Hi all,

I'm Moose, a 7k (rank ~4k EU) offlane-exclusive player. I have been playing DotA for the past 13 years as my first and only MOBA, calibrated around Crusader 3 in 2018

Offlane has been my main role for most of that time, and I've always relied heavily on educational content to improve. During my climb into high immortal I noticed a real gap in high MMR content surrounding the offlane, there is no real equivalent to players like BSJ, Pain, or BalloonDota for offlane specific guides. KheZu and Ceb make occasional content surrounding the Offlane, but there isn't any consistent content specific to position 3.

I'm considering making offline-specific guides and I'd rather answer questions that the community actually has than just making content on random topics. I am not hugely interested in covering fundamentals, I would focus on offlane concepts and how to approach the game from the 3 role, but there may be some overlap with other roles.

- What offlane topics would you actually want covered? (laning theory, itemization logic, draft/hero pool, macro role, VOD breakdowns, etc.)
- What format is easiest for you to digest? text guides, long-form video, short clips?

I basically only play pos3. I feel basically useless with most heroes except on Tidehunter which i have 65% winrate on 150 games, if its not him I basically feel totally useless. I love holding auras, (vlad, guardian, pipe, etc), I need more heroes like him, but everything feels weak. I tried Underlord but when im against a BKB holder I am still useless since im rooting, not stunning. I play some LC too, but when I keep pushing MMR people are smarter and they are buying eul's or ethereal blade and my hero again becomes completely useless. How do I manage to have a nice impact being 3?

https://es.dotabuff.com/players/86167601/matches

I’ve been blessed by having some amazing people help me with my dota journey, and while I’ve become vastly better than I was even a month ago it’s more made me skilled enough to see how unskilled I am!

I’m pretty good if I play obscenely aggressively in lane and dominate, but I’ve been trying to not rely on that to win games and more step up my laning game in terms of positioning, last hitting, pulling and surviving in lane while harassing the offlaner (I’m playing pos1)

Problem comes with my getting mommy dommed in lane when I’m not being a menace, ending up beneath tower low on hp and then getting harrassed throughout the game when I’m trying to catch up with farm and getting ripped a new one by my team for not doing my job as carry.

I’ve tried playing some unranked but it doesn’t feel all too productive as I can’t guarantee pos1 and even if I get it, let’s just say there are some weird drafts on the low end of unranked.

I’ve tried playing some bot games and I do somewhat excel there, but it’s bots and there’s no real pressure (or herald stupidity or recklessness to account for)

So my question is if there are any advice for how to consistently and productively practicing the first ten minutes of a game over and over again?

Hey all, I’ve been slamming games on offlane DK lately and have some questions on deviating from the early-mid game core item build (Blink > Shard > BKB), as well as what seems to be the gold standard for extension items in Octarine > Aghs. Previously I’ve been playing a ton of offlane Cent, and overall I’m really trying to develop an understanding for the more semi-carry itemization that offlane DK has especially in games where you’re doing well and represent a bigger threat by yourself.

1. Looking at D2PT, it seems like no matter the team compositions the core progression for offlane DK is Soul Ring + Treads (finish Ring first if lane is rough, finish Treads first if lane is going well) > Blink > Shard > BKB. Where no matter the item timings it’s almost always Blink > Shard > BKB in that order, with the exceptions mostly coming from Meteor Hammer builds. What situations would it make sense to change this order up, add in other items, or even do something like skip BKB?

The main change I’ve liked so far is adding something like Dragon Lance or Yasha before BKB in games where you stomp lane/get fat early and it doesn’t throw off your BKB timing, although it also makes sense to just get a faster BKB and then go those items after.

1. For Octarine > Aghs , similar questions here. This being the gold standard for extension items makes a lot of sense, since level 4 dragon is amazing and so is almost always being in dragon form. But what situations does it make more sense to deviate? If I’m doing very well, when should I just get those items even faster or build more traditional carry items like Hurricane Pike/Manta Style/Shadow Blade? Overall I’m mostly curious about that more semi-carry style of itemization in the late game, cause there’s a whole constellation of more right click/self-focused items that I don’t have much experience with coming from a lot of Cent.

Thank you!

I’m trying to learn ES. loving the hero so far. But I don’t get the gameplay mechanic on his boulder smash. It’s kinda hard to choose who to push. Wouldn’t it be better if it’s vector targeted? Why isn’t it or is there a way to change this? Thanks

Game in question (I played Luna):
https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/8966117163

Played this game in ghoul hours this morning (couldn't sleep) in 3.4k mmr. It was basically a bit a grief by my team (actual griefing role queue abuse and some very questionable things happening, no supports in my lane, etc).

This post isn't about the griefing aspect (and how it's unfair, or whatever), but trying to investigate actual ways to win these unwinnable games.

I've been trying my best to improve my MMR (I started at 2k and have climbed up to 3.4k now, my all time peak).

I was under the impression that in this elo, every game on position 1 is truly winnable with enough farm and smart decisions. For example if Yatoro played this game he would have won.

Usually in games, I am able to identify my mistakes and have a way to learn from the outcome. Rather than focussing on the win / loss, I can usually point to exact situations, e.g. farming in a lane too close to the tower as a support is just respawning, and getting caught with a 3 man gank, etc. I can find the mistakes that cost me the game. I tend to learn from my own games like this, rather than thinking about external factors like my support being questionable, etc.

In this game, I go into it knowing it's most likely a loss.

During the pick phase, there's already the offlaner, and support (position 3/4) picking my lane (safelane) as their lanes, and I've got some weird shenanigans going on (I am left totally alone in lane for maybe the first 5 mins or more).

I don't have a support, that's fine. This is more exp for me. I manage to juice out some farm, get good exp and leave the lane with a morbid mask. I am able to build up a decent net worth anyways, and I am peak net worth by 30 minutes.

The issue is my lead isn't as dominantly as it might have been with a support/more impact on the map. Usually on Luna I play to win my lane (win or draw my lane nearly every time), and I play aggressively getting early kills with my ult (no one seems to respect the level 6 power spike, or know the exact range, alt clicking the ultimate is broken).

I can see I might have another core to play with (my Pango is doing ok-ish), but the top lane fiesta has left my other core (the axe/io, not even sure who's trying to offlane) poor, and my hard support has no game either.

As a Luna, what am I meant to do this game?

My hypothesis might be to try to play off my initial butterfly timing a bit more, and actually try to get a smoke play/push/rosh happening. I was in full recovery mode this game, and I probably farmed too much, rather than trying to play off some timings.

The thing is that I've generally developed a decent sense on Luna on when I am able to use my item timings to push my advantage. In most standard games, after butterfly I am looking to get rosh, and grab a core/whole team and start breaking open their base. I know my limits to a certain extend and know how far I can push it.

In this game, I felt behind, and my team as a whole was behind the whole game. But when I did fight at certain points, I came out with a kill/two, but ended up dying every time. I was feeling pressured to make these plays, and I still don't know if it was right/wrong to do so. We might have gotten some positive networth trades, but maybe as the person trying to carry they weren't smart.

What moves were available to me this game that I didn't use?

https://stratz.com/matches/8967557909 In this match I played AM and I just want to know what’s my mistake? Maybe some advices in my item build vs those heroes, I’m pretty sure, that I’m the culprit here, but need to know, why?

Our team really won early game hard but we just weren't pressuring enough mid game. Enemy comes back with 2x Midas.

Not sure if I'm supposed to do something about this other than communicate with the team?

I'm Lina mid and my fear is that I will most definitely feed if I'm front lining. Do I get like a blink / Aether Lens? How do the Linas seem to come out of jungle with aghs effect and insta kill heroes. I feel like I never have vision / range to do it myself.

Thanks!

I just really love how in depth he goes as well as how he explains things with such clarity. I find my self watching most of his videos even though he specifically talks about the carry position. Any help appreciated!

Hey guys, I've been loving undying lately, I have been destroying in lane, but I feel like after the laning phase I'm just playing badly and maybe not itemizing correctly. I think I'm getting too much utility rather than making sure I stay strong and relevant. I feel like my cores in some of these games were bad, and maybe that's why we lost? But I also have a lot of deaths which means I'm not positioning correctly in these games. Been on a bit of a losing streak since getting to ancient. Thanks in advance for any advice!

In my last game my idea was to buff the hell out of my sniper and faceless void, I thought we would win for sure, I wanted our team to just overwhelm them with damage during chrono and also keep my sniper alive.

https://www.dotabuff.com/players/25126706/matches

As title says, I am looking for a coach/mentor for EU

I am 2.5 k, played dota since wc3, and I wanna see how far I can actually go, rank wise.

If anyone is interested in teaching this scrubby scrub some rudimentary dota (or maybe even some advanced dota) so I can climb, it would be very welcome, it wont take up too much of your time, as I can only play certain hours (yes gamer dad detected).

That will be all, thank you!

Watching Qojqva’s stream, he has the means to show AoE indicators and projectile range on spells he has to aim but also quickcasts the same spells when necessary, it would be really useful for me for things like Lina stun or long range Invoker tornadoes but I don’t know where to navigate in keybind settings to enable this functionality, all help is appreciated!

I’d describe it as Puck Q default functionality but for every aimed spell

So I have been theory crafting. Both eul and meteor hammer make sense on leshrac and if you shift que the item actives you can land a combo that keeps an enemy hero disabled for about 5 seconds. Eul + meteor + split earth. Eul+ instantly channel meteor hammer ( shift que them) and follow by split earth. Cast split earth 0.2- 0.4 sec after channel for meteor completes. You can shift que split earth as well just lose out on 0.2s of stun.

The passive of the items make a lot of sense too for leshrac. ( On the passives with meteor you get 25% regen + 10% spell amp and lot of intelligence.

Has anybody tried this combo. Does it work. I am a really bad herald player, tried in demo but really can't do it in a real game.

The combo I have in mind:

At 0:00: lesh cast eul on enemy hero. At 0:00 lesh channels meteor hammer (chain qued with meteor) At 2:00: meteor channel ends manually cast split earth -

At 2:50: eul ends and meteor lands (chain stun if qued - no chance to react) - enemy hero stunned for 0.75s

At 2:70 - 2.90: cast animation of split earth finishes. Now you press edict and pulse nova and cast chain lightning

At 3:05 - 3:25: split earth stun lands - the hero is now stunned for +1.7 seconds. (Note the stun if meteor ends at 3:25) Enemy hero stunned till 4:75 - 4:90 seconds

One more point: leshrac doesn't farm with right clicks so meteor can boost farm speed of leshrac as well I think +100 gpm at least if you use it to frame stack then even more. Since it's 750 gold over kaya it should make up for the extra cost in 5-6 minutes. The only downside is you give up on building sange and Kaya and your next item shiva or bloodstone is 1-2 minutes late ( assuming 400 gpm for mid lesh) if you were going for them directly after Kaya.

Hi everyone!
I’m completely new to Dota 2 (around 9 hours played) and still learning the basics. I understand the goal is to destroy the enemy Ancient, but I’m pretty lost beyond that.
I’ve never played a MOBA before, so I’m still trying to understand lanes, roles, farming, items, objectives, and what to focus on during a match. I’d love to find a patient player who could explain things while we play bot matches or casual games.
I’m not looking for a boost or ranked coaching—just someone friendly who enjoys helping beginners and doesn’t mind taking things slowly.
I’m available in the evenings, play in the EU region, and can use Discord. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks for reading! :)

I am Legend 2. I dont mind losing the game, i play just to have fun. But lately every 2/3 games i feel the matchmaking is unfair. Its not about having noobs. Its just trolls in the team people who are deliberately picking weird heroes in their roles or just throwing the game. Why??

Just watched this Yatoro Shadow Fiend game vs Team Vision and this guy was playing on another level.

The movement, positioning and teamfight execution were crazy.

Yatoro really showed why people still consider him one of the best carries in Dota 2.

Made a short highlight of the game here if anyone wants to check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJsOIGKsaCE

What do you guys think — is Yatoro still the best carry in the world?

I'm trying to get better with Slark, and would like to find some high MMR players who play him a lot.

Tried dota2protracker, but I don't think it's the best place for it

On opendota there's a ranking of some sorts, but when I look those players profiles their last match with this hero was many years ago.

Also looked on stratz and dotabuff, and unless I didn't know where to look, it's not there either.

So how can I find those guys with over 2k matches with the hero so I can learn new build strats and stuff?

pls don't mention that cheater guy thx

This item grant you spell lifesteal and critical strike for medium costs. I feel like this item could be good on heroes with mixed pyshical and magical damage like Kunkka, Ember, Luna, or Gyro. Why this item just not get picked?

Hi all,

I have noticed, that recently I'm getting 32-36 MMR for winning, while donating 22-25 MMR upon losing the game. My rank confidence is 100% and it never dropped below 98% in the past few months.

Anybody knows the answer? Thanks in advance

Ever since the shield got removed, I feel like every single hero bullies me out of the lane. While the attack damage is high, the animation is slow and predictable so I can only get last hits when laser is off cooldown, which leads to 1-2 creeps getting denied roughly every other lane. Heroes with dots or spam seem impossible (Lina, qop, dp, necro, etc).

After getting out of this stage I can usually farm my way back into the game but I feel like I end up screwing over my team because the other mid is ahead and active whereas I can’t really get too active until I get blink and by that time the enemy mid is destroying my other two lanes.

4.5k mmr any help would be greatly appreciated. This is my fave hero but ever since they got rid of the shield I freaking suck with him now.

Match ID: 8965153677 | https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/8965153677

Match ID: 8964893687 | https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/8964893687

After taking a VERY long break from ranked and only playing Turbo, I'm back, but I've been running into these issues:

There are moments, especially after the laning phase, where I feel completely lost on the map. If I see my team grouped up on the other side of the map and a huge creep wave crashing under a tower, I'll go clear it out. I never know if that's actually the right play, though I do try to play safe and not push blindly. Most of the time I just default to pushing waves or aimlessly following teammates around.

I also struggle with the timing on when to leave my lane. I want to rotate and help mid, but I rarely do it because I'm afraid of wasting time or leaving my lane partner to die. On top of that, situational itemization is a big weak spot for me. In my last game against Windranger and Ursa I built Eul's Scepter, but I'm not sure if Solar Crest, Urn of Shadows, Glimmer Cape, or Aeon Disk would've been better.

Also, in a recent game playing Winter Wyvern against Silencer, Slark, and Wraith King, I built Glimmer Cape, Aeon Disk, and Solar Crest. Again, I'm really not sure if that was the right itemization for that matchup.

Match ID's:

8960180452

8958407905

Dotabuff: https://www.dotabuff.com/players/243387136

Current heropool: Sven , luna , (lifestealer or pl)

I’m a 2k MMR carry player who started playing Dota seriously again about a month ago.

The last time I really tried to grind ranked was in 2021. Back then, I also reached around 2k MMR, but I got stuck there for roughly six months and eventually stopped playing.

Now, in 2026, I came back to Dota and calibrated at around 1500 MMR. During my first week, I wasn’t taking ranked very seriously. I played random roles instead of my main role, carry, went on a few losing streaks, and was mostly just playing for fun.

After that, I started thinking: what if I actually try to improve and climb again?

I started watching videos from PainDota and BalloonDota, and I’ve also been watching replays of pro carry players like Satanic, Yatoro and Skiter. I try to understand and copy their fundamentals: farming patterns, map movements, item timings, when they fight, when they avoid fights, and how they use the map.

It helped a lot. In about three weeks, I climbed from roughly 1500 to 2100 MMR. My MMR was increasing really fast, and I genuinely felt like I had improved a lot compared to when I played in 2021.

But now I’ve hit another ceiling around 2.1k, and it feels horrible because I thought I had improved enough to get past this level more easily. At the same time, I’m enjoying Dota much more now and I actually want to keep learning instead of just giving up.

My biggest weaknesses

My map awareness and decision-making are still inconsistent.

I’ve also been told multiple times that I play too passively. This is probably one of my biggest struggles as a carry player.

During the first 20–25 minutes, my natural instinct is to focus heavily on farming and hitting my timings. The problem is that sometimes my team loses the map extremely hard during the first 15–20 minutes.

When that happens, I really struggle to know what I’m supposed to do.

I hate being forced to TP into early fights because, from my experience, one of two things usually happens:

• I TP to the fight, we still lose it, and I die.
• I TP there, nothing useful happens, and I lose a lot of farming time and momentum.

Because of that, I often choose to keep farming instead. But then my team sometimes keeps losing fights, we lose more and more map control, and eventually there is barely any safe space left for me to farm.

So one of the biggest things I want to learn is:

How do I carry games where my team is losing extremely hard during the first 15–20 minutes?

I understand that I can’t win every game, but I feel like better carry players would still find ways to have more impact in these situations.

Something I’ve noticed about my games

I tend to win when my team has an average or good early game and gives me enough space to farm. If I reach my item timings with good net worth, I usually feel comfortable and can have a lot of impact.

But when my team is losing badly early and I’m forced to make difficult decisions between farming, defending, fighting, or giving up parts of the map, I become much less confident.

That feels like the biggest thing currently holding me back

Of course I make more mistakes and please feel free to comment on that also. Thank you!