The most annoying spells in DOTA 2

There are at least 120 active spells in DOTA 2. Many of those skills either damage, disable, or slow your enemies. There are also spells that inflict tilt warfare. These spells get increasingly annoying the more hours you pour into the game. Here’s our list in no particular order.

Anti-Mage’s Blink

Blink is a relatively simple spell. It moves your hero from point A to B. It is also the reason why Anti-Mage is one of the most feared heroes in the late game. Blink provides him a 6-second cooldown tool to speed up farm or escape at a moment’s notice. Many teams (especially in solo pubs) will have a hard time locking down an Anti-Mage before he gets to six-slotted carry status.

Tinker’s Laser

Most spells in the games are nukes. They hit you, you get damaged. Laser is a bit special because it’s a 320 pure damage AOE nuke. Then Tinker’s kit steps it up a notch by making you miss all physical attacks for 4.5 seconds if it hits (which it does since it’s an instant projectile). But hey, if that wasn’t enough, Tinker can Rearm his Laser and hit you again in as little as 1.25 seconds. And did we mention it has an Aghanim’s upgrade that increases the cast range and shrinks your current health by 10% STACKABLE?

Timbersaw’s Reactive Armor

Similar to Huskar’s Berserker’s Blood, this Timbersaw passive makes him tankier the more you hit him. This spell is why Timbersaw had an 80% pick/ban rate in TI10 Qualifiers. The amount of effective HP he gets when he gets his armor stacks makes him almost invulnerable at a very early phase of the game. This hero forces you to play at a different pace due to the high chance that his early advantage snowballs the game out of control.

Invoker’s Cold Snap

What’s worse than getting stunned? Getting repeatedly stunned. These mini-interruptions can be more annoying than one long disable. It can trigger up to 4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11 times depending on the level of Quas. If you like playing heroes with particularly slow cast points, then good luck trying getting your spells off before a cold snap + meatball combo kills you. Any Doom players here?

Disruptor’s Glimpse

Glimpse takes your hero back to where it was four seconds ago. Positioning is an important aspect and Glimpse just renders your hero vulnerable at any time— especially when retreating. The cast range is huge as well. A particularly annoying mechanic is sending you back to base when you TP after dying. You’re left to waddle in shame back to lane.

Doom’s Doom and Necrophos’ Reaper’s Scythe

We decided to lump these two skills together because both of them make you helpless. Once the infernal demon or the ghostly necromancer cast their respective ultimates, you are pretty much dead or disabled for a long time. The only respite is that these can be handily countered by a well-timed Linken’s Sphere.

Proximity and Remote Mines

The bread-and-butter skills of arguably the most annoying hero in the game. The trigger sound alone is enough to elicit a negative reaction. The only counter to the skill is true sight, which is always a hassle since you have to spend extra gold and time— the most valuable resources in the game.

Nyx Manaburn

The bane of any intelligence or spellcasting hero. After two or three Manaburns, you’ll be reduced to a special creep with stats. To be fair, mana burn is pretty broken at its core— it’s like a stronger version of silence. That’s why Icefrog seems to limit heroes with this mechanic. Special mention to Nyx’s Impale which is the most annoying stuns to aim with Windranger’s shackle shot coming at a close second.

Honorable Mentions

Here are a couple more skills that didn’t make the list because they’re no longer in the game. May it serve as a reminder of what veteran players had to play against before IceFrog thankfully patched them out of the game.

• Keeper of the Light’s Mana Leak
• Faceless Void’s Backtrack
• Centaur’s Old Stampede
• Silencer’s Aura Last Word
• Tinker’s Rearm-able BKB
• Tiny’s Craggy Exterior
• Brewmaster’s Drunken Haze
• Broodmother’s Spin Web with Invisibility
• Naix’s Infest’s sub-ability, Control 
• Techies’ Land Mines

DOTA’s unique skills and abilities are what make the game entertaining. But some of the offenders in this list are just anti-fun if you’re on the receiving end of it. Do you agree with our list? Which skills infuriate you the most?

 

(Header image via Dota 2)