What is Dota 2?

Dota 2 is a massive online cooperative battle arena that pits two teams against each other in the Defense Of The Ancients. There are currently 123 unique characters or more accurately “heroes” that you can select from, all with their unique set of skills, talents and abilities. If you’re taking your first steps into the world of Dota 2, you may be overwhelmed with the number of heroes that you can play. 

Naturally, in order to become proficient at the game, you will need to learn each of these heroes and what they do. To make it easier for you, we have compiled a top tier list of Dota 2 heroes that will help you get the ball rolling. These heroes will help you get familiar with the game, introducing you to their skill sets and what they are useful for.

Depending on your playstyle, the list will be grouped across the Five distinct roles that you can choose in the game- Hard Support, Soft Support, Offlaner, Mid-laner and Hard Carry. Now, without further adieu, let’s dive in and check out the best 3 heroes for each role we recommend to get started with! 

Position Five- Best Hard Support Heroes for Newbies

15. Crystal Maiden

The maiden of ice and snow, Crystal Maiden carries the title in the Dota 2 community as one of the most recognised Hard-Support heroes in the game. What she lacks in with her ability to brawl with enemy targets, she makes up for with her high damage icy spells, leaving enemies encased in ice and unable to escape! 

If you are completely new to the game, have a read of the gamepedia link below to get a feel for what the hero does! 

https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Crystal_Maiden

Reasons why you should try Crystal Maiden:

• She has two of the most powerful damage abilities in the early game that slows and stuns enemies. 
• As part of her skillset, she has innate mana regeneration, a critical resource required to cast spells in the game. The more mana you have, the more likely you get to use more of your spells! This means less trips back to your team’s fountain as well as reduced dependency on mana sustaining items! 
• Aesthetically pleasing spells that are quite easy to hit! 
• Her ultimate does massive damage to a large radius around her! 

14. Warlock

Whereas Crystal Maiden hails from the lands of ice and snow, Warlock is a master of the infernals and shadows. Rightly named, Warlock is an accomplished spellcaster that uses long-range abilities to control the battlefield to his liking. He thrives in large clashes  and excels in doing both damage to the enemy as well as healing his allies! 

To become familiar with the hero’s spells, have a read of the gamepedia link below to harness the power of magic!

https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Warlock

Reasons why you should try Warlock:

• He is one of the best support heroes in the early game, having reasonable stats as well as sustaining healing effects, Warlock has one of the best single-target healing in the game! 
• Warlock’s abilities are significantly long ranged, meaning you are safer in team fights as you can stand further back
• Warlock has an arsenal of crowd-controlling Area Of Effect (AOE) abilities. This dissuades enemies from grouping up, else they will feel the wrath of the Warlock! 
• Pair this with a tanky carry or a hero that already has quite a significant amount of damage, you have yourself a dominant lane duo
• His ultimate skill gives him the ability to drop not one, but two of the strongest summons in the game! This comes in the form of an infernal golem that can go toe to toe with even the strongest of heroes! What’s there not to like?

13. Lion

He may be called a lion, but this hero is most definitely not a lion. What he is, is a demon sorcerer with powerful single target abilities that render his enemies unable to fight back. Lion is rightly enjoyed by professionals and beginners alike due to his invaluable tool kit that makes his enemies tremble in their wake! 

If you want to be a Demon Witch, that is valuable at all stages of the game, look no further as Lion has you covered: 

https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Lion

Reasons why you should try Lion:

• Insanely strong stun abilities. One of the only heroes that has two stun skills as part of their non-ultimate abilities. Stunning is one of the best debuffs used in the game for setting up ganks, securing kills and disrupting your enemies! 
• Humiliate your enemies by turning them into harmless animals!
• Tricky but rewarding spike ability that can damage and stun multiple enemies in a straight line.
• Like Crystal Maiden, Lion is able to siphon mana from his enemies, slowing their movement speed and returning the mana for himself, enabling him to cast more spells and rely less on items to sustain his mana pool.
• He has one of the strongest single target nukes in the game. He is feared by most heroes due to his infernal finger that rips to shreds any adversary and builds in strength with every kill! Lion’s damage has no limit and can theoretically one-shot heroes if the game gets long enough or if he is able to harvest enough kills. 

Position Four- Best Soft Support Heroes for Newbies

12. Winter Wyvern

Another creature of the ice and snow, Winter Wyvern is a menacing beast that soars across the battlefield, unleashing torrents of freezing cold to both damage enemies and heal allies. Unlike her dragon counterparts that utilize the power of fire and flame, she uses an icy breath to slow and encumber enemies. Her abilities can reach a temperature so cold that it turns foes upon foe, in a desperate attempt to stay warm.

You can find her skill list as follows: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Winter_Wyvern

Reasons why you should try Winter Wyvern:

• She is a Wyvern and personally, a cool looking hero! Who doesn’t like controlling a century old-dragon? 
• As she has wings, she is able to soar above the battlefield, making her incredibly agile and hard to chase down.
• Winter Wyvern is renowned for her exceptionally long-ranged spells that enable you to deal damage and control the battlefield from afar. 
• She is able to completely prevent physical damage to both her allies and herself by encasing them in a shield of hardened ice.
• She has one of the strongest ultimate abilities that turns enemies against each other. This can be used to your advantage to confuse your enemies or at times, even score a kill yourself by turning your enemies against each other. 

11. Spirit Breaker

Spirit Breaker, as his name suggests, is a hero that enables you to break your opponents spirits over time, keeping them in a never ending loop of stuns and bashes. He is the first strength hero in this list, making him a lot harder to take down. What’s unique about this hero is that he is able to charge across the battlefield and break enemy formations, relying on brute force and his sheer power of will!  

You can find his skill list as follows: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Spirit_Breaker

Reasons why you should try Spirit Breaker:

• His signature ability allows him to charge across the battlefield to wherever the enemy is. This means that even if a team fight breaks out across the otherside of the map, he is still able to participate. 
• Despite being a fairly tanky hero, he is incredibly quick on his feet. His power and damage increases proportionally to his movement speed. 
• He can run through multiple enemies and push them aside like a high speed train through a roadblock! 
• His ultimate ability smashes his foes, sending them flying backwards with respectable damage
• He is extremely versatile, meaning that he can build items to accommodate each game as required. 
• He is useful at all stages of the game due to his abilities being able to pierce the Black King Bar- an item carry players usually obtain to negate enemy spell effects. 

10. Dazzle

A young acolyte blessed in the ways of spiritual rites and priest magics, Dazzle enters the battles of the ancients as a defensive and selfless support that prioritizes his allies wellbeing over his own. His abilities as a spell caster are relatively unique in that they focus on boosting his team and weakening his opponents. If you’re a player that enjoys healing allies from the safety of the backline, there is no other hero that can do it better than Dazzle. 

You can find his skill list as follows: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Dazzle

Reasons why you should try Dazzle:

• He is one of the strongest healers in the game, healing multiple allies at the same time. 
• Dazzle can do surprising amounts of damage depending on how many enemies and allies there are within a certain proximity. 
• His spells all do physical rather than magical damage. This can be quite useful as most spells in Dota 2 are magical based. 
• Dazzle has one of the best saves in the game, preventing allies from dying as long as he is alive and rightly positioned
• Dazzle rarely engages into the enemy and instead, supports his allies from the backline. This makes him hard to pin down and makes him more and more useful the longer fights drag on for. 

Position Three- Best Offlane Heroes for Newbies

9. Dragon Knight

Davion the dragon knight is one of Dota 2’s most iconic heroes. Bonded with the blood of an elder dragon Skylark, Dragon Knight has incredibly resilient properties that make him the prime candidate for engaging into fights and tanking damage. Dragon Knight is a fearsome adversary and a consistent damage dealer wielding power of both his blade and flame in the palm of his hand. 

You can find his skill list as follows: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Dragon_Knight

Reasons why you should pick Dragon Knight: 

• He has simple but powerful abilities and is one of the best core heroes to learn with.
• Dragon Knight has relatively high health regeneration and armor thanks to his passive ability meaning he doesn’t need to spend much on consumables in the early game. This allows him to trade efficiently during the laning stage. 
• As the offlaner, Dragon Knight excels in hand to hand combat, brushing off physical attacks with his mighty shield. When hand to hand combat doesn’t quite cut it and the odds are stacked against him, he can transform into a mighty dragon that evolves in power as he levels up! 
• He is incredibly tanky, especially against opponents that rely on physical attacks such as Juggernaut and Wraith King. This makes him a prime candidate for being to soak up damage and be at the frontline

8. Tidehunter

If there is a Kraken in Dota 2, then Tidehunter easily earns that title. Appropriately nicknamed Leviathan, Tidehunter is the king of the oceans and master of the waves. Due to the crushing power of the sea, Tidehunter has evolved to develop a thick hide that is resistant to both physical and magical damage alike. He is an immense being that enemies generally refrain from initiating upon, in fear that they may unleash the ravage and rage of the ocean. 

Tidehunter’s skills and abilities can be found via the link below:

https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Tidehunter

Reasons to choose Tidehunter: 

• He has incredible strength stats that give him a giant health pool and physical brawling strength
• Tidehunter is renowned for being one of the most classic offlaners due to the balance between power, tankiness and effective crowd control utilities
• Tidehunter has a passive shell that removes debuffs as he receives damage, making him great for wasting enemy spells that could have been potentially used on your allies
• Tidehunter’s ultimate ability is one of the most powerful AOE damage and stun abilities in the game. Used amongst a crowd of enemies, this ability has the potential to single-handedly win a teamfight, let alone game! There are not many other abilities that are as impressive as this one! 

7. Centaur Warrunner

The general theme of offlaners is that they should be frontliners and tanks for the rest of the team. This is often true, allowing you to soak up the enemies spells, providing vision for the rest of your team to counter-initiate and clean up. Centaur Warrunner fits the offlaner job description perfectly. True to his brutish race, Centaur charges headfirst into the enemy ranks, stomping his hooves and crushing his foes with his mighty axe. If you like being the fearless spearhead of your team, then Centaur Warrunner is the right hero for you! 

Centaur’s skills and abilities can be found via the link below:

https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Centaur_Warrunner

Reasons to choose Centaur Warrunner: 

• Centaur Warrunner has the second highest strength stat gain in the game. This means he has one of the largest health pools in the game meaning that he is especially hard to take down. 
• Those foolish enough to face centaur off one on one, have not only his huge health pool to contest with, but also the fact that he returns damage upon getting hit! 
• Centaur’s damage output is considerably high. The only drawback is that he uses his health as a compromise to unleash the full power of his abilities. 
• He is able to charge in at maximum speed with his allies to surprise enemies! 

Position Two- Best Midlane (Semi Carry) Heroes for Newbies

6. Death Prophet

Cursed to live amongst the living, Krobelus the Death Prophet utilizes life-draining abilities and the forces of the undead to rake havoc upon her enemies. Formerly a fortune teller, Krobelus sought after her own fate which proved to have dire consequences. She now resides in the eternal struggle between the battle of the ancients as a weapon of the undead with an army of exhorted spirits at her command. 

Death Prophet’s skills and abilities can be found via the link below:

https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Death_Prophet 

Reasons to choose Death Prophet: 

• Death Prophet has a low-cooldown nuking ability that is useful for clearing enemy waves, pushing towers and farming.
• She is able to take down single-target heroes as well as multiple enemies at once
• As part of her ultimate, she is able to summon a large number of ghosts to swarm enemies and heal herself. This makes her a fearsome adversary that deals a lot of damage and requires a coordinated approach to take down. 
• She is one of the strongest heroes in the mid game and can easily take down towers and push objectives throughout the game. 

5. Lina

Daughter of the flame and elder sister to Crystal Maiden, Lina controls the element of fire to do her bidding. She burns through legions of enemies with her dragon slave and creates fire so hot that it turns into lightning. If your playstyle involves bursting opponents before they even have a chance to react, then this is the right hero for you! Lina is a fast paced hero that runs rounds upon her opponents, rushing into battle with fiery conviction. 

Lina’s skills and abilities can be found via the link below:

https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Lina

Reasons to choose Lina: 

• Two Low cooldown nuking abilities that can clear waves almost instantly
• Extremely long-ranged attack that allows you to bully the opponent mid-player out of the lane. It is particularly hard to deal with Lina’s harassment tools in the early game, giving you an early head start when it comes to farming. 
• A passive ability that increases your attack speed and movement speed the more spells you cast. This makes you more powerful with every spell that you cast! As a result, you are able to also transition into playing as both a spellcaster as well as an auto attacking semi-carry. 
• Burn through your enemies with your finishing blow, a lightning bolt that has a fairly respectable cooldown and extremely high damage. You are able to upgrade this lightning bolt with an aghanim’s scepter item to do even more damage and pierce through magic immunity provisions such as the Black King Bar. 

4. Huskar

Huskar is a ranged strength hero that is incredibly hard to kill and burns his enemies over-time with his uniquely infused auto attacks. He is an inconceivably unique hero in that he obtains more power the closer to death he is. With experimentation, this hero is exceptionally powerful amongst beginners as you can not only dominate the lane with his insane damage and regeneration capabilities, but he is also a force to be reckoned amongst the opponent’s magical users.  

Huskar’s skills and abilities can be found via the link below:

https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Huskar 

Reasons to pick Huskar:

• The hero is dominant at all stages of the game and is renowned for being increasingly harder to kill the closer to death he is. Finding the fine line between life and death and beating back the opponent when they think they have you against the rope makes this hero satisfying and interesting to play. 
• Huskar’s skill set allows him to jump straight into a fight and deal incredible damage over time. 
• Huskar’s infused fire spears allow him to not draw aggression from enemy creeps (the enemy foot soldiers). This allows him to harass his opponents without taking any damage
• Huskar’s spells are all low-cooldown abilities, meaning that he can fight again and again with little notice
• The hero is able to sustain heavy amounts of magic damage due to his passive ability that strengthens proportionally to how low his health pool is. 

Position One- Best Hard Carry Heroes for Newbies

3. Luna

Once known as the Scourge, Luna is a fearsome warrior that does battle in servitude of the moon goddess. Attempting to redeem herself for her bloody past, she rides upon her trusty feline, carving through creeps and heroes alike with the power of the night by her side. 

Luna’s skills and abilities can be found via the link below:

https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Luna 

Reasons to pick Luna:

• Luna uses a distinct glaive as her primary weapon that not only looks awesome, but is functional and deadly. Her attacks are able to bounce across targets, dealing massive amounts of damage if there are multiple targets. This makes Luna a great carry as she is able to farm up a lot of gold very quickly.
• Luna is a ranged carry that gives her the ability to keep her distance. This combined with the fact that she has a readily available spammable nuke ability, gives her the edge in harassing her opponents during the laning stage. 
• Luna is a unique hard carry in that she compliments her high physical damage with magic damage in the form of concentrated lucent beams. These beams, when combined with her ultimate, lights the battlefield up with magical shards of moonlight that vaporizes everything in its path. 

2. Drow Ranger

Traxex the Drow ranger is an archer that slows enemy units upon hit, allowing her to both chase down and kite enemies from afar. She is a deadly assassin that has one of the highest damage figure’s from her auto attacks in the game and solidifies her place as one of Dota 2’s strongest hard carries. If you like to do immense amounts of damage from afar, then this is the right hero for you! 

Drow’s skills and abilities can be found via the link below:

https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Drow_Ranger 

Reasons to pick Drow Ranger:

• Like huskar, she infuses her auto attacks with special properties. Her arrows can slow her enemies dead in their tracks, allowing her to continue raining arrows upon them if they have no escape! 
• Drow has the ability to push back and silence enemies if they get too close. This means that even if the opponent gets the jump on her, she is still able to turn the engagement around. 
• Her arrows have the ability to pierce through enemy armor, allowing her to dish out more damage even to the most tankiest of heroes. This ability doubles up in her damage to creeps, speeding up her farming speed and allowing her to farm up a large amount of wealth for her to purchase items to seal the game. 

1. Wraith King

Ostarion the wraith knight commands a legion of skeletons, rightfully naming himself as the king of the skeletons and all that is dead. The hero wields a mighty claymore that hits hard and cleaves through enemy ranks like a knife through butter. Ostarion is a deadly hero who carries his own way to greatness and is valuable to have in any match up. The Wraith King sets himself up not only on the throne of the undead, but also the top of this tier list due to his relatively simple mechanics yet strong and sturdy skill set. 

Wraith King’s skills and abilities can be found via the link below:

https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Wraith_King 

Reasons to pick Wraith King:

• He is an incredibly strong brawler, capable of decimating enemy supports in a couple of hits. 
• Wraith King has a relatively easy skillset, making him a reliable hero to practice on. 
• Wraith King has extremely strong sustaining abilities that allow him to heal off every attack that he makes. 
• Ostarion is able to summon a horde of skeletons that can either farm gold for him, join him in battle to do some extra damage or push enemy towers. This enables him to farm at an extremely fast pace and work himself up to become an incredibly strong carry even in the roughest of games. 
• He has a strong and reliable lock on stun that gives him the ability to close the gap between the opponent and himself.
• Last but not least, Wraith King is able to rise from the dead. That’s right! He has two lives! As if taking him down once was hard enough!

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