Best Early Game Items in Dota 2

We often see Dota 2 players stomping games or failing completely in the first 10 minutes. The truth is that your laning phase has a huge impact on the rest of the game because it conditions your options.

If you are ahead in gold and the matchup is even, you’ll be able to farm if you want to farm, fight if you want to fight, or at least take objectives uncontested by your opponent.

To give yourself a better chance to have a successful laning phase, you need to understand what early game items are available and then invest your gold intelligently. If you make poor decisions, your development will be slow and you’ll end up losing in most cases.

Things to Consider

When deciding what items to buy with your gold in the first 10 minutes, these are the principles that you should consider:

Goal-Oriented Acquisition

Don’t buy whatever item crosses your mind. Buy what enables you to reach your goals. If your hero lacks damage and you want to farm faster, buy damage items. If it lacks regeneration and you don’t want to waste minutes going back to base, buy regen items. If durability is a major issue against the enemy team, become more durable.

Based on what your objectives are, some items will enable you to reach them more than others. It’s a mistake to buy lots of armor, HP, or magic resistance at a stage of the game when the only thing you care about is farming. At that stage, what you need is damage, attack speed, and whatever else will maximize your ability to farm as many neutral camps as possible.

Buying Complementary Items

This principle works not only in relation to your hero’s natural toolkit but also in relation to your team. Ask yourself: what does my hero lack and would greatly benefit from? Movement speed? Damage? An escape mechanism? Durability? Attack speed? Etc.

Another question to ask is this: what does my team lack and would greatly benefit from? Initiation? Damage? Resistance auras? Etc.

The goal is to make yourself and your team as strong as possible. Gold is a resource that you can use to buy tools that will assist you in winning the game. A good Anti-Mage player would not waste gold on a Blink Dagger because he already has the ability to blink built into his natural toolkit. This rule does have some exceptions.

Doubling Down

If your hero has an edge in something, consider making that edge even sharper. For example, Timbersaw gains stacks of armor every time he gets hit. But until he gains enough stacks, he tends to be quite vulnerable, To solve this problem, you could buy some additional armor.

If your hero has a lot of natural damage or powerful critical strikes, consider buying items that further enhance your damage output. On a Phantom Assassin, for instance, you would benefit a lot from a Desolator.

Avoid Greed

One thing that beginners don’t understand is the need to play a bit safe. You can’t play Kunkka with two Daedalus and one Divine Rapier. You need to spend some of your gold to buy a Black King Bar or some other defensive item.

If you don’t guarantee yourself that you’ll be able to deal damage, it doesn’t matter how much damage you can deal because your damage is only your potential damage. If your potential damage output is 2000/s but you don’t get to attack even once because you get chain-stunned, slowed, disarmed, and so on, it’s completely irrelevant.

Your team won’t win because of what you can do. They will win because of what you will do. Professional Dota 2 players understand this principle very well. That’s why you often see them buying a Black King Bar before the 20-minute mark.

At that point, most amateurs would rather buy themselves another fancy item that will increase their damage numbers even more. But what’s the benefit of that if you are defenseless against a dozen different spells that can wreck you?

Avoid Hoarding Gold

Gold should not be accumulated and kept without making any use of it. In the mid and late game, you should have your buyback available as often as possible. But in the early game, your main priority is to make good use of your gold to accelerate your progress.

Keep in mind that some Dota 2 items are composed of just several components that are very expensive. Buying such items too early will put you in a situation where you’ll need to gather gold for 8 – 10 minutes before you get to use it. Such an approach is risky because your opponents might use their gold and gain major advantages before you complete your item.

If they farm at a speed of 200 dps for 10 minutes and you farm at a speed of just 100 dps, in those 10 minutes you will fall behind significantly.

Don’t Be Short-sighted

Some players just want to have a way of reaching a short-term goal with ease but don’t consider the evolution of the game. If an item is powerful for 5-10 minutes and then it becomes a poor investment, you don’t want to invest too much in it.

The perfect example here is people who buy Dagon. This is a fun item to buy on a hero like Necrophos. But it’s not a great choice if the game goes on for long enough. After the 30-minute mark, you’d much rather have a Shiva’s Guard or something that can win you the game in a more reliable way.

Amazing Early Game Items

When playing Dota 2, here are some of the best items that you can buy in the first 10 minutes.

Consumables

Consumables include everything from Tango to Healing Salve for HP, and from Clarity to Enchanted Mango for mana. Ultimately, it’s up to you in what quantity you buy such items. Ideally, you will want to buy as few of them as possible because they drain your gold. But on the other hand, missing creeps because of low HP is not good either.

Don’t be greedy when it comes to staying healthy and capable to lane against your opponents. Invest as much as you need to keep your hero in fighting shape.

Null Talisman

Null Talisman is one of the best starting items for intelligence-based heroes and its mana regen bonus is incredible: 1 per second before the 25-minute mark and 2 per second after that. Having two of these in the early game will greatly improve your mana pool, mana regen, and damage if you’re using an intelligence hero.

You will also gain 2 / 4 strength, 2 / 4 agility, and 3% / 6% maximum mana when using this item. Its cost is 505 gold.

Bracer

Bracer is a great choice for strength-based heroes. But you can buy it on any type of hero because it offers amazing benefits, including 0.75 HP regen, 5 strength, 2 agility, 2 intelligence, and 3 damage.

The cost of the item is 505 gold.

Wraith Band

Wraith Band is the item of choice for many agility-based heroes because it offers 2 strength, 5 agility, 2 intelligence, 5 attack speed, and 1.75 armor. However, if you prioritize other things, consider buying a Null Talisman or a Bracer instead. The cost will be the same.

Falcon Blade

Falcon Blade is a cheap item that offers excellent benefits for its cost (1125 gold). You will gain 200 HP, 1.8 mana regen, and 14 damage. If you combine it with a Null Talisman, you will already have 2.8 mana regen on top of your natural mana regen.

Falcon Blade is the perfect item for a Slark or a Storm Spirit. Depending on how the game goes, you should or shouldn’t make this detour. Some of your other items will be delayed, but at least you’ll have a much more comfortable early game.

Bottle

This item will keep you regenerated and will also incentivize you to play the game in a way that’s closer to that of pro players. Beginners tend to forget about power runes completely, not realizing that a good rune at the right time can be a game-changer.

Bottle provides lots of HP and mana regen and can also store a rune. When you find such a rune, you gain two or three charges depending on the type of rune that you discovered.

For the price of 675 gold, you gain 220 / 330 HP and 120 / 180 mana every time you find a rune. You can use this item for the entire duration of the game and also abuse it a little bit to heal yourself much faster when sitting in the fountain.

Most mid heroes will buy themselves a Bottle in the first 4 minutes of the game. Skipping this item is possible but only if you have enough HP and mana regen, either naturally or from other items.

One method that you can use to avoid buying a Bottle is to buy Mangos. These can be stacked and will give you +0.4 HP regen, as well as 100 mana when consumed. Their cost is 65 gold, so they’re a lot cheaper than a Bottle.

Infused Raindrops

Infused Raindrops is an amazing Dota 2 item because it greatly improves your ability to block magic damage. The amount of damage blocked each time is between 75 (minimum) and 120 (maximum). You can block six instances of damage before the item is destroyed. Meanwhile, you gain 0.8 mana regen from this item for the cost of just 225 gold.

Support heroes and any other hero that needs a lot of mana as well as protection from magic damage should consider buying this item. It is surprisingly useful.

Magic Wand

Magic Wand is one of the best items not just for the early game but for the mid game as well. It only costs 450 gold and will give you +3 to all attributes, as well as the ability to store up to 20 charges of regeneration. When activated, you will gain 15 HP and mana per charge. That’s a total of 300 HP and 300 mana if the item is fully charged, which is a lot.

Orb of Corrosion

Orb of Corrosion works well for melee heroes that want to improve their damage output and ability to hit their opponents. It slows by 13% for 3s and it also applies a debuff that causes 15 damage over 3s. Other debuffs include a 20% reduction in HP regen, lifesteal etc.

On its own, this item gives you 150 HP, 25 attack speed, and 3 armor for just 875 gold.

Urn of Shadows

Urn of Shadows is the perfect support item because it provides excellent regen to allies and a source of damage against enemies. Allies will receive 240 HP over 8s, while enemies will receive around 200 damage over 8s.

This item gains charges every time an enemy dies in a 1400 radius. If it has 0 charges, it will gain 2 when an enemy dies and 1 when you die.

The cost of Urn of Shadows is 880 gold but you will gain +2 to all attributes, 1.4 mana regen, and 2 armor just because it sits in your inventory. So if you’re trying to improve your stats, mana regen, armor, and your ability to keep your allies healthy, this is a great buy.

Soul Ring

Soul Ring makes perfect sense for heroes that need mana and have excellent HP regen. Examples include Broodmother, Dragon Knight, and Bristleback. The item costs just 805 gold and will temporarily consume 170 HP to give its owner 170 mana. The mana gained lasts for 10s and the item can be used every 25s.

Power Treads

This pair of boots costs 1400 gold and gives you +10 to any attribute (you can choose it and then modify it if you want to). It also offers 45 movement speed to ranged heroes and 55 movement speed to melee heroes, as well as 25 attack speed. These benefits make it an excellent choice for most Dota 2 heroes in the first 10 minutes.

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