^FEAR
14th February 2009, 02:14 AM
Hero roles in DotA, guide by ^FEAR
1: Foreword
We all know it's nice to see farmed carry hero making triple kill in every team battle. But most of the people try to make carry with every possible hero from Warlock to Ezalor. In this guide I will explain hero roles in team like support and tanks. This guide is mainly to help new comers improve but still, everyone might learn something new from it. I doubt much of them will read this but still...Good luck.
2: Hero roles in DotA
I will divide them in few categories which are :
Carry heroes
Support heroes
Gank heroes
Pushers/Anti pushers
Initators
Tank heroes
Jungle heroes
NOTE: Some heroes belong in more groups since they can be played different way depending upon game situation.
2.1 Support
I will start with these guys since they are played 99% wrong in lower level games and want to be carries. Too often they are seen with Radiances/Burizas and such items. It's wrong way to play these heroes as I will explain.
Support heroes are:
Omniknight
Crystal maiden
Witch doctor
Zeus
Vengeful spirit
Enigma
Ezalor
Ogre magi
Furion
Techies
Chen
Jakiro
Puck
Rhasta
Lesharc
Lich
Krobelus
Lion
Pugna
Atropos
Necrolyte
Abbadon
Warlock
Dazzle
Invoker
These are mainly intelligence heroes who need minimal survival items to be effective. Primary role of support hero is teamplay. There are many ways supporters can contribute to team.
Some have shiny auras, like Crystal maiden who has global mana regeneration aura, others have nice heal, like Warlock who has Shadow word. As said before, they don't need items to be effective, so they will spend most of their gold buying items team needs, such as wards/dust/gem and plant them. Their role is to buy chicken in most cases, as well. For more information about placing wards check guide to warding (http://eurobattle.net/showthread.php?t=78650).
Apart from buying items supporters are mainly used as baby sitters for carry heroes who won't be able to farm and carry without their help. Example of babysitter is Warlock who's heal allows carry to stay on lane without fear of being harassed. On lane supporters should only deny creeps and let creep and hero kills to carries.
Supporters with disables, like Witch doctor, should start roaming after certain period and leave carry solo to get more experience/gold.
Items that most supporters should buy are:
Observer and Sentry wards
Chicken and later Crow
Disable items like Guinsoo scythe of Vyse
Support items like Necronomicon
Mekansm
Wards are bought and placed to secure your carry from ganks, since he is most probably farming in woods. Chicken allows your teammates to shop while not leaving lane and losing experience. Disables are gotten to stop enemy dangerous heroes from doing anything. Good option on most supporters is Necronomicon, known as Necro book. It gives nice attribute bonuses, improves team efficency due to auras and boosts your overall damage.
There are also semi-supporter heroes who can play support depending on game situation. Good example of such hero is Pandaren brewmaster.
2.2 Carry heroes
What are carry heroes?
They are mostly agility heroes which are very fragile during early periods of game and should always be laned with an baby sitter such as Warlock who will help you in growing powerful and winning late game. Carry's primary duty is to stay alive and farm as much as possible to get late game items which he, in most cases, needs.
Best way to farm is to constantly TP/travel among lanes and woods (farming neutral creep camps there) so you avoid being ganked. Also, if you have hero that is good ganker, like Shadow fiend, you should pop out from woods when you wait for creep camps to respawn.
Carry heroes should get damage items such as Buriza or Monkey king bar to boost their damage output and maximize carry potential. Most carry heroes can make good use of Radiance as primary item as it boosts their farming capability and allows them to farm rest of items pretty fast. You should aim for Radiance around 25 minutes in serious games and under 20 minutes in pubs.
Carry heroes are:
Morphling
Sven
Naga siren
Stealh assasin
Juggernaut
Silencer
Tinker
Alchemist
Luna
Sniper
Troll warlord
Gondar
Anti-mage
Davion
Drow ranger
Terror blade
Visage
Nessaj
Broodmother
Phantom assasin
Medusa
Skeleton king
Bone fletcher
Faceless void
Razor
Lifestealer
Necrolyte
Nerubian Weaver
Ursa warrior
Shadow fiend
Blood seeker
Spectre
Obsidian destroyer
Geomancer
Lycan
As said before, they are very fragile early game and need items to be effective later. For example, Shadow fiend has only 435 starting HP and is very easy to be killed early game but is force to be reckoned with later when he is farmed up.
There are also semi-carry's who usually dominate early and middle game and get big and fat so they dominate late game as well. Some examples of semi-carries are:
Dragon knight
Tiny
Tinker
Visage
Sven
Necrolyte
Mirana
Huskar
Lanaya
Admiral
Balanar
Slardar
Queen of Pain
Viper
Spirit breaker
Dark seer
As said above, most of them have some ability which allows them to net kills early game or be effective late game. Examples are Necrolyte's Reaper's scythe and Sven's God strength. Depending on game situation these heroes can fill some other role as well, for example Necrolyte can be used as supporter as well (in most cases he will, that was just an example).
2.3 Gank heroes
What is ganking and how to do it?
Ganking is very important aspect of game. If some hero is shut down form very start he won't most likely be able to fulfill his role in game. Carry heroes should be ganked mostly in early periods to prevent them from becoming strong later. Anyway, basically ganking is to carry out a sudden attack on an outnumbered enemy force for the purpose of killing one or more heroes for many posible reasons:
Ganking in order to slow down farming heroes, whether it is a tier for damage item on a carry, a Dagger on an initiator, or any other important item. This ganks are usually small skirmishes done early-mid game.
Getting gold and experience from the kills.
Ganking a lone hero, or a small group, to gain a pushing advantage if the game gets stalled. Killing an anti-pusher hero before attempting to multi-push all 3 lanes, for example.
Good gankers are heroes who can deal a lot of damage in a short time (burst damage), have a great mobility, can isolate enemy heroes, have some sort of disable (either a stun or a slow), or more likely a combination of those. Here are most popular ones, burst damagers:
Lina inverse
Balanar
Nerubian assasin
Tinker
Lich
Heroes with some form of blink have element of suprise when ganking since they come out all of sudden. Examples are:
Akasha, Queen of pain
Puck, Fearie dragon
Mirana
Morphling
Sand king
Clockwerk goblin
Furion
Disablers are also very powerful gankers. In most cases they can disable multi units allowing your allies to devastate them. Some examples are:
Lion
Bane elemental
Rhasta
Jakiro
There are also heroes who have slow attack or skill making enemy escape almost impossible. Those are:
Viper
Drow ranger
Bristle back
Pugna
Dazzle
Special mention in ganking goes to Pudge since he can isolate single hero and kill him in very short time then escape. Always watch woods when you play against this guy.
There are also roamers which are a specific kind of gankers who will spend most of the early-mid game ganking, leaving their lane very early in the game (usually around lvl 3 or 5). Roamer heroes usually have a very poor late game, and need very little items to contribute to their team. Some heroes capable of roaming are: Venomancer, Vengeful Spirit, Sven, Slayer and Crystal Maiden.
2.4 Push/Anti-push heroes
What are pushers and anti-pushers?
These are heroes who can clear creep waves alone or very fast and take down towers easily. Their role is to put pressure on enemy lanes and they should be able to push more lanes at once. Best example of pusher hero is by far, Tinker. He can push 3 lanes at once without problem.
Typical build for pusher hero are Boots of Travel along with aura items who buff creeps thus giving them advantage over enemy creep wave.
Anti-pushers are basically same heroes in other role, defending base.
Examples of pushing abilities are:
Illuminate
Shockwave
Counter helix
Great cleave
Rain of fire
While some of pusher/anti pusher heroes are:
Ezalor
Tinker
Shadow fiend
Invoker
Pit lord
Earthshaker
Pugna
Axe
Tiny
Rexxar
Lina inverse
Basically heroes who can clear huge ammounts of creeps fast with AoE spells or skills. I would put "summoners" in category as well since they can spawn creatures that push pretty fast. Some most notable would be:
Broodmother
Syllabear
Invoker
Mirror-image heroes (example Naga siren)
Certainly best way to counter push is using AoE spells.
2.5 Tank heroes
What is tank?
Tank is a hero (mainly Strength one), whose primary role is to absorb large amounts of damage from enemies and draw attention away from his allies, for example by buying Radiance. To achieve this, they generally have several defensive abilities that grant armor, regeneration, or bonus damage (e.g. Davion's Dragon's Blood, Centaur's Great Fortitude, Bristleback's Bristleback, Tidehunter's Kraken Shell), as well as a high Strength gain. Hero doesn't always need to be Strength based to be a tank. Agility example is Medusa, who is great tank due to Mana shield.
Tanks are mainly initiators as well and their best tool is Kelen's dagger of escape also known as blink dagger. What they do is blink in and try to catch as much enemies as possible as possible with their initiator spell (Reverse polarity for example) so your team can rush in and clear them. Initiators should try to catch enemy off guard for full effect.
Tanks are:
Tidehunter
Centaur
Bristle back
Sven
Dragon knight
Medusa
Syllabear
Treant protector
Undying
Alchemist
2.6 Initiator heroes
Who are initiators?
As word says they initiate battle which means they rush in first and do their AoE skill to damage or disable as much of enemy team as possible. Initiators mostly make use of Kelen's dagger of Escape known as blink dagger.
Some initiator heroes are:
Tidehunter
Enigma
Treant protector
Axe
Magnus
Puck
Shadow fiend
Pandaren brewmaster
Lesharc
Admiral
Tiny
Slardar
Their primary role is to blink in, catch enemy off guard and devastate them with their skills (Reverse polarity, for example). Then their team will have advantage winning team battle.
2.7 Jungling heroes
What is jungling?
Basically it's "laning" in woods so your team can have two solo lanes and therefore level up much faster. It's done by heroes who have some survival ability that will help them to survive while creeping. Example is Lifestealer's Feast.
Junglers should creep pull from time to time so allied lane isn't pushed too far and always open from gank. They should pop out to gank from time to time while waiting creeps to respawn.
As enemy team will notice you have jungler they will come to gank you every now and then. So if you are jungling Observer wards are must if you wish to stay alive.
Examples of jungling heroes are:
N'aix
Terrorblade
Axe
Broodmother
Centaur
Lycan
Syllabear
Tidehunter
Pit lord
Ursa warrior
Pandaren brewmaster
Chen
Dark seer
As you see all of heroes above have some form of skill that helps them creep. Chen can dominate creeps, Terrorblade can tank with images and so on. That's it for now.
I would like to thank few people:
As always, Ice Frog, for DotA
Myself, for taking effort to write this :D
Femisa for buying Radiance on every support hero and inspiring me to prove people that strategy sucks
Mezmerize & [gdl]Shadow for helping to finish guide (Initiator and jungle sections), Fika[F] for some pointers
ProtosS, for constant spam
Perito, <3 noob
You, for reading this guide
Changelog:
13/2/2009 - Wrote guide
14/2/2009 - Added initiator and jungle heroes section
14/2/2009 - Added complete list of heroes to each section
I may be wrong at some part of guide and if you think something is wrong feel free to comment it. All kinds of constructive criticsm appreciated and will be taken into consideration. Thanks for reading my guide.
1: Foreword
We all know it's nice to see farmed carry hero making triple kill in every team battle. But most of the people try to make carry with every possible hero from Warlock to Ezalor. In this guide I will explain hero roles in team like support and tanks. This guide is mainly to help new comers improve but still, everyone might learn something new from it. I doubt much of them will read this but still...Good luck.
2: Hero roles in DotA
I will divide them in few categories which are :
Carry heroes
Support heroes
Gank heroes
Pushers/Anti pushers
Initators
Tank heroes
Jungle heroes
NOTE: Some heroes belong in more groups since they can be played different way depending upon game situation.
2.1 Support
I will start with these guys since they are played 99% wrong in lower level games and want to be carries. Too often they are seen with Radiances/Burizas and such items. It's wrong way to play these heroes as I will explain.
Support heroes are:
Omniknight
Crystal maiden
Witch doctor
Zeus
Vengeful spirit
Enigma
Ezalor
Ogre magi
Furion
Techies
Chen
Jakiro
Puck
Rhasta
Lesharc
Lich
Krobelus
Lion
Pugna
Atropos
Necrolyte
Abbadon
Warlock
Dazzle
Invoker
These are mainly intelligence heroes who need minimal survival items to be effective. Primary role of support hero is teamplay. There are many ways supporters can contribute to team.
Some have shiny auras, like Crystal maiden who has global mana regeneration aura, others have nice heal, like Warlock who has Shadow word. As said before, they don't need items to be effective, so they will spend most of their gold buying items team needs, such as wards/dust/gem and plant them. Their role is to buy chicken in most cases, as well. For more information about placing wards check guide to warding (http://eurobattle.net/showthread.php?t=78650).
Apart from buying items supporters are mainly used as baby sitters for carry heroes who won't be able to farm and carry without their help. Example of babysitter is Warlock who's heal allows carry to stay on lane without fear of being harassed. On lane supporters should only deny creeps and let creep and hero kills to carries.
Supporters with disables, like Witch doctor, should start roaming after certain period and leave carry solo to get more experience/gold.
Items that most supporters should buy are:
Observer and Sentry wards
Chicken and later Crow
Disable items like Guinsoo scythe of Vyse
Support items like Necronomicon
Mekansm
Wards are bought and placed to secure your carry from ganks, since he is most probably farming in woods. Chicken allows your teammates to shop while not leaving lane and losing experience. Disables are gotten to stop enemy dangerous heroes from doing anything. Good option on most supporters is Necronomicon, known as Necro book. It gives nice attribute bonuses, improves team efficency due to auras and boosts your overall damage.
There are also semi-supporter heroes who can play support depending on game situation. Good example of such hero is Pandaren brewmaster.
2.2 Carry heroes
What are carry heroes?
They are mostly agility heroes which are very fragile during early periods of game and should always be laned with an baby sitter such as Warlock who will help you in growing powerful and winning late game. Carry's primary duty is to stay alive and farm as much as possible to get late game items which he, in most cases, needs.
Best way to farm is to constantly TP/travel among lanes and woods (farming neutral creep camps there) so you avoid being ganked. Also, if you have hero that is good ganker, like Shadow fiend, you should pop out from woods when you wait for creep camps to respawn.
Carry heroes should get damage items such as Buriza or Monkey king bar to boost their damage output and maximize carry potential. Most carry heroes can make good use of Radiance as primary item as it boosts their farming capability and allows them to farm rest of items pretty fast. You should aim for Radiance around 25 minutes in serious games and under 20 minutes in pubs.
Carry heroes are:
Morphling
Sven
Naga siren
Stealh assasin
Juggernaut
Silencer
Tinker
Alchemist
Luna
Sniper
Troll warlord
Gondar
Anti-mage
Davion
Drow ranger
Terror blade
Visage
Nessaj
Broodmother
Phantom assasin
Medusa
Skeleton king
Bone fletcher
Faceless void
Razor
Lifestealer
Necrolyte
Nerubian Weaver
Ursa warrior
Shadow fiend
Blood seeker
Spectre
Obsidian destroyer
Geomancer
Lycan
As said before, they are very fragile early game and need items to be effective later. For example, Shadow fiend has only 435 starting HP and is very easy to be killed early game but is force to be reckoned with later when he is farmed up.
There are also semi-carry's who usually dominate early and middle game and get big and fat so they dominate late game as well. Some examples of semi-carries are:
Dragon knight
Tiny
Tinker
Visage
Sven
Necrolyte
Mirana
Huskar
Lanaya
Admiral
Balanar
Slardar
Queen of Pain
Viper
Spirit breaker
Dark seer
As said above, most of them have some ability which allows them to net kills early game or be effective late game. Examples are Necrolyte's Reaper's scythe and Sven's God strength. Depending on game situation these heroes can fill some other role as well, for example Necrolyte can be used as supporter as well (in most cases he will, that was just an example).
2.3 Gank heroes
What is ganking and how to do it?
Ganking is very important aspect of game. If some hero is shut down form very start he won't most likely be able to fulfill his role in game. Carry heroes should be ganked mostly in early periods to prevent them from becoming strong later. Anyway, basically ganking is to carry out a sudden attack on an outnumbered enemy force for the purpose of killing one or more heroes for many posible reasons:
Ganking in order to slow down farming heroes, whether it is a tier for damage item on a carry, a Dagger on an initiator, or any other important item. This ganks are usually small skirmishes done early-mid game.
Getting gold and experience from the kills.
Ganking a lone hero, or a small group, to gain a pushing advantage if the game gets stalled. Killing an anti-pusher hero before attempting to multi-push all 3 lanes, for example.
Good gankers are heroes who can deal a lot of damage in a short time (burst damage), have a great mobility, can isolate enemy heroes, have some sort of disable (either a stun or a slow), or more likely a combination of those. Here are most popular ones, burst damagers:
Lina inverse
Balanar
Nerubian assasin
Tinker
Lich
Heroes with some form of blink have element of suprise when ganking since they come out all of sudden. Examples are:
Akasha, Queen of pain
Puck, Fearie dragon
Mirana
Morphling
Sand king
Clockwerk goblin
Furion
Disablers are also very powerful gankers. In most cases they can disable multi units allowing your allies to devastate them. Some examples are:
Lion
Bane elemental
Rhasta
Jakiro
There are also heroes who have slow attack or skill making enemy escape almost impossible. Those are:
Viper
Drow ranger
Bristle back
Pugna
Dazzle
Special mention in ganking goes to Pudge since he can isolate single hero and kill him in very short time then escape. Always watch woods when you play against this guy.
There are also roamers which are a specific kind of gankers who will spend most of the early-mid game ganking, leaving their lane very early in the game (usually around lvl 3 or 5). Roamer heroes usually have a very poor late game, and need very little items to contribute to their team. Some heroes capable of roaming are: Venomancer, Vengeful Spirit, Sven, Slayer and Crystal Maiden.
2.4 Push/Anti-push heroes
What are pushers and anti-pushers?
These are heroes who can clear creep waves alone or very fast and take down towers easily. Their role is to put pressure on enemy lanes and they should be able to push more lanes at once. Best example of pusher hero is by far, Tinker. He can push 3 lanes at once without problem.
Typical build for pusher hero are Boots of Travel along with aura items who buff creeps thus giving them advantage over enemy creep wave.
Anti-pushers are basically same heroes in other role, defending base.
Examples of pushing abilities are:
Illuminate
Shockwave
Counter helix
Great cleave
Rain of fire
While some of pusher/anti pusher heroes are:
Ezalor
Tinker
Shadow fiend
Invoker
Pit lord
Earthshaker
Pugna
Axe
Tiny
Rexxar
Lina inverse
Basically heroes who can clear huge ammounts of creeps fast with AoE spells or skills. I would put "summoners" in category as well since they can spawn creatures that push pretty fast. Some most notable would be:
Broodmother
Syllabear
Invoker
Mirror-image heroes (example Naga siren)
Certainly best way to counter push is using AoE spells.
2.5 Tank heroes
What is tank?
Tank is a hero (mainly Strength one), whose primary role is to absorb large amounts of damage from enemies and draw attention away from his allies, for example by buying Radiance. To achieve this, they generally have several defensive abilities that grant armor, regeneration, or bonus damage (e.g. Davion's Dragon's Blood, Centaur's Great Fortitude, Bristleback's Bristleback, Tidehunter's Kraken Shell), as well as a high Strength gain. Hero doesn't always need to be Strength based to be a tank. Agility example is Medusa, who is great tank due to Mana shield.
Tanks are mainly initiators as well and their best tool is Kelen's dagger of escape also known as blink dagger. What they do is blink in and try to catch as much enemies as possible as possible with their initiator spell (Reverse polarity for example) so your team can rush in and clear them. Initiators should try to catch enemy off guard for full effect.
Tanks are:
Tidehunter
Centaur
Bristle back
Sven
Dragon knight
Medusa
Syllabear
Treant protector
Undying
Alchemist
2.6 Initiator heroes
Who are initiators?
As word says they initiate battle which means they rush in first and do their AoE skill to damage or disable as much of enemy team as possible. Initiators mostly make use of Kelen's dagger of Escape known as blink dagger.
Some initiator heroes are:
Tidehunter
Enigma
Treant protector
Axe
Magnus
Puck
Shadow fiend
Pandaren brewmaster
Lesharc
Admiral
Tiny
Slardar
Their primary role is to blink in, catch enemy off guard and devastate them with their skills (Reverse polarity, for example). Then their team will have advantage winning team battle.
2.7 Jungling heroes
What is jungling?
Basically it's "laning" in woods so your team can have two solo lanes and therefore level up much faster. It's done by heroes who have some survival ability that will help them to survive while creeping. Example is Lifestealer's Feast.
Junglers should creep pull from time to time so allied lane isn't pushed too far and always open from gank. They should pop out to gank from time to time while waiting creeps to respawn.
As enemy team will notice you have jungler they will come to gank you every now and then. So if you are jungling Observer wards are must if you wish to stay alive.
Examples of jungling heroes are:
N'aix
Terrorblade
Axe
Broodmother
Centaur
Lycan
Syllabear
Tidehunter
Pit lord
Ursa warrior
Pandaren brewmaster
Chen
Dark seer
As you see all of heroes above have some form of skill that helps them creep. Chen can dominate creeps, Terrorblade can tank with images and so on. That's it for now.
I would like to thank few people:
As always, Ice Frog, for DotA
Myself, for taking effort to write this :D
Femisa for buying Radiance on every support hero and inspiring me to prove people that strategy sucks
Mezmerize & [gdl]Shadow for helping to finish guide (Initiator and jungle sections), Fika[F] for some pointers
ProtosS, for constant spam
Perito, <3 noob
You, for reading this guide
Changelog:
13/2/2009 - Wrote guide
14/2/2009 - Added initiator and jungle heroes section
14/2/2009 - Added complete list of heroes to each section
I may be wrong at some part of guide and if you think something is wrong feel free to comment it. All kinds of constructive criticsm appreciated and will be taken into consideration. Thanks for reading my guide.