Heroes that Make a Round of Dota Irritating Beyond Belief

In Dota 2, everyone has heroes that they hate to play against. These heroes vary as the meta changes and as heroes' abilities are reworked, but to some degree who you fear doesn't change. Today I plan to summarize what makes me hate to play against a hero, and give some examples of the worst offenders.

In Dota 2, there are 5 positions, called carry, mid, offlane, roaming/farming support, and babysitter support. They can also be refereed to by number, 1,2,3,4, and 5 with 1 corrispodning to carry and five with babysitter. During a game each team is trying to earn gold by killing monsters and enemy heroes. The number stands for how gold is distributed to the players on a team. The carry receives the gold because the hero that he plays is best suited for items. One of the results is, as the game continues the position 5 will have less items, less levels, and therefore less health. That doesn't mean they are weak, position 4 and 5 often have strong spells, but poor stamina in a fight.

I normally play the position 5, and in spite of what I said above, I find it the most enjoyable and stimulating role to play. But, as I also said, I often have very few hit points (hp, health), even late in the game.

So, the heroes I hate have something in common. When I first began to play Dota, I didn't have certain enemy heroes as much as I feared them. These heroes were those that could chase me down. They were able to move fast, jump forward, or cast a spell to prevent me from escaping. I hated Bloodseeker the most, because his ultimate spell Rupture would cause my hero to take massive damage when they moved. If I stood still, the spell wouldn't kill me, but Bloodseeker would run up and right-click (normal attack) until I died. Most new players, myself included, would panic and run away from the charging hero, even though that meant certain death.

There are other heroes like Bloodseeker, such as Slark who chained me to the ground with Pounce, or Lifestealer who slowed my movement by 70% with Open Wounds. All of these heroes finished me off with their regular attack. As a support I couldn't fight any of these heroes one on one. But as I played more Dota these heroes became less terrifying. As long as I had a Town Portal Scroll, I could teleport back to base before they killed me. This worked as long as I didn't panic.

As I developed a solution to some heroes and climbed in skill I noticed that there was a new type of hero to hate. The previous heroes, such as Bloodseeker, I feared, but the new type I hated. I was annoyed by the characteristic that defines them.

The heroes that I hate to play against are not ones that disable me, or do well in a team fight, or rat, or chase, but heroes that can blink in and do so much damage, so quickly, that you can't react before they kill you.

These heroes are no fun to play against.

The hero that inspired this list is Juggernaut, a mask wearing, sword swinging maniac. When he picks his ultimate at level 6 he becomes the bane of solo heroes everywhere. Omnislash, the ultimate, has a number of reasons for it's deadliness. At level 1 Omnislash does 650 damage, the health of only the weakest heroes. We're really talking about when he earns his second level of Omnislash at level 11. This deals twice as much damage, about 1300. But that's not all. Juggernaut is able to make regular attacks during the Omnislash, so add a bonus 500 damage for 5 base attacks of 100. 1800 can kill a support easy, and even some position 1,2, and 3 players. While the damage is terrifying, that's not all. While in Omnislash Juggernaut is immune to all damage and spells.

Watch this video as Juggernaut destroys three heroes that are all on full health, with Omnislash.

If Juggernaut is the best example of a hero that can kill before the player can react, Tiny is another strong one. Tiny, the ironically named rock golem, doesn't even need to be level 11 to be terrifying. All he needs is level 8, and preferably a blink dagger. With 4 points in Avalanche and 4 points in Toss, Tiny does roughly 900 damage, and with one or two regular attacks will certainly do enough to kill a support or even squishy cores early in the game.

To round off the list with three heroes, I would like to point out version 6.86 Invoker. Invoker is a hard hero to understand because he is totally different from everyone else. Most heroes have 3 regular abilities (spells/passives) and one ultimate ability, but Invoker has three abilities and one ultimate that he uses to create ten different spells. I've tried him once or twice, and haven't bothered to figure it all out, but I have played against him many times. What I do know is that Invoker is horrible to play against because of a combo he has. I've seen the combo done a number of different ways, depending on what level the Invoker is and what items he buys, but it generally goes like this. Invoker blinks in, cyclones the target hero (me) using the Eul's Scepter of Divinity, and then launches a Chaos Meteor (meatball) and Deafening Blast barrage. Admittedly he might use Sunstrike or Cold Snap just to make sure I'm dead. This combo kills low health heroes without giving them time to react.

There are other heroes that fit into this category of killing withing any time to react, but these are the three that I hate the most. This isn't to say that these heroes are overpowered or game breaking. On Dotabuff, a site that collects data from every Dota game and records the win rate for each hero, Juggernaut, Tiny, and Invoker all are close to the ideal 50% win rate. There are other heroes that are more likely to win. And yet these three, along with Ursa, are some of the most unfair in one on one situations.

Some players would say that there are defenses for these heroes, and I'm just not planning ahead. Better players know how to avoid the problems I run into, and maybe I will figure out a solution that works for me.

To wrap up, I want to point out a few heroes that are similar, but don't bother me in the same way the aforementioned do. Heroes that use burst damage like Zeus, Necrophos, Lion, Lich, and Lina are just that, nukers, and there have no other strengths. Also, aside from the Lina, none of them will be able to kill me before I can react. In the same idea, Queen of Pain, Legion Commander, and Batrider all choose to buy blink dagger, can deal massive damage in a short time, and disable, but normally I have time to react before I die.

I guess that is what it is. Many heroes will kill a position 5 player like me in a one on one, but as long as I had the chance to cast spells and try to escape, I don't mind to much what the end result is.