I'd say furion. In any game, furion can play as (nearly) any of the roles you require above.
1. Carry Furion has the ability to farm with a relatively easy attack animation. His force of nature also allows him to jungle, if he is so inclined. With a perfect tree to eliminate LOS and teleport, he has a fairly probability in avoiding ganks while farming out his all important MKB, Buriza, or what have you for carry. His downside in carrying would be he isn't really a HARD carry, but I've seen Furions farm enough to smash.
2. Ganker Teleport + trees makes for an excellent ganker. At level 4, he can teleport for a quick gank, and go back to his initial lane all within the span of one creep span.
3. Initiator Furion is not the best initiator. However, he could very easily teleport in from behind, make 4 trees to cause disarray in the opponent or pull their creep wave, whilst the rest of his team jumps in. His ulti also barely scraps him as an initiator, although I would not advise using this tactic against an earthshaker.
4. Pusher Teleport, trees, arguably the only other pusher better than furion would be tinker. I didn't put broodmother here as her lack of mobility somewhat disqualifies her from taking the top 2 spots.
5. Support Furion can be used to babysit, although he does not have a heal. His int base attribute makes most support items suitable for him, and treeing an ally/enemy from danger/attacking can normally buy enough time for a TP.
Although you could find a hero to specialise in each of the roles above, I would argue that on the WHOLE, furion would score the highest. (I.e. if you took every hero, gave them a rating out of 10 for each of the roles above, totalling 50, furion would have the highest total.)
But that's just me, and the beauty of dota is that there are no '5 best heroes'.
I actually love playing all the roles and heroes, i'll play anything my team need(except Davion, i really really REALLY hate Davion), but if i had to pick one role/hero right now that i enjoy the absolute most i would probably pick Clockwerk because i love the lanning strength of the clock, you can really lane against everything, and then you can go around ganking all the time like a fucking madman, plus later on in the game clock transforms in a kind of neat initiator (if you have enough farm) to single one hero out of teamfights.
I love playing support. I never really played support in DotA, but when I moved on to LoL and HoN I became enamored with the role. It feels really good to know you're making a difference even when other people only noticed the 24/1/13 carry that only lived through the last 3 teamfights because you healed/stunned/sacrificed yourself for him to do so.
My favorite supports are Sona/Taric in LoL, Dsham (Dazzle), WS (Lion), and PR (Lich), though I can really play them all well.
The only problems that I have supporting pub games are the fact that if your team is behind in the early game, you get no money (no assists and you're letting your carries get creeps) and can't afford the wards that your team is bitching at you to get, but they refuse to buy them for you; people laughing at your kdr without checking your played heroes; and having bad carries that refuse to take advantage of you.
It's a thankless job, but someone's got to do it, and I'm more than happy filling that role. Being a carry is fun and all, with all the good KDR, items, and chicks, but I've always liked being the guy in the shadows that makes everything work
Is it weird that I like to play carry and support D I like carries because I like to do nothing but last hit creeps all game, but this makes me a bad carry and is why I typically stay away from them LOL. Supporting is fun because they really dictate the flow of the game early on and how good your supports are compared to the other teams will determine whether you go into the midgame with a advantage or not. My favorite hero is by far Lich. The lane control he provides is just retardedly good, free denies on full hp creeps means your opponents are automatically gonna get behind in xp, and the longer they just try to straightforward lane vs you the more they will fall behind. Getting free denies also means the lane should always be in a favorable position by your tower, if not you are doing it wrong :D. When you get your nuke + deny, you get even more lane control because you are then able to freely harass enemy heroes by nuking them and then denying a creep to get your mana back.
AND DONT FORGET ABOUT THE HUGE ULTIMATE THAT KILLS EVERYTHING IT TOUCHES!!!
Lich is often said to be an easy hero to play, which i think is somewhat true, I mean you dont have to know much to be effective with him, but if you really know what you are doing he just facerolls whatever lane you put him in.
I usually played a pusher furion, or a carry solo mid luna. I also dabbled in crystal maiden, sand king, lion, and vengeful spirit.
I'd have to say my favorite role is that of a pusher. I just love the feeling of winning the game strategically with them instead of with my "l33t skilz man!".
I love going manta on just about every hero. Of course, that assumes I get a decent lane and good amount of early farming. The extra images are not only useful to supplement your damage output, but also for scouting and initiating. The passive bonus you get from the yasha component of manta is of course a very welcome bonus.
I think that the motivation for playing a role depends, as many things in life, on situation you're in. Do you specialize in certain roles, or do you simply fill that one role that no one wants to take? It can also change over time, as you gain new experience in the field.
As a beginner in HoN, I was often pressured into the role of a support. People with better MMR than me picked the carries while advising me to pick support. At the time, I didn't think much of it. I was the newbie. As a good apprentice I took the advise of those better players. Who was I to question the people with higher MMR than me? Certainly they would be giving me the most suited role for winning the game, considering my skill level.
To be honest, I quite enjoyed it in the beginning. No, not the dying(which there was plenty of!), but the freedom. No pressure to last hit, worrying about if my farm was strong enough, or taking great care not to die. All I had to do was go to lane, harass a bit, get xp and put up wards whenever requested to do so.
The game seemed simple and fun back then.
After exploring the game as support for some 2-300 games, finding new ways to be beneficial to the game, and MMR slowly increasing, I developed a different view of the game. I got curious about the "forbidden" heroes. The mid heroes, the carry heroes, the gank heroes. (some support heroes are also decent gank heroes, but I'm talking about dedicated gank heroes like pebbles) I had this imaginary perception in my mind(real to me though!) that I would utterly fail with these heroes in a serious game. That their skillcap was way beyond anything I could ever reach. I feared I would be flamed to oblivion, then votekicked out of the game(which honestly happened a few times).
In the beginning, as with trying anything new, it was really hard. The dynamic of the other roles was totally different from what I was used to. Last hitting timing/tactics, map awareness in particular, where people were likely to be farming, which routes to take to avoid wards, when to commit to a fight, when to break off the farming and tp to help the team.
So many new variables I had to juggle in my head, and always something seemed to slip. It was a terrible experience, but I figured I had to fight through it, after all, I had seen how much I had improved over the games as a support.
Sure enough, bit by bit, I was getting there, I was starting to feel empowered. I felt like I had a considerable impact on the game. Actually it was more like the game rested more and more on my performance. It was scary at first, but after a while it became addictive. I always looked for ways to optimize and get kills and farm without dying. How to position in teamfight and dish out all that you had and still make it out alive.
The feeling after making a really big play, where you just sit there with a banana grin and nerdchills down your back are what makes these kinds of games worth playing.
I've now logged over 2500 games in HoN, and I still feel like there's tons of improvements to make. There's always the one decision in the long chain of decisions that dota/hon is that can be optimized.
After playing all these games, and finally reaching 1900+ MMR, I can honestly and truly say, that playing any role can be very rewarding and enjoyable. From personal experience, what matters most, is that you have a competent and friendly team around you, that are around the same skill level as you.
-Supporting is fun if you know that the carry can farm and knows what to do. -Carrying is fun if the support is stacking and warding to protect you, not fighting you for farm. They chase the enemy away, giving you room to farm. -Ganking is fun when you have great team coordination. When you've played so much with a person that you just click and know what the other person is going to do. Ganking also relies on good wards to spot the right opportunities, and counterwards to prevent the enemy from seeing you coming.
What role do I enjoy the most to play?
Now that I became proficient in many different roles, my focus has over time shifted yet again. It is now the strategy that appeals to me. The creative thinking behind drafting. Making a plan and executing it. Getting the right picks and counter picks. I've moved from being self centered to becoming team oriented, a team asset. How can I increase our chances of winning to the maximum before the game even begins. As for the role that I enjoy the most? I enjoy filling the spot that I see best fit to help the team. Helping the team win now gives me the most joy, no matter what role I play!
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After that segment, I almost made it sound like I have no favorite hero. This is not true however. I love aggressive play, and I love the game of positioning, be it in lane, or in battles. To get the best position, often high mobility is required, and nothing offers higher mobility than a blink. I love the thrill of being able to be in a teamfight, throw all your abilities and then escape with a slither of health, not wasting any potential. I also enjoy popping in and out of battle, losing focus and regening up with a bottle or what have you, and then come in again when you spot opportunities to deal damage, even if you're low hp.(the art of low hp fighting is so exciting).
As such, I enjoy heroes with blinks or pseudo-blinks: Valkyrie, Bubbles, Magebane and Wretched Hag, to mention a few. Of the above, one stands out to me in particular and here's why:
My favorite hero is Wretched Hag.
-The mobility to traverse the map incredibly fast, get runes, switch lanes, pop in and out of teamfights, chase heroes down. -The magic damage output, the farming capability to turn her into a hard carry, into a hard disabler, or whatever best suits the situation. -The slow to make escaping her all but an impossibility(It's even an AoE slow on her ulti!) She is a beast of a teamfighter, ganker, chaser, carry, anything!
I consider her the most versatile hero in HoN, and also the most enjoyable hero to play!
Wow.. that took a lot longer than I expected, gj if you read all of it!
I read all the stories and I love the different views people have. Good luck everyone and keep the comments flowing, I want to read moar!
My favorite role is to play Crystal Maiden because I love to be the one who saves a team-member from a gank with a well placed spell (slow or immobilize), and then follows up with an ult that (if well placed) can turn a team fight around! Support heroes 4life. =D
Ever since I started taking DotA serious and started my own team with some of my friends from school (One of them being StrinterN, who I still play with in SC2 now) I always took the role of the hero with the most presence on the map. At first I always played heroes such as storm and mirana because that's two heroes that I knew from my time playing public games on DotA league and what not. Fast heroes that can move all over the map.
Then once we started getting a bit more serious and we began to get really good as a team I started playing a lot of solo mid. This was also the time I really started to follow the scene closely, I started talking with some of the best danish DotA players at the time such as Zrr, Blazic, Ryze, Mazanti (Ryze now plays for monkey and represented NEVO at DotA 2 International). At this time I fell in love with the russian style of DotA at the time. Aggressive play focusing on a lot of map awareness and team coordinated ganks. I found that style the most fun you could play in DotA and started playing Beastmaster solo mid almost exclusively. It is still my favorite hero in DotA, Nightstalker being a close 2nd. It requires a lot of map awareness and sets up your team for an aggressive playstyle. The hawk is the best ability to set up ganks as well as protect your carry from being ganked, makes sure you never lose a rune in mid, making your ganks even stronger. The pig give you such a strong control of your lane, as well as constant slow with long range for ganks. And finally, his ulti is such a strong early game nuke with low cooldown and low mana cost. Perfect for a gank on the 6 min rune. First time you play against a good BM you will fear the hero forever. A ganker with map hack, imba nuke and starts out with sick hp and base armor as well as scales nicely into the lategame with his aura and str gain.
Alright! Another key giveaway... hopefully I can win O_O! I've never played much DotA but I'm quite familiar with the heroes and have played alot of HoN.
I really enjoy playing the heroes that are semi-carry/gankers because they're obviously, strong early game and carry quite well late game if you got some farm and did a decent job mid-game. With that my favorite hero is probably PotM, she doesn't have much actual scaling but is so strong early game with her burst from starfall/arrow and with farm carries so well. I have not played viper yet but by the looks of it, can't wait to try the hero out.
The reason I like to play these heroes that tend to be good throughout the game is because there was a time I really only played alone and I learned the best way to win those games were just simply destroy the other team with ganks early and then carry with the lead you've got :D Obviously with playing heroes like PotM I got very accustomed to the mid lane. And with that I just learned to play the majority of the common mid heroes :D
Edit: btw you forgot to go over semi-carries in the op
if you have an inferiority complex you should really play him, because you can safe your mates so often in dire situations that the thank yous will give your ego a stronger boost than any of sharlie sheen's favourite courtesans. Your skills are wonderful for fragile carries, the heal heals(no really it does!) and can be used as a VERY good nuke(awesome range, dmg etc.), the only bad thing about it is that it damages you, but the damage isn't that bad and makes your buddies even more thankfull for getting healed and sometimes it can be even used to your advantage.
The shield makes attacking the shielded person dangerous, can be used together with your coil for a sudden burst of damage and has synergies with several different heroes(axe,pudge...), because it swallows a nice amount of damage done to you or your mates and lets it all out on your foes when it breaks. (and something that many people don't know is that it stops hex, which can be huge lateron and save a whole clash because the carry didn't lose valuable seconds of ownage).
The buffplacer/orb effect... oh that skill, we experienced so much together... it slowes enemies down AND enhances movement- AND attackspeed, a chaser like Riki or Magina will love you for it.
And of course his ulti, it autoactivates itself when you're about to die and only has a cooldown of 60 seconds, although it's sometimes much smarter to activate it manually to suprise your enemies, but what does it do? It transforms damage into hp! This, together with the shield and the orb give Abbadon excellent juking abilities, especially if you have phase boots for the speedboost and to move through your enemies(don't forget this when you want to feel like a real man, there's nothing better than to survive it when 5 guys focus you and run after you through the whole jungle).
And even if everything is lost and you know that you will die you can still deny the satisfaction (and the gold) to your enemies and commit suicide with the help of your coil(and heal/damage an enemy/foe at the same time as a farewell present) and make them rage, because they didn't manage to kill you after investing so much in it. If you want your fellow teammates to love you, play him, be a nice person and always support your fellow teammates and especially your carry.
As you may have noticed by now, I play abbadon as a supporter, although I usually like to play all of the roles, except some of the carries, because I don't like it to stay somewhere(on a lane, in the jungle) for long after the early to farm creeps. I usually play sigs on dota-league.com and there I always random(when the mode permits it), just because I really like the diversity (the great thing about not liking to play some of the very farm focussed carries is that there's nearly always somebody who wants to swap that hero with you^^) and it also makes it a bit more challenging(but it's very important that you random as soon as possible, because if you wait your teammates can't pick accordingly). So I don't really have a favourite role... it always depends on my teammates, there are some players I know, with whom I always play supporters, because I know that they play good carries and that they prefer heroes which have a good synergy with my favourite supporters. For example a guy who likes to play Riki and Never, I love playing abbadon together with him, even if we have a bad early he doesn't just die in clashes or ganks because his hp is so low, because his farm was bad, I can keep him alive with my spells and he can still do his damage and even more of it thanks to my orb effect.
For me, I've always loved playing roaming gankers. Right from the start you're going to be part of the action, rather than sitting in lane ricing for 30 minutes. The teamplay needed to chain stuns/predict escapes means that you always have to be on your toes. Games rely on your ability to keep the enemy's carry down and underfarmed, and I love being able to play hyper-aggressive and forcing people into mistakes. Playing well as a ganker requires fast reaction times and pinpoint accuracy with targeting spells, which I much prefer to the rote lasthitting that playing a hard carry requires.
Despite this, my favorite hero is tinker, a hero which requires an inordinate amount of farm. I like him because his playstyle is so unique due to his ult, Rearm. Once you get Boots of Travel, you instantly become a dominant force with the ability to gank, push, and farm anywhere on the map and then quickly TP back to the safety of your fountain with one rearm.
Late game with him is a button-mashing heaven: Force staff, Manta, Sheep, Shivas, Laser, March of the Machines, Rocket, Rearm, Rinse, Repeat. So many buttons, so little time.
You want me to write what my favourite role is? I wish I knew that :/, I go with random more than I should, and if I don't, I usually wait with my pick to see the others' first, so i can counter/combo up accordingly. I can play any role, any hero(few exceptions, some coming from simply lack of practice due to
my friends always picking them(mirana, pudge...) and ultimately being so good with them I am afraid to even try them not to seem stupid)
I am a pubber, for like 4 years already(since dota 6.51) and I play pub style hardcore. My favourite hero is Abbadon, the Lord of Avernus with whom I go
totaly insane heal build focused on keeping my dps alive up to 2 times longer than normal :D Works best on "RIGHT CLICK'EM" style Ursa
Let me write my miniguide to Abba, the agressive support
1.Skills
a)Death coil-heal/nuke, depending on target, low mana cost and cd, costs hp and can't self heal => we need a way to heal ourselfs and will level whis skill
up first on agressive lanes against low hp heroes, or with an agressive lane partner
Important note! You can deny yourself with a well timed death coil! Nothing better in Dota than a suicide xD(it allways amuses me)
b)Aphotic shield-damageprotection that goes HUGE aoe nuke if broken, with a negative buff removal. One of the sickest ass saving skills in the game IMO,
Especialy if used on a hero that gets disabled for longer than 2 seconds, and even more if it is by a channeling spell as the enemy will still channel it
:D(standing around with his cast animation on, looking like a total moron) The skill has suprisingly many uses, high damage potential and, when maxed,
pretty low cd. How not love it Leveled up always on lvl one and later if you are the defender(or solo, which happend to me a few times).
c)Frostmourne- Effin frost sword, slows enemies, refreshes allies :D As good as it is, I never get it early tbh, the spells I find more useful. This skills
lets you scale nicely in later stages of the game, where your skills get less powerful(aphotics debuff never gets weaker though)
d) them ultz- Borrowed time- A debuff, damage protection and heal for damage taken within duration? Activated automatically(you never die from doom, as it
debuffs it)? NO MANA AND 60 SECONDS COOLDOWN?! This makes sure you don't get focused to death in teamfights , allowing you to spam your live saving
abbilities on your team.
1.1skill order: I'll go short- Ult when you can, aphotic level one, death coil/ shield depending on lane situation, than froustmourne, no early stats.
Starting:components for urn or ring of protection for Basi, chick if noone else buys it, you need it urself. Fill up with consumables.
2.ITEMS Something like => Boots of mana(arcane boots),urn of shadows, mekasm, vlads(if there's no better carier of this) , whatev ur team needs!(You can add in
stick, I rarely manage to use it with that load out due to lack of hotkeys )
The nature of dota is that you can ignore your skills and become support or carry no matter what(no true for other roles thou)(lategame only ofc) I ussualy
play Abba as support, so I keep supporting later on with guinsoo for hex, but you can go dps, froustmorne already givs you somewhat skadi and the ult makes
you unfocusable.
3.Playstyle Agressively support while farming urn. How? Abuse the fact your line is unkillable early as long as you have mana, play ballsy. If the enemy has low hp and
your lanemate is not Troll(the old one), you should be able to be really agressive since your skills can both heal and deal damage, all you need is a bit
of help. Once you have urn, start being a roaming support, you need those chares to heal self, while usuing death coil on teamates(did I mention urn can
heal or damage too?) Arcane boots for mana and no more need to fall back, ever, sometimes till the end of the game(I onced had my team on full hp for 5
minutes , 2 teamfights and 2 towers pushed, nobody died on our side, all died there)
I mentioned a chrging forward ursa on the beggining. Later in the game, I was able to keep him alive FOREVER with my meck, death coil, shield combo(no urn
inside fights :/), especially that I dispelled disables with shield.
That's it for my favourite style, nothing better for me than keeping people alive I also very often play VS and dodge shit with Swap xD
Nice write up, should definitely help people new to the genre (or even those used to the fuzzy roles of LoL).
My favorite role is definitely the ganker role, especially solo mid. When you go solo mid as a powerful ganker, you are essentially the point guard for your team (basketball term xD). It's up to you to not only win your lane, but control the runes and gank side lanes when you see the opportunity. Losing the rune war mid is a surefire way to make your team fall behind! Then when midgame rolls around and the laning phase begins to die down, you take on a new position of leadership as the leader of your teams ganking squad. My favorite gankers are heros like Puck and Clockwerk who can be amazing initiators AND gankers all in one. Unlike support and carry, the ganker role requires the most interaction with the enemy team instead of mindless farming and ward wars / creep stacking.
My favorite hero from DotA is Broodmother. She is able to fill many different roles on a team (good ganking toolset, totally bonkers laning abilities, amazing pusher with spiders, and semi-carry late game). I enjoy popping the ult for massive lifesteal and winning fights the enemy doesn't expect me too, but most of all I just like the webs. Leaving webs around the map to make your enemy nervous is one heck of a unique pleasure, and setting up webs in your lane early makes laning a nightmare for your enemy. Combined with her passive for hit and run shenanigans, makes her one of the most unique and powerful laners in the game!
My favorite kind of heroes are solo heroes such as QoP, Puck, Tiny, and Storm Spirit. I like the whole 1v1 duel aspect of soloing and my success or failure is mostly dependent on myself. If I do well while laning I can start to take of over the mid game by instagibbing lower level heroes and set up a winning position for my team.
EPT
I like carries because I like to do nothing but last hit creeps all game, but this makes me a bad carry and is why I typically stay away from them LOL. Supporting is fun because they really dictate the flow of the game early on and how good your supports are compared to the other teams will determine whether you go into the midgame with a advantage or not.
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