Rotations in Dota 2: when to leave your lane

A gank is when one or two heroes suddenly show up on another lane and kill a hero standing far from their tower. A rotation is broader: any move off your lane to play on another one, including relieving pressure on your tower or placing a ward.

A gank works through surprise. If the enemy sees you on the minimap or you walk through their ward's vision on the way, it isn't a gank anymore — it's a walk.

The mid's windows are the power runes at 6:00, 8:00 and 10:00. Ten to fifteen seconds before the rune you already know which spot it's on, and your mid wave is pushed. Got Haste, Invisibility, Amplify Damage or Illusion? Head straight to the lane with the best payoff: an enemy far from their tower, without an escape, without wards. Decide where you're going before you pick up the rune.

Get back to mid for the next wave or rune. If you're losing your own lane, extra rotations only widen the gap: without a result you lose both waves and experience.

A rotation isn't only about kills. Relieving pressure on your tier 1 or catching an enemy at the Shrine of Wisdom counts too, as long as it didn't cost you the mid lane.

To keep your experience, count waves: they spawn every 30 seconds. Push a wave, visit the next lane, come back for the following one — then the rotation costs you almost nothing. If the trip to your target takes more than half a minute one way, go via the rune or a teleport.

BottleTown Portal Scroll

Pos 4 leaves lane when their own lane is under control and there's a target: the enemy mid without a rune and on low health, or their carry with no escape. Usually that's minute 4–6, especially together with your mid's 6:00 power rune.

If your pos 4 never showed up on another lane before 10:00 while their own lane was even or winning, that's lost tempo. Our review flags it separately.

• The target is a hero with no escape standing by the river or far from their tower.
• Approach from the fog, not across the open river or past their ward.
• Warn the lane in advance: your ally should start trading when you're already close.
• No kill? At least take a rune, place a ward or stack a camp on the way back.

We don't judge the fact that you left the lane — we judge what it brought.

• Good: a kill, assist, tower or relieved pressure, with mid losing no more than one wave.
• Empty: you came, found nobody and left, while two or more mid waves died meanwhile.
• Bad: you died on another lane because you walked through an enemy ward.
• Warning sign: several mid exits in a row with no kill and no assist.

Smoke of Deceit makes your group invisible and lets it walk past enemy wards. Since 7.40 you can use it from the backpack, and since 7.41d your allies see a chat message when you pop it. A good smoke has a known target: a ward showed where their core is farming.

A TP scroll in your inventory is a rotation too. A TP to an ally being chased by two enemies, or to a lane where they dive your tier 1, turns their gank into your kill.

Smoke of DeceitTown Portal ScrollObserver and Sentry Wards

The lane review finds every rotation before 10:00 and checks whether it produced a kill, how many mid exits had no result, whether the pos 4 went to help, and how teleports to other lanes ended.