Xyrus's #RoadTo4k Thread

Exactly what I thought after I failed miserably at lasthitting with both. Ty.

BTW what are your Arc Warden control groups? I'm still not settled on something practical so any advice is welcome.

1 for main hero, 2 for his clone, 3 for both, 4 for Necros. That's actually pretty inconvenient tho because of two things: one, sometimes(somehow this only happens early game when I keep my clone close, after I get him to do his own business this problem magically disappears) my clone gets bound to my main hero, so when I press 1 it selects both of them and I don't know why, I often have to quickly rebind this ****, sometimes in the heat of the battle. Two, there is no way(or I don't know one) to bind clone's Necros to a separate key so I have to select them manually when some idiot rushes after them to get ez gold or when they get too far ahead and start tanking the tower.

Oh also the main hero keeps doing what he's been at the moment clone is summoned(I still don't know if that cancels channeling though, gotta test). I thought he stops and I used to feed my hero by sending him in the middle of a fight with my clone. Got used to it now.

Those are more of annoyances than a real problem, the real problem is that idiots always get mad when they realize their carry is Arc Warden and do everything from casual crying and calling gg to picking another carry safelane forcing me to go elsewhere and let them feed enemy hardlane. Completely obliterates my will to play the hero tbh, especially since he is really dependent on team earlygame.

On the topic of hero pool... lemme give my two cents.


I sincerely believe that having 1 hero, whether 'meta' or not, that you're really good at is better than having many heroes that you're not that great at.

I have a friend who plays Juggernaut. That's literally all he plays. Instalock every game, everything else doesn't matter.

He's sitting comfortably at 2.5k mmr right now, with less than 10 games every week.

An example...

Not to brag, but I have a decent capability to play Puck. I tend to keep my hero pool small, so the last while I've been pretty much picking Puck every game.

Now we know for a fact that Skywrath Mage counters Puck. (Insta-silence, burst, etc)

However, I do tend to beat most skys. Why? That brings me to my last point...

We all have to accept the fact that MMR, while good, is not perfect. Far from it. There are skill variants in every game, and, when coupled with smurfs and such, can lead to very unbalanced skill levels in the same game.

Don't be afraid to pick a non-meta hero or a weak hero, as long as you're good at it.

Think about it this way: Imagine every single hero was equally 'meta.' (this doesn't mean they don't counter each other, it just means that there aren't super OP heroes and super trash heroes).

Pick someone you WANT to play and would HAVE FUN playing, and master it. It doesn't matter if it's a completely 'trash' hero... take Lifestealer for an example. If you could play Lifestealer well, I'd say there is complete justification in picking it in any game...

After all, this game is more about skill than picks. :D

Last point: Don't be afraid of doing something weird. Guardian(Wisp) took jungle/carry Io to 5k mmr.

glhavefun.

WOW with that Io. I agree with TheSofa, a lot of people don't understand that DotA is a game, and such, have fun playing it is essential. That's why I like to play with Wraith King and Bloodseeker, they may not be OP but hell I have a good time playing with them. When I play "serious games" I usually go for a support role, like Dazzle or Lion, but 90% of the times, I just pick Bloodseeker and Rupture some as****

I played one of my favourite heroes, Io yesterday in a solo ranked game. It was the first time I did him in a solo game and I don't think it is good to do but actually it was decent for me.

However knowledge of the hero is really important.

In the 2k bracket, Riki is king!

The thought process of "Oh a 100/180 gold item completely counters a hero, that is gold I would have from just 2-4 creep kills" doesn't exist..

Just go treads Diffusal Basher and win the game..

so, after a few Jugg games, I finally found one where I had to 1 vs 3:-

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2083574108

Turns out, Jugg CAN 1 vs 3 quite well in Pubs. So he makes the list! <}3

A "we told you so" must come here, I'm sorry, I know it's obvious, but still... How many people told you so? :D

Jugg is a very nice pick nowadays. Now I think you should try to refine your decision making on when to join fights and not - if you notice, your Techies did more damage to enemy heroes than you in that game (and your Pudge did as much as you), what is also an indication of why it is a loss, even with you being well farmed. I would also suggest you finished your Manta Style before the other items like Skadi, because it helps with your survivibility, damage output and farming a lot.

Another thing I would like to suggest/note: you keep saying you will stay in your pool of heroes for ranked, and yet not only you didn't but you're also changing the heroes played a lot, which is good for having fun, but probably not the best if you want to invest in ranked. Everytime you change hero/role, you lose a bit of concentration on the last one you did. It really compensates to keep on the mindset for a while longer when trying to improve with a specific hero.

Also if you want to feel more free a bit with getting used to a hero, why not a smurf, just for some build experiments with no attachments, it might come in useful to when you come back to your main account. And I know it sucks to be back to zero skill games, but it's still the closest you can get to playing against real humans without compromizing your (visible and invisible) mmr.

Getting Skadi instead of MKB.
Skilling a ward at level 4 against a trilane.
Getting stats instead of crits in an AFK farming build.
Getting ward at level 16.

Damn Xyrus, if you also randomed this hero you'd be a typical core player in my team xD

Also how about actually playing Ranked instead of theorycrafting about that for, what is it, almost a month? That's almost 70 wins over losses to 4k from the point you are at now. You want to get 4k this Christmas?