DOTA is an acryonym and stands for Defence of the Ancients. It’s a custom made map for the excellent Blizzard Game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.
It’s probably the best computer type game I’ve ever had the misfortune to play (it’s so utterly addictive), it’s extremely well polished and well balanced and the depth of skills you can build is very broad.
It’s a team based game with two side, The Scourge (Undead) and The Sentinel (Night Elf), the old cliched ‘good’ and ‘bad’ sides.
There are 12 players to pick from on each side and a maximum of 5 may be picked per game (5 per team) so it’s a 10 player game.
I’d never played a RPG kind of game like this before, and I went straight to DOTA without playing WCIII at all.
I was hooked…it’s all about team play, timing and strategy, you don’t need lightning fast reactions like those other Ah Beng[/url] games (COUNTERSTRIKE)..
You buy items, level up your character, earn money and spend it, work together with your team mates and pwn the other team.
To quote the Official DOTA FAQ, what is the point?
To take control of a single hero and destroy the opposing computer-controlled base. As you attempt to destroy the enemy base, other player-controlled heros from the other team will often try to kill you. Each hero has different skill types, and is played a different way.
The heros have 3 main attributes like normal Warcraft, Strength, Agility and Intelligence, they have 1 which is stronger than the others, this is known as the primary attribute so Melee characters would generally be strength, ranged fighters agility and spell casters intelligence.
You can buy items to increase certain stats to build upon their natural strenghts and to improve their weak characteristics.
Each of the 24 characters has different spells, skills and a different play style. Some are seigers (to kill buildings), some are hero killers and some are support heros.
Each hero generally has 4 spells/skills, each time you level up you can choose a new skills, the 4th or ‘ultimate skill’ can only be chosen at level 6 or above.
The map has 3 main lanes, each contain a few towers, then barracks (which produce creeps), then super towers, then the main base (crypt or tree of life) which needs to be destroyed to end the game.
That’s a basic summary…will post some strats and guides at a later date.
The best place for info on this game is The War Center, you can find extensive build guides and strategies here.
If you want to be good, read the FAQ, pick a character, read all the builds and play that character for a while until you are decent, rinse and repeat for each char…
It’s important to know every character so when you are playing with them in your team or against them you know what spells they have, how much manna they cost, the cooldown etc.
After this for strategies watch replays, as many as you can!
I found this excellent guide from one of the ward players to some top strats:
Competitive AT strategies for DOTA !!
Yes I’m a complete addict and have become a DOTA god 😛
You can download all the latest DOTA maps on my site[/url]. DOTA Classic that is, not Allstars.
For information and downloads for Allstars go to https://www.dota-allstars.com
P.S DONT PLAY ALLSTARS ITS AN UNBALANCED PIECE OF CHILDISH CRAP Although 6.x series is a lot better now that monkey Guinsoo stopped editing.
