Dota 2 positions guide

In each team, Dota 2 is a kind of game that involves five participants. For one to effectively carry out their responsibilities and assist the team in winning, each player should be aware of his or her position and role in the squad. In the context of this article, we will examine various positions in Dota 2 such as what they are, how these positions can be played, which items to create for them and what they entail as well as how to determine heroes’ roles. This will help new players understand about Dota 2 while experienced ones may change their point of view. Gold is at the center of the game, it represents artifacts and whoever has more artifacts from their team it is likely that he won.

In Dota 2, there are roles from first to fifth. The first position (carry) has the highest priority in farming. The support on the fifth position has the lowest priority. This depends primarily on the character - the stronger the hero without money, the less farm they need on the map. Conversely, a hero who only reveals themselves when they receive certain artifacts is likely to be on the first (carry) and second positions (mid).

First position - Carry

Many people think that all a carry does is collect as much gold as possible but this is not entirely true. The majority of times carries deal main damage to enemy heroes especially towers. Carries are crucial for most effective aggressive actions by teams. The problem with carries on a hero’s peak strength reaching when other team may have already started pressuring them exists though here lays a problem. So essentially carries must know when their hero becomes strong and how long such strength would last till that point in time they need productive farming too before then. The fifth support pairs with safe lane’s carry being on Radiant bottom/Dire top. Also, a good choice of meta carry will help to win.

What items to build for the Carry?

The carry needs to build items that increase their damage to enemy heroes, speed up farming, mobility, and defense. For example:

• Butterfly;

• Battle Fury;

• Blink Dagger;

• Abyssal Blade;

• Desolator;

• Monkey King Bar;

• Satanic;

• Eye of Skadi;

• Bloodthorn;

• Black King Bar;

• Manta Style;

• Hurricane Pike;

• Daedalus;

• Silver Edge;

• Gleipnir;

• Aghanim's Scepter.

Tips for playing the Carry

• When you come to the lane, you need to know which support you are playing with. For example, if you have an aggressive support like Undying, Witch Doctor, or Dazzle, then you should try to fight, but in general, you should focus on last hitting creeps.

• Use aggressive creeps (by attacking an enemy hero, their allied creeps will start attacking you) - this way you can hold the lane in one place and secure your farm.

• When upgrading your skills, try to consider how much mana will be required for the maximum leveled skill. Treat skill points as a valuable resource and only upgrade "unnecessary" skills if it is necessary.

• Carefully plan your farming route to avoid wandering and losing valuable seconds, experience, and gold.

In the end, what should be remembered here are those stars, who stand out in their positions and whose replays or streams you can use as a great source of knowledge: YATORO, Miracle-, Ame, Pakazs, skiter, Pure, MATUMBAMAN.

Second position - Midlaner

These players have the second priority in farming in the team and are generally very similar to the carry role. This character too is known for dealing damage but unlike hero two starts out with the one-on-one matchups where they will earn levels faster than others. But everything depends on winning lane. In case your midlaner dominates his counterpart then he/she would level up earlier than them and most likely kill more creeps which would result into more experience points and golds for example. Many people still feel that at least a level 6 midlaner must start going around the map helping their teammates; this is not entirely true. Like carry, starting from a minimum level midlaners’ power spike begins and they can begin to do something on the map in this way. Normally such heroes from midlane need lower number of gold to reach minimum compared to carry. However, a hero should possess some other qualities like stable damage and farming speed for instance: first of all, the midlaner should demonstrate a stable damage output as well as high farming speed just as it is required by carries (that’s). Secondly, midlaners are heroes who heavily rely on levels, such as Shadow Fiend, Lina, Invoker. They are in great need of an early level due to their powerful skills.

What items to build for the Midlaner?

• Black King Bar;

• Blink Dagger;

• Bloodstone;

• Scythe of Vyse;

• Ethereal Blade;

• Aghanim's Scepter;

• Bloodthorn;

• Eul's Scepter of Divinity;

• Kaya and Sange.

Tips for playing the Midlaner

• Use aggro creeps more often (by attacking an enemy hero, their allied creeps start attacking you) - this way, you can keep the lane in one place and protect yourself from unexpected ganks by enemy supports.

• Place a good ward, which will give you vision of one of the runes and the enemy HG - it will give you a huge advantage over the opponent.

• Do not go deep into the enemy HG, as the opponent's midlaner may call their supports to gank you.

• If the enemy creeps are under their tower, the best decision will be to go to the jungle and farm a small camp. You will not lose out on experience and gold, and you will also protect yourself.

• Abuse the bottle - if your bottle is empty, ask your support who is on the fountain to teleport to your lane. Right after the teleport, they will still have the fountain buff, and by transferring your empty bottle to them, you can refill it.

In conclusion, it’s important to remember those most famous and professional players who are very successful in this role and whose broadcasts or replays we can learn something from; NothingToSay, Somnus丶M, Nisha, Paparazi, gpK~, No[o]ne, bzm.

Third position - Offlaner

The offlaner is a hero who either breaks the enemy’s carry farm or attracts support to himself. They move into this hard lane together with their fourth position support. The offlaner could also have a little gold for one or two things of value to control the game. However, there are several attributes that make a hero great in that role.

• Strong laning ability, survivability, and ability to disrupt farm.

• Moderation. The third position only requires 3-4 thousand gold for minimum activity, otherwise farming with the mid and carry after the laning phase can lead to the enemy team's dominance.

Typically, the role of a tanky initiator with team items falls on the hardlaner.

What items to build for offlaner?

• Blink Dagger;

• Black King Bar;

• Meteor Hammer;

• Heaven's Halberd;

• Pipe of Insight;

• Guardian Greaves;

• Shiva's Guard;

• Lotus Orb;

• Octarine Core;

• Assault Cuirass;

• Blade Mail;

• Aghanim's Scepter;

• Helm of the Overlord.

Tips for playing the offlaner

Let's turn to the advice of professional offlaners:

• Jenkins: Continuously "annoy" the opponent and pressure their support. Make them spend their time and effort stabilizing the lane. It is important to get as much money as possible by killing ancients or clearing the jungle.

• MJW: Many players on this lane literally burn out of greed when they see a large wave of creeps approaching the tower. But sometimes it's better not to risk and just get experience instead of dying while earning gold.

• Brax: You should only go to the jungle when it brings more gold and experience, and when there are no other places on the map for your hero. If the lane is heavily pushed, it's better to call your support and defend together. But if there is no such opportunity, you should go to the jungle, even if it means losing the tower.

• Ar1sE: I think the most important thing is not to die for stupid reasons. If you can't avoid death, well, bad things happen. But you can't just go and die because of your own greed. It's okay to die in a way that makes opponents use all their abilities and lose a lot of health and mana. This will make them go back to base, and during that time, you can catch up on what you missed in lane.

It is worth remembering the most famous and professional players who excel in this role, and watching their streams or replays to learn: Ceb, Faith_bian, 33, iceiceice, Collapse, Zai, Ace.

Fourth position - Soft Support

Supports can be viewed as an extra carry. They don’t farm and depend only on their skills. The fourth position goes with its hardlaner to the difficult lane so that enemy carry cannot get free farming time there. Support 4th position isn’t too different from support 5th position. Both hardly stress the map resources, but at least support 4th position has a dependence on item slots and, thus, is able to spend gold in a more efficient way. As such, being responsible for buying wards, dusts and other consumables is usually left for the fifth position; however, if this becomes unbearable for him or her then the fourth position can assist. In most cases supports are strong early game heroes who determine how well their team performs during laning stage. The support 4th needs to win his/her line-up fights together with his/her teammates while continuing to farm without affecting his/her carry’s farm rate.The least greedy of all.

What items to build for soft support

• Glimmer Cape;

• Aether Lens;

• Force Staff;

• Holy Locket;

• Blink Dagger;

• Aeon Disk;

• Mekansm;

• Ghost Scepter.

Tips for playing as the 4th position

• Help your hardlaner to deny allied creeps, thus depriving the enemy carry of gold and experience, which can slow down their timings.

• If everything is stable on your lane, go and help the mid laner - control the gold and water runes to make it difficult for the enemy mid laner.

• If you're out of resources like mana and XP, one good option is to farm neutral creeps to return to the lane with full resources and continue pressuring the enemy carry.

• Make pulls. Pulls will help bring the lane back into a comfortable position if the creep wave has pushed too far into the enemy's territory.

Finally, the players that everyone knows are very successful at this role and whose streams and replays we can watch are: Cr1t-, Mira, XinQ, boxi, tOfu, Miposhka and BoBoKa.

Fifth position - Hard Support

The 5th position support is normally starved of gold which means that he won’t have many items. Similarly, the fifth position in today’s dota is responsible for supporting and safeguarding their carry from double offlanes on the other side. Hence it is crucial to remember that placing and buying wards on the map are very important duties of a 5th position player. The fifth position support as an addition to the carry usually goes with him/her on the easy lane hence this hero is often called a soft support elsewhere.

What items to build for hard support

Recommended items for the fifth position support include:

• Glimmer Cape;

• Aether Lens;

• Force Staff;

• Holy Locket;

• Blink Dagger;

• Aeon Disk;

• Mekansm;

• Ghost Scepter.

Tips for playing the support position 5

• Do not place wards in obvious places that can be seen by the enemy, as they will be quickly destroyed. Find original warding spots.

• If your lane is stable, go help the mid-laner and control the gold and water runes to make it difficult for the enemy mid-laner.

• Help your mid-laner abuse the bottle, if possible.

• Make stacks and pulls. Pulls will help bring the lane back into a favorable position if the enemy's creep wave is pushed too far. Stacks will help bring in a large amount of gold and experience in one go.

Lastly, let’s look at some of the well-known players in the field who are most esteemed for their displays and showing incredible skills in this role when they either stream or replay: Cr1t-, Mira, XinQ, boxi, tOfu, Miposhka, BoBoKa.

The hardest Dota 2 position

Most pro players will tell you that the support is one of the hardest positions in Dota 2. The game leaders in 4th and 5th roles face a big responsibility for winning at every stage. Defend your allies safely, watch over the map , keep track of your team and hinder opponents. Most line-ups also put their fives as captains.

However, dealing with gold and experience deficiency presents one of the main problems this role has to solve if they want to play effectively for their team across all situations.

Continuous dynamism of the support category is warranted by map control competition including how to keep crucial items such as Arcane Boots and teleportation scrolls within possession of a player who thinks strategically. They can be key people in matches despite their intricacy which define experienced supports influencing how games go.

The support role often does not get highlighted as much as other positions like carry do; however it plays a very vital role in game play. Supporting heroes have to fight for every coin while developing comfortably alongside his teammates as opposed to carries who aim at gathering golds and experiences for late gaming purposes. The good performance of carries late on cannot be assured without having capable supports behind them –this therefore underscores how complex support is due its strategic importance to overall team success.

Some professional players also consider offlane position (third position) as hard because they have got a lot on their hands competing against enemy carries and supports; hence enemies attempt creating problems for offline making him/her unable to farm easily which results into complexity barely involving skillful decision-making process by a player occupying it.

Why does a support player often become the captain of a Dota 2 roster?

The primary reason that a Dota 2 support has the highest chance of becoming a team captain is that he is not preoccupied with farming and other battle mechanics, thus allowing him to concentrate on strategy. Since he, as a support, does not have a core position player’s resource base, he has time to surveil the activity of the enemies and direct the team.

Also, it should be taken into account that the positions of the Dota 2 squad are more often occupied by more experienced players, who, unlike young cyber athletes, are characterized by a higher game intelligence due to years of experience.

Conclusion

Dota 2 roles have unique significance and require coordinated play by every position to win. The fifth position support is not less important than the carry on the first position. Supports control maps and enemy heroes, and their choices and actions in the field have a considerable influence on how games end.