which hero do you think overpowered right now, and why?

I always ban Legion Commander because with each duel she gets stronger and I hate it, unless I want to play with that hero

Specifically on lower mmr, I'm 3.2k. And pos 4 in this mmr is absolutely cluess. They either:

1. Never pull, never stack, afk lane just watching

2. Fuck off to other lane leaving you 1v2 + feeding other lane. Making you 1k-2k networth behind enemy carry

Since the lane is almost always guaranteed to be bad, it is extremely hard to have any impact. Now I gotta hit jungle creeps to farm my blink.

I climbed 1k mmr purely by playing support. You just cannot lose if you win all your lanes. Carry can recover in jungle if lane is bad, mid is just skill issue if you lose to your opponent. But offlane? Your lane outcome is totally determined by your pos 4. And 90% of them are not even support player in this mmr.

Wtf r u supposed to do when u lose offlane? You are now just a squishy semi-support with a blink

game use general shield hp vs any dmg type, but why isn't physical/magic ones don't have unique mechanics attached to them to differentiate them from general shields, idea is:

• physical shield while its active not allow to steal/reduce hp, hp removal dmg type doesn't work. (pavice can protect vs Undying str steal)
• magic one while its active not allow to mana burn/reduce int/mana pool. (sky innate/glimmer vs manaburn)

I love playing Ember, I've played him so much that I got level 30 on him even though I'm terrible at the hero, but every time I'm against an SF I just feel like I can't do anything to survive the lane and also I can't do anything to recover from the lane since I get bullied out so early.

Here's a game I recently played where I got completely stomped in the lane but miraculously managed to win the game: https://www.opendota.com/matches/8878231457/

Here's another where I also got completely stomped in the lane and couldn't force the comeback: https://www.opendota.com/matches/8878884752

I tried to look at a high-level replay of Sumail playing Ember vs SF but even he gets brought down to like 20% HP with razes and aggressively chased away past his own tower.

What the hell do you even do in this case? Pull the wave and he razes you, stay back to regen and he denies every creep, can't jungle because you're level 3 or some shit with 0 cs. I know it's a losing matchup for Ember, but shouldn't there be some way to minimize the losses?

Tidehunter’s Shard feels way too strong for how easy it is to use.

It feels especially bad because there is no interesting interaction with it.

The worst part is that there does not seem to be much counterplay. You cannot dispel it, you cannot remove the anchor, and the “counterplay” is basically to stop playing your hero and hit the anchor while Tide kills you.

For such a simple ability, it feels way too rewarding and low-skill. I do not mind Tide being strong, but this Shard feels boring and overtuned.

Am I missing something, or is this just too strong right now?

6k MMR EUW

I've been experimenting with an early-game itemization theory on core roles (mostly pos1-3), and I'd like to hear what people think.

For supports, I still buy leftover Iron Branches because inventory efficiency matters less, although I also often skip upgrading Magic Stick.

1. Buy Circlet instead of Iron Branches

At first glance, choosing a Circlet over Iron Branches looks inefficient because you're effectively losing +1 all stats compared to three Branches.

However, if you look at it from a timing perspective, Circlet puts you 155 gold closer to your first item. After bounty runes, that difference often means hitting your first item after one creep wave instead of two or three.

In other words, you're trading a small amount of stats for a significant acceleration in your first item timing.

2. Don't buy Wraith Band

In my opinion, laning is primarily about two things: last-hitting efficiency and sustain.

The strongest stat during the laning phase is often regeneration, which is why many heroes rush items like Ring of Health. Compared to Bracer and Null Talisman, Wraith Band is the only attribute item that provides neither HP nor mana sustain, and its extra stats are difficult to fully capitalize on during the laning stage.

For Strength and Intelligence heroes, this is relatively straightforward: if you're buying an attribute item, buy your primary attribute. For Agility heroes, however, I think Bracer is often the better choice. On some heroes, Null Talisman can even outperform both. For example, Bloodseeker benefits more from reducing the opponent's HP pool with Blood Rite and sustaining through Sanguivore than from additional regen.

I've also been experimenting with skipping Tangoes entirely on heroes that can sustain themselves through their own kit, such as Lifestealer, Bloodseeker, and Enchantress. In my experience, this works surprisingly well and accelerates your early item timings even further.

3. Don't upgrade Magic Stick into Magic Wand

If you're consistently using Magic Stick charges efficiently, Magic Wand only provides +1 all stats over its components.

In practice, most players upgrade Wand primarily to solve inventory space issues. But those inventory issues are often self-created by filling slots with Iron Branches in the first place.

This creates a strange paradox: you buy Branches, run out of inventory space because of Branches, then spend 150 gold upgrading Wand to solve the problem caused by Branches.

Since many players buy Wand as one of their first upgrades, choosing Circlet over Branches effectively puts your first major item timing about 305 gold ahead.

Conclusion

I started thinking about this after noticing that on D2PT, starting item builds featuring Magic Stick + Circlet often have higher win rates than Magic Stick + 2-3 Iron Branches.

Obviously, correlation doesn't imply causation, and there are plenty of confounding factors. Still, it made me wonder whether players systematically overvalue small amounts of early stats and undervalue faster item timings.

My working theory is that many "standard" starting items are optimized for comfort and tradition rather than raw economic efficiency. Trading a few points of stats for a significantly faster first item timing may be a better deal than we generally assume.

I'm curious what everyone thinks. Am I overlooking something fundamental, or is there actually a case for reevaluating conventional starting item builds?

This post contains content not supported on old Reddit. Click here to view the full post

Rank/in-game hours:

• Peak: Archon 2 - 2250MMR
• Current: Crusader 4 - 1900 MMR
• Hours: 2400 hrs - Mostly turbo, that's why low rank. I went from 600MMR to 2250 MMR when I only played ranked. then started playing turbo with friends again.

Role: Pos 3

• I like blink initators like Axe, LC, Centaur, Slardar
• Open to learn more Aura Heros - Underlord, Tide
• Open to learn Doom, Timber, Brewmaster (not sure what category these are)

Rough availability (time+timezone):
Europe timezone: CEST, GMT+2
Weekends mostly fully available.
Weekdays after work after around 20:00

Type of coaching (replay, live, 1v1, conceptual): Any

Are you comfortable with the coach letting others watch/learn from this session?(Y/N): Y

Obvious problems I see:
Early game:

• Too much focus on last hitting and don't pressure enemy at all.
• If I get pressured in lane, super hard for me to recover. (Idk when i should go jungle or stay in lane geting creep XP even if i don't get CS.)
• No itimzation (between bracer, stick, fary, etc. I usually go with my default)

Mid Game:

• I sometimes own my lane - top net worth in the game. Then around 15-25 minutes, my NW stops growing all together.
• Ammar syndrome. I have been an ATF fan for a while and learned from his replays. Now I feel like, I am the main character so I will never leave my lane until I have phase+BM+blink on Axe, or radiance on Doom. I feel like i should be joining fights earlier but I don't know when it is worth it.

Late Game:

• Late game I become support and fully prioritize saving my carry. If I am cent, i will buy aghs and wait them to jump my carry so i can save. I am Axe I will blink call and run towards my team to not die. I don't know if it is a good gameplay or when I should sacrifice myself to be in frontline all the time.
• PMA: I might start loosing control a bit if i see my allies' mistakes. If you can help with that, i would appreciate it.

Dotabuff: https://www.dotabuff.com/players/1303477505
Discord: jasurb3k

I’m fed up with people filing unjustified reports in almost every match and the Dota system penalizing me for it. I’ve won 20 games recently, put in a lot of effort to secure those wins, played well, and didn't engage in any toxic or bad behavior. Yet, over those 20 games, my behavior score just kept dropping. Why is that? How does this system actually work? You can check my profile and look at my recent matches to see for yourselves that I haven't done anything wrong. Please help me with this; I can't progress in the game or play ranked matches simply because I keep getting reported by angry kids for no reason. thx.

Helloo, im jawker, im a 9k mmr mid enjoyer and streamer, ive been coaching actively since 2019 and have helped hundreds of students, im making this post because I have some free time to answer questions, feel free to ask anything you want, and I'll be answering everything when I wake up ( it's 1 am rn so I'm just posting this before going to bed xd , so will respond in like 10 hours from now to everything. )

Ask me anything about all 3 core roles, though my speciality is mid. My main heroes at the moment are necrophos, sniper, Phoenix and shadow demon.

My dms are also open for coaching inquiries of course.

Thought I'd discovered a neat way to get free assist gold on Treant Protector - you can use living armor on an ally who is just about to get a kill for a scoreboard assist - but apparently assists only give gold if you're within 1200 range or dealt damage. Still, you can trade 80 mana for looking like you were more involved in the game if that's something you want

I've contacted devs many times, but without response. Maybe I am just wrong, but what do you guys think?

Phoenix needs ALT cast:

- on icarus dive after getting tree ability +1000 range

- on Supernova with Aghs

Reasoning:

Dive: Personally changing to +1000 range on dive as default completely throws off my timing, as majority of game dive has different pattern in the same amount of time.

Yet I find Longer dive very useful in given situations, and I would like being able to alternate between the two and control my dive more.

Supernova:

Majority of time I don't need to catch teammates inside nova, and even if it's possible to just self-cast with double tap, it adds precious time to already timing sensitive game.

Anyway.

As a Phoenix main, I would love to see some improvements (especially after Ethereal Blade nerf)

Im still in the clouds by getting Pudge Arcana and still have 10 rolls with me. Ive been blessed with crownfall last year and got Zeus, Ogre and LC. Now im wonderin which other Arcana is included in Candyworks? Im hoping WK arcana is on the list?

https://preview.redd.it/tth0skr3rrah1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=1f0881142a2740f56fb1413cd6e4ee31318ece40

I have had some games where I get a lead in kills or farm, and I am able to rack up kills while trying to pressure lanes and get farm. My understanding if you have a lead, is to try and push your lead into further advantages. However, I've been losing these games when the enemy team just starts ganking me whenever I show on waves or just mass moving across the map to find me. This coupled with team mates that don't use the space (other cores don't farm, towers don't get pushed: just general slow play) means the game goes long enough and we eventually get out-scaled.

I could be jungling more and not pushing as much but this feels like not using the advantage I've gotten and so, we'll lose anyway because I'm playing like I'm weaker than I really am.

An example of this is here: 8875220440 . I was the Death Prophet, I did well in lane and I tried to abuse it to get the team ahead and to keep some sort of pressure, but after a while they just started gunning for me.

I'd appreciate help with this issue as it comes up whenever I play core - I can't convert leads into actual won games, which gets very disheartening when it keeps happening.

Enjoying the drow sniper vs meta?

Thoughts?

I created a nice community and i've been coaching players on the side for 3-4 years now.

I pull up your replay or coach you live while you play — laning, macro, decision making, mental game, whatever the actual issue is. No generic advice.

First session is free. Drop a comment or DM if you're interested

since devs increased map size i find even low cd travels boots + twin gates still is not enough to move on map efficiently.

+ i always didn't liked heroes move speed balance, anything below 300 ms feels like ass to play (right now heroes sit between 275-330), so why not buff everyone's ms so heroes sit between 300-350 base to make heroes less reliant on boots and map movement would feel way better.

Isnt battery objectively better?

Throwaway for obvious reasons...

I'm a bit of an addict. Not drugs, alcohol or substance, but dota and porn.

You read that right.

I'm in my mid 30s and unemployed, living off inheritance, alone in an apartment. I play around 15 games of dota a day. Every other game I'll open a porn tab and do the deed. This has gone on for 5 whole years. Neither my friends nor relatives know what I'm up to and at this point I'm too scared to say anything.

I do have aspirations in life, but I tell myself to get started tomorrow and suddenly 5 years has passed. Tbh its probably not a dota problem, its not fair to blame a game. I think I'm trying to get away from reality too much and letting myself rot. I feel like I'm in a mental limbo where life is both amazing and awful.

I'm a chronic procrastinator. I get nothing done on any day. I'll wake up, motivate myself to do something good, play 3 games of dota, j-off a bit, eat something, take a nap, wake up feeling fresh and queue up again. That's my whole life. Time fucking flies, man. 5 whole years.

Someone set me down the right path. Flame me. Give me the hard truth. Ty.