Starting Out

Lets start out with the basics

Tips on making the game easier

- The magical alt button. It shows you the remaining HP of an enemy through a horizontal bar

- The mini-map. Always be aware, personally I prefer using the one with the multi colored allies because you can tell who is who just by looking at the mini-map. Honestly, me and my friends still have problems using the mini-map because you can lose your focus when you're farming or in an intense battle. So being aware of the mini-map is a work in progress

I. DotA like most games is pretty much balanced. It's just like Rock Paper and Scissors really. Normally from start to mid game Strength beats Intelligence and Agility beats Strength. To know the primary atrribute of you character select your selected character and if it has an icon of a fist its strength based, if it has an icon of a foot its agility based and if it has an icon of a face it is intelligence based. 

these are the normal pros and cons of each character base (there are exceptions though which will be covered later)

Strength based 

Pros:

High HP

High base damage

Has decent base armor because all strength heros are melee

Cons:

Slow attack speed

Low Mana (can't spam skills)

Agility based

Pros:

Fast Attack Speed

Highest Armor rating (More agility = higher armor)

Decent Damage

Cons:

Low HP

Low Mana

Intelligence based

Pros:

Can spam skills because of mana

High damage in one shot 

Cons:

Low HP

Slow Attack Speed

Low damage output over time

Weak base damage

II. What Characters should you start with?

I suggest starting with ranged agility characters for your first try, such as the Dwarven Sniper (kardel), Troll Warlord (jah'rakal), Bone Fletcher (bone clinx) and the like. These characters will help with you getting used to the skills and a little bit of harassing and manuevering training. Once you are used to skills you can use more characters.

III. Items 

My starting items are basically consisted of 1 Ring of Bassilus and 1 Ring of Regeneration the spare cash goes an Ancient Tango of Essifation or Ironwood branches, yes +1 stat point is helpful at the start. Then it'll be up to you.

IV. Manuevering

Legend: You vs ?

Melee vs Melee

So you are both melee heroes, making manuevering pretty much easy, in melee vs melee combat you can easily avoid attacks because the enemy has to be next to you to attack you. The only important thing here is you have to be aware of your opponents skills, movespeed and positioning.

Melee vs Range

Here's the tricky part because of the ranged attacks you can't really get that close to the creeps and farm. The only option here is to stick as close as possible to the creeps that you will gain full experience when they die so you won't be underleveled. Farm as often as you can by using the alt button and going for the last hit as much as you can.

Melee vs Caster

Try to make him use his skills without hitting you. You can do this by tempting him by coming close but not in range of the spell. If you're going to do this you must have fast reflexes so you can dodge the skill. If the skill has been dodged you can stick to the creeps and farm again because Casters usually have low base damage. If you can't dodge the skills just stay near the tower and do the same thing with range characters.

Important Fact for Range: Range attacks have a chance to miss if you're at a lower terrain than you opponent

Range vs Melee

No need for manuevering just shoot him and walk away if you're being attacked by the creeps or if he's walking towards you. An important thing to remember is how to position yourself, meaning making the melee character spend the most time trying to get to you so you can pelt him with your shots.

Range vs Range

Here's where manuevering is important, you must make sure that you're the first one to shoot in a fight, you can do this by going in circles and when you see your opponent charging you can click at him first and you'll get to fire the first show normally. The secret to ranged combat is getting the most hits on your enemy first so he'll go home first.

Range vs Caster

Same as Melee strategy because most range characters have low HP and if you get hit by a spell from a caster it'll deal a huge amount of damage to you.

Caster vs Melee

Spam your skills and hit him, avoid towers, creeps and advancing heroes because you have low hp and if they hit you you'll be hurt bad.

Caster vs Range 

Still spam your spells but watch out for his attacks since he can attack from range, usually in the casting range of your spell. Range people have low HP anyway and getting pelted twice by his attacks is ok compared to the high damage your spell will do to him.

Caster vs Caster

As usual you have to hit first.Depends on your spells, on how you're gonna manuevere your character

V. Rules

Since many of you people are intimidated by older players, you would probably shy away from the idea of backdooring but the funny thing is that there is no actual rule that prohibits backdooring. In the older versions of DotA it was prohibited because Furion for example could teleport next to the Frozen Throne or Tree and just attack it but in recent versions this has been remedied by making the inner towers invunerable until the outermost tower is destroyed. The backdoor rule is just a myth now.

Before really playing seriously I suggest you read the rules on the quest tab of the game and know the rules so you won't be duped by your opponents.

DotA Glossary

Creeps: The attacking units sent by the scourge/sentinel.

Harass: Continiously hitting your opponent causing him to go back to base earlier than you causing him to have a disadvantage on experience and gold.

Farming: Killing Creeps so you gain experience and gold.

Spam: Continiously using a skill to harass or farm.

Last Hit: A technique where a player times his attack so that he will kill the creep thus making him earn gold faster than just attacking normally