Dota Strategy version 1 - How to draft

This guide is useful especially in clan war and also pub game where you are facing a lot of enemy strategies. I also include some tips to lane,successfully ganking, warding and also explanation of some role in DOTA..



I.Introduction

  This is my first time of writing a post so there are maybe a lot of mistakes and deniable fact so do comment the post after read it so that i can make an improvement for the next post.Most of people think that playing dota is just about farming and getting a strong item so that they can whack enemy afterward. However, you cant really farm if there are enemy heroes that always roaming and ambushing from the back. Here, i give you a few tips to survive such enemy strategies including how to counter it and also how to farm when you are melee carry vs strong early gamers (will be explained later).

II.Strategies.

Drafting Heroes.

Well,this is obviously apply to team pick,not when you are playing alone in the pub game. However,maybe this tips will help you to pick the most suitable hero to counter enemy pick. First of all, you must know a classification of heroes and the major roles that the heroes can play in the games.

Support






  These are the examples of support heroes. They will provide you early game disable that can help to counter gank as well as harassing enemy heroes. In simple word,you need these hero to save your ass! ,especially when you are using melee hero against range hero which can give you hell of harassment. Support heroes can also become utilities (role for hero who need to warding and buying usable item for team).
  Basically,the support heroes are skill-dependent and only need useful item in ganking such as force staff,blink dagger etc. However,since they must give priority to farm to carry hero, cheaper items that can increase survivability (eg: bracer,point booster,ogre axe) are necessary to prevent easy death so that you can support till the last breath.
  There are several ways to play this kind of hero.First one is stick to your heavy carry. This is recommended when your carry is melee and facing heavy harassment from enemy hero. The best way is to stick with another support so that you can protect the carry and probably get the first blood. Until when? This is depend on the carry.If he got escape mechanism (eg:invi,blink,time walk) ,just leave the lane after he got enough skill or early item or when enemy support roam. However, dont leave lane when the enemy hero missing unless you know they not ganking your carry. This is where the duty of warding take a crucial role during game play.
The other way to play this role is by roaming often. This style of play create a heavy pressure on opponent carry (if they not warding) since they might think of being ambushed often. They also will make their support to roam (to counter gang) so there will be less pressure on your solo hero.The disadvantages are your hero will be retarded in level if the ambush fail and you will get item slower since you walking around too much.

How to leveling and gaining gold?
  Well,if you are support then you should focus to harass and denying creep more often but take 1-2 creep per wave should be ok. you can also pulling creep in early game but careful,this will result in early enemy push and you got a chance of being ambushed. If you play as witch doctor,earthshaker or crystal maiden, neutralling is not that difficult by using your skill. Don't ever monopoly creep using your nuker spell when your carry is farming on the same lane.
What can i do during team battle?
  You main role is disable the enemy most damage dealer (before he finish you off) and let your carry finish him. Your shouldnt attack enemy carry since usually they already got powerful item and your attack wont do much damage to them. Focus on disabling them and attack the nearby enemy's support. DONT CHASE FLEEING ENEMY WITHOUT YOUR CARRY unless you got enough skill to kill him . Always stay behind your tanker and carry so that you are not too close from enemy's casting range (means that you cant be targeted by enemy spell).Make sure you buy counter-invisible item (eg:dust,sentry,gem) because probably your other teammates focus on getting powerful item and will have not enough slot for this item.Support is probably most important role because you can turn the tide of battle with your skill and spell.

Tanker.
  For this role,you must choose hero with high survivability ie:have high str gained per level,have tanking skill such as kraken shell,great fortitude, have heal and regeneration skill such as alchemist rage and death pulse, and also have very high armor (eg: dragon knight). The common hero picks for this role are:

  Usually, they also have disable skill (eg:stun,slow) which are very useful during team battle. The tanker will take most of the damages from enemy heroes to prolong the battle and prevent any other soft hero from being targeted because the enemy will need a lot of skills to take down the tanker so they will run out spell to use (unless the enemy got blink or ambush you from behind) .Sometime,their roles are underrated because of their lack of mobilization and a little bit of item-dependence.However,many of the world class team make their tanker more versatile by making them as semi-carry as well as carry.

  The reason for this tanker hero to be picked as carry is mainly because they can solo against trilane and have a higher chance to survive gank in the early game. And when they feed really well,you will need your whole team to waste him but by the time you do that, there are 4 more enemy's hero against your dying team or the worst case,you alone which is obviously a lost to your team.

Carry.
   The most important role in your team when you play prolonged games. They are mostly agility hero which have 'imba' passive skill (eg:backstab,critical attack,bash) and have high damages dealt per second (dps). They are very item-dependence but once they've got their core powerful item before your carry does, prepare to be owned!!

  
  These are a few of well-known carry heroes which you may frequently seen in the competitive match. Usually, they are assigned to solo lane especially the carry who need to gain level very fast (eg: shadow fiend,morphling,medusa) but sometimes,they will go trilane with their two supports so that they can farm. Roaming heroes will be troublesome for solo carry as they cannot survive gank in the early game. Since they cannot farm, these heroes will have a little function in the team battle.

Semi-carry

  This role is an alternative to carry as it will be more flexible and you can play differently to counter your enemy's strategy. Usually, the equipped with spells that allow them to clear creeps easily. Below are the examples of the semi-carry heroes:

   These heroes are not really item-dependence and usually only need 2 or more core item (eg: blink,guinsoo,mekasm) but they also have a potential to become a carry if the game getting prolonged and epic. So basically,they start with solo lane where they are free to spam skill on creep to get their core item very early (this can be a game-changer). As u see in the examples, these heroes are powerful lane controller and can direct pushing very fast in the early game (due to spell spamming and maybe RoB).

 
III. Link and references.
 Here are the web link to the latest match replays from the DOTA greatest team in the world!! Well, you can learn a lot just by watching how the top team in the world play. Last but not least, there are more guides and strategies to be released so just stay tuned!

http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/replays