How to Master the Early Game in Dota 2

In Dota 2, the early game – especially the laning stage – often sets the tone for everything that follows. Sometimes, the entire game is decided in the first 10 to 15 minutes, so strong laning leads to significantly higher chances of winning. 

Each role plays a unique part in shaping the early game in Dota, and understanding your responsibilities can be the difference between a smooth game and a painful recovery. In this guide, I’ll break down what each role should focus on during the early game to give your team the best possible start. 

Position 1 Carry: Survive and Secure Farm

The position 1 carry is often the weakest hero in the early game, so the objective at this stage is simple on paper: secure as much farm as possible while staying alive. In practice, to play carry properly, you’ll need good decision-making, lane awareness, and synergy with your support. 

Buy a Quelling Blade to secure last hits

A Quelling Blade is essential for nearly every melee carry, and even some ranged ones. This starting item boosts your attack damage to creeps, meaning you’ll be more effective at last-hitting and denying. You can also start cutting trees on the side to prevent the enemy support from harassing you from behind the trees. 

Invest in a Magic Stick when needed

The Magic Stick is arguably the strongest early game item, and it helps weak carry heroes sustain themselves in the lane. If you’re laning against heroes that spam spells like Bristleback or Tidehunter, this item is amazing, but you should still pick it up even if you’re facing other heroes. There’s a good chance the enemy support will cast their spells, and building up stick charges can be the difference between dying in a trade or surviving with just enough HP. 

Know your creeps in Dota: when to push, pull, or freeze the wave

Lane equilibrium is everything in the laning stage. There are three ways to maintain good creep equilibrium:

• Push: If your duo is stronger than the enemy duo, one way to fix the equilibrium is by quickly pushing the creep wave. If you clear the enemy’s wave, your creep wave will walk into their tower and die quickly, resetting the creep equilibrium. 
• Pull: If your lane is slightly pushed up, you can ask your support to pull the small camp. However, pulling can be dangerous if the enemy duo has the potential to dive you while your creep wave is at the pull camp.
• Freeze: If there are one or two enemy creeps standing while your entire wave is dead, you can run circles in front of your Tier 1 tower and keep these creeps alive by pulling them out of tower range. That way, your creep wave will meet with these remaining creeps in front of the tower, and the equilibrium will reset. In these cases, do not interfere with the wave – only attack to get the last hit or deny. 

Using the hard camp

If you’re in a good position in the lane, you can maximize your GPM (gold per minute) by farming the hard camp as well. That way, you will be farming two creep waves and a hard camp every minute. However, you must ensure your hero can deal with the camp without taking too much damage, and that the enemy team doesn’t have enough threat to kill you while you are farming it. Heroes like Ursa, Lifestealer, Wraith King, or Sven are excellent at clearing this camp. 

Understand when to leave the lane

When the enemy offlaner or support is close to hitting their level 6 timing, the best move can be to back off. Most carry heroes can’t survive this timing window, so it might be best to retreat to the jungle to farm or help your offlaner push the enemy safe lane tower. However, if you’re a hero like Lifestealer or Weaver, who are very difficult to kill, you can stay in the lane for as long as you want. 

Position 2 Mid Lane: Dominate the 1v1 and Rotate

The mid-laner is expected to be the tempo-setter of the team. In most games, your early levels will determine whether your team can fight, push, or play defensively. To play mid well in Dota, not only do you need to win your 1v1 matchup, but you’ll also need to be the first hero to impact other lanes. 

Out-CSing and harassing your opponent

Mid is the true 1v1 lane, so winning it gives you a direct advantage over the enemy mid-laner. You don’t necessarily have to kill them to win the matchup, most of the time, getting more last hits and denies is considered winning the lane.

The real skill here comes from understanding whether your hero can out-harass the enemy, or if they have the upper hand and recognizing when to play for trades and when to focus on farming. 

Securing runes and Bottle efficiency

For most mid heroes, the Bottle is your lifeline in the early game. Controlling runes in Dota is not only essential to keeping it full, but can also give you power-ups to gank other lanes.

The two and four-minute Water Runes are normally split between the two mid-laners since they spawn on both ends of the river, but the six-minute Power Rune is when movements should be made. Feel free to call for supports to help contest Power Runes from minute six onwards. 

Know when to roam or farm

Your hero’s power spike should dictate your playstyle. Some mid-laners like Queen of Pain, Ember Spirit, or Storm Spirit can rotate once they hit level 6 or get a power rune. Meanwhile, others like Tinker, Shadow Fiend, or Sniper are more stationary heroes that need more time to farm before joining fights. No matter what you do, avoid abandoning your lane for nothing – always rotate with purpose, ideally after shoving the wave so you don’t miss out on farm. 

Buy your own wards

Placing an observer ward on the high ground can allow you to harass your enemy more efficiently, and planting them by the river can spot out runes. Remember that, even though you’re not a support hero, observer wards can be bought for free. 

If you feel like your enemy has placed an observer ward down, buying a sentry ward and dewarding it yourself can result in a profit. You’ll get double the gold you paid for, as well as a nice boost of experience. 

Understand teleport rotations

One of the best ways to rotate to another lane is by using your Teleport Scroll wisely. You can teleport to another lane if you’ve hit your level 6 timing, or if the enemies are diving your teammates under the tower. 

Netting a kill not only rewards you with gold and experience, but it relieves pressure for your teammates and can shift the game momentum. Don’t sit on your TP – use it to show up where you’re most needed.

Position 3 Offlane: Disrupting the Enemy Carry

As the offlaner, your job in the early game is to make the enemy carry’s life as miserable as possible. You’re usually playing a tankier, self-sufficient hero who can pressure the lane and apply pressure. Ensure that you delay timings and power spikes for as long as possible. 

Contest the lane without feeding

The line between aggression and overextension can be thinner in the offlane than others. You want to contest creeps, harass the carry, and disrupt pulls – but not at the cost of your own life. Focus on denying the ranged creeps, dragging aggro to manipulate the wave, and zoning the enemy carry from getting free last hits. Remember that positioning is key, and feeding your life away to the carry will only make the game harder. 

Bully weak enemy carries

Many safe lane heroes are weak in lane. Identify whether the enemy carry has a weak laner, and if you’re on something aggressive, you shouldn’t let them free farm. Threaten them on every last hit, and try zoning them out as much as possible. Don’t waste a good matchup – if you and your support have high kill potential, pressure the carry as much as possible while you can. 

Itemizing for lane dominance or sustain

Item choice is crucial in the offlane. Do you want to double down on aggression (Orb of Corrosion, early Phase Boots) or play to survive the lane (Ring of Health, Magic Stick)? You need to adapt based on your matchup and how aggressive the enemy duo lane is. Again, this comes down to whether your hero is stronger than their carry in lane. You really don’t want to have an Orb of Corrosion instead of regen in a lane you’re losing. 

Taking the enemy Tier 1 tower

One of the primary objectives in Dota for an offlaner is to take the enemy’s Tier 1 tower as early as possible, normally, at the 10-minute mark when the second Siege Creep spawns. Once you hit level 6 or finish a key item like Vanguard or Blade Mail, you can start threatening this tower.

When you do take the tower, make sure to plant down vision around the area. This is your map now, and if you can defend your own safe lane Tier 1 after you’ve taken theirs, your team will naturally have more map control going into the mid game. 

Playing around the hard camp

In certain lanes, especially when the wave is pushing, the hard camp is your best resource to fix the equilibrium and bring the meeting point closer to your tower. Hard camps are obviously stronger than the small camps and can kill an entire wave.

Getting a hard camp stack is almost game over for any lane, as well. You can kill your entire creep wave on a hard camp stack, denying all farm from the enemy carry. Make sure to ask your support to unblock this camp if it was sentried. 

Position 4 Soft Support: Secure Runes and Make Early Impact

The position 4 support is the most flexible role in the early game. You’ll have to do a lot of things – roam, create pressure, and secure runes while enabling your offlaner. A good position 4 makes things happen on the map, whether it’s punishing the enemy carry or helping your mid-laner win their lane, too. 

Help the Offlaner through their early levels

In the very first few minutes of the game, your primary task is to ensure your offlaner can safely reach level 3 or 4. That means you’ll have to trade hits with the enemy support and harass the enemy carry if possible. Most offlaners can become more independent once they’ve reached their early levels, which gives them the flexibility to do things other than babysitting. 

Look for kill potential in the lane

Some offlane duos are built to fight and have high kill potential. If you’re playing with a strong disabler like Centaur Warrunner or Slardar, look for early power spikes and overextensions, especially if you hit level 2 before the enemy does. Getting a single kill, even on a support, can shift the whole momentum of the lane and can snowball into dominance. 

Rotate to Mid and secure the runes

At the 6-minute mark, your priority shifts: Power Runes are king. Always rotate to contest them unless your lane is under extreme pressure. Help your mid-laner bottle the rune, deny it from the enemy, or even secure a kill during the rotation.

The key is to start walking to the river at the :45-second mark. This is the optimal time to rotate to the rune and make it on time for almost all supports, even if they don’t have Boots of Speed yet. Make sure to inform your offlaner you’re going to the rune. 

Steal the wave in impossible matchups

Some lanes are impossible to contest. For example, you’re playing against Drow Ranger and Undying, and you and your offlaner are two melee strength heroes. In this case, you’ll have to “cheat” the lane to avoid being dirt poor. 

Sometimes, the best play is to drag the wave. Go behind the enemy team’s Tier 1 tower, and aggro the wave there. Then, start walking all the way back to between your Tier 1 and Tier 2 towers. This denies the enemy duo kills and lets your offlaner farm under the tower and get something out of a difficult lane. 

However, don’t do this every wave – one or two smart steals in bad matchups can stabilize a lane that was doomed from the start. 

Contest the pulls

One of the main goals for supports is to pull the camps to fix their wave – whether it’s the safe lane support pulling the small camp, or the offlane support pulling the Big Camp. As a position four, you’ll need to pull the camp to fix your lane, but also prevent the enemy from pulling their camp to fix their lane. 

Either body-block the camp before it spawns, or put a sentry to block it. If the enemy gets multiple pulls off uncontested, your offlaner will miss out on several creeps and be under-leveled and zoneable. Keep tabs on their camps with observer wards or your body.

Position 5 Hard Support: Babysit the Carry

The position 5 support has one primary job in the early game – to ensure the carry can farm. That doesn’t mean you’re sitting there doing nothing. It means you control the lane, pull camps, trade efficiently, and keep your carry healthy. 

Zone effectively without dying

You don’t necessarily need to kill the enemy offlaner – just stop them from farming freely. Use your spells and auto-attacks to chip away at their health, forcing them to spend gold on regen or keeping them at a distance.

But be careful – going too gung-ho might leave you out of position and punished. Giving up a kill can swing the lane dramatically, so there’s a need to stay just outside of their range. Learn when to trade hits and when to back off. 

Understand the different types of pulls

Pulling the small camp is your main tool to reset or manipulate the lane equilibrium, but there are three types of pulls in Dota:

• Full pull: A full pull, or a regular pull, is when you pull the entire wave into the small camp. Remember this is often not the best way of pulling creeps. A full wave will easily take out the small camp. Once the wave is done with the small camp, they will march back down the lane and meet with the subsequent wave, creating a double wave. 
• Half pull: A half pull is when you purposely pull only two creeps from the wave (the third melee creep and ranged creep). Since only two creeps are being pulled, both of them are guaranteed to die from the small camp, and your carry will still have two creeps to defend them from the enemy wave.
• Stack pull: The stack pull is the best form of pulling. It’s when you stack the small camp, so a pull will kill the entire creep wave. This denies an entire wave from the enemy offlaner, and the stacked camp can be reused to kill another wave. However, make sure the enemies can’t dive your carry since your wave won’t be there. 

Prevent the enemies from pulling

Just like you want to pull the camp, the enemy position 4 wants to do the same. Don’t let your opponents do it uncontested. Buying a sentry ward or body-blocking the big camp before it spawns will ensure they can’t pull at all. Remember that the hard camp kills creeps better than the small camp, so if both teams can pull, the enemy offlane has the upper hand. 

Buy regeneration to harass and keep the carry safe

A good position 5 is always stocked on regen, even with the recent nerfs to tangoes in patch 7.40. If you’re trading hits with the enemy offlaner or support, make sure you have enough tangos to keep up the pressure and stay in lane longer than they can. Keep your carry healthy – feed them tangos when needed. 

You don’t need fancy items early – just consumables, a Stick, and maybe Boots can go a long way in surviving and applying pressure. Small items like a Sage’s Mask or Infused Raindrop can also keep your mana pool healthy.

Don’t leave the lane

As famous streamer Gorgc once said, “NEVER LEAVE LANE ON 5!” – well, at least for the first 6 to 7 minutes. Many position 5s make the mistake of walking mid too early and trying to contest a rune – this isn’t your job – it’s the position 4’s. 

If you do rotate, only do it when your carry has had a good start, or if the enemy offlane duo has low kill potential. In general, your lane presence is more valuable than a rune or rotation in the early game.