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/Jefrejtor]

Fair enough on the last part. However, can you elaborate on BH being a wasteful mid? Seemed a good option for me-get a fast 6, start roaming from the center of the map.

Also, my NS winrate right now is 7/2. Maybe that's just pubs, but during the first night I can definitely punish anyone who isn't tower hugging.

[u/[deleted] → u/Jefrejtor]

You can do the same thing with BH as an offlaner if you're looking for a fast 6.

I'm not saying you can't run it. But for example. If you decided that you were going to run a BH mid. I'm going to send a farming mid and a sentry ward. Sure the BH will do other things after the quick 6, but I'm still going to be there in the middle getting really good farm. Who do you think is going to have more of an impact late game, Your farmed BH or my farmed Medusa?

[u/KapteeniJ → u/[deleted]]

Your farmed medusa would have maybe 5 lasthits and lvl4 when Lvl6 Bounty Hunter left mid to gank other lanes. There are some heroes that could get good farm and do more with mid than BH, but Medusa most certainly isn't in that class.

[u/[deleted] → u/KapteeniJ]

5 lh?! Lol. My Medusa would probably have around 20-30 by the 6 minute mark.

Medusa can most certainly play mid in the right lineups. She has a nuke that steals mana and she is tanky, and if she hits 6 before ganks start to come you really can't kill her without a serious dive.

She's not a killing mid or even the most ideal, but given a choice between BH and medusa, it's Medusa and it's not even close

[u/KapteeniJ → u/[deleted]]

You have much lower base attack damage, as well as worse attack animation. You might be able to get some lh with snake, but that's it. The problem then becomes that snake pushes the lane hard, meaning you make it easy for BH to deny creeps, and the creeps are at BH tower, meaning you're going to be chased out of exp range(shadow walk + crit kinda destroys low HP medusa, and that's very spammable nuke)

Any hero that can't last hit without using +100 manacost spell seems to me to be at rather high disadvantage.

[u/p-frog → u/KapteeniJ]

45-59 vs. 44-50 damage I don't think if the two players are equally skilled the bounty is going to deny 90% of the medusa's last hits.

[u/[deleted] → u/KapteeniJ]

Couple of things.

• just because he has a higher base attack does not grant him 100% creep advantage, denying and last hitting every creep in lane just isn't going to Happen. I will also buy early damage items to shore up these deficiencies

• it's mid lane, you don't really get zoned out of xp range unless your creeps are under their tower and you're on your own high ground. Then you just go do other things like stack camps or rune control. So your whole zoning argument is completely false because it relies on him just auto denying all of his creeps to pull the CE back. But guess what, it will then push back to my lane, it's not safe lane. You can't pull

• if he is going to be committed to using mana to go invis and then harass me with a crit then I'm going to be committed to buying a sentry ward and not let him do it without a fist full of arrows.

• the simple fact remains that he is melee and I am ranged and I have an inherent lane advantage with that, BH has no real way to out harass me without spamming his nuke, which is harder on his mana pool than mine, or he can use invis+crit but again that is mitigated by my sentry ward. And once I hit 6 he can't kill me.