General DiscussionRat Lycan

I've never had a Lycan win the game for me or lost to a Lycan playing rat. At best they get the outlying towers but never the t3s.

i m at solo 3.8k to 4k mmr range, I can confirm that rat lycan works, works pretty well for me.
afk farm ... strange to see a lycan farm jungle to get necro... at 4k mmr
lycan usually get out of jungle after vlad and start pushing and take lane farms.
I usually get out of jungle a little later. at lv7, with brown boots and vlad, so that I can solo roshan.

Well to be fair, the Lycans I see that attempt it don't leave jungle until they have vlad's, necro3, and boots of travel.

Well I'm winning a lot of game with him in 5.5k+

@ Zano,

I'm straddling the line @ 3k so i'm apparently no help but when I solo all pick, I tend to lycan.

I do feel that he is more of a safe laner than a jungler. Jungler he comes online late @ 10 min with vlads/brown boots/medallion/smoke. I tried a game with a safe lane lycan with one support w/me and got online about 8 minutes in. I had about 56 last hits before 8 min and didn't have to go back to base like I usually do when I'm jungling. Granted when I pushed the lane to their tower, I would go in the jungle, take out a medium camp then go back to lane to keep my GPM up.

I am probably going to pull away from jungling from here on out. If you auto-pick lycan he can be easily countered by invis heros early or fast gankers like BS, RIKI, Nighstalker (@ night of course..) clinkz... or the occasional lucky zeus mid where you aren't watching your health then he zaps you with his ult and gets lucky.

I have still been polishing this guy up a bit but I feel the safe lane is the way to go and dive a mid creep camp when lane is pushed.

Been doing:

1x stout shield
1x tangos
1x quelling blade

Then:Vlads>brown boots>(Either medallion if I can rosh under 10 min, if not I go for necro book lvl 1 next) Boots of travel>(Either I get BKB here, or build basher depending if my team is lacking a stun, or if the enemy team has a lot of lockdown)>Boost to necro lvl 3>AC

I mean the core seems to be Vlads/necro book and boots of travel.

Again I only had the last 2 games I finally tried not jungling and went to lane and turned out much better than jungling. I agree AFK jungling is sub par and if my team feeds a ton of kills before I get my vlads/brown boots before 10 min in jungle then it is a hard road to come back from.

ive seen him take a t3 once. thats it.

Well your team has to kind of not be idiots but staying in jungle til necro 3 and bots is waaaay too long. You only want brown boots, vlads and medallion to smoke into rosh, then push towers. Necro 3, bots/treads, desolator should be bought with money from pushing lanes and killing more towers. You really should be able to push by 12-15 minutes tops. I highly doubt even the most feeding team will have lost more than 1-2 teir 1s at ~12 minutes unless the other team has multiple pushers like ss and dp.

^

Let the wookie win's got it.

I would still vote that safe laning granted your safe lane support is helping you farm is quicker to get XP/Gold than jungling now. Will try more tonight if i get opp. to solo queue.

good thing about lycan safelane is that u can leave the lane at the 7 min mark, go jungle and let ur AA/visage get his lvl 6

I guess my suspicions are correct then. Thanks for the input guys! Now I have some Lycan players to flame...

Lycan always works you can early rosh and take towers as long as you aren't destroyed in atleast 2 lanes (which wouldve made you lose anyways)

"because the team already gets crushed before Lycan can go and eat towers"
like lycan needs a lot to do that

^ Ok, maybe I didn't phrase that too well.

"because the team already gets crushed before Lycan finally goes to eat towers" (because busy afk farming the vlad's, Necro3 and Travels)

Better?

You need a team which can competently 4 man lanes and keep them busy while you push lanes and force them to tp/ drop towers and if 2 or more to your 4 move in and get kills and towers to. Requires patience from experience

^ nah.

op is not playing lycan. he is part of that "a team which can competently 4 man lanes and keep them busy".

Heres my 3k mmr trash can lycan last night:

http://dotabuff.com/matches/589399147 perfect laning partner CM. Commended! Safe lane gets you about 2 min better farm than jungling. Didn't die once.

http://dotabuff.com/matches/589457108 Kill stealing Disruptor safe lane partner, and nuked creeps with lightning ball. Made it much harder to farm and I was behind 3 minutes on vlads so 13 min vlads. Had to retreat to the woods to finish up since he was playing super aggressive and apparently wanted the farm, so I should of figured it out earlier in the game.

Either way, I give Lycan a thumbs up still. I am going to not jungle lycan unless my lane is losing or I cannot last hit creeps due to a support nuking them.

Gotta play versatile though right? FYI I just got divine rapier for s's and grins since we had 2 of their barracks down. Not a core build obviously...

My last lycan game:

http://dotabuff.com/matches/589362083

They counter picked the shit out of us, two aoe stuns, centuar ult, slardar sprint, timbersaw chains. Those guys blink in I could never escape. Doesn't help my team sucked dick either, pa started like 4-0 yet somehow farmed terribly all game, disruptor died 16 times, 5-14 axe. So in retrospect I would not insta pick lycan and not pick him vs teams with craploads of stuns, guys like cent, slardar, earthshaker.

my recent lycan matches. most of them win around 20min

http://dotabuff.com/players/67902131/matches?date=week&faction=&hero=lycan&lobby_type=&game_mode=&duration=

the secret is here:
http://dotabuff.com/topics/2014-03-27-lv1-roshan-and-then-5-men-mid-tower-pushing

Maybe I'll try playing Lycan one of this days with all this input. Only got 6 games with him I think, of which I only actually picked him once :P

@ Wookie

Just a thought, but have you ever thought about skipping power treads and doing just boots of travel right away? I mean that line up was tough you had against, but I feel you should've acted like a natures prophet and TP in the opposite lanes furthest away from the enemy team when you see them pop up on your mini-map. Seems if I notice your trends with lycan purchasing you go treads, then sell them late game to get boots of travel. I feel *again just my opinion* that being very mobile and eating towers mid game versus late game makes a larger impact. That stat gain and 30 IAS points is helpful, but switching to an opposite lane from where the enemy team is more helpful.

Again maybe with boots of travel since the natures prophet in that game is doing the same thing typically pushing a lane where the enemy team is, you could've used ur BoT then BKB/shapeshift to take him out. Then the sprout and sheepstick would have no effect.

I mean granted that disruptor 1/16 and axe was poo but the rest of your team wasn't horrible. Tough to dig outta that hole though.

Its tough I'm no pro and I'm sure you have better MMR than me ;) I was really worried about that disruptor in my lane kill stealing and leaving me starving and underfarmed, or letting troll warlord and lion have their way with me. I just had to jungle/mute disruptor asshole and turn on some good music and get my GPM/Items and make up for lost time and say fuck the team until I got enough stuff to make an impact.

No, axe was garbage too, he failed every taunt initiation. Seeing those kills on PA and nyx looks good but look at their deaths, the other team wiped us at will, we just had ganks early. The problem with boots of travel was I had to keep defending cus slardar, timber and centuar would destroy our team and push a tower and np would split push another. I couldn't out push them on my own as they pushed two lanes since my team rolled over every team fight, so I was trying to build team fight items at that point since rat alone wouldn't work. But I didn't quite get there, probably needed ac and basher and you can see I was way behind there.

Dat axe and disruptor feed thou.

Regarding farm I disagree about farming in lanes in pubs, I aways go jungle, even when I am ganked it pays off. Usually pub teams arent coordinated enough to shut you down or help you in the lane. you should aways leave jungle after 7-8mins anyway, either to go roshan or farm ancients.

http://dotabuff.com/matches/587062196 check this game. This game started out terrible for my team but with a single fight won after rosh thanks to Lycan's DPS, the game suddenly turned around.

Yeah that lycan game looked rough. Sometimes if I see my team get rolled and can't initiate, I just say screw it and keep farming so I don't die as well unless it looks somewhat hopeful. If it looks like a wipe I just push my lane and keep going.

Keeping the enemy on their toes pushing an opposite lane even after they devour the other 4 man team sometimes you can make a tower trade or they pull out early and try and go for you. <3 BoT :O

Yeah that looked like a Poop game. I did say that axe was poop. "Axe would shed a tear for your middle tower, but axe does not cry"

John St. John best voice actor.... Does voice of axe, duke nukem, enigma, blood seeker.... and many many others. Used to play left for dead 2 with him and a few others after I met him at a e3 game con. in L.A. Very cool dude.

@ Sam

Nice xpm/gpm Yeah after you give your whole team the bonus 200 GP from first roshan kill even if your team is feeding more than 2 kills a minute it really turns things around for everyone.

@ gK

Yes its a toss up if your support can support. My Lycan game laning with disruptor proved that auto attack and him maxing/spamming lightning and kill shotting heros, or even farming medium and easy camps with his lightning and leaving me all by myself in lane was tough. It's always a toss up if you're going to get a support that knows how to support. Hardest role in the game IMO is supporting well.