Before the 7.27 patch was released, OG’s Sebastian “Ceb” Debs was very vocal with his concern about midlaners who stay in the lane gaining more gold and experience as compared to an opposing midlaner who goes for early rotations and scores kills on enemy cores and supports.
He even went as far as saying that the 7.26 patch was “noob-friendly” as it seemed that the game told us that the better player is the one who stays in the lane and keeps farming steadily doing nothing but last hits as he gets rewarded with more gold and exp as compared to a one who’s got a good read of the game and goes for the early rotation to shut down the enemy core and support right when he gets his power spike.
Now that we’ve had a few days in with 7.27, let’s take a look at how the economic adjustments have made an impact in the way midlaners should play their lane to obtain optimum results and as to how they probably would play the midlane especially in competitive DOTA.
Here are the changes stated in the patch notes:
- Hero kills base XP increased from 40 to 100
- Hero kill last hit gold increased from 99+7.2*Level to 120+8*Level
- Assist gold rescaled from 45 + 0.033*networth to 30+0.038*networth
Here is the new formula to compute for experience gained by killing a hero
XP gained = (100 + 0.13 x Killed Hero’s XP)/(Number of killing heroes)
*100 used to be 40
Here is the new formula to compute for gold gained by killing a hero
Gold gained = 120 + (Killed hero level x 8) + Streak value + assist gold
Where Assist gold = (30 + 0.038*networth)/(number of killing heroes)
*120 used to be 99 and 8 used to be 7.2
*30 used to be 45 and 0.038 used to be 0.033
For us to have a better understanding, let’s put the changes stated above into a sample scenario. Let’s take the game 3 of the grand finals of BTS Pro Series Season 2: Americas as it is a fitting midlane matchup for this scenario. In this game we see Quincy Crew’s Quinn on his Sniper against 4Zoomers’ Gunnar on his Pugna in the middle lane.
In this matchup, Gunnar would gain an earlier power spike than Quinn as Pugna is non-item dependent, thanks to his Decrepify to Nether Blast combo which gives him an early burst potential than a right click hero in Sniper. With that being said, Gunnar would naturally go for early rotations to find kills while Quinn is better off staying in the lane to free-farm to ramp up his gold and get his core items quicker. True enough, by the end of the game Quinn outscored Gunnar in terms of CS with 533 last hits as compared to 277.
When Gunnar rotated to the top lane to try and get a kill, he had three other heroes with him and they only managed to get a support Sand King with the kill last hit even going to Sammyboy’s Troll Warlord. Meaning the assist gold that Gunnar gained was further reduced because of the high dividend as four Radiant heroes were involved which also cut down the experience he gained from that kill as it was also shared with his teammates. While all of this was happening, Quinn’s Sniper has probably cleared an entire creep wave on his own meaning he solo gained the entire 240 XP of a single creep wave and the average creep wave gold of 157 assuming that the wave had three melee creeps that award 36.5 gold each on average along with a range creep for 47.5 gold. Not to mention that in this timing window it is highly likely that Sniper went for a small jungle camp to optimize his farm which may have given him a bit more gold and XP.
The adjustments made for 7.27 have surely made the early rotations more favorable for midlaners as compared to the previous patch, however, it still cannot match the gold and XP gained by someone who choose to stay in the lane and free farm.
Of course, this advantage is just based on numbers and there are many other factors to consider in judging whether or not the rotation is worth it.
The enemy midlane may keep free farming his lane and gain a lead in terms of gold and XP but if the results of your team’s early rotations are kills on the enemy core which result to slowing down his farm or even shutting him down for good, then that is a completely different story. The decision whether or not a midlaner should rotate to the side lanes requires excellent judgement and feel for the game, after all, they make a big impact in dictating the flow and tempo of the game.
