[Poll] Ganking Heroes

So this week we have a poll to find out what ganking hero is generally presenting the most issues for you.  I can do a very in depth help guide for playing against that hero once we find out what hero is presenting the most problems.

Nigma's Wisdom

Nigma has had a pretty good blog for a while, and while he hasn't had an update in a while I've kept a link to a his blog here.   Looks like it paid off, here are 2 blog posts full of awesome:

5 Easy Ways to Lose a Game

5 Worst Pug Heroes

Some other heroes to not play in a pug game if you don't know them how to play them-

Devourer
Valkyrie
... Scout >.> <.<

In other news, Nome's Wisdom is looking for a rename to Nigma's Wisdom... I kid don't ban me Nome!

[Guide] Last Hitting and the Laning Phase

Many new players allow their hero to attack creeps as much as they want, thinking the more they swing, the faster creeps will die and the more gold they will get.  While this logic is used in some circumstances, what we would call pushing, early in the game it is often better to bide your time try to land the last hit.  Last hitting is when you do not attack until either your creep, or the enemy creep is able to be killed with just one hit. This leads to several advantages:

1. You can deny friendly creeps, which reduces the XP your enemies get, and allows you to level faster than them.
2. You can "last hit" enemy creeps, still getting the gold and full XP for yourself.
3. By doing both of these skillfully, you will slowly cause the friendly creeps to lose, "pulling" the creeps back towards your tower, giving you the safety of tower cover at a closer proximity.  A definite bonus!

This link is a Dota video, but the concepts still apply.

Posture, who is scarier? Often times people will talk about OP lanes such as swift blade and Glacius, and how there is nothing they can do to prevent feeding.  While these lanes are hard, denying when you can, and playing aggressive at the start to whiddle swift blades HP down will help.  Trying to knock someones HP down is an aggressive posture.  Remember if swift blade is too low, even if he twirls he'll die, so he'll just sit back and soak XP.  The stance swift blade is taking in this example, the passive sit back and don't die posture, is known as defensive posture.  Remember, posture and your choice of what you actually are can make a HUGE difference to the way you'll play and how easy it will be to not die and get last hits.

While we're talking about posture, sometimes you're going to have to play extremely defensively to not die.  In these cases make sure you are in XP range of the enemy creeps as they die.  To check this, check and see if there is a purple diamond above the creeps head.  If there is, you're in XP range.

Remember, playing your lane correctly and last hitting/denying can make a HUGE difference.

I want to apologize for the lack of pictures in this post compared to normal.  I had a few replays I was going to harvest for good last hitting pictures, but the server issues have made it almost impossible to get to them.  I will try to add them later this week along with more information with those pictures.  Feel free to leave any questions or comments as always.

[Trouble Hero] Tremble

There has been a lot of discussion both on the official forums, on www.reddithon.com, and just about everywhere else about Tremble.  Tremble is an annoying hero to play against, especially as a new player.  The developers have said that they are not going to be directly nerfing him anytime soon, but he will receive a rework eventually (TM).

You'll look like this before he gets a rework

Tremble is an insectoid hero that uses stealth and a crippling poison to bring his enemies to task.  With the fact that both he and his pet have a non-attack modifying slow, getting away from tremble can be painful at best or impossible at worse.  How you're going to deal with this is going to depend on whether you have a lane mate or not.

Picking Phase:  Tremble is annoying but not necessarily game breaking.  If you're afraid your team isn't going to be willing to pony up to buy stealth sight wards; and/or play conservatively, he could be worthy of a ban.  However, if you're confident that you'll get stealth sight wards, and you know your team mates can play carefully, he really isn't worth your ban.  If he's smart, he is going to build a Shrunken Head, so grab some heroes with ult level stun.

Early Game:

• Solo:  You're going to need stealth sight wards.  Ask your support if they can afford to get you one at the beginning. If he can't, you're going to have to do it yourself. Dont wanna?  Tough.  You're also going to need another one before the current one expires,  ask your supports nicely if they'll buy one for you.  If they won't, too bad, so sad; buy them yourself.  Better to buy than to die.  With sight, try and harass tremble as best you can and kill his mounds for the bonus gold.  Just be aware that its almost impossible to get away from tremble once he hits you.
  

• With a Partner:  You may or may not need stealth sight wards depending on what skills tremble gets.  Ask your support if they can afford to get you one at the beginning. If he can't, you're going to have to.  With this sight, try to harass tremble as best you can or tell your babysit to.  If he has mounds try and kill them for the extra gold/denying him stealth.  Just be aware that its almost impossible to get away from tremble once he hits you, so unless your ally has a stun or a very strong slow play conservatively.  Actually, even if he has a stun or slow play conservatively.

Don't feed Tremble or you might have this happen!

Mid Game:  Remember that without stealth sight and a stunner, tremble is extremely hard to gank since he can go invisible or teleport away at anytime with his mounds.  Going with Dust of Revelation and a stunner into the enemy woods to gank tremble is an extremely good idea since he does have a decent end game carry potential and without stealth or his teleport he has no easy way to evade you.  Use offensive wards and make sure to axe down any of his mounds you see to minimize his map presence.

Late Game:  As long as you haven't fed tremble in the early or mid game, you should not have too much trouble with him here as all he provides is his slow.  If he is fed, hopefully you've picked up some ult level stun to deal with him while magic immune.  Also, check his items and have your carry build to counter him.  For example, if he has the evasion granting Wingbow, your carry could get a Savage mace to completely negate that and grant very impressive damage.

As you can see above, tremble, like most heroes with carry potential, is really only a problem once you've allowed him to snowball due to his gold amount.  Remember to pick and ban wisely, buy stealth sight wards and gank him repetitively and you will not have a problem dealing with tremble.

Next post I'm going to try and put together a last hitting guide since the one I thought was informative has been taken down.  Feel free to ask any questions or drop my a comment, especially about tremble, as I know he can be very frustrating.