Fountain of Health

The fountain of health is where a hero can regenerate life and mana. It is located at the very ends of the map, bottom-left for Sentinel and top-right for Scourge. Being in the lane and going back to the fountain to heal will actually make a hero miss some experience from creeps killed and some gold, since the battle is in the middle parts of the map during the earlier part of the game while the fountain is at the end. However, there is an item called Empy Bottle that could store up to 3 charges of life and mana. The charges could be gotten from the fountain. A player can also have a courier bring the bottle back and forth to the fountain and to the hero. A player may also choose to buy healing items and mana potions.

Mega Creeps

After pushing the three levels of towers in any lane, the next is two barracks. Once these are destroyed, the creeps for that lane become stronger. They will appear larger and will give less gold when killed. Once all the barracks of all the lanes have been destroyed, the creeps become Mega creeps. These are the strongest creeps a side can get, and will make it much easier to push all the way to the throne or tree because of the strenght of these creeps and the gold they give upon death.

Items

There are various items in the game. There are potions which could be used at the early part of the game for regenerating life or mana. There are items which give bonuses to damages or attributes. The more powerful items can be created by combining certain items. The different recipe items give different bonuses and sometimes spells. Certain recipe items can go well with certain heroes, especially with the spell. The spell from the item can go well as a combination with the hero's own spells, and also adds to the team's combination. Some of the spells that come with these items are heal, invisibility, and slow.

Roshan

Roshan is the most powerful neutral creep in the game. He is located in the middle of the map, below the middle lane of the Scourge side. He is a large purple golem with skills such as stun. Killing Roshan would usually require more than one hero, sometimes the whole team, depending on the strenght of the heroes. However, heroes such as troll may be able to defeat him alone. Upon defeating him, the hero that killed him recieves gold, the whole team recieves gold, and he drops an item called Aegis of the Immortal, which grants the holder another life after death. Roshan will be revived after a long time but will be much stronger.

Neutral Creeps

Most of the experience that heroes get come from creeps. They can also get from heroes killed. However, they can also get experience by killing neutral creeps. These creeps do not belong to any side, thus the name neutral creeps. In the mini-map at the lower left side of the playing screen, these creeps appear as the color green dots. These creeps are not in any of the three lanes. They appear as many different kinds. There are golems, satyrs, gnolls, trolls, centaurs, etc. The different neutral creeps have different spells and abilities, while some don't have. Some of them are strong while some are weaker, giving different amounts of experience points. These creeps are useful for heroes like the Troll Warlord and the Phantom Assassin so that they could earn money and some experience points without enemy heroes confronting them.

The Roles and Types of Heroes

Some heroes are for killing other heroes, some are for support, and some are for tanking(absorbing damage for the team). There is also the pusher, which are the heroes that are effective in killing creeps(the units of a certain side that fight with the heroes) and destroying towers in order to push a lane. Each hero also has a certain type. There is the strenght, agility, and intelligence. Strenght heroes are usually the ones who tank and inflict great damage, especially in the late part of the game. Agility heroes are hero killers who are also strong in the late game. Intelligence heroes are the ones with powerful skills or spells that can kill heroes, but would only be supporters or pushers in late game. However, the different types can sometimes play other roles, depending on the hero.

Strategy of DOTA

Players of both sides can choose between heroes of both sides. This means that a Sentinel player can choose a Scourge hero, and vice versa. All heroes have four skills. Three regular skills and an ultimate skill. Different chosen heroes can be a combination because of their different skills. For example, one hero is a stunner and the other is a damager. It could also be a double stun or two stunners. But since there are 5 heroes per team in an official game, the combinations can get much stronger and complicated than that.