How to Build a Balanced Dota 2 Drafts

If you’ve watched professional Dota 2 matches, you’ve likely heard the phrase, “the draft is half the battle.” While it might sound cliché, there’s definitely truth behind it – some games are often won or lost before the horn even sounds. 

A well-constructed Dota 2 draft gives your team the tools it needs to take fights, control the map, and scale into the late game. Here are the essential elements every lineup should include to have the best shot at victory. 

Key Characteristics of a Dota 2 Draft

These are the essential pillars of a well-rounded draft. If your draft is missing most of these, your team may struggle to take fights, control the map, or close out games. Think of these as “must-haves” in any lineup. 

Late Game Security

The reality of the situation is if you’re in a lower MMR bracket, your team likely won’t be very good at closing out games so preparing for the late game can set you up well. You need a hero who can scale reliably into the late game and convert farm into winning team fights. Think of this hero as your “win condition” that will win the game. 

This hero is usually your Safe Laner, but it must be one with good farming tools, item scaling, and a strong late-game team fight presence.

Most typical carry heroes will check this box:

• Hard Scaling: Medusa, Spectre, Terrorblade
• Tempo-to-Carry: Faceless Void, Luna, Troll Warlord

Remember that hard-scaling mid-laners can also be the team’s win condition. Sniper, Lina, or Shadow Fiend can be great choices. 

Initiator / Counter-Initiator

You must have a hero who can reliably start fights on your terms or punish the enemy when they jump in.

Normally, this is your Offlaner or Soft Support, the best offlane players will be able to position themselves well to initiate a fight. Heroes with Blink initiation, long-range disables, or front liners who can give vision and absorb damage will do the trick. 

Some examples include:

• Initiators: Centaur Warrunner, Sand King, Mars
• Counter-Initiators: Tidehunter, Axe, Winter Wyvern

Objective Taker

Getting kills in Dota 2 feels nice, but they are pointless if you can’t turn them into towers, map control, or Roshan. Imagine wiping the enemy team and not being able to take a single set of Barracks since you have no tower damage or spending an entire minute doing Roshan. 

So, every draft needs heroes that either deal high-building damage or help the team take Roshan faster. 

Some examples include: 

• Tower Damage: Leshrac, Pugna, Lycan, Tiny, Nature’s Prophet
• Roshan Control: Ursa, Slardar, Huskar
• Both: Templar Assassin, Shadow Fiend, Wraith King, Shadow Shaman

If you have Ursa as your carry, he’s great for taking down Roshan, but he is terrible at hitting towers. You’ll need to fill that gap with a mid or offlane hero that can deal some tower damage. 

Wave Clear / Split Push

Creep waves play a crucial role in the game, as not only are they sources of gold but also for map control. Creeps are pretty much walking wards – the deeper they’re pushed in, the more information you have on the map.

Ideally, one of your heroes should have good wave clear, which is a broad term. You’re looking for a hero that has reliable AoE (area of effect) nukes to clear a creep wave, illusions to shove lanes or a mobile hero that can go from wave to wave quickly to split push. 

Some examples include:

• AoE nukes: Storm Spirit, Lina, Kunkka
• Illusions: Naga Siren, Terrorblade
• Split Push Mobility: Ember Spirit, Tinker, Nature’s Prophet, Arc Warden

Teamfight / AoE Impact

Most games are decided by big 5v5 fights around Roshan or objectives. To increase the probability of winning these fights, you’ll need heroes with good team fight spells and crowd control. 

Some heroes under the initiator and counter-initiator category already check these boxes, but it never hurts to have additional spells to swing these fights. Heroes with big ultimates, zoning tools, or AoE crowd control fill these criteria well. 

Some examples include:

• Enigma (Black Hole)
• Phoenix (Supernova)
• Disruptor (Static Storm)
• Tidehunter (Ravage)

If your team is all-single target with no synergy at all, you’ll be easy to out-teamfight. 

Reliable Catch

Dota is won and lost on stuns. There are a lot of slippery heroes like Storm Spirit, Puck, Weaver, Morphling, and Ember Spirit, just to name a few. If you can’t catch them, they’ll have free fights and split push forever. 

You want instant disables, long-range stuns, and easy follow-up. Silences work very well in the early game, but a Eul’s Scepter or Black King Bar nullifies it immediately. That’s why you need heroes that have reliable stuns and disables.

Some examples include:

• Lion
• Shadow Shaman
• Nyx Assassin
• Batrider
• Puck

If your draft lacks these instant stuns, you can always buy items to make up for it. Scythe of Vyse is vital against slippery heroes if you have no reliable catch. 

Mixed Damage

Just to make the game a little more complicated, there are 3 damage types in Dota 2. If you want a balanced draft, you will also need balanced damage. Pressuring enemies, regardless of how they itemize, is one of the best ways to win a Dota game. One-dimensional damage is easily countered by magic resistance.

If your draft is full of physical damage, they’ll just buy Crimson Guard and armor items. If all of your damage is magic, a Pipe of Insight and Black King Bar will ruin you.

Some examples include:

• Magic: Leshrac, Zeus, Skywrath Mage
• Physical: Templar Assassin, Drow Ranger, Lycan
• Mixed: Queen of Pain, Windranger, Pangolier

Mixing damage in Dota is easier today than it ever was. On carry heroes, you can buy Desolator, Assault Cuirass, and Daedalus to amplify physical damage. But you can also buy Mjolnir, Revenant’s Brooch, and Monkey King Bar to mix some magical damage in there.  

Bonus Characteristics for the best Dota 2 drafts (Preferred, but Not Must-Have)

These aren’t always required, but they are certainly nice to have. They can be game-changers when drafted smartly. 

Vision Hero

In Dota, vision wins fights. If you see the enemy team and they don’t see you back, the game becomes super easy to play. Vision heroes help with smoke detection, Roshan control, and superior vision in team fights. They also mean you don’t have to spend half the game buying as many observer and sentry wards as you can.  

Heroes like Night Stalker and Slark give bonus vision in the nighttime, and the former’s ultimate gives a massive vision advantage in fights. 

Bounty Hunter’s Track can monitor map movements, allowing your team to plan the next move. Clockwerk’s Rocket Flare can be used to scout Roshan or get a glimpse of high grounds. Pair these heroes with Disruptor, and you can always get easy Glimpses. 

Active Playmaker

Dota feels very hard to play if all three core heroes are farming. When everyone is hitting creeps, the team will naturally split up to farm the map as efficiently as possible, and this makes it easier to get picked off by enemies.

You ideally want to have at least one core hero that runs around the map, creating space and finding pickoffs. This hero is usually your mid-laner. The “playmaker” doesn’t necessarily need to kill heroes every minute, but if they are farming, they should at least farm aggressively to force rotations and get away safely.

Saves

Saves can change a fight instantly, especially against heavy bursts or single-target ultimates. Imagine the enemy team using three ultimates to kill your carry, and one saving spell nullifies all their efforts.

Heroes with saving potential, like Oracle, Dazzle, and Shadow Demon, provide lots of value, especially in late-game team fights. Though they are not always necessary, they are definitely nice to have. 

Strong Lanes

In most cases, the team that wins the laning stage will eventually win the game. Having a strong start means heroes will gain levels faster, leading to earlier map pressure. Once you have an early lead, translating it to firm map control makes the game super easy to play.

Having strong laners is always ideal for building an early lead. Support lane dominators like Undying or Bane significantly increase the chances of winning their lane. Offlane bulliers like Viper or Venomancer can also be good, but these heroes don’t scale too well into the late game, so there’s pressure to end as early as possible. 

BKB-Piercing Stuns

Black King Bars are very common in the mid-to-late game. If you don’t have a way to stop or disable BKB heroes, they’ll freely wreak havoc or pull off “The Nightfall,” which is BKB and teleporting back to base to escape. 

Having a BKB-piercing stun helps with this issue, as controlling a magic immune target will shave off lots of their BKB duration. This is why Bane’s Fiend’s Grip, Beastmaster’s Roar, and Enigma’s Black Hole are such valuable spells in the late game.