FB is an abbreviation that stands for “free barracks” in Dota 2. Barracks are important structures located in the base of each team that spawn melee and ranged creep waves to attack the enemy base. Destroying the enemy’s barracks provides a strategic advantage by empowering your own creep waves.
What are Barracks in Dota 2?
In Dota 2, there are two sets of barracks for each team – one for the top lane and one for the bottom lane. Each set of barracks consists of two buildings:
- Melee barracks – Spawns melee creep waves
- Ranged barracks – Spawns ranged creep waves
The mid lane does not contain any barracks. Destroying one of the enemy team’s barracks causes your own corresponding creep waves in that lane to become more powerful, giving your team a strategic advantage. This makes pushing and destroying the enemy’s barracks an important objective in most Dota 2 matches.
Why are Barracks Important Objectives in Dota 2?
There are several key reasons why destroying the enemy’s barracks provides a significant strategic advantage in Dota 2:
- Empowered creep waves – Destroying one of the enemy barracks empowers your own corresponding creep waves in that lane. Empowered creeps have more health, damage, and armor – making them harder to clear.
- Map control – With super creeps constantly pushing a lane, the enemy team has to devote more resources to defending that lane. This allows your team to more easily control other parts of the map.
- High ground access – Once you destroy the ranged barracks in a lane, your super creeps will continue pushing all the way to the enemy’s high ground. This puts pressure on the enemy base and allows you to siege from the high ground.
- Comeback gold – Destroying barracks gives your team a reliable source of income in the form of comeback gold from killing the super creeps.
For these reasons, taking barracks provides map control, income, and lane pressure – all of which make pushing high ground and ultimately destroying the enemy ancient much easier.
What Does “FB” Mean?
In Dota 2, “FB” stands for “free barracks.” It refers to when a team is able to destroy one of the enemy’s barracks without losing any heroes or having to expend significant resources.
Some common situations where a team might secure “FB” include:
- The enemy team makes a mistake and several of their heroes are dead without buyback available.
- Your team has a significant gold and XP advantage and is able to easily overpower the enemy heroes defending their base.
- Your team has strong push heroes like Shadow Shaman, Nature’s Prophet, or Leshrac and can quickly destroy barracks before the enemy can react.
Securing “FB” is highly desirable because it provides that long-term strategic advantage of empowered creep waves without your team having to sacrifice heroes or spend significant resources like Hand of Midas uses or long cooldown ultimates.
Why is “FB” an Important Callout?
In Dota 2, calling out “FB” is important for a few key reasons:
- Signals an opportunity – Telling your team “FB” alerts them to push lanes and capitalize on the opportunity to gain a strategic advantage.
- Focuses objectives – Reminds the team to focus on the barracks rather than chasing heroes or farming jungle camps.
- Encourages grouping up – Since destroying barracks requires grouping up and pushing, calling “FB” encourages team coordination.
- Prevents over-committing – Indicating the barracks are “free” tells your team not to over-commit ultimates or resources.
In summary, using the “FB” callout capitalizes on opportunities to safely destroy enemy barracks and gain map control. This communication gives the team a strategic focus and prevents mistakes from over-committing.
When Should You Call “FB”?
As a general rule of thumb, “FB” is appropriate to call when:
- You have vision and information confirming multiple enemy heroes are dead or far away from their base without buyback available.
- Your team has a power spike and timing advantage from items, levels, or game state.
- You are near the enemy base and can quickly move to push a lane and destroy barracks.
- The enemy base is lightly defended or you have a numbers advantage.
Conversely, it is better to wait on calling “FB” if:
- You lack information on enemy hero locations and buyback status.
- Your team just finished a teamfight and used a lot of spells and resources.
- The enemy team is turtling in their base or has strong wave clear.
- Roshan or another objective would be a better use of time and resources.
Calling “FB” at the right timing is crucial to successfully capitalizing on the opportunity.
How to Use “FB” Effectively In-Game
Here are some tips to use the “FB” callout effectively in your Dota 2 matches:
- Communicate details – When calling “FB”, provide additional details like which lane, which barracks, and enemy hero status.
- Ping objectives – Ping the barracks you want to focus to visually indicate objectives to your team.
- Check inventories – Verify your team has the items and resources needed to push objectives quickly.
- Scan ahead – Use scan to check for enemy heroes defending and clear out vision.
- Lead the push – Help coordinate your team by leading the push onto objectives.
- Make it quick – Quickly destroy the objectives before the opportunity disappears.
Following up the “FB” call with teamwork and execution is key to fully capitalizing on the chance to gain an advantage.
Common Mistakes
Some common mistakes teams make when trying to secure “FB” include:
- Overstaying – Destroying the barracks quickly then leaving is best. Avoid sticking around after getting FB.
- Prioritizing kills – Chasing enemy heroes instead of focusing the objectives.
- Attacking without information – Pushing without proper vision and knowledge of enemy statuses.
- Attacking at a numbers disadvantage – Trying to force FB when outnumbered.
- Using critical cooldowns – Having key ultimates and spells on cooldown for next fight.
Avoiding these missteps and keeping the focus on quickly destroying objectives is key to successfully getting FB and gaining an advantage.
Conclusion
In summary, “FB” or “free barracks” is an important callout in Dota 2 referring to opportunistically destroying undefended enemy barracks. Securing FB provides immense strategic value through super creeps without requiring your team to expend resources. Calling FB at the right timings and focusing objectives as a team is crucial to gaining this long-term advantage. Use this communication and game sense of power spikes to seize opportunities for free barracks and control of the map.