This should be the primary thing if you really want to improve yourself in dota 2. And believe me, there is always something to improve when it comes to our map awareness. Try to find out what your blind spot is. There are a lot of things on the map that a good dota player should be aware of. Let me list a few things that you may consider worth knowing and improving:

• Enemy picks and lane positioning – what heroes the enemy team has picked? Do they have any global potential like Zeus, NP, AA, Invoker? Are there Techies' mines that you should be aware of? Is the enemy team doing 3-1-1 lane or 2-1-2? Is there a jungler who can come out at some point of the game to gank you? What is the potential of their team to gank? Did they pick mid-game heroes or farm-centred late-game heroes? Try to be prepared and know what to expect.
  
• Enemy rotations – wards are essential here. Try to keep warded the spots of the map that you think are the paths for the enemy heroes to rotate between lanes. Be aware if an enemy is missing in the lane. Besides, try to discern any patterns or repetitive activities: how frequently enemy heroes rotate, what are the usual paths they take, how fast (if at all) the enemy supports teleport when you show some aggression or harassment on your lane, and the like.
  
• Minimap – remember: the minimap is your friend. The trick with the minimap is the same as the road awareness when driving a car. You drive a car and you see road signs, but you do not really focus on looking at them. You see them somehow naturally, and you do not have to slow or stop the car in order to look at them. Try to have the same awareness when it comes to the minimap.
  
• Roshan – rosh pit is a crucial spot in the game. Make sure you know when enemy heads towards roshan. Rosh pit is a bad position to defend; you may use it well to kill the enemy, or even wipe their whole team. You should remember the time roshan was killed and when he potentially comes back to live. Controlling roshan will definitely make your game easier to win. Also, make sure you know which hero can solo roshan, and when.
  
• Runes – runes show up every two minutes in both top and bot river spots. It is essential to control them, especially when you play the mid lane and have a bottle. They refill your bottle, add a buff that can be used to gank, or regenerate your health and mana. Try to keep an eye on what rune your enemy has got. Be aware if there are any techies' mines around or a trap waiting for you to come and be ganked.
  
• Heroes farm and the item progress – not many players actually follow the item progress of both your teammates and enemy heroes. It is helpful to know what your opponents have. For instance, if you know that Ursa have got a brand new vladmir's offering, you should expect him going for roshan. If you know that centaur warrunner bought a blink dagger, you should expect him going for ganks. Furthermore, once you had checked your opponent items, you may calculate whether you can kill that hero or should stay back trying to farm and gaining experience. There are plenty of items that can change the whole teamfight if you did not realize enemy has got them. Be aware when enemy heroes reach level 6, especially those with global potential like Zeus, AA, Invoker, etc. They can kill you when you get low health without a lane rotation. You can also ask your teammates to gank and help you when they have got level 6. Knowing the item progress of all heroes on the map will definitely help you planning the next step towards victory and total ownage.
  
• Combat awareness – do not be a headless chicken hitting anything that is close to you. Be aware of what is happening on the battlefield. Do not use all your skills immediately you see an enemy. Select proper target to stun or disable. Focus the right hero that should be killed as soon as possible. Remember, you can easily lose your fight if you do not pay attention to what you are doing. Do not stun the same target as your teammates at the same time. If you are a support: during the fight protect your damage dealer (usually your hard carry or mid player), wait for the initiator to do his job, try to supply your folks with health, mana, and buffs when necessary. If you are responsible for dealing damage: choose your target wisely, do not just hit and use all off-cooldown spells on anything that is closest to you. If you are initiator: do not rush with jumping on the enemy; be patient, make sure you know where the enemies are and make sure this is the right time to jump on them, so that you can make as much impact on the teamfight as possible. Good timing and positioning before and during the combat allows you to win the fight, even if your team is under farmed.

One of the most important things, and yet the most difficult for many, is to properly use the space won by destroying the enemy structures. Every time you destroy a tower, you extend the range of possibilities for you and your team. Towers draw some sort of boundaries, determining how much of the map is in your control. They also function as some kind of safe zone, especially during the early game (they do damage, detect invisible units, give you a location to teleport to). Tier 1 towers are the first structures which protect your enemies from losing the map control. Let me tell you something that may help you to understand the basic difference between tier 1 and tier 2 towers: tier 1 towers protect mostly what is behind them, whereas tier 2 towers are the last structures which give you an access to what is in front of them. I hope it makes sense to you. Most of the tier 2 towers do not cover much area behind, but give you a small control of the zone in front of them. It is strategically more important to defend your tier 1 towers than tier 2 towers. Tier 2 towers are also more difficult to defend, due to the lack of area to set up a good defense – players who group up behind them can be easily targeted by aoe spells. That being said, it is logical to destroy all your enemy tier 1 towers, rather than constantly push one lane. Tier 3 towers are the most important. They prevent a direct attack on the barracks, give a good sight on the lower ground, and provide true sight which can spot invisible units and wards.

Some towers, when destroyed, give you access to the enemy jungle. A very useful thing, when you play against the heroes who like to spend some time in the woods. It allows you to enter the enemy jungle, gank, ward, block camps, or even push the rotation of the enemy heroes, etc. It is up to you how you use that advantage. Another thing you may notice is that destroying the enemy mid and bottom towers gives you safer access to the rosh pit. It depends, however, what side you play – radiant or dire – as it makes a small difference. Dota map is not perfectly symmertical, and therefore, dire side has slight adventage over radiant when it comes to the location of the rosh pit.

Do not forget to take advantage of the map after your team had brought certain structures down. It really helps you win the game. Every destroyed tower opens some part of the map that you can, and should, use in the way to take the final victory. Look at the dota map, take some time and consider what benefits you get after destroying a specific tower. Let me explain the importance of tier 1&2 towers:

Radiant towers:

• Bot T1: Very important tower. Gives the radiant access to the jungle. Helps to control a huge area of the radiant jungle. Prevents ganking through the jungle. Easy to defend. Has a nice forest maze for juking at the bottom.
  
• Mid T1: Very important tower. Protects one way of getting into the radiant forest and one way of getting to the radiant ancient camp. Gives the quickest access to the rosh pit. Easy to defend.
  
• Top T1: The less important of the tier 1 towers. Protects the secret shop. Helps to control the radiant ancients, and a huge area of forest used for juking and setting up ganks.
  
• Bot T2: Prevents the dire side from complete owning of the radiant jungle. Gives a small control over the bottom-left side of the jungle and the cliff (good spots for warding). Difficult to defend.
  
• Mid T2: The most important of the tier 2 towers. Prevents the dire side from quick rotations during the base siege. Gives small control over the left side of the radiant jungle, the one on the lower ground. Difficult to defend.
  
• Top T2: Has the least value. Gives a slight control of the bottom forest on the highground with the cliff. May be used for quick access to the secret shop. Difficult to defend.

Dire towers:

• Bot T1: Very important tower. Has greater value than its counterpart tier 1 top tower on the radiant side. Gives quick access to the rosh pit. Helps to control the rosh pit, the ancient camp, and the secret shop. Has a great juking place on the left, which can be used to set up a good defense, but can be easily countered by a ward on the cliff. Easy/medium to defend.
  
• Mid T1: Very important tower. Gives the quickest access to the rosh pit. Protects one way of getting into the dire jungle. Prevents the radiant from ganks in the small forest to the right, and helps dire side to set up a defence. Slightly helps to maintain control over the secret shop. Easy to defend.
  
• Top T1: same as radiant tier 1 bottom tower.
  
• Bot T2: Gives quick access to the rosh pit. Provides a slight control of the forest to the left and the cliff. Protects good spots for wards. Difficult to defend.
  
• Mid T2: Prevents the radiant side from quck rotations during the base siege. Helps to maintain control over the small juking spots on the right and left sides of the tower. Helps to spot enemy heroes walking down from the left and bottom highgrounds. Difficulty to defend the tower varies, but radiant seems to have advantage.
  
• Top T2: Prevents the radiant side from controlling the whole dire jungle. Helps to spot enemies coming out of the jungle. This tower can be a relatively good defensive spot, but only if you have vision on the dire jungle. Thus, the tower together with an observer ward placed on the cliff is a good combination. But it can be a trap if the enemy team has a ward on that cliff and has vision on you grouping up behind the tower. Hard/medium to defend.

Ganking means that one or more heroes rotate to another lane in order to kill an enemy hero. Firstly, target the hero who needs to be ganked. Secondly, choose which one of your heroes will go for the gank. These two rules are the most basic ones. The first one is pretty obvious; you suppose to gank enemy hard carry or mid laner, because they will have the most impact on the late game. Ganking them stops their farm. Besides, remember to gank enemy jungler frequently, especially if you have not blocked the neutral camps with wards. They should be easy to take down, when you realize where they are. But if you leave them free to farm, they will become a huge problem later on. Sometimes, especially when you are losing the game, you may consider ganking offlaner or supports, just to get some gold income and stay in the game. As to the second rule, make sure you send a proper hero for the gank. Apart of some instances, your hard carry is not the best hero who suppose to gank often. He needs to farm, can not afford to ratate from lane to lane. Usually offlaners and mid laners gank once they reached level 6, and sometimes before their ultimate. Supports can roam, especially in the early game. Their skills and auto-attack are enough to kill the targeted enemy hero. The difference is that when mid laners or offlaners do not gank successfully, they suffer from no exp/gold income; they simply wasted their time. After 3-5 unsuccessful ganks they may become underfarmed and less lethal. It is a bit different when it comes to supports – once they failed ganking an enemy, they can stay in the lane and harass him, or focus on supporting their ally hero in that lane. One of the best gankers are junglers, once they got level 6 or basic items. They can come out of the jungle and cause havoc in an enemy lane.

Furthermore, remember about the abilities and items of your enemies. Carry dust or sentry wards if they can go invisible. Use observer wards to have vision of the hero. Use smoke if you suppose enemy has obsever wards nearby. Prepare yourself before you go for ganks.

The outcome of every team fight is mostly determined by the right or wrong positioning of your teammates. You can have a nicely farmed carry in your team, a support player with luxury items, a mid laner who can kill the enemy with three auto attacks, and yet lose the fight. Your carry can be kited, mid laner focusing the first hero he sees, initiator chasing the enemy five position support, and your support helping himself and trying to survive in the middle of the fight. Sounds familiar? Many players have no clue how to position themselves before and during team fights. They needlessly chase heroes and randomly run around the battlefield. Fights are lost, rares are gone, pride is demolished. All of that because the enemy team knows how to position their heroes effectively. I would say that about 70-80% of team fights can be won solely because of proper positioning, even if the heroes are under farmed. Let me explain some of the basic things people do not consider.

Always try to have good vision of the battlefield (observer wards, sentry wards, gem, dust). Use the landscape for your advantage as much as possible; stay on the high ground and be patient, make the enemies come closer to you – they lack vision when you stand on the high ground, and miss their attacks when fighting from the low ground. Use trees; dota has plenty juking places – use it well for your benefit, whether you need to run from the enemy, lose the enemy's focus on you, or to position yourself before or during the team fight. Trees can give you an element of surprise if you use them as a hiding place before initiating. Remember that enemies do not see you in the rosh pit; sometimes you can make use of that (attack an enemy hero who picks the rune, use it as a hiding spot to initiate with the blink dagger when an enemy approaches the rosh pit, or just juke the enemy by walking in and out of the rosh pit). Whenever possible, fight under your tower. Towers do fine damage in the early game, but what is more important, they give some vision around and true sight. Consider, if a wave of enemy creeps around the enemy heroes helps or harms you (e.g. you may waste your ulti on creeps as Juggernaut, but make a nice Sleight of Fist as Ember Spirit with battlefury, or deal more damage as Earthshaker with Echo Slam). Similarly, standing among your creeps can either harm you or help you, depending on the abilities of the enemy heroes.

Positioning depends on the role you have in your team:
As a carry and damage dealer, make sure you have space during team fights, do not be trapped. Always try to have many options of where you can go – it makes you less predictable and can confuse enemies, as they need to think about your next step. It is essential for you to have freedom of moving quickly in order to be effective. The last thing you want is to be kited around and slowly put to death by the enemy heroes (a common mistake made by players who pick heroes like Ursa, Tiny, Alchemist, Wrath King, and the like). When you fight 5v5, try to stay around your supports – they are here to help you. Make sure you do not separate yourself from them too far, so that they would not be able to aid you when you need it. Obviously, your supports will follow you, but you need to let them do that. It may be too late, or less effective, if your teammates need to catch up the distance between you and them.

As a defensive support (e.g. Dazzle, Omniknight, IO), be always ready to aid your teammates. To do that, you can not be the focus of the enemy team. You should do your best to be free in using your abilities and items. You need to be in a relatively safe place in order to focus on helping your team, not on surviving the enemy hits. Therefore, the supports usually stay at the back of the team, but in range of the spells and items. You may consider hiding somewhere among trees, but make sure you will be in range to aim your team effectively. Sometimes supports find a spot too deep into the trees, they stuck and are unable to follow their team when the battle ground shifts. The movement of defensive supports depends on the movement of their team, especially of the carry. The priority is to be always in range for aiding the team.

As an offensive support (e.g. Shadow Shaman, Vengeful Spirit, Witch Doctor), you need to directly help your team to get the kills, which involves using the whole range of abilities to immobilize, stun, silence, hex, etc. For this reason, you have to be in range to reach the enemy heroes. You can not be focused by the enemies, as you would die before you can have your impact on the team fight. Force staff or blink dagger are good items to catch up the distance between you and the enemies. It is good to hide somewhere behind or beside your core heroes, and come out when the enemies need to be controlled. The priority is to control the enemy heroes.

As an initiator, you are expected to start the battle (depends on the strategy, to be honest, but right now I am talking about the norms). You need to be the guy who takes the enemy's attention. More they focus on you, more space you buy for your team to kill the enemy. Before initiating, make sure you know the possible escape routes, so that you can easily disengage from the battle if something goes wrong, or you get low health. Remember that your teammates need to be around, so that they can quickly join you in battle. There is no point in initiating if your team is not ready. Always try to initiate from a spot where the enemies do not see you – surprise them. Items like blink dagger or force staff are essential for most of the initiators in dota, as they help you close the gap between you and the enemies, and allow you for quick initiation.

Let us continue in the second part of this section: Positioning during team fights, part 2 "examples" (sorry, I reached the limit of signs used on this page).

Consider two examples:

EXAMPLE 1


In the picture above (example 1) you can see standard positioning of radiant heroes preparing for a gank. The observer ward gives vision of the dire team's position on the lane. The sentry ward makes sure the enemies do not have vision of your jungle. Axe is hidden in the woods, ready to initiate with blink and use Berserker's Call. Gyrocopter and Templar Assasin are the damage dealers. One of them can be used as a bait to lure enemies closer, if necessary. If TA has a blink dagger, she can easily stay on the back and quickly join the battle. Notice the position of the two supports: Dazzle is the defensive support, responsible for healing and armor increase/reduction. He moves slightly to the forward together with his team. He should not be in the middle of fight, but stay in range to cast his spells effectively. Lion is the offensive support, he moves to the front in order to control the enemies with his stun and hex after Berserker's Call is finished. This gank should be easily executed. Ez life.

EXAMPLE 2


In the picture above (example 2) you can see standard positioning of a dire team preparing to attack the enemies who have moved close to the tower. Clockwerk patiently waits for a good occasion to use Hookshot and trap enemies in the Power Cogs. He is the initiator, the whole team waits for his move. Razor and Shadow Fiend will do the damage. Again in this picture SF can stay slightly at the back and use blink dagger to jump closer after Clockwerk's initiation. Omninight moves towards the tower, so that his spells will be in range to aid his allies. Skywrath Mage comes closer in order to control the enemies with his abilities to slow and silence. Very similar situation as in example 1.

The examples above show the standard positioning. Be aware that teams develop strategies; they try to surprise the enemy, use supports or carries as baits, change positioning in order to confuse the enemy. Nonetheless, we all need to know the standard positioning before we start making our own strategies. Practice, and make sure it does not cause you trouble to position yourself. At some point positioning comes naturally and the playstyle resambles an art, rather than a chaos.

in progress...

in progress...

in progress...

Every decision you make has an impact on the game. This impact will be either positive or negative. I mean it, EVERY, decision has a consequence. If you get familiar with this truth, you will be one step closer to improve your play. At the very beginning of the game, your decision matters: you can go for a rune, try a smoke gank, block the enemy jungle with wards, block creeps, and the like. Whatever you choose to do, it will affect your game.

You can always risk, but remember that your failure means success to the enemy team. It is up to you what type of play style you prefer. You choose whether you want to risk or play safe. I do not mean that being aggressive is risky and being passive is safe. Sometimes it is the other way around. For example, imagine that you play against carry Naga Siren or Anti-Mage who rely on their farm and strike your team down in the late game. Now, your core heroes are Pugna and Dragon Knight who have to shine in the early and mid game in order to win the game within 30-40 minutes. It would be risky to wait until the late game. Furthermore, things like diving behind the enemy's tower, leaving your carry without support, walking through non-warded paths, etc, can be risky. Always remember to calculate whether the action you plan is worth the risk or not.

Try to avoid making wrong decisions. Sometimes it is better to give up a tower, rather than teleport to defend it and die. And the tower falls down anyways. Try to find a trade. If the enemy team is about to destroy your bottom lane tower and you know you are not in position to defend it, try to destroy their top lane tower. Or go kill Roshan with your team, if possible. That is a trade. Use the knowledge of the enemy position wisely. Watch closely how they respond to your movement. If you see that they teleport every time you approach their tower, you can use it to your advantage. You can use diversion, a bait, force them to move from one place to another, confuse them. Remember that Dota is a strategy game, like chess; you do not have to get high kill score in order to win the game, but to destroy the main building. You do not have to prove your manliness by jumping into battle every time you see an enemy hero... by doing that you would only prove your stupidity and mindless actions. And I bet you are the clever one! :)

Make wise priorities. Consider your decisions in order to avoid mistakes. For instance, a common mistake is to focus the whole attention on the wrong enemy hero for the first 20-30 minutes of the game. It gives the enemy core hero space and time to farm, and he is the ultimate weapon of his team. Also, giving space and farm to a hero that is not your core may be risky (unless you plan that, like farming support Visage or Venomancer in order to push the lanes). You can end up with a carry with no basic items, and a support with luxury items.

Communication is essential. What and how you speak to your teammates do influence their potency in the game. You can either lock or unlock their talents and skills. If you are your team captain, you should read the previous sentence again. There are two things that captains often do not balance well: to be both decisive and polite. They are either too aggressive when they refer to teammates' mistakes or sugar them too much, as if no mistake ever happened. Consequently, their teammates do not learn anything from their mistakes. Try to avoid these two approaches. When you speak about a mistake made by one of your teammates, try to avoid being all-knowing-tyrant. Using specific language can help you reach the person; for example use "we" instead of "you". Thus, when you refer to a mistake, treat people as equal. Show them that they are important players of the team, individually and collectively. Remember that the weakness of one member is the weakness of the whole body. But also, the strength of one player is the strength of the whole team. Do not bring down your people, or else you will have a weak team, and lose their respect.

If you are a capitan, you need to be sure that your teammates are on the same page as you. Make sure you are understandable and clear in what you say to them. Use short but precise sentences. Remember that they need to focus on the game, not only on your talking. You should not be a distraction, but a guidance. Make sure they know the plan and strategy before they enter the battlefield. Even a rough plan is better than no plan. Remember, if you want to succsessfully lead your team, they need to know what is on your mind.

Often praise your teammates. Especially when they do something exceptionally well. It will increase your team's morale, and build up friendliness. Remember that you play with human beings; every time you sincerely praise your teammates, their self-esteem insreases. Consequently, the game will be more enjoyable, and their playstyle more confident.