Since DotA2 invites are becoming more available and more people are starting to play DotA2 for the first time I thought I'd make sort of a catch-all thread with video guides, item builds, skill builds, and other basic junk. It should be helpful to new players, average players, anyone who wants to refine their skills, etc!
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Guides/TutorialsRemoved Queen of Pain from "Heroes for Beginners"
Added Purge's "How to Spend your Starting Gold" video to the 'Basic' list
Added Purge's "How to Spend your Starting Gold" video to the 'Basic' list
Added note about bot games.
-Video Guides-
Basic
- How to Play DotA2 in 4 Minutes
- How not to suck
- Roles:DotaCinema
- Items:Purge, How to spend your starting gold (Purge)
- Laning:Purge, Gutt3r, FiercE (suicide laning), FiercE (Zone Control), VGTV
- Warding:Warding, XVRogue
- Stacking/Pulling:Phat, XVRogue
- Last Hitting: DotaCinema, Projectile Trails, Cancel Harass, FiercE, VGTV
- Jungling:Lumninous, VXRogue
- Last Hitting and Denying: VGTV
- Warding Positions: VGTV
- Coming from LoL to DotA2?
- HEROES TO AVIOD
Support
Axe- I don't know where to put him. He is a good jungler starting out. That ensures him some farm and his battle hunger means you can poke heroes in your lane if your ally needs help. His ult is very easy to use and if you get a blink on him with a point or two in Berserkers call he can be an awesome initiator. He's reaally tanky so you have some room for error.
- Venomancer- Intelligence pusher. His passive adds a lot of harass damage and Venomous Gale gives you a gigantic slow with some damage.
- Lich- Intelligence Nuker. Sacrifice gives you mana to harass with nukes and denying creeps to keep your lane in your favor. His ult is VERY powerful in teamfights.
- Vengeful Spirit- Agility Initiator. Just make sure your team knows when you're going in for a fight.
- Crystal Maiden- Great early game, be aggressive with your slow and stun if you are laned with another hero who can get an easy kill with it. Her global mana regen is a god-send for mana dependent heroes on your team.
- Jakiro- Lots of HP for a support and his ice path is GREAT to secure kills
- Tidehunter- Able to solo if forced. ALL of his abilities are super good too
- Lion- Good burst damage, one stun, one disable. Reeallly good ganking potential.
- Lina- Kind of like Lion (similar ults), more AOE and less disable
- Ogre Magi- Decent nukes, loooooots of HP for a support. Pretty luck based due to his ult but getting a gigantic multicast is super satisfying and it is mandatory that you type "ALL SKILL BRO" in chat if you get especially lucky with your ult.
- Sven- Also a carry. Very mobile, warcry is goood for your team, you can't really spam your stun but it is a good initiation. He's pretty straight forward if you're conservative with mana. If you aren't great with last hitting but want to play a good physical damager, Sven is a good choice
- Sand King- Good initiator and ganker. Farming should be easy with Caustic Finale. Good hero to learn blink dagger won. Can be a semi-carry with decent farm but can hard support if needed.
- Bounty Hunter- INVIS DOES NOT MAKE YOU IMMORTAL. DO NOT GET OVER-CONFIDENT. That is a GIANT mistake that many people make :c BH is a good hero if you want to be aggressive and get lots of hero kills. Track lets you and your team snowball into oblivion and his single target burst is good. He can also recover from a bad early game with gold from track.
- Centaur Warrruner- Not subtle but he can burst like noother. Build a fast Hood of Defiance to reduce your damage from Double Edge, pop your ult initiate and hand the other team some tissues when they cry.
- Shadow Shaman- Can go hard support if needed. Ether Shock makes farming easy and his double disable gives him tons of ganking power.
- Nature's Prophet- You have a global teleport with a decent cool down so you can be annnnnnywhere anytime to push out lanes, team fight, kill towers, find stragglers. Also a good jungler. Just don't spam your ult when it's up, its a good ganking/antipush skill and you don't want to steal farm from your team.
- Death Prophet- Nuke is spammable, good movespeed with her passive, super strong teamfight and pushing power, a silence. All of this is pretty easy to use and almost always strong no matter what lane you're against.
- Viper- Durable, excellent harass and his ult gives you good ganking power.
- Skeleton King- You have 1 button, 2 lives.
- Juggernaut- Lots of damage with a healing ward to back you up, a built-in BKB and a prettymuch1shot skill.
- Chaos Knight- Has good ganking power as well as pushing power once his ult gets some levels. He's pretty dependent on tankiness so you need good farm to get good HP items.
- Dragon Knight- Great ult, spammable flame breath as long as you go soul ring, a stun, a passive that gives you lots of armor and hp regen.
- Weaver- Germinate makes last hitting easier and boosts your damage once you're farmed up and his invis gives you a good escape/initiation/harass. His ult requires a bit of thinking but is great if you execute it well.
- Luna- Skill her aura on 1 and 3 and max her Q first. That will give you amazing last-hitting power early on and some good burst for ganking. NOTE: Your ult is based on your Qs levels so it is imperative that you level it. Also good to remember that she is a bit squishier than a lot of other carries but she makes up for it with movespeed and damage.
- Drow Ranger- Good aura for her team combined with her ult gives really powerful split pushing. Toggle the arrows as you need to since you don't want to drain all of your mana if you don't have to. And don't forget the silence!
Axe- I don't know where to put him. He is a good jungler starting out. That ensures him some farm and his battle hunger means you can poke heroes in your lane if your ally needs help. His ult is very easy to use and if you get a blink on him with a point or two in Berserkers call he can be an awesome initiator. He's reaally tanky so you have some room for error.
Advanced
Resources
- Learn DotA- Video set casted by Tobiwan
- QPad Learn to Play Series
- DotA2 Mythbusters: Dota2Facts or DotaCinema
- Did you know? - General Knowledge
-Text Guides-
- Welcome to DotA 2, you suck
- Essentials of DotA
- Simple Ways to Improve Your Game
- How to be Smart and Skilled
- Ultimate Guide to Warding
- Escape Maneuvers
- Synergy
- Pros and Cons
-Hero Guides-
- DotA 2 Alt-Tab Guide- Very short and simple skill/item builds for every hero
- DotaFire- (Text Hero Guides)
-Reference-
-Recommended Settings-
Game- Auto Attack OFF
- Double Tap Ability Self Cast ON
- Camera Acceleration MAX
Video- Display Mode: Borderless Window
- Stop: Space
- Abilities: Q, W, E, D, F, R
- Items: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (NOT KEYPAD)
- Shop: B
- Voice: V
- Hero: C
- Pause: F9
- Select Courier: Z
- Deliver: X
- Click + Drag to give, drop, or swap items
- Right-Click to interact with inventory items
- Ctrl + Click to draw on the minimap
- Alt + Click minimap, or terrain to ping
- Practice Match Commands (-ping works in ANY match)
NOTE: As stated in replies to this thread, bot games are not the ideal learning environment. Play bot games until you are comfortable with the UI, know how to cast spells, know how to buy items, etc. Playing bots will NOT help you learn how to play against human players!