As a rule, items in Dota 2 cannot be shared with other heroes. The purchasing hero is considered the owner of the item and only they can use, sell, or upgrade it. However, since consumables cannot be upgraded into other items and only grant temporary effects, almost all consumables can be freely used by all other heroes. This is important, since it means that support heroes can purchase Sentry Wards or other consumables on a courier and other heroes can use them.
Other permanent but inexpensive items that grant regenerative abilities are considered partially shareable. This means that other heroes can pick them up and benefit from the effect of the item, but cannot sell or upgrade the item. Divine Rapier is also partially shareable because of its unique mechanic.
Finally, certain items have disabled abilities when placed on the Animal Courier, to prevent abuse.
Bottles containing runes cannot be shared. Otherwise they are completely shareable.
Items disabled on couriers
Mind if I join you?
- Like allies, only shareable items work for the courier. This means non-shareable items are muted on them. Additionally the shareable items Bottle, Observer and Sentry Wards, Gem of True Sight and Tome of Knowledge are disabled.
- Couriers are also unable to pick up the Aegis of the Immortal and dropped Divine Rapiers.
- Town Portal Scroll is not muted, but requires mana, so the courier cannot cast it.
- Animal Courier, Flying Courier, Dust of Appearance, Smoke of Deceit, Tango (Shared) and Cheese are fully usable by the courier.
Cooldown interactions
- On usage, all Items from the same type in the users inventory, backpack, and stash go on cooldown, independent of their owner or whether they are shareable.
- If a hero receives an item type which would be on cooldown for him, it is placed on cooldown, independent of their owner or whether they are shareable.
- If you give an Item that is on cooldown to a Hero that shouldn't have it on cooldown, it will still be on cooldown.
- If a Hero didn't use an item in the last cooldown period, all items that merge into an existing Stack will assume the same cooldown as the stack which was in the inventory first on pickup.
Examples: A 10 Second BKB can be on cooldown if given to somebody that has BKB on cooldown. If you pick up your own dust that has been used by somebody else, it will be on cooldown. If you have an unused stack of dust in your inventory before picking up your own dust(used by somebody else) none of it will be on cooldown. If you pick up your own Dust that has been used by somebody else.(without having dust in your inventory) And then buy more dust, all of it will be on cooldown.
Version history
- Items now have muted form when carried by non-owner (aside from a few exceptions like regeneration and leaver items). -pm can be used if you want to allow pooling in your games.
- Added a new mode -poolingmode(-pm) to allow pooling.
de:Item sharing