Your goals in laning are not very deep: get money, get experience. Pretty simple ideas, right? That's why I do anything in real life and dota is no different. So lets get right to it.
Experience
In order to gain experience, you must be within a certain range when a creep or hero dies (1000 range). If another allied hero is also in range, you split the experience equally (which is why a solo lane will typically be a higher level than dual lanes). As you gain experience, you will level up and your abilities will get much more powerful.
Since your opponents are often trying to kill you (that is, deprive you of money and experience), it is often smarter to take charge and do that to them BEFORE they get the chance to do it to you, thus allowing you to gain experience and money without restriction.
Money
In order to get money (in addition to the gold accrued every second – a relatively slow source of income) you must get creep kills in lane. When you get the last hit on an enemy creep, you get an additional amount of gold that would otherwise have gone to another teammate (if they get the last hit) or to no one (if your allied creeps get the last hit or the enemy denies the creep).
Both of these ideas goals are very straightforward. Accomplishing these goals, however, with your opponent trying to maximize his money and experience becomes a little bit more difficult. There are a lot of things that must be considered in order to widen the gap between your income/experience gain and your opponent's income/experience gain. First of all, I will address the universal ideas that hold for (pretty much) every hero.
Golden Rule of Laning
- If you manage to stay in your lane longer than your opponent, you will widen the EXP gap between the two of you and likely the money gap will follow suit.
-- This is the central idea to all aspects of laning. If you maximize this gap during laning, you set yourself up for excellent chances of winning further along in the game. If you fall behind your opponent in these areas, prepare for an uphill climb. I will reference this point in most sections.
How To
Harassing is a pretty important topic in lane control. Some heroes, however, won't be able to harass as effectively as others. Melee heroes have an obvious disadvantage when you consider “creep agro.” Creep agro is the aggression of creeps (to attack your hero) based on your actions or position. The creep has AI designed such that if you issue an attack command on an enemy hero (either by a + left-clicking or right-clicking by itself) the creeps will attack you. The serves as a form of anti-harassment, so to speak, and you can lose a lot of health if you are not careful. There are some ways to get around this.
If you position yourself far from the creeps before attacking the enemy hero, the creeps will have to walk further to get to you and you can retreat before they are able to damage you much. This is ranged heroes often have an easier time in lane. They do not have to be right next to the opponent (and creeps) in order to attack unlike their melee counterparts.
Another more unique form of harassing is using arrow skills, such as those on Drow, Viper or Clinkz. The creeps react to these skills like they do normal spells, that is they do not draw aggression (must be manually cast, however). This is a nice way to get in extra attacks without causing yourself to lose health from creep aggression.
When?
When should you harass? Not all the time. Some times you must play a bit more passively and simply stay for experience. If, however, you are laned with a melee hero that is relatively item dependent, it is often a good idea to harass so that person will be able to contend for last hits. If you don't make this effort, the other team will be able to harass your heroes and force you to lose some last hits and possibly experience.
What about in a solo lane against another solo? Harassing here is a bit safer since they will often lack the power to kill you by themselves (unlike dual stun lanes, for example). In this case, however, you are not contending with a teammate (or trying to support one) for last hits. This means that if there is a last hit available and you elect to harass the opponent, the money from that last hit does not go to your team. Wasted money is no good.
If you are in a solo lane vs two opponents, it is much more dangerous to harass (depending on the opposing lane, of course, as some are much more dangerous than others). Many times in this situation being content with some last hits and gaining EXP is best. Some heroes can “harass” in these more difficult lanes through use of certain spells and also get last hits. Some examples include Death Prophet's Carrion Swarm (timing the cast to hit heroes and get a last hit or two), Zeus's Arc lightning and Leshrac's Lightning storm.
Some ideas to keep in mind possibilities for offensive lanes
- At least one hero should have a targetable stun or slow. This serves two important purposes: 1) damages the enemy hero; and 2) inhibits movement. Unlike strictly AoE spells, these do not miss and allow for nice combos with other spells.
- At least 1 ranged hero. Two melee hero lanes does not allow for much last hitting (or any offensive tactics while the spells are on cooldown or you have insufficient mana) and are generally forced to be passive due to the harassing edge the enemy will have.
- Cooperative teammates. This is perhaps the most important one of all. If you and your lanemate are not on the same page regarding aggression, there is no way you can expect to dominate a lane. If he is passive, how well are you going to fare when you jump into the fray as he calmly last hits creeps? Probably not very well. "Why didn't you go on that guy?" Communicate beforehand to avoid any problems.
Last Hitting/Denying
Base damage and attack animation are the two biggest concerns here. If you have higher base damage than the opponent, you will be able to kill the creep at a slightly earlier time than your opponent. You can increase your base damage by purchasing stat items (which you should probably be doing anyways) of your hero's class. These are often the best choice for starting items as they help your last hitting and can be built into useful items later. No, boots do NOT boost your starting damage!
Attack animation
Again in this category not all heroes are created equal. Have you tried laning as Crystal Maiden against a competent Sniper? Getting last hits and denies is pretty difficult. This is due to the attack animations of the characters and each hero has a unique one. This is something that you simply must play with and get used to as some people have an easier time than others with certain heroes. Generally, faster projectiles (Sniper and Troll Warlord for examples) are easier to last hit with than slower ones (Crystal Maiden, Lina).
To solo or not to solo - that is the question
Advantages - The Golden Rule strikes again- No competition for gold amongst lane partners (not a problem with disciplined babysitters but those people probably won't be reading this!)
If you have a lane to yourself, you do not have to compete with an ally for last hits. This is mostly a good thing as every creep can only be killed once yielding one bounty. It is for this same reason that putting two item dependent heroes in the same lane is a bad idea, as they compete for farm. - Jump in experience
If you are laning by yourself, you do not share the experience with another hero leaving you with all of the experience to advance in levels. This can be useful for a carry hero or a ganker. With a ganker, it is a strong advantage to have high level nukes so that your ganks in other lanes are successful (for example, a level 8/9 Tinker does 561 or so damage with laser/rocket to one hero and 241 to another - if the lane you are ganking is level 5/6 the 561 is probably a LARGE chunk of their HP) Pulling
"Pulling" is when you tick off a neutral camp and get it to follow you to your creeps who then fight with you to kill the neutral camp. This is covered in more detail here but basically allows you to deprive the enemy of some experience (since your creeps are not near them) and also gives you a chance at farm that you otherwise would not have had.
Importance of Ganks
Ganking is one of the best means of hurting the enemy team and it is very important to organize ganks to kill the enemy carry. At this stage of the game (lanes have maybe broken down a bit, some towers have fallen, etc.) you need to find the enemy carry and kill him. The golden rule still applies but now there are other considerations - namely the farm/exp for a team's carry has a lot more value than the farm/exp of a support hero. If you must sacrifice some farm for your team's support heroes while limiting the enemy carry, this is a fine outcome. At the same time, your carry is of great importance (and target of enemy ganks).
Importance of TP Scrolls
Teleport scrolls are extremely important in saving teammates and towers (namely ganks/counterganks and teamfights at towers) since they allow you to be there almost instantly.- Ganks: teleport into an opposing lane (preferably when the enemy cannot see you TPing in) and gank the enemy team with a certain hero advantage.
- Counterganks: come quickly to help your teammates when the enemy starts to get close to your tower. You will often be able to use the enemy's aggression against them and get a kill for your team instead.
- Teamfights at towers: if you have something to contribute to a teamfight, you had better be there for your team if it will make a difference in the outcome of the fight.
Knowing your opponents and their tendencies and abilities
This develops over time and is not as useful if you are not playing against the same people all the time, but it helps to know how aggressive your opponent is. Are they content to sit back and farm or will they consistently tower dive if there is even a chance of killing you? These sort of traits about the opponent dictate how you should lane. Try to piece together everything you know about your opponent (the hero AND the player) so that you are prepared for whatever they decide to do.
- No competition for gold amongst lane partners (not a problem with disciplined babysitters but those people probably won't be reading this!)
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