General DiscussionWhich is better for gaining mmr? Spam or being versatile?

versatilty- jack of all traits, master of none
aka you're not getting to 5k any time soon by being versatile

Does it necessarily need to master a number of heroes or just a role (aka supp/carry/offlane)?

Pick doesn't matter in below 5k mmr

I'm just confused on why most of my 5K friends just spam. :(

Personally I think it depends on what you want to achieve in the game. Do you want to win to get MMR? Or do you want to improve as a player, with winning being a bonus to the improvement?

If you want to win to climb spamming is definitely the way to go. With whatever hero you win you will get +25, so why not play something safe and stick to something you know you're good at? Not only it will make you better at the hero you will also become better at the role itself.

Well if you want to become more well-rounded as a player of Dota 2 being versatile makes much more sense. Due to the versatility of your picks you won't become too much of a habitual player, and will instead learn how to be better at everything. This might take an ultra long while though, and you'll have to pour in 200% the effort into improving compared to just spamming, because you have so much material to work with.

But we aren't aiming to do something like that aren't we? That's some pro-level analysis and dedication if you go the "general" way, and I think it should only be for people who have mastered a role already so that they have something to actually base their evaluations. Spamming is a surefire way to make your friends remember what you're good at, it also brings in the +25s given you play it as well as you would have hoped.

tl;dr Just spam it bro. Take it from your 5k peers.

Thanks for the insight, pettanko! I think I have decent chance to win when I play as a roaming support so maybe that's too team-reliant to be effective at this bracket of lower 4K.

spamming heroo wont help in my case

i was picking voker midd 10 times i row and got fight over mid eventually played him jungle and lost alot mmr

i once went OD axe ls luna spamm and pretty much stayed in same mmr

No problem man.

Trust me at your bracket people will actually have a vague idea on how to play the game right. Roaming support is a really good idea to spam as well; you will always have the role available to you because people still first pick cores. Also, it's not so much team-reliant, as a roaming support if you give enough space for your carries/teammates to do anything they want you can win games.

Really good guide by our resident Cookie Monster right here: https://www.dotabuff.com/topics/2017-04-11-cookes-strict-crystal-maiden-pattern-to-win-almost-any-04k-mmr-game

well to me as 3krs im not so enjoy with spamm idunno why, even tho i win. being versatile for me is nice coz i wont get bored from it. and btw i have much more winning with versatile rather then spamm (sorry bad english coz its not my native language)

I'm an offlaner/support player. My win rate in ranked is almost 61 percent and still is rising. I am extremely versatile in my role. Can play every single support well except visage and io

I will lose mid guaranteed if match is above 3k avg and when it comes to carry I can literally only play Luna, spectre and ursa if I want to win.

Basically winning from my point of view is about having fun. Good mood = good play doesn't matter if you spam or not. From watching other people; spamming seems more reliable for climbing though.

if you want to be a better player and gain mmr you should spam a select group of heroes in every role

Its better to go for hero's you know how to play rather than picking a hero the teams need but having zero understanding of the strength and weaknesses of the that hero. At least you still be able to give impact with something you know rather than endlessly feeding to death and gg at 20mins.

I didn't read everything but if you spam meta then you master say 3 heroes a patch. If you had done that say since the sniper troll OP patch you'd be extremely good at a number of heroes like spectre od storm invoker morph etc. What's so wrong with that. When they come back into meta you play them again and you'll be better for it.

versatility helps with knowing how to play against other heroes. which is what you need to get higher than a certain MMR. for example until i played with Huskar, I'd always lose lane against him and feed.
or, I always felt scared by the sight of BS, thinking he's an OP hero and I'd always run when i saw him. after spamming him, now i know how to kill him.

my opinion is, just play any hero you are good at and hero you like. but hero you like is also hero you can win because winning is fun. to me i spam riki because i like the chasing to kill with blink. i like the fun of suddenly appear behind someone to get them a shock kill. ya right. i'm not pro player. just play for fun, so i pick whatever hero that give me fun

It's not about spamming or being versatile. It's about being smart in identifying and choosing the strongest heroes to play whenever a new patch is released. Picking the strongest heroes and playing them well will give you easy MMR.

you need to pull of 20-30 heroes and choose your primary role, like im playing mid/support/offlane and refuse to play carry/roam mostly cuz im not good at it

spamming. thats what ranked dota is. spam this hero then nerf then spam next hero

Spamming
More constant variables
Easier to spot your own mistakes
Forces you to play the hero out of comfort zone especially if you first pick

So that's why I'm at 2.6, down after fresh getting into 3k... i should be spamming.
I harbor dreams of playing at least semi-professionally tho, so I stick with versatility, practice for them local tournaments w $200 prize pools 😂 *pulls out random Tidehunter and Enchantress*

Spamming coz i dont like to use brain that much to i can just spam and win games while eating pizza

I just play whoever i'm into that week, cause I tried spamming one time ages ago, and yes I was gaining MMR, but I had zero fun doing it, so I stopped. Not to mention, once I stop having fun, I start playing bad and lose MMR, so I try to stay happy and play whoever i'm feeling! :D

^Accurate lmao

if you want to win then pick good hero who can push.

I am losing games by picking heroes, which I don't know how to play.

My QoP, Weaver, SK, Slark, etc. games on this acc are abysmal. I am shit at them and tried to unsuccessfully broaden my hero pool.

Were I to ONLY pick my heroes and play really tryhard, I would've had a 60-62% winrate on acc in no time.

I am saying all of that, because I think spamming is the path to go, if you truly want just to win, without experimenting.

Okay here'e my take on the whole thing, seeing as there are plenty of people who've already expressed their opinions.

I can tell you I've been on both sides, once I learned how to play Invoker, that's the only hero I played for a while. However since then I've played literally every single hero and am trying to get atleast 20 games on each one just to get a good idea of them.

Being versatile will definitely make you a better player, for instance if you're a carry player, playing offlane and lane support will teach you how the other heroes in your lane work, how they function, what they do and what their weaknesses/strengths are. It will also help you enable your counterpart better in that scenario. If you're a midlaner, playing roaming support for instance will teach you how you approach a midlaner for ganks, where you ward, how you position yourself etc. While they may say you are a 'jack of all trades, master of none' you really can be above average in all 5 positions and gain MMR by picking whats best for your team.

Picking only a handful of heroes does make you a master of them and you might be playing them at a higher skill level than the one you're in, but it won't teach you key things about how your counters play, what they need, how to shut them down etc. Trust me, even if you play 500 games on a hero, it won't mean you can climb to any MMR you desire. At most you'll get a boost of 500 MMR and then the rest of the factors like lack of map awareness, game sense and teamwork will start to impact your games.

Remember, all those pro players and 8k MMR streamers are not at their skill level because they know how to play one hero really well (eg. Attacker with Kunkka), its a whole bunch of other things.

Tip: Don't try to learn all heroes at once, instead try to learn all POSITIONS in the game. 1,2,3,4,5: learn what they are, what good heroes to play in each role (3 to 4) and you'll improve a lot more in terms of team composition as well.

im an example.

versatility isnt a real thing for almost all players

u can either play a few heroes well or play no heroes well, make ur choice

im an example.

^ Congrats on 6k!

Personally for ranked, I've currently got a few go-to heroes, but always play position 3-5.