Every year, tens of thousands of people try to get into DotA 2. Whether it’s for the sake of trying something new or becoming a pro player to play in the biggest eSports tournament, the craze of Valve’s greatest creation is unmatched when it comes to MOBA games.
Although DotA 2 is mainly known for its notorious complexity and steep learning curve, it’s not actually as hard as one might think. Sure, you need to master every mechanic and play out of your mind if you want to become a pro, but if you’re just looking to have fun, DotA is surprisingly easy to learn.
Here’s a complete beginner’s guide if you’re thinking of diving into DotA 2.
Table of Contents
DotA 2 Map
Defense of the Ancients (or DotA 2 in short) is essentially a tower defense game where the goal is to destroy the enemy Ancient. It consists of two opposing sides, Radiant and Dire fighting constantly to achieve this goal.
The DotA 2 map is split diagonally by a river from left to right, and the left side is made up of the Radiant side whereas the right side is made up of the Dire side.
Each side is divided into three lanes – offlane, safelane, and midlane (also known as top, bot, and mid). For the radiant side, the top lane is considered as the offlane and the bot lane is considered as the safelane. While as for the Dire side, the top lane is considered the safelane, and the bot lane is considered the offlane.
Each lane has three towers that can attack enemy units and heroes if they get inside the attack range of towers. The towers in each lane are divided into tiers and the ones closest to the river are called tier-one towers. The towers right behind them are called tier-two towers and so on.
There are also two tier-four towers guarding the Ancient. Each team has to take down at least one of the tier-three towers before they can attack the enemy tier-four towers. Also, the damage of these towers increases as you move up the lane.
Different Roles/Positions in DotA 2
Based on the hero each player is playing, a normal DotA 2 match is comprised of five different roles. Here is the list of all the roles(or positions) in DotA 2 with a short description of each.
Position 1 – Carry
Carry is the most important role in each team and is responsible to carry their team to victory. In DotA, carry heroes have the ability to 1vs5 and destroy the entire enemy team.
However, all carries need sufficient farm and levels to come online. So until then, they are very vulnerable and rely on their teammates to make space for them until they are ready to take fights.
Position 2 – Mid
The mid role is for heroes that go to the mid-lane. These heroes can farm fast and have abilities to kill heroes quickly early on in the game. Except for some cases, they get to have the solo lane experience on their team.
Because of this, they are also the first heroes to get their ultimate. In a lot of matches, they are the ones to set the pace for their teams.
Position 3 – Offlaner
The offlaner, is well, a role that is reserved for offlane. In the laning phase, they have to go against enemy carry and are responsible for disrupting their gameplay as much as possible.
They are generally tanky heroes with big HP bars that can tank multiple enemy spells. Their job is to run at enemies and make space for their carry to farm.
Position 4- Soft Support (Roaming Support)
Soft supports are also called Roaming support because their job is to roam and assist their teammates in all lanes. When the match starts, they usually go with offlaner but they start roaming as soon as the first nightfall begins.
This is because a lot of heroes have their vision reduced in the nighttime. And the enemy’s observer wards are mostly likely to run out of time during this time, making it the perfect time to gank the enemy mid.
They are generally the heroes with big ultimates that have the ability to control the whole enemy team and disrupt their team fight.
Position 5 – Hard Support
Hard support is the role that is truly dedicated to supporting the team. Their job is to make sure that the carry is getting adequate farming and that there is always vision on the map. It is the hardest role in DotA 2 and also has the greatest responsibility among all the roles.
Hard support heroes almost always have either stuns or slowing abilities that can be used to set up kills. They are responsible for buying support items like Force Staff or Glimmer Capes to save their teammates.
They also have to always carry wards and detection items for their team. In each team, they are the weakest hero and should always be careful of their position as they will always be the first target during team fights.
Bounty and Power Runes
Bounty runes are runes that give bonus gold to the team that takes it. At the start of each match, 4 bounty runes spawn on a map when the clock reaches 0:00. Two of these runes spawn in the river near midlane and the rest two spawn next to the Outpost of each team.
The next set of bounty runes only spawns next to the Outposts at the interval of three minutes. The two remaining rune spots are replaced by power runes which start to spawn once the clock reaches 6:00 and keep spawning in every two minutes until the game ends.
Before that, lesser runes called water runes spawn at those locations at 2:00 and 4:00 which restores 100 HP and 80 Mana to the player that picks it up. Water runes spawn at both locations but power runes only spawn at one of the two locations.
There are six types of power runes in DotA 2 and one of them randomly spawns at each power rune location starting at 6:00. They are named as follows:
- Arcane rune
- Double Damage rune
- Illusion rune
- Haste rune
- Regeneration rune
- Invisibility rune
These power runes can be used to make unexpected plays in the game and you should always be looking to get it when you can.
All runes can be stored in an item called Bottle for 90 seconds and can be consumed at any time to get its benefits. The bottled rune will be consumed automatically if it’s not consumed within this duration.
Observer and Sentry Wards
Observer and sentry wards are consumable items that can be purchased from the shop and provide vision on the map. Observer wards can be purchased for free while the sentry wards cost 50 gold each.
The observer ward has 1600 units radius around it and lasts for 6 minutes. It provides an unobstructed vision of the area its placed on.
On the other hand, a sentry ward only provides the true sight of 900 units radius around it but lasts for 7 minutes. It can be used to detect invisible heroes and observer wards inside it.
You can also plant these wards inside the neutral camp spawn area to prevent them from spawning. Enemies can destroy your wards by hitting them two times.
You’ll get bonus gold and experience if you destroy the enemy observer ward. However, you won’t get anything for destroying the sentry ward.
You can also deny your team’s ward by attacking it. To hit your own team’s ward, press ‘A‘ on your keyboard and click on the ward. Warding and dewarding play an important role in winning a DotA 2 match.
Itemization
There are a variety of items in DotA 2 that gives different benefit to the user. Each of these items serves a different purpose in the game but you don’t need every item to win.
Every DotA 2 match is different and knowing which item is best for your current matchup can win you almost any game.
Also, your item progression could change depending on the pace of the game. Sometimes, you may just need to farm items and join fights when it is favorable for your team while sometimes you might need to go all in for fighting items if your team is losing hard.
Remember, knowing which item is good for you, depending on the flow of the game, is what separates a good player from a better player.
Find Which Hero is Best For Your
There are lots of heroes to choose from in DotA 2, especially when you’re coming from a non-MOBA background, it can be quite overwhelming at first. But don’t worry, you don’t need to master every hero to begin your DotA 2 journey.
To get started, you can pick some easy heroes to play with and work your way up to more complex heroes. Heroes like Wraith King and Phantom Assassin are perfect for new players as they are very easy to learn and fun to play.
Tips to Improve Your Gameplay
Get Familiar With Few Heroes First
As I’ve said before, you don’t need to master every hero to be a good player. As a beginner, the worst mistake you can make is trying to learn more heroes (and complex heroes at that).
Remember, even pro players cannot play all the heroes well and it’s okay to have a low hero pool.
Learn the Basics of Different Roles
As you get familiar with the game, you’ll start to get matched with more experienced players. This means people who are familiar with different roles will be on your team more often and there are chances that you won’t always get to play the role you want.
So, you should at least have a basic concept of all the roles if you want to climb up the ranks. There are hundreds of videos on YouTube that teach you how to play different roles.
You can watch a few of them to get a general idea and try it on your games to implement it. Also, don’t try to do everything on your own. Just enjoy the process and you’ll automatically get good with time.
Learn Concepts of Creep Equilibrium (And Try to Maintain It)
In DotA 2, there is a concept called ‘Creep Equilibrium‘ where both sides want to keep creeps as close to their tower as possible. Except for the mid-lane, creeps generally meet close to both sides’ safe lane towers, which gives safe laners a big advantage as staying near towers gives you bonus HP regeneration and armor.
If you’re playing on the safe lane, your goal is to maintain this equilibrium and farm under the protection of the tower. You can also quickly back off in case you are ganked by the enemy mid-laner and your enemies can’t punish as much.
But if you’re playing on the offlane, you can disrupt the creep equilibrium by pulling the large camp. By doing this, you will force the creeps to push into your lane and as a result, you will get to farm under your tower.
Learn the Basics of Pulling and Stacking Creeps
As you begin moving up the rank, maintaining creep equilibrium becomes even more prominent as people are looking to take even the slightest advantage and exploit the mistakes of their opponent.
You can pull the small camp by attacking it at :14 and :45 and running towards your incoming creeps. Similarly, you can pull the big camp by hitting it at :26 and :56. If you are playing on offlane, you can pull the big camp by hitting it at :17 and :47.
You can also stack neutral camps by pulling them out of their spawn areas before the spawn timer. To stack the medium and large camps, you can hit them at :55 and then back off. This will drag them out of their positions and new creeps will spawn before they can get back to their position.
In a similar way, you can stack small camps and ancient camps by hitting them at :53. Stacking can boost your or your carry’s farm by a lot and they will be able to come online a lot sooner. You will also get bonus gold when the stacks get cleared.
Don’t Overcommit and Definitely Dive Towers for Kills
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen beginner DotA 2 players make is overcommitting for a kill and getting themselves killed in the process. You don’t necessarily need to kill your enemies to win your lane – just forcing them out of the lane is enough.
In case you really want to kill them before they run under their tower, you can always ask your lane partner to set it up. DotA becomes so much easier when you’re communicating with your teammates.
Don’t be Toxic to Your Teammates
DotA 2 is a team game and the worst mistake you can make in this game is to tilt your teammates. Even if one of your teammates becomes tilted, the battle instantly turns into 4v5 which makes winning very difficult.
So, whatever you do, just try not to be toxic and maintain good behavior in your games. Everyone has a rough day once in a while and there’s no reason to be toxic to someone just because they aren’t playing the way you want them to play.
