Seven Mid Heroes to Play in Dota 2 Patch 7.35d

Some people play Dota 2 just to have fun. But most of us have fun when we’re winning. If you want to win, you need to play what works best in the current meta and take into account the heroes picked by the opposite team. Doing this will maximize your chances of being successful and gaining MMR.

On average, if you can win even 55% of your matches, you will slowly but surely gain around 50 MMR for every 20 matches you’ve played. In most cases, your win rate will be lower than that. Some people stay at 50% for years and never climb to the next level. Here are some of the best heroes that you can play in Dota 2 patch 7.35d to gain MMR.

Zeus

Zeus has a method of farming that allows him to get last hits with ease and even bully his opponent while he’s at it. Most players can learn how to play Zeus well because he’s one of the easiest heroes in Dota 2. His spells are powerful, have a low cooldown, and can be cast from a long range. You can further increase that range by purchasing Aether Lens.

Zeus has a 17% pick rate for a reason. And his win rate is also impressive: 53%. This hero deals 85 damage to 5 targets plus 3% additional damage based on their current health with a mere level 1 Arc Lightning that costs 75 mana and can be used every 1.6s.

It’s hard to miss last hits with Zeus if you have enough mana to cast your spells, so the key is to build as much mana and mana regen as possible in the early game. Buy two Null Talismans, a Bottle, Rain Drops, a Magic Wand, and other items that keep you regenerated and fully capable of farming.

You won’t be able to get too many denies, especially against opponents like Templar Assassin and Viper, but you will be able to get last hits because your Q deals a lot of damage not just at level 1 but also at level 3. When everything is included, you’re dealing around 150 damage per Arc Lightning instance.

If the opponent isn’t careful and comes too close to you, you have the option of hitting him directly with your abilities and basic attacks. Doing this 2-3 times will quickly force him to retreat and regenerate his HP. And if your mana regen is good enough, you will gain back everything you lost in less than 60s.

Zeus gains 3.3 intelligence per level. This means that by the time he’s level 4, he will have almost 10 more intelligence than when he started. His standard intelligence is 22. With three levels, one Magic Wand, and two Null Talismans you can bring it up to 45.

That’s the equivalent of nearly 700 mana and 2.25 mana regen. Plus you get an additional 2 mana regen from your Talismans. On top of that, you can also buy Infused Raindrops, which give you +0.8 mana regen. So the total is around 5 mana regen at level 4. And we’re not counting any other regen items, like Bottle, Magic Wand, or Arcane Boots.

After Arcane Boots, you’ll be at around 6 mana regen plus the 175 mana that you get every 55s, which is the equivalent of 3 more mana regen. So in total it’s 9 mana regen or 540 mana per minute. This is enough to cast your Q around 7 times. For two creep waves per minute, you don’t really need more than that.

The secret when playing Zeus is to buy the correct items in the early game and not try to cut corners. You need two Null Talismans, as well as a Bottle, a Wand, and Arcane Boots. Don’t try to build a big item from the start because you will fail and lose most of your farm.

Leshrac

Leshrac is very similar to Zeus but you can play him more aggressively. His movement speed is amazing, so all you need to do is to upgrade his stats and regeneration.

In most cases, the same build you use for Zeus will work for Leshrac too. The goal is to reach a point where you can bully your opponent out of the lane. With a stat increase of more than 9 per level, Leshrac becomes a monster very quickly.

He also has a great toolkit that can stun heroes in a 240 radius for 1.7s and deal 300 damage to each of them, destroy buildings in less than a minute, farm creep waves with ease, and kill jungle camps efficiently, especially if they’re stacked.

When playing Leshrac, one of the keys to gaining a gold lead is to ask a teammate to stack 2-3 jungle camps 3-4 times, so that you can farm all of that gold as soon as you reach level 6. Thanks to his speed, Leshrac can evade neutral creeps but still damage them continuously using his Pulse Nova. Its damage is 80 per second while the mana cost is 25 per second.

The radius of this ability is 525. This means that for 25 mana per second you can deal 500 – 1000 damage per second in an AoE. That’s unbelievable efficiency and will quickly put you ahead of the enemy mid. With basic items, Leshrac becomes difficult to kill.

The enemy team knows that if he doesn’t die quickly at the start of a fight, the fight will be lost and the snowball will grow out of control.

When you play Leshrac, you should buy items like Bloodstone, Kaya and Sange, Shiva’s Guard, Eternal Shroud, and Boots of Travel. All of them give him important stats that he can leverage against his opponents.

Invoker

Invoker doesn’t have a high win rate in Dota 2 patch 7.35d but his pick rate is above 15%. That’s because this hero is one of the most enjoyable and challenging to play. If you do it properly, you have a big advantage against most players because of your versatile toolkit.

This is a hero that can be played in many different ways. Based on your item choices and skill build order, you will peak at various moments. Ideally, you should be useful before the 15-minute mark because your team will often need you.

If you can create a lot of space for your carry and get kills that give your team an advantage, you will be very hard to stop after the 25-minute mark. With enough levels and items, Invoker becomes almost impossible to kill. Spells like Tornado, Ice Wall, Ghost Walk, and Deafening Blast give him great survivability.

When you play Invoker, you should buy Boots of Travel, Hand of Midas, and Blink Dagger. Where you go from there is up to you. Generally, you will need some mana regen, debuff immunity, and durability. But you could also opt for a more aggressive item build. Weapons like Witch Blade work well for Invoker.

To become a capable Invoker player, you must exercise your abilities and combos. At first, it will be difficult even to memorize them. But as you spend more time playing this hero, they will become second nature. What will continue to be a challenge for hundreds of games is the optimal use of each combo.

Bloodseeker

Dota 2 patch 7.35d made Bloodseeker a much stronger hero. He now has better base agility (+2) and his Thirst is amplified by lifesteal amp sources. He can be played mid against a lot of opponents, but you need to play him correctly.

When you pick him, focus on Bloodrage and Thirst but put a few points into Blood Rite as well because it’s your only ability that consumes a substantial amount of mana. You can choose to ignore it if you don’t have enough mana to work with and just use it to cast Bloodrage. But it’s a great way of deterring your opponents to stay away from the creep wave.

Bloodseeker becomes stronger when heroes of the enemy team lose a lot of HP. His attack speed is already great thanks to Bloodrage, which gives +150 at level 4 for 8s. But without extra movement speed and lifesteal, BS would not be very strong. That’s why Thirst is important. It gives him +40% move speed when an enemy loses most of his HP.

When opponents fall below 25%, Bloodseeker sees them wherever they are on the map. This can help other heroes to go after them or use a global ability to get the job done. Nature’s Prophet absolutely loves having BS on his team. Zeus as well.

Bloodseeker is greatly helped by items like Sange and Yasha, Blade Mail, Mjollnir, Black King Bar, and Eye of Skadi. What you buy is ultimately up to you. Just figure out what you’re missing and seek to excel as an assassin. You’re supposed to deal lots of damage and kill enemies, especially when they have low HP and can’t hide from you.

Against heroes that like to use channeled abilities, Blood Rite is perfect for silencing them. Witch Doctor hates BS because of this.

Death Prophet

Death Prophet is another one of those heroes that have a highly effective toolkit and miss only a few components. She can clear creep waves in seconds thanks to her Crypt Swarm, which deals 325 damage at level 4 and can be used every 6s.

If an enemy hero gets too close and commits too hard, Spirit Siphon will create a 1200 HP difference in just 6s.

Silence applies a 25% movement slow and silence for 5s. The debuff is applied in a 450 radius area, making this spell one of the most powerful in the game. Its 12s cooldown means that you can spam it in team fights to completely destroy your opponents and ruin their combos.

DP’s ultimate, Exorcism, deals an enormous amount of damage to heroes and buildings alike. At level 6 you have just 8 spirits, but at 18 you have 24. The damage of each spirit is 64. Targets also suffer from a slow debuff when they get attacked by a spirit. Meanwhile, you receive 12 – 20% passive movement speed and an additional 4 – 12% active movement speed.

During her ultimate, DP cannot be fought directly. Most teams will simply attempt to fly away. But you can stop them using your abilities, which are very effective at slowing enemies.

To be effective, DP needs mobility and durability items. Try buying Eul’s Scepter, Eternal Shroud, Shiva’s Guard, Kaya and Sange etc.

Viper

Viper has always been a strong mid hero. But in Dota 2 patch 7.35d, he is very dominant thanks to the combination of his toolkit and the items that you can buy with relatively little gold. His Poison Attack makes him unbeatable in the mid lane.

When you also put a few points in Corrosive Skin and a few more in Nethertoxin, the effect is devastating. While Nethertoxin is active, the enemy hero needs to stay away from the creep wave. Otherwise he risks getting caught by the slow applied by Poison Attack and then being severely damaged before he gets away.

Viper has many downsides as well, such as his slow movement speed. But as long as you win your lane decisively, which you should, and then farm your first few major items without getting killed, by the 20-minute mark you will be very far ahead in networth. In turn, this will allow you to push relentlessly.

At that point, most enemy cores just want to keep farming their big items. But you’re already farmed and ready to destroy tier 3 towers. In most cases, a tanky build with an Aghanim’s Scepter is the key to winning with Viper. You don’t need to deal the most damage. Just be tough to deal with.

Kunkka

Kunkka is a niche hero with a pick rate of 8% and a win rate of 51.2%. He is challenging to play at first because it’s not easy to use his Torrent and his Ghostship. In most cases, you will miss the perfect timing. But if you practice enough, you will start hitting perfect Torrents on multiple targets during team fights. And that will give your team a huge advantage.

Kunkka can be played using a utility build, with items like Heaven’s Halberd, or using an aggressive build, with items like Daedalus. In the laning stage, Kunkka’s strength comes from his Tidebringer, which deals 30 – 120 additional damage, as well as 150% cleave damage in a range of 650 – 1100. At level 4, this ability has a 4s cooldown.

Another great ability is X Marks the Spot, which allows you to relocate a target, including yourself. If you self-cast this ability, you can teleport back to the fountain, regenerate, fill your bottle, and come back instantly.

If you use the ability on an enemy hero, you can prevent him from escaping. Properly timing your Torrent and Ghostship allows you to hit a powerful combo that slows movement speed by 40% for 4s and deals massive amounts of damage. Combined with Tidebringer, this often results in the death of a support hero.

When playing Kunkka, is often a good idea to buy items like Armlet, Daedalus, Blade Mail, and Silver Edge. All of them will give your hero the extra edge he needs to get kills and damage his opponents.

Kunkka doesn’t excel at hitting enemies repeatedly. He excels at hitting them a few times with great force. The pattern is simple: you hit, move back, use your abilities to relocate, stun, and slow, and then hit again.

You can often make use of creeps to damage enemy heroes because Tidebringer has a cleave range of 1100.

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