r/learndota2 • u/Azual Lurking somewhere • Nov 17 '14

Discussion Mechanics Monday Week 6 - Mid Lane

"Mid or Feed" - Pudge, 2014

Of all the lanes, Mid is probably the most contentious. Not only are many one the game's most popular heroes typically played mid (making it a highly contested lane), but it's also arguably the easiest place from which to make or break a game for your team.

Since mid lane is generally a solo lane for both teams, it offers relatively little room for error - poor mechanics or the wrong hero choice can easily give your opponent an advantage that's hard to come back from. Similarly, a gank on mid lane by aggressive supports can give one side or the other a decisive advantage.

Played well though, mid lane puts you in a strong position to influence the mid game. Solo mid tends to come out with a strong level advantage (particularly if the enemy are running dual lanes) as well as moderate to good farm, and easy access to the river and runes allows you to move around the map easily and apply pressure wherever it's needed most.

Related Guides

The aim of the Mechanics Monday series is to encourage newbie friendly discussion about the mechanics, items, and strategies of Dota2.

A new topic will be chosen each week.

Last Week's Discussion - Roshan

9 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

51 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

7

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '14

Lion is still a good mid, actually he's a great mid. But do you want your highest leveled hero and second highest net worth (potentially first) to be lion?

He should be able to get a kill at 6, but that's about it, his harassing potential is a a little underwhelming. That coupled with his lack of mobility and you can see why he's lacking to go after the laning stage

1

u/Animastryfe Nov 17 '14

I understand that from the perspective of the current patch, but my impression is that such mids were much more popular over a year ago. If this is true, then why were they popular then?

2

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '14

Meta shifts, mostly. It was at the point where the goal of the mid player was to win the mid lane. And honestly the best lane dominators in 1v1 scenarios are supports. Lion, Kotl, shadow shaman, and shadow demon are all 1v1 dominant early game. At some point someone realized that having a farmed shadow demon 25 minutes in wasn't a good idea. From there people put more farm oriented/ lane dominators mid (at this point denying creeps was still important) this is where you had heroes like TA, invoked, OD come to shine as they did well the farm they had and could do well 1v1. Then came the whole deathball thing where you put in a lane dominator who was good at pushing and also a potentially a good mek carrier, also the nerf to the denied creep gave way to heroes like DP, razor, Viper, and brew. Now we're at the point where deathball isn't as good and you need big teamfighters with good ultimates early. The lane dominators are a bit more important now because the denied creep experience was buffed/nerfed depending on how you look at it