DOTA Latest Map: 6.57 map now available

Get it from http://www.getdota.com/

what can u say about gurLs who play DOTA??

cool~~~

Kunkka's imbalanced, don't you agree?

for me...a bit imbalance.

Brief guide

Alright here goes. It is pretty hard to learn DotA nowadays since tolerance for noobs is very low. Here's what you need to know.

The biggest tip I can give you, is DO NOT join games with -em in the mode. This is a broken mode which will in no way help you learn or become good at DotA. Good modes to join for a beginner would be -ap or -rd without any secondary modes (ex. -apsc), as they give you a good variety of heroes to choose from without complicating things. To start, learn only a few heroes. There are many heroes, don't just keep picking the same one every game, but stick to a pool of 5-10 heroes so you can quickly become familiar with them. There are something like 90 heroes, you will get confused very fast if you keep picking different ones.

Once you gain a bit of confidence, you can start joining games with -ar, -sd, or -dm as a mode, or games with secondary modes. These will introduce you to even more heroes, helping you advance.

It is very difficult to tell you "what to buy" or "who to pick" or "who is the best hero". Absolutely EVERYTHING in the game is situational, once you have enough experience you will learn how to react in different games. A general rule for item purchasing is stick to items that boost your hero's main stat (str, int, agi). Here are the general roles and rules to building hero types. Note that this is very vague and does not always apply. DotA is a very versatile game.

Strength: Tanks of the team. These heroes are concerned with bulking health, armor and often boosting damage. They are often the initiators (heroes that run in to initiate a team fight, with their team following behind).
Agility: Killer/assassins. These heroes are concerned with boosting damage and attack speed. Their fragility in health is made up by their speed and high armor.
Intelligence: Casters/disablers. These heroes are concerned with boosting their mana and doing large amounts of damage in short periods of time via magic. Disabling is another concern that is just as, and often moreso important than magic (disables are stuns, slows, debuffs, etc.) Very fragile, but make up for it with disables.

I can guarantee that you will have trouble in games as the less than mature public that infests public DotA games will flame you to hell about being new. Try to ignore them***, and play on. Being new, your main goal is to survive. Play defensively, don't worry too much about kills, leave it to the experienced. If you don't die too much, and provide any kind of benefit to your team, consider yourself successful. Ask for advice from your team, they will often give it to you.

There are 6 shopping areas in the game as of now. There are 3 different ones, but they are mirrored for each side (scourge/sentinel), making 6 in total. The first area is around your fountain, the main shopping area. The second one is known as "secret shop" although it's not much of a secret. Its located between top/mid lane for sentinel and between mid/bot lane for scourge. The third shop has been added recently. It contains items that are already in the first and second shopping areas, so there's nothing new. It is simply there for convenience. It is located in the edge of the map behind the trees. Top lane for scourge, bottom for sentinel. If you can't find any of these shopping areas simply ask your team and they will ping it's location for you.

If public games are not working out for you, your last resort is to play AI versions of DotA. I don't recommend it, but you could try it if you must. Google DotA AI to find these maps, or ask me and I will point you in the right direction.

The last tip I will give you is join games that have either 'lc' or 'dc' in the title. These stand for ListChecker and DotAClient. They will be less laggy than regular b.net games. Also, 95% of the time, hosts in ListChecker games will be unable to kick you out of the game (for being new or whatever other reason).

Just communicate with your team. Let them know you're new and learning and most of the time they should help you. If you stay quiet and die a lot then they will start flaming you.

About DotA

Defense of the Ancients (often referred to as DotA) is a custom scenario for Warcraft III - Frozen Throne, based on the "Aeon of Strife" map for Starcraft. The objective of the scenario is to destroy the opponents' "Ancient". The two teams' ancients are heavily guarded structures at opposing corners of the map. Players use powerful units known as heroes, and are assisted by allied heroes and AI-controlled fighters called "creeps". As in role-playing games , players level up their hero and use gold to buy equipment during the mission.

The scenario was developed with the "World Editor" of Warcraft III - Reign of Chaos, and was updated upon the release of the Warcraft expansion The Frozen Throne. There have been many variations of the original concept; currently, the most popular is DotA Allstars, which has been maintained by several authors during development.

Since its release, Allstars has become a feature at several worldwide tournaments, including Blizzard Entertainment's Blizzcon and the Asian World Cyber Games, as well as the Cyberathlete Amateur and CyberEvolution leagues; Gamasutra declared that DotA was perhaps the most popular "free, non-supported game mod in the world". The map has gone on to influence other maps and games, including the upcoming strategy game Demigod.