The three most important heroes in Dota 2

Dota gamers use the word “meta” a lot. We often talk about the changing meta and how pro teams help shape it. However, what people often overlook in the debate are the heroes. Dota goes through a lot of phases with heroes becoming strong, then weak, then resurrected years later. Many times, the meta boils down to a few heroes – heroes that will shape how the game is picked. If the hero is strong, of course you will want to pick heroes that counter that power if you have to fight or strengthen it if you are on the same team. This invisibly makes the ban pick process more predictable – heroes that counter or boost that hero gradually appear. From there, we have the hero pools that are considered the most usable in most matches. This article will point out the three strongest Dota heroes that help shape such a “meta pool”.

FACELESS VOID

It is not wrong to say that Faceless Void is the strongest carry hero in Dota because Void has almost no opponent in a 1 vs 1 solo match against any other carry. That means whenever FV is present in the meta, the game starts to shift around heroes that benefit and counter this hero. No other late carry has as powerful a disable as Faceless Void’s Chronosphere. Also, since Void’s bash was changed to ‘proc’ for a second attack, the hero’s damage from mid to late game increased dramatically. It’s been seen by everyone over the past year: it’s almost impossible for opponents to do without Faceless Void being countered. Even countering this hero has been difficult work because Faceless Void possesses very strong survivability, laning and team fighting ability. These properties make Void very difficult to handle if the opposing team does not invest resources.

Although the game has a lot of high-damage carries, the influence of teamfight is really what helps Faceless Void stand at the top. Most heroes reach their maximum strength at a certain point, but Faceless Void possesses a skill set that is always useful at all stages of the game. Unlike most super late carries, Faceless Void does not have a useless moment, a period of time that cannot contribute anything to the team. Even when the laning phase is not farmable, Faceless Void can still appear in combat without damage items – just launch Chronosphere and leave everything to teammates.

The ability to press “R” and win teamfight makes it almost impossible to completely wipe Faceless Void. Because of that, Void usually has more chances to come back upstream than most other carries. Moving up to the Status Resistance and other items allows Faceless Void to play with more variety, suitable for the tempo of the game then and stronger later.

ALCHEMIST

Alchemist is an extremely difficult hero to balance. This is evidenced by the way Alchemist suddenly appeared and left the meta quickly over the years. Any time IceFrog changes the economy in the game a bit too much in favor of Alchemist who is the dominant hero almost everywhere. On the other hand, if Alchemist can’t farm quickly, the hero will soon be outfarmed by other traditional carries. As a result, Alchemist is one of those heroes that should be tried immediately whenever the gold mechanics are updated or new farming opportunities are revealed making him one of the strongest carry heroes in Dota.

Every time the Alchemist is strong, that means a slower farm carry group is almost impossible or barely used in the game. Not stopping there, the impact of Alchemist also affects other roles in the game. Greedy supports, mids and offlanes or slow builders will definitely be at a much greater disadvantage when facing Alchemist. Playing greedy with the greedy king will bring disaster to you.

This is a big reason why Alchemist has become a popular hero in MMR and high-risk pro matches. When the Alchemist appears, the match is completely different from a regular Dota 2 game because everything revolves around the ability to apply pressure or use the power of the Alchemist. This hero’s skill set allows me to accelerate farming. That made the game faster, forcing both teams to draft formations to try to keep up with this fast-paced tempo.

TINY

The number of times Tiny has been buffed, nerfed or reworked shows that balancing this hero is extremely challenging. Perhaps, finding a playable balance is what makes such heroes so impactful on the game and shaping the meta as a whole. They definitely change the gameplay of the game every time they appear. Tiny’s abilities are varied. From dealing with weak supports, standing in error to pushing unguarded turrets and poor core farms, will often be good ‘prey’ for Tiny.

No other hero can deal such massive amounts of damage so early and so consistently in the game so it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Tiny is one of the three strongest Dota heroes even though he’s not a carry. This allows Tiny to have a devastating effect on the opposing team if Blink, Avalanche and Toss combo maxes out at the right time. Tiny alone can make the opposing team almost have no room on the map to breathe. This early game control potential helps Tiny snowball at terrifying speeds. There’s no better example than Suma1L’s Tiny at TI8 before OG. Suma1L quickly reached 18/1/2 in just the first 20 minutes and almost ended OG’s fairy tale journey.

Unlike most kill-based snowball heroes, Tiny is also one of the strongest tower breakers in the game. The ability to smash turrets can be equal to a team of 5 people. With late-game potential and extremely versatile roles, Tiny is almost always present in the meta. However, the patches where Tiny is one of the strongest heroes is when this hero causes the most obsession on the opponent. There is no worse feeling in Dota than when the carry can’t farm or the support dies after leaving the fountain.

EPILOGUE

Of course, we have a few other options to add to this list like Drow Ranger, Io and Broodmother. However, the three heroes mentioned above are all very strong and always appear in the pub rank and professional Dota arena, but they are not really the strongest compared to the three heroes mentioned above. They are present so much that, these names are always in every meta season. Do you know any other heroes that helped shape the meta?

According to Dotabuff

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