DotA 2 Beginner's Series 001: Remember your Q

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It's been pointed out to me that referring to a hero's skills as QWER is rather uncommon in regular DotA 2 games. While this is true, for the purpose of this article, a hero's abilities will be referred to as QWER purely for practical reasons (as in, if you want to use this super cool ability, you've gotta press this button)

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I’ll be upfront: I’m not a professional DOTA 2 player. It’s going to take a few more months of back-to-back post-work pub matches to even consider myself good at this game, and unless local tournaments start popping up around the mid-western United States, it’s unlikely I’ll be seeing any playtime in a professional setting. That said, however, I love DOTA 2. Even though it’s still in BETA, I’ve been nagging at my friends and family to pick it up.

My dad - who’s always seen me play games as a kid but never really played any himself – has actually picked up a BETA invitation and plans to jump on the bandwagon along with the rest of us. For experienced and professional players alike, these games would probably provide great entertainment. He could be awful. He could be surprisingly adept. Either way, it brings up an important question: how would you teach someone who’s never played DOTA – much less, a competitive videogame as dynamic as DOTA – and give them worthwhile advice that would actually help them? That is the question that spawned the creation of this beginner’s series.

I’m going to assume that you’re a new player. Maybe you’ve just heard about DOTA, maybe you’ve watched a game or two on Twitch.tv, or you could be considering migrating from other MOBAs. Whatever the reason, you’re going to be bombarded with a lot of information and game mechanics that may seem a little complicated. Not to play on the current hatred between League of Legends and DOTA 2, but this game takes a slightly longer amount of time to master than Riot’s MOBA fighter.

I’ve got myself a nice level 30 account on League of Legends - not too shabby, but nothing special - and I can say from experience that DOTA 2 is much deeper when compared to its main competitor. Don’t think you’re going to be able to hop in a match and smack some newbs just because you’ve managed to do so in League of Legends. It’s often been described on DOTA forums and tutorial articles that getting to know League of Legends requires a learning curve, but becoming adept at DOTA 2 requires you to traverse a learning cliff.

I, for one, disagree… at least, I kind of disagree. When I sit down to think about it, the fundamentals of DOTA 2 are simple to understand. Two teams of five players face off against each other in an arena with the purpose of pushing the enemy team hard enough to destroy their base. When I try to describe DOTA 2 to somebody who’s never MOBA’d, I say that it’s kind of like the recently popular young adult fiction book “The Hunger Games”.

You’re dropped into a location with which you are unfamiliar and are forced to survive against other hostile creatures. It’s not just other heroes you have to worry about; the jungle offers it’s own variants of vicious monsters who would be happy to prey upon your amateur hides. Granted, you don’t have to worry about the ethical issues of forcing children to fight in an arena to the death and all those other complicated ethical problems that arise in “The Hunger Games”. It is moreso akin to the novel because you must not simply battle other heroes, you have to survive through whatever means you can personally muster, because, boy, the jungle is vicious.

You control one hero. Out of a choice between upwards of a hundred masterfully designed characters, you must choose one. Since you’re just starting, there’s a good chance you won’t know what to do with any of them. But, don’t worry. While the heroes are varied and diverse, they all click in a way that almost feels familiar. It doesn’t take too long to get the general idea of a hero, and you’ll only continue to gain appreciation for the subtle brilliance of the character design over time. Every hero just seems to make sense, like you’re just getting to know someone but you feel like you’ve already met.

Practically speaking, since these are likely the first few games you’ll be playing, I would suggest you check out the guide by our very own skuax - "DOTA 2 for Newcomers: Picking your First Hero". Otherwise, hit ‘Random’ and let the game choose a hero for you. The prospect of doing this may scare newcomers, but even if you do poorly, learning the ins-and-outs of a hero will go a long way in making you a better DOTA 2 player. You also get a hefty amount of bonus gold that you should utilize by buying a courier or wards for your team.

But, who am I kidding? You’re not going to do badly. That’s what this beginner’s series is here to prevent, right?

Well, not quite. If you play DOTA, you will be learning a lot of new things, and to learn these things, you have to do so by failing miserably. There is a chance someone could flame you through voice or chat, but don’t worry, they’re just, well, they’re kind of like you. They don’t know what they’re doing either, they’re just using you as a scapegoat for their own embarrassing failures. I’ve experienced the coarse, unrelenting nature of communities in other MOBA titles, and DOTA 2 is nothing like them.

A lot of newcomers (and even pros, to some extent) resort to flaming as a means to, I don’t know, release some steam or whatever. I’ve read articles that say DOTA has the harshest community of all the MOBA titles, but in over 100 games, I have yet to find someone that actually managed to ruin my game experience.

There have been a few jerks. There always is. But for every showing of poor sportsmanship that I’ve witnessed, I’ve seen just as many people pleasant enough to pause the game should a player’s internet or computer crap-out and they need to reconnect (something it's competitors don't even have an option for in ranked games). Valve has it’s own ways of reprimanding bad players and rage-quitters as well, effectively placing them in matchmaking queues with other players that do naughty things like them.

In my earlier days of nearly obsessive-compulsive video gaming, Counterstrike was my go-to escape. I sucked. Not just a little either. I hadn’t learned skills like bunny hopping and no-scoping that everyone else seemed to have mastered. I ran in like a mother bear protecting her cubs, except this mother bear ran into a wall of AK-47 spray-and-prayers and the ever-despised AWP-to-the-face.

Now, DOTA 2 and Counterstrike have very little in common, but one nifty skill that rolled over from one to the other was a simple mechanic that every experienced CS player learned quickly. It was a simple button press. In this case, the letter ‘Q’. Just up and to the left of the standard WASD directional controls, every CS player eventually learned to have his ring finger readily available to mash this easily accessible hot-key. This hotkey allowed you to switch between your current weapon and whatever previous weapon you had used – most often, your knife.

The purpose of the ‘Q’ key was two-fold. With your knife equipped, you could move faster – dodging bullets Neo-style – or you could switch to your knife instead of reloading and get that kill you otherwise might have missed. But, how does this translate into DOTA 2?

To demonstrate this, I'd like to present to you one of DOTA 2's most famous heroes: Drow Ranger. Attached is a short, 2-minute video that gives you a basic introduction to Drow Ranger and her abilities. If you're going to be looking into new heroes, I highly recommend browsing through the heroes that DOTACinema covers. It will give you a general idea of your hero before you play them in game.  

 This guide does not include the most recent changes to Drow Ranger, but the main ability I'd like to talk about - Frost Arrow - is still the same and is a great example of an important concept I'd like to tell you about. Every hero you will play has a minimum of four abilities each assigned separately to the buttons Q, W, E, and R on your keyboard. While this is not technically a rule for DOTA 2 heroes, the ability assigned to ‘Q’ is typically a defining skill for that hero (in this case, Frost Arrow), and as such is designed to also be their most useful skill.

This skill is often referred to as a hero’s ‘nuke’, as it is an offensive skill that can be used against other heroes to deal some damage. This ‘Q’ ability, or nuke, is the skill that 9 times out of 10 should be maxed first. You know how they say in those awesome medieval times fantasy novels (and every sword fighting movie, ever) "the sword must be an extension of your arm", think of your Q like the extension of your finger tip. If it's going to be your primary weapon, you'll want it's effectiveness maxed as soon as possible.

What do I mean by ‘maxed’? A key thing that must be learned with DOTA 2 is the need to focus on an ability to max its potential according to its priority as opposed to your other abilities. For every level you gain, you also gain one skill point to put in an ability up to a maximum of 4 points, at which point it becomes ‘maxed’.

You can’t max the skill immediately, as every other skill point you earn must be put into a different skill than the one you previously leveled. In this case, just put a single point into each of your hero's other abilities while you wait to level up again. Just be sure - whatever your strategy - to max your nuke first.

The reasons for maxing your Q first are listed below:
1. Your nuke is often accompanied with a shorter cooldown when compared to your other abilities, allowing you to use it more frequently than your other skills.
2. Along with its short cooldown, your nuke also usually consumes less mana than many of your other skills, allowing you to use it often while maintaining a healthy amount of mana.
3. Because of its lesser mana cost, you can use your Q to ‘harass’ the enemy heroes that you lane against without too much worry of depleting your mana pool, leaving you defenseless.
4. Ever heard the phrase ‘the best offense is the best defense’? This applies to your Q. If you find yourself ambushed by multiple heroes or you’re just being chased by an enemy, remind them that you can dish out punishment as well by throwing a Q before you run away. If used effectively, you can often make an enemy think twice about continuing to pursue you as you continue to damage them.

…and many more!

Your Q will become your best friend – that key your ring or pinky finger will never stray too far away from. Considering that DOTA 2 is rather dynamic, your ‘nuke’ or most effective skill may not actually be the one assigned to Q. It could be W. It could even be E. The general rule, however, still applies: max your most effective skill first, and don’t be afraid to use it often. Remember, your nuke is most effective for a myriad of reasons, primarily because of its utility most offensively and defensively. There should be very few encounters with other heroes where you don’t launch your nuke at them, even if you’re just using it to give them a smack in the face when they’re rushing you.

Remember, any damage you deal to your opponent is damage your teammate doesn’t have to deal, giving you a greater chance of winning the fight. If you're Drow Ranger, you have the range to stay out of a fight, but still launch your Q at enemies within. Always, amateur DOTA 2 players, always remember your Q.

The advice to 'remember your Q' may seem a bit obtuse, at first, but that is merely because of the difficulty in trying to teach someone how to play DOTA 2. Even though heroes are so diverse, playstyles and methods will vary quite a bit from player to player. This game hasn't been designed with some foolproof method of achieving victory. That said, the learning curve in DOTA 2 isn’t due to it being overly complex or because of any unnecessary hoops that you need to jump through. Handling the reins of DOTA 2’s production are some of the brightest, most talented and artistically-inclined people that currently reside in the world of videogames development.

The portfolio of its designers stretches as far back as genre-defining titles such as Half Life and its successor, to the long-running and monstrously successful Counterstrike competitive community. They also host the Steam community which is, arguably, what console gamers should consider the next generation of gaming. These impressive individuals aren’t just building a game, they’re creating a world.

If you don’t have a copy of DOTA 2 and are just considering it, just get yourself a copy of it. You’ll discover rather quickly that the world of DOTA 2 isn’t just a simple Red vs Blue map with a handful of animated pixels that you point and click at each other to start fights. Stepping into the boots of any of its heroes – whether you choose Zeus, or Nyx Assassin, or Drow Ranger, or any other of the dozens of choices at your disposal – is exactly as it sounds: you can almost feel Storm Spirit’s toes wiggling eagerly in his boots as he steps into the battlefield.

Recap

• Your nuke is most often bound to ‘Q’, although that may not always be the key the case. Test your abilities to see what offers your hero the most utility both offensively and defensive.
• Your nuke should be maxed first.
• Whether running away or engaging in a team fight, always be sure to launch your nuke.
• Don’t be afraid to sit out of fights while others engage the enemy heroes and throw your nuke at them from afar.
• Have fun!