A Beginner’s Guide to Dota 2 – Part Three: Items

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• The Basics - Part 1
• The Basics - Part 2
• The Heroes - Part 1
• The Heroes - Part 2
• Items - Part 1
• Items - Part 2
• Situational Items - Part 1
• Situational Items - Part 2
• Playing Support - Part 1
• Playing Support - Part 2

Clothes create the person, some they assert, and whereas that’s not strictly true in Dota a pair of – each as a result of voluminous the heroes aren’t “men” such a lot as they're “floating radioactive  lizard-penises” or “spirits of retribution absolute to this plane by pure rage”, and since the particular article of clothing choices square measure entirely cosmetic – it’s actually true that your things have an enormous impact on however well you’ll do.

Items will flip a game around. One carry wrecking your day? Scythe of Vyse will shut them down long enough for you to burst them down, dispose of the remainder of the team, or retreat. A team of serious physical damagers? Ghost Scepter turns them into kittens. Insane magic harm or way too several stuns? Linken’s Sphere or Black King Bar square measure your friends.

  

One issue you actually, actually need to grasp are some things I closed with last week: huge things square measure made up of very little things. Aghanim’s Scepter prices a grand total of 4200 gold, however you ought to not lay aside 4200 gold and die in one go. It’s created from four different things – a degree Booster, AN Ogre Club, a Blade of spirit, and a workers of genius. If you've got all four of those things promptly, they'll in real time remodel into Aghanim’s Scepter.

In short: rather than saving up Brobdingnagian amounts of gold for the massive dearly-won things, and risking losing it on death, you'll be able to obtain the individual things that build into it individually. It’s the precise same value, it provides you bonus stats and skills quicker, and it means that there’s less likelihood of losing an enormous wodge of gold to a gank. All you've got {to do|to try to to|to try ANd do} is left-click on an item within the search to visualize what makes it up.

Oh yes. And shift-click things within the search window to feature all of their parts to your fast obtain panel within the bottom-right of the interface.

Hello!

You know, I honestly thought – and hoped – I may through this week’s article while not you taking drugs.

Nope. You subconsciously hate yourself way an excessive amount of for that.

Brilliant. Fine, then. inquire from me the queries, bridgekeeper; i'm not afraid.

WHAT… square measure a number of the a lot of common things that individuals ought to understand about?

There square measure a couple of that ought to very be bought at the beginning of each game. the primary – and one amongst the foremost crucial for oh-so-many reasons – is that the Animal traveller (150 gold).

This little beastie is accountable for one thing: transport things from the team’s fountain up to the team members within the lanes. With the faucet of 1 button, he’ll devour any things you've got at the fountain and so trot on to you.

The traveller is crucial for variety of reasons, the foremost obvious and most vital being that it means that team members don’t ought to waste time back to the fountain so as to urge their things. He may be wont to visit the key buy you and obtain things there, that is – once more – terribly handy. significantly if he’s upgraded to a Flying traveller (220 gold, and the one hundred fifty for Animal Courier) which supplies him a speed boost and means that he will fly over piece of land.

The others square measure Observer Wards (150 gold). There square measure a restricted range of those out there at any given time (only one set of 2 will be purchased at the start of the sport, and somebody can buy them) however they supply a team with wide-ranging vision of an area. They’re helpful marking out the spots runes spawn, ensuring that the enemy team can’t war Roshan while not you knowing concerning it, ensuring no-one’s unavowed up behind you, or perhaps simply keeping tabs on the enemy team. And once placed, they’re invisible.

There also are watchman Wards (200 gold) that don’t offer abundant general vision, however do notice something invisible within the region. As such, they'll be used for defense against stealthed or otherwise hidden heroes, further on realize and destroy enemy wards. These don’t tend to be picked up timely (except in specific circumstances).

We’ll cowl Observer Wards (and smart locations for them) in additional detail in next week’s guide.

Generally, at the beginning of any given game, the support players (who want less gold to stay useful) ought to pay a minimum of a part of their beginning money on shopping for a traveller, shopping for a collection of Observer Wards, and – once a couple of minutes – upgrading the traveller to Flying.

How concerning common early-game things for non-support players?

Oh so many. I’ll get into a lot of shortly, however there square measure 2 things you’ll often see players beginning with. the primary square measure Tangos (90 gold), which give a trifle of health regeneration if you, uh, use them to eat a tree.

what

Just bear with it, okay? Use a Tango in your inventory on a tree, revisit around a hundred health over consecutive sixteen seconds. they are available with 3 charges, therefore they’re low-cost and effective, and also the healing persists albeit you get hit (which isn’t true of a lot of powerful healing things like Healing Salves). you ought to just about invariably obtain a collection of Tangos together with your beginning gold – they’re really expert for healing up harm from enemies harassing you, and they’ll allow you to keep in your lane longer while not having to waste time back to base.

The second item common to the majority stats is that the Iron Branch (53 gold) that nets you +1 to all or any stats. Not the foremost effective things within the world, however considering the value, they’re really expert for obtaining a couple of early stat boosts together with your leftover gold and you'll be able to build them into a remarkably helpful Magic Wand a trifle shortly. as a result of they’re +1 to all or any stats, this conjointly means spongy casters will get an even bigger health bar while not shopping for a strength item, whereas sturdy melee-types will increase the scale of their mana pool while not shopping for AN intelligence item.

Two different things we’ll cowl quickly square measure the Bottle (600 gold) and also the Boots of Speed (450 gold, conjointly called “brown boots”). The Bottle is another healing item with 3 charges, solely these charges restore one hundred thirty five health and seventy mana, and that they top off whenever you visit your fountain or grab a runic letter. Grabbing a runic letter whereas carrying a Bottle will “store” the runic letter, in order that you'll be able to activate it whenever you prefer.

The hell may be a rune?

Yeah, I haven’t very talked concerning them however. each 2 minutes, a runic letter can spawn in one amongst 2 locations on the watercourse, helpfully marked on the map below:

There square measure 5 kinds of rune: Double harm (doubles auto-attack damage), Haste (increases movement speed to maximum), Illusion (creates a try of weak duplicates of your hero), physical property (makes you invisible), and Regeneration (restores up to around 3000 health and 2000 mana). These spots on the watercourse square measure normally warded in order that the player within the middle lane is aware of wherever the runic letter has spawned, and might choose it up (to refill their Bottle, say, as Bottles square measure a lot of common on mid-lane heroes) or a minimum of stop the opponent from obtaining it.