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1.
Introduction
2.
Index
3.
4.
Examples
5.
Basic Considerations
6.
Nuker
7.
Slow
8.
Hard Support
9.
Disablers
10.
Healers
11.
Escapes
12.
Pushers
13.
Harassers
14.
Late Game
15.
AOE Damage
16.
AOE Disable
17.
Miscellaneous
18.
Trilanes
MORE HEROES
DOTA 2 TRAILER
Top
Introduction
Quite often in both pubs and captain's mode you see players picking support heroes seemingly at random, rather
than trying to get the maximum possible synergy for their team and lane partner.
While the amount of choice in DOTA can seem overwhelming at times, when you group up the heroes into
categories, it can become a lot clearer what kind of abilities you're looking for. This guide will explore the options
and help you understand when to pick particular heroes...
Please note, this guide is still WIP and will need some additions and refinements. I've also only
included the most commonly chosen support heroes to try and keep the lists managable...please
make any suggestions in the comments section!
Top
Index
This index allows you to quickly skip to the various hero types and see at a glance which heroes belong in the
various categories:
Nukers
Lina
Harassers
Keeper of the Light.....
Late Game
Warlock
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Hard Support
Venomancer
Jakiro
Disruptor
Skywrath Mage
Shadow Demon
Warlock
Lich
Silencer
Slow
Warlock
Lion
Jakiro
Disruptor
Lich
Keeper of the Light......
Dazzle
Witch Doctor
Crystal Maiden
Treant Protector
.
Io
Healers
AOE Damage
Pushers
Dazzle
Crystal Maiden
Venomancer
Jakiro
Ogre Magi
Skywrath Mage
Tidehunter
Warlock
Treant Protector.........
Lich
Escape
Warlock
Dazzle
Witch Doctor
Treant Protector..........
Omniknight
Shadow Demon
Vengeful Spirit
Dark Seer
Dazzle
Omniknight
Windranger
Silencer
Necrophos
Windranger
Puck
Dark Seer
Dazzle
Omniknight................. .
Bane
Shadow Shaman
Lion
Earthshaker
AOE Disable
Sand King
Lich
Witch Doctor
Jakiro
Venomancer
Crystal Maiden
Earthshaker
Dark Seer
Leshrac
.
Keeper of the Light...... .
.
Ancient Apparition
Tidehunter
Enigma
Treant Protector
Earthshaker
Jakiro
Puck
Disruptor
Warlock
Top
Once you've learnt a good range of support heroes, you start to have choices about which ones to pick for
different situations. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help guide you towards the right options.
Some issues with team composition can be sorted out ingame - for example a team that lacks disable can
eventually buy a
Scythe of Vyse to help fix that. It may be too late by that point, but it's possible.
Other issues are harder to solve and best avoided. Having a heavily farm dependent team will cause issues earlymid game as nobody wants to buy the necessary support items. Lack of team fight abilities can't be fixed by
buying specific items - all you can try to do is brute force the fights or try to avoid them through ganks and
split pushes.
Work through the most important questions first and it will quickly narrow down your options to a much more
managable set of choices!
Crucial Questions:
Is the rest of your team very farm dependent?
+ Hard Support
Does your team have some good AOE damage or lack team fight?
+ AOE Disablers
Do the opposition have some potentially killer lane combinations, jungler or nasty gankers?
+ Escapes
+ Healers
Important Questions:
Do the opposition have heroes with good escapes/mobility?
+ Disablers
- AVOID Slows
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Optimisation Questions:
Has the opposition got a lot of late game heroes?
+ Pushers
Do the opposition have a lot of squishy heroes?
+ Nukers
+ Harassers
Does your team have some good AOE disablers?
+ AOE Damage
Does your team have a lot of Burst Damage?
+ Nukers
Have both teams picked late game carries?
+ Late Game
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Examples
I'll take you through some sample selections now to hopefully help illustrate how this all works:
Example 1:
The rest of your team have picked
Pudge,
Spirit Breaker,
means that you're going to pick a safe lane support, and probably have to buy the courier and ward all game.
This means you need to pick from the hard support heroes list.
You're going to have a melee lane partner, so a ranged support would be preferable. He's not particularly
aggressive early game, so you want to avoid pushers and you probably won't get a lot of early game kills unless
your mid comes to gank.
Next up, the rest of your team is fairly ganky, with a hard carry, reasonable stuns and a good AOE disable. The big
AOE disable is probably the most interesting feature, meaning any big AOE damage would help, and having a stun
or slow available will help you setup for other team mates if the opportunity arises.
This leaves us with a choice between
Witch Doctor,
Jakiro and
Lich.
Example 2:
The enemy team has picked
setup.
Chen and
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If you're playing on the hard lane, you want a hero with some kind of escape skill to help survive ganks from the
jungle, and some kind of push/anti-push skill would be useful too.
Puck,
Dark Seer,
Dazzle and
If you're playing on the safe lane, you want to make it as difficult as possible for
Weaver to get any farm, and
ideally be able to setup kills on him too. He's very evasive, so you're either going to need a harasser, nuker or
disabler to have a decent chance of taking him down.
Two heroes combine these abilities in
Bane and
Lion.
Example 3:
You're going to be laning with an aggressive early game carry like
Juggernaut,
Sven or
Chaos Knight.
While these guys need to farm, they also have considerable kill power in the early game if given the right backup.
In this situation you want to look at heroes who can help provide early ganking power - stuns, slow and/or nukes.
Supports who have several of these skills are at a real premium in these situations:
+
Crystal Maiden,
Ogre Magi and
Jakiro are all excellent examples - they have both an effective slow and
disable from level 2. Heroes with a very damaging stun/slow are also worth considering - e.g.
Vengeful Spirit,
Sand King,
Tidehunter,
Lina,
Earthshaker and
Venomancer.
Example 4:
The enemy look like they're going to be running a jungler, and your team have a strong ranged carry for the safe
lane. They are not going to need a lot of help, maybe an occasional gank, pulls and/or early harassment to get
them an advantage over their direct opponent.
Often the best choice in situations like this is semi-support heroes who ideally needs more farm than you would
normally get early on as a support. Ideally one with a strong stun who can setup kills for their carry, and possibly
by roaming to other lanes too.
Basic Considerations
Top
The first consideration you have as a support hero is whether to pick a ranged or melee hero.
As a general rule, melee heroes offer you more damage and survivability, but also mean you're likely to take more
harassment when trying to deny, and will struggle to return hits on enemy ranged heroes.
Ranged heroes generally don't hit as hard and have less armour. However, they can also dish out damage and
denies more easily, and can generally position themselves better in the lane.
The main thing is to avoid having two melee heroes in the same lane (unless you have a very specific
combo in mind) - this can make it very difficult for your carry to farm and you to deny = a lost lane.
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Also be aware of having a short ranged hero with a melee against two ranged opponents - this can lead to similar
problems.
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Nuker
Major Nukers:
Minor Nukers:
Nukers are a set of heroes with a lot of single target burst damage, designed to rapidly take down squishy enemy
heroes in the early-mid game.
+ Enemy team has several squishy heroes
+ Your team has other burst damage heroes
+ Your team will be aggressive early on
- You need levels ASAP
- Enemy team have a lot of tanks and/or magic resistance
- Power drops away as the game progresses
Top
Slow
effective way of getting early kills in lane, and a basic escape mechanism.
+ Enemy heroes lack escapes
+ Your team has other heroes who can stun
- Your team lacks stuns
Hard Support
Top
This collection of heroes are suitable for playing a hard support role - i.e. they'll be spending all game warding,
buying team utility items and being last for farming priority. Having better personal equipment does obviously still
benefit these heroes, but they don't NEED it - usually a very minimal inventory is enough to let them deploy their
abilities effectively.
Other heroes can play this hard support role if necessary, but they will likely suffer more of a hit to their
effectiveness.
+ Your team is severely lacking support
- Your team already has plenty of support
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Disablers
These heroes are crowd control specialists - providing long and chained stuns on enemy heroes. You may need to
pick one of these guys if your team is lacking stuns, the enemy has a lot of heroes with strong escapes (you can
prevent them from using them), and against teams who are running a hard lane solo - as the safe lane support
your long disables should make kills easy for your carry.
+ Enemy team has very mobile heroes who rely on their escapes (e.g.
Weaver and
Anti-Mage,
Queen of Pain,
Storm Spirit).
Top
Healers
All of these heroes share the ability to heal their lane partners (or globally, in the case of
Treant Protector).
This makes them excellent choices for either babysitting hard carry heroes, or hard lane supports where their
talents will help keep their lane partners alive.
+ Hard Carry will need help against a tough lane combo
+ Hard Lane looks difficult
- Lane may lack killing power
Top
Escapes
The ability to get yourself or your partner out of trouble quickly can be invaluable, especially when in the hard
lane, and against teams with tri-lanes or junglers. With the exception of
Pushers
Top
Pushers specialise in taking down creep waves and towers quickly, usually through AOE damage, but also via
special abilities. They combine well with snowball carries who either hit their peak midgame, or dominate by
growing rapidly. They're not so good with harder carries who want to farm a stable lane.
+ Extra team gold from early tower pushes
+ Usually good anti-pushers too
- Tower pushes can be disruptive for carries who just want to farm safely
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Harassers
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These heroes excel at making life miserable for enemy heroes who are trying to lane against them, wearing down
their health and consumables. Eventually this can set them up for ganks or force them off the lane. While all
support heroes are capable of harassment to some degree, these guys really specialise in it.
+ Enemy heroes are either squishy or melee
+ Your lane partner can follow up to get kills, or needs space to farm
+ Enemy hard laners are farm dependent
- Works best in the safe lane where you can be more aggressive
- Less effective when the enemy have a healer or damage block
Late Game
Top
Most supports are by their nature less effective in the late game. Nukes lose their potency, carries have a lot more
equipment and damage. Heroes get magic immunity items and can often ignore your spells. However, some
supports do have abilities than scale nicely into the late game, and can give their team a definite advantage at
that stage.
+ If you suspect the game will go late
AOE Damage
Top
All of these heroes are capable of inflicting strong damage to multiple enemy heroes. This usually makes for some
good team fight power in the early-mid game, but can drop off late game.
Although excellent usage can let you get the best out of these abilities, they tend to be most effective when used
in combination with AOE disables that allow for perfect positioning and effect.
AOE Disable
Top
AOE disable powers are incredibly strong throughout the game, providing easy targets for AOE damage spells and
auto-attacks during team fights. The only problems with these types of powers tends to be the long cooldown,
and that you need the rest of your team to take advantage of them.
Miscellaneous
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Wherever possible, I've tried to keep the groups as tidy as possible to give you definite choices rather than
covering too many shades of grey. There are a few heroes and abilities that do not sit comfortably in the other
categories however:
Rubick - Jack of all Trades
A strong hero with a variety of abilities, he doesn't fit securely in any category due to his ultimate,
Spell Steal -
which allows him to use enemy abilities against them. Although this can work against a variety of heroes and in
most situations, primarily he's picked to steal/counter big enemy team fight powers.
Omniknight/
Their ultimates are both big team fight powers that don't fit in either of the big AOE categories. Both offer some
degree of protection (partial or complete) to enemy right click attacks, while one also can weaken enemies
armour. Essentially both are good against teams with strong right-clickers.
Chen/
Both these heroes provide some degree of ganks and pushes from the jungle, occasionally providing wards and
other utility equipment. They both require your team to have a hero who can solo, and tend to be picked for early
pushes.
Top
Trilanes
Trilanes are common in organised games, but much rarer in pubs. The idea is to setup a strong lane that
guarantees farm for the carry, while also getting kills and starving the enemy heroes of anything.
Trilanes are always much more successful when they manage to get kills - this helps balance out the loss of levels
that the heroes involved will suffer otherwise. Because of this, getting the right balance and combinations
are key for a good trilane.
You generally want heroes who have good kill potential at level 1 - either full effect nuke/slows or
nuke/stuns that can allow you to focus down and kill off an enemy hero. It's important to have this early on,
as surprise is a key element in getting that first blood.
The lane carry is important - if they have early kill power (e.g.
Kunkka or
heroes can get away with less. If they have little to no damage or stun outside of their right-click (e.g.
Mage or
Anti-
Faceless Void), then your supports need to step in with more to ensure a kill. If your allies have
unreliable slows or stuns, ensure you have a reliable stun to make sure they can hit.
Example 1:
Your team has randomed a
maximise their impact. You have a hard support and a hard carry, which means you ideally want a semi-support
stacker/neutral farmer to go with them. CM already has a good early slow and stun, but AM will probably need a
bit more help than that to bag the kill.
In this situation I'd look at
Sand King,
Earthshaker,
Tidehunter,
Lina or
nuke/stuns/slows, and can benefit from more farm. The exact choice would depend on what the rest of your team
needs, enemy team, etc.
Example 2:
Your team has a
with him. His
Kunkka who will be the carry - you and a friend are looking at picking lane supports to go
Torrent is a very effective level 1 spell, offering good damage and a slow, but is unreliable to hit
with. At least one of his supports needs a reliable disable that is long enough to guarantee he can hit.
Common choices would include
slowers like
Venomancer and
Shadow Demon,
Ogre Magi,
Lion and
Any kind of additional slow or stun should be enough to get the kill, so you have plenty of choice on your 3rd hero
pick.
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GUIDE DISCUSSION
1
by Tikru8 May 3, 2013 2:33pm | Report
>>
Quote | PM | +Rep
Great stuff in general (even though you could argue about the definitions and categories
forever), similar guides for other hero types would be nice as well. +1
Tikru8
Unremarkable (3)
Posts: 70
Quote | PM | +Rep
Vatio
Same with
Io (Although I agree he shouldn't be mid) as he also needs a few levels and
some items such as
Bottle or
Urn of Shadows to be properly useful for ganks.
Posts: 4
The rest of the guide is fine in general, maybe add a section of good support heroes to pick
for a Trilane, say
Lina and
Shadow Demon to help a carry in lane.
Quote | PM | +Rep
Ancient Hero
<Editor>
Unremarkable (17)
Posts: 497
Steam: smiles
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Thanks for the feedback, think we disagree about them quite strongly then - I often play
both as hard support and find they work just fine. They both do have a reasonable right
click if you focus on it, but equally they both work well with just their spells and basic
equipment - once they've got their ultimate/combo off then it's usually job done. Neither
have a particularly suitable stat or skillset for semi-carry imho - I would add they both
work nicely as semi-supports though with a bit more farm.
Dark Seer by the standard definition is a support - he's not really a ganker, semi-carry
or carry as he doesn't have the agility or damage gain for them. He does tend to be a hero
who gets plenty of farm though, then gets utility items.
Sando
<Veteran>
Prominent (75)
Posts: 1178
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Was thinking about adding something for trilanes/roamers - the thing is that trilanes are
really about combos - a good slow/nuke is fine as long as the other heroes have stuns, but
you wouldn't necessarily want certain heroes without the right backup.
Quote | PM | +Rep
Where is
Rubick? Aside from that, this is a very good idea: I would improve the guide
adding some "combinations" of supports you need to make a good trilane as you've
already proposed (for example a disabler and a nuker like
Bane and
Leshrac), but
it's already a good starting point for beginners and something useful for good players.
Also,
Puck,
Dark Seer and
Enigma aren't supports: they are teamfight Heroes
and initiators (like, for example,
Magnus,
Clockwerk,
Batrider or
Beastmaster) that can actually make good use of their farm in the off-lane or mid lane
(even in the jungle, referring to
Enigma). I read your explanation about
Dark Seer
and it also suits for the initiator role.
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Peppo_oPaccio
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I'd like you to make me a favor Sando(as you always do,you're a nice guy)and add a
honorable mention of
Sven support, not used these days so much, but used a lot a
year or two ago.
And I agree with Peppo,you need to add
Rubick to a category,the problem is that he
can have a multi-role, it depends on what he can steal from the enemy team too.
Wulfstan
<Moderator>
Notable (58)
Posts: 1781
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Yeah
Rubick was problematic as he can potentially fill so many different roles with his
ulty. I might do an "odds and sods" section at the end for other heroes who deserve a
mention but don't fit neatly into other categories (and possibly
Sven just to keep Wulfy
happy :)).
The tri-lane combos suggestions also sounds like a good idea, I'll have a think about how
to put it together...
Sando
<Veteran>
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if you add
Sven support, the
Gyrocopter deserves to be added as well. My thing
with
Skywrath Mage is that he is item dependent and needs int/mana which playing
him as support wont work. His slow also isnt a targetted spell (i think, havent played him
yet)
Ancient Hero
<Editor>
Unremarkable (17)
Posts: 497
Steam: smiles
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Great guide. I usually play support or suicide lane solo. The problem was I don't know
which hero to choose when the game start. I mostly ended playing lion, shaman or
windrunner or clockwerk. Now I know better which hero to choose based on enemy team
line up and my team line up. Thank you. +1
Recently, I am playing shadow demon. So much fun to play and he is one of the best
support hero, imo.
speed9x
Posts: 15
Steam: speed9x
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Unless I'm crazy I also didnt see Nyx on there. He's not very often played as a solo mid
anymore and is normally the 4 or 5 on a pro team. in my original read through i noticed
Rubick as well, which I thought was odd. Basically between Rubick and Nyx you missed 2
chars picked in like 95% of all pro games (or banned) that are supports in a post about
supports
Chickensoup
Posts: 23
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>>
Abaddon
Alchemist
Ancient
Apparition
Anti-Mage
Arc Warden
Axe
Bane
Batrider
Beastmaster
Bloodseeker
Bounty Hunter
Brewmaster
Bristleback
Broodmother
Centaur
Warrunner
Chaos Knight
Chen
Clinkz
Clockwerk
http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/guide/picking-the-right-support-5231
Crystal Maiden
Dark Seer
Dazzle
Death Prophet
Disruptor
Doom
Dragon Knight
Drow Ranger
Earth Spirit
Earthshaker
Elder Titan
Ember Spirit
Enchantress
Enigma
Faceless Void
Gyrocopter
Huskar
Invoker
Io
Jakiro
Juggernaut
Keeper of the
Light
Kunkka
Legion
Commander
Leshrac
Lich
Lifestealer
Lina
Lion
Lone Druid
Luna
Lycan
Magnus
Medusa
Meepo
Mirana
Morphling
Naga Siren
Nature's
Prophet
Necrophos
Night Stalker
Nyx Assassin
Ogre Magi
Omniknight
Oracle
Outworld
Devourer
Phantom
Assassin
Phantom
Lancer
Phoenix
Pit Lord
Puck
Pudge
Pugna
Queen of Pain
Razor
Riki
Rubick
Sand King
Shadow Demon
Shadow Fiend
Shadow
Shaman
Silencer
Skywrath Mage
Slardar
Slark
Sniper
Soul Keeper
Spectre
Spirit Breaker
Storm Spirit
Sven
Techies
Templar
Assassin
Tidehunter
Timbersaw
Tinker
Tiny
Treant
Protector
Troll Warlord
Tusk
Undying
Ursa
Vengeful Spirit
Venomancer
Viper
Visage
Warlock
Weaver
Windranger
Winter Wyvern
Witch Doctor
Wraith King
Zeus
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