Defense a viable strategy?

[Seere]

Ill set up a posistion we've all been in i'm sure... Not as an individual as a team!

Your team is a couple towers behind.
Your team is behind in kills by about 5 or so.
Your team is a few levels behind theres. (each hero is 2+ lvls behind their lowest)

What most pubs do in this situation.. is they run right in and push some more. They die.. they run in again.. it will work this time they say.. and they die.

Isn't staying back and defending so you can level up a good idea? Or is it best just to concede and move on?

I've played in games where my teams caught up when we just defend. Then we are on equal grounds to push back and actually win team fights.

Any thoughts? Every pub group i'm in seems to like to smash things.. when they die they blame it on their teammates and not the fact that the enemy has 2 or 3 people 3+ levels above them.

So questions...

Isn't staying back and defending so you can level up a good idea? Or is it best just to concede and move on?

Any thoughts?

[CosmicJ]

Ya it's the only solution in some games for even a small chance of winning. If the enemy is smart though they will keep up ganking in your neuts and do kongor until they have the definitive advantage.

The start of the game is very important. =)

[xpK]

Defensive play decides the winner in a mid to late game situation. If the offensive team pushes and you succeed in wiping them with a good defensive play (Usually occurs at base towers/racks) then you can take advantage of the time to push outwards or in late game situations, destroy their base. Usually the offensive would not make the same mistake twice but then again, if they don't push either side will rely on farming to win the game or another defensive play.

[Ruscour]

You could play a turtle strat, defending while your carry farms heaps. However, in this situation, your best bet is to let them be overconfident, genocide them, and push back while they're dead.

[Sw4n]

defense is really really important. mass tp counter pushes/ganks are the most crucial part of the game.

[Onelastpill]

Playing defensive is only worth it if it can buy enough time to your carries to overfarm theirs. Or if you have a good chance to genocide them if they decide to push (i.e you have tempest/behe/... but your team is too far behind to let them initiate next to their towers)

And if you're letting their chronos freefarm to fullstuff by turtling, you might as well concede right away ;)

[Sukari]

You could play a turtle strat, defending while your carry farms heaps. However, in this situation, your best bet is to let them be overconfident, genocide them, and push back while they're dead.

Yeah, I'd go with this.

Well at least the first part - turtling and farming, the latter is just a bonus.

However, if one of two stay to defend/turtle, and the rest go ganking single/paired heroes, it should be OK as well IMO.

[Shadowcamsy]

Turtle strat doesn't really work in pubs because they don't realize how it works, you need 2 heroes to farm the waves while the other heroes sit out of exp range or try and regain some map control so your team can neutral. It generally only works if you have a carry that outscales the other team's carry, a good example of this is predator vs legionnaire, lego has an amazing mid-game but his late-game potential is useless when faced against predator.

[MoOgLeD]

If you're forced to the defensive, the game is usually over already, if you're playing a pub. Most of the time your team will just keep pushing, and feeding. IMO, unless you're playing a serious game, you should just concede.

[Pyrate]

works best when you have 1 rax down, their big creeps push the lane meaning you get more creeps then them, a carry who farms a raxxed lane can get very strong very fast.

[Shadowcamsy]

works best when you have 1 rax down, their big creeps push the lane meaning you get more creeps then them, a carry who farms a raxxed lane can get very strong very fast.

You realize that you get half gold on creeps that are twice as hard to kill? Meaning your farm efficiency is dropped by 75% when trying to farm a raxed lane... It's much better to just static farm creepwaves just outside of tower

If you're not sure what static farming is, read: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=2625

[PoopyDesires]

I've turtled many games from imminent loss to glorious victory.

Turtle is great if you're in situation of above.

[Heridshire]

Yes, but as Shadowcamsy pointed out, "turtling" is not enough and you may as well concede if the other team has a carry hero that you can't outfarm. Meaning if they have a Chronos freefarming, there's nothing much you can do besides conceding. Other carry heroes can be countered by a Barbed Armor or some good teamplay.

When you start defending carefully, all you want is a genocide and your carry surviving the fight. Usually its enough to turn around or at least to balance the game, specially when your team is compound of heroes that benefit more from levels and items then the other.

Btw, nothing is gonna work if even one idiot on your team ignores the urgency to defend and keep advancing carelessly and feeding.

[Pyrate]

You realize that you get half gold on creeps that are twice as hard to kill? Meaning your farm efficiency is dropped by 75% when trying to farm a raxed lane... It's much better to just static farm creepwaves just outside of tower

If you're not sure what static farming is, read: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=2625

not quite that, melee creeps give 62 xp and average gold of 42.5, upgraded ones give 41xp and 30 gold average, ie 30% less.

Overall one expects that the extra creeps you get are negated by the less gold and xp to make it about the same, but the safety impact of being able to farm at your base cant be accounted for.

[Madlobster]

I guess the best thing would be to prevent getting kicked back into that situation.
If you have the chance to do it, try picking heroes that are good when defending, that way if you actually get slammed and don't have any map control, you can win a 5on5 at your own turf.

Behemoth and such would be a good choice.
But if you do lose control and fall behind, the most important thing is not to wander off in uncharted area. The thing witch is most important at those times, is map control. you NEED to buy wards and place them where you can see incoming ganks, and when its safe you need to either farm like mad, or try ganking them, if you dont suppress them at that time, they will just get a higher power difference as the game goes on.

[honslaught`]

There's a good post on warding defensively. You might want to do that to increase your map control somewhat, and then switch to overdrive in your team play. A single encounter could decide the game, and you want to make sure that you have every single possible advantage in that encounter. Time is also of the essence, and you want to make every second count.

I haven't had the opportunity to play many serious games, but in a pub it's very easy for a team with even a marginal lead to get overconfident. Use it against them, and win.

[Spectral]

Defence/Counter push > Blindly pushing if your at a disadvantage.
If you defend and you lose you would of failed even more if you attacked.

[_Archangel_]

Turtle it if you can. Then surprise buttsecks them, a single genocide is enough and then push straight to the tree/shrine

[Pogona]

Turtle it if you can. Then surprise buttsecks them...

:eek:
lol @ this advice for what to do when you are behind the other team...

JK, yeah im sort of immature but that really made me laugh.

EDIT: Surprise buttsecks sounds like a great new ulti for scout. No one recovers from surprise buttsecks.