Practice VS Play
“The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle” – Navy Seals MottoA lot of people just want to play, play, and play without improving themselves in practice. This is happening because they underestimate the importance of practice. And that’s why they will stay noob for a longer time.
Practice as if you are a true noob
If you are to succeed in practicing, you have to concentrate on finding your weakness and fixing it. Many people believe they are pros already (in fact they are not), and practice with a mindset that they don’t need further improvement.
Play with confidence
After those sweats you make in practices, all you have to do is to pull out the full potency of yourself. Be proud of yourself, think of yourself being a pro player and don’t fear the opponents. One thing, don’t get too cocky, pros are never that cocky.
Watch Replays
Watching high level game replaysSo, what can we learn? I think the story is very applicable to DotA. We copy someone’s playing style, and then we improve it.
Okay, back to the topic. Replays consist of 2 main essences, which we may learn from :
Strategy used : include draft used and laning
Players movements : include what items are used, ganking and farming style
I recommend watching the same replay at least twice, first is to focus on the strategy used, and second, you choose a player to focus on (should be someone on the same roles with you, for example, you are a semicarry, you might want to see how a semicarry gank in midgame)
Watching self’s replays
Maybe you didn’t even bother saving your own replays (or simply watching them back in case you are playing DotA2). Now I tell you, that’s really important. After a game, whether you lose or win, you really should watch your own performance. When you are playing, you are too focused in the game, failing to understand your mistakes. When you watch your own replays, you just need to focus in telling what went wrong. I noticed that I play well in many games, but after watching my own performance, there is still a lot to improve.
Ask yourself:
Did I win in drafting, or did the opponents win? How ?
Where should I had positioned myself in teamfights?
(For a Hardcarry and Semicarry) Did I dominate the lane? Did I farm well?
(For a Support) Were my wards effective? Were my lane supports effective?
(For a Ganker) Were my timings good? Could the opponents see me coming early?
And stuffs..
3. Fail? Try Again
“If you shoot for the stars and hit the moon, it’s OK. But you’ve got to shoot for something. A lot of people don’t even shoot.” – Confucius
Failing is OK, giving up is not. Don’t follow the cat, it’s a total LOL.
Up until now, I still feel that frustrated feeling when I lost a game. Losing is a pain indeed, it’s just normal if you are unhappy with it. Great people did fail in their first life careers. You should analyze yourself, not to blame others too much. Perhaps they got their own portions of mistakes, but try to notice your mistakes as well. By noticing your own mistakes you are making one step closer to pro level. Try to use your disgust in losing as a motivation not to lose anymore, that will be your impulse to “rework” yourself.
Analyze the reason of your lost
There is a lot of factors contributing to a defeat, it might be drafting disadvantage, laning faults, poor positioning in teamfights, failure to dominate lanes, etc. Try to notice those mistakes.
Conclude
Remember your mistakes, and make new strategy to test on your opponents. Test different adjustments until you succeed. That succeeding adjustment is usually invincible, since that you know why you use that strategy and what countermeasures are usually made to that strategy.
Play Competitive !
I found out that most people play -AP public games, which are usually extremely low leveled. It’s OK to play -AP if you are still a beginner, trying to play against others instead of bots. It’s a good way to earn confidence, though. But, you intermediate players got to improve yourself by trying to play -CM games. If you stick in -AP, you will not improve anymore.
-AP players common thoughts:
“I farm the whole game, my items are good, everyone praise me for my finished core items”
This is the reason why public games are usually contests of overfarming turtle style. The one who farms more, he wins the late game. Supports are usually not praised by their good lane supports, gankings, or positionings. All that matters is whether someone got good items or not. This is the main reason why public games are not growing. ZSMJ, a Chinese Hardcarry said, “I’d rather play a 4v5 game than having someone who want to show his mad farming skill by farming in the whole game.”
“My KDA is better than anybody else = I’m the pro player here”
I found out that low leveled players tend to make KDA as a parameter, whether a player is really good or not. THIS IS TOTALLY WRONG. KDA never serves as a parameter of someone’s skill. Think about this, a support which intentionally gives the kills to the Carry heroes, with a bad KDA, is the support low skilled? This KDA fever makes players tend to save their nukes and killsteal. They don’t respect different aspects such as good positioning in teamfights, warding, lane supporting of a player.
“5 carries, no support, so what?”
People playing -AP pick heroes they like, not heroes that can be put in a synergy. For example, a standard competitive game needs 2 Semicarries for solo lanes + 2 Supports and 1 Hardcarry for trilane. But -AP players don’t even think about roles, not to mention laning + strategy (It’s always turtle strat). Instead of trying Push / Gank strategy, all players tend to pick Carry heroes as if the game is a farming contest. Playing DotA needs some kind of artistic touch. It’s as if we are cooking, there is a variety of recipes. DotA also has a variety of synergies.
“Wards, sentries, courier, smokes? What for? They are waste of money”
OMG, do I even need to explain?
Wards – disable opponent’s ability to pull creeps, thus making them unable to control creeps flow
- prevent ganks
- rune visibility
- reveal opponent’s neutrals, so that we know whether they are doing neutral creeping
Sentries - invisible heroes arevery vulnerable if they are revealed, few nukes and they are dead
- in a clash, you got to know every of the opponent’s heroes positions to execute the fight
Courier – Dafuk, this is so self explanatory
Smokes – Supreme ganking advantage
- Backdoor advantage
Source : Here
