Source
r/learndota2•
TMTrainerEffect

Looking for tips and help as a new player who likes micromanaging.

Hi! I'm pretty new to DotA, I have roughly 5000~ hours in league, a few hundred in DotA and I wanna become proficient at DotA2. May as well get good at the trifecta.

So, I have a couple questions.

  • First and foremost, I use League of Legends keybindings for DotA. It's what I learned first and what I'm most comfortable on.

  • Second, I mained Support in League and HotS. In League I was pretty proficient with most characters. In HotS I loved Abathur.

  • Third, I've taken a keen interest in heroes like Visage, who have a bit of micromanaging. Visage is the one I really know about but I really enjoy his level of map presence.

  1. What characters would you recommend I learn as a new player to DotA, but comfortable with MobAs?

  2. I'm having issues with Control Groups. CTRL + F1 doesn't properly make a new control group. Is there a way to manually change the keybinding for this? Or is there something I'm missing?

  3. Is there an easy way to see if you have extra units outside of hitting focus group buttons? I'm used to Starcraft... there was a little UI element that showed what control groups actually existed.

  4. Finally, what are the best "new player to DotA" tips you can give me? Again, I know Mobas, just not DOTA2.

Posted Dec 3, 2018, 3:52 AM UTC

313
Jenobious•

If you like micro and support Chen is a good hero but rather difficult nature’s prophet has a global presence and can be played as a support or a core depending on items you buy also has summoned units. You should be able to set up control groups in the key settings page first summoned auto apply to group one second group 2 etc... there’s also keys to cycle through groups (tab is the default) but you can bind cycling both forward and back as well as select main hero and all summoned units. Unfortunately the only hud icons that appear are for hero’s like lone Druid, Meepo, and arc warden who have icons in the top left of the screen no way that I know of too change that. As far as tips watch purges videos on YouTube they give a great start to understanding the mechanics in Dota I know a big difference between lol and Dota is turn rates and also how you buy items and denies (last hitting your own creeps) it’s a huge part of laneing that doesn’t exist in lol. Main advise though (and I’ve never played lol so idk if it’s similar) but be prepared to be flamed a lot when you start out it’s how the community is don’t like it? Well you’re shit out of luck there. Learn roles warding and items the rest comes with practice. Welcome to Dota glhf

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TMTrainerEffectOP•

Yeah, I gave Chen a shot. He seemed sorta difficult. It's not exactly sure what I should be mind controlling or what I should be using the mind controlling minions for outside of farming the jungle (and they don't seem too good at that...). Nature's Prophet's global presence seemed really, really good. I really enjoyed Nature's Prophet despite him feeling like the most simple character (I've been going through and taking "support" characters in the top (safe?) lane. Are there any other characters with relevant, continuous global presence?

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TMTrainerEffectOP•

I just realized I got Nature's Prophet and Treant Protector mixed up. I should have Nature's Prophet a try, he certainly looks interesting...

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WillMissMasterChief•

Just a heads up. The safe lane is the long lane. Its different for both the dire and the radiant.

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TMTrainerEffectOP•

Oh, uh. Great to know, actually. I just assumed it was top. Whoops!

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Jenobious•

With the Chen creeps it’s more about what their abilities and auras are the hell bear will give you attack speed the centaur a stun one has a regen aura and a small nuke the bird has an armor aura they’re not really damage dealers for of adding to your team fight. Slilencer is another one that can be played either as a support or a core and his global silence is supper good when used at the right time. Invoked has a somewhat global presence with his sun strike but he is very difficult to play well. Treeant protector can have global once you get his aghs upgrade and enough trees around fighting areas but I don’t find it worth it in most games. Cores that have great mobility would be storm spirit and ember spirit as well as spirit breaker spirit breaker is the easiest to play just gotta make sure when you charge it’s not too your death. Arc warden is great for split pushing with his double once you get boots of travel. Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Btw nature’s prophets summons become insane once you get his aghs as it spawns a treeant for every unit you kill with his ultimate and the always hilarious mega treeant if you happen to kill one of the enemy hero’s with it lol

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bender3693.6k•

  1. For learning to micro in Dota I think it's best to go for something with just illusions like terrorblade. Practice farming jungle while farming the lane with an illusion and you'll sort of get the hang of it.

  2. I think the only way to set control groups is ctr + (group key) so you have to stick to that.

  3. Not sure what you mean by this, but there's a key to select all units excluding hero, and them you can use tab to cycle through the units. Generally you should just make a control group when you spawn the units so it's easier but it's always an option.

  4. I think tp scrolls are really key to Dota and idk if there's a league equivalent. Knowing when to tp to fight or help a teammate is important but youll get better at it. Also I would watch people on YouTube like bsj and purge cause theyre good at explaining some more intricate concepts

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TMTrainerEffectOP•

  1. I really haven't been purchasing offensive items, but I'll keep Terrorblade in mind for practice.

  2. Alright.

  3. So basically, as part of Starcraft 2, whenever you make a new control group, it adds a "tab" or buff to the user interface showing that the control group exists/still exists. Sometimes I forget (Chen is probably the only offender honestly, because the minions are so wierd) that I sometimes have a few random units I could be controlling.

  4. TP scrolls seem OP from what I'm use to. In League you have 3 options for cross map transportation: 1, you have a button that sends you back to the fountain, no cooldown but a 10 second channel, 2, You can take an optional spell (before the game starts) that lets you teleport to any structure or creep on a 300 second cooldown, or 3, you have something built into the character. I'll take a look at those videos asap, thanks for the recommendation.

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Neuromancerrr•

Control 1-5

Not the f keys.

I LOVE BREWMASTER.

He’s a beast and his ult takes a moderate amount of micro management.

I also love Meepo but he’s probably one of the hardest heros in the game

Try brew

2
jjones8170•

Meepo was my go-to hero for a long time; he has some pretty hard counters, like Lich, and can be ganked pretty easily but he's fun to play if you can do it. In unranked matches, people had a really hard time with him if they let me get my farm early-into-mid game because at that point, I'm already most of the way to Scepter (which gives you an extra Meepo). However, if they can jump on you early and prevent you from getting any farm, he becomes ineffective for the match. Once you get 5 Meepos, I usually ran all 5 together from late-mid game into end-game because his Earthbind + Poof + Blink Dagger was so strong in team fights.

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Ryan7935•
  1. invoker.
  2. you can rebind control groups in keybindings. they're on 1-0 by default.
  3. you can keybind "select all units" which selects your hero and all summoned units with some exceptions for stuff like juggernaut's healing ward or shadow shaman's snake wards, but you can make control groups for those. also you can keybind "select other units" which selects all summoned units besides your hero.
  4. last-hitting and the laning stage is very important. denies make you lose 100% of the gold and 75% the xp from creeps. depending on your hero's damage vs the heroes you're laning against you might have to use your spells to get last hits, abuse creep aggro (bit of an advanced concept there are good guides for it on youtube), pull jungle creeps, or harass the enemy heroes away from the creeps. getting an early advantage in farm for yourself, or for your core if you're playing a support, wins games as it lets you snowball with more levels and items than the enemy heroes and run over them from there (assuming you don't throw the mid-late game).
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WallTheMart•

Lemme guess... Your minimaps on the right?

1
abymon4•

U new boi? Want to gid gut fast? Pick pa or riki and rush bf and daedalus for maximum ramapges

Jk, its better to know all the skills of the heroes first since you don’t want to get one shot by 30mins in pub

Just by knowing the heroes/items, you can pick your fights

1
carefreeoreosI Once Witnessed A Bristleback W/ Deso :pepehands:•

For microing, I tend to bind it with what's the name of the creature, like Hawk for H when playing Beastmaster. But then you can always set a group you want by binding Ctrl with the control group key (default are F1, F2, F3, etc.). Very likely that you choose the LoL keys layout when playing DotA, which really requires quite of a reach for the fingers. Personally, I bound the control groups to 1, 2, 3, etc., choosing all on Mouse 5, and choosing others on C, while the items are on D, F, Z, X, V and Space, TP on Y, and other abilities on G and T.

Note that you can bind a window key to either a skill or an item. You can have Q, W, E, R for skills and Alt Q, Alt W, Alt E, Alt A, Alt S, Alt D for the items, B for TP.

You can always find similar heroes here at https://www.dotabuff.com/learn/lol.

  1. For newer players, info for what heroes to play can be found here, a subreddit thread dedicated for new DotA learners.
  2. Depend on your in-game options, by default, pressing Ctrl and Control Group would bound any creatures who have chosen to that group. Next time you want to choose them, you just press that Control Group key. (similar-ish to SC2)
  3. There should be an option that you can find here. Creep-control heroes don't have a specific UI telling how much health their creeps are at. Meanwhile, Meepo and Arc Warden have a UI that telling infos about their clones.
  4. There is a lot to say, honestly. When last-hitting on creeps, consider turn rate of the heroes, their bullet time, their backswing animation, their cast point of their skills, etc. Actually spend time reading each and every abilities of every heroes to get a grip of what's going on should you face them. Same thing applies for items. Optimal itemization alone can win you games.
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