The key to winning in Dota 2 is to understand its basic mechanics and subtleties, how it all works, and how you can use it to your advantage. But there are many concepts in the game that do not lie on the surface, and many players are unaware of them, even avid players. One of these features is the concept of the economy in Dota 2 and how it works. On the one hand, the lack of knowledge of this component does not prevent players from winning. But, awareness of the game economy will broaden the horizons, as well as make it clear some of the game nuances that may be needed.

Gold and its types

Gold is the main currency in Dota 2, which is used to buy consumables, items, artifacts, and tavern ransoms. You can get it in different ways: passively, by killing creeps on the line or in the forest, defeating enemy heroes, destroying enemy buildings, etc. You can only lose gold when you die or in a limited number of situations, such as the Bounty Hunter ability, when he steals a share of gold from an opponent.

However, not all players know that there are two types of gold in Dota 2: reliable and unreliable. You can find out how much gold you have by hovering over the icon with the amount of your gold in the hero's game interface. You can also find other indicators from there, such as death losses, redemption value, and surplus.

Reliable gold is primarily given passively to all players over time. All players receive 1 reliable gold every 0.67 seconds starting from 00:00 of the game time. That is, in total, you can get 90 reliable gold per minute in one minute, and the increase in this gold increases over time, for example, from 30:00 this figure is 99.8 gold per minute. Other sources of reliable gold are the one given by the Philosopher's Stone item (+75 gold per minute) and the Prospecting Aura of the Kobold (20/25/30/40 gold per minute).

Another important way to get reliable gold is to pick up runes of fortune. At the beginning of the game, when the time shows 00:00, four runes of abundance appear, which give a fixed amount of gold, namely 40. Subsequent runes selected will give 36 + 0 gold for every 5 minutes of elapsed game time, i.e., at 30 minutes, one rune will give 90 units of gold. 

All other methods (killing creeps, heroes, destroying towers, etc.) of obtaining gold give an unreliable type of currency. The main difference between the two is that a hero loses unreliable gold when he dies, and when buying items or redeeming, unreliable gold is first deducted from the account, and then reliable gold. That is why, if a player realizes that he or she is going to die soon, it is better to buy items before dying to lose less unreliable gold.

Reward for killing creeps

After the game starts at 00:00 and every 30 seconds after that, creeps leave the base with fixed characteristics and a range of gold received. Every 7 minutes and 30 seconds (or every 15 waves of creeps), the characteristics of creeps and the reward for killing them increase.

At the beginning of the game, the reward for a regular swordsman creep ranges from 34-39 gold, and for a mage from 43-52, making them a more valuable type of unit that should not be taken by an enemy hero. More gold can be obtained from the catapult, which has a reward range of 59-72 gold, and after 40 minutes of play, two catapults will appear on the line. That is, it turns out that every 7.5 minutes the reward for a creep increases by one gold, except for neutrals and catapults, the reward for which is always fixed. Forest creeps generally have a lower reward per unit or stack than a pack of creeps on the line. You can get 200 gold for killing the Tormentor. Roshan gives 135 gold to each hero in the team, and the one who delivered the lethal blow gets an additional 200-290 gold.

Rewards for the construction of buildings

A player also receives a fixed amount of gold for destroying buildings in Dota 2. The first tower is worth 90 gold, the second — 110, the third — 125, and the fourth — 145. If a player finishes their own tower, the reward for it will be divided equally between the teams, i.e., they will receive 45 gold for the first tower. And the one who directly finished the tower will receive an additional reward.

In addition to the towers, there are other buildings on the enemy base, such as the barracks of swordsmen and mages, which give 155 and 90 gold, respectively. The one who finishes the building receives a double reward, but additional buildings give 68 gold to the hero who actually destroyed them.

Rewards for killing heroes

The distribution of rewards for killing enemy heroes varies depending on some components. If a hero was killed by an enemy tower or creeps, but did not receive damage from an enemy hero in the last 20 seconds, the gold for killing will be distributed among all heroes of the opposing team. And if we consider the same scenario, but provided that the hero was damaged by the enemy hero, then the one who dealt the deceased damage in the last 20 seconds will receive both the kill and the reward. And if there were several heroes, the gold will be divided among all the heroes who participated in the killing. 

Now let's take a look at how the reward for a hero is formed. The base amount of gold for killing a hero is always 125 gold. For the first blood, an additional 135 gold is given. The general formula for calculating the reward for killing a hero is as follows:

• Base gold + (hero level x 8) + kill series

A series of kills are cases when a hero is killed by 3 or more enemy heroes. Therefore, if there were less than three kills, they will not be taken into account in the formula. The reward increases for each episode: 3 kills — 60, 4 — 100, 5 -150, etc., and the maximum amount of bonus gold is 550 for 10+ kills. If the hero dies in any way, but not at the hands of an enemy hero and the enemy did not deal damage within 20 seconds before the hero's death, the death series counter will not be reset.

The hero's killer and his allies within 1500 radius of the victim will receive gold if they participated in the killing. The amount of this gold is the same for everyone, both for the main killer and allies, and can be calculated by the formula:

• ((30 + total value of the killed hero x 0.038) x k) / number of heroes

The total value of a hero is the sum of his gold and the value of all the items he has, except in some cases, such as cheap consumables. However, expensive items such as Aghanim's Shard or Moonshard are taken into account

k is a coefficient that differs depending on the situation. If the team is ahead, the formula looks like this:

k = 1 — (difference in total value / total value of the leading team)

For the losing team:

k = 1 + (difference in total value / total value of the leading team)

It's also worth mentioning the redemption fee, which can be calculated using the formula:

• 200 + total value of the hero / 13

The gold of a hero who has left the game for more than 5 minutes is distributed among all players in the team, and his items can be sold. This will also give each team member a portion of the gold from the sale.

Other sources of gold

In addition to the above, there are many other ways to get unreliable gold, such as killing a courier, which rewards 25 + 5 gold for each level of the hero to whom the courier belongs. Observer Ward gives a fixed reward of 100 gold + 4 for every minute of play. Many other objects and units summoned by heroes also often give a reward.

Items

The hero can sell an existing item for half its value, and if the item was sold within 10 seconds of its purchase, then the value of the returned gold will be full, but there are some nuances. For example, if you buy an item that can be activated, it will no longer be possible to return the full cost after activation. Also, the sale of items returns unreliable gold to the player, even if the item is sold within 10 seconds of purchase.

Conclusion

Of course, during the game, none of the players will sit down and calculate who is profitable to kill and who is not. However, knowing this information will give you a general idea of how the economy works in Dota 2 and how it can be used during the game to gain an advantage over the enemy.