So after years of playing LoL on and off, and reaching I guess, an "okay" proficiency with it, I've been tossing the idea of jumping into dota 2. Tried a couple times but always found it felt kinda janky. I've now tried it with a new PC, and I think a lot of that jank had to do with my old laptop. I think I could do with some advice for this game advice kind of more tailored to someone who's played league (though actually I'd be rusty in that, haven't played since the spring). Dota feels really strange and foreign to me at the moment, I hope I'll get that kind of feeling back from when I first played league (not long after beta) where I had no idea what I was doing so learned from trial and error.

Some questions:

There's still some things that feel weird to me. Any way to shrink the UI? I feel like my viewing space is really small. Any way to not play with limited heroes? I understand they figure I'd want to play with noob-friendly champs, but for me in league was, even as a new player, finding a couple champs I thought were really cool and trying to master them even though they were harder to work with. Additionally, I had a limited pool of champs to choose from, few of which I know much about, and most of the ones I knew were picked already. I was looking for some kind of basic "ADC" to work with but they were taken so I went with Berserker since I got a cool sword for him... and then proceeded to never get in range of the ranged enemies I was up against.

I feel like my queue times are rather long, many times not everyone on my team speaks English (one game I played no one did), and the couple of times I've played 2 people DC'd at the start. Does this get better as I "climb the ranks?"

How long is the tutorial quests thing? Last I left off I was doing incredibly basic things in them like learning how to level up my ult, was so boring that I went to a real game.

I feel like many of my games are against people that seem relatively skilled (I know in league the number of people leveling smurfs was ridiculously many, maybe here too?). There's always bot matches... but I liked learning on the fly against fellow noobs like myself in league, back before they had bot matches.

Any resources on the web for people who had played LoL before and now are trying dota?

Finally, any way to play with GB duders willing to play with someone really new that can show the ropes? From what I've surmised, friends that already played the game were how Brad got to know how to play.

You can't shrink the UI.

Once you finish 10 matches of Limited Hero Pool you can try the other modes.

As you play more matches you'll get less people leaving and speaking different languages. You might be playing with peoples' alternate accounts so they don't care much.

I would still complete the tutorial quests, you get a nice Sniper set out of it.

I came from LoL and this is the guide that I still pour over after 1500 hours of game time: Welcome to Dota, You Suck (it might be old but still has a lot to offer)

Ask some people to play with you from the Giant Bomb chat lobby. Hit the + button on the right at the main menu where party chat is. There's always at least 60 people in that lobby.

Welcome to DOTA!

I agree with everything said above, but here are a few additional pointers that might help.

If you're going to play against other, I'd recommend playing "Least Played". "All Pick" just allows people to play with their best hero, and it can be really frustrating unless you're good enough at the game to keep up. With "Least Played" you'll all be more or less at the same level with your hero picks.

That guide is fantastic. You should also watch Purge's "Replay Commentaries" on whatever hero you're interested in: https://www.youtube.com/user/PurgeGamers/videos

Learn damage types. This is, besides knowing heroes and basic mechanics, incredibly important. Purge has a section on this in the guide, but you should also be aware of which heroes skills have which kind of damage. The nice thing about this, is you dont have to play the heroes to understand their damage types, so you can practice this without losing, haha.

For me, queue times are usually between 30 seconds and 4 minutes, but usually ~2.5 minutes.

Learn the reporting system. I think that it's very important that decent, fun-loving players use the reporting system to help make the DOTA community better. There are so many jerks playing that it might seem like a losing battle, but if we all pitch in, I'm hoping that we can make DOTA a better place to play. I also am pretty hard on people who are bigoted or otherwise prejudice, and report anyone who I see engaging in that behaviour.

Be kind and generous. I'm assuming you aren't a dick, but please don't call people noobs, don't say your lane was "EZ" and just generally be a bro. Buy wards and courier if you're support, give people helpful, non-condescending advice, and encourage players who are having a rough go of it.

Don't worry about smurfs. They happen, and it sucks. But if you stick with it, you can increase your MMR past them.

Good luck!

I find people still abandon games somewhat often in unranked, at least at whatever hidden MMR I have. I'm only like 50-60 hours in.

But yeah, when your profile still has a low MMR, All Pick is stupid, because somebody just picks Viper or Drow Ranger, and then guaranteed someone on the other team is too stupid to be mindful of how far they are from safety, and then Viper/Drow just right clicks them to death.