nublard
10-30-2009, 12:06 PM
I started playing HON about 2-3 weeks ago, with no significant DOTA experience. This "guide" is about the general strategy I developed to become a better player. Unlike many tactical guides, this guide is designed to provide a strategy for improving your play in an efficient manner, over as few games as possible.
Its about getting the training wheels off.
Without further ado:
1. Don't Play EM
EM is a terrible place to learn how to play HON. If you want to be a decent player, you have to understand the strengths of various heroes / hero roles. EM skews these strengths by marginalizing early game heroes and emphasizing carries. A successful team makeup in EM will be different from a successful makeup in a normal game. Making the transition from EM to non-EM requires you to unlearn perceptions about hero strength and balance. Futhermore, EM games tend to have worse players, who you can learn less from.
2. Learning Different Hero Roles
Learning how to play HON requires you to understand the different roles that heroes play. The individual player statistic that correlates most with win % is Assists, implying that teamwork is the largest factor in winning games. I'd suggest you approach the game with an organized strategy to learn each role in a stepwise manner. For a given role, pick one hero and play that hero until you have a decent idea of what that role contributes to the team, what its weaknesses are, and how to counter it (how do other players counter you?). Pick a hero that is relatively easy to use for each role. A few suggestions based on what worked for me.
Hammerstorm (Support/Semi Carry) - Pretty easy to play, semi carry with good team utility. Success with hammerstorm requires teamwork. One aoe disabling nuke, with a passive to help farm and an ult that requires nothing but right click. Late game buff easy to use.
Demented Shaman (Support) - Good stat progression, great attack animation, strong farming capability, good team utility. You can also learn how to babysit a carry.
Thunder Bringer (Nuker, Lane control) - Easy to use nukes, good mana pool. Relatively straightforward - long range with no escape mechanism forces you to learn how to position correctly, as well as how to harass properly.
Tempest (Initiator / Jungler) - Tempest is top tier in team fights, as well as being an effective jungler. You get to practice two skills at once, while being in a relatively easy environment for farming the all-important portal key. Its far easier for a newbie to do this rather than play Magmus/Behemoth in a lane.
Madman (Carry) - Out of all of my choices to learn roles, this was the hardest. Madman is actually quite difficult to play, but forces the user to to learn skills such as disabling and last hitting to be successful. An easier choice would be Puppet Master solo mid, but I found that I learned more from playing Madman than Puppet Master.
3. Learn to Crow Bottle
It is a powerful tactic for many heroes. It requires you to control a whopping two units. It may take a game or two, but if you are solo mid and can crow bottle well, its easy to devastate opponents in the 1500-1700 range.
4. Play in High Level Games
The goal is to get better as quickly as possible. Winning isn't as important as learning. Better players will penalize you more for making bad decisions. You can do all sorts of newbie stuff in low PSR games and still win, instilling a poor understanding of the game and bad habits.
Just one example: Don't go past the river unless you know where the enemy heroes are or are pushing with teammates. In noob games, you can push past river without too much concern.
Also, remember that if your team has a low win %, you will lose less PSR while getting a chance to play with/against experience players.
Hope it helps. Remember that winning isn't as important as learning.
Its about getting the training wheels off.
Without further ado:
1. Don't Play EM
EM is a terrible place to learn how to play HON. If you want to be a decent player, you have to understand the strengths of various heroes / hero roles. EM skews these strengths by marginalizing early game heroes and emphasizing carries. A successful team makeup in EM will be different from a successful makeup in a normal game. Making the transition from EM to non-EM requires you to unlearn perceptions about hero strength and balance. Futhermore, EM games tend to have worse players, who you can learn less from.
2. Learning Different Hero Roles
Learning how to play HON requires you to understand the different roles that heroes play. The individual player statistic that correlates most with win % is Assists, implying that teamwork is the largest factor in winning games. I'd suggest you approach the game with an organized strategy to learn each role in a stepwise manner. For a given role, pick one hero and play that hero until you have a decent idea of what that role contributes to the team, what its weaknesses are, and how to counter it (how do other players counter you?). Pick a hero that is relatively easy to use for each role. A few suggestions based on what worked for me.
Hammerstorm (Support/Semi Carry) - Pretty easy to play, semi carry with good team utility. Success with hammerstorm requires teamwork. One aoe disabling nuke, with a passive to help farm and an ult that requires nothing but right click. Late game buff easy to use.
Demented Shaman (Support) - Good stat progression, great attack animation, strong farming capability, good team utility. You can also learn how to babysit a carry.
Thunder Bringer (Nuker, Lane control) - Easy to use nukes, good mana pool. Relatively straightforward - long range with no escape mechanism forces you to learn how to position correctly, as well as how to harass properly.
Tempest (Initiator / Jungler) - Tempest is top tier in team fights, as well as being an effective jungler. You get to practice two skills at once, while being in a relatively easy environment for farming the all-important portal key. Its far easier for a newbie to do this rather than play Magmus/Behemoth in a lane.
Madman (Carry) - Out of all of my choices to learn roles, this was the hardest. Madman is actually quite difficult to play, but forces the user to to learn skills such as disabling and last hitting to be successful. An easier choice would be Puppet Master solo mid, but I found that I learned more from playing Madman than Puppet Master.
3. Learn to Crow Bottle
It is a powerful tactic for many heroes. It requires you to control a whopping two units. It may take a game or two, but if you are solo mid and can crow bottle well, its easy to devastate opponents in the 1500-1700 range.
4. Play in High Level Games
The goal is to get better as quickly as possible. Winning isn't as important as learning. Better players will penalize you more for making bad decisions. You can do all sorts of newbie stuff in low PSR games and still win, instilling a poor understanding of the game and bad habits.
Just one example: Don't go past the river unless you know where the enemy heroes are or are pushing with teammates. In noob games, you can push past river without too much concern.
Also, remember that if your team has a low win %, you will lose less PSR while getting a chance to play with/against experience players.
Hope it helps. Remember that winning isn't as important as learning.