Dota 2: Good but underrated support heroes in the game

Currently, the number of strong supports is quite small. With support now being the first two picks and focusing on the laning phase, gamers in high-level matches are often forced to pick one of the familiar 4-5 heroes. Usually Silencer, Crystal Maiden, Dark Willow and Vengeful Spirit. These are great heroes, but sometimes make you bored when you have to play over and over again.

Today’s post will focus on other support heroes that, while not as popular, still have good win rates and have good influence in the laning phase and mid to late game.

Shadow Shaman is quite an interesting hero. In the 3v1 or 2v1 meta, this hero can cope well with the opponent’s offlane thanks to his high damage ability as well as good footlock moves.

When the 2v2 meta emerged, this hero was gradually forgotten, when many people thought that SS was no longer strong enough in the lane to pick. The low mana early game does not give Shadow Shaman the freedom to use spells and disables, although they have great impact, but the cost is too high and often has a long cooldown, especially in the early game.

Many small buffs have brought this hero back, but it seems the community has only recently realized it. Despite its low attack range and rather weak build, Shadow Shaman has a good starting health and armor with a support: when he’s out of gear, the hero has 614 starting health and 3.5 armor. The hand attack also deals 76+ damage, making this hero the most painful ranged champion in the early game.

Although the attack range of only 400 is quite limited, in the early levels, this hero is almost equal to Vengeful Spirit in terms of tanking ability, while possessing a very strong nuke move.

The only problem of Ether Shock at the beginning of the game is that it can only nuke one object. While Crystal Maiden or Silencer can hit multiple targets with their abilities, weakening the enemy lane. While the Shadow Shaman usually has to pick a target and focus on that hero for the harassing attacks to be more effective – the opponent will often position themselves, so that the harassing moves are evenly split between the two targets and cause Shadow Shaman is less effective.

Shackles is also weak at level 1. It deals a total of 60 damage and is easily blocked. Shadow Shaman is often confused at level 3: on the one hand you want the Ether Shock to hit multiple targets, on the other hand – raising the second point on Shackles will increase the massive damage and prolong the retention time to the level of “unfairness” “.

The vast majority of people choose Ether Shock by default, but again it depends on the situation and in some cases you can go both ways. Players can also go in the direction of skill 4-1-1-1 until level 7 (ie at level 7, the player has raised level 4 for skill 1, level 1 for skill 2, 3 and ultimate). It helps with strong wave clearing, while still providing a variety of ways to lock down targets and disrupt channeling moves. With that said, if the team has enough disables coming from the cores, choosing 4-0-2-1 is fine. It will help a lot in the laning phase and deal 100 more damage and increase the stun duration by 0.75 for the price of only 10 extra mana.

Looking at the meta, we can see that Shadow Demon is one of the highly skilled supports in the game. Only from Divine and above does this hero achieve a win rate of over 50% and there are many reasons for this.

Shadow Demon is a hero that can do more harm than good, requires a lot of knowledge and practice to be really effective in lane, and SD often requires certain teammates and enemies to be effective.

Shadow Demon’s level 1 move is often used against teammates as well as enemies in the lane. The vast majority of players lift Default Disruption, easy setup and potential damage. However, if you don’t have a lane teammate that can exploit this setup, then it’s better to raise Shadow Poison, used to compete for bounty runes.

Shadow Poison is a rather complicated move – the damage it deals can be great, but it’s only from level 2 on that this move really shines. More importantly, at level 1, Shadow Poison’s damage is equivalent to the amount of healing if the opponent has a Magic Stick. Make sure you’re out of sight when using this move if the enemy has a stick or wand. Otherwise, you are wasting mana for nothing.

Soul Catcher is the main reason to use ‘normal cast’ even if you prefer quick cast. Finding the right way to use this move, making sure it hits the target you want to focus on is crucial to properly controlling the Shadow Demon and increasing its damage by 50%. While the vast majority of players choose 4-0-4-1 and prioritize levels for Shadow Poison, in the late game Soul Catcher can neutralize the most aggressive objects, can go through even damage reduction moves. like the green stick on Stampede or Ghostship.

Finally, one of the latest changes to Shadow Demon’s ultimate that people often overlook in pubs: Demonic Purge continuously dispels objects, making it one of the best tools against heroes like Pugna, Necrophos, Windranger, etc – heroes who must rely on dispel buffs to survive.

AA is probably the most controversial support in the current meta, but according to this hero stats, AA has a 50% win rate in games over 5k+, while being extremely unpopular. So how does a hero who is considered completely useless in lane win games in the meta that favor laning heroes?

Ancient Apparition is like Specter support in many ways. Despite the lack of easy-to-use nukes and disables, AA has the ability to bounce back at level 6. Ice Blast deals massive damage and is effective against a lot of tank heroes in the current meta: not just against cool heroes. health that when the enemy’s health drops to 10% kills the target equivalent to 100+ nuke damage for most heroes.

The skill building in pubs reflects AA’s weakness in lane: all high level players by default choose moves that require the least amount of conditions. Usually Cold Feet is maxed out first, with a maximum of two entry points Chilling Touch before reaching level 6. This increases the ability of AA to harass in lane, although it is difficult to kill the target, but still holds the opponent back.

This hero is most effective when paired with strong cores in lane. Weaver is the first name that comes to mind, with the ability to deal great damage when combining Chilling Touch + Geminate Attack. Utilizing the right stuns can make lane easier and can be a good kill – Cold Feet moves at later levels can greatly increase disable duration, while dealing maximum damage up to 360. More importantly, the vast majority of enemies will usually try to get out of Cold Feet’s AoE, forcing them to run away, rather than return to attack. Overall, Cold Feet can be considered a ‘light’ disable.

Another important aspect is that the hero doesn’t need a lot of items to be effective: Eul’s can be convenient, Force Staff is always a good choice, and Aghanim’s Scepter can make a big turning point, but this hero This should still focus on controlling vision for teammates – this is the main goal of AA. Most of the position 5 heroes are buffed to increase their effectiveness with Aether Lens or Foce Staff, Ancient Apparition can use all of her moves at great distances and doesn’t need a positional item.

With heroes like Alchemist and Necrophos returning to the meta, it’s clear that Ancient Apparition will have its place, starting from the very first pick. At the very least, AA will become a barrier, and at best, this will be a great counter hero. The first condition, of course, is that AA survives the laning phase.

According to Dotabuff