Dota 2 new players thread!

I was watching it for a bit. It was pretty crazy. I noticed they had your towers close to death. Did you win? I didn't see your message in time, sorry. I was trying out Sniper.

We won pretty well I think. I only died 4 times and I got 2 kills. I had 6 assists that should have been kills, but we were fighting in groups. I saw a guide for attacking with Queen of Pain and it really upped my game. I knew what items to get and I even got this armor (armor blades or something) that has an ability that deals damage back to my attacker. That was clinch in one of my kills. I also now know to be more aggressive in the early game.

EDIT: Sniper is a real punk. He was responsible for 2 of my 4 deaths. The first he just beat me in the early match (someone cleaned up the kill) and on another he shot me out of nowhere when I was running away thinking I was safe.

Yeah, I was with golguin. Sniper is a dick.

I'd be down to try total newbie but worth playing a couple of games. Steam ID is same as gb username.

Steam ID is my username. I'm willing to see what this game is all about, but I'm definitely going to read some starter guides first.

Edit - Steam ID is actually champion_fetus

I have literally zero experience with this or this genre. This should be fun :)

Steam ID is newhaap

The match I finished before I started watching that match you guys did I was playing as Sniper and I can confirm he can be a real asshole. His ult is crazy.

I've had the beta for a while but I never had the initiative to get into it because of all the negative things I've heard about the moba community but if I could find some duders to play some bot matches with I'd love to learn more! I'm around in the mornings and days EST and sometimes late night.

ascorona1

im on the teetering brink of playing , havent played dota since the first version of the dota allstars map , i liked that panda guy with teh lightnings ? id definately be interest in some games with some gb folk , or at least anyone who doesnt care that im a complete scrub heh .

steam ID sonofa_beep I'll be playing this game, it looks interesting.

Steam id is mhoerig. Played the first guide, will be on more tomorrow afternoon Eastern time. Really excited to learn from the community.

Just a reminder. Anyone who wants can just send me a friend request on Steam. My ID is the same as my username here. I'm thinking it might be worth it to just set up a Steam Group to better organize things. It could also make a nice companion group with the other GB Dota group that @sweep has set up. I'm gonna give it a few days first and gauge interest.

I've played probably 7 or so matches in the last week primarily against Med bots, which I've done pretty successfully I would absolutely like to play with you guys, feel free to add me. Steam ID - Slax21

Having a lot of fun with this game! Steam ID: Phatmac

Just had an amazing match with @theht were we planned before the game to gank Heroes and we succeeded and steam rolled the bots. Super team wipe combos is really fun.

New to this whole DOTA stuff and need a lot of help, and patient people for forgive my utter ignorance. I just dived into a game and felt like a total idiot compared to everyone else, especially when I first opened the shop and saw what appeared to be HUNDREDS of shit you could buy. I don't think I've ever felt so overwhelmed in a game before.

Steam ID: Tearhead

One more really good victory where I went positive again.

New people make sure to add me.

golguin

For new people who want to know about their Hero I recommend DotaCinema on youtube. They had a really good video for my Queen of Pain and it really upped my game. It explained what I should level up, how I should combine my abilities, and what items I should buy and when to buy them.

I think I might be ready to go into a match with some duders at some point today! By ready, of course, I mean ready to be terrible and not know anything except pretty much the basic controls. And maybe not even that much.

@golguin:

What difficulty bots you guys playing?

@mariachimacabre:

I'm down for joining some sort of GB group just for inexperienced players.

My steam ID is lumberzach

I tried DOTA 2 a few months back but it was too much new information at the time with no convenient delivery mechanism. Between TNT, the new in game tutorial, and playing a bunch of bot matches I think I am starting to get the hang of it but I'm still too timid to try matches with randoms. Let me know if anyone wants to do some co-op matches!

Just played my first match against easy bots, damn I am not good! Started off alright, then it all went to hell, but 'tis was pretty fun.

@golguin said:

One more really good victory where I went positive again.

New people make sure to add me.

golguin

For new people who want to know about their Hero I recommend DotaCinema on youtube. They had a really good video for my Queen of Pain and it really upped my game. It explained what I should level up, how I should combine my abilities, and what items I should buy and when to buy them.

We should go a level higher next time!

@ravelle said:

@golguin said:

One more really good victory where I went positive again.

New people make sure to add me.

golguin

For new people who want to know about their Hero I recommend DotaCinema on youtube. They had a really good video for my Queen of Pain and it really upped my game. It explained what I should level up, how I should combine my abilities, and what items I should buy and when to buy them.

We should go a level higher next time!

What are you insane!? Don't rock the boat.

Don't rock the boat, baby. Rock the boat. Don't tip the boat over.

@mariachimacabre: sent you a friend request. would love to see a seperate group for us newbies. Played my first match today with some randoms agaist bots. about 20 minutes in two guys left but we were still able to win with just the three of us.

ok here too. Steam-id is wuddel79. I am EU based.

I have no spare time to put into this wormhole, but:

Steam ID: rpgee411

I think I'm starting to get a handle on things. Bought lots of stuff and had a record dude killing spree. You guys think we can organize a human vs human team from all the new people? New people only of course. We can't have a ringer destroying everyone.

Played a bot game last night with some super helpful duders from the giant bomb chat and had a pretty good run with Lich. Got my first kill, infact ended up being 6-9 with two double kills. Definitely getting the hang of things now. Sorry, can't remember who you guys were but thanks. This is why I love the users on this site.

Looking forward to playing with more of my fellow duders. Steam username: RawknRo11a

@golguin said:

I think I'm starting to get a handle on things. Bought lots of stuff and had a record dude killing spree. You guys think we can organize a human vs human team from all the new people? New people only of course. We can't have a ringer destroying everyone.

I was unaware dota had tree branch items as well, died a lot and wasn't able to get good items and get insta killed by anything. :(

Didn't see this before. I'm going to join after work. I played team bot matches all weekend with Sven and feel pretty comfortable with him. I need to start learning about all the heroes though, so I know what i'm up against. Hope to get some random pick matches in.

BTW, played 2 real matches so far and had poor experiences with them. The first match someone on my team died early and quit. Another person on my team quit soon after. Basically when the AI took over for them, the other team just farmed them and beat us even though a player on my team went 24-0. In the second match the opposite happened, we got an early kill and 3 people on their team quit. It was a steamroll after that. Do players often quit after early deaths?

Steam ID: surfer1z

@surferz said:

Only in the beginner's bracket. Once you get 25-50 wins under your belt you should start to see that behavior go away. Basically, right now, you're playing against people who also have no wins/have just started, and, unlike you, they just kinda don't give a shit and jumped in without knowing anything, fed early, said "meh, whatever, this game sucks," and closed Dota.

EDIT: Oh, also, the AI doesn't take over for people who've disconnected; somebody on your team was microing their hero. If somebody disconnects, their hero runs back to the well, but anybody on your team can select the disconnected hero and control it.

DOUBLEEDIT: Also also, one thing you may not know is that a player has 5 minutes to reconnect to the game after they disconnect. If they don't make it back in in 5 minutes, then the game becomes 'safe to leave' and everyone else in the game is free to leave the game without penalty.

Sounds good. I'm trying to learn this game by myself using bots, but playing with people seems like the way to go.

SteamID: toastman669

Thanks, that is good info. I was definitely unclear how the game handles drops and was confused when I saw the heroes back in play.

Played two matched on medium vs bots alone and won both. Drow Ranger is my new favorite.

Count me in

steam id is http://steamcommunity.com/id/7582202/

holy shit. that's good to know. i've played many a co-op match down one or two players and their heroes just stand there. next time i'll give em a whirl. could be fun.

@theht said:

I've actually won a couple games where our carry was awful and left the game, then a friend just put the support he was playing on follow to the carry, started farming with the carry, and ended up winning. Kinda ridiuclous stuff; I've only seen it happen maybe three or four times total.

OK so I played a bot match on easy with drow ranger. I was sucking really bad early on until i got this sword (can't remember the name of it) but I think it like doubles your crits b/c i started killing heros in like 2 hits with maxed out q. The silence is also really helpful. I think i'm gonna just stick with her for a while at least until i get the basic down. Also tried lion (i think that's his name anway. Dude with a big stun and steals mana ability). Didn't like him as much.

I caught the bug too.

roguebutler47 is my Steam ID.

If this thread is new players discussing their dota 2 experiences then that's cool, if it's people just posting their steam ID looking for other players then we already have a thread for that.

Let's keep this on topic, folks!

I'm still not used to the massive user interface, both top and bottom are too big and the camera can't zoom out that much. I often walk in to an ambush because I walk in to a group of enemies that just happen to be out of view.

When there's too much going on on the screen I often loose sight my my character because of it. =/

You'll learn to pay attention to your mini-map A LOT. I've started being able to subconsciously see it out of the corner of my eye and, if I'm paying attention, I can usually react before someone gets the jump on me.

That being said, you don't need to learn to literally look at two things at once. Just constantly checking the position of the other team whenever you could be in a vulnerable area (pushing a tower or in the jungle) and, if there's a lot of people missing, maybe play it safe.

It gets a lot easier to do this once you always have people placing wards in every game. They really will save your life so often once you're constantly paying attention to the mini-map.

@golguin: Something that I didn't realize when I was new is that with sniper you can avoid his ultimate by blinking away after his fires it. So if you're playing QoP and you hear that "BOOMP" noise (which you should be able to hear anywhere you'd be in range), immediately use your blink if you have it up. It'll save your ass. Dota's full of little nuances like that you only learn by playing hundreds of hours and listening to people who have played thousands.

Sniper gave me a ton of trouble when I was new, since he's so good at farming and harassing early game (although bots are far less aggressive at harassing in lane than people are). The thing about him is that you can nuke the living shit out of him since he has such a small health (originally said mana, oops) pool the entire game. So as QoP blink it, hit him with E, then Q, and keep auto attacking early on and you should either kill him or force him out of lane so you can farm in peace.

He'll also probably take shadow blade as an escape mechanism. That's the one that lets him become invisible and move faster. New players always forget dust! I know I did. Dust of appearance is crucial for killing heroes who go invisible (Riki, Bounty Hunter, Clinkz especially) or those who buy a shadow blade to compensate for low HP (Sniper, Drow, assorted other glass cannons). It's relatively cheap and is crucial, especially against bots who aren't smart enough to buy items to counter it. There's more nuances to deal with with invisible heroes and when to use sentry wards vs. when to use dust vs. when to use a gem (all give true sight of invisible heroes and all have quirks), but as a new player I advise lots of dust.

EDIT: Don't buy dust until someone is invisible! That means specifically when sniper has a shadowblade and can go invisible. At the beginning of the game it's a huge expense and should basically never be taken at the start.

@ravelle: As others have said, that's just something that you get used to. I hated how close the camera was having come from a bit of league of legends and a general RTS background, but it really makes situational awareness important, even at lower levels of play. It's just going to take time and practice to get a feel for it, but the first time you're pushed up by an enemy tower and then immediately get a bad feeling from just subconsciously checking the minimap and knowing that something is off, only to back off and just barely miss a gank attempt, it'll click.

Wards do help, although personally I think that it's better to get the basics of last hitting/getting a handle on items/understanding different heroes' abilities is more important than knowing the optimal warding technique.

Have never played before, not even 1 match. I'm currently patching if anyone wants to add me.

Steam ID: Confused_Owl

We will do better next time. We just need to practice more on ganking and setting up attacks. If you're familiar with Left 4 Dead the tactics are essentially the same. Boomer goes in pukes/smoker drags and distracts/charger takes out someone in confusion/hunter pounces sole player/spitter acids incapaciated player and all other variations on the Infected group attacks. It's just a matter of knowing who will initiate the attack with their abilities and everyone jumping in.

Just when I thought I was starting to grasp the basics of this game, I end up getting absolutely smashed in two consecutive matches, including one where the opposing team was down a man for nearly the entire match.

I also played an all random private match with a full room of GB guys which further drove home just how far I have to go (having to play a hero I was totally clueless about didn't really help).

@chaser324: Mind saying who you were playing and who you had trouble against? There's generally very specific ways to shut down different heroes, depending on who you have on your team. Learning what's a hard counter to what is a vital part of the game, much like it is with individual units in Starcraft.

Yeah. That's why I've been trying out so many instead of focusing on the ones whose playstyles fit me. I think it's essential to know at least how each character functions on a basic level and what they're good at.

We do fine most of the time, but the tricky thing is that the AI sometimes decides to ensemble and destroy everything in its path, you can't do anything against them when we're just with the two of us since the bots on our our team just do whatever.