So I'm pretty new to the whole MOBA thing, I get the basics and everything and I've played a bit of LoL and SMNC (though that's pretty different) and I recently got into the Dota 2 beta. So now I'm trying to figure out how to play the game and from watching some tutorials and stuff I've gathered I should stick with one hero until I get them down. Now the problem I found is there are so many different heroes to pick from I dont know where to start. So for my first match I choose Doombringer because I figured a tank hero would be best but he was too slow to get out of any fight I couldn't handle so I ended up feeding a lot and my team lost. Add to that the fact that the game I got into was extremely hardcore and simply yelled at me for dying without offering suggestions and I had a very poor first impression of the game.

So now I'm here asking some fellow bombers for help getting me into this game. Any suggestions on where to start?

You could always try Doombringer again or even form a team of your buddies where everybody plays their part. If I play any MOBA alone I play my role and never bother mixing around. If I am tank I am just going to worry about damage input rather than output.

thats not just your first impression. every game youre in most likely you will be yelled at when you die to much. you will get called names. you will not have fun, until you learn how to play. then youll be the one doing the yelling.

@tunaburn: Well that doesn't sound like that much fun....

For some reason, moba communities are the worst communities.

I would suggest you start by playing a support, their roles are usually more passive and they are the best characters to play if you want to learn how to play the game.

Also avoid carries because you will really screw your team up if you don't know how to play them.

Edit: You might also might want to play Axe or Tidehunter, but I do think that the best way to get better at the game is to learn how to play support.

@triple07 said:

@tunaburn: Well that doesn't sound like that much fun....

Seriously man. You will have a better time if you just keep playing your role. If you play a tank and get no kills your team will not complain (unless they don't know what they are doing) as long as you are getting into teamfights and soaking up most of the damage. Just play super conservatively and no one will complain.

Play AREM and learn all of them over time.

@Mr_Skeleton said:

I would suggest you start by playing a support, their roles are usually more passive and they are the best characters to play if you want to learn how to play the game.

Also avoid carries because you will really screw your team up if you don't know how to play them.

This.

Support means that you are not expected to get any kills.

If you don't know how to play a carry then you are in trouble. That would be best to learn around friends.

You need to random. A lot.

Randoming will lead you to do two things.

A) You will learn all the characters and how to fight against them and

B) Find a character you really like who you might have never picked.

This game is in a Beta, so don't worry about losing a bunch. It's going to happen. Who knows stats might get reset anyway when the game goes public.

I'm pretty new to the MOBA genre and I have found Juggernaut to be pretty easy to play. Just don't bee too aggressive with him and you should do decently.

Alright I'll try support and not go for many kills then. And once I get the basics of that character down I'll try random. Also stick to my role. Got it. *Taking notes*

Thanks guys. Any more tips would also be helpful.

Bloodseeker seems really easy

@GlenTennis said:

You need to random. A lot.

Randoming will lead you to do two things.

A) You will learn all the characters and how to fight against them and

B) Find a character you really like who you might have never picked.

This game is in a Beta, so don't worry about losing a bunch. It's going to happen. Who knows stats might get reset anyway when the game goes public.

I strongly disagree with this, at the beginning you need to main one hero until you get a good grasp on how the game is played (I suggest a few matches against bots and then at least 5 on public) and only after that start playing other heroes. Randoming often leads to teams that aren't structured well even if you know how to play the hero. If you are going to random let your team know you are new, so they may choose accordingly.

As for people yelling at you, they always will but you just learn to filter them out so don't mind them. The moment you get better this game becomes amazing.

If you want help you can usually find me on the Giant Bomb chat room so fill free to pm me, I'm far from being best out there but I do have some experience.

A good way to practice any hero without getting bitched at is to play in a private match against bots.

The bots in this game are quite intelligent, and will be a match for anyone just starting off.

I would say do nothing but random, as that's how I first learned to play many (many) years ago on WC3. Thing is there is no AR (all random) mode in the game yet, so most games have people picking the one hero they play best with. Right now playing bots will definitively help. Also i would suggest skeleton king as a great starter hero. Lots of HP, his ulti revives you on the spot so you might not have as many deaths, and hes got stun and high damage. If Skele isn't your thing try out tidehunter. Hes another tanky guy that can dish out serious pain on dudes

@MasturbatingestBear Has a point. A good team is balanced team. The tanks initiate, the supports heal or disable, the glass cannons nuke and the carries hit hard and fast. If you pick a tank, don't expect to get all the kills. Alot of Dota is cat and mouse. People chasing and running from eachother is 80% of the game. Knowing when to chase or when to run will take some time getting used to. Doom bringer is a good start because his scorched earth increases his movement speed so its perfect for chasing or just getting the hell out of dodge. He can stand toe-to-toe with most tanks and has an ultimate that nulls any support or mage you come across. His devour skill helps you farm more money and keep in mind that if you devour an enemy creep, the enemy team can see you until that creep is consumed. His lvl death also helps to harass early game or can be used to last hit a hero who is running from you. Early hero picks for noobs should be strength heroes or atleast ranged heroes so you have some distance between you and the enemy.

For alternate picks, try to look into Sven, Tidehunter since they dont require multiple hotkeys, or Razor and Viper for some ranged deadliness. Heroes that have invisibility might also help out your chances of getting away. Popping out of invisibility right after the team fight starts and aiming for whoever everyone is focusing on is the best way to avoid being focused on while outputting a lot of damage. For this I would suggest Clinkz or Riki. But they are carries and people will yell at you if you die cus they have low health etc etc. My suggestion, play against bots. They are pretty competent from what I've seen. Good way to practice and try new heroes. Just create a private game for yourself.

If I remember correctly from the original Dota, Skeleton King and Lion are pretty noob friendly characters.

If it really is similar to wc3 dota, I remember the water elemental to be pretty effective and easy. It can heal itself, spawn an ally decoy, push enemies back I think, and as a ranged character, you can run away easier and harass.

It's been said before but don't stick to one hero. There are few heroes that are truely complex to play, it's more about learning the roles, items and gamesense.

Ideally you should random, but if you are really opposed to that try Skeleton King or Lich, both are easy to play and highly beneficial to teamfights.

@tunaburn said:

thats not just your first impression. every game youre in most likely you will be yelled at when you die to much. you will get called names. you will not have fun, until you learn how to play. then youll be the one doing the yelling.

nah people will still blame you even if its their fault for dieing.

If you're looking at support dudes I would recommend Necrolyte. His heal is untargeted and heals all friendlies/damages all enemies in an area, and his passive does damage over time in a large area to all enemies, so even if you're not great at the game you'll at least be doing something just by hanging around and mashing your q in team fights. If you wanna pop off that ult and try to kill a straggler, hey, that's cool too.

I'd go with witch doc: trolling ass troll stun, easy ult to pop in the general vicinity of the other team, and a heal that you don't have to worry about. Don't worry about W(your heal) until you've maxed out your other moves first. You won't have enough mana to sustain it effectively early game

@PandaShake said:

If it really is similar to wc3 dota, I remember the water elemental to be pretty effective and easy. It can heal itself, spawn an ally decoy, push enemies back I think, and as a ranged character, you can run away easier and harass.

It's identical. Except for any changes since you last played, of course.

@GlenTennis said:

You need to random. A lot.

Randoming will lead you to do two things.

A) You will learn all the characters and how to fight against them and

B) Find a character you really like who you might have never picked.

This game is in a Beta, so don't worry about losing a bunch. It's going to happen. Who knows stats might get reset anyway when the game goes public.

I think this is the worst possible thing to do. Maybe do this in bot games or make a private match with cheats on to level all the abilities and see what they do. But in a matchmaking game, you need to have a handful of heroes that are you "go to" heroes. At least until you get a decent understanding of how the game is played.

You should be starting off with characters who do not rely on items. These are heroes that can get minimal farm, minimal kills, but still be useful in the late game. Some I would recommend: Lich, Tidehunter, Vengeful Spirit, Venomancer, and Windrunner. DO NOT pick a carry like Anti-Mage or Ursa until you play at least 50+ games. In order to be a useful player on your team as a carry, you need to get the farm and you get that by getting a lot of last hits. Until you feel comfortable enough of getting at least the majority of the last hits in a lane, you should stay away from carrys. If you play a character like Lich, you can get minimal last hits and 0 kills...but mid game you can completely win your team a fight purely by casting your ult. Or Tidehunter, you can have only bracers, magic wand, and a TP scroll...but if you get your ultimate off and get some key stuns, your team will get the kills and you get the assists.

What I always suggest to new players is, find 2 or 3 heroes of each role you enjoy (test them in private match first) then play them a lot to get a feel of how it works. Examples: Supports: Lich, Vengeful Spirit, Crystal Maiden. Initiators: Tidehunter and Earthshaker. Ganker / Support: Venomancer and Windrunner (build support items like men to help your team). This way you get to a point where you feel comfortable and can play at a basic level. If you random every game, you will absolutely suck at the hero...your team will get mad at you...then you will quit playing. Plus by being comfortable with a handful of heroes, you can look at your current team comp and see "hey we need a banker mid...I will go Mirana to fill that role" or "we need someone to purchase wards, I will go Lich and fill that role."

One good thing to remember is...you suck at dota, you are absolutely terrible at dota. So before you enter a game, read guides on Playdota.com, watch videos by Purge on youtube.com/purgegamers, watch the top matches on the Dota 2 "Watch" Tab, and ask questions if you have them. Only once you do your research can you enter a pub game and perform at a competent level. The more you play games, the more you will learn about heroes / strategies. And it is one of the few games in which you can play 1000+ hours and still know very little, but it is damn worth the time because it is an amazing game.

I would also add Antimage and Huskar. Antimage simply auto attacks and burns mana. Use the ultimate to kill them or blink out to escape death. A built-in escape mechanism should help.

I also suggest huskar because he does more damage when his health is low. He also has a heal and with some awesome health regen items, hes pretty awesome. Possibly noob friendly.

People recommending newbies to random a lot? lol. You are trolling, right? This is why so many people suck at this game.

IMO the best character for new players are support heroes like Lich (really only 3 important abilities: eat a creep, do some damage and slow, and his bouncing ult), or Carries that are stupidly easy to play (Skeleton King only has 2 active abilities which is nice). Or even someone like Tidehunter who is more of a ganker/initiator but has easy to understand abilities and plays rather straightforwardly.

Once you have the basics down and can play moderately well, then I would recommend playing a bunch of random to understand all the heroes better and how to defend against lots of other types of play.

Sniper is easy, he can also be a lot of fun. Just don't rambo and watch your back.

Pick any support character and play them till you have them down pat its the best way to learn, also you may want to play a few vs bot games before you try to play a pub as a character, on medium there a decent opponent

I'm new to dota and I've totally been going all random. Raked over the hottest of coals.

@tunaburn said:

thats not just your first impression. every game youre in most likely you will be yelled at when you die to much. you will get called names. you will not have fun, until you learn how to play. then youll be the one doing the yelling.

Please take your cynicism elsewhere

DO NOT RANDOM AS A NEW PLAYER. I'm sorry but that is a horrible suggestion for a new player. You should pic a few heroes that you want to learn (supports are good for newer players imo) and practice them a bit against bots until you feel comfortable with their abilities and understand the basic items you should be getting on them. Dotafire.com has some good guides for beginners, so I'd suggest checking that site out as well.

As far as straight up suggestions go, support heroes for new players could include: Tidehunter, Venomancer, Lion, and Dazzle. This will give you some experience as far as being an initiator (Tide), Ganker/Pusher (Veno), Ganker/CCer (Lion), and Healer (Dazzle).

If your team requires more of a carry for whatever reason I'd suggest trying out Skeleton King, Juggernaut, Rikimaru, or Drow Ranger. Just know that as a carry your job is to Farm up your core items. This means that you NEED to be good at last hitting creeps and have good map awareness so that you don't get ganked. If you die often as a carry and get no farm you are basically worthless to your team since your job is to deal out massive damage in team fights. Without items a carry can't carry.

don't listen to these chumps random all day every day

Yeah, randoming invoker or Chen is like giving win ticket to the opposite team

@Olu said:

Yeah, randoming invoker or Chen is like giving win ticket to the opposite team

Indeed, this is why random is bad until you get a grasp of most of the characters. I had a friend be in the "only random!" mindset and we played a string of games where he got Enchantress (couldn't jungle or control an creeps), then the next game he got Faceless Void (got 50 last hits all game again). Needless to say he got chewed out in each game by teammates then he finally said "yep you were right."

If you think that randoming is best for you, just play Single Draft. That way you are allowed at least 3 choices so you can avoid characters you have no chance at learning on the fly.

@Jimi said:

It's been said before but don't stick to one hero. There are few heroes that are truely complex to play, it's more about learning the roles, items and gamesense.

Ideally you should random, but if you are really opposed to that try Skeleton King or Lich, both are easy to play and highly beneficial to teamfights.

I'd like to second this class suggestion. I'm fairly new and found Skeleton King and Lich to be very easy to play.

Lich is a good support with near unlimited mana so he's not as gear-dependant as other casters, a built-in way to deny, and a solid spammable nuke. He's also got an auto-castable armor buff and a fairly devastating ultimate if used on a clustered team of heroes.

Skeleton King is just a simple class to play.. he's got a lot of passives, is hard to take down, and when he does die, his ult resurrects you. Just equip him with Armlet and activate it before engaging an enemy Hero, and hack away while spamming Hellfire.

Hey guys, to add to this discussion, I'm new to this as well (have maybe 10 co-op bot matches in) and I've found that I'm "decent/less shitty" using Morphling. I was noticing that I was getting creamed early using melee units so I decided to try Morph because he was ranged. It's really helped me out. What I'm trying to learn is item management, reading guides and watching videos. I'm good at farming and am usually high gold/per minute but I'm having trouble getting lots of kills. I usually end up somewhere around 3-6 for k/d ratio. Guides have Morph using lots of items, but I'm still getting rocked.

@IndieFinch: Any advice?

@Stepside: Not to disrespect you, but you will get slaughtered if you play Morphling. As I said before, the best choice for a new player is to play support, most of them are ranged and aren't expected to get a lot of kill or last hits, playing them on pub should give you some practice against real players.

Hey guys how do I play this game?

Random a lot? OK.

*randoms invoker*

Edit: Play a strength champ with some sort of hard CC like skeleton king or whatever.

@Stepside: I still stand by trying out these guys first: Lich, Tidehunter, Vengeful Spirit, Venomancer, Windrunner, Shadow Shaman, Sand King, Skeleton King. The reason for these is you don't really need farm to be effective. You just need to not get picked off and join the fights to pop off all of your abilities.

Morph is a fantastic hero, one of my favorite carries atm. But you really need a high understanding of the game to play him. If you can get him down and feel comfortable in a game with him, go for it. A good bench march as far as CS (last hitting) is at least 75+ at the 20:00 min mark. 100+ is great, but 75+ is a more realistic number for most people. This is where you live or die as a carry, its all about the CS in the early game and if you can keep up...then by all means go for it.

I kinda like Weaver for new players. It easy to survive and he does not require all that much skill to play

@DBHErazor: He does require a lot of farm though, and new players are not good in last hitting.

Axe is a great character to start with. As are the Drow Ranger and Clink

@tunaburn: Not true, I know how to play pretty well and I still get called noob constantly (I like playing supports)

@Jimi Umm I have always had an extremely hard time with Skeleton King personally. Also I am going to totally disagree with the idea of randoming a hero unless you have someone there to hold your hand to explain the skill and item build you should use. You should probably focuse the first couple games just getting the basics down with one character.

Anyway I have been playing with some new players and the characters they seem to latch on to are Lich, Ursa, Sandking, and Axe.

Also as one last note Doom seems like a fine first character to learn. But the secret to him (at least what I find when I play him) is making sure to use his lvl death correctly. It does HUGE damage with the level multiplier so don't just level it up mindlessly try to keeping it at lvl 3 (so that it bonus damages lvl 4 heros) until their team hits level 6. And make sure not to waist it on anyone who does not qualify for the bonus damage as it is an extremely mana heavy move but with the bonus damage can take early game heros down to half life.

@DBHErazorsaid:

I kinda like Weaver for new players. It easy to survive and he does not require all that much skill to play

He might have a good escape mechanism, but if you are a new player...DO NOT PLAY A CARRY! Please!! If you think you have the skill to play a carry when you first start out, join a bot game and last hit. Unless you can get 100+ cs under 20 minutes (which is easy vs bots), you are not ready to play a carry. I know people love being able to do the damage, but if your cs is lacking, your team will lose and you will have an awful time. It is the easiest way to get driven away from Dota, which is a damn shame.

@Cheesebob said:

Axe is a great character to start with. As are the Drow Ranger and Clink

Axe is a fine starting character. Clinkz is so so, it is kind of a cheesy hero which gets shut down really easy. Drow Ranger is a bad idea. She requires a ton of farm and has no strong escape mechanism for new players if they get caught out of position. If you are new, you should be playing characters who are still viable all game long even if their farm is low. If you are playing a Drow and don't have the items such as a Manta and Helm of Dominator by 30 min in, she is way behind and nearly useless.

If you are new and really want to play carries, just make sure you practice before you jump into a public game. If you practice your last hitting and feel confident, go for it! But if you can't last hit, you can't purchase items, then your team yells at you / you feel useless. Then you don't want to play Dota anymore.

@PandaShake said:

If it really is similar to wc3 dota, I remember the water elemental to be pretty effective and easy. It can heal itself, spawn an ally decoy, push enemies back I think, and as a ranged character, you can run away easier and harass.

Learning how to balance between agility and strength on Morphling can be quite perplexing to someone thats new.

Have you tried a venge or crystal maiden? both skill sets are pretty straight forward although VS's swap takes some time to master on when and when not to swap

@IndieFinch said:

@DBHErazorsaid:

I kinda like Weaver for new players. It easy to survive and he does not require all that much skill to play

He might have a good escape mechanism, but if you are a new player...DO NOT PLAY A CARRY! Please!! If you think you have the skill to play a carry when you first start out, join a bot game and last hit. Unless you can get 100+ cs under 20 minutes (which is easy vs bots), you are not ready to play a carry. I know people love being able to do the damage, but if your cs is lacking, your team will lose and you will have an awful time. It is the easiest way to get driven away from Dota, which is a damn shame.

@Cheesebob said:

Axe is a great character to start with. As are the Drow Ranger and Clink

Axe is a fine starting character. Clinkz is so so, it is kind of a cheesy hero which gets shut down really easy. Drow Ranger is a bad idea. She requires a ton of farm and has no strong escape mechanism for new players if they get caught out of position. If you are new, you should be playing characters who are still viable all game long even if their farm is low. If you are playing a Drow and don't have the items such as a Manta and Helm of Dominator by 30 min in, she is way behind and nearly useless.

If you are new and really want to play carries, just make sure you practice before you jump into a public game. If you practice your last hitting and feel confident, go for it! But if you can't last hit, you can't purchase items, then your team yells at you / you feel useless. Then you don't want to play Dota anymore.

Finch wouldn't you say Riki is a pretty easy carry in the selection of carries? I thinks it's safe to say there are no "easy" carries per say however, having riki's constant invis and right clickyness sets him up to be pretty easy to fuck people up. Especially in the lower brackets 20+ wins where people aren't as proactive in buying true sights/dust/gem to stop him.

I personally recommend Dragon Knight. Put 1 point in stun, then max fire breath and dragon blood. You will have massive health regen, armour and health + stun and aoe. Dragon form (the ult) is freaking awesome, all you need really is tread, soul ring, and vangaurd then you can add like satanic or AC afterwards.

Drow + loathers is pretty good combo to for beginners. Stay back with frost arrow (manually attack with it, press hotckey then click on the enmey --> called orb walk in case you don't know) then get loathers after getting ur basic items (treads, wand, wraith bands, bottle), assign it to a hotckey on ur keyboard (i like using space bar). Then you have wind walk at a press of button!

@The_Drizzle: Yeah, I would say he is probably one of the most mindless carrys. But I feel that if you need the crutch of an easy escape mechanism, you shouldn't be touching a carry. It is the same reason I absolutely hate people purchasing lothars (Shadow Blade) of people like Drow or Sniper then use it as a crutch to run away. If you can learn positioning and map awareness, you wont need it and you will become a better player a lot quicker.