Before starting your first game, you probably want to prepare yourself at least a little bit.
Whether you want to jump right in and play or read up on everything you can will determine which sections you should read over. New players with no experience should carefully read the first half of this guide. The earlier sections try to explain the basics in great detail. These are things you should learn before entering a game against other people. The guide then walks you through playing your first game and later sections describe more intermediate to advanced concepts that can be read once you have some experience.Videos and wiki links can be considered supplementary and are useful for more in-depth detail if the Dota 2 guide text isn’t enough.The last section contains links to other sites where you can find more guides, videos, news, streams, and forums for Dota 2.
What is Dota 2? A Brief Description
Dota is a game played between two teams of five players. The teams are called the Radiant and the Dire with bases on opposite corners of the map. On the map there are three paths, known as lanes, connecting the two bases with a river that runs through the paths, dividing them and the map in half. Every 30 seconds three small groups of units spawn at each team’s base, one for each lane. These units are called creeps, and they will travel down a lane and fight any enemy unit or building in the way.
The objective of the game is to destroy the enemy team’s Ancient, a building located in their base.
On the enemy’s side of the map are buildings protecting the enemy Ancient that must be killed before a team can reach the enemy Ancient.
Each player controls a unit known as a hero. When a player’s hero is killed, they remain dead for a certain period of time and then are resurrected in their own base. Throughout the course of the game, players spend time making their heroes stronger while pushing towards the enemy Ancient by killing enemy creeps, heroes, and buildings. Killing enemy creeps, heroes, and buildings also rewards players with gold. Gold can be used to purchase items for your hero, making them even stronger.
The first team to kill the other team’s Ancient wins.
Here’s a brief 4 minute video by nigmanoname containing the information above as well as information covered in later sections.
Basic Elements, Mechanics, and Concepts
Here you will find descriptions of units, items, game mechanics, important terms, and concepts.
Clicking a term will take you to its wiki page.Gold[www.dota2wiki.com]
You accumulate 1 gold every 0.6 seconds, which is a rate of 5 gold every 3 seconds.
Used to purchase items
Players begin a game with 625 gold.
You lose some gold when your hero dies[www.dota2wiki.com].
Gold is also rewarded for killing other players and various things that will be described later.
Item[www.dota2wiki.com] – An object that can be purchased at a shop with gold. (More detail in the Item section.)
Makes heroes stronger and may have an ability.
A hero may carry up to six items in their inventory.
Additional items may be kept in storage, called a stash, located in the Fountain. Stashed items do not affect the hero.
Distance – Used in describing the range and radius of all things. Distance is measured in units.
Experience[www.dota2wiki.com] – Points awarded to a hero when in the vicinity of an enemy creep or hero death.
When enough experience is accumulated, a hero will gain a level.
The amount of experience an enemy creep or hero grants on death is equally divided among all heroes in a 1300 unit radius.
Creep[www.dota2wiki.com] – A small autonomous unit that fights for your team.
Gives experience to enemy heroes in the area upon death.
Melee, Ranged, and Siege creeps
Creep Wave[www.dota2wiki.com] – A group of creeps that spawn every 30 seconds from Barracks at the ends of each lane and travel towards the enemy base.
Waves are composed of three different types of creeps. There are ranged creeps, melee creeps, and siege creeps.
The first wave of creeps consists of 3 melee and 1 ranged creep.
Siege creeps begin to spawn at 3:00.
Siege creeps only spawn every seventh wave.
Wave sizes increase periodically throughout the game.
Last-hit[www.dota2wiki.com] – the killing blow on a creep.
A player receives gold for landing the killing blow on an enemy creep.
Deny [www.dota2wiki.com]– last-hitting your own creep
Denying a creep reduces the amount of experience given to the enemy team when it dies by 50%.
It also denies the enemy team gold, because they did not get the last-hit on the creep.
You can only start to attack your own creeps once they hit 50% health.
Denying is done by pressing the attack move key (default ‘A’) and then left-clicking the target creep.
Farming – Last-hitting neutral and enemy creeps for gold. Takes place in a lane or in the jungle.
Tree[www.dota2wiki.com] – A terrain element found all over the map.
Trees obstruct vision[www.dota2wiki.com]
Some abilities and items can be used to clear trees
There are two heavily forested areas on the map known as the jungle.
Trees will regrow 5 minutes after they’re destroyed.
A tree on the Radiant side of the river and a tree on the Dire side of the river.
Neutral Creep Camp[www.dota2wiki.com] – A small group of special creep units that are not part of either team.
Located in the Jungle and the first camps spawn 30 seconds into the game.
Camps respawn at the top of every minute, XX:00 on the game clock.
They are an additional source of gold and experience
More details about neutral creep camps are discussed in “Intermediate Game Mechanics” and “The Jungle” sections.
Mega Creep[www.dota2wiki.com] – Stronger versions of normal creeps.
Begin to spawn in place of normal creeps when barracks (see Buildings section) are destroyed.
Give less gold and experience when killed.
Once all six barracks have been destroyed, Upgraded Mega Creeps, an even stronger version of mega creeps begin to spawn.
Mega melee and ranged creeps
Damage[www.dota2wiki.com]
There are several different types of damage that heroes may inflict and receive.
There are three main types of damage one should learn about first.
Physical – This type of damage is generally associated with normal attacks. A hero’s regular attack, unaffected by any abilities, is physical damage. Regular attacks dealt by other units such as creeps is also physical.
There are different types of physical damage, but a beginner need not concern themselves with knowing them all right away. Those interested in reading up about them can see the wiki page on Damage. Physical damage can be reduced by a hero’s armor[www.dota2wiki.com]property.
Magic – This type of damage is generally associated with spells. It can be reduced by a hero’smagic resistance[www.dota2wiki.com], a hero property similar to armor.
Pure – Similar to magic damage, except pure damage is not reduced by magic resistance and armor.
Dota 2 is full of exceptions, and there are many abilities, items, and heroes that don’t follow this general behavior. You will get to know these exceptions as you play the game.
Role[www.dota2wiki.com] – The part a hero plays in contributing to its team based upon their attributes, abilities, and items.
Pushing[www.dota2wiki.com] – Killing enemy creep waves to advance your own creep wave down a lane in order to kill buildings.
Heroes that excel at pushing are known as pushers.
Gank[www.dota2wiki.com] – A (surprise) kill on a hero.
Heroes that excel at ganking are known as gankers.
The Buildings
Buildings make up the Radiant and Dire bases and give gold to the enemy team when they are destroyed.
Ancient [www.dota2wiki.com]– The main building each team wants to protect on their side and destroy on the other.
Can only be destroyed once the two towers guarding it have been destroyed.
Also referred to as a Throne (from the original Dota).
Tower [www.dota2wiki.com]– Buildings that guard lanes, barracks, and the Ancient. They are stationary and ranged, shooting strong projectiles at enemies that come too close.
There are 4 tiers of towers, labeled according to how far away from the Ancient they are. Tier 1 towers are the furthest outer towards, and Tier 4 towers are the two towers directly in front of the Ancient.
Higher tier towers do more damage.
Higher tier towers reward more gold to the enemy team when killed.
Will attack enemy heroes that are attacking allied heroes.
Have an attack range of 700 units.
Rewards the enemy team with gold when destroyed.
Can be denied. As a result, the enemy team receives less gold.
You can begin to deny your tower when it reaches 10% of its total health, as opposed to 50% health for denying creeps.
A Radiant and Dire tower.
See wiki for more details on how towers determine their attack targets and other specific numbers.
These albums for Radiant[imgur.com] and Dire[imgur.com] show great in-game images of tower attack ranges and foliage markings on the ground that you can use to help you remember them.
Barracks[www.dota2wiki.com] – The buildings at the beginning of each lane where creeps spawn.
Barracks cannot be attacked until the tower guarding them has been destroyed
There are two types of barracks:
Ranged Barracks
Melee Barracks
When a ranged barracks is destroyed, the enemy will spawn mega ranged creeps in that lane instead of regular ranged creeps from then on.
When a melee barracks is destroyed, the enemy will spawn mega melee creeps in that lane instead of regular melee creeps from then on.
Towers, Ancient, and the Fountain all have true sight[www.dota2wiki.com]. They can see invisible enemies.
Backdooring – Attacking buildings without the support of creeps.
Tier 2, 3, and 4 Towers and the Barracks have backdoor protection[www.dota2wiki.com].
Buildings with backdoor protection and without nearby creeps will regenerate health when attacked.
It is possible to kill buildings and overcome their backdoor protection. If a team’s damage output is high enough, a building can lose health faster than the backdoor protection can regenerate.
The Hero
There are currently 112 heroes[www.dota2wiki.com] in the original Dota. So far, 110 of them (as of 2/27/2015) have been ported to Dota 2 with the rest being steadily released.
Heroes gain experience and gold for killing enemy heroes and creeps.
Heroes start the game at level 1 and can reach a max level of 25.
A hero will increase in level when it gains enough experience.
Heroes have different attack ranges[www.dota2wiki.com] – how close they must be to their target in order to hit them.
Melee heroes must be next to their target in order to hit them. Most melee heroes have an attack range of 128 units.
Ranged heroes fire projectiles and may be farther away from their target. Attack ranges vary from hero to hero, with the highest attack range being 700 units.
Health[www.dota2wiki.com] – Also known as hit points, this represents how much life your Hero has.
Mana[www.dota2wiki.com] – A resource used by your hero to cast abilities. Most abilities consume mana when used, and can only be used when a hero has enough mana.
Death
Your hero dies when your health reaches zero.
Your hero will respawn in the Fountain after a short period of time has passed.
The time delay before you respawn gets longer as your hero level increases.
Gold can be spent to purchase a buyback[www.dota2wiki.com] which instantly revives your hero, but can only be done once every 7 minutes.
Attributes
All heroes have the following three attributes[www.dota2wiki.com].
strength[www.dota2wiki.com] (str)
Affects a hero’s total health and health regeneration
agility[www.dota2wiki.com] (agi)
Affects a hero’s armor and attack speed.
intelligence[www.dota2wiki.com] (int)
Affects a hero’s total mana and mana regeneration.
Every hero has one of these three attributes as their primary attribute. A hero’s primary attribute is where their attack damage comes from. One point of primary attribute gives one attack damage.
Levelling up passively makes your hero stronger by raising its attributes values. Each hero differs in the growth rate of their three attributes. In general, your hero’s primary attribute grows the fastest.
For example, Lich[www.dota2wiki.com] starts with 18 base strength, 15 base agility, and 18 base intelligence. His primary attribute is Intelligence and he gains 1.55 strength, 2 agility, and 3.25 intelligence per level.
The max health and mana of your hero is determined by its total strength and intelligence, respectively. As you gain more strength and intelligence, your health and mana will increase.
Other hero properties affected by increases in attributes include hero attack damage, health regeneration speed, armor, attack speed, and mana regeneration speed.
See Attributes[www.dota2wiki.com] for more details on numbers and mechanics affected by attributes.
Abilities
Every hero has a unique set of abilities[www.dota2wiki.com]. In general, every ability has a mana cost (the amount of mana needed and consumed when it is used) and using an ability puts it on a cooldown which limits how often it can be used. Ability effects can range from being very simple to very complex.
Every hero also has an ultimate[www.dota2wiki.com] ability which is their most powerful ability. Using them can be a game-changer and they often have long cooldowns so they must be used sparingly.
All heroes have four main abilities including their ultimate.
Some heroes have abilities that are broken down into multiple sub-abilities.
The most extreme example of this is the hero Invoker[www.dota2wiki.com] who has 10 extra skills that are the result of combining combinations of his three main abilities with his ultimate.
Ability types and effects are discussed in more detail in the Ability section.
The Hero – Roles
Brief Hero Roles Overview
Since all heroes have different abilities, starting attribute values, and attribute gains per level, some heroes better at performing certain roles[www.dota2wiki.com] than others.
A couple examples to get you thinking about where roles come from.
Since the agility stat affects a hero’s attack speed and armor, a hero whose primary stat is agility will generally be able to do more damage than other heroes. You want these heroes to be the ones purchasing items that increase their damage and have them kill the other team’s heroes.
A hero with abilities that allow them to be more mobile than others and output a lot of damage in a short amount of time (burst damage) would excel at killing heroes. You want them to be roaming around the map trying to pick off lone enemy heroes (ganking).
A hero with a large area of effect ability would want to catch as many enemies as possible with it. You want them to be focused on using their abilities during large teamfights involving many heroes.
The makeup of a hero, its abilities and attributes, affects what items a hero needs to reach its potential and be most effective in a game. A hero’s abilities, attributes, and items determines what role the hero is suited for.
Roles are important, because they allow players to describe heroes in general without having to point out specific heroes. They also define the different responsibilities for each player on a team.
While there are many ways to define roles, here’s the categorization you will find in-game. These roles are not mutually exclusive, so a hero can fit many of these roles at the same time.
Carry[www.dota2wiki.com] – Heroes with abilities that scale well later into the game and with items. These are the heroes a team relies on to do most of their damage and they usually end up being the strongest heroes later in the game.
Disabler[www.dota2wiki.com] – Heroes with abilities that are good at locking down a single target or multiple heroes on the enemy team.
Lane Support[www.dota2wiki.com] – Heroes that are good at supporting their allies in a lane. They can either pressure enemies in the lane, allowing their allies to farm, or are able to provide some sort of heal to sustain their allies in a lane.
Initiator[www.dota2wiki.com] – Heroes that are good at engaging the enemy and starting teamfights.
Jungler[www.dota2wiki.com] – Heroes that excel when put in the jungle due to their ability to kill jungle creeps efficiently.
Support – Heroes that don’t need expensive items to be effective. They can contribute enough just based on their abilities. They are not relied on to do damage, but they can assist others in getting kills and keeping teammates alive.
Durable – Heroes that can endure taking a lot of damage.
Nuker – Heroes with abilities that deal a lot of damage in quick bursts or in a single attack, especially in an AoE.
Pusher[www.dota2wiki.com] – Heroes that can kill creep waves and destroy buildings faster than most.
Escape[www.dota2wiki.com] – Heroes fitting this role have abilities that make them hard to chase down and kill. This often means some sort of invisibility ability or an ability that gives the hero extra mobility.
Additional roles[www.dota2wiki.com]. These roles aren’t listed in the game, but they are just as commonly used to describe heroes.
Roamer – Rather than stay in lanes trying to get gold and experience, these heroes are good at freely moving around the map, trying to get kills in other lanes and trying to get map control.
Ganker – These heroes are good at getting quick hero kills on their own or have good abilities for setting up others to get a quick kill, such as an ability that stuns an enemy for a long time.
Semi-Carry – Heroes that are the strongest during the middle of the game, usually because of their ability to gain many kills early giving them an early lead. However, their abilities and attributes don’t scale as well with items into the late game, so they are eventually overshadowed by a true Carry type hero.
Basic knowledge of roles is important when choosing what hero to play. Choosing a hero is discussed in the section “Choosing a Hero and Team Composition”.
For a more detailed discussion on this topic, see the section on Hero Roles and Distributing Farm.
A DotaCinema video explaining hero roles.
The Ability
Abilities can also be referred to as skills and spells.
Characteristics
All heroes have abilities, but what are they and what do they do?
Some general defining characteristics of an ability are:
Type – Some abilities are active while others are passive. Active abilities require the player to command their hero to use them while passive abilities have their effects always on.
Target type – Some abilities may only be cast on units and others may only be cast somewhere on the ground. There are also non-targeted abililties and using them applies some instant effect on your hero.
Range – How close to the target you have to be to use the ability.
Target Units – What units can be affected by this ability? Heroes, creeps, or both. Allies, enemies, or both. Some abilities only affect your own hero.
Cast Point/Animation – The time it takes from the moment an ability is activated by the player to when the ability takes effect. Abilities with high cast points give enemies the chance to react as they see the abilities being cast.
Area of Effect – Abbreviated AoE. An AoE ability affects all valid targets within a certain radius.
Channeling – A channeled ability is one that requires the hero to stop moving and not perform any action for a period of time. Some abilities have their effects active while a hero is channeling the ability, while other abilities require the full channel duration to pass before its effect is used. Channeled abilities can be interrupted, stopping its effect or preventing it from happening.
Effects
Abilities can also be characterized by what their effects are. Some common effects are:
Disables[www.dota2wiki.com] – Can affect a hero’s ability to cast spells, use items, and move.
Stun[www.dota2wiki.com] – A stun prevents a hero from moving and using any abilities or items.
If a team has multiple heroes with stuns and disables, they should be used one after another. As one stun is about to expire, another should be used. This is known as chain stunning and maximizes the amount of time an enemy is disabled. Stuns do not stack, so using them all at once is a waste.
Silence[www.dota2wiki.com] – A silence prevents a hero from using an abilities. A hero can still use items and move. These generally can last much longer than a stun.
Slow[www.dota2wiki.com] – A slow hinders a hero’s movement or attack speed.
Hex[www.dota2wiki.com] – A hex transforms a hero into a small weak creature for a short period of time. In this form, a hero’s movement is hindered and they cannot use abilities or items.
Buffs – Affects a hero’s attributes or properties in some positive way.
Debuffs – Affects a hero’s attributes or properties in some negative way.
Auras[www.dota2wiki.com] – An AoE buff or debuff.
Teleport[www.dota2wiki.com] – Moves the hero to a target point on the map.
Blink – A form of teleport with a limit on the distance between the teleport destination and the hero’s current location
Magic Immunity[www.dota2wiki.com] – Heroes under this effect are unaffected by most spells and items. For a full description of the specific interactions between magic immunity and different abilities, see the wiki page.
Invisibility[www.dota2wiki.com] – Heroes under invisibility cannot be seen by their enemies in the game or on the minimap, unless revealed by some sort of detection item.
Illusions[www.dota2wiki.com] – Units that are physical copies of a hero that the player can control. They appear identical to the original hero to enemies, but allies see illusions as a different color. They usually take more damage and deal less damage than the real hero.
Lifesteal[www.dota2wiki.com] – Returns a % of damage done by the hero as life.
True Sight[www.dota2wiki.com] – Reveals invisible enemies in range.
Damage over Time (DoT) – Deals damage over a period of time.
Heroes under the effects of some DoT abilities can be denied[www.dota2wiki.com] by their allies in the same way creeps are denied.
Denying any ally prevents the enemy from gaining experience and gold for the kill, but the denied hero still loses gold from dying.
Unique Attack Modifiers
Some abilities (as well as items) have special effects called Unique Attack Modifiers[www.dota2wiki.com]
Unique Attack Modifiers are effects that alter a hero’s normal attack, imbuing their attack with the effect. Some effects are a chance to slow, steal life, or burn mana from enemies hit by the hero’s normal attack.
In general, Unique Attack Modifiers do not stack. A hero may only use one UAM effect at a time.
(The exception is the UAM given by the Eye of Skadi[www.dota2wiki.com] item which may be stacked with a UAM which gives lifesteal.)
See Abilities[www.dota2wiki.com] for more in-depth descriptions and examples of abilities
Skill Points
You gain a skill point each time you level up. Skill points can be used to level up one of your abilities.
There are limitations on the max level of an ability and when you can spend skill points to level up an ability. In general, 3 is the max level for ultimates and 4 for everything else.
The max level for an ability (the number of points that can be put into an ability) is determined by your hero level. Skill points can only be spent on an ultimate at hero levels 6, 11, and 16. The max level for all other abilities starts at 1 at hero level 1 and increases by 1 every 2 hero levels.
So you can have up to 2 skill points in any one ability at hero level 3 , 3 skill points at hero level 5, and 4 skill points at hero level 7.
These restrictions prevent players from spending their first few skill points on a single ability and making it too powerful relative to their hero level.
Attribute Bonus[www.dota2wiki.com]
One ability common to all heroes is called Attribute Bonus, also known as Stats.
Leveling Attribute Bonus increases your strength, agility, and intelligence attributes by 2. Unlike other abilities, there is no restriction on when you can put points into your Attribute Bonus, but it still has a max level. In general, you want to level your Attribute Bonus last, because for most heroes leveling up other abilities is more beneficial.
See Upgrading Abilities[www.dota2wiki.com] for an alternate description of leveling abilities.
Below is a view of the ability section of the HUD for a hero with 4 abilities. A hero’s ultimate can always be found on the right. Right below each ability is a series of small squares which indicate how many skill points have been put into that ability.
In this particular picture note that only one skill point has been spent on the second ability. This means the hero only has access to its second ability.
The Map
There are many locations on the map you should become familiar with before you start playing.
Jungle – There are two jungle areas on the map one on the Radiant side and one on the Dire side. They are located between the three lanes. Neutral creep camps are located in the jungle.
The river divides the map into the Radiant side and the Dire side. The river is traversable, but it can only be entered from the following ramp locations.
Vision[www.dota2wiki.com] – The areas of the map you can see.
Areas you don’t have vision of are hidden by the fog of war[www.dota2wiki.com].
Every hero has vision of a certain area around themselves.
You have vision of your team’s buildings and heroes.
Trees obstruct vision.
Some areas of the map are more elevated[www.dota2wiki.com] than others. This also affects vision.
A hero’s vision at the bottom of a ramp, top of a ramp, and on top of a cliff.
Ancient Creep Camp[www.dota2wiki.com] – Two powerful camps of neutral creeps located in their own area, one on each side of the river.
Significantly stronger than normal neutral creep camps making them much harder to kill.
Killing them gives more gold and experience than other neutral camps.
Like other neutral camps, these camps can also be stacked[www.dota2wiki.com].
The locations of all towers, barracks, and the ancients.
Fountain[www.dota2wiki.com] – The area where each player spawns to begin the game.
It is where heroes can go to quickly heal and regenerate mana.
Will shoot many high damage projectiles at enemies who try to enter it.
Shop – The place where items can be purchased. There is a main shop located in each base next to the fountain. There are also two additional types of shops located on the map.
Side Lane Shop[www.dota2wiki.com] – Offers a smaller selection of items than the shop in the Fountain, but it is conveniently placed in the side lanes.
Secret Shop[www.dota2wiki.com]
Offers a selection of some of the most expensive items in the game most of which cannot be bought in any other shops.
Items found in the secret shop are often components used to make more powerful items.
Runes[www.dota2wiki.com] spawn at two special locations on the map. See the section Runes for more details.
Roshan[www.dota2wiki.com] – A powerful boss neutral creep
Located in an area known as Roshan’s Pit, the Rosh Pit, or simply the Pit.
Respawns at a random time between 8 and 11 minutes after he is killed.
When killed, Roshan drops an item known as the Aegis of the Immortal[www.dota2wiki.com].
If a hero holding the aegis is killed, the aegis is consumed and the hero will respawn 5 seconds later with full health and mana at the place of death. The aegis expires after 6 minutes if not used.
When Aegis expires unused, it heals the hero fully over 5 seconds. (regen dispels on damage from players or buildings)
Will drop an item called Cheese [www.dota2wiki.com]beginning with his third death in addition to dropping an Aegis. Cheese is a consumable that instantly restores 2500 health and 1000 mana to the user.
Unlike the Aegis, Cheese does not expire and can be given to teammates.
The HUD
The HUD, short for Heads Up Display, is where you’ll find information about your hero and other important game information.
Description of HUD Elements
Radiant Heroes and Dire Heroes – A portrait of each hero in the game is placed here. If a hero is dead or disconnected, their portrait changes. The time left before a dead hero respawns is also displayed here.
Clock – The game clock which measures how much time has elapsed.
Minimap[www.dota2wiki.com] – A small version of the entire map showing areas where you and your team have vision. Heroes and buildings that you and your team have vision of will show up on the minimap.
Left-clicking an area on the minimap will move your camera there.
Experience Bar – Tracks how much experience your hero has gained. When this bar is full your hero will gain a level.
Use Skill Point – Clicking this button allows you to spend skill points you’ve acquired through leveling your hero. Clicking an ability after clicking this button will spend a skill point on that ability.
Attributes – In this section you can see specific numbers on your hero’s three attributes, as well as your attack damage range, armor, and movement speed.
Abilities – Shows which abilities are available for you to use and how many points you’ve put into them. You can also use abilities by clicking them here or by using the hotkeys.
If you hover over these icons a detailed description of the ability will appear including information on its effects, manacost, cooldown, and duration.
Hovering over an ability icon will also display a green ring around your hero which indicates the range of the ability, i.e. how close you need to be to your target.
Creep Kills/Denies – Also known as your Creep Score (CS). This shows you how many last hits and denies you have made so far.
Kills/Deaths/Assists – The number of kills and assists your hero has made, and how many times you’ve died.
Inventory – The six items your hero carries go here and can be used from here or using their hotkey.
Quickbuy – A feature that allows you to queue up an item and its components so they can easily be bought without having to open the shop.
Buy Sticky – An item can be dragged here where it can be easily bought by right-clicking or using the Purchase Sticky hotkey.
Use Glyph – Activates your team’s Glyph of Fortification[www.dota2wiki.com]
When activated makes all structures on your team invincible for 5 seconds.
Any player can activate the glyph.
It has a 5 minute cooldown between uses.
Effects your hero is under from items and abilities are displayed above your health bar. For effects with a duration, the green border indicates how much time is left.
Selecting Units and Hero Display UI
For heroes with multiple units to control, their portraits will be displayed in the top right of the screen along with their health and mana bars. The portraits change to indicate whether the units are selected and if they are taking damage.
Also note that when multiple units are selected, the attributes area of the HUD changes to information on your selection.
Purchasing a buyback
The Items
Items
When describing what items a particular hero should get, they are often broken down into the following categories:
Starting Items – Items that a hero buys to begin the game.
Core items – Items that a hero would always want to get in most games.
Situational Items – Items that a hero might get if the particular game calls for it. Usually bought based on the enemy team’s heroes and item choices.
Luxury Items – Items that a hero would get if they’re doing exceptionally well and have the gold to buy them. These are most often bought in longer games.
The item suggestions in the shop menu follow the same categorization and the order in which the categories have been listed is generally the order in which they should be purchased, i.e. buy core items before buying luxury items.
Items have several defining characteristics.
Consumable vs Non-consumable
Consumable items are items that have a limited amount of uses. Some consumable items are used on single heroes such as Healing Salves and Mana Potions while others are meant to be placed on the map such as Observer Ward and Sentry Wards. Other consumable items have an area of effect such as Dust of Appearance and Smoke of Deceit which are used to reveal and conceal heroes.
Active vs Passive
Items can have active and passive properties. The active and passive effects that are possible on items fall under the same categories as those seen on hero abilities.Active item abilities can be used just as one would use an active ability on a hero.A passive ability on an item functions like a passive ability on a hero. Its effect is always on.See the earlier section on hero abilities for more detail on the type of effects items can have.
Stat Bonuses
Almost all items also give some sort of boost to certain hero properties. For every hero property such as stat attributes, damage, regeneration, armor, movement speed, etc. there are items that affect them.
Basic, Upgrade, and Recipe Item
Basic items are items that are not made from combining other items. These items are found in the Basic tab in the shop menu.
Upgrade items are items that are made from combining other basic, upgrade, and recipe items.
These items are found in the Upgrades tab in the shop menu.
To purchase an upgrade item, one simply needs to purchase all its component items. Once all the component items and recipe item (if the upgrade item calls for it) are in a hero’s inventory, they will automatically combine to form the upgrade item.
Recipe Item[www.dota2wiki.com]
Some upgrade items have a corresponding recipe item as one of their components. The recipe item alone does nothing. Their only purpose is to combine other component items.
Notable Items
These are some basic, important items that are frequently used in every game.
(g stands for gold.)
Town Portal Scroll or TP[www.dota2wiki.com] (100g) – A consumable item that allows a hero to teleport to any allied building on the map. This item is cheap and should be carried at all times. It can be used to escape a dangerous area, defend a tower across the map, or to simply travel back to the fountain to heal or back to a lane to farm.
Observer Ward[www.dota2wiki.com] (150g) – A consumable item that can be placed on the map providing vision of the area around it.
Sight range of 1600 units day and night.
Essential for maintaining vision and control of the map, allowing your team to spot enemy heroes.
Always try to have these placed across the map as much as possible.
Lasts 7 minutes after being placed, and disappear afterwards.
Sentry Ward[www.dota2wiki.com] (200g) – A consumable item similar to Observer Wards.
They do not provide very much vision, but they allow you to see invisible heroes and units in the area.
Sight range of 70 units day and night.
Their detection range is larger than the actual vision they provide.
True sight[www.dota2wiki.com] range of 850 units.
Lasts 4 minutes after being placed, and disappear afterwards.
Animation showing an observer ward and sentry ward.
Healing Salve[www.dota2wiki.com] (115g) – A consumable item that can be used for a quick burst of health regeneration. If attacked, however, the effect of the salve is canceled.
Tango[www.dota2wiki.com] (125g) – A consumable item that is used to eat trees and regenerate health. Tangos heal slower than healing salves, but are not dispelled if damage is taken.
How to use a tango.
Most items can also be dropped and picked up by other players, or directly given to other players. This does not mean other players can use those items, although consumables can be shared.
To drop an item on the ground, simply left-click drag and drop the item from your inventory to the ground.
To give an item to another hero, left-click drag and drop the item from your inventory to the hero on the screen.
To pick up an item on the ground, right-click it.
Three items that have been dropped on the ground.
Some upgrade items can disassembled into their component items.
Items with a recipe as a component cannot be disassembled, and only a few non-recipe upgrade items can be disassembled.
To disassemble an item, right-click it in your inventory and select “Disassemble”. The component items that the item was made from will be dropped on the ground.
Items that should be bought at the beginning of the game are discussed in a later section.
For those that want to know about almost every item in the game, here’s an hour long video by Purge.
The Runes
Runes
Runes are special items that only appear on the ground at two locations in the river.
There are several different types of runes, and they may be picked up by any hero. Picking up a rune consumes it, granting the hero a special buff for a short period of time.
A rune spawns every 2 minutes starting at 0:00 at each of the two rune spawn locations. One of the spawned runes is always a bounty rune and the other will be of another random type.
Types of Runes[www.dota2wiki.com]:
Regeneration – Quickly regenerates a hero’s health and mana. The effect is canceled if the hero takes damage or reaches full health and mana. Last 30 seconds.
Invisibility – Makes the hero invisible to enemy heroes. When the rune is activated, it takes 1 second for the invisibility to take effect, known as “fade time”. The effect is canceled if a hero performs an attack, uses an item, or uses an ability. Last 45 seconds.
Haste – Grants the user maximum movement speed. Lasts 30 seconds.
Illusion – Creates two illusions[www.dota2wiki.com] of the hero that uses it. Lasts 75 seconds.
Double Damage – Grants your hero and your illusions within a small area +100% damage. Only affects your base damage and damage which comes from attributes, not pure damage from items. Lasts 45 seconds.
Bounty – Gives your hero experience and gold. The experience and gold gain increases based on the game time.
Storing Runes
Rather than picking up and immediately consuming runes, runes may be stored in abottle[www.dota2wiki.com]:
A bottle is a regeneration item which a hero can drink from 3 times before needed to be refilled at the Fountain. Drinking from a bottle, regenerate’s a hero’s health and mana for over 3 seconds. Simply returning the bottle to the Fountain, whether using a courier or a hero will refill it.
Runes may be stored inside a bottle by right-clicking the rune while having a bottle in your inventory. Once a rune has been stored in a bottle, it can be activated at any time by activating the bottle. But rather than consume one of the bottle’s 3 regeneration charges, the rune will be consumed instead.
An inventory containing an empty bottle, full bottle, and bottle with an invisibility rune inside it.
In addition, storing and then using a bottled rune will refill the bottle completely. Therefore, to get the most out of your bottle you can drink all its remaining charges before bottling a rune. After you use the rune, you’ll have a full bottle again without having to refill it at the Fountain.
However, bottled runes will only last until it is time for the next rune to spawn. If they have not been used by then, they will automatically be consumed and activated.
The Shop
Types and Locations
Main shop is located next to the Fountain. Most items can be purchased here.
Secret Shop[www.dota2wiki.com]
Offers a selection of some of the most expensive items in the game most of which cannot be bought in any other shops.
Items found in the secret shop are often components used to make more powerful items.
Side Lane Shop[www.dota2wiki.com] – Offers a smaller selection of items than the shop in the Fountain, but it is conveniently placed in the side lanes.
Navigating the Shop Menu
To purchase an item from a shop, first you must send your hero to where the shop is.
Then there are several ways to open the shop menu.
Pressing the Open Shop hotkey on your keyboard.
Clicking the Shop button on the HUD located on the bottom right. The button will change to indicate when you’re in range of a shop.
Near a shop.
Too far from a shop.
Clicking the shopkeeper unit in the game.
Using the shop can be overwhelming and confusing at first, because of the number of different items available.
Some things to note about purchasing items:
Most items can be sold back to the shop. To sell an item, right-click it in your inventory or stash and select “Sell”.
If an item is sold back to the shop within 10 seconds of purchasing it, you get a 100% gold refund.
After 10 seconds, you can sell back items for 50% of their gold value.
To purchase items from the side lane shops and secret shops, you must be within a certain distance of them and you must have space in your inventory.
If you try to purchase an item from the base shop and you are too far away or your inventory is full, the item will be stored in your stash and not your hero’s inventory.
Going back to the Fountain/shop will allow you to move items between your stash and inventory
Below is what the shop menu looks like and a description of its features and elements.
List and Grid Views
There are two different types of views you can use and you can switch between them by clicking the different view icons in the top right. However, it is recommended that new players stick with the default list view since it shows the item name.
Basics and Upgrades Tabs and Buttons
Items in the shop are divided into two main tabs, Basics and Upgrades. As shown in the picture, the Basics tab has four columns of items. In Grid View, all four columns are shown at once on the menu. In List view only one column is shown at a time, but the name of the item is also shown next to its icon. Items in other columns can be viewed by pressing one of the four buttons below the Basics tab.Basics[www.dota2wiki.com] – Columns 1-4
Consumables
Attributes – Stat boosting items
Armaments – Damage and armor related items
Arcane – Miscellaneous utility items
The Upgrades tab is laid out similarly, except there are six columns of items instead of 4.
Upgrades[www.dota2wiki.com] – Columns 1-6
Common – Mostly composed of relatively cheap items that provide more stats. 3 boot upgrades are here.
Support – Items that help your team or yourself whether it’s through heals, auras, or other protective buffs. 2 boot upgrades are here.
Caster – Magic damage and intelligence items. All have active abilities, except Aghanim’s Scepter[www.dota2wiki.com] which modifiers some ultimate abilities
Weapons – Damage items
Armor – Items for improving survivability
Artifacts – Most of these items have Unique Attack Modifiers
Search Bar
Below the view options is a search bar. You can enter a full or partial item name and the menu will display a list of results. Players should take advantage of this feature when they cannot find the item they are looking for.
Suggested Items
On the left side of the menu there is a panel for suggested items. Each hero has a set of suggested items and they are divided by into sections according to when you should get them. You can also customize these suggestions with your own item builds.
<img class="sharedFilePreviewImage sizeOriginal inline" title="" src="http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/92125344
