Know Your DEAD LANES! | Dota 2 Guide

Summary

In the video by GameLeap Dota 2 Pro Guides, the concept of the 'dead lane' in Dota 2 is extensively discussed by BSJ. A 'dead lane' refers to the most dangerous lane to farm during the game, particularly as the game progresses past the early stages. The video emphasizes the importance of understanding map control and the strategic value of towers, with a focus on why certain lanes become 'dead' based on positioning, team strategy, and enemy threats. The discussion delves into optimizing farm locations while maintaining pressure and safety through strategic gameplay adjustments.

Highlights

• The 'dead lane' is the most dangerous lane to farm alone past 10-15 minutes. 💂‍♂️
• It's typically the side lane, not the mid lane, due to distance from the team. 🚷
• Radiant's dead lane is usually the bottom, Dyer's is the top. ⚔️
• Avoid farming all three lanes to prevent vulnerability and ganks. 🛡️
• Key to survival: Lane pressure and farming safely. 🤺
• Tower control opens up map space and affects game strategy. 🏗️

Key Takeaways

• Understand the 'dead lane' concept to avoid unnecessary deaths. 💀
• Map control is crucial; it determines your ability to farm safely. 🗺️
• The dead lane is often your team's safe lane post 10-15 minutes. 🚫
• Controlling two-thirds of the map is safer and more strategic. 🎮
• Tower positions greatly affect map safety and farm availability. 🏰
• Pressure leads to safer farming and more strategic advantage. 🔥

Overview

BSJ dives into the key concept of the 'dead lane' in Dota 2, explaining its significance in matches and how it impacts strategic decisions. As a lane known for its high risk of deaths if farmed alone, the 'dead lane' can shift based on game dynamics but mainly emerges post the 10-15 minute mark in either the Radiant or Dyer's safe lane.

Focusing on strategic map control, this guide highlights the importance of farm optimization while maintaining pressure. BSJ discusses why the side lanes often become the dead lanes and how players should adapt their strategies to maximize safety and efficiency, especially when their team is ahead but vulnerable to ganks.

Understanding tower influence is pivotal in this guide, where BSJ breaks down how taking specific towers can affect map control and farming efficiency. The video advocates for strategic pressure on certain lanes to force enemy reactions, thereby securing advantageous positions and potential game-changing plays.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 02:30: Introduction to the Dead Lane Concept In this chapter, BSJ introduces the concept of the 'Dead Lane' as part of a coaching simulation course on Game Leap. He begins by explaining why the Dead Lane concept is important and provides background information on its existence and meaning. The chapter serves as an introduction to understanding what a 'Dead Lane' is in gaming contexts.
• 02:30 - 05:00: Why the Dead Lane Exists The chapter explains the concept of the 'dead lane' in Dota 2, which is considered the most dangerous area on the map. It highlights that entering this lane without a specific reason often leads to random deaths and hinders the team's ability to accomplish objectives, irrespective of how far ahead a team may be in the game.
• 05:00 - 07:30: Dead Lane Location and Timing This chapter discusses strategies around lane control and timing in a game context. In an even game scenario where net worth is balanced, the focus is on deciding which lanes to control. The key insight is that it's difficult to manage all three lanes simultaneously. For instance, if heroes are positioned across the top, middle, and bottom lanes, it signals to the enemy that your team is spread out and possibly vulnerable.
• 07:30 - 10:30: Importance of Tower Control This chapter discusses the importance of controlling towers on a map, particularly in a gaming context, where players are on opposite sides. The main point is to highlight the risks involved when heroes are spread across the map, making them susceptible to being 'ganked' or picked off by the opposing team, regardless of how far ahead in the game they are. The 'deadline' concept is introduced to explain that one cannot control all lanes at once without vulnerability, emphasizing strategic positioning and control.
• 10:30 - 13:30: Lane Pressure and Information Gathering The chapter 'Lane Pressure and Information Gathering' discusses the concept of the 'dead lane' in strategic gameplay. The dead lane typically refers to one of the two side lanes, not the mid lane, due to the difficulty in controlling three lanes because of their separation on the map. Controlling only two-thirds of the map makes it strategically inefficient to spread resources over all three lanes, which makes the mid lane less likely to be the dead lane.
• 13:30 - 16:30: Split Pushing Strategy The chapter on 'Split Pushing Strategy' explains how the mid lane is centrally located between the side lanes, highlighting that the side lanes often become 'dead lanes.' It discusses the common positioning for 'dead lanes,' identifying that for the Radiant side, the bottom lane typically becomes the 'dead lane,' while for the Dire side, it's the top lane. This strategic understanding is relevant after the early game phase, typically starting from 10 to 15 minutes into the game.
• 16:30 - 18:00: Conclusion and Key Concepts This chapter elaborates on the dynamics of gameplay as characters or 'heroes' approach the 10 to 15-minute mark. At this stage, both supports and core heroes typically reach their level 6, obtaining one or two crucial early items. This transition significantly increases the kill threat potential, as heroes are either much more dangerous or much more vulnerable to ganks (enemy attacks). Before this point, heroes, especially carries, are more difficult to gank due to enemies lacking needed items or levels. The chapter emphasizes that farming in the safe lane becomes highly perilous at this stage due to the enemy team's enhanced capabilities.

Know Your DEAD LANES! | Dota 2 Guide Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] hello this is bsj and this is going to be my next video in the coaching simulation course on game leap and we are going to be talking about a concept that I've been ranting on on stream about which we refer to as the dead link so to start this video I'm going to give you a background of why the dead line exists and what it means first and foremost what a dead line means is that
• 00:30 - 01:00 it's a lane that if you simply try to farm it by yourself or go there during your farming patterns without a specific reason it is considered the most dangerous place on the map and will often result with a lot of random deaths as well as preventing your team from accomplishing objectives so in any game of dota 2 despite how far ahead one team is of the other this concept exists so
• 01:00 - 01:30 if it is a very even game when it comes to lane pressure as well as getting your lanes pushed out it should be a very even fight because of the fact that the net worth is even so in an even game the idea is that you cannot control all three lanes if you have a hero top coming from the dyers perspective if you have a hero top a hero mid and a hero bottom all pushing lanes the enemy team knows that you are not together and that
• 01:30 - 02:00 you're on opposite sides of the map on two of your heroes so what that means is you're easily gank able and no matter how far ahead you are maybe if you have the luxury to do this if you're 20k net worth ahead all you're simply doing is giving the team that's 20k behind a semblance of chance to come back by picking one of your heroes off as a group of five so the deadline concept exists because no matter how far ahead or far behind you are you cannot control all three lanes without leaving yourself vulnerable to death so especially when
• 02:00 - 02:30 you're ahead that means that the dead Lane exists because you plan to control two-thirds of the map and so first that's why the dead Lane exists secondly we're gonna talk more about the deadly so the deadline is almost always one of the two side lanes and the idea is that if you're gonna control two lanes the reason why it's bad that you can't control three lanes is because of how far apart you are meaning that it makes it easy to gank so the dead lane is almost never the mid lane because of
• 02:30 - 03:00 the fact that the mid lane is closest to each of the side lanes so the dead lane is almost always the side lanes so next step is to ask yourself which side lane is the dead line and for most games I'd say about 90 percent or more for radiant it's the bottom link and for Dyer it's the top lane it's your own safe length and this concept starts existing past about 10 to 15 minutes because of the fact that around that
• 03:00 - 03:30 time most supports have their level 6 as well as most cores have those one or two early items that they need making you at much higher kill threat or being much more vulnerable to getting ganked prior to that time most carries or most heroes in general are much more difficult to gank because the enemy team hasn't gotten what they need in order to kill you so they're kind of hits this critical moment somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes where farming your own safe lane becomes the most dangerous place on
• 03:30 - 04:00 the map so if you're a carry player or even just a mid laner or an off lane or any core that looks to pressure and farm the reason why this is the most dangerous place on the map is because if you farm as radiant if you farm the top lane and you have taken this tier 1 tower and this is going to explain why this tier 1 is more important than this to your 1/4 radiant as well as why this tier 1 is more important than this to
• 04:00 - 04:30 your 1/4 dire if I take this tier 1 tower because the shrines right here I now have access to two extra camps that were previously not safe on the other hand if I take this tower none of these camps are safe in comparison to what they were before because the enemy still has a shrine same goes for Dyer taking this tier 1 none of these camps are nearly as safe anyways because there's a radiant shrine right here so that makes taking this tower the most efficient tower for
• 04:30 - 05:00 radiant in this tower the most efficient tower for dire cuz rating gets these two camps to farm and Dyer gets these two camps so the whole idea of taking towers in this deadly in concept is understanding what map control means and all map control is is that you're able to farm more than the enemy team you have more camps more lanes more creeps to hit and if you get more map control you're just gonna have higher net worth because you're farming more creeps than they are so the idea is that first off this tower for a Dyer and this tower for radiant offers them the most map control
• 05:00 - 05:30 for how easy or difficult it is to take the tower the midlane tower offers a lot of map control but it's oftentimes very difficult to take because the team can easily defend it with all of their heroes because it's in the mid lane and it was we talked about the reason why the side lanes are also more vulnerable is because it's harder for your team to help you but it's also harder for the enemy team to collapse all of their resources onto their own safe lane because if they want to bring everybody they either have to be there ahead of time or they have to TP in one by one
• 05:30 - 06:00 and that's sometimes chaotic and if you notice almost all of your bad tower defenses almost all of them will be your team sloppily going in one by one to defend your own safely and that synergizes with the idea of the deadly so by taking this tower we open up two camps and if you're a safe link carry or the hero that's supposed to pressure this Lane in the reason why this is the best Lane to be in for radiant and the same idea for the dire down here is because they have a shrine here and a tower here so if you
• 06:00 - 06:30 place a ward somewhere in this area that is the only path that they're going to be ganking from there's no other way that they can flank you if you're farming these two camps so if you're farming this camp and you know you're in danger you have a distinct route to get out running away from where the enemy team could be coming from which is this area as opposed to if I'm on the radiant side and I'm farming this camp they could come from here they could come from here they could come from the lane here or they could come from even coming
• 06:30 - 07:00 from pushing their lane so there's much more vulnerability between these two camps and I'm radiant and the same goes for Dyer though with these two camps if I've taken this tower the only direction they can come from is this one so that also allows you to provide word vision as a support and also makes it easier for you to be protected by wards as a carry and it makes it so you have a plan to escape route when you're farming so knowing that the reason why this is safer is because of their one gank path also
• 07:00 - 07:30 helps you with being safe with your farming patterns so the importance of the deadline concept is that you understand the idea of lane pressure and what lane pressure means is that your creep waves are shoved into their towers and the importance of that is first off information if their creep wave is at their Tower and you see nothing that gives you information and what I mean by see nothing is you see no enemy heroes because if you see no enemy heroes and there's creeps hitting their tower that
• 07:30 - 08:00 tells you they're doing something they're ganking they're rushing they're looking to push a tower themselves it gives your team information even if you don't see anything but if you are not pushing creep waves into their tower every time you're blind on the map and you don't see anything they could be doing anything on the map and it's really difficult to prevent random deaths as well as yourself casually dying if you have no idea what the enemy team is doing so if you have no idea
• 08:00 - 08:30 what the enemy team is doing and your creeps are hitting their tier 2 it's very good for you to just hide and wait for them to show themselves and that's okay because they're losing a tier 2 but if you don't know where they are and you're not pressuring their towers then having to hide feels very bad because you they could all just be farming as five they could just be five farming five separate places and then while you're sitting there doing nothing and being scared they are farming so the point is if you know that they aren't defending this tower if they are farming even if they
• 08:30 - 09:00 aren't defending then they are losing a tower and that's a big deal in the mid grand scheme of things so that information is very important secondly the idea of the dead lane is that since we can't control all three lanes it's much better that we localize our farm something I see very often in three k4k coaching sessions is a split pushing hero pushing this link then rotating through the jungle and pushing this lane then rotating through the jungle and pushing this Lane
• 09:00 - 09:30 if you apply equal pressure in each of the three lanes that simply leads to the enemy team not being forced to react to you because it's similar to having somebody gently press on three different parts of your body as opposed to somebody punching you really hard in one spot I may be a terrible analogy maybe you think it's stupid but it actually applies in this case if you're putting a ton of pressure and forcing them to react to one lane not only does that
• 09:30 - 10:00 make them reveal to you what they're doing but it also makes it very difficult for them to push other towers because they're dealing with you that sets up a lot of chaos because they're constantly worried about defending their tower so that sets up 5v4 fights because they're reacting to your split push that sets up random pick offs that the enemy team is setting up for you because of the fact that you're forcing them to split up so the idea is the team that does this pressure better is forcing the
• 10:00 - 10:30 enemy team to react to them and you're gonna take fights on your own terms so the idea is with this deadline concept and you're going to see this in all of the examples that I'm going to present to you as well as a few exceptions for when the dead lanes in a different Lane and why the impact that this has as well as showing the fact that this Lane for radiant and this Lane for dire really doesn't accomplish anything for you if you want to pressure this tier to as
• 10:30 - 11:00 radiant you can efficiently farm jungle camps if they push you off so you're either making them show up and defend or in which case you're going to the jungle and farming still or you're taking the tower but if I was radiant and I try to pressure this tier 2 if I force them to show up and they stop me from pushing I have to go much further to get jungle farm as well as we talked about how much more dangerous this jungle farm is then this form so that's why this is the lane
• 11:00 - 11:30 for radiant and this is the lane for dire that you always want to be pressured because it's simply safer and more efficient for you so we're gonna be presenting you with some examples and you're gonna hopefully see why all of the negative impact that you have when you go to this safe Lane as well as on radiant and the point is it's not that you never go to your safe Lane and we're gonna talk about this in these later examples the point is that you want to
• 11:30 - 12:00 be here as Dyer and you want to be here as radiant unless any of these cases that I'm going to present to you show themselves because the idea is this lanes the most dangerous so if you force four people on the enemy team here as a radiant hero that also may allow you to go to this Lane because you've made it safe by forcing them to deal with you here first so with the dead lane concept I want you to bear in mind the most important point of the deadly if you are
• 12:00 - 12:30 looking to pressure then meaning you are the strong hero you are the split pusher you are survivable you go to this Lane as radiant so if you're pressuring that means dyers only purpose for this Lane is to relieve the pressure that means that if you're a dire hero you need to understand and this context and it applies to every game of dota that your existence in this Lane is to relieve pressure so if you are a strong hero
• 12:30 - 13:00 that's supposed to take towers as a dire hero you should virtually never go here because that is not your job and it also doesn't accomplish anything compared to going to the opponent's safely last point about why the opponent's safe Lane is so nice is if I'm a dire hero and I'm pressuring this tier two that gives me the option to go through their jungle to gank or pressure the tier one mid so by having this area open I'm much more easily able to take the tier one mid does not apply if I take this tower it does not make it easier to run through
• 13:00 - 13:30 this shrine to get to mid lane same thing with radiant looking the pressure of dire tier one as opposed to running this way to get dire tier one so taking this tower for all the reasons we already mentioned for farm as well as where you want to be on the map also opens up the next tower which makes it so that you're basically have an objective plan applied from the same concept so we're gonna go into some examples that just show you firsthand applications of this concept
• 13:30 - 14:00 [Music] you