Hello, I'm a pos 4 player with a lvl 25 Techies and only plays at ranked (assuming they don't get banned).
I got into Ancient bracket 2 months ago and here's my observation in the bracket so far. I shuffle between US and SEA server when I play ever since I was in Archon and it didn't had any significant difference between the Legend rank aside from the rare, first pick throwers. Ancient Rank however is surprisingly "unique".
Let's talk about US servers first, atleast 7 out of my 10 games my lane partner would always be pissed right from the strategy period. I always go offlane btw. The bonus part is if they have mic, then hilarity ensues. My first mission as a techies player is to calm them down by destroying the enemy pos 1 and pos 5 which I can boast, works most of the time. I don't know how much these people have played with Techies before but I can tell when someone doesn't know how to synergy with ma bois and it's my job to educate them. Throughout my experience, I've crafted my own strategy to become a very aggressive Techies laner, usually maxing out my blast off if my offlane has a good stun (Dawntechies btw is monstrous in offlane and can kill multiple heroes at level 2), it was probably different to the Techies they play with that just maxes bombs and plays hides and seek or the waiting game. I don't, most of my games in Ancient ends in 5 mins. Yes 5 mins. When I see the enemy mid and safelane starts trashtalking in all chat because they don't know how to deal with a techies, that time the game is decided and you usually see the "pls end mid" by 10 mins because I have their entrances to jungle all mined up. It might not be concrete but the conclusion I come up with is US server players both East and West are super pampered, impatient and weak minded when playing with a techies. (Please take it as a constructive criticism and not an insult)
I say weak minded because I can compare it to SEA server with clear differences. Now what is wrong with SEA server? I get atleast 2 out of every 10 games I play complains from my 1st pick of Techies. Most of the time, the complains comes in mid game which is normal with any games. So if everyone is calm and plays good, what's the problem? Everyone plays good, and I mean too good. That's the problem. If I were to compare US servers from SEA, it's like comparing a base super saiyan to ultra instincts. These people in this bracket is insanely good it's an understatement. I legit felt like I was back in Archon whenever I play in SEA, i am led to believe that there must be something wrong going on with the ranking system in SEA, the difficulty of playing Techies becomes tenfold when I play in SEA and I am a little happy that I get to learn a lot from the new plays against my Techies but sometimes I can't help but notice I am underranked for this shit. In conclusion please nerf the SEA.
As for gameplay, let me share my usual build and feel free to improve upon it or give me better builds. I used to rush Arcane boots before but what got me out of Legend is using Soul ring and tranquil. The effectiveness of my blast off build heavily depends on the offlane, I can't successfully dominate the enemy safelaner whenever my offlane has no stun. This is where I change my build to Prox mines + stasis and cripple the pos 5 atleast while pulling stacking their jungle and bombing it eventually. (Bonus if their mid or safe finds the stack, I'm usually lvl 6 by then and have remotes setup for an easy money. I will then try to get my Aghs by getting kills since I will have to give the jungle to my carry, and the enemy jungle for my offlane. If by this time, the enemy started farming their triangle, I start to pray my allies can deal with them, if not, I slowly creep there with my bombs but not without Aghs, it is a crucial items on Techies.
Most of my games ends here, around 35 mins, but this is also where I start ti become irrelevant when my team of 4 can't enter high ground. There is this stupid shit I try to do and sometimes it works, most of the time it does not, but it's a good bargain since Techies can afford to die as long as I have bombs planted around. 35 mins beyond becomes a problem when the enemy carries don't give up from their ally's trashtalks and just feed my team. My team cant get up high ground as 4, we realize our strength was on our bombs all along so I do this stupid shit where I try to place my minefield sign in front of the third tower and plant bombs there to get highground vision and offence, while simultaneously praying that I don't get picked by anyone. This is most successful when I'm with my team, but most of the time I am not and for various reasons the word "greed" would explain. Either I get too greedy and think I can throw my bombs from far away or all of my teams are too greedy and just farms instead because there's just no opening for high ground. If this strat works and we pierce through their highground, it gets easier for us. If it doesn't, the waiting game starts, and the enemy carries starts to build up again and the snowball I made were all for nothing.
This where insurance comes in, the thing that every player hates and believe me I hate it too, by 35 mins I ensure that I have my refresher orb or on my way to it.
Yes, refresher is a thing for techies as insurance for defending with unlimited signs. (Also try shard+eternal shroud and help your allies on clash with the OP mini ravage/Silence/fingerOfDeath every 30 seconds. + blast off damage becomes reduced and gives your mana back) This ensures that I can defend my base to hell. But here's the thing you might find arguably. I don't like mining the front and inside of the base where it's obvious, this results in some of my games where my team gets "accidentally" wiped out if I don't have any bombs waiting at the base and now the blame is all on me even though I have tons of traps outside just scattered so that we can clash in those places.
You might ask, why the refresher orb then? It's there for insurance but it's not worth to stay at base and plant bombs without octarine or the op neutral item with the same effect that makes my life even more easier. You see, to defend highground and for my prox mine to be effective again, I need the lvl 25 talent where I can stack them. If my team cant win team fights as four at 35 mins, they need my mini ravage more than ever in clash. And that thing actually turns tide.
So the strat I come up with is plant wherever my team is and they can retreat there if the clash doesn't seem to go as planned. I know nuking is a thing but I really wish people would relearn how to bait and utilize my bombs. A single stasis trap is enough to make an enemy core panic and pop their bkb, and mines would usually pop all those stupid anti burst lens or something. They do that and they can force enemy to retreat. This is why I prefer planting outside than inside of the base. And I can do this while stacking mines at the same time. I only start planting inside the base when my team was forced to buy back.
Anyways thanks for coming to my Ted talk, to all Techies haters out there, you are what makes our game fun. <3
Ps: please pick Dawn if you're laning with a techies, it's the very definition of cyberbullying, believe me.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/p5rzj1/yet_another_techies_discussion_thread_the/