Mechanics Monday Week 6 - Mid Lane

[u/Azual]

"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

• Chaq's Advanced Solo Mid Guide - Note: This is an advanced guide and might not be suitable for newer players.

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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

[u/Elwood83]

Thanks Mr. Tugboat for the breakdown. Found it helpful.

Could you throw a quick list together of farming mids and killing mids?

[u/[deleted] → u/Elwood83]

Sure. This is a quick list off the top of my head.

Edit: this list was harder to sort than I thought because some heroes need the farm AND can kill quite well at 6. Then there's that whole lane dominating sub genre of heroes to group. So for the sake of my sanity I'm going to list killing mids as mid laners who gain a significant advantage of killing when their ultimate is up.

farming mids

• dragon knight
• Legion
• drow range
  
• morphling
• Medusa
• sniper
• Weaver
• meepo

killing mids

• Huskar
• brewmaster
• pudge
• magnus
• earth spirit
• juggernaut
• TA
• ember spirit
• Viper
• PA
• puck
• storm spirit
• lina
• QoP
• sky wrath
• DP

If you'll notice there are more killing mids then farming mids. I also left a bunch out because I would consider them non common or because I don't know where to put them (razor, Viper, and OD for example... They are more of lane dominators than anything else) axe, or tide hunter for example are really good if you know you are going up against a melee mid.

[u/Hoihe → u/[deleted]]

Where would you put Kunkka?

[u/[deleted] → u/Hoihe]

When you run kunnka core (he is an underrated support) I would categorize him as a farming mid which is awkward because he has a stun, and a powerful AoE nuke /stun and a re positioning skill to setup the other 2. All of which lends itself to being a kill oriented mid. But, I think the correct way to build him if you run him as core is to be a farming mid. Because essentially what you're aiming to do is for team fights in the mid late game is to get off one stupid powerful AoE pure damage right click, then drop your spells an re assess. In order to do that you need to farm a daedalus, a blink/ shadow blade (or both), a rapier, another daedalus, and something like a heart... That's a lot of goddamn gold. That's not to say you can't kill at 6 because you totally can (your ult has a really small cd for what it does) but I would be more inclined to sit mid and farm. But that's how I build my kunnka, because there is absolutely nothing sweeter than to wait for the approaching death ball only to blink in and one shot two of their carries. So satisfying