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^FEAR
13th February 2009, 06:56 PM
Lane control guide by ^FEAR

1: Foreword

Since I am stuck here without possibility of playing DotA, for quite some time, and bored of writing hero guides at the moment, I decided to write guide about lane control which is one of most important aspects of DotA and, at same time, what much people fail at. This guide is meant mainly to help newcomers to learn something new and 1337 pub beyond godlike's to improve. Still, it may teach anyone something new.

Before reading I warn you it's picture-less wall of text and I am sure many people won't even read it but those who read, I hope you will learn something new and enjoy. Good luck.

2: Lane control

Lane control is art of managing your lane. Here are aspects I will explain:

Last hitting creeps
Denying creeps
Harassing & Orb walking
Creep pulling & blocking
Map awareness

2.1 Last hitting

What is last hit? Basically, it's doing the killing blow to enemy creep and therefore getting bounty (gold) from it. It's basic thing for any DotA player who calls himself good or decent. Much people fail when they think last hitting is done after laning part of game and later just keep auto-attacking. You need to last hit all game in order to get both, early and late game, items. It also should be done throughout game for practice and improvement.

When last hitting there are two things you should take note of:

When last hitting in order to do it well you should always hold ALT or enable "show healthbars" option in Menu, in order to see creeps HP when dealing final blow.
You should take note of your hero's base damage so you know approximately how low the creep's health is before you last hit it. Obviously, higher damage means you can last hit creeps when they have higher health

So, why to do last hitting and how to do it best?

By last hitting you, obviously, get gold. More gold you get means getting more items. More items means more ownage, especially if you left your opponent under-farmed and item-less.

You should always deal only final blow to enemy creep, as word says last hit. Creep waves from both sides are perfectly balanced and receive same upgrades every 7.5 minutes, unless barracks are destroyed. So by attacking creep more then once you ruin balance of waves and push more towards enemy tower. By doing this you move from safety of your tower area and leave yourself exposed to enemy ganks. fighting under enemy tower you will have hard time denying creeps but more about that later.

Best place for creeps to meet is closest to your tower without it attacking enemy creeps (because it pushes backs towards enemy tower) because if you fight close to your tower you may lose creeps to tower hits which has big damage. By fighting under enemy tower you will have hard time denying creeps but more about that in appropriate section.

This is easy to accomplish if you keep to constant last hit and deny creeps. If enemy is auto attacker however, don't worry since you will always fight under safety of your tower and he'll get ganked most of the time.

Last hitting can also be done by spells, but it's not good in all situations.

Some AoE spells like Shockwave or Waveform can net you few creep kills per wave if timed good. When you spell farm you should be aware that it, same as auto attacking, pushes creep wave forward. Spell farming should be used when you plan going to check runes or gank other lane and when you intend to take down enemy tower so you want to clear creeps fast.

Last thing you should know is that last hit style is not same for ranged and melee heroes;

With a melee hero you must stand a little ways away from the creeps and hold, only going up to last hit. You must also know the melee hero's Attack Animation. Since different heroes have different attack animation times, it is important to get familiar with them. Almost all melee heroes have easy attack animation and it's generally easier to last hit with melee then range hero.

With a ranged hero, you must move your hero around, and hitting the creep for the last hit from time to time. One important thing to take note about a range hero is the projectile speed. Since projectile speeds are different for different heroes, you must familiarise yourself with them. Ranged heroes also have Attack Animation times. For example you should that Razor and Crystal Maiden have delay when doing attack animation and you should time attack little before so it hits on time.

2.2 Denying

What is denying? Basically, it's killing low HP allied creep in order to prevent enemy from getting gold and reducing his experience gain.

Why to deny and how to do it? As said above, by denying creep you prevent enemy from getting gold and reduce his experience gain from denied creep. By getting less gold enemy will have less good items and therefore beeing less able to own you.

A denied creep gives 36/n experience to melee heroes and 18/n experience to ranged heroes, where n is the number of heroes within 1000 AoE (Area of Effect). Creep must have below 50% life to be deniable.

Same as with last hitting by denying you ensure that creep wave stays close to your tower and doesn't push to far opening you to ganks. When you deny creep little "!" sign will come out showing you denied it successfully. If you typed -di or -showdeny, that is.

In some extreme cases allied hero can be denied as well but only when under 25% of maximum health. To be deniable he must have one of following buffs on:

Shadow strike (Note that Viper's ultimate can't be denied)
Lucifer's Doom
Warlock's Shadow word
Silencer's Curse of the Silent

By denying allied hero you also prevent enemy from getting gold and experience. But before you decide to do it be sure that ally will die because you might screw him over if you do it when he would survive. I don't advise doing this in pubs because you will be flamed as team killer.

When heroes are denied passive skills such as, Sadist, Blood Bath and Flesh Heap, also will trigger.

Several heroes have the ability to kill an allied creep via spell. Denying with such skills makes the creep give absolutely no experience to enemy heroes. These skills are:

Lich's Dark Ritual
Enigma's Conversion (Eidolons give EXP though)
Lifestealer's Infest
Bone fletcher's Death pact

Expection is Tiny's Toss. By tossing unit and killing it you do normal deny.

2.3 Harassing & Orb walking

What is harassing? Basically it's reducing opponent's hero health via spell or normal attack.

Many people think kills is main thing to focus on in early game. Kill is always nice and puts you ahead ~250 gold but during early stages it's actually far more important to force enemy hero going back to fountain and leaving you free lane. 250 gold is aprox 6-7 creeps and during that period you can surely last hit more then 6-7 if you have any skill. Most likely, enemy hero will also buy TP which will put him back 135 gold.

Also most stupid way you can die is to actually chase those 10 HP-ers behind their towers on early levels. In most cases (read 95%) you will die and give level/gold/experience to your enemy as well as allowing him to free farm while you respawn. Let them flee and do as said above.

Now, there are two types of harassing you should know about:

Normal attacking harass
Spell harass

Harassing with normal attack, by right clicking on enemy hero, isn't as easy as it sounds because by doing so you draw creep aggro (enemy creeps will ignore your own creepwave and proceed towards attacking you untill you fall back.

Creep aggro can often turn the tide of 1v1 battles during early period since during that stage 3 creeps damage output is equal to heroes one. So when attacking and trying to kill enemy which is below half HP and seems like an easy target take creeps into consideration. Creep aggro can be avoided by manually casting orb effect but only heroes which have such spell can do so.

Harassing with single target spells, like Lightning bolt, is much easier because nor it draws aggro nor pushes creep wave. By doing this you force enemy to retreat and heal, eventually leaving you to free farm. Try to keep enemy at low health constantly and get kill if possible, if not just keep farming kills will come with time.

By using AoE spells like Chain lightning or Fire breath you will harass enemy but also push and that's thing you should avoid. You should use this when few creeps are low HP so you last hit them as well as hurting enemy. But don't spam it too often or you'll end fighting near enemy tower.

Now let's proceed to orb walking. Orb walking is manually casting of such ability and is best way of harassment since it's using normal attack but not drawing creep aggro. Only few heroes are blessed with this ability and they are mainly some of best lane controlers in game. Those are:

Silencer (Glaives of Wisdom)
Drow ranger (Frost arrows)
Viper (Poison attack)
Bone fletcher (Searing arrows)
Obsidian destroyer (Arcane orb)
Huskar (Burning spear)
Enchantress (Impetus)

When laning against those it will be painfull trying to last hit.

2.4 Creep pulling & blocking

Those are advanced techniques used for denying enemy experience and pushing battle back to your tower.

Creep pulling is making creeps come and meet your creep wave outside forest. By doing this you will sometimes deny (since creeps will die to neutrals) creeps and push battle back under safety of your tower. This is best done at Scourge top and Sentinel bottom lane by engaging neutral creep camps and making them follow you to encounter your creep wave at minute marks of xx:15 and xx:45 (where xx is minute).

Creep blocking is, obviously, blocking your creep wave's route. This is done when they push too far. For some unknown reason much people do it on first waves, like Sentinel bottom, because they saw it in replays. Sentinel bottom is useless to block at first wave because tower will devastate enemy creeps and thus push forward leaving you open to ganks. Do it when you see you need to, not when you like to.

2.5 Map awareness

Often happens that newer players who recently started to last hit and deny pay too much attention to it and forget to check mini map every now and then. This leads to flaming and shouting at team mates complaining about miss (which was told anyway). After each creepwave you should check all other lanes and see if there are heroes missing then decide should you either, fall back to tower and wait 'till they show up again or you think you are out of danger and farm as normal.

This doesn't mean miss shouldn't be told just that you should make full use of mini-map and not blame teammates for your lack of perception.

There are few color modes on mini map and it's up to you which one to use. Personally I use one where all heroes have their color so I know who's missing from where. But as said, it's up to you.

Anyway we have come to the end of this guide and if you actually have read all of this you are not normal but OK. Few people I would like to thank;

As always, Ice Frog, for DotA
Femisa, for failing utterly on lane each time
Quellilo, because I <3 him
Myself, for taking time to write this
You, for actually reading this wall of text


Thanks for reading and good luck improving your lane control.

NOTE: I may be wrong at some things so if you think I should change something or some part should be rewritten please say so. Any constructive comments are appreciated.

LifeDrainer[RO]
13th February 2009, 06:59 PM
This isn't really a hero guide, so should be rather @ main strategy subforum, therefore il move it there in next few minutes.

^FEAR
13th February 2009, 07:00 PM
As you wish.

LifeDrainer[RO]
13th February 2009, 07:01 PM
Done, and stickyed for the time being.

[^RawR^]
13th February 2009, 07:19 PM
Good guide, but there's one point i disagree with.

I thought too that not blocking sent bottom and scourge top will be better because of creeps not fighting at your tower, but take into account that your enemy will block creeps too. So if you don't block, your creeps will end somewhere in the line with the goblin secret shop, and maybe even closer to their tower if they blocked well. Now if you block, there IS a chance that tower destroys them, but there's also a chance enemy creeps will be outside the tower range. And even if tower pushes them, they'll get point when they're parallel with goblin shop anyway, so besides having them there at first wave, at worst case u wil have them at 2nd. So it still pays out imo

Shadowbuq
13th February 2009, 07:20 PM
Good guide i saw another guide like that one in a forum but with SS's anyway Good Job but if u add some SS it will be easy to understand :)

^FEAR
13th February 2009, 07:21 PM
@Guard

That's logical, of course. But that's why creep pulling is there :p. You can creep pull from your position and they can't from theirs so in reality creeps will always be battling under your tower as long as you do all said above.

@Shadowbug

Pictures can't do much here and I don't see point in putting them when all is explained in text itself.

Thanks for comments ;).

[YuMa]EMPEROR
13th February 2009, 08:18 PM
You don't <3 me :(

^FEAR
13th February 2009, 08:21 PM
I do, of course. <3
But if I put all friends in Credits it'll be too long.

So I put only my imba chief Quellilo. :beer:

PROTOZZ
13th February 2009, 08:50 PM
Next guide is reserved for me... :D

BG_J0RJ
14th February 2009, 12:36 AM
nice work :thumbUP:,i hope nabs are gona read it cuz they REALLY nead it ;p
:)

rushme
27th February 2009, 01:20 PM
;929201']Good guide, but there's one point i disagree with.

I thought too that not blocking sent bottom and scourge top will be better because of creeps not fighting at your tower, but take into account that your enemy will block creeps too. So if you don't block, your creeps will end somewhere in the line with the goblin secret shop, and maybe even closer to their tower if they blocked well. Now if you block, there IS a chance that tower destroys them, but there's also a chance enemy creeps will be outside the tower range. And even if tower pushes them, they'll get point when they're parallel with goblin shop anyway, so besides having them there at first wave, at worst case u wil have them at 2nd. So it still pays out imo

blocking creeps is a good thing on all lanes :


mid lane : if you block correctly you end up on the hill and the enemy down the hill that equals he can miss and you can harass easy-er.
top sentinel lane for example : if you don't block and let creeps fight where they normally meet you can get gang-ed easy since you're on the long lane.
down sentinel lane : if you block you end up fighting in you're tower , that means the oponent can't come really closer and deny and you can harass easy and gank since the enemy is on his long line far away from tower.

^FEAR
1st March 2009, 01:58 PM
No, you don't block at down Sentinel's lane.

If you block, tower will own enemy creep wave and push forward.
If you don't and they don't - creeps meet on place good for you.
If you don't and they do - you can creep pull easily next wave.

So, blocking down lane sucks.

[4h]4Pa1n
27th June 2009, 04:25 PM
ncie thing...

sharkm
31st July 2009, 02:45 AM
good guide for noobs :P

[^RawR^]
31st July 2009, 08:53 PM
U cant pull bottom lane with antipull wards l2p fear :D

PS: FEAR PRO LOL <3

^FEAR
31st July 2009, 09:25 PM
U cant pull bottom lane with antipull wards l2p fear

Wow, really? -.-

Mladenus
1st August 2009, 02:33 PM
Guide worth of reading.

[^RawR^]
1st August 2009, 06:32 PM
Lol look at him editing my posts xD

GRINGO is PRO,not you...lol

Anyway good guide

VamoS_GringO
1st August 2009, 07:40 PM
I control your lane,b1tch.

BloodMen
3rd August 2009, 01:54 PM
Gg fear.

Psykeeper
11th September 2009, 12:09 AM
heh ^FEAR like always pwning in game and with guides :) nice guide but similar guide is on www.playdota.com official website.I hope those noobs will read this because just about 30% of pubs is doing last hit and deny.others are just auto attackers

i.liKe.BeeR
17th March 2011, 11:18 AM
Good guide...every beginner should read this! :)
I read it but didn't leard things that i already knew.
Excellent job Fear^.

Shoocky3V
17th March 2011, 12:45 PM
nice 2 year old thread revive?

LOGiStiK
27th March 2011, 12:25 AM
One thing I think you should add.
When i'm with a melee carry and have a hard time farming because of harras, I usualy intentionately aggro creeps by right-clicking on enemy heroes to draw them closer to me and out of the harrasers's range.

NOe1
27th March 2011, 12:31 AM
i could say the same. :)

quellilo
29th March 2011, 09:02 PM
Tkc]Fear pro noob ass :D

Tito
5th April 2011, 03:52 PM
One thing I think you should add.
When i'm with a melee carry and have a hard time farming because of harras, I usualy intentionately aggro creeps by right-clicking on enemy heroes to draw them closer to me and out of the harrasers's range.
Totally wrong.

That " trick " is used when playing 1 vs 1 on lane with ranged vs ranged hero and u have lower dmg then he does, example u play potm, he's obsi, u must attack him do change his tempo of him getting all the lasthits, melee hero got greater animation then range hero and in most of the cases more dmg, its your supporters job to make the enemy heroes unable to harras you, if 1 on 1 lane, depends if long/mid lane, if long lane, u simply stay out of range and come in just to hit/deny the creep then go away again, if mid lane, is usually np, because you cant harras mid as u would like since the space is pretty small and he'll outfarm + get a bottle while u try to harras with rnage vs melee hero, so its more of a focusing creeps , hit the hero when u can ( ofc if its not a hero like lucifer or someone with 0 armor and he got 0 regen items etc), it all depends of sitatuation, but u never attack hero with melee vs range on lane.

J0k3r^
5th April 2011, 04:04 PM
Totally wrong.

That " trick " is used when playing 1 vs 1 on lane with ranged vs ranged hero and u have lower dmg then he does, example u play potm, he's obsi, u must attack him do change his tempo of him getting all the lasthits, melee hero got greater animation then range hero and in most of the cases more dmg, its your supporters job to make the enemy heroes unable to harras you, if 1 on 1 lane, depends if long/mid lane, if long lane, u simply stay out of range and come in just to hit/deny the creep then go away again, if mid lane, is usually np, because you cant harras mid as u would like since the space is pretty small and he'll outfarm + get a bottle while u try to harras with rnage vs melee hero, so its more of a focusing creeps , hit the hero when u can ( ofc if its not a hero like lucifer or someone with 0 armor and he got 0 regen items etc), it all depends of sitatuation, but u never attack hero with melee vs range on lane.

When i'm with a melee carry and have a hard time farming because of harras, I usualy intentionaly aggro creeps by right-clicking on enemy heroes to draw them closer to me and out of the harrasers's range.

mILOSbRE
5th April 2011, 04:06 PM
Mirana can't rly do much vs obsi,there are just a few heros who can handle him.

Tito
5th April 2011, 08:09 PM
When i'm with a melee carry and have a hard time farming because of harras, I usualy intentionaly aggro creeps by right-clicking on enemy heroes to draw them closer to me and out of the harrasers's range.
And you do what? His creeps start going at you for 2 sec, not attacking, in meanwhile your creeps attack and push lane, and the range hero just come in closer so he can hit u anyway ( in meanwhile, u play his game, so he get more creeps, as i said the hero with lower attack dmg and worse attack animation, should disrupt the normal creep fighting, not a melee hero with 60 dmg lvl 1 with uber good animation ).


Mirana can't rly do much vs obsi,there are just a few heros who can handle him.
What u mean? Obsi is easy to handle hero, its hard to play vs him if u get a farming battle with him, as i mentioned before, if stay behind and try to lasthit/deny while on 1200 range from him, he's gonna rape u, if u keep yourself close, spam starfall from lvl 3 ( 2 x starfall + 1 leap ), he's gonna retreat very fast ;), and then u have rune control, a section where the obsi is very bad at.

mILOSbRE
5th April 2011, 08:20 PM
And what about astral ?

Except it ruins your lh,its also burning your mana.

Maybe bottle could help potm,but if i am obsi i wouldn't leave all runes to her.

And yes tito,i am talking about 1v1 mid.

I dont see other way to stop obsi except mass ganks,but if your teammates cover you and ward good it would be rly hard.

Tito
5th April 2011, 08:26 PM
astral is useless spell, more and more people are getting it only lvl 1, massing aura + orb, obsi go on lane with lets say two salve + tango, they will be gone if potm played good before obsi reach lvl 6-7, what means more salves buying, more obsi saying back running away from potm, even if not die, they will have even cs in best case for obsi ( potm got a great spamming spell - starfall, u hit range creep 2 times, wait till 2 creeps are " low " and cast it, ofc i am speaing when creeps are on your half of the hill and obsi can'teven think about hitting a creep without recieving 3-4 hits )

mILOSbRE
5th April 2011, 08:42 PM
Well if i would meet that aggressive opponent i would change strategy and pick first skill.Its like playing vs viper.Astral is useless,because while you reach lvl 5/7 you would be owned by that poison shit(if not killed few times,then half cs of opponent's cs) and with first skill (forgot name :S ) you can respond on every hit you get and agressive style like that and maybe even take over control vs some heros since that frist skill has solid range.I know its not powerful,but its decent nuke and its growing and growing and growing ;)

I didn't say that i always build astral,but it helps vs many heros.Or maybe i didn't meet enough ''smart'' players with good strategy vs destro.

Tito
5th April 2011, 08:53 PM
I am just explaining that there is a way to beat any hero, with almost any hero, if u know what are u doing. When i said astral is useless, i meant is useless vs potm, cuz u mentioned astral gonna rape potm on laning stage of game, I didn't say obsi with orb is the right way to play vs potm ;)

mILOSbRE
5th April 2011, 09:09 PM
Thats all true,game play in hs leagues and competive dota is so developed that you can answer on any combo.

But there is a group of heros who dominate early,who have some advantage,you know when you play cm and argue with teammates ''ban this hero'' ''no no you must ban him'' and so on...Its not without reason,imo.

Tito
5th April 2011, 11:45 PM
:D:D:DD

U get out of topic, bainning a hero has nothing to do with him being an imba laner, its mostly a hero that would perfectly fit in their lineup, example, they fped venge, then picked furion + zeus, banning clockwerk + spectre, would be the perfect idea, if those are banned mb get rid of tinker or rex.. etc

U don't ban a hero in cm mode because he's imba solo mid LANE DOMINATOR, u ban a hero because he can mess with your strat.

[^RawR^]
6th April 2011, 08:53 PM
What are you talking about, obsi wins on lane vs potm. (Tito strategy lol)

With potm you can cast a MAXIMUM of 2 starfalls before you're out of mana, that's 1 starfall if u get astral spammed. You can't exhange hits with obsi because he's got more damage from stealing int and potm damage is crap anyway. Leap is 600 range. If obsi has boots, he will outrun you to runes with lvl 2 astral already... Leap + starfall on lvl 3 is 160 mana, you get astraled, he hits you 3 times and you're out of mana and on 60% hp. Unless he lets you get every single rune you won't win that lane

Fika[F]
6th April 2011, 10:22 PM
inb4 shitstorm

Tito
6th April 2011, 10:24 PM
ask to pick u obsi when i pick potm in ss game, i show u ;)

Tayschrenn
6th April 2011, 11:07 PM
I disagree that potm wins lane with obsi (she doesnt) and she cant easly kill obsi 1v1 without gangs.
But her huge advantage is range, and on mid lane she can avoid astrals and when obsi chase her uphill also harras him a bit.

(obs ward on uphill solves^^)

Majestic.
6th April 2011, 11:16 PM
Ye but 1-2 ganks on obsi or one good rune can turn everything into potms advantage. (lvl + items i mean)

Fika[F]
6th April 2011, 11:25 PM
y 3 ganks can turn lane into troll favour vs sf

[^RawR^]
6th April 2011, 11:55 PM
You should be 1 level behind when obsi is 4-5 too if he uses astral well

Tito
7th April 2011, 12:04 AM
I don't mean winning lane, 5-0 score + 60 creeps min 10, this was example of how to play against a hero with higher dmg and better attack animation then yours..

Majestic.
7th April 2011, 12:49 AM
;1287487']y 3 ganks can turn lane into troll favour vs sf

fika stfu. Solo potm is mostly going on lane to rape enemy carry by killing him with help of some support with stun or good slow, not to outfarm him. Don't u get it?

And no. Even 3 ganks on sf can't turn lane into trolls favor, you failed to troll. (:

Fika[F]
7th April 2011, 01:40 AM
no u

Majestic.
7th April 2011, 01:50 AM
Yep, that just proves me i'm in right. ty.

Tito
7th April 2011, 07:55 AM
fika stfu. Solo potm is mostly going on lane to rape enemy carry by killing him with help of some support with stun or good slow, not to outfarm him. Don't u get it?

And no. Even 3 ganks on sf can't turn lane into trolls favor, you failed to troll. (:
Well even obsi can kill potm with 2 more heroes comming out with smoke, its why laning phase doesn't matter that much, since dota is a teamgame and usually won by the better team. I was just explaining that if u stay passive vs obsi, u will end up getting 2x outfarmed... no matter how good farmer u are. and if u stay agressive, hit on him, use your spells, u will end up with equal farm... and then, the better team will win ;)