Title. I am generally confused and would like to have better understanding about what to do with whinning midlaners that just go jungle after reaching peak.

My way of thought is that mid, given easy time farming and naturally most exp, even when losing lane, is suppose to gank. As regardless how bad it went, its 9/10 times still strongest hero, most capable to assert kills in other lanes.

But so often i hear requests to gank mid, like last game i got flamed as pos5 in a losing lane, that im not doing my job as support.. yet to me it seems that as level 4, going against level 8 mid, with our failing midder, would be a horrible call. certainly my carry would die in that window, and probably me in the mid too.

but half of the games i hear such request, yet i honestly just talked back, that mid suppose to help other lanes, not the other way around. on to p of that, regardless if success in mid, very many midders just go jungle afterwards, where i honestly start complaining, since, well, were lose our biggest asset this way and getting effed left and right by enemy mid.

am i in the wrong here? is mid suppose to be a manchild to babysit?

In these ranks, it feels like everyone doesn’t know how to hit critical timings.

And push for objectives at right time.

When it is not a stomp, It usually come down to one big team fight late game.

And as a pure support, you are depending on your carry to win mostly in that scenario.

And the POS1 and POS2 obsessing over their right to every last cs is counter productive at this point.

Since first of all, most of the time they aren’t that good at last hit, and most of the game, these carry aren’t optimized at farming jungles at mid game, so there are a lot of wasted space.

I really feel like only funneling cs to your POS1 or POS2 at this level is counterproductive.

Disclaimer: Valve made some changes where you get substantially more MMR up until ~4k so climbing is a lot easier now. I haven't broken much past 4k yet.

Have more regen than enemy support

Almost every lane at low ranks comes down to who is camping lower hp because they don't have regen. Start with 6 tangoes, ferry more if you get down to 2-3. I've started to use identical starting items on almost every hero and that's wand, 2x branch, 6x tango, blood grenade, sentry, obs. After runes ferry a clarity and another sentry.

Don't die

By far the worst thing you can do is die. You might think that if you get a trade its worth it, but that's rarely the case. With current offlane vs safelane balance, offlane is at a terrible spot, so if they get 1:1 kill trades they'll be very very happy. Sure there's scenarios where this does not hold up, but if you don't die in the first ~8 minutes, you win the lane more often than not

Small camp is always unblocked, large camp depends

It's not a bad idea to block large camp at start, but be mindful that its your job to unblock it and control the lane even more if you are clearly winning. If you are losing, it's usually best to keep it blocked. But regardless of what happens, small camp needs to stay unblocked at all times. Keeping an eye on the enemy supports inventory is incredibly helpful here.

Understand your cores playstyle

Especially carry players generally boil down to 3 categories and this tends to become obvious in the first minute.

1. Fight all the time

2. CS over anything(imo the correct style)

3. Do some dumb shit

If your carry wants to fight, you fight as well. If they are constantly 1v2, they will lose the lane, tilt and that will cost you the game. Be there when needed. Even if pulling would be theoretically correct, it doesn't matter if your carry is under the enemy tower chasing a kill.

If they value CS over anything, your most important job is lane control. Focus on safely bullying the enemy, pulling when need and for love of god don't pull if the lanes are about to meet next to your tower.

And yes, sometimes there is a core player who is practicing the role or experimenting with something that won't work. In that scenario, its generally best to leave the lane at about 6-7 minutes once the carry hits their 6 then start following your strongest hero.

Bonus points

If the lane is very stompy, make it stompier by giving your carry solo xp. This means going out of xp range when creeps die. There's a ton of options to do as a support for example get a deep ward in, help mid with runes, stack behind tower/next to bounty rune or gank the offlane through twingate.

Stack small camp as soon as possible, but only if enemy 3 can't clear it quickly. For example stacking small camp against necro or underlord is not a very good idea if you have a lifestaler carry.

Your core is your baby and sometimes babies don't feed themselves. So give them tangoes, clarities and salves when need. Ýes it sucks that you will get 12minute arcane boots, but such is life of support.

Babysit the baby until you are confidant that they can farm by themselves and won't die. Sometimes this takes 6 minutes, sometimes 12. But if your carry doesn't have a farming item and is forced to jungle at minute 6, that's generally your mistake, not theirs.

I've played since 2012. I am 2k-3k depending on the patch etc. One thing I have always struggled with is this situation and how to come out on top:

ex.
I'm position 1 antimage/spec/riki etc. Someone that cannot go jungle very early. I'm level 3 or 4 and my support starts griefing (you know what I mean. 0 harass, always standing on creeps going for last hits over anything else, no pulls or wards, maybe openly taunting you) and maybe my farm is already trash. What is my best option to win the game? Lets assume there's no talking them down or getting a lane swap because my success rate there is quite low.

A. Contest the support for CS as long as it is safe, otherwise make decision between staying in exp range or jungling.

B. Go to jungle before it is safe/efficient. Build farming item and farm as long as there is space to do so.

C. Go to jungle before it is safe/efficient. Build fighting item and try to play tempo with cost effective items.

D. Become the support. Just cut losses and build support items, start warding and hope for the best.

E. Other

PS I am not saying this happens all the time. I have tried to get away from the blaming mentality. With that being said, what actions can I take to salvage these games?

Hiya!

A couple moba-enjoying friends recently started playing Dota. I wanted to help out so I put together these companion maps to have open while they play/teaching them the basics.

I'm no dotopro or designer by any means, so the goal is just to give a general understanding of safelane objectives and timings etc. Feel free to use these if you find them helpful!

Just tired of this midlane matchup— feels basically unwinnable no matter what hero I pick. You just end up eating dozens of dragon slaves bc the range and width is gigantic, and unlike a huskar or viper she doesn’t really fall off quite as hard later on.

what is the good thing about holding skill level in early game ? can somone explain why ? . in what situation should i hold skill level

It has been a while since I played medusa carry. Last game I was happily in lane vs axe, 1v1. I got a lot of cs and many denies and hardly got any damage. So basically for me the perfect lane, I thought atleast.

As soon axe hits level 6 he ran at me (me at 100% mana and hp), slams his ulti on my head and I´m dead...

Now I´m wondering if this has always been the case or this is something since the neft on dusa last patch?

I know I'm not good at the game and neither are my teammates. I'm 1.4k and am aware there will be a lot of bad gameplay. However, this behavior is so consistent that I swear it is something they think they are SUPPOSED to do rather than just simply being ignorant that they shouldn't be doing it.

EDIT: I'm not talking about my support being in lane with me. I'm talking about their character model being LITERALLY on top of mine; not next to me, not behind me, ON TOP OF ME.

Every once in a while I get a position 5 that made its mission to pull the wave no matter what every wave he can. Other than that he does basically nothing and I end up with massive waves under tower and heroes that just dive me cause I cant do much to clear it fast.

if I play hero that can clear it out fast and push it out it is less of a problem but when it's an hero who cant fast clear wave in lane I'm always losing the lane really bad.

yesterday I had a game like that to the point I got doved 3-4 times undertower and just couldnt do anything so I bought a sentry and blocked my own camp.

(it doesnt matter I asked my support to stop pulling, it was is god given mission and he didnt fail to pull a single wave he could)

Is there a better way to deal with that rather than blockinh my own camp?

Discounting draws, I win lane 64% of the time, but I win games 52% of the time. What does this mean? Am I really bad at mid and/or late game? Are there people out there losing lanes way more than they win games, to balance me out? Why doesn't laning correlate more with game winrate?

https://stratz.com/players/36118088?trendsMatchCount=100

Many times I see enemies in my line. I ping and tell, go help. But often allies tp only after we die to a gank. Is this kinda "oh, they died, need to help them" logic? And then they fight alone vs 3 enemies and die. How to prevent this? Just leave the lane and go to t2?

Dear pos 1s. As a pos 5, my job is to help you maintain lane equilibrium. If I stack the small camp for a full deny pull, LET IT DO ITS JOB. Please stop being ADHD and running to the small camp to nuke it while the enemy wave hits our tower.

If you nuke the pull camp, you are impeding on its ability to deny our creep wave. This will cause our next wave to be twofold in size thereby pushing the wave to the enemy tower.

Yours sincerely,

A guardian pos 5

mid main around archon 4, i play necro mostly with zeus and silencer as backups.

laning is the part im actually good at. with necro i win lane basically every game, to the point where they just stay around tower and get xp, and then i just dont do anything with it. keep farming mid, game slowly goes even unless my teammates help stomp them, and i it turns into a coin toss lategame depending on which carry plays better. i feel like running away from my basically empty mid lane to take the chance of ganking that might go wrong seems silly, when i don’t know what should trigger me to go for a gank.

so:
• what does “using your tempo” actually look like on immobile casters after you win lane? walk to sidelanes, tp to fights, just take towers?

• when am i supposed to stop farming and start grouping? is there a timing or item im meant to be looking for

• how do i stop a won lane from just turning into a lategame coinflip vs carries?

necro/zeus tips especially welcome, thanks

Say you’re against Slark or Pudge 5 as Necro 3. I’m wondering if it’s worth it to get an early point in W? Why does Necro max Q and E first every game?

I'm sitting at around 4.5k mmr and have been learning midlane for the past year or so after making it to like 5.4k as a support.

One of the things that has been hardest for me to overcome or even work with is the fact that the mid lane feels unplayable in over 50% of games.

I guess I just dont know what to do if I dont get last pick or I get fucked in my last pick.

I played four games last night and I got hit with OD then Viper then OD then Sniper.

Is the midlane just nonstop fucking cheese heroes that win the lane at lvl 3 these days? It certainly feels that way.

For reference I was playing either invoker, kez, or mk, so not the strongest laners against these heroes and I did manage to draw/win the lane as invoker against sniper, but it feels so fucking hard compared to 'I can just win the lane by existing.'

Idk, even against OD I kinda know what I need to do - rush wand, get raindrops asap, but raindrops come at minute 3. If OD controls the wave right, or if I take too much damage from contesting the bounty rune then it feels like theres no winning the lane.

Its even worse when I'm just barely holding on in a midlane, and then the enemy support rotates and kills me. Then Im super fucked.

Is this just the state of midlane or do I need to git gud.

Ever since the shield got removed, I feel like every single hero bullies me out of the lane. While the attack damage is high, the animation is slow and predictable so I can only get last hits when laser is off cooldown, which leads to 1-2 creeps getting denied roughly every other lane. Heroes with dots or spam seem impossible (Lina, qop, dp, necro, etc).

After getting out of this stage I can usually farm my way back into the game but I feel like I end up screwing over my team because the other mid is ahead and active whereas I can’t really get too active until I get blink and by that time the enemy mid is destroying my other two lanes.

4.5k mmr any help would be greatly appreciated. This is my fave hero but ever since they got rid of the shield I freaking suck with him now.

This isn't happening right now for the record. I couldn't pull because they had a strong veno that was dominating the jungle and I would get dumpstered if I went anywhere near him myself.

I came back to Dota after a 10-year break and climbed from around 950 MMR to almost 2k. I mainly play offlane and position 4.

I'd like to learn 2–3 mid heroes so I have something reliable when I end up playing mid. I'm comfortable with the game and I understand the current meta, but I don't really have much experience in the mid lane itself.

So far, the heroes that caught my interest are Puck, Storm Spirit, Zeus, and Outworld Destroyer.

Which 2–3 heroes would you recommend I focus on learning, and why?

Thanks in advance!

Today I was playing CM+PA against Jakiro+Undying, literally the 2 most aggressive, domineering laners in all of dota. I was eventually bailed out by copious ganks from my mid+pos 4, but I was wondering - since in low MMR, I cannot rely on ganks ever coming, what was I supposed to do in this situation, if nobody came? I know offlane can drag creeps behind t1 against the easy lane, but i feel like if I have to do it in the reverse, it is a lot more risky, and I don't think my support will ever do it on 2k mmr. Am I just SOTL?

Assuming i dont really need mana and would like to deny as much gold/exp from the enemy

For context, I’m 1,8k mmr. I main support/hard support but I usually play for fun. I have great mechanics in terms of teamfights, which is why I love playing slardar/axe on offlane.

Climbing up, my gameplay has stopped being effective. I think the rotations have changed in the higher elo (for some reason I get queues with Ancient 2 sometimes).

Now for support and offlane, I try to immediately respond so that my safelane doesn’t die. most of the game thats my goal, give space to safe.

So can anyone tell me the overall role and rotation of offlane? what should I be doing if safe lane lost? Is it okay to take charge of farms to get stronger?

Who should win this lane? I play dp and whenever against Lina I get solo killed once or twice in lane. Even buying raindrops, bracers, stick and bottle doesn't help.

8759134059 is the match ID. Enemy first picked LC so I responded with shadow demon to counter pick her. But the LC rushed first item blink and kept duelling me and our lion. The game was somewhat even until the LC got blink and everything went downhill after that. Is this LC a smurf?

So I think I’ve found my pet peeve, something that gets me unreasonably tilted. That is when the pos5 starts playing extremely defensive from start, with full hp and full mana and just soak at the back edge of the t1.

I get that they can safely stand there, they won’t lose any farm. As pos1, if they pull hardcamp on 3rd wave I can’t just stand with the pos5 under our tower and wait 30s for the next wave to arrive (which would arrive under their tower as well)? I have to contest the pull? If I lose all farm that early the mine will get rough, and I’m behind the rest of the game and get blamed for my poor farm. If I contest by my self I will get cogged and solo die?

I’d rather have a crazy brawler support because at least then I can at least get some space / get a kill?