Equipment, or cosmetic items, are items that can be equipped in the loadout menu of the customize tab. They have no effect on gameplay, and exist only to alter the look of the heroes and their abilities. Equipment can be earned in a multitude of ways: they can be randomly found after Matchmaking and Co-op matches, by leveling up through Battle Points, by opening Chests, or by buying them in the Dota 2 Store. There also used to be a small chance to receive an item of higher rarity by deleting items (not applicable to chests), but this feature was removed from the game in July of 2013, possibly due to a large number of players receiving Mythical-grade items such as Couriers from deleting Rare-grade items.
Valve introduced the first batch of cosmetic items in the May 31, 2012 Patch, consisting of items for just 14 heroes. Several updates have since added more cosmetic items, expanding to new heroes over time. The majority of the cosmetic items in-game have been designed by members of the Dota 2 community and submitted through the Steam Workshop.
While the cosmetic items bought in the Dota 2 Store and found through the item drop system are all of Standard quality, equipment received from Chests can be of Strange quality, which track different kinds of stats, such as kills or ability related stats. These items otherwise function and look the same as Standard quality equipment.
Most equipment is tradable, unless when the equipment has been bought on an account that has had its first Steam purchase less than 30 days ago. In that case, all equipment bought on that account will be untradable for 3 days, after which they become tradable.