Suriving 3k Item Spotlight: Drum Solo

Drum of Endurance used to be ubiquitous on most right click carry heroes. Generally, agility carries would go Phase Boots, Drum of Endurance, Yasha before branching into other items. It's comparable to Armlet on strength carry heroes currently. The reason for this is that drums had an easy build up, provided cheap stats - notably strength and intelligence - came with an extremely useful aura and provided an activated ability. This ability allowed you to chase, retreat and take objectives better than your opponent. Currently, pro-teams are forgoing this item except on a select few heroes like Batrider. In your games, make sure at least one person on your team gets a drum. The pushing power it provides is enough to justify the purchase.

Surviving 3k: Spamming Heroes

If your goal is to increase your MMR and aren't spamming between 3-5 heroes, then consider giving it a shot. Here are some reasons why you should consider this approach to gaining MMR:

• Gaining MMR is about consistency and skill so by spamming few heroes, you can increase both of these. 
• Most people can only stay sharp on a finite number of heroes, play styles, and habits and spamming eliminates this variability. 
• Patches create an environment where certain roles, play styles, and heroes are favored to have a higher impact in the game and spamming tries to take advantage of that. 

You don't have to pick "meta" heroes to be successful. That isn't quite the right mindset. Instead, use this approach to breakout of a plateau or build up some confidence in your game. Give it a shot and let me know how it goes. I'll share my results next week and I hope you will do the same.

Surviving 3K MMR: Applying Pressure

Hello everyone and welcome to the first in a 5 part series on pressure. In DOTA 2, there are three main types of pressure and you feel them in each and every game you play. Let me stress this point: pressure is that feeling you get when your heart is pounding because you have lost map control and the enemy team is under the cover of smoke, advancing on you. Understanding the three types of pressure is fundamental in learning how to channel the feeling of duress you get when under pressure into properly allocating the resources you provide to your team. The three types of pressure are: objective, lane, and time. In physics, pressure is defined force over an area like pounds (force) per square inch (area). In DOTA 2, pressure is also force over an area however this force is the the drive for resources and the area is the map. By understanding and properly reacting to pressure, you can make better decisions and increase your win percentage.

Objective pressure is the largest and most important type of pressure in the game for a couple of reasons: the other two types of pressure directly contribute to it, objectives can be taken from minute 0, and your team gains resources either directly through taking objectives or indirectly through information through things that grant vision (like wards). In fact, the Throne is the penultimate objective and taking it means victory. Below the Throne sit other objectives to focus on and talk about: runes, Roshan, and building. Roshan and buildings provide an immediate gold boost as well as the Aegis of the Immortal for the former and map control for the latter. Runes aren't always as tangible; sometimes they swing the game and sometimes they are just bounty runes... Regardless of which runes they are, they are important objectives in the early part of games.

Lane pressure is the second type of pressure discussed in this series. Lane pressure is, in some ways, a subset of Objective pressure, however it gets its own spotlight because it's more localized, time sensitive, and has a large impact on how the game unfolds. To help distinguish lane pressure from objective pressure, think of objective pressure as the result of accumulating resources - i.e. get gold, then get item, take objective - and think of lane pressure as the act of accumulating resources. By accumulating resources in lane (and in the jungle by extension), you pressure your opponent. Think of lane pressure like an Anti Mage clearing waves of creeps and then clearing the jungle then back to clearing waves of creeps - an enemy team feels pressured to stop him.

Finally, there is time pressure which derives its existence from the idea that line ups or individual heroes want to hit certain timings. Missing those timing makes the game a lot harder for the team which missed it. The converse reverse is also true; make your timings and the game gets easier (hopefully resulting in a win!) Radiance represents this idea brilliantly. A Spectre feels pressured to get her Radiance as soon as possible and the enemy team feels pressured to delay it as long as possible. If her Radiance is acquired on time or early (about 20 minutes), her team is in a good position to win. The longer she's delayed, however, the more pressure her team is under because so many resources have been lost or tied up in getting it.

Understanding what you feel when you're playing is important and we have all had that feeling of pressure at one point or another. When you can identify and translate what you feel into coherent terms, you become a force to be reckoned. Most people get stuck in the feeling phase (thus the constant flame) but reading this blog and channeling how feel into the proper response and decision is the key to grabbing a victory in 3K MMR.

Surviving 3k MMR in DOTA 2: An Introduction to Carrying

Everyone wants to play the 1 position hero: the carry. They are fun, flashy and can win the game for their team in many circumstance. To play this position better, we need  There is spectrum for carries: from farming to fighting. All carries fall somewhere on this spectrum. In my anti-carry series, I use the term anti-carry because, technically, all carries are fighting carries at some point in the game, usually after they get their key items. Consequently, I make the distinction that anti-carries want to hunt down enemy carries and prevent them from farming by killing them rather than try accelerate their farming potential by getting items like battlefurry. Farming carries want to find a place on the map that has free gold and take it. It needs to be a place where it's relatively safe so that the currency acquired with minimal risk of losing it. This is partially why farming carries are picked over fighting carries; the risk of losing gold is less so getting ahead is easier and the enemy has to react to you. Let's explore these ideas further.

On the spectrum of fighting and farming carries, Slardar best represents what makes a fighting carry. His skills are oriented toward chasing and locking down heroes, he has high mobility but takes extra damage so this isn't the best for farming the jungle - especially in the early and into the mid game, his spells don't let him spam out a wave of creeps, and he has some mana issues. All these thing culminate into a hero that isn't suited for afk-style farming because it isn't as efficient as just finding a hero and killing them. 

The other end of the spectrum contains the Antimage. He farms a battlefurry and then uses blink to move from neutral camp to neutral camp to lane creeps and back very quickly. The Antimage relies on using battlefurry to get ahead of the enemy carry in items and then fight them. You don't have to play AM this way, but it is overwhelmingly prefered because of its efficiency. Once the AM gets two or three core items after a battlefurry, he can start to partake in fights.

Recently, pro-players have been changing how they build heroes to keep their opponents off balance or help secure an advantage for their team early. aggresif played Phantom Lancer getting boots of travel (BoT) early during The Internation 2015 in order to farm more efficiently by getting to the gold on the map faster and giving him the option to fight with his team at minimal opportunity cost+. BoT also saves you 75 gold per TP and has a lower cooldown than a TP so you can move around the map more efficiently. Players have also been itemizing traditionally farming heroes into fighting heroes by getting aquilla, drums, magic wand, sange, et al. This way, they can show up with their team and help dish out some damage before going into a more farm heavy build with items like yasha and helm of the dominator. 

As the carry player, you need to identify how much time you can spend farming vs. fighting. This is the most difficult aspect of playing a carry but is quintessential to playing a carry well. If you spend too much time farming creeps instead of heroes, you risk your not having an overall advantage. If a few 3- or 4-man engagements end poorly for your team, they might not be able to contribute much to future fights. Similarly, if you spend too much time fighting the enemy team their carry could get ahead of you and out carry you or, worse, your team could lose fights and fall super far behind. This begs the question, when should you farm creeps vs. heroes? Here are some general tips I follow in my games:

1. you want to play carry enough to know item timings to judge how far behind or ahead you are; a 15 minute battlefurry on PA indicates you're farming well but each minute after that means you are falling behind
2. understand how much of the map is available for you to use without fearing a gank; more map control = you're further ahead
3. how many towers do you have compared with your opponents?
4. what's the kill score?
5. who won the last fight and why?
6. how many core items does the opposing carry have?
7. how many items do the other cores on your team have?
8. have people been asking for you to come join fights?

These are just 8 quick and dirty things to think about when you decide whether to farm or fight. There are many other situational things you need to think about when deciding, like when is my hero supposed to be strong, but those things need their own post.  Let me know in the comments below how you determine when to fight or farm. We are all looking for ways to improve and by sharing what we've learned, we can improve together.

Surviving 3k MMR: Don't play a worse something else

In DOTA 2, the easiest way to gain MMR is to pick the best hero for the situation. Things like opponent team composition, your team composition, and your hero pool eliminate a lot of potential heroes trying to lure you into the trap of playing a "worse something else." In the game, there are roles and picking the best hero for the role you want to play or the role you get stuck with (sorry, position 5) will dramatically increase your teams chances of winning. I have a few pocket pick offlaners and mids so that I can play that position competently. Even though I don't know all the intricacies of each matchup, I have confidence in my ability to play my hero correctly.

Picking a "worse something else" is especially obvious in captain's mode. Commentators almost always point out what they will think is the best pick for the current situation and they are right much of the time because they can properly identify each teams composition, strengths and weaknesses of the current line up and, based on the current meta, sum up what hero would be the best. This idea of picking the best carry or mid hero is what drives a meta.

So the next time you find yourself in the enviable position of picking last for your team, just remember don't pick a "worse something else." Let me know in the comments if this tip was ever helpful for you or if it gave you that "aha!" moment.

Surviving 3k MMR: Actively Thinking About the Game

I recently wrote a post about three things to do to survive (you can find it here). I would like to expand on the second point from that post, which is: not actively thinking about what's going on in the game. Too often players tunnel vision into what's going on right in front of them, lose focus and zone out. This results in three things:

1. Zombie mode farm fest
2. missing opportunities to gain an advantage
3. missing opportunities to push an advantage

There are simple exercises you can perform during the game to snap you out of this mindset and help you become a better player. The first thing to try is checking what items the enemy players have. This will give you valuable information and help you make sure you itemize correctly. Second, check the items on your teammates, especially your supports. You can tell how well a game is going by the number of items on the supports. Third, think about where your going to be in 30 seconds, 1 minute and five minutes from now. Make some assumptions about how the game is going to go and then try to predict how the game's going to unfold after that. Finally, check the minimap and count the number of enemy heroes on the map. If there's only one enemy hero showing, try to think about where the other heroes could be; they could be wrapping around on you for a gank, doing Roshan or farming your jungle.

Hope this quick tip helps as you continue to survive 3k MMR.