Trilf's guide to farming V2

I’m sorry I haven’t been online for a while, Crazy studying. Btw, I'm making a second guide due to the new update on edit functions. It seems that all the posts made before the update cannot be edited. Now, it is enabled, thus making my release of the guide with very good timing. So that I can edit my mistakes... Onto the guide:

Intended for Dotationary only.

Trilf’s guide to farming! V2

Welcome to my guide of farming, this is my second attempt at making the guide, as you can see its V2. I will cover survivability, basics, tips and all you need to know to have good lane control. The old guide was a failure, with no pictures and hard-to-read layout. I’ve reworked some info, added pictures, and hopefully this time it will be epic. Oh yeah



Contents

Harassing
Lane Items
Last Hits
Denying




What is “Harassing?”

Harassing is the art of attacking one another, causing them to feel underpowered, fear of death, wasting time to go back home.

So, basically Harassing is just attacking the hero during farming, but this is not killing him. When you’re harassing, choose not to lose a lot of health. Harassing will provoke the enemy to attack you, and that will probably lead to a fight. Don’t pick any, because this is mainly early game, and this whole guide is to ensure that you have a good future. Don't be stupid and harass with low health, you will suicide. Harassing will make them take larger risks, which is of course, a good thing. But do not be fooled with the enemy's low health, some can turn a fight around in an instant.

Harassing with a ranged hero is probably the easiest thing to do. And the reason is because you can do it very effectively as opposed to a melee harasser. What I mean is that you won’t lose that much health, and you have time before creeps start to attack you. But, ranged heroes have lower base damage at the start than melee heroes, which balances it out. Your easiest opponents are fragile melee heroes. All you have to have a little bit of timing, and you can do it. Bravo! But, seeing as most ranged heroes aren't STR types, you will have low health, and not as much damage as those STR types. It depends on what kind of range use you make.

Harassing with a normal attack: Just to right-click a unit or press 'A' to attack
Harassing with a spell Attack: Targets an enemy with one of the spells your hero provides.

This kind of thing really depends on the hero, not you. If INT is your base attribute, then yes you will cast more spells than a STR would. If you have a so-so mana pool, then keep your mana at a moderate level. Don’t spam spells even though you think you’re 1337

Harassing with Melee may and quite be harder, especially against a ranged hero. Don't forget that other heroes can harass too. You're either a STR or an AGI (other than Ogre Magi). So, you have a good arsenal of spells to use requiring not too much mana. But, you'll have to run all the way up to the opponent from your tower to the creep wave, to attack. And this also may provoke your opponent to attack back or make it equal. Not the best thing, but it's the only way if you're melee.




Items for lane control are vital as all heroes in DoTA are WEAK, period. Heroes need items to support your lane control and dominance over the opponent. requires a constant heal and mana regeneration. These items can be found at your base, and they're cheap too.


Ring of Regeneration - Truly a good core early item for ANY hero. It will keep you in lane in the long run of early game.


Ancient Tango of Essification - If you feel harassed a little, or having orange health, use one of these on a tree to heal to get your head back in the game.


Lesser Clarity Potion - If you choose to harass with spells, have these in the inventory. Buy this if you have excess money.


Healing Salve - You would mainly use this is in an emergency, or either the enemies you're facing are pretty strong early harassers.


Magic Stick – Very good for people who spell harass. Good counter for spell-spammers.


Sobi Mask - Also a pretty core item for spell spammers, you could work your way to a Vladmir's Offering with this.


Empty Bottle – Get this if you have enough money, good for spammers.


Ironwood Brach – Buy this from excess money. A small bonus makes a difference.

Many items have different purposes. And many items work well with a variety of heroes.



Last hitting will provide safer health rates and will get 2x more money than usual. But, this requires very good timing and skill.
Last hitting is running up to a low health creep and getting the last hit, which will give you the bounty reward and the experience. You may not have to last-hit with every hero, but it will still be rendered extremely useful to making a difference in the game. You may do this with ranged heroes also.

Steps


When you see an enemy with low health, attack.





As you can see, I last-hitted safely without losing health, gaining exp and gold.


You can also last hit with spells, like my illusionary orb.




Denying is a good strategy from delaying heroes not to get too much gold or experience. It is the art of sacrifice. In order to do this you must attack your own creep at low health (click attack or press 'a'). This will deny enemies from last hitting or getting experience, creating level gaps.
Also will require a lot of skill and timing.


Press ‘a’ and click on a creep with low health.


You’ve just denied. Also, if you see that purple exclamation mark, that should tell you whether you've denied out not. Practice your timing. Personally, I think that Last hits<Denying .. You may proritize based on your choice, hero and gameplay.

So, remember to be very cautious in games. There are 4050 different hero combination and allies in the whole game of dota, giving a different experience and game play.

I hope I’ve improved in this guide. Thanks to the Admin, all the DoTationary staff and members here for making this.

As of Map 6.56
Trilf, Dotationary 2008. All rights reserved.

Updates: 27 Oct '08, Fixed a few grammar mistakes, added the Introduction part.

Review, Critiscize and Comment! Thanks.

Trilf

Ehemm.. Sorry for dposting. Read please, :S

Nice. It's clear, concise and to the point.

But I think maybe you could include a section on neutraling.

…

Yes.. and I was also thinking of putting a tower deny part, neutraling and (maybe) juke spots..

Yeah tower denying/last hitting would be good... but juke spots would be for a different type of guide imo.

…

Hmm.. You can use juke escapes... Maybe I should cover "Fog of War trickery", or some really pro escape method. Have you seen those pros that have low health take on a whole team, running around fog, tricking.. Nah i shouldn't write about that, I even am not yet that good..

Juking, "Fog of War trickery" in a farming guide? I do not think so... If you were gonna include that info in a guide, it would have to be a different guide.

…

aww yeah, forgot that this was a farming guide.. Thought it was a lane/control or an early game guide.. hehe

Nice guide, but i would like to point out a few things:

Harassing:

Harassing is also made better by using animation cancelling/orb walking. Especially on ranged heroes. This is most common on heroes who use orbs such as viper, traxex, silencer, huskar etc. Though these are the heroes that benefit most from the technique, other heroes with good attack animations [such as sniper, razor, jakiro, troll] can also do this properly as well.

NOTE: Animation Cancelling is a technique used by high-level players to aid in their harassing and last-hitting. This is done by cancelling the backswing of the attack by issuing another command [such as "MOVE"]. This technique can also be used by cancelling spell backswings [most noticeable in crystal maiden]. This is done in a way that you'll cancel her backswing once the spell has been cast.

As for spell harassment. It is also good to point out that you must NEVER ever keep your mana pool at full, since you'll be wasting the mana regeneration [whether you have an item to support it or not]. The point also to "NEVER SPAM YOUR SPELLS" is untrue with heroes like Jakiro [with Sobi Masks or Void Stones], and Tormented Soul [with Lightning-Stats build].

Another thing to point out when harassing with spells, especially with those that hit multiple targets, is to make sure that you get 2 - 3 creeps with it. This also doubles your chances of landing that last hit, and not wasting the spell simply to harass.

As for melee heroes. Not all melee heroes can harass, only few like Axe and Abbadon may do this, but this is not via attacking but by their skills. In nature, all melee heroes should only last-hit and deny [since majority of them have higher base damage than ranged heroes] and will thus have an easier time with it.


You also have to include how to lane control, as this is not simply last-hit denying-harassing a lane. Lane control is a technique so that you keep the battle nearer to your side of the tower. Lane control techniques usually involve using the neutral camps to farm if your creeps move to far from the tower [possible in sentinel mid,short and scourge short,mid lanes]

Another thing you can include is how to creep pull, creep stack, and creep block, as these techniques all contribute on how fast you farm in the jungles and in the lane.

Thanks for pointing these things out, I will take them into consideration.
May I use your animation cancelling/orb walking part in my guide?

GTXInsane wrote:

The point also to "NEVER SPAM YOUR SPELLS" is untrue with heroes like Jakiro [with Sobi Masks or Void Stones], and Tormented Soul [with Lightning-Stats build].

Yes I know heroes like Rigwarl need to spam and such, but I'm focusing mainly on the first levels of early game.. These are actually the most important levels of the game.

And yes, what is this:

GTXInsane wrote:

creep stack

Is this something to do with creep blocking?

No problem.

Quote :

Yes I know heroes like Rigwarl need to spam and such, but I'm focusing mainly on the first levels of early game.. These are actually the most important levels of the game.

Spell spamming is also important for these heroes early in the game, Tormented Soul with Lightning-Spam allows for a beastly harass/farm technique. Zeus is also affected by this since you use arc-lightning for lasthitting [damage does not reduce from arc lightning btw], thus allowing you to last hit + harass from a safe distance.

_____________________________________________________________________


And creep stacking is a technique used to "stack" neutral creeps to double the source of income. It's usually done by pulling a said creep camp far enough so that another set of creeps can spawn in that camp.

Merlini's Jungling Guide - This video shows how to both creep pull, and creep stack.

Hmm. As in spamming, I thought it was to spam until a very low mana pool. Maybe, I didn't consider mana regen items, or consumables. Either way, I have to update it.

Thanks for the creep stacking info. Updating the guide on animation canceling/orb walking.

EDIT: Damn! It seems the edit function was released after the guide was made...
...
.. That means I can't edit.

Let's leave the guide as it is.. I don't want to make another topic, V3. Haha.