Dota 2: A Beginner's Guide

Dota is an acronym for Defense of the Ancients, the name of a modification made by fans of the strategy game Warcraft III. In the classic Dota, players teamed up in groups of five and defended their base while trying to destroy the enemy team’s base using the Heroes.

Dota 2 is a spiritual sequel to this mod, and the matches work basically in the same way. Each hero possesses unique abilities, and you can choose to control anyone among the more than 100 available characters, planning strategies with your teammates to win the game.

Farm

A base concept for Dota is the Farm. As a game with multiple RPG elements, in Dota you have to level up your character, and to that end you’ll need to get experience points and improve your abilities as your level progresses. The act of getting the experience and leveling up is called Farm, and can be obtained in various ways.

The creeps, units which are different from the heroes and who can either act independently or be controlled, are the main farm source. Each team has their creep units, who will traverse the lanes in the map, going out in groups, which will continuously leave the base and attack enemy units along the lanes. Alongside the creeps, there are also towers, fixed buildings on each side of the map throughout the lanes which will bomb enemy units as they get close enough to get in range, being quite effective in defending the lanes in the early stages of the game.

Eliminating enemy heroes is also an efficient way to farm, being a rather important source to some heroes.

Another important element in the game, directly connected to Farm, is the Gold, the currency used in-game to buy items.

Items are essential and indispensable, since it’s by combining them and the abilities that you will create your builds, and each match calls for a certain Build, so getting to know the items is almost as essential as getting familiar with the heroes.

How do Matches Work in Dota 2?

Dota matches are usually played in teams of five. There are several game modes, but the most well-known is the All Pick mode, where you choose a hero and a lane to start the match on. The team which advances through the lanes, destroying the towers and getting to the enemy base, then also destroying the buildings at the center of the base, is the winner.

There are other game modes, such as Turbo, an accelerated version of the All Pick, where gold and EXP are more easily acquired. There are also two Draft modes, the heroes Single Draft where you pick one among 4 hero options, and the Ability Draft, where you are assigned a randomized hero and will have to compete with your opponents for a selection of also randomized abilities, building an entirely new hero.

Each hero possesses primary attribute and statuses, in addition to mana and HP, which are game resources, mana being one of the main resources which gets even more importance when we talk about abilities.

There are three primary attributes in the game, Intelligence, Strength and Agility.

Intelligence heroes are usually focused on providing support to the team, be it by healing, protection or neutralizing the enemies in some way, but are also capable of performing powerful magic which can easily get kills and even carry the game.

Strength heroes are stronger fighters and can initiate combat, serving as a shield for the team, or ambushing weaker enemies (gank). Agility heroes are weaker at the beginning and vary between short and long-distance combat, but they escalate their power during the match and can carry the team to victory. There is also a fourth one, Universal type, which gathers heroes able to navigate between the other three types (depending on their build) due to having more well-balanced primary attributes.

In matches, the heroes fill specific roles, and their abilities play a fundamental part in defining how efficient they will be in a certain role.

Carry

The carry or hard carry is the kind of hero which has great potential to define the outcome of the game as soon as they finish their build. To that end, they need to kill enemy creeps (farm) and level up as fast as possible, combining items which favor their abilities or that grant them some advantage in combat so that they can get strong enough to annihilate enemy heroes.

Mid

The mid or mid laner is the hero who plays in the middle lane. This role is usually better played by ranged characters, who can get strong very fast, being capable of leaving the mid to ambush enemies in other lanes still during the first minutes of the match, since farm is easier and the mid laner can evolve faster.

Tank

The tank is a hero capable of starting combat, taking damage and abilities from the opponents to make way for their team. They are normally heroes with a lot of armor or with some kind of protection which helps them withstand the first attacks.

Supports

Supports are heroes which will provide support to the team, either by healing them or helping them by creating farm opportunities. Their abilities can be for protection, mana/HP sustain, disabling enemy heroes or preparing ambushes.

One of the most important roles for a support is making sure the team has vision on the map, using wards. Dota’s map is not 100% visible, and a good portion of it is obscured by a sort of fog, and inside this fog heroes can only see within their field of vision, the field of vision of allied units or through wards, items which broaden the perimeter you can see inside the fog and can also reveal invisible units.

After understanding the different heroes in the game, it’s time to get to know a bit about the items and how to combine them with abilities. There are several items in Dota 2, and we can differ them according to their effects.

Dispel

Items can improve certain abilities and hero attributes, and in the same way there are those that dispel other effects. In Dota there are three dispel types.

Basic Dispel

Basic Dispel can be categorized into: Ally dispel, enemy dispel and dispel by death.

Basic Dispel acts in different ways on allies and enemies. Obligatorily, the Dispel will remove negative effects from allies and positive effects from enemies.

One item that exemplifies quite well the way Dispel works differently in teammates and opponents is the Wind Waker, which can make it so that you, an ally or an enemy gets thrown up in the air by a hurricane for a certain amount of time, making the target invulnerable but removing them from combat during its effect time.

Strong Dispel

There is only one item in the entire game which provides this kind of dispel, the Aeon Disk, which grants damage resistance when the hero's HP drops below 70% and nullifies the damage caused and received by the hero for its effect time.

The majority of the Strong Dispels come from certain heroes’ abilities.

Death Dispel

Dying in the match dispels every effect, be them positive or negative, which have been applied to a hero.

Disable

Control or Disable items are usually attached to certain effects which limit enemy heroes in some way, maybe preventing them from dealing damage, using their abilities and/or items, or even from moving.

Buying Items

In-game, you can access the item shops in your base (next to the font) or in the jungle (there is a secret shop on each opposite side of the map). Some items require you to combine other items to get them, and to know which items to get, you must follow a recipe. Combining basic items, you can get stronger ones, and combining those you get even more powerful items.

Aghanim

Aghanim’s Scepter is almost an obligatory item to any hero, improving a specific ability or granting a new and unique one, on top of also improving some attributes. There will be matches where having an Aghanim can make all the difference, and it’s also an indispensable item to certain heroes.

Aghanim’s Shard is an item that complements the Scepter, but keep in mind that getting both is not obligatory. The Shard will have a similar effect to the Scepter, improving an ability or granting a new one, but costing considerably less and not having the statuses buffs.

Each hero will make better use of one or the other, depending on who you are facing and which hero you are playing as.

Neutral Items

As the game plays out and the clock ticks, the neutral creeps can drop a token that you can use to acquire an extra item, which stays at a specific slot in your inventory. There are several different neutral items with several different abilities, and the higher the level of said token, these items can be as strong as a normal item. When you do not use a neutral item, it gets sent to the base’s neutral stash.

Other Important Items

In addition to the ones explained above, there are also consumable items which can be game changers if well-used, such as the previously mentioned wards.

Town Portal Scroll

Allows you to teleport to the proximity of an allied building (Towers and other buildings).

Smoke of Deceit

Raises an invisibility curtain upon you and nearby allies. It can be used to ambush enemies. The curtain is removed when you get too close to an enemy hero.

Tango

Initial item which can be used to consume a tree in exchange for HP regeneration, crucial during the first levels.

Enchanted Mango

When consumed, it regenerates 100 mana points instantly and also provides some HP regeneration.

Since Dota has its fundamentals deeply rooted in RPGs, you’ll need all the strategy possible to win the games, and this strategy has to be planned out by the team as a whole.

There are certain game postures so essential that we can call them the Dota pillars, these being indispensable knowledge to any player, beginner or veteran, such as ganking or making use of the wards, commonly called warding.

Each role will need to play its part in the best way possible, and know how to place the team’s needs above their own.

There are roles which will have their parts clearly defined and important, such as the support helping out the carry, making sure they can farm effectively, or the mid leaving their lane to help out the rest of the team, either by helping in defense or ambushing enemies (gank).

It’s important to also know how to use the minimap and understand that roles are not 100% set in stone, and the team must rotate through the lanes as needed, always communicating and refining their strategy.

Many times a more experienced player or one who is doing better in that match can assume a leadership role, and the team must follow them should they feel comfortable to do so, always avoiding conflict and unnecessary arguing, never losing sight of the fact that it is, above all else, a game where the main objective is having fun.

The Dota 2 universe is vast. In this article, I barely scratched the surface of this game’s complexity, and I hope to delve deeper in the concepts I approached here in future articles.

Leave your questions, suggestions or critics in the comments and I will try to answer each one, and don’t forget to check out my guide to Witch Doctor Builds.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!