Alright, let's talk about this top tier, which are hilarious and horrifying at the same time.
Magina, the Anti-Mage.
Magina has one of the most terrifying spellsets in the game, especially if, rather obviously, you happen to be a Mage, but let's start at his early game. Unlike in League of Legends, melee carries aren't given heals, or life drains, or anything like that. Instead they had to rely on their innate advantages, and a babysitter who could look out for them and keep them safe from the enemy team, who understandably wants to kill him. Magina's two main advantages are his speed, being one of the fastest heroes in the game, and his attack speed, which is the fastest in the game. Early on he'll be darting in and out, nabbing last hits, trying not to get hurt and so on and so forth, he wants items, so he's going to try his hardest to get the gold to buy them.
Despite this, he knows that heroes are much more lucrative than creeps, and he has the abilities to start messing up casters, seriously. As you decide to nuke him, you'll notice your spells doing less damage than normal, up to a 40% reduction, thanks to his passive ability called Spell Shield, and since this isn't League of Legends, you can't buy passive Magic Penetration, it's all tied to active items, and you can't buy ability power, so nuking him is almost a fool's errand.
So you decide to conserve your mana, as Anti-Mage proceeds his slow and steady farm. Eventually, a couple of your allies decide that it's best to gank him, because, you know, kill him before he gets too powerful. You start attacking him, he only has one hundred health but he's running away now, you fire off a targetted nuke, and you know it's going to kill him, it just has to reach him...
Then he pops Blink and the nuke vanishes into the ether. Remember old Flash, the one that could pop projectiles? Anti-Mage has that, except it costs mana, the range is larger, and it's on a 6 second cooldown, and DotA has so many more natural juke points which let him escape, the most mobile hero in the game just got even more mobile, without items, and to make it worse, he didn't die.
So you both go back to your lane and face each other, except this time, Anti-Mage wants payback, so he just runs up and starts beating the hell out of you. Oh well, at least you can still nuke him in return, except you then notice that your mana is dropping like a stone. Anti-Mage's second passive causes him to burn up to 64 mana per hit and keep in mind this is on the hero with the fastest base attack speed in the game, and each point of mana he burns off you deals 0.6 damage, which means he's doing at least 35 extra damage, no matter what type of hero you are, short of the fabled manaless carry (these exist), your offensive potential is going to be utterly neutered.
Oh well, at least you can try and run away, except he's the fastest hero in the game, enjoy your death.
So you fight him again, except this time you have an ally to stun him and start beating him up as well, except you're still at 0 mana, so once again, you run away, except you have a headstart, there's no way he can kill you, even with a Blink, he's too far away. Well, he just Blinks 400 units away from you and nukes you with ability called Mana Void, which does damage per point of mana you have missing. So you're missing 1000 points of mana and you have 250 health, once again, you're dead.
So finally Anti-Mage farms up his items and picks up something called a Cranium Basher, which gives him a 25% chance to stun for 1.4 seconds every 2 seconds. So next time he ganks you and you're by yourself, you won't even get the chance to move properly, then his team enables him to just go crazy on the rest of your team with his insane attack stats, and if he doesn't want to fight, he'll just teleport away and come back when you least suspect it.
Also here's a terrifying thought, Cranium Bashers used to stack and not have the cooldown, which meant you'd be getting permanently locked down from 100% to 0, and not even have the mana to respond in any sort of serious way, which you couldn't anyway, because of permastun.
Rattletrap, the Clockwerk Goblin
So, he's apparently one of the top tier heroes, though this fact doesn't surprise me at all. Let's meet a little something called synergy...
Rattletrap, the Clockwerk Goblin
The very first thing you'll notice about someone picking Rattletrap is the notification where you get told that someone on the enemy team picking Rattletrap. You'll notice the second thing around ten seconds later, when a missile crashes into your spawn location, hitting you all for 80 damage, and revealing the location for 10 seconds, pretty much showing him where you're going, what items you're buying, and what you all are (though the last one is obvious due to the nature of DotA).
Rocket Flare is a missile that hurts people, the reveal lasts for 10 seconds, and the range is GLOBAL. The mana cost is low and the cooldown finally ends at 14 seconds.
Actually you know what, I'm going to compare it to Hawkshot from League of Legends:
Hawkshot Rocket Flare
Range: 5500 Global
Cooldown: 60 14
Damage: 0 200
Mana Cost: 0 50
Duration: 5 10
I'll just let you deal with the ramifications of this skill, he can see anywhere on the map, runes, towers, river, jungle creeps, anywhere, with little to no penalty, especially since he won't be using mana in the early game. It's like Clairvoyance, but better, it's like Hawkshot, but better, for the purposes of intelligence, kill sniping (if you're good at prediction), last hitting, this skill reigns supreme, it's so good I've spent three paragraphs and a table talking about how good it is.
So uh, yeah, and I'm still only his first skill and he hasn't even started laning yet and he sounds insane, it gets worse.
So Clockwerk begins laning, he's last hitting with his Rocket Flare unless he wishes to descend to the level of mere mortals and last hit normally, he's not really using mana except to harass you or take creep kills, but still, he's content to farm, after all, he only needs two items to begin his reign of terror.
Eventually, he'll get them, and he'll just leave the lane, apparently bested, let's assume he's level 11 and just been farming for the purposes of this excercise. The next thing you know, a Rocket Flare lands on you, annoying, but you're more than used to it. So you don't really mind, he can see you, so what?
Suddenly a giant hook smashes into you and Clockwerk activates both of his spells and proceeds to beat the hell out of you while you're unable to move and then die in the space of 6 seconds.
So what just happened? Let's break it down and take it slow.
Clockwerk's ultimate is called Hookshot, it has a maximum range of 3000 (keep in mind the two screen range of Tinker's missiles are 2500), once it hits an enemy, Clockwerk is dragged towards them, stunning the enemy for 2 seconds and dealing 300 damage. Once next to you, he'll activate something called Battery Assault, a point black AoE that deals a ministun and damage to a random target in range every 0.75 seconds. It lasts for 10 seconds, can deal a maximum of 1125 damage, and has a 20 second cooldown, so to put it simply, you're not escaping from this.
Though if by some miracle you begin to crawl away, he'll employ something called Power Cogs. Eight cogs surround him, preventing whatever's inside from getting out, and this will normally be you and him. The only way to break the cogs is to hit them 3 times, and to make it even worse, if an enemy comes to try and melee them, he'll take 100 mana and health damage, and get knocked back. Said cogs survive for 6 secnds, so have fun.
So yeah, Clockwerk will hook onto you halfway across the map, stun you, stun you some more, lock you inside a death room and then proceed to beat you to death with a spanner. If by some supreme miracle you begin to get the best of him, he'll start to run away, if you're staying close to him and hitting him hard, he'll trap you inside cogs again and then use his upgraded ult to GRAB AN ALLIED CREEP OR HERO 3000 UNITS AWAY AND HOOK HIMSELF TO THEM, meaning he's got away scot free. Also his upgraded ultimate has a 14 second cooldown, so you know he's going to be back for more.
So let's review, Clockwerk has:
- The best global vision spell in the game
- The best single target initation in the game, with a low cooldown.
- One of the best lockdowns in the game.
- One of the best escapes in the game.
- The best voice in the game.
Squee, Spleen and Spoon, the Goblin Techies
From top tier to bottom tier, I wasn't even planning to do this, but because you're all so eager for it...
God I hate all of you.
Squee, Spleen and Spoon, the Goblin Techies.
The Goblin Techies have the dubious honour of having the slowest movement speed, and the lowest autoattack damage in the game. On the bright side, they have decent range.
If you're unlucky, the first thing you'll see of Techies will be a tiny green and brown blob running towards you at blinding speed and then taking both you and them out in an enormous fireball. If you're really unlucky, you won't even see them coming towards you, you'll just explode and die. This is Techies' most famous early game gimmick, and it relies a fair bit on luck.
Said gimmick sitting in river and waiting for a rune to spawn, if said rune offers them Haste or Invisibility, they'll take their Suicide Ability snd then proceed to run full barrel into the most valuble hero on the enemy team and blow themselves, and them up. Suicide Squad, Attack! is the most damaging nuke in the game, dealing 650 damage at level 1, enough to kill most heroes in the game. In addition to this, it denies Techies, and halves their death timer, letting them get back into the action faster.
(Disclaimer: If Techies has a Tiny in his party, expect Tiny to use Techies as a literal hand grenade and throw him onto you, where he then proceeds to detonate and kill you)
If you're marginally luckier, Techies won't decide to blow himself up on you, apparently not putting his fate down to the RNG, instead you'll head to your lane and begin farming, facing the Techies who seems extremely passive, and another enemy hero. The enemy hero seems strangely eager to let you attack him, however, once he gets near death, he proceeds to run in a rather strange direction, into the forest, or down the river, just not in a place your creeps have walked over.
So you chase him, then you proceed to just run into four Land Mines and explode. Land Mines are invisible and deal 300 damage at level 1, and 600 damage at level 4. If the Techies player is skilled, he'll stack them, meaning if you step on one mine, you'll step on them all, causing you to take a huge amount of damage in the space of a second.
(Disclaimer: Tiny can walk up and throw you onto a clump of Land Mines, killing you. Pudge can also pull you onto Land Mines, killing you. Bat Rider can drag you through a group of Land Mines, killing you.)
So now you've learnt that you shouldn't stand where creeps haven't walked over, and every so often Techies uses a single Land Mine to clear a creep wave, giving him a fair amount of gold. Once again, some time after Techies has hit level 8 and backed off into the fog of war every so often, him and his ally get low on health, you give chase again, making sure to walk in places your creeps have walked on.
Then you hear Techies said "Goodbye" and just raze an entire area of the screen to the ground, the area that you and your ally were on, who are both now dead. Techies' ultimate is named Remote Mines, an invisible keg of explosives that lasts for 8 minutes and deals a huge amount of damage per keg, eventually topping out at 750. Unlike the landmines, these can only be detonated by Techies himself, which means you won't be aware of them until he wants you to be.
So the game goes on, Techies has mined the runes, the Secret Shop, random forest passageways, the river, things you've only discovered after you've ran on the mines and died. Eventually you manage to force a fullblown teamfight, Techies can't do much if he hasn't been given time to prepare, right? After all, all he did so far is drop an innocous looking ward.
Said ward is a Stasis Trap, which upon priming and detonating, proceeds to stun all enemy heroes in a moderate area for 6 seconds, then Techies just picks a target, drops a Land Mine under them, then picks another target and proceeds to suicide into them for 1550 damage, thus contributing to the teamfight.
However, you finally wise up to Techies, you get a Gem of Truesight, you're ready for his bullshit mines and are able to take them out before running into them. So Techies employs a change of tactics, he begins to push, using Land Mines to kill entire creep waves, and then once he gets to the tower, proceeds to drop said Mines under the tower, dealing 500+ damage to the tower for every mine that detonates, which makes short work of a tower.
Once again, you chase Techies, after all, he can't do much to you by himself, he tries to lead you through mines but because of your Gem of Truesight, you're able to destroy them or dodge them entirely, he runs down river and then up the ramp on the other side. You follow him, and then explode on the Land mines on top of the ramp that you couldn't see due to elevation vision in DotA. Then he blows up your Gem and buys a Divine Rapier and just kills everything by A-Moving because holy fuck how can you die to Techies so many times.
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