Strong strats to land you and your pals some much-needed MMR.
For a sport whose consequence is so closely reliant on what characters are picked by the gamers, Dota has lengthy been residence to individuals who are inclined to go for Heroes based mostly on all the pieces apart from an thought of macro synergy. Consolation, lane combos, or worse — that one random replay the place they noticed some professional participant pull off some shenanigans on some Hero.
Everyone knows there are Hero combos in Dota, however outdoors of typical wombo-combos like Lich-Earthshaker or Silencer-Sand King, many gamers don’t know a lot concerning the many alternative strats you possibly can execute by drafting Heroes accordingly. Understanding these could make the distinction between struggling in an MMR trench or climbing out alongside your workforce, so be happy to provide the next techniques a attempt.
1. The World Strat
It’s one factor to know the place the enemy is, and one other to have the ability to entry them everytime you want to. The “World Strat” is one that offers you a map-wide or near-map-wide attain to seize and punish opponents, and the flexibility to have your workforce comparatively unfold out however all the time able to unite for a teamfight. This may be invaluable as most of your cores can preserve farming till they see match to pop into the struggle and never waste treasured time following the workforce round. Moreover, this strat is surprisingly simple to drag off because it doesn’t actually require millisecond-precise timing.
Heroes
Since international expertise are extraordinarily highly effective, this strat has the bottom variety of Heroes out there to drag it off. The very best Heroes to execute this with are undoubtedly Spectre, Dawnbreaker, Zeus and Silencer. Non-compulsory picks embrace Historic Apparition, Nature’s Prophet, Mirana, Chen and Evening Stalker.
It’s solely doable to exchange a number of of the cores, equivalent to Centaur Warrunner as an alternative of Dawnbreaker within the Offlane, Mid Silencer or Mirana as an alternative of Zeus, and Nature’s Prophet and Historic Apparition within the Protected Lane as an alternative of Spectre and a help, however it’s crucial that both Zeus or Spectre be within the lineup so as to give imaginative and prescient of all enemies throughout teamfights.
Cons
As these with sufficient Dota expertise will little doubt have observed, none of those Heroes have a tough saving mechanism (equivalent to Nether Swap, Disruption, Snowball, and many others) and they’re additionally low on disables (excluding ministuns/low length stuns). Furthermore, the complete lineup is extraordinarily reliant on their Ultimates. All of this opens a window for the opponent to select off an integral a part of the combo (such because the Silencer or Zeus) or kite/survive the onslaught of Ultimates solely to return again with a vengeance when they’re offline.
2. The 4-Defend-One
As soon as a meta and for a very long time an especially widespread technique, the 4-Defend-One has 4 Heroes not standing round and guarding a fifth, however creating house for the Carry (normally a “hyper Carry” equivalent to Anti-Mage, Phantom Murderer, or Alchemist) by conserving the enemy’s palms full with ganks, cut up pushes and distractions. Positive, they may die, however so long as the pivotal Hero is hitting their merchandise timings, the workforce can discover success in the long term — particularly if the 4 “protectors” have good synergy with the Carry.
Heroes
Whereas the alternatives for a hyper Carry are very restricted in 2022 as a result of quite a few gadgets which have made it a lot simpler to kite one single Hero, it’s nonetheless laborious to counter a hyper-farmed Terrorblade, Faceless Void, Anti-Mage, Morphling, Phantom Lancer, Slark or Spectre. The 4 supporting picks can both be Heroes which might be robust within the early-mid sport or simply straight up assist the Carry in some way, equivalent to Magnus, Ogre Magi, Marci, Lycanthrope, Dazzle, or Vengeful Spirit.
Cons
The principle difficulty with utilizing this technique in 2022 is that your opponent will virtually definitely have two evenly farming and one semi-farming core, whereas your teammates will likely be fairly far behind and unable to scale as successfully. You’ll primarily be on a timer to complete issues off within the early-late sport (30-40 minutes) when your one DPS Hero towers over all others. If issues get later than that, opponent Heroes may have significantly better kiting mechanisms, your BKB length received’t be as excessive, and a number of opponent cores will merely outperform your singular powerhouse.
3. The Quick Push
Ever picked a run-of-the-mill draft with out a lot in the best way of crowd management spells solely to face mass summoners who proceeded to destroy your base? That’s what a Quick Push technique can do. On the finish of the day, it doesn’t matter what number of kills you get or how a lot gold you’re forward by if you find yourself shedding your Throne, and that’s exactly what this technique targets. You possibly can farm in your jungle or your opponents’, stack Ancients and get fats, however once you’re dealing with Tremendous Creeps at quarter-hour in, all of that goes out the window.
Heroes
Evidently, something that’s good at pushing is nice right here, however this strat additionally requires you to ban out sure Heroes. So far as picks go, a fantastic draft would contain the likes of Shadow Shaman, Warlock, Beastmaster, Leshrac, Broodmother, Enigma, Nature’s Prophet, Chen, Snapfire, Lone Druid and/or Abaddon. Naturally, you might be anticipated to push as quickly as everybody will get their final skills. Some gadgets are additionally concerned — Mekansm, Vladimir’s Providing, and Drums of Endurance.
Cons
Whereas undoubtedly a probably efficient thought, this strat requires your opponent to have a lineup with out wave clearing skills to work correctly. Be sure you ban Heroes equivalent to Earthshaker, Timeless, Zeus, Underlord, Sniper, KotL, and several other different Heroes with fast crowd management skills. Moreover, it’s necessary to do not forget that it is a very all-in thought — when you fail to do important harm to the enemy base inside a sure timeframe, there’s little or no probability of profitable the sport down the stretch.
4. The Pickoff Strat
Successful a struggle towards the percentages is troublesome, and that’s precisely the place this strat places your opponent in. Counting on catching and nuking down, you mainly seize an necessary cog within the opponents’ machine and take it out of the struggle to both discover a favorable battle or reset and are available again shortly afterwards within the occasion of a Buyback. Be sure you itemize so as to have the ability to get out and in of battle, as you’re going to wish to do plenty of that.
Heroes
Heroes that deal huge harm in a short time and both have methods to leap out and in or naturally go for Blink Daggers are the weapons of alternative for this plan. You additionally have to make it possible for a lot of the nukes have comparatively low cooldowns. As such, Tiny along with his Toss + Avalanche + tree throw (and maybe an Echo Sabre for good measure), Marci, Slardar, Earthshaker, Clockwork, Morphling, Phantom Murderer, Legion Commander, Sand King, Lion, Queen of Ache, Windranger, Storm Spirit, Sven, Chaos Knight and Zeus are all glorious decisions for this playstyle.
Cons
This sort of technique may be susceptible to Heroes with good imaginative and prescient (equivalent to Beastmaster or Treant) and saving skills like Disruption or Swap. Furthermore, gadgets like Aeon Disk, BKB, and Eul’s may throw a wrench in your plans by serving to your enemy survive the assault whilst you’re caught in a compromising place together with your Blink Daggers and different spells on cooldown. That being mentioned, this isn’t as all-in as a number of the different strats on this checklist, and even when you mess up a few instances, you possibly can nonetheless come again.
5. Different Wombo Combos
Usually, a “wombo combo” entails immediate or very quick magic harm, as exemplified by the aforementioned conventional combos for such combos. Nonetheless, that doesn’t all the time need to be the case. There are various methods to type robust teamfight combos that may give you an enormous edge and go away opponent Heroes helpless. We don’t simply imply killing them off with immediate nukes, however placing them able the place they’re unable to struggle you.
Heroes
There are various completely different combos with which you are able to do this, relatively than a gaggle of Heroes who’re interchangeable inside the technique. One of many combos is Treant Protector and Phoenix, whose ultimates mix to make sure extended immobility/disablement. One other such combo is Disruptor and Naga Siren, with a Scepter Static Storm and Kinetic Area being positioned upon still-Sleeping enemies. The final combo like this we are going to counsel is Puck + QoP, whereby Sonic Wave can be utilized to drive enemies to interrupt Dream Coil.
Cons
Like most wombo combos, the issue with this technique lies in the truth that you’ll be reliant on cooldowns, timings and positioning — which may be exploited by opposing workforce. Furthermore, these combos aren’t all the time simple to drag off, and a mistake right here or there may find yourself in the entire thing going belly-up. You’ll additionally want some farm on sure help Heroes so as to get probably the most out of most of those combos, in order that’s one thing you may need to think about as nicely.
Now go on the market and put these drafts to the check, and keep watch over our web site for extra Dota content material.