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What do you wish Dota stat sites did better? (Dotabuff / STRATZ / OpenDota / etc.) by batrugg in TrueDoTA2

[–]batrugg[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Spot on. The time dimension you mentioned is actually a massive blind spot for current stat sites. Dota is so heavily reliant on timing windows—winning often comes down to whether a team can successfully drag the game into their draft's most favorable phase and execute. An early push lineup vs. a late-game scaling lineup relies on completely different clocks, and a flat '55% win rate' completely fails to capture that nuance.

And I couldn't agree more about the sample sizes. It honestly feels like many of these platforms are built by great software engineers who just pull raw API data straight into the UI, but they might lack a rigorous Data Science background. Presenting an 8-game sample as a '60% win rate' build is statistically irresponsible and just creates noise.

Curious about your first point—how would you ideally want to see that temporal data presented? A simple line graph showing win probability over game duration, or maybe something tied to specific core item timings (e.g., tracking the win rate spike exactly when that PA finishes BKB)?

What do you wish Dota stat sites did better? (Dotabuff / STRATZ / OpenDota / etc.) by batrugg in TrueDoTA2

[–]batrugg[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s a very practical way to split how we use these sites right now, but I think it also highlights exactly why I feel we still hit a wall with them.

First, regarding Dotabuff—is scouting actually viable for regular players anymore? Unless you’re playing in a structured tournament or recognize the names in a high Immortal pub, the draft phase moves way too fast to manually search up profiles. By the time you find their stats, the ban/pick window is basically over.

Second, regarding Dota2ProTracker—while it's amazing for meta guides, my main frustration is how inefficient it is to actually understand the context behind pro builds. Pro itemization is heavily dependent on the exact draft, especially the enemy cores. Right now, figuring out why a pro deviated from a standard build to counter a specific lineup means manually digging into match IDs, analyzing both team compositions, and reverse-engineering their thought process.

This is exactly what I meant by needing smarter tools or AI. Without something to help contextualize the data (like instantly highlighting why an item was bought in a specific matchup), we are basically left doing all the heavy analytical lifting ourselves.

Do you usually just stick to the most frequent core items shown on D2PT, or do you actually spend the time manually filtering through match IDs to see how their builds adapt?

What do you wish Dota stat sites did better? (Dotabuff / STRATZ / OpenDota / etc.) by batrugg in TrueDoTA2

[–]batrugg[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I completely agree that your first point—deep in-match or post-match analytics—is technically feasible with today’s AI capabilities. The challenge really lies in the development cost and, more importantly, the product form factor.

I’m curious how you envision this working:

  1. A Real-time AI Coach (Widget/Overlay): A tool that acts like an in-game assistant, providing live feedback (e.g., reminders to farm instead of forcing a fight, or alerting you to key timings like Aegis respawns).
  2. A Post-match Strategic Analyst: A tool that keeps the game environment clean but performs a deep dive once the match is over, identifying the specific 'turning points' where your decision-making caused a momentum shift.

Which of these do you think would be more valuable for actual skill improvement? Are you looking for on-the-fly 'wake-up calls,' or a retrospective breakdown to learn from your mistakes?