DOTA Rock/paper/scissors aspect:

I came to the conclusion that it would be better to let you read the entire article instead of a summary. First of all, it is already explained for everyone to understand, and the article is fairly short. It is an interesting point of view indeed, but it should only be kept in the back of your head, considering the fact that DotA obviously isn't as simple, as it is put. To understand some of my theory later on, you will have to read this.

OK guys I got really bored at home so I decided to make a thread about picking in CM. This thread specifically discusses the "rock paper scissors" nature of the picking phase but feel free to discuss other things that are related to picking. Anyways, what is it that you need in a team to win a game anyway?

There are 3 main strategies that a team can use to win a game. Those are the turtling strategy, the pushing strategy, and the ganking strategy. The turtling strategy is basically choosing a hero that has the potential to be unstoppable and nurturing him all game until he does become unstoppable, then pushing for the win. The pushing strategy involves getting heroes skilled at pushing (Pugna, Chen, Syllabear, etc) and raxing lanes asap. The ganking strategy is used to shut down enemy heroes while at the same time getting strong in order to be at a higher level than your opponents to win.

Of course no team strictly sticks to just one of those strategies all game. However, almost all the teams that I've seen specialize in at least one of the strategies. Let's assume a team specializing in ganking (team A) is facing a team that specializes in turtling (team B). Right off the bat the ganking team is at a disadvantage. Team B's plan would be to keep the towers up as long as possible and to keep their carry's income at a high level. When a ganking team approaches the enemy carry hero to gank him, a good turtle team will send in thier support to help him out and most of the time reverse the situation and own the gankers. A good turtling team would have wards set up that protect thier carry hero, making it extremely difficult to attack. Not only that, but this entire uphill battle that the gankers face can end as soon as the turtling team wins even just one important team battle!

The turtling strat does have a weakness though, and that's a pushing strat. These days turtlers usually go with 2 carry heroes, or perhaps even as many as 3. With a team that is entirely focused on pushing is pushing mid, you need at least 3 heroes usually to stop them. When half of your team are carry heroes however, you would need usually 4. Carry heroes without money can't do much against an army of summons and aoe spells coming at them left and right. By forcing the vulnerable carry heroes to the front line prematurely, pushing teams can create a big advantage by preventing their farm. If instead the carry heroes decide to stick in their lanes and try to farm, a good pushing strategy will have knocked down the mid raxes early. Of course this creates a HUGE advantage for the pushing team, as now pushing other lanes will be easier with the constant pressure coming from mid. Recently Icefrog gave pushing strategies huge buffs with the TP scroll nerf and the reduced exp/gold from big creeps.

Pushing strats have a huge weakness though, and that's against a ganking strat. When you are trying to push a lane you would usually spend your mana trying to knock down the tower, either by using aoe spells to knock down creeps or creating your own. This leaves you vulnerable, and basically just makes you a super creep with a brain. A good ganking team will get you disabled and dead in a few seconds if you are ou tin the open next to their tower. When your team groups up to try and push they can own your team fast just by having a couple of AOE stunners.

In other words, pushing strats > turtling strats, turtling strats > ganking strats, ganking strats > pushing strats, assuming both teams are even. Keep this in mind the next time you are picking a team in a CM game. You will probably be surprised at how much easier the game is after picking a correct counter strategy against your opponent. Of course in game it is a lot different, because the flexibility of the heroes lets your team have multiple strategies, all with the same hero! And of course sometimes it becomes turtle vs turtle, gank vs gank, rarely push vs push and etc so you have to be adaptive. It is good to practice all three strategies, because as the versions come and go each strategy will become better or worse depending on the conditions of the game. Example of that would be 6.64* (thx Savibo), where turtling ruled the day thanks to the easy carry hero saves possible by the multiple tp ability. Right now the game is pointing more and more towards a pushing strategy. I wouldn't be surprised if the next new heroes are good pushers.

The conclusion is simply:

Gang > Push

Turtle > Gang

Push > Turtle

You will need to read the article to understand why though.

First of all, I believe I do express skeptism, when I say that DotA isn't as simple as it is put (like you say yourself), and the concept should be kept in the back of your head. The RPS-concept (let's call it that) is not flawed itself the way I see it, and I'll try to comment on your examples.

Every hero in the pool is able to push with the fact that they can all attack. I'm not sure I'm completely following what you're saying. Counter-ganking and the example you mention is outplaying the opponent the way I see it. When you pull off turtling without outplaying the opponent, it is because you are playing versus a team with lack of pushing power. They can not push unless they gain a huge advantage from ganging, and that is pretty easily avoided. You turtle because you are not stronger than the opponent lineup yet. This means that if the opponent team has pushing power, they can push (like I said, since they're stronger). When one finally understands this they'll be like "aaah".

This is true (except you can't countergang push by definition), and this is where the article may fail to convince some people, since they consider pushing five core pushers. Here is how I transmit the theory to actual gameplay:

The opponent is using a trilane with a hard carry such as sniper and therefore most likely wanting to go lategame (turtle). I would consider either of two things: The 0-1-4 or the 3-1-1 lane combination with the intention of pushing. Lets say I went for a trilane also, but a pushing one in the opposite sidelane (could be with an Enchantress or Chen), and I would be comfortable that the most they'd get out of their 3 heroes is 8 creeps a minute on Sniper. You can push tier one and two towers in 5 minutes easily, if they do not come to help the solo hero. From these two towers, I've (if lasthitted) gained a 2400 gold advantage for my team. I can afterwards pick up mid tower with ease and the rest in whichever order. The gold advantage from picking up towers is underrated by many. Leaving the Sniper to freefarm means absolutely nothing. Even your supports with no lasthits will gain more gold (atleast when you're succesful). Picking up all these towers will give you an advantage big enough to superiorly win teamfights and push rax very early in the game. I suggest you read the 0-1-4 lanecombination (to understand that pushing is not five core pushers) and initial section in "The current metagame" chapter again. Note that the sniper lineup will be weaker because:

1. Sniper is weak early-mid.

1. Their two supports will have zero gold and little xp. It will practically be 5v3.

If the team picks a gangoriented lineup with no hard carries, you can't push, if they play it right. When you are pushing, you are very vulnerable to gangs. When you want to gang, the optimal scenario is when the opponents are laning without caring. Some would say that push > gang, because they're either imagining:

1. All lanes being pushed, and the gang team having no time to gang all lanes.

If this happened, you simply were outpicked looking at each and every hero and failed in the laning phase. This would happen if you for example put an AA to solo against Broodmother and does not mean that push > gang.

1. You're against a clashpushing lineup and concluding you can't gang a clashoriented 5-man group with tanks and healers.

If this happened you again failed the very early stages of the game. If you have a ganglinup, and the opponent has a clashoriented pushing lineup, you better put atleast as many heroes at each lane as they have. Like for example if they choose to pick up one of your towers fast with 3 or 4 heroes, you better put 3 or 4 heroes there aswell to stop their push. After they've claimed the first 2-3 of your towers, the problemscenario as mentioned above will happen. Basically, you have to stop them from picking up the first towers by not ignoring their 3- or 4-lane.

Lastly the turtle > gang, which I explained, when I answered the first quote.

This simply means:

Turtle > Gang

Push > Turtle

Gang > Push

In words everyone can understand:

Two years ago the metagame was gangoriented.

Then the trilane came and it was turtleoriented.

Now it is pushoriented.

You see the pattern?

Gangoriented metagame would/could be the next step in the pattern, but not yet, because with Icefrog's changes (buffs to pushing), pushing is superior at the moment. You even see the Chinese pushing now. Ganging is still the counter to the pushing, and therefore the current metagame can be defined as gangoriented pushing oraggressive turtling like some call it, when for example a Syllabear or AM is in your lineup also. Either way, it is pushing. Don't be fooled when you go to gg.net, look at a replay and found that lineups consisted of supports and semi-carry heroes with not too much pushing power. They will still (with almost certainty) be focusing on getting those towers.

I'll say this again: When one finally understands this one'll be like "aaah". You may need to experience it ingame.

In terms of push vs. push, it has to be mentioned that clashoriented pushing with tanks and healers gets frustratedly raped by a pushing lineup with heroes such as Broodmother and Furion.

Still don't understand or agree? I'll try to put it in another way:

Focus points of the three strategies:

Ganging: Killing heroes

Turtling: Killing creeps

Pushing: Destroying towers

The ganger would have an easy time killing the pusher, since the pusher lanes so aggresively and vulnerably. He can gang all he want, and since the pusher is not better than the ganger lategame, and the pusher is not focusing on creeps, the ganger will get stronger and stronger (than the pusher). The turtler would have an easy time against the ganger because he just has to stand back and kill the creeps long enough while avoiding gangs. He can be sure that his towers will not go down, since he is against a ganger, and he basically has all the time in the world. The turtler would fail against the pusher though, since he can't stall the game, when his towers are going down without him being able to do anything, because he isn't strong until later. Remember that a characteristic mindset for the turtling strategy is to avoid clashes as long as possible.

Split pushes and "the ganglineup doesn't have time to defend" etc. That's called outsmarting, outplaying the opponent or maybe even outpicking the opponent in terms of each and every hero, and has nothing to do with this.

Some are going to say "bla bla", "this doesn't work in real play" and this and that. However, this is transmitable to actual gameplay

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