I think Phantom lancer is super underrated right now, I never see this hero picked in my pub games. If you get a late pick in the draft and the enemy team doesn’t have a lot of AoE spells than pick this hero and you will probably win. This does not mean you need to last pick this hero, if the enemy has 3-4 heroes without much AoE already that should be more than enough to have a good game. I use my double downs very often with PL games that look like they are easy draft wins.
Role in a game
Phantom lancer basically plays like spectre or similar, a hard farming carry early game that will win the game. You get a pretty strong early spike once you get a diffusal though so you can look to fight around that timing if you will survive in fights. Of course once you get like manta and heart you will become unkillable essentially in the right draft.
Early Game/Lane
I find that maxing Phantom Rush is much better than Spirit Lance as it will let you transition into jungling very fast. I think Spirit Lance max is okay if you want to go for kills in lane or think you can zone the enemy with it as it has a pretty low cd just keep in mind your farm will suffer. Doppelganger is super strong for the dispel and disjoint if either are useful definitely get a point in this.
Phantom Lancer – as one we die, as one we rise.
General Tips
Make sure not to click anywhere once you are in phantom rush or it will cancel, make it a habit to just take your hands off till PL finishes running up and hitting once
Think about spells that are crucial to dodge and save doppelganger for them, a lot of the time not wasting it too early will save you
Make sure to have a key bound to “Select All Other Units”, use this to send your illusions at the enemy, just press the hotkey and right click someone. This makes micro with PL very easy.
Also add a hotkey for “Select All Controlled Units”. After doppelganger a lot of the time you just want to man up and hit the enemies with everything to hide your hero among the illusions. Use this hotkey for that so you don’t accidentally micro your hero only and give it away.
Send your illusions at tanky strength heroes to drain their mana. If the enemy centaur doesn’t have mana he is much less scary.
Farm a lot, I can’t stress this enough but a lot of the time you should not come to fights and just farm.
Use your illusions to farm dangerous places, manta illusions will clear waves easily and you can farm jungle out of vision while pushing waves.
Here are a few points that will make you a better player and teammate while resulting in a more enjoyable game overall.
As for credentials, tier 1-2 player in the scene.
Creeps. Killing creeps is the most important thing to do in dota. Support or core, if there’s a chance for you to last hit creeps, you should have a very high accuracy on last hitting. this is the single most important skill in dota. The better you farm, the earlier you hit your timings. You survive ganks, you kill heroes, simply by having more items than usual.
That is not to say that you should farm all game. It is only when given the chance, you ought to be able to utilize it fully.
Crystal Maiden
2. Itemization. Don’t be afraid to experiment. 95% of players from my experience, will report others for perfectly valid builds if they are out of the “agreed norm”. The most fun thing you can do is figure out a unique item progression on a certain hero that works for you. If you’re facing a mobile hero that is killing you while being uncatchable (think storm), buy a hex. IF you’re against alot of stuns, buy BKB. IF you’re against high cooldown instant death wombocombos, buy Aeon disk. If you’re against a slark/ursa/troll, buy a heavens halberd or pike. these are general example that could apply in certain games. The gist of it is being flexible with itemization will make a huge difference. A cookie cutter build sometimes is gamelosing.
3. Don’t take random fights. Don’t fight unless you have the upperhand(you got vision, highground advantage, item/hero advantage). Don’t fight enemies unless you have a plan in mind on what to do after the fight ( think killing towers, going roshan).
4. lategame map movement. As a clueless player, the easiest way to play the game is stay with your allies, but try your best not to reveal yourself, stay in the trees, stay hidden out of range, do your best to trick the enemies into thinking your allies are alone. That makes easy counter initiates. The most important thing in lategame is not to show on the map.
5. vision. I don’t expect much from you in this regard, but gem is priceless when it comes to killing enemy wards. You will only truly understand vision after playing for a while, and when that happens you’ll understand how important it is and how to go about it. i could write a seperate guide for it.
If you have any questions or require help in gaining mmr. tell me your situation and i can give you pointers. I wrote this as a general guide with heralds-archon level players in mind.
Lone druid is very high difficulty but super effective
16 games with new broken tanky atos viper (87% winrate)
Viper with a rod of ATOS tears through enemies while rendering them useless
So how did i do it?
A month ago (I was approx 1800mmr, 40% winrate) I committed to improving my DOTA experience. I created a google doc and started to document everything. I watched replays, wrote down what I should improve on, wrote down YouTube coaches tips etc. So I’ve been watching A LOT of BSJ on YouTube. Probably 15-20 hours in total, and I’ve learned a ton from him. This month i have 62% win rate instead of 40%. I will try to make a list of stuff i changed in my game play that made me improve. In no particular order I guess.
I play strictly ranked roles mid, so this information is aimed at that, but most applies to all other roles as well
This information is general and there will always be exceptions
You should backpack your items when taking shrine / healing salve / mango (you get a lot more value)
Map awareness is insane, and you should practice it big time. I got help from GOSU.AI with this, after the game it sends you a match report, showing you how many times you checked the map during early – mid – late game.
I became aware of how you’re supposed to win games, and this might shock you. You focus objectives, not killing heroes. That’s why lone druid was a great hero. You stay mid until tower is dead. Then you move to THEIR SAFE LANE and push that tower. Then the last tier 1 tower. You’re supposed to APPLY PRESSURE as much as you possibly can – while you do this, map awareness is key. You hit the tower, and you watch the other heroes, see if they go missing, if they TP etc. You don’t even watch the tower you’re hitting, you watch the map. Before all this, you think about who can actually kill you. If your LD and dazzle teleport, what’s he gonna do? You need to make up your mind before hitting the tower how long you should be able to stand there, then you back away when conditions are met. Don’t be surprised when you die at their Tier 2 with all heroes missing. Put yourself in their shoes. If you are fed, they really want to kill you, and will jump at any chance they get. Push a bit, TP away. Its not worth taking the tower if you die. The tower wont go anywhere, get back later and take it. You have already managed to put PRESSURE, and people have started rotating your way. Creating space for you team, and less farm for your enemies. A tower is much more valuable than a kill. By taking a tower you make it harder for the enemy to farm and TP GANK while creating more space for your team to farm. This sounds obvious, but try to keep it in mind. Objectives > kills. That enemy jugg might have free farm and completely crushes the lane and you (as mid) might not be able to kill him. What do you do? You push the other lanes! Either you get a bunch of towers or the jugg is forced to tp (you back away, and their jugg is wasting time + farm). Now go push that tower jugg has been holding because he cant TP for 80 seconds.
Never over extend, and focus objectives. I see in literally every game 1-2 people chasing the supports into the base while the rest is trying to kill the barracks after a team fight. While this guy chases, the others cant really hit barracks either because they are running back and forth wondering what to do and if they should save the guy. YOU WIN BY TAKING OBJECTIVES, NOT KILLING DAZZLE. Dazzle will just save time for the team to come back.
Jungle is at the very bottom of the list. If you are not safe ANYWHERE else, you go jungle. Otherwise, push out lanes and apply pressure.
Learn countering heroes (sounds stupid coming from me spamming 2 heroes but well). Every game i google “phantom assassin counter”, “chaos knight counter”. You learn SO MUCH by doing this. How to itemize, what their weak spot is etc. Viper is great against PA. You remove his passive evasion. while LD is very bad, because PA one shots your bear. Knowing what counters your hero allows you to pick whatever is fitting even if you only play a few. http://howdoiplay.com is a great site to look up tips and tricks about all heroes. How to counter them and how to play them.
Before playing a hero, start by watching a quick YouTube guide to get the basics (you will always learn something). And then go to dotabuff, look up the hero, and find a top player that has played that hero recently (this patch) and watch how he does it. You will learn so so much it’s beyond incredible. Did you know that you can casually stack a camp with your spell? To cut down that tree to maximize farm? When does this hero start joining team fights? When is he strong? After X item? List goes on forever really. EDIT: You start by watching the basic YouTube guide – otherwise you will have a hard time seeing/understanding why the pro player does what he does. For example i recently learned that necros W amplifies his regen by a ton, so its often really good to use after you get a kill in a team fight (aggressively), rather than to use it solely to escape. Stuff like this could be hard to understand from a replay if you don’t know the basics. Also dotabuff is great to check itemization. Look at what items the pro player is buying against what heroes and so on. Try to understand why the itemization differentiates so much between the games.
At the start of games, while waiting for those bounties and everything else. Think about how you should itemize this game. Do they have a lot of physical damage? Magic? Do we have enough catch/stun? As ursa maybe you dont need blink dagger as early if you have great stuns in your team. Pick vlads before, for example. This stuff is important to consider. Don’t blindly follow torte guides.
Check map during downtime (taking shrine, jungling, etc). You want to check position and enemy/teammates items. This prevents double radiance, double greaves, double vlads, etc. And you can buy MKB against that jugg that just started building his butterfly.
Finally, perhaps the hardest one. Never tilt. We’re in this for the mmr, and we learn by mistakes. It’s all good, make the best of every game. If you bash someone, they will play MUCH worse. And you will too, if you get upset. The entire team will play worse by only 2 people arguing. We want to maximize our win rate here, tilting and being unfriendly to others does exactly nothing to improve it. If you have a player on your team that is toxic, you either have to be a super human that is completely unaffected by it or mute them. Even if you think you can handle it, you still get a little upset, and you will play worse. Mute them, and use pings to communicate. A toxic player will never give you any useful information – you’re not missing out.
Use smoke. Apparently you’re not detected by sentries lol.
Abuse currently OP heroes / items, check dotabuff win rates, then guide, then pro-player game play.
That’s all i can think of right now. Hope this will be helpful to someone. AMA. Sorry for spelling mistakes etc
More stuff (mid specific). Never stand around with half health, send salves and mangoes to keep the agression up.
Never gank a lane which is ungankable, you’re just wasting time. Before ganking, you look at the lane and picture the scenario in your head. Is void level 6 and has ult ready? Do they have enough mana for spells? Is it possible? If the answer is an obvious yes. Do it, and get back asap. You don’t want linger in the lane and lose mid because you’re suddenly giving your mid opponent free farm.
Do your absolute best to save your towers. Before ganking (if possible) push out the lane, so you have time to gank and get back before the creep wave is hitting your tower.
Buy your own wards if the supports doesn’t do as you wish, it’s worth it. And if you know for sure where the enemy put a ward, you wont even lose any money by dewarding. (And it helps you a lot)
PS. There is no trench. Every single excuse you have about bad teammates and all that, the enemy has those problems as well. If YOU play better, your team has a bigger chance of winning. You will lose games where you played flawlessly, but come on. In the long run, you come out on top. Instead of being pissed at that guy that made you lose. Think about what YOU could have done different to win the game. That’s all that matters.
A reoccurring issue I see in all skill brackets is people not effectively using the courier. Now, ignoring the classic case of a courier steal when your pos 5 needs a wand recipe after mid already called the courier for crucial regen, there are some basics that help A LOT in getting items out quicker while simultaneously not angering your team mates.
Couriers in DOTA are very important – keep them alive
Courier control makes a huge difference for item timings and morale and I never see this being discussed. So for anyone that might benefit from this info by happenstance, here are some of basics.
– Shift Queueing: Like most hero actions, courier actions can also be queued up, which will then be followed after the unit is done with whatever it was busy with. If you see the courier is delivering items to a teammate and you need to use it right after, simply hold shift and click on the delivery arrow. This will tell the courier to go fetch and deliver your items the moment it is done with delivering its current load.
To expand on this, with the latest update there is now an option right above your stash that notifies the courier that it should pick up your items when it’s in the fountain again. Combining this with a shift queue will allow you to tell the courier to pick up your items whiles it’s busy getting another player’s items and deliver them to you right after it completes it’s original delivery without having to return back to the fountain to get your goodies. That’s basically 1 trip with 2 deliveries without disrupting the original players item timings even by 1 second.
– Sending items to team mates: It’s like nails on a chalkboard for me whenever I read someone typing out “RE USE COUR” since there is no reason to do this. Right clicking on the delivery arrow button will bring up a list of heroes whose items are already on the courier. Selecting one of these heroes will tell the courier to deliver to that player as if that player requested it themselves. This means that if you accidentally steal the courier (or when you are just much closer to the courier and it makes sense for it to deliver to you first) then you can simply right click the delivery arrow button and send it back to the original caller.
Again, expanding on above using shift queuing means that you can either tell the courier to deliver your items and immediately deliver the next person’s items when it reaches you, or tell it to deliver to another person and immediately deliver to you when it’s done. All this without interrupting other players while they are fighting/farming.
One caveat is be careful shift queuing the courier to you after a teammate in another lane. People will have the courier go top directly after dropping stuff bot and the courier will walk down the river and get killed.
Simple solution: Add two queued commands, one sending the courier a little back down the lane into a safer “flight corridor”, the second to deliver your items. For example, when your mid-laner is using the courier and you as the safe-laner also got items in it, shift-queue a move command somewhere behind your mid tier 1 followed by the delivery command so the courier doesn’t have to fly all the way through the river.
Also when defending high ground and you need to get secret shop items, you should shift queue a move command along the edge of the map and then queue the secret shop hotkey so that your courier flies out of vision of enemies before and after it pops out of the trees to buy from the secret shop.
The change in 7.23 was that Poison sting applies 30% Regen reduction.
Poison sting is also applied by plague wards. So if a ward hits you, and you also get auto attacked by veno with poison sting, it applies 2 separate instances of poison sting, which it used to do earlier as well. But now it cuts your HP regen by 30 + 30% = 60%
Tested it out in Demo vs Axe. Initial Regen 40.9, after auto attack, 28.6. With auto attack and wards, 16.4. That combined with Spirit Vessel became -8.2
Combined with Spirit Vessel, the Regen wasn’t 8.2, IT WAS -8.2. NEGATIVE REGEN
This may be obvious to some of you but it wasn’t to me. Apparently Spirit vessel reduces 60% of your total, non reduced Regen, not your current Regen. That’s why when stacked with poison sting and plague wards, the Regen drops to negative.
It’s not (1-0.6) * 16.4 = 6.56.
It’s 16.4 – (0.6*40.9) = -8.14
Apparently the tl;Dr is Spirit vessel on Veno gives 120% Regen reduction.
So Huskar will straight up kill himself with his passive if you get all 3 reductions on him. That sounds fairly unbeatable. I tried this against Huskar to see the interaction against Berserker’s Blood. Since his HP regen increases, the effect of Spirit Vessel also increases. I was able to get him to -30 HP regen before he eventually died. The more health he loses the faster the negative regen ramps up.
You should put first skill into passive and then max out wards, Q is highly situational during first few levels even ulti can be skilled later. Almost always build spirit vessel, but there are some times when your teammate says that he buys it and there may not be a way to talk him out of it. Then u can build veil/pipe/force, basically anything that fits the game.
But in just sub 4k scrub, feel free to hate and better even advise.
I’m a low Immortal player and for the past 2 weeks I’ve played 24 Treant matches with a 3k friend of mine that was coming back from a long break, using a borrowed (former) 2.8k account, and won 87.5% of those games. I don’t have a smurf account of my own, I don’t like to play at that bracket and don’t think I’ve ever played Dota on an account other than mine prior to this, but I enjoy playing with my friends and this was the only way to do it.
So I’m here to tell you how to win with Tree at that bracket.
Treeant Art
Leaving Base
Tree can go in both sidelanes as he is great either way. Get Q, 6 Tangoes, Orb of Venom, a Branch and a Mango. Give 2 Tangoes to your mid player if you have to.
Run as fast as you can (use the trees on the side of the map for MS buff) to the Outpost and place a ward on the lane scouting their tower and then wait for that rune to spawn. This goes for both lanes. I’ve noticed a lot of players don’t rush out of base at this bracket, this isn’t optimal, so if you are an alt-tabber that thinks its fine to waste a few seconds after the match starts, stop.
Use the ward you placed to spot any fool coming to your woods. Q and beat his ass as you grab the rune, a lot of cores won’t be with you cuz they think its fine to go contest the other rune in a 2v1, but with some luck you’ll have a smart pal and a dumb foe which will give you FB. If not, you’ll just get a rune and leave an enemy with 20% HP, forcing his Salve or just providing free farm for your core in the first couple of wave.
Laning
Use Q on every single wave. Not on the creeps, clearly, on the enemy as you leave trees to punch them in the face. You will get a whole lot of kills, but thats not necessary, you’re just making space cuz 3 right-clicks is over half HP of most enemies. This aggression will push your wave cuz you’ll agro their creeps and do some collateral dmg to them, so use your tangoes to cut a way for pulling the hard camp and be ready to pull after they spawn. Its your top priority get this pull so DO NOT miss it. Practice the timings for each pull if you’re not familiar with them. Use neutrals to get denies, don’t rush to farm them, cuz if the enemy tries to contest it you’re probably stronger and can set up some kills like this.
When Q is on CD and your core still isn’t ready to solo farm, stay in lane and help with denies. You hit for 92 dmg, you’ll get them all. If the core can free farm solo, cuz the wave is near tower or the enemy are at half HP and aren’t coming close, leave XP range. Don’t leech XP from your cores and use this time to stack the small camp.
Keep doing this “harass and pull”. When hard camp isn’t available use your stacked small camp. If you don’t have a stack there, use it anyway but time it so you only pull the ranged and the last melee creep in the line, its not hard to do, you’ll get these 2 denies and not push the wave afterwards.
If you do all of this right your core will seriously out level the enemy and you’re free to TP to the other lane to make plays.
Skill Build: Max Q, get 2 points in W then max E. Always get Invis talent, Q dmg in most games, CD reduction everytime, and Ult dmg if games go late.
Item Build: Wand the majority of games, in some rare cases where you’re up against a dual that doesn’t cast much shit, get a -armor orb instead. Regen Boots, Meme Hammer followed by Blink Dagger, and if the game isn’t over yet get Refresher (and mangoes as you do cuz you’ll probably not have enough mana for the combo). This is where playing at 3k bracket shows another big difference, ppl tilt their ass off from losing lanes and are just generally not very good, you don’t need to worry about making stuff that counters them. If you lost the other two lanes (which shouldn’t happen, you should win yours and then help the other sinelane) you can make a Halberd, Lotus, Force Staff, Glimmer Cape, Euls or w/e is needed instead of your Meme Hammer. Also, in the laning stage, buy more mangoes and salves (for you and your core) when needed, don’t let waves go uncontested cuz you’re low HP or have no mana, not even if you’re close to regen boots.
Midgame
Use your ult as soon as you can to get a kill. Overgrowth, Q, W and a +1 will kill somebody. Sometimes you won’t even the +1. Don’t need to save your ult for TFs only.
Now, your Ult dictates where you’ll be playing. When its on CD, go to their safelane and push the lane with Q from the trees. This is what Treant does, with and without Meme Hammer (with it you also dmg their tower), you shrink their map. Ward their jungle, cast E on your team and towers, ferry in clarities cuz you’ll need it unless you got a neutral item for mana. Sometimes you’re forced to TP in to a fight so don’t be shy to do it.
When you have Ult available, go be with your team and make plays. Again, getting their whole team is nice (this is what Blink is for), but ulting for a single important target is more than fine. Go back to slowly getting their safelane’s T2 with your Meme Hammer and warding afterwards.
Lategame
Its all about getting good ults. In TFs you’re not a frontliner, if you have to give your life for a good ult, fine, but if you can Blink in and retreat safely to cast your shit for afar, its better. Q on stunned targets or on chokepoints, use E on your friends, and W when you guys are routing the enemy.
If game is hard and you get lvl25 and Refresher, your combo does like over 1k dmg with the Ults and Q, you can solo win TFs with it.
SOURCE:u/tlo_oly This is a case study documenting the progress and what I did to grow a channel from 0 subscribers to over 90,000 subscribers in 3 months. Below are a series of articles and notes I put together to document my thoughts, process, and strategy on how to accomplish this. YouTube is the second most trafficked website on the planet, next to Google, and there is massive opportunity waiting for those that can crack the system of ranking into the algorithm and create content that a massive amount of people want to consume. I wish you all the best and hope this adds value to you and your journey.
Grow Your YouTube Channel From Zero With The Right Strategy And Not Just “GETTING LUCKY”
Aside from luck, I think there needs to be strategy as well. YouTube won’t help you grow at all from my experience until you prove your audience and trust as a channel. YouTube has to know it wants to promote your content as a suggested video to an audience it can find key interests in.
I tried to figure out the best way to show YouTube what audience WANTS to see my content. So, quality counts there. You need to make content people actually want to see. The key metrics in that measurement is: 1. Click Through Rate and 2. Audience Retention (Watch Time). If you have a decent CTR which I believe is above 8% and a watch time of 5:00+ minutes per video, you are good from my communication with other larger channels.
Ok, so YouTube now knows you have good content that people want to see. Now they need to know you are a channel that it trusts with content. This just takes time and consistency. I recommend daily uploads, bi weekly uploads, weekly uploads, monthly uploads. This depends on the type of audience you have. Example, most gaming channels need to pop out daily videos to be competitive in the market with an audience that demands daily binge worthy content. A review channel or a channel that does comedy sketches that takes time to make, may be a bit more forgiving and come flood your video with views when it releases every month or two. So, that quantity and consistency really relies on what other popular channels are doing and what the audience expects for your type of content.
So, now you have a consistent upload schedule that YouTube can trust, you have a high audience retention rate showing YouTube you have binge worthy content that people want to see, now who is your audience YouTube needs to suggest your videos to?
You have to actively work to promote your content off of YouTube alongside utilizing YouTube’s features for your video to help target an audience naturally.
There are three ways I have come to find that work so far:
Social Media
YouTube Ads (Video Promotion Option)
Keywords in: Description, Thumbnail title, Video title, Tags, About section
When it comes to Social Media:
Facebook
I have come to learn that Facebook is completely dead unless you have a group. But a Facebook page is useless these days unless you pay for it and with paid sources there are much better places to put your money.
Instagram
Instagram is dying as well, but not as bad as Facebook pages. Facebook has literally made decisions to stunt organic growth as a means to boost the need for you to spend money on ads to grow your presence online with their platforms. There are some strategies to grow on Instagram without spending money, but they have proven to not be as effective as other sources.
Instagram also goes out of its way to ban you for trying to build your profile too fast with follows, likes, comments, essentially anything the platform was originally intended for. Too many Bots and third party software took advantage of growth strategies and automated it to a point where Instagram got fed up with the spam and pretty bans you as a human for producing bot like results with Shadow Bans, cool down periods of Action Blocks, and flat out account Bans.
So, if you are willing to put up with it, try going on Instagram and find relevant account profiles to what kind of content you make, or go to popular YouTube creators Instagram profiles that fall in your category for content and do the following:
Look through their posts and start looking for a post that has less than average likes. This shows that the users the liked the content are really active and engaged in the content. Then go follow those accounts. This is done in hopes they will see your follow or follow request and either follow back or go look at your profile at least and then decide they may be a fan in the future of your content.
Make sure to go and like posts of the accounts that follow you back and take some time every now and then to go on your explorer page and like posts from people you follow. This shows people that you are real and not some spam account that just followed them to unfollow them later. You’d be amazed at how happy people get when they follow you and you go and like their posts. They usually return the favor and this looks good for your account and you can build some loyal fans that way.
Watch the stories of the people you follow. A lot of people go into their stories and see who watched their story posts and get excited when they see you watched theirs all the way through.
Do a search for hashtags or searches for keywords that are relevant to your type of content or audience and then go on a liking spree. Go like posts. This will give your account a possibility of being discovered by other people that look at who liked the post. It will also show smaller profiles that you liked their stuff and they may go check out your profile and follow you.
Don’t expect hashtags to do much. Instagram literally only shows about 30% of all content to people that follow you. In other words, even if people follow you, there is a good chance they won’t even see your posts because Instagram doesn’t push it into the explorer feed.
Eventually after your account ages well, and you start to get engagement on posts and people start following you, Instagram will trust your account more and then you will slowly start getting the original perks of being able to get discovered through hashtags and posts. Just don’t expect a lot of organic growth. Those days are over, it’s pay to play now.
As you can see, Instagram takes a lot of work, but if you are serious about it, put in the time and you will see returns on your effort. Of course you need to post to your account as well. Make posts about thanking them for follower goals, post clips of your videos, make announcements of your newly released videos. Your entire goal should be to push traffic to your YouTube channel in hopes of gaining new Subscribers and getting dedicated fans to view your content with high retention. Let the ego go of not trying to interact with people because you are a “big YouTuber to be”. Stay humble and interact with people and talk with them to build a bond with your fans. It goes a long way. You should always interact with your fans by responding to comments on posts and videos for as long as you can until your channel is so big that you physically can’t anymore. So, until that day comes, put in the effort to respond and thank people for everything.
Twitter
Twitter has proven to be pretty useless as well. Twitter is good for announcements and communicating quick thoughts to your audience. Just don’t expect to grow a Twitter account without having people actively searching to follow you. Hashtags just don’t work like they used to and you won’t build a large Twitter following more than likely posting away with hashtags or not.
Twitter is great for networking as the engagement on the platform is so terribly low that you can be seen by users that are otherwise usually hard to get ahold of. Ever seen an account with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of followers that literally gets like 5-100 likes per tweet? Yeah, all the time. Don’t expect twitter to get much out of posting. It’s good to have so people can go follow you there and interact with you. But overall, it’s a lot better for networking and connecting with other users.
P.S. Yes I know that there are examples of accounts that get excellent engagement on their posts, but this is rarely the case.
TikTok
TikTok is fresh and hasn’t stunted organic growth opportunities yet. Of course it still requires you to post content people want to see and engage in, but you CAN actually grow on the platform. My anecdotal example would be: I posted three days ago clips of my YouTube videos and I have gained over 4,000 followers and 72,000 profile likes on all the videos combined. I have also grown my YouTube channel by over 700 new Subscribers and 23,000 minutes of watch time. All within a 72hr period.
My strategy that I believe you should implement is to take your best clips out of your YouTube video and make it into a TikTok upload (I do this by exporting the clips to my Desktop > Upload to Google Drive > Download from Google Drive onto my Phone > Upload from my Phone to TikTok). And try to upload as much as possible. Utilize hashtags, and relevant keywords in your post, and ALWAYS put a call to action with “Full Video on YouTube Link in Bio” or something along those lines telling them where to go to find more if they like what they are seeing. Keep clips between 7-17 seconds ideally and leave them with a coherent point from the video that will make them want to check your profile and maybe go Sub to your YouTube channel.
Relevant factors I have noticed with TikTok to get views:
Likes – you want to try and maintain a good view to like ratio. I have noticed 10% is decent enough to have the video keep getting pushed into impressions.
Follows – if your video starts getting a lot of follows as a result, expect your video to go viral or semi viral. This is probably the most important factor I have noticed as a metric for virality: get follows from the video.
Profile Visits – people go check your profile. TikTok knows they found the right audience when people want to go see what else you have to offer.
Shares/Duets – when people share your content or duet it, it also shows TikTok that your video is socially worthy of this audience and trusts that the law of averages will play out and you will get impressions as a result.
Comments – comments show interest, but ultimately you want people to comment @ their friends. This garnishes more views and social proof of worthy content. It’s like a share within another form of engagement (comment).
YouTube Ads
If you have trouble figuring out what is trending or how to take advantage of new search traffic that enters the platform, then I recommend the YouTube Thumbnail Ad video promotion strategy. You can target anything on YouTube to have your ad as an impression on: Channels, Specific Videos, Audience Demographics from: Age, Location, Language, Household Income, etc.. If you hone in and target your audience well then you should have no problem getting views down to $0.01-$0.02 per view and you’ll be able to get a lot of views and engagement fairly quickly.
Just remember, with the YouTube thumbnail ads, you will usually get a lot of dislikes just because there is a social stigma around using “ads” to garnish views and grow your channel. But there’s nothing wrong with an ad, you are simply paying to get your content shown to people that otherwise would not know you exist as people are either not searching for your keywords or YouTube just simply doesn’t promote your channel or video beyond a few impressions. It’s a known fact that the top 3% of channels get 90% all of the views and less than 1% of videos get over 1 million views. So, to compete and grow an audience, YouTube ad promotions really work in my experience. You just have to target the right audience.
Though the dislikes may suck, the subs you get and positive engagement in the comments will help grow your channel and let YouTube know what kinds of people enjoy watching your content and it will eventually get recommended to the right people. YouTube’s algorithm needs to know who to show your content to and that the platform can trust your channel to put out good content that people want to watch. This is why CTR and Audience Retention is incredibly important. Boost CTR with good thumbnails and titles, boost viewer retention with great content that hooks for first 1 minute and then retains minutes 1-5 are critical.
Keywords
The first minute is the most important and the minutes from 1-5 are crucial to have the most captivating content in order to get the highest retention possible.
Create content around what keywords are being searched for. If you spend a lot of time making a great video, you want to get it seen. The best way to do that is to post content that people will search for.
Really use your description as an opportunity to get your keywords in your upload. Keywords are key to ranking and you can get all your relevant searching keywords and long tail searches in the description. This will help YouTube rank your video as people click on it, stay and watch, and interact with your content.
Thumbnail and Title:
YouTube wants a good CTR (Click Through Rate)
You get this by having a captivating thumbnail that makes people want to click when there is an impression. Avoid small text and a lot of complexities going on. Make it simple, easy to read text, and not have a lot going on. Also, make sure to leave the viewer wanting more. Don’t answer what happens in the video in the thumbnail, build suspense and desire with the thumbnail.
Make sure the title is captivating as well and generates interest. It needs to be relevant to the video and style of content your viewer base is looking for. Also use the Title as a way to capitalize on major keywords for search results most relevant to your content and the audience you are targeting.
Make sure to title your thumbnails and video with relevant keywords within and also add tags (meta data) within the image and video file.
Links in Description: If you want to guide people off your YouTube page and follow you on other social media, make the links clickable. They should be able to just click the link and go straight to your profile. People will rarely see your username and actively go search for you.
End Cards: make sure you have end cards at the ends of your videos (this one did – so that’s good). This allows viewers to continue to binge your content and get to know you better as a creator and want to keep coming back for more.
This is my two cents on the subject. Hope it helps. This is all my opinion and is subject to be completely wrong. I just simply believe these to be the reasons for my stunted growth or growth in general.
How To Get Monetized On YouTube In 33 Days [A Case Study]
The main things I learned:
High CTR (Click Through Rate)
High Audience Retention
You need to focus on making sure a relevant audience is targeted by YouTube for your channel overall. Once YouTube sees a high CTR and high audience retention, it starts to look for an audience. Once it figures out what kind of audience watches your content, it pushes your vids like crazy and the channel sees real growth.
I would say high CTR is over 10% and videos 10-15 minutes get over 5 min watch time averages for high audience retention.
Search results don’t seem to matter as much as they would seem. With traditional SEO for things like blogs and branded sites, it matters so much and I recommend tools like SEMrush to help with research. But for YouTube, videos seem to be hardly found through search when comparing the results of successful videos to the impressions YouTube just hands out to your video if the algorithm likes you content. And YouTube likes your content when you can keep people on their platform and engaged in their brand. This is done by getting people to see the impression of the Thumbnail and Title, clicking on it, and then staying for a long time and engaging with the content through liking, commenting, subscribing, clicking an end card, watching another video of yours or watching another recommended video (therefore not leaving the website). This keeps YouTube a dominate website and makes their bounce rate stats insane compared to other websites on the internet. This generates trust from companies to know they can feel comfortable dedicating massive amounts of money from marketing budgets towards this arm of their strategy. Therefore, the channel wins, YouTube wins, and advertisers win.
Results (Proof of Concept)
When I originally posted this Post I was at:
731/1000 Subscribers and 476/4000 hrs watch time (Requirements for Monetization)
Currently the channel is at 53,000 Subscribers and 479,000 hrs of watch time
I was able to post my first video on October 24, 2019 and got the official “Congratulations” email from YouTube on November 25, 2019 to be approved for the YouTube Partner Program.
Summary
Ideally you want your CTR to be as high as possible when the video first comes out (24-48hrs) this is critical as the higher the CTR and the higher the AR (audience retention) the more impressions you’ll get. If you get a 15-20% CTR that’s amazing, which is why I recommend trying to get over 15%. The more YouTube pushes the video with impressions, it’s natural for the CTR to drop. YouTube wants to push good videos as long as it can until the CTR gets burned down to low conversions. This is why videos get pushed for many months and sometimes even years.
The key is to make a Thumbnail that captivates the viewer and use a title that compliments the thumbnail, but try not to reuse text in the thumbnail in the description. Also, make sure you focus on keeping your audience retention as high as possible. I try to aim for 10+ minute videos and anything under 5 minutes for me is not good retention. My videos average around 6:30-7:30 minutes retention.
The key to high retention is making sure people click and don’t leave within 10 seconds because they see the video is really off from their expectation or there is not captivating reason to stay. Next, focus on first 69 seconds of the video. Your best stuff should be packed into the first minute of the video. If you have a decent intro that is good energy and captivating, you can use the rest of the first minute to put in the best content available for the video. Don’t be afraid to mix the video up, even out of original recorded order, to fit in the best stuff. Next, focus on keeping people from minute 1 through minute 5. Do this with keeping up with you audience expectations for your niche. What is it that other massively successful channels are doing? Take notes and study their content. Understand what they are doing and implement similar strategies and styles to make sure you are aligning with what has already been proven in the market to succeed for that targeted audience.
From there is just a game of uploading consistently and waiting on YouTube to kick in it’s magic and boost your channel. There’s 4 phases to YouTube’s algorithm:
Identify channel uploads (consistency) and CTR/AR (Click Through Rate/ Audience Retention)
Video Suggestions
Audience Identifying
Channel Growth
YouTube sees your uploads are consistent and that the CTR and AR is high. Once this occurs, you will start to see YouTube views coming from Suggested. Once suggested happens, YouTube then sees if it can identify an audience that shares similar interests and if those suggested views garner the same CTR and AR. If the CTR and AR are good on the suggested views, YouTube then takes the audience it has identified to want to consume your content and the channel takes off pretty fast because you will start getting a ton of Browse Feature views. Once you get the Browse Feature views going, you are locked into the algorithm.
And from there is just posting consistently and keeping your CTR and AR high. The main thing I learned as well is that because YouTube needs to identify an audience, it’s important to make sure the content or niche you are targeting with your content stays very very similar in each video. Don’t get too much variety for the channel. Keep the theme and subject matter consistent. The moment you want to veer off into another area of interest or focus, it’s better to start another channel just for that.
Side Notes
I.
I believe it takes about 30-90 days to get a channel from zero to favored in the algorithm.
Basically the name of the game is:
Pick a niche and stick to it without changing up. This allows YouTube the opportunity to discover your best audience. You won’t get recommended (impressions) if YouTube isn’t confident it knows your audience. YouTube loses as a platform if it recommends the wrong content to the wrong people and the UX side of the equation is hurt. So audience identification is a major factor.
YouTube won’t look for an audience if your content isn’t something that people want. How do you prove this? CTR AVD and total watch time. YouTube sees a high CTR 10%+ ideally (Click Through Rate) and High Average View Duration (aim for 50%+) and minutes watched. A 10 minute video with 30% AVD (3:00 minutes) is better than a 2 minute video with 80% AVD (1:36 minutes).
YouTube sees you have good CTR and AVD, you’ll start to see suggested views as the source. Once this occurs, you’re looking good. Now it’s just about consistently uploading and keeping your KPIs high (Key Performance Indicators).
Once YouTube identifies your audience with suggested views and the algorithm likes your channel and is confident you put out stuff people care about and want to watch, you will get Browse Feature views. That’s the big wave you ride and comes the “YouTube Success” people seek. Basically this is where YouTube builds your channel for you as long as you keep putting out good content that’s relevant to your audience.
The name of the game is to help YouTube make as much money as possible. This is done by keeping people on the platform for as long as possible to expose them to more opportunities to see ads. You do this and YouTube will reward you with tons of traffic and impressions.
II.
This is all you need to worry about:
CTR
AVD
Total Watch Time Accumulated
YouTube targets the right audience
Consistent Uploads
CTR – Relevant content your viewers want to watch with a Thumbnail that is captivating and evokes an emotional response and a NEED to click.
AVD – Content that is entertaining for the targeted audience. Does your audience like High Energy? Calm Energy? Detailed Descriptions and lots of Talking? Raging at the Game? Long Drawn Out Intros? To The Point Videos? etc.
How much watch time does your AVD add up to? Are you gaining a ton of watch time for the videos and channel overall? YouTube needs people to stay on the platform for as long as possible, the more you are able to keep people on the platform, the happier YouTube is.
Is YouTube targeting the right audience? Look at your Suggested View Sources. Are these videos relevant to your content? What are the CTRs and AVDs of the videos being suggested? Did you do anything to potential make YouTube identify the wrong audience? Sub4Sub? Post on Reddit or Facebook Groups? etc. If YouTube suggests your videos to 100 people across 100 different videos and out of that you get a few to click and Watch a lot of the video, YouTube will know there is an audience out there and that IT was at fault and your content doesn’t suck. If you get suggested and no one is clicking or watching a lot of the video at all, YouTube will think your content sucks and move on.
Are you uploading consistently? How often are other channels in your niche uploading? 2xs a day? 1x a day? 2xs a week? 1x a week? You should be pumping out content at the same rate as the other big channels in your niche.
III.
You want to help YouTube identify your audience, so here are some tricks:
In your description:
Put – “Inspired by [channel names of VERY VERY similar channels]”
Also add something like:
Check Out More Videos or More Awesome Videos
[Channel Name| Video Title | {Video Link} ]
[Channel Name| Video Title | {Video Link} ]
[Channel Name| Video Title | {Video Link} ]
This will let YouTube know who your audience is related to, and if people click on these links it will show a common interest from the viewers and associate your content with these other videos and channels
Next, make a playlist:
Hot COD Vids [Or whatever you like lol]
Add Your Videos and Other Videos from channels you are trying to gain an audience from or have an audience identified from for your channel.
Put this playlist as an End Card in all your videos. People that click on these will see your video, another channel video, your video, another channel video (mix it up). And this will also tell YouTube that these viewers that watch your content want to see more of your content AND like other channels like yours. Over time YouTube will recognize this and start suggesting your videos to the right audience (the channels you are associating with).
Once you do this, if your content is good with high CTR and high AVD, YouTube will now know your audience (because you helped it figure it out) and you are in business.
IV.
You can grow with only YouTube. There is no need to post videos anywhere else. However, I have noticed that TikTok does not stunt organic reach like other platforms like Facebook and Instagram. So, the best thing that I’ve found is to grow organically on YouTube by understanding how the platform works and if you want, you can post clips on TikTok and get a lot of traffic and potentially subscribers.
However, YouTube is very particular about identifying audiences. So, if you are posting videos online and it’s driving traffic to your videos but the audiences are not right for the content and/or people are leaving very quick and the watch time is low, it will affect your channel overall and you will see slower growth and potentially even hurt the channel from growing at all.
Basically, ideally you want your CTR to be as high as possible when the video first comes out (24-48hrs) this is critical as the higher the CTR and the higher the AR (audience retention) the more impressions you’ll get. If you get a 15-20% CTR that’s amazing, which is why I recommend trying to get over 15%. The more YouTube pushes the video with impressions, it’s natural for the CTR to drop. YouTube wants to push good videos as long as it can until the CTR gets burned down to low conversions. This is why videos get pushed for many months and sometimes even years.
The key is to make a Thumbnail that captivates the viewer and use a title that compliments the thumbnail, but try not to reuse text in the thumbnail in the description. Also, make sure you focus on keeping your audience retention as high as possible. I try to aim for 10+ minute videos and anything under 5 minutes for me is not good retention. My videos average around 6:30-7:30 minutes retention.
The key to high retention is making sure people click and don’t leave within 10 seconds because they see the video is really off from their expectations or there is not captivating reason to stay. Next, focus on the first 60 seconds of the video. Your best stuff should be packed into the first minute of the video. If you have a decent intro that is good energy and captivating, you can use the rest of the first minute to put in the best content available for the video. Don’t be afraid to mix the video up, even out of original recorded order, to fit in the best stuff. Next, focus on keeping people from minute 1 through minute 5. Do this with keeping up with you audience expectations for your niche. What is it that other massively successful channels are doing? Take notes and study their content. Understand what they are doing and implement similar strategies and styles to make sure you are aligning with what has already been proven in the market to succeed for that targeted audience.
From there is just a game of uploading consistently and waiting on YouTube to kick in it’s magic and boost your channel. There’s 4 phases to YouTubes algorithm:
Identify channel uploads (consistency) and CTR/AR (Click Through Rate/ Audience Retention)
Video Suggestions
Audience Identifying
Channel Growth
YouTube sees your uploads are consistent and that the CTR and AR is high. Once this occurs, you will start to see YouTube views coming from Suggested. Once suggested happens, YouTube then sees if it can identify an audience that shares similar interests and if those suggested views garner the same CTR and AR. If the CTR and AR are good on the suggested views, YouTube then takes the audience it has identified to want to consume your content and the channel takes off pretty fast because you will start getting a ton of Browse Feature views. Once you get the Browse Feature views going, you are locked into the algorithm.
And from there is just posting consistently and keeping your CTR and AR high. The main thing I learned as well is that because YouTube needs to identify an audience, it’s important to make sure the content or niche you are targeting with your content stays very very similar in each video. Don’t get too much variety for the channel. Keep the theme and subject matter consistent. The moment you want to veer off into another area of interest or focus, it’s better to start another channel just for that.
V.
Watch hours usually happen very quickly once things pick up. If you have a 5+ min AVD on a video and it gets thrown into the algorithm you need about 48,000 views. This can be accomplished with one video alone in a day or across a few decent videos that take in 10,000-20,000 views.
Focus on getting CTR and AVD as high as possible and keep an eye on if YouTube is trying to find you an audience. YouTube is looking for your audience with Suggested Views. The more content you give it, the more it will test audience groups. This is why uploading content a lot is good for growing quickly. You give YouTube more opportunities to search for your audience. This is also why you should stick with your niche and don’t switch up your content . You want YouTube to identify your audience and consistently get it right.
Create content for niches that get tons of traffic and that people want to consume. Get your CTR and AVD high. Pump out content as much as you can. Become a content creating machine. Watch your KPIs and see where you can improve. Watch for YouTube suggesting your content and where they are suggesting and what the results are. Then be patient and upload consistently if everything is looking good.
If your CTR and AVD are not good, youtube won’t even try to find you an audience because it has no incentive to. YouTube makes money when people stay on the website for as long as possible. If your content can’t keep people on the platform, youtube has no interest in helping your channel grow.
If you can keep people on the platform with great content, youtube has a massive incentive to find your content a home with the proper audience and it will continually reward you as long as you feed the system what it needs to make its platform the best experience as possible for its user base and make the platform a ton of money by keeping people on the website.
VI.
You do not need to post anywhere else to grow on YouTube. YouTube has an algorithm that works and if you hit your KPIs, the system will reward you. YouTube is designed to take underrated content and blow it up, along with promoting already proven content.
In fact, promoting on other platforms may or may not hurt your growth. YouTube builds a profile to figure out your audience. If you promote on say a Reddit forum and people go watch it, YouTube will build a profile around those viewers and try to recommend your content to what THOSE viewers are interested in. If they are irrelevant to your niche, YouTube will then have the wrong data to work with because you fed the algorithm bad information by bringing in irrelevant traffic to your channel/videos.
It feels like there’s a huge surge of PL games – what gives? Not enough counters? PL feels to me like a hero you 100% lose to late game if you don’t have the right draft. Everyone says that the draft doesn’t matter at all here so how do you deal with him without using earth shaker or timber…
How come he is so popular? Was there a nerf or buff that made him really good all of a sudden?
How do you beat him without the hard counter heroes? Strategy/Items?
What other heroes besides the two mentioned are good at beating him? I know legion commander is decent and maybe ember spirit?
Is he balanced/where he should be in comparison the other heroes?
When he hits level 6 should I just abandon lane as an offlaner or is there any point in staying?
PL Artwork
It’s actually not that hard to deal with a PL.
In general, illusion heroes like PL and Naga have become decent picks this patch. In the PL games I’ve seen, people counter PL with an ultra fast draft. The point is to choke the enemy out of their jungle and into high ground by minute 20-25
He has the highest base damage in level 1 in the agility section, making him have a good lane because he can last hit easier, with quelling blade, its almost assured that u can last hit every creep,
Id say the best counter to PL is Axe, Lion, Ember, Puck, Magnus and many more, I wouldnt say ES because in late game, if PL has heart ES wouldn’t do anything even with his ult to PL because of his high hp.
Yeah Legion can counter PL in the early game because of her aggressiveness and her 1st skill.
I’d say he is one of the best carries this meta.
If you are an offlaner, you shouldn’t let the enemy carry farm freely. ask help from your fellow supports or your midlaner. and if you are still in the draft selection of heroes, NEVER LET THE ENEMY TEAM LAST PICK PL.
About his level 6, if you as offlaner along with your 4 can dumpster their lane before the PL hits 4-5, then you should aggressively take their safelane tower. Try cutting the creepwave while chipping away at their tower. Then ward their jungle areas. Absolutely no breathing space should be given. PL is actually weak even with lev6, and is pretty easily killable until he gets a Diffusal + Manta up. PL loves farming jungle, so you have to choke him out. Mid plus 1 or 2 supports can easily kill PL in the mid game, if you have some sort of wave clear.
IIRC, in the minors game of Nigma vs RNG, Nigma picked PL, while RNG picked Lifestealer and Underlord. The game was pretty matched even at 70+ minutes. Underlord’s atrophy meant PL can’t deal any damage at all, and Lifestealer had built Mjollnir for the illusions. Miracle, being the madlad that he is, ultimately bought a divine rapier for his damage issues.
I decided to create this guide to focus on tools that can help you improve your analysis on Dota 2 or even improve your general view of the game. I will divide it on 2 categories, websites and tools.
Websites
Dota2protracker This website is similar to dotabuff, but only shows pro players – at high MMR pubs. It’s very great to check out how a hero is being played, picked and is a very great tool to learn a new hero. Why I consider this over dotabuff? Because it narrows down the search to only high mmr pubs. On dotabuff, sometimes you’ll receive a replay from a 4k/5k player while on dota2protracker you’ll only get replays from a 7k/8k player, which will have a much better game quality.
GOSU.AI This website analyses your profile and gives you general tips on where to improve. For example, your farming skills, warding skills, time lost on the shop, it’s a very great tool if you feel like you don’t know where to improve. You can also add the bot on your friend list, on steam, and you can choose on their website to receive a message with a analysis of your performance on the last match.
Opendota This website is similar to dotabuff. It shows a lot of data from your matches but you don’t have to pay to see them, however, if you enjoy this website, consider donating to them to keep it running.
Tools
NoBling This is something that removes the effects on all the sets in Dota2. You can also use it to remove taunts, voicewheels or even to remove the appearance of the sets – making all the heroes to look like default. It can help with performance in potato PCs.
DotaPlus from Overwolf I cannot recommend this enough. This software adds a interface to your game during the pre-match, suggesting bans for your team. For example, if there is an enemy meepo spammer, unless their profile is private, this tool will show you. It also includes pick suggestions for your team, which is a pretty cool feature. The new update includes MMR Tracking, showing your MMR gain or loss with a neat match history.
Game Summary from Overwolf This tool is for pos-match. When you close your game, he will display all your deaths, assists and kills. It’s very good to see where you made a mistake without having to go to the game, download a replay and look for yourself. You can set-up record quality, a location for where the clips will be saved and also the maximum size (when you reach the limit in GB, it will start automatically deleting old clips before saving new ones).
Well, hope this guide adds something new for you guys. If you need any assistance on any feature feel free to ask.
Here’s an example, you pick mid and lose your lane but wait, you get a lucky team fight 15 mins and you’re back in the game. The enemy tilts and you proceed to win. Don’t pat yourself on the back here, acknowledge your mistakes and lack of skill. Be real, you got lucky. Stop thinking shit like, “look, I picked mid and carried!”.
I always see this happening. People writing off their mistakes as not that bad and then praising everything they did as perfectly played. Let’s be honest, ya? Most of us have clocked thousands of hours into this game. You can tell for sure how well you’re doing to an accurate degree if you wanted to.
Watch your own replays and pretend that you’re a 3rd party. It’s very straightforward to tell if you played amazing, decent, average or shit. If you went 10-0-10, ask yourself honestly, did you really play amazing? Or was it that your enemies were bad? Or you got lucky? Or your team played really well?
I’m not saying to always assume you’re a shit player that gets lucky if he wins. I’m saying that in order to improve as a player, it takes an objective view. If you keep deluding yourself into thinking that it wasn’t your fault you lost or that every win was because of you, then you’re just going to stay in whatever shit MMR bracket you’re in forever.
F(AWXM) 