Hey everyone, it’s Librarian Husky here, bringing you some essential tips for playing position four support in Dota 2 to help you dominate your games and climb the ranks!

All Support details

First, we need to be doing position four; it’s a walk to Lane, and use your mana to secure range creeps and harass. I see way too many positions for players to go to Lane, walk around by the pole camp, and zone the position five heroes. Please understand as a position four hero. You have to consider what your position 3 wants to do and what the enemy position one wants to do. You also have to look at okay as a winning matchup, and often to guarantee that he was winning matchup crushes or a losing matchup does alright, you have to help them out.
As a position four player, what does that do if you are only running at position five? But focusing on the main point, use your mana to secure creeps and harass if you can use something like a fade bolt or a Wyvern W or a fissure or cogs to secure creeps do it. Do not sit in the trees and wait for a kill. Your purpose in the early levels should not be to kill. There are very minimal lanes where this is the case.

You could argue, okay, maybe a less spend Lane has killed potential level one. Sure, but this is rarely the case. As a result, creeps are the priority denies, and last hits will get you an advantage in the early levels. It will contact you as thick quelling blade boots level 2 – that is what’s important, and consider that.

Winning lane

Then you want to side-pull and fight at that camp. I recently watched a lower MMR replay and noticed that the offlane kept side-pulling. But they weren’t even in a winning lane. They couldn’t even do anything with the side pull. What ended up happening? They side-pulled in the enemy-safe laner and got an entire big camp. That is not worth it at all. If you were side-pulling in, the enemy-safe laners didn’t walk over and farm it with no punishment.

You were giving them the XP lead that they wanted. If this isn’t the case and Lane is static, then you want to keep it there. Just keep Lanelane in place during side pulls so you can either make a disastrous lane okay or a winning lane grade. That’s how I would look at it.

Resources for tier 2

Next point. Suppose you run out of resources and deny yourself to the tier 2 Tower. That’s so important. Why is this so important? Because if you do not ever have a situation in the game where you’re either close to dying or out of resources, and you’re probably doing something wrong. If you ever need to go to the tier 2 tower to deny yourself – you’re probably on the right course.

I would look at it that way. Play position four, use as many spells as possible, maybe load in a Shadow Shaman, cast your ether shock trade right-clicks get denied, and then when you’re low on everything, walk the deny yourself and do it again. This is a very foolproof way, any great almost checklist.

CS battle in Lanelane

You can check off the box. Did I deny myself? Yes- and that’s a great way to understand if you’re on the right course. Next, if Lanelane is even more of a CS battle, make sure the enemy cannot pull. You can often just manually block the camp if it is awarded or can’t ward first place. Understand that. Let’s say you’re in a brew against the Drow. You’re laning with the brew in you’re against a drow.

The Drow would have a hard time last hitting against the brew, so what do you need to do in Lanelane? Maybe you can side pole to create pressure? But in the early-level system might not be worth it because you’re not strong enough to contest the side pole and tank the creeps. Instead, you focus on blocking the pole camp or at least guaranteeing that the five can’t pull it right.

Unplayable lane lane

Next up, if Lanelane is entirely unplayable, let’s say it’s trolling undying against Pango NYX, and you are the NYX the position four. It would help if you dragged the wave right. In an unplayable Lanelane in which you can’t even get a side pull-off. More importantly, be simple; the foolproof way is to drag the wave. Now you’re probably like, well, what if they can get me off of it?

Typically, if you can hold the way for one to two, maybe even three seconds, that is plenty to guarantee that the wave will double or go underneath the enemy safe line Tower, which will ensure XP and in these unplayable Lanelanes, that is all you need. Otherwise, let’s say it’s just a dual Lanelane that’s hard. As I talked about the troll undying, you can drag the wave in front of your tier 1 Tower without pushing it under Tower, and this will create a good Lane equilibrium for you and your off-laner.

Roaming hero

If you are a roaming hero and you’re an off-laner do not want the help you need to identify before the game starts. If mid or Lanelane is a kill lane, and if it is a kill lane, you kill it. If your hero is like an earthshaker, an earth spirit who typically can’t have the best laning impact, and you’re off laner is a self-sustaining hero, then check the Lanelane. If there’s a kill there, you’re going to win your Lanelane.

You’re going to deny the enemy off-laner, which is typically the temple controller of a lot of farms. Therefore, setting your team off on a good pace and getting your safe laner off to a good start. This, in turn, allows them to jungle earlier, and then you can take the Lanelane and catch back upright. Now, this is a located sequence, but the point is. If your all-finder doesn’t need your help, you must check. If mid does right now, you need to check if there’s a kill.

Sap XP

If Lanelane does, if there’s a kill, and if not, let’s say no one wants you in thLanelane, no one at all. You have to find somewhere to SAP XP, whether it’s side pulling for your benefit. I talked about witty purposes. You can side-pull for your benefit or pull the safe lane camp, and you can look to stack camps if you have a hero for that. Just SAP XP somewhere. Sometimes it does have to be that way. Now that we have gone over the main points, I will briefly go into a replay that I recently played as a position core player and talk about the things I did to create pressure and help winLanelane.

Instead of doing one of my actual replays, one of my own, I found the shaman replay fantastic to play this February play. So many great examples of how to play beautiful, beautiful position four Dota. Every decision he makes in Lanelane makes a lot of sense, and let’s break it down.

Focusing on denies

First off here – focusing on denies, as I talked about. Then you could tell he was trying to use ether shock to secure the range creep. Pango has the right idea, so getting them off another creep is unnecessary. Right, playing around with the creeps and finding a nice angle to harass. That’s just imaginative play. The next play guarantees no pull.
You spend the first 40 seconds zoning. Then you block the camp manually. This can be an effortless flow. That works once again, deny. You can’t always spend all your time harassing. Then Oracle steps up, using the shaman combo with the right-click. A new correct click does like 200 damage.