4Game

For context I've been playing Dota on and off since 2013, a few years ago I reached my peak rank of Archon and have since slipped to Herald 3 – I very occasionally play with absolute new players, but I would say on the whole the standard now at Herald 3 is much higher than when I was archon. I have a friend who was Legend and is now also Herald.

Today another friend said he'd play Dota with me – he played years ago so we were able to jump straight into a bot game. Even though he's played other games to a decent standard it really hit me how difficult this game is to get into, with even some of the absolute most basic mechanics (buying items, using couriers, secret shops, how creeps & lanes work, tp scrolls, aggro, abilities and talent trees etc) having a somewhat steep learning curve.

But I'm thinking about what would be required for him to start playing ranked games – that he'd be playing against Heralds who stack and pull, who consistently ward and de-ward, who buy detection when appropriate, who have somewhat reasonable farming patterns, who have good enough itemisation, who roughly know which hero counters who, who play around power spikes etc etc.

I'm curious if anyone here is new and successfully managed to get into playing ranked games? I'd love for some of my real life friends to play Dota with me but today has made me realise I'm probably being a bit unrealistic :/