DotA2 - Original Thread

I'm not sure where to start learning however. I've done some research on game mechanics and watched a few gameplay videos from The International, but that's it. Things I know/have seen and probably won't have a big problem with: !

Well, as far as learning goes, you can ask all the questions you want here, i’m by no means a professional player but i am almost 100% certain i can answer any game related or mechanic related question there is. And playing is what improves your skill the most of course.

What is the significance of the day/night cycle? I'm assuming Radiant favors day and Dire favors night, but is there anything I'm missing other than that? Are there heroes with passives that are affected by day/night?

As pointed out by dusk, almost all heroes have the same day/night vision which is 1800/800. This makes night a lot more dangerous and the time where ganks become way easier. A hero like Nightstalker whom thrives in the night has a 1200/1800 day/night vision. He is the only hero to not have a 1800 day vision.
There’s a table of attributes here so you can check the day/night vision of all heroes: http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Table_of_Hero_attributes

What happens when the game starts? Do teams fight over runes, try to deny the enemy jungler if there is one, try to snowball a lane right off the bat... In LoL it's usually either help the jungler get buffs or steal/deny the enemy team's buffs, but that process takes up most of the level 1 phase.

Fights for runes aren’t super common, but they exist. You occasionally can mess with the enemy jungler by attempting to block their jungle camps from spawning. Generally speaking for for example the mid laner they’ll want to ’block’ their creeps and hinder their movements to make sure that they can force the creeps closer to their own tower, this gives you a slight edge in your lane. Sometimes teams also use a smoke of deceit instantly as the game starts to go as 5 and ward the enemy jungle/lane and if they catch an enemy they’ll kill him.

What do you do when you're behind? Do you just play passive until you can counter-play, or is it too punishing--do you have to fight your way back in?

It depends heavily on your team composition, if you think you can win by getting up a few more items, playing passive can work. But generally speaking, utilizing smoke of deceit is one of the best ways to get back into a game. Also vision with wards is key. Especially lategame in dota it only takes one bad fight for the enemy where they can not buy back into the game for them to lose most of their base.

How much does control over secondary objectives (Runes, Roshan) have an impact on the game? I know that runes respawn way more often than buffs in LoL (2 minutes as opposed to 5 minutes, 6-7 minutes for bigger objectives). Denying a buff to a laner gives his opponent and the opposing jungler much more presence, as an example, and later in the game the buff granted by Baron (Roshan's equivalent) can inhibit a team's ability to defend a push among other things. Does it work in a similar way in DotA?

Roshan can be attempted to be killed at any point of the game(Even before minute zero) but it’s very rare for this to happen, and certain junglers can also solo him fairly early. And controlling him is generally pretty important because it’s a lot of gold and experience. You’ll usually put up wards there if the enemy has a hero that is able to kill him early on. Obviously dire has an advantage as far as roshan goes, but radiant has other advantages that more than make up for it.
Runes are very, very important for the mid lane and they are generally what decide the lane, good rune control is a very important skill as a mid-player and having vision of the runes is key. Some mid heroes rely heavily on runes to refill their bottles to stay in lane, if you can deny them their runes you force them to bottle-crow(Using the flying courier to refill their bottles) which takes courier time from the rest of their team.

What are the differences in the roles that carries of different stats have (AGI vs. INT etc)? The primary element that separates most carries in LoL is AP/spell damage vs. AD/AA damage, and then there are different ways the damage is applied, generally on a scale of high burst -> sustained. I would imagine that this is sort of how it works.

The diference between carries in DotA is generally when they get ’online’ that’s the biggest difference i’d say. Some carries can be active early on with their teams and others need to sit back and farm 5ever. Then we have semi-carries, carries and hard carries which generally speaks of how early they come online.
Semi-carries are heroes such as mirana and wind-runner that can dish out decent damage and help a ton in the mid-game, but as far as carrying they fall off the later the game goes.
Carries generally come online later in the mid-game(25~30 minutes) and are able to join fights relatively quickly too.
Hard carries need to farm 5ever and are starting to become rare in dota since the developer is trying to push all hard carries into the category of getting online in the mid-game, because his goal is to shorten overall game-time. But some of the remaining hard-carries are spectre and medusa who need 4~5 high-tier items to fight but they demolish opposition once they have it.
As far as the stats goes, strength carries like Dragon knight and chaos knight generally speaking have a good disable and are tough to kill. Their lategame isn’t amazing but it isn’t bad, due to strength giving them high hp and damage.
Agility carries vary greatly but are generally very low in the HP department at the trade of having higher attack-speeds which results in higher damage outputs. A hero like phantom assasin has a crazy theoretical damage output, but is incredibly squishy and not very good.
And intelligence carries generally speaking have poor farming abilities but absolutely insane mid-game damage outputs. This include heroes like Outworld destroyer and silencer. There are also intelligence carries like queen of pain whom has good farming ability but her lategame damage isn't amazing, it's just decent.
It varies more from hero to hero than from stat to stat(N'aix is a hero that is a strength carry but the best attribute for him is attack-speed, this means he'd be broken if he was an agility hero since building agility would give attack speed AND damage, the stats are just another balancing tool like that), but i think this covers a lot.

Also, add me at Janggos goes with everything, you can always toss me a message on steam. (You can probably find me in the southperry steam group).

A bit more on carries:

 Spoiler

Carries in DotA are picked for very specific reasons and their teams should ideally be built around them.
There are a lot of different carries that bring a lot of different things on the table, they all have very distinct weaknesses and strengths. In DotA a hero is often balanced by either amplifying weaknesses or strengths instead of trying to tweak it, is their strength too much? Make their weak spot weaker. It's also how the main dev has developed the game all long, take an insane mechanic and put it into the game and force it to be balanced. DotA can be look at as this:

 Spoiler

But instead of trying to just make something fit in a pre-determined hole, it'll be hammered and bashed untill it fits, just because. It seems weird and at times it can be ridiculous, but the end result are very distinctively different heroes, especially carries.

As said, teams are built around carries.
A very popular carry currently would be Luna, when good teams pick up luna they do not pick her to outcarry another carry, they pick her for how good she is at grouping up as 5. Her lategame power is very meh, but her early to mid-game power is amazing, meaning you group up with your team and march down a lane and claim tower after tower, if the enemies try to fight you'll crush them with luna and your team, ideally, this obviously wont work in all games.
Another carry would be faceless void. He is an incredibly strong lategame carry, but his ulti makes him great for teamfighting too, he will usually be played in a role where his team protects him while he just farms up a few items and then wrecks face by being able to eliminate at least 1 enemy right off the bat.
Then we have carries that can carry by never fighting, theoretically. A carry like anti-mage will farm a quick battlefury(cleave item) and then he is able to farm at insane speeds, he's not really an amazing late-game carry at all, but his strengths are how fast he gets items, and an item advantage is often enough to win fights if it does indeed come down to a fight, but due to his mobility, if your 4 other heroes can defend their towers and base on their own, anti-mage can counter and split push like crazy being a menace for the enemy.
Then we have a carry like Outworld devourer, he has very limited ability to farm and doesn't rack up gold very fast, but his damage output is crazy with very few items. Him and silencer both fall into this category, the problem for both is that magic immunity messes them up badly.
Carries generally either excel in farming faster than enemies, pushing, being amazing lategame(many items), being amazing early game(few items) or by having great teamfighting related spells(Like naga siren). That's generally how you'll classify carries. And even then there are carries that can't be classified with this or carries that fall into multiple categories. The best thing is to learn how each and every carry works and what their weaknesses and strengths are, so you can use them to achieve something that they are good at through their skill-kit.

In DotA you don't need a carry though, nowadays carries are the norm but just a few months back some teams would build teams with no carries and just crush enemies by killing towers faster than the enemy could respond, and then using the tower gold to mow down enemies by simply having a huge advantage from gold.

I think i might've repeated myself a few times, but blargh, my mind's a mess. If you have more questions, just ask.