Qustion to offlaners about balancing between farming and fighting

[Fenrir_El]

So, most of my time on Dota 2 I played position one, so it is quite hard for me to play offlane, cause I judge my gameplay by gpm, deaths and item timings. When it comes to offlane though, I am not sure how to measure my losses (if I am using loo much gold on regen, if I am not farming enough, etc). Usually, I try to decide on how aggressive I am in early game based on my support and in mid game based on my midlaner. The more aggressive they are, the more I buy stat items, mangos, salves, etc.

---How do you decide what to do?---

I think I am a decent offlaner in my bracket (arcon I-II), cause I often win my lanes and I buy necessary items for team/countering specific enemy. BUT compared to my carry playstyle, I always feel like I suck as offlaner, cause often I just don't know what should I do: pressure the lane, pressure carry in the jungle, farm more or follow midlaner around, etc

P.S. off-topic question. what carry is good against Undying?

[Fdynasty]

Originally posted by No0ne:

So, most of my time on Dota 2 I played position one, so it is quite hard for me to play offlane, cause I judge my gameplay by gpm, deaths and item timings. When it comes to offlane though, I am not sure how to measure my losses (if I am using loo much gold on regen, if I am not farming enough, etc). Usually, I try to decide on how aggressive I am in early game based on my support and in mid game based on my midlaner. The more aggressive they are, the more I buy stat items, mangos, salves, etc.

---How do you decide what to do?---

I think I am a decent offlaner in my bracket (arcon I-II), cause I often win my lanes and I buy necessary items for team/countering specific enemy. BUT compared to my carry playstyle, I always feel like I suck as offlaner, cause often I just don't know what should I do: pressure the lane, pressure carry in the jungle, farm more or follow midlaner around, etc

P.S. off-topic question. what carry is good against Undying?

Dude i have 5k hours of game experience let me explain you what is offlaner is.

Offlaner is a person who either farm by dominating the carry or by staying in the tower and farm the creep wave and let the safe lane carry farm which he will farm anyways because you cant cover the whole jungle in early game.

so the point is the carry will farm no matter how much you harass him, now depending on which hero you play as offlaner for example you play sven and you are versus worst case scenario ( lion and antimage) you are probably out of mana at level 3 so now you cant kill or catch only thing you can do is take the last hits without buying much regen , so what you do is you buy a ring of health than stay there and farm as long as you want and focus on items which can counter the carry (silveredege) 2 hits stun + 2 hits antimage is no where to be found,

so you farm until someone starts ganking with you make the safe laner feels hes dominating the lane which is probably not because he cant kill you under tower, trust me if you frustrated the enemy enough they will jump inside your tower and kill them self.

Now you focus on farm , forget about the jungle until you have tower 1 and you have 2 allies with you keep farming that lane until you are ganked simple than move with the team.

[Fenrir_El]

Originally posted by Fdynasty:

Originally posted by No0ne:

So, most of my time on Dota 2 I played position one, so it is quite hard for me to play offlane, cause I judge my gameplay by gpm, deaths and item timings. When it comes to offlane though, I am not sure how to measure my losses (if I am using loo much gold on regen, if I am not farming enough, etc). Usually, I try to decide on how aggressive I am in early game based on my support and in mid game based on my midlaner. The more aggressive they are, the more I buy stat items, mangos, salves, etc.

---How do you decide what to do?---

I think I am a decent offlaner in my bracket (arcon I-II), cause I often win my lanes and I buy necessary items for team/countering specific enemy. BUT compared to my carry playstyle, I always feel like I suck as offlaner, cause often I just don't know what should I do: pressure the lane, pressure carry in the jungle, farm more or follow midlaner around, etc

P.S. off-topic question. what carry is good against Undying?

Dude i have 5k hours of game experience let me explain you what is offlaner is.

Offlaner is a person who either farm by dominating the carry or by staying in the tower and farm the creep wave and let the safe lane carry farm which he will farm anyways because you cant cover the whole jungle in early game.

so the point is the carry will farm no matter how much you harass him, now depending on which hero you play as offlaner for example you play sven and you are versus worst case scenario ( lion and antimage) you are probably out of mana at level 3 so now you cant kill or catch only thing you can do is take the last hits without buying much regen , so what you do is you buy a ring of health than stay there and farm as long as you want and focus on items which can counter the carry (silveredege) 2 hits stun + 2 hits antimage is no where to be found,

so you farm until someone starts ganking with you make the safe laner feels hes dominating the lane which is probably not because he cant kill you under tower, trust me if you frustrated the enemy enough they will jump inside your tower and kill them self.

Now you focus on farm , forget about the jungle until you have tower 1 and you have 2 allies with you keep farming that lane until you are ganked simple than move with the team.

And what should I do after the initial laning stage? Where should i be on the map? On my deadlane? around midlaner? or keep pestering enemy offlane by pushing the creeps and farming in their jungle?

[Ulthwé]

Originally posted by Fdynasty:

Originally posted by No0ne:

So, most of my time on Dota 2 I played position one, so it is quite hard for me to play offlane, cause I judge my gameplay by gpm, deaths and item timings. When it comes to offlane though, I am not sure how to measure my losses (if I am using loo much gold on regen, if I am not farming enough, etc). Usually, I try to decide on how aggressive I am in early game based on my support and in mid game based on my midlaner. The more aggressive they are, the more I buy stat items, mangos, salves, etc.

---How do you decide what to do?---

I think I am a decent offlaner in my bracket (arcon I-II), cause I often win my lanes and I buy necessary items for team/countering specific enemy. BUT compared to my carry playstyle, I always feel like I suck as offlaner, cause often I just don't know what should I do: pressure the lane, pressure carry in the jungle, farm more or follow midlaner around, etc

P.S. off-topic question. what carry is good against Undying?

Dude i have 5k hours of game experience let me explain you what is offlaner is.

Offlaner is a person who either farm by dominating the carry or by staying in the tower and farm the creep wave and let the safe lane carry farm which he will farm anyways because you cant cover the whole jungle in early game.

so the point is the carry will farm no matter how much you harass him, now depending on which hero you play as offlaner for example you play sven and you are versus worst case scenario ( lion and antimage) you are probably out of mana at level 3 so now you cant kill or catch only thing you can do is take the last hits without buying much regen , so what you do is you buy a ring of health than stay there and farm as long as you want and focus on items which can counter the carry (silveredege) 2 hits stun + 2 hits antimage is no where to be found,

so you farm until someone starts ganking with you make the safe laner feels hes dominating the lane which is probably not because he cant kill you under tower, trust me if you frustrated the enemy enough they will jump inside your tower and kill them self.

Now you focus on farm , forget about the jungle until you have tower 1 and you have 2 allies with you keep farming that lane until you are ganked simple than move with the team.

Thanks captain obvious. Also, Sven is a really bad offlaner. You won't outfarm the enemy carry, of course, so you shouldn't farm when he is farming too unless you are farming blink or blade mail to chase him in jungle and kill him.

[41]

What is Sven doing in the offlane? How is Sven an offlaner?

[Mr Madbull]

Sven offlane is probably 2k meta

Your job as offlaner is very simple - you create space.

1. In early laning stage, that means surviving in lane and putting pressure on carry to force their supports to continue to babysit their hc. Think of this scenario soooo common at low skill mmr <4k: the offlaner feeds, the enemy hc is strong and high level, and then the enemy support goes to gank other lanes. Other lanes get ganked, now everybody feeds, and enemy team snowballs. Gg

If you are a good offlaner, you apply pressure, and force enemy rotations to your side of the map (because they are crying to their mid or their pos 4 to gank). Its ok if you have a few deaths at that point because your mid and hc are free farming. Gg for you!

2. Mid game - group as 4 or 3 ( if you have greedy mid) and either gank or take towers. Thats why you build auras and frontline for your team. This way you create space for your pos 1, by leading the charge of the rest of the team

3. Late game - doesnt matter, you just soak damage and be a nuissance in team fights. By that point if you do steps 1 and 2 correctly it doesnt even matter, your hc is super fat and its gg

[Metal Arms]

Originally posted by No0ne:

Originally posted by Fdynasty:

Dude i have 5k hours of game experience let me explain you what is offlaner is.

Offlaner is a person who either farm by dominating the carry or by staying in the tower and farm the creep wave and let the safe lane carry farm which he will farm anyways because you cant cover the whole jungle in early game.

so the point is the carry will farm no matter how much you harass him, now depending on which hero you play as offlaner for example you play sven and you are versus worst case scenario ( lion and antimage) you are probably out of mana at level 3 so now you cant kill or catch only thing you can do is take the last hits without buying much regen , so what you do is you buy a ring of health than stay there and farm as long as you want and focus on items which can counter the carry (silveredege) 2 hits stun + 2 hits antimage is no where to be found,

so you farm until someone starts ganking with you make the safe laner feels hes dominating the lane which is probably not because he cant kill you under tower, trust me if you frustrated the enemy enough they will jump inside your tower and kill them self.

Now you focus on farm , forget about the jungle until you have tower 1 and you have 2 allies with you keep farming that lane until you are ganked simple than move with the team.

And what should I do after the initial laning stage? Where should i be on the map? On my deadlane? around midlaner? or keep pestering enemy offlane by pushing the creeps and farming in their jungle?

You take the hard farm, like if the safe lane is pushed in and the carry is harassed a lot you take the safe lane farm if you're carry doesn't want to stay there. Basically you take the unsafe farm, make space and if you pick a good offlaner you should be ganking with +2 and maybe mid, if you're an offlaner that needs more gold and exp, take the hard farm.

[Fenrir_El]

I've read your comments, so follow up questions.
1) in 2,5k most carries are idiots who stay in the lane until hell freezes over. and half the time, midlaner just wants to farm and farm. In these situations, should I try to do some smoke ganks with supports or just defend towers/farm passively? I play heroes like pangolier/brewmaster/phoenix. I chose them, because they feel the least reliant on having a good support on your team. And those picks helps me adjust to my support. If I have ranged weak/or/strong melee support, I pick phoenix. If I have strong nuker, I pick pangolier, cause then carry just can't keep up with the aggression (they so don't wanna spend gold on heals). and I have a disabler/sustain support, I pick brewmaster, so I can tank + deny + harras on lane.

2) why people pick sand king/necrophos on offlane? they don't really feel that tanky.

3) how is Earth Spirit offlane if I build him into tank (aura items/blade mail)?

[Water Ｖａｐｏｒ Merchant]

Originally posted by No0ne:

I've read your comments, so follow up questions.
1) in 2,5k most carries are idiots who stay in the lane until hell freezes over. and half the time, midlaner just wants to farm and farm. In these situations, should I try to do some smoke ganks with supports or just defend towers/farm passively? I play heroes like pangolier/brewmaster/phoenix. I chose them, because they feel the least reliant on having a good support on your team. And those picks helps me adjust to my support. If I have ranged weak/or/strong melee support, I pick phoenix. If I have strong nuker, I pick pangolier, cause then carry just can't keep up with the aggression (they so don't wanna spend gold on heals). and I have a disabler/sustain support, I pick brewmaster, so I can tank + deny + harras on lane.

2) why people pick sand king/necrophos on offlane? they don't really feel that tanky.

3) how is Earth Spirit offlane if I build him into tank (aura items/blade mail)?

To answer question 2, Necro and Sand King are often run offlane for a few good reasons. Sand King is almost necessarily an offlane hero because he benefits so significantly from 2 key purchases, Aether Lens and Aghs. Those allow him to initiate fights at a far greater distance than Blink can allow, making landing his ultimate much easier. A Sand King played as a position 4 or 5 has to use Blink since the other two items together are too expensive when there are other key items to be buying in those positions.
Necrophos is often played as an offlane because he's good at interrupting the enemy carries last hits with his Q, while also dealing some static damage over time with Heartstopper, forcing the enemy to invest more gold into regen than they otherwise would. His ultimate also punishes enemies that risk hanging around too long. However, Necro doesn't have much escape, and his stats are low, so a coordinated stun lock can easily end him in lane, even if the position 4 is there as well. Crystal Maiden is particularly effective against Necro in the laneing stage.

[Metal Arms]

Originally posted by No0ne:

I've read your comments, so follow up questions.
1) in 2,5k most carries are idiots who stay in the lane until hell freezes over. and half the time, midlaner just wants to farm and farm. In these situations, should I try to do some smoke ganks with supports or just defend towers/farm passively? I play heroes like pangolier/brewmaster/phoenix. I chose them, because they feel the least reliant on having a good support on your team. And those picks helps me adjust to my support. If I have ranged weak/or/strong melee support, I pick phoenix. If I have strong nuker, I pick pangolier, cause then carry just can't keep up with the aggression (they so don't wanna spend gold on heals). and I have a disabler/sustain support, I pick brewmaster, so I can tank + deny + harras on lane.

2) why people pick sand king/necrophos on offlane? they don't really feel that tanky.

3) how is Earth Spirit offlane if I build him into tank (aura items/blade mail)?

I think if your carry wants to stay in his lane and he isn't being killed or harass let him stay in it as long as he wants. If he gets harassed try and make space for him by either helping him win the lane bot or winning your lane so that the enemy has to tp to counter act your aggression.

If you're losing the lane completely to the carry and support, you should know your heros power spikes and when they're most effective. Thats when you should gank mid or bot or maybe evade the enemy jungle/ push the lanes. Ask your teammates to rotated top so you can push the carry out of the safe lane. Make sure they don't tp and stay out of vision when they move towards you, vision game is very important for your team and the other team. You want it to be a surpise, thats why smokes are important but if you know vision radius and where wards are going to be and how to abuse line of sight, they shouldnt need smoke and sometimes them seeing the rotations is enough. But a thing people need to learn is when youre strong enough to kill them and how to utlize your hp, mana and skills to kill people. Many times over people over commit and spend too long trying to kill someone under a tower and then you lose everyone. Just know when youre strong and when you need to retreat.

Sand King is a good offlane because he has sandstorm to kill the wave creeps and he has his passive to kill the wave creeps with a very short cd stun. An enemy melee hero has very little counter against a good sk in a sandstorm and the passive when the invis fade time is so low and the passsive has aoe and the carry can't really contest the creeps when they are poison, so they will go under tower and he will use a lot of regen and miss last hits. They need a ward to counter it and even than he can just deward or easily take the jungle creeps when the support pulls.

Necrophos is good offlaner because he has self regen with last hits, his passive and q can outrade most heros and bleed the carry of regen. And his ghost walk makes him immune to melee attack and lets hit stick become like a cheese for an easy bait. He hit his power spike of 6 and the enemy carry has to be very careful in lane because he gets an added respawn timer amount.

Offlaner earth spirit is more of a pos 4 than a 3 since he can do without items, his whole kit is just good in general. he can be greedy and hyper aggressive all game. yes he is a good aura carrier because he gets into the thick of it and is pretty tanky. I think an urn first though is better for him because of his ganks and kill secures, can build a force or get a blink, etc. Late game he should build aura, i think early and mid game he should build around ganks and supporting his team by being aggressive and counter acting ganks. Late game he is not so much a powerhouse so aura items can be bought.

[Zagryzaec]

Offlaner is a backbone of the game. He is supposed to be able to move forward and pressure opponent without spending time on farming, but still taking farm from lane and occasions.

If you can fight - fight. Farming is for carry. Also pango, Phoenix aren't characters that move forward and take hits, that will make progressing a very hard task for your team. And team that can't advance get initiated on and consequently lose.

A common problem for low level pubs where no one wants to trust his teammates do their roles, so offlaner kinda wants to be carry number 3 with no responsibilities of midlaner and carry. Therefore pangos, wr, Sven, leorics and sucks are common guests of the offlane.

As for balancing I ve already told before, that when you pick a character you must already have some plan on how are you going to play the game and that defines your actions and build.

For example when I played centaur offlane my game plan was pretty simple.

Contest farm early if possible wether you solo or not. If not possible don't die, get exp, keep enemy sup in lane and get those tranquil. As you have tranquil harass enemy carry from lane with double edge and regenerating on tranks. Then get good to reduce double edge recoil and if enemy have lots of magic damage - pipe. Then blademail and at this point you can have a massive impact on any teamfight. Then as soon as you get heart about 35 min of game (average game time at that time was 40 mins so it is pretty early for standard enemy though process)ANY wipe of enemy team means I can break throne with basically any team before enemies respawn.

As you see this game plan shows me clear what and when I want to do. In lane, in midgame (and that's pretty much where the game ends) and if needed lategame (just add a cuirass).

As you see this centaur build doesn't include traditional blink as my game plan doesn't include running after someone along the jungle, persuing or getting out of fight. Its focused on winning fight due to Superior hp, skills, items, pushing enemy out of lanes of area and taking objectives. Reason for picking centaur is not just tankieness and strenght in fight, but also I build initiation tool to replace blink and abilities to quickly destroy and at the same time tank towers. I only need teammates to destroy naked throne as in about ten sec I destroy both t4 single handedly. That's also reason why endgame was AC and not tarrasqe or blink, or abyssal or crimson or something.

His early pipe along with blademail and lots of hp+ ult to engage or disengage the fight depending the situation allow to survive and dish out tons of damage in fight at very least forcing enemies to retreat. And his next big item unexpectedly ends the game.

This build got me if I remember correct 64+% winrate even though untraditional and CW still sit in my profile as one of tip winrates hero

So how exactly you plan to win the game with your characters? That should answer your question in what you need and what to do.

[Fenrir_El]

Originally posted by Metal Arms:

.

If you're losing the lane completely to the carry and support, you should know your heros power spikes and when they're most effective. Thats when you should gank mid or bot or maybe evade the enemy jungle/ push the lanes. Ask your teammates to rotated top so you can push the carry out of the safe lane. Make sure they don't tp and stay out of vision when they move towards you, vision game is very important for your team and the other team. You want it to be a surpise, thats why smokes are important but if you know vision radius and where wards are going to be and how to abuse line of sight, they shouldnt need smoke and sometimes them seeing the rotations is enough. But a thing people need to learn is when youre strong enough to kill them and how to utlize your hp, mana and skills to kill people. Many times over people over commit and spend too long trying to kill someone under a tower and then you lose everyone. Just know when youre strong and when you need to retreat.

good point. I should check out when my offlane picks get powerspike before lvl6.

Originally posted by Water Ｖａｐｏｒ Merchant:

To answer question 2, Necro and Sand King are often run offlane for a few good reasons. Sand King is almost necessarily an offlane hero because he benefits so significantly from 2 key purchases, Aether Lens and Aghs. Those allow him to initiate fights at a far greater distance than Blink can allow, making landing his ultimate much easier. A Sand King played as a position 4 or 5 has to use Blink since the other two items together are too expensive when there are other key items to be buying in those positions.

I understand the necrophos, but the high level sand kings i see. they don't go aghanim. they go aura items + blink. or aghanim just comes way later.

Originally posted by Zagryzaec:

So how exactly you plan to win the game with your characters? That should answer your question in what you need and what to do.

I don't have enough experience on offlane to make up a plan like that. My plans are quite simple: win the lane and then follow around midlaner and zone out/split enemy team in teamfights. I build pangolier as a tank and he's quite dangerous as soon as he hits lvl3 with a nuker position 4. and with aura items + W, he becomes quite tanky and hard to deal with. + Blink in ultimate allows for a good initiation too. BUT I don't really have a plan when I play as him. I just react to whatever my team is doing. Can you give me tips on planning with brewmaster/pangolier? I can also play doom/legion commander.

Also, are you saying that Phoenix is a bad offlaner? I know most people say that offlaners are tanks, but why quite often I see Prophet/LC as position 3? Genuine question, cause I don't understand that.