Initiation in Dota 2 is the moment when one team is the first to start a mass engagement. Usually this is a precise move with a powerful ability: a stun, an area lock, a forced pull effect, or a sharp leap into the middle of the enemy group. After that, the rest of the allies add damage and control, and the opponents have to respond under conditions that have already been imposed on them.
How the word is used
Initiation is something you "make" or "initiate," and the player who does it is called the initiator. In speech you most often hear the short "init": "who's going to init?", "no init, no fight," "the init didn't land." The phrase "good initiation" means that the ability hit the right target and the team was ready to back it up.
The initiator is usually a hero with powerful mass control and a large health pool who can survive the first seconds of the fight. Often this is a tank or a hero playing a difficult position. But the initiator role is not tied to a specific slot: sometimes a support can start the fight, or a core hero, if they have a suitable ability or item.
Why it matters
A team fight in Dota 2 is decided not only by total damage but also by the order of actions. Stuns, slows, and mass effects used at the right moment can take several enemies out of the fight at once. The side that starts the fight well gains an advantage in the first seconds, when the outcome is usually decided.
Because of this, initiation is one of the main subjects of team communication. Players discuss in advance who will start the fight, on which target, and on what signal the others will join. Desync is costly here: if the initiator goes in alone, they die quickly, and if the team doesn't react in time, the opportunity is lost.
A typical situation
Five allies gather near an enemy tower. One of them sees that the opponents are standing in a tight group and don't expect an attack. He uses an ability that pulls heroes into a single point and immediately says in voice chat that he has started the fight. The others add control and damage, and the enemies lose several heroes before they can respond.
The opposite example: the initiator jumps on the enemies, but the allies lag behind, and instead of a team fight the result is a hero lost with no response. This mistake is called an "empty" or "wasted" init.
Initiation and counter-initiation
There are tactics against initiation as well. A team can stay slightly farther away than the initiator needs, or prepare a response in advance: abilities that interrupt control, defensive items, the ability to get out from under a hit. The skill of recognizing the moment and responding to the enemy's start of a fight is called counter-initiation.
How initiation differs from a gank
A gank is a sudden attack by a small group on one or two heroes, usually in a lane. Initiation is a concept about the start of a general fight involving many players. The line between them is blurred, but the principle can be told apart by scale: a gank targets a single hero, while initiation targets a five-on-five fight or something close to it.
The word comes from the English initiation, meaning "beginning" or "launch." In game speech it has become established specifically as the name for the first decisive action from which a team fight develops.