DOTA 2 Smurf, Hero Pools, And Tips For Beginners

DOTA 2 is understandably one of the most complex MOBAs out there. Lots of players spend years in the game, and still never reach the highest ranks. Our definitive guide will help you understand the core mechanics of the game, as well as help you get better.

Get A DOTA 2 Smurf

Smurfing is looked down upon in the DOTA 2 community but that’s only because highly skilled players tend to use smurfs in lower-ranked lobbies.

DOTA 2 smurfs can be used in a variety of ways but the best and most harmless way to use them is by making them as a warmup account. With a smurf, you can get into ranked or casual lobbies and not have to worry about penalties or being way too competitive because this isn’t your main account.

For the most part, many players actually do use smurfs for warming up before ranked sessions. If you want to get a smurf hassle-free, you can buy an account from us at RPG Stash.

You can also buy high-ranked smurfs to get a feel of what it’s like to play in the upper levels of DOTA 2. It’s going to be good preparation for when you’re actually going to reach those levels.

Create Your Own Hero Pool

We're going to prepare a hero pool and play one role. We know for many of you this might be a little hard. We really like a lot of different roles and a lot of different heroes, so for a long time we would play a variety of things. 

You can improve a little bit like that and make your way up, but that’s why it can water down your progress if that’s how you want to play. That’s okay, but if you really feel like you’re stagnating and want to work on improving faster, then we think you just have to play one role. It’s okay; it doesn’t mean you’re going to be trapped in this role forever.

For example, this is what Dota thinks of us as players: we are very good hard support players, decent soft support players, and we're garbage at everything else. And it's kind of true, it actually is.

Apparently, we are Immortal hard support players, and we think we’re okay at playing the soft support. We do think we're garbage at the other roles, but you know what? Just from what we've learned from being good hard support players, naturally, we are decent at these other roles to some extent. 

So, we would say we're probably like Divine core players, even though we never play core. We don't really play any of those heroes, but we're pretty sure we could just pick a hero and get by in a Divine game because we've improved at the game from playing hard support. We know what cores need to do; we know things that should happen in the game. By working on one role, we improved the other roles along the way.

So, if you like to play a lot of different things, that’s okay. You're going to get to do that, but start with just one. And in that one role, we’re sorry, but you're going to only play one hero at a time. Pick one main hero.

 You're going to pick a couple of backups so that if your hero gets banned, you don’t panic, thinking, "Ah, what do I do?" You’re going to have two backup heroes, and that’s usually enough. It’s pretty uncommon that all three get banned, but you know, if you really want, you can pick a fourth or fifth. But we’re going to play one hero.

Why are we doing this? When you play a hero that you aren't familiar with, you focus on the hero. That’s okay if you’re trying to learn a hero; then that’s what you need to do. But if you’re trying to improve, that means you need to get better at the hero and the game. 

The reason many people stagnate is that they keep playing different heroes and they aren’t improving at the game because they’re just focused on the hero. This is why we need to play one hero. 

We’re going to get good with that hero, and as that hero starts to become ingrained in our muscle memory, we don’t have to think, "What item do I need?" or "How’s this matchup going to go?" We just know. We’ve experienced it; we know we’re going to win this game, or we’re going to do well in this lane, but the game’s going to be hard. We can start thinking about that, but after a while, it just becomes second nature.

And don’t worry, just like playing one role, you aren’t going to be a one-hero spammer forever. For a while, you are going to be, you know, we recommend as much as you’re willing, honestly. The more improvement you want, keep playing the one hero. 

But at least 30 to 50 games, we think. We know that number sounds crazy to some of you, and to others, you’re like, "Oh yeah, that’s easy." It’s funny how different people are, but really try it. If you’ve never tried it before, try it. You’re going to spam one hero consistently, and it’s okay because playing one hero will passively improve the other heroes, just like that role.

So, to wrap up, we’re going to play one role and one hero. We’re going to stick with it until we’re bored of it or really good with it. Then we’ll add it to our pool. Then, when we’re ready to win MMR, we’ll pick from our pool. 

When we want to improve, we’ll add a new hero to the pool. The more we want to improve, the more we spam one hero. But we also want to win MMR—so for every one to two new heroes, we might play three to four from our pool, and we’re going to climb. We’re going to get better at the game, and we’re going to win more MMR as we do it.

Master Your Hero

You're not going to just jump into ranked games quite yet; we have to do a little bit of prep work first, some homework. First, read the Dota wiki for your hero. There's a lot of good information there. You don't have to read everything, but at least read the abilities. There's a lot of detailed information that honestly is kind of better than the client and other resources. 

Shout out to everyone that works on the wiki; it is an incredible resource. Familiarize yourself with the info there, at least on the hero you're going to spam. We recommend doing this for at least your main hero. If you want to do it for your backup heroes too, that's fine, but remember we only really care about the main hero at any given time that we're working on improving. 

So, if you insist on playing like three heroes, then you're going to have to do this for three heroes, but it's going to be more work. That's why one hero is a little easier to do.

irst things first, head into an empty lobby and practice your last hitting. We don't care if you're a core or a support; everyone needs to be able to last hit. When you get the chance to get last hits, you better get last hits. Go into an empty lobby; you can do the last hit trainer if you want, whatever.

Don't buy items, just last hit. Then you can buy some small items if you want, things that you naturally would like, like a Quelling Blade if you're a core melee hero, stuff like that. But just be good at last hitting, okay? Everyone needs to do this. We don't care who you are; you have to be good at last hitting.

Then, open up a bot game and last hit against some insane bots. You can go into the mid lane if you want; honestly, it's okay to go to a side lane as well. You're going to contest the enemy two bots and whatever bot is on your team because they're going to go for last hits as well. Just practice last hitting a bit against some competition so it's not like this easy empty lane. It's okay that real players are probably better than bots, right? 

That's fine. Doing this is not to make you like this immortal-tier player; it's just to get you ready and prepped to play the hero in a real environment. Against bots, it's fine; it's just to give you a bit of competition and to get your timings a little cleaner than what you need to do against an empty lobby. 

Then practice any combos. If you're like a Wind Ranger, you might pick up an Ironwood Tree and practice shackling and planting an Ironwood Tree behind them. If you are playing someone like Lina, practice using the target and then landing an LSA stun. If you're Invoker, practice the 50 million combos you need to do. Any combo your hero might possibly do, you should practice it.

You should also spend a little bit of time theory crafting on how to get the most out of each spell. How much damage do you get from all your different spells? Maybe you could just find some guides that help you with that, but you can think of it on your own. 

If you have no idea what we're talking about, we did a video with Alexander Kocha where we broke down Crystal Maiden's spells, how to think about each one, and how you might use them in the lane, that sort of thing. 

But you can do it with any hero. Just look at the spell, read the description, and think, "Okay, how do I get the most out of this damage? How do I get the most out of this attack speed? When should I use this spell?" Plan it a bit ahead so you can save time and you're not just randomly using spells in the game. You have a plan for what each spell is supposed to do. That'll help with your mana management, your effectiveness with the hero, all of that leads to having a good win rate and just playing well in general.

So if you try to play like 12 heroes at once, you've got all these pages written out, it's going to be a disaster. That's why we just do one hero at a time. We can refer to the game plan the first few games, but after a while, it's going to just become natural to us. It becomes ingrained. You don't have to refer to this anymore, and that's when you get to move it to the hero pool and you start building up another page or two for your next hero. Ingrain that, repeat, and so forth.

Study The Positions

Most of the community sees the positions as follows: Position one is the hard carry, position two is the mid laner, position three is the offlaner, position four is the roaming support, and position five is the support without farm who babysits the position one safely. Typically, most players deem the position priority as follows: position one being the highest priority player and position five being the least.

However, the roles and queues in Dota can be a bit confusing for supports. They are categorized as hard support and soft support, with hard being position five and soft being position four. When it comes to the core roles, the selection only allows you to choose lanes as safely, middle lane, or offlane. If we follow this route, the safe lane should be the hard carry, the middle lane should be the position two, and the offlane should be the position three. But if everyone followed these rules, the lanes and farm priority wouldn’t adapt well to game situations. 

For instance, sometimes you might want your hard carry in the middle lane, like with a hero such as Luna or Medusa, so they can farm from the lane and also farm neutral camps around the ring, achieving quicker timings and coming online faster. Alternatively, sometimes you might want your offlaner to play mid if the matchup is better. For example, if your opponent's last pick is a hero like Brute against your OD, you wouldn't want your OD to be countered by Brute, so you would have your offlaner play mid.

There is also a misconception that the position four player should always go to the offlane and the position five player should always go to the safe lane. In most cases, yes, but it depends on the matchup and compatibility with core heroes. 

With that said, we personally feel that this way of looking at positions is somewhat flawed, and there is a better representation of how the farm priority should be explained. The position one player of the team should be the primary win condition of the team, no matter the lanes. This means that if you give that particular hero space for farm and levels, the position one player will be able to carry the team to victory. 

Of course, this is affected by the player's ability to carry the game, but it serves as a simple analogy. For example, if you have a hard carry like Morphling getting farm and levels, he will eventually be able to take out enemy heroes and destroy buildings. This can vary in different situations. If you have a hero like Meepo, you might want him to be in the middle lane so he farms faster, as Meepo is the primary win condition for the team and can farm well in the mid lane.

The position two player of the team should be the secondary win condition. The position one carry won’t be able to take out every enemy hero alone, so the secondary carry assists in this role. The position two player can be in the safe lane, offlane, or middle lane. For example, if you have a Storm Spirit, you would likely want him in the middle lane so he can access runes and make necessary rotations. 

If you have a Bristleback, who needs a lot of farm, you might prefer him in the mid lane because he does well against opponents and needs farm to be effective. In this case, you would want a position three offlaner to make sacrifices and rotate to ensure the lineup works. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have both Bristleback and Storm Spirit on the same team; it’s just about how the farm is distributed based on who the primary win condition is.

The position three player is usually the one that enables the win condition of the team. They often pick a hero that fills the gaps left by the position one and two, such as providing initiation, crowd control, or frontlining. The position three player typically picks before the position one and two, so it’s important to communicate with them to find out what the team needs or to anticipate the necessary role.

The position four player is a support who has the impact of a core with minimal farm. They usually have initiation, crowd control, or significant damage output. The position four will eventually get enough gold to buy core items that impact the game. The farm and resources on the map are limited, so the position three and four players should only take farm when the position one and two aren’t taking it or are not comfortable taking it. However, if anyone on the team is short of gold for an item or buyback, they should be given priority for farm.

The position five player is the ultimate sacrificial role. They manage the vision of the game, including where to place wards and what parts of the map to control. Since the position five player is not focused on gaining net worth, they should be strategizing and making decisions based on the available information on the map.

Recommended Heroes

Which hero from the 100 recommended heroes do you pick? We’re going to go through a couple of examples per position as recommendations—one from the new player mode and one expanded character. Please note that Valve likes to change things often, so we’ll keep this as generic as possible so you can understand what makes a hero good for beginners. Please check the comments as we may pin updates to these recommendations in the future.

In the new player mode, you can’t go wrong with Phantom Assassin. Most of her abilities are very simple—only two or three of them need to be activated. Most importantly, if you find yourself in a tough spot, you can use Phantom Strike to teleport to a nearby ally who can hopefully save you. For an expanded recommendation, Faceless Void is a great choice. He has a useful ability to escape bad situations with Time Walk, which lets you run away and regain health. In fights, your main task is to use your ultimate, Chronosphere, to catch as many enemies as possible while minimizing the number of allies inside it, then start attacking the enemies within.

For new players, we recommend Zeus. He recently received a leap ability, which helps him escape trouble, and he deals a lot of damage. He’s not particularly complex—just hit things hard. For an expanded recommendation, Dragon Knight is a good choice. He’s a very tanky mid hero, so mistakes are less punishing. He has simple damage and a basic stun to help the team, and his ultimate is a transformation that makes him stronger without adding much complexity.

Among the new player mode heroes, Tidehunter is a solid choice. Your role in fights is to hit as many enemies as possible with your ultimate. Besides that, you’re just a very tanky hero. For an expanded choice, Centaur Warrunner is recommended. His role is to be tanky and stun enemies. His ultimate provides both a chase and escape ability, and you deal damage to enemies who hit you.

Supports are more interchangeable, especially for beginners. Here are three choices for new player mode supports that work well in both roles:

• Lion: Very simple to use. Two of your abilities stop enemies from doing things, your ultimate delivers a big burst of damage, and your last ability is a bit annoying for enemies. A great all-around support.

• Crystal Maiden: Although she’s quite squishy and can be easily punished, you provide mana regeneration to allies with one of your abilities. All of your other abilities hinder and damage enemies simultaneously.

• Vengeful Spirit: A favorite of ours. She passively helps allies with increased damage, and you can further boost their damage with Wave of Terror. Your last two abilities include a stun and a swap, the latter of which can be used to sacrifice yourself to save a friend who might be better at the game.

Better Controls, Better Gameplay

To get you started, let's focus on three key controls: moving your hero, moving the camera, and using your abilities.

Moving Your Hero

To move your hero, simply right-click anywhere on the ground. This will move you to exactly where you clicked, taking the shortest possible route. If you right-click on an enemy hero or creep, your hero will move towards them and automatically attack until you give a different command. That’s all you need to know about hero movement.

Camera Movement

Camera movement is a bit more interesting because there are three main ways to do it:

1. Default Method: Move your cursor to the edge of the screen where you want your camera to move. For instance, to move the camera up, place your cursor near the top of the screen.

2. Camera Drag: Set a key bind for camera drag (we recommend using a mouse button that isn’t left or right click). Hold that key and drag your mouse to move the camera.

3. Directional Keys: We use this method, where the camera movement is controlled entirely with keys. Rebind the directional camera movement to the four keys you prefer, such as W, A, S, and D. As you play, use these keys to move the camera. There’s no one true way to do this; the default method is what most people use, but we find the directional keys more comfortable.

Extra Camera Tip

For moving your camera large distances, click on the mini-map. If you need to see something on the opposite side of the map, instead of slowly moving the camera there, click on your mini-map. This is much faster and will save you a lot of time.

Abilities and Item Keys

Your four main abilities will likely be the keys you use most in the game and you’ll need to access them quickly. They are defaulted to Q, W, E, and R. However, since we use WD for movement, we place them on 1, 2, 3, and 4. Basically, you need to have these abilities in an extremely easy place to access.

You also have eight item keys to bind: six for normal items, one for a neutral item, and one for a teleportation scroll. Many Dota items have activatable abilities, so we recommend having at least three or four of these normal item slots on keys that are easily reachable. You'll also need the teleportation scroll quite often, so make sure you can reach that one too. For example, we use Z, X, and C, along with the spacebar, for four easy item slots, and our two side mouse buttons for the others, as we’re not particularly practiced in hitting them quickly.

Final Control

One final control to learn early on is the select hero button. Double-tapping this button will center the camera on your hero. Whenever you get lost in your first games of Dota and are confused about where you are, double-tap this button to find yourself again.

General Tips

Lag And Delays

When you first load into the game, you might think that the game is laggy or wonder why your hero isn’t moving instantly when you click. This is due to the turn rate mechanic. When your hero is not facing the direction you want to move or cast a spell, there will be a slight delay because your hero needs to turn. Some heroes have no turn rate delays, while others have spells that can slow your turn rate.

Items

In Dota 2, unlike League of Legends, you don’t start building into one huge item from the start. Instead, you want to make use of all your item slots to become stronger than your opponent. Almost every item in Dota 2 has activatable effects, so you will need to press and activate the different effects that the items provide.

You’ll be given six item slots, three backpack slots, one neutral item slot, and one teleportation scroll slot. Item slots are for items you buy and use, while the backpack slots are for items you’re not currently using but might switch to later. Keep in mind there will be a cooldown when you switch items. Jungle creeps will drop items after seven minutes, so you need a slot for that as well. Your teleport scroll allows you to teleport back to base or any tower on the map.

There are two shops in the game: one in your base and one in the secret shop outside of the base. There are strategies to prevent enemies from reaching the secret shop, but for now, you can either walk there or buy items with your courier.

Everyone is given a courier that delivers items to you. The courier can be killed and will start flying when you hit level 4. As you level up, your courier will gain new abilities. Set a hotkey for your courier and remember to buy and deliver your items, even though strategies might target your courier to prevent you from getting items.

Item Types

Items in Dota 2 are categorized into consumables, aura items, defensive items, offensive items, stats items, and others. Depending on the role you’re playing with the same hero or the heroes you’re facing, you might need different items. For now, focus on clicking on the shop, selecting a guide, and following it. There are plenty of guides made by top-tier players, and as you play, you’ll gradually learn about items and different item builds to help you win the game.

Runes

Your first objective is to secure bounty runes. Every five minutes, starting from minute zero, bounty runes will spawn in four areas. If anyone on your team takes them, the whole team gains gold, making it important to fight for them. Starting from minute 4, a power rune will spawn every 2 minutes, either on the top or bottom rune spawn. These power runes provide special effects that are important for the mid laner to help them win the lane or gank other lanes.

There are six types of power runes: Arcane, Illusion, Invisibility, Double Damage, Regen, and Haste. Arcane reduces mana cost and cooldowns, Illusion creates copies of your hero, Invisibility makes you invisible, Double Damage doubles your damage, Regen restores health and mana, and Haste increases movement speed.

Animation and Damage

Every hero has different attack animations. Some hit faster, some slower, and some have instant projectiles or longer backswing. These animations and damage will affect your last hitting, so try to time your attacks just as the creep is about to die to secure gold and experience. You can also deny creeps to prevent your opponents from gaining gold and experience. Higher-level players time their attacks and spells to secure every ranged creep, but for now, focus on last-hitting creeps.

Vision

Vision in Dota 2 is based on day and night vision. You see more during the day and less during the night. Certain heroes have different vision ranges, and some can reduce your vision. Every tree creates a fog of war, so you’re not invisible but just hidden in the shadows. High ground provides better vision and gives a 25% chance to miss if attacked from below. Cliffs are areas you cannot reach without certain spells or items, and placing observer wards on cliffs is a common practice.

Invisibility

Invisibility is a significant aspect of the game. There are spells, items, and runes that can turn heroes invisible. To see invisible heroes, you need true sight, which can be obtained through power-ups like sentry wards, dust, or the gem of true sight. Sentry wards provide true sight around an area, while dust reveals all invisible heroes around you.

Spell Casting

Dota 2 features different types of spell casting, including skill shots, point target, ground target, vector target, no target, channeling, and toggle spells. While we won’t delve too deep into these, you’ll understand them as you play and try out different heroes.

Aggro

Aggro refers to when a creep or tower attacks you. When you attack a hero under their own creep wave, the creeps will attack you due to aggro. When attacking an enemy hero under their tower, the tower will hit you, which can be dangerous. You can transfer aggro to your teammates or creep wave by clicking on them. There are more advanced ways to manage aggro, but for now, focus on this basic understanding.

Damage

In Dota 2, there are several types of damage: physical, magical, pure, piercing, siege, spell, and HP removal. For now, focus on physical and magical damage. Physical damage is mitigated by armor and evasion, while magical damage is mitigated by magic resistance or spell immunity. Certain spells can pierce spell immunity.

Roshan

Roshan is the boss of the map. When you kill him, he drops an Aegis, which gives you an extra life. If you kill him again, he drops an Aegis and Cheese. Killing him more times drops additional items like Aghanim's Shard and Refresher Shard. For now, just remember that killing Roshan provides an extra life.

Objectives

The main goal of the game is to destroy the enemy’s Ancient. To achieve this, you need to destroy tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 towers, break the racks, and eventually win the game by taking down the Ancient. Additionally, you can capture outposts. Both Radiant and Dire start with an outpost that can be captured once you break the tier 2 tower. Capturing an outpost provides the whole team with experience every 10 minutes, and you can also teleport to your outpost. Outposts provide true sight as well.

Get Ready To Get Better

DOTA 2 is going to put you through a long journey. There are lots of ways to make that easy and if you want to check those out, contact us at RPG Stash!