I previously stated that trading your life for a tower is a terrible idea. I'll explain why here and exactly what you should be doing instead. This post will be an all encompassing post on towers, there will be more later and while everyone can benefit from the strategies detailed I believe beginners and intermediate players should probably skip over the exact values and just keep the strategies in mind while hopefully remembering a broad approximation of the values given. Advanced players ABSOLUTELY SHOULD try to remember the exact values or at least a very close approximation (eg. ~250 gold instead of exactly 264 gold is OK).
First, you should only be pushing a tower once you feel like you have a good
enough level and/or gold advantage or if the lane is temporarily
abandoned. Don't suicide trying to take down the tower. Your time is
better spent simply being alive and extending your gold/xp advantage. If
there is a risk that you will die before a tower goes down (especially
if alone!) , GET OUT. Its not worth chipping away at the tower and
risking your life.
Also, the critical point for a
tower is 10% hp. So for the tier 1 tower that is 130 hp and 160 hp for
the rest of the towers. Underneath this threshold a tower can be denied.
The difference in gold between destroying a tower and having it denied
is astronomical so please do not attack a tower to underneath this
threshold unless you are absolutely sure you can completely finish it
off. If there is a chance that you will need to bail, its better for the
tower to have >10% hp so that you can properly finish the job later.
Although its implied above the tier 1 towers each have 1300 total hp. The tier 2, 3 and 4 towers each have 1600 hp. Also, the tier 1 towers has no backdoor protection whereas the rest do. With backdoor protection a tower takes 25% less damage from heroes AND will regen the hp lost at a rate of 90hp/sec. While its possible to take down a backdoor protected tower with enough damage its generally not a good idea to whack at a tower for too long. Hit the tower once and decide then whether it is worth it.
Backdoor protection comes into play when there are no enemy creeps near a tower/rax (meaning your creeps are not near the enemy tower/rax). For tier 2 towers each tower will need your creeps by it for backdoor protection to be disabled. For tier 3 towers if you have an allied creep (can be dominated or otherwise controlled, does not have to be a lane creep!) by any of the T3s all of them lose backdoor protection. Many people do not know this. Use it to your advantage early and often.
Pro Tip: Once you've taken down any of the T3s you can start attacking the tier 4 tower, you don't even need to take down any rax first. Do not treat this as a strategy. Its just another fact that is not too commonly known. Once you know how to take advantage of this information you'll love that you know about it. Generally you can go for a tier 4 before taking down a rax if the enemy team can not touch you (whether they were wiped or only the core can fight you and they are dead without buyback, bb for short). You'll still only want to skip the rax if the rest of your team is working away at them and your creeps in the other lanes are no where close to tank their T3s.
The nicest thing about taking a tower is the bounty given. Successfully destroying a T1, T2, T3 and T4 tower will each give out 264g, 312g, 358g and 405g respectively to each player on your team. That's reliable gold too. In total that is 1320, 1560, 1790 and 2025 gold for each T1, T2, T3 and T4 for your team. Getting a last hit on a tower will give that one hero an extra 150-250 gold. You'll see that simply taking down one tower is quite a large advantage for you team even when simply analyzing just the gold bounty. Also, a denied tower will only give 100, 120, 140 and 160 gold for the T1 through T4 towers. That's MUCH LESS than half the gold you would otherwise get.
Although they may be the most crucial buildings towards eventually taking down the enemy ancients rax do not normally give any bounty at all for simply being destroyed. Each will only give a bounty if last hit and the value will vary from 352-370 gold. While your chances of winning are very good if you're whacking away at any rax its still worthwhile to get the last hit on a rax so try to time your hits correctly.
Any advanced player will already have heard of rat dota and split pushing but as anyone can read this its good to introduce the terms and ideas here first as the strategies are those that can be instantly applied to your games.
Rat dota is where you push an empty lane to the enemy tower and chip it down then run off when the enemy arrives. You want to think of a rat gnawing away on something and running away at the first sign of danger. This can be very annoying to play against and is a legitimate strategy especially when playing from behind.
The idea is that your team is mostly turtled up and farming your own jungle. You push the lane and gnaw away at a tower forcing the enemy team to defend it. They'll probably commit more than one unit to defend but you take off when you feel them come close. This prevents the whole team from storming your jungle or tower or rax as you've split up their numbers to defend their tower. If the whole team comes to defend then they are missing out on gold/xp from farming the other lanes or jungle.
The reason this is considered an advanced strategy is because you really need to have a good understanding of all the heroes and the game that's played out so far to know when to go into rat dota mode or if its even viable for you based on your lineup.
Split pushing is where you push out multiple lanes are once against enemy buildings. This is best done against teams with good teamfight but poor push/counterpush and/or ganking. Split pushing is viable whether you are ahead or behind because of its nature. By pushing multiple lanes at once you split up the enemy as they try to defend each lane. This keeps them from grouping up as a team to fight you which is great for you if they have better teamfight.
I do believe that split pushing is a good strategy to employ in every single game. The biggest problem is making sure you actually have the lineup for it. Generally any pushing heroes are fine but you will want to be able to be able to push creep waves quickly as well as push down towers. Wind Ranger is a good hero who can do both effectively. Power shot can clear creep waves quickly and focus fire can take down towers or rax very quickly. The classic heroes for split pushing are Nature's Prophet (NP for short) and Tinker.
This is because an important aspect to split pushing is mobility. You don't want to commit all your heroes to the strategy. You should have heroes farming the jungle or a pushed in lane and possibly a ganker going for pick offs with a disabler while the enemy is split up trying to defend the split push. This is to make sure that you are always keeping up on your farm.
Finally, I want to leave you an extension on the "Get Your Farm" mantra. While it should be clear now, farm is not all about CS (short for creep score which means how many creeps you've killed and denied). Simply taking down a single tier 1 tower is equivalent to every person on your team getting a kill gold from killing a level 7 hero.
A tier 2 equates to a level 12 hero kill for your whole team while a T3 and T4 is just like a level 17 and level 22 hero kill for your whole team. This doesn't take into account gold earned from ending kill sprees which is greater than the standard bounty on a hero kill but it also doesn't take into account the gold earned from farming waves while pushing let alone all the experience gain from that. Still, its a powerful enough idea without having to include complex variables. Please keep in mind the importance of that sort of gold advantage when calling for a push to finish off a tower OR when calling for TPs for when you have a tower pushed in that your team needs to defend.
This is just the first part on towers with a tiny intro to rat dota and split pushing. You'll find more later.
Get Your Farm!
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Always Finish Thoroughly Not Just Fast
If you have all the lanes pushed at the enemy T3s (tier 3 towers) and you are farming the entire map and are even able to take Roshan then you have beat the enemy, now just don't blow it yourself. If its still dangerous to finish off the T3 because you are taking a lot of damage from the enemy while you chip away at the T3 then play safe. Farm up your next big item. Get something to either turn a team fight in your favor or to make those T3s melt.
Desolator and Shiva's Guard are both good items on almost any type of hero. Shiva's active ability will certainly give your team a big advantage in team fights as well as great stats for the hero who carries it while Desolator will make those T3s melt after your hard hitting heroes hack at them. These items are not necessary to take down the T3s but are nice and there are other good items as well. Whatever you go with make sure that it always at least either makes your hero more dangerous either by becoming harder to kill or easier to get kills with.
Once that first tier 3 goes down make sure everyone available focuses on the melee barracks (rax for short) first. Its far most important to take down the melee rax than the ranged rax. If you can take them both in one go, go for it. If you have to back after taking the melee rax or even just after taking the T3 then go ahead and do that. The goal at this point is not to try to end the game within some time limit, just play safe and secure your lead and get your win.
Often times you'll hear the enemy call gg (good game, meaning they are saying the game is over) or ff (finish fast, meaning they want you to finish the game fast). You may even hear them say they will just stay in the fountain so you can end the game quicker. Don't get ahead of yourself. Always assume that they are lying and will pounce on you when they see you out of position.
Its quite difficult to know exactly how far ahead of your opponent you are and it could be that a team wipe on their end is enough to wipe away the lead you had and either extend the game to great length or even put the win within their grasp. This can not be stressed enough, play hard until the ancients are completely destroyed. Even if your own team says not to worry, play safe and secure yourself that win.
You may get flamed (by BOTH teams) but you shouldn't worry about that. Nothing is worse than giving up a sure win so just ignore whatever abuse is dealt to you and systemically destroy the enemy base. Remember, you need to take out the T3, melee rax and then ranged rax. Then its best to rotate to another T3 tower and take that down. Again you'll want to take the rax down and in the same order.
Always take down the melee rax before the ranged rax. Most of the time a wave of creeps contains 3 melee creeps and one ranged creep. If you take down the melee rax in a lane you get super melee creeps which will give that a huge push as all three melee creeps get buffed. If you take down the ranged rax its only the one ranged creep that gets buffed. Go For Melee Rax!
Pro Tip: The melee rax passively regens hp but the ranged rax does not so make sure to have everyone focus on that melee rax. There is no point in taking them down at the same time, just try with everyone you have to take down the melee rax. The advantage to taking down a melee rax is almost as good as having taken down both. If you take down a melee rax and there is another melee rax exposed (exposed meaning the tier 3 tower guarding it has already been destroyed) you may want to just leave the ranged rax be and rotate to focus down the melee rax in the other lane. Being up 2 melee rax is far better than being up both rax in the same lane.
Once you've taken down the third T3 and final set of rax your creeps will be able to easily tank the T4 and you can finish it off along with the ancients. There is almost no point in the game where taking down a tower is worth your life. You'll see it often, "Well I died but at least I almost got the tower down!". This is terrible, even if the tower went down its probably not a good trade.
During all of this make sure to play safe. If you need to head back to heal or replenish mana then go ahead. If the entire enemy team is dead and will not respawn for some time and you don't see them buying back then hit away at whatever buildings you can while they have not respawned.
One important thing to always keep in mind is that the game is NOT about kills. You don't ever take those with you. The only important stat at the end is whether you won or lost. So do not ever camp the enemy fountain. Even if they were very rude, mean or even cruel the best revenge is to simply win with a commanding victory. If you were to die just once after slaughtering their entire team there are still many players who will take that as a small victory in itself.
So do not camp the fountain, do not dive the fountain. You have very little if anything to gain and you can have everything if you simply push to win the game.
Get Your Farm!
Desolator and Shiva's Guard are both good items on almost any type of hero. Shiva's active ability will certainly give your team a big advantage in team fights as well as great stats for the hero who carries it while Desolator will make those T3s melt after your hard hitting heroes hack at them. These items are not necessary to take down the T3s but are nice and there are other good items as well. Whatever you go with make sure that it always at least either makes your hero more dangerous either by becoming harder to kill or easier to get kills with.
Once that first tier 3 goes down make sure everyone available focuses on the melee barracks (rax for short) first. Its far most important to take down the melee rax than the ranged rax. If you can take them both in one go, go for it. If you have to back after taking the melee rax or even just after taking the T3 then go ahead and do that. The goal at this point is not to try to end the game within some time limit, just play safe and secure your lead and get your win.
Often times you'll hear the enemy call gg (good game, meaning they are saying the game is over) or ff (finish fast, meaning they want you to finish the game fast). You may even hear them say they will just stay in the fountain so you can end the game quicker. Don't get ahead of yourself. Always assume that they are lying and will pounce on you when they see you out of position.
Its quite difficult to know exactly how far ahead of your opponent you are and it could be that a team wipe on their end is enough to wipe away the lead you had and either extend the game to great length or even put the win within their grasp. This can not be stressed enough, play hard until the ancients are completely destroyed. Even if your own team says not to worry, play safe and secure yourself that win.
You may get flamed (by BOTH teams) but you shouldn't worry about that. Nothing is worse than giving up a sure win so just ignore whatever abuse is dealt to you and systemically destroy the enemy base. Remember, you need to take out the T3, melee rax and then ranged rax. Then its best to rotate to another T3 tower and take that down. Again you'll want to take the rax down and in the same order.
Always take down the melee rax before the ranged rax. Most of the time a wave of creeps contains 3 melee creeps and one ranged creep. If you take down the melee rax in a lane you get super melee creeps which will give that a huge push as all three melee creeps get buffed. If you take down the ranged rax its only the one ranged creep that gets buffed. Go For Melee Rax!
Pro Tip: The melee rax passively regens hp but the ranged rax does not so make sure to have everyone focus on that melee rax. There is no point in taking them down at the same time, just try with everyone you have to take down the melee rax. The advantage to taking down a melee rax is almost as good as having taken down both. If you take down a melee rax and there is another melee rax exposed (exposed meaning the tier 3 tower guarding it has already been destroyed) you may want to just leave the ranged rax be and rotate to focus down the melee rax in the other lane. Being up 2 melee rax is far better than being up both rax in the same lane.
Once you've taken down the third T3 and final set of rax your creeps will be able to easily tank the T4 and you can finish it off along with the ancients. There is almost no point in the game where taking down a tower is worth your life. You'll see it often, "Well I died but at least I almost got the tower down!". This is terrible, even if the tower went down its probably not a good trade.
During all of this make sure to play safe. If you need to head back to heal or replenish mana then go ahead. If the entire enemy team is dead and will not respawn for some time and you don't see them buying back then hit away at whatever buildings you can while they have not respawned.
One important thing to always keep in mind is that the game is NOT about kills. You don't ever take those with you. The only important stat at the end is whether you won or lost. So do not ever camp the enemy fountain. Even if they were very rude, mean or even cruel the best revenge is to simply win with a commanding victory. If you were to die just once after slaughtering their entire team there are still many players who will take that as a small victory in itself.
So do not camp the fountain, do not dive the fountain. You have very little if anything to gain and you can have everything if you simply push to win the game.
Get Your Farm!
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
How To Better Take Down That Tier 3 Tower
One thing you should always keep in mind is that its much easier to take a tier 1 than a tier 2 tower and its much easier to take a tier 2 than a tier 3 tower. And yet, they will all give your entire team gold when destroyed. This gold will help you eventually take out those tier 3 towers so its always better to make sure all the tier 1 and tier 2 towers are destroyed before you try to destroy a tier 3 tower.
Pro Tip: Try to get the last hit on a tower if there are no enemy heroes around. This will give you the same amount of reliable gold that all members of your team usually earns plus a bonus ~150 gold to you specifically for the last hit. Keep in mind that rax only give a bounty if you last hit.
Something I see quite often when my team is ahead and wants to take the tier 3 is that they are all grouped up in front of the tower just out of its attack range waiting for the next creep wave to tank the tower.
Now its definitely a good idea to wait for the creeps as the tower will passively regen if you attack it with none of your creeps around and while you might be able to overcome that regen with massive damage you'll be tanking the tower yourself and it'll probably be an inefficient trade of your hp for the tower hp.
If you've already taken down all the tier 1 towers and all the tier 2 towers but you are just chipping away at a single tier 3 tower you should push all the other lanes so that the creeps are pushing the enemy tier 3 tower in every single lane. Far too often I've seen enemy creeps alone take down one of our own towers as our team desperately chips away at a tier 3 before the entire enemy team pounces to defend.
This is a huge mistake. We made it this far in the game and are knocking at their base because of our level and gold advantage. If we are losing towers while simply chipping away at a tier 3 we are giving up our gold advantage and allowing the enemy to better defend their base. If any of the lanes are pushed close to any of our towers a single hero could push the lane out and against the enemy base. This protects our towers, secures our map control AND that hero is racking up creep waves of gold and experience to tack onto our advantage.
If all three lanes are pushed against the enemy base and we can still not do significant damage to any tier 3 tower in a decent amount of time then we've probably won but just haven't farmed enough. At this point we could be farming our own jungle, the enemy jungle and each of the three lanes. There is easily enough farm for all of our heroes in this case. In this scenario you really have already won the game, its just a matter of time before the game officially ends.
If all three lanes are pushed and you're able to farm the jungles well and the tier 3 tower is not coming down fast then you should definitely try to kill Roshan if he is available. The aegis of immortality is a great boon and may be just what's needed to effectively take the high ground. If nothing else it is better to have than just leave be.
Do not suicide with the Aegis but do try to bait out enemy nukes and stuns while within a one or a maximum of two screens distance from the rest of your team. If the enemy was able to focus down your team mate and burn the Aegis your team should still be able to jump in and take the on as their most valuable abilities will be on cooldown.
Get Your Farm!
Pro Tip: Try to get the last hit on a tower if there are no enemy heroes around. This will give you the same amount of reliable gold that all members of your team usually earns plus a bonus ~150 gold to you specifically for the last hit. Keep in mind that rax only give a bounty if you last hit.
Something I see quite often when my team is ahead and wants to take the tier 3 is that they are all grouped up in front of the tower just out of its attack range waiting for the next creep wave to tank the tower.
Now its definitely a good idea to wait for the creeps as the tower will passively regen if you attack it with none of your creeps around and while you might be able to overcome that regen with massive damage you'll be tanking the tower yourself and it'll probably be an inefficient trade of your hp for the tower hp.
If you've already taken down all the tier 1 towers and all the tier 2 towers but you are just chipping away at a single tier 3 tower you should push all the other lanes so that the creeps are pushing the enemy tier 3 tower in every single lane. Far too often I've seen enemy creeps alone take down one of our own towers as our team desperately chips away at a tier 3 before the entire enemy team pounces to defend.
This is a huge mistake. We made it this far in the game and are knocking at their base because of our level and gold advantage. If we are losing towers while simply chipping away at a tier 3 we are giving up our gold advantage and allowing the enemy to better defend their base. If any of the lanes are pushed close to any of our towers a single hero could push the lane out and against the enemy base. This protects our towers, secures our map control AND that hero is racking up creep waves of gold and experience to tack onto our advantage.
If all three lanes are pushed against the enemy base and we can still not do significant damage to any tier 3 tower in a decent amount of time then we've probably won but just haven't farmed enough. At this point we could be farming our own jungle, the enemy jungle and each of the three lanes. There is easily enough farm for all of our heroes in this case. In this scenario you really have already won the game, its just a matter of time before the game officially ends.
If all three lanes are pushed and you're able to farm the jungles well and the tier 3 tower is not coming down fast then you should definitely try to kill Roshan if he is available. The aegis of immortality is a great boon and may be just what's needed to effectively take the high ground. If nothing else it is better to have than just leave be.
Do not suicide with the Aegis but do try to bait out enemy nukes and stuns while within a one or a maximum of two screens distance from the rest of your team. If the enemy was able to focus down your team mate and burn the Aegis your team should still be able to jump in and take the on as their most valuable abilities will be on cooldown.
Get Your Farm!
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Defend Your Ancients And Destory The Enemy Ancients
One thing to always keep in mind is that you are supposed to destroy the enemy ancient and not let yours get destroyed. By far the most difficult part of this is taking the high ground at the tier 3 towers. Once you've done this the game becomes much easier to win. At the same time, you definitely do not want to ever lose the high ground at your base, your defeat is right around the corner from there.
If you don't understand any of this so far, you'll be fine. Just keep in mind that everything you do should be towards getting farm so that you can more easily take the tier 3 tower and you should always defend any of your tier 3 towers. The only reason you would not immediately drop whatever you are doing to protect a tier 3 tower is if you are already attacking the enemy ancients.
So why do you need farm to do this? Its the nature of how the tier 3 works. Its uphill, its powerful and its very close to then enemy base so if they get hurt they can fairly quickly be at full hp again. Remember, there is a 25% miss chance when attacking uphill. So to take that tier 3 tower you must have quite a large advantage over the enemy as they have the tower, the extra durability from your miss chance and a fountain close by.
One form of advantage is a level advantage and while a level advantage is great for hero kills, it does not do much against a tower. You will need items to be able to take down that tier 3 and you must buy items with gold you've accumulated up to this point. Just for future reference, the single best type of item you could have would be something that would lowers the armor of the tower and both desolator and assault cuirass can lower the armor on buildings, including that tier 3 tower.
Still, any item that is good for your hero will probably help you eventually take down that tier 3 tower. You should be more focused on simply getting a gold (and by extension item) advantage over the enemy. Just getting beefier and hitting harder will go a ways with fighting the enemy under that tier 3 tower.
Get Your Farm!
If you don't understand any of this so far, you'll be fine. Just keep in mind that everything you do should be towards getting farm so that you can more easily take the tier 3 tower and you should always defend any of your tier 3 towers. The only reason you would not immediately drop whatever you are doing to protect a tier 3 tower is if you are already attacking the enemy ancients.
So why do you need farm to do this? Its the nature of how the tier 3 works. Its uphill, its powerful and its very close to then enemy base so if they get hurt they can fairly quickly be at full hp again. Remember, there is a 25% miss chance when attacking uphill. So to take that tier 3 tower you must have quite a large advantage over the enemy as they have the tower, the extra durability from your miss chance and a fountain close by.
One form of advantage is a level advantage and while a level advantage is great for hero kills, it does not do much against a tower. You will need items to be able to take down that tier 3 and you must buy items with gold you've accumulated up to this point. Just for future reference, the single best type of item you could have would be something that would lowers the armor of the tower and both desolator and assault cuirass can lower the armor on buildings, including that tier 3 tower.
Still, any item that is good for your hero will probably help you eventually take down that tier 3 tower. You should be more focused on simply getting a gold (and by extension item) advantage over the enemy. Just getting beefier and hitting harder will go a ways with fighting the enemy under that tier 3 tower.
Get Your Farm!
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Game Is Hard So Learn And Play Better
You need a decent idea of the relative strengths and weaknesses of over 110 heroes and over 120 items before you start to feel comfortable in games but at this point you will still be terrible, you'll just be able to understand what exactly is happening around you. The goal of l2play is to help get you going sooner. Anywhere else, you'll hear a lot of people answer questions with something along the lines of "its situational". Not here, just keep in mind that EVERYTHING IS SITUATIONAL (first and last time I say it) but anything shared here should be taken as a hard rule until you've gained enough experience to to know what to do on your own.
You won't learn everything you need to here but you'll be able to follow a broad sort of formula to help you get better down the road. You'll also learn some tips and tricks that you can immediately apply to your games to get that win rate in the black.
l2play is directed towards lower tier players who want to contribute more to their teams and are willing to practice to get better. This game is quite difficult and I do not believe you can get any better by just playing more games or watching others play. You need to learn, practice and constantly analyze each area of play.
It sounds like more work than play but there is no sweeter feeling than knowing you won because you simply outplayed your opponent. Where other games are like playing and winning at blackjack, DOTA 2 is like playing and winning at chess. While blackjack still requires some strategy, its far more fulfilling to win a well played game of chess. Like chess, you must study the game. You need to know at least the pieces, the moves and all the openings, mid games and end games you can cram into your brain. You still won't be a pro but if you practice like one you'll get better faster than the average player you meet.
Most important key to winning games:
Get Your Farm!
You won't learn everything you need to here but you'll be able to follow a broad sort of formula to help you get better down the road. You'll also learn some tips and tricks that you can immediately apply to your games to get that win rate in the black.
l2play is directed towards lower tier players who want to contribute more to their teams and are willing to practice to get better. This game is quite difficult and I do not believe you can get any better by just playing more games or watching others play. You need to learn, practice and constantly analyze each area of play.
It sounds like more work than play but there is no sweeter feeling than knowing you won because you simply outplayed your opponent. Where other games are like playing and winning at blackjack, DOTA 2 is like playing and winning at chess. While blackjack still requires some strategy, its far more fulfilling to win a well played game of chess. Like chess, you must study the game. You need to know at least the pieces, the moves and all the openings, mid games and end games you can cram into your brain. You still won't be a pro but if you practice like one you'll get better faster than the average player you meet.
Most important key to winning games:
Get Your Farm!
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