Phases of the Dota 2 game

Laning Phase & Early Game

The laning phase is the period when the majority of heroes on the map want to acquire farm or experience in relatively static positions.

The early game is the period where the tempo favors heroes that rely little on either XP or gold, while heroes that are heavily reliant on either resource will be weaker.

In both cases, supports and some junglers are vastly more likely to move around the map in order to disrupt, gank, or defend other lanes. Depending on the mid, they may or may not make rotations as well.

The laning phase ends when one team moves most of their team around the map and begins teamfighting, split pushing, or pushing hard with a push lineup.

The early game usually ends after about 15 mins. Heroes that need to pick up fast efficient items or greedy items will have farmed them up. Heroes that come online early will have reached at least a core item.

The Mid Game & Pushing, Split-pushing, Teamfighting, Farming

The mid-game tends to be defined by the heroes on your team. With certain lineups, the tempo favors being extremely aggressive, as the growing farm and XP acquired during the laning stage will snowball into a victory if the advantage is pressed. Other teams will want to play defensively and find farm, accepting minimal losses of objectives and heroes while acquiring XP and gold for a late game win.

If your team needs to push, this is when you'll push. If your team is about teamfighting, you might group up and force fights, then take objectives after you win. If you are split pushing, you might draw the enemy into engagements and run away while other heroes get farm and put pressure elsewhere.

Some heroes will come online fully during this period. Semicarries, mid-game oriented supports, and heroes with small cores will be itching to make an impact.

The mid-game ends when early and mid-game heroes begin to lose their impact, most of the objectives have been cleared (towers, Rosh), and early investments begin paying out. This can only be measured usefully against the enemy team, but suffice to say, the mid game is often over between 30 to 40 minutes in.

The Late Game

This is when heroes that have heavy XP and gold requirements are supposed to become high impact

Often they'll have contributed plenty in the mid-game, but their contributions will become central to winning or losing teamfights and cleaning up any remaining objectives, including pushing high ground and taking barracks.

Supports will still be invaluable, as they'll have most of the room for utility items as well as various forms of crowd control

They will no longer supply the primary source of damage in a fight. Some supports are heavily XP dependent or require some farm to reach their full potential, and they will actually become even more impactful as the late game approaches.

Greedy teams that have weathered the early stage without acquiring a large disadvantage should begin to win as the carries acquire complete kits. This is often the cause of turnarounds, where an allegedly losing team begins to win.

The late game ends when heroes stop purchasing core items or luxury items freely, and their XP growth and item progression slow dramatically. This is often approaching 50 to 70 mins, sometimes sooner, sometimes later.

The Ultra-Late Game

If the game isn't over and there is still a competitive chance for either team to win, this is the ultra-late game. Very few heroes will have room to grow, and most growth will occur by swapping out expensive items for even more expensive items or for items better tailored to the conditions of the game.

When someone drops a 4 second BKB and buys a 10 second BKB and still has buyback?

That's the ultra-late game. When you swap one high tier item for another one that better suits the team or the opponent, because you don't have room otherwise? That's ultra-late game.

If one team has been behind but the game has stalled to this point, there may be another turnaround as their lagging heroes find the time and farm to catch up.

Buyback becomes important, even on supports

Supports often have multiple utility items including magic immunity or crowd control, even on heroes that traditionally don't have the time to buy them.

This phase can extend to absurdity as money is stockpiled and min-maxing continues in hero inventories. Heroes like Anti-Mage actually LOSE impact as their window of farm advantage closes. Items like Rapier may begin to make a sick form of sense as a risky way to gain a serious advantage.

Death timers are so long, losing one fight without buyback usually ends the game.

This is the final phase of Dota. It's not useful to dice it up and try to describe further stages, as every ultra-late game depends on the details of that game, the state of the base, the heroes, the items and so forth. They're all unique, horrifying flowers, usually determined by a single mistake. Thankfully they're quite rare. Most games end earlier.