Dota 2 happens to be one of Valve’s biggest titles year after year. With a very deep lore that resonates with its core audience but has also allowed it to branch into other game titles such as the now free-to-play Artifact and the popular Dota: Dragon’s Blood anime on Netflix. It is a byproduct of such deep lore and an ever-changing metagame that ensures that the game constantly evolves and no two matches or matchups are the same even with the same heroes on each side.
This is also why Dota 2 is one of the most daunting games to start. As a beginner, the learning curve is steep, and while it has become easier to get used to due to multiple guides, a new player mode by Valve as well as multiple arcade games that allow players to hone their builds, reaction times as well as positioning. Also, to help, Valve marks heroes at the selection screen, ranking them for complexity, making life a lot easier for first-time MOBA players as well as those unfamiliar with the game’s internal mechanics. Some heroes benefit from multiple in-game buffs that make them easy to learn, even though they might have a high skill cap in tow.
5 Lich, The Defensive Frost Mage
Lich is one of the easier as well as one of the most economical heroes people can run in Dota 2. This is because of him having scalable talents, one of the best disables in the game, and above-average nuke damage and sustain for the cores he partners with, both in the lane and late-game team fights. As stated, Lich does not require items to do his job in team fights and more often than not, gets in position to throw out a devastating Chain Frost nuke. When done right, it can wipe pretty much any core from the map and also zone out any heroes that cannot sustain themselves against heavy nuke damage like Marci and the Dragon Knight.
The ultimate beneficiary of a good Lich player is his team which benefits from the space he creates as well as the space he does not need on the map, allowing him to play much more selflessly than some other heroes that require core items like a dagger to become relevant in the mid/late game. As a reliable position-5 hero, lich can be run as one of the hardest supports with ease as he can use most of his spells at a decent range and also turn entire fights with one well-placed Chain Frost-Sinister Gaze combo.
4 Ogre Magi, The Luck-based Ogre Mage
Ogre Magi is probably the easiest hero to kick-start any Dota 2 journey and with good reason. The hero has an above-average HP pool thanks to their large base strength and subsequent growth. More importantly, high base armor, 2 high-damage nukes, and a passive ultimate allow the Ogre Magi to be a dependable lane partner that can trade hits with the best heroes in the current meta while keeping opposing heroes constantly on edge.
While Valve ranks Ogre as a hero with a complexity rating of 1, far lower than many of his current meta counterparts, he is incredibly versatile as a lane support, able to take both hard and soft support positions in team lineups providing any team a smidgen of strategic depth and flexibility since he fits in well with almost any lane partner.
3 Rubick, The Spell-Stealing Wizard
High on our list is a hero that Valve lists as highly complex. That is an assessment we completely agree with. Running Rubick in any game requires significantly better map and situational awareness than most other heroes. That being said, Rubick a hero with a very reliable nuke (one of the best early-game spells available) combined with his passive ability allows him to build a very strong lane presence. But Fade Bolt is only the tip of the iceberg for Rubick.
His passive’s range and damage boost mean that he is never really out of the meta and can contribute significantly across multiple lineups. More importantly, Rubick’s ability to steal any spell in the game makes him a hard but crucial hero to master, but it is immensely rewarding. If one figures him out, they have in a way, learned most, if not all the spells in the game, and with Rubick’s larger cast range and damage burst, he serves as an effective counter-initiation factor in all major team fights and ganks.
2 Dragon Knight, The Steadfast Tank
Dragon knight is a hero that has been used in all positions previously as per the prevalent meta with professional teams abusing his stun ability, which is one of the highest duration stuns in the game to run him as a support. He has also been run through all core positions with him finding success at off-lane, mid-lane, and interestingly the safe lane in certain lineups.
Dragon knight is a no-frills core and pretty much states what he is capable of right in his name coupled with his Dragon Blood ability: Sustained damage and the ability to take on some of the hardest-hitting heroes in the game in a one-on-one situation even as he continuously pushes down towers every time his ultimate is off cooldown, making him nigh impossible to stop once he gets on a roll.
1 Crystal Maiden, The Frosty Support
One of Dota’s most iconic characters also happens to be one of its most powerful. Crystal Maiden is a powerful lane support with 3 nukes and an ability that helps heroes lane and trade better globally due to the built-in mana regen. Not only is she one of the strongest laners, but she can also gank side lanes with ease in addition to comboing extremely well with heroes in the lane such as Slark, Juggernaut, and Monkey King.
Her lane presence essentially ensures that her opposing support does not leave the lane without punishing their core significantly. While she is versatile as a hero with the +200-attack speed talent at level 20, she overwhelmingly is played as a support because of how late that power spike kicks in. All in all, she is a solid route to start learning Dota and her team-fight-oriented set of spells is crucial to turn the tide in most team fights.
We understand that given the plethora of available options, there are multiple ways to play each hero in different lineups and one might feel our list is support heavy. That is, however by design. Dota 2 allows players to experiment at their own pace, but learning how to play as a good support is key to building up one’s expectations of how lanes go and knowing their limitations. Again, most of the supports we listed can be played as both cores and supports, but beginners might benefit from starting as supports until they are familiar with the crucial role they play in a team.
Dota 2 is available on PC via Steam.