy]

I would love to see ANYONE with no prior knowledge of instruments, learn to 'chords' as you put it, in 2-3 weeks. I play guitar AND Dota. They are very similar in the separation of mechanics and theory. I also play fighting games and those also require you to learn what every character does and their frame data.

 

[Rinaun]

LOL. I learned chords at 16 in less than a month for high school guitar class. I think you should lay off the cocaine, chief.

I play guitar AND Dota. They are very similar in the separation of mechanics and theory. I also play fighting games and those also require you to learn what every character does and their frame data.

What the fuck does that have to do with anything?

 

[TheVrolok]

I would love to see ANYONE with no prior knowledge of instruments, learn to 'chords' as you put it, in 2-3 weeks. I play guitar AND Dota. They are very similar in the separation of mechanics and theory. I also play fighting games and those also require you to learn what every character does and their frame data.

He must mean just knowing finger placement. Not being able to play them well.

 

[Peter Nixeus]

To play DOTA 2 well, you HAVE to learn almost every hero, or at least the common ones being picked in public games. You have to know their strength, weaknesses, attack animation, combos, ultimates, laning, etc... so you can counter or know when to run or stop a gank or shut down particular heroes.

People whom normally say a hero is over powered because they don't know or understand the game.

For example people will say Phantom Lancer is OP for an Agility Hero and Rikki gets cheap kills.

To counter PL, get Sven or other heros/items that can kill multiple illusions - or at least a hero whose abilities help you find out which is the real PL (illusions take more damage).

To counter Rikki or any other invisible hero, pick Slardar because his ultimate is spammable and gives you true sight. Or just get wards, dust, or the Gem of True Sight...

Pros pick heros that make you spend Gold on items to counter them if you don't pick the correct counter hero.

For example a team of Stun heros can snowball a game really quick if the other team's heroes don't pick up BKB as soon as possible. If you follow the "recommended items" for the hero you can get snowballed if you don't get counter items... (i.e. more armor items to counter Slardar's -20 armor ultimate).

 

[DrunkenSano]

If you do plan on playing, play with friends. Solo queueing is asking for mental health issues. I think I played a handful of solo queues and realized I was grouped 99% of the time with foreigners (I play in the early mornings).

Or play against bots to learn new heroes. It works really well.

 

[Dijeangenie]

I'm probably going to be feeding myself to the wolves here, but I'd advise you to start with DOTA2 last. If you plan on playing DOTA2 be prepared to learn all the heroes, item combinations, etc to be anywhere near good. I have yet to find more than a handful of friends who enjoyed starting with DOTA2 compared to the friends I know who learned MOBAs by playing LoL. DOTA's skillcap is incredibly high; a good comparison would be CS. LoL is a bit more dumbed down and also IIRC still has a larger pool of players.

I understand what you are saying but I don't think its true. I agree that you do have to know the game inside out to be good at the game but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. If you install dota, read a guide to understand the mechanics of the game and then play 4 or 5 bot games with an easy to understand hero (I played Lich) you will absolutely smash everyone in your first 10 games. Sure, you get the odd smurf, but most people jump into the game with literally no idea - I had never played a MOBA before and I was very surprised how nice the community was and bad most people were (until about 25/30 games in when the shit talking starts! :/ ). I think this is because there are so many keys floating around at the moment, that there are thousands of new players, so there is literally no danger of being matched with someone who has even played 10 more games than you (initially).

 

[smackababy]

I also think, when you are unranked you get a few placement games. Sort of like how bnet does with SC2. You play and they place you in a league bracket where you can move around from.

 

[Rinaun]

Or play against bots to learn new heroes. It works really well.

+1. Clinkster said bots are really good now, but as I mentioned earlier I didn't want to invest time in DOTA so I never tried the newer bots. LoL had terrible bots. If you do want to learn DOTA, I'd 100% try bots first.

I understand what you are saying but I don't think its true. I agree that you do have to know the game inside out to be good at the game but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. If you install dota, read a guide to understand the mechanics of the game and then play 4 or 5 bot games with an easy to understand hero (I played Lich) you will absolutely smash everyone in your first 10 games. Sure, you get the odd smurf, but most people jump into the game with literally no idea - I had never played a MOBA before and I was very surprised how nice the community was and bad most people were (until about 25/30 games in when the shit talking starts! :/ ). I think this is because there are so many keys floating around at the moment, that there are thousands of new players, so there is literally no danger of being matched with someone who has even played 10 more games than you (initially).

Are you playing Arranged, or solo? What kind of hero? What time? What rank? DOTA has so many different variables that it's hard to assure anyone they will have a fun time if they have never played this game before. I don't think anyone playing DOTA has a problem with key bindings -- if you do, try to play some other video games first and visit DOTA 2 later. The problem with DOTA is it has a very high skillcap, and if you play with different people at different times, you are opening yourself up to joining matches with a random pool of people that are much more or less skilled than you are. Sure, in other game's its no big deal; you have 10+ team-mates. In MOBAS? If one member of your team sucks, there's 20% of your team down (not even counting the feeding he's doing). It's a game based on teamwork, and you are trying to be one of 5 people to team together online. NOPE.AVI 90% of the time.

P.S. I never said DOTA was not fun. DOTA is fun at lan parties if you can keep the teams balanced. I just dislike how DOTA is only enjoyable for me when I play with 2 or more friends. Every other game I can play fine solo or with friends and not notice a difference. In dota, solo queuing is like waterboarding.

 

[Peter Nixeus]

Also... FYI the BOTs even in easy mode or more aggressive now... If you see them walk past your creep wave or come at you - RUN!! They won't gank or attack you unless they know they will win the Gank!

 

[Gunslinger08]

Just won a game with Silencer in the A-Z challenge. Man I hate Silencer.

 

[Clinkster]

Patch that was supposed to come out yesterday was DELAYED due to technical issues. Valve said they will release today.

Just won a game with Silencer in the A-Z challenge. Man I hate Silencer.

He's a very strong/annoying middle.

 

[OoteR02]

He's a very strong/annoying middle.

Played a game yesterday.. silencer, lion, shaman all on the same team with a decent lifestealer and PA..

Good god.. it's like 5 + sheepsticks. They could gank/dive on anyone and know they were silenced/disabled for 8-10 seconds combined.. STUN, HEX, HEX, shackle, silence, whatever the hell silencers 'e' is..

TRRBLE

Edit: I was wrong, it was AM and NP, not lifestealer/pa.. that was the next game. http://dotabuff.com/matches/176135053

 

[BergeLSU]

Just won a game with Silencer in the A-Z challenge. Man I hate Silencer.

The ones I had the hardest time with were Witch Doctor (1-4), Chaos Knight (1-6), Storm Spirit (1-5), and of course Meepo (1-9).

Most of those were unfortunate losses, where the teams just didn't sync, or we had 5 carries. One of them as WD I lost even though we led the kills 50-15, because we had a Broodmother feed Tiny spiderlings. Tiny went 1-11, but had 650 GPM.

The Meepo games were hard because I am terrible at Meepo, but even the ones where I would play well, my team gave up early because I picked Meepo.

I'm taking a LONG break from All Pick after the A-Z.