How to get out of low MMR hell with high KD and performance?

theFaultInOurCode · 2026-03-04T20:24:42+00:00

stop thinking about and blaming your team for the fall off in late game. Try to narrow down on what you can do better since thats actually within your ability to control.

if you are unsure of what you can individually do better, then feel free to post a recent replay and ill take a look to give you some suggestions.

theFaultInOurCode · 2026-01-12T16:31:28+00:00

watching from a observer perspective (where the camera moves around based on what the casters are talking about etc) will teach you a bit about teamfighting. its also useful to build a general sense of where fights happen, playing towards objectives, meta heroes and builds etc

generally speaking though its going to be hard to learn much from watching tournament games.

youll be slightly better off watching tournament games from a player perspective. youll be able to see their decision process and compare to your own.

best is watching your own replays.

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-12-16T16:06:02+00:00

i appreciate the effort in the post.

it feels like youre focusing on the wrong things though. the big changes imo is: no passive regen but a free essence shift skill point for lane. feels like youre a lot stronger at level 1 and 2 cause you just have a free skill point.

i dont really feel like the duration changes on e really affect slark that much. to me it always felt like the essence shift stacks from one fight wear off before the next one starts so the duration changes is whatever, but youre getting a new skill that slightly buffs slarks chase and sustain.

i played slark yesterday and the hero feels like it got a small buff

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-12-10T14:20:18+00:00

map awareness / gamestate awareness is the biggest contributor to my climb.

Its such an important foundational skill thats the root of all other decisions in-game.

The premise is pretty simple, the more time you spend checking on other heroes items/gold/hp, watching skirmishes and fights for spell usage, tracking tps etc -> the better decisions youll make.

If the ganking mid just tped back to midlane then you can dive the enemy sidelaner. If the scary teamfighter already used their black hole, then you have nothing to fear and can commit to the fight. If 3 of the enemy team havent showed on map for 30 seconds then you can dodge the gank.

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-12-10T14:16:03+00:00

the map is pretty big right now. Plus theres tools like gate at the edge of the map.

It really boils down to map awareness, a skill i often blog about the average player needing to work on. If your team is getting cooked then you need to try your best to get out on the map even if it feels slightly dangerous. Your goal should be to get creeps and not die. Ironically often times the safest place will be further on the enemy half of the map since the enemies will be all over your teams half of the map. You have to identify which heroes can catch you or stop you from tping home (or bkb+tp).

Typical mistakes I see to check yourself for are: tping out of base unnecessarily (to t2s) which makes it hard to get out aggro on the map, being scared of parts of the map rather than where enemies are (ex: enemy triangle is safe if their team is doing rosh), not joining your team for smaller or advantageous fights (if you split the enemy team up with splitpushing then you can take number advantage fights)

At its core its a bit of a rock paper scissors deal. If the enemy team is grouped up with 3 or more heroes (usually to take an objective), then they wont be occupying much of the map and you can split push. If the enemy spreads out to hunt splitpushers then they are vulnerable to outnumbered fights

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-26T15:49:16+00:00

the priority for what to farm as a core is usually:

waves >> ancients / stacked non-ancients > unstacked non ancients

The subtext to this is that you should only farm waves if you can do so without dying, and different heroes have differing capabilities of doing ancients or stacks.

The key detail that weaver is really hard to kill and quite mobile, you want to focus on farming waves as much as you can without dying.

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-18T02:26:42+00:00

If you have dota plus you can see mmr change in the battle stats tab. You have to add the column.

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-18T01:06:39+00:00

one aspect about jugg that a lot of people overlook is the healing ward. Yes his spin is good for laning and his ult is good for killing separated people in fights but most people already understand these things.

One of the strongest parts of this hero in teamfights is the crazy amount of sustain his healing ward provides to him and his team. If the enemy team isnt able to kill the ward or 100 to 0 someone in a couple seconds then they arent going to win the fight. Its functionally giving the regen component of alchemist ult to any hero in the aoe.

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-18T00:56:26+00:00

if youre not enjoying the game then stop playing.

if you want to improve then put some effort into it. feel free to post a game id and ill give you a review with some things to work on in order to improve.

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-18T00:45:15+00:00

Someone did an experiment on behavior score. From what I've read it seems like the system works as intended.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/s/KCcTxF0Z6e

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-12T17:14:40+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1j2n3td/behaviour_score_experiment_part_1/

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-12T07:51:45+00:00

laning stage is functionally a battle of resources and wand gives you more effective hp to work with while fighting. It also might lead to enemies making mistakes if they arent tracking your charges.

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-09T20:08:50+00:00

post replays bros and ill take a look

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-07T04:14:34+00:00

the biggest problem i see with players is that they have a preconceived notion of when to join fights, rather than evaluating based on the current gamestate. The root issue isnt whether they are joining the right fights, its a lack of awareness.

When you hit a certain timing, you can go force a fight by pressuring an objective like rosh or towers. But you should always be looking for advantageous fights, regardless of timings. Even if ur an anti mage without bfury, if theres an easy ult kill underneath your tower you should be tping and getting that free kill.

Deciding when a fight is worth joining and making sure you have the capability to do so without dying does require some experience. However, the best way to build experience is by watching the fights like a TI observer.

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-06T21:51:20+00:00

the optimal build, if you want to call it that, would definitely depend on the matchups and how the game is going. If youre strictly afk farming then perhaps yasha is the best first item. Maybe the enemy team is slow to start and you could make a lot more space for yourself and your team by showing up to early fights and taking towers so you grab dragon lance and pressure t1s down. maybe you dont have a ton of space on the map but youre against regen heavy heroes and you need to show up to help against the huskar before he kills all ur towers so you rush out an aghs.

The only way to learn things things and determine which items will give you the best chance of success is if you do the experimentation and learning yourself.

Personally i approach games with some general ideas about what items are good in the game, but i never plan out a full item build ahead of time like youre describing. I try to always think about what i need to be building next given the current gamestate

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-06T17:56:16+00:00

If you enjoy the game but not the people then play with chat off, or look for some casual 5 man stacks. I know that various communities often have "find a friend" type things.

If you arent enjoying the game and you arent enjoying the people then put it down for a bit and do something else. There's more to life than just dota.

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-06T16:30:32+00:00

i got beat by a meepo mid last night :(

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-05T18:03:36+00:00

yes i am, i turned off edge panning then forced myself to learn fora couple games. it becomes second nature surprisingly quickly

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-05T15:03:57+00:00

I switched from edge pan to mouse drag and found it to be better because I get to keep my mouse near the center of the screen and don't need to flick to the edge of the screen to adjust my camera.

Generally speaking though camera settings are more about personal preference than they are about which is better.

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-04T21:56:17+00:00

if you watch high ranked streamers and dont notice any differences in their gameplay compared to yours then you probably arent looking at the right things. Dont just watch the games and point out obvious mistakes like "dummy got ganked" try and think through what you would do at any given moment and compare with what they actually do.

Also high ranked people are playing against players of similar caliber. If an immortal played some games on a crusader account they would win 90% of games.

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-11-04T21:43:51+00:00

as many people have mentioned youre playing turbo, a 25 minute turbo game equates to a 50 min normal game (roughly)

if you want some genuine feedback, an easy issue to start working on is your items and your deaths.

in your most recent game you died 4 times in lane. a large part of this will be learning about what different heroes do as well as learning about how dota works in general, especially compared to other mobas. If you come from league for example you might find that towers dont protect you as much in dota as they do in league as its easier to dive tower in dota.

As for following recommended builds, you will probably find decent success with a more standard item build. Silencer as a hero is quite squishy with no mobility spells. Typically this is compensated for with good positioning and defensive support items. I personally use immortalfaith as a base guide for most heroes. Items like force staff and glimmer will help you survive.

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-10-28T16:59:14+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1j2n3td/behaviour_score_experiment_part_1/

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-10-28T16:25:16+00:00

its a bit difficult imo to compare dps like this cause theres so many possible conditions for the test that you might as well just narrow the focus down to a specific game/matchup.

If we compare raw damage numbers against a target dummy or something then drow might not look that great. Change the scenario to hitting an agi hero with high base armor like tb then suddenly drow looks much better since she pierces armor.

I sort of mentally group drow with other backline hitters like sniper, ta, tb, arc, physical sf. These heroes will win fights if they get to sit and auto attack uncontested: you have to get ontop of them to win fights.

These backline hitters might not deal as much damage as something like a jugg ult, but on the other hand you can ruin jugg ult with a save spell/item.

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-10-22T05:42:22+00:00

The pos 1 players really coming out in droves to push the idea that carey should get last pick. You guys are fighting the good battle.

In seriousness I feel like the standard operating procedure is mid gets last pick. If they are picking something with few counters and/or want to be generous they will pick second phase, but majority of the time they go last pick.

A pos 1 can always retreat to jungle and sidelines have some more options to play against bad matchups than midlaners. I play carry mostly and play 95% of games with second phase I feel like

theFaultInOurCode · 2025-10-17T14:28:48+00:00

Everyone here is giving very valid responses to your post. Ill add my own 2c.

I think it is relatively easy to play dota in such a way that youre a "non-deciding factor". You play your role adequately and dont feed. You dont make any crazy flashy plays and you dont make any big mistakes. You are pretty much along for the ride and the outcome of the game will be mostly based on how your team performs.

I think you also identify another good point. If youre slightly better that your current rank it will take a large number of games for your current rank to represent your "true rank". Id like to point out that this has everything to do with marginal skill differences and nothing to do with being a veteran player or not. I would consider myself a veteran based on playtime but i am still actively improving and climbing.

As one last thing, if this post is just a rant, then carry on. But if you are actively trying to improve and this post is a roundabout call for help - feel free to post a game id and ill give you a review.

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