Killing the courier in the early part of the game can have a massive impact as it gives 875 gold (175 per hero) and delays items such as bottle in lanes. This information is also incredibly useful to know as you you can help avoid your own courier dying if you can predict where the enemy is when trying to kill your courier.

You will want your opponent to not find out about your motives to kill the courier. Knowing where you opponent can get vision and truesight from their towers can prevent them from knowing where you are on the map. Here are some commnspots where players make mistakes:

If you pick an invisible hero or Monkey, buy orb of venom and go for the enemy offlane rune. That is the rune the mid hero will go for, if you don’t get the rune make sure you harass them if they are alone. Doing this will force them to use some of their regen and probably miss their creep block.

Typically players from 3.5k upwards will pool 2 tangos to the mid hero. Some player will queue up a salve and have it sent out to them as early as possible. They will always send out more regen if they are facing a high harass laner like Queen of Pain or Tinker since the shrines are not active until 5 mins. If the enemy mid gets the rune, the salve will come between the mid tier 1 and 2 from 20-30secs, otherwise if you got the rune the courier will come from 40-50secs.

Don’t waste too much time when trying to kill the courier. The worst thing you can possibly do is still be level 1 at 3 mins and you see the courier coming with a bottle and it is already flying.

Important timings:

3:00 courier can be upgraded

4:00 night time

2 mins Courier respawn duration

Against high skill players it’s not worth while trying to kill the courier once it becomes night time as players have good enough awareness they will micro the courier and pick up their items under their tier 2 and your time will be wasted. A good rotation to snipe the courier can go like this:

1:45 – Go for enemy bounty rune

2:00 – Take bounty rune

2:15 – Stand between enemy tier 1 and 2

3:00 – If the courier hasn’t showed, give up

If you use a ward you can see the courier earlier. This is much more useful when killing the dire courier as the high ground between the tier 1 and 2 doesn’t give much vision. If killing the dire courier without a ward, it can often be easier to wait for it to make its trip back to base. To make sure you don’t get spotted by the enemy towers, consider using a smoke to get to a deep ward. However heroes such as Treant Protector and Riki can place wards without breaking invisibility and Monkey King can place wards while standing in a tree.

If you don’t know what this is here is a video. Most heroes require 2 attacks to kill the courier before it is upgraded on top of that you will have low move speed. Mastering orb walking can make killing couriers significantly easier.

If you happen to get a haste rune as a support or roamer at 2,4 or 6 mins. Rather than using it straight away, wait for the courier to show it self delivering items to the mid hero. Then when it comes into vision in lane, pick up the haste rune and catch it in it’s path. Don’t spend longer than 30-40secs standing on the haste rune, if the courier doesn’t show then use the haste for a gank.

When the enemy is pushing a tower there is a good chance that they will send an item out to themselves. Whether it be some wards or the items needed to complete a stronger item, they can be very impactful for the next fight. If the enemy is pushing mid lane all you need to do is stand far behind them in the lane when whey are pushing. I found that players from 4k+ are very likely to send the courier out before pushing down a tier 2 or 3, with something like a bkb or sentries.

Lower skill players may do something similar to but they are not as predictable. If they are pushing top or bot lane place a ward down to get vision of the couriers path. As soon as you kill the courier teleport away, otherwise the enemy will hunt you down. This type of courier kill is very useful when your team is behind and stuck in base.

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