Lazy

Hello,

I had an 8 matches win streak last week. That brought me to 1300-1400 MMR range and Guardian 5. We don't bother to think about something unless it is broken. I lost 5 out of my last 6 matches and this means it is time to move forward.

Doing fine but losing because of your teammates doesn't hurt much but being tilted all team and losing a match that you could win does hurt. To prevent that happen there are things you have to consider. First of all, as long as you don't die over and over again, people do not focus you and flame. People do not watch other lanes at low MMR but if you die they will see that. Accept to have less farm early game at a hard lane. As long as you don't feed you can recover later easily from that bad start. You can still recover if you die 5 times before minute 10 but you have to take account the people factor. Your teammates will pressure you, write phrases like "safe don't feed" (if they are polite) and when this happens it gets harder for you to concentrate. It is sad but people find it easier to blame instead of helping and encouraging you.

During my win streak when I was checking my past games I noticed something. In the new UI that came with the Spring Cleaning 2018 (7.08 patch) update, there are indicators below you previous matches that show your performance versus all the player's average play with that hero. This does not show your performance that match versus your average performance like it is shown after every match, but it shows your performance versus all the people who had played with that hero. Even though I was winning these indicators were showing red and I was below the average. I began to think if I was violating my current rule #1 with relief: Play 100% or do not play at all. I lost a couple of games and yes, I lost because I was not playing at my 100%.

(i) Previous matches performance indicators

Because it makes you start thinking again, losing a match is not that bad.

I began to think that I'm somehow bored with spamming Juggernaut. Also, first picking becomes riskier as I climb up. When I'm heavily countered I need good teammates to win a game. This is a problem if your skill level is not 7K. I kinda tested this "picking does not matter in low MMR" thing and it is not 100% true. It DOES matter.

Cya.

Use Your Brain! {1331 mmr}

Hello MMR Challengers!

This week's subject is that phrase you hear often times while playing Dota 2: Use Your Brain! Since it is a strategy game there is no reason you won't use it. But admit it, you sometimes don't. I know I'm not using it sometimes. Everyone has their excuses. Mine is usually being tired of a full-time day job and my brain being already off after tending some wife and kid issues at home just before I sit in front of the game and have some fun.

I can play 10 to 15 games in a week. That's it! This is how much I can invest in the game in terms of time. This isn't enough to have a steep curve on the MMR vs Calendar graphic. Because of this, each of my limited number of games is very important. I can't have any excuse for not being there 100%. If I feel lazy or I want to play Techies it is still okay, I can have some fun but then I never play ranked Dota 2. I can go play another game or watch a movie. I have to feel and tell myself that I will play 100%. After some games, I really feel exhausted. If I'm tired but still want to give it a shot I know I must feel exhausted when the game is finished. Only then I can say I played 100%. I know at those games I get 4+ commends.

Well, it is not easy to focus all the things I have to keep in mind, especially at the times when it tends to go for a snooze. But I found a solution to remind myself all the ideas I have to focus while on the go!


(i) My current focus ideas

The image above includes every idea that I want to and can focus while I'm playing Dota 2 at the moment. You can't read a page of notes if you are dead and waiting to respawn. But you can take a look at these ideas to see if you are out of your path.

This is a dynamic brain image and it is changing frequently. I remove the ideas or reduce the font size as I get more used to and apply them every one of my games. As more space opens I add new ideas to focus. Some ideas enter from the top and become the central focus like "100% or nothing!" that you can see above. I do this if I realize that I lost a game because I didn't care enough about that idea. Losing a game hurts me the most if I overlooked or ignored something I already know and I lost because of ignoring it.

I open this image every time before I start the game. I switch back and forth to it while queueing, playing, waiting to respawn and after the game. For two weeks I haven't shared my MMR progression with you. It was because I posted an entry about the 7.08 patch on Saturday and there was actually no progression to share with you. The week before I started using this brain image my win rate was 41%. At the start of the last week, I began to use this image to keep myself focused and I raised my win rate to 71%. I'm still spamming Juggernaut. I have 22 more games to play with him. After that, I will create myself a hero pool of 3 or 5 core heroes. I'll keep playing the carry role.

Below are the ideas that I have recently focused using my Brain. :)

Spend Unreliable Gold
I will make quotations from the Dota 2 Wiki for this: "Reliable gold - Any bounty you get from hero kills, Roshan, couriers, Hand of Midas, Track gold and global gold from towers are added to your reliable gold pool. Unreliable gold - Everything else (starting gold, periodic gold, creep kills, neutrals, etc). Dying only takes away gold from your unreliable gold pool.
Buying items use up your unreliable gold first before using your reliable gold.
Hovering your mouse over the amount of total gold shown in the HUD shows your reliable and unreliable gold totals."
Check your reliable gold and unreliable gold frequently. Spend all your unreliable gold before death, so keep some cheap items ready at your quick buy to spam B when you are about to die. This way you will be to spend the gold that you will anyway lose if you die with it. Also while you are not in any kind of danger don't buy items as soon as you have enough gold. Check if you can farm 1-2 minutes more and get your item without spending your reliable gold. You will get richer! I promise.

Avoid Initiating
If you are not playing an initiator role avoid initiating as a carry. I have an impatient and headlong nature. As long as I keep spamming Juggernaut I have to be extra careful about this. Early game Juggernaut will be weak against physical damage. As of 7.08 patch, he has less critical damage. Avoiding hit trading will be wise. By joining later but staying longer in a team fight you will cause more damage to your enemies.

If Someone Is Feeding At Their Lane Go Help!
This is not easy. There are games where the enemy pressures one of your lanes with 3 or 4 heroes. It may not be your lane and you may decide to keep farming. At the later stages of the game, you can push lanes and they'll have to come and defend their tower. But in the early game, you won't be able to push so fast and you won't be able to farm the lane safely if they return to your lane. It is a risky decision but in some games, you have to do it because your teammates will keep doing the same things and die over and over again feeding the enemy heroes. I can't say I have successfully implemented this to my games. Most of the time players start to flame each other and the game finishes in 20 minutes. I play games against the odds and win though which will bring us to the next topic.

Even If You Lose Your Lane, You Can Still Win.
There's Always A Way!
Work Hard! Be Patient! Victory Is Forged Step By Step.
Let's stay there are 3 enemy heroes in your lane and your support has just fled. Don't feed. Don't do stupid things like leaving your lane to have an easy neutral camp and get ganked while you return to your tower with half HP. Be patient. Try to get at least 1 last hit from each creep wave. Something will happen at the other lanes and the enemy will have to go defend their towers and you'll get your farm eventually. If they stay then your other cores will get stronger and you'll have space later anyway. The enemy picks may be stronger against you as well. In low MMR Dota 2, there is no impossible game. If you get the right items you will see you can beat them.

Smoke-Gank Their Carry!
If you do this a couple of times successfully and they do not you will win. EZ GAME!

Micro The Healing Ward More!
This one is about Juggernaut. Well, for some time I was even forgetting to use the healing ward in team fights. Popping the healing ward and just walking away will keep it behind you. It dies in one hit so it is really easy for the enemy to kill it. While you escape you should spawn it in front of you and keep it here as you run. This will keep you busy for some time but this way you will survive and keep your precious resources to yourself.

Gauge Others!
I wrote about this two weeks ago.You have to keep track of what your friends and foes carrying with them and what level they are at. You look stupid while wasting your Omnislash on a Sniper who has just made himself a Shadow Blade a moment ago.

Assign A Killing Order For The Enemy In Team Fights.
This is self-explanatory. If you manage to kill their support first they may lose their crowd control skills and you do your thing as you like it. Going for Wraith King first? Good luck.

Don't Fight If You Don't Have Any Advantage!
The reasons you fight in a ranked Dota 2 game are:
1- To take objectives like towers, barracks, Roshan, etc.
2- To hinder their core's farming and item progression.
3- To stop the enemy doing those two things to you.
I can't think of any other reasons. Anytime you fight without enough information, like enemy positions, items, levels, skill cooldowns, etc. you put yourself in danger. You may be trying to defend a tower. If you see that you are not stronger and you can't beat them, why fighting? To watch your tower go down while retreating is better than watching it go down while you are waiting to respawn.

100% Or Nothing!
I wrote about this at the beginning of this post. If you are playing a carry hero you know everyone depends on you. You can't wander around without doing nothing. You have to be precise. You have to be doing something all the time. You have to push the lanes, you have to go farm at the jungle, you have to defend that tower, you have to go gank their jungler, you have to go fight that fight and you have to take down that tower. You have to keep track of everything. You have to commit to this role and that needs 100% of you. No less.

See you after the next patch!

Game#	Day	Game	Hero	Result	MMR	Gain	Match ID
53	29.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1183	-25	3706736431
54	30.01.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1207	24	3708375662
55	31.01.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1232	25	3710100547
56	2.02.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1256	24	3713671192
57	2.02.2018	2	Jug	Defeat	1234	-22	3713730101
58	2.02.2018	3	Jug	Defeat	1210	-24	3713804514
59	3.02.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1189	-21	3715370060
60	3.02.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1211	22	3715732154
61	3.02.2018	3	Jug	Victory	1235	24	3715790601
62	4.02.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1210	-25	3717419891
63	4.02.2018	2	Jug	Defeat	1186	-24	3717486725
64	4.02.2018	3	Jug	Defeat	1163	-23	3717607968
65	6.02.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1188	25	3720873498
66	7.02.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1212	24	3722407724
67	8.02.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1237	25	3724055679
68	9.02.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1211	-26	3725708030
69	9.02.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1236	25	3725768475
70	9.02.2018	3	Jug	Defeat	1214	-22	3725841432
71	9.02.2018	4	Jug	Victory	1236	22	3725917816
72	10.02.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1261	25	3727130224
73	10.02.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1287	26	3727578497
74	10.02.2018	3	Jug	Defeat	1262	-25	3727703433
75	10.02.2018	4	Jug	Defeat	1237	-25	3727761516
76	10.02.2018	5	Jug	Victory	1262	25	3727842339
77	11.02.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1283	21	3728609585
78	11.02.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1308	25	3729531852

Noob's Patch 7.08 Analysis {1235 mmr}

Hello,

Patch 7.08 has been released. I think it is time to write something about the Meta and how we should approach the game when it is changed. Meta is a cloud of information that comes out as a result of all the mechanics of the game. Not just mechanics. There are so many variations of heroes, lanes, items and play style choices that people will make, I guess even IceFrog himself may not 100% know what will be the outcome when something is changed in the game. After patches, there is a period of trial and error where players try different things and try to figure out what is going to work and what not. This constant change of things is an essential part of the game that encourages players to try different things, adapt and survive. Like life itself.

As I mentioned in my last post I wasn't a man of small numbers. But all those small numbers add up to big sums that define the result of the battle.

This patch has bad news for me since I'm still spamming Juggernaut. Because his passive critical damage decreased from 200% to 180%. What does this mean? On level 4 you have a 35% chance to hit critical which used to be 200% of your normal damage. Let's say your normal attack hits 100 damage and on average you hit 20 times in a team fight. If you hit 20 times 13 of them will be normal attacks and 7 of them will be critical. It used to mean: (13 x 100) + (7 x 200) = 1300 + 1400 = 2700 damage in a team fight. After the amount of critical strike reduced to 180% your total damage in the same fight will be:  (13 x 100) + (7 x 180) = 1300 + 1260 = 2560. This means almost 2 normal hits and this might draw the line between life and death in some rough situations. So I need to be extra careful while trading hits in a team fight and maybe I shouldn't be the initiator and wait for a few seconds behind before joining the fight.

There are also some changes in the items that I pick as Juggernaut:
- Battle Fury bonus creep damage reduced from 60% to 50% and illusions won't have this bonus damage anymore.
- Enchanted Mango restores 25 more mana. This is good news since Juggernaut is very reliant on it.
- Black King Bar cooldown is rescaled to a constant 70 seconds. It used to reduce down to 55 seconds before as the duration decreases after several uses. This means I will be able to use BKB less in late game scenarios.

Juggernaut is mostly weak against physical damage, especially in the early game. Thankfully there aren't any changes to his counters.

See you in the next post.

(You can follow me on twitter or subscribe to the mailing list on the right menu to get a notification when I have a new post on the blog.)

New Focus: Gauging {1208 mmr}

Hello Everyone,

I had a rough week. It started nice, however. I had 5 victories out of 6 games. And the weekend came. The hunger for victory. We all know how it feels, right? And this feeling is what keeps us from victory sometimes. On Saturday I have lost 4 games in a row. I lost 100 MMR in just one day. It was very frustrating. On Sunday I lost another game. Then I decided to watch a replay. I saw myself running around and doing stupid things. I saw how long the time that I've lost was. The time I could just sit in lane an have a last hit or two. I was also very aggressive. I believe that it was because of the frustration that I've suffered from losing too much.
I decided not to play another game on the same day when I suffer 2 consecutive defeats.

After watching the full replay, I took my notes and I've queued for another go. This time it was great! I truly carried that game against two very hard counters: Phantom Lancer and Pudge and closed the game perfectly for my team. I understood that no matter how hard a game is if you play with 100% of what you know you can have a victory at this skill level. Because generally, people don't play with 100%. You can see how that game ended below and watch the game on my YouTube channel (part 1, part 2). See that Mirana abandoned and we played 4 v 5 almost all game. And that Clockwerk complained 80% of the time from the team chat. Against all odds, we won.

After summarizing my last week, I want to continue writing about myself a little bit. After all, this blog is about my MMR journey and you learn a lot about people while traveling with them, including yourself. So you have to realize and recognize your weak sides and deal with them. By doing this you can accomplish the things you couldn't have done as your past self.

I want to make you and me understand what does this weeks topic "Gauging" mean and why it is important. To me, the things you want in life can be acquired with hard work. Whatever it is. And this hard work will overcome anything that comes at your path. This self-confidence makes me strong but it has a backlash. It makes some easy to solve problems more difficult to deal with. How and why?

Well, I believe it is something like this: "If I do my best in this situation, no doubt I will be better than the person that I will be facing!" But what do you know about the problem you are facing? Would you even care about it if you approach it with this kind of a mindset? Well, I'm sorry but I still don't care. At least not 100% and this makes me look ridiculous since I know nothing about what goes on outside myself in many situations. This way of thinking lacks deepness and I'm not just talking about Dota 2 here.

Well, in case of Dota 2, you always have to gauge your enemies and allies. Check frequently what items they have and what level they are at. Some heroes have certain power spikes where they start to take off. This might be getting an item such as Shadow Blade for Slark or Manta Style for Anti-Mage or this might be leveling up a powerful team fight ultimate like Enigma's Black Hole. Therefore you have to check your enemies and allies to see what they have every now and then and try to figure out what's going to happen if you go mass with them or go into a big team fight. On higher levels of Dota 2, you even need to gank that hero at the right time before he gets his power spike item. Now, this is not the case for me of course.

This is something I know but I'm not using it 100% of the time. I forget! I'm a lot better on checking the minimap but I'm not doing that perfectly either. I believe I'm used to my item timings and farming around that clock. But I have to do better gauging to know what to buy. So I'll focus outside of myself a lot more from now on.

Game#	Day	Game	Hero	Result	MMR	Gain	Match ID
41	23.01.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1232	24	3695696509
42	24.01.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1256	24	3697494508
43	25.01.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1280	24	3699157484
44	26.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1255	-25	3700918844
45	26.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1281	26	3700994699
46	26.01.2018	3	Jug	Victory	1307	26	3701159385
47	27.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1282	-25	3702958279
48	27.01.2018	2	Jug	Defeat	1257	-25	3703169477
49	27.01.2018	3	Jug	Defeat	1232	-25	3703240827
50	27.01.2018	4	Jug	Defeat	1207	-25	3703302325
51	28.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1182	-25	3704050909
52	28.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1208	26	3705116398
-	-	-	-	-	Total Gain	0	-

Ups and Downs. I'm still here. {1208 mmr}

Hello.

I played 15 games last week and lost 13 MMR points as a result. No gain. Worse, I was reported and I had to play low priority matches to be able to play ranked games again. Why I was reported? We were defeated by enemy in a 30 minutes game where everyone died 8-9-11 times and got 3 kills each, exept for mid. Mid had 17 kills. I was 0-15 at the end of the game and I believe they all agreed to report me. How come I finished the game 0-15? My -marked from the start with Jug- safelane was occupied by a Wraith King. Well, I was tilted and my CS was ruined but I didn't flame him. I muted all to concentrate. No politics.. And this was the result. Low priority single draft games.

If you are contested by any of your teammates for CS in your lane, it is very sad but, just leave there. See for a couple of levels what's going to happen. Ask them if they're laning there for good or they lane with you just to get level 3. If you're not making any last hits just leave there and go find your farm somewhere else. You may not have a good jungle hero, but slowly you will gain gold. If you stay at that lane, you will start to fight against each other, and you will do stupid things that will probably make you die. So, instead of achiving something slowly, you won't achieve anything and you will fall back. This will lose you the game.

This week at total I lost MMR. I lost some games. In between them to put my thoughts together I re-watched the Juggernaut guide on Gameleap (See the link in the column right). I tried to find an aspect to concentrate on. Then I decided to check my item timings. I wrote down what I bought at the start of the game, when did I purchased Phase Boots, Yasha and S&Y. I compared my timings to how well I did that game and who won. As a result, I wrote down target minutes for my early game items and tried to do my best to get them a that time.

You see, you can't gain anything without setting some goals for yourself. You can't somehow become a better player after playing 1000 games. You just can't. You have to focus somewhere and work on it and see the outcome. You can't expect to have good teammates most of the games to help you gain MMR. No, not anymore. You have to carry the game yourself most of the time. That's why I decided to spam a carry hero and I must be the best carry in my team.

I completed 40 games with Juggernaut. I'm posting my games between 25-40 below. My win rate dropped down to %59,46 after 40 games. I think this rate is still very promising.

One more thing. This week I started to stream on YouTube when I can. You can watch some of my past games there, too, if you are interested in low MMR Dota 2 ;)

Game#	Day	Game	Hero	Result	MMR	Gain	Match ID
26	15.01.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1246	25	3681340171
27	15.01.2018	2	Jug	Defeat	1225	-21	3681432527
28	15.01.2018	3	Jug	Defeat	1201	-24	3681494849
29	17.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1179	-22	3684664157
30	17.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1205	26	3684741921
31	17.01.2018	3	Jug	Defeat	1181	-24	3684804202
32	18.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1155	-26	3686495114
33	18.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1179	24	3686548287
34	19.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1153	-26	3688302211
35	20.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1133	-20	3689272678
36	20.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1157	24	3690352142
37	21.01.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1182	25	3691444945
38	21.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1207	25	3692329358
39	21.01.2018	3	Jug	Defeat	1182	-25	3692410499
40	21.01.2018	4	Jug	Victory	1208	26	3692474569

	Item Timings
Game#	S.Shield	Q.Blade	M.Wand	R.o.Aq.	Ph.Boots	Yasha	S&Y
26	00:00:00	-	-	00:04:45	00:07:45	00:17:01	00:20:45
27	-	-	-	00:04:48	00:07:52	00:13:52	00:19:07
28	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
29	00:01:13	-	-	-	00:06:25	00:10:37	00:15:31
30	00:00:00	-	-	00:11:15	00:11:15	00:15:31	00:20:54
31	-	00:00:00	-	-	00:04:29	00:11:18	00:14:06
32	00:00:00	00:00:00	00:03:05	-	00:07:21	00:13:47	00:20:13
33	00:00:00	00:00:00	-	-	00:04:33	00:12:03	00:15:48
34	-	00:00:00	00:03:04	-	00:10:50	-	-
35	00:00:00	-	00:01:27	-	00:07:12	00:14:38	00:24:22
36	00:00:00	00:00:00	-	-	-	00:07:52	00:13:13
37	00:00:00	00:00:00	-	-	-	00:12:46	-
38	00:00:00	00:00:00	-	-	-	00:10:06	-
39	00:00:00	00:00:00	-	-	-	00:06:32	-
40	-	00:00:00	-	-	00:05:40	00:11:34	-

Spamming Juggernaut {1221 mmr}

Hello.

Here is my Dota 2 routine for the last ten days: Queue for ranked, ban Axe, mark safelane on minimap and first pick Juggernaut. I'll share how my first 25 games went below. I have a win rate of 60%. I raised my MMR from 1025 to 1221. Ok, not very good but it's something. Since I started spamming Juggernaut I feel confident about holding safelane carry spot. That used to scare me a bit before and I used to feel insecure because I didn't know how good I can be. I didn't even know if I was doing good or bad. But spamming over and over again, now I can tell myself I'll do good and that gives me confidence.

I had great games and of course I had a few very bad ones, too. There was a game where I was flamed badly but it wasn't my worst game. My worst game became a nightmare because a Legion Commander decided to play at safelane with me! Jungling was the only option but there was a Riki at the enemy team. Well I wasn't flamed by others because they recognized the situation and it wasn't my fault. Because I first picked Juggernaut for the safelane.

Spamming the same hero makes your mistakes more distinguishable to YOU. If you fail at the same kind of situations over and over again with the same hero it's probably because of your wrong decisions or impulsive reaction at those situations. It becomes obvious because you know you are not pushing the wrong skill button or you don't know the outcome of using that skill. You have to recognize your enemies skills and act accordingly.

To raise your MMR quickly you must have win streaks, like 5 in-a-row. I have one 5 in-a-row win streak, and one 3 in-a-row win streak. As my MMR raises I had fewer streaks. I'm trying to understand why. 200 MMR is not much to make a difference I think. Anyways. I think I'll keep spamming with Jug until I play 100 games with it.

	Day	Game	Hero	Result	MMR
1	4.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1025
2	4.01.2018	2	Jug	Defeat	1000
3	4.01.2018	3	Jug	Victory	1023
4	6.01.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1048
5	6.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1073
6	6.01.2018	3	Jug	Victory	1098
7	6.01.2018	4	Jug	Victory	1122
8	6.01.2018	5	Jug	Defeat	1100
9	7.01.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1124
10	8.01.2018	1	Jug	Victory	1146
11	9.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1125
12	9.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1150
13	11.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1123
14	11.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1146
15	12.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1120
16	12.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1144
17	12.01.2018	3	Jug	Victory	1169
18	12.01.2018	4	Void	Victory	1193
19	13.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1169
20	13.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1194
21	13.01.2018	3	Jug	Defeat	1169
22	13.01.2018	4	Jug	Victory	1193
23	13.01.2018	5	Jug	Victory	1218
24	14.01.2018	1	Jug	Defeat	1193
25	14.01.2018	2	Jug	Victory	1221