Thanks but a few questions?
1) Why is your first match Very High Skill? That makes no sense... I was hoping to see an account against normal skill. Why would a new account be placed in VHS?
2) Why are none of the oldest replays from 1 month ago available?
The answer is different for every scenario.
For example: You are playing as a mid hero with push potential... just keep pushing and punish the rotations by taking an early tower. From there go and pressure down other towers. Soon you will create more space for your team than they lost from the enemy mid rotations.
For example: You are playing as a mid hero with gank potential... after the enemy mid returns from their gank they likely no longer have a tp scroll. This means you can counter gank their safe lane hero knowing that the enemy mid can no longer rotate to help.
There is also always the option to rotate and help your team if the enemy is diving under tower. Be careful though, as a mid if you tp to a side lane and die you basically have lost the game for your team. The enemy is now extra fed and you are walking back to mid. You NEED to pan your camera over to the fight and evaluate the situation before blind tping.
Also consider the ability for your safe lane hero to carry late game. If you have a late game safe lane hero like AM or TB you need to put more emphasis on rotating and helping them. If you have a safe lane hero that can fight earlier like PA, Jugg, MK it is probably fine to let them struggle a little bit assuming you are making good progress on your own farm and pushing and can therefore make up for the disadvantage they had.
The worst thing you can do is sacrifice your own farm trying to save the safe lane hero and end up with a Position 1 and a Position 2 with no farm. So when in doubt let them die and focus on your own gameplay especially at your mmr. There is no reason you can't solo carry games if the enemy mid leaves and lets you free farm.
All that makes sense but I am literally losing game after game as mid because enemy mid just feeds relentlessly on side lanes. I admit I tend to give up the rune too easily. I play farming mods like meepo, sf and invoker and as a result it feels like midgame is already gg since the enemy team is always so far ahead at this point.
All that makes sense but I am literally losing game after game as mid because enemy mid just feeds relentlessly on side lanes. I admit I tend to give up the rune too easily. I play farming mids like meepo, sf and invoker and as a result it feels like midgame is already gg since the enemy team is always so far ahead at this point.
I have to wonder if you are using these “farming” heroes to their full potential. There are pros and cons to everything in DotA and the con to playing a farming hero mid is that your side lanes suffer BUT you out level everyone in the game.
Is the enemy mid that is constantly rotating still out leveling and out farming you? If so then you are not using these heroes to their full potential (typically by clearing jungle stacks you make between waves).
Ultimately though the best way to have impact against a rotating mid is to just take their tower. As someone like SF you should be pushing so hard constantly that even 1 rotation from the enemy means he loses tower. From there you become the gank god.
add me FYI ( can teach u everythn u want+''coach'' sess1on for free ) dont look my poor 5k rank not my ma1n
Played with this fool and he is a good player, 100% not a legend 3. He is probably high ancient or even divine. A 70+% winrate this month alone. Other smurfs I played dont have dotabuff.
@grandmaster
Compared to pro timings I tend to be behind by 2-3 minutes. For example, on meepo I can consistently farm an eblade at 15 minutes via split stacking camps. I notice that when I farm jungle camps the enemy mid often will deny my entire midwave (which takes away the farm I need to hit 12 minutes eblade) . Usually my team is so far behind at this point that a single death by me is game losing. I can understand why a hero like meepo can't die but this tends to mean that I can't gank until I get aegis. The other team generally knows this and will try to 5man counter gank me if I ever try to invade their triangle.
Regarding mid tower pressure, I consistently get mid tower before the enemy does. This doesn't seem to affect the outcome of the game much (compared to games where I kill the enemy mid) . I would say that games where I kill the enemy midlaner once or twice are usually 80% chance of winning in my bracket. (guardian).
Taking mid tower doesn't really accomplish as much as I would like since deadlane is usually pushing t2 at 15 minutes and my safelaner needs to farm the enemy jungle and offlane. But this has the unfortunate effect of forcing my supports to rotate into enemy jungle for ganks even when there is creep wave pressure on offlane t1. I find that my team and especially my safelaner at this mmr will refuse to tp to towers to clear tower pressure. Hence, I find myself doing this a lot and wasting a lot of time.
Tbh if I were you I'd focus on learning the basics first as I'm sure neither your winrate nor your medal depend on your current worries and if you lack the fundamentals there's no point in aiming at more complex issues.
I can already creep pull, creep block, orb walk, animation cancel, freeze lane, stack, cut waves, camera swap, last hit against unfair bots etc. What fundamentals do I need?
I also understand using cart mechanics to passively push, creating double waves, attack move, uphill miss abuse, baiting, which towers to take in which order, when to rosh at which levels on the heroes I know.
I don't have issues with itemization. I'm always the guy buying bkb when it's the right time to do so. I can bkb blink > eblade > euls > perfectly time sf ulti etc. I have all the invoker and meepo spell combos down.
In my opinion there is some fundamental issue either with my map movements and rotations or ganks or I am not shutting down the enemy lane well enough. This is why I wanted to see a smurf.
If the problem is not in the mechanics it could be the dynamics, as in positioning, knowing when and how to fight, who to focus, when to split, map awareness etc. Last it could be that you're not playing the role that naturally suits you the most.
BUT! If this is your only account and you really have that few games then it might be just inexperience, in which case it's totally normal to have those stats as the game takes ages to be learnt, I still suggest to focus on the macroshit before diving into the microshit either way (rip english I hope you got my point).
No this is not my only account. I am very experienced but I also took a long break from ranked. The thing is I am fairly certain that in that time I took a break from ranked my mechanics have only gotten better. I think the dynamics may be the issue like you said. But I have almost no idea how to fix that and am looking for some example or ideas.
The best way to improve in the dynamics department imo is to spam one hero in normal games first. Leave turbo aside as that's dota on roids for when you wanna troll, it's just not realistic. By spamming one single hero you will first of all, duh, learn how the hero works, but most importantly over time, since playing that hero will have become second nature, your brain will move it on autopilot while truly focusing on the dynamics of the game. You will face the same scenarios time and time again until you will know when and how to do what and how to adjust to the circumstances from that role's perspective (which in the case of mid it can be extended up to a certain point to pos 1 too when it comes to farming patterns and item timings/power spikes I think). You will improve so much at that specific set of things that you'll be able to play also around counters.
Wow maybe im juz noob idk all these shit when im crusader
What i know is spam willow mid and win every game xD
Yeah you might want to learn some new mid heroes before you reach Archon/Legend. Spamming supports mid only goes so far.
@DarkWillow I think you can win most games of Dota 2 by just completely stomping midlane. Once you kill the enemy mid about 3 times the other team will start flaming the enemy mid and tilt them. At that point one player usually gives up and its an easy win.
I don't consider this to be "good Dota" though. Once you hit 3.7k mmr enemy supports will start rotating more and you can't just get solo 1v1 games mid anymore. If you don't understand all the other concepts I mentioned then you won't be able to climb higher without further game knowledge.
If I was mechanically skilled enough to just stomp mid every game I would not need to see a smurf account. I think there is some major flaw in how I am trading hp and regen with the enemy midlaner.
@Ayaneru - Ok just watched https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/5829208119 that you provided
1) I'm watching invoker perspective all game. I don't understand how invoker is winning this matchup. I usually lose to snipers due to the shrapnel and E ability hitting really hard. Even with Q, I don't understand how invoker is sustaining this lane so well.
2) I can pull off these combos he is using on sniper. But since sniper is so behind he doesn't even have brown boots the first few times invoker combos him. It's really weird. I can't tell what invoker is actually doing differently than I do to out last hit/ deny this sniper player. And the sniper is even higher mmr than the snipers that I play against. He doesn't harass sniper much early on. Basically all he does is deny the creeps that are dying to shrapnel. I have tried this in the past and basically sniper players will get really aggressive and at these low levels its very difficult to trade.
3) Invoker keeps the creep wave under or near his tower most of the time. It seems like he is successfully freezing the lane until he starts to jungle. This is interesting but I'm not sure how he is doing it so well. This is huge because it means that supports on his team can't just rotate in and protect him against the invoker combos.
Take a look at mine if you want an idea. If you want me to give you some help on matchups and itemising, i'd be happy to go through replays with you.
Yeah for starters I've identified one major weak point. And that is getting bullied out of lane. For some reason I am always losing the regen war (based on watching my replays) and I can't figure out why. It seems like if I am last hitting and denying the opponent they are doing the same to me but they do more damage.
I'm gonna start off with invoker as an example. It seems like I can only deal spells damage to opponents that are out of position and the opponent can doesn't have the same issue. Maybe invoker is just bad at landing right now but it seems like I can't apply any pressure pre-level 6
need some help and suggestions,how to climb high mmr from guardian.i'm so poor don't have enough money for coach sessions.
With invoker, the pre-6 levels are key to winning your lane. You do this through itemising well, pull aggro and forcing the enemy towards you. But it's just as important to know your matchups.
What hero are you against?
Do they have high armour? Use forge spirit to reduce it and auto to harass.
Laning against some heavy harass? Put 2 points in your quas at level 3. Negate that QOP dagger etc.
Do they rely on spells to get last hits? Get a stick and a raindrop.
Coming up against a strong physical laner? Buy a few rings of protection to get through laning phase.
Do they have an immense health pool? Then they probably have no armour. Auto attack harass and threaten a kill when they come close with cold snap/ice wall and forge
etc.
There's a lot of things to understand when coming into a matchup in mid on invoker. You almost always need to either win your lane or at least trade even. These are just a few things to consider. But i've done a lot of research on it now so every time I go into my lane, I always win it unless I get ganked once or twice at a critical level. But then you need to know whether to stay in your lane or leave to gank.
Come level 6, you should be threatening a kill. If you deny hard pre-6 and hit 6 before your lane opponent it's almost a certain kill against most mids. Void spirit and Puck are potential exceptions as they have enough to just evade your combos.
If you want to learn invoker, i'll teach you :)
@Crimson Rain
Good info. I should probably work on itemizing for the early levels more. I do try to skill build based on the enemy.
The problem I have is against heroes like OD, Sniper, Medusa:
With Sniper, I understand the goal is to deny all his creeps in the shrapnel. Generally should I go QE against a sniper? He has that range on me that makes it annoying to try and harass him as well as that instant attack animation. I can still outlast hit him due to better damage but he also just kills my forge spirits if I make them. At 6 I can pretty easily kill him by tornado, cold snap, meteor. Essentially I struggle against snipers who play defensively and make it so that I can't pressure them.
This also applies to medusa even more. Medusa has that shield that makes my harass do no damage. Invoker is REALLY slow so I have to rush boots to get away from snake. Even one hit and it seems like I'm losing the lane. I can't go near my creeps to last hit without having to run away immediately. Either that or I have to go stand in the river to the side and attack uphill. It seems like no matter what hero I pick against medusa I have this problem though. It's not invoker specific.
Against OD, I can't do anything. He just uses astral on me and denies all my ranged creeps. The astral does so much damage with his right click that I can't even trade against him. Looking for tips against him. On a hero like SF, I don't have as much trouble. The reason is that I can out-nuke the enemy player. But with a hero like invoker, I can't seem to apply any pressure unless the player is bad.
Ok so -
With sniper, if he plays shrapnel you should try and pull the wave to you. That's not always possible because he'll be far away, but what a good shrapnel sniper will do is farm the side camp as well, which if you get a ward to see it, you can contest and you should try to push him away from or harass him with forge. If they're defensive, there's not much you can do because you can't really dive tower against shrapnel to find a kill. Best you can hope for is a gank from your pos 4 player to setup a kill and give you vision control pre-6. In the lane, keep your forge next to you rather than sending it ahead of you. Use it to secure the last hits rather than posturing it aggressively. Obviously, as you said at 6 onwards he's an easy kill if he makes a wrong move.
With medusa, her mana pool early is not enough to support her shield effectively. For dusa in lane, it's easier to play wex and use the emp tornado cold snap to harass her out of lane. She has a small mana pool and snake costs a lot for her early. Medusa is also slow, so boots are good for you, and a quick urn or phase if you feel you need the armour and damage. Medusa players always move a certain way when they want to use snake efficiently. They tend to move into the wave a little bit. Just play back, pull the wave again and use tornado to secure the ranged creeps. I'd maybe pick up a raindrop here too. You can't dodge every snake and tbh I wouldn't worry too much about doing that. Once she's done it she can't really damage you much. You can bait her in with this and take the hit. Just have a faerie fire ready and a raindrop, take the snake hit by moving into the wave and combo her with your 3 spells and harass with autos. Her shield will be gone pretty much instantly and because she also has a terribly health pool you'll effectively have done more damage. Especially because on wex you have such high regen. Also if you are playing wex, always start level 1 in quas. It's painful seeing invokers start with wex level 1. It offers you practically nothing. Cold snap on an opponent can help you deny your ranged creep when they were about to attack it. emp level 1 does sweet fa.
OD is actually arguably easier than the other two. I like Exort for this. For early levels you can't really threaten him much, but what you can do is yet again - pull the wave to you. With forge and your damage you can deny those range creeps from him. If the creep is closer to your high ground you can be closer to the creep, meaning your auto attack travels less distance, meaning you can hit it before he can, even with his orb damage, whilst staying out of his astral range. So with forge and exort damage you should deny it. This means OD has to astral the range to secure it, which means he's now vulnerable to you. Playing mid against OD is about forcing him to use astral on the wave. If he does this, then you can bully him better than he can bully you. If he's by some weird reason maxing his orb for the CD reduction, then you can kill at 6. At this level of play a simple tornado bait usually works best. Hit him with it and move forward, he'll probably astral himself. Then follow up when he comes out of it with a meatball and a cold snap and move forward again. Cold snap is especially effective against OD because his attack speed is slow and his attack animation has a slightly longer than normal backswing so cold snap can essentially stop him from attacking you.
Also as you mentioned hero speed - knowing where to place your meatball is something worth thinking about. Some heroes like OD have high move speed, and some like medusa and sniper have low ms. With low ms heroes, you can drop the meatball towards towards the nearest side of their hero and walk forward. For faster ones you want to drop it pretty much on the middle of their hero. The travel distance is ofc capped based on your levels so knowing how to maximise the damage is good. Also think about where you move forward. If your meatball is moving to one side of them, you go the other to block off two areas for them to run. Either they'll run into you, or into your meatball.
Most valuable spell early? Cold Snap imo, followed by your forge.
If none of this makes sense - the best way to win, pull the creeps back to you and deny your own ranged. That's pretty much the most essential part. Don't always have to look for the kill. So long as you come out the lane even or better, then you're good. Oh and buy wards if your pos 4 isn't warding on ganks. Mid ward wins lane. And send a forge to deny power runes too. That's always a good trick.
Super helpful thanks ! Gonna read through it a few times and play some pubs and ill bump this thread with some questions
@Crimson Rain
5847679084 - match ID for me vs a Medusa mid. Let me know how you think I did. This is a good example game because I lost the game but didn't get eradicated mid. It might be a good game for you to point out what I could have done better.
I apologise in advance for this giant wall of text. But I hope it helps you out!
Not an easy game but certainly one that was winnable. There were a fair few things your teammates did that hindered that success but I won't comment on those as that's a whole other side of how to play around your team.
Anyway as for your play I'll split it up into sections:
LANE --------
Against medusa, you do generally want to go wex build. But always start level 1 in quas. The regen gives you an advantage against her auto attack harass. At level 1 medusa won't send snake at you as it costs too much mana, deals low damage and gives her almost nothing back so it is an inefficient play. So survive against auto damage and creep damage with quas level 1. Also EMP level 1 doesn't really provide you with anything either.
Your skill build was interesting. 2/2/2 isn't ideal really at all as it slows your effectiveness down. Always stick to one playstyle early. Against medusa you want to maximise your wex damage. With the team you had, you didn't really have much use for sunstrikes and damage wasn't an issue your team had either but rather utility which is what wex provides. A max EMP gives makes medusa's life early absolute hell as it completely wipes her mana pool. So your skill build priority should be - prioritise WEX, level it until you feel you have enough but get at least 5 levels into it if not maxing it to 7 if you need to keep playing as utility. Get level 3/4 in quas. Then max Exort, maybe getting 1 value point early for alacrity. Only put points into exort if you have won your lane with wex and you can snowball into exort without sacrificing the lead you've built.
You didn't seem to use tornado in lane at all, that's essentially your damage spell early levels in wex. It helps secure farm and bully the enemy. Use it to secure the range last hits you can't get with autos.
I believe you put the two in exort because you thought "i need it for level 6 combo" perhaps? The level doesn't really matter, level 6+ on an exort build means you can start thinking about kill combos. On a 2/2/2 build you can't as you don't have the damage. With wex your damage comes from tornado EMP and it is great damage aginst medusa. Meteor doesn't effectively remove shield from medusa early on. EMP takes it out in 1. Early on the EMP will need to be placed immediately BEFORE the tornado lands until you have 4 points in quas, then you can place it immediately after it.
Because your build was a little mixed I think you came out the laning phase without as much utility as you could have had. With a wex build, you can roam a lot early than with exort, setting up kills with tornado, emp and cold snap. I think if you'd have done this and grouped with your team early you could've taken most of their buildings very early on and taken control of key parts of the map with good wards.
Itemising in the lane was interesting. It wasn't bad at all, and I liked how you kept yourself out of base by sending out regen. That's the right thing to do so well done with that. I did notice you sometimes went to cast combos and didn't have enough mana for them however. This comes with practice. For example, the cold snap, tornado, meteor combo costs 450 mana. If you don't have that or are against a hero that can burn you, wait until you have that or more than enough for the latter to do the combo.
MID GAME --------
Here you made some nice ganks and kills with your supports. But it's where your build slowed you down again perhaps. Orchid is always a nice item, but only if silence and autos will allow you to get a kill with combos. In that game you were against tougher targets. This is where instead of orchid I would've picked up an urn, maybe even a spirit vessel. This all depends on you following that wex path rather than 2/2/2. Cold snap is procced by the urn ticks, and early phase boots give you more damage and armour against their physical damage. I know tusk bought one, but for next time, you should communicate with your team that you will buy it if you go wex. And instead the tusk could've bought a solar crest instead for this game.
I didn't understand the Aghs pickup. You didn't particularly have any good setup on your team for cataclysm so putting sunstrike on a huge cooldown if you can't guarantee damage with it is not worth the 4.2k investment.
Remember - Invoker can be *almost* anything. So almost any item is valid in the right situation. That's what makes that hero so hard, other than the spells. But a key item I find after your first main one (Orchid/Spirit Vessel/Necros etc) is BKB. Invoker is all about timing because a lot of your spells are timing or positioning based. If you think the enemy team can interrupt you in any way, pick up BKB. The one thing Invoker can't really effectively be is a tank. He has low armour and not a great health pool either so if you get caught in a chain stun, you most likely will die. BKB allows you to keep moving for the most part and get your spells off. I'd have bought BKB after the Orchid you had. Just so you could be more aggressive and pressure their team more.
When in teamfights, it's good to get your spell combos off, but always be aware of where your carry is. Often times you were the other side of the fight from them and thus could not help them effectively. Also a huge thing to note is alacrity is a carry's best friend. That shit is hella damage for a carry, in your game bloodseeker could've benefitted from the damage it provides as he doesn't have as much as a standard hard carry. Position yourself well.
Although blink is nice on invoker, it's only really effective if you need to catch targets that are hard to reach and in that game the only one really was lycan but he had BKB and was always in the middle of the fight anyway. It also is only really value if you can catch people on a gank with it and kill. Considering all their targets were super tanky, ganking in the mid game with blink would be tough because your spell damage isn't enough to burst them and ideally it shouldn't be you on the front line setting it up. That should've been your tusk with their blink. IF, however, you do feel you need to start fights, you definitely need BKB with the blink. Against tanky targets you want to catch them from a distance and poke. Your spells are good, but generally your autos are arguably stronger.
For example - you catch a DK with a tornado. Instead of dropping a meatball on his 4k healthpool straight away, you instead place an icewall beneath him to keep him in place longer so your team can help or just to keep him out the fight longer if he has no BKB. Use cold snap and whatever else you think you need to disrupt and damage. You cannot kill him alone unless you build for auto attack/summons/necro damage, or know how to effectively use a full refresher combo, or are just miles ahead in the game.
LATE GAME --------
Here is where itemising becomes important because your spell damage has already peaked. You built into the arcane blink which I don't think is particularly worthwhile. You'd benefit more from getting that hex earlier. You could also benefit from buying a shivas here. The armour was needed against their team. And the anti-regen is nice against lycan and DK as is the slow.
It was quite hard at that point for you to pull out a victory simply because their heroes were stronger than yours at that point. Ideally you'd have wanted your natures to split push constantly. Maybe you would too since you had BoTs. Only coming back to defend when necessary. The late game would've been very hard to win but a lot of that was down to teamplay. Because late game fights are much more valuable because generally 1 or 2 will guarantee victory so immense team coordination is required.
NEUTRALS --------
Don't forget to send neutrals you aren't using back to base ;) You kept that Possessed Mask in your backpack all game. It's good for bloodseeker here so I'd have given it to him. I'd also suggest you may have wanted the dragon scale for the extra armour.
I know this is a lot to take in, and if any doesn't make sense it's because I wrote it at midnight and I've been casting games all evening so I'm worn out. However you did play well, I don't want to take that away from you at all. You have good map awareness and your lane regen is solid. You generally cast your spells well and you push waves out nicely and for the most part you're in the right part of the map. If you need any of this explaining, just let me know and i'll talk you through it. Best way to do that is on discord or in game and we can setup a lobby to practice in. I'm more than happy to do that with you if you'd like. Not the first invoker I've trained ;)
Best tip I can give is keep practicing the hero and keep trying new things! Invoker is adaptable, so adapt to your situation, that generally comes through with itemisation more than it does with skill builds. Skills carry you through midgame, items carry you through late game.
Thanks for the huge writeup (!)
A few things:
1) I didn't actually mean to go 2-2-2, I have the guide setup and sometimes I auto click the spell it suggests without thinking (bad habit). I would have just put in a single point if I hadn't made that mistake.
2) I think you're right that I'm not using tornado enough in lane. I need to experiment more like you were saying until I get a feel for how useful each spell is at each matchup.
3) Itemization wise I think I have a bad habit of always going the same build over and over on heroes I'm learning. I'm going to try not to do that. I've never gone urn build on invoker, at least not since I've really started to try and learn him so I would be interested to know when that is a good pick.
Overall it sounds like the main issue is build / item build for that game. I'll try and vary it as much as possible going forward with less of a cookie cutter approach.
Anytime mate :)
1) I see what you mean about the guide prompts. For invoker they'd have to be super specialised to a certain build playstyle so they're not the best because realistically you can't go into an invoker game knowing how you will build the hero.
2) Tornado is only worth using to last hit with in wex build IF you can't secure cs safely with autos, i.e. the enemy has a good attack animation and high damage. In an exort build you'll never need to use it to last hit. Your autos pretty much out-damage every other hero with a few levels and a forge.
3) Itemisation is tough on invo. But that's what makes him fun. Like I said before, you can pretty much build whatever you like for the most part. If you want to see a replay of some of my games take a look at these different ones I did where I've won the mid lane. It hasn't been perfect play, I usually am not taking it too seriously, but the basic technique and habits are there. So have a look at these if you like.
5851082389 - vs Morphling
or
5824489117 - vs Storm Spirit
or
5819648336 vs Nyx - This is an example where I got completely bullied out of lane. Nyx can burst you for up to 3000 damage with items now when he gets farm so he's especially lethal and completely busted damage. I missed my timings to carry because of his immense damage so I bought items to adapt to what the team needed. I knew Nyx would keep hunting me so I took advantage of that as an opportunity for my team to turn on him when he did, so I didn't much mind dying for this. I could've bought Aeon disk too, but I felt the need to support the team more, rather than buying items that only benefit me.
5851119169 (Zeus) vs Skywrath - Although this one is not invoker, this recent game should show you the importance of itemising against your enemy as well. If you want to watch that through and see what I did, you'll see why the items I chose essentially meant the enemy team couldn't kill us easily.
@Crimson Rain -
Will check these out.
I just watched a replay of topson and had some questions (match id: 5853800200)
Why does he make aghs? He basically never uses it once?
I watched that Topson game back. There's a few things to consider when watching high level players, especially topson.
He does tend to experiment with builds somewhat. It's what made him so unpredictable and hard to counter in TI8 and TI9. In the case of this game, he went wex, which was a smart choice, especially when laning against bristle. Bristle with no mana is not really a threat to anyone so EMP was high value here.
I did find his aghs choice curious, my thinking here as to why he may have bought it however is as follows -
- his team were very very push heavy
- they got mid rax at 22 minutes because of this
- his team didn't lack damage so he didnt necessarily need the exort points because his hero choice was strong because of EMP combo this game
- Aghs essentially gives you 3 levels from 1 item because it adds a level to quas, wex and exort. meaning he got higher value from his combo without having the levels.
- He was unable to really get snowball-type levelling because every hero on his team was quite greedy (pos 4/5 shaker and dp) and needed some form of levelling and farm to be effective.
- The enemy team wasn't really easily gankable so he couldn't go off hunting around the map with orchid for quick kills.
- Exort spells carry longer cooldowns, forge would've been instantly killed in fights and would be instantly killed against bristle and kotl.
- Exort also is a much slower build to come online than wex.
- Aghs therefore just maximises wex combo damage and drain and provides a great form of utility to prevent the enemy movement which is especially good against a team that is generally very fast (other than lion).
I personally wouldn't have bought the aghs. I would've bought perhaps BKB because he got caught a lot without a save. But alternatively, it's like my game against Nyx that I linked above. Do what the team needs rather than what you need. He didn't need to build for a late game. He needed to maximise his early game. Which is why I assume he bought the aghs.
You'll find in Immortal level play, the game becomes a fight of efficiency and maximising, from dropping items to use a wand/mango etc, to dropping ults to clear waves quicker etc. In low level play this isn't seen nearly as much and games often go on a lot longer because people don't use their time well. I experience this a lot in my games which is often a reason I lose. No matter how well you might do in the lane, if you and your team cannot maximise on the space you create, then it's as if you never made the space in the first place.
So to summarise -
- aghs here was probably a min/max decision
People buy aghs thinking that it's pretty much just for cataclysm, and sure cata is great, but you also get those 3 free levels too and not to mention the stats boost which is a big increase as well. Essentially meaning when he was level 15 he was playing with level 18 spells etc.
@Crimson Rain - Ok weird. Somehow I completely missed that aghs gives you extra levels in QWE
I think that makes sense a bit. It sounds like he was trying to hit a perfect power spike at the time they would be seiging..
Random question:
1) How do you apply map pressure when your lanes are constantly getting shoved and you have to keep TPing to different towers to push out the waves. This wastes my time. A lot of time my carries will farm jungle instead of pushing out waves.
2) How do I gank with blink effectively? For example, if I want to gank a sniper in the jungle, I feel like I have no idea if his supports are around him protecting him.
3) How do I kill backline heroes like sniper if they have a BKB? Do I bait them to bkb early? I dont want to waste invoker combos on a BKB hero and become useless.
In early to mid game, its usually best to walk to a lane if you’re going to gank. Of course if you need to get there right away then tp, but if you’re just trying to make a play walk in from the side and try to avoid vision.
Also, I highly recommend trying to gank at around 5-6 minutes if you have kill potential. Wards expire around that time and it’s night so it’s much easier to gank side lanes.
@Johnny Silvercock
1) You need to identify what the strengths of your draft are and support that lane either by creating space on the map elsewhere, or bolstering up as a 4/5 man team to push one lane and force a fight. The most valuable tower in the early game is the mid lane tower. This is because the mid player is the strongest in the early-mid game because they generally have higher levels, good farm and strong mid-game power spikes. Therefore, if you see an opportunity to take your opponents mid tower, then you should take it.
2) So say you're ganking this sniper in the jungle. If you can easily solo kill him within a few seconds say, on Queen of Pain or Lina or Invoker or someone with some kinda quick burst combo, then you can get yourself a smoke and go solo for the kill if you know where he is. Just be aware of where the other enemies are on the map. If you don't see them and there's no reason for them to be in a lane (to push/counter-push/fight) then assume they will be with or near the sniper. If this is the case you will need assistance from your team but if it's early game it's unlikely he will have that support with him there. If you're unsure, use the scan to scout the area where the support could be coming from and perhaps bring a ward with you so you can watch the jungle as well. With blink you'll be able to catch him by surprise and blow him up if your hero is strong enough to do so. In the late game you can almost never do this as people tend not to leave themselves so exposed to ganks by farming away from their team.
Blink in early game is obviously most value when you can use it offensively. If you believe you won't get this chance and will be using it more to run away, then there is likely another item you should be buying instead.
So to summarise point 2 - Smoke, buy a ward, identify his allies positions, scan if necessary. Blink, burst and kill, then immediately get out.
3) If sniper has a BKB, you need to try and get him to trigger it. If he does and you haven't hard committed to a fight, then you can retreat, wait out the duration and go back in if your team is prepared to. If you hard commit to the fight and he uses bkb and he's the greatest threat there, then you and your team should try and collapse on him first.
A good thing to start to learn is how to soft commit and hard commit to fights. Generally speaking in higher levels of play, people will soft commit a lot of the time, especially when running blink dagger. This allows them to judge the tempo of the fight and see whether it's worth taking or not. Because they haven't just thrown all their spells and items in, it allows them to use some to retreat if necessary or engage if they see a potential winning fight. Hard committing immediately is often a weakness of many players in low ranks. Judging and picking your fights can boost your skill rating up wonders. As can a lot of other small changes your gameplay such as when to push lanes, when to smoke, when to take roshan etc.
I hope that helps :) If you got any more questions just ask me!
A good player can make any decision look smart in 3k. If you play well enough you can win any low skill game by static farming mid or by ganking, whether or not it was smart at all. If you feel like decision making is a make or break at your mmr your fundamentals are probably bad
@Crimson Rain - I've been playing only meepo this week and actually had a lot of success. The games where I do lose generally occur when I am doing something blatantly dumb like dieing with aegis alone in the enemy jungle or something. I wanted to ask (if you know the answer)
A) How do I push against a team that wants to 5 man all the time and just wards everything and constantly holds TP so they can 5 man gank me. Some teams put all their mental energy into counter ganking me. And then I can't do anything unless my team also applies some map pressure. I don't like to wait around for that especially ona hero like meepo that wants to end the game early.
B) Sort of the same vein. If all our wards keep getting dewarded what should I be doing? I don't want to waste time warding and a lot of the time I can't because my supports are just bad at warding at my mmr.
@JDF8 - When I static farm mid my team gets rekt every single game. I can solo carry some games..sure. But not all after both top and bot lose and there is a morphling running around with eblade at 12 minutes.
@ginsengstrip2002 - Lol thanks for the tip, coomer. I'll get right on forming a new brain in my brain lab.
@Johnny Silvercock
So with a hero like Meepo -
A) If a team has strong push and groups early and you're playing meepo, this means you will have access to other parts of the map they won't be at. So if for instance they're pushing your top tower as a 5, you can send your clones to the other side of the map to gain the xp that isn't being obtained. Because meepo wants to farm every corner of the globe, you must always try and maximise space on the map and create pressure in the other two lanes that are not occupied. Thus meaning you're gaining advantage over 2 lanes while the enemy is bottlenecking their xp in 1. This comes down to how well you can micro. I assume since you're playing meepo, and from just glancing at the scores you're getting from games a few weeks ago, you have a good fundamental ability of micro mechanics. Thus, at the first sign of enemy movement, be it splitting up the 5 man movement they're doing, or appearing out of vision once an objective has been taken or defended, move your clones to safer ground within the safest areas of the map, which is usually your triangle and jungle. Just send a clone to clear through that while you try and look for counter plays with your main meepo with your team using a smoke. At low levels, people don't know how to play WITH a meepo so it is your job to guide the plays if you can. Playing with him is a lot harder than against him I'd argue. You must create some level of space yourself as meepo and technically you're one of the best mid lane heroes for it because you can do it everywhere.
I see too many players (my friends are guilty of this a lot, and the fact that all the games I play with them, they meme), just stand around doing very little for long periods during the game and it can be frustrating and often lose you the game, just wandering the map with no objective. This happens a lot when you come into 5 man pushes. People think they all need to be there to defend. Simple answer is, you don't. Look how much map they are leaving open and undefended. Look at all the XP that is being left untaken. Make use of that. Leave maybe a few heroes to stall for time and defend a tower with poke damage. If they die, then so be it, so long as you've made movement to take control (even if temporarily) of the rest of the map and pressured the other lanes. Meepo, especially with BoTs is especially good at split pushing against this. If you fear they may rotate away from their push, then clear what feels safe and leave before you see them come in. If you see them appear then it is likely too late, because a 5 man team at low level, especially against meepo, might well rotate as a 5 man gank squad so LEAVE EARLIER and move to the lane they just left. The wonder of meepo, you never have to keep your clones together unless you're fighting. So really what I'm saying is you have to keep spreading map pressure even if the enemy will rotate as a 5 to gank you. If they are doing this, then they are leaving space for the rest of your team, so you should encourage them to make use of the space you've now created by forcing the entire enemy rotation to you. If they're hitting jungle instead of the lane, then tell them to move into the lanes and use the space while its there and get those wards up! Space space space space space. Make the map yours one way or another. Think of meepo like the old old naga where there would just be waves of radiance illusions going up each lane. A real pain in the ass to handle for the enemy team. That's what you should do, just be a little safer and be prepared to micro yourself out of trouble.
B) Warding is an art in DotA. But I'd suggest in moments like this, understand what parts of your map you DO NOT want to lose early (your mid tower, your triangle, the entryway into your jungle from the river etc.). These are areas worth warding. If you want to push, put a ward in the lane behind the tower you want to take to help spot rotations. It doesn't matter if your ward lasts 6 minutes or 30 seconds. So long as you get some sort of value from the vision it provides then it has done its job. Every piece of vision gives you information - Helps you understand what the enemy are doing. If they are controlling the vision game a lot, then my best advice is to group with your team, get some wards ready, and go for a smoke gank with a scan based on where you know the enemy should be moving. If you find an enemy, get the kill quick and leave to push an objective with a man advantage. If you find no one, it's a great time to plant some deep wards to help you initiate more ganks and get back some control of the map. If you don't see the enemy on the map for a while and you're in a dangerous position on the map, leave. If you're on your side of the map but with no vision of the enemy, then be ready but do not leave or else you're wasting time, XP and gold. Have your team get those damn wards up lol. Meepo needs wards. Meepo with no wards is not a fun hero.
Ultimately in my opinion, the issue with low level games is a lack of direction. So much time is wasted farming neutrals and "getting the next item" that opportunities are lost and games go on forever. My friends do this. This is why half my games are just painfully irritating because they're so slow and you just lose to a stronger late game draft that's easier to execute than your own. There should never be a moment on the map when you aren't doing something to push an advantage or regain ground from a disadvantage. The jungle is a last resort - It's the last thing anyone should be prioritising. As you said, Meepo wants to end the game quickly, unfortunately sometimes you just can't get your team to listen, but should they be willing, become the playmaker, make the calls and tell them what you need - smokes, wards, ganks, rosh, towers, etc etc. Just call it out. Make them do stuff. So long as you don't have your pos 4 and 5 running around hitting jungle camps, because at this level, a pos 4 or 5 with farm will not make a bigger impact than a pos 1, 2 or 3 with it. This changes when you hit immortal ranks somewhat. But that's a whole other game. Push with a support, leave your pos 1, 3 and 4 or 5 to counter push a 5 man deathball while you make space. If they cannot for some reason last 5 seconds because they put themselves in bad positions, then there's not much you can do. Just maximise your own game and hope its enough.
TLDR;
I've played with friends from herald to well into immortal ranks. The game changes a huge amount but not in obvious ways. As a meepo, you'll find more success at your rank than you will in divine/immortal because enemies aren't as efficient. If you can master not just your micro ability but your map awareness and movement, you'll find games become a lot easier. You must force the timings rather than wait on your team. Communicate with them to pressure lanes, take objectives etc.
So for meepo:
- Pressure empty lanes
- Always have an objective in mind
- Identify your greatest threats in the game and tell your team who to focus in fights to allow you to be effective
- Do not be *prioritising* farming jungle camps if there is another objective on the map you should be focusing on. (Not saying don't farm it, just it shouldn't be your main objective).
- Guide your teammates with wards, smokes and movement
- Try and counter push against 5 mans
- Wards wards wards. Put them in weird places, cliff spots are for when you're either desperate or winning and are completely overrated and obvious. Place them in areas that will actually benefit your movements. Are you really going to hang around the rune spots or those strange spots in the triangle? I don't think so. Put them near lanes, put them on stairs, put them at the edge of a large camp or something where you might find a support stacking or a carry farming. Less likely to be dewarded in these places. First place low ranks check is cliffs. Just put yours out of range of cliff sentries.
I've found that meepo is either an absolute beast and carries the game or is just a huge burden than soaks up xp and farm to die instantly because of no target priority in fights. There's no in-between. Make sure to communicate these things and get people going. I don't know how much you do communicate with your teammates but I'd suggest as much as possible if you really want to improve. A friend of mine went from 1.6k mmr to 5.5k by learning a few heroes inside and out, and using his mic to communicate effectively.
hmmm yes I think there is a big problem in that I don't even talk with my team. And when I do they don't seem to understand the "why" of what I'm asking them to do. Like backing up. If I could find a way to be a better leader I'm sure I would win more.
Regarding the pressure, I think I just jungle too much from fear of getting 5 man ganked like you said. I can probably improve my micro just a bit coupled with warding better and maybe that won't be an issue anymore. I'll try playing a few games where I spend more time pushing earlier on.
Ultimately that's the play here. Playing safe won't really get you anywhere. Especially when you are queuing by yourself because the later the game gets, the less you can be that solo force of pressure, as the game gets forced into teamplay 5v5s. Early on you have the ability to execute solo plays because of power spikes. By the end of the game it comes down to team coordination and in solo games it's harder to pull that off to secure a win, especially on meepo.
Take risks and never be afraid of the gank squad. I'm assuming you are using a different account or turned yours to private since your last game says 2 weeks ago. So I can't really comment on how your current games are progressing. But so long as you keep some of these tips in mind I'm sure you'll do fine.
You don't need to communicate so much when you play heroes that don't change the format of the game but with meepo because he takes so much space off the map, you do need to communicate this at lower ranks. I'd also suggest that meepo isn't a good pick when your team is greedy (i.e. you have cores and possibly supports that MUST have some level of farm to be effective - spectre, troll, riki, etc.) because you are taking all the XP and farm off the map. You can work well with someone like gyro, or jug or ursa who can provide damage or assets to the team without needing a ton of farm to do something early. Gyro has huge magic damage early, jug has healing ward, spin and omni, and ursa has early damage from skills that meaning heavy farm isn't as necessary as say someone like the aforementioned heroes. Just consider these things when picking meepo. Meepo IS the greed in a team lineup, a bit like when you play Invoker, except meepo needs more space than invoker does and arguably more farm early too.
If you have a team that has good early damage and gank potential, go gank with them in their lanes if you see an opportunity. Try not to sit back and farm. Poof does good damage with 2 meepos early on combined with almost any lane duo, especially one that can provide an extra bit of CC such as Ogre or Lich or Shaman etc.
https://www.dotabuff.com/players/343333038
check this guy out, he's some rank 200 player. I played with him 3 days ago at Legend 5/Ancient 1(he was queued as offlane but took my mid), he's now Ancient 5.
@Crimson Rain - about to try a ranked match for the first time in awhile. I'll link it after. Probably just meepo this time since I prefer to take turns spamming meepo / invoker instead of playing both since that tends to make me play worse on both.
@Crimson Rain -
Ok..I played the ranked game and completely messed up around minutes 13-20 which is meepo power spike. The first gank I messed up my keybind or something cause you'll see me miss a net on PA and then my other meepos don't even poof in like they are supposed to. still not sure how or why this happened *shrugs*.
Anyways, I'm laning against medusa so I still want to know what you think of my early game. You can ignore the game after 15 minutes cause its just me dieing over and over after that point.
Match ID: 5877566754
5877766021 - This one I think I played better but still..another loss. I can't seem to push at all without dieing.
@;';>'/' can I add you? I want to improve
I'll listen carefully and will not debate over your opinion.
I want to have someone to learn from
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I've been learning midlane (previously safe lane player). I would like to see how smurfs deal with the enemy midlaner always ganking my team's sidelanes. In high mmr games I almost never see ganks as midlaners farm more. Therefore watching high mmr midlaners I just see them passively farm first 7 minutes every game. This doesn't work in low mmr.