How to use Taunts in Dota 2

Taunting is an art. Taunting is a lifestyle. And if you want to join the cult of taunters that reaps satisfaction from mocking and annoying your opponents, we have laid out the very simple steps to begin.

But first of all, what is a Taunt in Dota 2?

A Taunt in Dota 2 is a cosmetic item that causes your hero to perform an in-game animation. You might have seen it in your pubs or in any other matches where a hero randomly begins dancing, performing a stunt, or doing unusual movements with its own sound effects. Taunts do not affect anything in-game as it's purely cosmetic.

To use Taunt, press the default hotkey which is set to (T). To set Taunt to your preferred hotkey, go to Settings > Hotkeys > Advanced Hotkeys > Taunt Item.

There is no actual purpose for Taunts but players often use them to poke at their opponents. Much alike the chatwheels and in-game tips, Taunts can be very annoying or incredibly fun. It all depends on which side you're on.

You can use your hero's Taunt when you clutch an escape, outsmart your opponent, teamwipe the enemy, or whenever you feel like it.

Or you use your hero Taunt at the worst timing possible and suffer the worst kind of shame in-game.

Taunts are sold as cosmetics, so you can get most of them on the Steam Market or in Treasures. You can check Taunts that are available on the market by clicking Heroes and checking the Store tab.

Some Taunts are cheap, some are a tad bit more expensive and some of them are exclusive. For example, this Outworld Destroyer Taunt, The Inner Dark can only be obtained by reaching Level 531 on the 2022 Battle Pass.

There are general rules to Taunts that you need to know. Firstly, you can only spam hero Taunts twice in a row, and a long cooldown will be triggered. From a normal 8 seconds cooldown, spamming a Taunt consecutively can bring it up to 20, 40, and 60 seconds.

This wasn't the case a couple of years ago when Taunts were just as 'spammable' as chatwheels. However, the cooldown was introduced likely to avoid overwhelming taunting or distraction to the game.

If you have a Taunt equipped, your hero might randomly perform the Taunt when you make certain plays. The plays that trigger the Taunt are:

Sometimes when pressing Taunt, a prompt comes up instead stating "You can't use 'Taunt: [Taunt name]' right now - now isn't a good time". This prompt is triggered when your hero is doing another animation, usually when casting spells. The game doesn't let the Taunt interrupt actual in-game actions and puts your Taunt on hold.

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