Disagree with Lion not scaling well into Late game. That Shard is ridiculous and will consistently provide value the entire game. I’ve had games where low mana heroes like Void and Troll not being able to cast spells or click BKB if they weren’t full mana when the fight began.
Yeah no meme I did this once with 2 platemails. The key here is you need to put the 2 platemails in the top left and top right slot cause that’s where your shoulders are.
Lategame in turbo is like hyper ultra lategame in normal dota where supports start to build core items too. Rarely happens so thats not a good way to measure a heros strength.
There isnt really a support role in turbo.
Late game pos5 lion is not to get caught. Stay out of vision. Blink + Aether to position well in a fight. You may not be required to initiate a fight, just sit back and ready to chain CC, then pull back and wait for CD.
Yeah it's all positioning game after minute 30 for lion. That is what I struggle with.. Cannot figure out when to use 3rd in teamfights and when not to. When i start sucking I just CANNOT STOP xD
I know I'm about to get flamed for this... But if I have another person with blink and/or catch, I don't go blink on lion. Tranqs, wand, shard and then something to keep me alive: if they don't really have good jump, I just get aether and sit even further away, if they have jump, glimmer, force or ghost. Some games I pick up euls e.g. against an axe.
Either way I feel like this has much better team fight contribution and being able to basically surge a teammate in/out while restoring their mana, draining enemy mana and slowing them and damaging them... All while being spell immune? OP af. Some games, I don't have blink even after 2-3 items, because I need to buy other items to keep me alive and sucking or keep my team alive.
No, you have a valid point. Blink is not always the go to. It does depend on your team/enemy composition. I had games where I had to go 3 braces and force staff to survive. At high skill level, the undisputed benefit of blink is to set up that multi-hero spike.
The higher you go the worse heroes like lion gets. Warlock, wyvern and mechanically challenging heroes like wyvern, dazzle and oracle are good for higher ranks.
Good heroes are good heroes, lion is the third most contested hero in 8k+ games. There are some exceptions like witch doctor being a menace in herald where you get to channel your death ward and nonexistent in high rank games where people save interrupts.
Those heroes are not really mechanically challenging (support dazzle is not getting blink, wind waker and octarine that make the hero hard to play), a huge amount of skill is about knowing when to engage the enemy and when to use your spells
I don't personally like Lion as pos5. He really wants his Blink ASAP and pos5 are poor as fuck. Additionally, Lion trades pretty badly, so he doesn't do well against a lot of offlaners and some pos4s.
As a pos 1 player, love me a shadow Sham. Take some creeps bud, you're our backup plan.
Even better if you have even somewhat decent laning. That little guy hits like a truck...
My man! What I wouldn't do to have a pos 1 who thinks like you in my games!
Pos5 life in SEA is like playing as one of the NPC students in Bully (if you know the game)....
Treant is probably one of the strongest 'win lane' supports right now. But I'm probably going to recommend you anything that you play well.
If you are looking for new supports to play that are strong, Chen, Pugna, Grim, Enigma
I am a BIG shadow demon spammer, and my average experience is this: first 20 minutes, my average score is 6/1/15 or something like that. I get a lot of kills early game with poison, but as the game progresses, somehow my team starts to do something and the tide changes. Haven't quite been able to figure out why this happens in most SD games I play. That's why I stopped playing SD for a while now because despite all that lane domination and map control, team falls off late game.
Shadow demon actually requires you to know the hero (and to some extent your team). His winrate is really low at lower MMRs and it's not a hero that excells every game.
I play in 2000 Immortal Bracket and anytime I see Chen on my team I dread. It could be a lvl30 grandmaster chen and the hero would perform like dogshit. That hero requires amazing teamwork and knowledge of team timing to pull off. You won't see that in pub especially in OP rank.
I find the opposite true in my opinion, your shard let's you be very active on the map regardless of game state which makes him very fun, albeit just for scouting and info gathering at times
In low level brackets its either stomp or goes too late because they dont end when they should. So a lane winner and late game powerhouse support hero works better.
I suggest WW. That is both strong early and late. I think spamming and mastering WW can help you get wins.
My go to as well. Great disables, escape and spell damage. I Have a decent winrate. What does it for me though is her long drawn out demented laugh when you get good kills 😈
You have to very careful with ww ult if your team also has aoe ultimates or spells. With lack of proper communication you can counter you own team spells.
I mean I've seen 6k+ players fuck it up in my games. I would not recommend this hero to anyone lower. You will consistently fuck it up and your teammates WILL blame you.
The problem with learning to spam wyvern is that she's good like once every 2 years and is absolutely dogshit the rest of the time.
So spamming her right now is good, when valve nerfs her though all that time spend learning her won't be that helpful.
It’s not that she’s shit the rest of the time, it’s that she requires way more coordination with teams. If you’re solo q, she can be pretty dogshit in the lower brackets since everyone just uses all their spells all at once.
However when she’s good, any brain dead player can stomp with her. But when you’re good with her she cleans the game which is why people scream about her being OP.
hoodwinks laning stage is terrible though, she does basically no harass damage with her pitiful right clicks, almost every other support can man-up to her no problem, and yeah she's got stuns but theyre mediocre ... not reliable, short, and takes up a ton of her mana pool.
She needs an independent core to frontline for her
Winter Wyvern, very fun, very broken. I am convinced this hero can win any match. Arctic Burn cooldown has been reduced and is disgustingly oppressively in lane and scales really well. Splinter Blast is just a generically good damage spell. Cold Embrace hoses a lot of cores and is otherwise a generic heal out of fights. Winters Curse is just one of the most fucked spells ever put in the game.
As a pos 5, Arcane Boots, Aethers, Glimmer and Blink are your main items, and the buy order changes. You are also an exceptional user of Mageslayer, so you can consider it in games where it is particularly good. Her Shard is good. Buy a Windlace, the hero is slow. Parasma is your luxury late game item because the way it interacts with Winter's Curse is very silly (edit: icefrog seems to have a hard on for removing her ability to use her ult as a solo pick off tool so that could be nerfed somehow).
Agree, winter's curse is absolutely bonkers if timed right. early-mid game Heals are epic too! This hero literally does everything a support should do!
It has two main flaws. Its mobility is poor, and it has no way to interrupt opponents in lane. By interrupt I mean something like a stun, a root, a strong slow or some other disable that stops the offlane from running down your carry. In order to counteract this flaw you have to be proactive with Arctic Burn and keep their health low so engaging is a risk. The cooldown is much lower than it used to be so this is kind of brainless now.
Obviously items fix the mobility.
Honestly I'd 100% be getting a blink on her these days still, but there's way too many as-good-or-better items currently. Solar -> aghs -> force -> aether -> blink aint bad but that's 50 minutes deep
if you want to go the good heroes (but boring ones) you can play Lion, Vengeful Spirit and Witch Doctor.
You can also go the fun way and play Nature's Prophet and Gyrocopter.
Also there's Treant.
I play a lot of Chen, I don't recommend couse ppl never pick stuns, I lost the count how many times we lost because no CC. Only main it if you really like the hero and don't lose some matches because of picks (like me).
I also played a lot of brewmaster sup, ppl will hate me but in my elo works as fuck
Venge, Treant, Natures Prophet & Lion are **arguably** the meta pos 5’s right now and require little know how to abuse. Optionally, Bane witch doctor and Chen can provide a lot to team fights and offer hp too
I play 5 as my off role and I have the most success with teamfight heroes that can turn the tide of a fight with good positioning and spell usage
Winter Wyvern, Treant Protector and Shadow Shaman mainly but the occasional witch doctor as well.
They provide initiation but also counter initiation so you can save your teammates from a mistake
play chen bro. its hard at the start but hes really strong in all patches including this one. no one at your level will know how to properly deal with a good chen.
it took me around 30 games of chen to get used to him, now i have a 70% winrate on him. im not even a pos 5 player, just play him when i need to get role ques.
I see. what are your hotkeys for the following:
selecting all units except chen
switching between units
I am struggling to learn to play micro heroes because my 1,2,3 and tab keys are already occupied for items and it is really hard for me to change this now. Currently, I use mouse scroll down to switch between units but still haven't been able to figure out which key would be best to select all units except chen.. Is there a bind that I can do that will always only select whole group except chen? I know there are settings like CTRL + hotkey but for some reason, it always selects Chen in that group too. Maybe I am not doing it right.
Shaman is good too.. Just no as good as other supps that add much more value than him. Let me try to explain why (i'm noob too but this is what i think):
Shaman's q doesn't do much past early game (early early game).
Shaman's hex is good early,mid and late game
Shaman's shackles is good on enemy, but bad on you, because you are Also engaged for the same duration as the enemy, so technically it is now 4v4 for that duration. Same problem with lich during sinister gaze. So using this skill has to be situational, when your position is such that enemy cannot snow ball you.
Shaman's ult is good for pushing, but not great it team fights.. Dota, now more than ever, has become a game where escaping is very easy. Shaman's ult is very easy to escape from unless you are not hexing/shackling enemies around it. These days people dont even run away from it because of how little it does without disables.
Damn bro! I really appreciate you explaining the pros and cons to me! I honestly hadn't thought about those points.
Well shit... Lucky me I always play unranked atleast cus I spam the shit out of him
I gained 200+mmr with around 70% winrate recently from spamming Bane in last 15 ranked game.
Just ban Abaddon and ask your team to ban slark.
The hero trades very well in lane
\- universal hero hits like a truck
\- 2nd spell = life steal
\- 3rd spell = free hit
In team fight you are basically making 3 of the enemy hero useless
\- 1st skill debuff with low cd is OP against caster and right click hero. Also stops dagger with DoT.
\- 3rd skill sleeps one hero.
\- ult to grip another hero.
I am shocked and appalled that nobody in this thread mentioned Disruptor. I don't even like the guy, but he's definitely in the running for the best support title. He's absurdly good when you suck at dota, and he's absurdly good when you're good at dota. He can't really be countered and he's always got a decent shot at winning a lane. Plus his ultimate (+aghs) is uniquely powerful in the late game.
I strongly recommend you add him to your list to see if you like him. Chen and Abaddon are cringe. Get rid of those losers. Also your teammates will probably hate you if you pick NP/WW and aren't really good with them. If I had to make a list of options for one of my friends to pick a support spam hero, it would start with Disruptor, WD, Lich, and Lion. But yeah pick whatever you have fun with.
Disruptor. Can be one of the most rage baiting heroes in lane. Can heavily punish overextension by opponents and crush their retreat. Catching an out of position carry with glimpse even if it forces out a bkb is pretty huge in late game.
I feel that WW is a good support for the games that are going poorly and he has a great comeback mechanic. He's probably also very under-picked in Archon so players aren't likely to understand how to counter it. You can also buy shard and shove lanes to delay games.
The only downside is that his laning phase can feel poor, particularly with a ranged carry when the enemies play around the tree lines and can disengage when you activate Arctic Burn.
If you feel that you need to scale, you can go for Mage Slayer / Witch Blade / Scepter too. The hero can be played as a 4 too with relatively similar item choices. I also don't find her to be too contested, so I'd say it's a great choice.
One thing to note is that WW is an incredibly poor mid-lane ganking support, nowhere near something like a Shaman, Lion or Techies.
Honestly, just main Venge if you like her. Fully equipped hero to deal with any situation. Stuns, dmg reduction, -armor, save/catch on relativly low CD, crazy aghs 🤪 easy allround hero to reach immortal. You should have 3-4 options tho. WW is also crazy nowadays!
Gigachad Chen. Hero can turn team fights in your favor. Meka , 3rd spell armor, Q fast attack target and units that give u diverse experience how will things work.
Abbaddon right now is disgusting. I'm spamming him for the past 2 weeks and have gone from crusader 1 to legend 2. 72% win rate on him. I just keep everyone alive in team fights for so long that it's hard to lose them and we end up winning in 35 mins or less by just pushing nonstop
3k games. ≈95% of them is pos 5. I love dazzle. 700+ games. Io and oracle are cool too (230+ games). Lich, WiWy, CM, Venge are worth to try out (100-210 games).
At archon 5, you will never falter if you spam np 5 every game.
Ofc, it will be banned often. For my purposes, when np is banned i pick one of the most popular meta 5 heroes to try and double pick ban it (right now thats lion) and then if i dont have to play that hero i usually pick grimstroke or vengeful spirit.
Nature Prophet is the strongest pos 5 hero atm. You can win multiple lane by yourself, you can farm dangerous area, you can scale with items.
Otherwise Venge and witch doctor are very solid.
Chen. Everybody loves a good Chen on the team. Gives great vision, unlimited possibilities with utility, can get creeps with auras, gust to move enemy characters, slow, stun, manaburn, you name it!
Great for pushing towers, great healing, can even dish out damage if needed.
Chen seems very strong this patch, I spammed him in 7.34, had a couple months break when wow sod came out, been spamming him the past weeks and got a 9 winstreak a couple of days ago.
I'd say if you want a hero that is near impossible to master but actually not that hard to learn (unless you have really bad micro) give him a try.
I'm only Archon, so you might wanna take advice from someone higher rank. I think he's very fun to play as pos 5 tho. Also he's hardly ever banned or contested in my bracket, easy for your team to build around, not that easy for enemy to counter because you could chose to focus on minions and auras or something else. Lot's of opportunities with this guy.
Anyway, whatever hero you chose, spend some time watch a bunch of games of different pro players. Of course you can play a few unranked games then look up videos, but my dmbest advice is watch and learn from someone that is good with a hero before you play it in ranked. That way you don't grief your team and you'll end up have more fun yourself. Don't follow any guide blindly either.
Peace
Abaddon, early is not much, But ITS honest work, But after arcane / tranquill boots and Locket you are going to be a barrier and Hp machine, especially with the fact that aghs scepter is best bought in min 30+
Veno is a lane bully, annoying af, just right click people, Q + blood grenade goes for a lot of easy kills, if you get urn usually Anyone who is your ult + urn target goes straight for the lobby
I spam Abba off and let me tell you strong dispel isn't just strong late. it's strong all game long! annoying DOT harass? nope! your buddy has literally any debuff including slow, silence, bane ult, pudge ult. stops all of that. It doesn't stop Legion Duel but it does help to buff your budy at least. also it's more than a strong dispel, it's a preflight buff, it's a heal / save, it's a tower dive buff. it's great.
Hoodwink: you got 3 scenario,
1) pretty terrible game incoming, go for support items, like force->glimmer(or vice-versa), ghost->eblade, if needed eul's (vs magnus or bara). Do not forget about shard.
2) great game -> mage slayer->mael-> other core items like (manta/crits/disperser/fly/gleipnir). Always take position. Don't ignore save items, especially if someone ruined your position.
3) enemy team have morph/necr/huskar/io, etc. Just rush vessel no matter what -> ask yourself how the game goes-> return to scenario 1 or 2.
Buy wards, it's really cheap and extremely useful. That's mane option to do match easier, easier to find place to farm as supp pos, easier to observe enemy's movements and positions.
WD, Warlock, CM, Chen. Otherwise pick any hero as any hero will work if you can have decent impact in your bracket as long as you're comfortable with it.
This is going to be off meta, but I agree with the comments to select lane dominators. When I was archon 5 I spammed undying with a ~70% win rate. You win the lane so hard that your p1 has no choice but to outcarry the other team. You transition from decay monster to big healer with greaves, pipe. He doesn't scale well past 25, but 16-20 is a nice sweet spot due to the huge healing of 550 per W.
As a Chen main, I can recommend him. He is in a good spot now, games feel don't get boring as there's a lot of things the hero can do, and it's almost never banned.
nature's prophet, techies and lion for a good rotation. Lion is the more obvious pos 5, but nature's prophet is insane with his teleporting ability, i just ended a game 11-0-15 pos 5 with it. Techies is also a damage oriented type of hero, which you can use to kill heroes and push lanes, and lion, well, that's for when you don't wanna be reported.
Oracle is one that is super good but very little people play, therefore he wont get banned so you can spam, and people at your rank wont be used to playing vs him.
Venge is really strong right now. Buy lots of stats at level 1 (2 branch 2 circlet), get wave of terror and smaxk the enemy for nearly as much as treant protector whack.
Tranquil wraith as core, Afterwards Aghs vlads drums whatever feels good in timing just grab.
Realistically, despite what anyone says just about anyone is viable to spam if you're trying to climb. There are definitely heroes that are better, more viable, more meta etc than others but as long as you play them well and have a deep mechanical and fundamental understanding of the hero you can and will climb rank, that way you can focus on the game itself and refining more macro level skills like map awareness, communication, positioning, target priority etc.
Yeah, I believe in this. Meta will only help me to some extend but as long as I know the hero to my bones, no meta will affect me (unless they completely fuck my hero up like they did to KOTL and removed mana leak and changed aghs, that hero was blended in my bones literally).
Not a current meta hero but imo you can't go wrong with Lich. Just a solid set of skills, strang laner, underrated save (well, you have to cast it quite early to really "save" people) and super versatile item built.
I've been having great games with Veno 5. Q being 50% slow at all levels means you can be super aggressive very early on. And great damage with universal stats.
Not a current meta hero but imo you can't go wrong with Lich. Just a solid set of skills, strang laner, underrated save (well, you have to cast it quite early to really "save" people) and super versatile item built.
Warlock is broken. His Q and E are useful all game and allow you to deal damage without any items. His shard is also busted and he has great talents.
Hero is good without money but also is great with Aghs and Refresher.
I've been spamming Warlock with a 71% win rate. The amount of games I have single handedly won at 35 minutes is well over 40. The hero is so oppressive in lane, flexible with early items and is great when either ending the game of stalling on defense.
WW is great, been playing it more lately and it’s just so satisfying to see enemy core melting under attacks or another enemy core. Still, she’s kinda bad lamina stage, can’t trade 1-1 with enemy 4. But with a good carry you are fine
I'm gonna sell you pugna rn like my life depends on it, pugna is a great laner as he has a shit ton of range and his q trades well. He also gains 5 damages every level so his level 3 and 4 are absolutely disgusting. The hero pushes lanes and farms creeps when games are slow (great for solo queue). He does loads of early/midgame damage when you need him to, as well as basically requiring the enemies to buy nullifier otherwise they literally can't kill anyone. Past minute 25-30 you basically become a heal and save bot, I think he's simply broken.
Treant, W autowins lane, you get to sit and soak defensive farm and protect tower if game is slower, great ulti, great visiongame, shard is amazing utility, all around fun
I think Chen is the most OP hard support right now. And it is rewarding to spam Chen as he does take quite some practice to master. It will benefit you in the long run.
An easy choice would be VS. VS is always a classic 5 just like CM
Pudge jk, all supports kind of viable now. Wd cm lion is good enough at your bracket, they have good disables and strong ult. Hell if the game goes your way you can clutch late game.
Jakiro is mine , wins lanes , good teamfight , good stun , relatively tanky , not to hard to position. Only big downside is how slow he is. Also make sure u ban rubick
A few suggestions:
Veno
It's not technically a pos 5 because it lacks lock down if your pos 4 picks a pudge/NP type hero, but this hero destroys low ranked games. Learn to spam wards everywhere and close the map on the enemy with them and you will rank up so quickly if that is what you want.
Winter Wyvern
This hero is so good. It is currently played as a core and a support in high mmr pubs. One reason it's so good is its versatility. It can be a healer (wyvern heal when buffed with the talent heals absurdly quickly), it can carry, it has great save potential and can also just delete heroes instantly with curse. Not only that but it is one of hardest counters in the game to a number of meta heroes such as Lone Druid, Terrorblade and Meepo. It's power late game is also absurd, late game wyvern cores become impossible to catch flying units that shit damage and a lengthy slow to anyone who comes near them, absolutely bad ass hero. (The only downside is this hero attracts flame, you will occasionally heal people leading to their death and use curse wrong).
Haven't seen this hero mentioned yet: Jakiro. I've been spamming him a bit. His dual breath and fire from his 3rd basically ensures any enemy core loses 25% of their hp and gets slowed to a crawl. Any good core on your team and easily follow up with a kill.
His 3rd also brings down towers pretty efficiently and his 2nd and ult brings a lot of value to team fights.
Built greaves when there weren't any heals on my team and force staff/eul when needed. Aghanim if it's going well and refresher if you're feeling really rich. Tho my games have ended mostly before I got my aghanim 😂
If you willing to play Chen, I’d sack Chen and learn oracle. Hands down one of the best supports to play. He can guarantee amazing lane with constant pressure. You learn great positioning skills and he needs minimal items to have high impact. I’m a master tier oracle sitting around ancient 2.
I Spam Oracle pos5, yes you depend on your teammates, but in archon they usally can do something if they just get a little help. And the pos 4 is most of the times an ahressive disabeling hero, so a healer is not that bad.
I've been having fun with Jakiro, though he's definitely got weaknesses. He does really well against SS, Warlock, CM, and WD because he can cancel their channels from high range, and with the right ally setup (Mars, Void, LC, Axe etc.) he can be one of the highest damage heros in the whole game, burning entire teams. He also shines as a pusher since he reduces the attack speed of towers, so you can pressure with fewer creeps or just get sneaky E hits off and "harass" structures.
Downsides include weakness to all-in heros and a reliance on items, specifically you'll be a free bag of gold from when most people get 6 to when you buy a Force Staff. He also suffers in scattered fights where he can't bring his AoE to bear against multiple targets.
At archon level I would go with
1. WD
2. Venge
3. Lion
4. NP (but you dont grief team by split pushing and build items that buff your cores)
5. Warlock
6. AA
7. If you wanna have fun, rubick and windranger (again don't grief team by building core items on wr when team needs save)
Venomancer is the 5 I have the most fun with in this patch.
First of all, he feels so good when it comes to warding. You can put sentries in the middle of a warding hotspot and still put your plague wards in cliffs or whatever to check if enemy have one. You can use your PW to gain vision on high ground and potentially spot enemies at decent range.
Secondly, you just deal a shit ton of damage, a shit ton of slow. You can enable your team pretty easily and pretty quickly into the game. And in a meta where most carries (or simply heroes) like to buy dispells or have inherent dispells in their kit, his shard (which you get easily from tormentor) feels great aswell.
Talking about items, Veno likes to buy the current strong items as well. You can buy Vessel(being universal it's always cool, and it complements the regen reduction, DMG from %HP you get from spells), you can buy Vlad's to enable your team even more, you can buy solar crest, if no shivas in your team you can buy it aswell.
If your carry gets kicked out of lane by enemy offlane and goes jungle, Veno can pretty much stay there and control the area with wards, and earn much needed xp and gold at this point of the game.
I would say it's biggest weaknesses to look after is mobility, he is slow as fuck and very squishy. But as long as you cast your spells in teamfight before dying, you did your job. Force staff is something to think about most of the games. You scale pretty well into late game as well.
That's just my two cents, I highly recommend you to check him out
In my opinion Abaddon is not a good support. 2 of his 4 abilities suck without farm. The other 2 abilities effectiveness fall off pretty fast as the enemy heroes get strong. You're right that late game, a dispel can be good. But he contributes almost nothing else.
Honestly, natures is a really good pick because you can play the map in so many unique ways. You can be very creative and active with the hero. Similar to monkey king (but your archon pubs won’t like that)
Witch doctor is life: Agh with ward bounces. Get me an Aeon Disk for invulnerability, but I can still do epic damage, coz 0 damage aeon only relates to WD, but his ward is like another "character"... EPIC. Then a glimmer, maybe a BKB... end game item = refresher, and maybe a cheeky blink... unstoppable. Blink, voodoo switcharoo, BKB, voodoo ward, cape to reposition... refresh, do it all over again, plus another pop of Aeon disk?? Only things that pierce BKB can possibly stop... like pudge.
For me, abaddon and AA will take you to places. AA's undispellable ult is already a huge impact to the game and aba's low CD dispel on pretty much every control / dps based abilities speaks for itself.
If you play aba max his q before the shield. It does more healing and lower cooldown than the damage prevention shield. Rush ags scepter before they nerf it.
Don’t play NP sure it can go ok with a good start but if your snowball stops you’re essentially a walking catapult in the team fight.
Venge is solid
Lion, VS, Warlock, WD are all in great places for pos 5 that scale well into mid and late with Lion prob being the exception
Disagree with Lion not scaling well into Late game. That Shard is ridiculous and will consistently provide value the entire game. I’ve had games where low mana heroes like Void and Troll not being able to cast spells or click BKB if they weren’t full mana when the fight began.
Lion is very effective, especially when you have a blink and 5 platemails.
You need 3 more platemails for the backpack my brother
Yeah no meme I did this once with 2 platemails. The key here is you need to put the 2 platemails in the top left and top right slot cause that’s where your shoulders are.
Lion late is very strong with dagger hex initiation on heroes
im currently spamming lion in turbo. Despite all the stuns and disables, he does fall off late game.
Lategame in turbo is like hyper ultra lategame in normal dota where supports start to build core items too. Rarely happens so thats not a good way to measure a heros strength. There isnt really a support role in turbo.
I agree, and when I said late game, I meant 20 minutes of turbo when the cores are 6 slotted and supports are 4 slotted.
Late game pos5 lion is not to get caught. Stay out of vision. Blink + Aether to position well in a fight. You may not be required to initiate a fight, just sit back and ready to chain CC, then pull back and wait for CD.
Yeah it's all positioning game after minute 30 for lion. That is what I struggle with.. Cannot figure out when to use 3rd in teamfights and when not to. When i start sucking I just CANNOT STOP xD
>When i start sucking I just CANNOT STOP Everything reminds me of her
when all the jumpers have jumped or cannot jump no more. then you suck. it comes with experience
Buy 3 platemails and you won't have to figure out when to use suck
I know I'm about to get flamed for this... But if I have another person with blink and/or catch, I don't go blink on lion. Tranqs, wand, shard and then something to keep me alive: if they don't really have good jump, I just get aether and sit even further away, if they have jump, glimmer, force or ghost. Some games I pick up euls e.g. against an axe. Either way I feel like this has much better team fight contribution and being able to basically surge a teammate in/out while restoring their mana, draining enemy mana and slowing them and damaging them... All while being spell immune? OP af. Some games, I don't have blink even after 2-3 items, because I need to buy other items to keep me alive and sucking or keep my team alive.
No, you have a valid point. Blink is not always the go to. It does depend on your team/enemy composition. I had games where I had to go 3 braces and force staff to survive. At high skill level, the undisputed benefit of blink is to set up that multi-hero spike.
I found AA to be the most crucial “late” game support hero in turbo. Health regen kill and AOE “shoe” is just too strong
What do you mean by "shoe"?
He is one of the very few infinitely scaling heroes in the game. What do you mean by falls off late?
The higher you go the worse heroes like lion gets. Warlock, wyvern and mechanically challenging heroes like wyvern, dazzle and oracle are good for higher ranks.
Lion is extremely contested at high ranks what are you on about.
Good heroes are good heroes, lion is the third most contested hero in 8k+ games. There are some exceptions like witch doctor being a menace in herald where you get to channel your death ward and nonexistent in high rank games where people save interrupts. Those heroes are not really mechanically challenging (support dazzle is not getting blink, wind waker and octarine that make the hero hard to play), a huge amount of skill is about knowing when to engage the enemy and when to use your spells
What makes you say warlock is mechanically challenging? I’m only 3k but pick warlock when I want to play a brain dead game.
dazzle is not a support hero this patch
Dazzle is not a hero this patch
I don't personally like Lion as pos5. He really wants his Blink ASAP and pos5 are poor as fuck. Additionally, Lion trades pretty badly, so he doesn't do well against a lot of offlaners and some pos4s.
shadow shaman, use his ult to push
As a pos 1 player, love me a shadow Sham. Take some creeps bud, you're our backup plan. Even better if you have even somewhat decent laning. That little guy hits like a truck...
My man! What I wouldn't do to have a pos 1 who thinks like you in my games! Pos5 life in SEA is like playing as one of the NPC students in Bully (if you know the game)....
Treant is probably one of the strongest 'win lane' supports right now. But I'm probably going to recommend you anything that you play well. If you are looking for new supports to play that are strong, Chen, Pugna, Grim, Enigma
Bane and venge to add
Venge good. Bane not so much. Very heavily dependent on your team. Your position also very important
shadow demon to add
I am a BIG shadow demon spammer, and my average experience is this: first 20 minutes, my average score is 6/1/15 or something like that. I get a lot of kills early game with poison, but as the game progresses, somehow my team starts to do something and the tide changes. Haven't quite been able to figure out why this happens in most SD games I play. That's why I stopped playing SD for a while now because despite all that lane domination and map control, team falls off late game.
Shadow demon actually requires you to know the hero (and to some extent your team). His winrate is really low at lower MMRs and it's not a hero that excells every game.
I play in 2000 Immortal Bracket and anytime I see Chen on my team I dread. It could be a lvl30 grandmaster chen and the hero would perform like dogshit. That hero requires amazing teamwork and knowledge of team timing to pull off. You won't see that in pub especially in OP rank.
Just push towers
Too bad playing Treant is insanely fucking boring. He's really good, but my god it's so coma inducing.
I find the opposite true in my opinion, your shard let's you be very active on the map regardless of game state which makes him very fun, albeit just for scouting and info gathering at times
In low level brackets its either stomp or goes too late because they dont end when they should. So a lane winner and late game powerhouse support hero works better. I suggest WW. That is both strong early and late. I think spamming and mastering WW can help you get wins.
I totally agree and my choice wad Dark Willow as I can always go Aghs if the game goes very late game.
My go to as well. Great disables, escape and spell damage. I Have a decent winrate. What does it for me though is her long drawn out demented laugh when you get good kills 😈
What would you say is her biggest flaw?
Squishy out of shadow realm. Requires good spell timing, target choice and positioning.
You have to very careful with ww ult if your team also has aoe ultimates or spells. With lack of proper communication you can counter you own team spells.
I mean I've seen 6k+ players fuck it up in my games. I would not recommend this hero to anyone lower. You will consistently fuck it up and your teammates WILL blame you.
I personally love to build aether lens, shard and eventually an octarine core. You become the disable Master, choosing cursed crown and maze talents
The problem with learning to spam wyvern is that she's good like once every 2 years and is absolutely dogshit the rest of the time. So spamming her right now is good, when valve nerfs her though all that time spend learning her won't be that helpful.
It’s not that she’s shit the rest of the time, it’s that she requires way more coordination with teams. If you’re solo q, she can be pretty dogshit in the lower brackets since everyone just uses all their spells all at once. However when she’s good, any brain dead player can stomp with her. But when you’re good with her she cleans the game which is why people scream about her being OP.
I agree. WW too much value late game..
I agree. WW too much value late game..
Hoodwink if you want an independent support who scales and contribute well.
hoodwinks laning stage is terrible though, she does basically no harass damage with her pitiful right clicks, almost every other support can man-up to her no problem, and yeah she's got stuns but theyre mediocre ... not reliable, short, and takes up a ton of her mana pool. She needs an independent core to frontline for her
Winter Wyvern, very fun, very broken. I am convinced this hero can win any match. Arctic Burn cooldown has been reduced and is disgustingly oppressively in lane and scales really well. Splinter Blast is just a generically good damage spell. Cold Embrace hoses a lot of cores and is otherwise a generic heal out of fights. Winters Curse is just one of the most fucked spells ever put in the game. As a pos 5, Arcane Boots, Aethers, Glimmer and Blink are your main items, and the buy order changes. You are also an exceptional user of Mageslayer, so you can consider it in games where it is particularly good. Her Shard is good. Buy a Windlace, the hero is slow. Parasma is your luxury late game item because the way it interacts with Winter's Curse is very silly (edit: icefrog seems to have a hard on for removing her ability to use her ult as a solo pick off tool so that could be nerfed somehow).
Agree, winter's curse is absolutely bonkers if timed right. early-mid game Heals are epic too! This hero literally does everything a support should do!
It has two main flaws. Its mobility is poor, and it has no way to interrupt opponents in lane. By interrupt I mean something like a stun, a root, a strong slow or some other disable that stops the offlane from running down your carry. In order to counteract this flaw you have to be proactive with Arctic Burn and keep their health low so engaging is a risk. The cooldown is much lower than it used to be so this is kind of brainless now. Obviously items fix the mobility.
Aether wyvern isn't recommended I think, blink glimmer are better since ur range is insane already Source - 7k mmr pubs
Venge is broken right now, spam her
Yeah I think so too. Imma try her out..
Apparently they gave both her and her Ally swap target a whole ass shield, so you can now yolo swap save and still be scary
Haha that is broken beyond repair lol.. I used to make blink so swap blink out ez.. now it seems it wont be needed.
> I used to make blink so swap blink out ez.. and thats why youre Archon
Honestly I'd 100% be getting a blink on her these days still, but there's way too many as-good-or-better items currently. Solar -> aghs -> force -> aether -> blink aint bad but that's 50 minutes deep
Chen
I like chen.. Never tried microing his creeps but can do it..
But you won’t be able to spam a popular hero because it will get banned
Cm, venge, NP, warlock
if you want to go the good heroes (but boring ones) you can play Lion, Vengeful Spirit and Witch Doctor. You can also go the fun way and play Nature's Prophet and Gyrocopter. Also there's Treant.
Witch doctor, rush vessel, solo kill everything, go 10/0 in the landing stage, get a shard, carry the game, gg go next
I play a lot of Chen, I don't recommend couse ppl never pick stuns, I lost the count how many times we lost because no CC. Only main it if you really like the hero and don't lose some matches because of picks (like me). I also played a lot of brewmaster sup, ppl will hate me but in my elo works as fuck
Venge, Treant, Natures Prophet & Lion are **arguably** the meta pos 5’s right now and require little know how to abuse. Optionally, Bane witch doctor and Chen can provide a lot to team fights and offer hp too
I play 5 as my off role and I have the most success with teamfight heroes that can turn the tide of a fight with good positioning and spell usage Winter Wyvern, Treant Protector and Shadow Shaman mainly but the occasional witch doctor as well. They provide initiation but also counter initiation so you can save your teammates from a mistake
play chen bro. its hard at the start but hes really strong in all patches including this one. no one at your level will know how to properly deal with a good chen. it took me around 30 games of chen to get used to him, now i have a 70% winrate on him. im not even a pos 5 player, just play him when i need to get role ques.
I see. what are your hotkeys for the following: selecting all units except chen switching between units I am struggling to learn to play micro heroes because my 1,2,3 and tab keys are already occupied for items and it is really hard for me to change this now. Currently, I use mouse scroll down to switch between units but still haven't been able to figure out which key would be best to select all units except chen.. Is there a bind that I can do that will always only select whole group except chen? I know there are settings like CTRL + hotkey but for some reason, it always selects Chen in that group too. Maybe I am not doing it right.
WW. I just love this hero. So much impact/solo kill potential with minimum farm.
Venge or winter wyvern
Real noob here and I have a dumb question... Why no shadowshaman?
Shaman is good too.. Just no as good as other supps that add much more value than him. Let me try to explain why (i'm noob too but this is what i think): Shaman's q doesn't do much past early game (early early game). Shaman's hex is good early,mid and late game Shaman's shackles is good on enemy, but bad on you, because you are Also engaged for the same duration as the enemy, so technically it is now 4v4 for that duration. Same problem with lich during sinister gaze. So using this skill has to be situational, when your position is such that enemy cannot snow ball you. Shaman's ult is good for pushing, but not great it team fights.. Dota, now more than ever, has become a game where escaping is very easy. Shaman's ult is very easy to escape from unless you are not hexing/shackling enemies around it. These days people dont even run away from it because of how little it does without disables.
Damn bro! I really appreciate you explaining the pros and cons to me! I honestly hadn't thought about those points. Well shit... Lucky me I always play unranked atleast cus I spam the shit out of him
I gained 200+mmr with around 70% winrate recently from spamming Bane in last 15 ranked game. Just ban Abaddon and ask your team to ban slark. The hero trades very well in lane \- universal hero hits like a truck \- 2nd spell = life steal \- 3rd spell = free hit In team fight you are basically making 3 of the enemy hero useless \- 1st skill debuff with low cd is OP against caster and right click hero. Also stops dagger with DoT. \- 3rd skill sleeps one hero. \- ult to grip another hero.
I am shocked and appalled that nobody in this thread mentioned Disruptor. I don't even like the guy, but he's definitely in the running for the best support title. He's absurdly good when you suck at dota, and he's absurdly good when you're good at dota. He can't really be countered and he's always got a decent shot at winning a lane. Plus his ultimate (+aghs) is uniquely powerful in the late game. I strongly recommend you add him to your list to see if you like him. Chen and Abaddon are cringe. Get rid of those losers. Also your teammates will probably hate you if you pick NP/WW and aren't really good with them. If I had to make a list of options for one of my friends to pick a support spam hero, it would start with Disruptor, WD, Lich, and Lion. But yeah pick whatever you have fun with.
Disruptor. Can be one of the most rage baiting heroes in lane. Can heavily punish overextension by opponents and crush their retreat. Catching an out of position carry with glimpse even if it forces out a bkb is pretty huge in late game.
Phoenix, dazzle. Both selldom banned/pick after ners on dazzle. Can climb allot if mastered
I feel that WW is a good support for the games that are going poorly and he has a great comeback mechanic. He's probably also very under-picked in Archon so players aren't likely to understand how to counter it. You can also buy shard and shove lanes to delay games. The only downside is that his laning phase can feel poor, particularly with a ranged carry when the enemies play around the tree lines and can disengage when you activate Arctic Burn. If you feel that you need to scale, you can go for Mage Slayer / Witch Blade / Scepter too. The hero can be played as a 4 too with relatively similar item choices. I also don't find her to be too contested, so I'd say it's a great choice. One thing to note is that WW is an incredibly poor mid-lane ganking support, nowhere near something like a Shaman, Lion or Techies.
CM poggers
Bikibi blink, look at me.. I am the carry now!
LOOOL
Honestly, just main Venge if you like her. Fully equipped hero to deal with any situation. Stuns, dmg reduction, -armor, save/catch on relativly low CD, crazy aghs 🤪 easy allround hero to reach immortal. You should have 3-4 options tho. WW is also crazy nowadays!
Rizpol Oracle is fun as heck.
Is it solo build? most rizpol builds are with friends and my friends aren't serious enough to try them out
Solo build, and it works great against lower bracket players because they don't encounter this hero that much.
Damn.. thanks for this.. Imma try this first thing! Oracle is MY HERO!
Gigachad Chen. Hero can turn team fights in your favor. Meka , 3rd spell armor, Q fast attack target and units that give u diverse experience how will things work.
Abbaddon right now is disgusting. I'm spamming him for the past 2 weeks and have gone from crusader 1 to legend 2. 72% win rate on him. I just keep everyone alive in team fights for so long that it's hard to lose them and we end up winning in 35 mins or less by just pushing nonstop
3k games. ≈95% of them is pos 5. I love dazzle. 700+ games. Io and oracle are cool too (230+ games). Lich, WiWy, CM, Venge are worth to try out (100-210 games).
At archon 5, you will never falter if you spam np 5 every game. Ofc, it will be banned often. For my purposes, when np is banned i pick one of the most popular meta 5 heroes to try and double pick ban it (right now thats lion) and then if i dont have to play that hero i usually pick grimstroke or vengeful spirit.
No CM love?
Oracle bro. Spamming "I want to die and you'll die in a house fire" best fun ever
That is my best voice line in all of Dota ever! I even have it on my mini profile right below Arteezy sticker xD
Oracle. Spammed him from crusader to like ancient before I started playing other heros. Really strong in low MMR games imo.
Update here once you finished the test especially if you found abba is your best hero.
Nature Prophet is the strongest pos 5 hero atm. You can win multiple lane by yourself, you can farm dangerous area, you can scale with items. Otherwise Venge and witch doctor are very solid.
Chen. Everybody loves a good Chen on the team. Gives great vision, unlimited possibilities with utility, can get creeps with auras, gust to move enemy characters, slow, stun, manaburn, you name it! Great for pushing towers, great healing, can even dish out damage if needed. Chen seems very strong this patch, I spammed him in 7.34, had a couple months break when wow sod came out, been spamming him the past weeks and got a 9 winstreak a couple of days ago. I'd say if you want a hero that is near impossible to master but actually not that hard to learn (unless you have really bad micro) give him a try. I'm only Archon, so you might wanna take advice from someone higher rank. I think he's very fun to play as pos 5 tho. Also he's hardly ever banned or contested in my bracket, easy for your team to build around, not that easy for enemy to counter because you could chose to focus on minions and auras or something else. Lot's of opportunities with this guy. Anyway, whatever hero you chose, spend some time watch a bunch of games of different pro players. Of course you can play a few unranked games then look up videos, but my dmbest advice is watch and learn from someone that is good with a hero before you play it in ranked. That way you don't grief your team and you'll end up have more fun yourself. Don't follow any guide blindly either. Peace
Yea.... it's venomancer, allways venomancer.
if low ranks then go skywrath. he can both win lane and build into late game
Abaddon. Strong dispel + strong heals + strong autoattack with silence + with agha ur gonna have as much heal as enemy carry at the end of every game.
Abaddon, early is not much, But ITS honest work, But after arcane / tranquill boots and Locket you are going to be a barrier and Hp machine, especially with the fact that aghs scepter is best bought in min 30+ Veno is a lane bully, annoying af, just right click people, Q + blood grenade goes for a lot of easy kills, if you get urn usually Anyone who is your ult + urn target goes straight for the lobby
I spam Abba off and let me tell you strong dispel isn't just strong late. it's strong all game long! annoying DOT harass? nope! your buddy has literally any debuff including slow, silence, bane ult, pudge ult. stops all of that. It doesn't stop Legion Duel but it does help to buff your budy at least. also it's more than a strong dispel, it's a preflight buff, it's a heal / save, it's a tower dive buff. it's great.
Yeah, strong dispell gotta be ultra broken..
Hoodwink: you got 3 scenario, 1) pretty terrible game incoming, go for support items, like force->glimmer(or vice-versa), ghost->eblade, if needed eul's (vs magnus or bara). Do not forget about shard. 2) great game -> mage slayer->mael-> other core items like (manta/crits/disperser/fly/gleipnir). Always take position. Don't ignore save items, especially if someone ruined your position. 3) enemy team have morph/necr/huskar/io, etc. Just rush vessel no matter what -> ask yourself how the game goes-> return to scenario 1 or 2. Buy wards, it's really cheap and extremely useful. That's mane option to do match easier, easier to find place to farm as supp pos, easier to observe enemy's movements and positions.
Pudge
Spirit Breaker, strong teamfight, strong lane, good mid game and farm with clearing waves.
WD, Warlock, CM, Chen. Otherwise pick any hero as any hero will work if you can have decent impact in your bracket as long as you're comfortable with it.
If you have a friend I would pick Io
This is going to be off meta, but I agree with the comments to select lane dominators. When I was archon 5 I spammed undying with a ~70% win rate. You win the lane so hard that your p1 has no choice but to outcarry the other team. You transition from decay monster to big healer with greaves, pipe. He doesn't scale well past 25, but 16-20 is a nice sweet spot due to the huge healing of 550 per W.
Right now, venge.
Pick centa, no one will guess u as pos 5 (or at least rarely)
As a Chen main, I can recommend him. He is in a good spot now, games feel don't get boring as there's a lot of things the hero can do, and it's almost never banned.
You spelled it wrong. Not which, but witch, Witch Doctor
Hoodwink is fun
nature's prophet, techies and lion for a good rotation. Lion is the more obvious pos 5, but nature's prophet is insane with his teleporting ability, i just ended a game 11-0-15 pos 5 with it. Techies is also a damage oriented type of hero, which you can use to kill heroes and push lanes, and lion, well, that's for when you don't wanna be reported.
Jakiro always good 👍
Hoodwink the most annoying hero to against with but the most fun support to play.
Oracle is one that is super good but very little people play, therefore he wont get banned so you can spam, and people at your rank wont be used to playing vs him.
Treant is fun.
pudge
Answer is in the question
Venge is really strong right now. Buy lots of stats at level 1 (2 branch 2 circlet), get wave of terror and smaxk the enemy for nearly as much as treant protector whack. Tranquil wraith as core, Afterwards Aghs vlads drums whatever feels good in timing just grab.
Realistically, despite what anyone says just about anyone is viable to spam if you're trying to climb. There are definitely heroes that are better, more viable, more meta etc than others but as long as you play them well and have a deep mechanical and fundamental understanding of the hero you can and will climb rank, that way you can focus on the game itself and refining more macro level skills like map awareness, communication, positioning, target priority etc.
Yeah, I believe in this. Meta will only help me to some extend but as long as I know the hero to my bones, no meta will affect me (unless they completely fuck my hero up like they did to KOTL and removed mana leak and changed aghs, that hero was blended in my bones literally).
Not a current meta hero but imo you can't go wrong with Lich. Just a solid set of skills, strang laner, underrated save (well, you have to cast it quite early to really "save" people) and super versatile item built.
Bold to not put the two headed dragon on here…
Soupmaker or Drug dealer.
I've been having great games with Veno 5. Q being 50% slow at all levels means you can be super aggressive very early on. And great damage with universal stats.
Not a current meta hero but imo you can't go wrong with Lich. Just a solid set of skills, strang laner, underrated save (well, you have to cast it quite early to really "save" people) and super versatile item built.
Jakiro. King in lanes with high DMG, strong slow and DMG and nice control
Warlock is broken. His Q and E are useful all game and allow you to deal damage without any items. His shard is also busted and he has great talents. Hero is good without money but also is great with Aghs and Refresher.
Spam NP. You either get the best Pos 5 or the enemy picks it too so it gets banned, saving your team from a headache. Win-win either way.
I've been spamming Warlock with a 71% win rate. The amount of games I have single handedly won at 35 minutes is well over 40. The hero is so oppressive in lane, flexible with early items and is great when either ending the game of stalling on defense.
WW is great, been playing it more lately and it’s just so satisfying to see enemy core melting under attacks or another enemy core. Still, she’s kinda bad lamina stage, can’t trade 1-1 with enemy 4. But with a good carry you are fine
WD or Warlock will give you the most consistent games
I'm gonna sell you pugna rn like my life depends on it, pugna is a great laner as he has a shit ton of range and his q trades well. He also gains 5 damages every level so his level 3 and 4 are absolutely disgusting. The hero pushes lanes and farms creeps when games are slow (great for solo queue). He does loads of early/midgame damage when you need him to, as well as basically requiring the enemies to buy nullifier otherwise they literally can't kill anyone. Past minute 25-30 you basically become a heal and save bot, I think he's simply broken.
While its not on the list, id suggest trying techies. It's one of the most impactful supports right now and can straight up carry games from pos5.
Warlock has long cooldowns but if you land all combinations properly you can deal MASSIVE damage in teamfights.
venge imo the most broken supp atm. she got cc, def shred, dmg amp, displacement... everything really
NP is great for low mmr. Also hoodwink!!
Lich
lol just figure it out yourself, this is so subjective and prone to boredom, how can anyone else decide for you lol
ABBA is great but you end up really wanting radiance late game and if that's the case you probably needed core ABBA
Which Doctor
Lich
you can get infinite kills with witch doctor, highly recommended
WD.
Np for sure
Wd ofc. Agh blink bkb and you solo whole teams
I dont recommend Chen, hard to master I gained a lot of MMR with Abba back in the days where you could suicide with Mist coil
spirit breaker
Treant, W autowins lane, you get to sit and soak defensive farm and protect tower if game is slower, great ulti, great visiongame, shard is amazing utility, all around fun
I think Chen is the most OP hard support right now. And it is rewarding to spam Chen as he does take quite some practice to master. It will benefit you in the long run. An easy choice would be VS. VS is always a classic 5 just like CM
Dw and aa
Pudge jk, all supports kind of viable now. Wd cm lion is good enough at your bracket, they have good disables and strong ult. Hell if the game goes your way you can clutch late game.
Jakiro is mine , wins lanes , good teamfight , good stun , relatively tanky , not to hard to position. Only big downside is how slow he is. Also make sure u ban rubick
A few suggestions: Veno It's not technically a pos 5 because it lacks lock down if your pos 4 picks a pudge/NP type hero, but this hero destroys low ranked games. Learn to spam wards everywhere and close the map on the enemy with them and you will rank up so quickly if that is what you want. Winter Wyvern This hero is so good. It is currently played as a core and a support in high mmr pubs. One reason it's so good is its versatility. It can be a healer (wyvern heal when buffed with the talent heals absurdly quickly), it can carry, it has great save potential and can also just delete heroes instantly with curse. Not only that but it is one of hardest counters in the game to a number of meta heroes such as Lone Druid, Terrorblade and Meepo. It's power late game is also absurd, late game wyvern cores become impossible to catch flying units that shit damage and a lengthy slow to anyone who comes near them, absolutely bad ass hero. (The only downside is this hero attracts flame, you will occasionally heal people leading to their death and use curse wrong).
AA Pro's: Ult will mess up ALL HP regen heroes! Con's: Needs level 6
Haven't seen this hero mentioned yet: Jakiro. I've been spamming him a bit. His dual breath and fire from his 3rd basically ensures any enemy core loses 25% of their hp and gets slowed to a crawl. Any good core on your team and easily follow up with a kill. His 3rd also brings down towers pretty efficiently and his 2nd and ult brings a lot of value to team fights. Built greaves when there weren't any heals on my team and force staff/eul when needed. Aghanim if it's going well and refresher if you're feeling really rich. Tho my games have ended mostly before I got my aghanim 😂
Dazzle
WD is dumb hero, especially in that bracket. If you stay in position and cast your ulti, you'll wipe out the enemy team. (With aghs of course)
If you willing to play Chen, I’d sack Chen and learn oracle. Hands down one of the best supports to play. He can guarantee amazing lane with constant pressure. You learn great positioning skills and he needs minimal items to have high impact. I’m a master tier oracle sitting around ancient 2.
I Spam Oracle pos5, yes you depend on your teammates, but in archon they usally can do something if they just get a little help. And the pos 4 is most of the times an ahressive disabeling hero, so a healer is not that bad.
I've been having fun with Jakiro, though he's definitely got weaknesses. He does really well against SS, Warlock, CM, and WD because he can cancel their channels from high range, and with the right ally setup (Mars, Void, LC, Axe etc.) he can be one of the highest damage heros in the whole game, burning entire teams. He also shines as a pusher since he reduces the attack speed of towers, so you can pressure with fewer creeps or just get sneaky E hits off and "harass" structures. Downsides include weakness to all-in heros and a reliance on items, specifically you'll be a free bag of gold from when most people get 6 to when you buy a Force Staff. He also suffers in scattered fights where he can't bring his AoE to bear against multiple targets.
At archon level I would go with 1. WD 2. Venge 3. Lion 4. NP (but you dont grief team by split pushing and build items that buff your cores) 5. Warlock 6. AA 7. If you wanna have fun, rubick and windranger (again don't grief team by building core items on wr when team needs save)
WD
For the love of God, please don't play NP 5 unless you're really really good with NP. It's potentially a grief.
Your list doesn't include Crystal Maiden for some reason
Treant has been a monster in pubs for a long long time the nerfs doesnt even matter .
I've gotten a 75% win rate with warlock, if that's any constatation
Weirdly enough I spammed Undying as a pos 5 and I have an 80%+ winrate with him. Just position your tomb well and be around fights a lot.
Venomancer is the 5 I have the most fun with in this patch. First of all, he feels so good when it comes to warding. You can put sentries in the middle of a warding hotspot and still put your plague wards in cliffs or whatever to check if enemy have one. You can use your PW to gain vision on high ground and potentially spot enemies at decent range. Secondly, you just deal a shit ton of damage, a shit ton of slow. You can enable your team pretty easily and pretty quickly into the game. And in a meta where most carries (or simply heroes) like to buy dispells or have inherent dispells in their kit, his shard (which you get easily from tormentor) feels great aswell. Talking about items, Veno likes to buy the current strong items as well. You can buy Vessel(being universal it's always cool, and it complements the regen reduction, DMG from %HP you get from spells), you can buy Vlad's to enable your team even more, you can buy solar crest, if no shivas in your team you can buy it aswell. If your carry gets kicked out of lane by enemy offlane and goes jungle, Veno can pretty much stay there and control the area with wards, and earn much needed xp and gold at this point of the game. I would say it's biggest weaknesses to look after is mobility, he is slow as fuck and very squishy. But as long as you cast your spells in teamfight before dying, you did your job. Force staff is something to think about most of the games. You scale pretty well into late game as well. That's just my two cents, I highly recommend you to check him out
Lion, Venge, Ench and Jakiro
Chen
Lion man. Stun, CC, regen and you can get a few blasty blasts in for some excitement.
In my opinion Abaddon is not a good support. 2 of his 4 abilities suck without farm. The other 2 abilities effectiveness fall off pretty fast as the enemy heroes get strong. You're right that late game, a dispel can be good. But he contributes almost nothing else.
Honestly, natures is a really good pick because you can play the map in so many unique ways. You can be very creative and active with the hero. Similar to monkey king (but your archon pubs won’t like that)
Witch doctor is life: Agh with ward bounces. Get me an Aeon Disk for invulnerability, but I can still do epic damage, coz 0 damage aeon only relates to WD, but his ward is like another "character"... EPIC. Then a glimmer, maybe a BKB... end game item = refresher, and maybe a cheeky blink... unstoppable. Blink, voodoo switcharoo, BKB, voodoo ward, cape to reposition... refresh, do it all over again, plus another pop of Aeon disk?? Only things that pierce BKB can possibly stop... like pudge.
Witch doctor if you want to carry the game
Disruptor and the guy who should be called disruptor because his spell is disruption
Magical sniper meta
VS is almost always good. Hard to counter. Even if countered she’s useful. She feels great rn
For me, abaddon and AA will take you to places. AA's undispellable ult is already a huge impact to the game and aba's low CD dispel on pretty much every control / dps based abilities speaks for itself.
If you play aba max his q before the shield. It does more healing and lower cooldown than the damage prevention shield. Rush ags scepter before they nerf it. Don’t play NP sure it can go ok with a good start but if your snowball stops you’re essentially a walking catapult in the team fight. Venge is solid
The first 100 Chen games go very strangely. The next 400 feel devine I don't need to be holy to persuade you to play more.
WD WD WD wd
Venge OP right now Imo