Why can’t I even beat the bots?

Week 1

You lost to the bots

You installed the game, finished the tutorial, queued against the bots — and the bots won.

They are not quicker than you.

They are playing a different game from the one you are playing.

Nobody is trying to kill you

How a match actually ends

The players are not trying to kill each other.

They are trying to destroy the Ancient in the enemy base.

Kills are a means to that. They are not the object of the exercise.

Every game you have lost so far ended with a building falling, not with a scoreline.

The board

Three lanes, two jungles, one river

A square board: Radiant base bottom-left, Dire base top-right. Mid runs straight down the diagonal; top and bottom lanes go the long way round the edges. The river crosses the other diagonal. A hatched band around the lanes marks ground outside them.

Look at how much of it is not lane

Mid is the shortest lane, which is why the player there reaches things first.

The safe lane and the off lane are not mirror images — the same lane is a different job depending on which side you are on.

And most of the board is not lane at all. That ground is where a game is actually played.

Creeps are the economy

Not the scenery. Not the thing between you and a fight.

They are where the gold and the experience come from.

Next week is about nothing else.

What the bots do

Three unglamorous things

  1. They last-hit.
  2. They buy on time.
  3. They move together.

None of those is a reaction.

All of them are decisions made in advance.

Deciding, not reacting.

The first contrast this course draws — and the rest of the course elaborates it.

If you are coming from League

Three things will catch you out before anything else does:

  • Denying — you can kill your own creeps. League has no equivalent.
  • No recall — going home costs gold and time. You will budget for it.
  • The courier — items come to you, so shopping and staying are two decisions, not one.

Never played a MOBA? Skip this slide. Nothing on it is needed.

Five things to spend

Gold. Experience. Time. Space. Information.

Every choice in Dota spends one of these to buy another.

Twelve weeks, one trade examined each week. Keep the list where you can see it.

No hero this week

On purpose.

Heroes only start to differ once you know what you are competing for.

Week 5 comes back to it.

After this week

Say how a game is won without using the word “kill”.

Find the lanes, the jungles and the Roshan pit on the minimap.

Name the resource you lost your last game on.

Lobby Lab 1

Finish a whole game.