DOTA 2 - Building around a team composition
Your team is a vital part in any team-based game, regardless of what game you are playing. In Dota, this is all the more true since certain team compositions are good at certain things. In order to succeed at your ultimate goal, which of course is destroying the opponent’s ancient, you might not need the best team composition, but a good one doesn’t hurt. This article will go over some suggestions of your mindset during the picking phase in a regular game of all pick, as most would argue that a game is either partly or fully decided during these crucial ninety seconds. Well then, let’s begin!
First, let’s take a look at a scenario: Your team is comprised of the heroes show below: Faceless Void, Skywrath Mage, Invoker, and Enigma.
Void, SkyWrath, Invoker and Enigma
At first look, you can obviously see this: Your team will try to take every teamfight they can find as soon as everyone has their ultimates ready. Faceless Void’s Chronosphere will ensure that Skywrath Mage’s Mystic Flare hits for its full damage, which is basically a free kill in most scenarios. Meanwhile, Invoker can easily land a Meteor & Sun Strike on targets caught in a Chronosphere, and it will be somewhat easy for Enigma to get a good Black Hole in.
The question at hand is this: Which hero should YOU play? Firstly, let’s take a look at what lanes your team wants. Most likely, these are the lanes: Faceless Void & Skywrath Mage in the safe lane, Invoker in the mid lane & Enigma in the jungle. That means you should pick an offlaner. There are many ways of playing an offlaner, but a popular one currently is to go with a tanky strength hero, so let’s take a look at some of them.
Bristleback, Centaur and Timbersaw
Bristleback, Centaur Warrunner & Timbersaw are all good offlaners, due to their durability & not being very farm-dependant. Bristleback loves a long teamfight, as he can stack up his Quill Spray on opponents and deal successively more damage over time. This also makes it so that if enemies stay with too many stacks of quill spray on them, they are at a risk of being killed easily, making the enemy less willing to attack Bristleback. However, the AoE of Quill spray is not big enough to catch everyone in a Chronosphere if the enemy team is somewhat spread out, so Bristleback is out.
Centaur Warrunner is a good offlaner due to both his durability & his passive Return, which deals damage to enemies when they attack him. He needs some farm, though, as a Blink Dagger is almost necessary in order to get good hoof stomps in. In addition, he is generally an initiator who loves to gank, and prefers to teamfight when he has an advantage, something which may not happen with this team. Therefore, Centaur is not the most optimal offlaner here.
Then we have Timbersaw, whose passive gives him not only more armor, but also extra health regeneration, making him a very good offlaner. In addition, since his skills mix so well together, he can easily get kills at level 6 as long as his opponent does not have magic immunity. However, with this team, the only skill he can really use in the chronosphere during teamfights is his ultimate, Chakram, as he need to be right next to his targets to deal the full damage. During the following Black Hole, though, he can deal extreme amounts of damage since the enemy will be clumped up in a small area. Therefore, while not optimal, he most certainly is a good fit for this line-up. Now, let us finish this with two heroes which would be a great fit for this line-up.
Doom and Tidehunter
First off, there’s Doom. He is a good offlaner who might not have the kill potential of the others, but can shut down anyone in a teamfight due to his ultimate, Doom, going through everything. Therefore, whenever Faceless Void doesn’t catch the entire enemy team in a Chronosphere, Void can decide which of the remaining enemies that he feels might hamper voids path of mayhem the most, and Doom that hero. This nearly ensures a victory in almost every teamfight, and is why Doom is a great fit for this line-up.
Finally, there’s the extreme teamfight line-up, which has Tidehunter as an offlaner. Tidehunter is a great offlaner due to his passive Kraken Shell, which gives him amazing damage block. In addition, his Anchor Smash deals Physical damage as well as lowers enemy damage, making it harder for them to last hit. Finally, with maxed Kraken Shell & levelling up Anchor Smash, Tidehunter can easily stack & take down ancients, leading to him getting a faster Blink Dagger, which is generally core on Tidehunter. Since Tidehunter’s ultimate Ravage is an AoE stun which deals great damage, he fits in VERY well with the rest of the line-up, and these five will dominate almost every teamfight they are in
Some final advice: You will not always be able to pick the most optimal hero for your team, but as this article shows you, you always have many options which work just as well, if not better some of the time. Just always ask yourself this question: What does my team need? Answer this question truthfully, and your games may become better as a result of you knowing not to pick Riki when you need a hero for the offlane. Good luck & have fun!