Dotadle is LoLdle's Dota 2 sibling from the same developer: one hero per day, four modes. Classic identifies the hero from attribute feedback — gender, species, primary attribute, attack type, complexity, roles and release year; Ability shows an ability icon; Quote plays a voice line; Loading Screen shows a crop of a loading-screen artwork. The roster is 126 heroes, small enough that a method solves Classic in three guesses.
Today's answers, both regions, are on the Dotadle answers today page. Below: the columns, the opener, and the recognition modes.
The Classic columns
Gender; Species (human, undead, demon, beast, elemental, spirit…); Primary attribute (Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Universal); Attack type (melee, ranged); Complexity (one to three, Valve's own rating); Roles (carry, support, nuker, disabler, initiator, escape, durable, pusher, jungler — multi-value, so partials are constant); and Release year with an arrow, from the 2011 beta to the present.
Primary attribute is the strongest single column — it splits the roster into four near-equal quarters. Release year is the ordered one. Roles is the weakest: almost every hero has three or four, and a partial tells you little.
Why release year is lopsided
About sixty heroes were ported in 2011 and forty more by 2013; only two dozen have been added since. A 2012 guess therefore returns ↓ for most of the roster and ↑ for the modern additions — a lopsided split, but a decisive one. If you get ↑, the pool is the twenty-odd post-2013 heroes and the game is nearly over.
The opener
Because most of the roster was released in the 2011–2013 port from the original mod, the year arrow is lopsided: a guess from 2012 returns ↓ for the bulk of heroes and ↑ for the post-2014 additions, which is still useful — it tells you immediately whether you're in the original hundred or the modern twenty-six. Pair a 2012 hero with a Strength or Agility attribute, melee, complexity two, and a species of human or beast. Then move every red and read the arrow.
Species, and the value of a red
Dota's species list is long — human, undead, demon, beast, elemental, spirit, ogre, troll, keeper, and more — and most values are held by only a few heroes. A green on Species is decisive. A red on 'human', the largest group, is the strongest single elimination in the game: it removes a third of the roster. Open with a human for that reason.
Roles: read, don't chase
Every hero carries three to five role tags, so Roles is yellow on almost every guess. Treat it as confirmation of a candidate rather than a search direction. The one exception is 'carry': a green on carry with agility primary narrows to a recognisable set.
Ability, Quote and Loading Screen
Ability shows an icon. Dota's icon art is distinctive by hero — colour palette and style match the hero's model — and after a miss the ability name appears, which usually settles it.
Quote is a voice line with the hero's name removed. Dota's writing gives every hero a strong voice; lines referencing another hero (rivalries are common) narrow it fast.
Loading Screen shows a crop of a loading-screen artwork, widening per miss. These are often from cosmetic sets, so the hero's silhouette matters more than the outfit.
Regions and reset
Dotadle runs Europe and America puzzles daily (#992 and #993 on 3 September 2026), resetting at midnight UTC; both are listed on the answer page. The engine is shared with LoLdle and Pokedle — the same colours mean the same things.
Quick reference
The columns in one list, with the value to open on.
- Gender — open male (majority).
- Species — open human (largest group; a red is worth the most).
- Primary attribute — open Strength or Agility; Universal is the smallest group.
- Attack type — open melee (slight majority).
- Complexity — open 2 (most common).
- Roles — ignore for the opener; multi-valued.
- Release year — open 2012; read the arrow.
Reader questions
"Which complexity is most common?" Two. Complexity one and three are each about a fifth of the roster.
"Are Universal heroes a separate attribute?" Yes, since Valve added the category; there are about a dozen.
"Does the Loading Screen mode use default art?" Rarely — most crops are from cosmetic loading screens, which is why the silhouette matters more than the outfit.
Dotadle since launch
Dotadle's puzzle numbers (#992 Europe, 3 September 2026) put its start in late 2023, a year after LoLdle. It has kept LoLdle's Classic column design with Dota-specific values and swapped the Splash mode for Loading Screen. New heroes are added on release with their attributes; Valve's occasional reclassification of a hero's primary attribute (the Universal category, introduced 2023) was applied retroactively, which changed the feedback for a handful of heroes and is worth knowing if an old strategy note seems wrong.
A Classic game, narrated
Europe #992's answer was Bounty Hunter. Opener Sven — male, human (the game lists 'human' for the Rogue Knight), Strength, melee, complexity 1, carry/disabler/initiator/durable, 2011. Feedback: Gender green, Species red, Attribute red, Attack green, Complexity red, Roles yellow (carry overlaps), Year green. So: a 2011 melee male non-human, Agility or Intelligence or Universal, complexity 2 or 3, a carry among other things.
Second guess Bloodseeker — male, human? No — I want a non-human 2011 melee: Lifestealer (undead? the game says 'ghoul'), Agility, melee, complexity 2, carry/durable/escape, 2011. Feedback: Species red again, Attribute green (Agility), Complexity green (2), Roles yellow, Year green. Now: 2011, Agility, melee, complexity 2, male, a species that is neither human nor ghoul, a carry.
Third guess Bounty Hunter — male, Keen Folk (the game's species value), Agility, melee, complexity 2, escape/nuker/carry, 2011. Green across the board. Three guesses, and the decisive columns were the ones people skip: Species (two reds) and Complexity (one red, one green).
Ability icons, by how much they give away
Dota's ability art is consistent within a hero's kit — palette, brush style, the hero's own colours — and that is what to read.
- Icons with the hero in them (many ultimates): one-guess days.
- Elemental icons (fire, ice, lightning): narrow to the element's heroes — Lina, Crystal Maiden, Zeus, Storm Spirit — and the palette does the rest.
- Weapon icons (a blade, an arrow, a hook): the weapon style dates the hero; Pudge's hook and Mirana's arrow are unmistakable.
- Abstract icons (auras, buffs): the hard days. After a miss the ability name appears; use it.
Dotadle versus LoLdle for a player who knows both games
The two share an engine and a column design, but the rosters make them play differently. League's roster is bigger (170 versus 126) and its release years are spread evenly, so the year arrow is informative on every guess. Dota's roster is front-loaded in 2011–2013, so the year arrow is mostly a test of 'old or new'. In exchange, Dota's Species column is far more varied than League's and does more work. A LoLdle player moving to Dotadle should shift their opener from 'middle year' to 'human, Strength, melee, complexity 2' and lean on Species reds.
Primary attribute, quarter by quarter
Valve's four primary attributes split the roster almost evenly, which makes Primary Attribute the one column whose green and red are both worth about the same. Strength heroes are the front-liners — Axe, Tidehunter, Centaur — and skew melee and complexity one or two. Agility heroes are the carries — Anti-Mage, Phantom Assassin, Juggernaut — and skew melee but include the ranged marksmen. Intelligence heroes are the casters and supports — Crystal Maiden, Lion, Zeus — and skew ranged. Universal, the newest category, holds the flexible heroes Valve moved out of the other three: Mirana, Windranger, Void Spirit, Dark Willow among them.
The useful consequence: Attribute green plus Attack Type green usually leaves ten to fifteen heroes; add a Species green and it's under five. That's the three-column combination to aim for by guess two.
Quote lines that give the hero away
Dota's voice lines are written with a strong sense of each hero's voice, and the Quote mode is easier than LoLdle's for that reason. Lines that mention another hero by name ("Not today, Mortred") identify a rival; lines with a catchphrase ("Payday!") identify the speaker; lines in a distinctive register — Keeper of the Light's serenity, Techies' mania, Ogre Magi's two voices — narrow to one. The hard days are the generic kill lines. On those, the answer page is the honest route, and the archive is the way to learn the voices for next time.
A weekly rhythm
Weekday Classic answers skew toward the popular pub heroes; weekends reach for the obscure and the recently added. The Loading Screen mode is hardest on weekends for the same reason — cosmetic sets for unpopular heroes are the ones nobody recognises. Keep a Classic streak by opening the same way every day and let the arrows do the work; the recognition modes are where the answer page earns its keep.
Attack type and complexity, the quiet columns
Attack type is binary — melee or ranged — and splits the roster close to evenly, so a red is worth as much as a green; it's the cheapest half-elimination in the game and pairs naturally with Primary Attribute (Strength melee, Intelligence ranged, Agility mixed). Complexity is Valve's own one-to-three rating of how hard a hero is to play, and it's the column newcomers ignore because it seems subjective. It isn't, for the game's purposes: the values are fixed, complexity two is the majority, and a green on complexity three narrows to the twenty or so heroes Valve considers hardest — Invoker, Meepo, Chen, Earth Spirit and their kind. Between them, these two quiet columns often decide a guess-three.
Glossary
Terms as used on this site.
- Primary attribute — Strength, Agility, Intelligence or Universal; the even-split column.
- Complexity — Valve's one-to-three difficulty rating; a fixed value per hero.
- Species — the hero's kind as the game classifies it; a red on human is the largest elimination.
- Loading screen — the cosmetic artwork the Loading Screen mode crops.
- Region — the Europe/America daily split; both listed on the answer page.
Reader questions, second round
"Does the game count Universal heroes' old attribute?" No — the current classification, applied retroactively.
"Which mode is best for learning heroes?" Ability, because a miss reveals the ability name and you learn the kit; the archive's Ability answers are a good study list.
Frequently asked questions
What are Dotadle's modes?
Classic, Ability, Quote and Loading Screen.
How many heroes are in the pool?
The full Dota 2 roster, 126 heroes at the time of writing.
What time does Dotadle reset?
00:00 UTC.
How many guesses is a good Classic score?
Three is strong; the median with a method is about four; guessing favourites averages seven.
Does the game include Kez and the newest heroes?
Yes — new heroes are added on release with their attributes.
Recent Dotadle answers
- Sep 2, 2026 · #992 — Classic (Europe): Bounty Hunter · Ability (Europe): Warlock · Quote (Europe): Enchantress · Loading Screen (Europe): Winter Wyvern · Classic (America): Tidehunter · Ability (America): Broodmother · Quote (America): Lycan · Loading Screen (America): Nyx Assassin
Browse the full Dotadle archive or go back to today's puzzle answers across every game on HintSheet.