Went from sub-4k to just over 5k in about 6 weeks, not that many games with playing party a lot and work. Had just over 75% winrate until about 4.8k then stalled a little, but got there eventually. from these games there were a few mid or carry role games each, several solo offlane...and then about 85% support maybe.
Just wanted to make this to counteract all the terrible advice about how you need to play carry or mid, just spam meepo, ta etc... to boost your mmr quickly. This attitude is a big part of what makes ladder so toxic to play, with people who refuse to play anything except core.
Anyway, getting on with it....
4 players are stronger than one player The core philosophy behind this came from Aui2000 2cents, where he highlights how if you can just get your team to play well, you don't have to do shit...and you'll probably still win.
Most people attempt to rank up/win by simply increasing their own level of play, and playing a role they believe has the highest game influence for this to net them wins. However even playing the biggest game impact roles, you are still only 1/5 and have less impact than the combined 4 other people on your team.
Therefore the most effective way to win, is simply letting, and helping the other 4 players play to their best.
How to get the best out of your team This is not a new idea. People have already said on forums, "Don't flame and you're more likely to win". "Be positive". However it is never very clear precisely the best way to go about doing this is. Therefore I will try and provide examples for how I approach the game to help my team
The Pick phase I find it very important to set a tone of good feeling in the team, rather than the usual "I AM FARM", "MID". Therefore as soon as possible I will type
"Hihi. I prefer offlane, but can play anywhere. So I'll wait and see what you guys would like".
I usually don't want to play offlane, but that's fine. It's beneficial to not get offlane, as if you are not getting your ideal pick, other people tend to be a bit nicer when there are minor arguments over other positions, as someone has already shown they're okay with giving up their position.
Do not lose gold ever on first pick People start to get edgy if no-one is picking and gold is lost. It is better for you to first pick rather than your team lose gold, if you first pick always pick support, you can then say "Didn't want to lose gold. I can swap if anyone else wants to support". Went offlane first once...ended up with 0 supports, never again.
Often during the draft people nag others saying "you must pick X. Get Y". This sometimes leads to people panic picking heros they're not comfortable with and not doing well. In this scenario a simple "Just pick whatever you're good with and I'm sure we'll win" is fine.
After the draft is over and you are spawning you then need to say a reason why you prefer your teams line-up and how you're confident in a win. E.g. "we have way better teamfight, they can never beat us straight up", or "we have harder carries. If we just split-push until late-game we win ez".
The game itself
Simple "nice" or "well played"'s are sufficient whenever anyone does anything well. The harder part is making sure people don't tilt, or get too negative.
Most tilting seems to occur when people die. Everytime someone dies you need to say something positive, but obviously it needs to not sound false.
Often a 'Space created' type of response is sufficient. E.g. "Well we both died, but at least void wasn't farming. Whereas our carry is free-farming with this space" "They committed all 5 to that kill, it wasn't even really worth it for them"
sometimes there just never is an immediate positive to a death, but you can just say why even if you are behind it is not a problem, use the peak of your power curve to explain how you'll come back.
E.g. We're behind now, but once tide gets blink we'll win every teamfight. They're ahead in kills, but we have <split pusher>, we can just rat them to death.
Sometimes you are far enough behind, even when you hit your peak you are just way weaker, and you require a throw to win...luckily this is aimed at not super-high mmr
Although I think the whole 'lost cos rubberband' is bullshit, it can be useful to utilise here
"This is post 6.82, if we can win one fight when they try and push high-ground we are right back in this game"
"If we can get one pickoff and get next rosh from it we can turn this around"
Also if the other team make any mistakes, have any questionable item choices, highlight this
"Look this sf went shadow blade when they have mirana and riki. These guys are trash, if we just hang-on they'll throw sooner or later."
Take responsibility for everything Anything bad that happens is now your fault.
A lot of team-mates who flame and create a negative atmosphere are just venting. First admitting a mistake before anyone can flame often prevents it, as you don't 'need' to be made aware you fucked up, you've already admitted it. Also even if you still get flamed, it means your other team-mates are less likely to be, and so less likely to tilt.
E.g. "X stop feed pls" -> "Not really X fault, we have no vision around there, I need to try and get a ward out"
"Carry has nothing, how?" -> "Sorry, didn't zone out offlaner enough so hasnt been able to have free-farm"
etc.
How to deal with very very toxic team-mates
But don't you get matched with those people who flame from the start and call gg at 5 minutes? Yes, also have won with radiance before boots wk etc. etc.
When there are multiple toxic players, then that can just be an auto-loss if you don't win early game and stay ahead. However if it's only one, you can at least make sure the rest of your team play fine with the above, and often that was enough to pull us through. You just have to try and dominate the chat and counter-act anything negative they say. If they get too ridiculous then you just have to mute and hope your team do too.
How to give advice to your team
Nobody likes being told what to do. And if you tell someone to do something, often they'll just do the opposite. I try and refrain from saying "Get back", or "you need to buy x".
Instead you can just say things which will lead your team-mates to the same conclusion as you.
One of the biggest problems around 4k is people pushing and overextending, for this I use E.g. "I dont have much mana. I am going back guys". "They have X who is really good at defense, we can just farm their jungle if we want" "Enemy X will respawn in blah" "Rosh is up now/soon. If we wait we can definitely get tower/rax "
Hopefully this is enough, sometimes I do have to resort to panicking and saying "We are really far ahead, but pushing here is literally the only way we can lose this game". Sometimes people just get bored and want to push :/
As for items "Are you going mek X?" "we need something to deal with the PA evasion" "force staff would be nice here versus X if anyone could build one"
Also if you know when your carries can solo rosh/2 man sneak rosh with venge etc, you can just buy smoke, drop it saying "Theres smoke for you there X if you want to rosh"
Non motivational communication All communication is good communication. Whatever role, you should always be checking enemies and calling out not only rotations, but items and locations that you know are warded, or think is warded.
Just because you've seen axe has blink or slark has shadow blade, doesn't mean others on your team have.
Anyway, hope any of you who read all this find something helpful in there, and good luck on ladder. Issues with this This does not work anywhere near as well if you are playing core or carry. "Don't worry guys I will carry us!" "No you won't ur shit" "..........ok "
I think I'm just a better support than other roles and have improved on it a lot, so my rise has not only been down to being positive with team, but a combination of this and personal play level. Therefore someone who nevers plays support and switches to it, even keeping the team positive may not gain as much, but then there's a very good support guide by Ler for the more mechanical side of support-play.
How do you deal with situations where you win the lane for your carry, securing them a solid amount of time to farm up their core item, but instead of farming they just continuously YOLO into the enemy team, or worse just kind of derp around aimlessly getting nothing done at all? I think carries that don't farm are my #1 problem as a support. I find myself at a loss for how to convince these people to farm without devolving into full rage/flame mode.
On February 17 2015 08:23 Uranium wrote: How do you deal with situations where you win the lane for your carry, securing them a solid amount of time to farm up their core item, but instead of farming they just continuously YOLO into the enemy team, or worse just kind of derp around aimlessly getting nothing done at all? I think carries that don't farm are my #1 problem as a support. I find myself at a loss for how to convince these people to farm without devolving into full rage/flame mode.
I read somewhere that in dota you actually have 3 people you're supporting, not just the safelane carry. There's always the ability to gank/save mid and offlane, even if the safelane carry doesn't feel like thinking.
i will admit that despite my own belief as an individual who feels you are continually required to influence the game as a core player based on queing with random people, i won't deny that for every good game that i won, there also existed equally talented support roles which lead to alot of my victories as well.
and hats off to you for being one of those people whether we realize it or not. this was always an argument of mine as well, no matter how good you are at your own individual role, it amounts to nothing if the other 4 are on the same page as you or if they are actively attempting to make their role count. i'm glad we always have the support perspective as well since, it is, if not more important imo than both carry and mid roles (i'm a 5.3 mmr mid player who's participated in SECS)
in game queing i believe support players set the momentum of the game in All-pick. if i had 2 team members who picked hard supports off the bat or played supports who could hard carry while applying pressure, it just positively influences you more to think ok we're going to win i have competent supports.
support players who play support with the intention to win vs players who play it because they are forced into the role. i feel like if you are a support player there are alot of toxic or degrading behavior that comes with it, as somehow the majority of the community degrades support players for generally not having a flashy role. but a good support player prides himself on how much he can accomplish with the little that he is given and that's what separates a good support player vs really bad ones. as an example there are alot of players who are forced into the role and they will intend to play a passive and greedy game because of a mistake of the carry or mid. "you fed, gg i'm just jungling, afk"
good support players often dictated 90% of the early to mid game transitions. i will say that while the majority does believe core picks influence solo ranked games more, it dues to the fact you are in lower MMR games where individual skill simply is the larger influence because of the momentum it generates. outplaying a person solo in MID or out carrying the enemy team's carry is not generally due to the player in higher skill but the space he is given. after that it's how he performs with that space in comparison with other players given that same space is the deciding factor. when in higher MMR games the skill of the supports ALONG with the support roles they are given, play a larger role.
as an example as a mid player, i'm more afraid of how good the enemy supports are in ranked and tournament games than i ever will be of the other mid player who more than likely is never going to kill me 1v1. as a mid player i pride myself on inevitably out playing the other mid player were it a game that came down to passivity, but often times in tournament games this is not possible. supports almost entirely dictated the pace of the early and mid game for the mid role, as 1 death in the mid vs an equally or more skilled team can essentially equate to the loss of the mid lane entirely. good supports know the routes or times in which to gank with the highest probability to ensure a kill on the person who is the most vital. i will like to also add a caveat that good support players can't always be active if their role was to simply keep the hard carry alive and has no ganking potential, people need to understand the context and scenarios in which other players are capable of and not capable of before indiscriminately judging.
i will say there are also alot of bad habits of support players. here are a few examples
1. bad ward placement for the mid player vs the opposition which has a high probability to gank him typical example would be radiant vs dire and the radiant supports place a ward bottom rune and the opposing team has a venge or chen. if the radiant supports were a jungler and a hard support, but the hard carry was capable of farming 1v1 vs the solo offlaner, there is almost no need or requirement for there to be a ward at the bottom lane as the solo hard carry has almost no probability of dying within the first 6 minutes unless he was trilaned which often times is very rare even to this day. this often leads to the solo mid player dying to a smoke gank by the 2 roaming supports from dire's safelane and the supports that are not needed at bot lane, stagnant and farming jungle. whereas if the supports on radiant were anything competent they would anticipate that gank and counter gank, actively gank the opposing mid to secure the advantage where needed, or prioritize the focus on mid to keep the mid laner from dying and or surviving the laning stage. since shadow fiend is now some sort of new meta, this is quite common, in all mmr levels alike. most SF's require rune control and where else would be the best place to gank the mid player? at top rune when he goes and gets it.
2. supports not actively attempting to secure a lead in a game despite the ability to do so don't pick CM if you aren't attempting to get kills with your carry or have a combination with some sort of follow up support who's capable of finishing the offlaner. unless of course your carry is someone who, with farm can make a difference in the late game like a void, terror blade, lycan, antimage etc but know that these heroes do not pair well with CM as combinations that can kill. something like SD + mirana is great. or chen players who pick chen and have no intention of using their early game advantage for the mid benefit and or a gank on the offlaner into a push. at the end of the day you can't just sit in jungle farming creeps and let the timing in which your hero is at it's strongest, past you by. another example of this is if your mid is struggling and you have a hawk and are not using the tornado for his benefit, you have no one to blame but yourself if you could have done something to generate momentum for your team, but didn't choose to.
3. PICK SUPPORTS In COMBINATION to YOUR TEAMS SUPPORTS its great to counter pick supports but also attempt to have it synergize with your team's composition AND your other supports. often times that alone can just win you a game believe it or not. simply avoiding needless deaths and then inevitably building up to a point where your carry and you can take team fights is actually alot harder than you could imagine. heroes like wisp and tiny etc.
4. laning supports where the hard carry depends on them for survival in the early stages of the game. like you can't just leave your hard carry if he's clearly getting out CS'ed by the solo offlaner or struggling to even remotely farm safely despite every technique he may use to secure safe farm without dying. i've seen NUMEROUS times where supports would simply "go-pull" randomly despite the carry struggling to farm basic items. you don't leave the lane unless your carry can safely farm in the early game.....and you sure as hell don't leave to get runes in a trilane vs trilane, the moment 1 leaves is the death of the other 2 members.
Here is the real problem: I play on EU west. On ATLEAST 25% of my games there are russians in my game i cant even communicate with. -.-
I rly dont have anything against russians in particular. I played with enough good ones to not flame them in general. I try to be positiv, maybe not as "agressivly" as you but i think im a kinda nice mate to play with. But the russians who play utter crap, build/skill totaly retarded etc. get to me. And i cant even talk to most of them. The funny part is: often they dont understand what you want form them until you flame (coz they only know english flame-words?).
On February 17 2015 08:23 Uranium wrote: How do you deal with situations where you win the lane for your carry, securing them a solid amount of time to farm up their core item, but instead of farming they just continuously YOLO into the enemy team, or worse just kind of derp around aimlessly getting nothing done at all? I think carries that don't farm are my #1 problem as a support. I find myself at a loss for how to convince these people to farm without devolving into full rage/flame mode.
yeah...well this isn't something that can win you every game
I will often say "We don't need you in fights right now. When you have X item we'll be able to win fights. Just focus on getting that, we'll try and just make some space for you"
or just "They have stronger 5v5. We should just split push and go for clever ganks until we have our big items"
Stuff that's not too depressing, but sort of hints they should be farming more rather than joining fights.
However as said a lot of times they might just not listen, or if they're yolo'ing in 1v3, 1v4...not much you can do in these circumstances. Just try and stay as far away from them as possible and get good trades on the other side of the map whilst they're tying up a few enemy heroes lol.
Also as someone else mentioned, just help out your people that aren't stupid and hope they can carry you to victory.
Yeah, I always assume these blogs are written by people laddering on US servers, because most of it fails when you play on EU and get teammates with whom you just can't communicate.
How do you stay positive when get players who last pick hard carries even though everyone already picked and you need a support, when you call mid and a Russian pudge comes for some dual mid lane action, when a player who says nothing the entire game steals your bottle from the courier and goes on his way... I don't know, maybe you're just that ice cold, but I know I'm not. I almost never flame people, but there are many games that you see are just completely lost in the first few minutes, and it's hard to stay positive when you're wasting your time.
On February 17 2015 19:57 k0pf wrote: Here is the real problem: I play on EU west. On ATLEAST 25% of my games there are russians in my game i cant even communicate with. -.-
I rly dont have anything against russians in particular. I played with enough good ones to not flame them in general. I try to be positiv, maybe not as "agressivly" as you but i think im a kinda nice mate to play with. But the russians who play utter crap, build/skill totaly retarded etc. get to me. And i cant even talk to most of them. The funny part is: often they dont understand what you want form them until you flame (coz they only know english flame-words?).
Anyways nice writeup.
I play on EU west as well.
Another thing Aui has mentioned, is that these kind of russian players who cant communicate with their team, have to be superior at the game, in some aspect, to be the same mmr as you. As there has to be something counter-acting the communication deficiences
Therefore if you just chill and let them do their own thing, you have a slightly greater than 50% chance of winning. Yeah sometimes they may just play utterly terrible, but everyone has bad games, you might not notice the games where you get carried by russians as they just dont say anything the whole game and you don't suspect it.
also, I made it sound easy, but it can be hard to maintain just staying positive and not snapping. I had a couple of days on this run where I was in a really bad mood before even starting playing, and just ignored all the advice I gave above. Playing ranked dota whilst in a bad mood is a terrible idea
On February 17 2015 20:22 Shikada wrote: Yeah, I always assume these blogs are written by people laddering on US servers, because most of it fails when you play on EU and get teammates with whom you just can't communicate.
How do you stay positive when get players who last pick hard carries even though everyone already picked and you need a support, when you call mid and a Russian pudge comes for some dual mid lane action, when a player who says nothing the entire game steals your bottle from the courier and goes on his way... I don't know, maybe you're just that ice cold, but I know I'm not. I almost never flame people, but there are many games that you see are just completely lost in the first few minutes, and it's hard to stay positive when you're wasting your time.
I explain that in the draft you simply have to pick support unless someone else has already picked it.
Also you will almost always never get mid doing what I do. If you really enjoy playing mid and want to play it in ranked, then this isn't the best advice/guide.
You can say "Id like to mid, but does anyone else want to?" but you will still run into the issue where someone else will say "yeah, me mid" 90% of the time.
If you want to win by playing id, although some of the above does still apply, you do mainly just have to play well yourself
great post dude, this is some of what i've been doing lately - taking responsibility for everything (even when my score is like 18-5 but team is fucked) and explaining how i fucked up. - saying dont worry about the pick, we got this either way - mentioning that we just need 1 comeback kill and that i've won in worse situations before - pinging respawn timers and the rune clock - saying chill guys, we are all 2k mmr lol - saying "its fine, we got this" when someone feeds - if i see a support trying to farm jungle i'll get the creep low for him and walk off - say well played often at kills
in low mmr (im 2.7) i know that a strong core player with good mechanics and tactics can 1v9 every game with a 95% winrate, so i maintain that core is superior at this mmr . but at higher mmr i can see it being worthwhile to pick support if you know that your cores are able to farm more than boots at the 30 min mark when you are winning 30-10 :D
i use audio chat and ask for mid when the game loads and then start typing a bit (any way to use voice in lobby??) . my guys have given me mid like 19 out of 20 games doing this and then give me 1 or 2 tango when i ask, usually 2. my friend who is a massive dick said "theres no way anyone will give you a tango" but i get it 19 out of 20 times. if you talk with a bit of confidence in your team or like you're having a good time people will reciprocate
i can be a massive fucking rager screaming at the computer sometimes but starting to learn that i am trash at dota compared to high mmr players and realise how i can improve (mechanically, tactically) has made me much more chill and realising of my own bad plays and my teams bad plays since i know that if i was 18-2 instead of 18-6 we would have won. even watching a few of my teamfights or solo fights in replay its so easy to see tactical errors like "i should have blinked out sooner" , "i should have used bkb a bit later", "i shouldnt have engaged there"
i play lina atm which probably plays a lot more tactically than some other heroes like rightclickers and i highly advise picking her up if you really want to learn both mechanical/speed and tactical/brain control
On February 18 2015 00:28 teddyoojo wrote: pretty sure thats how 2gd got 5,5k
Yes, every single person who plays with him says the same thing: Its not about mechanics or skill, he is just good at leading the team to making good decisions and doing what they need to do. I think it’s the hardest skill to obtain in dota.
But everyone has been in that game when your team is going to shit and starting to flame. But then you make that one play that saves your carry and pull out a team fight and everyone suddenly starts playing together.
Or as our Dota guru says: Believe in yourself, believe teammates and press all your buttons.
EPT
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