Dota 2 is regarded as one of the most complex and challenging games to get into. The MMR (matchmaking ranking) system is how players can grind through the Dota ranking system. However, such difficulty is exactly why climbing the MMR ladder in the game feels incredibly rewarding. As an 8k MMR player, here are my top five tips for progressing through the trenches and increasing your MMR.
Play A Maximum Of Two Roles
This first tip is probably the most important one when looking to gain MMR consistently. It’s better to be a specialist in one or two roles than to be decent in all five. Though I highly recommend focusing on a single role, we’ll have to make do with two in case you need to adjust.
Playing the same role means you will develop better habits and game sense, which are crucial for increasing MMR. You will refine your laning, decision-making, mechanics, and itemization more efficiently. The more you stick to a specific role, the better you become at dictating the game flow in that position, so you’ll know what to do in any situation.
Best Role Combinations For Climbing MMR
It’s important to have a combination between the two roles to focus on, as some roles share similarities. Here are some role combinations I highly recommend:
- Mid and Carry: The Mid and Carry roles are two of the most popular ones, as players have the potential for high individual impact. Both of these roles require you to put the team on your back, which makes it best for solo climbing.
- Carry and Offlane: These two core roles are heavily focused on strong laning knowledge, making it a great option for players who tend to do well in the laning stage. A good lane can help transition into mid to late-game impact.
- Hard Support and Soft Support: If you want to help your teammates, playing either Support role would be a good fit. Supports are required to enable the team and dictate the pace.
- Offlane and Soft Support: The Offlane and Soft Support combination is best suited for players who like to brawl. Both of these roles demand players to engage in fights and take control of the map.
To sum it up, we don’t need you to be a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to roles. Simply focus on one or two of them and stick to a focused strategy.
Play 2 or 3 Heroes For Each Role
Similar to roles, we also don’t want you playing 20 heroes at a time, you’ll need to have a look at the best Dota heroes for beginners. Focusing on a small hero pool is one of the most effective ways to gain MMR consistently. I strongly suggest playing only two or three heroes per role.
This is because playing the same heroes repeatedly will make you more precise with most aspects of the game, starting from last-hitting, spell usage, adaptability, and positioning. Believe it or not, developing a deeper understanding of matchups, power spikes, and other factors will also translate to a better grasp of the game in general. This means you will also improve on other heroes in the future.
Playing Meta Heroes
Meta heroes are the heroes that are currently strongest due to balance changes in the current patch. These heroes become good because they likely either received buffs that made them more potent or their playstyle/item build fits how the game is currently played. These factors make them naturally stronger than others, giving you a higher chance of winning.
The easiest way to spot meta heroes is to see what the pros are playing. A website I highly recommend checking out is Dota2ProTracker. This website provides real-time data on which heroes are performing well in high MMR pubs.
Dota2ProTracker tracks which heroes are frequently picked for each role, as well as their corresponding win rates in pro-level pubs. You can also check out the most popular item and ability builds for these heroes.
You can always filter heroes into your desired role. Select two to three popular heroes, preferably ones you are also comfortable with.
Don’t Argue, Play Your Own Game
I get it. Sometimes, you really want to flame your teammates. However, speaking from experience, one of the most underrated but crucial tips for climbing MMR in Dota 2 is to avoid any arguments and simply focus on your own gameplay. Getting into disputes with teammates will only lead to tilt, distraction, and lost games.
There Is No Point In Flaming Anyone
Guys, there’s literally no need to flame your teammates in a game and argue why you are better than them. Flaming your teammates will get you nowhere. If you’re below the Immortal rank, there is a high chance you won’t meet that player again, and pooling your energy on flaming them will make you lose focus on the game at hand. It’s literally a net loss, either way you look at it.
Complaining about a teammate won’t magically make them play better, either. Arguing with another person might tilt the entire team – toxicity spreads fast. Focus on your own impact and what you can do to turn the game around instead of wasting mental energy on blame and frustration. Don’t make more enemies than the five you are already facing.
You can also communicate with pings, not arguments. Instead of flaming someone by telling them to do this or that, use the ping system or draw lines on the mini map to suggest the next move. Keep communication short and concise to keep things civil.
If your teammate is being negative and blaming you, simply mute them and move on. You really don’t need to read flame or deal with someone’s bad attitude.
Watch Professional and Personal Replays
Reviewing replays is one of the fastest ways to improve in Dota 2, whether it’s analyzing your own gameplay or studying from the best. Replays help you identify mistakes and learn advanced mechanics that will help you improve your skills and boost MMR.
Remember that playing and watching Dota are two completely different things. When you’re playing, you’re reacting in real time and making split-second decisions, all while dealing with pressure. When watching, you can slow things down and analyze movements without any distractions.
Watching Your Own Replays
Watching your own replays is a great way to learn from mistakes. Make sure to review games where you underperformed to see where you went wrong.
When watching your own replay, ask yourself these questions:
- Did I win my lane? If not, why did I have a hard time?
- Did I build the proper items for this game? Did my itemization lead to our loss?
- What did my positioning in fights look like? Was I always out of position?
- Were my farming patterns efficient? (Check the net worth graph for comparison)
Trust me, guys, you are not as good as you think. I have learned so much from watching my own mistakes. When playing the game, you might see your teammates messing up and blame the loss on them, but I can bet you made dozens of mistakes as well.
Take notes while watching your replay and write down key mistakes and how you can improve for your next game.
Watching Pro and High MMR Replays
If you’re trying to learn or improve at a certain hero, an effective method is to watch top players playing your hero.
You can go to Dota2ProTracker or DotaBuff to find the best players on a specific hero and watch their gameplay. When reviewing the game, focus on these things:
- Laning stage: The laning stage is always important, so watch how they secure last hits and trade with their opponents.
- Map movements: Pay attention to how they move around the map. When did they leave the lane? How do they execute ganks? Where do they go to farm creeps?
- Itemization and skill build: Analyze the items they are buying, and ask yourself why. Is it due to a specific matchup?
- Teamfighting: Finally, look at their positioning during teamfights. Where did they start? Do they go in first or wait for an opening?
You must also remember that high-level players adapt to different matchups and team compositions. The way they itemize or play fights may differ depending on what they’re up against. I recommend watching several replays to get the gist of it.
Get Good
Well, I can suggest as many mentality or drafting tips as I possibly can, but at the end of the day, your MMR is only a reflection of how good you are at the game. With Dota 2’s complexity, there are many things you need to be good at. Map awareness, last-hitting, itemization, positioning, spell casting, the list goes on.
However, it can be extremely overwhelming to try and improve all of these aspects in one go. I highly recommend focusing on one aspect at a time. Maybe you notice you’re getting picked off all the time when farming. If this is the case, you can focus on improving your map awareness for an entire week, then focus on something else for the next one.
Building Habits Turn Into Automatic Actions
When trying to fix problems such as a lack of map awareness, try building habits. Paste a sticky note next to your monitor telling you to check the map every five seconds. Once you keep doing this, it will eventually become a habit, and in a few weeks or months, you will find yourself doing it automatically.
I believe it is much more effective to heavily focus on improving one aspect at a time compared to slowly getting better in every aspect as a whole. Find your biggest problems and errors, mainly by watching your own replays, and then build upon them one at a time.
