Hey everyone, Huskyboost here. Welcome to another guide. We’re back with an episode of the downside of heroes. This is a guide where I go in alphabetical order through every single dota hero.
Axe
The first one for today is Axe. He is a very common offlaner and initiator, but he has some major downsides and is a big reason why this hero actually isn’t very popular in the pro scene even though. Its win rate right now at this current point in dota is actually pretty good. The first one is the hero has pretty bad armor at level 1, which means that the hero can be punished pretty hard in the early laning stage.
So what you should keep in mind is if you have some sort of aggressive lean, keep in mind a blight stone on either the support or the carry, and run at the Axe. It’s very common that, especially if the Axe does not buy a ring of protection, they will be able to shred through his hp pull even if he takes Counter Helix.
Eul’s Scepter Of Divinity
The second one is Eul’s Scepter Of Divinity. At any point in the game, Axe’s major way of doing damage is actually Blademail; right, it’s Blademail and Counter Helix. However, neither of these does any damage if Axe gets used. Therefore, if you are any hero that doesn’t have to grief their item, build to buy Eul’s completely.
You should consider a Eul’s if the Axe is snowballing, if he’s a major threat, or if he’s doing a lot of damage because whoever he goes on, if you can use the Axe, they won’t take Blademail damage, and Axe won’t spin, and the Call won’t do very much damage at all.
Lacks of damage
The next thing is that he lacks damage against certain heroes. Compared to a lot of initiators in the game, Axe kind of has a specific archetype of a hero he likes playing against. He really even compared to other initiators who also generally hate these heroes. Axe really hates playing against heroes like Necrophos and Venomancer because not only do they annoy his Blink Dagger, but even when he Calls them with Blademail or Counter Helix, neither of these heroes does any damage to Blademail or proc Counter Helix.
So he has certain matchups that are just really bad. Let’s compare it to something like a Pangolier. There’s not a single hero in the game that Pangolier really chains stun. There’s not a single hero that, like, let’s say, Mars Arena isn’t pretty good against, right? What I mean is the Mars combo just kind of does a lot of damage inherently. And so it Axes as a little bit unreliable in that regard.
Tons of farming
Finally, it requires a good amount of farming to do things. Heroes like Pangolier and Mars, just as an example of more meta-toppling top offlane heroes, don’t need a Blink Dagger to do things. Without items, they can have a lot more impact and a much more reliable laning stage. Axe requires decent matchups or at least an understanding of when to a lane and when to cut wave to make sure that he can do stuff in the game because if you don’t get to your Vanguard timing, you’re extremely susceptible to being ganked, you have no disengage compared to other heroes Call is a horrible disengaged spell.
Your “w” Battle Hunger is mediocre. Mars can spear people away, and Pangolier can Swashbuckle Shield crash and roll. So you don’t really have a good way to disengage, so Axe is very easily ganged compared to other offers; right, he has no disengage. This is always the case throughout the game on Axe. He never has disengage, which is kind of a problem for the hero as well, but he requires the farm to do stuff.
So you’ll see pros if Axe is picked for one reason or another, which he’s not picked a lot, because you can see he has quite a bit of downside, which is that if he gets ganked a lot and falls behind, he’s one of the worst initiators in the game because with just a Blink he does limited damage. If he doesn’t go Vanguard, he’s squishy and is the easiest offender in the game to kill.
Beastmaster
Alright, next up is Beastmaster staying with initiators. He has some very hard counters. The first one is Enchantress and Chen in the lane also. You could probably put Crystal Maiden in here with the Frostbite of the boar, but basically, any hero can take the boar out of the lane. Makes this hero a pretty freaking weak laner, like you can take wild Axes to substitute, but that’s not very great.
It’s like kind of meh right now. And so yeah, some heroes just dominate Beastmaster. If you fall behind on Beastmaster, this hero is tragic, in my opinion. It still is a stun, but it’s kind of a long cooldown and isn’t that great. It doesn’t do that much damage. The boar, if you fall behind, is trash Helmet the Dominator.
Worse harpy creep items
The later you get it, the worse the item is beside the harpy creep, but that’s not how you want to play Beastmaster. So if you lose your lane hard on this hero to an end, sure to a PA, for instance, edge PA should dominate this hero in a lane, as I’ve literally seen games like this when this hero gets dominated because it doesn’t have a good way to, cut waves it doesn’t have a good way to secure range creeps unless you take wild Axe is which still isn’t that great, and so it can get crushed.
So keep in mind if you see a Beastmaster picked and you have the last pick understand its counter heroes, stuff like Troll Warlord and lane, stuff like PA if you can kill him early on and put pressure when boar is shitty at level one, you can really make this guy have no game.
Mid-late game details
On top of that, he falls off hard into the mid-late game. Beastmaster kind of, like, if he wins his lane, he’s like the best hero in the game in a lot of games the for the first 15 to 20 minutes. This hero can own it can control 30 of the map alone due to its units and hawks, and it can make the game completely unplayable in certain areas.
So in a good Beastmaster game, this hero thrives for the first 25 minutes in the fifth game, but then it kind of falls off, yet still a BKB disable, still can give vision, which is why it doesn’t fall off that hard in pro games because it’s still like a hard stunt through BKB and it still is a vision hero but it in pubs.
Finally, it struggles against Linnen’s. It just struggles against Linken’s Sphere. I don’t tell you you can’t pop it any other way. I technically can take over creeps that. Can, if I’m not mistaken, it can buy Force Staff, but like struggles against Linken’s Sphere.
Bloodseeker
Next up is Bloodseeker. I’m going to be focusing mostly on Bloodseeker carry. I don’t think Bloodseeker offlane is very good right now, ever since they got rid of the Axe. It’s not horrible, but it’s not great. Let’s talk about Bloodseeker carry. So he can struggle to do damage due to the nature of his spell. So Bloodseeker is one of those carries that, against the wrong team comp, can really have a hard time, and here’s why.
Magical damage
Number one, he struggles against like heavy magical damage comps in the early game. If the enemy team has like Puck and then a coddle, and then like the other support is like a Hoodwink. There’s a chance they’ll just get exploded because you don’t have that high of 8 people in the early game. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great. And things you have to like face plant into heroes to do damage.
If you Rupture someone, you still got to run up to them to do damage. If you obliterate them, I mean, great, you Silence them, but you still have a run-up. You might be like speed. How is that not the case for other carriers? Think about it. Think about the other carriers.
- Slark has a defensive ultimate, he has a defensive cue and a defensive W. He can kite in and out.
- Juggernaut spins Omnislash making him invulnerable.
- Phantom Assassin can kite in and out much more easily. Something like Sven does burst damage, so he doesn’t have to stay on the same target for a long period of time.
Bloodseeker problems
The problem with Bloodseeker, this it doesn’t really burst anybody, and as a result, it’s kind of this weird thing where it’s very easy to set up on Bloodseeker. He can really struggle against these comps, and you should actively fight him if you think you have the counters. As I mentioned right, these are like magical damage heroes. Also staying together is good. Like, just naturally playing together against zero in team fights is nice.
Obviously, don’t get hit by the blood right by three or four heroes, but if you avoid that, even when he Ruptures someone once again, it’s hard for him to run in. however, Bloodseeker has a hard BKB timing, so keep that in mind like this hero pretty BKB is pretty freaking weak unless like everyone’s already low hp, which in that case his team’s probably just winning the fight anyway.
Mega carries
Next up is that he doesn’t really man-fight the majority of mega carries. That’s why this hero if you’re going to pick it as a carrier, even as an offlaner, needs a good lane matchup because it doesn’t necessarily flash farm that quickly. This hero’s not the greatest farmer, and then it doesn’t mean fighting the majority of the mega carriers. It’s not going to win a man-fight against something like a Scadi.
It’s not going to kill the Naga at any point in the game. It’s never going to be able to face his fin who’s equal or head-on net worth. Realistically this fence is going to be ahead. And so you might be like, what does this hero do well? Then you’re just cheating on its speed well.
That’s not the point of this guide, but I will say that it can really dominate lanes. If you’re against the Bloodseeker in the lane and you’re in a bad matchup, please, number one, look to drag the wave in between the tier one and tier two-tower, and look to the side pole and try to ignore this hero for the most part in the lane.
Bounty Hunter
Next up is Bounty Hunter. We’re gonna be focusing on Bounty Hunter as support because that’s Primal Beast and what it’s played as. First things first, Bounty Hunter hates the death ball. This hero despises when people gig a group up. Against heroes and team comps, that kind of group up and smoke gank and look to take towers with long-range poke.
Bounty Hunter really struggles. he can throw out the occasional Track and Shuriken, which is something, and it’s decent, but it’s never going to be able to push the wave. This is probably the biggest disadvantage of Bounty Hunter. The hero has no way to clear waves, and it generally is no way to get like the heroes of a tower.
Hoodwink
Something like a Hoodwink, you have to be careful when it’s in the area. Bounty Hunter, it’s like he can be annoying, and he can set up. If like if you have decent disengage. The hero can’t really go in. Like, so if you group up around a tower, and this is why you’re not going to see something like a Bounty Hunter in a lot of pro games right now. If you group up around a tier 1 tower or like, let’s you make a coordinated play. Bounty Hunter just doesn’t really do very much in the fight. He just won’t.
Overextending support
If he tries to go on support, he’ll probably die overextending, and if he tries to go on a court. It’s rough, you know like walking up to a core is really hard. So you have to play this outside of the fight Track Shuriken style, which once again is decent. Still, it’s not like ownage, it’s not crazy, so if you collapse in a mid-tower, there’s a high chance the Bounty Hunter won’t be able to do anything about it, which is the big disadvantage of this hero.
On top of that, if you’re playing against Bounty Hunter, please put downwards and sentries on top of each other. So instead of just putting down a ward to scout out areas, you want to put down a ward century so you can generally scout his movements. with one or two of these word sentry combos, you can often track where Bounty Hunter is going as long as you put them on decent hills in your staircases, and then his whole like scouting tactic will often be in vain, and you’ll be able to see you know where he’s coming from or where he’s going what he’s trying to scout.
Thank you for reading. I hope the guide will be helpful for you. My name is Librarian Husky – your constant pro gaming friend in Dota 2. If you need some help, don’t hesitate to check out the Dota 2 Guides. We are the best in the world with 33000 positive reviews.
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