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Game Timing[]

There are three different time sections in the game, similar to chess, called early-game, mid-game and end-game. Some girls are powerful at early-games, while others fare better at mid-games, and also powerhouses which shine at end-games.

Pre-Game[]

The Pre-Game phase is where you pick your girl and discuss strategies with your teammates. As a general rule of thumb, you want powerful picks that work together or happen to counter one of the enemy's teammates (say, picking Momiji when going up against enemies with Stealth).

With a few exceptions, you rarely want more than two melee characters. This is mainly because a double melee lane is just begging to be harassed and ganked due to their short range. Without a ranged Touhou to cover a melee Touhou, it's almost impossible for a melee Touhou farm without getting harrassed.

There's several generic roles:

  • Carrier - Called a "carry" because your team carries them through early/mid game, where they're a bit weak and have to farm a lot. By late-game, when they have farmed and have many items, they carry you to victory. Do not pick too many carries!
  • Supporter - Self-explanatory. Support often Babysits a carry, making sure they farm successfully early-game without being harassed/ganked. Generally speaking, Support characters don't need much farming, so don't be selfish!
  • Ganker - Also self-explanatory. A ganker usually has either a powerful stun/snare/disable (or two!) or a blink-type skill to help them gank lanes, taking down enemy heroes.
  • Nuker - A character who possesses 'nukes' (not like Okuu's necessarily): essentially skills that deal a large burst of damage that usually requires a lot of mana. Important to winning team fights.
  • Pusher - A character whose strength lies in pushing down enemy towers. This person is either very durable, or has some sort of skill that provides several more targets for the enemy tower outside of your own creeps or heroes.
  • Suppressor - The opposite of a pusher. These type of heroes can easily mass kill huge amounts of enemy creeps. Usually suppressors don't fair well against heroes because they either lack some sort of a ganking skill or their spells deal low damage overall.
  • Tanker - Also self-explanatory. A tank works as a damage sponge for other teammates, tanks can take a lot of punishment, causing opponents to prematurely waste their skills on the tank and allowing teammates to counter them.

Early-Game[]

It's important to plan out your early item build. Players might consider buying a Yukkuri early game. With a Yukkuri, you can buy items from the shop and get them delivered to your hero without the need to go back to the shrine. Players can also consider buying some mana and health recovery items.

You spend the first few minutes (up to level 6, sometimes higher depending on your girl) in the Early Game undergoing the Laning Phase. Here, Harassment and Creep Denying are an integral part to successful early-gaming. Focus on these. You may be able to go for a gank or two, but this is always risky business. Usually, the middle player (who is usually laning alone, as there's 3 lanes and 4 heroes) leaves to the longer lane of their Shrine to assist in a gank.

Even if you're low on health, make sure you're staying in experience range, which is roughly a distance of 1000 in-game units. It's very hard to be harassed out of this range. Another tactic is to stay in low health to lure the opponent into being greedy and trying to kill you, this tactic works well if you have a good mastery on creep spawn/pathing and utilizing the tower fully.

Mid-Game[]

By this phase, most girls are level 6 or higher and have access to their ultimates along with one maxed out skill. This phase is mostly defined by ganking- the team that ganks the most will earn the most money and experience, thereby reach their high-level items and spells faster. This is one of the phases where supporters make or break a team. Do NOT be the first to run, support as much as possible with your disables or healing. A single heal is all it takes to steamroll right through the lane.

When your team gets off a successful large-scale gank (3+ of the enemy girls are dead), it's optimal to push towers so their lanes become less safe for future ganks and group fights.


End-Game[]

Endgame is defined mostly by the team fights. All of your laning and ganking culminates in this phase: if your carry was properly farmed, you have a fair chance at winning this, assuming everyone is competent. Getting the jump on your opponent is the key to victory in any team fight, as is fluid cooperation.

When you pull off a large kill in a group fight, push down their inner towers as soon as possible. Usually, this demoralizes the enemy team into conceding. Sometimes you will have to push even farther and take out the enemy barracks: once this happens, it is VERY hard for their team to recover momentum and regain victory.

Power Ups[]

Power ups comes in the form of runes, and can be found randomly across the map. Some runes provide positive buffs, while others could hurt or even kill players.


Here are the possibilities that might occur when obtaining a rune:

Roar (Damage boost)

Scroll of Protection (Armor boost)

Haste (Speed boost)

Regeneration

Invisibility

Poison (Player loses health over time)

Explosion (Player loses a portion of health instantly)

Strategy[]

Denying[]

Your character can be forced to attack and kill your allied units, preventing opponents from dealing the final blow (which will be termed as last hits later) on the unit. Denied creeps do not give experience to opponents. It also denies your opponent from last hitting the unit and gaining money, hence the term denying.

Denying can help a lot at early-games, preventing opponents from leveling up and can significantly prevent them from gaining income to buy more equipment.

You can only deny creeps if they have less than 50% of their HP. A character's attack range, speed, and animation all play a part in their denial effectiveness.

You can even deny towers, but this is only when they reach less than 10% of its health. It's suggested you activate your team's building immunity when a tower gets right in the deny range- usually the tower will fight the creep wave off in those few seconds, saving enough time for your team to deny.

Harassment[]

Another important laning strategy is harassment, best done using ranged heroes. This simply consists of attacking the enemy heroes when they get in range, and then backing out before they can respond in time. This depletes their healing items and keeps them away from the creep wave, effectively limiting their access to lasthits. In higher-level play, expect harassment to be a constant factor.

You can employ another tactic to improve your harassment potential. This skill is of VITAL importance to ganks, as well. Outlined below:

Orbwalking[]

The term 'orbwalking' originates from the original DOTA games.

When your character attacks (right mouse click) something, there are 3 phases to its attack. A startup animation, a hit animation, and a 'recovery' animation.

Example:

  • Startup: Girl draws back her sword. (1/3 second)
  • Hit: Girl sticks other Girl with her sword. (1/3 second)
  • Recovery: Girl returns into a neutral position. (1/3 second)

It's important to note that you can cancel the animation at any of these moments by right clicking and initiating movement.

Why is this important? Because, you can 'ani-cancel' your recovery animation, move, and then enter into another startup animation for another attack. Simply launch your attack, and once you hear it launch (for ranged attacks) or strike (melee), click towards the target you're chasing to continue your pursuit. Then right-click again to attack them, and cancel out, and repeat until they are eventually out of range. If they stand and fight, spam the attack and stop commands. It works in a similar fashion. This is useful for characters that have a passive bash, critical or similar as it increases their dps by 2x.

If you simply autoattacked and allowed your Touhou to chase at her will, she would run forward- attack - and then pause in place during her recovery animation. The game would then make her resume chasing until she was in range, except since your speeds are relatively equal and you're forced to halt to attack, your girl wouldn't ever actually catch up under most circumstances.

However, by orbwalking, our previous example turns into this:

  • Startup: Girl draws back her sword. (1/3 second)
  • Hit: Girl sticks other Girl with her sword. (1/3 second)
  • Recovery: Girl is moving and chasing other Girl, having ani-cancelled. She stays in melee range during this time. (1/3 second)
  • Startup 2: Girl, due to orbwalking prowess, is in range for a second strike. (1/3)
  • Hit 2: Girl sticks other Girl with her sword a second time, dealing the finishing blow. Girl is rewarded gold and experience for her skill. Enemy team is demoralized. (1/3 second)

This is important: by utilizing orbwalking, you can add anywhere from one to three attacks in the space that the default mechanics would only permit you one! This is vital when chasing down fleeing enemies during ganks. This skill applies to melee girls just as much as it does the ranged types.

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