Dota 2 – How to See and Manage Emoticon Collection

You need to recognize burst gankers like Tiny are a threat early in the game and adjust your play around them. Typically, this means that I'll be picking up strength Power Treads and/or a Bracer to give myself extra strength to survive. If the other team has multiple magic damage heroes, you can also look into picking up a Cloak or even a Hood or Pipe.

This should prevent Tiny (or Nerubian Assassin, or a few others when they're ported) from ganking you by himself, he'll need teammates or a truly massive advantage to do so. Tiny has powerful burst but after his combo (which deals ~900 magic damage, ~675 damage to standard magic resistance) plus the damage from a couple of autoattacks, if he hasn't killed you there's no way he should be able to: you have your own spells and hopefully aware teammates.

Other things you can do to prevent a Tiny from snowballing apply to every game: have good wards up at all times and help your middle lane rune control if possible. Limiting Tiny's early game mana really slows him down because he's not much of a threat without that 240 mana to combo. You can also put strong laners against him, since Tiny has such low base armor, and seriously limit his early game farm. Some common options to counter a solo melee hero in mid lane include:

• Ancient Apparition
• Batrider
• Viper
• Venomancer
• Warlock
• Lich

On the following image I additionally marked wards i use on regular basis in above average MMR (~3700).Works on AP mode on public matchmaking where counterwarding is less common.

Read full guide here for more detailed explanations about the marked colors and places.

For average skill games with low warding and no counterwards,you should focus mainly on red dots especially 2 hills near the runes with the priority of upper one in early game and lower one later when killing roshan becomes more likely.

• Having at least one ward near the rune will eliminate the chance of going the wrong side when timing runes
• the hills will give you more vision than placing wards on the ground
• easily prevent ganks since the river is most common way for ganking
• seeing enemy team attacking roshan is huge advantage
• also it reveals path near secret shop and neutral camp

Wards should be placed as early as it gets and replaced just a bit before they expire(you can see the timer),it is the best if you can go grab a rune and place new ward at the same time so you don't lose much "lane time",if it is on opposite lane you could port there and combine it with a gank or push attempt.

There are 2 types of wards Observer wards and Sentry wards the ones you need are observer ones the other is used to reveal invisible enemies and is placed directly on the line near combat(pink)

If you want more advanced video guides you should check XV Rogues channel