DotA Guide - EverCrest Message Forums

Author

Topic: DotA Guide

Inferno-Spirit

Sports Advocate

posted 09-09-2005 01:35:13 AM

This is basically a simple strategy, hero, and item guide for playeres new to the custom Warcraft III custom map called Defense of the Ancients (DotA).

Gameplay

The game plays fairly simple. There are three main lanes of traffic and a whole bunch of side routes to skirt from lane to lane and often (hopefully) surprise other players. There are two bases - sentinel and scourge - located in the bottom left corner and top right corner of the map, respectively. Also, note that the first five slots in the join game screen are assigned to sentinel and the last five slots are assigned to scourge. Teams are thus determined in advance.

There are continually spawning computer-controlled waves of creeps (four melee units and one ranged unit) that are sent along the three main lanes of traffic. Left to their own devices, these creeps would accomplish almost nothing, as they are balanced in power except for the potential randomness in their damage.

Along each of the three lanes are three towers for each side. The towers do large, large amounts of damage. At the beginning of the game one tower could kill several heroes at a time without taking sigificant damage.

The entire purpose of the game is to assist your own creep waves and drive those waves into the enemy towers, defeating them, and eventually into the enemy base, destroying it.

Another thing of note is that there are a few select buildings of important in each base (for each lane, as well) that give bonuses to the opposing team when destroyed. These buildings cannot be destroyed until the nearby tower protecting them is first razed.

-Sentinel Ancients of War or Scourge Crypts
Destroying an AoW or Crypt causes all melee units for the opposing team in the corresponding lane to spawn with twice their normal attack damage for the rest of the game. This cannot be reversed.
-Sentinel Ancients of Lore or Scourge Temples of the Damned
Similar to the previous effect, except affects the ranged units instead of the melee ones.

Victory occurs when the main building near the back of either base is destroyed. It has a lot of life and almost never dies unless most of the base is already destroyed.

The other, most important detail of the gameplay: Money. You get money for killing heroes(usually 100, although the hero you kill usually loses a lot more than you get), killing units(30-45 IIRC), and killing towers(400-500). No matter how much you help, getting the final blow is all that matters. There is also a continually generating source of money that all players receive: 8 gold every 5 seconds or so.

Money can be spent to purchase items at shops. There are five shops. The first four are near the fountain of healing: The Mountain King, the human female, and the two closest buildings. I suggest you look through each of these buildings to read each item and what it does. You'll be buying them every game, and finding them quickly can make a difference.

The last shop is located in two places: About 1/2 up the map, and either 1/3 from the left edge or the right edge of the map. They are halfway hidden in the trees, but you are expected to know where they are, and what they sell. Check (and try to remember) what they sell, as well.

The last important detail of the base is the fountain of healing. It is a fast-acting life and mana regen fountain. When you are fucked the hell up(and don't want to die) go to the fountain.

Heroes

First: When you die, you respawn at the fountain after a timer expires which increases with your level.

There are basically four types of heroes: Melee, Ranged, Caster, and Stealth. They operate similar to most other games.

Melee heroes are usually the most dangerous heroes in the end of the game, and the price for this is that they are usually the weakest heroes at the beginning. Mostly, this occurs because of their main stat usually being strength and resulting fact that they get a lot of life while still increasing their damage.

Near the beginning of the game, heroes don't have a lot of life. Because of this, melee heroes are susceptible to potshots from ranged heroes and casters. They try to get close enough to attack the dueling creep waves(and hopefully get a unit kill for some extra cash) and the ranged units get in a few shots, forcing the melee unit to retreat.

Melee heroes get powerful abilities. Most melee heroes get a stun or snare of some kind to allow them to chase down retreating heroes.

Ranged heroes are the easiest to succeed with, but they cannot afford to fall behind. They are more item-reliant than the other heroes, but if they become powerful quickly they can be very, very hard to stop. Late game, they can get huge damage and attack speed, in some cases allowing them to kill heroes before the player has a chance to react. Because of the quality and diversity of hero skills, however, a competent team can defeat a hero of almost any power if they work together and have an even halfway diverse selection of heroes.

Ranged heroes get the least interesting selection of hero abilities. Most of their abilities are movement/attack speed hastes and snares, or direct damage.

Caster heroes are the most interesting heroes to play, and the most powerful in the early to middle game. The problem with caster heroes is that most of their spells are locked damage, and can, given enough time, become almost insignificant in the late game. For instance, a 300 damage nuke in the early game can devastate a 500 life hero, but a 2500 life hero with 33% magic resistance and 15 life regenerated per second can just shrug it off.

Most lockdown comes from casters, however, and at least one hero with quality lockdown is very good for each team to have.

Stealth heroes are, by many, considered the most fun heroes to play. They succeed mainly by killing other heroes in surprise confrontations. Because of the availability of stealth detection, however, most stealth units are effective because of their interesting skill sets as opposed to the usual single cloaking skill they have.

I'm not going to get into each hero's abilities, simply because there are far too many heroes to do that. You're best bet is to learn that as you play, and remember the abilities of the heroes that you've played. Don't pick the same hero over and over again; knowing what each hero does allows you to fight against a random team much better.

Items

There are three ways to get items: The starting shops, the "secret" shop (not a secret), and combining items into new items.

Poor item choice is perhaps the biggest fault of newer players. I have a few big suggestions for those people.

1) For the love of god, do not purchase boots of speed with your starting money. Just don't do it. There is always, always something better at the beginning of the game.

2) I cannot emphasize enough how important life and mana regen is. Leaving the area of combat to run back to town and buy items or heal causes you to get less experience and money. Return to town as little as possible. The best way to avoid this is to have some initial life regeneration, so that you can avoid getting hit by standing at the edge of the combat, and still get experience from the dying units while you heal.

The best regen items are either a ring of regen from the main shop or a ring of health from the secret shop. If your hero cannot heal himself with a spell or increased regeneration, you will require a regen item.

Mana regen items are slightly larger in variety. The most common one is a Void Stone from the secret merchant.

3) Get the right items for your hero. This comes down to two simple things: Don't get items that focus in a stat that isn't your hero's main stat (thereby doing nothing to increase his damage) and do not get items that have an orb effect if you already have a skill or item with an orb effect(each such item has a tag in it's description of "Orb Effects do not stack". These effects do not stack.

Most items simply have to be looked at and determined if they are the right kind of item for your hero. They are all described fairly well in their tooltips.

Common, Quality Item combinations

There are four merchants in the main base with recipies on them. You can combine the listed items (and you have to buy the recipe, unless it's cost is 1 wood instead of a gold amount in which case the items combine automatically and for free) by having them all in your inventory at once.

The following is a list of common items that each hero makes at least one of almost every game.

Perserverance:
Made with: Ring of Health(Secret Shop) and a Void Stone(Secret Shop).
Provides 4 life regen per second, 100% increased mana regen, and 7 damage.
Costs 1775 gold in total.

Bracer/Wraith Band/Null Talisman: Three incarnations of a similar item.
Made with: Circlet of Nobility, appropriate recipe, Gloves of Strength/Slippers of Agility/Mantle of Intelligence (respectively to the recipies).
Provides +6 to one stat and +3 to the other two stats.
Costs 510 gold.

Power Treads: An enhancement on Boots of Speed(which every hero needs eventually or they are too easily overtaken in combat).
Made with: Boots of Speed, Gloves of Haste, recipe
Provides +60 to movement and 30% increased attack speed.
Costs 1530 gold in total.

Soul Booster: Is itself a component for Aghanim's Scepter, an item which is great for a few caster heroes which it uniquely effects. These heroes are listed in Aghanim's Scepter's description.
Made with: Point Booster, Energy Booster, Vitality Booster.
Provides 450 life, 400 mana, 1 life regen per second, 30% mana regen.
Costs 3300 in total.

I'm sure I've forgotten some vital piece of information that would allow to to kick some serious ass, but maybe you'll work it out for yourself.

"He lets the last Hungarian go, and he goes running. He waits until his wife and kids are in the ground and he goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their kids, he kills their wives, he kills their parents and their parents' friends. He burns down the houses they grew up in and the stores they work in, he kills people that owe them money. And like that he was gone. Underground. No one has ever seen him again. He becomes a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night. 'If you rat on your pop, Keyser Soze will get you.' And nobody really ever believes." - Roger 'Verbal' Kint, The Usual Suspects