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 and the left, right and middle mouse button and the mouse wheel.

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 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 bouned again when combined with ALT.

Game hotkeys
Game 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 "normal" 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:
 * Normal: Dota 2's own default hotkeys.
 * WASD: Keys adapted so that the W, A, S and D are for camera movement.
 * Legacy: Different ability hotkeys for each hero and unit.
 * MMO: Mass Multipler Online games oriented key bindings.
 * League of Legends (LoL): Key bindings oriented to that of League of Legends.
 * Heroes of Newerth (HoN): Key bindings oriented to that of Heroes of Newerth.
 * Smite: Key bindings oriented to that of Smite.

Abilities


Ability hotkeys are displayed in the same order as they are in the HUD when selecting a unit. From left to right, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th/ultimate ability.

Note: The ability slot in the most right side of the hud is always the 6th/ultimate ability slot, even when the unit or hero does not have 6 abilities.

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

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 to set only one key for quickast. In order to use quickcast, 2 keys must be combined.
 * It is possible to apply legacy keys to abilities only, by ticking the "Use Legacy Keys" box in the hero hotkey settings.
 * WARNING: Doing so will unbind Q W E and R if they were bound somewhere else.
 * 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.
 * This option is not available when having legacy keys on.

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.

Unit 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):

Spectator settings
The spectator hotkeys settings can be found by clicking on SPECTATOR >> at the bottom right corner of the game hotkey setting window. While spectating a game or watching a replay, the game hotkey settings are disabled and the spectator hotkeys settings are enabled.

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 game 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.