The Road to Now

#MyDotaLearningStory

Don't worry, my own entry does not count

I just happen to screenshot a lot, the pictures in this blog are randomly chosen since I have thousands to choose from. However, there's no screenshots for the very first games since I lost them due to not backing up screenshots when I had a problem with my computer in 2014.

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The Start: 2013

Back in the days where I was just a 14 year old playing TF2 & Minecraft with friends all day (and also school), my best friend Matt gave me a beta key to Dota 2 since he got like 30 of them for some reason.

I didn't know what Dota 2 was or even what a MOBA is. But I do know that League of Legends exists. While I was playing TF2 I see a bunch of people who are now talking about trading Dota 2 keys so I was curious of what kind of game it is, I eventually started during August 2013, at the end of my summer breaking.

My friend told me to start from the Dragon Knight & Sniper tutorial, which was great! The "story" and the settings were great, makes me feel of an MMO. Too bad it's not lol.

Although I couldn't understand "channeling spells" quite yet I managed to understand most of it.

He also got another friend of mine who likes to act like he's a retard all the time, and my friend invited him to play Dota.

My friend Matt picked Slark and went Top, he told me to pick Sniper and go Bot. The last guy, whose name is Lotte won't pick since he can't decide and is losing out on gold. Eventually after 3 minutes he picked Lifestealer because it looks like an enemy from one of the games he played and went mid (nobody's there). Thankfully this is a bot match, he didn't know how to buy items or attack and both of us were trying to teach him. Eventually he gave up and left the match. We still rekt them though, my friend was giving me item advices and what to build while he rekt bots as Slark. He also told me about the "Divine Rapier" and how it gives 300 damage but it drops if you die. He bought it and destroyed enemies with it.

So the aftermath was us winning, him having over 31 kills, me around 12 and the other guy 0 with lots of deaths. We couldn't pronounce Rapier then so we called it the "Divine Raper". I didn't know what Rape meant back then.

I started playing a lot of practice bot matches with him, mostly as Sniper but we played a few others as well such as me playing Drow and him playing Wind"runner". That was when we knew about Hero interactions and when she said "why so blue, ranger?" we laughed.

I couldn't play WR very well back then because I was used to fast Attack animations and it was hard to get last hits with her so I just stick to Drow. Drow Ranger is the first hero that got me interested in lores and I did enjoy hers and the others I've read.

2014:

I eventually came to enjoy Lina quite a lot and destroyed a lot of enemies using her.

I bought item sets on her as a reward to myself for improving my skills, I bought the "Jini the Bright Moon" set when it first came out, it looks really good at the time! I then proceed to inscribe the hat with a Kills gem I bought off the market. I don't get pocket money so I only ask for money everyday 3-4 months.

By this point I didn't need much basic knowledge help from my friends anymore but I always strive for more improvement on my gameplay so I watch montages, guides & even funny combo videos so I can do them with friends.

The game modes were also a good way to keep me interested in the game as regular Dota all the time would get boring.

I've also been listening to my friend's advice for when I should be able to get what items by so I'll have better impact on the game. When I managed to get a 14 minute Battle Fury on AM for the first time I was pretty proud of myself.

I particularly enjoy the when I make game-changing plays and I feel more encouraged to continue playing. I also don't play with my friends all the time, I have some time for myself so that I can learn to play without my friends.

Back when Lich can first cast infinite Chain Frost with Aghs my friend died to it when used on Ancients. We submitted it to DotaWTF and Dota Cinema hoping it'll go in, but someone else got in instead so I decided to it myself. :/

We also have this other guy, Max, I'm not sure when he started but it a lot later than me and my other friend.

He does friendly trash talks quite a lot but we all know he means well. The other players don't though xD

We sometimes play friendly lobby matches against each other.

The Lotte guy only excels in certain heroes and he likes to challenge me to a 1v1 with (probably his favorite), hero Pudge.

It didn't go well for him.

Although when he challenged me to a same Hero mid 1v1 we were a bit more evenly matched as I do not play Pudge a lot. I'm quite decent at hooking but since practice makes perfect, I'm obviously not amazing.

We played other mid heroes as well such as Puck, Invoker & Shadow Fiend. We had a really long Invoker match once (1v1 mid didn't exist back then) and he kept pausing all the time when he realized he's losing.

I continued to be amazing at Lina, and by the time I racked up 100 kills on it I bought myself the Lina arcana and moved the gem to there. I now have over a thousand kills with it. (Haven't played her in 2 months though).

For me, the key to learning to improve in Dota is to never give up. I usually remain in games even though some of my teammates rage quit to continue honing my fighting skills and sometimes the bonus gold really results in something spectacular even though I lost :)

There's also this younger student at school who plays with me. He usually buys Tranquil boots on every hero because that's his favorite boots. He's alright but I sometimes make fun of him.

By this point I'm not great at Windranger yet as there's so much more to learn but ever since I've got some cute items on her (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵) I've been playing her more often and eventually got gud at her.

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Of course it's not a road that always progresses forward, there are times where I got a shameful losing streak too, but I always cheer myself up with -wtf mode in a private lobby :blush:

~ Nyxi (^_−)☆