Gameplay

Playstyle
Techies is an unusual hero in the game, as their team contribution comes mainly from placing traps outside of combat rather than engaging enemies in fights. Playing Techies requires good map awareness and game sense in order to know when and where to place traps.
Pros	Cons
Long attack range. Excellent base armor. Not dependent on team fights to be effective. Usually forces the enemy to their half of the map reducing the amount of ganks. Good movement speed. High magic damage	Craves mana in the early game. Low starting health. Low starting damage. Easily countered by summons. Blast-off use health

Nuker/Disabler

Techies spends most of the game stacking mines across the map and pushing; however, during the laning phase they do work as a support as their mines can detect gank attempts, and Blast Off! helps with tons of damage. On top of that, they have the highest base attack range in the game at 700. So, they can easily harass the enemy nonstop without drawing creep aggro, compensating somewhat for their low base attack damage.

Prioritize Blast Off! in the laning stage to threaten low HP enemies with early kills after you have soften them up with mines and attacks. Blast Off! is also useful to secure ranged creeps. Then, max out Proximity Mine first, as it will become your main tool for acquiring last hits once the laning phase ends; with Proximity Mines at lvl 3, you will be able to one-shot a creepwave. On top of that, your already placed Proximity Mines level up as you level up your skill, which means that mines placed early can still dish out 800 magical damage if the enemy runs into them much later. If your mid-lane is suffering, also consider placing a couple of mines behind their tower when you tp to bottle refill, as it may help turning early fights when the enemy decides to dive.

Once you have purchased Soul Ring, never let it go off cooldown, and place Proximity Mine with Stasis Traps stacked on top of them everywhere, turning your half of the map in a minefield that the enemy team will have much trouble navigating. Do not hesitate to place some in unorthodox places, like among the trees instead of choke points, to catch savvy enemies. Set up at rune locations as well to provide vision for knowing which rune has spawned, or root an enemy hero long enough for allies to snatch the rune.

Proximity Mines and Stasis Traps do not trigger if the enemy is under the effects of Eul's Scepter of Divinity, which makes it an amazing item to set up a kill, on top of giving you the much desired move speed and mana you lack. Moreover, the new upgraded Blast Off! Shard allows for an easy setup of your stasis trap: stun them, place down the Stasis Trap and Proximity right after and follow up with Eul's Scepter: this will give time to the Mines to prime for explosion and deal a ton of magical damage early on.

Aghanim's Scepter considerably increases your damage potential, and makes your ultimate actually powerful, on top of giving Minefield Sign the ability to cloak your mines. The extra cast range means you can help during fights from a much safer distance. You should always consider getting it at some point.

As the game goes late, the enemy should be unable to push toward your base as you clear out waves from afar, and periodically damage their towers with Proximity Mines. Every time you see a team fight break up, place some mines on its edge so your team can safely fall back should the enemy follow them. At this stage of the game, cooldown reduction becomes your most importanto tool to create mine stacks big enough to blow up the enemy cores: consider buying an Octarine Core for this purpose.

Ability Builds

Nuker/Disabler Techies
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20	25

Miner Techies
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20	25

Talents

Tips & Tactics

General

• Mess with the enemy. Play mind games with them. Do not force yourself into any habits, while making sure you continually adapt to theirs.
• Techies is best played as a roamer or offlaner. The high nuke damage allows them to get early kills with well-placed Blast Off! and Proximity Mines. These traps can make life hard for the enemy supports if they try to zone you out as an offlaner or rotate for ganks, and can be used to get kills on the enemy mid if they attempt to get runes.
• In general, place your mines in areas where the Fog of War prevents them from being spotted. Examples include the top of stairs, inside of trees and juke paths in the jungle, and inside of Roshan's pit.
• Keep track of your enemy inventory to see if they have a Gem of True Sight. If you see one, alert your allies and try to retrieve it as soon as possible.
• Once you have enough traps on the map, being dead, silenced or otherwise disabled is less of a hindrance, since your Stasis Traps, Proximity Mines reacts to contact and Remote Mines can detonate manually.
• Ferry out Clarity for a continuous supply of mana in the early game before you get mana-regenerating items. The more time you can stay on the map means the more mines and traps you can set up.
• The talent tree allows Techies to transition into a physical attacker in the late game.
  • At level 20, you should have your Aghanim's Scepter to farm every lane with Proximity Mines and Remote Mines.
  • At level 25, taking the attack damage talent and having items that enhance attack speed will transform you into a physical carry. You want to go this route when your team is winning to close the game as soon as possible. With selling your old items, you will output enough damage to melt buildings as well as heroes.

Abilities

Proximity Mines

• The Proximity Mines get revealed when there is an enemy within an 400 AoE and triggers if they stay in the area for 1.6 seconds.
• They cannot be stacked on top of each others, so you best hide them in the trees near popular walking paths.
  • You want to hide the mines in trees as mines become visible when an enemy walk into range, feeding away gold if destroyed.
  • You can use them to secure space for teammates, finish off fleeing low HP heroes, and reveal position of your enemies.
  • However, more often than not they will serve to soften full HP heroes before they try to gank your lane.
• As they become visible to the enemy when they are in range, you ideally want to stack them like a Venn diagramm with a Stasis Trap covering the middle part, so if an unaware enemy walks into the Stasis radius, they will get rooted and all three mines should explode.
  • However, in practice, Techies should aim to put down two Proximity Mines with Stasis Trap in the middle and as many Remote Mines as possible. The root will hold enemies down long enough for Techies to activate Remote Mines.
• Level 3 Proximity Mines can clear out an entire creep wave in one shot, and they also deal huge damage to towers, so you should spend a fair amount of time pushing lanes and taking towers quietly when the enemy team is busy somewhere else.
• Techies may want to plant Proximity Mines in such a way to catch enemy buildings on the edge of the explosion radius, so Techies can stay as far away from the buildings as possible, where enemies are probably defending.
• Proximity Mines still trigger if an invisible enemy walks over them, letting you know when one of them is coming your way.
• A great combo is to wait for the enemy to walk into a Stasis Trap stacked on top of a Proximity Mine, then Blast Off! on top of them and place another Proximity Mine right as the first one explodes.
• Techies can stand right on top of Proximity Mines to make it harder for the enemies to click on it.
  • In the laning stage, Techies can use this trick to get last hits, and maybe damage the enemies at the same time as they are getting close, trying to destroy the mines.

Stasis Trap

• Stasis Trap can root multiple enemies for up to 5 seconds.
• Stack them with Proximity Mines. Since they both have the same activation radius, your victims will take the root as well as the damage.
• A Stasis Trap going off will destroy any other Stasis Traps within its radius. So, you should separate Stasis Traps lest you waste them.
• Most of your time should be spent stacking those mines across the map to ensure your team the upper hand if a fight breaks out near one of your minefields, as those do great to catch up fleeing enemy heroes. You can try to place traps behind the enemy team to cut their retreat.

Blast Off!

• Blast Off! is one of the strongest abilities in the game at level 1, dealing magical damage on top of silencing its victims in an area. Therefore, you should prioritize it in the laning stage.
• Consider buying Orb of Venom at the start of the game. With long attack range, Techies can harass the enemies with ease. The enemies will feel threatened by Blast Off! as their HP drops.
• Because of the long cast range, use Blast Off! from trees or out of enemy vision to catch them by surprise.
• You may deny yourself by using it when under 50% of your max HP (you must also account for magic resist).
  • Be careful when using it at barely 50% HP as surviving with a sliver of health often means that the enemy will kill you with their next attack.
• Use Blast Off! during team fights for the long duration of silence and great range, meaning you can disable enemies without relying on mobility items.
  • Though, you should consider mobility items like Force Staff to escape after launching yourself into the enemies.
• Place Proximity Mines right after Blast Off!, catching enemies by surprise for early kills.
• You can use Blast Off! as an escape by jumping over hills.
• Much like Meepo's Poof, Blast Off! has a slow and very visible cast animation. You can use this to your advantage by repeatedly cancelling its animation to play mind games with the enemy, often forcing them to back off.

Remote Mines

• Remote Mines can nuke and kill any hero in the game given enough time to plant the required number of mines.
• Unlike Proximity Mines, Remote Mines do not trigger automatically by enemy units within the area, and they can stack on top of each others. Therefore, Techies can place them in the middle of lanes and in high-traffic areas, activating them to ensure kills.
• Remote Mines provide vision with decent radius which may give your team an advantage in map control.
• Plant Remote Mines in enemy jungle camps to monitor their farming patterns.
  • As Remote Mines are expiring, Techies may even blow them up to steal the last hits from enemies.
• With decent cast range, you can safely throw them during team fights, before using Blast Off!.
• Level 3 Remote Mines with Aghanim's Scepter also clear out regular creep waves in one blow.
  • Therefore, Techies should scatter Remote Mines all over the lanes to farm lane creeps and hinder enemy pushes anywhere on the map.
  • However, if Techies are present next to the creep waves, they may consider using Proximity Mines due to their lower mana cost, but the tiny cast range might expose Techies to danger.

Minefield Sign

• Minefield Sign, combined with Aghanim's Scepter, allows Techies to place mines hidden from True Sight.
• When pushing towers with allies, place traps and mines under upgraded Minefield Sign to grant them immunity from True Sight, denying enemies access to defend their buildings as they cannot clear the area.
• Due to the tiny cast range and small effect radius, you must place mines right on top of the sign.
• The long cooldown of 6 minutes forces you to make the most out of each placement.
  • In long base defense games, you can buy Refresher Orb to change the sign location and protect other lanes' mines from True Sight.
• Use Minefield Sign to play tricks on your opponents. You can place the sign in one area but put traps in other lanes. This tactic may discourage enemies from attacking down a lane clean of mines and traps!

Items

Starting items:

• Tango gives Techies health recovery when laning, mitigating harassment damage.
• Healing Salve restores health after an early kill or escape attempt using Blast Off!.
• Clarity provides Techies with the mana needed for early-game Proximity Mines. Because of its low cost, Techies often make several purchases of the item throughout the game as their major source of mana regeneration.
• Orb of Venom's damage over time works well with Techies' long attack range to harass the enemies, lowering their health enough for Blast Off! to secure kills.

Early game:

• Null Talisman gives them mana, damage, and health. Drop Null Talisman on the ground momentarily to get more mana out of Soul Ring's active.
• Soul Ring converts health to mana, allowing Techies to continue planting mines over extended periods of time.
• Arcane Boots fit Techies well in combination with a Soul Ring to compensate for their mines' mana cost, or to give mana to use Blast Off! without risking of dying/getting killed before they can deny themselves. Like Null Talisman, it can be dropped prior to using Soul Ring's active in order to gain more mana. Furthermore, Techies can disassemble it to get Energy Booster, which builds into Aether Lens or Bloodstone.
• Town Portal Scroll grants Techies global mobility to plant traps in unexpected areas. Techies' strong defensive potential allows them to fortify a tower's defenses, discouraging the enemy from pushing.

Mid game:

• Aether Lens provides mana and mana regeneration, as well as extending Techies' cast range so they can use items and abilities, especially Proximity Mines, from a safe distance.
• Force Staff gives Techies more mana and mobility; it can also push allies to escape or push enemies, especially Gem carriers, into mines and traps.
• Eul's Scepter of Divinity provides Techies with a bigger mana pool, mana regeneration, and more base movement speed, allowing the hero to be more mobile and plant mines more liberally. Furthermore, the active ability disables an enemy, buying Techies time to plant mines and traps under their feet, or provides temporary invulnerability and a self-dispel.

Late game:

• Aghanim's Scepter increases Techies' attributes, health, and mana. Remote Mines become a much bigger threat due to their increased damage, and Techies can place them from farther away, allowing them to be used tactically in team fights and allowing Techies to place traps more safely. Additionally, Minefield Sign becomes a usable ability, allowing Techies to use the sign to place guaranteed undetectable traps or to trick the enemy into avoiding an area that does not have mines.
• Octarine Core reduces the cooldown on all of Techies' abilities, allowing them to place traps and mines more frequently.

Situational items:

• Sentry Ward reveals enemy Observer Wards and their Sentry Wards as well. Eliminating their Sentries from play allows you to place traps in areas that they once considered safe, and forces the supports to buy more Sentry Wards, slowing their item progression considerably.
• Bottle allows roaming Techies to replenish their mana and HP as they often pass by runes on their way to set up traps.
• Kaya increases intelligence and mana. More importantly, the mana regen amplification helps them plant more mines on the map. Kaya can upgrade into Yasha and Kaya for better bonuses and extra movement speed.
• Ghost Scepter allows Techies to become temporarily invulnerable to physical damage when focused by the enemy, perhaps buying them more time to use Blast Off!, or to attempt to lead the enemy into mine traps.
• Veil of Discord amplifies magical damage of Techies and allies.
• Blink Dagger drastically improve Techies' mobility.
• Bloodstone gives Techies a great amount of health and mana, as well as tremendous regeneration, allowing them to place mines more frequently. Moreover, the active heal may buy Techies enough time to Blast Off! away.
• Scythe of Vyse provides a lot of mana and a powerful disable to lock down dangerous enemies in team fights.
• Shiva's Guard gives Techies intelligence and armor. The aura and active can be used in team fights to hinder the enemy, reducing their ability to spread out from your area-of-effect nukes.
• Bloodthorn grants mana regeneration, attack speed, silence, and crit for late-game carry Techies who seek to enhance their physical attacks.