On Push Strategies

Recently, I decided to think over some push strategies and I really believe thats one of these strategies can work! There is one major problem though: effective pushing strategies are very rare.

I don't know how SK planned to push against MYM during their last game (this was when the article was written, the replay is attached) but the strategies used had a lot of issues. However, it really did have some great ideas. For example, Chen with boots of speed in enemy forest is very smart.

Let's study what push strategies are and how they can be used.

What makes an effective push strategy

First of all, heroes like Keeper of the Light and Death Prophet (which are generally considered push heroes) are not really push heroes at all.They may be used in some kinds of pushes, but they should be marked as"anti-push" heroes. They are very good with disrupting any sort of push. Also, more examples of *so-called* push heroes are Shaker, Brood Mother and Furion. They are generally considered pushers – but the truth is that they break the push down.

So, what do you need for a successful push? I came to the conclusion that you need to maintain some concurrents. Here they are:
You need Pugna. If the enemy team has Pugna – gg to your push. If Pugna is banned, it is still possible to push but it will be much harder.
Heroes that have a lot of nukes – They need to do a lot of damage to all enemies, preferably at some range. Zeus suggests itself, maybe even Tormented Soul, and at the moment I can't seem to remember any other heroes.
You need to create a situation when the enemy team has used all of their spells/abilities/items, but your whole team needs to be alive. You are going to need heal. There are different kinds of it,but the best one is Chen's ultimate and Abbadon's death coil/shield.
Note that Abbadon is a really imbalanced for push strategies. I can't understand why nobody uses him to push. The time before level 11-12 is his time – he is so strong at that point! He has an AoE nuke, a heal/nuke, can dispel disables/stuns/slows and so on. He is also very tough and not easy to kill.
Heroes that can tank the tower and take it down quickly. Best variants are Syllabear, Terrorblade(like SK did) and Chen. Chen is necessary for many reasons, as you can see.
Pushing is better for you if enemy heroes can't move around the battlefield freely – You need to lay some pressure, like a lot of units– Sylla's and Chen's summons, for example.
You need the right items! It's hard to be specific with this since it depends on heroes,but the essential ones are – Ring of Basilius, Mekasm, Headdress. Yes,Headdress of Rejuvenation! You may think that this 2 hp/sec is not that significant, but 2 hp regen from Headdress, plus 4 from Mek, plus 2from Satyr's aura – it's really helpful. Also, you will need 3-4 heal potions. You use these to heal your allies and prevent them from getting killed by re spawned enemies. In push strats, people usually don't buy bottle, but a couple of them can help a lot, especially if they can be passed.
A Hero that can initiate the battle – A team needs to be stronger while pushing, but 3-4 lighting storms from Leshrac will cause all your team to be low on hp. If the enemy attacks,you will lose. To avoid this – we need VENGE. Vengeful Spirit should be used in pushes as a hero that can initiate combat.
So, after some thoughts we end up with a strategy like this – Chen, Pugna, Zeus, Abbadon, and Syllabear. It is possible to replace Bear with Venge and Zeus with Leshrac. It is difficult to compare Venge and Syllabear – it will be two different pushes and two different games. Venge is a useful hero with stun and swap, and her aura is great for the whole team. On the other hand, Bear takes towers down quickly and his summon is very strong. If your push is succeeding, he will get his Radiance soon. This will cause the game not to be about pushing, but more about Sylla killing the whole enemy team.

Replacing Zeus with Leshrac can be a fatal mistake. This is because Zeus is simply stronger, so as all of the other heroes we need will be infrequently picked by your opponent,its better to first pick him.

You may ask – why Venge? Because we have another important part of push – Lane phase. Push heroes need to win or at least not lose their lanes. A skilled Zeus/Leshrac can solo against any two heroes, Pugna can do it too. However, Syllabear =dead lane. Even with Abbadon it will be very hard to hold their lane.Venge is another story, she has strong nuke and is not bad at laning.Vengeful and Abbadon are not the best combination in DotA, but they can at least survive.

In depth on our lineup
Zeus, Chen, Abaddon, Pugna, Vengeful Spirit

Zeus needs to solo an easy lane, Pugna to solo mid, Abbadon and Venge at a hard lane, and Chen jungling.
Or Zeus can solo mid instead of Pugna. In principle, Pugna is harder to stay in lane, but recently Maelk has shown some interesting tricks. For example, Pugna with boots first item (Maelk's idea) - he used it for along enough time. Pugna with boots in an easy lane is hard to kill if you control him well enough. Pugna (solo mid) with Basilius (don't turnoff aura) can take the tower down really fast against almost any solo hero – this is Maelk's innovation too. The choice of lane depends on enemy lineup and disposal of enemy heroes on the map.

Items –Zeus Arcane Ring, Pugna Necro book, Chen Mek, Abbadon – he may buy anything, even a euls. He can even buy Mek, and Chen can just mass hp.This is because in combat Chen is one of your key heroes. If he dies before using his ultimate – it's gg to your team. His creeps die veryfast without heal and the +200 hp to all teammates can often change the outcome of the game. Abbadon has enough mana for all his spells, even with Mek, while Chens mana is very limited. Venge doesn't really need anything except HP, preferably boots of travel, but 5 bracers will be good too.

Accordingly, if everything goes well, at lvl 7-8-9 itis time to attack. You need Zeus with Arcane, somebody with Mek, three strong neutrals, and Pugna's ward level 4. All other components aren't very significant. If you don't have Necrobook – it's okay. The first few towers can be taken down without it, and those will give money to buy other necessary items.

Counters to push strategies

What or who can oppose us? First and foremost – anti push heroes. Even if you owned lanes and everything is going well – pushing KotL is a problem that is better to avoid. So you will need to conceal your push. That isn't easy. For example, if you first pick Zeus, then Venge and Abbadon, guys on the other team will think that you are idiots or that you might have some strange plan, but this doesn't make it look like push. On the other hand, it's a risk that enemy may take Pugna. Anyway,push strategies are so uncommon that it's almost always a surprise to your opponents and I doubt somebody is ready to pick KotL so early instead of others heroes that are considered "strong" (Lina, NA, BB,Sven). They might take KotL as last pick, but KotL alone is not so dangerous. Other anti push are: Magnus and Shaker, it's better just to ban them. Also, it's hard to push against Warlock, but you can hope he will be banned by the other team.

Also, our strategy may be countered by a trained anti push combo. But you do not fear this because I have not even seen well executed pushes yet – I remind you of MYM,who didn't even buy Basilius in that game vs SK.

The main problem that can disrupt our entire plan is the laning phase – the lanes are very likely to lose, because almost all pushing heroes are mediocre at that phase. And you have to lay yourself out to not being owned during this phase.

Closing comments

Note,this article is only one kind of push strategy (imho, the best variant)other variants are available like: "nuke" pushes (Shaker, Zeus, Tinker,or something like it), Warlock pushes, old school mana-rush, push with Venge and Magnus and so on. I mean, they exist, but even if they are used, it seems like nobody thinks them over, and attempts to use them were poorly executed. In my opinion, push strategies can be very strong and I hope to see teams experiment with lineups and strategies in the future.