IMBA LANE CONTROL GUIDE PART : 3

F. Towers
Towers are by far your most important ally, at least earlier in the game, and are essential late game to survive.

Most people think of towers, as the thing that protects them in the back, having no real purpose other than that. In that thought you are right, but there is much more to towers.

Towers are roughly the equivalent of a level 11 hero (damage wise). And you should always be using that damage whenever possible.



In this image, THD is clearly dominating Naga early game (Range Nuker VS Melee). I believe he thought the same thing; he was overly aggressive even for a Range VS Melee match up. Notice in this image most of the creeps, save for 1 are dead.



In this image, THD is still nearly full life, and he is being attacked by the tower, and Naga casts net. Notice the obvious difference in our life.



Naga lets the net fly, as the tower commences in beating him down. He notices he is in trouble and tries to back up, but by that time it is far too late.



The tower and Naga attack the THD many times, beating him down to a pulp, notice our life points now.



THD dies, and Naga is 230 gold richer.

G. Tower Hugging
Tower hugging, is not to be confused with defending a tower. The art of tower hugging is to prevent you from getting ganked/attacked. An example would be Nightstalker is missing (and its night), so you should back up to your tower, simple, easy, and effective. Unless that Nightstalker is a crazy Rambo sociopath, he will not try to get to you (of course your life points factor into this also).

A tower is roughly the equivalent of a level 11-13 hero on your side; use it to your advantage. Obviously you’re most likely going to miss a few creep waves making sure you do not die. But this is minimal to what you could have lost had you died to that Nightstalker.

Em games are different from regular games, as the towers have less life and damage. This can be a problem when hiding next to one, as the tower will not kill a hero nearly as fast as it normally would.

Keep that in mind when hiding under a tower for protection, as an enemy hero can usually just run in and kill you without being severely hurt.

H. Spells
A spell, also known as a nuke, can be used in many different ways. Whether it is for damage, disable, or in some cases to take kills from allies (always fun tongue.gif). Most new players usually use their spells for one of these reasons. With experience most veteran players know to use their spells sooner rather than later.

It is a simple fact that as spells level up, they get stronger. I see people using their level 1 spells constantly in the very beginning of the game, and later on in the game when their spells have the most power, they have no more mana.

This is a common mistake, but it can be solved with simple brainpower, and good use of judgment. Spamming a spell as fast as possible is definitely not the best way to go.

QUOTE
Also, it should be mentioned that if you have full mana, your mana regeneration is going to waste. Being a bit aggressive with spells so that your regeneration isn't useless is a good thing to do. For instance, I just hate it when someone starts with Sobi/Tango and then doesn't cast a spell until like level 3 or 4, completely absurd.

This is a quote by your very own Miscellaneous Guides Moderator, Akuryou. He makes a very good point. If you get mana regeneration in the beginning of the game, and do not cast a spell early, you are completely wasting your regeneration. That does not mean spam your spells like crazy. But it means that you should never let your mana get to full. Always try and make sure to have your mana regenerating.

Although with different spells comes different rules. Disable spells get their own category in all things, because they have a much different purpose than other nukes. While disable and stuns, do deal damage, they are primarily used for the disable time. Early game this can be taken advantage of at lower level spells.

To do that, you must lure them into a sort of trap. Waiting until almost all of your enemy creeps have died, and then disabling them for a time. This can be done either in range of tower, or just creeps. Either way you can deal massive amounts of damage with just 1 spell.



Here we can see that all the creeps have died, and jug and void are still attacking. The tower attacks the closest target (Juggernaut).



Tower continues to attack the Jug once more, and I am in motion to cast net on Jug.



Notice he is over half dead, and the net just barely began holding him. Although he was able to barely get outside of the tower range. He was severely damage by both me and the tower.
I. Warning
Sorry for the lack of a better name, but this is one of the most important things in this guide. If you have yet to read the section on tower hugging, I suggest you switch over to that before reading this section.

Tower hugging is completely useless if you never had warning that the Nightstalker was missing in the first place. In any game you should always be warning your allies if a hero in your lane is missing.

Here are some quick quotes you can use to warn:

Bot missing (hero name/abbreviation for that hero)
Top missing (hero name/abbreviation for that hero)
Mid missing (hero name/abbreviation for that hero)

Top (Hero name/abbreviation for that hero) MIA (missing in action)
Bot (Hero name/abbreviation for that hero) MIA (missing in action)
Mid (Hero name/abbreviation for that hero) MIA (missing in action)

(hero name) healing.[/i]

Warning in general is extremely important, but so is naming the hero that is missing. That is because you have a lot more to worry about from a Nightstalker at night, than you do from almost any other hero. Dieing because your ally did not warn you his/her lane hero was missing is a terrible way to go.

Remember that if a hero has taken a long time to come back from healing it is recommended that you warn your allies again.

(hero name) has been healing for awhile

If you are soloing a lane and are barely holding them back a third hero popping up will more than likely kill you. Ask your allies before a game to warn you about heroes missing, and say that you will do the same (if you don’t think they normally would).


III. Overall Gameplay

A. Animation Canceling
Animation canceling is a very advanced skill primarily used on heroes such as Clinkz, Silencer, Drow, Enchantress. These heroes all have an active spell which can be either set to auto cast, where it just activates itself, or manually cast. With heroes such as these, save for Clinkz in some situations, you never want to leave their spells on auto cast.

If you do not set it to auto cast, you can effectively do something called orb walking. This is were you animation cancel using your active spell to attack much faster (note this does not actually increase your attack speed, it only decreases the delay period in between each attack). This can be accomplished by using the hotkey for that spell, such as the Impetus hotkey “T” for Enchantress, and manually targeting a hero. And as soon as your hero attacks give your hero a new command, such as casting another spell or moving (usually in the direction your opponents are at, or are running to)

You can actually animation cancel with any hero. All heroes have a “backswing” to either their spells or their attacks. Some of the most noticeable are Furions teleport, or Crystal Maidens regular attack (and her spells). To get rid of that annoying animation, you must do the same thing as with orb walking. Give your hero a new command as soon as you have attacked or cast a spell, such as casting a spell (or another spell depending on which attack you did) or moving (again usually in your opponents direction).


B. Attack Power
Using your heroes own attack power is key to winning any fight. Depending purely on your nukes as with Slayer or Lion is not something every hero can do. In a battle immediately using your own stun will most likely cause that person to run away, unless your opponent is incredibly aggressive. Attacking a few times before, and using stun when they start to run is a much better way to attack. (note this is not meant for heavy nukers such as Slayer/Lion). By being able to get those extra 1-3 hits on that hero before he runs you have a much greater chance at getting a kill.

This does not pertain to all things though. If you are ganking or attacking a hero who is nearly dead or has an escape skill, you want to disable then as fast as possible.

C. Deny/Last hit
A lot of people do not bother to last hit, but the rewards are far greater than that of continuously attacking.

To last hit, is to wait until a creep has hit a certain amount of health points, and only attack once to make sure that one attack is the killing blow.

The longer the game lasts, the easier it is to last hit. That is because you should by then have some damage items, and the natural damage you gain from leveling.

Certain skill can be used to make last hitting much easier. These skills give you a margin for error. Skills such as Pudges Rot, or Clinkz Searing Arrow, can all be used to last hit creeps.

If you score last hits, you keep yourself safe by not pushing to far into a lane. And you increase your gold amount, because you are making sure to get the last hit (the gold).



Red health or below is when you want to attack. Depending on what hero you are using means you can sooner or later. Heroes such as techies have a very hard time last hitting because of thier low base damage.

This is also why a lot of people argue and talk about hero’s base damage. Because the higher base damage a hero has, the easier it is to last hit.

Denying is much the same as last hitting, with the exception that it is on your own ally creeps instead of opposing creeps. To be able to attack an ally creep, that creep must be below half health. But that is not when you want to attack. Just like last hitting, you want to wait until a creep is at red health before attacking that creep.

To be able to attack an ally creep, you must hit the attack command hotkey “A”, and then target an ally creep. As with all things, both denying and last hitting take practice to get right.

For a much better guide (and read) on Deny/Last Hitting or just DotA in general, I suggest you read inDe_eD's Micro Guide

Very nice! All what you have said is all very true and useful! ^_^

long guide was long hey, had to split it into 5.
courtesy dota all stars, go check the links i left for more.