Last night had a really good game against Mith / Zen mirror. A LOT of excellent strategies that are easily missed, used by both teams. I'll highlight a few.
MONKS / CLERICS: 2 generals, so Shane buys the monks for our team so I can get the gear necessary to have an advantage in my lane. I get clerics when I go back, and we split 1 monk / cleric for a long while. This provides double the healing and really helped us hold the entire beginning.
BOTF: Mith saves to buy a mana pot as his first purchase to go for an early kill. He pushes me way back beyond my tower, and with his pot, he had the mana to kill me. I was below 300 hp for his chain, but then used a late blood of the fallen and we got the kill + assist (from a monk). BotF trick works even when your opponents know the trick. Mith literally did it on the game before this one to get the kill when I was pretty sure he had cloak of the night, and it worked on him this game.
HALF CAPS: Both Shane and I use our double monk power to let the enemy half cap a flag and then we go back in and take it back to get the flag capture bonus to level up and get gold faster. If you know you're stronger than your opponent, this is an EXCELLENT strategy to use.
CHANGING LANES: Shane and I changed lanes after I took out a tower, and to do it we met in the middle to get the flag. Basically this means we don't waste time running cross map when we already control the middle flag. Less wasted time ftw.
OCC TOWERS: When you're occ and controlling a lane, kill the creep waves and then chain the tower to hit the other guy in your lane. This provides double benefit: You damage the tower and your enemy while not wasting the chain on creeps.
FAKE PORTS / AVOIDING CHAIN: 10 minutes in, Zen does an excellent fake to his gold flag. I'm forced to retreat shortly before it caps because either one could kill me. It's still worth it to me to lower their gold supply, force them to play my game, and lower their warscore. I stuck around to defend a bit, and Mith pushes for another kill. An excellent use of cloak to catch up to me and then blast off on top of me. The real power of cloak occ Here's where the strat comes in tho. When an Occ has your hp below a chain but you're out of chain reach, make sure you run away from anything that can chain to you. I jump to the far towers of my mid rather than straight backwards. His chain is off cd now, but he's just out of range to finish me by hitting the middle towers w/ chain. In the meantime, erebus ports in, stuns him and gets the kill.
MAP STRATEGY AND MAP AWARENESS: 12 minutes in, Shane provides excellent distraction in the middle against 2 of them while I take gold. He batswarms into 2 of them who are at full hp. He stuns them, and then mists. This gave me time to plant myself directly in their pathway to their gold, and push occ back away from his gold flag. I keep the flag a decently large time here, but here's a lesson in map awareness: Always know where your opponents are at, at ALL times. I was looking for a port in by Zen to assist his occ @ gold flag. I thought he was still busy on fort lane, but instead, he comes in from behind. I get killed for failing @ map awareness.
FAKE CASTING: A little bit later, Shane and I want to get a tower down even through 2 of them. Not the best choice, but we did it. However it looks like we are in trouble. Shane gets out @ 900 hp, but now I'm left sandwiched b/w 2 of them. I know my only hope is to sigil and fake port to draw a stun. Perfect timing is perfect, and I fake my escape without allowing him to cancel his stun. I port shortly after this and live.
ENEMY CDS: 18 minutes in or so, we all meet up in the middle. Mith is pushed back and has to sigil. However, I completely forget about Zen_God's cd on batswarm. Instead of sigiling and killing Mith, Zen_God is able to kill me with batswarm damage and Shane is left out to dry to die as well. This was where the gold turned to their favor, up 2 late kills and an assist (compared to our early kills).
DISTRACTION: 30-40 minutes in, giants are in field for both sides. It's now the portal game. Shane provides distraction for 2 of them by misting at their portal. He has 3 helms, 1 being hungarlings, so he sits there for a decently long time. In the meantime, I work down the towers on the other side. After enough of this, we manage to get both side towers down. Next time this happens, Mith runs down to grab our portal while Zen_God and myself are both distracted by each other. As a result, we each lose our portal due to being completely preoccupied by each other. Ends up being a trade slightly in our favor since we have more towers down. I pick up 2 ranks of armory to aide the cause.
MENTAL FOCUS: It's been over 40 minutes and concentration can start veering. Mcshane let's Mith halfcap valor flag, and Mith made it to my valor before I made it to his where Zen was waiting. Mith iss aoeing our creeps / defenses down effectively so our citadel is helpless. It's around 11000 and theirs is 20000. Here Shane gets FS2 to give us a little more time, and he stuns the giants on our citadel for a long time. During this, for some reason Zen_God goes to relock his portal (where no one is) and abandons his valor flag to me. I take the valor flag and immediately port back to base to buy FS3 and kill the creeps on our citadel / push Mith out. Our citadel ends at 12000.
Long write up, but there are a LOT of little things that add up Most of this was done from my perspective as I know exactly what my strategy was.
This post has been edited by RAWRRRR: May 8 2010, 23:44 PM
Looking back, I would say maybe not the best idea to play the 3 helm Erebus build with Crimson Vial lol but it made for an exciting game. Also what in the world were you saving for Mith? You ended the game with like 10.5k. Or was it that you just didn't have a chance to go back and get something with the frantic pace at the end of the game?
Mith you had WOAT rich resources in the end Did you save like 15 min for the fs ? oh well good game. Even though mith was tempted to concede early on If I would have used my head in the end, the falling of both citadells would have been even more epic!
Did you save like 15 min for the fs ?
MONKS / CLERICS: 2 generals, so Shane buys the monks for our team so I can get the gear necessary to have an advantage in my lane. I get clerics when I go back, and we split 1 monk / cleric for a long while. This provides double the healing and really helped us hold the entire beginning.
BOTF: Mith saves to buy a mana pot as his first purchase to go for an early kill. He pushes me way back beyond my tower, and with his pot, he had the mana to kill me. I was below 300 hp for his chain, but then used a late blood of the fallen and we got the kill + assist (from a monk). BotF trick works even when your opponents know the trick. Mith literally did it on the game before this one to get the kill when I was pretty sure he had cloak of the night, and it worked on him this game.
HALF CAPS: Both Shane and I use our double monk power to let the enemy half cap a flag and then we go back in and take it back to get the flag capture bonus to level up and get gold faster. If you know you're stronger than your opponent, this is an EXCELLENT strategy to use.
CHANGING LANES: Shane and I changed lanes after I took out a tower, and to do it we met in the middle to get the flag. Basically this means we don't waste time running cross map when we already control the middle flag. Less wasted time ftw.
OCC TOWERS: When you're occ and controlling a lane, kill the creep waves and then chain the tower to hit the other guy in your lane. This provides double benefit: You damage the tower and your enemy while not wasting the chain on creeps.
FAKE PORTS / AVOIDING CHAIN: 10 minutes in, Zen does an excellent fake to his gold flag. I'm forced to retreat shortly before it caps because either one could kill me. It's still worth it to me to lower their gold supply, force them to play my game, and lower their warscore. I stuck around to defend a bit, and Mith pushes for another kill. An excellent use of cloak to catch up to me and then blast off on top of me. The real power of cloak occ
MAP STRATEGY AND MAP AWARENESS: 12 minutes in, Shane provides excellent distraction in the middle against 2 of them while I take gold. He batswarms into 2 of them who are at full hp. He stuns them, and then mists. This gave me time to plant myself directly in their pathway to their gold, and push occ back away from his gold flag. I keep the flag a decently large time here, but here's a lesson in map awareness: Always know where your opponents are at, at ALL times. I was looking for a port in by Zen to assist his occ @ gold flag. I thought he was still busy on fort lane, but instead, he comes in from behind. I get killed for failing @ map awareness.
FAKE CASTING: A little bit later, Shane and I want to get a tower down even through 2 of them. Not the best choice, but we did it. However it looks like we are in trouble. Shane gets out @ 900 hp, but now I'm left sandwiched b/w 2 of them. I know my only hope is to sigil and fake port to draw a stun. Perfect timing is perfect, and I fake my escape without allowing him to cancel his stun. I port shortly after this and live.
ENEMY CDS: 18 minutes in or so, we all meet up in the middle. Mith is pushed back and has to sigil. However, I completely forget about Zen_God's cd on batswarm. Instead of sigiling and killing Mith, Zen_God is able to kill me with batswarm damage and Shane is left out to dry to die as well. This was where the gold turned to their favor, up 2 late kills and an assist (compared to our early kills).
DISTRACTION: 30-40 minutes in, giants are in field for both sides. It's now the portal game. Shane provides distraction for 2 of them by misting at their portal. He has 3 helms, 1 being hungarlings, so he sits there for a decently long time. In the meantime, I work down the towers on the other side. After enough of this, we manage to get both side towers down. Next time this happens, Mith runs down to grab our portal while Zen_God and myself are both distracted by each other. As a result, we each lose our portal due to being completely preoccupied by each other. Ends up being a trade slightly in our favor since we have more towers down. I pick up 2 ranks of armory to aide the cause.
MENTAL FOCUS: It's been over 40 minutes and concentration can start veering. Mcshane let's Mith halfcap valor flag, and Mith made it to my valor before I made it to his where Zen was waiting. Mith iss aoeing our creeps / defenses down effectively so our citadel is helpless. It's around 11000 and theirs is 20000. Here Shane gets FS2 to give us a little more time, and he stuns the giants on our citadel for a long time. During this, for some reason Zen_God goes to relock his portal (where no one is) and abandons his valor flag to me. I take the valor flag and immediately port back to base to buy FS3 and kill the creeps on our citadel / push Mith out. Our citadel ends at 12000.
Long write up, but there are a LOT of little things that add up