How to Play Summon-Based Dota 2 Heroes

In Dota 2, summon-based heroes can be very powerful, especially in the early game. The summons you can have are often quite tanky, which allows you to push relentlessly and force the enemy team to defend in unfavorable situations.

This guide provides an introduction to summon-based heroes in Dota 2, presenting the best options and what you can do to win using such heroes.

Secrets to Playing Summon-Based Heroes in Dota 2

The first thing that you must do when playing summon-based heroes in Dota 2 is to make sure that you have an easy way of selecting your summons and your hero. Sometimes, you will want to select only your summons. Other times, you will want to select only your hero. A third case is the one in which you want to select every unit you own and attack a given target.

You can create an easy way to control your summons and your hero for the settings. There, it is relatively easy to attach a key to your summons and another key to your hero. You can also create groups and then select those groups the way you would do in a game like StarCraft.

Go to Settings and find in the Hotkeys tab the following settings:

• Select Hero
• Select all controlled units
• Next unit
• Prev unit
• Group 1, 2, …, 6

Based on your preferred binds, you will have the ability to quickly select your units and then issue commands to them.

If you have numerous summons or if those summons are strong enough, you can use them to increase your farming speed. You have two options here. You can either go from jungle camp to jungle camp while your summons are with you, or you can split your summons and send them to multiple jungle camps simultaneously.

A hero like Broodmother, for example, will often send her summons to multiple camps if she has dozens of them. You should consider farming a lane and also one or two jungle camps if your number of summons permits it.

When playing Wraith King, you can easily farm a lane and at least one camp using skeletons. Heroes like Lone Druid are more restricted because the bear cannot attack if he’s not close enough to you.

If your summons have abilities, you will need to select them one by one using the Tab key or other controls in order to use those abilities. Enchantress, for example, might enchant a Satyr and then attempt to use a powerful ability to harass the enemy laner.

Summons can also be used to tank tower shots when diving. In the early game, towers deal a lot of damage per shot relative to your HP, so it’s a good idea to distract the tower’s attention using summons while focusing on the enemy hero.

Summons can be used for scouting. Beastmaster will regularly do this to keep an eye on Roshan, detect ambush attempts, or simply locate enemy cores that are farming their own jungle. Then, using the gathered intelligence, you can act intelligently.

In team fights, summons might have strong auras that enhance your damage or armor. Or they might have abilities that can stun enemy heroes. In such scenarios, you will want to make sure that you can control each summon in a way that allows you to chain the relevant abilities for maximum impact.

Summon-based Heroes

Here are some of the best summon-based heroes that you can pick in pubs to gain MMR.

Broodmother

Broodmother currently has a win rate of 47.5% and a pick rate of just 1.6%. She’s not exactly popular but she is certainly deadly in the right hands. When playing this hero, you should aim to become sustainable and hard to kill at first. After that, you can gradually increase your damage output.

This is a hero that needs 5 levels to start being strong. After level 6, she is very hard to kill. Her speed is phenomenal, her summons are numerous, durable, and powerful in terms of damage output, and she can quickly regenerate her HP using Insatiable Hunger.

Previously, this ability was her ultimate. Now it’s just another ability that you can upgrade to gain additional damage and lifesteal for 8 – 14s. Given that you can use it every 30s at level 4, it’s a good idea to maximize it early.

The only problem is that the other two abilities are just as strong. Spin Web gives you lots of HP regen, movement speed, and webs to use. So you’ll want to put at least three points in it as soon as possible in order to gain a big advantage over a large area of land.

Usually, that area will be located in the bottom lane and will include the opponent’s tier 1 tower plus the jungle camps that are found around it. Your goal will be to drain the enemy side of as many resources as possible, taking advantage of your ability to farm quickly and maintain your HP.

Doing this even for 5 minutes will put you way ahead of the opposition and will also ensure that your other cores grow faster than the enemy cores.

Silken Bola slows enemy movement, deals lots of damage, and ensures that the target misses its attacks against you. If you want to play aggressively, this is a very strong ability. The combination of its movement slow and your web’s movement speed bonus guarantees that nothing can escape you.

The moment you have 5 webs and an almost 50% movement speed advantage over your opponent, almost everyone will run away from you. That’s what makes Broodmother fun to play in pubs. She becomes overpowered very quickly and then she overwhelms one lane, drawing a lot of attention and draining the opposite side of valuable resources.

In general, buying offensive items will allow you to carry your team from the offlane position and ensure that you have enough damage to quickly kill enemy heroes in fights. In professional matches, players often play Broodmother using a utilitarian build, but that’s not the best option in pubs.

Invoker

Invoker only has two summons. These summons are his Forge Spirits. He can use them to farm or to kill enemies more easily if he also invokes Cold Snap.

Invoker’s summons greatly increase his damage output because they deal 92 damage when your Exort is level 8. They have 300 – 1000 HP and they last for 20 – 90s, based on your Quas level. In general, you will be able to use these spirits to farm jungle camps without getting injured.

However, it all depends on what you choose to maximize first. If you opt for a Quas Wex build, you won’t be able to do much with your Forge Spirits because their damage will be low. They will be useful for blocking damage. But they will only deal around 22 – 32 damage per hit. On the bright side, their HP will be high.

If, on the other hand, you choose to go for a Quas Exort build, their HP, duration, and damage will be great. By the time you’re level 7, these spirits will already deal 52 damage and have 600 HP. Their duration will be greater than that of the cooldown of this ability (30s). These characteristics turn them into excellent farming and fighting tools.

One thing that needs to be mentioned about Forge Spirits is that their armor is based on your Exort level and ranges between 0 and 7.

Apart from his summons, Invoker has plenty of other capabilities, which makes him one of the best summon-based heroes in Dota 2 patch 7.35d. Never underestimate what he can do when his toolkit is used optimally.

Enchantress

Enchantress can Enchant creeps and then use them against her enemies. She can have just one creep at a time and that creep will die after 30s. But during that time, she can control it fully and use all of its abilities. This means that if you find a Centaur or a Satyr, your enemy might face huge difficulties.

Enchantress is a great pick not just because of her Enchant ability but also because of her healing, protective, and offensive abilities. Nature’s Attendants gives her and all friendly units 16 HP per second from every wisp. And she has 8 in total for 9s. That’s a lot of healing in the early game.

Impetus deals pure damage based on the distance between Enchantress and the target she attacks. So if a hero tries to run away from you, he will take a lot more damage. The effect can be further increased using Dragon Lance and Hurricane Pike.

Once she gets to level 6, Enchantress becomes very hard to kill using basic attacks because Untouchable gives her enemies -100 attack speed. At level 3, this ability reduces attack speed by 200. You can further improve this effect by purchasing Shiva’s Guard.

Chen

Chen is like Enchantress, but much more summon-focused. He can have up to 4 creeps under his control, and each of those creeps will have lots of HP, damage, and movement speed. This makes Chen difficult to play against in the first 15-20 minutes. After that, he starts to fall off. But if a team is well-organized, it can win the game in the first 20-25 minutes using this hero.

Chen is typically played in a defensive manner, using items like Mekansm and Pipe of Insight. He is a great support hero that can heal his allies using his ultimate, Hand of God. If you buy additional items that enhance his healing capabilities, he becomes even stronger.

Chen can also be played in an aggressive manner because Penitence gives him +350 attack range and +80 attack speed against a target for 8s. Meanwhile, that target will be slowed by 30%, allowing him to easily attack without losing sight of it.

Chen’s Divine Armor gives a unit 9 – 18 armor for 6s, essentially doubling its effective HP against physical damage. When this hero is combined with others who have strong armor buffs, you can turn one of your cores into an unkillable target that can jump in the middle of the enemy team and just deal damage without having to worry about getting killed.

One of the keys to playing Chen well is to have a strategy for your summons. Different creeps give you different benefits and options. If you know what you’re trying to do, you will pick better creeps.

Quite often, you won’t have much of a choice because you’ll find very few creeps in your surroundings. Your teammates will be farming and your enemies will try to stop you from getting powerful creeps. But having a strategy is still important and it allows you to communicate to your team what you can provide in the next few minutes.

Beastmaster

Beastmaster’s summons come in the form of boars and hawks. One of these summons is great for farming while the other is great for scouting. The summons of this hero are among the weakest in the game, but his complete toolkit still makes him very strong. His ultimate, Primal Roar, will stun a target for 2.75 – 3.75s. That’s a very long time.

The only problem is that in the current meta, it’s relatively easy for heroes to buy status resistance items. A Linken’s Sphere is also very useful against this hero.

Still, the 46 attack speed aura, combined with some additional items that can greatly boost a team’s damage output, make Beastmaster a strong choice in a lot of cases. Just imagine buying Drum of Endurance. Your allies will have more than 90 attack speed bonus for 6s when Endurance is activated. And this item costs just 1650 gold.

This means that your team could potentially group up before the 10-minute mark and destroy all of the outer towers on the enemy side of the map.

Lone Druid Needs items like Blink Dagger and Helm of the Overlord to be effective. Once he has enough powerful summons, he can overwhelm the enemy team with them.

Keep in mind that this hero is strong in team-based tactics because of his aura and summons. You don’t want to pick Beastmaster and then play alone for the rest of the game. The goal is to create a synergy that allows you to take advantage of your Inner Beast aura and the rest of your abilities.

Lone Druid

Lone Druid is another summon-based hero that becomes incredibly strong very quickly. At level 7, his bear already has 2000 HP, lots of armor, great attack speed, great movement speed, and 8 HP regen. You can also upgrade him by purchasing items for him.

In that sense, Lone Druid is the only Dota 2 hero that can upgrade his summons with items. Instead of buying them for himself, he can buy them for his bear. In a lot of cases, you stand to benefit from buying multiple mid-tier items for your bear and yourself. That way, you will be both difficult to kill.

When playing LD, your enemies will often try to kill your main hero in an attempt to get rid of the bear. If they go for the bear, he is very hard to kill and you can quickly resummon him. But if they manage to kill you, the bear dies automatically. Knowing this, you must position yourself so that you can always defend yourself.

Another important decision when playing Lone Druid is the item build. In some games, a Radiance will be the perfect choice. In others, you will want to build other items and start fighting much sooner.

If time is running in your favor, go for a late-game build. If it doesn’t and you are forced to put pressure on the enemy immediately after the laning phase, go for cheap items that give you just enough armor and magic resistance to make you tanky. Your bear will greatly benefit from 5-10 extra armor, 20% magic resistance, and a bit more HP regen.

Overall, this hero is very tanky. But you could make him even tankier. It all depends on what the rest of your team brings to the table. If their damage is already excellent, play a tanky build that allows you to send the bear in front without having to fear enemy damage. If your teammates lack damage, then go for an offensive build and rely on them to give you the rest.

Warlock

Warlock has one summon but he’s quite powerful. That’s part of the reason why this hero has a win rate of 52.8%. Chaotic Offering creates a beast with 1400 – 3200 HP, lots of armor, lots of damage, and is highly resistant to slows. This golem lasts for 60s or until killed.

When the summon is created, enemies in a large area are stunned for 0.8s. This allows Warlock to cast some of his other abilities immediately after. For example, his Shadow Word, which can be applied to the golem to give him lots of extra HP regen for 10s. Or his Fatal Bonds, which can destroy an entire enemy team.

Upheaval is another great ability that will slow enemies almost completely and prevent them from blinking away using their Blink Daggers by dealing a little bit of damage per second. Melee heroes with no escape mechanisms are severely affected by Warlock’s slow.

Wraith King

Wraith King’s summons are his skeletons, which may not seem strong at first but they are actually very strong. He can have eight of them in total and every one of them deals 34 damage per hit. Against heroes, they deal 25% more damage. The skeletons last for 40s and can be summoned quite frequently.

This hero farms very quickly thanks to his summons. The goal is to buy a Blink Dagger, an Armlet, and a few more items as soon as possible, and then go on the offensive. You don’t want to wait too long when playing WK, but you don’t need to rush either. The optimal timing when playing this hero is anywhere between the 15 and 25-minute marks.

Your opponents shouldn’t be farmed enough to have the chance to kill you quickly. That extra life, given to you by your ultimate, can make a big difference if the rest of your team is still standing. If you’re trapped alone behind 3-4 enemies, it won’t matter as much. But with allies nearby, you’ll often win fights despite dying once.

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