Dota 2 Roshan Guide: Aegis Timing, Smoke Setups, and Vision Control

Roshan sits in the river for most of the game, and the team that kills him first usually grabs the wheel for the next five minutes. The big golem drops the Aegis, which is basically a free extra life for whoever picks it up, plus gold and a pile of experience for the squad. Take him at the wrong time, though, and you hand the other side a clean team wipe along with the objective. The fight is less about raw damage and more about timing, vision, and not getting caught in the pit with no backup.

This is a PvE boss with PvP wrapped around it. You're racing his health bar while five enemy heroes look for any excuse to jump you. The rules are knowable once you've seen them play out. His stats scale on a fixed clock, the pits swap on a schedule, and every drop has a window you can plan around.

Roshan Stats and Damage Thresholds by Minute

Roshan starts the game at 6000 health, 75 attack damage, and around 30 armor, and he gets stronger every single minute on a fixed clock. His Strength of the Immortal passive ticks over with the first creep wave and then once a minute after that, and it keeps stacking even while he's dead. So a Roshan you left alive at minute 18 is a noticeably chunkier one when he shows up again at minute 28.

The growth per minute is the part you can actually plan around:

• Health: +130
• Attack damage: +7
• Armor: +0.4
• Slam damage: +10

Run those out to a few common fight times and you get a feel for how fast he balloons:

| Minute | Health | Attack damage | Armor | Slam damage | |---|---|---|---|---| | 10 | 7,300 | 145 | 34 | 170 | | 20 | 8,600 | 215 | 38 | 270 | | 30 | 9,900 | 285 | 42 | 370 | | 40 | 11,200 | 355 | 46 | 470 |

These are snapshots worked out from his per-minute growth. His base values are 6000 HP, 75 damage, around 30 armor, and a 70-damage Slam, so you can do the math yourself for any minute you want.

A couple of things make the raw numbers misleading. He has 55% magic resistance baked in, plus 25% status resistance and 25% slow resistance. So spell damage is mostly a waste of time on him. You kill Roshan with right-clicks and physical burst, not with a Lina ult and a prayer. Illusions get hit even harder, since his Devotion aura cuts illusion damage by 80%. The old "send in the Phantom Lancer army" plan does almost nothing.

What his abilities do to you

• Slam hits a 350 radius for 70 base damage plus that +10 a minute, and it slows move and attack speed by 50% for 4 seconds. It only fires when three or more units are standing near him, one of which has to be a hero. Don't cluster up melee in the pit. Spread the tanking around.
• Bash is a 15% chance on each of his swings for 50 bonus damage and a 1.65-second stun. Melee attackers eat these constantly. A carry with no evasion or armor gets chewed up.
• Spell Block eats one single-target spell every 15 seconds. Don't open with your best targeted nuke, he'll just shrug it off.
• Roar of Retribution only matters on repeat kills. If your team killed him last, he'll roar when he drops below 85% health and you hit him again. It disarms everyone in 600 range for 2 seconds, and worse, it amps all damage you take by 25% for 12 seconds. The second and third Roshans are genuinely more dangerous because of this. Pop BKB before you walk in for round two.

He also can't be shoved around. Forced movement does nothing to him, and he heals back up if you stop hitting him, so you can't chip him to half and come back later. Once you commit, you're committed.

Who can actually take him

Solo killers lean on stacking effects or attack speed. Ursa still does it with Fury Swipes (though the stacks fall off faster on Roshan than on anything else), Troll Warlord shreds him in Berserker's Rage, and Lycan plus his wolves melts the early pit. Huskar, Wraith King, Slark, Lone Druid, and Bloodseeker can all handle it once they have a real item or two. For tanking, fat frontliners like Centaur, Bristleback, or Underlord soak the bashes while the carry swings. Two heroes plus a courier full of regeneration takes him down clean somewhere around minute 12 to 15 in most games.

Reading Roshan Pit Vision and Wards

There are two pits now, and which one he's in depends on the clock. For the first 15 minutes he always sits in the Radiant pit on the high ground above the river. After that he shuffles between them on the day-night cycle: Radiant pit during the day, Dire pit at night. Day and night flip every five minutes, so the minimap is the quickest way to know which pit is live. You'll also see his respawn timer next to it once he's been killed. Late-game Roshan can be in either spot, so check before you walk.

Vision decides almost everything about a Roshan fight. If you can see the enemy walk in and they can't see you, you get to choose the fight. Flip that around and you're the one walking into a trap. So the supports on both sides are usually fighting a quiet war over a few cliff ledges.

Where to put your eyes

• The pit cliff ledges. Both pits have high ground you can ward from the low ground below, and a ward up on the lip sees the whole interior plus the main entrance. This is the single most valuable ward in the game when Roshan is alive.
• The river rune spots and mid crossings. A ward near the river tells you which heroes are rotating toward the pit long before they arrive.
• The jungle entrances on each side. These catch a team sneaking through their own woods to set up.
• The high ground behind the pit. Contesting teams love to wait up here. If you can see it, you know the ambush is loaded.

Reading what the enemy has

If the other team has an observer ward on the pit cliff and you walk in, they watch your whole team file in and just back off or set a trap. If you've dewarded that spot and they're blind, you can smoke in and they won't know until the pit music plays.

Sentries are the other half of this. A sentry on the cliff or at the entrance does two jobs: it lets you kill their observer (free gold, plus you blind them), and it reveals any smoked or invisible heroes trying to scout you. When you're the team inside the pit, drop a sentry at each entrance so a smoked enemy can't just stroll in and steal the Aegis off the ground.

One more thing on day and night. Hero vision drops at night, which means the defending team sees less of the approaches. Night Roshans are sneakier for exactly this reason. If you're contesting after dark, put more observers over the river, since your heroes won't spot rotations on their own.

Smoke and Dive Setups for Contesting Roshan

Smoke of Deceit is the item that makes sneaky Roshans work. It costs 50 gold from the base shop, and when you pop it, your whole group goes invisible. The catch is that this invisibility ignores normal vision AND True Sight. Sentries, observer wards, and a Gem of True Sight do not reveal a smoked unit. The only way the enemy catches you is if one of their heroes stands near you, or you brush past a tower.

So when you've cleared their pit vision with sentries, a smoke is how you walk five heroes into the pit without anyone knowing. Group up somewhere off-screen first, like the secret shop or a quiet corner of your jungle, then smoke and move together. The little move speed boost helps you close the gap before the smoke runs out.

The sneaky-take checklist

Before you even light the smoke, run through a few things:

• Is their whole team showing somewhere far away on the map? If a core just TP'd top to defend a wave, the pit is open.
• Are your key heroes alive with ultimates off cooldown? A Roshan attempt with no Black Hole, no Ravage, and no Reverse Polarity is begging to get stolen.
• Did you sweep the area with sentries first? If they still have a ward, the smoke is wasted.
• Is someone tanky enough to face-tank the bashes while you damage him down?

The dive, from the other side

If you're the team contesting and you spot them starting Roshan, the smoke play flips around. You smoke your initiator and the burst heroes, walk around to the high ground behind the pit, and wait. The trap is simple: they're taking real damage from Roshan, their tank is getting bashed and slammed, and you get to hit a team that's already at 60% health.

The best dive timing is around when Roshan hits 30 to 40% health. By then they've committed hard and they're hurt, but they think they're about to finish. Jump them then and they have to choose between turning to fight you (and letting Roshan heal back up as they stop hitting him) or trying to burn him down while you kill them. Either way it's ugly for them.

A nastier version: let them kill Roshan, then dive the instant the Aegis drops on the ground. Now you're fighting a low team AND you can steal the Aegis or the Cheese off the floor. This is high risk, because if you misplay they pick up the Aegis and suddenly have an extra life mid-fight, so only do it when you have the stronger lineup.

Good initiators for pit dives are the ones who don't care about Roshan's Slam. Tidehunter, Enigma, Magnus, Earthshaker, and Faceless Void all love a stacked pit because their ultimates hit every clumped hero at once. Add a Lina or a Lion for follow-up burst and the fight ends before Roshan does.

Aegis and Cheese Timing Windows

Everything you do around Roshan feeds into one question: what are you doing with the next five minutes? The Aegis lasts exactly 5 minutes from pickup, or until Roshan respawns, whichever happens first. Since he respawns 8 to 11 minutes after death, the Aegis will always burn out before or right as he comes back. You can't bank a live Aegis into the next Roshan fight.

The classic memory trick is 5-3-3. Five minutes of Aegis, then about three more minutes until the respawn window opens at 8 minutes, then up to three more until it's guaranteed at 11. The exact second inside that window is random and the game doesn't tell you, so once the window opens you treat the pit like he could be back any moment.

What the Aegis actually does

When the holder dies, they come back to life after 5 seconds at full health and mana, right where they dropped, and it slows every enemy nearby. It's a second life with no strings. The real value, though, is that the holder can play aggressively with zero fear. They can dive the tier 3 tower, walk into fog to ward, or body-block for the team, because dying once costs nothing.

Who should grab it

Usually your hardest-hitting core, the one whose death loses you the fight. Give the Aegis to the hero you most want swinging freely. Sometimes that's the frontliner initiator instead, if they're the one who has to go in first and will almost certainly die going in. Don't hand it to a support who's going to stand in the back and never use it, that's a wasted extra life.

Cheese and the later drops

The second kill adds Cheese, a one-use instant heal that dumps a big chunk of both health and mana back at once. It's shareable, so a support getting focused can yell for it and get bailed out mid-fight. Keep it on someone who'll actually be in danger, and remember you can pass it to a teammate while the fight is happening.

The third kill drops a Refresher Shard, which resets every ability and item cooldown. On an Enigma, a Tidehunter, or any hero with a fight-winning ultimate, that's a second Black Hole or Ravage in the same teamfight. That alone can end the game.

There's also Roshan's Banner, the push item he drops. Plant it on a lane and the creeps walking through its area get a big survivability boost, basically making them unkillable for a stretch. It's tailor-made for sieging high ground right after you take the pit.

Using the window

The whole point of taking Roshan is to spend the Aegis window attacking something that matters. Walk out of the pit, regroup for 20 seconds, and go hit the enemy's tier 3 or barracks. The other team now has to fight into a squad that has an extra life, or give up the buildings for free. If you take Roshan and then go farm your jungle for four minutes, you've thrown the timing away.

Keep the respawn window in mind too. As you push with the Aegis, Roshan's respawn clock is ticking. If the fight drags and he's back, the defending team gets a reason to force a brawl because a fresh Roshan is on the table again. Close out your push before that timer hands them hope.

Baiting and Counter-Warding the Pit

Winning the pit isn't always about taking Roshan. Sometimes it's about making the other team think you're taking him, then killing them when they walk in to stop you. Both sides play this game, so half the skill is knowing when you're the hunter and when you're being hunted.

Counter-warding first

Before any bait works, the enemy has to be blind. Drop sentries on the common observer spots, the cliff ledges and the river approaches, and clear their wards whenever you see one. Every observer you kill is 50 gold plus a chunk of map control, and more importantly it sets up the play. A team that can't see the pit will either give it up for free or walk in blind and guess.

Carry sentries on your supports any time Roshan might be in play. The shop restocks them, and spending 50 gold to win the vision war is cheap. If you're the team setting up inside the pit, a sentry at each entrance also covers you against a smoked steal.

The fake Roshan bait

The cleanest trap in Dota goes like this. You sweep the pit with sentries so the enemy has no vision. You send one or two heroes to actually start hitting Roshan, visible enough that the enemy can guess what's happening from the map and the missing heroes. The rest of your team hides on the high ground behind the pit or in the trees nearby. The defending team, blind and scared of losing Aegis, walks in to contest, and your hidden four collapse on them from two sides.

It works because they're committing to a fight they think is five on two. By the time they see the rest of your team, they're already dead. The risk is that you're genuinely softening Roshan while you bait, so if the enemy doesn't take it, finish him and take the Aegis anyway. A failed bait that still gets you Roshan is a fine outcome.

Not walking into their trap

The flip side hurts. If the enemy is suspiciously giving up map control, handing you free farm and walking away from waves, they might be hiding near the pit waiting for you to start Roshan. Before you commit, sweep with sentries and send one hero to scout the high ground and the trees behind the pit. If you can't account for all five enemies, don't start. A Roshan you don't take costs nothing, a Roshan you lose a teamfight at can end the game.

Buybacks and knowing when to fold

Late-game pit fights come down to buybacks. If you're contesting, having buyback on your cores means you can trade a life, die, come back, and keep fighting. Without buyback, a single death at minute 40 might be permanent and game-ending. Check the buyback status of both teams before anyone jumps in.

And sometimes the right play is to give Roshan up. If you're behind, the enemy has the Aegis, and they own the vision around the pit, walking in to contest is how you lose in one fight. Let them have him, defend your high ground, and wait for a better spot. Throwing your whole team into a pit you can't win is the most common way games get thrown at this boss, and the team disciplined enough to walk away is usually the one that gets the next chance.