i have been playing Dota 2 online for a few weeks, and I am hooked and confused at the same time. Winning a team fight after a clean smoke gank feels incredible, but I also get stomped by things I do not understand yet, like last hitting, creep aggro, and why everyone buys Blink Dagger.

Right now I mostly play support, because it feels less stressful than carrying. The matchmaking is mixed. Some games have great teammates, and others have someone feeding in the first five minutes.

For anyone who plays regularly:

• What is the best hero for a new player to learn first?
• How do you stay calm when your team is flaming?
• Is it better to learn one role or try everything?
• Any good YouTube channels or guides you do recommend?

https://ibb.co/Wv4tptXd

what, why

I made a custom support hero and I’m pretty sure he’d be meta on day one.

**Name:** Greed’s Evil (The Gold Keeper)

**Role:** Tankier melee support

**Primary Attribute:** Intelligence

### Base Stats

- Str: 25 + 2.6

- Agi: 15 + 2.0

- Int: 23 + 2.4

- Damage: 32–38

- Armor: 2.5

- MS: 310

- Range: 150 (melee)

### Abilities

**Passive – Gold Tax**

Increases all allies’ natural gold income based on his level.

After level 4, every purchase made by allies is taxed 5% (the tax goes to him).

With Aghanim, the tax switches to the *enemy* team. Your own team no longer pays anything, while every enemy item purchase gives him 5%.

**Scales of Justice** (Global, 60s CD)

Selects one ally (can target himself) and one enemy.

If the ally has more gold → up to 40% damage reduction (works on spells too).

If the ally has less gold → up to 20% bonus damage (works on spells too).

Doesn’t affect illusions. Sources like Radiance or Shiva’s don’t receive the bonus and aren’t reduced by the protection.

**Gatcha** (550/625/700/775 range)

Throws 5 gold at an enemy.

Deals random damage between **1 and 100/200/300/400** (minimum is always 1).

Damage type is also completely random (physical / magical / pure).

For every 25 damage dealt, steals 5 gold and gives it to the nearest ally (or himself).

Cooldown: 90/60/30/20

Doesn’t pierce spell immunity.

Yes, it’s literally a slot machine. You feed it gold and pray.

**Fool’s Gold** (500/575/650/725 range)

Throws a fake gold coin that bounces between heroes (can’t hit the same hero twice).

Damage and stun scale with the target’s facing direction relative to Gold Keeper:

- Looking directly at him → 40% damage + 1.0s stun

- Facing completely away → 100% damage + 0.3s stun

(Max damage: 200/300/400/500)

**Ultimate – Greedy Tyrant** (Passive)

When he gets a kill or assist (within 3 seconds), the dying enemy loses an extra 30/40/50% of the gold they would normally lose on death, and Gold Keeper receives that gold directly.

**Aghanim’s Scepter:**

Ultimate becomes active.

A meter constantly jumps between green → yellow → orange → red (and back down). The more gold he currently has, the faster the meter moves.

Instead of mana, he sacrifices his own gold.

The amount of damage dealt or gold given to an ally is a percentage of the sacrificed gold, depending on the current color of the meter.

**Cooldown: 45 seconds.**

This forces a real decision: do you blow a big portion of your gold for a strong effect now, or wait for a better color and risk missing the timing?

Also moves the 5% tax from his own team onto the enemy team.

**Aghanim’s Shard:**

Can infect neutral creeps by getting within **500 range** of them.

If an enemy kills an infected creep, Gold Keeper receives 50% of the gold.

Under True Sight the infection appears as a special ward. If revealed this way, the “ward” can be destroyed.

Recommended Talent Tree

Level 10

• +25 Movement Speed or
• +175 Gold

Level 15

• +1.5% Natural Gold Income (from Passive) or
• Gatcha Cooldown -10s

Level 20

• Scales of Justice max damage reduction increased to 50% or
• Fool’s Gold max damage +150

Level 25

• Greedy Tyrant extra gold loss increased to 60% or
• Scales of Justice is permanently active on Gold Keeper himself. While self-affected this way, he also gains +15% Spell Amplification and +10% Status Resistance.

Pov:

Ultimate – Greedy Tyrant (Passive)

When Gold Keeper gets a kill or assist (within 3 seconds of the enemy’s death), the dying enemy loses an additional 30/40/50% of the gold they would normally lose on death.

This extra gold goes directly to Gold Keeper.

(For clarity: In Dota, heroes already lose a portion of their unreliable gold when they die. This ultimate increases that loss and gives the extra amount to Gold Keeper.)

This version makes the mechanic unambiguous and prevents the usual “does he steal from the total gold or just the death gold?” confusion.

---

So yeah:

A support who taxes his own team early, later taxes the entire enemy team, steals gold from corpses, and gets more arrogant the richer he becomes.

Too strong? Too weak? Or just disgusting enough that you’d instantly ban it in ranked?

Be honest. I already love him.

This hero I see so many variations. Sometimes maxing gush sometimes anchor smash. Or rushing aghs, buying vlads, buying mage slayer, consecrated wraps etc.

What should be the mindset when you're playing Tide? As in for example when I'm playing PL, he's a hero that thrives in poking but not over committing kind of playstyle.

The hero also has shit base attack time. So grimstroke is an annoying counter.

When you're playing Tidehunter what annoys you so much? Which heroes you see picked that makes you "not a good tide game" conversely which heroes is tide good against?

Out of all the offlaners I've played, Tide is the one I least want to play. The hero should be simple but I can't play it the way it should be played. What happens is I'm playing it like Enigma although they share the big ult thing with dagger they should be played differently.

Any tide spammers can help?

Ive been recently seeing the meta shift to building phase boots on timber rather then treads. Is it simply that the armor it gives is nice for him? I found that you got a lot of mileage out of tread swapping.

please send

I feel like this item is insanely good.

I build it every single game on centaur. No questions asked.

HotD -> Heart -> Blink -> Shard -> Crellas

It gives me insane movespeed and boosts my hp regen up to 300-400. While reducing the enemies move speed.

So it essentially makes my enemies move slower, makes me move faster, takes their regen and gives it to me. And I already have a crap-ton of regen.

With Centaur my goal is to stay alive as long as possible in fights.

I 'reset' the fights by using Stampede for escape, blink in and out, stacking my shard.

When I've run out of my stomp, stampede and blink I use Crellas. After Crellas, my stomp and blink is ready again.

Anyone else really loving this item? It's borderline OP?

Video Link

I was struggling with what to do as a support after losing the lane so I analysed 9Class and Dukalis. I go over each decision that they made in a game where all the lanes were rough (Team Vision vs Team Spirit) and how they turned the game around. If you are lost with what to do as a support when your team is losing then watching the pro's decision making will definitely help 

To complement the reporting system (which is great). We should add Griefer Tokens.T his will allow us to really feel a true sense of fairness.

How it works:

Whenever somebody griefs you, and you report them succesfully, you get the choice of sending them to low priority or getting a Griefer Token (which will give you report immunity for one griefing session).

I think it makes perfect sense

Hey everyone! Is this some kind of anomaly or a bug?

I've been playing Dota 2 for 10 years, and my playstyle has never changed. I stick to my favorite heroes, play the same way as always, and have never shared my account with anyone.

Over the course of just two weeks, my Behavior Score dropped from around 11,000 to 3,000.

During the first week, it fell from 11,000 to 7,000. After that, I enabled Mute All and stopped communicating with my teammates entirely. Despite this, my score dropped further from 7,000 to 3,000.

How is this possible? I wasn't communicating with my team at all, and nothing about my behavior, hero picks, or playstyle had changed. Screenshot attached.

Maybe Valve has changed something in its reporting algorithms, but this is incredibly frustrating. Playing without the ability to communicate with teammates makes Dota 2 much harder and less enjoyable.

I've had a great 10 years with this game, but if this continues, I probably won't be playing anymore.

Has anyone else experienced the same issue?

The hero has been largely gutted such that he has maybe 25% of the tempo he had 3 patches ago. I’ve tried a couple things but it feels like I need blink, armlet, treads/sange, and level 12 to even be noticed. The hero is sporting a 45% winrate across all brackets which is in griefing territory to pick imo. The old E active being moved to shard unlock has been utterly devastating such that they could probably buff his stats to 7.40 and then some and he’d still be sub 50%. Any emergent styles to try because my go-to plan is no longer working.

I never expected Valve to adopt a system like Marvel Rivals. Even Valorant and Overwatch have a better ranked system than this (and they are shit). For those who don't know, you gain way more mmr than you lose until 4k mmr. After that, it very slowly starts getting even. It makes your rank a representation of how much you play the game rather than just purely winrate. You can have a 45% winrate and still climb. It also means the matchmaking will be wack, unless Valve is keeping track of your "real rank" in the background.

I had a huge winstreak when I started playing ranked a lot a month ago. I was really having fun, last picking as carry and playing different heroes almost every game. Then, right when I was about to reach the next medal, a few griefer games made me lose interest in the carry role. But even though I was playing completely new heroes after that (had about 56% winrate), I still kept climbing stupidly fast and reached the next medal anyway! I have gained more than 1000 mmr in the last month, but the end of the journey felt so anti-climactic and unearned.

Compared to the version of Enigma that can stack Midnight Pulse, have better aghs damage, no hp drain on eidolon, better talents, better shard, can refresh bkb, can get better midas. This Enigma feels weirdly weak as an old Enigma player but also unbeatable.

What's going on that makes this summon hero really good? Is it the aghs? Is it the fact that we're free to not buy aura items anymore?

So tinker is shit right now and valve is fencesitting over his identity because reddit is crying.

Where can I try the real tinker? Is there an OS (oldschool) client somewhere?