Newbie Guide - Dota Guides

-- TABLE OF CONTENT --

1. Introduction
2. Gaming Platform
3. Online vs AI
4. Basics of DotA
5. Terminology
6. Hero Picking
7. Hero Roles
8. Lanes and Lane control
9. Basic items and Item builds
10. Game Phases
11. Runes and Rune control
12. Warding and Courier
13. Jungle and Jungling
14. Advanced manouvers
15. General Tips
15a. Guides
16. Closing

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-- INTRODUCTION --

DotA (Defense of the Ancients) is a team-game that can have up to 10 players playing at the same time. While you learn basic of DotA, you will be flamed a lot, trust me. This is the most important part - if you have high morale and willpower, you will not be stoped by flamers and idiots, and will proceed to become better player. Should you subscumb at them flaming you, you will fail. Have that in mind!

However, there are few things that i, and most of players on this forum hate, and if you do those, you will hardly earn your place here!

- LEAVING: If you leave game before end, you just make fool of yourself, and make it a LOT harder to learn DotA. DotA is not all about winning, it is also about losing. If you keep leaving every game you think you will lose, you will waste a lot of experience from situations that would have happened, make hosts likely to kick you later when you join, or even get banned from platform.

- FLAMING: Okay, flaming others doesn't prove anything, and you won't have a lot of friends by flaming everyone. My advice here is to be polite to others, and they will be polite to you. If someone flames you, just ignore him, those are his manners, and if you don't reply, or reply politely, you are better man than him.

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-- GAMING PLATFORM --

Okay, playing DotA requires some preparations first. You need a gaming platform to be able to play On-Line. There are many platforms out there, however there are two that i recommend the most:

1. GARENA
Garena - Connecting world gamers

Garena is a program that can be used to play a lot of games, it has huge number of players of all skills, and in there you can practice DotA untill you learn all heroes, spells and items. Basicaly, with huge number of players here, you won't be remembered if you do something stupid, so feel free to experiment. Bad side is that there are a lot of leavers in here, because admins don't ban anyone for leaving...

2. DOTALICIOUS
DotAlicious Gaming! (Public Beta)

This is perhaps the best dota platform, it tracks statistics, your skill level, so i advise you to play on Garena for a while untill you learn every hero. But you could try yourself in here if you want... Good thing about this is that there are NO LEAVERS, people are polite, and that makes your progress a lot faster!


When you enter DotA room, you should see following picture:



There are 2 teams. To change team, click on those Red/Green letters, and you will change if there is a slot avaliable (Open). I will explain it later on.

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-- ONLINE OR VERSUS AI --

People say that it is a lot better to play against computers first, then against real players. I dissagree. Start playing online head on. Computers have one great flaw - they don't think. That makes games so much different online.

Also, if you find polite person, ask him what to buy to that hero you are playing, and he should tell you how to play and what to buy. There are also countless guides on this site, so feel free to read them!

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-- BASICS OF DOTA --

Okay, lets explain what DotA is about.

There are 2 teams fighting - the Sentinel, and the Scourge. Sentinel (red) are forces of good, they are in left-down corrner of map, while Scourge (green) are forces of evil, and are in upper-right corrner of map. Each player picks an hero, and controls him till the end of game. Troops (creeps) are automaticaly controled by computter, and spawn every 30 seconds of game. Every team has Towers that defend their base. Goal is to destroy oposing team's towers, and base, that is the main building - Tree of Life (sentinels) or Lich King (scourge).

There are 3 main roads that creeps use, and towers are put on. They are called Lanes. Creeps from 2 teams meet exactly on the middle of each lane. Now, there is difference here, and not all lanes are equal, but i will explain it later.

To make it clear to you, i have made a map layout for this purpose.



Red X - place where opposing creep wave meet
Red Star - Tree of Life, main building of Sentinel
Green Star - Lich King, main building of Scourge
Yellow Dot - Sentinel Tower
Purple Dot - Scourge Tower
Blue Dot - Secret Shop

Every hero gets gold by killing enemy creeps and heroes. With enough gold, you can buy nice items, and ultimately win the game. When near dying creep / hero, player gets experience that increases his level. With every level, hero gets new skills that he can use.

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-- TERMINOLOGY --

In DotA, you will commonly see different new termins, and i will explain all of them that i can remember:

HP = Hit Points. Every hero has amount of hit poins equal to his STRENGHT. The stronger hero is, healthier he is. When enemies attack you, you lose health. When hit points reach 0, hero dies.
MP = Mana Points. Every hero has amount of mana points equal to his INTELIGENCE.. The smarter hero is, more mana he has. Mana is used to cast spells. If hero doesn't have requiered mana for spell, it will not be cast.
AP = Armor Points. Every hero has amount of armor points equal to his AGILITY. The more cunning hero is, bigger deffenses he has. However, armor only protects you from physical damage, not from spell damage.
Physical DMG = Physical Damage. Every hero has amount of damage equal to his main atribute. Some heroes have STR as main, some have INT, and some AGI. Damage is dealth by attacking enemies (right clicking on them). Damage is affected by targets armor.
Spell DMG = Spell damage. Each spell has different effects. Some spells can deal damage to opponents. This kind of damage is not affected by armor, but is affected by spell resistance.
Nuke = Spells that instantly deal a lot of damage are considered nukes.
DoT = Damage over time. These spells deal damage over extended period.
Stun = Some spells have effect of stunning enemy. Stunned enemy can't move, attack, or use spell. He will have blue sign over his head, meaning that hes stunned.
Silence = Some spells can dissable enemie's ability to cast spells. If enemy is silenced, he will have chatting sign above head.
Ulti = Ultimate spell. Every hero has 3 spells, and an ultimate. Ultimate is more powerfull than other spells, but can only be gotten at levels 6 / 11 / 16.
FoW = Fog of War. Each hero/creep/tower has sight range. If something is out of their sight, that area is black, and it is called Fog of War.
Agrro = Creep aggresion. When you attack a hero, nearby creeps will start attacking YOU in order to protect their hero. This can be really painfull early if you aren't carefull!

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-- HERO PICKING --

There are easier and harder heroes to play, so i will give you a list of those easier heroes that you can learn to play with.


Centaur Warchief (strenght / sentinel)
This guy is really tanky, has stun and burst damage.


Dragon Knight (strenght / sentinel)
Another tank, he also has stun, and can deal a lot of damage with his ulti.


Stealth Assassin (agility / sentinel)
He has blink, allowing him to escape easily, and his ultimate is permanent invisibility, that boosts survivability by a lot. He can also deal a lot of damage with right items.


Vengefull Spirit (agility / sentinel)
She has nice, ranged stun, and a skill to reveal fog of war. She can also swap place with enemy. Overall, a nice starter hero, but very powerfull in hands of pros.


Crystal Maiden (inteligence / sentinel)
She has nice slow, a disable, and nice damaging ultimate. Trick is, even if you die a lot, you help other players with your global mana regeneration aura.


Morgul Khan (strenght / scourge)
Since you will draw a lot of aggro when you are learning, you will start spinning like madman, and you may even kill something in process... Also he is tanky hero.


Lord of Avenus (strenght / scourge)
This guy has ultimate that turns all damage into heal for a bunch of seconds. That makes you harder to kill, and when you are lost in teambattles, it will auto-activate if you are low on hp, saving you from death in confusing enviroment. Also he has heal and shield.


Lich (inteligence / scourge)
You can't go wrong with him. He has spells that will allow you to make a bunch of kills, slow enemies, and be bigger level than them!


That would be it. You could take any intelect hero if you want, they are basicaly spellcasters, and even if you die a lot, your spells wont lose power. Just remember - first month of DotAing, choose one hero that you like the most, and play ONLY that hero. You will quickly learn other heroes abilities by watching others play, and mastering single hero is crutial, since its best if you play one hero, than to be jack of all trades, master of none. And since you are new to dota already, second choice would be cathastrophical!

There are a few heroes that i recommend not to pick. They are very hard and complicated, try them at your own risk!


Invoker (inteligence / scourge)
He has 14 spells total, and is really hard to play efficiently, even by good players!


Shadow FIend (agility / scourge)
He requieres a lot of practice to be effective, and a lot of DotA experience, so you know where enemy would move and what to do, so you could hit his shadowrazes. He also has piss-poor damage.


Buttcher (strenght / scourge)
He has spell that Hooks enemy to your possition. It is real hard to hit for new guys. It also affects enemy creeps, making it even harder. It also affects allied heroes.... and allied creeps... Play him at your own risk of getting flamed to death!


Grand Magus (sentinel / inteligence)
You need to know ALL other heroes in DotA before playing this one, since he relies on other heroes spells, since he steals them.


Goblin Techies (sentinel / inteligence)
You must learn whole map, and hero / creep moves before playing this guy, since he relies on mining paths where heroes walk, and not creeps.


Keeper of the Light (sentinel / inteligence)
His spells require perfect timing, just miss a little, and you are dead. Very hard to play for new players!


Priestes of the Moon (sentinel / agility)
She has Elunes Arrow spell that requires good aim and timing, making her hard.


Dwarven Sniper (sentinel / agility)
When someone tells you to play him because of good range, don't listen to him! This guy requires a lot of hard work and knowelage yo be any effective.


Alchemist (sentinel / strenght)
He is rather complicated, if you play him wrongly, you will end up killing yourself!


Admiral (sentinel / strenght)
Very hard hero, even for good players. You don't want to play him, trust me!

Now that we covered heroes, lets move on to roles.

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-- HERO ROLES --

Every hero has his own role. If you play chaotically, buy damage items on crystal maiden for example, and just farm whole game, you failed. If you gank with Medusa and buy her Vladimir, you failed. Every hero must know his possibilities, role and items that he needs. Lets go over by the basics...


- Support
As the name says, these heroes support team by buying wards, couriers, and helping other heroes. They could either support trough buying stuff, or they can support trough spells (Crystal Maidens global mana aura, Warlocks heal, etc), or trough lane controling (Silencers Curse, or Glaives for example). These guys are very important to every team, yet are given the least credit when game is over. They get supportive items like Mekansm that can heal whole team, or Pipe that protects team from spell damage.

Some of these supports are:
Omniknight
Warlock
Crystal Maiden
Lion
Phoenix

- Ganker
These guys have the job of keeping enemies afraid, hiding near their tower. They travel trough lanes and kill enemy heroes. Killing enemy heroes makes it a lot easier for your team to farm or destroy towers. Ganker heroes usually have Stun or Slow spell, or perhaps a lot of burst damage that makes job quick. They usually get Bottle since they travel trough Rune spotts a lot, or Urn of Shadows that fills when they kill enemy, and can be used like Healing Salve.

Some of gankers are:
Balanar
Lion
Lina
Bloodseeker
Nevermore

- Initiator
Initiators are heroes who start team battles. They need to either move enemy close to target spot (Dark Seer, Pudge, Magnus), or have spell that affects whole team (Tidehunter, Roofterren, Ancient Appartion). They usually have Dagger or Force staff to help them with positioning their strong spells.

Example of Initiators are:
Tidehunter
Roofteren
Ancient Appartion
Magnus
Axe

- Semi Carries
Carry heroes as the name says, carry their team into victory. They usually need good items to be effective, so spend part of game farming on creeps. They are usually gankers as well, killing enemies and getting gold for that. To be carry, hero needs to have ability that either deals a lot of damage, or is effective in mid-game. Likely Mirana can dish out a lot of damage if she hits 5 seconds stun in mid game. Same with Nevermore who has a lot of burst damage and powerfull 900 damage nuke! They usually get DPS items like Buriza or Monkey King Bar.

They're:
Mirana
Nevermore
Sven
Kunkka
Bone Flettcher

- Magical Carries
They are a mix of Supports and Semi Carries, except that they carry with their SPELLS. They are most effective early-mid game, yet lose potential later on. Usually they relly on huge burst damage, long dissable spells or even powerfull AoE effects. Something like Ezalor, who can deal 500 damage every 10 seconds, has infinite mana, and mana-draining skill. Or maybe Lina, with her huge burst damage potential. They usually get Aghanim to improve ultimate, or Dagon to increase their ganking and burst damage.

Here bellong:
Ezalor
Lina
Lion
Rhasta
Lich

- Hardcore Carries
They are weak in early-mid game, but shine later on. Taking their time to farm up good items, they comeback later with their percentage spells like Mortreds Critical strike for example. They require a lot of farm and protection to be effective. Usually getting DPS items like Buriza or Monkey king bar, they can deal a lot of damage in short time. But there are also Magical Hardcore carries like Tinker, who can with good mana items constantly turn enemies into sheeps, and keep rearming and shooting 320 pure damage lasers. Or maybe Necrolite who can deal a lot of damage with his scalling aura and 5sec cd mekansm.

Some of them are:
Mortred
Faceless Void
Troll Warlord
Tinker
Necrolyte
Spectre
Sniper

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-- LANES and LANE CONTROL --

You may have noticed that not all lanes are same. Middle lane is shortest one, while Top and Bottom lanes are longer. However neither Top and Bot are same... While creeps do meet at middle of each lane, tower placement makes lanes different. If you take closer look, you will see that on Top lane, Scourge tower is closer to creep meeting spot, while Sentinel is further away. Countrary to that, Bot lane has Sentinel tower closer to middle of lane. This kind of lanes is called "Safe Lane".

Safe lanes place heroes closer to their tower, giving them protection to a degree, and having forest next to them, where you can kill neutral creeps for a lot of gold, yet they are stronger than ordinary ones. Towers deal huge damage to eney heroes in beginning of game, so they won't be fools to try and kill you when you are hugging your tower. However, do not be too sure of yourself! Once things start to heat up, heroes will be more imune to tower, and when one or 2 more come to gank you, you won't be safe anywhere!

Danger lanes (sentinel top / scourge bottom) are further to meeting spot of creeps, and heroes here are exposed to ganks. It is esential that they have some sort of escaping skill like Windwalk or Blink. However, these lanes are closer to Secret shop, where you can buy special items that aren't avaliable anywhere else. Both Top and Bot lane have side-shops that contain some important items during laning phase, such as Ring of Regeneration, or Boots of Speed.

Middle lane is the shortest one, and it too has differences between Sentinel and Scourge. For Sentinel, it is a lot safer, and more difficult to gank, while Scourge has acces to secret shop without leaving the lane. But those are minor differences, and both lanes serve as safe lanes, and fast leveling ones (since people go 1v1 on mid).

Here is a picture demonstrating where each Danger/Safe lane is.


Now, on start of game, team decides how to position heroes. Usually games start with 2/1/2 (2 top, 1 mid, 2 bot), but this is mostly in public games. On competetive, people usually go 1/1/3 (1 top/bot, 1 mid, 3 top/bot). However there are also 1/1/1/1/1 positions (1 top, 1 mid, 1 bot, 1 jungle, 1 roaming) for 3 solo lanes and jungle. However last one is very dangerous, and should be used only when team knows what theyre doing. Also 2/1/1/1 are possible (2 top, 1 mid, 1 bot, 1 jungle).

Now for the lane control... Lets imagine 2 hostile creep waves meet. They will fight forewer, since there are same amount of creeps, same damage, etc. If Sentinel hero hits Scourge creep once, scourge is weakened, and Sentinel will win the battle, thus push further until they meet next wave. They will deal some damage to Scourge, plus hold them up until new Sentinel wave arives. That wave will defeat scourge wave with twice as much creeps alive than last battle. Same repeats until creeps reach tower, and start hitting it. When that wave attacking tower is dead, creep equibrilium returns to original amount if there are no scourge creeps around. If that is case, this hero that hits Scourge creep will push lane further away from his tower, thus making it harder to farm, and making it more dangerous for him. However, if he hits his own creep, reverse will happen. Try to hit enemy creeps only when they have health for 1 attack. That way, you gain gold, and do not move equibrilium a lot. Remember - only hero deals killing blow on creep is rewarded with gold, not one who fought him whole time.

Hitting your own creeps is possible if creep has less then 1/2 of his total health. If you deal killing blow to your own creep, its called deny. Denies give less experience to enemy heroes, and no gold at all. Try to deny more than you last hit, moving closer to your tower, giving you more farm in the long run. However, if you are forced to chose between last hit, and denying, go for last hitting enemy creep.

That would be it for Lane Equibrilium, now on harrassing.

Harassing enemy is constantly attacking him, causing him to burn up all of his healing, and going home to refil. If enemy is not carefull, you could even kill him in process. Harassing is hard with melee heroes, since you will draw creep agro, and will suffer more damage than that hero you were harassing. Ranged heroes can move after hitting, thus evading those creeps. There is also a thing called Orb-Walking.

Some heroes have arrow abilities called orbs (Searing Arrows, Cold Arrows, Glaives of Wisdom, etc, etc). If you left click orb, then left click enemy, game will count it as if you used spell, not ordinary attack and won't draw agro. However, if you put those orbs on auto-cast, and try rightclicking enemy, you will get attacked by creeps.

One more tip - if you are heavily getting harassed, and can't farm, be sure to deny creeps to move closer to safe spot, and draw agro from time to time. Right click enemy hero, then instantly move close to tower. Creeps will follow you there, and you will be able to farm.

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-- BASIC ITEMS and ITEM BUILDS --

Every hero needs items to trully be effective. Some are less item dependant - like Crystal Maiden for example, but some totaly relly on items - Mortred. To buy items, you need gold, to get gold, you need to kill creeps. You get gold ONLY if you deal death blow to creep, so there is no point in whacking him whole day, just pushing lane and making it even harder.

Basic starting items that work on ANY hero in the game would be:


3x Ironwood Branch
1x Magic Stick
1x Ancient Tango of Esentification
1x Healing Salve

Ironwood branches (GG branches) give you 1 to each atribute (STR, INT, AGI), at very cheap price. They can later be used to make Magic Wand. Magic Stick is item usefull on every hero. Whenever nearby enemy uses spell, you get 1 charge to magic stick. Max number of charges is 10 (or 15 on magic wand). When you use Stick/Wand, you get healed for 15 health and mana per charge, while charges are reset to 0. So if you have 10 charges and use item, you will be given 150 health and mana. Charges will increase like mad in team battles. Magic Stick is also used to make magic wand.

Healing salves and Tangoes are used to regenerate your lost hit points. To use them, click on Tango, then click on Tree. This will chop down tree, and give you 100 health over 10 seconds in return. Using salve is different - you click on yourself instead of tree, and it will give 400 health troughout 8 seconds.

Aside from basic items, heroes need different items than each other. There are 104 heroes atm, and a lot of items as well, so i can't post all of those. However, feel free to use hero guides that detaily explain every hero and items you need for him/she/it.

However, there is one item that every hero MUST have. Its Boots of Speed. It increases heros movement speed by 50, and can be upgraded into Power Treads (gives attack speed and also some attributes), Phase Boots (you can walk trough creeps, gives damage), Arcane Boots (gives mana to everyone around when activated), or Boots of Travel (teleports you to target unit or tower). However, do not buy boots at beginning since it will be too expensive, and gives no requiered stats or heal. Best time to buy them would be on minute 3-10 depending on your farm or number of kills/deaths. You can buy boots, and upgrade them at side shop. They can be upgraded to Travels ONLY from base.

Now, you may have wondered what are those recepie thingies. Most of items have recepies. Let me show you practicaly:


Shiva's Guard
Costs: 4700 gold
Recepie:
- Plate Mail (1400)
- Mystic Staff (2700)
- Shiva's Guard recepie (600)


Okay, this is the item. As we can see, item costs 4700 gold, and recepie is made of Plate Mail, Mystic Staff and Shivas guard recepie. When you get all the items, they will automatically be fused into Shiva's Guard item. You can aquire item recepies by clicking on item you want to buy. Some items do not have recepie, lets say... Phase Boots. When you buy Boots of Speed, and 2 Blades of attack, they will automatically fuse into Phase boots, and you don't need to buy Phase boots recepie, like it is with Shiva's guard.

But there are also items that do not require any kind of fusing, like Ogre Axe, or lets say - Sacred Relic.

There are a bunch of shops out here, and to make it clear, i will try to separate them by the kind of items they sell:

This shop sells stat items. They are items like those Ironwood branches mentioned earlier, or Robe of the magi for example. These items are required in most of other recepies. Do not buy these unless you will use them as recepie for creating some stronger items, like Sange (Belt of gigant strenght + Ogre Axe).

This guy sells damage and armor items. There are some usefull starting items in there as well, such as Stout Shield (reduces damage enemy does to you) or Quieling Blade (deals more damage to creeps). If you have some of those tanky guys mentioned earlier, it would be nice to buy an Stout Shield instead of Magic Stick. Or if you have carry kind of hero who needs to kill creeps, get Quilling blade for easier last-hitting.

As for the rest of items - DO NOT buy them unless you will use them to make stronger item. They are pretty useless without upgrading.

This shop sells consumable items that are requiered troughout whole game. You will buy Healing salves, tangoes and clarities during early part of game, bottle if you are gank oriented hero, observer wards if you plan on spying enemies and runes. Sentry wards and dust of appearance are used troughout whole game to see invisible units, such as Rikimaru, or windwalked Gondar. Couriers can be gotten and shared (press F11 and click on whoever you want to use your courier), to aid whole team. Do not share them in public games. Also lets not forget most important item out here - scroll of Town Portal. It allows you to teleport to any building your team has, likely towers or fountain. Always carry at least one scroll of town portal. You will need it to quickly teleport to defend, or attack enemy, or maybe even escape some heroes!

Most unique of all basic shops, here are all utility items. From regenerating health and mana with ring of healt and sobi mask, to teleporting short distances (blinking) with Kelen's Dagger. Also contains Boots of Speed that is a must on every hero. Another item that meets the eye here is Gem of Truesight. It reveals invisible units around carrier, is passive unlike Dust that can only be activated, but it is dropped upon death, so be sure to guard it well, or enemies will get it. You can also find some other interesting items like Magic Stick or Hood of defiance in here.

This shop is highly specialised, and its like a junkyard. Recepies that dont belong anywhere else are dumped in here... Most important stuff here are Boots types. There are also some stat giving recepies here, and unique items.

Heaven for supports! This shop has items to benefit your whole team, not just you. Arcane boots is a must on any spellcaster hero, mekansm is also nice, and pipe is and area hood of defiance. Definately get items from here if you plan on helping teammates.

Items mostly for tanks are in here, these stuff gives some serious armor, and interesting effects like slowing down enemy attack speed with Shiva's Guard, or returning damage dealt to you with Blademail. Nice items for squishy heroes, or those who need to tank a lot of damage / survive.

Shop for spellcasters. It contains staves with various effects, like turning enemies into sheeps with Guinsoo's Schytle of Vyse, or boosting your ultimate with Aghanim's Scepter. Be sure to look around if you are spellcaster oriented character!

Orb shop. This shop has wonderfull variety of effect items, like draining mana with Diffusal, to lowering enemy armor with Desolator. Be vary though, only ONE orb can be carried by hero. If you get more than one, they will malfunction. Some heroes have in-build orbs (broodmother, bone fletcher etc).

The big guns shop.You will find all most powerfull DPS weapons in here. A must for any carry-based hero. Useless on supports...

The secret shop, hidden in forest next to danger lanes. It has some of most powerfull items used in more powerfull recepies. If you can not find requiered item anywhere else, it is here.

That would be it for the items, now lets move to Game Phases!

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-- GAME PHASES --

Okay, there are 3 main phases of game, but to make it easier to understand, i will split them into 5.

1. Starting Phase

Starting Phase is, as name says, phase where everyone picks heroes and heads to lanes. Here you can decide what hero would be the best pick against enemies (if they all get heavy Nuker heroes, don't get someone supper squishy like Slark for example).

Buy the starting items, but remember, try not to buy completed recepies, like Bracers, or Null Talismans. Buying 3 Ironwood Branches and Slipper of Agility does same thing that Wraith Band does, except it costs a lot more, giving you some gold to get regeneration you always need.

Picking lane is something that game can be decided on. If you are low-hp, hard carry, no escape mechanism kind of hero, go to the Safe lane. If you are support based hero, go into safe lane IF there is hard carry in there, if not, go into Danger lane. Middle lane is for heroes that need fast levels to fully make use of their spells, and/or need farm to be effective. Example of this kind of heroes is Pudge. He needs his Meat Hook maxed asap, and Dismember ready to go ganking.

Now that you have picked lane, there is a thing you must learn if you don't know already. Its called creep-blocking.

As the name says, you need to stand in front of creeps, and try to block them as much as possible while theyre marching towards tower. That way, they will be slowed, and you will fight closer to YOUR tower, making lane safer.

Also, if there is Goblin Techies hero on enemy team, be sure to rush into lane as fast as possible, and check out for his location. Usually you will see a meteorite like hole in ground, that means he planted mine in there. Be extremely careful! If you aquire Illusion rune, send one illusion where you think mine is. Then send other one at different location.

2. Early game Phase

Early game starts when creep waves meet. During this phase, your goal is to just stay back, kill as much as creeps as enemy harassment allows. If you are getting harassed TOO much, just stay within 1200 range of dying creeps to get experience, and forget farming. There will be plenty of times when you can freefarm, and experience is a lot more worthy than money early on.

However, if you meet some defensive lane that doesn't harass, feel free to harass them, establishing lane dominance. However, deny as much creeps as you can, or else lane will just be pushed forward into their tower.

During this phase, get Boots of Speed, upgrade Ironwood Branches and Magic Stick into Magic Wand, and get some adittional heal if you need it.

3. Mid game phase

Mid phase starts at different points for different heroes. Some heroes, like Pudge start mid game in level 7 - when he has Meat Hook maxed, and Dismember ready. Some heroes like Mortred have mid game started when they have Dominator and treads ready for example, since then they can jungle uninterupted.

During mid game, there will be a LOT of ganking. Heroes will try to kill exposed enemies, so be sure to stay in safe zone, close to tower. However, when 4 people come for you, tower wont help a lot... If you have ganker hero, just travel trough lanes and kill everyone you see. After each kill, push lane and destroy tower to make full use of gank.

Back to that safe zone thingie - there is no such thing as safe zone now, since heroes are more imune to towers (more health, bigger armor), so play safe! When noone is on minimap, go back. When you see enemy dot behind you on map, use town portal instantly, and hope it takes enemy more than 3 seconds to reach you (if they stun you, tp is wasted, so do be careful).



Okay, here you can see how dangerous zones are. Dots represent Sentinel (red) andScourge (green) towers, and there are 3 levels of zones:

Green - Safe zone. Only two places can truly be considered safe during mid game, and those are Scourge bottom tower (it will take enemies a while to travel all the way around just to ambush you, and you can clearly see where enemies are. Second safe zone is Sentinel Mid tower. It also has clear view unlike scourge 2nd mid, so you can consider it pretty safe as well.

Yellow - Moderate zone. You cant be really safe here, but if there is no place else to go, these are avaliable. They are mostly close to towers, where you have certain degree of protection, and moderately clear view.

Red - Dangerous zone. You may have noticed, but in mid game, "safe" lanes have become dangerous. Simply because there is short way around them, and they offer low space to manouver, making most of ambushes that were imposible in early game, deadly in mid game. Also, rune spots, ancient camps and Roshan are considered dangerous zones, since it is high likely you will meet enemy there.

WARRNING: NO ZONE IS SAFE. IF YOU ARE CHASED BY BLOODSEEKER OR BALANAR WHILE HAVING 100 HP, EVEN BASE CAN'T HELP YOU! DO NOT REMAIN IN SAFE ZONES IF YOU HAVE LESS THAN 20% HP THINKING THAT YOURE SAFE!

4. Late game phase

Late game begins when your carry farms up needed items, and you destroyed few enemy towers. In this phase, just stick close to your team, don't go ramboing around alone. At this time, you should try to end game if possible, if not, let your carry farm a little more, or take down Roshan. Roshan is stone golem that drops Aegis of the Imortal. The hero who holds Aegis is revived upon death, but aegis dissapears. Roshan has a lot of health, so it will take time to kill.

When killing Roshan, be extremely careful! If enemies amush you there, your team is most likely dead. Have Observer wards around to see where enemies are. Best time to kill Roshan is after you kill enemy team, and theres noone to ambush you.

5. End game phase

End game phase is usually around minute 60+ if game isn't finished yet. Hard carries have all items, and can usually go solo 5v1, however, it is best if all team goes together. Hard carries can just be perma-stunned to death, so they need to rely on rest of team.

Finish game as fast as possible. Nothing more to say here.

Okay, those would be some basic stuff that can help newbie get around DotA easier, but now, lets head to some more advanced stuff.

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-- RUNES and RUNE CONTROL --

You may have seen those strange floating things in River. They are called Runes. When you take rune, you get some bonus for half a minute or so. Lets get over runes:

Rune of Haste - Gives hero maximum movement speed (522) for 30 seconds when used. It is useful for chasing down enemies, scouting areas, or covering map fast. You can also use rune to position yourself easier in team battle, if you have spell that needs positioning (Treants overgrowth, Tidehunters Ravage etc)

Rune of Invisibility - Makes hero invisible for 45 seconds. If you come close to tower, you can be seen. You can also be revealed by Gem of Truesight, Dust of Appearance or Sentry Wards. Useful for scouting and spying enemies, positioning in team battles and ganking. Takes 1 second to set in. Can also be used for escaping, but remember - that 1 second set in time can be difference between life and death!

Rune of Illusion - Illusions are same looking as your hero, but they deal less, and take more damage. They can be used for scouting, as living ward, but their best use is baiting enemy. You can even bait enemies onto using ultimates on your poor illusion ^^. Each Illusion lasts 75 seconds.

Rune of Double Damage - Doubles hero damage for 45 seconds. This is mostly used on carry heroes, since their damage potential will double! Best used for killing heroes and pushing towers, but if you have nothing else to do, it can help with last hitting creeps.

Rune of Regeneration - Regenerates hero 100hp/second and 67 mana/second for 30 seconds or until he takes damage. Can be useful if you have no health or mana to fight, but need to be in action.

Empty bottle - Item that can be used to store runes. When you purchase it, bottle has 3 charges. Each charge restores 135 health and 70 mana. Once you use all 3 charges, you can left click on bottle, then click on rune you want to capture. It will be inside of bottle for 2 minutes, or until you use it. When you use it, charges will be refiled. You can also refill charges when you are near fountain.

Runes spawn on 2 locations on river. Every 2 minutes, rune will spawn either up, or down. Another rune will not spawn until existing one is used.

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-- WARDING and COURIER --

Wards can be used to scout different areas, and can result safer laning (you see enemy comming to kill you, so you go back), or knowing when enemy is killing Roshan. Wards are usually gotten by support heroes that don't need items to be effective (Crystal Maiden, Warlock, etc).

There are so many ward spots, and i can't cover them all. But, some people have made great guides, specific and detailed about ward locations.

Take a look at Lycan's guide for warding..
Also, check out Heldarions total warding!.
These two guides will cover everything you need to know about wards!

As for the courier... they are quick low-hp units that can be used to deliver you items from base. Courier costs 170 gold, and needs 200 to be upgraded. To share courier, press F11 key, then check all players you want to share to.

BE WARRY! Teammates can also use your hero, so if you see someone using hero, unshare instantly, before he does something like wasting your ultimate, or seling your items.

There is also a nice courier guide - Standardcombo made quite good job making this!

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-- JUNGLE and JUNGLING --

I have mentioned jungles before, and said that i will explain later. So here it goes: Jungle is place filled with Neutral creeps of different strengths. Most common purpose of jungle is to serve as farming ground when every lane is pushed too far.

There are 4 different camp difficulties:
1. Weak camps - 5 Kobolds / 3 Harpies / 3 Trolls / Witch and Felbeasts
2. Medium camps - 2 Mud golems / 3 Ogres / 2 Centaurs / 3 Wolves
3. Strong camps - 3 Satyrs / 3 Trolls / 2 Centaurs / 2 Ursa Warriors
4. Ancient camps - 3 Black Dragons / 3 Thunder Lizards / 3 Vendigos
(5) Roshan - Since he is neutral, im listing him as well. He is powerful creep that drops an item when killed. Item is called Aegis of the Imortal. It revives its carrier after death.



Before i explain jungling, there is a tactic called "Creep pulling". You can enrage some neutrals to follow you onto lane, where they meet sentinel/scourge creeps. From there, when they return to neutral spot, Sent/Scrg creeps follow them and fight. You then last-hit every neutral carefully without losing any health. You need to practice a few times to learn the timing.

On that picture above, you can see 4 arrows. Green ones are medium-camp pulls that are used most often, while red ones are more dangerous and they are hard camps.

Some heroes can go jungle from level 1, giving an lane ability to go solo. If jungled correctly, player will be same level as side-lanes, but have a lot more gold (since EVERY creep is his, no denies). Heroes that can jungle must have either healing passive kind of spell, or summon. Here are all junglers (starting from sentinel strength, not from jungling capability):

Huskar
He can jungle, however it is risky. He has heal, and the less hp he has, the better for him, but if you get ganked, youre dead. I never played him like this, but i've seen players doing it, so i can't suggest starters. You need to do a lot of pulls.

Sylvabear
His bear can act as tank for him. Start off with 1 Stout Shield, 1 Quilling blade and Salve. Give both blade and shield to bear, but at level 5, take Quilling blade, since it doesn't stack with bear's Entangle. Max spirit bear ASAP.

Troll Warlord
He can jungle pretty nicely. Problematic part will be until you get Mask of Death, but after that, you will be unstopable. Do pulls whenever possible.

Enchanteres
She can control any neutral trough her Enchant spell. Max it and heal for best effect. Get mana regeneration items like clarities or Ring of Basilius.

Holy Knight
He permanently steals neutral until its death. Get him clarities and rush Ring of Basilius asap, since it gives creeps mana regeneration (they don't have it naturally),

The Prophet
He can summon treants (creeps that spawn each wave for sentinels), so its similar to pulls. However, i do not recomend jungling with this guy, he is a lot better as ganker.

Windrunner
She entirely depeneds on pulls to do the job, however pulls are very easy with her. She can pull any camp there is for Sentinel, and most for Scourge. Max Power Shot, and use it to clear forests, making pulls easy. Go for the hard camps if possible. I do not recomend her for jungling, but i have seen people do it.

Morgul Khan
He keeps spining like mad, and with some luck, clears creeps very fast. Get him 2 stout shields and tango at begining to block out most of neutral damage.

Doom Bringer
He can't really jungle too good, but his Devour is one of best jungling abilities. Gives you extra gold, ability that devoured neutral has, and insta-kills it. He needs to do a lot of pulls as well.

Lycanthrope
Maybe best jungler around, since his wolves are very strong from level 5 onwards. Ring of Basilius is a must, it improves wolves, and can be turned into Vladimir later.

Skeleton King
He can jungle pretty well. He has passive heal, BUT on levels 2 and 3 you will take critical aura. One level of stun is needed, but stun won't increase duration with level, so no point in upgrading the skill. Quiling blade, stout shield and some heal are nececairy.

Lifestealer
Really nice jungler, take feast whenever possible, one level of Rage for stun evading, and Open Wounds for lane ganking. Don't get him Quiling Blade, he needs attack speed, not damage (since more attacks = more heal, and more damage =/= more heal), but get stout shield and some regen.

Bloodseeker
Every time he kills creep, he is healed for percentage of its HP. Nice jungler overall. Get only 2 levels of heal, maxing Strygwirs Thirst is a must since you will be ganking pretty soon.

Broodmother
She needs few pulls before she is level 3. Then her spiderlings can do the job just fine. Basilius is also a must in here. If jungling - NO WEB!

Terrorblade
Old terrorblade could jungle nicely, but this one is good also. His zeal gives him nice regen and attack speed for clearing creeps. However he needs few pulls also before he is level 3.

Dark Seer
His Ion Shell eats creeps alive. He is maybe faster jungler than Axe. Start off with small camps, do medium pulls and return to small camps. One shell per camp, don't bother stacking it.

Those are all heroes that can jungle from beginning.

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-- ADVANCED MANOUVERS --

There are a few tactics that can make you win the battle, survive with sliver of health, or play with the minds of your opponents! Lets go over them...

Wait a second, i can't tell you all those tricks without you knowing what Fog of War is. Fog of War (FoW) is black mask that covers invisible parts of map. If a hero has 1800/1200 sght range, he will see 1800 range on all sides, however, after those 1800 range, there is a grayed part. Nothing is visible in grayed part until you come close. But when you explore that part, one where you were earlier becomes grayed.

- Juking and abusing FoW

Juking means using fog of war to your advantage. If you run uphill lets say, enemy won't have sight of you, and won't know did you go left or right. Trees also obstruct vision, so you could just run in circle around an tree, and enemy won't see you.

There are also a lot of secret paths within trees that you can use. I do not have time nor patience to list all of them, but there are some people who did that:

Check out this guide! It has all of Junking moves covered up.

- Animation canceling

When a hero casts spell, he will waste few seconds doing nothing after spell is finished casting. Take a look at Crystal Maiden for example:

Casting animation:0.3/2.4

That means she needs 0.3 seconds to finish casting spell, then in next 2.4 seconds, she will just wave her staff around doing nothing. You can cancel that by ordering hero to move somewhere as soon as spell is cast (i.e. 0.3 seconds passed).

Practice doing this, it is a must if you want to play better.

WARRNING: While most spells and attacks can be animation canceled, there are a bunch of spells that cant. Those are mostly channeling spells. They require hero to stay idle for a few seconds until he completes casting. An good example is Freezing field, a spell by Crystal Maiden i mentioned earlier.

- Orb-walking

Some heroes have special abilities called Orbs. Those are abilities that have Auto-cast (if you right-click on them), and change your projectile into doing something.

For example:
Traxex has Frost Arrows spell. She can either manually cast those arrows, or auto-cast them (they will automatically cast each hit). Now, unlike normal attacks, these orbs are considered spells, so they can be animation canceled.

By using animation cancel, then moving a little closer to target, then use manually, then animation cancel, then move little closer... etc etc etc, you get few more attacks, often getting a kill you wouldn't have otherwise.

Also, when you manually cast spells, you do not attract creeps, thus manually orb attacking enemies is good, since you do not aggro creeps, but if enemy tries to attack you back, he will be damaged by YOUR creeps.

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-- GENERAL TIPS --

Help me a little here by posting more tips in comments. Thanks!


- Do not cross the river alone. You will be easy pray on enemy part of map.
- Report missing heroes by saying "SS vengefull" for example.
- Buy Boots of Speed on every hero.
- Be careful when walking up hills. Enemy could wait you, and you won't see him because of FoW.
- If you are support kind of hero, leave kills to Hard Carry and Carry.
- Don't join games hosted by this guy:


Last one was serious! If you get in, you will lose and get published onto playdota replays where everyone will be laughing at you! Do at your own risk! XD

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-- GUIDES --

There are so many guides out there, and i can't list all of them for you. Plus, different guides have different aspects of playing, so check out all of them before saying anything!

For this part, i will send you to Val's guide on every hero. He has written nice guide out there, and i think its fast way to see about your hero when you don't have too much time finding right guides:

Val's Guide to every hero.

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-- CLOSING --

That would be mostly it... Hopefully this guide will help you learn DotA faster. Thanks for reading!

From: masterja