Gold



Gold is the currency used to buy items or instantly revive your hero. Gold can be earned from killing heroes, creeps, or buildings.

Reliable & unreliable gold
A player's gold is split into two categories:
 * Reliable gold - Any bounty you get from hero kills, Roshan, couriers, Hand of Midas, Track gold and global gold from towers is added to your reliable gold pool.
 * Unreliable gold - Everything else (starting gold, periodic gold, creep kills, neutrals, etc).

The only other difference between the two is how each one is spent: Hovering your mouse over the amount of total gold shown in the HUD shows your reliable and unreliable gold totals.
 * Dying only takes away gold from your unreliable gold pool.
 * Buying items uses up your unreliable gold first before using your reliable gold.
 * Buyback uses reliable gold first.
 * Buyback makes you gain only 40% gold for the remaining duration on the death timer.

The purpose of separating gold into these two categories is to encourage ganking and tower pushes, which give reliable gold, rather than passive farming, which grants unreliable gold.

Starting gold
Depending on how you chose your hero to play, you get a varying amount of starting (unreliable) gold for it.

Periodic gold
Each player receives 1 unreliable gold every 0.6 seconds, which results in 100 gold every minute.

Bounty Rune
Activating a grants the player unreliable gold depending on the length of the game (50 + 2  per minute), except for the first Bounty Rune, which provides 100 + 2  per minute. Their value increases in 30 second intervals.

Abilities
There are a few items and abilities in Dota 2 which allow you to boost your gold income, namely:

Hero kills
Hero kills grant reliable gold to the killer. Bonus gold is awarded for stopping kill streaks. The first hero that is killed in a match gives a bonus 150 reliable gold to the killer; this is called "First Blood".

When a hero dies to enemy creeps or an enemy tower and has not been damaged by any enemy heroes in the last 20 seconds (regardless of distance between heroes), the kill gold is split among all enemy heroes. When a hero dies to enemy creeps or an enemy tower and is assisted by only one enemy, that enemy is credited with the kill. When there are multiple enemies within 1300 range, the gold is split equally amongst all heroes that assisted.

Every time a hero kills an enemy hero, the killer is awarded reliable gold using the following formula:

110 + streak value + (killed hero level × 8)

The following deaths do not stop kill streaks or count as First Blood:
 * Deaths to neutral creeps or Roshan
 * Deaths to enemy towers with no assisting heroes
 * Suicides
 * Denies
 * Deaths with
 * Deaths with

Assists (AoE gold)
All allied heroes that are in a 1300 radius of a killed enemy including the killer (within 20 seconds of the last damage dealt to that killed enemy), is granted a certain amount of reliable gold and experience, depending on the amount of allied heroes in that area. Note that the assist counter on the scoreboard only counts assists if you dealt damage or applied a debuff to killed enemy, or if you applied a buff to the killer, but gold and experience are awarded independently of your "assist" counter.


 * NW factor is defined as (enemy team net worth / allied team net worth) - 1 and has a minimum of zero and a maximum of 1.


 * NW ranking factor depends on the assisting hero's NW ranking among allies involved in the kill. For 1/2/3/4/5 heroes, from the richest to the poorest, they are {1} / {0.75; 1.25} / {0.75; 1; 1.25} / {0.75; 0.75; 1.25; 1.25} / {0.75; 0.75; 1; 1.25; 1.25}.


 * (Team NW disadvantage / 4000) has a maximum of 1.

Buildings
When an enemy tower is destroyed, gold is awarded to each player on your team. The player that got the last hit on the building is credited with destroying it and receives some bonus unreliable gold. If an enemy tower is denied, a reduced amount of gold is awarded to your team. If no player gets the last hit and the tower instead dies to lane creeps, no player gets the extra bonus gold.

Lane creeps
The bounty for normal creeps increases by 2 gold every upgrade cycle (7 minutes 30 seconds), while the bounty for super creeps increases by 1.5 gold every upgrade cycle.

Selling
Items can be sold for 50% of the price they were bought for. Items can be resold within 10 seconds after purchase for the full price. Using an item prohibits selling it for the full price. For example, purchasing a and activating it immediately cancels the 10 seconds, only allowing you to sell it for half the price. The same applies when buying multiple s, placing one down, and attempting to sell the remainder. This is the case with any usable item, including, and.

Items that have been purchased while dead can be sold if that item was bought during the same death, otherwise items cannot be sold while dead, even within the grace period. This is a measurement to ensure that players cannot exploit spending all their gold prior to death and selling back the stashed items within the grace period after death to cut down on potentially lost gold.

Selling items gives unreliable gold, even if they were bought with reliable gold.

Picking a hero
All players start off with 825 gold. Picking a hero in any mode costs you 200 gold, leaving you with 625 gold. If you should decide to re-pick, it costs you an extra 100 gold, thus leaving you with only 525 gold to start off with. Should you decide to random (or play All Random), receiving a hero costs you no gold. You lose two gold per second if you have not picked a hero after the selection timer runs out in All Pick.

Swapping
Swapping a hero that you picked costs 0 gold, leaving you with 625 gold. Swapping a hero that you randomed costs you 100 gold, leaving you with 725 gold.

Items
The main purpose of gold is to purchase items. The player with the most gold is able to buy the most powerful items, and therefore has a very strong hero. The items each player buys depend on their role in the team and many other factors. Items can be sold back to the shop for half the price, unless they are sold within ten seconds of being bought and their active ability has not yet been used (e.g. or ), in which case they are sold back for the full price.


 * and cannot be sold.
 * Certain heroes cannot sell their.
 * cannot be purchased, but can be sold for 500 gold.

Dying
Every time a hero dies, they lose 100 + Net Worth/50 unreliable gold. Dying does not take away reliable gold.

Respawn time
The respawn time uses the following formula: 5 + (3.8 × hero level). A hero's respawn time may be affected by Buyback,, and.

Buyback
While your hero is dead, you have the option of "buying back" and respawning instantly in exchange for a gold fee. The cost of Buyback is based on your hero's level, and also increases by fifteen gold per minute since the starting horn, or one gold every four seconds. Buying back takes away from your reliable gold pool first, and the cost uses the following formula:

100 + (level × level × 1.5) + (game time in minutes × 15)

After buying back, 25% of your hero's remaining respawn time is added to your next death. Additionally, all gold gained by the hero is reduced by 60% until the respawn timer would have finished. The gold icon on the HUD flashes red when this time finishes. Buyback has a cooldown of 7 minutes.


 * Buy back.mp3 Sound played when buying back.

Abandoning the game
After being disconnected from the game for more than 5 minutes, all of your gold is equally divided between the remaining players on your team, including your 1.67 gold/sec passive gold gain. If 1/2/3/4 players have abandoned, the remaining players receive 2.08/2.78/4.17/8.33 gold/sec. The passive bonus gold gain is restored once you reconnect to the game, but any gold that was distributed is not reimbursed.