Beginner’s Guide to Team Composition and Roles – DOTA 2

This is a guide written for new players as well as low-rank players (Legend or below) such as myself.

There’s a lot of great guides out there by Jenkins, Elwono and many others to help us new players, and also comprehensive introduction to Dota by Purge which is amazing. This guide is a bit different. While all of those guides focus on how to actually improve your skill and get better at the game, the purpose of this guide is to entertain you and intrigue you with some insights about team composition. If you watch pro games, you may find this interesting, and it may answer certain questions about roles and lanes. I must provide a disclaimer and say that as far as pubs are concerned at our levels, 90% of the discussion below is absolutely irrelevant and will not do anything to improve your gameplay in any way.

So first, let’s try to categorize the 5 heroes playing in one team. There are 3 different ways we can think about categorizing heroes:

Lane – The setup of which hero going in what lane
Role – What are the key job(s) of each heroes throughout the game
Win condition – This decides the farm priority of the 5 heroes

We will use the 5 most played heroes in the last 12 months (other than Pudge) as examples: Lion, Ogre Magi, Invoker, Wind Ranger, Phantom Assassin.

1. Team Composition by Lane

The first is the simplest, and the one most familiar to most of us.

Let’s say you are radiant. The bottom lane is called the safe lane, and the top lane is called the off lane. Usually, the heroes on your team will play in a 2-1-2 laning formation which means 2 heroes top (offlane), 1 hero mid, and 2 heroes bottom (safelane).

Usually we will see an Invoker going mid. The PA is likely to go bot as the Safelane Carry. Windranger can somehow hold top, so she’s the Offlane. Ogre and Lion are supports – between them, Lion is not really that dependent on items early, and can afford to be more selfless. Ogre Magi is also not that much item dependent, but craves the Arcane Boot than Lion craves his first item. So that leaves Ogre Magi as the Soft Support and Lion as the Hard Support. So the team compositions by lanes is:

Safelane Carry – Phantom Assassin
Midlane – Invoker
Offlane – Windranger
Soft Support – Ogre Magi
Hard Support – Lion

We will usually see the Soft Support go to the Offlane and the Hard Support go to the Safelane, though this is not always the case.

2. Team Composition by Roles

Now going by roles, Phantom Assassin is the carry of the team. The term “carry” means that this hero scales very well with gold (items) and levels, and is capable of carrying the team to victory in the endgame. PA is also capable of initiation, but that is not really her job int he team because there are at least 3 others who do it better.

Invoker is the CC (crowd control). Referring to traditional roles, you could think of Invoker as the Disabler, Nuker, Pusher, Initiator, and Counter-Initiator (Disengage specialist). Among these, Invoker’s primary role is Disabler and Initiator (Quas-Wex build), or Nuker and Pusher (Exort build). Invoker can control the crowd through Cold Snap, burn their mana through EMP, slow them down in the Ice Wall, disarm them using Deafening Blast. Invoker also deals massive damage (Nuke) with Chaos Meteor, and Sun Strike. It’s Forged Spirits and Alacrity are often great tools for Pushing lanes and taking objectives (buildings). Tornado is a good disabling spell, but you could think of it as Initiation or Counter-Initiation. Similar to Invoker, most mid heroes have some kind of heavy nuke power or at least some pushing power.

Windranger is our offlaner. It’s a bit of a weird choice to some because the Offlane role is often associated with a “tanky frontliner” i.e. a durable hero that can soak a lot of damage and enable its teammates to dish out damage to enemy. Essentially an Offlaner is any hero that can 2v1 or even 3v1 against the enemy, and deal with the annoying shit of enemy pulling their creeps etc. It’s windrun provides some survivability/mobility, and powershot lets it Nuke down creeps when it’s too dangerous to go near for the last hit. In this team, however, Windranger’s primary role is not a Nuker or a Disabler. Make no mistake, Shackelshot is a GREAT disable and Windranger can nuke heroes down as well. In the context of this team, Windranger is the de facto Initiator (as many Offlaners often are). With a Shadow Blade (or preferably, Blink Dagger), it can start a teamfight in a way most favorable to the team. Also, as the Offlaner, Windranger is able to create a lot of space for its carry (PA). Windranger does this in a variety of ways – it can gank enemy heroes and delete them, it can pressure a tower through its ultimate, it can make enemy heroes waste valuable time chasing it around in its windrun. This is why it’s not so hard to see why Windranger is a very capable and competent Offlaner.

Both Ogre Magi and Lion are capable of being Hard Supports, but traditionally, Lion is the less item dependent between the two. These two heroes have the role of Support and Disable. They are the primary disablers of the team. Once Lion gets its dagger, it arguably the best candidate for Initiator int the team, so that’s another of its role. Depending on the matchup, Ogre may decide to roam around and let Windranger solo the offlane. But Lion will stick to Phantom Assassin for sure, acting as a babysitting support against an aggressive lane, or a zoning support in general.

You can learn about all of the common roles here. But I will provide a brief summary below:

Role	Short Description	Frequency (how often it appears in a game)	Popular example in <4k Pubs
Carry	Heroes that scale very well with items and levels	Almost all games have multiple heroes of this role	Phantom Assassin, Juggernaut, Sniper
Support	Heroes that are able to do well at low levels without items	Typically 2 heroes per team, but sometimes there may be less in greedy or low-level teams	Lion, Crystal Maiden, Ogre Magi
Nuker	Heroes that can do huge amount of burst damage using spells	Quite popular, typically most teams will have more than 1 nukers	Lion, Invoker, Zeus, Shadow Fiend, Lina
Disabler	Heroes that can control the opposition. Stuns are the most common and “hard” disable, but there are other disables including silence, root, disarm etc.	It is difficult to have a team of 5 heroes without ANY disable, but in low-rank games, sometimes a team may lack any real hard disabler	Lion, Earthshaker, Axe
Durable	Heroes that have a great deal of survivability due to armor, magic resistance, high HP, or any other kind of damage mitigation / health regeneration. These heroes can frontline and soak damage	Usually the offlaner is the Durable hero, but sometimes there is no Durable hero in a team (this is not necessarily a problem, but it requires more skill for a team to play without any “tanky” frontliner)	Wraith King, Bristleback, Axe
Mobile	Heroes with high mobility that are capable of closing gaps or escaping easily due to a spell/ability they have	Not really essential to the team, but the sometimes may have a mobility hero	Weaver, Anti Mage, Queen of Pain, Slark
Pusher	Heroes that have the ability to push lanes well and/or take objectives. There are two kinds: (1) fast creep wave clear and (2) sieging buildings	A team should ideally have at least one good pusher, but in low-level pubs, it is a common scenario that the team lacks any real pusher – because of which it is difficult to take towers after winning a fight	Nature’s Prophet, Invoker, Jakiro are great overall pushers. Heroes like Tinker are great at shoving the lane forward and clearing creep waves but not so great at sieging buildings. Shadow Shaman and Pugna are potent at taking buildings, but not the best at clearing creep waves
Initiator	The hero on the team that can open the combat in a way that is favorable for the team. A good initiation means it’s never a fair right – its advantageous to the team that has the better initiation	Sometimes good initiators are missing in low-level games. In some cases this is due to lack of initiator heroes selected, but in many cases, it’s also because a hero that can become a very potent initiator is not played that way (for example, Lion)	Lion, Axe, Legion Commander, Earthshaker (all of them are quite blink dependent, but can also initiate without blink in certain situations)
Ganker	This is a combination of Nuker and Mobile heroes that have some kind of a high duration or hard Disable. These are heroes that have a lot of burst damage and also the potential to close down gaps in order to “hunt” lonely enemy heroes	Not many gankers are played at low-levels, and even when they are, ganking is not too common a practice as players at our level prefer to clump down together and love teamfights	Templar Assassin, Riki, Storm Spirit, Bloodseeker, Ember Spirit, Legion Commander
Counter-Initiator	These heroes are great at reacting to enemy heroes and are great at turning the tides of battle.	Typically not very favored in low-level pubs because counter-initiators are sometimes seen as boring, and not very flashy or aggressive	ALL initiators are somewhat good counter-initiators (like Tidehunter and Enigma), but I will only name heroes below that are NOT good initiators: Silencer, Omniknight, Undying, Dazzle, Winter Wyvern
Roamer	Not to be confused with gankers. Gankers are typically core/carry heroes that roam around the map in midgame looking for certain KILL. Roamers are supports that start moving around the map very early in order to establish map control and annoy key carries	Almost non-existent in low-level games. And when picked, a Roamer is usually flamed by the team because sometimes it’s difficult to appreciate and understand how good a job a Roamer is doing (for example, warding all of Alchemist’s neutral camps)	Bounty Hunter, Earth Shaker, Lion
Jungler	I will quote dotapedia here: ” Junglers are heroes that can efficiently jungle neutrals at the start of the game, rather than lane”. Almost no heroes can jungle that efficiently, and in low-level games, having a jungler usually results in auto-loss due to enemies dominating all lanes and winning the game quite early	Fortunately, not as popular as it once used to be. If you are below Ancient, please don’t level 1 jungle. Win lanes, win games. Thanks.	Nature’s Prophet, Axe, Crystal Maiden, Ursa (I did not mention Lone Druid, Chen and Enchantress because these heroes are never picked at low-level games except by smurfs)

3. Team Composition by Win Condition

Once it hits its critical mass of level and items, Phantom Assassin can single-handedly take out the enemy heroes and win its team the game. This is why it can be called the Primary Win Condition.

In the event that PA does not get the job done, Invoker can pull off some amazing combos to kill heroes, and even take objectives very fast. This is why it’s the Secondary Win Condition. The hero scales quite well with levels and items.

Windranger scales well with levels and items too, but in this game, PA and Invoker scale better. So Windranger’s job is to create space so that PA and Invoker can farm really fast. To do this, Windranger can occupy the time and attention of multiple enemy heroes simultaneously, push lanes, hit towers, force rotations. Also, during “peacetime” in midgame, it is the job of Windranger to farm the unsafe areas of the map and overextended lanes, so that the two WinCon heroes can farm the 2 jungles efficiently.

Ogre Magi’s job in this game as the Core Enabler is to make rotations, make plays and do things that help its 3 WinCon heroes (known as Core heroes) to farm efficiently. Efficient farm = farm fast + farm safe. In this process, Ogre Magi might pick up some last hits and gold here and there.

The Position 5 Hero, Lion, is the no-farm hero of the team. What Ogre does for the 3 Core heroes, Lion does for all of its teammates. An interesting difference between the two would be – if there is a Mid Tower that needs defending (mid tower should always be prioritized at it provides enemy access to jungle), and the team is hesitant to go there because enemy heroes are nearby, then it is Lion’s job to go defend that mid tower. This is one scenario, and there are many other scenario where this hero makes risky plays, sacrifices, long walks, and buys time and creates space for the rest of the team. In this process it does gather gold over time. When it is near completing a very game-changing item (such as sitting on 1900 gold, about to buy Blink Dagger), sometimes the other heroes should let Lion get some farm to quickly get Blink online.

In some team compositions, due to the nature of the two supports selected (for example, an Undying and a Crystal Maiden), it is clear that Crystal Maiden will be the No-farm support. But in many cases, if two “eligible hard supports” are selected such as Lion and Crystal Maiden, then both can be thought of as position 4.5 from the beginning of the game – and as the game evolves, more farm is allocated to the hero that is likely to have great impact of the game (this depends entirely on what are the other heroes in the team and in the enemy team). Many core heroes can be played as a Position 4 support (Core Enabler) such as Weaver, Zeus etc. But only a handful of heroes can be played effectively as a Position 5 Support. A good litmus test to know whether a particular hero would be an amazing position 5 hero is to ask this question “Will this hero be able to contribute greatly to the team even if it has only brown boots at 12 minutes?” If the answer is either “no” or “maybe”, then this is NOT a position 5 hero. Sure, in most cases even the Position 5 hero will have some small items at 15 minutes like arcane boots, Tranquil Boots, Bracer etc. but a good Position 5 hero should be prepared for the scenario where that does not happen so that it can remain effective even without farm and not fall off the game or be a burden for its team.

Putting it all together

So below is the summary of the things I have discussed thus far.

Position	Hero	Lane	Role	Farm Priority
Pos 1	Phantom Assassin	Safelane Carry	Carry	Primary Win Condition
Pos 2	Invoker	Mid hero	Nuker, Pusher, Counter-initiator, Disabler	Secondary Win Condition
Pos 3	Windranger	Offlane	Initiator, Disabler, Nuker, Pusher, Mobile	Space Creator
Pos 4	Ogre Magi	Support	Disabler, Support, Roamer, Counter-initiator	Core Enabler
Pos 5	Lion	Hard Support	Initiator, Disabler, Support	No Farm

It’s good to think about the TEAM in terms of Role (does my team have enough push, enough nukes, enough lategame potential, enough early game survivability etc.). But when deciding where to lane which hero, the approach of “most carry-type hero goes safelane, typical mid goes mid, tank goes offlane” is a safe, tried and tested approach, but sometimes it can be sub-optimal. It always depends on the enemy lineup where your heroes lane. For example, let’s say your team has 3 cores: a Juggernaut, an Invoker and a Bristleback. And your enemy team has 4 standard heroes, and then a surprise last pick Brood. You know it’s likely that Brood is going mid. And you know Brood is going to destroy Invoker (or anyone else that gets sent mid). And you know that based on the other 4 heroes of the enemy, Invoker may actually be a very valuable asset in this game. So, what you do is send your Invoker in the offlane. And Bristleback lanes middle against Brood. In this example, did Invoker get downgraded to Space Creator and Bristleback upgrade to Secondary WinCon? Nope. Bristleback is still the space creator and Invoker is the Secondary WinCon – with just swapped lanes. Farm Priority is not always linked to lanes, you see. Sometimes the safelane carry goes offlane and offlaner comes to safelane because of an unfavorable matchup (imagine your Juggernaut going against an Axe and Sand King lane – no thanks).

Dota is a beautiful game and team composition is one of the most fascinating things about it. We often don’t think about it as much for a few reasons. The biggest reason is that it’s not that relevant to whether we win or lose at lower ranks, since even the best draft of counterpicks will not win the game if you are crushed at the game of last hitting and denying. Another reason is that there is a lot of conventional wisdom about Team Composition that we all “know” and adhere to which kind of keeps our teams in check (5 heroes: 1 typical mid, agi carry in safelane, tanky strength hero in offlane, two supports, one of them can be greedy). But sometimes, the difference between winning and losing can be your 4th and 5th pick. You look at all the heroes of your team and enemy team selected so far and think “what does my team need now?” The answer will not be “Offlaner.” The answer will not be “Stuns”. The answer will not be Position 3 (Space creator). The answer will be “a hero that can offlane against those two xyz heroes that enemy is likely to put on safelane and disrupt their farm a bit while not dying too much, and this hero should have some decent disables since the rest of my team lacks any, and also the hero must not be too greedy as it needs to be a Space creator (Position 3)”. With this kind of thinking, you can great improve your picking. Also, after all 10 heroes are picked, team composition STILL can influence decision making a lot. Where are you laning your heroes? Do you want your safelane carry to dodge a dangerous lane? Do you want to help your carry trilane? Do you want to have a support as a roamer to address their annoying Mid that you don’t have any real counter for other than lane harass and warding his camps?

These are very interesting and amusing thoughts, and the more games you watch (both pro games and random pub games of your level), the better you will understand these things and the more fun you will have while thinking about stuff like this. But in your game, your actual game, during playing – you don’t have the luxury to think about all of these unless you are an afk Pos 5 support. Because youa are ranked lower than Legend and you should just focus on last hitting, denying, creep aggro, proper itemization according to timings and enemy heroes, taking objectives, and map control. Work on the basics first – then you can maybe think about Team Composition in your free time. But the more you think about Team Composition, watch videos of commentary during draft, or draft analysis, the better you will be about understanding the game at a macro level.

How to Mount a GoPro to your Motorbike Helmet using Sugru – Shoei Helmet

In this video I show the easiest way to chin mount a GoPro to your motorbike helmet using Sugru. My helmet is a Shoei Multitec from way back when. Enjoy!

Timestamps

0:10 Mount GoPro

7:19 Test Bike Footage

Ultimate Huskar Guide – DotA 7.24

This guide will tell you all you want to know on how to be reported after stomping all your games. Huskar is one of the best solo queue heroes in Dota and I’m going to show the ways of the Huskar.

Lane: Mid – Huskar safelane is OK too, but never take him offlane.

Counters

Counters for each position, from most annoying to lesser counters.

Ursa, Troll Warlord, Juggernaut, Weaver.
Invoker, Viper, Windranger, Timbersaw, Lina, Necrophos, Razor, Shadow Fiend.
Timbersaw, Axe, Doom, Legion Commander, Night Stalker.
Ancient Apparition, Witch Doctor, Skywrath Mage, Windranger, Zeus, Shadow Shaman, Lina, Bane.
Same as 4.

Level One Skills

Inner Fire should be taken against heroes that can mess up your cs, or you can’t harass level one. Take this against Tinker, Pugna, Lina, Windranger, Sniper, Arc Warden, Zeus, Viper, and Death Prophet.
Burning Spears should be taken level one against melee heroes and ranged heroes you can harass. You shouldn’t take this level one if you missed your creep block, since you can’t trade favorably with most heroes level one. Take this against Pudge, Timbersaw, Bloodseeker, Brood, Shadow Fiend, Naga, Tiny, Storm Spirit, Ember Spirit, Void Spirit, Templar Assassin, Riki, Alchemist, and sometimes Outworld Devourer.
Berserker’s Blood should not usually be taken at level one. The only time you should take this skill first is when you miss your creep block badly or will be harassed very hard. Skywrath Mage is a good example of when to take this skill.

Laning Stage

Go 1-2-2 at level five. This skill build allows you to jungle effectively and survive almost any lane.
Use creep aggro and Inner Fire to secure the ranged creep.
I would recommend rushing armlet after your two bracers. Boots should be bought before armlet in matchups where you need the speed, like Razor.
If you are having a hard time in the lane, tell one of your supports to go take it so you can jungle. Huskar is one of the fastest junglers in Dota so losing lane isn’t a big deal.

Item Build

Start with two gauntlets of strength, a circlet, an iron branch, and a set of tangoes. Build into two bracers.
Rush Armlet next if you don’t need a fast boots, which you usually don’t. Buy Power Treads next, then Heaven’s Halberd. Morbid Mask if you need survivability. After that, buy BKB and Satanic. Assault Cuirass or Aghs depending on the enemy team for your 6th item.
Two Bracers -> Armlet -> Power Treads -> Heaven’s Halberd -> BKB -> Satanic -> AC or Aghs.

Best Neutral Items for Huskar

Ironwood Tree, Poor Man’s Shield, Faded Broach.
Grove Bow, Vampire Fangs, Vambrace.
Paladin Sword, Titan Sliver, Craggy Coat.
Flicker, Minotaur Horn, Havoc Hammer.
All of them except Seer Stone.

Talents

Level 10 always take 15 damage.
Level 15 almost always take 10 Burning Spears Damage
Level 20 take 20 Strength, unless they have a backliner like Sniper or Zeus.
Level 25 always take Pure Burning Spears. They also pierce spell immunity now.

Rosh Times

Many people take Rosh right after Armlet (8-9 minutes). I don’t recommend this. I would instead farm until you have Heaven’s Halberd, then take rosh. With the Huskar changes in 7.23, Heaven’s Halberd is your new powerspike. An average Armlet Treads Halberd timing would be around 15-16 minutes. Take some fights after that. In a good game, you will get BKB at around 20 minutes. Sometimes you can push highground right then, but other times you have to wait until Satanic and next Rosh.

How to Play Huskar

When playing Huskar, start by screaming into the mic “I AM THE CARRY NOW!”. After that, be the carry. Actually though, when you are playing Huskar, you are like a black hole sucking in all the farm on that map for the first 15-20 minutes. You should NOT be constantly fighting on Huskar. The way you fight is you hit hard timings and push a tower. They will come.
You should NEVER have less than 60 last hits at 10 minutes on Huskar. The hero is a farming machine, so if you can’t farm lane, go jungle.
PLEASE don’t be ganking unless you get a haste rune. You are a slow slow hero and it’s a total waste of time to walk across the map just for a gank. Instead, farm your way through the jungle towards the lane you want to gank.

Matchups

This is going to be very long.

Sniper. Use your Q to CS. He will out harass you. Can kill at 6 easily. You lose late game.
Tinker. Use your Q to get CS. You can’t really harass him. Can’t kill before 6 without a support rotation or if he misplays. After 6 just Life Break him if he lasers you. Easy kill. You lose late game.
Lina. Use your Q to get CS. You can’t harass her. One of the few matchups you should go 1-1-3 at level 5. To kill her you need to dodge her stun with your ult and jump her. Wouldn’t recommend trying until you have armlet. Sometimes leave the lane after she hits 6. Drag out the game if you are losing. You win late game.
Outworld Devourer. Use your Q to get CS, unless you have a good block, then take Burning Spears. Very difficult to kill OD. Need a support rotation. Leave the lane after he hits 6. You win late game.
Alchemist. Harass with Burning Spears. He can’t do anything against you. You win late game.
Viper. Use your Q to get CS. Another possible 1-1-3 matchup. Easy kill at 6. Life Break him after he plops down Nethertoxin. You will kill him easily. If he goes on you use Life Break to jump out of Nethertoxin. You lose late game.
Razor. Use your Q to get CS. Rush boots in this matchup. Inner Fire doesn’t stop him from attacking you in Static Link. Leave lane if it is going badly. You win late game.
Pugna. Use your Q to get CS. Easy lane for you. Can kill at 6 if he messes up. Life Break dispels Decrepify and breaks Life Drain with the spell immunity. You win late game.
All the Spirits. Harass with Burning Spears. Hard to kill after 6. Easy lane for you. You win late game.
Brood. Harass with Burning Spears. If you let her build her army you are screwed. So you have to force her out level one or lose the lane. You win late game.
Meepo. Harass with Burning Spears. Take a point in Inner Fire before 3. It pushes him far enough away to be out of poof range. You lose late game.
Templar Assassin. Harass with Burning Spears. You can kill at 6 or before if she misplays. Very easy lane. You win late game.
Shadow Fiend. Harass with Burning Spears before he can build up Souls. This matchup gets very difficult if he gets souls. You can dodge razes and his ult with Life Break. Difficult to kill at 6. You win late game.
Monkey King. Harass with Burning Spears. Rush boots in this matchup. Use Inner Fire when he gets to 3 Jingu stacks. If he stuns, turn on him. If not run for your life. You win late game as long as you stay out of his ult.
Kunkka. Harass with Burning Spears. You can use Inner Fire to prevent him from using Tidebringer. Easy matchup. You can dodge X, Torrent, and Boat with Life Break. You win late game.
Clinkz. Take Inner Fire if you have a bad block, Burning Spears if you have a good block. Pretty easy matchup. You can kill at 6 if you reach it before him. You win late game.
Death Prophet. Use your Q to get CS. Mildly difficult lane. You can kill at 6. You win late game.
Puck. Take Inner Fire if bad block, Burning Spears if good block. Puck doesn’t have enough damage to kill you but it is very hard to kill Puck. Life Break goes through Dream Coil. You win late game.
Timbersaw. Harass with Burning Spears. Rush boots. Use Inner Fire to push him away if he gets close. Whirling Death wrecks you, so don’t let him do it. You lose late game.
Bloodseeker. Harass with Burning Spears. Can’t jungle against him, so you have to stay in lane and ruin him. Easy kill at 6. You win late game.
Lone Druid. Take Burning Spears or Inner Fire. You can’t really kill the bear so just focus on CS. You lose late game.
Invoker. Quas Exort is one of your most difficult matchups. Take Inner Fire to not get cold snapped and get CS. Easy kill at 6. Use Life Break to dodge Meteor, dispel cold snap and deafening blast. Quas Wex is an easy lane for you. Not enough damage to kill you. You win late game.
Necrophos. Harass with Burning Spears. Very easy until level 6. Then just leave the lane and jungle. Later on, don’t show in fights till he uses his ult. You lose late game.
Skywrath Mage. Take Berserker’s Blood level 1. 1-1-3 at level 5. Hard to kill him. Easy to CS though. You win late game.
QoP. Kinda difficult. Take Berserker’s Blood first. Can only kill her if she misplays. You win late game.
Windranger. Use your Q to secure CS. Hard to harass her. 1-2-2 at level 5. You can kill her at 6 if she didn’t max Windrun. Use Inner Fire to disarm her if she goes on you. Heaven’s Halberd helps a lot. You lose late game.

All right I think that’s everyone. If I forget one or you want to know more ask me in the comments.

Power Spikes

Huskar’s power spikes are kind of funky. He spikes at 9 minutes (Armlet), 15 minutes (Halberd), 20-22 minutes (BKB), and 26-28 minutes (Satanic). His hardest spike is Halberd. Huskar actually scales very well. So if you are losing, drag out the game and chances are you will win. Burning Spears pierces spell immunity and is pure damage at level 25, and Life Break also pierces spell immunity. When BKBs are short durations, Huskar destroys. The other day I 1v4ed an OD with rapier, 6 slotted Faceless Void, Lion, and Undying, and killed them all.

Random Tips

Inner Fire ignores terrain. So you can cliff people.
You are spell immune during Life Break. So it breaks undispellable stuff like Pugna’s Life Drain.
You can also dodge abilities, like Magic Missile (venge) and Wraithfire Blast (wraith king).
Use Inner Fire to push SF away from you when he is ulting, or to push MK out of Wukong’s command.
Wait until Necro/AA uses their ults before you show in a fight.
Don’t stand in nethertoxin.
USE YOUR HALBERD. So many people forget to use this item.
You can dispel Spirit Vessel, but not Heaven’s Halberd, with Life Break.

Best Teammates

In order by positions, after that no particular order.

Ursa, Bloodseeker, Drow, Troll, Juggernaut, Monkey King, Slark, and Phantom Lancer.
This is You.
Tidehunter, Ogre Magi, Centaur (retaliate aura on Huskar lol), Axe, Dark Seer, Underlord, Tusk, Omniknight, Phoenix, and Slardar.
Tiny, Earthshaker, Nyx, Dazzle, Oracle, Shadow Shaman, Phoenix, Treant, OmniknightOgre Magi, Shadow Demon, Lion, Chen, and Io.
Same as 4, but without Tiny, Earthshaker, and Nyx.

The End

Yeah I think that is pretty much it, if you have any more questions leave a comment.

8 years ago Mark Cuban said “following your passion is a bad advice. Don’t follow your passion, follow your efforts”… check out his article below, I think it has some gems specially at the end.

I hear it all the time from people. “I’m passionate about it.” “I’m not going to quit, It’s my passion”. Or I hear it as advice to students and others “Follow your passion”.

What a bunch of BS. “Follow Your Passion” is easily the worst advice you could ever give or get.

Why ? Because everyone is passionate about something. Usually more than 1 thing. We are born with it. There are always going to be things we love to do. That we dream about doing. That we really really want to do with our lives. Those passions aren’t worth a nickel.

Think about all the things you have been passionate about in your life. Think about all those passions that you considered making a career out of or building a company around. How many were/are there ? Why did you bounce from one to another ? Why were you not able to make a career or business out of any of those passions ? Or if you have been able to have some success, what was the key to the success.? Was it the passion or the effort you put in to your job or company ?

If you really want to know where you destiny lies, look at where you apply your time.

Time is the most valuable asset you don’t own. You may or may not realize it yet, but how you use or don’t use your time is going to be the best indication of where your future is going to take you .

Let me make this as clear as possible

When you work hard at something you become good at it.
When you become good at doing something, you will enjoy it more.
When you enjoy doing something, there is a very good chance you will become passionate or more passionate about it
When you are good at something, passionate and work even harder to excel and be the best at it, good things happen.

Don’t follow your passions, follow your effort. It will lead you to your passions and to success, however you define it

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.

How To Gain 90,000 Subs In 3 Months on YouTube

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 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 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

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.

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.

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.