Item guides are making you worse 

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Lmao, that was one of the best sponsored spots I've ever seen. Well done BSJ

Honestly, one of the most difficult parts of being in trench tier, is that I never have a friggin clue what lanes people will be going to... Like generally I know which lanes specific heroes are meant to play, but in low MMR I find it so hard to itemize for my lane because all of a sudden the enemy is running a support Death prophet, mid jugg, offline riki, safe lane viper, and yer like... What in the actual fack, I thought I knew Dota

I just use item guide for easy sorting of items that I might need but 100% of the time I think of the team and enemy line up to buy items

I had never thought of pulling after taking down a tower. I'm looking forward to apply this in my games

This video reminds me of two specific games i played. Funny enough both of them was in a lane match up of slark vs underlord. first was me being the underlord, shutting down the slark pretty hard so he left at lvl 5. i staticed the wave because i figured slark at lvl 5 has a horrible time in the jungle, making sure that if he wants any lane creeps, he will have to come to me. my support was pinging me, telling me to push the t1 tower but i refused because i didnt want slark to get any easy xp and pushed the tower about 2-3 minutes later when the 10 min catapult showed up. on the other side, i was a warlock support for my slark on safe lane and we had a good lead on lane. on top of that, i had the easy camp triple stacked so i just stayed bottom and kept pulling the camp, over and over again, denying any xp and gold from the opponents while my slark was clearing the waves that came in and went back to the jungle. gave him mana with boots to keep it up. He complained a bit that i should "stop pulling because nobody is even in lane anymore" but i told him "nobody is here because there are no creeps for them" and continued both these games dont have anything to do with items but the concept of "staying in lane and making the enemies life miserable"

Good stuff! As for a pos 4 and 3 player, the abaddon bit with extending the laning phase really helped put things into perspective for both positions. Means I can keep "asserting" dominance over that area as an offlaner or if I see the enemy carry not capable of jungling, I look to bully him in the jungle as support. Might not fully understand these concepts yet but thanks for the tips on this one!

Item guides? Nah, just rush Khanda on every hero!

Oh man this was awesome. Not just the misuse of the item guides but also when to leave lane. I made the same mistake at times, winning the lane and taking tower min 5 and then running around like a fucking headless chicken, trying to help. Thank you for the awesome video!!

Item guides seem to stop people from using their brain at all for some reason. People forget they are guides not the bible.

Thanks, BSJ. Im at 4.5k MMR right now and i have made a lot mistakes you mentioned in this video. I also played PA and whenever i had a good game i just rushed Battlefury and i couldnt understand how things turned out bad after this godlike start with a fast battlefury. Also pulling creeps after taking a tower as pos 3 is something i never thought about. gonna try to imply this right now!

As an offlaner, when i get games like abbadon had, i actually follow your tip. But then my team keeps flaming me for not helping them in their lane... it's really hard to find that balance, as well as defining the line when to extend the laning stage when the team flames you for it.

Next video: "This is why RU-vid guides are making you bad".😉

This is really cool. I realized pretty quickly that this is way above my level, I am never going to have enough insight to make these kind of calls. But it's still interesting to heart about, getting a look into the higher levels of reasoning

Played a 1.7k match this morning as a safelane Luna. My hard support last picked spirit breaker and proceeded to feed the lane by being overly aggressive and then spam ping me and then steal my farm in lane, he left lane at level 3 and then I got dove under tower and fed, my fault, we then lost our safelane tower at 5 minutes. However, maintaining a positive outlook and focusing on my own game and applying these principles, I recognized that I needed to rush a MoM and go jungle ASAP, so before the tower even fell I had already made a triple stack with just a brown boots and morbid mask. I stayed disciplined and recovered in the triangle and ended with a full build at 40 minutes and highest GPM in the game, and the win.

It's astounding to me many carry players rarely think to shove the lane when it's painfully obvious that that would be safe. Like, their offlaner just died after TPing and their mid just tpd bot for a teamfight, so I better keep hitting this small and medium camps while 3 waves worth of creeps just die uncontested.

perhaps an exception: XarTheGaming's "guides" are actually just data mined item purchases at immortal at certain time intervals. they don't specify which items to buy, you need to choose for yourself from up to 10 options, and they usually cover most your needs.

Honestly forgot item guides are a thing. It would explain why people in my 4k+/Ancient games still have terrible builds

a big part of my immortal journey has been to be able to adapt my build to whatever my team needs, and secondly counters whatever the enemies have. The overthrow gamemode made me 10x better at dota and itemisation

I did the same mistake this offlane Abaddon did yesterday. I played Doom and was 2 levels ahead of enemy Drow Ranger, she left the lane to jungle and I already took the tower but then what I did was roaming other lanes, just to use my Ult and get 1-2 kills here and there without hitting a single creep (Sometimes even forgetting to use Q on a creep too) and 5 minutes later, Drow comes out of jungle with a full 2 levels ahead and 2 mid items with her and we lost the game pretty hard after 10 mins. It's such an easy mistake to commit because sometimes our brain goes into Auto Pilot for no fuckin reason. 😑

Amazing! I learned a lot here. Could you do a video about itemizing in the mid to late game? I personally have a lot of trouble in understanding why and when I should go for any item in a build. (Example: Should I be grabbing a Sceptre of Divinity, a Scythe of Vyse, or a Heavens Halberd, and how do I know when the best time to get it is?)

Hey BSJ, I have a question! What if you build items towards, for example: BattleFury, but that also help you in laning, like damage items (the swords). Since the enemy will also stop laning and play defensively. So you will in theory be beating them in lane (damage items + greedy regen item) into battlefury so you can clear the waves fast and start jungling asap to scale. The way I see it, the "laning items" are just items that let you regenerate midcombat as opposed to give you movement speed (treads) or cleave (completed battlefury). So if you build regen items (that are greedier) it's the same as having gone wand. But movement speed, damage items, and regen all help you with laning --> and help you transition into jungle for when the enemy starts to enter level 6 and ganking becomes a huge threat.

So I'm a returning player, I quit playing back before Oracle was released... I started a new account because I was low-mid tier MMR on my original account and recently was placed in Herald. I'm not upset about my placement but more or less notice that the "cookie cutter" itemization hurts my carries as I support 100% of the time. It's always the same heroes which isn't necessarily a bad thing (kinda boring for me but I'm climbing still). But it seems like everyone in this bracket goes damage damage damage and sure it works some of the time, but I find the hero people on my team(s) have with are LC and Troll.... I often suggest Halberd but nobody ever seems to pick it up, so usually it's on my list for near late game, if we're pushing I'm near by hopefully buy a camp so I can farm it for my team. Great video and I hope more of my Herald Carries watch this.

I make my own item guides for heroes I play a lot, I’ll put every item the hero could possibly buy in the item guide so I never have to use the shop it’s all in the guide

could you make an extended version but for support. Like for example what could support plan to buy according to their game plan just like the carries.

"Back to reality, whoops there goes gravity" hahaha

I'm enjoying this remake of the "carry items 5-12m video" you made awhile ago

Heck of a video. Definitely stuff that the common player doesn't think about, and things like "I'm having a good start so I can buy greedy items" are SO common.

Question as a noobie, why would getting boots early when planing on leaving the lanning phase early be a bad idea ever? Thank you For content like this. I’m overwhelmed with it all.

The more lasting insight I picked up from this video is that it's encouraged to drag the creeps away to small camp even past the laning stage to drag the creeps away from their T2.

Hey BSJ! Amazing video, it got me thinking and into the Q right now. I was very happy to see a positive example at the end of how to do it right. I would have enjoyed if the positive examples would've been expanded upon, i.e. reiterating the points you made on a demo where they were executed well :) Thanks for content like this

20:20 And what if he goes fighting items and then the enemy makes the correct play and rotates 2-3 people to his lane and takes his tower and/or kills him? Then he's stuck farming jungle with no battlefury.

The stick is something I learned once I spent time looking into stats that items get. It is almost never worth finishing while having tangos. I still like the guides because I get an idea of what people build with the patch changes. Reading description and notes is helpful too.

@24:29 - he wasn't ahead of void by 900 gold. he was up by maybe 680. He lost a lot still, but not nearly as much as you're saying lol

23:16 Can a decision of lane swapping with the pos 1 ck be a better decision at this spot? Batrider, mirana and ck has a strong catch potential to threaten void farm if ck position himself to farm on dires top neutrals side of the map. Matchup of abaddon vs. brew would stay on a stalemate. If void decides to laneswap with the brewmaster it can only farm 3 neutral camps on offlane side which is also harder to take since its mostly ancient camps.

speaking of a bit of your own still i fcking love octarine phantom lancer with the lvl25 cooldown talent on doppel. with the tarasque nerf its just sad but with octarine its fun playing pl with aghs again

These vids are super useful for learning stuff I never even thought about it dota

The number of times I have done well in a lane with AM and rushed a battle fury to then having to build threads and wand… is insane. A great revelation, thank you BSJ

TORTE DE LINI FUMING

I think it's worth mentioning or talking about a skill builds video. A lot of people just default to the same skill build every game and dont think about when to hold skill points or choose a different talent etc.

What's your biceps routine

That advert was creative as heck. First time i did not care skipping

I stopped using guides and ended up on phylactery, shard, basher pos4 razor.

Your workout guide with Blitz is clearly visible.. Nice one bud @BSJ

Hi BSJ, I am such a fan of yours and I think it’s super helpful for scrubs like me to create a mental outline of what to do ingame. I have always love the pos 5 role (which is rare in SEA servers lol) and I just wonder if you could make a video like this for supports. Also, in my bracket sub-legend, what do you recommend if you have a core that is clueless on what he needs to do? How do you manage? Thanks and more power!

What I personally do is follow d2pt. See on a specific hero what items and skill build they are doing and also consider what enemy and ally heroes they are playing against and with and try to understand why they are doing so. Dont copy blindly. And if you are still confused they provide the game id, u can quickly watch the replay as well. And also in low mmr pubs try to avoid small laning items. Cause most likely ur support is not good and there will be very limited rotations from your team. Unless u r a hero like ls or ursa in a favourable matchup. This is for pos 1 players

2:12 XD 19:12 XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD Truly, you are a master. Ty for your teachings.

That "huuuuuuhhhh!??" moment made me laugh hard 😂

I just use guides to have all the items are good to the hero easy to find on the shop. I never follow the ordering and stuff, but is good to have like "favorites" items for each hero

Is it better to follow a bad gameplan with items coherent with the bad gameplan? Or proceed to the good gameplan with the wrong items? ex: leave the lane (right choice) with laning items, or stay in lane (wrong choice) with laning items?

Good item guides have options. Like if you're fighting a lot - take Deso, if you're farming - take BF. Options for when you had bad start vs good start. When you face casters vs heavy hitters.

the fucking guides make ppl think that's the item they should buy every single game but they are all situational

I was thinking about this literally yesterday and today. A couple days ago I was following a guides recommended starting items and then building straight into what they recommended I built first, when it probably would’ve been good for me to buy a couple early items that gave me stats or something instead because I was dying to bristleback a lot in lane. If I had bought a wind lace and maybe a teardrop I probably would’ve done better against the Bristol back sky wrath Lane. Did the same thing today against a drow ranger. I was playing viper against her, and nobody else really seem to be able to kill me. I skipped BKB until like second to last item which was really stupid considering how strong her silence was against me, and I could’ve bought halberd, or some thing else to stop her from focusing me down. Maybe orchid since the upgraded orchid is so good now, but I just didn’t. I just followed the stupid fucking guide and realized afterwards how stupid I was. We got so ahead and just couldn’t push Highground because I was allowing Drow to farm on high ground and become stronger than me and allowing her to get to the point where I had to counter her build or I was going to lose and I just didn’t do it.

One good example of what I'm doing extremely diffrent: When I play support vs another support I know I can harras with rightclicks I buy Wraithband for example on Lion. It's crazy how much better u can trade then.

First time really hearing that pulling can extend your time on the lane. I suppose this also can be applied when your playing support role as well?

thank for all the knowledge. I must ask, what bread is your dog (if it's crossed, with what breed has it been crossed). I had to take care of a friends dog for a year. They gave it away, but didn't know the bread. I'd love to get the same bread if possible and yours looks a lot like it.

The common mistake people are making: following a build guide item for item from a single game showcased by speeed instead of having options to help balance themselves and overcome the actual opposing team. There, a summary. Didn't even need to watch. Lol But very good video my man and it does point out an issue that probably too many people suffer from because they just want to be told what to do and have it work not actually think. Coming from PoE, no one apparently wants to think, just kill things on god mode and find rare items. But DOTA is not a static game like PoE because you are against people, not AI. So people need to have their items adapt not only to the opposing team, but also to their own team and the state of the game. That's a lot and if you don't set yourself up to have options, it's a lot harder to be flexible in the moment. So glad that I played LoL before DOTA since I learned that lesson long ago where making item builds was part of a big deal major update. It meant I could bring that flexibility to DOTA and shine pretty strong.

You’re giving hot-guy-next-door DotA pro this time BSJ, well done.

As an owner of 3 German Shepherds, your ad skit was incredible!

At 10:27 Im recalling I've heard as a core I get what benefits my farming , if it means not taking ult I don't take it if it means I buy something I buy it every thing that gets me faster farm farm farm

To force myself out of this habit, I turned all my guides to the dota+ recommendations so I have to think about my build path more

This is genuinely one of the best guides you've ever done

Would've liked to see the items on the supports of these games. I know you mostly make vids for pos 1-3 but as a support player i get insight from this kind of videos by realizing my safe laners mentality. Also even though these are good clean cases i feel they could've been different if the supports were rocking mangos and salves.

Nice video One big problem based on personal experience is it's not immediately obvious what many of the small items accomplish Till this day, it's still not obvious why Wraith band is a Laning item even though that's what everyone has been saying - i mean doesn't the extra stats make you farm a little faster? This is why ppl casually just go for these little recommended items, not necessarily because they don't think about whether they want to lane, but because they don't know what exactly those items accomplish That said, thx to the video it's a little more clear what they do

So you say to extend the landing stage if you are winning the lane, but if you are really dominating the lane, the opposing cores and supports seem to abandon the lane in my bracket. So what should I do at that point?

This is by far the best coaching video ive seen on youtuber for now Very very very good and informative I didnt even realise the importance of this phase thank you! Very very much

There are good guides, and there are bad guides. The good ones tend to have some extra written details on items and abilities, as well counting for situational choices. And of course, a good guide just gives the basics of a hero. An expert might do something completely different, and that's how new builds are formed.

Not entirely true about wand. There are cases I guess where you have 10 charges and against a spammy lane. You can buy a wand to gain more potential charges on your wand should they ever try to dive you, on heroes that have innate regen such that you don't need to use that wand for regen. Not many cases but I think it is possible.

Fantastic video. Just one question. If you're the carry and the opponent is strong enough to dive the tower at lvl6, do you just abandon the tower and go jungle or do you try and defend it in some way?

Here's a WILD question I'd LOVE you to go in depth in, but alas I'm just a nobody so I guess this will be burried among other comments. I've been REALLY struggling lately with teammates... my man picks Viper mid and decides NOT to build a mage slayer when it was the prime example of a game to buy one. In that same game my Legion used Blade Mail like 40% of the time when she dueled someone and my carry Spectre didn't go Blade mail at all even though there were tons of heroes against us she would highly benefit from building one. Instead she rushed disperser and manta and went for radiance next. My rank is Archon 4 and for the past 3 months I ALWAYS start getting these clueless mfs in my team whenever I'm close to ranking up. I play pos 4 a 5 (mainly 5) cus' I'd much rather have a core that just farms, then a pos 5 that stacks one camp and then just stands around. I try to communicate, but it's totally useless where with my 11k behavior score I sometimes get people who are literally muted. My question then is fairly simple. How do you explain these baffoons what to do?? Clearly one man can't do everything, I've started picking Hoodwink even as pos5 since when you see one of your cores is just totally hopeless and clueless you just go carry build whereas with my second most picked support Venomancer you can't really do that. Cus' I've been really loosing my mind where there are 4-5 good games, people communicate and band together, play proper Dota and it's just such a JOY to play it, but right when it's near my ranking up I always get these clueless morons that just run around, farm a bit, go 1 by 1, slap on a guide and just build shitty items... It's just so frustrating when you try your best, you are nice to them and it's just pointless. I suppose this question doesn't really have a single explanation, I went the lengths of learning RUSSIAN of all things so I could communicate at least A BIT with those who doesn't understand english (which are mostly Russians let's be honest) and if you speak in Russian to them, throw a joke or two on your account they ARE REALLY CHILL DUDES, but even if you get on their good side, they still just stand around, are completely lost and build items that are totally useless like what does my lion rushed Lotus for when you had Axe, Techies, Arc Warden, Drow and Spirit Breaker against you?? I told him 3 times he should go blink dagger but nah, he bought that Lotus, used it like 5 times and then proceeded to be tilted like a little child. I swear I'm gonna start smoking weed just to be able to laugh at these mfs

Tldr: it's a good starting point but don't become a slave to them, make nake one for yourself

that was one of the best youtube ads i have ever seen lmao

I never thought of pulling after destroying tower i will def try that

Item Guide is a trap. And I’m sick of witnessing Luna, not valuing "Lucent Beam" and ignoring "Eclipse" at level 6.

Tortedelini smashing his screen right now

Bsj claiming to stop item guides like he didn't invent the monstrosity that is Offlane Wraith King that ruined 100 of my mmr. People autopiloting BSJ's items made me nutts.

i watched the coaching session live (last example) and i have to say, that it is a blast to win the lane and starve the enemy carry to death after that, just pulling the big camp over and over again!

That abba left lane with 1000 nw over void and after a minute was only up by 300, pulling after taking tower isnt something Ij've done much as an offlaner either, I'll defenitely start doing that in quickly won lanes. I think I naturally continue the lane on heroes like brood and lycan since they farm so well in a free area but other less greedy offlaners I feel like I've done this not so much.

Didn’t know people did this, I get different items every other game. I really like harpoon on dawn but some games you gotta rush nullifier. Early null = win some games. After watching more of the video and seeing the deeper part of the video, I can say on dawn I typically get the same starting stuff because it’s good for both lane and jungle.

Tbh I just use item guides so that I can buy the most commonly bought items of the hero. Searching up the exact item you need is time consuming

Well depends spell casters like ogre or sky wrath mage I will prefer buying stick instead of wand and buy treads and think that if I need extra set of armor then wraith band then after that straight maelstrom for better farming

it's just so hard to predict what lane is gonna be like due to people just making mistakes/griefing it's not uncommon for the supports to give up on a lane or make huge mistakes that turn a winning lane into a losing one or vice versa and not just at the start but more or less at any point in the lane i've had so many winning lanes where the 5 just leaves making it impossible to lane

There are a lot of high Elo players that use almost the same build on the same hero almost every Game.

So true, I used them back then in my first 100h to introduce items. Then I learned builds need to adapt to every matches and guides cannot cover them Now my builds are mostly from scratch and just to "pin" them for easy clicks

That was a smooth transition to the ad ngl.

isnt rain drops a laning item vs nukers more then a jungle item?

Item guides are helpful for new players and returning players. I use item guide when i came back to dota after 7years. Its like a training wheel but eventually you have to stop relying to it to get good at the game

Back to reality op there goes gravi - Let's rap bruh

The worst is people who follow hero item guide in Abilities draft 😭😭😭

I just tried applying the tips as Spectre against a timbersaw lane and ended up being highest networth the whole game and winning (after throwing a few times of course, still 3500 mmr after all) so thank you for the video!

This is the type of thinking I like to see. Advanced and smart. Well done bsj. Can always learn more.

What about past the lanning phase?

Nice video. I play offlane and feel like I have done the same as the abbadon... Especially vs void this is really game loosing.

Clean ad transition, and I like the guides to help me get kickstarted for the game.

For my bracket i feel like my laning phase is satisfactory. What ruins most of my games is the mid game. I would love a mid game strategy focussed guide please BSJ.

That was me on the brewmaster, 3rd example, coincidence. :)

1:13 I really did think that how did he know

very useful insights bringing light to offlane wins that I did not extend past the laning stage

I think we need to make it clearer that item guides are mostly for "beginners", to play at "beginner level" because I can see how people can easily mistake them to be the "definitive" way to play the game, like a lot of modernized games, not exclusively to other modern MOBA's

Ok, i know understand the logic, now how about the kind of items that are "weird" like echo sabre/mage slayer, urn, maybe diffusal too, what's their purpose what these items dictate? Echo is like one of those items that confuse me hard