Best Dota 2 Heroes to Rank Up With [Every Role]

Climbing the ranks in Dota 2 takes real effort. You’ll run into plenty of roadblocks, like uncoordinated teammates or games that devolve into pure chaos. That’s why picking the right heroes can make the climb much easier. Here are ten of the best heroes to climb MMR. 

Best Carry Heroes to Gain MMR

The best carry heroes for climbing MMR should have a smooth laning phase, strong farming tools, and the ability to take objectives. 

Clinkz

• Difficulty Score: 2/5

Clinkz has been a terror in pubs throughout patch 7.40. This remains true even after he took a huge nerf to Burning Army’s building damage, as he still checks nearly every box you want in a carry hero for climbing MMR.

He’s a very strong laner with long attack range and consistent damage. This makes it easy to trade with opponents and secure last hits – just pay attention to your positioning in lane! Clinkz’s item build is pretty straightforward, as it’s almost the same every game. So, there’s very little need to think about situational choices.

Farming with this hero becomes super easy once you pick up an Aghanim’s Shard, which you should buy every single game. Teamfighting is also made simple, as this hero just deals tons of damage every game with minimal execution. The only thing you need to focus on is positioning. 

Templar Assassin

• Difficulty Score: 3/5

Templar Assassin is hands-down one of the strongest carry heroes you can spam for easy MMR once you’ve mastered her. Her game plan is very straightforward: win your lane, flash farm, hit your timings, and take objectives.

She has one of the best built-in farming tools in the form of Psi Blades, allowing her to hit item timings consistently. With Desolator, she’s also one of the best heroes in the game at taking Roshan and dealing damage to towers. This makes it extremely easy to snowball leads.

Psionic Traps provide incredible map control, as they pretty much act as free Observer Wards. Don’t forget to share access to your traps with your teammates!

The hardest part about playing Templar Assassin is that she’s very momentum-based. If you die unnecessarily, your game slows down significantly. You need to be calculated with your movements and decisions, but once you figure her out, the payoff is well worth it. 

Best Mid Heroes to Gain MMR

Recommended mid heroes should have an easy time winning lane and have reliable impact throughout all stages of the game. 

Queen of Pain

• Difficulty Score: 2/5

Queen of Pain is one of the easiest mid laners in the game. Her laning stage is super simple, which pretty much removes the “skill barrier” usually required to win your lane. She can dominate many matchups with Shadow Strike while also farming efficiently early on with Scream of Pain.

Ganking with Queen of Pain is very straightforward. She has built-in slows, strong chase potential, and high burst damage – you have everything you need aside from a stun. 

On top of that, she’s very slippery thanks to Blink, which makes her playstyle very forgiving if you tend to make positioning mistakes. Her teamfight impact is extremely reliable. She has multiple spells that consistently output damage, so your impact in a fight is almost always guaranteed. 

The main thing you need to understand is her skill build. Shadow Strike is your tool to dominate the lane, but two early levels in it are usually enough. If Shadow Strike is ineffective against heroes like Puck or Lina, you can skip it entirely and focus on leveling up Blink and Scream of Pain and play more for farm. 

Puck

• Difficulty Score: 4/5

Puck is arguably the slipperiest hero in the game. She has the highest difficulty rating on this list, but the payoff is absolutely worth it if you can master her.

Puck quite literally has all the tools needed to solo carry a game. She has solid farming tools, multiple escape mechanisms, and most importantly, strong late-game scaling. A six-slotted Puck can easily win a game on her own.

In the early game, Puck offers strong setup with her disables, but she doesn’t output massive damage on her own. So, your decisions when ganking and making moves around the map need to be precise and well-timed. There is also a mechanical barrier, as it requires skill to execute her abilities well. 

Still, Puck has some of the strongest solo queue potential in the game. She has a low reliance on team coordination later on, and her scaling is nothing to joke about. 

Best Offlane Heroes to Gain MMR

For Offlane, the strongest picks should be difficult to deal with in lane and provide consistent teamfight impact. 

Razor

• Difficulty Score: 2/5

Razor has been popping off in the Offlane and is an excellent hero for climbing MMR thanks to his flexibility. He can adapt to what the game needs and still find solid impact.

You can go for multiple viable item builds. You can opt to spam auras with items like Guardian Greaves, Pipe of Insight, and Crimson Guard, or you can go for a scaling build with items such as Sange and Yasha, Black King Bar, Refresher Orb, and all that good stuff to turn Razor into a serious threat in the late-game.

The best part is, no matter which route you choose, Razor will still always contribute a lot of damage in fights.

To truly master Razor, you need to learn how to farm efficiently. Most of the time, it’s perfectly fine to use your ultimate to clear creep waves and jungle camps. Just don’t fall off due to slow farm. 

Underlord

• Difficulty Score: 1/5

Underlord is definitely one of the easiest heroes in the game, making him a great pick to climb MMR with minimal effort. His gameplay is extremely straightforward. All you need to know is: you’re tanky, you deal a respectable amount of right-click damage, and all your spells revolve around placing circles on the ground. 

His laning phase is super easy and effective. You have high base damage alongside Atrophy Aura, allowing you to out-last hit and deny creeps from opponents. Firestorm is one of the easiest wave clears in the game, allowing you to keep up in farm.

The best part is, you can mindlessly farm jungle camps and still show up to fights anywhere on the map using Dark Rift. This removes all need for map awareness and positioning. 

All you need to do is pick up Aghanim’s Scepter, stack aura items, and you will have guaranteed impact in almost every game. 

Best Soft Support Heroes to Gain MMR

If you’re looking to play Soft Support, I recommend picking heroes that can easily set up kills for the team. 

Shadow Shaman

• Difficulty Score: 3/5

Shadow Shaman is one of the most reliable solo queue supports you can pick. He offers a ton of impact through his kit alone.

He has a solid laning phase with his extremely high base damage, allowing him to trade against most supports. Shadow Shaman is also a very reliable ganker, as he has some of the strongest disables in the game. On top of that, Mass Serpent Wards allow him to take towers in the early game, which is more impactful than most players realize.

However, Shadow Shaman does require some skill to play well. Positioning is crucial, especially when you’re channeling Shackles. You don’t want to feed due to poor positioning. The biggest payoff comes from setting up pickoffs. If you catch an enemy hero out of position, you can lock them down long enough for your team to come and follow up.

Spirit Breaker

• Difficulty Score: 1/5

If you want to turn your brain off and still win MMR, Spirit Breaker is a hero you need to pick. He offers global impact through Charge of Darkness. The vision you provide while charging a target is already super valuable, even before you actually connect with the stun.

His build is also very straightforward. You can start with team-oriented items like Drum of Endurance, then scale with Shadow Blade and Aghanim’s Shard. As the game goes later, he can even become a legitimate threat with items like Black King Bar, Yasha and Kaya, Octarine Core, and Wind Waker. 

Even if he doesn’t have items, his impact in the late-game is guaranteed with his two BKB-piercing stuns. These kinds of disables are very scarce and always extremely helpful in pubs. 

Spirit Breaker’s main weakness is his laning stage, where he doesn’t offer much. You might have to steal waves or contest pulls, but once the laning phase ends, you can really autopilot without having to think much. 

Best Hard Support Heroes to Gain MMR

It’s difficult to find gold when playing Hard Support, so some of the best picks are potent in lane and can find reliable impact without requiring items. 

Jakiro

• Difficulty Score: 2/5

Jakiro is another very beginner-friendly support and one of my personal favorite picks for climbing MMR. His kit is very simple to understand: you’re very strong in lane, and all of your spells are cast in straight lines.

Dual Breath combined with Liquid Fire and Liquid Frost makes trading in lane extremely easy, making Jakiro one of the strongest laning supports in the game. You really don’t have to think much and let your low-cooldown spells do all the work.

Outside of some cast time which you’ll have to get used to, Jakiro’s spells are very easy to land and almost always provide value in fights. You have slows, damage over time, AoE stuns, and pure damage. 

Liquid Fire also makes Jakiro really good at pushing towers, especially early on. On top of that, he has solid wave clear, allowing him to farm and complete items reliably. 

Treant Protector

• Difficulty Score: 3/5

Treant Protector is a support hero who can have massive impact in fights with little to no items, mainly thanks to his ultimate ability, Overgrowth.

He’s also a naturally strong laner due to his high base damage and kill potential. If your laning partner has any form of stun or slow, it’s very easy to set up kills early on. In the post-laning phase, the best way to play Treant is to keep your safelane tower alive for as long as possible by constantly healing it with Living Armor while clearing waves using Nature’s Grasp.

As the game progresses, your teamfight impact can skyrocket with a Blink Dagger. Sometimes, with good positioning, Blink isn’t even mandatory. Just remember that Overgrowth pierces Black King Bar. You can wait for enemy cores to activate it, then root and disarm them.