NSF56K Defense of the Ancients! The game everyone loves to hate!

zanmatto

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Defense of the Ancients, a *very much so* popular mod for Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. The game is based upon the player picking a hero from a very large roster of heroes, and fighting to achieve victory for his team. Speaking of teams, there are two factions in Defense of the Ancients.

Website: dota-allstars.com

Download Link: getdota.com

The Sentinels

and

The Scourge

The Sentinels are the night elf dudes, who are trying to repel the invasion of the Scourge, or the undead. Each of the factions has a roster of heroes they can pick from, but there is a option to make it so each faction can use every hero. That option is very frequently used, and you rarely see a game with it disabled. Regardless, time to get into the meat of the game.

http://www.dabsd.be/Gaming/DOTA/dota-yurnero.jpg Linked for the big.

This is the screen for Defense of the Ancients *called DotA from here on out because I am lazy.*

As you can see, the game is played from a top down perspective. The hero this player is using, for example, is Yurnero, The Juggernaut. Personally, I'm not a fan of him, but oh well.

The hero you pick levels up, as if you are playing a miniature RPG that resets after a game. The main way you get experience and money to buy equipment for your hero is to farm a lane.



That is the minimap.



Those are the lanes on the minimap. Every pre-determined amount of time, a small group of units spew out of your *and your enemy's* base. They follow that lane, and meet at the center. The way you gain experience is by killing said units, and the way you get gold is by getting the killing blow on said creeps.

But, that isn't as easy as it sounds. Remember, there is ten people in the game, five per side. It's not like those other five people will just watch you kill their guys without either trying to kill you or killing yours as well! And if all five people go out of their way to kill you, then those other four people on your team will be able to "farm" said lanes relatively safe.

So, lets say the game is thirty minutes in, and your team is doing quite well. You all have pretty good items, and you outlevel the other team a healthy amount. The way you finally end the game, is by killing the building that is in the center of the other team's base. For the sentinels, it is the World Tree. For the scourge, it is the Frozen Throne. Why these two things are so damn close to eachother, I'll never know. I mean, how can a climate support a massive green tree and a frozen monolith within a mile of eachother? Regardless, you gotta get to it first. You have to repetedly kill the enemy's units in a lane to make your troops move up. Do this, killing the eventual defenses you meet outside *and inside* the base, and you win the game!

Crazily enough, this is just scratching the surface. There is an absurd amount of things to know about this game. I mean, I have nearly broken a page of text and I havent even gotten into the individual heroes *There is over 90 of them.* The game is fantastic, and is amazing considering its just a simple mod for a game. There is only a single flaw in this game, and that is it's community. It sucks. Hard. Hence why I am trying to make a Game On for it! So yeah, if you have this game and like it, post.


LIST OF TRUTH AND JUSTICE

Zanmatto
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Greebs
TheLawinator
NarcisPrince
Culver
WingedWeasel
Bishizel

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I would really be in for some DotA some time. It's a lot of trouble to get a decent game going in pubs, and I'm still to newb to hack it in the organized communities, even though I have people to vouch for me. I just need to get a new key, and I should be good to go.

zanmatto

Spiffy. It's been nearly five minutes and I havent been laughed at and told dota sucks.

Aite, I'm making a list. Is it okay if we all play on US East?

greeble

I play dota quite often. And on the US East server no less. My name is Greebs. And yes the community does suck, but I think its worth playing anyway.

TheLawinator

So... last time I played dota was when there was a base in the center and the undead were coming from all sides. What was cool was that they had CUSTOM MODELS (ooooo Kimari). I'll try this out if you don't make fun of me.

Fiaryn

DotA is a great game, it just has the worst community ever. EVER.

This is why people have less than positive feelings about it and frankly I can't blame 'em.

l_g

Though there's the chance that there'll never be enough interest for it to matter, maybe have a split listing in OP for US West and US East?

It might help for match finding.

It might also help if enough interest develops for an East v.s. West match.

Narcis Prince

I was just thinking about making a thread like this. I just recently got into this game, and I agree with everyone else. Great game, shit community. I play on US East. I have a couple of heroes that I'm pretty good with, but mostly still a newbie. I would be up for playing this with non-bnet people anytime really.

zanmatto

Umm, I'll seperate east and west when we have more than five people per side No point in seperating them if we cant have EPIC COAST TO COAST COMBAT. Regardless, I'll add all of you to the list

On another note, I'm thinking about making a hero compendium for the first post, even if it would take like a week and a half of work out of me.

Oh, and if I get your screenname wrong, just yell at me until i fix it. Meanwhile, I have names to add.

Mustachio Jones

Here's the thing, I still don't really know what I'm doing with this game. I want to be good enough to play. I really, really do.

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Mustachio Jones wrote: »

Here's the thing, I still don't really know what I'm doing with this game. I want to be good enough to play. I really, really do.

That's a good point. A lot of it comes down to knowing what you're doing. Item build orders are really, really important, and if you're spending all your time in base looking at the shops to try and figure out which item you want and then which items you need to buy in order to make it, well that doesn't work for anyone. I'd suggest getting on of the newer DotA AI+ maps and screwing around with them. The AI is kind of weaksauce overall, but it gives you a chance to test out item builds and skill orders without anyone yelling at you.

zanmatto

Well, personally, I haven't played dota semi-seriously in like... six months. I'm kinda rusty. Regardless, if we are ever on at the same time, I'll do what I can to help anyone who sucks less than I do :P

l_g

And don't try to learn the game from rock bottom without any more experienced friends. The pub environment is absolutely toxic; in fact, less-experienced players are likely to get kicked by hosts with custom kick if the team complains about them feeding.

The two most important things I'd say to learn at the beginning are:
- how to keep yourself in the lane, gaining EXP
- how to avoid dying (the basics; there are some more advanced methods for getting away that you can learn later)

Worry about item builds beyond your starting items later.
Skill build is important, though. Thankfully, many beginner-friendly heroes have a number of easy builds.

Having more experienced friends around to get advice on what items to get, and what your goal should be at the moment (other than not dying) is tremendously valuable.

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Oh yes, staying in lane and not dying are the absolute first things to get down. I think a good starting rule would be to just not attack until you know it's safe, because everyone else is waiting for one straggler to make a mistake so they can get in some easy ganking. And learn which heroes have stuns, because they'll be the worst if you don't know what's coming.

Item builds are important, but they can wait until you've figured out the not dying. Denying is less important. I'd say to not even bother with it until you're completely comfortable with everything else you've got going on.

TheLawinator

So, I played a round today. I was Pudge, it took me 3/4 of the game to figure out what the hook does. People made fun of me.

I got a kill though.

Sakeido

I never understood what was so good about this game, and even more so, I don't understand why it has become so massively overpopular

greeble

Pudge is not a beginner hero by any means. Good hooking is skill that takes time to master. Youtube has some good videos on hooking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8w8d0g9idU

(its not rickroll don't worry)

l_g

Sakeido wrote: »

I never understood what was so good about this game, and even more so, I don't understand why it has become so massively overpopular

It's a game full of contrivances that are difficult to accept, beneath which lies an outrageous amount of depth.

It also seems to compress the entire generic MMO gameplay of farming/competitive farming/pvp/skill and item builds/etc. into a span of about an hour.

SkyGheNe

I've made a bunch of videos for noobs who are just getting started. Working on my next one (its a month late and on juggs), but that's mostly because I got flamed for my pub play style.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7z7T7B-ahH0
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_nKBXdTbZdg&feature=related

Drow guide
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2nCq4maUP7Y
http://youtube.com/watch?v=YHP4z-C2sMQ

Fencingsax

I would play, but the unfortunate thing is that I just can't bring myself to care about item builds, so my interest kind of plateaued as I was good enough to do everything else.

zanetheinsane

The best way to start out in DotA is to play a game as every single hero. Until you know what every single hero in the game is you will be at a tactical disadvantage. Generally you'll want to start off learning the game like this (this is completely oversimplifying):

Firstly, an invaluable resource starting out: http://www.dota-allstars.com/heroes

Fast Heroes = Easy, Slow Heroes = Hard. Watch the movespeed of your heroes. Very slow heroes like Pudge, Lina, and Sniper can make it extremely hard to get away from enemy heroes trying to exploit your newness by killing you.

Ranged Heroes = Easy, Melee Heroes = Hard. For beginning players, I'd suggest always starting out as ranged heroes until you learn more of the skills and items. You'll have more hero control and it will be harder for enemy heroes to harass you early on.

Nukes = Easy, Finesse/Item-Based = Hard. Heroes that rely on nukes (most times INT heroes) will be much easier to learn how to play than characters that rely on getting powerful items to be effective. Lina and Lion are incredibly easy heroes to get kills with, as are Luna and Lich. Most players refer to them (sometimes disgustingly) as "one-button heroes" simply because their respective ultimates (Laguna Blade, Finger of Death, Eclipse, and Chain Frost) all have the potential to get incredibly easy kills without having to have a lot of skill as a player.

Heroes with great defensive abilities built-in are great starters.

Blink-like abilities (Anti-Mage, Sand King, Queen of Pain, Morphling, Mirana, Storm Panda, and Puck),
Invisibility (Bounty Hunter, Stealth Assassin, Clinkz, Nerubian Assassin, Broodmother, Phantom Lancer, Sand King, Nerubian Weaver)
Being really fast (Slardar, Lycan, Chaos Knight, Pugna, Clinkz, Broodmother, Nerubian Weaver)
Having incredibly long range (Sniper, Tinker, Puck)
Other (Abbadon, Siren, Panda)

A lot of the defensive abilities are great but also easily countered. Invibility is easy to counter with wards or a gem, whereas killing a hero that can blink can be a pain in the ass. Some heroes are balanced by their crippling low life (Clinkz for example) or by being ridiculously slow (Sniper).

Heroes to avoid trying to use right away:

• Pudge: Getting good with hook is essential to disrupting the opponents game play.
• Faceless Void: Possibly one of the strongest late-game heroes in the entire game. He is nigh-unstoppable late game but one of the easiest heroes to put down early and one of the harder ones to farm with.
• Syllabear: Very strong but the full potential of the hero can't be realized without good items on the bear and the hero as well as good micro.
• Meepo: Incredibly fragile and possibly one of the easiest heroes to feed off of. Requires a lot of micro control, precise item building, and being able to keep higher level than the opponents to utilize the full potnetial of the hero.
• Pugna: Great hero with some of the lowest hp in all of DotA. New players can easily screw up easy kills with decrepify when your teammates are attacking someone. Life drain can easily be interupted with any number of stuns if the attack isn't planned well. The good thing is that the hero is very fast and has a fantastic AoE to farm with, which new players might find easy. The fragility of the hero puts it in the "do not start with" list however.
• Ursa: Early game you're a medium-life melee agility hero. You've got a decent AoE nuke/slow but a terrible mana pool and no real way to get to enemy heroes and creeps without soaking up damage. Mid- to late-game, with the right items, you can solo Roshan with ease and shred enemies in seconds, but having the patience to farm up and having the finesse to execute early kills is easily beyond the novice player.
• Terrorblade: another melee agility hero. Staying in the lane can be incredibly easy with life drain, but early you're very fragile and can't rely on being able to transform into your ranged form often. A misused sunder can easily screw up a kill, or getting silenced and stunned and not being able to sunder. In the hands of a powerful player sunder can easily save a teammate, you can turn around a losing battle, your images can trick opponents into wasting their nukes, and he's one of the most devastating tower-pushers late game.
• Witch Doctor: very low life int hero with no direct nukes. Farming is a lot easier now with casks, but early game it's easy to score free kills against a novice. Maledict has a very small AoE and range and is easily telegraphed and a knowledgable opponent will simply stun you out of death ward or try to trick you into casting it and run away. Maledict and a sceptered death ward can easily kill two or three heroes in the hand of an experienced user.
• Sniper: I know a lot of new players gravitate towards and love sniper. He seems like the ideal hero with long range and the ability to cast assassinate on opponents without them being able to fight back. Problem is that once your primary tower goes down, he's a very slow-moving bag of money to the opposite team. With no defensive abilities you'll need to rely on teamwork and sight from observer wards to avoid being caught in a bad position. Once an enemy gets on you it doesn't take much to put you down.
  

As for item builds, what we do when we teach new friends to start playing dota, is give them one or two "generic items" to build with every hero type. For example:

Int hero: Eul's Scepter, Bloodstone, Linkin's Sphere, Orchid Malevolence
Str hero: Sange and Yasha, Battlefury (obviously not on Huskar), Heart, Satanic
Agi hero: Sange and Yasha, Butterfly, Maelstrom, Diffusal Blade

The basic idea is to get a good feel for how to build the item before worrying about what actual items are best for particular heroes. Basically we pick one items from that list and just tell them to work on building that instead of trying to learn all of the elaborate item builds for every individual hero.

That's all for today. Hopefully some new players avoid more of the same mistakes I made when I started playing.

l_g

Fencingsax wrote: »

I would play, but the unfortunate thing is that I just can't bring myself to care about item builds, so my interest kind of plateaued as I was good enough to do everything else.

Then don't focus on the item build. Instead, focus on how to work with your team. Running effective ganks, providing map intelligence/control, finishing off plays started elsewhere on the map by your team, supporting your teammates to counter ganks...

... okay, admittedly none of that tends to be present if you're playing with a bunch of random (usually screaming) pub players.

Octirin

Sakeido wrote: »

I never understood what was so good about this game, and even more so, I don't understand why it has become so massively overpopular

It gets updated.

Otaking

Thanks for doing this post, everything I always wanted to know about DotA but was too afraid of the Arsehatnet to ask.

rchou

Octirin wrote: »

Sakeido wrote: »

I never understood what was so good about this game, and even more so, I don't understand why it has become so massively overpopular

It gets updated.

DOTA has a winning formula. [Relatively] easy to pick up, difficult to master. Balanced, team-based with an emphasis on individual skill. Basically the RTS version of Counterstrike.

zanmatto

Also, since the main dude who makes the map still updates it with new heroes and items, the metagame is forever changing, and therefore, you never grow too tired of it.

TheLawinator

I played another game as ogre magi, I got 3 kills! We still lost though.

The Black Hunter

I remember doing a talk in my english class about how bad the internet can be

I went on about certain commmunities (/b/ -> encyclopedia dramatica)

And then went to video games

I said DotA, and used it as a good example, and next lesson, a kid was outside the door swearing at me. I laughed, then my friends laughed, then his did
It was a good moment

I felt acknowledged

Brodo Faggins

Someone suggested the AI+ map, but wow, I suck balls at that too. Also, I would be down for an east vs west server (I play on US west occasionally). Loving the crystal maiden, easy to pick up. What other noob friendly heroes are there?

greeble

Which AI+ map were you using? (Some have brain dead AI, some are pretty smart) If you got one of the smart AIs and they are kicking your ass do a -ne at the beginning. This turns on Normal Experience growth for the AI players, otherwise they have double the Exp and level much faster than you making things very difficult.

One thing I've noticed about the AI maps is that your allies aren't very aggressive. Its very annoying when you got an enemy down to a sliver a health and your ally doesn't pursue their almost dead hero. The enemy AI does seem to have better coordinated though. However it is probably still the best way to learn the basics of the game and heroes. (The .43+ has the best AI, but its kind of old and a few of the item reciepies are different)

TheLawinator

Any of you guys want to play? I'll hop on east or west. Normally I'm east.

l_g

Brodo Faggins wrote: »

Someone suggested the AI+ map, but wow, I suck balls at that too. Also, I would be down for an east vs west server (I play on US west occasionally). Loving the crystal maiden, easy to pick up. What other noob friendly heroes are there?

Leshrac.


The build is this:
Lightning Storm/Diabolic Edict. Buy a Sobi Mask and tangoes. Use your next money to get another Sobi Mask or a Void Stone.

Play it like this:
Don't bother using Lightning till it hits level 2.

Early on, don't use the Lightning unless you can clearly see the enemy heroes.
(before you keep reading, think about why)



Stay at about the distance of your own ranged creep, maybe a little further. Use the Lightning Storm to finish off weakend creeps. The goal of this part of the plan is that you stay back at a safe distance, and you can farm while simultaneously dealing damage to your opponents with your farming tool (lightning storm). Your lane partner will be appreciate the damage you deal to your opponents. Try not to cast Lightning more than once per creep wave because you're going to run out of mana, but if it'll kill the enemy hero go ahead.

If you get up to the enemy tower and there are NO ENEMY HEROES OR ENEMY CREEPS NEARBY and you have level 4 Diabolic Edict, cast Edict and watch the tower health drop like a rock. Flee at the first sight of danger. If you don't have level 4 Diabolic Edict, then just hang back at a safe distance and try to get experience.

Later on, your job is simple:help your friends push down other towers with your lightning (to sweep the creeps) and Edict (to blow the tower). When your teammates want to fight others, let your friends start the fight, then you flip on Pulse Nova and walk in as the enemies walk in to fight. Stick with your friends who are fighting the enemy, and Pulse Nova will do its thing.

If your teammates don't need help, then just hop between the woods and your lane and farm with Lightning and Pulse Nova.

He has a fourth skill. I haven't mentioned it because you probably have enough to think about already as you're still learning. Stick with the plan above.

Defunker

They just keep adding heroes and items to the game, completely screwing balance. The game was spiffy when it had 10 well designed heroes per side.

As I remember it, the game used to be about teamwork. Now it's about last hitting and denying and knowing the right item build for every hero and knowing how to counter every other of the 70-odd heroes.

greeble

This is a good guide for a beginner playing Lesherac, however he forgot to mention the fact that Edict isn't just for towers, it works well on heroes too, but best when there aren't creeps around to "dillute" the damage. (Both Nova and Edict cause damage in an area around lesherac, so if you want to kill an enemy hero you best just trying to stay close to them rather than attacking.) The 4th skill is a stunning skill, but its kinda hard to aim because target an area rather than the hero.

RawrBear

I am so up for some DotA. I humbly request that you add me to your list of people who are awesome. Looks like I'm going to be making my 500th WC3 account tonight.

Deadfall

I used to play all the time in college, as the Venomancer. Is he still in the game? Man I loved him.

Still, I always liked Tides of Blood better. A shame the ToB team is no longer around.

Culver

Heh, I haven't played Dota in a long time, I might come back to this topic and see if anyone is up for a game later.

Narcis Prince

I totally agree about ToB. That game was dope. I loved playing with Leto. He was the shit.

Question: Is there a specific channel that people here gather in on US East? Sometimes I think it may be easier (at least for me) to just check a channel rather than check the forums if people are playing.

RawrBear

Narcis Prince wrote: »

I totally agree about ToB. That game was dope. I loved playing with Leto. He was the shit.

Question: Is there a specific channel that people here gather in on US East? Sometimes I think it may be easier (at least for me) to just check a channel rather than check the forums if people are playing.

I'm pretty sure thats a great idea. But I don't post much around here so I could be totally wrong and that could be a terrible HORRIBLE idea.

Deadfall, Venomancer's still in last I checked, then again I haven't played much in the last 6-12 months :P.

TheLawinator

Ok, I figure someone should organize something. I'll be in the channel "PA DOTA"

You should come.

On east. If there are west people I'll go on West.

Misanthropic

I play this all the time.

name: Quikcore
USEAST