Hotkeys

The hotkeys settings can be accessed by clicking on the little gear icon in the most top left corner in the main menu. Here, the player can customize many hotkeys, or select one of the many pre-set hotkey templates. Almost every key on the keyboard can be bound to something, with a very few exceptions. The exceptions usually have a set purpose in the game and thus are un-rebindable.

Set keys
Several hotkeys have a set purpose, which cannot be changed. This results in them mostly being un-rebindable.


 * The following keys have set functions: ESC, SHIFT, CTRL, ALT (including ALTGR) and the left, right and middle mouse button and the mouse wheel. This means these are un-rebindable.
 * Besides these, the WINDOWS KEY, PRINT, and ALTGR are unbindable as well and have no function in Dota2. ALTGR works just like ALT here, while the other 2 keep their default Windows function, opening the start menu and taking screenshots respectively.
 * The WINDOWS KEY (or COMMAND KEY on Apple keyboards) are by default unbindable, however, they can be turned bindable in the advanced hotkey section. These keys keep their default function, which is opening the start menu on the desctop. This is true even when the keys get bound ingame.
 * The PRINT KEY is fully bindable, but it also keeps its default function, which is to take screenshots.
 * The SHIFT, CTRL and left and middle mouse key and the mouse wheel can be bound when combined with ALT. Every other bindable key can also be bound again when combined with ALT. None can combined with ALTGR though.

Standard hotkeys
Standard hotkeys are active while playing a match. The player can change the hotkeys at any time, even during a match. There are hotkeys for abilities, items, unit actions, camera actions, player actions, chat and control groups.

By default, the game uses the "Arrow (Default)" hotkey layout. The player can choose of a varity of pre-set hotkey templates, which can be found by clicking on "Reset hotkeys..." at the bottom left of the settings menu. Available templates are:

Upon activating a template, all hotkeys which are used in the template get unbound, if they were bound to something before already. Hotkeys can still freely be changed after having selected a template. When using legacy keys however, all hotkeys which are used in legacy keys are unbindable, until legacy keys are deactivated. This only includes hotkeys bound to items. Other hotkeys in the legacy key template can be re-bound freely.

Abilities


Ability hotkey settings are divided into 3 groups:
 * Hero hotkeys, applied to every hero the player controls. When ingame, the hero's ability icons are faintly visible in the settings.
 * Neutrals hotkeys, applied to every non-hero the player controls (not only to controlled neutral creeps).
 * Courier hotkeys, applied to every courier the player controls. When ingame, the courier's ability icons are faintly visible in the settings.

Every hero has at least 3 abilities and 1 ultimate. These 3 abilities always take the 1st, 2nd and 3rd ability slot, which are marked with 1, 2 and 3 in the hotkey settings. However, the ultimate does not take the 4th slot, it always takes the 6th slot, which is marked with a U in the settings. If a hero has no more abilities, its 4th and 5th slot are hidden in the HUD, so only 4 slots appear, even then the ultimate still counts as being in the 6th, U slot. The 4th and 5th slot (marked with 4 and 5 in the settings) are only visible when the unit actually has a 4th and 5th ability.

Non-hero units on the other hand only have a maximum of 4 ability slots. They do not have an ultimate slot. Just like on heroes, the slots are only visible ingame when the unit has abilities to fill them. Because of only having 4 ability slots and no ultimate slots, all hotkey templates set the 4th slot's hotkey to the same hotkey as the 4th hero ability slot, and not the hotkey of the ultimate slot. For example, when chosing a template which uses QWER for abilities, it sets QWED for non-hero units, since D is the hotkey of the 4th ability and R is the hotkey of the ultimate slot.

Courier hotkeys are identical to hero hotkeys, except that they have a 6th ability slot, instead of an ultimate slot. It essentially makes no difference.

Notes:
 * Despite being only available for heroes in the settings menu, autocast and quickcast are always applied to every unit the player controls, not just to the hero.
 * When using legacy keys, it is not possible bind any keys to autocast and quickcast, as it disables ability hotkeys box completely.
 * When keys are already bound to autocast or quickcast, they are still active when turning on legacy keys, as long as they were not legacy keys.
 * It is possible to apply legacy keys by ticking the box above the hotkeys settings, without having to select it via the pre-set template. Legacy keys are applied to all units, not just heroes.
 * Activating legacy keys will unbind every key used by legacy keys, when they were bound to other controls already.
 * Ticking the "Mirror hotkeys from hero panel" box in the neutrals or courier panel causes all units the player controls to use the hotkeys set in the hero panel.

Beside the ability hotkeys, there are a couple of other settings and hotkeys for abilities:

Items
Just like ability hotkeys, the item hotkeys are displayed in the same order as the item slots in the HUD.

Item hotkeys are divided into cast and quickcast. This hotkeys are shared by every unit under the control of the player.

Besides the item hotkeys, there are also some other generic, items related hotkeys.

Unit actions
These hotkeys are for generic unit commands like attacking, moving, stopping, etc.

Control groups
These keys are the assigment for unit groups. In order to bind units to a group, select the units and then press CTRL + group key. The group assigment will get saved on the Steam Cloud, so the player does not have to re-bind the same units always to the same group for each game over and over again. However, only the unit type gets saved, not the amount of unit.

Camera actions
These keys are for controlling the game camera.

Player actions
These hotkeys are for other things player can do ingame, like option scoreboard, pause the game etc.

Chat
These are the hotkeys for the ingame chat. Besides hotkeys, there also is a chat wheel function and pre-listed common phrases which the player can assign keys to as well. The chat wheel and this phrases are displayed in the ingame chat upon using.

Chat phrases & Chat wheel
The chat phrases menu allows player to bind certain set phrases to hotkeys. Upon pressing the hotkey, a phrase will be put in the chat for your team or for everyone, depending on what phrase it is.

By default, none of the phrases are bound to any key. The chat wheel is by default empty. The player has to select the phrases manually if the use of chat wheel is desired.

The set phrases are (these are unchangable):

Advanced settings
The advanced hotkeys settings can be found by clicking on ADVANCED>> at the bottom right corner of the standard hotkey setting window. Here, the player can set hotkeys for spectating/watching replays, for the stats dropdown menu in live games or replays, coaching hotkeys, more control group keys and set some other binding options. These hotkeys do not interfere with the standard hotkeys. While standard hotkeys are only active while actually playing a match, the advanced hotkeys are only active while spectating a live game or watching a replay.

Spectator & replay controls
This section covers camera movement, spectator menus and replay speed. When ticking the Mirror Hotkeys from Hero Panel box, the hotkeys for camera movement, pause, spectator chat and scoreboard will use the same hotkeys as their equivalents from the standard hotkeys settings.

Stats dropdown
These hotkeys are for the stats (hero level, last hits, networth, etc) dropdown and their sorting. These stat windows are all sortable after the following things:
 * From highest to lowest numbers
 * From highest to lowest numbers, but sorting in the teams
 * Sorted after player order: Blue->Teal->Purple->Yellow->Orange->Pink->Ocre->Light Blue->Green->Brown

Coaching
These are extra hotkeys enabled for coaches.

More control groups
In the advanced settings, the player can find more hotkey settings for control groups, incase the player needs more than 6 control groups. These additional groups function just like the previous ones.