Dota 101 – All About Objectives

The game of dota 2 is big and filled with all different kinds of objectives. Let’s take a deeper dive and explain assigning priority to them.

Towers, lane creeps, jungle creeps, ancients, barracks, runes and Roshan to just mention a few. With all these objectives to care about, which ones should you care about the most?

The real answer

Dota 2 is one of the hardest video games in existence. You will never figure out what the perfect way to play is, and neither will the professionals. Even on the highest level there is lots of discussion in what objectives you should care about the most. With every new match being played people’s opinions shift. Therefore it is simply impossible to write a list of objectives in order of most to least important. With every word written there will be somebody of high status who disagrees with it. 

For that reason we will not even attempt to write that list. What we can do however, is give you the tools and information necessary to make your own judgments and decisions. By going through three of the most important objectives and explaining what they can provide for you and your team, we will put you in the driver seat.

Lane creeps

When you think of objectives one of the first things you will probably think of is the collection of towers scattered throughout the lanes. While the lane creeps fighting in the shadow of these towers get totally overlooked. Nonetheless it is these lane creeps that are the real objective that gives the towers their power. 

We all know how killing these lane creeps will grant you experience and gold, two resources of great importance in a match of Dota 2. What many people forget however is the vision and pressure those same lane creeps provide. When you kill your opponent’s lane creeps it gives your own creeps a free pass to start sieging your opponent’s towers. While they might not be strong enough to kill towers quickly, their damage adds up eventually. All while providing vision far beyond your own towers reaches.

This means opponents will feel forced to deal with these creeps assaulting their towers. Forced to be visible on the minimap giving you the necessary information to predict their moves. The advantages you get from your lanes being pushed towards your opponents are simply astronomical. So never forget about your little soldiers constantly marching through the lanes, since they are the real heroes.

Ancients

Being bigger, scarier and scarcer than other jungle creeps, the ancients are easy to identify. Housing themselves in the two areas of the map often called the Dire and Radiant triangles, these big bro’s are worth a good chunk of gold and experience. Gold and experience that would be very useful in winning the match. Combine this with the ability to stack these big boys on every minute by pulling them outside of their spawnbox when the clock ticks over. You can see how you can turn them into a very decent nest egg.

Whenever you are playing with a hero who can easily kill stacks of Lizards, Dragons and Stone Giants remind yourself that they will be very thankful for your investments, and stack them. Just make sure you protect your ancient investment portfolio from foreign aggression from your opponents.

Roshan

You have pushed out the lanes and provide your team a full belly of resources by allowing them to munch on your ancient stacks. You just won a big teamfight and have gotten a taste for that sweet sweet victory. Now you might want to start pushing that highground to capitalize on your advantage and take the barracks.

However, it could be wiser to go for some savory cheese instead and take out Roshan, because the Aegis this oversized greevil drops is often the key to a successful highground siege. Being able to field a sacrificial lamb you can use to counter-initiate upon is a surefire way to ensure your victory on the high ground.

When two or three of your opponents are off the field and you feel insecure in pushing the highground, get yourselves into the pit instead. Listen to Anakin Skywalker and don’t underestimate its power. For every time you kill Roshan the rewards get bigger. Cheese, Aghanim’s shards and blessings and even refresher shards, it’s simply incredible. Not to forget about the gold and experience. There is a reason he is big and lives in the middle of the map. For often killing roshan is the bullseye objective you want to hit to secure victory.

Also read:

• Dota 101: Basic Item Builds
• A Dota 2 beginners guide: Get used to sucking

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Image credit: Valve / Dota 2