How to Own at Dota: Six Simple Points for Those Seeking to Own Pubs

Before I begin, if your reading this guide it means you are committed to improve your DotA skills, therefore I advise you to read on only if you have a basic understanding of the game already, and have a knowledge of all the heroes in the game.

1. Well first off, guess what, You must Know ALL of the heroes of the game, what they do in the game, their powers, their builds, their alternative builds, the people that counter them, the people that are good with them and what lane they usually pick, and it would help to memorize all of their starting hit points, attack, mana, armor and movement speed. Ok, so you maybe don’t need to remember that last sentence, but you should know a little about all the heroes so you won’t be surprised when techies blows up in your face, because you didn’t know he could that (Yes, I play techies…) .

2. One of the most important things to remember about DotA is that it is a team game, and thus you have to play as a team, listen to your teammates, voice your opinions, and participate in team fights, pushes, ganks, etc. A well organised team of beginner players, that coordinate their efforts, will often beat a veteran team who only think about ksing, but will have twice the apm. One thing you can do is simply telling your teammates what your about to do like if your going to gank ping them or if you want to push tell them as well. Remember that during team fights the team with the most heroes is often the winner.

3. Know who you are and your role in the team, are you the carry? Support? Tank? Caster? Stunner? To know who you are is quite simple look at your team’s heroes and think do I have the highest potential dps? the highest health? the most magic damage stun? can I heal? Once you find your role in your team you will be much better off so you will know what to do, for example if you are a support hero and chasing an enemy carry early on and your about to tower dive, think about it, if your pretty sure you got the situation under control go for it, if you have to risk your life doing it its ok carry > support, their names show it, at the opposite end if your a carry don’t go ganking the whole map, because you like hearing Godlike, know your place and act accordingly.

4.Map awareness. Who’s mia? How long? Which lanes are the enemy at, which lanes are my friends at? the simple fact of being aware that the enemy Gondar is mia will make you more alert and will often lead to him missing a gank on you if he decides to.

5.This one will require skill and maybe practice, last-hit. One of the most important things to learn this is the main difference between good players and bad, both are able to target nuke and hit, but it is that gold and xp bonuses that the last hitter will have that will mater in the fight, if you are very bad at last hitting, you can jungle, be techies…, or practice.

6. This last one is sometimes impossible to do, it will require skill, persuasion, maybe even hosting the game, having a good internet connection also helps. but at all cost make sure there is a techies on your team.

And on that good note, Good Luck and Have Fun.