Patch 6.86 Pushing Strategy

I am playing Captain's Mode as my primary gamemode in normal matchmaking, and I have had some great success, winning most of my games and having a great time with my friends. Before patch 6.86, I would usually pick Bristleback as solo offlane, Viper as mid, Lycan as jungle, Sven as carry and Crystal Maiden as support.

The strategy was to have a tough solo offlane who could absorb damage in teamfights, a jungler who could get farmed in a quick fashion, grab rosh and push some towers, a DPS mid who could get some quick kills as well as using Mekansm to help keeping the team alive in teamfights, a carry who could win the game on his own if the game goes late, with stuns to initiate teamfights and buffs to help when pushing towers, as well as a support who would supply everyone on the team with a mana replenishing aura.

The strategy worked out really well and we won pretty much all of our games. I would usually play Lycan and get a Necronomicon level 3 in about 16 minutes, and sometimes we would get megacreeps in about 25 minutes. But, in this patch, we are losing more games than we are winning, so clearly something has to be changed or I have to start all over again and assemble a new draft.

So, I am looking for some suggestions to create a draft that is build around a jungling Lycan, as this is my main hero that I play the most, but only if jungling with this hero is still viable in this patch of course. I have tried various heroes and combinations but I can't seem to get it to work in this patch, it always goes wrong and the outcome seems to be completely random sometimes. So what I am asking for is some ideas to create the best possible draft for a jungle Lycan that works out in this patch, because I seriously can't seem to figure it out.

I can tell you my personal opinion what I do think it happend, it might not be patch problem as much as you maybe increased levels and play more skilled players now, or, as patch came out tiers changed and you are playing against some other heros you are not used to play before, who got buffed and got something new to fight against, know about.

Other thing I need to mention, you tried to cover all aspects of game, like stating you have early game, push potential, late game in sven. I don't know, but since you have jungler in team, there will be opening right there, and sven is early game really weak. Not to mention, lot can be done with just supports teleporting around the map, which you lack in this team. Crystal maiden should do all support and be next to sven, it is really lot of presurre for one guy to hold on everything, supporting, etc., with nothing to do early against some hard push, and being at one place next to sven.

It all depends what level of players you play against, but I can tell that you sohuld reconsider something else. Lycan on itself sets tempo of whole teams gameplay, which is not always good, and he should be more of situational pick on any level, and that feeling of inconsistency is due to Lycan as hero. In my opinion, you should replace lycan with some good support, or build something completely different around Lycan that would more suite to his playstyle. That is just my opinion.

You have some good points that I agree with.

I guess I will have to start all over from scratch by building a new draft based on a strategy with jungle lycan. Any good ideas for hero picks?

Something that solves some of the problems you mentioned would be a good way of making a proper draft for this patch.

Tbh I'd ditch the jungle Lycan entirely. Yes, he can farm faster this patch than previously, but drafts built around AFK junglers are weak against any kind of aggressive opposition.

For example, how would you deal with an aggressive trilane against your dual safe? How would you deal with invisible heroes or roamers stalking your jungle? You're basically trying to get farm onto 4 heroes, which is tough.

You're very reliant on the opposition being passive and letting you get away with being greedy, and your solo support managing to buy all the consumables you need. Your draft is also pretty lacking in team fight.

If you're determined to have Lycan in your team, you could run an initial trilane to get him some early farm and then send him into the jungle (he'll farm a lot faster with some starting gold). If you pick a transistioning support like Wraith King or Gyrocopter, even Sven :) - they can stay in the support role, or try to become an extra core if it's viable.

If you're picking your draft around Lycan you do have some options and synergies -

Broodmother offlane is OP if you time Howl with mass Spiderling attack. (as are other minion based heroes)

Armour reduction heroes like Shadow Fiend, Slardar, Dazzle etc would well with him and his big physical damage.

Other pushers can be good too - Shadow Shaman, Death Prophet etc.

Or, you can just look to stall and block while he split pushes.

It seems like you are suggesting a draft based on pushing the towers right off the bat, if that is the case then I think a hero like Windranger should be mentioned, as she can push down towers in a quick fashion plus she becomes a solid hard carry if the game should go late. In any case, I'm going to try the strategy and see if it works out.

So I just played a game with Windranger, Lycan, Nature's Prophet, Shadow Shaman and Broodmother. We played against a team who picked ganking and roaming heroes such as Storm Spirit, Tinker and Tusk so we got picked off one by one as we were trying to split push. We lost with the final score 47-12.

We played another game afterwards that we won in 22 minutes, with the opposing heroes literally drowning in treants buffed with Howl and Warcry as they were trying to protect the ancient, they had Axe who was fighting bravely against the treants but got himself killed in the process and we got the ancient. Seems like a fun and super cheesy strategy that is countered easily, but I do have the ability to ban some of the heroes that counters this strategy.

With that being said, I just don't see how it is viable against any semi-competent players, as all you have to do is pick a few ganking heroes with mobility and pick off some of these squishy pushers one by one, and then start snowballing as soon as the score becomes stupid. But it is a fun strategy that's for sure, its probably not as serious as my previous strategy but its a lot more fun and that's what playing games is all about.

Well played for picking such an "all in" draft, it'll be great when it works, but as you say, can also be heavily countered. It's your job as captain to decide when it's viable, and when to balance that draft with other options.

For example, you could go with the armour reduction strat I mentioned, Slardar offlane, Dazzle support and Shadow Fiend mid. Much more damage and teamfight focused, but equally viable against the right lineups.

I'm trying to figure out how to upload some replays on dotabuff but it seems like you need to link your steam account with the website, if I get it to work I'll post some replays with this strategy. Also, I should probably mention that this strategy doesn't work if you have a jungler, since the lanes will get outpushed and you will eventually lose the game to farmed carries.

So I have been trying out this pushing strategy a bit. In my experience, going with a raw pushing draft is straight up suicide in this patch, since they changed the map. You have all the time in the world to get to a tower and defend it and you can easily catch and gank most of these pushing heroes since they are squishy and the map is big.

So what I tried to do was making a draft that has good pushing power, but also has great teamfight capabilities. I tried several hero combinations and landed on Nature's Prophet, Abaddon, Death Prophet, Windranger and Sven. So we have heroes with pushing power on all 3 lanes basically, offlane, midlane and safelane, so we can quickly push the towers and get a good start.

Windranger can easily destroy a tower because of Focus Fire, and she synergizes well with nature's prophet, since his Sprout allows him to catch a hero so windranger gets enough time to get the frag, especially if one of them gets a Desolator. Abbadon is basically the hero to absorb damage in teamfights and to support the lanes. Sven has Warcry that buffs nature's prophets treants and allows them to absorb some of the damage when pushing towers, as well as a great stun for disabling enemy heroes and initiating teamfights. Death prophet has Crypt Swarm that allows her to quickly push the lanes and get to the towers, a Silence ability that helps disabling spells as well as Exorcism that helps with pushing towers and in teamfights.

What do you guys think about this strategy and draft?

I got dota buff to work and managed to upload a replay. This was my first game as nature's prophet so it took a bit to figure out how to play him, I had to register a new account since I didn't want to risk compromising my main account, so I had to start all over with configurating my buttons after the game was started which was annoying. Also, it was a pretty good game, but the outcome was completely random as with most things this patch.

Well the biggest flaw I see right now is that you got a dual-melee lane and are extremely greedy. Sure... Abaddon got some zoning potential but as a single support trying to zone...
And if you got an agressive dual-lane on the enemy team against you then you are screwed.
As mentioned above you are also extremely greedy. A single support who isn't Lich or someone similar will have a hard time doing all the support stuff and being useful.