Lanes - Sentinel Bottom Lane (Part 1)

Introduction
The Sentinel Bottom Lane a.k.a long lane is known for its suitability for carries. We have seen various players placing their carry in this lane as it is always being considered as a "safe lane". If Scourge decides to abandon their bottom lane by placing a solo hero in this lane, I could not agree more that this lane is indeed a safe lane as Sentinel can place a jungler in the Sentinel jungle and a supporter alongside with the carry in the lane. In this situation, Sentinel's carry will be considered to be given a free farm as the Scourge's solo lane hero will have a hard time against three heroes. Besides that, bottom tower can be taken down fairly easy. However, Sentinel's top lane will suffer as much as Scourge's bottom lane. This type of lane trade is not always beneficial, therefore, we can sometimes see a trilane against a trilane at Sentinel's bottom lane.

What really happen if there are 6 heroes in a single lane? As the saying goes, "the more the merrier", there are always kills flying here and there in this packed lane. In a trilane, kills are important as experience gain is essential especially for the supporters. After giving up the gold to your carry, you have to try and obtain as much experience as possible to win the lane. Often we see the result game is decided by this trilane as the winner of this lane will have 3 stronger heroes then the opponents. Sometimes, it also forces support from the other two enemy heroes which gives your team a free farm in the other lane.

Geography of The Lane
First of all, in order to win the trilane, we have to understand the geography of the bottom lane. The distance between the tier 3 tower and the tier 2 tower is around 3000 units but the tier 1 tower is around 5400units away from its tier 2 tower. This shows that TP support will usually only come from the tier 1 tower. On the other hand, the Sentinel's creeps have to walk a longer distance compared to Scourge's and will be closer to its tower unless creep blocking is used. The area of safe zone in this lane depends on the map control of your team. Normally the smallest safe zone available in this lane will be

 Safe zone behind tower

Safe zone in front of tower

The green line indicates the border of the safe zone while the red arrows indicate the possible ganking potential coming from the enemy team. One can always increase its safe zone by warding the correct position in the jungle. The 2nd picture also shows the meeting position of the creeps if there are no creep blocking.

Creep Controlling

To win the lane, creep control is very important. A change in creep equilibrium will cause creeps to meet different location. For an ideal situation, you want the creep to meet in the safe zone so your carry can farm easily. Besides that, you want to deny as many creeps as possible so that your opponents will lose most of their experience. Many players make a mistake by creep blocking their bottom lane from the start. By doing so, you will allow the Scourge creeps to be within your tower range (700units). This might initially sound to be a good idea as you are safe under your tower but having the Scourge creeps within your tower range means that your creep will be winning and pushing the lane after that. Besides standing a chance of missing last hits on the creeps to your own tower, you will lose the creep equilibrium and forced to walk out your safe zone. So, the right choice is to block the creeps when you have the vision of the Scourge creeps. When blocking, estimate the distance for the creeps to meet so that the opponents creeps will not be within your tower range. Creep blocking overall is not a necessity for Sentinel bottom lane. I've even seen teams that actually leave out creep blocking.

There are two ways to deny your creeps. The first way is by Hero skill. Heroes like Lich and Enigma are able to deny their own creep while Chen is able to sent the creep back to the fountain. The second way is creep pulling. Creep pulling actually serve two purposes. The first one is to deny your creeps, while the later is to stack up your creeps which is useful to push down the lane. I will talk about this in detail another day. For Sentinel bottom lane, usually two camps will be used for creep pulling.

Normal creep pulling camp

Camp used for double pulling

The normal creep pulling camp is used to pull and deny the Sentinel's creep when only the creep equilibrium favours the Scourge. Incorrect pulling technique and timing will cause your tower and laning heroes to be under treat. Besides that, you might stack up your creep and ended up pushing down the lane and giving free experience to the scourge side. A double pull is possible by cutting of the one of the trees in the circled path. Usually double pulling will ensure a full deny on a creep wave. However, it is not easy to perform. An easier thing to do is by stacking creeps camp which will also usually fully deny your creep wave. To cut things short, here is a link about jungling by Luminous: click me

Heroes For Trilanes

Usually trilanes will consists of three lane heroes of just two lane heroes and a single jungler supporter. Many teams prefer the later as the jungler can obtain solo experience from neutral camps and there will be a constant treat of ganking from the jungle. Moreover, from the help of neutral creeps,  towers can be taken down fairly easy.

Carries

Carries that are suitable for trilane should be hard to pick of, easy in last hitting creeps, not level dependent and if possible, have a nuke or a disable skill. Here are a list of some carries that are suitable for trilaning.

Heroes	Pros			Cons
	Survival Skills	Farming Abilities	Damaging Skills
Sniper	-N/A	-Long attack range -Decent attack animation	-AOE slow	-fragile -low attack damage
Juggernaut	-blade fury -healing ward	-decent attack animation -decent damage	-high magical damage	-melee
Morphling	-wave -morph	-decent attack animation	-nuke -mini stun	-short range -low attack damage
Mirana	-leap	-decent attack animation	-nuke -stun	-unreliable stun -low attack damage
Sladar	-sprint	-decent damage -decent attack animation	-stun with small nuke -amplify damage	-melee -fragile when sprint is used
Weaver	-shukuchi	-decent damage	-amplify damage -small nuke	-fragile -poor attack animation
Medusa	-mana shield	-decent damage -decent attack animation	-nuke	-no escape mechanism
Dragon Knight	-dragon blood	-decent damage -decent attack animation	-nuke -stun	-melee -no escape mechanism

*ultimates are not included as most trilane will end after level 6

Different carries are chosen in different situations, it is all down to the team's preference and strategy. Bare in mind that no hero is all rounded, there is a give and take in all situations. This is why supporters are here for.

Supporters

Supporters for trilane should have disable skills, not level dependent and if possible hard to pick off.

Here are a list of supporters that are suitable for trilaning.

Heroes	Pros	Cons
Earthshaker	-long range stun with nuke and path block ability (1200)	-single disable skills -mana dependent -melee
Crystal Maiden	-long range slow with nuke(700) -stun with dps  -mana supplier	-extremely fragile
Orge Magi	-long range stun (600) -long range slow (700) -tank	-melee
Jakiro	-long range slow with nuke (500 can up to 950) -long range stun (1100) -tank	-low attack range
Rhasta	-long range multi target nuke (500 can up to 1000) -long disable time -hex	-fragile -disables himself when disabling enemy
Bane	-nuke with heal for himself -long disable time	-fragile -mana dependent
Lion	-long range stun (500 up to 700) -hex	-fragile
Shadow Demon	-long range disable (600) -disrupt can be used on teammates	-fragile
Shadow Priest	-slow with ministun -heal with damage -shallow grave	-mana dependent -shallow grave range is low for low level
Witch Doctor	-multi target stun if cast properly -heal -damage over time	-fragile
Tide Hunter	-long range slow with nuke (700) -attack damage reduction with nuke	-melee -mana dependent
Vengeful Spirit	-stun with nuke -long range armor reduction wave which can be used for scouting (1400)	-mana dependent

*figures in brackets () are the casting range of the spell

*ultimates are not included

Different supporters are chosen in different situations, a suitable supporter should be chosen to team up with the carry perfectly.

Supportive Junglers

There are various heroes that are suitable for jungling. However, what I meant here are those heroes that  can farm in the jungle, have the potential to gank the lane as well as pushing down tower quickly by the help of neutral creeps. There are only two heroes that is able to do so which is Chen and Enchantress.

Heroes	Pros	Cons
Chen	-able to control up to a maximum of 3 neutrals -nuke (pure damage) -slow	-level dependent -mana dependent
Enchantress	-able to control up to a maximum of 2 neutrals -slow -heal	-creep does not last forever (80s) -fragile -mana dependent

*ultimates are not included

Junglers usually will be farming on the three neutral creep camps near to the bottom lane as ganks might happen anytime in the lane. When jungling, the player has to be aware of what is going on in the lane. A good jungler will keep the pressure on the lane from time to time while jungling. However the jungling strategy can be easily countered by warding. There are various way to ward in the Sentinel's jungle and there are also techniques for counter warding. I will talk more about it in Part 2.

I think that's all from me for today. I've spent hours working on this. Leave a comment below if u like it. Lastly, I hope you guys enjoy reading and hopefully, you guys learn something new today.

A Future DotA Project

It had been months since the last post as I was kept busy by my studies. Good news is the summer break is just around the corner. I'll spent these three months time on working on a big project which relates to  the game - DotA. I would like to share my opinion, experiences and knowledge about the game. So, the future posts will be tutorials and strategies about DotA.

Match Against My Friend's Clan

I was playing against my friend's clan of four with two of my clan members, DRC.Noxel (Leon) and

Hadagan (Michael) alongside one of Leon's friend, DRC.Stephanie (Seng Chye). Both teams also consist of one pub.

We fell back at the early game but gradually gained momentum during the mid game. However, Spectre's radiance turned the game around and Scourge fought back into the game. Is Sentinal's pushing power too strong for Scourge's turtling strategy?

If you are interested in watching the replay, you can download it here.

Match Against A China Clan

I was playing with Gary (DRC.Haha) and one of his friend against a China clan yesterday. They played quite well and showed some good teamworks. Eventually, we lost the 1st 2 matches.

After that, Fred (TaeYeon.imba) and Michael (Hadagan) turned up and we decided to play one last round with them. I was quite confident to win this match as I finally had a reliable carry (Fred) and a better supporter (Hadagan). It had been quite some time since we last played together.

Their heroes are basically teambattle orientated, which most of their heroes have huge aoe spells while our heroes are stronger on ganking.

If you are interested on watching this replay, you can download it here.

The Longest Match I Have Ever Played

It was the longest game we (me (DRC.Lord), Fred (TaeYeon.imba) and Michael (Hadagan) have ever played before. The game was dragged as our carries were not reliable. During the early phase of the game, I made a mistake by giving out a 1st blood. After that, I teamed up Fred and Michael for small ganks and successfully claimed several kills. We forced Scourge to play defensively, giving huge spaces for our carries to farm; however they disappointed us. Scourge team grew stronger and eventually defeated us in some major teambattle. Due to lack of physical damage, I went for Divine Rapier. There was tug of war on teambattles and two teams had the chance of using the Divine Rapier. No spoiler on the result. If you are interested in watching the game you can download it here.

Recommended Chen Replay

Great Chen play by NaVi.Puppeh. Some great uses of Holy Persuasion on allies and micro on neutrals. You can download the replay here.

Recommended Wind Runner Replay

iG_Ch_Y proved that he is one of the best Wind Runner players in this match. There were also some superbly executed shackle shots which helped the team to win major team fights. You can download the replay here.

A Replay About Us

I found this replay quite funny as we had an interesting conservation throughout the game. You can download the replay here.

Only 2 Remain On DRC New Roster

It had been months since our last training as a team. All of us parted away due to our studies and rarely meet each other especially me who is currently pursuing my degree in the UK.

I personally think that the members of DRC should spent more training time together otherwise there is no use having this clan. Therefore, I think that it is time for the clan to have a new roster.

The new members DRC:

DRC.Lord - Nigel (solo/leader) UK

DRC.TaeYeon - Fred (carry) CA

DRC.HaHa - Gary (semi carry) UK

DRC.MrTaxi - Michael (supporter) UK

DRC.Noxel - Leon (supporter) MY

The reason that they are chosen is we spent more time playing DotA together then the 3 ex-DRC members. Some of them even started on other games.

Besides learning the game, I hope that we could enjoy it.

-DRC.Lord-

Promised Video

I actually finished this video a few months ago but I've forgotten to post it in my blog. It was already in Youtube and you can watch it by clicking here. This video is about a game that we played against another class. Although our quality of playing was not good back then, it really showed how our perseverance turned the table around.

Tutorials For DotA Gamers

I am always a fan of 2009. For those who doesn't know him, he was the ex-captain for LGD clan in China. After resigning from the team, he started to make his own DotA tutorial videos. Those videos are actually based on public games but I still find that I can learn something out of it. For example, the timing to enter a teambattle, the positioning of your hero in a teambattle, choice for items in difficult situations and some small tricks that you could master to improve your DotA skills. It is hard to eleborate all over here. If you are interested, you can visit this site where you can watch all his tutorials - http://u.youku.com/user_show/id_UMzE2OTY2NjUy.html

Besides that, if you want to know more about 09, you can watch this video about him - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIbfM_NnkZE. However, all his videos are in Chinese.

Lycan's Secret

I'm quite surprised as I saw Lycan was picked up in a match of one of the DotA tournaments lately. I can't really recall the team and the tournament but it was a rare occasion to have that hero being picked up as a main carry. Fascinated by the pick, I took a good look at the skills of this hero and I found something interesting. Do you know, feral impulse (Lycan's 3rd skill) will give any item that adds strength attribute (including armlet's unholy strength) a bonus damage to himself? For example, if you purchase a heart of tarrasque and have a lvl 4 feral impulse, you will get a 40x(30/100) bonus damage, which is 12 bonus damage! By purchasing heart, you will gain more hp and a total of 52 damage. Besides feral impulse, vladmir's offering gives the same type of damage bonus. For heart, it gives 40x( 5/100) bonues damage, which is 6 damage. The hero will received a total of 18 bonus damage! The damage might seem to be less but the money invested on dps items can be used to buy tanking items and at the same time gaining some dps. Not to forget that Lycan's 2nd skill howl provides a 50 bonus damage to all allies unit at lvl4. Since Lycan received alot bonus damage from his skills but lack of disabling skills, he needs items to tank some tower damage and enemies' allies damage while taking others down. Lycan is a hero that needs alot of farming so playing this hero might be boring. However, I would like to see him getting picked up more by players in the future.

A DRC Memory

After months of delay, I finally finished my video about a match of me and my friends against PB1. This match happened during my college life. You can watch it in YouTube by clicking this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vle8SGKp4do&feature=feedlik. We actually did some mistakes but I think we did have a great teamwork and heroes to finish them up.

Hero Suggesion

I am currently obsessed in using OD and find that OD is a strong solo mid hero that have the potential of being a horrific carry. Besides having an ability that can either disable an enemy hero for four seconds or saving you or you teammates, OD also have a big aoe ultimate that can deal numerous damage to the enemies hp or mana. However, OD is seldom used in clan matches and I don't get it!

I am thinking of any hero that can provide full support to OD as he is surely a glass canon. I hope that you guys can give me some suggestions. Besides that, can anyone provide me heroes that can be a solo pusher when the other teammates are pushing the other lane.

Creating DotA Videos to Recall Sweet Memories.

After so many months, I finally revive my blog. For your information, I am now in Manchester. I still play DotA with my friends (Michael and Gary mostly) but not anymore with my clan members except Fred. Playing DotA sometimes make me recall those time in FTZ and JS. Therefore, I decided to make a video about us. The video above is just a simple DotA video and is also my 1st. Please comment on my video and give me some ideas about the upcoming clan video.

Trashing Moxx Clan

I started playing again today with my [DRC] Clan members against [Moxx] Clan. It was enjoying match but not as challenging as last time. We played two rounds. The first one was in -ap mode while the second one was in -ar mode. We won both games.

For your information, I will stop DotAing for the time being and focus more on my studies till A2 trials are over. I am looking forward for another match with [Moxx] Clan after the trials.

PS: Heroines are scarier than they look. =)

Quiting DRC Clan And Officially Stepping Down As The Clan Leader

Today, I, Nigel Tee Sheng Yu, a.k.a [DRC] Lord shall officially step down as the leader of DRC clan. As the same time, I wish to quit DotA for a few months as my A2 examinations are closing by. The reason I step down today is because of losing a bet with Moxx clan. The following agreements were done between both clans:

1. The leader of the losing clan shall step down.


2. Moxx clan will choose the heroes for both teams.
   

Heroes of [DRC] clan are:

1. Bounty hunter - [DRC] Lord (Leader)


2. Bristleback - [DRC] Angel
   
3. Undying - [DRC] Tarzan


4. Geomancer - [DRC] Crazy
   
5. Skeleton King - [DRC] Storm Shadow

Heroes of [Moxx] clan are:

1. Lich - [Moxx] Astronaut
   
2. Tidehunter - [Moxx] Hui Jian


3. Kunkka - [Moxx] Mahan
   
4. Sniper - [Moxx] Jouwei lml
   
5. Dragon Knight - [Moxx] Rising Evil (Leader)

PS: After voting for the 5th member, I hereby announce that our fifth member will be Fred, a.k.a Storm Shadow. Besides that, I welcome Hui Jian who rejoin DotA.