Dota 2: How Offlaner Has Transformed Over the Years

Offlaner is the most changed position in Dota 2 history. It seems like every patch changes a bit so that the position always has a few new heroes, regardless of success. Today’s article explores how this role evolved and is now being used.

PLAY IN HARD LANE

In the past, a 3-1-1 lane split was the norm. If you have a carry that is taken care of by two supports, a 1v1 mid and an offlaner, you must try to survive by all means. This is the time when Offlane is often referred to as the “difficult lane” or also known as the “suicide lane”.

This lane is usually for heroes who can farm from afar, have some mobility or are extremely strong. Due to being in the offlane position, the hero often has to meet the above requirements, as well as the ability to farm in the jungle.

When it does, it’s the hardest role to play effectively: the offlaner carries a lot of responsibility but doesn’t have many opportunities. It also made many players legendary, like iceiceice, Universe and AdmiralBulldog.

However, over time, this role began to shift. We sometimes see familiar hero faces in the pro scene, but it’s not as rigid as it once was.

PRESSURE LANE

We don’t know since when dual lane became the default, but it happened around the season of The International 2017. Many teams have learned to split resources more evenly between cores, they usually reap more, and that way the gameplay is also more stable in lane.

This is where the concept of lane pressure emerges, and it’s also where position 4 support takes shape. By pitting the two early-game heroes against the greedy carry trilane, most teams can get a substantial XP and gold advantage.

At that time, only a few carry heroes could withstand the pressure. But not stopping there, these carries have to take more risks, fighting each other for creeps one by one.

Gradually, teams adapted to the new meta: trilanes were a thing of the past, and teams tried to stabilize mid-game positions as best they could. Offlaners play a big role throughout the game: their job is to stop the enemy carry – by being the enemy’s best bet during the laning phase, while gaining enough farm to become a threat.

It also allows heroes that were previously considered unreliable or stable to be picked for the position. Slowly, the greed of offlane heroes started to increase, culminating in patch 7.07 over two years ago.

SECOND EASY TO PLAY LANE

• Denied creeps experience reduction for the denied team from 70% to 25%

Just this one line of the patch changed the approach to the game completely. Its influence is huge, maybe more than talent, shrine, outpost and item neutral combined. Deny before this patch was quite important, but now it also allows Offlanes to become a big force in the mid-game.

The mission of the offlaner in Dota 2 remains the same: pressurize the opponent’s carry with support, farm as much as possible while denying the opponent’s XP. The only difference is that the efficiency is nearly tripled.

Obviously, the pro teams are all adjusting, with less greedy cores that can stay in the lane. But the end result is that each team has two carries: one carry each in the two edge lanes, and whoever gets ahead in lane, by default, becomes the team’s position 1.

This is the patch where Wraith King suddenly became the default offlaner for a lot of teams. Meanwhile, heroes like Ember Spirit and Faceless Void were picked frequently in position 3 from the start.

The interesting point is that this phase lasted a whole year, until Valve started bringing the game back to its previous state with patch 7.20. However, even though the stats don’t support this gameplay as much as before, that mindset is deeply ingrained in the game.

LANE SUCCESSFULLY

Offlane players are used to being rich and powerful. They don’t want to give up that position, even though the statistics no longer reflect this. However, now, instead of building damage items and trying to become extra cores, or winning items to initiate fights, launch attacks and die in glory, now offlaners start building damage items.

About a year ago, offlaner tanks were often the talk of Dota 2. They were always in the draft of most professional teams. Teams need a hero that can be played around, and offlaners can deliver that at every stage of the game.

This indirectly increases the importance of position 4 supports, as they are now in charge of catching and initiating teamfights. Since the offlaner no longer builds early mobility, another player is forced to take that responsibility to initiate the teamfight. Since then, heroes that can initiate combat from afar or can be on Blink Dagger soon become very popular.

Another reason offlane heroes have to tank is because damage skills were over-buffed in previous patches. The balance between physical and magic damage is skewed, in particular favoring magic damage more, and that provides for much more effective spell-playing tank cores. Since then, the game has been rebalanced and is now at a point where it can be played either way.

PRESENT

Finally, we return to reality and the offlaner now combines all the ideas that have been gathered in Dota 2 over the years. Most of the offlane heroes are still buff, but with increased importance in teamfight, the build method has changed a bit. Now, almost all offlane heroes try to build team auras and add buffs if needed. Usually defensive auras with strong activations are preferred.

Given the importance of position 4 farming as well as the benefits of early ganking, most of the current popular offlaners can go solo. Maybe it’s not necessary to do it at the beginning of the game, you can wait until level 3 to go solo. “creep steal” invention: you pull the enemy creep wave before they reach the “equalization point” of the lane allowing the hero to farm in an easier position, as well as making many new heroes playable in the offlane.

As for damage, the offlaners are quite diverse and the draft should revolve around which hero will be in the offlane. Most of the early and mid-game fights will revolve around the offlaner or support position 4, so a balance between damage and map control is quite essential.

Offlaner in the current Dota 2 patch is an extremely interesting role. If farmed to a level, offlaners have a lot of opportunities in how to build. They also have a lot of responsibilities and are not just farming. In a way, this role blends every bit of the game and is one of the best slots for new players to learn from, preferably playing with friends in unranked matchmaking.

According to dotabuff

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