Dota tutorial for beginners pdf

You wouldn't play a sport with a bunch of strangers without knowing how it works. Dota 2 does have a tutorial and, while it offers a small taste of the game's depth, it's better than nothing. You'll learn a few heroes including Sniper, a popular, incredibly annoying pick , and you'll learn about the kinds of abilities characters have and how to activate them. This is all very intro-level, but it's incredibly important, especially if you don't have much experience with Warcraft 3, which is the evolutionary basis for the modern MOBA genre.

You'll also get a very basic introduction to items. Learn what Tangos are. You'll be using them often. This might seem premature, but my first experiences with Dota 2 skipped past the "playing with bots" stage and went straight to "playing with friends who knew how to play Dota 2. I'm impatient. I started playing Dota 2 specifically because it was the only thing anyone I knew was playing with any regularity, and I wanted to play games with my friends.

It was only later that I started playing without them. This is what allowed me to find fun right away, as opposed to struggling against bots in a game I didn't understand. I asked a ton of questions as we played and, because these were people who wanted me to understand the game, no question was seen as stupid. There are a number of resources online, but constant supportive communication early on was key in getting me involved and keeping me from fleeing in terror at the prospect of Dota 2 's complexity.

So, if you've got friends on your Steam list who play Dota 2 , ask if they'd be willing to show you the ropes. Also, get a mic. Voice communication is critical, especially when you're learning. This should be seen as mandatory. My sister started playing Dota 2 months before I did, primarily learning the game by using online resources and, unlike me, playing against bots.

She played matches against the AI hundreds of times to learn the game and, as Dota 2 's bot AI tends to be very aggressive, it's not a bad primer on player behavior in public, unranked games. TIP Making less unforced mistakes can give you an edge over other players through streamlined mechanics usage and improve at a much faster rate. Newbie Guide to Creeps and Towers Learning the different NPC units in Dota is essential, not to say that you need to memorize every minute detail but a general understanding of them is necessary.

TIP Getting denies is generally good but taking one over a creep kill or multiple creep kills is not wise. Mid — solo hero that gets the fastest levels and gold, can take over a game early. Offlane — hero in the dangerous lane that barely gets any farm or levels without help. Can also be a solo lane like mid.

Support — generally a hero that makes plays on the map, ie helping mid secure runes. Needs gold over 5 position. Support — dedicated support hero, buys wards and uses abilities in a mostly defensive manner. Lowest farmed units in the game. A bad example would be a 2 position Mid hero with a 1 position Carry hero in the same lane so pick strong lane combinations to increase chances of winning the lane. Lane Equilibrium: What it can do Pulling Occasionally you will sometimes see players doing this action, but beware as it is a double edged sword and can be implemented improperly thus ending up benefiting the enemy.

Hero Strategy As mentioned before there are 3 different categories that every hero falls into. All attributes give damage when hero attribute type matches: Strength — increases max HP and health regeneration as well as spell resistance Tanky, low mana pool.

Picking a hero is up to the player! And it is encouraged that you develop favorite ones as the hero will eventually become an extension of yourself from which to make changes into a Dota game. Want to Play? TIP Practicing is crucial to improve at anything, especially Dota 2. Putting in time and effort in practice that others are not willing to do will net better results.

Sand King A tanky hero with a stun and an escape tool on top of having a 2 button stun-ultimate combo, can go invisible and creates damaging seismic waves that damage the enemy. Crystal Maiden As nuke heavy disabler she also provides bonus mana regeneration for the entire team and double values for yourself for more spell casting, helping all 3 lanes at the same time while alive.

Sniper A long-ranged damage dealer with a slow, and an ultimate with even longer range that can snipe enemy heroes that are fleeing.

TIP Using an in-game guide will allow you to focus more on your play and teach you what skills to level in what order, as well as have pre-set item builds that range from simple to more precise and complicated ones. How Do I Become Better? Watch the games To better give you an idea of where the lines are in sand between professionals and new players, here is the most recent distribution numbers provided by Esports Tales: Milella, Vincenzo "Skulz".

TIP Remember rank is just a number and not a finite measure of your skill, but it is a good indication of where you stand amongst all Dota 2 players and how you look at the game The Pros Watch their Own Replays, So Should You At the end of each game there will be a screen that shows the summary of most of the data in the game. OpenAI, director. OpenAI Five vs.

YouTube , YouTube, 26 Apr. How to Get into Ranked and Unranked Games? Take a look at some popular Dota 2 streamers and youtubers such as BSJ or Purge before playing your required 10 calibration games. On the right hand side click on Play Game: Unranked and ranked options After calibration you will be assigned a rank, but for some this takes the fun out of the game and should not be your main focus if you are still a noob at the game.

In-game Coaches With the new Patch comes new features, although you have to purchase the TI9 Battle Pass to take advantage of this there are plenty of upsides and getting direct coaching in real time is great for players just learning the game. On top of a lost match, you will face rejection and abomination — this can be so frustrating, but keep your head up and try to get better!

A lot of new players tend to play support heroes over and over again. On the first look support, heroes have a smaller impact on the game compared to a carry or semi carry hero. But especially as a beginner you should test every Dota 2 role as much as you can.

Only through testing, you will find out, which hero roles you are good at. They think they are improving, but they are not. To get better try to get more input from outside through streams from Dota 2 pros or through our Dota 2 guide list.

Choose some of the guides where you are weak at — and start improving! Understanding what matters in a match to simply win it is essential: Learn these basics and you will love Dota 2 soon. This can be done alone or as a team. A requirement to make the towers and buildings vulnerable is to have creep waves with you and if one or two catapults are with you, sieging is much more efficient.

Fact is, if you push you are exposing yourself , the enemy knows exactly where you are and can prepare a counter-attack.

While pushing, you force the enemy into an action , so be always prepared for the engagement! For farming the amount of gold per minute is meant, the GPM. With more last hits on creeps, the GPM increases fast.

Keep it up over a long time to have a consistent income. Tip: Early farming can scale up extremely later on, the most efficient farming is in the first minutes.

A gank or gang is the planned lockdown of a hero. A combo of spells of more than one hero is centralized onto one enemy hero to get him. The enemy needs to be surprised , if he knows what is going on you will run into a trap. The most games in Dota 2 have similar sequences: The most games are won at the minute mark or it will take longer about 60 minutes.

A typical Dota 2 match is splitted into three game phases:. As long as the starting layout of the lanes is maintained you can call it early game. After the laning phase, the distribution of the heroes, the ganks and movement will deviate more and more until the mid-game is reached. When one team feels strong they can try the first tactical maneuvers as a full team.

The late game is finally reached when the carries accomplished their goals : They have the required items now and scaled so big that they can outperform any other hero in the game. In the late-game, the team fights will decide which side gonna take the lead. Teleports have a high fuctionallity in Dota 2 and can be used smart but also embarissingly bad.

The teleport scroll can be used to fasten the presence on one specific lane or to teleport defensively back home. For this you need good map awareness, always look onto your radar and check what is happening. If you teleported somewhere unnecessary, finding yourself on a lane where you can do nothing, you have a long way to make. Placing wards can give your team good vision and a lot of information.

This information can decide so much, you always know where the enemy is moving to and you know where they are warding. To get good at warding in Dota 2 read the complete ward guide. Like that you can increase your win potential tremendously! This game as a lot more to offer and to learn. To be prepared for ranked matches and to perform well, here are a few top recommendations to kickstart your career. The hardest thing for a new Dota 2 player is to reach an acceptable stage of skill where his teammates will not blame him.

Dota 2 has one of the hardest entrances to the game. As a consequence of this, Dota 2 players hate everyone who ruin their winning potential. New players will definitely ruin games since they have to learn a lot — and that is the moment of the first contact with hateful Dota 2 teammates. Once you calibrated your Dota 2 account and got a suitable rank, things will get a bit better, but to reach that point, you will need to play about hours of Dota 2 on average. Dota 2 is a supercomplex game and the multidimensional aspects that come together are far away from an easy casual game.

Your focus can be a high rank — but your focus could also be having fun. New players in Dota 2 need to reach the first milestone to even be able to play ranked. In my Dota smurf guide I pointed out what is needed for a matchmaking-ready Dota 2 account.

In the latest known case which can change over time a new player needs to play hours unranked matches and is then qualified to calibrate. Calibration means to play 10 games for each MMR role before you get a final rank. Ratings allow to assess the individual skill of each player and pick the appropriate team and rivals. Newcomers are not eligible to take part in ranked matches. They have to go through several unranked game stages before competing with other players in ranked matches.

Each rank has its own 5-star ranking. Players have to reach a 5-star status in each of these ranks in a row to finally receive a Divine rank. Alongside the commonplace game mechanics mention above, there are plenty of gameplay elements in Dota 2 which are not so obvious to first-timers and casual players. Here are some gaming tips and tricks to help you succeed in this challenging online game:. However, in some cases, temporary activation can prevent the enemy from finishing off allied creeps to get some gold.

This feature is especially useful for mid heroes in a typical 1v1 situation. More or less experienced players know what it usually takes to kill creeps.

Getting their armor increased may be an unexpected twist for an enemy hero. In the meantime, you can deny these creeps or let allied towers or creeps finish them off instead. In this case, your enemy gains only experience and no gold at all. Keeping an eye on the minimap to see what your allies are doing is more than an essential tactic that can save your own life. Getting Bounty runes every 5 minutes should be your rule of thumb. A team that lets many bounty runes slip by loses a lot of gold.

Death in the game is not always a bad thing. In a situation when getting killed is inevitable, the first thing to do is to make purchases in order not to lose gold. For doing so, set up some Quick Buy hotkeys so that you can purchase some desirable items on the fly. Also, you can be killed by neutral creeps. Any hero can be used for different positions. To know what items you need to collect for a particular position, just go to the sidebar menu on the top left.

All you need to activate an item is to double-click it. For instance, once you double-click the Blink Dagger, it teleports your hero to the maximum possible distance toward your base. One of the best ways to aggro enemy creeps is to initiate a fight with any of the enemy heroes , even if this hero is pretty far from you, in another part of the map. Once you start attacking him, the enemy creeps rush after you immediately.

For the next 6 seconds you get much more regen benefits than if the items were active. If you are the same fans of the game as we are, then you should definitely add to your collection these awesome images Dota 2.

If you prefer other games, than we also have something for you. Check out out Rust Guide for Beginners and improve your gaming skills! Subscribe to our blog and get top notch gaming guides and tips! Get a chance to win dozens of neat skins each week! Tonhy Johns November 9, Dota 2 Basics How to Play Dota 2? Dota 2 Controls Tips You will be using both your keyboard and mouse to play Dota. Here is the list of the main controls to utilize in your epic fights: Right clicking on the ground orders your hero to move there.

Dota 2 Terminology The Dota 2 world is immense. Dire is name of the side situated on the top right corner of the map. Farm Farming is earning gold and experience by killing creeps. Radiant is the name of the side placed at the bottom left corner on the map.

Map The map is the battlefield of Dota 2. It is comprised of two sides: The Radiant fraction, situated at the bottom left corner; The Dire fraction, positioned at the top right corner The fractions are divided by a river. Dota 2 Lanes The map is segmented into three different lanes — top , middle or mid and bottom bot. Mid lane stretches diagonally across the map, and the creep waves clash right in the river. Bot lane connects the base of each team and the bottom right corner of the map.

In reverse, bot is the easy lane for Radiant, and hard lane for Dire. Jungle in Dota A large area of the map is covered with trees , forming the Jungle. Also, the river offers you Runes. Runes in Dota 2 Runes are fancy-looking power-ups that spawn in regular time intervals in six spots on the game map.

Its effect lasts for 45 seconds. Illusion Rune creates two illusions of a hero. The duration is 75 seconds. Invisibility Rune gives an ability to become invisible. The effect lasts 45 seconds.

Regeneration Rune fully restores mana and health unless the hero takes damage from another hero. It affects you for 30 seconds. Haste Rune gives you immunity to slows and grants maximum movement speed. The power-up lasts for 22 seconds. The duration is 50 seconds.

Here are the types of units you will encounter: Line creeps These are the basic creeps that move down the three lanes to the nearest enemy tower, hero or unit and start attacking it. There are three main types of line creeps : Melee Ranged Siege Melee creeps are the most numerous group of your tiny warriors. Mega creeps do not grow stronger, but have their bounties increased over time.

Neutral jungle creeps Not all creeps in a game have a side. Each side has four creep types to utilize: Small camps There is only one small creep camp on each side of the map.

Medium camps Obviously, these camps are a little stronger than the small ones, and give you more gold and experience. Large creeps These creep camps are the strongest among regular units. Ancient creeps These are the most powerful creeps you will encounter in the game. Roshan This creep technically belongs to ancient creeps, but since he is the most powerful neutral unit in the game he has his own category.

Summons and creep-heroes Creeps you summon Dota specialists yes, that is a thing now are still arguing about whether summonable creatures should be considered creeps or not.

Only a small part of summons follow a hero around until they are killed. All summonable creatures can be divided into three major groups: Regular summons Creep-heroes Wards Regular summons are no different from line creeps considering their stats. They also can be resummoned after a rather short time period. Buildings Technically, everything in Dota revolves around buildings. Fountain A fountain is the first building you encounter in Dota, along with the Base shop, which we will describe later.

Ancient This is the heart of your base, the most important building you have to protect. Towers Alongside with the Ancient, Towers are the iconic Dota 2 buildings that most newbies are aware of.

For convenience and faster communication, towers are grouped in Tiers: Tier 1 includes the first three towers, which are closest to the river. Subsequently, they are divided into tier 1 top, mid and bot towers. Tier 2 towers are located midway through the line. Tier 3 towers form the last protection line before the enemies enter your base. Tier 4 are last two towers defending the Ancient. Tower abilities include: True Sight Tower Protection Tower Armor Bonus Each tower has an vision radius at night and almost double its size — — during day.

Here is the usual order of auto-attacks: If multiple enemies engage a tower, it attacks the primary offender first. Once the first enemy can no longer be attacked he is out of reach, dead or invulnerable , the structure switches to the closest unit attacking the tower.

If there is none of the above, the third priority goes to an enemy attacking an ally of the tower. Again, if there are no enemies classified as in number 3, the tower switches to the last priority level and attacks an enemy unit attacking an enemy of the tower. Here are they for the tower attack priority: At your rescue. This only works for heroes, though. Changing target. You, as well as your enemies, have a loophole to avoid being killed by the tower.

If you start firing your skills at an allied unit while being in the tower attack range, it will disregard you as a threat and switch to another target. Shrines are indestructible unless you destroy at least one Tier 3 tower. Special Hero Ability Affecting Buildings If you are having a tough time protecting your towers, you or your allies can use the Glyph of Protection.

In the knowledge base, all the artifacts are generally divided into three main types: Basic items Upgrade items Secret items The Basics category items are sold in the main and side shops, Secret items are sold only in the Secret Shop.

There are some pieces of information about Dota 2 items you should remember: Heroes cannot use items owned by other heroes , with a handful of exceptions. Some items can be disassembled. See Disassembly for details.

Gem of True Sight and Divine Rapier cannot be sold at any time. Enchanted Mango cannot be sold after the preparation time. The starting teleport scroll and any items gained from selecting a Dota 2 bonus hero or randoming cannot be sold.

Most dropped items can be destroyed by force-attacking them default key: A. Gem of True Sight and Divine Rapier cannot be destroyed. Cooldowns are shared between identical items with active abilities, and if one item with an active ability can be upgraded into another, most of the time both will share a cooldown. Multiple instances of the same aura or debuff will not stack, even if the two copies of the item providing it are owned by separate heroes.

Some items have effects that only apply to heroes that are ranged or melee. The shop at the enemy fountain can also be used to buy items, sell items, and access the stash. Basically, these are supportive items: healing potions, wards, etc. Attributes These are the things that add one or more attributes to your hero: Strength, Agility, Intelligence.

Armaments Type of items that increase damage or armor to your hero. Arcane Type of items that passively and actively improve the characteristics of your hero. Upgrades Common The first types of item that require prerequisite components for assembling.

Support These items are used to support your allies. Caster The items add some active abilities to a hero. Artifacts Items that grant passive auras to your hero.

Secret The items, which are sold only in the Secret Shop and used largely to create high-profile items. Dota 2 Heroes Dota 2 Characters are one of the main elements of the gameplay. You can pick one and the same hero only once for every particular match. All Dota 2 heroes are sorted by three core attributes: Strength is the main attribute of mighty warriors who have a large health pool and good regeneration. They are able to initiate teamfights and withstand a large number of attacks.

Most of them are melee strength heroes. Agility — a must-have attribute for fast and clever killers, who cause a lot of damage and have great movement speed.

These are usually the heroes dealing a lot of damage with their constant physical attacks. Intelligence is the main attribute of spell casters. They have a large supply of mana, and can cast lots of spells of various types, ranging from support to attack spells. Most of these heroes have small armor, but are always ready to use their spells to leave a fight or quickly kill an enemy hero.

Heroes Leveling Every hero starts off at level 1 and can level up 24 times, up to level Dota 2 Heroes Abilities Abilities are unique skills that heroes and creeps have access to on the battlefield. Active Abilities The abilities that are activated manually by a player. Toggle Toggle abilities are always non-targetable. However, once they are toggled on, they persist through any form of disable, including silence.

Target Point Point target abilities require the caster to target a point or an area. Target Area Area target abilities work like point target abilities , with the only difference being that they require the caster to target a whole area , instead of a point. Vector Targeting Vector targeted abilities work similar to point target abilities , with the difference being that after choosing the initial point, a direction from that point can be chosen by dragging the cursor in the desired direction.

Target Unit Unit target abilities require the caster to directly target a unit , and cannot be used on the ground. Target Point or Unit Some point targeted abilities may also be able to directly target a unit. Target Unit with area effect A few single-target abilities have an effect on the area around the primary target. Passive Abilities The abilities that are activated just after being learned. Autocast Autocast abilities are special active abilities that can be toggled on or off, or manually cast.

Auto-castable abilities have almost the same appearance as regular active abilities. Status Effect Active and, in rare cases, passive abilities or items can cause many different effects on heroes and creeps. Shackle is the same as stun, but requires the attacking hero to channel the effect.

Root — Unit is unable to move, but can perform some actions. Hex — Unit is transformed into a critter, and is unable to perform any actions except move at a slow pace.

Cyclone — Unit is swept into the air, where it is invulnerable, but cannot move or perform any actions. Blind — Unit has a chance to miss basic attacks. Silence — Unit is disabled from using unit abilities, but can still use item abilities. Mute — Unit is disabled from using item abilities. Disarm — Unit cannot attack, but can still use abilities.

Most slows end after a set time, while other slows gradually decrease over time. Taunt — Unit is forced to attack a certain target, ignoring player input. Forced movement — Unit is forced to move in a certain direction, ignoring player input. Invisibility — Unit cannot be seen by normal vision, but can be detected by True Sight. Phased — Unit can move through other units, ignoring collision size. Invulnerability — Unit cannot be damaged by physical attacks.

Spell immunity — Unit cannot be targeted or affected by most spells. Ethereal — Unit assumes a ghostly form, becoming immune to physical damage, but takes more magical damage. Ethereal units cannot attack. In Dota 2, there are several types of dispelling: Basic dispels are able to remove most basic stats altering effects like speed or damage bonuses or slows and silences. However, they are unable to remove most hard disables like stuns or Forced Movement.

Strong dispels are capable of removing everything a basic dispel and spell immunity can remove. On top of that, these can also remove many more status effects, including hard disables. Whether or not strong dispels can remove positive effects is unknown, since there is no source of strong dispel which can be applied to enemy units.

Death applies the ultimate dispel on units. It removes almost everything. Only a few effects are not dispelled by death. Talents in Dota 2 Each hero, in addition to upgrading abilities, is able to gain talents. Dota 2 Roles Dota 2 is in many ways similar to a team sport, where it takes not just awesome individual abilities, but also great teamwork to achieve victory. Carries on the laning stage The Carry hero is basically positioned on the Easy Lane, this is the bottom lane when playing on the light side and vice versa, the top one if you play on the dark side.

Carry on the fighting As mentioned above, the Carry is the core unit that inflicts most of damage, especially after 20 minutes of play, when he acquires useful artifacts. Carry heroes examples Agility heroes are largely the most suitable for this role, as they deal a large amount of damage not due to their abilities, but with continuous physical attacks.

Second position — Midlaner — Midlane The name of the position, Midlaner, comes from the central lane, which in the Dota 2 community is called Middle or Mid.

Midlaner on the laning phase Heroes on the central lane gain experience and get a level up faster than the heroes on other lanes, since Midlaners are the only ones who stand in the mid lane. Gank is a sudden active attack on an enemy hero that he does not expect. Midlaner on the fighting The role of the midlane hero in the teamfight is important both at the beginning and at the end of the game. Midlaner Heroes Example Heroes filling the role of midlaner must have active attack abilities and inflict a large amount of damage over a short time.

Third position — Offlaner — Offlane While the first two positions are needed to deal damage and kill at the beginning or at the end of the game, Offlaner is the one who starts the fight or takes control over enemy heroes. Offlaners on the laning stage Standing on the off lane hard lane is rough luck for heroes. Offlaner on the fighting The role of the offlaner in the fight is sometimes very brief, albeit very important.

Offlaner heroes example Heroes on the hard line must have a large health pool to lane against two or more enemy heroes and survive. Agility offlaners : Faceless Void, Pangolier, Razor. Heroes examples 4 positions A lot of different heroes may be the position 4 players. Intelligence: Enchantress, Chen, Dark Willow 5.

The fifth position — Support — Easy Lane Support is the main assisting hero in the game. The fifth position at the Laning stage Support in the fifth position is usually on the lane with a carry. Warding Basically, it is the 5 position support who is responsible for providing vision to all his allies on the map, therefore reducing vision for the enemies.

There are two kinds of wards in Dota 2: Observer Ward — Plants an Observer Ward, an invisible watcher that gives ground vision in a radius to your team. Lasts 6 minutes. It is placed mainly on the hills, in those places where the enemy could be located. Sentry Ward — Plants a Sentry Ward, an invisible watcher that grants True Sight, the ability to see invisible units and wards, to any existing allied vision within a radius. You can also use the Sentry Ward to block a stack of neutral creeps.

Support heroes example Heroes of the fifth position are largely supports. Game Stages For your convenience, each Dota 2 match is divided into stages. Draft There are several game modes in Dota 2. The most popular game modes are: All Pick Choose from the full hero pool. Players can choose any hero, random a hero, re-pick a hero once, or swap heroes with teammates.

Turbo Mode This game mode has the same rules as All Pick. However, in order to shorten the match time, several differences exist: Faster drafting. All players pick at the same time. Lower timers on all ban, pick and strategy phases. Increased gold and experience gains. Passive gold doubled. Midas gold doubled Experience gained doubled. No gold lost on death. Weaker towers. All Tier towers have HP. Tier 1 armor — Tier 2 and 3 armor — 14 Tier 4 armor — 21 Creeps are upgraded at a much faster rate than normal.

Creeps are upgraded at wave 6 and every 5 waves afterward i. Reduced respawn timers. Faster and invulnerable couriers. All heroes get their own flying couriers without buying one. Couriers auto-deliver items when items are in the stash or in its inventory. Can be toggled off. Couriers are permanently hasted at movement speed and are permanently invulnerable.

Ranked Matchmaking All Pick Matchmaking is the process through which the system groups players into opposing teams for public games. At first, every player has 15 seconds to vote for a hero to get banned. All players select a hero at the same time. A hero may only be voted for once. Two players cannot vote for the same hero. The game displays heroes as they are voted on, but not who voted. After 15 seconds, half of the heroes that were voted on get randomly selected and banned.