Every Midlaner in Dota 2 Explained - Part 1

[@Acex2ron]

Heads up! There are a lot of heroes that I covered in the Offlaner series that I won't be repeating in this series because they play mostly the same anyway. If a hero you wanted to see covered isn't in this one or the next one, I likely already talked about them as an Offlaner and there's just not too big of a gameplay difference that's worth me repeating them. Cheers!

[@hkl2007]

As an invoker spammer, it is my civic duty to add to the invoker section. First of all, don't take talents before lvl 20, orbs are better. All the talents are fine, lvl 25 on the left is rly op with elitist. For the facets, elitist is more all around useful, movespeed sustain spell amp, agnostic is just damage, depends on what u want really. For combos, tornado sets up most everything; nado - icewall, nado sunstrike, nado emp, nado meteor etc. Coldsnap can also be used to hit your nado, if they are in the middle of turning to avoid nado, coldsnap them to make nado hit. Icewall and emp shard makes enemy movespeed 0, so they are stationary if no force etc. Coldsnap also works well with chaos meteor and icewall, as they will proc it multiple times. Lastly, you want chaos meteor to land slightly infront of the enemy, not ontop of them, so you get longer duration of contact damage and more burn. Lastly, you can angle icewall to increase the effective range.

[@nbhage2178]

Adding.. Careful/Trick of list Also be careful with tornado, don't ruin a perfect initiation of teammate with tornadoing them. Ghostwalking near unit can reveal enemy that you are near by so be careful to touch any if you are being stealthy Emp snap and ice wall with shard can keep target in one place, don't hesitate to drop huge aoe spell on single target if that means getting secure kill on high prior targets. The above combo also helps in setting a good cataclysm follow up if you can hit enemies, without the tornado, as the slow and pull is more than enough to keep enemies in place, but beware of evasive blink or hidden spell heroes. Snap Tornado and Sunstrike combo is guaranteed, cast snap before tornado, if time of ss is good the stun when enemy lands guarantees the followup Sunstrike for evasive heroes like puck who can insta dodge follow ups after tornado. Ice wall is underrated, if you can land it on spots where enemy heroes positions are compromised, it can single handedly win certain fights. Also it's versatility for procing snaps, defensively for running, aggressively for slowing or zoning enemies is huge. Tornado is usually seen as only a setup with a decent dange tool, but make use of it to secure some range last hit and harassing enemy mid simultaneously with QW build(I don't mean spam it). It also debuffs enemies hit by it, make sure to debuff runes aur spells like double dmg haste and windrun or ghost scepter of pugna etc. and lastly, tornado can be situationally a defensive tool as well buying you are team a small time to escape and create distance, make sure to hit multiple enemy. Don't feed your forge spirits, especially in lane, playing invo comes with some decent micro, try to deny you summons and always save you summon for 10 sec before rune spawns to contest runes or deny. Alacrity of siege unit is underrated. Just try and use it. If you think you have to be careful and back up when pushing towers, instead of using it on forge spirits use it on sieges. Combos are important, but more importantly knowing where to use which spells how efficiently will always better.

[@nbhage2178]

Yeah, and respect enemy's bkb. On SS goes through it.

[@hkl2007]

@@nbhage2178 Don't need to coldsnap to keep enemy in icewall with shard, works with alot of slows too.

[@ritenger87]

tldr

[@GrayRaddit]

i have litteraly played dota since beta and still play today, but i still enjoy watching these videos for some reason... good job man!

[@purplefanta7142]

Agnostic is easier and probably better for right clicks. The DoT from Quas can proc cold snap which can help fuel a more support role. Elitist IMO is better for playing full caster invoker. You'd want to turn on Exort for spell amp for nukes and swap to wex for mobility. I tried learning invoker when I first started dota and had a lot of fun but couldnt ever keep more than 4-5 spells in my head at a time while using them well. More than that and I'd start skipping out on better spells for situations.

[@Commentaur-TPMM]

These videos are awesome! Thanks for the hard work. I’m coming back after years and years, so this was a perfect crash course on what things look like now.

[@grapy83]

Great video man. excellent summary, on-point description, relevant visuals and good audio. 👍

[@jackmccarthy7644]

Something you probably should have mentioned about Huskar: This hero NEEDS to buy Armlet of Mordiggian and you NEED to learn how to Armlet toggle to play this hero at a decent rank. If you don't know, Armlet toggling is when you quickly deactivate and reactivate Armlet of Mordiggian to effectively heal to 550hp if you are below that amount. It is a bit risky because it drops your hero's health to 1hp when you deactivate it and it takes 0.6 seconds to fully heal. However, in the early game when enemy attack speed is slow and burst damage is small, it is possible to carefully interleave Armlet toggles between the enemy attacks to perpetually stay at 550hp. Huskar's main weakness is that he needs to stay at low health to deal damage, and hence lacks sustain. However, Armlet toggling allows Huskar to stay alive in prolonged fights without sacrificing on damage. Armlet Huskar is one of the strongest 1v1 heroes in the 10-20 minute period and he can easily snowball games. Unfortunately, this also means he falls off in the mid/late game when fights become more chaotic and enemies get more CC/bust tools so staying at low health with Armlet is unviable. Huskar's entire kit is designed around this single timing-if you aren't buying Armlet you are playing the hero wrong. It is the first item purchased in literally 99% of pro Huskar matches. Your goal in every game should be to rush Armlet and take as many fights as possible before your opponents are ready to deal with it. If you reach 25 minutes and you haven't gotten at least 10 kills you will probably lose.

[@viltautasYT]

bros making quality content faster than I can watch it

[@miraclehuman5262]

truuue

[@villa7624]

Huskar and Hutao has: - an ability to be more effective the lower their health is. - a polearm - a way to deal fire damage - the ability to regen themselves. - something to do with death. At this point, just give Huskar an immortal that resembles Hutao's signature polearm lmao.

[@jayzenstyle]

Not lore friendly, but I don't mind putting it as a workshop mod

[@alexandermajaj5823]

Huskar came way before hutao, don't disrespect dota like this,make hutao get the skin because huskar is no imitation

[@villa7624]

@@alexandermajaj5823 I already know that Dota came out before even Genshin begun its development. I have nothing to disrepect dota and hell, I even played Dota way before genshin. I just find it cool to pin-point out that there's some similarities between the two. More like a "oh you're wearing the same shirt as I do and that's cool" kinda thing.

[@dofiy3471]

you make one mistake forgetting the most important thing that make huskar superior huskar throw his spear

[@miraclehuman5262]

I've got 1.2k hours which you could argue is nothing compared to most dota players but god i enjoyer those videos even if i dont necessarily learn anything the pacing and stuff is just really refreshing especially after facets and innates stuff got added its like relearning the basics again

[@Undead94100]

Two small tidbits: 1. Chemical Rage disjoints projectiles upon cast, so you can dodge attacks and nukes with good timing. 2. Disarmed Ember Spirit cannot deal attack damage during Sleight of Fist.

[@imfinishedgrinding638]

You can even dodge your own Unstable Concoction you failed to throw with Chemical Rage.

[@mmortal8183]

Disorder Arc Warden with Creep-heroes like Visage's Familiars, LD's Bear, Brew's Brewlings, and Warlock's golems get the bonus damage AND the attack range. Also, for some unholy reason, Tempest Magnetic field stacks with itself, allowing you to do some looney toons levels of damage with the right setup. And Kotl did just get the ability to triple Charka a hero with his recall Facet and shard. Have fun with that.

[@asz-themoonwalker2771]

I was waiting for this video! Let's gooo!

[@JoseVitor-po1og]

This just might the episode I was waiting for the most

[@Leonxxie]

So glad i found your channel. No hesitation clicking the subscribe button.

[@iagofranca7702]

Met your channel now, dont play dota since 2018, thank you for info

[@GiantBUThead]

Arc warden does well versus illision heroes because he naturally buys glepnir and manta. That gives you 6 units that attack with chain lightning destroying illusions relatively easily.

[@32Singder]

man I feel like a lot of ppl misunderstand lone druid and so do you he's not an ultra-lategame 12-slot mega-hardcarry hero, he's actually a very tempo pick, his strength lies in the fact that spirit bear has a fuckton of hp and tower damage in the early and mid game, but maybe in turbo he is actually a hardcarry, I'm talking about ranked rn

[@Acex2ron]

Tho it is worth mentioning that Valve themselves market LD as a late game carry, if you look at his description on the Dota 2 Website

[@haryok8940]

He's absolutely dominating early-mid game, suck at late a bit, and then become 12 slot hard carry in super late

[@adashinoyukino3202]

@@Acex2ron yeah but when you play him you'd really want to abuse the fact that beary is basically a bouncer for your entire team during Early to Mid game and if they jump on you just press R beary will deal with them

[@grischad20]

@@Acex2ron honestly dude, the valve description are all around bullshit.

[@mireish590]

@@Acex2ron valve doesnt know shit about dota

[@savekla]

I think it might be better to show abilities against lower level targets. Using them on a lvl 30 hero makes it look like they deal almost no damage. I feel like throwing them at level 7-10 heroes would be a better way to showcase spells, as at this point in the game an ability can be maxed out. Although I do understand that it's much easier to just spawn lvl30 heroes and it's less work for you.

[@MrMLnG]

the unexpected cynthia ptsd on invoker's background music was the last thing I needed today

[@TC-kw4xu]

love the chappell roan reference 15:31

[@ghghhfgfgf1477]

As arc main, arc weak against heroes that can end game early like LD broodmother and meepo,also beastmaster is pain to deal with because of his aghs that just obliterate manta illusions.

[@ghghhfgfgf1477]

Also ember spirit bane of arc existence because he has mobility to escape from you and obliterate your illusions

[@noychets8103]

"Cold snap + any DoT spell is a serious war crime" - so fk true, you can't imagine how many times my ass was on fire cuz of that, even if it's called COLD

[@lamMeTV]

You can also Meepo poof to illusions which will never not be funy

[@allainch.7251]

Regarding the offlane heroes you didn’t want to repeat again, I’d appreciate if a list of them would pop up at the start or at the end of the video. Since I assume a lot of people including me either don’t know or forgot who heroes can flex into the mid lane. Though I still hella love this series either ways 🧡

[@vincentgravy]

I was literally thinking of hutao dam

[@corniel657]

I am genuinely so glad that I don't get what you mean

[@grischad20]

as an avid lina player. you go for magic lina on the thermal runaway facet. and then with shard you have insane burst

[@Redragonclaws]

Aww hell we got driftveil city theme for huskar. - what did ace mean by this

[@Acex2ron]

It means I couldn't think of a good bg theme lmao

[@HeavensBane53]

I'm a mediocre invoker, but he's also my 3rd most played hero, so for what it's worth I'd say Elitist is generally better. Even if you don't have the skill to swap orbs on the fly, just the movespeed from having wex invoked is incredibly useful. That being said, I think there is potential for a pos 1 invoker build using Agnostic. I haven't gotten it to work especially well yet, but it has it's moments, and I think my lack of success is at least partly a skill issue. Also the bit about playing safe in the early game is more for a quas-exort build than a quas-wex. Quas-Wex with urn/vessel is actually pretty strong and great at rotating early, plus your laning, past the first few levels anyways, is fairly strong. Universal hero with crazy stat gains + the ability to drain an enemy's mana is difficult to lane into. As a result, your best game plan on quas-wex is to win lane and then make a bunch of rotations with your urn/vessel to find early kills and teamfights, which you need because otherwise your piss poor farming means you won't scale for shit. Quas-exort is more the farm and scale build, but even then you've got a lot of damage and pretty good solo kill potential if a hapless fool wanders blunders into you alone.

[@shironee_2384]

Is Huskar interaction with OD has been fixed? I mean, doesn't have mana were considered as 0 mana to OD for some reason when I was playing Huskar a while back and making him literally unplayable against OD.

[@imfinishedgrinding638]

Sadly OD's ult will always deal a fuckton of damage to Huskar no matter what but before that you're good in lane against him.

[@haryok8940]

​@@imfinishedgrinding638 But as soon as OD have lvl 6 only thing you can do is to not be close to OD when he has ulti

[@Maccelerate]

Invoker agnostic is good to dominate melee mid laners and for an easy right click build. Elitist is great for move speed from wex and for export combo with spirit vessel + witch blade.

[@holderian0]

I don't know why I watch all of these videos. I already know what all heroes do LMAO

[@cblrtopas]

I always thought Lone Druid was a tempo hero: The bear let's you dominate early-game. You get a quick MoM and Deso and group up with team to kill towers. That was the meta in like 2019 when I last played.

[@haryok8940]

He's both one of the best tempo pick, and unlike other tempo heroes, he have potential in super late(60+ min). Also, he is universal right now, and his bear also have attributes now, so start buy is pretty funny: 6 branches on druid and 5 branches and quelling blade for bear. Also because of that diffusal blade and echo sabre is meta on LD rn

[@kpsychopath]

Pick meepo when Meepo Meepo Meepo! And thats the truth

[@LichKingg23]

Meepoo, MEEpoo, MEEPOOO! MEEEPOOO!!!!

[@XXV_Flea333]

I'm not ready for that Victor Wembanyama jokes

[@imfinishedgrinding638]

We better be coz he's gonna take over the NBA soon.

[@SamSGLM]

specially in current aura meta where everyone has a lot more hp regen from ally proximity or items people build up towards, lina slow burn and other similar effects are much weaker the extra damage ends up doing less damage since hpregen is like spell block vs DoT effects. I am aware this is outdated since she has now a new DoT innate and tbh even with flame cloak many offlaners or support 4's dont die to a mage lina slowburn her inate barely beats regen after reductions. while more popular at the start, withthe development of the game the laguna steroid is better for nuke lina with a short auto burst window. slowburn leverages her level 25 crit better btw.

[@Monte_Carlo451]

Barry, my beloved Wait, Es is not hard counter meepo?

[@Chasodey]

mid-counter I woul say. Good but not perfect. ET can slap harder

[@haryok8940]

ET is just very hard counter to anything like meepo, heroes with high base armor that they rely on against phys damage. ET also have good CC against meepo, and ulti that can smash both meepo and supermeepo with ease. And all meepos counted as separate heroes for ET 2nd skill, so with only meepo in battle he will have 8/10 sec of bkb with aghs and shitton of attack, not counting other heroes in enemy team and creeps/summons

[@sortileges5474]

You should've called LD's bear Misha. Disappointed.

[@Lastofhiskind-00]

I knew the name by playing reign of chaos

[@johncarlosjaner5644]

Weird that my mid lane heroes, oracle, cm, disruptor, and shadow demon isnton the list of part 1 and 2😂😂

[@jarddog7968]

addition to meepo you can poof into your illusions

[@air_w0lf766]

" Leshrac James " LOL

[@vo1ce147]

First rule of midlane, There is no midlane specific hero, everyone can be a midlaner if you squint hard enough.(And I'm still spaming the shit out pudge because i was and still dendi fanboy) Also that's not how you play LD you just buy stat, and diffu, then win because you just killed eveyone. Now if we talk old LD yes you gonna perma farm.

[@NazumanLawyer]

How the hell are you so fast at uploading these?

[@Acex2ron]

Caffeine?

[@werehusky]

Invoker is pretty much Nak Rham from league lol

[@emkalmao69]

earth spirit can be a midlaner too

[@Gilburrito]

MEEPO MEEPO MEEPO

[@MostMoba]

..... Isn't hardest meepo counter is solo target burst. Like finger or assassinate . Imagine get ass from noscreen with 4 rapier khanda sniper and one meepo just die 😂

[@Acex2ron]

Maybe before, but with Mega/Dig Meepo it's never been easier to prevent a single Meepo from outright dying

[@yongbinzhang4380]

Where is Puck?

[@karthikanil5261]

Read the title again

[@yongbinzhang4380]

@@karthikanil5261 ohh I see. part one. Thanks

[@ShakerGER]

Pretty sad that I have no use for these vids no more because I quit last week. Never start dota choose something less toxic crack or meth for example.

[@anthonyvelarde8837]

Fookin quitter no one really quits you will be back

[@ChadKakashi]

11:11 Trump’s favorite spell.

[@janboannercannedo8458]

Where's lion?

[@Lastofhiskind-00]

I really like the breaking bad reference