Dota 2's Intro to advanced thinking

This is a “translated” version of my HoN guide, I’m a ~1900 mmr Player, so “very high” tier in Dota 2, although i don’t play the game too much anymore I did my best to change hero names, etc so that you can understand the fundamentals to game logic which is similar between the two games. Just to avoid confusion...
Short lane means... Alliance/Legion’s/bottom left lane Bottom lane, or Dire’s/top right team’s top lane.
Long lane means... Alliance’s top lane, or Dire’s bottom lane.
Suicide (I believe it’s a common term in Dota 2 as well) is a lane where one player goes into their team’s long lane, so an Enigma/Lich are common pickups for this role.
Aggressive Trilane: A lane consisting of three heroes in their long lane, whereas a psuedo trilane is a dual lane long lane with a jungler in enemy jungle.
Aggressive jungler: A jungler in enemy jungle.

p.s. I did my best to translate this guy, seeing as i spent a decent amount of time on the original, seen below in the blog. If you disagree with something, feel free to tell me what and why in the reddit and i will do my best to fix it. Additionally i removed a few sections because i didn't feel even "okay" in terms of knowledge on the subject, such as draft theory. In the near future I will try to update it if i play/watch some more dota 2. If you're knowledgeable in hon terms i suggest you view the hon version. Sorry if i missed any translations!!!
-iGotThis

1. Mechanical skill, this in itself will get you out of so many sticky situations, and simply carry you to the “High” bracket without any game theory . (That’s what it did for me, I was really “good” at playing the game but had very little game IQ) Examples:
1. Pucks’ ultimate, it irks me how often I see this powerful ultimate misused. There will be TONS of situations where an ally could’ve lived or you yourself could’ve turned a fight by simply putting the center of it further from your target for the chain to snap earlier. It’s so simple yet so little people actually do this.
2. PROPER creep leashing, it’s a simple idea to “click to attack hero” in order to get aggro of creeps to pull lane in your favor, but it’s rarer for individuals to have the state of mind to pull creeps a second/milliseconds before an Auto Attack from opposing hero in order to mess up last hits.
3. Animation cancelling, often you can get a hero to run in the direction you want by simply animation cancelling enough, case in point, many devo’s will cancel their hook once or twice, maybe thrice, but rarely do they cancel it so frequently that either the enemy hero bolts of ends up getting cornered and you get to eat the hero for free without spending mana on the hook… this has worked A LOT for me.
2. Playing the “meta” of the game. So obvious factors to this game, such as spells, auto attacks, items, even hero choices. However there are SEVERAL little factoids that people simply don’t understand at lower tier mmr. This section will try to point them out and try to resolve them.
1. “MID is noob they didn’t gank, gg!” a very common phrase even up to the Very High Tier. However it’s usually just anger at that level of play and more of an idiotic belief in the Low Tier. In reality a mid has a number of options when it comes as to how to “win” their lane.
1. When their lane leaves, push as hard as possible, chip away at tower, perhaps get early tower, but most of all enemy tower will kill your creeps leading to a wider margin of exp when opponent returns to lane with rune/attempted gank.
2. When their lane leaves, they should always call MIA within 7 seconds of departure to prevent that exp gap from becoming even once more or even swinging in their favor. Remember, if mid calls mia, just back up, their mid will lose a lot more EXP than your dual lane will, possibly leading to their death/lack of farm further into the game.
3. If it’s before the level  7-9 mark for mid, you should only expect a gank if you inform them of potential dives which should make them carry a TP, or alternatively they get a lucky rune invis/dd/haste (in which case a smart mid would probably utilize a tp to gank opposite lane assuming vision)
4. If you’re losing YOUR lane, minimize the damage, it’s infinitely worse to lose say your short lane (Dires’ top lane…  Alliances’ short…) and proceed to feed several times following the initial “loss” of your lane. If you continue to play safe and minimize your deaths, you will limit the enemy laner’s GPM to only CS, while alleviating future stress for your team. Just because YOU lost your lane, doesn’t mean mid needs to bust their ass all game to rectify your mistake.
5. Conversely the following points are regarding what mid SHOULD do/realize. Simply killing the enemy middle DOES NOT mean that you won mid, case in point they send a Shadow Fiend mid who gets killed once or twice, but you’re a Viper/Invoker, he can easily recover in jungle while you’re too busy basking in the glory of “winning” mid and not ganking your side lanes because mid is “useless now”
6. When you go to rune control by guessing, always chose them by this order of logic:
1. Is there an enemy jungler that can kill you if you go towards your ancients? IF so, go to your “safe” side meaning where your shortlane/jungle can back you up.
2. If you chose the long lane side,Dire’s bottom, Alliance Top, you can now STACK the ancients for your carry or for yourself for a later point in time, it really takes no time/effort.
7. Utilize your  “Side” advantages, Alliance side has the small camp to stack and potentially nuke down to catch up, Not sure if applicable to Dota 2, Dire MIGHT have easy access to secret shop by cutting through a tree behind their middle tower.
8. In reference to the “TP” tidbit in prior point, as a MID you should carry a TP with you past the 3 minute mark, or at latest the 4-5 min mark when you bring yourself your boots + extra stuff… The earlier you get your tp, the more unexpected a TP gank to your side lanes. You should teleport after grabbing a rune to opposite side, (assuming you see some sort of reaction/are seen) OR right before your intended lane is about to be pushed back towards your tower forcing the enemy team to stick their neck out.
2. If you’re playing support, you SHOULD rather have 2 wards on map and a flying courier even if that means having no boots, even if you become a bigger target, just trade your exp range for safer positioning and rely on YOUR carry/gankers/junglers to do their job because this is YOURS.
3. When an enemy team is pushing, don’t just teleport right away and just simply stand around twiddling your thumbs. One of the biggest imbalances in this game is how much pushing as a group is NOT worth it. If they’re pushing as 5, they’re grouping up and losing TONS of EXP. Ideal response to enemy 5 man push:
1. 2 or 3 players, primarily the supports, but should be optimized by heroes with the best abilities to spam down the waves, should be waiting at tower trying to delay the push.
2. The rest of the team, should either be pushing out lanes so that your creeps can start working on towers, additionally carries (assuming that there’s a strong possibility that the enemy can tp 2 or 3 people back to tower and jump the solo pusher with Blink Dagger then the player should farm out their ancient’s jungle during their push, although it’s by far and wide more conventional to simply push out lanes, take every bit of farm possible.
4. Note: I believe this is valid in Dota 2: The current “meta” does NOT advocate static farming for long periods of times. Although farming is EXTREMELY important in today’s games, it is a different sort of farming. You will often see competitive teams go for quick towers before their enemy can mount a resistance, additionally tower trades are very common.  THEREFORE, it is usually inconvenient for a gank/suicide hero to static farm the long lane because:
1. Although the static farming of the lane will force the enemy team to pull their short lane in order to regain lane control it will also in essence turn the game into a 4v3, because your carry will be at this point most likely in jungle farming stacks, you’re top, all that remains are at most three heroes, assuming your own jungler isn’t say at ancients. Thus REQUIRING superb vision of the map.
2. As an alternative to exclusive static farming, keep an eye on the map, when you see that the enemy is “focused” on a lane opposite of yours, push right away, do so before they actually arrive at the lane, e.g. you see them walk by a river ward.
3. Additionally, static farming 2 waves and pushing out on the third, and do some damage, forcing an enemy reaction and retreating to farm jungle as the carry is extremely important.
5. When should you trade tower for tower?
1. When you’re down a significant player and teams are on even footing, OR if you have a major cooldown that usually decides the outcome of a fight (Blackhole)
2. When you’re down in gold/exp, in fact, if you see the enemy grouping up for a push, it’s best to have one or two people chip at a tower say, middle, and the other three/four push out a lane together OPPOSITE of the pushed lane so that there is no proper way to “defend” the lane but to split tp-defend, meaning that you may potentially be able to get a kill out of their tp’s.
6. Level advantages, this is a topic that is rarely discussed but super important.  In YOUR short lane, you will naturally get an EXP advantage by ~30 seconds even with same CS simply because the long lane’s creeps die quicker thanks to short lane tower, so when you push AWAY from short lane’s tower you are likely to be “out leveling” your enemy, this is PRIME time to make a jump on them.
7. This topic was touched earlier, but a KEY aspect to leaving a lane whether at mid or side lane is that you should always push it out even if you were static farming it because you will get a bit of additional gold and lose less experience. Leaving the lane would mean going for rune, gank, or simply leaving to defend another tower.
8. Assuming you have a carry which can rotate into jungle rather early in the game as a support it is your duty (given an easy lane say versus a suicide hero) to try to leech as little experience as possible, roam, stack jungle, leave a lane ward when absent, and guard runes, during their time in jungle later on you can recover esp by leaching exp at ancients/level 3 camps or static farming the safe lane/ganks.
9. Assuming there is a HARD lane,  meaning they’re challenging your short lane, so it’s 2v2 or 3v2, it is the short lane’s job to simply stay alive and naturally out last hit their enemy, it is on their heads to make something happen, because assuming good lane control you can stay safe under the tower.
3. Hero composition, types of comps:  (Sorry if my logic is outdated/not competitive level, i did my best in here “translating”)
1. Dual mid, suicide, solo short, + jungle. This method is EXTREMELY powerful if enemy team is relying on one carry hero to simply dominate the game, so in cases like these, you would put a strong dual lane mid, e.g. Crystal Maiden + Sven,  put a solo short lane which can win lane without assistance (because by the original assumption they should have a safe suicide Lich or Enigma or Puck) so a INSERT STRONG RANGE CARRY/SEMI CARRY, long lane should be standard suicide either Lich, puck, etc and jungler should an aggressive jungler preferably in enemy jungle, possibly a chen, this allows mid to be ganked and long lane to be ganked due to creep pulling or natural deny of Lich/Enigma. With the use of a suicide puck  against a pseudo trilane it might be best to simply jungle your own jungle and dominate both short and mid. Relies on:
1. Powerful dual mid which should be able to contend against most other dual lanes and if not have easy rotation into aggressive pseudo trilane.
2. Short lane as mentioned should with easily but, it should more than that be capable to semi-carry as this lineup generally features an ensemble of “strong” heroes but lacks heroes which have little lane presence early on such as melee carries.
3. Long lane has to be adjusted for your jungler, if it’ll be aggressive a Lich would be ideal as it would allow you to gank their short lane, especially with assistance of Mid support.
2. Dual short, suicide, solo mid, own jungle. This strategy is used primarily with a group of heroes that have to use “numbers” to their advantage, so lanes such as Crystal Maiden+ week melee carry here + jungling enigma, which would make challenging the lane for the opposition extremely difficult.
1. You should consider employing an active jungler and not a passive one in cases such as these because the enemy team may pretend to draft a Lich as a suicide and say a Dazzle as support but in reality solo short the Dazzle (a really powerful hero in that role) and have a support pr with a ranged carry (e.g. Gyrocopter) or semi carry (Leshrac..?) with an aggressive jungler or abuse roam from Lich and a support in middle such as a support Lich/Venge/cm/wind runner.
2. Your suicide should be capable of doing well against a 1 + jungler because in cases like these it is highly likely assuming an adaptive enemy team, that they will send a powerful hero in short and have a dual lane mid to attempt to win two lanes while you divert the majority of your assets to winning your short lane.
3. This composition is extremely reliant on a carry with about 450 gpm at mid game, remember that the support and even jungler should stack the jungle up at places where the jungler will not actively farm, e.g. reserve one level 2 and one level 3 camp, or simply have jungler rotate to enemy jungle or ancients to compensate for farm. Remember that as a jungler in this strategy you must utilize spawns as effectively as possible, so don’t block spawns, and if you can’t kill the creeps in time, simply stack the camp and finish it off afterwards.
3. Psuedo aggressive trilane (long lane), 1 mid, 1 short.  This strategy relies on challenging the second strategy of having an extremely fortified long lane, the reason this lane is specifically geared towards this in my mind is that rather than focusing on mid/short this focuses primarily on jungle and their short. Obviously tp ganks can help ensure a victory in your own short against their suicide, and mid can possibly win depending on the situation.
1. This setup requires either Ophelia or even enigma. Although I would highly advise the previous three before tempest.
2. Long lane should be double ranged,  in case of a scenario where the enemy dual lane is double range, say venge/cm + Ranged carry. This way they can’t be out harassed before jungle becomes involved.
3. Ideal candidates for this scenario involve lich as support, and a ranged hero with a stun. Alternatively you can use a strong support such as an wind runner/cm as well.
4. Jungle should be involved in not only ganking long lane but mid and disrupting enemy jungler farm as much as possible, seeing as chen does well in enemy jungle it is highly likely that you will have success even against a tempest.
4. 1-1-1 with roaming supports between mid and long lane. So in essence it’s an aggressive trilane, I call it a 1-1-1 simply because in order to avoid severe lack of levels the supports should roam and in essence have 3 soloes. Requires mid to be capable of getting cs passively (beast master) or have an escape (qop) while being able to nuke or stun as well for when dual support roam mid.
1. This strategy puts the strain of succeeding on your head because the enemy will naturally gain higher exp than you, but in the early game when laning is a major component you will have a severely more cautious enemy.
2. The enemy team may react in two ways, challenge the roam with a strong jungle and have enemy support assist the jungler, or more likely rotate jungler and support as to win long lane and middle.
3. If your supports aren’t achieving kills, it is probably more important to dissolve the roam and resume a 1-2-2 meaning 1 short, 2 mid, 2 long, until of course you see another opportunity to roam. REMEMBER, if you’re not getting kills or absolutely demolishing your enemy in CS this strategy is not worth it.
4. What makes a carry good?
1. The ability to escape and high mobility
2. Strong laning presence and team fight
3. The ability to farm faster as the game progresses, this is done by either have a passive or item which assists in farming
4. A common misconception is that heroes that carry well are in essence the ones that scale incredibly well with items, e.g. crits. However, heroes such as skeleton king, etc, will struggle with farming up said items making it difficult for them to carry. Also a strong case in point is that carries will often get crowd controlled making it all the more important that they can gap close or be ranged.
5. Tips to maximize your farm.
1. An obvious one is always stack (as mentioned earlier in this post)
2. If you have multiple “farmers” on your team, fourth farmer, your third should be spending time trying to reduce enemy farm, based on enemy positioning your hero taking enemy farm should be aware and be quick to rotate to a safer position.
3. Always pull back the camp you’re killing if it means you can’t stack it... just move your lazy ass and stack it.
4. If you can’t get there yourself, use your spells to stack, you can also use some spells to block enemy spawns.
6. Understanding Gold and EXP advantage.
1. You can achieve a gold advantage without holding the EXP advantage. Case in point, you are pushing a lot as a group of five, but the enemy can for the most part hold its own against you while their carry farms, although you might net more kills at first, their team will slowly begin to outlevel you which might lead to later fights ending in their favor and swinging gold back in theirs.
2. Blocking a camp for enemy team is extremely important because under the assumption of good farming mechanics that is a 50-200ish gold a minute, which does add up agaisnt their team, so block it using spells/killing the camp/wards.
3. Sometimes you KNOW where the enemy team is, that is your clue to go and take their stacks or push nearby towers, assuming you cannot gank them or it is not in your best interest. Too often do i see people unsure of what they want to do and end up doing nothing while enemy team ends up farming, if you don’t plan on fighting, don’t teleport/walk in that direction.
4. If your strategy revolves around team fights, you should always remember to stack/farm in between or else the disparity between levels will grow extremely high, farming will keep the gap manageable.
7. Map Control
1. Map control is gained in two ways,
1. Majority of your heroes are deadly to the opponents so running into even one of you will often lead to their deaths, usually when your strategy involves a Fayde/pebbles this is true.
2. You have the vast majority of map vision and even if you don’t have the strongest gankers/nukers you will still seem extremely intimidating to the enemy.
2. Map control is kept in two ways,
1. Pushing lanes where you can deduce they are not present at, thus making their “gank” squad element fall to shambles as they try to TP to stop split pushes.
2. Great warding, usually i recommend I recommend to keep two wards up at the majority of the phases of the game, but assuming you don’t overlap you should have an extra ward or two to place at the more “frightening” stages of the game. I highly recommend warding like so with three wards when on the defensive:
1. Put a ward that sees some or most of the middle lane, this could be the Allianceancients, or anywhere near where mid towers were, but keep to the side opposite of your jungle, usually it’s good practice to make it gain some vision close to your ancients if your Dire this could be a bit tricky, so instead of placing it at Alliance ancients, place it near Alliance jungle entrance which is a good spot to watch over your own ancients, and use another ward near mid lane’s entrance to Dires’ jungle. This is the warder’s personal preference... (Alliance has an advantage in this regard as they can easily view mid lane, and ancients)
2. Put a ward at the entrance of your jungle, the obvious ramp up for Alliance, or the middle above the top rune spawn, on the ledge that DOESN’T block the level two neutral spawn. (Sees most of both entrances to the jungle.
3. Put a lane ward at your short lane, so that way even when their long lane is pushed against your short’s tower, they can’t sneak into your jungle. So in conclusion, you have all “entrances” to your jungle covered, along with most/some of mid lane + some/most of ancients, giving you powerful knowledge against enemy roam and good protection of your farm.