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! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Guides/Tutorials Spoiler: Updated 2-5-13 Removed Queen of Pain from "Heroes for Beginners" Added Purge's "How to Spend your Starting Gold" video to the 'Basic' list Spoiler: Updated 5-22-13 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 Spoiler: Heroes for Beginners Support 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 Gankers 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. Pushers 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. Carries/Semicarries (Note: I'd probably avoid all of these until you are comfortable with last-hitting) 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 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 Tri-laning:Purge Juking:Example 1 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- DotA 2 Wiki PlayDotaHeroes / PlayDota Items -Recommended Settings- Game Auto Attack OFF Double Tap Ability Self Cast ON Camera Acceleration MAX Video Display Mode: Borderless Window Controls 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 General Knowledge 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!
Perfect. I got a DOTA 2 invite recently and have been wondering about the game before I started playing, and this helps a lot. Thanks! EDIT: And no, Mutton, you're no help.
QoP for recommended? Wha she is squishy and mana dependent, not good for new players since over aggression is the biggest problem.
She isn't that squishy or mana intensive if you build the right items. I put her under Carry and added the note about NOT playing a carry until you can last hit, so any newer player who reads this and can last hit should be able to get the gold for the items she needs. Aside from that, the reason I included her is basically: "Very good burst, blink gives you a good margin for error so you can escape, Good attack animation and damage. She definitely needs levels and xp so she fits more into Carry than Ganker."
