Learn DOTA 2: Roshan Control

Dota 2 is a complex game with thousands of possible outcomes depending on how each team plays. One of its most significant factors is killing Roshan. This gives your team the Aegis of the Immortal, which gives you an unprecedented advantage over the enemy.

This article is a part of our Learn DOTA series that tackles how to improve your gameplay by understanding macro-skills, in-game knowledge, and mechanics. This one is about our favorite neutral creep, Roshan, and his importance in closing out games.

Roshan— an important objective to secure

Objectives in DOTA are milestones that are often important to winning any game. This includes taking towers, winning a teamfight, and the subject of this article, securing Roshan by controlling his pit.

Roshan is a special boss-type neutral creep that is important due to two main reasons: he gives the slaying team a net worth boost, and more importantly, drops the Aegis of the Immortal, which allows its carrier to resurrect promptly when they die. This is also the reason why Roshan’s pit is the most contested area in the game apart from the high ground.

Some might underestimate the importance of having two lives in DOTA, but for some games (especially close ones in high-skilled brackets) the resources it takes to claim the first life is often enough to tilt the game in the enemy’s favor significantly. For example, a Storm Spirit having two lives essentially doubles Storm’s usable mana pool. The Aegis safeguard also gives him free reign to play recklessly in his first life.

It doesn’t come as a surprise that some games are decided by Aegis. Some pros GG out once the enemy secures an Aegis because they understand how much of a difference it makes.

How to Secure Roshan

It’s established that Roshan and the Aegis are intermediate objectives that can quickly snowball to a victory; so it’s not surprising that most teams will try to secure Roshan’s pit and the area around it.

Securing Roshan can be done in many ways. The most common method is winning a teamfight and using the enemies’ respawn timer as a window to safely get Roshan. Some plays involve outmaneuvering the enemy with smokes and vision to sneak a Roshan. But this is DOTA, and anything can work, such as sneaking a Roshan even before the game starts.

Some team compositions and heroes will also have an easier time claiming the Aegis. The most famous is Ursa with his stacking Fury Swipes. However, there are also new ways to abuse some mechanics to easily kill the Roshan, such as Miracle’s Arc Warden insta-kill trap and this Undying Aghs’ Shard play. 

Ways to help your team secure Roshan and the Aegis:

• Superior vision and map control
• Having heroes that kill Roshan fast
• Winning a teamfight
• Sneaking into Roshan’s pit

Radiant Advantage

In high-level DOTA (and even lower-ranked ones), Roshan control is slightly easier to control from the Radiant side. This is because there are more teleport options that are closer to the pit for Radiant (3 towers) versus Dire (1 tower, 1 outpost). It’s also much closer to Radiant’s neutral triangle that most cores farm throughout the game.

Furthermore, there is also the concept of the dead lane. What this concept means is that both teams’ safe lanes will have the tendency to become the ‘dead’ lane after the laning phase ends. The dead lane is so called because once you lose your Tier 1 safe lane tower (which usually happens after the laning phase), the enemy team will have a much easier time to invade that lane due to the larger distance between the safe lane towers.

In the macro scheme of things, this means that the Radiant team will often rotate and contest the enemy safe lane and its surrounding jungle camps (Roshan’s pit being one of them). This usually happens during the midgame— the phase of the game where both teams can believably threaten a Roshan kill.

Conclusion

Roshan and the Aegis are important objectives that any player should strive to claim whenever possible. Even heroes that are not necessarily good Aegis carriers, could benefit from the mental advantage of having the extra life and the few seconds of resurrection. To do so, you need to gain good map control around Roshan. This will give you the upper hand in engaging in skirmishes around the pit.