Most Survivable Heroes in Dota 2

In Dota 2, survivability has a lot to do with armor, magic resistance, HP, HP regen, lifesteal, and mobility. Some heroes excel in one or more of these categories, which is why they are considered to be highly survivable.

In this guide, you will discover some of the most survivable heroes in Dota 2.

Timbersaw

Anyone who has played against Timbersaw in the laning phase knows how difficult it is to kill this hero. His armor stacks quickly add up, which makes Timber not just more tanky in terms of armor, but also in terms of his HP regen.

To maximize the benefits of Reactive Armor, you should buy at least 10 armor when playing this hero. The reason why it’s important to do this is that the armor stacks require attacks to add up. And until those stacks reach a decent number, such as 20, you are just as vulnerable as any other hero.

But if you have around 10-15 armor on top of your natural armor, the damage you will take until you’ve gained enough stacks will be much less.

The survivability of Timbersaw is also provided by Timber Chain, which has a 4s cooldown and can be used to move across 1200 units at a speed of 2800 units per second. All you need to do is find some trees and not miscalculate the distance.

Dragon Knight

Dragon Knight receives no less than 13 armor and 13 HP regen from his Dragon Blood. He also gains 300 additional HP from his level 15 talent. This makes him twice as tanky against physical damage than most heroes. If you buy items that give him additional strength and armor, you can become a formidable tank with initiation capabilities and decent damage.

DK’s Breathe Fire greatly reduces enemy damage and affects lots of targets thanks to its AoE. The debuff lasts for 11s. Combined with his armor and HP regen, this ability makes him three to four times more tanky against physical damage than a regular hero.

Therefore, if the enemy team has lots of physical damage and you need a tanky frontliner who will not die at the start of each fight, Dragon Knight is one of the best options. Players typically pick him for the mid lane, but he can be played in the other two core roles as well.

Spirit Breaker

Spirit Breaker starts the game with 736 HP, 4 HP regen, and 3.3 strength increase per level. He also starts with almost 4 armor. These stats make him one of the most survivable heroes that you can pick for the laning phase.

Later into the game, he remains an excellent initiator and will take a lot of hits before he dies if you buy the right items. Pavise, Blade Mail, and Heaven’s Halberd are very powerful options for this hero.

Spirit Breaker’s survivability is further increased by his ability to run away from fights quite easily. All he needs to do is use Charge of Darkness on a distant target. With it, he gains 425 bonus speed, which brings his overall speed at around 800. But that’s without Bulldoze. When activated, this ability gives him an additional 20% MS, as well as 70% status resistance.

Tidehunter

Tidehunter reduces incoming damage in two ways. Kraken Shell blocks 70 damage and gives him a strong dispel. Thanks to this, it is very difficult to keep a Tidehunter stunned for long periods of time and it’s also hard to kill him in the laning phase.

By the time he’s level five, he has high HP relative to most hero’s damage and will block around 50% of incoming physical damage.

The second method for decreasing enemy damage is Anchor Smash. This ability reduces attack damage of all enemies in a 375 radius for 6s and you can cast it every 4s. When used correctly, Tidehunter is extremely hard to kill with physical damage.

If the enemy team has multiple melee heroes, Tidehunter is one of the best counters because he’ll stay alive for a long time and protect his allies too. One Anchor Smash reduces damage by 60% and you can further improve it by choosing the appropriate level 15 talent.

When playing Tidehunter, what you need is a bit of armor, magic resistance, and mobility. Many players prefer to buy Mekansm, Pipe of Insight, and Blink Dagger.

Spectre

Spectre’s Dispersion reduces incoming damage by 20% and reflects it back at the enemy. You can further increase the amount of damage that you reflect by purchasing a Blade Mail. This item works well for this hero and will persuade most enemies to avoid you completely in team fights.

Spectre can use Spectral Dagger to gain 22% bonus movement speed and the ability to move unobstructed by obstacles and terrain. This ability is seriously underrated, especially when trying to escape certain death.

Anti-Mage

If you need a hero who is highly survivable against magical damage, Anti-Mage is one of the best picks. His passive abilities give him +45% magic resistance on top of the 25% he already has. Because of this, lineups that rely on magical damage are forced to improvise and will often get destroyed by a single Mana Void.

Anti-Mage has a second ability that makes him highly survivable. And that ability is Blink. The fact that you can blink every 5s across a distance equal to that of Blink Dagger’s active ability, is completely overpowered. You can get out of trouble extremely quickly and if the enemy can’t catch you in just five seconds, you can blink again.

If we translate the blink distance into movement speed, AM essentially has 240 bonus MS, which means he’s moving at 500 speed at all times. But it gets even better because movement is obstructed by terrain. When you blink, you don’t need to worry about this problem.

Because of this, AM has some of the most efficient farming patterns in Dota 2. If left unchecked, this hero will quickly grow after the 15-minute mark and become unstoppable in just 10 more minutes. His playstyle puts a lot of pressure on teams to gank, set up traps, and go out of their way to catch him.

The problem, however, is that an AM lineup will often include heroes who are very good at creating space and putting enormous pressure on the lanes. Broodmother, Lone Druid, Leshrac, and Jakiro are just some of the examples.

Death Prophet

Death Prophet is survivable thanks to her movement speed and abilities. Her Silence is one of the most effective spells of this type in the game, slowing movement speed by 25% and silencing enemies in a 450 radius for 5s.

Using Spirit Siphon, DP can drain up to 600 HP from her target over 6s, essentially giving her +100 HP regen for that duration.

The hero’s ultimate, Exorcism, grants 12% – 20% passive movement speed as well as 4% – 12% active movement speed. For 40s, you are absolutely terrifying and nobody wants to fight you.

To make DP even more survivable, consider buying items like Shiva’s Guard, Eul’s Scepter, and Ghost Scepter.

Bristleback

Bristleback is not afraid to die and he will often get his enemies to chase him until they drop dead. His passive ability, Bristleback, grants him 20% damage reduction on the sides and 40% damage reduction on the rear. These percentages can be improved by 4% and 8% if you pick the appropriate level 15 talent.

With this amount of natural protection, which works against physical and magical damage, Bristleback needs just a few more items to make himself extremely hard to kill. Players usually buy Blade Mail, some kind of armor, and a magic resistance item. They also tend to focus on items that provide some HP regen and mana regen on top of other benefits.

Because he has natural abilities that help him farm and deal damage, Bristle is very enjoyable to play. You can spend your gold on items that make you highly survivable and fill your inventory before the 20-minute mark. You don’t need to complete or fully upgrade many of your items. Buying the basic version is often enough to keep you safe.

However, if you also want to help your team, you could potentially choose to go in one direction until you’ve exhausted the upgrades.

Wraith King

Wraith King has good HP regen and two lives, which makes him highly survivable. In order to die, you need to get killed twice in quick succession. If your team is nearby and you’re not too far behind the enemy in networth, you can expect to survive in most cases and reap the rewards.

Being part of a fight will give you lots of gold and experience even if the result is a draw. As long as you stay alive, you’re fine.

When playing WK, you have to buy items that give you damage, armor, and mobility. Armlet of Mordiggian is absolutely perfect for this hero because it offers everything you need at a low price.

Morphling

Morphling is hard to kill because of his Attribute Shift, which can give him +20 strength per second or 400 HP. If he has enough points to shift from agility to strength, you will need to deal massive amounts of damage to get the job done.

Using Waveform, Morphling has the option of disengaging from fights, which further adds to his survivability. The distance he can travel across in just one second is 1000 and can be further increased by 250 at level 10.

Morphling is one of the heroes who can make highly efficient use of Linken’s Sphere, which is why you’ll often see players buying this item. Once you own it, on top of stats and HP regen, you also get the ability to block a targeted spell every 12s. That’s five spells per minute.

Slark

Slark love to fight for a bit and then retreat. If he can prolong a fight for more than 5s, his chances of winning increase significantly. That’s because he steals stacks of agility every time he attacks.

For every six points in agility, you gain one point in armor. And Slark gets three points in agility each time he attacks. This means that attacking twice helps him gain not only six damage and six attack speed but also one point in armor.

Attacking 20 times means 60 damage, 60 attack speed, and 10 armor. After the 30-minute mark, that’s less than 10s and we’re not counting Pounce stacks.

Thanks to his ultimate, Slark has impressive HP regen whenever he’s out of sight, as well as bonus movement speed. He only needs around five seconds to recover much of his HP. After that, he can start fighting again.

Using Pounce, Slark can escape certain death or initiate fights. If you buy Aghanim’s Scepter, this ability will have two charges and 1000 range instead of 700.

Weaver

Weaver has the ability to move invisibly at maximum speed for 4s out of six. Because of this, he can quickly disengage from unwanted fights. But that’s not all.

This hero can undo all of the damage that was done to him in the last five seconds. This means that if he’s tanky enough, even if the enemy spends four seconds dealing damage to him, he can go back to full HP with the press of a button, nullifying all of that effort.

When playing Weaver, players tend to skip buying boots and focus instead on other items that give attack range, stats, and regeneration. Linken’s Sphere and Dragon Lance are two of the most important items you can buy.

Sven

Sven gains 22% movement speed and 15 armor for 10s whenever he uses his Warcry. This ability can be used every 20s, which makes these bonuses easy to access.

Like Dragon Knight, Sven is very hard to kill with physical damage and can buy items that greatly improve his survivability. One example is Satanic. Another is Blink Dagger. Whatever you choose to buy, make sure you have the necessary tools to deal with your opponents.

The ideal fighting mechanism for this hero is this: blink in, stun, and attack. When trying to escape, casting Warcry improves movement speed and armor, while a Blink Dagger will help you disengage more quickly.

Think of Warcry the way you think of Black King Bar. Use it only when you need to block damage or increase your movement speed. For 10s, you will benefit from amazing buffs. If your team is smart enough to buy items like Solar Crest, you can gain even more impressive buffs for free.

Faceless Void

Faceless Void is survivable thanks to his Time Walk. Dealing a lot of damage to this hero doesn’t help if you can’t chain-stun him for more than a few seconds. With the massive nerfs that were applied to most debuffs, Faceless Void is currently thriving. He can undo all the damage he received in the last 2s, which is more than enough to keep himself safe in most cases.

One thing you need to do to improve your survivability is to buy Manta Style. This item, when dealing with targeted spells and AeE silences, is vital for dispelling or dodging unwanted debuffs.

Phantom Assassin

Phantom Assassin is highly survivable throughout the game thanks to her 50% evasion and invisibility. Later, when the enemy team has Monkey King Bars, she can continue to fight well if she chooses to buy Satanic and items like Desolator or Basher.

Another thing that keeps PA survivable is her ability to move with ease and blink across long distances with Phantom Strike. This ability gives her 190 attack speed for 2.5s after she lands, which means that most support heroes will have less than a second to react. If they receive a few critical hits, they are dead before they can do anything.

Necrophos

Necrophos heals himself every time he uses his Q. He also heals himself considerably every time he kills an enemy creep or hero. Furthermore, he can make himself untargetable and increase the amount of healing he receives by 75% using Ghost Shroud. This means that if you have a full Wand, you will gain more than 500 HP instantly just from its active alone.

Against enemies that deal a lot of physical damage, you should consider buying a Ghost Scepter to prolong the number of seconds in which you cannot be targeted by physical attacks.

The combination of HP regen and physical immunity gives excellent survivability. But you can go even further buy purchasing items that give you magic resistance, HP, and armor.

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