In order to cooperate with your allies you'll need to have personal skill as well, you'll need to have knowledge about what your enemies have in salvo and of course how to counter them. As well as juking/ganking/last hitting/denying.



Juking and Escaping:
One versus Three basically means you’re a dead man. Or Somehow you gave the lady of fortune an awsome night. Like Merlini did, thus he managed to get a triple kill on Zeus by juking inside the fog. But if you either have that kind of skill or just love to sleep with the lady of fortune. I only have one question for you: " Why the hell are you behind your computer? GO GAMBLE IN VEGAS!!!"
If you on the other hand want to try to get away. This section can improve your luck in getting away. I'll show you the secrets of choppingtrees, how to abuse the fog, and as a result the secret art to Juking will become something you will master. Juking basically means running through trees and thus creating a hideout for yourself and try to get away like this. Tangoes are especially useful for this since they can create new pathways by cutting trees also a Quelling Blade can be usefull sometimes. Tangoes can be used instantly after eachother. If you're going to escape run to an ally, if you guys can kill of the guys chasing you together. If this is not the case don't run towards them unless you are sure they will survive, or they are on the same path you should be taking in order to get away. Basicly don't get an ally killed because you tried to get away from an enemy and you still died anyway. Why have two deaths on your side if only one was needed.
But this isn't the only use of juking though. Especially on casters it's very effective to throw you spells than back off and juke a bit untill the cooldowns of your spells are gone and re-use them. Or use your juking skill to hide and show your enemies how to do a perfect suprise buttsexmove on them when ganking an enemy. Juking isn't all about being defensive... Let say you are ganking an enemy, and it tries to juke the shit out of you if you know how to juke, it's alot easier to predict where your target will show up and what they will try to get away. If you fail while practicing this don't cry some people are just to retarded to understand juking for such retards the solution is simple: "Just step inside the fog an stay there."

A Map Showing various Jukingspots and -Paths.



Blind Spots:
When you are watching on your screen some of your vision is obstructed by obsticles like trees cliffs etc. This results into not seeing the entire AoE around your hero. When you're unable to see an area behind a wall for istance that area is called a blind spot.

1. Shadowleaping Walk inside the shadow of an object like a tree of a stone cliff. It will obstruct the vision of your enemies.



2. Rampabuse Walk uside a ramp or hill and due to the difference in height your enemies their sight will get obstructed once again.



3. Phantomleaping is an area wherein you should have a vision on that area but dont due to certain reasons icefrog had made probably to obscure and hide the heroes killing roshan so that it would be fair for them not to be easily ambushed.



Ways of juking:
Juking consists of deceiving you enemies with your movement. But it will be obvious if you always use the same patern to juke your enemie it won't work in the end so you will have to be a lil more creative with your paterns. To know which choices are viable, you need to keep the difference in posistion between you and your chaser, the range of it's disables etc. Below are listed some ways of juking.

A. Round about technique


B. Stop and go technique


C. Suicide to neutrals technique


D. A woman's mind technique


E. Bounce technique


F. Forest illusion technique



G. Using the Phantom Spot
Around roshan there is a forced blind spot to obstruct vision on Roshan, this is done by Icefrog himself. But this blind spot is common referred to as the "Phantom Spot".

a. Give Roshan a Hug


b. Phantom Illusion



H. Uphill side stepping



Keep these things in mind they might save you:
1. Always check the position of enemies and allies (creeps/heroes/siege)
2. Take note of the cooldown of spells used and spells that are still to come.
3. Anticipate your opponent next move.
4. Dont escape entirely just on a safe distance and ready to help allies in times of need (dont be a coward but not too brave)
5. Always check the clock (is it day or night rune-/tree-/creepspawns)
6. what are your best options after you have thought of the situations and the highest probability that you or teammate would survive?
7. Abuse neutrals (facts in the spoiler below)


last words about juking:
It's the best to learn how to recognize jukingspots rather than having to remember all of them. It saves up a lot of time and improves your game when the map is changed a bit. Always try to minimalize the time needed to perform a juke the longer you're chased the bigger the chance you'll lose. Special thanks to DrGaliza for this section.


Click here for more Or Click here for List of juking spots




Map awareness:
Map awareness: Basicly means knowing what happens all over the map. WATCH THE GODDAMN MINIMAP!!! You shouldn't be need to be told heroes are missing you should be able to see this on your minimap. If a hero leaves sight which way will they be most likely heading where can they be in 2 seconds at what moment did they left since they have gone missing etc. What was the gametime at the moment you lost sight of them, a few seconds before 2 minutes or 4 minutes etc. most likely Runewhoring. 20 minutes did roshan respawn? a bit time before X:15/x:45 maybe a creeppull? Somewhere close to x:50 Creepstacking? You can predict the places where they will be and thus (counter)gank them. How much mana does your allie have? how much health does it have? Can it land an additonal nuke or disable? What kind of skills did my allies and especially my enemies learn? How much regen items do they have left? Does it carry a teleport scroll? Or even better how many Enemies carry a teleport scroll? How much health does each outer tower have? What kind of rune is in their bottle? Are some aura's missing? Does that mean they wen't invisible or are they gone? Knowledge is power by having knowledge about your enemies it's easier to predict their movements and strategy. Well The easiest way to force yourself to learn this. Is to start with a checklist and recheck all the things every 30s. Remeber when on ventrilo or any other program. Your got 5 pair of eyes and 5 pair of ears use this.

Lets divide it into smaller sections:

#1. Checking:
Check these each creepwave, Might be hard in the beginning but you'll get accustomed to it. Knowledge is Power!


#2. The Minimap:
Check this each creepwave as well. What does the minimap tell you? How will they move? How are they moving?


#3. Timeline:
Check the time when it's important to you, Is a creeppull needed are you stacking creeps is an enemy missing might it be doing it. So that is the current game time at such moments? What kind of consequences does it have on the map? What will i require to do, what does my enemy plan to do?


Click here for more



The Secret Art of (Counter)Warding
Due to some Optimalisation i've replaced this part into it's own guide since there's an 400 images limit on guides.




Hero building:
You should know which items to get on your hero, which skills to take on which levels to maximize your hero's potential in your team.
Awsome Alt Tab Compilation Guide By Val with the help from our community
If you also want some help about indepth strategy of your hero




Counterplaying:
You should know how to counter enemies, know their weaknesses and adjust to their play style.
Short summary of counters:

Spells:
DOTs -> Teleport Scroll/Manta
Nukers -> Health/Cloak/HoD/BKB/Khadgar
Tanks -> /ignore
Stealth -> dust/sentrie/track (zeus' Bolt)
Channel -> Stun/Ministun
Jungling -> Ganking/Warding spawns
PermaBash -> disables (sheepstick/euls etc)
Pushing -> AoE
Disables -> BKB

Special note:
Curse of the Silent -> RoB switch aura

Enemies:
Tank -> Nai'x/TB
Nukers -> Nai'x/Disablers
Disablers -> Nai'x/DPS/Burst Damage
Late game Carry's -> Nai'x/Gank'em
Battle initiators -> Track and intercept/Nai'x (yea he feels left out if I don't put him in here to :P)

Play style:
Chinese Gold farmer -> Gank'em or finish fast
French Frenzy -> Lure and kill
Defensive -> out farm them




Click here for more and Click here for even more
Special Thanks to ECKsO for this section [/color]


ShiftQueeing:
this key gets a special note since it’s so IMBA shift can cancel so many animations and thus increasing the capabilities from one of your heroes. It can cancel almost everything that has a command to it. And it will minimize the amount of time between actions, (Example, Blink-Inniate)



MicroManagement:
Most Dota players havent even once played a normal Warcraft III game and are seriously lacking micro skills. Since micro isn't as vital in DotA as it is in Regular WCIII it's still a part of DotA and since you can always improve somewhere i've added this section on how you can improve you micro skill. Meaning having the fastest result with the least amount of actions in the shortest period of time. This isn't a skill its basically an Art. The art of managing a shitload of creeps, Heroes like Chen/Meepo for instance. If you can't manage many creeps you'll miss out on a lot of effectiveness. The first thing to be doing is hot keying your pets. Hero on 1, Hero + all pets on 2 solo-pet 1 on 3 solo-pet 2 on 4 etc. This way you can switch fast between Your hero and pets. The second part is positioning hero on the back tanks on the front etc. To start learning microing i suggest start out with Warlock then switch to Meepo and when you've mastered Meepo start on Chen since he's the hardest hero to micro with.


Hot keying:
Your hero has been hotkeyed on F1 though I mostly re-hotkey him + all his summons to 1, chicken on 2, circle on 3. This way by clicking 1 once my hero gets selected and I can use his skills accordingly etcetera. By clicking 1 twice my hero is automatically placed in the middle of my screen as well, clicking 2 twice the chicken is placed in the middle of my screen along with control over it.
Lots of people also hotkey the shops, could be usefull for you if you want to stock out those wards before sacrificing yourself for a carry.


A program to customize your hotkeys





Micro management basics
The keys we use to micromanage our creeps

Shift: (Shiftqueue, adding and removing units from selections,

Waypoints:
Shift can be used to set up waypoints, and allows shiftqueue(chain abilities) your entire army. There's a maximum of 35 waypoints.

Adding and removing units from selections.
Also when you have a set of creeps selected, hold down shift select the creeps you want to add. They are immidiantly added to your select group.
When you've made

Combining hotkeyed groups: Let's say i've got Chen hotkeyed under f1, and my centaur under 1, if i press 1 hold shift and hit f1, my new subgroup of 1 has chen on it as well, this can't be done on f1 but it works on 0-9.


Tab: (toggle creeps forward)
Pressing tab allows you to go the next unit in your selection, the spotlighted unit is the one whose skill you'll activate by pressing their hotkeys.


Shift + Tab: toggle creeps backwards)
Instead of grabbing the next unit, you'll get the previous unit.

Control (subcontrol)





Double click:
Double clicking a unit, automatically select all the units of the same togheter. So doubleclicking a Centaur warchief gives you a group containing all your centaur warchiefs. If you keep shift while double clicking one it adds all these centaurs up to the already selected group.

mass select:
Mass select is the first way you'll learn on how to select group and you'll most likely know how it works but just listed for completeness. Click on a ground area and keep it pressed, move your mouse you'll create a square. By the time you release the mouse all the units you can control in that square are selected.

Crtl + c center screen around selected unit Without loosing mass selection



Actions:
- Move
-- Patrol
-- Posistion
-- Block
-- Cut off

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Follow
If you have a unit or a group of units selected, you can order it to follow another unit by right-clicking on a friendly or neutral unit to be followed. This is handy to move large forces that cannot be selected in one group. Unless the leader decides to attack, units will only follow and will not acquire units to attack on their own. If the leader chooses to attack and the followers are within range, they will break command and engage in the attack with the leader.

You can tell a unit to follow another unit by selecting a unit, then right-clicking on the unit that you want it to follow. You can then tell another unit to follow the unit that was told to follow the first unit. Still with me? You can then daisy chain a group of units, telling each unit to follow another one, until you have a long group following one unit. Then, you need only to control the main leader of the line to direct the strung out targets to their destination. This can allow you to control over 12 units (the selection limit) at one time.


Selecting Multiple Units
In addition to dragging a box around multiple units to select more than one unit, you can select multiple units of the same type by holding the Ctrl key and left-clicking on one unit. You can also select multiple units of the same type by double-clicking on a unit. All other units on the screen of the same type will be selected.

Adding Units to a Group
To add units to a group, hold down the Shift key and left-click on the desired unit while you have your group selected. The unit will then be added to your group. To drop a unit from a group, select your group, then press Shift and left-click on the unit.


Control Groups
Managing an army in the thick of battle can be a burdensome endeavor. In a particularly large skirmish, it might be hard to find your troops and select them with the mouse. To better manage your armies, you can organize them into command groups. You can have up to 12 units in a group. Once you have formed a group, you can set it to a number by pressing Ctrl plus a number key from 0 to 9. If you need to recall that group again, you can press the number corresponding to that group. Pressing the number key twice in quick succession centers your view on the group.

Sub Groups
Warcraft III gives you an unprecedented amount of control over your grouped units. When you select multiple units together, all units of the same type are grouped together in your unit card display. Each grouping of like units in a larger group is called a subgroup. Subgroups are generally ordered from left-to-right according to Heroes, spellcasters, and units with abilities, with pure melee units being last.

The mini portraits of your currently selected subgroup are always highlighted and larger than the portraits of unselected subgroups. You can select the next subgroup by pressing the Tab button. To select the previous subgroup, press Shift plus Tab. By Shifting to different subgroups within a group, you can use their special abilities or spells without ever having to deselect the group as a whole.

You can use "special" commands for individual units without having to deselect your group.

* When multiple unit types are in a group, any basic order (Move, Attack, etc) given to group will be completed by the entire group.
* You will also have a subgroup selected. This means one unit TYPE will have his special commands available in your command card (spells, inventory, etc). If you use one of these buttons only the units with that ability will use the command.
* Pressing Tab will select the next subgroup (i.e. next subgroup of lesser or equal priority)
* Pressing Shift-Tab will select the previous subgroup (i.e. previous subgroup of greater or equal priority)
* The portrait model will change to represent the selected subgroup. This way you can always tell which subgroup is active.
* Subgroups are sorted by priority, with the highest priority units being placed first, and lowest being placed last.

You can select your subgroup in the info card. When units of different types are group selected, you will see which unit type is in a subgroup by the size and highlight of the unit's portrait. To select a new subgroup, LEFT-click a new unit type (you will see all these units now have a big portrait and highlight). To select an individual unit, you must first select that unit type (to subgroup them) and then Left-click on the unit portrait.

You can cast spells on units in subgroups by casting or selecting a spell and LEFT click on a unit portrait that in the group selection. Example: Your subgroup contains a Lich and some Ghouls. Press Tab until the Lich shows up. LEFT click on Frost Armor then Left click on a Ghoul in the status window subgroup.

Units with "de-buffs" on them will display with a red miniportrait in your infocard.

Subgroup Control Key
Holding down the Ctrl key while issuing an order only gives the order to the highlighted subgroup. This feature is very handy for using concentrated firepower and moving Heroes into and out of battle without breaking your selection. This key must be enabled in the options menu: Options --> Gameplay --> Subgroup Order modifier key;!

Group Select
You can group select up to 12 units.

You can target spells on units in your selection group. This works fantastic for healing spells. Next time you have a hero with an urn charge don't bother targeting units on the screen (unless you want to), instead target the spell on the unit portrait in your group selection.

To add units to a selected group of units hold down Shift and left-click on them.

Formations
Units are automatically placed in formations when units are group selected and moved about the map. Formation behavior ensures groups arrive at destinations together (rather than single file) and has the appropriate units in the front. Melee units are typically placed up front followed by ranged units such as Archers, then Spellcasters.

Bypassing Formations
When a group of units is given the Move command, they will all move in formation, occasionally pausing along the way to let slower units move into position to maintain the integrity of the formation. If you instead want the units to move to a location at best possible speed, you may hold down the Alt button while right-clicking on their destination.




The F1-F5 Keys
The F1-F5 Function keys can be used to move the screen to the player's Heroes. When Heroes are created, they are assigned a function key (up to F3). You can see which key is used for each Hero by mousing over the Hero's portrait in the top left of the screen. Pressing the function key once selected the Hero. Pressing it again moves the screen to the Hero's location.

If an allied player drops, F4-F6 Function keys will be assigned to your ally's heroes.

Setting Waypoints
Warcraft III allows you to guide units along using waypoints. Select the units, then hold down Shift. While holding Shift down, select Attack then while continuing to hold down Shift, repeatedly select attack and click on each point on either the mini-map or main screen you want the units to travel to. When you are done, release Shift. You can also do the same thing by right-clicking on the map, but that will issue a Move order instead. As your forces are traveling to the various waypoints, they will not stop or respond to any attacks on them. Move should only be used if you don't think the units will be attacked.

* Setting waypoints is very useful when scouting by air. Select an air unit, then set a waypoint at each resource spot. The flyer will head off to each resource spot. This is very good when used with Goblin Zeppelins and Dwarven Flying Machines.

* Use Waypoints to guide your troops through difficult areas.

* There is a limit of 35 Waypoints that you can use.

* Waypoints will display graphically on the screen.

Queuing Commands
Assigning waypoints and queuing commands are effectively the same thing. To queue commands, hold down the Shift button, and issue commands to the unit, clicking on the mini-map or on the main screen. When you have issued all your commands, release the Shift key. Each unit is capable of queuing several commands at once singly or when group selected. You can queue most commands such as left-clicking, right-clicking, Stop, Attack, Hold Position, Move, Patrol, and Load/Unload. There is a limited number of commands that can be queued-- you will receive a message indicating when you have reached that Queue limit.

For example:
Command a Peasant to build then harvest Lumber. Hold down Shift and select the building you want to build and click where you want it built. Then, right-click on Lumber. When the Peasant is done building, he will start harvesting Lumber.

Queuing Enemy Targets: It can be very useful to queue up a list of targets for ranged attackers. This can allow you to move your focus elsewhere letting the ranged units fight on their own. Simply select the group of ranged units, hold down Shift and hit A for attack (or right-click) and select all the enemy units you want to attack. Now release Shift and let them go. Make sure that your ranged units don't chase an enemy if the enemy commander tries to lead your army away. You may also find this useful for Creeping.

Rotate Camera
Hold down insert to rotate view 90 degrees left and hold delete to rotate view 90 degrees right. Letting go of the key will snap the view back to center.


--------------


Controlling multiple units, although rare to DotA, does happen from time to time, so you'll want to know how to control them effectively.

If you want to select an individual unit from a group, click on its portrait in the status bar in the lower left.

You can use "Tab" to toggle between your active unit. First, you have to group all your units. Notice how your hero is the active unit, and that commanding him to use spells means he is the only one to react. If you "Tab" between units, you can use your units' other abilities without deselecting the entire group. Very useful for using the Necromicon's mana burn.

You can hotkey creeps for more convienent access to them. First, select the unit/group of units you want to assign to a key. Next, press CTRL + a number from 1-9. This group will now be hotkeyed, and can be reselected by simply pressing the number you chose.

Hotkeying a chicken is always a good idea. You can hit the hotkey, then click on the portrait to quickly center on the base for item buying.

Note that heroes do not need to be hotkeyed, since their innate hotkey is F1.

As a rule, you do not want to feed creeps such as Necro'lic's revenants and Furion's treants, since they provide gold/experience to the enemy. Keep an eye on their HP and pull them back when they get weak. Or, you can always try denying them.


[color=]Anticipation[/color]

((Delta)V / (delta) T )*1.10 = Anticipated movement

Choke points
Wards
Creep Aggro
Strategy (what is their gameplan)
What Skills am I facing
Item (regen/teleport/force/dagger/)
Mobility (how far are his allied enemies here)
Timeline (Respawn Times, Day/Night)
Range
Juke Cooldown