I need help with laning

Whats up DotaFire? Before I get to my question I would like to introduce myself as this is my first post and none of you know me. I am a fairly new player to Dota 2-only logging 300 hours so far. As soon as I started playing Dota 2 I grew an a immediate liking to it even though my bad internet tends to prevent me from playing at times. Let me put it this way, unless I play during the early morning, I will get about a 3 second delay which in Dota sucks. This of course, has caused me to lose some sleep which is a bad habit I am trying to fix. To improve, I turn to the great guides on DotaFire and the helpful discussions. I also enjoy watching pro games on JoinDota and have watched PurgeGamers as well as read his guide.

Anyway, I generally play support since at my skill level no one picks one. I go through my general laning routine of harassing and attempting denies(emphasis on attempting). But what really annoys me is watching my carry auto attack the **** out of the creep wave, miss last hits, and push the wave into a dangerous position. I feel as if I could do better at last hitting than most of my lane partners I wind up with. I know I could do better as a support but watching them auto attack drives me crazy. In the few games I have played a farming hero, I usually choose a melee one. This brings me to my question: What can I do better to last hit as a melee in a contested lane?

How can I attempt safe last hits and at the same time, avoid harassment from the opposing supports? Basically, how can I out lane the other players and win the lane? I'm not sure if I should just eat a tree and take the harass or if I should back up and be more safe and cautious. One thing I've thought of is letting them push to right out of our tower's range where I can last hit safely and easily but I am bad at keeping the creep equilibrium so I need help with that too. I thank anyone in advance for responding to this guide. BTW I play on US East and my Steam ID is bballer23 if you want to add me. WARNING: I am big noob

300 hours and you're much different than your teammates, well done! Sometimes you just need some friends to play with: maybe not way stronger than you, but at least with the same mindset.

As for the question, if you're playing a melee support you should simply focus on pulling and finding openings with skills ( Fissure, Snowball, Burrowstrike...), as denying puts you in a bad spot. Talking about carries, it depends on what you're playing: if you are, say, a Juggernaut, you can potentially zone out the enemies by running at them; if they think you're going to use your Blade Fury, they'll go back (remember to click on the ground and not on the enemies while doing so, so you won't draw the creep aggro). This also works with Slark, Axe and Slardar most of the time.

Another thing you can do is, when the lane's pushed too far, hitting your creeps when they're below half HP, so the lane will push back and you'll be granted safe last hits. Controlling the lane is a thing the support should care about, pulling, denying and maybe catching the enemies in a bad position to find an opening.

It is hard to control the creep equilibrium alone, especially if you are a carry. As a farming hero you'll probably be always safelane, with a support to help you (you won't see much trilanes in low level pubs). The support should pull neutrals from the easy camp so that your creep wave attacks them. This will automatically push the lane towards your tower. Also, try to only approach the enemy creeps to last hit, and make sure to buy a stout shield on a melee hero if you think your lane will be contested. Upgrading it to Poor Man's Shield from the side shop is often a solid choice, as it greatly reduces the harassment taken.

I know it's probably not the issue, but maybe you marked servers that aren't close to your place of living and that's why you are havind lags? I helped some people, because they were simply putting all servers, so they would find a game faster and they had massive delays constatnyl. I don't know, maybe this is the case?

Good job, recognising the need for a good Support puts you well above most new players.

First of all, always start with a Stout Shield. You'll be able to tank a lot more Harrass with it. If you're an Agility Hero, then consider upgrading to a Poor Man's Shield

I don't recommend getting a Quelling Blade to improve your Last Hitting. If you're having trouble getting the timing down, then practise using the Training Mission where you have to Last Hit for 10 minutes. You'll eventually get the hang of it for the Hero that you practise, and will inevitably get a little bit better at Last Hitting with all Heroes

If you're getting contested in Lane, make sure you have a Hero who has a Flash Farming Skill. This usually takes the form of an AoE Nuke, e.g. Breathe Fire, Whirling Axes (Melee), Overwhelming Odds etc. They do more Damage than your opponent's Auto-Attacks, so use it well to secure Last Hits (as with Last Hitting, you may need to practise this to get the timing down). Any skill that ensures you get a Last Hit

You have to make this decision on a game to game situation sadly. Weigh up your options at the start, for example, how much Farm do you need before you can Kill the other Laners? Can you Jungle early on? Can you use Skills to Farm from far away, e.g. Stifling Dagger, etc.? but...

...this is another option, just make sure you can Farm under the Tower. Again, a Flash Farming Skill helps here, but beware as once a Creep Wave has gone under a Tower, it will get Pushed away from the Tower afterwards.

As for Lane Control, try not to spam Flash Farming Skills if you can help it, and also, try to lower your Creep's HP so that you either end up going for a Last Hit at the same time as your opponent (and making them focus on Last Hitting instead of Denying), or they end up going for Last Hits before you and end up Pushing the Wave.

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I'd recommend trying a few games as Phantom Assassin. Use Stifling Dagger to either get Last Hits from far away, or if possible, use it to Harrass one of your opponents. Pick one to bully, and if they get low enough, you can always try using Phantom Strike to finish them off. >8{D

Start with these Items...




...then buy your 2 Slippers of Agility, a Magic Stick and Phase Boots from the Sideshop, upgrading Magic Stick to a Magic Wand to save on Item Slots. You may weven want to get a Ring of Aquila if you want to fight early on, as Stats + Mana Regen are always good 8{)




You should be able to survive your Lane with this and maybe even get some Kills, but don't go Battle Fury if you follow this build. You'll never get it by 15:00 unless you get Fed like crazy, and no one should build a Battle Fury after 15:00 8{(

Hope that helps.

First off, thank you for all the tips you gave me. Everyone who responded is greatly appreciated and I will try out all these tips to get better.

Next, I have the second part of:

Nooby Questions with bballer23!!!!!
In my skill bracket, supports are rare to say the least. Sometimes if I don't pick one, we don't even get a courier until 10 minutes... So, I've seen pro games and with them the carry gets the safe lane and the protection of two supports. They often go up against an off laner who isn't attempting last hits and just trying to sap experience. So, of course, their farming isn't really contested. But what about dual lanes? And I am not talking about 1 support and 1 farming hero in a lane. I am talking about 2 carries in the lane. Is it possible to win a two carry lane when you are up against a lane with one support and one carry? I've also noticed that when I get harassed I usually back up immediately, should I just take that harass and secure that last hit or should I sacrifice the last hit in order to keep my health up. I assume that last question is situational.

I took the liberty of compiling a list of things you guys told me to do. Feel free to make edits or additions in the comments.

1. Buy a stout shield. SITUATIONAL: Upgrade to a Poor Man's Shield(Credit goes to everyone)
2. Zone out enemies with mind games(i/e running at them and faking a skill usage). For this one, if they don't run away should I go for the skill if I see fit?(Credit goes to Peppo)
3. Control creep equilibrium by denying/attacking my own creeps when the lane is pushed(Credit gotes to Peppo)
4. Get a flash farming skill(Credit goes to Xyrus)
5. Only walk up to the creeps when going for a last hit, otherwise stay back for your opportunity(Credit goes to Treutreu)



I have only US East checked, it is just my bad internet XD, thanks for the tip though

Again, thank you all for your helpful replies I will be sure to try them all out and practice to get better.

Well really to help you with your 2 carries question I think I might be able to help.
I played this game --> http://dotabuff.com/matches/724324574 Not sure if the replay still exists or not but basically I had to lane with LC as CK and it went well, I got a kill, he may have died for it but still. I tried to keep the last hits around 50-50% each. I also had to buy and upgrade courier in the game sadly...

Also with your backing up problem, I can only suggest one thing; tank the damage, get the last hit, deny possibly and then move away. If you can do this then maybe even try to get your agro creeps to go on them so they take damage as well and if the enemy hero keeps right-clicking you then move back and watch them get harassed by creeps. Works well imo. If that doesn't help then get Poor Man's Shield and possibly watch higher tiered pub games and see how they position themselves in accordance to the creep wave.
My steam name as well if you need someone to watch games or mindlessly talk to; http://steamcommunity.com/id/zerak_kyria

1) It depends! Generally a carry + a support is much better for the team - the support provides the essentials, and you avoid 2 heroes fighting each other for farm as well as the opposition. However, it very much depends on the carry + carry combo, and the carry + support combo.

Say you had Spectre and Keeper of the Light as your combo, they're both relatively weak, have no stuns or slows, and don't present a threat in lane. On the other hand, Luna and KOTL throws out a lot of harass. Juggernaut and Venomancer can be pretty scary. Same with the enemy combo - if they have 2 badly matched heroes who can't kill, they're at a disadvantage, but 2 unpleasant gankers or a say a Chaos Knight and Gyrocopter combo could be quite deadly.

The other thing is that at lower level games, a lot of support stuff just doesn't work as well - the underfarmed supports tend to make more mistakes and feed, the other players don't have enough map awareness to appreciate wards, people don't need the courier so much because they often die in lane.

Tbh at lower levels I'd recommend supports who have strong ganking and/or team fighting abilities. Avoid the squishier hard supports who need better co-ordination from their team. Make sure you do things like buy detection against invis heroes, but don't try to play like a pro support - your team mates just won't be good enough to appreciate or utilise it properly. Obviously evolve your play and don't get into bad habits, but take into account the relative skill levels.

2) Harassment. It depends! If you're playing a melee carry against Venomancer, then yeah you might have problems. Obviously the Stout Shield can help a lot, and you need to ensure you have sufficient consumables as Xyrus recommends. As a carry, you've got to last hit - obviously you don't want to take tons of damage, but you should be able to get in, get the hit and get out with fairly minimal shots on you. Each hit is worth ~50 gold, so a few of them will easily pay for more consumables/protection if you need it. Obviously, be careful to keep your health topped up - it's not worth dying over a last hit either.

There's various tricks you can use like pulling creep aggro (click to attack an enemy hero when near enemy creeps will cause them to try to attack you, even if you're not in range to attack the enemy) - duck back to avoid their hits, and you'll draw them closer towards you, making them easier to hit, and your creeps more likely to attack the enemy if they harass you.

EDIT: This may help you...

Ive found the Naga + Jugg combo to be quite scary. Net into blade fury. But that is also because Naga can play support if need be.

Yes, but you need to get a lot of Kills to make up for the fact that 2 Carries are only getting half their Farm/1 Carry isn't getting any Farm. If you can get Kills it will work, so go with Heroes that can deal a lot of Damage or have good Disables at lvl1, e.g. Wraith King, Mirana, Undying, Gyrocopter, etc.

Try to avoid this situation if you can, but don't worry if you end upin it, you can always recover 8{)

Hard to say, if you're 1 Last Hit away from being able to afford your next Item or are playing a greedy Hero, or even feel you can shrug off the Harrass, then Tank the Damage. If you're not too concerned with getting Gold at the moment and you feel that someone will come to Gank soon (from either Team), then play it Safe for the time being.

If you have the Damage and the Disables/Slows necessary, then yes.

There's a little trick for Pulling the Lane a bit. Bear in mind that your Ranged Creep deals the most Damage, so removing it before the other side's Ranged Creep will Pull the Lane closer to your Tower. To do this...

Right-Click (Auto-Attack) any Hero on the other Team, you don't necessarily need to attack them, just click as though you were going to (don't click on a Centaur Warrunner though, any other Hero is fine). As soon as you do, any nearby enemy Creeps will Focus you, so run back a bit and after a couple of seconds, they'll forget about you and focus on the nearest Creep. If you ran back, this should mean 1 or 2 are attacking your Ranged Creep. 8{D