Dota 2: The Five Hardest Heroes to Play

In the last article, we brought you the easiest heroes to play in each role on Dota 2 and, this time, we’ll address the most difficult ones, considering the degree of gameplay complexity and the level of competitiveness that each one can provide.

Dota is a complex game, and if you want to take the game even further, then consider playing one of the characters I'll cover below.

Honorable Mentions

When talking about gameplay complexity in Dota 2, it’s impossible to definitively classify which heroes fall into this classification or not. For this reason, when we discuss the Most Complex Heroes we also need to bring some honorable mentions who could easily make it onto this list.

Arc Warden

The Arc Warden's complexity lies in its ability to create a perfect copy of itself, one that can use your items and all your skills (with the difference of using the facet not selected by the main Arc).

In the right hands, this hero can be worth two on the team, literally, splitting lanes, confusing enemies and generating some Rampages. However, playing with multiple units is something that’s not exclusive to Arc, which is why he’s only in the honorable mentions.

Kez

One of the recent additions to the game, Kez arrived with a set of skills that changes depending on the weapon he wields, being able to switch between his Katana and the Sais, and he’s even capable of doing this during combat, combining his skills according to need. I wrote an article about him where I talk more in depth about each of his skills, you can check out here.

Kez can stun his enemies, deal large amounts of damage, block attacks, jump into trees or onto fleeing enemies, become invisible, among other things. The great complexity behind this hero is how to combine his different skills during combat in the most efficient way possible.

Dedicated Support - IO

Is IO a fountain in hero form, or is it a hero in fountain form? This small glowing orb can connect to another ally, granting some of its own health and mana regeneration to them, as well as bonus movement.

IO can conjure spheres of light that will rotate around her and cause damage to enemies and she can teleport to a chosen location on the map and take the connected ally with her, which creates an absurd potential for ambushes and several other strategic movements that are only possible with it on your team.

So many possibilities require a very high level of mastery and decision-making when playing with this hero, for this reason, IO is undoubtedly one of the most complex characters in the game.

Support - Rubick

We have already mentioned Rubick in an article dedicated to this hero, which you can check out here. Rubick can use all the enemies' abilities against themselves and is a support that can single-handedly carry and lead the game if played correctly.

Rubick can disable enemies, deal a lot of damage and copy their abilities, improve them and throw them back at their original owners. If you haven't already felt frustrated in a match against Rubick, rest assured that this will inevitably happen, as he’s extremely broken in the right hands.

However, handling several different skills and items requires a lot of skill and control, as well as in-depth knowledge of the game's mechanics, which makes Rubick a highly complex and difficult hero.

Mid - Invoker

Invoker is the hero with the most unique abilities in the entire game. Quas, Wex, and Exort are his three primary abilities, which correspond to the elements of ice, lightning, and fire, respectively. By combining these three skills through your ultimate, Invoke, you’ll be able to generate one of the ten skills present in the Invoker's arsenal.

Invoker can turn invisible, freeze enemies, conjure electrical discharges, launch fire from the sky, cause tornadoes and even drop meteors. All this to bombard enemies, making this hero one of the greatest weapons in combat.

The great difficulty in playing this hero is not the number of skills he has, but rather the way you use them, being forced to activate the basic skills in a specific order to be able to invoke the most relevant ones. For players less experienced with Invoker, playing with him is almost like using a piano as a joystick, which is why Invoker is so complex and is probably one of the last heroes you should try.

Offlaner - Visage

Visage is the hero who has the best minions in the game, capable of causing a lot of damage, turning into stone and having powerful regeneration potential.

He’s so complex that trying to describe his abilities succinctly is almost impossible, but basically, you will have a hero with a range of versatile abilities and a small team of particular minions that will make him a potency within the game once you can master his abilities correctly.

However, perhaps because the complexity bar is so high or perhaps because the Visage skill puzzle is still missing something, this hero doesn't see as much play as the others on this list.

Carry - Meepo

We’ve discussed how controlling multiple units can be difficult, as in the cases of Arc Warden and Visage, but no hero compares to the difficulty of playing Meepo. He can summon up to four imperfect copies of himself, who share experience and other attributes and can accumulate gold of their own. Clones can only share the boots worn by the original and no other items.

Meepo can trap enemies, steal a percentage of their HP with his attacks and teleport to the location where his other clones are, in addition to uniting with them and forming a Mega Meepo (the clones climb onto the original's back and unite, becoming stronger together). The biggest difficulty here, besides needing to control five units with farming potential, is the fact that when one of the Meepos dies, all the others do as well.

I finish off another article here. Leave your questions, suggestions, criticisms and/or compliments in the comments. Thanks for reading, and see you next time.