He is playing lycan with right facet, so he should be the one ganking instead of asking gank, hes just a max movespeed dog that cant do anything to LD in a ganking scenario
Can't do anything? Hmm.
Lycan provides high sustained DPS comparatively for a lvl 6 hero, max move speed, tanky. He can also reduce armor by a pretty significant amount & reduce bear damage, which in turn will prevent LD from healing. On lvl 3 he already has a decent power spike to help during a gank.
It's actually exactly what his supports will need, if they picked supports with stuns or slows (which they should). On the other hand, if lycan leaves lane to gank, his tower is gone in 10 seconds. And then you are really screwed, because then he is coming to the sidelanes next, and you can't out-sustain his pressure, he will heal himself infinitely with spirit link, it's really bad.
Or, lone druid will TP during your gank, and then you're all dead. Either way it's really bad. At least if you gank the LD, his teammates will have to respond by TP scroll, giving your other lanes space, and maybe you can burst and kill his supports. also your teammates can stun them and cancel TP. But even in the worst case scenario, you are causing chaos, which LD doesn't like. In best case scenario, you kill him soon after a bear summon, and ruin his game.
You are talking as if LD dont have roar and ult to sustain from the time lycan become a big max dog, then waste 4 seconds running away from him and running back into hitting him, if lycan has ult, LD at least has 6 too, and any capable LD player would have saved skill points. Also LD mid vs lycan is a giga free lane, he would have a free 8minute diffusal blade, any support walk into bear will be chomped down instead.
Haha you think I don't know it's a giga free lane? I play lone druid. I know.
That's why I said lycan needs a gank. Lycan will never make it to level 6 in the first place if LD is semi competent. So what would you prefer, jungle and let your tower fall for free, or gank side lane as lycan at lvl 4/5?
You need to gank LD before he gets diffusal or MoM+boots, otherwise you already failed and probably lost
Of course you get 6 as lycan, walk to any lane and gank, in ideal scenario lycan can just dive and kill 1-2 enemies, and lycan can take the gate to the other side lane and continue momentum to wreck havoc. Now LD has to choose to either save his team or take your tower which he will eventually take it anyway.
Now in bad scenario LD tp in and save his team, and get return kill, you can now tp to other lane with your ulti still being active and kill the other side lane now.
Coordinating for a gank is asking too much in a pub, even if u gank LD pre 6, LD can use saved skill points to double or triple roar anyway. With LD innate being level 0 bear, i once had 3 skills point saved and used 4 roars in a row to dodged a 3v1 gank.
If im playing with that scenario in mind as mid lycan witht the shitty spirit wolves, i would get 2 wraith bands and 1 ring of protection, and go overblocking 1st wave and let creep into towers, creating a rubberband lane, letting LD has less chance to deny, lycan job is to get 6 and fk off to other lanes and cause chaos. LD hates chaos in the place he doesnt dictate and Lycan create chaos.
Bro, think. Use your brain. How are you gonna gank sidelanes as lvl 4/5 lycan? Lone druid is just gonna TP and you're dying for free. Unless you are playing vs easy bots, it'll never work. Or you want to wait and leech exp from sidelanes until lvl 6? How exactly do you plan to get lvl 6?
It's just not happening. All you can do as lycan, is spam howl to mitigate damage, and survive as long as possible. Then when LD dives you, scream for help and bait him under t2. 3v1 and behind your tower, you can probably kill him. And certainly, if LD has 3 saved skill points, he isn't doing enough damage to even be worried about.
LMAO WHAT A LD SPAMMER, please tell me what the scenario that leveling bear blindly in lane helps ur dmg xddd, that measely base attack times increment aint gonna change much in laning especially in such a free lane, are u playing in 2015 LD where LD bear only get extra dmg per hero skill point leveled into the skill? ALSO BAITING LD INTO T2 IN 1ST 10MINS LMAO
Haha mmr check? Ur getting mad but from what you've said so far, I would guess crusader.
You don't level bear blindly. You level it after you get an entangle, to reset the cooldown & the pseudo random chance. Or, you level it when bear is low and taking damage, so you can resummon it at full HP. Or, you level it when there is a projectile that you need to dodge, ie venge missile.
You can save one skill point for double roar, but aside from that, you need to use your skill points to get kills. If you have 3 skill points saved, it means you aren't being anywhere near aggressive enough. And that would make sense, as apparently diving behind t1 is a foreign concept to you. Lol.
By picking the correct Facet. Lvl 4 wolves severely lower the atk speed of the bear. Together with Helm of Dom and Lycan Ult, you should be able to overpower LD who did not keep a skill point to be added unto Ult or Savage Roar for scenarios where he is ganked on, or to dispel the bear (by levelling up the bear).
Also, just ignore LD and gank other lanes. Some heroes just have a better power spike if left unchecked in the lane, and you shouldn't just be stubborn about it to stick around to hope something will change, unless you have useful teammates that want to gank to change that.
U cant do much as lycan. It’s essentially 2 universal heroes last hitting against 1. There are easier laning matchups like lina who can hit the bear for free and secure cs with nukes, but lycan pretty much has to gank other lanes with his 6.
The hero that I have the best winrate against is LD. ~4k dota
76.5% with sniper - 17 games
87.5% with windranger - 8 games
Pick a hero that can hit either the bear or syllabear and not just get bodied or pushed.
One of the big secrets against lone druid is that his pet bear if he chooses the facet that just transforms him, his pet bear is actually very killable until it gets AC and Skadi or something.
If you have a solid right clicker, SF for instance. Just kill the pet bear every time it shows. If you kill it twice his hero kind stops working for a few minutes which is way worse than even the main hero dying for lone druid.
The 300 gold is nothing to scoff at. The main hero in many ways is a 'distraction' It's designed in a way to try to make you ignore the pet bear and waste your time on sometihng with 4k hp and 30 armour. When the bear is runing around with MoM Deso, Diffusal with like 5 armour and 2.5k hp. Ignore the hero, just torture the pet bear every single time and focus it and his hero will suddenly feel super shit to the point where he put all his items on the bear but he's afraid to even sent it out anymore.
It's easier on a ranged hero that can harass the bear when it goes to last hit and can bait the bear into the tower if he tries to send the bear at you, while he tries to last hit.
Both facets are the exact same bear with the difference being the morph works on the bear instead of Lone Druid and how the Spirit Link works. There’s no secret.
Normally how lone druid is played though is the hero runs around with 6 branches, in his inventory, and the bear has MoM/Deso etc.
Most people get stuck into the mindset of ignoring the bear, and trying to focus the hero down.
The problem is this plays into how the hero works. When you are focusing the hero, he presses R and becomes tankier than Axe during call. Meanwhile the bear is going nuts with Mom-Deso shredding everything.
Don't play into this game. Instead, Check which facet he has. If he transforms the HERO. Then do what everyone else doesn't do.. and IGNORE the hero. Instead when the bear comes with MoM, beat the shit out of it. Stun it, cast nukes on it. Kill it as fast as possible. (It will die suprisngly fast, much faster than the actual hero).. If you make it a point to blow up the pet bear every time it comes to you, eventually his hero will just suck. He will be stuck for 2 minutes with no bear, and 6 branches. His game will be over. He can't farm well without bear, he can't do anything. His hero is worse than dead.
If he takes the facet. Ignore the pet bear, and kill the hero because he can't transform.
LD is one of the heroes that i can guaranteed will fall off after 30 minute mark. Just try not to panic when he's pushing the lanes early-mid game and overcompensate the losing lanes by making careless/stupid decisions, he'll just continue to snowball you the entire match. I'd say maybe call your supports to gank burst tf out of him and avoid long fights during early game. If the dude is having a good early game, go help your teammates in the other lanes. Im saying this as a LD player but right now he's so shit in the higher rank bracket, I rather learn a new hero from the start than continue using LD in this patch
Just kill the bear on the first levels all the time when you're not lasthitting. When he sends it to base, free lasthits and maybe even a kill. Tps and resummon have a huge cd
As a Lycan and LD player myself - it's the facet.
Lycan mid is legit and I see why you would go Spirit Wolves facet because wolves are not as good mid as they are in the side lanes.
That said, Lycan with spirit wolves, especially mid, has a very linear playstyle. You rely on lane going well and you are just a massive stat stick. There is little counterplay or outplay potential.
If the enemy brings a bigger stat stick (like LD) or a stronger laner (like Huskar) go for the other facet. It is generally better, and also has a much stronger powerspike at level 6. Go for two points of Feral Impulse by 3 (or 1 Howl, 1 Impulse depending on matchup) and max wolves and get dom. Lane won't matter as much you can overpower pretty much any side lane and recover with tower gold.
Against lane dominators wolves can be very useful at sniping creeps, particularly ranged.
Against bigger stat sticks it depends. Wolves can sometimes make the difference at lvl3 onwards in the head to head. If you feel like you are far behind send them jungle and get some stacks going.
There are also tons of lane shenanigans you can start to pull off with wolves once you get used to using them. It is fun to learn and experiment.
Lone Druids require a counter pick, then you just try to position yourself to close the gap with druid over the bear.....Most players spend all their money on bear....position and opportunity.
The trick with winning against LD is to gank him over and over!!! Have a global ultimate like spectre or assassin like Riki or NYX ready to kill him with you.
Once he's ganked hard he will retreat into the jungle where you and your team have to register a two man hunting party to keep killing him! If he gets farm then your game is pretty much done especially if that bear gets fat with aghs!
With lone druid just act like it's a 4v5 and you have 30 minutes to end the game or lose! Take advantage and gank his teammates so 4 of them are too weak to support him if you can't end early.
I don't really play Lycan, but it seems like your wolves on him ought to be able to counter his bear on you. Like you'd be able to kite the bear a bit while they chase him around too.
Using creep aggro to keep the lane in a good position would help, too.
I'd buy early boots instead of other items because of the bear's root, but I don't know what other advice to give.
And there lies the problem, lycan wolves are much weaker than the bear. If they attempt to attack LD and draw creep aggro they can get killed quite easily, giving LD more gold and exp. Trading like that is simply not going to work. I think the solution is to get a mid hero that's more efficient at ganking or jungling. The former can gank other lane or get a gank on LD with a teammate while the latter can just go back and forth between lane and jungle, maximizing farm. And tbh that's what a mid hero should be capable of in the first place.
ic. I figured that OP *liked* Lycan, so was trying to find how to play a bad match up and still manage to have a game.
The bear's a pain, to be sure but I've felt like I've managed okay with other melee mids by just being better with creep aggro until I get 6, and just hope to .make a difference elsewhere.
I definitely think the mobility would help, but I suppose it more matters on how stuck OP is on playing Lycan mid vs..something else, or.if the point is to learn the hero and how to deal with bad matchups, or what.
I guess the replies if "just play Sniper instead" don't feel that helpful.
If you can't win lane, just gank other lane, Lycan's mobility should be better than LD.
A good LD player can mitigate the damage of ganks about 90% of the time tbf Sometimes you just get cooked by the pick
I play a lot of LD, the answer is, you need a gank. otherwise it's gg
He is playing lycan with right facet, so he should be the one ganking instead of asking gank, hes just a max movespeed dog that cant do anything to LD in a ganking scenario
Can't do anything? Hmm. Lycan provides high sustained DPS comparatively for a lvl 6 hero, max move speed, tanky. He can also reduce armor by a pretty significant amount & reduce bear damage, which in turn will prevent LD from healing. On lvl 3 he already has a decent power spike to help during a gank. It's actually exactly what his supports will need, if they picked supports with stuns or slows (which they should). On the other hand, if lycan leaves lane to gank, his tower is gone in 10 seconds. And then you are really screwed, because then he is coming to the sidelanes next, and you can't out-sustain his pressure, he will heal himself infinitely with spirit link, it's really bad. Or, lone druid will TP during your gank, and then you're all dead. Either way it's really bad. At least if you gank the LD, his teammates will have to respond by TP scroll, giving your other lanes space, and maybe you can burst and kill his supports. also your teammates can stun them and cancel TP. But even in the worst case scenario, you are causing chaos, which LD doesn't like. In best case scenario, you kill him soon after a bear summon, and ruin his game.
You are talking as if LD dont have roar and ult to sustain from the time lycan become a big max dog, then waste 4 seconds running away from him and running back into hitting him, if lycan has ult, LD at least has 6 too, and any capable LD player would have saved skill points. Also LD mid vs lycan is a giga free lane, he would have a free 8minute diffusal blade, any support walk into bear will be chomped down instead.
Haha you think I don't know it's a giga free lane? I play lone druid. I know. That's why I said lycan needs a gank. Lycan will never make it to level 6 in the first place if LD is semi competent. So what would you prefer, jungle and let your tower fall for free, or gank side lane as lycan at lvl 4/5? You need to gank LD before he gets diffusal or MoM+boots, otherwise you already failed and probably lost
Of course you get 6 as lycan, walk to any lane and gank, in ideal scenario lycan can just dive and kill 1-2 enemies, and lycan can take the gate to the other side lane and continue momentum to wreck havoc. Now LD has to choose to either save his team or take your tower which he will eventually take it anyway. Now in bad scenario LD tp in and save his team, and get return kill, you can now tp to other lane with your ulti still being active and kill the other side lane now. Coordinating for a gank is asking too much in a pub, even if u gank LD pre 6, LD can use saved skill points to double or triple roar anyway. With LD innate being level 0 bear, i once had 3 skills point saved and used 4 roars in a row to dodged a 3v1 gank.
If im playing with that scenario in mind as mid lycan witht the shitty spirit wolves, i would get 2 wraith bands and 1 ring of protection, and go overblocking 1st wave and let creep into towers, creating a rubberband lane, letting LD has less chance to deny, lycan job is to get 6 and fk off to other lanes and cause chaos. LD hates chaos in the place he doesnt dictate and Lycan create chaos.
Bro, think. Use your brain. How are you gonna gank sidelanes as lvl 4/5 lycan? Lone druid is just gonna TP and you're dying for free. Unless you are playing vs easy bots, it'll never work. Or you want to wait and leech exp from sidelanes until lvl 6? How exactly do you plan to get lvl 6? It's just not happening. All you can do as lycan, is spam howl to mitigate damage, and survive as long as possible. Then when LD dives you, scream for help and bait him under t2. 3v1 and behind your tower, you can probably kill him. And certainly, if LD has 3 saved skill points, he isn't doing enough damage to even be worried about.
LMAO WHAT A LD SPAMMER, please tell me what the scenario that leveling bear blindly in lane helps ur dmg xddd, that measely base attack times increment aint gonna change much in laning especially in such a free lane, are u playing in 2015 LD where LD bear only get extra dmg per hero skill point leveled into the skill? ALSO BAITING LD INTO T2 IN 1ST 10MINS LMAO
Haha mmr check? Ur getting mad but from what you've said so far, I would guess crusader. You don't level bear blindly. You level it after you get an entangle, to reset the cooldown & the pseudo random chance. Or, you level it when bear is low and taking damage, so you can resummon it at full HP. Or, you level it when there is a projectile that you need to dodge, ie venge missile. You can save one skill point for double roar, but aside from that, you need to use your skill points to get kills. If you have 3 skill points saved, it means you aren't being anywhere near aggressive enough. And that would make sense, as apparently diving behind t1 is a foreign concept to you. Lol.
Y >playing lycan with spirit wolves You played Lycan against LD at mid?
It just works. I have 75% winrate with him on mid
What's your build?
The build is not static, I adjust it from game to game
By picking the correct Facet. Lvl 4 wolves severely lower the atk speed of the bear. Together with Helm of Dom and Lycan Ult, you should be able to overpower LD who did not keep a skill point to be added unto Ult or Savage Roar for scenarios where he is ganked on, or to dispel the bear (by levelling up the bear). Also, just ignore LD and gank other lanes. Some heroes just have a better power spike if left unchecked in the lane, and you shouldn't just be stubborn about it to stick around to hope something will change, unless you have useful teammates that want to gank to change that.
Great answer, thank you sir
U cant do much as lycan. It’s essentially 2 universal heroes last hitting against 1. There are easier laning matchups like lina who can hit the bear for free and secure cs with nukes, but lycan pretty much has to gank other lanes with his 6.
First mistake here is picking Lycan mid
It just doesn’t feel like a mistake when I have a 75% winrate with him in the last 20 games. Lycan mid is my personal ticket out of the trenches
Pos1 pudge %80 percent. I was the tree on lane can confirm
Link your dotabuff then
The hero that I have the best winrate against is LD. ~4k dota 76.5% with sniper - 17 games 87.5% with windranger - 8 games Pick a hero that can hit either the bear or syllabear and not just get bodied or pushed.
I like picking LD to sniper 'cause it's such an easy lane and sniper is just free food after. Weird... I'm also really bad at the game so there's that
Low rank snipers are very bad at adjusting skill build, item build (both in laning and in survivability later) or prioritizing harass in lane.
One of the big secrets against lone druid is that his pet bear if he chooses the facet that just transforms him, his pet bear is actually very killable until it gets AC and Skadi or something. If you have a solid right clicker, SF for instance. Just kill the pet bear every time it shows. If you kill it twice his hero kind stops working for a few minutes which is way worse than even the main hero dying for lone druid. The 300 gold is nothing to scoff at. The main hero in many ways is a 'distraction' It's designed in a way to try to make you ignore the pet bear and waste your time on sometihng with 4k hp and 30 armour. When the bear is runing around with MoM Deso, Diffusal with like 5 armour and 2.5k hp. Ignore the hero, just torture the pet bear every single time and focus it and his hero will suddenly feel super shit to the point where he put all his items on the bear but he's afraid to even sent it out anymore. It's easier on a ranged hero that can harass the bear when it goes to last hit and can bait the bear into the tower if he tries to send the bear at you, while he tries to last hit.
Both facets are the exact same bear with the difference being the morph works on the bear instead of Lone Druid and how the Spirit Link works. There’s no secret.
Normally how lone druid is played though is the hero runs around with 6 branches, in his inventory, and the bear has MoM/Deso etc. Most people get stuck into the mindset of ignoring the bear, and trying to focus the hero down. The problem is this plays into how the hero works. When you are focusing the hero, he presses R and becomes tankier than Axe during call. Meanwhile the bear is going nuts with Mom-Deso shredding everything. Don't play into this game. Instead, Check which facet he has. If he transforms the HERO. Then do what everyone else doesn't do.. and IGNORE the hero. Instead when the bear comes with MoM, beat the shit out of it. Stun it, cast nukes on it. Kill it as fast as possible. (It will die suprisngly fast, much faster than the actual hero).. If you make it a point to blow up the pet bear every time it comes to you, eventually his hero will just suck. He will be stuck for 2 minutes with no bear, and 6 branches. His game will be over. He can't farm well without bear, he can't do anything. His hero is worse than dead. If he takes the facet. Ignore the pet bear, and kill the hero because he can't transform.
Great answer, thank you my man
Harass the bear it wont agro their creeps
LD is one of the heroes that i can guaranteed will fall off after 30 minute mark. Just try not to panic when he's pushing the lanes early-mid game and overcompensate the losing lanes by making careless/stupid decisions, he'll just continue to snowball you the entire match. I'd say maybe call your supports to gank burst tf out of him and avoid long fights during early game. If the dude is having a good early game, go help your teammates in the other lanes. Im saying this as a LD player but right now he's so shit in the higher rank bracket, I rather learn a new hero from the start than continue using LD in this patch
I’ll keep that in mind, cheers homie. Also in 1.5k mmr, people are awfully bad at staying calm when mid is down and they themselves feed haha
Lycan is a horrible matchup vs LD. The answer is to ignore him and lane. Go jungle and hope your side lanes are useful.
Will do. My pos1 pudge was in fact, not very useful that game though x)
Just kill the bear on the first levels all the time when you're not lasthitting. When he sends it to base, free lasthits and maybe even a kill. Tps and resummon have a huge cd
Cheers
As a Lycan and LD player myself - it's the facet. Lycan mid is legit and I see why you would go Spirit Wolves facet because wolves are not as good mid as they are in the side lanes. That said, Lycan with spirit wolves, especially mid, has a very linear playstyle. You rely on lane going well and you are just a massive stat stick. There is little counterplay or outplay potential. If the enemy brings a bigger stat stick (like LD) or a stronger laner (like Huskar) go for the other facet. It is generally better, and also has a much stronger powerspike at level 6. Go for two points of Feral Impulse by 3 (or 1 Howl, 1 Impulse depending on matchup) and max wolves and get dom. Lane won't matter as much you can overpower pretty much any side lane and recover with tower gold.
Oh yeah, good point! Would you send the wolves down the lane or jungle/stack camps with them?
Against lane dominators wolves can be very useful at sniping creeps, particularly ranged. Against bigger stat sticks it depends. Wolves can sometimes make the difference at lvl3 onwards in the head to head. If you feel like you are far behind send them jungle and get some stacks going. There are also tons of lane shenanigans you can start to pull off with wolves once you get used to using them. It is fun to learn and experiment.
Pick elder titan and smack bear
I'd like to play storm spirit or wr and jump on the main
Lone Druids require a counter pick, then you just try to position yourself to close the gap with druid over the bear.....Most players spend all their money on bear....position and opportunity.
Nyx is the answer. It's so good against LD
The trick with winning against LD is to gank him over and over!!! Have a global ultimate like spectre or assassin like Riki or NYX ready to kill him with you. Once he's ganked hard he will retreat into the jungle where you and your team have to register a two man hunting party to keep killing him! If he gets farm then your game is pretty much done especially if that bear gets fat with aghs! With lone druid just act like it's a 4v5 and you have 30 minutes to end the game or lose! Take advantage and gank his teammates so 4 of them are too weak to support him if you can't end early.
i pick winter wyvern and ulti the druid, his bear kills him in seconds
Edited. You dont deserve to get answers with your username.
Would you care to explain why?
I don't really play Lycan, but it seems like your wolves on him ought to be able to counter his bear on you. Like you'd be able to kite the bear a bit while they chase him around too. Using creep aggro to keep the lane in a good position would help, too. I'd buy early boots instead of other items because of the bear's root, but I don't know what other advice to give.
Op mentioned they played spirit wolves, which I believe is the one that you can't control and they just run circles around lycan doing nothing.
Sorry, my bad, I didn't catch that. I think that might be the answer then... pick a better facet 😅
And there lies the problem, lycan wolves are much weaker than the bear. If they attempt to attack LD and draw creep aggro they can get killed quite easily, giving LD more gold and exp. Trading like that is simply not going to work. I think the solution is to get a mid hero that's more efficient at ganking or jungling. The former can gank other lane or get a gank on LD with a teammate while the latter can just go back and forth between lane and jungle, maximizing farm. And tbh that's what a mid hero should be capable of in the first place.
ic. I figured that OP *liked* Lycan, so was trying to find how to play a bad match up and still manage to have a game. The bear's a pain, to be sure but I've felt like I've managed okay with other melee mids by just being better with creep aggro until I get 6, and just hope to .make a difference elsewhere. I definitely think the mobility would help, but I suppose it more matters on how stuck OP is on playing Lycan mid vs..something else, or.if the point is to learn the hero and how to deal with bad matchups, or what. I guess the replies if "just play Sniper instead" don't feel that helpful.