Warcraft III DotA Frequency Ask Questions (DotA FAQ)

Posted By Cowok Metro

Links to the most important DotA mechanics Guides and Lists:

- DotA Commands or Game Mode Guides
- DotA Terms and Shortforms
- About Pooling
- DotA Game Mechanics & Strategy Overview
- Orb Effect Information and Priorities
- Dota Item Guide
- Critical Strikes and Bashes Guide
- The attack speed guide
- Armor and Effective Hit Point (EHP) guide
- Runes Guide
- Pulling Double spawns Creeps neutral Guide
- Neutral Creep Info
- Hero Counter Guide

General DotA Questions

Please note, that a legal and up-to-date version Warcraft III – The Frozen Throne is required in order to play DotA Allstars.

QUESTION: Where can I get DotA Allstars?Answer: You can always DL the newest version of DotA at getdota.com

QUESTION: Where can I read the recent changelog
Answer: www.getdota.com/changelog.txt

QUESTION: How do I install DotA Allstars after?
Answer: You can read the DotA install guide here.

QUESTION: Is there any way to play DotA Allstars against bots/AI?
Answer: Yes, you can always get the official AI version here.

QUESTION: I’ve found a bug, where can I report it?
Answer: If you find a bug, please send a mail to IceFrog@gmail.com . Note: never start topics about bugs or post a bug description into a topic. If you see a thread about (abuseable) bugs, please report it. If you want to post a question and you are not completely sure, if it is intended or a bug, please contact a moderator about it first.

QUESTION: I am searching for a special DotA tool. Where can I find?
Answer: There are some additional applications, that a DotA player can use ingame, for better DotA gameplay organisation or in order to find values from the map or replays. Take a look at the collection of links and tools in the end of the guide, to find a small summery of them.

Basic gameplay questions

QUESTION: When do runes spawn?
Answer: Every second minute. The first spawn is 2:00. The spawn side and the rune type are chosen randomly.

QUESTION: When do neutral creeps spawn?
Answer: Every minute. The first spawn is 3:30 for RD, XL and LM, 2:30 for AP and 2:00 for all other mods.

QUESTION: What are the differences between normal mode and -em
Answer: In –em (easy mode) you gain 50% more experience, the towers are weaker and you gain 2 gold every 0.875 seconds instead of the normal 1 gold every 0.875 seconds.

QUESTION: When do the trees respawn?
Answer: Every 5 minutes (5:00, 10:00 etc)

QUESTION: Whats the gold loss and respawn time upon death?
Answer: The respawn time = 4 * your level, while the gold loss = 30* your level.

QUESTION: Backdooring. What does it mean?
Answer: Backdooring is defined as attacking towers/buildings without creep support. It's forbidden in some games and leagues.

QUESTION: What does Strength / Inteligence / Agility give me.
Answer: For each point of Strength you gain: 19 Hit Points (HP) and +0.03 HP/second regeneration, For each point of Agility you gain: 1% increased attack speed (IAS) and 0.14 armor, For each point of Inteligence you gain 13 Mana Points (MP) and +0.04 MP/second regeneration

Also every hero has a main attribute (Strength / Agility / Inteligence). You gain 1 damage for every point of your main attribute in addition to the other bonuses.

QUESTION: What are the limits for speed, attack speed etc.
Answer: Maximum possible speed in dota is 522, while the lowest speed possible is 100. You can allways check your current speed by using the –ms command

Maximum possible increased attack speed in dota is 400% IAS, the minimum is -80%

Orb Effects

QUESTION: How do orb effects stack?
Answer: Two or more orb effects don’t stack at all. You will always get only 1 orb on your attack. However, in some cases a second orb will trigger instead of the first one

Example: You are playing a Priestess of the Moon and got a mjolnir and a skadi. On your normal attacks, you will always get the skadi buff placer on attack. However if the mjolnir triggers, the lighting effect will work, but you won’t get the slow on this strike.

QUESTION: How are orb effects interacting with Stuns and Crits.
Answer: As a golden rule you only get the last effect in such cases. Example: you are playing a silencer and buy a monkey king bar. If you get the MKB first and learn the level 1 of silencers glaives after, you will never get the MKB trigger, if you have the orb on autocast (because you learned the orb last). If you learn the glaives first and buy MKB after, you will not get the bonus damage of glaives on the attacks where MKB triggers.

QUESTION: So how can I find out exact information about orb stacking
Answer: For much more information, you can take a look at Orb Effect Guide. There you can find exact information about what orb will work, for any combination!

QUESTION: So why then Lifeleech and Skadi both work on a single attack?
Answer: The ranged skadi isn’t counted as an orb. That’s why it stacks completely with lifeleech.

QUESTION: Is the lifeleech from N’aix skill, skeletons aura and vladimirs offering counted as an orb?
Answer: No, it will also completely stack with any other orb.

QUESTION: What about luna’s glaives?
Answer: All orbs except lifeleech will either not work at all, or they will completely disable luna's attack, meaning you wouldn't be able to attack/deal damage with normal attacks!. However, Lifeleech will work with her glaives. Still, it will only leech life from the main target.

QUESTION: Can Ursa leech life?
Answer: Yes, with Vladimir’s offering or Skeleton King’s aura he can steal life from each of his attacks, including the damage he deals by fury swipes. That’s why he is able to solo roshan at low levels

Denying and Orbwalking

QUESTION: I often here players speaking about denying. What does it mean?
Answer: Denying is the basic description for killing an allied creep / hero / tower at low HP, so that the opponent won’t gain any/less experience and gold from their death. In order to deny, you have to give your hero the attack order (with the attack button or with the A hotkey) and target an allied hero/creep/tower.

QUESTION: When can I deny a creep?
Answer: You can deny a creep or any friendly non-hero/building creature when it’s hitpoints are under 50%. The deny of a creep will give 36/n experience to all enemy melee heros in 1000 AoE and 18/n experience to all ranged heroes in 1000 AoE. (n = the number of opponent heroes in the area).

It is important to mention, that if the creep dies in combat, you opponent will gain much more experience and maybe even gold, if he kills the creep.

Also note, that denying summoned or any other player controlled creatures won’t give any experience to opponents at all.

QUESTION: When can I deny a tower?
Answer: You can destroy your own tower or any other allied building (except of the throne/tree) when it is under 10% of it’s hitpoints. The deny of the tower will prevent the 200 gold gain for every opponent hero and also it negates the chance that a single opponent will make the last strike to the tower and gain even more gold.

QUESTION: When can I deny a hero?
Answer: You can deny a hero only in the case, when your hero is really low HP (<25%) and is affected by one of the following debuffs:

Shadow word, Shadow strike (viper strike doesn’t count), Doom, or Curse of the Silent. If you succeeded in denying the hero, the opponents won’t receive any gold / experience from his death. However, the dead hero will still lose gold on death.

For more information about experience question take a look at Nova's Guide to experience

QUESTION: What does orbwalking mean?
Answer: Heroes who have autocasteable arrow effects (silencer, viper, enchantress, drow, huskar etc.) can single cast the effect (with a hotkey) and move a bit forward at once after the missle is launched. At once after the movement they single cast the next orb rapidly. If they repeat the same action over and over, you will attack your opponent and chase him at once in a very effective way.

Bashes and Criticals

QUESTION: How do bashes and criticals stack?
Answer: Multiple bashes or criticals stack diminishingly. You can get the exact chance with the following formula:

Chance = 1 - ( 1 - A ) * ( 1 - B ) * ( 1 - C ) .... ( 1 - X )

QUESTION: What happens if multiple criticals trigger on a single attack?
Answer: Only the last one will work. Criticals are reduced by armor amount. They are not negated by magic immunity.

Example: You play a Mortred and learn your ultimate. Then you buy a Buriza-de-Kyanon. If you get both criticals on one attack, only the buriza will work, because you bought it after you learned the skill.

QUESTION: What happens if multiple bashes trigger on a single attack?
Answer: If you play a melee hero, all bashes will work at once. Only the longest bash time will however apply. The damage dealt from multiple stuns will stack. If you play a ranged hero and multiple bashes trigger at once, only the last bash time + damage will work.

Example: you play a sniper and your headshot and monkey king bar trigger on one attack. In that case only, your monkey king bar bash will work, because you bought it, after you learned the level 1 of headshot.

QUESTION: How is the damage/stun from bashes negated/reduced?
Answer: In case of meele bashes, the damage is reduced by spell resistance and negated by magic immunity. The stun effect itself however, is not negated by magic immunity. In case of ranged bashes the damage is reduced by armor type and amount. It is not negated by magic immunity. However, the stun effect itself is blocked by magic immunity!

QUESTION: Do I leech additional life from criticals and bashes?
Answer: Critical Strikes and ranged bashes effects indeed increase the life leeched. However, melee bashes doesn’t increase it at all.

QUESTION: What about greater bash?
Answer: Greater bash doesn’t count as a normal. It is a separated attack that completely stacks with every other bash /critical effect. It doesn’t amplify the life leech at all.

For more and detailed information about the criticals and bashes topic, take a look at this guide: Critical Strikes and Bashes

Buffs and Item stacking

QUESTION: Is the AoE damage effect of radiance stacking with other radiance users?
Answer: No, only one radiance will work in the same area.

QUESTION: How do multiple evasion item/skills interact?
Answer: Only one evasion effect will work at once. The only exceptions are spectre and faceless void, since their evasion effects are triggered healing effect. and will stack diminishingly with radiance/butterfly

For more and detailed information about evasion, take a look at this guide: Evasion guide by ICallBotSolo

QUESTION: How are multiple battlefurys stacking?
Answer: They percentage is simple A+B+C…+N =Cleaved damage stacking. That means that you can even go over 100% cleave, where the side targets take more damage, then the main target. However, no orb effects, bashes etc, will affect side targets. (only criticals will amplify the cleave)

QUESTION: Can I stack multiple blademails
Answer: Same as for battlefury, the damage reflection percentage = A+B+C… You can also go over 100% reflection here. However, it’s important to note, that the reflected damage is reduced by spell resistance and negated by magic immunity and that it is not reflecting ranged or spell damage.

QUESTION: Do all aura’s in DotA stack with each other?
Answer: As long as aura’s have different names, they stack with each other in DotA. The only 2 exceptions for auras that don’t stack are: The +armor aura from Vladimirs/Basilius/Cuirass (only the most powerful one will work) and the mana regeneration aura from Basilius/Vladimirs (only Vladimirs will work).

QUESTION: What skills/items in DotA, do not stack with each other?
Answer: There are a lot of examples for such skills. Mask of madness won’t work with frenzy or the double damage rune won’t stack with Godly Strength, Howl and Terror. For a full list of non stacking skills check out Clogon’s Buff stacking guide

QUESTION: How is spell resistence stacking?
Answer: The spell resistance of Pudge / Anti-Mage / Viper is stacking diminishingly with every hero’s natural spell resistance and a Hood of Defience or a plainwalkers cloak (only with one of them). The order of learning the skill and buying the item is unimportant.

QUESTION: What buffs can purge, dispell magic or illusion creation skills (Nessaj’s Phantasm, Naga’s Create Images and Manta style) dispell?
Answer: These skills are capable of dispelling hardcoded and nontriggered spells like, amplify damage, insatible hunger, frost armor etc. They can’t dispell triggered and complicated spells like rupture however. The full list of buffs the can be dispelled can be found here: Purge guide by sdfsdf


Other frequently asked questions

QUESTION: How does Omnislash work?
Answer: Omnislash is basically just a multi-blinkstrike, that deals 150-250 damage at every strike, reduced by armor amount. However, if your attack speed is fast enough, you can make normal attacks, between the omnistrikes.

For more information about Omnislash check out DonTomaso’s Omnislash guide

QUESTION: If I learn a higher level of Manashield, do I have to reactivate it, in order to gain it’s full effect.
Answer: Yes, you have to reactivate it.

QUESTION: How is skill XYZ reduced (armor? spell resistence?) and is it blocked by spell immunity?
Answer: For general information about how a single skill is reduced / affected by magic immunity take a look at Danat’s Guide on every hero’s attack/damage type

QUESTION: Why isn’t vengful spirit and Pudge allowed to use Kelens Dagger?
Answer: This change has been added in order to prevent them of hooking/swaping opponents onto unescable areas like cliffs.

Useful DotA tools

DotA Banlist, useful tool for DotA hosts. It allows to create/download a data base with players, who left your games, so that you won’t experience playing with them again. Also it gives you the possibility to ping, manage your friend list, reserve slots etc etc.

If you want to change the ingame hotkey’s or display the health bars, you can check out following tools:

Blamestars hotkey tool

warkeys

Mac DotA hotkey tool

Pie Crew’s Inventory

Very useful is also Danat’s DotaHIT, , since it has a lot of nice functions in it, like a replay parser, data dump etc. People that are especially interested in strategy and mechanics should take a look at it.

Source: Dota-allstars.com

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