A break from DotA related things today, as I realised there might be a bit of information overload. This is an O.5 post, bordering on R, so read at your peril! For my DotA players in training, try to focus on picking a role, and learning a few heroes who can perform that role.
Yesterday (4 days ago now, as I stopped writing mid-post) I learned that a penis is actually partly spongy, courtesy of Very Demotivational Posters and Wikipedia. It makes sense, as, if hentai is to be believed, there must be some way for guys to hide something that can grow to the size of an adult human's arm in teenage boy gym shorts. I remember watching something linked to me years ago where the premise was this guy was the "Chosen One" because his penis could grow to accommodate whatever girl was trying to please him. There was a club at the school that controlled the school, and members of the club could do whatever they wanted. The head of the club was this girl who had to give this new guy a blow job to be promoted to something else, but failed, because his penis was too big. So they're afraid he was the one spoken of in prophecies who would bring down the club with his huge dick, and so they send all of their members to try and get him to orgasm, but they all fail as he pleasures them too well and they fall over in exhaustion. I'm sure the plot was better than that, but I don't remember it that well.
One particular scene sticks in my head though, they're in a classroom when three of the girls try to seduce this guy. They grab him and throw him against a wall. One of the girls begins to suck his cock, and he starts to moan. But as she continues, she starts to struggle as he's getting bigger and bigger. Eventually, she starts choking, and she can't take it anymore, so she stops.
At first, I just passed it off as "those crazy Japanese, what will they think of next?" as nothing like that would ever happen in real life. I don't think I've ever seen a form-matching penis, but I have watched a lot more porn since then, and only now that I've started to think about it, it does happen quite a lot. Well, by a lot, I mean in the subset of porn that I enjoy watching the most - porn that focuses mainly on blowjobs (although it leaves me open to my nemesis: a2m). On a side note, after this picture Julian linked, I feel quite proud that I think I'm still what would be considered vanilla despite being spending as much time on the Internet as I do. On a side note of that side note, despite what I said about wanting to make people feel more comfortable about their fetishes, I think I am going to stop myself from ever asking someone what their fetish is. I was just thinking, that despite the fact that Graham and I share quite a lot on this topic, and do a lot of discussing, I don't want to know what his fetish is.
I mean, what if his fetish is having short, Asian girls come up to him saying that they're sick of being unsatisfied by Asian dicks, and they want him to show them what a real man is like, when he pulls out his gatling gun-sized penis and later they conquer China together. Now that I think about it, he seems to like collecting short, Asian, female friends, and what if during our entire friendship, he was just subconsciously planting the idea in our heads - and isn't the fact that I just thought of this proof of his scheme?! So now this is what I'll think of when I think of Graham, and not only that, if I ever see him with a short, Asian female, I'll wonder whether he genuinely wants them as a friend, or if he is just biding his time. This stuff can ruin friendships!
Back to the original topic, I've seen a few videos where you look at how big the guy is, and you think there is no way he could fit in her mouth, but she manages somehow. Only she only bobs down twice, and has to go back to licking again. Then she'll try again, and she might last a bit longer this time, but still not very long. Then later, the guy will push her head down, and you can tell she's struggling, because now she sounds like she's choking. I wonder if they have to sign waivers or something - occupational hazard: large, erect penises. It's also not like she can call out a safe word if she's in trouble or something, because, well, for one, it's rude to talk with your mouth full. It seems dangerous, there was one video I was watching where the girl seemed to be in tears, and I couldn't keep watching as I was starting to get worried it'd turn into a snuff film.
On the other hand, I have great respect for the girls who are able to follow through. I'm envious of the level of self-control they seem to have. Although RH assured me that unless I had just eaten a lot of food, deep throating will at worst cause dry-retching, if I feel even slightly like I'm going to throw up, I have to stop. I don't know how my mum expected me to become a doctor, as I have such a weak stomach. I actually started feeling queasy when Albert was talking about finding hairs in your food.
I wonder if I should add vomiting to my grad bio in my list of skills. My manager wants me to add all these skills that I really don't think I have, and after Albert's failed stint as a Java developer, I'm afraid of ending up somewhere where they think I'm able to do stuff that I can't.
Whoa, this post jumped around a lot. I guess that is what happens when you try to continue the train of thought from 4 days ago... Sorry everyone for the mess!
Saturday 28 April 2012
Tuesday 24 April 2012
Noob Level DotA: Phases of the Game – End Game and The Bigger Picture
Games will typically fall into three phases: early, middle and late. Transitions are one-way (i.e. a game that has changed from early game to mid game cannot transition back to early-game), and transitions are ordered. You start in early, move to mid and end with end game (although some games may not reach end game – particularly games with lots of pushing heroes).
END GAME
Starts: Once the hard carries stop farming and start joining team fights
Ends: At the end of the match
The last phase of the game, usually at this level of play, you should already be able to tell who is going to win at this stage - generally, whichever team has the highest level players, or the most farmed carry.
Team fights will be far more common during this phase of the game, as both teams will be trying to rax (kill the barracks), and that is a lot easier when the other team is dead.
Killing Roshan is also very popular during this phase, as a team may push all the way to the enemy base, but not be ready to push into base, so they go back and kill Roshan to get Aegis and effectively turn a 5v5 battle into a 6v5 battle.
I know I sound very negative when I say this, but usually, the outcome at this phase is a forgone conclusion, and it is very rare that a team that is losing will come back. However, if your team does have more hard carries, it may be worth holding out a little longer for them to farm some items, as when you are all level 25 with 6 item slots filled, the determining factor becomes who has the better carry heroes.
Turtling involves defending your base, and maybe pushing out to where your 2nd tier towers used to be. Defensive wards are really important, in particular the über-ward location outside your base.
As a general rule of thumb, if you lose one melee rax, you can still hold on. Losing two melee rax is pretty much the stage where you should give up, as it is very hard to leave your base while defending against two lanes of strong creeps. However, if you manage to take one of their melee rax, and they have taken two of yours, but one is the same lane in which you have raxed, then you still have a chance.
Middle lane is the easiest to push, as it is the shortest lane. The lane opposite to their jungle lane (i.e. top for Dire, bot for Radiant) is the next best to push, as it keeps their carry from being able to go back to the jungle easily, and also means if they are farming the neutral creeps, it will take them just that little bit longer to get to you. Plus, it's lane not covered by the über-ward.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
To sum up everything I've said, DotA really comes down to three things:
-gold
-EXP
-map control
That's really all there is to it. You want to help your team increase these three things, and you want to reduce those three things for your opponents.
The carry wants to farm as much gold so that they can buy items and carry. The gankers and support want EXP to make it easier to gank enemy heroes. Everyone wants to gank enemy heroes because it means they have less gold and EXP. You want map control so that your team can farm safely (gold) and you can gank enemy heroes (less gold/EXP for them). You don't want to die (less gold/EXP for you, more gold/EXP for them), but if you do die, you want it to be in exchange for something that will mean at least a net loss of gold/EXP/map control for them so that overall, you come out on top, or you break even - e.g. dying to take down a tower.
So to breakdown the roles again in a different way:
Support:
- buy the courier so your team spends less time going back to buy things (+EXP/gold)
- increase map control for your team by warding(+map control)
- babysit the carry so they can farm safely (gold)
- harass enemy players so they can't farm as well or have to go back to the fountain (-EXP for enemy)
- help the carry get kills (EXP + gold)
- counterward (-map control for enemy)
Initiator:
- initiate in team fights so carry can get kills safely (+gold/EXP)
- roam around the map helping to gank which makes the opponents fearful (-EXP/gold for enemy)
Ganker:
-kill enemy heroes (-EXP/gold for enemy)
- roam around the map helping to gank which makes the opponents fearful (-EXP/gold for enemy)
Carry:
- farm (+gold/EXP)
- farm (+gold/EXP)
- farm (+gold/EXP)
- kill enemy heroes (-EXP/gold for enemy)
Pusher:
- push towers (-map control for enemy, +gold for your team)
Tank:
- take hits so your carry doesn't die (passively +gold/EXP for your team)
- take the bulk of your damage so that your glass cannons don't die (passively +gold/EX for your team as you hope that for your death, your team takes out two or more enemy heroes)
Jungler:
- farm the jungle (+gold/EXP for your team through extra solo lane)
The effects increase throughout the game. The more gold and EXP you have, the faster you kill creeps, and so the faster it is to get more gold and EXP. For some heroes, once they start getting their key items, the gold just starts rolling in.
A lot of games come down to which teams manage to get the most out of these three things. It also depends on who has these things. Support heroes should really let carry heroes farm. For the simple reason that the carries are far more item dependent.
Regen items = approx 300g (e.g. 3 x tangoes, 2 x mana pot, 1 x health pot, or maybe branches instead of health pot)
2 x observer wards = 200g
1 x teleport scroll = 135g
1 x boots = 500g
1 x courier = 150g
1 x courier upgrade = 220g
In the first 10-12 minutes of the game, a support hero really needs about 1505g. You start with 603g and over 10 minutes, you gain another 600g passively. That's already 1200g. You really don't need to be taking the last hits while in a lane.
That gold would go to much better use on a carry, who can start snowballing their gold stockpile. That being said, if your carry is failing to get the last hits, you might as well take it, because it's better that you get it than nobody gets it. Or if you are in a ganker/support, ganker/ganker lane, it might be better for the person who is farming mana boots to get the last hits.
END GAME
Starts: Once the hard carries stop farming and start joining team fights
Ends: At the end of the match
The last phase of the game, usually at this level of play, you should already be able to tell who is going to win at this stage - generally, whichever team has the highest level players, or the most farmed carry.
Team fights will be far more common during this phase of the game, as both teams will be trying to rax (kill the barracks), and that is a lot easier when the other team is dead.
Killing Roshan is also very popular during this phase, as a team may push all the way to the enemy base, but not be ready to push into base, so they go back and kill Roshan to get Aegis and effectively turn a 5v5 battle into a 6v5 battle.
I know I sound very negative when I say this, but usually, the outcome at this phase is a forgone conclusion, and it is very rare that a team that is losing will come back. However, if your team does have more hard carries, it may be worth holding out a little longer for them to farm some items, as when you are all level 25 with 6 item slots filled, the determining factor becomes who has the better carry heroes.
Turtling involves defending your base, and maybe pushing out to where your 2nd tier towers used to be. Defensive wards are really important, in particular the über-ward location outside your base.
As a general rule of thumb, if you lose one melee rax, you can still hold on. Losing two melee rax is pretty much the stage where you should give up, as it is very hard to leave your base while defending against two lanes of strong creeps. However, if you manage to take one of their melee rax, and they have taken two of yours, but one is the same lane in which you have raxed, then you still have a chance.
Middle lane is the easiest to push, as it is the shortest lane. The lane opposite to their jungle lane (i.e. top for Dire, bot for Radiant) is the next best to push, as it keeps their carry from being able to go back to the jungle easily, and also means if they are farming the neutral creeps, it will take them just that little bit longer to get to you. Plus, it's lane not covered by the über-ward.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
To sum up everything I've said, DotA really comes down to three things:
-gold
-EXP
-map control
That's really all there is to it. You want to help your team increase these three things, and you want to reduce those three things for your opponents.
The carry wants to farm as much gold so that they can buy items and carry. The gankers and support want EXP to make it easier to gank enemy heroes. Everyone wants to gank enemy heroes because it means they have less gold and EXP. You want map control so that your team can farm safely (gold) and you can gank enemy heroes (less gold/EXP for them). You don't want to die (less gold/EXP for you, more gold/EXP for them), but if you do die, you want it to be in exchange for something that will mean at least a net loss of gold/EXP/map control for them so that overall, you come out on top, or you break even - e.g. dying to take down a tower.
So to breakdown the roles again in a different way:
Support:
- buy the courier so your team spends less time going back to buy things (+EXP/gold)
- increase map control for your team by warding(+map control)
- babysit the carry so they can farm safely (gold)
- harass enemy players so they can't farm as well or have to go back to the fountain (-EXP for enemy)
- help the carry get kills (EXP + gold)
- counterward (-map control for enemy)
Initiator:
- initiate in team fights so carry can get kills safely (+gold/EXP)
- roam around the map helping to gank which makes the opponents fearful (-EXP/gold for enemy)
Ganker:
-kill enemy heroes (-EXP/gold for enemy)
- roam around the map helping to gank which makes the opponents fearful (-EXP/gold for enemy)
Carry:
- farm (+gold/EXP)
- farm (+gold/EXP)
- farm (+gold/EXP)
- kill enemy heroes (-EXP/gold for enemy)
Pusher:
- push towers (-map control for enemy, +gold for your team)
Tank:
- take hits so your carry doesn't die (passively +gold/EXP for your team)
- take the bulk of your damage so that your glass cannons don't die (passively +gold/EX for your team as you hope that for your death, your team takes out two or more enemy heroes)
Jungler:
- farm the jungle (+gold/EXP for your team through extra solo lane)
The effects increase throughout the game. The more gold and EXP you have, the faster you kill creeps, and so the faster it is to get more gold and EXP. For some heroes, once they start getting their key items, the gold just starts rolling in.
A lot of games come down to which teams manage to get the most out of these three things. It also depends on who has these things. Support heroes should really let carry heroes farm. For the simple reason that the carries are far more item dependent.
Regen items = approx 300g (e.g. 3 x tangoes, 2 x mana pot, 1 x health pot, or maybe branches instead of health pot)
2 x observer wards = 200g
1 x teleport scroll = 135g
1 x boots = 500g
1 x courier = 150g
1 x courier upgrade = 220g
In the first 10-12 minutes of the game, a support hero really needs about 1505g. You start with 603g and over 10 minutes, you gain another 600g passively. That's already 1200g. You really don't need to be taking the last hits while in a lane.
That gold would go to much better use on a carry, who can start snowballing their gold stockpile. That being said, if your carry is failing to get the last hits, you might as well take it, because it's better that you get it than nobody gets it. Or if you are in a ganker/support, ganker/ganker lane, it might be better for the person who is farming mana boots to get the last hits.
Sunday 22 April 2012
Noob Level DotA: Phases of the Game - Middle Game
Games will typically fall into three phases: early, middle and late. Transitions are one-way (i.e. a game that has changed from early game to mid game cannot transition back to early-game), and transitions are ordered. You start in early, move to mid and end with end game (although some games may not reach end game – particularly games with lots of pushing heroes).
(Please excuse my poor Paint skills.)
MIDDLE GAME
Starts: Once people start leaving their lanes and roaming a lot
Ends: Once the hard carries stop farming and start joining team fights
This is the farming and pushing phase. If your team has a lot of support/gankers, and no hard carry, you want to end the game in this phase.
As people are moving freely between lanes, it is not as important to let your team know that people are missing from your lane. However, you need to keep in mind that you might be ganked by 3 or more players, so escaping might not be as easy. A lot of people have the "Don't go past the river" rule of thumb, but my personal rule of thumb is don't go into their control zone unless you have a way out. What do I mean by control zone? Map control is very important in DotA.
If you look at this image, the red and blue polygons indicate the "tower safe area" for Radiant and Dire, respectively. The way I picture it, is if you draw a polygon using the three outermost towers and the fountain (and that's exactly what I did with Paint).
I consider this the Fairly Safe Area. You might get ganked while in this area, but you're pretty safe in this area. Note: Being ganked isn't the only way to die, you can still die against people in your lane, so just because this is "safe" doesn't mean you can let your guard down. One of the reasons this is so safe is because your allies (if they are paying attention) can teleport to a tower and help you out if something bad happens. This is another reason why it's important to carry TP scrolls!
In this image, the red and blue polygons are the same as before. The purple and green polygons indicate the "creep safe area" for Radiant and Dire respectively. It's hard to see, because the player icons are in the way, but this is where the creep waves for each side are currently at. If you remember what I said in my first post about long and short lanes, this image gives you a better idea of why the long lane is considered safer. See how much closer the purple corner is to the red corner in the bottom lane than the top lane?
If you imagine my Paint shapes drawn a bit better, the area in the purple polygon, but not in the red polygon, is what I consider the Moderately Safe Area. You'll probably get ganked here, and if you are alone in this area, and enemy players are missing from the other lanes, you should head back into the fairly safe area just in case.
If you take a look at this map, the purple player has downed the first bottom tower, and is now trying to push the 2nd tier bottom tower. Notice the large gap between where she is and the red polygon, and how it gives the pink player the opportunity to get behind her.
This is a bit further in the game. Radiant are pushing top tower, and even though they are far away from the fairly safe area, the position of the wards (yellow circles) makes it difficult for the Dire to sneak up behind them (unless they use Smoke of Deceit, which I'll cover in another post). The shortest path that avoids detection is outlined in pink. It's unlikely that the Dire will know where the wards are though, so they'll probably end up going via a warded path, which gives Radiant enough warning to escape.
You can also see that the light blue player has pushed quite far on his own. It's OK though, because he's Rikimaru, so he'll just go invis and run away. But let's say he wasn't, if he needed to escape, his safest route would be any route that goes through the area in the green polygon. So if you were trying to intercept him, you could pre-empt that and run to bottom river to try to catch him running away.
And that's what I mean by control zone - the areas covered by towers, creeps and wards. If you imagine the wards as semi-extending the purple area, light blue is definitely inside the Radiant control zone. When you are in the opposing team's control zone, you will need to start heading back earlier than you think you need to, and unless you have invis or blink, you should definitely carry a TP scroll.
This is also an example of why the don't-go-past-the-river rule is bad, because at this point, it's quite dangerous for Dire to push past their top tower. Ignoring the fact that Radiant players are currently in top lane, Dire has no vision past their 2nd tier tower, and Radiant has control of most of the Dire jungle at the moment.
Farming and Ganking
This is an important phase for the hard carry to be farming. By now, a few towers should have been pushed, so the creep waves should be closer to your base. Support should be placing wards to protect their jungle so the carry can farm. They should also be stacking the ancients (the stronger creep camps near the secret shops) whenever they can, and staking jungle creeps otherwise. Support and gankers should also try to kill the enemy carry/carries if possible, or at least make it harder for them to farm. I will explain stacking at some point, I swear!
Team Fights
With the focus on trying to kill each other, and the increased movement between lanes in this phase, team fights will be a lot more common. The success of these team fights will set the tone for the rest of the game. Ideally, you'd have the gankers and supports in the team fights, while the hard carry farms away in another lane/jungle, as this maximises farming time, and reduces the risk of the carry dying in the fight and losing the precious gold they've farmed up. However, if one team has the carry farming away during team fights, and the other team has all five of their team members present, it makes it more likely that the team with four will lose the fights. It might be worth the carry teleporting back before the start of the fight, so they can contribute.
Pushing
Pushing lanes can really help your team, not only for the extra 1000g shared between you, but as you can see above, downing towers increases your control of the map.
Roshan
It's also a good idea to start keeping an eye on Roshan from mid game onwards. A ward on the cliffs outside Roshan's lair is probably enough. Oh, I learnt a new shorthand for Roshan today. "ro3", don't ask me why that means Roshan, I have no idea.
(Please excuse my poor Paint skills.)
MIDDLE GAME
Starts: Once people start leaving their lanes and roaming a lot
Ends: Once the hard carries stop farming and start joining team fights
This is the farming and pushing phase. If your team has a lot of support/gankers, and no hard carry, you want to end the game in this phase.
As people are moving freely between lanes, it is not as important to let your team know that people are missing from your lane. However, you need to keep in mind that you might be ganked by 3 or more players, so escaping might not be as easy. A lot of people have the "Don't go past the river" rule of thumb, but my personal rule of thumb is don't go into their control zone unless you have a way out. What do I mean by control zone? Map control is very important in DotA.
 |
| Tower Safety |
If you look at this image, the red and blue polygons indicate the "tower safe area" for Radiant and Dire, respectively. The way I picture it, is if you draw a polygon using the three outermost towers and the fountain (and that's exactly what I did with Paint).
I consider this the Fairly Safe Area. You might get ganked while in this area, but you're pretty safe in this area. Note: Being ganked isn't the only way to die, you can still die against people in your lane, so just because this is "safe" doesn't mean you can let your guard down. One of the reasons this is so safe is because your allies (if they are paying attention) can teleport to a tower and help you out if something bad happens. This is another reason why it's important to carry TP scrolls!
 |
| Creep Safety |
In this image, the red and blue polygons are the same as before. The purple and green polygons indicate the "creep safe area" for Radiant and Dire respectively. It's hard to see, because the player icons are in the way, but this is where the creep waves for each side are currently at. If you remember what I said in my first post about long and short lanes, this image gives you a better idea of why the long lane is considered safer. See how much closer the purple corner is to the red corner in the bottom lane than the top lane?
If you imagine my Paint shapes drawn a bit better, the area in the purple polygon, but not in the red polygon, is what I consider the Moderately Safe Area. You'll probably get ganked here, and if you are alone in this area, and enemy players are missing from the other lanes, you should head back into the fairly safe area just in case.
 |
| Too Far |
 |
| Ward Safety |
You can also see that the light blue player has pushed quite far on his own. It's OK though, because he's Rikimaru, so he'll just go invis and run away. But let's say he wasn't, if he needed to escape, his safest route would be any route that goes through the area in the green polygon. So if you were trying to intercept him, you could pre-empt that and run to bottom river to try to catch him running away.
And that's what I mean by control zone - the areas covered by towers, creeps and wards. If you imagine the wards as semi-extending the purple area, light blue is definitely inside the Radiant control zone. When you are in the opposing team's control zone, you will need to start heading back earlier than you think you need to, and unless you have invis or blink, you should definitely carry a TP scroll.
This is also an example of why the don't-go-past-the-river rule is bad, because at this point, it's quite dangerous for Dire to push past their top tower. Ignoring the fact that Radiant players are currently in top lane, Dire has no vision past their 2nd tier tower, and Radiant has control of most of the Dire jungle at the moment.
Farming and Ganking
This is an important phase for the hard carry to be farming. By now, a few towers should have been pushed, so the creep waves should be closer to your base. Support should be placing wards to protect their jungle so the carry can farm. They should also be stacking the ancients (the stronger creep camps near the secret shops) whenever they can, and staking jungle creeps otherwise. Support and gankers should also try to kill the enemy carry/carries if possible, or at least make it harder for them to farm. I will explain stacking at some point, I swear!
Team Fights
With the focus on trying to kill each other, and the increased movement between lanes in this phase, team fights will be a lot more common. The success of these team fights will set the tone for the rest of the game. Ideally, you'd have the gankers and supports in the team fights, while the hard carry farms away in another lane/jungle, as this maximises farming time, and reduces the risk of the carry dying in the fight and losing the precious gold they've farmed up. However, if one team has the carry farming away during team fights, and the other team has all five of their team members present, it makes it more likely that the team with four will lose the fights. It might be worth the carry teleporting back before the start of the fight, so they can contribute.
Pushing
Pushing lanes can really help your team, not only for the extra 1000g shared between you, but as you can see above, downing towers increases your control of the map.
Roshan
It's also a good idea to start keeping an eye on Roshan from mid game onwards. A ward on the cliffs outside Roshan's lair is probably enough. Oh, I learnt a new shorthand for Roshan today. "ro3", don't ask me why that means Roshan, I have no idea.
Thursday 19 April 2012
Noob Level DotA: Phases of the Game - Early Game
Games will typically fall into three phases: early, middle and late. Transitions are one-way (i.e. a game that has changed from early game to mid game cannot transition back to early-game), and transitions are ordered. You start in early, move to mid and end with end game (although some games may not reach end game - particularly games with lots of pushing heroes).
EARLY GAME (Laning Phase)
Starts: At the start of the match
Ends: Once people start leaving their lanes and roaming a lot
This is the levelling up phase. Lanes are fairly static and most of the focus is on the lane vs lane battles. There may be ganks, in particular mid lane ganking either of the side lanes, or either of the side lanes ganking mid lane. Very rarely you will have one side lane ganking another side lane (without ganking mid first), because the time spent moving between lanes is a huge loss in EXP and gold (and even the 135g cost of a teleport scroll can be quite expensive at this stage).
As people tend to be more focused on their lane battles, this is the phase where it's important to let your team know when people are missing from your lane."ss" and "miss" are common ways of saying your lane is gone, as you don't want to spend too much time typing at this important phase of the game.
Warding runes (here is the link to the warding guide again) will help whoever is in the middle lane, as well as give an early indication of incoming ganks.
Good wards are:
Top lane Radiant - 1
Mid lane Radiant - 3, 9
Bot lane Radiant - 13
Top lane Dire - 1
Mid lane Dire - 4, 6
Bottom lane Dire - 13
(Although there are better wards, I think these few are the best to try and memorise for now, and once you are comfortable with these, look at the rest of the rune wards section.)
It is also helpful to ward the pull camp (I'll explain more about that in another post). So use 28 if you are Radiant (though 30 is better, it is harder to get right), and 36 for Dire. If you aren't sure exactly where to put the ward, just put it inside the pull camp.
Should I get boots first?
This is commonly seen as a "noob mistake", and Olek and I quite often sigh when we see one of our teammates get boots as one of their starting items.
During the laning phase, you generally want items that accomplish one of these two things:
- help you stay in the lane longer (i.e. regen items): which means more EXP
- help you last hit/deny: which means more gold for you/ less gold for your opponent
Boots may help you by allowing you to move closer/further from the creeps to last hit/deny, and also escape being harassed just that little bit faster, but I believe that 500g can be better spent elsewhere. Especially if you consider the fact that nobody else will have boots at the start of the game, so you'll all be fairly close in movement speed.
That being said, there are some heroes (e.g. Juggernaut) who can get an easy first blood (e.g. with an ally stun/hold/slow hero and his spin, if he has boots (as the opposing hero won't be fast enough to run out of his spin)). So if your intention is to get an early first blood, then the 500g you spend at the start won't be a big deal, and you can stock up on items that accomplish those two things afterwards. Or, if you plan to just roam around ganking, it may be helpful to get boots and two mana potions.
So simply ask yourself whether the movement speed boost from boots is worth losing out on those two other things. And at least you will be walking to and from the fountain faster!
Which lane do I go to?
Because there are 3 lanes and only 5 heroes, the typical lane division is 2-1-2 (2 top, 1 mid, 2 bottom). I'm not entirely sure why they moved to the mid is always solo model. Quick Google (from a LoL forum, ew) lists a few reasons:
- mid will level the fastest, which means when they gank the side lanes, they will be a higher level and the gank will be more effective
- it's the shortest distance back to the fountain
- it's the safest lane, so you only really need 1 hero there
- it also has the shortest distance between towers (yours and your opponents)
So you'd normally have a ranged carry, or ganker in mid. Pudge, Tiny and Bloodseeker are exceptions. Pudge because he can take advantage of the hill to hook the hero, and because both he and Tiny can make good use of the runes and gank the side lanes really well. Bloodseeker because he's a good ganker, and his kill = HP skill means it doesn't matter when he gets harassed by a ranged hero.
As for the side lanes, you have a long lane and a short lane - so called because of how far away from the fountain the creeps end up meeting. For Radiant, the long lane is bot, and the short lane is top. For Dire, the long lane is top, and the short lane is bottom.
You want to put your hard carry in the long lane, especially if he/she is melee. This is because the long lane is considered much safer as you will tend to fight a lot closer to your tower. You also have the benefit of being able to creep pull to bring the creep wave closer to your tower if you push too far. This means one hero can farm the pulled neutrals while the other farms the creep wave - meaning you both gain more EXP overall. You also tend to want a babysitter in the long lane to protect the carry (a support hero who allows the carry to get all the last hits while they harass the opposing heroes). Having the carry close to the jungle also means they can duck in and quickly farm a few camps if their lane is pushed too far and they're afraid to push.
The short lane usually ends up with whoever is leftover after the other two lanes have been filled, but it can be good to get ganking heroes here to stop the opposing carry from farming. They will need to keep an eye on the jungle in case the other team has creep pulled, and also if the other team has a jungler. The soft carry may also be in the short lane, to allow the hard carry to get better farm.
If your team has a jungler, then the lane line-up becomes 1-1-2-jungle, with the long lane solo, mid solo, and two in the short lane. A lot of the time, the carry will still want the long lane, but they have to keep in mind that most of the time they will be solo against two heroes. If the jungler can help them gank, then it's not so bad, but they may find it's hard to farm against two. In this case, you may want a more defensive hero, or a hero with a lot of staying power to solo the long lane (e.g. heroes with heals, or heroes with escapes (blink/invis)).
One of the strat that comes up in pro-level games is the trilane. That is when a carry and two gankers/support (with stuns or slows) go to the long lane, leaving the other two lanes to solo. I'll go into detail in a later post, but one of the advantages of the trilane is being able to be really aggressive and hopefully get a lot of kills on the opposing heroes in that lane. However, if they don't manage to do that, they tend to fall behind in EXP and gold because there are three heroes in the lane instead of one or two.
I wouldn't recommend trilaning until you have a better understanding of the overall game, but it's something to watch out for, as if you end up against a trilane, you will need to play safe (unless they are really bad).
When should I leave my lane?
- when you are on low HP, and you don't think your regen items/spells will heal you in time before your opponents can unleash a combo to kill you
- when your teammates need you to help defend a tower
- once you've pushed the tower in your lane, you should help push other towers/gank, and come back to your lane every now and again to farm the creep wave when it is closer to your tower (as it is generally dangerous to push too far down a lane, as you are further away from the safety of your towers)
- when you need to put up new wards
- if one particular lane is struggling, it may be worth swapping lanes
- when you see a good opportunity to gank another lane (this is usually when the opponents have pushed too close to your tower, as this means they are far away from their own tower)
EARLY GAME (Laning Phase)
Starts: At the start of the match
Ends: Once people start leaving their lanes and roaming a lot
This is the levelling up phase. Lanes are fairly static and most of the focus is on the lane vs lane battles. There may be ganks, in particular mid lane ganking either of the side lanes, or either of the side lanes ganking mid lane. Very rarely you will have one side lane ganking another side lane (without ganking mid first), because the time spent moving between lanes is a huge loss in EXP and gold (and even the 135g cost of a teleport scroll can be quite expensive at this stage).
As people tend to be more focused on their lane battles, this is the phase where it's important to let your team know when people are missing from your lane."ss" and "miss" are common ways of saying your lane is gone, as you don't want to spend too much time typing at this important phase of the game.
Warding runes (here is the link to the warding guide again) will help whoever is in the middle lane, as well as give an early indication of incoming ganks.
Good wards are:
Top lane Radiant - 1
Mid lane Radiant - 3, 9
Bot lane Radiant - 13
Top lane Dire - 1
Mid lane Dire - 4, 6
Bottom lane Dire - 13
(Although there are better wards, I think these few are the best to try and memorise for now, and once you are comfortable with these, look at the rest of the rune wards section.)
It is also helpful to ward the pull camp (I'll explain more about that in another post). So use 28 if you are Radiant (though 30 is better, it is harder to get right), and 36 for Dire. If you aren't sure exactly where to put the ward, just put it inside the pull camp.
Should I get boots first?
This is commonly seen as a "noob mistake", and Olek and I quite often sigh when we see one of our teammates get boots as one of their starting items.
During the laning phase, you generally want items that accomplish one of these two things:
- help you stay in the lane longer (i.e. regen items): which means more EXP
- help you last hit/deny: which means more gold for you/ less gold for your opponent
Boots may help you by allowing you to move closer/further from the creeps to last hit/deny, and also escape being harassed just that little bit faster, but I believe that 500g can be better spent elsewhere. Especially if you consider the fact that nobody else will have boots at the start of the game, so you'll all be fairly close in movement speed.
That being said, there are some heroes (e.g. Juggernaut) who can get an easy first blood (e.g. with an ally stun/hold/slow hero and his spin, if he has boots (as the opposing hero won't be fast enough to run out of his spin)). So if your intention is to get an early first blood, then the 500g you spend at the start won't be a big deal, and you can stock up on items that accomplish those two things afterwards. Or, if you plan to just roam around ganking, it may be helpful to get boots and two mana potions.
So simply ask yourself whether the movement speed boost from boots is worth losing out on those two other things. And at least you will be walking to and from the fountain faster!
Which lane do I go to?
Because there are 3 lanes and only 5 heroes, the typical lane division is 2-1-2 (2 top, 1 mid, 2 bottom). I'm not entirely sure why they moved to the mid is always solo model. Quick Google (from a LoL forum, ew) lists a few reasons:
- mid will level the fastest, which means when they gank the side lanes, they will be a higher level and the gank will be more effective
- it's the shortest distance back to the fountain
- it's the safest lane, so you only really need 1 hero there
- it also has the shortest distance between towers (yours and your opponents)
So you'd normally have a ranged carry, or ganker in mid. Pudge, Tiny and Bloodseeker are exceptions. Pudge because he can take advantage of the hill to hook the hero, and because both he and Tiny can make good use of the runes and gank the side lanes really well. Bloodseeker because he's a good ganker, and his kill = HP skill means it doesn't matter when he gets harassed by a ranged hero.
As for the side lanes, you have a long lane and a short lane - so called because of how far away from the fountain the creeps end up meeting. For Radiant, the long lane is bot, and the short lane is top. For Dire, the long lane is top, and the short lane is bottom.
You want to put your hard carry in the long lane, especially if he/she is melee. This is because the long lane is considered much safer as you will tend to fight a lot closer to your tower. You also have the benefit of being able to creep pull to bring the creep wave closer to your tower if you push too far. This means one hero can farm the pulled neutrals while the other farms the creep wave - meaning you both gain more EXP overall. You also tend to want a babysitter in the long lane to protect the carry (a support hero who allows the carry to get all the last hits while they harass the opposing heroes). Having the carry close to the jungle also means they can duck in and quickly farm a few camps if their lane is pushed too far and they're afraid to push.
The short lane usually ends up with whoever is leftover after the other two lanes have been filled, but it can be good to get ganking heroes here to stop the opposing carry from farming. They will need to keep an eye on the jungle in case the other team has creep pulled, and also if the other team has a jungler. The soft carry may also be in the short lane, to allow the hard carry to get better farm.
If your team has a jungler, then the lane line-up becomes 1-1-2-jungle, with the long lane solo, mid solo, and two in the short lane. A lot of the time, the carry will still want the long lane, but they have to keep in mind that most of the time they will be solo against two heroes. If the jungler can help them gank, then it's not so bad, but they may find it's hard to farm against two. In this case, you may want a more defensive hero, or a hero with a lot of staying power to solo the long lane (e.g. heroes with heals, or heroes with escapes (blink/invis)).
One of the strat that comes up in pro-level games is the trilane. That is when a carry and two gankers/support (with stuns or slows) go to the long lane, leaving the other two lanes to solo. I'll go into detail in a later post, but one of the advantages of the trilane is being able to be really aggressive and hopefully get a lot of kills on the opposing heroes in that lane. However, if they don't manage to do that, they tend to fall behind in EXP and gold because there are three heroes in the lane instead of one or two.
I wouldn't recommend trilaning until you have a better understanding of the overall game, but it's something to watch out for, as if you end up against a trilane, you will need to play safe (unless they are really bad).
When should I leave my lane?
- when you are on low HP, and you don't think your regen items/spells will heal you in time before your opponents can unleash a combo to kill you
- when your teammates need you to help defend a tower
- once you've pushed the tower in your lane, you should help push other towers/gank, and come back to your lane every now and again to farm the creep wave when it is closer to your tower (as it is generally dangerous to push too far down a lane, as you are further away from the safety of your towers)
- when you need to put up new wards
- if one particular lane is struggling, it may be worth swapping lanes
- when you see a good opportunity to gank another lane (this is usually when the opponents have pushed too close to your tower, as this means they are far away from their own tower)
Wednesday 18 April 2012
Noob Level DotA: Roles
After Redact's super rage-filled rant yesterday, I've decided to do a mini-series on DotA. This is meant to be aimed at new players, or people who are looking to do more than play an everyone-do-their-own-thing pub game. Before anyone starts saying, "OMG, you're so wrong, how can you say something like that - the pros all do it like this....." the point of this is to give you a starting point to build from, because the learning curve for games like this is so steep it's unlikely you'll go from noob to pro just from reading a few guides. However, if you feel that I am giving completely bad advice, please say so, give your reason, and I'll add it as a note. I am by no means a pro player either, so don't take my words as gospel - just try to think about some of the things I've talked about. Also, this isn't a guide for how to play certain heroes, if you want that, Google it. Feel free to add any advice in the comments!
OK, so one of the most important things I think people need to learn is the roles people play and how this fits into the bigger picture of the game. DotA2 breaks it down into these categories: support, initiator, ganker, carry and pusher. I'd also like to add tank and jungler. The important thing to remember is just because DotA2 says your hero is X doesn't mean you have to play it that way. Most heroes fall under multiple categories, and it all depends on how you build and play them.
Throughout the guide, I'll make reference to this warding guide. If you don't have the time (or inclination) to read and memorise the entire thing, just refer to the sections I mention for the type of hero you want to play.
SUPPORT
Typically intelligence heroes fall into this category.
As the title says, they're the heroes that support the team. Because they are generally not item dependent heroes, they can spend their excess gold on the courier, observer wards and sentry wards. If you end up laning with a carry, you want to level the skills that will help you harass your opponents so that your carry can farm in peace, or level the skills that will help you get kills on your opponents. If possible, you want to let your carry get the killing blow, so they will get more gold (you will still get some gold for an assist).
Letting someone take the kill used to bug me to no end when I started playing, but I realise now how important it is (I'll explain in another post). Still, it is annoying when a player acts like they're entitled to the kill and complains if you get it - even you happened to get it because of a DoT.
As a support hero, your life is worth less than the carry's. If the enemies are chasing your carry, and you suicide in so your carry can escape, that is a good deal. If your carry is farming well, then you might want to roam around and help gank the other lanes.
They don't really shine during games... they just support.
As for warding, you tend to want to know all the positions, but as a starting point, try to remember these:
1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 18.
At a minimum, you want to learn 1, 9 and 13 for early game.
INITIATOR
These are the heroes who will go in first to start a team fight. They will typically have something that allows their team to gain a huge advantage at the start of the fight like a mass disable, or something that causes chaos. Some of the strongest initiators in the game are Tidehunter, Faceless Void, Warlock and Enigma, just because of their ability to disable an entire team. Lich and Sand King can also be a good initiators because their ults can cause confusion as the other team must organise themselves to avoid the damage.
Charles says initiators are the best types of heroes to play for new players, because all you do is go in, do your thing and die, but I disagree. The initiators set the entire tone of the battle. They need to have really good judgement and map awareness in order to time the start of the battle correctly. If they go in too soon, their team might not be ready, and so the initiator jumps in without back up. Or they might misjudge the position of the enemy player, so they end up wasting their mass disable spell.
A good initiator can potentially turn the tide of the game, simply by helping their team kill the entire opposing team.
They shine the most in team battles and typically not until they have their ult and Blink Dagger.
If you are warding, try to remember these positions:
3, 5, 6, 8, 14, 15, 19, 22, 23, (all of the wards in the push section)
At a minimum, you want to remember 3 and 5 as there tend to be a lot of battles around mid, and any of the Rosh wards.
GANKER
These are the heroes who are suited to killing other heroes - because they have really strong nuke spells, have the ability to sneak up on someone and pick them off when they're low, or lots of disables. If ganking goes well, they tend to be overlevelled and overfarmed compared to the rest of the players. They are also good for keeping enemy heroes poor and at a low level.
They shine the most during early- to mid- game.
Gankers require map control, which means they do best when they ward, or have someone warding for them. They might also want to counter-ward the opponents' wards so they can move around undetected. Smoke of deceit also helps with that.
Wards to remember: And of the rune wards, as runes help with ganking. It might also be worth counter warding so that they don't see you coming - although at this level of play, it's unlikely that your opponents will be warding, but if they are warding, it'll probably be in the places marked with the DotA2 icon..
CARRY
Typically, agility heroes fall into this category.
Their job is to farm up good items and just be strong! I am horrible at playing carries, so this is probably the worst advice to be getting, but I'll try! Carry heroes are the ones that can get really powerful late in the game. They can do a lot of damage, the difference between carries and nukers is carries can sustain this damage. As they do so much damage, they can push towers and rax, as well as kill enemy players - so in team fights, it's important to stay alive so you can deal your damage! And if the fight is going pear-shaped, you are entitled to leave the rest of your team to die and run away. It is the carry who generally wins the game.
Carries need to understand when to fight, and when to back out.
There are two different kinds of carries - hard carries and soft carries. Technically, you can build any hero into a carry, but a soft carry is a hero who can carry if they farm well and stay a higher level than everyone else, but if they were to fight a hero of equal farm and equal level, they'd lose. This usually happens to caster heroes, and spells in DotA don't scale very well, their nuke might hit for 300 damage, but this isn't much at end game, when heroes have 2.5k+ HP. Hard carries tend to have fast attack and movement speed and/or spells to make them mobile which let them move in and out of battle and chase down low HP heroes.
Charles says: Don't worry about engaging. Just KS (kill steal) and farm. Always keep an eye out of KS opportunities.
They shine the most during end game.
They shouldn't be warding, they should be saving their gold for items and buybacks.
PUSHER
As the title suggests, the pusher is good at pushing lanes. This is helpful for the team because each tower down is at least 1000g for the team (200g split between 5 players + extra gold if a player kills a tower). And as the ultimate objective of the game is to destroy the other team's throne, they help achieve that goal.
Aggressive pushing early game also means the other team has to play defensively. They may not have as easy access to their jungle, and will have less towers to teleport to making it harder for them to get to fights that are far from their base. It also increases the map control of your team.
They shine the most during early- to mid-game - and while they are also good end game for pushing, the fact that opposing players will have farmed more items by then may counter their pushing power (e.g. Nature's Prophet's treants may be killed a lot faster by a farmed hero).
Wards to remember: All of the wards in the pushing section.
TANK
Typically strength heroes fall into this category.
Their job is to tank - to take as much incoming damage as possible. The benefit of having a tank is that your glass cannon (high damage, low HP) heroes will live longer to deal damage and hopefully kill heroes. I think Axe is the only hero that can force other heroes to attack him, but other bulky heroes may tank simply by being the first one to walk in. In DotA(1), Magnus and Centuar were some pretty tanky heroes, but they haven't been ported to DotA2 yet. Tanks are really a sub-type, and most of them also fall into the initiator category.
They shine during mid- to end-game, when they've bulked up.
Wards to remember: I don't think tanks should be warding, they should be tanking up! But if they were going to remember wards, probably the same as the initiator ones.
JUNGLER
These heroes are ones that can start the game farming the jungle. This has two benefits - they can farm unharassed by enemy heroes (sometimes - although a team that leaves the jungle to free farm isn't a good team), and they allow their team to have a second solo hero (who will get more exp from the lane). They may also come out of the jungle and help push a lane or gank.
The jungler needs to pay particular attention to the middle lane, and the lane next to their jungle, as they're susceptible to ganks from these two lanes. The jungler may also want to stack and pull neutrals (I'll explain that in another post) to help control how far their lane is pushed.
Depending on the type of hero, they shine during different parts of the game. Jungler is really only a sub-type and really only applies in the early game. Once they leave the jungle, their main type takes over (e.g. Enigma is a jungler, but once he farms up Blink Dagger, he becomes an initiator).
Wards to remember: 1, 9, 13, 16 (although you might not want to block the camp, depending on how fast you farm. I can't seem to farm fast enough to reach that camp, so blocking it might be OK for me).
If you are only going to remember two, remember 1 and 9 and just keep an eye on the lane nearest your jungle.
OK, so one of the most important things I think people need to learn is the roles people play and how this fits into the bigger picture of the game. DotA2 breaks it down into these categories: support, initiator, ganker, carry and pusher. I'd also like to add tank and jungler. The important thing to remember is just because DotA2 says your hero is X doesn't mean you have to play it that way. Most heroes fall under multiple categories, and it all depends on how you build and play them.
Throughout the guide, I'll make reference to this warding guide. If you don't have the time (or inclination) to read and memorise the entire thing, just refer to the sections I mention for the type of hero you want to play.
SUPPORT
Typically intelligence heroes fall into this category.
As the title says, they're the heroes that support the team. Because they are generally not item dependent heroes, they can spend their excess gold on the courier, observer wards and sentry wards. If you end up laning with a carry, you want to level the skills that will help you harass your opponents so that your carry can farm in peace, or level the skills that will help you get kills on your opponents. If possible, you want to let your carry get the killing blow, so they will get more gold (you will still get some gold for an assist).
Letting someone take the kill used to bug me to no end when I started playing, but I realise now how important it is (I'll explain in another post). Still, it is annoying when a player acts like they're entitled to the kill and complains if you get it - even you happened to get it because of a DoT.
As a support hero, your life is worth less than the carry's. If the enemies are chasing your carry, and you suicide in so your carry can escape, that is a good deal. If your carry is farming well, then you might want to roam around and help gank the other lanes.
They don't really shine during games... they just support.
As for warding, you tend to want to know all the positions, but as a starting point, try to remember these:
1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 18.
At a minimum, you want to learn 1, 9 and 13 for early game.
INITIATOR
These are the heroes who will go in first to start a team fight. They will typically have something that allows their team to gain a huge advantage at the start of the fight like a mass disable, or something that causes chaos. Some of the strongest initiators in the game are Tidehunter, Faceless Void, Warlock and Enigma, just because of their ability to disable an entire team. Lich and Sand King can also be a good initiators because their ults can cause confusion as the other team must organise themselves to avoid the damage.
Charles says initiators are the best types of heroes to play for new players, because all you do is go in, do your thing and die, but I disagree. The initiators set the entire tone of the battle. They need to have really good judgement and map awareness in order to time the start of the battle correctly. If they go in too soon, their team might not be ready, and so the initiator jumps in without back up. Or they might misjudge the position of the enemy player, so they end up wasting their mass disable spell.
A good initiator can potentially turn the tide of the game, simply by helping their team kill the entire opposing team.
They shine the most in team battles and typically not until they have their ult and Blink Dagger.
If you are warding, try to remember these positions:
3, 5, 6, 8, 14, 15, 19, 22, 23, (all of the wards in the push section)
At a minimum, you want to remember 3 and 5 as there tend to be a lot of battles around mid, and any of the Rosh wards.
GANKER
These are the heroes who are suited to killing other heroes - because they have really strong nuke spells, have the ability to sneak up on someone and pick them off when they're low, or lots of disables. If ganking goes well, they tend to be overlevelled and overfarmed compared to the rest of the players. They are also good for keeping enemy heroes poor and at a low level.
They shine the most during early- to mid- game.
Gankers require map control, which means they do best when they ward, or have someone warding for them. They might also want to counter-ward the opponents' wards so they can move around undetected. Smoke of deceit also helps with that.
Wards to remember: And of the rune wards, as runes help with ganking. It might also be worth counter warding so that they don't see you coming - although at this level of play, it's unlikely that your opponents will be warding, but if they are warding, it'll probably be in the places marked with the DotA2 icon..
CARRY
Typically, agility heroes fall into this category.
Their job is to farm up good items and just be strong! I am horrible at playing carries, so this is probably the worst advice to be getting, but I'll try! Carry heroes are the ones that can get really powerful late in the game. They can do a lot of damage, the difference between carries and nukers is carries can sustain this damage. As they do so much damage, they can push towers and rax, as well as kill enemy players - so in team fights, it's important to stay alive so you can deal your damage! And if the fight is going pear-shaped, you are entitled to leave the rest of your team to die and run away. It is the carry who generally wins the game.
Carries need to understand when to fight, and when to back out.
There are two different kinds of carries - hard carries and soft carries. Technically, you can build any hero into a carry, but a soft carry is a hero who can carry if they farm well and stay a higher level than everyone else, but if they were to fight a hero of equal farm and equal level, they'd lose. This usually happens to caster heroes, and spells in DotA don't scale very well, their nuke might hit for 300 damage, but this isn't much at end game, when heroes have 2.5k+ HP. Hard carries tend to have fast attack and movement speed and/or spells to make them mobile which let them move in and out of battle and chase down low HP heroes.
Charles says: Don't worry about engaging. Just KS (kill steal) and farm. Always keep an eye out of KS opportunities.
They shine the most during end game.
They shouldn't be warding, they should be saving their gold for items and buybacks.
PUSHER
As the title suggests, the pusher is good at pushing lanes. This is helpful for the team because each tower down is at least 1000g for the team (200g split between 5 players + extra gold if a player kills a tower). And as the ultimate objective of the game is to destroy the other team's throne, they help achieve that goal.
Aggressive pushing early game also means the other team has to play defensively. They may not have as easy access to their jungle, and will have less towers to teleport to making it harder for them to get to fights that are far from their base. It also increases the map control of your team.
They shine the most during early- to mid-game - and while they are also good end game for pushing, the fact that opposing players will have farmed more items by then may counter their pushing power (e.g. Nature's Prophet's treants may be killed a lot faster by a farmed hero).
Wards to remember: All of the wards in the pushing section.
TANK
Typically strength heroes fall into this category.
Their job is to tank - to take as much incoming damage as possible. The benefit of having a tank is that your glass cannon (high damage, low HP) heroes will live longer to deal damage and hopefully kill heroes. I think Axe is the only hero that can force other heroes to attack him, but other bulky heroes may tank simply by being the first one to walk in. In DotA(1), Magnus and Centuar were some pretty tanky heroes, but they haven't been ported to DotA2 yet. Tanks are really a sub-type, and most of them also fall into the initiator category.
They shine during mid- to end-game, when they've bulked up.
Wards to remember: I don't think tanks should be warding, they should be tanking up! But if they were going to remember wards, probably the same as the initiator ones.
JUNGLER
These heroes are ones that can start the game farming the jungle. This has two benefits - they can farm unharassed by enemy heroes (sometimes - although a team that leaves the jungle to free farm isn't a good team), and they allow their team to have a second solo hero (who will get more exp from the lane). They may also come out of the jungle and help push a lane or gank.
The jungler needs to pay particular attention to the middle lane, and the lane next to their jungle, as they're susceptible to ganks from these two lanes. The jungler may also want to stack and pull neutrals (I'll explain that in another post) to help control how far their lane is pushed.
Depending on the type of hero, they shine during different parts of the game. Jungler is really only a sub-type and really only applies in the early game. Once they leave the jungle, their main type takes over (e.g. Enigma is a jungler, but once he farms up Blink Dagger, he becomes an initiator).
Wards to remember: 1, 9, 13, 16 (although you might not want to block the camp, depending on how fast you farm. I can't seem to farm fast enough to reach that camp, so blocking it might be OK for me).
If you are only going to remember two, remember 1 and 9 and just keep an eye on the lane nearest your jungle.
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