What Is The Dota 2 Ranking Distribution & Percentile In The Current Season By Medal?

Given how competitive Dota 2 is, it makes sense that its players are constantly comparing themselves to others. This is why MMR and badges are such an important part of the game. For the same reason, Dota 2 players want to learn more about ranking distribution.

What is rank distribution?

The rank distribution shows us the percentage and percentile of players in every tier. With percentages, you can tell how many players are in the same tier as you. With percentiles, you can determine how many players are better (or worse) than you.

These are complex numbers that are tracked by a few specialized websites. Ranking distribution platforms utilize enormous subsets of data that help us determine where all these Dota 2 players rank. While most players measure their skill level based on the badge they have, ranking distribution can provide them with some additional insights.

Dota 2 Ranking distribution

To have a better understanding of ranking distribution, we visualized the official data for Dota 2.

Here is the dota 2 distribution summarized in a table:

Keep in mind that we took the pool of all dota 2 players from an official source and not only the active ones.

Keep in mind that a number of these players have their data hidden. So, while the stats aren’t complete, they are as close to perfect as possible. The data gathered pertains to a set of 4 million players, and it is shown in percentiles:

Like ranked games, unranked games also have pseudo MMR. However, we don’t have access to this data, so we don’t know much about unranked distribution. In fact, this is one of the bigger differences between Dota 2 ranked vs. unranked system.

How to understand percentiles?

Although the concept of percentiles is rather straightforward, a lot of people struggle with it. So, let me explain what rank distribution really means.

The lowest rank in dota 2 (Herald 1) in ranked matchmaking makes for 0.5 of all Dota 2 players. In other words, 99.5% of players are better than them. On the other hand, Herald 2 makes for a 1.59 percentile of all players. So, there are 98.41% of players better than Herald 1 and Herald 2. Immortals belong to the 100 percentile of players. In other words, a very small number of players belong to this category.

The highest MMRs / ranks in Dota 2 are better then 98.30 % of all players. The exact ranking of these top tier can be viewed in Dota 2 MMR Leaderboard. These players are often pro-players out of esports.

In other words, you can look at a percentile as a reverse percentage. A person belonging to the 90 percentile of players actually belongs among the top 10% of Dota 2 gamers. This is also how we determined the average MMR and rank of Dota 2 players in ranked matchmaking.

Ranking distribution summary

One of the things we’ve learned from the set of data is that Archon 1 makes for the largest group of players in ranked match. Once you reach this tier, you will be better than 50% of all the players. In other words, this is the breaking point to be an above average player (according to dota 2 ranks at least).

Just one tier above that, the Legend category makes for 72 percentile of players. Based on that, 28% of all Dota 2 players are placed from Archon 1 to Archon 5. A very small percentage of players are within the Immortal rank. The skill difference between this group and even Divine (rank bellow) is enormous. Furthermore, even the skill gap between different Immortal groups is massive.

From Ancient onward, the game becomes very competitive. You can see this based on data given that Ancients, Divines, and Immortals together make for 13% of the player base. Due to such enormous gaps, and a small number of players in the Immortal tier, it is really hard to create fair matches. As a result, the players within this tier have to wait quite a while for their games to start.

Is ranking distribution more important than MMR?

Simply put, ranking distribution is a different way to analyze how good you are at Dota 2. In that regard, it isn’t better or worse than medals or MMR. It just shows you the figures from another perspective. However, it is worth mentioning that MMR, and especially medals, are much easier to comprehend.

If a person wants to know where they stand, they can click on the Dota 2 profile to check the current matchmaking rating. Here is an article that will show you exactly how to check MMR in Dota 2 and one that will teach you how to quickly unlock ranked matches. And if you're interested in Dota 2 regions, we have an article about which is the best server for ranked.

Just by reading this article, and checking the percentile data, you should have a better understanding of how good you are compared to an average player. Nevertheless, given that everyone wants to reach that next tier, the goal remains the same: try to get as much MMR as possible, reach the next medal, and start playing even better games.