Coaching notes by Neutron & Arkinator · Compiled from sessions & Discord with Kage · All quotes verbatim
Scouting
"You don't actually need to see what hero he has at that point. Usually I just send one wisp here and then when I creep this camp or I finish this camp and I run, I just send wisp a little closer and see if he's here or not. Try to avoid this wisp loss. It's really painful."
"If you have a good scout on this map, I send one wisp here all the time no matter what race I play against because it's really good scout."
"I usually even send it here before the night. So I use shift click. I click here, here, here, and here. And it goes on the edge and creeps don't aggro."
[Kage: How do you learn new maps?]
"Usually I just see what advantages can I get — like are the creeps strong at the expo, what I can creep with, where creeps aggro, where not. And what can I creep to get to level two fast or level three? Also, is there a big rush distance to my expo or not? If the distance between opponent's base and my expo is big, I can play more expansion strategies."
Creeping
Core Rules
"You can creep perfectly at start and then like lose everything to do and lose anyway."
"At every map you can have your special creep routes which give you the most, the fastest creeping and the best experience."
"Always eat the tree first because otherwise you're just risking with your ancient of war."
"You don't really want to creep small camps — you can't get a huge important item there and you just let him creep more. Play positionally."
"When you creep or do something, you need to do it fast because otherwise you just lose momentum."
"Also if you have four archers from the start, your creeping is much faster."
Multitasking & AOW
"When you try to do something, first make sure that this creep is attacking your ancient of war, everyone attacking. So you get no additional damage and then you can build something if you need."
"Always keep the ancient of war, bring it before. Click hold position so it's not going to aggro creeps and then you do your job and then come back."
"Just click here and shift H — shift hold position. So many people even 2k plus rating lose their ancient of war like this."
"You don't want to deny. If you're denying, focus on the creeping because it's more important than all others."
"If you make five archers you creep fast, you can defend against any cheese. It's super safe."
Hero Leveling & DH Spell Build
Priority
"Try to focus more on your hero level and expo — not harassing his expo but doing your own instead — and then you will understand that it's much much more easier to play."
"When you play demon hunter, you always rely on him. He's your one-man army usually. Sometimes you just creep first, at least to level two, maybe higher, and get more items."
"Try to always creep demon to level three for example and only after that you can start harassing."
Spells by Matchup
vs Human: "You go immolation two and evasion, not mana burn. You don't need mana burn against archmage."
vs Undead: "Against undead we need mana burn. So we use immolation and then mana burn."
vs Orc: "With immolation level two, you can straight fight against blade like the professionals do."
"Before he has level three shadow hunter, it's fine to have immolation. So you can have immolation level two also."
Double Staff Technique Key Mechanic
The Technique
"The great tool for night elves is to double staff. When your demon is damaged, you just staff him home, drink all the moon juice, and staff him back."
"Be careful and see at what unit you staff him back, because if you click randomly you can staff to a damaged dryad and they'll just kill it."
"When you will have level five plus some items, you have 800 HP, maybe more. So it's double 800 HP in the fight. It's really very very good."
"I fight here, I click on the demon to staff. Then I click on the base or F1. Then you click moon wells using shift. When I see the icon of demon that he is full healed, I just use staff and choose at what unit he has to staff."
Hotkeys & Invol/Rejuv Trick
"I use only two buttons. I bind one at V at my keyboard and second one is right mouse button. Right mouse button I use for like invols when I just don't have time."
"If I'm in the fight, I just click two times at F2 to get to Naga and staff here."
Advanced: "When you have invol on and you put rejuv, it's undispellable. So if you fight against undeads they can't dispel it."
"You use invol immediately, then rejuv. Your demon for those 7 seconds will get restored lots and lots of health."
Control Groups & Army Management
"Demon at group one and archers in group two."
"I have an army and I put two heroes and bears in group one. I have all ranged units in group two to focus or retreat with them. And the wisps I have at group three."
"In the fight I use group three — if his army is here, I just detonate all the way for his heroes and casters. And suddenly he can't fight anymore."
"In lower food fights with lore units you're generally focus firing. In higher food it's more about getting position right and then a-moving."
Naga — Why She's Your 2nd Hero
"Naga is a great hero. For many years people thought that Panda is better. But Naga is great at level one while Panda really sucks before level three at least."
"Naga on the other hand at level five is a serial killer. You just fork lightning at level five and deal like tons of damage. It's much better than like demon level six for example."
"TP always on Naga. And staff on Naga, and personal staff at demon. So you can always perform the double staff trick."
"You can put an orb at Naga and turn off the frost arrow because Naga will just deal damage from behind and use forked lightning and not waste mana for the unnecessary arrow."
Items
Always Keep
"What I would never sell is big heal pot and health stone."
"Rings and protection rings are good. If it's ring plus five, it's a great item because it gives you sustainability for the entire fight."
"Buy orb for demon — orb demon is like unbeatable and he deals tons of damage."
"This item is fine because it gives you 15% attack speed and when you will have an orb it's really big damage."
Sell Immediately
"I would sell the cloak immediately because it's rarely can make a good effect, it takes a slot, and it's also some gold."
"I would sell all the mana items also."
"Usually when I pick up a useless item I say like 'oh nice, 200 gold.'"
"You can even sell Big Fin at some point because much more important to have expo earlier — 200 gold is 20 seconds."
[Kage: What about the mana drain item?]
"With your hero it's total useless — it's worth too much for this small impact. It's just 200 gold."
Base Building & Pathing Advanced
The Hex System
"Around ancient of war there is like one hex frame — a picture frame — that units can go around. Moon well has zero frame. So if you build two moon wells close to each other, no one can pass."
"Hero and fat units are two-hex units. To go between this you have only one square and you need two for hero to go through."
"Hunter's hall is same as moon well. So if you build it close, no one can pass. Trees are the same as moon well."
Building Reference
One hex frame: Shop, Ancient of War, Ancient of Lore, Ancient of Wind, Tree of Life/Ages/Eternity
Zero hex frame (nothing passes if adjacent): Moonwell, Ancient Protector, Hunter's Hall
Two-hex units (can't fit through one-hex gap): All heroes, bears, raiders, grunts, mountain giants, catapults, archers
One-hex units (can fit through): Ghouls, footmen, wisps, all workers
Late Game & Winning
"When you get to late game, what you want to do — you want your demon level five. So try to creep the entire map before you have level five."
"You always need to mana burn the heroes before the fight. So you just run, you mana burn, he coils Nova, you staff your hero with Naga, then you heal and come again."
"When you have a big army in the late game: you make him suffer. He loses so much gold dragging peasants from one place to another."
"Buy orb for demon — orb demon is like unbeatable and he deals tons of damage. If you're afraid that in the fight it will be hard, you can just buy invol. Also research wellspring."
Matchup-Specific Strategy
Core Strategy
"At start we never try to kill a footy or to damage the archmage. Our goal is to get to the phase when we are strong with the least damage to our economy."
"Why people go to harass human expansion every time — the window of opportunity for human is super small. So if he makes an expansion and is late for a minute to attack you, he will lose because your expansion is much stronger."
"After that it will be a human headache to realize how to counter it. And if he's late he lost the game."
Two Expo Options
Option 1: "You creep to level three then you try to fight, harass etc. and he is in defensive position. Then you get your Naga and everything and make a push and win."
Option 2: "If you know from scout that he has expansion, you creep to level two, then you go to harass but your goal is to distract him. So you order expansion somewhere. When it's ready — tier two ready — you take Naga, you creep, you make two lores, and suddenly you have expansion, you have map control."
Fighting vs Human
"In the fight against human, usually you want to drain mana from MK first and then Paladin. Because every bolt for units it gets killed."
"You don't need to burn Archmage because you always have mana to dispel."
Core Strategy
"Against undead, you cannot let him play his game. You need to force the fight before he gets his ideal army."
"Always mana burn the DK. He relies on coil too much and without mana he is useless."
"Dryads are essential vs undead — they dispel unholy aura, web, everything. Never skip them."
Core Strategy
"look against bats it's the easiest response is hippogri. So you just need to know what to do."
"so against bats all you need is to be efficient. For example, if you build AP he can kill it. But if he invest more than one bat to kill this AP means he is losing more gold."
"With immolation level two, you can straight fight against blade like the professionals do. They attack with everything against blade, entangle him."
Mindset & Practice
The Core Problem
"The problem is lower level players don't want to perfect a build vs a computer. They accept doing it marginally correct and expect to improve."
"It's pointless to analyze anything if you can't do your build consistently or creep consistently cuz those are the most important things."
"like i told u before if u did the bear build every game correctly ur mmr would jump."
"your opponent doesn't matter at all until ur able to do the build right regardless of what they're doing."
Practice & Getting Better
"I've always told ppl to perfect builds and creeping vs comps. If you can do it perfectly you'll easily be able to climb to at least 1800 prob."
"practicing build orders naturally improves your multi tasking / mechanics / micro / whatever you want to look at."
"Also getting better at this game is stressful if you don't properly control your expectations. Winning doesn't mean you played well and losing doesn't mean you played bad. Focus on whether you're doing your build correctly."
Decision Making
"ya that's cuz ur scouting and then thinking. If you have to spend time thinking about ur move you've already made a mistake. You should already know exactly how ur going to respond based on what u scout."
"yes i'd recommend you stick to your build unless you 100% knew what you wanted to do differently."
"you're not going to really learn how to react correctly until you're playing against good players, so don't focus so much on what you scout but on things you can control."
"Good decisions and logical builds = mmr increases long term."
Build Orders & Wisp Tech
8 Wisp Tech — The Standard
"8 wisp tech, always keep archer in prod. add moon well. add 2nd aow at a place to aow creep when resources allow. get 2nd hero + range upgrade. Add 4th moon well once resources allow. Opponent is probably dead by now."
"The reason I do 8 wisps with my build is cuz there isn't any room timing wise to add more archers by cutting any more wisps. I can do natures blessing aows, go lores, etc. I'm not boxed in to a single route."
"maybe you don't realize it because you're not vs an opponent, but if you don't hit your build timings then you're overwhelmed. Even 5 seconds is a significant delay."
9 vs 10 Wisp Tech
"if he goes kotg you should go 9 wisp tech instead of 8 probably."
"10 wisp tech is very good vs fs."
"My archer opening vs orc is 10 wisp build with scout coming after aow finishes so your 2nd moon well is super fast."
Build Order Rules
"if u do moon well then shop u don't get supply blocked."
"you should go adept form first into dryads — that is also wrong order."
"shop before 2nd lore is wrong order."
"double lores before tech is basically auto loss vs archer rushes."
"One thing that's extremely common is lower mmr players more commonly do lore/lore/tech while higher mmr do lore/tech/lore."
"write out the build on a piece of paper next to u and just look at it."
Creeping
Routes & Camp Priority
"ur build doesn't change just what u creep."
"do a typical level 3 creep route to start with then just creep whatever u want after that."
"also the idea for creeping should be that you seamlessly move around the map — none of this run to camp, back to base, run to next camp, back to base."
"if ur kotg is low on mana and ur not gonna be able to keep creeping, send kotg to base while finishing camp with ur other hero/units to get mana so u can keep creeping without any wasted time."
AOW Creeping Tips
"u want the creeps to be dragged to ur aow."
"u uproot ur aow right as the archer hits."
"u can shift click to kill creeps but going to diff spots on map better to a move."
"like on TH if u open kotg optimal thing to do is to kill the trapper first cuz if u summon treants one will be ensnared."
"if u open dh optimal is to kill the creep with item first cuz u finish the camp faster with the item."
Micro & Combat
Attack Cycles — The Most Important Thing
"not missing attack cycles is one of the biggest things that separate top tier players vs the level below."
"you're just not ATTACKING."
"the thing is you aren't attacking — how do you expect to trade favorable if you don't attack with your units?"
"you need to just stop canceling your attacks."
"so many 'balance' problems are simply you not attacking."
Hiding Archers — The Wrong Move
"you really don't want to rely on hiding as your go to micro move unless its the only solution for ur archer to live."
"hiding = you force yourself to not attack while he can still attack."
"hide is great but ur micro being pressing the hide hotkey isn't really micro."
APM & Speed
"perfect your build and creeping at low apm, then perfect it at higher apm."
"You don't want to just mindlessly spam, but if you're spamming to get yourself to move and play faster it's ok."
"I'd grab a rep where someone did a 1 base bear build and practice that vs a computer until you do it perfectly. Then add in a level 3 creep route while doing the build."
Hero Choice & Hotkeys
First Hero
"dh or kotg 1st."
"Kotg just so much better to play vs orc idk why anyone would willingly play dh instead."
"we can pretty much secure an expansion in all matchups without opponent preventing us if we play kotg 1st unless we mess up."
"dh can shadow mistakes — its more decision making based."
"Post immo buff I find elf to be easier to play in general, though less fun."
2nd Hero & Hotkeys
"vs 1 base its usually naga 2nd but vs 2 base its usually panda 2nd."
"Naga just is good — catch has good dmg and is a range hero so her weaknesses aren't as easy to punish."
"1/2/3 is army. 4/5/6 is altar/main/prod buildings. 9/0 is altar/moonwells but I rarely make use of it outside early game."
"u hotkey moon wells + replenish on ur hero."
"Moon, lawliet, foggy, colorful are the best to take builds from."
Matchup-Specific Strategy
General vs Human
"there is no 1 base strat ur going to play against that isn't beatable with 1 base bear builds."
"if u play dh u can try just focusing on creeping 3 asap. lvl 3 dh will shut down lvl 3 am harass."
"Inefficient builds and creeping can be masked quite well with dh."
vs Human Expo & Tower Rush
"If oppo ever plays heavy towers u should just expo asap."
"ok so vs hu tower rush u basically just want to stall as long as u can until u get enough archers out to adequately fight footies."
"Kite with your archers and distract his naga with ur hero."
"Its ok if he focuses buildings, use your buildings hp as a resource to delay him."
"once you have 3-4 plus archers you can start fighting more. Then push him back past his towers."
vs Human Fighting
"don't focus am too much. If he's out of position, sure go attack him. But many of your early game skirmishes required you to run past his footies to chase his am."
"don't bother harassing with a lvl 1 dh unless its at the same time as him creeping a difficult camp."
General vs Undead
"i think 1 base isn't all that good vs ud so i generally expo."
"against a 1 base ud player, if he doesn't go dk first then every strat he's going to do is going to be a weaker version of what he could have done."
"just do a standard 1 base bear build."
vs DK Harass & Fast Expo
"for the dk harass you just kinda have to get good at multitasking. if he goes after wisps just keep creeping until u have enough to entangle/surround his hero."
"if ur lvl 3 and he's less than lvl 2 then u have a major advantage."
"Gy first as in fast fiends build right? Vs fast fiends I just do t1 expo and then play your normal bear build after that."
Deto & Skeleton Handling
"Deto the skellies and dispel the beetles. Both strats are worse than typical 1 base armies so play it exactly how you would every other 1 base game."
"with dryads you generally kite and kill the ghouls first."
"ya i play mostly kotg vs ud. use kotg to secure expo and go into mass dryads or mass air."
General vs Orc
"everything about ne vs orc is trying to force blade to be in a position to safely expo."
"Kotg just so much better to play vs orc idk why anyone would willingly play dh instead."
vs Blade Early Game
"Ent ff blade when he's close is pretty much the only real priority."
"Vs blade my objective is always expansion. Never place your tree unless you know you can defend it."
"i probably would play immo/eva but if you prefer mana burn eva then thats fine."
vs Head Hunters & Bat Riders
"u want to deto the blood lust and preferably take out the hh first."
"every 75 mana is a dead head hunter."
"look against bats it's the easiest response is hippogri. So you just need to know what to do."
"with two armor it's not enough. One bat is not enough to kill a hippograph."
Bear Build & Transitions
"do the bear build, get panda 2nd and prevent his expo. creep up and prevent his expo all game and should be fine."
"dh naga bears is ur best bet overall."
"orbs because orbs are really really important against orcs and deal tons of damage."