Heroes/Mechanics

Heroes are the essential main characters of Dota 2, controlled by the players. Heroes possess the three attributes,, and , from which one may be their primary attribute. Those without a primary attribute are regarded as and benefit from all three attributes. Heroes are capable of leveling up through the means of experience, up to level, gaining additional attribute points, and ability points which can be spent to level up abilities or gain even more attributes. Heroes are also able to spend gold to purchase items.

Complexity
Hero complexity is a difficulty rating for heroes as set by Valve using unknown criteria. Generally, heroes with high complexity are less reliable to be useful, especially when played unproperly, compared to those with low complexity.

Heroes with the maximum complexity have unique mechanisms, "hard-to-understand" abilities, or include multi-unit control.

Spawning
All heroes spawn once at the beginning of the match after the picking phase, but only if the player locked in their pick. They are always spawned facing 45° toward the northeast or southwest  based on their respective factions.

Clones
Like heroes, these clones do not disappear when dying (or expiring). respawn like regular heroes, while Arc Warden's and Monkey King's clones respawn whenever or  is cast again. These hero clones are almost fully treated like regular heroes, with a few special interactions with some spells for fairness. However, since Meepo's clones and Arc Warden's clone work fundamentally differently (Meepo clones being permanent like heroes, and death to one means death to all, while Arc Warden's clone is rather similar to a summon or an illusion), each have different unique interactions. Monkey King's clones rather act like a spell effect and cannot be interacted with in any way. They stand at set locations and attack nearby enemy heroes automatically until the spell expires.

The only heroes which spawn later on are hero clones, which can only be created by 4 heroes at the moment as follows:

Illusions
Illusions are also hero-type units, but unlike heroes, they do not respawn, but despawn completely after dying, like other units and summons. Each spell which creates illusions spawns completely new illusions on recast. Illusions are basically hero-based summons, copying the hero, but acting like a summon.

Killing and Dying
Killing a hero grants players much bigger bonuses than killing almost any other unit. Heroes grant scaling based on their level and their current killing streak, and scaling  based on their level. Heroes also gain killing streaks upon killing heroes. A killing streak increases the hero's bounty, increasing its value for the enemy. A killing streak starts with hero kills without any deaths in-between, and is capped at  kills. A streak longer than has the same worth as a  killing streak. A hero's current streak is globally announced whenever it makes a kill.

The very first hero kill of the match, called the vo announcer killing spree announcer 1stblood 01.mp3 First Blood!, also grants an additional to the killing hero.

A hero is only granted this gold if it actually killed the enemy (i.e. did killing blow). Otherwise, the hero either only gets assist gold and experience, or no gold and experience at all, based on how much time passed since the last time it damaged the target, and how far away the hero is if too much time passed.

Killing a hero also grants experience based on the hero's level. The higher the hero level, the higher the possible bounty is given. Although a hero can level up to, the experience bounty is out at level 25.

A table showing how much gold a hero grants and loses on death can be found here. A table showing how much experience a hero grants on death can be found here.

Killing multiple heroes in quick succession also results in a multi-kill. However, unlike a killing streak, a multi-kill has no gameplay influence and merely serves for aesthetics. Multi-kills do not require the hero to stay alive in-between the kills, if the hero dies, the multi-kill can still continue. A multi-kill occurs when killing a second hero within seconds of the first kill. The multi-kill can be extended by killing even more heroes, all within seconds of the previous kill. Like a killing streak, a multi-kill has no limit, but is "soft-capped" at 5, repeating the same line for 5 and more kills. The multi-kill stages are:

A hero's death has a much bigger impact than the death of almost any other unit. When a hero dies, it stays dead for an amount of time based on its level and the player loses gold based on the player's $$\tfrac{\text{NetWorth}}{40}$$. There is no way to directly reduce or avoid this gold loss. However, only unreliable gold is lost, reliable gold is not lost on death, meaning if a hero has almost no unreliable gold but a lot of reliable gold, dying does not cost as much as it would with much unreliable gold and little reliable gold. Dying also results in the loss of any ongoing killing streak the hero has. Heroes do not lose experience on death. As mentioned before, a death also grants gold and experience to nearby enemies and the killer. However, gold and experience are only granted to the enemy, and streaks are only lost when dying to an enemy.

Dying to neutral creeps, or getting denied by an ally or oneself neither grants the enemy any bounty nor ends the current killing streak.

Hero kills sounds for Ultra Kill and Rampage were added in 6.60.

Leveling


Every hero starts off at level 1 and can level up times, up to level. Each new level grants the hero some /  /  attribute points (different values for each hero). Ability points are gained up to level 25 which they can use to level up abilities or a talent. Some abilities require the hero to be on certain levels to be learned or leveled up further. Most basic abilities have 4 ability levels and can be leveled on level 1,, and. Talents can be upgraded at levels 10, 15, 20, and 25. Ultimates usually have 3 levels and can usually be leveled up at level, and. The exceptions are, who requires different levels for his ultimate, and , who has unique different ability scheme.

Heroes level up through the means of experience, which is gained by killing enemy units, or by being within proximity of an enemy unit while an ally kills that enemy unit. The required distance to gain experience is if the kill is not done by the hero, or if the killed unit was not a hero. Killing other heroes always grants experience, regardless of distance. When multiple heroes are within range of an enemy unit which gets killed, the experience gets evenly split among the heroes. This includes every single clone of, but excludes 's and 's  clones. If a hero is already on max level, it still gets its share of experience when within range, even though it has no use for it anymore, causing it to get wasted. A hero cannot gain and does not get its share of experience while dead. An exception to this is after acquiring.

A Hero level up.mp3 level up is indicated by a visual effect, an angled yellow light beam from the sky shining on the hero. This light beam is visible to everyone. A sound effect is also played, which is only audible to the player.

Ability Interactions
Just like any other unit type, the hero unit type causes several different interactions with abilities. Some abilities cannot affect heroes at all, while others have altered effects or different values when used on heroes.

The following abilities cannot be cast on, or cannot affect heroes:

On the other side, these abilities can only target or affect heroes:

The following abilities interact differently with heroes:

Gallery
Герои/Механика 英雄/机制