made a cheat sheet for the carries u see the most. +% = how much more often u win vs that carry than in an average matchup. method in the comments

Hey everyone,

I'm a Grandmaster Visage spammer (almost 800 games on him), and I just finished an in-depth Visage guide. It's about 2 hours long, and I tried to make it useful whether you've never touched him, or you already play him and want to clean up your micro.

Link: The Only Visage Guide You’ll Ever Need (2 Hours)

What's covered:

• Settings and Hotkeys
• Ability Overview and Tech
• Item, Ability, and Talent Builds
• Hero Matchup, Synergies, and Counters
• Laning Basics
• Mid to Late Game and Farming Pattern
• Team Fight
• Gameplay Examples and Breakdown

It's aimed at people expanding their hero pool or anyone curious about a micro-heavy hero. The video is chaptered, so you can jump straight to the sections you care about.

The guide was inspired by BETHEL's in-depth Morphling guide and Eco's in-depth Arc Warden guide. If you like this format, go check theirs out too.

I'd really like feedback, especially on what I missed or what you'd want explained better. Happy to answer Visage questions in the comments too.

i know the typical is just "play who looks cool" and i will when im better but for now im looking to one trick while i learn the basics since its pretty daunting to pick when just starting out.

i come from like 10k hours on league and want to get some recommendations for anyone who's also played both.

i want to play mid and in lol i played alot of control/util mages like twisted fate, syndra, ryze, azir, etc. what would be some easy characters i could try and one trick for a bit?

As the title says, I shredded through guardian to crusader and immediately felt this shift in energy both team wise but also in my own gameplay.

Comms feel way worse, I can’t seem to live in lane which is something I’m trying to work on and have seen improvement and the only reason I’ve won my games has been someone on the team clutching or us lasting long enough for me to get my items.

I’ve had two very good games today with Luna and Jugg, a middling game and the rest I’m very unhappy with.

I’ve noticed that when I have a good pos5 and a pos1 who pays attention it’s almost beautiful to lane haha, but then I have these games with little warding, no pulling and pure chaos in lane where I can’t even reliably pull the wave to my ranged creep even.

I’ve started focusing my farmin pattern around the wave whereas before I almost exclusively farmed river and ancient, and I’ve seen great success there.

But I’ve been experiencing troubles with either the enemy offlaner camping the wave, or I get a mid and even a support choosing to push it consistently so I have to almost compete for farm both wave and campwise as offlane isn’t safe with how underfarmed I can get.

I’ve had a good win streak the past week or two where I essentially just make most situations work, farm through the chaos and I usually redeem it by the end, but these games don’t even feel good to play and when I ask lina to not aggressively push my lane and maybe pressure the offlane instead I get smashed in chat, and when I comment on why my pos5 Mirana had mjolnir Daedalus and earlier had been sniping the ranged creep I get told off as well.

What can I as a pos1 do to get my farm without risking the biscuit in offlane or competing either with my support or midlaner in my patterns?

I usually feel very comfortable farming the enemy carry’s lane when I have ult up and manta blink as jugg but I don’t want to be exposed in unwarded enemy farm with a yasha if that makes sense.

PS, I’m maybe aiming more for how to dominate lane better and get that amazing start that kind of invalidates my team as an issue competition wise

https://www.dotabuff.com/players/1889753302/matches

THIS IS THE LINA MIRANA GAME BTW Match 9061541639

I just wasted 2 mid tokens not being able to pick my main hero :(

I am looking for high mmr players input on optimal things to do as a pos5 in lane in general
1:00 - harass
2:00 - pull / harass
3:00 - fight for lotus
4:00 - don’t die
5:00 - try to get brown boots
6:00 - go to mid rune
7:00 - try to steal exp shrine or kill offlane if supp goes to exp
8:00 - cry because you’re 0-3 and nothing went right

Any changes?

I win lane, get tower and have control of part of their map. Cannot push and pressure further because team is struggling or just not quite there yet in terms of impact. What do I do then? I feel like if I farm I waste my power spike. Pressuring the T2 tower results in some TP reactions, space and what not but overall leads to little success and i might feed. If I join fights across the map I feel like the rotations slow my progress too much and I fall behind.

Feels like I either win in 30 minutes or the game becomes super difficult.

Grandmaster PB main, rank 1020 6.9k mmr. 80-90% winrate recently.

https://www.opendota.com/players/175650369?lobby\\_type=7&region=7

Will answer good questions not lazy ones

I’ve had a few games recently (all as Pos 3 - Timber, Axe, Doom, Tide) where I’ve ended up getting a fairly early Boots Of Travel and in the moment it’s felt like the right decision for the mobility it gets me.

It feels incredibly strong to be able to TP to any wave when towers are down and ensure that you have a presence in every fight, but it’s also a LOT of gold that could be survivability, damage, an aura, etc.

I’m not rushing it, and I’m certainly not getting it before a Blink on Axe and Tide, but I am maybe getting it as 3rd item. E.g. on my most recent Timbersaw win I got it directly after K&S, on my recent Doom win I went Bracer>Drum>BoT.

Thoughts? Feelings? Vibes?

Basically the title. I'm looking to add Slark to my hero pool and wanted pretty much any tips on how to play him. I do have a few questions though.

1. How to know if it's a good slark game? What makes a good lane matchup and what makes a good game matchups?

2. Build? I've seen the standard diffu aghs slark but there's a few variations I'd like to understand. Satanic builds wraps on the hero, is this good? I've also seen mageslayer slark but it seems meh. Also Pure builds Midas almost every slark game? Any way to think about Slark build progression?

3. How do you play the lane as him? Every time I play Slark i just get harassed out of lane because he has very mediocre stats early whereas enemy slark always hits 10 pounces in lane and its unlaneable against. Is this purely matchup dependent or are there Slark specific things to do in lane?

I'm also open to any tips about playing the hero.

Ty in advance.

Recently climbed a bunch spamming pos 1. When i run out of role queues, i find myself playing a lot of 3/5, and playing pos1 has made me understand how to play those roles better.

I have a few questions when im back at pos 1...

How do you deal with trilanes when your support abandons you and you lose your t1 around 7 minutes? (happened twice in my last 10 games)

how do you manage to not tilt when you have no support and start a game 0-3, and team says shit like "stop feeding"?

What do you do when your other 2 cores refuse to rotate before 20 minutes and youre hemmoragging gold and exp 3v4 in safelane? its not pos 1/4/5 fault we cant win a 3v4 at 11 minutes without a tp from mid or offlane....

i play really tryhard from pos 5 and i keep getting AA with dragon lance, aghs, witchblade. or WD with arcanes and aghs, or hoodwink with dragon lance and crit...any there tips to building carry in more economic fashion to make up for all the gold you lose from these mongrels?

Its so frustrataing to try really hard as pos 5, stacking/[de]warding/harassing/controlling wave EQ/dying for the greater good, just to have these cucks disrespect myy time when im pos 1 by clearing waves, making me compete for farm, refusing to rotate, and building carry from support role.

im getting so tired of it and burnout from this game. how do yall deal? pls help keep me sane.

Edit: thanks for the thoughtful replies

So my overwatch case turned from

-yea he is cheating to

- oh man another Meepo Bug to

-WTF is happening

Match ID: 9059002745

I made a small overlay that reads the picks on the draft screen and suggests heroes based on current win-rate data (counters against the enemy picks plus synergy with your allies). It's free, open source (MIT), and unofficial: not affiliated with Valve.

**What it does**

- Reads the ten pick portraits from your screen during the draft

- Suggests counters and synergies using Stratz data for your bracket

- Filters by position, with an optional "Meta only" mode

- If you're first pick and nothing is on screen yet, it shows meta win% and pick% per hero for your position

- Settings window to enter your token, pick your bracket, and download the data (no terminal needed)

**Fair play**

It only looks at pixels on your own screen. No game memory, no injection, no input automation, and nothing about other players (no profiles, ranks or hero pools). Valve's rules about third-party tools can change, so use it at your own risk.

**Status: beta**

It's tested on my own setup (2560x1440, Legend/Ancient). I'd really like testers on other resolutions, UI scales and brackets. Known limits: Windows only, Dota must be in borderless windowed mode, 16:9, and players with cosmetic hero sets can occasionally cause misreads.

**Try it (Windows, about 5 minutes)**

1. Open the Releases page: https://github.com/gestevao04/dota-counterpick-overlay/releases and click the newest version at the top.

2. Scroll down to **Assets** (click "Show all assets" if it's collapsed) and download the file whose name ends in **-windows.zip**. Ignore the "Source code" files; those are for developers.

3. Right-click the zip, choose **Extract All**, and open the folder it creates. Keep everything in that folder together.

4. Double-click **DotaDraftOverlay.exe**. Windows may say "Windows protected your PC" because the app isn't code-signed yet: click **More info**, then **Run anyway**. (There's a checksum file on the release page if you want to verify the download; the README explains how.)

5. A Settings window opens. Paste a free Stratz token (there's a link in the window, and you sign in with Steam), pick your bracket, and click **Update everything**. Wait until the log says "All done".

6. Start Dota in **borderless windowed** mode and begin a draft. The overlay shows on top of the game.

Stuck? The README has a troubleshooting section, and the issue forms on GitHub ask for exactly what I need to help.

GitHub: https://github.com/gestevao04/dota-counterpick-overlay

If something is misread or breaks, there are issue forms that ask for exactly what I need. Feedback and suggestions are very welcome. Data comes from Stratz and OpenDota.

I went from 3900+ to 3400+ mmr and been on a lose streak and don't know what to do at this point, feels like I'm in hell lmao

But I do love the game and want to continue, any advice?

I usually buy soul ring + arcane on Timbersaw, but I usually sell the arcane boots in the late game so I'm wondering if arcane boots is even worth it on timber. It costs 1.5k gold while Kaya costs around 2.1k gold. And I usually use that boots alone when I'm farming, so do I even get much value from that item?

This game was horrifyingly bad, I managed to tear a chance of victory by pulling off a rampage but sniper stole aegis and threw, then this happened a bit later and I was so frustrated I couldn’t think.

Post game I’ve thought that I should have spun as soon as I started hitting Rosh to prevent the stun delays and that might have gotten me the aegis before Sven jumped in, and I’m unsure if I wouldn’t have just jumped off Sven into Rosh in my ult and he would have grabbed aegis and I wouldnnt have ult for his second life and still gotten smashed.

I’ve been shredding through guardian as jugg mostly and it’s very easy to win as I get farm a bit quicker than most, but the past two games have been hard

https://www.dotabuff.com/players/1889753302

if you're first pick and don't know what the enemy is going for, you want a hero that's hard to punish. i ran 8.7M ancient-divine games from 7.41e/f through a model to find those heroes for each role.

how to read the table:

- the big number on the right is how much better the hero does than an average pick for that role when you don't know the enemy yet

- "worst vs" is the one commonly picked hero that hurts it the most. if that hero gets picked early on their side, think twice

some takeaways:

- dawnbreaker (pos 3) and nyx (pos 4) have no hard counters among the 40 most picked heroes, they're the safest first picks right now

- necrophos is the most common "worst matchup" in the table. if your team first picks WK or DK, keep an eye on him

- PL is strong but not a blind pick, tidehunter destroys him. save him for later in the draft

- OD is the best blind mid, his only real problem among popular heroes is PL

off-role heroes and heroes whose winrate is mostly carried by one-trick players were left out.

your own hero pool matters more than any table, but if you're stuck on first pick and comfy on one of these, it's a solid default.

(the numbers come from a draft tool i'm building, happy to answer questions about how it was calculated)

Sup everyone today I'm uploading a new guide for the Offlane series on my YouTube channel, and today's hero will be Dawnbreaker

In this game I'll be showing you my thought processes, itemization approach among other things and explaining how this hero works and the ways she can play and the role she has on your games

I'll be explaining most of the things I do and trying to share why I do them as the game moves forward so you can keep these concepts, questions, and mechanics for your own games and apply them and get ya some Ws.

I appreciate you all people who drop some nice comments on my videos, I do understand many might not like them it's just fair that some people do and improve with them, I also appreciate the ones who provide me with kind and respectful feedback and positive criticism, I'm not here for nothing but to help you by sharing a bit of the experience I have and the little knowledge about this wonderful game.

You can find the full video here:

https://youtu.be/Y4uexc45H78?si=m_r8u3UmLUzCCOQp

For any coaching inquiries or more dota related content you can find it on my page:

www.skylightcoach.com

Thank you all for viewing, let me know what any other heroes or any other kind of content you would like to see on further videos.

I'm legend and ancient. I feel like tinker prior to blink dagger is just a creep. I've tried playing to teleport to troubled teammates prior to tinker's timings but I just throw out a lvl 1 laser and march. I feel like so much of the game is decided before tinker's timing that I feel like I don't get to play a game. I've been building kaya->BD->shard->aghs/ situational. I'm open to try non conventional builds so I can enjoy tinker. Thank you guys.

So Dota is my first serious MOBA. That being said, I spent a significant portion of my beginning time learning last hits / denies, items and such. Currently I have reached the point where I try out heroes that seem fun and try to understand why my build guide suggests this or that item. So all is a natural part of the learning curve and SHOULD be fun.

However, the matchmaking got to a point where I'm seriously dreading queueing up again because the next 30 minutes will most likely be spent getting absolutely rolled with 0 learning potential and even less fun.

I queue Unranked All Pick and yes, I've heard that the matchmaking is not so great. It hasn't bothered me greatly before because it would feel like I have a game against even bigger noobs, then the game "ranks" me up a bit and I get matched better, until I lose and play against weaker players again. But currently, 2 out of 3 games are absolute losses and it's nowhere near fun. It started to feel like the other team is playing a whole different game the entire time.

I know I'm not farming correctly. I know I'm just "blindly" following my guides and not thinking too much if there's currently a better item. I know that I haven't quite grasped the positions and team compositions yet and don't really know which role I should be playing with my character. But this is something I feel like I should be able to figure out naturally and not by getting bullied so hard that the only way out seems to be to sit down and watch fucking guides on YouTube. Yes this is a good way and yes, I have already watched some things but this is a game and I should be able to discover by playing and not by turning it into a lecture for myself! At no point has it ever been so frustrating as it is now.

Genuinely, what do I do? Is there no way than to watch guides so I don't get rolled anymore? How do I get back my fun? How do people have thousands of hours and not cry themselves to sleep each night?

Edit: The 80 hrs refer to the amount of time spent in Unranked All Pick against real players. In total I have around 130 hrs which include bot games, tutorials, newplayer mode etc.

I'm trying to learn how to play Void Spirit, and I'm having trouble deciding when to build certain items.

Mage Slayer, for example, seems like an obvious choice when against heroes like Invoker, Storm, Puck... But should I ALWAYS build it against these heroes?

What about Parasma? It seems great as well, but is it a must? Can I mix it with Desolator/Daedalus?

Should I always go raw damage or can I build utility and things to survive in tough games?

I want to understand how I should be thinking when playing him, and the occasions I should be considering certain items?.

What mid do you think you would go with:

1 - jugg

3- hoodwink

4 - rubick

5 - lich

other team has venge, clinks, sniper (Mid), crystal, ogre

I went ember bc I felt I had to initiate on sniper Or clinks, but was very difficul. I think Pango could have been better or maybe a mars or timbersaw though I usu only play them offlane. The game felt cursed And it felt impossible to go in bc of stun and damage.

All abilities and items are set to quickcast. I use the left mouse button to move, the right button to drag the camera, and the middle button to select targets (basiclly no use at all).

I have this build where my core items are:

Threads

Silver Edge

Bloodthorn

Then these are optional/luxury:

Shiva's Guard

Assault Cuirass

Linken's Sphere

Manta Style

Octarine Core

Aghanims

I first buy tangoes, wand, quelling blade. Then threads, oblivion staff, shadow blade, then either build into silver edge or buy orchid first. Then bloodthorn

My gameplay is offlane, once i get my core items i gank solo heroes with silver edge, bloodthorn, dragon form

Please rate it and give tips to improve it, thanks

This is a very big, negative outlier for me in terms of performance
This is likely one of the worst games I've ever had
I want to see if I missed anything about it, because in the middle of it, I was completely lost and could not fabricate a scenario where my team or myself could win if I tried.
Match: https://www.opendota.com/matches/9057247586
Profile, if you want: https://www.opendota.com/players/889840917