If you're a good player, it really doesn't matter what matchup you're in.
Whether it's a hero advantage or not. You know how to out play the player behind the hero.
Some are a lot harder than others of course but it's still possible.

Having rune control is probably one of the biggest if the supports for your team wont stand over them for you and even with them helping you grab them that's just a huge plus.

It's not even just about being middle and winning, it's about playing pretty solid all throughout.
Hardly any mistakes, sending a tp mid at 6, being active in ganks / counter ganks then going back middle to farm.

You need to keep your GPM up and only participate in fights when you know you will get a kill or heavy assists to win a team fight and push.



This post was edited by BloopX on Sep 3 2013 05:59pm

+1 xD

If I don't go mid - kid gets crushed and the enemy mid goes on a snowball rampage killing retards that don't pay attention to map vision and mia calls

If I do go mid - I bloodlust mid and gank lanes, but then the kids are still SO fucking bad that they still lose both lanes

Seriously this game is so fuckin annoying I swear to GOD it's like I'm getting planted with people who are trolling the shit out of me just to annoy me...

Ive already came to the conclusion S2 has flagged my account to only pair me up with players that have downs and/or have the shittiest record.

It's very simple really. If you're not some superstar player you aren't going to have a huge winrate solo pubbing. If you're just a slightly above average player you'll have 55-60% solo pub. Most people also don't realize that mental game is way more important that psychical game in HoN nowadays. I see so many players that go into every game with a horrible attitude, bark orders at teammates, cry when one thing goes wrong, and in general cause an awful atmosphere for the team. Then they complain they lose when it's their fault alot of the time. Not because they played bad necessarily, but because they caused so much of a fuss in team chat people played worse because of it.

If you want to get a huge winrate in the 1500 bracket, it's very simple. Find at least 1 other good person to queue with, and don't type or say ANYTHING in chat except basic things like "mid", "miss", or "let's push". Having 1 other person with you is a huge benefit. If you're mid, they can play jungle or support and check runes for you, buy courier or wards, etc. If you lane together, you can auto win 1 lane and have freefarm on your carry. Also, if you don't say shit you won't piss off your teammates and they'll be far less likely to troll you if they don't get any response. Trust me, most of you don't have anything useful to say anyway so just don't type too much in game. Communicate using pings and basic 5-word-max phrases. You'll be surprised at the results.

source: I tried this in Dota2. Queued with 2-4 other players, all pretty new to Dota2. When we played as 3 or so, we always got awful teammates. I carried almost every game except 1 when they just fed way too much. The most important thing is I focused on perfecting my own play rather than analyzing that of my teammates. The result?

http://dotabuff.com/players/143224472

This post was edited by sMACKTRiCKz on Sep 5 2013 01:01pm

Why not just play with your fellow Jsp player? There's too many people having trouble breaking through that 1500 wall.

Just ask around.

It's tough when both the sidelanes struggle or feed when you're middle.
If you're dominantly winning middle w/ rune control and lane control it's usually best to stay there and continue farming w/ a TP and around level 6-7 looking to gank or counter-gank when needed.
If you're struggling middle w/ no rune control at all because their supports grab it or middle keeps getting it, try to look for ganks instead w/ a tp from middle around level 6-7 when available.

Winning middle isn't everything it doesn't guarantee you a win it just gives you a better advantage (maybe 85% better chance) if you can keep it all throughout the game (early/mid/late).
Having little to none of misplays and keeping your farm well over 350+ GPM and only participating w/ your team when needed (Team trying to set up ganks, fights, tower pushes ect) are the best way to win solo.
You should be farming, stacking, creeping, jungling w/ a TP until your team is looking for team fights, ganks or pushes.

When should you look for ganks from mid lane at level 6-7 w/ a tp?
- When you're short lane has decent lane control (the creeps are about near your tower or in the middle of the lane) the enemy heros are creeping near your tower giving you enough time to gank w/o them running away to their tower or being able to see your TP.
- Make sure it's a kill potential lane (ex: you're pebbles, the short lane you want to gank for at least has a supportive stunner, nuker, slow to get a kill on the enemy and that the enemy hero isn't a hero with an easy escape mechanism (unless you have heavy lockdown heros)).
- Having a good rune: Invis/Haste/DoubleDamage.
- When your long lane (suicide - 1v2) is level 6 on a hero w/ lockdown or kill potential such as: Bubbles, Hag, Keeper, Lodestone, Scout ect. And the lane is near their tower or in the middle of the lane. Let them know your plan ahead of time before TPing and Ganking (same goes for the short lane).
- If the enemies are farming near your tower close enough that they will see your TP in and you know your teammates wont initiate fast enough before they back waiting for your TP to come through then TP to the T2 tower instead and set up a gank that way (takes longer but still useful).

Aside from early game and the early ganks from middle it's really important to maintain your farm all throughout the game like i said above.
If your team isn't warding properly, it doesn't hurt to buy 1-2 wards and place them yourself where you plan on being and farming for the next couple of minutes without being ganked.

Another really important thing to focus on that most people struggle with and which in my opinion costs most games is knowing what items to buy based on the heroes you're against and with.
Example: you're Monkey King (Middle) vs Pebbles (Middle), Swift/Glac (Short), Parasite (Jungle), Bubbles (Solo) you'd want to more than likely look into a more "survivability" kind of item choice.
- If you're against a lot of single target'd spell heros that you know are going to be locking you down you should consider Nullstone and having it by 18-25 minutes (18 is good, 22 is average, 25 is eh).
- If you're against a lot of magic AND single target'd abilities you should look into a Shrunken head first and even a Nullstone following it just for heavy survivability in team fights or ganks.
- Rushing items that have early survivability, rushing Gravelocket, Power Supply, Vestments and an early Blessed orb for some attributes.
- Get that Nullstone by 18-25 minutes, see how the game progresses (Swift most likely farming hard, Pebbles most likely with pk, Parasite w/ a codex, bubbles working on pk) them looking to gank and set up team fights you now have a Nullstone to protect yourself vs the single target'd abilities.
- If you're doing well in team fights, not getting focused down as heavily, i'd consider going Shroud instead of a Shrunken (in most pub games, i try NOT to go Shrunken head unless i'm forced to by the lock down) and would rather go Shroud to set up solo ganks or to get in / out of team fights and force them to buy revs/dust.
- Now that you have your survivability for mid game (20-30 minutes) now knowing how the games playing out, knowing what you're able to do and not able to do based on your map control/vision, team work and lock down from the enemies or your team i'd then start building damage items to finish the game going into late game.

It really varies depending on who you're playing, what your lineup looks like and the enemies lineup but hopefully that gives you somewhat of a clue and helps.

It's a lot easier playing 2/3 Ques though vs Solo Queing.

I'm always open to questions and such though!

I'm an 1850+ player (several smurfs (-150 games 1800+) with lots of experience of solo que and group ques.

Playing HoN actively and slowly transitioning over to Dota 2.


This post was edited by BloopX on Sep 5 2013 04:28pm

Bloop stated it all pretty well. One thing to realize is you're going to have some games where you completely dominate, get 400+ gpm, get like a 10:2 score, and still lose. That's normal and sometimes will happen, just how sometimes you might lose mid horribly and get carried by your sidelanes. If after 200-300 games though you aren't moving up significantly in MMR, then there's something wrong with you. It's either your attitude or your play, but more likely than not it's both. Watch some replays and see what you did wrong. Don't focus on what your teammates did wrong because you can't control that.

Let's take a look at an example from one of my games:

http://dotabuff.com/matches/285965085

Yeah, my team died way to much to obvious ganks, but I think I still could have won. The problem is I went orchid before BKB then focused too much on pickoffs when they were 5-manning. Against such a magic-heavy team I should have rushed BKB and tried to teamfight since all the enemies were doing is pubtraining. I also should have split push more instead of roaming the map looking for kills, so I could have better farm.

imo the best thing to do is play a ranged carry with nice right click damage and focus on mid-late game
i get annoyed when i dominate on heroes like bomb for instance, got immortal one game but i still couldn't win it cuz it went late and magic damage is kinda shit then

for some reason im a lot worse in dota2, map and everything feels different not to mention i dont fully know all heroes and shit
@smack Y U NO LOG steam anymore THO?

IMO you just need to learn the hero tiers and metagame of Dota2 better. For example, Alch is like the best carry hero in the game atm because he can farm fast, is tanky, has a great stun, has -armor, and with shadowblade can insta-kill enemy heroes with stun + beat down combo. Drow/Sniper are some of the worst carries in this meta because they're squishy, slow, farm slow, and are really useless if a hero gets close to you. For instance, if I was playing alch vs an enemy drow carry, I would just farm a shadowblade and max my stun + get 1 level in acid before she had her SB, then I would TP to her lane and surprise kill her once, then repeat the process when she respawned. The game now is alot about being active around the map early with all 5 heroes, so heroes like medusa, drow, and sniper who get raped without lots of items aren't so good, whereas heroes like alch, spec, PA, PL, AM, luna are good because they can either split push really well against enemy 5-man or can get early-game items and rape.

I don't log anymore because I don't play Dota. I'll maybe play later when I get bored

This post was edited by sMACKTRiCKz on Sep 6 2013 05:47am