Items

Items are equipment sold by shops or dropped from Roshan that provides an ability, bonus, or another function not tied to a particular hero (the only exception being Aghanim's Scepter, which changes certain hero abilities). They come in a multitude of forms and types, and as such can be very different from one item to another.

Items take up space in a hero's inventory, meaning only six can be carried at one time. If a hero buys another item while their inventory is full, it goes automatically to their stash - which can also hold six items. If a hero buys an item with both their inventory and their stash full, the item is dropped on the ground in their fountain.

Recipe items remove their components automatically from a hero's inventory and stash when they are assembled. Because of this, strategy and thought is required in the order and selection of items to purchase.

Some items do not provide their effect to heroes with passive abilities providing the same or similar effect. For example, most heroes with a bash ability cannot use the passive ability from Skull Basher.

Heroes cannot use items purchased by other heroes, with a handful of exceptions. See Item Sharing for details. In addition, some items can be disassembled. See Disassemble for details.

Most items may be sold back to vendors for 100% of the gold spent either within 10 seconds after purchasing or until the item's active ability (if it has one) was used the first time. After ten seconds have passed items may be sold back for only 50% of its price tag. Some items cannot be sold, for example, Gem of True Sight, and for some heroes, Aghanim's Scepter.

Gameplay
Purchasing items is essential to the course of the game, as items provide necessary benefits that improve the effectiveness of both heroes and their team. Heroes without items, or with poor item choices, suffer greatly compared to heroes with items that synergise well with them.

Items provide additional benefits to heroes, which levelling up cannot. These include attribute bonuses, additional movement speed, auras, active abilities, and passive effects that are not included in the hero's innate abilities. Because of this, heroes require good items in order to improve the effectiveness of their team.

Item choices, the amount of items, and the speed at which items are obtained determine how effective a hero's team can be. Support heroes would not want to spend too much gold on damage-dealing items, because they do not benefit from it as much as a carry would. Carry heroes would want to gain as much gold as they can in order to buy better items than their enemies, which is why farming is important to carries.

The amount of items a hero needs to be effective varies greatly depending on the role. Support heroes do not need many items at all to be effective, which is why they often buy support items like Observer Wards. Semi-carries or initiators only need one or two items to be effective, such as a Blink Dagger or Aghanim's Scepter. Hard carries require many powerful, expensive items to reach their potential - and as such gain the most benefit from items.

Basics
Consumables are items with a limited amount of uses. After all of the charges have been used, they are removed from your inventory or must be refilled. It is possible to use consumables on your allies, however only the original buyer may sell the items.

Secret Shop
The Secret Shops are slightly hidden shops located near the center of the map. The shops allow players to buy items that cannot be bought elsewhere or to spend extra gold while in the early game.

Secret Shop Upgrade Items
In addition to the items available above, a few items can be completed solely with items from the Secret Shop:

Side Lane Shop
The Side Lane Shop is an extra shop located on the Radiant side of the Bottom Lane and the Dire side of the Top Lane, near the river. The Side Lane Shop sells certain items away from base, allowing heroes to continue laning for longer before returning to base.

Side Lane Shop Upgrade Items
These items can be completed solely with items from the Side Lane Shop:

Drop Only
Drop Only items are items that cannot be bought from any shop in the game and must be picked up. These are usually accompanied by a set of conditions that must be met before dropping.

Seasonal Events
These items are only available during limited time events:

Tips

 * The shop located at the enemy fountain can be used to buy items, sell items, and access the stash.
 * Some dropped items can be destroyed by force-attacking them (default key: A).
 * A player can destroy items owned by themself.
 * Shareable allied items can be destroyed.
 * Enemy dropped items can be destroyed.
 * and can be destroyed.
 * and cannot be destroyed.