Where gold meets a plan#

Gold is arriving. You know roughly what your hero wants to become.

The shop is where those two meet —

the first place where a decision made in a menu changes what you can do on the map.

The habit this week breaks#

It runs both ways:

saving for one big item while owning nothing in the meantime —

or spending everything on components and never finishing anything.

Components, recipes, upgrades#

Dota items are built from parts.

So an item you are halfway through is already doing something for you.

Bought for what they let you keep doing#

Consumables keep you in the lane you are already in.

The teleport scroll means a lane is never lost just because you are not standing in it.

Neither adds anything. Both keep you in the game.

The order of a build#

1. Solve staying alive.
2. Then solve damage.
3. Then solve whatever the enemy has aimed at you.

Open a guide from your first game#

TorteDeLini’s in-game build guides answer what do I buy, and when.

That frees your attention for everything else.

Some time after week eleven you will start disagreeing with the guide. By then, you will have reasons.

Gold into stats#

Week 2: gold is time. Week 5: attributes are the exchange rate.

This week joins them — your gold passes through that rate, and what comes out only matters inside particular windows of a game.

This week’s hero#

Lich — Frost Shield

Lich’s mana pressure is severe enough that you feel it:

what you bought decides how many spells you get to cast.

Items and abilities stop being two subjects here.

This week’s item#

Power Treads.

The first item you operate during the game, by switching which attribute it gives you.

Buying stops being a one-off decision and becomes a running one.