Gold

Coin of the realm.

Gold can used to purchase items and buyback after death. It is received when last hitting creeps, hero kills/assists, destroying buildings, and more. It is also passively gained periodically throughout the game.

When spending gold the game will spend Unreliable Gold first before spending Reliable Gold, except in the case of buybacks where reliable gold will be deducted first.

Starting Gold

Heroes are given 600 gold to start with.

Gold Loss

Unreliable gold is lost on death. The formula for gold lost is the following:

Unreliable Gold Lost = Net Worth/40

Reliable Gold

Reliable gold cannot be lost on death. You can gain reliable gold from the following:

• Courier kills
• Hero kills and assists
• Global gold from an ally killing Roshan
• Last hitting towers
• Global gold from an ally killing a tower, barracks or shrine
• Global gold from the enemy team denying a tower or barracks
•  Bounty Rune
•  Transmute
•  Track

Unreliable Gold

Only unreliable gold is lost on death. You gain unreliable gold from the following:

• Starting gold
• Passive gold gain
  • Every 0.67 seconds the hero earns 1 unreliable gold
  • (90 gold per minute or 1.5 gold per second)
  • This amount increases over time.
• Last hitting buildings, summons, illusions, and creeps (including Neutrals and Roshan)
•  Greevil's Greed
•  Devour
•  Jinada

Kill Bounty

A bonus of 150 gold is awarded for making the first kill in a game. This is known as First Blood.

When you kill an enemy hero, you earn reliable gold. The amount is calculated by the following formula:

125 + (Killed Hero's Level × 8) + Streak Bonus = Kill Bounty

The streak bonus gold is based on the number of kills the enemy hero had before being killed:

Streak Gold	Consecutive Kills	Streak
0	2 or fewer kills	None
60	3 kills	Killing Spree
100	4 kills	Dominating
150	5 kills	Mega Kill
210	6 kills	Unstoppable!
280	7 kills	Wicked Sick
360	8 kills	Monster Kill!!!
450	9 kills	Godlike!
550	10 or more kills	Beyond Godlike!

The following deaths do not stop kill streaks or count as first blood:

• Deaths to neutral creeps or Roshan
• Deaths to enemy towers with no assisting heroes
• Denies
• Resurrection

The following kill streak modifiers do not grant any bonus:

• 5 or more kills by allies in a row without any allies dying (Ownage)
• Getting 5 kills with less than 18 seconds between each kill (Rampage!!!)

Assist Gold

Heroes that have recently applied damage or a debuff on an enemy hero that dies earn assist gold (also known as AoE gold) even if they are no longer alive or in that area. The hero that made the kill also earns assist gold, even if they killed the enemy hero alone with no assistance. If lane creeps or towers make the kill, the kill gold is spread evenly among the assisting heroes.

The amount of assist gold earned depends on the number of assisting heroes and the level of the killed hero:

Number of Killers:

• 1 Killer: 126 + (4.5 × VictimLevel) × (NetWorthFactors) = Assist Gold
• 2 Killer: 63 + (3.6 × VictimLevel) × (NetWorthFactors) = Assist Gold
• 3 Killer: 31.5 + (2.7 × VictimLevel) × (NetWorthFactors) = Assist Gold
• 4 Killer: 22.5 + (1.8 × VictimLevel) × (NetWorthFactors) = Assist Gold
• 5 Killer: 18 + (0.9 × VictimLevel) × (NetWorthFactors) = Assist Gold

Comeback Bonus

If the team that made the kill has lower total net worth than the other team, they gain a comeback bonus based on the killed hero's net worth:

Comeback Bonus = VictimNetWorth × 0.038 + 30/Number of Killers

---

Explanation of Terms

NetWorthPoorFactor is the dying hero's net worth rank within their team. Richer victims give more gold to the killer. For 1/2/3/4/5 from richest to poorest are: 1.2 / 1.05 / 0.9 / 0.75 / 0.6 Example: If the assist gold would normally have been 600, and the enemy hero is the poorest on their team, then the assist gold for killing that hero is reduced to 360 (600 × 0.6) If the killed hero is the richest enemy, it is increased to 720 (600 × 1.2) NetWorthRankingFactor is the hero's rank among their team. Poorer killers get a bigger share of the gold when the amount is split between multiple heroes. For 1/2/3/4/5 from richest to the poorest are: 1.6/1.3/1/0.7/0.4 Example: If 5 heroes kill an enemy hero, and the assist gold would normally be 200 gold for each player, it is instead higher for the 2 poorest heroes, normal for the middle, and lesser for the 2 richest NetWorthFactors = NetWorthPoorFactor × NetWorthRankingFactor VictimLevel = Level of the Victim VictimNetWorth = The Dying Hero's Net Worth

Buyback

A dead hero can respawn instantly by choosing to buyback. Buyback cost is calculated by the following formula:

Buyback Cost = 100 + NetWorth/13

• This will spend from your reliable gold pool first
• Has a cooldown of 8 minutes
• 25 seconds of respawn time will be added to the next death

Respawn Time

The duration a hero is dead scales with their level. Respawn time does not increase past level 25.

Level	Time	Diff
1	5	0
2	7	+2
3	9	+2
4	13	+4
5	16	+3
6	26	+10
7	28	+2
8	30	+2
9	32	+2
10	34	+2
11	36	+2
12	44	+8
13	46	+2
14	48	+2
15	50	+2
16	52	+2
17	54	+2
18	65	+11
19	70	+5
20	75	+5
21	80	+5
22	85	+5
23	90	+5
24	95	+5
25	100	+5
26	100	+0
27	100	+0
28	100	+0
29	100	+0
30	100	+0

There are other effects that can affect respawn time. They are listed below in order of calculation priority.

1. After using Buyback:

Respawn Time + 25 = Total Respawn Time

2. After being killed by Neutrals:

Minimum Respawn Time is set to 26 seconds (This only affects respawn time from levels 1-5)

Version History

Version	Balance Changes
7.32
	Passive Gold per minute decreased by 15%
7.31
	Base hero gold bounty increased from 120 + L*8 to 125 + L*8 where L = hero level Reworked bounty gold streak formula Old: Streak gold = (35x-5) where x = current streak New: Streak gold = (5x^2 + 5x) where x = current streak
7.29
	Bounty runes reworked Bounty Runes after the initial set are reduced by 10% Bounty Runes no longer spawn in the river. The amount these runes gave is now provided automatically over time through GPM. Hero kill assist gold now adjusted based on the relative NW difference between the two teams. For example, if your team is down 5,000 gold and the enemy has 50,000 total net worth, your assist gold will be worth 10% more.
7.28
	Neutral creeps no longer increase their bounty over the course of the game Neutral stacked gold bonus reduced from 40% to 30%
7.27
	Hero kill last hit gold increased from 99 + 7.2 * Level to 120 + 8 * Level Assist gold rescaled from 45 + 0.033*NW to 30 + 0.038*NW Passive gold income increased from 85 to 95 Bounty Runes are now reliable gold Tower last hit bounty from 180 for T1/2/3/4 to 120/140/160/180 Neutral stacking support bounty increased from 35% to 40%
7.26
	Gold bounties reduced by 10% (affects buildings, lane creeps, neutrals and heroes) Kill streak gold is reduced by 50%
7.23
	Heroes that have recently applied damage or a debuff on an enemy hero that dies are now considered part of the area assist gold (even if they are no longer alive or in that area) Assist gold distribution multiplier for Net Worth ranking factor in the area is changed from multiplying based on the heroes in the area to globally Net Worth Ranking factor for Gold changed from 1.3->0.7 to 1.6->0.4
7.22
	Death cost changed from 50 + NW/40 to NW/40
7.19b
	Buyback respawn time penalty changed from +25% of remaining time to +25s always
7.13
	Rescaled Level 12➜25 respawn time curve to be slightly less early and the same later on (Changed from 48/52/54/56/58/60/70/74/76/78/82/86/90/100 to 44/46/48/50/52/54/65/70/75/80/85/90/95/100)
7.11
	Buyback cost changed from 100 + (Level2 × 1.5) + (Time × 0.25) to 100 + NetWorth ÷ 13 Buyback no longer reduces gold earned after respawning AoE gold for the losing team no longer scales with the overall team net worth difference, just the individual net worth of the dying hero Previously, a core on your team doing really well meant that a support on your team dying gave an increasing amount of gold to the enemy The comeback component is now just: (DyingHeroNetWorth × 0.026 + 70) ÷ # of killers The gold multiplier based on the dying hero's net worth rank changed from 1.2/1.1/1.0/0.9/0.8 to 1.2/1.05/0.9/0.75/0.6
7.09
	Starting gold reduced from 625 to 600
7.07c
	Hero Respawn timer for level 12-20 increased from 46/48/50/52/54/56/66/70/74 to 48/52/54/56/58/60/70/74/76
7.07
	Randoming no longer gives bonus gold: It instead selects a hero from the set of bonus heroes and grants an extra iron branch (in addition to the mango) Net worth Ranking Factor (how much the richest vs poorest heroes get from assist gold) changed from 0.75➜1.25 to 0.7➜1.3 Hero Respawn timer for level 1-5 rescaled from 8/10/12/14/16 to 5/7/9/13/16
7.06
	Death cost from 100 + NW ÷ 50 to 50 + NW ÷ 40 Buyback cooldown increased from 7 minutes to 8 minutes
7.03
	AoE hero kill Gold and XP bounties reduced by 10% (including comeback gold and XP) Passive gold income reduced by 10%
7.00
	Talents added to game: Some Talents increase passive gold or reduce respawn time Gold lost on death changed from 30 × Level to 100 + Net Worth ÷ 50 Respawn time follows new formula (reduced for all levels except 25) Hero Kill bounty reduced from 110 + Streak + Level × 9.9 to 110 + Streak + Level × 8 Assist Gold reduced
6.87c
	AoE Bounty Gold based on level reduced from 8/7/6/4/4 to 6/5/4/3/3 per level
6.84c
	AoE Gold Bounty, for teams that are behind, now has a small additional component that doesn't fully scale with net worth (100/75/50/35/25 for 1/2/3/4/5 heroes, scales linearly from 0 to 4k net worth difference) Small adjustments to AoE Gold (non-networth component)
6.84
	AoE Bonus Gold component based on Team Net Worth difference reduced by 25% Hero kills (the non-net worth portions) are worth 10% more Reduced the direct hero last hit bounty by 100 and redistributed that gold into AoE gold (In ratio of 100/75/40/25/20 for 1/2/3/4/5 heroes) AoE Bonus Gold is now distributed based on the relative net worth amongst the heroes involved in killing the hero by +/- 25% The amount of AoE Bonus Gold given is now increased/decreased by up to 20% (Based on the dying hero’s relative rank in net worth among all the enemies on that team) Instead of Buyback temporarily preventing unreliable gold gain, it now reduces all gold gained by 60% (Including hero and AoE gold)
6.83b
	Respawn time rescaled from 4 × Level to 5 + 3.8 × Level (total is still 100 at level 25)
6.82c
	AoE Gold NWFactor reduced from 0.06/0.06/0.05/0.04/0.03 to 0.05/0.05/0.05/0.04/0.03 Buyback cooldown increased from 6 to 7 minutes
6.82b
	Reworked how the AoE bonus Gold calculation is done slightly: NWDifference variable is now (EnemyTeamNW ÷ AlliedTeamNW) - 1 [Min 0, Max 1] Rescaled the AoE Gold constant multipliers from 0.26/0.22/0.18/0.14/0.1 to 0.06/0.06/0.05/0.04/0.03 (In part to account for the formula tweak) Kill Streak Bounty from 100➜800 to 60➜480 Adjusted bonus area of effect Gold and XP
6.82
	First Blood bonus gold decreased from 200 to 150 Reworked bonus area of effect Gold and Streak ending
6.79
	Buyback prevents gaining unreliable gold (creeps, neutrals, etc.) until your normal respawn time finishes When buying back, 25% of the remaining respawn time will be added to your next death

See also

• Experience