General DiscussionHow long does it take you to 'learn' a hero and play it well?

rly depends what hero your playing.

For Lich 2 games are enough. For Invoker 2000 games are enough.

:DD Next up for me, 18,000 Invoker games!

Depends on the person more than the hero.

More like depends on the person AND the hero.

Like others have said lich is relatively easy to learn. His skills are straightforward and being a ranged support his positioning isn't as crucial as other heroes. My suggestion is just pick another hero that looks interesting and go for it. If you like playing the hero it doesn't matter how many games it'll take to learn, you'll be having fun.

A couple other straightforward heroes to learn though, lifestealer (nothing complex about his skills, magic immunity, easy to farm with), tide/centaur (just get a blink and initiate team fights), lion/shadow shaman/crystal maiden (fragile so being out of position is a big risk but their skills are all easy to use). Treant is pretty easy too if you have good map awareness.

more like depends on volvo

Some heroes require more general skills, that mean if you play any similar hero or any hero at all you gonna get better also in that hero. Playing many support dont differ much from another. Last hitting/deny, pulling/lane control, map awareness are skills you use almost regardless of the hero you pick.

Other heroes require more unique skills or playstyle and to master them you need to play them in particular. Invoker is a good example.

Next thing, as already said, some heroes are just harder then the rest. See Puck or Visage comparing to Lich or Sniper

And possibly not all heroes will suit your mentality in terms of playstyle, strategy, role.

In terms of learning all the skills i guess you need at least few games to know exactly what they do, how they work and how/when use them in combat situation. READING skills really help ;] I got like 2500 dota games in total and I am still suprised sometimes about some "side effects" of some skills,that I was sure I know exactly what they do ;]

Well... it only takes a second to learn Huskar.

depends if you try to learn spells+feel casts range on them during a pub game or do you go custom lobby with cheats on
in custom lobby if hero is complex i would say 8 hours is enough but you should split it through few days instead of going 8 h straight when it comes to simple heroes with cheats on i would say 20/30minutes should be enough

i dont recommend learning heroes in normal games ie how many times can u cast magnus rp 2 feel rp aoe properly? 8/10times during 30minute game? while with cheats mode u can cast it well over 500times in same time frame

Most heroes have a pretty low skill floor(with the exception of meepo, invoker, maybe chen, etc) , as long as you know what each spell does, and actually use it properly, you can say that you "learnt" the hero. Some heroes can have a low skill floor, but a really high skill ceiling. An example would be sand king. You could be a new player and know how to use the stun, how to channel the ult and go into the fight, but a more experienced player could use burrowstrike to escape to high ground, or predict-stun invis heroes etc.

I would say that most heroes are pretty easy to learn, but with enough experience in the game in general, you get more game knowledge, such as positioning, knowing when a fight could be turned, etc, and this knowledge helps a lot in playing a hero. Therefore, playing the game with a variety of heroes for many matches would be more beneficial than playing just 1-3 heroes and trying to master how to use it's skills, imo.

I'm kinda like you, came here without any other MOBA-ish experience and love playing supports.
My favourit is Venge, I feel I can play here well when I support an aggressive lane, but still can't play her defensivly. I can do much better as Bane/Lion or even Lich if my job is to harass not to get early kills.
I still don't do enough roaming...
I think my warding is fine.

I have ~150 games on Venge, easy hero, still forget about fstaff to impassable tarrain and swap, but I save some allies and get some kills and do the warding etc, ~fine, I enjoy these games and usually I'm useful. Also, she's skillset is comfortable for me.

~100 games on WD, even easier hero, but it was my first so I have worse stats and not that comfortable with him anymore.

~40 on Lich, I dont like the fact he don't have a stun, I love stuns. But if i have to harass solo for a lategame carry I would pick him, couse I'm bad with Warlock. Also if we have a Void or something similar and need AOE. For me, Lich is boring, thou.

~40 on Bane, I love Bane. Still not comfortable with attack animation, still forget using some spells, so I have a lot more to practice, but I def enjoy this hero. He's my new favourit.

~20 on Lion, easy to learn, I'm way better Lion than Bane. Also enjoyable, love the stun and the hex and that I always have mana and nice ult too, pretty easy hero, but I could play him waaaaaaaay better, like not overlapping CCs, not ks-ing or not ulting on fleeing enemies if they will still escape, etc.

~20 on Warlock, I won't pick him again, I just can't warlock... No idea why.

~10 on Jakiro, I love this dragon but really can't play him :( Exactly no idea about him, thou Ive even read guides... Sooo bad animations and short range. Not the one for me.

~10 on Death Prophet, I love her, only hero I dare to go to mid with, I like pushing. I feel I learned this hero at ~2nd game, but still a long way to go to master her. (8-2 w/l so far, most in captains mode, which I dont play soo often)

Other heroes I just tried. I def can't carry anything but wards. :D

Warlock, just don't try to do too much too early and you have to rely on team fights. Your issue is probably playing in pubs and lopsided games that don't use your team fight ability enough. Warlock doesn't have that much value in lane, he can't disable or gank, unless you want to drop golem on a gank. Just be patient, ward a lot, buy a mek, chains n golem in a team fight.

Jakrio is not hard once you get a feel for ice patch. Remember it has a static length so you can click past people. Don't forget the formation time so you need to lead people with it. You can also use it to block and run like a path across the river. Another trick is timing his dots for harassing. He plays a lot like other supports the main difference is all his dmg is over time and the delay on his ice path so all his stuff is timing required. He is a great pusher though.

It's not all about dropping golem..

also Jakiro, huge cast animation + delay, hard to land icepath

I've come from the same background as you. Dota 2 was my first Moba as well.

I like that Lich is where you started because that's my first hero as well. I played about 60+ straight (or probably 95% of those games) with Lich only. Those 60+ games include learning the mechanics of the game, my hero, and the opponents heroes as well.

After that, I felt like trying new heroes and I moved on to other heroes such as AA, Rubick, Jakiro and so forth. The next few heroes took less time to learn. I don't think they even took 10 to play them in a decent way. Rubick probably took longer because of my limited knowledge of the game and hero pool at the time. (I was still asking my friends what hero does what and what heroes the opponents picked hahaha)

I'm starting to move on to the more difficult supports. I've been trying the more micro intensive ones (such as visage, enchantress) on my other account (and visage on this). I think I'm able to play them decently (microing etc), but I feel like I need more games on them (only have had about 2-5 games on them)

But more than that, I think I've pretty much learned the mechanics of the game (Support wise). I read guides on warding spots/roaming/pulling/denyingetc and have watched enough competitive games to know more than the average support.

Amount of time to learn a hero comes directly from how much experience you already have in a game.
If you played a lot of Treant, and then suddenly started to play Clockwerk, you will need 25 games TOP to become good at him(provided you have brains of course).
If you have no experience at map controling, landing skill shots, knowing how close you can get to an enemy- then it will take you many many more games to learn to play that hero well.
For lich one of the most important skill you learn is how to position yourself in order to cast maximum amount of spells in a fight and stay alive. This skill is transferable to many other supports, so if you want learn a hero quicker, id suggest doing another support.

You never stop learning. But to get pretty good at Tinker it took me around 80-100 games.

its just thru experience of gameplay, eventually you can learn a lot faster due to basic/advance knowledge of the game. trying to master all the heroes in the game is unrealistic but getting a good sense of all of them is possible and worth the investment . it is also based off your playstyle. look for heroes that suit your role and branch out from there

Mark, thanks for the advice. I played warlock once in captains mode and that one went well, I guess. I just feel bad couse I usually fail, so it makes me play worse, so I'm happier if someone else picks him. :)

For Jakiro, I should practice landing their spells, I can sometimes ult well and harass with E, I can push too... But just cant land a nice ice path, or rarely like 1 in 10... Clicking past hero, hmm, okey I'll try this. I guess it's bad I usually click too close to my hero.

They say that to be an expert at anything you need to put in 10000 hours.

Good luck. :)