Know your role!!!

[KrazyOne]

I feel like half the community doesn't understand roles. The half that does only a fraction truely understand the roles. This isn't another rant and rave thread but hopefully an enlightenment one.

First i like to mention that yes there is 3 primary roles. Most understand this, but few thick skull people refuse to learn. Yet large portion of the community doesn't understand the 5 roles that are secondary. The 5 Slots of a team. Its like only a small portion of the community even know about them let alone understand them.

1. Player 1 is often the mid lane carry or farmer. This player primary role is to achieve fast levels to help carry the mid to late levels.

2. Player 2 is often the offlane tank or primary disabler. This player primary role is to level and hold the offlane without help. Mid to late game this player role is to initiate fights.

3. Player 3 is often the safelane carry. This player primary role is to carry the team in the late game by farming most of the game.

4. Player 4 is the soft support, or better known as the lane support. This player role is to help keep Player 3 unharrassed and supporting when needed.

5. Player 5 is the hard support, or better known as the ulitity player. This player primary role is to gank, ward, and provide support on the fly. This player usually rarely able to farm items as they spend most of the game providing full out support to the team.

Many players fall into the first 3 slots some into slot 4, but it seems weird from my experience that slot 5 player is rarely done or played in general. This is not to say it doesn't happen. I'm just curious how many people agree or even know of this unknown fact about Dota on the competitive level?

[jay jay the dank planezinho]

about the 5... because playing hard support in pubs is boring. you don't get to do anything other than just be a ward dump for a bunch of strangers that might not even check the mini map. unless you play with a stack, why would you want to do that? are you crazy?! I already mind having to support random players (it's annoying, but it's getting me victories so I won't complain that much), but not farming jack crap and just warding, stacking, pulling, dying in bloody two hits... where's the fun in that? unless you are a masochist, you shouldn't try hard supporting in pubs alone.

not going to comment on the rest. feeling a little sleepy at the moment.

[76561198162430482]

People games for fun, and what fun of buying wards and any other support items?

Ofc all people want to Win the game by yourself and pick 5 carry.

It's not prof. game - it's pub.

Btw - carry is 2 position, offlane - 3rd.

[GoabNZ]

Too true. Too many people just turn pub matches into carry fests, then complain that the one person to support isn't "playing well" when in reality, the carries are feeding. Do you know how many games I have played where 4 people are arguing about who needs the jungle to farm, because they are all hard carries? And then you get supports/semicarries like Silencer who want to carry when there are 4 other carries. You have gankers who don't gank, initiators who just farm and join the fight far too late, you have supports who carry, carries who can't farm properly to save their life, and the worst part is, they are too busy trying to play to this misconception of a "role" they have in their head that they never bother to either take advice, or join the team. "I'm busy farming ATM" says 3 carries all in the jungle while the enemy is 5 man pushing our towers down. You ask for help, you get none.

[That Goon Type Shit]

Originally posted by dagon_is_life:

playing hard support in pubs is boring. you don't get to do anything other than just be a ward dump for a bunch of strangers that might not even check the mini map.

I read this over and over again <3

[Chebs]

The problem is that if you run this set up in a pub match, you have to rely entirely on your carry. Nothing is more infuriating than playing that position 5 support and buying courier, warding every chance you get, and still losing becuase your blind carry got ganked 10 times, auto-attacked in lane, and only has a Manta Style 40 minutes into the match.

So people go to the other extreme and pick 5 carries, which is just as bad. Unfortunately, there's no way to change this unless people suddenly become OK with being in a role where they can lose despite doing everything correctly.

[Kage]

Originally posted by GoabNZ:

Too true. Too many people just turn pub matches into carry fests, then complain that the one person to support isn't "playing well" when in reality, the carries are feeding. Do you know how many games I have played where 4 people are arguing about who needs the jungle to farm, because they are all hard carries? And then you get supports/semicarries like Silencer who want to carry when there are 4 other carries. You have gankers who don't gank, initiators who just farm and join the fight far too late, you have supports who carry, carries who can't farm properly to save their life, and the worst part is, they are too busy trying to play to this misconception of a "role" they have in their head that they never bother to either take advice, or join the team. "I'm busy farming ATM" says 3 carries all in the jungle while the enemy is 5 man pushing our towers down. You ask for help, you get none.

The truth behind this is real. I have got realy good in the support / hard support and disabler roles . But the sec they die they blam me lol . If they just look at the map and see the wards i place they would not have died. The only wards people pay attition to are the ones by the runes. Defencive and offencive ward are never looked at.

[Zer033]

The only thing in DOTA that creates roles in the first place is availability of gold, if there were 5 lanes the optimal team would always be 5 carries. Idealy you want your carries to get all the gold per the 3 lanes and buy the best items fast.

Support characters are usually defined as those that have innate abilities to disable or provide some advantage that will allow carriers to do more damage. Since innate abilities have very little improvements through items available to buy it makes more sense to just buy survivability type things and/or support type stuff.

Support is only as good as the carries they are teamed with. I play oracle mostly and I can amplify damage a lot, stun, heal, and help teammates setup ambushes by making them invisible. Most of those things, except healing, requires that the carry is good and they know what I'm doing. As a result of that since I'm not playing on an organized team I usually try to go semi-carry oracle.

Just a couple games ago someone asked why I had a certain item on my oracle, "that isn't the correct item for that hero" he said. For that particular game it was the correct item because I needed to be somewhat self sufficient and amplify my own damage so I can 1v1 enemy heroes or survive when attacked.

The role system, which is really just due to map design, I think could be made to be better. If there were 5 lanes and enough gold to go around so all heroes could get what they wanted it would improve the game. From a "pub" standpoint it would help to gauge skill better, since currently all games pretty much have one major carrier per team then "everyone else sucks" kinda scoring.

And in the competitive scene, not much would change. There would still be a need for certain strategies, skills, items, supporting, disabling, whatever. I mean even with the current definition of a carry, support or whatever, there are no limitations on skills per role. There are carries that have stuns, disables, evasion tactics, heals, etc. A hero is a hero is a hero, we just choose to label them based on map design driving the gameplay.

[Kimber Prime]

Position 5 for life. <3

[Restless]

Originally posted by Kimber Prime:

Position 5 for life. <3

AMEN *high five*

let the carries win them fights we win the games!

[Bromeo]

Pretty sure safelane is 1, mid is 2, and offlane is 3. And heck, it doesn't even necessarily have anything to do with the lanes themselves, it's more the actual heroes that matter. :L

[jay jay the dank planezinho]

Originally posted by Kimber Prime:

Position 5 for life. <3

Really? lol the maximum I can bear now is 4. If I see the carries auto attacking creeps, complaining about getting ganked even when there were wards to alarm them or just diving into pointless fights, dying and then blaming the support for not going with him when he was miles away, the position 5 is probably most disgraceful role you can play.

Lol I try to endure this, Kimber, but when you have to support even when you pick QoP and was the first or second one to pick... It's sad lol

[Lucifer Morningstar]

I think it's more of "dont want" than "cant" problem. People usually don't get credit for playing hard support role or lane support role in pubs therefore they dont follow the pattern. Also if you playing role 5 you would be amazed how often you meet some position 1 or 2 person who doesn't want action, but farm like role 3. Thats why I prefer playing with friends or premade group of 4-5 who understand their roles and can count on each other. Usually if you go as stack of 2-3 or solo, you will find out that 1 out f 2-3 random players you get are too selfish in a team game. Or in other words "tryhards". Thats why in pubs you usually wont find some one who fully fulfills any of roles you discussed above.

[jay jay the dank planezinho]

Originally posted by GrandmasterSwagggC.I:

I think it's more of "dont want" than "cant" problem. People usually don't get credit for playing hard support role or lane support role in pubs therefore they dont follow the pattern. Also if you playing role 5 you would be amazed how often you meet some position 1 or 2 person who doesn't want action, but farm like role 3. Thats why I prefer playing with friends or premade group of 4-5 who understand their roles and can count on each other. Usually if you go as stack of 2-3 or solo, you will find out that 1 out f 2-3 random players you get are too selfish in a team game. Or in other words "tryhards". Thats why in pubs you usually wont find some one who fully fulfills any of roles you discussed above.

I would report you for playing with premade team of 4 players. Either go full stack or don't go 4 yolo at all. Crazy one!

[Phantom Assassin]

I play all the roles somehow, and I can tell you that the fun at each role depends on the hero you play and the heroes against who and with who you play.

For example being the #5 isn't only about placing wards. Take for example Lion. You will obviously make some kills (think about your ult) and get some money to buy something else except wards. Like Blink Dagger and Aghs. And from that point you can actually be more threat for your enemies than your #1 or #2 because they totally won't enjoy if you CC the hell out of them and burst them pretty hard. Let's say playing Lion is compared to Wisp far more enjoyable, since Wisp depends on your team skill and picks REALLY hard.

So playing an active support in pubs is also pretty entertaining

[Mercy]

Originally posted by Restless:

Originally posted by Kimber Prime:

Position 5 for life. <3

AMEN *high five*

let the carries win them fights we win the games!

FInally some people get it. I am not saying that i only play position 5 but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ i do very often and it's one of the most interesting positions in the game. You create kills , you give vision, you break fights(depends on what support you are playing) and you are active all the time.people who think that position 5 is boring are people that play it and just stand there doing nothing!