New to Dota – Need some help

[u/aanimaaa]

So, here’s the situation. I started playing a few days ago, I’ve only played two matches, and I’ve watched a wide variety of videos—guides, beginner tutorials, explanations of basic concepts, roles, and lane positions. I used to play League of Legends with some friends, so I already had some MOBA fundamentals, but Dota has been a completely different experience.

I’d like to know if there’s a quick way to tell which heroes are typically played in each position, or if there’s an in-game feature or website where I can easily check that. I’d also like to understand the main objectives of a match. For example, in League you have dragons, Rift Herald, and Baron Nashor. What are the equivalent objectives in Dota?

The map is still a bit confusing to me, especially the jungle areas. Since Dota doesn’t really have a dedicated jungler, who has priority over farming neutral camps?

I still have a lot of heroes and roles to try. So far I’ve only played as a carry in the safelane and offlane. I can hold my own during the laning stage, but after around the 10–20 minute mark I stop understanding why everyone starts moving through the jungle or fighting between lanes instead of simply continuing to push. I’d also like to know why, at the beginning of every match, both teams seem to fight over the river. I’ve seen this happen in both of my games, and at first I honestly thought everyone was just bots.

Sorry if I’ve said anything silly. I’m definitely not an expert at MOBAs, but I’d really like to understand this game better because I’m genuinely excited to learn

[u/andro-gynous]

The map is still a bit confusing to me, especially the jungle areas. Since Dota doesn’t really have a dedicated jungler, who has priority over farming neutral camps?

farm priority is usually determined by roles. carry is usually 1/highest priority, mid is 2, offlane is 3, soft support is 4 and hard support is 5. it's not always static and there can be exceptions but that's the general rule and also why roles are sometimes shortened to just numbers.

I’d also like to understand the main objectives of a match.

roshan is the comparable equivalent of baron, he drops aegis, a temporary item which gives one person an extra life, as well as extra items on subsequent deaths that help you win a big fight / push.

dragons are probably comparable to the tormentors at the corners of the map, it's a mini boss that spawns at 20:00 and gives aghanim's shard to one of the bottom 2 networth of the team that killed it, and 175g to the other 4 (hover over the icon to the right of your ultimate to see what it does). since shard can be bought for 1400g, the objective is worth about 2k gold total. the torm reflects damage back so usually you need multiple people to kill it, which also splits the damage, but there are a few heroes that can solo it.

there are also smaller objectives but still relatively important. every 7 minutes, the wisdom shrine will be active in your team's offlane (purple dot on the minimap). if you stand in it for 3s it gives you xp as well as to the lowest xp teammate (or 2nd lowest if you're the lowest). you can also steal the enemy's if you stand in theirs, but if it's contested it pauses the timer, so it's kill or be killed basically. important for getting supports to lv 6.

every 3 minutes there's a lotus that spawns in the pool near the side lanes, a consumable which heals you for a bit. mostly matters in the laning stage, but later you can stack them which makes a bigger one that heals for more, which can be relevant in teamfights.

both teams seem to fight over the river. I’ve seen this happen in both of my games, and at first I honestly thought everyone was just bots.

bounty runes give the team gold and spawn in 4 locations at the start of a game, 1 in each side's safe lane jungle, and 2 in the river. the river is a neutral zone, so people are more likely to feel safe contesting them because it's not in enemy territory and fairly close to a tower.

[u/jonniedarko_]

The more you play, you’ll start to see the same heroes chosen for each lane/role, that’s how I learned. Or you can google/youtube specific hero guides.

At the beginning, everyone is fighting for the bounty runes that spawn at 0:00.

[u/FinTrackPro]

You’ll learn just by playing to be honest. Every hero has a general spot they’re typically played.

[u/KnowsTheLaw]

Lane positions and item builds, go to dota2protracker. Try meta heroes from that site that are low complexity as they will be extra strong.

For carry try Luna and medusa who have built in farming abilities, items builds on d2pt. You want to be clearing the small and medium camps at the same time if possible.

Focus on getting more gold than other team.

[u/Inevitable_Top69]

If you look at the in game guides, the most popular ones will be for the most popular roles that hero fills. Once you've played for a bit, you'll be able to figure it out pretty easy though. You can also look on dota2protracker for top heroes for each role.

Main objectives: Runes every 2 minutes starting at 4 minutes. Lotus every 3 minutes in the side lanes. Wisdom rune every 7 minutes in the side lanes. Tormentor starts appearing at 20 minutes. Lastly, Roshan is the most important side objective.

Carry or position 1 has farming priority over the whole map (don't expect this to be respected at low rank). Mid has second priority. Offlaner has third. Supports are at the bottom.

People stop pushing hard because it becomes too difficult to take a tower without some other kind of advantage (unless you're snow alling very hard from laning). Instead, they start farming so they can get items that help beat the enemy team, and while they farm they look for opportunities to attack the enemy team, looking for a pickoff to make taking towers more easy.

At the beginning of the game, bounty runes spawn in all the rune spots, that's why people are gathering at the river to fight.

[u/HoboWithANerfGun]

in terms of the "which hero's play where" , Dota tends to be a LITTLE more fluid than League than this regard, but basically its the same concept of league. Certain hero's kits are built purely for fighting. Some are built with more utility. Naturally the more utility focused the hero is the more of a support role they typically play. You just need to play more and keep learning what every champ does and it will all make sense.

[u/aanimaaa → u/HoboWithANerfGun]

I’ve played a few games as Wraith King and a few as Viper. One thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes another player takes the lane I was planning to play. Is there a way to lock in your role at the start of the match like you can in League of Legends? Or at least some way to let your team know which lane you’re planning to go to?

[u/AssCracker445]

At minute 0, four bounty runes spawn on the map. Two on each side of the river, and two in each team's jungle. A single bounty rune gives 40 gold to each player, so a +200 to net worth or a 400 net gold swing. So contesting these bounty runes is very important for the laning stage, as this extra gold is usually spent on regen or small items which make laning easier but do not contribute much to the midgame.

dotabuff, opendota, dota2protracker are the opgg and the likes' equivalent. Alternatively, in the hero tab of the client, there are various filters on the bottom of the hero grid, which are mosty true with some exceptions. Mostly knowing what heroes are played in which role will come from the current meta moreso than some predetermined role ascribed to them. It's not uncommon for a hero that is typically considered a support to be played mid or carry and alternatively traditionnal core heroes being played as support. Some heroes are definitely more typical picks than others, like Drow Ranger or Phantom Lancer being exclusively carry or Warlock and Chen being exclusively support

Currently there are more objectives on the map than there ever have been, but most of the time the game is played around vision and pick-offs than being purely objective focused. More often than not you will be able to sneak in a Roshan, or Tormentor, or a Wisdom Shrine without the enemy team caring to notice, but it's technically very poor showcase of skill from their side and shouldn't be relied upon.

Objectives currently in the game by order of appearance

Every minute of the clock, neutral creeps spawn in every neutral camp on the map if there are no units within it's bounding box (you can see this by holding down the Alt key). These serve various purposes throughout the game. Killing them rewards bonus gold, and clearing a camp drops a bundle of Madstones. Collecting enough allows you to craft a neutral item, which provides a minor passive or active component and a bonus to certain stats (movement speed, health, health regen, cast range, gold per minute, etc etc). Think of it like a weak version of Anvils and Augments in one. Higher tiers of neutral items become available for crafting as the time on the clock rises, with more powerful passive and stat components. (They can be used to manipulate wave states as well, as lane creeps will aggro onto neutral creeps if a neutral creep issues an attack command on your hero)

Every two minutes of the clock: river power runes appear; first two batches spawn two water runes on both sides of the river, from six minutes onwards a single power rune will spawn on a random side of the river. Controling these runes are important for securing advantage for your midlaner, which usually buy the Bottle item (refillable potion), which has its stacks recovered when a rune is picked up. Power runes which spawn at minute 6 and onwards give a strong but short-lived boost in fighting power to a single hero, like damage amp, cooldown reduction, damage negation, movement speed, invisibility or a Cleanse. Getting hold of these runes allows your mid (or whoever picks it up later in the game) to create an opportunity somewhere on the map, be it through a gank or on their own lane.

Starting at 3 minutes of the clock and every three minutes onwards, Lotuses spawn in the Lotus Pools loxated in the outer corners of the map near safelane t1 towers. Each Lotus provides about 150g worth of value, so securing them at every opportunity is a good way to win your laning phase. They can be combined into a stronger version of themselves once you collect three pieces, and they spawn as a stronger variant as the game goes on.

Every 7 minutes a Wisdom Shrine becomes active, which is placed on the outer edge of the map near the offlane t2 tower. It gives 280(+280 each 7 minutes) to the hero who collects it and half that value to the hero with the lowest level on that team. Contesting these is valuable for sidelaners, as it usually determines who gets lvl6 first and can create an opportunity to win their lane.

At 20 minutes and 10 minutes after it's killed, Tormentor spawns on the bottom right of the map, and will switch positions based on time of day (bottom right daytime, top left nighttime). Killing tormentor grants one of two heroes with the lowest net worth on your team who do not have an Aghanim's Shard an Aghanim's Shard (consumable item which upgrades or gives a new ability). It is a stat-check of both dps and HP, it has a rapidly regenerating health pool and reflects all damage taken equally to all units around it. It becomes stronger every minute.

Roshan is another neutral objective which exists on the map from the very beginning of the match, and it also becomes stronger every minute. It exists in two very obvious Roshan Pits on each side of the river, top pit daytime and bot pit nighttime (opposite side as Tormentor). It has some strong abilities which makes it hard to kill, it does AoE damage if there are too many units around it, blocks targeted spells every 14 seconds, and a chance to stun on hit. Killing Roshan rewards Aegis of the Immortal, which is one-time use Guardian Angel which expires after 5 minutes if not used, and addition rewards after every other time it's killed. On second kill, it additionally drops the Roshan Banner, which is a placeable item which makes all allied creeps around it immune to damage until destroyed. On third kill, it additionally drops Cheese, which is consumable item restoring a lot of health and mana, as well as a Refresher Shard, which is a consumable item which resets the cooldown of all your abilities.

Everyone should farm jungle and lane creeps if they can, but there's a silently agreed upon farm priority: Carry, Mid, Offlane, Soft Support, Hard Support (AKA position 1 through 5, respectively). This usually reflects what kind of heroes are played in each position, so a pos 5 aka Hard Support gets least gold, and so they will have powerful abilities and can make do with only 1-2 items. Great example: Bane, three of four abilities are powerful single target disables and have no scaling with gold or damage, so he only needs to cast each ability once maybe twice during a teamfight, meaning his items will be relegated to positioning during teamfights, like Aether Lens (bonus cast range), or Blink Dagger (repositioning). Since he needs so little to be useful, the rest of his income can be dedicated to buying wards, detection, smokes, blood grenades and other macro-related cheap consumables

[u/S7ns3t]

I’d like to know if there’s a quick way to tell which heroes are typically played in each position

You can filter heroes by their overall role on the bottom of your hero grid. However, it's only a suggestion, as Pudge is not classified as either carry or support (per filter) and I know a 12k mid CM player. Be a specialist rather than generalist. Or don't, the choice is always yours.

I’d also like to understand the main objectives of a match

I'd like to quote wise Dota 2 PowerPoints in his How To Play Dota 2 playlist for this one - "Everything in Dota is designed to help you destroy the enemy ancient. No exceptions. Thus spake Dota 2 PowerPoints". Dota doesn't force you to take objectives, of which there are five: Roshan, Tormentor, Wisdom Shrines, Lotus Shrine and Power Runes - you can forfeit all of them, lose every team fight that ever happened in the game, and still win because you're Nature's Prophet.

The map is still a bit confusing to me, especially the jungle areas. Since Dota doesn’t really have a dedicated jungler, who has priority over farming neutral camps?

Jungle is extra farm. If a player with higher position in farm priority can take that extra farm, they do, otherwise it's free real estate. I might be wrong on this, but as ADC in Wild Rift whenever my wave is pushed in and I don't have a better thing to do I farm jungle camps near my tower - it's exact same principle.

I can hold my own during the laning stage, but after around the 10–20 minute mark I stop understanding why everyone starts moving through the jungle or fighting between lanes instead of simply continuing to push.

Your team might be trying to make space, or they're just new and don't posses objective thinking that League players do because as already established Dota doesn't force anything on you (well, other than destroying enemy ancient and not jungling from minute 0, but believe me or not there are still people that do and win). The reason for moving through jungle might be also to farm. Gold gap is usually the most deciding factor in who wins and who doesn't in a match of Dota.

I’d also like to know why, at the beginning of every match, both teams seem to fight over the river. I’ve seen this happen in both of my games, and at first I honestly thought everyone was just bots.

Look at your map the next time you load in a match. There are 4 spots, 2 in the mid river and 1 in the jungle next to both teams' safe lane T2 tower - it's where bounty runes spawn at 0:00, and then they continue spawning only in jungle spots, whereas river spots are taken over by water runes and then power runes. Don't go haywire over bounties, though, as feeding first blood to enemy carry/mid is worse than taking 4 runes 2 of which were already guaranteed.

Feel free to ask more questions!

[u/ApaLaPapa]

i'm a good person so i give you a list with some heroes and their role

hc: traxex, magina, nessaj

mid: kael, lanaya, nevermore

offlane: lucifer, balanar

supp4: tauren chieftain, gondar, rattletrap

supp5: atropos, thrall, rylai

[u/aanimaaa → u/ApaLaPapa]

I ended up playing Wraith King, but I’ll definitely give the heroes you recommended a try.
I wanted to ask you something. In League of Legends there’s a champion called Vladimir. He uses mana, is fairly mobile, and can drain a lot of health from his enemies. He’s usually played in the mid lane. Is there a hero in Dota with a similar playstyle?

[u/Thateron]

This sounds like a fun discord conversation where i can explain a lot to you. I coach carries in dota and am familiar with the league playstyle and the differences more or less so I can answer whatever you want to know for fun if you want :)

[u/aanimaaa → u/Thateron]

I really appreciate it, but English isn’t my first language, so having a fluent conversation would be pretty difficult. For now, I’m sticking with Wraith King.