Dota 2: The Little Things Vol. 1

 

In many games, there exist mechanics that are less than obvious but can be exploited to gain an advantage, small or large. Muta stacking in Starcraft Broodwar, roll cancelling in Marvel vs Capcom 2, self-damaging to build faster Ubercharge in Team Fortress 2 - all of these are used in every serious match by pro gamers, but they range from somewhat unknown to very obscure in low to mid-level play.

Dota 2 has a ton of these little mechanics, and in this article I'll tell you about some of the most well-known and major ones (in case you're new to the game) while also dropping a couple of knowledge bombs that most mid-tier players are unaware of. It's possible you'll get through this whole blog and learn nothing (after all, you might be a high-level player who has played Dota for years!), but I think the majority of players will gain at least one little tidbit from it. I know I learned some things while researching for it as well!

I do want to preface this somewhat: if you are a Dota 2 beginner, or you're still trying to get used to the basic mechanics (warding, ganking, last hitting, etc.,) you should focus on continuing your path to mastery of those mechanics. Trying to complicate your play by introducing mid-level and advanced options will distract you from the basics of the game, which are far, far, far more influential at low levels. These tricks I'm going to go through are ways to gain comparitively minor advantages over your opponents - simply getting more last hits and ganking more effectively will get you far more than any of these tricks. Once your basic mechanics become more automatic, you can then start focusing on incorporating the methods in this article into your play. With that said, let's dive in!

First and Foremost: Tread Switching

These are some versatile boots!

This is probably the best-known, most used, and most obviously effective mechanic for gaining yourself small advantages over your opponents. The +8 attributes on Power Treads can be switched on the fly, allowing you to quickly manipulate your HP and Mana pools to get the most out of the item. I could probably write an entire article simply discussing every little trick you can do with Power Treads, but I'll stick to the most basic for the sake of brevity.

About to use a bottle/wand? Swap your Treads to Agility if you can get away with losing a bit of HP for a couple of seconds (IE you're not about to die if you lose that +8 STR). When your HP and Mana values shift because of attribute gain/loss, the absolute value is not preserved - your current percentage of your max HP/Mana is. This means that if you have 95% of your HP when you swap from STR to AGI, you will still have 95% of your HP with the new stats, though the absolute value is lower. Why is this useful? Because when your boots are on agility, the absolute value of both HP and Mana is as low as you can force it, thus the restorative items are restoring a greater percentage of your maximum - to use an abstract example, if a bottle refills 5% of your HP when you're on STR, it can restore something closer to 6 or 7% when you're on AGI, and you can then swap back to STR and preserve the higher percentage. Thus your Bottle/Wand has now actually healed you for MORE than the listed 130HP or 15HP per charge. The same applies to Mana.

That's by far the most potent example, but there are many times when tread switching can give you that tiny boost you need to make a play happen. Need a tiny bit of extra mana to get a spell off during a chase? Swap to INT for a quick boost. Getting ganked while farming and your boots were on AGI? Swap to STR for a few more hit points while you run away. The amount of situations in which a small boost will be enough to change the outcome is quite significant - play around with this mechanic and see what you can do with it!

You can use items and spells while under Smoke of Deceit without breaking invis

Be extra deceitful!

When you're smoked up, the only two things that will break the invis are attacking and getting within 1000 range of an enemy hero or tower - this means you can use Smoke to safely ward the enemy jungle, can bottle up while smoked, can use Blink Dagger or mobility skills to move around the map even faster, and more! Keep in mind that very astute players might notice some spell effects if they're watching the are where you've smoked, but this is quite rare, as map awareness is generally more about keeping a close eye on the minimap and enemy positions while still farming/controlling your own hero rather than about looking all over the map for minute effects.

Other particularly nice examples include Manta Style for items (smoke into the jungle then scout with illusions, ganking what you find) and Spirit Breaker's charge on the skill end (wards won't spot you charging until you've hit that magic 1000 unit distance from your target or another hero.) Play around with different heroes and items and see what you like!

Some Hero Specifics: Storm Spirit's Static Remnant has flying vision

That's actually Spider Sense, not electricity

Gotta love this one - Storm Spirit can use this to check uphill for wards (combined with his natural mobility, this makes him an excellent gem carrier), check in trees for wards that are blocking jungle spawns, see up the mid ramp during the laning phase, and more! This is certainly more limited than things like the aforementioned Tread Switching, but can be very potent if used well. The trick is remembering you have it and using it to its fullest! Again, play around with this and see how many spots you can find where you can do a bit of extra scouting by simply dropping a Remnant.

Windrunner's Powershot hits full damage at 60% charge time

Imagine how powerful it would be if it kept charging!

This means you only need to charge Powershot for .6 seconds - as opposed to the 1 second implied by the skill description - before you are able to cancel it in some way and still get the full 90/180/270/360 damage from the shot. Four tenths of a second may not seem like much, but think of it in terms of percentages (that's 40% off of the charge time!) and in terms of using it in concert with other skills (much easier to hit someone stunned for 1 second if you only need .6 seconds to get all the damage!). In addition, it means you're less vulnerable when offlaning with WR and using Powershot to snag last hits and harass - you can start running away from the incoming enemy heroes .4 seconds sooner and still get full damage. Since WR is a hero that relies very extensively on mobility and skirting the edges of a teamfight, having nearly an extra half second of movement every time you want to Powershot is a godsend.

Hate Phantom Lancer? Take control of his illusions and they'll spawn an army for your side

Phantom Lancer loves this skill - until it gets used against him!

PL illusions don't need to be on the same team as the PL to preserve the advantages of Phantom Edge, and thus are able to Juxtapose just as effectively when stolen and used against him. Since a lot of PL's advantages in the late game come from his army, this will effectively allow a team on the defensive against PL to gain a significant portion of his strength for themselves, which can swing any engagements significantly. The biggest part of this one is that you can Enchant or Disrupt the illusions rather than PL himself to gain the full benefit, and this means you don't need to lock down the ever-elusive PL to make this work.

Manta Style has .1 seconds of invulnerability when activated

No jokes here, just an amazing item.

This one is also fairly well-known by vets and mid-tier players, but it can be so powerful that I feel it's worth mentioning for those that may not have heard it. Not only can you dodge stuns and nukes if you have great reflexes and timing, but the activation will remove a list of debuffs too long to mention (though probably the most significant is Orchid Malevolence, making Orchid highly ineffective against Manta Style carries, most significantly Anti-Mage). Notably, it will not remove the Dark Troll or Naga Siren nets (this is a difference from Dota 1, for those of you vets who remember it working then) - keep that in mind when playing against Naga, Enchantress, Chen, or any hero with a Helm of the Dominator.

Well, that was a short but important list I feel - please post comments if you guys either have questions about a mechanic, other mechanics you think are quite useful, or if you simply want more articles like this. This is far from an exhaustive list of all the little things you can do to edge out your opponents, and while it has some of the most significant ones (in my humble opinion) there are always more to discuss! I'd be happy to write more of these if you guys want them. For now though, try these out! Happy gaming!