Understanding and using reliable and unreliable gold

Details of what gives and consumes the two types of gold, Reliable and Unreliable, and how to apply this knowledge.

Introduction

This is a rewrite of a previous post, to try to better organize information. The original thread/discussion is here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=402655
I also wanted to give some personal "tips", since even after so many months, there hasn't been someone experienced in the pro scene or something to offer their insight on the mechanic with their own guide. In fact, a lot of pro supports don't really manage their unreliable gold well in situations that they could do better (but some definitely do).
In addition to that, I've never found any guide on this for other sites, like on playdota. I really find it to be one of the biggest things some players can improve on. In fact, in a 40 minute game, even your 5th least farm player usually could have afforded a sheep if they just managed reliable gold better.

You hear it a lot on the twitch chat, "Wtf, why does that guy have so much unspent gold?".
Or a streamer will say "He spent all his gold before he died, so he didn't lose any."
But in actuality, he didn't have to spend it all. Someone can have 500, a thousand, or even many thousands of gold and not lose a single coin when they die.

Most information on what gives reliable and unreliable gold, and what reduces it, is on the dota2wiki, but the majority of players still don't know how to apply that knowledge. That's largely what this guide is for, as well as filling in some missing information.
With an understanding of reliable gold, you can find yourself with one or two more big items than you'd usually have at the end of the game. You might even be able to get a <20 minute blink dagger despite having less than 25 last hits and no kills on a support.

Basics

There are two types of gold in Dota. The number you see on your HUD is the combined total of these two types of gold. If you hover over the number, it shows the break down.

• Your starting gold(625) is unreliable.
  
• Last hitting creeps and buildings also gives unreliable gold.
  
• Passive gold, gained at a rate of 1.66/s(100 per minute), is unreliable gold.
  
• Global gold (Tower or Roshan killed) is reliable gold.
  
• The 200 global gold for killing Roshan is reliable.
  
• The 105-600 last hit bonus on Roshan is unreliable. (Reaches 600 at 45 minutes)
  
• The 264/312/358/405(Tier 1/2/3/4) global gold for killing towers is reliable.
  
• The 150-250 last hit bonus on Towers is unreliable.
  
• Hero kills and assists is reliable gold.
  
• Alch's Greevil's Greed and Doom's Devour give unreliable gold, while Bounty Hunter's Track and the item Hand of Midas give reliable gold.
  
• Courier kills are unreliable gold. (Inconsistent, I know. Other global gold is reliable. Icefrog pls fix.)
  
• When you die, you lose 30*Your Level unreliable gold. For a quick reference that's 30 at level 1, 300 at level 10, 600 at level 20, 750 at level 25. I know those numbers are obvious as it's a simple multiplier, but it helps immediately put into perspective how much gold you can lose if you let yourself lose it.

All spending of gold except for buyback uses unreliable gold first. Buyback always uses reliable gold first. If you buy an item and it spends some reliable gold, selling it back only gives unreliable gold.
Where unreliable and reliable gold really maters is that dying only subtracts from unreliable gold, and never reliable gold. That, I'd say is where the name comes from.

Keeping a high pool of reliable gold is simple. If you have a kill, assist, or tower, watch your reliable gold count and don't spend below that, until you're spending before you die. This way you don't have to spend nearly all your gold before a death to keep from losing it all.

Advanced (Contains some subjective bits)

While I see reliable gold stacked the most on Chinese carries, I personally find it to be the most important on supports, who have to sacrifice themselves more.
I see supports that could probably find themselves with 50% higher net worth at the end of the game if they had managed their reliable gold better.
What this means is, if you look at the end game stats on say dotabuff, you might see in a 45 minute game that a position 5 support had earned 10k gold. Yet, they only had about 5k of items. Where did that 5k go? Well consumables is part of it, yeah. But 45 minutes of buying wards off cooldown is a mere 900 gold. Where is that 4100 left? Well there is smokes, and consumables. Alright, still, we have about 3k of gold missing on this theoretical player. That's gold that was spent inefficiently and lost on death. 10 deaths can mean about 3000 gold lost over a match.
As a support, if you just try to always make sure you don't spend below your reliable gold, especially when you are winning, except when you're about to die, you can find that gold slowly building up and never being lost, and still having 2k+ gold with nothing lost when you sacrifice yourself in a fight.

How to actually use this knowledge

Always remember to put items in your quick-buy. You do this by opening the shop and pressing shift+click on an item.
Then you can click the items in the quick buy menu to buy them.
You should also bind a key to "purchase quickbuy". I use "n". "b" is another good key. This is also why I don't recommend putting shop on "b" or something like a lot of players do. "quickbuy" is the key you need to press in a hurry on your left hand, not opening shop.
You need to keep a mental note of how much reliable gold you have, by hovering over your gold. When you practice more, you will likely develop a mental memory of about how much you probably have due to kills/assists/objectives without having to continously glance at it.
When you're about to die, quickbuy or buy a bunch of consumables (TP, smokes, etc).
Also you can buy things BEFORE you fight just to be safe, if you're not comfortable with your ability to buy just before dying. Why does this help? If you get kills in that fight, it's just adding more reliable gold that won't be subtracted from. If a fight lasts 20 seconds, you will only lose 25 of that unreliable passive gold you gained since buying last, assuming your AoEs don't kill creeps after buying and before dying.
In short: Only buy items when you need really need to buy them and with mostly your unreliable gold. Only spend portions of your reliable gold when you're about to die, or to get an item is going to win you the game(blink, etc), and of course on buyback.

6 towers and a Roshan is 1928 reliable gold. The assists for a support would usually be ranging from 30-210 reliable gold each kill. A role5 that has managed their reliable gold well, just buying wards, smokes, and tps with their unreliable gold, can suddenly find themselves able to almost buy a sheepstick even if they were competing for the Maelk award.
Let me reiterate: This should not get in the way of normal ward/smoke buying. You have 75 passive gold. 2 minutes of passive gold is enough to buy wards, out of their 6 minute cooldown. Your passive gold is 3x what you need for wards.
The other 4 minutes is enough for your other consumables like smoke, salves, clarities, TPs, and sentries.
You absolutely should not need to spend reliable gold on those items. You should only need to because you made a mistake in not spending gold before you died.

[Kind guy]

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[Expedience]

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[Pyon]

@Princess Fidodgia anyone is free to copy it into other languages if they wish. Just leave credit.
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[[Laked] Lizard]

Very helpful. Thanks for sharing!

[GEORGE]

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[Captain_Miez]

NICE