Chapter 4: You as a player!

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A big part of playing and winning at DotA is how YOU as a team work together. I really wanted to do a section on this and talk about somethings which come to my mind just to help your overall game first!Every other game you will see people flaming and Q_Q'ing about this or that, but what they do not realize is that it not only makes other players play even worse it also distracts them from thinking and doing anything good. They are more unlikely to help you gank or team fight if they are getting flamed. Now alot of players will never really be nice to each other because the runneth deep in DotA players but it helps a lot if you are at least civil or just straight up mute them if you cannot be bothered trying to convince them to not be a negative nancy. If you are prone to raging what helps is that you type out your rage..and instead of sending it you can just delete it which really helps in calming down. Remember what i said before? That DotA is a team game--United you stand, Divided you fall!Learn to manage it. You need a attitude which allows you to look forward instead of beating yourself over and over in a game.You made a mistake and died? Its ok for now ..so keep playing. Another team mate is playing bad and dying? Doesnt matter...keep playing. Keep your focus on the game and by keeping yourself busy with plans etc you can honestly focus a lot more then if you get frustrated or hung up over your mistakes. It doesnt mean that you shouldnt care about anything though...because the time for caring is after the game when you can watch the replay and exactly what you did wrong at what time and then work on it.TL;DR Leave your frustration until after the match. Give your 100% to the game.Not communicating or bad communication (flaming) results in in-efficient and/or failed ganks or just plain nothing happening on the map. The more you die the bigger advantage the enemy has over you. So communicating with your allies is a big part of having a GG and there's no excuse for not doing it. Preferably you should use your mic but pinging to get your allies attention and then telling them that you have a spell ready suffices if you are playing with some decent players. For those players who are just starting out I recommend that you should chat to your allies who you are ganking with while also giving a ping or two to make sure that they are ready and know what will happen!On another note things like "who stuns first? Then who follows up?" Should ideally be decided before hand among the supports and the carry or you can ping on your stun being ready indicating that you want to go first.Avoid this as much as you can unless you are sure you can get the kill off AND get out of there safely. Never in any situation should you dive enemies without having your allies with you and nearby. Playing safe ensures that you dont feed the enemy team levels and gold. You would be surprised at how much gold you earn if you just play smart and not die in team fights. This however does not mean you should not help your team, In team fights sometimes the supports gets sacrificed so its ok. But IT DOES NOT MEAN that you have a license to feed (Aim for no more then 6-7 deaths on average). Play smart and never leave your allies unless they cannot really be saved.Still don't believe what caring about this stuff can accomplish? I bet watching this will change your mind a bit! ( I've lost count the amount of similar games I've had since that one!)Also....Never forget to keep a on you atafter the first 6-7 Minutes of the game and dont forget to use them in a smart way! i.e Dont port immediately to a lane after re-spawning and always try to save the tp to port to a lane where enemies are diving the tower!Meaning that you should always be looking for what you can use to yours advantage. I played a couple of games on smurfs with my friends who are 4K and i was suprised at how unimaginative the players are with their mindsets. Look for things like....any sort of stun/movement constrictive spell as Sky wrath with which you can even combo your Ultimate (played 3 games in a row where my allied Sky never realized that he can combo his Ultimate with my Chains), Slark pounce into omni heal, Nyx vs slark pounce and omni Heal. Another combo is Rubick lift into Clockwork cogs to just extend the stun duration and burn mana etc. Theres nearly always a combo you can form in game so opening your mind and thinking critically will help improve your game ten fold. However you also need to learn to communicate and stop being shy. If you run into a guy much higher MMR than you then you shouldnt be afraid to ask him about forming a combo to maximize your effectiveness in the game!If you are higher skilled then you need to learn to look for patterns. For example 6k-7k Storm spammers are ALWAYS pushing out the lane because they use their Remanent to farm. Thats a pattern you can use to your advantage to gank them early on. Most then tend to fall back into their jungle and if you go gank / ward there too they will become totally useless for atleast the first 30 minutes of the game which just might be what your team needs to win.To think critically you need to focus and you cannot focus on the game if you are focusing on flaming, being salty and whining about team mates.