After a bit of a losing streak in DOTA2, I've been doing my research into what went wrong and why. It's difficult, with pub matches, to control the outcomes when your team is so fragmented and can range from pro to clueless in the same game. However, I believe that there are themes that we can use to help improve our games and make even the losing ones seem like we were making more of a difference.
For clarity, I'm really only interested in the impact in lower level pub matches. Pros will do it differently, I'm sure, but they've the experience to make that call. For the rest of us...
First theme I'd like to look at is the concept of roles.
When you look at the heroes you can choose from for a match, there's the little icons giving an idea of some of the things they're good at and, if you mouse over the icon, a set of stars (1 to 3, IIRC) that indicate how good at that they are. The icons give an idea of the capabilities of that hero, but how they actually work is down to your choice of role.
I think it was this blog post from Team Dignitas that set me off in this direction. There's plenty of ways to configure for lanes, but this one made sense to me and segued into roles well.
So, what roles does your team need?
You always need a Carry. Why? Because you need someone who is going to get so hard that the become the lynchpin for your team and, in some cases, will be unstoppable even if the majority of the enemy team pile on them in a teamfight. The Carry heroes can handle this well because they scale well to the end game.
Carry heroes come in (at least) two flavours: Hard Carry and Semi Carry. The Hard Carry is the late game powerhouse and properly farmed and levelled they are basically unstoppable (e.g. Faceless Void). The Semi Carry is a lighter weight version of the Carry, but in some cases they reach a good peak earlier in the game, which can be useful for driving a quick victory (e.g. Juggernaut).
Your team only needs one Hard Carry. Why? Because feeding gold and experience to more than one slows the whole team down, potentially allowing the other team to level their Carry faster and thus win.
"But, but, but, surely a team of five Carry heroes will be awesome. I see that happen in pub games all the time and they pwn our carry support characters."
That's taking the wrong view of it. If your team has let five opposing Carry heroes farm to effectiveness then you're doing it wrong. I'll take one fully farmed Carry over five partially farmed Carries any day, because the one with full farm and levels will eat the others alive (with a little handy support).
But, crucially, a mistake there is that your other team roles haven't been succeeding at their jobs if that's happened.
So, what other roles?
Well, every Carry needs a babysitter for the early (and possibly middle) portions of the game. That's where a Support hero comes in.
The job of the Support hero is to ensure that the Carry farms in safety. This can be done in a number of ways and often in some combination. The Support's job includes:
There's probably more than that, even, including things like controlling runes and setting up ganks as part of their harrassing job, but all of it is focused on the singular job of keeping the Carry in lane, last hitting, and picking up experience.
Now, done perfectly, the Carry will be last hitting every enemy creep and the Support will be denying every friendly creep in a sort of synchronous motion that keeps the creep wave near (but probably not quite in range of) your tower for maximum farm potential. Wouldn't this mean that the Support character never gets any farm (aside from the 1 gold per second that everyone gets)?
In short, yes, but that's still successful as for many Support heroes farm isn't entirely necessary to do their jobs. But practically, there's always going to be a small subset of last hits that the Carry can't realistically get and they're fair game for the Support hero that's babysitting them. The rest, though, need to all go to the Carry. Gold equals items, and items equals superpowers, and that's where you need your Carry to be.
So, great, that's the Carry and the Support. What about the other three heroes?
Their jobs are also pretty varied and will change depending on exactly who you're facing, but broadly there's another two major roles to be considered:
The most obvious is the Ganker: a hero with powers to quickly stun or disable opponents and lay in quick, punishing damage with the aim to kill them or, at the very least, nearly kill them. Killing them is best, of course, because they lose gold, and you gain gold and experience, but nearly killing them is okay because it pushes them out of lane, thus stops them farming (which will kill them in the end). An obvious target is the opposing Carry but they're far from the only target and, indeed, any successful gank (one where you get a kill and don't die) is still a win for your team.
The slightly less obvious is what I call the Lane Controller: a hero with powers to help slow or stop the opposing Carry from farming. To understand what needs to be done here, consider what the opposing team is trying to do: they're trying to give farm to their Carry. So what' the Lane Controller's job? To deny that farm. That can be done in a few ways, of course:
I'm almost of the opinion that, in the early game, the complex tasks need to be carried out by the Support and Lane Controllers and the Carry has just one job: stay in lane and last hit everything. That feels quite contrary to the more usual "oh, n00bs play support" and I think that may be why pub matches go south so often.
So, how does this actually apply to the early game?
It's about laning, specifically the laning phase.
You know about the safe lane, mid lane, and suicide lane (the earlier Dignitas laning articles uses "short lane" for safe and "long lane" for suicide)? For Radiant, that's bot, mid and top, respectively. For Dire, that's top, mid and bot.
You also know that it's pretty common for lanes to be handled in a 2-1-2 format, right? But why?
It's about splitting the roles you've taken appropriate to the needs of the team. DOTA2 is more akin to Team Fortress 2 or American Football in that all characters or positions are not equal and when played correctly (i.e. to role) in cooperation with the rest of the team then it's a matter of who's better, but when played badly (i.e. uncoordinated, in conflict, not to role) then it's a matter of who screws up least. I think you'd agree it's more fun to lose a game where you always felt you were in with a chance but the other team just had the edge than to win a game where it was just a long sequence of screw ups but somehow you didn't screw the pooch as badly as the other team.
So, 2-1-2 is about roles. Think of it this way:
Safe Lane: 2 heroes, Carry + Support
Mid Lane: 1 hero, Ganker
Suicide Lane: 2 heroes, 2x Lane Controller
The Carry goes to the safe lane to make his farm easier. The Support goes with the Carry.
The Ganker goes to the mid lane to get levels faster so they can be effective in early game ganks.
The Lane Controllers go to the suicide lane to counter the opposing Carry.
There's plenty of other possibilities:
One of the Lane Controllers could be switched for a Semi Carry or Ganker to try to get an early edge by being aggressive.
The mid solo hero could be switched for a Semi Carry, again to try to get an early edge in power.
One of the sucide lane heroes could be taken out completely to be played as a Jungler (note: suicide lane, not safe lane; the Carry pretty much always needs their Support). Technically this'd be a 1-1-2 pattern.
... and doubtless more options than that once you get truly experienced.
But the point is to ensure your Carry is farmed properly while the opposing team's Carry is under farmed.
So, to go back to an earlier thought, why not 5 Carry heroes?
Experience is split evenly between the heroes on your team that are near the kill. That's true whether they're a Carry or Support. However, last hits only go to one hero. Thus, at best, with 2 Carry heroes in one lane they are getting half the gold each. Assuming roughly even last hitting skill, suddenly the opposing single Carry is getting gold at double rate.
Additionally, Carry heroes know they're supposed to be staying alive. With two Carry heroes in one lane, when the gank comes in on one of them, there's no natural hierarchy and in the second or two it takes to figure out who should be saving who one of you can be down, and then the other one shortly follows. With a Carry plus Support scenario, there's no confusion: the Support dies to save the Carry if that's what it takes (fine, you don't want to be feeding, but if it's an either-or choice, always better the Support dies than the Carry).
Finally, real Hard Carry heroes tend to be weaker earlier in the game because they're item and level dependent, where real Support heroes tend to be stronger earlier in the game because they're often independent of those considerations (sure, they may be crunchy, but they can still be effective). Thus a well played Support can clean the clock on an early game Carry purely because the game balances out that way.
So it's about balance, it's about covering the roles the team needs, and then performing them well.
...
So, yeah, wall-o-text. Happy for comments, especially if I've missed something important or got something wrong. Again, bear in mind that I'm not terribly interested in if it works at pro level because, frankly, I'm not playing them and am not likely to be doing for years to come, if ever. But at lower skill pub games, I think a coordinated team of five who cover their roles well will usually beat the snot out of a similar team who are confused on their roles (even if, character by character, they're not terrible players).
I think I'll be writing more of these (when I get time) to cover some other aspects of the game as I get happier with my understanding of them.
For clarity, I'm really only interested in the impact in lower level pub matches. Pros will do it differently, I'm sure, but they've the experience to make that call. For the rest of us...
First theme I'd like to look at is the concept of roles.
When you look at the heroes you can choose from for a match, there's the little icons giving an idea of some of the things they're good at and, if you mouse over the icon, a set of stars (1 to 3, IIRC) that indicate how good at that they are. The icons give an idea of the capabilities of that hero, but how they actually work is down to your choice of role.
I think it was this blog post from Team Dignitas that set me off in this direction. There's plenty of ways to configure for lanes, but this one made sense to me and segued into roles well.
So, what roles does your team need?
You always need a Carry. Why? Because you need someone who is going to get so hard that the become the lynchpin for your team and, in some cases, will be unstoppable even if the majority of the enemy team pile on them in a teamfight. The Carry heroes can handle this well because they scale well to the end game.
Carry heroes come in (at least) two flavours: Hard Carry and Semi Carry. The Hard Carry is the late game powerhouse and properly farmed and levelled they are basically unstoppable (e.g. Faceless Void). The Semi Carry is a lighter weight version of the Carry, but in some cases they reach a good peak earlier in the game, which can be useful for driving a quick victory (e.g. Juggernaut).
Your team only needs one Hard Carry. Why? Because feeding gold and experience to more than one slows the whole team down, potentially allowing the other team to level their Carry faster and thus win.
"But, but, but, surely a team of five Carry heroes will be awesome. I see that happen in pub games all the time and they pwn our carry support characters."
That's taking the wrong view of it. If your team has let five opposing Carry heroes farm to effectiveness then you're doing it wrong. I'll take one fully farmed Carry over five partially farmed Carries any day, because the one with full farm and levels will eat the others alive (with a little handy support).
But, crucially, a mistake there is that your other team roles haven't been succeeding at their jobs if that's happened.
So, what other roles?
Well, every Carry needs a babysitter for the early (and possibly middle) portions of the game. That's where a Support hero comes in.
The job of the Support hero is to ensure that the Carry farms in safety. This can be done in a number of ways and often in some combination. The Support's job includes:
- Harrassing the heroes opposite the Carry so that they can't interfer with farming.
- Warding the approaches to the Carry's farm location so it's harder to gank the Carry.
- Healing or buffing the Carry so they can farm for longer.
- Denying friendly creeps to ensure that the lane isn't pushed into a dangerous farming area (i.e. nearer the opposing tower).
- Stacking and/or Pulling neutral creeps into your creep wave to pull the lane and thus create an even safer place for your Carry to farm, while denying farm to the other team.
- If necessary, dying in place of the Carry so they can continue to farm.
There's probably more than that, even, including things like controlling runes and setting up ganks as part of their harrassing job, but all of it is focused on the singular job of keeping the Carry in lane, last hitting, and picking up experience.
Now, done perfectly, the Carry will be last hitting every enemy creep and the Support will be denying every friendly creep in a sort of synchronous motion that keeps the creep wave near (but probably not quite in range of) your tower for maximum farm potential. Wouldn't this mean that the Support character never gets any farm (aside from the 1 gold per second that everyone gets)?
In short, yes, but that's still successful as for many Support heroes farm isn't entirely necessary to do their jobs. But practically, there's always going to be a small subset of last hits that the Carry can't realistically get and they're fair game for the Support hero that's babysitting them. The rest, though, need to all go to the Carry. Gold equals items, and items equals superpowers, and that's where you need your Carry to be.
So, great, that's the Carry and the Support. What about the other three heroes?
Their jobs are also pretty varied and will change depending on exactly who you're facing, but broadly there's another two major roles to be considered:
The most obvious is the Ganker: a hero with powers to quickly stun or disable opponents and lay in quick, punishing damage with the aim to kill them or, at the very least, nearly kill them. Killing them is best, of course, because they lose gold, and you gain gold and experience, but nearly killing them is okay because it pushes them out of lane, thus stops them farming (which will kill them in the end). An obvious target is the opposing Carry but they're far from the only target and, indeed, any successful gank (one where you get a kill and don't die) is still a win for your team.
The slightly less obvious is what I call the Lane Controller: a hero with powers to help slow or stop the opposing Carry from farming. To understand what needs to be done here, consider what the opposing team is trying to do: they're trying to give farm to their Carry. So what' the Lane Controller's job? To deny that farm. That can be done in a few ways, of course:
- Deny creeps; this both denies experience and gold, plus it pulls the lane into more dangerous territory for the opposing Carry.
- Stack and/or pull your own neutral camps; effectively another deny, though it tends to take a bit more work to achieve including cutting down some trees.
- Harrass the Carry and/or babysitting Support. If the Carry is afraid to come to the line to last hit, you're winning. If the Carry runs out of regen, your hits "stick" and will eventually force the Carry out of lane. Same applies for the Support, but it's more indirect and the ultimate target is still the Carry.
- Set up ganks on the Carry and/or Support.
- Block the opposing neutral creep camp to prevent stacking and pulling with observer wards, usually, which often don't actually need to be in the camp, but tactically near the camp.
I'm almost of the opinion that, in the early game, the complex tasks need to be carried out by the Support and Lane Controllers and the Carry has just one job: stay in lane and last hit everything. That feels quite contrary to the more usual "oh, n00bs play support" and I think that may be why pub matches go south so often.
So, how does this actually apply to the early game?
It's about laning, specifically the laning phase.
You know about the safe lane, mid lane, and suicide lane (the earlier Dignitas laning articles uses "short lane" for safe and "long lane" for suicide)? For Radiant, that's bot, mid and top, respectively. For Dire, that's top, mid and bot.
You also know that it's pretty common for lanes to be handled in a 2-1-2 format, right? But why?
It's about splitting the roles you've taken appropriate to the needs of the team. DOTA2 is more akin to Team Fortress 2 or American Football in that all characters or positions are not equal and when played correctly (i.e. to role) in cooperation with the rest of the team then it's a matter of who's better, but when played badly (i.e. uncoordinated, in conflict, not to role) then it's a matter of who screws up least. I think you'd agree it's more fun to lose a game where you always felt you were in with a chance but the other team just had the edge than to win a game where it was just a long sequence of screw ups but somehow you didn't screw the pooch as badly as the other team.
So, 2-1-2 is about roles. Think of it this way:
Safe Lane: 2 heroes, Carry + Support
Mid Lane: 1 hero, Ganker
Suicide Lane: 2 heroes, 2x Lane Controller
The Carry goes to the safe lane to make his farm easier. The Support goes with the Carry.
The Ganker goes to the mid lane to get levels faster so they can be effective in early game ganks.
The Lane Controllers go to the suicide lane to counter the opposing Carry.
There's plenty of other possibilities:
One of the Lane Controllers could be switched for a Semi Carry or Ganker to try to get an early edge by being aggressive.
The mid solo hero could be switched for a Semi Carry, again to try to get an early edge in power.
One of the sucide lane heroes could be taken out completely to be played as a Jungler (note: suicide lane, not safe lane; the Carry pretty much always needs their Support). Technically this'd be a 1-1-2 pattern.
... and doubtless more options than that once you get truly experienced.
But the point is to ensure your Carry is farmed properly while the opposing team's Carry is under farmed.
So, to go back to an earlier thought, why not 5 Carry heroes?
Experience is split evenly between the heroes on your team that are near the kill. That's true whether they're a Carry or Support. However, last hits only go to one hero. Thus, at best, with 2 Carry heroes in one lane they are getting half the gold each. Assuming roughly even last hitting skill, suddenly the opposing single Carry is getting gold at double rate.
Additionally, Carry heroes know they're supposed to be staying alive. With two Carry heroes in one lane, when the gank comes in on one of them, there's no natural hierarchy and in the second or two it takes to figure out who should be saving who one of you can be down, and then the other one shortly follows. With a Carry plus Support scenario, there's no confusion: the Support dies to save the Carry if that's what it takes (fine, you don't want to be feeding, but if it's an either-or choice, always better the Support dies than the Carry).
Finally, real Hard Carry heroes tend to be weaker earlier in the game because they're item and level dependent, where real Support heroes tend to be stronger earlier in the game because they're often independent of those considerations (sure, they may be crunchy, but they can still be effective). Thus a well played Support can clean the clock on an early game Carry purely because the game balances out that way.
So it's about balance, it's about covering the roles the team needs, and then performing them well.
...
So, yeah, wall-o-text. Happy for comments, especially if I've missed something important or got something wrong. Again, bear in mind that I'm not terribly interested in if it works at pro level because, frankly, I'm not playing them and am not likely to be doing for years to come, if ever. But at lower skill pub games, I think a coordinated team of five who cover their roles well will usually beat the snot out of a similar team who are confused on their roles (even if, character by character, they're not terrible players).
I think I'll be writing more of these (when I get time) to cover some other aspects of the game as I get happier with my understanding of them.
