How to Win the Mid Lane in Dota 2

In Dota 2, you can play one of five roles. Playing mid is often very challenging because you need to have excellent mechanics, great map awareness, a deep understanding of farming patterns and heroes, and the ability to outwit your opponent in a 1v1 matchup.

Winning the mid lane is all about the first 10 minutes of each Dota 2 game. If you’re ahead of the enemy mid at the 10-minute mark, you’ve basically won your lane. In many cases, depending on how far ahead you are, winning mid will give you a small or a big advantage.

This guide tells you what you need to do to win the mid lane in Dota 2 and do it consistently.

Aspects to Master as a Midlaner

Here’s what you need to do and take into account when playing mid.

Creep Blocking

The first creep wave is very important for midlaners. Learning how to block it properly so that the two creep waves, yours and your opponent’s, meet closer to your tier 1 tower than to your opponent’s, is crucial. Without a good block, you might find yourself trying to last hit right outside the range of the enemy tower, which is bad for many reasons.

First of all, tier 1 towers provide their allied heroes with improved armor and HP regen. This means that if you fight for 30s against a hero that’s sitting comfortably within the range of his tier 1 tower, you’re gradually accumulating a disadvantage, especially if you’re trading hits with him.

Another problem with fighting too close to the enemy tier 1 tower and too far from your own is that you can get smoke-ganked a lot easier. And if you do, it will be difficult for you to get to your tower for protection. The enemy heroes will have ample time to kill you before you’re in a safe position.

When you’re fighting close to your tower, there is nothing to worry about, especially in the first 5 minutes, because towers deal enough damage to discourage enemies from diving too deep. Furthermore, your opponents know that one of your allies might teleport to help you, so they can’t really do whatever they want.

Last-Hitting

Last-hitting is an essential skill in Dota 2 because you only get gold for the creeps you have killed yourself or helped by your summons. If an enemy creep dies without you or a summon of yours applying the final blow, you will get experience but not gold.

Understanding this, good players always position themselves in a way that allows them to land as many last-hits as possible. This may sound easy, but it’s actually quite challenging, especially if you’re playing against a strong opponent.

In other MOBA games, like LoL, your opponent cannot hit his own creeps. But in Dota 2, if a creep falls below a certain HP percentage, that becomes a possibility. Implicitly, it’s perfectly possible for a good opponent to deny most of your creeps or to apply the last hit that kills them, leaving you with no gold.

To get more last hits, you need to improve your damage and positioning. The more damage you deal, the easier it is to time your last-hits precisely. In the first few minutes, when your damage is only around 60, you need to wait until the very last moment to attack a creep with the intention of last-hitting.

If you don’t time your attack correctly, you will leave the creep on low HP and either your own creeps or the enemy hero will steal your gold.

Last-hitting is also impacted by your hero’s attack animation. Some heroes have a really smooth attack animation, which makes it easy to last-hit. But others are really bad at this.

If your hero is ranged, how far you sit from your creep wave makes a big difference. If you sit too far away, your projectile will need more time to hit a target. This will give the enemy hero more time to deny your creeps. On the other hand, if you’re too close, you leave yourself exposed to attacks that you might not want to take.

Harassing Your Opponent

When playing mid, the goal is not to hit the creeps as often as you can. The goal is to maximize your number of last hits and denies. One thing that helps here is to keep your opponent on low HP and punish his attempts to last-hit.

Whenever he comes close to the creep wave, you should consider the option of attacking him, especially if you’re ranged and he’s melee. If you can make it costly for your opponent to stay close to the creep wave, he will need to make inefficient moves and lose a lot of creeps.

Some heroes, such as Queen of Pain, have powerful abilities that can be applied from a long range and deal a lot of damage over time. Doing this and further attacking your opponent is always a good idea, as long as you can engage in favorable exchanges.

To get more favorable trades, pick a hero that’s strong in the laning phase against the hero picked by your opponent.

Choosing the Right Hero

Choosing the right hero is very important if you want to win the 1v1 matchup from the mid lane. You can’t, for instance, play against a powerful mid hero like Viper and not pick something that at least gives you a chance to get decent farm.

If you enjoy dominating the mid lane, you should consider picking yourself a hero that’s hard to deal with in the first 10 minutes. Even if that hero tends to become much weaker as the game progresses, you could develop a snowball strategy and learn how to take advantage of the massive gold lead you’ve accumulated in the laning phase.

Many games are won in the first 10 minutes or at least between the 10 and 20-minute marks. Keep in mind that it’s not very helpful to be 1000 gold ahead at the 10-minute mark if you don’t use a strategy that allows you to stay ahead. Normally, your gold advantage should grow over time, not get nullified.

The more gold you have, the more damage, sustainability, and mobility you can buy. And with greater damage, sustainability, and mobility, your farming speed will accelerate considerably.

Some hero matchups are terrible and should be avoided. For instance, playing Templar Assassin into a Bat Rider or a Phoenix is generally a bad idea. You could do it against an Ember Spirit, but it’s risky because half of your Refraction advantage will be nullified.

Your goal when picking a mid hero should be to guarantee yourself decent farm in the first 10 minutes. That’s not always an option. In many cases, you will be forced into picking your hero very early into the drafting phase. This will give your opponents the opportunity to counter you quite heavily and you will have a tough game, at least in the beginning.

In the lower MMR brackets, you might not feel this as acutely because even when your hero is countered, you can still compensate for that with superior skill. But in the higher MMR brackets, when you get countered the disadvantage will be exploited from the start. And the only way to compensate for it is to get help from your supports.

Another method is to accept that the mid lane will be lost and to rely more on your team to carry you. If you have enough space between the 10 and 20-minute marks, you can generally catch up in gold even if you’re far behind at the 10-minute mark. But it all depends on your team and what the opposing side is doing.

Buying the Right Items

Winning mid requires you to make efficient use of your gold. You need to use your courier frequently and bring yourself consumables, as well as other items. If you don’t do this, your lack of consumables will be exploited. Having 1000 unused gold is the equivalent of being 2-3 minutes behind. In the early game, that’s a critical error.

A good midlaner will often buy himself a second Wraith Band or Null Talisman, just to gain a bit more damage and stats. In the long run, the gold you will lose by selling that item at 50% of its cost will not be that big of a drawback. But in the short term, not having that item might compromise your ability to lane properly.

Midlaners tend to need a Bottle. If you can get one early and then control the runes, that will greatly improve your ability to win your lane. The objective is to be as sustainable as possible and make as few trips back to base as you can.

Checking the Minimap

If you don’t look at the minimap at least once every 4-5 seconds, your map awareness is poor and your decisions will suffer. You will get ganked and not even know it. You will miss opportunities to help your allies or to ask for help and turn fights around.

Dota 2 is a team game. This means that it’s not enough to pay attention to your lane. You need to pay attention to what happens on the map in general. Key decisions need to be made almost every 30s and without that information, you will make suboptimal choices. You will play in imprudent ways that will get you killed. One death in the early game can lead to failure.

Stacking

After the first 5 minutes, either you or some ally of yours should start stacking jungle camps. You don’t need to kill these camps right away. It’s enough to stack them for later. Failing to do this while your opponent does it will put you at a major gold disadvantage at the 15-minute mark.

Always keep in mind that there is a lot of available gold on the map. In the early game, you can’t take advantage of it because you deal too little damage and are practically glued to your tier 1 tower. But as your power grows, you will have the chance to kill the enemy creep wave quickly and then dedicate the next 20-30 seconds to jungling.

Heroes like Templar Assassin, who deal a lot of damage in the early game and have excellent protection against it, should always start jungling as early as level 5. Doing that can easily give you an additional 100 – 200 gold per minute. And it’s a difference that leads to a major advantage after just 5 minutes.

Never assume that you’re supposed to sit next to your tower and do nothing but wait for the next creep wave. That’s now how Dota 2 works.

Going for Kills

This is quite challenging and will usually require help from your teammates. But from time to time, you can go for a solo kill. If your hero is level 6 while your opponent is only level 5, that’s the perfect moment. Another thing that can help here is to harass your opponent until he’s below 50% HP and then launch an attack.

Before going for a kill, always check to see how much HP and mana your opponent has, and also if he has a Magic Wand or not. In some cases, players just bait you into diving under their own tower and then use their full Wand to get instant regeneration. Calculate before doing something that you might regret.

Ganking

Ganking is quite rare in Dota 2 patch 7.35c. Usually, supports gank to your lane, not the other way around. But you could gank if the conditions are right. For instance, if you get an invisibility rune or a haste rune and one of the creep waves is right next to your tower, you could punish your opponents for that advanced position.

Or, if they dive your allies under their own tower, teleporting in to save the day might lead to a massive gold and experience gain.

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