Dota 2 – How to Initiate a Team Fight in your Favor
Dota 2 is a very complex game with infinite possibilities. There are millions of players who play Dota 2 but don’t know how to get better at it. A game becomes winnable when your team starts winning multiple team fights. As you progress during a Dota 2 match, you face several fights in which your whole team participates and tries to win. However, there are a lot of chances that you miss the best initiating opportunity and face defeat. In the following article, we will discuss some of the best ways to initiate a team fight in Dota 2.
Always Initiate under Vision
During a match of Dota 2, if you have a hero who can initiate the team fight very well, you must not start where your team lacks vision. As you have the initiator, your team will possibly follow your initiation and will try to get into the fight. However, as you initiate under zero vision, your team can face easy defeat as the enemy might be able to see all the movements by your members. Therefore, whenever you try to initiate a team fight, try to place sentries there or possibly some observer wards so you can easily predict what enemies are going to do.
Initiating under vision also gives you an upper hand to look at the fight closely. You can see where the enemies are going and can easily place your spells to win the fight.
Initiate while your team is in Reach
This is a very important thing to learn to become a better initiator in Dota 2. As you are playing a hero with initiating abilities, you need to scan the map thoroughly and check if your team is within your reach or not. If you see enemies on the map, and your team is farming on the other side of the map, it would be pointless to initiate the fight as no one will be able to join you. No matter how good you try to initiate, if your team is not within your reach, then you will die, as enemies will throw everything they have to win.
Therefore, before initiating a team fight, always check if your team is with you and if you blink into the fight, your team will easily be able to get to you.
For example, if you are playing Tidehunter, which is a great example of initiation. The fight would only be winnable if you go into the enemies and hit a Ravage, and if your team is near you. Similarly, if you just go into the enemies blindly and hit a perfect 5-man Ravage, and your team cannot reach you, then your Ultimate is pointless.
Hence, to start a team fight in your favor, you must always check where your whole team is.
Use Smoke more often
To get better at initiating team fights in your favor, try and use smoke more often. In most cases, when a player calls for a smoke, the team gathers to prepare for a fight. Initiating under smoke, gives you an upper hand, as your team follows you and can easily join you in the fight. Similarly, smoke also gives your team invisibility, which grants you extra benefit to go and hit the enemies. As your whole team goes with invisibility, you will be able to hit the enemies as a surprise, and in most cases, they will misuse their spells in surprise. Therefore, smoke provides you a better opportunity to start a team fight in your favor.
Initiate with a Blink Dagger
If you are playing a hero who can initiate a team fight, always try and go for a Blink Dagger. A Blink Dagger allows prompting to hit the enemies. If you use a Shadow Blade as a tool for the initiation, there are high chances that the enemies have a Sentry ward there and your whole idea flops. The moment enemies see you with a Shadow Blade on, they will kill you. Therefore, a Blink gives you the option to surprise your enemies with a team fight. Initiating with a Blink will give you an upper hand and the team fight will possibly go your way.
Initiate where enemies can’t Spread out
It is better to initiate a team fight where enemies cannot spread out easily. The main purpose of the initiation is to lock the enemies under an AOE ability and kill them with the spells. If your enemies spread out and get out of your AOE, then you might fail your initiation and face a counter-initiation from the enemies. Similarly, if you are initiating the team fight in an open area, your team’s Nukers will lack the opportunity to deal with damage and eliminate enemies. Therefore, always try to initiate a team fight in a closed space where enemies cannot run easily.
For example, if you initiate a team fight in the enemy’s jungle, there will be high chances that the enemies will start running away from you and as they have a lot of ways to run. However, if you think about initiating a team fight at Roshan’s pit, there will be only one place to exit that fight. If you block that one way, you have total control over enemies where you can easily Nuke them down. Therefore, always try to lock down enemies in a closed place.
Conclusion
Initiating a team fight in Dota 2 is an art to learn. To become better at it, you must know about your hero the most. Similarly, a better initiator should exactly know how much aggressive play a team can bear at the moment. If you are in the first 20 minutes of the game, it would be totally off the limit that you initiate a team fight in the enemy’s base, even if you are winning. We have listed down some of the coolest ways to learn the tactic to initiate a team fight in your favor. You can become a better player if you follow these easy rules.
