DotA Game Modes

June 12, 2006 | Filed Under Art, Gaming, & Fun, Blog

I’m a fan of Warcraft III: Defense of the Ancients (DotA) as I’ve stated recently. The game is a blast and depending on the players, heroes chosen, items acquired, and game settings enabled - the game can be drastically different each time. When hunting for a good game to join on Battle.net, its important to watch out for the various game modes being advertised as these modes change the way the game is played from a strategic standpoint and you don’t want to go into it blind.

I often get lost with the two letter acronyms for the game modes, so here’s a list:

Primary Game Modes

-ap: All Pick Everyone may pick heroes from any tavern. Incompatible with allrandom, teamrandom, leaguemode, moderandom, and reverse mode
-ar: All Random Every player gets a random hero from any tavern. Incompatible with allpick, teamrandom, leaguemode, moderandom, and reverse mode.
-tr: Team Random Every player gets a random hero from the taverns belonging to their team. Incompatible with allrandom, allpick, leaguemode, moderandom, and reverse mode.
-mr: Mode Random Randomly picks a mode from ar, ap, tr and normal pick. Incompatible with allrandom, allpick, teamrandom, leaguemode, deathmatch, and reverse mode.
-lm: League Mode League mode: All forms of random are disabled. 10 players required. Blue picks first, then pink and light blue, then teal and purple, then gray and green, then yellow and orange, and lastly brown. (New with v6.35, sometimes Scourge gets to pick first rather than Sentinel) Incompatible with allrandom, mirrormatch, teamrandom, deathmatch, moderandom, allagility, allintelligence, allstrength, itemdrop, nopowerups, supercreeps, easymode, duplicatemode, samehero, and reverse mode.
-rd: Random Draft Similar to the style of play in a few inhouse leagues. Incompatible with allpick, allrandom, teamrandom, leaguemode, moderandom, and random draft.
-rv: Reverse Mode Teams pick each other’s characters. Incompatible with allpick, allrandom, teamrandom, leaguemode and moderandom.
-vr: Vote Random Every player gets a random hero from any tavern. Players get to vote on hero combinations. Incompatible with allpick, allrandom, teamrandom, leaguemode, moderandom, and reverse mode.
-xl: Extended League Mode Used for playing extended league matches. Compatibility mimics that of league mode.

Secondary Game Modes

-aa: All Agility Only agility heroes may be chosen. Incompatible with allstrength, allintelligence, deathmatch and leaguemode.
-ai: All Intelligence Only intelligence heroes may be chosen. Incompatible with allstrength, allagility, deathmatch and leaguemode.
-as: All Strength Only strength heroes may be chosen. Incompatible with allagility, allintelligence, deathmatch and leaguemode.
-dm: Death Match If you die, you will have to pick a new hero once you can respawn. Deathmatch must be selected before any primary game mode to work. If a random primary mode was selected, you will recieve a hero according to that random mode. A team loses if it has 36 deaths, or if its ancient is destroyed. Incompatible with allintelligence, allagility, allstrength, teamrandom, leaguemode, moderandom and samehero.
-du: Duplicate Mode The same hero can be picked, or randomed, by multiple players. Incompatible with leaguemode.
-em: Easy Mode Towers are weaker, experience is gained faster, and you get more periodic gold. Incompatible with leaguemode.
-id: Item Drop When you die, a random slot in your inventory will drop whatever it holds. You no longer lose money when dieing. Incompatible with leaguemode.
-lives xx: Life Limit Sets the maximum lives when -dm is active.
-mm: Mirror Match mirrormatch: Requires that both teams have the same number of players. After one minute, each player pair (blue - pink, teal - gray, purple - light blue, yellow - dark green, orange - brown) will have their heroes replaced with either one of the two they had. In the end, each player pair has the same hero, and both teams have the same matchup. Incompatible with samehero and leaguemode. Incompatible with samehero and leaguemode.
-nd: No Death Timer Disables death timer when -dm is active.
-np: No Powerups No runes will spawn. Incompatible with leaguemode.
-om: Only Mid Creeps only spawn in the middle.
-sc: Super Creeps Every now and then, a super creep may spawn for each side and follow the creeps in either lane. The weakest supercreep is the siege golem, a bit stronger is the scary fish, and the ancient hydra is the strongest one. Incompatible with leaguemode.
-sh: Same Hero All players will have the hero that blue picks. Incompatible with mirrormatch and leaguemode.
-sp: Shuffle Players The teams will be randomly shuffled. This includes which colour you have and which side you are on. Compatible with all other modes.
-wtf: What the F*** Mana costs and cooldowns removed from all spells and abilities.

Game Commands

-repick: Repick Gives you a new hero instead of the one you already have, at a cost. Can only be used once, in the first minute, but not in league mode. Repick costs 150 gold normally, but in -ar and -tr it costs 400 gold.
-ma: Matchup Displays which opponent controls which hero.
-ms: Move Speed Displays your heroes movement speed.
-unstuck: Unstuck Channels for 60 seconds, then moves your hero back to your base.
-recreate: Recreate Available for N’aix, Terrorblade, Dragon Knight and Banehallow. Use when close to the fountain if you have lost control of your hero (metamorphosis problem). 200 seconds channeling.
-deathon/off: Death Timer Toggles on and off a new death timer to show you your respawn without needing to open the scoreboard.
-disablehelp: Disable Help Disable help: Makes Chen’s Test of Faith (teleports you back to base) unable to teleport you.
-enablehelp: Enable Help Enable help: If -disablehelp has been activated, -enablehelp will make Chen’s Test of Faith able to teleport you again.
-cs: Creep Stats Shows how many creeps you have killed, as well as how many you have denied.
-cson: Creep Stat Scoreboard On Shows a scoreboard for creep stats
-csoff: Creep Stat Scoreboard Off Hides the scoreboard for creep stats
-fleshstr: Flesh Strength Command for Pudge to view how much str has been gained from the ability.
-gameinfo: Game Info Displays some information on the different game modes that are used.
-hidemsg/unhidemsg: Toggle Hero Death Message Turn on/off the Hero death message spam.
-refresh: Refresh Refreshes PA’s blur so that if you were visible you will become transparent again. This does not affect evasion in any way.
-showdeny: Show Deny Show denies.
-swaphero: Swap Hero Only usable once, and only in the first 90 seconds. Brings up a menu where you can select a teammate whom you would like to change hero with. The player you choose will get a menu where he can either accept or decline your offer.