The solo laner's nightmare

General Discussion
1

So I played an NGS game last night against Team YCMYCCaSTEp9RiseOfYCMYCCST (Don’t ask)

They typically use non-bruisers to solo lane, so you never know what to expect. Turns out I was laning against Fenix. Now, anyone who plays solo knows that laning vs Fenix is a total nightmare (I’m not sure which is worse between him or Lunara).

At the start of the game, I stay away and assess what I’m up against. But at 15 seconds I go “Crap, this guy knows what he’s doing, I’m screwed”

He’s not pushing the lane! Which means all I can do is get xp at a loss. Fenix wins no matter how I play this. He has long range AoE, can negate my drain hope instantly, removing my sustain, and he never has to commit, so he can just wait and take pot shots at me. He can even freeze lanes at no cost, because his shields will regenerate the damage from minions. I tried to push him around a bit but he reacted correctly. At that point I have to accept that he has the edge, and just focus on not dying while soaking what I can.

Only when I reach Lvl 20 can I eat my dish served cold. I let my team know that I’ll be putting Fenix in a coffin, and just wait for him to move in.

You often hear high level players comment that the solo lane can get boring. This has been a complaint for a long time, and the impact of solo lane skill was further lowered when xp orbs were changed to linger longer, and when fountains became indestructible. So patience and dicipline became much more important. I can’t say that it’s all downsides though, because these changes lowered the snowball potential of laning against a hero who counters you. (Though I think we lost more than we gained)

Not gonna lie, the laning phase got a bit frustrating. shancb9 was very skilled and had the advantage. But it only made the game more satisfying for staying diciplined the whole time.

Congrats to Lagwagon for the perfectly timed Lightbomb.

7 Likes
2

Did Li-Ming went top? It’s easy siege for her from lvl 1 and can harass Fenix.
Joh, Grey and Anduin have have enough wave clear to defend against these 4.

3

She didn’t. Fenix would waveclear much faster and probably get free siege damage on our structure. He can easily hide behind minions, pressure a bit, then teleport away if his shields go down.

I also have less value in the 4 man than she does. She can poke towers every time they have the advantage, while I would have to stay away for example.

4

press X to ask

:point_right:X

5

No one is surprised that dueling Fenix can be hard but you have Kneel, Peasants to help a little a bit later in the match. I would keep my distance and let minion waves stack, lure him in if possible, instantly kill everything and receive some help in return form your own.

Same way you’d prefer to duel a Tracer by hoping their small bodies would block the bomb or in case of Malthael, avoid killing enemy minions on purpose so you can receive extra sustain while fighting a player. Versus Dehaka you would probably want to attack the hero first and not move to far from your own wall because if you get side jumped, minions might help block the tongue. Passive is word of the day.

Following this logic you probably understand how stupid it can be to forcefully clear against clashing waves if a level 20 Genji happens to be nearby. The moment your own guys change target and focus fire at him, you’re dead.

For someone that might not be familiar with Maiev, she can cleave her dog leash onto you by first targeting a minion, and you’ll get caught if standing in range. Also Lili, on who you will want to draw permanent minion attention to maintain a rolling Trait buff for long as possible because the amount of damage taken is pretty insignificant.

Minion mechanics aren’t boring and shallow as new players might think and the “latest” changes to globe and xp mechanics have only made this minigame much more engaging for solo laners.

1 Like
6

Many people have forgotten or do not know that there are other roles among solo laners. Phoenix is ​​one of them. Also: Raynor, Zuljin, Alarak, Guldan, Orphea, and others. In addition, among the solo laners there are also counter picks.

What can I advise in this case? I do not seeing Leoric’s talents… :

  1. Take healing from spheres at level 1.
  2. Play aggressively through E.
  3. Use W to retreat if something goeth wrong.
  4. Use range for abilities through talents.
  5. Ultimate the tumb with improvement at level 20.

I hope these will help to ye.

P.s. Another unpopular piece of advice: do not be afraid to take three DD , preferably with self-healing. As one old gml said: “whoever has more damage wins.”

7

What I’m suggesting is a 2-3 split. You take care of the wave clear and zone control.
Ultralisk, the grand master player in EU often does that on Li-Ming on a 2 lanes map.
“Solo lane” is not a term I’m fond of. It’s a team game.

2 Likes
8

Melee vs range will always favor the range laner mostly if you are playing a skill shot based melee hero.

Only thing you can do is hope your 4 man know what they are doing. At some point Fenix has to take a decision to stay in his lane or commit to his hard camp or go down bot lane and let you get free xp and even worse lose the dmg race on immortal.

1 Like
9

Won’t work. “Kneel peasants” only grants extra damage to mercs, it has no effect on minions.

Kneel, Peasants! (Level 4)DiabloLeoric>
Skeletal Swing deals 75% additional damage to Mercenaries and Monsters, and hitting them activates Skeletal Swing’s cost and cooldown refund.

By the time I clear a double wave, he’d take 60% of my health. And as long as he doesn’t hit the minions, he has no reason to move forward.

Before the change, outplaying the enemy would make them lose all the xp from the minion death if they were too far. Even if a team mate came to help them later, the xp was already lost. Now they can just come back later and still get the xp, (And Artanis can just wait and Q to grab the xp safely). You also can’t remove the fountain by outplaying them and sieging the gate.

“Fealty onto death” is NOT advisable on BoE. You only have one lane to work with so your sustain is cut in half, and you have no sustain at all during team fights.

What?

What is that?

Well, I’m not the shotcaller on this team. But I feel it’s a big risk. The enemy 4 man has valla, and Amateur opponent Artanis. My team’s only dps will be Greymane, which is not optimal against Mei, especially early. since they’re 3 vs 4, if they’re forced to back they very likely lose a fort.

I don’t think Li-Ming and I could take top fort. It’s possible for Fenix to AA me while hiding behind minions to avoid Ming’s damage (or just juke). So the enemy is more likley to gain the advantage than we are. In my opinion anyway.

Remember when people complained about the xp orbs because Melee hero had the advantage in lane vs range? lol.

Well, he doesn’t actually need to leave until at least 2:00 or 2:15, but so does my team. Since they have Valla and Artanis, they win the race on Immortal even without Fenix.

10

I’m slightly outdated, the outcome could be different would you be able to one shot the minion wave. Swing already does bonus damage to minions but its real power doesn’t come online until much later in the game (until your regular cleave becomes strong enough to execute them in a single follow up hit).

Arguably it was much worse and ranged characters had complete control of the waves. Melees have access to twice the number of globes and most importantly, the ability to instantly annihilate minions doesn’t decide the lane. Previously a less powerful character was forced to choose between losing structures or losing health slowly over time by drawing their attacks. Everything is much more fair between different roles now.

11

If he doesn’t do anything, just don’t do anything and passively soak the exp. This is the best case scenario. The only problem is if he pushes the wave, cause he can start taking structures safely and you can’t do much against that.

That Fenix should he hard shoving the wave into towers and start taking everything from you plus hitting you when you try to collect wave. If he didn’t do that, then he doesn’t really know how to play the match up.

What you could also do is 2 v 1 with Li Ming, or just swap you for Li Ming. She stays against Fenix to soak and you with the 4man.

1 Like
12

Maybe I’m not clear enough, but it’s not about racing to who will get the first fort. It’s about maximizing actions against a freeze pre objective. After the gate and the 2 towers are gone, it’s much easier to gank Fenix. He would think twice about freezing a wave again.

Show this video to your shotcaller.
https://streamable.com/z1413g
Your team will not lose a fort against a BW and Valla Q build pre objective.

1 Like
13

That’s just dumb not to react against a player throwing out balls at towers for free. Tracer is totally a non-factor before the objective starts and rest of the red team can’t even approach your door. Situations like this can easily be communicated ahead of time but aren’t unexpected at all, especially how everyone naturally runs to the mid lane at start of the match.

It does seem as the most time-optimal counter to experiencing five players attack on north or south pole but that’s why you stay mounted until you see everyone for the first time. Awkwardly enough, blue team started taking damage before they even knew where Ming was, but don’t they have Falstad to avoid that kind of situation with travel time advantage? Arrive early, make sure everything is fine and join the pack afterwards.

Isn’t it kind of obvious who the main and only threat to your towers is? Not a single reaction one minute after the match starts. Also the first objective zerg pens are randomized, which is why you shouldn’t just prioritize a single lane.

You would also prefer the 4-man winning side to be on the side of your zerg wave so they can crush the fort as soon as possible and be prepared to do the same on the opposite side as well once the pens rotate around. This would also make things exponentially easier for your solo laner during the 2nd round. On Braxis you shouldn’t just be drafting in hope that a single player builds your advantage, but instead pick appropriately so you can force a full team swap the moment zerg direction becomes known - from then on out you just ride the snowball.

14

How?

What do you mean? Ranged heroes always had an edge against melee. Even before the xp globe change.

Yes, but some of the xp globes I can’t grab unless I move in range of his AA. So I either accept to lose them, or I accept to take damage.

If he pushes the wave in, then I get 100% of the xp, some of my minions will die by my towers and he has to put himself at risk to grab it. Some of it he won’t be able to grab at all. And if he pushes, then I can actually damage him when he sits in front of my gate to deal siege damage. Him pushing the wave works in my favor, not his.

You say he should hit me when I try to collect the wave. I won’t have to try, it’ll be right in front of my gate. I could then get it at absolutely no risk to myself.

If he doesn’t freeze the wave, and moves forward, he’s more likely to get ganked. If his wall is gone, he has no reason to move further out.

https://streamable.com/z1413g

Li-Ming can / did do the same thing bot in the 4 man. If she sieges top, our immortal will go bot. We likely destroy bot fort. My 3 man have structure advantage bot lane, but they’re still 4 vs 3. If she sieges bot, then the immortal goes top, we likely get top fort, which helps even things out between me and Fenix.

I would rather the enemy lose top fort than bot.

In the video you shared, they’re up against Imperius who has no waveclear and no kill pressure on either heroes. So in that case it’s 100% value and I’d be all for it. If he moves forward to stop the minion wave, he dies. He can’t clear it at range, and he can’t clear it fast enough to mitigate the damage from the minions.

15

After the obj, I don’t think there’s a definitive guideline for the offlaner else than going where the 4 man aren’t.
Li-Ming can just rotate whenever she needs to break the freeze again.

16

Just the general durability on part of the melee, most of which have some form of self healing and the gameplay logic from the ranged character’s side, who will not want to feed an extra globe to the enemy through speed and efficiency.

If I want to collect a globe on KT or Jaina for example, I am guaranteed to take some damage unless the wave was straight under my front door and usually the amount of exposure isn’t worth only 9% health recouperation.

If you’re just swinging by and slightly ahead in rotations against your opponent, sure, but in near every situation it is smarter for the ranged character to play passively and hope to outperform the melee opponent through means other than direct combat, probably even attempt to damage the buildings the moment enemy hero wastes their cooldowns on minions. Fenix stands out thanks to his shields so his approach is to out-harass.

In other words I may have much better waveclear than Alarak but if I get baited into fighting him I would be a complete idiot. He knows I want globes more than anything and without them I will have to retreat from the lane much sooner and he will catch up, maybe even produce more structural damage than I’ve been able to. For this situation someone like Probius or Nazeebo might win through sheer constant pressure but other heroes won’t find much success because mana is a limiting factor in the early game.

Keyword is BEFORE. If I previously failed to collect the healing globe it wouldn’t eventually become neutral and collectable by my opponent. Mages commonly had faster wave clear and the range advantage. Melees generally have larger health pools, self sustain and now they’re likely to get twice the amount of orbs. This change didn’t exactly turn the tables around but it created a more equal footing.

Healing globes favor heroes with some form of sustain slightly more than others while XP globes heavily favor heroes with weaker wave clearing capability. Gameplay dynamics have changed a lot over time.

17

Increases the range of abilities. Located in talents.

Instead of bruiser ye can take 3 dd. Preferably if 3 will be with self-healing.

18

Take the damage for sure. It shouldn’t be too much tbh.

He has the advantage because he is ranged. So he can hit anything way before you can, especially each other. Even if you can get all the exp, he will be doing siege damage which is way more important. You can’t catch him because he can just teleport away or just keep hitting you at a safe distance.

Even if you get a couple hits in, he just regenerates his shield. Even if you get all the exp and he misses some, he is still doing damage to towers and harassing you a lot, which will force both fountain and backs eventually.

Being ranged and freezing the lane right in the middle is the worst thing one can do. If you pushed the wave, then yeah, freezing closer to his towers is way smarter. But right in the middle is just giving free exp for you and giving up all the advantage.

19

Just call Li-Ming to assist you. What are Fenix gonna do about her ? She gets free dmg on his wall and towers. Thats what I mostly did if I was playing her in most cases.

If my 4 man is ok without me then I run up and try and force some bust dmg on the enemy laner so he either waste his health fountain or HS back to base.

20

Just poke them at range until they back off, then get the globes. But you’re too far away to take damage so you don’t need the globe anyway, and most of your abilities will deal more damage to a hero than the globe gives them in health. So you don’t care if they get it.

If you’re questing and you REALLY want the globe, just don’t kill the wave until it’s in front of your gate. Otherwise the next globes will all be impossible to get since they’ll be on the enemy’s side of the map.

I don’t know. I never feel like higher health gives me an advantage against ranged heroes. And moving up to grab globes is always a risk, so it’s often better not to grab it. I only beat ranged players if they make mistakes.

I’m still not sure what you mean.

Repeater canon is a lot of damage. I can do it for two waves, then I’m forced to back. (Then he wrecks my structures)

He’s not giving me free xp, I can’t get the globes from the archers without letting him burn down my health. Even from the melee minions he can still hit me when I move in.
Eventually I had to back, and he got siege damage anyway. He just made me lose xp while he got it.