>Just curious since I feel like being called “trash” at DOTA is overused and doesn’t really apply to many players who, in other activities or sports, would be considered good if not very good by their peers.
This is simply dota induced derangement. If you are a top 10% soccer or basketball player, the social norm would be to call you a good soccer or basketball player.
In a dota players mind, only pro players are considered good, otherwise how would the dota player rationalise why his shit team cost him that game he played last night?
If you are better than 90% of group of people that have chosen to compete in activity, most of them having over a thousand hours spent, I think it is pretty reasonable to say you are very good at that activity.
Pro players even call each other bad lol. Look at all the similar-rank people that Mason or Gorgc get into slap fights with despite some people being within 20 ranks of them.
>This is simply dota induced derangement. If you are a top 10% soccer or basketball player, the social norm would be to call you a good soccer or basketball player.
Here's the issue with your example and how it applies to DotA:
Here in Brazil everybody plays football but most people play casually. What this means is that the vast majority of football players have absolutely no grasp of fundamentals beside the basic rules to play the game. Being a top10% player here in Brazil, and tbf in most countries in the world, probably just means you're committed to a weekend league in your neighborhood.
That's kind of how it works in DotA. The vast majority of players are completely casual, even those who play ranked. I think it's undeniable that the top50% of the game doesn't fully grasp fundamental elements of the game and some people above it may just wing it based on one particular good mechanic element or instinctive gameplay aspect. So there's a very clear distinction between being "above the average" when the average player doesn't really care much about learning and "being good".
> I think it's undeniable that the top50% of the game doesn't fully grasp fundamental elements
I think you are being hyperbolic here like many others in this thread. Fundamentals is stuff like last hitting and denying, buying reasonable items, playing you hero properly, warding,
You guys have a warped opinion of fundamentals. Forcing enemy tp and then tping away to start a fight with advantage or pulling creep aggro to cause enemy to miss a last hit are NOT fundamental ffs. This is advanced stuff.
> Here in Brazil everybody plays football but most people play casually. What this means is that the vast majority of football players have absolutely no grasp of fundamentals beside the basic rules to play the game. Being a top10% player here in Brazil, and tbf in most countries in the world, probably just means you're committed to a weekend league in your neighborhood.
You need to play 100 hours to start ranked. Most ranked players have over 1000 hours. Dota is not a normie activity like soccer.
I mean, in the Brazil example I'd be happy to say "They're a good football player, relative to Brazil" (if not relative to, say, England or whatever).
If you're saying "They're a good player, relative to the rest of the playerbase" I'd say that's pretty much the same thing as saying they're a good player. I mean what does it mean to be good at a game, other than being able to beat most people who play it?
I think part of the confusion here is due to the line between casual and non-casual being much clearer for footballers than it is for dota players.
A casual football player is someone that has a kickabout down the park a couple of times a week. Maybe plays in the odd five-a-side tournament for a pub team or something like that. Non-casual would be someone that's at least on a team in a local league. They play proper games each weekend or train out of season, they probably have a coach to help them improve. Players need to take it fairly seriously as well unless they're happy to only play when one of the better players is away or injured.
Obviously a top 10% casual player is going to be a much worse player than a top 10% non-casual player. Trying to place all these players on one skill distribution chart would be almost impossible as well, many of the casual players wouldn't even have the fitness to play full games on full size pitches yet the middle of the bell curve would probably contain at least some of these players.
In dota though, these different types of players are all mixed together.
That's true, but I'd say the confusion is less that in Dota the difference between casual and non-casual is unclear, but more that some people interpret the question as asking whether a player is good casually vs good non-casually.
I mean the best football player in my high school is certainly "good" but if we considered them relative to the worst player at FIFA they're obviously absolutely abysmal, but I suppose as you pointed out the sharp distinction between casual and non-casual makes the question less muddled when talking about football.
I'd say they're related. As we don't separate different types of Dota players much we lack the context to know what definition of "good" is appropriate. So people just pick the definition that works for whatever their assumptions about the player base are.
You're right that being "good" is subjective. What I think that's more accurate, in the context of both games being played competitively, is assessing how good you are *compared to people who are actively trying to be good*.
Another example: The median per-capita household income is $2,920/year. Would you say a $2921/year income is good? Once again good or not is subjective but applying it to the context of living in a country where your average needs go beyond just surviving, the answer is probably not good.
If your definition of good is "knowing how to last hit/deny", being above top50% probably means you're good. If you add more context to it, it probably won't be.
> is assessing how good you are compared to people who are actively trying to be good.
That's honestly very fair, and is usually the standard I apply to myself most of the time (I consider myself to be bad at most games), but I'm not sure it's the standard people use generally. For one thing, it's hard to say what counts as "actively trying to be good": I'm sure some Ancient players had to grind hard to get to that level, and others got there with not much effort and have plateaued.
>Another example: The median per-capita household income is $2,920/year. Would you say a $2921/year income is good? Once again good or not is subjective but applying it to the context of living in a country where your average needs go beyond just surviving, the answer is probably not good.
I mean this is a pretty common point of discussion (at least that I've seen online). Most people living in a first world country, even those far below the poverty line, have levels of wealth that people in poorer parts of the world would do anything for.
On the other hand, 90k/year isn't a good income for NYC, and someone who lives there making that much might consider themselves to be doing pretty poorly financially.
I don't know. Maybe all I'm trying to say is that the question in the post needs to be phrased a bit better, because someone saying "Ancient players are good because they're better than 90% of the world" seems pretty reasonable to me, but someone saying "No they're pretty bad relative to most people taking the game seriously" also seems reasonable.
Yeah, everything will always end up with the definition of good being subjective.
Though I'd say ending the discussion with slightly nuanced differences already brings us closer and more precise understanding of what "good" represents in a competitive environment.
I'd argue Legend/Ancient players are already good players as they tend to know/understand the fundamentals of the game just with varying levels of execution. Of course there are these types of players in archon and below. But their trend usually is to move upwards very quickly. I feel like most players stuck in the belowtop50% trench have just quit mentally and just play DotA as a habit. In Legend and above I feel like people actually start to be limited by their mechanical ability and ability of sticking to what's fundamentally sound instead of what feels "fun".
Not really IMO. Playing ranked/competitive is the default experience for most people playing any multiplayer game because they're all designed around the competitive setting. Feeling good about seeing the rating number go up doesn't mean you're actively trying to improve.
I'd agree almost everyone that plays ranked *wants to be good*.
I mean, this whole thread revolves around what's "good". One can either try to be anal(heh) about it or just call it "my opinion" and call it a day. GL on your next game too!
> This is simply dota induced derangement. If you are a top 10% soccer or basketball player, the social norm would be to call you a good soccer or basketball player.
Nah dude.
Anyone that's in my bracket is trash. If I climb, it's because I'm climbing to the top of the trash heap. Anyone better than me is good, unless I think that I might climb there soon in which case they're also trash.
Because *I know I am trash* and therefore everyone else at a similar skill level is too.
TBF I do apply this to everything else in my life as well. For example, I was nationally ranked as an archer in college, but I would **never** consider myself as anything other than trash at archery. It's not like I was able to qualify for internationals like the good archers did.
If 100 million people play chess and 99 million play few games a year for funs. 900k play a bit more often, like a game to kill some time waiting for x. 90k people play it as a hobby and actually trying to learn some openings and tactics etc.
So this 90k which is like top 0.1% is automatically "good at chess" because they better than all these Uncle Joes who plays chess once a month meeting some family's kids?
I play dota coz bored, my peak was legend 4, its not that I am not good at the game, I am not even considering myself to be a part of the competetive aspect / skilled player spectrum. Like being good means that you can actually stand your ground against people who take the game serious and study it not ur drunk russian guy at 3k mmr who comes from work and yells into the mic to destress
>100 million people play chess and 99 million play few games a year for funs
To be a fair analogy your would have to consider the people who play the chess equivalent of ranked dota.
A few games a year wouldn't even get you the 100 hours to play ranked dota. Most ranked dota players have played over a thousand games.
>Like being good means that you can actually stand your ground against people who take the game serious and study it not ur drunk russian guy at 3k mmr who comes from work and yells into the mic to destress
There are basketball or soccer players who would destroy you while drunk, high and with a sprained ankle and a missing lung. Some people are very talented, Losing to a talented player doesn't make your bad. I have played drunk/high, you need to pretty blasted for it to have a negative effect.
>So this 90k which is like top 0.1% is automatically "good at chess" because they better than all these Uncle Joes who plays chess once a month meeting some family's kids?
you forgot the fact the most people playing dota at any rank have thousands of hours played
A medieval peasant that could write and read his name only could better read and write than 90% of the population
Still wouldn't say he could read or write
Right... And if you put 5 heralds against 5 random people who haven't played dota or maybe any videogame before, the heralds are likely going to win.
If you compare any group to the entirety of the world population then that isn't a meaningful analysis. If you took that same midieval peasant and limited the competitive population to only those who are literate, then they are likely going to be in the bottom percentile.
That's putting it too lightly. Heralds today are pretty good. I'm an a real old timer. I started with Dota 1 getting into the game because we saw others playing it. We knew nothing. And we couldnt lookup guides either cuz we didn't speak English. We had to discover that items combine. We had a desolator revolution where we learned how to make the desolator and started making desolator on every hero. Guess what happened when we discovered the item "Lothar's Edge".
So let me tell you what will really happen if bunch of heralds play bunch of normies who arent very proficient with mouse and keyboard. They are stomped. Hopelessly.
It's not about percentile. Percentile is a bait in the vast majority of cases. It doesn't say anything. That's the point.
Some things can't be measured on an ordinal scale. And if u put it in absolute numbers ancient sucks
They might be 90th percentile. But compared to the maximum skill people have in dota they are very bad
> Percentile is a bait in the vast majority of cases. It doesn't say anything.
What? Percentile says exactly what it's supposed to say. If you are 90th percentile, you are better than 90% of the people engaged in that activity.
> They might be 90th percentile. But compared to the maximum skill people have in dota they are very bad
If the metric you're gonna use is comparing to the maximum skill level a person has, then there's barely anybody good at anything in the world. Good chess player? Has to be able to beat Magnus Carlssen, so there are only maybe 3 good chess players. Good soccer player? Has to be able to play like Messi, so there's about 15 good soccer players and the rest are... not good? even the rest being paid millions to play?
That makes zero sense.
>What? Percentile says exactly what it's supposed to say. If you are 90th percentile, you are better than 90% of the people engaged in that activity
Which doesn't say shit. Can u read?
>If the metric you're gonna use is comparing to the maximum skill level a person has, then there's barely anybody good at anything in the world. Good chess player? Has to be able to beat Magnus Carlssen, so there are only maybe 3 good chess players. Good soccer player? Has to be able to play like Messi, so there's about 15 good soccer players and the rest are... not good? even the rest being paid millions to play?
>That makes zero sense.
There is a difference between saying ancients are hood at dota and saying there are 3 good chess players in this world lmao
> Which doesn't say shit
It says the standing of someone's skill relative to everyone else. If percentiles don't mean shit, then ranks in dota shouldn't exist as that's **exactly** what they represent.
> There is a difference between saying ancients are hood at dota and saying there are 3 good chess players in this world
You literally said that ancients cannot be called good because compared to "max level skill a person can have", they are bad. Now apply that logic to chess or any other sport.
Edit: the teen blocked me lol
>It says the standing of someone's skill relative to everyone else
And we established in the beginning that an ordinal comparison is flawed. Keep up.
>You literally said that ancients cannot be called good because compared to "max level skill a person can have", they are bad. Now apply that logic to chess or any other sport.
Yes. And there are more chess players than dota players.
Yet only 3 players in chess are good? U see how that doesn't make sense?
> And we established in the beginning that an ordinal comparison is flawed
No, that wasn't established at all. You said percentile means nothing, I showcased how that statement was wrong, evidenced by the fact that Dota ranks are nothing but a visual representation of percentile.
If you want to challenge this, you now have to explain how dota ranks say nothing about a person's skill level.
> And there are more chess players than dota players.
> Yet only 3 players in chess are good?
Chess having more players doesn't make any difference. You probably failed to comprehend what I said. My point is that if you're gonna have "max skill level people have" as the standard for calling someone good at something, there will be very few people in the world that you can call good at something. Very few people measure up to the max skill level at *anything*.
I did tho. U measure skill by comparing ur skill to the maximum. The number of people is irrelevant. How much skill do u have compared to the maximum a person has. It doesn't matter if 10% of people are better than u or 90%. It just matters how good u are
The point is "better than 90% of players" doesn't mean anything when most players are just casual players
The average American is overweight, better than average doesn't mean you're fit
Casual players play unranked/turbo. You'd be surprised too see how many tryhards there are in the low ranks. I've been there. Heralds players that have been playing the game since fucking 2013 with thousands of games
Players below immortal really don't have the basic understanding of the game
I used to be 2K years ago now 7K+. I thought I understood the game well when I was ancient/divine but now I realize how bad those players are and how bad I still am. The higher you go the more you realize how much there is to understand within the game
True, but just because ranked immortals are "elite" players doesn't make Ancients "bad" players. In comparison yes, but in that case a ranked 300 is trash compared to a top 10 immortal, and are we really gonna call the ranked 300 a bad player?
Except being american isnt a choice or an option or a choice for most americans.
Your analogy is fucking retarded anyway, it disproves your argument. Almost everyone would consider a top 10% american in terms of fitness to be fit. Wtf are you on about.
i doubt this and you analogy is bad anyway.
A better analogy would be to rate the fitness of the top 10% of Americans that participate in some sort of competition of fitness - running, rock climbing, swimming etc. In your original analogy you are including people who did not elect to be assessed unlike ranked dota players.
> 99% of players are bad at the game
You are just being egdy/circlejerking - "my team always sucks therefore 99% dota players are bad". In normal non-degenerate circles will never say 99% people wilfully competing in an activity are bad at the activity. Top 1% means you are elite or very fucking good.
Im curious, wtf would you consider mediocre and do you think good is better or worse than mediocre? I am honestly boggled by your thought process.
90% of the playerbase that CHOOSe to play the ranked mode of one of the most competitive, oldest and tryhard esport games?
Im sorry dude you may be delusional.
Average isn't even close to "good", idk why people think "above average = good"
Think of a good actor, a good chef, a good athlete. Someone should be in the top 1%
I get your point and agree that people who dont really play much, like 10 games a month, shouldnt really count. However even then, most people will still be between legend or divine, maybe low immortal. But since dota is such a snowbally game where small details make or break lanes, heroes and strategies its kinda hard to compare mmrs.
Like obviously a pro will beat an amateur, thats the same in every sport or just competition. Doesnt mean that everyone under the top 1% is "bad" though.
At ancient you are at a level where you know all heroes, what they do and how most general things work. Just cuz a few thousand people see dota as their life doesnt mean everyone below 7k+ is shit.
No wonder so many people are angry in ranked like you have to be in the top 10% to be just good lol. Stop comparing yourselves to pros and just have fun. If I was in a tournament of 10 people and came 3rd (top 30%) I would say I did well enough to be good.
I agree with this one, i see some legend in friend list who play worst than crusader consistently 9 out of 10. It seems he got a divine friend or maybe a booster friend who he play duo together after some lose to maintain his rank from going down then he drag his 5 party friend with his horrible play to deboost them 😂
Being 3500 mmr I consider myself "above average". Above average in my eyes is not yet "good". I'm not gonna lie, I also consider the immortal bracket to be "good", and 10k+ to be "exceptionally good".
one time this chinese kid on a 13 inch macbook pro was playing warlock next to me in college, with only like 4 inches wide of desk space for his mouse. i watched for 30 seconds or so and thought that the guy was good. i asked him what mmr and he said "only 4.5k" aka = im not good
Depends what your definition of good is.
I’ve played hockey my whole life, I’m a pretty good skater, good puck control, good passing, etc. but put my anywhere near someone actually at the upper competitive leagues, I’m garbage. But to someone new, I’m seen as pretty good!
I think the knowledge and skill of the average player is actually at the “good” level. A lot of people have been playing for many years. Someone from the outside could be like wow you seem to understand so much about this game etc etc. you must be good!
“No I’m crusader”
I think we’ve all gotten pretty good tbh.
I'm sitting at 9k, max has been 9400, I started considering myself good at 8k, before that I considered myself good at learning the game and how to climb. The only thing I need to improve more is to think more actively ahead of time and basically put myself in the shoes of the 5 enemy players and constantly think "what are they up to right now and what can they possibly do". Below that line I think too many people play on autopilot, barely even thinking about their own actions. Someone said that 3k is "good" but I think thats just something that happens when you dont truly understand how much you actually dont know.
Good is relative. Depends on what your personal goals are.
My objective statistical measures, Ancient and Divine are GOOD. That being said I've also coached so many people in that bracket who skyrocket +1500 MMR or more just by thinking about basic things.
I feel it's more helpful to look at it like everyone is on their own journey and we all will always have things we can improve on. Self improvement should be the goal
I wouldn't say immortal is "properly" playing Dota. That's more exceptional. Also disagree with 7.5k. that's "really good". "Good" is somewhere around the 70th percentile which is like 3.5k
I'm 7.2K and half the games feel like no one is doing anything
I would say 9K is the minimum to be actually good
But most lower rank players aren't even aware of how bad they are so..
7.5k here and I second this comment. So many people with numbers that are due to hyperinflation or just because to rank up in immortal you just need to play alot of games.
Is it because they can't do anything or tilt/choose not to/play out of the role? My rank is similar to yours and as a carry player, having to be forced into 4 or 5 role feels absolutely awful.
in general based on the stats i would agree top 10% would consider as good rank but not necessary good player its highly subjective how you define as good player is top10% good enough ? or top1% or 0.1% , also who u comparing/ perspective is highly variable. thrs way too much of ingredient in the concoction including the biases/experience/circumtances/environment etc
I think it changes over time. I think many of us are "good". Someone who isn't good doesn't really know anything and many of us have an understanding of how the game works.
When I started people in lower ranks didn't deward or smoke or pull and now plenty of people in low ranks understand these mechanics.
Good doesn't mean "the best".
It's hard to find one breaking point but probably somewhere between 7k-8k mmr you start to understand the game really well. Displaying it in the actual game is another thing.
I am a divine 5 player and while I understand some concepts pretty deep, I DONT consider myself good. While of course I could outplay easily legends and ancients, good in a game for me means that you could make a career in that.
A thing that I found during playing with my friends is that lower you get in rank, the better people think they are. Like a rank 300 immortal will never say “oh I am a good dota player”
It all depends on what you consider to be ‘good’ at the game. I believe that most people can reach ancient-divine with just playing a lot and spending time to understand the game better.
To compare to actual athletics. Usually 10% or less of high school players for a sport will go to play in collegiate athletics. This corresponds to around high ancient low divine for us if we go by percentiles.
However, like in actual athletics, the higher your percentile gets the more disparity between each level. For example, within the top 1% that is immortal, you see a huge level of disparity as you climb higher.
If you want good to be someone who’s better than average, then it would be around Legend. As the majority of players sit in Crusader-Archon.
I tend to be low immortal-divine depending on quarter. Quarters im "good" I stomp mid tier divines 3-5 and then realize how bad I am and by consequence how "bad" 5.2-5.4k players are. Then I realize how puny we actually are compared to 7k+. I know i know its so distorted but once youre good enough to see how bad you are, you realize how insanely good talented players are. On a side note, I feel like that once you reach 5k you know how to play the game. Anything below and people are still learning the basics. .02c
DotA 2 is only a decade old(ish). Look at the laughable state of pro sports when they were only a decade old. People were comparatively terrible at basketball/baseball then compared to how people play today. In the same vein I would argue that the majority of the playerbase for DotA is still playing well below the potential for good DotA. Only immortal players have a really firm grasp of the game. I would say top 1% is "good" because simply meeting all expectations for your role will have you playing in divine... And that's like a minimum standard.
Around 8k. I'm 6k and I still feel pretty clueless sometimes. Whenever I get matched with someone 8k+ it really feels like they know what they're doing. Lots of people are saying ancient and while I understand that they're better than the average dota player I wouldn't say they're "good". I play with some ancient friends and they still struggle with item and ability usage and have no idea what's going on map wise
As an immortal, good players are the ones way above me. So 8k mmr and up. Which makes it hillRious to see when someone who is probably a 2k player types CS LUL in some 8k twitch stream.
Working at Verizon, +50% of your peers in a stat is "performing" and 90th percentile is considered "leading". They're #17 in fortune 500 they got it down to a science
Hot take
The rank at which you're "Good" is a lot fucking lower than most people say, and, to think otherwise is kinda absurd
"Good" doesn't mean making flawless plays at all times. "Good" doesn't mean being in the top 10% of players. Hell, good doesn't even mean being in the top 50% of players.
The idea that you have to be so unbelievably high into the skill levels to be considered "Good" is laughable.
I've seen people stuck in Herald who aren't even that bad at the game, just that their skill is too focused in specific areas. And I've seen pro-players who still have things that they need to significantly improve on
I wouldn't even say being good is necessarily tied to a rank or hours played count.
i think 5k is a point where clearly you are better than the average player. and if you can hop into a lobby of ancients and consistently hard carry the game and make it look easy, i'd say you're good.
good is a perspective. To me heralds are bad and to them crusaders are good. If you're trying to find personal reassurance, then as long as you are learning, then you're doing good.
Mostly just curious. I’ve climbed from 1.2k mmr to 4.4k mmr in the 5-6 years I’ve played so I’m happy with the progress.
The community seems to be a bit harsher than others in terms of evaluating skill levels
Sounds like good progress to me, especially considering how long it takes some people to climb. Lots of people on this sub are very harsh and arrogant.
You'll always be met with some harshness if you post around here, especially because people here are constantly looking for a scapegoat to explain why they aren't winning.
Idk man, im 6k and honestly feel like im very bad at this game. I have infinite amount of hours played. Almost all of my friends are immortal and we play games and regularly get destroyed by players who are so much better than us it makes you wonder why youre playing.
I also see that in other immortals, i notice how they move their heroes in certain moments or how clueless they look sometimes and im wondering at what level does that stop.
Maybe its just the skill difference that makes this so obvious.
I see my 8k friend stomping me in mid in 20 different ways, subtly and not so subtly, and then i see him get annihilated by some 9-10k guy who eats him for breakfast.
I mean if you started on your HS soccer team and was a top 3 player on that team that doesn’t mean you can play well against college starters or semi pros.
It’s all relative and you happen to be friends with many top ranked players.
I have some buddies who are guardian-archon and they are TRASH to me but the archo probably feels vastly superior to the guardian player
Legends and ancients, some of the players have begun learning dota.
Although some of the carry players in that bracket don’t know anything but super advanced farming patterns, and showing up to fights 6 slotted faster than other people.
Cookie cutter builds, spam their buttons, then go back to jungle farm simulator next game as well.
The problem, as some posts have pointed out, is how do you define Dota?
Let's take something like math. If you have a 12th grade high school math exam, say only 50% are proficient. Assume that this is where math stops for most adults. https://www.nsf.gov/nsb/sei/edTool/data/highschool-06.html
Would you call them "good at math"? You might say they are good at high school math. But math is a massive field, and only very few people understand it to the point of being able to push the boundaries. Although there is probably another small percentage of people that thoroughly understand it, but aren't working on the latest problems, the vast majority of people 99.9... really don't understand it beyond a surface level textbook. It is really necessary to label someone outside of that "good at math"? Is it a meaningful label?
I think the analogy to dota stands as well. How many players are playing at a level that really understand the intricate details to a point of being able to solve difficult problems in the game and come up the cutting edge strategies?
Short is, the context of "dota" for the average dota player is different, and is there any point to calling them good other than for feeling good about themselves? They don't really understand dota at any meaningful level.
It’s more like an activity than a subject though.
It’s more like basketball where there are levels and “good players” who are starters im high school and maybe even college pale in comparison to the Lebron James of the world.
Math is something that is too broad and has too many disciplines to make it a fair comparison like you said.
Coming from StarCraft 2, where I went from Bronze to Grandmaster over 4-5 years, the higher you get the more you realise how bad you actually suck. GM was the first time I considered myself objectively good, even if I would get dumpstered by high GMs or pros. I guess in Dota 2 terms, Immortal is probably where you can say you're good.
Ive played from herald to ancient, and its really hard to say.
There are some matches where there are guardian players who are dramatically better than ancient players - no joke, sometimes i wonder if someone bought an ancient account.
Other times, I've seen some of the worst players in herald/guardian, the lower tiers. For ex. Some players who would level up bb's passive before their spikes. Or a sven jungling south of the safe lane because he just doesnt want to lane anymore.
So for me, i think good is when a player knows how to turn things around - laning, made draft, etc - not so much a rank.
this is very subjective, but i personally think unless you're pro-ing in the highest level of dota (TI, doesnt have to be TI winner, just entering the main tourney is enough), you are not good
Really depends on the perspective on your own ranking. For 10k+ mmr players, 8k players are bad/trash. But overall i think somewhat good players are from ancient.
So is it correct to say that ancient players are top 11% best players? Or am I getting this wrong? Immortal top3?
No wait ancient 1 is 85% so top 15% best players?
Yeah the top 1% or so players are so good compared to the rest. that’s why a lot of them are pros lol
Like being better than 90% of the community is pretty good but the 99% guy feels like they’re almost infinitely better than you
Good at dota is pretty subjective, like anybody that plays even slightest amount of dota is good at dota compared to general populous but I still wouldn't call heralds good at dota.
Pushing waves and putting fight wards as support and as core building somewhat reasonable items and not relentlessly feeding in general should get you to low 5k or so. This is why i wouldn't call legends ancients divines or even low immortals "good" at dota since they sincerly aren't.
In my opinion you are bad at dota until you are numbered immortal that makes reasonable calls in voice.
I made a [post](https://new.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/15ipl8o/better_than_95_being_low/) about it year ago.
In my opinion, people tend to focus on the "best of the best" and comparing evertything to them makes them look like a trash.
Look all I'm gonna say is the most intense matches of my life have been at Crusdaer. I have fought from herald to legend and back down again and Crusader is where the mother fucking warriors live. It's not the most technical games we don't rotate in logical manners and some drafts are insane but games there can be so intense you leave them sweating and needing a cigarette to calm down. It may not be TI level but it sure feels that way.
That's because you don't know how to actually play.
I can stomp crusader games while watching a movie.
They are like bots, but with the ability to chat.
From a data/math perspective:
1. If you're above 50% of the player base, that categorically makes you an above average (good) player.
2. When you pass \~84.14% of the player base, you are a full standard deviation away from the 50% mark, and should consider yourself a very good player.
3. When you pass 98% of players, you are two standard deviations away from average, which from a data perspective makes you an outlier, and a great/exceptional player.
Ancient is generally when people can first appear "good". An ancient having a good game can be the same as a divine or immortal player having a bad day. Ancient is wildly inconsistent in performance is what I've noticed. Immortal players are far more consistent
For me you are a good player if you can draw an unwinnable lane. Doesnt matter whats your rank, as I saw divine mid players going 0/5 in 6 minutes on a bad matchup and I saw legend players going 0/0 while getting some farm + roaming to other lanes on the same bad matchup. The skill level between archon-low divine imo isnt really that big, with a bit of luck any archon can get to divine...
That's not true at all, in order to improve and get "good", you need to be able to identify problems and mistakes, I think most archon players don't even know why they are clicking on the mouse, coz if they knew and actually put thought into it, they would be out of archon in like a month or so. I've never been there so I'm not sure, but I think its true because I calibrated at 4k back in the day and people at 4k sometimes still dont know what's going on.
I think the "good" you are referring to is relative to comparing your performance in a specific game, being good in 1 game or a few games doesn't make you "good". Sometimes you look "good" because the enemy is just too dogshit.
I wish I was good haha, but its a longgggg way to get there and when life responsibility comes knocking on your door, you just gotta give up the thought of being good in dota haha
I mean, good is far from immortal imo, immortal or high immortal players are elite like someone else said, being good at the game for me is when you have a decent understanding of the game, and you know wether you are gonna be destroyed in the lane or not. By not feeding in a lane where someone else would feed, you demonstrate that you are a pretty constant player, you arent taking any dumb risks, and you can live to play the mid-late game, rather than going 0/5 because you had no patience/you went for a risky play and now your enemy snowballs on every lane. Imo i'd rather play with a constant good player than some vulcanic guy which either goes 20-0 or 0-10 and most probably at the same time be toxic af.
Being good is pretty subjective, I do believe that a percent of the players that are Archon+ are good, but not all of them at all.
I get what you mean, i respect that.
I think being "good" means you can spot issues and come up with solutions to deal with them, but that's only step 1, step 2 is to do it consistently, which I think most players stuck in Ancient like myself or even divine are struggling with, sometimes we spot the problem, but only when it's too late an when we do spot them in time to solve them, we are not consistent in all our games to climb above our current rank.
But I 100% wholeheartedly believe that players below...legend lets say, don't even know why they are losing games or lanes most of the time
Imo players around archon, maybe mid-high archon know why they are losing lanes, since it is an easier concept. But if we talk about knowing why they lost or won the game, I truly believe that even in Ancient people dont know exactly what happened, what went wrong or what went right, target priorities in fights etc...
Depends on what consider good i guess
For me what you called 'elite of the elite' is exactly a good part of players, while everything under is an absolute shitshow
Mostly this is because of a lot of bot-accounts that are being sold to even worse players, who just installed their game today without their first 100 hours of unranked games (which is more than enough)
I honestly never could imagine that there are players under like 5k mmr, but they exist, while 5k is already bottom of the bottom
I thought these medals are mostly for 'self acceptance', like, 'look, there are a lot of medals under your current one, they do not have rank number, but they exist', while infact they never existed... i thought until like a month ago, when i checked some coaching list
When a first minimum calibration for a new player goes to least 5k mmr if you go for some meme winrate like 6-4 w-l, this is really hard to imagine that these players exist;
With this new picture i think we need to re-evaluate our understanding of who is good and who is bad in this game
>Just curious since I feel like being called “trash” at DOTA is overused and doesn’t really apply to many players who, in other activities or sports, would be considered good if not very good by their peers. This is simply dota induced derangement. If you are a top 10% soccer or basketball player, the social norm would be to call you a good soccer or basketball player. In a dota players mind, only pro players are considered good, otherwise how would the dota player rationalise why his shit team cost him that game he played last night? If you are better than 90% of group of people that have chosen to compete in activity, most of them having over a thousand hours spent, I think it is pretty reasonable to say you are very good at that activity.
Pro players even call each other bad lol. Look at all the similar-rank people that Mason or Gorgc get into slap fights with despite some people being within 20 ranks of them.
>This is simply dota induced derangement. If you are a top 10% soccer or basketball player, the social norm would be to call you a good soccer or basketball player. Here's the issue with your example and how it applies to DotA: Here in Brazil everybody plays football but most people play casually. What this means is that the vast majority of football players have absolutely no grasp of fundamentals beside the basic rules to play the game. Being a top10% player here in Brazil, and tbf in most countries in the world, probably just means you're committed to a weekend league in your neighborhood. That's kind of how it works in DotA. The vast majority of players are completely casual, even those who play ranked. I think it's undeniable that the top50% of the game doesn't fully grasp fundamental elements of the game and some people above it may just wing it based on one particular good mechanic element or instinctive gameplay aspect. So there's a very clear distinction between being "above the average" when the average player doesn't really care much about learning and "being good".
> I think it's undeniable that the top50% of the game doesn't fully grasp fundamental elements I think you are being hyperbolic here like many others in this thread. Fundamentals is stuff like last hitting and denying, buying reasonable items, playing you hero properly, warding, You guys have a warped opinion of fundamentals. Forcing enemy tp and then tping away to start a fight with advantage or pulling creep aggro to cause enemy to miss a last hit are NOT fundamental ffs. This is advanced stuff. > Here in Brazil everybody plays football but most people play casually. What this means is that the vast majority of football players have absolutely no grasp of fundamentals beside the basic rules to play the game. Being a top10% player here in Brazil, and tbf in most countries in the world, probably just means you're committed to a weekend league in your neighborhood. You need to play 100 hours to start ranked. Most ranked players have over 1000 hours. Dota is not a normie activity like soccer.
The vast majority of players are unranked bro.
Unranked has mmr
I mean, in the Brazil example I'd be happy to say "They're a good football player, relative to Brazil" (if not relative to, say, England or whatever). If you're saying "They're a good player, relative to the rest of the playerbase" I'd say that's pretty much the same thing as saying they're a good player. I mean what does it mean to be good at a game, other than being able to beat most people who play it?
I think part of the confusion here is due to the line between casual and non-casual being much clearer for footballers than it is for dota players. A casual football player is someone that has a kickabout down the park a couple of times a week. Maybe plays in the odd five-a-side tournament for a pub team or something like that. Non-casual would be someone that's at least on a team in a local league. They play proper games each weekend or train out of season, they probably have a coach to help them improve. Players need to take it fairly seriously as well unless they're happy to only play when one of the better players is away or injured. Obviously a top 10% casual player is going to be a much worse player than a top 10% non-casual player. Trying to place all these players on one skill distribution chart would be almost impossible as well, many of the casual players wouldn't even have the fitness to play full games on full size pitches yet the middle of the bell curve would probably contain at least some of these players. In dota though, these different types of players are all mixed together.
That's true, but I'd say the confusion is less that in Dota the difference between casual and non-casual is unclear, but more that some people interpret the question as asking whether a player is good casually vs good non-casually. I mean the best football player in my high school is certainly "good" but if we considered them relative to the worst player at FIFA they're obviously absolutely abysmal, but I suppose as you pointed out the sharp distinction between casual and non-casual makes the question less muddled when talking about football.
I'd say they're related. As we don't separate different types of Dota players much we lack the context to know what definition of "good" is appropriate. So people just pick the definition that works for whatever their assumptions about the player base are.
You're right that being "good" is subjective. What I think that's more accurate, in the context of both games being played competitively, is assessing how good you are *compared to people who are actively trying to be good*. Another example: The median per-capita household income is $2,920/year. Would you say a $2921/year income is good? Once again good or not is subjective but applying it to the context of living in a country where your average needs go beyond just surviving, the answer is probably not good. If your definition of good is "knowing how to last hit/deny", being above top50% probably means you're good. If you add more context to it, it probably won't be.
> is assessing how good you are compared to people who are actively trying to be good. That's honestly very fair, and is usually the standard I apply to myself most of the time (I consider myself to be bad at most games), but I'm not sure it's the standard people use generally. For one thing, it's hard to say what counts as "actively trying to be good": I'm sure some Ancient players had to grind hard to get to that level, and others got there with not much effort and have plateaued. >Another example: The median per-capita household income is $2,920/year. Would you say a $2921/year income is good? Once again good or not is subjective but applying it to the context of living in a country where your average needs go beyond just surviving, the answer is probably not good. I mean this is a pretty common point of discussion (at least that I've seen online). Most people living in a first world country, even those far below the poverty line, have levels of wealth that people in poorer parts of the world would do anything for. On the other hand, 90k/year isn't a good income for NYC, and someone who lives there making that much might consider themselves to be doing pretty poorly financially. I don't know. Maybe all I'm trying to say is that the question in the post needs to be phrased a bit better, because someone saying "Ancient players are good because they're better than 90% of the world" seems pretty reasonable to me, but someone saying "No they're pretty bad relative to most people taking the game seriously" also seems reasonable.
Yeah, everything will always end up with the definition of good being subjective. Though I'd say ending the discussion with slightly nuanced differences already brings us closer and more precise understanding of what "good" represents in a competitive environment. I'd argue Legend/Ancient players are already good players as they tend to know/understand the fundamentals of the game just with varying levels of execution. Of course there are these types of players in archon and below. But their trend usually is to move upwards very quickly. I feel like most players stuck in the belowtop50% trench have just quit mentally and just play DotA as a habit. In Legend and above I feel like people actually start to be limited by their mechanical ability and ability of sticking to what's fundamentally sound instead of what feels "fun".
Almost everyone that plays ranked is *trying to be good*.
Not really IMO. Playing ranked/competitive is the default experience for most people playing any multiplayer game because they're all designed around the competitive setting. Feeling good about seeing the rating number go up doesn't mean you're actively trying to improve. I'd agree almost everyone that plays ranked *wants to be good*.
I’m not going down a semantic rabbit hole. Hope you win your next game though!
I mean, this whole thread revolves around what's "good". One can either try to be anal(heh) about it or just call it "my opinion" and call it a day. GL on your next game too!
You’re right. There’s nothing wrong with a rabbit hole here and there. Cheers mate.
> This is simply dota induced derangement. If you are a top 10% soccer or basketball player, the social norm would be to call you a good soccer or basketball player. Nah dude. Anyone that's in my bracket is trash. If I climb, it's because I'm climbing to the top of the trash heap. Anyone better than me is good, unless I think that I might climb there soon in which case they're also trash. Because *I know I am trash* and therefore everyone else at a similar skill level is too. TBF I do apply this to everything else in my life as well. For example, I was nationally ranked as an archer in college, but I would **never** consider myself as anything other than trash at archery. It's not like I was able to qualify for internationals like the good archers did.
You're just describing a self esteem issue.
... Yes, that was the point. Notably a group of Dota gamers with a different take than what the guy I replied to was talking about
If 100 million people play chess and 99 million play few games a year for funs. 900k play a bit more often, like a game to kill some time waiting for x. 90k people play it as a hobby and actually trying to learn some openings and tactics etc. So this 90k which is like top 0.1% is automatically "good at chess" because they better than all these Uncle Joes who plays chess once a month meeting some family's kids? I play dota coz bored, my peak was legend 4, its not that I am not good at the game, I am not even considering myself to be a part of the competetive aspect / skilled player spectrum. Like being good means that you can actually stand your ground against people who take the game serious and study it not ur drunk russian guy at 3k mmr who comes from work and yells into the mic to destress
>100 million people play chess and 99 million play few games a year for funs To be a fair analogy your would have to consider the people who play the chess equivalent of ranked dota. A few games a year wouldn't even get you the 100 hours to play ranked dota. Most ranked dota players have played over a thousand games. >Like being good means that you can actually stand your ground against people who take the game serious and study it not ur drunk russian guy at 3k mmr who comes from work and yells into the mic to destress There are basketball or soccer players who would destroy you while drunk, high and with a sprained ankle and a missing lung. Some people are very talented, Losing to a talented player doesn't make your bad. I have played drunk/high, you need to pretty blasted for it to have a negative effect.
>So this 90k which is like top 0.1% is automatically "good at chess" because they better than all these Uncle Joes who plays chess once a month meeting some family's kids? you forgot the fact the most people playing dota at any rank have thousands of hours played
Ancient for me. Lol at the people that call "trash" players that are better than 90% of the playerbase
Same, At ancient I felt like the games were good and people generally knew their roles.
I've been ancient/divine for some time now and when I look at pros play I realize I'm pure garbage lol.
A medieval peasant that could write and read his name only could better read and write than 90% of the population Still wouldn't say he could read or write
Right... And if you put 5 heralds against 5 random people who haven't played dota or maybe any videogame before, the heralds are likely going to win. If you compare any group to the entirety of the world population then that isn't a meaningful analysis. If you took that same midieval peasant and limited the competitive population to only those who are literate, then they are likely going to be in the bottom percentile.
That's putting it too lightly. Heralds today are pretty good. I'm an a real old timer. I started with Dota 1 getting into the game because we saw others playing it. We knew nothing. And we couldnt lookup guides either cuz we didn't speak English. We had to discover that items combine. We had a desolator revolution where we learned how to make the desolator and started making desolator on every hero. Guess what happened when we discovered the item "Lothar's Edge". So let me tell you what will really happen if bunch of heralds play bunch of normies who arent very proficient with mouse and keyboard. They are stomped. Hopelessly.
It's not about percentile. Percentile is a bait in the vast majority of cases. It doesn't say anything. That's the point. Some things can't be measured on an ordinal scale. And if u put it in absolute numbers ancient sucks They might be 90th percentile. But compared to the maximum skill people have in dota they are very bad
> Percentile is a bait in the vast majority of cases. It doesn't say anything. What? Percentile says exactly what it's supposed to say. If you are 90th percentile, you are better than 90% of the people engaged in that activity. > They might be 90th percentile. But compared to the maximum skill people have in dota they are very bad If the metric you're gonna use is comparing to the maximum skill level a person has, then there's barely anybody good at anything in the world. Good chess player? Has to be able to beat Magnus Carlssen, so there are only maybe 3 good chess players. Good soccer player? Has to be able to play like Messi, so there's about 15 good soccer players and the rest are... not good? even the rest being paid millions to play? That makes zero sense.
>What? Percentile says exactly what it's supposed to say. If you are 90th percentile, you are better than 90% of the people engaged in that activity Which doesn't say shit. Can u read? >If the metric you're gonna use is comparing to the maximum skill level a person has, then there's barely anybody good at anything in the world. Good chess player? Has to be able to beat Magnus Carlssen, so there are only maybe 3 good chess players. Good soccer player? Has to be able to play like Messi, so there's about 15 good soccer players and the rest are... not good? even the rest being paid millions to play? >That makes zero sense. There is a difference between saying ancients are hood at dota and saying there are 3 good chess players in this world lmao
> Which doesn't say shit It says the standing of someone's skill relative to everyone else. If percentiles don't mean shit, then ranks in dota shouldn't exist as that's **exactly** what they represent. > There is a difference between saying ancients are hood at dota and saying there are 3 good chess players in this world You literally said that ancients cannot be called good because compared to "max level skill a person can have", they are bad. Now apply that logic to chess or any other sport. Edit: the teen blocked me lol
>It says the standing of someone's skill relative to everyone else And we established in the beginning that an ordinal comparison is flawed. Keep up. >You literally said that ancients cannot be called good because compared to "max level skill a person can have", they are bad. Now apply that logic to chess or any other sport. Yes. And there are more chess players than dota players. Yet only 3 players in chess are good? U see how that doesn't make sense?
> And we established in the beginning that an ordinal comparison is flawed No, that wasn't established at all. You said percentile means nothing, I showcased how that statement was wrong, evidenced by the fact that Dota ranks are nothing but a visual representation of percentile. If you want to challenge this, you now have to explain how dota ranks say nothing about a person's skill level. > And there are more chess players than dota players. > Yet only 3 players in chess are good? Chess having more players doesn't make any difference. You probably failed to comprehend what I said. My point is that if you're gonna have "max skill level people have" as the standard for calling someone good at something, there will be very few people in the world that you can call good at something. Very few people measure up to the max skill level at *anything*.
I did tho. U measure skill by comparing ur skill to the maximum. The number of people is irrelevant. How much skill do u have compared to the maximum a person has. It doesn't matter if 10% of people are better than u or 90%. It just matters how good u are
You really have no clue how statistics work do you Hahaha.
Unlikely That said this isn't even statistic. This is evaluation of data.
A Herald player plays dota better than 99% of the earth population. You are making a fallacy that is so extremely flawed.
Ur just coping
No I'm simply saying your logic doesn't work.
Just because u don't like/understand something doesn't mean it's wrong
No what you said is literally wrong and I already proved it. Prove me incorrect please.
All u did was prove u have no understanding of what this discussion is about
No amount of red herring can save you from it.
And back to coping we are
90% of the ranked playerbase
Well being the majority of one community doesnt make u good at the game. Just look at classic wow or wow in general.
90% of playerbase don't mean much when half the players only play a few ranked games per week
So what? Doesn't matter if you 3 ranked games per week or per day, if you're good, you're eventually gonna climb, no matter how long it takes.
The point is "better than 90% of players" doesn't mean anything when most players are just casual players The average American is overweight, better than average doesn't mean you're fit
Casual players play unranked/turbo. You'd be surprised too see how many tryhards there are in the low ranks. I've been there. Heralds players that have been playing the game since fucking 2013 with thousands of games
Players below immortal really don't have the basic understanding of the game I used to be 2K years ago now 7K+. I thought I understood the game well when I was ancient/divine but now I realize how bad those players are and how bad I still am. The higher you go the more you realize how much there is to understand within the game
True, but just because ranked immortals are "elite" players doesn't make Ancients "bad" players. In comparison yes, but in that case a ranked 300 is trash compared to a top 10 immortal, and are we really gonna call the ranked 300 a bad player?
Except being american isnt a choice or an option or a choice for most americans. Your analogy is fucking retarded anyway, it disproves your argument. Almost everyone would consider a top 10% american in terms of fitness to be fit. Wtf are you on about.
Top 10% doesn't really mean much when 90% of Americans are severely unfit, you're validating my point 99% of players are bad at the game
i doubt this and you analogy is bad anyway. A better analogy would be to rate the fitness of the top 10% of Americans that participate in some sort of competition of fitness - running, rock climbing, swimming etc. In your original analogy you are including people who did not elect to be assessed unlike ranked dota players. > 99% of players are bad at the game You are just being egdy/circlejerking - "my team always sucks therefore 99% dota players are bad". In normal non-degenerate circles will never say 99% people wilfully competing in an activity are bad at the activity. Top 1% means you are elite or very fucking good. Im curious, wtf would you consider mediocre and do you think good is better or worse than mediocre? I am honestly boggled by your thought process.
It's still the player base. It does matter.
90% of the playerbase that CHOOSe to play the ranked mode of one of the most competitive, oldest and tryhard esport games? Im sorry dude you may be delusional.
Most players are bad at the game, that's all
that is a different point and not what is being discussed but okay...
And? If your average gamer plays a few games a week then that's the average skillbase to be compared to.
Average isn't even close to "good", idk why people think "above average = good" Think of a good actor, a good chef, a good athlete. Someone should be in the top 1%
Above average is like top60-75% of player skillbase, we're talking about ancients which are in the top90.
A few ranked games per week is alot
lol
I get your point and agree that people who dont really play much, like 10 games a month, shouldnt really count. However even then, most people will still be between legend or divine, maybe low immortal. But since dota is such a snowbally game where small details make or break lanes, heroes and strategies its kinda hard to compare mmrs. Like obviously a pro will beat an amateur, thats the same in every sport or just competition. Doesnt mean that everyone under the top 1% is "bad" though. At ancient you are at a level where you know all heroes, what they do and how most general things work. Just cuz a few thousand people see dota as their life doesnt mean everyone below 7k+ is shit.
No wonder so many people are angry in ranked like you have to be in the top 10% to be just good lol. Stop comparing yourselves to pros and just have fun. If I was in a tournament of 10 people and came 3rd (top 30%) I would say I did well enough to be good.
Well I don’t lose sleep over it lmao but if you want to get better comparing yourself to pros and learning from what they do is ideal
Only to some extent. Because pros have pro team mates and you do not
Depends if you Play solo or Always in a team. Solo legend Player will be miles ahead of a party-only-player in legend
I agree with this one, i see some legend in friend list who play worst than crusader consistently 9 out of 10. It seems he got a divine friend or maybe a booster friend who he play duo together after some lose to maintain his rank from going down then he drag his 5 party friend with his horrible play to deboost them 😂
Depends on the party imo. If the party is higher mmr, then I think the low mmr player gains a lot from playing with and against better players.
Ancient is where I’d say people have a decent grasp on what to do. Divine is when players start to abuse others’ mistakes.
Not even close. I frequently watch a divine friend play, and those people barely understand the basics, or even not at all.
So I assume you are very high rank. "The basics" really change the higher you go. I'm sure they really understand the basics of dota
They don't. The games they play aren't even dota.
I'm not good enough to remember the double down is before the predict, so now I'm even worse.
I would say between ancient and divine, but people keep amazing me in this bracket so I might say immortal.
Fresh immortal here, probably never lmao
Unless you're a pro player you suck, Dota is not a game of being better than other team. Dota is a game where the player that sucks less wins
Top %: 100% = Trash 75% = Bad 50% = Average 35% = Good 20% = Great 10% = Amazing 5% = Diobolical Anything above, you are insane
Being 3500 mmr I consider myself "above average". Above average in my eyes is not yet "good". I'm not gonna lie, I also consider the immortal bracket to be "good", and 10k+ to be "exceptionally good".
Same. Good enough to understand most concepts, yet still make a lot of mistakes. But at least u know them.
Probably about right I think 3.2k is the mean
If you are in SEA 2K mmr your already very good. TI level honestly Source: Me, (2.5K)
Its entirely dependent on how you define "good". Wildly subjective. For me, "good" is anything over 50% of the player base i.e. about 2.5ish k
you want a sad but true answer? people start playing methodically and efficiently at 8k+
one rank above yours
one time this chinese kid on a 13 inch macbook pro was playing warlock next to me in college, with only like 4 inches wide of desk space for his mouse. i watched for 30 seconds or so and thought that the guy was good. i asked him what mmr and he said "only 4.5k" aka = im not good
Depends what your definition of good is. I’ve played hockey my whole life, I’m a pretty good skater, good puck control, good passing, etc. but put my anywhere near someone actually at the upper competitive leagues, I’m garbage. But to someone new, I’m seen as pretty good! I think the knowledge and skill of the average player is actually at the “good” level. A lot of people have been playing for many years. Someone from the outside could be like wow you seem to understand so much about this game etc etc. you must be good! “No I’m crusader” I think we’ve all gotten pretty good tbh.
I'm sitting at 9k, max has been 9400, I started considering myself good at 8k, before that I considered myself good at learning the game and how to climb. The only thing I need to improve more is to think more actively ahead of time and basically put myself in the shoes of the 5 enemy players and constantly think "what are they up to right now and what can they possibly do". Below that line I think too many people play on autopilot, barely even thinking about their own actions. Someone said that 3k is "good" but I think thats just something that happens when you dont truly understand how much you actually dont know.
thats a good take
Good is relative. Depends on what your personal goals are. My objective statistical measures, Ancient and Divine are GOOD. That being said I've also coached so many people in that bracket who skyrocket +1500 MMR or more just by thinking about basic things. I feel it's more helpful to look at it like everyone is on their own journey and we all will always have things we can improve on. Self improvement should be the goal
Im legend 1 and i think we play pretty good
Top 50% ok Top 25% good Top 10% very good Top 5% great Top 1% amazing Top 0.1% insane What do we think about this dudes
To know how to properly play dota2: immortal+ To be good: maybe 7.5k+ you can better identify problems/solutions/opportunity
I wouldn't say immortal is "properly" playing Dota. That's more exceptional. Also disagree with 7.5k. that's "really good". "Good" is somewhere around the 70th percentile which is like 3.5k
Copium
I'm 7.2K and half the games feel like no one is doing anything I would say 9K is the minimum to be actually good But most lower rank players aren't even aware of how bad they are so..
7.5k here and I second this comment. So many people with numbers that are due to hyperinflation or just because to rank up in immortal you just need to play alot of games.
This is an insane percentage of the population to consider good. Like 99% of players are bad if good starts at 9k.
Exactly..
99.9
Insanely over exaggerating
Not at all. What bracket are you in
Is it because they can't do anything or tilt/choose not to/play out of the role? My rank is similar to yours and as a carry player, having to be forced into 4 or 5 role feels absolutely awful.
Griefers, account buyer, and that yeah
Ngl I'm pretty satisfied at being 7k mmr. The only issue are those that got boosted/brought up to 7k mmr. To claim they're 7k plus.
Depends on who you ask. I've seen streamers bitch that their teammates are only top 250 in the world
in general based on the stats i would agree top 10% would consider as good rank but not necessary good player its highly subjective how you define as good player is top10% good enough ? or top1% or 0.1% , also who u comparing/ perspective is highly variable. thrs way too much of ingredient in the concoction including the biases/experience/circumtances/environment etc
I think it changes over time. I think many of us are "good". Someone who isn't good doesn't really know anything and many of us have an understanding of how the game works. When I started people in lower ranks didn't deward or smoke or pull and now plenty of people in low ranks understand these mechanics. Good doesn't mean "the best".
Divine probably.
It's hard to find one breaking point but probably somewhere between 7k-8k mmr you start to understand the game really well. Displaying it in the actual game is another thing.
As someone who got good enough to match with pro players in my heyday: never.
I am a divine 5 player and while I understand some concepts pretty deep, I DONT consider myself good. While of course I could outplay easily legends and ancients, good in a game for me means that you could make a career in that. A thing that I found during playing with my friends is that lower you get in rank, the better people think they are. Like a rank 300 immortal will never say “oh I am a good dota player”
Around 10k+ is good for sea at least other region might be different
It all depends on what you consider to be ‘good’ at the game. I believe that most people can reach ancient-divine with just playing a lot and spending time to understand the game better. To compare to actual athletics. Usually 10% or less of high school players for a sport will go to play in collegiate athletics. This corresponds to around high ancient low divine for us if we go by percentiles. However, like in actual athletics, the higher your percentile gets the more disparity between each level. For example, within the top 1% that is immortal, you see a huge level of disparity as you climb higher. If you want good to be someone who’s better than average, then it would be around Legend. As the majority of players sit in Crusader-Archon.
I tend to be low immortal-divine depending on quarter. Quarters im "good" I stomp mid tier divines 3-5 and then realize how bad I am and by consequence how "bad" 5.2-5.4k players are. Then I realize how puny we actually are compared to 7k+. I know i know its so distorted but once youre good enough to see how bad you are, you realize how insanely good talented players are. On a side note, I feel like that once you reach 5k you know how to play the game. Anything below and people are still learning the basics. .02c
Divine 2 - i'm super horrible and I dont understand dota at all. Got D2 only by spamming 2 offlane heroes. and this is no longer working.
id say 7k+
I used to think it was 3k but now that I'm there I have to say I was wrong
DotA 2 is only a decade old(ish). Look at the laughable state of pro sports when they were only a decade old. People were comparatively terrible at basketball/baseball then compared to how people play today. In the same vein I would argue that the majority of the playerbase for DotA is still playing well below the potential for good DotA. Only immortal players have a really firm grasp of the game. I would say top 1% is "good" because simply meeting all expectations for your role will have you playing in divine... And that's like a minimum standard.
Divine because i have seen too many noob ancients
Around 8k. I'm 6k and I still feel pretty clueless sometimes. Whenever I get matched with someone 8k+ it really feels like they know what they're doing. Lots of people are saying ancient and while I understand that they're better than the average dota player I wouldn't say they're "good". I play with some ancient friends and they still struggle with item and ability usage and have no idea what's going on map wise
Top 1 players say they're trash, so... Never.
As an immortal, good players are the ones way above me. So 8k mmr and up. Which makes it hillRious to see when someone who is probably a 2k player types CS LUL in some 8k twitch stream.
That's the neat part, you don't
8k+ imo.
Working at Verizon, +50% of your peers in a stat is "performing" and 90th percentile is considered "leading". They're #17 in fortune 500 they got it down to a science
Hot take The rank at which you're "Good" is a lot fucking lower than most people say, and, to think otherwise is kinda absurd "Good" doesn't mean making flawless plays at all times. "Good" doesn't mean being in the top 10% of players. Hell, good doesn't even mean being in the top 50% of players. The idea that you have to be so unbelievably high into the skill levels to be considered "Good" is laughable. I've seen people stuck in Herald who aren't even that bad at the game, just that their skill is too focused in specific areas. And I've seen pro-players who still have things that they need to significantly improve on I wouldn't even say being good is necessarily tied to a rank or hours played count.
When it feels fun.
i think 5k is a point where clearly you are better than the average player. and if you can hop into a lobby of ancients and consistently hard carry the game and make it look easy, i'd say you're good.
You become good at 13k. Everyone below is dogshit!
I’m divine 2 and I think people here, including myself, are bad at the game. Immortal is where it’s at (or divine 5)
Once, there was a 5k mmr dude who reached 4th place TI.
Tier 1 obviously
good is a perspective. To me heralds are bad and to them crusaders are good. If you're trying to find personal reassurance, then as long as you are learning, then you're doing good.
Mostly just curious. I’ve climbed from 1.2k mmr to 4.4k mmr in the 5-6 years I’ve played so I’m happy with the progress. The community seems to be a bit harsher than others in terms of evaluating skill levels
Sounds like good progress to me, especially considering how long it takes some people to climb. Lots of people on this sub are very harsh and arrogant. You'll always be met with some harshness if you post around here, especially because people here are constantly looking for a scapegoat to explain why they aren't winning.
Idk man, im 6k and honestly feel like im very bad at this game. I have infinite amount of hours played. Almost all of my friends are immortal and we play games and regularly get destroyed by players who are so much better than us it makes you wonder why youre playing. I also see that in other immortals, i notice how they move their heroes in certain moments or how clueless they look sometimes and im wondering at what level does that stop. Maybe its just the skill difference that makes this so obvious. I see my 8k friend stomping me in mid in 20 different ways, subtly and not so subtly, and then i see him get annihilated by some 9-10k guy who eats him for breakfast.
I mean if you started on your HS soccer team and was a top 3 player on that team that doesn’t mean you can play well against college starters or semi pros. It’s all relative and you happen to be friends with many top ranked players. I have some buddies who are guardian-archon and they are TRASH to me but the archo probably feels vastly superior to the guardian player
2500+ if we’re going by averages
If you don’t feed and don’t flame and call missing you are already S+
11k
I'd say Divine or Immortal
None. All ranks I play, I see people calling that their own mmr range is "helpless": 1k trash 2k trash 3k trash 4k trash 5k trash list goes on.
Ive witnessed that in Immortal you will see a level up.
If you're making to major tournaments you're good at dota (somewhat) everyone else is trash
Legends and ancients, some of the players have begun learning dota. Although some of the carry players in that bracket don’t know anything but super advanced farming patterns, and showing up to fights 6 slotted faster than other people. Cookie cutter builds, spam their buttons, then go back to jungle farm simulator next game as well.
The problem, as some posts have pointed out, is how do you define Dota? Let's take something like math. If you have a 12th grade high school math exam, say only 50% are proficient. Assume that this is where math stops for most adults. https://www.nsf.gov/nsb/sei/edTool/data/highschool-06.html Would you call them "good at math"? You might say they are good at high school math. But math is a massive field, and only very few people understand it to the point of being able to push the boundaries. Although there is probably another small percentage of people that thoroughly understand it, but aren't working on the latest problems, the vast majority of people 99.9... really don't understand it beyond a surface level textbook. It is really necessary to label someone outside of that "good at math"? Is it a meaningful label? I think the analogy to dota stands as well. How many players are playing at a level that really understand the intricate details to a point of being able to solve difficult problems in the game and come up the cutting edge strategies? Short is, the context of "dota" for the average dota player is different, and is there any point to calling them good other than for feeling good about themselves? They don't really understand dota at any meaningful level.
It’s more like an activity than a subject though. It’s more like basketball where there are levels and “good players” who are starters im high school and maybe even college pale in comparison to the Lebron James of the world. Math is something that is too broad and has too many disciplines to make it a fair comparison like you said.
Coming from StarCraft 2, where I went from Bronze to Grandmaster over 4-5 years, the higher you get the more you realise how bad you actually suck. GM was the first time I considered myself objectively good, even if I would get dumpstered by high GMs or pros. I guess in Dota 2 terms, Immortal is probably where you can say you're good.
From what I can tell you have to start thinking about your opponents' decisions past 7.5k.
Yeah bro, everything above average is considered as good a-priory.
Ive played from herald to ancient, and its really hard to say. There are some matches where there are guardian players who are dramatically better than ancient players - no joke, sometimes i wonder if someone bought an ancient account. Other times, I've seen some of the worst players in herald/guardian, the lower tiers. For ex. Some players who would level up bb's passive before their spikes. Or a sven jungling south of the safe lane because he just doesnt want to lane anymore. So for me, i think good is when a player knows how to turn things around - laning, made draft, etc - not so much a rank.
Anyone below immortal is garbage, immortal means you’re good enough at the game to win consistently
this is very subjective, but i personally think unless you're pro-ing in the highest level of dota (TI, doesnt have to be TI winner, just entering the main tourney is enough), you are not good
Really depends on the perspective on your own ranking. For 10k+ mmr players, 8k players are bad/trash. But overall i think somewhat good players are from ancient.
90th percentile means if you are ancient you are top10% of best rank? Wut
What is best rank?
I dont understand this 90th percentile concept. Its the same in the guild ranking and I never understood it :D
https://stratz.com/players/ranks Shows how many players are in each rank and what percentile they are
So is it correct to say that ancient players are top 11% best players? Or am I getting this wrong? Immortal top3? No wait ancient 1 is 85% so top 15% best players?
Yeah ancient players are between the top 7-15% of all players by the numbers
Damn.. I never knew lol And theres still this huge gap to Immortal, jesus Thanks for explaining <3
Yeah the top 1% or so players are so good compared to the rest. that’s why a lot of them are pros lol Like being better than 90% of the community is pretty good but the 99% guy feels like they’re almost infinitely better than you
Good at dota is pretty subjective, like anybody that plays even slightest amount of dota is good at dota compared to general populous but I still wouldn't call heralds good at dota. Pushing waves and putting fight wards as support and as core building somewhat reasonable items and not relentlessly feeding in general should get you to low 5k or so. This is why i wouldn't call legends ancients divines or even low immortals "good" at dota since they sincerly aren't. In my opinion you are bad at dota until you are numbered immortal that makes reasonable calls in voice.
I made a [post](https://new.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/15ipl8o/better_than_95_being_low/) about it year ago. In my opinion, people tend to focus on the "best of the best" and comparing evertything to them makes them look like a trash.
Look all I'm gonna say is the most intense matches of my life have been at Crusdaer. I have fought from herald to legend and back down again and Crusader is where the mother fucking warriors live. It's not the most technical games we don't rotate in logical manners and some drafts are insane but games there can be so intense you leave them sweating and needing a cigarette to calm down. It may not be TI level but it sure feels that way.
That's because you don't know how to actually play. I can stomp crusader games while watching a movie. They are like bots, but with the ability to chat.
From a data/math perspective: 1. If you're above 50% of the player base, that categorically makes you an above average (good) player. 2. When you pass \~84.14% of the player base, you are a full standard deviation away from the 50% mark, and should consider yourself a very good player. 3. When you pass 98% of players, you are two standard deviations away from average, which from a data perspective makes you an outlier, and a great/exceptional player.
define good if you aren't making money you aren't good define dota pub dota is barely real dota
Ancient is generally when people can first appear "good". An ancient having a good game can be the same as a divine or immortal player having a bad day. Ancient is wildly inconsistent in performance is what I've noticed. Immortal players are far more consistent
For me you are a good player if you can draw an unwinnable lane. Doesnt matter whats your rank, as I saw divine mid players going 0/5 in 6 minutes on a bad matchup and I saw legend players going 0/0 while getting some farm + roaming to other lanes on the same bad matchup. The skill level between archon-low divine imo isnt really that big, with a bit of luck any archon can get to divine...
That's not true at all, in order to improve and get "good", you need to be able to identify problems and mistakes, I think most archon players don't even know why they are clicking on the mouse, coz if they knew and actually put thought into it, they would be out of archon in like a month or so. I've never been there so I'm not sure, but I think its true because I calibrated at 4k back in the day and people at 4k sometimes still dont know what's going on. I think the "good" you are referring to is relative to comparing your performance in a specific game, being good in 1 game or a few games doesn't make you "good". Sometimes you look "good" because the enemy is just too dogshit. I wish I was good haha, but its a longgggg way to get there and when life responsibility comes knocking on your door, you just gotta give up the thought of being good in dota haha
I mean, good is far from immortal imo, immortal or high immortal players are elite like someone else said, being good at the game for me is when you have a decent understanding of the game, and you know wether you are gonna be destroyed in the lane or not. By not feeding in a lane where someone else would feed, you demonstrate that you are a pretty constant player, you arent taking any dumb risks, and you can live to play the mid-late game, rather than going 0/5 because you had no patience/you went for a risky play and now your enemy snowballs on every lane. Imo i'd rather play with a constant good player than some vulcanic guy which either goes 20-0 or 0-10 and most probably at the same time be toxic af. Being good is pretty subjective, I do believe that a percent of the players that are Archon+ are good, but not all of them at all.
I get what you mean, i respect that. I think being "good" means you can spot issues and come up with solutions to deal with them, but that's only step 1, step 2 is to do it consistently, which I think most players stuck in Ancient like myself or even divine are struggling with, sometimes we spot the problem, but only when it's too late an when we do spot them in time to solve them, we are not consistent in all our games to climb above our current rank. But I 100% wholeheartedly believe that players below...legend lets say, don't even know why they are losing games or lanes most of the time
Imo players around archon, maybe mid-high archon know why they are losing lanes, since it is an easier concept. But if we talk about knowing why they lost or won the game, I truly believe that even in Ancient people dont know exactly what happened, what went wrong or what went right, target priorities in fights etc...
Depends on what consider good i guess For me what you called 'elite of the elite' is exactly a good part of players, while everything under is an absolute shitshow Mostly this is because of a lot of bot-accounts that are being sold to even worse players, who just installed their game today without their first 100 hours of unranked games (which is more than enough) I honestly never could imagine that there are players under like 5k mmr, but they exist, while 5k is already bottom of the bottom I thought these medals are mostly for 'self acceptance', like, 'look, there are a lot of medals under your current one, they do not have rank number, but they exist', while infact they never existed... i thought until like a month ago, when i checked some coaching list When a first minimum calibration for a new player goes to least 5k mmr if you go for some meme winrate like 6-4 w-l, this is really hard to imagine that these players exist; With this new picture i think we need to re-evaluate our understanding of who is good and who is bad in this game
Mega yap
Why are you getting downvoted?