In this post we’ll focus on the middle lane. I believe middle lane is the best lane in the game to get to know your mistakes, how good are your mechanics and to compare yourself with other players.
On mid, with that lane being usually 1v1, you find out your hero’s limitations, how deep can you go, how to harras and control creep aggro, and of course, the capabilities of the opposing hero. As mid being the easiest lane to gank, you will learn how to dodge ganks and work on your map awareness.
There already is already a good guide about laning in mid made by ChaQ:
ChaQ’s Ultimate Guide To Mid Laning
That guide, pretty much covers it all. If you previously haven’t heard about it, be sure to check it out.
Important thing is, meta in Dota 2, is constantly changing, and so are the heroes that are being picked/banned. Mid laning heroes usually are gankers, space creators, but not all.
That means, that there are some heroes, that are considered as carries, but still rolled mid. That usually happens if they’re solid at laning, scale well with levels, and have high priority on farming. And that is possibly the most important thing, NEVER STOP FARMING. That doesn’t mean that you should afk farm, for 40 mins, let your team struggle, then come out as fat as Russia and try to solo win the game. What it means is, always try to maximize your farm. You can see on Dotabuff.com the heroes cs, and a heroes desired economy. That can help you compare yourself with other players. Almost all the stats you see there, with flash-farming heroes, such as Shadow Fiend, Timbersaw, Anti-Mage, Tiny, etc, should be if not more than 20cs above it. You can acomplish it, by stacking jungle after each x:30 second wave, either on medium camp or on hard camps. That is why most mid laners prefer radiant side, alongside it being an easier side to play at for additional reasons, which we will get to later on. That farm, makes up for many mistakes, that might come up on you, whether you played poorly or were just outplayed. Even if you outlane your opponent, those stacks that you, or your support has made for you, will give you an even bigger chance of snowballing out of control, and the outcome of that is PUBSTOMPING!
That’s that considering farming heroes on mid, now let’s get to the ones that don’t have an easy way out if they screw up. If you’re totally outlaned, with 9 cs at 7 minutes into the game, by being countered or whatever the reason is. It happens to a lot of Pudge “players”, so we’ll take Pudge for an example.
Being that Pudge is one of the worst laning heroes in the game, and yet one of the most popular ones. He often gets completely zoned out by a number of ranged heroes, even some melee’s. When it is clear to you, that you cannot farm there, as if the creep lane is on the opposing side of the river, he’s managing a neat lane equillibrium, then you should just forget about it, and hope for the runes. Most players, spend too much time on their lane, even when they’re getting almost nothing of it, they’re hoping for a miracle. Don’t do that! Use that time to check the runes, try to gank some lanes(the best time for ganking in pubs, is about 6-7mins in the game, because that is when the wards drop off, and usually people don’t pay much attention to pings and misses if they don’t see the trouble).If the enemy hero has taken the rune whether it be DD, or anything else, and you still gain nothing from the lane but a small shred of exp, go stack ancients, or neutrals for your team’s carry. Important thing is, not to waste time, if you know when the wave is gonna push in, under your tower, and when u might get some uncontested farm and exp, then stay there and do that, otherwise use that time on something that will help your team.
GamezOP 