Need some general help

First of all, I'm a player that have a lot of experience in League of Legends and I'm giving DOTA 2 a chance. I'm not biased by opinions about the games, I just want to try out a similar game that I play for a long time already and get a new experience. Therefor you'll find me comparing the 2 games a lot, and it might make it easier for you to understand me if you have experience in both games as well.

Anyway, here are the problems I'm stuck with and what I need help with.

SHOP
The shop is really confusing for me. It's hard to get used to and even harder to find specific items for a champion. Are there any standard items you mostly get or any strategy to easily guide yourself through the shop? As example, when you play Warwick in LoL you'll buy a Blade of Ruined King, Sunfire Cape, Frozen Mallet. The same could apply for example champions like Aatrox or Sion. It's pretty basic. Obviously I know that builds will vary and are game depending, but are there some standards builds for lets say a champion like Sand King, Sven or Axe.

Damage and the 3 different colors you can play
While you have Attack Power and Ability Power in LoL, here I see Strenght, Agility and Intelligence. I'm getting confused with the three different things. Is Intelligence automatically a support for example? Does Intelligence add damage to my abilities or is the 700 damage is see standing in my ability description the standard damage and can't it be upgraded with for example Intelligence? This part is really confusing for me with what everything exactly does. Also, can I compare the Agility based champions with the ADC champs in LoL? And do you actually buy Strenght items or Damage items?

These are the 2 quick things that are confusing me the most at the time, but I'm sure that there will be more on my path once I've put more hours in DOTA2. Anyway, so far I must say that DOTA2 seems a lot harder than LoL. Which is good, I do like to be challenged.

Hope someone can help me out and get me on my way in DOTA2.

Welcome to DOTAFire :)

I know nothing about LoL, but I will try to help you. But please, don't say "champions" about heroes in Dota, ok?

Standard builds that you can see when you open the SHOP icon are often outdated and in some games useless. I know it might be a downside for you, but I would advice you to read about items in Dota2. There are lot of them, but this is necessary for you to actually enjoy the game and not be blind while buying items.
Generally, there are timings when you can buy an item and when you shouldn't, because it's too late. I will give you the best example.
There is an item called Radiance. It costs a lot, but it constantly burns enemies around you while giving you a nice amount of physical damage. It is very effective vs. creeps and heroes with low HP. This item also brings farming to the next level. However, you want to rush this item, because the faster you will get it, the better it will be for your further farming and your team. Many players say that you should get Radiance before 20 minutes, and the absolute maximum is 25 minutes. Why? Because if you will have only Boots of Speed and Radiance in 35 minutes, then you will be too weak to deal with enemies. This item is very hard to build, because it requires you to buy 1 expensive item. Getting 3800 gold is very hard.
So if you will pick Naga Siren (typical Radiance hero) and you will be have stats like 0/4 (0 kills/4 deaths), you won't be able to finish that Radiance fast. Then you have to change your plan on buying items and you can try something cheaper. Getting Power Treads and Drum of Endurance instead. Those items are built from cheap items, so it is much easier for you to get them, even if you are not doing that good.

And you see, this is only about 1 item. This is why they say Dota is more complicated :)

Another advice on how to know what to buy - watch pro games, but don't follow their builds blindly. Just get the general concept of what they are buying. You need to ask yourself: Why Slark builds Shadow Blade if he has invisiblity ultimate - Shadow Dance? Shadow Blade is considered an initiation tool. He is a typical ganking/snowballing hero that can use the surprise effect like noone else in the game. Invisibility granted by Shadow Blade also gives him enormous HP regen and movement speed, due to his ultimate passive.

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About the 3 colors. There are 3 attributes in Dota2. Strength, Agility and Intelligence. It's not that simple as you think. Common sense says this: Strength heroes are tanks, Agility heroes are carries and Intelligence heroes are supports. In many cases it looks like that, but not always. For example, Vengeful Spirit or Venomancer are Agility heroes, but they are played as supports. Just looks at their abilities. Tinker is by no means a support. Same goes for Nature's Prophet who often builds damage items like Desolator.

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Now about attributes:

Every point in strength increases maximum health by 19, every point in strength increases health regeneration by 0.03 HP per second, if strength is a Hero's primary attribute, every point in strength increases his or her attack damage by 1.

Every point in agility increases a Hero's armor by 0.14, every point in agility increases a Hero's attack speed by 1, if agility is a Hero's primary attribute, every point in agility increases his or her attack damage by 1.

Every point in intelligence increases a Hero's maximum Mana by 13, every point in intelligence increases a Hero's mana regeneration by 0.04 mana per second, if intelligence is a Hero's primary attribute, every point in intelligence increases his or her attack damage by 1.

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No, you cannot increase magic damage done by abilites by increasing your intelligence (except Glaives of Wisdom and Arcane Orb). But there is something very important. Each hero has 25% built-in magic resistance (except Visage, who has 10% magic resistance; and Meepo, who has 35% magic resistance). So if a regular hero has 25% magic resistance and you will hit him with Spirit Lance on level 4 (250 magic damage), that hero will receive only 75% of this damage, which will be 187,5 magic damage done to that hero. But this is not complex enough. You can buy items that will increase your magic resitance like Cloak and some heroes have abilities that will increase their magic resistance, like: Flesh Heap, Phantom Edge, Corrosive Skin and more.

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Generally, yeah - Agility heroes are hard carries in Dota2.

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There are Strength items like Heart of Tarrasque or Sange. Damage items is the majority of items in Dota2 I believe: Desolator, Monkey King Bar, Daedalus, Butterfly, Abyssal Blade, Battle Fury, Demon Edge, Mjollnir, Sacred Relic.

There are also defensive items: Linken's Sphere, Heart of Tarrasque, Black King Bar, Blade Mail, Assault Cuirass.

Lifesteal items: Helm of the Dominator, Mask of Madness, Satanic, Vladmir's Offering (lifesteal does not stack, so getting more lifesteal items won't help you).

There are of course more items, so just read about them, hm? :)

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If you need more help, ask more.

Thanks for the text, I've read it carefully, but I'll do it again later today to absorb all the information.

One quick question I have right now is about the actives many items have. They are bind to KP 5 6 7 etc. Is there a way to chance that? I have my right hand at my mouse and my left hand at QWER. It's annoying that I should leave the mouse with my right hand to press KP7 and then get back to my mouse to aim at an enemy player. Any better way to do this?

in the top left of the main menu there is a settings button, you can change all your hotkeys and settings there.

For Sand King, Sven and Axe? Blink Dagger, Blink Dagger and Blink Dagger my good man! <}3

Generally, most Heroes have a set Standard Item choice that you can follow in Pubs while you learn when and which Item to take on any Hero, but as you say, once you get more experienced, it's a case of buying what's needed rather than a standard set.

For Sand King, you want to start with something like this:-




You'll then want to work your way towards getting Boots of Speed, Magic Wand and a Blink Dagger (<- this is probably one of the most useful Items in the game for all Heroes, learn to love it >8{D ).

After that, it's debatable. Most newer players will usually go straight for Aghanim's Scepter to increase the Damage from Epicentre. More expereinced players might pick up general Utility Items to help their Team, e.g. Force Staff, Eul's Scepter of Divinity, Scythe of Vyse. There's a lot of options (just stick with Aghs for now, have fun rekking Teams that clump up together <}3 )

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I recommend trying these Heroes to get you used to the game:-

Lion, the best Hero to start with, played as a Support, he has a lot of lockdown from Erath Spike and Hex, can resupply his own Mana with Mana Drain and Finger of Death is extremely gratifying.

Start with:-




Buy Flying Courier at 3:00, keep Observer Wards placed wherever you think the enemy Team may move to (usually Rune spots and the Jungle early on, nearer to Towers and the Roshan Pit after they start 5-manning) and slowly work your way towards Tranquil Boots and Magic Wand. Once you get more Gold, you can also get a Blink Dagger to Position yourself better.

http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/guide/angelobangelos-guide-to-support-lion-7373


Another good Support is Lich

http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/guide/lich-dead-man-drifting-6-81-6138


If you want to try your hand at winning any Lane as a Core Hero (a Hero that gets priority on Last Hits in Lane) try Viper

Start with:-





Work your way towards (in this order):-

(unless someone else builds one)

Yeah welcome to DOTA, I've never played LOL but understand there are some key differences - a major one being that magic damage (i.e. Nukes) DOESN'T SCALE. This tends to make nuking heroes strong early game, but they fall off later on. You can get items like Ethereal Blade and Veil of Discord which boost magic damage, but they're not generally an endgame solution.

Physical damage tends to be key as the game goes later, so intelligence heroes tend to be supports - however, there are some exceptions, notably: Tinker, Outworld Devourer, Silencer (who can be a support or carry), Nature's Prophet, Invoker and a few others.

Almost all agility heroes are carries, or can be played as carries - armour isn't as useful early on, and neither is attack speed, but late game it's really important as they both scale very well.

Strength heroes are the most flexible - different ones can be played as carries, supports, or anything between. Strength makes you tough throughout the game, but they don't tend to scale as well as agility heroes.

Another key difference with LOL is that you can DENY (a-click) your own creeps to stop enemies farming them and lowering their XP gain, this is quite a key skill while laning.

I'd agree with Xyrus's suggestions on some starting heroes - those ones are relatively easy to play and have fairly straightforward item builds. Have a browse through the guides of the heroes you like the look of, and play some Bot games to get used to some of the more common pickups.

I'd definitely recommend changing your inventory hotkeys so they're closer to your other hand - the defaults are a bit rubbish. Personally I use SDFXCV, but a lot of people use 1-6 on the main keyboard.

Also remember that in the shop you can drag any item to the window at the bottom, and it will tell you what components you need to build them, and you can also click on the components to see if they can be made into anything else. Also make sure you turn off "auto-attack" in the settings menu.

I'd suggest to start with getting used to the most commonly used items - Blink Dagger, Black King Bar, Magic Wand, and the various types of boots.

Boots of Speed - you want these on every hero, every game, generally within 5-10 minutes depending on role. You upgrade them into ones of the types below as required:

Arcane Boots - for support heroes and mana dependent heroes with low pools

Tranquil Boots - for strength heroes who need regen, and support heroes who can recharge their mana using their skills

Phase Boots - for gankers and carry heroes who need damage more than attack speed

Power Treads - flexible boots that increase your stat of choice and attack speed (generally for carries)

Boots of Travel - possible pickup for any hero late game, also useful for split pushers

These comments are so welcome and usefull. Thanks a lot and if there are more general tips, please let them coming. I mean, seriously, this kind of stuff you don't read in reviews etc, so thanks a lot!!

Don't think of Dota as a game about killing the enemy. Dota 2 is a strategic objective and economics game. The main goal is to take their objectives while keep yours up. Thus giving you more areas to gain gold and xp and denying your enemies economy.

Many people only care about getting high kill counts and not about map control. Won many games due to the fact that even though they enemy team could kill mine quite easily; we could split push and down towers way faster solo than they could as a team.

In pro matches; you can see it clearly. One team gets a pick off kill or two and immediately push for a tower. (Or do Roshan)

Many times they will even do a weak push to for enemy buybacks and just retreat. (Seeing that buying back takes money. Also puts buyback on cooldown. Again, slowing down that bought back heroes item progression)

http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/otygb/switching_from_league_of_legends_what_should_i/

this might be helpful to look through

With all the information I received I'm doing the All Hero Challenge to learn all the champions and this is how I'm doing so far.

http://prntscr.com/4o105l