WELCOME TO DOTA,

YOU SUCK

A Guide to DOTA by Purge

Book Design by Thomas Heinrichs

www.tomhdesign.com
Purge’s Welcome to DOTA, You Suck guide is well
regarded as the premiere guide for learning the
basics of DOTA 2.

It covers topics such as heroes to pick when you’re

new, basic strategy breakdown, controls, lane
setups, basic game mechanics such as damage
types, good starting items, and some important
numbers that new players don’t know.

After reading the basics of the guide, I recommend

you hop over to the youtube channel at
youtube.com/PurgeGamers for gameplay tips and
recordings of Purge’s gameplay, or view the guide on
his website at purgegamers.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
53 GAME MECHANICS

9 THE TASK YOU ARE 59 DISGUSTINGLY COMMON NOOB

UNDERTAKING MISTAKES

13 HOW TO SURVIVE PUBLIC 67 IMPORTANT NUMBERS THAT

GAMES NOOBS DON’T KNOW

17 PICKING YOUR HERO 71 WHAT TO BUY WITH STARTING

GOLD

23 A VERY BASIC DOTA

77 HOW TO PLAN OUT YOUR ITEM
BREAKDOWN BUILDS

27 BASIC DOTA 2 CONTROLS

81 A SHORT PIECE OF SINCERITY,
THEN BACK TO YOU SUCKING

31 PHASES OF THE GAME

83 WHERE DO I FIND THIS ITEM?

43 HERO TYPES
95 OH GOD, THEY ARE TRYING TO
GANK ME

49 GOOD TEAM AND LANE SETUP 99 LAST HIT THIS GUIDE

 1
THE

TASK
YOU
ARE UNDERTAKING

8
 THE TASK YOU ARE
UNDERTAKING

Y
You are going to be constantly reminded of how
much you suck for about 1-3 months (if you learn).
If you read this guide and use your brain and be
actively aware of how bad you suck, you can easily
shave time off of your complete noob status. You
could even make some kids think that you’re really
good, but only if they are bad.
Basically, it is going to take a really long time to get
bored with this game. Every game is different. I’ve
spent about 3+ years of my full gaming time focused
on DOTA and DOTA 2, and I have no intention of
stopping anytime soon.

You may be interested in playing Heroes of Newerth

Unfortunately, DOTA 2 has a massive learning curve.
You need to play each of the 110 heroes at least
once each to have basic understanding of the power
levels of each hero.
(HoN) or League of Legends (LoL), but we argu-
ably have the best developer, Icefrog. He has been
Every game of DOTA working on DOTA since 2005 with no income (until
2 is a new adventure getting hired by valve to make Dota 2) and no
for you to experience! release of his real name. DotA and DOTA 2 are both

Each game takes on average 30-50 minutes.

Prepare to play a lot of DOTA. If you want to cut
this down, go to websites and read hero skills and
guides, and from there you should get basic ideas of
how to play these heroes.

You are going to have to learn items, strategies,

laning combos, abbreviations, and massive amounts
of teamwork.

However, I promise that once you get the basics

down, and you start playing casually with your
friends, that you are going to have a ton of fun.

There is no grinding for weeks to get that gear you

want like in an MMO. Rolling a new hero is as easy
as playing one game, and each game you can go
different skill/item builds with different team setups.

10 11
considered to be extremely balanced games at the
professional level, and new hero and item additions
always add new flavor and slight nudges to any
heroes that are considered overpowered.

I see no reason to pick HoN or LoL, and please,

never mention Storm of the Imperial Sanctum ever
again, unless you want to try playing DotA circa
2004 with good graphics and a tiny map.

2
HOW TO

SURVIVE
PUBLIC

GAMES LEARNING DOTA WITH

EMOTIONS INTACT, AS A NOOB

12
 HOW TO SURVIVE
PUBLIC GAMES

Y
You are going to feed. You are going to ruin games,
and someone is going to be happy to tell you why.
DOTA was originally played in Warcraft 3, and they
had the most bad mannered, whining assholes on
the gaming internet. The only thing that comes close
is Xbox Live. Luckily, with DOTA 2, Valve has been
making some really great strides to create a better
environment for all players involved. The people play-
ing the game are better than they used to be, but
you are still playing a team game that requires your
allies to not be idiots for you to succeed. There will
almost always be some levels of disappointment and
frustration between your aliies and you.

My #1 tip to playing DOTA 2 is that if someone

flames you or is freaking out about your play in an
overly (key word) critical way, press the mute button There are many You are going to have to have thick skin to play
on them immediately and then enjoy the rest of the If you don’t know how different game modes DOTA 2. To get around this major barrier of entry,
game from your peaceful, but mysteriously quiet ally. to mute, I made a you can select to play against the bots when you first start. The bots
Ignoring them doesn’t work. Let them say 1 mean super easy diagram. play to spice up your will not rage at you, they won’t care if you feed. They
thing and let that be it. Your day will be much better If you can count to 2 game! will teach you the heroes by destroying you with
this way, I promise. you are set! them, and no one has to know.

Here are a couple quick hero modes that you might

be confused about as well. Not all of these are avail-
able in matchmaking quite yet.

All Pick (AP) lets you draft (pick) your hero from the
entire pool. You can also random for an extra 200
gold at the start of the game.

14 15
All Random (AR) forces everyone in the game to
receive a random hero. Randoming is a great way to
learn all of the hereos.

Single Draft (SD) is a mode that gives you 1 strength

hero, 1 agility hero, and 1 intelligence hero to choose
from. The heroes are random. As of this writing, you
cannot swap heroes in Single Draft mode, but it will
be fixed eventually.

Random Draft (RD) is a mode that randomly chooses

3
20 heroes of the hero pool for the players in the
game to choose from. You take turns between your
team and the opponents to pick your heroes, similar
to kickball. If you don’t choose in time you get a
random hero, so make sure you choose fast!

Captains Mode (CM) is the mode that you see the

professionals play, which involves rounds of ban-
ning, picking, banning again, and then final round

PICKING
of picking. This mode is not recommended at all for
new players.

Captains Draft (CD) is the mode that is a blend of

Random Draft and Captains Draft. You get to draft
and ban based on a limited hero pool, which ends up
being like Captains mode, but with less repetition. I

YOUR
really like this mode for pubs!

HERO
16
 PICKING YOUR HERO

Avoid these heroes: Pick me if you are new:

CHEN INVOKER MEEPO VISAGE CENTAUR CHAOS KNIGHT CRYSTAL MAIDEN LICH

Probably avoid these heroes:

LION OGRE MAGI SAND KING SKELETON KING

PUCK SHADOW FIEND SILENCER SNIPER

T
SLARDAR SVEN TIDEHUNTER VENGEFUL SPIRIT

TEMPLAR ASSASSIN IO

These are just general guidelines. None of those

heroes are bad necessarily, but they take a little
getting used to because they are either complicated VENOMANCER WARLOCK WITCH DOCTOR
or squishy without an escape. You can’t just play
your first game of dota and go 15-0-17 with silencer.
It just isn’t going to happen.

This is just small selection of all the heroes in DOTA

and this doesn’t mean that the rest of the heroes
aren’t challenging to learn.

18 19

All of the heroes I just listed are not super
complicated to play, and that is why they are great
heroes to play for new people. Most of these heroes
have 1 or 2 important skills, and that covers most
of their usefulness. I will not explain how to play
these heroes, but go search for a guide for each of
these heroes. Usually the guides give you very good
guidelines and let you play those heroes to 80-100%
effectiveness. Keep in mind that I listed a few Hard
Carries there, and I listed the ones who are pretty
simple. I listed those heroes because of their sim-
plicity, not because you can easily dictate the game
with them. Keep in mind that any hero with a Stun is
going to be way more useful/easy to use, generally.
Stuns are your friend. They make it much easier to
win the game.
20
PICKING YOUR HERO
Now, really talented players will always play these
heroes way better than newbies, but for a new
person who can’t handle more than one spell to
cast, these are the heroes you will want to play to
get used to DOTA, and make the skill curve hurt less.
At the least, you won’t feel confused when you read
their skills and try playing the heroes.
You may not realize this, but I listed virtually no
DOTA 2 Contains a carries as heroes to recommend. The only ones I did
guide system when in were Skeleton King and Chaos Knight. They have
doubt of what to do very few skills (1 of which is a stun), you farm up,
when playing a new and you right click a hero until they die. Other carries
hero! Just click the are more complicated, and at the least, you need to
tome in the upper left know the strengths and weaknesses of the heroes
hand corner. you are fighting because it allows you to play to your
heroes’ strengths.
Some people would argue that any new player
should not play carries (which I agree with), but we
can’t hold your hand forever, so at least play the
ones that are easy to get used to and execute (com-
pared to other carries).
21
 4
A VERY

BASIC
DOTA
BREAKDOWN

22
 A VERY BASIC
DOTA BREAKDOWN

D
DOTA is a game about teamwork, gaining expe-
rience, and gaining gold. Ultimately you want to
destroy the enemy team’s throne. The throne is deep
inside their base and to get there, you have to beat
down enemy creeps, enemy towers, and also
enemy heroes.

There are basic units spawned every 30 seconds

from each of the three lanes. For most of the game Killing creeps is a
there are 3 melee creeps and 1 ranged creep. major part of the
Periodically a Catapult is added, and eventually in game. Doing so
the game there are more melee and ranged creeps. requires you to run
Creeps also slowly gain max hp over the course down a lane with your
of the game. creeps to do battle!

Killing towers is At early levels your heroes are very weak and cannot
dangerous, but it can clear creep waves and towers by yourself. To get
net you a ton of gold stronger you need items. To get items you need
to buy items with. to get money.

You gain gold for getting the last hit on the heroes or
creeps. When you land the final blow on an enemy
creep (last hit or lh) you receive a random amount
of gold for the kill (about 35-45 gold per creep). If
you land the final blow on an allied creep (you can
only attack allied creeps below 50% hp) then you
deny your lane opponents the chance to last hit that
creep, and they also get less exp as a result. The
amount of creeps you’ve killed in a game is called
cs, or creep score.

24 25
You also get gold when your team destroys a tower
(about 350-450 for a last hit on a tower, 160 if your
teammates or team kills it, 80 if the enemy denies a
tower). Your tower has to be below 10% hp to deny
it. The magic number on level 1 towers is below
130 hp. If you deny a tower, you are denying your
enemy team a total of 400 gold. That is a huge
amount of gold.

Killing creeps is the fastest way to farm with very few

exceptions. If you want to get farmed (get a lot of

5
gold quickly) you want to last hit every single creep
in each wave.

You gain experience when enemy creeps and heroes

die around you, defeated by your team.

When you gain enough experience, you gain a level.

You start at level 1, and the max is level 25.

Almost every single hero gets 3 basic skills, 1 ulti-

BASIC

DOTA 2
mate (or ult), and the option for stats instead of skill
levels. Each basic skill can be leveled up 4 times,
each ultimate 3 times, and you can get 10 levels of
stats by level 25. Each level of stats gives you +2 str,
+2 agi, and +2 int. Stats will be explained later. Every
hero has some kind of combos between each of his
skills. Usually you can figure these out by reading the
skills, sometimes it takes watching another player
perform them.
CONTROLS

26
 BASIC DOTA 2 CONTROLS

L
Left click to select your Hero. When your hero is
selected right click to move to a location. To attack a
hero, press the A hotkey and left click their hero, or
right click on the enemy hero.

If you press the A hotkey and left click on the

ground (not on a hero) you will move to that position
attacking the closest enemy, creep or hero on the
way there.

To use an enemy or ally targeted ability, click the

ability icon or please for the love of god learn and
press the hotkey and then left click on the hero.
I strongly recommend selecting your hero and
pressing Control +1 (unless you use the number keys
for hotkeys in DOTA 2). This hotkeys your hero to
number 1. F1 is also permanently selected to your
hero without any setup. If you ever need to find your
hero or select him, just double tap 1 (or F1) and the
screen will center your hero, and he will be under
your control.
ANIMATION CANCELLING
Every hero has an amount of time it takes to perform
an attack, like swinging your sledgehammer back before
crushing brains. This is called an attack animation.
All heroes have different attack animations. Some are
very long, some are very short. They are all quite reduced
Note that most late game when your hero gets more attack speed. Slow
hotkeys are attack animations are most notable early game. All attack
customizable in the animations have attack points. I am going to explain this
DOTA 2 settings! Go with an example.
poke around in there.
Lets say it takes Necrolyte 1.5 seconds to finish an
attack animation, but he actually throws his attack at
1.1 seconds. This means that you only have to wait 1.1
seconds to throw an attack. The best way to cancel this
is to right click on the ground to move at 1.1 seconds.
This is extremely important when chasing. It’s normally
called attack move or orb walking (when heroes have orbs
like slows).
If you do not cancel your animation at 1.1 seconds, you
will stand there for no reason for .4 seconds, which could
be used to move towards your opponent, and is some-
times the difference between getting a kill or not. Always,

28 29
always learn the animation cancel for your character if
they have a long animation. Most melee heroes have a
faster animation, and generally ranged heroes have the
longer animations.

6
PHASES

OF THE

GAME
LANING, GANK, PUSH

30

A
As was said before, you want levels and you want gold.
Because of item, level, and skill limitations early game,
heroes generally stay in very close proximity to the
other team in their lanes. This is mostly because their
skills lack enough killing and chasing power. Level 1
spells do low damage, and their slow and stun dura-
tions are usually low, etc.
Laning
The purpose of laning is to get experience from enemy
creeps dying, and gold from getting creep last hits.
With the experience you gain levels and with the gold
32
PHASES OF THE GAME
you gain better items. Generally if all things are equal
(picks, skill, etc.), whichever team has a level and gold
advantage will win the game if they continue the trend.
If you play right (perfect teamwork) against another
perfect teamwork team, the little things matter.
To improve your experience and gold advantage over
your opponent, your best option is to kill them. When
you kill them you gain about 250 gold and usually
Laning is all about about a level’s worth of experience. Anyone who
timing the last hit supported you in that kill also gets some support gold
on the creeps to get even though they didn’t land the final blow.
gold.
Your second best option is to almost kill them and
make them go back to base to heal. If they go back to
heal, they spend 20-40 seconds walking slowly all the
way back to base. This is .5-1 levels worth of expe-
rience they are missing out on, and they also miss all
chances of last hits and denies.
To reduce the effect of almost being killed you should
purchase a tp scroll from base and make the trip back
shorter. If you are playing a core (farming hero) it’s
worth the 100 gold. This is hard for noobs to get over,
but that is ~3 last hits and you are even again. That’s
3 last hits and a lot of creep exp that you would spend
time walking back and forth. Simply put, always buy
a tp scroll and use it when going somewhere long
range. The players that are always under leveled spend
a lot of time walking back and forth to base to heal.
This problem is usually caused by bad play or by not
33

purchasing enough regeneration items, but buying
tp scrolls will help make up for the time waste. Also,
always carry a tp scroll at all times in case you need to
get somewhere fast.
The final most important thing you can learn about
laning, is please for the love of god do not autoattack
the creeps. There is a place where the creeps meet
and beat on each other until they die. This is called
the creep line. The creeps do a very exact amount of
damage. Generally, if two waves of creeps fight end-
lessly on flat ground, the creep line will not move. If you
start auto attacking or nuking the creeps, the creep line
will be pushed closer to the enemy’s tower. When they
enemy is closer to their tower, they are closer to being
34
PHASES OF THE GAME
safe. It is so much more difficult to gank heroes when
you can’t sneak behind them before initiating the gank.
For this reason, don’t autoattack the creeps. Instead
of auto attacking, right click all over the ground, run in
circles until you are ready to last hit, or spam the S key
(stop) to animation cancel your hero (before he throws
his attack). Just don’t auto attack.
WHO GOES WHERE?
Because of the mechanic of experience being generally
split between nearby heroes, you do not want to put
5 heroes in the same lane. You will all be level 1 for a
long time.
For basic skill level games or non-tryhard games, there
Controlling your will then be 2 heroes top, 1 hero in the middle lane,
creepwaves can lead and 2 heroes in the bottom lane. Occaisionally throw
to success in the in a jungler as a possibility, then you have 2 solos, 1
laning stage. jungle, and a dual lane.
In high level skill games or tryhard games, there can
also be a 3 hero (trilane), with 2 solo lanes. I would
recommend to not attempt a trilane unless you are
sure your heroes are appropriate for a trilane, which is
unlikely at low skill levels.
REASONS FOR WHO GOES WHERE?
You want to solo a hero that gets very powerful with
levels who can do so safely, and possibly own the
35

other solo. You can also solo heroes that get very pow-
erful with items and not necessarily levels. Since you
are in a lane by yourself, you get all of the experience
and gold (that your opponent does not deny). Once
you get to the 6-9 levels, your mid is usually going to
want to gank a top or bottom lane, to establish some
lane control. Lane Control is either when you kill them
or almost kill them. Their team will lose exp and gold,
your team will then have an advantage.
Mid is also the easiest lane to defend yourself in. It
is short in length between each tower so you will be
generally safe by hiding next to your tower. There are
also ledges, and you will miss 25% of the time trying
to ranged attack up a hill, so you will have some more
survivability as a result.
THESE ARE TWO THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN
YOU PICK A SOLO MID.
Are you a ganking hero that can take advantage of
level gaps?
Is your hero going to greatly benefit from a level
advantage and a farm advantage from sitting in a lane
generally undisturbed for 6-12 minutes (we are talking
about noobs right?)?
You will learn which heroes are better for the solo mid
(usually int caster heroes or semi-carries are the best),
but for now respect someone’s wishes when they call
36
PHASES OF THE GAME
a solo mid lane. Later on you can call them a horrible
noob for soloing mid as Crystal Maiden, but today is
not that day.
The final, most important part of laning is don’t
feed you noob. Feeding is the quickest way to tell if
someone is bad at dota. This means you will do com-
pletely stupid things in lane for the first 5-10 minutes
which will get your enemies kills, and if you give your
enemies kills and they are good at DOTA, they will push
that advantage the whole game and the game will be
over because you fed them.
This is by far the most discouraging thing about DOTA
(aside from players who bad mouth or act cocky). I
can promise that once you learn the heroes and you
get some experience under your belt and actually
become good at the game, that you will stop feeding.
This is why you need to play AI games for a couple
days (week or two really) so that you can understand
the basics of how powerful heroes are, and be aware
that no hero is overpowered (for 90-95% of all players).
They all have strengths and weaknesses that, when
exploited, give you a favorable outcome.
In summary: Get last hits to gain gold, deny creeps to
deny your lane enemies their gold, kill them or almost
kill them and don’t feed you noob.
37

GANKING
The ganking phase is ongoing through the course of
the whole game. You can do ganks before the first
round of creeps spawn, and a successful gank can win
the game (during the later stages of the game).
Properly ganking is 50-100% player skill (depending
on if allies are involved) and 50-0% teamwork.
Communication in DOTA is huge, so please learn
to do it. If you want to gank a hero, ping on the
minimap (Alt + left click on map) and type something.
Example: “Ganking Rhasta in 15 seconds, I stun
first”. Typing that into chat window is going to clear
38
PHASES OF THE GAME
up all confusion with your gank. Communication
mistakes are even made in high level of play, so
good communication at low levels is going to give
you a huge advantage. always give a time estimate
if possible, which hero you want to target, and who
stuns first. Stacking your stuns makes the difference
in whether your gank is successful.
Do not blame your teammate for not knowing exactly
what you were planning to do at the noob level. They
are probably focusing on getting last hits, and making
sure no one has to say don’t feed you noob. Blaming
other people for failing during bad communication is a
very common mistake people make.
Stun stacking: If you have a 1.5 second stun and
your ally has a 1.5 second stun, always start the first
Using trees to hide stun that is most reliable (single target easy to click
while you set up a on a hero). Wait 1.5 seconds in your head, then land
gank can lead to a your stun. This results in a whole 3 seconds of stun.
great surprise for the If you both stun at the same time, 1.5 seconds of
enemy. stun is wasted. Stun Staggering is going to pretty
much guarantee that you get a kill early in the game
during ganks (if you are animation cancelling and
attack moving or orb walking).
The most important advice I can give you about ganking
is don’t get ballsy. If you start tower diving (going close to
a tower to kill a hero when you have zero creeps around)
then you had better be able to kill that hero in less than
5 seconds, without dying, or you shouldn’t be there. Any
39

time you get ballsy and die as a result means you lost
some advantage (if any) that you just had. All because
you were greedy and ballsy. Do not get ballsy.
When you are ganking late in the game, always bring
other people with you (especially late game). Ganking
solo is a wonderful way to feed the enemy exp and
gold. Do not gank solo. Just don’t do it. Bring 1
person, bring 2 people, bring your whole team. This
all but guarantees a kill or great outcome if you have a
gold advantage.
PUSHING
A push is a very important part of the DOTA game. In
pub games (public player games) it is almost always
very hard to organize your team to do a push or to
defend a push. Most people want to go into the jungle
and farm neutral creeps the entire game until they have
full items. This is not how you play DOTA well.
When your heroes are stronger (farmed and leveled
enough to teamfight), you want to organize with 2-5
heroes and you want to destroy enemy towers. This
gives you map control, and this gives your team
800-1000 gold. If you destroy 3 enemy towers and
they have destroyed 0 of your towers, your team
has a 2400-3000 gold advantage. This is a huge
gold advantage. If you both get a tower, the gold is
equalized, so try to take their towers while defending
yours so that you have a better chance to win
40
PHASES OF THE GAME
Pushing towers is teamfights and further compound your advantage to
a team effort and snowball into a much more powerful force.
requires coordination
to be successful. If any enemy tries to 5 man push your tower, you either
need to get there and defend your tower, or you need
to go other places on the map and try to take towers in
exchange (if you don’t think you can win a fight). Keep
in mind that you will always have an advantage when
fighting by a tower (damage, truesight (reveal invis),
etc.) so defending a tower is almost always beneficial.
The most important advice I can give you about pushing
that doesn’t get too complex is don’t get ballsy. You are
pushing to destroy towers or Rax (barracks). Once you
destroy all the towers in a lane, you can destroy the Rax.
When you destroy both sets of rax, both your melee
creeps in lane and your ranged creeps in lane get more
hp and more damage. This results in the Creep line being
constantly pushed against your enemy, which creates
41
pressure on them to defend, which means they spend
less time pushing and farming.

Raxing your opponents is the single most important

way to put the game in your favor because that lane is
always at threat of doing a lot more base damage.
When you are raxing a lane, do not get ballsy. If you
chase them to their fountain and kill one more hero,
that’s 10-20 seconds you could have been attacking
the rax. Which could make the difference between your
push being successful. Do not chase heroes back to

7
the fountain. Destroy the rax.

Please communicate to your allies when you want to

HERO
start pushing. Often times players naturally group up in
a lane and pushing seems to be the obvious thing, but
only to the 4 players who are grouped up. Make sure to
at least ask the carry jungling to come meet you guys,
don’t just assume he’s paying attention to your push.
Ask him to show up, and he probably will. If you don’t

TYPES
say anything, don’t get mad afterwards because he
wasn’t there.

Pushing wins the game. If you mess around with your

push or you are off farming when your team pushes,
you are potentially throwing the game away. I’ve thrown
the game away like this, and I have had teammates
throw the game away like this. Don’t throw the game
away. It is the worst feeling to lose a game that was
a sure win. Other than losing because of feeders or CARRY, SUPPORT,
leavers. Stop feeding, you noob.
GANK, TEAMFIGHT

42
 HERO TYPES

T
There are 4 basic types of heroes that you will need
to know. I will not get very far into this.

CARRY
Almost every team needs a carry. A carry is usu-
ally an agility hero who is weak in the early game
but becomes very strong in the late game with the
correct items. Carries are ~80% dependent on items
late game, so you usually end up farming for 20-30
minutes before you start owning. Carries are argu-
ably the most fun to play because you get to see
“your name” double kill, triple kill, rampage, etc. This
does not mean everyone should play them.

When you are playing with noobs, your team setups

are usually 2-5 carries per team. This is wrong. A A carry hero tends to
normal team only needs 1 carry, sometimes 2. be weakest during
the beginning of the
There is a small branch of carry called the semi- game and strongest
carry. These are heroes that can and do fit other during the end of the
roles like support/gank/teamfight. Generally game relative to other
semi-carries are strong throughout the whole game, heroes playing.
though they will never be as strong as a hard carry
(unless they never die). Hard carries are the stron-
gest carries in the game. Sometimes they cannot be
stopped once they get certain item advantages.
Always win the game as early as possible if the enemy
team has more carries than you. Do not screw around.
You will lose the game eventually if you let it drag out.
SUPPORT
Support heroes are defined as any hero who is able
to contribute despite little farm or levels. This usually
means they have abilities like slows, heals, stuns,
disables, nukes, or other abilities that help kill enemies.
Stuns are usually valued over almost anything else, but
anything else is always valued more than another carry,
unless you have no carry.
Supports keep your carries alive in lanes, they give
you map control, they give you lane control, they let
you kill them early in the game.

44 45

Always remember when playing a support, someone
needs to buy a courier, and always let your carry get
the farm in the lane, and last hits on enemy heroes, if
you can help it.
The bigger advantage your carry has over the enemy
team, the better chance your team is going to win. Kill
enemy towers while your carry farms. Let your carry kill
a tower while you guard him, harass enemy heroes in
lane while your carry gets last hits on creeps. Pull your
creeps into the jungle to get yourself a gold/exp boost
and to deny your creeps from your opponents. Buy
wards (and place them) to spot ganks around the map.
This is how you support a carry.
46
HERO TYPES
You play your support to allow your carry to farm. It’s
not about getting kills, it’s not about having the best
items. It’s about letting your carry do this. His suc-
cess is a result of your success. Nothing feels better
than owning so hard as a support that your carry can
farm for the first 25 mins of the game untouched, and
then use that farm to finish the game handily.
One of the skills that you need to master as a new
support player is knowing how to contribute with
very minimal farm without feeding. It’s important that
you use your skills in a fight in almost all cases, but
living instead of dying will often allow you to use your
skills a second time 10-15 seconds later, effectively
doubling your contribution! If you don’t die in a fight,
you’re not only preventing your opponents from
getting gold from your death, you also gain a huge
You can tell which exp and gold bump for yourself.
heroes were the carry
heroes by the number Contribute without feeding. Those are the basics of
of last hits they had. playing support as a new player to DOTA.
GANK
Gank heroes are generally heroes with stuns, slows
and damage who are very strong throughout the
whole game (especially early-mid game). Going
ganking and bringing multiple heroes is likely to
prove successful. When ganking, try to focus their
carries, but usually any kills will help. If you keep
their carries under leveled and without experience
47
while your carry is at a normal level with items, your
team is more likely to win the game.

Ganking heroes sometimes need a little bit of farm

before they become ganking machines, so they usu-
ally get cs (creep stats, or farm) preference over sup-
port or teamfight heroes. Gank heroes should either
be ganking, or trying to farm a major item (blink
dagger) and then they should start ganking, followed
immediately by pushing after successful ganks (5v4
means you are more likely to win a teamfight and

8
destroy towers or raxes).

TEAMFIGHT
A few heroes are better known as walking ults, or
walking ultimates. Their entire purpose on your team

GOOD
is to land a good ult, because if that is done, you are

TEAM
more or less in an amazing position during a team-
fight. Heroes like Tidehunter have amazing aoe stuns
that are mostly guaranteed to stun every person on
the field, make a huge difference in teamfights.

AND
Some teamfight heroes need that first major item
(usually a blink dagger), so they get farm (cs or creep
score) preference over gankers and supports until
they get that item. If an enigma can land a 3 second

LANE
Black Hole on the entire enemy team and your team
is attacking during that whole duration, you have a
really good chance to win the fight. Let them farm
the blink dagger.

SETUP
48

T
This is going to be a very vague noob level good lane
setup/good team setup.
The most important advice I can give you that will
increase your win/loss ratio, is please pick the
heroes that your team needs. If your team already
has 2 carries, please pick a support. If you have too
many carries in 1 lane it means that your team has
weaker laning and that it’s harder to make it to the
late stage of the game without a huge disadvantage.
For solo lanes, try to get a hero that benefits from
early level advantage or good farm who can gank
well with runes or bottle (Lion, Puck, Tinker, Storm,
QoP, etc.). They are usually going to cover a Gank
50
GOOD TEAM AND
LANE SETUP
or Teamfight role, and some carries can solo as well
(Morphling, Shadow Fiend, Obsidian Destroyer, etc.).
However, the most important role you can follow
in noob games, is make sure you have at least one
ranged hero in each lane.
When you are considering a hero to pick, look at
where you plan to lane. If you lane with the melee
Lifestealer, consider a ranged support! If you have a
You can tell your team drow ranger, picking a melee support like Ogre Magi
what hero you plan is just fine. If you end up with a double melee in your
on choosing in the lane, you might end up against a dual ranged setup
pick screen so they and you’ll get very harassed when you go for last
can pick roles that hits. Your opponents will have many opportunities to
support your choice. harass and almost kill you and you will either spend
a lot of time walking back to base, or a lot of time
standing away from your creeps because you will be
harassed away from the creep line.
For good team setup, have at least one carry and
that you have a good balance of support, gank, and
team fight heroes.
51
 9
GAME

MECHANICS
DAMAGE TYPES AND NUMBERS

52
 GAME MECHANICS

T
The second most important aspect of DOTA other
than learning each hero, is learn what items are best
for each hero. Can you see why people who are
brand new to DOTA completely feed like crazy? They
don’t know the many aspects of the game that let
you avoid the feeding stage, and smart item choices
are an important part of that.

Let’s start with stats.

There are 3 stat types which I’ve already mentioned.

Strength (str)
Agility (agi)
Intelligence (int)

Every single hero gains strength, agility, and intelli-

gence when they level up. Some heroes gain more
than others; you can look these numbers up online.
Every stat does something different.
Every point of Strength you gain gives you 19 hp,
0.03 hp/sec regeneration, and if you are a strength
hero, you gain +1 damage.
Every point of Agility you gain gives you 1/7(.142)
armor (every 7 agi is 1 armor), 1% increased attack
speed, and if you are an agility hero, you gain
+1 damage.
Your hero’s stats are Every point of Intelligence you gain gives you 13
located next to their increased mp, 0.04 mp/sec regeneration, and if you
skills in the bottom of are an intelligence hero, you gain +1 damage.
the screen.
DAMAGE TYPES
There are 3 types of damage to be done in DOTA.
There are a few others that impact how some spells
interact with heroes under various status effects, and
a few that change hp based on a % but for a new
player this information is not important, and would
just make it more confusing.

54 55
 GAME MECHANICS

You have Physical, Magic, and Pure.

Physical damage. This is what happens when

you auto attack heroes. The most simple way to
figure out how damage is calculated is to look at it
this way. Physical damage does less damage the
more armor that a hero or unit has. Just know that Pure damage really
armor increases have a direct reduction to damage hurts! If you play
received. The best rule to look at, is every 1 armor DOTA 2 enough, you
you gain gives you 6% more hp verses physical will learn to fear
attacks. If you are a 1000 hp hero at full hp and the ability that is
you buy a ring of protection (+2 armor) you now demonstrated here.

If you see a yellow effectively have 1120 hp if the enemy heroes only
glow around a hero, autoattack you.
that means they used
BKB and can not be Magic Damage. Nearly every single spell casted
hit by most abilities. by a hero that does damage does magic damage.
A great idea when Damage done by magic is calculated by magic resis-
you see an enemy like tance. Almost all heroes have base magic resistance
this is to RUN! of 25%. Lane creeps have no magic resistance
(though some jungle creeps are magic immune). If
you cast a spell on an enemy hero that does 400
damage and they have 400 hp, your spell will only do
300 damage to that enemy hero. Always be aware of
this when calculating how many nukes it takes to kill
a hero when you are chasing.

Pure damage. Pure damage is called Pure damage

because it is not reduced by anything. It is not

56 57
reduced by armor, it is not reduced by Magic. Very
few heroes have pure damage, but be aware that
it does a lot of damage, especially to low hp, high
armor heroes. Pure damage abilities are generally
prevented by magic immunity so purchasing a Black
King Bar is a good way to counter it.

10
DISGUSTINGLY COMMON

NOOB
ITEM

MISTAKES
58
 DISGUSTINGLY COMMON
NOOB ITEM MISTAKES

V RUSHING VLADMIR’S OFFERING
Vladmir’s Offering (2050 gold, 16% lifesteal aura
(melee only), 15% damage aura, 5 armor aura, 0.8
mp/sec aura, 2 regen/sec)
Vlads is created from a basilius ring (and two other
items + recipe) which is a weaker version of a Vlads.
I will tell you now, new players love rushing vlads.
This is a major problem because other than the 5
armor aura (3 of which is already gotten from the
basilius ring) and the .80 mp/sec aura (0.65 of which
is already gotten from the basilius ring), and 2 hp per
second regen, vlads is based on percentages of total
damage. Who has low damage early game? Yes,
that’s right. All heroes.
Also, please god do not make a vlads if some noob
on your team already made one. Vlads is an aura
item, which means it does not stack. Two people
with a vlads and fighting in the same battle have
seriously wasted 2050 gold between them.
Every game of DOTA
2 requires you to REALLY COMMON ILLUSION
analyze the benefit of HERO MISTAKES
getting certain items
compared to others. There are illusion heroes all over the place. Most
of the illusion heroes are carries, and as I already
covered, most noobs rush vlads. Illusions are very
Illusion heroes can be misunderstood by lots of players who play DOTA
extremely powerful if (even good ones!). The most important part is that
their ability to create + damage items do not increase the damage of your
units from mana is illusions. This means Battlefury does nothing for
used correctly. your illusions, Divine Rapier does nothing for your

All a Vlads rush does is spend 1500 gold for very

little extra benefit on a hero (usually a melee carry)
that needs farm to perform well. There are a couple
exceptions to this such as Lycan since he has sum-
mons (so the aura benefits his creeps and makes
them more tanky), but generally finishing vlads early
is a mistake.

If you want to get a vlads, only get it as a 2nd-4th

item, then and only then. At least upgrade your
boots first. Vlads is very seriously situational almost
every game.

60 61
 DISGUSTINGLY COMMON
NOOB ITEM MISTAKES

illusions, and those Phase boots do nothing for your heroes you are fighting. Plan accordingly. This is how
illusions apart from the base movement speed. you play DOTA.

There are ways around this. You can get a crit item
(that does increase damage of illusions when you crit),
you can get a radiance (every illusion of the carrier has
the 50 dps affect), but most importantly, you need to
get stats. Stats directly increase the damage of your
illusions. Ever wonder why Manta Style is +26 agility,
+10 Strength and +10 Intelligence? That’s because if
it was +40 damage, the illusion that it splits off would
do no bonus damage based on the Manta Style. For
this reason, please get stat items on illusion heroes if
you want the illusions to be strong.
If you want a really simple build for illusion heroes
like Phantom Lancer or Naga Siren, aim for treads
(agility if you have adequate hp), get a few wraith
bands, and then work towards a diffusal followed by
the manta. The strength and the intelligence will ben-
efit your hero, and there is lots of agility in the items
that will help your illusions do a lot more damage.
From there, calculate what item is going to enhance
your survivability the most.
If you have a hero with a low strength gain (low hp
hero), perhaps you should buy some strength items
before you buy that armor or magic resistance.
For example, if your hero has 900 hp, and you buy a
hood which increases magic resistance by 30%, then
a normal 300 damage nuke instead deals 210, then it
Item builds for takes 4.28 nukes to kill, instead of 3. This is a 42.6%
tanky heroes need increase in survivability if the enemy only uses magic
to be tailored to the attacks. Although, it might be a better decision to
damage types the buy an item that increases your hp by 300 that costs
enemy has. the same. You’ll have more hp in the end (1200), and

HOW TO BEST REDUCE DAMAGE

DONE TO YOUR HERO
If you are trying to reduce the damage done to
your hero, first figure out what kind of damage is
destroying you. Making in game decisions like this
affects your item builds, and whether you will be
prepared for team fights mid game. Look at the

62 63

it also keeps you alive from physical attacks as well
as magic ones. Another example! If it is late game
and you have 2000 hp. Is it worth it to spend 2000
gold on the item that gives you 300 hp, or is it worth
it to spend 2000 gold on the item that gives you 30%
resistance to magic? When you have more hp, the
30% resistance item produces 857 hp!
The concept is this, early to mid game you need to
buy hp items (or very cheap armor items), and late
game you want to buy magic resistance, and big
armor items if you are interested in survivability.
There are other ways to buy survivability on a hero
that aren’t just based on magic resistance or armor.
You can also opt for cool items like ghost scepter
(physical attacks can’t hit you for 4 seconds) or
64
DISGUSTINGLY COMMON
NOOB ITEM MISTAKES
Black King Bar (immune to magic damage for 10
seconds) or Euls Scepter (you can become invulner-
able for 2.5 seconds but also can’t use your hero), or
a Force Staff to push yourself away from danger.
Knowing what survivability item to buy is entirely
dependent on what heroes your team has, what
heroes your opponents have, and what items they
have and are about to make! Try to plan ahead
because keeping an item ahead of your opponent
can make huge swings in a game.
Being able to make the correct purchase in a DOTA
game is extremely important! It isn’t as simple as
buying bracers on supports anymore. Most dota
Sometimes being heroes have very complex options depending on the
elusive is a much game, and understanding those nuances and finding
more effective way what works well for you (or simply copying better
of having more players than you) is the fun part about playing dota.
survivability in
a fight. However for noobs this is a generally moot point
because feeding or lack of skill make the most
impact on the game. But hey keep reading!
65
 11
IMPORTANT

NUMBERS
THAT NOOBS

DON’T
KNOW
66
 IMPORTANT NUMBERS THAT
NOOBS DON’T KNOW

S
If you get a Ring of Basilius, however, your mp per
STATS AND MANA REGEN second on a low int hero doubles with a 500 gold
item (for reference, void stone, which gives 100%
So lets say a strength hero gets a Reaver ( + 25
mana regen, costs 875), and that regen gets applied
Strength). He gains 475 hp, and gets + 25 damage,
to your ally in lane, not to mention the 3 armor (2
and 0.75 hp/sec regen.
to ally) and the 6 damage bonus! Just remember to
click on the item in your inventory so that the aura
Compare this to an agility hero who gets an
only applies to heroes. If your creeps have a 2 armor
Eaglesong ( + 25 agility). He gains 3.57 armor, + 25
aura, that means they have more hp and that creep
damage, and + 25% attack speed. Have you guessed
line is going to push against your enemy’s towers.
yet that the hardest carries are agility heroes? Every
Do not do that unless you are trying to destroy the
point of agility they get increases their damage and
tower, turn the ring off when you aren’t pushing.
their attack speed. Someone with high damage and
high attack speed does a lot more damager per
second (dps).

Ring of Basilius gives way more mp regen than any

% based mana regen item early game. It only costs
a sobi mask (325 gold, + 50% mana regen) and a
ring of protection (175 gold, + 2 armor) together
>
(no recipe) it makes a Ring of Basilius (500 gold,
+ 1 armor, + 2 armor aura for you and all your allies,
+ 0.65 mana regen/sec to you and your allies). AT LOW LEVELS!
A % mana regen based item gives you mana regen
based on your int, that 0.04 mp/sec for each point
of Int. This number is quite low. Int heroes have tops
25-30 int at level 1, which correlates to about 1 mp
per second at level 1. Str and Agi heroes have about
15-18 int at level 1, which means they only get about
0.6 mp per second at level 1.

68 69
 12
WHAT TO

BUY
WITH STARTING

GOLD
70
 WHAT TO BUY WITH
STARTING GOLD

E
Early game starting items are the quickest way to tell
if a player is bad at dota or bad at math (not neces-
sarily both).

When you start a game where you pick your hero, you
start with 603 gold. When you start a game where you
random your hero, you start with 853 gold.
Magic Stick (200 gold,
If enemy casts a spell
by you, +1 charge.
DO BUY Click to release
charges, heal 15
hp/15 mp per charge
stored. Stores up to
10 charges).
Animal Courier (150
gold. Drop to have
Observer Wards (150
gold. Gives vision
movable unit that can where placed for 6
carry items from base minutes. Buy if you
to your team. Every want to try hard in a
team should have noob game, which you
a courier at game do if your team can
start) execute teamwork
well!)

Ironwood Branches Gauntlets of Strength Slippers of Agility Mantles of Intelligence

(53 gold, + 1 str, + 1 (150 gold, + 3 str) (150 gold, + 3 agi) (150 gold, + 3 int)
agi, + 1 int) GENERALLY DO NOT BUY

Ancient Tango of Healing Salve (125 Lesser Clarity Potion Ring of Protection Boots (450 gold, + 50 Bottle (650 gold, 3 ENTIRE Wraith Band
Essifation (125 gold, gold, heals 400 hp (50 gold, regens (175 gold, + 2 armor, movement speed) charges of 135 hp/70 (485 gold, + 6 agi,
4 per stack, Eat a tree over 10 seconds, if 100 mana over 30 upgrades to either mp regen, bottle fills + 3 str, + 3 int, + 3
to restore 115 hp over you receive damage it seconds, if you Tranquil Boots or Ring at base can store damage)
16 seconds (7.18 hp/ is interrupted) receive damage it is of Basilius at side rune and refill with
sec regen) interrupted) lane!) rune pickup)

72 73
 WHAT TO BUY WITH
STARTING GOLD

or sell the branches back for half of the gold (26

woot woot!). That 176 gold difference between a
wraith band and the brach/slipper combo gives you
extra money to buy regen. That regen is used when
you are almost killed and lets you stay in lane longer
ENTIRE Null Talisman ENTIRE Bracer (525 NOTHING, SAVING FOR for more exp.
(470 gold, + 6 int, gold, + 6 str, + 3 agi, RING OF HEALTH LOL
+ 3 str, + 3 agi, + 3 + 3 int, + 3 damage) (875 gold, + 5 hp/sec The easiest way to destroy noobs in lane is harassing
damage) regen) them out of lane. Often noobs only purchase 1 set
of Tangos because they spent all their money on a
“big” item like Boots, Bottle, or a Wraith Band. When
As you can see, it is recommended that you pur- you see this, harass them out of the lane. They will
chase cheap items that give you stats, and cheap have to leave because you came to lane with 2 times
items which give you regen. as much regen. Congratulations, you now have lane
control because they left to heal, and you get a level
Stats give you last hitting potential (you can last hit advantage.
creeps before your enemies can because you do
more damage, stats give you more hp to save your So remember, buy stats and regen in lane. Those
life when running away, and stats give you more mp keep you in the lane to farm, gain exp, and put you
to cast spells to save lives or take lives; kill them) into a favorable position later in the game. Do not
buy boots first.
You may be confused why I wrote no Bracer/Null
Talisman/Wraith Band. The only reason to make Item Priority immediately after your starting item
those items is to free up space. In DOTA you can builds is one of these items:
only carry 6 items. Early game, you have 6 slots, and
no good items. Therefore, why would you purchase
a Wraith Band(1 slot, 485 gold, + 6 agi, + 3 str, + 3
int, +3 damage) when you could buy 3 Ironwood
Branches, 1 Slipper of Agility (4 slots, 309 gold,
+ 6 agi, + 3 str, + 3 int)? Later you can make those
Boots (450 gold, + 50 Bottle (650 gold, 3 Ring of Health (875
branches into a wand (great item for most heroes),
movement speed) charges of 135 hp/70 gold, + 5 hp/sec
mp regen, bottle fills regen)
at base can store
rune and refill with
rune pickup)

74 75
 Magic Wand (200
gold, + 3 stats If
enemy casts a spell
by you, + 1 charge.
Click to release
charges, heal 15
Flying Courier
(220 gold. Upgrades
Courier to 150 hp
with speed burst
and flying. A support
should upgrade the

13
hp/15 mp per charge courier).

HOW TO
stored. Stores up to
15 charges).

PLAN
You might be confused because a lot of these are
the same as what I just told you not to get with your
starting gold. It’s common for new players to assume
the “final destination” is worth rushing for, but it you
pick up smart starting items and then transition into
your early core items such as bottle/boots, you will
OUT YOUR

ITEM
have a smoother ride, on average.

BUILDS
76

O
One of the greatest ways for a noob to lose an
advantage in DOTA is to not make good item deci-
sions. If you are sitting on a wad of cash early, spend
your money. This is more commonly the case with
brand new DOTA players. You would figure this out in
about 10-30 games, but I’ll save you a little pain by
telling you to spend your money. The items can save
you from dying or get you a kill.
You should iron out a very vauge item build for
your hero as you buy your starting items. For most
heroes, the starting items are fairly standard. To
make proper starting item decisions, you have to
look at a few things.
Am I a support hero/should I buy a courier/did anyone buy a courier?
Am I an int caster who would benefit from extra nuking power gained by Does your hero have a lot of spells to cast? If so, make sure you have
clarity potions?
Does my hero have any weaknesses that need to be filled like low hp or Are you a strength hero who is not 100% reliant on spells, but is way
no armor?
Am I a melee farmer who would benefit greatly from a quelling blade?
Am I going to want to make a ring of basilius in lane later?
These are the questions that should be answered
just when purchasing your first items.
78
HOW TO PLAN OUT
YOUR ITEM BUILDS
Later in the early game, you should be considering
broad item ideas:
Who is making a Mekanism?
Will I be/should I be buying wards right now?
Are there any invis heroes that would get shut down if I buy a dust?
What items am I building towards? Can I buy any parts yet?
More specifically to your hero, be mindful to some
basic hero ideas:
What upgraded boots will I want?
Am I a carry who would benefit from stats and attack speed?
Would I benefit from phase boots?
Am I a support hero, and would my whole team and I greatly benefit from
arcane boots, or am I too behind and in need of hp instead?
mana regen.
more powerful with mana? Get a wand/magic stick or a basilius or urn.
Are you a carry or strength hero who has no need for supplementary
mana if you are at full during a teamfight? Just buy a magic stick, or
don’t waste money on mana regen.
These are all important questions to ask yourself.
79
 14
A SHORT

PIECE
OF

SINCERITY
THEN BACK TO YOU SUCKING

80
M
More than almost all of my tips, this is going to
improve your game over the long run and let you play
every hero (item wise) with a moderate amount of
practice, and some knowledge of DOTA math.

Think for yourself on item builds, and question every

build (mentally) that you ever see or think of.

If you didn’t know yet, almost every person who

plays DOTA at any level in the skill curve, thinks
that they know best. The funny part is that 95% of

15
dota players base all of their item decisions on other
players who do it first, and are often very quick to
reject new builds.

The best way to get good at DOTA is to have good

WHERE DO I
gameplay, but the second best is to have extremely

FIND
good efficiency in your item builds.

If you learn how to use your brain to make your own

decisions about items, and you are actually making
good item decisions, you are already going to have a
huge advantage over your enemies.

Once you are able to think for yourself instead of

copying pubs or pros, you can rely on yourself for
THIS

ITEM?
item builds and play any hero you desire with little or
no practice.

82
 WHERE DO I
FIND THIS ITEM?

One unfortunate consequence of playing DOTA is All the items in the

that you have to learn where items are (something shop have their own
happily rectified in DOTA 2). Giant improvements hotkeys that you can
have been made in organization of items into sim- use to speed up the
ilarly grouped areas, as well as item construction. buying process.
This mostly revolves around the search bar! If you
can’t find something, use the search bar.

In WC3 DOTA, every shop would be organized by

category such as damage items, defensive items, or
support items. In DOTA 2, each shop is on a different
tab. My first recommendation is to change the shop
to the grid view instead of the default line view. In
the upper right corner of the shop (click on the shop
button to open the shop) you can switch between
each view. This will help you see all of the items at
the same time.

In DOTA, there are basic components and there are

completed items, which are under the “Upgrades” tab.

The Basics tab has 4 columns.

1 is consumable items such as regen, tp scrolls,
couriers, and wards.
2 is all of the basic and medium level stat items. That
includes all of the + 3 stat, + 6 stat, + 10 stat, and
of course + 1 to all ironwood branch, + 2 to all
circlet, and + 10 to all Ultimate orb.
3 is the armor and damage items.
4 is the leftover items that don’t fit anywhere else,
such as regen items, boots, and blink dagger.

84 85
 WHERE DO I
FIND THIS ITEM?

THE SECRET SHOP

Keep in mind that not all items can be purchased in

the base as we just saw. The Secret Shop exists on
2 places on the map.

The secret shop has

the most powerful
item components in
the game, but it is
also risky to get to.

At the Secret Shop you can buy more powerful basic

items, such as +25 to a stat.

86 87
 WHERE DO I
FIND THIS ITEM?

THE SIDE SHOP Here are the items at the Side Shop. Try to buy them
here if you have space early game rather than using
the courier!
Other than the Secret Shop, we also have the Side
Shop. The Side shop sells a couple things that the
main shop does, as well as a few things the Secret
Shop does. The idea is to allow for players in lane
to not have to run far to purchase items, and a lot
of the things you can get at the side shop allow you
to finish some of your early and important items,
such as power treads, arcane boots, or picking up
a ring of health.

Here is the location of the Side Shop on the map.

88 89
 WHERE DO I
FIND THIS ITEM?

Now that you’ve seen every basic component in the We only have 1 new thing joining us, and that is the
game, we can take a look at all of the upgrades and Recipe. It’s just a placeholder item that costs money
major items possible. and is sometimes a part of building an item. For
example, to build a manta style, we need a Yasha,
The Upgrades tab shows you what kinds of compli- Ultimate Orb, and a 900 Gold Manta Style Recipe.
cated things you can build into using a combination You can tell what big
of the Basics, and items from the Secret Shop. items other heroes
are working towards
Upgraded items are created by having the correct by looking at what
combination of previous items in your inventory, components they are
courier, or stash at the same time. If I can make a buying. This can be
Helm of the Dominator with a Morbid Mask and a useful to know what
Helm of Iron Will, then I just have to have both in my enemies are getting
inventory, and bam, they combine for a new item in so you can counter
your inventory. them effectively.

However, not all items use recipes. In this image I

clicked on Power Treads. The game has shown me
that to make Power Treads I need 3 items. Boots of
Speed, a Belt of Giant Strength (or Band of Elvenskin
or Robi of the Magi) and a Gloves of Haste. You can
either buy these 3 components separately with a
right click, or right click on the treads to complete it.

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Now that you know how to make Upgraded items,
click over to the Upgrade tab and we can see all of
the categories.
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WHERE DO I
FIND THIS ITEM?
1 is all of the boot upgrades, basic stat upgrades,
and a few items that don’t fit other places.
2 is all of the support themed items. This means
items that apply auras, heal or buff allies, and are
usually gotten by support heroes.
3 is almost entirely offensive Int based items. They all
have very different uses by a multitude of heroes.
4 is filled with major damage items. These items are
largely used to increase your killing potential,
though some have utility with their damage.
5 is defensive or tank items that will help you survive.
6 is Generally damage items that also have an orb
or buff placer effect. It is complicated, but
generally keep in mind that you can only pick one
of these items per game, and some heroes can’t
use any (such as ursa or anti mage) because their
abilities already have orbs.
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 16
OH GOD,

THEY
ARE TRYING TO

GANK
ME
94

I
In times like these, your survival largely comes down
to the skill of your opponent in trying to gank you,
how fast you notice, whether they stack their stuns,
and that you don’t panic.
If you see some heroes rush out of the fog of war
at you, you need to immediately stun or slow if you
have an ability, and then you need to GTFO (get
the #$%^ out). Run immediately to your tower, run
behind your tower, run into the trees next to your
tower. Do not stop to cast anything that is not going
to slow them down. Just run. Don’t stop. If they
decide to tower dive you with no creeps around, you
might be able to make something happen like get a
kill, but your main priority is to GTFO.
96
OH GOD, THEY ARE
TRYING TO GANK ME
There are ways to lower the chance of you having to
GTFO, and it is called calling mia (missing in action).
When the game starts and there are 2 heroes in the
lane against you, it is your responsibility to let the
team know when they aren’t there. They could be
afk sitting at a tower, they could be running back to
the base after you almost kill them, they could be
watching and waiting to murder your allies in a gank.
Pay attention to if the
enemy overextends If the enemy hero in your lane noticeably leaves or is
their gank as it may missing, type “HERO mia bot”.
be a good time to turn
it around and punish If an ally types “Puck mia mid” you need to immedi-
their over agression. ately assess where you are on the map, and decide
if it would be really easy to get ganked in that very
moment or in the very short future. If you take no
assessment when your ally informs you, you will be in
a disadvantageous position if you are getting ganked.
Ways to tell if you need to GTFO if your team calls MIA:
1 If the creep line is more towards your enemy’s
tower than your tower
2 If there is an entrance to the jungle which you have
no vision to, right behind where you are standing.
If you need to GTFO, go stand by your tower. This
is called tower hugging. If the enemy calls you a
sissy for tower hugging, tell them they are really
bad, because they are simply trying to get you away
97
from your tower so that puck can roll out and kill you. Wait till
the creep wave pushes back towards your tower (it is okay if
you miss a little experience and cs). At the very least, stand
just outside of exp range (about ¾ of a screen length) behind
some trees so they don’t know that you are there.

Juking is an important skill to learn in the game, but it basi-

cally involves running through trees when someone is chasing
you, and dodging them well enough to get home. I’m not
going to explain this to you. Just watch any DotA montage
ever and there will be juking.

17
LAST HIT

THIS
GUIDE
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 LAST HIT THIS GUIDE

T
This is pretty much the most you can learn about DOTA
without watching any videos of other people playing...
so go watch the videos of me or pros playing!
YouTube—PurgeGamers or by playing yourself.

The last and best piece of advice I can give you is

the reminder that DOTA has a huge skill curve. I
have been playing for about 4 + years. I have played
thousands of games of dota. Every month that goes
by, I think about how good I thought I was at dota
a month or two ago, and it amazes me how much
I’ve learned since then. Even players with good k/d
(kills per death) need to realize that there is room for
improvement on their game.

Jerks in pubs will tell you how pro they are and
that their builds are the best. They are probably
wrong, but there is no convincing cocky people they
are bad. Do not argue. Just know that with hard
work and critical analysis of your mistakes you will It’s time for you to put competitive game of DOTA 2 less painful, more
someday pass their skill level. The greatest strength what you learned to enjoyable, and filled with less frustration.
of any DOTA player is knowing that there are always the test now!
things to work on with your game play. If you guys have specific questions, please send me
a tweet @PurgeGamers, and I’ll be happy to try to
No one wants to play with cocky jerks unless they answer your question in less than 140 characters!
are also cocky jerks, so don’t condone the behavior
if you encounter it. Go check out my website at purgegamers.com/
stream if you ever want to see me play live!
Thanks for reading, and I hope that my guide makes
the entry of new gamers interested in the very

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