General DiscussionLooking for improvement @ 3.3K MMR.

If you want to improve as fast as possible as an individual, don't play carry.

How do you improve playing a role dependent on others?

I have played about 1300 games, and my most successful heroes have been Jakiro/AA/ Necrophos (65% + winrate). Since its my first MOBA i started out with tanky heroes which doesnt get punished that much for bad positioning.

But now I want to find ways to improve at several aspects;

-Mid
-Safelane Carry

so try to improve and have higher impact on my games. I like to read guides and watch high-end play, but can anyone recommend useful threads/videos/tips to improve at my current level? Don't want to play bloodseeker/Leshrac to boost to a rating I don't belong at.

//Funky

Tip improving map awareness:
dota_minimap_hero_size x (600 default)
I personally use 1000, it helps a lot.

keep up that winning streak to improve your mmr

try your best on those positions for few matches and post the matches so people can give you advices

i use 1300

git gud kid

Thanks, ill try out the minimap thing.

Just had a spectre game, did alright scorewise with a few kills and low deaths, but very low LH'a (nobody stacked anything tho)

if you play spectre, it's not too hard to last hit if you have a support to hug.some tips ( from noob ): naked radiance is bad, you are weak for a very long time; you can farm up some more and make some surprise as farming in other lanes when both team group up for a clash, then use your ult and teleport

I went brown boots -> Urn -> Radiance -> Diffusal -> Manta -> Travels if i remember right. The naked one is terrible, you are useless with it.

I used haunt pretty often when it was off cooldown and always pinged my team that it was up (so they could engage and I could join in and snag a kill or two).

Try Phase>Urn>Radiance. That extra damage and chase potential is worth it. As a Spectre you aren't expected to get a lot of last hits early game. The only way to keep up your gpm is farm in the safe lane while your team creates space and gank with ult whenever possible, that extra gold from kills will push you towards Radiance. After you get your Radiance, you won't have a problem farming.

Sweet, cheers. I've always thought dagger was enough speed increase to get those kills. But I guess it also increases runspeed in jungle to get a better farm pattern going both with and without Radi.

Anyone know a good farming pattern to follow? Like what jungle camps to go? When to run to a lane to get the farm instead? When is the easycamp not worth killing anymore? etc.

Thanks in advance.

//Funky

always prioritise lane creeps over jungle. the times that you don't are when someone who can't farm the jungle is close to a key item e.g. blink dagger, while you have sustain so that you can farm the jungle. this lowers your own farm but increases your teams overall GPM. a full wave gives more than a hard camp and doesn't damage you. if you get 3/4 lane creeps per wave that's just as good as a hard camp.

as for farming patterns, just kill the closest thing near you so you're wasting less time moving around. the only time you'd ignore the easy camp is if there's incoming lane creeps and you'd miss them if you'd stayed at the camp. even then you'd go back to farm it later on. ignoring farm is just stupid.

just making sure that you're always hitting creeps is more important than the path that you take. also quelling blade is an extremely important farming item. it's not about missing last hits in lane, although it does pay for itself in that regard. you get it because it's the most cost efficient damage item early on and more damage means killing things faster, which means more farm.

if every minute you can clear an extra camp or two with quelling blade, and it only needs to earn an extra 113g for it to be worthwhile, having a quelling blade for like 2 minutes pays for itself. if you have it for 20 minutes, that's a huge return on investment from the item. the extra damage from 20 minutes worth of attacks is probably like 2-3k extra gold depending on the hero, from a 225g item. it's why you see tiny's still holding onto the item later on, because it's giving him more dps than >5000g items vs creeps, or AM's still holding onto qb when split pushing 35 mins into the game before it was a bfury component.

not upgrading boots isn't a wise thing to do on spectre and on most heroes in general. upgraded boots are very cost efficient items so they pay for themselves, if not more. i.e. you'd still end up with more gold even if you spent gold upgrading boots because of the extra gold that they allow you to get e.g. from hero kills, last hits that you'd miss without the extra damage, extra neutrals that you kill from the increased dps et cetera.

don't tunnel vision too much trying to look for kills, make farming your #1 priority and if there's free kills, then you take them. do that and you can get to 4k easy

^^What he said. I have played a 100 games on Spec and started out trying to farm a naked Radiance and eventually learnt that the little upgrades like Quelling Blade, Phase boots, PMS speed up your farm. With a Spec you try to farm the lanes as much as possible, if there's an empty lane you should be there. If you have good vision and see that no enemies are in your lane, push the tower. Farming a jungle with Spec isn't recommended since she has no natural sustain and you would have to go back to fountain after just 2 or 3 camps. If you do feel like the lanes aren't safe enough, you can look into getting an early Vanguard. I get a Ring of Health asap so I can easily sustain the early game harass and build into a Vanguard if the game is going bad or hold onto it and build a Refresher if I'm getting good farm. My build on Spec goes Quelling blade-Tangoes-Stout Shield-Ring of Health-Phase boots-Vanguard-Radiance. That's my most common build since I rarely have a support babysit me until 20 min. This is a battle ready Spec who can ult in and join fights and go back to farm without having to go back to fountain frequently.

nffffff

You can't ask others to help you about CSing. Whoever's gonna tell you about that is just gonna spite you.
Make a 1v1 lobby, put an unfair bot in it and go practice cs with your favorite midlaner or carry with no stats or anything on you, only regen. Don't use spells for last hitting, only for harass. If you want to play a carry but you miss more than 3-4 cs in an unconsted lane (1v0) in 10 minutes just god damn don't play it.

Also, no matter what skill level you are at, you should know what role you play the most. By the looks of your dotabuff, you play support. How do you expect anyone to tell you about your own map awareness by analysing dotabuff statistics or even watching your replays. -- Even if you walk into no vision and get killed because of it, perhaps you've had your suspicions and went to do whatever in spite of the suspicion.

Items-wise, that's basic stuff you learn from watching pro-games, and you don't even need to do that either, just don't tunnel vision suggested items and you should be fine.

Where you really improve is by minimizing your mistakes -- knowing when to go aggressive and when to back out is crucial. Running in circles as a core for 30 seconds trying to create a kill is a huge waste of time. If you play TA for example and you're really strong early-mid game, you have a say blink dagger at 11th minute, you shouldn't be like 'oh wow I'm just gonna dumpster everyone with my new item' but instead 'oh good, now I got my mobility and I can counter-gank by TPing when they dive or TP when they have no vision of the tower also allow myself to be more aggressive because I can escape and I can chase a kill"

Now you usually lose games when you chase a kill too deep because trading yourself for an equal position isn't worth it unless you're terribly behind.

When you're farming and you don't have perfect vision over enemy heroes don't stick for much longer than 2-3 waves depending where they push. If you start pushing a lane from your t1 to their t2 you'll get ganked 99.9%. WHen farming always go in and out of their vision, so even if you show yourself they'll know trying to gank you is a waste of time. Even if they get you in the end, just keep doing whatever you were doing before and don't try something else because you died once.

Don't suddenly decide to go push the t2 or t3 -- you need a pick off, you need roshan or significant gold advantage. If you are literally in front of their base but can't get in, farm their jungle and their lanes and you'll eventually get ahead and take roshan. Don't think "whoa we gotta win now or we".

If you're playing support, I can't really say much.

Anyhow, I tell this to everyone: minimize your mistakes before you go for bigplays. Don't trade yourself unless that's the desirable consequence of the teamfight you found yourself into, don't go alone into no vision trying to get a kill, play safe, get ahead and then start to dominate by taking out objectives. It's pretty normal thinking if you were to extrapolate it out of dota, but people want to feel as if they had 30cm dicks and they're making porn all day. And then your dick shrinks and you cry.

Thanks a lot for a detailed and constructive feedback. I will try to improve with these things in mind !

Any reccomended babysitters in land for spectre / Am?

//Funky

if you want to improve, dont play carry.

the best way to improve your map awareness is to play support. remember, map awareness does not just concern where people are all the time, it also deals with which area of the map is the most important to have vision on when warding. e.g. when you are a support offlane and there is a jungling chen or axe in the enemy team then its probably a good idea to put a ward there to see incoming rotations.

with last hitting its actually quite funny specially in pubs i.e. unranked some people really try their best in the first 5 to 10 mins maybe then when they get to the mid-game they just attack creeps like zombies. its important to get them golds everytime. anyway, just pick a hero you are comfortable with and be familiar with the attack animation. some people like the spam-s-style (where you see heroes are like have spasms) and some like me who has auto-attack off. i just stand there walkabout and then last hit.

specific build choices. if you are a carry its not hard at all, you get all the gold anyway, when you are a support its very challenging because you get limited gold. e.g. do i rush tranquils or what

--random advice--

'Remember, it is just a game.'
Take a break after each game. stretch or someshyt
Communicate but dont flame
t2>t1
dont smoke without proper vision and a proper targer
dead support > dead enemy carry
if you cant handle your lane, ask for help or *leave it better to have a free farming enemy carry than a feeding support
tp tp tp tp tp tp tp
DO NOT rotate to gank pre-7mins unless you are smoked. specially if you will be crossing the river. chances are there will be wards. unless you are sure that the path you will take is completely dark to the enemy then go hundies

item builds most heroes have static ones with little room to change them based on enemy picks

map awarness/lasthitting when i quit for long periods of time and then come back having non existant map awarness i go to single player lobby pick sf hit creeps with no items try to maintain 82/82 lasthits in 10 minutes and also look into minimap each time im lasthitting a creep