Warding: Comprehensive Link List

Here's a list of all the warding-related posts and images that I could find.  There are many more, but some aren't all that good.  These either have good explanations, good screenshots/map markup, or both.

6.82 Patch-Specific Wards

• Image:  6.82b Warding Locations
• Youtube Video: 6.82 Warding

Warding Articles:

• How to Ward by Wulfstan (DotaFire Guide:  The Good, the Bad and the Warding)
• Tsunami's Ridiculously Comprehensive Guide to Warding:
• Link on Reddit to EHUG posts:
• Pull Camp & Rune Wards (PDF)
• Pushing Wards (PDF)
• Situational Wards (PDF)
• Counter-Warding (PDF)
• Team Dignitas Article on Warding
• Steam Guides on Warding:
• Advanced Warding by RadishSpirit
• Essential Guide to Warding
• Ultimate Warding Guide (good map markup, a bit dated)
• KnowDota2 Warding Guide (lots of individual screenshots)

Dota 2 Jokes

Found a blog with Dota2 jokes on it.


Reprinted from that blog:

General dota 2 jokes:

Q: Whats the river’s name in dota?
A: I’m pretty sure it’s The River Fag. 'Cause I’ve been told I few times ‘don’t cross the river fag

Q: Why did the CM build a battlefury?
A: for the +35% to cleavage

Q: What time does Antimage finish farming?
A: 3AM

Q: What did Jesus say to the apostles when Romans came to arrest him?
A: “MISS???”

Q: Why people always blame the mid for losing his lane?
A: If the mid loses his lane too, we don’t have a single lane that’s winning.

Q: Why does Bounty Hunter sound so nasally?
A: Because he’s allergic to dust.

Q: Who is the only french Hero in Dota?
A: Le shrac

Q: Why Newbee banned Nature’s Prophet and Death Prophet?
A: Because they are a non-prophet organization.

Q: What do you call Darkterror with no lane to farm?
A: Spaceless Void

Q: What does Tusk drink at parties?
A: punch

Q: Why did sniper cross the river?
A: AHHHH FRESH MEAT

Q: Why did Kunkka bring his sword to the store when he went to get some more laundry detergent?
A: Because it’s the Tidebringer

Q: Who does Void thank for helping him win the game?
A: His MoM and Daed.

Q: What is Huskar’s favorite game?
A: Half-life

Q: Why does Slardar keep trying to get close to Naga?
A: Because of his Slithereen Crush!

Q: Why do Koreans like Broodmother-only 5v5 mid?
A: Because it is Broodwar.

Q: How did Sven see the invisible Luna?
A: Because he couldn’t miss that great cleave.

Q: What did Sven say to Phantom Assassin when she got her battlefury?
A: Nice cleavage

Q: Why Spirit breaker would make a horrible salesman?
A: Because he’d charge too much

Phantom Lancer walks into a bar.
There was no counter.

---

Dota 2 vs LOL:

Drow and Ashe walk into the bar.
Bartender: Which of you is a better shot
Drow: Me of course
Ashe: I can’t Deny

---

Yo mama jokes:

Your mama so fat, chat wheel doesn’t know what lane she’s in.

Your mama so fat, chat wheel can’t decide on which lane she is.

Your mama so fat, even EG can’t throw her.

Your mama so fat, when Rubick tried to steal a spell, all he got was diabetes.

Your mama so fat, that when Bounty Hunter tracks her, he has vision all over the map.

Your mama so fat, if Naix infests her it takes him ten minutes to get back out.

Your mom is so dumb, if silencer kills her, he loses int.

Flesh Heap: When a nearby enemy hero dies, Pudge gains bonus strength. When yo mama dies, Pudge becomes invulnerable.

Earliest Solo Rosh Heroes and Builds

by CNHphoto on Reddit:
So a recent project of mine is learning heroes that can solo rosh early on. I'll post my list of heroes and what they need. I know there's more heroes that can do it in the early game, but I'm not entirely familiar with the minimum requirements (e.g. Venomancer, Troll Warlord, Lifestealer). I'd love to know you think or how to do it with different heroes.

• Lycan: Need level 7, Vladmir's Offering, Stout Shield, Quelling Blade, Smoke. Complete-able 10 minute mark.
• Enigma: Need level 5, Medallion of Courage, 2-3 Healing Salves, Smoke of Deceit. Complete-able before 6 minute mark.
• Ursa: Need level 4, Morbid Mask, Stout Shield, Smoke of Deceit. Complete-able before 6 minute mark.
• Nature's Prophet: Need level 7, Medallion of Courage, Ring of Basillius, Power Treads, Healing Salve. Complete-able before 12 minute mark.

by hugarh on reddit:
Chen can do it within 10 minutes. Needs lv 7 and a mek. You need an alpha wolf, though .

by Omar_Indeed and stylelimited
Troll just needs Helm of the Dominator and a wolf or ice armor creep, and Level 11.  Usually has Phase Boots by this time as well.  Soloing Rosh before level 11, you need an blue ogre companion to be safe IMO.

by supernerd1123
Drow ranger can do it with a MoM at Level 11.

by DangerAwar
Level 7 Veno can do it with max Plague Wards.  You can have the wards tank Rosh with some aggro management [to avoid having to leave the pit].

How to Accelerate Your Farm

Here are some tips for accelerating farm like a pro.  Gathered from reddit and other sources.

Tip:
- if mid laner ganks the safe lane, he doesn't stay there to nuke down the next two waves of creeps before going back mid. Leave those creeps for your safelane carry!

Zrog's Tips:
- Don't die.  While this may seem like stupid advice, it also means "don't take risks when you don't have your core items yet", and "abandon fights and escape when they look iffy".
- Your supports may be jumping into a losing fight to ensure that you, the carry, make it out alive, and if you go back into the fight to "save" them, you're doing the wrong thing.
- Don't farm risky zones without support.  Farming the enemy Ancients with no wards or supports nearby is asking to be ganked.

by mido9:
A really important part of finding farm is that in pro games, unless you're immediately grouping to take a tower, every lane+jungle is occupied. There's very little farm that should go straight to the tower or die to an enemy creep wave.
Mid going to gank offlane? A position 5 support rotates to mid for a few quick levels and ward gold.
Carry just finished a gank with his two supports? Immediately back to the safelane he goes.
Offlaner farming his lane, support at safe, midlaner at mid? Carry instantly into the jungle he goes.
Just finished a good deathball and took the Tier 2 Tower? Immediate delta split into each lane + a jungle.
Anti-mage just TP'd to help a mid fight? To ancients ASAP afterwards.
It's a large part of why net exp and net gold is so much higher in pro games on average than in pubs, there's just a lot of gold that goes away for no reason because the mid stuck around to nuke some waves, or a tri-lane support was babysitting a little unnecessarily, or the offlane was running around looking for ganks too often and fell behind in gold, etc. The default state of a lane is to be occupied usually unless there's a really big, clear opportunity to gank and push or some other big deal.

by Jalapen0s
(As a carry): If you see a big fight somewhere else on the map, chances are unless you are 95% sure that you can TP in and get kills on retreating low HP enemies, you shouldn't join the fight, and just keep farming with the space that fight created for you. Also, when your supports pull, after you kill the enemy creeps, detour into the camp and get XP/ cs, then go back into lane.

by Noblewingz

1. Always BUY OUT. Almost never do I lose gold on a death unless I'm saving for buyback or a big item.
2. NEVER miss last hits, as a mid player it's acceptable to miss a few because of the enemy mid, but if i'm getting uncontested or under tower, I get almost every one. (Learn to estimate hp under tower so you don't miss last hits, or with quelling drop quelling for easy hits.)
3. My farming patterns are very efficient, I studied arteezy and burning to get a idea of the best patterns for a mid carry :)
4. Supports should stack frequently/all the time!
5. Finally, carry a Town Portal (TP) Scroll at all times and USE IT. That 100 gold often can earn you a extra 300-500 by going to a different lane, instead of waiting for jungle to respawn/creeps to hit your wave!

HiyoleX , paraphrased:
1. Basic Boots.  Moving faster between camps is worth the money.  Get [brown] Boots before your farming item.
2. Know which farming item to get for which carry.  Gyro = HoD.  Anti-mage/PA = BFury.  Medusa = HoD or Maelstrom. Naga = Radiance (usually).  Sniper = Dragon Lance, Maelstrom or Midas.  Void = Midas

FMERCURY writes:

I'd like to emphasize the importance of buying a quelling blade on melee carries. It drastically increases the rate at which you can farm the jungle, not only by boosting your damage against neutrals, but by allowing you to cut more efficient paths (also, removing trees that can obscure enemies). And I guarantee you will improve your CS in the laning phase.
You can even make a case for it on some ranged carries. Radiant gyro is a great example.
[also very useful for cutting trees to make faster farming paths - Zrog]

DROWNING_WITH_SIRENS writes on Reddit:

• Missing less last hits in lane is going to be the first and most important thing to do well.
• Clearing camps between waves is another way to increase your farm instead of just waiting around for the creeps to meet again. You can also clear camps if you are struggling to last hit in lane or the lane is too pushed for you to safely do so. [Zrog says:  You should ideally be pushing the wave, and then side pulling with the large camp]
• Farming where fights are going to happen. If you have the capacity to be useful early, farming near to where you think a fight is going to break out is a good idea. Farm until fight starts, run in and get aoe gold, then go back to farming. Keep a tp if the enemy team is diving. This doesnt mean standing around waiting for the fight to happen like people love to do in pubs, you want to be farming a camp or something while the teams are waiting for someone to do something.
• Good itemization. It doesn't matter how farmed you are, if you buy bad items you are going to be setting yourself back.

[–]Berbacat writes on Reddit:

• Planning. Carries that require a minimum amount of farm already know what items to get at minute -1, minute 2, and minute 10. They also have enough experience to know what to get based on how well the laning phase went.
• Efficiency (1). There are 2 aspects to this: Time and space. Sometimes, identifying space that is available (such as a creep wave pushed up to a Tier 2 tower due to a Tier 1 tower immediately crumbling before) can nab you an extra 200 gold within that minute compared to joining a push that is already guaranteed to get you a Tier 1 tower in the lane you're already in.
• Efficiency (2): Maximising time that isn't farming. This includes traveling, fighting and most importantly, pushing. If you're traveling to another lane, efficient carries think of the possibility of stacking, or using their mana to clear out a camp somewhere in if they know that they'll regen it later.
• Disciplined. Carries that know how to farm will generally resist temptation to fight, depending on how close they are to a particular item. If they have foresight, they can even convince teammates to delay a smoke gank or something similar by a minute because he knows in advance what his farming progression is like.

These are just examples at the top of my head, let me know if any of them don't make sense

more from Reddit:
A big part of [farming] is TPing to other lanes with waves opening up. Do not miss CS, farm the jungle in between waves, especially after getting your basic items (treads, aquila). Do not run to base unless necessary, bring yourself regen. Do not die, dying is the #1 reason [carries] fall behind.

by Barnyyy
http://www.twitch.tv/barnyyy
or
http://youtube.com/barnyvods

 by Merlini:

Article: How to Support by Camocspro

I liked this comment/post, but it was buried in Reddit, and I knew I'd never find it again.  It is re-posted here for posterity.

Captured from Reddit.  Post by camocspro.

Here are certain simple rules to all support players who are in low MMR. People at higher level MMR probably all know this already, so ignore from here on.

1. Always buy wards at level 1. If you think your enemy is an invis hero like clinkz, bounty, weaver, you have to buy sentry wards. Go gather around rune at 0:00 with help. Assess your enemy lanes, if you feel that they are going to safe lane and you are safe laning too, its always better to ward near the enemy's safe lane rune spot, so your mid can see incoming ganks.
2. Always check the offlane player's inventory. If he has wards, keep tabs on his inventory as he walks around. If he doesn't have it at any moment, he has likely placed the ward around where he walked. Always check pull camp at 0:30, to make sure it hasn't been warded. If it has, buy sentrys ASAP and deward and start pulling. If it hasn't then stack, go zone out if its a strong offlane like phoenix or bristle back and then pull. Else just zone out and pull through. Try to avoid staying in lane with the carry unless he requires it and make sure you get XP and so does his carry. Don't unnecessarily babysit carry. Just zone out offlane and come back in between to help. When harassing try to stay off the aggro range from creeps. Do not unnecessarily harass enemy while taking aggro from creeps. Harass mainly when there are fewer creeps and away from aggro range. Eat a tango before trading hits. Take off creep aggro after each harass. Learn aggro tricks searching on google. Do not trade hits with a hero who has more damage than you. Use harass with spells instead, of course you should have mana regen for that. If you need the carry help in harass and zoning out. Ping the enemy offlane hero to notify your carry to help you. When in lane DO NOT try to steal a creep. Deny and get your gold from pulls. Do not single pull unless you intend to get a tower.
3. After zoning out, go roam towards mid especially as a 4 role. If you are 5 role, don't bother roaming unless your carry is doing really well and doesn't need any help. As a 4 role, you should buy smoke to gank before minute 6, as most often enemy supports have wards. If you try to gank without a smoke, your move towards mid woulda be of no use. As a 4 or a jungler try to secure the rune for your mid hero if he has a bottle. Come around 55 to the rune spot and ask your mid to go to the other rune spot. This will ensure your mid hero wins the rune battle. Try upgrading courier as soon as possible after minute 3.
4. Watch for enemy hero levels. I've seen the players perspective of my 3k MMR friend and he didn't even see the scoreboard or the other hero inventories etc to see how everyone else is doing, until he died. Watch for levels of all heroes, especially mid and invis killers like nyx bounty. As soon as nyx hits level 5+, go get sentry wards and place one at mid and one at carry. You also need to get teleport scroll to be ready to TP since around level 6 laning stages transitions into ganks. You will NOT have money for magic wand, or arcane boots unless you have kills. At max you will have boots and a magic wand. This should be enough. That is why position 5 is really hard. You have to try your best to gather gold to invest on wards etc. Also remember to stack, supports even my level of MMR just refrain from doing this. They walk next to a creep camp at 53 and are completely oblivious to the idea that they can stack a camp/ancients without wasting any time. You need to pay a lot of attention. Your gold and levels depends on how well your team is doing, not on how well you are doing. You support your core heroes to win the game. You don't carry the game for your team.
5. Don't worry too much about your levels, ensure that your core heroes are at good levels as when you are near kills, you will catch up on levels. The more greedier you play the worse it is for your team. If youare position 5 you can control the tempo of the game with your support especially early game. As a position 4 or even position 5 do NOT stay in lane with low hp or mana without any form of regen. Just walk to base to come back. You don't need to use TP to come back. You can just walk back. That TP should be saved to help someone in danger.
6. The most important thing is to watch enemy inventory. There is no point in ganking someone with a haste rune bottled up if you don't have a really hard disable for a long time. Assess killing potential and hp. HP percentage bar is not enough to gauge killing potential. High strengh gain heroes can have 500 hp at 50% health which is not an easy kill. Also notice mana pools. If weaver has only mana for one sukuchi then it is a great time to gank. If he has full mana, unless you have good lockdown and burst, ganking him is fruitless, because he is going to ulti.
7. Watch for tier 1 HP. If it is under 50% HP, single pull the small camp and destroy the enemy creeps faster and get tier 1 quickly. This is especially useful, if your safe lane is doing really well and your carry is going midas. This will get his midas faster due to tower gold and therefore accelerate GPM.
8. Do not deward and place the ward in the same spot. Place in different places all over the map so your ward doesn't get dewarded easily. Always carry dust against shadow blade/invis heroes, sentries is not that useful. Get sentries against heroes that use invis to initiate, like nyx, mirana ultimate etc.
9. Do not stack disables, and please for the love of god don't buy an aghanims on supports. Buy mobility items. Blink/forstaff euls. My friends always go aghs on bane which is ridiculously dumb and I can't even imagine why. Unless you are warlock aghs is a stupid item on supports. Blink/forcestaff/euls will be better any day. Have a lot of gold, buy necro and stay relevant. Even a bkb/ghost sceptor/halbred is better.
10. In fights you shouldn't try to right click. Cast your skills and get away from the fight. You are not there to take any damage whatsoever. Once your cooldowns are done, come back into the fight and cast spells again.

Good Follow-up Comments:

by rascast5:
So don't just create space for your carry. Your job isn't to stand next to the carry so he 'has space'. Work to get him kills, work to get mid kills, and work to kill the enemy carry, while keeping vision up around the map so your team doesn't get ganked. Always have a tp so you can tp to ganks to help out and get return kills. Your carry doesn't need to be ultra farmed. If your mid is decent and you help him stomp his lane by controlling runes and ganking then the game becomes 4v5. If you kill the enemy carry as well and stop him from farming it doesn't matter if he could be last hitting better than your guy.

by Myzzrym:
If you see for instance that people are not paying attention to the mini-map, do not place wards in "passive" areas to "avoid ganks" (because they won't notice it anyway). Place your wards aggressively where you know you can catch someone or at least disturb them, or place them in a way where you have sight so you can harass safely because you know the enemy supports are not near.
If you see your carry isn't reliable, it's time to go and try to shut down someone else instead of making sure you own carry can get farm. Be careful, it's really easy to get into a "everyone sucks anyway" mindset and start playing solo, which is not what I'm advocating for. People make mistakes, and you shouldn't entirely abandon your carry because he missed some CS or got killed stupidly once or twice.

Phoenix Agh's Upgrade (6.82b)

So Phoenix now has this Agh's upgrade where she can refresh OTHER heroes' cooldowns on non-ultimates.  What goes well with this?

"Refresher" Hero List:

Doom (Devour & Scorched Earth)
Juggernaut (Blade Fury & Healing Ward)
Lone Druid (new Bear)
Lycan (Howl, Wolves both >30 secs)
Techies (Suicide Squad, upon respawn)
Terrorblade (Metamorphosis)
Undying (Tombstone)
Warlock (Upheaval and Fatal Bonds)
Invoker (so many things... meatballs come to mind)
Drow Range (similar to Lycan, refresh Precision Aura active)

<link to Google doc with table of hero cooldowns>

"Channeled Ultimates" Hero List:

Non-Channeled, persistent spells now "resume" once the egg breaks.  This includes:

Naga - Song of the Siren
Luna - Eclipse
Razor - Eye of the Storm
Sand King - Epicenter
Leshrac - Pulse Nova

Links:

Reddit guide of "when to build agh's on Phoenix"

(has since been patched):  Channeled spells screenshots:  http://imgur.com/a/amssO 

Relevant Phoenix Build / Guide:  http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/guide/not-just-kfc-updated-with-aghanims-scepter-7340 

Item: Dagon (on what heroes?)

Dagon seems to be a great item, giving an extra nuke to any hero.  Who uses it best?

In most cases, the "good" heroes that could make use of the stats + nuke would need another item first, as a source of mana regen (Arcane Boots, usually).

Good Dagon Hero Candidates:

Ogre Magi - has toughness already, needs Int for mana pool
Nyx - needs burst for better ganking, needs bigger mana pool
Skywrath Mage - Int buffs existing nuke and needs big mana pool
Tinker - more nuke for ganking

Rejected Heroes:

Necrolyte - Int carry, but needs toughness
Storm Spirit - likes burst & int, but needs mana regen really badly
Zeus - more burst would be good, but needs mobility more
Pugna - would be good, but Pugna too squishy - needs hp items more
OD - too squishy - needs mobility, already heavily dependent on magic dmg
Queen of Pain (more burst would be good, but Orchid better)

Unusual Candidates:

Windranger (as semi-support, could use an instant nuke, Int buffs right-click for Focus Fire)

Shadow Demon (as semi-support or mid, he could make very good use of it)
Clockwerk - could use the mana pool and burst damage
Tiny - if someone else is carrying, this would increase your nuke a lot

List of Pure-Damage Heroes by Role

The following heroes have one or more abilities that deals Pure damage, or deal pure damage with an Agh's upgrade.

Also shown on dota2pedia in a different format.

Pure Damage Dealers by Role (ability)

Carries

• Outworld Destroyer (Arcane Orb)
• Phantom Assassin (Stifling Dagger)
• Spectre (Desolate)

Semi-Carries & Mids

• Silencer (Glaives)
• Invoker (EMP, Sunstrike)
• Lina (Agh's + Laguna Blade)
• Bloodseeker (Rupture)
• Phoenix (SunRay)
• Pudge (Meat Hook)
• Templar Assassin (Psi-Blades)
• Tinker (Laser)

Supports

• Lina (Agh's + Laguna Blade)
• Bane (Nightmare, Brain Sap)
• Omniknight (Purification)
• Phoenix (Sunray)
• Silencer (Glaives)
• Vengeful Spirit (Wave of Terror)

Initiators

• Doom (Doom)
• Enigma (Midnight Pulse, Aghs + Black Hole)

Junglers:

• Enchantress (Impetus)
• Doom (Doom)
• Enigma (Midnight Pulse, Aghs + Black Hole)

Solo Offlaners:

• Timbersaw (Whirling Death*, Timberchain, Chakram)
• Nyx Assassin (Spiked Carapace)
• Doom (Doom)

ITEMS that deal pure damage:

• Urn of Shadows (on enemy)
• Blademail (Damage return)

List of Healers, Lifestealers and Self-Healers

List of Healing Heroes:

• Abaddon
• Dazzle
• Chen
• Enchantress
• Io / Wisp
• Huskar
• Juggernaut
• Legion Commander
• Necrophos
• Omniknight
• Phoenix (Sun Ray)
• Treant
• Undying
• Winter Wyvern
• Witch Doctor

Anti-Healers:

• (any burst hero)
• Ancient Apparition (Ice Blast)
• Axe (Culling Blade)
• Necrophos (Scythe)

Heroes with Health Restore / Lifesteal

• Alchemist (Chemical Rage Healing)
• Bane (Brain Sap)
• Bloodseeker
• Death Prophet (return of Exorcism spirits)
• Doom (Scorched Earth Heal)
• Io (Tether + Heal)
• Legion Commander(Counterattack)
• Lifestealer (Open Wounds, Feast)
• Pugna (Life Drain)
• Terrorblade (Sunder)
• Weaver (Time Lapse)
• Wraith King (Vamp Aura)

Viable team ideas with many healers:

#1:
Weaver + Bane + Abaddon aggro tri
Necrophos mid
Huskar solo safe

#2: (pushing team - greedy)
Death Prophet mid
Chen jungle
Undying solo offlane
Juggernaut + Pugna safelane

Countering Terrorblade (Dota 2 v6.82b)

So Terrorblade (TB) has hit the Dota 2 scene, and suddenly he's a pick/ban nearly every game.  In pubs, he's especially hard to deal with, due to the lack of team coordination (except sub-3k MMR, where apparently Terrorblade players feed very hard).

How do you deal with Terrorblade?

1. DO NOT give the enemy TB safe farm for 20 mins!
2. DO NOT try to out-carry him!  He is effective both mid and late game once he's got his core.
3. Aggressive Laning (aggro-tri or dual mid) with Spammy Nukers (Skywrath, Zeus)
4. Counterpicks:
• High damage nukers:  Lina, Lion, Skywrath, Zeus, QoP
• 1v1 lane:  use Timbersaw or Darkseer as solo offlaner
• Elder Titan to reduce his massive agility-based armor to nothing
• also helpful:  Vengeful Spirit and Shadow Fiend
• Gankers and Isolation Initiators:  Batrider, Nyx, Bounty Hunter, Bloodseeker, etc.
• Axe (esp. with Blademail) can manfight TB pretty easily
• Earthshaker to use his illusions against him (especially if he goes Manta, which is currently a popular item on TB).
5. Silences:  TB relies on Sunder to stay alive, the use of low-cooldown illusions, and Manta.  Helps if you can delay his use of illusions or Sunder with Doom or Silences.
6. Kiting:  Sunder has a short range, and the rest of TB is all about auto-attacks.  If you can play keep-away-and-nuke, he doesn't last long.  
• Weaver is good for this, especially since Time Lapse vs. Sunder = fight reset.
7. Use his illusions against him:  Dark Seer or Shadow Demon work well.  Copies of TB, with his high damage, can destroy him.
8. Pure Damage:  Outworld Destroyer, Enchantress, Silencer (orb attacks)
9. Finding the Real Terrorblade:  TB usually goes Power Treads, to mitigate his low hp, so the real TB will attack slightly faster than his illusions, since the latter don't benefit from the attack speed increase.

More Tips from Reddit (c+p from /u/Zenotha), posted by sourdonut

Counter him by pushing early and taking map control while preventing trades
He gets countered by strong early team fight lineups + one hero capable of stopping pushes (timber, sand king, kunkka, lina, leshrac etc etc) since his team will often be starved early.
Counter him by picking him off whenever he tries to find farm mid game (pre-manta)
He gets countered by pick off oriented lineups (riki, slark, QW orchid rush invoker, clinkz etc); controlling his jungle mid game will starve him significantly.
Counter him by having more scaling cores, while using supports that hard-counter him
He gets countered by ultra-late line ups combined with lion/enchant/sd, support picks capable of neutering most of his farm advantage.
Counter him by laning aggressively
TB is paper and doesn't fare well in tri v tri lanes. His only call to fame is being able to dodge nightmares with illusion transfer and projectile stuns by committing his cast of Meta, otherwise laning aggressively against him and controlling his jungle will slow down his start significantly.
Counter him with with heroes that hit structures faster
All things even, TB is never going to win a race against specific heroes such as Meepo. Speaking of Meepo, this is the true king of split-pushing, the bane of TB.
Counter him with specific picks that easily shut down his contribution
He gets countered in general by % damage like static field and midnight pulse because of interaction with damage amplification on illusions.
He gets countered by picks like Pugna which pushes well early and can one shot his illusions late.
In a nut shell, TB is actually very similar to Meepo. Very strong in the right hands, but easily countered with the correct lineup/playstyle. Meepo is hardly what one would call broken competitively, yet people don't accord TB a similar level of respect ban/pick wise and inevitably fail against him.

Other Resources:

Here's a video by Luminous on the subject, as well as the related anti-terrorblade reddit post.

Team Ideas based on Hero Synergies (Continued)

see also:  Hero Synergies

There are certain hero combinations that work well together (per my "Hero Synergies" post), and you will see teams draft these heroes together frequently.  Here are some team ideas based around hero synergies, with a brief explanation of their combos and required bans.

Team Ideas from Hero Synergies:

#1:

• Drow mid (or Shadowfiend)
• Alchemist + Windranger + Visage aggro tri.
• Elder Titan (or Bristleback) solo safe

Combo:  Acid Spray +  Base Armor Reduction + Precision Aura (+ WR Focus Fire & Familiars)
Disables:  Slow, Silence, Stun, Secondary Stuns x 3
Ban:  Omni, Faceless, Spectre, Terrorblade, or Brewmaster

#2: (very greedy)

• Troll mid
• Faceless offlane
• Medusa + Slardar + Venge

Combo:  Armor reduction + Medusa Ult + Right-click with Troll Ult.
Ban:  Omniknight, Dazzle, Shadow Demon, Spectre

#3:

• Huskar mid
• Luna + Wraith King + Windranger
• Beastmaster offlane

Idea:  Huskar ganks make space for Luna to farm up.  BM + Luna + WK all have aura synergies.  WR Focus Fire ult is buffed by Luna aura.  BM and Luna ults for teamfighting.  BM and WR give push and anti-push until Luna comes online with Glaives.  All heroes scale well.

#4:
Undying + Bane + KotL/Warlock aggro trilane
Necrolyte / Medusa mid
Invoker / Broodmother / Nature's Prophet solo safe

#5: (pushing line-up)
Undying + Leshrac + Jakiro aggro trilane
Venomancer mid
Lycan solo safe

Phoenix combos (now that Phoenix is in CM!)
#6
Huskar mid (go Pipe if appropriate)
Gyro + Phoenix safelane
Enigma jungle (go Mek) - pick this guy last or ban Rubick!
Elder Titan offlane
Idea:  Huskar makes space for this greedy lineup with L6 ganks.  Rotate Phoenix to mid when possible for extra farm / levels.
Combo:  (Echo Stomp + ).. Blink-Hole into Earthsplitter + Calldown + Supernova
Ban:  Rubick, Naga, (Silencer)

#7:
Leshrac mid
Naga + Crystal Maiden + Phoenix
Elder Titan offlane
Combo:  Song into Supernova + Earthsplitter + Pulse Nova
Bans: Early gankers (Venge, Ogre, etc).  CM and Phoenix are both squishy and slow.

#8:
Phoenix mid
Luna / Medusa + Witch Doctor safelane
Axe jungle
Dark Seer offlane
Combo:  Vaccum into Taunt, while Death Ward + Eclipse + Supernova
Ban:  Naga, Faceless Void

#9: (greedy teamfight lineup)
Undying solo offlane
OD + Warlock + Phoenix (two greedy supports)
Pugna solo mid
Combo:  Upheaval + Tombstone + Supernova + Nether Ward + OD ult, while Golem and Fatal Bonds boosts damage, and Phoenix slows right-clicks.
Notes:  Line-up is low on stuns.  OD chosen because of the pseudo-stun Astral Imprisonment, and big teamfight ult.  Alternate carries include Luna, Kunkka, Dragonknight, Wraith King

#9a: (more Phoenix)
Doom jungle
Pugna safe farm + Warlock / Lich support
Phoenix offlane

Leshrac mid
Idea:  Lich or Warlock ult discourages/punishes enemies who clump up to beat on Phoenix's SuperNova, and opponents may have to choose between a farmed Leshrac who is spamming Pulse Nova, and a Phoenix egg.  Meanwhile, Nether Ward punishes nukes and Doom runs rampant.
Weakness:  There's really nothing preventing enemies from leaving the AOE area.
Bans:  Rubick, Centaur, Naga

More combos:

#10:
(aggro or defensive) tri-lane:  Luna + Gyro (greedy support) + Crystal Maiden (hard support)
Faceless Void solo offlane
Shadowfiend mid
Idea:  Area lockdown with Chrono + ranged AOE damage
Ban:  Rubick, Naga
Combo:  Chrono over top of Luna Eclipse, Call Down + Freezing Field + Razes over Chrono, SFiend & Gyro right-clicks.  Luna buffs SF, and SF debuffs armor on enemies for Luna.

#11: (physical dmg team, combo'ing with Medusa Ult)
Tri-Lane:  Medusa + Dazzle + WitchDoctor
Death Prophet Mid
Beastmaster Offlane Solo
Pick:  Death Prophet, Witch Doctor, Dazzle, Beastmaster, Medusa
Ban:  Omniknight, DragonKnight, Terrorblade, Faceless, Axe/Necrophos

#12: (lots of range with boosted right-click)
Solo safelane: Undying
Aggro Tri-lane: Luna, Windranger, Venge/Visage
Mid:  Drow (or counterpick)
Picks:  Venge, Windranger, Undying, Luna, Drow
Note:  This team could probaby do a Level 1 Roshan kill.

Article: the first 3 months of Dota2

What I learned in my first 3 months of Dota 2:

• How to last hit and deny.  With each small improvement, your gold income increases dramatically, and you can start to pull ahead of your opponents in XP as you deny better.  Remember always that last hitting > denying.  Always choose a last hit on a creep over a deny.

• When to last hit and when to push.  Even when pushing, you should attempt to last-hit as much as possible.

• to stay alive:
•  Learn how to move back and forth to be a harder target for ground-targeted spells
• Learn that when you’re on low health, you need to retreat and heal, even if it means going all the way back to base.  Lost laning time is better than dying
• Learn to juke into the trees and use your Town Portal scroll to escape a gank (you DO always carry a TP scroll right?  RIGHT?  Stop being a noob and carry one).

• A general idea of how most of the (popular) heroes play, and their abilities.  This involves playing a lot of vs-bot games, and being really terrible at heroes for most of the game.

• That the default hotkeys are NOT your best friend.  You really need to rebind the courier and your items to more-convenient keys.

• How to use the courier without thinking about it:  create your own lobby-game and practice nothing but using the courier.
• What the most-common items are based on their icons.  You do not have time in game to read every item description!  Create a lobby of your own, or read the Learn tab online, and get familiar with the items and how to build them.
• How to stack and pull creeps into the safe lane to pull back your creep line.
• Respect for tower damage, especially at low levels
• How to use deny to back up your creep line.  You can only attack your own creeps when they are less than 50% health!

• What different roles mean, and how they affect how you play:

o   Carry:  weak early-game, dominates late game if farmed up (need items to be any good, and need superior last-hitting skills to get the gold in the first place!)

o   Support:  a character that doesn’t need a lot of items to be viable, and thus should take care of putting down wards, buying Dust if necessary, and generally helping a carry to stay safe and get last hits.  You buy the team-supporting items like Drums of Endurance, Mekanism, Pipe of Insight, and possibly Arcane Boots.  You DO NOT steal last-hits from your carry to get these items!

o   Initiator:  In team fights, it’s your job to go in first and set up an advantageous situation for your team, using your abilities (usually your Ultimate, but not always).

o   Pusher:  You excel at pushing lanes and taking down towers.  You need a game-sense of when the time is right, and when you have enough levels and gear to successfully take down an enemy tower.

o   Ganker:  you get yourself a few levels, maybe a few key pieces of gear, and then you go kill enemy heroes for most of the rest of the game.

• Observer and Sentry wards are valuable
• You do not stay in an area where you are outnumbered by enemy heroes unless you have allies, a tower, or an escape route closeby, or a nearly-failsafe escape.
• Places where enemies can get behind you or pincer you are bad places
• Know where the enemy team is, and where you allies are by looking at the minimap frequently.  TP to defend your allies.
• Don’t fight battles you can’t win; you’d be surprised how many people do this, just because they have a full mana bar, their ultimate off cooldown, and they are just itching to use their abilities.
• Fight only battles that are unfair in your favour.
•  “Fair” 5v5 fights are won through superior timing or positioning
• Learn what to buy to stay in lane.  Saving for big items doesn’t keep you safe in lane.  Buy regen and branches at the start, generally.
• The suggested starting items are generally good picks.  When you’ve played dozens of games, you can start making your own choices.
•  If you’re forced to return to base, buy and use a TP to get one direction; it is worth it to trade the cost of a TP scroll for the XP and last hits that you will otherwise miss by spending all your time running.
• Participate in team fights whenever possible!  If you don’t think your team should be teamfighting, say something instead of just being absent or hanging back.  Your lack of participation is the same as if you were ganked pre-team fight, forcing a 4v5 against your team.
• Do not dive towers directly into a fresh enemy creep wave before around level 8, when creep damage starts to matter less.
• Physical damage is king in late game, but burst nukes are king in mid-game.  Stuns or disables are useful pretty much all the time.  The deadliness of burst nuke damage tends to fall off after level 12-14, as people gain gear and levels.

Team Ideas: Wombo Combos

Lockdown and big delayed damage

Note: Most of these team compositions require you to ban Silencer, and possibly also Naga Siren, as they rely on combinations of sequential ultimates. Rubick and Pugna can also be good bans, depending on how annoying you think they'll be (definitely ban Rubick vs. Enigma!)

#1: 
Offlane: Elder Titan
Mid:  Gyro or Leshrac
Jungle:  Enigma
Safe Lane:  Luna + Sand King / Earthshaker
Combo:  Uses ET/Enigma/Shaker/SK for AOE lockdown, followed by Calldown/Nova + Earthsplitter

#2:
Offlane:  Magnus
Mid:  Kunkka
Safe Lane:  Jakiro + Witch Doctor + Sven
Combo:   Reverse Polarity intiation, extending the lockdown with Storm Hammer and Ice Path.  Followup damage from Ghost Ship, Death Ward and Macropyre.
Caveat:  A partial combo may be preferable, so you don't keep having to wait for ultimates to come off cooldown.  Storm Bolt into Ice Path + Death Ward may be enough to win the fight, for example.

#3:
Offlane: Tidehunter
Mid: Invoker
Safe Lane:  Warlock + Earthshaker + Kunkka
Full Combo:  Ravage or Chaos Offering into Echo Slam/Fissure + Ghost Ship + Chaos Meteor/EMP
Note:  Warlock is actually one of the key ingredients to this combo, using Upheaval.  It really works well if you can slow a good chunk of the enemy team.

#4:  Physical Dmg Spell Combo
Offlane: Elder Titan
Mid:  Death Prophet
Safe:  Warlock (or Witch Doctor) + Earthshaker + Medusa

#5:
Offlane:  Phoenix
Mid: Puck
Safe:  CM + Silencer + Lifestealer
Combo:  Dream Coil + Infest + Blizzard + Supernova.  Global Silence prevents stuns on CM while she channels.  Phoenix should try to land a Fire Spirit onto the highest-speed enemy right-clickers.

#6:
Safelane Solo: Death Prophet
Mid:  Magnus
Aggro Tri:  Luna + Visage + Sand King
Combo:  RP or Burrowstrike + Familiar Stuns + Epi/Eclipse/Ghosts.  There are enough big ults with these heroes that you can teamfight twice as often and only need half your ultimates each time.

#7:
Offlane:  Beastmaster
Mid:  Shadowfiend
Safe Tri-Lane:  Kunkka + Wraith King + Disruptor
Combo:  WK or Beastmaster stun + Static/Kinetic Field + Ghost Ship + SF Razes/Ult
Can be combined with the Wraith King Sucker Punch.

#8:
Offlane:  Dark Seer
Mid:  Sven/Warlock/Kunkka
Jungle:  Enigma
Safe:  Gyrocopter +  Elder Titan
Combo:  Vacuum into Black Hole into Calldown+Earthsplitter++


#9:
Warlock mid
Gyro + Phoenix/Sandking + Witch Doctor
Elder Titan solo offlane
Combo:  Golem + Echo Stomp, Channel Upheaval, Call Down, Supernova/Epi + Death Ward, Earthsplitter


#10:
Puck mid
Elder Titan Solo Offlane
Kunkka + Phoenix + Disruptor
Combo:  Puck Dream Coil into Kinetic Field + Static Field, Ghost Ship, Earthsplitter, Supernova
Ban:  Silencer, Rubick, Naga, Weaver/Slark/Mirana/Spectre (mobile carries)

#11:  High damage teamfight ults
Witch Doctor + Veno + Gyro safelane
Elder Titan solo offlane
Puck mid

#12:
Warlock + Disruptor + Gyro
Jakiro mid
Dark Seer solo offlane

#13:
Crystal Maiden + Juggernaut
Enigma Jungle
Invoker mid
Timbersaw solo offlane

#14:

Sven (Safe carry)

Magnus (mid)

Clockwerk (Flare for vision for RP), or Timbersaw (Chakram during RP)

Venomancer (support)

Disruptor (support)

#15:

Gyro + Warlock + Disruptor

Dark Seer offlane

Magnus Mid

#16:

Sven + gyro (support) + venomancer (support)

Timbersaw offlane

QoP mid

#17:

Safelane: Sven + gyro (support) + venge (support)

Or : Aggro tri = Gyro + Visage + Disruptor

Doom solo

Sfiend mid

Ban:  silencer

#18:

Zeus mid

Gyro + Silencer (Aghs) + Warlock

NP offlane

Combo:  Fatal Bonds + Zeus/NP alts + Flak/Calldown + Global Silence (w/Curse)

Ban:  Nyx, Spiritbreaker (gankers)

#19: "Unavoidable Combo"

Zeus mid (Aghs)

Spectre + Silencer (Aghs) + Warlock

NP Offlane

Combo:  Haunt + Zeus Ult + Silencer Ult + NP ult.  Guaranteed damage - might even kill some supports outright.

#20: Skillshot Team:

Pudge + Mirana + Clock (aggro tri)

AA (mid)

Invoker (E) – safe solo

#21: Area Lockdown & AOE

Gyro + Kunkka + KotL (aggro tri)

Puck solo safe

Warlock mid

#22: Channel Max (enemy team must choose which to interrupt!)

CM/KotL + Jakiro/SandKing + Void

Witch Doctor

Enigma/Phoenix offlane

#23: Void Solo Offlane ++

Void solo offlane

Greedy support:  Sand King, Earth Spirit, Kunkka, Elder Titan, AA?

Mids: Leshrac, Phoenix, Death Prophet, Invoker, Magnus

Hard Support;  WD, Lich, Jakiro, CM, Disruptor

Safe:  Gyro, Luna, Medusa, Sniper?

#24:   Wombo AOE
Disruptor, Enigma, Dark Seer, Gyro, Warlock
Dark Seer Solo offlane
Enigma Jungle
Warlock Mid
Gyro + Disruptor safelane

#25:  AOE Stun + Delayed AOE
Kunkka + Tide + Warlock

Gyro

Dark Seer