One of the most anticipated StarCraft 2 tournaments is just around the corner, with the world's best players getting ready to fight for their share of $500,000 in prize money.
A legendary esports event, the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Katowice is a CS:GO tournament held in Poland. In this guide, we'll go over all the participating teams, details about the schedule, as well as everything you need to know about IEM CS:GO betting!
The Dota Pro Circuit is in full flow. The next big tournament in this seasonal circuit is the PGL Arlington Major. Texas is the location, Esports Stadium Arlington is the venue of choice, and seventeen brilliant Dota 2 teams will be eyeing their chances here.
The LEC (League of Legends European Championship) is entering a new decade starting with the inaugural Winter split. From team rosters to an all-new tournament format, the league will be seeing much more competition.
Being a game with very intricate mechanics and unique interactions, Dota 2 is more complicated than other MOBAs, but allows for further in-game permutations, such as item builds and team hero compositions. In this guide, we’ll be covering all the important information about Dota 2 heroes, and we’ll also mention some of the most popular ones currently.
Dota 2 heroes are in-game characters, divided into 3 main categories – Strength, Agility, and Intelligence, with unique abilities that players control in order to defeat the enemy team in a 5 versus 5 match.
It must be said that each hero has all three attributes (as we’ll be calling them from now on) that scale as they level up, but can have only one primary attribute. All heroes receive +1 main attack damage for each main attribute point.
The main attribute defines the hero’s play style, scaling, and build path in most cases (off-meta builds are also a thing).
For an esports game, this is already a lot of complexity, but there’s even more. Let’s talk about hero roles!
There are 9 roles that describe every hero, so each hero can fulfill multiple primary roles, creating a lot of versatility when it comes to team compositions. Heroes aren’t strictly carries or nukers, for instance.
Carry heroes are typically weak in the early game and require assistance throughout the mid-game (unless sufficiently ‘fed’ by the enemy team). However, it is their job to ‘carry’ the team to victory by demolishing the enemy team with their overwhelming damage. Still, in balanced conditions, they need to be careful because they generally don’t have a lot of defensive attributes.
Example Heroes: Night Stalker, Morphling, Outworld Destroyer
These heroes primarily support the team with their abilities by harassing the enemy or protecting friendly heroes. They are usually played ‘in a lane’ with another hero. Supports focus less on gathering gold and getting items quickly because they need to be a constant threat in the match by protecting their carries, which are the main damage dealers of the teams.
Example Heroes: Marci, Vengeful Spirit, Keeper of the Light
The job of a nuker hero is to quickly and decisively turn the tides of the battle when possible. They can cause massive damage in a short amount of time due to their abilities. On top of that, these heroes generally have low cooldowns on their spells and, when paired with the fact that most of their abilities cause Area-of-Effect (AoE) damage, nukers are a crucial source of damage for any team.
Example Heroes: Earth Spirit, Ember Spirit, Storm Spirit
Disabler heroes focus on crowd control and, as their name suggests, disables. These include silences, knockups, stuns, and other disabling abilities. Usually, disablers are also supports because their spells aren’t improved by items. Still, they are an invaluable asset since they can successfully shut down an attack by the enemy team.
Example Heroes: Earthshaker, Riki, Rubick
Junglers are heroes who are highly efficient at scaling by farming jungle creeps. On top of that, having a jungler leads to a team having two solo lanes whose heroes will gain experience and gold quicker. The job of a jungler is also to create pressure in the enemy side lanes by initiating an occasional gank, often with the help of a disabler or support.
Example Heroes: Lycan, Bloodseeker, Chen
Durable heroes (more commonly known as tanks) are heroes whose sole purpose is to disrupt the enemy attack by soaking up most of the damage. This is usually done by ‘forcing’ the enemy team to react to your threats which are commonly AoE spells, summons, or by simply engaging the enemy first. Tank heroes often also fulfill the role of initiator.
Example Heroes: Tidehunter, Ursa, Ogre Magi
Escape heroes are most often played in the ‘suicide’ or short-lane because they have escape mechanisms that make them difficult targets for the enemy team. This sort of agility (not to be confused with the attribute called agility) also gives them unparalleled versatility in teamfights because they can reposition themselves quickly.
Example Heroes: Io, Faceless Void, Batrider
Pushers are all about sieging and destroying the enemy team’s structures such as towers and barracks. Teams require strong map control if they are to win the mid-to-late game, and this is usually accomplished with pushers. Their spells include damaging enemy towers, summoning friendly units, fortifying allied creeps and units, and doing AoE damage.
Example Heroes: Chaos Knight, Broodmother, Enigma
The primary task of initiator heroes is to start teamfights by jumping into the enemy team, surprise attacking them, or disabling them in many ways. It’s worth noting that most initiator heroes rely on the Force Staff and/or Blink Dagger items for acquiring a better position before initiating a teamfight. They are crucial for winning the late game and, ultimately, the match.
Example Heroes: Magnus, Nyx Assassin, Dark Seer
The most popular Dota 2 heroes are often defined by the current meta. We often see highly popular heroes played in esports tournaments as well, and there are even surprise hero picks by esports teams in these tournaments.
Ultimately, the ‘most popular hero list’ is not a definitive list and can change on a regular basis. As of now, these are the 10 most popular Dota 2 heroes (based on information from DotaBuff):
Valve has been slowly releasing new Dota 2 heroes with an average of two per year. However, there has only been one new hero in 2022 – Primal Beast, released in February.
The new hero Primal Beast stomps into action and the jungle creeps rise to join his savage hunt! Dive into the details of the entire 7.31 Gameplay Update — also including a Techies rework, new items, and more — over at https://t.co/QL0VEvGk8I pic.twitter.com/oZxZpCzPy5 — DOTA 2 (@DOTA2) February 23, 2022
The new hero Primal Beast stomps into action and the jungle creeps rise to join his savage hunt! Dive into the details of the entire 7.31 Gameplay Update — also including a Techies rework, new items, and more — over at https://t.co/QL0VEvGk8I pic.twitter.com/oZxZpCzPy5
— DOTA 2 (@DOTA2) February 23, 2022
Also, since Dota 2 is based on the original Defense of the Ancients Allstars game (called DotA Allstars for short), all of the heroes from Allstars are in Dota 2. However, there are currently 11 heroes that can only be found in Dota 2. These are:
There have also been rumours about five heroes that seem to be in the works, but Valve has not confirmed anything yet.
You might be surprised to learn this, but all Dota 2 heroes are available to use for free! You’ll have to finish playing the tutorial but overall, the only things that cost money in the game are skins and battle passes. Also, it’s worth noting that Dota 2’s tutorial is incredibly well-designed, especially compared to other MOBAs.
Dota 2 betting is among the most exciting forms of esports betting out there, predominantly due to the game’s complexity and incredible esports matches. Numerous teams from various esports countries all try to play to the best of their ability so they can qualify for The International; Dota 2’s biggest esports event of the year.
If you’re interested in Dota 2 betting, it’s best to start with watching a few live streams, on top of learning about the game and the teams.
While it may be entirely possible that an esports betting site may offer this opportunity, we have not found an instance of it. It’s probably very difficult to optimise the odds considering there are more than 100 heroes in the game.
With all its pros and cons, there’s no doubt that Dota 2 is one of the greatest esports games ever made. The heroes in Dota can be played in a variety of ways and, even though it might be more complicated than others MOBAs, it’s an excellent source of entertainment and fun.
Currently, the 3 most popular Dota 2 heroes are Pudge, Sniper, and Juggernaut with 26.87%, 20.85%, and 20.41% pick rates, respectively.
There are currently 123 heroes in Dota 2, with a rumoured 5 new heroes that are supposed to be released in the following year.
The newest Dota 2 hero is Primal Beast, released on the 23rd of February 2022.
All Dota 2 heroes are completely free and unlocked for all players, so there’s no need to do anything to get them (apart from finishing the tutorial).
No, you cannot place bets on hero selection in tournaments.
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