I'll be talking about setting options, hotkeys, and item bindings to make playing dota the best experience possible. I'll assume a pretty low level of prior experience, so feel free to skim for the parts you find interesting if you have experience.



Installation
Install wc3 and the expansion. Then update it by logging into battlenet. Obey the installation wizard and update instructions mindlessly.

Set Options
These options are accessed by going to Options>Gameplay from the main screen.

Always show health bars
This is a very helpful option. It lets you last hit with more ease and be generally more aware of what's going on in the game. You can turn off health bars temporarily by pressing alt. This option is very important

Custom keyboard shortcuts
Turning this on allows you to use customkeys.txt to make changes to your hotkeys. We will be using this feature, so you need to have it on.

Automatically save replays
This one is optional. I like to turn it on because it lets me review games where I was confused about what went wrong or how we managed to come back or something. It's also nice if something buggy seems to happen because you'll have a version stored even if you play a game afterward (and lastreplay.w3g gets overwritten).

Get DotA
Go to getdota.com and download the most recent version. Put it in your download maps folder (C:/Program Files/Warcraft III/Maps/Download/ by default).



The Grid
IMO, a grid is the simplest mapping of hotkeys available. It is intuitive and comfortable for your hand. The idea is that you map the grid you see on your screen to a grid of keys on your keyboard. If you don't have a preference, I suggest trying the grid from q to v (qwer; asdf; zxcv).

Generating a customkeys.txt file
There are lots of ways to do this. You can do it by hand or use one of many programs out there to make your life easier. My personal favorite is Dr. Jones' Customkey generator. I've found that it updates very quickly after a new version, has the most features in it (shops etc) and is very easy to use.

• In Dr. Jones' Generator, you simply type in what you'd like shortcuts to be on the grid and hit generate and it'll make the customkeys.txt file you want. Note that more complex heroes (especially invoker) might need a bit more attention after the main grid. Also note that shops should probably be hotkeyed to the same grid. Item bindings are completely independent.
• Now you need to replace your old customkeys.txt file with your shiny new one. It's in your wc3 installation folder ("C:/Program Files/Warcraft III/" by default).

Why?
Why don't we just change this in customkeys.txt? Because Blizzard took a nice ride on the failboat here. Item keys can't be changed from numpad 78; 45; 12 internally. That means we need to use an external script to allow other hotkeys.

Item Binding Scripts
I've been unsatisfied with programs that solved this issue (to be fair, I have not tried them all). In general, they were far more complex than I needed. So I made my own script in Autohotkey.

My script is available at my forum in the tools section. Currently available:

• All 6 items mapped to the grid from t to n.
• Bottom 2 item slots mapped to tab and ` (right above tab).
• A specialized script that maps items onto the grid from t to n and has an invoker mode to bring all the spells close to the grid (see my site for details).
• Please ask if you would like some other item binding via comment or PM.
  • I'll probably make it for you.

In-Game Set-Up
You should develop a habit of making yourself some groups at the beginning of every match. At the very least hotkey your Circle of Power. To set a group, press Ctrl+[0-9]. You then select the group by pressing [0-9]. Here's what I use:

0 - Courier
9 - Circle of Power
8 - Ancient
7 - Cache
6 - Sena
5 - Weapons

1 - Hero
2 - Hero + Summons
3 - Summons

4 - Usually not used. Sometimes a shared Zeus or Chen for global or something.

Useful Programs

DotA Replay Manager
This program lets you analyze replays with ease. It's great for quickly looking at how people built their heroes (items and skills), who did well in lanes, when a game started to turn, etc. It can also generate BBcode if you want to toss up a replay in a forum and have it look good.

Note: I've used this program for a long time. Twice, it has stopped being able to run. This was solved by deleting the config.cfg file. In the worst case, just delete the program and re-download it. This will fix everything since the program is fully contained in its folder.

ReplaySeeker
Another great example of Blizzard-failure. You cannot rewind replays. This means you have to sit there like an idiot fast-forwarding at 8x to get to a particular place in a replay to watch it again. This simple program just automates the fast-forwarding so that you can do other things in the meanwhile.


Learning to Play Heroes

Val's Guides to Every Hero
If you need a rough outline of what to skill and buy for a hero, this is a good resource. It's a plaintext document that you can download to your computer and have open. Just alt+tab to it when you need the resource.

Hero Guides
Browse around the guide section here. The rank system is fairly good. Another good sign is how good it looks. This is not strictly true, but people who take the time to make their guides look nice generally take the time to understand and explain heroes well.

Watch Replays
This means 2 things. The first is watching your own replays. It's boring work, but you'll see what mistakes you're making and what's causing you to die/fail ganks/lose clashes etc. You'll also notice what you're doing right when things turn out well.

Watching competitive replays is also helpful once you have some experience under your belt. Sadly, nobody has a really good way to search for these by hero in English. The best solution I've come up with is to put the following into google:

site:gosugamers.net replays silencer

Obviously, replace silencer with the specific hero you're looking for.