Characters / Dota 2 Strength N To Z

This is part of the character sheet for Dota 2. This page contains the Strength heroes that begins with the letter N to Z. Please note that this is sorted not by their real names, but their most common moniker, which will be bolded in the folder.

Strength | A -- M | N — Z Agility | A -- M | N -- Z Intelligence | A -- M | N -- Z Universal | A -- M | N -- Z Personas | Artifact heroes Dota Underlords Neutrals | Others

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Balanar, the Night Stalker

"I'm the beast of bedtime tales."

Voiced by: Tony Todd

Balanar, the Night Stalker, is a being of darkness whose existence predates the concept of daylight. He is the monster that inspires the primal fear of the dark in every being and haunts the nightmares of every child in every culture. The most malevolent of the horrible monstrosities that roamed the primordial night, Balanar was the sole survivor when the First Day dawned and the night horrors were wiped out. To this day, Balanar still prowls in the darkness, the remains of his unwary victims warning communities not to stray from the light and reminding them that the things that go bump in the night are not mere childhood bogeys.

Night Stalker is a unique hero — he is the only hero who strongly relies on the in-game day/night cycle to maximize his effectiveness. Although he's slow-moving and has poor vision in the daytime, when the sun goes down Balanar undergoes a transformation; nighttime boosts his speed, attacks, vision range and the potency of his spells - and since most heroes have reduced nighttime vision, it provides Night Stalker the ability to gank from unexpected angles. His primary damaging spell, Void, deals damage, mini-stuns, and slows the target; the slow duration and damage are both reduced during the day. His second active ability Crippling Fear projects an aura of terror, silencing all enemies near the Night Stalker. The duration of the aura is increased at night His passive, Hunter in the Night, is his most important ability, boosting his movement and attack speed during the nighttime, letting him relentlessly pursue his enemies and rip them to shreds. Balanar's ultimate ability Dark Ascension brings his full power to bear, as he takes flight to gain unobstructed vision and a large amount of bonus damage. This ability also turns day into night, giving him free rein to terrorize his enemies. Balanar may be at his most vulnerable in the daytime, but when the sun sets... every hero should fear the dark.

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• Anti-Escape Mechanism: Running from Night Stalker at night is very difficult: Void is a highly spammable slow that also mini-stuns to interrupt teleport attempts, Crippling Fear's silence prevents attempts to fight back or escape with abilities, and Hunter in the Night makes Balanar extremely fast, letting him pursue the enemy relentlessly. Finally, Dark Ascension turns day to night, granting Night Stalker his Hunter in the Night bonuses, and also lets him fly over obstacles while gaining unobstructed vision, making it impossible to run or hide from him.
• Anti-Magic: Crippling Fear creates an aura around Night Stalker that silences enemies and lasts up to 6 seconds, though it only lasts 3 seconds at all levels in the daytime.
• The Berserker: Due to his inherent tankiness and massive speed boost from Hunter in the Night, Night Stalker is one of the most aggressive heroes in the game, and can tower dive well quite early in the game to chase his prey.
• Casting a Shadow: His ultimate, Dark Ascension, instantly turns day into night, and transforms him into a flying unit. Void also uses dark magic to summon a fragment of the primordial night Balanar hailed from, and with Aghanim's Scepter, it shrouds an area in darkness that grants him the night effects on all his abilities.
• Crutch Character: Balanar is extremely powerful during the first night or two in the game with his powerful nuke and disables, blistering movement and attack speeds and respectable durability letting him dominate the competition. However, his poor scaling, slow farming speed and dependence on nighttime mean that he'll be outclassed by an actual carry later on. Because of this, he is almost never played as a position 1 or 2 hero.
• Dark Is Evil: Balanar wields darkness, grows more powerful in the dark, and is a monster whose evil deeds are known to all.
• Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: Most heroes have 1800 vision range during the day, which is reduced to a meager 800 at night. For Balanar, however, the values are reversed, giving him full vision range at night but making him half-blind during the day.
• Defog of War: Dark Ascension grants Night Stalker unobstructed vision, allowing him to see up hills and through trees, on top of his innately very large night vision.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Night Stalker players need to think carefully what are you going to do when you start running towards your prey. This is the reason why many Night Stalker players fail horribly: they are either too reckless and get killed by the tower, or are too passive and do not snowball hard enough.
• The Dreaded: According to his lore, he's been terrifying generations of children since civilization began.
• Dynamic Entry: Balanar's Crippling Fear allows him to potentially silence multiple enemies for up to 6 seconds just by standing near them, which is enough to make him a serviceable initiator with Blink Dagger; alternatively, casting Dark Ascension and charging the weakest enemy also makes for quite an entrance.
• Field Power Effect: He becomes a huge threat during the night. Dark Ascension lets him turn day into night at will, making him a potential threat at any time.
• Fright Death Trap: Though Crippling Fear doesn't deal any damage, it is an extremely long silence provided that Night Stalker can stick to his victim (very easy at night time due to Hunter in the Night movement speed boost), making them easy prey.
• Game Face: His sideways mouth opens when Hunter in the Night is active, revealing his teeth.
• Hour of Power: Nightfall, and especially the first night of the game, is Night Stalker's turn to shine. He is unique in that he's one of the two heroes in the game whose abilities depend on the time of day (the other being Keeper of the Light, and only if he has Aghanim's Scepter).
• Humanoid Abomination: Walks on two legs like a human, but is actually a monster older than the sun.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: If he has Aghanim's Shard, Night Stalker can use Hunter in the Night to instantly kill a creep and restore a large amount of HP and mana. During the night, he can cast this on Ancient creeps, giving him some form of flash farming.
• Innate Night Vision: Night Stalker's vision range is 1800 during the night; in contrast, most other heroes only have 800 night vision.
• Jack of All Stats: Due to a combination of tankiness and damage steroids from Hunter in the Night, a very long silence in Crippling Fear, and roaming ability with Void, Night Stalker is one of the very few heroes in the game that can be played in every position from main carry to hard support. As a core he can tower dive relentlessly with Void and Hunter in the Night and snowball; and as a support he can roam and gank in the early game. However, he's most often played as an offlaner or greedy support since he needs quite a bit of farm to be effective and his late game scaling isn't good enough to give him a high farm priority.
• Last of His Kind: He's the last of the night creatures.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: He has special voice lines for when night transitions into day, signaled in-game by a rooster's crow. One of them is this:
  Night Stalker: If I ever get my claws on that bird...
• Lightning Bruiser: Night Stalker's passive ability, Hunter in the Night, gives him dramatic movement and attack speed boosts, and since he's a Strength hero (and has respectable Agility growth as well), he tends to have loads of HP and armor late game, making him hard to bring down unless focused on. Oh, and Dark Ascension lets him hit even harder and gives him the ability to fly for 30 seconds.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: Night Stalker is the only hero in Dota who relies on the in-game day-night cycle to maximise his effectiveness. While other heroes are also affected by the time of day to a certain extent (like lowered vision for most heroes, or Keeper of the Light's Aghanim's Scepter upgrade), Night Stalker's entire kit revolves around exploiting the day-night cycle as much as possible. He's also one of the few heroes that can fly.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: His three-jawed mouth can fit in a lot of teeth.
• Nightmare Face: During the night, his face splits to reveal a maw with three jaws. Lore-wise, this seems to be how his Crippling Fear skill works.
  A vision of the twisted maw of Balanar etches itself into the minds of the poor souls unlucky enough to cross his path.
• Noun Verber: He's called the Night Stalker because he stalks at night.
• The Rival: He has a few rival lines for whenever he kills Lycan.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: And he won't stop until every diurnal creature is dead.
• Sapient Eat Sapient: His voice lines imply that he eats the heroes that he kills.
• Super Mode: Dark Ascension gives Balanar flight, flying vision, bonus damage, and turns day into night in order to empower his other abilities.
• Swirly Energy Thingy: Void:
  Balanar creates a vortex of infinite night, tearing opponents violently into the eternal darkness that once was.
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: His very existence inspires these kind of stories.
• Time Abyss: Not counting the various immortal Fundamental characters, Night Stalker is one of the oldest characters in the game; according to his backstory, he predates almost every race and civilization in the Dota world.
• Total Eclipse of the Plot: When Dark Ascension is cast in the daytime, it blots out the sun while still causing time to pass, meaning that daytime is still ticking down during the ultimate. If he gets the level 25 talent to reduce its cooldown, he can turn day into night for 30 seconds at a time every 80 seconds, effectively cutting down the amount of daylight by almost half if he uses it whenever possible.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Balanar goes around topless. Justified due to his wings, and due to him not exactly following human sensibilities.
• Weakened by the Light: During the daytime, Void and Crippling Fear are laughably weak, and Hunter of the Night does nothing at all. Additionally, he has the shortest sight range of any hero during the daytime. He even has various voice lines for whenever it shifts between day and night.
• Winged Humanoid: He does have wings, although he definitely isn't angelic at all.
• Wings Do Nothing: Most of the time, he stays on the ground. He glides along the ground while affected by the Haste rune, but can only bypass terrain when Dark Ascension is active.

Aggron Stonebreak, the Ogre Magi

"That's how we do. Pure skill!"

Voiced by: Nolan North

Ogres in general are as dumb as a bag of rocks, and they have managed to survive as a species almost entirely through sheer dumb luck. However, once a generation, the ogre race is blessed with the birth of a two-headed Ogre Magi. With its two brains giving it just enough ability to think and function on the same level as most single-headed beings, the Ogre Magi is always granted the traditional name of Aggron Stonebreak, after the first and only wise ogre in history. With its relatively respectable intellect, a significant lucky streak, and a propensity for magically setting things on fire, the Ogre Magi manages to stand among heroes.

The Ogre Magi are a melee hero generally played as a tanky support who can buff their team and disrupt their enemies, with the unique twist that their spells can randomly see their effects multiplied. Their innate passive Dumb Luck prevents them from gaining intelligence, but grants them maximum mana and mana regeneration based on their strength. Their first skill is Fireblast, a simple nuke and stun which deal respectable damage to a single target. Their second ability, Ignite, hurls a vial of flammable chemicals which lights the target on fire, slowing and damaging them over time. Bloodlust, their third skill, gives a great boost to an ally's movement and attack speeds, making them much deadlier. All of these spells are simple, yet effective; however, they become truly fearsome when combined with Ogre Magi's ultimate ability: Multicast. Whenever the Ogre Magi cast a spell or targeted item ability, this passive ability grant them a chance to cast it again, and again, and again, up to four times in a row depending on its level: Fireblast's damage and stun is multiplied, turning its respectable damage into one of the most powerful nukes in the game, while Ignite, Bloodlust, and item abilities have a chance to be casted onto multiple targets to hugely improve their impact. Lastly, the aforementioned Dumb Luck improves the Multicast chance based on their Strength. One should not think of Ogre Magi's spells as being weak abilities with a chance to become good thanks to Multicast, but rather as powerful spells with a chance to become devastating. If Lady Luck smiles upon you, the Ogre Magi will handily bring strength to your allies and devastation to your enemies.

In Artifact, the Ogre Magi are a blue hero. Their Passive Ability, Multicast, grants you a 25% chance of putting a copy of any blue spell you play in your hand. Their signature card, Ignite, is an improvement which deals 1 piercing damage to all enemies in the lane it's built in before each action phase.

In Dota Underlords, the Ogre Magi are a tier 1 hero. Their ability, Bloodlust, increases the movement and attack speed of an ally; the attack speed bonus is increased if the Ogre Magi target themselves.

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• Attack Speed Buff: They can increase an ally's attack speed, as well as movement speed, with Bloodlust, with the buff being stronger when self-cast.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Some of their lines demonstrate that the Ogre Magi are easily distracted.
  Ogre Magi: "Is that a squirrel?" "Come on."
• Born Lucky: The Ogres rely on luck as a means of compensating for being Too Dumb to Live. Fluff text paints this as the goddess of luck taking pity on the species and granting them her boon.
• Borrowed Catchphrase
  Ogre Magi: (killing Mirana) "That was skill all right. Pure skill."
• Buffy Speak
  Ogre Magi: (killing Warlock) "Sorry about your grim… grim… Your book!"
• Carry a Big Stick: Its weapon appears to be a club imbued with fire magic.
• Counter-Attack: Fire Shield launches a fireball at an enemy that attacks a teammate or building affected by it.
• Dumb Muscle: Ogre Magi has absolutely zero Intelligence in all stages of the game and is also pretty dumb, requiring two heads' worth of brainpower to keep up with heroes that have one. He also has the second-highest Strength growth of any hero at 4.2 per level (beaten by Primal Beast within a single decimal point).
  Update notes: Ogre Magi is too dumb to be an Intelligence hero. So he isn’t anymore.
• Dump Stat: Ogre Magi's starting Intelligence, Intelligence growth and maximum Intelligence are all zero (meaning that unlike Tiny and Medusa, who also have nonexistent Agility and Strength but can benefit from items just fine, any Intelligence bonuses provided by items are wasted on Ogre Magi). Instead, Dumb Luck causes Ogre's mana pool and regeneration to scale with Strength in place of Intelligence.
• Elemental Barrier: Fire Shield creates a fiery shield around the target ally or building, absorbing damage and launching fireballs at the attacker.
• Feigning Intelligence: Aggron insists that any time they get a multicast it's pure skill.
  Ogre Magi: (rolling Multicast) "Expertise! From the experts."
• The Fool: He even sometimes forgets which team he's on. His rework emphasizes this by making him always have zero Intelligence.
  Ogre Magi: "We won!" "No, we're on the other side." "Oh."
• Genius Bruiser: Only in comparison to other Ogres - which admittedly isn't saying much as being smart for an ogre still makes him quite a bit dumber than pretty much everyone else. Fortunately he still has the same brute strength and fortitude of the average ogre.
• Healing Factor: Ogre Magi has 3.5 base health regeneration, the second-highest in the game (tied with Nyx Assassin's, only lower than Axe's), while most other heroes' is 0.25.
• Horse of a Different Color: Ogre Magi rides on a strange three-legged bird when equipped with the Flockheart's Gamble Arcana.
• Insistent Terminology: Their Multicast is a skillshot they cast using their immense skill, thank you very much.
  Ogre Magi: (Upon getting a Multicast)"Oh, skillshot!" "Not luck at all."
• Item Amplifier: Multicast grants Ogre Magi's unit-targeted item active abilities a chance to affect multiple enemies when used, allowing Ogre to make Hand of Midas pay for itself quickly, burst down multiple foes at once with Dagon, or turn half the enemy team into pigs with Scythe of Vyse.
• Item Caddy: Although the Ogre Magi are often played as a support, their ultimate Multicast means that they greatly benefit from unit-targeted items. A good example of this is the Hand of Midas, which instantly kills a creep and grants bonus gold and experience on a long cooldown: Multicast gives it a chance to double, triple, or even quadruple this gold and experience, making it pay for itself much faster than on many other heroes; Arc Warden is the only other hero who can use Midas that efficiently. The extra money earned this way can allow the Ogre Magi to purchase more expensive items that Multicast can also boost.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Despite being dumb as a brick, Ogre Magi seems to be aware of the game mechanics.
  Ogre Magi: (Upon being picked) "They picked me!" "No one ever picks me!"
  Ogre Magi: (Upon leveling up) "How many levels is that?" "One?"
• Legacy Character: "Aggron Stonebreak" is the name and identity passed along to the lucky two-headed Ogre Magi born every generation.
• Magic Knight: Ogre Magi is a melee hero with good innate durability and regeneration despite being a spellcaster, allowing it to easily trade hits against the enemy offlaner and come out on top. Just don't try to fight anything up close in the late game when enemy core heroes are farmed and all you have on your position 5 Ogre is Arcane Boots and one or two other utility items. On the other hand, playing Ogre Magi as a core to rush Hand of Midas into Heart of Tarrasque is not unheard of and gives him truckloads of health, mana, and attack damage.
• Make My Monster Grow: Its third ability, Bloodlust, enlarges the target, but not by much. Note that it's just a cosmetic effect, and is somewhat ironic in that the actual buff is a speed boost.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Because he has zero Intelligence and cannot gain Intelligence by any means, Ogre Magi instead gets mana based on his Strength.
• Mighty Glacier: Aggron is one of the most durable support heroes in the game, and can dish out good damage with Fireblast and Ignite, though its mobility leaves much to be desired.
• Molotov Cocktail: Ignite has Ogre Magi batting a vial(s) filled with volatile chemicals at the target(s), which shatter on contact and set them on fire.
• Multiple Head Case: Two, to be exact. The heads seldom get along well. Interestingly, each head is capable of voluntarily controlling any part of the body, so it needs to designate which head controls the legs and which head controls the arms.
  Ogre Magi: "After you." "No, me first!"
  Ogre Magi: "I'll do legs this time." "Okay."
• Non-Standard Skill Learning: Dumb Luck is an innate ability that is available from the start and cannot have skill points put into it.
• Odd Friendship: Aggron is apparently friendly with both Warlock despite him being a well-read Adventurer Archaeologist and Ogre Magi being... well, Ogre Magi. Apparently their affinity for magic is the common factor, with Warlock finding Aggron's magic fascinating and Aggron seemingly enjoying the company of Warlock's Golem.
• One Stat to Rule Them All: Because Ogre Magi gets health, damage, bonus Multicast chance, and mana from Strength points and can use Bloodlust on himself for attack speed (making Agility a Dump Stat in comparison), Strength is the only attribute that matters on him. This leads to the "raid boss" Ogre Magi build where he farms up with Hand of Midas and simply stacks as much Strength on himself as possible, resulting in a hero that hits like a truck, spams out stuns and slows, and totals over 6000 health which regenerates at three-digit rates thanks to Heart of Tarrasque.
• Our Ogres Are Hungrier: It is one of the very few ogres who are born with two heads. It does identify Alchemist's ogre mount as being one of his species.
• Playing with Fire: Fire is Ogre Magi's magic of choice. Fireblast and Unrefined Fireblast blasts enemies with a stunning wave of fire, Ignite has Ogre bat vials of volatile chemicals to light enemies on fire, and Fire Shield places a fiery barrier on an ally to protect them and Counter-Attack enemies with fireballs.
• Pointy Ears: The ears on both their heads end in a point (and also gradually become pink the closer you get to the tips).
• Pronoun Trouble: Fluff text is terribly inconsistent on whether to refer to Ogre Magi as "he", "they", or "it" (official sources seem to have settled on he/him pronouns). To be fair, Ogre Magi probably can't decide either.
• Random Number God: Ogre Magi's ultimate, Multicast, gives him a chance of "multicasting" his spells and item actives, essentially casting the same spell in rapid succession (on the same target with Fireblast and Unrefined Fireblast, on different ones with everything else). Given enough skill, an Ogre Magi can nuke down frail heroes with multiple 4x Fireblasts, buff his entire team with a single Bloodlust, or turn four enemies into pigs with Scythe of Vyse. One of his level 25 talents adds an extra layer to this by giving his basic attacks a chance to Fireblast the target, which can also trigger Multicast.
• The Red Mage: Ogre Magi can deal damage, stun and slow enemies with Fireblast, Ignite and Unrefined Fireblast, and boost his team's right-click damage and durability with Bloodlust and Fire Shield.
• Savage Piercings: He's an ogre, creatures associated with savagery and dim-wittedness, and the left head has a nose ring and and earring.
• Shovel Strike: The Shoreline Sapper set replaces Ogre's default club with a shovel.
• Simpleton Voice: Two of them; the more typical extremely low-pitched one and an extremely high-pitched one for contrast.
• Simple, yet Awesome: A simple, yet effective moveset combined with huge base HP and high armor makes him very newbie-friendly.
• Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration: For a while, an unbelievably dumb ogre with Intelligence as their main attribute seems out of place. 7.33 eventually caught up to this and straight up removes all of their Intelligence and prevents Ogre Magi from gaining any more.
• Spam Attack: Multicast in a nutshell. Even discounting it, Ogre Magi's Fireblast and Unrefined Fireblast have cooldowns of 8 and 6 respectively, letting him belt out a constant barrage of nukes.
• Status Buff: Bloodlust grants its target bonus movement speed and attack speed, and the bonus is higher on Ogre Magi himself.
• Squishy Wizard: Downplayed. Ogre Magi has high innate durability and good Strength growth, a passive that encourages him to build Strength, and a Healing Factor that overall make it one of the tankiest heroes in the early game. Not so much in the late game, though, where it is only slightly less squishy than most supports, since enemy cores are farmed while Ogre usually has to spend its meagre farm on utility instead of durability items, although his massive Strength talent alleviates this.
• Super-Toughness: Ogre Magi boasts an obscene amount of base armor right from level 1 and has high health regeneration to boot, making him incredibly durable in the early game. He even has a talent granting +30 Strength to let him maintain his toughness in the late game, and Dumb Luck, which cause Ogre's mana, mana regeneration and Multicast chance to scale with Strength, makes Strength items more efficient on him.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: Ignite throws a vial of volatile chemicals on the victims, lighting them on fire.
• Tribal Face Paint: In lore Ogres are stupid and savage creatures, and the left head has yellow markings on its face.
• Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: The bird that comes with the Flockheart's Gamble Arcana has three legs, instead of two.
• Vocal Dissonance: For such a big, burly ogre, his left head has a surprisingly high-pitched voice.
• You All Look Familiar: In the original DotA, Ogre Magi used the same character model and name as one of the Ogre neutral creeps (the two were given distinctive appearances in Dota 2 and the creep was renamed "Ogre Frostmage"). More than one player has thus attempted to capitalize on this by disguising as a neutral creep to sucker-punch inattentive opponents.

Purist Thunderwrath, the Omniknight

"Where piety fails, my hammer falls."

Voiced by: Bruce Miles

A knight in the Order of the Omniscience, Purist Thunderwrath had spent his entire life in service to his god. For many years, he fought and crusaded in a holy war, but the horrors of combat started to wear away his piousness. Eventually, his faith failed him, and he refused to continue fighting for a deity whose existence he was now questioning. So, he returned to the caves of Emauracus to challenge his faith's priests, who attempted to sacrifice him to the Omniscience for his defiance and faithlessness. But before he could be thrown into the sacrifical pit, Purist suddenly began to glow with a holy light, indicating to the priests that the Omniscience had chosen to reveal itself to him. They then led Purist on a weeks-long journey down into the deepest chambers of Emauracus, where Purist finally saw the All Seeing One itself, and heard the story of how it created the world. With his beliefs finally validated, the Omniknight found his will and his zeal restored, and now returns to spread the faith of the All Seeing One.

Omniknight is the support hero. He is a very difficult hero to play as due to his slow movement speed and attack speed and high mana cost for his spells, but can wreck an entire enemy team if he is played competently, or give tremendous support to his team and bring them victory, even from the brink of defeat. His primary ability, Purification, both heals his allies and deals pure damage to any enemies within its area-of-effect. This can be cast on both himself and teammates, allowing him to save his friends from the brink of death. He can call upon Heavenly Grace to grant an ally increased HP regeneration and status resistance, making them more resistant to disables for a short time. Hammer of Purity has him throw his hammer at an enemy, slowing them and dealing pure damage based on his attack damage. His ultimate, Guardian Angel, protects all units within his range from physical damage and also increases health regeneration. His Aghanim's Scepter upgrade affects all friendly units on the entire map, even creeps and towers.

In Artifact, Omniknight is a green hero. His Active Ability is Purification, which heals a unit for 3 health, while his signature card is Allseeing One's Favor, which is a spell that modifies a green hero, causing it to grant all allies +2 Regeneration.

In Dota Underlords, Omniknight is a tier 3 hero. His ability, Purification, heals an allied unit while damaging nearby foes.

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• Achilles' Heel: Repel and Guardian Angel are both dispellable, meaning that enemies with dispels can neuter his ability to save allies. Nullifier is a particular sore spot as it applies a continuous dispel, making Omniknight unable to effectively protect the target until the debuff wears off (thankfully, it's a relatively expensive late-game item).
• Anti-Debuff: Repel dispels all debuffs from a friendly hero and gives them debuff immunity.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Hammer of Purity and Purification both deal Pure damage, meaning the bulk of Omniknight's damage output goes through armor and magic resistance.
• Church Militant: Purist is a crusader of the Order of the Omniscience.
• Color-Coded Wizardry: Was the case before, when his color scheme was blue, which helped indicate him as a healer-type support.
• Combat Medic: Omniknight can heal his allies with Purification and protect them Repel and Guardian Angel, all while smiting down enemies with his surprisingly high Pure damage output.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: His motif and worship of the Omniscience bring to mind the Knights Templar.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • Proper use of Purification relies on timing it so that your target is right next to the enemy, however, using it properly shifts the balance of HP by double what it states, as it both heals the ally and damages the enemy by that much. This can literally single-handedly cause a gank to backfire, allow good players surprising lane control and pull a first blood when combined with a good ganking hero.
  • In general, Omniknight can be hard to cast spells with in split-second situations, since he has a notably long cast animation (0.4 seconds between giving him the order to cast a spell and the spell taking effect, whereas the vast majority of other heroes have cast points of 0.3 seconds or shorter). As such, good Omniknight players have to have good predictive sense, and plan their moves out a bit ahead of time.
• Dispel Magic: Repel applies a standard dispel, removing most non-hard disables from the target.
• Fixed Damage Attack: A well-timed Purification can deal a huge amount of AoE Pure damage in a small area of effect, while at the same time healing its target, essentially doubling the difference in HP between the heal target and nearby enemies.
• Good Is Not Dumb: He had the wherewithal to question the higher-ups of the Omniscience, which is why his strength is so real.
• Good Is Not Soft: One of his quotes imply so, he serves the Omniscience which is referred as merciful... but he's nowhere near its level.
  Omniknight: The Omniscience may spare them, but I will not.
• Hammer of the Holy: As a divine paladin, his default weapon and many of his cosmetics are warhammers. He puts it to good use with Hammer of Purity.
  Omniknight: I carry a hammer to nail down your sins.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Omniknight's default model doesn't wear a helmet.
• Holier Than Thou: Has some kill quotes aimed specifically at Chen that berate him for how he uses his holy powers.
  Omniknight: "Chen, faith is a tool, not a bludgeon. You would have done well to learn this."
• Holy Halo: The Crown of Sacred Light cosmetic helmet can be infused to add a halo above it.
• Holy Hand Grenade: Purification is hard to hit an enemy with, but deals a lot of Pure damage, making it a very deadly nuke that simultaneously heals an ally. Hammer of Purity smites an enemy with his light-infused hammer, and Aghanim's Shard even lets him passively cast it on enemies every few seconds, amping up his damage output significantly.
• Life Drain: Hammer of Purity, when upgraded with Aghanim's Shard, heals Omniknight for the amount of damage dealt.
• Light Is Good: Wields the holy light of the Omniscience to heal and protect his allies, and destroy the forces of evil.
• Magic Knight: While he isn't an Intelligence caster, Omniknight relies greatly on his spells in order to make an impact in teamfights. However, his right-click abilities suffer as a result, as his Agility and attack animation leave much to be desired.
• Magikarp Power: Omniknight is best described as a late game support. Hammer of Purity scales with his damage and becomes more powerful late game, Repel works best against lengthy, high-level disables, and Guardian Angel grants flat-out physical immunity that doesn't care if the damage in question is the 20 damage hit of a simple creep, or the 4-digit crit of a 6-slotted hard carry, it's still zero. Given that he uses farm very well (big items like Refresher Orb and Octarine Core are very good on him) his impact grows more and more notable over time. The trade-off is that he has little lane presence, isn't able to do much outside of babysitting early game, and is very greedy for a support, needing at least Aghanim's Scepter as a core item (without which it's very easy to whiff Guardian Angel by failing to hit your carry with it). With his later reworks, it's not uncommon for him to be played as a position 3 offlaner instead of in a support slot due to him having more kill potential and being so dependent on farm.
• Manly Facial Hair: His beard gives him a resemblance to Chuck Norris.
• Mighty Glacier: Omniknight's cast time is rather slow and his kit has no form of mobility, but his spells are some of the highest-impact in the game and he can deal a good bit of damage too.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Guardian Angel makes all allies within a certain radius of him immune to physical damage (with an Aghanim's Scepter, it becomes global). Combined with Spell Immunity (such as from a Black King Bar), pretty much nothing can damage you.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Omniknight bears a striking resemblance to Chuck Norris, and it was one of his 'funny names' in the original DotA. With his tendency to make his teammates invincible, the 'funny name' kind of make sense, not to mention both of them are pretty religious. All he's missing is just his roundhouse kick.
• No Experience Points for Medic: He actually still gets XP for kills he is near, but he often doesn't rack up assists because he's melee and only one of his spells damages the enemy, so his final game stats often don't reflect his true contribution.
• No-Sell: Guardian Angel blocks all physical damage for its duration.
• The Paladin: He certainly gives the vibes of the ultimate guardian knight, and his quotes are all about him protecting people with faith and light.
  Omniknight: Fear not, my friends! Our guardian is here!
• Power Gives You Wings: White angelic wings for the duration of his ultimate. Everyone else affected gains smaller wings too. Even buildings.
• The Red Mage: While his ability to protect allies with Repel and Guardian Angel is definitely potent, his main heal Purification doubles as an area-of-effect damage spell and Hammer of Purity gives him a scaling nuke that also slows enemies by a considerable amount, so he's no slouch on offense either.
• Religious Bruiser: He does carry a giant war hammer, after all.
• Schmuck Bait: Going after that heavily injured enemy hero? Omniknight just purified him, he's back in fighting shape and you're no longer in fighting shape.
• Shoot the Medic First: Picking Omniknight off before a teamfight is crucial, as his physical immunity, healing that doubles as a nuke, and being a Black King Bar on legs can easily tip the scales of a fight. Don't kill him and you're in for a bad day.
• Stone Wall: Omniknight is notorious as one of the hardest heroes in the game to kill due to his tankiness, his healing and protective spells, and for his ability to make his teammates equally hard to kill. Unfortunately, his low Agility gain means that he has trouble dishing out damage on the scale that a semi-carry can.
• Testosterone Poisoning: While this trope isn't as strong in the case of Omniknight as, say, Sven or Wraith King, his general tankiness and ability to make his team man up by protecting them from harm, as well as his tendency to jump into the thick of the action (due to being a melee hero and needing to be close to the enemy to actually deal damage), certainly makes him one of the manliest supports in the game. It's also helped by a glitch when he was first ported to Dota 2, which caused him to spam the voice line "Fear nothing!" in just about any situation.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Or in this case, throwing your hammer with Hammer of Purity.
• Weak, but Skilled: Omniknight's base stats and stat growth are all horribly mediocre, being at best average or slightly above average for a Strength hero, with his high base armor being his only notably positive trait. Even worse, given how often he has to cast spells, his average-sized mana pool is often strained to the limit to keep his teammates alive. However, all of his spells are extremely powerful, making him a very tough opponent to take down once he overcomes his mana issues.
• Why Won't You Die?: His main strength is making anyone on his team this, slowing all attacks by a very hefty 34%, leaving them immune to almost all spells for a large duration, makes everyone immune to physical damage for up to 10 seconds, and healing them for a major amount.

Primal Beast

"RAAWR"

Voiced by: Jon Olson

The raging, ravening creature known only as the Primal Beast came to this world from another realm. In his dimension, he was an apex predator, feared even among the numerous savage monstrosities that roamed his world. However, he was cast out from his home after a failed attempt by unknown powers to control him. He found himself in the Tomo'kan mistwoods as a result of their desparate magic, and in this new world, the Primal Beast quickly established his dominance over the mistwoods' deadly fauna. For countless centuries, the Primal Beast slew and devoured every creature that dared to oppose him or enter his hunting grounds until Hoodwink bound him using the magical bindings known as Gleipnir. However, his imprisonment was not to last, for mysterious and unpredictable forces freed the Primal Beast and took him far out of the mistwoods. Now he stalks the world once more, ever in search of new hunting grounds to ravage and new places or things to raze.

Gifted with an endless thirst for destruction, Primal Beast lives to slaughter anything he meets, using his arsenal of disables and high physical damage to sow carnage among his enemies. His first skill is Onslaught. When cast, Primal Beast rushes forward in the targeted direction, dealing knockback to allies and enemies in his path and stunning and damaging enemies as well. Primal Beast can charge this ability up to travel further, allowing the player to determine exactly how far they want Primal Beast to move before stopping. Onslaught also synergizes quite well with his second ability, Trample. When this ability is activated, Primal Beast deals damage to all enemies near him for several seconds as he walks. The damage dealt is determined by a percentage of his basic attack damage, but as a tradeoff, Primal Beast is disarmed, meaning he can't make basic attacks while using the spell. Primal Beast's third ability, Uproar has two components. Its first component passively grants him bonus attack damage and causes him to gain temporary stacks of Uproar whenever he takes a certain threshold of damage from enemy heroes. The stacks do nothing passively, but Primal Beast can consume them using Uproar's active component, which causes him to unleash a mighty roar that slows enemies around him while increasing his armor and physical damage. Primal Beast's Ultimate is Pulverize. With this ability, Primal Beast grabs the targeted enemy and begins repeatedly slamming them into the ground for a few seconds, stunning and damaging his victim while doing the same to all enemies around him every time he slams his target. Overall, Primal Beast is nothing short of brutal, and a well-played Primal Beast will leave only bloody splatters on the ground behind whenever they wade into battle.

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• Achilles' Heel: Much of Primal Beast's moveset relies on him being able to move, making roots and slows particularly detrimental to him. Appropriately enough, this means he gets countered by Gleipnir.
• The Berserker: It's unclear whether the Primal Beast is even capable of rational thought, as his existence seems to be entirely devoted to destroying and/or eating everything in his path.
• Chained by Fashion: Has several chains attached to his legs and back, alluding to his former imprisonment.
• Charged Attack: The longer Primal Beast charges before activating Onslaught, the farther his momentum will carry him.
• Continuity Nod: The lore tooltip for Rock Throw references Aghanim’s Announcer Chatter during the Primal Beast boss fight in The Continuum Conundrum.
  AGAIN WITH THE ROCKS!
• Dash Attack: When using Onslaught, Primal Beast charges up and then runs in the chosen direction, knocking back enemies and allies, and dealing damage and stunning the former.
• Developer's Foresight: Pulverize uses a different cast animation when targeting Roshan specifically, because Roshan is both immune to forced movement and too big for Primal Beast to realistically pick up anyway.
• Introduced Species Calamity: On his homeworld, Primal Beast was merely an apex predator. After being banished into the Dota 2 world, he graduated to "unstoppable killing machine" as nothing is (in lore) even capable of slowing him down, and the best Hoodwink could do was attempt to trap him for eternity.
• Life Drain: One of Primal Beast's level 25 talents provides him with 50% spell lifesteal.
• Never Given a Name: He is just known as Primal Beast, and his backstory strongly suggests that he doesn't have an actual proper name.
• No Biological Sex: Hoodwink refers to him with male pronouns, but judging by how he is an ancient being, just roars instead of speaking and being a... beast... it's not actually clear his actual sex is.
• Promoted to Playable: He was formerly an event boss within the Aghanim's Labyrinth event. Once the event ended, he immediately made his debut as a hero. Of course, for the sake of fair play, his hero self is massively nerfed from his raid boss self.
• Recursive Ammo: After Rock Throw hits, the rock splits into 3 additional fragments that land behind the initial target location.
• Shockwave Stomp: Seems to be his favorite tactic, used in Trample, Pulverize, and Aghanim's Scepter-upgraded Uproar.
• Shout-Out: He's codenamed 'Fenrir' in datamining and his lore ends up very similar to the mythical Fenrir (a beast bound by Gleipnir).
• The Speechless: He is incapable of speaking. He just roars.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Pulverize is basically giving what would be a four-legged beast version of a triple powerbomb.

Pudge, the Butcher

"When I'm through with these vermins, they'll be fit for a pie."

Voiced by: John Patrick Lowrie

The Fields of Endless Carnage are a cursed battlefield where constant bloodshed occurs and nothing decays. Thus, it falls to the one known as the Butcher to clear the corpse-strewn grounds through the night, cutting them up into easily consumable meals for the carrion birds. However, the Butcher eventually began to share the tastes of the creatures fed by his work, and soon enough, fear of the hulking figure and his nightmarish implements began to propagate as his appetite spread to the living...

Any team that faces Pudge is required to have extreme awareness in order to survive and not fall prey to this grotesque manslayer. His Meat Hook is the quintessential 'Get Over Here' skill on any MOBA: Pudge throws a long-ranged hook which deals a large amount of Pure damage to enemies and drags the first unit it grabs back to Pudge's location, enabling him to isolate heroes even at the most improbable location. He must aim well, or he'll instead drag a friendly unit, which can sometimes allow him to save them by pulling his teammates out of a bad situation. He can even use this ability to snatch runes from afar, which refunds the spell's mana cost. His rotting body can be weaponized with Rot, damaging enemies per second and slowing them, but also damaging Pudge. Flesh Heap is a passive skill which allows Pudge to collect the flesh of enemies who die near him, increasing his strength permanently as he amasses more and more bodies. Unlike most passives, Flash Heap counts any deaths before Pudge learns the skill. Finally, with his ultimate ability Dismember, Pudge holds an enemy in place, stunning and damaging them while he feasts on their flesh in order to restore his health as his cry of "FRESH MEAT!" echoes throughout the entire battlefield. He also slowly draws them closer to him if they began his meal outside his melee range. Pudge's ability to surprise foes from a range and empower himself with each kill means that the enemy team must keep aware of his location, lest they be turned into the Butcher's next meal.

In Dota Underlords, Pudge is a tier 2 hero. His ability, Meat Hook, damages the farthest unit from Pudge and pulls it to his location; his nearby allies will then focus their attacks on the target.

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• Anti-Escape Mechanism: Not only can he drag fleeing enemies to him with Meat Hook, but he can slow their escape with Rot or hold them in place for several seconds with Dismember.
• Art Evolution: Received a texture update on November 2013, removing the exposed intestines and adding a butcher's apron to his belly.
• Beard of Evil: Not normally, but with the Chains of the Black Death Set he gains one.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: Prior to patch 7.23, Pudge could use Rot's self-damage to kill himself, preventing the enemy team from getting gold an experience from his death. This doesn't work anymore.
  Pudge (when denying himself with Rot): "Last bite for me."
• The Black Death: With the Chains of the Black Death cosmetic set, Pudge becomes a host for the plague.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Pudge may be a cannibalistic monster, but he also plays an important role in the Fields of Endless Carnage, where he chops up bodies to allow them to be picked apart by scavengers; without him, they wouldn't decay and thus would pile up endlessly. His personality is also oddly polite and jovial... at least, once you get past his fascination with eating people. This can give the impression of someone who just doesn't see anything wrong with cannibalism.
• Carry a Big Stick: His weapon in the Murder of Crows set is a crow-shaped mace.
• Cast from Hit Points: Rot damages Pudge himself as well.
• Chained by Fashion: He gains a flail when wearing the Chains of The Black Death cosmetic set, but uses it as a belt instead of a weapon.
• Composite Character: His origins in the original Dota stem from two Blizzard characters: he had the Butcher's cleaver from Diablo but borrowed his character model from a Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos Abomination, hence the stitches and pudgy build of his current incarnation.
• Creepy Crows: With the Murder of Crows cosmetic set, Pudge gains a pet crow.
• Crutch Character: Early in the game, Pudge's Meat Hook into Rot into Dismember combo can easily bring enemies from full health to zero, but because the damage from Rot and Meat Hook is static and the scaling on Dismember isn't too great, he loses a lot of his solo-killing ability if the game goes late. That being said, he's still dangerous later on as an initiator, he just poses less of a threat when alone. As such, Pudge is very rarely played as a core, as Meat Hook is often used more for the utility than the nuking power, and if he snowballs to the point where Dismember is indiscriminately killing things in the late game, you've pretty much won anyway.
• Damage Sponge: Flesh Heap slowly increases Pudge's Strength each time an enemy dies near him, and gives him increased HP regeneration. A well-played Pudge can therefore end up with a preposterous hit point total before long.
• Deadly Doctor: The Surgical Precision cosmetic set has Pudge dress up as a doctor, complete with a white mask and apron, and various vials of a strange green fluid.

  Bored with careless slaughter, the butcher takes aim at a new occupation, though he brings the same talent for slaughter.

• Difficult, but Awesome: To make good use of Pudge, one must master Meat Hook, which newbies are liable to miss or snag on creeps instead. An experienced player, though, can catch his victim through gaps in creep waves or even the Fog of War, dragging them into traps and thus being a valuable supporter. In 7.07 he can even hook runes, increasing his utility as a roaming hero.
• Dual Wield: A butcher knife and his signature hook.
• Evil Is Visceral: A monstrous cannibal crudely stitched together from various body parts. His older model even had his insides exposed until it was patched to add an apron and hide it.
• Exact Words: Patch 6.79 allows him to purchase Blink Dagger, but grants free pathing for anyone he trapped in cliffs or ledges. But no one said anything about *trees*....
• Fat Bastard: Possibly as a result of his cannibalism.
• Glass Cannon: Despite his very high Strength (and appropriately huge raw HP), he is not very durable until late-game: he has almost no base armor, and Rot does a lot of damage to him while it's activated. This can be offset with enough kills/assists to get Flesh Heap stacks, and smart item pickups; good choices include Heart of Tarrasque or Shiva's Guard, both being efficient and having high synergy with his skills.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: With the Chains of the Black Death cosmetic set.
• Healing Factor: Flesh Heap provides Pudge bonus to health regeneration, making it extremely difficult to harass him out of lane even with only one value point put into this skill.
• Hooks and Crooks: His meat hook, which he uses to pull enemies.
• Human Shield: One of the ways to prevent being caught by Pudge's hook is staying behind creeps.
  Pudge: "Bloody creeps!"
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Pudge can heal himself with a simple Dismember meal. Also bizarrely inverted with his Scepter upgrade, which lets him eat an ally to heal them. Don't ask how that works.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Pudge started off as a simple butcher, but eventually developed a taste for flesh, human or otherwise.
  Pudge: "HA HA HA HA! FRESH MEAT!"
• Lead the Target:
  • Meat Hook is a slow projectile, famous for requiring you to predict your opponent's movements.
  • Good Pudge play also requires adapting to his slow attack animation in order to get enough last-hits to buy what he needs. In general, playing Pudge well requires thinking ahead and in multiple directions in order to outsmart your opponents and overcome Pudge's limitations.
• Life Drain: Dismember heals him for any damage done, and one of his level 15 talents grants him spell lifesteal.
• Magic Knight: Though Pudge is a Strength hero, he has little use for his right-click attacks, but instead relies on the massive damage of Meat Hook, Rot and Dismember to gank.
• Monochromatic Eyes: Has dead, white eyes.
• No Indoor Voice: Whenever he uses Dismember, everyone in the game will hear him yell "Fresh Meat!" This can also work to his disadvantage, though, as nearby enemies will be alerted to the fact that an ally is in danger and possibly rush to their defense. This is a Mythology Gag to the original Warcraft III mod, where the same thing would happen.
• Obvious Rule Patch: When many players asked about Valve about the "Fountain Hooking" exploit (that is, using Chen's Test of Faith to return Pudge to the fountain as Pudge throws a hook, dragging a victim into the fountain for a very easy kill), they said that it would be kept as they deemed it too hilarious. However after a match at The International, the biggest Dota 2 tournament, was decided in part thanks to this exploit enabling an otherwise improbable comeback, it was patched out during the "First Blood" patch. Meat Hook now has the target land into Pudge's position at the time of casting, regardless of where Pudge currently is.
• One-Hit Kill: Meat Hook instantly kills enemy non-Ancient creeps on contact.
• Poisonous Person: Rot releases a toxic, choking gas emanating from Pudge's putrid mass.
• Projectile Spell: Meat Hook will snag and drag the first unit it touches.
• Psychopathic Manchild: The Toy Butcher persona acts in a whimsical manner and has plenty of childish voice lines... all while still being brutally violent and ravenous.
• Shout-Out: To a Diablo character and to a Mortal Kombat character.
  Pudge: "Ahhh... fresh meat!"
  Pudge: ''Get over here!''
• Shovel Strike: A shovel is one of the two weapon styles he can choose from in the Chains of the Black Death cosmetic set.
• Skill Gate Characters: Warding utterly destroys Pudge's attempts to gank. However, skilled Pudge players will adapt and throw more difficult hooks, leading to supports needing to adapt warding positions as well. This leads to an interesting level of progression from the newest players all the way to professionals, where Pudge players have to try to outthink their opponents, or be rendered dead weight.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: His modus operandi is to pull a single enemy into the Fog of War away from friendlies, then disable and kill them in a matter of seconds.
• Stout Strength: Pudge has one of the best starting Strength and Strength growths in the game, which can be further boosted with Flesh Heap — and he ranks amongst the fattest heroes in the game as well.
• Swallowed Whole: Aghanim's Shard-upgraded Dismember, of the "harmless temporary swallowing" variety. The upgrade lets Pudge swallow an ally, healing them over time while they're inside, and they can come back out at any time.
• Variable-Length Chain: Meat Hook. Well, not entirely variable length; its maximum length is relative to the skill level.
• Voodoo Doll: The Murder of Crows cosmetic set adds a doll of Dendi, a professional player that made Pudge even more famous thanks to his performance at the competitive scene.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Of the Fan Disservice variety.
• Was Once a Man: Used to be a simple butcher with the job of cleaning out a cursed battlefield, but after acquiring a taste for the corpses he chopped up, he became the corpulent monster he is today.
• Weaponized Stench: Pudge's "Rot" ability can be toggled to create a cloud of toxic fumes around him at the cost of his health. The cloud slows down and deals Damage Over Time to enemy units close to him.
• Weapons of Their Trade: Pudge is a butcher who wields a meathook and cleaver (or a tenderiser, with some cosmetics) in combat.
• You Will Not Evade Me: Meat Hook is the grand-daddy of all the other similar skills in other MOBAs, pulling enemies back to you from a long range.

Slardar, the Slithereen Guard

"I guard what slumbers in the deeps."

Voiced by: Sam A. Mowry

In the darkest ocean trenches lie treasure troves filled with untold riches, guarded by the proud Slithereen Guard. Among them is Slardar, a loyal guardian with both strength tempered by crushing pressure and a thorough knowledge of the deeps. Thieves seeking to steal from the Sunken Treasury rarely succeed, as Slardar will pursue them relentlessly both through the waters and across the land to reclaim what they stole while also occasionally coming ashore on his own terms to perform reconaissance missions against potential threats to the sea.

Slardar is a vicious melee hero capable of initiating a fight, crushing the enemy with brute strength, and then hunting down the survivors. Guardian Sprint lets him keep pace with all but the most elusive opponents with a massive surge of movement speed, which is amplified even further in the water. Upon catching a foe, he can hold them down with his Slithereen Crush, which stuns nearby enemies and then slows them afterwards. Slardar can then pin them down further with Bash of the Deep, which inflicts a stun and bonus damage on every fourth attack Slardar launches. His ultimate ability, Corrosive Haze, marks a target for death, reducing their armor and granting vision over them - even if they go invisible. As Bash of the Deep and Slithereen Crush both deal physical damage, this greatly amplifies Slardar's damage output and lets him easily overwhelm his prey. When hunted by Slardar, there is nowhere to run or hide.

In Dota Underlords, Slardar is a tier 2 hero. His ability is Corrosive Haze, which lowers an enemy's armor.

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• Adaptation Species Change: Was a Naga in DotA. In Dota 2, "Slithereen" was made into a race and Slardar was made part of it, so his title and Slithereen Crush remained unchanged.
• Animal Gender-Bender: Despite being male, some of Slardar's cosmetic items give him a glowing lure, which only female anglerfish possess in real life.
• Anti-Escape Mechanism: Every single one of his abilities is designed to make running from him a pointless endeavor.
  • Guardian Sprint gives him a large movement speed boost (even faster when he's running on river), and lasts far longer than other boosts like Surge or Windrun.
  • Slithereen Crush is an AoE stun with a small slow attached to the end, letting him stop enemies in their tracks.
  • Bash of the Deep lets him extend stuns from Slithereen Crush if he has enough attack speed to proc it before the first stun ends. With sufficient attack speed, he can even leave an enemy permanently stunned unless they're saved by an ally.
  • Corrosive Haze reveals targets and applies True Sight on them, meaning that the only way to run away from him is by blinking or purging the debuff and hoping that you're out of range for him to simply cast it on you again. Of course, he's usually got his own Blink Dagger and a talent makes Corrosive Haze undispellable, so even that may not work.
• Arch-Enemy: It isn't mentioned at all in his backstory, but his Corrosive Haze lines suggest he really hates Riki — somewhat appropriate, due to Slardar's abilities seemingly tailor-fitted for enemies as evasive as Riki.
• Art Evolution: Slardar received a remodel in Patch 7.00, which makes him strongly resemble his DotA model and removes his lure.
• Close-Range Combatant: Slardar absolutely has nothing to deal damage from afar. Corrosive Haze is the only one that can target from afar, but he still has to get close first. While this can mean that ranged units can harrass him only in the laning phase, if Slardar ever gets close enough to them, then they're in for a pain. And outside laning phase... well, he is also loaded with Anti-Escape Mechanism to make sure he sticks close to his victim.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: Corrosive Haze decreases armor and gives Slardar true sight of whoever he's targeted.
• Home Field Advantage: As a denizen of the water, Slardar gains extra movement speed, armor, and health regeneration in the river as a passive component of Guardian Sprint, and attack speed as part of Bash of the Deep. Slithereen Crush and Corrosive Haze also leave water on the ground, letting him gain the bonuses outside the river, and Aghanim's Scepter significantly increases the bonuses to make him faster and bulkier.
• Judge, Jury, and Executioner: It's rather unlikely Slardar takes thieves back to court to give them a fair trial.
• Lightning Bruiser: Slardar can move extremely fast with Guardian Sprint, and his other skills make him one of the most powerful 1v1 heroes in the game. Fittingly, he also has one of the highest Agility growths for a strength hero, letting him capitalize on his bash.
• MacGuffin Guardian: His purpose in life is to guard the treasures of the deep, as well as chasing down the occasional thief who manages to make off with some of it.
• Magically Inept Fighter: He does purely physical damage, including the added damage of Bash of the Deep and Slithereen Crush, all the better to take advantage of Corrosive Haze.
• Making a Splash: Slithereen Crush slams the ground and releases a powerful surge of water that stuns nearby enemies, while also leaving behind a puddle of water that grants Slardar his passive Guardian Sprint bonuses. Aghanim's Scepter increases the water pool's radius and duration. Additionally, Corrosive Haze uses brine to soak the target and corrode their defenses while making them trail water behind them.
• Obvious Rule Patch: One of the balance changes that happens during 6.85 is that Bounty Hunter's Track no longer provides vision around the targeted hero, just the true sight and silhouette around it. Then players realized that Amplify Damage (Corrosive Haze's old name), a similar revealing skill still has that vision revealing effect and by 6.85 meta, Slardar has essentially replaced Bounty Hunter as the top pick when it comes to giving vision and in turn, information on the enemy. Come the next patch, Amplify Damage ended up suffering the same fate as Track; only revealing true sight and silhouette of the targeted enemy.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: He is overall mer-shaped in appearance. The Pirate Captain Announcer even mistakes him for one.
• Progressively Prettier: His old look◊ was quite ugly and brutish, and while his new snake-like appearance isn't winning any beauty contests, it's a lot easier on the eyes.
• Prongs of Poseidon: Fitting his aquatic nature, Slardar's weapon resembles a trident, though it's much bulkier than the usual example and is primarily used for bludgeoning.
• Random Number God: Previous versions of Bash of the Deeps had a random chance to bash on each attack: with luck, you could keep an enemy permanently stunned, but there was also a possibility of not landing any bashes and allowing them to get away. These days it's averted; it hits every fourth attack, with a small counter display that you can check so that you know when to go after a hero, knowing you'll bash them on the first hit. It also makes last-hitting easier and lets you reliably build the counter on creeps.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: He has red eyes, and will chase anyone who dare steal the Deep One's treasures in order to bash them to death with his mace.
• Salt Solution: Corrosive Haze soaks a foe in brine, reducing armor and revealing them to Slardar's team.
• Shockwave Stomp: Slithereen Crush is a slam that stuns and damages nearby enemy units.
• Shout-Out: To the Cthulhu Mythos. He is one of the Deep Ones, and as he dies and respawns he may say these lines from "The Nameless City":
  Slardar (dying): That is not dead that can eternal lie.
  Slardar (respawning): And with strange aeons even death may die.
• Sssssnake Talk: To a far lesser degree than fellow Slithereen Slithice the Naga Siren, but his accent still leans towards this.
• Strange Cop in a Strange Land: He is a resident of the sea, but must venture onto dry land in order to catch some crooks.
• Sudden Name Change: In version 7.00, three of Slardar's abilities were renamed: Sprint to Guardian Sprint, Bash to Bash of the Deep, and Amplify Damage to Corrosive Haze.
• Super-Persistent Predator: Slardar is known for never letting thieves escape. Ever. No matter how far he may have to chase them. Within the gameplay itself, Corrosive Haze reveals the victim for an extended period, and his other skills make him an excellent chaser.
  Slardar (after a long chase): I cross the world to take you down.
• Super-Speed: Guardian Sprint grants Slardar a large boost to his movement speed. In the river, this effect is not only increased, but he can also go over the normal movement speed cap.
• Training from Hell: Since he's spent his entire life at crushing depths, Slardar is extremely strong and durable, according to his lore.

Barathrum, the Spirit Breaker

"I'll break their spirits and their backs."

Voiced by: Fred Tatasciore

Barathrum, the Spirit Breaker, is a ferocious elemental being from a higher plane of existence. Repercussions from the War of the Ancients reached even into his realm, and so he chose to guide the conflict towards a conclusion that would benefit him and his hidden master, his nose ring a symbol of his fealty to this mysterious entity. Taking upon a physical form inspired by the mightiest beasts of our world, Barathrum is a creature equal parts strength and speed and a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.

Charging across the battlefield, Spirit Breaker is a frightening ganker who can choose a target from anywhere on the map. With his signature move, the global-ranged Charge of Darkness, Spirit Breaker makes a beeline for any enemy unit, gaining enhanced movement speed during his charge. The target, and any enemy standing in the way, will be struck with a Greater Bash, stunning them and knocking them back while inflicting additional damage based on Spirit Breaker's movement speed. This bash is also used by his ultimate ability, and has a passive chance to be applied with his normal attacks as well. Bulldoze can be used to temporarily increase Spirit Breaker's status resistance and movement speed, further increasing his bash's damage. Finally, his ultimate ability, Nether Strike, causes the Spirit Breaker to teleport behind an enemy, inflicting them with a Greater Bash with additional damage. Good awareness of the map is required to avoid a mace-to-face meeting with this charging bull, as he can strike from anywhere at any time.

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• Achilles' Heel: Since Charge of Darkness and Nether Strike are single-target skills, the Spell Block from the Linken's Sphere can nullify those abilities.
• Adaptation Species Change: Like Earthshaker and Elder Titan, he was a Tauren in DotA. He still retains the most bull-like form of the three.
• Crosshair Aware: Spirit Breaker and his allies can see a zodiac Taurus symbol over the Charge of Darkness target.
• Cycle of Hurting: If lucky and fast enough, he can stun-lock any foe for a very long time, and his active abilities can be used to compensate for unlucky streaks.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Spirit Breaker's gameplay revolves around 2 area of effect skills with clumsy single-target targetting and delays. Properly using them can bring some of the best BKB-penetrating area of effect and spammable lockdown in the game, great nuking potential, and knock opponents around, but doing so means choosing a target for a spell quickly and position to get it off right.
• Epic Flail: His signature weapon is a ghostly ball and chain.
• Field Power Effect: One of his old skills, Empowering Haste granted bonus movespeed to Spirit Breaker and nearby allies. In even earlier DotA versions, this also gave him a damage bonus relative to his total movespeed. Later versions nerfed this damage bonus, moving it instead to the percentage-chance Greater Bash.
• Flash Step: Nether Strike has him disappear, then reappear next to the target to deal massive magical damage.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Charge of Darkness will cause Spirit Breaker to run through anything and everything, homing in on the target from any place on the map, knocking back any opponent he passes through.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Barathrum is normally an incorporeal being from another plane, but he shaped his body into one combining human and bovine characteristics as these animals embody strength and intelligence.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: If you see his glowing red eyes coming at you, you'd better prepare yourself for a face full of mace.
• Gratuitous Latin: "Barathrum" means "underworld" in Latin.
• Horned Humanoid: The bovine features he gave his body include large bull horns.
• Implacable Man: Bulldoze temporarily grants Barathrum a large amount of Status Resistance, allowing him to shrug off most disables.
• Knockback: Greater Bash smashes foes so violently, they're sent flying back on top of being stunned.
• Lightning Bruiser: One of the best examples, being both a Strength hero and one of the fastest in the game. This power is somewhat offset by his limited moveset.
• Meaningful Name: "Barathrum" means "underworld" in Latin (technically, it means "gully" or any otherwise deep, dark, gloomy hole, but the figurative meaning is still that).
• Noun Verber: The name "Spirit Breaker" indicates that his attacks destroy you not only on the physical plane, but also the spiritual.
• Obvious Rule Patch: 7.33 reworks the Spell Immunity mechanic where the enemy is immune to debuffs when under Debuff Immunity rather than making them untargetable by spells that don't pierce them. This means that Spirit Breaker can use his Charge of Darkness against a Debuff Immune enemy and due to the Greater Bash component piercing it, will disable the enemy through their BKB even though said interaction normally only works if Spirit Breaker wields an Aghanim's Scepter. 7.33c no longer allow Charge of Darkness to target a Debuff Immune enemy if SB didn't own Scepter, making it and Terrorblade's Sunder the only spells whose interaction with BKBed enemies worked prior to the 7.33 rework.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: Has a minotaur-like body with hooves and horns.
• Poor, Predictable Rock: Both of his active abilities are centered around Greater Bash, and he can do little more without items.
• Primal Stance: He walks on all fours. Well, except for the hand he uses to hold his flail.
• Random Number God: The most hilarious aspect of Spirit Breaker is his Greater Bash skill. You might think 17% is a low chance to proc... until he bashes you on the first hit. Then twice in a row. Then thrice. And then he takes the 25% Bash chance talent on level 25 (meaning his Bash will hit you at 42% chance)...
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: A space-cow with glowing red eyes isn't something you want to see charging at you.
• Roar Before Beating: Barathrum roars when casting Charge of Darkness and Nether Strike.
• Savage Piercings: He wears a ring in his nose and multiple in his ears.
• Selective Gravity: His flail seems to have no weight at all, floating in the air when he's standing still, but is heavy enough to knock back enemies when it hits.
• Skill Gate Characters: Spirit Breaker is feared in low-level games where map awareness and warding aren't skills that most players possess. Most of the time, no one will be aware of his charge until they're being smacked in the face by his flail, making it easy for him to kill unsuspecting players. In higher level games, proper warding will make it much easier to tell where the Spirit Breaker is charging, and to prepare for him.
• Super-Persistent Predator: Once Spirit Breaker charges an enemy, he will keep charging until he hits his target (unless he is disabled or cancels the charge). If charging from across the map, he will cross over mountains, through the jungle, past towers, across the river, et cetera.
• Super-Speed: Charge of Darkness grants him a fixed movement speed and allows him to bypass movement speed cap during the duration, meaning that he can always catch up to almost any target. And it can be further increased with items or, for giggles, Dark Seer's Surge.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Since his charge doesn't alert the target and he's one of the heroes who can keep up the stun for several seconds, he's very effective at surprise ganks.
• Unskilled, but Strong: All he has in terms of damage output is his ultimate and a chance to bash on his normal autoattacks, but he doesn't need much else to win in one-on-one ganks or teamfights.
• Weaksauce Weakness: The biggest weakness of Charge of Darkness is that it gets interrupted by basically anything other than damage or slows — even things like Force Staff, which generally doesn't qualify as a disable - thus preventing the stun and wasting the cooldown. If the enemy sees Spirit Breaker charging at them, the charge attempt can quickly backfire.

Sven, the Rogue Knight

"One man, in a world of foes."

Voiced by: David Scully (Dota 2), Fred Tatasciore (Dota Underlords, Artifact)

Sven is a hybrid man, born illegitimately from a human Vigil Knight father and a Pallid Meranth mother. Raised solitarily in the Shadeshore Ruins, Sven's father was executed by the Vigil Knights for his violation of the Vigil Codex and his mother was ostracized by her race for her forbidden union, leading him to believe that honor existed only in the self rather than in any social order. After he cared for his mother to her last breath, Sven took up study under the Vigil Knights, learning everything he could from the very group that treated him as an abomination, but without revealing his identity. After thirteen years, he was finally ready to be officially inducted during the In-Swearing, but instead, Sven took the Outcast Blade and enacted his revenge, shattering the Sacred Helm and burning the Vigil Codex in the Holy Flame before leaving Vigil Keep. Now, he wanders the world alone, still following the rigid conduct of a knight, albeit through his own private code of honor. In a sense, Sven is still a knight, just a rogue one.

Sven is a melee Strength hero who specializes in raw physical damage, both the dealing and taking thereof. He boasts a lot of self-buffs that enhance his already incredible strength as he leaps into the enemy ranks. Storm Hammer, his only ranged skill, has him throw his magical gauntlet towards an enemy, stunning the target and anyone nearby in a circular area. With his Great Cleave, Sven gains a cleave attack, allowing his normal attacks to also damage enemies near his target, and passively also gets bonus Strength per level. Using his Warcry, Sven roars, pumping up the movement speed of him and his nearby allies while granting them a shield that absorbs a certain amount of damage, allowing them to charge into battle or retreat with haste. Lastly, his ultimate, God's Strength, has Sven unleash his full power, granting him a large amount of bonus strength while multiplying his damage, making his attacks devastatingly powerful. Sven's versatility and strength makes him a solid ally, and if he's around, you can be assured that he is here to pump you up!

In Artifact, Sven is a red hero. He has the Continuous Effect Great Cleave, which grants him Cleave equal to half his Attack. His signature card is God's Strength.

In Dota Underlords, Sven is the Ace of Knights. His ability, God's Strength, temporarily multiplies his attack damage. It also triggers his Ace effect, trading the Knight alliance bonus for a damage buff for all Knights.

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• Adaptation Name Change: His first ability was renamed from Storm Bolt to Storm Hammer in the port, though ironically it no longer uses an actual hammer.
• Anti-Hero: He's a knight, following HIS OWN code of chivalry. Although not evil, if you ever cross it, you're going to get cleaved. Ask the Vigil Knights how it turned out.
• Badass Normal: Despite all his Shock and Awe effects, it's implied all Sven's doing is being that goddamn strong, such as slinging his gauntlet at enemies with enough force to stun all of them.
• The Berserker: His playstyle emphasizes rushing into the midst of the fight to deal as much damage as possible during his stun and buffs. He also has no escape mechanisms, so when Sven commits to a fight with his ultimate up, someone is going to die.
• BFS: The Outcast Blade. Well, all of his cosmetic swords, really. His passive, Great Cleave, allows him to spread a percentage of his damage to all nearby enemies every time he attacks, presumably by virtue of his sword just being that big.
• Blasphemous Boast: If Sven kills an enemy Zeus, he shows that he has little opinions towards deities in general.
  Sven: Gods were meant to be defied!
• Boisterous Bruiser: Zig-zagged. He was originally set as one in the original DotA, what with the "Pumping Up" jokes and minimum characterization. Come Dota 2, he's gone Darker and Edgier and generally is more somber and trying to be more chivalrous. But he's still a big, manly Screaming Warrior that still enjoys a worthy battle, making him look like still pretty boisterous even when he's juggling with his own demons.
• Borrowed Catch Phrase: A hilarious one with Enchantress:
  Sven (killing Enchantress): Go sproink yourself!
• Butt-Monkey: In Valve's demonstration videos of Hero abilities, Sven is always the Hero used to demonstrate the abilities' effects. This has since spread, with the help of DotaCinema, to fan videos as well.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: It's implied from the texts of his abilities that they are all the result of his extreme strength and little else (though the tooltip of Storm Hammer suggests that the gauntlet itself is magical to a degree).
• Cool Helmet: A knight's helmet with huge horns. Even Kunkka agrees it's cool and wants Sven to be his helmsman because of that helmet.
• Critical Hit: Sven doesn't have any built-in crits, but if he crits for any reason (read: Daedalus), it will hurt. A fully farmed Sven with God's Strength active can hit everyone in range for upwards of 2000 damage.
• Darker and Edgier: Zig-zagged. Sven in the old DotA was just a solid defender of justice as a backstory and a Boisterous Bruiser with "Pumping Up" jokes in his skillset definitions, but he uses the evil Tichondrius voice set. In Dota 2, the "Pumping Up" jokes vanish, and he became more rogue-ish, betraying the Vigil Knights and possibly slaying them because they violated his personal honor of being a Half-Human Hybrid (after learning from them) although he would still follow the conduct of a normal knight. However, his voiceset is decidedly more honorable and knight-like (if rather Rogue-ish). He's also more of a solitary loner than a boisterous guy.
• Dark and Troubled Past: We're only given tiny details, but Sven's childhood is definitely no walk in the park, since he had to endure a lifetime of insults and being considered an abomination because of being a half-Pallid Meranth, his mother being shunned the same way, and his father executed.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Actually hitting groups with Storm Hammer, thanks to its fairly slow projectile and unit-targetting requires a fair bit of prediction on which enemies are going where. And then you kill them all with your massive physical DPS.
• Dynamic Entry: With his fist. Storm Hammer upgraded by Aghanim's Scepter grants Sven a rather long-range initiation tool that will chase an opponent as long as needed to catch the target, (even if the target moves, which can have unintended consequences.) Even if the initial target blocks the stun with debuff immunity, the stun will hit everyone around the target, and Sven can get to cleaving up close and personal.
• The Faceless: His face is obscured by his helmet, and he is never seen without one.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: He has huge armor plates on his left arm. One of the item descriptions explains they're a counterweight to his sword.
• Flying Brick: With Aghanim's Scepter, Storm Hammer gets an alt-cast that has Sven throwing the gauntlet while he's still wearing it, resulting in an animation that looks a lot like Sven gliding along the ground.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The skill flavor text of Warcry says "Calling a few lines from the Vigil Codex fortifies Sven's obedience to his rogue code. So poetic!". Yet, whenever Sven uses Warcry, he's just roaring loudly. So is Sven's roar just that damn poetic, or the Vigil Codex just consists of incoherent roaring?
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: When under the effects of God's Strength.
• Half-Breed Discrimination: He's considered an abomination by everyone that came across him, excepting heroes that see his strength more than his heritage.
• Half-Human Hybrid: In DotA, he was half human and half Night Elf. In Dota 2, half Pallid Meranth (mother's side) half Vigil Knight (father's side).
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Great Cleave is the single most powerful passive cleave in the game (Tidebringer deals more damage but is gated by a cooldown), in both area of effect and percentage damage; at max level, the cleave damage is equal to his main attack. In many cases with heroes that can avoid attacks, it's actually better to hit people near your intended target since cleave is unaffected by evasion. And to note, once Sven learns this skill, it becomes his basic attack without any cooldowns whatsoever (like getting a free Battle Fury).
• Heroic Bastard: The son of a (presumably human) Vigil Knight, and a Pallid Meranth.
• Hour of Power: God's Strength lasts for a limited duration after being activated and can triple his base damage at max level, making him a prime candidate to build damage items on along with some cheap attack speed items like Echo Saber and Mask of Madness, while Great Cleave means that even outnumbering him won't stop his rampage. Without God's Strength, his damage output is mediocre at best. Teamfighting with Sven essentially follows a simple formula: Blink onto the enemy, Storm Hammer as many as possible, pop the rest of his abilities along with Mask of Madness, and try to murder everyone within the next three seconds.
• Improbable Use of a Weapon: How exactly he cleaves large groups by stabbing or shoving his BFS and making overhand swings, one can only guess at. With the Immortal cosmetic Vigil Signet, he can even cleave with a shield.
• "Instant Death" Radius: Getting near a fed enemy Sven is a very bad thing. He doesn't even have to notice you, simply being in his cleave radius for a second or so is often a death sentence for squishier heroes.
• I Work Alone: Sven has this in his mindset, leading a solitary life following the conducts of a Knight, and one of his quotes if his team is defeated is "Should've done this myself." But since this is an ARTS game...
• Knight in Sour Armor: Sven will protect the weak as befitting of a knight. However, his years of abuse and isolation for being a half Pallid Meranth left him rather somber and gave him a disdain on typical chivalries, like Omniknight or Chen (although he occasionally would compliment Omniknight).
  Sven (killing Omniknight/Chen): What you call 'righteousness', I call 'foolishness'
• Lightning Bruiser: In addition to being one of the fastest (by default) heroes in the game, Sven can boost his movement speed with Warcry, and Storm Hammer (when upgraded with Aghanim's Scepter) allows him to literally fly into the enemy's face. Sven can chase down practically any opponent and fight with the same godly strength as ever, although it takes a bit of farm for him to reach that point.
• Magikarp Power: While not classified as such early on, Sven ends up taking the role of 'Hard Carry' in a similar manner to Anti-Mage. Early on, he's very kite-able and his stun costs a heck lot of mana so he can't just spam it willy nilly, and he also doesn't have a surefire escape button like Anti-Mage. On the other hand, unlike other carries that usually depends on Battle Fury (or Maelstorm) for flash farming tool, Sven has a cleave innate in him (Great Cleave), so all he needs is just a life drain item for sustain (like via artifacts, though he's still encouraged to make something like Mask of Madness), and he's good to go for jungle flash farming if the lane is not being ideal for him to farm, racking up his money and items in a short time, to which he immediately becomes a threat due to his high damage and stun (and he most likely will buy Blink Dagger to compensate his lack of mobility). He's just a bit less of a hard carry than Anti-Mage in that he just needs a few item to be good to go (some of them even including his farming tools, like Echo Sabre and Blink Dagger).
• Money Multiplier: Great Cleave lets him clear most camps simply by killing the largest creep, rapidly gaining gold and experience at a time where other carries are still farming for items to help them farm faster. Even at level 2 Great Cleave already surpasses Battle Fury, disposing neutral camps quicker. Later levels also make clearing out stacked ancients a trivial task. Warcry helps as well, since under its effect, Sven can negate most of the incoming damage with a lifesteal item, and it also increases his movement speed so he can walk from camp to camp to clear them faster. In extreme cases, even God's Strength can be used for farming, specifically, letting Sven clear multiple stacked camps of Ancient Creeps early on to spike an entire mid-tier item's worth of gold ahead when most other carries wouldn't even be able to fight such a number of high powered creeps without assistance.
• Mythology Gag: Sven's design is clearly evocative of a bare-chested barbarian, despite simply wearing two sets of plate armor, This is based on his Dota All-stars incarnation◊, which used the blue Overlord model, utilizing the red Felguard one as his Super Mode. Additionally, his original Felguard blade appears as a cosmetic item.
• One-Man Army: One of the best heroes at getting Rampages, even by himself if the enemy is grouped up, thanks to his area stun and damage output.
• Power Up Full Color Change: Casting his ultimate turns him (and occasionally his sword) red.
• Power Up Letdown: Prior to version 7.23, Sven's Aghanim's Scepter upgrade gave him an aura that boosted allies' base damage while God's Strength is active. Unlike most auras, this did not affect Sven himself, and you generally don't want to buy an item that gives your hero absolutely no relevant benefits when playing a carry, especially since this means your teammates tend to have weak attack damage to begin with. It was only really useful on support Sven builds, and Sven's relevance as a support hero is questionable most of the time. This may be why it was replaced with a completely different upgrade.
• Razor Wind: To indicate how far the Great Cleave damage reaches past the sword's length.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: In his backstory, Sven kept his hatred of the Vigil Knights secret as he learned from them. On the day of In-Swearing, Sven pretty much channeled his years worth of pent-up hatred and vengeance from his father's execution by rampaging through the Vigil Knights with the Outcast Blade, slaughtering them. Since he's also a Screaming Warrior, we assume that there's a lot of literal roaring in the scene of carnage.
• Rocket Punch: Storm Hammer launches his enchanted gauntlet at the enemies.
• Rouge Angles of Satin
  Sven: "It's Rogue Knight, dammit! It's not rouge knight."
  • Ironically, God's Strength turns Sven red. He really is a rogue rouge knight!
• Save the Day, Turn Away: Sven participated in a battle for the Meranth in Dark Reef (the hellhole prison Slark escaped from), but according to Windranger, he denied the reward of a position in the Conclave of the Brine and chose to just walk away. Of course, most likely the Conclave hasn't really known Sven being a Pallid-Meranth, if the info came out to them, it will create complications and issues for him.
• Scary Impractical Armor: Sven wears a normal set of armor, and a second set of giant barbarian-style plates on top of the first set.
• Screaming Warrior: His Warcry gives himself and nearby allies a speed boost and a shield. And he generally screams a lot.
• Shout-Out: His name is a reference to a wrestler, whose signature skill was to get 'Pumped Up'. His original Dota fun name is even Arnold Schwarzenegger.
• Shock and Awe: Storm Hammer has lightning effects, and he gains glowing, lighning-emitting eyes and crackling lightning whenever he attacks during God's Strength.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Only has his ranged stun as a direct target spell, and the rest are mostly passive buffs, and his play style is to get near the enemy and then start whacking them dead with normal attacks. The difficulty is mostly about how he can flash-farm to get the items necessary to do the whacking-to-death while being in melee range and susceptible of being kited.
• Status-Buff Dispel: Storm Hammer will inflict a soft dispel on targets if Aghanim's Scepter is bought.
• Super Mode: God's Strength, Sven's ultimate, amplifies his base damage to up to triple its original value and increasing his Str for 25 seconds and doubles nearby allies' base damage for its duration as well if he has an Aghanim's Scepter.
• Super-Strength: Sven in a nutshell, excepting Storm Hammer, all of his abilities are about mighty displays of absurd levels of strength and toughness. Great Cleave has him constantly slash so powerfully even nearby enemies feel his strength, War Cry concentrates his strength onto his body, it pumps up his toughness and his allies' as well. God's Strength is the most traditional depiction of the trope: Making Sven's already great strength rise up to absurd levels so that every slash is going to hurt a lot harder. Even Storm Hammer is implied to be partially Sven slinging an enchanted gauntlet at the enemy really hard, and with Aghanim's Scepter, he basically launches his own powerful body in addition of his mighty Storm Hammer to also inflict the usual damage, stun really hard.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Echo Sabre greatly increases Sven's deadliness, as two attacks within a second with God's Strength active will tear apart just about anything within his cleave radius before they can react.
• Testosterone Poisoning: His first skill throws a rocket punch made of thunder, and his general playstyle emphasizes he should have no fear of diving in the middle of the enemy team, causing as much damage possible. Sven himself is often considered one of DOTA's manliest heroes, with Great Cleave, every enemies nearby is forced to feel a portion of Sven's great strength, damaging them (and he needs no cooldown (it's a passive), or money (buy a Battle Fury) for that). If he has Aghanim's Scepter, he flies like a Flying Brick following his Storm Hammer casting, putting himself in immediate danger after stunning his opponents so he can immediately do some manly wrecking on the stunned enemy without using Blink Dagger first. This was more prominent in the original mod, which emphasized that he is here to pump you up and implied that both Warcry and God's Strength are him (and, for the former, everyone around him) getting pumped up by sheer manliness.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: If you're far enough ahead in the game that you've got enough money to buy it, Daedalus will end up turning Sven's autoattacks into this. It's not unheard of for a farmed Sven to crit for enough damage to one-shot half the enemy team.
  Sven: Daedalus! This is going to be absurd.
• Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Why he cannot be fully good despite having his own code of honor, sense of chivalry and generally not malevolent unless provoked. Despite the abuses landed to him, in the end, he still betrayed the Vigil Knights that taught him. Some newer heroes (like Wei, the female Anti-Mage, or the Dragon Blood renditions of Davion and Mirana) call him out for this and state that they don't trust him due to his betrayal. Can also overlap with No Sympathy since none of them even tried to bother to hear Sven's side of story (nor is he talking about it) or consider it insignificant compared to his betrayal.
• Violation of Common Sense: Thanks to the way Cleave works (Cleave damage ignored armor until the mechanic was reworked), Sven could often do more damage to his foe simply by hitting a nearby creep and letting the cleave hit them. Also, a usual item built for him is Daedalus, a crossbow.
• Would Not Hit a Girl: Zig-zagged. Sven has a quote where he displays displeasure that he had to kill Rylai ("I would not kill a maiden, but you forced the issue") and in his massive amount of 'kill' quips, he has no special quotes against ladies... except the aforementioned Rylai, and Aiushtha, the latter was more because he's annoyed at her attitude and her skills being detrimental to his play style ("Go sproink yourself!"). Of course, this being is an ARTS game, if you order him to attack a girl hero, he will obey.

Leviathan, the Tidehunter

"Blood in the water, time to feed!"

Voiced by: Eric Newsome

The Levianths are a mysterious race living below the seas. A prime example of the capricious politics that dominate the societies of the ocean depths, they often use their dominion over the water to bring ruin to land-dwelling civilizations whenever their incomprehensible sensitivities are offended. Frustrated by his people's pettiness, the Tidehunter, former champion of the Sunken Isles, abandoned his homeland, choosing to stalk the seas on his own and attacking any ships or Meranths that get in his way. His whims are as inscrutable as the fickle undersea politics he has grown weary of, but the Tidehunter is motivated by only two things: his faith in the abyssal deity, Maelrawn the Tentacular, and his rivalry with Admiral Kunkka, fueled by a since long-forgotten encounter.

Tidehunter is one of the heroes most closely associated with the concept of initiator, alongside the likes of Magnus and Enigma. Although his damage output and mobility are lacking, he makes up for this with his tankiness and the utility his spells provide. His first spell, Gush, fires a spray of water at the target, damaging them, slowing them, and reducing their armor, making it easier for allies to finish off fleeing foes. His Kraken Shell is a passive ability which blocks a flat amount of damage from enemy attacks; additionally, when Tidehunter's damage taken reaches a certain threshold, Kraken Shell will purge him of debuffs. This passive contributes greatly to his durability. Anchor Smash, his third spell, strikes all nearby foes with the Tidehunter's anchor, hitting them with an attack that deals bonus damage and reducing their own damage. However, Tidehunter is most feared for his ultimate ability: Ravage. This devastating spell causes countless tentacles to erupt from the ground, inflicting a long-lasting stun on all enemies in a large area of effect: a well-timed Ravage can often decide the outcome of a teamfight. With his array of aquatic attacks, the Tidehunter can disrupt the enemy, leading his team to victory.

In Artifact, Tidehunter is a red hero. His Active Ability, Ravage, stuns all of his neighbors for one round, with each other enemy having a 50% chance of also being stunned. His signature card, Kraken Shell, is a spell which modifies a red hero with +1 armor.

In Dota Underlords, Tidehunter is a tier 4 hero. His ability, Ravage, stuns and damages foes in a large area.

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• Achilles' Heel: Unusually for an ultimate disable, Tidehunter's Ravage does not go through spell immunity to balance out its massive area of effect and Kraken Shell making him impossible to stunlock. Tidehunter has to catch the enemy by surprise or when they've already used up their magic resistance to guarantee a full 5-man.
• Anchors Away: He smashes people with an anchor, and can use Dead in the Water to leash an enemy hero to a heavy anchor after buying Aghanim's Shard.
• Arch-Enemy: He and Kunkka hate each other's guts. Exaggerated by Tidehunter in which when he mentions Kunkka in all of his rival killing lines, even if the victim isn't Kunkka himself (or even tangentially related to Kunkka). Of all his kill lines, the only exception is one line when killing Morphling.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: His lore describes him as being of uncertain motive. Ironically, he himself struck off on his own because he was fed up with how his fellow undersea beings were also this in their politics.
• Combat Tentacles: Ravage summons a wave of tentacles that damage and stun everything in their path.
• Combo Breaker: With ''Kraken Shell', he is a walking version of this trope. As long he takes enough damage, all hindering status effects stacked upon one another, including most stuns, will be removed. This means it is utterly difficult to chain stun him, especially considering a good amount of stuns also have a damage component to it.
• Dressed to Plunder: The Pirate's Booty set, which includes a tricorn, cutlass and black flag.
• Dual Wielding: An anchor in one hand and a half-eaten fish (or shark, or squid) in the other.
• Eldritch Abomination: Maelrawn the Tentacular, whom Tidehunter summons with Ravage.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Happens to enemy units hit by Ravage through tentacles.
• Implacable Man: Tidehunter's passive, Kraken Shell, gives him passive damage block (at max level, it's essentially a free Vanguard) and will remove most debuffs once he takes a certain amount of player damage within a short duration. This includes even stuns (except for ones utlizing constant effects like Enigma Black Hole), one of the very few abilities that do so, making Tidehunter one of the few heroes in the game that cannot be chain-stunned. One of his level 20 talents allows Kraken Shell to become even more effective, gaining extra stacks of damage block; a lot of stacks can result in a hero who takes little damage from right-click attacks, even in the late game.
• Improbable Weapon User: Tidehunter uses a discarded anchor as a primary weapon, which can deal decent AoE damage and reduce enemy damage in a specific radius.
• Improvised Weapon: His cosmetic weapons include a broken boat, a sea beast's huge femur, a giant jaw attached to a ship mast, and the decapitated head of a hammerhead shark.
• Kraken and Leviathan: As seen in his name, appearance, Kraken Shell, and Maelrawn the Tentacular.
• Limit Break: Kraken Shell automatically procs once Tidehunter takes a certain amount of damage from enemy players within a certain amount of time.
• Magic Knight: Similar to Sand King, Tidehunter has a mediocre right-click attack, but his spells can have a devastating effect on the enemy without expending much mana.
• Making a Splash: His Gush spell especially.
• Nemean Skinning: Quite a few of his cosmetic items are salvaged sea beast body parts, including his Kraken Shell (which is both a skill and a cosmetic):
  The great kraken tortoises are considered both a delicacy, and a worthy foe. Their shells are highly prized as shelter or armor.
• Noun Verber
• Power Limiter: Enemies hit by Anchor Smash lose 60% of their base damage. Used in-lane it can starve your lane opponents of last hits (and experience since you can then easily deny creeps), used in teamfights it can drastically reduce the damage output of the enemy carries.
• Revenge: For unknown reasons, Leviathan has made it his mission in life to kill Admiral Kunkka.
• Say My Name: KUNKAAAAAAAAAAAA!
• Scary Teeth: The Back-Ache cosmetic item gives Tidehunter a row of teeth that grow out of his back and are far bigger than any teeth ought to be:
  A rare but useful mutation. The spikes are actually malformed teeth that grew out of place, and well out of hand.
• Sea Monster: An anthropomorphic one.
• Serial Escalation: His responses for gaining levels which are about him wanting to eat something, beginning with plankton and ending with a Giant Squid.
  Lvl 25 Tidehunter: ''I'm stuffed!''
• Shamu Fu: One of his cosmetic weapons is the corpse of a hammerhead shark.
• Spam Attack: Because of its very low cooldown and mana cost, Anchor Smash is often spammed to flash-farm creep camps.
• Spin Attack: Anchor Smash spins Tidehunter's anchor. In original Dota, if you build a Battle Fury, all of his attack become this.
• Stone Wall: With Kraken Shell and a respectable strength growth he becomes very tough to kill, but his right-click attack is mediocre and his nuke damage quickly falls off in the mid game. However, because Anchor Smash scales with Tidehunter's attack damage, he can be built as a Mighty Glacier with surprising amounts of area of effect damage.
• Summon Magic: Ravage summons an Eldritch Abomination that stuns every player in a large area.
• Shark Man
• Threatening Shark: He is one, and can wield some accessories made out of sharks, too!
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Tidehunter's main job in a teamfight is very simple: land a good Ravage. It is completely possible for a Tidehunter player to build items that entirely focus on maximising its effectiveness like Blink Dagger and Refresher Orb, without much thought given to his other skills.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: With the Kraken Shell.

Tiny, the Stone Giant

"Sticks and stones will break their bones."

Voiced by: Eric Newsome

Tiny is a mysterious being who had spontaneously come to life from a chunk of stone. No one knows his origins, not even himself, and he endlessly speculates how he suddenly came to be. Even more bizarrely, his stone body does not erode when exposed to the elements but rather endlessly grows in size over time. The Stone Giant wanders the world in search of answers relating to his birth.

Tiny may seem like a weak hero at the beginning of a match, but give him enough time and he'll soon start to throw his weight around. As the game progresses, he bounces from role to role as he levels up; he can push, initiate, gank, or even carry depending on what items he builds and the needs of the team. Boasting a powerful disable and a versatile initiation attack, Tiny can easily stun his foes with his first spell, Avalanche, which causes a huge amount of rocks to bombard the area, dealing damage and mini-stuns as long as the opponent is caught inside. Tiny can then throw a random nearby unit into the mayhem with Toss, his second spell, which allows him to pick up and throw a unit, be it friend or foe, in a radius around him. Be warned, however, as the unit he picks up is random in its radius. With Tree Grab, Tiny can uproot a tree to use as a weapon, granting him splash damage on his attacks and increasing his damage and range, with a further damage bonus against buildings; however, the tree also encumbers him with reduced movement speed. He can also throw the tree by using a sub-ability, allowing him to perform a single ranged attack. Aghanim's Scepter adds an extra ability, Tree Volley, which rapidly throws nearby trees towards a targeted area, hitting enemies inside for Tiny's attack damage. Finally, with each point Tiny puts into his passive ultimate ability, Grow, he becomes larger, sacrificing attack speed for a large bonus to his damage and armor, making him a fearsome opponent in single combat.

In Dota Underlords, Tiny is a tier 1 hero. His ability, Toss, grabs a random nearby enemy and throws it to the location of the farthest enemy.

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• Alpha Strike: Tiny in a fight boils down to jumping onto the enemy, firing off Avalanche and Toss, hitting them twice with an Echo Saber and maybe throwing his tree at them (after casting Tree Volley if he has Aghanim's Scepter). His glacial attack speed backed by a whopping zero Agility means that he'll have a hard time doing much else after that (just attacking an enemy twice in one fight without Echo Sabre is a massive accomplishment), but his damage output means he might not need to.
• Anti-Structure: Tree Grab boosts Tiny's damage when he attacks buildings, and Toss is one of only a handful of spells in the game that damages buildings. Once he gets some items, he can tear down towers alarmingly quickly.
• The Artifact: The description of the Crystal Dryad cosmetic tree is a reference to how Tiny used to have to build Aghanim's Scepter to wield a tree as a weapon, before Tree Grab was reworked into a standard ability.
  Had the ancient mage but known what corruption his scepter would inflict upon the world, he would have burned and buried it, and sown salt over its cursed grave. For when carried in a fist of stone, Aghanim's scepter unleashes the spirit of the Crystal Dryad, and no foe is safe.
• The Big Guy: With his ultimate maxed out, Tiny is easily the largest character in the game, rivaled only by Undying's Flesh Golem.
• Breakable Weapons: Without Aghanim's Shard, Tree Grab only lasts for a limited number of hits before the tree breaks and Tiny has to grab another.
• Can't Catch Up: As formidable as Tiny is, his nonexistent Agility ultimately limits his carry potential. Most carries can often match him blow-for-blow once farmed, at which point Tiny's abysmal attack speed puts him at a severe disadvantage.
• Dishing Out Dirt: As a stone giant, this is to be expected.
• Fastball Special: Toss can be used this way to hurl allies into the midst of enemies for teamfight initiation.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Tiny's Avalanche + Toss combo and the cleave from his Tree Grab makes standing close a very bad idea. With Aghanim's Scepter,
• Hulk Speak: One of his lines even deliberately makes a Shout-Out as such.
  Tiny: Tiny smash!
• Informed Attribute: Despite being a giant rock monster, Tiny has no base armor, and gains no agility, meaning that he has no innate armor until he puts points in Grow or buys items to remedy this. Then again, that rock is part of his body, meaning that he technically isn't wearing any armor...
• Ironic Nickname: "Tiny the Stone Giant" is this no matter how you look at it. Although his name is true at first, Tiny quickly becomes one of the largest characters in the game.
• The Juggernaut: The fact that he's a Strength hero combined with Grow granting him a crapton of armor makes bringing Tiny down rather difficult, while Grow also gives him tremendous attack damage and his other abilities let him tear apart groups of enemies with ease.
• Magic Knight: Early on, much of Tiny's damage output comes from his spells. Later on, though, Grow and Tree Grab allow him to augment that spell damage with very powerful attacks.
• Magikarp Power: In the beginning of the game, Tiny is pretty pathetic - he has nonexistant Agility, which translates into awful attack speed and no armor whatsoever, two spells that eat his mana very quickly, and fairly poor stat growth. Give him a few levels, an Echo Sabre, and an Aghanim's Shard, though, and he'll soon become capable of smashing entire teams asunder by the mid-to-late game.
• Mighty Glacier: Tiny's attack speed is one of the few in the game that can routinely be measured in seconds-per-attack due to Grow's penalty and his nonexistent Agility, and his mobility is rather lacking. However, every one of his attacks hits like a truck and his spell damage is enough to pulverize most heroes in the early and mid game, and Grow also gives him a ton of armor to supplement his high health.
• Mysterious Past: No one, including Tiny himself, has any idea where he came from; what Tiny wants the most is to know is where he came from and how he came to be.
• Our Giants Are Bigger: Unlike a typical giant, Tiny is made of stone. He also can't be considered a proper "giant" until Grow is maxed.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Even in his smallest form, Tiny has no problem hefting around a tree more than twice his size and bludgeoning enemies with it, or picking up heroes bigger than himself and hurling them long distances.
• Primal Stance: Tiny's legs aren't that much bigger than a regular hero's, while his upper body is massive. As a result, he has to use his right hand to steady himself while walking, and when he gets bigger, just standing.
• Power Fist: Tiny's right hand is a giant rock stump with no fingers that he walks on and uses to punch people, although the second use is shown less as Tiny gets bigger, and starts using his smaller left hand for punching.
• Quest for Identity: His goal is to find his origin.
  Tiny: Was I a splinter from a golem's heel? A chip from the Oracular Visage of Garthos? I shall not rest until I know from whence I came.
• Rock Monster: His body is made entirely of rock.
• Sophisticated as Hell: He can be quite articulate if he wants to.
• Square-Cube Law: While he starts out more agile and capable of swinging his entire body around, Tiny loses agility as he gets larger (not the stat), to the point that, at full size, he has to constantly steady himself with his right hand, even when attacking.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death:
  • Casting Toss on a hero while they're being hit by Avalanche causes them to take nearly triple damage from Avalanche, allowing Tiny to annihilate lone enemy heroes very quickly. Throw in a Blink Dagger, and pain tends to ensue. He also gets a lot of mileage out of Echo Sabre, as the double attack compensates for his low attack speed and can easily mop up anything that survives his Avalanche-Toss combination.
  • Once he grabs Aghanim's Scepter, Tiny doesn't even need to jump into a fight to deal massive damage as he can simply hide in a bunch of trees and use Tree Volley to hurl them at the enemy for massive damage (especially if he's got a few damage items). And, of course, he still has the option of unloading his regular combo if anything survives.
• Telephone Polearm: After using Tree Grab, Tiny will use A TREE as a bludgeon. Particularly notable when he hasn't skilled Grow, as he'll be lugging around a tree twice as tall as he is.
• Throw the Mook at Them: Toss has Tiny grabbing the nearest unit and throwing it at another target unit, dealing damage to enemies either near the toss target or tossed by the ability itself. The lack of specifics means that while creeps are perfectly viable projectiles, heroes are also very good Toss candidates, whether by tossing an ally into a fight or out of danger or to forcibly relocate an enemy or make Avalanche deal double damage for a One-Hit Kill.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Tree Grab can be reactivated to let Tiny throw the tree at enemies from a fairly long range, effectively giving him a single-use ranged attack that still inflicts the splash damage. Tree Volley rapidly throws multiple trees to smack down enemies in an area; with enough raw damage, this ability alone can squash fragile enemies from long range.
• Weird Beard: Made of moss and later ferns.
• You Have Researched Breathing: One of Tiny's level 20 talents removes the requirement of a target for Tiny to Toss at. That's right, he needs to reach level 20 and take this particular talent so he can toss things onto the ground, instead of having to target something.

Rooftrellen, the Treant Protector

"Think me not ponderous... merely pondering."

Voiced by: Fred Tatasciore

In the forested mountains to the west of Augury Bay, there exists a reservoir of mysterious magical energy, sacred to the forces of nature, that grants strange powers to the life that surrounds it. In particular, the trees of the region have been turned into enormous walking creatures known as Treant Protectors. Unaware of the changing world beyond, they guarded their region for millennia against invaders who would wish to pillage its natural resources or unearth the secret of their land, but over time, the raids gained in intensity as the outsiders' technology, curiosity, and courage grew. As they saw the tools of the attackers, the Treant Protectors wondered whether the world outside their grove was still lush with plant life, or if it had been conquered by civilization. To answer this burning question, Rooftrellen was chosen among them to go and explore the world in order to study its current state and warn his kin of potential threats to his home turf's well-being.

This lovable tree is very protective of his allies and fights to defend them. He has the innate passive ability Nature's Guise, which lets him walk through trees if he hasn't been damaged for a few seconds. Nature's Grasp, Treant's first ability, sends out vines along the ground, slowing and damaging enemies who walk over them. The vines deal increased damage if they touch a tree. He can heal allies and buildings with Living Armor, which creates a protective shield on his allies and grants them bonus regeneration. Leech Seed targets a random enemy around Treant every second, slowing them and stealing a portion of their health. His ultimate is Overgrowth, which summons vines that root all enemies around him, preventing movement, blinking, invisibility, or attacking, and dealing damage over time. If he acquires Aghanim's Scepter, he gains the Eyes in the Forest ability, which enchants a tree to provide vision, potentially giving him near-omniscient vision of the map at all times, and extends Overgrowth's range by casting it around every affected tree at the same time as Treant casts his ult.

In Artifact, Treant Protector is a green hero. His Branches of Iron Continuous Effect grants his neighboring allies +2 Armor, and his signature card is the Roseleaf Druid, a creep which grants the Tower +1 Mana.

In Dota Underlords, Treant Protector is a tier 2 hero. His ability, Leech Seed, slows an enemy and damages it over time, healing nearby allies.

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• All-Loving Hero: The only one he outright dislikes is Timbersaw, for obvious reasons. His only quarrel with Doom is that Doom's spreading hellfire around the forest.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: His quote upon killing Pugna.
  Treant Protector: "You were nasty, brutal, and most of all, short."
• Awesome, but Impractical: Eyes in the Forest effectively grants Treant Protector a free Observer Ward which never expires unless dewarded every 25 seconds. If the enemy jungle is warded, the damage addition to Overgrowth will allow him to kill any jungle creeps within range of a tree almost every minute as they spawn, giving him easy 700+ GPM. Additionally the Eyes can be placed in the lanes to give him absurd splitpushing potential, possibly wiping out entire lanes of creeps every minute, or placed in strategic teamfighting locations to give him nearly unmatched global disabling and nuking power. However, considering that Aghanim's Scepter costs a lot for a support, if Treant can afford one it usually means that either he saved from the beginning of the match and did not support his team by buying wards or any other support item or because it is very late in the match and it is very likely that his team has stomped. And even if he does get one, it may not help much as the enemy team can simply destroy the trees with a Gem (or Sentry Wards) and a Quelling Blade (though to be fair, a Gem and Quelling Blade would destroy Observer Wards as well). Subverted when he's on the same team as Alchemist, who can farm a Scepter for him in record time with Greevil's Greed.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Easily the least violent hero in the game. Also possesses the highest base damage, second highest Strength growth, and spells that can aid his teammates in a teamfight to great effect.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: He is a slow thinker and easily gets distracted either by the beautiful scenery or mysteries of the universe, and is often oblivious to combat around him.
  Treant Protector (Respawning): "I think I'll go for a nice walk."
• Combat Medic: Living Armor heals its target over time. It's also one of the few abilities that can heal buildings.
• Deflector Shields: Living Armor creates a shield around the target that blocks a certain number of damage instances.
• Defog of War: Eyes in the Forest enchants a tree, granting Treant vision around it, essentially giving him a free ward every 25 seconds that lasts indefinitely.
• Dissonant Serenity: No matter what kind of carnage is unfolding around him, Rooftrellen always retains his slow, calm demeanor.
• Enchanted Forest: His land of origin is a vast and primal forest home to Treants such as himself.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: His model has a small carving near his behind, saying "Riki was here".
• Furry Confusion: If he uses a Tango (a consumable item that regenerates your health by destroying a tree) he'll apologize and show mild regret for what he's done, despite the tree being non-sentient.
  Treant Protector (using a tango): "Sorry, friend."
• Gaia's Vengeance: His various plant-themed abilities can aid his team in a teamfight or a push.
• Gentle Giant: He is a calm, peaceful treant with abilities focused on protecting allies and disabling enemies. He also has the game's second highest Strength growth and has ludicrous melee attack damage. He's also the only completely good hero.
• Green Thumb: Being a treant, this is to be expected. Most of his abilities work by using plants for either offense or defense, and one aspect of his Aghanim's Scepter upgrade makes all trees on the map respawn much faster when destroyed.
• Invisibility: Nature's Guise turns him invisible near trees if he has the appropriate talent.
• King Mook: Nature's Prophet can summon Treants, which are slightly bigger than an average lane creep. In comparison, Rooftrellen easily towers over most heroes and can cast spells.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: Though he's a melee Strength hero, Treant Protector relies heavily on his spells to contribute in teamfights.
• Life Drain: Leech Seed absorbs the life of its target transfers it to Treant.
• Magikarp Power: Eyes in the Forest can turn Treant Protector from a humble support into a force to be reckoned with if he's given enough time to farm up the gold for an Aghanim's Scepter and to place his eyes around the map. Not only does this give him amazing farming potential and farm disruption by seeding the jungle, but the global range allows him to splitpush, disable, and nuke anywhere he can find a tree to convert. With a Scepter and a Refresher Orb (which are pretty much out of reach for a support unless the match drags on long enough) Treant can pin down entire teams for up to 9 seconds at a time (while doing 1650 damage pre-reduction) and wipe entire lanes if he can time it right.
• Money Multiplier: Aghanim's Scepter is this for Treant: if he uses Eyes in the Forest near jungle camps, the damage addition to Overgrowth will allow him to farm them almost every minute as they spawn, giving him easy 700+ GPM, while at the same time depriving farm from the enemy (and possibly his own team).
• Mutual Disadvantage: Against Nature's Prophet. Nature's Call can accidentally pull up Treant Protector's Eyes in the Forest. In return, Treant Protector's Living Armor heavily cripples Nature's Prophet's splitpushing abilities and Eyes in the Forest can expose any attempt of Nature's Prophet to teleport into the treeline, with the option for Overgrowth to pin him down just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Nature Hero: Being a tree-man, Rooftrellen has control over plants.
• Plant Person: He is a walking tree.
• The Red Mage: Treant's ability set balances offense (with Overgrowth and Leech Seed) and protection (with Living Armor).
• Shout-Out:
  • To Pokémon with his spell Leech Seed, which is a recurring Grass-type move in the franchise.
  • His appearance and personality are based on Treebeard the Ent from The Lord of the Rings.
• Stealthy Colossus: Aghanim's Shard allows Treant Protector to stay invisible as long as he is near a tree.
• Stone Wall: Though Treant is very tanky and has very high base damage, his base attack time is the worst in the game (tied with Spirit Breaker and Weaver), meaning that he hits very slowly, and his skills do not deal as much damage either. Even when compared to the other Stone Wall healer of the game, Omniknight, he's still somewhat more defensive.
• Treants: As if the name Treant Protector didn't make that clear. He's a giant, walking, talking tree.
• Tribal Face Paint: Has teal markings on his face and arms.
• Vampiric Draining: Leech Seed simultaneously deals damage to the target and heals allies standing near it.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Eyes in the Forest can be destroyed with a simple 225 gold Quelling Blade, so long as the enemy has any way of utilizing True Sight (Sentry Wards, Gem of True Sight, etc.), meaning that smart placement and regular re-warding are vital if using them. Additionally any ability that destroys trees can accidentally destroy them, even if the enemy doesn't know that they're there.
• Weird Beard: Branches growing from his face into the shape of a beard.
• When Trees Attack: He may be a tree, but he packs a punch thanks to his high base damage. Of course, it only stands to reason that getting smacked by a tree would be rather painful.

Ymir, the Tusk

"It's a great day to do some squat thrusts and lift a barrel of fish, is it not?"

Voiced by: Tom Chantler

Hailing from the town of Cobalt by the frozen northlands of the Barrier, Ymir the Tusk was renowned for his ability to best any opponent in a bar fight. One night, he dared challenge even Rigwarl the Bristleback, and though the Tusk stood victorious, the ensuing carnage nearly destroyed the whole tavern. As Tusk finished his drink amidst the cheers of the crowd, the bartender feared what might happen if a similar fight were to occur again, and he devised a plan to get rid of Ymir for good: the Tusk had vanquished countless belligerent drunkards, but did he stand a chance in a real war against trained soldiers? And so, Ymir was dared to participate in the biggest conflict he could find, with a free round of drinks on the line.

Tusk is a hero who can gank and initiate with his many disables. Ice Shards launches a ball of ice energy towards a location, damaging enemies and creating a barrier of ice to block their movement. With Snowball, Tusk turns himself into a Human Snowball, with nearby allies joining in. After a brief delay, the snowball is launched, rolling towards its target with all participants inside it, stunning the target when it hits while releasing Tusk and his friends to wail on their hapless adversary. Tag Team creates an aura around Tusk for a few seconds, causing attacks on nearby enemies to deal bonus damage and slow. Tusk's ultimate ability is Walrus PUNCH!, an auto-cast skill which turns his next attack into a devastating critical hit that launches the target into the air. With Aghanim's Scepter, he also learns Walrus Kick, which knocks an enemy far backwards, damages them, and slows them.

In Dota Underlords, Tusk is a tier 1 hero. His ability, Walrus Punch!, deals a critical hit onto an enemy, sends them flying into the air, and slows them once they land.

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• Adaptation Species Change: He used to be known as Ymir the Tuskarr in DotA. For legal reasons, he was changed in Dota 2 to a snow leopard... polar bear... thing, as Tuskarr are a race of humanoid walruses in the Warcraft universe.
• Alpha Strike: In low-level games, Tusk players often build Shadow Blade and Desolator to maximise the effectiveness of Walrus PUNCH! and deal a single massive burst of combined physical and magical damage to tilt the fight into his team's favor or to finish off a wounded enemy.
• Angrish: Tends to burst into this when Snowball misses.
• Anti-Escape Mechanism: Besides being a very powerful initiator, Tusk can also pursue enemies over long distances or prevent them from escaping.
  • Ice Shards can block escape paths for up to 5 seconds upon impact. Used properly it can also lock in enemies within the barrier, forcing them to move backwards to escape.
  • Snowball allows Tusk and any allies to home in on a fleeing target, gaining additional speed with every additional person in the snowball. And once the snowball does connect, it stuns the target, stopping it in its tracks.
  • Tag Team inflicts a slow on enemies that are attacked while affected.
  • Walrus PUNCH! not only disables the target by sending it flying, but the following slow also prevents the victim from running away reliably.
• Barrier Warrior: Ice Shards, Tusk's first ability, create a half-circle of ice around the point of impact. It damages any enemies it passes through, and the shards at the target point cannot be pathed over.
• Beast Man: A vaguely walrus-like creature.
• The Bet: Tusk's entire motivation to go out and fight ghosts, demons, and fundamental forces of the universe? Someone bet him to do it.
• Big Fun
• Boisterous Bruiser
• Combination Attack: Tag Team adds a fixed amount of damage onto all attacks targeted at enemies in its area, pairing well with heroes that have high attack speed.
• Comically Small Bribe: The reason he fights is because somebody bet him a round of drinks.
• Critical Hit: Walrus PUNCH!, Tusk's ultimate, hits the targeted enemy with a guaranteed 3.5x damage crit that disables the target as it flies through the air, then slows it upon landing. He can also be built as a full-on Critical Hit Class with one talent that boosts the multiplier to 4.5x (the same as Coup de Grace, for reference) and another that gives his attacks a 12% chance to passively trigger Walrus PUNCH!.
• Dynamic Entry: Tusk is one of the most powerful team initiators in the game, as his skills allow him to start off teamfights by placing stuns, path-blocking obstacles and speed debuffs on the enemy team, as well as assisting any teammates who want to get into the thick of the action fast but don't have an initiating item or ability to do so (such as Axe, Centaur Warrunner, Slardar, Tidehunter, and so on).
• Early-Bird Cameo: He first appeared in Dota 2 as a temporary guest announcer during 2012's Greeviling event; he was eventually released as a full-fledged hero in February 2013.
• Eyepatch of Power: With the Pirate-themed Brawler of the Glacier Sea set.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: With the Whisky the Stout Artifact Immortal, Tusk will throw a freaking penguin when he uses Ice Shards. Which still deals damage and creates the half-circle of ice, of course.
• Home-Run Hitter: Walrus PUNCH! temporarily sends the target flying into the air and off the screen.
• Homing Boulders: Snowball is a unit targeting ability, meaning that it will continue to roll towards its target even if that target turns in a completely different direction.
• Human Snowball: Snowball, Tusk's second ability, rolls Tusk up into a snowball that launches itself at a target after a short (and optional) delay, damaging and stunning any enemies it passes through as well as the final target if it connects. It can also be used to carry teammates into the middle of a group of enemies, dealing more damage and moving faster the more allied heroes are added to it.
• An Ice Person: Tusk's first three abilities all utilise ice to some degree.
• Invulnerable Attack: Snowball turns Tusk and any allies inside invulnerable until the Snowball impacts, making it a good saving skill.
• Just Trying to Help: Careless Snowball usage can end up making situations worse for Tusk's own teammates, by potentially pulling a teammate out of position or right into the enemy team. Under a worst-case scenario, a five-man Snowball can end up giving a perfect initiation to the enemy.
• Large Ham: An exceptional example even among Dota 2 heroes. He has eighty-three unique response lines just for Walrus PUNCH!.
  Tusk: "Here's a bunch of punches!"
• Made of Indestructium: Heroes inside a Snowball are completely invulnerable during the delay and the roll. Yes, in Dota snow was a stronger force than time. 6.86 changed it so Snowball can no longer work against Black Hole or Chronosphere, but all other skills are still fair game.
• Magic Knight: Tusk's physical damage scales decently by itself, and can completely wreck enemies when combined with his ultimate. His other abilities also make him a powerful crowd controller and initiator that help set up teamfights for his team.
• Megaton Punch: Walrus PUNCH! delivers a huge uppercut that launches the target into the air. If the Walrus PUNCH! finishes off an enemy, it sends the target flying up out of sight, only to fall back at ridiculous speeds moments later.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: His real name, Ymir, is the name of the Norse King of the Ice Giants.
• Not the Intended Use: Snowball's original purpose is as an initiation tool to gather your team and roll them into the enemy. However, since it also grants invulnerability to all units inside it, Snowball sees much more use in high-level gameplay as a way to buy time for allies to react, or to dodge abilities like Gyrocopter's Call Down. More specifically, the buff he received in 6.81, which allows him to roll in place for 4 seconds and gather teammates before launching, was just a mechanic to make the whole "choose who enters the Snowball" thing to work. It turns out to be one of the most underrated buffs in this patch - the ability to dodge spells with the whole team for 3 seconds, up until reinforcements arrive, is very important for pro players.
• One-Hit Kill: Building into damage on Tusk can allow him to potentially one-shot fragile heroes with the guaranteed crit from Walrus PUNCH!
• Power Fist: Wears a large metal gauntlet on his left hand which, unsurprisingly, is used for Walrus PUNCH!
• Punched Across the Room: With Aghanim's Scepter, Tusk gains a fifth skill Walrus Kick, which damages an enemy and launches them almost a full screen-length away from Tusk.
• The Rival: The "Bristled Bruiser" in his backstory that he beat is Bristleback, who he shares several rival and ally lines with (depending on which side they're on).
• Random Number God: One of level 25 talent for Tusk is to grant his normal attacks a 12% chance to activate Walrus PUNCH!
• Rolling Attack: Tusk's Snowball rolls towards the target with him and his allies inside, damaging and stunning them upon impact.
• Shoryuken: His Walrus PUNCH! deals a large critical hit while launching the target into the air.
• Shout-Out: Mostly in the form of Walrus PUNCH! battle cries:
  Tusk: Falcon Punch!
  Tusk: Double Dragon Punch Punch!
• Situational Sword: Aghanim's Scepter is this for Tusk. Against low-mobility melee carries like Sven, Ursa or Lifestealer the constant slows from Tag Team, Walrus PUNCH! and Walrus Kick combined with the block from Ice Shards and the knockback itself, all of which bypass BKB, will kite them to death and render them useless. However, it is only good for kiting - and nothing else. If the enemy carry is ranged or otherwise not vulnerable to kiting then there's no point to get Aghanim's Scepter over Force Staff, which provides a similar effect for much less gold.
• So Proud of You: He acts like a doting parent to Crystal Maiden. Though not mentioned in either of their backstories, it's implied they used to be friends while Crystal Maiden was training under an ice wizard.
  Tusk, dying to Crystal Maiden, proudly: "Isn't she something."
• Transformation Is a Free Action: Tusk and any allies that are within a Snowball are invulnerable for the duration of the delay and the roll, which can last for a minimum of 3 seconds (excluding the rollout). Snowball is actually less used to roll into the enemy, and is more often (ab)used for its free invulnerability to dodge certain abilities.
• Weak, but Skilled: Throughout the game the main focus of Tusk is not necessarily to deal damage, but to provide utility. His abilities fall into the category which do not simply disable, deal damage or heal by an amount, but introduce often unique concepts which, if utilised correctly, can provide almost infinite amount of utility. It's the concept of the hero that makes him strong, not necessarily the numbers: Ice Shards can create an impassable terrain and Snowball can help your team dodge almost any ability or at the very least make the teammate untargetable for the duration of the negative effect, while adding to mobility. A well used Snowball can save your whole team from a strong AoE damage/post-effect. Similarly, blocking half of the enemy team with well placed Ice Shards, so that they have to take the long way around to get into the fight can be considered a long disable. Some concepts in Dota are so strong that they will always find their way to be relevant. Tusk is an embodiment of that.
• Written Sound Effect: WALRUS PUNCH! appears above the target, taking up most of the screen if it was the last hit.

Vrogros, the Underlord

"Nothing can stop us. Nothing can slow our march. And when we have arived, all will burn."

Voiced by: TJ Ramini

Vrogros is the tyrannical Underlord of the abyssal city of Aziyog, located within the farthest depths of the world. A sorcerer, a warrior, and a conqueror, he leds his army, known as the Abyssal Horde, to annex every subterranean nation. But as he captured more and more of the underground world, Vrogros grew to thirst for more: no longer would he limit his conquest to what laid below the earth. Turning his gaze upward, he used his magic to open portals leading to the nations of the surface and sent through a few legions from the Abyssal Horde to assess their military might. As the Abyssal Horde prepares itself for their full invasion against an unprepared surface world, Vrogros feels confident enough to step forward and join the fray himself, fighting until all has been conquered or destroyed.

The Underlord is a tanky hero who controls key areas of the map with long-lasting AoE abilities. The first of these is Firestorm, which rains fire on an area of the ground for several seconds, burning enemies for a percentage of their maximum health over time. The next tool in his arsenal is Pit of Malice, which curses the ground for a long duration. Foes who enter this region are briefly rooted in place, making it useful for disabling enemies and denying access to an area. The Underlord possesses an Atrophy Aura, which contributes to both his durability and damage: foes standing near him have their attack power lowered, and any enemy unit who dies while affected grants him a temporary damage bonus; if an enemy hero is killed while under its effects, Vrogros will gain a small, permanent damage bonus. With his ultimate ability Fiend's Gate, the Underlord creates a portal to any location on the map that he and any allies can use, allowing for surprise group assaults or mass evacuations. With these abilities, the Underlord takes control of the map, a precursor to his eventual conquest of the whole world.

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• Adaptation Name Change: In the original DotA, Underlord was given the hero title "Pit Lord". As Pit Lords are a race of demons in Warcraft, it was changed for copyright reasons, initially into "Pyre Lord" according to the Bastion announcer pack, then to "Abyssal Underlord" before settling on the current "Underlord". His name, likewise, was changed from Azgalor to Vrogros, as Azgalor is the name of a character in Warcraft lore.
• Arch-Enemy: To Legion Commander, as he is the one who assaulted Stonehall with the Abyssal Horde. He has several response lines for whenever he kill her.
• Call-Back: Some of his responses are exactly the same as his DotA incarnation.
  I bring darkness.
• The Conqueror: He's conquered most if not all of the underground world, and now seeks to do the same to the surface.
• Death from Above: Firestorm calls down a rain of fire on a target area.
• Dynamic Entry: Fiend's Gate, Underlord's ultimate ability, allows him to open a portal almost anywhere on the map, meaning that he can potentially drop an entire team on the enemy's doorstep.
• Improbable Weapon User: He wields a bizarre haftless axe.
• Inopportune Voice Cracking: Whenever he sounds excited or annoyed, his voice gets a much higher pitch compared to his usual growl:
  Trying to cast an ability on cooldown first time: "I'm not ready."
  Trying to cast it again: "I am not ready!"
• Leaking Can of Evil: As he represents merely the first wave of the Abyssal Horde's invasion.
• Magic Knight: Underlord has one of the highest Intelligence and Intelligence growths amongst non-Intelligence heroes, and his contribution in teamfights depend largely on his AoE skills as well as his respectable right-click damage from Atrophy Aura.
• Mass Teleportation: Underlord can teleport his entire team globally to any location on the map with Fiend's Gate.
• Mighty Glacier: He doesn't move very fast, but he can hit like a truck if enough foes have died near him.
• Monster Lord: He is the leader of the Abyssal Horde.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: A number of Underlord's lines, usually when he's shouting, have TJ Ramini slipping into his Bristleback voice.
• Our Centaurs Are Different: His design is rather centaur-like.
• Our Demons Are Different: His appearance is demonic, though unlike the other demons, he originates from the underworld and not hell.
• Playing with Fire: Firestorm, which drops a rain of fire on an area.
• Power Of Hate: The fluff text for Pit of Malice says "Vrogros' manifest hatred paralyzes those who defy his will".
• Power Limiter: Atrophy Aura cuts a portion of all nearby enemies' base damage.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: A Verbal Tic he shares with Legion Commander:
  Respawning: "They desire death. I. Will. Abide."
• Shout-Out: His response when killing Bane is an homage to The Dark Knight Rises that is ironically, quoted by Bane himself:
  Killing Bane: "You have my permission to die."
• Sickly Green Glow: Underlord's 'crown', axe and Firestorm all have a sickly green tint to them, as does Pit of Malice if he's wielding the Emerald Conquest Immortal axe.
• Teleport Interdiction: Going through Fiend's Gate requires a hero to channel for 2 seconds, during which they can be interrupted like any channelling ability.
• Thinking Up Portals: His signature ultimate creates a pair of portals, one next to himself and the other anywhere on the map, through which allies (and enemies) can pass.
• Underground City: His homeland is Aziyog, a city located deep beneath the surface of the world.

Undying, the Almighty Dirge

"No hells. No heavens.Only this..."

Voiced by: Fred Tatasciore

The one known as Undying was once but a simple soldier fighting to repel the undead hordes of the Dead God. Captured by his foes and thrown into the pit of the Dead God, he and his fellow warriors were left to die. As time passed in the darkness, their sanity eroded and their hunger grew, becoming so unbearable that they started attempting to feed on each other. The chaotic, cannibalistic feast was soon interrupted by the Dirge, a song from the Dead God itself that grew loud enough to consume what little was left of the soldiers' minds before the Dead God itself utterly consumed the tormented men, obliterating their bodies, minds, and souls into nothingness. The Undying was the only one spared from this annihilation, for the Dead God had a different fate for him. Instead, he was granted eternal unlife and made the herald of the Dead God, tasked with recruiting new forces to join the Dead God's legions and spreading the Dirge across the lands of the living.

Undying is a durable hero whose skills make him terrifying in large-scale fights. His first skill, Decay, steals points of Strength from enemy heroes in an area of effect, transferring them to Undying in order to increase his health and damage. With its short cooldown, this skill helps Undying become a monstrously powerful damage-dealer in the early game, especially if he can catch multiple heroes with it. Soul Rip, his second skill, steals a small amount of health from all nearby units whether they be friend or foe, which is then turned into either healing for an ally or damage for an enemy. If there are lots of units around, this skill can be very powerful, and Undying has a way to spawn an army of his own with Tombstone: this spell creates a grave marker which continuously summons zombies to attack and slow enemies in a large radius. The zombies die from one attack, but their sheer numbers and constant respawning mean that the only way to reliably get rid of them is by destroying the tombstone itself. Undying's ultimate ability is Flesh Golem, which transforms him into a horrifying giant zombie that possesses a Plague Aura: enemies who stand close to him are slowed and take constant damage based on their maximum health; additionally, Undying gains a large amount of maximum health during this time. He also has a passive Reincarnation in his talent tree. These abilities allow Undying to ensure that the Dirge will go on forever.

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• Anti-Escape Mechanism: Tombstone's zombies slow down foes, making it hard to run away unless you spend time either killing them or the tombstone itself, both of which also make you waste time and can give the zombies more time to stack up.
• Body Horror: The Corpse Hive of the Grim Reformation turns Undying's model when he uses his ultimate into this monstrosity. Not that his default Flesh Golem form is much better, with the exposed intestines and all.
• Brain Food: As a zombie, he does have a taste for brains. Although he like gummy vitamins too.
  "Braaiinnss..."
• Brown Note: The Dirge, a song that crushed the minds of the Undying's comrades.
• Cavalry of the Dead: He leads one in the Dead God's name, and can summon them into battle with Tombstone.
• Clown-Car Grave: Tombstone summons a single tombstone that can spawn an endless stream of zombies while active.
• Company Cross References: To Left 4 Dead:
  • How he calls some of his allies: Hunter^note Bounty Hunter, Charger^note Spirit Breaker, Spitter^note Venomancer, and Jockey^note Alchemist, which leaves himself to be the Tank.
  • His various hero kill lines also make reference to L4D and L4D2 maps, such as "Dead Air" (whenever killing a flying hero) and "Dark Carnival" (when killing Alchemist).
  • This line:
    Undying: "Wards here!"
• Dead Weight: When Flesh Golem is active, Undying becomes one of the biggest and heaviest heroes in the game, rivalled only by Tiny, Treant Protector and Pudge.
• Death-Activated Superpower: One of his level 20 talents causes Undying to spawn a Tombstone upon dying.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Undying's main source of damage comes from Tombstone zombies, which don't hit very hard but are extremely numerous.
• Deceased and Diseased: A zombie who drains the life and strength of those around him.
• Dem Bones: The Immortal Pale Mausoleum reskins the Tombstone zombies into skeletons.
• Disc-One Nuke: Decay is incredibly powerful starting with level 1, easily reducing some heroes to 300 maximum HP with a couple casts, while buffing Undying's health and damage to mid-game values. The early multi-target utility of Decay makes it a phenomenal ability versus tri-lanes, growing Undying to almost unkillable size, while making his enemies easy pick offs.
• Evil Sounds Deep: When in his Flesh Golem form, his voice grows deeper.
• Finishing Move: Tombstone zombies get a huge stats boost when they are chasing low HP heroes.
• Friendly Fireproof: Soul Rip, which drains health from all units near the target, friendly or enemy, is notably one of the very few aversions in Dota (although this damage is minuscule and isn't lethal).
• From Nobody to Nightmare: From (probably) a regular soldier to the leader of an undead army.
• Garrisonable Structures: Aghanim's Shard allows allied heroes to hide inside Undying's Tombstone.
• Genius Bruiser: Undying was originally an Intelligence hero, and was changed to be a Strength hero. He has the highest base Intelligence of all non-INT heroes, to the point where there are only two Intelligence heroes that beat him (Dark Seer and Jakiro). He also has the second-highest INT growth of Strength heroes, and beats out most Agility heroes except Sniper as well. His base Intelligence is even higher than his base Strength throughout the game.
• God of Evil: The Dead God, whose evil deeds include destroying the monastery where Anti-Mage studied.
• Glowing Eyelights of Undeath: His eyes glow white.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Undying is all about taking advantage of huge crowds of friends and foes. Decay increases significantly in power as the enemy group up since it allows Undying to steal up to 20 Strength at a time (40 with Aghanim's Scepter), while Soul Rip increases linearly in power the more units there are in its area of effect. Tombstone will summon a Zombie for every enemy within its radius so it's highly effective if placed among a large concentration of enemies, and give Undying the numbers he needs to make Soul Rip work.
• Ineffectual Loner: Undying's skills do not work well without allies: Decay's Strength drain is powerful but the actual damage inflicted is very minimal, and he basically relies on allies to go and finish the job, or at least inflict the harassment that will leave enemies on low health when their strength is returned; Tombstone needs to be combined with a lockdown to prevent enemies from destroying it or quickly running away before many zombies can spawn, while Soul Rip needs many nearby units (most of the time zombies) to become truly powerful.
• Instant Gravestone: At level 20, he can choose a talent to drop a Tombstone whenever he dies.
• Kevlard: Undying physically grows larger as he accumulates Decay stacks.
• King Mook: To the Tombstone zombies.
• Large and in Charge: He is gigantic when compared to his zombies - and to most heroes as well.
• Lean and Mean: In his base form, Undying is little more than skin and bones. That doesn't make him any less dangerous, though.
• Life Drain: Decay drains the Strength of its targets, lowering their HP while increasing Undying's. Soul Rip absorbs a small amount of HP from all nearby units and transfers them to the target (or turns it into damage, if the target is an enemy).
• Loud of War: Most combat sounds easily drown in his roars during killsprees, so it must be incredibly loud to the combatants.
• Meaningful Rename: Whatever his previous name was, the Dead God decided that "Undying" was a better fit.
• Meta Guy: Sort of. His voice work is full of shout outs and joke lines, though these very rarely ever play in a match or are Dummied Out.
• Mighty Glacier: Early game, Decay is one of the most powerful level 1 spells in the game, able to sap 76 max HP from each enemy hero and give them to Undying for a whopping 40 seconds, while Soul Rip combined with enough Tombstone zombies is one of the most powerful nukes in the game.
• Monster Lord: The herald and army leader for the Dead God.
• Mook Maker: Tombstone, which spawns a stream of zombies to attack enemy players.
• My Death Is Only The Beginning: With the appropriate talents, Undying can make it so that killing him will actually make a bad situation worse; once he goes down, he can drop a Tombstone at the spot where he died and then come back to life in a few seconds to clean house along with his zombies.
• Nepharious Pharaoh: Undying's Dirgeful Overlord set is a tattered pharaoh's regalia, complete with nemes.
• Night of the Living Mooks: Tombstone lets him summon zombies to attack enemies.
• No Ontological Inertia: All zombies summoned by a Tombstone die immediately if the Tombstone is destroyed or expires.
• No-Sell: Tombstone zombies are immune to everything but auto-attacks, preventing them from being easily wiped out by area nukes.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: Tombstone zombies die in a single hit from a hero, but they make up for this with numbers and the fact that killing one means having to actually stop, turn around, and attack it, which might not be good for one's health when Undying and his teammates are around.
• Our Zombies Are Different: He eats flesh, decays, but is sentient and serves the Dead God.
• Percent Damage Attack: The Flesh Golem deals damage to nearby enemies based on their maximum health.
• Piñata Enemy: The Tombstone has a fairly substantial bounty. Bad Tombstone usage can thus provide an easy source of free farm for enemies.
• Power Makes Your Voice Deep: Very much so with Flesh Golem active.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Golden Pale Mausoleum, a golden variation of the Pale Mausoleum cosmetic, glows red instead of green.
• Run or Die: Usually what the enemy has to resort to if they cannot kill Undying in a certain amount of time. The longer Undying stays alive (whether it's in a teamfight or when the enemy tries to gank him), the more often he can cast Decay and Soul Rip to keep himself alive, and the more zombies will pile up from Tombstone. After a certain point, Undying can simply turn on the enemy and annihilate them with Soul Rip while the zombies pin them down and prevent them from escaping. It's not uncommon for three-man ganks against Undying in the early game to turn into a Triple Kill for Undying if he plays his cards right.
• Sickly Green Glow: Decay and Soul Rip have green particle effects, indicating their evil and undead origins.
• Spam Attack: At max levels, Decay drops down to a cooldown of 4 seconds (2 with the correct talent), while Soul Rip has a cooldown of 6. With a large enough mana pool and a big enough pool of units under Soul Rip's radius (more often than not zombies from Tombstone), Undying can steal an absurd amount of Strength, and drop 480 HP nukes/heals every 6 seconds. Then you buy Aghanim's Scepter and upgrades his Decay to steal 10 Strength per cast...
• Stone Wall: Late game, the damage from Decay falls off hard, and Undying's atrocious agility means that he'll hit very slowly with his right-clicks, though zombies are still annoying, and Flesh Golem still works well. His late game is all about tanking and auras, with a little bit of utility thrown in. He wants to cause maximum disruption and survive as long as possible to help inflict damage.
• Super Mode: His ultimate, Flesh Golem^note Not actually the subject of Flesh Golem trope, temporarily turns Undying into a much bigger zombie with a large health bonus who slows enemies while sapping away their health.
• Throat Light: The cosmetic Immortal Tombstone Pale Mausoleum is shaped like a skull, with glowing green eyes and mouth.
• Trademark Favorite Food: He has a thing for "gummy" vitamins in some joke lines.
• Vampiric Draining:
  • Decay drains Strength from enemy heroes and gives it to Undying.
  • Soul Rip takes a small amount of health from every unit in a huge area and channels it into a burst of heal for an ally or damage for an enemy.
• Walking Wasteland: His ultimate has this effect on the environment.
• Why Won't You Die?: Flesh Golem heals a percentage of his maximum health for every enemy unit that dies nearby, and Soul Rip has a 6 second cooldown, allowing him to heal himself for large amounts of health constantly if there are multiple units active (on top of Decay increasing his maximum health for each stack). This means that fights against Undying quickly get out of control if anyone dies next to him, or too many zombies stack up, or if the enemy simply can't stop him from stacking Decay.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Steals the souls of nearby units with Soul Rip, although he then immediately sends them to another target unless he targets himself.
• Zerg Rush: Tombstone zombies are individually weak but spawn very fast and are extremely numerous. Notably, Tombstone zombies will always outnumber the enemy's own Zerg Rush since it spawns 1 zombie next to every single enemy unit in its radius, repeatedly.

Ostarion, the Wraith King (formerly the Skeleton King)

"Bow to your king!"

^{As Skeleton King}

Voiced by: Dave Fennoy

Ostarion was once the Skeleton King, the product of a botched immortality spell. For countless years, he had ruled over the Empire of Bones, a kingdom built entirely from the bones of fallen foes. As long as he kept expanding his empire and replacing everything in it with skeletal replicas, Ostarion believed that his reign would last forever. However, Ostarion eventually came to realize that bone itself could perish, and that even he would eventually disappear if he maintained his skeletal form. Deciding to get himself a more permanent body, Ostarion completed a ritual on the millennial solstice of Wraith-Night, sending warriors to collect Wraith Essence from the souls of slain creatures for him. Many of Ostarion's servants perished that night, but when the following morning arrived, he was reborn as the Wraith King, a being of pure spiritual energy whose rule will never end.

Ostarion the Wraith King is a melee hero who can withstand massive damage and quickly recover from his injuries. His narrow but useful skillset means that he can carry a team to victory, or utilize his passive aura and powerful stun to act as a durable support and initiator. Wraithfire Blast has Wraith King hurl a ball of ghostly fire at a foe, damaging and stunning a foe, then slowing them while dealing minor damage over time. Vampiric Spirit is a passive that gives him Lifesteal, and stores charges as he kills enemies. Wraith King can activate this ability to consume the stored charges and summon skeletons to fight by his side. These skeletons can revive once upon death and have their own Vampiric Spirit lifesteal, and cannot be directly controlled but will automatically target whoever gets hit by Wraithfire Blast. Mortal Strike periodically gives his next attack a guaranteed crit, letting him open fights with a huge swing. His most powerful and iconic ability is his ultimate, Reincarnation. If Wraith King has enough mana, he will automatically resurrect after dying, simultaneously slowing every enemy nearby, turning the tables on any pretenders to Wraith King's throne. With Aghanim's Scepter, he can delay the death of his allies and himself for 7 seconds, allowing them to continue using their abilities and attacking their enemies for just a bit longer before expiring.

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• Achilles' Heel: If he doesn't have Aghanim's Shard, Wraith King's ultimate will not trigger if he doesn't have enough mana for it. This means that he actually requires at least a certain amount of planning to ensure that he doesn't cast Wraithfire Blast too many times, and that mana draining abilities can neutralize Reincarnation.
• Adaptation Name Change: In the original DotA, Ostarion was named King Leoric, after a character in Diablo.
• Animated Armor: To a degree, his armor is actual physical armor as opposed to being a part of him as with most ghostly warriors, which is shown in his Reincarnation animation, as he "dies" and it scatters, only for the parts to rearrange themselves back into position and for him to come back.
• Art Evolution: He used to be known as Ostarion the Skeleton King, and his old model was an animated skeleton. In the Wraith-Night event, Skeleton King became Wraith King, with a new model and slightly modified ability effects. The One True King Arcana qualifies as an evolution to the original Skeleton King model.
• Ascended Meme: On purchasing a Divine Rapier, he'll mention that he is "BALLING OUT OF CONTROL!", a reference to the infamous "CAPS LOCK LEORIC" guide. And yes, it is in all caps in the subtitles.
  • He also pledges to HELP HIS WEAK AND PUNY ALLIES when he can.
  • Finally, when he buys Armlet of Mordiggian (which is a core item in any Wraith King build), he will rarely say "I NOW HAVE ALL THE SEXY".
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Wraith King's skeleton minions cannot be directly controlled and automatically choose an attack target within approximately 6500 range (which is around a quarter of the entire map, so don't be surprised if they decide to march into another lane or the warded jungle on the other side of the river). They can only be indirectly controlled by Wraithfire Blast, whose target will also be targeted by all skeletons.
• Auto-Revive: His signature ability, Reincarnation, revives Wraith King at full health and mana after 3 seconds, as long as he had the minimum mana cost for it upon his first death. His skeleton minions also reincarnate once when killed.
• Back from the Dead: Both in his backstory and as an in-game ability!
• Bad Boss: Some of his voice lines imply that being his advisor is not a safe position.
  Wraith King, dying (for real): Execute all my advisors!
• Badass Cape: A torn one.
• Beard of Evil: An unrepentant Evil Overlord with a prominent beard.
• Blessed with Suck: He was initially turned into a skeleton as a side-effect of a longevity spell. Then he realized that his bones were also rotting away and had to find a better form for himself, becoming the Wraith King.
• BFS: One of the unlockables gives him an even bigger sword broken in half.
• Boring, but Practical: He has only one active skill, Wraithfire Blast ^note technically Vampiric Spirit and Reincarnation both have active components but neither of them needs to be used very often, and is basically "baby's first carry", often resulting in jokes that Wraith King players only need two fingers to play the Hero. However, he's still very effective.
• Captain Ersatz: From 2011 to 2013, he was an animated skeleton known as Skeleton King, referencing King Leoric from Diablo. For legal reasons, he was changed in December 2013 to Wraith King, and received a new model and lines to go with it.
• Captain Obvious: Played for Laughs. He decides to grant Chaos Knight a... very obvious title:
  Ostarion (meeting Chaos Knight): "I dub thee Chaos Knight! How's that for a name? Not bad, eh?"
• Cool Sword: His default sword is shaped like half a bone, kept from his old Skeleton King days.
• Critical Hit: Mortal Strike causes Wraith King to deal up to 2.7 times his regular damage once every few seconds. Unlike normal critical hits, it has a cooldown, and is guaranteed to proc when off cooldown.
• Critical Hit Class: Mortal Strike is one of the few guaranteed crits in the game with a hefty multiplier to boot, which allows Wraith King to scale very well with damage items without having to build a Daedalus because his first swing and every few after that is sure to deal massive damage.
• Cursed with Awesome: Became a skeleton as the result of an immortality spell gone wrong. He didn't mind it one bit until his bones started to degrade, at which point he upgraded to becoming a wraith instead.
• Dem Bones: When he used to be Skeleton King. He can also summon skeletal servants with Vampiric Spirit. His One True King Arcana brings him back to his old self.
• Difficult, but Awesome: He can purposefully use up the mana to avoid setting off Reincarnation's extremely long cooldown (at lower levels) if it can't help his current situation. Considering that his only other use for mana is Wraithfire Blast, this is easier said than done.
• Disc-One Nuke: Wraithfire Blast is the strongest single-target stun at level 1, with 2 seconds of stun, followed by 2 seconds of 20% slow and 80 damage, with a 525 cast range. It's very easy to rack up a ton of early game kills with Wraithfire Blast so long as you are active on the map and keep your mana pool up. That being said, you can easily buy a Soul Ring to abuse this.
• Evil Overlord: He rules over a kingdom of bone, and constantly seeks to expand it with the bones of his enemies. After becoming the Wraith King, his kingdom became ghostly as well, but not much else has changed.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: The Blistering Shade cosmetic item is only a single glove, instead of a pair.
• Final Boss: In the Wraith-Night event.
• Fireball Eyeballs: He had these as the Skeleton King, and retains them with the One True King Arcana.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: His backstory as Wraith King makes direct reference to the in-game Wraith Night event, a tower defense-style departure from the norm where players would fend off waves of enemies in the name of collecting souls to resurrect the Skeleton King (who had previously been removed from the game "for pressing ceremonial purposes") as Wraith King.
• Glowing Eyelights of Undeath: Before he turned into Wraith King.
• Hellfire: The Blistering Shade Immortal item reskins Wraithfire Blast to resemble Hellfire Blast (its old version when Ostarion was still the Skeleton King), which sears an enemy with hellfire instead of spectral fire.
• It's All About Me: As befitting an egotistical tyrant, there are two kinds of people in the world to Wraith King: himself, and those who owe him loyalty (dead or alive), the latter of which encompasses everyone that's not him. As per his backstory recounting the Wraith-Night event, not only did he declare an interruption to the holiday as "the only king that matters", but he also doesn't have a care for those that died in the proceedings because his transformation succeeded, and that's all that matters.
• Jack of All Stats:
  • In the case of another carry, they would usually purchase items that synergize well with their abilities, or cover for their intrinsic shortfalls, and still adhere to a certain play style. However, this is not the case with Wraith King, since, despite his simplistic array of abilities, he has a lifesteal, crit, and reliable stun all without having to buy items. This allows Wraith King to diversify greatly and buy whatever items suit the situation, or even be played as a support/utility hero if one so desires.
  • Wraith King can be played as either a safe lane farmer, taking advantage of his passives to become a carry that is really hard to kill; or a support, using Wraithfire Blast's strong stun to roam and get kills all around the map, initiating a teamfight with the massive slow from Reincarnation, and transitioning to the late game as a semi-carry with Mortal Strike.
• The Juggernaut: After he gets some items and levels, his great combat power combined with Auto-Revive ultimate make him this. With Divine Rapier, he gets a 330 damage boost to attacks (by far and beyond the highest in the game), at the cost that it drops when the holder dies and can be picked up by an enemy. However, it does not drop when Ostarion dies and is reincarnated. On top of that, it has excellent synergy with his other two passives, turning his Mortal Strikes decidedly more mortal, and making him even harder to kill in the first place because his Vampiric Spirit heals him for enormous amounts of health from the ridiculous damage he's dishing out. BALLING OUT OF CONTROL? Absolutely.
• Large and in Charge: He is much taller than most heroes.
• Large Ham: Even the subtitles agree, as for a time, a number of Wraith King's lines were captioned in all caps (and still are on the Dota Plus chat wheel by community request). His deep, booming voice gives him quite a presence.
  Wraith King: SO WHAT IF I SWAGGER?
• The Leader: When played right, Wraith King is both a very dangerous foe himself, and a massive threat with a team, He specializes in fighting alongside other physical-damage dealers, and leading the charge, dying, walking it off, then leading the charge again anyway.
• Life Drain: Vampiric Spirit, which has a uniquely visible "draining" effect on him on top of the usual green lines.
• Living Forever Is Awesome: Considering the lengths he goes to in order to ensure his own immortality, he's clearly enjoying his stint as a deathless ghost/skeleton king.
• Living on Borrowed Time: After Wraith King gets Aghanim's Scepter, allies near him when killed become Wraiths for 7 seconds, delaying their death. They can continue to attack, cast, use items,... until the duration ends.
• Meaningful Name: Ostarion's name is derived from the Greek word for bone, "οστό" (ostó) - a relic from when he was Skeleton King.
• Mighty Glacier: By the time Ostarion reaches Level 18, he becomes a pain to kill, yet can easily do so to his opponents. His primary weakness however is his rather slow movement speed that allows easy kiting if he doesn't have Blink Dagger or can't use Wraithfire Blast.
• The Minion Master: Wraith King's ability to summon skeletons greatly augments his pushing and farming ability by adding in a good amount of chip damage against enemy lanes and jungle creeps, while also greatly improving his ability to focus down key targets with Wraithfire Blast. Triggering Reincarnation will summon even more skeletons to mob any enemies nearby.
• No Indoor Voice: To the point where a lot of his lines are subtitled in all caps.
• One-Handed Zweihänder: He has no problem swinging that giant sword of his around with one hand, although he will use both hands for Mortal Strike.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: He is a wraith, an incorporeal undead creature sustained by pure spiritual energy. His Unbroken Fealty Immortal sword also reskins his skeleton minions into ghost-like creatures.
• Playing with Fire: Wraithfire Blast sears an enemy with spectral fire.
• Press X to Die: Reincarnation has an active component that kills Wraith King, in the process summoning an army of skeleton minions, restoring Wraith King's mana to full when he comes back, slowing nearby enemies and (with the appropriate level 25 talent) hitting each with a Wraithfire Blast.
• Removed Achilles' Heel: Aghanim's Shard removes the mana cost of Reincarnation and is a must-buy item if the enemy heroes have access to Mana Burn abilities or build Diffusal Blade, ensuring that they will have to kill Wraith King twice instead of simply trying to burn his mana so he cannot revive.
• Resurrective Immortality: His ultimate, Reincarnation.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Rather than sit around and let his armies do the dirty work, Wraith King prefers to set out conquering his enemies personally.
• Sadistic Choice: A farmed Wraith King with his ultimate ready is this for the other team. They can kill the Wraith King first, but suffer the massive slow from Reincarnation which the other team can capitalize on. Or they can ignore the Wraith King and try to kill his teammates first, but risk letting the Wraith King tear them apart. However, if Wraith King lacks damage output, he can simply be ignored in favor of the enemy team and be killed later.
• Scarred Equipment: Two of Wraith King's cosmetic weapons, the Relic Sword and the Shattered Blade of Levinthal, only have half of their blades remaining. None of this impacts his right-click damage in any way.
• Scenery Gorn: His kingdom was described as being made of bones.
• Schmuck Bait: Reincarnation can be used as this, baiting enemies into what seems to be a near-dead carry, only for him to come back, and his team to descend on the would-be ambusher.
• Self-Destructive Charge: Wraith King is sometimes played as an initiator, suicidally blinking into the enemy team and letting them kill him to set off the massive slow (as well as the barrage of Wraithfire Blasts if he takes the appropriate talent) from Reincarnation.
• Shoulders of Doom: He has a shoulder guard on his right shoulder.
• Shout-Out:
  • As Skeleton King, he was one to a Diablo character. In the original DotA his name was King Leoric.
  • Two of the One True King Arcana's responses for reincarnating while surrounded by enemies are "Let's call it a draw?" and "I'll bite your legs off!"
• Sickly Green Glow: Both Wraith King himself and his Wraithfire Blast radiate a ghostly green light.
• Spam Attack: Wraithfire Blast has a low cooldown, only 8 seconds, on a 2 second stun followed by another 2 second slow, meaning Wraith King can belt out constant crowd control once he has enough mana to sustain it.
• Super-Toughness: As a Strength carry hero with an in-built lifesteal and crit, Wraith King is already pretty hard to kill in an straight fight, but then you have to factor in his second life.
• Taking You with Me: With Aghanim's Scepter, he and his allies can attack and potentially kill their killer.
• Testosterone Poisoning: Alongside Axe, he's considered the manliest hero in Dota (formerly "the manliest hero without testicles" due to being a skeleton) thanks to his very straightforward modus operandi of just walking up to enemies and stabbing the hell out of them while shrugging off death itself, a sentiment certainly aided by this guide. After the transformation into the Wraith King, this image became canon.
  Wraith King: DEATH IS MY BITCH.
• This Is Gonna Suck: He has special reactions for reviving with no allies nearby, which almost all consist of this.
  "Guys? Guuuys?!"
• Tin Tyrant: His "low violence" skin back in the Skeleton King days, and what his One True King Arcana appears as when played in "low violence" mode.
• Unholy Matrimony: He's attracted to Queen of Pain. It's not clear if she feels the same way or not. The transition from Skeleton King to Wraith King has not changed his mind.
• Unskilled, but Strong: His skill set is pretty simple compared to most heroes, but he can do and take enough damage that it doesn't matter.
• Vampiric Draining: Vampiric Spirit allows Wraith King and his skeleton minions to restore a good chunk of whatever damage they deal with their right-clicks.
• Zerg Rush: Wraith King's skeletons aren't very strong on their own, but they can be summoned up to 8 at a time (14 with a specific talent), making them dangerous both when pushing and when mobbing an enemy that just took a Wraithfire Blast.

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