Dota 2 Solo Queue
Let’s be honest with one another — Dota 2 solo queue can be an absolute nightmare. It does not matter if you solo queue in ranked or causal play, solo queue is just the worst. How is a player suppose to enjoy a game when your teammates feed, your strategies go unnoticed and you are playing against a pro tinker player? Seeing as we are about to get an update, it is about time to go over how to be a good solo queue teammate.
Hit It But Don’t Quit It
There’s a certain degree of courage that we have to possess to hit that play button when you are queuing alone. I’ll admit sometimes I will get up the courage to dive into a game only to find that all my teammates are fighting for mid. Awesome. I’ve only abandoned five games in over five years of Dota 2, but even my patience is tested when Io, Tinker, Sniper and Shadow Shaman all fight for mid. It might be tempting to want to abandon the game, and there will be times that you should, but try not to be the person who abandons a ranked game. It makes the game absolutely miserable for everyone else, even if they are all fighting for mid.
The morale of the story is that you need to be committed when you hit that play button.
Your Strategies Might Not Work
We all have those moments when we think we are the next Puppey. We think that we have the next unbeatable strategy and, if we follow it, we will definitely win the game. Your strategies might be the next big thing but you have to realize that not everyone can play x hero. And it sucks that they cannot, but you got to move on. Forcing your teammates to use an OP hero combo that you heard about on Esports Edition can end in disaster. Grimstroke is an awesome hero but forcing someone else to play it because you think it will win is wrong. This does not mean that you should not suggest lanes or maybe help guide the team to a good team composition but it does mean that you need to respect your teammates hero pool and skill level.
Swallow Your Pride
Now that we have established the fact that you need to respect your opponents picks and that you need to commit to a game of Dota 2, we need to discuss one of the hardest things to do — swallowing your pride. We all have that one couple of friends who live and die by the saying “mid or feed” or “carry or feed”. When you queue up a solo queue game, you need to understand that sometimes you will need to give up the role you really love or the position that you know you dominate at for another player. Yes, you might literally be the best mid Sniper the world has ever seen but if someone else has their eye on it, do not be an ass — roll to see if who gets to play the Sniper. Seriously! It’s one of the best ways you can solve the two snipers is to roll off.
Let go of your pride, roll off for the lane or hero, and respect the results.
Extinguish the Flame
Now that you are in the game, playing a hero you might or might not have rolled for, you see your opponents starting to trash talk. On a bad day, those trash talkers might be your teammates. Perhaps you stole a lane or maybe your teammate did not respect a roll-off and is angry. It can be really hard to resist flaming the trash talkers. Just one comment you tell yourself as you furiously type on the keyboard. But one comment leads to another as the troll responds back to you.
Working together as a team is not just letting the carry get the last hits or placing wards in the right spot. It’s also about respecting the fact that flaming your opponent or teammate does not make your chances of winning go up. It actually decreases your chances of winning. So just do not feed to the trolls. They want to yell at you about how many last hits you missed? Tell them that you are trying and if they have suggestions on getting better, you are open to hear it.
Don’t. Feed. The. Trolls.
Final Comments
It’s hard to solo queue unless you’re a god at Dota but even then, they face their own unique problems. Between the spam pickers, the trolls, the roll-offs, the mid Io and the flamers — Solo queue is an untamable beast. We’ve got a feeling that 7.20 is going to be a big change, so try to remember our handy guide the next time you click that play button.