General DiscussionHow to learn to play a hero

It's a combination of practise, talent for games and dedication.

I was terrible with Morphling, until I played him like 20 games in a row (cause I wanted to learn him) and now I'm semi-decent.
However I need to pick him up again and practise to get on my previous level, which probably is the case for most high skill-cap heroes.

Some people learn faster, some learn slower.

Keywords: Dedication, Practise, Talent, Skill-Cap

Attitude is number one and having known you for a while Raspharus, I'd say that's where you struggle the most. You enter panic mode whenever anything bad happens and you make silly mistakes. If you can sort that out then 'learning' a hero doesn't matter.

1st of all practice last hit with bots at lvl 1. i used to do it until i got 12/6+ in 1st 3 waves of creeps. after you get a basic ideea of what you gotta do in game, go and play with humans.

U just have to play the hero over and over again. You're gonna suck for 15-20 games before you graduate to the 'semi-bad' category, then maybe another 30 games before you get to 'sub-decent'

you quickly learn the things your hero can and cannot do, and what kinds of heros will fuck u over

I think this is really common among people. They want fast results and they are sometimes tricked into thinking it is possible. They watch players like singsing stream and it looks like he fucks around all the time but if they actually saw how much work and effort he puts in you would realize he is amazing because of the time he puts in.

Just play man, play play play play untill you get better i guess, hoping thats gonna work for me D:

@guiri thnx man

You've received so much imput on all things dota related. The best way to learn the hero is learn the game first at its core, I can pick up any hero and play it more or less acceptably because my game mechanics are good. Obviously getting amazing with a hero will require a ton of practice, taking tips, and watching other players who get the hero.

plus ask BishopTZ for advice, seriously a good coach.

Raspharus, I hate to feel that you meant that sarcastically because that was honest from me. As other people have pointed out you have received a lot of advice and I know theoretically you know what to, better than most. But like Relentless before you, you can have all the theory in the world but something is stopping you putting it into practice. I'm just being honest buddy.

It REALLY depend guys

I have a friend that wanted to learn tinker, after almost 40 games he still has 25 % winrate with him, i aint joking.

In my first 10 games with tinker my winrate was like 60 %, so some people are better with some heroes than others.

For example, i will NEVER be good with veno, never.

^ or lion

@guiri it wasn't sarcasm

just play dude, dont overthink
you are in a bracket that allows you to do dumb stuff and still come out with a victory so just play

like you I used to have a lot of knowledge and would struggle to put it into practice, I spend more time watching than actually playing, so I had good overall game knowledge but lack of execution, which ended up putting me aside with people that are actual dumbfucks. So, play. While watching you overthink too much, there are several things done intuistically which you will end up "OMG WHY HES DOING IT? ITS AMAZING", and if you ask the guy you are watching to, he probably does not know why hes doing it also, he does because after hundreds of hours of practice he found out it was effective.

That may work for you also, just do your shit, find what is more effective for you playstyle and pull it out, no secrets, just play it.

also there are heroes that are "safer" to learn than others, for example
TA is apparently an easy hero to play because he has a 6 hits immunity, bonus attack, he can slow down people, get invisible, etc, so even if you have a really bad game with her it won't have as much impact (negatively) as you would playing Meepo, for example, which needs a lot more coordination than TA.

Most of high skill cap heroes are high risk high reward, play nicely and you probably will win, play badly and you will probably lose.

Here is what i do. I have an account which i opened fresh. I mark i played dota 2 before and play there for a while. Thats how i learned tinker. I never paid attention to that hero on my dota 1 days and playing it on dota 2 wasnt interesting either for a while. But when i tried it for the first time i sucked so hard even my real life friends flamed to me :D. After 3 games of being horrible with him i really wanted to burry those matches and never play that hero. But i decided to go to lower bracket and start from there. Now i am playing him fine. I advice you to do the same. I did it for lone druid offlane and now i can play him too. But when i first tried em i sucked really hard. Like a 500 mmr player no kidding :D

You can always watch a player play it in game client to get some sense for skillbuild and itembuild,
tho itembuilds may differ to skill brackets, but still a quick way to get the sense of how to play it.

#playthehero
I was godawful with Medusa at the beginning, now I am just bad.

By the way, the tip 'bout lasthits is quite right. In low MMR you can easily advance just by performing good. If the hero you like is a carry - learn to lasthit with him. If it's a support - watch a few videos about ward placement and learn pulls/double pulls. It will help you in the game overall, not only in playing this hero.