Too many people don’t know the basics of using the courier effectively

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.

Venomancer is disgusting to play against right now

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.

How to play Treant Protector: Guide for 3k players.

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.

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.

And this is how you win with Treant.

Why is Phantom Lancer so Strong in the Current DOTA Meta

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?

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.

6 Tools to help you improve in Dota

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.

5 minute guide on how to earn thousands of MMR in Dota

Be real with yourself.

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.

How to Counter a Bristleback [Dota 2]

As someone who plays alot of Bristleback, Viper is the most painful to play against. Getting stunned into his w just kills you if you’re not snowballing. Silver edge carriers are effective but if you outlast the purge – it’s not hard to deal with. Viper’s W plus a stun or hold absolutely shreds you. Viper + Shaman combo is deadly against Bristles.

Core silencer is probably the second hardest for me to deal with, the pure damage and the inability to cast spells without refreshing curse is really difficult to play against.

As a Bristle against a Silencer it’s advisable to get a lotus orb – to dispel.

Besides for the two heroes, spirit vessel is good, long disables (shadow shaman) As well as people who force you to face them (legion, axe)

Also fighting against any six slotted hc seems impossible, a six slotted bristle gets melted by a six slotted am or void or drow.

Slark is another hard counter – but you need to snowball pretty quickly and survive the laning phase to be effective. I’d recommend playing a few games as bristle and see how the enemy team deals with you, then do so yourself next time you face him. I know for me Riki seemed unbeatable until I played as him and got sentried and dusted into oblivion, doesn’t scare me at all anymore.

Buy a fast wand and prepare salves. When BB spams quill spray, he is either a) over-extending just to refresh the debuff b) Low on mana. If he doesn’t kill you when he starts spamming quill, he will lose out because you will have a 20 charge wand and full health( from salves). Once you have full hp, go and trade with him to force him to spend gold on regen. Item progression on BB is quite important as his mid-game is quite weak if he doesn’t have the tank items. He also can’t spam quill to farm waves because of mana issues so his farming isn’t great and he has pretty bad stat growth for a strength hero.

In team fights, your team shouldn’t be committing spells/ over-committing to kill him unless he over-extends by a lot. Quill takes quite a few casts for it to start to hurt so you should just go completely ignore him go for his team. He is a tanky af hero but he can’t 1v5. The best thing to do is ignore him. Bristleback wants to be hit and if you hit him even if he dies he still does his job. You waste your time not killing his supports or his carry and you’re getting quilled the whole time. Just ignore him and focus the rest of his team. When his team dies 5v1 him and kill him last.

Heroes that are good against him would be:

Lion( Mana drain, Stuns for repositioning),
Nyx (Mana burn, Stuns for repositioning),
Axe( Call, spin),
Viper (Magic resist shred + Break),
Legion Commander( PTA purge, duel),
Lifestealer,
Ursa,
Ancient Apparition (ulti)

If you follow any of the above tips – Bristleback will be the least of your worries.

What to do when your lane mate is taking your farm? [Dota 2]

It seems like a terrible situation. You need farm but your lane mate is fighting you for last hits. He has higher damage/attack animation so he has advantage over you. As a result, your timing is delayed.

10 minutes in, you got shit tier level of last hits and you are a gimped carry.

What would you recommend in this situation?

Some things you can do. They’re not all ideal but after a few items you should be able to do more dmg and get last hits easier.

Ask him not to last hit and explain why.
Buy small stat items (wraith band for example) for more dmg.
Buy quelling blade if you’re melee (he should not have one).
Farm small jungle camp until you have more dmg (because of small stat item).
Try to dmg creeps so there are two creeps to last hit in which case you can take the one hé doesn’t get.
Use spells to get last hits.

Also, positioning. You can stand closer to the creeps so you can last hit them before his projectile finishes off the creep.

You can also just think of your support as another ranged creep. 🙂

I had some luck with, instead of saying, “Don’t hit the creeps!”, saying “Harass the other carry.” That way they’ll feel like they’re doing something, especially if you harass at the same time and can force the opposing carry out of lane.

It is much more effective to tell them something you want to do “will you please hit that ogre magi as much as possible” or, “would you mind stacking a jungle camp or two” instead of telling them to not do something.

Human psychology in a nutshell. It’s like we are built to go against someone telling us not to something.

7 Tips to get better at playing support in DOTA 2

A few things I’ve learnt from playing as a Support:

1. Don’t feed by showing in lane and greedily farming multiple waves of creeps

(unless you’re creating space worth your death). If it feels like you’re “pushing the lane” you actually could just be a just a greedy pig.

2.If you find an enemy sentry on a high-ground ward spot, don’t kill it: place an observer ward there and beg your team to leave the enemy sentry alone.

3. Full mana during laning stage = major pussy alert.

4. Buy sentries as starting items especially if invis heroes on map.

5. Use observer vision in mid lane to scout out mid lane obs wards.

6. After dying, TP back to lane for XP, but also bear in mind that TP may be needed to save your mid / other lane from GANK.

7. My own: as a support in the offlane, if the enemy messes up their lane and a big push comes down early, it can be a good time to leave the lane and GANK mid. This helps win mid and also gives your offlane core some high XP while the enemy is trying to pull their lane and recover balance.

Mastering the Game of DOTA – All you need to know about how I hit Immortal

Have you ever felt stuck in your gaming life? Have you been playing the game for years and be static with no improvement? Do you play without a game plan, walking around the map clueless of what you should do? Do you feel your team does not execute to their fullest potential and you lose most of the games because of them?

If the answer to the above questions is YES, you came to the right place. This is my personal story of how I managed to improve, make my time more valuable and hopefully you can learn from my mistakes. I know what it feels like to be static for years, without improvement, game plan, playing more and more and be the same player without any change. I’ve been the guy above, and truth be told most of the players act this way. I can’t recall how many years I was stuck between 4 and 5k MMR. Frankly, it’s not about the number, it’s about improving.

This is going to be a long post. But honestly, I don’t want to start back from 2005 2006 when we used to be kids and nobody really knew what was going on. So, this story starts in 2013 2014 when the game was quite complex, tournaments more challenging and fun to watch and players started to have somewhat of an understanding of what was really going on in terms of what and how you should play the game.

About me: Like the rest of the community, I was a casual gamer playing a few gamers daily, some days more some days less. And like the rest of the community, my MMR was like a rollercoaster. That means, they were time I would be in a huge win streak and they were times I would lose over 500 to 600 MMR. Overall, I was stuck between 4,4 to 4,8 MMR. Like anyone else, I watched casual youtube videos and followed the scene, having more understanding of what was going on but the end result was no improvement. Unfortunately, we have to admit that MMR represents our skills overall. That includes everything from communication to mechanics(not 100% accurate, but truth be told if someone is around 4k he plays pretty much for 4k, etc).
After getting a little older, got into university (currently working) and having less time (still played my few games daily) I realized I needed to improve.

But Jeff why would you improve since you have a life going on? :
Imagine you play guitar for years daily 2-3 hours. How would you feel if after 6 years of playing you were not able to play a single song and be static?
Imagine you are going to the gym, constantly working out daily and haven’t lost any significant weight or gained no muscle

Obviously, you want to play guitar or a body that functions well. And we can all agree that if you are going to the gym for years and see no improvement, or have been playing guitar for years and not be able to play more difficult songs in the long term run it’s quite frustrating.

But jeff I don’t want to go pro in Dota :

It is not about become a rockstar, a bodybuilder or a pro player.
It’s about making our time more valuable. Since we invest the time playing, we should improve

If you are Herald/guardian you should gradually want to reach Archon/legend over the long run. if you are Ancient/Divine you should try hit immortal, etc…

How I improved and currently being Immortal :

I analyzed my own replays. The whole youtube is about how CCnC stomps lane and how Miracle Rampages. Nobody really talks about what Archon, Crusader and Legend players do. Watching the wrong mistake and realizing it is way more important than watching the right play

By watching the correct play, you usually cannot identify it and apply it into your games

2) Does youtube videos help? Yes, it does but please don’t overdo it though. What I mean is that most youtube channels ou there provides the same value and recycle the videos (get more cs by 10minute, watch the map). They provide no new information because there are not. I am not ditching them, they need to make content. Keep it simple, watching your replays and you will surprise how much you will improve in no time
Jeff do I need to watch every replay? No. Generally, try to watch a little bit of your laning stage, your farming pattern and your big blunders (diving towers with no actual purpose, etc)
Most Commoned question: How to watch replays: Check your laning stage(0-7min), your farming pattern(7-21min) and your TP scrolls(when you fought, when you reacted to a situation/fight)

3) Think about the games consciously and do NOT play on autopilot (SUPER IMPORTANT)
Example: Offlane doom vs Tree lifestealer. All the damage you are going to receive is physical
Solution: Double ring of protection(which is basically way better than extra regen) -> You get a buckler later on and most likely you are going to have a really comfortable lane( don’t forget quelling blade and regen if they focus you too much!)

This is a simple thought process to make my point. People play on autopilot and do not think anything about the game. I know, I used to do that. This tip can literally win you countless games. DotA is a simple game, but easier said than done

4) Nothing changes if nothing changes. That means you should apply the simple things I mentioned above and see if you have somewhat of progress. I would love to hear someone getting improved and messaging me back in a few weeks. Generally, if add or remove something from your playstyle, you cannot expect to gain MMR. All you do longterm is getting new bad habits and become worse slowly but steadily.

This post is for every single one struggling to gain MMR for a long period of time.
I know that people who work and play DotA as a hobby will understand what I am talking about.
I would love to read comments down below about your current time issues, situation, and experience from the game.
Choose who you want to be. The guy who steadily improves or the guy who wastes his time?
It’s up to you!

Jeff (u/dotarollercoaster)