IMBA LANE CONTROL GUIDE!!!!!! PART : 1

Lane Control

A. Creep Blocking
Creep blocking in mainly used in the beginning of the game to stall your own creeps from getting to point B from point A. Point A being the spawning point of those creeps (The Rax in your lane). Point B is the connecting point, were your creeps and your opponent's creeps connect and start to fight.



By stalling the creeps you move them closer to your side of the map, making you much safer from ganks or attacks. You always want to try and stay directly in front of them.


To stall them you can either walk continuously in front, or you can also click the “H” button and then click forward immediately. This will cause your hero to stop for a split second, and if the creeps are behind you they will fumble around you.

This allows you to attack your opponent's and creeps without fear of being attacked. You now have the fog of war and evasion on your side. Yes, I said evasion. Anytime you attack an opponent or get attacked yourself up a hill, there is an extremely high chance of missing (I’m not sure on the exact number, I think it is around 25%). So always make sure you are on a hill or attacking down a hill.


You should be pressing the “H” button as much as possible, without letting the creeps pass you.

B. Creeps
This is actually fairly basic but I don’t seem to see people using it to much. Whenever your opponent is attacking your creeps and only has a few creeps left on his side (meaning your opponents creeps), you should try and disable that hero with a stun or any type of disable spell.

Let’s say 1 or 2 creeps are opposing you along with your opponent’s hero. Wait until at least 1 of those creeps die if there are two left and the last is about to die. Stun your opponent so that your creeps have enough time to attack him once or twice. This is how you will damage your opponents the most early on in the game, not by your own hand but by your creeps.

C. Harassing
Harassing can be one of two things, regular attack harassing, or spell harassing. Either way it leads to the same thing. Lowering your opponents health low enough to either kill them, or force them back to heal. Both are effective, but obviously if you can kill them do so.

Here are the different ways to harass depending on which type you are (Melee or Range) versus what type of opponent you are facing.




Lane Control

Table of contents

I. Introduction
II. Lane Control

A. Creep Blocking
B. Creeps
C. Harassing
D. Ideal Positions in Lanes
E. Picking a Lane
F. Towers
G. Tower Hugging
H. Spells
I. Warning


III. Overall Gameplay

A. Animation Canceling
B. Attack Power
C. Deny/Last hit
D. Neutral Creeping
E. Types of Attacks


IV. Overall Teamplay

A. Hero Combos
B. Runes
C. Teamwork
D. Ventrilo
E. Wards
F. Chaining Abilities
G. Communication


V. Helpful Tips

A. Ally Hero Killing
B. Enemy Hero Killing
C. Juking
D. Tower Saving


VI. Other Tips
VII. Links
VIII. Conclusion



I. Introduction


First off, let me apologize to everyone who was waiting for the revision of this guide. I had said I would edit it soon, but I was GG by real life. So instead of rushing a quick crappy edit, I have edited this guide more over the past few days (probably more than any of my other guides), than I ever have before.

Thank you all very much for your patience.


This guide has been edited so much; it has slowly morphed from a lane control guide into an overall strategy guide. While that was not my exact intention, I cannot say it was as bad thing.

First off, what is lane control? Lane control is essentially, how well you can control your individual lane in a game. While that is a rough description, it is more or less correct.

People seem to wonder how people who are known as “Pro’s” are able to completely dominate every hero they come across without even breaking a sweat. Most of the time this is blamed on imbalanced characters (which is not always wrong), but that is not always the case.

In this guide I will show you many different things to help you up your game, whether it is a simple technique such as Deny/Last hitting, or the move advanced such as Orb walking.

You can think of this guide, as a guide to most things DotA. It has many “Mini Guides” that you will find in the Miscellaneous Guide Sections. But please remember that this guide is not meant to cover one aspect in depth, but to cover all aspects to some degree. I will include links to anything I can for those of you who want to learn more about a certain aspect of the game. These links will be in yellow writing at the end of the appropriate section.

This guide is extremely text heavy, and quite long. Although that can deter many people from reading, I feel it is important all new players read this, and even some of the more advanced.


II. Lane Control


A. Creep Blocking
Creep blocking in mainly used in the beginning of the game to stall your own creeps from getting to point B from point A. Point A being the spawning point of those creeps (The Rax in your lane). Point B is the connecting point, were your creeps and your opponent's creeps connect and start to fight.

By stalling the creeps you move them closer to your side of the map, making you much safer from ganks or attacks. You always want to try and stay directly in front of them.

To stall them you can either walk continuously in front, or you can also click the “H” button and then click forward immediately. This will cause your hero to stop for a split second, and if the creeps are behind you they will fumble around you.

This allows you to attack your opponent's and creeps without fear of being attacked. You now have the fog of war and evasion on your side. Yes, I said evasion. Anytime you attack an opponent or get attacked yourself up a hill, there is an extremely high chance of missing (I’m not sure on the exact number, I think it is around 25%). So always make sure you are on a hill or attacking down a hill.

You should be pressing the “H” button as much as possible, without letting the creeps pass you.


B. Creeps
This is actually fairly basic but I don’t seem to see people using it to much. Whenever your opponent is attacking your creeps and only has a few creeps left on his side (meaning your opponents creeps), you should try and disable that hero with a stun or any type of disable spell.

Let’s say 1 or 2 creeps are opposing you along with your opponent’s hero. Wait until at least 1 of those creeps die if there are two left and the last is about to die. Stun your opponent so that your creeps have enough time to attack him once or twice. This is how you will damage your opponents the most early on in the game, not by your own hand but by your creeps.


C. Harassing
Harassing can be one of two things, regular attack harassing, or spell harassing. Either way it leads to the same thing. Lowering your opponents health low enough to either kill them, or force them back to heal. Both are effective, but obviously if you can kill them do so.