[Q] Farming Question and Animation Cancel

Hi i recently have started playing dota 2 with virtually zero experience in moba games. so far i have just been playing around with the different heroes, joining into co-op vs Bot games to learn how the game works and i have a question about some characters (one in particular) and how they farm gold and experience.

I asked a few friends about which characters were the best at farming in the early game and almost everyone said Jakiro or a few others. after playing as jakiro, i realized i was leveling at a much quicker rate than as other heroes. (whether i am soloing a lane or with an ally) his splash makes it very easy to last hit and i am wondering, is there any drawbacks to this? it seems that jakiro is pretty much exceptional at farming, has pretty potent attacks (tho not as much burst as some characters) and has an awesome stun that can hit multiple people attacking a tower. what is his weakness?

also, when it comes to animation cancelling, i read on some guides that this is a very crucial part of the game at a higher level. are there some tips that I may have missed about this in reading these guides? they did not seem to be fully explanatory. from what i understand, i should move command away from my opponents (or towards if i am chasing them) the second after i launch my attack so that i dont finish the animation, is this correct? another question, if i am auto attacking a creep, and finish the attack animation and rapidly re issue the attack move command after, am i increasing my dps by cancelling the animation?

thank you very much

randombum United States. November 21 2012 16:41. Posts 2145

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Odd that you were suggested as jakiro for a farming hero since he's not usually considered for the farming role at all. The splash attack drawback is that it damages all the creeps and pushes the lane towards his tower and thus away from yours. The further you fight from your tower the higher risk you have of dying.

Jakiro isn't actually very good at farming, and what I believe you are experiencing is that since he is such a strong early game hero due to his high hp and strong spells is that you are doing better in your lane allowing you to be in exp range more often or driving off your opponent so it feels like he farms better.

He does have very strong spells, and his main weakness would be that he gets worse as the games goes on.

Animation canceling is canceling the back swing animation. Imagine throwing a punch and canceling the part where you pull your punch back. Instead of the time it would have taken you to retract your fist you reposition until it would have been ready to use again. The back swing does nothing for your damage output and there's' better things to do with your time.

Re issuing the attack command won't increase your dps since even if you don't watch your hero do his back swing, he can't attack during the time it would have needed to show the animation.

There's also a thread for questions like these http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=255901
You should probably post any future questions in there.

synapse China. November 21 2012 18:19. Posts 6907

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randombum pretty much covered it. Heroes good at farming early game would be heroes who either have a great attacking animation and / or extremely high base damage. Jakiro doesn't really fall into either of those categories, nor should you be farming with him to begin with (he's an exceptional support but other heroes can make better use of the farming gold).

I think it's great that you're digging deep into the more complicated mechanics of the game, but focusing on things like animation cancelling or "whos the best farmer early game" isn't terribly useful for a beginner. Play around with more heroes, join matchmaking when you feel like you have a good grasp on 2-3 heroes, a lot of these things will make sense with some game experience

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Testuser November 21 2012 18:25. Posts 2584

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I would not consider Jakiro an amazing farmer.

Yes, he has a passive - but often you won't level that early since his other two spells are so much more potent. In regards to his weakness - well, he's not a rather mobile hero nor is his stat gain amazing. His strong point is his spells, so items aren't THAT useful on him (of course they do have a use, but not as much as on a carry). Also, his splash pushes the lane, which makes it more dangerous and overall harder for you to farm.

The idea of animation canceling is the following: Once you make an attack with a hero, it takes a certain amount of time before you can begin a new attack. You can 'cancel' the animation right after you've attacked, hence your next attack will come a little bit faster.

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Laserist Turkey. November 21 2012 18:25. Posts 413

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In contrast Jakiro is bad at last hitting. His(Their) attack animation is rather slow, ~~turn rate is crap~~ and projectile is rather slow. Other than that, he is relatively weak in late game as all the supports and need some skill to land spells. He is one of the best supports right now.You only benefit from using the attack aoe which is worse in terms of unnecessary pushing.

If you want to practice last hitting, my advice is picking a melee hero with a good animation and attack speed(antimage, void), then buy stout shield(tank creeps) and eventually a quelling blade. The worse part of last hitting is to get used to the hp calculation mechanics. The more you practice the better. What I did was, cancel the attack and spell(there is also spell animation cancelling) animation even attacking neutral creeps. You can move to cancel the animation of the attack. Many pros have that habit to move when attacking to creeps and cancel the animation.

Lastly, no, you couldn't increase dps by cancellation but you can position better and keeps yourself safe rather than standing still and take hits. Especially for kiting it is very important.

Edit: W3 Dota ghost haunts me

Last edit: 2012-11-21 19:37:07

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Unleashing Denmark. November 21 2012 19:02. Posts 2396

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I don't get people who say jakiro has a bad attack for last hitting.
His projectile speed is 1100, which is quite good and his attack point is 0.4.

That's not bad at all. Statistically i'd say he has an above average attack animation for ranged heroes.

Last edit: 2012-11-21 19:03:50

"Back then teams that won were credited, now it's called throw. I think it's sad." - KuroKy

Laserist Turkey. November 21 2012 19:35. Posts 413

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Jakiro stats:

Movement Speed 290 (ok)
Turn Rate 0.5 (well)
Sight Range 1800/800 (ok)
Attack Range 400 (meh)
Missile Speed 1100 (okish)
Attack Duration 0.4+0.5 (meh)
Cast Duration 0.65+0.3 (retarded)

Warlock
Movement Speed 295 (ok)
Turn Rate 0.4 (good)
Sight Range 1800/800 (ok)
Attack Range 600 (good)
Missile Speed 1200 (well)
Attack Duration 0.3+0.3 (awesome)
Cast Duration 0.5+0.5 (ok)

Qop
Movement Speed 300 (good)
Turn Rate 0.5 (meh)
Sight Range 1800/800 (ok)
Attack Range 550 (good)
Missile Speed 1500 (awesome)
Attack Duration 0.56+0.41 (bad but missile speed covers this)
Cast Duration 0.452+1.008 (meh but you can cancel)

I suggest using warlock to learn ranged last hit

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DucK- Singapore. November 21 2012 20:48. Posts 259

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I won't answer your questions, because I think they are irrelevant at your current level of play.

My advice is to understand DotA as a game first, rather than learn about the little details on the micro. These micro won't help you at all if you have zero game sense.

If you need an easy starter hero, play Lich. If you need a dummy/idiot proof way to play it at low levels, let me know.

Unleashing Denmark. November 21 2012 21:32. Posts 2396

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How the hell is 0.4 attack point meh? It is factually not bad. And it's slightly above average IIRC. The average is somewhere around 0.5 AFAIK.
And 1100 missile speed isn't just okish, that's above average.

And most of the stats you listed don't impact how good or bad his attack animation is. Which make them pointless to list.
YOU said his projectile is slow, compared to the rest of the ranged heroes, it most definitely isn't.
YOU said his attack point is slow, which again, compared to the rest of the ranged heroes, it is not.

Want to talk about bad attack animations? Clinkz, drow, lina and zeus are right there. But jakiro's attack animation is by no means bad.

"Back then teams that won were credited, now it's called throw. I think it's sad." - KuroKy

Laserist Turkey. November 21 2012 22:33. Posts 413

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Statistically better doesn't always mean good.

Last hitting is the combination of attack animation, missile speed and maximum range in a non-practice game.
All of the melee heroes have near zero range and instant hit. So if you combine all of the heroes with their respective parameters below, Jakiro is below average. Since in a game you have to fight for last hits with melees too.

So half of the stats directly related to that and others are just my lazyness.
Again his projectile is slow, not worst but slow. I said 'meh' to Jakiro's attack animation not 'bad'.

Anyways Jakiro is not a good hero to understand and practice last hitting and animation cancelling.

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Unleashing Denmark. November 21 2012 22:51. Posts 2396

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No all melee heroes bar lucifer has 128 range, not near zero.
And no jakiro's attack animation isn't below average, invoker's attack animation is regarded as fairly average, and jakiro's is better.
And no, his projectile is not fucking slow when the average DotA projectile speed is around a thousand for ranged heroes.
And you said his attack animation was slow, it's not, his attack point and projectile speed are both around or slightly above average.

This is going off topic, but you said something that's simply false, that's all there is to it.

"Back then teams that won were credited, now it's called throw. I think it's sad." - KuroKy

Laserist Turkey. November 21 2012 23:13. Posts 413

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Melee heroes has some range ofc shouldn't be zero right? But it is instant so it act like you don't have to wait for something going through and hit. So it is like a very low range with a projectile speed of infinity. So your first no is wrong.

As I said individually animation times etc. may look good. But last hitting is the combination of three of them since melee heroes has no projectile travelling time they reduce the 'overall' average and drag Jakiro below average of all heroes.
This is why a melee hero hits like twice as fast comparing a range hero excluding agility and IAS effects. So second no is wrong.

Maybe projectile is not slow but not fast either.
Again you consider average of all of the heroes but this doesn't cover the whole truth. Disregarding cancelling, Jakiro spend %50 more time considering warlock.

If you want to think comparing with average makes Jakiro a above average last hitter, go on. I don't think so

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Unleashing Denmark. November 22 2012 00:23. Posts 2396

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On November 21 2012 23:13 Laserist wrote:
Melee heroes has some range ofc shouldn't be zero right? But it is instant so it act like you don't have to wait for something going through and hit. So it is like a very low range with a projectile speed of infinity. So your first no is wrong.

Your statement was that melee heroes had a range near zero, i corrected that.
I said that all ,besides lucifer who has a range of 150, have a range of 128. This is correct, so i was right, not wrong.

On November 21 2012 23:13 Laserist wrote:As I said individually animation times etc. may look good. But last hitting is the combination of three of them since melee heroes has no projectile travelling time they reduce the 'overall' average and drag Jakiro below average of all heroes.

By that logic even warlock is a bad last-hitter because he's dragged down below the average.
When you talk about conditions for a ranged attack animation, you compare it to another ranged attack animation.
Comparing jakiro to other ranged heroes, he's above average as far as attack point and projectile goes.

On November 21 2012 23:13 Laserist wrote:This is why a melee hero hits like twice as fast comparing a range hero excluding agility and IAS effects. So second no is wrong.

What? There are not a lot of melee heroes with a attack point that is so fast that it's twice as fast as the average for ranged heroes. Even for melee heroes the attack point is still at around 0.45 averagely, that doesn't change between melee and ranged.

On November 21 2012 23:13 Laserist wrote:Maybe projectile is not slow but not fast either.

I never called it fast, i called it slightly above average which is factually true.

On November 21 2012 23:13 Laserist wrote:Again you consider average of all of the heroes but this doesn't cover the whole truth. Disregarding cancelling, Jakiro spend %50 more time considering warlock.

What? No. Warlock has an amazing last hitting animation, most people will agree to this, but jakiro doesn't spend 50% more time performing an attack nor does his projectile use 50% more time reaching the target.

On November 21 2012 23:13 Laserist wrote:If you want to think comparing with average makes Jakiro a above average last hitter, go on. I don't think so

You might not think so, but that's your opinion which is fine, but there are also very basic numbers behind these things to measure it.

"Back then teams that won were credited, now it's called throw. I think it's sad." - KuroKy

Attakijing United States. November 22 2012 02:15. Posts 350

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So, to answer your question, c0sm0naut; yes, any topic posted on a dota message board will start a pointless argument. Thanks for asking.

Last edit: 2012-11-22 02:16:20

MrTortoise November 22 2012 06:22. Posts 965

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On November 21 2012 18:25 Testuser wrote:
The idea of animation canceling is the following: Once you make an attack with a hero, it takes a certain amount of time before you can begin a new attack. You can 'cancel' the animation right after you've attacked, hence your next attack will come a little bit faster.

Thats not true your attack speed stays the same ... the point is you can re-position and so get more attacks in before they go out of range.

c0sm0naut United States. November 22 2012 07:02. Posts 530

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wow thank you all for the responses, i can see that my friends i'm learning from are probably noobs as well :D i'm glad i posted here on the forums, i didn't even know there was a Dota 2 section

On November 21 2012 20:48 DucK- wrote:
I won't answer your questions, because I think they are irrelevant at your current level of play.

My advice is to understand DotA as a game first, rather than learn about the little details on the micro. These micro won't help you at all if you have zero game sense.

If you need an easy starter hero, play Lich. If you need a dummy/idiot proof way to play it at low levels, let me know.

tell me a littl ebit more about this plz

i'm learning pretty fast but i still consider myself horrible at this game so if you could say a little more about lich that would be nice

mainly stuff like:
- which items to prioritize
- the order of how to spend my leveling points
- how should i position myself while laning
- how "frugal" i should be with my mana expenditure.. this one i think is most important to me. i can't seem to balance my health and mana correctly with some charaters until i get the regen items like the mana regen boots or the mekansm, and this leads to me being able to farm less i think

Edit:^ i wouldn't mind others chiming in on this too, if you have played more than a few hours of moba games you probably can help me out on this one
thanks!

Last edit: 2012-11-22 07:02:48

Hurricane Sponge November 22 2012 10:37. Posts 116

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Not to hijack this thread, but I found the discussion over 'Who Is the King Of Last Hits' very interesting. Can anyone beat Sniper?

Movement Speed 290
Turn Rate 0.6
Sight Range 1800/1000
Attack Range 550
Missile Speed 3000
Attack Duration 0.17+0.7
Cast Duration 0.3+0.51
Base Attack Time 1.7

Looks like his turn rate is bad (which isn't the most crippling thing in the world for a newbie learning to last hit), but his attack range and missile speed is sweet.

Edit: Just realized Base Damage is probably more important than any of these stats, and we've largely ignored it to this point.

Last edit: 2012-11-22 10:38:22

GentleDrill United Kingdom. November 22 2012 12:50. Posts 248

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On November 22 2012 10:37 Hurricane Sponge wrote:
Edit: Just realized Base Damage is probably more important than any of these stats, and we've largely ignored it to this point.

I had a quick look through base damages. The highest is obviously Treant with average 77 (up to 81), but he has incredibly slow attacks and is a support anyway. Tiny's next with 64, but is also a bit slow. Chaos Knight averages 64 too, and has an excellent attack animation, however, his maximum deviation is ridiculously high at 15 (anything from 49-79, fitting I guess, Treant and Tiny only deviate by 4 and 3 respectively). Out of the other high base damage dealears who are actually right-clicking farmers there's Spirit Breaker (65 avg, 5 max deviation), Lifestealer (62, 5), Faceless Void (61, 3), and Doom Bringer (61, 8). DS averages 63 with only a deviation of 3 but you don't really farm with rightclicks with him. Out of those four, Lifestealer technically has the best attack point (0.39). He also gets a couple extra points of damage from Feast, though when they're at low enough health to last hit it'll only be about 3 maximum at level 1.

One could also consider Viper with Nethertoxin, which at level 1 puts his average damage up to 65 with 1 max deviation on creeps at less than 20% health (if I've understood the skill correctly).

Hopefully I didn't miss anyone.

lazyitachi November 22 2012 13:52. Posts 502

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But isnt the point to use a hero that is difficult to use to LH or deny in order to train up?

i.e. invoker/ SF who has low base damage

This way (without skilling) your task is to practice LH and deny in a lane while maintaining lane equilibrium for 10 mins. When you are done, you can compare your results over time (LH and deny) to see if you have any improvement.

If you can do it with a low damage hero, you certainly then can practice with other heroes when you get used to their animation and with extra dmg from skills/ items i.e. you will be a fucking beast in LH and deny mechanics.

King of Blades United States. November 22 2012 17:52. Posts 77

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On November 22 2012 07:02 c0sm0naut wrote:
wow thank you all for the responses, i can see that my friends i'm learning from are probably noobs as well :D i'm glad i posted here on the forums, i didn't even know there was a Dota 2 section

Show nested quote +

Items don't matter a whole lot, Lich is a hard support, his recommended items are good. Mekansm, Pipe, Tranquil boots, magic wand, shitloads of wards. Not necessarily in that order. Get boots, magic wand, drums of endurance, Mekansm, go by what's needed from there. You can get an Aghanim's if you're drowning in gold and you already have a Mek and the map is warded.

Leveling order is 4312, or REQW, prioritize leveling your abilities in that order. For example, your first 6 levels would be EQEQER, generally you want to put off leveling Ice Armor unless you're being harassed a ridiculous amount in lane by autoattacking heroes.
Max Sacrifice in lane and use it on EVERY CD. Only exception is if they're pushing a tower down and you're trying to defend it, don't eat your creeps unless you need the mana. As soon as its available to use, use it. Spam the absolute everloving shit out of it like it's a button that drops a $5,000 check at your front door. Each creep you eat with it gives the opponents in lane 0 xp, and you get mana back. Using that mana you can spam Frost Blast on enemy heroes to push them out of lane. Later on, just put Ice Armor on EVERYTHING.

Positioning is hard to explain, it's more learned by just playing than anything. Don't stand in the creepwave if you don't have to, stay back, only come forward to get a last hit or harass the enemy hero. Lich is a support, so you shouldn't be taking CS if you're laning with a carry, but if the lane is something like Lich Jakiro, or Lich Sand King, you can take what you can get.

Lich has no mana problems due to his E, but on most heroes, you want to avoid spamming any abilities early on. Only use them if you're trying for a kill, or it's a cheap ability and you're harassing with it. Definitely DO NOT use abilities on creeps in the first 25 minutes or so, ever. Some heroes have extremely cheap abilities meant to help with farming. but as a general rule, it's a complete waste of mana to use abilities on creeps.

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