[0:00] Dota is one of the most overwhelming and 
complicated games ever made. And for new and  
[0:04] experienced players alike, there is no foundation 
or fundamentals to work off of. So when we get in  
[0:10] game, we spend 45 minutes guessing, arguing, 
wondering if we're all doing the right thing.  
[0:16] But what if it didn't have to be this way? In 
this video and the rest of the series, you are  
[0:20] going to learn exactly how Dota 2 works from the 
ground up. This will empower you to understand why  
[0:25] you're doing what you're doing and how to approach 
the game strategically. I am creating all of this  
[0:30] alongside airond dot. Between the two of us, we 
have two decades of Dota coaching experience. We  
[0:36] know what it is that you're missing and how to 
sew order into this chaos. In order to do this,  
[0:40] we must start from the very beginning. Every 
game of Dota 2 is played on the exact same map  
[0:46] with the exact same rules. There are two teams, 
Radiant versus Dire, each with their respective  
[0:52] fortresses. And at the core of both of these 
fortresses, each team has their own ancient.  
[0:58] And as the name of the game states, it is each 
team's job to defend their ancient. As we load  
[1:04] into a game of Dota 2, you will see that this is 
the Radiant Ancient, and this is the Dire Ancient,  
[1:11] each with 4,500 hit points. But before you can 
even lay a finger on the enemy team's ancient,  
[1:17] you must first destroy a bunch of towers. These 
towers that are defending the ancient have 2600  
[1:24] HP each. You must then go through all or at least 
one of three lanes of towers. In each of these  
[1:32] three lanes, the last tower has 2500 hit points. 
The tower outside of it also has 2500 hit points,  
[1:40] and the first tower has 1,800 hit points. Each 
of these towers also has damage, attack speed,  
[1:48] and armor that scales up the further you go 
into the base. If we look at these numbers,  
[1:54] these numbers are much higher than what you 
will load into the game with as any hero in  
[2:00] the game of Dota 2. As you see, I have about 
470 hit points, 55 damage, 123 attack speed,  
[2:09] and three armor. That is meager even in comparison 
to just the tier one tower that is our first foe  
[2:17] that we must conquer. As you can see at the 
beginning of the game, this isn't much of a  
[2:22] fair fight between us and the enemy structures. 
So the game of Dota 2 tells us that we are not  
[2:31] allowed to hit these towers at the beginning 
of the game. So what do we do about this?  
[2:36] The first thing we must understand is that the 
towers numbers never go up. They remain constant  
[2:42] throughout the entire course of the game. But for 
us, on the other hand, we will gain experience. We  
[2:49] will gain gold to purchase items, and these will 
increase our stats gradually over the course of  
[2:54] the game. And how do we do this, you might ask? 
The Dota 2 map itself supplies us with all the  
[3:00] answers we will ever need to gain the experience 
and gold to eventually topple these structures.  
[3:05] So in effect, the game of Dota 2 becomes a rat 
race between two teams of five players for who  
[3:12] can gain golden experience the fastest. 
When you are trying to understand Dota 2,  
[3:17] there are two things on your screen that will be 
your absolute best friends. Number one is the mini  
[3:23] map in the bottom lefthand corner and number 
two is the timer. Everything in the game of  
[3:29] Dota 2 operates on a strict timer. The first most 
fundamental resource that you will have access to  
[3:35] to gain golden experience every game is a creep 
wave of four that spawns in each respective lane  
[3:44] for both teams. These creeps will proceed to walk 
down the lane and try to murder each other. You  
[3:51] gain experience simply by being near the creeps, 
the enemy creeps when they die. However, in order  
[3:58] to get gold, you must deliver the finishing blow 
on that creep. So, every game we start farming  
[4:07] one of the three respective lanes. But there 
are many more ways to gain golden experience  
[4:12] in the game of Dota 2 than just lane creeps. 
Starting at the 1 minute mark every single game,  
[4:18] these little triangles are going to appear on your 
mini map. Now, what are these triangles exactly?  
[4:23] These triangles represent neutral creeps that can 
be killed by either team at any time. However,  
[4:30] if you try to fight up against them when you're 
only level one, you will not stand much of a  
[4:35] chance. As we look at our numbers and we look at 
their numbers. So, what that means is that we must  
[4:40] spend some amount of time killing lane creeps 
before we're strong enough to deal with these  
[4:46] neutral creeps. The reason why we farm lane creeps 
first is because we have our own lane creeps that  
[4:51] are helping us kill them because we alone are not 
strong enough just yet. Eventually, we will have  
[4:57] enough levels and items where we will be strong 
enough to take down these neutral creeps without  
[5:02] any help. Further giving us more experience 
and gold to access from the map. If you do  
[5:09] kill these neutral creeps, every minute they will 
respawn in the same location as they were before.  
[5:17] and you can kill them again. In this way, Dota 
supplies us with three lanes of two waves of  
[5:23] creeps each minute and an abundance of neutral 
camps that will respawn every minute. The winning  
[5:31] team in Dota is almost entirely decided upon which 
team can get more gold and experience every minute  
[5:38] utilizing these resources. This is a foundational 
aspect of Dota that experienced players often  
[5:45] forget and neglect. And newer players, it is 
absolutely essential that you understand. There  
[5:50] is a lot of noise in the game of Dota 2. There 
is a lot of information on your screen. There are  
[5:56] heroes to kill, buttons to press, items to buy, 
but the most important thing you understand is  
[6:02] that how much golden experience you get per minute 
from these lane creeps and these neutral creeps  
[6:09] will dictate whether or not you win more than 50% 
of your games. So, with all of this information on  
[6:15] your screen, the two most important things to 
keep track of are the timer and the mini map.  
[6:21] The timer tells you when the resources will 
become available again to claim golden XP,  
[6:26] and the mini map will tell you which resources are 
there. These little red dots are enemy creeps for  
[6:31] you to kill. These little triangles on the map are 
neutral camps that have not been cleared by anyone  
[6:36] else in the game just yet. So, by killing 
these jungle camps as well as lane creeps,  
[6:43] you will eventually get enough gold for items and 
experience for levels where you are now ready to  
[6:50] take down some towers. Every decision you make 
in the game is acrewing strength through killing  
[6:57] neutral camps as well as lane creeps. And as long 
as you are operating off of this timer and this  
[7:03] mini map, you are on the right track. Hopefully 
you guys are still with me thus far. Dota is  
[7:08] a game that operates on a refreshing consistent 
cycle of a one minute timer throughout the course  
[7:13] of the entire game. But there are more tools 
for us to build our strength over the course  
[7:18] of the game than just what Dota provides every 
minute. These tools are also on their own timers  
[7:24] throughout the course of the game. Our first 
example is that every 2 minutes on the minute,  
[7:30] a power rune will spawn in one of two locations. 
It did not spawn here, so that means it spawned  
[7:36] down here. There are several different types of 
runes, each providing a short duration buff that  
[7:42] is really powerful at every stage of the game. 
Every 3 minutes at these two lotus pools here  
[7:48] and here, a healing lotus will spawn that provides 
you with health and mana. It is a one-time usable  
[7:55] consumable that gives you a quick burst of health 
and mana. Every four minutes, there is a bounty  
[8:02] rune that spawns in two different locations on the 
map. And when picked up, it provides a small gold  
[8:08] boost to everybody on that person's team. Every 
5 minutes, your creep wave will spawn with a  
[8:14] catapult, a unit that helps take down buildings as 
it does bonus damage to buildings cuz it is called  
[8:21] a siege creep. This timing can be very powerful 
for helping you kill any of the enemy buildings  
[8:27] in any respective lane. Every seven minutes, two 
wisdom shrines will spawn at these two locations  
[8:34] and when captured will provide a huge injection 
of experience to the player that captured it as  
[8:41] well as his teammate with the lowest level. 
At 20 minutes into the game, a powerful foe  
[8:46] called the Tormentor will spawn for the team that 
kills it. It will provide gold for everybody and  
[8:52] a powerful item for one player on the team. Be 
careful. The tormentor reflects damage from one  
[8:59] individual hero and will kill you if you try to 
take it on by yourself. The Tormentor is a team  
[9:05] objective that must be coordinated between you and 
some of your teammates in order to take him down.  
[9:09] And don't forget the most powerful iconic beast in 
all of Dota 2 history, Roshan. He's there from the  
[9:17] beginning of the game, but often can't be killed 
until much later. This is his starting location on  
[9:22] the map. And after 15 minutes, he will swap which 
side he is on between this pit and this pit every  
[9:29] five minutes. If you're not sure where he's at at 
any given time, you can always look at your mini  
[9:34] map as it will have this red icon for Roshan. When 
slain, Roshan provides the ages of the mortal,  
[9:40] which is a 5minute long buff for one hero on 
the team that kills it to respawn where they  
[9:46] died one time. This extra life provided by Roshan 
is almost always necessary for you to ever end the  
[9:52] game. So before you go for the tier three towers 
and beyond, make sure to kill Roshan first. So  
[9:58] what is it that we learned in this video? We 
first learned how the structures in Dota 2 work  
[10:03] and how they compare to the strength of our hero 
as time goes on. But even though we're not strong  
[10:07] enough level one, to kill these buildings, 
the map provides us with all the answers.  
[10:12] We learned that lane creeps and neutral creeps are 
the primary source of golden experience for us to  
[10:17] gain strength and these operate on a strict one 
minute timer. We also learned about bigger picture  
[10:24] objectives that exist on the map on longer 
timers. We have power runes every 2 minutes,  
[10:29] Lotus pools every 3 minutes, bounty runes every 4 
minutes, siege creeps to help kill buildings every  
[10:35] 5 minutes, wisdom shrines to give us experience 
every 7 minutes, the tormentor spawns at 20  
[10:41] minutes. And don't forget about Roshan. There are 
so many things to consider in the game of Dota 2.  
[10:46] As we progress through the rest of this series, 
we are going to be showing you more and more about  
[10:50] exactly how the game of Dota 2 works. In this 
video's goal was to provide you with a foundation  
[10:56] of understanding the timer as well as the mini 
map and how they function in the game of Dota  
[11:00] 2. Stay tuned as we break down the feast that we 
know as Dota 2 into bite-sized digestible pieces.