Dota – Do items in Dota 2 have individual cooldowns

Update as of 18/1/2013

The options menu has been changed to make it easier to find the control rebinding for items. I have taken a new screenshot - simply click on steps 1 through 4 from anywhere in the game client to open up the menu and rebind your item hotkeys.

Note: this part of the answer is outdated, but I left it alone for now. If it's appropriate to delete it, mods are welcome to do so.

You can change the key bindings for both abilities and items by clicking their icons underneath the list of controls in the options menu. Below is a screenshot of the controls menu, you can see that I reassigned my items to numbers 1-4 and my extra mouse buttons.

It is not immediately apparent that these buttons which look like the ingame HUD are actually additional key binding options, but each one that is labelled can be changed.

It's also highly recommended that you rebind at least a few control group keys to something else, but it's rare that you will need all 6 control groups in a normal game. I chose F1-F3, but you can use whatever you like.

There is 1 more very important item that Lustin didn't mention, and that is the magic stick.

Early on in the game, this is a great way to get that small burst of health or mana that can often save you from death or provide the ability to get that crucial early kill.

And as you get more money, you can upgrade it into a magic wand for even greater effectiveness.

If you are constantly running out of life/mana, then there are a few things you can do to improve that situation.

1. Buy a Stout Shield. This protects you quite a bit from ranged harass and can greatly boost your survivability.
2. Watch your positioning. Don't attack an enemy hero when you are surrounded by creeps as they'll immediately target you. Don't hang around in the middle of the creep line either. Only go in for denies or last hits.
3. Don't spam your skills too much unless you'll either a) get a hero kill b) prevent a hero death or c) keep yourself in the lane longer (do this sparingly). Mana management is very important early on, don't waste it on creeps.
4. Get some branches. The boost in mana, health, and damage is quite significant early on in the game, and branches will be required to make that magic wand anyway.