Defence of The Shrines/General Information

  • Values and information based on version: 977

General Information

Host commands

Like in DotA, when the game starts, the host is granted 10 seconds to submit several commands:

  • -sp: Shuffles all players.
  • -cp#: Used in shuffle mode. Requests to swap with # player where # is slot number.
  • -sin: Used in shuffle mode. Denies request to swap.
  • -ob: Coach slots become referee slots.
  • -rb: Random bans a number of girls.
  • -ar: All players are forced random girls.

Player commands

  • -fol: Follows the girl in a locked 3rd person view.
  • -cam#: Controls the distance from camera to your girl (80-150).
  • -dev: Shows assets(?).
  • -as: Shows current total attack speed.
  • -gr: Shows current total magic resistance.
  • -ms: Shows current movement speed.
  • -roll: Rolls a dice.

General gameplay

Game Modes:

  • 1 Normal selection
  • 2 Hidden selection auto confirm
  • 3 All middle
  • 7 Banned picks selection (CM)
  • Duel Mode (1v1 only)

Shrine Selection

  1. Shrine picks only
  2. All pick
  3. Random girls are banned

Banned Picks procedure
The captains (Player 1 and 6) perform the bans and picks for their team. The procedure is as follow:

  • Hakurei ban
  • Moriya ban
  • Moriya ban
  • Hakurei ban
  • Hakurei ban
  • Moriya ban
  • Hakurei picks 4th
  • Moriya picks 4th
  • Moriya picks 3rd
  • Hakurei picks 3rd
  • Hakurei picks 2nd
  • Moriya picks 2nd
  • Hakurei picks 1st
  • Moriya picks 1st

When the game commences, nobody owns the girls until each player in the team clicks the girl and clicks the   icon to claim her. So some communication is required in order to have a proper team selection.


Duel mode rules
This mode is only available if only one player is present on each side, Red slot for Hakurei, and Green slot for Moriya.Creeps will only spawn for mid-lane, and no neutrals will appear. The mode is point-based - whoever has 3 points more than the other player, or reaches 5 points first wins.

There are three ways to achieve points.

  1. Killing the enemy girl will give you 1 point.
  2. Destroying an enemy tower will grant you 1 point.
  3. Whoever reaches level 11 first receives 1 point.

Point, Power and Faith

Defense of the Shrines has 'Touhou-fied' the gold, wood and population symbols into: Points (gold) for currency to buy items, Faith to use certain skills and Power (population) to boost up primary attribute. It is very important to keep in mind that faith is shared among your entire team.

  •   Points - Is automatically added to your stock pile every second in-game. Also occasionally dropped by enemy creeps. Picking up a Point Box gives 35 bonus points. Last hitting an enemy creep will never drop a point item. Giant point can be dropped from Giant shanghai dolls, and from Yuyuko/Youmu yukkuris.
  •   Faith - Is automatically added to your team's stock pile every minute. Killing enemy girl grants +5 faith. Used to activate shrine or tower skills (see shrines & towers section). Can only have a max of 100 faith.
  •   Power - Drops randomly from creeps. Increases a girl's primary attribute by 1 up to a maximum of 30. Upon death, 1/3 is dropped but the gauge is set to 0. Also Giant Power items drop from ancient creeps, these can be picked up and stored in your inventory, giving +12 stats for 180 seconds.

Girls

Once the game starts, select with your mouse your girl. Upon selection, it will show the primary attribute as well as her base stats with growth rate. For more specific information about the girl and her skills, visit the Characters page. By clicking on the check-button, you will confirm your selection. Depending on the chosen game mode, you can see your enemy's choice or sometimes have restrictions.

Items

Items in DotS often boost combat abilities by adding attributes or providing skills. Each side has a number of shops surrounding their spawn point. Each shop provides various number of items showing the price, requirements, effects and flavour text.
To purchase an item, you need to be near the shops. You don't have to walk near them, just being at your spawn point area is enough. Navigate through the shops and use your mouse to buy the desired item. Some items have a prerequisite, before they can be used. This means you might need to purchase multiple items and fuse them. Items page exactly shows you which items are instantly usable, which are 'recipes' and which items are automatically fused. To make it easy to distinguish in-game:

  • An item with 0 stock, is an auto-fuse item. By buying the prerequisite it will automatically transform into this.
  • An item with 1 stock, is either a regular item or a recipe. Recipes often have a list of prerequisite while regular items don't. Also when dropped on the floor, regular items are white and recipe items appear yellow (with the exception of Concordia which is red).

The map, laning and creeps

  • Map layout
The DotS map has three main routes leading from your shrine, to the enemy shrine. These are called 'lanes'. Each lane has several small branches of small roads leading into the forest (often referred as jungle in DotA). Both Hakurei and Moriya have towers spread out equally through out the lanes, completing the basic picture of Defense of the Shrines. The forest contains several neutral enemies (neutrals/neuts) which can be killed for experience and points. Forest routes play an important role in getting around the map and awareness.
  • Laning
Laning is the concept of taking your girl, picking a lane and start earning experience and gold by killing enemy creeps and towers to advance forward.
  • Creeps
Creeps are groups of units, frequently spawned between fixed intervals. To strengthen the Touhou feeling in this game, both sides use unique creeps. Unlike in DotA, where the creeps are similar. Hakurei melee creeps are called Genji's grandsons and are mini turtles the ranged creeps are called 'fairies(?)'. Moriya melee creeps are called Tengu wolves and use the wolf model while their ranged creeps are Kappa tanks(?).
Somehow, the developers of DotS decided to give the Hakurei side creeps with more HP. In DotA, creeps have equal HP, equal growth etc. In DotS, Hakurei creeps will always have more HP, but both sides have equal damage growth. To sum up the facts about creeps:
  • They start spawning exactly when the game clock hits 1:00, and will continue to spawn every 30 seconds.
  • Each lane has its own creep wave consisting out of 4 melee and 1 ranged.
  • Creeps scale their HP, attack and armour over time.
  • Destroying the first enemy mini-shrine (racks) will grant you 'super creeps' and significantly increase their attributes. Additionally, a glaive thrower is added to the pack.
  • Destroying all enemy mini-shrines will grant you 'ultra creeps'. The model size of your creeps will increase and the glaive thrower gets replaced by a catapult doing AoE damage.

Shrines and Towers

Hakurei Shrine

  • Shrine Skills
  Great Hakurei Border - Casts the great Hakurei Border on entire Gensokyo, stunning all enemy girls for two seconds. Requires 40 faith points.
  Divination - Instantly cancels the weather in effect. Can be only used if a weather is active. Requires 15 faith. Cooldown: 480s

Hakurei Towers

The Hakurei uses turtles as a model, to represent Genji and his sons. Hakurei has one strong tower in front of the base, namely Genji himself as well as several regular towers which are named Genji's Sons. Genji and sons fire rocks as projectiles. Below the skills and effects are described.

  • Tower Skills
  Sharp eye (passive) - Reveals invisible units. All towers.
  Devour - Instantly eats, if possible, an enemy creep/clones/organic summons nearby and heals 400 hp within 15 seconds. If there is no creep nearby, Genji's son will still heal, but takes 30 seconds to heal 400 HP. Requires 5 faith points. Cooldown 60s. All towers.
  Defense Border - Activates a Border which grants nearby allies bonus armour for a short duration. Requires 6 faith points. Cooldown 120s. All towers.
  Genji's Final Stand - Summons Genji's Soul to fight along side the Hakurei heroes. Cannot be controlled, automatically attacks nearby enemies or structures. Has three lane choices to summon, left mid and right respectively. Requires 100 faith points, Genji only. Killing Genji grants 900 points.



Moriya Shrine

  • Shrine Skills
  God's Anger - Summons lightning bolts to stun all enemy girls for two seconds. Requires 40 faith points.
  Apocalypse - Instantly cancels the weather in effect. Can be only used if a weather is active. Requires 15 faith. Cooldown: 480s.

Moriya Towers

The Moriya side uses the arcane towers from Warcraft 3 to represent the Onbashira pillars.

  • Tower Skills
  God's eye (passive) - Reveals invisible units. All towers.
  Wind God's Blessing - Grants Maximum move speed to all allies within 600 range for 3.5 seconds. Requires 6 faith points. Cooldown: 120s. All towers.
  Kappa Mechanic - Hires a Kappa Mechanic to repair buildings, Requires 3 Faith Points. Cooldown: 120s.
  Hisoutensoku - Summons Hisoutensoku to fight along side the Moriya Heros. Cannot be controlled, automatically attacks nearby enemies or structures. Has three lane choices to summon, left mid and right respectively. HP 2500, Armour: 20, Melee with 25% chance to stun for 1 second. Requires 50 faith points. Killing Hisoutensoku gives 400 points. Final Onbashira towers only.
  Moriya Stun(?) - Final Onbashira towers have 15% chance to stun for 1 second.

Giant Hourai

Giant Hourai is Roshan's equivalent from DotA. Has immense HP, attack power, high regen making it a dangerous neutral. Killing Giant Hourai grants 3 large point (each gives +150 to all team members) and a blue item. Picking up the blue item gives +20% damage, +15% life leech and 10% magic spell leech aura, works only on ally girls. Disappears on death.

Notes about Giant Hourai:

  • 15000 HP, 500 MP, 201-231 chaos damage, 32 heavy armour.
  • At least 1 girl has to fight Giant Hourai within attack range, else she gains extreme regeneration.
  • Giant Hourai has splash damage.
  • Drops: 3x giant point items, 1x aura buff.
 

Weather System

A Unique feature in DotS is the activation of special weathers for a given time at a building located near the teams fountains. Players can activate a certain weather which will affect the entire map with certain effects. You can use your own girl or a yukkuri to activate it. The effects are diverse and require 'faith' in order to be activated. Diverse strategy and tactics can be used with the weather effects.


Weather effects

  • Drizzle
 
Faith: 12
Effect: Mana regeneration increases for all units and girls by +3MP/s. Duration: 80 seconds.
  • Scarlet Mist
 
Faith: 5
Effect: All Melee units and girls gain 15% life steal. Duration: 80 seconds.
  • River Mist
 
Faith: 20
Effect: All girls become invisible within the dense mist. Birdy or true sight abilities reveals your girl. If invisibility is broken while in the middle of River Mist, there is a fade time of 1-2 seconds before regaining invisibility. Duration: 40 seconds.
  • East Asian Rain
 
Faith: 12
Effect: Damages all units and girls with -8HP/s. Can cause death. Duration: 60 seconds.
  • Spring Haze
 
Faith: 35
Effect: All units, girls and buildings gain +5000 armor. Duration: 25 seconds.
  • Typhoon
 
Faith: 5
Effect: All units and girls gain +35% attack. Duration: 60 seconds
  • Snow
 
Faith: 5
Effect: Drops movement speed for all units and girls by 20%. Duration: 60 seconds
  • Calm
 
Faith: 12
Effect: Increases all units and girls HP regen by +4HP/s. Duration: 60 seconds
  • Tempest
 
Faith: 35
Effect: Increases all units and girls speed by 200%. Duration: 25 seconds.
  • Scorching Sun
 
Faith: 20
Effect: Every time a girl casts a spell, she suffers 4% of her current hp as damage. Duration: 25 seconds.
  • Sunny
 
Faith: 1
Effect: A very nice weather. Duration: 80 seconds.

Power Ups

If you are feeling lucky, you can try grab power ups. These are runes which can randomly grant a buff or debuff. They can be found on both sides of the river at the center of the map. Runes cycle automatically every 2 minutes, whether picked up or not. The following effects exist in DotS:

  • Positive effects
Bloodlust - Double your attack speed for 60 seconds.
Roar - Doubles your attack power for 60 seconds.
Scroll of Protection - Increases your armour by 20 for 60 seconds
Haste - Movement speed increases by 272 for 60 seconds
Regeneration - 1000HP and 1000MP regenerated over 60 seconds.
Invisibility - Your girl turns invisible. Using skills, items, or attacking will cancel the effect. Last 60 seconds.
Illusion - Creates a controllable copy of your girl. Cannot do damage, takes 100% damage. Last 60 seconds.
Gold - Grants 250 points.
Stats - Grants +1 STR, AGI or INT.
  • Negative effects
Thievery - Makes you lose 250 points.
Teleport - randomly teleports you several locations.
Corruption - Your armour is reduced by 15. Last 60 seconds.
Poison - Does 60 damage/s. Lasts 20 seconds.
Explosion - Does 400 magic damage in 350 area of effect.
Stun - Stuns your girl for 5 seconds.

Glossary

This section will name and explain several strategies, terminology and abbreviations commonly used in DotS. Important to know, the goal of this section is not to teach you what is best to do in which situations, but to inform you of their usage and effects. Players can decide for themselves if they wish to utilize them in combat. Note: following ones are a collection of the ones mostly used, therefore some expected ones might be missing.

  • Creeps
Description: Automated AI units having a pre-programmed behaviour. Creeps gradually increase their HP and attack as time passes.
Other names: Super creeps (upgraded versions), Ultra creeps (highest upgrade)
  • Lane
Description: A lane is a 'road' which a creep wave travels, there are three lanes in DotS often: Left, mid, right.
Other names: Top, mid, bottom. (What ever makes you happy)
  • Laning
Description: Performing combat in a lane to gain experience and points in order to advance.
Other names: N/A
  • Last hitting
Description: 'Last hitting' literally means dealing the final blow to creeps, neutrals or buildings. Last hitting always gives points income or 'denies' enemy experience/points. See the next item for denying.
Other names: lh
  • Denying
Description: Denying means last-hitting your own ally creeps or buildings to prevent the enemy from getting points/experience. In DotS, denying creeps gives 0 exp to the enemy, unlike DotA where the exp is reduced. Attacking your own creeps is only possible if they are below 50% HP and buildings below 10% HP. Press 'A' to target your own creeps/buildings.
Other names: N/A
  • Animation Cancelling
Description: Immediately cancelling the animation for an attack or skill to reduce the 'delay' for your next attack. See 'Animation Cancelling' paragraph for more detail
Other names: N/A
  • Pushing
Description: Aggressively clearing your lane to 'push' forward your lane.
Other names: N/A
  • Farming
Description: Focussing on fast point income, rather than other objectives.
Other names: N/A
  • Jungling
Description: Hunting the neutral creeps in the forest for points and/or experience.
Other names: neuting, jungle farming, neut farming
  • Juking
Description: Trying to shake of or confuse the enemy by using the trees/obstacles on the map to your advantage.
Other names: Juke
  • Tower
Description: An defensive structure helping you defend your lane. Have true sight ability to reveal invisible units.
Other names: N/A
  • Tower hugging
Description: Sticking close to your tower and trying to keep your creep lane close by blocking or denying a lot.
Other names: N/A
  • Tower diving
Description: Aggressively attacking enemy targets near the enemy tower or the tower it self.
Other names: N/A
  • Mini Shrine
Description: Touhou flavoured buildings which spawn creep waves. Destroying them grants your own creep a significant boost in HP and attack. Destroying them does not disable the spawn for creeps, they will keep appearing out of thin air near the location.
Other names: Barracks, racks, rax
  • Orb walking
Description: 'Orb walking' involves manually using toggled orb skills (example: Medicine's Poison Sign "Poison Breath") on an opponent while aggressive chasing them, and moving towards them immediately after launching the projectile. Orb walking involves animation cancelling.
Other names: N/A
  • Dummy
Description:
Other names:
Example:

Denying

Your character can be forced to attack and kill your allied units, preventing opponents from dealing the final blow (which will be termed as last hits later) on the unit. Denied creeps do not give experience to opponents. It also denies your opponent from last hitting the unit and gaining money, hence the term denying.

Denying can help a lot at early-games, preventing opponents from leveling up and can significantly prevent them from gaining income to buy more equipment.

You can only deny creeps if they have less than 50% of their HP. A character's attack range, speed, and animation all play a part in their denial effectiveness.

You can even deny towers, but this is only when they reach less than 10% of its health. It's suggested you activate your team's building immunity when a tower gets right in the deny range- usually the tower will fight the creep wave off in those few seconds, saving enough time for your team to deny.

Harassment

Another important laning strategy is harassment, best done using ranged heroes. This simply consists of attacking the enemy heroes when they get in range, and then backing out before they can respond in time. This depletes their healing items and keeps them away from the creep wave, effectively limiting their access to lasthits. In higher-level play, expect harassment to be a constant factor.

You can employ another tactic to improve your harassment potential. This skill is of VITAL importance to ganks, as well. Outlined below:

Animation Cancelling

When your character attacks or uses a skill on something, there are 3 phases to its attack. A startup animation, a hit animation, and a 'recovery' animation.

Example:

  • Startup: Girl draws back her sword. (1/3 second)
  • Hit: Girl sticks other Girl with her sword. (1/3 second)
  • Recovery: Girl returns into a neutral position. (1/3 second)

It's important to note that you can cancel the animation at any of these moments by right clicking and initiating movement.

Why is this important? Because, you can 'ani-cancel' your recovery animation, move, and then enter into another startup animation for another attack. Simply launch your attack, and once you hear it launch (for ranged attacks) or strike (melee), click towards the target you're chasing to continue your pursuit. Then right-click again to attack them, and cancel out, and repeat until they are eventually out of range. If they stand and fight, spam the attack and stop commands. It works in a similar fashion. This is useful for characters that have a passive bash, critical or similar as it increases their dps by 2x.

If you simply autoattacked and allowed your Touhou to chase at her will, she would run forward- attack - and then pause in place during her recovery animation. The game would then make her resume chasing until she was in range, except since your speeds are relatively equal and you're forced to halt to attack, your girl wouldn't ever actually catch up under most circumstances.

However, by animation cancelling, our previous example turns into this:

  • Startup: Girl draws back her sword. (1/3 second)
  • Hit: Girl sticks other Girl with her sword. (1/3 second)
  • Recovery: Girl is moving and chasing other Girl, having ani-cancelled. She stays in melee range during this time. (1/3 second)
  • Startup 2: Girl, due to animation cancelling prowess, is in range for a second strike. (1/3)
  • Hit 2: Girl sticks other Girl with her sword a second time, dealing the finishing blow. Girl is rewarded gold and experience for her skill. Enemy team is demoralized. (1/3 second)

This is important: by utilizing animation cancelling, you can add anywhere from one to three attacks in the space that the default mechanics would only permit you one! This is vital when chasing down fleeing enemies during ganks. This skill applies to melee girls just as much as it does the ranged types.