Some of the Best DotA Trilane Hero Combo

Most people lost their games because of losing the trilane. Trilane is very cruicial. Losing a trilane results 3 heroes have level and gold disadvantage which would lead to losing the game if the opponents continue their plan of non-stop harassment. I've mentioned in my older post, Dominating a trilane, how to dominate a trilane. What are the needed items and skills in trilane to be able to win it. I expect you to analyze carefully the examples I'm going to give you. These are DotA Trilane heroes having winning combo and chemistry to ensure wins in your games.






I. Sven(Rogue Knight), Shendelzare Silwood(Vengeful Spirit), Visage(Necrolic)

In 6.69c, Visage is one of the best hero at trilane because of its powerful nuke, slow and its average hp making him not an easy prey. His instant damage spell called soul assumption increases its damage as heroes inflict damage on opponent heroes within 1378 AOE of Visage. It has only 4 seconds cool down and its maximum charge capacity becomes larger as the skill level increases. So, why sven and venge? You need someone to disable your opponents to be able for visage to have its full potential because soul assumption needs time to reach its maximum charge. Sven has 3 roles-disabling, inflicting damage and tanking. Opponents are not AI's. They want to dominate the trilane too, so when you start the fight, they would fight back. Sven should disable one enemy to disallow him to cast any spell on you and venge is there to back sven up. With their perfect disables. Visage can now have his soul assumption fully charge to finish the target. Sven having high HP, have the choice whether to attack other opponents who are already outnumbered and have skills in cool down, or to retreat if he his HP is not negotiable. Wise opponents would target venge because of his low hp but most of the time 2 heroes is not enough to kill venge. Other intelligent opponents would target visage to stop him from casting his killer blow. If this happens let sven chase the target. Surely, the target would have very low hp and would be running back through his tower. Sven should chase that target not only to kill him, but to refrain him from doing damage to visage which was disabled be his allied heroes. Visage after getting disabled should cast his soul assumption to the target if it is still close but if not, he should cast it on other opponents, preferably with low hp, since the soul assumption's charge has 6 seconds expiration time. He can run back a bit for sven and venge to have their skills ready and to earn another maximum soul assumption charge, which has only 4 secs cool down.

Once visage reaches level 6, he is now a lot stronger and I recommend opponents to ask for help from other lanes. Visage players that can control several units perfectly would win the trilane in every encounters. He have 2 summons do have great attack damage and has 2 seconds stun each, making it a total of 4 seconds stun. Being with sven and venge, there is no way you can escape a stun of around 8 seconds. Opponents of visage would need AOE stunners to give some help reducing damages taken by their allies.  All you have to do is play passively against this trilane combo for engaging in fights means making visage happy.

Counters: This hero combo is quite unstoppable at trilane, but can be countered by having a solo hero against them. It is because a solo hero reduces visage's potential. Visage needs action! But, here you are farming and playing safe. Priestess of the Moon, Windrunner, and Puck are some of the heroes that can face them alone. Before visage can have maximum soul assumption damage, the opponent is already gone.




II.  Razzil Darkbrew(Alchemist), Rylai(Crystal Maiden), Lina Inverse(Slayer)

Alchemist is one deadly hero in trilane. He has a stun with a potential of 4 seconds duration dealing 300 damage. This is possible if he was able to maximize his charging time and fires up the stun to his target successfully. This skill is called 'Unstable Concotion'. Apparently, best skills are not easy to execute. There are requirements. Skills like shadow raze, soul assumption, elune's arrow are not not so easy to use because of it's strong potential by nature. Unstable concotion is one of these best skills i've mentioned. You need to run and chase your opponents to maximize the stun duration and damage of this skill. Thus, a perfect lane mate would be Rylai. She has slowing and disabling ability to make it easier for Alchemist to land his Unstable Concotion on his target. Lina is there for additional disable and spam. Since the stun duration of Alchemist's disable is quite long, lina can land her stun and spam to aid Alchemist for the kill. Alchemist is quite a tank, perfect for the difficult nature of being in a trilane. Acid spray is one pain in the butt skill too in trilane. It has a wide AOE and would make everyone bleeding if they stayed longer within it's range. This is another skill that would make opponents play passively.

Once alchemist reaches level 6, it's more difficult to lane against him. Alchemist can cast chemical rage and ignore most of your cheap shots. He would rush like a bull into opponents charging his stun. Opponent can only play so passively because there would be one sure dead hero among them if they would try to fight back because of acid spray and rylai and lina's disabling ability.

Counters: Trilaning against this line up is also a very difficult job. If they have a lane advantage like sentinel's bottom lane and scourge's top lane, Alchemist has a long runway to chase you. I suggest face them in their weak lane. If you have the lane advantage, Alchemist can't charge towards you most of the time because of you're tower is nearby. Though he may be a tank, he can't tank towers at early levels. He would wait for level 6 to be brave enough to challenge a lane fight. However, it is still difficult to play aggressive against this line up. Choose a safe lane to farm more because you will need armor reduction item for Alchemist's late game potential. If this line up lanes at the safe lane, I suggest placing a solo puck against them. First reason is puck's escape mechanism. Though slowed, puck can use orb to escape. 2nd reason is phase shift. Puck can dodge this sick skill by simply pressing f. You just wasted alchemist's effort on charging his skill. Again, puck here is meant for gaining levels and farm. One of the cons of laning a solo lane here is that Alchemist can use his gold hacking skill to farm his core items quickly giving much problem for his enemies. Though at late game, I recommend heroes like necrolyte, harbringer, slardar and ursa warrior to kill this imbalanced tank, at lane it is hard to win against this line hero line up.




III. Shendelzare Silkwood(Vengeful Spirit), Kunkka(Admiral), Raigor Stonehoof(Earthshaker)

I recommend this trilane hero line up because of its versatility. It is offensive yet defensive. Kunkka's bread and butter at early game is his torrent and splash. These are both aoe nukes that are painful for the opponents. Splash is quite easier than torrent. Torrent is easy to evade but once it lands on the opponents, they are in big trouble. Torrent offers damage, disable and slow. That is why venge is here to assure a perfect torrent. Earthshaker is there for additional disable as well as hindering the opponents to act at once, making it easier for kunkka to finish the victim quicker. Another function of earthshaker is to fissure a close pair of heroes to maximize the AOE of the torrent. Venge would have the final stun in this case to assure kills. Playing defensive is easy because of earthshaker. Once the opponents try to use their combo on a farming Kunkka, Earthshaker would disrupt that combo and disable 2 or 3 heroes. If this happens, venge can act and choose a prey to be stunned. Kunkka can move now and can cast torrent to kill his killers.

Once Kunkka reaches level 6, it's titanic time. Venge can initiate anytime because of safety provided by Earthshaker. With Earthshaker's AOE stun, there's a high possibility that Kunkka's Ghost ship will hit all of them. Kunkka will now hit them with splash and I don't think the supports can survive this combo. The tank would be the only one they need to add extra effort. This is one sick trilane combo but if not executed properly like ES wasting mana for harassing, this is not that easy to execute.

Counters: First of all you need wards. If an earthshaker is successful at blocking your escape route because of being blinded by fog, your team will have no choice but to fight back. Running back means giving venge and kunkka good chance to finish one of you. 2nd, I suggest a range carry like potm, kardel, windrunner to be the carry farming against this lane. Supports may be range or melee but they shouldn't be reached by venge's magic missile. The strategy here is not to be too aggressive because an earthshaker will disable all of you. If Kunkka and friends grew impatient and try killing your range carry, back him up to make the combo fail. Now it's time for you to attack. Target venge because she has the fastest skill cool down and he has the lowest HP. Another good counter against this line up is silencer's curse of the silent. Make kunkka or es waste his mana by cursing him. In this case, you wont fear their deadly combo anymore.




IV. Morphling(Morphling), Rylai(Crystal Maiden), Vol'jin (Witch Doctor)

Morphling's waveform makes him a good hero for trilane. He can damage opponents with his waveform and hit them from behind for extra damage. Crystal Maiden and Vol'jin makes it safe for morphling to wave through the opponents. They can harass the opponents because of their range normal attacks. Crystal maiden's slow can make morphling and vol'jin do more normal attacks on the target. Once morphling wave in, bite and vol'jin's chain stun can stop opponents from focus firing on morphling. Their range normal attacks also make morphling not alone to hit the target. This makes it easier to kill the opponent. Morphling can retreat back safely because of its 3rd skill(morph). He can activate strength morph to add hp if needed. Rylai's one great contribution for the team is his mana which is much needed by morph and vol'jin. Vol'jin can heal morph after entering the fight to kill an opponent. Having a 3-range-hero line up on a lane also allows the team to gain more level and creep kill advantages. They can deny a lot of creeps to make their opponents have slow farm.

Counters: Most of the combo I stated before this one are good counters for this. This is not a very strong lane though it has advantages. Morph is not a melee but with his range, he is still risking his life farming in trilane. He has a poor mana making him cast only 1 wave form in early levels. Make him use this and go for the kill. Pefect execution of stunner line up can stop this combo. Morphling has no disabling ability so if you focus fire on his team mate he has nothing to do but to inflict damage. Generally, this trilane cannot stop your disabling combo. Use Kunkka's X mark for morphling's escape mechanisms.

to be continued...

LGD.SGTY DotA Team Profile

LGD.sgty, having allstar carries and supports, is one of the most fun to watch team in this game. The legendary 2009 is one of the best mid player in DotA History. ZSMJ proved to be a one of the sickest farmer. YYF a good soloist and now showing that he can be the next 2009 at mid lane. CH, Gx, and Benz are great initiators of team fights. They also teaches us how to fight in trilane and to have map control for the team. They have a lot of unique and effective DotA strategies that most of the teams right now are copying. They have solid execution of game plans. I admire this team so much that 75% of the replays I watch are their games. This page will tell show you their individual player profile as well as the history of the team.



History
August 2009, 2009, recruited Gx, ZSMJ Zhejiang University campus and two other players and a manager of Zhejiang University graduate, established the predecessor of FTD LGD.sGty clan clan (For The Dream). In late December 2009, orc3c Moonlight Feng joined the first person to FTD, and select YYF as their game ID. End of 2009, the old godfather of Guizhou Sheng Foods Co., Ltd. and Ningbo Tianyi Technology Co., Ltd. and the former light FTD Troopers reached the tripartite cooperation agreement. FTD accept the old godfather and former light Tianyi Sheng, co-sponsored officially renamed LGD.SGTY, and enable the new team logo. New team mark with cold metallic color as the bottom, symbolizing the pursuit of gaming dreams LGD.SGTY determination; together with the team name the letters red, yellow gradient, indicating that LGD.SGTY pursue gaming dream enthusiasm. March 2010, "PK Gaming Cup" U9 league before the members of the former clan ch AW Champion XFY join LGD. Thus, construction teams with FTD team 09, GX, ZSMJ, 09 年底 joined Moonlight Feng, LGD.SGTY all active main gathered lineup official shape. August 2010, announced his retirement in 2009, relegated to second-line management in the clan, the former FTD Koike key players return. New LGD.sGty, new beginning, come on!


Lgd.sgty DotA Achievements
  WCG2010 regional finals runner-up in China

G League Championship FY 2010 second season title

ADC2010 Championship qualifier in China

G League Championship FY 2010 first season title

ESWC2010 regional finals runner-up in China

2010 "PK Gaming Cup" U9 Champions League

China Unicom Cup 2010 runner-up e-Games

WCG2010 qualifying Shanghai China Division title

2009PCGL League runners-up

2009 World Classic Tournament Champion IEM

2009SMM World Finals Champion




LGD.2009.sGty (captain)
Name: Wu sound
City: Hangzhou
Date of birth: 1987/3/23
Use the mouse: G1
Using the keyboard: DT35
Dota favorite team: FTD
Dota favorite stars: None
Best at Location: Pa Line
Favorite hero: SF
Favorite items: black and yellow
The initial version of the game to play: None
Most like to play the game version: None
Other sports games ever played (yes please give examples): KOF SC O2
Your understanding and feelings of dota: lost or gas ~


LGD.YYF.sGty (Moonlight Maple)
Name: Ginger Cen
City: Shanghai
Date of birth: 1987/2/3
Use the mouse: G1
Use the keyboard: free
Dota favorite team: None
Dota favorite stars: None
Best at the position of: carry
Favorite hero: mor
Favorite items: sheep knife
Original play version: 6.66B
The version most like to play: almost, like around half
Other sports games ever played (yes, please provide examples): Dynasty Warriors, 3C ORC
Your understanding and feelings of dota: DOTA is a good competitive game, I hope I get playing time as the winner most of the game


LGD.Gx.sGty (Marco)
Name: High Shun Hing
City: Xi'an
Date of birth: 1987 / 9
Use the mouse: Microsoft
Using the keyboard: dt35
Dota favorite team: vp
Favorite dota star: vigoss
Best at the position: s
Favorite hero: sg thd
Favorite Item: sky blue
The initial version of the game play: 643
Most like to play the game version: 648
Other sports games ever played (yes please give examples): cs
Dota your understanding and feelings: I hope the new team line running well, more exciting game for everyone


LGD.ZSMJ.sGty (all Sima Technology)
Name: GONG Jian
City: Changsha
Date of birth: 1990/1/11
Use the mouse: IE3.0
Using the keyboard: any
Dota favorite team: FTD
Favorite dota star: stay
Best at the position of: carry
Favorite hero: POM PUCK
Favorite Item: domineering thing (sword)
The first play of the game version: 6.51
Version of the game most like to play: anything
Other sports games ever played (yes, please provide examples): Dynasty Warriors
Dota your understanding and feelings: the ideal is to do a better response was not to underestimate any opponent


LGD.ch ~. SGty (ID is said to be short for Craigie Hill)
Name: Li Chen
City: Jingmen
Date of birth: 1989/08/09
Use the mouse: G1
Using the keyboard: any
Dota favorite team: LGD
Dota star favorite: 2009
Best at the position: GANK
Favorite hero: SV SK
Favorite Item: DAGON
The first play of the game version: 6.48
Most like to play the game version: 6.38
Other sports games ever played (yes, please provide examples): Dynasty Warriors
Your understanding and feelings of dota: Do not underestimate any opponent



LGD.beNz.sGty (Koike)
Name: Li Jun Pond
City: Xi'an
Date of birth: 1988/10/21
Use the mouse: IO1.1
Using the keyboard: dell
Dota favorite team: FTD
Dota favorite stars: None
Best at the position: GANK
Favorite hero: LION
Favorite Item: dagger
The initial version of the game to play: None
Most like to play the game version: None
Other sports games ever played (yes please give examples): KOF SC O2
Your understanding and feelings of dota: play good sauce is king

sources:games.enet

EHOME DotA Team Profile

You can say that Ehome is the best team in the world after showcasing their sick game plays in tournaments and grabbing a lot of titles. The feared team, Ehome, also shows how fast improvement can happen. Most players from this world's no.1 team just started playing DotA in 48b version. I was joining a lot of tournaments already before this version. Now, they are the world's greatest and they have a long list of DotA awards.  820 must really be an excellent DotA Captain to make all of these possible.




Ehome DotA Achievements
1st - SMM Grand National DotA Tournament (2008)
3rd - SMM Grand National DotA Tournament (2009)
4th - Alienware DotA League (2009)
1st - Electronic Sports World Championship (2010)
1st - Intel Extreme Masters (2010)
1st - National eSports Open (2010)
2nd - Electronic Sports Thailand Championship (2010)
1st - TopGamer (2010)
1st - Road of the King (2010)
1st - SMM Grand National DotA Tournament (2010)






Ehome Players Profile


Name: Zhou Heaven
Username: EH.GIGABYTE.820,
Birth: April 13, 1989
Mouse: SS XAI
Keyboard: SS 7G
Favorite DotA Team: None
Favorite DotA Player: None
Best DotA Role: arbitrary
Favorite Hero: ES, POTM
Favorite Item: Heavenly Sword
Initial DotA Version Played: 6.27b
Favorite DotA Version: 6.48b
Other Games Played: Played one more World of Warcraft RPG
Understanding and Feelings of DotA: DOTA is a team game, not the hero Guards, Guards of the team only.


Name: Yao Yi
Username: EH.GIGABYTE.357,
Birth: September 19, 1985
Mouse: SS XAI
Keyboard: SS 7G
Favorite DotA Team: Xcn
Favorite DotA Player: Smile
Best DotA Role: Semi Gank half DPS
Favorite Hero: Lina, QOP
Favorite Item: Dagger
Initial DotA Version Played: 6.48
Favorite DotA Version: 6.48
Other Games Played: CS, Shino, DNF
Understanding and Feelings of DotA: TEAM WORK



Name: Lei Zengrong
Username: EH.GIGABYTE.DAI
Birth: September 10, 1989
Mouse: SS XAI
Keyboard: SS 7G
Favorite DotA Team: YNL
Favorite DotA Player: 54
Best DotA Role: carry and ganker
Favorite Hero: POTM and Raijin
Favorite Item: Phase Boots
Initial DotA Version Played: 6.48b
Favorite DotA Version: 6.59
Other Games Played: Dynasty Warriors
Understanding and Feelings of DotA: dota is a very complex game


Name: Xu Lei
Username: EH.GIGABYTE.AAA
Birth: February 16, 1988
Mouse: SS XAI
Keyboard: SS 7G
Favorite DotA Team: CH, EHOME
Favorite DotA Player: slahser
Best DotA Role: CARRY, GANK
Favorite Hero: CHEN, SF, POTM
Favorite Item: Butterfly
Initial DotA Version Played: 6.48
Favorite DotA Version: 6.57b
Other Games Played: World of Warcraft
Understanding and Feelings of DotA: resourcefulness


Name: Zhou Yang
Username: EH.GIGABYTE.KINGJ
Birth: November 13, 1988
Mouse: SS XAI
Keyboard: SS 7G
Favorite DotA Team: EHOME, FSG
Favorite DotA Player: 820, NS
Best DotA Role: CARRY, GANK
Favorite Hero: Captain (Admiral)
Favorite Item: Force Staff
Initial DotA Version Played: 6.51
Favorite DotA Version: 6.57b
Other Games Played: Dynasty Warriors
Understanding and Feelings of DotA: Battle of wits, test the brain



sources: dotatime
sources: gosugamers

ITSME: Daet DotA Tournament Champion 2010



Itsme Gaming just grabbed another title, the Daet DotA Tournament Champion. Jes Bamba, a legend of itsme gaming, told kwKy that there would be a tournament at a computer shop in his hometown, Daet. Kwky, then, formed a team of itsme members who are available to have a trip to Daet for days. Shawn, Eldrige, Carl, Tofi, Watams and Froi joined him to represent itsme gaming at the tournament. They left naga at 8am and arrived in Daet at 10am.





There was a little problem where they need to form another group to entry at the tournament. There were a total of 4 teams who would battle for the gold. The rules would be CM or AR depending on what the team agreed upon.

Itsme Gaming

itsme.kwKy
itsme.SHAWN
itsme.Ldrige
itsme.Bravee
itsme.toFi

Isgimmim

itsme.Watams
itsme.Chocobot
itsme.Froi
hugot from daet
another hugot

Team T@J (The daet allstars team)

Dyez
Ivan
Peeboy
Dino
Mac2

Team HP (A High School Player team)

1st round
Itsme Gaming vs HP
They agreed to play cm mode. It was a close fight. Kwky was surprised by the game play of these high school students. Itsme took the fight seriously and won that round.


T@J vs Isgimmin
They agreed to play AR mode. T@J, luckily, got levi brood apparition venom and windrunner and gave them an easy win over Isgimmin.


2nd round

Isgimmin vs HP
They now played on CM mode. HP's solid team play brought them to victory against Isgimmin.
Isgimmin (0 - 2)
HP (1 - 1)

T@J vs Itsme Gaming
They agreed to play in CM mode. Itsme Gaming managed to beat the daet allstars in their first encounter bringing Itsme Gaming on the waiting spot.
Itsme Gaming (2 - 0)
T@J (1 - 1)

Round 3

T@J vs HP
The game was cm mode. T@J, winning against HP, will be the one to fight Itsme Gaming in the Finals.
T@J (2-1)
HP (1 - 2)

Finals
Itsme Gaming vs T@J game 1
This is a close match but an overfarmed windrunner won the fight for T@J.

Itsme Gaming vs T@J game 2

After losing the first round, kwKy made the necessary adjustments to make the team more effective. Then, they managed to have the 2nd round on their side.

Itsme Gaming vs T@J game 3
Score is tied to 1-1. This game, being a do or die match, made kwKy ban Jes's main hero(Dragon Knight) in the tournament. Not because he was scared but because Jes is just too comfortable with that hero. It is to limit Jes's potential in the game. This brilliant decision made Itsme Gaming have an easy final round.

Congratulations, Itsme!



Dominating The Trilane in DotA

Though I'm fed up of 3-1-1 lane type, I have to admit that this is the most effective strategy offering several advantages. 2 solo heroes will acquire their powerful ultimate skills in less time. They would also have their other skills at maximum quickly. Heroes at the trilane will apparently destroy a dual lane. 2 supports in a lane assures a safe lane for a carry making him farm all the gold he wants. So, in order to win, you have to beat the opponent's trilane. But how? How does the Pro makes trilane so effective? What must be done to dominate your opponents at trilane? Here it is...



1. Pick Excellent Heroes for Trilane

You should consider the heroes first. One must always remember that when faced with equally skilled players, hero picks are very critical. Without the right amount of killing abilities, you can be owned by anyone in tri-lane. If slightly inferior in your tri-lane you can make some adjustments in order to win, but having a total hero pick mismatch, it is quite impossible to control that lane.

So, what are the things to consider in picking the heroes at trilane?

  • Disabling Skills - The most important thing is having heroes that can stun, slow, sleep, net, or other skills that can hold a hero to one place. 1st reason is that you need your prey to stay on one place to make it easier for your skills to land on him as well as your normal attacks. 2nd, chasing the hero just to kill him is not advisable because towers are too painful to tank at early levels. 3rd, chasing your target means free shot other enemy heroes making you die first.
  • Nukes - High burst damage skills are the next important thing in trilane. Powerful nukes make it easy to get rid of a hero at the trilane quickly. Instead of having a troll warlord to do normal attacks on a stunned hero, have a morphling instead to finish him with your wave form. Without powerful nukes, the disabled opponent can have his counter attack on you, right after the stun duration. You may be the one to die because of not having a powerful nuke.
  • Range heroes - are important in a trilane to do cheap shots to opponents and deny creeps from them. I recommend to have 2 range heroes in every lane have creep kills and harassing advantage.
  • Heroes' Combo - You should consider if the 3 heroes can compliment one another. Most heroes have best allies. You should know who they are and pick them. Don't just pick heroes without considering their chemistry. An example would be Undying. If he lanes with stunners, chances are the heroes would escape right after the stun duration. On the other hand, slower heroes like rylai and veno, are better lane mates with Undying because his zombies need more time to deal damage.

2. Know and Buy Key Items

In trilane situations some items give a lot of advantages over the opposing team. These items are highly recommended to make your trilane successful.

These items are

  • Ring of Basilius - One hero should buy this to give his lane mates mana regen and armor. With constant mana regen, you can execute your combo often giving you have more chance of winning the trilane. Mana regen, the reason why you wont have several trips to fountain, will make your opponents have a hard farm time at your lane. Extra armor is critical here because opponents will be doing normal attacks on you after casting their spells. Extra damage makes you deny more creeps and the carry farm better.
  • Magic stick/wand - Trilane heroes, having several spells to cast, are somehow countered by magic stick. Your opponents would make constant fights spamming their spells on you or your allies. You can earn more charge and use it when they are after you. Most of the time you'll survive if you use this wisely. +3 to all int, str and agi is also helpful in early levels in terms of mana and hp.
  • Observer Wards - To have more advantage in trilane, heroes will appear behind you for trapping purposes. To prevent this from happening, observer wards is the key. You'll have more chance in winning if you happen to see them before they trap you because you can cast your spells on them before they can click you. Observer wards offer defense and offense at the same time.
  • Boots - To have more assurance of not letting an enemy escape, you got to have boots. Boots grant move speed that can chase your opponents easily, especially if they don't have boots yet. If they have, the more you need to have boots for you not to cry for letting him escape with only 1 hp remaining.



3. Know The Best Target

In a trilane, you must not engage in a fight without conceptualizing the outcome. You should consider the advantages and disadvantages of the opposing trilane. If you want to win, take advantage of their disadvantages.

Type of Heroes that shouldn't be your first target

  • Tanks - Heroes with high HP and armor takes time to be knocked out. If you focus on him, his allies will surely do everything to also damage you. Once, your target, survived, your spells would already be in cool down state. He will, then, have the chance to use his skills and finish you.
  • Jumpers - These are heroes that have escaping abilities like POTM, Morphling, QOP, Puck. You don't want to target them because once they escape your plan to kill that hero, he can now regenerate and attack back.
  • Weakest - Heroes that will deal the least damage among the 3 heroes shouldn't be your prey. Weakest hero wont damage you that much if you try to kill his mates.

Type of Heroes that should be your first target

  • Softies - these are the heroes with low hp. You can disable a softy and kill him in no time. To do this, you should have a proper strategy of backstabbing them. Good players of low hp heroes wont show himself because he knows what will happen to his cotton candy hero. Sentry wards is needed to destroy their observer wards to make them less careful.
  • AOE stunners - this should also be your top pick because they can disrupt your plan in one spell and let them do counter attacks which is very fatal.
  • Bleeding heroes - they may be high HP heroes, but if they are bleeding, take this opportunity and kill them using your combo.

for Trilane Hero line up click here

My First 6.70 DotA Map Game Review

I just finished my first game in the latest DotA map version, 6.70. I wanted to use the new heroes but the opponents are just too quick to pick them, so I just went random. The hero I got was leshrac. I laned solo top because 3 of my team mates preferred bottom lane. So I faced tuskar and phoenix alone. I didn't know what skills they have so I just try to stay away from them as much as possible and try to get some creeps safely. Then here comes level 4. I saw a f*cking snow ball so I ran back as fast as I could. They got me and my poor leshrac was torn apart. Then, I came back.  I tower hugged because I know what would happen to my hero if they would be able to click me. I just farm when creeps reach my tower. I survived. Then, they reached level 6. They were so confident to kill me that they roll again using their snow ball towards me. I said: "Yes, now's the chance to have revenge and kill them both because of their impatience."  Right before I can click my split earth to stun both of them, my hero flew in the air and died when it fell. I was like wtf, I can't afford to have another death. I'm 0-2 now. I just roam, push other lanes, farm neuts. The other heroes tried to gank them but end up dying making our opponents dominate early game. My team mates became really scared at these heroes. When I finally got my BKB. I told them to push. They said we'll die. So, I waited for the enemy to push. When they pushed, our earthshaker was caught by the rolling snow where the opponents surprised him and killed quickly. He had lost his hope so his next move was to quit. We still won the clash because they cannot damage me that much because of my BKB. I told them to make one too if they want to survive. I was glad, they did. After we all got our BKB, The opponents inside the rolling ball are like crunchy meats inside a white bun. We were waiting for them to come and to have them for dinner. We easily won the game after they gain their confidence back from getting owned early game. 




I find the new heroes imbalanced because it can dominate a lane damn good. If used in CM mode, I'd prefer leaving that lane with a solo potm which can just leap out of their combo. Tuskar have his ball, phoenix has his long range ray that are really strong in a trilane situation. I recommend BKB against Phoenix to be able to enter the battle effectively. Tuskar is a hitter, in my opinion, but BKB is needed against this hero for you not to be stunned by his snow ball thingy and prevent him from making his strong walrus punch on you. Also, he has a skill that will slow you giving him more chance to hit you with his old hand. Making a ghost scepter can free you from his walrus punch but what if a lina is rolling with him. aw? That's all for now, I'd give a formal map review after we have played a lot of games, pub and cm.




To summarize:

Tuskar:
Pros
Strong at lanes specially with good allied heroes
Good Clash Initiator
Good at trapping and slowing to guarantee more hero kills
Skills have low mana requirement
Cons
His snow ball cannot be stopped. He can cause the team to be killed in one blow after making all his team roll with him towards the opponents.
Ultimate can be countered by ghost scepter if he tries to kill alone. This makes him a team mate dependent hero.
Doesn't have much potential in late game. Walrush punch buff has 18 seconds cool down. Enough time for a shadow fiend with manta to kill him.

Phoenix
Pros
Hard to kill because of Dive and skill.
Cheap mana requirements
Can damage opponents safely because of his long range beam with slowing ability and his fire spirits.
His ultimate turns him into an egg thing that makes him invulnerable.
Strong at trilane because of long range nuke and dive.
Can chase fleeing opponents easily and slow him to death.
Cons
Easily countered by BKB
Doesn't have much late game potential

Watching Anime Helps Improve Your DotA Skills


You may say it's crazy but it's true. Watching Anime stories with fight scenes will inspire you a lot to be a better DotA Player. When I was on my early years in the game, I simply do the things that must be done. If I need to win, I farm heavy items to be able to kill them all and push. If I need to survive, I simply run back to the fountain. If I need to gank, go to other lanes then I use my skills at once to kill them. In short, there was no art, no prediction, no precision in my game back then. Most people today improved their games through experience and by watching how the pros do it. In my case, my first improvement in this game is after getting inspired by how Anime characters think during battles. These are some anime character's traits that will inspire you in playing better in DotA.




1. Precision - Anime characters taught me how to be precise in every move I'll make in DotA. They would often have a plan on how to attack the weak points of the opponents. Though faced in difficult situations, they have the ability to have a clear mind to think of the best next move. They wait if they should wait. They attack if the time is right. They prepare more if they can't go through. Watching Anime inspired me to do what I call 'Ninja moves' in DotA. It is the ability to fool your opponents because you already predicted what he's going to do next. Anime characters would always study their opponents carefully and wont ever be baited by the opponent's made moves.

2. Doing impossible things - Weak anime protagonists often beat Stronger opponents. This is my inspiration why I have this much confidence. I'd face anyone in tournaments. I know I can beat anyone though they may have more experience than me. Having confidence in yourself is the key to beat anyone. If you think you wont win, then you wont. Focus on beating them, not on your differences. Focus on your strengths and how to maximize them.

3. Quick improvement ability - The longer the series continues, the stronger they become. Protagonists would often start without any knowledge that they have powers to beat opponents who are already strong from the day the series started. But, in the end the protagonists would be incredibly strong to face the main opponent to beat them.  I didn't stop practicing until I reached my goal.  Like in anime stories, we managed to defeat the teams we worshiped before. 

4. Presence of Mind - The characters fight with a lot of concentration. I find it funny when they would shout the name of their skill before they actually do it. But, going deeper, they are showing how to be conscious of your actions. Most of the times, we die because we don't know that we are farming too far. Most of the time we lose a clash because we don't know that we are not yet capable of beating the opponent's early heroes in clash. Presence of mind is so important to be able to know what you are doing and be conscious of advantage and disadvantages.

5. Invulnerable - No matter what happens. The protagonists wont die, they would just be injured if they faced strong opponents but they wont actually die. At the end of the series they will be the one to succeed. This is obvious in Anime stories but this had a large effect on me. It inspired me not to give up. For no matter how many times I've been down, it's a fact that I'll be the one on top if I would work hard for it.

6. Team Work - Characters, who doesn't have any magical skills yet, would defeat opponents with powerful skills when they are together. They would use team work to do this.  In DotA, you can still win the game though even how the opponent's are individually.  The only thing you can fear in this game is perfect team work, for it requires a better-than-perfect team work to beat them.

7. Respect - Anime characters know how to respect opponents no matter how evil they was in the series. This leads to not doing trash talks against my opponents after defeating them. I've learned to treat this game professionally. I trash talk some times but it's for the sake of psyching my opponents out. Making them grow arrogant and have a negative effect on their game. But, after winning the game, I would approach them like nothing happened.


Thanks for reading, Merry Christmas!

DotA Heroes Counters (J - Z)

This is the continuation of DotA Heroes Counters (A - H)




In hero picking, I often pick heroes that would counter the opponent's heroes. I don't pick heroes just because they are strong. Having a line up that counters the opponent's main bread and butter won 90% of the time than just picking 'imbalanced heroes'.These are lists of some Counters for almost all Dota heroes. I wont say that these counters are the best. These are only suggestions on how you can counter heroes that you find hard to defeat. I'll be focusing on the heroes' skill disadvantage. Items, like BKB, linken, manta, etc, wont be considered. I will consider only some items that the heroes are really dependent upon like blink dagger for Earthshaker. But, the rest are heroes without defending items. These heroes are arranged alphabetically.



Jah'rakal, Troll Warlord

Some Hero Counters for Jah'rakal:
1. Bane, Lion, Rasta, and other Disable heroes - Troll will eat you up if you don't have good disable.
2. Viper - If he uses rampage, viper strike can slow his attack and move speed.
3. Omniknight - Kill him while in guardian angel.
4. Harbringer - With Jah'rakal's low int, a high int Harbringer can finish him in once click.

Jakiro, Twin Headed Dragon

Some Hero Counters for Jakiro:

1. Pugna - Jakiro depends much on spamming to be of worth, thus Netherward can hurt him a lot.
2. Defiance/Pipe Heroes - Jakiro's Ultimate is a damage per second type of skill. Building defiance will reduce every damage that it's close to nothing.
3. BKB - Turn on your BKB then, he'd rely on giving normal attack to give damage.
4. Naix - with naix's rage and lifesteal, Jakiro can't hurt him. Thus naix is needed for Jakiro's moderate amount of HP, better than other int heroes.

Kardel Sharpeye, Dwarven Sniper

1. Barathrum - With kardel's low hp, a charging barathrum constantly bashing him and additional disable - Netherstrike, Kardel may die without even having the chance to use some of his bullets.
2. Phantom Lancer - With Azwraith's number of illusions, Kardel will take time to detect the real Phantom Lancer that he may be finished before he say GOTCHA! Azwraith's also a good counter for Kardel's long range. Backstabbing kardel is one of the best thing to do against him because if your going to walk towards him, he would use his range advantage along with his bashing gun shots to deal a lot of damage before you reach him.
3. Vengeful Spirit - Swap him to remove his range advantage
4. Blink Heroes - It is possible to dodge his ultimate by simply blinking with perfect timing.
5. BKB - can dodge his ultimate too, which I find incorrect, philosophically. Bullets should be treated as physical damage no matter what, but that's out of the topic.

Kel'Thuzard, Lich

1. Slardar - Amplify damage to lower lich's armor because of frost armor. Sprint to get out of chain frost which takes a long time to reach you. Sprint out from your allies for you to save them from bouncing frost.
2. Lycan - another fast moving hero that wont be much affected from nova and chain frost.
3. Harbringer - You can dodge chain frost by casting astral imprisonment on your self. Also, harbringer's arcane orb are magical attacks that goes through high armor.
4. Lina/Lion/Zeus - Take advantage of lich's low hp by spamming powerful nukes.

King Leoric, Skeleton King

1. Lion/Anub'arak/Magina - These are heroes that can counter your ultimate by draining your mana.
2. Diffusal Heroes - Heroes that will build diffusal can counter leoric by not letting him resurrect wasting his ultimate.
3. PL/Naga Siren/Manta Style heroes - Since leoric is a single target hero, you can use manta style to lessen his damage output potential.

Knight Davion, Dragon Knight

1. Harbringer - take advantage of Davion's low int. DK laning against Harbringer will be difficult for him to farm because of spamming Astral Imprisonment. Easy denying for harbringer and mana reduction for Davion makes him farm less.
2. Ursa - DK has high armor but still lower than roshan. If roshan is Ursa's favorite food DK would just be his appetizer.
3. Slardar - to reduce Davion's armor.
4. Naix - Naix can beat davion in a 1 on 1 situation because of Naix's lifesteal and quicker attack speed.
5. Traxex - Traxex has high damage output and can kill Davion easily in team fights not to mention Traxex's slowing ability to reduce potencials from Davion.

Krobelus, Death Prophet

1. Pandaren Brewmaster - If Krobelus casts his Exorcism, use primal split and let your high hp pandas take the damage for the team and laugh after the exorcism is over.
2. Lion/Lina - Burst damage is needed in dealing with Krobelus. You need to finish him in a matter of seconds. Getting rid of Krobelus means good bye Exorcism.
3. Omniknight - Guardian Angel giving you 999999 armor can make you snob the Exorcism.
4. Tanker heroes - are essential to tank the Exorcism for the team.

Lanaya, Templar Assassin

1. Tiny - 1 avalanche removes refract. Without refract, lanaya is so fragile and easy to kill.
2. Venomancer - nova + venomous gale + normal attack with poison removes refract in
about 2 seconds.
3. Alchemist - he's too fat to be killed by lanaya and acid spray can remove lanaya's refract.

Lesale Deathbringer, Venomancer

1. Chen - Heal the whole team after getting damaged from Venomancer's poison nova.
2. Naix - Rage removes the poison or use simply use lifesteal.
3. Doom - doom veno to disrupt him from casting his poison nova and wipe out the entire team before he have the chance to do so. Casting poison Nova late is useless.
4. BKB heroes - make venomancer useless
5. Ghost Scepter heroes - cast ghost scepter after you've been infected by poison nova to get rid of it.

Leshrac The Malicious, Tormented Soul

1. Pugna - Netherward will kill spammers like Tormented Soul.
2. BKB heroes - Only diabolic edict will damage you from all of his skills
3. Nortrom - wont make him spam his skills simultaneously because of last word
4. Doom - Won't make him cast any spell making him useless

Leviathan - Tidehunter

1. Necrolyte - is needed to kill Leviathan faster because of reaper.
2. Puck - Simply cast phase shift to dodge his long cool down ultimate, ravage.
3. Earthshaker - You can disrupt his team mates by fissure after Levi cast his ravage. Ravage without his team to do the damage makes ravage so useless.
4. BKB heroes - Ravage wont affect bkb heroes. Use BKB then whack him up.

Lina Inverse, Slayer

1. Pugna - mainly because she is a nuker which makes her mana dependent. Netherward loves mana dependent heroes.
2. Anub'arak - mana burn will hinder lina from doing her combo. Thus, backstab, impale mana burn can eat lina's low HP.
3. Nortrom - silence lina before she can even cast her stun. Last word to disrupt her combo.
4. BKB heroes - lina can't hurt them.

Lion, Demon Witch

1. Pugna - same with lina, Lion will suffer from Netherward big time.
2. Bat rider - firefly against lion's impale
3. Nortrom - silence lion to make him ineffective
4. BKB heroes - for lion's perfect disabling skills

Luna Moonfang, Moon Rider

1. Pandaren Brewmaster - Simply split when she casts her Eclipse.
2. Illusion heroes(Naga Siren, Phantom Lancer) - wastes some of her eclipse's beams.
3. Puck - can dodge all of her Eclipe's beams.
4. Morp - can replicate allied hero and bait luna to cast her ulti.

Lucifer, Doom Bringer

1. Chen - Test of faith the doomed allied hero or heal from afar.
2. Leviathan - Dooming leviathan is such a bad idea for Kraken Shell will cancel the doom. The Doom's damage wont be maximized with levi plus leviathan has very high hp.
3. Centaur - doom will be wasted because of his high HP.
4. Warlock - Word to heal the doomed ally to lessen the doom's damage.

Magina, Anti-Mage

1. All Perfect disabling heroes - refrain magina from blinking out to escape.
2. Ursa Warrior - Trying to kill ursa with magina is a suicide.
3. Omniknight - Repel doesn't grant mana burn for magina
4. Illusion Heroes - magina will have a hard time detecting the real one.

Magnus, Magnataur

1. Necrolyte - for his high HP
2. Anub'seran - time lapse after he uses his ulti
3. Simply don't pile up so he wont have a perfect ulti.

Mangix, Pandaren

1. Anub'arak - Pandaren has low mana. Mana burn can prevent him from casting primal split.
2. Disabling heroes to kill him before he can cast primal split.
3. Storm Spirit - Simply run roll away from him after you see him transforming into 3 mighty pandas.
4. Life Steal Heroes - Attack him though he's in primal split. The damage dealt with you will just return because of life steal. Thus, you get a chance to kill all the 3 pandas.

Medusa, Gorgon

1. Lion/Anub - for mana draining purposes. Medusa is easily killed without mana shield.
2. Diffusal Heroes - to drain her mana off making her more vulnerable.
3. Tinker - I use tinker sometimes to counter Medusa at lane. Spamming Laser though her mana shield is on will drain all of her mana.

Mogul Khan, Axe

1. Necrolyte - Reapering his high hp when it reaches half makes it easier to kill him.
2. Leshrac - So you wont trigger his Counter Helix, you can just spam your skills to kill him. Thus, with his +20 armor from berserker's call, spamming is a good option.
3. Slardar - Amplify Damage to reduce his high armor.
4. Tanker heroes - so you wont reach his Culling blades' minimum quota.

Morphling, Morphling

1. Lion/rasta - good disables are needed because Morphling has a lot of escaping mechanisms.
2. Necrolyte - Morphling can use his strength morph for survival making his hp reach 4K. Reaper and finish him before he does so.
3. Kunkka - No matter how many escape mechanisms morph have, he'll be back to be whacked. X-mark on morph then full force, make him use his wave or replicate then return him for finishing blows.

Mortred, Phantom Assassin

1. Wind runner - windrunner can ignore Mortred's critical strikes because of her windrun skill, where as she have the only advantage to make damages to mortred.
2. Atropos - can enfeeble mortred to make his critical damages funny.
3. Troll Warlord - Blind mortred and whack im off.
4. Lion - good disable and perfect high damage nuke will make mortred cry.

Naix, The Lifestealer

1. Enigma/Atropos/Beastmaster - Heroes that can disable heroes that are immune to magic are needed to stop Naix.
2. Windrunner - Naix can't steal hp from windrunner on windrun.
3. Phantom Lancer - Naix will be confused as to where to attack because of mass illusions thus naix can't steal hp from illusions.

Nessaj, Chaos Knight

1. Axe - will love it to be hit with 3 illusions to trigger his counter helix dealing more damage to Nessaj. Thus, illusions will be destroyed easily by axe making nessaj's ultimate useless. Useless for nessaj but useful for axe.
2. Tiny - Tiny has AOE nuke that can wipe out Nessaj's illusions in no time. Tiny's craggy exterior also hurts Nessaj for being melee.
3. Earthshaker - it's obvious that illusions will make ES stronger.
4. Necrolyte - reaper for his strength and death pulse for his illusions.

Nevermore, Shadow Fiend

1. Clockwerk - Clockwerk's battery wont make Nevermore use his Requiem. Thus clockwerk can take advantage on his low HP.
2. Raijin - has the ability to make it even harder to be razed by sf and easier to dodge Requiem of souls.
3. Slardar - Stun and bashes wont make SF cast his requiem. Amplify damage makes lothars useless for SF.
4. Vengeful Spirit - Once SF gets his BKB and Dagger, Vengeful can simply swap SF away if he cast Dagger-BKB-Requiem. SF will have to walk to cast requiem after the swap. Walking means lesser potencial damage for requiem. BKB is wasted too.
5. Tinker - is used to lane with SF because of tinker's high damage output and SF's low HP.
6. Lanaya - SF have to hit lanaya 6 times before he can use requiem to be able to damage Lanaya. Doing so, gives lanaya opportunity to kill SF.

Nortrom, Silencer

1. Kardel - Doesn't mind if he gets silenced. He just want to shoot.
2. BKB heroes - use bkb after silence is casted then you wont be silenced anymore.


Pudge, Butcher

1. Doom - While pudge is on rot, doom him so he wont able to stop it for 12 seconds. Doom cannot be killed by pudge because of his high HP. If you want to run away from pudge, you have scourged earth to give you additional move speed.
2. Necrolyte - Pudge cannot be so careless in using his rot because if his HP reached half, one reaper can finish him off.
3. Centaur - Pudge can't use rot on heroes with much higher HP than him. He'd die faster.

4. High HP heroes
5. Heroes with escape mechanisms

Pugna, Oblivion

1. Doom - the best way to counter this hero is to doom it to make it useless in team fights.
2. Heroes with high HP - to survive his combo
3. Heroes that can clear creeps - to stop Pugna's sick pushing ability.
4. BKB heroes - to ignore pugna's skills

Purist Thunderwrath, Omniknight

1. Lion/Anub'arak - to drain his mana
2. Diffusal Heroes - to remove buffs made by omniknight and to burn his mana as well.
3. Naga Siren - Once he casts his guardian angel, you can sleep them first so once they wake up, Guardian Angel is wasted.

Raigor Stonehoof, Earthshaker

1. Raijin - can jump wherever Raigor is hiding to disrupt him from joining the clash.
2. Zeus - can delay his dagger-echo combo by using wrath of god
3. Venomancer - another delaying strategy for dagger echo combo is to search for Earthshaker and poison him. There is a long duration of poison making him unable to blink-echo.
4. Pipe heroes - makes echo slam do less damage
5. Silencer - Earthshaker can dagger echo but it's over after casting echo slam. He'd be silenced to death because of last word.

Razor, Lightning Revenant

1. Shadow Fiend - SF wont get purged because all his skills are non-hero click.
2. Heroes with summons or illusions - for Razor's ultimate not reach it's maximum damage potential.
3. Venomancer - lets you slow razor down without getting purged. Slowing razor wont make him chase the opponent making him waste his ultimate.

Rexxar, Beastmaster

1. Puck - Roar can be dodge by phase shift
2. Linken heroes - make him waste his ultimate.
3. Leviathan - roar duration wont be maximized
4. Chen - Chen can cast holy persuasion to get Beastmaster's pig.
5. Linken Heroes - to dodge his ultimate.

Rigwarl, Bristleback

1. Ursa Warrior - can eat bristleback in seconds
2. Sandking - Epicenter is ground damage which bristleback doesn't have any damage reduction.
3. Ezalor - Bristleback needs to chase heroes to get kills. So, you only need mana leak to rip all of the mana from bristleback, he won't have any mana for slowing and spamming.
4. Necrolyte - Tanker's worst nightmare

Rhasta, Shadow Shaman

1. Pugna - not only because of rhasta will have more damage from ward. but because rhasta's ultimate are wards that deal normal attacks to units. Decrepifying yourself wont let these rhasta hit you.
2. Silencer - Rhasta can't cast his combo on silencer
3. Blood seeker - silence duration is quite long for blood seeker, hopefully with an ally, to kill rhasta.
4. Omniknight - Repel plus Guardian can counter all rhasta's skills

Rikimaru, Stealth Assassin

1. Slardar - Amplify damage wastes riki's ultimate. Sprint makes it easier for slardar to get out of smoke.
2. Ghost Scepter heroes - riki wont have anything to do to damage and opponent activating ghost scepter
3. Bristleback - I consider bristleback a counter to rikimaru because his back has high damage reduction. Rikimaru's backstab wouldn't be felt much by bristleback though it would still add some backstab damage.

Rooftrellen, Trent Protector

1. Bat rider - No matter how high trent's hp is once bat rider cast 4 or more sticky napalm, it is easy for him to kill trent. Hiding in trees may also be countered by firefly, which destroys trees. Overgrowth doesn't disable bat rider while on firefly.
2. Slardar - makes Nature Guise useless for trent. Thus slardar's AOE stun can stop trent or other melee heroes from damaging him while overgrowth is still disabling him.
3. Necrolyte - for his high HP.
4. BKB or Linken Heroes - use bkb after trent casts his overgrowth. Linken to evade overgrowth.

Rotund'jere, Necrolyte

1. Viper - Since necrolyte needs to come closer to spam because of his short distance nuke-death pulse, you can slow him so he wont do so.
2. Pugna - Netherward damages Necrolyte while he spams thus drains some of his mana.
3. Linken heroes - Reaper can be dodged by linken.
4. BKB heroes - you may be stunned by reaper but you won't have any damage from it if your bkb is activated.

Rylai, Crystal Maiden

1. Pugna - again can kill rylai from rylai's own nukes because of netherward.
2. Mirana - can leap while on frostbite
3. Naix - can rage to escape from frostbite and freezing field.
4. Heroes with stun - can cancel her channeling ultimate.

Slardar, Slithereen Guard

1. Stunner heroes - it is hard to counter this hero alone. One necrolye alone will die first before it can reduce slardar's hp into half. It needs more than one stunner to finish this special hero.
2. Ghost Scepter - can save you for a moment and hopefully teammates will come to rescue you because if not, slardar will just use his sprint to catch you.

Slithice, Naga Siren

1. Ghost Scepter heroes - once you use ghost scepter you'll be free from being ensnared.
2. Axe - will enjoy rotating because of Naga Siren's illusion.
3. Earthshaker - Improved echo slam because of illusion
4. Linken - if you don't want to sleep from Song of siren. But in team fights you'll be whacked alone if you're awake and your allied heroes are awake. I just consider linken to be a great counter for song of siren. You'll need this when defending towers.
5. Tiny - Craggy exterior and avalanche-toss for illusions.

Shendelzare Silkwood, Vengeful Spirit

1. Heroes with escape mechanisms like qop, puck, potm - makes it easy to dodge your magic missile thus, it is easy for them to escape from the dangerous place vengeful brought them.
2. Linken - swap doesn't work if the hero have linken and it's not on cool down.
3. Silencer - once you swap in team fights and the opponents have a nortrom, once he casts silence. They can kill you while allow their allied hero you swapped to escape.

Spectre, Mercurial

1. Bat Rider - bat rider is often my choice to lane with spectre, who would hide inside the forest in times of trouble, can be chased by batrider using firefly.
2. Heroes with summons or illusions - He's consider a great emo killer. So having these with you, he can't have his bonus damage.
3. Ghost Scepter heroes - spectre will rely on hitting you with normal attack so you should have Ghost Scepter for him not to be able to damage you a lot. Dagger has cute damage and wont hurt a lot so Ghost Scepter is a good choice.


Strygwy, Bloodseeker

1. Abaddon - Apotic shield to tank the damage of the rupture. If ruptured, turn the borrowed time on then run for free HP.
2. Centaur - High hp heroes can just walk with ease from your rupture giving blood seeker lesser chance to have bonus speed.
3. Omniknight - Repel if ruptured. Stand if silenced while ruptured. Just heal and repel then run after the silence.
4. BKB heroes - just turn your BKB on to remove rupture.

Sven, Rogue Knight

1. Venomancer - slowing sven with venomous gale, makes sven hit nobody with his God's Strength.
2. Viper - Viper strike slows sven's attack speed.
3. Ursa warrior - Since sven needs to come close to opponents to hit them with God's Strength, ursa warrior would be happy to welcome you and eat you in 3 seconds.
4. Blade mail heroes - Simply activate blade mail when he is in God's Strength to make him feel what it feels like to be hit with God's Strength.

Squee and Spleen, Goblin Techies

1. Chen - can check if there are land mines with his creeps.
2. Gem heroes - are the best counter.

Terrorblade, Soul Keeper

1. Necrolyte - Before soul keeper have the chance to have low hp and sunder anyone, necrolyte will kill him once he reached half HP.
2. Viper - slowing soul keeper wont make him use his sunder because to sunder is to be close to opponents.
3. Zeus - to detect who's the real Terrorblade, thus with zeus range, it's hard for terrorblade also to sunder.
4. Orchid Heroes - Silence terrorblade when he's about to use Sunder. Then say goodbye.

Tiny, Stone Giant

1. High strength heroes - to surviva toss-avalanche combo.
2. Hitter heroes - to abuse tiny's low armor.
3. Necrolyte - for his high HP

Traxex, Drow Ranger

1. Windrunner - Traxex only rely on normal attacks. Windrun will make his normal attacks useless.
2. Tiny - can jump beside him and cast toss-avalanche before he can even cast silence.
3. Barathrum - Bashing traxex constantly so that he can't use his high normal damage or slow.

Ulfsaar, Ursa Warrior

1. Tiny - tiny have the chance to bash Ursa because of craggy exterior. Thus toss-avalanche deals a lot of damage for ursa.
2. Disablers - are needed to kill ursa because if you allow Ursa to attack the whole clash, there won't be anyone standing left in your team.
3. Doom - to cancel Ursa's buffs making his attacks not that painful.
4. Ghost Scepter heroes - to give some time for you to survive while waiting for allied heroes to rescue you.
5. Enigma - Malefice serves a big problem for ursa as well as Black hole.

Viper, Netherdrake

1. Dark Seer - can use surge to chase or run away from viper.
2. Lycan - with 522 speed, viper strike is useless. Lycan can finish viper like dinner.
3. Barathrum - another swift hero, charging viper and using Netherstrike will make viper fun to watch dying.

Visage, Necrolic

1. Windrunner - to escape from Visage's summons. Windrunner can lane against a trilane with visage making them waste their strong lane. Windrunner's windrun can help her run from grave chill.
2. Slardar - can amplify visage to deal more damage reducing Visage's tanking ability.

Vol'jin, Witch Doctor

1. Silencer - can disrupt vol'jin's channeling ultimate and turn Vol'jin's Heal.
2. BKB heroes - to remove maledict.
3. Ghost Scepter heroes - to make the death ward ignore you.
4. Stunner heroes - can stop Vol'jin's heal and ultimate.

Yurnero, Juggernaut

1. Dark Seer - to help team mates run from Yurnero's blade fury through surge.
2. Pugna - can decrepify himself when Yurnero omnislash him.
3. Harbringer - can use astral imprisonment on itself when being omnislashed to waste it. Thus a high int Harbringer can kill a yurnero in one blow of ultimate.
4. Chen - have creeps that gives big problem to Yurnero's omnislash.
5. Trent Protector - Can cancel blade fury with overgrowth.
6. Syllabear - Can cancel blade fury with entangle

Zeus, Lord of Olympia

1. Pugna - Zeus, being a nuker, depends on nuke which Pugna can easily counter using his Netherward.
2. Rikimaru - Wrath of God wont damage an invisible rikimaru. It will only show where riki is. Some is also a big problem for Zeus. He wont be able to use his skills inside it.
3. Chen - can heal the bleeding ally before Zeus can finish him off with wrath.
4. Defiance/Pipe heroes - reduces Zeus's nukes big time.
5. BKB heroes - can ignore Zeus's powerful nukes.


DotA Heroes Counters (A - H)

In hero picking, I often pick heroes that would counter the opponent's heroes.  I don't pick heroes just because they are strong.  Having a line up that counters the opponent's main bread and butter won 90% of the time than just picking 'imbalanced heroes'.These are lists of some Counters for almost all Dota heroes. I wont say that these counters are the best. These are only suggestions on how you can counter heroes that you find hard to defeat. I'll be focusing on the heroes' skill disadvantage. Items, like BKB, linken, manta, etc, wont be considered. I will consider only some items that the heroes are really dependent upon like blink dagger for Earthshaker. But, the rest are heroes without defending items. These heroes are arranged alphabetically.



Abaddon, Lord of Avernus

Some Hero Counters for Abaddon:

1. Axe - Before Abaddon can trigger his borrowed time, axe can finish him off with Culling Blade.
2. Doom - Borrowed time wont be triggered while doomed
3. Lina - Perfect timing can kill Abaddon without letting him use his borrowed time
4. Lion - same reason with lina
5. Viper - simply slow him while he's using his borrowed time then finish him after
7. Heroes with hex, euls, or skadi

Aiushta - Enchantress

Some Hero Counters for Aiushta:

1. Bane Elemental - uses magical damage for Aiushta, Untouchable wont affect Bane for he is not doing normal attaks. Thus, when Aiushta uses her heal(nature's attendant), sleep her first.
2. Lion - Disable her before she got to use her heal
3. Zeus - he can have constant damage to Aiushta without having problem with Untouchable. With Aiushta's low hp, Zeus wont have any problem.
4. Lina - 1 combo, Aiushta's dead
5. Tinker - Spam spells then rearm

Aggron Stonebreaker, Ogre Magi

Some Hero Counters for Aggron Stonebreaker:

1. Omniknight - Repel serves a big problem for ogre magi
2. Bradwarden - Multicast can't kill heroes with High HP.
3. Necrolyte - Ogre Magi has high hp but with reaper, Necrolyte can kill him with ease.
4. Medusa - Aside from high hp of strength heroes, Medusa has mana shield that will make her hp not affected by multicast that much.
5. Nerubian Weaver - Weaver wont be killed by one multicast. After getting multicasted weaver can just use its time lapse and bring back its full hp.
6. Heroes with Defiance

Akasha, Queen of Pain

Some Hero Counters for Akasha:

1. Puck - silence wont make her blink or use her other skills making akasha vulnerable to death due to her low hp apparently.
2. Crystal Maiden - bite wont allow her to blink more than 3 secs.
3. Doom - Same reason with puck, silence.
4. Blood Seeker - Akasha wont blink while ruptured. If she does, the damage would be fatal and seeker will find her apparently because of thirst. Silence, also thus serves big problem for Akasha.
5. Lion - With lion's disabling ability, akasha will have a hard time escaping.

Anub'arak, Nerubian Assassin

Some Hero Counters for Anub'arak:

1. Puck - Vendetta is useless if Puck auto-activated its Phase Shift
2. Slardar - Invi heroes' worst nightmare
3. Low intelligence heroes - after the nerf made to anub'arak, low intelligence heroes wont be much affected by mana burn.

Anub'seran, Nerubian Weaver

Some Hero Counters for Anub'seran:

1. Lion - can finish anub'seran without letting him escape or use time lapse.
2. Slardar - Can chase Anub'seran's quick move speed and using Amplify Damage, there's no escape for Anub'seran.
3. Tiny - can finish Anub'seran in one combo
4. Doom - Anub'seran can't use his survival mechanisms when doomed.
5. Puck - silence and coil wont let him escape

Atropos, Bane Elemental

Some Hero Counters for Bane Elemental:

1. Pugna - Bane Elemental needs a lot of mana and Pugna's ward can damage him a lot.
2. Earthshaker - ES's long range of stun can waste his ulti
3. Tidehunter - Levi can wake up anytime within the length of sleep
4. Doom - will make an skill dependent, like bane, useless
5. Puck - silence or coil can easily disable atropos and waste his fiend's grip

Azwraith, Phantom Lancer

Some Hero Counters for Azwraith:

1. Slardar - AOE stun can detect who's real and amplify damage will make dopplewalk useless
2. Earthshaker - illusions help Earthshaker do more damage
3. Leshrak - Pulse Nova, Split earth, Lightning Storm are skills that can wipe out Azwraith illusions as well as him.
4. Lina - AOE spells can wipe out illusions and Laguna can wipe him out of the game.
5. Kunkka - can wipe out Azwraith's illusions having 3 skills that can do AOE, particularly his splash normal damage.

Balanar, Night Stalker

Some Hero Counters for Balanar:

1. Ezalor - Use mana drain on Balanar. With his fast move speed, he'll drain out of mana in no time.
2. Axe - has high hp and wont die of spamming void. Axe's counter helix will give more damage to Balanar while attacking him.
3. Bradwarden - Also a high hp hero. He wont die by spamming void. Attacking him will give more damage to Balanar too.
4. Necrolyte - Though he may be silenced, the silence duration wont make him die. Thus, Balanar's high hp is countered by Reaper's Scythe.

Banehallow, Lycanthrope

Some Hero Counters for Banehallow:

1. Strygwyr - rupture his 522 move speed.
2. Enigma - he can't escape from black hole
3. Rasta - shackles him to death
4. Bane Elemental - Grip him to death. Use enfeeble to make his normal attack useless.
5. Pugna - decrepify makes him or your allied heroes ghost and he wont be able to attack them.
6. Ursa - can deal more damage than Balanar in one on one situation
7. Ghost Scepter Heroes

Barathrum, Spiritbreaker

Some Hero Counters for Barathrum:

1. Pugna - Decrepify makes his ulti useless
2. Omniknight - Guardian Angel wont give you any damage too from his ulti
3. Any stunner - will make him useless in team fights if perfectly executed.
4. Necrolyte - strenght heroes' worst nightmare
5. Ghost Scepter Heroes

Black Arachnia, Broodmother

Some Hero Counters for Black Arachnia:

1. Dark Seer - ion shell and vacuum can both damage brood while inside the web. Surge when brood activates life steal. Dark seer makes brood mother a total trash.
2. Slardar - makes web useless
3. Earthshaker - has stronger ultimate because of the spiderlings


Boush, Tinker

Some Hero Counters for Boush:

1. Balanar - Balanar can survive a lane against tinker. Silence can make tinker run. Void will make you catch him. Void can cancel travel.
2. Doom - For silence purpose also, and canceling travel.
3. Blood Seeker - For silence too
4. Puck - For silence too and travel cancel. Dodge missile by using phase shift

Bone Clinkz, Bone Fletcher

Some Hero Counters for Bone Clinkz:

1. Slardar - makes windwalk useless
2. Pugna - Bone Clinkz is dependent on making normal attack for damage. Decrepify will make him do 0 damage for certain period of time.
3. Lion - Disable Bone Clinkz to death.
4. Ghost Scepter Heroes

Bradwarden, Centaur Warchief

Some Hero Counters for Bradwarden:

1. Necrolyte - Reaper for his High HP.
2. Venomancer - slowing him wont make him use dagger, it wont make him catch his opponent for stomp or double edge. Poison Nova eats his hp because the damage dealt is by hp percentage.
3. Viper - Brad can't touch viper because of massive slow.

Chen, Holy Knight

Some Hero Counters for Chen:

1. Earthshaker - Chen's creeps add to Echo Slam's damage.
2. Kunkka - With kunkka's massive AOE, Chen's creeps will be gone in no time.
3. POTM - Ganking heroes with escape mechanisms are quite difficult for chen.
4. Doom - Devour chen's creeps.
5. Enchantress - Enchant Chen's creep to have it your own.

Crixalis, Sand King

Some Hero Counters for Crixalis:

1. Silencer - Epicenter can easily be canceled by Silencer wherever silencer is. Furthermore, silencer's last word makes crixalis's impale epicenter combo impossible to be done.
2. Venge - Stun can cancel epicenter. Epicenter casted or not can be swapped away.
3. Lion - has disable for epicenter and ground stun for sand storm.
4. Batrider - Impale wont hit batrider while on firefly. Firefly does great damage making sandking run instead of using his sand storm. Flaming lasso also cancels epicenter.
5. Puck - silence cancels epicenter. Phase shift can dodge impale or epicenter.

Darchrow, Enigma

Some Hero Counters for Darchrow:

1. Silencer - Notrom can cancel his Black Hole anytime and anywhere as long as global silence is not on cool down. Last word wastes Black hole too.
2. Puck - silence or coil can cancel Black Hole. Be sure to use waning rift behind enigma for you not to be joining the Black Hole party.
3. Venge - Swap having long range can stop black hole anytime though Enigma has BKB.
4. Doom - cancels Black hole though Enigma activated BKB.
5. Earthshaker - Echo Slam will deal more damage because of Eilodons

Darkterror, Faceless Void

Some Hero Counters for Darkterror:

1. Omniknight - Guardian Angel makes Chrono Sphere useless for Darkterror. He can't damage anyone because he only relies on normal attack to deal damage.
2. Naga Siren - Sleep everyone after void used his Chrono Sphere.
3. Vengeful Spirit - Swap void away from Chronosphere to lessen the time he can attack freely.
4. Luna Moonfang - Void usually use his timewalk to chase or set fights. After using his time lapse to chase or set the fight, activate Eclipse. He'll be the one to die.
5. Ghost Scepter Heroes

Ezalor, Keeper of the Light

Some Hero Counters for Ezalor:

1. Vengeful Spirit - Since ezalor would be sniping his charge, swap him to prevent him from defending.
2. Zeus - Ezalor has low hp and spammers like zeus hurt him a lot. Thus, you can use wrath of god to cancel Ezalor's recall.
3. Naix - will eat ezalor's low HP. Rage wont be able to stop naix from eating Ezalor.
4. Strygwyr - Silence ezalor and rupture if he tries to run away

Furion, Prophet

Some Hero Counters for Furion:

1. Rikimaru - He won't be damaged from Furion's Wrath of Nature. He can blink strike out from Furion's sprout. He can silence Furion to cancel his teleportation skill.
2. Spectre - He can dagger out from furion's trees. He can chase furion if he teleports.
3. Earthshaker - More damage of echo slam because of force of nature skill.
4. Heroes with Orchid, tango, or Quelling Blade.


Gondar, Bounty Hunter

Some Hero Counters for Gondar:

1. Slardar - invi heroes' worst nightmare
2. Omniknight - he can remove Gondar's Ultimate-track.
3. Lion - wont allow him to escape having disables and a powerful nuke - Finger of Death.
4. Heroes with Gem

Harbringer, Obsidian Destroyer

Some Hero Counters for Harbringer:

1. Omniknight - use repel to avoid his deadly ultimate, his arcane orb, and Astral Imprisonment.
2. Lion - disable harbringer from doing much damage and to finish it off since it has very low hp.
3. Vengeful Spirit - One good counter to Harbringer is to swap him to your team mates to be able to focus fire on him. He can die in no time.
4. BKB heroes

to be continued... (J - Z heroes)

Develop Your Own DotA Team (Defense of the Ancients)

I started my own DotA team when I heard about a tournament in one computer shop near our University. The team I made was composed of friends from high school. I was only an average player being taught by my DotA Teacher, Mark Bernardo. He exposed me to his DotA friends who happened to be the best team back then, the Inzane. I observed how good their team play was. Individually, they may experience defeat but when it's time to play as a team, it's quite impossible to defeat them. How did they develop that kind of team? I asked myself. I didn't stop studying how to have a solid team. I had a notebook of strategies I've formulated myself. I didn't want to be copy cat because I know if I'm going to copy their strategy, there would be no chance to defeat them. We had join several tournaments to improve our team. I asked Mark if we could get a chance to fight against his team and I'm willing to pay for their PC rental. We had fail a lot of times. We would have talks after every defeat we experience. One thing I love about my team is that they never lost their trust in me. Though we always fail, they always follow my plans and never complain. It was after a year, when we reached the top. We managed to defeat the team we admired a lot, the Inzane. Thus, we end up winning every game. Now, I already retired from this game and I just play when I have time, I want to share some things I have learned in developing your own DotA Team.  This is a Dota guide on creating and improving your own team in Dota Allstars.




Be Open Minded


The key to improvement is understanding. Seek first to understand the factors what made a strategy effective or ineffective. You should also learn to accept facts. Accept that you and your team mates can make several errors in the game. Don't whine on them and show immaturity. Instead, praise the things they've done good. Discuss generally the errors made in every game. You should use your mind and learn from the game, not your heart to feel frustrated for weeks. It is alright to lose games. Better strategy and execution really would win. It's not that you're dumb. They can tell you you're dumb but you are not. It's just that you need more experience and you have to know the game better. 

Know Each Player's Potential


After several games played together, you as a leader, should know what are the things your players do best. Study their game and decide which role you can ask them to have. You only have 4 team mates, it's not that difficult to detect what they do best. You'd see if a player who already know how to farm, let him improve so in that field. Players who are sneaky can play gankers or setters. Players who are already a team player can play support role who can be the savior of the team. Experiment on the effectiveness of the team after giving their roles, playing games against different level of teams. Again if you fail, decide what adjustments are needed to be done. Maybe the player just needs more practice. Don't change his role at once or remove him from the team.

Lead, don't Manage


If you want your team to stick together until the end, Lead.  Don't manage them, they are not things.  Leading is different from managing. Leading is making your team want to follow you, managing is forcing your team to follow you. You can lead by telling them what your plan is and how will it be effective. Example: "I'm planning to try pushing early so that we can have more gold." They would want that. Who doesn't want more gold, right? They would obey you whenever you say push because they want it too. In managing, you are the only one who know what your plan is and you just tell them to obey you. Once you fail with your plan, they'd lost their trust to your command. Leading inspires them to contribute more ways on how to attain the goal. It's way better than simply following commands. The ability to play as a team depends on the leader. One of the best way is to lead by example. If you play carry, show them how to play carry effectively. Whatever the outcome of the game would be, always play at your best. Do not show any sign of lost hope for they would do the same.

Never be afraid to try Something New

I remember one time, we were all used into having 3 farmers and 2 supports. Then, I was curious as to what if we would only have 1 main farmer and 4 heroes would be moving around the map to kill opponents making our carry farm more gold than usual. Then my team mates agreed and didn't mind if we will lose. After the game, we did lost, but they found it exciting. We practiced that kind of strategy for about a week. Then, it came to be our solid strategy that can knock off any team. We usually use it as surprise tactics in tournaments. I shared this because I want you all to try different things and never regret doing it. Experiments often start with failures. From those failures look at how great our technology now.  Same thing with DotA. Don't simply go with the flow. There are a lot of heroes and a lot of strategies to counter every play styles.

Watch Professional Replays

Learn from other team's error.  You cannot make all the errors in the world.  In watching replays watch their play style and acquire the skills needed for the improvement of your team.  Hero picks are not to be copied totally.  You should start with having your own formulated play style. It is essential for leaders to plan original play style for the team because most players today are already watching Professional Replays.  Plan strategies that would push your team's full potential.  I usually watch professional replays and I, honestly, imitate some strategies made by a team but not all of them.  I usually make it a hybrid my own.  Doing so, you'll be unpredictable to other teams.



Be Flexible

You have to be flexible to make the necessary adjustments from games lost. To improve is to change. Thus, changing is not easy for majority of people. If changing is necessary to have an effective team, then change. I was trained to be a carry hero player but when I realized how bored my team mates are in supporting, I switched to being our main support in our team.  I make some adjustments to make the team more effective. I find it obvious most of the time what are the things that wont work or fit in the game plan, then I tell my team mates what game plan adjustments I'm going to make so that they would know what to do.

Be Patient


This is somewhat implied in the other statements I made. But I just want to emphasize this more. Be patient. Never lose hope. Never think that you cannot beat the best team in the world. May it be Ehome or LGD, you can be better if you work for what you desire. "I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying." -Michael Jordan.

Watch Your Games

The best way to improve your team is watching your games. You have the ability to clearly see the errors made or how the opponent managed to defeat your strategy. If you totally understand the things that lead to your defeat, you wont do that same thing again.  Eliminating errors made by your team is another way of saying that your team is really improving.

 
Design by Free WordPress Themes | Bloggerized by Lasantha - Premium Blogger Themes | Dcreators