I know, I know. If you are a hardcore DotA player you must have had the thoughts in your mind about becoming a pro. Let me tell you that there isn’t such thing called a pro in dota. Its just skill, practice, cunning-ness, reflexes and most important of all, your experience with the game. I will take you on a tour to the most important elements a player must have in-order to be the best, or at least one of the best. This article is not your “cheat-list” or your “secret guide to winning” its just an ordinary article that will definitely help you become a good DotA player. I will discuss the most important skill you need to have during a pro-DotA game. If you are well experienced you will know that even an in-experienced player, in other words-”A Noob” can make you win a game if he has an excellent carry like “Mortred”, “Troll”, “Void”, etc being Ganked (When two or more people come to kill you when your are farming) less often and enabling him to farm a lot with a good build. This proves to us that “Farming” (Killing creeps) is the most important skill in the game and I will leave it to you to decide how you are gonna farm. Now, let us get rid of the chit-chat and start with the “Most Important Skills and Things a Player Must Have”.

Getting Started:

A Good Gear:

Before starting off with the skills I recommend you to have a good gear-A gaming mouse(A normal mouse works,make sure its sensitive enough),and a good keybord.I assume you can locate the keys without looking at the keyboard,as long as that is true you won’t be having any problem with locating your hotkeys.

Install Warkeys:

Yes,I mean it.Blizzard allows a player to redefine customkeys.txt as he desires and it is not cheating.Warkeys is now officially declared legal to use by ESWC,WCG and other top European tournaments that allow a third party software to redefine or bind you inventory keys and hotkeys.It is perfectly legal.Don’t worry about it.Warkeys can be Downloaded from here.Warkeys will help you improve your game to an extent that,all you’ll be able to hear is “HOLYYYY ShITTT” in the game. Alright I accept it,that was a little too much.Anyway…

Skills You Need:

Last Hitting and Denying :

One of the most fundamental and basic skills is the last hitting of any creep to increase you gold stock-pile allowing you to build really good inventories. When you talk about Pro-DotA games,last hitting consistently will determine the dominance of a team.It is definitely the core element of a game.If you are reading this,I assume that you know what last hitting is,moving around back and forth,avoiding harassing,landing the killing blow and increasing your gold.The most common mistakes that players make is that,they tend to farm only in the initial stages of the game and farm very less or worst,don’t farm anything in the later stages of the game focusing on ganks and survival..I strictly forbid you to make this mistake.I say you keep the farming thing going around throughout the game.You need to farm consistently.That is “The art of DotA” that may help you win the game for your team,well if not win,at-least give a tough competition to your opponents.Denying is another skill that needs to be mastered disabling your opponents to farm and dis-allowing them to gain exp,making them gain less exp than you gain giving you a level advantage.Last-hitting your allies when they are poisoned or doomed can save the gold and exp for your team.So I conclude by saying that if you are not perfect with this skill,don’t bother reading the next tips,not to be rude,it really is the most basic of all basic skills you will need.Block creeps as they go to their lanes to force the enemy creeps to take tower hits, and gain your first level of the enemy faster and use this to be more aggressive. When you are melee and you can’t last hit from harass, get close to the enemy unit line and right click on a enemy hero any where on the map, the units will then charge your hero for about 2 seconds. When a tower is agroing on you, just simply press A (or w/e your attack key is, if you are using hotkeys) and click on one of your allied units to cancel tower Agro.  (Does not work 100% of the time).Towers also gain agro on you if you are within range and target an enemy hero.There is a 1-2 second wait between most hero attacks up till mid game.  Use this wait period to gain positioning on the enemy by run beside them between attacks.

DotA is a very balanced game in terms of creep spawning and pushing.So make sure if you want to farm well and don’t wanna push,deny your own creeps in retaliation to the damage you did on the enemy creeps and always have an ally that will help you farm and harass your opponents.

Tower-Side last hits:

Assuming you all know, if you’re getting hit by a creep and you enter the tower’s range, the tower shifts its target and assists you by attacking the creep which is hitting you (As long as the creep is in the tower’s range). The tower can help you last hit this way. You have to get to know your heroes attack swing (if you’re melee) or projectile speed (if you’re ranged) With a little foresight, you can manipulate the creep’s HP beforehand, such that you can get the last hit after the tower throws in a few attacks… say 2 or 3. This technique is SLIGHTLY easier to do if you’re on Sentinel because the tower’s projectile is a stone, which is easier to judge than Scourge’s energy beam.Though it is kind of hard to judge and kill a creep in the initial stages of the game due to low attack damage,but it surely is helpful farming quicker than you normally do.This strategy will help you farm fast by getting the creeps near your tower.When a tower is attacking you, if you attempt to attack an undeniable allied creep, the tower will switch targets.

Fog Abusing or Juking :

Whether you’re ganking or you are being ganked, Fog is your best friend when you use it properly and worst-enemy when used wrong.Note that fog of war updates in them game every 0.4 seconds and this time can save your life if you know the right juking spots and hiding spots. Fogging is sometimes  better than lothars or any invisibility skill like  windwalk. Know these blindspots and you’ll have a 90 percent chance of escaping.Juking is losing an enemy that is chasing you by going into bunchs of trees and using fog of war to your advantage. This is not cheating, this is called “being smart.”If you well notice.A Hero.

The red-lines indicate all the juke-spots in the map.These may differ in different versions due to various changes that are made.If one masters and has a knowledge about the juke-spots,it gives a really great advantage  when you play pro-dota online or in a clan.I’ll try to cover the juke spots as much as possible.But I recommend you to find it out and explore it yourselves.

Being chased?No Problemo.Just hide in these spots and teleport or wait til you think your enemies are gone.

This juke path can be used if you are a sentinel hero and stuck or surrounded by scourge and need to teleport yourself to safety.This path will help you buy time and tp to a safe location.

Multiple paths allow you to juke and increase your survivability rate by a higher rate.

Spots like these can be used by pudge to hook enemies and force them to take damage from your towers and give you an easy kill.

This is another juke spot for the scourge heros.Stuck in sentinel?? Just make sure you buy yourself time before teleporting.

Another tricky place to juke.

Ambushed near secret shop?? Hide here.

Now you know what i mean.

Stuck near the shops.Just follow these paths and fly like an eagle,or maybe a butterfly.Okay that’s a bad joke I admit it.

Similar issue.

An Excellent Juke spot to confuse your enemies about your whereabouts.

Being ganked near bot-sentinel tower?? Hide in these spots and make your enemies take the damage from the tower.

Understanding Juking is a complex thing.But nonetheless juking can be carried out on spot when you have an opponent hero chasing you.It is just a skill you need to pick up so you are safe and don’t get killed.So feel free to experiment while your being chased.

To make juking mechanisms more clear to you I’m gonna explain all the different kind of spots the game has.Let has have a look at the terrain.

Blind Spots(BS):

is a general term for a space or location wherein an object is mostlikely unseen. If you are unseen therefore you cannot be targeted by spells nor can be attacked most of the time unless it is an area of effect skill or is a global effect skill.

As you can see from the picture.The Cliff is blocking the view of the lake since it is higher than your position and hence becomes a blind spot.

Phantom Spot(PS):

is an area wherein you should have a vision on that area but dont due to certain reasons icefrog had made probably to obscure and hide the heroes killing roshan so that it would be fair for them not to be easily ambushed.

Carry A Town-Portal:

A good DotA player always carry’s a town-portal increasing his chances of teleporting to safety.The most important thing to keep in mind while carrying and using a tp scoll is to keep in mind that the opponents don’t stun you and interrupt your teleport to safety.Make sure you buy yourself time and you are in a safe place while using the tp scroll. OMG, some  noob is BACKDOORING our base! Cheater!! Cheater!!  BD is a legal strategy in Pub (public) games, you ain’t playin a fair game always. So get your head out  and learn to carry a TP scroll always.

Presence of Mind and Teamwork:

Another important skill that saves a lot of gold and exp for you is the Presence of Mind.Keep an eye on the mini-map,monitor the lanes to see who’s missing constantly and back-off when required and retreat to tower and ensure your safety.Keep an eye on the clock,be aware of night-fall,and daytime and your vision during the night.Make sure you ward the runes and take power advantages over your opponents.Stay in fog and be take your enemies by surprise when they least expect you to gank them.Another important skill that you need to have is mastering the skill of studying your opponents and their moves, move away(or blink away) when they use spells that are targetted against you.For example,you can evade Vengi’s magic missile with Mirana’s leap when used just at the right time.It’s all in the reflexes.Always stay and move in groups when required.Stay with your team and execute your plans and combos well and Don’t play a loner.DotA is not a One-Man Army game.Your opponents are as strong as you are.So don’t make any silly moves unless you are well farmed and the game is on your side with your team having the advantage. A disjoint is when a hero with an escape skill (i.e. Blink, Timewalk) or escape item (i.e. Eul’s Scepter of Divinity, Kelen’s Dagger) uses them to avoid (at the very last instant) spells and disables (i.e. Sven’s Stormbolt, King Leoric’s Hellfire Blast). The most common heroes you see doing disjoints are heroes like Magina and Mirana. They time their Blink/Leap when the spell is almost going to hit and then use them to evade both damage and disable.

Item Builds:

Having the right item build will increase the power of your Heroes. Some heroes require more health or more speed, or more mana as the game progresses. Knowing the complimentary item build for your hero will increase its power and direct damage.

Keeping a track of your Streak:

When one player kills a number of players without dying they get a ‘bounty’ on their head. The more players you kill the higher the bounty gets. Players are alerted in the game with sound. When someone finally kills that player they receive the bounty gold in addition to the regular gold for killing a hero.  So be wary of the consequences and the amount of gold you are gonna lose when you die to your opponents. The following chart gives you and idea of how much gold each streak carries.

Warding:

Trust me, you can save a lot of money and time buy buying Observer wards and placing them at proper locations.They give you wide range of vision if placed well over higher terrains and paths.They will warn you of incoming ganks through forests and help you retreat to your tower and save yourself the pain of  losing your gold.I’ll discuss about advanced warding in my other articles.This is all you need to know for now.

Animation Cancelling:

Every hero has an amount of time it takes to perform an attack, like swinging your sword back before crushing brains. This is called an attack animation.All heroes have different attack animations. Some are very long, some are very short.For Example Magnus has all kinds of stupid swing animation that makes the players confused during last hits.They are all quite reduced late game when your hero gets more attack speed. Slow attack animations are most notable early game. All attack animations have attack points..Lets say it takes Necrolyte 1.5 seconds to finish an attack animation, but he actually throws his attack at 1.1 seconds. This means that you ONLY have to wait 1.1 seconds to throw an attack. The best way to cancel this is to right click on the ground to move at 1.1 seconds .It is normally called attack move or Orb Walking(when heroes have orbs like slows).If you do not cancel your animation at 1.1 seconds, you will stand there for NO reason for .4 seconds, which can be the difference between getting a kill and not getting a kill. Always, always learn the animation cancel for your character if they have a long animation. Most melee heroes have a faster animation, and generally ranged heroes have the longer animations.Look forward for my advanced DotA mechanisms about animation cancellation that will help you own in no time.This is a little complex thing to understand if you are a beginner just stick to the basics and you’ll figure out on your own.

We’ll that’s it for now guys.I’ll meet you in the next installment.Keep Gaming, your skill is not in this guide,it’s in you.Hope this article has helped.Thank you for reading