5 Ways Dota 2 Made Me a Better Person

In Dota 2 there’s a ranking system that brings out everyone’s inner competition. Getting more ranked matchmaking points means you’re good at the game. Shortened as, MMR, it’s a fairly accurate representation of skill and thus it becomes what everyone strives for in Dota. Here is what I learned during my own climb through MMR.

1. Stop blaming others for your own misfortunes

From my own observations one of the biggest reasons on why players fail to climb the ranks is because they are too busy blaming others. What blaming does is it limits your ability to see things clearly.

I lost because of this stupid carry YOLO 24/7

I’m not wealthy because this guy did his job incorrectly

Noticing your own mistakes and correcting them is how you truly learn and get better at something. Blaming others makes seeing your own mistakes harder. There’s no point in clinging to someone else’s fault. Take note not to do the same mistake, move on. Blaming will only wear you out, accomplishing nothing.

2. There is no end to Learning

Another reason to why a lot of players I know are failing to climb the Dota MMR rank. They get complacent and stop learning. Generally, Dota 2 is a hard game to get into. It’s not a pick up and play like Clash of Clans. There is a lot of stuff you have to know before the game becomes fun.

But many players start to get complacent after they get over the learning curve. They stop learning new things, stop trying and as a result most of the players are in the 2k-3k bracket which is often considered the trench. Players get stuck in the trench because all they do is continuously queue game after game hoping they’ll get lucky without questioning what went wrong in a loss.

Point is; maybe there’s a reason why you’re stuck doing the same job for 4 years or why you failed your entry exams twice in 2 years. You’re not learning enough and you’re not trying hard enough.

3.One of the most important skills in life, decision making, is greatly influenced by your own wellbeing

Professional Dota 2 players have to make crucial decision making each passing minute. Being moody, sleep deprived, hungry, agitated will affect your decision making causing you to fail while you’re there sitting thinking, “What am I doing, what just happened.”

In order to get your brain to run at full mental capacity you need to start taking care of your wellbeing. Lay off the junk food, start eating healthy, exercise while getting enough rest. This is all about getting long term sustainable results. You can’t sustainable results if you don’t take care of yourself.

4.Always have clear, straight forward objectives that guide you towards your goal

Your main goal in Dota? Destroy the enemy ancient. Reaching your goal in Dota or in life, isn’t always clear cut do this and you’ll win. You need to do decide what needs to be done and make small easy steps that guide you toward reaching your goal.

My role as a carry is to obtain enough farm so that I can push high ground with my team. I need to last hit every creep to buy sustain items and retreat into the jungle before the enemy tries to gank me. The enemy is starting to push my safelane tower as 5. Although I am not strong enough to join fights with my team, I can try to split push and make space for my team. After hopping from camp to camp, I am now farmed enough to take a team fight. We should roshan as 5 and try to flank them on their way back from pushing our towers.

You want to be a writer, you take the time to join competitions knowing you might not win, you practice, you grind, you farm and you seize the opportunity. In life you need to put in your mind reasonable clear objectives, stop waiting for miracles. You can’t expect the enemy to feed you to victory and in the same context you can’t expect someone to give you the opportunity. You take it by force.

5. Patience and PMA

Dota 2 can get toxic real fast especially in the SEA region with 5 countries of different cultural backgrounds and languages. Communication barriers obstruct teamwork and then come the arguments, racial slurs and typical nonsense.

9000 matchmaking points is the peak of Dota, their considered the gods of dota, able to carry their team no matter the situation. Despite popular belief, people with high MMR are fairly calm, humble and generally positive people with Arteezy being the sole exception.

People who rage and get angered easily won’t get far in life no matter how good they play the game. Life can be as toxic as SEA serves and the only way to climb and get through the ranks is with a patient and calm mindset.