State Of The Offlane In Today’s Pubs
It’s a rough time to be an offlaner, especially when it comes to pub play. Though it depends on the skill bracket, pub players aren’t keen on switching lanes depending on matchups, and often enough there aren’t prompt rotations when an offlaner gets ganked. Trilanes run amok in today’s meta, and without Iron Talon, without PMS, and reduced jungle XP, playing the offlane successfully often means to just not die. But there are a few approaches that can make your life in the offlane easier and more manageable.
It’s Okay To Be Level One
Sometimes it’s better to just accept the fate that you’re facing a trilane, and your impact in the early game will be extremely limited. What happens too often is the mounting pressure to do something, anything, and that leads to mistakes—namely feeding. Playing the offlane can be often a lonely, powerless experience. You’re getting zoned by supports, all the while watching the enemy grab last hit after last hit, and deny after deny on XP and Gold you’re so desperately starved of. You’re pleading to your teammates about a situation you have no control of, and you feel that the outcome of the game is in their hands. Hopefully, they’re dominating their side of the map, because you feel that most definitely you’re losing yours.
The stipulation here is that it’s okay to be level one, provided you’re against a trilane and occupying the opposing supports. If you have no impact in the offlane, and you’re still level one, you would have probably been better off jungling or attempting a gank in the mid lane. The prevailing rule should be don’t die, and if you do die, die with purpose. Don’t die because you were trading hits on the enemy support, frivolously calculating their regen—when it’s already 2v1—and then dying to an errant gank. Perhaps your lane opponents dived too far, leaving them vulnerable to your team’s response. Or you died while contesting a pull or messing with the creep equilbrium, and the death netted you a few creep waves of experience at your tower when you revive.
There’s plenty you can do if you’re not getting XP or Gold. You can rotate to the mid lane, grab runes, and most of all, you can still disrupt the safe lane by harassing creep pulls. If you’re level one still because you’re keeping the enemy supports busy, then that’s essentially creating space for your team as well. It means their supports aren’t bothering your mid hero, and it opens a window for your own supports to rotate to the mid lane.
You’re only going to be at level one for a short window. Eventually, usually sooner than later, you’ll be able to grab a few creep waves of experience. And for most offlaners, that’s just the threshold they need to vault themselves into a bigger role in the game.
Mess With The Creep Equilibrium
Though players can be too reckless in trying to make something happen, sometimes it’s just misplaced effort. Offlaners can still be proactive to be effective, but what it should involve is disrupting the safelane’s carry, and one effective way of doing so is disrupting the creep equilibrium. The equilibrium is the point that both creep waves settle in the map. The closer it is to your tower, the safer you will be.
This can be done at 0:00. You can run to their T3, aggro the creep wave for 10 seconds, and either make your way back to your own tower, or just TP back to it. Another usual route is to just pick up the enemy creep wave between their T1 and T2. This can be countered, as with many pull tactics, but for most pubs it’ll be quite effective in shifting the equilibrium your way and getting at least one wave of experience.
If you don’t feel like you can safely navigate the enemy jungle without getting picked off, then one recourse is to block your own creep wave. It’s much like blocking as a midlaner, except you’ll be able to block for a longer period of time. Letting the ranged creep advance near the end is also a good way to get the creep equilibrium moving in your direction.
Then there are the other usual offlane tactics: warding the pull camps and pulling the hard camp yourself. Both Radiant and Dire offlanes have their own pull camp, which opens up another area for supports to contest, or else risk their carry losing a wave of creeps.
Watch Pros Play Pubs
Watching pros play pubs is a humbling experience. Though the simple advice to winning at Dota is to just “get good,” observing how pros manage playing with and against lesser opponents is an object lesson on how to make the most of what you have. There’s Khezu, who often has educational streams, as he’s climbing MMR through the offlane. Admiral Bulldog kickstarted a generation of Nature Prophet players by showing them how to annoy a trilane with just two summons to simultaneously manipulate creep waves and stack your own jungle. Even though he mixes his pub play with safelane and carry nowadays, iceiceice’s calm demeanor in his streams and his habit of voicing his thoughts out loud, as he’s outplaying his lane opponent, offers many teachable moments for viewers.
Communicate Ahead Of Time
Sometimes, only the offlaner knows how difficult it is to offlane. Communicate to your team that you’ll probably be playing against a trilane. There’s no need to say “AM free farm, gg.” We already know. So stay focused on your game.
Call out supports when they’re missing, and if they’re not missing, let your team know as well. The cards are stacked against the offlane, so you shouldn’t feel like you can win 1v3. Be proactive, positive, and don’t let the failures of the first 10 minutes affect how you perform for the rest of the game.
Just like my last omniknight game. Where we as a tri lane offlane, made luna's early a disaster (0-4) but our TB crying in the bottom coz no supports lol.
Offlane is probably the most misunderstood role.
I cant work out what hero that is in main pic haha.
Solo offlane? We don't have this in 2k.
u give source for every pic but not for this one? cmon eggs
also no its not okay to level one, 0/3/0 lv4 offlaner >> 0/0/0 lv1 offlaner
Its Enchantress. Very pretty I must say, so much so that it doesn't look like the plain and standard hero model. Curious to know wherefrom this is in the workshop and whether its associated with a released set.
Google's search by image resulted in this source: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lNZB5 . Would be cool if this artist covered more dota heroes
I normally play as a support. The way I decide whether to help our offlaner or to let him solo kinda depends on the draft.
Put it this way:
if making sure our carry fat > their carry fat, then normally i would go agro trilane and let my offlaner solo.
if making sure their carry cant farm > our carry cant farm, then I would normally help my offlaner while harrassing their carry.
For example, if my carry is someone like AM, i normally don't care too much about our offlaner. But if my carry is someone like Shadow Demon (btw, it is very common in 2k-3k bracket. Everyone plays carry with whatever hero they got), then I would go offlane and harrass the opponent's carry.
Really dont agree with not dying being your priority as an offlaner. If anything i would say its okay for offlaners to die for experiance and lane equilibrium since early kills dont really give that much anyway. If im 0-2-0 and level 5 and enemy offlaner is 0-0-0 and level 3 im doing better imo.
Sure you fed some gold but being higher level makes it easier to put pressure in your lane and getting level 6 on most heroes can do alot for your team, even with a few deaths. Meanwhile enemy offlane is camping his tower and having no impact.
“AM free farm, gg.” lol.
Thanks for the article; I am an offlane player :)
just pick solo ET offlane and fuck those supports up
Just play Timbersaw.
It looks like you will play solo vs trilane? Pick lc, max q and see how supports die after 3 odds
@eksdee I've even done that against a duolane, so fun
I almost never see a Trilane nowadays. For me, when I'm going Offlane Bristleback, either its your average safelane lineup, or I'm soloing against 4 enemies.
I like the offlane because im a masochist lol XD
I've been wrecking as roaming chen :D
I would Enfeeble the heck outta their safelane carry's damage lol
Yep, can't agree with the first statement - it's always better to take the risk and snatch some exp and a couple of lasthits than simply stay under the tower being lvl1 for the next 5 minutes.
Dying before the 10 minute mark hardly matters, especially if you force enemy carry to lose some lasthits.
It's not okay to be 0-10-0 either - there should be balance between going for the risky plays and staying safe when it's better.
tfw you lose offlane 3v1 and your safelane loses 1v3 as well
Lmfao i love the offlane! Check my offlane huskar statistics
@Eternal
I don’t know what lalaland servers you play in, no one plays shadow demon carries in 3k in my experience
Offlaners have it the hardest right now, show'em some love and respek.
ясно, всё ясно
Omg so stupid... Why go solo offlane where you will be level 1 for eternity without farm and let their carry freefarm if you can go with STRONG DUO and DOMINATE.
^ said every archon player lmao
It's okay if u can duo offlane and dominate enemy's duo / tri safelane (which is super rare if you play with same bracket player), the problem with archon player is they doesn't understand or care if other lane is win or lost.
You would simply keep going duo offlane and dominate even though your mid / carry safelane is lost.
I imagine my self holding his two horn and giving me a bl*w j*b that Enchantress ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
"I imagine my self holding HIS two horn and giving me a bl*w j*b that Enchantress" wait.... what?
I am to imagine of the make sex on her HAha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD01Raia8Bc
wew enchantress really hot
This helps as im just wee scrub offlaner in 4k bracket
thank god everytime i play offlane with my team are able to dominate another lane
in lower mmr there is no such thing like solo offlane ...there are most likely 4 cores and 1 supp/offlane hero ....cores will fight for safelane and mid heroes for mid lane....ganks will be total disaster...teamfights even worse ..no respect for any role....ND M STUCK HERE FOREVER
Being a offlaner is pretty relaxing for me, even if is a misunderstood world for pretty much the rest of my teammates. Its calm, you are normally doing "your things" and gettin what your "play mechanics" can offer. Anyway, i would love if every1 on 3k breckets could understand what is a normal offlane situation and that kind of things, because normally its pretty much "free farm hc, u picked offlane for this? lol". Honestly, its annoying and break my lovely person on parts when it happens.