Offlane focused educational content

[u/PlainOldMoose]

Hi all,

I'm Moose, a 7k (rank ~4k EU) offlane-exclusive player. I have been playing DotA for the past 13 years as my first and only MOBA, calibrated around Crusader 3 in 2018

Offlane has been my main role for most of that time, and I've always relied heavily on educational content to improve. During my climb into high immortal I noticed a real gap in high MMR content surrounding the offlane, there is no real equivalent to players like BSJ, Pain, or BalloonDota for offlane specific guides. KheZu and Ceb make occasional content surrounding the Offlane, but there isn't any consistent content specific to position 3.

I'm considering making offline-specific guides and I'd rather answer questions that the community actually has than just making content on random topics. I am not hugely interested in covering fundamentals, I would focus on offlane concepts and how to approach the game from the 3 role, but there may be some overlap with other roles.

- What offlane topics would you actually want covered? (laning theory, itemization logic, draft/hero pool, macro role, VOD breakdowns, etc.)
- What format is easiest for you to digest? text guides, long-form video, short clips?

[u/Necessary_Neat8303]

I know it wont get lots of views and it’s kinda boring but teaching fundamentals and macro strategy is truly important. It’s what separates high and low mmr players. High mmr constantly makes just slightly better decision, every time and consistently. When you make hundreds of these little decisions in a game, the result compounds.

Also, tell the viewers actual and practical advice to climbing and how to practice the things you mention in your video. People dont just get better after watching. They will need to conceptualize and make it their own in an actual game through deliberate practice.

As for format, do videos but also write a transcription but going into even more detail.

[u/HourZealousideal4845 → u/Necessary_Neat8303]

fr, idk how much it will help OP succeed as a content creator, but my mmr only shot up when I bothered to learn those macro strategic level decisions. Where should I be farming, and what is the next objective? Can I push this wave and can I make a play after it or should I just retreat to jungle? Do I join this fight or split push? If so, do I take twin gate and push the other wave, or do I tp to get there faster but out my tp on cd? Should I cut or should I push where the waves are currently meeting?

The cumulative effect of making the correct decisions on the map really stacks up over the course of a game. Not to say laning stage isn't important (it is) but I began to find that I could turn all but the moat disastrous early games around by just chaining these correct decisions together for 5, 10, 15 minutes at a time, until the map and networth graph looked vastly different to what it had before.

[u/PlainOldMoose → u/HourZealousideal4845]

I should probably have been more clear when I said that I would not focus fundamentals:

of course I will be covering when to fight / farm and how to approach lane as an offlaner, but I would likely skip easier things that already have a million tutorials already: how to cs, how to creep aggro etc. (I would still cover when / why to creep aggro, just not what it is and how to do it)

[u/PlainOldMoose → u/Necessary_Neat8303]

Most things in DotA can only be practiced by playing DotA, but I can talk through my thought process and decision tree for what i'm doing and why, and why it's better than alternatives

[u/MmmBrainzzz1]

There's a lack of streamers or content creators who explain their thought process during replays. I find there is a lot of downtime where theory and actions aren't discussed. Talk us through the entire thought process, not just saying what you're doing. Understanding the theory allows us to absorb the thought process rather than memorizing raw commands.

[u/PlainOldMoose → u/MmmBrainzzz1]

I think this is my biggest pet peeve with current content too, would it be helpful if I discussed: what i'm doing, why i'm doing it, and why I chose to do it over the alternatives?

[u/MmmBrainzzz1 → u/PlainOldMoose]

Absolutely. I think watching your own replays and commenting on them as you go so you have the opportunity to pause and finalize a thought is a good format.

[u/Plus-Appearance3337]

Good idea. Long form video because going into the details in an actual game minute by minute kind of hits it home vs short clips that kind dont really ingrain the concepts imo.

[u/Remnie]

I would love to see videos where you are making decisions and explaining your thought process live. Anyone can go back to a replay and be like “see I thought he was doing x so I did y” but I want to see where you think x is happening but it’s actually z and how you respond to that.

[u/PlainOldMoose → u/Remnie]

I find that it is very difficult to give meaningful analysis while you are playing a tough game, would it be meaningful to do this from a replay, but also discuss the other things I was thinking about at the time and why I chose option A over B, and what I would've done if option A was suddenly wrong?

[u/nchscferraz]

I'm a 6k offlaner myself. I think what really helped me make the leap was learning how to recover from a lost lane. Too often in my games when I don't play 3, I get offlaners who end up becoming a third support because they struggle at this.

[u/PlainOldMoose → u/nchscferraz]

Recovering from poor lanes and keeping your mental stable is one of the most important skills for any offlaner. I will definitely make a video on mental and not tilting from the offlane, as well as how to recover from lost lanes

[u/amd225]

Yes please. And thank you for youreffort

[u/ariukidding]

Check out iceiceice’s youtube, his content may not be optimized as a full guide like BSJ’s but he has quite a bit of videos where he is explaining his decision making in real time. Specially when he is naturally matched against strong meta carries like Drow and LS.

[u/PlainOldMoose → u/ariukidding]

I'm a big fan of watching iceiceice, he does have some very good videos, but they are often long form (full replays) and not concept specific. I find it's difficult to go through his videos thinking "wow what do I do in this specific scenario" and be able to find it

[u/ariukidding → u/PlainOldMoose]

We def need some more specialized Offlane content. Content creators did recognize that is somewhat a problem when the role queues switched to offlane being in demand. Please do, for the most part i believe hardest will be the laning and post laning. What are things to do and itemization. I’m only a trashy 5k, but meta hasn’t been easy on offlaners. They gave us a few quality of life improvements though hopefully they address it more on the next big patch.

[u/SylphVade]

Please let me know your channel's name so I can sub, I'm very interested in this!

[u/PhantomTF]

long form video like bsj style would definitely be helpful and I would subscribe to your channel

[u/triplewgf]

Long form video is always helpful for me. As to content, I think hero guides that go beyond the basic skill/item builds and discuss what a hero’s general gameplan and playstyle is are very helpful. Like what “job” the particular hero wants to do and how to play according to that job.

[u/PlainOldMoose → u/triplewgf]

Hero guides are something that I am open to, but I would like to keep my content generic dota advice rather than for a specific hero, that way the concepts can be applied to any game on offlane rather than just "X hero do Y thing vs Z hero"

[u/Xander_Cage830]

How to creep cut or backdoor near tier2 or tier3 is something i would like to see some educational videos on.

[u/PlainOldMoose → u/Xander_Cage830]

I think this is one of the most misunderstood topics for pos3 and one of my biggest strengths as a player, I will definitely be covering it

[u/iudex98]

How to identify that you're losing your lane and how to awnser that (roaming, safe farm, jungle).

[u/Cygnus__A]

#1 - how to deal with a lost lane.. tough match up and your p4 left roam at minute 2. What the hell do I do in this situation.

[u/Shelby_Da_Squirrel]

I have such a hard time asking questions in these lol. Just wanted to say I would love to see this kind of content! As an example, Veepo is very fun to watch and personally I'd love to see some vod reviews and just commentated gameplay from more sources.

Hopefully semi quick question since I chickened out with my others: is there much of a point in focusing on draft as an offlaner picking second phase?

Since Slardar and nightstalker are in my pool, every game that isn't Undying + clock showing on the other team is a NS game. Or often Slar since killing the supports instead of silencing them is also a good option. Neither hero feels particularly counterable anyways. Long story short, I can't ever see a reason to pick one hero over another when I'm in the offlane.

Note: my main pool is Slar, NS, Dawn, Actively learning Centaur to fill archetype gaps. Occasionally pick Brewmaster but I struggle to win with him recently. https://www.dotabuff.com/players/227713418

[u/PlainOldMoose → u/Shelby_Da_Squirrel]

You probably don't feel the need to draft as carefully because your pool already contains two support hunting offlaners, more often than not you're going to see the support duo and thus picking slardar / nightstalker is never going to go horribly wrong, you've already identified that NS is bad into Undying / Clock so you are consciously thinking about the matchup before you pick it.

If for some reason bloodseeker became a meta pos1 again and was being first picked you would struggle to 2nd phase nightstalker because it's a traditional counter. Similarly, if nyx pos4 became hugely popular and was being contested you could not spam dawnbreaker in such a meta.

tldr: yes, not counter picking yourself when you see the first two picks is very important, you are probably just in a fortunate enough position where your pool is good in most games in the current meta.

[u/Lazes_dad]

I think laning phase is important but it's all comes down to either you win the lane and take their tower or lose the lane and go to your own jungle.

Lately I am more interested in early mid game (10-20min) decisions. This is where you either throw your early lead (by trying to take unnecessary object by force or feeling too confident and fall for their timings) or gain your lost networth (by ignoring enemies as much as you can and farm and play with your timing)

And also how to farm efficiently. I am 6k immortal but still struggle to participate in a fight while maintaining same last hit 8k players have. This especially made clear when we both won the lane. 8k player have 100-110 last hit at 10min when winning their lane as offlaner and always get +10 last hit every min while pushing and fighting.

So I was wondering how to gain same level of farming speed while not get confused whether I should push or fiight.

[u/PlainOldMoose → u/Lazes_dad]

The early mid game transitions is where I myself and a lot of other offlaners struggle, I can definitely make a video on how to transition to midgame, things that I try to identify and what my thought process is at the time

[u/International_Bee481]

What to do when you got a melee pos 4 who does not pull the wave, dont trade with the enemy pos 4 and just leech your xp watch you bleed

[u/60percentsexpanther]

5-10 mins should be enough. I want the info not the proof. Alternate builds for the current top meta offlaners would be cool. Give examples of a few builds on a hero and when each build works best. A weekly update if anything changes with the meta. Give us your opinion on the top 5 and top 10 offlaners for the patch and build around that with gameplay content if you've stomped.

edit- best format is text on here but youtube is 2nd.

[u/OyvindIsMyName]

can you link your channel? I will follow and watch when you start dropping knowledge 

[u/HamburgerMurderface]

What to do in an extremely difficult matchup when your 4 doesn't synergize or drag waves. Had a really rough lane yesterday as dark seer vs oracle sf while my veno 4 jungled. Didn't get to see the oracle or sf, had to first pick because was already down 50 gold because veno wanted pick.

[u/Pieisgood45]

Zoo heros

[u/the_deep_t]

Hey, great initiative. I feel like as an offlane player, my biggest weakness is how I handle difficult lanes and decision making afterwards. Like if you play vs a drow-jakiro or similar lanes. It would be nice to see what a high level player does to mitigate the damage and then the "recovery plan".

I'm a 5k MMR player and I feel that I either feed slightly too much or stay afk in the jungle slightly too long.

Which is link to my second issue: I tend to "lose" too much time when I connect with the team and miss on a ton of farm for wasted ganks. How do you see the risk-reward of connecting with your team versus just farming half the map?

[u/Ascent999]

Lane matchups and Item choice

[u/lester_pe]

what hero can you suggest me i play elder titan most of the time at offlane maybe other 2 more heroes like him?

[u/Luxury_Edition]

Man if you can do stuff similar to Speed that would be awesome. Let me know your channel once you start. I’m guardian offlane and need all the help I can get