The lane phase is my favorite part of each match. It's like a deadly dance, a terrifying tango filled with harassment, last-hits, sudden ganks, and death. Oh yes, death.

Despite laning being the most constant and predictable part of each match, I see a lot of mistakes that can probably be blamed on how experienced or focused players are in the skill area I'm playing right now. (which I'm guessing is with other fellow noobs) I'm guilty of screwing up in the laning phase too, and it's something I'm trying to correct. Below are a lot of the more common things I notice players doing, along with my own shortcomings.

TL;DR version: The Lane-phase is important. Focus on farming, smart play, and being a good lane partner so you can have a successful match.

Auto-Attacking Constantly

In just about every "New Player" guide that exists out there, there's a large portion explaining how you shouldn't auto-attack in the laning phase. It pushes the lane closer to the enemy tower making it harder t…
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Hey fellow Dota 2 players. Today I'll be going over some basics on Lane Composition because in my lower ranked pub games I see a lot of mistakes and confusion over who should go to which lane. It took me a little while to figure this out so I figured I would share what I've learned and hopefully it will clarify somethings.


As you can see in the minimap above there are three lanes. These are commonly reffered to as 'Top' 'Mid' and 'Bot'(bottom), which is something you're probably familiar with. The image above also illustrates how the running distance to and from the lanes are different for each team. The mid, top and bot monikers are pretty obvious.

Less known to noobies, is that the top and bottom lanes are also referred to as the 'Easy' lane, 'Hard' or 'Suicide' lane. The reason for this is because of the length of the lane and the opportunities for ganking from the jungle is very different on either side. As Atlas kindly pointed out, this difference is different for both The Dire…
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