How to learn a new hero? Tips

Ever wondered what's the best way to reach the optimum level of playing a Hero ?

The secret to this no other than practice practice and PRACTICE!!

But here are some tips to make the process much easier.

There are 3 aspects of learning a Hero which are knowledge, skill, and application.

1) Knowledge

"知彼知己，百戰不殆；不知彼而知己，一 勝一負；不知彼，不知己，每戰必殆
It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle."

Sun Tzu, the Art of War.

Knowing your enemies and knowing your Hero is the first step to learning a new hero. Knowing your enemies is important as well; which hero is a hard counter to your hero, how to play against a specific hero when using your new hero.

Important information about your hero you should know are:

a) Skills.

The most important thing you need to know about your new hero is about his offensive capabilities. Yes I know you can read the tool tip on how many seconds Sven's stun is, how much damage it does. But did you know that Sven's stun cannot be disjointed by blink ? Did you know that Overgrowth from Treant Protector goes through BKB only if its cast after BKB? Did you know that Alchemist stun does Physical damage instead of Magical so its always adviced to drop Acid Spray before Stunning. Information like all these can make or break a fight, survival a kill or even win the game.

Information like :

i) Does the skill get affected by BKB? Blocked by Linken?

ii) Damage Type, Pure, Composite Physical Magical.

iii) Does the skill take down trees or give you a huge area of vision? ( Prevents juking )

iv) Affects invisible units ? Some attacks disjoint when a unit goes invisible some don't. (Mirana's arrow only deals damage without the stun on Invisible units. Thunder God's Wrath will not hit invisible units but reveals them for 3 seconds.

v) Counters to your skill (Ion shell takes down TA Refraction very quickly. Gyro flak cannons can hit Visage familiars)

vi) Little tricks you can do with your skills (Furion and Visage and wisp can Snipe off couriers easily, you can use pudge's dismember couriers and Dark Seer/Rubick's cliff tricks)

To learn all these you can either go to Dota2wiki.com to check out on the Heroes skill, watch replays or simply try them out !

b) Items

Valve and Dota2 has kindly provided the item suggestion column. Although they might be useful I recommend not to strictly follow them other than core items. Items have to be judged and determined which is the best item for your team's current lineup , you opponents current lineup and the current situation. Things you need to know are :

i) Core items

These are items that cannot be missed or rarely substituted out. Items like Blink on Magnus / Sand King, BoT on Tinker. Knowing your core items and how to use it is crucial in determining your item build for that game.

ii) Situational items and when to buy it.

Learning a new Dota2 Hero requires you to be familiar with all items that the Hero can choose from. Looking from other Dota2 guides or replays you can determine what are the item available that works well with the Hero. Such as should I get Battle Fury or Mjonnir on my Faceless Void? Should I buy Eul or Hex for my Invoker or both ? Which type of Boots best suit my Hero? Should I be buying Mek this game ? Through experience you will get to know when to buy these items, buying a wrong item could change the game drastically. One example could be a lot of people like to go Radiance on Spectre, but if you had a bad early game and have trouble keeping your gold up to 3800, a better route would be skipping it and going for Diffusial or Drums, items with easier build up to try to impact the game.

iii) Item to specifically counter a Hero.

There are specific items that can counter specific Heroes (Orchid for Heroes with escape, Mekansm and Pipe for AoE damage dealers Queling Blade for Prophet, Force / Ghost for Naix ). If that hero is becoming too much of a problem and you need to counter it you have to be sure which item to buy and which hero should get it.

iv) Support items

Wards, Dust, Gem and Smoke, who will get them? Usually the 4 or 5 position supports will get it. However there are certain issues or scenarios when other roles should get it.

- your team requires a Mek or other items and your supports are almost there. Give him some space to farm and get some of the items for the time being before they pick him off and have to refarm the lost gold.

- Dendi's Pudge gets his own Smoke to get some nice Hooks 

Etctec.

Note: its also good to know whether items which could be effective on your Hero but not for your entire team. Items like Eul and Ethereal Blade could result in the Enemy escape because of you using such items . So its just a reminder to think and judge carefully before picking an item.

c) Know your Hero's partners and counters and when not to pick them.

Counter picking and picking heroes that work very well with each other are seen commonly in both AP and draft games. By analyzing this you can utilize the strength and minimize the weaknesses of the Hero. Important information you need to know :

i) Your heroes best partners

This will help determine your lanes. Which Hero best to lane with this Hero. Example like you are playing Ancient Apparition and you could either chose to lane with a Chaos Knight or an Antimage. Knowing at AA has a stun that requires set up, its better to lane with the CK instead as AM lacks a reliable disable. Always picture how your lane will turn up before picking who will go to which lane together with who. Its good to know that which hero pairs very well with another ( SD and Leshrac / Lina, KoTL Nyx PL etc) and choose to lane together whenever possible.

ii) Counters

I have said this many times in this poat , its important to look out and know about Hero counters and its best not to lane with them or gank them alone.

- Outworld Destroyer can easily outlane Intelligence Hero with Astral Imprisonment spam. So instead of going to the Middle Lane as a Puck or QoP another alternative is to try and head over to the offlane or send a Hero able to manage a lane against OD better such as Magnus or Night stalker

- When playing against a counter, your play style has to adapt to the counter. Be very cautious of skills that will prevent you from doing the most in a fight. If a Bane is on the other side of the team and you are playing as Naix, its best to stay infested in a Hero until he decides to use Fiends Grip on another Hero then you can proceed to Naix bomb him and eat through Bane's life with rage. Playing as PL against Gyro it could be good to observe when he is using Flak Cannon, once its over, pop your Manta and reproduce illusions quickly and clear off Gyro before its off cool down again.

iii) Avoiding Heroes

This is up to personal preference, to me I'd like to stay out of certain Heroes when a certain Hero is picked. Such as I wouldn't pick Jakiro or Enigma when I see a Rubick on the other side of the Team, Chen when there is enchantress or Doom, Silencer or Skywarth against NA. They are still playable but its not that enjoyable or effective.

d) Know your hero's role.

Ever seen a Treant Protector going Hard Carry buying MOM Battle fury Radiance stealing farm from your Antimage and proceed to throw the game ? All of us can relate to that. You have to know what does your Hero can do and what can it do best.

i) Know your Hero's main role

-Everyone knows that CM is a support, Faceless Void is a hard carry. But if you are new or unsure just check with your teammates  communication is key ! However do you know what this Hero's main objective in a team is ? Chen and Warlock are both supports but both of them are played differently, Chen's main role is to push or control the lane with Neutral Creeps early game while watlock's job is to babysit the carry in the lane.

-Both AM and Phantom Lancer are both carries however AM's objective is to get a quick Battlefury, enhance his farming speed, outfarm the enemies carry by a huge margin and proceed to end the game. PL on the other hand has to try and farm up end game items to be unkillable and have a huge offensive presence for the insta-win effect, his team has to delay the game and prevent pushes so that PL can farm as much as possible to end the game and prevent the enemy from overcoming him.

ii) Main role in fights

What must your Hero accomplish in fights ? What type of Hero you need to quickly take out or can you easily take out or disable
A few examples

- Bane needs to enfeeble their hard carry and cast all his spells before he gets picked off and try to grip the enemy hero who activated BKB to prevent him from wrecking your team

- Bounty Hunter has to try and pick off squishy supports behind and track as many Hero with invisibility and then all the Heroes.

2) Skill

“Champions keep playing until they get it right.”

― Billie Jean King

Practice is definitely important but the question is how ? Here are some tips on what are certain aspects you can work on to master a Hero.

a) Last Hitting

Different Heroes have different swing animation, Gyro Sniper Razor have quick swing animation and missile speed causing their hits to almost connect the moment you click on. Whereas Heroes like Slayer Crystal Maiden have long attack animation and slow missile Speed. Its a totally different thing and definitely needs practice. Even supports need good last hits for situations like denying and when your lane's farmer is dead or away for a moment.

i) Join a lobby game with yourself with or without bots and practice last hitting on whichever land
your Hero excel in after 5 minutes close and open a née lobby game rinse and repeat. After a few games you should be able to get 3/4 creeps per wave.

ii) Practice with friends, supports especially, if you frequently trilane with a friend you can practice to syncronise your last hit with him ( both hits hit at the same time to prevent enemies from denying creeps)

b) Hero's Spells

Some spells require a certain amount of skill to cast skills. But you have to be efficient in order to deal the most amount of damage

i) Let's look at Slayer are you able to Snipe Heroes off with Dragon Slave or Light Strike array ? Can you hit a running 522 Ms with Light strike array passing by you with blink. Follow up your stun after an Eul/ Disruption / Astral Imprisonment. You have to be sure of your cast time and animation. In order to hit these key stuns.

ii) Skill combos

Some of your spells require specific timing and aim eg Kunka
Missing a half second in X mark could result in the Hero blinking away. Sand King blink epic burrow while hitting creeps with caustic. Pudge Dismembering a Hero straight after Hooking him. Visage pulling off a 6 seconds stun with Familiars. Practice on AI or neutral creeps first in a lobby game to ensure you have perfected the timing.

iii) Tricks

This only involves a few Heroes but to master these require a lot of practice. These are tiny tricks that can make or break a fight.

- Hero Blocking

Some spells can block Heroes whether blocking them completely or just slowing them down. Eg. Rhastas ward, Furion/ Broods summon. The other high level ones are Shadow Demon disruption block and Visage Familiars. Practice them as you can never know when you might need them and wow your friends / appear in Dota Top 10 or even (Fails of the week)

- Dodging

Some spells are able to dodge missiles. These are usually spells that allow your Hero to move a certain distance. (waveform, pounce etc) Some other spells also can be use to dodge or block spells. ( Transformation / Metamorphosis spells, Meld, Sandstorm ) these spells need practice to Dodge certain spells and could mean life or death.

3) Application

Well now you have learned and drilled with your new Hero its time to test it out. Play the Hero in a real game and work towards perfection.

- Take note of certain good points you made and mistakes, this can be achieved by watching your own replay. Watch it as if you are spectating another players match. 
- After every game you will learn by experience good combos or counters. Learn to adapt to them to make use or avoid them the next game. 

That's all I have to write, any queries you can leave a comment below. Thanks for your support.

Guide written by theDotaTheory.blogspot.com