Map awareness is one of the most crucial aspects of playing Dota 2, and it is easier than you’d normally expect.
It involves keeping track of enemy hero movements, predicting ganks, and maintaining vision on the map.
Here are some tips to help you improve your map awareness so you can become a more active and effective player.
Control Vision
Place wards in strategic locations to gain vision of the enemy’s movements and prevent being caught off guard.
Warding the high ground in your lane, the river, and key jungle locations can help you stay informed about the enemy’s location.
Types of Wards
In DOTA2, there are two types of wards: Observer Wards and Sentry Wards. Observer Wards provide vision of the surrounding area, while Sentry Wards are used to detect invisible units, such as enemy wards or invisible heroes.
Wards are purchasable at the Base Shop, under Consumables.
Wards stack with themselves in a single inventory slot. There is no stack limit. If allies give wards to a player, the wards stack regardless of who purchased them.
- Observer Ward: It provides 1600 radius ground vision at its location.
- Sentry Ward: This item provides True Sight within its radius by an aura that affects enemies and is not obstructed by anything. The debuff lasts for 0.5 seconds and does not affect enemies with True Sight Immunity.
Warding Spots
To use wards effectively, it’s important to place them in strategic locations. The most common warding spots include:
- High ground in your lane: Warding the high ground in your lane provides vision of incoming ganks and helps prevent surprise attacks from the enemy.
- River: Warding the river provides vision of the surrounding area and can help detect enemy movements towards Roshan or your base.
- Key jungle locations: Warding key jungle locations, such as the entrances to the enemy jungle, can help you track the enemy’s movements and anticipate ganks.
Timing
Timing is crucial when it comes to warding. This is something that you will start to understand better once you have enough experience with the game.
For instance, if the enemy players are not powerful enough to handle Roshan yet, you have one less place to ward for now.
Placing wards too early or too late can be ineffective and even counterproductive.
Deward
Dewarding is the act of removing enemy wards from the map. It’s important to deward, as it can help you regain control of the map and prevent the enemy from gaining an advantage.
To deward, you can use Sentry Wards to detect the enemy wards and destroy them.
In order to deward effectively, you will also have to learn the most common places to ward the map.
This comes with experience playing the game. It’s more of a habit than a skill, really. After all, once you learn how to ward, you will have an idea of where your enemy is placing their wards.
It doesn’t take long to learn how to effectively use wards and recognize when they are a waste.
After a few games trying it out, you will quickly start to understand when the enemy has vision of the map and how to stop it.
Pay Attention to the Minimap
The minimap in Dota 2 is a real-time, top-down representation of the game map, showing buildings, heroes, creeps, couriers, and wards.
In the minimap, you will be able to see what you have vision for, which includes all that you, allies, and wards have line of sight to.
After learning where to place wards, you have to practice your minimap awareness to take advantage of them.
By keeping an eye on the minimap, you can stay updated on the game’s progress and plan your strategy accordingly.
For instance, if you see an enemy hero moving towards one of your lanes, you can alert your teammates and prepare to defend that lane or retreat to prevent being ganked out of position.
In fact, spotting an enemy trying to gank your or your allies might actually allow you and your allies to gank him when they leave their tower.
Communiation
It might seem obvious, but communication is key in Dota 2. This should be expected since this is a 5v5 team game, which implies the need for coordination.
By placing wards in strategic locations, timing them correctly, and talking to your team, you can not only gain vision of the enemy’s movements, but also prevent surprise attacks.
It Takes Time
Improving your map awareness in Dota 2 is a gradual process that requires both practice and patience. A good hero also helps if they can take special advantage of priviledged vision.
Luckily, it doesn’t take long to start seeing the results. Just a day practicing it will make you better at this skill.
One effective way to start is by incorporating one or two of the tips mentioned in this article at a time until they become second nature.
Additionally, communicating with your team about warding and map awareness is crucial to ensure that everyone is on the same page.
Don’t be afraid to speak up and suggest warding spots or ask your team to provide vision in certain areas.
Keep at it, stay persistent, and before you know it, you’ll start to see improvement in your gameplay.
