We are extremely excited about Blizzard’s BlizzCon 2011 held this weekend in Anaheim. There are a tonne of updates and shows but the main highlight of the conference was updates for World of Warcraft, Diablo III Black Soul Stone and Starcraft II Heart of the Swarm (HotS). In this article we will cover all the new unit releases in Heart of the Swarm and the new updates to some of the original units from Wings of Liberty.

First up, the new units in Heart of the Swarm; the main idea of the new units in HotS is to bring in more strategy and more options to the already dynamic game play of Starcraft II. To do that, Dustin Browder and David Kim has introduced two new units for Terran, three for Protoss and two new units for Zerg, and of course a lot more upgrades.

Terran

According to Blizzard, Terran used to have problems with Thors unable to deal with early Mutalisks on time and late game charge Zealots. With that in mind, they introduced:

• Hellion mech upgrade 
  This is basically a Hellion that transforms into a mechanical robot that has increased hit point and is used as a tank for your fragile army.  The reason for this upgrade was to negate the need to micro Hellions around to kill charge Zealots during late game and to give Terran army a proper tank that can soak up damage.
• Warhound
  A new mech unit that can be built faster than the Thor, moves faster and deals more AoE splash damage on air units, also used as an anti ground mech unit (7 range). Used to deal with Zerg Mutalisks and Protoss mechanical units. Not very effective vs light units.
• Shredder
  Terran radiation robot, a standalone unit that is used to kill opponent units, it has a safety feature that deactivates itself when an ally unit is close by. Blizzard wants to reduce the death ball play style of Terran, so they have introduced this unit as a harassment, containment and defensive purposes. Imagine a couple of these robots in your opponent’s mineral line. Note: damage of the Shredder does not overlap.
• Uber Thor (~Odin)
  The Terran uber unit, A-attack friendly and created to cater for players who loves the Mothership kind of units. Both Armory and Fusion Core is needed for this unit. Only can be built once, like the redundant Mothership.
• Ghost Cloak Cost
  Fixed energy cost for a fixed period of time.
• Reaper Health Regeneration
  Works outside of battle, I assume something like Protoss shield regeneration.
• Disabled Reaper special building attack
  With the new health regeneration, Blizzard has decided to remove the building attack on Reapers to balance the unit.
• Battlecruiser Redline Reachtor ability (Speed Boost)
  Basically allows Battlecruisers to move faster into or out from a battle.

Protoss

Protoss seems to be a good all-around race, however they still suffer from a few weaknesses such as the lack of harassing unit and a really good anti-air vs. mass Mutalisks during the late game. So in the Heart of the Swarm, they have introduced a few units to fix that.

• Tempest
  To replace the Carrier, Blizzard have introduced Tempest, Protoss’ new capital ship. It has MASSIVE air splash damage and a lightning ground attack.
• Replicant
  As the name suggest, this unit copies any of your opponent’s unit and does nothing else. It costs 200 mineral and 200 gas, the fun part is that it enables all the upgrade for the unit you copy. For eg. If you copy an infestor, you get burrow, Fungal Growth and Neural Parasite upgrade. I do not know how the professional players will use this unit, but it is a unit still under construction.
• Oracle
  A spell-caster harassment unit that can cast Phase Shift (a stronger version of Contaminate) to disables anti-air buildings, disables upgrade and disables technology provided by the building (Hydralisk becomes not available once the Hydralisk Den is Phase Shifted). The second skill is Entomb that is used to create a tomb around minerals and prevent workers from mining. Oracle’s Preordain skill enables Protoss to have vision on the opponent’s building and know what it is upgrading. Finally a scouting tool for Protoss.
  David Kim explains that all harassment units are circled around how fast they can kill workers in the mineral line, so the new Oracle will be worker friendly and can be used anytime in the game to gain an advantage.
• Nexus Arc Shield Ability
  Basically allows the Nexus to transform a building into something like a Photon Canon to defend from Terran drops. Building gains extra armour and deals damage to light units.
• Nexus Mass Recall Ability
  With the Mothership out of the picture, the Nexus now has the Recall ability.  I wonder if if they should implement the Blackhole ability somewhere.
• Mothership is removed

Zerg

For Zerg, its main problem was the lack of surround on enemy units and the lack of playing styles available.

• Ultralisk Burrow Charge ability
  This upgrade allows the Ultralisk to burrow underground and pops up under a death ball and start dealing damage. I have a feeling the cooldown will be like the Zealot Charge ability.
• Viper
  A new spell caster unit. Has detection, Blinding Cloud, Abduct and Ocular Parasite ability. The Blinding Cloud ability works like Dark Swarm in BroodWar, but a little different. Instead of reducing damage, it reduces the range of any ranged unit within the cloud to one. The Abduct ability allows the Viper to pull enemy units from a range and then your army can snipe it when it is out of position. Ocular Parasite gives the Viper a one time ability to detach its detector eyes and give it to any friendly and non-massive unit. Why it must be non-massive is totally out of of my understanding.
• Swarm Host
  Zerg’s slow artillery unit created to apply head on pressure like the Siege Tank. It does not attack while on the surface, but while burrowed Swarm Host spawns out melee units called Locusts and attacks to a set rally point.
• Baneling Burrow Movement
  An upgrade that allows Banelings to move underground like roaches. Upgrade requires a Hive.
• Hydralisk Speed Upgrade
  Basically a movement speed upgrade for Hydralisks. A much needed upgrade considering Hydras becomes a terrible unit when they move out of creep.
• Corruptor Siphon Ability
  Siphon is a new ability that replaces Corruption. It is an ability that allows Corruptors to attach itself to enemy building and deal damage to the building while siphoning resources from them.
• Overseer is removed

Also they have released many of the unit evolutions in campaign, especially the Swarmling and the Raptor. Unfortunately they will change the dynamics of multiplayer significantly so they are not added into the multiplayer.

Blizzard’s aim in the Heart of the Swarm is to allow the creation of more new strategies and different match ups for the Starcraft II players. Their biggest fear would be the Replicant unit in the Protoss arsenal, which could cause opponents to stop building a certain unit entirely so that it does not get copied by the Replicant. Also with the new Viper unit in the Zerg swarm as the only movable detector, it will be extremely tough to properly balance the unit. Also, the Shredder could be a very tough unit to deal with when it is used against a lesser player (wood league and below), however Blizzard might fix it by adding sounds or making the deploy time longer. The latter sounds like a better idea in my opinion.

As for whether major tournaments will port to the new Heart of the Swarm or stay with Wings of Liberty or not, it is totally up to the tournament organizer to decide if they want to stay with Wings of Liberty of switch to Heart of the Swarm.

All in all, the new Starcraft II expansion is far from balanced. The panel expects the game to be played enough so that positive feedback can be attained in order to adjusts every units accordingly. So expect major balance changes in the upcoming HotS patch.

Pugna has been a really quiet hero these days. I don’t often see Pugna in the field, even if I see people playing Pugna, I often wonder why they do not pawn despite the number of AGI and INT heroes the enemy has. With all the buff on items such as Dagon and Scepter, Oblivion has become a hero that is capable of achieving Godlike easily. And to be honest my method of playing this hero has never changed since 5.84. Thus, my first guide will be on Pugna.

Table of Content

Prologue of a Dota Player

1. Pugna in Detail
2. Skills
3. Item Builds
4. Playing Method
5. Replays
6. Updates
7. Conclusion & Comments
8. Reference & Credits

1. Pugna in Detail

Pugna The Oblivion is one of the easiest hero to use in Dota, especially when the opponent have no stuns or disable skills. From early to mid game, most heroes (except for a few tanks) are food to Pugna. The reason newbies feel it is tough to play Pugna is probably because of his extremely fragile HP. Pugna’s inability to contribute to a team also makes him the least favourable hero to choose during tournaments.

Version: 6.64 | Range: 600 | Movement speed: 315
Str: 17 + 1.45 | Agi: 16 + 1 | Int: 26 + 4
Damage: 45 – 53 | HP: 473 | Mana: 338 | Armor: 1
Hero Effectiveness: Early & Mid Game
Type: Solo Killer
Primary Damage: Skills
Gank: Poor
Solo-able: Yes
Ease of Use: Excellent

2. Skills

Nether Blast (Active)
Creates a blast of exploding pulses from the Nether Plane, dealing damage to units and buildings.

Cooldown: 5.5 seconds.

Comment: Like its description, this is Pugna’s main skill for early game (At least until you get a dagon). It deals damage to buildings too so the 450 tower gold is easy to obtain. Damage comes in effect after the blast animation.

Decrepify (Active)
Pugna casts a powerful banishing magic on a unit. The unit is sent to the ethereal plane for a small period of time, reducing its movement speed by 50% and rendering it unable to attack. It takes 44% extra damage from spells.

Cooldown: 13/11/9/7 seconds.

Comment: This is Pugna’s best magic support skill. Usually you commence a kill with dicrepify. The 44% extra damage from spells is extremely useful.

Nether Ward (Active)
Summons a Nether Ward that prevents enemy heroes from regenerating mana and can cast Mana Flare, which deals damage to enemy heroes as they cast spells.
Lasts 25 seconds. Each level increases the area of effect of the Ward’s Mana Flare, the Mana Flare damage, the negative mana regen and the hp of the ward.

Cooldown: 35 seconds.

Comment: Not really useful when you are owning, but very useful at later stage of the game whereby you are supposed to support the whole team by punishing enemy as they cast spells.

Life Drain (Active)
Pugna summons a very powerful draining magic that absorbs the life essence of an enemy unit. 
Lasts 9 seconds.

Cooldown: 22 
Scepter Upgradeable: Increases life drain and removes cooldown.

Comment: Basically you just activate this skill and suck HP out of your enemy. Scepter has now made this skill with 0 cooldown which is a very huge buff to Pugna.

2.1. Skill Builds

Max out Nether Blast. You only need 3 levels for decrepify, because 3 seconds is more than enough to cast a blast and dagon. The rest of the skill points should go into Life Drain and stats. Leave Nether Ward until you think that your contribution to the team is declining.

3. Item Builds

Now there are debates over non-dagon Pugna and Pugna with Dagon level 1. I am not going to follow them, I have played Pugna with the same method for 5 years now and my method still works.

Your item should start with (according to priority)

if you think you’re getting nuked badly

Why do I even tell you what item to buy at the start? This is due to the fact that possessing the correct starting item gives you the “edge” over your opponent. The chicken will help you transport all your things over so that your trips to the fountain can be reduced.

Your end item combination as a killer (according to priority) should be

or  or  and 

There are 3 options to choose for your sixth item, to get Boots of Travel before or after the sixth item is totally up to you. Orchid if there are enemy worth silencing, Assault Cuirass if you need tank, Buriza if you need more physical damage. Usually I would go for Orchid because it amplifies damage on the affected hero as well. This increases my ability to support in late game.

The reason I am getting Dagon first is because of the amount of extra damage it provides. At level 1, it is 576 extra damage (when used with decrepify). At level 5, Dagon gives 800 damage, 1152 with decrepify, which is huge amount of damage. If you can complete Dagon level 1 before early game ends, massing up gold for the 4 upgrades (about 1350 * 4) is pretty easy because all you do is kill hero when you see them.

Scepter upgrades your Life Drain (level 3) to 250 HP/s and eliminates cooldown, that’s why it is the second most important item to keep you alive in the game. The last thing any melee hero wants is you sucking up their HP when they are on the brink of killing you.

Guinsoo is just an item I buy for almost every INT hero. For this hero it is delayed.

Heart gives you more HP so that you have time (before you’re dead) to use Life Drain at the end of the game when AGI and STR heroes gets quick in wielding their swords at high damage.

Otherwise, you could go for…

Many people argue that Pugna with Dagon is not a really good choice because of the low HP. I say it is because the opponent has too many stunners and disablers, making Pugna nearly impossible to hunt people even with the HP heal from Life Drain.

In this situation, your best bet is to get as much HP as possible and be a tank + support for your team. Scepter gives you bonus HP allowing you to survive better at early game. As you complete your Heart, life will be easier as you quickly farm for Guinsoo and Shiva’s Guard.

If you farm fast enough for the first 4 items, your support for the team would be enormous, making you extremely reliable given that your opponent’s DPS does not kill you in a few seconds. Not a strategy I would use though, but this is a second option you might want to consider.

4. Playing Method

Like I have said earlier, Pugna is a very easy hero to play but also very soft. Your first item should be Dagon and you should max it at level 5. The amount of damage you can deal is 1152 (Dagon) + 468 (Blast) = 1620. With Dagon’s fastest cooldown at 24 seconds at level 5 and uses only 100 mana. At this stage, nobody wants to go near you during mid game.

However you must bear in mind that your killing window is only about 3 seconds, anything more than that is too dangerous as you might get killed by enemy heroes. The gif image below is how fast you should kill a hero.

If she’s (Mirana) not dead with red HP, you might want to use Life Drain and kill her. If Mirana still has half HP left, you might want to consider escaping because the whole team is coming after you now. Not to mention the double damage being activated by her.

Also as you can see I did not go for Bracers (which I think is a waste of gold) because I know how to spot opportunities. Sometimes weak enemies are baits and should not be engaged using Pugna due to his fragile HP. The idea is to stay alert and don’t rush with Pugna.

Normally it is impossible to decrepify and attack the decrepified hero. However, there is a catch for that skill (is it a bug? I have no idea).

Get a orb effect item such as  and . Other orb effects such as Satanic or Diffusal Blade does not work though, I don’t know why. But if you want to attack your opponent despite him still stuck in the etheral dimension, I suggest including Desolator into your item list. Because at late game this will provide you with the best offensive opportunity after you have used all your skill combos.

4.1 Farming

Nether Blast at level 4 is a very good skill against ranged creeps, the blast will definitely kill them in one go. It is a farming skill that you can definitely spam around with the short cooldown. You can even use it for towers, it deals huge amount of damage so last hitting the tower is fairly easy.

Otherwise, you should always practise last hitting creeps. Pugna gives extremely high INT increase every level ups, that gives you a significantly large amount of damage so last hitting creeps should be fairly easy with Pugna.

4.2 Early Game

Try to solo for early game. This is due to the fact that the time you can kill people is early until mid game. So, try your best to solo and farm for Dagon. Solo gives you the level and farming advantages over all other 4 heroes.

Occasionally you could nuke opponent hero with your high attack damage at early game. This can be done by weakening them to a point that you can finish him with a Decrepify + Nether Blast combo. Nether Blast is your best bet to kill people when you don’t have a Dagon yet.

Also, break towers with Nether Blast so that you get the 450 gold. Most of the time, you want to do that when you are 400 gold away from getting Dagon. Because if you break the tower too early, you are vulnerable to ganks earlier in the game.

4.3 Mid Game

By this time you should have at least Dagon level 1. With that you can roam around with Decrepify + Blast + Dagon, most of the time it will kill AGI and INT heroes even with full HP.

Also watch out for the 40 second Dagon cooldown and don’t get greedy.

4.4 Late Game

By now you should know that your Decrepify + Blast + Dagon (DBD) combo does not work without first lowering their HP to a certain degree. This is when your Nether Wards comes into play, it helps you damage your opponent when they cast a spells under the influence of the aura.

Don’t be surprised, the Ward deals quite an amount of damage that you can never imagine. Having said that, late game is the last place you want to be when you play Pugna. It is always advisable to end the game at 30 – 40 minutes when you are using Pugna.

Sometimes when dealing with DPS heroes such as Phantom Assassin at late game, your DBD combo does little damage to her. At that instant, before doing the combo, you might want to Life Drain first then only do the last blow with BDB combo. Pay extra attention to the huge critical numbers too.

Alternatively, you could also decrepify opponent hero (or yourself, but not advisable) so that they can’t do physical damage on to you. Hopefully in those 3 seconds, you can escape to a place where ally heroes will be able to help you out.

4.5 Backing Up Team Mates

Pugna is a terrible backup. There are only 2 things you can do when your opponent is on the verge of killing your team mates. You can either, kill him with your combo or decrepify the fastest one and run together.

Of course, if skill and HP permits, you can block the enemy like how you block creeps while decrepifying him. In that position he is unable to move beyond your point and is stuck between killing your team mate, killing you and escaping. This throws him into a state of confusion and if he hesitates a tad longer, your other team mates will arrive and back you up, possibly killing the charging hero.

4.6 Things to Watch Out

Stuns, Voodoos, Shackles, Swap and all disable skills. These extends your engage time with enemy which is always not a very good position to be in. Pugna is an “in and out” type of hero.

Any kind of heroes with the above ability should be kept a certain distance unless you are very confident to kill him.

5. Replays

Here’s a replay on how I used Pugna with my Dagon method.

6. Updates

In 6.65, the decrease of time delay of Nether Blast’s damage to come into effect is very noticeable.

7. Conclusion & Comments

As you can see it is a pretty straight forward hero to play. As long as you stay away from trouble and sneak into battle with your Decrepify + Blast + Dagon combo, your opponent will be shocked at the amount of damage you are capable of dealing.

Please note that I am also human and am still learning. Hence, if you have a better method of using Pugna you can share them with me. Thanks for reading my Dota Hero Guide.

8. Reference & Credits

• Images and real skill names are from dota-allstars.com
• Main Pugna photo are from kong113 in Photobucket.
• Thanks to Rz3r-Sapphire for his invaluable team playing experience and knowledge.
• Thanks to -Winds- for his brotherly support.
• Thanks to KahEe for her superb editing.

This is my first guide for Dota Heroes Guide. If you would love to follow up on my updates on other heroes, do subscribe to AhWee.com’s RSS feed.

My journey into the world of Dota Allstars gaming kicked off in year 2004. Since then, I have been an extremely loyal Dota player even until now, which is almost 6 years later. I felt ashamed to say this, but I have grown with the development of the game, whereby more than a quarter of my life has been spent mastering the game.

As I recalled back at all the hours spent on playing the game, it felt like I had not accomplished anything in life. Thus, I realized that I should put all the knowledge I learnt from the game to good use, by writing guides for every single hero in Dota Allstars.

My Little DotA Background

In year 2004, the latest version was the 5.84. It was extremely buggy and my first hero was Drow Ranger vs. my cousin’s Medusa. I could recognize all my own confusions back then by looking at some of my friends play now. I was a noob (newbie) and my brother’s suggestion to use frost arrow for higher damage did not help either. I lost of course, which was not much of a surprise as not many get to enjoy the taste of winning in their first Dota match.

I can still remember being jeered as a noob and was attacked repeatedly in a 5 v 5 match the next day. It was then I told them, “Instead of insulting me, why don’t you teach me how to play?”. A few taught me but many left the game.

After a week of training, I was asked to play 1 v 5 with my cousins. At that time my favourite hero was Sand King, I owned all of them but sadly I lost the game because I did not push early enough.

That week alone created a chain reaction that triggered all my interest in the game. I daresay that I am extremely good at the game, but not the best though, never once did I enter any DotA competitions before. This is probably due to my fear of the intense tournament pressures.

Because I am so good and yet I am still not in any competitions; these contributes to the lack of success within me. However, by writing guides that reflects all my experience and knowledge in Dota, (hopefully) it can bring some enlightenment to current newbies that are capable of or planning to play in tournaments.

The guide that I am writing will be a Dota Hero Guide; it will lay out some examples on how to use the hero like how I have been using it for the past 6 years. My guide might not be perfect, but if you think it is far from what you expected and happen to know a more effective way of using the hero, do share it with me.

You will also realize that most of my guides focus on self-development and not much on team strategy. Many people will argue that team strategy is more important than self-development. However, I believe that if you want to contribute to a team strategy, you must first develop individually in order to contribute. If you can handle yourself well, you will be able to adapt into any team strategies thrown onto you.

If you are currently a WCG tournament player, I presume that you have very little to learn on an individual level from the game of DotA. However, if you’re still new to the game and would love to seek more knowledge at a pro level, prepare yourself for a real treat.

By the way, I can’t believe my editor protested at the amount of articles I will be writing about in the next few months.

Welcome back for Part 2 of DotA Techniques, Tips and Guides. In Part 1 I’ve explained about the early part of the game, which are getting a hero, buying items, entering the battlefield like a pro and meeting their hero. Part 2 is the most crucial part of the game, as it separates the pros from the newbies.

Farming Techniques

The ability to farm in any condition is extremely vital in a game of DotA. Not to be able to farm is extremely rare and usually people complain that they are unable to farm because they only click 100 times per game. I think I click more than 1000 times whenever I play a game of DotA, causing my Razer mouse to retire in just 2 years. Anyways back to farming, I will explain a few farming techniques you could use in the game.

Last Hit The Creeps/Tower

Almost 60% of the players I’ve seen do 90% of the damage on the creeps to get 10% of the gold. I on the other hand, do 10% of the damage on the creeps to earn 90% of the gold. Again there is no magic formula to this technique, what you do is …

1. Press alt and monitor the creeps with the lowest HP
2. Stay near to the lowest HP creeps
3. Hit it only when you think the creep’s HP is within the range of your damage and make sure you kill the creep.

This not only gives me more time to capitalize on my lane (I’ll explain more about this later), but also denying creeps and earn gold effectively.

Lure Enemy Creeps

I’m pretty sure you’re thinking about using a melee hero alone with 2 ranged hero. Yes that’s a bit harder but that is not an excuse to not to farm. In fact, given the luck and the chances, you have the upper hand to double kill both their heroes. However we’re talking about farming so we’ll leave killing heroes for later.

So every time you go near to a creep you will get nuked, that’s fine. You don’t go to the creeps, let the creeps come to you instead! To do that, simply click on attack at enemy hero and quickly withdraw from it. The creeps are programmed in such a way that when you target their hero, they will attack you.

Keep in mind that you don’t want to go near their hero because you might get your ass kicked for this. What you are actually doing is taking advantage of the creep system and provoking the creeps to you. This not only allow you to farm as a melee hero, it also draws their creep away from their hero.

AoE Skill Hero Advantage

I’ve seen many people who does not take advantage on the AoE skills during farming, even with heroes like Slayer, Stone Giant, Earthshaker, Invoker and so on that have double AoE skills. They tend to save the MP for their heroes, which I think it’s really unnecessary sometimes.

Have you heard phrases like “Savers are Losers”? Yes this also applies in DotA as well. The more you save your MP, the chances of you losing the game increases. So, spend those AoE skills (even non AoE skills when you’re desperate) on the creeps. Just don’t forget to have extra MP around to help you escape from enemy ambush.

Capitalizing On The Lane

The only way for you to farm stress free is to have control of your lane. This means letting the opponent fear your presence. A few aspects you will need to have control is

1. Control over your HP
2. Control over your opponent’s HP
3. Control over the creeps
4. Control over the environment (Forests, tower, enemy ambush, etc …)
5. Control over your skills
6. Control over your opponent’s skills

If you have control over all these 6 aspects. The lane will definitely be yours and farming any item shouldn’t be a big problem at all. However, it is extremely hard to control all these 6 aspects, even controlling 4 of them is good enough sometimes.

Dealing With Enemy Heroes

During bad times, you might not have control over any of the above aspects I’ve talked about. There are only 2 choices, switch lane with your teammates or deal with it.

I wouldn’t recommend switching lanes because this wastes you and your teammates farming opportunity. Personally I prefer to deal with the problem, unless your weakness is the opponent hero, eg. Meepo vs Lion.

It’s best to keep enemy HP less than 60% all the time. That way ambushing will be much easier if he has less HP and you don’t need to go through all the trouble to chase him. This can be easily done by ranged hero, so what happens if you’re using a melee hero?

You can’t hit the opponent, you can’t even go near them, you might get a few lucky hits that would not do much damage. However, the best thing to do would be to nuke them with your skills.

Dealing with enemy heroes is a really general thing, each player has their own unique style of dealing with this. So I strongly suggest you find your own method (not the suicide one) and stick to it.

Buying Item Guide (Farming Stage)

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail, this same phrase applies to DotA as well. If you do not plan to buy your items properly, you will find it difficult to farm for the next item on your buying list.

An example would be, buying items in this order will lead you to no where.

1. Boots of Travel
2. Battlefury
3. Yasha & Sange

This is because Boots of Travel costs 2700 in total, with that extreme amount of gold, you only get an extra 90 movement speed. Movement speed can’t do any damage and does not earn you money. The better method would be

1. Battlefury
2. Yasha & Sange
3. Boots of Travel

Buying Battlefury first gives you Cleaving damage and extra 65 damage. With these amount of damage, you can easily earn your next 7200 either by farming or hero killing for your Yasha & Sange and Boots of Travel. Of course, you might wanna get Boots of Speed first before you get your Battlefury.

During the farming stage, there are buying criterias as well. I would recommend following this criteria according to it’s priority.

1. Damage (Ease of Farming)
2. MP Recovery
3. Movement Speed
4. HP Recovery
5. More Damage (Hero Killing)

Follow this criterias closely and you will find yourself earning money faster than before and farm better items than your solo-ing teammates or enemy.

My HP Is Red, Should I Run Or Should I Give Up And Die?

I’ve seen lots of DotA players that has tonnes of opportunity escaping with under 100 HP end up turning back just to do that 1 last hit before they die. I mean, let’s be really honest here, that’s called stupidity, what can 1 hit do if it does not kill the opponent?

So my answer to the question above would be “Run as intelligently as you can”. This does not ensure 100% success rate in escaping death, however this method definitely confuses the enemy and if you’re lucky you might even cheat death!

Too many times I’ve observe escaping players run straight (either backwards or forwards) to the end of their lives. I don’t run straight unless I have already cheated death. I prefer running up hills so that the fog covers me, or I run into the trees where the fog covers me as well. You will be amazed how funny things turn out when 2 or more enemy entered the same forest, it’s like entering a maze of confusion.

The best thing is if you have a Teleport Scroll or Boots of Travel, you can escape from 5 desperate opponents just by teleporting in the trees. Most of the time they will only found you out just to see the remains of your teleport. That is what I call cheating death.

I guess this is all for Dota Techniques. I hope you guys learned some of the insights from these 2 posts and would make into good use in a game of DotA. My advice would still be the same, do not leave any games. Leavers don’t learn, people who got pawned, called n00b in DotA learn 10 times more than any leavers. Think about how much you have missed leaving a game. Have fun DotA!

Mini DotA Wiki

Farming – A term gamers use to earn in-game money/gold usually by killing monsters or opponents.

HP – Hit Point

MP – Magic Point

Tankers – Heroes that have a nature to withheld a lot of damage in the battlefield.

Deny Creeps – Killing your own creeps so that opponent only earn 50% of the total experience.

Nuked – Damaged by enemy heroes either by magics or pure physical damage.

Defense of the Ancients, also known as DotA is a customized Warcraft III map that is extremely popular amongst players who doesn’t have a high end computer to play new games. Those players include myself, who’s an avid DotA gamer who plays DotA to spend free time.

I’ve been playing DotA since 2004 and I consider myself one of the best players out there. However, this game is all about teamplay and solo-ing in the game meant suicide. However, teamplay starts within every individual. That’s why this post will talk about DotA Techniques, Tips, Guides, Farming Methods and my 5 years of DotA experience and secrets that would enhance your individual DotA experience.

I Got a New Hero, what Should I Do?

New heroes are fun to play, but sometimes it takes awhile to get used to the hotkeys, skills and timing of each hit. However, I would strongly suggest anybody to read the spell description first before attempting to play the hero. Reading the description will allow you to have a thorough understanding over the skills you’re using and how much damage they can make.

After reading the spell descriptions, it’s time to buy your item, try not to level up a skill first (I know it’s tempting but bear with it for a sec).

Buying Item Guide (Early Stage)

Keep in mind that there’s a few criteria to pay attention to when using the first 850 gold.

1. HP Recovery
2. MP Recovery (For Int Hero)
3. Ease of Farming
4. Maximum Slot
5. Value Over Gold

1 = Highest Priority, 5 = Lowest Priority

Many DotA gamers don’t follow this method exactly and they just simply buy an Empty Bottle just to go out to the battle field, spend all three charges and run all the way back to refill it without farming enough money to buy an item. That is what I call wasting time, not playing a game of DotA.

My Item Buying Guide for Strength(STR) Hero

• Ring of Regeneration
• 2 x Gauntlets of Strength
• 3 x Ironwood Branch

My Item Buying Guide Agility(AGI) Hero

• Ring of Regeneration
• 2 x Slippers of Agility
• 3 x Ironwood Branch

My Item Buying Guide Intelligence(INT) Hero

• Ring of Basilius
• 2 x Ancient Tango of Essifation (3 usage each)
• The rest into Ironwood Branch

As you can see, my buying pattern follows all the 5 criteria above. For STR and AGI heroes, there is no need for MP during the early stages of the game, thus I’ll get the HP recovery item such as Ring of Regen, Gauntlets of Str/Slippers of Agi for damage (which equals to ease of farming) then I consider maximum slot and value over gold by buying 3 Ironwood Branches.

All these gives me an extra 9 damage, 3 str, 3 agi, 3 int and 2 hp/s before I even reach the battleground. With this I’ll have a head start over my opponents already.

For INT heroes, I will use lots of MP even in the early stage, that’s why Ring of Basilius is so important. Then I’ll go for HP regen items like Tango, 6 of them is more than enough, I usually use an average of 3 and sell the other 3 which I bought for rainy days. Then the rest into Ironwood Branch, which follows my criteria of “Value over Money”.

These buying methods are used for almost every hero, except for a few like Earthshaker, Beastmaster, Stone Giant, Soul Keeper, Axe, Centaur Warchief, Obsidian Destroyer and Keeper of the Light.

Earthshaker, Beastmaster & Stone Giant

I will go for Arcane Ring items for these 2 heroes because they are heavy users of MP. With these items I only need to farm 1000 gold for the Energy Booster to get Arcane Ring. After that I could just spam skill until I get Battlefury for these heroes.

• Arcane Ring Scroll
• Ring of Protection
• The rest into Ironwood Branches

Soul Keeper

This hero has Soul Steal that sucks HP out of opponent. So the equation is More MP = More HP, that’s why I’ll buy Ring of Basilius for him.

• Ring of Basilius
• 1 x Slipper of Agility
• The rest into Ironwood branch

With this build I can easily fend off 2 opponents in early game even while soloing a lane. There are chances of double killing them as well.

Axe & Centaur Warchief

These heroes are tankers, they need items to fend of attacks or else they wouldn’t stand a chance in the battlefield. Thus …

• Stout Shield
• Ring of Regeneration
• Tango or Ironwood Branch

Obsidian Destroyer & Keeper of the Light

Obsidian Destroyer has to be a farmer early game and Keeper of the Light has Chakra Magic to replenish MP. That’s why they don’t need Ring of Basilius. So I’ll focus more on “HP Regeneration” and “Ease of Farming” criteria.

• Ring of Regeneration
• 2 x Mantle of Intelligence
• The rest into Ironwood Branch

Note that these are just items are learned after years of playing All Random and All Pick games. These builds might have been different when playing a tournament and I don’t play in tournaments since I don’t have many friends who are really good at DotA.

Alright, I’ve done getting all my equipments, it’s time to standby for battle.

Entering The Battlefield

Most players would rush into the “meeting point” right after they bought their items. However, to ensure safer start to the game, I would want my creeps (monsters) to be as close to my tower as possible. This is to prevent ambush by opponents.

There is no method to delay the spawning of the creeps, however there’s the method to block them while they are running towards the meeting point. Sentinel creeps are much easier to block than scourge ones, that’s why scourge would always be at a disadvantage.

As almost every single DotA players would know, there are three routes to the battlefield, usually called Top, Middle and Bottom. Every single one of them has distinctive forests and it is wise to know the inside out of the forests. A really good one would be the furthest sentinal tower at the bottom. There is actually a U shaped route behind the tower lie inside the forest. If a scourge member went into the forest in early game, chances of him dying is almost 90%.

I Met Their Hero

Great, still remember the free skill point earlier where I said not to use it? Use it now depending on your circumstances. During bad days, there’s the chances of bumping into two ranged heroes that are good enough to prevent you from farming. And there are good days where your opponents are melee heroes.  This is where you’ll spend your skill wisely.

An example would be sniper opposing a melee hero. There’s no need to level “Take Aim” when melee opponents can’t even reach you. Level “Headshot” instead and deal more damage.

Another example would be Moonfang. I would usually level “Lunar Blessing” for ease of farming. However if your opponent is a sniper or a far ranged hero. You will not have the chance to use the extra damage. That is when you will level “Lucent Beam” first, to kill creeps or to damage your opponents hoping that they will go back home to give you a break.

This is all for Part 1. In the next part I will talk into more detailed about Farming, Capitalizing your lane and many more. So stay tuned by subscribing to our RSS feed so you won’t miss out.

Before I end here I’d like to give an advice as a veteran DotA player.
Don’t ever leave a game. Leavers are players who don’t improve. Even with 3 lanes broken there are still chances of winning. Play until the Tree of Life or the Throne breaks.

Mini DotA Wiki

Farming – A term gamers use to earn in-game money/gold usually by killing monsters or opponents.

HP – Hit Point

MP – Magic Points

Tankers – Heroes that have a nature to withheld a lot of damage in the battlefield.