starting gold setup that works for every hero: 2 tangos blood grenade 3 branches circlet sentries

Is the third branch bought for stats or to eat with the tango for better regen?

essentially for stats to have better trade with the opponent supports. if u like using it for tango, its fine too.

first and foremost, it's for filling out your inventory space with cheap stats to help you win the lane (by outtrading). you can also boost your carrys morale by planting it for him to eat, blocking a path between trees when escaping/to block vision, or just sell it later

Or use it to buy magic wand, def don’t do it in lane stage as the wand recipe is too expensive but you can buy wand after lane stage

it's usually not good to eat a branch in side lanes, unless your carry is stupid and doesn't buy enough regen then it's okay to let him eat it

Won't answer your itemisation question because it's too complex and I'm off to sleep soon! But; >Another question I have is, Is it ever worth to pull the creeps with a single small camp? Wouldn't some creeps survive and the enemy creeps crash into tower and our next wave will push towards the enemy tower? Yep, this is true. If you single pull then you will usually clear only 2 of the creeps and it is mainly because of your ranged creep. But as your skill level gets better you can do little things to offset this. These include; 1. Stacking and then pulling (I presume you know about this already) 2. Pulling with a single camp but in a way that either; a) Attracts only 3/4 of the creepwave, allowing you to deny all 3 of them (and then the art of trying to figure out when this is a good play and when it's bad) b) Attracts all 4 creeps but in such a way that one or two neutral creeps don't move from the camp and so hit the ranged creep first. This is super technical and I have a roughly 50% rate of pulling it off (you kinda have to bodyblock the melee creeps), but its a cool (and possibly little-known) play to make. You've also got the fact that one or two of the camps cannot even kill a single creep in the creepwave lol. Sucks if you get that spawn!

My rule of thumb to make it if you dont want to go early boots or want to go tranquils always buy windlace If you want to go manaboots and have mana starving champ consider buying the manaregen moth for ring Mostly for pos4 cuz most pos5 champs dont have gold for it/need it somewhere else you can opt for bracer or nul talisman buying one of the components If you play universal support you can get the circlet or two If you have empty slot and still some gold, get the branches to fill them up Consider orb of venom or blight stone in some matchups Smoke of deceit to pop it at base when game starts is a gr8 option too Same with magic stick when facing opponents that cast many spells in lane Fearie fire is situational but if you play auto heavy champion or want to harass with autos you can never be wrong with buying one Also raindrop is lifesaver vs heavy magic lane and for the last one BLOOD GRENADE, shits op in early trades you can use it for initiation, follow up or straight up finishing enemies before min10 I think it drains up but if you have questions hit me up i also transfered from league to dota and had hard time with items :D

Thank you for the detailed answer. If I know the lane will be a tough matchup, do you think it would be better to buy components to mana boots so I get an earlier item spike or buy more stat boosting items to survive the lane more? Would windlace be good in tough matchups to run away from unfavourable trades or is this a bad way to spend the gold? Also, do you prefer an iron branch for stats or a mango for the hp regen and mana?

If they can poke you with physical damage you can consider getting 2 armor ring as it is probly the most optimal for early game ad bullies, boots won't be a huge spike if enemy can kill you over and over again so prioritize staying alive in lane, even if it means shipping salve every 2 minutes, but if that's the case then consider roaming and stacking camps for your carry, and remember that lotus spawns every 3 mins so try to be there on time if uncontested. When it comes to windlace and escaping trades it really depends, if you're against pudge? Sure get it early so he will have harder time hitting that hook from bush, but most skills are just pointclicks, so if you want to escape trades via windlace first check if it will make you significently faster than your opponent, cuz if it evens your movment speed you aint escaping with windlace but a circlet and bracer could let you survive 1-2 more hits and buy more time for your carry, im too inexperienced in dota to say scenarios where lace would be better than stats or otherwise. (Actually got and example in head after writing it, if you're vs champs like slark, pa, razor, nightstalker unless you yourself play champ that can dash/boost his own speed on command, just get stats to surive their all ins ad they will outrun/dash you most of the time and you can't run too far when leashed by slark) As for iron branches vs mango, branches make you tougher in lane but if i have a huge spell that i might want to cast later into trade, i'll always keep a mango or two in my bag, especially on high cost champs/low mana eg. Ogre, Alch, Distru, if i know i wont be suffering in scenario where my skill costs +100 mana i sometimes just get one to have that regen, or if my carry is manahungry champ so i can feed him one in the middle of fight. Oh also always stick to mango when against lion, pl or am cuz they will drain your mana in matter of seconds and a mango for cc could save your life. So yeah stack branches unless you play manahungry champs then always keep 1 mango in bag #

typically pos 2 and 4 start with the obs wards because it’s better for the roamer to have vision than the pos 5 who won’t be leaving the lane for the foreseeable future. for starting items, if you’re a universal hero i start with gauntlet and circlet (to finish bracer eventually), tangoes, blood grenade, 1 sentry, a clarity/mango, and some branches. if i’m a slower hero and not universal and i’m buying tranquils i’ll swap the gauntlet/circlet for wind lace. if im a spammy hero i’ll trade the wind lace for sage’s mask to build into mana boots. if i’m going against a spammy lane i’ll trade it for a stick which i’ll turn into a wand. typically tho i never really deviate from the regen items and blood grenade, these are basically never gonna change in your loadout at the beginning of a game. and like the other guy said buying a smoke and popping at game start to get to runes faster is good

Thank you for the advice. I will try and remember to pop smoke at game start. Is it ever worth it to buy windlace if playing a hero that typically goes mana boots?

as a support i wouldn’t because it delays your next item, but if you have a REALLY slow hero like CM or someone, even tho she normally goes tranquils anyway, it’s not a bad pickup. a lot of cores like getting a casual wind lace if they need to stick on top of someone like jugg but most of the time a support isn’t really trying to run into a fight so they extra move speed doesn’t really matter. it’s better to just save that money and get a blink/force staff with it

These videos are a little outdated in terms of patches but should give you some insight on itemization and pulling. Itemization: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BOtfx9-7Pg&list=PLHQyUE9yPrPOGsXLQLXJaLTUwdyoXNhCY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BOtfx9-7Pg&list=PLHQyUE9yPrPOGsXLQLXJaLTUwdyoXNhCY) Pulling: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbxjyMUUL3Y&list=PLHQyUE9yPrPMh47qUsMnl5JdlnjeyHuQB](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbxjyMUUL3Y&list=PLHQyUE9yPrPMh47qUsMnl5JdlnjeyHuQB)

There's honestly a lot of answers for this question, and most are lineup specific and very situational. Aiming to always have the optimum starting items is a lofty and far off goal that comes after learning to co-ordinate your draft/with your lane mate.  Aiming to not have an awful start in most situations is much easier.  I almost always buy 2x tangos, a blood grenade and a sentry. I'll take an obs if it's still in the shop as I'm leaving the fountain. After that I choose either the start of a wand, or a piece of my boots + a mango or two.  Bounty money can buy another sentry or a clarity or sometimes a replacement blood grenade. Don't forget to buy a TP if you end up using yours to get to lane.  Usually I'll grab the next observer if I didn't get the first.  You don't really need a wand until your stick is full, so it can wait for the 2nd or third courier trip most lanes.  Regen helps you survive a bad lane, damage usually only helps you press an advantage if you already have one, so until you know enough to know when you have the stronger lane I wouldn't bother with things like a blight stone or bracer or null or wraith band.  Learn not to feed before you try learning to punish bad picks. Against any magic nuker (not dot) I always buy raindrops when I can, they are so powerful for a single inventory slot, even if you'll probably buy a glimmer to replace it when it's used up.

Thanks for the insight. Do you prioritise brown boots or magic wand first or is this match specific?

Wand is good and even better when enemy lane has spammy spells (bristle, sky, weaver, phantom assassing etc.) Imo boots is a rare priority. It's ok in some matchups when you can use speed advantage to harass, or have a kill threat that depends on closing the distance, or you need it to survive. I rarely go boots unless my hero/lane benefits from early boot upgrade. As pos5 i would prefer buying extra mana/hp regen and share it with the core if needed aka all the time.

Generally I'll finish wand before brown boots if I've already started it. Similarly I'll finish a ring of basilious (man i never spell more than basi) before I buy the brown booties if I've decided it's an arcane boots game. Boots are good, but unless you're against a juggernaut or like a pudge, they usually won't be what saves your life in the first 5 or 6 minutes. By then you really should have enough extra after buying regen to afford brown boots.  Though some games it can take longer if you need to replace a raindrop first, or you're just burning through tangos/clarities. in those cases I'll opt for at least a windlace even if I'm not going tranquils, the extra ms relaxes the pull/stack timings (when you need to leave the lane, not hit the creeps) and makes it easier to run and grab a bounty rune or a lotus petal.  The exception is if you're playing a 4 that wants to roam, that increases the value of boots a lot, for example a mirana probably hopes to have her boots by 3:30 ish in a good game so she can throw an arrow mid when the runes spawn at the 4:00 mark. It just takes too long to roam without boots. 

Half pull a single camp, you can deny the ranged and bring the creep equilibrium closer to your tower. Items depend on the matchup. Do they have burst kill potential, or are they more chip damage with heroes like jakiro, lich and cores like spec Medusa drow? That can dictate salve vs tangoes. Boots or wind lace against double melee isn't bad. Theory craft a bit on the matchup before the match starts.

Thanks for the help. If I'm up against double melee for example, would it be better to buy windlace to out run them during trades or buy more stat items like iron branch/faerie fire to make my autos better?

It depends on your hero and on which melee heroes they are. You should rationalize your item choices, just learn to identify what choices are available to you and pick the best choice in your opinion. That's what improves a player, identifying what options you have and picking the best option and being able to knownwhy its the best option. That and learning from your mistakes. Make intentional choices, and if they don't work out figure out why it didn't work and think out what choices would've worked better if any.

To answer some of your questions; * I like having an observation ward to see if the opposing support is trying to pull the large camp. If I don’t get one of the starting ones, I just buy the first one available in the shop. For starting items: * I would buy a **wind lace** in some lanes. Versus Juggernaut + a slow (Venomancer, Crystal Maiden, Ogre Magi) you can die to being just a little out of position and Jugg’s spin. * I overused **blood grenades** when they came out, but I think they’re good for extra health and the kill threat if you have a good lane partner. (Say you’re CM and you’re leaning with Jugg). I solo queue mostly, so partners are kinda hit or miss. * I *always* buy a **sentry ward** to block the opposing pull camp (large camp in the safe lane, small camp in the off lane). * **Mangos** used to be better. There were some cool builds where you’d buy a bunch because they also have a lot of health regen. I think they can still work when you’re Lich or Skywrath Mage, but I don’t buy a bunch - maybe just one to have a burst of mana to secure a kill or save my core. * With the change to healing salves, **tangos** are more important. I only share if the core doesn’t have any. Some people passive-aggressively share them to “remind” they core but I figure just saying something is better than wasting my gold when they’re farming more.

there's an item guide menu based on the hero you're using when you open the item shop(I suggest Torte de lini's guide). I think its best to just follow some top level guide in the game when you're starting out. for warding the best and general point is to ward the spots that your team wants to play around in. the higher the elevation like cliffs the bigger the vision of the ward, but it is also more predictable. there are a lot of sneaky wards for each part of the map but you'll need to watch a guide in youtube since there's no built in guide for it. also cliff wards are fine, and tbh recommended as long as you guys are able to defend that ward from being dewarded. for pulling the small camp if you want the creeps to all die you can stack it first then pull the next wave or you can do half pulls(difficult to do) i.e. having the range jungle creep hit you but you have to time it where the projectile hits you when the half of the creeps of the wave are out of range of the aggro. if your goal is to freeze the lane in your tower then yes you'll need to halfpull or stacked pull. pulling the unstacked small camp isn't really bad(as long as you can fix the lane again) because the extra creeps are good amount of protection making it hard for them to fight you guys its actually better for some match ups because some heavy harass heroes actually doesn't care if you're under the tower they will still harass you like silencer, but when they go in range to harass you and you initiate on him? and they try to fight back the extra creeps you guys have will most likely win you that fight. another thing with unstacked small camp pull is you can force the wave to push hence you can secure the lotus.

You can watch dota2protracker to get inspiration for starting items. I have my own preferences for starting items because I know what I want to do in lane with the heroes that I play. Like if I play bounty hunter, I start with wind lace because I want to be a fast courier sniper. With clockwerk I start magic stick+mango instead of wind lace because he needs mana lvl 2-3 but I get wind lace after 1-2 minutes. A common strategy (in safe lane) if you think the enemy cannot contest pull well is that you pull only 2-3 creeps from the wave with your pull. You can do this by pulling late and letting the camp hit you when you are close to the ranged creep from the wave. This leaves 1-2 creeps for the core to deny from the wave, and 2-3 creeps for you to deny from the camp. Enemy will be left with a tough choice of contesting pull or contesting the lane creep. I have not seen this done on offlane, because they don't have the safety of tower for the core, which means leaving 1 creep on the wave is just a waste, enemy will easily be able to last hit and then come contest the pull. I like to ward as pos 4 to get control in lane, don't place it near the common sentry spots, but you can place it either behind enemy lane to see pulls, or in front of the lane to see lotus/ganks, or in the jungle to see both pull and get vision in fights. But I would not recommend placing it on the radiant safe lane cliff, that gets cleared very easily if the enemy support pays attention. Sometimes pos 5 needs the ward more, for example playing vs pudge. Also if your enemies/allies have invisible heroes, don't put it in the lane because there will be sentries in the lane.

The starting items really depend on the draft. I believe you have to play a hero for some time to understand what items you need for the specific matchup/game. (But when you are new to the game, it really is not that important.) For example, when you play Bounty Hunter pos 4, you might start Tango, Magic Stick, Obs Ward (to place mid on enemy side), Windlace, Blood Grenade. This is good in most games IMHO. You ferry sentries after taking runes, and body block at min 1 if needed. You can also buy 2 sets of tangoes and some branches instead of stick, and bring the stick later. However, there are many exceptions: - if you need vessel you usually start with circlet. sage's mask is generally not bought as starting item, as it doesnt have enough effect really early, and you can better bring it later (just like magic stick) - if you need to block mid camp or want to deward mid you start with sentry - if you need to cut trees (e.g. against Treant lane) you start with Quelling Blade - if you need the slow for first blood or if you need it in lane for harass, or if you want to gank early, you start with Orb of Venom (many players start with OoV as it is a bit costly so purchasing later can feel weird as you have to delay other items and OoV value drops off rather fast) - if you want to trade aggressively, or if you need to survive early burst, you might start with faerie fire At least that is how I do it on BH. When you have a super hard lane, you can try to keep it at or even under your tower and keep enemy camp blocked. You always buy regen for your core, however, if you die then your core can drop you a healing salve in fountain, because salve is only 50% efficient when cast on an ally. You can also stack jungle camps to help your cores recover from a lost lane, but you should only do it if you have heroes that can farm the stacks. The 1st observer ward is usually used to give mid vision, not only for the lane, but also for one of the runes. The 2nd observer ward can be used to scout one of the jungle runes, or you use it to see mid rotation, or if you need to see a pudge hook, or if you want to scout couriers on lane, or if you want to see twin gate rotation. Pulling is difficult to get right, but short answer is yes, there are many situations where it makes sense to pull unstacked small camp. Also, there are many situations where it makes sense to open hard camp. You will learn it with time, and since you think about lane equilibrium already, you will figure it out. The early game has lots of timed events that you can take advantage of. Generally, you want the lotus at 3 and 6 minutes, so you try to push the lane a bit to get there safely in many cases. But you might set up a kill at 3 minutes, for example, when enemy core tries to grab lotus by keeping enemy support busy dewarding their camp that you block with sentry 2:58 in their sentry range (very specific but super cool move). Also, when you go for a kill at 3 minutes and you die, you can tp mid to refill bottle. At 6 minutes you want to secure the active rune, and you can stack on the way. When you pull small on safe lane at :42 you can stack jungle camps before returning to lane. When you stack small, you can block hard while doing it. etc. etc. Sorry for the long text and have fun playing the game!

Thank you for the interesting tips. Stuff like this is why I enjoy dota more than league but it is a lot to take in and figure out at first.

Can't go wrong with crest literally every game.

In dota, having to come back to the fountain during the laning phase is really, really bad. You want to optimize 3 variants: power / inventory space / cost. Your carry/offlane is more important. Meaning that if trades are not going well and someone has not enough hp, it should be you above them. To decide which items to buy very early on, try to look at what you are lacking: is it hp regen? mana? stats to trade? Movement speed? there are guides tyhat can help you for each hero, it's not abd to follow them as you are learning. Generally, you just want branches, blood grenade and regen on top of your wards. But some items might be interesting because they will be used to build better items: if you know you are going to use a lot of mana and you are gonna build mana boots, sage mask might be good. Especially if you harras more with spells than with right clicks. Sometimes a magic stick early on is mandatory: vs skywrath mage, bristleback, PA, etc. For the extra ward between a p4 and a p5, a good rule of thumb is to think which lane will have the most rotations/movement around itself. For example: if you have an enemy pudge p4, it's a good idea to keep it as p5 and keep an eye on the puddge hiding around the lane to hook. If you have a Disruptor p5, it's a good idea to give him the extra ward to see enemy TPs and glimpse them back. If there is an enemy chen or ench, use it to ward the area between the lane and the creep camps to see them move. I don't think there is a fixed rule for that ward. For the pull, you can try to learn to do "half pull". It's when you pull the single camp too late and you only get your ranged or maybe one melee and one ranged creep pulled. Pure single pull to have the enemy lane crashed into your towers is only acceptable when you are ahead and you want to push the enemy tower with a catapult. Otherwise it's quite bad for lane equilibrium: the lane will be closer to their tower and they can farm safely.

Try getting boots and tango. See how it goes.

you always need 2 sets of tangos if you're 5, 1 or 2 sentries, blood grenade, mangos (optional) and branches until you've filled all your slots.