Soak up your enemies’ damage and stand in their way of getting to your important cores. Whether it’s for making space and making your enemies waste time until backup arrives, or just diving the Tier 2 tower in 15 minutes (because you can), assert absolute dominance and watch as your enemies struggle to chip down your armor.

10. Vengeful Spirit

See this hero in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr24xb4nKJ8

Vengeful Spirit has been broken for quite some time with her incredibly high agility gain. She has been hit by the nerf hammer for quite some time but she still incredibly scales well and as a result, is still one of the tanky heroes. What makes her even tankier is her Aghanim’s shard upgrade, allowing her 2nd skill, Wave of Terror, to steal 20% of the armor of everything it hits. This even stacks over multiple instances so taking Venge away from the fight is a really hard task once she hits her timings.

She also soaks up even more damage with her Aghanim’s Scepter as it gives her another life to be able to cast more spells and join the fight again. Her damage is also not to be belittled as she can hit hard in the later stages of the game and provide utility and support with her stun and swap abilities.

9. Doom

See this hero in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wd-mry39e0

Doom’s tankiness mostly comes from his high hp pool and his ability to devour neutral creeps. Devour allows him to gain any buffs and skills such as the Ogre Frostmage’s Ice Armor, increasing his armor by 3, Centaur Courser’s Cloak Aura, granting bonus magic resistance, and the Wildwing Ripper’s Toughness Aura, granting 3 bonus armor as well. With his level 15 talent, he can devour Ancient Neutrals granting the Ancient Black Dragon’s Dragonhide Aura passive, this gives 3 bonus armor as well as additional skills.

This variety of devour options for Doom allows him to be granted additional defensive bonuses and focus on building items that will compensate for either lack of damage or lack of magical/physical defense. His level 10 talent grants him an additional 12% Magic Resistance which stacks with other magic resistance items and buffs. Being tanky is a must for doom as he will initiate the fights and prevent magical damage with doom.

8. Dawnbreaker

See this hero in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBEThg9pb68

As with any new hero release, Dawnbreaker was broken but in a different way. Her stats and scaling made her super tanky but she was lacking in damage. She has then been reworked and rescaled and her damage output has now increased and still retains her tankiness. Despite only building one or two defensive items, she can stay in the front lines and tank while dealing massive damage.  

One of the teams that showed Dawnbreaker’s ability to survive engagements and survive a 4–5-man gank was T1 at TI10. She was positioned away from the fighting and maintained waves pushed out. This stunted PSG.LGD push and made enough space for T1’s cores to farm and hit their crucial timings. Despite numerous ganks, Dawnbreaker was able to survive and PSG.LGD was punished for not being able to take objectives. This was a position 4 Dawnbreaker that only built Aghanim’s Scepter and Guardian Greaves. Dawnbreaker isn’t a meta pick right now but she can be extremely useful in the right situations.

7. Kunkka

See this hero in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZUg_dZwW98

Your Admiral is here! And for sure when Kunkka is here, there is nothing to fear. A hero that dominates mid-matchups, takes everything for the team and takes the enemy’s life with him. Kunkka is a worthy adversary to the tankier, beefier, more lovable watermelon, Tidehunter.

Kunkka dictates the team fight with his AOE spells that stun and lockdown enemies while bursting them down with high damage. However, Kunkka is also an extremely tanky hero, with good base stats and decent scaling. What makes Kunkka a beefy hero, however, is his ultimate skill, Ghostship. This also buffs up his allies, giving them a 40% damage reduction from all sources. This comes in handy in most clutch situations.

At a one-minute cooldown and 10-second buff duration, Kunkka’s Ghostship comes in hand for fights. This allows him and his allies to survive initial burst abilities and stun and damage enemies as well. This makes the enemy team hesitant to re engage and miss a crucial team fight timing. Without the Ghostship buff, however, Kunkka’s strength attribute gain still makes him tanky and can be coupled with either defensive or offensive items.

6. Dragon Knight

See this hero in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzeJS5qtwiI

One of the heroes that have a built-in tankiness skill is DK. That one hero you can rarelybully out of the lane and will just continue to farm up his items. This comes from his passive, Dragon’s Blood, giving him 12 bonus armor and health regen at max level. He will stand in the lane, hit creeps, and ignore you for the rest of the laning phase like you're just a huge creep he can’t kill yet. He can rush a blink dagger and start early fights and he will still be able to tank all the damage in the world.

Dragon knight also becomes a huge objective taker with his Dragon Form, turning him into a scary big dragon. This gives him ranged attacks that have a splash AOE damage. Buying an Aghanim’s Scepter increases his ultimate level by 1 and turns him into a black dragon that crosses terrain at max level. This also grants him an increased 25% magic resistance. His level 25 talent further gives him another additional 12 armor and health regen.

Dragon knight is a hero you cannot ignore but at the same time you can’t really deal with how tanky he is. A few mechanics that allow you to break his passive may help or an early vessel may also be useful to stop him from regenerating the damage you output to him. This makes it tricky to deal with Dragon Knight since you will have to dedicate item slots only to deal with him.

5. Centaur

See this hero in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TfZI2aaXME

Centaur Warrunner is another hero that has a skill that gives him innate survivability and tankiness. His passive, Retaliate, allows him to return damage he takes based on his strength attribute plus a set damage. This allows Centaur to focus on building strength items and increases his health pool and damage as well.  He becomes a tanky frontline and initiator where breaking his passive won’t help you either.

Another bonus to centaur is his Aghanim’s Shard and Aghanim’s Scepter upgrades. His shard allows him to gain bonus strength depending on the number of heroes he hits. His Scepter upgrades his ultimate by giving 40% damage reduction from all sources to all his allies and himself during the duration. If you ever hope to burst down that Morphling with grandma reaction time, well you can’t anymore. His Centaur has got his back covered with an easy disengage and damage reduction tool.

4. Mars

See this hero in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1XDjc1UMlk    

I think you are starting to see a trend here and you are right. Most tankiness and armor of heroes comes from their abilities that provide them with damage reduction. Mars is another hero with this skill and it provides 70% damage reduction from all frontal sources of damage and 35% from all damage directed to his side (at max level). This allows Mars to face the enemy and stand his ground while keeping his teammates safe.

Mars can toggle this ability, Bulwark, and it allows him to further redirect 70% of the attacks made at his front. Although this comes at the cost of him not being able to attack and a decrease in movement speed, it covers teammates and himself well from damage. Another source of damage reduction from Mars is his ultimate, Arena of Blood. This blocks all damage that comes from the outside of the arena unless the hero has magic immunity. Put Mars’ abilities to the best use and isolate your key targets in the arena of the god of war.

3. Bristleback

See this hero in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANvlZOUYkso

Much like Mars, Bristleback can reduce the damage he receives with his passive, Bristleback. For Bristleback however, he reduces damage received from the back by 40% and 20% when it is from his sides and once it reaches a 210-damage threshold, he releases a Quill Spray with its current level. This allows Bristleback to be tanky and be able to kill those who are trying to kill him.

The meta has seen Bristle’s power with the addition of Eternal Shroud. This makes Bristle even scarier as it gives him the ability to lifesteal once his passive becomes triggered and continue to block incoming magic damage and gain mana from it. Bristle is a good hero to look at when starting Dota, his tankiness is complemented with his ability to deal physical damage and allow you to actually play the game without being one-shot. He is further enhanced with his Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade that allows him to deal more damage by increasing his nasal goo stacks to 7, reducing the enemy armor by 14 and movement speed by 84%. Without magic immunity, enemies are essentially locked down and stunned, an ability Bristle does not usually have.     

2. Tidehunter

See this hero in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSCmm7Nd3XA

The watermelon himself, the ravager of tides, Tidehunter, takes the second spot on our list. One of the most consistent offlaners, strong lane presence, strong team fight skills, this watermelon will make your mouth water as you try and fail to take him down to get to his teammates. There are so many reasons as to why teams love picking Tide and why he is the second most picked hero in TI10.

One of the biggest reasons he is picked is his ability to stand in the way of the enemy team and his core teammates. He acts as a meat shield absorbing damage and taking the focus of the team and making space. His passive, Kraken shell allows him to do this with ease. This ability blocks 54 physical damage (at max level) he takes and dispels any debuff when he receives 450 damage (at max level, 350 with the talent). This is another hero you cannot bully out of lane.

His high base stats also give him a hefty amount of hp and his skills give him the ability to farm down neutral camps. This makes him reach fight timing easier. A hero with much utility to offer, Tidehunter offers so much like armor reduction. In the words of Nigma.W33, Tide and another physical damage carry will give you everything, team fight, Rosh, towers, throne, the win, maybe.

1. Timber

See this hero in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aQsLlGE9mU

If you hate trees, then you and Timbersaw will get along. Cut all the trees down and your enemies with this tanky hero. Timber has okay stats and okay scaling that make him a mid-game hero, but his skills should not be belittled.

Timbersaw's armor comes from his passive skill, Reactive Armor.  On max stacks, this gives him 28.8 (36 with the talent) armor, higher than any 4700-gold armor item. On top of the armor bonus, Timber also gains 31.2(39 with the talent) HP regen This allows timber to casually dive the t2 tower at minute 10 where the enemy carry just basically gets bullied out of the lane.

Against a team that's all physical damage, Timber will rip them to shreds. Always check your lineup and once you notice you lack magic damage, start considering banning timber out or it will not be a fun game for you.

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