How to excel as a hard support in Dota 2. Guide covers hero picks, starting items, lane control, stacking creeps, warding, and participation in fights.z

Dota 2 support hero picks

Heroes with a lot of command abilities are suitable for the fifth position: healing, crowd control, mana regeneration, disables, AoE abilities that slow down opponents, as well as quite valuable ultimates that will allow other heroes to fight during their action. Mostly, support heroes in Dota 2 are heroes whose main attribute is intelligence, but there are also support heroes with other attributes. Examples of support heroes of the fifth position: Warlock, Dazzle, Disruptor, Lion, Shadow Shaman, Io, Crystal Maiden, Ogre Magi, Jakiro, Lich, Lina, Witch Doctor, Shadow Demon.

Level is more important than gold for support heroes, but even with low levels, they remain valuable to the team due to their abilities. Such heroes usually depend on team gold, i.e., fate for helping to kill an enemy hero, stacking creeps, destroying towers, killing Roshan, picking up runes, etc. It is used to buy a minimum set of items, mostly consumables.

Starting items

At the beginning of the game, support should take as many consumables as possible: Tango x2 — to gradually restore health on the line for yourself and your ally; Healing Salve to restore a significant amount of health to yourself or your carry while standing on the line if enemy heroes have dealt a lot of damage; Iron Branch for a longer Tango effect, Clarity and Mango to restore health. Depending on the situation, you can take Observer Ward, but it is advisable to give it to other lines, and you can buy it for your line later. But you can also take Sentry Ward to reveal an enemy ward or block a neutral camp.

Dota 2 support lane control

Supports of the fifth position are almost always sent to the easy lane (the lower line of the Radiant side, the upper line of the Dire side) with their carry. The task of support is to take care of carry as much as possible. First and foremost, the task of the support is to control the line:

• stopping/blocking creeps before they reach the collision zone to move the location of the allied creeps closer to their own T-1 tower;
• to make diversions by targeting neutral creeps from the nearest camp at allied creeps.

To accomplish the first task, you just need to stand in front of your creeps so that they hit your hero's model, slowing down and trying to get around you. This way, you can move the enemy units closer to your line.

To pull creeps, you need to choose the nearest neutral camp, provoke the creeps there, and draw them to your line, setting them off on your creeps as they run by. This way, you will also shift the line, and at best, you will be able to get rid of a few allied creeps so that they are not farmed by the enemy.

Activity on the line

While standing on the line, you should not farm or hit enemy creeps, as this will move the line forward and prevent the carries from farming. Your job is to help finish off your creeps so that they don't get to the enemy heroes. When an allied creep's health threshold is below 50%, it can be killed using the forced attack function. The greatest attention should be paid to finishing off the mage, catapult, and banner creeps, as the reward for them (gold and experience) is greater than for swordsmen.

The best option would be to attack enemy heroes to prevent them from farming in peace. To do this, you can hide between the trees or play the "hit-and-run” tactic — that is one of the best Dota 2 support harass tactics. In this way, the enemy hero will need constant consumables to restore his health, and in some cases, he can be killed. However, you should keep in mind that the intention to attack the enemy with regular attacks will provoke enemy creeps nearby. It is advisable not to expose yourself, so as not to die once again, and not to feed the enemy heroes.

Your behavior on the line should be based on the enemy heroes and situation analysis. Ask yourself the following questions: 

• "Does my hero work in synergy with carry?”
• "What do we need to kill?”
• "Should we be aggressive or passive?”
• "From what level will we be comfortable standing on the line to kill?”
• "How dangerous are the enemy characters?”

The more answers you have, the easier it will be to understand how to act on the line. For example, let's take a standard Juggernaut (carry) and Shadow Shaman (support) team. Carry has a fairly strong Blade Fury ability, which is especially unpleasant for "skinny” enemy heroes. However, Juggernaut has a good, but rather slow movement speed, which will not allow him to fully realize his ability when he tries to catch up to his target. Therefore, he will need at least a boot to increase his speed.

Shadow Shaman has strong and long-lasting control abilities, such as Hex and Shackles, which can keep an enemy hero in place and prevent him from running away. When paired with Juggernaut, they can easily kill enemy heroes who are exposed. However, for better implementation, you should level up both heroes to 2-3 to make their abilities stronger, and it is also advisable to buy a boot yourself to catch up with the enemy and use the appropriate buttons on it.

Stacking creeps

If you realize that an allied carry can be left alone on the line for a while, you should go to the jungle and make a few stacks of neutral creeps for him. Stacks can be made by provoking a creep and taking him outside the camp zone at the exact moment when a new batch of units is about to arrive. The presence of stacks will help the carry farm more creeps, which means more farming. And the player who makes the stacks, in our case, the support, receives part of the gold from the camp. Of course, creeps on the line are more valuable, but the jungle is often safer.

Wards

One of the main tasks of support is to set up wards that dispel the fog of war within the range of the observation ward. Since they are free of charge, the support team can buy them from shops without any problems. Wards should be placed in appropriate places that are critical to your team. For the first half of the game, you should place wards in your jungle so that your allies can farm and escape or counterattack if enemy heroes come. You should also make sure that there are no enemy wards on your territory, for this, you should buy a Sentry Ward, which reveals invisibility. Wards can be used for an additional purpose — to block neutral camps in the enemy part of the jungle, which will not allow creeps to recover, which means that the enemy carries will be limited in farming.

Participation in fights

Supports should always participate in fights, as they have a set of abilities that will help the team immobilize or slow down the enemy, heal an ally, or save him. Therefore, you should always keep an eye on the map and observe where the battle is going to take place to support your team. However, you should not be in the middle of the battle, as supports often have very low health and are therefore easy to kill.

You should take a good Dota 2 support positioning to be useful to the team and use your abilities on the right allied or enemy target. But you shouldn't forget that supports are mostly "sacrificial lambs” that will have to be lost in battles, and therefore the death rate of supports can be high. However, since the overall value of supports is low (in the economic aspect of the game), the reward for them will be insignificant, and therefore the enemy will not benefit much if they kill only supports.

In the early stages of the game, it is important to keep an eye on what is happening on other lines. If you see that a mid-laner needs help or the situation in the hard lane is quite difficult, you can teleport and support your allies. But before that, you should make sure that your carry is completely safe.

Items for supports

Supports are the heroes who receive the least gold during the game because they do not farm. They receive gold for destroying enemy wards, killing couriers, killing Roshan, destroying enemy buildings, and, if they are lucky, for finishing off an enemy hero. All gold is mostly used to buy consumables, best dota 2 support item choices: Sentry Wards, Dusts of Appearance, Smokes of Deceit, Healing Salve, etc. Support should buy a boot to have a higher movement speed, as well as a Magic Stick that replenishes its charges whenever an enemy nearby uses abilities.

If the hero manages to get a lot of gold, it should be used to purchase auxiliary artifacts that will help save allies: Force Staff, Glimmer Cape, and Mekansm (if not already purchased by someone else). In some cases, you can buy Blink Dagger if the hero's abilities require additional mobility to take a favorable position in battle. If the enemy team has more physical damage, you can buy Ghost Sceptre for additional protection against attacks.

Keep an eye on the timing

Support heroes often have to keep track of various game timings: the appearance of creeps on the line for diversions, neutrals in the camp for stacks; rune control support; Roshan's recovery time, etc. A large part of the macro game lies on the shoulders of support. It is also important to understand the time when you can fight your enemies. If you and your ally have strong ultimates, you should use it by killing one or two enemy heroes. Control abilities should be used wisely, for example, waiting for the enemy to try to escape during teleportation and then stunning them, but not vice versa.

Conclusion

Playing as a support player is quite a difficult task that requires knowledge and skills of micro and macro games. Still, often newcomers are sent to this role because, in a sense, the dependence on them in low-rated or unrated games is somewhat lower than in matches between experienced players. Thanks to this guide, you will be able to focus on the main aspects of the gameplay for supporters and determine your tasks for each match.