[OhSoHumble]

I mean, for most player sure but when you're playing against the best players of the world then it's going to be a deciding factor.

Otherwise, yeah, you can be Divine/Immortal using game knowledge and have terrible reaction times relative to the greater player base.

[olavgg]

Not really, one of the hardest skills to learn in DOTA is how to react, not how fast you should react. Often, not helping your team can benefit the team.

I'm immortal ranked Dota player, that spends 10 hours a week playing Dota. And has played DOTA since Warcraft 3. My reaction time is slow, because I think so much about each situations. And a slightly bad decision can lose the whole game. When I see my team fighting, I take a short look, maybe think for as long as 2-3 seconds and make a decision about if I can contribute to the fight or if I will just be feeding.

DOTA is a lot more about strategy, positioning, how to pressure, farming patterns, vision/warding, when to use power spikes and be a team player. This is also why experienced players beat the crap out of younger players and probably also why younger players play something else than DOTA/MOBA.

[OhSoHumble]

I am ALSO an immortal player.

> And a slightly bad decision can lose the whole game.

A slightly bad reaction time can lose an entire game. When you're looking at pro games - where real money is on the line - you want the player who has the same decision making ability as other highly ranked players but ALSO the ability to react really quickly. Failed to disjoint a projectile in time? International lost. Didn't pop your BKB in time? International lost. Didn't hex a puck or ember fast enough? International lost.

Like, sure, again... you can go really far in dota with poor reaction speed. I'm 30, for example. But when it comes down to creating a five man team to compete for money then very few teams are going to pick up older players on the chance that they might not react fast enough. Old man fear was called old man fear for a reason.

Also, this makes me really curious about what the age composition is for immortal top 100s for each region. How many are there over the age of 30?