Dotadle: Classic, Ability, Quote and Loading Screen modes — attribute, range type and complexity feedback for the Dota 2 roster

The Classic columns

Seven columns, in the client's order: Gender (Male, Female, Other); Species ("there may be multiple species for one champion"); Position(s) (Carry, Midlane, Offlane, Support, Hard Support — "most played positions in game, i.e. if the pick rate for a position is above 20% in the past 6 months, for all ranks"); Attribute ("main attribute of the Hero, as stated by the game": Strength, Agility, Intelligence or Universal); Range Type (Melee or Ranged — "how the Hero hits other Heroes with right click"); Complexity (Easy, Medium, Hard, "as stated by the game"); and Release Year.

The help screen gives the colour grammar: green is an exact match, orange a partial match, red no overlap, and an arrow on a red cell says whether the answer's value is above or below your guess. Release Year is the only numeric column, so it is the only one with arrows; Complexity is a category and is green or red. If a game drags on, Classic unlocks three clues: a quote after 6 guesses, an ability icon after 12 and a loading-screen crop after 18.

Why release year is lopsided

In the roster data, 60 of the 126 heroes carry the year 2004 and 74 of them 2004 or 2005; only 15 are dated 2013 or later. (The help screen lists the possible values as "from 2014 to today", but the data the client ships runs from 2004 to 2024 — we report the data.) So a year arrow mostly answers one question: is the hero from the large early group or from the short modern list? An ↑ on a 2012 guess leaves at most 15 heroes before any other column is read.

The opener

We scored every hero as an opener against the whole roster, using the client's own data and feedback rules: for each possible answer, how many heroes would still fit the colours a guess produces. The best by that measure is Mirana (Female, Human, Support/Hard Support, Agility, Ranged, Medium, 2006), which leaves 2.8 candidates on average; Beastmaster (3.0) and Shadow Fiend (3.1) follow. The worst openers are the unusual profiles — Kez (21.0), Arc Warden (16.6), Ringmaster (15.6) — because their rare values come back red for almost everyone.

Species, and the value of a red

The roster uses 47 different species values, and 25 of them belong to a single hero, so a green on a rare species is usually the answer. Human is the largest value at 27 heroes, followed by Undead (11) and Demon (9). Because many heroes have two species, an orange is common — Sven, for instance, is listed as Human and Meranth — and a red on Human removes 27 heroes at once.

Roles: what the Position(s) column counts

Dotadle has no 'roles' column; its Position(s) column lists the positions where a hero's pick rate was above 20% over six months, per the help text. In the data, 44 heroes have one position, 66 have two and 14 have three; Kez and Ringmaster have none listed. Support (56 heroes) and Offlane (47) are the most common values, Carry (30) the least, so an orange here is frequent and a green on a single-position Carry is a strong narrowing.

Ability, Quote and Loading Screen

Ability asks which Hero has the ability whose icon is shown; after six guesses a clue gives the ability's name, and a Challenger zone offers a grey filter and random rotation for players who want it harder.

Quote asks which Hero says a line "during a game"; an audio clue unlocks after six guesses, and the help says you can hear it once you have guessed correctly.

Loading Screen shows a cropped loading screen; "each try zooms out a bit", the crop "can be cut from one that contains multiple Heroes", and you see the whole image once you solve it.

Regions and reset

Dotadle's Time zone setting offers Europe ("Midnight at UTC+2") and America ("Midnight at UTC-6"). Both run the same numbered puzzles: in our 40 daily files (2 September – 11 October 2026) the two showed the same number and answers on 24 dates and America one number ahead on the other 16, and every number seen in both had the same four answers. The engine and feedback colours are shared with LoLdle and Pokedle.

Quick reference

The columns in one list, with what the roster data says about each.

• Gender — 96 Male, 24 Female, 6 Other.
• Species — 47 values; Human is the largest (27), 25 values belong to one hero.
• Position(s) — Support 56, Offlane 47, Hard Support 44, Midlane 41, Carry 30; most heroes have two.
• Attribute — Strength 35, Agility 34, Intelligence 34, Universal 23.
• Range Type — 66 Ranged, 61 Melee (Troll Warlord is listed as both).
• Complexity — Medium 58, Easy 55, Hard 13.
• Release Year — 2004 to 2024, with 60 heroes on 2004; the only column with arrows.

Reader questions

"Which complexity is most common?" Medium, with 58 heroes; Easy has 55 and Hard only 13.

"How many Universal heroes are there?" 23 in the roster data, against 34–35 for each of the other three attributes.

"Does the Loading Screen always show the answer alone?" No — the help says the crop can come from a loading screen featuring several Heroes.

Dotadle since launch

The game does not state a launch date, so we only offer arithmetic: the America puzzle on 11 October 2026 was #1032, and if the count has advanced by one a day without gaps, #1 fell in mid-December 2023. The client's patch notes and roster data are what define the game today; the newest heroes in its data are Kez and Ringmaster, both dated 2024.

A Classic game, narrated

This example is computed from the client's roster data and feedback rules, not played. The answer is Dark Seer — Europe #1031 on 10–11 October 2026 — listed as Male, Outer Being, Offlane/Support, Intelligence, Melee, Easy, 2007.

Guess 1, Juggernaut (Male, Human/Masked One, Carry, Agility, Melee, Easy, 2004): Gender green, Species red, Position(s) red, Attribute red, Range Type green, Complexity green, Release Year red ↑. Nine heroes fit: Abaddon, Axe, Bristleback, Dark Seer, Mars, Primal Beast, Spirit Breaker, Tusk and Undying.

Guess 2, Undying (Male, Undead, Offlane/Support/Hard Support, Strength, Melee, Easy, 2007): Species red, Position(s) orange, Attribute red, Release Year green. Of the nine, only Dark Seer is a 2007 non-Strength hero, so guess 3 is the answer.

Ability icons, and the challenger options

What the client documents about the Ability mode.

• The question — "Which Hero has this ability?", answered from the icon alone at first.
• The clue — after six guesses, the Ability Name Clue gives "the name of the ability".
• Grey filter — a Challenger option that removes the icon's colour.
• Random rotation — a second Challenger option that turns the icon; the client says you can change either at any time.

Dotadle versus LoLdle for a player who knows both games

The two share an engine and colour grammar, but the data differs. LoLdle's roster file has 173 entries with release years spread from 2009 to 2026, so its year arrow splits evenly; Dotadle's 126 heroes are bunched at 2004–2005, so its arrow mostly sorts old from new. Dotadle replaces LoLdle's Resource and Region columns with Attribute and Complexity, and its Species column has more values (47) for fewer heroes.

Primary attribute, quarter by quarter

Attribute splits the roster 35 Strength, 34 Agility, 34 Intelligence and 23 Universal, so a red removes about a quarter or a third and a green keeps the same. It also tracks Range Type closely in the data: 33 of the 35 Strength heroes are Melee and 33 of the 34 Intelligence heroes Ranged, while Agility divides 17 Ranged, 16 Melee and one hero listed as both, and Universal 13 Ranged to 10 Melee.

The practical consequence: Strength plus Ranged (2 heroes) or Intelligence plus Melee (1 hero) is almost a solve, and Attribute green plus Range Type green on a Strength or Intelligence guess still leaves about 33, which is why Species or Release Year has to do the next cut.

Quote mode, as the client describes it

The help text is short: guess which Hero says the sentence during a game, in the fewest tries; an Audio Clue lets you listen to the line, and you can hear it once you have solved it. Quotes the client cannot show in your language are automatically translated, with a toggle to see the original. Nothing else is revealed on a miss, so this is recall; our answer page gives only the hero's name, not the line.

A month's answers

Our files hold 41 Classic answers (#992 to #1032), all different. Agility (13) and Intelligence (12) answers outnumbered Strength and Universal (8 each); 24 of the 41 were 2004 heroes, close to the roster's share, and only one was a Hard hero. Across all four modes the 164 answers named 101 different heroes, and no hero answered two modes of the same puzzle. That is a small sample, not a rule.

Attack range and complexity, the quiet columns

Range Type is close to binary — 66 Ranged, 61 Melee, with Troll Warlord the one hero listed as both — so a green and a red are each worth about half the roster, and paired with Attribute it is sharper still. Complexity uses the game's own Easy/Medium/Hard rating. Easy and Medium are near-equal, but Hard is only 13 heroes: Arc Warden, Brewmaster, Chen, Earth Spirit, Invoker, Io, Kez, Lone Druid, Meepo, Morphling, Oracle, Rubick and Visage. A green on Hard is a short list.

Glossary

Terms as used on this site.

• Attribute — Strength, Agility, Intelligence or Universal, "as stated by the game".
• Complexity — the game's Easy/Medium/Hard rating; a category, so no arrow.
• Position(s) — positions with a pick rate above 20% over six months.
• Loading screen — the artwork the Loading Screen mode crops and zooms out from.
• Region — the Europe (UTC+2) or America (UTC−6) time zone; both listed on the answer page.

Reader questions, second round

"Which heroes are listed as Other gender?" Six: Arc Warden, Enigma, Io, Morphling, Phoenix and Puck.

"Can I move my streak to another device?" The client offers a data transfer: export a token (valid 24 hours) on the old device and import it on the new one, which replaces streaks and stats.

Frequently asked questions

Recent Dotadle answers

Every past puzzle is in the Dotadle archive. New here? Start with the Dotadle guide.