6. Dota 2

Massive monsters abound

Dota 2, from Valve Corporation, is a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena that has garnered quite a bit of attention from the tournament gaming community. A sequel to the popular original game DotA, or Defense of the Ancients, Dota 2 is a unique experience from the 2003 grandfather game.

In Dota 2, you will team up with five other players to defeat the opposing team by destroying their “Ancient,” a large structure within each team’s base. Each team, called either Radiant or Dire, holds a base on opposite sides of the map. You must defend your base and especially your Ancient from the other team, all the while, attacking the other team’s base with the help of “Creeps,” which are AI minions who will do some of the dirty work for you by surrounding and attacking enemies.

Move through the jungles to farm for supplies

Each team is made up of player-chosen heroes and there are 111 to choose from. Each hero has their own class, strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities. Therefore it is of upmost importance that you and your team decide on your characters very strategically.

There are five different roles to players to choose from: one for each member of the team. You do not have to have one of each role, but this is a wise game plan.

Role one, also known as Carry or Hard Carry has one main mission: collect more gold than any other player of their team. As a Carry, you will want to increase your strength quickly from the very beginning of the game. Oftentimes teammates will allow the Hard Carry to make the killing blow in order to earn gold. In order to carry the whole team in later stages of the game, you must farm quickly. This enables you to buy powerful weapons and armor which will help you down the line.

Become well acquainted with the positions and their roles for the best strategy

The Midlaner role, or position two, will start their game in the middle lane, facing off against the opposite team’s Midlaner. The Mid is a very dangerous and tactical role to play – you must choose a hero who has a high ability in getting in a last hit and can also harass enemy heroes effectively. Being in the middle lane is a great place to gain experience points and gold quickly and efficiently, so while there are dangers afoot, a skilled Mid can earn quite a bit right off the bat.

The Offlaner is position three, as they start on one of the side lanes, further from the safety of their base. Because of this, it is of the highest importance that the Offlane hero has high strength and armor, as well as the ability to get out of danger quickly. Offlaners must quickly gain experiences and climb levels before the other team because many times Offlaners must support their teammates in rune control and ganging up on enemy heroes, known as ganking.  Experience is gained when the Offlaner is in the proximity of a dying creep.

Some of the available Farming Support heroes

Farming Support is oftentimes called position four. These heroes must seek out resources as they will benefit the most from them, allowing them to fill in the gaps for the other team members, when needed. In order to get these important resources, Farming Support heroes will start off fighting against creeps or luring them into the fire of their own creeps. After the Farming Support has gained enough levels, they can then transition into regular support jobs, such as placing protective wards and pushing enemies into the line of fire.

Hard Supports, or position five, has a very similar role to that of the Farming Support, but what sets these positions apart is that the Hard Support often sacrifices their own health and gold in order for their team to gain resources more safely, while stopping the enemy team from gaining resources. A Hard Support will want to limit the enemies’ ability to gain experience, resources, and gold by cornering them or leading them into danger.

Team fights can be deadly, but they can also reap serious rewards

Each role plays an important part of the game and it is imperative that they are all there during team fights in order to support one another to reach their goals.

Some of the heroes that you can choose from include Crystal Maiden, named Rylai, who uses her frost and ice powers to stop her foes from attacking or getting experience and resources. She also has the ability to regenerate mana for herself and for her allies. Another hero that you can choose is named Dazzle, who is a Shadow Priest. His abilities include Poison Touch, which will poison his enemies and cause damage over the course of time. He can also heal himself and his enemies using a cool-down ability called Shadow Wave.

At the time of this writing, Dota 2 boasts 12,968,123 unique players in the last month and has a large eSports following. Dota 2 is one of the most well-loved multi-online battle arena games and it is free to play for all PC gamers.