Dota 2 Glossary - Dota Vocabulary [All Words Explained]

In Dota 2 tons of abbreviations and shortcut words exist.
As a beginner it’s really hard to understand the Dota slang, but these words allow a better and faster communication inside the game.

Dota 2 Vocabulary List:

The Dota 2 vocabulary is a long list of technical terms of the game mixed with acronyms that describe a specific scenario or tactical behavior. To get better in ranked matchmaking you need to know all the words in an out. After a while it will also be super easy for Dota 2 beginners! 😉

Basic Dota 2 Words for Beginners:

Chat Word:	Meaning:
miss	A missing hero is absent on his lane, this is often used in the early game. When one hero is missing take care he might be ganking other lanes.
tp	A teleport scroll.
creeps	All of the units that are no heroes and are not summoned by a hero are called creeps. They can belong to one team or be neutral creeps.
feeder	When a player is frequently dying, and the enemy is getting fat. Sometimes feeders do it on purpose.
micro	Shortword for micromanagement, it means how fast you are are with your mouse and keyboard to click the right things.
apm	APM is directly connected to the micro, it means actions per minute. It describes all of your clicks and keyboard hits per minute.
aggro	Aggro means to have the focus of the enemy or by Roshan. Tower aggro has it’s own mechanics and you need to learn how to get the aggro and how to avoid it.
disable	Disables are spells or bashes that make the enemy hero unable to fight.
fog of war	The area that you can’t see in Dota 2 is called the fog of war.
jungle	The jungle is between the lanes and is full of neutral creeps.
lasthit	If you make the very last hit on a creep you will get the gold for it, but only then. The amount of lasthits describes how good you farm.
offlane/hardlane	The offlane is the lane where the creeps are far away when they meet the enemy creeps. For the Radiant this is the top lane and for the Dire it’s the bottom lane. The offlane is the most dangerous one and the importance is often underestimated.
safelane/easylane	The safelane is the opposite to the offlane and on the other end of the map. The creeps meet near the tower and the lane is comparatively easy. On this lane the carry has a good time farming. On the Radiant side it is the bottom lane on the Dire side the top lane.
ragequit	Ragequiters/ragers are players that accidently leave the game on purpose, because of something that has happened. Shock-excited through a death or a big fail, some choleric players tend to the attitude of leaving an active game.
carry/hard carry	The carry player is the one who can scale a lot through farming and can win a teamfight in the late game. Significant examples are Phantom Assassin, Juggernaut, Chaos Knight, and Slark.
semi-carry	Semi-carry is a role that is often taken by the Offlaner (Position 3 of the Dota 2 roles). Prominent semi-carries are Clinkz, Winr Runner and Riki.
tank	A tank hero acts as a shield for the team and often initiates team fights. The perfect examples are Bristle Back, Axe, and Mars.
core	A hero that has a core function in the team and has enough sustain to scale and have a good impact on to the game.
smurf	A user that is not playing on his main Dota 2 Steam account. He is using a smurf account for several reasons.

Tactical Behaviour
Dota 2 Vocabulary:

Chat Word:	Meaning:
GPM	Gold per minute.
XPM	XP per minute.
KDA	Kill Death Assist ratio. This ratio is telling a lot about your playstyle and your performance in a match. Read more about the KDA and other ranking factors here.
farming	Farming is all about making gold in Dota 2. The main aspects of having a high income is about killing creeps through lasthitting.
pulling/stacking	Pulling means to attract the allied creeps towards a jungle camp to reduce the amount of XPM and GPM of the enemy. Stacking is to increase the number of creeps in a jungle camp.
harass	Harassing is about putting pressure on to an enemy hero by pushing him away or making a lot of damage over time.
ganking	Grouping one or more enemies and executing an offensive move. In the early game, it is primarily done by the roamer.
pushing	Taking down enemy objectives like towers and barracks to make the game more intense. Fewer towers will keep your enemy under pressure.
roaming	Roamers wander around and try to gang the enemy hero. Through this technique the enemy is under permanent pressure, because he never knows when the roamer will engange.
supporting	Supports keeps their allies alive and create map vision through wards. Position 4 and 5 are the support positions (one for the safe lane and one for the offlane).
jungling	If you are farming creeps in the jungle it’s called jungling, this can be done as a complete role, or between creep waves on the lane – especially when the supporters have stacked creep camps to increase the GPM.
scouting	Scouting is mostly performed by invisible heroes such as Riki, Bounty Hunter, and Clinkz. However, late-game scouting is quite dangerous. The whole map can be filled with sentry wards.

Dota 2 Slang
Words and Acronyms:

Chat Word:	Meaning:
gg	Stands for “good game”.
ff	finish fast / giving up
deny	Killing a creep for
b	Stands for “back”.
gl hf	Stands for “good luck and have fun”.
cd	Stands for “cooldown”.
afk	Stands for “away from keyboard”.
re	Stands for “I am back”.
omg	Stands for “oh my god”.
wtf	Stands for “what the f*ck”.
proc	Something that happend randomly through the game software and is not dependend on a player. This can be a random amount of damage for example through a critical strike.
nuke	Nuking describes focussed damage onto a specific hero.
rat	Rat tactics try to win the game through dodging fights. Dota can also be won through sneeky plays with annoying harassment of buildings.
lame	Laming is about abusing a mechanic of the game, trying to be unfair and to avoid real fights.
ez	Stands for “easy”. It’s about making fun of the enemy that the game was won too easy. Some people love to provoke the enemy.
skill shot	Formerly known from League of Legends, the skill shot describes a spell that needs skill to make it hit: Good examples are Pudge’s Meat Hook or Priestress of the Moon’s Arrow.
juking	Performing movements that irritate the enemy or avoid skill-shots.
mind games	Mind games in Dota 2 are the psychological tricks to manipulate or irritate the enemy or to make fun of him. 😉 Find a detailled Dota mind games guide here.
wipe	A wipe or teamwipe describes the elimination of the full team (5 heroes).
ss	A hero is missing on the lane of the reporter.
oom	Stands for “out of mana”.
tbh	Stands for “to be honest”.
throwing	People who are constantly losing or who lost the trust into the win throw away the game: They start to sell their items or go afk. An action mostly performed by noobs/crying babies who start dying intentionally.
Dota2freaks	Insider page for the best Dota 2 guides out there! 😉 You can find the Dota 2 overview here.