DotA Strategies Learned and Experienced ~ Itsme Gaming

After playing dota for more than 5 years I have seen a lot of dota strategies... I want to enumerate them and I hope people with great minds could add more..

(i named them based on their nature of play)

itsme.kwKy and itsme.xEt's battle plan

1. Mass Disable Strategy

--- This strategy begins with the heroes themselves. You pick heroes that stuns, slows, holds, or silences enemy heroes that result the opposing heroes to be useless even though they farmed up a lot. This strategy have 3-5 heroes with a lot of disable.

line up e.g.
potm
es
shadow shaman
naix
lion

2. Combo Strategy

--- This strategy is an old one. All 5 heroes would have a typical combo to wipe out the entire enemy team in one execution. The heroes in this strategy usually contain deadly aoe ultimates.

line up e.g.
sandking
cm
krobelus
enigma
trent protector

3. Gank and Farm Strategy

--- There will be a hitter(heroes that rely on normal attack dps) hero to wipe out the entire team and there will be supports to gang bang the enemy heroes that are harassing the carry hero/es of the team.

line up e.g.
sandking
lina
tinker
chen
spec <=== the carry

4. Nuke Strategy

--- This is what the pros are doing in 6.48b era. They don't rely on having a main hitter on their team. I called it nuke strategy because all of the heroes have skills that are painful. Disablers are there too basically to set up the play. Usually the play here is owning the opponent as early as at their lanes.

line up e.g.
es
zeus
atro
puck
enigma

5. Turtling Strategy

--- This is somewhat the same with gank and farm strategy only that this strategy doesn't rely on killing the enemy to have their carry farmed up.. The strategy is to delay the enemies on their pushes by killing all the creeps that would tank the tower. I know this won't work to pros but it's effective if combined with other strats.

line up e.g.
tms
es
pitlord
terrorblade
thd
(noob line up huh? i made it pure turtling with a carry hero)

6. Axe Early Ownage

--- This strategy requires... axe?.. lol.. Axe is accompanied with a healer(warlock usually) and another hero to support him. They positioned at the strong lanes of the opponent ahead the 1st tower. This strategy is made to delay the opponents level and also to push early and let the team enjoy the gold. Then, axe will do this on every towers one by one.. I'm sure you watched a game like this..

line up e.g.
playing scourge
top: solo zeus
mid: tinker
bot: axe cm wl

7. Triple Push

--- I saw this once executed very well by MYM.. It was when dagger was still available even when you're being damaged. This strategy requires heroes who have skills that wipe out enemy creeps fast. 1st you would push all the outer towers together.. then, decide on who are the hero/es that will push the top lane, mid lane, and bottom lane. This strategy is deadly back in 6.48b. The heroes would clear up every lane's creep then the enemy heroes will defend a lane, if they are defending e.g. bottom lane, the heroes on top and mid lanes will proceed with damaging the tower.. then back if the enemy respond.. then do it again.. slowly, you are destroying all they're towers. I remember the time when our team imitated this strategy, our enemies quit. This strategy is helpful when having opponents that possess deadly aoe ultimates.. They can use it but not on the entire team.. and while they're executing it, their towers are being destroyed.. but be sure to farm for buy outs and travel to continue pushing.. ;)

line up e.g. (from MYM)
zeus
BM
wl
tms
sandking
you can watch this replay here

8. The Level 1 Roshan Kill

--- This strategy is to have level and money advantage along with the aegis of immortal for one hero.. It's dangerous though and can easily be countered by placing observer ward early near roshan's den. :D

line up e.g. (from ks.int)
bm
engima
zeus
lich
sf
you can watch it here http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/replays/20236

9. 3-1-1 Strategy

---This strategy is called 3-1-1 because there would be 2 lanes with solo hero, mid and another lane. Then 1 lane will have 3 heroes in it. This strategy has 2 purpose. Number 1 purpose of this strategy is early game domination. The lane with 3 heroes will easily dominate the lane having more nukes and disables in the lane. The other 2 solo heroes enjoy leveling up quickly. The other purpose of 3-1-1 strategy is turtling. The carry hero in this lane will be safe creeping because he is guarded by 2 supports that have disables ready to save him.

line up e.g.

(sentinel)

qop - top

sf - mid

sven, cm, wd - bot

DotA is really the coolest game ever.

There are so many more strategies in DotA but it's impossible for me to know them all.

Bookmarking is easy!