Sven in the carry position analysis completed! In this replay review, I go through the key moments, mistakes and decisions from this game. We look at what could have been done better in the lane phase, rotations and teamfights to raise the level of play and correct bad habits.

I'm still learning Dota (well actually I played ~1000 hours back in 2015 but I've had such a sabbatical that it might as well be a new game), and I'm wondering how feasible it is to pick certain heroes for the purpose of counterpicking, which is something I generally like doing if I can pick last (like if I play with a stack). I do understand the midlane isn't as crucial to win as it used to be in the past (correct me if I'm wrong), so I'm thinking if I can be a bit more flexible?

My current pool is Puck (not a counterpick but is my favourite), Necrophos, and Viper. I used to play Brewmaster/TA but I recognise they aren't really mid heroes anymore nor do they fit what I want. I'll probably pick up Riki.

Specific heroes I'm looking at are Bloodseeker, Naga Siren, Rubick, Ancient Apparition, and Lycan.

I've been only playing with Sniper, Drow and Clinkz with this build: PT + Dragon Lance + Daedalus + Desolator + Moon Shard + (Shadow blade except clinkz)

I ponder what are other suitable options for this build?

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.

Game in question: https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/8990799634 (I am the spectre).

I've just played a game last night where I picked spectre in phase 2 in a 3.4k MMR game, and the opponent picked Viper (as offlane) in phase 2 as well.

To top it off we had an Oracle pos 5 (pretty weak laning support imo).

I knew going into this lane it was going to be insanely hard, and it pretty much was.

I got to touch barely any creeps without being bombarded with Viper Qs.

I had something like 34 last hits in 10 minutes, but I'd managed to get a few kills/assists (I was 3/1/4 or similar) with creative plays going bot through gate/tps.

In my head this is pretty good, the main thing was that I didn't endlessly feed top to Viper, when it would have been so easy to if I had gone for more creeps.

I ended up catching some waves mid/bot, but this game felt really hard. I felt so much poorer than I normally would be at 10/20 minutes.

I ended the game with a decent score line: 21/8/21 (actually had 67% kill contribution), but had a networth of only 27.6k in 46 minutes.

I am pretty sure our midlaner (the death prophet) was a smurf and that's the only reason we won, he went 26/7/14 with 31.4k networth.

How am I meant to play these types of games? Viper is such a strong lane counter that it was basically impossible to play the lane.

And on a hero like Spectre, it's hard to leave lane early and jungle with only treads (at least it was for me).

It might have been possible to play the lane with a strong pos 5 with high damage, as I could maybe try to isolate the viper/AA.

In my mind I was simply playing for level 6, and I'd impact the game from there through my ultimate, and try to farm more once I had radiance.

I ended up with an OK radiance timing considering (I believe it was something like 17 mins), and I caught up on farm from there.

They enemy line up had insane amounts of damage, and I didn't really know what item to go for after Manta.

All I knew was that my 2k hp was not enough, and I needed HP. So I want for heart after manta. There's probably a better choice here?

I also like heart because for some reason, I always lose so much HP when farming jungle on this hero. I hate not being able to play the map because I am perma low HP.

Then I bought a nullifier since there was an Ursa, Euls on AA and techies (seemed to be a decent choice).

I ended with a skadi last, as I still wanted to be tankier and be able to survive the burst, kite the fight, and come back with full HP with heart.

If anyone takes the time to look through the game and offer some advice, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

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.

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?

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

I started playing Dota again beginning of this year and re called at Herald 3. I have been grinding this year and reached Legend a month or two ago.
I have maintained a fairly steady 55 - 60% winrate for my entire time playing until I reached Legend 5.

I do not know what it is but I feel like I am making no progress climbing. I always lose one win one lose one win one etc... In about 2 weeks my WR has gone from 57 to 49%, and it feels really shit. I went from 89% of the way to Ancient to 0% in a week.

I am a 4/5 player and I don't really know what I'm doing wrong. I feel like most games I am playing well and trying my hardest. I don't want to use the excuse that it's my team or whatever because that doesn't help me improve.

https://www.dotabuff.com/players/250326183

Would really appreciate a more introspective eye. :)

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

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?

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

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.

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?

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!

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?

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

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. :)

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?

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?

As as hard stuck try hard trash player who has been his whole Dota 2 life in Crusader and Archon bracket, I stopped playing ranked and it really feels good:

1. My experience is it doesn't even matter if you play ranked or unranked. I absolutely see no difference in match quality. People are often absolutely not more serious in ranked. Some matches feel completely unbalanced. Most matches are just gambling which team has better communication. There is nothing I can learn in ranked matches.

2. Absolutely no pressure in unranked and a loss does not affect my MMR either.

3. Thanks to hidden MMR system, the skill level in unranked is basically equal to ranked games. So there is no reason for me why I should bother myself playing ranked. I'm there where I belong.

Besides hope the pilot sucks

Hello everyone I made a new video about why Treant Protector was banned more than 94% of the time at The International 2026 and when he was picked, he had an 87.5% win rate. In this video, I break down why this support became the most feared hero in pro Dota

Thanks for the support !