What does Alt-Clicking provides you and your team with

I would like to talk about Alt-Clicking. It has been added around year ago and it is improved with nearly each patch recently. The idea of this is to give the biggest amount of information to your team, especially for casual players, who cannot communicate with whole team, or when there is a language barrier in your team. You simply Alt-Click on something and the info is displayed for all your teammates on their language setting.


There are few things that you can note using Alt-Clicking (Again, if I will miss something or I will be wrong, I would like to your correct me, or contribute here):

• While you are in the picking phase, you can mark your lane position on the map using the Alt-Click. This may prevent your teammates from messing up the lanes and it creates less drama and fighting over mid and offlane (I really noticed that).
  
  
• You can Alt-Click on the clock in order to notify your teammates of current game time. It is helpful when your or enemy team took Roshan, and you want to know when Aegis of the Immortal will expire.
  Let's say that the enemy team took Rosh on 27:45. Quite often, when I am not that busy, I am then writing: "Aegis expires on 32:45", sice Aegis of the Immortal duratio in the hero inventory lasts 5 full minutes (remember, that it lasts 5 minutes when a hero PICKS the Aegis, not when Roshan is killed.
  
• Clicking on the map or directly on the screen with Alt will create a Default Ping with a visual notification with an exclamation mark. I am sure you are all aware of that :).
  If you will Alt-Click on the friendly building, you will encourage your team to defend it (it creates a Defensive Ping, but with a different sound and a visualization of the Shield). If you will Alt-Click on the enemy building, courier or hero, it will encourage your teammates to attack it (different sound and the Sword icon).
  When you will do the Ctrl+Alt Click, you will create an Aggresive Ping with a different sound and X mark. This is often used by flamers in your team on your dead body.
  
  
• Alt-Clicking on your skills will let your teammates know about the cooldown of your abilites and will show on which level you have it.
  Side note: there is an Ultimate Diamond on top of the screen, on the hero portraits. If you will get your cursor on it, you will see whether your teamamtes ultimates are ready or not (it shows cooldown). When someone's ultimate is ready and they have Mana for it, diamond will have a green color. If the hero will have his ultimate off cooldown, but he will not have enough Mana for it, diamond will have a blue color. If the hero will have his ultimate on cooldown, diamond will be dark.
  
  Another note: If you will Alt-Click on the ability that you have not yet learned, a following message will be visible:
  
  ">(ABILITY NAME) not learned"
  
  This is useful with early fights, when you would like to tell your teammates to be aggresive or defensive. For example, if you are Sven and you skilled Warcry at level 1, and your teamates want to kill someone, you can notify them that Storm Hammer is not learned, so you should probably back off, because there is no chance of killing that hero.
  
  
• Alt-Clicking on your buffs and debuffs right above your HP and Mana bar will notify your teammates of their current status. It will also show currently working runes. Since 6.83 C, it also works on the enemy heroes.
  
  
• You can Alt-Click on your or the enemy hero Bottle to notify your teammtes which Rune it holds (if it holds any).
  
  
• You can Alt-Click on the enemy heroes abilities to aware your teammates of their abilities. It creates such a note:
  
  ">Beware (HERO NAME) (ABILITY NAME)"
  
  
  
• Alt-Clicking on your HP and Mana bar will provide your teammates with info about your current HP and Mana status. You can also Alt-Click on the enemy HP and Mana bar to show your team their status (it could be useful for heroes like Zeus, despite the: ">Zeus Ult now!").
  
  
• When you will Alt-Click on your items in the inventory, you will show whether this item is ready or if it has a cooldown. If this item has no active ability, it will just show that you have this item ready to use.
  It works similar when it comes to the enemy hero items. It will just show a notification, that this hero currently possesses certain item in their inventory.
  
  
• Alt-Clicking on the item in the shop will tell your teammates that you are planning to buy this item in the future. If the item you want to purchase has a cooldown (like Observer Ward, Flying Courier, Smoke of Deceit), it will show, that this item is currently out of stock, and will show when you will be able to purchase it.
  
  
• Alt-Clicking on the Quick Buy Menu (right above the courier icon on the bottom right) will notify your teammates whether you have money for this item, or how much money you need in order to buy that item.
  
  
• Alt-Clicking on your Gold Icon (near the Shop Icon) will inform your teammates on your Buyback status. If you have enough gold for Buyback, it will display a proper info, and if you don't have enough gold for it, it will show how much gold you need in order to be able to Buyback after you die (bear in mind that you will lose some portion of Unreliable gold upon death). Since 6.83 C update, game will take into account how much gold you will lose when dying.
  
  Note: After any player in your team (including yourself) will die, you will see a golden frame on top of a screen around their Death Timer if they are able to Buyback.

This is it. I hope I helped you and once again I am asking for review. I might have skipped something. Big thanks to Sinured, Seagull and Wulfstan for their input.

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P.S. I don't want to make another thread for this, but you think that when you are marking more than 1 game mode and you click the "Search" button, you should be informed which mode was found when you are accepting to join? I can think of 1 con of this: some players would decline, if they would see that, let's say, Ability Draft game was found. But then - why marking it in the first place?

About the diamond on the top for the ultimate: It will only be green if it is off CD AND you have enough mana to cast it.

And Alt-clicking on the enemies buffs and debuffs doesn't work. I try it every time when a hasted enemie go to the sidelane to gank

Thanks.

Edited a bit and I will add some formatting.

Some more stuff:

If you alt click on an enemy hero's spell it will tell your team to beware of that spell.

If you alt click on an enemy hero's item it will tell that the hero has it

The flag icon below the portrait of an allied dead hero has golden border when the hero has buyback available.

Ctrl + left click drag on the map will let you draw on it

Now after the new patch alt clicking a bottle shows the run inside it

I think alt clicking glyph will tell its cooldown, ctrl + alt will suggest no using it, not 100% sure

Alt clicking your current gold will notify your allies about your buyback status

Some of it I just updated, some of this I will add now. Thanks a lot!

Very nice, a lot of these little UI trinkets are lost on many players sadly.

Now do Ctrl + Clicks! >8{D

Moved to New Player Help section and stickied, looks really useful for newcomers, nice thread!

I always use the X ping as a way to say 'no no no dont go'

.... :(

Oh, that's a great honor. I will make sure to update this thread when needed.

I believe when an ally has ult OFF CD but has not enough mana to cast it, it's DARK BLUE, not that greyish color.