DOtA Basic Mechanics
Experience
When enemy creeps die to either your attack or a friendly creeps attack you will receive experience. Depending on if you have a solo lane or a shared lane you will level up at different rates. Gaining experience is extremely important early game, even more so than gold. Early on a very large percentage of your damage output is spell based. The only way to level your skills up is gaining enough experience to cast them. If you find yourself being against a very aggressive opponent hang back behind your ranged creep and soak up experience.
Leveling
Levels are your heroes rank and can range from level 1 to 25. As you level up you gain access to higher levels of your abilities. As time goes on you gain levels slower and slower depending on the game type and level of enemy creeps.
Stats
Every hero has a main attribute that, in most cases, reflects their play style The attributes each provide different benefits as well as an additional one damage if it is your main attribute:
Strength – Provides 19 health per strength point as well as bonus .03 health regeneration per second.
Agility – Increases attack speed by 1% and armor by .14. Seven points of agility is equal to roughly one point of armor.
Intelligence – Provides 13 mana per intelligence point as well as bonus .04 mana regeneration per second.
Abilities
Every hero has a set of four abilities, three regular and one ultimate, and an option to boost stats. These abilities are what determine a hero’s play style and your choice of abilities will determine when and how effective you are. There are multiple builds with every hero, but I will not be including those today. The best suggestion I can give is to experiment and find what works for you. Everybody plays differently and there is no reason to lock a hero in a box with a specific build that everyone recommends. Depending on the situation it can be very beneficial to focus on one skill and bonus stats for increased mana, health and armor.
Gold
Gold is probably the single most important factor towards the end of the game. The longer games drag on the less abilities matter and the heroes that deal the most pure physical damage are going to dominate. Because of this, farming is ridiculously important. You don’t have to kill creeps to get gold. You can farm neutral creeps or heroes if you are able to with certain heroes like Butcher, Venomancer and Shadow Shaman.
