What is the strategy behind the secret shop?

[NGMZeroX]

While the main shop in each fountain is an obvious starting point, and the side shops give some early advantages to the ones controlling them early. I fail to understand the true purpose of the secret shop. I mean the ones inside the jungles.

I do not remember playing any game where one team decided to control the secret shop, yes we usually ward those areas but any team should ward the jungles even the ones without the secret shop, with the lack of regular camps around the shop, it is a waste of gold and experience to hang there for too long.

Some form of denying the other team their secret-shop-relics is if a team being pushed back and the enemy army crowding their base zone, they may want to forget about getting their 3300G relic from the secret shop until they push the enemy back first. But isn't that just making it even more difficult for the losing team one mess click and they could end up re-farming their 3300G.

All that is fine and cool and could be argued as a game mechanic to punish bad playing and incorage more team fight. but what bothers me is, compared to the preview dota, Dota 2 have a very easy system to buy and build items quickly. You can learn to spend minimum time in shopping interfaces and spend that time in better places in game with little skill. Until I am being reminded back about it. Usually at late game when the hero inventory have one slot free, and they require multiple secret relics to build a single item, the smartest way to solve the problem is by bringing a courier along to do the shopping and building the item before retrieving it (unless the items only requires secret shop materials or only require an extra recipe)

Despite all the hotkeys, (select courier "F2" > Send it to the secret shop "W"> select your hero "F1" > do what you need to do until the courier arrive > re select the courier "F2" > buy your items or quick buy them (space or F5) > call the curier"F3"). It is a pain process and a very distracting thing to do, the only time I found it convenient is when my hero dead and you have 50+ seconds of doing nothing other than observing.

Is it important to have the secret shops as the way it represented? If hypothetically we assumed the items in the secret shop were available at the fountain shop, would it remove any strategies or tactics from the game? I would love to know your strategies.

[76561198065570234]

Why bother? Null talisman is avaliable in the foutain shop anyway.

[NGMZeroX]

you could also find Wraith Band and Bracer which isn't related, didn't your dog die?

[76561198065570234]

Originally posted by NGMZero:

you could also find Wraith Band and Bracer which isn't related, didn't your dog die?

In spirit, yes.