Lately I have been experimenting with some push (kill towers, cap portal flags) builds and strategies which I will share for your thoughts. Every game (~3-4 per build) I am drawing from here was played in pantheon, skirmish, or custom game, with 2v2 or 3v3 human player lineups. My team won 90% of these games before anyone reached level 15 (usually 1 DG on the team gets levelled above everyone else; most DGs, our team and theirs are around 10 when the game ends).
OVERALL STRATEGY:
Goal:
The goal of this strategy is to win relatively quickly through pushing down towers early and developing creeps and map control. You will gain a flag/war score advantage at the cost of individual DG power. With this strategy you seek to force the enemy into certain certain defensive measures, eliminating their ability to execute any pre-arranged strategy and hopefully catching them off guard.
This is the opposite of a strategy that seeks to develop a DG-to-DG advantage that allows encounter based victories later in the game (e.g. the typical more balanced strategy, turtle, or get artifacts/pwnface in one push strat).
Team Structure:
1) Pusher - One player is the designated pusher who will camp/attack a side lane almost the entire game. This player is the backbone of the strategy. The Pusher must choose a demi-god with staying power and early tower killing abilities. This players possible builds and strategy will be described in detail below.
2) Roamer - In a 2v2, the other player is the roamer, in 3v3, 1 or both of the others can play this role. The roamer is typically an assassin or DG killer general. The roamer's primary role is to harrass the enemy DGs and to keep them off the pusher as much as possible. The roamer should also be capping the outlying and important flags. A good roamer can hold his/her own in a duel if not triumpth consistently.
3) Hybrid/Support - This is an optional replacement to a second roamer in 3v3 and is necessary on larger teams. Hybrid/Support roles are typically more difficult to fill and require more skill (typically...). These DG's should focus in buff's and debuff's and healing/shielding. Typical Hybrid/Supporters are Oak (shield/penitence builds), Sedna, QoT. Supporters should never miss a team battle. They aid the roamer with kills and keep the pusher from dying. If no one is fighting, they should be pushing a different lane than the pusher.
Team Play:
Pusher Play - The pusher calls a side lane (on crucible, the pusher stays mid). That is his/her lane. He/she will not leave that lane and will constantly pressure enemy towers in that lane. Teammates should never worry about the pusher's flag as that should stay capped unless he/she gets teammed up on. The pusher should not be returning to base often and typically will not need a lot of items to be effective. The pusher should never switch lanes until he is at the citadel. It is their teammates job to draw fire.
Pusher Milestones - A good pusher will knock down the first tower before they reach level 4, assuming the enemy team isnt focusing on them; details on how to do this are below. Early game, the pusher needs to establish dominance over his or her lane, should knock the first couple towers down by level 5/6 and should be pressuring the enemy's base flags by level 7. The goal is to win around pusher level 10 by knocking down the citadel.
Citadel upgrades - In this strategy, priests should be purchased as soon as possible (i.e. war rank 3) because they will be used early. Creep upgrades are also usefull (dmg/hp). Skip everything else. No tower upgrades, no experience upgrade, no money. Spend your cash on items/pots/tp scrolls to gain an early advantage, you are not playing a long game here.
Roamers/Supporters
Roamers with a combination of area control abilities and direct damage are the most useful. Roamers should start in a different lane than the pusher, cap the outlying flags, then start looking for 2v1 situations to get some kills. Very early, the roamer should facilitate the pusher's first tower kills by coming to the pusher's lane to throw back or kill any enemy DGs there. It's typical for the roamer to get 80% of your team's kills and not a single building. The roamer is in charge of the important flags not in the Pusher's lane. He/she should prioritize EXP (more to deny it to the other team), Regen, Portal, and Reinforcement Bonus flags.
Supporters should, as descibed above, aid the roamer when needed for kills, defend the Pusher if the enemy team gangs up on him, and defend against enemy pushes in other lanes. If there is no one fighting seriously, the supporter needs to be on the opposite side from the pusher, working that lane.
Cataract Example - When playing cataract, the pusher chooses left or right. The others cap the middle experience flag at lvl 1 and defend it against the initial attempts of the other team to get it. Then, once mid is cleared, the supporter goes to the lane opposite the pusher and the roamer either goes with him if there are 2 heros there or can go aid the pusher against his opponent. If at anytime the pusher gets ganged, the supporter should be TPing in and the roamer should be walking over. The roamer is in charge of watching that middle flag the entire game. Anytime an enemy goes for it, he needs to beat them off. If two enemies are mid, its the roamer's responsibility to call for help from the supporter. After the pusher knocks down the first flag he should turn mid for the second. After the second flag mid, he should make a bid for the enemy portal on his side. He should cap that while his teammates keep the enemies occupied, then lock it, and try to clear the surrounding towers. If the roamer/supporter pushed down the opposite side's towers and all your team creeps have regrouped in the middle, the pusher should switch mid, clear towers under cover of teammates, then attack the enemy citadel while the roamer keeps the enemies at bay. This can all be done before you reach level ten with good players and the right DGs. If only I could post replays...
Notes
- Use potions. None of these characters should buy armor intially, buy potions/TPs to give you the staying power and thus the level advantage during the first couple of levels.
- Buy early, buy often, buy consumables. Most pusher builds and roamers use skill based damage (even if it is an attack bonus) and thus dont need gloves. Armor is very helpful against towers, which you will be fighting often, so getting the 1500g - 500HP, 750AR chestpiece, some potions, and some TPs is usually all you need in most of these games. Heart of Life (HoL) is a fantastic choice for all these roles in this play style.
- Buy Idols. The pusher should buy/summon/sell monks at the start before buying potions and should later purchase monks/priests/or bishops and seige units for keeps. A support character or General Roamer should buy monks/priests/or bishops at a minimum when they have the extra money/opportunity.
SUMMARY:
You win with this strategy by using constant pressure on the enemy. If the enemy neglects the pusher, he will be in their base very very quickly. If they focus on him, they will be fighting 3v2s or 3v3s (because the roamer/pusher will help) all game and will accomplish nothing. Every time they back, it is likely the pusher will do significant damage to one of their towers. Everytime they go to another lane for a flag, the pusher does significant damage to their towers. If they spread out, the roamer creates 2v1 situations to punish them. We are focusing on creeps, towers, and flags, otherwise known as Map Control.
COUNTERS:
Coordinated teams should use a roamer pair and a support character to defeat this push strategy. The roamer pair needs to be searching for 2v1s all game which can achieve quick kills and the support should be used for defense, standing on top of the towers in the pusher's lane. This team would occaisionally group up for a 3 player push down any lane and try to force the other team to group up for defense, buying you time and disrupting the push.
I have not seen a turtle strat (Tower buffs at citadel and late game heros) defeat the push strat yet but it may with good players.
Comments? Questions? Anyone else found success with something like this?
I will post the best pusher builds I have developed in the first reply.
PUSHER DG BUILDS:
I will only post those I have been successful with. I am sure there are others and you can customize these to your style.
Oak:
Skills:
Skill Notes:
Items:
Item Notes:
GAMEPLAY notes:
Alternative Oak Build:
http://forums.demigodthegame.com/351056
This guide, which offers excellent minion damage information, advocates a more late game, sustained dps build using minions. The concepts and information could certainly be applied to a push strategy with a little tweaking to the build. Also this guide will tell you what those spirits I recommended are actually doing for you.
Queen of Thorns:
This build, focusing in compost, rarely sees use but I assure you it works like a charm for this strategy, offering more hit and run capabilities, but less combat ability than the Oak build.
Gameplay Notes:
Rook and Regulus:
I will post how to do it with rook and regulus when I have the time, its less effective than the other two, which I consider "power pushers" (they are generals..) but its doable.
Others:
Sedna can be a pusher but its slow and does not fit our overall strategy. Erebus lacks the staying power/dps against towers.
TB is great for dealing damage against towers but is better suited as a roamer. I dont think I have to discuss UB.
When I play Rook I tend to take up the pusher role. None of the groups I've been in have been organized, but i've found that pushing heavy and hard up one lane ASAP tends to confuse/disorient the enemy, and everything just seems to fall into place with the rest of the team naturally doing the roaming/support. It doesn't always work, but it has definitely worked in more games than one. I'd love to give a more organized version of the strategy a try.
I've only played a few 2v2 games where both sides were organized teams on vent with skilled players.That said, I've found the most effective strategy is to concentrate on flag control for war score, and use creeps to push when catapultasauri are available around level 12.Catapultsauri can take down towers in seconds as long as you can keep the heros off of them, which isn't hard if you can kill them 1v1 without standing in a mountain of your own creeps. Also in the end game you can often run through towers to get to their portals, and lock them down in your favor.So really theres no point in pushing early game, and it seems whoever is wasting all this time on towers beforehand might not be in the best shape to take down a player who instead was focusing on levels.All that said, 3 good players on vent working together will slaughter most random teams you find skirmish and custom, no matter if one of them happens to be killing towers early.(I would advocate destroying the foremost towers early if you have the opprotunity simply to make the enemies safe cover further away from the flags your trying to hold)
This is close to how my team is playing.
Excellent guide, thumbs up.
Now, just one thing - I really am not sure against what kind of opposition you play, but ending a game on Cataract around level 10 just isn't possible in games against good players. It doesn't mean this guide is not useful - it's an amazingly good guide for general plal as well - but you shouldn't emphasize so much on early ending, as it really is not an option against good and/or organized opponents.
What are you on about?
I have won every single game where we managed to push towers early on. It's an amazing advantage, one of the most important you can actually get until artefacts.
Are you aware that early tower pushing usually ends the game long before catapults?
Are you aware that even one tower makes a huge difference in your ability to end an enemy Demigod?
Are you aware that one tower goes down in less than half a minute if there are no enemy Demigods around?
Are you aware that, for example on Cataract, without the lonely tower on either side, your creeps - if backed up by priests - will keep pushing the middle themselves most of the time, thus allowing you to quickly finish the first tower + archer tower in the middle? (Not to mention if your creeps are upgraded.) (And that tower can be finished by a lone Demigod easily, even at low levels; three creep waves as support and it's gone.)
Regarding your comment that "whoever is wasting all this time on towers beforehand might not be in the best shape to take down a player who instead was focusing on levels" is just silly - if you are left in your lane to work on the tower, you are getting all the creeps from one wave for yourself. Being a pusher in my team, I am usually the one who is the highest level.
Now go figure.
@retroromanicAre you aware that early tower pushing usually ends the game long before catapults?
No, I have never seen that happen. Usually a few of my towers die in the first 15 minutes and then all of theirs go down at once when creeps get upgraded, often time followed directly by the citadel.
Are you aware that even one tower makes a huge difference in your ability to end an enemy Demigod?Huge is a bit of an exaggeration, but yes it does make a difference in the early levels. I said if you can get one down near where you are fighting it might be worth it. I think this guide is advocating more than downing a single tower early game though.Are you aware that one tower goes down in less than half a minute if there are no enemy Demigods around? Yes, but the main problem with this is that most demigods will spend a good amount of health/mana doing it, and be pretty far extended. A good player will make sure to be around to take advantage of that. The second problem is the lost time from doing this repeatedly vs a demigod who is farming creeps instead.Are you aware that, for example on Cataract, without the lonely tower on either side, your creeps - if backed up by priests - will keep pushing the middle themselves most of the time, thus allowing you to quickly finish the first tower + archer tower in the middle? (Not to mention if your creeps are upgraded.) (And that tower can be finished by a lone Demigod easily, even at low levels; three creep waves as support and it's gone.)If the queen of thorns on my team is somehow distracted from farming all the free xp that priests give her, there is a chance that after a few minutes of absolutely ignoring it, a couple towers will die. These towers are very expendable, considering they hold back catapults+giants for a full 20 seconds. if you are left in your lane to work on the tower, you are getting all the creeps from one wave for yourself.
I don't leave people in lanes to farm creeps. I am saying that if you devote resources (time, health, mana, skillpoints) to downing towers, and I devote all my resources to killing you, I will win the fight. Finally, I win every single game where I push towers early on. This is normally because my opponents are usually dead already and I have nothing to beat on. Against skilled players, I'm content if I can keep them hiding behind towers. Don't confuse signs that your team is doing well with what is actually causing you to win.
Good guide.
Added to my list:
http://forums.demigodthegame.com/349958
This can either Win you the Game (mostly against lesser competition or Lose you the game in a hurry (vs Experienced players.
This was a strategy that was employed by a couple teams (priests and early angels) vs me and Dalzk faced in the ESL tourney. The people who employed it couldn't beleive how badly it backfired (they said they always won with it). We get xp upgrade in citadel. Me Regulus laying mines him erebus mist and batswarm next thing you know we are 5 levels higher then you and with increase gold from creeps and better items can kill you easily. Which happened and the game they thought they had an advantage of early priests turned into being pwn3d.
This can work and be an effective strategy (feel out your opponents first before employing it. It has also won me some games but I usually wait and go straight to cats so it is a more surprise tactic)
But good players can counter it and you will get out-leveled and destroyed.
@ Miyamiya
All right, you have a point, but it seems we play on different planets.
A good player will make sure to be around to take advantage of that. The second problem is the lost time from doing this repeatedly vs a demigod who is farming creeps instead.
I don't see how anyone can farm creeps if - using the terminology of OP - pusher is pushing / holding one lane, and roamer(s) and/or support are doing their job as well; it's not like one of the lanes is completely abandoned, allowing enemy to farm.
These towers are very expendable, considering they hold back catapults+giants for a full 20 seconds.
You keep relying on Catapults and Giants, and that is why I said we play on different planets. I win games without them in 3 out of 5 matches. It's not because I have some uber pwning skillz, but because I play with my team, and I count my low level creeps as part of the team as well.
See, I have these grunts. (I'll take Cataract as example, as it's the map I play on most of the time.) I can ignore them, as I have a feeling you do (forgive me if I am wrong), and they will do what? They'll die at the bottom of the lonely tower in their respective lane. On Cataract, they can't do shit against that tower. Do you know why? Because, most of the time, they'll die at the hands of a Demigod who'll be either at the flag (taking/holding it) or at the tower, where he has the protection. When that tower is gone, you have a free lane; you are free to push middle towers, and Demigod that was assigned to the flag where tower is gone, is free to move down that lane and assist the middle flag team mate. Now you don't have three persons keeping three flags, but you have two DGs much closer to each other. Chances are that enemy will try to push for that flag rarely - that is what my experience tells me.
They'll rarely go for that parti cular flag because they need to defend the middle becase you are closer to it; from the newly freed lane, and from your Demigod in the middle. You also have a closer teleport node to that flag than they do. Which is a huge difference on Cataract (and I'm not exaggerating). If one of them is trying to take the flag going there from the side base exit, two of you can attack him from two different routes, if two of you decide to go. And it's hardly you'll see two of them trying to take over that flag - because guess what - they are under attack at the middle.
Cataract is a great map in respect to that, because, if you keep on piling the pressure in the middle, they just can't let you roam around there. All of them will have to come together to help - and battles 3vs3, with supporting characters, can last a while. For that time, you control at least two neural flags. Which means - higher war rank.
I'm not trying to say your strategy is wrong and mine is right.
I just feel much better at ending the games as soon as possible.
And if you try what I've told you, to implement it with your team, you'll see how many games you can end before catapults.
One last thing, regarding middle pushing (which requires destroying their lone towers in two lanes as soon as possible, as we have seen) - sometimes we can push when we are lower levels, and it's so intense fighting and so important to keep them locked there, that I level up couple of times, earn good amounts of gold (with kills, or not), so I am ready to go for either artefacts or catapults. And I still didn't have time to go to base once.
But my point is - game is already over.
No need for that.
Good luck - my whole Demigod experience changed when I learned how quickly games can be ended. (15 minutes is my record on Leviathan, 4 vs 4.)
I think it's cool that you are establishing team builds here. I don't know if I would use such a static build against a good team but then I haven't tried it... On Cataract it works if you keep the lane strategy loose - if you really need to have something ready beforehand then assign two lane pushers and a mid sweeper who can swing to either side. All three players are ready with ports to suppress a strong push but by keeping it loose you can swing the dominant pushlane to wherever the enemy is weaker and keep flag control even if the push fails. I guess if you wanted to nail it down a bit more you could say the offpush (unpressured lane DG) only comes in when the sweeper and onpush (pressured lane DG) are in danger of losing the onpush neutral flag, but it's never been that structured.. You end up with more extension in this model because you have two pushlanes instead of one but the flexibility makes up for it, imo...Actually if you look at most good PUG teams this is pretty much the way they play - no formulation necessary - it's intuitive As far as concentrating on map control/push vs. DG kills or grunt farming - no point in separating them, really. An onpush controls his lane flag and is far enough ahead of it that his allies can port in for a pull gank (onpush retreats when he sees opponent coming, tries to kite opponent to or past flag - allies port in behind or on top of opponents for the gank) pretty easily, and he's pulling the grunts too. As long as you have map control you have the movement advantage and support advantage that entails, on top of all the other advantages - you should be getting the kills. If you aren't then your opponents have better micro/teamwork or you are over-extending and you should be pretty skittish about pushing hard in general. And you should never actually be hitting on a tower if your opponents are anywhere nearby anyway. OT - Miyamiya - do you play mostly on GR or Hamachi? I'm not seeing your stats? I look forward to reading more about it, thanks for the post. Kestrel
A note to people like Miyamiya who seem to have missed the point:
This is one strategy, one possible method, one possible build, one possible path to victory.
I am open to criticism and tweaking, but you essentially read the word "push" then "early" then tried to tell me I was doing it wrong, cats push better than everything else. I may be doing it wrong, but I can tell you that this is one way to be successful at the level of games I play (mostly pantheon/skirmish/some organized team battles, usually against other organized teams). If you think waiting to knock down towers once you get cats is more effective, I would be happy to read your guide and try it a few times. It is however, a completely different strategy.
In other words, I want the help you have to offer, but please dont tell me my entire method is flawed because you dont like individual parts until you have tried the whole package.
@ Horseradish talking about early priests:
I agree with you, early priests will get you dominated if not used properly. Like choosing to buy the experience upgrade, or instead spending that money on an item, if you are not using it, it is wasted (e.g. minion bonus item on an assassin). As such, priests are not a cure-all for pushing, but they do nicely supplement this build. When you get them so early, and at least one player, "the pusher" in my strat, is on the front lines all game, they pay dividends that a vlemish faceguard or that experience upgrade just wont. They heal you and help push, all that character needs. If they push and you arent next to them wacking a tower or enemy, you wasted your money.
In summary: I am definitely not advocating early priests as a universal strat, but I have found success with it here.
Also, Regulus mines at level 4 still arent stopping oak with 6 spirits, 2 monks, and a wave of creeps behind him. Good players will counter your mines by microing their minions on top of them. This will force you to use them mid battle, which requires you to get close and cast something, which may (or may not) get you owned or at least interrupted. I haven't had too much trouble against this. I think I need a better regulus opponent.
Also @ Horseradish and anyone else who knows:
There was an ESL tourney for this Game? Where are most of the higher level players playing? This game set up on Garena or anything like that yet? Is anyone running a hamachi setup off IRC or anything like that?
Honestly beejnr, half of the original post is just "good play" that any team should be doing anyway. Its not strategy specific, its just how the game works.The other half is one particular strategy that simply doesn't work against good players. I'm not trying to attack you personally, but when you have two excellent teams this part is entirely flawed.Now, don't get me wrong, pushing towers early and bashing down the citadel yourself is an excellent way to win quickly when playing comps or new players. I do it myself when my opponents have already rage quit early and I want to move on to the next game. However, you aren't presenting this as the fastest way to clear out comps, but rather as a good team vs team strategy, and I have to disagree. @ Kestrel, I changed my account name the moment I got my game, but it didn't change my ingame name (I think today it might have finally updated). The one I usually play under is Haruko147. The ranking system is pretty flawed, especially when skirmish pairs you up against comp players, but I'm currently number 1 for Sedna.
I faced this strategy yesterday. First I thought that Sedna was really weak in combat but now I realize that the team spent all their money on potions and such. They did use erebus as the pusher, TB as roamer and Oak as support. The bastard said they didn't knew each other but their teamplay was way too good for random people.
This is a great strategy but it's pretty fundamental and a lot of people have been playing it as "their" strategy. My wife and I have been playing in this manner and haven't lost a game yet with this approach (knock on wood). We just played a 3x3 on Cataract a few minutes ago and pushed in our usual manner up the right side, took their back portal, and the rest was history. I was playing Sedna and doing the harassing, my wife was pushing as Regulus and we had a TB roaming around in support of my efforts. It was a close game, we both had giants making their way to the citadel but in the end, we prevailed.
At the end of the game, the TB said in Allies: "How'd you like my tactic. You guys learned quick". LOL. Fun stuff.
ah yes, the strategy of pushing towers capping flags, killing enemy dg's and buying citadel upgrades, this is a very good strategy.
if your aiming at getting towers down fast why not at start take all 2/3/4 demigods run around in a collected group and lock all the flags (with timer on scroll lock 25sec all three needs to buy 1 lock item each) then all togeter take down a tower or 2.
after this is down could do another run around to lock all the flags again this will let you get war score 3 much sooner then other team and makes it unlikely anyone in your team dies.
never tried it myself but seen it done on cataract and its very intimidating.
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