Gold

Gold is the currency used in DOTA 2. Gold is used to pick your hero, buy items and instantly revive your hero.

Reliable gold
Gold can be split into two categories:
 * Reliable gold - Any bounty you get from hero kills is added to your reliable gold pool.
 * Unreliable gold - Everything else (creep kills, neutrals, etc).

The difference between the two (except from how each is earned) is how each one is spent:
 * Dying can only take away gold from your unreliable gold pool and not from your reliable gold.
 * Buying items uses up your unreliable gold first before using your reliable gold.
 * Buyback uses reliable gold first.

In the end you still have a fixed amount of total gold (you just add the two together).

Starting gold
At the beginning of each game each faction receives 4265 gold (unreliable), which is split between all the players in that faction, resulting in:


 * 4265 gold if there's only one player on that team
 * 2132 gold if there are two players on one side
 * 1421 if there are three
 * 1066 if there are four
 * 853 if there are five

Periodic gold
Each player receives 1 unreliable gold every 0.875 seconds, which results in 8 gold every 7 seconds.

Skills
There are a few skills in DOTA 2 which allows you to boost your gold income, namely:
 * Hand of Midas's Transmute:Grants a fixed 190 gold bounty when targeted on a creep, replacing the normal creep bounty. This gold is reliable.
 * Doom Bringer's Devour: Grants you 40/60/80/100 bonus unreliable gold after it finishes devouring a unit.

Kills
Unreliable gold is earned every time you last hit a creep, tower or Roshan. Each type of creep has it's own bounty range.

The first time a hero is killed by a non-neutral unit it will give a bonus 200 reliable gold to the killer, this is called First Blood

When there is only 1 Assist to a Dire or Radiant kill, the kill is instead given to the hero that assisted in the kill. When there are multiple assists to a Dire or Radiant kill, the gold is split amongst all heroes that have assists.

Every time you kill an enemy hero you are awarded with
 * (Current Streak of Dying Hero)+200+(Dying Hero's Level)*5

reliable gold

Where current streak is:


 * 0 if the hero has no kills since last respawn
 * 0 if the hero has killed another hero and not died yet
 * 0 If the hero has two kills in a row
 * 50 Killing Spree (Three kills in a row)
 * 100 Dominating ( Four kills in a row)
 * 150 Mega Kill! ( Five kills in a row)
 * 200 Unstoppable! ( Six kills in a row)
 * 250 Wicked Sick( Seven kills in a row)
 * 300 Monster Kill!!! ( Eight kills in a row)
 * 350 Godlike! (Nine kills in a row)
 * 400 Beyond Godlike! (Ten to infinite kills in a row)

Heroes that are in a 1000 area and not being the killer will be granted a certain amount of reliable gold, depending on total heroes in that area.


 * 1 Hero: 95+9*(Dying Hero's Level)
 * 2 Heroes: 20+8*(Dying Hero's Level)
 * 3 Heroes: 10+6*(Dying Hero's Level)
 * 4 or 5 Heroes: 6*(Dying Hero's Level)

Assists only give gold if Dire or Radiant gets the kill.

Selling
Items can be sold for 50% of the price they were bought. Recipes can be sold for 80% of the price they were bought.

Picking a Hero
Picking a hero in any mode will cost you 250 gold, thus leaving each player that picked a hero 603 gold. If you should decide to repick, it will cost you 100 gold and picking a new hero will cost you another 250 gold, thus leaving you with a crippling 253 gold to start off with. Should you decide to random (or play All Random), receiving a hero will cost you no gold.

Items
The main purpose of gold is to buy items. The player with the most gold will be able to buy the most items and will therefore (usually) have the strongest hero. What items each player buys depends on his hero role.

Dying
Every time you die you lose 30*(Level of your Hero) unreliable gold (Dying cannot take away reliable gold), the only way to reduce this amount is with a Bloodstone - you'll lose 25 gold less for every Bloodstone charge.

Buying Back
Not waiting until your hero respawns and paying the buyback fee
 * Buyback fee = 100 + (Level*Level*1.5) + (GameTime*15), rounded down to a multiplier of 50.

This will take away from your reliable gold pool first.