Dota 2 - A Basic Guide for Newbies

My first experience of Dota 2 comprised of my (now ex) boyfriend convincing me to skip the Dota 2 tutorial and plunge straight into a bot game—without him having explained anything about the game  beforehand. Needless to say, I spent the entire game wondering what was going on and I ended up feeding the enemy bots more times than I'd care to admit. My naïve head believed that there was a trick to killing the enemy bots and that randomly bashing buttons would work to my advantage eventually. All I did was die a lot—which subsequently earned the enemy bots lots of gold and increased their levels rapidly.

Once my ex-boyfriend had stopped laughing at my expense and sat me down properly to explain things in a bit more detail, the whole game made a lot more sense. Thankfully, I was lucky enough to have a boyfriend who was patient enough to dedicate hours of his time towards helping me learn and progress. Other beginners don't quite have that luck...and that's where the internet comes up trumps for newbies. If you haven't checked out Purge's guide to Dota 2 ("Welcome to Dota, You Suck") then I recommend doing that straight away after reading this. Purge's guide is a lifeline and will make understanding the game a lot easier for you.
Also, I cannot stress the helpfulness of Youtube when learning about Dota 2—there's a lot of tutorials on there that take you through everything step-by-step so it's worth checking it out.

Now, onto the (limited) bits where I can offer help:
 

Choosing a Hero - Carry or Support

A lot of people suggest trying out every character at least once. The argument for this is that you can get to grips with the different skills set of each character, which means you know what to expect when those characters then turn up during the online matches. It's a good idea but I don't recommend doing it when you're just starting out. Pick a handful of characters that feel right for you and practise getting really good with those select few—otherwise you'll just overwhelm yourself.

Also, you might want to decide whether you prefer playing as a 'carry' or a 'support'. If you prefer charging into the action, you're probably better suited to being a carry. Generally speaking, I prefer playing the part of support. The support characters are usually more squishy but I enjoyed using my skills to aid team-mates in getting last hits. For example, if I'm playing as Witch Doctor ("With vim and vigour!") then I'll spend my time 'denying' the opposing team's last hits on creeps, harassing opponents so that the carries can get lots of juicy 'last hits', and using my skills to help team-mates.
 
 
Important tips when playing support:

• If you're playing online and you're the only support (which can easily happen in an online match), you will need to use your starting gold to buy the courier. Once bought, you will also need to level up the courier so it becomes a 'Flying Courier' (basically you give the donkey wings) as soon as possible. 
• Wards. If you're playing support, it's up to you to buy the wards and strategically place them around the map.
• Don't steal all the last hits during the laning phase. If you're a support, the chances are that you have (or should have) a carry sharing the lane with you—and they will need those last hits for the gold. Go for last hits only when it's impossible for the carry to get them.

Important tip when playing a carry:

• Last hits are your best friend. You need to farm lots if you want to get enough gold and XP to do some real damage. The more gold you have, the better the items you can get from the shop.

The Shop - Your Best Friend in the Game

The items you pick can make all the difference between  whether you are going to win or lose a game. For example, buying endless amounts of healing salves is pointless when you could save up for something like a Drum of Endurance.

As a newbie, whilst getting started out and learning all the items, I recommend you change the 'suggested items' section in your inventory to one of the custom created builds.

The 'suggested items' do not always fit the needs of your character best. Different characters have different needs. For example, if I was playing as Death Prophet, I would make sure that I had a Heart of Tarrasque and a Bloodstone ("Beautiful, beautiful bloodstone!") later in the game.

 Thankfully, people have made their own list of builds for characters. You can access those instead by clicking on the little book at the top left of your screen:

 Once you've done that, click on the little yellow arrow and then select whichever build is moment appropriate for your character.

It makes the game a lot easier when you're starting out, trust me!




Towers


Very briefly, standing by a tower will get you killed.  Avoid doing this unless your team are destroying said tower.

Last Hits/Denies


Do not keep hitting creeps unnecessarily during the laning phase. It only pushes the lane and then suddenly the creep wave is behind an enemy tower and you're missing out on those precious last hits. In the early stages, you want to keep the creep wave closer to your towers (and that's where denying works quite nicely) and only strike when the enemy creeps are very low on health. If you get the last hit on a creep, you get more experience and gold.

Denying is basically when you take the last hit on one of of your own creeps to stop the enemy from gaining the full amount of gold or experience from the kill. It's simple but effective.

Tips and Hints

• Practise bot games first. Bot games are pretty predictable but they're definitely helpful when you're first getting to grips with the map, learning characters, practising last hits, and working on improving your general understanding of the game (which also means you're less likely to incur the wrath of your teammates).
• Always carry a spare portal scroll with you. As the game progresses, I usually keep two handy in my inventory for when I need to get to a fight quickly. 
• Check the map frequently. The map is your friend. It lets you know when friends are about to push a particular lane—and warns you of when the opposing team might be massing and plotting the same thing.
• If the opposing team suddenly all disappear off the map for a while, it's entirely probable that they've gone to defeat Roshan (the dragon). 

Lastly, no matter how hard you try or how polite you are, at some stage you probably will get flamed. However, do not let the comments of one grumpy player put you off the game. The predominance of people playing Dota just want to have fun and enjoy the game. 

Dota 2 is a huge learning curve and even seasoned players still have a lot to learn. As an example, my boyfriend had over 1,000 hours of gameplay time on Dota and he's still working hard to improve. I've had 350 hours of gameplay and—put this way—I'm not gonna be winning the international awards any time soon. To get really good at Dota you have to be willing to put the hours in every day and keep practising.

Hope this helps, guys. Happy gaming!