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So today Lycan has been released in Dota 2 Beta and I am reading a lot of posts of people that are extremely frightened by him. Many say that the only chance is to pick it first or call "gg" at 20/25 minutes when he comes out of the forest.

If you play Captain's Mode you can permaban him, but how do you counter Lycan, as a team and as a single pick, when you play All Picks matches?

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I think it's important to note that despite him being a strong character, you do not need to worry about him too much in a typical pub game, as players may not know how to fully utilize his strengths to truly make him extremely powerful. As an example, if he isn't banned in CM play and someone chooses him, team members will often select heroes that complement his strengths, and the support will also take on counterwarding duties to protect his jungle. Simple roaming and warding early on shuts him down well, but people have to be willing to leave their lane early game to harass him. – Kotsu Mar 26 '12 at 19:56

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Lycan and Ursa share many similarities with each other, both are excellent junglers and rely on close up melee to deal all their damage. Because of this, strategies that apply to Ursa can often be applied to Lycanthrope:

Team Strategies:

  • Gank early and often. You should be looking to catch him in the jungle at least twice before level 6. During this stage he is the most vulnerable since he won't have his escape mechanism and will not be at full health since he won't have vladimir. As @Decency mentioned, after level 6, you'll need multiple disables in order to pull off a successful gank.
  • Push their jungle tower down early, it may even be beneficial to go tri lane against the jungle tower in order to deny him safety from ganks while he's jungling.
  • Ward the creep camps to deny spawns. As @Wandang mentioned in the comments, your team should be warding as many camps as possible to not only deny his farm but to set up ganks.
  • At least 1 AOE support should be considered to deal with all the minions, especially if he goes for necronomicon and helm of dominiator on top of his wolves.

Individual Hero Picks:

  • Bane is a direct counter to Lycan. You can stun him through BKB with your long lasting ult. After that, follow it up with a nightmare and/or enfeeble.
  • Shadow Shaman can take him out of the fight for a long time if he doesn't have BKB ready with shackles and hexes.
  • Faceless Void is also a good counter with his dodge, time lock, and ult which can lock Lycan down for some time.
  • Other heroes with disables such as Lion and Tinker are good to consider.
  • Finally, you can consider trying to out jungle him with Ursa.

Items to Consider:

  • Ghost Scepter should be on your support characters to prevent the easy kill.
  • Eul's Scepter of Divinity can be used to protect yourself or an ally.
  • Blade Mail is an excellent item to have on your tank when facing him.
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furthermore warding the pullspot and the medium should stop his farm drastically. if he is on legions side you should ward his pullcamp and hardcamp with only 1 ward: playdota.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=145&pictureid=9586 – Wandang Mar 23 '12 at 14:02
One thing I'd add is that he needs to be ganked before level 6. After level 6, he requires a lot of chain disable in order to kill him, or two successive ganks before his ultimate is up again. – Decency Mar 26 '12 at 3:55
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Don't forget that Brewmaster can Drunken Haze him and Razor can steal a ton of his damage (even if he has BKB active).

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