How To Play Dota 2: Start Here

[00:00] Thank you so much for attending my PowerPoint presentation on how to play Dota. Start here. This 5 part video series is intended for people who are brand new to Dota. The idea is to give someone a grasp of the game's mechanics in less time than it takes

[00:15] to queue up for a couple of games. These 5 videos won't make you a pro player, but they'll give you a much better starting point compared to going in blind. So for one reason or another, you've decided you want to learn Dota.

[00:27] First, welcome. Second, there's a lot to learn, but the vast majority of that information doesn't really matter to you right now. The goal of this series is to explain what Dota is, how to play your first match, and what you can do to improve as a beginner.

[00:40] I will pretend that you have never played a mobile before, and the only things I will assume is that you have downloaded the game and know how to use a mouse and keyboard. If you come home a game like League of Legends or Deadlock, you have a massive advantage over other news, but you still need to learn the basics.

[00:54] Lastly, if you are an experienced player watching this, you will notice that I glance over some things or fail to list exceptions. That is the point. So without further ado, let's get into it. The goal of a Dota match is to destroy the ancient, a big building in the center of the enemy

[01:08] team's base. When this building's HP drops to zero, you instantly win. There is no other way to win the match. The word Dota is sort of kind of an acronym for defense of the ancients. Be sure to tell your rumor friends you know that if you want to impress them.

[01:22] If you want a single piece of advice that will help you earn the match without watching all of this, it is the following. Everything in Dota is designed to help you destroy the enemy ancient. No exceptions.

[01:34] Thus fake Dota 2 power points. However, you cannot spawn in and immediately begin attacking the enemy ancient. It's all the way over there, and it's being defended by a ton of other buildings and heroes. In order to kill it, you must first destroy its surroundings, and in order to do that, you

[01:49] must usually win fights with the enemy team. For that to happen, you must be stronger than them. There are two primary ways to get stronger in Dota. Experience and gold. Experience adds to your hero's level.

[02:02] Levels mean stronger spells, more stats, and access to more powerful abilities. Levels in Dota start at 1 and go all the way up to 30, but the two most important are 6 when you get access to an ultimate and 25 when you get access to a crazy hero upgrade.

[02:16] You'll hit level 6 in pretty much every game, but many matches will end before you get to 25. This is okay. The more XP you have, the easier it will be to destroy the enemy ancient. The other important resource is gold.

[02:28] This is the game's currency system, and you can exchange it for items at the shop. Every hero wants as much experience as possible, but gold is a bit different. Some heroes dedicate almost all of their time to getting as much gold as possible.

[02:40] Other heroes don't care nearly as much. The milestones for gold are very different for each hero, so don't worry about that right now. Just know that the more gold you have, the easier it will be to destroy the enemy ancient.

[02:52] Luckily for you, you actually get golden experience in very similar ways. Experience is earned by being near things when they die. If those weird things that endlessly spawn in your base and fight each other die near you, you get XP.

[03:04] If you're near those strange bear things when they die, you get XP. And if you help kill an enemy hero, you get XP. Notably, you do not gain XP from your friends dying. That applies to both friendly heroes and NPCs.

[03:18] Gold is similar, but in its case, you have to be the person actually doing the killing to get it. Lane creeps, those little suicide drones that spawn in your base, give gold to whoever gets the last hit on them. Notably, when enemy heroes die, they also grant gold to anyone who helped, but the majority

[03:32] goes to whoever got the last hit. There are other ways to get gold such as destroying enemy wards and buildings. You even get a little bit of gold naturally over time. While the wind condition of Dota is to destroy the enemy ancient, your main goal for most

[03:46] of the match will be accumulating gold in experience. The big numbers at the top of the screen are kills, and it's easy to mistake them for points like in basketball or baseball. While the bigger number often correlates with the team that is currently winning, the true

[03:58] measure of a team's power is their golden experience. If you have more, you are winning. Still, those numbers only mean that you are more likely to destroy the enemy ancient before they destroy yours. It is totally possible to lose a game despite having more gold, XP, and kills.

[04:14] Remember the golden rule. Fighting in Dota is designed to help you destroy the enemy ancient. No exceptions, thus fake Dota 2 power points. So now you know the most important and central ideas of Dota, but the ancient is far from

[04:29] the only objective on the map. There are a few more, so let's do a quick rundown. First are towers. These are the buildings that protect the ancient. The map has three lanes, and each lane has three towers. These outer towers are called tier ones.

[04:43] The ones behind them are tier 2s, and the ones behind them are tier 3s. In order to attack towers, you have to kill the ones in front of them first. You can't smack a tier 3 until you kill the tier 2 in front of it, and the tier 1 before

[04:55] that. Note that this is designated per lane, so you can take a tier 2 even if a different lane still has a tier 1. To destroy towers, you want to help your lane creeps get close to them, then attack them.

[05:07] Towers become very difficult to kill if you don't have any friendly creeps near them. They also hit hard and help protect friendly heroes in their area. Don't bother attacking towers if friendly creeps aren't there to help.

[05:19] Behind each tier 3 tower are a set of barracks. These are special buildings, and they are very, very important. If you kill them, your team's creeps that spawn in that specific lane become stronger. This is a very good thing.

[05:31] Barracks don't respawn, and losing them is a big deal. Before you attack the enemy ancient, you should probably kill their barracks first. There's also 3 other objectives that I want to mention. The first is Rochon.

[05:43] This is Dota's equivalent of a raid boss. He lives in a strange cave, either in the bottom or top half of the river that separates the map. Moving between them, depending on whether it's day or night. You can always see where he is on the minimap.

[05:55] Killing Rochon normally requires several members of your team to work together. When he dies, he drops a special item called the Aegis. If you have it in your inventory when you die, you pop right back up in mint condition.

[06:07] This only lasts for 5 minutes, but Roch responds after a while, so you can get it multiple times in a single game. There's also the Tormentor, or Torment for short. This thing teleports between the far corners of the map opposite of wherever Rochon is.

[06:21] It's not as strong as Roch, but it still takes some teamwork to kill. When it dies, it grants a special upgrade called an Agenim Shard to someone on your team. Don't worry about what those do for now. Just know that it's a good thing to have.

[06:33] Just like Rochon, it also responds after a while. Lastly, there's the Wisdom Shrine. This strange machine activates every 7 minutes and grants experience to whichever hero sits inside of it for a few seconds.

[06:45] Each team has one on their side of the map, but heroes from either team can take them. They're one of the few ways to get experience without killing anything, and they grant a lot. Do you see what all 3 of these objectives have in common?

[06:58] They help you destroy the enemy ancient, because everything in Dota is designed to help you destroy the enemy ancient. No exceptions. Plus fake Dota 2 power points.

[07:10] So now you know about Gold Experience, Towers, Barracks, Rochon, Tormentor, and the Wisdom Shrine. That's already a lot of information, so good job keeping up with it all. Still, there's a lot more to learn. Do your best to remember these for the next video, where we will be taking a tour of the

[07:25] map. Thank you very much for watching part 1 of How to Play Dota. Assuming you're watching from the future, there should be a little pop-up link to part 2. Also, we would feel weird to interrupt the video to advertise my Patreon, but there is

[07:37] a link in the description if you'd like to check it out. Thank you very much again for watching, and peace on Planet Earth.