Best Offlane Farming Patterns in Dota 2

If you’re playing offlane in Dota 2, you should already know the role is pretty weird. Sometimes, you’re unkillable at level 3, other times, you’re praying to get a single creep wave without dying. Sometimes, you’re bullying the enemy carry out of lane, and sometimes there’s an Ursa walking you like a dog. 

So, to become a good offlaner, you’ll need to adjust your farming patterns across all stages of the game – from laning matchups, when to rotate, and how not to ruin your carry’s game on the map. In this guide, I’ll teach you the farming concepts you need to know, so you can repeat them over and over again for easy Dota 2 MMR. Here are the best offlane farming patterns in Dota 2.

Laning Stage: Identify Your Matchup First

Offlane dynamics can be pretty volatile. However, most heroes in the role tend to be naturally stronger than safe laners in the early game. Offlane heroes generally have built-in tankiness and sustain, making them better early fighters than carries, who usually need items to function. That is why, in most cases, offlaners are bullies in the lane. 

But there are matchups where you simply lose. For example, some of the best carry heroes in Dota like Ursa, Monkey King, or Drow Ranger can be impossible to lane against if you’re playing slow, melee heroes. 

So, before anything else, you need to ask yourself if you’re going to win the lane or lose it. Your entire farming pattern in the laning stage changes based on this one answer. 

If You’re Meant to Win Lane

If your hero is stronger than the enemy carry, then great – it’s time to make them miserable. Your goals in this lane include:

• Securing your own last hits
• Constantly trading (because you know you’ll win)
• Pressure the enemy carry
• Control camps so they can’t reset the equilibrium

Once you know you’re comfortably winning the matchup, you can then start maximizing efficiency by doing the following:

Freeze the Wave

If you’re playing against a carry that is dependent on getting a farming item, such as heroes like Anti-Mage, one way to “dominate” the lane is to freeze the wave. By freezing the wave, you are preventing them from getting any creeps. Focus on denying the entire wave and not allowing them to get anything. 

Abuse the Jungle Camps

If you want to speed up your timings to get an early Blink Dagger or Pipe of Insight, it’s best to maximize farming efficiency. You can shove the wave quickly and farm the big camp, or you can even go in between the towers, steal the wave, and drag it to the nearby camps – that way you’re farming a creep wave and a camp at the same time. If you spend any time watching pros, you’ll see some of the best Dota players do this.  

If You’re Meant to Lose Lane

As we’ve covered above, not all lanes are winnable. Sometimes, you’re placed into an impossible matchup, and it’s important to adapt. 

If you’re losing hard, the whole agenda changes. Your job is to escape the lane with as much gold as possible without dying. Here are some things you can try doing to avoid falling too far behind:

Steal the Wave Behind the Tower

If you really can’t play the lane normally, and the enemy carry doesn’t have the best mobility to chase you down, you can go behind their Tier 1 tower and drag the wave. That way, the enemy carry has to choose between chasing you or losing an entire creep wave under their tower. 

If you manage to steal the wave successfully, you can drag the wave in front of your Tier 1 tower, or even drag it between your Tier 1 and Tier 2 tower to deny an entire wave. Managing the objectives in Dota can lead to far more success in lane. 

Retreat to Triangle or Safer Camps

If you’re really losing hard, sometimes it’s best to just leave the lane. Rather than getting no creeps at all, you can go to the Triangle or the deep jungle camps to farm medium or hard camps. Sometimes, it’s best to let the enemy carry free farm if there are no other options. 

Ask Supports to Stack Ancients

Some offlaners that are vulnerable to hard counters in lane happen to be proficient in clearing ancient stacks. Heroes like Tidehunter, Timbersaw, Bristleback, and Beastmaster have tools to clear large stacks quickly. 

If you’re playing any of these heroes and know you’re about to lose the lane, the best support players in Dota should prepare stacks from minute 3 onwards. Clearing these camps safely can be an amazing way to catch up. 

The 10-Minute Goal: Take the Enemy Safelane Tower

Offlaners have one important timing to try and meet every game – it’s to take the enemy tower. The best time to take that tower is at the 10-minute mark, where the second siege creep spawns. 

Taking that tower is unbelievably important for your team. When you take that tower, the entire map opens up. 

• The siege creep deals additional damage to towers. So, protecting it is crucial.
• Normally, you can’t take this tower alone – call your supports as it’s an important window. 
• If you’re confident, you can drag the enemy wave away so it doesn’t hinder the push. 

Once you take this tower, your team gets a massive amount of map control. Suddenly, you have access to more than five camps that are relatively safe to farm. Though it is ideal to take the tower during this 10-minute window, do not force it if it seems impossible. 

Post-Tower Rotation – What to Do Next

Now that you’ve taken the tower and opened up the map, this area becomes your team’s territory. You can farm the lane and have access to several jungle camps around it. 

When this situation arises, you will have two choices:

• Farm the area yourself
• Surrender it to your carry player

Let’s go over both scenarios:

Taking Farm for Yourself

After taking the enemy safelane tower, that area becomes “safe farm” for your team. Typically, the hero with the highest farm priority should be given this area, so it should be surrendered to your carry to improve their farming pattern.

However, as the offlaner, you can also stay in the area for a while if you’re close to getting a key timing, like a Blink Dagger or early Pipe of Insight or Crimson Guard. If you’re short a few hundred gold for something like this, you can stay in the area and farm it for a while.

Alternatively, if your carry is doing just fine in their lane, there’s also no reason for you to move out of the lane. 

Rotating to the Difficult Lane

In most games, your carry will have a hard time in their lane. If this is the case, it’s best to give up the area and let your carry farm this lane. They can secure long lane farm and build their items in peace. 

You, meanwhile, are the lowest priority core. So, it’s your job to move to the harder lane because you’re typically tanky and harder to bring down. 

In these situations, offlaners are often asked to “park” themselves in front of towers and delay pushes as long as possible. If you’re tanky, your body creates space for your team. However, never force it if you’re going to feed. 

Mid to Late Game: Your Job is to Take Risky Farm

Once you transition into the mid to late game, it’s important to remember your role. You are the “Pos 3,” meaning you come third in farm priority. You are tanky and generally need less gold to function. With this order in mind, it’s vital for you to take “risky farm.” 

So, offlaners tend to find farm in the following areas:

• Deep side lanes
• Waves that are pushed far
• Unsafe jungle areas
• Enemy camps with vision or backup

Essentially, your goal is to take farm that your carry and mid DO NOT want. This means you should avoid farming in the Triangle or deep jungle camps.

A simple rule to remember is your carry should never be behind you when farming. 

Smart Deaths vs. Bad Deaths

As an offlaner, where you die matters. If you’re farming deep on the enemy side and it takes three or more heroes to kill you, that’s often fine. They commit a lot of heroes and resources, but can’t convert your death into a tower since they’re still on their side of the map. But these deaths can be costly when a big objective like Roshan is coming up. 

Remember that dying in downtime can create space, but dying before a major fight can instantly lose you the game. 

When It’s OK to Farm Safe Camps

This concept doesn’t necessarily mean you’re banned from farming safe areas – just make sure not to overdo it. 

It’s fine to farm deeper camps when:

• They’re empty and unused
• The map is too dangerous
• You’re a few hundred gold from finishing an item

But don’t default to this. The map becomes messy and inefficient the moment your carry and mid start bumping into you in the jungle, and the map flow just collapses. 

Advanced Offlane Farming Concepts

To take your gameplay to the next level, here are some concepts I highly recommend remembering:

Wave Cutting

Cutting waves in the laning stage is one of the best offlane farming techniques you can implement into your gameplay. Wave cutting not only helps you avoid a direct laning matchup, but also makes farming efficient if you pull it to a neutral camp. 

However, wave cutting is only recommended if your hero is naturally tanky or has some sort of escape mechanism. For example:

• Axe, Tidehunter, and Centaur Warrunner are extremely tanky and hard to bring down.
• Dark Seer and Timbersaw have ways of escaping.

Lane Pressure = Vision

Many players don’t understand how important lane pressure is. As the offlaner, you’ll need to turn to risky farm, which sometimes means shoving waves into the enemy map. 

You need to know that creep waves are essentially walking observer wards – they give information on the map. So, the deeper you push out the lanes, the more information and map control you’re getting.

If your wave is hitting the enemy tower, you can see who teleports in to defend the wave. If nobody is defending it, then you can assume the enemy team is smoked or somewhere else.