All the little questions inside of your head

Hello all !

As you know, Dota 2 can be a pretty confusing game, especially when you start. Lots of mechanics to grasp, you've got to understand the meta, the build orders and so on. But even after hundreds of matches, there are still these little things that you just don't get. So here I propose a thread where everyone can expose their unanswered (and silly) questions. Here are mine to begin with. Feel free to call me a noob.


-Why do some teams smoke before going Rosh ? I mean the smoke is gonna dissipate with the first hit to Rosh, and it's gonna be obvious from the laning situation that all heroes are in the pit. So why "waste" a smoke ? What's the point ? Am I missing something ?

-For the love of God, what in the living hell does "kappa" mean ? I can't stand it anymore. Really.

-In pro matches, why some heroes wait like a full minute to spend their first skill point ? It's the very first thing that I do every match. Are they waiting to see what's going on around the runes or in the lanes, and adapt their skill choice according to it ?

-What is the "momentum" that some people sometimes talk about ?

I had more in my head the other day, but can't remember them. They'll come back ! Thanks a lot people, feel free to ask your own questions !

Hello Fromage! Feel free to ask, we'll answer you as best we can!




I've got my head spinning with this myself. This is optional, improving individual skill is more important outside of the higher skill matches.

Smoke of Deceit grants invisibility, this includes from ward vision. Basically you can do a "sneaky" Rosh without the enemy knowing. However if the enemy has some sense they might guess that your team is taking Rosh.

Its an emoticon for twitch.tv , usually used for sarcasm, or just spam in general since it is very iconic.

You answered those yourself. Going for first blood rune? Take stun/slow. About to feed first blood? Get escape spells.

Others might answer this better, but I think it has something to do with taking objectives, utilizing resource leads, and forcing issues.

So that the enemy team doesn't see you walking to the Rosh pit. It's very likely that the enemy team has Observer Wards on your way to Rosh so if you smoke you won't be seen by wards when you get to the pit.

Of course it dissipates on your first hit to Rosh but that's not a problem. The Rosh pit is hardcoded to be "out of vision", there's no way the enemy team can have vision of the Rosh pit with wards. The only way the enemy team can see you doing ROsh is by actually being there.

Sure the enemy team can maybe guess that you're in Rosh because you're missing but 1) there's no way to be sure that you're in Rosh, you could be doing lots of other things like smoke ganks or simply farming jungle stacks, and 2) it will take much more time for them to realize it this way and they'll probably come in when it's already too late to stop you.




It's an emote on twitch of one of the twitch founders making a funny face. It's used in twitch chat (and other places) to denote sarcasm.




Yes. On most heroes, there are a lot of options in terms of what you should skill first. Sure, if you play Wraith King, you should always skill your stun first and you can skill it when you're in the fountain. But for example if you're playing a carry Naga Siren and you skill Rip Tide first in fountain, you'll miss out of any first blood opportunity because you didn't skill Ensnare, so you should never skill anything on Naga unless you need to use it.
Mirana, Earth Spirit, Alchemist and a lot of others come to mind as well.
WHen you have to choose between an escape skill and a skill that allows you to get kills, or you have to choose between a laning skill or a first blood skill...you need to make the choice on the fly, not in fountain.




A lot of heroes and lineups are extremely strong when they have an advantage. That's good momentum : when you get a series of victories that leads to other victories.
Example : a Legion Commander that gets a lot of Duel wins is extremely scary because she can solo kill any hero in the game. But a LC with no duel wins 30 minutes in the game is completely useless. So LC is a very momentum-dependent hero.

This ^ . While it may be obvious since you've been missing for a while, by the time the other teamstarts thinking "are they doing Rosh", you'll probably be safely in the pit. The 10% Movement Speed Boost is also useful for moving your entire Team across the map quickly and cuts off a few seconds of travel time from your Tier 3 to the Pit. Doesn't sound like much, but those few seconds could be the difference between losing a fight in the Rosh Pit, and fighting outside the Pit with Aegis of the Immortal in hand.

You do have to be careful of Skills that leave vision in the pit like Plague Ward, Static Remnant, etc. and most importantly of all Psionic Trap which lasts indefinitely if they aren't triggered or destroyed.

There's also Skills which grant temporary vision of an area which can be targeted on the Rosh Pit from anywhere on the map, like Rocket Flare, Ice Blast and Sunstrike.

No Kappa?

Seriously though, it denotes sarcasm, or that a statement should not be taken seriously. It's teh face of a former twitch employee and is the most used emote on twitch.tv

Basically, if you see Kappa, the statement should not be taken seriously.

e.g. Nubtrain is so bad, he's only 5k Kappa, Krwiozerca is so bad (NoKappa 8{D )

Well, you already answered your own question. To be honest, if levelling a Skill is the 1st thing you do each game, you're making a mistake. Sure some Heroes may have 1 "obvious" choice of Skill to take at lvl1, e.g. Shadow Walk on Bounty Hunter, Greevil's Greed on Alchemist, Sacred Arrow on Mirana, but you should NEVER assume that you'll be using that Skill in favour of other Skills until the time comes to use it.

You can easily and quickly level up a Skill by holding down CTRL and pressing the hotkey for that Skill, e.g. CTRL + Q to level your 1st Skill. Once you're ready to use it, just lkevl it and use it straight away.

Countless fights and 1st Bloods are lost at the Rune Spawn in Pubs, because Lich leveled Sacrifice since he assumed he wouldn't need Frost Blast.

That's not a little question...that's asking about everything to do with DOTA T-T

Besides, we already have a 6.85 discussion thread. <}3

Ok got a little question of my own
At what timings should u Arggo creeps to stack and pull?
Thx in advance

Different camps have different timings. Since i'm a lazy person, i'll just link you to these 2 sites which explain in detail stacking and pulling instead of typing out everything.

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/Pulling


http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Creep_Stacking

There are many stacking guides. Still

53 for small camps, 55 for large camps, medium camps vary.

Short Version == go into a Lobby and practice until you feel comfortable Stacking Camp

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When it comes to the Pulling the Small Camp, for the 1st 6 minutes of the game, the Safe Lane Creep Wave travels faster, so the time is around :11 - 14 and :41 - 44, later on, when it slows down, it's closer to :15 and :45 , but the timings can be forgiving.

When Pulling through to the Medium Camp on Radiant, you want to pull when at least 2/3 of the Camp's total HP is gone. That deosn't mean "when there's only 1 out of 3 Creeps left" as different Creeps in the Smal Camp have differing levels of HP, you have to studyup on your Small Camps to get better idea. Like Misaaki, I'm too lazy to go further in-depth on this one.

When Pulling thorugh on the Dire side, it's a little less than 2/3 of the total Camp's HP since it takes longer to Pull the Medium Camp to the Small Camp due to the increased distance to travel.

As for Stacking the Small Camp and Ancients 1st time, :53 every time. You can get awaywith :52 and :54 sometimes, but it's always best to aim for :53.

Medium and Hard Camps depend on the Creeps spawned, but it will always be between :53 and :55 the 1st time you Stack. A good rule of thumb is to count how many Creeps there are and look at their Movement Speed. Taking Medium Camps as an example, most of these Creeps move at 320, so you can Stack Centaurs at :55, however Satyr Mindstealer only have 270 Movement Speed, so stacking Satyr Camps at :53 is better.

The more Stacks there are, the more time you need to leave before Stacking, going as far as about :51 - 52 for Quad Stacked Ancients. Cutting Trees down can also affect the timing. The easiest way to learn is by playing around and practicing Stacking until it feels natural.

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Edit: FINALLY #inb4Hamster 8{D

Stack the small camp at :53, pull it at :13. Do both in one go to save time.

To stack big camps it's more like :55 to :56 but you won't be pulling them.

And there's this big camp on Dire that you can pull, I never remember the timer but according to the picture it's :21.

And always remember about pulling : *only pull when your lane is pushed*. If you pull when you shouldn't be pulling you just lost your lane by forcing your carry to tank creeps and then having the lane's momentum swing back to the enemy tower, giving a free lane to the enemy offlane.

Care with kobold camps. That speed aura is a *****. For the big Dire camp, you can pull at :21 or :51 and at :51 you stack it as well.