In Case You Missed It: How To Get Better At Dota

It’s no question we love stats, and we love Dota. There was a patch where Pudge inexplicably jumped several percentage points in win rate, and our team spent nearly an hour talking about what could be the culprit. In the end, it was a bug that increased his Rot damage. Of course.

One of our goals of the blog is to connect with and support the community, and mostly we write about what we like to write about, but some of our most popular posts are about how to get better at Dota.

It’s been nearly a year since this blog surfaced, and we understand some of its content can get buried. So, in case you missed it, here are some of our favorites.

The Secret to Ladder Anxiety

If you've ever been too anxious to play ranked because you're afraid you might lose, we wrote a post about how to manage ladder anxiety. Some of us today watch more Dota than play it, partly because of time commitments, but I suspect it's also because it's less stressful. Remember, you can still have fun playing this game, even when you lose.

The Psychology of Rage

This topic is no stranger to anyone who plays Dota. The game can be frustrating, maddening, and turn us into the worst part of ourselves. Kawaiisocks talks about human behavior, and how we can manage our emotions during a game.

State of Mind

One other post is about how to think during a game and what you can do to improve your decision making. We talk about how he gets in the zone, how to make snap decisions, and how to stay focused.

Masters of the UI Part 1 and Part 2

In this two part series, Kawaiisocks talks about all those little keypresses and clicks that come second nature to experienced players, yet no one really talks about them. When we think about getting better at Dota, we think about strategy, item builds, drafts, laning, movement, and timing, but rarely do we talk about hotkeys, cast points, shift-queuing, or backswing animations. Often it's the little things that count. As he mentions in his article, you can turn a fight alone by taking advantage of instant cast spells, such as Hex to sheep a Magnus during his Reverse Polarity animation.

Our next post we'll be talking about one of our newest features, Hero Rankings, taking a closer look at some of the top players on their signature heroes.

14 comentarios
mike

    First, extraordinary guide, my recommendation is to join the game fearless. Keep in mind you can lose the game, everybody loses, everybody has lose streaks, and enjoy the game. 99% of the games you could have played better yourself, focus on that.

    Zarse

      Pseudo psychology from people who make webcomics and play videogames as a hobby instead people who play competitively. Sorry but this feels like a collection of bad articles, except by the Master of the UI

      How about you interview people from 6k to 7k and ask them what they believe improvement on this game is and then you make an article about it. That might pay off

      Sundiata Keita

        Just pointing out, when Pudge had an approx. win rate of 52%, the bug was that he took half self damage on rot - not dealt more damage with it like you said.

        ashrasmun

          tinyurl.com/DOTOBIBLE - I shortened the link so it's obvious what it is. This link alone taught me how to get from 3,5k to almost 5k (4850 at most). I do all hero challenge now and I cannot drop below 4,5k.

          DC.MASON

            @CHALLENGER
            If you'll ever meet me in your matches, remind me to give you a commend. Thanks a lot for that link.

            Queezle

              Great Work! I read all of the Blogs and really liked them. More of that please!

              xeter

                I'm tired of Dota 2. I wasted 4k hours+ on it. When you have no positive emotions (even if you're winning) all what you want is getting more mmr than you have and wish to get out of the game after achievement. But you can't. At first you cant move up your mmr position and you have no alternative game or another business in your life for replacing. Anyway thank you for blogs. They make it easier.
                p.s. sry for my enlgishirino

                Draven

                  Hi can anyone explain me more detailed the hero ranking? I don't really get it, it said that i'm in 6/10 professional and then i red the profesional is only for professional players in tournaments...

                  bad, mad and typing

                    " In the end, it was a bug that increased his Rot damage." The bug didn't increase his Rot damage, but it reduced the dmg to only dealing 50% of it to himself, while still dealing 100% to the enemy.

                    yt@serbiangamer

                      Can anyone trade me Dota Buff Prepaid Code? I just want to check out my statistics, bcs it is so cool.
                      I ll give few rare items for it. Feel free to add me on steam for trade.
                      http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197977522700/

                      orels

                        Usefull articles =) Thanks a lot.
                        Really appreciate your work and Dotabuff Plus.
                        Now I've got all the stats I need to analyze my and my friend's performance, that's really cool =)
                        Keep up the good work.
                        *went back to digging into the cause of the latest lost match*

                        Гангал ПоД Базой

                          Полезные статьи =) Спасибо большое.
                          Действительно ценим вашу работу и Dotabuff Plus.
                          Теперь у меня есть все статы мне нужно анализировать свои и производительность моего друга, это действительно здорово =)
                          Продолжайте в том же духе.
                          * вернулся в рытье в причину последней проигранного матча *

                          tw.tv/kupenkgaming

                            its so inspiring and i had experience every kind of that situation. people must read this blog and have this kind of perception to create a better dota environment. thanks

                            Ol1verTw!x

                              hey, you promissed a post about hero rankings, remember? :3