Winning With Invisible Heroes in Dota 2

In Dota 2, invisible heroes are some of the hardest to deal with. Despite the low cost of Sentry Wards and Dust of Appearance, it’s always challenging to predict where an invisible hero will strike next and where he’s currently farming.

When you pick invisible heroes in Dota 2, you must understand what you can do with them. If you don’t use such heroes properly, their invisibility won’t give you the edge you need to win games. In this guide, you’ll discover the most important invisible heroes in Dota 2 and why they are powerful.

Riki

Riki is one of the most feared invisible heroes in Dota 2 because his toolkit makes him deadly. In low MMR brackets, most players do not know how to deal with him at all. This gives good Riki players the chance to quickly become overpowered and win the game with ease.

Skills

Riki’s Smoke Screen is one of the best abilities in Dota 2. It lasts for 6s, covers a 425 radius area, and applies two debuffs to all enemies trapped inside of it: silence and miss (75%). This means that they cannot use their right clicks properly and cannot cast any abilities either.

Of course, if you only use Smoke Screen, enemies will quickly run away. But what if you also use a powerful slow, such as the one provided by Diffusal Blade’s active ability? This combination is often deadly, especially against support heroes with low HP.

Blink Strike allows Riki to close the distance between himself and his target. You can blink from 900 units away and attack from behind, dealing 85 bonus damage.

Tricks of the Trade gives Riki the chance to disappear for two seconds, becoming completely untargetable. During this time, he will attack multiple times inside a 450 radius area.

The hero’s ultimate, Cloak and Dagger, gives him 0.8 – 1.6 extra damage for each point of agility when striking from behind. More importantly, it gives him permanent invisibility as long as he doesn’t attack. After he attacks he becomes visible and requires 4 – 2s to fade back into invisibility. Another benefit is the bonus experience gained for each kill and assist.

When playing Riki, the fact that you are permanently invisible after level 6 is a huge benefit. As long as you maintain good map vision and properly deward the enemy jungle and yours, you will have the opportunity to get lots of kills because support heroes need to regularly travel between the lanes.

The most favorable stage of the game is the 10 – 25-minute segment. That’s when cores want to farm and teams rarely stick together because it’s not efficient from a gold gathering perspective. Supports are often left alone and killing them is easy if you know where they are and have the proper tools.

At level 10, Riki gains +8% movement speed from his Cloak and Dagger talent. Combined with a Yasha and his natural high movement speed (315), this hero becomes extremely mobile, traveling the map with ease.

Items

Riki’s best items tend to be Power Treads, Diffusal Blade, Sange & Yasha, Butterfly, Eye of Skadi, and Nullifier. You can also buy Harpoon to force your enemies to fight you inside the smoke for a longer duration.

Some players love to buy Aghanim’s Scepter on this hero because it reduces enemy armor by 5 inside the smoke and makes these heroes untargetable by their allies. Because of this, they can no longer be helped with Force Staffs.

Because Riki is an assassin, the goal is to maximize your damage output and make use of the fact that you gain extra damage based on your agility. Anything that gives you agility gives you bonus damage twice.

Bounty Hunter

Bounty Hunter tracks invisible heroes while being invisible himself. This makes him one of the best counters to such heroes but he can also be used to dominate the first 20 minutes of the game using his toolkit.

Skills

Unlike Riki, Bounty Hunter can become invisible starting with level one by putting one point in Shadow Walk. For 55 mana, you gain 20s of invisibility and the ability to stun for 0.8s if you attack out of invisibility. At level four, this ability makes you invisible for 35s and stuns for 1.4s.

What’s great about it is that it can be duplicated with Aghanim’s Shard, which gives you an ability called Friendly Shadow. This ability works just like Shadow Walk but can be cast on allies. This combination is very powerful.

Shuriken Toss allows you to deal 250 damage every 5s and slow a hero’s movement and attack speed completely for around a third of a second.

Jinada allows you to deal bonus damage (60 – 180) every 3s and steal 12 – 36 gold. This ability, to steal 36 gold every 3s, is very powerful. If you’re tanky enough, you could potentially ruin a tanky hero’s game by simply staying close to him and attacking non-stop. To become tankier, consider buying Pavise or Vanguard.

Track gives you the ability to track a target, even if it goes invisible, and gain all sorts of buffs against it. If it dies, you gain 130 – 320 bonus gold. You also deal 140 – 200% damage against it. While in its radius, you gain 16 – 24% movement speed. Your Shuriken Toss also deals bonus damage against it.

At level 10, you can upgrade your Shuriken Toss and make it slow for a full second. And at 15, you can choose either the +45 Track gold talent or the -30% damage taken during Shadow Walk talent. Both of them will greatly increase your capabilities.

Items

The items you buy as a Bounty Hunter should either make you more survivable, give you greater offensive capabilities, or assist your team. Sometimes, you can opt for a quick Vanguard and then maximize your Jinada to steal as much gold from an enemy as possible.

Another thing that you can do is to buy Solar Crest and greatly buff one of your allies in team fights.

Other viable options include Arcane Boots, Urn of Shadows, Force Staff, Blink Dagger, Mekansm, and Drum of Endurance.

Of course, you should always buy Magic Wand and Infused Raindrops on this hero, as well as Orb of Venom.

If the cast range is critical, Aether Lens is your best option.

Weaver

Weaver is one of those heroes that become invisible for short durations but can use this ability often, either to initiate or run away. While invisible, Weaver moves at maximum speed, gains phased movement, and deals 190 damage to all enemies he touches.

This is a very squishy hero but he also has the advantage of being very hard to pin down and kill. Furthermore, he can survive by going back 5s in time using his ultimate.

Skills

The best of Weaver’s skills is Shukuchi, which gives him the possibility to become invisible for 4s or until he attacks a target. The fade time is a quarter of a second, so it’s pretty fast, and the maximum movement speed is very useful when trying to chase enemy heroes or escape from a fight. The ability can be used every 6s, so you only have 2s of vulnerability.

The Swarm gives Weaver the ability to damage enemies, decrease their armor, and gain continuous vision of them. The bugs you create can only be destroyed with 6 attacks, which makes them very hard to kill if the enemy needs to run away from you.

Germinate Attack allows you to attack twice instead of once and gain bonus damage for your second attack. This passive ability can be used every 2.5s.

Time Lapse removes all damage done to you in the past 5s. So if you’re tanky enough to survive an initial assault, you can undo all the damage with the press of a button. This is similar to Faceless Void’s Time Walk but it’s a lot stronger.

Items

Weaver greatly benefits from items like Dragon Lance, Linken’s Sphere, Daedalus, Butterfly, Eye of Skadi, and many more. Few people buy boots on this hero because they provide small benefits.

Mirana

Mirana is one of the best heroes to pick if your team relies on superior initiative. Her ability to make the entire team invisible for 18s is extremely powerful and can be used in combination with Smoke of Deceit to set up perfect ganks.

Skills

Apart from her ultimate, Mirana also has three powerful abilities that can be used to kill individual targets, escape certain death, initiate, and farm.

Starstorm deals 300 damage to all targets in a 675 radius. The one that’s closest to Mirana will take double damage.

Sacred arrow stuns for 0.01 – 5s, which is a very long stun in the current meta. The damage is 330 at a minimum, plus 150 – 180 based on the distance. The stun duration also depends on the distance traveled by the arrow.

Leap gives Mirana 8 – 32% movement speed, 25 – 100 attack speed, and the ability to skip 575 units of terrain. She can do this more than once if the ability is fully charged, which makes it an excellent initiation tool. You can also run away with it.

When you use it, the secret is to take advantage of the massive bonuses you get for 4s and not use it in quick succession unless you’re forced to.

Items

Mirana’s item build depends on the role you’re playing. If you play support, which is what you’ll do in most cases, you should buy items that can protect your team or items that can help you set up kills. Examples include: Pipe of Insight, Mekansim, Rod of Atos, Eul’s Scepter, Arcane Boots, and so on.

Phantom Assassin

Phantom Assassin is a devastating carry with high damage bursts. In the late game, she can sometimes kill support heroes just with her Stifling Dagger.

This hero is invisible when she farms thanks to Blur. The same ability gives PA 20 – 50% evasion. If enemy heroes get close enough, they will see you. But if they don’t you can farm without any worry in most cases. Just make sure that you deward your own jungle and place Observer Wards of your own to spot ganks coming your way.

Skills

Apart from Blur, PA also has three other excellent skills. Stifling Dagger gives her the ability to slow movement speed by 50% for 4s. The base damage is not great (80) but it is enhanced by your attack damage (75%) and your attack modifiers, which include your ultimate.

Using Phantom Strike, PA can gain 190 attack speed for 2.5s every 5s and blink over 1000 units of terrain to enemies and allies alike. This is a powerful tool that allows her to focus on buying damage items instead of a Blink Dagger in the early game.

Coup de Grace, PA’s ultimate, greatly enhances the damage of her attacks when a critical strike lands. At level 3, this ability provides 3.5 extra attacks per crit, which means that if you hit two crits in three attacks, you will have dealt the damage equivalent to ten attacks. And thanks to the 190 attack speed bonus, that can happen in less than two seconds.

Items

When playing this hero, you should consider buying Battle Fury, Desolator, Black King Bar, Basher, and Satanic as fast as you can. If you have at least some of these items, you will farm and kill enemies quickly.

Depending on what your team can provide, you should opt for more or less damage. If the enemy team does not have a lot of disables, buying Satanic early instead of Black King Bar can be a great idea. You will gain not only damage and HP, but also lots of lifesteal. When combined with your naturally high damage, this can keep you alive in the most difficult situations.

Clinkz

Clinkz is an aggressive invisible hero that loves to roam around the map, farming creeps and getting kills.

Skills

Skeleton Walk lasts for 35 – 45s, which is more than enough. It gives you invisibility, the ability to move through units, and 25 – 55% movement speed. When it’s level 2, you will already move at a very high speed.

Strafe allows you to attack much faster for 3.5s. You gain 220 attack speed bonus and 200 attack range. If you own a Dragon Lance, that’s a 350 attack range bonus on a hero that already has a 600 attack range. In team fights, such a boost allows you to deal damage from a safe position and kill supports quickly, before they can react.

If you buy Aghanim’s Shard, you gain the Burning Barrage ability, which allows you to shoot 6 arrows in 2 seconds. Each arrow deals 75% of your damage, pierces units, and applies attack modifiers. The attack range is 850, which is substantial.

Death Pact gives Clinkz 400 HP and summons a skeleton archer when a creep is consumed. This ability used to be much stronger in previous patches, but it’s still decent because it essentially gives you 20 strength for 45s.

Items

When playing Clinkz, your goal is to deal as much damage as possible and kill targets in 2s with your abilities. To be able to do this you need to buy damage items like Daedalus and Gleipnir. You can opt for different items but you should always keep in mind the need to become a damage dealer.

Your team will usually try to create excellent opportunities for you to hit hard and fast. Don’t try to initiate unless you have an item that can root enemies. If you can hit from a long range and you find a solo hero, that’s also a valid target.

Nyx Assassin

Nyx Assassin, as his name suggests, is an assassin. Players often use him either as a support or as an offlaner. His toolkit suggests that he should be played as a position 4 support.

Skills

Using Impale, Nyx can stun enemies for 2s and deal 280 damage. This ability has a cast point of 0.3s, which means that you can cast it immediately after dealing massive damage with Vendetta, which is the most important ability on this hero because it makes him invisible for 60s.

While invisible, you gain 16 – 20% movement speed and deal 300 – 500 damage when you attack out of invisibility. This attack has an excellent speed and animation, and is designed to turn you into a reliable initiator in the early game.

Mind Flare gives Nyx the ability to deal damage based on the target’s intelligence. For each intelligence point, the enemy hero takes 5 points of damage. That could easily be 500 damage in the mid game.

Spiked Carapace blocks an attack and stuns the target for 1.6s. The damage is reflected back to the enemy. This happens for 2s after activating the ability. The reflected damage is 125% of the original damage. This means that a hero who deals 400 damage will take 500 damage.

Items

Nyx Assassin needs a Blink Dagger to be safe. He also needs a Eul’s Scepter, a Ghost Scepter, or any other survival items. You can choose to play him aggressively, using a Dagon, but it’s a risky strategy. It’s much better to have mobility and perhaps an Aghanim’s Scepter during the mid portion of the game.

Invoker

Invoker only has one ability that makes him invisible, but it’s a powerful one because it heals, grants bonus movement speed, regenerates mana, and slows enemy movement speed.

Skills

Invoker’s skills are well-known. This hero has the highest number of skills in Dota 2 and learning how to use them correctly require hundreds of hours of practice.

The ability that will make you invisible is invoked using essences of Quas and Wex. You will need at least a level four Wex to avoid the movement speed debuff. Additional levels will give you bonus movement speed at a rate of 5% per level.

This ability is used to escape from dangerous situations or gank enemy heroes. Just be aware of the fact that your presence will be noticed because of the movement speed debuff they will get based on your Quas level. Even a level 1 Quas will apply a 20% slow. A maximum level Quas will apply a 55% slow.

Items

Invoker’s natural movement speed is quite low, so you should almost always buy Boots of Travel if you want to compensate for this deficiency. This item will also let you teleport around the map with ease and great frequency. Furthermore, it will help you save a lot of gold that you would otherwise spend on TP scrolls.

Other items that you should consider when playing Invoker are Blink Dagger, Linken’s Sphere, Aghanim’s Scepter, Scythe of Vyse, Force Staff, and Octarine Core.

Ultimately, you can play Invoker in a lot of different ways. The goal is always to be of great assistance to your team and act as a second damage-dealer.

Header: Valve