The Benefits of Last Hitting

More Money

There are several reasons, but the most obvious reason is to get the gold bounty. The person who deals the killing blow receives the extra gold for himself. The amount is represented by the numbers that appear on top of the dying creep after you killed it. Being a diligent last hitter gives you a good amount of money in the game, allowing you to gain an early advantage against your enemies.

Deny Gold and Experience from Enemies

By last hitting enemy creeps, you deny them the chance to kill it for themselves. This gives you an advantage by minimizing their gold income, not to mention a psychological edge if they keep seeing that “!” icon when you kill your own enemy creep. There’s nothing more demoralizing to your enemy than showing him how you can control the lane. Also, denying creeps reduces the experience they gain from dying creeps, giving you level advantage.

Better Lane Control

Early in the game, there’s nothing better than being close to your own tower – it’s your security blanket. Enemy heroes would feel less inclined to come in and launch an ambush attack if you are near the tower. Being on open field makes you more susceptible to stuns and maybe an early death. Not attacking enemy creeps when unneeded allows them to survive further, and they push you close to your tower.

Situational Example:

You’re in a lane against a Sven and a Lina – both with stunning spells. Venturing too far would put you into an open field, too far for a hasty retreat. Sven would use his direct stun on your hero, followed by Lina’s area-of-effect stun spell. In most cases, heroes meet their death with this combination, unless you have a way of escape, such as Blink.

Click to enlarge screenshot.

If you’re against a combination of a slowing (Shadow Strike), disabling (Voodoo) or a nuking (Frost Nova) spell, it’s much better to be safe than sorry and try to deny and last hit creeps so you will always be near your tower. There’s no shame in tower-hugging!

In this screenshot, you can see that the Necrolyte went too far out to cast a Death Pulse to damage the Nerubian Assassin (NA) who was low on hit points. But the tides turned against him when the NA stunned him with Impale wherein the Lina followed up with another stun.

Necrolyte's ally, the Bristleback, could not do anything to help as he was also stunned by Lina. The Necrolyte died a few seconds after the 2nd screenshot.

Useful Tips

-di

Type "-di" at the beginning of the DotA game to show your creep score on the top right of the screen, above the scoreboard. Creep score contains two numbers – the first one shows creeps you’ve killed, the second one indicates creeps you deny your enemy. “60/10” for example, means you have killed 60 creeps for yourself, and denied 10 (killing your own creeps) from your enemies. This also shows the "!" icon on top of denied ally creeps to properly illustrate a successful deny.

Alt key

The alt key shows the health bar of units, both allies and enemies. This helps you estimate when you need to deal the killing blow.

There are also programs available that allows you to toggle the health bars without the need to press alt in game. Additionally, leaked patch notes for the upcoming Warcraft III patch mentions the possibility of allowing players to toggle this feature within the game.

Practice, and Patience

The best way to get better at last hitting is to practice. You can do it in single player to get the hang of it. Also, trying it as often as possible (don't be lazy!) naturally improves your ability to last hit. You can easily estimate when and when not to attack.

This article is part of GotFrag's "Get Better Fast" series (formerly eSports 101). This series is designed to help new players as well as veterans, improve their game. For all of our "Get Better Fast" articles, check out the all new "Get Better Fast" section.