Surprisingly, considering the stories I had heard, there wasn't a lot of hostility towards me as a new player. Maybe I had learnt enough about the game before going in, or maybe the people I was playing with were just being nice.
Sadly, it turns out the latter was true.
I started my second game, this time as the Dark Seer. He has abilities like being able to suck all the units in an area into a vacuum for a short time, dealing damage to them, and a handy support ability which cloaks the target in an ion shell, which does damage to nearby enemies. His ultimate ability creates a huge light wall, which, if crossed by an enemy hero, will create a copy of that hero which serves under the Dark Seer's will. Not only is it handy, it looks REALLY cool.
So, the game loaded. Apparently that day Blizzard had added a new class, the Brewmaster into the game.
"I'm just playing against bots to try and Brewmaster, why are you all here, lol?"
Oh good, some know it all veteran come to test a new hero amongst the plebs.
The game went much the same way as the first one, we were all levelling up, getting new items and so on, and at about level six or seven our resident expert piped up again.
"DS why don't you help?"
I checked all of the heroes that people on my team were playing, DS could only stand for Dark Seer, my hero. I had no idea what he meant... it seemed that everyone on my team had suddenly decided without any communication to group up on one side of the map and were engaged in a battle with a group of enemy heroes. Had I missed something? Perhaps there's a certain time when everyone groups up and starts the "team battle" phase, but I sure as hell didn't know when that was.
I trudged across the map to go and help, laid down my "Wall of Replica", and helped kill a hero or two. But then I got sniped, by the aptly named "Sniper". Two of the people on my team spoke this time.
"Omg seriously?"
"Got killed by a bot LOL"
Okay, maybe they're right, maybe I need to step up my game a bit. I decided to start following the more veteran players to see what they were doing.
The trick when the creeps are fighting each other in the middle of the map is to try and get the killing blow on enemy units, whilst also trying to scare away enemy heroes so they don't get the bonus experience and gold from killing friendly units. Sometimes an enemy hero would stray too close to our group, and everyone would use their stunning effects to give time for the gankers to deal the massive damage. I felt proud of myself for using my Vacuum ability to suck a few heroes in before they got finished off by our melee units. Clearly my allies weren't as impressed, maybe it's something they see every game, or maybe they just don't speak unless they're insulting you, who knows?
"I'm going for two Daedalus, lol"
Professor Dota was talking again. The Daedalus is one of the better weapons in the game, with +81 damage and a giving you a 25% chance to critical strike, which does 2.5x normal damage. They're fairly expensive, so getting two of them is no mean feat. This player was clearly good enough to rack up enough cash to do it though.
This game was a lot easier than the first. I reckon that there were a lot more new players in the first game than this one, and it definitely showed. We were destroying enemy structures like nobody's business, and eventually we were able to just walk up to the opposing Ancient and hack it to pieces.
My first Dota 2 victory! It felt good.
I figured it was time to do away with the bots, and start going against human opponents, that's where the real competition was to be had after all.
And indeed, it turned out to be the most exciting game yet, but that's a story for another day.
Thanks for reading, see you next time
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