Defense of the Ancient (DOTA) Addiction Causes and Treatments

Dota Allstars is just a map under the game Warcraft. It is considered to be a strategy game that can be played 1v1 to 5v5. The game is played by controlling your chosen hero. Every heroes has unique combination of skills and it is utilized to beat the opponent/opposing team. The game takes place in a medium size map that has 2 sides, the Sentinel and the Scourge. The Sentinel has a World Tree that the players should protect while the Scourge has a Frozen Throne that they should also protect. Both sides have 3 lanes with 3 towers each. These towers are protectors of the base that opposing team should destroy the towers first before they can attack the protected World Tree/Frozen throne. Though the goal is to destroy the Main Base, killing the opposing heroes is a must 99% of the time because they will be there to defend the towers. They have powerful skills too that are dangerous so killing them should be considered in playing this game. Dota became more popular and addicting than the other Warcraft Maps because of several things a player can experience in the game.

Why Dota is so Addicting?

1. DotA is easy to play.
2. DotA makes the players think that they are the heroes they are playing. A player would ofter say, "I died" when his hero dies.
3. DotA lets you experience a different kind of team play. Due to heroes having different skills, the "combo" of the team will be always different, thus making the game have various ways of winning.
4. You can get popular among your friends or even all around the world if you are a great player.
5. After the game, you will always have something to talk about and it adds to the fun.
6. There are several skills you should practice in order to be the best in this game. Controlling your hero in any direction should be a basic one. Giving the last shot in every creep that are dying can be considered a skill because newbie players will have difficult time doing it. Memorizing the hotkeys of every spells the heroes possess. Another important skill in playing this game is supporting. Under supporting, placing observer wards, timing when to place them, places where to place them, timing of using skills. Team fights awareness and a lot more should be practice to be a great player of this game.
7. A player can use this game to release anger by killing and beating the heck out of the other team.

Some remedies I can suggest to stop this addiction:

1. First of all, accept the fact that you are really addicted in this game.
2. Think about the wasted hours you spent playing this game. Playing for fun is OK, but if you're going to play for a career or for this "ladder". (Ladder is the term used for having records of won and lost game.) People tend to play 24/7 to have a great number of wins to show off the people in the internet through Garena. They feel good having those stats but they are only numbers. You don't get anything from it. It didn't increase your knowledge, nor made you a better person.
3. Find successful people whom you can consider an inspiration. You'll realize that there are better things to focus on than that game.
4. Find other things to do that can make you productive and let you have fun too. (e.g. cooking)
5. Hang out with other friends than your gaming friends. You may discover new things you may like.
6. Always try your best to resist playing the game. It's still you who can cure yourself.

DotA Allstars Strategies

After playing dota for 3 years I have seen a lot of dota strategies and their corresponding hero line ups... I want to enumerate them and I hope people with great minds could add more..
(i named them based on their nature of play)

1st: Mass Disable Strategy

--- This strategy begins with the heroes themselves. You pick heroes that stuns, slows, holds, or silences enemy heroes that result the opposing heroes to be useless even though they farmed up a lot. This strategy have 3-5 heroes with a lot of disable.

line up e.g.
POTM
ES
Shadow Shaman
Naix
Lion

2nd: Combo Strategy

--- This strategy is an old one. All 5 heroes would have a typical combo to wipe out the entire enemy team in one execution. The heroes in this strategy usually contain deadly aoe ultimates.

line up e.g.
Sand king
CM
Krobelus
Enigma
Trent Protector

3rd: Gank and Farm Strategy

--- There will be a hitter(heroes that rely on normal attack dps) hero to wipe out the entire team and there will be supports to gang bang the enemy heroes that are harassing the carry hero/es of the team.

line up e.g.
Sand king
Lina
Tinker
Chen
Spec <=== the carry

4th: Spam Strategy --- This is what the pros are doing recently. They don't rely on having a main hitter on their team. I called it spam strategy because all of the heroes have skills that are painful. Disablers are there too basically to set up the play. Usually the play here is owning the opponent as early as at their lanes. line up

e.g.

es

zeus

atro

puck

enigma

5th: Turtling Strategy --- This is somewhat the same with gank and farm strategy only that this strategy doesn't rely on killing the enemy to have their carry farmed up.. The strategy is to delay the enemies on their pushes by killing all the creeps that would tank the tower. I know this won't work to pros but it's effective if combined with other strats. line up

e.g.

tms

es

pitlord

terrorblade

thd

(noob line up ei? i made it pure turtling with a carry hero)

6th: Axe Early Ownage --- This strategy requires... axe?.. lol.. Axe is accompanied with a healer(warlock usually) and another hero to support him. They positioned at the strong lanes of the opponent ahead the 1st tower. This strategy is made to delay the opponents level and also to push early and let the team enjoy the gold. Then, axe will do this on every towers one by one.. I'm sure you watched a game like this.. line up e.g. playing scourge top: solo zeus mid: tinker bot: axe cm wl

7th: Triple Push --- I saw this once executed very well by MYM.. It was when dagger was still available even when you're being damaged. This strategy requires heroes who have skills that wipe out enemy creeps fast. 1st you would push all the outer towers together.. then, decide on who are the hero/es that will push the top lane, mid lane, and bottom lane. This strategy is deadly back in 6.48b. The heroes would clear up every lane's creep then the enemy heroes will defend a lane, if they are defending e.g. bottom lane, the heroes on top and mid lanes will proceed with damaging the tower.. then back if the enemy respond.. then do it again.. slowly, you are destroying all they're towers. I remember the time when our team imitated this strategy, our enemies quit. This strategy is helpful when having opponents that possess deadly aoe ultimates.. They can use it but not on the entire team.. and while they're executing it, their towers are being destroyed.. but be sure to farm for buy outs and travel to continue pushing.. ;)

line up e.g. (from MYM)

zeus

BM

wl

tms

sandking

you can watch this replay here

8th: The Level 1 Roshan Kill

--- This strategy is to have level and money advantage along with the aegis of immortal for one hero.. It's dangerous though and can easily be countered by placing observer ward early near roshan's den. :D

line up e.g. (from ks.int)
BM
Engima
Zeus
Lich
SF
you can watch it here

9th: TRI-LANING

--- This is played by having a lane with 3 heroes from the start of the match. They will try to dominate the lane at once while the other 2 heroes on the other lanes get the advantage of having greater exp and gold. The 2 solo heroes are preferably heroes that can farm against 2 heroes in case the opponent go for 2-1-2 lane. The lane with 3 heroes should be disablers and spammers. Better Chemistry of the heroes leads to higher rate of winning the lane.

example line up:

sentinel lane:

top: Morph

mid: SF

bot: Sven CM ES

i wanna know if there are other strategies i may have not wrote.. or i haven't encountered or seen yet.. thanks.