We all play public games, be it on Garena, Battle.net or any other platform. I’m sure many would agree with me in saying that there is always the risk of frustration over having ‘newbie’ teammates in public games. Of course, it also depends on the individual’s skill level. What I am offering here is a common set of knowledge that I hope to share with everyone, so that we can raise the level of Dota locally together, and through that, evolve Dota to its next stage in the competitive scene.

Team Assessment
Before the creeps spawn, I’ve made it a habit to check the opposing heroes. There are a few things you want to look out for.
No. of stunners, no. of heroes with stuns that can interrupt BKB channeling, no. of end-games, which will determine how early or how late they will push
The advantages are clear, if you are a witch doctor for example, you will want to know that you are safe from disables before casting death ward. Similarly, after you get your BKB, and opposing team only has Bane elemental’s Fiend's Grip which can interrupt you through BKB, you will want to death ward only after Fiend's Grip has been used or when Bane elemental is not around.
If you are a carry, watch out for any potential roamers; if you are a ganker, think about what are the opposing carries you need to consistently gank or keep under control.
It is a good habit too to do your own predictions for their laning. In the long run it enhances your perception when drafting.

Early game
One thing I do when expecting to face a high level team, when creeps spawn at game start, is I try not to reveal myself before I see all 5 opposing heroes on the mini map. That will ensure that they do not get an easy first blood off you.

Secondly, always look at their inventory at level 1. It speaks volumes. We all know we start with 600 gold roughly, and one can easily calculate the amount of gold they have spent at level 1. Mainly, this determines if they have bought a courier – if they didn’t, then you might want to plan on harassing them to the point where they spend finish their initial consumables. Some people start off with bottles, which is not uncommon in public games – to deal with these people, make sure you control the runes which spawn every 2 mins at every ’00’ second, that will force them to return to the fountain, or risk dying because of no regen.

Denying is mainly a support’s job, just as farming is a carry’s job. In most lanes, teams would seldom put more than one of either together. One exception would be 2 gankers in a ganking line-up in the opposing carry’s lane. In that case, denying is priority for both of them, and farming can just be free for all. Support heroes should also consistently pull neutral camps if they can. This pulls any creep lines that stray too far back to your tower, as well as giving your laning carry more experience.

Mid game – Situation Awareness
Although it’s called mid game, it can happen at any time. It’s when opponent decides to coordinate their efforts to win the game. As such, try to always keep a look out on other lanes as well, not necessarily to a very detailed level, but you will want to know how well yours and their carry are doing, as well as rough guesses regarding opposing gankers’ movements.

This is called situation awareness. The most obvious example is when all 5 of their heroes are gathering in a lane, pushing the creeps. You can’t expect your team to win 4v5 in such situations, so you need to be there for them. Of course, the current situation of Dota has progressed, and pushes are often committed by 2 or just 3 heroes, but the same rule still applies. Always try to anticipate what the opponents are thinking and doing and out think and out do them. Communication is key!

And most obviously, to simply be aware of the situation is not enough. It has become a common thing to carry TP scrolls around, to quickly reinforce your allies on any lanes being pushed. If your first towers are hard to take down, you can easily control the map more efficiently since you can TP further out, and you deny your opponents the tower money. This is especially the job of ganking or support heroes; TPing in to save your carry who is being ganked has been a very popular move in the recent Dota.

Late game – Terrain and Target priority

Most games that play into late game will encounter a similar situation in that none or almost no heroes appear on the map anymore. If any engagements were to occur, it will likely be a 5v5. Often the key to winning late game engagements is excessive warding, which will lead to an advantage in terms of terrain and target priority.

Terrain plays a bigger part in Dota than most players imagine. I’m sure at some point in our Dota life, we have encountered games where we apparently are winning by a large margin but get wiped because of massive amount of AOE damage, by ES’s echo slam for example. With excess warding, we can control when we want to engage, how we want to engage, and where we want to engage. In this case, where we want to engage is referring to the terrain. The most optimal terrain for engagement is such that opponents have to pass through a narrow path while your team has a spacious background with little obstacles to retreat to (using the obstacles for Line of Sight purposes) – this easily sets the opposing heroes to bunch up for easy AOE, or forces them to engage individually separately with your entire team.

For target priority, one should try to visualize the 5v5 engagements beforehand and try to at least find out what one’s role is in the engagement. For example Bane will want to save his enfeeble for the opposing carry, and Fiend’s Grip for their BKB users. VS will want to save swap for the opposing Sniper, to either let him waste time running out, or risk dying while in melee range of your team.


With that, we conclude the end of Part 1 of our improvement guide. Stay tuned for part 2 as we bring you the advanced techniques and tricks that separates the common public gamer from the competitive ones. Till then !