Items: Tips, Tricks, and Staying Alive

Hey everyone, my last cast with my friend ElOhTeeBee reminded me of something that is pretty easy to lose track of in the heat of a good DOTA 2 match.

Anyway, in a lot of our chatting, missing BIG PLAYS, and shouting, it is rare that Lumby and I get to eloquently discuss things like 'why it is important to keep track of wand charges' or 'should I pop my BKB now?'

I hope to provide some insight into good ways to use these items and reminders of why it is very important to keep an eye on some of their details.

Item charges and cooldowns, amongst other considerations, seem to get ignored.  Lumby and I have seen many a Hand of Midas be off of cooldown with valid targets around.  I have been guilty of holding onto a fifteen charge wand (or a ten charge stick) when I was about to die from Dazzle poison or Shadow Word.  I have seen people pop Black King Bar five seconds before an engagement and then run away to leave their team die.  I have been guilty of (and seen other people) carrying multiple usable into an engagement, using one, and forgetting about the others until after they would have been useful.

I have also blinked into an engagement with Blink Dagger (back when it had a mana cost) and then tried to use an ultimate and ended up dead because of my inability to do basic math on the fly.  Seventy five mana plus the cost of the ultimate was greater than my remaining mana.

These mistakes happen a lot because the items add another dimension to the game.  Urn of Shadows, for example, is best kept low on charges due to how you get more charges when someone dies near you when it is empty.  This beautiful little item rewards you for using it to harm your enemies and heal your allies.

That is not to say that these items are all for naught, of course.  Black King Bars can make a lot of enemy heroes useless against you (nothing is more satisfying than stunning a singing Naga Siren and beating her down while you're still immune to her sleepy song), and Eul's Scepter of Divinity can remove you from danger briefly OR remove an enemy hero from a fight long enough to change the face of an engagement. (be careful about using it on the wrong enemy, though!)

The important thing here is knowing what your items do, what situations they are useful in, and keeping track of charges.  Most important of all, make sure you get out there and practice.  Whether you do so in real games or bot matches, it is important to have a keen knowledge of item/spell interactions, and to have a feel for when items are at their most useful.

Paying attention, though, is the first step...so you don't end up looking like me, sitting on a fifteen charge wand and dying to one support auto-attack...

Have a pleasant day, and keep track of those items!

Welcome!

Hello everyone,

I am ShadeShine, a young player of DOTA 2.  I have been playing relatively seriously since 2012, and I started co-casting with my friend ElOhTeeBee in late 2013.  My gaming 'career' is much longer than that, but, aside from a stint playing League of Legends, this is my only real experience with Defense of the Ancients and games like it.  I have come to enjoy spending a good bit of my free time playing these games.

I am writing this blog for a handful of reasons.  The first and foremost is to improve my practical knowledge about DOTA 2 and to work on expressing it.  Second, I wish to offer advice and alternative points of view to all players of the game.  The idea is that I am not delving into master level mechanics or deep analysis of top level plays.  Instead, I am focusing on concepts, neat little ideas, tips, and experiments that I will share the results of here.  The idea is that anyone who plays DOTA 2 or is trying to learn to play DOTA 2 can mull over what was posted here.  I hope to, in some small way, assist in sideways thinking and to have fun with the ideas I create for or create from this blog.

If you have a comment, criticism, or just want to say anything at all, I will be endeavoring to read the comments and I will accept email at ShadeShineDOTA@hotmail.com.