Early Game & Objective Guide for Volskaya Foundry (Patreon)

Most important thing on Volskaya are the camps, specifically the healing camp. These camps give very powerful bonuses in addition to a lot of experience when you cap them, so the best way to generally play Volskaya is to immediately do the camps at 1 minute mark.

You want to do the turret camp at 1 minute right when it spawns as it is on your side of the map and is safer to be done without being invaded. If your opponents did not do the turret camp yet when you finish, you can move to the healing camp and do that since they will be behind you on tempo, and if they contest you have a turret advantage on them. If they also did their turret camp, then neither side will be able to safely do the healing camp, so just do the other 3 man camp on the top side of the map. Keep an eye on your opponent team at all times, do not let them sneak the healing camp for free, always contest if they do that camp as long as you are not down a member or a talent tier.

Alternatively, if you are playing with a group, you can try to do the healing camp at 1 minute if you suspect the other team is doing their turret camp at 1 minute. This is effectively a sneaking strategy where you try to catch them offguard and sneak the healing camp while they are at their turrets. Usually can't be done alone as it takes too long to kill the camp alone.If you ever get a talent advantage on this map, you should be getting your team to invade enemy camps as often as possible.

Similar to Hanamura, the actual objective, the robot, is pretty weak most of the time. It often takes an incredibly long time to secure the robot and most people do not use the robot properly which leads to it being pretty lackluster most of the time. The robot can push reasonably well if its microed properly and pushing with the team though(it just usually doesn't happen).

If you can convince your team, it is a perfectly viable strategy to give up the first 2 robots as long as you are doing efficient things onthe map the entire time. This can be ensuring you get all soak, pushing on the other side of the map, doing all your camps, or invading enemy camps. Because you are up at least 1 hero on the map, you should be able to do all of these things as long as your team is not misplaying. If you have a hero that wants stacks(Zuljin,Valla,Tychus,Medivh,etc) this can be even better, as the first few robots are easily defendable and feed lots of stacks.

If you do choose to play for the objective, usually the optimal push pattern is to use 1st robot to push top (because that is where 2nd objective spawns, so if you weaken/kill their fort it will make it harder for them contest the point), and use the 2nd robot to push bottom(because that is where the 3rd objective spawns). You don't always need to do this though, any time you see an opportunity to get a fort or keep in another lane you can always just do that instead(Maybe the fort listed above is very defended while enemies are leaving another one undefended, or maybe you have already weakened another fort/keep randomly earlier in the game)

Proper way to drive robot:

Pilot: Ideally you are pushing with your team, do not try to push alone with robot into a defending team that is a quick way to waste the robot. Use E to shield the robot and your team, and immediately after use a quick WQ combo on the tower or the fort/keep, autoattack if there are very few people defending, back up right away if there is 3 or more people or a shredder like valla/tychus. While backing you want to back to a location where your gunner can still spam his abilities on the buildings. You want both you and your gunner to use your full rotation of spells which do a ton of damage to buildings, while still preserving the HP on the mech as much as possible.

Gunner: Always use abilities on buildings, they are unreliable and hard to aim vs heroes, but very reliable and does a ton of permanent damage to buildings(since they don't move). Most important spell is the E lazer, the targetting for this spell is very important to maximize value. It is the hardest hitting spell. As such, always be using this on at least 2 buildings, either the full wall(tower,gate,tower) or tower + fort/keep. If only fort/keep is alive then use one end on fort/keep and other end to zone enemy heroes.

General Tips:

Never push without both slots occupied, the robot has it's damage reduced significantly without both slots occupied.

Never have your solo healer in the robot. It's a common practice to fight past the robot to kill the others outside, and this is even easier without the healer out of the robot.

Watch the HP of the robot! If you have a squishy inside, retreat at low HP or your squishy will be inside the entire enemy team.