General DiscussionTrilane Counter

You keep the clock/kotl lane pushed, AM will get a ring of regen and wont care about your 50 dmg rockets.

also, your safelane won't be safe anymore, you will be more vulnerable to ganks and you can't zone out an offlaner with only one support. Your offlane will get something yeah, thats true, but their solo offlaner will get much more.

Only dual offlane that I saw working out includes Mirana and some long disable like Bane SD or Naga. And even these combos had a Chen or Ench to help them out.

How is Lich a strong support? He is like the opposite of that.

2-1-2 happens sometimes. For example an abaddon + weaver lane can be against a defensive trilane.

Really, you're summing up a clockwerk + kotl spamming as 50 dmg rockets?

Can see you're of the typical masses that call anything other than the metagame stupid :/

Goodluck farming your creeps under tower fire btw. Gonna be awesome snagging like 1-2 creeps per wave! /zomgfastfarm

Every single comment of you guys can be rebutted.

You can't zone out an offlaner with 1 support? Thats why I mentioned Lich. Frost nova spam ftw? Besides its not as if your carry is worthless in the lane. If their offlaner starts a fight you're definitely gonna win 2v1. Of course there are exceptions but nontheless you can still interrupt their offlane farm since offlane heroes excel at surviving 1v3 anyway.

And if you succeed in pulling their supports away to gank top, thats perfectly fine then because I don't see a AM farming against a kotl/clock alone. If their mid ganks then simple warding and counter ganking works no? I'm not saying everything is a perfect situation but don't make it sound like that one gank > everything.

Lich isn't viable in a trilane due to his lack of lockdown. Heroes like thd or visage have more utility and burst. But in a duolane against one enemy offlaner? The unlimited mana from dark ritual is plenty to harass the offlaner out of decent farm.

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You guys are creating specific scenarios where this hero combination will fail. But lets face it, every god damn lineup has its flaws. I'm just suggesting that this combination might be viable depending on the situation.

No need to be snobbish with "good luck with 50 dmg rockets".

you have no idea how to draft buddy

@kämi
And you do? Guy who is abusing abandon system and 5-stacking every game shouldn't talk like he can play this game well. I saw your main account that had <50 w% or something like that so just leave internet plz

Dude, we posted the downsides of this lineup! You can get same results with any hero with long range spamable nuke instead of clock (Ex: kunkka, tinker, alchemist, tusk, etc).

I'm just annoyed it got shot down so quick before any consideration.

It doesn't really have to be that two really. I'm just bringing up that if 2-1-2 were to come back, it would probably be in that format. Where the duo against the tri would sorta be spamming with sustainability.

Those heroes lack the ability to repeatedly spam their spells. I brought up a Kotl/clock suggestion cuz the clock would be able to spam and cogs would be a good defensive skill if their tri isn't particularly strong. Against a naix/visage/nyx tri, this would never work out.

Lol @kami, isn't it quite clear that the point of my thread is about alternatives to the current meta? Well, good for you that you're such a awesome player then.

It's funny how people say "you have no idea how to draft" as soon as someone suggests something that's outside the metagame.

And then, surprise, a couple years later, guess what happens? The metagame has shifted, and that suggestion that seemed retarded... might become the meta!

Same goes with heroes. Someone will be like "this hero is good guys, why don't you pick him?". About a year ago people said that OD was good, yet there were those pro-team fanboys who went "but PROS don't pick him so obviously he's bad and if you think otherwise you're bad, because you can't argue against pros" and then, guess what, OD becomes top mid pick out of NOWHERE. No shit, look at his skill set bro, try to win 1v1 against this guy.

So, let's end this with a guess: Spiritbreaker will see play soon. His skill set is really strong since the buffs, he can reveal invis heroes for a long time (most notably shadow blade), his bashes hit hard and go through BKB, his ultimate is a very reliable semi-long disable which goes through BKB, if farmed enough can punish split-pushing, and he provides his whole team with a 3x drum of endurance (ms only). Also, if he somehow gets an early game advantage, he gets hard to manage. And he only needs 1 or 2 core items before becoming useful. He's not only a pub-stomper IMO, he can really make a difference in a professional game.

my main is 60%+ and what "abusing abandon system"? plz go end yourself for the sake of humanity

You have 38 No stats recorded matches which are bcoz of abandons. But there clearly is no point in discussion with you bcoz you seem to have autism or something and you can't have clear picture of yourself

Guys, ignore him ffs, every thread he visits ends up the same way- him trolling and us responding to his idiocy. Simply ignore that guy and stick to the topic.

As someone mentioned dual lanes are still viable, if you can justify it (weaver plus dark tree). So if there is a strong, sustainable dual lineup, sure it COULD work. But that lane will suffer from the same things lanes suffer in pubs- if you are a dual lane vs a trilane, you will end up getting killed. If not, you will still be harassed out of lane and get pretty much nothing out of it. A third person means another stun or nuke, so a trilane will dominate. If it will be a defensive trilane, you wont really get any creeps at all.

Dual against dual is unfavorable for the defensive dual, so the one with carry, since you will pretty much fight for farm all the time. Usually a dual safe lane is supported from the jungle or through rotations.

And about the clock and keeper combo... You wouldnt really gain too much out of it, cause you would get less exp for clock probably and the keeper would take the farm... he could still do that in the "safe" jungle.

My post may be a bit chaotic, but i have my mind elsewhere a bit right now, so i beg for forgiveness.

Only viable way of having 2 dual lanes is having 2 heroes that can make the enemy carry's life harder. Bane is a great example of this. If there is no need for him in the safe lane, he just goes to mid or hard lane and spams the Enfeeble on people. 30 damage is a REALLY BIG deal that early in the game. And that's significantly important if you have a SF in your team trying to last hit against a TA. And a Dark Seer alone can be quite annoying, forcing the enemy carry to last hit under the tower against Ion Shell. And if you add Enfeeble on top of that, you can make the carry's life a hell.

The point of the 'duo' I suggested is not really to dominate the lane or anything like that. Nor is it to farm. Its to simply disrupt the enemy carries farm. Without making it a dangerous tri vs tri, you can safely disrupt their farm by pushing it under their tower while your own carries has a support of his own to handle the enemy offlaner. In this case, I think that its very worth it if you can ruin the enemy safe tri's farm. There is a huge difference between a kotl getting 1000g from jungle and an enemy am getting 1000g from lane.

Spiritbreaker is quite OP but he has a major flaw, he doesn't fit anywhere during the laning phase. He's not exactly a strong hard carry and is usually played as a position 3 or 4. But he's weak as a level 1~5 support and theres noway he can survive in the offlane. The only would be having him solo the safelane while you have an offensive tri, and even then its situational.

While Bane is good for harassing that mid lane with the enfeeble, him going to the offlane is generally not worth it. He's too weak to against a tri if he's only in a duo lane. Raped, no exceptions, not even against a weak enemy tri. Dark seer is an exceptional offlaner and theres no point duo-laning if you get him. I'm bringing up alternatives to a trilane.

their offlaner will get more than the two of you, and the safe-trilane carry will get just as much as the one in dual lane.

What about 2-2-1? Is 2 in the safe lane that much worse than a tri at securing farm for the carry? 2 mid could surprise a lot of people and shut down a carry mid. But good luck getting anyone to try this. I've only played it maybe once or twice and am not a high level player.

2-2-1 is sometimes played competitively for a couple of first minutes, to ensure a better laning for your mid. Prolonging this wouldnt be too good though, for the same reason- the exp would split. And on the mid lane with bottle crowing and spammable nukes you still wouldnt deny too much cs from opponent at one point... The proximity of towers is also a factor to be considered. And it still weakens the lane with the carry. But on these matters some better players should voice their opinions.

Yeah for average players like me I don't see a significant difference between tri lane and 2-1-2 because no one executes tri that well (failed ganks, don't understand had carry free farm enough) and the offlaner is pretty easy to shut down 2 on 1 (they just aren't that good usually). I've had some really great games off laning bounty hunter vs a 2-1-2 setup simply because my opponent sucked and didn't shut me down at all, but that's not the norm. Honestly for normal bracket going 2-1-1 and one in the jungle seems to work best because only maybe 1 out of 6 teams will actually try to shut down a jungler. I get free jungle farm with naix constantly, it's so pathetic.

Dual mid is viable with combos like Wisp CK or Kunkka SD. That pretty much makes the opposing mid impossible to lane there unless a support rotates to help the mid out. And only one support is just not enough to zone out some offlaners like DS.

the safe trilane is just going to pull all the time and you cant contest the pull at all and you end up sitting back with 2 heroes not getting gold or xp
you basically cant cross the river and end up afking
if you cant even cs under your own tower without creeps around then theory crafting over picks and bans is pointless anyway

for the 2v1 lane
almost every hero combination completely destroys every solo hero with the exception of really bad heroes against dark seer and timbersaw but when you have to use your support who could be freefarming pulls to keep the offlaner out of xp range then you simply sacrifice too much as you have little potential to control runes or set up ganks

almost anything can actually work if you do it right but dual laning against trilanes usually is a bad idea unless they have really unfavorable match ups

but everything i said only applies if people actually know how to play the game
chances are all these things wont actually matter in the lvl of games most of the people play

@Cap quoted from you,

"Without making it a dangerous tri vs tri, you can safely disrupt their farm by pushing it under their tower while your own carries has a support of his own to handle the enemy offlaner."

You can't expect pro level players to miss last hits under the tower.I can't imagine how would Burning , Loda , Black miss most of the last hit under the tower. They would still get 90% of the creeps.
One qb could make the last hit under the tower way too easier.

That statement just makes me "wow".

Bane's enfeeble is really annoying though.

sorry but most of you got no idea what you're talking about

a good dual lane on offlane is pretty much the easiest way to win pubs if you're queuing with a friend

first of all you won't meet strong trilanes often except if you're vs some tryhard stack, also:

1) people usually pick furion/bat/doom/ursa and jungle which leaves you against a dual lane
2) joke laners like spec/am/pl/void/medusa/drow/morph actually contribute close to nothing to the lane
3) supports usually fail to deward their pull if you ward it smartly/dont get sentries at start at all

it's extremely easy to dismantle pub safe lanes, and if you destroy that it's even easier to win games than destroying mid or farming 80 cs in 10 min on your own safe

if you take some cheese like aba + weaver / lich + whatever / tide + veno / nyx + lina / viper/razor + support / sb + support it's extremely easy to contest their pulls if they deward and destroy their carry's farm

http://dotabuff.com/matches/304814134 weaver nyx against kunkka es skywrath
http://dotabuff.com/matches/297626686 sb rubick against luna dirge cm
http://dotabuff.com/matches/302097850 veno tide vs rubick alch
http://dotabuff.com/matches/303461110 sb cm vs naga sf chen

We are talking about pro games here dude. Did you miss it?

@Swiftending

I'm interested to see veno & tide and bara & rubick. Is there any way I can watch the replays?

how do you discuss pro games without ever playing them, all of you play pubs therefore my post is more useful than some baseless competitive theorycrafting ''yeah lich + something may work in competitive but maybe not lol! xD''

it should work in some cases in comp depending on the draft but that's where you stop your theorycraft due to everything else just being your opinion but most people go on with ''yeah they deward pull you push under their tower then you kill level 2 naga siren then your potm buys basilius blah blah lbalh'' which is just dumb theorycrafting not applicable to the game

you're wasting time discussing ''why is this not in comp'' if you're not playing at that level already so just stick to figuring out what works in your games first

yes you can dl games from ingame client just put the match ID in the filter if the replays havent expired already

The last week or so many pro teams have used dual off-lane. Nearly all of these were Abaddon + a hero with a strong escape ability. I saw Abaddon + weaver and Abaddon + Mirrana several times. 1 game a safelane pulling Treant was added making the weaver nearly invincible. Weaver destroyed that defensive tri-lane....I think Abaddon + Slark was also attempted I seem to remember it not doing that well but its kind of blurred into 2 dozen other pro games I saw.. Oh! yeah also Abaddon starting with DS, taking almost no xp and then roaming away once DS was safe.

There are a number of dual offlane combos that can beat certain tri-lanes. There are also some dual safe-lanes that are good against offensive tri-lanes.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. When the world nitpicks at everything you say.

Fine, let me bring up my defenses.

Any decent clockwerk is capable of missile blocking pull. If you didn't know you could missile block the pull, then please don't shoot me down by talking about the pull ._.

You wanna bring up how pros can farm under the tower? Kk you win (nope, lets not talk about weaker carries like Gyro being unable to farm due to erratic tower damage, you win). But theres the harass, helloooooo. One of the reasons heroes like Kunkka work in mid. A Kotl and clock can harass from a safe distance. And like I said, against a defensive/weak tri. (no rubbish about mid ganking plz. your mid can gank as well, its a seperate matter) Just... "wow".

An enemy offlaner will get way more out of their offlane? Hello. Seriously? Can we stop it with any of these comments. Justifying a 1v2 offlaner would get a decent farm or make the carry's life hard is like justifying my 2v3 suggestion. A ds would rape x and x hero duo lane. Yeah sure, then when you do this would you not ban ds then?! Or would you pick a weakass duo? Imagine a cm jugger combo or whatever, use your imagination. And puhleeze, in situations where the offlaner can't even get a level off an enemy tri, they usually go jungle. Offlaners EXCEL are surviving and leeching exp and gold. The offlaner will possibly get some gold and exp, but it will be far from a free farm.

No offense, too many people seem to more interested in shooting this idea down than thinking about it.

@Relentless, thank you. Good to see that although only situationally, 2-1-2's might be coming back.

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Guys, before you point out more holes in my 2-1-2 suggestion, please think. There will be cons, but might it outweight the pros, if even only situationally? That there might be a solution to whatever you find? That your hole might just be your nonsensically just grudging and pointing out random things that clearly have an easy answer?

okay lets see, becouse you imagined one situation with kotl+clock offlane, i will imagine other. Lets see, common offlane heroes are like nature prophet, LD, seer, bh, weaver etc.
First of all kotl+clock offlane will get:
-Farm, 1/3 of the total xp(per hero, its somehow too much), harrass on the enemy carry, creep pull blocking
BUT, you cant stop a trilaning carry to farm unless it is spectre. The supports will bring u so much regen that you will be able to lasthit for sure.
What the opposite offlane will get?
An 2v1 situation. Almost every hero of the listed above (maybe not Nature) will get anything they want on that lane, especially if they get a little help. In 3v1 situation, all the offlaners want is a little bit of exp and supports farm shutdown. But in a 2v1 situation, you can't even pull, becouse your carry will be in unsafe position, so is the pull can be taken by the offlaner. For ex. lifestealer can get whatever he wants in a position like that (2v1) unless he is against 2 deepshit harrasing heroes. And he is not even a typical offlane hero.
So i think their offlaner will get HUGE advantage, and the support from the dual safelane won't gain anyithing.
So you are trading a farm for a carry (1), for farm on a offlane(2), the opposite carry is farming too(2), so is your offlane clock getting something(1), the supports on the trilane won't just stand there for nothing, they will clear camps and gain their levels while helping their carry(2) while your one supports gets some xp, and the other does not gain anything (1) AND, your mid is also in much bigger danger in getting ganked than the opposite one.
I've never seen this on a real match so i can't judge this will be for sure, but this i think would most probably happend, and for sure it gains team (2) and early advantage.
this does not apply to weaver+abba dual lane, i think it is very stong giving weaver whatever he likes on that lane.

This is the sort of responses I've been wanting. Constructive ones.

Since this has never been done, nothing is set in stone or proven yet. The point where you get regen from supports, I only seeing it working out if the support is a dazzle/warlock, which are seldom used. With no pull and all lane farm needed to go to carry, I doubt you can provide enough regen against repeated 100~300 etc dmg nukes. The only way this combo can be stopped in my opinion, is via ganks or a strong tri killing them itself. Trying to lasthit while ignoring it will just be wasting all that gold on regen, which would achieve its purpose.

About their offlane, definitely, their offlane would gain more farm than if against a tri. But suggesting stuff like naix working unless the heroes are heavy harass is abit far fetched... =_="..... I imagine more heroes working in the offlane against a duo though, and offlaners like BH would be much harder to zone out.

~

me and swift already gave you a constructive argument

"stop drafting"

I dislike your arrogant attitude but what ever. We gave you examples of working dual off-lanes which you apparently ignored. I am not convinced of your argument for using Lich.
The KOTL+Clock lane might work but is it efficient compared to standard picks/lanes? Maybe. Clock can already block the creep wave to farm (unless the opposing team blocks well and drags creeps), so is KOTL really needed there? Your easy lane farmer is undeniably going to have a harder time so the dual off-lane has to get a lot done to compensate for that. Against some lineups this could work but your Lich, Clock and KOTL will most likely all be underleveled. Why? The Lich won't be able to pull as much and the KOTL+Clock lane will be pushed if they spam rocket/illuminate. If the other team has decent support heroes they should be able to zone you out.
Try it out in some CM/TMM/scrim games and you will see whether it works or not.

Arrogant attitude? Maybe it was in response to dozens of egoistical comments. Do you need me to quote all of them? It'd be quite time consuming, really.

I ignored the dual offlane suggestions? "@Relentless, thank you. Good to see that although only situationally, 2-1-2's might be coming back." I'm not ignoring other dual suggestions. I even mentioned that I simply thought if dual lanes were to comeback, it would in a strong range nuking format.

I'm arrogant? Read your comment. Its pretty arrogant itself. Why is it arrogant? In response to mine you might say, then what about mine?

:/

"How is Lich a strong support? He is like the opposite of that.
2-1-2 happens sometimes. For example an abaddon + weaver lane can be against a defensive trilane. "

"Every single comment of you guys can be rebutted.

You can't zone out an offlaner with 1 support? Thats why I mentioned Lich. Frost nova spam ftw? Besides its not as if your carry is worthless in the lane. If their offlaner starts a fight you're definitely gonna win 2v1. Of course there are exceptions but nontheless you can still interrupt their offlane farm since offlane heroes excel at surviving 1v3 anyway."

My comment was not loaded. Your was.

You're seriously twisting words here.

You're implying I'm saying all 2-1-2's other than mine won't work. The point of this thread was because I'm wondering why 2-1-2's aren't used.

And I don't see whats wrong with the second quote? I'm not being sarcastic, that was my serious defense. A 2v1 scenario your carry will still get legitimate farm and while Lich won't exactly be rich, he's a position 5-ish hero if he were to be used. You can harass safely with frost nova without gathering creep aggro, etc.

"Every single comment of you guys can be rebutted."

If you feel offended, I take it back, but please understand the negativity of all the comments and how frustrating it can be, especially when I simply casually created this thread off a casually thought up combo.

@kami, whatever lol. You might be better at me at dota, but I'm pretty sure most people hate you here.

BURN IN HELL

Shutup noob gyro with phaseboots pers at 40 mins

says a pudge with bottle and arc in 40mins

pudge needs no items fool

pudge needs a force staff at least fool

l2p your force staff made us lose because you didn't pipe

pudge needs no pipe fool
all it takes is fishing skeelz

you hit like one hook the whole game

well OP is srsly overestimating kotl + clock.Why would you bring that up over and over again?
you can't forever spam the nuke with this two heroes.

So, you are implying both of them skill-ing rocket and illuminate at lvl 1.
Then they would be so much vulnerable against tri lanes with no escape mechanism. (even cog would be better IMO)
Moreover, kotl without charkra magic can't spam forever.

It would take kotl+clock 2 creep waves to reach lvl 2.(assume they both share the exp)
I mean which competent players would be kind enough to let them stay in the offlane without getting zoning out?

About lich? To give you constructive opinion,
skill frostbite and lvl 1 and leech exp from your carry while stacking at 0:52.
first creep wave, you can deny first 2 creeps and you could completely deny the creep waves coming at 1:00.
This is the only way I can think to prevent enemy offlaner from getting exp as much as possible.

You simply can't trade harass with lich at lvl1 with most of the offlaner heroes.

P.S I forgot to mention that (kotl+lich) have no stun.

Maybe simply you are ignorant to the point that I feel like being trolled.

u should have 3 carries on the ez lane bcuz if you end up in the late game, you can pwn everyone LOLZ XD #VALVEDRONE I LOVE YOU GABE JEWELL

"especially when I simply casually created this thread off a casually thought up combo."

By no means am I implying that it is unstoppable or w/e. Many times I mentioned how a gank or a simply a strong tri makes it impossible. Thank you for pointing out that for it to be feasible, they would both need levels which the enemy tri would make unlikely, even a weak one.

"Imagine a cm jugger combo or whatever, use your imagination."

To the comment being Lich and Kotl having no stun, Lich was a suggestion. I'm not saying it has to be Lich but thanks for pointing out the lack of lockdown. Against offlaners such as LD or DS maybe, but a Lich can fend off a BH or NP on his own I believe. Or at least punish them if they trying to sneak in some last hits. As Relentless has pointed out 2-1-2's seem to be used more and more recently and I'm sure their safe duolane had a hero combination feasible against the enemy offlane.

I'm starting to get tired of people thinking I'm ignorant. If anybody thinks that way, then frankly, you're ignorant. This was a discussion thread about 2-1-2's. The Kotl and Clock idea was only a small part of it, if only to suggest the coming back of 2-1-2. Instead, everyone seemed to diverge into shooting down the kotl/clock, which was far from the purpose of this thread. As a result, I got caught up into defending my flimsy idea against flimsy attempts at taking it down. I've mentioned how it can be countered but everyone seems to be ignoring that.

:/

Well anyway, just glad to know that 2-1-2 can work if but situationally and is coming back into play. The repeated use of trilane in competitive has come to bore me which was why I was wondering about 2-1-2.

Don't know if some people are ignorant because I really feel like I'm being trolled.

The thing is. to have 3 core heroes on 3 lanes to farm. those 2 are to help any of them do what they should be doing if needed. they are roamers unless they have to help 1 lane consistently.

3 carries strat is legit

Mixing what kord1g and swiftending said, in normal pubs yup. Against pub players going 1-1-3 vs 2-1-2 works fine because the 2 against your offlaner won't be good enough to stop you from getting xp and possibly farm. Your tri lane bot can completely shut down their 2 and viola, you have more exp all around and a fed carry. If the other team tries to tri lane, go 2-1-2 and counter because your two in the offlane will stomp their one. Again this is assuming pubs where the other team is usually bad. Of course there's often bads on your team too so it's not a given your 2 vs 1 will stomp unless you queue with friends. Basically if the opposing team tri lanes I like to 2-1-2 to counter and if they don't I like to tri lane.

http://www.joindota.com/en/vods/7193-the-alliance-vs-virtuspro-starladder-vii-dota2-tobiwan-and-clairvoyance
Alliance vs Virtus Pro

Both used dual lanes. Actually I saw this same trend last year after TI2. Teams began to try out new heroes in new positions and many more dual lanes were played. I think once some of the best comboes have been figured out teams tend to fall back into a pattern of tri-lanes and off lane solos because the farm and xp efficiency is higher.

Anyway this game VP has Timbersaw+Bane safelane, ET mid, and Centuar+Tusk offlane (one of my favorite dual combos). Alliance used Chen+ NP sort-of dual and jungle safelane, Storm mid, and Jugg+wisp offlane.

These were very interesting lanes, but Alliance played theirs so well it was truly incredible....resulting in a lopsided win.