Games will typically fall into three phases: early, middle and late. Transitions are one-way (i.e. a game that has changed from early game to mid game cannot transition back to early-game), and transitions are ordered. You start in early, move to mid and end with end game (although some games may not reach end game – particularly games with lots of pushing heroes).
END GAME
Starts: Once the hard carries stop farming and start joining team fights
Ends: At the end of the match
The last phase of the game, usually at this level of play, you should already be able to tell who is going to win at this stage - generally, whichever team has the highest level players, or the most farmed carry.
Team fights will be far more common during this phase of the game, as both teams will be trying to rax (kill the barracks), and that is a lot easier when the other team is dead.
Killing Roshan is also very popular during this phase, as a team may push all the way to the enemy base, but not be ready to push into base, so they go back and kill Roshan to get Aegis and effectively turn a 5v5 battle into a 6v5 battle.
I know I sound very negative when I say this, but usually, the outcome at this phase is a forgone conclusion, and it is very rare that a team that is losing will come back. However, if your team does have more hard carries, it may be worth holding out a little longer for them to farm some items, as when you are all level 25 with 6 item slots filled, the determining factor becomes who has the better carry heroes.
Turtling involves defending your base, and maybe pushing out to where your 2nd tier towers used to be. Defensive wards are really important, in particular the über-ward location outside your base.
As a general rule of thumb, if you lose one melee rax, you can still hold on. Losing two melee rax is pretty much the stage where you should give up, as it is very hard to leave your base while defending against two lanes of strong creeps. However, if you manage to take one of their melee rax, and they have taken two of yours, but one is the same lane in which you have raxed, then you still have a chance.
Middle lane is the easiest to push, as it is the shortest lane. The lane opposite to their jungle lane (i.e. top for Dire, bot for Radiant) is the next best to push, as it keeps their carry from being able to go back to the jungle easily, and also means if they are farming the neutral creeps, it will take them just that little bit longer to get to you. Plus, it's lane not covered by the über-ward.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
To sum up everything I've said, DotA really comes down to three things:
-gold
-EXP
-map control
That's really all there is to it. You want to help your team increase these three things, and you want to reduce those three things for your opponents.
The carry wants to farm as much gold so that they can buy items and carry. The gankers and support want EXP to make it easier to gank enemy heroes. Everyone wants to gank enemy heroes because it means they have less gold and EXP. You want map control so that your team can farm safely (gold) and you can gank enemy heroes (less gold/EXP for them). You don't want to die (less gold/EXP for you, more gold/EXP for them), but if you do die, you want it to be in exchange for something that will mean at least a net loss of gold/EXP/map control for them so that overall, you come out on top, or you break even - e.g. dying to take down a tower.
So to breakdown the roles again in a different way:
Support:
- buy the courier so your team spends less time going back to buy things (+EXP/gold)
- increase map control for your team by warding(+map control)
- babysit the carry so they can farm safely (gold)
- harass enemy players so they can't farm as well or have to go back to the fountain (-EXP for enemy)
- help the carry get kills (EXP + gold)
- counterward (-map control for enemy)
Initiator:
- initiate in team fights so carry can get kills safely (+gold/EXP)
- roam around the map helping to gank which makes the opponents fearful (-EXP/gold for enemy)
Ganker:
-kill enemy heroes (-EXP/gold for enemy)
- roam around the map helping to gank which makes the opponents fearful (-EXP/gold for enemy)
Carry:
- farm (+gold/EXP)
- farm (+gold/EXP)
- farm (+gold/EXP)
- kill enemy heroes (-EXP/gold for enemy)
Pusher:
- push towers (-map control for enemy, +gold for your team)
Tank:
- take hits so your carry doesn't die (passively +gold/EXP for your team)
- take the bulk of your damage so that your glass cannons don't die (passively +gold/EX for your team as you hope that for your death, your team takes out two or more enemy heroes)
Jungler:
- farm the jungle (+gold/EXP for your team through extra solo lane)
The effects increase throughout the game. The more gold and EXP you have, the faster you kill creeps, and so the faster it is to get more gold and EXP. For some heroes, once they start getting their key items, the gold just starts rolling in.
A lot of games come down to which teams manage to get the most out of these three things. It also depends on who has these things. Support heroes should really let carry heroes farm. For the simple reason that the carries are far more item dependent.
Regen items = approx 300g (e.g. 3 x tangoes, 2 x mana pot, 1 x health pot, or maybe branches instead of health pot)
2 x observer wards = 200g
1 x teleport scroll = 135g
1 x boots = 500g
1 x courier = 150g
1 x courier upgrade = 220g
In the first 10-12 minutes of the game, a support hero really needs about 1505g. You start with 603g and over 10 minutes, you gain another 600g passively. That's already 1200g. You really don't need to be taking the last hits while in a lane.
That gold would go to much better use on a carry, who can start snowballing their gold stockpile. That being said, if your carry is failing to get the last hits, you might as well take it, because it's better that you get it than nobody gets it. Or if you are in a ganker/support, ganker/ganker lane, it might be better for the person who is farming mana boots to get the last hits.
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