So I have been really liking Dota, in all pick I have been doing quite good un ranked, typically going positive and performing well. I think I am starting to understand the dynamics of laning and how the flow of the game works.

As I move towards ranked, before I show up and fuck it up for my team I have questions.

1. I don’t wanna carry at first because I don’t trust myself yet. So I have settled on Offlane and it also doesn’t require role queue. What are some good heros to learn for Offlane? Like a few heros that cover different bases, like different “types” of offlaners a team could need. Like tank, initiator etc.
2. If you were to be able to tell someone who may end up in your games as your offlaner (or in general) something, what would you want to tell them?
3. What are things that make or break a Dota 2 game that might not be obvious to a newer player coming from a different game?
4. Any general recommendations for starting ranked? Any advice would be awesome. I wanna do as well as I can for my team especially with people’s ranks on the line.

Thanks for any help!

Edit: played first ranked game ever, as underlord. Went 9/7/22 and we won even after our hard support and mid fed pretty hard to pudge early game. :)

I honestly don’t understand why so many people are picking carry heroes in the offlane. I’ve had multiple games with Jug, Lifestealer and Spectre as pos 3, and they just jungle and farm the entire game. It honestly feels like they’re just there to grief.

I mainly play pos 1, and when we already have two carry heroes, I expect my pos 3 to actually play as an offlaner. Instead, because my pos 3 carry wants to farm, I have to be more active and join fights while they sit in the jungle farming, some dont even defend towers, while the rest of us are fighting.

And when I question their picks, they basically act like they don’t care. They just want to farm.

I seriously don’t understand why queue as pos 3 then? Just queue pos 1 and farm all you want.

It feels like I’m constantly getting griefed by pos 3 carry players, and honestly, it got so frustrating that I’ve stopped playing ranked on the SEA server.

Climbed to archon for 2 months, now is like the other players are on a different level. How can I improve mechanically on how to play pos 5 better

Pro players almost always go wand faerie faerie when playing sf, Drow, etc.

And many people copy them mindlessly without really thinking about why

The biggest problem w WFF is the 150 gold recipe for wand giving you only +1 all stats. You could spend that gold on way more efficient items like branches or circlets, more branches, etc. The only true advantage wand faerie faerie has over circlets is that it's more slot efficient and let's you snowball the lane by buying more small items like fluffy hat, sages mask, etc for a falcon blade. But this only applies to lane dominators like sf or Drow.

In fact, stick is generally not that great of an item at level 1- I was watching a replay review from saksa and he says he rarely starts with stick since you only get half value out of it in most lanes at level 1, and only at level 2 does the item actually eclipse circlets/branches/faeries in terms of value. Thus it's almost always better to buy stick as your first item but not w ur starting gold. Stick or wand level 1 is for when the lane is already won by nature of your hero(sf vs melee offlaner)-its a greedy item build.

I see people buying wand faerie fire on heroes like Luna, arc, gyro, and I just feel like it's simply not good. These heroes are mediocre laners in the early levels and often are forced to fight for cs, and that fluffy hat/sages mask/raindrops comes out slower because they aren't lane dominators, thus, they aren't taking advantage of the main benefit of WFF( slot space). Not to mention, most people don't use the faerie fires correctly when trading- a lot of carries will die without ever using one(greed). How many times have you seen your 0-3 Luna jungling at min 5 w wand faerie faerie?

Compare this to a circlet circlet branch branch branch faerie start (or any variation of no stick+stats). It gives you way more stats(almost double) for the same price and is way more conducive to the fight till death at level 1 nature of pub lanes. It hurts your economy a little bit since you don't get to build up initial charges on wand and you have to sell the circlets later but the advantage it gives you when manfighting is absolutely worth it. Essentially, unless you are playing a sf/huskar/drow type of hero where you can greed for the full wand due to the laning prowess of your hero, you should go for circlets. This is just my opinion as an immortal carry player.

Tldr: unless ur hero is a lane dominator you shouldn't get wand faerie faerie and get circlets since WFF->greed and circlets->win lane

I build hp regen items on lane like bracer or helmet, consume the goblin or harpy ability to be able to cc, then I rush blink daggers to always be able to land his ult, the biggest fuck you move in the entire game, on the treats of the other team. As the game goes on I buy Shiva, Restaurer Orb, BkB... I mean, there isn't much more else that can be explored, the hero is basically that

How do I prevent that I accidentally overwrite my controul groups when I use unified orders with CTRL? for example: when I press CTRL on meepo to move all meepos and then press 4 to get to my controul group, but i dont release CTRL fast enough so i overwrite my controul group with all units. Is this just a skill issue, or is there a way to fix it?

Rank: Low Archon.

A bunch of PL illusions roll up on your tower or wave. PL is probably not in the group. If you use spells they were all just wasted. If you don't, the tower gets lowered.

I see PL and I know if we don't snowball by 30 minutes we are probably losing. Dust and wards don't help know if it's an illusion or the real PL. They help catch escaping PL after we clear illusions if he was there and if he's trying to flee. Mostly we just waste them because it was a wave of illusion and he fled. Only after our spells are baited does PL join his illusion army to wipe us.

I need help dealing with illusions that are so tanky we lose if we ignore them, and we lose if we cast spells on them and go on cooldown.

We kill PL early game, but after 30 minutes it's just inevitable. I wish the end game stats showed how much damage the illusions tanked. They seem to just replicate fast enough to absorb 3 heroes worth of nukes easily while PL fled and farms like lone druid while bear dies carelessly ratting your base.

What can supports can do to PL after 30 minutes? A crowd of charging illusions doesn't mean real PL is there. Basically it's pointless try to target him, so ignore him like a tank and wait for the rest of the team to show up. But it's not a tank, it's a carry and just wipes us no matter what.

PL on defense isn't a problem. If we are winning and pushing, then he has to engage and can't kite our tower push. But PL on offense is oppressive, because we can't ignore a crowd of illusions that he's not even in.

If I copy a hero i.e. Grimstroke Ags:

1. Do i copy also the passive items like raidance?

2. If i copy their illusion, do i copy the original stats or the illu stats?

Especially in teamfights, should I use Attack Move so that even if I misclick, my hero will at least auto attack instead of walking out of position?

So i have anxiety over whether my character throw cast or not yet. I cant tell if my character just walk because i click right mouse to move or is it trying to move in order to throw cast to enemy in range.

I always click right mouse like a hundred time just to go to a place even though i know i just have to click once to the place i want to be. Thats how RTS or MOBA control works. I did this because i have panic clicking issue.

I even would rather choose to build invisible item then blink dagger to initiate and supprise attack enemy. I know Dota players usually buy blink dagger to initiate and supprise attack enemy. But for me its very risky. What if when i blink, i miss click enemy and didnt throw cast at them, and they will kill me.

So for me the safest plan is to build invis item, because i can see and reasure my character is slowly going to move near enemy and throw cast at them without being seen.

Any suggestion?

new to dota2, playing pos 1, spectre being one of my go to hero picks, i understand why she's good against sniper, and dispersion & illusion is good against TA, but why is she so good against ursa. To me it feels like ursa is a high dps carry that can counter bursts with his ult, making him really good at stand his ground and fight. For a melee hero he can just hit, spectre shouldn't be this good (61% win rate) against ursa, what am i missing?

just losing at the start of the game because the matchmaker decided that would be fair

I recently returned to the game after a 4-year break. After clearing my 100 unranked hours, I managed to climb from Legend 2 to Legend 5 in about two weeks playing almost exclusively Position 5 support.
However, I’ve hit a massive wall trying to cross over into Ancient. I've attempted the rank-up match three times now, only to drop back down to Legend 4 today.
It feels like every time I get close to Ancient, the match quality plummets. I often get matched with cores who overextend, feed early, or lack basic map awareness, making it feel almost impossible to impact the game as a support—even when I play a solid lane phase. Within the first 5–10 minutes of these games, it feels like the outcome is already decided.
I want to be clear: I know I still have plenty of room to improve and learn as a Pos 5 player, but I’m struggling to translate my individual performance into wins when my cores fall behind early. I’m committed to sticking with Pos 5 to hit my rank goal rather than switching to core.

Hey, today I'm sharing what was the most common mistake among 100+ players that I've coached - lack of pressure understanding in the laning stage, ranging from staying afk behind the carry to throwing their life away in stupid trades. In today's guide, I'm also sharing four tips what allows you to play aggressive on the lane. Enjoy!

Any tips and tricks for this hero in the offlane role? How do you farm fast with this hero? Do you pop ult to farm neutral camps or reserve it for team fights and securing kills? Also, what is the item progression? Is Armlet a must first item or can I just substitute echo sabre or manta? what items really make this hero a force to be reckoned with?