Hotkey

A Hotkey is any key on the keyboard used to trigger an action, ability, item, or menu in Dota 2. Most of these functions can also be triggered by a mouse click, but using hotkeys effectively is quicker in most cases.

All hotkeys can be changed in the Options menu; this page documents default hotkeys for the "Normal" Controls scheme.

Abilities
Most heroes have four abilities. The hotkeys for their basic abilities are 'Q', 'W', and 'E'. The hotkey for their Ultimate is 'R'.

Some heroes have additional abilities:
 * list heroes and their extra abilites here

Items
Activated and consumable items are assigned a hotkey determined by which inventory slot they're in. From left to right, the top row of items can be triggered by 'Z', 'X', and 'C', while the bottom row's hotkeys are 'V', 'B', and 'N'.

Actions
Pressing 'A' before clicking the ground issues an attack-move command, where unit will attack any enemy or neutral units it encounters rather than blindly running to the indicated destination. 'A'-clicking a unit or structure issues an attack command on that target; this can be used to deny allied targets if their health is below a certain threshold.

Menus
Opening the shop menu can be done with the hotkey ''.