How to play mid Vengeful Spirit in Dota 2

When your teammates say they want to play mid Vengeful Spirit, you’re probably mentally prepared to lose the match. But that is no longer the case. Recently, streamers and some professional teams like OG or Nigma have been using VS in core positions like position 1, pos 2 and even 3. So why do some pro players use mid Vengeful Spirit? How can you play Vengeful Spirit in mid?

HERO HAS STRONG BASIC stat

First, Vengeful Spirit has great base stats at level 1 and is one of the heroes with the highest amount of agility gain per level in the game: 3.8 – the third highest of all heroes. That allows VS to be strong later on. However, the hero can go mid well thanks to his ability to combine with the zoo heroes in the last meta. Although some items in the zoo meta were nerfed, VS still makes sense in the game. Luna, Beastmaster, Enchantress still build items like Vladimir’s Offering, it’s considered the best aura push item patch 7.27 and Helm of the Dominator is still somewhat usable. Venge is the perfect hero to go with these items because the amount of armor the hero gains from agility makes it extremely good to take hits. Not to mention, her passive aura also grants +13 bonus primary stats to all heroes around her.

WHY MID?

Vengeful Spirit can be played in many different roles. If the hero leveled up and farmed well, VS will provide damage and support to the team at the end of the game. Due to the goal of this article, we will default to VS as the most level priority and will discuss the mid position. The article chooses mid for Vengeful Spirit because the hero takes advantage of the early levels and the amount of farm in mid. Not to mention Wave of Terror is extremely effective for farming the small jungle next to mid. It allows you to gain an edge over your opponent to help you grow in the mid-game. In addition, Vengeful Spirit’s buff also allows the hero to survive on most of the most annoying champions, if not in a lane draw.

LANE STAGE

To play Vengeful Spirit mid, your priority should be to max Wave of Terror and Vengeance Aura first. At level 1, Wave of Terror minus 3 AoE armor will help you trade hit opponents better. Most importantly, this will make it too easy to last hit ranged creeps using Wave of Terror (deals 60 magic damage). You can do the same thing with the Magic Missle, but it’s better to max out the Wave of Terror because of the less manacost, and the chance to pull down the opponent’s armor. In addition, you can also use it as a tool to farm jungle creeps.

Another reason to play VS mid is that the hero makes good use of levels. At level 2, you have a nuke that deals 60 damage and -3 AoE armor, plus +4 Agility from Vengeance Aura helps VS hit hands much stronger than the opponent. In most cases, you will always have a damage advantage when playing VS by keeping up with the initial farm items your opponent buys, plus the extra stats you get from your kit.

For example, here are Vengeful Spirit stats at level 3 with 3 Wraith Bands and Boots. Pay attention to the 102 damage, that’s not counting Wave of Terror’s armor. In addition, you have 12 armor to help VS withstand extremely good attacks.

WHY IS VS MID SUCCESSFUL?

Vengeful Spirit plays most effectively with heroes that help me do my best in the mid-game. Before 7.27, the hero could combine zoo heroes like Lycan, Chen, and Luna. With the changes to the turret push item, we can see that this gameplay is no longer as prominent as before. However, Vengeful Spirit is still a strong pick depending on how the skill is built. This is a very painful hand-to-hand hero that can initiate or continue teamfights with the ability to stun and swap targets. No hero has as much buff as Vengeful Spirit in the ranged position. After the laning phase and leveling up, you can pressure other lanes with familiar zoo heroes like Beastmaster, Luna or Lycan. Slowly turn minor ganks into map and target control.

Vengeful Spirit played extremely well when snowballing the advantage he had in mid and another carry range in the safelane: Luna or Windranger both took advantage of VS’s +125 attack range aura. With patch 7.27 tending to slow the game down, it looks like the role of Vengeful Spirit and the other members of the creation team will be space for the main carry to farm. Hero can be paired with heroes like Chen, Lycna, Queen of Pain and Centaur Warrunner to create space, gank and take towers. Good carries that can go with VS to farm and take advantage of VS’s aura are Terrorblade, Luna, and Drow Ranger.

Another reason that makes Vengeful Spirit a great carry in the mid game is the hero’s talents. At level 10, VS can take additional armor deduction for Wave of Terror or +12% magic resistance. Both depend on the match situation. If you need to take more hits, get magic resistance, making VS stronger and the high armor you have. According to Dotabuff, the 12% magic resistance talent increases the win rate by +1.2%. And if you need damage, -1 armor will make the team hit much more painful. Talent level 20, +6 Vengeance Aura, increase VS win rate by 3.4% and give the team the support they need in the mid game.

WHY VS MID MAY FAIL?

Like all strategies, every hero has its own limitations.

The first limitation may be that the team does not have heroes that can support you in the mid-game. For example, draft mid Vengeful when the team has Keeper of the Light or Silencer is not a good idea. These heroes’ job is to support large teamfights, and they don’t provide the add-ons or disables needed to take advantage of VS’s mid-game advantage.

Vengeful Spirit may not be effective if the opponent picks heroes with multiple anti-push ways. Good examples are creep clearing heroes like Underlord or Keeper of the Light. Vengeful Spirit suffers a 1.74% and 0.75% disadvantage to Underlord, KotL respectively.

Also, in the new 7.27 patch and the zoo lineup is nerfed, it seems the game will be slower. This means carries that used to be weak against early push formations will become more popular. Examples of these heroes are Phantom Lancer, Medusa and Terrorblade. According to Dotabuff statistics, Vengeful Spirit is at a disadvantage 3.31%, 2.13% and 1.85% respectively against these heroes. All three heroes farm for long, and two of them (Phantom Lancer and Terrorblade) exploit Vengeful Spirit’s biggest weakness: no AoE damage. In the previous patch 7.26, you could make up for this weakness with a stronger push formation and overwhelm your opponents in the mid-game. However, with patch 7.27, this may be more difficult.

The last point to consider is that with any mid-game turret push, it’s very much dependent on the team’s snowball ability and early advantage, which means you have to win your lane. If VS wins mid but the other lanes are losing and can’t find the time to push the turret mid game, the game becomes a lot harder. VS counter-pick heroes can prevent the hero from taking advantage of their explosive power mid-game. A good example is Meepo: the hero completely overwhelms VS with clones and faster farming. Dragon Knight takes the hit from harassment and catches up to VS’s build time; then Broodmother, because VS can’t kill the spider that easily.

EPILOGUE

The article thinks Vengeful Spirit can be a strong and underrated pick in the current meta. If the situation plays out like “Why does VS mid succeed”, then Vengeful Spirit may make the opponent not know how to deal.

Even in meta 7.27, when the game slows down, the article believes the Vengeful Spirit core can still do it. It unlocks new items for this hero. Since Status Resistance has generally been nerfed, do we see VS go to Meteor Hammer more to farm and push towers faster? So can the hero still use the new Helm of the Dominator to add aura and buffs, and win jungle creeps to his advantage? Vengeful Spirit’s position in the meta will change again in the near future. Or maybe the hero will gradually lose the ball in the game as the game slows down. Only time will tell us the answer.

According to Dotabuff

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