Heroes you have to look out for as new player:
Some hero can surprise new players very much, when they do now know what is damaging them or what to expect.
Heroes with a large range skills that can catch you offguard while you do not see anyone on screen yet:
- Kunkka (Torrent -> stuns and slows you for a short amount of time)
- Pudge (Hook -> pulls you to Pudge)
- Priestress of the Moon (Arrow -> stuns you depending on how far Priestress was away (5s for mid to long range arrows))
- Invoker (Tornado -> pulls you up into the air for a short amount of time and debuffs)
- Clockwerk Goblin: Hookshot: can latch to a unit in a straight line from far away (only enemies if he does not own Aghanims Scepter (an item))
- Spiritbreaker: Charge of Darkness: runs to you in very fast speed, a buff icon will be displayed when he is not too far away of you anymore
- Earthshaker: Fissure: long range stun that creates a barrier that lasts 8 seconds and can block your path
- Sniper: Assassinate: high damage nuke of a very long range
- Vengeful Spirit: Nether Swap: exchanges places with your hero over a later in the game large distance
- Storm Spirit: Ball Lightning: by using his mana he can jump over long distances and deal damage based on his travelling distance (and then ofc follow up with the rest of his skills)
- Windrunner: Powershot: long range medium damage nuke
- Tinker: Heat Seeking Missles: long range medium damage nuke flying to the two nearest heroes
- Puck: Illusory Orb: fires a slow traveling, damaging orb with a large range, to which he can teleport
Heroes that can damage you no matter where you are or can move to you at any moment and no matter where you are:
- Nature's Prophet (can teleport anywhere on the map, his ultimate also is a global nuke, for which he needs vision of you though)
- Ancient Apparition (his ultimate can fly anywhere on the map and can kill of low HP heroes easily, do not stay at front lines too long with moving very much; prevents healing while under the effect of it)
- Zeus (ulti: damaging nuke hits all heroes except when they are invisible, then it just reveals them)
- Spectre (creates an illusion at every enemy hero and can teleport to those illusions with her ultimate and then damage/chase the heroes; again, don't stay alone with low hp on the front lines)
- Invoker (sunstrike: a global targetable, high damage nuke)
- Wisp (ulti: can teleport anywhere on the map, if he wants together with an allied hero, attack and then disappears again after 10 seconds)
- Gyrocopter (ultimate with aghanim's upgrade (an item) has global range)
Heroes with invisibility (note: invisibility is broken once the invisible attacks):
- Rikimaru: Permanent Invisibility (after lvl 6 always invisible as long as he is not attacking)
- Bounty Hunter: Wind Walk
- Clinkz: Skeleton Walk (moves very fast while invis)
- Templar Assassin: Meld (cannot move while invis)
- Weaver (moves at max. movement speed while invis)
- Nyx Assassin: Vendetta (long duration, slight movement speed increase)
- Treant Protector: Nature's Guise (can cast this on allied units as well, so be careful)
- Invoker: Ghostwalk (moves slowly on lower levels while invis, but will also slow heroes around him)
- Lycanthrope: Summon Wolves on skill level 4
- Sand King: Sandstorm: cannot move, but does damage in medium AOE while being in Sandstorm
- Priestress of the Moon: Moonlight Shadow: turns all allied heroes as well as herself invis for a short amount of time, fade time is longer than those of other skills
- Phantom Lancer: Doppelwalk: creates an visible illusion that runs into the same direction as him while turning invisible
- Broodmother: Spin Web: Broodmother and her Spiderlings are invisible when inside her web
- Item: Shadow Blade
High damage skills/combos:
- Axe: Culling Blade: can kill you instantly if you are below 300 / 450 / 600 HP (ulti level 1/2/3) at close range
- Tiny: Avalance+Toss: deals massive damage if cast on the same unit (he needs to stand near to you to be able to do so, so keep your distance)
- Huskar: Lifebreak: remove a percentage of your current health and slows you
- Juggernaut: Omnislash: deals massive physical damage on lonely targets by executing several slashes on them (will do less damage if more units are in the area and the slashes are distributed randomly between them)
- Luna: Eclipse: calls down many Lucent Beams that deal magical damage
- Nevermore: Requiem of Souls: if you are very near him, you will get massive damage; combined with his Shadowrazes, he can pump out much magical damage in a short amount of time
- Venomancer: Poison Nova: strong damage over time effect applied over a large area around him
- Lina: Laguna Blade: high damage single target nuke
- Ogre Magi: Fireblast+Multicast: chance to deal massive magical damage on a single target and stun for a short amount of time
- Lion: Finger of Death: high damage single target nuke
- Lich: Chain Frost: Nuke that jumps between multiple targets, deals massive damage if 2 targets are standing near to each other, since it will bounce back and forth (as long as they are near to each other and the maximum bounce number is not reached)
- Necrolyte: Reaper's Scythe: deals much damage based on the amount of HP the target is missing
- Outworld Destroyer: Sanity's Eclipse: if Outworld Destroyer has a well filled inventory, chances are high he will huge damage in a large AOE with this skill; to finish his Arcane Orb deals pure damage based on the amount of mana he has, very dangerous if he gets many items
- Queen of Pain: Sonic Wave, coupled with Scream of Pain can deal much magical damage in a medium AOE over a short amount of time
Groupfight AOE ultimates (including some kind of aoe slow or disable):
- Tidehunter: Ravage: AOE stun in extremely long range (blocked by BKB unlike most other ultis)
- Treant Protector: Overgrowth: stops movement in medium range and deals some damage, targets can still cast spells so be careful, can be removed by gaining magic immunity AFTER Overgrowth was used
- Earth Shaker: Echo Slam: more damaging the more allied units are around him when he casts it
- Magnataur: Reverse Polarity: pulls nearby enemies to himself and stuns them
- Sand King: Epicenter: slows and deals massive damage in a medium AOE around him over some seconds, he needs to channel it before the effect takes place, so stun/disable him while he does that or run away if you can.
- Naga Siren: Song of the Siren: sleeps enemy units and structures in a large area, serves as easy escape and initiate mechanism, does get blocked by magical immunity
- Faceless Void: Chronosphere: only Void himself can move, attack and use spells in its medium AOE, everyone else is frozen
- Crystal Maiden: Freezing Field: damage and both attack and movement speed slow in a medium AOE around her
- Puck: Dream Coil: stuns enemies shortly, if they run out of its AOE they will get stunned by a longer time
- Silencer: Global Silence: prevents all enemies from using spells globally for a short amount of time
- Enigma: Blackhole: sucks in enemies in a medium AOE and disables them (can't use spells or items), Blackhole is channeling and stops when Enigma is stunned/disabled while casting it
- Warlock: Chaotic Offering: summons a golem and stuns over a large area while doing so
Mobility skills (can escape or get in range easily) that were not mentioned yet:
- Priestress of the Moon: Leap
- Wisp: Tether: needs allied units to latch to
- Night Stalker: Hunter in the Night: high movement speed at night
- Sand King: Burrowstrike: short-medium range stun to a target and he moves to the destination (with this he can move over cliffs)
- Rikimaru: Blink Strike: teleports to a nearby unit and attacks it with bonus damage if it is an enemy
- Phantom Assassin: Phantom Strike: teleports to a nearby unit and attacks it with increased attack speed if it is an enemy
- Morphling: Waveform: jumps over a medium-large distance and deals damage on his way
- Faceless Void: Time Walk: jumps over a large distance and slows everything hit on his way
- Dark Seer: Surge: can improve the speed of himself or a target allied unit to max movement speed over a medium duration
- Windrunner: Windrunner: increases her movement speed for a short time and leaves a trail that slows movement of enemy units
Item: Force Staff
Item: Blink Dagger
Special skills that you might not expect / complicated mechanics that have not been mentioned yet:
- Kunkka: X marks the Spot: once cast upon a unit will move it back to this spot after a short time (even if you moved very far away, f.e. with a Town Portal Scroll)
- Brewmaster: Primal Split: splits into 3 units that have a bunch of abilties (stun, cylone, windwalk, immolation being the most important to look out for)
- Tiny: Toss: can throw a unit to another unit
- Axe: Battlehunger: a damage over time effect over a long duration that is cancelled if you kill a unit
- Doom Bringer: Doom: prevents skill and item use for a relatively long time on a single target
- Life Stealer: Infest: can infest enemy, allied or neutral creeps and allied heroes and jump out of them when he wants to or when the unit is killed. If he infested an enemy or neutral creep, he will regain health based on the current HP of the creep when he jumped out
- Skeleton King: Reincarnation: as long as this skill is ready and he has the needed mana for it, he will be revived 5 seconds after dying on the battlefield
- Slardar: Amplify Damage: removes a big portion of a single targets armor and grants vision on it for the time this debuff lasts
- Undying: Decay: reduces your strength by 4 for some time and gains it himself (depends on level of the skill), reduces HP (and damage for strength heroes) for some time, this will be regained once the strength is transferred to your hero again
- Tidehunter: Krakenshell: every time he takes 600 damage it will remove all stuns/disables on him
- Naga Siren: Ensnare: restricts movement for a relatively long duration, also reveals invisible units as long as they are in then net
- Bloodseeker: Rupture: you will get damaged while you run, also does some initial damage, TP out if he comes alone and would beat you if you stay at one place
- Chen: Hand of God: can heal allied heroes globally
- Chen: Holy Persuasion: if cast on an allied hero he will be transported to his fountain after a short time
- Windrunner: Shackleshot: binds a target to a unit or tree behind it and stuns it/them
- Disruptor: Glimpse: moves your hero to the position he was a short time before (so if you TP to a tower, Disruptor can use Glimpse to send you back to base)
- Tinker: Rearm: resets all cooldowns on his skills and active items
- Rubick: Spell Steal: steals the skill last used by target unit
- Bane: Nightmare: sleeps a target and deals little damage for a relatively long duration, target unit is unable to move or use items or spells, if it gets attacked by a normal attack from another unit this unit will sleep instead (duration is refreshed) and the attacked unit will wake up
- Pugna: Nether Ward: everytime an enemy unit uses mana to cast a spell in a big AOE around the ward, it will take damage for each point of mana used
- Warlock: Fatal Bonds: links units' lifepools to each other and they will share some of the damage each unit is dealt
- Batrider: Sticky Napalm: stacks up to 10 times and makes you slower with each time, so don't let him stack it to more than 3 and better go back until the stacks wear off, also amplifies his damage
- Dazzle: Shallow Grave: target unit cannot be killed for a short duration (except by Axe's Culling Blade)
- Invoker: Deafening Blast: besides pushing back and dealing damage also disarms enemy units in the AOE, meaning they cannot use attacks for a short while
- Leshrac: Diabolic Editc: deals massive physical damage in an area around him as long as only a few enemy units are in this area (so don't go near him alone if you are not sure that you can kill him off faster)
- Witch Doctor: Maledict: curses heroes in a small AOE and they will get damage based on the damage they were dealt since the curse was applied
Ancient Apparition: Cold Feet: damages, will stun you if you do not move a medium distance away from your original position
Dienstag, 24. Juli 2012
Test Mode
Testing out heroes, skills and items without any interuption (and gold problems) can be done in the lobbies. Just start a game without bots like you did for your first game, but this time, tick the button "activate cheats". Start the game.
Here you are again. Pick a hero and go into the game.
Now to those cheat commands that are meant to help you testing. You can enter them by using the chat, so press enter, fill in the command (for example: "-wtf" without the quotes) and press enter again. You will only need a little amount of codes to test out all the skills and items:
-wtf: removes cooldown on all skills and items-lvlup 10: will levelup your hero for 10 levels, use any number you like, max lvl is 25-gold 12345: will grant you 12345 gold, use any number you like, there is a maximum of gold you can possess (about 16,5k) so do not be surprise if you can't fill your pockets with millions
-createhero heroname: creates a hero. heroname is a bit tricky, most of the time it is the heroname itself, while spaces are converte to underscore: _ , so for example instead of "-createhero witch doctor" you would enter -createhero witch_doctor". Enter the learn tab if you want to find out hero names (press on the button on the very top left side to access the main menu while playing)
if you want to create the hero on enemy side, use: -createhero heroname enemy
-levelbots 10: will levelup all heroes except your picked hero to level 10, use a number between 1 and 25
-spawn_creeps: spawns creeps on lanes
-spawn_neutrals: spawns creeps in forest
Thats about it. Create the heroes you want to test, level them up, spawn some creeps to use the abilities on or just go and buy all items there are that offer special abilities. Turn off auto attack in options for testing ease.
Here you are again. Pick a hero and go into the game.
Now to those cheat commands that are meant to help you testing. You can enter them by using the chat, so press enter, fill in the command (for example: "-wtf" without the quotes) and press enter again. You will only need a little amount of codes to test out all the skills and items:
-wtf: removes cooldown on all skills and items-lvlup 10: will levelup your hero for 10 levels, use any number you like, max lvl is 25-gold 12345: will grant you 12345 gold, use any number you like, there is a maximum of gold you can possess (about 16,5k) so do not be surprise if you can't fill your pockets with millions
-createhero heroname: creates a hero. heroname is a bit tricky, most of the time it is the heroname itself, while spaces are converte to underscore: _ , so for example instead of "-createhero witch doctor" you would enter -createhero witch_doctor". Enter the learn tab if you want to find out hero names (press on the button on the very top left side to access the main menu while playing)
if you want to create the hero on enemy side, use: -createhero heroname enemy
-levelbots 10: will levelup all heroes except your picked hero to level 10, use a number between 1 and 25
-spawn_creeps: spawns creeps on lanes
-spawn_neutrals: spawns creeps in forest
Thats about it. Create the heroes you want to test, level them up, spawn some creeps to use the abilities on or just go and buy all items there are that offer special abilities. Turn off auto attack in options for testing ease.
Dienstag, 17. Juli 2012
Basic concepts of heroes + shortcut to laning
As a new player you will be overwhelmed by the amount of different heroes this game offers. Unlike League of Legends, you will also encounter a bit more complicated skill mechanics from time to time, making it even harder to grasp the game.
Here I will give you some tipps how you can evaluate heroes and their possible roles and tasks in a match without knowing every hero the hero pool has to offer.
Attributes:
Every hero has got a main attribute: strenght, agility or intelligence. Each point into the main attribute adds 1 damage. Additionally strength adds HP, agility armor and attack speed and intelligence mana.
Many times this will guide you in a rough direction about what to expect from your chosen hero.
Strength heroes normally feature heroes that can endure quite a bit of damage, especially in early game and most of them fight in melee range. The two exceptions in the Dota 2 pool so far being Wisp and Huskar, which feature a ranged attack. The influence of your attack range will be covered later on in this post. So back to the strength heroes. They can endure some damage from enemies most time can stun or disable single or multiple enemies. Some also act as damage dealers / (semi) carries, meaning they are focussed on dealing a lot of damage given a good item equipment. Only a few of them actually focus on magical damage through spells.
Agility heroes often start relatively weak into gain but profit highly from a well filled inventory. Most of the times you will want those guys to get as many last-hits as they can. If your team only consists agility heroes, chances are high that none of them can get enough last-hits to be effective in the later stages of the game. You will find both ranged and melee agility heroes in decent numbers.
Intelligence heroes define themselves through their spells. Depending on their skillset they can deal a lot of magical damage in a short amount of time, disable singe or multiple enemies or carry your team. Most of them will be rather fragile in the later stages of the game and with the exception of Ogre Magi (which could also be a strength hero) they all feature ranged attacks.
Attack Range:
Melee heroes will have a hard time to last-hit creeps on lanes when there are also enemy heroes on that lane. Simple reason: they need to get closer to the enemy heroes every time they want to last hit. Most of the time they make up for it by being able to endure a bit of harassment with the help of a Stout Shield (which does not work as well on ranged heroes). Still: without help of an allied hero (mostly ranged), you won't farm all too well on lanes, if you don't want to risk getting killed everytime you go for a last hit.
Ranged heroes have a easier time on lane, but are also a bit more fragile to balance out their advantage. They also can harass enemy heroes with their normal attacks, especially the melee ones, to gain an advantage on the lane.
Analyzing skills:
Now you will want to know how to behave ingame: will you support your team mates, gank often, which lane will you chose, will you spend much time farming, is your hero good at pushing towers, good at defending, good at jungling (killing neutral creeps in the forest)?
First of all, determine if your hero needs many items to be effective. Look out for skills that increase your attack speed, grant yourself a chance for critical hit, add damage to your attacks, allow you to keep up with your targets by slowing them, blinking to them, making you faster.
If you got some of those, chances are high, that you will need a lot of items and should be farming a lot (without dying often). Also look if those skills can be cast upon allies or only count for yourself. If you can cast them on your allies, maybe your hero is a supporter after all!
Does your hero have more than one skill, that stuns, slows or disables enemies? Can your hero strengthen his allies? Your hero is probably a supporter or ganker and won't need much farm to be effective. Help out your team mates that need farm, defend and push towers. Carry a TP (Town Portal Scroll). Consider getting wards. Get a Courier at the start if your team still needs one.
Does your hero have one or more skills that deal a lot of magical damage? Your hero probably does not need many items. Just make sure that you live long enough (and have enough mana) to apply this magical damage to your enemies. Consider getting wards. Get a Courier at the start if your team still needs one. Your hero will also be able to defend tower well, since he can clear approaching creepwaves fast from a safe distance.
Do you have skills that leech life, create summons, send back damage to the attackers or a way to kill groups of 3 creeps fast in the jungle without losing too much HP and mana? Your hero can farm in the jungle.
Being able to summon creeps or wards and to damage towers with skills (Leshrac's Diabolic Edict, Pudgna's Nether Blast, Techies' Land Mine, Krobelus' Exorcism, Tiny's Toss) or just dealing a lot of physical damage over a short amount of time to towers (f.e. Clinkz) makes your hero a decent pusher.
Do you have abilities that disable one or more enemies very well and can take some beating? Initiating fights won't be a big problem for your hero.
Ofc course there are many not so obvious abilities. You will need to do some testing there.
Laning:
Now that you analyzed your hero's skills you can guess his role in the team. If you have time, do the same thing for your allies and you will probably find some heroes that need farm and some that don't. Don't put two heroes that need farm on a lane together! (note: you can click on hero portraits to view their skill descriptions, main attribute, etc. in the HUD). That leads us to lane composition. Lane composition basically means where every hero on your team will go at the start of the game. Lane composition is important, since it influences the ability to farm and gain levels of your team's heroes greatly. Having a hero in the jungle will gain your team a gold and experience advantage. But make sure that your lanes do not get dominated by your enemy. Try to set up the hero+lane combinations in a way that very item dependant heroes get their farm while being rather safe while doing so. Maybe you can even grab some kills on enemies here and there, if you have the stronger heroes on lane (hard to tell as beginner, but you will learn that over time).
Since you do not know all hero interactions yet, you have to work a bit on guessing. Here are some guidelines that will produce okayish lanes most of the times:
Just assume that intelligence heroes (except Ogre Magi) can take every lane just fine, melee heroes should get onto the bottom lane (as Radiant) or top lane (as Dire), at least one of them. Some of them can also solo middle lane.
If you got a hero that can farm in the jungle right off the bat, send him there and leave the top lane (as Radiant) or bottom lane (as Dire) to a single ranged hero. If you've got no decent jungler, send 2 heroes to this lane, or 3 heroes on the other sidelane or let the additional hero roam and gank between lanes - depends on the skillsets. Easiest would be 2 top, 1 mid, 2 bot.
In middle lane you will want a hero that can farm well against his enemy (or enemies), is a bit item dependant and can make good use of experience, so to say gains much usefulness with fast level ups. As middle hero you can also control the runes that spawn every two minutes to gain advantages via gangs on sidelanes or just to prevent enemies from getting those advantages. Use a bottle (an item) to collect runes with a right click on the runes for maximum effect (use the bottle remaining charges before your take up the rune, if your hero need healing).
Once you've gathered experience about the heroes you will find in Dota 2, you can also take into consideration how enemy heroes are going to lane. This helps you to chose the right hero combinations on your lanes and set up a good early game strategy.
Here I will give you some tipps how you can evaluate heroes and their possible roles and tasks in a match without knowing every hero the hero pool has to offer.
Attributes:
Every hero has got a main attribute: strenght, agility or intelligence. Each point into the main attribute adds 1 damage. Additionally strength adds HP, agility armor and attack speed and intelligence mana.
Many times this will guide you in a rough direction about what to expect from your chosen hero.
Strength heroes normally feature heroes that can endure quite a bit of damage, especially in early game and most of them fight in melee range. The two exceptions in the Dota 2 pool so far being Wisp and Huskar, which feature a ranged attack. The influence of your attack range will be covered later on in this post. So back to the strength heroes. They can endure some damage from enemies most time can stun or disable single or multiple enemies. Some also act as damage dealers / (semi) carries, meaning they are focussed on dealing a lot of damage given a good item equipment. Only a few of them actually focus on magical damage through spells.
Agility heroes often start relatively weak into gain but profit highly from a well filled inventory. Most of the times you will want those guys to get as many last-hits as they can. If your team only consists agility heroes, chances are high that none of them can get enough last-hits to be effective in the later stages of the game. You will find both ranged and melee agility heroes in decent numbers.
Intelligence heroes define themselves through their spells. Depending on their skillset they can deal a lot of magical damage in a short amount of time, disable singe or multiple enemies or carry your team. Most of them will be rather fragile in the later stages of the game and with the exception of Ogre Magi (which could also be a strength hero) they all feature ranged attacks.
Attack Range:
Melee heroes will have a hard time to last-hit creeps on lanes when there are also enemy heroes on that lane. Simple reason: they need to get closer to the enemy heroes every time they want to last hit. Most of the time they make up for it by being able to endure a bit of harassment with the help of a Stout Shield (which does not work as well on ranged heroes). Still: without help of an allied hero (mostly ranged), you won't farm all too well on lanes, if you don't want to risk getting killed everytime you go for a last hit.
Ranged heroes have a easier time on lane, but are also a bit more fragile to balance out their advantage. They also can harass enemy heroes with their normal attacks, especially the melee ones, to gain an advantage on the lane.
Analyzing skills:
Now you will want to know how to behave ingame: will you support your team mates, gank often, which lane will you chose, will you spend much time farming, is your hero good at pushing towers, good at defending, good at jungling (killing neutral creeps in the forest)?
First of all, determine if your hero needs many items to be effective. Look out for skills that increase your attack speed, grant yourself a chance for critical hit, add damage to your attacks, allow you to keep up with your targets by slowing them, blinking to them, making you faster.
If you got some of those, chances are high, that you will need a lot of items and should be farming a lot (without dying often). Also look if those skills can be cast upon allies or only count for yourself. If you can cast them on your allies, maybe your hero is a supporter after all!
Does your hero have more than one skill, that stuns, slows or disables enemies? Can your hero strengthen his allies? Your hero is probably a supporter or ganker and won't need much farm to be effective. Help out your team mates that need farm, defend and push towers. Carry a TP (Town Portal Scroll). Consider getting wards. Get a Courier at the start if your team still needs one.
Does your hero have one or more skills that deal a lot of magical damage? Your hero probably does not need many items. Just make sure that you live long enough (and have enough mana) to apply this magical damage to your enemies. Consider getting wards. Get a Courier at the start if your team still needs one. Your hero will also be able to defend tower well, since he can clear approaching creepwaves fast from a safe distance.
Do you have skills that leech life, create summons, send back damage to the attackers or a way to kill groups of 3 creeps fast in the jungle without losing too much HP and mana? Your hero can farm in the jungle.
Being able to summon creeps or wards and to damage towers with skills (Leshrac's Diabolic Edict, Pudgna's Nether Blast, Techies' Land Mine, Krobelus' Exorcism, Tiny's Toss) or just dealing a lot of physical damage over a short amount of time to towers (f.e. Clinkz) makes your hero a decent pusher.
Do you have abilities that disable one or more enemies very well and can take some beating? Initiating fights won't be a big problem for your hero.
Ofc course there are many not so obvious abilities. You will need to do some testing there.
Laning:
Now that you analyzed your hero's skills you can guess his role in the team. If you have time, do the same thing for your allies and you will probably find some heroes that need farm and some that don't. Don't put two heroes that need farm on a lane together! (note: you can click on hero portraits to view their skill descriptions, main attribute, etc. in the HUD). That leads us to lane composition. Lane composition basically means where every hero on your team will go at the start of the game. Lane composition is important, since it influences the ability to farm and gain levels of your team's heroes greatly. Having a hero in the jungle will gain your team a gold and experience advantage. But make sure that your lanes do not get dominated by your enemy. Try to set up the hero+lane combinations in a way that very item dependant heroes get their farm while being rather safe while doing so. Maybe you can even grab some kills on enemies here and there, if you have the stronger heroes on lane (hard to tell as beginner, but you will learn that over time).
Since you do not know all hero interactions yet, you have to work a bit on guessing. Here are some guidelines that will produce okayish lanes most of the times:
Just assume that intelligence heroes (except Ogre Magi) can take every lane just fine, melee heroes should get onto the bottom lane (as Radiant) or top lane (as Dire), at least one of them. Some of them can also solo middle lane.
If you got a hero that can farm in the jungle right off the bat, send him there and leave the top lane (as Radiant) or bottom lane (as Dire) to a single ranged hero. If you've got no decent jungler, send 2 heroes to this lane, or 3 heroes on the other sidelane or let the additional hero roam and gank between lanes - depends on the skillsets. Easiest would be 2 top, 1 mid, 2 bot.
In middle lane you will want a hero that can farm well against his enemy (or enemies), is a bit item dependant and can make good use of experience, so to say gains much usefulness with fast level ups. As middle hero you can also control the runes that spawn every two minutes to gain advantages via gangs on sidelanes or just to prevent enemies from getting those advantages. Use a bottle (an item) to collect runes with a right click on the runes for maximum effect (use the bottle remaining charges before your take up the rune, if your hero need healing).
Once you've gathered experience about the heroes you will find in Dota 2, you can also take into consideration how enemy heroes are going to lane. This helps you to chose the right hero combinations on your lanes and set up a good early game strategy.
Dota vocabulary
If you are new to the game and genre, you will have a hard time to understand people if they are throwing around established term's of the game.
general terms:
noob - bad player
russian - racist comment that implies the person is a bad player
plz - please
thx, ty - thank you
lol - laughing out loud, finding something funny
rofl - rolling on floor laughing, finding something very funny
s(tf)u - shut (the fuck) up
gg - good game, depending on the context this can be either "I give up, my team is too nooby" or just the statement that the game was good at the end of a match
ff - forfeit, "I give up" (although you cannot give up in Dota 2)
afk - away from keyboard, can also be heard from teammates or enemies that have already given up on the game and need to let everyone know how they are feeling
brb - be right back
fail - what it says
b - back
k - ok
run - retreat as soon as possible
rdy - ready
gj - good job
gl - good luck
hf - have fun
locations / things on the map:
top - top lane
mid - middle lane
bot, bottom - bottom lane
miss (top | mid | bot) - signalize your team mates that an enemy hero is missing on lane
mia (top | mid | bot) - similar to miss, "missing in action"
rune - power up in the river between mid and the outer lanes, spawns every two minutes starting at 0:00; can randomly be either between mid and top or mid and bot lane; possible power ups: invisibility, double damage, haste (max movement speed), illusion (creates two illusions of your hero that deal less damage and die faster)
tower - defensive structures situated along the lanes
tier 1, 2, 3 (tower) - the first destroyable tower is the tier 1 tower, after you destroyed it you can touch the tier 2 tower and so on
tree, throne - main buildings of Radiant and Dire
Radiant - team that starts at the lower half of the map
Dire - team that starts at the upper half of the map
rax - barracks, destroyed barrack will lead to stronger enemy creeps
creeps - simple allied or enemy units that spawn every 30 seconds on each lane (at rax' position)
neutrals or neutral creeps - creeps that both you and your enemies can kill for gold and experience, they spawn every full minute at different spots in both of the forests, there are small, middle, big camps and also ancient camps ("ancients"), will be covered in a seperate guide later on
Roshan, Rosh - a special neutral creep that drops aegis (item grants reincarnation once) and later also Cheese (item that heals a big amount of HP and Mana), located between mid and bottom lane in a enclosed area of the river
juke spot - a location on the map / in the forest that can be used well for juking
actions:
assists - number of times you helped you teammates to achieve a kill on an enemy hero
farming - focussing on last hitting and gaining gold as fast as possible
farm - the amount of gold+items someone has gathered so far
cs - creep stats, how many last hits you've got, most of the time used analogous to farm ("how much cs do you have?"=
last hitting - dealing the killing blow to creeps (or heroes)
kill steal - dealing the killing blow on an enemy hero that was most certainly dead without your interference and your team mate that would have killed him needs the gold to be effective (aka "carry")
roam - don't stay on a lane in early game but instead move between lanes and help out where help is needed
gank - attempt to kill an enemy with a surprise attack
team fight - a big fight with 3 or more heroes involved on every team
nuke - cast a high damage spell on an enemy hero
leave - leave the game or lane
go - order to engage in combat or follow a plan, if you talk about a go in past tense this means the engage as a whole
animation canceling - right clicking just right after a attack or spell has been execute to prevent the hero from backswinging and thus saving time / continuing to move again earlier
orb-walking - some heroes know a spell that modifies their normal attack, orb-walking is animation canceling with those abilities and by doing that using less time for each attack and more time moving forward to chase a target
chasing - follow an enemy in order to kill it
harassing - attack enemy heros on lane while not getting hit back to gain a HP advantage and make them more likely to die if you use spells on them later on
channeling - stand still in order for a spell to have the desire effect (examples: witch doctor ultimate, pugna ultimate, sand king ultimate)
(shift)-queuing - queue commands by holding shift, f.e. that can be: teleport to a tower, hold shift, then issue a move command to the place the hero should go to. right after the hero arrived at the tower via town portal, he will start moving to his/her destination
jungling, wooding - farming in the forest/wood from the beginning
stacking - pull creeps out of their camp, so that new creeps can spawn at full minute at the spot you are pulling (timing about x:51)
pulling - attacking creeps and then running away to lure them away from their camp. either used for stacking or to lure them to your creeps so that they attack the neutrals creeps for diverse benefits like bonus farm or denying creeps to the enemy
warding - use Observer Wards to grant your team vision of some important spots on the map like rune spots and entrances to the Radiant or Dire territories, can also block neutral creep spawns
draw aggro - get into focus of enemy creeps by attacking the enemy with your normal attack
tower dive - follow the enemy hero under his tower, with or without creep support
juking - using narrow passages of the map (or creating them with Quelling Blade or Tangoes) or prevent the enemy from seing you when running away by using the fog of war to your advantage
escape - get out of danger
opa! - expressing that someone played really well, can also be sarcastic
spell properties:
stun - target will not be able to move, attack or use spells
ministun - interrupts channeling / cast animations for a very short time
disable - disables the ability to attack and/or move and/or cast spells or restricts those aspects in a certain way
slow - reduces movement speed
disarm - disables the ability to attack
bash - similar to stun, but unlike most spell properties works on magic immune targets
dot - damage over time; the spells damage will be dealt in more than one instances of a longer time (some seconds)
blink - instantaneous movement from one place to another
range - a spells range
aoe - area of effect, defines the size of the effected area
cd - cooldown; time until the spell is ready again
ulti - ultimate skill of a hero, most of the times their strongest ability with a long cooldown, becomes available at levels 6, 11 and 16; most ultis work on magic immune target (but won't do any of their magical damage)
magical damage - damage reduced by magic resistance, blocked by magic immunity
physical damage - damage reduced by armor
mixed damage - damage reduced by both armor and magic resistance
pure damage - damage that does not get reduced, blocked by magic immunity
hero roles:
carry, dpser - a hero that excels in the later stages of the game if he has farmed well, most times very item dependant
semi-carry - a hero that contributes well to the team from mid to lategame, but get owned by carries
supporter - not item dependant hero that will be focussed on supporting other heroes of his team with his spells and abilities
ward bitch - not item dependant, will spend most of his money for observer and sentry wards, dust and smoke
jungler - a hero that excels at farming the jungle early on
initiator (often also falsely called "tank") - a hero that can open fights with good disabling skills and does not die immidiately while doing so
ganker, roamer - a hero that will help out different lanes from very early on
healer - term seldomly used, but can describe a hero that has an ability to heal allys
common hero abbreviations / old names / short names:
Earth Shaker: ES, Shaker
Kunkka: Kunk
Beastmaster: BM (can also mean Broodmother or Brewmaster, so be careful with that), Rexx
Dragon Knight: DK
Clockwork Goblin: Clock
Omniknight: Omni
Huskar: Husk
Alchemist: Alche, Alchi
Brewmaster: BM, Panda
Treant Protector: Tree, Roof
Sand King: SK
Slardar: Slard
Tidehunter: Tide
Skeleton King: SKK, SK (can also mean Sand King)
Nightstalker: NS, Bala
Doombringer: Doom
Spiritbreaker: Bara, SB
Lycanthrope: Lycan, Lyc
Chaos Knight: CK
Undying: Undy
Anti Mage: AM
Drow Ranger: Drow
Juggernaut: Jugg, Yurn
Mirana: Mira
Morphling: Morph
Phantom Lancer: PL
Vengeful Spirit: Venge, VS
Rikimaru: Riki, SA
Templar Assassin: TA, Lanaya
Gondar: Gond
Gyrocopter: Gyro
Lone Druid: Sylla
Bloodseeker: BS
Shadow Fiend: SF
Venomancer: Veno
Faceless Void: Void
Phantom Assassin: PA, Mortred
Broodmother: BM, Brood
Spectre: Spec
Crystal Maiden: CM, Rylai
Storm Spirit: Storm
Windrunner: WR
Nature's Prophet: Furion, Furi, Prophet
Enchantress: Ench, Encha
Silencer: Sile
Ogre Magi: Ogre
Disruptor: Thrall
Witch Doctor: WD
Enigma: Enig
Necrolyte: Nec, Necro
Warlock: WL
Shadow Shaman: Rhasta
Queen of Pain: QoP
Krobelus: Krob, Krobe
Pugna: Pug
Leshrac: Lesh
Dark Seer: DS, Seer
Batrider: Bat
Ancient Apparition: AA
Invoker: seldomly: Carl, Kael
Outworld Destroyer: OD, Obsi
Shadow Demon: SD
item abbreviations:
Clarity Potion: Clarity
Smoke of Deceit: Smoke
Town Portal Scroll: TP
Dust of Appearance: Dust
Observer Ward: ward
Sentry Ward: sentry
Ironwood Branch: Branch
Belt of Strength: Belt
Robe of Magi: Robe
Ring of Protection: RoP
Quelling Blade: QB
Stout Shield: Stout, Shield
Ring of Regeneration: RoR
Gem of Truesight: Gem
Blink Dagger: Dagger
Power Treads: Treads, PT
Perseverance: Perse
Boots of Travel: BoT, BT
Ring of Basilius: Basi, RoB
Urn of Shadows: Urn
Medaillon of Courage: Medaillon, MoC
Drum of Endurance: Drum
Vladmirs Offering: Vlads
Mekansm: Mek, Meka
Pipe of Insight: Pipe
Necronomicon 1-3: Nec, Necro
Eul's Scepter of Divinity: Euls
Veil of Discord: Veil
Rod of Atos: Atos
Aghanims Scepter: Agha, Scepter
Orchid Malevolence: Orchid
Scythe of Vyse: Hex, sheepstick
Armlet of Mordiggian: Armlet
Skull Basher: Basher
Shadow Blade: Lothars
Battlefury: BF
Ethereal Blade: EB
Radiance: Radi
Monkey King Bar: MKB
Daedalus: Buri
Butterfly: Butter
Divine Rapier: Divine
Abyssal Blade: Abyssal
Hood of Defiance: HoD
Vanguard: Vang
Black King Bar: BKB
Shiva's Guard: Shivas
Manta Style: Manta
Linken's Sphere: Linkens
Assault Cuirass: AC
Heart of Tarrasque: HoT
Helm of the Dominator: HotD
Mask of Madness: MoM
Maelstrom: Mael
Diffusal Blade: Diffu
Desolator: Deso
Heaven's Halber: HH, Halberd
Sange and Yasha: SnY
Eye of Skaadi: EoS, Skaadi
Sacred Relic: Relic
Ring of Health: RoH
Missing something or have to correct something? Tell me and I will add it, if it seems correct.
general terms:
noob - bad player
russian - racist comment that implies the person is a bad player
plz - please
thx, ty - thank you
lol - laughing out loud, finding something funny
rofl - rolling on floor laughing, finding something very funny
s(tf)u - shut (the fuck) up
gg - good game, depending on the context this can be either "I give up, my team is too nooby" or just the statement that the game was good at the end of a match
ff - forfeit, "I give up" (although you cannot give up in Dota 2)
afk - away from keyboard, can also be heard from teammates or enemies that have already given up on the game and need to let everyone know how they are feeling
brb - be right back
fail - what it says
b - back
k - ok
run - retreat as soon as possible
rdy - ready
gj - good job
gl - good luck
hf - have fun
locations / things on the map:
top - top lane
mid - middle lane
bot, bottom - bottom lane
miss (top | mid | bot) - signalize your team mates that an enemy hero is missing on lane
mia (top | mid | bot) - similar to miss, "missing in action"
rune - power up in the river between mid and the outer lanes, spawns every two minutes starting at 0:00; can randomly be either between mid and top or mid and bot lane; possible power ups: invisibility, double damage, haste (max movement speed), illusion (creates two illusions of your hero that deal less damage and die faster)
tower - defensive structures situated along the lanes
tier 1, 2, 3 (tower) - the first destroyable tower is the tier 1 tower, after you destroyed it you can touch the tier 2 tower and so on
tree, throne - main buildings of Radiant and Dire
Radiant - team that starts at the lower half of the map
Dire - team that starts at the upper half of the map
rax - barracks, destroyed barrack will lead to stronger enemy creeps
creeps - simple allied or enemy units that spawn every 30 seconds on each lane (at rax' position)
neutrals or neutral creeps - creeps that both you and your enemies can kill for gold and experience, they spawn every full minute at different spots in both of the forests, there are small, middle, big camps and also ancient camps ("ancients"), will be covered in a seperate guide later on
Roshan, Rosh - a special neutral creep that drops aegis (item grants reincarnation once) and later also Cheese (item that heals a big amount of HP and Mana), located between mid and bottom lane in a enclosed area of the river
juke spot - a location on the map / in the forest that can be used well for juking
actions:
assists - number of times you helped you teammates to achieve a kill on an enemy hero
farming - focussing on last hitting and gaining gold as fast as possible
farm - the amount of gold+items someone has gathered so far
cs - creep stats, how many last hits you've got, most of the time used analogous to farm ("how much cs do you have?"=
last hitting - dealing the killing blow to creeps (or heroes)
kill steal - dealing the killing blow on an enemy hero that was most certainly dead without your interference and your team mate that would have killed him needs the gold to be effective (aka "carry")
roam - don't stay on a lane in early game but instead move between lanes and help out where help is needed
gank - attempt to kill an enemy with a surprise attack
team fight - a big fight with 3 or more heroes involved on every team
nuke - cast a high damage spell on an enemy hero
leave - leave the game or lane
go - order to engage in combat or follow a plan, if you talk about a go in past tense this means the engage as a whole
animation canceling - right clicking just right after a attack or spell has been execute to prevent the hero from backswinging and thus saving time / continuing to move again earlier
orb-walking - some heroes know a spell that modifies their normal attack, orb-walking is animation canceling with those abilities and by doing that using less time for each attack and more time moving forward to chase a target
chasing - follow an enemy in order to kill it
harassing - attack enemy heros on lane while not getting hit back to gain a HP advantage and make them more likely to die if you use spells on them later on
channeling - stand still in order for a spell to have the desire effect (examples: witch doctor ultimate, pugna ultimate, sand king ultimate)
(shift)-queuing - queue commands by holding shift, f.e. that can be: teleport to a tower, hold shift, then issue a move command to the place the hero should go to. right after the hero arrived at the tower via town portal, he will start moving to his/her destination
jungling, wooding - farming in the forest/wood from the beginning
stacking - pull creeps out of their camp, so that new creeps can spawn at full minute at the spot you are pulling (timing about x:51)
pulling - attacking creeps and then running away to lure them away from their camp. either used for stacking or to lure them to your creeps so that they attack the neutrals creeps for diverse benefits like bonus farm or denying creeps to the enemy
warding - use Observer Wards to grant your team vision of some important spots on the map like rune spots and entrances to the Radiant or Dire territories, can also block neutral creep spawns
draw aggro - get into focus of enemy creeps by attacking the enemy with your normal attack
tower dive - follow the enemy hero under his tower, with or without creep support
juking - using narrow passages of the map (or creating them with Quelling Blade or Tangoes) or prevent the enemy from seing you when running away by using the fog of war to your advantage
escape - get out of danger
opa! - expressing that someone played really well, can also be sarcastic
spell properties:
stun - target will not be able to move, attack or use spells
ministun - interrupts channeling / cast animations for a very short time
disable - disables the ability to attack and/or move and/or cast spells or restricts those aspects in a certain way
slow - reduces movement speed
disarm - disables the ability to attack
bash - similar to stun, but unlike most spell properties works on magic immune targets
dot - damage over time; the spells damage will be dealt in more than one instances of a longer time (some seconds)
blink - instantaneous movement from one place to another
range - a spells range
aoe - area of effect, defines the size of the effected area
cd - cooldown; time until the spell is ready again
ulti - ultimate skill of a hero, most of the times their strongest ability with a long cooldown, becomes available at levels 6, 11 and 16; most ultis work on magic immune target (but won't do any of their magical damage)
magical damage - damage reduced by magic resistance, blocked by magic immunity
physical damage - damage reduced by armor
mixed damage - damage reduced by both armor and magic resistance
pure damage - damage that does not get reduced, blocked by magic immunity
hero roles:
carry, dpser - a hero that excels in the later stages of the game if he has farmed well, most times very item dependant
semi-carry - a hero that contributes well to the team from mid to lategame, but get owned by carries
supporter - not item dependant hero that will be focussed on supporting other heroes of his team with his spells and abilities
ward bitch - not item dependant, will spend most of his money for observer and sentry wards, dust and smoke
jungler - a hero that excels at farming the jungle early on
initiator (often also falsely called "tank") - a hero that can open fights with good disabling skills and does not die immidiately while doing so
ganker, roamer - a hero that will help out different lanes from very early on
healer - term seldomly used, but can describe a hero that has an ability to heal allys
common hero abbreviations / old names / short names:
Earth Shaker: ES, Shaker
Kunkka: Kunk
Beastmaster: BM (can also mean Broodmother or Brewmaster, so be careful with that), Rexx
Dragon Knight: DK
Clockwork Goblin: Clock
Omniknight: Omni
Huskar: Husk
Alchemist: Alche, Alchi
Brewmaster: BM, Panda
Treant Protector: Tree, Roof
Sand King: SK
Slardar: Slard
Tidehunter: Tide
Skeleton King: SKK, SK (can also mean Sand King)
Nightstalker: NS, Bala
Doombringer: Doom
Spiritbreaker: Bara, SB
Lycanthrope: Lycan, Lyc
Chaos Knight: CK
Undying: Undy
Anti Mage: AM
Drow Ranger: Drow
Juggernaut: Jugg, Yurn
Mirana: Mira
Morphling: Morph
Phantom Lancer: PL
Vengeful Spirit: Venge, VS
Rikimaru: Riki, SA
Templar Assassin: TA, Lanaya
Gondar: Gond
Gyrocopter: Gyro
Lone Druid: Sylla
Bloodseeker: BS
Shadow Fiend: SF
Venomancer: Veno
Faceless Void: Void
Phantom Assassin: PA, Mortred
Broodmother: BM, Brood
Spectre: Spec
Crystal Maiden: CM, Rylai
Storm Spirit: Storm
Windrunner: WR
Nature's Prophet: Furion, Furi, Prophet
Enchantress: Ench, Encha
Silencer: Sile
Ogre Magi: Ogre
Disruptor: Thrall
Witch Doctor: WD
Enigma: Enig
Necrolyte: Nec, Necro
Warlock: WL
Shadow Shaman: Rhasta
Queen of Pain: QoP
Krobelus: Krob, Krobe
Pugna: Pug
Leshrac: Lesh
Dark Seer: DS, Seer
Batrider: Bat
Ancient Apparition: AA
Invoker: seldomly: Carl, Kael
Outworld Destroyer: OD, Obsi
Shadow Demon: SD
item abbreviations:
Clarity Potion: Clarity
Smoke of Deceit: Smoke
Town Portal Scroll: TP
Dust of Appearance: Dust
Observer Ward: ward
Sentry Ward: sentry
Ironwood Branch: Branch
Belt of Strength: Belt
Robe of Magi: Robe
Ring of Protection: RoP
Quelling Blade: QB
Stout Shield: Stout, Shield
Ring of Regeneration: RoR
Gem of Truesight: Gem
Blink Dagger: Dagger
Power Treads: Treads, PT
Perseverance: Perse
Boots of Travel: BoT, BT
Ring of Basilius: Basi, RoB
Urn of Shadows: Urn
Medaillon of Courage: Medaillon, MoC
Drum of Endurance: Drum
Vladmirs Offering: Vlads
Mekansm: Mek, Meka
Pipe of Insight: Pipe
Necronomicon 1-3: Nec, Necro
Eul's Scepter of Divinity: Euls
Veil of Discord: Veil
Rod of Atos: Atos
Aghanims Scepter: Agha, Scepter
Orchid Malevolence: Orchid
Scythe of Vyse: Hex, sheepstick
Armlet of Mordiggian: Armlet
Skull Basher: Basher
Shadow Blade: Lothars
Battlefury: BF
Ethereal Blade: EB
Radiance: Radi
Monkey King Bar: MKB
Daedalus: Buri
Butterfly: Butter
Divine Rapier: Divine
Abyssal Blade: Abyssal
Hood of Defiance: HoD
Vanguard: Vang
Black King Bar: BKB
Shiva's Guard: Shivas
Manta Style: Manta
Linken's Sphere: Linkens
Assault Cuirass: AC
Heart of Tarrasque: HoT
Helm of the Dominator: HotD
Mask of Madness: MoM
Maelstrom: Mael
Diffusal Blade: Diffu
Desolator: Deso
Heaven's Halber: HH, Halberd
Sange and Yasha: SnY
Eye of Skaadi: EoS, Skaadi
Sacred Relic: Relic
Ring of Health: RoH
Missing something or have to correct something? Tell me and I will add it, if it seems correct.
The first game - The HUD
Soon it is time to jump right into the action, but first, let's just take a quick peak at the main screen again (skip to "PLAY" if that does not interest you):
At the starting page you will find every week's news, so if you want to be filled into current updates and changes, this the place where you can look for them.
Customize is all about the cosmetical updates and tools you can buy, collect, use and create inside and outside of the game. Since you are new, this will not interest you much, yet.
Play is self-explainatory and we will inspect this in a second.
Watch will enable you to watch live games with delay (2 minutes from when the action happens originally I believe), watch old games or watch tournaments. Check out some of the top live games if you want a glimpse of the game. When you are watching chose "player perspective" as your view to see every single mouse movement and action of one player. You can select the player by left clicking on the hero portrait at the top. Very informative.
Learn leads you to http://www.dota2.com/heroes/ and http://www.dota2.com/items/ and gives you basic information about each hero and item. There is much too remember for now. You just have to accept that you can't know all those things, yet. Use it as reference if you want to read up hero details.
Socialize is not implemented yet, so you won't find anything to do there yet. It is expected that you can manage teams/clans at that place once it is implemented.
Then you got your steam avatar, level and battle points (each level you rise will earn yourself some cosmetical item or other things that can be found at the customization tab). Clicking on your steam avatar will bring up more information about your profile, you can view your games and if you want to watch them again, you can download their replay. For now there shouldn't be anything interesting there for you.
Below that is the public chat, you can add channels by pressing on "+". And then last but not least you see your steam friends list. Leftclicking friend will enable you to view their profiles, invite them to your party (= play with them) or watch their games.
PLAY
So let's inspect the play tab. You have different options (other options like clan matches are not implemented yet):
- Find a match: you will search a match to play with a team of human players versus other human players. If you have added friends in your party, those people will play together with you in the same team
- Find a co-op bot match: you will search a match to play in a team of human players versus bots (computer controlled enemies)
- Find a lobby: you can find lobbies of other players. In lobbies you can set some game rules (like enabling cheats) and will be able to control which player plays in which team. They can also be private/password protected or public.
- Create lobby: you can create a lobby. This comes in handy if you want to check out the game the first time as only player or test something with cheats or play with a group of 9 other people
So click on "create lobby" and then again. Press the edit settings button and you will be able to set up your game:
Chose a server location near to your location (automatic is fine most of the times, but f.e. Australian players will probably want to us US west instead of the default SEA server, since the routing is better and you ping will be smaller).
Everything else can be left as is. You will always want to use the latest version if you are not playing a tournament though, so change that if it is not set already. It is your decision if you want to play with bots in the first game. If you tick "fill empty slots with bots" you will fight with 4 allied bots against 5 other bots. Make your choice, it will make things harder, but you also get some impressions about fighting against heroes. Save setting, click on join slot and start the game by pressing start game!
BTW did you know that you can use the steam webbrowser in the overlay (SHIFT+TAB) to display this text in the steam overlay? So if you do not want to tab out and read on while being ingame, check it out.
After loading a bit you will see the pick screen. Press CTRL to switch to grid view if you want to take a look at all heroes at once.
I won't force you to pick a specific hero for your first game, so just take something that appeals to you, but avoid Invoker, since he deviates a bit from the norm. Once you clicked "pick Heroname" your selection will lock and noone else will be able to play your hero. Press "play Heroname" to get yourself into the game. If you have enabled bots, they will be joining the game with you.
So now you might ask:
what is a hero and what am I supposed to do. There is no short answer to that, but let me try to explain.
The hero, which you just have chosen, is your character you will be playing for the entire duration of the match. Each hero has its own characterics, which are also shown in the HUD (enlarge the picture for HUD details):
Your hero is similar to a character you play in RPGs. It will gain experience and gold from killing enemies and ultimately level up once it has reached a certain amount of experience points and it will die once it reaches 0 HP.
With each level you'll get a skill point that can be invested in one of 4 skills (while the 4th skill is the ultimate, which you can level up to 1 at lvl 6, 2 at lvl 11 and 3 at lvl 16). If you do need more life and mana, you can also chose to learn stats. This will add 2 points to all three attributes: strength, agility and intelligence. Hover the stats overview in the HUD to know what benefits you will get with each stat point. Click on Level up and on skill button to learn a skill. You can also learn skills by holding CTRL + the skills' hotkey. Try out the skill if you want by pressing its hotkey and then selecting a target, if there is one available.
Besides the 4 skills the hero can learn and use, he also has an inventory where you can equip him with items, 6 at most. Items are bought in the shop for gold and have many different effects. Items will help your hero in different ways and I will cover that in another blog post later on.
For now, you will want to go with the suggestions on the left side of the opened shop. While not perfect, they will be at least decent and helpful, so you won't make too big mistakes there. Buy the items listed under starting items by opening the shop (left click on shop button OR hotkey), and then right clicking each item listed under the starting items section. You will now probably have some items in your inventory that have an active effect (most likely Tangos or a Healing Potion). Use the correspondent item hotkey (which is displayed in the inventory slot of the active item) to use its ability. You can use a Tango on a tree to eat it and it will restore health over time. You can use a healing potion on friendly units to heal them faster, of course that only makes sense when you have lost some HP already. So keep that for later.
Besides the active items, there are also items that just give you static bonuses, for example to strength, agility, intelligence, armor or movement speed. You will not need to use them to get their effect, then only requirement is to carry them in your inventory. While most of the times your item choices will differ from hero to hero, every hero will want to get Boots (or their upgrades) at some point of the game, because movement speed is important for everyone.
You can move your hero to the places you like by clicking with the right mouse button on the target place. If you right click enemies you will attack them. A(ttack move) + left click will enable you to attack your own creeps below 50% HP and towers below 10% HP. If you lose track of your hero, press select hero (F1 is the default, I think) twice to move your view to him.
Objective of the game:
Now that you can move around your hero, learn skills and filled your inventory with some starting items, you will wonder what to do. In each match two teams will compete against each other. They are called Radiant and Dire. The main goal of the game is to destroy the enemies main building (throne/tree).
But there are towers (white for Radiant - and black for Dire towers) protecting it, so you will need to fight your way to the main building one by one, especially since you can only attack the foremost tower on every lane.
The towers are situated on three lanes that run across the map: top, mid and bottom lane. The river divides Radiant's and Dire's territory. Between the lanes you will find the forest, also called wood. Those grey things are called rax (short for barracks), destroying them will gain your team a good advantage since the enemy will be pressured harder. That's why your main goal will be "pushing" lanes and destroying towers and rax on the way on one or more lanes until you can finally destroy the main building.
How to achieve that?
Every 30 seconds, starting at 0:00 game time, on every lane computercontrolled creeps will spawn at the grey spots for both teams and run along the lanes until they find some enemies to sink their axes, staves and what not into. You and your hero will want to be near that spectacle, since your hero will gain gold for each enemy it kills and you will also gain experience while being near dying enemies. Both of those things help you get stronger. Do not attack all the time. Wait for creeps to get on low HP and then just execute the last hit, because only that will give you the much needed gold. If you attack at all times as soon as you are in range of enemy creeps, chances are high that you push too far out into the enemies part of the map, making it more difficult to survive. And that's what you really want: survive. Better safe then sorry, especially when you are a beginner at this game.
Once you are strong enough and with the help of your team mates you can destroy towers. But you do not simply run to towers and start hitting them, you will want to go with your creep wave most of the time, that take the damage, while you are hitting the tower. Ofc enemies will try to defend or destroy towers as well, so keep offense and defense in balance. Killing enemy heroes actually is very helpful, since it grants yourself a gold- and experienceboost, while they will lose some of their gold. But don't get cocky, especially if you are a new player - you do not want to act too aggressive, because you cannot judge wether trying to kill a hero is dangerous (sorry if I keep repeating myself a bit, but can't stress this enough). Try to avoid hits in general, from enemy heroes, creeps and towers. Try to maintain your hp and throw in some regenerative items if you need some healing (Tangos or Healing Potions) or go back too the fountain if your HP is too low. More to behaviour on lane and in general in another blog post.
If you have gathered 500 gold, buy Boots of speed, then follow the other item progressions as suggested on the left hand side of the shop tab. Try to support your team by helping them defend or push towers. If you do not play with bots, just focus on last hitting (= getting the killing blow on an enemy unit) and also try to get comfortable with denying your own creeps (A+left click on allied creeps below 50% ho to get the killing blow on them). Try out your heroes skills.
Try out the quickbuy: drag an item from the shop / item suggestions to the quickbuy region. Next time you will have enough gold for one of the components in the quickbuy, you will hear a sound and you can easily purchase the item by either hotkey or rightclicking on the corresponding item in the quickbuy without opening the shop. Talking about shops, there are two side lane shops, located at the outside forest near the border of the map of the top and bottom lane, check them out. And there are two secret shops, one between top and mid lane on radiant side and one between mid and bottom lane on dire side, look closely at the map and you will spot them for sure. The secret shops have some high quality items in stock that cannot be found in the normal shop, so sometimes you will need to get your items there.
basic items you will definitely want to check out in your first game (about what they do), you just need to know them since they are some of the most basic items:
- Scroll of Town Portal (you can teleport to allied structures like towers)
- Tangos (3 charges, each charge can be used to eat a tree and grants you some HP regeneration after you have done so)
- Healing Potion (heals 400 hp over 10 seconds)
- Clarity Potion (grants some mana over time)
- Ironwood Branch (good filler item for the start if you have empty slots)
- Magic Stick (gains charges every time a visible enemy casts a spell near you, activate it and it will use up all its charges and restore some HP and mana for your hero)
- Boots (makes you faster)
- Stout Shield (gives you some sustainability against physical attacks)
- Quelling Blade (can cut down trees, opens up new paths if you want)
- Observer Wards (can only buy a limited amount of those per time, but gives you vision on the map to help anticipate enemy movement)
- Sentry Wards (gives vision of invisible or smoked heroes in a decent AOE)
- Dust (will reveal affected invisible heroes for a short amount of time)
- Smoke of Deceit (covers you and heroes around you from enemy eyes, you will only be seen once you attack in sight range of enemies, walk through regions where true sight is available (sentry wards) or come close to enemy heroes)
- Courier (if you play with bots, chances are high, that one of the bots will already have bought a courier; this little guy will help you delivering your items you bought at the base to your hero, since every item you buy is placed to your stash instead of your inventory, as long as there is no shop near your hero that offers the item you just bought; oh and don't let it die: even though it will respawn after 3 minutes, it will give grant your enemies a big amount of gold)
Push towers by clearing creep waves in a fast manner. Sooner or later tower, rax and the main building are going to fall. Your first game is finished. Well done, now it can only get better.
At the starting page you will find every week's news, so if you want to be filled into current updates and changes, this the place where you can look for them.
Customize is all about the cosmetical updates and tools you can buy, collect, use and create inside and outside of the game. Since you are new, this will not interest you much, yet.
Play is self-explainatory and we will inspect this in a second.
Watch will enable you to watch live games with delay (2 minutes from when the action happens originally I believe), watch old games or watch tournaments. Check out some of the top live games if you want a glimpse of the game. When you are watching chose "player perspective" as your view to see every single mouse movement and action of one player. You can select the player by left clicking on the hero portrait at the top. Very informative.
Learn leads you to http://www.dota2.com/heroes/ and http://www.dota2.com/items/ and gives you basic information about each hero and item. There is much too remember for now. You just have to accept that you can't know all those things, yet. Use it as reference if you want to read up hero details.
Socialize is not implemented yet, so you won't find anything to do there yet. It is expected that you can manage teams/clans at that place once it is implemented.
Then you got your steam avatar, level and battle points (each level you rise will earn yourself some cosmetical item or other things that can be found at the customization tab). Clicking on your steam avatar will bring up more information about your profile, you can view your games and if you want to watch them again, you can download their replay. For now there shouldn't be anything interesting there for you.
Below that is the public chat, you can add channels by pressing on "+". And then last but not least you see your steam friends list. Leftclicking friend will enable you to view their profiles, invite them to your party (= play with them) or watch their games.
PLAY
So let's inspect the play tab. You have different options (other options like clan matches are not implemented yet):
- Find a match: you will search a match to play with a team of human players versus other human players. If you have added friends in your party, those people will play together with you in the same team
- Find a co-op bot match: you will search a match to play in a team of human players versus bots (computer controlled enemies)
- Find a lobby: you can find lobbies of other players. In lobbies you can set some game rules (like enabling cheats) and will be able to control which player plays in which team. They can also be private/password protected or public.
- Create lobby: you can create a lobby. This comes in handy if you want to check out the game the first time as only player or test something with cheats or play with a group of 9 other people
So click on "create lobby" and then again. Press the edit settings button and you will be able to set up your game:
Chose a server location near to your location (automatic is fine most of the times, but f.e. Australian players will probably want to us US west instead of the default SEA server, since the routing is better and you ping will be smaller).
Everything else can be left as is. You will always want to use the latest version if you are not playing a tournament though, so change that if it is not set already. It is your decision if you want to play with bots in the first game. If you tick "fill empty slots with bots" you will fight with 4 allied bots against 5 other bots. Make your choice, it will make things harder, but you also get some impressions about fighting against heroes. Save setting, click on join slot and start the game by pressing start game!
BTW did you know that you can use the steam webbrowser in the overlay (SHIFT+TAB) to display this text in the steam overlay? So if you do not want to tab out and read on while being ingame, check it out.
After loading a bit you will see the pick screen. Press CTRL to switch to grid view if you want to take a look at all heroes at once.
I won't force you to pick a specific hero for your first game, so just take something that appeals to you, but avoid Invoker, since he deviates a bit from the norm. Once you clicked "pick Heroname" your selection will lock and noone else will be able to play your hero. Press "play Heroname" to get yourself into the game. If you have enabled bots, they will be joining the game with you.
So now you might ask:
what is a hero and what am I supposed to do. There is no short answer to that, but let me try to explain.
The hero, which you just have chosen, is your character you will be playing for the entire duration of the match. Each hero has its own characterics, which are also shown in the HUD (enlarge the picture for HUD details):
Your hero is similar to a character you play in RPGs. It will gain experience and gold from killing enemies and ultimately level up once it has reached a certain amount of experience points and it will die once it reaches 0 HP.
With each level you'll get a skill point that can be invested in one of 4 skills (while the 4th skill is the ultimate, which you can level up to 1 at lvl 6, 2 at lvl 11 and 3 at lvl 16). If you do need more life and mana, you can also chose to learn stats. This will add 2 points to all three attributes: strength, agility and intelligence. Hover the stats overview in the HUD to know what benefits you will get with each stat point. Click on Level up and on skill button to learn a skill. You can also learn skills by holding CTRL + the skills' hotkey. Try out the skill if you want by pressing its hotkey and then selecting a target, if there is one available.
Besides the 4 skills the hero can learn and use, he also has an inventory where you can equip him with items, 6 at most. Items are bought in the shop for gold and have many different effects. Items will help your hero in different ways and I will cover that in another blog post later on.
For now, you will want to go with the suggestions on the left side of the opened shop. While not perfect, they will be at least decent and helpful, so you won't make too big mistakes there. Buy the items listed under starting items by opening the shop (left click on shop button OR hotkey), and then right clicking each item listed under the starting items section. You will now probably have some items in your inventory that have an active effect (most likely Tangos or a Healing Potion). Use the correspondent item hotkey (which is displayed in the inventory slot of the active item) to use its ability. You can use a Tango on a tree to eat it and it will restore health over time. You can use a healing potion on friendly units to heal them faster, of course that only makes sense when you have lost some HP already. So keep that for later.
Besides the active items, there are also items that just give you static bonuses, for example to strength, agility, intelligence, armor or movement speed. You will not need to use them to get their effect, then only requirement is to carry them in your inventory. While most of the times your item choices will differ from hero to hero, every hero will want to get Boots (or their upgrades) at some point of the game, because movement speed is important for everyone.
You can move your hero to the places you like by clicking with the right mouse button on the target place. If you right click enemies you will attack them. A(ttack move) + left click will enable you to attack your own creeps below 50% HP and towers below 10% HP. If you lose track of your hero, press select hero (F1 is the default, I think) twice to move your view to him.
Objective of the game:
Now that you can move around your hero, learn skills and filled your inventory with some starting items, you will wonder what to do. In each match two teams will compete against each other. They are called Radiant and Dire. The main goal of the game is to destroy the enemies main building (throne/tree).
But there are towers (white for Radiant - and black for Dire towers) protecting it, so you will need to fight your way to the main building one by one, especially since you can only attack the foremost tower on every lane.
The towers are situated on three lanes that run across the map: top, mid and bottom lane. The river divides Radiant's and Dire's territory. Between the lanes you will find the forest, also called wood. Those grey things are called rax (short for barracks), destroying them will gain your team a good advantage since the enemy will be pressured harder. That's why your main goal will be "pushing" lanes and destroying towers and rax on the way on one or more lanes until you can finally destroy the main building.
How to achieve that?
Every 30 seconds, starting at 0:00 game time, on every lane computercontrolled creeps will spawn at the grey spots for both teams and run along the lanes until they find some enemies to sink their axes, staves and what not into. You and your hero will want to be near that spectacle, since your hero will gain gold for each enemy it kills and you will also gain experience while being near dying enemies. Both of those things help you get stronger. Do not attack all the time. Wait for creeps to get on low HP and then just execute the last hit, because only that will give you the much needed gold. If you attack at all times as soon as you are in range of enemy creeps, chances are high that you push too far out into the enemies part of the map, making it more difficult to survive. And that's what you really want: survive. Better safe then sorry, especially when you are a beginner at this game.
Once you are strong enough and with the help of your team mates you can destroy towers. But you do not simply run to towers and start hitting them, you will want to go with your creep wave most of the time, that take the damage, while you are hitting the tower. Ofc enemies will try to defend or destroy towers as well, so keep offense and defense in balance. Killing enemy heroes actually is very helpful, since it grants yourself a gold- and experienceboost, while they will lose some of their gold. But don't get cocky, especially if you are a new player - you do not want to act too aggressive, because you cannot judge wether trying to kill a hero is dangerous (sorry if I keep repeating myself a bit, but can't stress this enough). Try to avoid hits in general, from enemy heroes, creeps and towers. Try to maintain your hp and throw in some regenerative items if you need some healing (Tangos or Healing Potions) or go back too the fountain if your HP is too low. More to behaviour on lane and in general in another blog post.
If you have gathered 500 gold, buy Boots of speed, then follow the other item progressions as suggested on the left hand side of the shop tab. Try to support your team by helping them defend or push towers. If you do not play with bots, just focus on last hitting (= getting the killing blow on an enemy unit) and also try to get comfortable with denying your own creeps (A+left click on allied creeps below 50% ho to get the killing blow on them). Try out your heroes skills.
Try out the quickbuy: drag an item from the shop / item suggestions to the quickbuy region. Next time you will have enough gold for one of the components in the quickbuy, you will hear a sound and you can easily purchase the item by either hotkey or rightclicking on the corresponding item in the quickbuy without opening the shop. Talking about shops, there are two side lane shops, located at the outside forest near the border of the map of the top and bottom lane, check them out. And there are two secret shops, one between top and mid lane on radiant side and one between mid and bottom lane on dire side, look closely at the map and you will spot them for sure. The secret shops have some high quality items in stock that cannot be found in the normal shop, so sometimes you will need to get your items there.
basic items you will definitely want to check out in your first game (about what they do), you just need to know them since they are some of the most basic items:
- Scroll of Town Portal (you can teleport to allied structures like towers)
- Tangos (3 charges, each charge can be used to eat a tree and grants you some HP regeneration after you have done so)
- Healing Potion (heals 400 hp over 10 seconds)
- Clarity Potion (grants some mana over time)
- Ironwood Branch (good filler item for the start if you have empty slots)
- Magic Stick (gains charges every time a visible enemy casts a spell near you, activate it and it will use up all its charges and restore some HP and mana for your hero)
- Boots (makes you faster)
- Stout Shield (gives you some sustainability against physical attacks)
- Quelling Blade (can cut down trees, opens up new paths if you want)
- Observer Wards (can only buy a limited amount of those per time, but gives you vision on the map to help anticipate enemy movement)
- Sentry Wards (gives vision of invisible or smoked heroes in a decent AOE)
- Dust (will reveal affected invisible heroes for a short amount of time)
- Smoke of Deceit (covers you and heroes around you from enemy eyes, you will only be seen once you attack in sight range of enemies, walk through regions where true sight is available (sentry wards) or come close to enemy heroes)
- Courier (if you play with bots, chances are high, that one of the bots will already have bought a courier; this little guy will help you delivering your items you bought at the base to your hero, since every item you buy is placed to your stash instead of your inventory, as long as there is no shop near your hero that offers the item you just bought; oh and don't let it die: even though it will respawn after 3 minutes, it will give grant your enemies a big amount of gold)
Push towers by clearing creep waves in a fast manner. Sooner or later tower, rax and the main building are going to fall. Your first game is finished. Well done, now it can only get better.
First startup - Options Menu and controls
Ready? Start up Dota 2 and you will see an interface with a bunch of buttons. If you start the game for the first time, a message will pop up that asks you how familiar you are with Dota 2. If you are completely new to the genre, you should probably select "new". This way you will also meet other new players in the game once you decide to play versus other players, rising your chances to actually win the match.
At first you will want to be comfortable with controls and adjust the game's options to your liking. I will walk you through that.
Main menu screen:
Enter the options on the top left corner.
you should set Audio and Video options to your preferences. The controls-tab will let you change the hotkeys you can use ingame.
Here are some control basics, use them as reference later on, if you do not know how to control your hero. You should be fine by leaving everything at default for now and skip to the game options part. Note that you can access and change your hotkeys ingame as well, so if you want to find out which key you have to press for a certain function, you can always come back to this options menu.
CONTROLS:
Left mouse button:
- selects units
- hold it to drag a selection box to select multiple units
- holding shift and left clicking units will add or substract them from your selection
- pressing "attack move" (A by default) and left clicking a unit order your units to attack the target; you can also use this on allied creeps below 50% health or towers below 10% health to "deny" them
- pressing attack move and clicking on the ground will make your selected units move to the point where you clicked and they will open fire as soon as they find an enemy unit on their way
- drag and drop items between your inventory, stash, courier and the ground (dragging an item from your inventory to the ground will make your hero drop it)
- ALT + left clicking will produce a ping that hopefully will draw the attention of your teammates to the pinged spot
- double clicking on a unit you control will select all units of the same type you control that are near your screen
- activate skills and some items by clicking on their buttons
- open context menu when clicking player names in scoreboard, chat or friendslist
Right mouse button:
- move to destination
- attack enemy if clicked on enemy unit
- follow allied unit if clicked on allied unit
- buy items in the shop
- open context menu for items you already own, allowing you to sell them, disassemble them into their parts (if possible) or drop them to the ground
Dragging mouse pointer to the edge of the screen:
- move your view (camera acceleration and speed can be set in the game options)
Attack move:
- pressing attack move (A by default) and left clicking a unit order your units to attack the target; you can also use this on allied creeps below 50% health or towers below 10% health to "deny" them - pressing attack move and left clicking on the ground will make your selected units move to the point Move: - move + left click will make your hero move to the selected unit or place, this way you can also let your hero follow an enemy without attacking
Stop:
- your hero will stop casting spells, moving or attacking. If you have auto attack activated, it will then immediately start to move and attack nearby enemy units
Hold Position:
- your hero will stop casting spells, moving or attacking. If you have auto attack activated, it will then immediately start to attack enemies in range, but stay at the same place
Control Groups:
- by pressing CTRL+the corresponding key to a control group, your current selection will be saved. The next time you press the control group's key, your saved selection will be restored. Clicking the key twice will center your view onto the selected units
HINT: summons from hero skills (like Lycanthropes wolves or Syllabears bear will maintain their control groups if they die and then you summon them again)
Control Group Tab:
- you can cycle through your selected units to use their skills by pressing that hotkeys. This will not remove your selection. Cycling goes from left to right and back to the beginning.
SHIFT:
- hold it to queue move, attack and spell casting commands. your unit will execute them one after the other
self-explainatory, but important stuff:
Select Hero
Select Courier
Abilities (memorize those, it is very important that you use those keys to cast your hero's spell instead of clicking their buttons in the interface to be able to react fast enough)
Inventory (again, you will need to use those keys to be able to keep up with other players)
Camera (arrow keys to move your view)
Chat Team
Chat All
not so important stuff, but might come in handy later on:
CTRL + ability key will make your hero learn the ability if you have a skill point available after a level up
ALT + ability key will toggle autocast on or off. Some spells are autocastable, most of the time those are attack modifiers like frost arrows, but also Morphling's Morph is an example for a autocastable spells. If you want those spells to activate everytime possible, then activate it, but be aware of the mana costs!
Select all other units: useful for heroes where you have to control units other than the hero
Activate Glyph: reinforces your structures like towers and rax for a short amount of time (has 5 minutes cooldown)
Courier Deliver Items: the courier will deliver your items from stash to you and then go back to base Purchase Quickbuy: buy the item you've got in the quickbuy slot (see the explainations to the ingame HUD to find out what quickbuy is)
Purchase Sticky: will buy the stickied item, this is by default a Scroll of Town Portal Take Stash Items: will move items from your stash to your hero if you are near the fountain
holding CTRL+ left mouse button will enable you to draw on the minimap
Pause: if you need a short break, this key is your friend
-----------
GAME OPTIONS:
Here are my preferences for starters:
auto attack: off (your hero will only attack when you tell him to or when he just killed a unit and there is another unit in range that he can attack)
auto purchase items: off (you will want to have the control over what you buy always)
auto select summoned units: depends on what you prefer, for starters on will probably be easier
double tap ability self cast: on (allows you to quickly cast some spells on yourself, that buff your hero or let you escape easier (for example Nature's Prophet's Sprout or Dark Seer's Surge))
unified unit orders: on (doesn't hurt to have) you can leave the other ones on default and set your camera speed and acceleration to your likings (I use maximum acceleration and 50% speed)
You can look through the other options and get an idea about what they do, but for now they should not be all that interesting to you. Don't get discouraged, you are about to be ready to start a game, even if I advise you to start playing alone or versus bots, because you clearly will need some time to get familiar with the game.
Main menu screen:
you should set Audio and Video options to your preferences. The controls-tab will let you change the hotkeys you can use ingame.
Here are some control basics, use them as reference later on, if you do not know how to control your hero. You should be fine by leaving everything at default for now and skip to the game options part. Note that you can access and change your hotkeys ingame as well, so if you want to find out which key you have to press for a certain function, you can always come back to this options menu.
CONTROLS:
Left mouse button:
- selects units
- hold it to drag a selection box to select multiple units
- holding shift and left clicking units will add or substract them from your selection
- pressing "attack move" (A by default) and left clicking a unit order your units to attack the target; you can also use this on allied creeps below 50% health or towers below 10% health to "deny" them
- pressing attack move and clicking on the ground will make your selected units move to the point where you clicked and they will open fire as soon as they find an enemy unit on their way
- drag and drop items between your inventory, stash, courier and the ground (dragging an item from your inventory to the ground will make your hero drop it)
- ALT + left clicking will produce a ping that hopefully will draw the attention of your teammates to the pinged spot
- double clicking on a unit you control will select all units of the same type you control that are near your screen
- activate skills and some items by clicking on their buttons
- open context menu when clicking player names in scoreboard, chat or friendslist
Right mouse button:
- move to destination
- attack enemy if clicked on enemy unit
- follow allied unit if clicked on allied unit
- buy items in the shop
- open context menu for items you already own, allowing you to sell them, disassemble them into their parts (if possible) or drop them to the ground
Dragging mouse pointer to the edge of the screen:
- move your view (camera acceleration and speed can be set in the game options)
Attack move:
- pressing attack move (A by default) and left clicking a unit order your units to attack the target; you can also use this on allied creeps below 50% health or towers below 10% health to "deny" them - pressing attack move and left clicking on the ground will make your selected units move to the point Move: - move + left click will make your hero move to the selected unit or place, this way you can also let your hero follow an enemy without attacking
Stop:
- your hero will stop casting spells, moving or attacking. If you have auto attack activated, it will then immediately start to move and attack nearby enemy units
Hold Position:
- your hero will stop casting spells, moving or attacking. If you have auto attack activated, it will then immediately start to attack enemies in range, but stay at the same place
Control Groups:
- by pressing CTRL+the corresponding key to a control group, your current selection will be saved. The next time you press the control group's key, your saved selection will be restored. Clicking the key twice will center your view onto the selected units
HINT: summons from hero skills (like Lycanthropes wolves or Syllabears bear will maintain their control groups if they die and then you summon them again)
Control Group Tab:
- you can cycle through your selected units to use their skills by pressing that hotkeys. This will not remove your selection. Cycling goes from left to right and back to the beginning.
SHIFT:
- hold it to queue move, attack and spell casting commands. your unit will execute them one after the other
self-explainatory, but important stuff:
Select Hero
Select Courier
Abilities (memorize those, it is very important that you use those keys to cast your hero's spell instead of clicking their buttons in the interface to be able to react fast enough)
Inventory (again, you will need to use those keys to be able to keep up with other players)
Camera (arrow keys to move your view)
Chat Team
Chat All
not so important stuff, but might come in handy later on:
CTRL + ability key will make your hero learn the ability if you have a skill point available after a level up
ALT + ability key will toggle autocast on or off. Some spells are autocastable, most of the time those are attack modifiers like frost arrows, but also Morphling's Morph is an example for a autocastable spells. If you want those spells to activate everytime possible, then activate it, but be aware of the mana costs!
Select all other units: useful for heroes where you have to control units other than the hero
Activate Glyph: reinforces your structures like towers and rax for a short amount of time (has 5 minutes cooldown)
Courier Deliver Items: the courier will deliver your items from stash to you and then go back to base Purchase Quickbuy: buy the item you've got in the quickbuy slot (see the explainations to the ingame HUD to find out what quickbuy is)
Purchase Sticky: will buy the stickied item, this is by default a Scroll of Town Portal Take Stash Items: will move items from your stash to your hero if you are near the fountain
holding CTRL+ left mouse button will enable you to draw on the minimap
Pause: if you need a short break, this key is your friend
-----------
GAME OPTIONS:
Here are my preferences for starters:
auto attack: off (your hero will only attack when you tell him to or when he just killed a unit and there is another unit in range that he can attack)
auto purchase items: off (you will want to have the control over what you buy always)
auto select summoned units: depends on what you prefer, for starters on will probably be easier
double tap ability self cast: on (allows you to quickly cast some spells on yourself, that buff your hero or let you escape easier (for example Nature's Prophet's Sprout or Dark Seer's Surge))
unified unit orders: on (doesn't hurt to have) you can leave the other ones on default and set your camera speed and acceleration to your likings (I use maximum acceleration and 50% speed)
You can look through the other options and get an idea about what they do, but for now they should not be all that interesting to you. Don't get discouraged, you are about to be ready to start a game, even if I advise you to start playing alone or versus bots, because you clearly will need some time to get familiar with the game.
Abonnieren
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