General DiscussionSmurfing question

you might get there right away, but if your not better you will drop back down

still play there, your KDA so low

kda is pretty damn meaningless, and yours isn't much higher...

nope, because if you cant get to 3.7k on this account, you dont belong there.

Well, I alone can't carry my team to victory. Most of my losses are due to bad picks by my team or letting their carry farm too much. But thanks for the feedback guys.

I heard that to raise your MMR you gotta play snowball heroes if you can't depend in your team to win the game for you. Maybe that's what I'm lacking of? I don't really play snowball heroes, most of the time I go safe lane carry

http://dotabuff.com/topics/2014-06-02-siractionslacks-guide-to-raising-mmr-aka-getting-out-of-shit-tier refer to this thread

it's alright. Wink is confirmed 3k elo hell player as well

What is Elo hell?

Don't you think it's quite ironic that you first don't want to blame your team for your losses, but then do exactly that?
Every single player does mistakes, so you better start analysing your own instead of resorting to such bullshittery as smurfing, which only achieves unbalanced matchups for a lot of players instead of "corrected" MMR of a single one.

I don't blame them right in their faces, that's the most important thing. When my team is at fault, I'll just be quiet, because you're right, everyone makes mistakes. Flaming them will only increase the chances of losing. And thanks for your advice, but I'll look out for more feedback a first. Honestly I feel quite ashamed now after searching up about smurfing. But on the other hand, my friend who plays less than me is shitting on my face about him having 500 more MMR than me. Maybe thats because he plays Dota 1.

smurfing doesnt change anything, you are in the end still, you.

If you want to get out of your mmr, the best choice is the pick from a small pool of heroes you are competent in. Better if they are counter to the opponents.
Next stop picking troll/trash tier heroes eg. AM/Pudge. Before anyone flames me for insulting their obese-love for fat boy, let it be known, he is a fucking troll pick. Hes a terrible mid hero that doesn't scale well late, compared to invoker, ss or even god forbid sf
AM is a 2nd tier carry that is easily outclassed by bone, void, or name any other late game carry out there

Pick wisely and get yourself out of hell

EDIT: some people have the magic touch with certain heroes. Dendi = pudge, Burning = AM. Not saying the heroes suck, but you gotta know how to make an impact if you wanna play those heroes, passive farming usually leads to losses (yes including AM)

Thanks! I'll try out your advice. Can you suggest heroes that can stomp 3k MMR? Can tinker do well in 3k MMR? I've been practicing quite a lot of tinker lately and I hope it pays off.

Tinker is a high skillcap hero that stomps all the way to high 5k. you're better off just playing what you're comfortable with for now.

Well I'm kind of comfortable with tinker after about 50 matches. He's a relatively fun hero to use once you get used to him. I always go with the march build so I'm not sure if I can impact the game enough to win more often. But thanks for your comment!

@Koch

I have some questions that are not intended to intimidate I just want you to see a few things.

> What makes you think your 3.7 (if you made a smurf it would start around 4.2 unless you really fuck it up)
> Will you be able to have impact in 3.7K or higher games or will you be carried till you settle?
> Are you willing to change the heroes you play or learn new one proficiently?

Just looking at your heroes there are a number of high skill cap heroes (tinker etc. as Zenoth mentioned) that flourish in the higher brackets where others like some of your most played, get heavily punished in higher brackets with the exception of a few people who play them well. If you managed to master a high skill cap hero you will be able to not stomp, but have such a big impact that you are literally giving you team the win. I

I use my smurf to practice new heroes that i never played before
Yeah play with bot is fine but sometimes i have to try it in non ranked match first

Pm me, so i can carry you to 5k mmr on your alt acc.

:-*

> I use my smurf to practice new heroes that i never played before
> Yeah play with bot is fine but sometimes i have to try it in non ranked match first

And practising new heroes in unranked matches on your main account is inconceivable because...?
Oh, wait, let me guess. Your WR might drop and you could get flamed on Dotabuff for that? -.-

@Havoc Badger
I'm kind of new to smurfing so I'm not very sure at which level it should get me to, it was just a wild guess. But what I'm sure of is that I improved by quite a large margin over the few months, but my MMR tends to stay the same.

I mostly play carries so I don't often get carried. I'm doing okay at my current rank, and I win my lane almost all the time. So if I were to be at 3.7k, I think I'll do okay there. But I can say for sure because I've never been there. I heard some people say 4k is almost the same as 3k though. Sometimes I do play supports, and even though I'm not very good at it, I try my best. Most of the times i play supports because I stack with friends with significantly higher MMR than me, and they believe that the core heroes are for them.

According to my dotabuff profile, I play anti mage the most. That was before when I play whatever I like. I'm aware now that anti mage is not a very strong hero, requires a good team and certainly not suitable for solo queue. So I'm playing a lot of tinker now, a more independent hero. I definitely want to get good at him for 1) he is really fun to play and 2) I like playing heroes that has high apm( not that I care about apm but I like to execute multiple actions fast, it's very satisfactory)

So yeah, I hope it answers your questions ! Thanks for the comment!

Koch, I can confirm that when you are competent with tinker you will stomp. Good way to boost your MMR, and it's fun if I do say so myself.

@Kevin
Sorry mate I think I'll stay away from smurfing for the moment, and try these advices I'm given

[S]pitz1
Nice, you are a tinker player as well! I agree, with high skill cap on tinker, it's very easy to stomp. I've seen arteezy, qojva, dendi and ddz tinker and I love the way they execute everything perfectly. That's why I'm practicing, hoping to get good at tinker one day!

Keep in mind thought that a support player in 4k+ I am extremely dedicated to my carry, the early game, making space, getting stuff done. Are you sure you are a competent enough carry player to, in higher brackets be relied on to carry when the time comes.

This doesn't just mean that you farmed well or have good items but that you're able to have the impact that is required of a carry when the team has done everything they can to get you there. I am not discouraging you I am more encouraging you to find out if you can, and if you can't perhaps another roll will suit.

Keep in mind that in 2-3k games with some friends I have pulled off carrying with supports and other dumbass shit that I would never hope to get away with in higher brackets. You just have to be prepared to switch as the issue with some is that they assume they're a carry player cause they can get the job done in the low brackets and they continue to think this way when they smurf and get higher. Sometimes you're only able to carry due to the bracket you in but shift that over and things may change drastically for you.

....perhaps get on of your highest rated friends to do a game with you and play the mid or carry and see how that works out. Don't be shy about it as you're testing your limits and what would suit you to settle into. That would be my suggestion is to queue with someone who is about 4.6 - 4.8 and play about 3 games together where you are either a carry or mid and then post those games here without any bias.

I could then watch a couple of those and see how you fare.

Havoc... I wished I played with people like you. A dedicated support who knows what he is doing. Do you have any idea how rare that is in my skill bracket.

If you were good enough, you could carry your team with a shitty hero at 3k bracket. Don't make a smurf if you respect other players cause you'll lose them games, it's the sad truth. Just keep working on yourself and you'll get there eventually.

@Havoc
Ok havoc, I do have a 4.1k MMR friend whom I play quite often with. Is that fine? I can pick out one of the games I played with him for you to watch.

@Saoulfoy
Thanks for the comment. I think I decided not to smurf now

@Saoulfou

" If you were good enough, you could carry your team with a shitty hero at 3k bracket. Don't make a smurf if you respect other players cause you'll lose them games, it's the sad truth. Just keep working on yourself and you'll get there eventually. " < that is biggest shit that anyone can serve to anyone.

GPM adjusted for winrate on carries is a pretty good indicator of your ability as a carry player (this metric doesn't apply to other roles). AM is one of your most played heroes, but despite that your GPM on him isn't over 600, which isn't hard to achieve.

Your statistics seem to indicate that you are fairly competent at farming, probably on par with the average 4k+ player. The problem is how you apply that farm. Take for example your Lifestealer, with an average of 8 kills per game despite being one of your top 10 most played carries. This hero should be alot more active than that, with the potential to position and farm aggressively while being able to get out due to the disgusting combination of Rage and Infest.

Perhaps you are playing too passively sometimes, you have purchased more Hand of Midases than me - someone who plays core heroes nearly exclusively with twice your amount of games. Try to get items which let you come online earlier.

@Kevin
And how is that shit exactly? It's the truth, and only bad players will think otherwise. Again I'm sorry if you're offended by that but you are going to ruin games with your smurf. Anyway, I know I won't end up queuing with you so I don't care really.

stop playing AM pudge and medusa and play heroes that are actually good in solo queue

@Kevin

Saoulfou is 100% right and has proved it, when I first met him I did a coaching session with him from dotaroot and he was the same rank as I was. Now two months down the line he is a 5K player who consistantly wins.

This is not to say it was anything to do with me but he was willing to take advice and work hard at his rating and it paid off. Smurfing is the easy way out and will not actually help you to improve as much as if you were to put the time and focus into improving on a personal level.

@ Koch That should be ok, just try where possible to increase the difficulty for yourself to give you a challenge to see if you're up to the task. Also the more you play with him and learn, slowly you will pull yourself up to his level and can even take it from there. I am not talking numbers and rating I am talking about the skills that get you there, your execution, your picks, your plays etc.

Koch - your farming skills are pretty good and if you keep playing heroes you are good with, you'll go up for sure. Making a new account wont change much - maybe 500mmr points, but that's not even that much if you take in account you have to play 100-150 matches to even get mmr. It's easier to just play 50 more games on this account, win majority of them and you'll get your rating you think you deserve soon if you play well.

@Zenoth
Thanks for your advice! Perhaps I was being greedy before with midasess, and I play furion quite a lot too, so I pick up a Midas every game. I don't play heroes that I can win easily with quite often though, so maybe I'm not abusing them enough. For example, I have above 60% win rate on alchemist and medusa (30+ games on medusa and 50+ games on alchemist) , and a remarkable 74% win rate in faceless void with only 27 games on him. I tend to play heroes like anti mage which I only managed to maintain a 40% + win rate. Although I lose a lot with him, he is fun to play! I'll play my high win rate heroes from now on I guess, and not heroes like am who depends heavily on a good support and a good start.

@Havoc Badger
Ok! I'm currently overseas so I'm unable to play now, but as soon as I get back home I'll try to play a match with him, play the core roles and see how it goes.

@Hurricane Hurricane
Thanks for the advice! I'm currently practicing tinker so that I can impact the game more. I guess I'll start playing some of my high win rate heroes like alchemist, although I find him somewhat boring. I'm gonna stay away from bloody am now, he's out of meta already.

@Fourier
Yeah I'll stop playing am now, stopped playing pudge a long time ago as well. But I still play medusa once in a while, I'm kind of competent with her and I have a play style that ensures a win at late game, provided nothing really bad happens to my team early. But I'll still take your advice and start playing heroes like storm and tinker that are more farm independent. Practicing tinker now, I hope I get good enough at him to get out of this "trench tier".

@Koch

I don't think am is bad in solo queue, been playing him a lot recently and have around 80% win. So you don't really need to stop playing him in my opinion. I can always coach you once or twice if you want.

Regarding smurfing, it's really individual-based. For me, my 'main' account was an account that i used to troll and try new builds around on a lot before the MMR system came out (thinking that ixdl would be there long-term), and got low 4k consequentially. I was sort of frustrated playing the same level of players over and over and made a smurf, got 4.8k. Basically, if you have a situation where you legitimately know you're much better (not just think, as most pubbers do) then you should smurf.

But hero choice wise i don't think it matters so much at that level as much as learning the actual game mechanics - map awareness, knowing each hero inside-out as well as all its practical uses, good micro skills, and role knowledge as well as execution, which is why I think that at lower levels its a pretty bad idea to just practice, say, AM, every game. If you play AM and happen to get quite good with him, once you get to the higher levels (which i'm assuming you want to have legit matches that are also fun) you won't want to play anti-mage all the time - but now you're stuck because if you play aggressive-minded carries (say clinkz or lifestealer) you're stuck with a knowledge of carries that can afk farm, but not use good game sense and recognition to find kills. Some of those skills are in all heroes but the style that they play them out is quite different.

And if you really want to win games even after all of that, just pick aggressive carries and get good with them. In 90% of pub games people end up picking hard carries with weak trilanes or junglers and dual lanes, if you pick aggressive carries you can end up shutting down the enemy carry and getting virtual freefarm yourself.

tl;dr play aggressive and expand hero pool

@zenoth

It would be nice if dotabuff provided stats specific to you last 3 months of play for example. Overall stats often don't show improvement.

People who are really good at dota, and have been so since dota 1 often have stats that are extremely high, but it does not factor in their learning period.

An example would be comparing someone like monkeys-forever and beesa or merlini. They are all playing 6k dota, but their stats are significantly different.

just out of curiousity, for those high rated players who watch 3.2-3.7k players, how big is the skill difference really? what are the main things that set players apart?

i played across the whole range and i find only very slight difference in player skill, alot of times it just comes down which team or players want to win more, picking and playing accordingly. it only when you compare them players 4k and up that the difference becomes very obvious.

^
efficiency and decision making.

the term "finding farm" isn't a meaningless phrase. It takes skill to be able to use everything at your disposal to maximize your farm.

@raziel
The difference is so huge it's ridiculous. The fact that I could just go jungle for 12 minutes in the jungle with chen and carry with orchid/vyse/deadalus on my smurf is ridiculous. It was a 3.8-3.9k mmr game.

Here's the big difference depending on the roles.

Carry: Effeciency and not always afk farm.
Support: Existant and not retarded
Mid: Effeciency, lane control, rune control
offlane: Brain or as I also like to call it, not a wanna be hero ( won,t die trying to have a kill on the support )

@Saoulfou
Maybe you are right but it's probably easier to solo queue with am at your level. I have 100+ matches of am and I realized that the laming stage is very important, if you don't farm well or get ganked too often, while your team ain't doing shit, it's pretty much going to be a bad game. A hero like anti mage has to afk farm before he gets useful, and at the 3k level, I doubt many of the players in my level are capable of creating space for the anti mage on their team, especially when fights become 4v5, it usually turns out really bad. You are welcome to coach me, I would really appreciate it. Just add me on steam and I'll accept it a couple of days later as I'm away at the moment. You might be able to notice the difference of my tier and yours. Thanks for the comment!

@PLease
I'll keep that in mind mate. I do play lifestealer, and come to think of it I do hide in my jungle farming up till 20 minutes. I'll make sure to try to improve and change my play style. Thanks for your advice!

Thanks for all the feedback guys. It really helps!

smurfing makes sense for those coming from a long dota 1 experience