General Information

A hero can attack, use skills, and revive after death. At the beginning of each game, a player is allowed to select or random one hero to use in the game from the taverns on either corner of the map. The taverns and heroes that can be selected depend on the game mode chosen by the host. As the game progresses, heroes gain experience from the death of enemy units, and can level up when certain threshold experience values are reached. Because additional levels grant extra attributes and skills, hero leveling is one of the core aspects to any game

Skills

Each hero has 4 learnable skills: 3 basic skills and 1 ultimate. With the exception of the Invoker, there are 4 levels for each basic skill, 3 levels of ultimate, and 10 levels of Attribute bonuses, which grant +2 to each stat, for a total of 25 skill levels. Each hero has a unique skill set, with an enormous diversity of effects, from mobility to nukes to auras to disables, the endless combinations of which make DotA the rich strategic game that it is today.

Death

When a hero dies to any unit on the enemy team, all enemy heroes in the area gain experience, while the killer receives bonus gold and adds to his/her streak. If the Scourge or Sentinel kill a hero, the bonus gold is divided between all the heroes on that team. If the hero dies to a neutral creep or is denied by a friendly hero, no experience or bonus gold is given to the enemy team. A dead hero will revive after a period of time equal to his level multiplied by 4 seconds. Gold is also lost upon death, equal to his level multiplied by 30 gold.