Hello, this is GeneRaL and today I'll tell you about offlane and how I switched to it.
That was easy.
Initially, it wasn't that easy, because I was used to playing 1st position
with my teammates playing around me,
but when I switched to offlane I had to play around my teammates, which made it a bit harder for me.
I had little experience with offlane heroes,
so I started with Shaker and Batrider, since I already had some experience with these heroes in mid.
When I began playing offlane, there weren't so many players I could look up to,
so I was following Universe, I liked his style best,
and I watched his games, tricks, the way he played, and tried to learn some things from him.
The main difference between offlane and midlane was that I used to play aggressively,
it was quite difficult for me to adapt, so we tried to do duo or trio offlane,
which would allow us to play aggressively.
You might have noticed that
I play heroes like Batrider, Beastmaster,
because these heroes allow you to play aggressively and they are also initiators in team fights.
It's important to keep
composure when playing in offlane,
because in most cases
you're playing solo against a trilane,
so you need to know when to approach creeps, when to play aggressively and when not to.
You need to be proactive because your hero can determine the outcome of the fight.
If you take the right position and initiate first in a team fight, your team will come out on top.
The main task for an offlaner is to put pressure on the enemy carry and die as little as possible,
preferably not to die at all, and try to get as much experience and farm as possible.
Sometimes you have to play a
1v1 match up against an enemy offlaner,
this is where my past experience of playing in midlane comes in handy,
so my advice is to practice mid match-ups.
When I started playing offlane, I played only 2-3 heroes: Batrider, Shaker and Furion from time to time.
Now I have a wider hero pool, I've added Beastmaster, Dark Seer and Legion Commander to my pool.
I would like to increase it
with heroes like Centaur and Abaddon.
I practice my offlane skills in pubs.
I play only offlane and
practice heroes that our team needs.
In the 7.00 patch, offlaners got
buffed with the addition of shrines
and 2 neutral camps,
which makes it slightly easier to offlane now.
You can get an Iron Talon and farm two camps,
also you can always heal up with Shrine and trade HP with the enemy supports effectively.
The 7.00 patch also introduced talent trees,
I really liked this new feature.
Because you can pick a talent depending on what's going on in the game
and what heroes you're playing against.
Although I think that offlane heroes
are strong enough the way they are,
so the talents don't make that
much of a difference for them.
As we can see, for example,
Batrider has +4 Armor and +10 Intelligence talent option at level 10, which is practically useless.
Sometimes we switch roles with Pajkatt, he plays solo safelane and we run an agressive trilane.
With the new patch coming soon, I really hope that IceFrog will buff heroes like Beastmaster and Furion,
because I like to play these heroes,
but they are not strong enough right now.
Since I play initiating heroes,
my main item is Blink Dagger,
after I get Blink I
start to play more actively.
The laning stage for offlaner
ends around minute 13-14,
when the offlaner gets
his dagger and begins to play actively,
joins his team,
goes for smoke ganks, participates in fights.
I think that the optimal timing for Blink Dagger should be around minute 12-13, maximum 14,
and then you should start to
play actively with the team,
do smoke ganks and
create space for your carry and midlaner.
If you want to climb MMR by playing offlane,
I suggest you to pick Legion Commander,
because she's really strong in the current patch,
it's easy get pick offs,
since people in pubs
tend to split push, play solo, farm a lot,
so you can easily catch and kill them with LC,
and this will help you win the game.
The optimal item build for LC is:
first item Blink Dagger, second item -
 Blade Mail or Armlet, third - Shadow Blade.
Many pro players pick -8s cooldown
on Press the Attack talent at level 25,
but in pubs I'd suggest you
to go for +40 duel damage,
because pub is not exactly
a team game with more solo kills,
and this will give you a
better chance of winning a game.
This was GeneRaL for HyperX, bye.
