Dota 2
Image: Armor of the Stalwart Soul loading screen by Chiz.

Given that Dota 2's entire character roster is available to everybody, all of the time, learning new heroes presents a daunting challenge to new players. Talking to people who are just starting out on the long road to being halfway-competent-maybe at Dota, a question I've heard a lot is 'how do I choose who to play next?'

In this series, then, I'm going to shine a light on heroes that new players may miss. In particular, I'm looking for heroes that have a higher-than-average win-rate (calcuated using DotaBuff) but who wouldn't otherwise be considered a major part of the current metagame. Champions of pub Dota, in other words, heroes you might not see very often in the hands of top players but who you might get a kick out of as you take your first steps into ranked.

We re going to alternate this series with our Dota 2 Q&A, Game Is Hard , on a bi-weekly basis. This gives us more time to set up interviews and gives time for new hero trends to emerge.

Let s get to business.

What does Omniknight do?

Omniknight is a strength melee hero most commonly played as a support. His abilities emphasise protection: even his most powerful damage spell is deployed defensively.

Purification is a powerful single-target heal that, in addition to restoring health, does a large amount of damage in an area immediately around the target. This is pure damage, which broadly speaking means that it ignores armour, magic resistance, and spell immunity. Omniknight can cast it on himself, allied heroes, or creeps. In ideal scenario, you ll always be getting maximum use out of both of its components: using it to prop up a beleaguered ally while also doing significant damage to their assailants. You ll put your skill points into this first.

Repel grants spell immunity and 100% magic damage resistance to a single target. This is exactly the same as the defensive item Black King Bar, which most carries won t have built until the midgame. Repel is great for ensuring that your carry doesn t get stunned into oblivion during a teamfight, or for shielding yourself while you use a teleport scroll to escape. It can also be cast on enemies to prevent them from receiving beneficial effects, but bear in mind that spell immunity is more often a help than a hindrance: if in doubt, Repel an ally. You ll put skill points into Repel second.

Degen Aura slows the movement and attack speed of enemies within a radius of Omniknight. This gives him a little bit of scaling potential in the late game, as attack speed becomes more important, but you wouldn t want to put skill points into it too early. Generally speaking, it s more important for Omniknight to survive long enough to use his other abilities and items than it is to be close enough to the enemy for Degen Aura to be useful. In certain one-on-one situations, however, the movement speed debuff can be used to get Omniknight slightly ahead of the enemy in order to line up a self-cast Purification.

Guardian Angel is Omniknight s ultimate. For a fixed duration, allied units in an area around Omniknight gain immunity to physical damage—i.e, auto-attacks and certain spells. If upgraded using an Aghanim s Scepter, Guardian Angel gains global cast range and also affects buildings—effectively acting as a second Glyph of Fortification. Guardian Angel has a massive impact on teamfights, effectively nullifying the impact of auto-attack happy enemy carries. In pub games, particularly at the beginner level, players tend to be pretty bad at playing around ults like this one. If you re tired of being rolled over by Sniper, Guardian Angel renders him entirely useless for its duration.

Why Omniknight?

Dota 2 tends to shy from traditional fantasy stereotypes—or at least they re rarely presented without a twist of some kind. Omniknight looks like a paladin, sounds like a paladin and—for the most part—plays like a paladin. The twist here is a relatively subtle one: despite the crusader knight imagery, angelic guardians and god-rays, Omniknight actually worships a cave-dwelling Elder Thing that may or may not have created the world by chance while trying to hide from space monsters. As you do.

He s been sat in the middle of the popularity charts for a long time, now, despite a consistently high win-rate—greater than 60%. Let s break down some of the reasons why this might be.

He s almost always played as a hard support

This contributes to both his winrate and his unpopularity. As a wise man once said: nobody wants to play support, but everybody wants to win. As a defense-oriented character, Omniknight doesn t offer the multi-kill potential that most players chase. On the other hand, picking him communicates a rare desire to cooperate with your team—and it s this, most of the time, that wins games.

He upsets aggressive players

Omniknight is powerful in pub matches because he punishes players that don t think twice before committing to an attack. This accounts for a lot of players. When somebody is diving in pursuit of an easy kill, a well-timed heal, burst of magic immunity, or team-wide protection from regular attacks can all turn fights on their head. In a game that is often about snowballing momentum, Omniknight acts as a human stop sign: and he doesn't need much by way of items or levels to do it. A well-timed Guardian Angel can keep a losing team in the game for a long time.

He acts as a safety net for allies

The inverse is also true: when your own allies are too aggressive, Omniknight is good at making sure that they don t pay too much for it. Repel acts as a free Black King Bar, granting on-the-fly magic immunity to carries who are dead-set against building defensive items for themselves. This doesn t mean they shouldn t build defensively, of course, but it s hardly unusual for pub players to go for more damage over more survivability: Omniknight patches up that gap, whether they like it or not. The key here is that Omniknight himself has to play carefully, even if his allies aren't: make sure you're where you need to be to deliver that clutch Purification, but don't die for it.

He is everybody s dad

To put all of this another way: Omniknight is great in pubs because he acts as a moderating influence on what tends to be an immoderate form of Dota. Your job is to stand on the sidelines, dampening enemy aggression and preventing your teammates from hurting themselves too badly. If you can keep a cool head, he s relatively easy to play: an effective Omniknight is one who reliably gets the most out of a single Purification, a single Repel, a single Guardian Angel. That means walking the tightrope between waiting for the right moment and becoming too hesitant, which is something you ll only improve with experience. But you d be surprised at how many games can be won by a single player acting responsibly, defensively, and putting their team first: Omniknight s 60% winrate isn t an accident. He isn't flashy, but if you enjoy winning games from a position of control on the sidelines, you'll get a kick out of him.

Items to consider

As a support, you re going to spend a lot of time buying Observer and Sentry Wards as well as the Courier and its flying upgrade. Mana and mobility are both important to Omniknight, so Arcane Boots are a priority. His abilities mesh well with a Soul Ring, and Force Staff lets him reposition within a fight and escape more reliably (something he otherwise lacks.) He s a natural Mekansm carrier, which transitions naturally into Guardian Greaves, and his Aghanim s Scepter upgrade can be game-winning. You might also consider picking up helpful aura items on him, like Vladimir s Offering and Drums of Endurance. If things are going extremely well, consider a Refresher Orb, Shiva s Guard, or Scythe of Vyse. Essentially: this is a team-focused hero. Build with your team in mind.


Pcgp Logo Red Small PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Dota 2

Last week saw the arrival of Dota 2 s much anticipated 6.85 patch. You can read the full set of accompanying notes here, but unlike other patches released after The International, 6.85 doesn t rework Dota 2 at a fundamental level. Instead, it has numerous tweaks that focus on the micro aspects of Dota. This is likely due to the proximity of The Frankfurt Major, with open qualifiers starting on October 6th. 

Despite the lack of sweeping changes, like the bounty rework made in 6.82, these smaller patches can still have substantial effects on the metagame. Take, for example, patch 6.83, which made Sniper s haunting laugh a common occurrence when he was picked in every single game. With that in mind, here are six of the biggest changes in 6.85.

1. The top tiers aren t as top anymore

Photo Credit to DotaBuff

Just about every hero used heavily at the top of professional play has received some sort of nerf. The immediate effect has been the plummeting of win rates, as DotaBuff gloriously shows. What s important is that none of these changes have ruined the design of any character. Leshrac can still do ridiculous damage, but Lightning Storm doesn t give him a free win in middle lane. Storm Spirit continues to excel at both zipping and zapping, but he lost some laning prowess and requires even more careful mana management. These heroes are not in some sort of unplayable fail state, but they no longer overwhelm other heroes in very obvious ways. These slight nerfs may have huge implications in upcoming tournaments, and have already had very visible effects in non-pro play.

2. Techies were nerfed

In what may be the best news of the decade, the reign of Squee, Spleen, and Spoon has been curbed. Techies are unable to enter lane as a short-range burst caster, a major issue in professional play. Gone are the days of laying down a single mine to wave clear, and farewell to the 1200 damage burst combo that was supported by heroes like Tusk. Additionally, melee heroes can clear all mine varieties with a quelling blade, giving every hero in the game a way to destroy troublesome mines. However, Techies weren t nerfed in a way that stops their forest traps, and hapless players will still find themselves blown to smithereens. Remote Mines weren t adjusted, and the Land Mine nerfs are irrelevant in successful multi-mine traps. As a matter of fact, Techies are even better at placing Land Mines because...

3. Techies art possibilities have been dramatically buffed

One of the major changes to Techies was the removal of a Land Mine cap, which was previously 20. In terms of gameplay it means that Techies players can draw out games to an even greater extent with higher usage of Land Mines during slow parts of a game. So a theoretical Techies game can be even more arduous than before. In terms of art, it means that that there s a new placeable object to help round the color palette normally used in-game. Dota 2 pseudo-pixel art has reached the next level.

4. Terrorblade might actually be scary again 

Terrorblade received tweaks across his skillset, and his in-game presence has changed dramatically. Reflection, a spell that produces replicas of enemies, gained a large area of effect at the cost of a weaker slow and slightly longer cooldown. Prior to this patch, Reflection was kept at rank one and was only used as a short-range slow in skirmishes.Now, for the first time in years, Terrorblade has a spell with noticeable teamfight utility and it scales into late game. Additionally, Terrorblade received numerous quality of life buffs to make him more comfortable to play. He s a bit less clunky and his illusions don t get left behind when he transforms. The major disappointment this patch is that his lore hasn t been updated, and he s still a weird demon that went to Double Hell.

5. Undying had a scaling flip-flop

Similar to Terrorblade, Undying received a rebalancing instead of the nerf that many popular picks felt. His Tombstone summon has had a total reversal in survivability, now taking hits to destroy instead of having decent HP and the powerful structure armor type. At level one a tombstone will have difficulty surviving as it can only withstand three hits, but in endgame fights, when carries have massive damage numbers, a max rank tombstone still takes seven hits. He also received an Aghanim s Scepter upgrade to his Decay spell, losing the rarely considered damage amplification it provided to his ultimate. The upgrade steals more strength, and Undying gains 190 HP when he hits a single hero with Decay. If the enemy team clumps up he can receive as much 950 HP with a single cast on a 4 second cooldown. Undying has a very direct and effective late game presence, something he hasn t had since the release of Dota 2.

6. There are still changes that have unknown implications

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, are the numerous subtle changes that came with the patch. Item adjustments, smaller hero buffs, these many small changes will take time and deep investigation to truly understand. For example, siege creeps can now be targeted like a normal lane creep in regards to spells, though they have high magic resistance. On its own this may not seem like a major change, but Helm of the Dominator was buffed to always give dominated creeps a minimum HP of 1400. Combine the two changes and ridiculously beefy siege creeps might have a role in 6.85 s meta. This is just one small possibility in the wide array of potential Dota changes, and it will take time for the hidden gems to surface. The latest overpowered build is just waiting to be discovered.


Pcgp Logo Red Small PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Dota 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Joe Donnelly)

For the last five years, Dota 2 [official site] players have travelled far and wide to compete in The International. Now, Valve are launching a series of Majors, the first of which will take place in Frankfurt.

… [visit site to read more]

Dota 2
Picture credit: Sebastian Ekman

The fall esports season begins in earnest this weekend, as many games return from their post-summer hiatus and shuffled team rosters settle into place. Qualifiers for a number of massive upcoming tournaments, including CS:GO s final major of the year, are mingled in with the first medium-stakes chance to see some of the new teams in action on a brand new Dota patch. There will also be some last ditch efforts to make it to next month s BlizzCon, and the action all kicks off today.

Whether you re in the mood for Brazilian god-on-god action, or some European wizard fumbling, there s something to suit all your pro gaming needs this weekend. Here s what we ll be watching...


StarCraft: 2015 DreamHack Stockholm Open

Unusually for an esports event, DreamHack Stockholm ran much of its course during the week, meaning most of the event is already over. However the StarCraft finals are being played on Friday night, and for one player they mean everything. Being the last event awarding WCS points before BlizzCon, there is a chance for Ko HyuN Seok Hyun to sneak his way up from 18th place into the invited Top 16 of WCS rankings. A win today and he ll relegate Jung FanTaSy Myung Hoon, whom he defeated yesterday to make it to the quarter-finals. You can see if HyuN makes it on the official DreamHack StarCraft channel from 10:15 PDT/18:15 BST with the Grand Final at 13:30 PDT/21:30 BST.

Counter-Strike: DreamHack Cluj-Napoca Qualifiers at DreamHack Stockholm

The CS:GO tournament at DH Stockholm is carrying on for another day, at least, so you can expect to catch a bit more of the action if you do something ridiculous like work during the week. The last remaining spots for DreamHack s next tour stop, Romania s Cluj-Napoca, are up for grabs and there are still a few familiar names waiting to snap them up. FlipSid3, Copenhagen Wolves and Dignitas, to name a few, will be playing Saturday from 03:05 PDT/11:05 BST until the final match at 12:05 PDT/20:05 BST. You can watch all that on DreamHack s official stream.

Counter-Strike: Gfinity Champion of Champions

More CS:GO for the top tier teams already invited to Cluj-Napoca as Gfinity holds a four-team invitational. Fnatic, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Virtus.pro and EnVyUs play a short three-game bracket with the semi-finals on Saturday morning beginning 02:30 PDT/10:30 BST, and the Grand Final at the same time on Sunday. If you re up in time to catch that, you can see it on Gfinity s Twitch stream but VODs will surely be available for late birds.

Nanyang Dota 2 Championships: European Qualifiers

After last week s Chinese Qualifiers, it s the Europeans turn, as almost every hot new roster shakes their tail feathers on the road to Nanyang. This weekend should be especially exciting as Dota s latest patch today means we ll see the clumsy evolution of a new meta before Frankfurt s Major next month. Saturday plays host to Kuroky s 5Jungz squad in a semi-final matchup against the Swedish Ninjas in Pyjamas at 11:00 PDT/19:00 BST, and a loser s bracket elimination between Team Empire and Vega Squadron before that at 09:00 PDT/17:00 BST. Sunday will feature the result of today s matches (Na`Vi versus (monkey) Business, and Alliance versus Monkey Freedom Fighters) at those same times. All can be watched on the BTS Twitch channel.

SMITE Brazil Gaming League Season 2

A chance to see the finale of Latin America s toughest competition this Saturday, as the teams with one remaining game in hand compete in the last week of SPL s Brazilian league. There s only one game to look out for here, and that s the clash between current first and second place in the table, INTZ esports and Keyd Stars. INTZ, formed of SWC 2015 fifth-placers We Love Bacon have a slight advantage over Keyd who were penalised by one point at the beginning of the season for a late roster change. You can see that match play out on x5TV Saturday at 14:00 PDT/22:00 BST

Hearthstone: Abios Grand Tournament

Lastly, a small $5,000 pot Hearthstone tournament with a surprising collection of stars should wile away the time until next weekend s European Road to BlizzCon. Names to watch for include current world champ Firebat, and European hopefuls ThijsNL, Ostkaka and Hoej. It s a single elimination event, which should provide some tension, though stakes are fairly low. More importantly it ll be a good chance to see what decks the European hopefuls are playing with before their BlizzCon qualifier showdown next week. Round of 16 matches start at 08:00 PDT/16:00 BST on Saturday, with the last at 14:30 PDT/22:30 BST, and the finals continue Sunday from 08:05 PDT/16:05 BST until the Grand Final at 15:40 PDT/23:40 BST. You can see them all on AbioTV s Twitch channel.


Pcgp Logo Red Small PC Gamer Pro is a new channel dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Dota 2

Valve has released patch 6.85 for Dota 2, ahead of the upcoming Fall Major tournament. After announcing the changes would be minor balance tweaks until a bigger patch planned for after November s Frankfurt showdown, it s uncertain whether Dota's master of balance Icefrog is familiar with the word minor .

To name just a few of the changes, Siege Creeps are no longer buildings and are now targetable by spells (albeit with an 80% spell resistance). Gone are the days of supports being able to flash clear an entire wave and then spend the next four days auto-attacking a catapult.

Also blending the spell-immune buildings rule is Ogre Magi s Bloodlust, which can now target towers to increase their fire rate and somehow cause a hunk of magical rock to grow in size. There are many other hero-specific changes too, the most interesting of which—as always—is the new Aghanim s Scepter upgrade.

Batrider has been blessed with an upgraded Lasso ultimate when he purchases the 4200 gold item, which now chain lassos another enemy hero within 400 radius, while doing 100 damage per second. Old Bats hasn t been seen much in the latest patches, compared to his almost 100% pick rate at TI3, so maybe we ll see a resurgence of the grab n run strats of yesteryear.

Other global effects of 6.85 s arrival include summoned units being immune to being purged, meaning Warlock s Golems can t be countered by a Diffusal Blade and neither can Necronomicon units. The in-game shop also appears to be having a sale, as a number of recipes and items have been reduced in price by up to 25%—in the case of Town Portal scrolls, which are down from 100 to just 75 gold. YES! 75 gold!

As an attempt to address the current HOT HEROES in the meta, Icefrog hasn t done too much nerfing. Queen of Pain s ultimate, Sonic Wave, has had a slight damage bump, and Tusk has 1 second less to hide away from spells in his snowball before he is forced to roll on a chosen target. But the real damage has been done to Leshrac—the jump distance and damage of Lightning Storm is reduced—and Techies.

The suicidal bombers mines no longer explode when they are destroyed by wary enemy heroes with truesight, who can now also chop them down with a Quelling Blade or Battle Fury for 10 gold a pop, just like wards. The proximity-activated Land Mines also cannot be stacked directly on top of one another for maximum damage, and their damage is down by a massive 50%. Good night, sweet goblins.

For all the minutiae of Dota 2 s changes, you can visit the blog page. We ll have a more in-depth breakdown on the meta later in the week.

Dota 2 - Dota 2


Gameplay Update 6.85 is here, bringing various balance changes to heroes and items ahead of the Frankfurt Major. You can read the Gameplay Update notes here.

We've also reorganized the home page to incorporate several new features.



Neighborhood Channels are a new feature in the chat panel, providing an easy way for you to join the Dota community in your area, find new teammates, and make new friends. Neighborhood Channels are joined automatically whenever you launch Dota. They are currently enabled in select regions, and will be rolling out to rest of the world over the next few days.

The chat panel is also now embedded directly into the home page, and will remain open whenever you're in a lobby. Additionally, two new panels have been added to the home page: the first showing a recap of your most recent game, while the other highlights the most-spectated match currently being played.

There are a number of other features and fixes included with today's update. Head over to the patch notes to learn all about them.
Dota 2 - Dota 2


Gameplay Update 6.85 is here, bringing various balance changes to heroes and items ahead of the Frankfurt Major. You can read the Gameplay Update notes here.

We've also reorganized the home page to incorporate several new features.



Neighborhood Channels are a new feature in the chat panel, providing an easy way for you to join the Dota community in your area, find new teammates, and make new friends. Neighborhood Channels are joined automatically whenever you launch Dota. They are currently enabled in select regions, and will be rolling out to rest of the world over the next few days.

The chat panel is also now embedded directly into the home page, and will remain open whenever you're in a lobby. Additionally, two new panels have been added to the home page: the first showing a recap of your most recent game, while the other highlights the most-spectated match currently being played.

There are a number of other features and fixes included with today's update. Head over to the patch notes to learn all about them.
Dota 2 - Valve
* 6.85 Patch Notes:http://www.dota2.com/685/
* Redesigned Dota home page.
* Improved unit selection.
* The Heroes tab now sends you directly to the Hero Grid.
* Improved how player commands are networked. This prevents orders being lost in adverse network conditions such as high packet loss.
* Fixed various memory leaks and reduced total memory allocation
* Players are automatically put into a Neighborhood Channel on startup.
* Added a panel on the home page to show your last match played
* Added a panel on the home page to show the top spectated game
* Added team management UI.
* Added /flip chat command in lobby games.
* Fixed game servers not apply abandons correctly.
* Improved frame rate in some specific hardware configurations.
* Map: Improved southern map edge and juking paths.
* Map: Fixed Dire ancient camp ward blocking edge case.
* Map: Fixed Roshan aggro when warding the hill behind him.
* Map: Fixed a minor collision bug at the north river Dire statue.
* Map: Fixed map edge cliff ward spots allowing hero pathing with blink.
* Fixed a bug where when returning from Demo Hero mode, it would sometimes not start off with the demoed item set selected.
* Fixed a bug where if you were in a hero loadout screen and picked 'About', then went to a global item loadout screen (such as couriers), it would incorrectly display the About screen instead of the items.
* Added style unlocking to item details page
* Item sets that you own now also appear in the available list in the loadout screen.
* Fixed a localization problem in bundle name in the loadout screen.
* Fixed techies mines not consistently disappearing on detonation.
* Fixed screenshot key not working.
* Fixed a crash when playing as Treant.
* Fixed a crash that would occur if a friend logged in while you were loading a game.
* Fixed a crash when deploying wards.
* Decreased video memory usage when loading Steam avatar images.
* Fix a bug that prevented changing a profile card slot after it had been set to a trophy.
* Windows OpenGL: Fixed a bug with gamma not being restored on exit.
* Workshop Tools: Selecting an arcana wearable in the additional preview items will now preview the arcana model in the tool and in game.
Dota 2
Image credit: ESL/Helena Kristiansson.

Last week, we  asked you to come up with your best variation on recurring Dota phrase "too easy for Arteezy" for a short at two premium tickets to ESL One New York and a bunch of additional goodies. Total value, $400.

It's been a tough judging process. We received over a hundred entries, many including loads of attempts, and only a handful of them actually rhymed. Our winner is somebody whose entry will probably break this page, and who managed to convince me for a couple of moments that something had gone terribly wrong with our email server. It hadn't—they just know their numbers, and are probably a huge show-off.

The winner!

"Too 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190914564856692346034861045432664821339360726024914127372458700660631558817488152092096282925409171536436789259036001133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036575959195309218611738193261179310511854807446237996274956735188575272489122793818301194912983367336244065664308602139494639 for ALWAYSWANNAFLY."

Jordan Ensing

...who also wins the Everybody Clap For The Giant Smartass Award, for what it's worth. Congrats, Jordan. We'll be in touch about your prize.

There's no space here to list off every entry, but I do have a number of no-prizes to give out. They are as follows.

The Thanks For That Mental Image Award goes to...

"One bikini for Merlini"

Jason Small

The On-Point Sociopolitical Commentary Award goes to...

"Two tin foil hats for Twitch chat"

Cam Pratt

The Thanks Man, My Day Job Is Literally Knowing Words Award goes to...

"Too tricksy for Trixi (tricksy is a word)"

The North

The Thanks For The Helpful Picture Award goes to...

John Hunt

The Thanks For Making Me Spit Coffee At Work Award goes to...

"Two cups for Mynuts"

Christian Slot

Thanks to everybody that entered—I'm sorry that we've only got one prize to give out. We'll be running many more giveaways like this one in the future, and check back soon for more ESL One New York coverage.


Pcgp Logo Red Small PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Dota 2
Lion is fond of finger-pointing, too.
Three Lane Highway

Every week, Chris documents his complex ongoing relationship with Dota 2 and wizards in general. To read more Three Lane Highway, click here

When we launched PC Gamer Pro last week, I started a couple of new regular Dota 2 features. Game Is Hard, which runs every Tuesday, is an advice column where I round up emails from readers and put the questions they ask to a personality from the scene, like PyrionFlax.

It takes effort to write an email and I'm grateful for every one that I receive, but in this week's column I want to discuss a theme I've seen repeated across dozens of emails in the last week: blame, and the dispensing thereof. This is a problem that exists in every type of competitive game.

It's impossible to play Dota for any amount of time and not experience finger-pointing: whether that means being blamed for something or feeling the urge to yell at somebody else. Dota places you in a stressful, complex and codependent relationship your teammates, who will often be strangers—it's inevitable that people will sometimes lash out to make themselves feel better. It's irrational, and it makes you a worse player overall, but as a knee-jerk emotional response it makes sense in the heat of the moment. I know I've done it.

The urge to blame others becomes a more serious problem, I think, when it becomes a part of your thinking outside of the game itself. In order to account for a run of losses or an overall dissatisfaction with their matchmaking rating, players spin worldviews for themselves that place all of the blame somewhere else: in Russia, commonly, or South America, or South East Asia. This is, in all cases, wrongheaded, self-deceptive, and unhelpful, and it reveals the need to recalibrate how you approach the game.

Over the last week I've had stranger conspiracies arrive in my inbox. There are people who believe that account-boosting is so rife that there's one in every game, others who claim that Valve seed real matches with bots posing as players: all to explain away a loss, all to suggest that a 50%-ish winrate isn't 'really' a sign that they're at the right MMR. The question they ask is 'how do I improve when everybody else is an idiot', but the question they should be asking is 'how do I break out of this dumb mindset'.

It's hard to say that to somebody who is so willing to shield themselves from criticism. Besides: I completely understand where this attitude comes from. The hardest thing to change in any given game of Dota is your own level of play: other people, flawed and foreign and possibly robots as they may be, make softer targets. Under stress, people follow the path of least resistance—it's human.

There's a more practical way to go about changing your competitive mindset. Rather than try to prove or disprove that it's really the Other Guy who is spoiling all of your games, consider how useless that information would actually be.

If every loss is somebody else's fault and you are playing flawlessly, you are the unluckiest human being in the world. You have broken mathematics. There is nothing you can do, and you should certainly never play any game that involves rolling a dice. If this is true, for you—like really, I-can-prove-it true—then you're screwed, aren't you? You are so unlucky that there is no point in trying to get better.

If some of the blame rests with you, if your play is not perfect, then there is something you can change. You actually have power, in this scenario, because while it is very easy to complain about other players it is very hard to make them play differently. However, it is easier than you think to make you play differently. When you die because you wandered into the enemy jungle with no vision, who is at fault? The support who spent their last 75 gold warding somewhere else, or you for going in anway? Hint: it's your fault as much theirs, they're not a robot, their nationality has no bearing on their ability, and the only useful thing you can do in that scenario is learn from your mistake.

It is incredibly empowering to learn that you're not very good at something, because that means that you are not yet as good as you can be. In-game flaming is a huge waste of energy, the construction of elaborate excuses for failure even more so. Dota 2 doesn't offer much in terms of feedback for the vast majority of players, and what it does provide can be a long time coming. You have a choice: work for that slow improvement on the assumption that you always have something to learn, or be satisfied that the result of your time with the game will be the same old story about how everything was always everybody else's fault. You can improve, or you can be blameless, but you can never be both.


Pcgp Logo Red Small PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

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