Necro Ancients Fans, don't fear, there's a new level 1 ancient farmer in town!

And his name is [techies.](http://imgur.com/LJr8Yjs)

Please note the second to last change, that landmines and stasis traps no longer block neutral spawns.

What this means is that Techies can lay a stack of mines on a Neutral Spawn, and when the camp spawns, they will trigger immediately.

Land Mines also deal Physical damage, which is what Ancients are vulnerable to. I think you can see where this is leading (the title probably helped).

At level 1, a Techies can go to the ancient camp, and put down mines. Given a -1:30 countdown from the start of the game to the first spawn of ancients at 00:30 seconds, and the need for techies to buy items, TP to the mid tower, and walk to the ancient camp, which if you are quick you can do in about ~15 seconds, you have 1 minute and 45 seconds to lay mines, or 105 seconds.

Now for some dry stats.



Level 1 Land Mines | 150 Physical Damage | 9 Second Cooldown
---|---|----

105 second divided by the mine laying cooldown is 11.666 mines. That goes up to 12 when you realize that your first mine is laid without a cooldown, giving you ~6 seconds to get out of the ancients spawn box before they spawn.

Now, what will this do when the ancients spawn, you might ask? To answer that we look at more dry numbers!




Golem Camp | Health | Armor | Effective Health | Mines to Kill | Alive or dead? | Experience Award
---|---|----|----|----|----|----
Ancient Granite Golem | 1700 | 8 | 2516 | 17 | Alive | 0
Ancient Rock Golem x2 | 800 | 4 | 992 | 7 | Dead | 119 x2

-----------------

Thunderhide Camp | Health | Armor | Effective Health | Mines to Kill | Alive or dead? | Experience Award
---|---|----|----|----|----|----
Ancient Thunderhide | 1400 | 2 | 1568 | 11 | Dead | 155
Ancient Rumblehide x2 | 800 | 2 | 896 | 6 | Dead | 119 x2

--------------

Dragon Camp | Health | Armor | Effective Health | Mines to Kill | Alive or dead? | Experience Award
---|---|----|----|----|----|----
Ancient Black Dragon | 2000 | 4* | 2480 | 17 | Alive | 0
Ancient Black Drake x2 | 950 | 2* | 1064 | 8 | Dead | 62 x2

------------------------

As you can see, you have a 1/3 chance to kill the entire camp, and a 2/3 chance to only kill the smaller minions. If you hit the jackpot and get a Thunderhide Camp, this means you have netted 393 experience at 30 seconds into the game. That puts you over half the way to level 3, and you will have had enough money to purchase a smoke. With smoke and suicide squad in hand, you can then attempt a ~45 second suicide squad gank on mid, or a ~55 second gank on a sidelane.

If you get an Golem Camp, you only get the smaller creep kills, netting 238 experience. This is enough for level two, and again you will be able to gank with smoke and suicide squad attack just as listed above, but with less moral fortitude as you stare mournfully at your empty experience bar.

If you get the Dragon camp though, you have come up snakeeyes. You will have only earned 124 experience, only slightly more than half the way to level 2. You cannot smoke gank, and you have zoned jack and shit by not placing a mine stack somewhere valuable. Good job, idiot.


However, I have discovered in testing that you can (mostly) consistently hit level 2 between 30 and ~45 seconds by putting 8 mines on the closest hardcamp spawn before the horn rings. I will not make graphs that demonstrate what is to be gained from doing this because I'm doing this for free so screw all of you.

Most of the time you will need to lay one more mine down and pull the last remaining big creep into it, with maybe one or two rightclicks to finish off the most stubborn of creep, the large Centaur. Placing a few mines in a nearby medium camp with the remaining time lets you hedge your bets slightly, but you can still get the nightmare luck of having two centaur camps, which means you have not hit level 2, and you have again wasted your time you sophomoric twit.

You can continue mining camps by blocking respawns if you want to ruin your team's game, or you can go and do normal techies things after hitting level 2 and attempting that super-early smoke gank. I leave the decision in your hands, reddit! Go forth and Techies Jungle!