FIFA 15 Beginner’s Tips - Beware the Burst, Stay in Formation

It seems like yesterday that we experienced all night benders of free kicks and over the top goal celebrations in FIFA 14, skunking a buddy five to nil and picking the best kit for our Ultimate Team.  Of course, FIFA 14’s time has come and gone.  It was a sweet relationship we’ll never forget, and now we’re ready for something new to get our soccer fix.  Enter FIFA 15, arguably the best entry in EA Sports’ longstanding franchise. In this article, we’ll touch base on a few of the basic tips you’ll need to hold your own on the pitch. 

Of course, EA can’t change the rules of the beautiful game, but it did a great job making it feel brand new and inviting.  Mechanically, this game shares similarities to FIFA 14.  Not much changed controller wise to make you adjust your play style. That said, if you would like a refresher course from last year, check out these in-depth FIFA 14 beginner tips.

Don’t overuse the burst feature on defense

Beware the burst. We quickly learned these words while playing defense.  When you associate speed burst (RT on Xbox, R2 on Playstation) with FIFA, you normally have to pick and choose your battles on offense.  Defense up until now was a no brainer.  You see opponent with the ball and sprint full speed towards him. Those were the good old days.  With FIFA 15’s improvements, you’ll need to be more precise on how you go about stripping the ball from your opponent. 

With EA introducing all new Agility and Control, Run Touch Dribbling allows players to keep the ball under control in a sprint and in close touch situations.  Now, even a sprinting opponent with the ball has the ability to out maneuver the defender.  Add that with the new Man-to-Man Battle system they implemented, and sticking your foot out for the ball could end up with a shoulder in your chest and you haphazardly lying on your back. The back and forth on the field has never been so physical as it is in FIFA 15.  Even the most skilled back four will have a problem transforming into the human brick wall they get paid to become.

Trying to sprint through your attacker will most likely leave you in their dust with no ball and a goal down.  The way you should handle sprinting on defense is to use it only to get into position or catch up to an opponent that slips past you.  Once you are man-on-man, stop sprinting and square up with your would be attacker.  Get in-between him and his destination, then hold down the Jockey button (LT on Xbox and L2 on Playstation).  This will turn your chest to face the player and slow him up.  At this point, you can attempt to remove the ball from this person or AI opponent.  

GOOAAAALLLLLLL……… nope you missed.

FIFA 15 definitely makes you work for points.  Its freshly polished Keeper AI does its best to prevent you from scoring. Goalkeepers are now more lifelike than ever, with more awareness and intelligence.  They track crosses, corners and through balls realistically, so don’t be surprised when that one go-to play you used all the time in FIFA 14 all of a sudden doesn’t earn you the point.   

Keepers now adhere to the laws of momentum, and are able to read and react to gameplay situations with uncanny realism.  A keeper moving in the wrong direction now reacts to a change in ball flight to make a save by reaching back or extending a leg at the last second.

If that wasn’t enough to make you stay out late tonight and take a few more practice shots on net, shooting in general is way more realistic. Just holding shoot (B on Xbox and Square on playstation) won’t cut it anymore.  Expect players to overshoot, undershoot and miss the ball completely if you get tugged on by a defensive player, or even injured mid shot. 

Always stay in formation 

Keep your forwards forwards and your defense back.  This is one of FIFA’s cardinal rules that gets overlooked so many times.  If you strip one of the attackers rushing towards your goal with one of your defenders, do not take that defender and run up the field with the ball.  Doing this will leave a gap in the defense, thus making you open to a counter attack.  Make sure you use each player at the position he’s in.  If your defense assumes control of the ball, get clear and pass it to a midfielder, who in turn could make headway and allow your defender to fall back into his roll of keeping your keeper safe. 

That about wraps it up for beginner tips in FIFA 15.  If you take these tips into consideration and play smart, you should be able to achieve wins sooner than later.  Now all you have to worry about is coming up with your own goal song.  That’s a whole other discussion.

We’ll return later this week with FIFA 15 advanced tips!

The Biggest Hurdle In Dota 2

The hardest part about learning to get better at Dota 2 is focusing on yourself more than focusing on your team. With Match Making Rating (MMR) becoming public, players become very focused on raising a number linked to their profile. When things go bad and you lose games, all players look for the reason they lost, and it's human nature to look at your allies mistakes first before you look at yourself.

The biggest misconception due to this is the fake principle of 'MMR Hell'. The idea is that you are unlucky and get worse than average teammates which result in you not advancing in MMR, ever. This doesn’t exist.

The reality is that being good at Dota is extremely multidimensional, as you've probably figured out from the guide.

For example, it’s easy to look at your Kill/Death/Assist ratio and notice that yours is better than your teammates. This leads you to think that your teammates obviously died too many times and that you played better, but perhaps you didn’t back them up enough. Maybe you didn’t do a good enough job zoning the offlaner, pulling, ganking, or last hitting.

There are MANY reasons that games are lost, but the chances of you getting unlucky with allies is the least likely one.

To raise your MMR, you need to get better at Dota, and you are the player that you have the most impact on. Focus on fixing your mistakes from game to game, or you will quickly grow more frustrated, continue to stagnate in skill, and stop having fun, if getting better at Dota is your goal.

Maybe getting really good at Dota isn’t your goal. Maybe you just came here to learn a few things so that playing Dota casually is a bit easier.

Regardless of your intentions, you are going to run into players that are angry and mean. They might believe in MMR Hell, they might be taking their frustrations out on you when they make mistakes, or they might just genuinely be assholes and taunt you whenever they win a teamfight or score a kill on you. If you encounter anyone in Dota 2 that is mean to you. I recommend to immediately mute them.

To mute a player in Dota 2, open the scoreboard in the upper left, find the person that you don’t want to hear from in text or voice for the rest of the game, and press the little microphone button and you’re free. The safest way to protect your enjoyment of the game is to mute them immediately.

If they were being extra mean to you or someone else, you get bonus points from me if you defend the other players in chat and use the report function to report them for communication abuse, which is the proper way of saying ‘this guy is using his words to hurt people for some reason’.

I believe that games like Dota 2 can take normal competitive people and turn them angry and mean because of under performing allies, disappointment in themselves, and the general frustration that comes from losing, but that doesn’t make it okay to spread that anger to other people.

Not only is hurtful to other people, but it significantly impacts how well your team plays.

Morale is not the easiest thing to improve on for the average player since a lot of a person's morale comes outside of the game, but it has the biggest effect on your game that has nothing to do with Dota.

Do not flame or criticize your allies when they make mistakes. Don’t call them idiots, and don’t talk down to your allies as if you’re superior (your MMR is likely similar). Say good job when they get a solo kill, or win a teamfight. Even if you think they are playing terribly, some false encouragement will make your allies play with less stress, they will feel less pressure, and their increased morale will help them play better than usual.

After all, MMR is a measurement of how much impact you have on a Dota 2 game.

That includes how well you last hit, how efficient your farming patterns are, how good you are at attack moving, calculating chain stunning, how good your map awareness is, how well you place wards, how well you teamfight, how well you itemize. Can you pull without missing the connect? Is your late game decision making correct? Does your negative attitude affect the rest of your team, lowering their ability to perform at their MMR?

All of these things matter in every single Dota game. Don’t assume that you are superior to one of your teammates just because they did a few extremely stupid things that you never would. There was probably an error that you made that they wouldn’t have.

It’s also important to remember that you can raise your MMR with any position in Dota. For a safe estimate, until you reach the 5,000 MMR range, it’s very possible to even play support and to support so well that you consistently increase your MMR.

Don’t look to your allies as the excuse of why you aren’t winning. Don’t look to the role you are playing as to why you aren’t winning (unless you are better at other roles, then blame yourself), and make sure that your attitude doesn’t prove toxic to your allies, since them playing worse can easily affect your team’s chance of winning.

Focus on your mistakes. If you have trouble seeing your mistakes, ask a friend who is better, watch a pro player stream a game, watch a pro game to see players playing at the top level and emulate what they do.

DOTA 2 - What to Buy with Starting Gold

At the start of the game you start with 625 gold, and 825 if you random. What you spend this money on is entirely dependent on the hero you are playing, the role you are playing him, the lane you are playing them in, and against the heroes you expect to be against.

Predicting the enemies that will end up in your lane is very difficult at low levels because your opponents likely won't know what the ideal is due to inexperience, so you should just probably focus on generic items.

Every team should have an Animal Courier and a set of Observer Wards at the start of every game purchased by the supports. 1Observer ward should be given to the offlane hero(or offlane heroes) to ward the pull camp of the enemy safe lane so they can't pull, or to give vision to prevent wrap around, and the other observer ward should be placed with vision of the rune so that your mid player has help knowing where the good rune is.

After that, items should be purchased from a mix of these items:

• Iron Branches
  
  
  
  
  
  Ironwood branches are the best way to give your hero more mana and hp in the early game for a low cost. Most heroes will purchase Ironwood at the start of the game.
  
  
• Tango (Comes with 4 per pack)
  
  
  
  
  
  Every player in the game (with the exception of mid heroes sometimes) should purchase a tango set at the start of the game to ensure that their hp stays full enough until the buy a bigger regen item. You can give some your tangos to other people (called pooling Tangos) which lets them use it at a much reduced rate, so it's always fine to have extra tangos in a lane.
  
  
• Healing Salve
  
  
  
  
  
  Healing Salves will usually be purchased by offlane heroes and carries. Supports rarely buy them. 
  
  
• Clarity Potion
  
  
  
  
  
  Clarity Potions are largely purchased by supports and some offlane heroes. Supports are often valued more for their ability to cast spells to harass, so I purchase at least 1 as a support.
  
  
• Stout Shield
  
  
  
  
  
  Stout Shield should be purchased by almost every melee carry, and often as a melee offlane hero. You will almost never need one as a ranged hero since it blocks less if you are a ranged hero.
  
  
• Ring of Protection
  
  
  
  
  
  Ring of Protection is a nice alternative to a Stout shield as a carry because it gives physical survivability and easily builds into a few different early game items like Ring of Basilius. Supports, if they have extra money, can purchase a Ring of Protectionearly to help them build Tranquil Boots.
  
  
• Quelling Blade
  
  
  
  
  
  Quelling Blade can be purchased by melee carries if they have trouble last hitting creeps, as the gold you gain from the last hits will pay for the item, and you'll jungle more rapidly later. Usually I don't purchase Quelling because stout is more important immediately, so buy it a few minutes later, especially if you are melee and plan to jungle a lot!
  
  
• Smoke of Deceit
  
  
  
  
  
  If I am playing support and I have extra money I'll purchase 1 smoke of deceit in case I want to gank. It makes you invisible to creeps and wards so it helps guarantee that you aren't spotted moving around the map to gank, at least by creeps orobserver wards.
  
  
• Sentry Wards
  
  
  
  
  
  I will rarely purchase sentry wards, but they are useful to help me deward enemy observer wards and spot invisible heroes. I will definitely purchase them if I'm against a Brood, Riki, or Bounty Hunter in my lane. There are 2 Sentries in every pack that you purchase.

If you are playing in the mid lane, you will often purchase one of these items:

• Null Talisman
  
  
  
  
  
  Null is useful on Int heroes soloing mid because it provides you +9 damage which helps in last hitting versus your opponent, in addition to some other stats.
  
  
• Wraith Band
  
  
  
  
  
  Wraith Band is useful on Agi Heroes soloing mid because it provides you +9 damage which helps in last hitting versus your opponent, in addition to some other stats.

DO NOT GET BRACER IF YOU ARE A STR HERO. You cannot afford Tango+Bracer.

If you are playing in the Offlane, you will sometimes purchase:

• Boots of Speed
  
  
  
  
  
  Boots are sometimes okay for an offlane hero because it gives you a tactical escape advantage over your opponents, who often have more damage and disable than you do, which requires you to be able to escape bad situations with multiple heroes. You will sometimes see supports purchase a boots so that they can bully offlane heroes or roam around the map, but I don't recommend that for new players.

If we summarize all of our early item purchases, we are purchasing stat items that give us slightly more HP, Mana, armor, and damage at the start of the game. We're purchasing regen items that help us stay in the lane longer, and we're buying some items that will help us build into items later in lane (Ring of Protection).

Here are some example starting item builds for each role in the game:

Carry:

• Stout
• Tango
• Salve
• Iron Branch
• Iron Branch

Mid:

• Wraith Band
• Tango

Offlane:

• Stout
• Tango
• Salve
• Iron Branch
• Clarity

Support 1:

• Courier
• Obs Ward
• Tango(x2)
• Clarity

Support 2(if reg support):

• Sentry
• Smoke
• Tango
• Iron Branch(x2)
• Clarity

Support 2(if melee jungler):

 OR 

• Stout
• Ring of Protection (or Quelling Blade)
• Tango

•  

What To Buy After Starting Gold

The items we purchase with our first gold once we start farming is a bit more diversified so I'll break it down by the role.

Carry

Carries will usually spend their first bit of gold on boots, finishing their Ring of Basilius, which gives them and their allies an armor and mana aura, purchasing Phase Boots or Treads after their initial boots, or Magic Sticks to help them get burst health and mana against offlane heroes. They can also purchase a regen item from the side shop like a Ring of Health, Helm of Iron Will, or Morbid Mask if it builds into an item that they need later.

Mid

Mid heroes very often will spend their first 700 gold on a Bottle since it gives them a huge amount of sustain in the mid lane due to runes. Afterward they will purchase a Boots of Speed and a Teleport Scroll so that they can gank to other lanes if needed, or teleport back to base in a dangerous situation.

Offlane

Offlane heroes purchase differently depending on how their lane is going. The first most important item is either boots or regen, depending on which one you need first.

For example, if you go to the offlane with a stout shield and 2 sets of regen (tango AND Salve), then you should be able to farm 450 gold for boots before you run out of regen. If you go to lane with Boots and 1 set of Tango, then you will probably need to purchaseTranquil Boots asap, which requires 550 gold[Ring of Protection (200), and Ring of Regen (350)]. You can also purchase a bottle as an offlane hero (700 gold), which is refillable at runes or base, if you have no desire to purchase Tranquil Boots on that hero.

Support

Support heroes will spend their first bit of money on a Flying Courier at 3:00 (when it's first available), getting TP scrolls to teleport to other lanes if needed, the next set of Observer wards at 4:50, and Boots when they get the farm. Other items they can purchase if they are doing extremely well are Arcane Boots, Tranquil Boots, Medallion, or pieces of an Urn of Shadows. All of those items have very inexpensive components that are useful early.

DOTA 2 - Stats & Damage Types

Stats

There are 3 basic stat types in Dota 2, Strength (Str), Agility (Agi), and Intelligence (Int). Every hero has a primary stat type.

Your hero gains more of these stats by leveling up, or by purchasing items that give them stats.

1 point of Strength gives you:

• +19 health points
• +Increase your health regen by 0.03/sec
• +1 Damage if you are a Strength Hero

1 point of Agility gives you:

• +1 Attack Speed
• +1/7th's armor
• +1 Damage if you are an Agility Hero

1 point of Intelligence gives you:

• +13 Mana
• +0.04 Mana/sec
• +1 Damage if you are an Intelligence Hero

A couple things about stats to note:

• Most heroes gain their primary stat faster than their other stats, but not always.
• Strength heroes are often the hardest to kill due to gaining more Strength on average, but keep an eye on armor levels, since some heroes have more base armor and agility gain than others.
• Agility heroes often do the most DPS (damage per second) with their right clicks. This is because 1 point of agility gives them 1 damage while ALSO increasing their attack speed. Attacking faster while hitting harder makes their points more valuable for damage, and means that Agility heroes are often able to be Carries. There are carries in all stat types due to their skills, but many carries are Agility Heroes.
• Intelligence heroes are often the easiest to kill because of low hp and armor, but have high damage through spells since their mana pool is larger. Most Intelligence heroes are supports, but not all.
  
  

Damage Types

There are 3 damage types in Dota 2.

Physical

Physical Damage is the most common type of damage because every hero has a right click attack that does physical damage, in addition to a few spells that do physical damage.

Physical damage can be reduced a few different ways in Dota 2, and the most common way is armor. Assuming your hero takes only physical damage from full life until death, 1 extra point of armor will provide you ~6% more health points. This extrapolates out at about the same rate, with 10 armor, or a Platemail, providing you ~60% more health against physical damage. Remember that you can also increase armor by purchasing an Agility item, but the main purpose of Agility, when purchased, is to increase damage and attack speed on an Agility Hero, since it takes 7 Agility to give 1 armor.

The second way to reduce damage is damage block. Damage block can be obtained a few different ways such as a Stout Shield,Vanguard, or Crimson Guard, and the way that it works is it shaves the amount of damage your opponents do from the top before armor reduction.

That means that if your opponent tries to do 50 damage to you and your stout shield blocks 20 damage, then the 30 damage is then applied and further reduced by your armor. If we take this principle into the late game, such as reducing 100 by 20, it means that damage block blocks a larger percentage of damage in the early game compared to the late game.

If you want to increase the physical damage that you're doing, your options are:

• Purchase a +damage item such as a broadsword or a stat items for the hero type that you are (like Gauntlet for a strength hero).
• Increase your AS (attack speed) with an item like Gloves of Haste, or an Agility Item to increase your attack speed.
• Reduce your opponents armor with an item like Medallion.
• Do a hybrid of these things like Purchasing a Desolator to give you increased damage AND lower their armor, or purchase anAssault Cuirass to lower their armor AND increase your attack speed
• Use an allied skill like Amplify Damage to reduce your opponents armor.

Magic

The second damage type in Dota 2 is Magic damage. Magic damage is also extremely common because most spells in the game do magic damage.

To reduce magic damage, you need Magic Resistance.

Almost all heroes have a built in Magic Resistance of 25%, which means that a 100 damage magic nuke will do 75 damage to an enemy. Creeps have a magic resistance of 0% (with catapults being unaffected by most magic damage).

To use this to our advantage, if your Finger of Death does 600 damage at level 1, and your target has 25% magic resistance, that means it does 450 damage after reduction, so make sure your opponent is below 450 hp when you use Finger of Death!

To reduce magic damage done to you, you can purchase items that increase your magic resistance, such as a Cloak, or a Hood of Defiance.

To block magic damage done to you, you can build your Hood of Defiance into a Pipe of Insight, which allows you to shield your team from up to 400 magic damage for a brief time.

The most common way to reduce magic damage done to you is by purchasing a Black King Bar (BkB) which grants you Spell Immunity. Spell Immunity protects you from almost all spells in the game from affecting you either in disable or damage. Some heroes have ultimates that are so powerful that some of their effects go through Spell Immunity like Black King Bar, but they are quite rare.

Increasing the magic damage that you do is a bit trickier than it is for Physical damage because there are very few ways to increase the initial damage number once the skill has maximum points in it. There are some hero abilities and a few items that can increase your magic damage, but for the most part skills that do magic damage do NOT scale into the late game once you have maximum skill points in them.

For this reason, most heroes that rely on casting spells for damage do not turn into carries in the late game.

The ways to increase the magic damage you do is:

• When possible purchase an Aghanims Scepter (Aghs) that increases your damage(not all heroes can purchase Aghs, and many times it just affects utility of your ult, not the damage). To know if your hero has an ultimate that is affected by Aghs, or what the upgrade does, hover the mouse over the ultimate to check.
• Purchase a Veil of Discord or Ethereal Blade to reduce your opponent's magic resistance.
• Use a hero ability that lowers your opponent's magic resistance, such as Skywrath's Ancient Seal.
• Purchase a Refresher Orb to refresh the cooldown of your skills so that you can use a strong spell 2 times in 1 teamfight.
• Purchase an item that does magic damage when used like Dagon.

Pure

The last damage type is Pure damage. Pure damage is neither reduced by Armor or Magic resistance, so it's difficult to decrease or increase. It's the rarest of the damage types, but it's the best against heroes that have very high armor or magic resistance, since it cuts right through those defenses.

The best way to block pure damage is usually by using a Black King Bar, since most spells and attacks that have pure damage components require that your opponents aren't magic immune. There are a few pure damage spells that do damage through magic immunity and they are Doom, Sonic Wave, Rupture, Midnight Pulse and Laguna Blade (only with Aghs).