General DiscussionShould a new player play ranked matchmaking?

You're a lot better than the people I get on my ranked games. You'll do fine.
PS: You should learn/know pretty much (if not all the skills) of every hero, so you know how to act in certain situations.

No mm until you're level 100.

i wouldnt que ranked if u play on eu the worst is ahead #russians with 2/3/4k rating#if you like dota i would say focus on improving your skill first theres no need to hurry when it comes to ranked give yourself extra 100games where you learn stuff and get better
my srs advice for you is a-z challange twice which is around 200games

As long as you show that attitude ingame as well it will be fine. You won't be put togehter with 4.9k MMR players anyway and you seem to play a really decent Crystal Maiden when I look at your games. Just tell them that you are most comfortable with heroes like Crystal Maiden. They will most likely give it to you.
If you know all basic + semi-advanced little tricks (Creep Blocking, Pulling, Stacking, Dewarding, Roaming and Zoning...), I dont see a reason why you shouldnt play ranked :).

mate... i can only play 3 heroes atm.. and actually im pretty new to dota2 as well just started around 2 months ago... ranked mm is better than normal one its really fun and youll get more experience on how to play most players are cooperative

Thanks Jason, I will try to learn hero skills. That brings me to an interesting point. In most games that I play, I never see a wide variety of heroes. I always see people pick drow/riki/sniper and few other heroes. For example I have rarely played against an invoker/meepo/chen/clockwerk and many other heroes. Perhaps I am in some very noob tier. So because of this, I have to learn some heroes by reading up their skills.

lord shadowfiend: I play on SEA servers(I am from India). I dont think I like the A-Z challenge in pub games but I do it in bot games.
Also, I do not like to play with certain heroes (like abaddon) as of now. So i would rather pick a few enjoyable heroes and practice them and move in batches to other heroes. I want to enjoy the game as well. Thanks for the advice on waiting for 100 games more. Perhaps I will play one game and then decide.

kanye best: LOL

You learn the game by playing new heroes. You can even learn them in practice games by yourself, good luck

I'd say play ranked when you want to play your favorite heroes, play with bots and then normal matches when you want to learn new heroes.

If you write your team you can only play heroes x, y, z at start, they MUST make the strategy around your heroes. If they give you Leshrac or Jakiro when you ask for Cristal Maiden or Venomancer, then you lose the game because of the drafter.

Yes, you should. Ideally, ranked matchmaking introduces you to a more organized form of play. Sure you can call it tryhard, but its ultimately rewarding. As far as heroes go, its in your best interest to have a fairly flexible hero pool for ranked games, it makes counterpicking much easier. Until then, you should do as 6_din_49 has suggested and practice on lesser played heroes in unranked games first.

like ur avatar:D

Why not,play it. You won`t ruin games for other players lol. You ll play with players on your skill lvl,that`s how it works.And don`t be sad or smth when you see your rating like 2000-3000 is normal. Some ppl like play dota for 9 years,you can`t reach so much expirience so fast dota is a game which need really long time to be very good player.

@BogiDotO New accounts have a better chance of getting a higher MMR. This is due to Valve basing the pre-calibrated MMR on your public one and just bumping up the uncertainty (newer accounts generally have a higher win rate). I have personally seen this, with some people having 400-600 more points on their smurf accounts compared to their main ones. Personally, I'd like to see games played contribute towards your MMR as experience counts for quite a bit (read the Reddit post by bluechipps and you'll see what I mean).

cartographer He won`t get high mmr cos his skill is not high. They have better mmr of their smurfs ofc,cos they also played better on smurfs cos on main acc they didn`t played from 1. game good even if they played dota wc3 like me. So it`s normal smurfs mmr > main if same player played.

Just only tick the all pick box for ranked games and then there isn't that much difference to non-ranked tbh, especially at lower levels like ours.

Stay away from the 'Captain's' game modes if I were you, for now at least, that's where you'll be given a hero you've never played before and expected to be great instantly...

6_din_59:"If you write your team you can only play heroes x, y, z at start, they MUST make the strategy around your heroes. If they give you Leshrac or Jakiro when you ask for Cristal Maiden or Venomancer, then you lose the game because of the drafter."

>> I do that all the time. Usually I end up supporting since most people rage pick carries. In one of the ranked matches earlier this evening, they asked me to pick dazzle. I agreed, thinking that Huskar+Dazzle will be good. But then the huskar never stayed with me. So much for formulating strategy! [It is another story that our rubick gave up halfway through and bought a divine rapier XD].
Anyway, my point is that in my AP ranked matches, I have not seen people formulate strategy or execute it.
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cartographer:"Yes, you should. Ideally, ranked matchmaking introduces you to a more organized form of play. Sure you can call it tryhard, but its ultimately rewarding. As far as heroes go, its in your best interest to have a fairly flexible hero pool for ranked games, it makes counterpicking much easier. "

>> It is certainly re-warding to me since opponents are always dewarding... XD

On a serious note, it is very enjoyable when the battles are intense and the game yo-yos a lot. I certainly want to have flexible hero pool. But I think it will take some time to practice many heroes. Thanks for the advice.

Why not play ranked games?
Normal game = ranked game with score hidden.
I believe the algorithm is pretty much the same.

If I were you, I'll practice heroes with real player, not with bots.
That's what I did.

Check out my first shadow fiend game:
http://dotabuff.com/matches/16300920

You are definitely better than that.

You will do fine I think. MM will throw you into games above your skill level and games on your level. Picking supports and doing a good job increases the chances of winning, since most people tend to play their best hero in RMM (read carry or mid) and are avoiding supports. If you have some luck, the player with the highest MMR will pick a carry and carry you.

The fact that you actually came here asking if it's okay because you worry about your teammates automatically makes you better than half of the people in MM. Just practice and learn (don't master, just learn) all the heroes. I love support players and you could feel free to add me any time and I can show you the ropes.

Cheers :)

Sure, ranked is nicer. You can also chart your MMR in an Excel to gain a sense of improvement.

You will end with people at the same skill level as you, nothing to worry about.

as long as you can listen to the captain or someone that is willing to help you. I suggest learning to play a safelane support hero first and take charge of getting wards and support items. Later on you can learn to roam gank and really pay attention to map awareness. Another tip is always carry a tp around mid and late game. But really just find a few set of heroes that you like to play and once you have a good understanding of those heroes queue up for MM.

Thanks for all the advice people. I have started playing Ranked since yesterday. These games are more fun than normal (upto now). Except we have people disconnecting and abandoning games in these matches. I will try it for a while.

Light.k, I think all people have had such bad matches. But my question was more about whether I lacked the necessary experience to play ranked.

Mostwanted, occasionally some people carry me very well. And I add them to my friend list XD
It is a treat to carry good players and i find them rarely :(
I understand your point of similar MMR matching.

[ESP*] Wink: I will add you but I play in SEA. I think US and EU may lag for me [never tried it though]. Where are you from?
Thanks for the support for a support :P

@All others: Thanks for the replies. I am playing ranked and since it matches people with similar MMR, it should not be much of a problem. Now I cant wait to find my MMR score (fingers crossed!).

I don't think she should play ranked, if you don't know the heroes and you're a support you will most likely screw your carry farm and lane, which is the worst thing you can do as it's more easy to screw a game playing a support than a carry.

you should do normal mode and random, it will be fun.

Random is bad because it teaches reliance on additional gold that would otherwise not be there during the laning phase.

Ooh, im in NA but i can do eu west

I think a-z challange in normal and before every game, read a guide quickly. Dont have to read the whole thing, just have an idea. At least, this is my plan. If you play ranked, you can let your teammates know about your skill level before game starts. Tell them you will pick support asap, and before creeps spawn you can tell them more. Like... let them know you are still working on your map awareness but you will have a tp so if they shout in voice chat "tp top" or just ping like crazy, you will go. If your team is not retarded, they will call for your help. If they dint, and still expect you to tp and blame you it isnt just your fault. Idk if you are a girl or not, but if you are, you should apologise for your mistakes kindly in _voice_ chat. If not, whatever more comfortable but always say sorry or my bad when you screw up. Or you can join the flamewrlar but i dont think that woukd be a supports job. Try supporting your teammates with some kind words, "its fine, we can still win just pay more attention next time" is better than "cyka noob fucktard l2p". There will be gamea where you just cant help your teams moral, mute them or go into flamewar whatever works for you to feel better before next game.

Edit: i have another idea to learn all heroes. Choose 10-20 heroes that are new for you,read their guides and play random draft. Most likely there will be at least one of those or the heroes youve already played. If you managed to get one of your chosen new heroes, pick 2 more and read guides. repeate. (Dont concentrate on item/skill buildes, you can use the in game guides for that, just the gameplay/tips sections and what the skills actually do.)

You shouldn't play ranked unless you have a good 500+ games on your belt and a grasp of 90% of the heroes. PLaying ranked when you only know 5-6 heroes is OK if you play AP. But if your in CM sick to normal matchmaking. Also if you are new or sorta bad they will rank you sort of close to where you will be. SO expect alot of losses before winning. It all depends on what you think your skill are and luck.

For people new to dota my theory is you can play ranked if you win Unfair bots 3 times in a row with that hero you want to play in ranked

I am currently teaching a friend to play using this method. He now plays lich and vengful very well

Dropping by to wish you all the best and Merry Christmas!
And it's easy to find someone experienced to coach you in this forum too, all you need is ask I guess. Coaching definitely helps.

since ur a smurf, if ur rating is 4k+ then no fuck off

vivivvivivi: Why am I a smurf? I started playing dota 2 from August.

P.S: it is also funny that the opinion is coming from an account that has played only one game.. lol.

Hey iso, since i couldnt play dota much recently (HUGE blackout in my area just clearing up now after 3 days), i looked at your games and what i could figure is that you know the mechanics well enough to buy proper items (blink CM is amazing), but you should practice your positioning. This means you should never venture alone as a support ever, so if you are warding, ask for an escort. And for the match against riki, i see you got dust which is great, but riki is always invisible, so sentries would be better since they will let you see him coming to you. And always stick to your team when against invis gankers like riki, nyx, bounty. They can 1v1 a support no problem, but 1v2 is much harder. Also, a very early gem is great against riki (get at around 15 min mark). This will shut him down and all you need to do is 5man push with the gem. If you lose it, buy another.

Cya around :)

not like gem has 10 minute cooldown and shit

not like enemies can do 5 man too and take it away from u

Hey [ESP*] Wink. That riki game; I was so tired of buying wards and putting it all over the place. I wanted to buy gem. But no one would stick. Even worse was when I asked Slardar if he could use ulti on riki to get true sight, he called me a noob and didnt do it anyway >(

Only razor was playing well, so I stuck to him... Lost anyway...

When I cant farm items on my CM like that game, it is a sad game for me. Perhaps Doom+CM safe lane was a bad idea versus SB and Lion, espeically when Doom was diving towers and dying early game :(

I cant figure out lanes too.... CM+ heavy hitters works for me initially very well [like Clinkz or Ursa]. With axe/doom, I think they need some farm or at least level 3/4 before we can kill opponents in the lane.

Thanks for the advice. I had sent you that friend request.

Roaming cm is stronger than babysitting cm, just... You need cooperative teammetes for that =/ I mean, there are better babysitters and cm is so strong in early ganks. If you are 2 on 2 its harder to kill than if you are 3 on 2 or 2 on 1 in mid.

sould go fuckyourself if you plan to play rank