Hotkeys

Hello guys, it's me again, .Elusive. Earlier this week I wrote a blog post about one of my favorite dota 2 mechanics: quick cast. You should go check it out. But today, I realized I have skipped over one of THE MOST important mechanics of dota 2... Hotkeys.

Alright, so a little bit of background about myself. My first real online game was Starcraft II (I played Terran, Duh), a real-time-strategy game. In Starcraft, the commander's win rate is determined by if they can perform more actions in a limited amount of time while at the same time considering their opponents every move. For instance, in 5 seconds you should be queuing up SCVs, queuing up some marines, being aware of the map, controlling your army, and be thinking about what the opponent is probably doing AT THE SAME TIME. This is why it's vital to use hotkeys, and that is a lesson I learned well.

So then, I delved into dota 2, my first MOBA. Since I'd already learned what hotkeys were, I automatically transferred them over, and I'd say that has saved about a week or two of matches against bots, trying to learn about hotkeys. Hotkeys are probably the most important mechanic of dota 2 because they speed up your actions and reactions. For instance, say you are a Magnus with a Blink Dagger. Your job is to blink in and use your Reverse Polarity on as many of the enemy team as possible.
First off, let's say the Magnus is not using hotkeys:
He takes half a second, to look at the enemy team, half a second to move his cursor down to his inventory, 3 quarters of a second to move the cursor to where he wants to blink to, and then half a second back down to click on Reverse Polarity. And that's not even a channeled spell with an aoe!
0.5+0.5+0.75=1.75-the amount of time it takes for him to get ready. Then once he's blinked, the enemy team has a whole half a second to counter-initiate on magnus. That's really not good, especially in mid-high tier games.

Now let's say he's using hotkeys:
0.25 to move the cursor where he wants to go+0.05 to click on the ground+0.05 to blink there=0.35 window of opportunity. That means he can pick a lot more times to use Reverse Polarity and not waste it. Then 0.07 seconds after he blinks, he casts Reverse Polarity. The whole time takes
2.25-0.42=1.83 SECONDS LESS when he uses hotkeys. That's a big difference. That's the difference between taking a window of opportunity and getting a 5-man Reverse Polarity and only getting one guy because they moved during that extra 2 seconds. That's big. That's game-changing.

Even better, let's say the Magnus is using quick cast...
0.25 to move the cursor where he wants it to go+0.05 to hit his hotkey for Blink Dagger+0.05 to shift-que Reverse Polarity=0.35 seconds. He can disable the entire team in less than a second if he( Magnus) plays his cards right and is quick with his hotkeys. That is BIG, guys, really big.

So, in conclusion, why use hotkeys? They speed up your actions, which can be very, very good for you. Faster actions by you gives the enemy less time to react, which results in(usually) a better outcome for you. So learn your hotkeys, even if it's hard, because one day they will do something for you that you couldn't have done without them.

Also, If you're more advanced, I'd highly recommend checking out my guide to quick cast.