A Drow by Any Other Name Would Push Just as Well November 7th, 2016 16:46 GMT Text by jdc214 Graphics by Nixer IntroWhat is the Drow strat?PopularityDrow Ranger’s Friends and FoesDefeating the Drow Menace



What is the Drow strat? The Drow Strat is a game plan that involves pushing heavily in the early and mid-game, getting as much benefit out of Drow Ranger’s aura as possible. While simple conceptually, what does it take to execute this strategy? Let’s consider what Drow excels at. Her strengths are so specialized that her team’s style of play revolves entirely around her. Similar to how you can pick Spectre and play around having arguably the strongest late game carry, picking Drow makes your game plan revolve around three primary concepts: pushing, item timings, and keeping Drow alive.



Pushing is Drow’s strong suit, but the addition of items like Dragon Lance and Hurricane Pike pushed her over the top. Hurricane Pike allowing Drow to siege towers from outside of their attack range while giving her a desperately needed mobility / escape item.

Leading up to TI6 there was a point where Drow had an over 70% win-rate when games ended between 30 and 40 minutes. Understanding push timings are a much more subtle part of The Drow Strat but are still required for optimal execution. While Drow teams usually begin pushing towers down shortly after she reaches level 6 or 7, oftentimes they can only push down outer towers. This means that Drow teams need major items and/or aegis to push high ground.

Keeping Drow alive is the most important part of the strategy, as the name implies. As long as Drow is alive she will continue dealing high damage to enemies through her own attacks and the damage her aura provides her teammates. Drow surviving to the end of a teamfight is paramount because it means her team can take multiple objectives before enemy heroes respawn. Popularity *These statistics only include the LAN stages of these events. What changed that made Drow one of the most contested heroes of TI6? Drow’s acute rise in popularity was more in response to The Manila Major than the buffs she received in 6.88. Manila was the peak of the Iron Talon Offlane period where teams just sacked their offlane and moved their offlaner to the jungle. This allows supports to start ganking and will sometimes create battlefield mid. Battlefield mid happens when supports from both teams rotate to gank / counter gank and mid becomes a pseudo-3v3 lane. Suddenly there is space for Drow Ranger to swiftly get level 6 and demolish the enemy Tier 1. Drow’s team can then apply pressure to the other two lanes, punishing the enemy team’s greedy lineup. Precision Aura pushes this lane dominant strategy further by making her ranged allies magnitudes more powerful. It lets supports dominate harass wars and for the mid player to get an overwhelming number of last hits and denies. At TI6 Drow allowed her team to punish opponents’ greedy lineups while also giving her team a very reliable way to end the game.



A quick aside, Drow’s performance at TI6 highlighted one sad fact in particular. Visage, Drow’s long-time combo partner, was in such dire straits that it was left unpicked despite Drow’s incredible popularity. Visage benefits from having Drow as an ally more than any other hero, with its familiars dealing more damage than many heroes when Precision Aura is active. Hopefully in the future we’ll see changes to help bring Visage back to being playable.



Since TI6 Drow Ranger has seen a rise in pubs, seeing respectable pick and win rates. Her competitive results have begun to translate to matchmaking, but what helps make her so powerful in pubs? Drow’s strengths are straightforward, making it easier for her team to draft heroes that work well with her. This leads to more synergistic compositions with much stronger lanes (keep in mind that lanes are more important in matchmaking than professional games because of the lower level of teamwork and coordination during the mid and late game). The easy strategizing Drow provides extends from the picking phase into the game itself making it easier to coordinate her team because the game plan becomes more straightforward. Rather than worrying about who should be farming or ganking or smoking during the mid game, a Drow team can group up as 5 heroes and push lanes until they’ve taken all outer towers. Drow Ranger’s Friends and Foes So I’ve talked about how easy it is to pick heroes that synergize with Drow, but what about specifics? Shadow Demon and Oracle are some of the strongest supports to pair with Drow Ranger. Both of these supports have strong defensive skills for saving Drow, while Shadow Demon has the single best “combo” with Drow thanks to his Disruption illusions. The ability to siege high ground with zero risk is considered broken by some (hence why we saw the Centaur Warrunner illusion nerf in 6.88f). While Drow provides for her teammates through her aura, she also demands much of them in other regards. Because she is frail to incoming damage, Drow teams often need some form of frontliner among her other cores. This hero will usually position themselves in the middle of the fight, forcing the other team to go through them to get to the Drow. Heroes like Ursa, Juggernaut, Sven, or Underlord fit this role well.



For counter picking, there are a few routes you can go: blinking on her as soon as possible to negate her ultimate, giving her miss chance, or swarming her with overwhelming numbers. When it comes to cancelling Marksmanship and killing Drow instantly, Phantom Assassin transcends all other heroes. All of Mortred’s abilities are extremely effective against Drow Ranger, making Phantom Assassin the ultimate Drow counter. Heroes like Tinker, Arc Warden, and Brewmaster counter Drow through the high evasion or miss chance they provide while Phantom Lancer, Broodmother, and Chaos Knight all create so many units that Drow cannot deal with them until she has some combination of Aghs and / or Maelstrom. These heroes will make playing against a Drow lineup much easier, but given that Dota is more complex than rock-paper-scissors, you’ll need more than just the right picks to beat her. Defeating the Drow Menace How exactly do we counter the Drow in game? The most common strategy for beating a Drow Strat is to continually apply pressure to Drow in lane or to start ganking her as soon as she hits level 6. This can effectively stop her team from snowballing with gold from tower pushes. Catching the Drow while she is separated from the rest of her team is paramount as it can make or break this anti-Drow plan. This is the most common tactic for beating a Drow Strat. Many teams attempt to do this so habitually that in a game at TI6, EG was able to next-level Ehome and pick apart their anti-Drow plan.





The game started with a Drow-Ogre-Shadow Demon trilane to secure Drow’s lane vs the Timbersaw. Once they weren’t needed top (or were needed more elsewhere), the two supports rotated out and let Drow get her solo experience. Later, as soon as Drow hit 6, she left vision and teleported to her offlane Tier 2 tower with Ogre to smoke gank the Axe using Chronosphere. After the kill, she went straight to her Ancients and began farming them while Shadow Demon got solo experience in the safelane. Once she had cleared three stacks of ancients, Drow teleported to her safelane Tier 2 to again meet Ogre for a smoke gank, this time meeting up with Shadow Demon to kill the Timbersaw. This game showcased EG’s unique take on the Drow Strat, using her as a jungle / ancient farmer who stays off the map until she can rotate for kills with her very high damage output. The plan worked so effectively because keeping Drow out of enemy vision made it much harder for EHOME to gank her while also helping Shadow Demon get his level 6 much earlier than he would have otherwise. As Blitz points out, this also forces the enemy team to make much lower value rotations because if they move to kill the enemy safelane, all they will get is a position 5 Shadow Demon while the rest of EG’s heroes farm everywhere else. EG made this game a perfect example of how to run the Drow Strat while also dealing with an enemy trying to punish your Drow.



Drow Ranger strategies will continue to be strong until something changes, meaning we will see plenty of Drow & Co. at the Boston Major. Drow will continue to be a major force in pubs as well as pros but at the end of the day she’s still just a hero with extremely focused strengths and broad weaknesses. Drow Ranger is the archetypal ranged pusher in Dota and one of the most popular heroes of all time. Conceptually, she is one of the simplest heroes with only one active spell. This makes her a favorite among newer players as she doesn’t have too many spells to miss and she gets a satisfyingly huge damage boost at level 6.The Drow Strat is a game plan that involves pushing heavily in the early and mid-game, getting as much benefit out of Drow Ranger’s aura as possible. While simple conceptually, what does it take to execute this strategy? Let’s consider what Drow excels at. Her strengths are so specialized that her team’s style of play revolves entirely around her. Similar to how you can pick Spectre and play around having arguably the strongest late game carry, picking Drow makes your game plan revolve around three primary concepts: pushing, item timings, and keeping Drow alive.What changed that made Drow one of the most contested heroes of TI6? Drow’s acute rise in popularity was more in response to The Manila Major than the buffs she received in 6.88. Manila was the peak of the Iron Talon Offlane period where teams just sacked their offlane and moved their offlaner to the jungle. This allows supports to start ganking and will sometimes create battlefield mid. Battlefield mid happens when supports from both teams rotate to gank / counter gank and mid becomes a pseudo-3v3 lane. Suddenly there is space for Drow Ranger to swiftly get level 6 and demolish the enemy Tier 1. Drow’s team can then apply pressure to the other two lanes, punishing the enemy team’s greedy lineup. Precision Aura pushes this lane dominant strategy further by making her ranged allies magnitudes more powerful. It lets supports dominate harass wars and for the mid player to get an overwhelming number of last hits and denies. At TI6 Drow allowed her team to punish opponents’ greedy lineups while also giving her team a very reliable way to end the game.A quick aside, Drow’s performance at TI6 highlighted one sad fact in particular. Visage, Drow’s long-time combo partner, was in such dire straits that it was left unpicked despite Drow’s incredible popularity. Visage benefits from having Drow as an ally more than any other hero, with its familiars dealing more damage than many heroes when Precision Aura is active. Hopefully in the future we’ll see changes to help bring Visage back to being playable.Since TI6 Drow Ranger has seen a rise in pubs, seeing respectable pick and win rates. Her competitive results have begun to translate to matchmaking, but what helps make her so powerful in pubs? Drow’s strengths are straightforward, making it easier for her team to draft heroes that work well with her. This leads to more synergistic compositions with much stronger lanes (keep in mind that lanes are more important in matchmaking than professional games because of the lower level of teamwork and coordination during the mid and late game). The easy strategizing Drow provides extends from the picking phase into the game itself making it easier to coordinate her team because the game plan becomes more straightforward. Rather than worrying about who should be farming or ganking or smoking during the mid game, a Drow team can group up as 5 heroes and push lanes until they’ve taken all outer towers. So I’ve talked about how easy it is to pick heroes that synergize with Drow, but what about specifics? Shadow Demon and Oracle are some of the strongest supports to pair with Drow Ranger. Both of these supports have strong defensive skills for saving Drow, while Shadow Demon has the single best “combo” with Drow thanks to his Disruption illusions. The ability to siege high ground with zero risk is considered broken by some (hence why we saw the Centaur Warrunner illusion nerf in 6.88f). While Drow provides for her teammates through her aura, she also demands much of them in other regards. Because she is frail to incoming damage, Drow teams often need some form of frontliner among her other cores. This hero will usually position themselves in the middle of the fight, forcing the other team to go through them to get to the Drow. Heroes like Ursa, Juggernaut, Sven, or Underlord fit this role well.For counter picking, there are a few routes you can go: blinking on her as soon as possible to negate her ultimate, giving her miss chance, or swarming her with overwhelming numbers. When it comes to cancelling Marksmanship and killing Drow instantly, Phantom Assassin transcends all other heroes. All of Mortred’s abilities are extremely effective against Drow Ranger, making Phantom Assassin the ultimate Drow counter. Heroes like Tinker, Arc Warden, and Brewmaster counter Drow through the high evasion or miss chance they provide while Phantom Lancer, Broodmother, and Chaos Knight all create so many units that Drow cannot deal with them until she has some combination of Aghs and / or Maelstrom. These heroes will make playing against a Drow lineup much easier, but given that Dota is more complex than rock-paper-scissors, you’ll need more than just the right picks to beat her. How exactly do we counter the Drow in game? The most common strategy for beating a Drow Strat is to continually apply pressure to Drow in lane or to start ganking her as soon as she hits level 6. This can effectively stop her team from snowballing with gold from tower pushes. Catching the Drow while she is separated from the rest of her team is paramount as it can make or break this anti-Drow plan. This is the most common tactic for beating a Drow Strat. Many teams attempt to do this so habitually that in a game at TI6, EG was able to next-level Ehome and pick apart their anti-Drow plan.The game started with a Drow-Ogre-Shadow Demon trilane to secure Drow’s lane vs the Timbersaw. Once they weren’t needed top (or were needed more elsewhere), the two supports rotated out and let Drow get her solo experience. Later, as soon as Drow hit 6, she left vision and teleported to her offlane Tier 2 tower with Ogre to smoke gank the Axe using Chronosphere. After the kill, she went straight to her Ancients and began farming them while Shadow Demon got solo experience in the safelane. Once she had cleared three stacks of ancients, Drow teleported to her safelane Tier 2 to again meet Ogre for a smoke gank, this time meeting up with Shadow Demon to kill the Timbersaw. This game showcased EG’s unique take on the Drow Strat, using her as a jungle / ancient farmer who stays off the map until she can rotate for kills with her very high damage output. The plan worked so effectively because keeping Drow out of enemy vision made it much harder for EHOME to gank her while also helping Shadow Demon get his level 6 much earlier than he would have otherwise. As Blitz points out, this also forces the enemy team to make much lower value rotations because if they move to kill the enemy safelane, all they will get is a position 5 Shadow Demon while the rest of EG’s heroes farm everywhere else. EG made this game a perfect example of how to run the Drow Strat while also dealing with an enemy trying to punish your Drow.Drow Ranger strategies will continue to be strong until something changes, meaning we will see plenty of Drow & Co. at the Boston Major. Drow will continue to be a major force in pubs as well as pros but at the end of the day she’s still just a hero with extremely focused strengths and broad weaknesses. Writer jdc214

Editors Julmust, Zerenity Writer Steam: IceNine - Check out my twitch https://www.twitch.tv/iceninedota/