DotA Weekly: Pro Tip From A Pro — Using The Scroll of Town Portal

Behold the wonder of a “Scroll of Town Portal”

Now many of you might be thinking, “OMF, NOOB TIP, WTF! TEACH ME HOW TO STACK ORBS RATHER” but pay close attention as this little item is one of the most important (besides skadi, radiance & mjollnir OFC BRA!!! ).

THE FACTS

Cost: 135 gold

Bought from: Ancient of Wonders (Also found on Scourge side)

It can also be bought from Goblin Laboratory shops in the side lanes

Use: Teleports you to a friendly building

Cooldown: 65 seconds

THE USES

There are many uses for a TP scroll but many players lack the understanding of how to effectively use a TP scroll.  It is not simple, as I have seen many times in pubs, when you die to grab one and TP straight back into the lane.  The uses are endless and to cover these I hope by the end of reading this you will have at least become more aware and humble to the great TP scroll item.

Ganking

The main idea behind this would be to effectively use a TP scroll to gank another lane in order to free it up to farm/push/harass and take no prisoners.

Support

This is by far the most important I think, because a lot of players do not understand the concept of support let alone support TP scrolling.

You would effectively either be “TPing” in to:

Cover a carry or another player.  Example of this would be if 2/3 heroes are ganking your carry player, you TP in to either save him with a timely stun, create a presence to make the gankers flee or sacrifice yourself in order to save him losing any gold.  Either way your TP scroll will save the day.

Supporting, if a lane is under immense pressure TP in and provide support.  This can come in the form of a solo player going against a dual-stun lane.  TP in to provide support in the form of stun/slow/healing salve/tangoes/hang out.

Push

To mass TP into a lane (Yes that means you and your teammates, 5 Heroes) and push the creeps and take down the opposing tower.

Farm

The most commonly used TP, is to farm.  The idea is simple, you just TP into your allied tower and start hitting the creeps!  This is the most commonly frowned upon use, but as a solo player you will have to use this effectively if say you fall to first blood.  It would be important to get back into your lane and start farming asap as you do not want to fall behind in the exp/farming race.

Evade/Escape from Certain Attacks

It is very effective against enemies who have devastating nukes but cannot disable/stun you.  A good example would be dual laning against a Viper.  Once he reaches level 6, you can carry a TP scroll on you to evade his Ultimate + poison + nether strike combination.  Once he Viper Strikes you, just TP back to your fountain, and now he has wasted an Ultimate, no gold for him. You’ve saved your ass and possibly, the day.

The Squeeze

The above points are to open your eyes to what other ways there are to TP into a lane for, but there are many other things to think about before you click away and wait for 65 seconds before you do it again.  Always think about why you want to TP in and for what reason.  Don’t think now, “YES TP AWAY COZ I WANNA GANK/SUPPORT/FARM DAEKINHO SAID SO!” Always think before you TP to an allied tower/lane: why and for what reason am I TPing?

Also to have good communication and map awareness is key, I remember when I first began playing DotA and I read (somewhere) that it is important to be watching your mini-map every 5 seconds so almost the same thing you do when your practicing for your drivers to look in the rear-view mirror :P The same sort of concept.

The reason is simple, that you can see more on the mini-map than that of your main screen with your hero.  This is very vital in order to TP in to cover/harass/gank as most times it is faster to react than to listen to a command and react.

Also I know when I play support that it is far better to walk to a lane from your base than TP into it.  Reason? Because take this example:

You are playing Lion (support/ganker type hero), you are inside your base.  You TP into top lane, but the opposition decide to gank bot lane.  What do you do now?

There is nothing you can do, but apologize: “I just TP’d top , can’t help you soz”

Now, if you had walked to top lane and on the way there they started ganking bot, you could’ve easily TP’d bot and saved your teammate. In the process you might have even scored some kills and free’d that lane up to farm for yourself, or the carry.

So remember THINK before you SCROLL. No that doesn’t rhyme. But REMEMBER to always think about why you want to use a scroll.

Now if you don’t take my words for it, here are some of SA pro’s to tell you what they think of TP scrolling and how it rolls.

Glitch

Plays for and captain’s: clan dedA

In this version tp scroll is probably the most important thing in the game, because there is so much farm and if the opposition wants to gank your carry 3 tp’s to save him and the other one just stays in lane and farm.  It gets used to save towers and save carries or just to counter gank.  Because warding is such a big issue in the game now, it’s hard to gank by just walking around so tp ganks is the most effective.

ClitsybananaS

Plays for and main carry: clan dedA

Tp scrolls are the way of dota, becuz boots of travel is like 2200 gold most people dont get it in a team, tp scrolls cost 135 and are very effective, they can change games and end games, if people use a tp scroll well u can effectively mass tp to a tower, save it , win a battle and get ur carry some kills, u can also tp in the fog and hide and bait it with the carry on ur team ( the hero the people want to kill)

Freez

Plays for: JJ DotA

The tp scroll has always played a big part in dota, especially when trying 2 escape, its great when the other team doesn’t have a lot of disable and with skilful fog hugging 1 can survive ganks. The current version is very farm oriented, with more passive and reactive play style’s being used because of the effectively of carries which are hard 2 kill and survive long enough so there team can tp in.

Never tp to a lane to farm, unless the creeps are at your tower and the lane is open. Always carry a tp scroll.

I hope this has at least opened your eyes to the power of the scroll of town portal!

Thanks must go out to scant, glitch, clitsybananas and freez for helping me with this post.