The Art of Team Fighting as a Carry

 

After I've used my spells and the right-click contest has begun, what else do I do in a team fight as a carry?
Using Luna in the late game as an example, I typically do something like this:

1. Poke with Lucent Beam while I wait for initiation
2. When someone initiates, run in then Black King Bar and Manta Style and right click the closest non-tank until enemy creep wave is gone.
3. Use ultimate and keep right clicking while standing still.
4. If I get low, try to run away and most likely die anyway. If enemy tries to run, Lucent Beam them to stop them.

I guess my problem is that I feel like I need to do the most DPS so I can't position myself like a support and I die fairly quickly as a result even if I have more farm than the enemy carry. Should I back up earlier while I still have life to get away and Black King Bar is still on, and then come back when they switch targets?

Bonus question:

If we're defending T3 and a teammate gets drawn out of high ground, I should probably just let them die and try our best to defend 4v5. However, what if the rest of my team runs into that lost fight? Is it better to stay alive and try to defend 1v5 or get a couple of kills and hope our barracks can survive against 3 enemies?

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It depends on the carry you're playing. For someone like Medusa, Luna or Gyrocopter, what you're doing sounds about right: run in, stand in the middle of the teamfight, Black King Bar, Manta Style, ult and Split Shot/throw glaives/Flak Cannon. If you can't do this, you need more survivability items like Satanic.

Other carries like Faceless Void can be the initiators themselves:  Time Walk, Chronosphere and whack the squishiest hero until they die. Or Wraith King: Swagger in, throw stun, stab someone's face to make them throw all their spells at you, reincarnate, then the rest of your team follows up on the 75% AOE slow and the wasted enemy cooldowns. Even Riki with the AOE silence and miss chance can be a decent initiator.

Weaver wants to find someone on the outskirts of the fight, then Shukuchi  through the enemy team to get to the best position to attack them from. If they run, chase with Shukuchi  until they're dead, then repeat. Ult if you find you've overextended.

General advice: Does your team have an initiator that is tanky, can soak up damage, or can die easily without being a huge loss to the teamfight like Tidehunter, Axe or Vengeful Spirit? Let them go in first. If you still find you're dying too quickly, you may be focusing the wrong person.

For example, it's not always best to right click the closest non-tank if your target is a Crystal Maiden 30 minutes in, since she's going to have very little teamfight impact alive or dead, especially if you have Black King Bar. Do they have a healer like Omniknight or Dazzle, keeping everyone alive so you can't kill them? Take them out first. Did your team manage to chainstun Doom Bringer before he got his ult off? Focus him before he can doom one of your important heroes. Is that squishy Sniper way too far forward? Teach him the importance of positioning. Is there a hero that benefits from long, drawn out teamfights like Necrophos, Death Prophet or Razor? Kill them early on.

You shouldn't really be standing still, particularly with a relatively fragile ranged hero like Luna. Pay attention to what's going on around you and react accordingly.

For example if the enemy melee carry is standing there whacking you, kite him (unless it looks like you're killing him faster than he can kill you) - run away until he stops chasing, and then turn around and hit him again. Luna's damage output is excellent, but she doesn't really want to stand there trading hits with the other carry (at least not until quite late in the game). Your Manta Style illusions and/or ultimate will keep dealing damage as you kite.

If your target is trying to run, decide whether it's worth chasing them down or switching target - be flexible, and don't feel like you have to keep on the same target until they die. If chasing them down is going to take time or they might just get away, it's often better to switch.

Try to focus your damage on a single target - if your team are communicative, maybe decide who you should focus beforehand. If you're attacking one guy and everyone else is killing another, switch - it's more efficient to kill single targets quickly than multiple targets slowly.

Your ultimate on Luna is huge, particularly during the early-mid game when you still haven't built a huge amount of right-click damage yet and while most heroes still won't have a Black King Bar. During that phase of the game, getting off a good ult is really your number one priority in a fight. Wherever possible, try to make sure the fight happens without enemy creeps present - either kill the wave before telling your team to go in, or run past the creep wave before you ult to make sure they're out of aggro range.

Try to judge how the fight is going and react early - if you're losing, start to back up before you get wiped. If you're winning, start positioning more aggressively to chase down stragglers.

...while I wait for initiation

On a related note, this is probably part of your problem. A common mistake in pubs is for everyone to group up somewhere and mill around waiting for a fight to happen. Eventually someone initiates, and you fight. There are two major problems with this:

• You waste time that could be spent farming or pushing, particularly if all of your team are present and some of the enemy heroes are not.
• You give the other team time to prepare for the fight, rather than forcing them into a situation you've chosen.
• You risk letting the other team take the initiative - particularly in low level pubs, whichever side initiates often wins the fight.

While you don't want to be initiating yourself, you should at least try to coordinate your team and tell them when to go in. Eclipse is incredibly powerful against heroes who're caught unprepared and out of position, so you really benefit from being the team who makes the first move. Make sure you know who on your team should be going in first, and make your move as soon as everyone is ready.

Bonus question:

You need to use your judgement - if you get team-wiped and the enemy are still in reasonable shape to push, then your barracks are dead. However at the same time, you probably won't make much difference defending them solo against the full enemy team. You can pull creep aggro off your buildings with Lucent Beam, but that's about it.

Ask yourself how much of a difference you'll make by joining the fight - can you turn it around? If not, can you do enough damage to make continuing their push un-viable? If you die, do you have buyback? If you're not improving your chances of keeping the rax alive, then don't go in.