Best Carry Heroes in Dota 2 Patch 7.36+

It’s been a week since the release of Dota 2 patch 7.36 and we now know that some carry heroes are much stronger than others.

You can still pick Morphling and Terrorblade if you have hundreds of games with them and know what you’re doing. But you should know that these heroes are in many ways weaker than some of the other options for the carry role.

In this guide, you’ll discover many of the strongest carry heroes in Dota 2 patch 7.36+ and what you can do to win with them more often.

Wraith King

Wraith King was an excellent choice for the carry role even before the arrival of the new patch. But now he is the most successful hero in Dota 2, having a win rate of 57% and a pick rate of 18.5%.

Vampiric Spirit is now his innate ability. He gains 20% lifesteal starting with level 1 and reaches 50% lifesteal at level 18. However, the effect is reduced by 40% against creeps. This means that you will actually have a 30% lifesteal against them.

Another benefit of Vampiric Spirit is that you can continue to attack for 3s – 6s after you die and are untargetable during this interval. Essentially, you become a temporary wraith. But this only happens before the hero’s actual death. If you have Reincarnation off cooldown, your innate ability will not be triggered.

While you’re a wraith, you gain 25% movement speed and 75 attack speed. So the ability that used to require Aghanim’s Scepter is now given to you for free. No wonder this hero is now the most successful carry in the game. You can still buy Aghs to upgrade this ability, but it’s not worth it.

Wraith King’s facets are Bone Guard and Spectral Blade.

Bone Guard causes Reincarnation to spawn one extra skeleton per hero. It also gives you an ability called Bone Guard, which gains charges for every 2 kills. These charges can be activated t osummon skeletons. Their duration is 40s. You should almost always use this facet because it greatly speeds up your farm.

Spectral Blade enhances your attacks with delayed pure damage but the amount is too small to count.

Apart from these modifications, WK remains the same old hero you know and love. His ideal item build includes Blink Dagger and Armlet of Mordiggian. Buying an additional damage item, such as Desolator, helps a lot. Radiance also works well on this hero because the fights tend to be prolonged.

Juggernaut

Juggernaut’s win rate increased substantially after the release of Dota 2 patch 7.36. He is now picked in 22% of all games and has a success rate of nearly 55%. This is not surprising given the major buffs he received.

His innate ability is Duelist. This ability gives him +10% damage against targets that are faceing him and +10% damage during Omnislash. This means that you will farm much faster and deal more damage in duels. It may not look like much but it’s actually a lot.

The two facets are Bladestorm and Bladeform.

Bladestorm allows Blade Fury to deal critical damage and apply Blade Dance’s effects. This further increases damage and farming speed.

Bladeform gives you a maximum of 10 stacks over 20s. Combined, these stacks give you +30% agility and +10% movement speed. The stacks are reset if you take any damage, with a 2s delay. So this facet isn’t very useful when farming but it is useful when fighting if you have a Blink Dagger or a Silver Edge and can initiate without taking damage first.

Blade Fury was modified and applies a strong dispel when it ends, which means that it’s a lot more useful than before.

When playing Juggernaut, your goal should be to buy Battle Fury as fast as possible if you choose that build. You could also build damage by purchasing different items and simply rely on Blade Fury to kill neutral creeps faster.

Almost everything about this hero is perfect. You can heal thanks to Healing Ward. You can avoid spells and farm quickly using Blade Fury. Your damage is greatly enhanced by your inner ability and also by Blade Dance, which gives you 35% critical chance with 190% critical damage.

Some of the best items that you can buy on Juggernaut are Sange and Yasha, Battle Fury, Butterfly, Eye of Skadi, and Blink Dagger. You could also opt for a Shadow Blade and upgrade it later. People also like to buy Aghanim’s Scepter and Aghanim’s Shard.

Phantom Lancer

Phantom Lancer works well if you know what you’re doing, and Dota 2 patch 7.36 gave him lots of buffs. His base armor is now higher (+1) and his attack speed is better than before (+10).

Phantom Rush is an innate ability, which means you no longer need to put a point in it early on.

The hero’s facets are Convergence and Divergence.

Convergence spawns an extra illusion for each 25% of missing HP when using Doppelganger, which is useful in the first 15 minutes of the game.

Divergence causes Juxtapose to spawn uncontrollable illusions that deal greater damage. These illusions will also spawn in a 700 radius relative to the target you’re attacking. However, the fact that you can’t control them is quite unpleasant.

When playing PL, the goal is to buy Diffusal Blade as fast as possible and then Manta Style. By the time you have both of these items, you are already very hard to deal with. At this point, many players will choose to buy Heart of Tarrasque to make their illusions unkillable.

The hero’s abilities can be maximized in more than one order but it’s generally a good idea to prioritize Spirit Lance.

Phantom Lancer’s current win rate is 53%. His pick rate is only 7%, which makes it easy for you to spam him in pubs. But before you do, make sure you’ve mastered his abilities and item builds. This hero can be either very powerful or completely ineffective. A lot depends on your ability to use your illusions well.

Chaos Knight

Chaos Knight’s innate ability is Reins of Chaos, which gives him a 50% chance of creating an additional illusion whenever he creates illusions. The two facets are called Phantasmagoria and Irrationality.

Phantasmagoria makes all of CK’s illusions strong illusions. Such illusions cannot be instantly killed by spells.

Irrationality gives Reality Rift a chance to apply Break, Disarm and other debuffs.

CK has poor stats and gains very little agility and intelligence per level. But you can compensate for that by purchasing the right items, such as Manta Style. This hero also benefits a lot from items like Armlet and Heart of Tarrasque because they give him everything he needs.

Whenever you buy strength on CK, you are also buying damage. So you and your illusions become more survivable and more deadly at the same time.

CK is weak in the early game but becomes unstoppable later on. As soon as he has enough illusions, a simple Reality Rift will generally kill an enemy hero. Supports don’t stand a chance against the amount of damage dealt by a farmed CK in combination with his illusions.

You should always maximize Chaos Strike and Reality Rift first. These abilities will allow you to farm faster and get kills much easier. One problem with Chaos Bolt is that it consumes a lot of mana and you won’t have enough mana to cast it more than several times in the early game.

Troll Warlord

Troll’s innate ability is Berserker’s Rage. This ability is a bit weaker than before but still pretty useful. Its armor was nerfed by 2. Other than that, everything’s fine.

The two facets are Insensitive and Bad Influence.

Insensitive grants you 1 armor per Fervor stack when fighting in melee form. Given that you can have 12 stacks in total, this simple boost could give you more than 80% effective HP against physical damage.

Bad Influence is a great facet when your allies have lots of physical damage and enjoy right-clicking enemies in fights. That’s because it gives them 30% of your Battle Trance’s attack speed bonus. That would be somewhere between 40 and 60. It’s not much but it’s applied globally, to your entire team. In most cases, Insensitive is a much better option.

Troll has a win rate of almost 52% and a pick rate of less than 5%. This hero is not easy to play but if you do it well, very few enemies will be able to fight you 1v1.

Given the amount of armor that you will generally have, all you need is some movement speed, damage, and lifesteal. Your attack speed is also more than decent just as it is.

What you need to buy is items like Sange & Yasha, Satanic, and Eye of Skadi. Black King Bar is also a necessity in most cases because a lot of support heroes will destroy you otherwise. In the current meta, Shadow Shaman is quite popular and he can disable you for 7s.

Troll can farm quickly and reliably thanks to his abilities but he needs a bit of lifesteal as early as possible. Many players like to purchase Battle Fury to speed up their farm. That’s not a bad idea but you have to make sure that the enemy team isn’t invading your jungle before the 15-minute mark with heroes like Broodmother and Pudge.

Medusa

Medusa’s innate ability is Mana Shield. Her intelligence gain per level has been improved by 0.2. The two facets, Engorged and Mana Impact, are both very interesting and can work well in specific scenarios.

Engorged upgrades Mystic Snake. When it returns to you, you gain one point in damage for the next three attacks or the next five seconds for each six points in restored mana. So if you manage to steal 600 mana, you will gain 100 bonus damage, which is a lot if you have items like Daedalus.

Mana Pact gives you the ability to trade 4% of your maximum mana per second for a 3% attack speed bonus. After 10s, you could have a 30% attack speed bonus but only 60% of your maximum mana. The attack speed buff disappears 15s after the conversion begins. Overall, this facet is a bit risky but it could work if your damage is high and the enemy is running away.

When playing Medusa, your mana pool gives you a lot of survivability, which is why you should buy items that give you mana. Eye of Skadi is perfect but there are lots of other good options.

Damage is also a necessity when playing Medusa, and the sooner you start buying it the faster you will farm. The hero’s Split Shot ability gives you the possibility to farm stacked Ancient camps with ease. The extra damage is 85% x 4. This means that instead of dealing 100% damage, you will deal 440%. Few heroes can compete with this amount of damage.

One of the best items that you can buy is Aghanim’s Shard. That’s because it gives you the Cold Blooded ability, which throws a Mystic Snake at an enemy hero that targets you with a spell. The cooldown is 12s.

Weaver

Weaver’s agility increase per level is now 3.3 instead of 3.1. Germinate Attack has become a passive ability.

The two facets are called Skitterstep and Hivemind.

Skitterstep increases the movement speed of Shukuchi by 50. At the same time, enemies hit by this ability are slowed by 100% for 0.3s. This combination makes it much easier for you to chase targets and escape from fights. In just 4s, which is the duration of the ability, you will travel 2400 units. Meanwhile, most heroes will travel just 1400 units. That’s a 1000-unit difference.

Hivemind upgrades The Swarm, causing the beetles to give you 3 – 9 experience for each attack they make. It’s nice, but doesn’t compare with the benefits of Skitterstep.

When playing Weaver, the goal is always to increase your damage, attack range, and survivability in any way you can. Usually, items like Dragon Lance and Linken’s Sphere will work well on this hero. Falcon Blade and Desolator are also excellent choices.

You should always skip boots when playing Weaver because you don’t need more movement speed. Most of the time, you will either have 600 MS or you’ll be attacking enemy heroes. Your first few items should give you stats, HP regen, and mana regen. Magic Wand, Falcon Blade, and Perseverance are excellent choices.

The enemy team will always try to kill you before you can use Time Laps, which negates all the damage you took in the last 5s. If you’re tanky enough, you will survive the initiation and turn the fight around. Always itemize based on the composition of the enemy team. Against silence, your best weapon is Manta Style.

Weaver is a hero that should be played aggressively. But to be able to do this, you need to be tanky enough to not die in a few hits. Against some heroes, such as Phantom Assassin and Templar Assassin, that’s a bit hard to achieve. But not impossible.

Lifestealer

Lifestealer’s base damage was decreased by 6 and his base attack speed by 20. On top of that, the agility gain per level was lowered by 0.7. However, this hero continues to be strong because he has an amazing toolkit.

His innate ability is now Feast, which can be used to attack allied creeps when they’re below 75%. It also gives you damage based on the target’s max HP, and plenty of lifesteal.

The facets are Corpse Eater and Unfettered.

Corpse Eater gives you +2 to your maximum HP each time you kill a unit. So if you have 100 last hits, you gain 200 HP or the equivalent of 10 strength. That’s a lot.

Unfettered replaces Rage with a new ability that gives you 50% magic resistance and 50% status resistance. It also applies a strong dispel when cast. The great thing about it is that it can be cast while being disabled. The duration is 3s – 6s.

Lifestealer’s abilities allow him to fight against very tanky units and bring them down quickly. Enemy supports tend to have a hard time against him because he can’t be easily disabled and killed.

If he Infests a target that has excellent mobility or decides to buy a Blink Dagger himself, LS becomes deadly and can appear out of nowhere, in a state that makes him highly resistant to everything you throw at him.

Some of the best items when playing this hero are Blink Dagger, Armlet, Sange and Yasha, Desolator, and Assault Cuirass.

One of the most lethal combinations in Dota 2 is LS + Storm Spirit. That’s because Storm can quickly move across the terrain and appear next to a helpless support that can’t do anything to get away. Another combination is LS + Weaver, but that would require the Weaver player to go mid or offlane.

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