Dota – Non-squishy hero

dota-2

I am rather new to Dota 2, and so far found that Sniper and Death Prophet are the easiest heroes for me to play with, but the moment I play against humans, they fall horribly short – one of the guys I was playing against said that they are "squishy", which I assume means "soft" or "easy kills".

What hero would you guys suggest that a newbie plays with that are "not squishy" yet is suitable for a newbie?

EDIT

I have also played with Drow Ranger, and found her damage very impressive, but getting to a level where this becomes evident is harder than I thought.

Best Answer

Death Prophet is actually not a squishy hero; or at least, she becomes very hard to kill assuming you don't fall behind. Sniper is another story, however; he is extremely easy to kill if you are even slightly out of position. He has no mechanism to escape from dangerous situations, which is why Shadow Blade and even Blink Dagger are common items on him. He still has very weak defensive stats, and Shadow Blade can easily be countered. He was never played in professional games until recently because he was simply too weak, and even now he is an extremely situational pick. I don't know if he'll be picked nowadays because his Headshot got changed from a bash stun to a 100% slow, which means that it doesn't go through magic immunity anymore.

If you like Death Prophet, I encourage you to continue playing her. Once you know how, she is one of the hardest heroes to kill in the game. Here are some tips:

  • Play mid or a solo lane if you can. Why? Because you want to hit level 6 as soon as possible. Your ultimate allows you to instantly put massive pressure on an enemy tower, and it makes you virtually impossible to kill in a 1v1 (and many 1v2s).
  • When your ghosts from your ultimate return, they heal you as well, so if you're in a terrible situation, use your ultimate and juke (avoid allowing the enemy to get vision of you) for as long as possible. If they continue chasing, they will likely die to your ultimate which automatically attacks them.
  • Using your silence is key to not getting ganked early. It is one of the best silences in the game, with a fairly large AoE and duration. If people can't use their spells, they can't kill you; it's that simple. You will probably want to put just one point in this until much later; the benefits from putting more points into it aren't very high (just 1 second duration increase).
  • Your passive is also key to your survival. Death Prophet is one of the fastest heroes in the game with this passive, and with Phase Boots she's un-gankable if you catch even a slight wind that the enemy are coming. Mana cost decrease for Crypt Swarm is also obviously important.
  • Items like Shiva's Guard and Bloodstone are great on Death Prophet. DP has a powerful, spammable nuke, and an ultimate that slowly kills the enemy team for you. She benefits more the longer a fight carries on, so you want to build items that make you hard to kill. Bloodstone gives you a lot of HP and gives you the mana you need to cast Crypt Swarm virtually as many times as you want. Shiva's Guard gives you a huge amount of armor and makes enemy carries cry, and then their tears get stuck frozen to their faces.

If you need more assistance, you should watch videos online. DotA has a very supportive and established video-making community with tons of high quality content, and it will accelerate your mastery of the game greatly. Hope this helps. Believe in the DP!

P.S.: As far as Drow Ranger goes, get used to that, that's how carries operate. They require a lot of farm and maintenance before they get to a stage where they can start fighting the enemy team. Once they do, however, they are very good at putting out rapid, consistently high damage. The best carries also have good defensive abilities (as an example, Faceless Void has both an escape mechanism and a passive chance to dodge abilities and attacks, as well as a bash chance to boost his damage; he was considered one of the most powerful carries in the game until recently). Drow trades that defense for an extremely fast track to high damage thanks to her ultimate. She still has her gust, though, which is quite a good defensive ability.