General Discussionhow to get better? play to win? play 1 role?

You wanna win more playing AP, pick heroes that your teams needs rather than your favorites.

That's the dilemma.. for someone to get better, should the mindset be play to win (adjust your pick to suit the team's need) or play to win bit focus on a specific role?

Play to win. Stick to supports to get more map awareness and when you are able to do that, play offlane, mid, carry whatever. But dont get mad, if you support only in solo que you will be forced to 50% because the carry pickers are trash

In the long run I would have to say work on your own game to improve to an all around type of player. The people in your team wont always be there (assuming you play with a team) so step your game up and it will show later on. I would find out what your strong points are and advance from there. Find people to cover the rest. I wish I had someone better than me to show and give me tips on what I need to do to up my game. lol im just your average player, but its what i think.

PICK LAST AND FILL IN WHATEVER ROLE YOUR TEAM NEEDS.
Regardless of who your opponents are (whether they're pros or absolute noobs), play the same game, do the little things so it becomes a habit. The skills to do little things are interchangeable on most heroes.
I probably don't have the credibility to tell you this since I hardly do it myself, but try practicing alone. If it's a mid lane hero, try last hitting the lane for 10 mins without any items.
But honestly, just find a stack HAHAHA.

>PICK LAST AND FILL IN WHATEVER ROLE YOUR TEAM NEEDS.

Exactly, I always pick last, because people are just morons. More often than not if I first pick a carry somebody else follows with a goddamn PA or PL. And there's no way you're gonna win that game. Even if you don't want to play support (it may get tiresome sometimes), then at the very least pick someone who will complement your lane composition.

Try Captain Draft, or Captain mode. People there have some better knowledge of the game than in AP. There is usually some discussion about the picks, and you often get to play interesting games.

In my Opinion you can go with pretty much any hero and get decent results, doesn't matter if you just play 1 role, 1 hero or anything else. You just have to play it well and make sure the way you play it is also making a big impact on the game.

my experience:

http://dotabuff.com/players/82211644
pretty much any hero ~57% winrate

http://dotabuff.com/players/82325345
an old account of my friend which i use for practising only (mostly soloque or dualque) ~70% winrate
mostly heroes that can win games on their own or have a big impact

http://dotabuff.com/players/133212901
my main account, i play whatever i feel like but still focus on certain heroes ~64% winrate

Rule of thumb is that you should go with something your team needs however you can adapt it to your style too.
Example: You need to go offlane. Most people would go clock bounty furion sylla darkseer. Problem you dont like those heroes and you chose to go brood.

honestly play what you want not what the team needs in solo queue ap get good with roles you kknow so you can have an impact in the game, then later when games start becoming too hard, learn other roles to improve your overall gameplay and understanding of each role. it is important that you don't play with shit players while learning new roles because then you run a high risk of developing bad habits

there is no secret formula, play more and analyse your games after you are done. Drafts dont mean shit in pubs I win 4 carry games playing in very high MM quite often

Sampson is right about the draft. It means little for pubs.

http://dotabuff.com/matches/361694885

My team Sven, PA, Morphling, BH, Pudge vs Slark, Drow, Weaver, Enigma, Tree

So we had way to many carry picks...np...I play sven as support and PA does support early game also, helps buying ward for me. I ward and babysit Morphling. PA roams and ganks with BH and gets a mech. We start the game losing because its awkward but eventually we have a ridiculous late game team with 4 carry/semi-carry heroes. We were losing fights for half the game...3 of us get bmails because of it and turn it around.

Those picks, lanes, and items are usually all bad, but you have to make adjustments sometimes and learn to deal with odd situations. We made morphling the main carry and eventually he was too strong for them. This was a solo que game but we quickly worked out what to do anyway. Matchmaking slightly in my favor probably since I just lost 3 games before that.

To know how to play in every situation I think it is best to pick a hero and just play it many times in a row. Some games it will be a bad pick...get it anyway (I mean pick it first, let ppl counter pick if they want). Maybe you will be forced to carry with Witch Doctor or support on PA sometimes but you will learn what the hero can and cannot do. I have 6k+ games and still learning, plenty more to learn with 6.79...and there always will be.

You have well over 1k games now. I think you should know enough to pick out a few heroes you like best and practice them a lot. In dota 1 I played over 300 games on PL over 200 on Spectre over 100 on DP...I played over 500 games on Luna on one account.

So I have over 75% win and over 10 KDA on PL....http://dotabuff.com/players/103176226/heroes
Seems like I was lucky or had good stacks since there are not many games...but that doesn't show the 300 games of PL I played in dota 1. It really takes a lot of practice to master a hero.

Never first pick and call mid, chances are someone else might do the same, then a never ending flame war erupts. If u pick a jungler, make sure u actually put pressure on enemies, i cant count how many games i've lost with an afk prophet cliff jungling to dagon 5... If your team gets a kill and the lane is pushed, tp to that lane and push the tower. Map control is the key as pub players are easy to pick off once towers are down. Also play as a team, if u are carry and ur support sand king needs 100 gold for his arcane boots, by all means let him take the 2 fucking last hits. As a support that isnt level dependent, spend time controlling runes for ur mid. You can also attempt to do fancy things to throw enemy off guard such as: Sniping courier when it is sending bottle to enemy mid, block spawns with wards (not just the pull camp).

relentless why do you even mention your pl games on dotabuff since it is based on such a small sample size. you claim that you have played 300 games with pl in dota1 and you tell that it takes a lot of practice to master a hero. so correct if im wrong, you have 75% wr 10 KDA over sample size of 13 games, since you have played 300 games on him in dota1, you do not need more games to get more accurate sample size and you have mastere him. uhhh /brag

Are you asking how to be a better dota 2 player or how to get better rating? They aren't necessarily the same answer.

^^^ stats don't validate that you are a good player. some ppl have amazing kdas yet they play like shit , getting good stats could just be a reflection of your gameplay. if you want to truly get better watch pro players and watch how they play individually. decision making is very important in this game, where you are on the map and for what reason becomes more clear the better you get

<Mark> Exactly my point. All this time, I was always trying to adjust my pick based on what enemies and my teammates choose. But it has taken a toll already especially when others don't want to adjust their hero pick if I choose my hero early. And no, I'm not talking about random pub players. This also happens when you play with people you know.

Starting this week, have decided to focus on the role I really wanted to excel at - hard carry. And 3 days into it, I have already learned some stuff I wouldn't have been able to if I was still relying on counterpicking.

gotta be flexible

Lol don't be one of those raging instapick-carry players, there's already way too many of those in Dota :D

But man I have to.. :D