Map Awareness

There are certain skills that players must hone in-game that can benefit the team regardless of the player’s role. These disciplines greatly affect the flow of the game, and are often overlooked.

This simply equates to looking at the map and getting the most information from what you can see. With lanes pushing halfway through the map and a couple of decently placed observer wards, a player can see roughly 40% of the field, excluding the enemy base. With this information, players can move around and perform actions with minimal consequences. For example, if 3 or 4 heroes are presently pushing one lane, it is safe to group up and push towers at other lanes. This can also be done alone, but keep in mind who the missing hero is and if he is capable of pawning your hero on their own.

What you don’t see is also part of map awareness. If all enemy heroes are missing from the map, chances are they are out ganking. If a low HP hero or a support is aggressively pushing a lane with other heroes missing from the map, chances are those heroes are camped nearby, waiting to spring a trap. Missing heroes and their capabilities also matter when deciding actions to take. If an enemy carry is missing from the lanes, they are most probably in the jungle. If this carry can farm neutral creeps with ease, then the team should consider warding enemy the enemy jungle and prevent the carry from farming.

Warding is crucial in the game as vision equates to map awareness. A blind map is the last thing the team wants. Denying enemy vision can add to your team’s advantage. This is done by correctly guessing where enemy observer wards are located and destroying them using items that give true sight (Gem of True Sight, Sentry Wards, L3 Necronomicon). Besides the standard warding locations (SEE WARDING GUIDE), reading enemy movements can tell whether a location is warded or not. If they unnaturally move away as a team moves in to gank, chances are a ward spotted the team’s movement.

This becomes imperative later on as the game drags into the later stage where defending with one less hero can mean defeat.

Another good discipline is to inform team members of available runes during rune spawn. Some heroes may benefit more from a specific rune compared to your hero so it would be better to protect the rune until they claim it. At the same time, denying a rune (by denying it or taking it for yourself) from an enemy is always a good thing.