Carry Countering

[TerranUp16]

There has been and will be a lot of talk in this forum about the fact that carries and assassins can be countered. But how? "Teamwork" is generically true, but how do you consistently apply that, particularly in public matches?

Ranged Carries

Is there any class of hero that scares SoaDA's populace more? Torrace, Skalla, Ziri, and Khagas are all capable of last-hitting with impunity, pouring gold into damage per second and life steal items, and preventing escape through speed and range.

How do they Become Scary?

They are greedy, economic powerhouses. Their range, damage, and positional abilities allow them to grab a high percentage of possible last-hits in any lane they occupy, and typically at least one of these four will be in a center lane position.

Aside: Importance of the Center Lane

By convention, the center lane is almost always reserved for 1v1 duels in the early game. Because experience gets divided when multiple heroes from the same team are in the same lane, this means that dueling heroes in the center lane, even if the battle between them remains equal, are most-likely to level faster than heroes in other lanes.

Gold income also tends to be amplified in this lane for ranged carries, because they are capable of last-hitting almost everything, by being alone it means they're not losing 50% gold on some last-hits to allies that take them instead. A communicative support player can negate this, but in the current metagame, it's rare that happens.

The takeaway though is that middle lane combatants, if left alone, will tend to be ~10-20% ahead in XP/level for most of the game.

How Can They be Stopped?

Few heroes that aren't ranged carries themselves can counter a ranged carry in-lane. This leaves two reliable options:

1. Don't try to counter the ranged carries, instead deploy your own in the same lanes and level with them
   
2. Team-up and push the ranged carries out of the lane

The first option is viable because it creates a mirror situation, but it hopes that the opposing team will not execute option #2 to give their carry an advantage and it also hinges on your carries' skill to turn the tide of late-game team battles for your team.

The second option is more reliably effective. The most convenient way to do this is to have a jungler come and support the lane with the ranged carry by targeting a coordinated gank (you don't need voice chat nor even text chat for this; "On My Way" and regular targeting pings are sufficient). It's perfectly ok to not kill the ranged carry, the point is to get them to retreat behind the tower and to have the jungler immediately vacate the lane after this to allow your team's hero(es) in the lane to feed and grab an XP boost.

Part of the point of showing the ranged carry the gank threat is to get them to understand that they can be double-teamed at any time and that will force them to go after last-hits and "free shots" at your lane hero less often.

Other Threats Ranged Carries Pose

Ranged carries also have a relatively easier time against big creeps like the Troll and Hydra than most heroes do, and ranged carries tend to make some of the most effective use of these abilities out of all heroes.

The first step to countering this is to keep a ranged carry's leveling in check as described above, because an under-leveled and underfed ranged carry can ill afford to spend time outside the lane expending effort on a big creep while the lane gets pushed and the opponent gets "free" experience.

The second step is to keep tabs on where the ranged carry is. If the ranged carry gets forced out of the lane, keep a mental timer on how long it should take for them to return to the lane, and if they exceed that, let the team know and keep an eye on the big jungle targets. Also, use vision when you suspect it's a threat. Vision items aren't cheap, but the value of being able to catch a carry as they try to take out a big monster and ganking them or forcing them to retreat is generally worth it.

Above All

Ranged carries are late-game nightmares in ways that only a few other heroes can even begin to match, so it may mean giving up some ground to other, dangerous heroes, but keeping carries in-check in the early game is more important to your late-game success, so when fretting that an Ermuk, Vexie, Rachna, Atasha, etc... are gaining levels and gold because you're containing enemy carries, just remember that late-game those heroes will not be the nightmares that ranged carries would be. Also, you're almost always going to have at least one ranged carry on your team, so if you're successfully suppressing enemy ranged carries, you are paving the way for your own ranged carry to deal with overleveled or overfed other heroes.

Other Hero Types

Coming later!

[Lou_Wolfskin]

...i'm not sure why but this almost sounds as if ranged carries were the only thing that matters...

[TerranUp16]

Mostly because I haven't added other heroes yet ;)

And because they are some of the most pivotal components of either team in the late-game and bring forth the snowball faster and harder than any other class of heroes.

They are also some of the least intuitive to counter, because they generally require team sacrifice to succeed. The only three that come close on this front are Slag, Drengar, and Xeros, but even they are more obviously countered than the ranged carries.

All other heroes* are beastly in their own ways and when played well warrant their own posts on how to mitigate them (for example, Rachna can be a versatile nightmare because she's an effective jungler, a stalwart lane holder, a last-hit thief, a tank, a survivor, and a disrupt/slow menace, but her domination is typically less obvious and countering her is more situational to team composition and game state).

* I have yet to see Lithoron wielded with any viable impact barring on teams that could already win 4v5 and while I like Vexie's rework, I feel that since then she's failed to provide a better support option than other available hero options. I also feel like Lassidar suffers from the current metagame and his relative positioning compared to alternatives (I also feel like even with his W and E that he lacks escapability compared to ranged carries and his mage components don't bring enough to the table to warrant opting for him over a ranged carry; the influence of the metagame is that he's weak to ranged carries)

[Corpsefoot]

Great read

[Ekko Tek]

Argh - was just answering and then misclicked and lost my post.
Short version on countering: Laning phase - yes, jungle ganks and/or certain mages like Atasha or Slag that can wave clear faster and have some slows/area denial help keep them pushed back and unable to leave lane at least. Teamfights: a Rachna or Bataar that can instantly initiate and engage them (plus glyphs like Cripple) are key as well.

[Lou_Wolfskin]

Originally posted by TerranUp16:

Mostly because I haven't added other heroes yet ;)

And because they are some of the most pivotal components of either team in the late-game and bring forth the snowball faster and harder than any other class of heroes.

They are also some of the least intuitive to counter, because they generally require team sacrifice to succeed. The only three that come close on this front are Slag, Drengar, and Xeros, but even they are more obviously countered than the ranged carries.

All other heroes* are beastly in their own ways and when played well warrant their own posts on how to mitigate them (for example, Rachna can be a versatile nightmare because she's an effective jungler, a stalwart lane holder, a last-hit thief, a tank, a survivor, and a disrupt/slow menace, but her domination is typically less obvious and countering her is more situational to team composition and game state).

* I have yet to see Lithoron wielded with any viable impact barring on teams that could already win 4v5 and while I like Vexie's rework, I feel that since then she's failed to provide a better support option than other available hero options. I also feel like Lassidar suffers from the current metagame and his relative positioning compared to alternatives (I also feel like even with his W and E that he lacks escapability compared to ranged carries and his mage components don't bring enough to the table to warrant opting for him over a ranged carry; the influence of the metagame is that he's weak to ranged carries)

Lassidar would need some hybrid items, and while i like the idea behind Xeros it would be nice if he was more of a hybrid as well so that there would be a bit of a drawback and you don't simply build another mage.

The reason for my initial reaction isn't because i don't see your points but because it reads as if a whole team could be made up of carries only, sure could be done either way, and that other heroes such as the jungler, the support, the tank etc, just don't matter.

I'm not sure how exactly your post will change when you add other heroes to this but at the moment, to me, it feels like a hymn to all carries and nothing else.

The only thing Vexies rework needs to be as viable as the other supports, by the way, would be that her heal is not only triggered via auto-attack hits as the only one being able to get a huge amount of it is Khagas.

[TerranUp16]

I agree with the Vexie point as a starting spot, though I feel like she'll need a close eye kept on her from there on out to see if she needs more, because it might just be metagame, but she still seems like she will be struggling there.

I didn't try to address the idea of overloading carries directly because I felt the post did enough to talk about that carries are most dangerous when snowballing via ideal lane deployment, even mentioning that a carry is often better alone in a lane than with a support because multiple carries will starve each other.

The skinny on countering an all-carry team is to deploy only one hero per lane and jungle with the remaining two, only entering the lane to pressure carries off the tower. The in-lane heroes play solid defense and do not worry about last-hits (although steal them when possible- Rachna's Q, Dekain's Q, Lassidar's Q, Ziri's Q or W, Torrace's W or R, Serewyn's Q, Vexie's W or E, Batar's W, Silvus's W on minions + Q to escape combo, Drengar's Q, Khagas's passive, Skalla's Q, Xeros's Q, Vallamere's W + E combo to get a shield and speed boost from an ally and E for the capability to chain multiple last-hits with fewer attacks/less time, Lithoron's E (expensive though so try to get multiple low health minions at once), Beroth's E, Slag's Q or E with Q/W, Grugg's Q or W, or Ermuk's E can be used to steal some last-hits so you don't completely gold-starve, though a gold farm item when you get a chance isn't a bad idea) and only engage with any real pushback at the tower.

In the later stages of the game, at least one or two of the carries will be significantly underfed and underleveled, so just roll a group of two or three of your better teamfighters and relentlessly target the underleveled carries. If the better-leveled carries try to turn it into a full group fight, use your team's disrupts on the threatening carries and target your attacks on the under-leveled carries first and then take out the leveled carries (for example, Rachna would use her R to disrupt as many leveled carries as possible but target her W then Q at an under-leveled carry). You will lose some heroes from your side on the team fight, but ideally the under-leveled carries will be dead before the other team gets its first kill in the fight meaning the under-leveled carries won't benefit from XP/gold while even your dead team members will get some benefit. Beyond that, you simply ensure that you take the quests, which should be easy with two junglers, as even From the Depths can be won off your back foot by having junglers make timely entrances and having lane defenders let the enemy carries do most of the work and then snipe the kill (for example, Vexie's W, Rachna's W, Torrace's R, Beroth's Q, etc... are great at sniping From the Depths kills).

Against teams that are just carry-heavy but that have support, the original post more or less applies. Use junglers/team maneuvers to pressure the unsupported carry and starve them and feed off them and/or force one of the supports to switch or the other carries to lane-cross and lose feeding time.

Had a great example the other night where I was dominating center lane as Torrace and was even holding off a Drengar trying to double-push with the center Atasha just fine, but my team didn't coordinate the Path to Ascension quest well so I grabbed the quest item and the other team pushed in a more cohesive manner with their team while their carry was setup in the bottom lane so he could still farm during most of the quest. I ended up stalling at level 5 for the entire quest while their carry rocketed to level 9 and that was basically gg.

[Corpsefoot]

It's telling how most of the strategies Terran advocated in the above post involve some measure of team involvement, if not coordination; people would be wise to reach out to their partners once in a while ;D

[TerranUp16]

xD

From experience in my most recent game by the way, if a player drops and you for ex have a Skalla mid and your Torrace is holding her fine and you have a Torrace top soloing against a Khagas and doing well solo laning because of the dropped player, your jungler absolutely needs to support otherwise your Khagas will starve and the Torrace will snowball. I know I suggested this previously, but this was one of those, "When an ally on your team doesn't listen to you specifically asking they ignore the bottom Verics because the other team is and that they go support top and take those Verics which the Torrace and Khagas are both ignoring so that your Torrace can stay center and keep Skalla in check..." that it's a really, really good idea to heed that suggestion because your late game will really, really suck if you don't.