DOTAFire is a community that lives to help every Dota 2 player take their game to the next level by having open access to all our tools and resources. Please consider supporting us by whitelisting us in your ad blocker!
Want to support DOTAFire with an ad-free experience? You can support us ad-free for less than $1 a month!
Go Ad-Free
DotA, as you may well know, was first created as a custom map for Warcraft III. From there, DotA spawned the genre of Action RTS, and many games followed, such as League of Legends, Realm of the Titans and Heroes of Newerth. More than likely, you have played one of these games, and I welcome you to Dota 2.
I will go over the very basics here, move along to the next section if you are a veteran to Dota-style games.
In DotA, the goal of the game is to destroy the enemy's base. The map is made of three lanes, and jungle in between those lanes. Creeps move down these lanes and attack each other. As a hero, you choose a lane to go to, and in this lane there are basic things you can do to win your lane and get a better late-game advantage. Typically, two heroes go top, one hero in the center, and two bottom. Though, there are several different ways to play. Eventually, through killing creeps, getting kills, and taking the enemie's towers, you will push a creep wave to the enemies base and take their creep spawning buildings, causing you to spawn super creeps. However, in DotA, there is a denying system. This allows you to kill friendly minions and towers, and under certain circumstances allied heroes, to deny your enemy the gold benefit of killing that unit/structure. Both farming and denying are very crucial to the game. Once one or more of the enemies creep spawning buildings (further known as raxes) are destroyed, you may destroy the enemies throne, resulting in a victory for your team.
As mentioned earlier, there are multiple things, that added together, help you win the game. These things are: Farming creeps, denying creeps, destroying enemy towers and killing enemy heroes.
Farming and Denying Creeps
Items... where to begin? One problem in the original DotA was the item system. You had multiple shops with an assortment of items, and a new player doesn't know what the heck to buy or where to buy that item he saw in the guide!
Have no worries, though! Dota 2 has made the shop a much easier place to navigate. It is split into two major categories, each with various self-explanatory mini-categories. The two major categories are;
Tangos, which allow you to consume a tree for some helpful HP regeneration. You can get 
Observer Wards to help you see where the enemy team is, see runes when they spawn, and prevent ganks on your lane. An item that is one of the most important is the 
Town Portal Scroll, which allows you to return to base almost instantly, and you can quickly return to one of your towers as well. 
Animal Courier is another item that is, in my opinion, the most important in the game. You won't have to leave lane, so you can continue farming and receive items regularly with your donkey. A 
Dust of Appearance is always more than helpful against an enemy stealth hero. There are more items in consumables that all have specific uses and effects.
Iron Branches are one of the most powerful items early game (hence their nickname "gg branch") for their low price and effectiveness.
Stout Shield, which has a chance to block 20 damage. Armaments, like your attribute items, will build into something else more powerful.
Boots of Speed, and the ability to see all stealth heroes with gem of truesight, or even a chance to dodge attacks with 
Talisman of Evasion. Basically, this shop is filled with an assortment of odds and ends that all are helpful for specific roles and situations.
Wraith Band give you +3 to all stats and an additional +3 to agility. There is also 
Bracer that has the same the same effect as wraith band but for strength, and 
Null Talisman for intelligence. Common also gives you all your boot upgrades, besides 
Arcane Boots, which all increase your speed furthermore along with added damage (
Phase Boots), or a increase [stat] and attack speed (
Power Treads), or allow you to teleport to any friendly non=hero unit (
Boots of Travel).
Animal Courier I mentioned earlier that is so vital to the team effort? Well now you can make it fly, which will make it a not so easy target since it gains speed and can fly over terrain. Also, if you are really in a bad spot with it, you can use its speed boost and shield to keep it alive. Some other notable support items include 
Mekansm, which provides an instant heal and armor bonus, as well as an HP regen aura. 
Urn of Shadows is another great item, even if you are not support, but a strength ganking hero. It allows you to give yourself a very strong heal and holds a charge every time a nearby enemy hero dies. Can be used to heal others too! The last item I'm going to mention is 
Pipe of Insight. It gives yourself a great amount of HP regen and magic resistance. However, if activated, all allies have a shield from an amount of magic damage for a short time. A great item to use against an ability heavy team.
Refresher Orb gives you mana, mana regen and damage, and as well, you can activate it at any time to refresh the cooldown of all your abilities! 
Force Staff gives you intelligence, attack, and attack speed, and you can activate it on an enemy to send them flying in a direction through trees and over most cliffs. dagon will provide you a bit of intelligence, and +3 to all stats, as well as some damage. However, it can be activated on an enemy to be used as a nuke dealing great damage.
dagon
Manta Style is one of the best carry items, as it gives you all sorts of helpful stats for ambitious little carries, but its active effect creates 2 illusions of you, which can confuse enemies, but also increase your damage output with these illusions by a TON. 
Daedalus gives you critical strike, which can be particularly deadly in a good skirmish. 
Divine Rapier is what you call your roflstomper. It gives you an insane +250 damage, however should only be bought if you are very confident you will not die and you want to finish your target fast. Basically, only buy this if you are fed like a god, because it drops on death, and an enemy with this weapon is less than ideal.
Black King Bar gives you some strength and damage, as well, when activated, you become completely immune to abilities! 
Vanguard is a common mid-game item that gives you block, health, and HP regen. Very helpful. 
Blade Mail, when activated, returns all damage done to you back at your enemies. Really, if a carry gets fed, blade mail is what ends that carry.
Helm of the Dominator gives a good amount of armor, lifesteal, and the ability to convert a creep. Great mid-game item. 
Desolator gives you a great amount of damage and shreds enemy armor, making your attacks hurt them even more. Also decreases structure armor. 
Satanic is one of the best items in the game for a strength semi-carry. It gives you a godly amount of lifesteal, and when activated you get 175% lifesteal for an amount of time.
Bloodstone or Heart of Tarrasque. Here is a map that will show where the shops are located, as well as the Side Shop, and we'll get into the Side Shop in a second.
Orb of Venom, Energy Booster, and Ring of Health), however this shop provides ease of access. Many of the components here build into small things that are useful in the early game. Instead of having the courier ship a small item to you, it's useful to know what you can buy just by walking over to the Side Shop, this doesn't help you much if you're in the mid-lane, though!|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When it comes to Dota, you should definitely try out new heroes! However, for starting, it is best to get 2-3 heroes you can be relied on to play well, then start expanding your horizons.
Supports are generally what you should play if you are new, as carrying a game requires a knowledge of what to buy in what situations which has many factors put into it.
Some heroes you to play in your first 30 games or so:
Ravage, which can potentially stun the entire enemy team. On top of this, he is a ranged threat in lane with his gush that also slows. He is hard to kill, so this offers some forgiveness to new players that get caught out of position as you are less likely to die.
- Pudge is a skill shot ganker that relies on his hook to get kills. You often roam as him, and while he can be effective at what he does, you can really mess up your team if you don't know what you're doing.
- Invoker is probably the hardest hero in the game to play correctly. He has a myriad of abilities that require quick fingers and a knowledge of 3 spell combinations to pull your invocations off correctly. He a very tricky to use, so I highly recommend you not play him until you have a good 50 wins under your belt, and even then it'll take some practice to use him to decently.
- Tinker is a very tedious hero with a lot of confound complications. His ulti removes the cooldown from all his abilities and items, which may sound simple enough but it gets much deeper, and when you have an inventory full of active items it gets very difficult to use everything you have correctly.
- Now Earthshaker isn't a complicated hero at all. It's simply the fact that his abilities, if used wrong, can hurt your team a lot more than hurt your enemy. The placement of his Fissure is the difference between a successful teamfight or gank. You can trap your allies off or seclude your enemies. He is a great hero, just not fit for newcomers to Dota because he can be a double-edged sword.
- Wisp is a very fragile hero with a lot of potential for a team. He can transport an ally across the map, saving them or perhaps killing an enemy. After a delay, you are teleported back to your original location from which you departed. You are a squishy hero, and you drain your own health and mana to buff an ally. He requires a tremendous amount of teamwork and communication to work right, and if you're just starting out you will be left in the dust.
- Chen is a highly effective support/pusher. He has a team-wide heal and commands creeps to do his bidding. He is a great hero for any team to have... IF you can play him correctly. He is very micro-intensive and is squishy, so new players tend to be overwhelmed by him.
- Seriously, if you're new, just avoid this guy. He is the most micro-intensive hero in the game, and even played well he isn't a high tier hero. I love Meepo, he is fun to play and I've stomped games with him before, but he is very weak if you don't know what you're doing, and you'll often feed hard with him if you aren't on your guard.
Pudge simple start off the fight by making it an uneven 4v5.
Runes are items found in the top and bottom portion of the river, and once activated they give you an effect for a limited time. Also, a rune can be stored in an empty bottle.
The Five Runes
Double Damage
When acquired, the Double Damage rune gives your hero and any illusions of it that you control within 500 AoE +100% damage for 45 seconds. Note that this damage is only based on base attack damage, base stats, and bonus stats, if you have an item or buff giving a direct bonus to your damage (such as Divine Rapier, or Alacrity), Double Damage will not increase that damage.
Invisibility
The Invisibility rune gives your hero invisibility for 45 seconds, taking actions such as using abilities, using items or attacking breaks this invisibility. There is a fadetime of 2 seconds when you first pick up the Invisibility rune before you become invisible. During this time, you can still act normally (attacking, using items, abilities, etc).
Haste
The Haste rune increases your movement speed by 100%, which effectively means you will move at the maximum movement speed of 522. Haste rune lasts for 30 seconds.
Illusion
When acquired, this rune will create 2 illusions of your hero nearby, these illusions deal 35% the damage of your hero, take 300% normal damage, and last for 75 seconds.
Regeneration
When acquired, the Regeneration rune gives you a buff which restores your health by 3000 and mana by 2000 over 30 seconds. If you take any damage during this time or if your mana and hp reach their maximum, the buff will be removed, and the regeneration will end.
Realizing many players are coming from the League, I will try to point out the big differences between the two games. A few have already been mentioned but will be repeated.
When you die, not only do you have to wait to respawn, but you lose gold. A good bit of it. DotA really punishes you for making stupid mistakes.
None of that stealth brush.
You can deny creeps, towers and in some cases allied heroes from giving your enemy gold/exp.
More extreme abilities. (Long CC, higher damage, fights are much faster paced)
A bit slower paced due to high emphasis on farm. Mid game kicks in much later than in LoL.
No summoner spells, masteries or runes, aaaah!
I lied, there are runes. But not even close to the same rune as in LoL.
No tanks, Axe being the single exception.
LoL has a learning curve, DotA has a learning cliff.
No Ability Power. That's right. Almost all intelligence heroes will end up becoming initiators or supports of sort, and in some cases will even build attack damage to remain useful in the late-game. Many heroes don't end up being only useful for their spells, you are expected to do something while your spells are on cooldown. There are plenty of items that offer an ability, mana cost an all. Dagon can be bought if you need an extra nuke. Scythe of Vyse can add additional crowd control.
Instead of the worm-thing Baron Nashor, you have Roshan (Notice that Nashor is Roshan spelled backwards). Roshan gives your entire team 200 gold and drops 
Aegis of the Immortal, which grants the bearer a second life. Also, he drops 
Cheese after he dies 2 times, which can be used to instantly heal you.
When it comes to Dota, there are many ways to win. What I mean, is that there are multiple ways a team can be build to win a game. The basic ones are Pushing, Ganking and Turtling.
Broodmother, Shadow Shaman, 
Leshrac and 
Nature's Prophet. Some of these heroes can fill other roles, but they can basically take down a tower fast. Nature's Prophet and Broodmother aren't early game pushers but rather they are split pushers, which emphasizes on taking towers/raxes while the enemy team is diverted. They both require some farm to be effective. Shadow Shaman and Leshrac, on the other hand, do not require farm so much as they do levels to take a tower down fast. Having heroes that can clear a creep wave fast, like Sand King or 
Keeper of the Light can contribute to pushes or stop pushes.
Night Stalker, 
Lion, 
Queen of Pain and 
Templar Assassin, though anyone with a good stun/slow or burst damage can gank effectively.
Faceless Void, 
Anti-Mage, 
Spectre, 
Phantom Assassin and Dragon Knight. If the game is allowed to progress to this stage of the game, these carries gain a huge advantage. These are the long tedious games, but they are generally safer and don't call for risky plays.Quick list of terms used in DotA:
Player Abbreviations
OJ - Orange
LB - Light Blue
DG - Dark Green
Areas On The Map
Mid - Middle lane. The line traveled by the creeps through the center of the map.
Top - Top lane. The line traveled by the creeps through the west and top portions of the map
Bot - Bot lane. The line traveled by the creeps through the bottom and east portions of the map.
Woods - The areas in between lanes where neutral creeps are found.
Jungle - Same as woods.
Item Abbreviations
AC - Assault Cuirass
Aghs or Agha - Aghanim's Scepter
BKB - Black King Bar
Blink - Blink Dagger
BoT - Boots of Travel
Crow - Flying Courier
Deso - Desolator
DR - Divine Rapier
Hex - Scythe of Vyse
HotD - Helm of the Dominator
HoT - Heart of Tarrasque
Mek - Mekansm
MoM - Mask of Madness
Phase - Phase Boots
PT - Power Treads
RoB - Ring of Basilius
RoR - Ring of Regen
RoH - Ring of Health
Sheep or Sheepstick - Scythe of Vyse
SnY - Sange and Yasha
Vlads - Vladmir's Offering
Basic Need To Know Terms
Farm - Farming up gold. Refers to the act of systematically killing creeps in order to earn gold. Even when you are virtually killing creeps all game long, you say that someone is "farming" when they are completely dedicated and concentrated on that.
Focus - Means to concentrate all attacks on a specific target (I.E "Focus Lina" means that Lina should be the primary objective and that all the team should have attacking her as a priority in team fights)
Harass - Relative to the act of putting pressure in your enemy by attacking him during the laning period. Basically, harassing is attacking the enemy in front of you in the lane, so as to make him an easy target for a gank or to prevent him from farming freely. Therefore, "harass Ezalor" means that you should try to damage Ezalor with your skills/attacks.
Juke - Juking, means to make deceptive maneuvers with your hero while moving, so as to delude your opponent and make it harder for him to predict where you will be heading. This is used mainly to escape while you are being chased, or to make your enemy miss/misuse a spell (for example Avalanche, which has to be targeted to the ground).
Pull - Creep Pulling. Getting creeps from a neutral camp to follow you into the path of your lane creeps.
Spam - Spamming your spells, refers to the act of repeatedly using a certain spell, a lot. "spam carrion swarm" means casting Carrion Swarm a lot, most generally as soon as the cool down is up.
Rosh - Roshan. Refers to Roshan, the big neutral creep next to the river just below the middle lane. Usually indicates the player's belief that either the enemy team is killing Roshan right now or that the player's team should kill Roshan now.
Gank - Bringing several heroes to gang up on a target to kill them. "Gank lina," is a request for you to come help kill her.
b - Back. If your allies start calling "b," get out immediately, it usually means that you're getting ganked. This is a more urgent warning than a miss or mia call.
TP - Teleport. A request for you to use a Scroll of Town Portal or Boots of Travel to come assist in a fight. "tp mid now"
Def - Defend. Self-explanitory, "tp to def mid"
Push - Traveling down a lane as a team in order to work together to fight and kill enemy buildings.
DD - The Double Damage rune.
Hero Missing/ Returning Calls
miss - Missing. A warning that enemy heroes have gone out of view and might be ganking, so be careful. Usually said with a hero name, such as, "Lina miss."
mia - Missing in action. Same thing as miss, such as, "Lina mia."
re - Returned. The opposite of a miss/mia call, "Lina re" means that she's back in the lane she came from and you don't have to worry about her.
Hero Descriptions
nuke - A generic term for any spell that does damage. "Nuke him" just means throw your damage spell, pretty much no matter what hero you have.
ult - Ultimate. Any hero's level 6 ability is refered to as their ultimate
oom - Out of mana. Don't expect any more spells from this player during the fight.
mana - Just saying "mana" usually means the same thing as oom
cd - Cooldown.Should usually be interpreted as, "Hold on, the spell I need isn't up yet." Also, you might see something like, "ult cd 30" which means, "My ultimate is still cooling for about 30 more seconds."
stacked - Stacked of items, means that a hero has gotten many and powerful items, therefore making him really hard to take down. "Nevermore is stacked" means that Nevermore has many and good items.
farmed - Same as stacked.
(Note: http://www.playdota.com/learn/commonterms was used for this section)
Well, this is the start of my guide. I'm tired right now, and am sure I left out some things. I hope it proved helpful to anyone new to the DotA genre. More will be added, I promise!
Many thanks, be sure to comment and vote.
DOTAFire is the place to find the perfect build guide to take your game to the next level. Learn how to play a new hero, or fine tune your favorite DotA hero’s build and strategy.
Copyright © 2019 DOTAFire | All Rights Reserved
Quick Comment (87) View Comments
You need to log in before commenting.