This guide is under construction, however, I haven't seen a techies guide in a while, and so I will take the time to write one in my spare time. I'm making this initial post just as a personal reminder.

Expect to see techies at many different angles





Before any guide ever starts, I always feel as if the author should set their credibility before explaining what they think is what's right and what's wrong. After all, how many guides have you read (assuming you're a seasoned player) that makes you say to yourself "man, I could have written a better guide than THAT thing!"

My DotA background is long and full of memories (queue "your-mom" joke). I've been playing real time strategy games since 1995, dating back to Warcraft 1. I first played DotA in late 2004. In 2006 I became competitive, and along with clan BUS, won the ... I want to say Atlantic league? ... SOME league in cal-o and was bumped up to cal-i, where we quickly disbanned because no one competed in cal-i (half our games were a no-show, and thus DotA was shortly removed from cal later on). From then on out I have faithfully played DotA casually ever since, sometimes joining private leagues, sometimes helping out a clan here and there to get on their feet. My login names always change (I love when I find a new, funny tag). Months ago I started a DotA video blog, but only made a few episodes. I plan to kick that back up, though I've also been busy with life (I'm entering the game development business doing game physics programming, and so much of my time is dedicated towards that as well). I hope that after this blog, though, you search for some of my DotA video blogs. I find them somewhat entertaining, and I usually hate to watch myself do stuff.

Anywho, onto the hero!


People who watch professional games know that many of the matches turn out to be really close due to the fact that both teams are running known strategies and are executing them quite well to the point that they will stalemate in teamfights and prolong their battling. But, the true GOOD matches to watch and observe are the ones where a team implements a new strategy into the game. While this is typically rare since most avenues have been explored, one seems to be really missed out. Techies is constantly left out in team's choices when I feel that there is much potential to the hero. There used to be a universal thought that meepo was near-useless in professional matches. Surely he could not prove useful; if one copy of his ultimate dies, they all go down. However certain clans showed how powerful he could be, and, for a while (correct me if I'm wrong; is he still used from time-to-time in professional matches? I haven't had too much time as of late to watch pro matches) he was one of the more feared picks. Opposing teams would scramble for AOE heroes to try to counter him. Freakouts ensured. Perhaps Techies could rise to the occasion as well?


I.) Hero Overview
II.) Hero Statistics
III.) Pros & Cons
IV.) Skills: Description
V.) Skills: How To Use Them


I'm not going to try and sugarcoat Techies; he is pretty well-defined by many in their minds. He cannot do much directly in teamfights (usually) and is mostly used as a support/defensive mechanism. However, people tend to forget how useful that support/defensive mechanism really is and can save you and your team. If used right, it works as an offensive tool as well! By picking Goblin Techies, a team should play a bit more defensively until Goblin Techies can advance the locations of his mines towards the other side of the map. Let's jump into his stats and moves, then delve into strategy using him.


Pros:

+Can make ganking tedious and highly risky for the opposing team
+Constantly is a threat due to suicide and invisible mine placement
+Forces team to buy invisibility detection other than dust

Cons:

+Some of the worst stat gaining in all of DotA
+One of the lowest armor rating in the game
+One of the lowest base movespeed in the game
+The lowest base attack in the game

All in all, it becomes quite evident that he isn't built for direct fighting and must focus on what he was made for: laying mines.


Land Mines



Plants an invisible mine that explodes when an enemy nears. The explosion deals less damage if the target is farther away. You may only have 15 mines placed at a time.

• Damage type: mixed
• If destroyed by attacks the mines will still explode.
• When a 16th mine is placed the oldest will explode.
• Techies will gain experience for hero kills resulting from Land Mines regardless of where he is on the map.
• The '-mines' command can be used to know how many of your mines are placed on the map.

Stasis Trap



Plants an invisible Stasis Trap that stuns nearby enemy units when detonated.

• It takes 2 seconds for a triggered Stasis Trap to activate.
• Stasis Traps destroy all other Stasis Traps in their AOE when they activate.

Suicide Squad, Attack!



Sacrifice yourself for the greater good. Deals massive area of effect damage.

• Damage type: mixed
• Using this skill counts as a suicide, which does not give gold or experience to the enemy team.
• Destroys trees in its area.
• When autocast is enabled, the Techies will use this skill instead of attacking on a right-click.

Remote Mines



Plants an invisible mine that will only activate when triggered. Doesn't damage buildings.

• Damage type: magical
• Can be improved by Aghanim's Scepter (* shows the improved values).
• Techies will gain experience for hero kills resulting from Remote Mines regardless of where he is on the map.
• If destroyed by attacks the mines will still explode.

If you wish to read specific information on the skills (statistics, etc.) please visit this link.


A wide variety of strategies are involved when playing Techies, and you must carefully lay your mines in locations that correspond to dealing with your current foes. Playing Techies is much like playing chess; you must predict what your enemy will be doing before you can decide where to plant mines: will they rotate through the woods? Will they push a lane? Will they fall back and farm? What will they do after that? This section will go into different strategies with the skills and explain their uses for your team.

Land Mines

Ah yes, land mines. Whenever we trip them with our hero, we curse under our breaths (at least, I do ... and not so much under my breath and more like yelling). This spell does 300/400/500/600 mixed damage, and while that may get reduced down by a lot (e.g. 50%+) each mine will still do ~300 damage assuming you've gotten it to level 4.

There are two ways to plant these mines: by stacking them or spreading them out sporadically. The most common (and suggested in most cases) strategy is to stack mines in one spot where creeps do not naturally walk but where heroes commonly move into. This way, enemies will suddenly trip them and die right on spot, or at least be fatally injured for your ally to do the cleanup job.

*insert example pictures*

The above example pictures are done in the lane, however, they can be done ANYWHERE. Many techies players lack this understanding and allow the enemy to freely roam the map, avoiding the lanes where they know the mines are at. Even if the enemy knows where the stacked land mines are located, they are forced to be defensive and careful around the area or even forced to not travel that specific directions. Such areas to lay these mines are jungle entrances, river entrances, rune spawns, and secret shop locations. Below are some good choke-point examples to lay these mines as well as some random locations that are commonly traveled.

*insert more example pictures*

One rule to live by when stacking land mines: Never do the same trick twice. Keep your enemy guessing. There is plenty of ground to lay, and if they don't know exactly where your mines are at, then you and your team are at an advantage already.

While it is really nice to do all that damage instantly, let's not forget that a single mine is still deadly, and so you must consider spreading them out. The strategy behind spreading out mines (if you have time to do it, at least) is to thwart an incoming team battle. Let's look at the below example:

*example spread-mining*

In this example, enemies from the Scourge side might try and swarm the side from the bottom lane. In this case, they will end up tripping some of the mines at the very least. The very thought of tripping more mines will force your enemies to fall back as well as taking some initial damage, giving your team the chance to take action and beat them down to a pulp.

Land mines are the only mines to injure a tower, and they pack quite a punch, too! I lack specific information (exactly how much damage a single mine does to a tower), but it can be used to last hit a tower or simply assist in taking a tower out of existence very quickly. However, since the land mine is mixed damage, its damage can be thwarted by a glyph activation, so keep an eye out for when the enemy activates glyph as that gives you a 6 minute window to freely land mine their towers to death.

While we are on that subject, it's worth mentioning that land mines may be used to farming as well. Keep in mind that the land mine does direct damage if they are within 200 range of the mine when it explodes and half damage if up to 500 range away. Therefore, it would be wise to melee-attack the melee creeps once or twice each before dropping the mine.