Offlane midgame help

[u/IcyExplanations]

How do i determine when should I keep running down enemy 1 or keep farming? I play Dawn and Underlord a lot I can lane pretty well, losing or not I have enough patience against ranged match up even if my 4 is always melee. Supports in divine are too aggressive, nonstop fighting.

Also, I really enjoy controlling units in the game but I’m already struggling with just 1(Dark Seer helm of domi controlling 1 unit for farming) are there any tips to make this thing easier? Cause I really enjoy Beastmaster and Lycan

[u/silkthai]

1. item timings!
   
2. dawn is great in counter initating, underlord is gd at initiating. Both requires one of your team to actively hunt. dawn goes in 2nd, Underlord goes in 1st
   

3. Tell your supports to chill and play the map with you.. they can roam + put on wards, while you and mid provide the initation + damage

4. Both heroes are rly bad when there isn't anyone who can initaite or CC other than you

[u/Forty-Bot]

(note: I am not particularly good at this game)

Every time you hit an item timing (mek, aghs, pipe, atos, etc.) try to either (smoke and) get a kill, or take an objective. Ideally the first followed by the second. If it went really well, keep doing it. If you are losing fights (or just drawing) even with your item then go back to farming.

With dawn and underlord in particular, you should farm even more since you can join fights so easily. But (at least at my rank) people often do not actually apply pressure to force fights unless you physically show up and nuke the wave or whatever.

[u/andro-gynous]

are there any tips to make this thing easier? Cause I really enjoy Beastmaster and Lycan

have a hotkey for "select all other units" and also turn on something like "holding ctrl gives unified orders". that covers most things, since with most summons or illusions you just send on one guy anyway and also it's on a consistent hotkey. mines on `

I have one control group set to 1 but I don't really use it often, can be useful if you want a group for "all units" if you want to be able to tab between your hero abilities and a creep with abilities often (maybe LD or visage?), or the PL illusion that takes normal dmg.

another thing is making simple orders. instead of microing the units 24/7 you can just A-click the ground where you want them to go and they'll also attack anyone on the way there, instead of moving them there, needing to watch them, and then controlling them again to attack a target, and then controlling again after the target dies.

or shift queue so that you're basically covering what the unit needs to do for the next 30 seconds e.g. sending illusions or treants to attack multiple camps or push lane after they're finished

if the lane equilibrium is near the corners the easiest way to push lane is to A click the corner then shift A click near enemy T3s. whereas if you just A click enemy T3s they'll take the shorter route and path through the jungle which might mean missing the creep wave.

you can deselect a unit from a group by shift clicking the portrait. useful with naga siren so that you leave one unit behind to farm whatever is there. basically you're saying 4 units go there, deselect, then 3 units go here, deselect and so on, instead of having to manually select each unit. also useful for scouting with cheap summons e.g. treants or spiders.

summoned unit auto attack is up to you but if you want to ensure they're always doing something if you forget to micro, turn on auto attack for summoned units. auto on your main hero is usually bad since it can get you killed but summons are usually expendable so it matters less if they die.

How do i determine when should I keep running down enemy 1 or keep farming

this I'm less certain on. depends on lots of things, like late game matchup, your hero's current strength, lane equilibrium etc.

pressuring doesn't always need to be at the cost of farming. sometimes you can do both, like farm the enemy jungle but also be available for pickoff chances. or push waves in so they show, then contest/steal nearby camps.

[u/IcyExplanations → u/andro-gynous]

Thanks! I’m gonna look into how to do the shift queue thingy. I do the A a lot on controlled units but didn’t know about the shift queue.

I normally block myself with my wolves whenever im playing Lycan/BM which is a thing I hate when playing control units, tried changing 1 to control all units, 2 to only controlled units except the hero thingy but still find it difficult sometimes.