Basic laning game

Basic Lane Control Techniques

Lane control is one of the most important aspect of this game. It consists of three primary elements with a few special techniques, they are as follows:

Last Hits: This is why we lane. Last hits are extremely important, moreso than the other two basic elements unless you are babysitting (detailed later). A last hit means you get gold, and gold is good. It also means you prevented a deny which ensures you and your lanemate get 100% XP on the kill. This is what many games come down to, who can kill creeps more efficiently. DO NOT AUTO ATTACK CREEPS DURING THE LANING PHASE. When you attack creeps when they are not low health you essentially hand lane control to your enemy. They will have an easier time last hitting and denying due to your poor play, and you will push your lane closer to their tower. When the lane is at their tower it is more difficult for you to gank them and much easier for them to gank you. Important to note: Last hitting gives you no XP bonus, unless a creep is denied you get full XP (split by the amount of friendly heroes around) when it dies within roughly 1,000 radius. If you center the screen on yourself you will get XP from most everything that you can see when it dies.

Denies: Also important, but if you have to make a split second choice on whether to deny a creep or to go for the last hit unless you're babysitting. A deny means that the enemy does not get gold for the creep kill and the experience gain is reduced. This also helps you keep your lane back, as a creep with 1hp deals as much damage as one with 100, if you are denying much better than the enemy the creepwave will meet closer to your tower, which means you are harder to gank and they are easier to gank. Melee heroes are less effected by denies than ranged heroes (they get more xp from denied creeps), so denies are less desirable against melee heroes, the next basic technique is a superior way of controlling them.

Harassment: Harassment is any form of damage or deterrance you are aiming at the enemy heroes in the lane. You use this to force enemies to return to fountain (which costs them XP lost, last hits missed, and a homecoming stone), weaken them for a gank, or to keep them away from the creepline, denying their ability to lasthit or even get XP at all if they're too far back. Heroes with low manacost low cooldown spells such as Arachna, Defiler, and Thunderbringer excel at harassment. Generally, melee heroes are inferior at harassment and much easier to harass than ranged heroes, which is the primary reason why they are considered less desireable in the lane phase. Basic ranged auto attacks are also excellent for harassment, especially on 600 range heroes. To counter heavy spell based harassment in lane, buy a mana battery and upgrade it into a power supply. If the harassment is such that you can't get near creepwaves without risking death, hang back and accumulate XP. It's better than potentially dying and giving them more XP and gold while losing gold and XP yourself.

To touch on keeping creeps near your tower.

You can effectively do this by autoattack the enemy hero. The second that you hit A and click on an enemy hero their creeps will start to aggro you. As soon as this happens run backwards while repeatedly right clicking the ground to get the creeps to de-aggro.

Thus drawing them closer to you, and closer to your tower.

Summary of Basic Lane Control Techniques:

* Last hits are good, last hits > denies
* Keep the creepwave as close to your tower as posible
* Don't auto attack creepwaves
* Use denies to control ranged enemies, harass to control melee
* Mana Battery can nullify or alleviate spell heavy harassment
* If you can't take the harassment stay out of range and accumulate XP