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!