Roshan: the objective that organizes the map and the trap of the Aegis

The Roshan is the most misused objective in Dota, and for a curious reason: it's easy to kill and hard to take advantage of. Mid-tier teams decide to Roshan for the item, take the item, and lose the match for the next eight minutes. This guide is about the two things that explain that.

Part 1: Roshan Hierarchizes the Map

The first function of the Roshan has nothing to do with Aegis. It is this: its position decides which half of the map is worth more.

Territory on the Roshan side is worth more than territory on the opposite side, because that's where the next big objective will be played. This changes decisions that seem to have nothing to do with Rosh.

Concrete example, taken from a professional match that we analyzed: the team took the big jungle from the top. The Roshan is at the top. Is this the time to fight to retake the big jungle from below?

No. To retake the wrong side of the map is to spend a fight on ground that no one will use. If the next big argument is going to happen at the top, that's where your five heroes, your vision, and your timing have to be.

The rule of thumb that comes out of it:

Before choosing which territory to contest, look at where the Roshan is. It breaks the tie.

Part 2: When to do it

Roshan is not a decision of "are we strong?". It is a decision of conditions. The four that matter, and they all need to be true:

1. You know where at least three enemies are. Without that, you're betting.
2. The pit vision is yours, and theirs doesn't exist. Warding is cheaper than winning the fight that happens when they see.
3. There is a wave advancing somewhere. If all lanes are stopped, the enemy team is free to come look. Wave advancing forces someone to respond.
4. You have a plan for what comes next. Roshan that ends with everyone going back to the base is Roshan that only served to burn 40 seconds.

And the negative condition, which is worth more than the four: don't make Roshan because he was born. His respawn is not an invitation.

Part 3: How to Prepare

The Roshan well done starts two to three minutes before, and almost none of that happens in the pits.

• Vision first. Observer who sees the input through which the answer arrives, sentry to deny their vision. Before the discussion, not during.
• Push a lane. Preferably the one furthest from the pit. It's the one that holds one or two of them away.
• Decide who gets the Aegis before you start. Discussion about this inside the pit is how the team loses the fight that comes right after.
• Know the exit. Where do you leave if they arrive in five. If the answer is "through the same place we entered", the Roshan is poorly positioned.

Part 4: The Aegis Trap

Here's the part that changes the most matches, and it's counterintuitive.

Taking the Aegis creates a psychological clock. The team thinks: "I have the Aegis, I have something to use". And from there, instead of using the advantage to play more safely, the team spends the advantage looking for a fight.

The pattern is always the same, and it has a concrete mechanism, it's not just "rushing":

1. The team walks around the map in five looking for what to do.
2. As they are in five, no one is pushing lane.
3. Without wave advancing, the opponent is not required to appear anywhere.
4. The play doesn't fit. Frustration grows.
5. The forced play comes, on bad ground, and the Aegis is spent in a fight that doesn't change anything.

We've already seen a gold advantage plummet twice in the same match, in the two windows immediately following a Roshan, by the same team. The Aegis didn't make the team lose. What it did was the behavior it induces.

What to do with Aegis

The Aegis is a license to play safer, not more aggressive. It allows you to:

• first enter a fight that you were going to buy anyway, with the right hero;
• Split push with the core that carries the Aegis, because the cost of being caught has dropped;
• Forcing High Ground with a life to spare, when the goal was already set.

What it doesn't allow is to pick a fight that you wouldn't buy without it. If you wouldn't fight there without Aegis, Aegis doesn't fix the terrain, or the angle, or the difference in item.

Part 5: Reading the Other Side

The mirror of this is the most useful principle we teach: play the entire game as if the opponent had Aegis.

Notice what happens when he does: you automatically do the basics of smart Dota. Only buy fights on favorable terms. Don't buy fights in desperation. Deal with waves. Get the most out of the map.

That is, fear of Aegis already produces right behavior, without requiring discipline. So right behavior doesn't depend on Aegis: it depends on you removing the condition.

And, in practice, this is what Roshan enemy should change in your game: almost nothing, because you should already be playing like this.

Part 6: Deny Roshan

Three ways, from cheapest to most expensive:

1. Vision in the pit. If you see the beginning, you have 40 seconds to decide. It's the cheapest and the most ignored.
2. Pressure elsewhere. If their waves are advancing, they don't have 40 seconds free.
3. Contest. It's the most expensive and the last option. And it's better to steal the Aegis with well-placed area damage than to win the fight.

Part 7: The Three Roshans of a Game

Each Roshan of a match has a different function, and treating the three as if they were the same thing is the most common mistake of a mid bracket team.

The first Roshan (usually between minutes 18 and 26) is about territory. The Aegis matters less than the fact that you controlled that side of the map for two minutes without being challenged. At this stage, a Roshan made with the enemy team without knowing it usually yields more in farm space than in a fight.

The second Roshan is about objective. Here the Aegis exists to make a specific thing viable: a high ground climb, a tier 3 tower, a barrack break. If you took the second Roshan and can't tell which building it will knock down, you'll probably spend it looking for a fight, which is the mistake described in part 4.

The third Roshan onwards is about insurance. At this stage of the match a losing fight usually ends the game, and the Aegis (plus Cheese, when it exists) is what allows you to make a mistake once. It's the Roshan in which the team should play slower, not faster, and it's precisely the one that produces the most forced play.

The question that organizes the three is always the same, and it precedes killing the animal: what exactly will this Aegis buy? If the answer is "I don't know, but it's nice to have", the Roshan can wait two minutes and be done with a plan.

The moment he respawns

• The position of the Roshan decides which half of the map matters. It unties territory.
• Do it with information, vision, wave moving forward and plan for later. Never just because you were born.
• The preparation takes place outside the pit, two to three minutes before.
• Aegis is a license to play it safe, not a reason to force it.
• A team in five with waves stopped is a team that will force play.
• Play like they've Aegis all the time, and their Roshan changes little for you.