General Discussion - Positioning vids - DOTABUFF

2013-04-27

hey guys, I'm after a decent position tutorial - I fucking suck balls, & I feel my positioning is the first place to start. Any suggestions?

Relentless

2013-04-27

What kind of positioning? Placing wards? Where to stand in teamfights? Where to be on the map if...? How, where, and when to juke?

For some of these things types of things I know of good guides. What are you looking for?

Ash

2013-04-27

juking, team fights mainly. I find my self feeding whilst trying to support, & I'm sure if I was more familiar with how to position properly that I could survive more. A warding video would be great too.

Relentless

2013-04-27

I have played support and warded for somewhere between 2 to 3 thousand games of my 5k games of dota. I hope I can offer some helpful ideas about it.

http://www.playdota.com/guides/the-forbidden-techniques

This is an excellent jukeing guide from dota 1. Pretty much everything still applies to dota 2.
Juking is more about practice than knowledge. You need to actually try to juke in games against real players to get good at it.

http://www.team-dignitas.net/articles/blogs/DotA/1092/Dota-2-Ultimate-Guide-to-Warding/
Here is good guide for warding. Warding is mostly about knowledge of what spot sees what, when and why you want that ward up. But there is also a lot of execution to learn that is not in the guides and comes with practice like juking.

For instance as the above guide mentions at the end "warders carrying around a Quelling Blade/tangoes can open up a whole new dimension of warding." Certain ward spots go from terrible to amazing if you know what tree to cut.

There are three important secondary objectives when warding (primary being get the ward up where you need it).

[1] You need the ward up BEFORE it is needed. This means the sentry is down where the invis hero will walk before he comes. (such a ward single handedly won TI 1 game 5 grand finals). The push wards are up before you push. The jungle wards are up before you gank. The rune wards are up before the runes need to be taken. Getting the ward up in preparation means you will be able to clearly see the right time to attack and the right path to take. This also means you need to think ahead to have the ward in your inventory when the chance to place it comes...before it needs to be used. Courier management comes into play. Buy the wards the moment you have the gold and put them on the courier asap. Take them off when someone else near you is also getting items.

[2] Don't let them see where you placed it! If the enemy does not know they are very unlikely to counter ward correctly and also they won't know where they are vulnerable and where they are safe. Part of this is about using fog and timing so they don't see you ward. But also it means not using exactly the same warding spots throughout the game.

[3] Don't die to ward. Supports can accomplish a huge amount in a pub game by simply not dieing. The support items you need can be purchased with almost zero farm if you just don't die. Also your every death is more farm for the enemy and time that your team is unprotected. Learn to see where enemies will be based on what they are trying to do without having complete map vision. Go place wards when they will not be there. Walk paths they will not take.

There are more nuances and mind games with warding vs dewarding, but it just requires experience. Even with this 60+ ward spot guide there are some amazing ward spots not mentioned. It is possible to place for vision and true sight vision to see behind and into pretty much everywhere on the map.
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I don't think I have ever seen a guide to team fight positioning. It's something that is unique for every game, every fight and combination of heroes, what abilities are up, who has blinks, fstaffs, ghosts, hexes, orchids, bkbs...who has aegis...not to mention where the fight takes place and where the lanes are pushed. It's just very hard to say much without a specific situation to discuss.

Usually if you are a support then you first need to figure out if your abilities are best used to initiate or counter initiate. If you are going to initiate you have to consider whether your team can follow it up. If they can't get there for 4 seconds, then a 5 man black hole is not good. If you are going to counter initiate or chain a stun then you have to position so you are close enough to do it.

If you will not survive the burst of dmg coming from the enemy then don't be in front. If possible don't be visible. This could mean hanging in fog, hanging back a little extra, using a smoke, actually having an invis rune...it also means items that make your positioning easier.

Get blink, fstaff, ghost scepter, euls. orchid, hex, or bkb depending on what you need. Once you have even one of these items your life as a support becomes far easier. If you have several of them pretty much only faceless void can kill you no matter how much farm a carry has and void would have to ult to do it. If you can survive the 5 sec of a late game carries bkb...you have him. Supports are far more powerful late game (Truth!). This is because you team has so much more dmg. Your stuns. silences, and slows early game are helpful, but late game they are certain death because your team will be able to kill enemy heroes in just a few seconds.

One more thing on the importance of not dieing as support. Just need one, and killing you is much harder...means positioning in teamfights is much easier.

Zero farm cost of each Key support item
Ghost scepter = not dieing for 22 mins
Blink Dagger = not dieing for 28 mins
Force Staff = not dieing for 32 mins

Each tower down knocks 4 mins off that time. If the T1 towers all fall..
Ghost scepter = 3 T1s + not dieing for 10 mins
Blink Dagger = 3 T1s + not dieing for 16 mins
Force Staff = 3 T1s + not dieing for 20 mins

Besides this it is absolutely critical to know the initiation range of the enemy heroes. This means you have to check their items whenever you can to know who is getting something that changes their initiating power. Before clinkz gets an orchid, Crystal Maiden can really kick his butt. After orchid CM is food. Know when he is going to get it. Know when riki has his diffusal. Know when any blink dagger hero gets blink. etc.

This comment was edited 2013-04-27

Ming (Zufälliger König)

2013-04-27

HERE COMES THE GREAT WALL OF RELENTLESS

edit : SHIT TOO SLOW, HE ALREADY FINISHED BUILDING

This comment was edited 2013-04-27

Relentless

2013-04-27

Its ok Ming I can always add on more. Many times you will see people complaining that you can't supports pubs. But I have won plenty playing hard support while solo queing. You can do it too.

Here are examples of Ogre Magi games won with minimal, mostly accidental cs by creeps dieing to ignite during fights.

I have 69% win on Ogre Magi compared to the average of 50% win. But the average gpm is 266 and mine is 251. The point is Supports played correctly don't need any farm. Part of positioning is positioning yourself on the map to fulfill your role. Often the best place for a support to be is standing in fog near a lane waiting, doing nothing for 20-30 seconds.

The same thing can be accomplished with most good support heroes.
http://dotabuff.com/matches/52398089 Lich wins with <1 cs/min but 334 gpm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/144736091 CM wins with <1 cs/min but 280 gpm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/180088297 Wisp wins with <1 cs/min but 302 gpm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/95678499 WD wins with <1 cs/min but 288 gpm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/45832532 SD wins with <1 cs/min but 253 gpm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/116785448 Rubic wins with <1 cs/min but 256 gpm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/168564260 Disruptor wins with <1 cs/min but 305 gpm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/146279191 Veno wins ~1 cs/min but 289 gpm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/141025171 VS wins ~1 cs/min but 318 gpm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/96267687 Tree wins ~1 cs/min but 266 gpm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/70736744 WL wins ~1 cs/min but 315 gpm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/126363991 Zues wins ~1 cs/min but 263 gpm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/178884438 Skywrath wins ~1 cs/min but 287 gpm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/72700175 ShadowShaman wins ~1 cs/min but 253 gpm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/171122259 Omniknighr wins ~1 cs/min but 283 gpm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/37915219 Chen wins ~1 cs/min but 265 gpm

These near zero farm wins are accomplished by defeating enemies who have more farm by out positioning them. Also when you don't take farm your carry has an easier time finding it.

This comment was edited 2013-04-27

Ash

2013-04-27

Oh man, thanks heaps! I really appreciate this.

General DiscussionPositioning vids