Any highly ranked player will tell you that communication is one of the most critical skills for success in Dota 2. Sure, you can master hero mechanics, study farming patterns, and copy pro players' builds, but none of that compares to the power of teamwork. Let’s face it: Dota 2 is becoming more and more team-oriented, and no amount of personal skill can overcome a team that’s working together and communicating effectively. But communication isn’t just about commenting on everything, barking orders, or spamming pings. It’s about connecting meaningfully with your teammates in challenging situations to achieve a shared goal. And that’s no easy task in Dota 2, where you’re constantly under pressure, often teaming up with strangers.
That’s why we’ve put this article together—to help you communicate better in every situation. We’ll look at how different types of communication (instinctive and learned) impact focus, either supporting or sabotaging teamwork. We’ll explore why effective communicators take the time to understand goals and motivations. We’ll break down what’s (not) worth sharing and when, to keep your team calm and coordinated in tense moments. You’ll also learn how to make the most of Dota’s built-in tools like pings and chat to adapt to different game situations. With these skills, you’ll boost your chances of winning and reduce the frustration that can come with those tough losses. But more than that—you’ll start building powerful habits that transform how you connect, strategize, and succeed as a team—not just in Dota 2.
Are you ready to boost the one skill that can make or break every match (and every team)? Let’s dive in!
1. Communication Essentials
The purpose of communication is the giving and receiving of information—feelings, opinions, facts, etc. Multiple minds are better than one, and so communication enables collaboration and growth—it is an inherent part of any society and has a wide variety of purposes. In gaming, cooperation is the backbone of any team-based (e)sport, and communication is the heart that brings it to life.
Before we delve into the effective and ineffective ways to get your point across, we need to categorize the types of communication that exist in general. Most articles on this topic consider the four types of communication to be verbal, non-verbal, written, and visual—this classification can be confusing, since the categories overlap and the boundaries between them are unclear. This is why we'll look at things differently:
1.1 Natural Communication
Natural visual communication includes body language, facial expressions, posture, hand gestures, eye contact (or lack thereof)—these are all things that are biologically part of communication for both humans and animals.
Natural auditory communication, i.e. grunts and animal calls, is similarly hardwired into both human and animal brains, and it's the reason why the loud roar of a bear will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up (sometimes even if it is just a recording).
1.2 Man-made Communication
Man-made visual communication includes everything that involves written language, since language is man-made and is unique to humans. Written text is currently the most important form of man-made visual communication, with examples including your emails, your deep 3 am chats about life, emoji-filled flirting texts, and even this article.
However, it also includes modern man-made media containing visual signals inspired by nature, such as: visual art, product design, marketing & advertisement, UX/UI, website development, memes, gifs, Instagram, like button, etc.
Man-made auditory is simply defined as speaking words and sentences. It can be a formal call with your colleague, voice messages between you and your buddy, or an argument with a stranger. Keep in mind that it's not just word choices—a person's tone, cadence, and pitch are all part of their verbal communication as well. Arguably, these are close to the natural auditory category, which could explain why they often matter more than the words themselves.
1.3 The Great Attention Shift
Back in the day of cavemen and cavewomen, there was no communication other than natural; think body language, simple calls and grunts (“Uhh-ehh!” = I’m hungry). Man-made auditory communication (i.e. basic language beyond just grunts and noises) wasn't a thing until about 100,000 BCE (highly debated). The first forms of man-made visual communication (cave drawings of symbols) are from roughly 40,000 BCE, while written communication didn't exist all the way until about 3000 BCE. Why is this important? The older the method of communication, the heavier its biological (evolutionary) encoding. Research backs this up, suggesting that 83% of all information we process is through sight, followed by 11% through hearing, and with the remaining 6% divided among smell, touch and taste.
The advancement of humanity has massively changed the types of communication available to everyone today. Auditory communication became focused on words and language, which led to written communication (man-made visual), followed by present day technologies enabling global, instantaneous, digital communication—both visual and auditory, allowing us to achieve unthinkable levels of accuracy, reach, and reliability. We learned to favor these man-made types of communication and consciously refocused our mental attention on them.
However, the evolution of our brains takes several orders of magnitude longer than the time it took humanity to invent all this, which means our minds are still instinctively valuing the caveman types of communication the most. (Remember our point about biological encoding?) As a result, we’re left with a significant difference between how our attention is distributed subconsciously, on autopilot, and how we distribute our attention consciously, with purpose (see visual comparison below). 
When sending messages, people tend to use stronger, extreme expressions in an attempt to cram in as much meaning (emotional context) as possible.
When receiving messages, people tend to become highly sensitive to linguistic meaning, looking for cues that are not there, because their brains are missing a massive depth of meaning—the natural visual and the natural auditory parts of communication, both of which the subconscious mind values far more than the actual words, especially when emotional.
Ever found it strange to watch those pro players afraid to make eye contact and fumbling over their words during interviews, while they're happy to jab at their opponents with provocative comments in all-chat during their matches?
Is that an example of body language revealing somebody's true nature, or simply a consequence of professional gamers being more comfortable using man-made digital communication?
When you add the stresses of modern life to a complex environment, trigger emotions, and cut out most visual cues, communication issues become far more likely. Game developers understand this challenge, and that's why they invent new, alternative methods of digital communication—we will examine the ones used in Dota 2 in detail in the following chapter.
So what’s next for human communication? Written text (man-made visual) has historically been the pinnacle of communication development, with the printing press being widely regarded as one of the greatest inventions of all time. Nowadays, through the internet, technology, and digitalization, humanity carries on inventing radically new methods of communication—mainly visual and auditory, and even experimenting with other senses. We are living through this shift, and so it is more important than ever to deepen our conscious understanding of how we communicate.
1.4 Conflicts—Win or Lose, Live or Die
(According to the Oxford English Dictionary) A conflict is a serious disagreement or incompatibility between two or more opinions or interests, usually held by two or more people.
Conflict in nature has a binary outcome. Fight or flight—this is our instinctive stress response, designed to help us deal with a life-threatening situation, such as facing a predator that wants to kill and eat us. Even though a fortunate majority of us rarely find our lives jeopardized nowadays, this stress response system is still in place and tends to activate in many common moments, such as an argument over something we care about.
Still, thanks to our mind’s ability to reason, we are able to step back, take a moment to think things over, avoid resorting to fighting or fleeing, and figure out a third, more productive resolution that benefits both parties involved. Modern problems and conflicts are rarely binary—instead of one perspective being right and the other wrong, they can often benefit from finding common ground and be combined into a third, more holistic and balanced perspective. This mindset comes in handy when communicating in-game or reflecting between matches, as described in the next chapters.
So if we’re all so smart, where does all the toxicity come from? Problems and conflicts in competitive games such as Dota 2 tend to return to the binary nature for a number of reasons:
Competition - The essence of competition is winning or losing, a scenario with a binary outcome, quite similar to the life-and-death situations in nature, which activates our lizard brains.
Mental overload - The complexity of games like Dota 2 pushes your mind to its limit, leaving you with little mental capacity for objective reasoning.
Dynamic, fast-paced environment - The time pressure to make countless decisions (while simultaneously considering other players) forces your absolute attention during the entire match with little to no downtime for calm reflection, since any hesitation is punished.
High-stakes - Ranking systems add a “gambling” element, since gaining or losing that precious number depends on the outcome of the match.
Question break!
How would you describe your communication during Dota 2 matches?
Are you the loudest one, or do you stay rather quiet? Do you prefer to speak, write or ping? Why? Do you encourage your team regularly or focus on your own game? Do you like to use chat wheel phrases to stir emotions amongst the enemy? Do you mute up people early? Listen to music instead? How does your style differ from what you observe with other players?
2. Communication Types in Dota 2
The types of communication available in Dota 2 re game-specific, but work with the same principles introduced in chapter one. First off, each communication has their clear advantages and disadvantages. Choosing the right communication channel for the job is fundamental for communication to flow well and teamwork to be effective.
2.1 Voice Chat
Dota 2 allows you to use its in-game voice chat to communicate with your four teammates—this is a form of verbal auditory communication. Although very powerful, naturally fast and easy, voice chat has several major limitations:
Everybody must have access to working audio peripherals and be in a sufficiently quiet environment (or have noise-canceling headphones). Additionally, each player needs to have their audio input and output settings adjusted properly.
Every player's behavior score needs to be high enough—if a player has been reported a certain amount of times by their past and current teammates, their behavior score will drop and they will not be able to use the in-game voice chat.
All players need to not be manually muted by their teammates. These manual mutes carry over across matches, so if player A decides to mute player B for whatever reason during a match, player B will never be able to communicate with player A again, until the latter manually unmutes them.
Everyone needs to speak and understand each other's language, dialect, and accent. (Although there are in-game settings that allow you to set your preferred language before queuing for a game, these are not verified or checked, and it is therefore quite common to have players speaking different languages on the same team.)
In other words, even if you have double-checked that everything is in order on your end, you have no assurance that your teammates are hearing you properly and aren't blasting music that drowns out your in-game calls, or that they even understand the language you are speaking.
Considering these limitations and the fact that there is no record (whatever you say leaves no trace), it's safe to say that voice chat is far from being a reliable communication channel.
2.2 Text Chat
The text chat in Dota 2 follows largely the same rules as voice chat, but with several key differences:
The behavior score threshold is lower, meaning that a player needs to be reported far more often in order to lose their ability to use the in-game text chat.
Dialects and accents are not present in written text which makes same-language communication easier, including the mention of internationally used and accepted Dota 2 terms. However, different alphabets can make things more difficult.
While there's a solid chance that somebody can't hear the game and therefore its voice chat properly, it is guaranteed that everyone can see the game and the text chat properly—if they couldn't, they wouldn't be able to play at all.
Lastly, communicating through the in-game text chat is recorded and leaves a trace for the duration of the match. Its main disadvantage, however, is that it is quite tedious and slow.
2.3 Map Pings
Each player can draw on the minimap (holding ctrl + left-click dragging their mouse on the minimap) and ping locations simultaneously on the minimap and main screen, with two ping options: an exclamation mark and an X, both with slightly different sound cues. These can only be seen by your team.
It’s good to know that even if you get muted, some of your pings will still go through, albeit on a cooldown (e.g. a maximum of 2 pings every 30 seconds). Your minimap drawings are not shown if you're muted.
2.4 Alt-Pings
Almost all objective information and HUD segments on the screen can be alt-pinged (holding alt or ctrl+alt and left-clicking the element) in order to print a preformatted message in the team text chat, automatically translated into each player's set language. Alt-pings generally avoid the disadvantages of verbal and written communication and combine their advantages. They are fast and easy to use like the voice chat, while also leaving a trace for the remainder of the match, like the text chat.
Players with sufficient behavior score can alt+ping the following main elements:
HP and Mana - Maximum and current, either in percentages or absolute values. This includes the HP and Mana of their own hero or unit, as well as any allied enemy hero, unit, or structure.
Spells and Items - Whether they are available or not. If they aren't, their remaining cooldowns or required mana costs will be indicated.
Buffs and Debuffs - Anything that their own hero, their allies, or their enemies are affected by, as well as how long the remaining duration of said buff or debuff is.
Gold - How much they need for an item, for their buyback, or for both (using ctrl+alt-ping).
Experience and Levels - Their current amounts, as well as how much experience and how many levels they still need to level up a certain spell or talent.
Missing Enemy Heroes
The In-Game Clock - What minute it is and how much time is left until the next power, bounty rune, and day or night change.
Dropped Items - Any dropped allied or enemy item or neutral token
Specific Locations - with the indication of attacking, defending, moving, retreating, needing vision or suspecting enemy vision there.
2.5 Chat Wheels
There are three chat wheels in Dota 2 that you can bind to a hotkey and use during games. Each chat wheel holds up to 8 words or phrases that you can quickly print by simply holding the hotkey you've chosen, moving your mouse towards your phrase of choice, and releasing the hotkey. Potentially fast, but it takes some getting used to.
Two of the three chat wheels can be filled with a huge list of phrases, including many commonly used ones, such as "go back", "well played", and "my bad". However, this isn't what most people use the chat wheels for. The most popular phrases are the ones that also play audio which either only your team or both teams can hear—this can range from classic sounds such as clapping or a "badum-tss", to phrases said by popular casters, most of which need to be purchased.
The third chat wheel is reserved for hero voice lines—each hero has nine different voice lines that you can only use if you're playing that hero and have played enough games on it to unlock them. The first two are free for everyone and can be seen and heard by your team only, while the next seven are seen and heard by both teams, but are locked until you pay the DotaPlus subscription and play a substantial amount of matches (over 300 for the final voice lines) with each corresponding hero.
2.6 Overview
The image below shows an objective comparison of each communication channel's advantages and disadvantages, helping you decide which one is best used for each situation.
How do you personally use the available communication channels?
In what situations? Which is your favorite and why? Which is your least favorite? Can you think of communication channel "combos", which work well together? What could you try differently to broaden your comms toolkit and test what you’ve read above?
3. Before the Game—Why Do You Play
As we defined earlier, communication allows a group of individuals to achieve their common and (compatible) individual goals together. Understanding your goals and respecting others' goals will improve your mindset, performance, and communication in your games. This maximizes your chances of winning and makes you far more resilient in the face of your inevitable losses.
Now, you might be thinking: "Goals? What goals? I just wanna play Dota 2."
Goals are always there, underneath every action.
Everybody has goals, whether they are aware of them or not. Unrecognized goals are dangerous as they shape our reactions without us realizing (e.g.: "Why the hell did I blow up like that on something so unimportant?"). Your communication cannot become powerful, inspiring and respectful until you:
Take control of your own goals.
Realize your limited awareness of others’ goals and show respect to the goals you know.
Build effectively on win-win connections between your own goals and the goals of others.
What are you trying to achieve by playing Dota 2—in general, and in this current match?
If your answer is along the lines of "I just wanna win and get higher MMR.", you must realize that these are empty labels that you should investigate further.
What is it about winning and having a higher MMR that attracts you, and why?
What are you learning from it? How will it help you?
Does it make you feel good, and why?
What are you proving, and to whom?
What good does it bring after it’s done?
Good goals move you forward, help you learn and grow, lead to good habits, shape your communication constructively and echo positively towards others in the form of inspiration. Bad goals (unrecognized in most cases) cause the opposite. Let's take a look at two examples in the context of Dota 2:
Bad goal: "I will gain 500 MMR by the end of the month".
First of all, the goal is not entirely in your control, which sets you up for disappointment. Secondly, having a certain MMR number in itself is not your true goal—if it were, you would be happy to have someone boost you. Instead, what you really want is to become skilled enough to perform at that MMR, for which there is most likely also an underlying reason.
Good goal: "I will improve my communication habits in tense situations by the end of the month by defining and testing simple communication strategies, allowing me to respond constructively and focus on solutions, regardless of what negative emotions I feel. I will review my last games, define three simple comms strategies to try and reflect / adjust every 5-10 games until the end of month."
This is a goal that is entirely in your control, and although the main activity is playing Dota 2, improving the involved skills of communicating, reflecting and learning is useful literally everywhere in career and life. It is also a goal that is clearly measurable, has a specific time frame, and is directly tied to better in-game performance.
Once you have thought about your goals, realize that all the above holds true for everybody else in your games—everyone has a goal that they may or may not realize. You might have no idea what it is, beyond simply winning! This will help you understand the limits and context of your in-game communication, in the next chapter.
What is it beyond winning and ranking up that makes you want to play again and again?
What is it that makes you come back after a particularly annoying loss? What other questions outlined in this chapter resonate with you?
4. During the Game—the What & How
We’ve examined what tools we can use (chapter 2) and we clarified what our goals are (chapter 3). Now that we've covered all the theories and possibilities, it's time to get more practical and put our tools and goals to use: What and how should you communicate in-game? Answers to both of these questions are highly dependent on the environment and specific situation, so let us start by examining it:
The Dota 2 In-Game Environment
Imagine you're in the middle of a Dota 2 match. What's characteristic about this situation?
Hyperfocus - You're making a dozen decisions per second, constantly, throughout the duration of the match. Item & skill builds, timings, positioning, targeting—all of these require continuous adaptation, taking into account the fact that all other nine players are making their own decisions simultaneously.
Time Pressure - Should you force a fight or be patient? A couple of wrong decisions could easily cost you the game, but hesitating and taking too long to decide will definitely cost you the game. Whatever your choices are, they need to be made on the fly, and they need to be made quickly!
Necessary Assumptions - Coordination is crucial, but you and your teammates have neither the time nor the mental capacity to sit back, brainstorm all the ways to approach the next team fight, compare them, and collectively choose one that everybody fully agrees with. This is why assumptions are necessary—you and your team expect certain decisions from each other, and when some of these expectations inevitably aren't met, both sides easily get frustrated.
4.1 Focus on What You Can Influence, Accept What You Cannot
Dota 2 is a team game, and whether you succeed or not also depends on each of your four teammates. Being absolutely clear on what part of the game outcome you actually own; what part you can influence; and what is left for you to simply accept, is incredibly vital when it comes to remaining calm, performing and communicating to the best of your abilities, and maximizing your chances of winning.
Accepting the Dead Zone of the Past
Everything that has already happened is in the past and cannot be changed or influenced—it can only be accepted. Sometimes, it can be helpful to use knowledge of the past in order to influence the future (i.e. learning from your mistakes and not repeating them). However, since we know that a Dota 2 match is incredibly fast-paced and intense, we must also realize that we simply do not have the time or cerebral processing power left for learning from the past while in the middle of a game, let alone discussing it with our team. Realistically, therefore, anything that already happened is part of the dead zone of the past—it can only be accepted.
Talking about mistakes during the game is a massive mistake in itself.
Own Your Present Situation and Actions
The only thing we really have 100% control over is our own communication and performance in the present. For example (as mentioned in chapter 1), thinking about the possibility of winning or losing distracts us and impairs our communication and performance. This happens for two reasons: firstly, it drives our lizard brains into panic, fooling us into feeling like we're in a life-or-death situation (Oh nooo, I’m gonna die here and throw the entire match!); and secondly, it takes our precious and limited attention away from what is actually happening in the match right now.
This is why the main focus of your in-game communication should be to:
Talk about yourself and what you are planning to do.
You know what your approach for the game is, but your teammates may not have matching assumptions. Sharing your intentions clarifies what your allies can expect from you and improves the likelihood of your team being on the same page. You're not only operating powerfully from the “ownership” zone of the present by focusing on your actions—you're also spreading out your impact into the yellow zone by influencing your team positively, since you're making it easier for them to coordinate their own actions with you.
Another way that we own our present is through our aim—our goals, as discussed in chapter 3. If you choose the right ones and formulate them well, they will always serve you as a guiding star in the heat of battle. Even when they don't lead you to victory, they will transform your losses into valuable learning experiences, helping you grow stronger for next time!
Always Fall Forward, Never Backwards
When it comes to the future, we obviously cannot control or own it. However, we can influence our own as well as our teammates' performance and communication to a significant degree.
Unfortunately, many people's default communication tends to have a profoundly negative influence. In other words, the things most of us tend to say when acting on autopilot and not consciously considering what we are conveying to our teammates, are destructive—they demoralize and distract ourselves and those around us. We naturally do this because it's human nature to be focused on the short term.
When encountering a problem, it's incredibly tempting to complain; sharing what bothers you and being heard makes you feel better in the moment, but it does nothing to fix the problem in the long run. In fact, it distracts you and anybody listening from any potential solution. In the face of hardship it is our self-preserving human instinct to make ourselves feel better first, without realizing that we may be negatively influencing our surroundings and future.
If complaining equals being stuck in the dead zone of the past, how can you escape and move forward instead? By focusing on the solution, which is something that hasn't happened yet and which you can influence. In order to do this, you must first come to terms with the current state of things. Once you've fully accepted the present and all the problems and mistakes that formed it, you will be able to properly understand it and figure out what actions are most likely to lead towards a favorable outcome.
Talk about your enemies and how the game could play out.
It's easy to overlook what the enemy is doing while preoccupied with your own game—talk to your team about crucial enemy decisions or timings that you notice and the appropriate solution, such as:
The enemy Clockwerk is nearing level 6, so we should avoid standing out in the open where he can easily Hookshot us. (In-game version: "care clock 6")
The enemy Earthshaker probably has the gold to buy his Blink Dagger soon, we should avoid standing together. (In-game version: "care es blink")
This can help them prepare and avoid getting caught off guard, and it's an excellent example of how to exert positive influence onto your teammates and improve your team's chances. (Proposed solutions are usually skipped in higher level matches, because they are clear and implied—a brief reminder is already sufficient.)
4.2 Choose the Right Comms Channel
Now that we covered what you should be communicating to your team, the next question is: how do you want to communicate it? Let's start off by taking a look at the common ways people get it wrong:
Classic Mistakes—Communication Overload
Overusing Voice Chat
Many solo players rely heavily on voice chat, trying to establish rapport and get on the same page with their teammates, so that they can coordinate specific strategies. Pulling this off in a game as complex as Dota 2 in mere minutes with absolute strangers while also playing the said complex game is incredibly unrealistic. Even professionals realize that's not feasible, and instead take plenty of time to have their strategy discussions outside of matches. So why do inexperienced players make this mistake? Because talking is the oldest and hence the most biologically encoded type of man-made communication! It is our natural go-to in fast paced situations!
If you think you may be one of these solo queue oversharers that regularly talks for longer periods, keep the following in mind:
At best, your allies that are fully focused on the game may simply not hear all the information you're sharing.
At worst, your allies may get distracted by your talking and actually start playing worse, in which case you're not only failing to increase your chances of winning—you're actively lowering them.
Overusing Text Chat
Writing essays in the text chat is less distracting than constant talking over voice chat, but it still hurts your team's concentration. Furthermore, you literally cannot play the game while typing a long message, so anything that takes you more than 2-3 seconds to type has a negative impact on your gameplay.
Spam Pinging
Although it might feel somewhat satisfying for a brief moment, spam-pinging distracts you and your entire team and is a blatant abuse of the communication channel. Whatever the reason for the commotion is, it's often not clear to anyone but the person doing the spam-pinging. The high-pitched sound accompanying the pinging (properly designed to stand out when used even a single time) is a great way to give your teammates a headache when it's repeated continuously (which is also why Valve introduced a limit to consecutive pings regardless of your behavior score).
Communicating Like a Pro
We can clearly see the emergence of two principles:
Important Info Only - Any communication comes at the cost of distracting you and your teammates, so naturally it's only worth paying that price for the most important information that can have a significant impact on the game. This automatically excludes discussing things that have already happened.
As Brief As Possible - For the same reasons, speed is absolutely crucial. Dota-specific lingo naturally emerged over time, allowing people to say a lot with only a few words. Nevertheless, there is no room to discuss complex strategies during the game.
Professional team games and high level solo queue matches are a clear example of these principles: if you've ever listened to their voice comms or seen their text chat, you'll notice that they rarely ask each other questions and usually stick to short sentences that ignore grammar, such as: "care zeus 6", "wait my BKB and go rosh", or "Mars no TP".
Although these 3-4 word phrases only take a couple of seconds to type and are understood by most Dota 2 players, there are even faster ways of doing this ever since Valve introduced automatic alt-click pings. They combine the advantages of voice and text chat while avoiding their disadvantages. Alt-pinging is faster, easier, more precise and bypasses language barriers, which is why I would rate it as the most reliable type of in-game communication. Unfortunately, alt-pings are still highly underrated as most players have not created a habit of using them.
Example
Consider the following common and crucial instance of gameplay coordination: hitting strong timings, i.e. grouping up with your team and looking for a fight as soon as you've finished an important item or reached a key hero level on one or more heroes.
The best way to prepare for this is to let your teammates know ahead of time how close you are to your power spike, either by sharing how much gold you still need to complete the item, or how much more experience you need to hit that significant level.
Typing this out would be tedious and slow, especially because it involves numbers.
Saying it in voice chat would be faster and easier, but it would leave no trace, so somebody might miss it (especially if somebody else is speaking at that moment), and you wouldn’t know until it's too late.
Alt-pinging the item in your quick-buy or the spell / talent that you're going to unlock is fast and easy, leaves a trace as it gets sent out in the text chat, and has the highest chance of being received and understood by your entire team.
These points are all true even for professional team environments, where people are used to each other's voices and jargon, and where everyone's peripherals are high quality. Your solo queue games (and perhaps party / team games) are definitely not the same: not everyone has great audio hardware, not everybody speaks the same language at the same level, nor does everyone use the same lingo. This is where the automatically translated alt-ping messages gain a significant edge over voice and text chat!
4.3 Constructive vs Destructive Communication
Finally, we now have all the pieces we need to clearly distinguish between constructive (effective) and destructive (ineffective) communication.
Constructive communication:
Leads you (and your teammates) to your common goals (chapter 3) by focusing on your sphere of influence (chapter 4.1)
Uses the right communication channels given the general environment AND specific situation (chapter 2 and 4.2)
All this theory can start feeling a little too abstract, but make no mistake; these situations happen regularly in your Dota 2 matches, even if you don't realize it. Let's take a detailed look at some typical situations, and what the destructive and constructive approaches could be:
Example
It's 21 minutes into the game and the enemy carry Phantom Assassin already has a Battlefury and Desolator completed, coupled with 6 kills and 0 deaths, while your allied offlane Axe has died 5 times and is very slow with his item progression.
The average Dota player would recognize that their chances of winning versus a Phantom Assassin with such a great start are low, and would subconsciously remember all the times they were in a similar situation and lost, which hurts their morale and challenges their hope of winning. How they react at this very moment might just shape the outcome of the match. Will they surrender to self-pity and start raging and blaming to get immediate relief? Or will they keep their emotional composure and sharpen their focus instead?
Destructive Communication
Players that feel “hurt” may:
Write or say: "Good job feeding the PA"; "never play Axe again"; or "nice offlane" (destructive communication using voice and text chat).
Alt-ping Phantom Assassin's items and level, then alt-ping the game timer, and finally alt-ping Axe's items and levels (destructive communication using alt-pings and chat wheels).
Declare the game as "over" and refuse to play further, aiming to regain a (false) feeling of control over the situation, since predicting and guaranteeing a loss is far easier than predicting and guaranteeing a win.
All of these actions are focused on the past, and while they do provide short-term emotional relief, they sabotage the future by emphasizing the problem and diverting attention away from solutions. The true messages that typically stand behind these actions are variations of:
We're going to lose, but it's not my fault; it's Axe's fault, and both teams need to know this!
I have no idea what to do and I’m freaking out! I can't turn this game around, but I can teach Axe a lesson and make him know he screwed up.
I’m angry because nothing I can do will make sure that we win, but I can at least do something to make sure that we lose.
Most players do not consciously think about their communication during the game, nor do they consider how their emotions affect it. As a result, the destructive approach and toxic remarks are incredibly common. However, after becoming aware of this, we are able to start changing our habits and opt for the better approach.
Constructive Communication
As mentioned earlier, the first step towards constructive communication is a full acceptance of the past, including the problems and mistakes that it is made up of. Your offlane Axe did not perform well in the first 20 minutes, and he is now weaker than he would be in an average game, while the enemy carry Phantom Assassin is now stronger than she would be in an average game.
Everybody in your match can probably figure this out—it's just that they don't really want to, because it's a painful truth. By steering your team's attention towards potential solutions instead, you achieve several things at once; one, you help your Axe avoid potential blame, which allows him to maintain focus and potentially improve his performance; two, you steer the focus of your teammates away from the issues and towards their solutions instead; and three, you encourage your team to create and follow a plan that can actually help you win, rather than distract everyone by whining about the fat enemy carry.
In other words, instead of seeking immediate relief through blaming and complaining, the better approach is to write or say something like: "Our Axe is a bit behind, we should try to give him some space to get his Blademail + Blink"; or "The enemy PA is having a great game—we should smoke up and gank her / focus her in the next fight / get Ghost Scepters on our backliners" (auditory or visual constructive communication).
In the end, it doesn’t matter if your plan succeeded or not, by communicating constructively you did all you could to improve your team's chances of winning, and that counts as a personal win on its own.
How do you manage to keep your cool when things go wrong during a match?
Do you have a method that works? When was the last time you (nearly) lost your control? What was the trigger? Does it happen often? What do tense situations usually do to your performance and communication? How do you communicate when winning, and when losing?
5. After the Game—Reflect and Learn
5.1 Always Reflect on Yourself
Always start by reflecting on your own performance, regardless of the situation. This is a crucial habit because without reflection, you are bound to repeat the same mistakes and stay stuck with no progression. If you play Dota 2 mindlessly, clicking buttons on autopilot, you may as well be playing Candy Crush, or Hamster Combat. Self-reflection is how you harness the learning potential of Dota 2—it is the key that turns every single game into a unique opportunity to improve, step by step, both as a player and as a person.
The above holds especially true for the solo queue environment, in which you are collaborating with strangers solely for the duration of your match—strangers that you will most likely never see again. Every second spent on lamenting their performance is a time wasted—a second that could've been spent on the incredibly beneficial activity of self-reflection.
5.2 Learn to Give Balanced Feedback
While playing a match with a team, you should essentially still treat it as a solo queue environment and follow the communication rules mentioned in chapters 4.1 and 4.2—avoid dwelling on things that have already happened, avoid pointing out mistakes and focus on what needs to be done in order to give yourselves the best chances of winning.
Once the game is over, solo queue strangers all go their own ways, but your stack or team will likely stay on Discord and have the opportunity to discuss what happened. You still can't do anything about the past, but you have a lot more influence over the future, since you're no longer in the stressful in-game situation described in chapter 4.2. This gives you the opportunity to reflect on your matches and plan ahead, giving each other feedback so that everyone can improve.
(Of course, we must add here that we need to respect those who play just for fun and do not wish to analyze their performance in an attempt to improve it; trying to force them to work on their gameplay or communication skills is pointless.)
Giving feedback properly is an art that can be its own entire article, but we'll brush the surface by taking a look at just a few points:
Focus on the actions, not the person - The moment you start blaming the person or bringing up situations other than the specific one you are discussing, all possibilities of useful feedback go out the window. Say “You did this and the outcome was that..” instead of “You are this and that..”
Frame your concerns as your opinion, not as facts - Regardless of how right you think you are, your worldview makes up only one part of reality. If you initiate the discussion by claiming your stance is the only right one, you won't get far. Try instead to frame the feedback as an open discussion, to maximize your chances for landing your opinions well.
Ask them what they think would be better - By doing this you're strengthening your connection as you're both on the same side versus the issue, instead of being on opposing sides. Allowing your teammate to come up with their own solution makes them far more likely to believe in it and follow through with it.
Example
Destructive One-Way Criticism of a Person
Communicating the following to your friend or teammate is, needless to say, ineffective:
“Ur shaman is so bad, u gave Slark 7 kills and then he steamrolled us.” is, needless to say, ineffective.
"Wow, what an awful game. You're such a reckless player and always feed relentlessly when playing Shadow Shaman" (incorrectly focuses on the person, positions you against each other, destructive)
First of all, by directly criticizing the Shadow Shaman player you obviously make them feel bad, which in turn is likely to make them hesitate and perform worse next time they're playing the same hero. It's also likely to put them on the defensive, making them think less about the game and how to learn from it, and more about how to argue and defend themselves from your personal attacks.
Obviously, this entire approach will always lead to negative consequences, regardless of whether you're criticizing a stranger during a game, or a regular teammate after a game.
Constructive Feedback Conversation about the Situation, Action and Outcome
Instead of focusing on the person themselves, focus on their actions.
"That was a tough game—I've seen you do great on melee supports like Clockwerk, but in this game your Shadow Shaman gameplay didn't seem to be on the same level. What did you have in mind when picking the hero? What do you think was challenging about playing him?" (correctly focuses on the action, positions you both on the same side, constructive)
It doesn't matter whether you think it's obvious that the Shadow Shaman player's positioning was terrible and he cost you the entire game; this is the better way to discuss it constructively for a number of reasons:
It doesn't attack the person as a player in general, just their gameplay during that particular match (situation) on that particular hero
It mentions a compliment which helps the above (separating the action from the person)
It avoids the "right vs wrong" conflict and is phrased more like a personal opinion instead
It gives the receiver a chance to save face by asking them a question
It helps them internalize the feedback by letting them figure out a solution themselves
What’s your regular reflection routine?
Do you take a break to think about what you’ve learned after every match? Every session? Or never? How could you make yourself learn faster and repeat mistakes less?
6. Game Changers
Communication Is King: DOTA 2 is a team game, and no amount of personal skill can overcome a team that’s not working together. Effective communication is your strongest tool for winning matches.
Emotions Should Sharpen Focus, Not Fuel Rage: You are so much more than your primal instincts. Let emotions serve you, not make you a slave. Respond consciously with calm, breathe before talking.
See Beyond Conflict: Don’t let the binary “fight or flight” instinct take over. Shift your mindset to find win-win solutions, staying positive even under high-pressure in-game situations.
Know Your Toolkit: From voice chat to alt-pings, each communication channel has strengths and weaknesses. Learn when and how to use each one for maximum impact, avoiding distraction.
Set and Respect Goals: Know what you’re aiming for in each game–get better regardless of the outcome. Communicate with respect, looking to understand and connect with the goals of others.
Focus on the Present and Future: Leave the past where it belongs. Instead of dwelling on mistakes, concentrate on what you can do now to influence the game’s outcome.
Constructive Beats Destructive: Complaints and blame might feel satisfying in the moment, but they hurt your team. Instead, focus on solutions and lead your team with clarity and positivity.
Master the Art of Pings: Alt-pings are fast, precise, and universally understood. They combine the best of voice and text chat, so make them a habit for sharing critical information.
Reflect and Learn: After every match, take time to think about what worked and what didn’t. Self-reflection is key to improving both your communication and gameplay over time.
Beyond Gaming: The skills you build here—staying calm, collaborating under pressure, and connecting meaningfully—are just as powerful in life and work as they are in Dota 2.
7. Wrap Up—You Are Invited
By diving into this article, you’ve taken the first steps toward mastering one of the most crucial skills in Dota 2: effective communication. The strategies you’ve learned here aren’t just about winning more games—they’re about building habits that improve how you respond to pressure, stay calm, and connect meaningfully with your team to achieve a common goal. And these skills go way beyond gaming. Just like in Dota 2, much of modern business communication happens remotely and digitally, and the same principles apply. Large corporate environments can feel a bit like another competitive game—different personalities collaborate and compete, hierarchies are in play, and deadlines are always looming. In both worlds, great communication can either fuel your success or hold you back.
To continue your growth, join us on Discord, where we’re continuously adding new resources to expand your communication toolkit. You’ll find a downloadable game communication diary to set goals and track progress, a video series diving deeper into why communication habits matter (coming soon), and access to discussions with professional coaches and top players about how to use these skills effectively—in the game as well as outside of it.
And this is just the beginning. We’re developing a comprehensive communication analytics tool for Dota 2 that will take your game insights to a whole new level. If you found value in this article, you won’t want to miss what’s coming next. Let us know what areas of communication you’d like to explore further or suggest new skills to focus on—we’ll catch you on Discord!