Arms and Armor: DotA 2's items and inventory

Alright, so you know what you need to do to win a game of DotA 2. Over the next few entries, we're going to get into what actually doing all that requires. Two very close concepts you need to understand are those of gold and the items you buy with it. 

Acquiring gold can wait until the next post -- suffice to say that there is a specific way to get it, and some heroes do this faster and more efficiently than others. We're focusing on why you want that gold: Items! Items are important to know about and keep up with no matter what hero you're playing, and there's a quite a lot of them. You may want to start taking notes.

There will be a test on Wednesday.

Items can be bought from the main shop at the center of your base, the side shops located near the corners of the map on the outer lanes, or from the "secret shops" hidden in the two jungles. The home shop and secret shop have entirely different inventories -- home generally has cheaper items and special "recipes" that you need to construct certain high-level items, while the secret shop sells more expensive and powerful wares. The side shops, on the other hand, sell a mix of both of the other shops' wares, allowing players to acquire certain items without having to leave the lane and make the perilous trek to the secret shop or needlessly occupy the team's courier.

One slightly counterintuitive concept is that of "building" items. The most powerful items in the game can only be put together out of multiple other items. The items needed to construct a greater item can be seen in the menu used to purchase things from the shop. Once all items needed are in your hero's inventory (or stashed at base, or both when the two are in proximity), they immediately fuse together to create the new item.

All items grant statistical bonuses -- increased health, faster attack speed, etc. -- but the most powerful and most expensive items grant valuable passive or active effects. One such item, the "Heart of Tarrasque," gives its owner a ridiculous health regeneration effect on top of the bonuses to strength and health. Inversely, the Scythe of Vyse has no passive effect beyond its stats, but it has an activated ability that curses its target with the form of a harmless critter for a few seconds. While it sounds silly on its face, this "hex" is one of the most powerful disabling effects in the game.

These are the basics of items in DotA 2 and why you definitely want to have them. Next week, we'll delve into how you get them.