DotA Hero Combo Guide - Lane Control

To dominate a ‘Defense of the Ancients’ match (DotA), good lane control is crucial. Controlling your lane early on ensures that your enemies don’t have time to farm, and neither do they have as much experience points as you do, so it’s pretty much a win-win situation. To help you gain control in most ‘-ap’ mode public games (ahh… you’ve got to love those) here are 5 hero combinations that will dominate almost any lane:

The Skill Spammers
The Earthshaker & The Keeper of the Light

(Raigor Stonehoof) (Ezalor)

Most Important Skills:

Fissure & Chakra Magic

The key here is to use Raigor’s Fissure and Ezalor’s Chakra Magic together, to have an unlimited supply of damage + stuns. The way this plays out is - get Raigor to cast Fissure to kill creeps/damage heroes, after which Ezalor should cast Chakra Magic on Raigor to help him regenerate his mana. If you plan on using this combo, ensure that Ezalor doesn’t spend his mana on casting Illuminate, else he won’t have enough mana to cast Chakra Magic on Raigor. Ezalor should amass as many mana regeneration items as possible. Getting an Arcane ring and Mekanism amongst them early on would be a good idea, since they’d be able to sustain their lane longer and ensure that they always have the upper hand.

While playing this combo, ensure that the player using Raigor knows exactly what he’s doing, since Fissure can easily block his teammates and be detrimental to allies.
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Nuke-fest
The Holy Knight & the Lord of Olympia

(Chen) (Zeus)

Most Important Skills:

Penitence & Lightening Bolt

Chen plays a support role here, while Zeus plays the main nuker. Chen’s Penitence increases magic damage done to an enemy, ensuring that Zeus’ bolt takes out a huge chunk of his hitpoints. When used together, the damage caused by the Lightening Bolt is unreal, and will force almost any hero to go back to base, else it’ll kill them. The trick here is that both heroes should spam their skills, but in a coordinated way. Whenever both have enough mana, Chen should cast Penitence on one of the enemy heroes, after which Zeus should nuke him with his Lightening Bolt, which will do a shit-load of damage! Timing is very important here, since Penitence lasts for only 7 seconds, giving Zeus a very small window of opportunity.

When allying these two heroes, ensure that they keep an eye on each other’s mana pool, to ensure that the other has enough mana to cast their spell. If coordinated well, this combo can devastate any heroes in your lane, and at least drive enemy heroes back, if not kill them.
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The Black Magic Charm
The Shadow Priest & the Enchantress

(Dazzle) (Aiushtha)

Most Important Skills:

Poison Touch & Impetus

The Dazzle’s Poison Touch slows his enemies while causing them damage over a period of time. On the other hand, Aiushtha’s Impetus deals a lot of damage per shot. The way you use these two is that Dazzle slows the enemy down with Poison Touch, while the Enchantress pounds on him using her Impetus, dealing a large amount of damage. The further the enemy goes, the more damage he takes per shot from the Enchantress. This will leave your foes no choice – they’ll either have to go back and heal at base, or die like swines at your hands. If however, they manage to damage you using nukes or anything else, both Dazzle and Aiushtha have healing spells that can get your topped up in no time.

While using this combo be sure to use your mana pool sparingly with either hero. You’ll need the mana to cast a healing spell every now and then, so use your spells only on enemy heroes, not on creeps.
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Doppelganger
The Omniknight & the Lord of Avernus

(Purist Thunderwrath) (Abaddon)

Most Important Skills:

Purification & Aphotic Shield

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Although both heroes are melee, this combo is incredibly imbalanced. Both heroes have the ability to heal each other effectively, and at the same time cause a lot of damage to the enemy. Use this to your advantage – If these heroes ally, Abaddon can use his Aphotic shield to farm, push the lane, and keeps enemy heroes at bay, while Thunderwrath can use Purification to help heal himself or Abaddon, and at the same time, damage his foes. In such a scenario, Thunderwrath should be the more aggressive once, since he has an aura that slows enemies down, and if he gets on low health, Abaddon can always use Death Coil to heal him, before he recasts Aphotic Shield.

Thunderwrath should always ensure that he has enough mana to drop at least one heal, since his heal takes quite a lot of mana. Abaddon on the other hand can use his shield indiscriminately, since the mana cost on it is very small. If you ally these two heroes up, make sure that Omni gets movement boosting gear quickly, while Abaddon gets mana regeneration items.
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Beasts and Dragons

The Beastmaster & the Twin Head Dragon

(Rexxar) (Jakiro)

Most important Skills:

Wild Axes & Dual Breath

Both heroes here have incredible abilities of dishing out a large amount of damage over a large area, in a very short period of time. Rexxar’s Wild Axes are hard to aim, but when you get the hang of it, you can take out creep waves within seconds. If a weak hero enters your lane, he’s in for a tough time, since while you farm, most of his time will be spent in either dodging your axes, or taking a shit load of damage from them. Jakiro on the other had the most awesome Area of Effect (AoE) nukes in the game – Dual Breath and Macropyre. When you use both together efficiently, they’re pretty much unstoppable! To help Rexxar ensure that he doesn’t miss the enemy when he casts Axes, Jakiro should cast Dual Breath first. This will slow down the enemy’s movement speed, making them an easy target for Rexxar.

Both heroes are incredibly mana dependant, so ensure that you have enough mana regeneration items with both to keep spamming your skills. If one of them buys an Arcane Ring, their opponents are gonna have a very tough time on their hands.

These were a few of the best hero combinations that I’ve seen and used effectively in DotA. There are a lot more awesome and innovative combos out there, that can be equally devastating; if you know of one, please leave a comment and share it with us.