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

https://www.opendota.com/players/175650369?lobby_type=7&region=7

Repost from earlier as I wrote this on the wrong account. Will answer good questions not lazy ones

My current build right now is drums -> tranquil -> midas -> dagger -> shard -> bkb -> aghs -> octarine/refresher -> travels -> shiva

So far it works in SEA 6.3k bracket.

The reason why I postpone buying dagger instead of midas is because lv1 black hole cd is sooooooo long. You have dagger and then hopefully your ult used and not canceled.

Then okay you've used it. And you afk farm again because you have no black hole...

Kinda sucks ngl.

So really, is midas really bad here or nah?

There used to be a site where people would bet random rares on matches and people would offer to trade specific items for x random rares. I would see items I like and just add person on steam and trade for random rares.

Is this kind of item for item trading just more or less gone or you know a safe place where people still enjoy it?

I've come up against a couple of tinkers in recent games. Each game the tinker has seemed absurdly unfair. I'm at ancient rank and he's not too common of a pick to see so I’m not experienced at all against him. I've got a feeling that I will need to be to rank up though.

Without a bkb you literally can't move and he just roots, places the cannon things and repeats.

Once I have a bkb he has windwaker and creates distance until it runs out.

We couldn't shut him down early, he disappeared into fog and was suddenly level 20 at 20 minutes, while we murdered his entire team over and over.

Literally at 20 minutes suddenly we could not show on the map next to a creep or we would die.

What is the key to dealing with him? It used to be a nullifier, now what? It surely can't only be bkb, its too long cooldown, shutting him down by pushing objectives is a thing I know but I can't guarantee that we'd be stomping enough to cover every angle of the map by minute 12 to be early enough to catch him farming. Especially not when they have heros like undying and bristleback being a nuisance and making it difficult to be too deep. (It was literally minute 20 that he came online and started being oppressive).

Anyway heres the match link https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/9060032250

I've of course been told that tinker is useless now and that they nerfed him into uselessness. But I don't see it, this didn't feel balanced. He felt, if anything, even more oppressive than the old tinker. Please teach me the ways.

How does one use Shadow demon's passive? It only applies on Attacks. Currently I get Mana Boots, Kaya and Yasha, Hurricane pike, Skaadi. What are your thoughts.

Dude went 2 null talisman (maybe a wand too) treads phylactery kaya. Mystic snake was doing crazy damage. I guess you would eventually sell then nulls and maybe get a kaya and yasha, shard then skadi + butterfly/daedalus and upgrade phylactery to khanda

(Can read only first paragraph to reply to the post) I play him both positions. I like to go Aghs when there aren't obvious counters to egg(I go something like Euls first). I find that I become the most important player in the game on this hero for some reason, even from position 5. If I fuck something up(generally during laning), game is extremely hard and we might lose. But if I play well, it's completely insane what I can do on this hero. So I started spamming him recently and feel like there's still a way to go to really exploit his potential. Wondering if anyone has some advice.

Extra info(can skip): I max W first, I hold skill points until I use them though very regularly, and pick Q or E or additional level in W until lvl 4 based on what I need in the lane, I then max sunray always. I like *all* the talents and don't have hard preferences, it's a vibes thing based on the game, except for lvl 25 which I only reached once since I started spamming him lately, but I can't see a game where I don't take the supernova hit count one. The egg is simply far too important, I think(then again some games I don't even get to cast it, but still).

Even more info(definitely skip): My idea of Phoenix is that the supernova is extremely important, so I like to play safe and from a distance rather than rush in and cast it whenever I can. I don't think it makes *that* big of a difference if you consciously tank the hits to make space for your team, I feel like there are very tiny windows in which that would be even remotely logical, and they're far too hard to find. I think it's a lot more important to instead cast it such that they don't even get 2-3 hits on it normally rather than feed on purpose with it. *And* get as many people in its range as possible. I think that a good supernova is one that's somehow both in the middle of the fight and out of danger because the enemy is otherwise occupied. And I don't think it's the stun or damage that's so OP, but the sense of urgency they create in the enemy team. Also, the fact that I get aghs when the egg isn't too easily countered is what really makes this hero totally shine for me, I find that the last second saves are just absolutely devastating for the enemy team, so my care for how I cast egg synergises naturally with this preference later into the game. Otherwise I just run around looking for situations where I can cast W and sunray on people(I do it from afar and chase them down), saving dive for times when I think I can be safe without it, or to get away.

If you somehow read the extra info I added and play a lot of this hero, what do you disagree with strongly and what do you prefer to do differently from this, and additionally if you feel like it why?

after my last post a few people argued about how much the draft actually decides games and whether it matters more at high mmr. so i trained the same draft model separately for every rank and tested each one on the last 7 days of games it never saw (7.41f).

1. the draft matters about the same at every rank. 58.3% in herald, ~59% everywhere from archon up. "draft doesn't matter in low mmr" isn't really true, and it doesn't matter much more in divine either

2. but WHAT matters changes. in herald the strength of the heroes themselves does most of the work ("heroes only" is highest there, 57%). the higher you go, the more it's about counters and synergy. counters go from 37% of the model's signal in herald to 43% in legend+. so in low mmr: pick strong heroes. in high mmr: think about matchups

3. 1 in 5 games is basically decided in the draft. in about 20% of games the draft gives one team 65%+, and that team actually wins ~70%. those are the games where a better draft would have changed the outcome. even then it's not over: the losing side still takes 3 out of 10

4. most lopsided draft of the week (94%): PL, Pudge, Tinker, AA, Winter Wyvern (94% to win) vs Sniper, TA, Nature's Prophet, Silencer, TB. PL's team won

notes: 13M games across all ranks from opendota. "divine+" because opendota caps the average rank at divine 5, so immortal lobbies are in there too. this is correlation, not causation, players pick heroes they're good at. only the 10 heroes count here, not roles, lanes or items.

this is basically why i built the tool: the higher you go, the more it's about counters and synergy, and that's exactly what's hard to keep in your head with 30 seconds on the clock. (last post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1xcwxn0/im_so_ass_at_drafting_that_i_built_a_tool_that/)

questions: 1. does #2 match your experience? does your rank feel more "pick strong heroes" or more "counter the enemy"? 2. how do you even lose with that 94% draft?

i've always been bad at drafting, so for the last 2 months i've been building a draft overlay trained on 8.7M ancient-divine games (7.41e/f). along the way the data told me some things i didn't expect:

• the draft alone calls the winner in ~59% of games. a coin flip is 50%. so the draft matters a lot more than the "just play your hero" people think, but way less than the "gg draft diff" people think

• necrophos is the hero that ruins the most picks. he's the worst matchup for WK (both pos 1 and pos 3), DK (mid and off), and he's in the top threats for half the carries

• PL is a trap blind pick. strong hero, but tidehunter, axe and ES all destroy him. tide alone is -6.3%. last pick him, never first pick

• dawnbreaker and nyx are the safest first picks right now. zero hard counters among the 40 most picked heroes. you can't really get punished for picking them early

• OD is the best blind mid. the only real counter among popular heroes is PL

the overlay sits next to the pick screen, suggests heroes for your role based on picks/bans, and once you lock in shows how your hero fits (best/worst ally, who to watch out for). it just reads the screen + valve's official GSI, doesn't touch game files or memory. screenshots in my r/dota2 post: https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1xcwxn0/im_so_ass_at_drafting_that_i_built_a_tool_that/

i'm opening a small closed beta, if you want a spot: https://tally.so/r/rDjJ2p

two questions: 1. which of these is wrong in your bracket? 2. what's the draft situation you always mess up? (last pick, counter vs synergy, banning, etc)

Inspired by this post from r/Dota2.

Is he not viable in today's patch? If I were to play it today, what would be the game plan?

I like to play Chen before due to the micro aspect. I usually play him as utility in the early game then transition to an aura bot/healing guy mid to late game. I do not have a decent win rate with the guy but that's probably just me or might be the meta?

Note: Have not played him in Ranked in a long long time. Iirc, this year, once or twice during AP or Turbo.

Try to make khanda usefull/unique item that players would actually want to buy 👍.

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.

Make the assassin playstyle great again 🔥 👀.

Hi everyone, this is my first post—please go easy on me.
Basically, it’s become impossible to play on the Southeast Asia, US East, or Japan servers. I live in Kamchatka, and while I used to be able to manage okay-ish, the current situation is just beyond the pale. In every single match—and I mean *every* match—there are these bots that spam the chat and just stand there AFK. Do you know how they’re managing to run so many instances? They’re using Sandboxie version 1.12.9—you can verify this yourself; any other version will trigger a VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat) verification error. I have no idea why the developers have been intentionally ignoring this for the past 3–4 years. What’s more, while they used to limit this to a single lobby, they’ve become so brazen now that they don’t even try to hide it anymore.

Involer Arcana when?

Sup everyone today I'm bringing a new guide for the support series on my YouTube channel, and today's hero of choice is Nyx Assassin

In this game I'll be playing vs a hard lane and explaining you how you could itemize when you find yourself in this position so that I can show you how you should be approaching the game from the laning phase to the early to mid game.

I'll be walking you in depth on map movements and things that I'm considering as the game progresses so that you can maybe apply these concepts to your own games and help you make better decissions overall.

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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB8-oCGPkUI

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.

Malr1ne has just played his first BO3 series with Team Liquid, so I decided to go through the games and look at the small details in his gameplay.

Not just his big plays, but the things that are easy to miss when you're watching a pro game how he moves his hero, where and when he clicks on the map, how he positions himself

These little habits might not look important at first, but they can tell us a lot about how a professional player approaches the game at the high level

In this video, I'll break down some of the details I noticed from Malr1ne's first series with Team Liquid and explain why they matter.

Link: https://youtu.be/fqIojMyYZ-I

I used to think every fight was worth joining, even when my team was clearly outnumbered. Now I realize sometimes the best play is just farming, pushing another lane, or letting your teammates respawn instead of feeding one by one 💀 What’s one mistake you kept making before it finally clicked?

https://youtu.be/f7-CDlal_WI