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Reason given: Bot behaviors got a major update on the March 25, 2021 Patch. Bot names got updated as well.

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Bots are computer controlled heroes in Dota 2. They can be found in practice matches, lobbies and co-op bot matches.

Difficulties

Bots come in 5 different difficulties (Passive, Easy, Normal, Hard, Unfair)^[1].

• Passive bots will lane passively, and will not attack players, bot or human, except when they see an allied human player/other bot attack their enemies. They will not try to last hit nor deny, and sometimes will stick to the tower. Passive bots will never use their abilities/items. If an allied human player disconnects, a bot on the opposing team will return to the fountain and stop playing, until the player has returned.
• Easy bots are different to passive bots, as they willingly attack other heroes and use abilities/items (with the exception of Phase Boots, Force Staff, and Orchid Malevolence), but usually at a slow/delayed pace, and their last hit timing is not as accurate as on higher difficulties. Neither allied nor enemy Easy bots will deny creeps. Easy bots will generally not attempt to gank other lanes, and will only group up in small groups to push or defend. Easy bots will not attempt to "stun-lock" enemy humans/bots, nor will they try to interrupt channeling spells. Also, Easy bots are unable to detect whether a hero is an illusion or not.
• Medium bots are almost identical to easy bots in terms of play-style, with a few exceptions. Their reaction time is faster, making their last hits more precise, and if played in practice/single player mode, only the allied bots will deny creeps. Medium bots are also better at detecting whether a hero is an illusion. Medium bots are allowed to use Phase Boots, Force Staff, and Orchid Malevolence.
• Hard bots are very different to Medium bots, as they have very accurate last hitting capabilities, and they deny just as well. Multiple Hard bots will time their stuns to avoid overlap, resulting in longer stun times. Hard bots will also attempt to interrupt channeling spells, as well as dodge projectiles (such as Meat Hook or Sacred Arrow). If their Hero has a good spammable or harassing spell, like Viper or Death Prophet, they will repeatedly use said spells to deter enemies out of the lane. After the laning phase has ended, enemy Hard bots will generally stay together as a group of five, pushing or defending in unison.
• Unfair bots are the hardest bots, and are almost identical to Hard bots in terms of play-style. Their last hits are almost perfect, and when played in single player mode, the bots on the player's team would purposely play poorly (such as kill stealing, missing denies, refusing to use stuns, diving into enemy towers, running toward and pushing alone against the whole enemy team, farming in jungle while enemy pushing to the base, etc.). Enemy Unfair bots will also receive a 25% boost in gold and experience earned. If an allied human player disconnects from the game, the enemy team will not forfeit a member, in order to better simulate a true matchmaking experience.
• New Player [ Info Needed ]

Summary

	Difficulty	Ability Usage	Item Usage	Ability Usage	Leaving Lane	Last Hitting Uncertainty	Reaction Time	Group Formation	Avoid Stun Overlap	Denying	Harassing	Ganking	Channeling Interruption	Projectile Dodging	Illusion Detection	Bonus XP/Gold	Cheating
	Passive	No	No	No	No	No Last Hitting	No Reactions	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
	Easy	Yes	Limited	Yes	Yes	400ms	200ms	3	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
	Medium	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	200ms	100ms	4	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
	Hard	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	-	50ms	5	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
	Unfair	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	-	-	5	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Bot Names

Different bots have different human names, which are selected randomly in each match, and are always followed by "Bot" (eg: Archy Bot). Here is the list of possible Bot names:

Lists of Heroes used by bots

Bots only play certain heroes, most of which are taken from the Limited Heroes pool. If a player suggests a hero during the picking phase, bots will have higher priority in picking that hero as long as it is within the Limited Hero Pool. Bots can play 37 of the 126 heroes: Axe, Bane, Bounty Hunter, Bloodseeker, Bristleback, Chaos Knight, Crystal Maiden, Dazzle, Death Prophet, Dragon Knight, Drow Ranger, Earthshaker, Jakiro, Kunkka, Lich, Lina, Lion, Luna, Necrophos, Omniknight, Oracle, Pudge, Razor, Sand King, Shadow Fiend, Skywrath Mage, Sniper, Sven, Tidehunter, Tiny, Vengeful Spirit, Viper, Warlock, Windranger, Witch Doctor, Wraith King, Zeus

Bots in Limited Heroes

Bots will replace players who leave/abandon the match in a Limited Heroes game.

Script

You can select different scripts in the Steam Workshop created by other users. Depending on which script you have installed and played, the bots will have different behavior. The "Default Bots" is always used as the general script.

Behavior

General

• All allied bots will go to a location pinged by an allied player, as long as they are not currently doing something, such as farming, moving to a lane, or pushing. They will also follow other allied player pings, such as:
  • If it is on an allied structure, all bots will surround it to defend it.
  • If it is on an enemy structure, they will all group up in that structure's lane to mass-push it.
  • If it is on an enemy Hero, nearby bots will try to near said enemy and kill them, ignoring creeps, towers, and other enemy Heroes. Bots will even follow the pinged Hero to the enemy fountain, sustaining grievous damage, or getting themselves killed in the process.
  • If it is on Roshan's pit, all bots will announce "Doing Roshan!" and will all group up to take him down. Sometimes they do not attack and will end up losing health and die. This usually occurs at low levels, when the bots do not have enough farm, or the player merely pinged the ground near Roshan, and not Roshan himself.
• Passive bots will either retreat or just stand still at the sight of an enemy, and will never use abilities or fight back.
• Medium and below bots will try to move away from enemy Heroes that stand too close early game, even if they have an advantage (except if the enemy is at low enough health).
• If an enemy is pursuing a Medium (or higher) bot and they reach their tower (or fountain), they will try to stun/disable the enemy once they reach the building's aggro range to let them be bombarded by its attacks.
• Bots will try to evade delayed spells (or skill-shots such as Sacred Arrow if the caster is visible. Medium and below bots are usually unaware of abilities with hidden delays even when the caster is visible, such as Sun Strike or Torrent, while Hard and above bots will always try to evade all delayed/aimed spells if the caster is visible.
• Medium and above bots will not bother leaving the AoE of damaging spells such as Midnight Pulse or Acid Spray, unless their health is below 25%.
• Bots with healing abilities (or Urn of Shadows) will sometimes heal illusions instead of a real Hero in an attempt to trick the enemy, although sometimes this results in having no spell to use in an actual team fight (or running out of Urn charges).
  • They will only heal units that are at or below 50% health. This applies to any healing ability or item, such as Purifying Flames, Shadow Word, Death Pulse, etc.
• In Practice with Bots, the Bots will always equip the same cosmetic items that the player has equipped on the specific heroes (For example: If the player has Chaos Knight equipped with the Chaos Fulcrum, the Bots' Chaos Knight will also have the equipment or if the player has Windranger equipped with the Compass of the Rising Gale arcana, the Bots' Windranger will also have the arcana equipped and so on.).
  • This means also that they also equip the currently equipped courier, taunts, wards, and so on.

Laning

• At the start of the match, bots will gather at the bounty-rune spots to secure it for themselves (or a nearby human player). Radiant bots will gather at the top Radiant-rune, while Dire bots gather at the bottom Dire-rune. Occasionally, one bot may collect the other bounty rune on the same team's territory, or move to enemy territory to collect their unguarded bounty rune.
• Bots will always carry a Town Portal Scroll, regardless of their level. They will teleport:
  • To return to their lane during the laning phase.
  • When a tower is coming under attack.
  • When they assume they are at a safe enough distance to retreat/escape from would-be chasers/gankers.
  • When they are at critical health and nearby enemies do not have any ready disables.
• Hard and Unfair bots will group up in one lane after the laning phase has ended. They will always stick together as one group and push lanes accordingly, even all teleporting into their base to stop incoming enemies. Although sometimes they will divide into two groups to push two lanes at the same time, if one group is driven off, it will rejoin with the other half instead of continuing to split push.
• Medium and above bots with spammable abilities like Lightning Bolt or Crypt Swarm (as well as attack modifiers like Poison Attack or Frost Arrows) will always try to use them repeatedly, with the timing, frequency and accuracy of said spells increasing directly with difficulty.
• If a Dust of Appearance hasn't been used, Bots will never try to chase enemies that have turned invisible. If an enemy uses Glimmer Cape to run away in plain sight, bots will not go after them, in spite of the fact that they will become visible a few seconds later.
  • Moreover, the invisibility from Glimmer Cape may not cause bots to buy or use Dust of Appearance in the first place.
• Support bots (classified by their in-game roles, regardless of how the community commonly treat said Hero), will always try not to last hit if they are paired with a carry, and will deny the creeps (only Medium and above). They will continue to do so until the laning phase has ended, signaled by the bots' decisions of ganking or mass pushing/defending.
  • While on the other hand, carry bots will ignore their human player lane mate and will try to last hit and deny everything themselves, even if the human player is a support.
  • A team of Medium bots that has no human players, but is facing against one, will not deny creeps in their lane.
• If an enemy possesses summoned creeps, like Broodmother's Spiderlings or Enigma's Eidolons, bots will try to kill them first before any of the lane creeps or the enemy Heroes themselves, sometimes even going through the wave and players just to kill said units.

Combat

• Bots will usually try to chase low-health enemies for long distances, and will usually not be deterred by defenses such as towers and creeps. The higher the difficulty and their in-game level, the more confident they are in tower and base diving. Despite their resilience, they can be evaded through fog or once their target has moved more than 900 range away from them.
  • Low health bots will still return in combat to assist if the other bots appear to help attack the pursuer.
• Bots usually will not retreat to the fountain even if their health is below half or they have no more mana. They will only do so if they are at critical health or are being chased.
• Medium and below bots usually do not try to time their disables for maximum efficiency. However, Hard and Unfair bots will, meaning they will wait for the initial disable to wear off, then use their own to extend the downtime of their target.
• Bots prioritize disabling abilities (such as stuns, slows, etc.) over running away from a threat, such that they will halt, turn and use the ability even if they are at a fraction of their health.
  • Bots will treat disabling spells all the same, even if said spell would be more beneficial to use in a teamfight instead on just a lone enemy. An example would be a Tidehunter bot using Ravage just to stop one teleporting Hero or when being chased by a couple of enemies, which is the same way another bot would use their lesser, more expendable disables (such as Ice Path).
• All bots with channeling abilities will always try to channel for its full duration, even if further channeling will no longer be required (e.g. No Heroes to target for Death Ward). They will also ignore incoming enemy units while channeling, making themselves open to being disabled and attacked.
  • Bots that see enemy channeling spells will immediately try to interrupt them, giving them priority over everything else, sometimes even using ultimates (such as Fiend's Grip) for the sake of stopping the channel.
• If there is a nearby allied human player with a spare inventory slot while the team is attacking Roshan, the bots will always confer the Aegis to said human players for several seconds. If no human player takes it, they will, and it will always be one of the highest leveled carries.
• If bots see the enemy team enter Roshan's pit, they would immediately try to stop their attempt to kill Roshan, but usually won't try to do it themselves afterward unless they are of high enough levels.
• Bots will sometimes ignore spell immune heroes while pursuing them unless said hero is low on health. They rarely will even use their spells that can pierce spell immunity.

Hero-specific

• Some Bot heroes may or may not calculate the right time to use their abilities, either causing them to successfully or fail to kill their designated targets:
  • A Necrophos bot can calculate the right time to use Reaper's Scythe. If an enemy has been affected by the ability, it is a sure chance they will be outright killed, unless healed or the ability is interrupted in some way.
  • Axe bots, however, do not always seem to be as effective as Necrophos bots, very commonly missing their ultimate's threshold.
  • A Bounty Hunter bot will always save their Shuriken Toss against a weakened enemy to finish them off although sometimes they will use it against an another hero affected by Track should the weakened hero is away from the cast range.
• A Sand King using Sand Storm will not make any attempt to stay within its AoE, leading to it ending very quickly.
  • Although during chase sequence, they will use Burrowstrike first before Sand Storm as an attempt to escape against their pursuers.
• Dazzle bots always give their allies a higher priority over themselves, except if they are dying. Omniknight bots, however, do not seem to follow this, preferring to heal themselves or save the ability for offensive purposes, unless in a team-fight or their ally is at critical health. They also seem to spam Shadow Wave.
• Oracle bots will use Purifying Flames to finish off weakened enemy Heroes, usually getting most of the kills in a team-fight. They will use the spell offensively less often if enemies are not at critical health, usually following up with Fortune's End in an attempt to remove the healing.
  • However, since bots always attempt to channel a spell for its full duration, they always take four seconds to fire Fortune's End, allowing the enemy to heal a generous amount of health before the damage and dispel.
  • As a healing ability, they will never cast Purifying Flames without using Fate's Edict first. On lower difficulties, Oracle bots may only cast Fate's Edict when attempting to heal, without using Purifying Flames afterwards (or usually not taking their current mana into account; being only able to cast Fate's Edict but not Purifying Flames).
• Sometimes a Bane bot will use Nightmare on itself when an ally used a friendly targeted-ability on it.
  • Bane bots will never attack a Nightmared enemies (despite Bane can freely attack them) either thus, causing them to end the Nightmare prematurely.
• An Axe bot may sometimes use Berserker's Call as a defensive ability in order to tank physical damage should their health becomes low.
• Warlock bots that have summoned their Warlock Golem will use them very offensively, charging forward in a lane to destroy creeps and towers without fear. If an enemy Hero nears the golem, it will prioritize the Hero over everything else, until it escapes its 900 aggro range. Warlock bots will also invariably buy an Aghanim's Scepter, thus summoning two golems during team-fights in late game.
  • They will also prefer to use Shadow Word at their golem over any other unit.
• Earthshaker bots will not know how to use an Aghanim's Scepter upgraded Enchant Totem at all.
• Sniper Bot seems to spam Shrapnel in the same place if an enemy hero stays there, wasting mana and charges. Sniper bots do not always calculate the enemy's remaining health (unlike Necrophos bots) before using the ultimate ability, Assassinate, sometimes only grievously-wounding the enemy, or just using it as a last-resort to damage an escaping hero with substantial health. Usually they will only use Assassinate to harass the enemy heroes in their lane due to its low cooldown, however this may lead to them having insufficient mana.
• Shadow Fiend bot often misdirects his Shadowraze, simply wasting his mana. Same applies with any Hero with location-target abilities, like Lina and Death Prophet.
• Heroes with new abilities such as Tiny's Tree Grab or Viper's Nethertoxin are never used by bots.

Item usage

• Bots that use Blink Dagger may not use it perfectly, such as blinking into a fight unprepared, or blinking forward and then retreating immediately.
• Bots that purchase Necronomicon can control the units through basic means, but will not use its active abilities (such as the Archer's Purge).
  • Additionally, bots do not take a Necronomicon Warrior backfire damage into account and may even kill themselves with it.
• Bots with Mekansm or Pipe of Insight will only use them once they have decided to be aggressive. This can be used as a signal to find out if a team of bots have detected an enemy Hero.
• Bots with Force Staff will occasionally use it offensively, such as pushing an enemy Hero forward into their team to be surrounded, although occasionally they mistime their usage and result in pushing an enemy Hero away from themselves, letting them escape.
• Bots will use Urn of Shadows on allies regardless of the situation as long as their target meets the criteria (at or below 50% HP). As such, they will use it even if their target is being attacked by an enemy Hero or is already being healed at the Fountain, resulting in a wasted Urn charge. They will also heal illusions or summons (such as a Warlock Golem or Spirit Bear) with the same priority.
  • Offensively, they apply the debuff as soon as they get in range, sometimes not even having follow-up for it.
• Observer Ward will only ever be placed around the rune spots and marked ward locations. The bot assigned into buying wards will usually stack them up, but never use them all at once, very commonly ending a game with more than 5 wards stacked in their inventory.
  • Bots will also never purchase Sentry Ward, always preferring to buy Dust of Appearance or Gem of True Sight for detection instead (when at Medium difficulty or above). This does also mean they will never do any dewarding.
  • Bots will only use Dust of Appearance once they see an enemy unit (except wards like Psionic Trap or Remote Mines) turn invisible, or if a nearby invisible unit is emitting a negative aura or effect, such as Heartstopper Aura, Radiance or Eye of the Storm, but they will never react to an invisible unit blocking allied units. But if the criteria is met, they will use Dust even if the unit cannot be revealed by True Sight, such as through Shadow Dance.
• Bots will never buy or use any newly-introduced items such as Silver Edge or Kaya unless their script allowed them to do so.
  • Although if an item requires a newly-introduced item such as Heart of Tarrasque, which requires a Ring of Tarrasque to be completed, the bots will still buy the said item.
  • This means that they will never pick up any Neutral Items that they have found nor they will use it when the player shares it to them.
• Due to Town Portal Scroll having its own dedicated slot, the Bots are unable to use it to teleport unless their script allowed them so.

References