Dota 2 Laning: 10 Common Questions Answered

Introduction

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Struggling to get through the laning phase smoothly in Dota 2? You’re not alone. Many players run into the same problems without realizing what’s holding them back. To make things easier, we’ve gathered answers to ten of the most common questions about Dota 2 laning, touching on everything from mid lane fundamentals to side lane decision-making. Think of it as a straightforward guide to help you clean up the basics and approach your lane with more confidence.

Let’s jump right into it.

1. How do I draft for the laning stage?

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Drafting for the laning phase starts with understanding matchups, lane synergy, and power spikes. Generally, you would want combinations of 1 melee and 1 ranged hero or 2 ranged heroes. Avoid 2 melee heroes. This is because 2 melee heroes would most likely get harassed by ranged heroes without being able to trade back most of the time. On the other hand, 1 melee and 1 ranged allows for one hero to be tanky and frontline while the other partner harasses from behind or beside. Similarly, 2 ranged heroes would allow for insane harass in lane at the expense of tankiness.

Therefore, you don’t draft in isolation, but rather with consideration towards your own teammate’s picks and the enemy’s picks. For example, a Slark + Ogre Magi probably wouldn’t perform as well as a Drow Ranger + Ogre Magi or Slark + Lion. It’s always better to go for a combination of disables, pokes, and stuns to provide good harass and kill potential in lane. Lane dominators with slows or nukes such as Undying, Venomancer and Viper are also preferable if your goal is to win the laning phase.

2. How do I balance the wave equilibrium & position?

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Maintaining a favorable creep wave position is essential for safe farming, zoning, and XP control. A favorable lane position means having the creep wave just outside your tower range, making it hard for the enemy to approach the wave or trade without overextending. The ideal creep equilibrium control is performed by last-hitting without auto-attacking, denying your own creeps, and executing good creep aggro mechanics. 

To put it simply, you would need to balance the health and number of creeps that you have to that of the enemy’s wave. Avoid unnecessary spell usage that pushes the lane, unless it’s with intent to trade against the opponents favorably. The only time you would want to actively auto-attack and kill the enemy’s creeps is if they have too many creeps compared to yours; something like 2 or 3 more creeps than your wave. If that happens, you might even need to pull the wave into your tower so that your tower can help relieve the lane pressure in such situations.

3. Why does my creep aggro fail sometimes?

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Creep aggro in Dota 2 follows specific rules and patterns, and understanding them is crucial to mastering lane control. If you have tried pulling creep aggro to you but found that creeps were not chasing after you, chances are you have toggled some creep aggro mechanics unknowingly. Here’s a quick breakdown of the rules of creep aggro:

Firstly, creep aggro has an acquisition range of 500 units. That means if you are outside the range of 500 units to a creep and attempt creep aggro, the creep will not chase after you because you are out of range. At the same time, creep aggro has a cooldown of 3 seconds. Upon issuing an attack command on any enemy heroes on the map, the aggro mechanic gets put on a 3-second cooldown, and everything you do will not force creeps to change target towards you. If you successfully execute creep aggro and creeps do chase after you, the chase duration only lasts for 2.3 seconds. On top of that, creep aggro can be done by issuing an attack command on any enemy heroes that show on the minimap.

Summarizing:

1. 500 units acquisition range to creeps
2. 3 seconds cooldown duration
3. 2.3 seconds chase duration
4. Creep aggro is global

Do note that tower aggro shares the same mechanics as creep aggro in terms of attack range, cooldown, and aggro duration.

4. Why is it important to deny my ranged creep?

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Denying your ranged creep in lane is one of the most impactful laning objectives. This is because ranged creeps give significantly more experience than melee creeps, so denying them limits the amount of gold and experience your opponents can get in lane. To do this, you need to perform creep aggro to have the enemy creeps chase after you so that they end up on your ranged creep after losing aggro.

Adding onto this, when your opponents are not near the creep wave, executing global creep aggro is extremely useful to help in this process as you deny your ranged creep before they reach the wave. This is especially important in the side lanes, where lane control and wave equilibrium make or break your laning phase.

In lane, the goal is to have your wave as close to your side as possible without it being under tower. In order to achieve this, your creep wave must push slower than your enemy’s. This is where denying your ranged creep plays a great role. Ranged creeps attack from a distance and contribute more consistent damage in lane due to staying alive behind your melee creeps. If you do not deny it fast, your wave can end up pushing faster than your opponent’s if they deny theirs before you. So, next time your ranged creep is present in lane or starts dropping low, be ready to deny it. It’s a small action that builds up over time.

5. How much gold spent on regen is too much in lane?

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Spending gold on regen in lane is absolutely necessary, but overspending on them can greatly slow down your item progression and put you further back. As a general rule, if you find yourself spending more than 500 gold on regen in lane, it usually means two things:

1. You are most likely taking too much unnecessary harass due to bad positioning in lane
2. You are trading incorrectly and inefficiently (throwing spells randomly and taking on bad trades often)

A few Tangoes, healing salves, and mangoes are standard requirements at the start as you will be needing them to sustain throughout the lane. In fact, if you are trading correctly and frequently, you are expected to fly out 2-3 healing salves and Tangoes and a few mangoes in order to win the regen war.

A good way to identify if you are spending gold correctly on regen in lane is if you manage to zone your opponents or kill them multiple times in lane while staying consistently healthy. If not, then study the sources of damage that you are taking in lane, whether that be from unnecessary harass, poor positioning, or mismanaging creep aggro. Smart regen use in lane is about efficiency, not just about survival.

6. When should I pull jungle creeps in lane?

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Pulling jungle creeps in lane is a key laning tactic to reset the lane equilibrium and deny the enemy’s experience and gold. However, knowing when and why to pull jungle creeps requires understanding the state of the lane. As a rule of thumb, you almost never want to be pulling jungle creeps if you are in a stronger position to trade. For example, if you are a strong position 5 support hero and are able to out-trade the opponents in lane, you should never be pulling jungle creeps. This puts you far away from your cores and leaves them in 1 versus 2 situations, causing them to risk dying more frequently in lane. While pulling creeps is mostly done by supports, it must also be done by the cores sometimes when necessary. 

The most common time to pull is when you have downtime in lane and there is nothing much to do, or you are playing losing matchups. For instance, if your lane is pushing too close to the enemy tower and you are unable to trade the enemy heroes under their tower, then you should be pulling the jungle creeps so that you buy time for the enemy wave to push towards you again. Make sure to time the death of the jungle creeps such that your wave connects properly to the enemy’s wave. If done right, you should be able to deny some of your creeps during the pull, and the wave should meet close to your tower. Stacking before pulling also greatly helps in denying your entire creep wave. Mastering this timing to pull helps control the lane flow and allows you to punish your opponents for overextending.

7. Where should I plant wards in lane?

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Laning wards should give vision that protects you or enables you to be aggressive. For side lanes, this means planting Observer Wards in the lane where creep waves meet to enable favorable trades, and planting Sentry Wards to block the enemy’s jungle camps and unblock your own camps. For mid lane, you generally want Observer Wards to show the rune spawns and provide vision over the enemy’s high ground for better positional plays. Generally speaking, wards should show rotations, block pulls, and reveal supports hiding in fog.

Take note that the efficacy of Observer Wards gets reduced by trees surrounding it. This is because trees block off the vision provided by Observer Wards if planted behind it. So, always plant the wards in areas where they are not blocked by trees to maximize vision control, unless your goal is to have specific vision over an area, even if it is limited.

If your opponents have heroes with invisibility like Templar Assassin or Riki, then you must drop Sentry Wards around the lane to reveal them. Keep in mind that wards can be purchased and planted by anyone, so if you are a core and need to plant wards in lane, definitely do so. Think of wards as lane insurance; they are there to provide vision and information for you to decide the next moves.

8. As a core, am I supposed to help my support or farm in lane?

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The laning phase is all about out-trading your opponents and coming out on top in terms of last hits, XP, and gold. In order to achieve positive outcomes for these metrics, it’s important that you identify 2 versus 1 trades as much as possible and take them. Even 2 versus 2 trades should be frequently considered if you have level, health, or item advantage.

While your main job as a core is to secure farm, it doesn’t mean ignoring your supports in lane. The best laners strike a balance between farming efficiently and backing up their supports during key moments. If your support is zoning or trading aggressively and you just keep hitting creeps, they may get punished or even die, shifting the lane momentum in favor of your opponents.

A simple way to see it is:

‘If my support is trading nearby and I can reach them without giving up too many last hits, then I should step in to pressure the enemy together with them.‘

This advice is especially true during the early levels of 1-3. Across thousands of replay analyses conducted so far, this is probably the most common laning mistake I see core players make. They think of the laning phase as, ‘supports trade and zone, carries farm safely.’ This laning mindset isn’t true and will backfire against themselves and cause them to lose much more lanes than they really should. It’s okay to give up a few last hits if it means being able to zone your opponents out as early as possible, or to kill them in lane.

9. How to play against hard matchups in Mid?

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Hard Mid matchups are inevitable, but surviving them smartly is more important than trying hard to win them. If you are facing a lane dominator or a matchup counter, then your goal should be to prioritize securing as much XP and last hits as possible without dying. This comes with mastering the concepts of creep aggro, positioning, last hitting, and patience.

Strong Mid heroes that you will commonly face include:

1. Huskar
2. Viper
3. Outworld Destroyer
4. Sniper
5. Lina

These heroes (when played correctly) will win 9/10 of their lanes, and there really isn’t much you can do to change that other than to survive the lane and come back with jungle farm and rotations.

The best timeframe to get a lead over these heroes is to force trades against them during levels 1 and 2. This is done by creep aggroing to your ranged creep and forcing them out of position to punish them as they overextend to secure creeps. After that, you need to focus entirely on maintaining equilibrium near your tower and using spells correctly for last hits. Extra regen will also be necessary to survive these lanes as you are most likely going to be put under heavy harass and pressure in lane.

Once you hit level 5-6, start stacking your jungle camps and look for rotations on side lanes through rune ganks or teleport kills. At that point, the mid lane will become completely unplayable if your opponents are playing it right, and a good TP towards side lanes can help reset your XP and gold lead back in your favor. Remember, playing safe and staying alive while maximizing the amount of farm you can get out of the lane is often better than feeding kills in a losing lane.

10. When should I leave the lane?

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Knowing when to leave the lane comes from understanding a few lane conditions:

1. You are able to farm jungle camps much faster than you would staying in lane
2. You have secured enough levels to contribute to ganks and plays
3. Your opponent cannot be pushed out and staying becomes a waste of time
4. You spot free kill openings with teleport, gate or good runes (Haste, DD, Invi)
5. Your opponent has hit their power spikes and have high kill threat against you
6. Your tower is about to fall and staying becomes too risky

Once these conditions are met, you should be looking to leave the lane and only take safe farm that pushes back to your side of the map. If you overstay, you are going to risk getting caught out and feeding in turn. However, don’t automatically resort to rotating and roaming aimlessly if lanes become too dangerous; make sure there are actual opportunities for pick-off kills, or that you are needed for a TP counter-gank. Leaving lane at the right time shifts pressure, opens space, and helps you optimize your time in game.

Conclusion

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Laning is where Dota games are often won or lost, and mastering it is about more than just last-hitting. You need to get a good grasp on multiple concepts starting from understanding creep aggro and sustain to knowing how to push your advantage and identifying when to leave lane. Learning to pull camps at the right time, placing wards with purpose, and adapting to tough matchups is key in coming out ahead from lanes all the time. 

If you want more tips like these, I offer personal 1-to-1 coaching for players looking to improve in Dota 2. Check out my website for more information.