"Coaching Is Based On Trust" - Behind The Scenes With Dota Coaches

By Skim on Aug 9, 2016 03:55 UTC

Coaching in Dota is a rather new phenomenon. Despite the rapid growth of the scene and its massive prizepools, teams have only recently started to rely on the assistance of coaches and analysts. But why is that? Why has it taken 5 years for a professional scene with millions on the line to employ coaches as fixed parts of the team? And what do coaches in Dota do?

“It needs to succeed first”

There are some simple answers as to why coaching has not been a thing early on. In Dota 1 especially, teams struggled to make a full-time living in the first place, investing into a 6th team member, who would need to work full-time without a suitable salary, was largely impossible.

According to Escape Gaming’s captain and former Alliance coach syndereN, “for a new influence to come in, it needs to succeed before it catches on”, which is why it took a while for coaches to establish themselves. It took a while for the scene to get used to new blood and young talent and a team like Evil Geniuses needed to succeed with a young player (SumaiL) first, before others would take similar leaps of faith and pick up new blood. Similarly, coaches needed to succeed first as well, and EG’s success with Bulba as a coach during TI5 certainly helped a lot of teams realize the value of having a coach.

Yet, realizing a coach is helpful, is not the final answer either. Not every coach is the same after all. “You could divide coaching into two types right now”, so syndereN.

Strategic Coaching

Strategic coaches help teams with their analysis and understanding of the game. It’s important to note though, that for most teams the coach does not dictate what type of playstyle the team plays, that still is in the hands of the captain and the team. “They’re five players, they have their own idea.[...] I don’t want to interfere with whatever they got going on, I want to make it stronger” is how OG’s coach 7ckngMad describes his approach to coaching. For him, the most important thing for a coach, especially a strategic one, is to know the team he’s coaching as best as he possibly can and relay that information to his team. “It’s hard to know what you do wrong, but it’s even harder to know what you do right.”

Once this step has been established, 7ckngMad takes it onto himself to become his team’s biggest enemy, by mock-drafting against Fly and putting himself into the enemy’s shoes. There are various methods on how to assist in strategic coaching; simple things like replay analysis are obvious, but some players would even play certain heroes only on unknown smurf accounts, as to practice their heroes without the fear of being scouted out by opponents.

Mental/Life Coaching

Strategic Coaching is only a portion of the coaching aspect though. Players, no matter which sport they participate in, require assistance in mental health and attitude. Especially young players will face difficulties of adjusting to new problems and environments, recovering from losses and staying calm in pressure situations. While coaches can’t of course assist in-game, they can improve communication and behaviour outside of the game.

What makes the aspect of mental coaching difficult, and also why they ideally would be trained professionals, is that every player reacts differently to scenarios and situations. A motivational speech before or after a game could easily hype up one player, but also demotivate the other.

“Coaching is based on trust” - syndereN

Regardless of how you approach coaching though, there is no coaching in the first place without any trust. The teams need to trust the coach in order to work with him, but this trust, or the lackthereof, is what makes it difficult for coaches to establish themselves. Most current coaches are former pro players, friends and rivals. “I’ve played a lot against fly and notail. We know each other as good players and thus value the other’s opinion” explains 7ckngMad. A coach without any experience in the professional scene needs to earn that trust first.

Fnatic’s analyst Kipspul is one of these cases. She has no professional experience and is also not an individually high skilled player, but is capable to present the information she gathers from opponents and replays in a way that the team understands and respects.

A more applicable example would be Escape Gaming’s coach notahax, who, though he has some professional experience, earned his respect and trust by working hard and for free during the TI6 qualifiers, convincing the team that he could be a valuable asset in the long-run.

The future of coaching in Dota

As time goes on and as teams like OG succeed, the need and the interest in coaches will keep on increasing. 7ckngMad has already confirmed to us that he intends on staying with OG as a coach even after TI. More and more players will be interested in a coaching position, and more and more teams will be able to afford a full-time coach.

This is just a first step into the right direction. It’s unlikely to see large support staff like there is in football or basketball, but teams are already looking to expand their support staff to a sizeable number. OG and EG not only field a manager, but also a coach and an assistant manager each. Fnatic has a manager, analyst and coach.

As the prizepools keep climbing and as more money flows into the scene, the more will players look towards investing into as much help as possible. Dota is in fact a little bit behind compared to other popular Esports titles, as games like LeagueofLegends or CS:GO have already seen coaches succeed and be established years ago. This however does give Dota the edge to make things right from the getgo, as it can learn from mistakes made in other titles. Organizations that have teams in different titles will also be more used and accustomed to the additional need for staff.

Coaches in Dota are to stay.