After some very vague hints were dropped that Dota 2 may be this week's TNT, I have taken it upon myself to provide the Giantbomb community with an expedited master class in pub-level Dota that I have dubbed:

How to Not Make an Ass of Yourself on Live Broadcast 101

Here's the fucking Purge guide because someone was going to post it anyway.

So let's get down to business. I have already taken a leap in logic assuming this is going to be a community TNT, so let me take yet another daring leap and assume you all understand the basics of Dota.

You still following along? Okay good.

Now then, as you all already understand the basic concepts of building your hero, last hitting, hero roles and team fighting let's get this class started with some basic survival tips. The most important thing about playing Dota on a live stream is

DON'T FUCKING FEED.

Not only will your team lose any and all faith in your ability to contribute to the game, but you will also be laughed at and berated by hundreds of people who almost assuredly are far beyond your level and almost definitely wouldn't have ever under any circumstances died in your position.

Lesson #1: Use the Buddy System

One of the first things you may realize when joining a game of Dota, and something that takes most players months of game time to comprehend, is that there are four other people on your team.

Please take a moment to reflect upon this new information.

Contrary to what most people belief, the four other people sitting in your fountain are your friends. They are not competing with you for highest gold per minute or most kill steals. These other people are both your allies and friends, and you should come to rely on them for assistance in times of dire need.

If you have played a significant amount of Dota then you probably realize that there is power in numbers. In a game between two teams of roughly equal skill most early kills will not come from even engagements, but rather from 2v1 or 3v2 engagements. Unless your opponent really fucks ups and doesn't respect your hero's effective range of threat (the area around which each individual hero can apply pressure through attacks or abilities) you are rarely going to kill another player in a scenario where both sides have the same amount of heroes, at least in the early to mid game. Just having one more stun or even a little more right click damage is usually enough to get a kill.

Really what it all boils down to is if you are trying to accomplish something have a buddy. If you are going to gank a lane make sure you outnumber them. If you are trying to push a tower bring someone with you to get it done that much faster. Hell if you're just going to check Roshan have someone tag along, because you can be damn sure if you get stuck out in the middle of the river with no back up you're fucking dead.

If you need any reassurance further reassurance of the power of numbers just go look up how many times Wisp has been banned in the last few months in any tournament outside of Asia.

There ya go.

Lesson #2: WAAAAAAAAAAAARDS

This one is going to be rather short, but it is probably the most important.

I don't know how there are still so many peoplepeople who still don't get this, it's really kind of baffling. You've all probably played an RTS right? Starcraft? C&C? Warcraft 3 perhaps? You see all that black shit all over the map? Yeah that's called Fog of War.

Under normal circumstances you will not be able to see what is underneath the Fog of War, so allow me topull back the curtain and enlighten you.

HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE TRYING TO KILL YOU.

There's a reason you can only buy four wards at a time, it's because they are easily the most powerful item in the game.

Aghanim's Scepter? Fuck that. Divine Rapier? Baby shit. Aegis of the Immortal? Please.

Information is everything, and knowing where your enemy is is the easiest way to get ahead in this game. You see the enemy mid hero going top to gank? Guess what he just wasted a whole two minutes accomplishing fucking nothing because you were ready for him before he even got there.

And I don't want to hear this "That's the support's job." shit either. Do you know how much gold a hard support has at any given point in time?

It's fucking zero

Yes they should be buying wards and placing them, but when it's twenty minutes into the game and they're still working towards boots because they have to spend 200 gold every six minutes it's time for the team to start contributing a little.

Also while we're at it have a fucking TP scroll on yourself, forever.

I'm not going to explain this to you just fucking do it.

Lesson #3: Just pick someone with a fucking stun

Sadly this will be our last lesson for today, however do not take this topic any more lightly than our previous ones. It may, perhaps, even be the most important.

When you think of heroes commonly picked by pro players in high level Dota may names come to mind: Nature's Prophet, Chen, Io, Puck, Visage, Tinker.

You are not a pro player, these are not the heroes you will be playing. This is pub level Dota mother fucker and we got a saying around these parts, "Whoever has the most stuns wins."

While this may not be true in all cases, picking a hero with good crowd control abilities is probably the best thing you can do for you team. It doesn't matter how farmed you get, how many items you have or how far ahead in levels you are; if you get chain stunned for ten seconds you're probably going to die. At the very least, you're not going to be contributing to a fight.

Well that is unless you have a Black King Bar, but let's get real this is a pub game.

Heroes like Sven, Nyx Assassin, Rubick, Chaos Knight, Witch Doctor, Vengeful Spirit, Ogre Magi, Lion and many others; these are heroes with powerful stunning abilities that are pretty much impossible to fuck up. Having any one of these heroes will boost your killing potential, survivability and laning presence ten fold. Hell even powerful slows like Lifestealer's Open Wounds or Venomancer's Venomous Gale are enough to give you the extra edge you need, even if their usefulness starts to fall off late game.

Really what it's all about is when you're picking make sure you are contributing something to the team that the team needs. Whether this be more damage potential through hard carries or magical nukers, pushing power through summonable pets or abilities, initiation via powerful ultimates, or even just really useful abilities like Beastmaster's Hawk or Dazzle's Shallow Grave.

But most of the time, just having stun is enough. If you can't find any weaknesses in your team's line up, if you just don't know what to pick and you got ten seconds left on the clock, just pick someone with a fucking stun.

Okay that's all for now, I would write more but I don't want to. I can't think of anything funny to say, I just don't want to write anymore. Hopefully we weren't horribly misled and this weeks TNT will be full of laughter and tears on the digital fields of war we lovingly refer to as Dota 2.

Remeber, don't fucking feed.

Ctrl-f "feed"

This thread checks out.

I hate it when people swear at me for playing a game wrong.

The only thing I have to say is: The chat is going to be sub-4chan levels of decency if they play Dota. It is going to be so, so bad.

Well, learn to play then. Sure, it sucks but MOBA games are utterly reliant on teamwork your actions directly affect everyone elses experiences with the game. There flat out IS a wrong way to play these sort of games.

Dota is a game where you are completely reliant on your team, so if you are playing shitty you are ruining 4 other people's game. It's a difficult situation to handle but if you are the kind of person who prefers playing their own particular way than this is probably not the game for you.

I've been playing against bots, and occasionally I'll be with a few other new people as well, and boy do some of the non-new players get cranky.

Been playing for a couple days now and am getting the hang of it.

So you are saying another TNT that I could careless less about? Thanks for the heads up

I played a little MOBA so I now how important teamwork is, but the tone of the OP is consistent with why many people are scared of MOBA's and their communities. Why not give some helpful hints in a constructive and non-condescending way.

@jozzy: Nothing came off as condecending in the OP. Facts am facts and he just laid them out.

Often times, a new player doesn't recognized they are in danger until about 1 second before 4 attacks come in at the same time. It is easy to say "Don't feed" but it is better to recommend to new players "Be aware of the swarm."

@demoskinos: @twigger89: Unfortunately, while it is true that the team dynamic makes your actions matter more, it is no excuse for the level of verbal abuse in MOBA games, and we shouldn't try to defend those who resort to swearing at people in frustration. Often times, it isn't just that someone is playing wrong, which in itself isn't an abuse-worthy sin, but that people want to take out their frustrations on someone else and shift around blame, especially when losing.

If players really want others to play correctly, they have to foster an environment that supports people learning the right way rather than just beating and tearing down people.

See this,

this is what turns people off MOBAs.

All the advice is good and probably well intentioned, but this kind of negative judgmental attitude is not welcoming to casual and sporadic players like Brad likely is. My guess is Brad will not be playing Dota 2 much after this , due to his job and gaming habits whatever.

People need to chill out a bit more in and about these games. Really they are a ton of fun if you don't have to deal with ragers. They don't help the team dynamic anymore than newb feeders do.

The chat will be sooo bad. Can't wait for the impending implosion. Hopefully Brad Muir and Greg Kasavin can save it.

@truthtellah: I agree we shouldn't defend the assholes who's verbal (or written) diarrhea ruin the game regardless of whether or not you win, but calling someone an asshole is not the same thing as being a dickhead. If you can't take some basic rough housing (ie the kind of stuff your friends would do to each other and you) than you need thicker skin. Cursing is a perfectly viable form of expression, and while it is generally abused (particularly by annoying teenagers) I think it gets far too bad a rap.

@slag: Ragers aren't nearly as bad as feeders. You can mute a rager and pretend they don't exist, and as long as they are playing ok it will not impact your game at all. A feeder will fuck up the game regardless of how nice of a person he/she is, and that's just a fact. That's not to say I prefer a rager over a feeder, I'll take a nice idiot over an asshole competent player any day. I can teach the idiot to play well, but you can't do much with an asshole.

Fuck I just realized I'm kinda defending the Dota2 community. It's such a shame it gets such a bad rap because I'd love to be the one shitting on it myself but truth be told it's not worse than any other gaming community out there, the game itself just requires a lot more time than most other games (only really rivaled by competitive rts's) and therefore only the stubborn and bitter tend to survive.

Man, I love Dota 2, but I just don't think this game will work as a TNT at all unless they do something goofy like ARDM or OMG. I doubt they'd do ladder or anything more serious than that, but even an SD lobby match will probably just end up being #TeamBrad getting rolled and weird stuff in the game chat. I can't imagine they'll end up playing more than 3 matches in total anyway. Would be interesting to see what Greg, Brad, and Brad like to play though.

Thisssssssssssssssss. I want to get into DOTA 2 and while I try to get a key from someone I've been watching videos and such but my biggest concern is the community. I'd rather not be verbally eviscerated for attempting to learn the ropes.

Wow. You've sold me on never ever playing DOTA 2. The amount of hostility in this supposedly helpful guide is just far to grating for me. Good god man.

I definitely didn't mean to sound negative. I was simply recommending if one is a new player hang back. One of the best things a new player can do is simply avoid death where the best way to do that is never putting yourself in range of more than 1 enemy hero.

As for the negativity, I've had plenty of disappointing games but I actually don't see a lot of yelling. One of the major but forgotten differences between LoL and Dota 2 is that there is no "surrender". It does you no good in berating your team while losing or taunting the other team while winning because they will not quit and take a penalty.

Edit: And Phatmac has a point...thankfully the client now supports in game guides.

@mariachimacabre: Do you need a key? I can't get rid of all of mine.

Need to reiterate this.

New players should know that while there are plenty of assholes, there are also tons of helpful players as well. If you make it known that you're new, and try to follow people's advice, you won't get yelled at. The people that constantly rage are pretty much going to rage at anything. Mute or ignore them.

I would say a lot of it is far from just "rough housing". ha. "Rough housing" is like playfully going "You f*ckin idiot" while playing with a friend and they make a dumb mistake. While there is some of that in MOBAs, that isn't what I was referring to. As I said, verbal abuse is the issue. There's a big difference between a friend cursing along with you and someone in a MOBA railing about what a piece of shit you are.

you're wrong sadly. I totally get what you are saying, but in the big scope of things I'd rather have some bad games occasionally than have to deal with the risk of that kind of verbal abuse or what it does to the community.

It's not what happens in one game, it's what it does to the rep of the game and community. Ragers are preventing so many decent people from these games and even more from getting good enough at them to act as good teammates. They are ruining it for everyone by making the community perceived as being so toxic. This is far bigger than losing one game.

I can't get my friends to play these games at all anymore because of the ragers. We used to play old school DotA all the time, but it just got too awful. That really sucks. I'd rather lose and at least get to play with my friends. I don't care if people suck at the game, I just want to play in an environment that's fun.

feeding is super annoying, it is extremely frustrating losing because someone else bring you down with them. But so what?

no really. so what?

Anybody has played any pick up sports at all knows this happens all the time. Just laugh it off and hope for better teammates the next time. It's no different than getting a game of hoops at park with the guy with no jumpshot. Or the guy who can't hit a backhand.

If you want to be serious about winning, get a set team, or play a competitive 1v1 game like Starcraft 2. But if someone is playing team games with randoms that person really has no basis to complain about who they get matched with.

Feeders have an excuse (new players anyway), ragers don't.

@slag: I've played close to 300 games of Dota 2 and I've gotten people yelling in about 4 games.

@lordxavierbritish: that's encouraging to hear.

You've been far far luckier than I.

That'd be very much appreciated actually!

yeah i'm curious how they will go about this. if they do straight up custom lobbies and just throw a password up on the screen or whatever, there will be a ton of duders in spec shitting up the all chat. should be interesting though, wouldn't mind getting in on it myself.

1. Don't worry about it.

@nujabes: I love Nujabes

I'll be interested to see how the Mentor system will work in DotA 2. I agree that a healthy learning environment would be great to see and perhaps that system will help those new players who want to learn and get advice. A huge aspect in DotA when losing IS the blame game, but to be fair there are also many new players who deny that they are doing anything wrong, defend their bad decisions, and are unwilling to learn or take direction.

A new DotA player should:

• Initially learn as much as he/she can about Dota's Heroes and mechanics
• Have thick skin
• Have willingness to learn
• Be able to admit mistakes
• Take direction from more veteran players
• Ignore trolls / ragers who are taking things too seriously

That's just about it really. If you're into competitive team based games nothing really beats DotA for me. It has a high barrier to entry, but if you can get over the initial hump it's very rewarding.

I'm willing to, but not when the screams are so loud. Seems like you would need a patient friend to teach you how to play properly.

I will give an arm and a leg to be on that TNT, the world needs to know and fear CM (Carry Maiden).

DOTA2 makes my brain melt.

I would try Dota 2, but the community puts me off too much to even bother.

Not that I am willing to learn the game, it looks so much fun! But I would rather play with friends than a pub game. :/

As a very new, bad player I can say it varies. Yeah you'll always get the guys that think they're leagues better than you (but actually are feeding harder than you/wasting farm/cs stealing all the time from the carry) and will inevitably flip the fuck out, but there are the occasional glimmers of hope. Every once and a while you get someone who talks and will ping appropriately.

It's still not the casual experience, at least from what I've seen. You'll almost always get a team that never says a word even if you ask them something (my personal favorite was asking a bloodseeker for one of his three salves b/c I wasn't going to waste my time going all the way back to base from the long lane, only to be ignored so he could tower dive over and over again), get angry at you for suggesting anything (like, y'know, for the support to go courier instead of rushing boots), get really angry if your team happens to be losing., and... well I'm becoming "one of them" aren't I?

I've never played a MOBA, even with just friends. The one time I mustered up the courage to download LoL in hopes of doing some friendly games, it kept giving me a critical error when launching. In the end I uninstalled the game before ever starting a single match. Now I've had Dota 2 updated and ready to go for about 2months, just sitting on my Steam, but every time I go to start it up I just end up staring at the lobby screen and then quitting out.

@mariachimacabre: I promise you if you play dota and fuck up, then apologize, 99% of people will not yell at you. In fact most people will offer advice on how to do better. If you acknowledge you are new you will probably have to wade more advice (some of which will just be bad) then verbal abuse. When someone does act like a complete prick, you just mute him, report him, and then try to get both teams to do the same.

@truthtellah: I will reiterate because it is so important. If you admit fault you will diffuse 99% of possible problems, and you'll know it was your fault. No one yells at the dude who says he got caught out pushing a lane solo and he's sorry. You may get a comment like 'greedy farmer' but that is more rough housing then it is intended insult.

@slag: I hope this doesn't come across as patronizing, but I don't think dota2 is for you. Just because it is not a 1v1 style game, it doesn't mean it isn't incredibly competitive. Dota2 is played to win, and if you are not into that level of competitive atmosphere, then dota is not the game for you. It is not a game for fucking about, or messing around with friends and such.

That's not to say that ragers have a right to yell at those who lose them games, but I think having the right mindset for a dota2 game makes learning a whole lot easier. I've brought in close to 10 friends to the game, and I've talked a number of them. Even when they sucked they still wanted to win, they still understood the need for constructive criticism and practice. I made it clear to them that dota can be a rough game to start but it is worth it in the end and most of them agree that it's easily worth the occasional twat or the all to common person who can't speak english even though they actively chose to play on an english speaking server. I think regardless of whether I solo queue or I 5 man captains mode I have a right to expect my teammates will do all they are capable of to win the game, and I think people who go into dota thinking winning isn't important is unnecessarily making their experience worse.

I do wish the matchmaking was more nuanced. If I play with 4 new friends I am ruining their game. I have found that just one experienced player makes the matchmaking system think the whole team has a decent skill level and then matches it against people who are far better than them. It makes it so I can't really play with new friends outside of bot games, and I have to spectate their games to give them advice, which works but is not nearly as fun for me or for them.

There are fuck about games, and there are games you play to win. If I just want to play with a bunch of friends and mess around dota2 is not the game to play, just like if I want to get drunk and try to meet women a church is not the appropriate place to go. You need to accept the prereqs that come with a game like dota 2 so that you can effectively determine who's being an asshole and who's just getting frustrated that you are playing like shit. And if you say 'hey my bad, I got caught out' that frustrated dude is probably going to shrug it off and let it be, as opposed to talk shit.

I have close to a 1000 games in dota 2, I watch competitive dota 2 matches, I play with friends who are just as good if not better. If you want to learn dota2 I will be more than happy to help, as long as

1). You know how to listen

2). You're not an asshole

3). You're ok with me occasionally bitching (not at you, but at the game itself)

4). You are ok with me dissecting your gameplay and telling you exactly what you did right and wrong.

I promise you under those conditions you will not only learn dota2 much faster than any solo queueing or watching videos, and you will very quickly learn if dota is the game for you so if it's not you don't have to waste your time.

If anyone is interested feel free to pm me and we can try to set something up.

@twigger89: heh. I imagine you're probably a decent fellow, but just by your comments on "having the right mindset" and the little list of requirements, this is the mental image I get of you trying to teach someone Dota 2.

@truthtellah: Don't know whether you play dota at all or not but it really isn't like that(well maybe the ballllll part and playing to win). Getting relatively proficient takes some time but once you understand how you should be playing it can be a deeply satisfying and engaging experience. It's like playing soccer without knowing anything about it. You know the ball needs to get to the other goal but you don't know about offsides or formations or attacking/defending tactics.

@truthtellah: Getting compared to an abusive dick isn't really the kind of response I was looking for from my offer to help, but if you consider basic principles like listening and correcting your mistakes to be overly pushing and commanding, I guess it's applicable. If that's how you feel I highly suggest staying away from dota, or competitive multiplayer games in general, or the internet, or people you might disagree with.

heh. I wasn't meaning to suggest that playing Dota is like that. It can be an enjoyable game, especially with people of a similar skill level with a healthy sense of sportsmanship. I was simply commenting on the impression I got from his specific post. :)

As I said, I imagine you're a fine person; I was only commenting on how your post came across. Even this reply sounds unnecessarily confrontational and a bit patronizing(you mentioned that isn't intentional and I believe you; though, it doesn't change how it sounds). I think games like Dota can be fun in a good group, but the way some people decide to talk about it can give a rather aggressive and unpleasant impression. I'm sure you mean well, but that coach was just the first thing that came to mind from what you said.

I played all of one game of DOTA. I understood don't feed, but the entire time I played I was told I was doing things wrong.

When I responded with "what do you want me to do" the response was "stop sucking."

That was my first and last experience with DOTA.

@truthtellah: I can see my post being a bit patronizing (It's kinda hard not to when you are explaining things via text) but I don't see the aggressive part or confrontational part. I just think going into dota2 with a perspective other than 'I'm here to learn how to play and win the game' is doing a disservice to both you and your team.

It isn't about whether whether someone is setting out to play and win a game; clearly, that's a big part of why someone would get into a game in the first place. People generally like to do better at things. They just don't like when know it all jerks take out their frustration on them and limit the potential of the community through a lack of tact or common courtesy. A team game is best when there is a sense of sportsmanship, not just an unrelenting desire to win at all costs. Winning comes from you and your teammates improving, not through tearing people down and pushing them out.

Dota isn't Sparta. It's a team-based videogame.

@twigger89: And since you've said you don't intend to sound like a jerk, maybe you're simply suffering from a lack of self-awareness. How you think responding to someone's comment by telling them to not play a game or even go on the Internet if they don't seem to agree with your tone somehow doesn't make you sound like a bit of an asshole is beyond me. It was nice of you to offer your help to someone, but just as you originally feared, some of what you are saying is just giving the completely wrong impression.

@morbid_coffee: I do not blame you one bit. As someone who loves the game, I do wish you'd give it another shot, but I'd be lying right to your face if I said you weren't going to run into a seemingly endless amount of assholes during your tenure with the game. The overwhelming negativity of some players is quite draining if I'm honest, which is why I've been taking a break from the game recently. I'm well aware of the mute function, but I still feel it's troubling that I should even have to use that thing on a regular basis in a team-based game, ya know?

@truthtellah: lol ok so you do play some dota. Yeah his post does give off that impression but I'm inclined to believe @twigger89 is just trying to be helpful because what he's saying isn't wrong. Not every player will be kind or patient enough to teach you anything while playing.

The few times I've encountered a newbie I would just tell the fella go here and do this without any explanation because I'm too busy taking care of myself. If the newbie ends up sucking I'd just tell myself it was a 4v5 and move on but that poor newbie would be left with no idea how to play better and feel like it was his fault for ruining for the game.

@supamon: Yeah, that's all I'm saying. I have no reason to believe he isn't sincere in his desire to help other duders. But I was just commenting on his tone in it and the often aggressive tone that shows up in talk from experienced Dota players toward new or even just different players. There's an antagonism or "be all end all" tone that just isn't necessary. And people shouldn't have to just be overly-apologetic Shinji Ikaris to not get brow-beaten.

Far too many people mistake a ruthless desire to win at all costs with taking something seriously. I like competitive multiplayer games, and I have played a decent amount of sports in my life. I've done rather well at them, as well. And there really is more to helping and supporting teammates as part of a unified effort than just trying to weed out weakness and win no matter what it takes. There's more to sports than that, and there's more to team-based multiplayer games.