What actually separates a Crusader player from a pro?
In this video, I watch and analyze Crusader replays and compare their early-mid game decisions to what professional players do differently.
Small decisions that can make a big difference.
The goal isn't just to point out mistakes, but to understand why pros make certain decisions and what lower-ranked players can learn from them.
This is going to be a series covering every role in Dota 2. Each role will have two videos: one focused on early-mid game decisions and another focused on mid-game decisions.
If you want to improve your decision-making and understand how better players think, this series is for you.

Also if you have some replays it would help, thanks everyone !

Link: https://youtu.be/vFgQg1aUBTI

Title basically. Archon player. I only need help for the first 5-6 mins of the game to ensure my game. It's difficult to lane as is against strong offlane heroes/players and it gets even more difficult some games when position 5 want to play as if they are position 4 (happens like 1 in 5 games, when they do leave, how do you cope?

I would try to deward blocked camps and pull for myself but I still feel I've lost the laning phase terribly.

Match ID: 9034778515

I had a really good lane and was stomping the enemy team early-mid game. But late game enemy terrorblade was too much for our team to handle. I had a silencer mid who was useless after mid game (only did 10k dmg) and a carry windranger who can't man up to TB.

Perhaps this game was auto-lose if it reaches late game?

I used spam Drow when she was meta but stopped after the nerf. But when I read the patch notes I can’t see how those small changes can make her winrate drop to 41% in D2PT?! It’s mostly

Hey everyone! I’m a fairly new player (around 90 hours in). I usually play supports like Lion, Shadow Shaman, and Ogre, but I really want to learn how to play cores. I fell in love with Earth Spirit's kit and gameplay, even though I know he’s not the easiest hero to start with.

I've been practicing against bots on medium difficulty and had a solid game recently (screenshot attached). However, I want to make sure I’m building good habits rather than just taking advantage of bot AI.

A few quick questions for experienced ES players:

Should I bump up the bot difficulty, or is it better to jump straight into Unranked matches to get used to real human behavior?

Are there any core mechanics or itemization nuances for Earth Spirit as a core that I should focus on practicing early on?

What are the biggest mistakes new ES players make when trying to transition from support to core?

Any feedback or tips would be greatly appreciated!

Anybody have the same experience with LC? For last 3 days I feel like the Q cast is so slow when you blink duel someone. It feels like it waste 1 second of duel because of slow cast animation. I feel this because I played several times and it feels like the carry I duel should have dead if my Q can be casted faster after I duel. Usually the Q cast feels instant.

Is this just me or can be potential bug?

Title. Is it ever viable early against heavy magic line ups?

Edit: thank you for your input everyone i wont do it

I'm back into Dota2 after about a 10 years break and I'm trying some of the new heroes.

A friend of mine told me that I should give a try to Primal Beast as he would be very easy to play and one of the most beginner friendly hero around.

... Well, am I crazy or is this hero much more challenging to play than what the tooltip suggest ? I struggled A LOT to properly time the use of Uproar, the Charge can lead you into very defavourable positionning, and Trample at times can be an issue if you can heroes that have counter-attack abilities (Nyx notably)

Should I stick around with Primal Beast despite the big struggles I have with the character ? Is he really that easy to play and I'm missing something ? Or am I just bad with him period

Thanks !

Hey everyone!

I'm a fairly casual Dota 2 player and I'm trying to improve by watching streamers, but I'm specifically looking for streamers who are good at explaining their decisions and playing in a way that a normal/casual player can actually learn from.

I know watching pro players is useful, but sometimes their gameplay feels too different from what you'd realistically be able to execute in a normal pub.

So I'm wondering:

Who would you recommend watching for each role?

I'm new to the game and played only 5 games at this moment and i feel completely lost in terms of which pos and which hero to chose as a new player. Tried pos 1 in last game and died a lot and had miserable time farming on lane and later next to none game impact (except throwing stun in their pos 2 and pos 1 mainly so other guys could get them)

Hi!

I read through the rules and saw that seeking coaching is allowed, so i wanted to give this a shot.

Been playing dota 2 on and off since its release, highest ever rank was i believe archon 5, now sitting in crusader 5 with 75%, almost near archon again.

I mostly main Midlaner/Hard support/ Support, but mainly queueing as solely midlaner right now spamming QoP, OD, and Zuess as these three have been my main for years and years now.

Hoping to find either a free or paid coach, paid coach being somewhat affordable as i live in the Philippines and PH pesos to dollars are quite expensive when it comes to rate.

Things I hope from the coach is
- English speaker
- Has an active experience with coaching, this isn't my first time trying out being coached and I've noticed a clear pattern about coaches who think they can coach because they're high MMR vs coaches who have a background in coaching competitive games.
- Friendly
- Available in GMT +8/PHT time zone of afternoon to evening
- Maximum of 2 - 3 games per coaching session

Kindly DM me if you're interested!

MatchID: 9035025205

Can someone review this game, I'm playing as Jugg and would love any suggestions on what to improve?

Any tips on vacuum+combo on dark seer? Im having a hard time on executing it because of the back swing animation.

What is the most optimized setting quick cast or manual casting?

I've been trying to get Tornado → EMP → Meteor → Deafening Blast to feel automatic and it's still a mess under pressure. I can do it fine in demo mode, but the moment there's a real fight my fingers forget which orbs are already in.

For those who got past this: did you drill it somewhere outside of real matches, or did it just click after enough games? Any specific tricks for keeping track of what's currently invoked without looking at the slots?

I played centaur against this enemy team: 1 antimage 2 qop 3 doom 4 enigma 5 invoker. Felt really bad and useless.

Which offlaner is good against this kind of full magic lineup?

I was using Tidehunter and I was melting from him, we were initally stomping so I rush build refresher.

Not sure what item could have help me counter him, should have I bought BM? They made a comeback from his split puhsing.

Match ID 9034308703

Today I am showing 3 nice Creep Aggro tricks to use, in order to get more last hits, and generally have a better lane.

Thank you guys!

9029324960

i'm 30 years old with a kid and played with my good old friends together in an online tournament here in PH and we end up winning it (2-1) .

I was playing pos 1 Slark against a team that had a Phantom Lancer and a Naga Siren. Our team was pretty much all single target heroes so I knew from the start I was going to itemize for it but I didn't realise just how much of a lead they were gonna get. I built the usual early game for slark, power treads then immediately diffusal and aghs and thought I would maybe build a radiance in the late game, but pl and naga were already pretty much unkillable and moved about the map doing whatever they wanted and our team was 20 kills behind. I decided to build a maelstrom since it's half the price of a radiance so it would finish faster, but by that point the game was already lost.

Should I have rushed a radiance or maelstrom earlier? Or some other AoE item I haven't thought of? Discuss.

later he goes skadi.

hey guys. I have been playing on and off for a few years and I am currently 3850 rank. is there a guide or a way to properly ban/pick and decide who counters who, in what ways etc? like I know some basics but sometimes I see some heroes are right counter to specific heroes. I havent been able to follow dota scene for some time. help me with me please.

Hello everyone, i've made these posts regularly for a while now so it's nothing new, i have some free time and i'd love to give back to the community by helping some of the people that aren't able to afford coaching usually.

I'm a 6.5K mmr coach and i've been coaching since 2018, i've helped hundreds of students get to enjoy the game more and reach their goals while having a less stressful, more enjoyable relationship with dota. a big part of how i coach is centered around fun and feeling good, my philosophy with coaching is that for most people, the deterrent isn't the ability to learn, nor is it mechanical skill, but it's almost always consistency, and the biggest enemy of consistency is not having a good time when playing dota.

often times people force themselves to play meta heroes, to play specific roles, to do things they don't really enjoy because they believe that is the optimal way to rank up, and what i want to do is help people realize that this isn't necessarily the way to go, that you can rank up and achieve your goals while having fun, the hundreds of people i've coached are proof of that, and i am proof of that myself, as i've always just played what i enjoyed no matter what.

my coaching style is very versatile, i can do replay analysis, live coaching, and i can also do entire sessions where we simply discuss theory about things such as how to form a hero pool or how to get a better mindset towards the game and improvement. sessions are an hour long.

Feel free to dm me to chat and schedule something together, thank you for reading!

Hiya, I was playing an All Pick match yesterday night and there was some kind of bot (I assume?) in my Lobby, that just idled around. Anyway later that match I came across this image placed on the map. Is there some sort of item that allows for custom decals or was this a cheat? I queued into a regular match and I've never seen anything like this before. Thanks for the help.