DotA Hero Guide For Dummies

• Axe: Difficulty Medium Skill Curve Medium. Axe is a jungler tank initiator melee hero with a simple skillset that is easy to learn but difficult to master. His first skill is an AOE taunt that forces units very close to him to attack him, as well as silencing them and granting him bonus armour. This has a small casting time so it is somewhat difficult to hit unless you have blink dagger or a speed/stun advantage, but very effective if you do manage to hit it, especially if on multiple heroes. His second skill is a long range damage over time ability with a small slow attached. The unit will take periodic damage over a long time (around 20 seconds) and be slowed unless he kills something. When he kills something, it is immediately dispelled. Therefore, this skill can deal a lot of damage to heroes that are fleeing or kept back in the lane, but easily countered in a teamfight or laning stage. It has a very low cooldown and is spammable. His third skill (counter helix) is his signature skill – every time he is attacked, he has a chance of damaging all units near him. This is extremely effective when multiple units are attacking you because the passive will be activating extremely often. It is well paired with his first skill (his taunt) and very good for farming and jungling. His ultimate is very simple – it is a melee spell that is cast on enemy heroes. If the enemy hero is considerably low on life (under 300/450/625 hp, based on the level), it will instantly die. This is good for finishing off heroes but not useful otherwise.
• Pudge/Butcher: Difficulty High Skill Curve Very High. Pudge is a positioning-oriented semi-tank ganker melee hero that is difficult to play effectively. His first skill, hook, is one of the most identifiable skills in the game, if not the most identifiable. He throws out a hook that travels a decent range and drags the first unit it hits (if it hits one) to pudge, as well as dealing considerable damage. This can be used to save allies, grab enemies and take them out of their position, or used as a nuke. It is very hard to hit in medium and high level games because you have to predict where the hero is going to be, make sure he is in range, make sure no units are in the way of the hook, and make sure the hero will not attempt to dodge the hook. For this reason he is a somewhat unreliable hero that takes a lot of skill to contribute to his team. His second skill is rot – it deals damage near him and slows units. It will damage him for the same amount of damage as well while he has it active. This is a good followup to hook or to slow heroes and allow your allies to catch up – it deals good damage but must be used carefully or pudge will die himself. Can be used to kill himself so the enemy team does not get the kill. His third skill gives him additional strength for every hero that dies near him, allowing him to tank late game, but only if he is doing well early game so as to accumulate a large amount of strength. His ultimate is very similar to Warwick from LoL (I think). It is a melee channeling ability that will stun and damage an enemy unit for 3 seconds while immobilizing pudge as well – again, well used with rot and hook. He is very gank oriented and requires skill and finesse to play – the most exciting games often come when he is in play.
• Sand King/Crixalis: Difficulty Medium/High Skill Curve Low Sand king is a heavy gank/initiation melee caster hero that is somewhat similar earthshaker in playstyle and utility. He can contribute to the team easily but if you master his skills he brings a lot more to the table, due to the utility-orientation of his skills. His first skill is burrowstrike, which is a decent range stun that, when cast, will bring sand king to the target point instantly as well as stunning anyone inbetween him and the point. It is similar to a blink but most often used as a nuke rather than an escape, and arguably one of the better skills in the game. His second ability is sandstorm, which simply turns him invisible and deals damage in a large aoe around him for a very long time. This skill is very useful for stalling when you get ganked (activate sandstorm and wait for allies to come) or simply farming/dps in a team battle. The instant invisibility is an interesting aspect – in the hands of a good player, what you can do is activate it when you are about to get stunned and most abilities will use the mana and go onto cooldown, but you will not be affected. It takes a lot of timing and skill though. His ultimate channels for 2 seconds and then begins dealing damage in a small AOE around sand king, which gradually expands. The damage output from this ability is very high, but if he is stunned during the channel time it is 100% wasted, which is why people often purchase blink dagger on him (cast ultimate, wait for channel to finish, blink in). He is easily harassed early game but can also be very agressive in lane due to his burrowstrike.
• Slardar: Difficulty Low Skill Curve Low. Slardar is a heavy damage dealer carry that excels in making enemy units very vulnerable to damage and then dealing that damage. His first skill is sprint, which simply makes him run faster for 20 seconds but he takes more damage during this time. His second skill is a stomp-like ability, which stuns, slows and damages heroes near him when cast. Due to its small range, it is well used with sprint or blink dagger. His third skill is bash, which is a chance to stun the enemy for a short period of time when he attacks. His ultimate is very useful – when cast on an enemy, it lowers their armour very significantly and grants vision of them with a long duration and short cooldown, which is especially useful against heroes that use invisibility, but still very good against all other heroes.
• Tidehunter: Difficulty Medium Skill Curve Low. Tidehunter is a gank semi-tank team fight hero that is very potent at all skill levels. His first skill is a long ranged nuke that deals damage, slows, and lowers the enemy’s armour, which is useful at all points in the game. His second skill reduces damage and will free him of stuns and slows if he takes more than 600 damage in a short period of time. His third skill is a very spammable low cooldown nuke that deals damage to nearby units and lowers their damage. His ultimate is what really makes him a menace though – it is an aoe stun that deals lots of damage but is also a VERY large aoe, so it will hit every unit in a team battle most of the time. He is mostly used for his ult and gush, and can help tank but it is not his “designated” role usually, as blink dagger is quite useful on him to get better positioning for his extremely important ultimate.
• Nightstalker: Difficulty Medium Skill Curve Medium/High. Nightstalker is a time-dependent aggressive gank-carry that is based around the day and night cycles in DotA. He is unique for this and it adds stratagetic importance on the timing of his attacks. Due to his abilities, he is not a hard carry but a semi-carry reliant on ganking. His first skill is Void, which is a medium range nuke that slows a target unit and deals damage. The slow duration doubles during night (4 at night, 2 at day). His second skill is fear, which silences and blinds a unit, making it unable to cast spells and miss attacks. The duration is only 3 seconds during the day, but up to 8 seconds at night, as well as a heavily strengthened miss chance at night. This is very very good against other gankers/spellcasters and they are very fearful of it, as it essentially puts them out of battle for 8 seconds and unable to do anything, with a low cooldown so he can cast it again continually. His third skill is a passive that only works during the night – it grants him a ton of movement speed and attack speed. This is his bread and butter and why he is so fearful at night – he runs faster than pretty much any hero and attacks super fast as well. His ultimate simply turns the time to night, which he can use if he needs to participate in a teambattle during the day. He can also use it to extend the time of night. Due to his aggressive and gank heavy nature without a stun, you must utilize your team heavily and work together. Games with him are often exciting.
• DoomBringer/Lucifer – Difficulty Medium Skill Curve Low/Medium. Doombringer is a tanking aoe damage anti-caster melee hero with strong farming and laning. He has low starting armour but his devour ability, his second ability and high hitpoints allow him to lane pretty effectively even while being harassed. His first skill is devour, which is a highcooldown spell that is cast on neutral creeps or normal creeps. It absorbs them, which gives him bonus gold and, if he absorbed a neutral creep, it’s abilities which is quite useful when ganking. His second ability is scorched earth, which grants bonus movement speed to doombringer, heals doombringer overtime, and deals AOE damage over a very large AOE. It lasts for quite a while and is a useful heal/team fight tool. His third skill is a very powerful nuke that deals a set amount of damage, and then 250 more based on the damage mechanics (dependent on the enemy heroes level). His ultimate is an extremely powerful spell. It is a medium range damage over time that, when cast, silences the enemy unit, prevents it from using any items, and damages it heavily for 13 seconds. It is extremely good to single out caster heroes and essentially make them useless for quite a while, and is very powerful for this reason.

AGILITY

• Anti-Mage/Magina: Difficulty Medium Skill Curve Medium. Anti-Mage is an agile melee anti-caster hard carry that is very scary. He is very fragile, especially early in the game, but his skills add to his survivability and with his mana-based abilities, he can counter many gankers that would normally kill him easily. His first skill is manaburn – every time he attacks, he burns mana from his foe. This translates to bonus damage as well as preventing the enemy from casting spells if you can get his mana low enough. Antimage has the fastest “attack time” in the game so he can burn a lot of mana fast. His second skill is blink, which he uses to chase and get away from battle. His third skill is a passive which makes him take less damage from spells. His ultimate pairs well with his manaburn ability – it deals damage based on how much mana the hero is missing. For this reason, he can be used to counter high mana heroes like leshrac and tinker. You will find him farming for a large portion of the game because of the survivability issues he needs to overcome.
• Drow Ranger/Traxex: Difficulty Medium Skill Curve Medium. Drow Ranger is a high DPS fragile ranged hard carry with an aggressive laning ability. Her first skill, frost arrows, adds a slow to your attack for the cost of a small amount of mana. When you manually cast frost arrows on an enemy hero, it will not attract enemy creeps or towers, so you can continually kite a hero until he is dead, but you must play it well. Most pros only get 1 level in frost arrows for the entire game because they want lifesteal very soon, and the two are mutually exclusive. Her second skill is an AOE silence which is a bit difficult to hit but very rewarding and can win team battles through a well placed one. Her third skill and ultimate purely add to her DPS.
• Priestess of the Moon/Mirana/PotM: Difficulty High Skill Curve Medium/High. Mirana is a ranged ganker semi-carry that has a lot of utility abilities that require good decision making on the player’s part. Her first skill is a vanilla AOE nuke that deals extra damage to a person next to her. Her second skill is a very unique skill that takes a lot of skill – she shoots out an arrow that goes a very long range. If the arrow hits someone, it will deal a large amount of damage and stun based on how far it traveled. For this reason, it is important to judge risk versus reward (how much stun versus what is safe so you don’t miss) and requires great judgement on the player’s part to hit enemy heroes, as it is easy to miss and has a medium cooldown. It is similar to pudge’s meat hook in this regard. Her third skill is leap which moves her forward in the direction she’s facing, and her ultimate is a global invisibility which is useful for saving teammates or initiating battles secretively. It’s a high cooldown, though, and pros usually max two of her other skills before getting it even though it is an ultimate.
• Morphling: Difficulty Medium Skill Curve Low/Medium. Morphling is a ranged attribute-based gank carry that has many flexible skills and item builds. He has two nukes which he utilized very well to kill heroes in all stages of the game, which makes him quite potent compared to some other carries that only rely on their physical attack. His first skill is waveform, which is a long-ranged blink that also damages anyone between morphling and the position. It is a very effective farming tool and nuke earlygame, and it gives him the flexibility to escape as well as kill. His second skill is adaptive strike, which is an interesting scaling nuke that damages, stuns, and knocks people back. The damage is based on his agility, and the stun and knockback is based on his strength. Lategame, it is very scary when morphling has a lot of agility because this nuke can deal much more damage than other spells in the game. His third skill is morph, which allows him to switch around his agility and strength stats indefinitely – he can have 1 agility and all strength or 1 strength and all agility. It gives him a lot of flexibility with how strong compared to tanky he wants to be, and adds a great deal of damage to his adaptive strike. In the early game, it is leveled because morphling can change agility to strength when he is getting ganked, giving him much more health than he normally would have. His ultimate copies an enemy or allied hero, and this copy deals a significant portion of the original’s damage, so it is useful with carries in the game. He can also teleport to it at any time, sacrificing it, which makes it a good escape ability. In general he is somewhat difficult to kill due to 3 survival skills.
• Vengeful Spirit: Difficulty Medium Skill Curve Low/Medium Vengeful Spirit is a ranged support movement-based hard ganker and is extremely effective in the early and mid game. She is a very frequent pick for pro teams because of the potency of her skills in ganks, especially her efficiency in the laning stage. She often roams even at level 2 or 3 to land her team kills and help the carry farm, which makes for exciting games. Her first skill is a vanilla stun that stuns for a short duration and deals good damage, but has somewhat of a manacost and range issue. Her second skills shoots out a long-distance wave – anyone caught in the wave will have reduced armour and take a little bit of damage. This wave is low mana cost and extremely effective at scouting because of its range; the armour reduction is quite effective too. Her ultimate is her trademark skill – she instantly swaps position with an allied or enemy hero. The range increases with level, and at the max level it actually has a very large range with a medium cooldown. This skill can save allies, swap enemies out of position, and do much more, but requires judgement on the vengeful spirit’s part, as it can just as easily lead to her suicide (which it often does), which makes it a fun, risky skill.
• Dwarven Sniper/Kardel: Difficulty Low Skill Curve Medium. Dwarven Sniper is a long-ranged farmer DPS carry that is unique in being the longest ranged hero in the game by far, with many skills that compliment this. He required good positioning because he is incredibly fragile, but because of his range, he can still contribute safely if played correctly. His first skill is a long-ranged AOE nuke that slows targets and deals damage over 10 seconds to them in it while they stand in it. It’s relatively weak against heroes because they can just walk out of the AOE, but decent in team fights and good for farming. His second skill allows him to deal extra damage, and his third skill increases his range to the trademark huge range . His ultimate is a very useful extremely long-range nuke. It “charges” for about 2 seconds, and then fires a bullet that deals a decent amount of damage – especially good for harassing and last hitting heroes because of its low cooldown and long range. It is quite mana intensive, however.
• Nevermore/Shadow Fiend/SF: Difficulty Very High Skill Curve High. Shadow Fiend is a positioning-based nuke DPS carry that is very hard to play well but very rewarding. He is one of the glassiest glass cannons in the game, and to even deal damage he must be in a good position and in the hands of a skilled player. His first skill is shadow raze – it gives 3 subskills that are each on seperate cooldowns. Each of these skills deal a moderate amount of damage in a small AOE infront of shadow fiend. The difference between these skills is how far ahead of shadowfiend they are used. The first one is point-blank, the second one is medium distance, and the third is a far distance. Seperately, these skills are difficult to hit and don’t do much damage, but if you can hit all 3, they do a substantial amount. However, this requires a hero going from point blank to far away, or vise versa. Therefore shadow fiend must rely on his positioning greatly to outwit the opponent to land these razes properly, which is very hard and a big mindgame. His second skill is a counter that stores “souls”. For every unit he kills, he gains one soul. For each soul, he gets +2 damage. At the maximum level, he can get up to 30 souls for +60 damage. However, on death, he loses half of them, so it is very bad for shadow fiend (who is fragile) to die. Also, his early game damage is low so he must be able to out-lasthit his opponent to properly gain the souls, which is difficult in itself. His ultimate is a hard damage dealing spell in an AOE – the closer you are to shadow fiend, the more damage that is delt. It has around a 1.5 second casting time and can be interrupted, so it is hard time it when enemies are point blank and requires positioning and prediction. For these reasons, shadow fiend requires incredible skill to play and is exciting to see.

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