[DOTA] The Components of a Strong Lane

When I'm fooling around alone in TDA, I often choose to solo or jungle.  Because if I pick heroes like say, uhh.. Dragon Knight.  Heroes like Razor comes to my lane.  Man.. I share no synergy with Razor at all.  He's as good as not being in this lane really.  I guess many players have little understanding of the hero synergies.  My articles are mostly intended for beginner-intermediate, so here we go; an entry dedicated to building a strong lane.

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As most of our readers know, being a melee hero against ranged is a total *****.  If you think about it, the **** isn't even fair.  Think about it, you have a knife, and that other guy has a gun.  Wtf?  Well, at least DotA is a team game and you can partner up in a lane.  With the right heroes, even a melee hero can have the presence of a ranged hero, and more.  So here we go, let see which couples are legendary in DotA.


Usually, a strong lane partner follows a very simple formula:
Target stun (trigger stun) + follow-up stun (secondary stun) = Strong Lane

Building a lane with this formula..

Here we have a target stunner with a follow up stunner

Now that is a beastly lane.  Simple, right?  Yeah, most brilliant things in life are really simple.  So simple, that you can teach a child.  However, within the simplicity lies subtle details and complexity.  For SK and Lesh, it's about synergy.  The hero synergy is already there.  Now it's about the guys who drive these cars.  Some can bring 110% of what the two heros offer.  Some can only manage to pull off a 80%.  This is about fully understanding the SK's stun range, and constantly expanding his danger zone for the opponents.  Ideally, SK and Lesh should be positioned very aggressively (right by, or beyond the creep line) to push the opponents back from gaining experience and gold.  That's the basics of the whole target stun + follow up stun lane control. 

Let's dig in little more into "why" it works. There are more reasons why SK and Lesh share a greater synergy than any other heroes of their kind.  Well, at least for SK, he's like the most optimized target-stunner in-game (for his role). 

For one, his stun is instant.  Meaning, you can't juke SK's stun... at all.  No fancy blinking, no leaping, and no windwalking.  Once he has impale clicked on that target, and the target is in range?  He's stunned 100%.  Impale-based stuns are all like that.  There are some limitations though, like fog.  If you had the target stunned and they just entered the fog, your burrowstrike will come short of fog and they will get away.  Of course, the counter to this is just clicking ahead of the fog so this does not happen.  I believe Linkens also block the target stun of burrowstrike, but you can also prevent the block by clicking the ground (if I remember correctly, it stuns and still uses the Linkens charge).  But most of the time, you click on the target hero to stun. 

Secondly, SK travels right by the enemy when he stuns.  This seems obvious to even mention, but it is crucial.  The whole stun and approach is done by a single spell.  This allows SK to melee the target at least couple more times than say Sven, when stunned from max distance. 

Lastly, his stuns cost 140 mana at 11 seconds cooldown.  That's really good.  Getting stats at level 2, and with just a single branch (52g item) you have over 280 mana, enough to launch two stuns.  Top and bottom lane are "long" lanes where the distance from tower to tower is pretty far.  You can definitely launch a second combo chasing them from the other sides. 


Anyhow, any target stunners such as:


work well with any other secondary stunners (usually ranged):


Some work better than others of course.  As many already know, Nerubian Assasin and Lion's impale stun do not last very long on early levels.  But they can still get by and do well enough to have good presence in a lane.  Expanding on the whole look of target stun + follow-up stun formula.  It's really just a simple initiator + follow-up.  Usually stuns are most preferred, since it is the easiest to perform (and the safest, since the target is stunlocked and cannot defend oneself).  But you can mix it up.  Instead of a stun, you can have a snare, or just pure damage.


Here are some that can work surprisingly well:

 

Simple stuff.  CM gets to initiate and Slardar follows up with his AOE stun.  Note that the cooldown on Slardar's stun is only 8 sec, and CM is 10sec.  They're obviously very short cooldowns that can be used more than once even at level 1.  Adding the 2sec of 20% snare that comes after Slardar's stun and 4sec snare CM can contribute, there's a world of hurt to follow even after their simple combo is over.




This is the example of whole initator and follow-up being pure damage.  Pugna's harassing is ridiculous.  For one, he runs fast as hell(315) and has an insane int stat gain(26+4).  So he has a big mana pool, and hits hard.  So the whole VS stunning -> follow up with nether blast and orb walking harass is pretty brutal.  Ah, also their nukes are both on a pretty short cooldown.  VS's stun is on 10sec and Pugna's nether blast is on 5.5sec.  And they can be used multiple times at even level 1.  So that can provide an easy chase down finish.





Simple initiate(stun) -> damage and snare rotation.  THD is actually really cool.  His beginning stats are pretty incredible.  His nuke does more than what you may expect because of the snare portion.  With the snare, you can easily add 2-3 more physical hits than normal.  I guess Tidehunter could work better than DK since the emphasis is on snare and orb walk harass.





This is something I did a lot when I first tackled at DotA.  My friend learned SK and I learned WD.  It's not the strongest combo, but it's definitely not bad.  We got it down pretty well though.  Impale damage takes place once the target lands from the air, so the trick was to land the curse while the target was up in the air.  And once he lands, he takes damage which adds to curse damage.  And now just orb attack rest of the way through, and the target will die due to DoT ticks.  Witch Doctor has a pretty insane damage, so his harass is pretty beastly too. 



So we know that basic iniate + follow-up works.
Let's go on figuring out what else works too.   Here are the basic carry and babysitter combos:



Probably the most over-used carry and babysitting combo there is.  Warlock, I think is so ridiculuos.  Not a lot can do much against warlock.  He eats a tango, heals himself, and glues his ass to you.  What the hell can you do really but back out.  He hits like a truck, and has a stat build.  Has crazy stat to begin with.  He can provide all the harass while the carry farms steadily.  That's not to say that Merc sits around and do jack **** either.  He can sometimes come in and add the dagger + orb walk with Warlock.  Pretty solid lane all around.




You don't see this as much anymore.  But Viper can be a sitter as well.  If Merc/Lock is the more conservative carry/sitter combo.  This is the aggressive carry/sitter combo.  Void and Viper can do some serious wreckage if the opponent are not ready for it.  Viper can be doing all the harassing (which he excels at) and Void can come in any time from farming for a kill.  



This is something that works but doesn't get much respect for.  Any nuker (usually carry or semi-carry) with Keeper of the Light.  So any of these heroes:
   with 

KotL works as a battery recharger.  There's really little you can do against a constant nuke every 10-12sec.  Not much depth here, just straight up damage brutality.  The enemy will be forced off the lane.  It's a really hard combo to lose a lane with that's for sure.



It's pretty easy right?  Ahh, it should be.  I'm sure there are other numerous combos that works that I have not mentioned.  Once you know why it works, you can use your imagination and mix and match the 95 heroes to your likings.  Some do better because of the match-up, and this is the importance of picking "right". 

For example, Sven and Lina is a very powerful lane.  But up against Nerubian Assasin plus anything, it wouldn't be as strong.  In fact, it would be very weak.  Because Sven would just get mana burned and he wouldn't be able to stun at all. And of course, Sven that can't stun is as good as not being there at all.
 
Here's another example:
Naix and Warlock is a pretty solid lane.  They really can't get hurt all that much.  But against CM and Lion, it may not be as strong.  Because Lion can impale drain, and CM can root warlock after the stun.  Continuous drain like this will take a toll on Warlock's mana pool.  Plus both CM and Lion being a ranged hero, they can harass quite well against Naix who comes up to last hit.  But Warlock can't heal as much due to his mana getting hurt both ways (drain and harass).

So something that may be decent can be excellent against certain match-up.


I strongly recommend having a DotA buddy if you are starting the learn the game better.  With a really good lane partner who share a great synergy with you, you two can just expect things from each other without a single word.  And things will just fall into places like puzzle pieces.  That is when the magic happens and you get to see beyond the 100%. 



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God damn bloodseeker with boots coming to my lane when I'm playing Visage!!11 Q_Q