Pulls and stacks in Dota 2: timings and who needs them

A pull means aggroing a neutral camp and leading the creeps into your own lane wave. Your wave fights them in the jungle while the enemy wave walks to your tower. Result: the lane sits at your tier 1, your carry farms safely, and the enemy offlaner either stands far from their tower or loses experience.

In 7.41 the creep meeting point moved toward the offlane and the safe-lane tier 1 towers were moved away from the pull camps. The safe lane now naturally sits further from your tower, and pos 5 pulls are the main way to bring it back. Trees were also removed at the Dire small pull camp and the Radiant large pull camp, so pulling got easier.

Timing depends on the side and the camp, so drill your camps once in a lobby. Hit the camp, then lead the neutrals into the passing wave so your creeps aggro on them.

Don't pull if the lane is already at your tower, if your carry can't last-hit under tower, or if the enemy offlaner and pos 4 are waiting for you at the camp.

• Standard pull: the small camp at xx:15 — by xx:00 the camp is empty and respawns. Pulling at xx:45 risks creeps still standing in the camp when the minute turns.
• Double pull: stack the small camp at xx:53–:55, then pull at the next xx:15 — the whole wave dies.
• Chain pull: as your wave finishes the small camp, drag the large camp into it — the creeps go deeper into the jungle.
• Offlane pull: a slow pull through the camp near the enemy tower, aggro around xx:53.

A camp spawns at the start of every minute if its spawn box is empty. Hold Alt and the game shows the box as a yellow outline. The goal of a stack is to pull the neutrals out of that box by xx:00, so a new camp spawns next to them.

Rule of thumb: small and medium camps — aggro at xx:53–:55, large ones around xx:52–:54, ancients at xx:51–:53 because they leave the box more slowly. Drill each camp in a lobby: trees, terrain and ranged neutrals shift the timing by a second. Ancients can be stacked 3–5 times in a row — a huge bank of farm for an AoE hero.

Stacking pays the stacker too: when an ally kills your stack, you get a bonus of 30% of its gold and experience. If an enemy or you yourself clear it, there's no bonus.

Positions 4 and 5 stack; mid and offlane do it on the way when they have a spare minute. A stack only matters if someone takes it: make it where your core will be in the next 1–3 minutes, and ping it. A stack nobody clears, or the enemy clears, is a wasted minute.

The best stack farmers are heroes with fast area clear: Anti-Mage, Medusa, Luna, Sven, Troll Warlord, Alchemist, Ember Spirit, Naga Siren, Faceless Void, Leshrac. AoE mids clear stacks near the mid lane between waves.

An observer or sentry in the spawn box stops the camp from spawning for as long as it stands: 6 minutes for an observer, 7 for a sentry. Heroes, summoned units and leftover neutrals block it too.

The most valuable block in the game is the enemy pull camp on your offlane before 1:00: they have nothing to pull, and the lane gets pushed into your tower. If they block you, drop your own sentry in the camp at 0:45–0:55 and kill their ward before the minute turns.

The most common mistake is your own ward, or an anti-invis sentry, inside your own camp. In 7.41 the Radiant safe-lane large camp's box was moved, so old block spots from previous patches may not work.

Sentry WardObserver and Sentry Wards

The lane review counts your support's pulls and stacks before 10:00, who cleared your stacks and which went to waste, whether your mid stacked for themselves, and how often the enemy cleared their own stacks undisturbed. We also flag camps your team blocked with its own wards.