Do's
1) Always prepare more than 1 line-up, each person around 5 - 9 heroes, depends on position in team. Normally support hero is easily replaced hence support player need to know more heroes, whereas long lane hero is fairly limited in number hence long lane player need to know less heroes.
2) You do not need to fixed your position in your team, however it is good to do so. For example, a carry player can exchange position with other player if that player is suitable to play certain carry hero. But you should try to fix your position to get used to it.
3) Always try to have back-up plan in your mind if your strategy fails.
Don'ts
1) Picking with only counter picking in mind. This is fine but it won't take you too far. You need to have versatility in your line-up. This will be explained further in following section.
2) Picking without consider laning advantage. Some are too focused in picking so called OP heroes but never have the proper way to lane them.
3) Copying competitive player blindly without having the skill to play certain strategy.
4) Overestimate and underestimate strength of heroes. For example, public players tend to think that Huskar, Shadow Fiend, and Bloodseeker are very strong picks while underestimate the truly powerful heroes. You can get to recognize some good heroes by watching competitive replay.
5) Picking so called OP heroes but do not have clear synergy between them. For example, picking Dark Seer in split push line-up is a common mistake since Dark Seer excels in team fight.
Tips
1) You can try to fool your opponent by last picking your key hero, however it's often not possible to do so.
2) If you know your opponent very well, you can ban and pick according to their play style. If you know nothing about them, standard pick and ban is the way to go.
Steps in Picks & Bans
First Ban Stage
1) You have two ban slot.
2) If you are on Radiant, you are 1st to go.
3) If you know your opponent well, then you can either ban their best hero or go for the standard ban. If not, standard ban is the safer choice.
4) Below are some examples of standard ban for 6.77 version.
Batridder
He is one of the most banned hero in this version. You can see it from G-League where he was banned or picked every single game. He is so popular right now for several reasons:
a) Very versatile in laning. This hero can go for solo long lane, solo mid, even doing stacks in jungle then clear jungle creeps with Firefly.
b) Wins the lane against almost any solo hero.
c) Reliable escape mechanism with Firefly.
d) One of the best initiator with Blink Dagger
e) Counter Magic Immunity as Lifestealer and BKB carries such as Luna are getting popular.
Nyx Assassin
He is very very annoying to play against, so annoying that you just have to ban him. He is just too hard to kill for a support hero. His stun is above average (2.77s) in terms of duration, his mana burn can easily deal over 500 damage to INT heroes in late game. If you wan to kill him, you must first have invi-detection. However, a well timed Spiked Carapace ruins your day and lets him escape safely. But, he has some weaknesses that set him back, he is too level and item dependent as a support, melee and his mana issue.
Magnus
His ulti makes Enigma's ulti a joke. 3.75 seconds AOE stun with no channeling and short cool down of 100 seconds is totally broken. He is very hard to kill with 1200 range Skewer. He can defend pushes decently due to his spamable Shockwave. He can go for solo mid or long lane solo.
5) If none of your team member knows how to play them, it is always better to ban them.
6) However if you have the 1st pick (means that you are on Radiant), you can let one of them get through so that you will get him.
7) Drafting is very dynamic, you can do your draft in other way as long as it works.
8) For example: if your opponent ban Tinker in this stage, they might be going for pushing strategy as Tinker is very good in defending base. So it is nice for you to pick up some AOE spamable spell to defend your base in the picking stage. However you are not very sure of your opponent mind, hence versatility in your picks is highly important.
First Pick Stage
1) You can pick 3 heroes in this stage
2) Carry heroes are not easily replaced whereas support heroes can be replaced since support heroes share much more similarities. For example, Lone Druid is a very unique hero and you can't replace it with Anti-Mage as the pick works differently. However, Jakiro can be easily replaced with Leshrac or Lina and it won't affect the line-up that much.
3) If possible, pick your carry in this stage unless you are very confident and you have a plan in your mind. Why? If you do not pick your carry in this stage, your opponent will just ban good carry heroes and you are left with some medicore carry heroes. Good carry heroes are quite few right now compared to support heroes.
4) A good carry hero has 5 major characteristics: (Very Important)
- Mobility
- Escape Mechanism
- Survivility
- Damage
- Late Game Scaling
5) However, do not confine yourself with characteristics above since drafting is highly dynamic. For example: Naga Siren lacks of mobility, however her net can hold her target in place for 5 seconds so that she can hit her target effectively.
6) Picking long lane hero first is highly encouraged, as you will have more choices in your next pick. For example, first pick Dark Seer is quite a good choice since he is a very versatile hero and he is one of the best long lane hero. He can even go to jungle if things go horible for him.
7) If you are on Dire, you pick 2nd but you can pick 2 heroes at once. So you can get afford to get 2 heroes that works very well in the same team such as Brewmaster + Luna, Dark Seer + Lone Druid or Shadow Demon + Chen.
8) Always make sure your heroes can at least hold their own in lane. Laning is important since it decides your mid game, when larger scale fights start to happen frequently.
9) Picking melee hero for mid solo is not always a bad idea, since melee hero get more experience even if the creep is denied. Besides that, most melee hero are naturally tanky and can stand against harassment quite well. Some good candidates are Brew Master, Night Stalker, Beastmaster and Magnus. However, if possible try to pick some powerful lane controller such as Queen of Pain and Templar Assasin so that you can win mid lane.
10) Do not pick easy to ganked hero as solo mid as it only take 1 smoke gang to destroyed your mid lane control. Shadow Fiend is no longer picked as solo mid since he stands no chance against smoke gang, whereas hero like Queen of Pain can escape with Blink.
11) You can pick support in this stage if you think that certain support is very important to your line-up, however you are advised to pick your long lane and carry hero first.
Second Ban Stage
1) You can ban 3 heroes in this stage, but do not worry since this is the easiest stage.
2) You just need to ban what opponent lacks of or what they might pick. For example, your opponent lacks carry in their pick, so you just have to ban some good carry to limit their option. That is why picking carry in 1st pick stage is highly encourage since if you do not, your opponent is going to ban all of them.
3) Banning long lane heroes is quite easy too since long lane heroes are very few. Some example of good long lane heroes are Batridder, Magnus, Dark Seer, Windrunner and Bounty Hunter. Most of them are quite likely to get banned or picked in first ban and first pick stage, hence it is very important to pick your long lane hero in first pick stage.
4) Just to remind, just ban watever your opponent lacks of unless you haven't pick that type of hero yet.
5) Banning support and solo mid heroes is a little bit tricky since the number is quite large compared to long lane and carry heroes. Just ban what you think your opponent will pick. You can also focus on banning some versatile and good heroes to limit opponent's laning option.
6) Certain heroes are just too powerful in the same line-up that you have to ban. For example, it is not wise to let your opponent get Dark Seer + Lone Druid. Spirit Bear with Radiance and Ion Shell is impossible to fight against in 20 minutes mark since your heroes will just melt to this combination. Hence, you can either ban or pick one of them so that your opponent do not get both of them.
7) Banning counter to your heroes is another good choice. For example, if you already pick Lifestealer, it is wise to ban Naga Siren since she is hard counter to Lifestealer. However, some heroes although being decent counter, is not ban worthy. For example, Blood Seeker can counter Anti-Mage to a point, but he is just not a reliable hero and banning him is a waste of ban.
8) Sometimes, it is not necessary to ban a hero that your opponent can't lane. For example, if you already pick Morphling, Anti-mage is Morphling counter as Anti-Mage can easily survive Morphling's shotgun with Spell Shield and can burn Morphling's mana and chase Morphling down with superior mobility. However if your opponent already selected their hard carry such as Lone Druid, you do not need to ban Anti-Mage.
Second Pick Stage
1) You can pick 2 heroes at this stage.
2) Normally primary support heroes are picked in this stage. Secondary support and solo mid heroes are often picked in this stage too.
3) At this stage, both you and your opponent already show picture of your line-up. So it is very easy to figure out what your opponent is trying to do.
4) These 2 picks should cover the weakness of your previous pick. For example, if you lack some lock down, pick it now.
5) Amount of reliable lock down is very important in your line-up so that you can lock down and kill your target. A team without stunner often faces huge problem later on, especially against opponent's carry.
6) Another important aspect is to pick some form of spamable AOE if your team lacks that. It is because that, sometimes you are force to stall the game by using AOE spell. A team without AOE takes too long to clear the creep wave and often faces problem in defending and pushing. AOE spells also contribute to team fight by alot.
7) Just to remind, you should pick the type of hero you lack, and your picks should cover the weakness of your previous picks.
8) Your line-up should be able to execute your strategy. For example a 4 protect 1 line-up revolving around Anti-Mage should be able to fight while Anti-Mage farms. The line-up should be able to defend base by themselves while Anti-Mage doing his split push to force opponents to back off. If the line-up fails, base will be destroyed and Anti-Mage will fail to carry.
9) Primary support should be farm dependent and level dependent. For example, Shadow Priest is not a good candidate for primary support since low leveled Shadow Priest is bad. However, some good support hero such as Leshrac and Shadow Demon is very good even at level 1.
Predicting the Lane
1) This is actually the final stage in drafting.
2) You should already do the following things:
- Pick your carry, solo mid, long lane, secondary support and primary support heroes. Assign each hero to their player.
- Make sure your heroes have laning advantage, or at least hold their own.
- Make sure your line-up is quite balanced in several aspect and versatile.
- Make sure you have back-up plan if your strategy fails.
3) For example, an early game push with 5 INT heroes is very risky as if the push fails, they will get outcarried easily late game. Hence, having some back-up plan is very crucial. Normally, carry hero acts as insurance for your team. If anything bad happens, you can still come back late game.
4) Now I will touch on this topic about lane prediction. The main purpose of lane prediction is to make sure you can get some crucial experience and level on your heroes. If possible, you can shut down opponent's key heroes.
5) The traditional 2-1-2 laning is very bad outside of public game, hence you should avoid that if possible.
6) Consider you are now on Radiant, try to lane your heroes with 1-1-3 or 1-1-2 + 1 jungle is a recommended way to go.
7) If your off lane solo stands no chance against opponent's trilane, do not hesitate to abandon the lane. For example, Dark Seer will get nothing against Chaos Knight + Jakiro + Rubick trilane. It is wise for Dark Seer to totally abandon the lane and get some farm and level inside the jungle. After that, go back to off lane to defend the tower. If not, you will end up with level 1 Dark Seer in 10 minutes.
8) 2-1-2 laning is bad because duolane stands no chance against trilane and will be forced out of experience range. If that happens, you will end up with 2 level 1 hero. With 1 hero going solo long lane, at worst you have only 1 hero getting totally shut down instead of both.
9) This section is very complicated and will never be explained this way. You can get more details by watching competitive replay.
Practical Example
Example 1:
Radiant Pick
Magnus, Luna, Brewmaster, Rubick, Lina
Dire Pick
Nature's Prophet, Night Stalker, Shadow Fiend, Shadow Shaman, Enigma
Which team has the better pick? It is very clear that Radiant's pick is better. How is Dire take fight against Radiant 20 minutes in? Once Luna get her BKB and Brewmaster get his Blink Dagger, the game is already over. Dire just can't take fight against Brewmaster's ultimate. Unless the Dire totally outplaying the Radiant, it is almost certain that the Radiant will win. However Enigma can turn the game around, but this is not a reliable way.
Example 2:
Radiant Pick
Lone Druid, Rubick, Queen of Pain, Windrunner, Lina
Dire Pick
Magnus, Anti-Mage, Jakiro, Vengeful Spirit, Templar Assassin
The picks are very even for both team. However lane prediction gives you huge advantage. First we assume that we are on the Radiant. We can 100% sure than Anti-Mage will always go for safe lane farming, it is very likely to be defensive trilane with Anti-Mage + Jakiro + Vengeful Spirit. If we go for standard way of laning, Windrunner will go solo top against the trilane. However we can do Windrunner + Rubick + Lina trilane against Dire's trilane. By this way, we can shut down Anti-Mage farm since we have 3 range heroes. however, our trilane will ends up underleveled since Dire can do pull and stack jungle creeps to get level on their support. So we should ward their pulling spot and always try to steal their pull or even pull our own so that our support get some level. Lone Druid will get almost free farm against Magnus since his laning is very powerful. Mid lane is almost even.
Hence we get:
a) Free farm on our Lone Druid while shut down Anti-Mage's farm.
b) Get good amount of farm on Windrunner resulting fast Mekansm and Force Staff
However:
a) Magnus not getting completely shut down.
b) Our support being underleveled.
Special Thanks
Alvin Seng
Khoo Khai Yuen
Alston Ang
Ezzen Lee
Tobi Wan
Sources
http://dota-academy.com/home/
http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/User:Reaverxai
http://www.playdota.com/
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