The Possibilities - Pro Tactics Part 1

If you watch pro games, you will most certainly see many tactics that they use that may seem unfamiliar to you. But many of it is fairly easy to do, you just need to know how. I'll describe some of the tactics, strategy and skills that is more well-known and used even in public matchmaking, and also more advanced tactics for competitive teamplay.

---

Juking

The first fairly easy and probably commonly known tactic is juking. Juking involves moving in such a way as to make it hard for the opponent to track you. This usually means running behind trees to make the enemy lose vision of you. This allows you to change direction, or TP out while you are out of sight. Other ways to juke (for instance if you have a blink), is to run into the jungle, juke around a tree, then blink in an opposite direction. If you stay out of sight you can 'juke' the enemy into moving in the direction they think you moved, completely confusing them and getting away safely.
A great guide on Juking can be found right here on Dotafire. Juke Guide by SaphironOfBlood.

---

Animation Cancelling and Orb-Walking

Whenever you perform a basic, right-click attack, your hero will perform an attack animation, deal the damage, and then perform a 'backswing' animation after each attack. The time between these actions are set by your attack speed. You can however increase this speed slightly by cancelling the backswing part of the attack animation (just after damage is dealt on melee, or the projectile is released on ranged heroes). You can cancel the animation by performing another action, usually moving. So, when you attack your target, you wait for the backswing animation, then you quickly click to walk (usually nearer to your target, or farther away if you are kiting), and then quickly attack your target again. Performing this multiple times will allow you to increase your overall attack speed while 'stutter-walking' away or toward a fleeing enemy. You can use this on neutral creeps too.

Orb-Walking is related to this. Certain heroes have what you call an 'orb'-skill. This is a skill that adds an effect to your normal attacks, usually at the cost of mana, and can be set to auto-cast. Examples of these skills are Drow Ranger's Frost Arrows, Enchantress's Impetus or Viper's Poison Attack. When in lane, right-clicking or auto-attacking a hero causes the enemy lane creeps and tower to attack you even if there is other targets available. However, when, instead of auto-casting on attack, you manually click and use the Orb skills, it does not draw aggro because spells don't draw aggression from creeps or towers. Thus, when using animation cancelling and manually using the orb effect you can successfully harass the enemy hero without drawing aggro, even under a tower (provided there is other creeps for it to attack).
You can find a great video on animation cancelling on DotaCinema, by click here

---

Flash Farming

Flash farming involves using a skill to quickly farm a lot of creeps at the same time. An example would be Queen of Pain's Scream of Pain. By lowering the hp of all the creeps in the wave, you can last-hit them all at once by using a AoE skill. This can also work for neutral camps. Heroes with effective flash farming skills are usually used as mid or offlane heroes, because they can farm quickly to make up for the fact that they have to be more careful being solo.

---

This will be part one. Next time, other techniques such as Chain-pulling, Baiting, and more.