Guide to play Techies in 7.0.7

Introduction

I have about 500 games with Techies. During these games I tested almost all the common strategies including support Techies, Roaming Techies, Defensive Techies, Solo-Offlane Techies (this one used to be my favorite style in patch 6.88) and Aggresive Techies. In my opinion, Solo-offlane and Aggressive styles are the bests but since after patch 7 Blast Off! is not a reliable Suicide anymore I don't recommend Solo-Offlane style anymore.
In my opinion, the reason why players loose with Techies is not lack of skills because Techies is not a hero like Invoker that need a lot of skills to be effective. They loose because of their wrong mindsets. They heavily under-estimate the hero that they are playing with.
Techies is one of the most underrated and underestimated heroes in Dota 2. Although he is a pretty strong hero under certain circumstances, people usually don't play this hero correctly. There are some default mindsets that are absolutely incorrect and that's the main reason that Techies players usually can't win the games. I am going to mention some of them here:

1. Techies Doesn't need farm!
2. Techies is a squishy hero!
3. Techies is a support hero!
4. Techies should be played defensively!

These are some absolutely incorrect statements that come to my mind right now. I will explain why they are incorrect:

1. Techies need a ton of farm to become truly effective and he is a pretty good farmer after level 7 since Rank 4 Proximity Mines can one-shot a creep wave.
2. Techies has 7 starting armor which is really high in the early game. Although techies agility growth is really bad, his strength growth is good for an intelligence hero.
3. as I said before Techies needs tons of farm, so it can't be played as a support. if your team needs a support, don't pick Techies please.
4. I played around 500 games with Techies. I won and lost so many games with this guy. I tried many styles so many times. Trust me guys, an aggressive Techies is far better than a defensive one.

Pros / Cons

Pros

• Highest attack range in the game after Sniper
• Very high starting armor
• Good attack animation
• Very high intelligence growth
• Good strength growth for an intelligence hero
• Strong talents including +150GPM, +251 attack damage

Cons

• Lowest base damage in the game
• Low movement speed
• Extremely mana dependent

When to Pick Techies

As like every other hero in the Dota, Techies has it's own hero counters. These are the situations that i usually avoid picking Techies on them :

• When enemy heroes are very tanky.
• When enemy cores can out farm and out carry your cores in the Late game.
• When there is an Anti-Mage on the other side.
• Against heroes with high mobility like Storm Spirit or Phantom Assassin since they can target you easily in the fights.
  
  Many players believe that heroes like Zeus, Nature's Prophet are Techies counters but I disagree. Zeus for sure can cause you a lot of problems but he is not a counter and Nature's Prophet is an ATM machine that sends you money every now and then.

Early Game

Before the start

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As sooon as you pick Techies everyone, including your teammates, will turn against you, so number one rule while playing Techies is to be a positive Techies. Don't argue with your teammates. I even sometimes give my mid-laner a Tango. You can buy an Observer Ward for the offlane if necessary.

Bounty rune

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when the game start just go to the offlane rune and wait for the rune to spawn. I don't recommend to get the Bounty Rune since this will make your teammates blame you and become your enemy from the first minute of the game. Let them take it.
After blocking the creep wave I recommend you to hide in the trees and keep attacking the squishiest hero in the lane. Your goal should be to reduce their HP to below 50% so you can then jump and get a kill with your offlaner.
When you get to level 2 start mining around the lane, go take the bounty runes. Leave the offlaner for a while since he needs XP more than you in the early game. Keep in mind that since you are in a dual offlane, your offlaner will fall behind in terms of XP unless you guys keep killing the enemy heroes in the lane. So you should try to kill them, no matter the cost. If you can jump on them, Suicide yourself and you know that you offlaner can get a double kill after that just do it. Even the assist money is more than enough for you in the early game.

Sometimes, especially when the enemy has invisible heroes like Bounty Hunter, Riki they will try to pressure your mid or safe lane in the early game. in this case, just go to the lane and place Proximity Mines on both sides of the lane even behind your towers. so that you can punish their roaming supports or at least keep them away from the lane.

There is one important thing that you need to know when playing Techies: You can frighten your enemies by just showing yourself in a lane. if you see that enemy are pressuring your safe lane. just TP to the safe lane, place 1-2 mines and show yourself in the lane. they will immediately back off or at least they will play more defensively. so just because you went offlane in the early game doesn't mean that you should stay in the offlane forever.

Tips for Early game

1. Rush your Soul Ring first.
2. If you can't get any kills in the offlane, Leave it. join other lanes.
3. If other lanes are under pressure, leave the offlane, join other lanes.
4. Don't hesitate to kill yourself with Blast Off! before 20 minute mark if you or your teammates can get a kill after it.
5. As i said before, Techies is not a support. but if you or your teammates are dying just because of lack of vision and your support is not buying wards, just buy them yourself.
6. Always mine your Bounty Rune(s).

Mid Game

In the mid game, you should try to farm and place some Remote Miness around the map. as I said before, aggressive Techies is much better than a defensive one. I usually try to put my Remote Mines as close as possible to the enemy towers. Most players will buy Sentry Wards against Techies, but not everyone expects to see mines right in front of their own towers.

Adapt to the game

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Predicting the enemies movements and adapting to it, is one of the most important aspects of playing Techies. You should always be scanning the enemies movements and adapt to it. For example, if you see that they want to take the button tower first you should TP to the lane and start setting your traps there. If they are pressuring mid then you should set your traps around the mid lane.

Mine placement guides

let say that I know that the enemy team is going to push the bottom towers. I will TP to the lane, and start planting mines but Not right in front of the tower! That's the most obvious place in the map. So instead, try to :

• Put at least 1 Proximity Mines behind your tower.
• Put Proximity Miness inside the trees near your tower.
• Put your Remote Miness stack in the middle of the lane.(the closer to enemy tower (without being seen), the better).
• After all, hide in the trees and wait for a good Blast Off! attempt.
• Always try to plant at least one Remote Mines deep inside the lanes (even behind the enemy T1 or T2). Those mines will get a kill on the enemies that are retreating back to base with low HP. it's a nasty trick.

You might think that putting mines behind towers is a crazy idea but trust me guys I killed so many enemy heroes who smoked and tried to ambush us from behind just because they thought that I have mines in front of the tower, which I didn't.

Spread the fear across the map

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As I said before, Techies is all about fear. If you stay in a lane for a long time the enemy will simply abandon and totally ignore that lane and will push the other lanes as hard as possible. so as a Techies player it's extremely important to always carry a TP and be present in all the lanes to stop the enemy aggression. Techies is a very good pusher after level 7 since Proximity Mines can one-shot creeps waves so try to push the lanes and farm a bit in the mid-game.

Protect your Jungle

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You should try to put as much Proximity Mines as you can in your jungles entrances to protect your core(s) from being ganked in the jungle. This becomes even more important if the enemy has invisible based heroes like Clinkz, Riki, Bounty Hunter or Nyx Assassin.

Adapt to heroes play styles

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Some heroes in Dota have special playing styles, including Techies, that you should adapt to it. For example, Ember Spirit is an agility hero with a good escape mechanism that always wants to push the lanes alone in the mid-late game. Once you have your Aghanim's Scepter you can kill this guy with 4 Remote Mines. So if you are playing against this hero consider placing stacks of 4 Remote Mines in all the lanes to kill him.

Another good example is Tinker, This hero relies on pushing the lanes by blinking inside the trees and spamming his spells, so if you are playing against Tinker try to put stacks of Remote Mines + one Stasis Trap + one Proximity Mines deep inside the trees to shut him down. This method can be used to punish Broodmother players too.

Late Game

When it comes to the late game, as a Techies player you should be farmed enough to have at least Aghanim's Scepter and a Eul's Scepter of Divinity. In the late game, the most important thing that you should do is to always Save buyback money. You can farm extremely fast in the late game and with +150 GMP talent, you should start building luxury items like Scythe of Vyse and being present in the fights.

Time to Transion

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Siractionslacks in his Techies guide on youtube said "The main reason that most Techies players loose is that they fail to transition in the late game" and I totally agree with him. In the early-mid game your team might be able to fight 4v5 but in the late game, this is not possible most of the times. Don't stay in the base mining the whole time cause this won't help your team at all. You guys need to trust me one more time, I played so many Techies games trying to defend the high ground and I failed most of the times. Then I realized that Attack is the best Defence!.
You should really consider being aggressive in the late game. I am not a fan of high ground defense at all, although I would do it if that's my only option, being aggressive is much better. So buy your Blink Dagger and Scythe of Vyse and start playing really aggressively. Blink to the enemy Eul them, Place Stasis Trap under them, Use your Scythe of Vyse, that would buy enough time for your team to kill almost any hero.

Time to become a monster

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Techies is one of the best magical nukers in the game for sure. but when it comes to Physical damage it's one of the worst heroes in the game Before he gets to level 25. Techies level 25 talents are among the strongest talents in the game. When you are getting close to level 25 it's time to build items that give you attack speed to be prepared for your +251 attack damage talent. The best item that you can get at this stage of the game is Moon Shard. This item will boost your attack speed so much that you could kill the enemy core with just a Scythe of Vyse and auto attacking them. This is the time that everyone should truly fear you, should truly respect you and you should end the game.
Many guides on the internet would advise you to build carry Techies from the start of the game that I totally disagree. What I am offering is a combination of both. This way you will use the power of a Spellcaster Techies in the early-mid game and then in the late game you will Transion into an Attacker Techies that hits really hard without sacrificing your entire early-mid game for it.

General Tips

Here is a list of some tips that might become handy while playing Techies :

• No matter which role and which hero you are playing, you should always carry a Town Portal Scroll unless you have a Boots of Travel
• No matter which role and which hero you are playing, you should always save buyback after 30-minute mark.
• Since Proximity Mines lasts forever until they explode and will level up when you upgrade them, you can start mining your base from the beginning of the game. everytime that you are walking in or out of your base just try to put at least one Proximity Mines somewhere behind your T3 towers or in the corners. and Suddenly you almost mined half the base even before the enemy takes your T2 tower.
• Although Stasis Traps don't level up when you upgrade them, they will last forever anyway so you can use the same technique on Stasis Traps too.
• If you are playing against a pusher team, you can put a Proxmity mines right in the middle of the lanes. That mine will almost one-shot an entire creep wave and stop the enemy push.
• Since the activation radios of the Statis trap and Proximity Mines and the damage radios of the Remote Mines are exactly the same, you can stack them on top of each other and as soon as an enemy hero gets rooted by the Stasis Trap, detonate the bombs and be sure that he/she will take full damage. This method can one-shot almost any hero with enough amount of Remote Mines unless they immediately activate BKB.
• Sometimes when I play against extremely heavy pushing team like Tinker and Nature's Prophet on the same team, I build Arcane Boots and Boots of Travel simoultainsly in mid game to stop them.
• Aghanim's Scepter allows you to hide your mines from true sight using your Minefield Sign.
• If you have an Aghanim's Scepter and you are pushing the enemy T3 tower you can put your Minefield Sign on the enemy high-ground and start stacking Remote Mines on it. This way you can provide a really reliable high-ground vision for your team (since they can't deward it) and if anyone dares to get close to it then BOOM !.
• After patch 7 Techies Land Mines ability replace with Proximity Mines so as you couldn't rely on one Land Mine to kill anyone, you should not expect to kill someone with just 1 Proximity mine. Always put them in a triangle formation and put one Statis trap on the tip of the triangle. This way you will guarantee that anyone who gets close enough will be rooted and get hit by all 3 mines at the same time.
• Always put Proximity Mines on your both Bounty Runes.
• People will always do what they did before. So if I get a kill on a support while trying to ward a special area. I will immediately TP and mine that area again since he will come back again for sure. I clearly remember a game (back in 6.88 days) that I killed an Axe player 8 times in a row by putting Land Mines right behind safe lane tower in the early game just because he wanted to cut the creeps and he didn't think that I would mine the same spot over and over again.