One of the handiest features of Dota 2 is its built in Hero Builds and Hero Build maker. The system allows you to pull up a whole selection of builds made by other players right in the game where it will highlight what to build and what abilities to put points into. The other half of it, the Hero Build Maker, gives you the tools to make your own builds and load them up in game for your own use, or share them with other players to be rated and commented on. The process is very simple and allows you to make as many builds as you want, for any of the heroes in the game.

The first step in making a new build is to head over to http://www.dota2.com/workshop/builds and log in to your steam account. Select "New Hero Build" and you're on your way.

The next screen is where you can choose the hero you are creating a build for. They're all there and can be filtered many different ways to narrow down the one you want. Simply Select your hero and you'll be taken to the build creation screen where the real fun starts.

For starters you're going to want to give your build a name. Try to go with something that describes what the build is about but also will make it appeal to other players if you plan on publishing it to the steam community. Franks All Damage Drow is good example of being descriptive and packing a punch in the style department.

Item Build

Next up you get the chance to add an item build. Both the item and ability builds are optional and you can have one without the other, but if you want to make a quality full featured build, you should include them both. When you add the item build an interface will pop up with a display of all the items in the game along with some categories to the left. These categories are "Starting Items" "Early Game" "Core Items" "Situational Items" and "New Items" ( allows you to create a custom category).

Each of these categories represents the order in which you should be buying the items, as well as which items are more crucial to the build (core items are the key to a build). Once you've got your item build planned out, simply drag and drop the items into the boxes you want them in and you're done. In game the player will see these categories complete with their items when they open the shop menu.

Note: Author notes can be added to any item you wish by simply left clicking on it. Notes can be a great way to explain your item choices, or give some more detail on how they should be used.

Ability Build

Your Ability Build is the next and final step, and is actually the simplest one to complete. Each of the heroes abilities has 25 check boxes representing each level they could attain in a match. As you can only put one point in one ability per level, check off one ability per row all the way up to 25.

Note: You can also add notes to each of the abilities by left clicking on the ability image.

The builder has a few helpful hints built into it to keep you on the right track. It will not allow you to put a point into your ultimate until level 6, it wont allow you to chose more than one ability per level, and it will detect when an ability has been maxed and will not allow you to put more points into it.

Once you have your ability build completed you are ready to save your Hero Build. After saving, you will be returned to the Build front page and should see your newly created build under "Your Steam Cloud Builds". Selecting the arrow to the right of the build name will allow you to view, edit, remove, or publish your build for all to use on the steam community.