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

Hero Roles

there are 3 basic types of heroes. Agility, Intelligence and Strength. However these heroes can be classified into more detailed roles. Each hero main job will be to fulfill one of these roles. Although it isn't as noticeable in a average public game, its certainly something to keep in the back of your mind.

Carry
Carry heroes are not that powerful in the early game, yet grow stronger during the game. Making them very powerful in the late game. If combined with a good build (buying the right items), this type of hero can mean the difference between a win or a loss for your team. Be careful to approach a good carry hero, as they can be very efficient gankers (ganking is killing other heroes). Agility-based heroes are often carry heroes.

Examples of carry heroes: Soulstealer, Night Hound, Swiftblade

Pushers
These heroes are specialized in dealing damage to a group of enemy creeps, or they can summon additional units. By having these spells they are great in quickly destroying enemy towers, making it possible for the team or your creeps to advance further into the enemy base.

Examples of push heroes: Defiler, Hellbringer, Tempest

Hellbringer destroying a tower with his Malphas


Disablers/Stunners
Some heroes have the ability to disable or stun other characters, which gives those other heroes a significant disadvantage when they are fighting or fleeing. There are various types of disables, such as stunning an enemy, reduce movement speeds, disallowing movement, reducing damage and attack speed, reducing armor, preventing physical attack or preventing spell casting. Some of those disables are passive, like the “dread” from Soulstealer (which reduces armor). In general, the goal of a disable is to keep an enemy hero in an area longer than they are comfortable with.

Examples of disable heroes: Pollywog Priest, Succubus, Behemoth


Nukers
This type of hero has the ability to cause an immense amount of damage within a single moment via one of their spells or via a physical attack. Obviously, these heroes are great during a hero fight, as they can kill opposing heroes quickly. Note that these heroes are the strongest in early/middle game. They grow weaker during the game as your opponent will level up and equip themselves with stronger items.

Examples of nuke heroes: Thunderbringer, Pyromancer, Torturer

Thunderbringer is one of the best nukers in the game.


Support
Heroes that have a support role need to aid and support the team. In this role, you will see healing or protective skills. Support heroes are also the players that should buy wards or a courier. If you find yourself in this role, do not hesitate to buy them! Sometimes pushers are considered as a support hero, but they can go solo, where a "real" support hero is mainly there to aid the team, and depends on having the rest of the team protect them.

Examples of support heroes: Demented Shaman, Nymphora, Jeraziah

Tanks
With their ability to absorb huge amounts of damage, these heroes are referred to as tanks. They can either do this with their high health or high armor count. Tanks are often used to take the blows when trying to take down an enemy tower, and overall try to absorb as much damage for their team as possible.

Heroes that can play this role: Armadon, Electrician, Legionnaire


As a last note, keep in mind that a hero can play multiply roles. There isn’t just one single way to play a hero effectively. However, it is key that you know what you are doing. If you are not sure what powers to pick or what items to buy, make sure you gather information first!

Hero Selection

Let’s talk about the hero selection first. If you take a look at the hero selection screen, you will see that there are three types of heroes: Agility, Intelligence and Strength.



Agility heroes are heroes that are specialized in agility statistics. This means that they often have a higher attack speed then a non-agility based hero. This higher attack speed means that agility heroes are pretty good in farming and some are great in ganking (killing enemy heroes).



Intelligence heroes are heroes that are very mana based. They use spells very often and also rely on them to survive or support their team. They often have stun or cripple attacks, which can’t be missed by your team in hero versus hero fights.



Strength heroes are the heroes with tons of hit points and most of the strength in your team. With this hero you should be in the frontlines taking the blows for your team.

If you are a new player, it is advised that you do not start with an agility hero. These heroes are pretty fragile and your team really needs a good agility hero for support and possibly ganking. Picking an agility hero in one of your first games will probably lead to lots of dying and aggravated team members.

At the start just experiment a bit with what hero you like best and stick with it for a while. Just long enough so you get a good understanding of the game and its mechanics. If you understand the basics and mechanics after a solid spree of games, it is probably best to see what heroes else might suit you.