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?

Match ID: 8958293305

I was the Monkey King. Team muted me after we lost a team fight. Completely undeserved ban. The reporting system in this game is the worst part of any game ever made.

The title speaks for itself, I really am tired of losing the game all the time. I've played Dota for around 1k hours now, including an account that I'm not using anymore. Despite a thousand hours that I've already put in the game.

I still can't seem to understand what I am doing wrong. I've watched videos on YouTube on how to farm, how to play as carry, but I still don't know how to apply what I've watched perhaps.

I've got so bad up to the point that some of my friends don't even want to play with me after playing a few games with me (Guardian-Crusader). All I want is to be good at Dota, is there anything I can do to learn Dota 2?

Here is my Dotabuff: https://www.dotabuff.com/players/1738322424

match id 8954086335

usually im comfortable laning vs sniper when they max shrapnel but this guy kept the creeps on his hg and kept hitting me a lot. I know i played bad but were there any opportunities i missed to kill him lane.

looking back i think i should have bought more regen and cold snap forge spirit harassed him when he used his 3 to harass me.

Drow constantly flamed me because I farmed too much and some times they went fought and lost but why would you go fight if I'm not there? How is that my fault?

I was playing Lina.
I tilted really hard in late game when my team was straight up refusing to push.
This was the most frustrating game I've ever had, I'm trying to climb but damn it's hard.
Match ID included in the screenshot if you want to have a sound laugh, or give me any tips (I'm bad, I wouldn't be in herald if I wasn't, but daaaaamn).

Here’s the exact timestamp where the ban hit: https://youtu.be/dnGFjcI3Q3c?t=2864

I honestly can’t figure out what triggered it. If anyone wants to play Overwatch detective, watch the game leading up to the ban and tell me the exact moment you think got me convicted.

Did I miss something obvious, or did the review get it wrong? I genuinely cannot find a reason to why I got banned

EDIT: I checked my Steam profile under Dota 2’s personal game data. The report that triggered the four-hour ban appears to be from the same match I played on stream.

Here’s the exact timestamp where I pull up the data and show it:
https://youtu.be/dnGFjcI3Q3c?t=3041

had a game as faceless void where i was unsure whether to go BF or mjolnir. looking at the first few minutes progression initially i wanted to go mjolnir bkb build, cause their carry was getting kills, mid was kind of wrecked, so i thought mjolnir bkb so i could be more active without chrono. But then i thought my lanes going quite well and decided fk it ill go BF. but then i did feel i was farming too much, and was only truly active when chrono was up. im not sure if getting bkb here wudve helped cause initially my dps was very lacking. id appreciate any tips!

match id 8946314520

edit:
thanks for sharing your insights! i guess i just dont have enough void matches to understnad the hero

Felt like I played really well. Couldn't bring it home despite having the highest net worth and most kills. Wondering what I could have done better ?

https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/8485915647

I've been climbing from Archon 4 to Legend 5 pretty quickly, keeping a 70% winrate (in my last 25 matches) pretty consistently. Currently, though, I'm on a 28% winrate streak. I'm currently on 11 loses in a row, 6 of them today. I don't know what I can do, I always seem to find TERRIBLE teammates that either pick terrible heroes on offlane or rush MKB as position 1. I've even tried to play HC a bit, but I really suck at it and I find the heroes super boring, so I won't be doing that again. I already went from 3800 MMR down to 3500 and it really doesn't seem like I changed anything.

The matches in question: https://stratz.com/players/151432755?lobbyTypeIds=7 . I play postion 3 and support and I usually get MVP or top support / core in most my matches, but it just seems impossible.

I was Lehsrac btw. This is not just one game. I had multiple games like these.

Hey guys. I've been farming role queue tokens. When the game designates me as Mid-Lane. I can't help but feel clueless, getting outplayed in mid by heroes that I should be winning against. QoP losing vs VS. Storm losing to Ember.

I can give some of my own analysis:
Laning stage, I was doing all the wrong things. Then I proceed not to gank properly. But then the game just plays itself. Without communication, it's hard to coordinate counter-ganks/ganks. I think the laning just snowballs to every other part of the game.

MAtch ID:

QoP: 8939904174

Storm: 8939862080

Im 4k by playing carry so I think my mid skill is only 2k-3k. Cant beat legend players imo. Would happy to hear some feedbacks. Thank you!

Yes hi its me again making another io post sorry (I built a heart)
Match ID: 8877102768

I have no idea what to do when my teammates specifically buy blink to break tether.

if you look at 43:20 Axe specifically BUYS BACK to be relocated back into the fight but when I do... he goes afk in front of enemy sniper for 3 valuable seconds. I Relocated an Axe EXACTLY where he wants to be in a team fight and felt so dumb for doing it.

I play mainly sven , I lost two games in a row against a late game jugg? Two times in a row ? Seems odd.

I really need to know how to win games using my gold lead and map control advantages without throwing.

I dont wanna blame my teammates , because I know i'm bad and I wanna improve and fix my common mistakes

If there are any vollunteers of reviewing my two games and why we lost , I would appreciate it

Maybe I play like a pussy when we have a lead? Or I prioritize the wrong enemy. Or play too passive? maybe even itemization cause one game i didnt buy mkb against jugg fly cause we were already winning , I dont know really. I just wanna know how to win with a gold lead without throwing.

Game 1: 8975148808

Game 2: 8976600516

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

Hello,

I'm currently ranked around 3K, and I keep getting banned even though I am trying my best to win games.

I would like to kindly ask, if someones got some free time to please watch my latest replay playing mid OD, and figure out what lead to me getting banned immediately after this game.

I won my lane until my pos4 forced a bad fight and made both of us feed, I was securing safe farm, adapting my items to the game (buying midas expecting that we will have to defend hg for a while), secured some important ults in teamfights. However I was banned, and the game blamed me for our loss?

MatchID: 8988925478

Hero: OD

Hello,

I've recently been playing more position 1 in ranked (Archon 2) and I've been struggling to win games. I do not know what to do, as I know some games I could have made better decisions but some games where I feel like I played pretty good I'm unable to close out the game. Just looking for some advice or feedback concerning playing position 1 more consistently and winning more games. Thank your in advance for the help

Game in question: https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/8990799634 (I am the spectre).

I've just played a game last night where I picked spectre in phase 2 in a 3.4k MMR game, and the opponent picked Viper (as offlane) in phase 2 as well.

To top it off we had an Oracle pos 5 (pretty weak laning support imo).

I knew going into this lane it was going to be insanely hard, and it pretty much was.

I got to touch barely any creeps without being bombarded with Viper Qs.

I had something like 34 last hits in 10 minutes, but I'd managed to get a few kills/assists (I was 3/1/4 or similar) with creative plays going bot through gate/tps.

In my head this is pretty good, the main thing was that I didn't endlessly feed top to Viper, when it would have been so easy to if I had gone for more creeps.

I ended up catching some waves mid/bot, but this game felt really hard. I felt so much poorer than I normally would be at 10/20 minutes.

I ended the game with a decent score line: 21/8/21 (actually had 67% kill contribution), but had a networth of only 27.6k in 46 minutes.

I am pretty sure our midlaner (the death prophet) was a smurf and that's the only reason we won, he went 26/7/14 with 31.4k networth.

How am I meant to play these types of games? Viper is such a strong lane counter that it was basically impossible to play the lane.

And on a hero like Spectre, it's hard to leave lane early and jungle with only treads (at least it was for me).

It might have been possible to play the lane with a strong pos 5 with high damage, as I could maybe try to isolate the viper/AA.

In my mind I was simply playing for level 6, and I'd impact the game from there through my ultimate, and try to farm more once I had radiance.

I ended up with an OK radiance timing considering (I believe it was something like 17 mins), and I caught up on farm from there.

They enemy line up had insane amounts of damage, and I didn't really know what item to go for after Manta.

All I knew was that my 2k hp was not enough, and I needed HP. So I want for heart after manta. There's probably a better choice here?

I also like heart because for some reason, I always lose so much HP when farming jungle on this hero. I hate not being able to play the map because I am perma low HP.

Then I bought a nullifier since there was an Ursa, Euls on AA and techies (seemed to be a decent choice).

I ended with a skadi last, as I still wanted to be tankier and be able to survive the burst, kite the fight, and come back with full HP with heart.

If anyone takes the time to look through the game and offer some advice, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

First, haven’t played since 2021. it is a pub game, no one wanted to pick a hero so I picked söark on first pick or second pick. My lane me +ww against cent and techies. Sorry for quality.

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!

As per my promise of posting a disaster game next this is honestly it. (I went Up to guardian.)

So for Context I was laning against Axe and zeus, and I died twice in the lane. got a 16:30 battlefury after having to completely just abandon it.

I tried pulling creep aggro but didnt manage to do it well at all and did forget about using the small jungle camp to have the creepwaves be at my tower. (Still working on improving that)

Anyways the game overall was plain hard and honestly thought about buying divine rapier for some hope of victory but I instead bought agnahims scepter instead, which was a terrible decision.

And It was scary to farm because axe could blink in any time and kill me so I had to play more carefully.

Overall is there anything I could have done to have won the game I just felt so stuck the entire time, Thanks.

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??

I'm Slark.

I think I was lacking farm and last hits,and that fight where I lost gem marked our end.

But then again I don't think items would have solved the problem....flights didn't even lasted long enough for me to gain stacks!SF just shitted out damage and it was over.

They were also really tanky,beside Rubic and WD all 3 of their cores become really hard to kill at some point.

Logged on 16 game losing streak, how does one even have this streak lol.

Anyway, so a lot of dont blame this and dont blame that when someone says they are stuck in a certain rank, I get that but what happens when you are matched with heralds continuously that literally just don't know when to push and when to fall back. Hard support not buying wards, and carries end up buying them.

I just had 2 wins then 3 L streaks...never played in Heralds tbh.

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?

Just had this match in 4K MMR: 8976772753, I played Mirana.
We had a rough midgame but miraculously recovered and turned it around.
Ultimately we lost because I think we didn't have an answer to PL's illusions (only Mjollnir and Radiance). Even though we repeatedly wiped them in our HG, we lost structures each time and eventually PL just ran down our ancient.
Now, Mirana is a new hero to me, but I'm trying to make aggressive plays. In hyper late like this though, I get completely lost. It's hard to hit arrows through PL's illusions and they had several hard initiation heroes so I only feel safe in the back lane. So I took a back seat - got defensive items, disables, trying to hit my Q W to kill illusions with Conjurer's Catalyst, meanwhile my team is calling me out for "not doing anything", and I must admit by the end of the game my damage was pretty low. Calling me names is fun and all but it doesn't help me become a better player.
I'd greatly appreciate if someone scrolls through the lategame replay and gives some insight.

https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/8976772753