10 Major Mistakes in Hero Drafting

What affects winning and losing greatly is the choice of heroes.  Team play is a more important aspect but with poor hero picks, a lesser skilled team would probably beat your solid team.

Hero drafting controls the game.  It is where your laning, ganks, team fights and ending the game will depend.  It is where the entire strategy starts.

Majority of lost games come from getting out-picked and out-played.

Fact:  Fresh teams composed of 5 skilled players will be most likely be beaten up by average players with one skilled hero drafter.

Here are the major mistakes drafters are unconsciously doing:

1.  Picking more than 1 Hardcore Carry

A Hardcore Carry, stated in Dota Roles and Explanations, doesn't have that much use in early game.  For example a Spectre cannot inflict enough damage early game until mid game to be of use. 

In Dota, time is more expensive than gold.  You should have heroes that can kill fast to avoid getting in trouble.

If you would pick a 2 Hardcore Carries, like Spectre and Weaver, in one team, your team's killing ability early game is very weak.  The opponents will take advantage of initiating more battles, pushing towers and ending the game right before your carries farm their items.  Now, that's an easy win for them.

2.  Being distracted by "Imba Heroes"

Imba Heroes are the heroes your team would want to have and mostly banned.  They are strong heroes with painful or very useful skills.  However, you shouldn't be distracted by this in any way because every heroes have weaknesses.

If you would pick all 5 "imba heroes" but there are no chemistry among them, you still won't win.  Imba heroes should be picked wisely.

Doom, Morphling, Weaver, Ancient Apparition, Pugna are 5 imba heroes but pick them all in one game and you would lose against average heroes with proper chemistry.

3.  Not Countering

Countering is simply picking a strategy that will counter the opponent's play or picking heroes that counter the opponent's key heroes.

Why would you not counter your opponents when you have all the rights to do this in -cm mode.  Countering gives your team a relax mood.  They won't have to worry about a single hero pawning them helplessly.

A very fundamental example is picking Slardar against invisible heroes.  You don't want to let this invisible hero hit and run easily.  What you want your opponent's heroes to experience is a hard time all through out the game.

Gank him if he relies on farming.  Clash if they rely on ganking.  Push if they rely on late game.  That's how every sports should be played - Finding opponent's weak point and focusing attacks on that spot.

4.  Not having an insurance

If your plan A fails, there should be always be a plan B.  Most teams surrender after failing in their few attacks because of not having a back up plan.

What if your ganking plan fails?  Is it time for rage quit?  No, if you have a second plan like having a hero with great clash potential.  Initiate team fights so you'll have more advantage.

Most of the professional teams are using late game heroes as their insurance.  It is the safest way because you can have any strategy early game and if all of these fail, you still have a hidden ace. 

5.  Not weighing the trilane match up

Trilane is the most used laning today as explained in Dominating the Trilane.

Knowing if your trilane has the upper hand on the lane or not makes you decide correctly on playing aggressively or defensively.

You should always try to beat their trilane but in some games, you may get outpicked and have a weaker trilane.  The best way is to move your trilane in other lane and sacrificing a hero, preferably with escape mechanisms, to play very passively at the hard lane.  Doing this will waste the opponent's strength in the trilane.


6. Picking several heroes that depend on long-cool-down ultimates

Most ultimate skills are the deadliest skills of every heroes.  However with long cool downs, these heroes shouldn't be picked at the same time.  If you do, the opponents will grow aggressive and rush to your towers when your ultimates are in cool down.

Imagine having an Enigma and Leviathan in your team.  Ravage + Blackhole + other damage dealers means dead opponents right?  However, if both of these ultimates are on cool down and a clash happened, these 2 won't be of great use.

These heroes should be picked moderately because of the obvious counter against them.

7.  Not having a smooth single hero killing line up

In executing a combo on a hero, make sure that combo can be performed smoothly and can kill the target easily.

Example:  Killing a Nerubian Weaver.  A smooth line up would be:  Lion+Ogre+Puck.  Lion or Ogre can both initiate because Voodoo and Fireblast cannot be dodged by Succuchi.  Puck can have a follow up silence in case weaver survived the disables from the 2.

8.  Not having a stable mid hero

Middle lane is very important.  This is where most semi-carries are placed to do most works at mid game.  If your mid hero is beaten up badly, it is very difficult to win mid game.

Mid heroes should be able to be stable in terms of farming, surviving, harassing and fighting for runes.  They should get their core items and levels fast to really "carry" the team to victory.

There are a lot of decent mid lane heroes but be sure to pick the best hero suited on your team's combo and a good counter to opponent's line up.

9.  Picking too many softies

Softies are heroes that are easy to kill.  Picking too many low hp heroes is a gift for your opponents.  They love that because they only need proper timing to kill all of you.

Too many of this kind is very easy to counter.  The opponents only need to have Black King Bar and kill all of you while he's on avatar.

Soft heroes are painful but this will bring your team a lot of pressure.  The first is pressure of being very careful to avoid feeding.  2nd is the pressure of controlling your opponents farming phase because you don't want them to farm sick items, then kill all of you easily.

10.  Banning for the sake of banning

You are given the privilege to ban heroes that can counter your strategy.  You can also ban heroes that you find annoying and hard to counter.  You shouldn't just ban what others are banning.  Ban with reason.

If you see the opponents picking 3 carries at the first picking phase, ban good supports that will annoy your team.  You gave your team a great advantage and you gave your opponents great problem of not having good supports.

If you are planning to pick a hero along with your strategy, you can ban the greatest counter to that hero.  Ban wisely.

Avoid these 10 major mistakes and you can expect more wins on your Dota games.  Hero picking requires logic and analysis.  Don't rush it and it won't rush you.

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