Buyback

So far one of the harder things I've come across in this game is the decision whether to buyback or not and I was wondering if there are any basic guidelines or anything like that?

"Buyback if..."

"Don't buyback if..."

Help me out please :-)

Also I couldn't find a search-in-forum feature so I'm sorry if this has already been asked / answered :v

Buyback if a teamfight is happening in which you will be able to get there in time and make a difference. No point buying back if you can't get there till the fights finished.
Buyback if your team wants to defend a tower which the enemy are pushing, this normally applies to tier 3 towers but can apply to outer ones sometimes.

The key to buyback is you need to be able to justify spending all that money by getting kills/turning a teamfight round.

Buying back just because you can farm the gold back is not really recommended, because then you can't buyback if needed for 5 minutes.

First, always keep money for buybacks if you're a carry and you've already bought your core items ( Battle Fury + Manta Style on Anti-Mage or Shadow Blade + Black King Bar on Alchemist, for example); whether you have to buy back or not should come with experience.

For example: if the enemies are grouped up for destroying the mid tier 1 tower and the game is already 20-30 miutes in, there's no reason to go and defend as they should be able to destroy it in a matter of seconds. On the other hand, if they are going for the tier 3 towers and you have to wait 50 more seconds to come into the fight, buyback is necessary.
The real problem comes when they're fighting tier 2s: if all your teammates are alive and they are not underlevelled there's no reason to waste money and the buyback cooldown; but if the enemy team has more levels than yours or if just 1-2 teammates are alive you might want to defend the tower. You might consider to buy back even when the enemies are underlevelled and you could make a good killing spree by yourself: spend some money, teleport to the tower and get those kills!

Don't let the pros fool you. You buy back for the sound it plays. My team mates tell me that paying 1000-2000 gold for that awesome sound to play is not worth it. I believe other wise. It has to do with moral, if the other team hears you bought back is makes them less eager to fight.

Now if you want to be productive with buy back you have to be able to do two things.

1: get back to the fight. If all your outer towers are down and the fight is at there tier 3 you can't get to the fight quickly so you won't really achieve anything. If the fight is under your tower you can tp directly in and make it a 6 vs 5.

2 : will you contribute. If the fight is won you are not needed in chasing down the stragglers. If your team is crushed there is no point to throw your life away a second time.

It is a hard call to make, I've won team fights because I bought back but I have also crushed my economy for nothing. Also late game, save for buy back. If they win a fight and your team can buy back and at least go down swinging at the rax instead of just rolling over.

"Example of a good buy back" final game of Ti3 S4 died, bought back into the game and landed a million dollar dream coil.

Yes! That Dream Coil jesus christ, what a play.

Thanks for the great answers guys, most of it I already had figured out but as Peppo says I guess it just comes down to experience, will have to start paying attention :P

Only Buyback in the following situations:

o If you can kill an enemy player quickly. Example: If I die as Zeus and I can Ulti to kill another player, I will buyback ulti and kill that player or players.

o If you can farm the gold that it costs to buyback within the respawn time given. Example: I am Sven and I died but there is a huge creepwave that I can kill to reimburse me for that buyback money.

o When someone kills you really unfairly.

o When you are about to get Raxed, but by Buying back you can stop the enemy from Raxing

o When your team has killed all 5 players on the enemy team and are pushing the enemy Rax.

o When Nature's Prophet is trying to steam the Gem in your base.

Doing this will get the other team to make fun of you. People can be so mean.

It might. But by buying back and then killing the person that killed you unfairly; you will feel better and you can rub it in the other team's face. Even if you are a nice player, the nature of Dota 2 creates a flourishing environment for Rage, Hate, Anger, Frustration, Manipulation, and Harassment

Of all the wrong reasons to buyback, "rage" buybacking is usually the worst.
Also, there's not such thing as being killed 'unfairly'. :/

I've found that watching pro games are sometimes the best way to see in what situations buybacks are viable. But yeah, everyone already gave great advice, so won't add salt to the cracker.

You want to know when to buyback? When you know that not buying back is going to cost your team more than the money that it costs you to actually buyback. If you have to think about buying back then you probably don't need to, if you notice in higher tier games a player will wait until they actually need to be alive, they don't make the purchase and sit around 20 seconds and hope that the enemy is still going to do what they where anticipating 20 seconds ago, no, they wait until the enemy is in position and contesting an objective or a fight that requires them to be in it and they know they can reach the fight fast enough after respawning.



That's what I'm saying. Kind of a pain not having that feature, right? Hopefully something will be done about it.