Image

Best Support Heroes in Dota 2 Patch 7.36+

fragster Radu M. 31. May 2024

Dota 2 patch 7.36 transformed the game in some truly innovative ways, adding one more layer of complexity to an already sophisticated MOBA. The main focus of the patch was the game’s heroes. Apart from the usual buffs and nerfs, each one received two additional characteristics: an innate ability and a facet.

In this guide, you will discover some of the strongest Dota 2 support heroes for the current meta and learn about what makes them great picks.

Shadow Shaman

shadow shaman

Valve

Shadow Shaman is now a highly survivable support thanks to his innate ability. Fowl Play allows him to revive with 1 HP, gain damage immunity for almost a second and benefit from a strong dispel. This means that you could potentially revive and blink away but there’s a caveat: you revive as a chicken with increased movement speed. The effect lasts for 3s.

During this time, you cannot use your items so you need to rely on allies to keep you alive. If you have an Oracle or a Dazzle on your team, that will help a lot. But any hero with excellent crowd-control abilities will be of use.

What’s important is to have the possibility to escape from the clutches of the enemy team. Usually, just one more hit will kill you and you will have less than 1s to react. If you do survive, Fowl Play will be reactivated after two minutes. If you get killed, the cooldown is reset.

Both of the hero’s facets are useful. Cluster Cluck gives you the option of casting Hex on an ally. This will boost their movement speed by 10% and create three chicken images that seek to confuse enemies. These illusions cannot be controlled but they are very effective at increasing your ally’s survivability.

When choosing this facet, your innate ability gives you an additional 0.1s of invulnerability and creates three uncontrollable chickens whenever it gets activated.

The second facet of SS is Massive Serpent Ward. This facet combines all of your serpent wards into one. That ward has 1000% damage and 750% HP.

Shadow Shaman is currently one of the most picked support heroes. His pick rate is 17% and his win rate is 56.5%. These stats make him incredibly powerful in the current meta.

Apart from the innovations introduced by IceFrog, Shadow Shaman is the same hero he used to be in previous patches. His ability to quickly clear creep waves using Ether Shock, stun enemies for more than 7s in total using Hex and Shackles, and his capacity to destroy towers using his ultimate turn him into a monster after level 6.

When playing SS, you should buy items like Aether Lens, Arcane Boots, and Glimmer Cape or Force Staff. All of them will significantly boost your survivability and your capacity to cast your spells multiple times during team fights.

Warlock

warlock

Valve

Warlock’s current pick rate is close to 12%. His win rate is almost 54.5%. His innate ability, Eldritch Summoning, gives him a Minor Imp every time an enemy unit dies under the effect of one of his spells. So if a creep dies while suffering from Fatal Bonds, Shadow Word, or even Upheaval, an Imp will spawn. This Imp deals 25 – 205 damage in a 400 AoE explosion.

Killing an Imp is quite challenging in the early game because he has 50 – 370 HP. His duration is 15s, which is more than enough time to find a suitable target and explode. Imps prioritize enemy heroes who are under the effect of Fatal Bonds.

Warlock’s facets are very powerful. Champion of Gorroth increases your Golem’s Immolation damage based on your current HP and mana regen. Black Grimoire gives you an item that can be used in any active slot and then consumed to gain 250 experience per charge. It starts with one charge and gains a charge for each kill and assist.

This means that if you have 10 kills and assists at the 20-minute mark, you can gain 2500 XP at that point by consuming the item.

When playing Warlock, it’s essential to maximize the most useful abilities first. Depending on the matchup, you might want to prioritize Fatal Bonds, Shadow Word, or Upheaval.

The items that are most useful to this hero are Aether Lens, Ghost Scepter, Force Staff, Aghanim’s Scepter, and Refresher. There are more options available than you can afford, so you need to figure out what would help you the most against the enemy team.

Lich

lich

Valve

Lich has been a powerful support hero long before Dota 2 patch 7.36+. Lich can now deal massive amounts of damage and fortify allies against enemy attacks.

Frost Blast slows attack speed and movement speed significantly for 4s. It also deals lots of damage in a 200 radius. Lich can also buff himself or his allies using Frost Shield. This powerful ability slows enemy movement speed by 35% in a large area around the target. It also reduces incoming damage by 60%. On top of that, it deals 60 damage per second.

These effects last for 8s. If you buy Solar Crest, you can make an ally extremely difficult to kill for 8s. This mechanism is the perfect tool for countering a team whose initiation tools are superior to yours.

Lich can also drain 12% mana per second using Sinister Gaze. This ability disables the target and causes it to move towards you. The effect lasts for 2s.

The ultimate, Chain Frost, deals 250 – 550 damage per hit and bounces up to 10 times. With each bounce, the damage grows by 15 – 25. Movement speed and attack speed are also reduced drastically for 2.5s. The best thing about Lich’s ultimate is that it can bounce between an enemy hero and Ice Spire.

You gain the ability to create such an Ice Spire by purchasing Aghanim’s Shard. This can be done in the first 20 minutes of the game. Sometimes, you will get it by destroying the first Tormentor.

Unlike other heroes, Lich can play with very little gold. However, you will gain sufficient gold to buy decent items before the 20-minute mark if you play correctly and your team doesn’t get completely destroyed.

Lich has a very interesting innate ability. Every time a unit dies in a 1200 radius, you regenerate 2.5% of your maximum mana. If a hero dies, you gain 15%. This applies not just to enemy creeps and heroes but all creeps and heroes. So for every creep wave, you can expect to gain around 20% of your maximum mana.

This means that you should strive to have a large mana pool and never invest in items that give you mana regen because you don’t benefit from them. This hero cannot regenerate mana except when he is staying in his fountain. Only Sinister Gaze and Death Charge, his innate ability, can do this.

When your mana pool is 1000, which is a reasonable amount, you will gain 200 – 300 mana per creep wave and 150 mana for every nearby hero death. It’s not ideal but it’s good enough.

The two facets of this hero are Frostbound and Growing Cold. The first one improves your Chain Frost’s ability to bounce to a new target. If no target is found, the ability gains a 2.5s – 4.5s of wait and search time.

The second one gives Frost Shield and Chain Frost a longer duration or additional bounces if their damage results in hero deaths (for the first) or creep deaths (for the second).

Undying

undying

Valve

Undying innate ability gives him a free buyback every eight minutes. If you have it available, you will instantly respawn in the fountain after you die.

The two facets, Rotting Mitts and Ripped, improve two of his abilities. The first one gives Flesh Golem enhanced attacks. Each time you attack a target, a zombie will chase it for 15s. The second one gives an ally hero 10% of your strength when casting Soul Rip on him.

Undying’s abilities make him quite tanky for a support hero. Decay allows you to steal 4 strength per enemy from multiple enemies for 40s and deal 120 damage to them on top of this. You can use it every 4s, so if you have enough mana, spamming it can be quite powerful.

Soul Rip damages or heals a target based on how many other units are around it. The maximum number of units is 10 and the damage/heal per unit is 15 – 45. The radius is 1300. You can use this ability to heal your Tombstone.

Tombstone creates a tombstone for 30s. During this time, zombies spawn every 4s – 2.8s, attacking and slowing enemy heroes. The tombstone can be destroyed with 5 – 8 attacks.

Undying’s ultimate, Flesh Golem, gives him amplified damage, the ability to slow enemies with his attacks, 40% – 60% more strength, and 20 – 40 movement speed. These effects last for 40s.

Oracle

oracle

Valve

Oracle can now predict where the next power rune will spawn. This is quite a powerful innate ability because it gives your team much better rune control. However, the enemy team knows about it, so it will try to deduce from your movements where the rune will spawn.

The first facet is Clairvoyant Curse, which gives you 0.5% spell amp per level. The second one is Clairvoyant Cure, which gives you 1% heal amp per level. Given the nature of this hero, the second facet tends to be more useful in most cases.

Oracle’s current win rate is 52.5%. His pick rate is only 5.4%. This is the perfect hero to pick when you have a powerful ally who needs to stay alive for as long as possible and deal lots of damage, while the enemy team has excellent initiation. If your team lacks the ability to ensure that the carry or midlaner stays alive, the opposition could target them with everything it has.

Fortune’s End allows you to root multiple targets for 2.75s and deal 280 damage to them. This ability also applies a basic dispel.

Using Fate’s Edict, Oracle can make a target magic immune but remove its ability to use basic attacks for 5s.

Purifying Flames is used to deal high bursts of damage. Ideally, you want to hit a target 2-3 times with it before casting Fortune’s End to nullify the healing effects. If you cast it on yourself, make sure you don’t bring yourself too low. Because of the 25% magic resistance that each hero starts with, this ability deals just 270 damage and heals 450 HP.

That’s a 180 HP difference. However, the target will need to wait for 10s to gain its HP regen, so you should use it while enemies are around.

Oracle’s most powerful ability is False Promise. You can use it on an ally to guarantee that he stays alive for at least 7 – 10 more seconds. During this time, he will also gain 100% heal amplification.

Silencer

silencer

Valve

Silencer will now permanently steal 2 intelligence from each enemy hero that dies nearby. The steal radius is 925. Aghanim’s Shard doubles the amount to 4. That’s quite a lot given that in Dota 2, heroes die very often. After just 10 enemy deaths, you will have +40 intelligence.

Silencer’s Irrepressible facet makes him immune to silence. That’s a powerful facet that can turn him into a great carry or mid hero against certain lineups. If the enemy team heavily relies on silence, Silencer is the perfect pick.

The second facet of the hero is Reverberating Silence, which decreases the Global Silence duration but reapplies the effect to the first enemy that escapes it. The standard duration is 3 – 4s and the reapplied silence duration is 1.5 – 2s.

This is a powerful facet against heroes that have ways of escaping your Global Silence. However, it can be countered quite easily. Because of this, you should almost always pick the first facet.

Using Arcane Curse, Silencer can cause multiple enemies to take 40 damage per second for 6s and have their movement speed slowed by 25%. If a target casts a spell during this time, the damage and movement speed debuffs are paused but the target gets silenced for 2s.

Glaives of Wisdom steals 4 intelligence per hit for 35s. It also converts 80% of your intelligence into damage. The mana cost of this ability is 20.

Last Word is now a passive ability that greatly imbues Silencer’s silencing spells. Silenced enemies now suffer 50 damage per second and 15% slow for each silence instance they have on them.

Global Silence lasts 4.5s – 6s and can be cast from anywhere on the map. This is one of the most powerful spells in Dota 2.

When playing Silencer, it all depends on your role. But in general, having a Force Staff and other survival tools doesn’t hurt.

Phoenix

phoenix

Valve

Phoenix has a win rate of 52% and a pick rate of 6%. The innate ability of this hero, Blinding Sun, applies a debuff stack per second for each ability effect. This means that an enemy hero affected by any of Phoenix’s abilities will accumulate debuff stacks. Each stack causes a 2% miss chance. The effect lasts for 5s. Each new stack refreshes the duration.

If one of your allies buys a Radiance on top of this, the enemy team will miss a lot of its attacks.

The first facet is Dying Light. It burns enemies in a 450 radius, dealing damage each second. The amount is calculated based on how much HP you are missing. The percentage is 6%. This means that if you have 3000 HP because you bought a Heart of Tarrasque and you’re missing 2000 HP, you will deal 120 damage per second.

The second facet, Hotspot, causes Sun Ray to deal more damage in the second half of the beam. Targets trapped near the end of it will take almost 150% of the damage.

When playing Phoenix, the goal is to make yourself hard to kill, especially during your ultimate. So the most important items are Heaven’s Halberd, Shiva’s Guard, and Heart of Tarrasque. Buying such items will greatly improve your chances of winning.

Phoenix can take a lot of damage and your goal should be to take as much of it as possible before using your ultimate. Force the enemy team to focus on you by using your Icarus Dive aggressively. You should never stay in the back when playing this hero. Use your Sun Ray from a long range but do not play scared.

Build as much armor and HP as possible and then dive in, dealing damage and being as threatening as possible. The enemy team should be on the run when you have your abilities available.

Cast Fire Spirits before pressing R and try to hit as many enemies as possible. Use your Sun Ray as well, even if you do it for just a few seconds. After using your ultimate, Supernova, you regain your abilities. So you essentially benefit from a free Refresher. Because of that, you do not want to press R before using your spells once.

Header: Valve