I have been playing DoTA 2 for about three weeks now and I am certifiably in love with the game. I ended up in the DoTA-sphere thanks to an old friend of mine introducing me to League of Legends over two years ago. Now that I've started playing DoTA 2 I don't intend to go back to LoL or any of the other MOBA's I spent way too much time playing (like my all Christmas break love affair with BloodLine Champions)

I don't have a die-hard attitude when it comes to gaming. I don't need to be the best. I just like to be among the best. When I played counter-strike back in the day, I played until I got to CAL-O and could consistently get banned from random public servers for 'hacking' which I discovered is what insecure people called 'playing with skill.' Another example, I play Go. Go is considered to be the most difficult game in the world, highly strategic, and strongly loved across Asia where their players play in multiple tournaments for prize money professionally. I never had any illusi…
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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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