Dota 2 Trading Guide
This guide will show you the basics of trading. Trading usually depends on item value. The value of the item depends on a few other things.
This guide will not be based upon prices, item prices dont really play a big role here. The value usually depends on these factors;
- Wishes/Wants
- Rarity
- Item Age – New/Old
- Heroes
We will be using this site: http://dota-trade.com/ as a base for this guide. Just sign in with your steam account, its totally safe.
Wishes/Wants and Rank
In the image above, you can see a bunch of recently added items. Dota 2 items are divided into a lot of different categories. The 3 basic types are common, uncommon and rare items. Of course there’s more, but it wont be covered here. The slot named off/wis stands for offerings and wishes. As you can see, these items are new, thus the offerings are less than the wishes. The higher the wishes as compared to offerings, the higher the value of the item.
The rank of the item also indicates value, but in this case, since the items are new, their ranks have not been updated. If you look at the last item, Shadow Tracers for Nyx, you will notice that its ranked 96 – which is extremely high thus extremely valuable at the moment.
Item Age and Rarity
The paragraph above covers everything for new items, but how about old ones? The above factor still applies here, so always be sure to check the wishes and rank of each item when trading.
The 3 basic rarities are common, uncommon and rare items. The value of rare being higher than uncommon and commons being the lowest (easily obtainable) but this only applies for items that are of the same ranks. Most old items are usually below a rank 10 depending on your heroes sets. Some sets are more valuable than others.
The most common trade ratios are
1 common : 2 random commons, 1unc : 2 random unc, 1 rare : 2 random rare. You can trade 1:1 of the same rarity if you each have items that you want/have on your wishlist.
Click on the trades icon at the top of http://dota-trade.com/ and you will see a bunch of people who have the items you want or have. But of course, you choose your prices, how much you want or how much you give is up to you.
What is a random rare/uncommon/common item etc?
A random rarity item, refers to any low ranked, low quality or non-set item. For example;
In this picture you can see, the off/wis, rank, rarity and type – non-set item. Non-set items are often lower ranked when compared to set items but this doesn’t apply to all heroes.
Heroes
Some heroes do have better equipment than others. But what really indicates this? Popularity maybe?
Heroes with items of low value: Axe, Omniknight, Witchdoctor etc.. not really sure why though 
