The Basics of Micro

NOTE: There is more to come on this post (look for updates on an upcoming weekend)

Micro is a fairly important part of the game. It's not as prominent as in other RTS-style games, and it varies from hero to hero. This guide is intended to help with just the basics of how to set up and control heroes with multiple units, and some examples.

Control Groups

This is the most basic part of micro. You need to have ways to select various combinations of units.
An easy method is:

1. Selects your Hero Alone
2. Selects both Hero + summons/illusions/etc.
3. Selects just the summons/illusions/etc.

As you progress, you might customize it to your liking, or use something more intense. For instance, if you're playing Chen, you might want a creep like Troll (ranged abilities) in a separate control group from those with abilities that are on a radius around the creep (e.g. Ursas, Centaurs).

Basic Micro

Depending on the hero, you'll find you need to do different things.

Nature's Prophet

With Nature's Prophet jungling, you want to make sure your Treants live as long as possible. When they get too low, you want to have the aggro switch to another Treant. That way you maximize its lifespan (i.e. more treants --> more damage --> more gold).

One way to do this is by moving it back temporarily. The more optimal way is by "attack clicking" an allied creep with your Treant. This games the system into thinking it is a low priority target (it just tried to attack an enemy of the AI). I just do this on an individual basis. When I see a Treant get low, I select it, then have it lose aggro. You can monitor this through having them all selected and watching the health bars in the lower left of your HUD.

Phantom Lancer

For a hero like Phantom Lancer, your Illusions don't live that long anyway and don't really cost you anything (i.e. you don't have to use mana to make them, they don't give the enemy money). You can do things like have your Illusions farm/push the lane while you safely farm the jungle.

A lot of the time, I find myself just quickly making temporary control groups to farm multiple neutral camps at once, while having the others just on an attack-move down the lane towards the enemy base.

Tabbing and More

Tabbing is a huge tool for heroes like Chen, Enchantress, Meepo, and Visage. These creeps all have spells they can cast, so you need to quickly cycle through them. If you have them all selected, you can Tab then cast easily.

Shift-Queueing is something else that is helpful. You can hold down shift to queue up commands. This can help you coordinate things like having creeps move along multiple specialized paths (e.g. so they don't take shitty direct routes) or doing things like the infamous Blink Dagger Meepo (i.e. Meepo #1 Blinks in, all others finish channeling Poof as Meepo #1 arrives --> massive nuke damage).