Tired of losing MMR? OP heroes like Riki decimating you in every match? Try these 4 tools to help you get better at Dota 2!
While many players are aware of Dotabuff, Opendota is relatively underappreciated and unknown to the average Dota player. Even if a player is aware of Opendota, it's likely that they don’t really know how to utilize it to its full potential to improve their game.
If you just want to increase your MMR and don’t really care about getting better at the game, OpenDota’s Hero Tab shows you the average winrate of any hero at any tier. It tells us a lot about how to adapt our playstyle while moving through MMR tiers.
For example, Vengeful Spirit has a 56% winrate in the Herald tier while she barely has a 48% winrate in the Immortal Tier/Divine Tier. That doesn’t mean that you’d be a Pro player if you start spamming Vengeful Spirit in Herald Games, but it does indicate that the playstyle that she offers in Herald Games works wonders in that bracket. The hero doesn’t need too much coordination or mechanical skill to play effectively and efficiently which is perfect for that tier.
You can also make use of the Scenarios tool, which is great to judge whether your item timings or win conditions are ideal for the hero you are looking to spam. It can also be used to determine item builds, item efficiencies and where to effectively lane the hero you picked.
You can also parse your replays, for free, to get in-depth information of your matches including warding patterns, teamfight contributions, farming patterns, time spent dead, amongst many other things. You can pinpoint the aspects of the game in which you are ineffective and inefficient in order to improve on them.
No, not the cesspool of Dank Memes, Shitposts, Rumours and admittedly some legitimately good content that is /r/dota2. Rather we're referring to its sister subreddits /r/truedota2 and /r/learndota2 which are probably the best places to find people who are passionate about the game to help you better your gameplay.
People who frequent those subreddits are very helpful and offer constructive feedback on your gameplay, your new theories and give great in-depth answers on any doubts you might have on anything Dota 2 related. Just go to the subreddits mentioned above and take a look at the top posts made there over the course of the past year. You will certainly learn something new in the game.
While Dota2’s 'Learn' section is one of Valve’s worst additions to the Reborn client with it hosting absolutely nothing except the ability to play Bot matches, one of the most underrated and forgotten aspects of the Dota 2 Client is the Arcade Games section where there are multiple tools available to better your gameplay.
First off let’s start with Training Polygon. This is by far the best tool in the Steam Workshop if you want to improve your mechanics. This tool has so many different elements within the custom game that it’d be hard to pinpoint someone who wouldn’t benefit from it.
Do you want to learn Invoker combos? there’s a mini-game that’d help you build up a reflex to execute those combos. You wanna learn to dodge Glimpse, Reverse Polarity, or even Axe’s Berserker's Call using Manta? There’s a mini-game for that. Wanna learn to land skillshots like Pudge Hooks, Mirana Arrows or even Shadow Razes? Yup, there are tools for that as well.
Mastering this custom game in itself will improve your mechanics exponentially. But there are several other useful custom games as well: Block creeps training, Tread Switch practice, Last Hit Training are just a few of a number of useful tools present in the Arcade Games section.
I have learned so much by just looking at the Player Perspectives of Top Tier pros like Arteezy and Miracle. Just pausing and thinking about why they made a particular rotation. Or why they farmed a particular neutral camp. Or why they hid from the lane at a particular time amongst other things and then trying to implement that into my games as much as I can; easily betters the level at which I play.
But it won’t be ideal for everyone. Not everyone has the time or patience to sit through hour-long videos with no comments from the player. Fortunately, the Youtube/Twitch playerpool is so large that you can pick your favourite type of videos in accordance with your learning goals.
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If you want detailed commentary on everything a player does and why he does it you ought to tune in to Khezu or Purge.
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If you want some humour combined with some elaborate analysis on how to play carry heroes, tune in to Gorgc or BSJ
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If you would like the same for offlane heroes, tune in to Zai or eskillz
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If you you're looking to learn supporting as well as shot-calling, tune in to Synderen or hairy_freak
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Want some really in-depth analysis packaged in 10-15 minute videos? Tune in to D2Bowie
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PVGNA and Gameleap have a few free videos that’d really help you improve your Dota 2 skills.