As promised sensei I am here to update you. I am implementing each and every knowledge that you presented in your carry guide. I am focusing on ticking all the boxes and there has been a tremendous improvement in my gameplay. I am also much more confident in my abilities in unfavorable matchups now. Thank you so much, keep uploading. You are doing great, thanks again.
Great guide. I’ve noticed not many people are playing mid rn because of the amount of responsibility the role plays. So I’ve been playing mid lately and find the 1v1 match up alot of fun. This guide will def help ty
Your vids are so helpful. I’ve been playing aggressive under tower thanks to your previous guide and the most recent highlight for me was solo-killing Huskar as Storm Spirit at level 2 just by punishing hard with right clicks and abusing overload.
So clear on the game states. The way Balloon thinks about the game is so clear for us in the lower brackets. I struggle all the time with splitting and losing lane.
When the algorithm really works. I just got back to dota after a while, and yesterday I lost mid with Ember against Huskar. I forgot I can't fight him 1v1 and he got 3 kills on me by the minute 5. Total disaster for me and my team. Bcs of your video I will be a little more prepared next time. Ty +1 subscriber 🥂
a great video again good job dude! unsollicited feedback for your videos: you do information overload sometimes where you talk about a thing that is not exactly the text displayed on the screen. since I don't want to miss any information I need to pause in those moments. idk if youtube analytics show how much ppl pause
Hi, thank you very much for the feedback. I am aware of that and will make sure the next ones are better and actually fit what I am explaining on text. Thank you!
Definitely super helpful if you're laning against lane dominators like Huskar, Viper, OD, Sniper, and Bounty Hunter. Thanks for the guide. Also, if the enemy freezes the wave near their tower, do you try to aggro the creeps to your tower while soaking damage, or do you opt for jungle creeps instead?
If the enemy holds lane, and you can't even walk near to aggro, then just farm the jungle camps until they decide to push back to you provided you can take the jungle camps. Otherwise just sit and soak xp until you hit the point that you can jungle with more levels in spells.
That's really helpful thanks for making this video... Just one question, does the time that you leave to go and stack the creeps change much from hero to hero or is it pretty much the same?
Hi, some heroes can stack using spells like puck or lina without having to physically hit the creeps. However the time you will use to block the creeps are almost always going to be the same because we are making our creeps meet just outside our tower so we have time to stack and return for safe aggro into tower.
Great video as always, Mr. Balloon. Just curious: whats the tool you use to draw over your game? And how does it work with your recording software? Are you using OBS to capture the full screen? Or are you using NVIDIA capture and it draws straight on the game client?
Thank you so much for the educational content. I wonder, how do I punish people that are trying to recover in lane by doing this? Should the 4 come and try to contest the stacks that the enemy mid made?
You would need to ward their jungle camp and invade them by diving past tower to find them or smoke into their jungle when its obvious they are missing in lane.
Is it viable to do this as Leshrac/Ember or any hero that has wave clear while winning the lane? something like 60/40. Or just focus on bullying enemy mid and pressure tower instead of stacking when winning
Question- if youre winning the lane, but playing a greedier hero like TA or Lina that wants a lot of farm, could it still be worth it to do this same stacking pattern (perhaps from a farther distance, like with dragon slave)?
Hi, as long as you are winning lane and allowed to push into your opponent to dive them under their tower to get the kill, you should always pick that option instead. Break their tower, invade their jungle with wards and just keep playing around their jungle camp + mid lane instead.
Normally players would push when strong to dive you under your tower, which when that happens boils down to how well you dodge them will still getting the farm by the tower. If they decide to hold the wave and just spam denies at his side of the lane, you have no choice but to soak xp until you get your level that allows you to clear the jungle stacks, or see if there are openings where you can spam body block your next wave so that his wave still ends up coming closer and closer to your tower to the extent where you are able to quickly sneak a creep aggro into your tower to solve the wave. Just repeat this until they decide to leave lane or when they gank.
This heavily depends on rotations and cause-to-effect actions. Its not as simple as swapping lanes because many other variables still need to be considered.
Hello, I've recently incorporated stacking as mid in losing lanes, however sometimes their mid like ember/leshrac would go behind my tower and take the wave to the stack to farm it all with the help of their support usually. If a sidelane is losing my team would never tp mid, so what do I do in that situation?
You would need to start clearing it sooner, probably at 2-3 stacks onwards start spamming creep aggro into tower to kill the wave fast then move to take your stack.
Hi, you would be doing this recovery route until an opportunity to gank with a TP for 100% kills and plays present themselves or you get a good rune like Haste to achieve a successful rotation. Other than that, it would be wise to stick to jungle stacks and the safe farm at mid until these openings do happen.
If you are winning lane, you should be looking to push the wave into the enemy tower and kill them/zone them then break their tower. If they are avoiding you in lane then find them in their jungle and set up wards while still keeping mid pushed in to control the entire mid area. Basically make the enemy's mid miserable
Yes, I'm highlighting a general concept but not very much specific to this scenario. He should aggro whenever he can and doesn't get harassed a ton, otherwise he can only wait for openings to aggro and chill or just soak xp / farm camps / stack when he can.
These heroes are generally less played at mid and would fail pretty hard if they were to lose their lanes. In that case the heroes have high kill abilities, so most kills are available to them to make their ganks successful while not so much for other heroes.
@@TheWeecheng then you would need to focus more on simplicity and fundamentals in lane such as creep aggro, last hitting, trading favorably and such to avoid losing the lane badly.
Try to ask for ganks in chat and spam ping him so your teammates can react. If they don't come, then just try your best to dodge him by setting up vision around the lane so you can keep playing around the trees and juggling between the wave and the camps.
Either abuse openings at lvl 1-2 when you bait him into creeps while he is still quite squishy and does little damage with 1st spell, or start thinking about leaving once you get to lvl 3-4 around 3-4 mins onwards to stack camps and level your flash farming spells. Spam creep aggro whenever you can and play near and under your tower to push wave out and take stacks. Just avoid the guy in lane.
no real point in a quas wex invoker stacking for himself, even quas exort can barely clear a 4stack until lvl 8 or 9. may aswell just rush urn+boots if getting shit stomped as quas wex mid so you're actually useful rotating. that guy playing invoker is just relying on his team to carry him going those items whilst losing lane
Rotations without consideration towards probabilities are just gonna result in the player falling even more behind if these rotations fail. You need to know when to transition into the recovery route. In this case, he started on quas wex until lvl 4 and couldn't play the lane past 5 anymore. So he had to transition to exort from quas wex. Just 2-3 levels in exort is sufficient to clear stacks with meteor and the earlier 2 points in quas wex for tornado as extra source of damage whenever the spells are off cooldown. Other examples are such as Ember Spirit that is losing lane. He wouldn't play sleight of fist in a losing lane, but flame guard to recover past lvl 4-5. Unless you have been testing this theory out, it definitely wouldn't make sense because you might consider it as AFK farming, when in reality it is done to prevent yourself from falling more behind. Take this from someone that has coached for more than 3000 hours and seen more than thousands of replays from losing midlane players.
@@BricklayerDreDOTA You can't be comparing pro dota and high mmr dota to these sub 5-6k games. Pacing and decisions of teammates, constant adjustments are necessary to be taken into consideration. Dota isn't played the same across casual pub games and high MMR games. To view the game in this manner would be to already set yourself up for a ton of misconceptions about the game. I can show you the differences in winrate of a 4k student after applying these fixes instead that went into a 75% winrate on his games by applying this understanding, but to expect the same decision making from my 8k-10k mmr games and pro games is just illogical and a downright flawed understanding of the game.
@@BricklayerDreDOTA if you want, take a look at some of Sumail's games and you will see that he doesn't gank without reason but only with probability play. Instead, heavy focus is placed onto his laning mechanics so he doesn't end up getting stomped in lane. Do not confuse high mmr gameplay for low mmr gameplay. What you experience in your games and my games and the competitive games are simply not the same. Results from trial and error speak for themselves.
If I ever decide to start playing mid, this will be very helpful.
As promised sensei I am here to update you. I am implementing each and every knowledge that you presented in your carry guide. I am focusing on ticking all the boxes and there has been a tremendous improvement in my gameplay. I am also much more confident in my abilities in unfavorable matchups now. Thank you so much, keep uploading. You are doing great, thanks again.
Thank you very much! I like your regular breakdown to simple steps to follow in all of your sessions.
Dude your videos are always so good. Straight to the point and easy to follow. Thanks for posting!
Nice guide. This really opened up my perspective of how to recover in a losing lane. Thanks!!!
Great guide. I’ve noticed not many people are playing mid rn because of the amount of responsibility the role plays. So I’ve been playing mid lately and find the 1v1 match up alot of fun.
This guide will def help ty
Your vids are so helpful. I’ve been playing aggressive under tower thanks to your previous guide and the most recent highlight for me was solo-killing Huskar as Storm Spirit at level 2 just by punishing hard with right clicks and abusing overload.
So clear on the game states. The way Balloon thinks about the game is so clear for us in the lower brackets. I struggle all the time with splitting and losing lane.
Amazing video!
So many details and great information in general.
As you mentioned, one subtle but great tool to click on portrait to creep aggro!
Your videos are very useful and easy to understand. Grate job
When the algorithm really works. I just got back to dota after a while, and yesterday I lost mid with Ember against Huskar. I forgot I can't fight him 1v1 and he got 3 kills on me by the minute 5. Total disaster for me and my team. Bcs of your video I will be a little more prepared next time. Ty +1 subscriber 🥂
thank you for the tips just got back to playing after 5 years. still on my 100 hrs before rank games
a great video again good job dude!
unsollicited feedback for your videos:
you do information overload sometimes where you talk about a thing that is not exactly the text displayed on the screen. since I don't want to miss any information I need to pause in those moments. idk if youtube analytics show how much ppl pause
Hi, thank you very much for the feedback. I am aware of that and will make sure the next ones are better and actually fit what I am explaining on text. Thank you!
Really helpfull, awesome guides man
You should post your own mid gameplay! I would love to watch your games and learn!
thanks! such a great guide for a returning mid player like me who is so outdated lol
this is so helpful thank you so much
Keep it up Sifu!
Definitely super helpful if you're laning against lane dominators like Huskar, Viper, OD, Sniper, and Bounty Hunter. Thanks for the guide.
Also, if the enemy freezes the wave near their tower, do you try to aggro the creeps to your tower while soaking damage, or do you opt for jungle creeps instead?
If the enemy holds lane, and you can't even walk near to aggro, then just farm the jungle camps until they decide to push back to you provided you can take the jungle camps. Otherwise just sit and soak xp until you hit the point that you can jungle with more levels in spells.
@@BalloonDota Makes sense, thanks.
Thank you Dean! 🙏
This will be useful whenever I am forced to play mid and get dumpstered by a Jakiro.
That's really helpful thanks for making this video... Just one question, does the time that you leave to go and stack the creeps change much from hero to hero or is it pretty much the same?
Hi, some heroes can stack using spells like puck or lina without having to physically hit the creeps. However the time you will use to block the creeps are almost always going to be the same because we are making our creeps meet just outside our tower so we have time to stack and return for safe aggro into tower.
@@BalloonDota awesome, thanks for replying, that's really helpful. 👍
Great video as always, Mr. Balloon.
Just curious: whats the tool you use to draw over your game? And how does it work with your recording software? Are you using OBS to capture the full screen? Or are you using NVIDIA capture and it draws straight on the game client?
Hey bro, this is EpicPen. I record with OBS while having EpicPen opened in the background.
Thank you so much for the educational content.
I wonder, how do I punish people that are trying to recover in lane by doing this? Should the 4 come and try to contest the stacks that the enemy mid made?
You would need to ward their jungle camp and invade them by diving past tower to find them or smoke into their jungle when its obvious they are missing in lane.
Amazing content
Really helpful can u make a video of how to mid lane against obsidian and slardar with mortered or give any suggestions plz..
Offlane guide please, just like your carry guide 🙏
Great video. How do you stop your enemy from doing this? Should you block their camp? Contest it when they are farming it?
Yes, if you are strong to contest then ward and find them.
Can you teach us how to play Lone Druid?
Is it viable to do this as Leshrac/Ember or any hero that has wave clear while winning the lane? something like 60/40. Or just focus on bullying enemy mid and pressure tower instead of stacking when winning
Thanks bro, 😁
Question- if youre winning the lane, but playing a greedier hero like TA or Lina that wants a lot of farm, could it still be worth it to do this same stacking pattern (perhaps from a farther distance, like with dragon slave)?
Hi, as long as you are winning lane and allowed to push into your opponent to dive them under their tower to get the kill, you should always pick that option instead. Break their tower, invade their jungle with wards and just keep playing around their jungle camp + mid lane instead.
bro were you part of You.KMA clan during garena dota1 time?
What if the guy denies the wave and keeps it at his tower while you’re stacking? I don’t think anyone would push the wave on a winning lane
Normally players would push when strong to dive you under your tower, which when that happens boils down to how well you dodge them will still getting the farm by the tower. If they decide to hold the wave and just spam denies at his side of the lane, you have no choice but to soak xp until you get your level that allows you to clear the jungle stacks, or see if there are openings where you can spam body block your next wave so that his wave still ends up coming closer and closer to your tower to the extent where you are able to quickly sneak a creep aggro into your tower to solve the wave. Just repeat this until they decide to leave lane or when they gank.
What about just swapping a hero from another lane? I've done this many times to turn the tides on a losing matchup
This heavily depends on rotations and cause-to-effect actions. Its not as simple as swapping lanes because many other variables still need to be considered.
How about starting to stack earlier, prior to 3 minute mark? Would that be ok thing to do, or is it counter - productive? Thnx
Can you make a guide for midlane using a melee heroes. I noticed that in your mid guide every hero is range. With demoo thank youu
Can you do this with OD against VS? How can you recover from that?
good job tnx
coach, will you do a support centric video
Yes, will consider in the next few videos
Hello, I've recently incorporated stacking as mid in losing lanes, however sometimes their mid like ember/leshrac would go behind my tower and take the wave to the stack to farm it all with the help of their support usually. If a sidelane is losing my team would never tp mid, so what do I do in that situation?
You would need to start clearing it sooner, probably at 2-3 stacks onwards start spamming creep aggro into tower to kill the wave fast then move to take your stack.
For radiant pull, isn't 52-53 enough time to pull? 52 for range and 53 I think for melee as it drags on longer compared to dire one
hi bro, yes you are correct. anywhere from 53-55 works on Radiant.
The video presents farming jungle as a way to recover. But, when should I consider rotating/ganking other lanes, instead of jungling?
Hi, you would be doing this recovery route until an opportunity to gank with a TP for 100% kills and plays present themselves or you get a good rune like Haste to achieve a successful rotation. Other than that, it would be wise to stick to jungle stacks and the safe farm at mid until these openings do happen.
BalloonDota, best dota
Do you still stack if you are winning the lane? How do I stop enemy if he is doing this?
If you are winning lane, you should be looking to push the wave into the enemy tower and kill them/zone them then break their tower. If they are avoiding you in lane then find them in their jungle and set up wards while still keeping mid pushed in to control the entire mid area. Basically make the enemy's mid miserable
But when u say pull aggro in that invo vs od matchup wouldnt the od still harass when he goes for the agro?
Yes, I'm highlighting a general concept but not very much specific to this scenario. He should aggro whenever he can and doesn't get harassed a ton, otherwise he can only wait for openings to aggro and chill or just soak xp / farm camps / stack when he can.
@@BalloonDota oh ok, thanks
What bout mid heores with less flash farm capabilities? Example skywrath or clock?
These heroes are generally less played at mid and would fail pretty hard if they were to lose their lanes. In that case the heroes have high kill abilities, so most kills are available to them to make their ganks successful while not so much for other heroes.
@@BalloonDota i see, but lets say if i were to use a hero without flashfarm abilities, other than side ganking what should i be more aware of?
@@TheWeecheng then you would need to focus more on simplicity and fundamentals in lane such as creep aggro, last hitting, trading favorably and such to avoid losing the lane badly.
@@BalloonDota thank you
what about heroes like void spirit which cannot farm well enough jungle camps?
Use your ult and 3rd spell to farm, and transition into dissimilate build if lane goes bad to farm.
@@BalloonDota and what if ur wex invo going vs od lvl 4 and u have no exort ?
I play vs viper the other day, i tried this. but he would dive tower and come find me. any advice ?
Try to ask for ganks in chat and spam ping him so your teammates can react. If they don't come, then just try your best to dodge him by setting up vision around the lane so you can keep playing around the trees and juggling between the wave and the camps.
@@BalloonDota Thank you bro, very helpful i will try this. Appreciate the response 👍
What you are playing a hero that is not good at farming jungle? 🤔
Balloon dota is very goood dota coach🎉🎉🎉🎉
how to win against viper in mid ?
Either abuse openings at lvl 1-2 when you bait him into creeps while he is still quite squishy and does little damage with 1st spell, or start thinking about leaving once you get to lvl 3-4 around 3-4 mins onwards to stack camps and level your flash farming spells. Spam creep aggro whenever you can and play near and under your tower to push wave out and take stacks. Just avoid the guy in lane.
have you ever coached turbo enjoyer
If you mean a turbo player that is trying to learn to play ranked or unranked, then yes.
what rank is this?
This is 2k bracket.
Bro can i whatsapp you for coaching session?
Hi bro, add me on Discord, we can discuss further there. My Discord ID is BaLLooN#5243
Done bro
no real point in a quas wex invoker stacking for himself, even quas exort can barely clear a 4stack until lvl 8 or 9. may aswell just rush urn+boots if getting shit stomped as quas wex mid so you're actually useful rotating. that guy playing invoker is just relying on his team to carry him going those items whilst losing lane
Rotations without consideration towards probabilities are just gonna result in the player falling even more behind if these rotations fail. You need to know when to transition into the recovery route. In this case, he started on quas wex until lvl 4 and couldn't play the lane past 5 anymore. So he had to transition to exort from quas wex. Just 2-3 levels in exort is sufficient to clear stacks with meteor and the earlier 2 points in quas wex for tornado as extra source of damage whenever the spells are off cooldown. Other examples are such as Ember Spirit that is losing lane. He wouldn't play sleight of fist in a losing lane, but flame guard to recover past lvl 4-5. Unless you have been testing this theory out, it definitely wouldn't make sense because you might consider it as AFK farming, when in reality it is done to prevent yourself from falling more behind. Take this from someone that has coached for more than 3000 hours and seen more than thousands of replays from losing midlane players.
@@BalloonDota show me one pro game a quas wex invoker stacks for himself then afk jungles after losing lane
@@BricklayerDreDOTA You can't be comparing pro dota and high mmr dota to these sub 5-6k games. Pacing and decisions of teammates, constant adjustments are necessary to be taken into consideration. Dota isn't played the same across casual pub games and high MMR games. To view the game in this manner would be to already set yourself up for a ton of misconceptions about the game. I can show you the differences in winrate of a 4k student after applying these fixes instead that went into a 75% winrate on his games by applying this understanding, but to expect the same decision making from my 8k-10k mmr games and pro games is just illogical and a downright flawed understanding of the game.
@@BricklayerDreDOTA if you want, take a look at some of Sumail's games and you will see that he doesn't gank without reason but only with probability play. Instead, heavy focus is placed onto his laning mechanics so he doesn't end up getting stomped in lane. Do not confuse high mmr gameplay for low mmr gameplay. What you experience in your games and my games and the competitive games are simply not the same. Results from trial and error speak for themselves.