Dota 2 Guide: The importance of creep-aggro

Dota 2 is a magnificent game which has innumerable concepts to it. The game never ages, which means one can come up with an infinite number of strategies and develop new styles to play the same hero. However, some mechanics are fundamental in Dota 2 and creep-aggro is one of them.

This article will not focus on explaining the concept of creep-aggro in-depth, as the concept is explained on various internet media sources. Instead, it focuses on the benefits of aggroing creeps, when and why do players do it. It is also to be noted that this article requires some conceptual knowledge of lane equilibrium in Dota 2.

A brief introduction to creep-aggro

Image Courtesy: Medium website

Image Courtesy: Medium website

Creep-aggro is when the enemy creeps stop attacking the ally creeps and attack the player instead. This generally happens when the player has issued an attack command or a-clicked the enemy hero. The enemy creeps need to be in acquisition range for this phenomenon to take place. Melee creeps have a 500 range, ranged creeps have 600 range and siege creeps have 800 range. It is also to be noted that creep-aggro has a 3 second cooldown period. Please refer the above two pictures to understand better.

Why is creep-aggro so Important?

If someone wants to improve at Dota 2 and wants to learn how to be better at the game, creep-aggro is one of the best things to start with.

Creep-aggro can help players win their lanes irrespective of their last hitting skills or weak trading knowledge. The process of aggroing creeps somewhat ignores what the lane match-up is and gives advantage to the players using it to their advantage. It enables players to secure last hits and get those crucial denies even in bad lane match-ups.

Benefits of creep-aggro?

Creep Aggro helps secure last hits and denies even in a badly matched-up lane, it can help reset or alter the lane equilibrium. Creep Aggro helps avoid harassment from enemy heroes in the lane, providing more sustain and enables a player to harass without taking any damage in the lane from creeps.

It is easy to understand how creep-aggro helps you last hit and deny or change lane equilibrium. For example, Player A is laning against Player B in the mid-lane. Player A issues an attack command or a-clicks Player B without actually attacking him and is successful at drawing aggro of enemy creeps towards him. The enemy creeps are now closer to Player A and he/she is happily last-hitting without taking much harass from Player B.

As for how it changes lane equilibrium, Player A aggros creeps and the creeps come closer to his/her ranged creep, they eventually kill the ranged creep and Player B’s lane is now pushing. Giving lane-positioning advantage to Player A. Player A keeps repeating this process and turns the lane in his/her favour both in Creep Score(CS) and lane equilibrium.

Out of the above points, the part of harassing enemy player without taking damage probably needs an explanation too. Once a player creep-aggros, he/she will have a 3-second window to harass the enemy hero without aggroing the creeps and taking unnecessary damage. Repeating the process of creep-aggro will open more opportunities to freely harass the enemy hero in that 3-second window. Please note that this will take practice and once a player gets the basics of creep aggro right they can do this without even thinking about it.

When not to creep-aggro?

It is important to note that aggroing at the expense of taking significant damage from an enemy hero or putting one’s hero at the risk of dying is not recommended. Even though creep-aggro is great and gives positive results most of the time, there might be some instances where aggroing creeps will get one in trouble.

Using creep-aggro at the expense of compromising one’s positioning is never recommended. As this can get one killed or force one to tank unnecessary damage. Calling upon the use of this concept when there are multiple waves of creeps in the early laning stage can also put one in immense lane pressure. Using creep-aggro when the enemy’s lane is pushing very aggressively is also not recommended, apart from a few unique situations.