Controls

In a game with indirect unit control you should know every possible way to interact with the situation. Most of your actions influence the game intermediately via your units that you can't control. So you should know some mechanics to control what you can.


Builder can:

Move - your worker can run on your part of the map if you didn't build any obstacles on his way.

Blink - blink is used to overcome the obstacles (see ‘how to build - caging’)

Build - builder can build barracks and spec buildings. Unit baracks showed as builder's abilities, spec buildings as his inventory. (see ‘how to build’)

Repair - builder can repair buildings or mech units by right clicking on it (sometimes doesnt work the first time, always check status bar “repair”, it should appear). Repair restores health.
Deals direct impact on fight

Rescue Strike a.k.a. RS - kills every enemy unit in big area once in a round. Ability used as a consumable in inventory
Deals direct impact on fight

Shop: consumables, auras. In right bottom corner you can see your resources. Press shop button for shop menu to appear. when you buy a consumable in the shop, builder gains the new ‘use the consumable’ ability,
Lightning ability stays till the end of the round, scroll ability disapears until you buy a new one.
Deals direct impact on fight

Income of gold once in 10 seconds and lumber income for building of each barrack (see ‘economics’)

Buildings can:

Buildings can use their abilities (spawn a unit / buff / debuff / deal dmg or kill / deal aoe dmg) be upgraded and sold.

If you pressed the upgrade button, but your units will cool down in a 1-4 sec, you can press the spawn button as soon as it cools down and then press upgrade again. Can help in def.

If you pressed the upgrade button but don't want to do it, you can press it every 3 seconds till your unit cools down and then send him. Building will no longer be upgrading, your gold will be returned.

Selling the building refunds 50% of its cost (except towers, they don't refund lumber). You can sell building in its inventory if it wasn't attacked for 5 sec.

We can control time when the building activates its ability which will be indirect control of the fight. Initially the ability is set on autocast.

Hold - is keeping the ability cooled down but not used. in other words hold - is turning the autocast off. you do it by rightclicking on ability. very important action!

Indirect spawn place control - you can control where the barack spawns its units, by building around it and leaving the only one spawn place around the barrack free.

Indirect offensive spec building ability control - you can control who the building selects as ability object by custom using it and knowing how it “randomly” picks a target. Buildings that target enemies can use their ablity only on visible units, so dont set it on autocast if you are not sure that there always will be a proper taget.

Indirect defensive spec building ability control - some buildings (wild obelisk) use their buffs on the nearest ally, use it to buff the tank.

Tower - is the most direct controlled unit (building) in the game. You can choose who to attack by right clicking on him and hold attack by rapid clicking ‘S’ (can be useful with human tower against defender)

Game interface - you can select all the buildings, bind them as control group and share your controls with allies with dota2 interface

Positioning
There are always units that go in front and take a hit on theirselves (frontline), and there are those who stand behind and shoot (backline), a special place is occupied by flying units (air). (towers also have a very strong influence on positioning)

This units differ due to the cost and the distribution of their stats. If one unit was both ranged and had large hp amount at the same time and having very strong stats and abilities, then it would cost like a hydra, so we gradually invest a little money in meat, a little in damage, and so on, depending on what is needed in battle right now.


The main goal of positioning is to ensure that the units do as much damage as possible and live as long as possible. Then it develops into snowballing, pushing and winning. Therefore, it is very important that armored units or who have a lot of hp go in front, and rangers go behind them who can quickly do a lot of damage.

The main goal of the frontline is to be a buffer for enemy damage, to taunt enemies and buy some time while backline damages enemy units. Therefore, even one unit ( a kodo or an adamant golem) is enough for the frontline. It works well when the tank takes damage, enemies die, ally backline snowballs.

You need to think about the front almost from the start, except when the enemy or you can go to all airs. In other cases it is useful to think about a tank unit or decide what range unit should go first and tank the dmg. Units are balanced and you can rarely find one that has a lot of HP and armor and has a good attack, ranged and with a splash (hydra, at its cost, tells how it works). Therefore, it is reasonable that someone is spent on a tank, someone on a magician / healer, someone on a shooter.

The main task of the back-line is to do the damage, so that the frontline of the enemy melts and then their backline begins to melt, they begin to do much less damage and we start snowballing. Therefore, thinking about who will be on the back line, you need to take into account the type of armor of the enemy’s frontline. For example, necro-grandfathers or silencers perfectly break through the Human's frontline.


aggro priority- units attack those who are closest to them. this is a very important rule. Its most successful is when one of your units takes a lot of damage, almost dies, but then aggro is removed from him and another unit starts tanking, when the first one continues to do the damage.


Towers have 1500 hp, very good armor type and nice damage. So they can be both used as fronline (often in early-game) and backline (mid-late game)

Did the machine translate, gonna edit later

Hold

Hold - keeping the building from performing its function, that is, producing units or casting an ability. used for different purposes. The most important way to control units, allowing you to regulate the battle by sending units in a specific order

select all the barracks on the screen as folders on the desktop. one right click will cancel autocast for all buildings (it will also turn off your lasers, be careful!)





hold for positioning
to release the tank first, sometimes it is important to have a specific unit: water (can’t touch this), pudge (it stinks at all), robot (to repair)

hold for sync
most often units stop in order to release them in the last synchronously (druids are an exception, they root the same targetsif synced, they need to be released sequentially, asynchronously)

def hold regroup
If you don’t snowball , then you probably should regroup and start pushing again from base. You need to hold production and let the opponents go to the base (preferably under the tower as frontlane) then release it synchronously, which will help to intercept the snowball and start the push.


hold for RS.
Ifi enemy pushes and you cant stop it with no towers, no sync, (no cage), then it looks like you need to spend an rs (but in general you usually want to save them). before the rs, you need to hold, so that when the field is clear, we proudly become the king of the mountain.

it is very important to notice when the hold and sync under the tower will not help and you need to spend rs, otherwise the army will die and you can even spend two rses, if when our army died the enemy came again


hold from the 2nd wave
If the enemies start with a very strong and / or counter start, you need to immediately turn off the units not to feed (or, for example, so that vampires do not breed), then wait when there will be money for the tower and when there is a suitable moment for the rs.

Hold because the push was successful
there are situations when it is clear that the push was successful and enemies are gonna rs, for example, when at the very beginning 10-12 units have accumulated and they are healed. then you need to hold and wait for the rs, then start pushing from your base to snowball.

if the enemies bought a staff or built a tower, you should probably unhold to make push solid.


Hold abilities
manual control abilities allows you to not use them anywhere and do it just at the right moment, check if you see possible target for your ability



sync- one of the most important parts of the game is to release units at the same time, in sake of positioning. Units that are going together hold formation (the frontline remains the frontline longer, the backline snowballs). in other words, units walking together become significantly stronger than their "direct sum".

The slowest unit goes first to slow down the rest of your synced army. Even a mage can go ahead of a blademaster, when the battle starts, the mage stops and starts shooting, while the blade will run forwards and become a priority target for enemy

adjusted for speed sync -

if the units with very different speeds and are not on the same horizontal (so that the front stops), then you need to send them at different times, then slow, then fast with a delay

using the difference in speed, you can synchronize the difference between the units and it must be taken into account when sending not from one horizontal / calamus. first you need to send slow units (take into account who will be the front lane and how far away the enemy is, calculate where the battle will be, figure out how much to go there and how many seconds before you need to send slow units so that the fast ones are not the first to reach the battle)

Synh is an excellent start to intercept snowball is used as a tactical technique in many situations.

Earlygame

At the beginning of the game, the processes are less spontaneous and more subtle, so each action has a particularly large effect. It is quite difficult to demolish the castle in the early game, the fastest matches I saw were 6 minutes (rock golem!) And in 8 (banshees!).

From the very first battle, it becomes clear who dominates and pushes, and who defends. The early stages of the game are rarely complete without rs, there are even strategies based on starting with an rs.

After the rs, there is usually a pushback snowball, and so the game turns into its wave-like stage.

Its important to know how to def with tower or sync, or how to siege in early
(you can hardly break a good defense at the beginning of the game).

The result of a good start can be a balanced building (all types of units, especially auras), an advantage in income, the amount of explosions left, or a tower.

It is very important to develop the Income at the beginning of the game.Building barracks for 100 - the most effective, building a special building slows you in income race

Tactics are important at the beginning of the game:

strong start - whoever has the first pack stronger pushes. (you can think about air start)

counter the start of the enemy - It is important at the beginning to think about what type of attack and armor the opponent can have and try to counter them, it is also important to think about a balanced army in your team (position).

consecutive pushes starting from your base that help to snowball


Income Rush - if you control the battle (either a strong push or a confident def), you can build cheap barracks (100-125) to increase the income, in time you need to move to more expensive barracks (up to 230) and then even more expensive. This way money converts into income more quickly, and the new income gives an even faster increase in income.

Do not overbuild cheap units, when you need all the troops, cheap ones can feed.
If noone sends units, you can build treasure box on 20 income.

If you built a unit and you are not gonna send it (air against shroom) you can sell it to rush the treasure box.


Single target special buildings - some special buildings give a big advantage at the beginning (NE’s obelisk, sheeps, astral, oracle) - you can use them to attack or for def after which you are going to start a confident attack

Midgame

siege units - if only you don't sit in a deep def by the beginning of midgame, it's time to start up siege units, because they give a push confidence, you can defy yourself from ordinary units for a long time and start snowballing, but if the siege units make a couple of shots at the tower/castle, it will start to melt fast

counter-actions to the enemy - some very strong actions of the enemy require countermeasures, for example, build shields or additional cheap units against sheep, build a cenarius or more healers against the decay. due to such actions, a tactical and strategic advantage is gained in time


Keeping rses- in the midgame, it becomes critically important how many rses are left, it is more and more difficult to flip the snowball without them, you lose when you have none left.

CAGING - walls of buildings allow you to accumulate huge waves of units. You dont send them to fight when you keep producing. the first who builds the cages, begins to send waves, which can only be stopped by a wave from another cage or rs.

AoE - when there are a lot of units, and you have lumber for the construction of special buildings you need to start building aoe specials. You can lose earlygame in direct battle but start to win midgame with your aoes.

ultimate - the choice of the legendary one (which costs cheese) usually occurs in the middle of the game, it often depends on allies and enemies.

lightning - in midgame you can already afford to buy lightning, which helps to deal with siege units and saves the game when there are no rs anymore

economy - in midgame the difference in income becomes more noticeable and it can be greatly increased with the help of treasure boxes, the first chest should be placed when the Income 40-49, second when 70-99


def in midgame this is usually a huge wave of units that come out of the cage and shoot enemies from highground along with the tower. Sometimes you may need several towers.

Lategame

a moment comes when everything lags, there’re lots of units , they crowd, for a long time the main damage is caused by AoE buildings, AoE Rangers do some , melees are generally just meat, as in general, everything is already meat, and there’s is enough of it.

Air gains a second birth in the lategame, so it suffers less from the crowding and some AoEs do not work on it (volcanoes, earthquakes, murloc’s tide), so if the game has turned into a mess, you can start spamming the air, you can do it closer to the enemy so that they fly around the line and almost immediately attacked enemy territory, sync it!

dd, quad is important - in the late it is important to synchronize the units, wait until they reach the front and turn on the quad, it helps to step on hg, and in general from some moment only they move the jam, so you need to turn it on by cd

Additional cages for strong units,

Build additional aura units - so that they are everywhere and if the unit dies, the aura is duplicated

spam ults - 7 orc ults can win the game)


Artillery (special buildings that demolish other buildings) - if nothing helps to move the game the jam in center, then most likely the team with artillery will win. in the late, it’s the most efficient way to win, it is countered by special buildings and massive repairs (runes in the store, robots repairers, coral)

economics - in a lategame these are chests before 50, 100, 125, 150, 175, 200 incomes, units that cost 500 increase it rather quickly. spend money asap, this gives a great longterm advantage

Defense:


Battle on your side of the field is usually caused by two reasons - either enemies are stronger in direct combat, or we aer buying some time, may be both.

It is more effective to fight on your half of the field, it is especially useful to know how to def in order not to lose, to flip the enemy's pushes and in order to strengthen your advantage in the game.

Economic advantage of the def
you reduce the amount of gold earned by the enemy for killing your units By holding units and sending them rarer over time

backup
when you fight in your own half, the creeps run faster and help you snowball, that’s the main advatage of the def
when a unit was born immediately in battle, or it only5 seconds to run. Fast backup keeps the position intact.

Towers
very strong defensive units buildings, real estate. They cost from 150 to 250 gold and always 300 lumber, they can only stand on your part of the map (hg). They help to deal with situations where no one can help anymore, have been saving rses since 2009.

They have an economic disadvantage though
if you invest money in them, you will get 2-3 times less income of them, so it is important to transform their military advantage into an economic one. You should not fight using units, you melt down enemies constantly repairing the tower.

Towers positioning
they can act as a wall (front) or an archer (backline). In this regard, fighting in the reach of the tower's attack is much more efficient, tanking units is accompanied by constant ranged damage, or vice versa for the rangers, the tower can act as a wall while they are shooting and snowballing.

Tower attack priority
Towers are special in cf, they can be controlled, at least those whom they shoot. you need to choose those who can be killed the fastest (because they have little HP or a suitable type of armor) or those who make the most impact (it is cool to focus a golem or at least a pudge).
If the tower has splash attack always choose a unit in the center of the battle with a suitable armor, you can at least with the type "unarmored"

hold for def
use the spawn time of units to move the meeting point with the enemy (frontline) and position your units effectively. do not release them automatically, but only when the enemies come to the tower. Don’t feed, send the right amount.

sequential units spawn
when you def, you can skillfully play with positioning spawning units in right time. enemies choose a target that can inflict damage (unit, tower) as a priority and melees run towards it. you can first spawn the archer, start shooting, and when enemy melee units begin to approach, you spawn the frontline right in front of them (if building grid allows).

Another trick is to spawn your front when your backlane shots with enemy’s one. So you spawn the ranger first, take some hits with it, and then spawn melees, so you have more time to kill the enemy while the front is alive. Also you can build a tower in front of enemy if you desperately need front lane





def snowball
when the tower acts as a frontline, spawn the rangers so that they also shoot at the enemy and accumulate, if 2.5 waves accumulate, this can be the beginning of a good push. So consider spawning less units or letting your enemies come in hoger numbersm so you have time for snowballing

staff against siege
If the tower does not reach the siege, you can buy a staff and stand on the side, so that the staff only reaches the siege unit.

stick to strengthen the def
there are situations when you need to buy a stick either because you cannot build a tower (there is no tower (murloc), there is not enough gold for it (elem, high elf)) or because you don’t want to (there are druids, stone golems, miners against you), this can happen after the construction of the first tower, the second player can buy a staff

AoE special buildings
If you already have the frontlane, aoe can help in the def at the midgame, special buildings will also be useful in the offense as well

lightning - in the mid game lightning can replace an rs and thin out the enemy's push so that the tower can handle it

it, it is important to repair it in your free time, between the enemy's pushes

if the enemy pushes and presses the main building, then you need to repair it
if the creeps have taunted the enemy's wave on themselves, then died and now the enemy hits the barracks (never line up on 2 lines, it looks even worse), then you need to repair the barracks. when they have 30 percent of hp left, you need to consider the rs, and in general it is better not to do this, just hold for the sync after the rs, take the hit with the castle, it can buy you more time and gold for the creeps

Mech repair
if you have mechs (siege weapons, tanks, verts, golems, shredders) then you can repair them while deffing, in fact, this is a strong unit regen, which can be very useful for a tank (if you are a mech) or for snowballing (if you are saving up siege weapons)


when the enemy pushes you, you can spawn a pack of units, building a tower before. enemies from its edge will get taunted, and it will gain hp fast, you can still help it with repairs. thus, towers can be built in as a front lane when def
in a earlygame, put right in the middle as a main tank, if you are sure that it will not be destroyed
in the midgame, put it on the side so that only part of the enemy's units are taunted, it also helps to make frontlane more narrow, which is good for def

tower rush
if you are pushed hard in mid or late game, you can start building 3-5-8 towers (you can sell a cheap barracks from incomerush, for the sake of instant money for towers). each of them will eventually accumulate 1500 hp in building armor, these hp can serve as a front lane for the slow respawn of backup, then for backlane formation and even a pushback. saves the doomed rounds.

tower in a cage
ultimate def with a tower in sealed cage, so that enemy melee units do not reach it, and it reaches the defense of the castle. enemy melee units start to and run across the cage and do no damage, rangers in the cage and towers become extremely valuable and always attack. increases the chances of hitting the undefendable, usually a continuation of the tower rush.




Possible mistakes:
You must not upgrade the barrack if you are waiting for the enemy to come

do not try to build the tower if the enemy has more than 10 units or there is a chaos attack. you can enemy units to accumulate hitting the castle, but if the enemy has more income it is better to rs and build a tower, at least it gives income and kills units which gives you gold

Do not to spawn units on autocast when you build a tower but not pushing

Do not waste the moment to open the cage for def. Your tower can be destroyed fastly in mid/late game.

Do not use a narrow exit from your cage in mid/late game. Units are going too slowly and may be stuck. Use 2 buildings as doors.

RACES:



Hum


pluses:
strong start - a classic gryph or a knight if the gryph is easily countered
support tank race - good cheap tanks - defenders, useful paladins with resurrection, buffs for double spawning and attack speed
cheap units - easy to build a cage and rush income
artillery - access to the late
late cheap not weak tower 150
siege damage of the mortar210, shoots far but its too squishy


minuses:
no chaos dmg and not always reliable magic dmg (gryphs are not very difficult to counter, and warlocks are very situational)
lose their power in midgame, tank, support and artillery is the only late role
there are no special buildings for attacking units (neither single target nor aoe)
one ulti
has aa - snipers, but they almost dont work against dragons with heavy armor

Mechs and Undead counter Humans


Night Elves

pluses:
strong start - puck or druid (chaos)
versatile units choice
lots of magic damage
Support race - heal300 and buff220 spec buildings
strong aoe - starfall is one of the best in the game
if necessary Amazon gives a lot of pierce damage (against air, mages, skeletons)
Siege glaive thrower 285 - mech, proper range

minuses:
only one tank - spectre
No normal damage and no heavy armor
there are no useful cheap buildings (you don't want to build a lot of archers 150, and druids cost 190)
attacking specials: only ulti, no single target
there are no expensive units for late
Weak and expensive tower210


NE are good against mechs and hums and orcs

do not spawn druids syncly, they root the same 3 targets, they need to be sent with a delay


Nature

Pluses:
strong units at all stages of the game
support units (heal and buffs)
if you need aa there are lvl2-3 spiders with web
good attacking specs (single target banish and one of the best AoE tornadoes)
there is chaos damage which u can build first against a banshee/void - dragon 310
average price / quality tower 210
there are spiders that distract the single target specs


Minuses:
no cheap units for the construction of a cage and rushing the income (furbolgs cost 200 )
one ult is very weak (tree of wonders), but the other is useful at 100/100 cases
a weak siege unit MG, needs a long time to come and start doing damage


Undead

Plus:
strong start (banshee290-divine!, vamp230 - offensive strategy, zombi120 is defensive - Chaos damage + rot that can melt down the whole enemy stack)
lots of magic damage - necr (lich) and banshee
strong attacking structures (decay is probably the best AoE in the game - counters cages, death pits are an excellent single target attacking spec)
there are cheap zombies120 which are convenient to build a cage
strong tower200 for which there is oftenly enough lumber- chaos dmg
there are skeletons160 to bait enemy single targets
Siege fleshgolem370 is pretty good but melee

Minus:
quite expensive units besides zombies
have little normal damage, rarely useful frostwyrm
Lumber can be spent on fewer buildings than with other races
countered with mechs, you can start necr210 + zombies120 against them (or necr+twr asap), if you wait, most likely you need to make lich, the decay does not work against them

HighElf.

Plus:
strong units from the beginning of the game, lose their strength only in lategame, but there still good in support
strong attacking single target special buildings (hexes and lasers)
strong support ult helps with aoe
lots of magic damage
heal of magicians 360 and leg Wizard heal if needed
very situational aa - dragonhawk 310
siege 350, proper range, mech

Minus:
The only chaos is Wizardleg who it is usually less helpful than the aura of resurrection
expensive and not very strong tower 250
The only tank is a blademaster and it has quite a bit of hp for lategame
expensive units, there is nothing to bait single target specs. Gotta build cage with archs180


North

Plus:
very annoying special buildings against which you need to play in a certain way
strong aa mushroom (build only against at least 2 air barracks)
strong artillery frost launcher (1 upped launcher makes little impact, start building in midgame when there is enough wood (2000) for building 2 upped launchers at once)
there is available chaos (dragon280 and crystalmaiden400)
racial imba ability to freeze, start with trolls you will not regret
good tanks
there are cheap units for cage and income rush

Cons:
Everybody knows what to do against frost launchers and shrooms
situational tower for a lot of money250
Has the only ulti and even its animation is broken
no siege units


Chaos

Plus:
lots of chaos damage, strong units throughout the game
very strong attacking buildings (there is everything: single target, AoE, artillery - shrine850 is the most expensive ult in the game)
Voidstart counters divine armor
Cheap units for cage and income
infernal hits the air


Minus:
no pierce and siege damage
no tower, weak in defense
vulnerable to magic and pierce dmg




Naga

Plus:
strong Units at all stages of the game
Cheap units for cage and income
2 murlocs bait singletargets
good attacking special buildings very strong in early oracle310, strong AoE
2 useful ults (I choose the tide only if enemies are caging hard, usually I try to stack a couple of hydras at the base myself)
useful support building for repair - coral, helps from artillery and in def
Turtle280 siegecan fight well with melee, small range

Minus:
not always available chaos damage 350, 900
no towers
vulnerable to air
situational unit with magic damage

Orc

Plus:
strong units at all stages games
good support special buildings and units
a lot of buffs and auras
there are good aa - troll200 and tower175
there are cheap units for cage and income
The strongest siege unit (we build kata380 instead of chaos and hope that they will crit) - good range, mech
ult, whose potential can be multiplies till the win


Minus:
weak tower
no chaos dmg
situational pierce damage
Only one ulti which does not always strongly affect the game

Corrupts

Plus:
has strong late units (tree, succubus 520-chaos)
useful auras
strong attacking special buildings
excellent leg tree - compensates the lack of tanks and gives a large aoe stun
the strongest tower200 (cheap) chaos damage
Cheap units for cage and income
Units and twr with aoe dmg


Minus:
Siege 300 +150 short range, mech
weak against air in midgame
lasers reveal ur base to opponent
tentacles feed the enemy

Elementals

Plus:
The most powerful unit in the game is fire2lvl -chaos
different options for a powerful start. Interesting units
Strong tower240 (bash for 10 seconds and chaos damage), but it is bugged, has less hp and armor than usual twr
siege unit rock elem 250 - my fav strong start (u can end round in 6 minutes)
aa air element with a good aura against the air, rather thick, but it costs accordingly
Decent buff and aoe specs


Minus:
Useless ults (did someone see how linker worked?)
there are no cheap units, almost all of the average price
Situational normal and pierce dmg


Mechs

Plus:
strong units, almost all are mechs, which gives an advantage against the undead (no decay and poison) and in defense (can be repaired - u can start sending later and repair from the first wave)
useful support special buildings
available chaosdmg
strong before untill lategame leg - adamant golem 270 + 500 divine armor!
very strong but also not cheap tower (short rangem chaos dmg)
strong aa - rocket tanks and gyrocopters
there are bombers that give an economic advantage
shields counter, apart from single target spells, many AoE abilities

Minus:
air does not attack the ground
no siege and magic damage;
Difficult to build in the right grid. you have to build cagewall of tanks180