The art of map awareness will be one that will make or break a game. Learning it is necessary, and will take you far. If you master the map, you master half of the game. The other half is the micro which comes with experience. Read the guide and go well on your way to becoming a God of Newerth!
The basics of any game are what make a gamer exceed past the state of a novice. The need to understand these basic skills is paramount, and we are going to break down this guide to do just that. The point of map awareness is to always know the location of your partners while also having an eye on the opponent. This awareness allows you to avoid ganks and prevent deaths for you and your teammates. It goes even further than that, to the point where you have the ability to see how pushed or pulled the creeps have gotten in the lanes. All these things together make winning a lot easier. The ability to know where the enemy is and how many of them are in the area allow for an easy gank or a team wide backup. The gank will give major gold and experience, while the turn-back saves a lot of lives. Either of these choices may be a game turner, and that's where map awareness becomes key.
Warding
The more map you see, the more chance you will have of getting away or of killing the enemy. The wards are the main tool to use for this. The support player normally goes for the wards and puts them in strategic areas. For more info check our
Using Wards Effectively guide. The overall philosophy of more vision, more power is what makes map awareness so important. If you do it right, your chances of winning go up by tons. Just keep an eye on your minimap and make sure to keep using wards because they are useful all the way to the end of the game. Especially in areas like the rune spots, near Kongor, and jungle entrances they are a must.
Which Lane to Pick?
In the beginning you'll be given a lane depending on the heroes your team has picked and you'll most likely start off with a partner on side lanes or alone in mid. However, in all situations your objective is to fight the creeps, maybe push a tower, or roam to the other lanes to gank when asked. The main reason to try to lane as much as possible is to gain experience and gold. With the objective in mind, use your intelligence to fight in lanes. If your combo is not effective against your opponents, then switch or team gank. In any game that involves strategy, you must use all of the brainpower you can muster. The side laning is difficult but as long as you think things out, staying alive shouldn't be too difficult.
However, you must still lane later in the game. The tips for early game and late game laning vary slightly. Map awareness remains the key to laning solo later in the game, you have to know if teammates are close enough for backup and where the enemy is. If you see the enemy hoarding around another spot then you're safe, but make sure to count them. If all of them are missing, farm only around an allied tower or where you have the rest of the team close at hand. The farther away from your tower you go, the better the chance they have of stunning and killing you. If your lane pushes too hard and you're alone, call in a teammate or go to the jungle while the lane pushes back. It may all sound complicated, but it is a matter of easing into a pattern.
Putting Down Signals (Pinging)
Control the traffic baby!A basic and necessary skill is to alt+click on any spot on your minimap and you will see a little signal pop up on the there. Everyone in the team will see it and know it's a spot of importance. It is a quick and effective way to prevent or initiate a gank, as well as to push a lane.
