Whole team zerg one lane?

[Logwyn]

I keep getting in matches with calls for the whole team to zerg just one lane? It works ok and we faceroll the other team sometimes...

Why do I keep getting into these matches?

[MyndZero]

Just you. Never had one before.

[Nikkaszal]

Works fine against unco-ordinated pubs.

Against a team with the smallest scrap of common sense, they'll send their three best wave-clearers to sit at the gate and defend while freely soaking the other lanes, rotating as necessary as the deathball leaves lanes, staying as safe as possible. You won't be able to get kills, and in very short order you will be WELL behind on exp, and then you're fucked.

[Deleted]

Is this a regional thing? Played 20 games in the last 3-4 days and not seen this, never seen it before either. Wouldn't they just end up getting stuck sieging and then fall behind on exp as long as a couple of people can defend a tower, which they should be able to do early game.

[Feali]

Actually had this happen in ranked. It's really easy in Haunted Mines:

[Fencers]

There is the potential to have too great an XP gap among the teams if one is piled into a single lane and siege poorly. However, a single lane pile on can be very effective in the early game of certain maps for cutting off the opposing team's routes and/or in providing pressure on the map.

To a great degree the game is about pushing hard toward the enemy core/nexus. More so than other MOBAs as the reward structure is global to the endpoint goal.

For example, we used a 4 v 1 lane once to push down the lower gate in the Cursed Mines map. It fell within 2 waves rather easily. After ward our team rotated to more sensible and evenly match lanes. However, the remainder of the match the opposing team was scrambling to staunch the bleeding on two fronts; lower and (eventually) upper gate. This gave our team a fair bit of safety in accessing the mines in the lower lane for quick skulls before the enemy team could rotate down to the mines themselves with any appreciable force rather than one at a time trickle.

Obviously with the golems in lane this early breach also forced them enemy team to defend against our golem more so than push their our golem. Their's was easily dispatch in with but a Valla and Stitches, while our Falstaff split pushed and the rest drove the golem into the core mercilessly.

The match was very rapidly ended in part due to a strong early push that changed the dynamic of the opposing team's offensive options.

I think however that poor sieges are the real problem and what people are in truth trying to avoid in single lane pile ups. Though I wouldn't rule out such strategy in of itself as inherently problematic depending on the battlefield- which is a huge influence in HOTS; again, more so than more static maps such as DOTA2.

[apepi]

I have done it with 5 specialist. It is hilarious fun. Push baby push.

[Nikkaszal]

Actually had this happen in ranked. It's really easy in Haunted Mines:

With Zag, Zeebo and Azmo on one team I'm not surprised this was easily done on Mines =p

Did you ignore Mines entirely and just hard-push the lane with 5 all day?

[Feali]

With Zag, Zeebo and Azmo on one team I'm not surprised this was easily done on Mines =p

Did you ignore Mines entirely and just hard-push the lane with 5 all day?

We killed first keep before mines, went in, got out with 84 skulls and just finished around some time before the second mines.

[Mormolyce]

A few friends and I (all casual players) tried out a 4 laner + LiLi strat a while back (not perfect comp, we were just using the heroes we had - zag, siege tank, naz, azmo, I think one time we even took Valla). But we didn't push one lane, too vulnerable. Instead we focused 2-3 lanes at the start and when an objective came up we ignored it and piledrived through two lanes while they were away. It was rough defending against 100/0 terrors etc but we did so much lane damage during that time that we were still well ahead and we were generally 5+ levels up by the end from all that XP. Ended up winning 7-0 that night.

Tried it again a few times the other night and it didn't work, but personally I think not everyone was on board with the strat, in the time I played it the strat was only truly countered once - in the mines map. They left a siege tank and lili guarding the two lanes when they went mines (right from the first mines) who effectively countered our push.

It's a temperamental strat but if people aren't expecting it it's extremely strong and you need to be well coordinated to properly counter it. Providing you play it right - if you don't push effectively or mess up lanes it'll never work.

[Fencers]

There was a Reddit post today in the HOTS sub where someone posted the fastest Haunted Mines game- 6:01 win. They dogpiled a lane, dropped the first fort, got one golem, hard pushed and were destroying the core before the mines opened a second time.

[apepi]

There was a Reddit post today in the HOTS sub where someone posted the fastest Haunted Mines game- 6:01 win. They dogpiled a lane, dropped the first fort, got one golem, hard pushed and were destroying the core before the mines opened a second time.

Well my longest time has been 38 minutes and shortest has been 10 minutes in hero league. My qm has been 8 minutes flat.

[Nikkaszal]

Damn, I thought my 8:12 win was hot shit =/

[Fencers]

Here ya' go.

[Nerraw]

Well my longest time has been 38 minutes and shortest has been 10 minutes in hero league. My qm has been 8 minutes flat.

My longest game was 46 minutes back in the alpha, I think it was on Dragon Shire. I ended up healing more than 160k on Brightwing.

[Aliessil]

I see it occasionally, usually on maps where you might get away with it - Mines, Cursed Hollow, Blackhearts Bay. It's much less effective on maps like Sky Temple and Dragon Shire, where you have to take multiple objectives at once.

[Mormolyce]

There was a Reddit post today in the HOTS sub where someone posted the fastest Haunted Mines game- 6:01 win. They dogpiled a lane, dropped the first fort, got one golem, hard pushed and were destroying the core before the mines opened a second time.

Similar to the matches we had - all 10-15m games. Haunted Mines was awesome due to only having two lanes.

- - - Updated - - -

I see it occasionally, usually on maps where you might get away with it - Mines, Cursed Hollow, Blackhearts Bay. It's much less effective on maps like Sky Temple and Dragon Shire, where you have to take multiple objectives at once.

We pulled it off in Sky Temple and I think DS as well, went like clockwork.

Easier to counter it in those maps though IMO.

[Kaleredar]

As long as people realize what's happen and just sit in lanes and retreat to safety accordingly, it's easy to counter it. Especially when you take camps and whatnot while the other team is trying to zerg.

[Mormolyce]

Here ya' go.

Haha, man that red team ate every dick the blue team threw out and sent no DPS to stop a massive golem.

Poor guys, must've been randoms with no comm.

[Lesane]

Here ya' go.

Not that impressive once you realize it was a 5v4 the entire game since their ETC was AFK, and not even AFK to the point where a bot took him over. He was literally AFK.