Week 1: Why can't I even beat the bots?
The shape of a match — three lanes, one building that matters, and a win condition that is not the one you assume
22 February 2027
This week’s decision#
You install the game, you finish the tutorial, you queue against the bots, and the bots win. The reason is not that they are quick. It is that they are playing a different game from you, one this week’s Mechanics section spells out, while you are crossing the map looking for a fight. That contrast — deciding against reacting — is the first one this course draws, and the eleven weeks after it are all elaborations of it.
The mistake this week fixes is treating Dota as a fighting game, and so spending the whole match hunting fights. Most of what you actually do is collect gold and experience. Fights happen to protect that, or to interrupt theirs.
No hero is named this week, deliberately. Right now it does not matter who you pick: heroes only start to differ once you know what you are competing for. Week 5 comes back to it.
Mechanics#
How a match ends. Five players are not trying to kill each other. They are trying to destroy the Ancient in the enemy base, and kills are a means to that rather than the object of the exercise. Every game you have lost so far ended with a building falling, not with a scoreline.
The geography. Three lanes and two jungles. Mid is the shortest lane, which is why the player there reaches things first. The safe and the off lane are not mirror images for the two sides, and that asymmetry is the reason the same lane is a different job depending on which side you are on.
A schematic, not a map to scale. Note how much of the board is not lane at all: that ground is most of where a game is actually played.
Creeps are the economy, not the scenery. They are the main source of gold and experience in the game, rather than obstacles standing between you and a fight. Week 2 is about nothing else.
Why the bots beat you. They do three unglamorous things consistently: they last-hit, they buy on time, and they move together. None of those is a reaction. All of them are decisions made in advance.
If you are coming from League of Legends#
Skip this if you have never played a MOBA — nothing below is needed to follow the course. If you have, three differences will catch you out before anything else does.
| Difference | In Dota | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Denying | You can kill your own creeps to keep the enemy off the experience. There is no equivalent in League. | Refusal becomes a positive action, which changes the whole feel of a lane. |
| No recall | The teleport scroll costs gold, has a cooldown, and takes time to channel. | Going home is an expense, and you will budget for it. |
| The courier | Items come to you. | “Go home to shop” and “stay in lane” are two decisions rather than one. |
The resource lens#
Every choice in Dota spends one of five things to buy another: gold, experience, time, space and information. Twelve weeks, and one of those trades examined each week. Keep the list somewhere you can see it — by week 12 you will be filling in the cells yourself.
Before the lecture#
Valve’s in-game tutorial, section 1 — This is Dota, basic mechanics, looking around.
After this week you can…#
- say how a game of Dota is won without using the word “kill”
- point out the three lanes, both jungles and the Roshan pit on the minimap
- name which of the five resources you lost your last game on
Teaching team
- Wen "Courier" Adeyemi — convenor