Movement speed or mobility is one of the most important things a DotA player must study. Suffice to say, the more mobile a hero is, the faster he is in moving across the map to level up and farm.
What is movement speed?
Movement speed is the distance covered per duration of time when walking. In DotA, the maximum movement speed is 522 and the minimum is 100.
How do you increase movement speed?
The simplest way is to buy items such as:
- Boots of Speed - an essential item that should be bought early
- Power Treads - Boots of Speed upgrade with added increase in attack speed
- Boots of Travel - best mobility item which gives highest movement speed boost as well as grants teleportation
- Phase Boots - an item that ads movement speed and gives temporary 10% burst of mobility
- Yasha - provides a movement speed bonus, provides further boost when upgraded to Sange and Yasha
- Mask of Madness's Berserk - also gives a bonus percentage mobility
- Eul's Scepter of Divinity - gives +20 movement speed bonus
- Lothar's Edge's Wind Walk - when cast, it gives 20% movement speed bonus during invisible status
Movement Speed Calculation
Type -ms in game and you will see the current movement speed of the hero you currently control. It is calculated as:
(Base Movement Speed + Total Raw Movement Speed Bonus) * (1 + Total % Increase/Decrease in Movement Speed)
Example:
A hero with Boots of Travel and is buffed by Haste was Hexed (thus turning the Hexed hero's base movement speed to 100). Since Haste increases movement speed by 100%, that hexed hero's movement speed would be:
= (100 + 85) * (1 + 1)
= (185) * (2)
= 370 - this will be the movement speed of the hero
Mobility Strategies
When going around the map, always choose the shortest safe route. Be familiar with the map and the location of the neutral creeps. Also, constantly check the rune spawns when it is within your route.
Movement Speed Trivia:
- The base average movement speed of all heroes is 300.
- The fastest hero in the game is Chaos Knight, with a movement speed of 325, while Goblin Techies are the slowest, with 270.
- Heroes with a ranged attack range generally have a lower-than-average movement speed, while melee attack range heroes are often above average.
