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Sage's Mask
Clarity
Soul Ring
Arcane Boots
Bloodstone
Blink Dagger
Eul's Scepter of Divinity
Aghanim's Scepter
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1 | 3 | 5 | 7 |  |
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4 | 8 | 9 | 10 |  |
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2 | 12 | 13 | 14 |  |
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6 | 11 | 16 |  |
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15 | 17 | 18 |
Probably in much the same way as Tinker, Goblin Techies provide a skilled player with nearly unlimited map control potential and a ridiculous amount of fun! The only difference is that whereas Tinker is all about nonstop mobility, Goblin Techies tend to prefer a more chess-like approach to the tower-pushing game. Of particular note, the vision that their Remote Mines grant allow them to essentially see the entire map after several have been placed, further solidifying their effectiveness toward such a play style. For this reason, getting them to level 6 as soon as possible is your top priority when playing Techies, and there is no faster way to do this than by jungling Ancients.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's take a moment to understand just what it is Techies are designed to do, as well as why.
STRENGTHS:
[*] Enormous potential for damage output
[*] Constantly a threat everywhere, if mines are used properly
[*] Longest disable in the game
[*] Remote Mines double as short-range observer wards
[*] Ability to deny self while simultaneously scoring kills
[*] Insane pushing and counter-pushing potential
[*] Great jungle-camp denial
[*] Able to easily kill enemies in their own jungles once level 6 is reached
WEAKNESSES:
[*] Abilities are non-spammable, particularly early on
[*] Horrendous base damage
[*] No natural escape mechanism
[*] Incredibly dependent on items for mana pool and regen
[*] Mines countered by True Sight
[*] Incredibly reliant on preparation for maximum effectiveness
As I mentioned before, Goblin Techies need to have their ultimate to be fully operational. Without it, the team's vision and damage output is significantly reduced. It's certainly possible to play Techies as a lane support, but the opportunity for enemy ganks is simply too high for it to be worth it. Techies' abilities are too costly and have too great a cooldown to sufficiently support a laning core and allow them to farm safely. A well-coordinated enemy will just tear such an inefficient dual-lane to shreds, not to mention the fact that Techies' mines being proximity-activated means that lane creeps will automatically trigger and soak up the most effective lines of defense. Conversely, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Techies to be baby-sat in lane by another support when there are far more suitable cores able to more efficiently farm the gold there.
I find that Goblin Techies are actually incredibly more efficient if played jungling your Ancients.
1. The Junlging Phase
My method for doing this is incredibly simple, and it takes full advantage to the rather unusual properties of Techies' first ability, Land Mines. Ideally, after getting two or three full stacks of Ancients into the camp, you will:
1) Place a Land Mine right in front of you.
2) Auto-attack one of the Ancients. Preferably the big ones.
3) Run like hell.
4) Profit.
I normally stack the Ancient camp twice before I begin doing this because of how much more mana-efficient it is. Here's why this all works so well. Land mines deal composite damage, so they affect even Magic-immune Ancients. That's all well and good, but there's something even more vital to this that makes the technique so amazing: the Land Mines' arming delay and the full-/half-damage radii. Normally, the mine will go off as soon as a target reaches the full-damage radius. When you're trying to jungle huge stacks of Ancients, that's very clearly inefficient, as only one or two will take full damage, and the rest will only take half. However, thanks to the 1.75 second arming delay, you can actually give these delicious creeps a head-start straight into Maximum Damage Boulevard. After three such attacks, you will have ideally killed 6 small Ancients for a cool ~700 experience and ~480 gold. That's EASILY enough to get you to the next level of Land Mines. Rinse and repeat, and you can easily get your 6th level by the 6-minute mark, as well as a completed Soul Ring and Arcane Boots.
ITEM JUSTIFICATION: Techies are an incredibly mana-dependent hero(es?). In addition, their play style almost requires them to be absent whenever enemy heroes are present to ensure that they are constantly throwing out mines everywhere, rather than feeding gold and experience to the enemy. For this reason, I believe being able to consistently cast abilities whenever they are off cooldown is by far the most important consideration as a Techies player. This isn't to say that Techies WON'T be engaging the enemy. Rather, at this point in the game, it's just not preferable.
2. The Disruption Phase
Many people like to highlight Land Mines' ability to block enemy jungle camps as a highlight of their utility. However, I would like to highlight Remote Mines' utility in this area, instead, as I feel it is far more useful: their INABILITY to block jungle camps. Here is what I mean.
If you place a Land Mine in a jungle camp, it goes on cooldown. Nothing spawns there. Furthermore, if a wayward jungler happens to trip the mine, the only thing that happened was a bit of harass on your part. Not bad, mind you--600 damage early on is nothing to laugh at--but that's it. Furthermore, doing this will cause the enemy to become wary after a while and buy detection for your mines. This isn't ideal. Now, I'm not saying it's WRONG. There's no real wrong or right way to play a hero, if you're skilled and creative enough. It's certainly possible to kill an enemy in their own jungle that way, and the gold wasted on detection is a victory in its own right. But I feel that the method I will detail shortly is much more efficient.
Again: Land Mines will block jungle camps. An enemy who notices the same camp refusing to spawn creeps will become suspicious and probably attempt to rectify the situation in as safe a manner for them as possible. Remote Mines do NOT block spawning at ALL. You can have 20 remote mines in the same jungle camp, and unless they have some form of detection, they would be none the wiser. Furthermore, placing Land Mines requires Techies to get very, very close to the desired mining spot. Placing Remote Mines does not. So, something you should consider doing is, as you are placing Remote Mines at key movement points on the map to scout out and harass potential gankers, place at least one Remote Mine on a nearby jungle camp. Do this a few times on the same camp. You should notice by this point that the enemy carry or other core farmer comes to that spot regularly, if not occasionally.
This is an EXCELLENT way to score a free kill. The beauty of this plan, furthermore, is that it doesn't require much mana or time. If you cluster 4 Remote Mines on the same camp, that's 1,800 damage on any hero who goes there alone. JUST FROM 4 REMOTE MINES!!! They will likely not suspect that anything is even slightly amiss, as long as you do your job and keep out of sight. And you can STILL have Remote Mines near your fringe towers, choke points, and other key locations.
Land Mines can be placed intelligently around the map to continually harass the enemy as they try to make their way through your territory. There is already a wonderful guide on this, complete with a map of all the juicier locations, so I don't want to go into that here. Instead, I want to explain why I have a Blink Dagger in Techies' item list, as well as why I mentioned "Insane pushing potential" earlier. Since Land Mines affect Ancients, they most assuredly affect towers, too. And if you're placing your Remote Mines properly, you may have one or two enemy towers that, when you have a wave of friendly creeps up against them, hold NO surprises for you.
This is when you should put Techies to work. This is when the Goblins truly shine.
Tier 1 towers have 1,300 hit points. At max level, Land Mines deal an incredible 600 composite damage. Even after reductions from armor, a single land mine placed adjacent to an enemy tower will eat about 300 hit points. With a 10 second cooldown, it's unlikely that Techies can get off more than one or two land mines before enemy heroes come rushing to their tower's defense. Nonetheless, that's about 600 life closer to a fallen tower to your team's benefit in a mere 10-12 seconds, depending on your execution time. That's HUGE. A skilled Techies player with a Blink Dagger, then, can alternate between placing defensive mines on their side of the river, placing offensive mines in the opponent's jungle, and even lay waste to their towers with little fear of retribution. In essence, as I mentioned above, this is virtually identical to the effect of a skilled Tinker player. The only difference is that whereas Tinker is all about split-second timings and constantly changing his location, Techies are about thoughtful placement and positioning. In the hands of a good player, Goblin Techies could easily never leave their lane and still be almost 100% combat effective.
ITEM JUSTIFICATION: Techies benefit such a great deal from Blink Dagger's mobility when potentially venturing beyond the safety of their minefields. Force staff is a great alternative when dealing with constant Damage over Time or an aggressive enemy, but if possible, you want to be able to take advantage of Blink Dagger's more favorable 12-second cooldown.
3. The Demolitions Phase
At this point, you have hopefully either taken down a couple towers, stopped several ganks dead in their tracks, facilitated a few of your own, or all of the above. Bloodstone is just what you need to ensure that you always have mana precisely when you need it. The synergy with Suicide Attack also can't be overlooked.
At this point, you just want to place mines EVERYWHERE. In particular, sprinkle a Stasis Trap or two in every cluster of 3-6 Land Mines that you've placed, if you're going for area denial. A Remote Mine for vision and added nuke damage is also not a bad idea. At this stage in the game, you may want to avoid stacking Land Mines on top of one another, with the exception of choke points that only enemy Heroes will wander. In my experience, spreading out Land Mines in clusters serves Techies' purposes better for two reasons. First, unless it's a very frequently traveled spot, there's a good chance that a huge stack of Land Mines may go for whole minutes without catching anyone. Second, Techies' primary goal is to grant map awareness to allies while denying map control to enemies. Though the vision radius is quite small, what you really want are their mere presence. Even if you can't see anything through the mines, it's very easy to tell when enemies are trying to force their way through your minefield by the very obvious path they leave behind. Thus, even without any actual wards or vision, it is still possible to figure out precisely where they are and set up "blind ganks" in this manner.
Another tactic you will want to get in the habit of is following up on your initiators' stuns with a stun of your own. At 6 seconds long, Stasis Trap is the longest disable in the game. If a Nyx or Sand King manages to land an initial stun on one or two targets, blink in and follow up asap! You'll also notice that, under Late Game items, I've listed Eul's. The reason for this should be fairly obvious: Techies is just too easy to burst down. Unless you need to use the ability on a high-priority target, performing a Blink > Stasis Trap > Eul's (self) is often the best method of follow-up to your team's initiator.
Techies isn't terribly complicated, as I've said. It's incredibly easy to lay Stasis Traps such that friendly heroes will utilize them to their fullest effect. In fact, if you're feeling especially ballsy, you can sometimes solo-kill an enemy using Eul's > Stasis Trap > Land Mine > Remote Mine. Still, nothing is quite as satisfying as watching a Pudge hook a target into a Stasis Trap, or following up behind your Clockwork to just dump all manner of nasties onto their Cogs-trapped target. Dark Seer's Vacuum, in particular, can be used to suck enemy heroes onto ridiculously high stacks of explosives to devastating effect, and I doubt I need explain Techies' synergy with any kind of pusher or debuffer like Pugna. Once Techies can crack the enemy base, you'll find that nuking their barracks is almost embarrassingly easy, and all the while, Stasis Traps and Remote Mines will more than suffice in keeping potential counter-attackers at bay.
ITEM JUSTIFICATION: Euls' grants bonus movement speed, bonus mana regen, and an activated ability that works perfectly with Techies' ability set. Aghanim's provides extra mana, extra hit points, and boosts the effectiveness of Remote Mines phenomenally. 750 damage per mine at a toss range of 700 means that you can literally booby-trap enemy jungles from across the river. Too good to pass up just for that reason alone.
4. Wrapping It Up
Techies is one of my favorite heroes to play precisely because of the fact that they aren't just crazy goblins--they're crazy GOOD goblins. I've had an amazing time playing them in the past, and I can only hope that they'll continue to be just as fun when Volvo finally gets around to porting them into DotA 2 (c'mon, TI4's been done for almost a WEEK now! jeeze). I do hope this guide helps you somewhat in playing them and, more importantly, that you have as much fun with these little psychotic pyros as I do :)
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