ever seen a 5 man rush from min 0:00?

I had an interesting experience last night that was a first in my nearly 300 games (perhaps not a significant number of games?). The opposing team pushed all five of their heroes at our middle tower from the start, with the first creep wave.

As solo mid, I tried to stall them and encourage my pub team mates to push hard on the side lanes to take advantage of this rather unconventional tactic. The problem is that one or two level 1 heroes cannot push hard enough on the sides to make a 5 man rush pay for their aggression (we even had an Enigma). I have seen some weird things, but I had never seen a 5 man rush like this. I had never heard of such a tactic.

So, my question is a two-parter:

a) Have you either employed or defended against this tactic?
b) What do you think are viable defensive strategies against such a play?


In answer to part b) I would pose a strategy of counter pushing, as mentioned above, or some sort of flexible defense/delaying tactic. In other games, when confronted with a hard rush, the best option is often to give ground and let the push dissipate. However, given the snowball/momentum characteristics of DOTA 2, this could backfire pretty hard.

The strategy is just to call your teammates mid and repel the push.They will either quit it or you would get kills.

It comes down to team composition here. If the enemy had a Chen, for instance, the push could be pretty brutal. But if you had a KotL there's not much the enemy is going to do.

I've run a similar tactic in a Captain's Mode game where we took level 1 rosh, gave the Aegis to Lone Druid, then had Lone Druid, Enigma and Prophet all go top and push like hell. We ended up taking a 8 minute rax or something? Pubs can get screwed over by this but with a little co-ordination they can stop these kinds of pushes.

Yes, team composition is a big factor in how such a strategy will play out. My team had an Enigma and the enemy team had Nature's Prophet. Even if we did push a lane to try and punish them for grouping, NP could teleport and defend it with ease.

I saw something similar were all five of the enemies went top to kill our cary. We saw them coming with our wards but oblivious as ever he walked into lane and got killed before the creeps spawn. we rotated a few lanes and real quick and saved the tower top and we had a huge gold edge since they used all five heros. ofc it hit our moral hard and we lost but the idea is not the best.

I've only seen it once in dota pub.
Man it was hilarious, they were able to 5man push all 3 lanes 1st and 2nd tower, BUT, they lacked levels since none of us went different lanes to help other lanes but took the time to farm and not worry about ganks. since we all know where the enemy is.

They took out mid first, but we didn't panic, just laughed it off and mid told us to just farm, later when they were pushing our lane we just stayed safe and mid farmed as fast as he could.
Then when all 3 lanes were pushed, they came to mid to end it but we all come together too, with items and levels from free farming.

But if done properly, the 5-man push could snowball and be unstoppable. sometimes, it would be best to stop them early.

You would think the best way to do this would be five man push one tower or maybe two on mid if nothing happens, and then split up.

@nryn: that is an interesting strategy. It clearly worked in your case. I was concerned in my game that the enemy team would snowball out of control if they just mobbed around as a 5 man killing towers. However, thinking back on it and reading your experience, not contesting the towers and thus not giving up the xp/gold from losing team fights can end up better in the end. Interesting way of dealing with it.

It probably had something to do with their team composition like what Atlas said. They took ganking heroes with stuns and nukes but average pushing power if i recall it correctly.

And because they didn't go all the way to third tower+rax but getting all tier 1 and 2 towers first, we weren't as obliged to defend and lump as a group, splitting the gold and exp from just a few creeps. in the end we had more time to freefarm individually.

I think most the people who is commenting is focusing on the wrong thing

Repel it? Why, who cares, its a lvl 1 tower.

If you dont die then they wasted their time, because 5 heros are getting the experience of 1 lane, while you (solo mid) are getting the experience from the lane all for yourself, maybe not farm at all but your allies are free farming and getting exp

The best strategy against this is to pull the creep to your tower and behind it, try to keep the tower up for as long as you can (Which can be easy as hell, or difficult if they have strong pushers...,..tho no one is an STRONG pusher at lvl 1.....)

And let your partners free farm

So to put it simply:

- DONT DIE/suicide trying to save the tower
- Keep it up for as long as you can
- Pull enemy creep if you can behind your tower