How to play Dota 2
Dota 2 is a game that is played in a 5v5 map which has 3 lanes, jungles, and a base per team. The objective is to breach the enemies’ defences and destroy their Ancient, which is the core of the base. Destroying the enemy’s base is easier said than done, because it is protected by towers (which inflict A LOT of damage) and enemy heroes.
This game is often compared with League of Legends but the two games are highly different. In Dota 2 you don’t have a “recall” button that teleports you back to your base: to buy items, you need to go back to the base on foot (which translates into a lot of gold and time wasted) or buy a courier for the team. A courier is a flying animal that can get the equipment you have bought in the store and deliver it to you. This is the most recommendable way of getting the stuff you buy in the store because it means that you won’t lose time, gold and experience going back and forth in such a big map just to get a few items.
The economy system in Dota 2 is way more complex than the average MOBA game. There are several ways to earn gold: killing creeps (last hitting), killing enemy heroes, assisting in a kill of an enemy hero or slaying monsters in the jungle.
This is common in a MOBA game, however, Dota 2 has some differences that make it a much more hardcore experience. For example, when talking about last hitting, you can earn money by doing so but you can also minimise the gold earned by your lane opponent by last hitting the minions that they are about to kill (denying). To master the craft of last hitting and denying at the same time takes an incredible amount of time but it can make you a force to be reckoned with in the laning phase. Dota 2 also punishes your mistakes a lot harder than any other game because if you die you will actually lose gold. Even the courier is not safe: if it’s caught by the enemy team, they can kill it to make you lose your item and money. This is a basic strategy used to gain the upper hand in an even match.
