What is this Dota you speak of?
Defense of the Ancents was originally created in Warcraft 3 by the mapmaker Eul, and was based off of the Starcraft custom game Aeon of Strife. When WC3: The Frozen Throne was released Eul stopped updating the map, which then caused a flood of different varients to appear across battle.net. Among them was DotA Allstars, which was created by Guinsoo, which became main version that we have today. During Guinsoos time, Pendragon came along and made dota-allstars.com in reponse to the need for a main dedicated website for the growing community. With version 6.01, Guinsoo passed authorship off to Icefrog, who started adding new heroes, items, mechanics and fixes, and still runs the game to this day.
Guinsoo and Pendragon would later go on to work at Riot and help create League of Legends, while Icefrog and Eul would go on to work at Valve and are now working on Dota 2.
Dota 2 is the sequel to that popular Warcraft 3 custom game that has since spawned an entire genre with the likes of League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth. If you have played either of those games then you have a basic idea of how things work.
Gameplay remains true to the original Dota, but takes advantage of everything the source engine and Steam have to offer. Besides better graphics, this means things like reconnecting, being able to spectate any match currently in progress even while waiting in que for matchmaking, and no longer having this happen to you
New to the game and want to learn? The following links will get you started. Dota has a massive learning curve, so you wont learn everything here, but it should be enough to get you on your feet.
(Credit for this list actually goes to Gully State over on Gaf.)
First
Second (Warning, these are long.)
"Hey, I'm freaking amazing at LoL so I should be good at this too, right?"
Not exactly. While at their core they are similar, there are some some key differences that make the meta/feel/pace different. Some of these include things like the way carry heroes work, denying, gold loss on death, towers behaving differently, runes, a larger map, a str/agi/int based stat system, more active/useable items, and more.
Heroes & Items
There are currently 108 heroes in Dota, and while all of them will be coming over to Dota 2, only about 3/4s of the hero pool is available in the current beta build. Currently we get about one new heroes a week, with Valve sometimes surprising us with either more or none at all.
Current hero pool:
http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Heroes
Items:
http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Items
Curious what heroes are on their way?
http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Unreleased_ContentOther Useful Linkshttp://blog.dota2.comhttp://www.joindota.com/en/start
Announcement art (also in the valve store as posters)
(This OP is a work in progress, more info will be added as more people are able to get their hands on the game.)
Posts
Edit:
Whoops, you're right, i mixed them up.
(No one cares about the NBA anyway)
FABULOUS!
I told my team I was brand new, they squabbled some and then let me have middle by myself (I was Crystal Maiden), didn't seem Like i did the right build to hold guys off the middle (maxed the regen aura) , but what do I know?
Thanks again to @mts for the invite, good stuff.
Always looking for more PA friends: Steam ID is EdglerVess
My Portfolio Site
Congrats! So Crystal Maiden isn't really a mid hero...she works best supporting another hero. In general people tend to skip the aura and level Frostbite/Nova until level 8, and then only get her Ultimate and Stats.
Read this! http://www.purgegamers.com/welcome-to-dota-you-suck
silencer's wc3 model is red. he has to be red!!!
This looks betters!!!
which i was furious about at first but it is quickly growing on me
i mean, think of all the bonesaw quotes..............
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=691qO96VRVw
No, valve clearly wants more purple heroes.
Gamertag: PM me
she is actually pretty decent at mid for many matchups. She is one of the most dangerous characters at low levels. She just doesn't need solo farm.
and to not max the aura first.
Don't pick CM if you aren't getting aura. Just don't. I don't care that 'the pros do it'. It's wrong.
That's not to say that you shouldn't put ANY points into it though.
I'm dead serious."
fuck that shit gimme timbershredder
global mana regen that helps every lane (and now with the recent change, lets you spam your own spells hard) vs .5 seconds more of cc and a tad more damage.
i'm not saying her spells are bad or anything but if you want to ignore her aura and get a support with two disables and a teamfight ultimate, there are better heroes to pick. CM is her aura. That's her thing
it was her thing 15 patches ago. I honestly cannot stand the "just pick X, he/she just a better version of Y" mentality in this community. Not everyone wants to play fuckin jakiro and veno every match, this isn't some pro circuit, they're pub games.
I'm dead serious."
Max aura is an extra nova every 25 sec, an extra frostbite every ~29 sec or an extra stormbolt for your sven (and the other 3 characters on your team) every 70 sec. Is that better than an extra 1.5 sec of disable and 105 damage from leveling frostbite? Or the extra 150 damage you get from leveling nova? I'd say usually not. I think you'd have to build around the aura, and I wouldn't even know what heroes to pick, nor do I think its a strong enough skill to build a team around. How many heroes are so mana dependent that an extra 2 mana/sec wins them their lane?
hey @3clipse, tell me more about this luna in the competitive meta
also: man lina's original art kicked ass. Stupid normal hair. I want fire hair. That needs to be one of her cosmetic things.
I don't know the name of the tournament, but it's been on Beyond The Summit TV showing a bunch of Chinese teams going through a bracket. LGD.int (as opposed to LGD.cn) picked her in every game before today and was undefeated, and she was definitely contributing.
I dunno if this will carry over into all competitive play but she's definitely starting to see some in some scenes. LGD.cn picked her against LGD.int today (first game they didn't take her) and got brutalized, probably because they don't know how to play her xD
Na'Vi picked her against Svenhunterz in this game going on right now
I picked Keeper for a recent match (Match 73133095, for those interested). I bought the damn couriers, I warded (well, when I remembered [not often]; really need to work on this), I acted as the resident Mana Fairy. And I pushed lanes, which is sometimes a bad thing? I guess? I don't know.
Anyway, the game went poorly, which, you know, whatever. It happens. But by the end of the game, people were calling me useless? I didn't feel useless. I was pushing creep waves, defending our base (often alone), and generally tried to support as well as possible.
Things I know I did wrong: I got a little overzealous with teleporting allies when I thought they were in trouble (turns out they usually weren't), and I didn't ward as well as I should. I'm still trying to figure out placement, etc.
It could absolutely be that I'm an unreliable narrator in this instance, but it seems like this is a common thread in the games I play; most people are more concerned about padding out their K:D ratio than actually winning the fucking game. Also, defense seems to be completely ignored? I often pushed back several creep waves by myself because Sniper and Slark seemed to be too busy trying to get more kills.
Anyway, it may be that I'm just playing the hero wrong; any input would be welcome.
It seems like Keeper is super dangerous early game, but he seems to decline in power towards mid- to late-game?
This'll be interesting.
Supports generally are, as are Initiators. It's generally carries, semi-carries, and gankers that have the most variability depending on game state.
link to vod
spoiler