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Characters / Dota 2 Strength A To M

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This is part of the character sheet for Dota 2. This page contains the Strength heroes that begins with the letter A to M. Please note that this is sorted not by their real names, but their in-game name, 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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    Razzil Darkbrew, the Alchemist 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Alchemist_3887.png
Voiced by: Bruce Miles

The Darkbrew family was well known for its devotion to the science of Chymistry, but none ever had the sheer audaciousness of Razzil, who gradually abandoned his family's trade to focus on Alchemy. Ambitious beyond his own capacity, Razzil declared that he would use his alchemy transmute an entire mountain into gold, but his two decades of preparation for this event ended in spectacular failure. For the chaos and destruction his experiment had wrought, he was arrested and thrown in jail, with an ogre as a cellmate. In order to escape and continue his research, Razzil used the moss and fungi growing on the cell walls to brew a potion, and after a week of preparation, he gave it to the ogre. Upon drinking the concoction, the ogre flew into an uncontrollable rage and gained a massive burst of strength and endurance, allowing him to break through the cell walls and fight his way out of the prison. Once Razzil and the ogre had gotten as far away from prison as they could, they agreed to work together, and the pair have been on the run ever since, forever in search of ingredients for Razzil's experiments.

While other heroes may specialize in magic spells or physical damage, Alchemist (and his trusty ogre sidekick) focus on gold, and accumulating lots of it. With the ability to farm more efficiently than most other heroes, Alchemist can be played in a variety of ways: he can use his early-game gold potential to quickly snowball an item advantage over the other team and carry his side to victory, or he can see use as a support and an initiator, focusing more on his damaging spells to help his team. With Greevil's Greed, an innate ability, Alchemist gains extra gold for every last hit; granting an additive bonus for every last hit in a period of time. With healthy reserves of gold rolling in, Alchemist can quickly gain a head start in purchasing items- but don't think that he can't also go on the offensive. His main damaging spell, Unstable Concoction, is a powerful but unreliable area-of-effect stun that needs to be charged before it's thrown at an enemy hero. Wait too long, however, and the spell will explode on Alchemist himself, stunning and damaging him. His other damaging spell, Acid Spray, creates a pool of toxic liquid that reduces armor and damages foes who are caught in its radius. Meanwhile, his Corrosive Weaponry slows enemies with each hit and makes them more susceptible to debuffs, with the effect stacking from multiple hits and making the target increasingly weak. His ultimate, Chemical Rage, is a versatile status buff, temporarily kicking many of his base stats into overdrive. With huge bonuses to health regeneration, movement speed, mana regen, and attack speed, Alchemist can unleash the power of alchemy to its fullest. He's also unique that he can melt an Aghanim's Scepter and give it to his ally, granting them the ability upgrade and stats in process without taking up an item slot, which also permanently increases both his attack and spell damage for each ally who has received this gift.

In Dota Underlords, Alchemist is a tier 4 hero. His ability is Acid Spray, which covers a 7-by-7 square in acid, dealing physical damage over time to enemies and reducing their armor.


  • Acid Attack: He's an alchemist themed chiefly around use of acid and other corrosive and unstable liquids. His active ability Acid Spray covers an area on the ground in acid, and his passive Corrosive Weaponry adds acid to his right-click attacks.
  • Adaptation Name Change: As there are no goblins in Dota 2 lore, the name of Alchemist's income-boosting skill was changed from Goblin's Greed to Greevil's Greed during the port.
  • Adaptation Species Change: Razzil was a goblin in DotA. His current species is unclear though; he strongly resembles a Keen (Sniper, Tinker, Timbersaw, Snapfire) and is referred to as one by several other heroes, but he's also been identified as a Greevil (a completely different-looking imp-like creature). He still strongly resembles a goblin though, and the ogre has remained an ogre in both versions of the game.
  • Acid Pool: Acid Spray creates a pool of acid in an area.
  • Alchemy Is Magic: Razzil's alchemy is apparently able to turn living organisms into gold.
  • Attack Speed Buff:
    • Chemical Rage doesn't directly buff the attack speed stat, but achieves the same effect by replacing his attack animation with a shorter one for its duration.
    • Berserk Potion, his Aghanim's Shard ability, grants bonus attack speed to an ally, among other buffs.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Unlike other heroes in the game, Alchemist doesn't directly benefit from the Aghanim Scepter's upgrade but rather, he can give other allies the Scepter boost, giving himself bonus physical and spell damage every time. In theory, since he's able to quickly print gold with Greevil's Greed, he can give supports that can't farm quickly such as Disruptor or Bane their powerful upgrades that they wouldn't have been able to get by themselves and by the late game after he's six-slotted, he can use any excess gold to give everyone the Scepter upgrade practically for free but in practice, you're giving away 4,200 gold (which is significant in the mid-game where he still needs a couple of items before he can become online) for an item that could be used to help Alchemist survive such as Black King Bar or Linken's Sphere so unless it's an upgrade that can change the tides of the game, you practically wasted that gold and risk falling behind to the opposing carry. And that's not to mention that Alchemist scales poorly in the late game due to his poor stat growth and lack of an in-built damage boost so if the game has gone ultra-late, then chances are you're probably outcarried by the opposing position 1 safe-laner anyway and that excess gold available is better off to be saved for buybacks, Refresher Orb, or even a Divine Rapier.
  • The Berserker: Chemical Rage gives the ogre high regeneration and base attack time reduction (basically increases his attack speed), encouraging this style of play once he has his items.
  • Better to Die than Be Killed: Unstable Concoction's self-damage is lethal to Alchemist so if cornered by the enemy at low health, it is possible for Alch to purposely explode himself with the skill and the deny the Gold and Experience that he would have given to the enemy team.
  • Big Dumb Body: Albeit in a more equal relationship than most.
  • Big Guy, Little Guy: The ogre is the big guy to Razzil's little guy.
  • Blade Spam: With the right items and a fully leveled Chemical Rage, Alchemist can let out upwards of five attacks a second.
  • Bling of War: Alchemist's Immortals, the Eternal Radiance Blades and the Midas Knuckles, are, respectively, a pair of golden flaming swords and a glove made of gold.
  • Brains and Brawn: Razzil and the ogre refer to themselves as the brains and the brawn, respectively.
  • Charged Attack: Unstable Concoction gains power and stun duration for longer every second after it's activated, and if it's charged to maximum power it can deal more damage and stun for longer than Sven's Storm Hammer.
  • Cool Helmet: The ogre has a one-horned one.
  • Deadly Gas: Acid Spray creates a large cloud that shreds the armor and health of enemies.
  • The Dividual: Razzil and the ogre tend to get along together and are treated as a single unit gameplay-wise.
  • Dual Wielding: The ogre unsheathes two swords when using Chemical Rage.
  • Fat and Skinny: The ogre and Razzil, respectively.
  • Good Old Fisticuffs: The ogre attacks by punching if Chemical Rage is inactive.
  • Healing Factor: Chemical Rage grants Alchemist a massive boost to health regeneration.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Literally, in that Unstable Concoction will explode in Alchemist's face if he doesn't throw it in time. And yes, he can kill himself with it.
  • Hollywood Acid: Acid Spray is green and reduces enemies' armour.
  • Human Resources: According to his voice lines, he's fond of using components of his dead foes as fodder for his experiments.
  • Item Caddy: When played as a farming carry, Alchemist relies on a six-slotted inventory of powerful items to get kills. This is made easier by Greevil's Greed, which makes farming much faster and easier, so a good Alchemist will probably assemble most of his arsenal by the thirty-minute mark. He can also buy Aghanim's Scepter for his teammates, letting him unlock upgrades for heroes that would rather not waste gold or an inventory slot on the item or simply can't afford a Scepter in the first place, with a minor damage buff for himself thrown in just for good measure.
  • Jack of All Stats: Alchemist is a versatile hero and can be played in the carry, support, or mid roles. He has a strong early game which can be capitalized on if one so desires by playing him as a support or a mid. His lategame can also be taken advantage of by playing him as a carry, and he's one of the fastest farmers in the game, allowing him to reach his personal lategame before the enemy team's carries come online. If given enough farm as a support, he can also transition from a support to a carry, but his lategame is not as strong as some other heroes', such as Medusa, Spectre, or Faceless Void, all of who outcarry Alchemist once they have enough farm.
  • The Juggernaut: With Chemical Rage activated, Alchemist can regenerate health faster than any other hero without a Heart of Tarrasque. As such, he can shrug off all but the most damaging nukes in a few seconds, and walk right over any squishy supports that get in his way.
  • Lightning Bruiser: With Chemical Rage active, Alchemist possesses frighteningly high attack speed and runs fairly quickly as well, while easily shrugging off hits with the increased health regeneration.
  • Mad Scientist: Razzil is prone to laughing maniacally or ranting about chemistry while last-hitting, activating Chemical Rage, or killing a hero.
  • Magic Knight: Razzil provides the Magic and the Ogre makes for the Knight half of the equation.
  • Mechanically Unusual Class: Alchemist is somewhat different from some other hard carries in that he can farm incredibly quickly with Greevil's Greed, allowing him to grow extremely fast and get 6-slotted before many other carries. However, he can still be outgunned later on by other hard carries, because he can still only carry 6 items (plus a consumed Aghanim's Scepter and Moon Shard) while Chemical Rage doesn't scale particularly well as a damage steroids. Because of this, unlike other hard carries who peak at ultra-late game, Alchemist's most effective time is at the late-midgame when he becomes 7-slotted.
  • Money Multiplier: Greevil's Greed multiplies the gold from Bounty runes and grants bonus gold for every unit killed inside of 30 seconds, allowing him to chain last-hits to give himself up to 18 bonus gold per last hit. Left to farm alone, Alchemist can obtain core items alarmingly quickly. After the laning phase is over, a carry Alchemist that does not sit at the top of the net worth chart is a sign that his team is badly losing.
  • Mounted Combat: Razzil rides on the back of an ogre. Whilst Razzil does the pointing, the ogre does the punching.
  • No Name Given: The ogre, oddly enough.
  • Non-Standard Skill Learning: Greevil's Greed is one of the rare few innate abilities that are available at the start of the game and cannot be put skill points into.
  • Our Ogres Are Hungrier: Razzil's ogre mount seems to be quite different than the ogre mooks found in game, although it does bear a strong resemblance to Ogre Magi. The ogre also seems to be a lot smarter than how Ogre Magi's lore describes his kind, though it might be the a side effect of Razzil's potions.
  • Phantasy Spelling: Razzil's field of study is called chymistry.
  • The Power of Friendship: Neither of them would be a match for other heroes by themselves, and it takes using both the Ogre's muscle and Razzil's chemicals to win.
  • Purple Is Powerful: The ogre turns violet when Razzil uses Chemical Rage.
  • Race Against the Clock: A minor example with Unstable Concoction. If it's not thrown within 5.5 seconds, it will stun and damage the Alchemist.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: The portrait for his ultimate, Chemical Rage.
  • Science Hero
  • Super-Empowering: Alchemist has the ability to consume an Aghanim's Scepter to grant all of its bonuses to himself or an allied hero, once each, without taking up a slot. It synergises particularly well with someone whose Aghanim's Scepter upgrade is potentially very strong but they either can't afford the money or the slot for it. So a support Treant Protector can be given Scepter and starts legally maphacking with Eyes in the Forest, or Luna who can now drop Eclipse a Kill Sat without losing space for Scepter.
  • Super Mode: Chemical Rage, which involves the ogre ingesting a Super Serum.
  • Super-Power Meltdown: The Unstable Concoction. Razzil throws a potion at an enemy that stuns them depending on how long he shakes it up. However, if he holds on to it too long, it will explode and stun himself.
  • Super Serum: When Chemical Rage is used, Razzil gives the ogre a rage-inducing potion. When Berserk Potion is used, Razzil does the same to a teammate.
  • Technicolor Science: Acid Spray is green and Unstable Concoction is purple.
  • There Was a Door: The ogre simply crashed through the walls of the prison that he and Razzil were stuck in.
  • Throw Down the Bomblet: Unstable Concoction has Alchemist hurl a beaker of explosive chemicals at the target.
  • Transformation Is a Free Action: Alchemist becomes temporarily invulnerable when activating Chemical Rage, allowing him to disjoint certain stuns.
  • Unstoppable Rage: When under the effects of Chemical Rage, the ogre runs faster, regenerates health and mana faster, and attacks faster.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Razzil and the ogre frequently bicker with one another over trivial matters, although many of their voice lines indicate that they really are inseparable underneath it all.
  • Weak, but Skilled: Alchemist has one of the worst attribute growths in the game and must rely on his ability to amass an overwhelming amount of gold to carry. By mid-game, a good Alchemist should have around twice the net worth of the enemy carry, which he needs in order to overcome his bad stats.
  • What the Hell, Player?: If Unstable Concoction backfires, the ogre will sometimes berate Razzil, and, by extension the player controlling him, for not throwing it in time.

    Mogul Khan, the Axe 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/978a7d768aed95c14f7ff817ba501417.png
Voiced by: Jon St. John

Mogul Khan was once a grunt in the Army of Red Mist who aspired to reach the rank of Red Mist General, also known as the Axe. He proved his worth in battle, but his rise through the ranks could be equally attributed to his habit of killing his superiors. Over the seven year Campaign of the Thousand Tarns, Mogul Khan had succeeded in eliminating not only every opposing soldier, but also every higher-ranked officer in the Red Mist, allowing him to finally seize his long-awaited title of Axe. Unfortunately, the war's toll and Mogul Khan's penchant for backstabbing allies resulted in all of his troops either dead or deserting him. But this did not bother Axe, who was left as the only warrior of the Red Mist, a literal one-man army.

Axe charges right into the enemy fray, wreaks havoc single-handedly, allowing his teammates to take advantage of the chaos, and then decapitate the weak. If Axe manages to get into the enemy's ranks, they better hope they can run before they get axed. If not, they'll get caught in his Berserker's Call, which taunts everyone near Axe and forcing them to attack Axe while he gets bonus armor for a short time. Attacking Axe is also exactly what he wants, as Counter Helix causes Axe to perform a spinning counter-attack that strikes all nearby enemies after he is attacked enough times. Axe also hates cowards and can try to force them to play aggressive by forcing Battle Hunger on them, which deals damage over time that is increased based on Axe's armor for a long duration, or until the victim kills any unit; turning to flee is rarely an option, as Battle Hunger also slows the victim while they are facing away from Axe. Axe also hates weaklings, so his Ultimate, Culling Blade, is designed to eliminate the weak with a mighty swing of Pure damage that ignores debuff immunity - and, if lethal, bypasses any form of protection on the victim to execute them in a bloody spray. Each successful hero kill with Culling Blade boosts the movement speed of Axe and nearby allies, awards Axe with a permanent armor boost, and resets its cooldown, allowing him to pursue the next victim in his sights. Axe might not be able to single-handedly decimate an enemy team by himself, but he is extremely tough and disruptive, making him an excellent initiator. Though his early game is strong enough that if he snowballs, he might end up as the carry, but it's rare.

In Artifact Axe is a red hero with no innate ability. His signature card, Berserker's Call, causes a red allied hero to fight its neighboring enemy.

In Dota Underlords, Axe is a tier 1 hero. His ability, Berserker's Call, forces nearby enemies to attack him while granting him a large amount of bonus armor.


  • Adaptation Species Change: Axe was an Orc using the model of corrupted Grom Hellscream in DotA. Some of this influence can still be seen such as being from a warlike race that gathers in clans.
  • The All-Solving Hammer: His unlockable, the Forgemaster's Hammernote 
    Forgemaster's Hammer description: The only day Axe declared defeat was the day he tried to forge a weapon with an axe.
  • Amazing Technicolor Population: Axe's skin is blood-red.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack:
    • Culling Blade is the only skill in the game that goes through Dazzle's Shallow Grave, which otherwise grants complete immunity to death. It's also one of two spells that can kill through Borrowed Time and False Promise (the other being Ancient Apparition's Ice Blast), which otherwise heals Abaddon when he should take damage and delays all damage taken, respectively.
    • To a lesser extent, Berserker's Call goes through debuff immunity, letting Axe shut down enemies that thought they were safe with a Black King Bar.
  • Badass Cape: The Immortal item Mantle of the Cinder Baron, made especially badass by the magma running through it.
  • Badass Normal: Axe has little to no supernatural abilities but makes it with his strength and battle rage alone.
  • Beard of Barbarism: A truly glorious one.
  • Berserk Button: Exploited by Axe's Battle Hunger, which deals damage over time to the target until it kills another unit or the duration ends.
  • The Berserker: His playstyle involves blinking right into the enemy team and using Berserker's Call, forcing them to attack him and giving his allies some breathing room.
  • Blood Knight: Battle Hunger works by making enemies feel Axe's regular battle rage, which directly harms them because no one but Axe can handle that amount of bloodlust. That's how battle-hungry Axe is.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Axe is may be lacking in eloquence, but he's a big, burly fun dude with peculiar quirks who likes to battle and have fun in it.
  • Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: Axe is a savage Oglodi warlord, belonging to what's basically the Dota 2 equivalent of orcs. His weapon of choice, a large axe which he talks about as if it were alive, reflects this.
  • Buffy Speak
  • Butt-Monkey: In demo mode, Axe is the default enemy hero for the players to use their own hero's abilities on, whether it be Black Hole, Finger of Death or Reaper's Scythe, among others.
  • Chain Lethality Enabler: Culling Blade only goes on cooldown if it fails to finish off its target (or if Axe decides to use it on a creep). Otherwise, if there are multiple low-HP enemies grouped together, Axe can chain Culling Blade to score multi-kills and harvest a fair bit of permanent armor.
  • Character Name and the Noun Phrase: The titles of his books follow this formula, although "And" is replaced with "in" in some cases.
  • Chunky Salsa Rule: A lethal Culling Blade removes all death-prevention effects on the target. This means that abilities such as Dazzle's Shallow Grave, Abaddon's Borrowed Time, and spell immunity won't save the target from death.
  • Companion Cube: His Axe.
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu: Manfighting Axe, while not advisable, isn't all that suicidal. Manfighting Axe while he's also fighting your creep wave is asking politely if you can die.
  • Counter-Attack: Counter Helix triggers once every few times Axe is attacked (the exact number scales with the number of points put into the skill), dealing damage to enemies next to him.
  • Coup de Grâce: Culling Blade deals moderate damage, but will instantly kill any hero below a certain HP threshold. No exceptions.
  • Crutch Character: Axe is a powerhouse early and mid game: a few Counter Helix spins can quickly bring down an enemy's HP, and combined with Battle Hunger will drive enemies out of lane with ease. When he goes roaming, Battle Hunger hurts so hard that no smart carry would dare remove it or risk getting beheaded by Culling Blade. However, with his bad stat growth and weak right-click, Axe sharply falls off when enemies get some defensive items (and become able to shrug off his nukes with ease). If he has heavily snowballed from ganks he can still carry the game, but he can be very easily outcarried by almost all proper carries. While he is still useful as an initiator and disabler with Berserker's Call, his damage output is limited outside of Blade Mail (which only lasts 4.5 seconds) and he's far from the bully he used to be during early and mid game.
  • Damage-Increasing Debuff: Battle Hunger reduces enemy armor by 7 when upgraded with Aghanim's Scepter.
  • Dynamic Entry: Killing an enemy with Culling Blade grants a massive movement and attack speed boost to nearby allies, letting them rush into the fight and secure the advantage or retreat before his enemy can react.
  • Finishing Move: Culling Blade is designed to finish off enemies once they drop below its health threshold, since a kill with it gives all nearby allies a speed boost, resets its cooldown, and gives Axe a permanent bonus to his armor.
  • Four-Star Badass: Nominally, given that he's the only one left in his army.
  • Garden Garment: When equipping the Axe Unleashed set (a Prestige item for The International 2019), Axe wears a loincloth made from leaves and vines.
  • General Ripper: Ludicrously so.
  • Genius Bruiser:
    • Some of his lines indicate that he can be quite articulate if he wants to.
    • His comic takes this trait along with his Sophisticated as Hell nature even further. He doesn't act anywhere near like the oaf that the game might depict him as, and he only lapses into Third-Person Person a few times, though much of his dialogue is pretty profanity-ridden.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: In the trailer at least
  • Good Old Fisticuffs: The Axe Unleashed set takes away Axe's axe, leaving him to fight with bare fists. He isn't any less effective for it.
  • High-Pressure Blood: Killing an enemy with Culling Blade sprays blood all over the ground in the area.
  • I Call It "Vera": He calls his axe... um... Axe.
  • Kill Steal: Culling Blade resets its own cooldown and gives Axe a permanent armor boost upon a successful kill, encouraging him to chop off the heads of three or more heroes in a teamfight to beef himself up. If Axe kills someone with Culling Blade while they are stunned by Necrophos's Reaper's Scythe, however, the enemy will be culled and Necrophos gets the kill.
  • Kill Streak: If Culling Blade manages to successfully kill an enemy hero, its cooldown is reset, meaning that you can instantly use it again to kill another enemy hero if the opportunity presents itself (and as long as you have the mana).
  • Klingon Promotion: Was a big fan of this during his time in the Red Mist Army.
  • Large Ham: Even compared to most other heroes. Axe shouts almost all of his lines, most of which are Badass Boasts. Being voiced by Jon St. John certainly doesn't hurt. This makes Axe a very amusing and popular character.
  • Mighty Glacier: Early game, Axe has great damage output with all of his four skills, but his mobility suffers as a result, forcing him to get Blink Dagger in order to maximise his potential.
  • Mix-and-Match Weapon: One of his cosmetic items is a bizarre combination between a three-section staff and, well, an axe. Its description notes that it's very dangerous — to its wielder and his enemies alike.
  • Monochromatic Eyes: Zig-Zagged. He has these on his in-game model, but his comic depicts him with more normal-looking eyes.
  • Never Learned to Read: Warlock has a voice line in Underlords stating that he might teach Axe to read. Whether this is Warlock making a jab at Axe's uncultured nature or whether Axe is genuinely illiterate is unclear.
  • No Indoor Voice: Everything Axe says is either declared in a booming voice or just shouted.
  • No Saving Throw: If you get hit by Culling Blade while under the health threshold (and it's not blocked outright by Linken's Sphere or Anti-Mage's Counterspell), nothing will save you from death. False Promise, Borrowed Time, and even Shallow Grave are outright ignored by a lethal cull.
  • Not the Intended Use: While meant to be played as an initiator, 7.28's Aghanim's Shard upgrade allowed Axe's Counter Helix to proc on his attacks which means that with enough attack speed items, Axe can consistently trigger the ability to deal huge amounts of pure damage to enemies that isn't reduced by Armor or Spell Resistance while also going through Spell Immunity. Add on to the fact that his illusions also benefit from the passive without any damage reductions, this meant that Axe can purchase a Manta Style to create 2 illusions that are just as damaging as the original while also being able to clear creeps with impunity, allowing Axe to farm late-game items at blazing speed. It was so strong that during the time it was available, it allowed Axe to be played as position 1 Carry where he farms until 20 minutes in the game when Shard is available which allows him to snowball through the late game. 7.30 changes the Shard upgrade so that it now reduces the enemy's attack damage with each Helix proc.
  • One-Man Army: Believes himself to be this. Gameplay-wise, he can be this if he gets lucky with spins and is built tanky. Even at the early game, he can deal with an entire wave of creeps alone.
  • Power Nullifier: Berserker's Call is this in effect, as the targets can do nothing but attack Axe for its duration (which, given the existence of Counter Helix and heroes that are not Axe, is something that you never want to be forced into). Some people even compare it to Magnus' Reverse Polarity on a 10-second cooldown.
  • Practical Taunt: Berserker's Call forces enemies to attack him for a few seconds and leave his allies alone. To offset the damage he takes on himself, he also gains a substantial increase in armor.
  • Proud Warrior Race Guy: Belongs to the Oglodi, which also includes Disruptor and Warlock. Interestingly all of them started as Orcs, and some of this influence can still be seen in Axe's bio.
  • Pungeon Master: Any time the letters "Ex" are in a word, he says 'Axe' instead.
    (buyback) "Back in AXEtion!"
  • Shoulders of Doom: He has a shoulder guard on his right shoulder.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Skill Gate Characters: One common tactic with Axe in lower-ranked games is creep-skipping: go to the hard lane, get a Stout Shield, position yourself between the enemy tier 1 and 2 towers, and kill creep waves all by yourself with Counter Helix, either depriving enemies of their XP and pushing the tower with your unopposed creep wave, or having the enemy run around their own tower running from the creeps and having a hard time getting the last hits due to low damage at level 1. Of course Axe is also dangerously far from his tower without allied creeps, so ranged heroes can easily kite him and a good disabler/ganking mid/jungler is almost guaranteed to get first blood, but in low level pubs, dual melee carry safe lanes are disturbingly common and most players do not care about any other lane other than the one they went to at the pregame, and wouldn't bother with a creep-skipping Axe depriving the farm of their teammates. Creep-skipping was later patched out of the game entirely by making early-game creeps ignore heroes until they pass the outer tower.
  • Sinister Scythe: With the cosmetic item Red Mist Reaper's Scythe.
  • Slipknot Ponytail: Originally had one, but it was taken out with a patch. Possibly to downplay his resemblance to Grom Hellscream.
  • Sophisticated as Hell: Despite being a Genius Bruiser, he never even tries to be subtle, and his next response might as well be:
  • Spin Attack: Has a chance to attack all nearby enemies this way as a counter attack with Counter Helix.
  • Stone Wall: As the game progresses, Axe's role changes into this: because of the bad scaling on his skills, by late game enemies can shrug his damage off with ease. By this time Axe is no longer a damage dealer (Blade Mail notwithstanding), but remains useful as a disabler.
  • Super-Toughness: Berserker's Call gives Axe a huge bonus to armor while active, and each kill with Culling Blade gives him a permanent armor bonus, making him highly resilient to physical damage.
  • Surprisingly Sudden Death: He has special voice lines for the extremely effective Blink Dagger into Culling Blade finishing combo, which often lets heroes think they're safe until Axe jumps on top of them and splits their head open.
  • Take Me Instead: Axe can pull gankers off his allies by calling them, forcing them to fight him instead. Whether or not they can take Axe, however, is questionable.
  • Testosterone Poisoning: Taunts enemies into attacking him? Check. Is so bloodthirsty that it causes physical damage to enemy Heroes? Check. Spins his axe in a huge counter-attack when someone hits him? Check. Can instantly kill enemies when he sees that they're weak? Check oh so very much.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: In the first DotA if the enemy HP threshold for Culling Blade was met, Axe would remove all buffs from the target and then deal 100000000 physical damage (to a unit that has 625 HP maximum), just to be sure it kills. No longer the case in Dota 2, which has an "instant kill" mechanic that kills the unit without inflicting actual damage.
  • They Call Him "Sword": Or rather, "Axe".
  • Third-Person Person: Constantly refers to himself as Axe.
  • A True Story in My Universe: Axe is the protagonist of his own series of books, written by his personal Bard, Goodkind, based on his own adventures (Which in fact, are done explicitly for material to base books on).
  • Unskilled, but Strong: In Artifact, Axe does not have an innate ability, but makes up for it with very high base stats.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: Evidently, Axe's muscles are harder than any armor he cares to wear. With Axe Unleashed prestige set, he doesn't even wear any armors (or pants).
  • Weapon Specialization: Axe's all about axes. And even in his Axe Unleashed Immortal set, his fists can act like axes just fine.
    "Axe brings the axe!"
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer…: In the late game, Axe is often played as a walking Berserker's Call - his main job then is calling as many enemy heroes as possible with his other skills (which drop off quickly, especially Battle Hunger and Counter Helix) being little more than afterthoughts. While his damage output in the late game is quite negligible, the ability to soft disable multiple enemy heroes through Black King Bar on a 10-second cooldown is still quite useful, and his item build reflects this, focusing to maximise the effectiveness of Berserker's Call, with items like Blink Dagger, Force Staff and Blade Mail.

    Rigwarl, the Bristleback 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Bristleback_317.png
Voiced by: TJ Ramini

Rigwarl, nicknamed the Bristleback by the tavern crowds, attained fame and notoriety through his tendency to start bar brawls, of which he always came out on top. His fighting exploits soon landed him a job as a bar enforcer, ensuring that customers paid their tabs and didn't cause too much trouble, in exchange for free drinks. One night however, Rigwarl made the mistake of starting a fight with Ymir the Tusk after he drunkenly insulted the brawler, whose bill had come due. The ensuing brawl nearly destroyed the whole bar, but Rigwarl was defeated and Tusk left without paying his tab. After recovering, Rigwarl swore to get his revenge on Tusk, whose tab he was forced to pay for following their fight. To this end, the Bristleback began to train himself for the first time in his life, and made a surprising discovery in the process: turning his back on a fight may in fact be the best thing for him to do.

Bristleback is a fighter that relies on his low-cooldown, spammy skills: Viscous Nasal Goo has him snot on a target, slowing them and reducing their armor (the Aghanim's upgrade make this skill act just like Quill Spray); and Quill Spray has him shredding his quill to damages an area, increasing the damage per stacks. Those skills fuel his ultimate, Warpath that boost his damage, attack and move speed per skill cast, making him a very dangerous Lightning Bruiser. When he's focusing on a target, his back opens wide... only for his enemies to realize his moniker, Bristleback reduces any damage against attack from his side and behind, also releasing quills automatically when he receives enough damage. Left alone, Bristleback will shred through your team just by running around.

In Artifact, Bristleback is a red hero. His Reactive Ability, Barroom Brawler, modifies him with +2 Armor whenever a hero blocking him dies. His Viscous Nasal Goo signature card modifies an enemy's Armor by -2.

In Dota Underlords, Bristleback is a tier 4 hero. His ability is Quill Spray, which damages nearby foes; the damage taken increases the more an enemy has been hit by the move in one round.


  • Achilles' Heel: Unlike other Strength-based carries, Bristleback is particularly vulnerable to silences, since he needs to constantly cast spells in order to proc Warpath and ramp up Quill Spray counters on nearby enemies. He's also very vulnerable to Breaks (particularly Silver Edge), which disable his most important passive ability, Bristleback.
  • Adaptation Species Change: He used to be a quillboar in the first DotA, but was changed to a porcupine creature in Dota 2.
  • Badass Back: The Bristleback passive ability reduces damage taken from behind while still being able to retaliate with Quill Sprays, both triggered by the passive and triggered manually. It's not uncommon to see Bristleback farming stacked Ancients by walking up to them, turning his back, and spamming Quill Spray until everything is dead.
  • Badass Normal: A sneezing porcupine with a temper that can face off against ancient and powerful wizards, towering titans, physical gods and the like on the battlefield.
  • Bash Brothers: With Tusk.
  • The Berserker: His playstyle revolves around charging straight into the enemy team, spamming Viscous Nasal Goo and Quill Spray everywhere to rack up Warpath, and shrugging off everything the enemy throws at him with Bristleback.
  • The Bet: Apparently he was sent to war by the same bartender as Tusk.
  • Combat Pragmatist: He uses his snot as a weapon, which certainly qualifies.
  • Cool Mask: The immortal gas mask Blastforge Exhaler. It strongly resembles Bristleback's old model in the original DotA and changes the visual of his Viscous Nasal Goo.
  • Counter-Attack: If taking damage from the rear, his namesake passive Bristleback will automatically release a Quill Spray.
  • Death of a Thousand Cuts: His only nuke Quill Spray is very weak, but has low cooldown and increases in power with each subsequent hit. Bristleback won't blow enemies up in a second, but standing next to him is not good for your health, between his snot reducing armor and preventing escape and his quills poking you to death.
  • Epic Flail: A huge boulder on a chain.
  • Eyepatch of Power: As can be seen in his portrait.
  • Fantastic Racism: For whatever reason, he seriously hates the Keen Folk (Sniper, Tinker, Gyrocopter and Clockwerk).
  • Genius Bruiser: He may not look it, but he actually has the highest Int growth of any non-Intelligence hero, to the point where his actually grows faster than over half of all Intelligence heroes.
  • Hairball Humor: Aghanim's Shard grants him Hairball, which has him spit out a ball of mucus and quills to a target location. When it bursts, it will afflict Goo and deal two Quills to any targets within its radius.
  • Large Ham: Can compete with Tusk in his sheer hamminess.
  • Lightning Bruiser: A Bristleback with maximum stacks of level 3 Warpath active will have +35% movement speed and +210 attack damage, while Bristleback reduces all of his damage taken from the rear by 40%, making him virtually invulnerable unless taking damage from the front (which isn't helped by the fastest turn rate in the game, making the passive easily abusable by a good Bristleback player). Oh, and his level 25 talent gives him +3 charges of Warpath. Good luck.
  • Magic Knight: Bristleback has the highest Intelligence growth amongst non-Intelligence heroes; he also has two cheap, spammable spells and an ultimate which synergises very well with them.
  • Motor Mouth: He has something to say almost every time he casts a spell. And considering their short cooldowns...
  • Mythology Gag: In the original DotA Bristleback used to be a Pig Man until he became a porcupine creature in the remake. Fast forward to The International 2017, and he received the Immortal item Blastforge Exhaler, a gas mask with a pig nose that strongly resembles how he used to look like in the original custom map.
  • Nasal Weapon: Viscous Nasal Goo, which launches a ball of snot at a target.
  • Natural Weapon: His quills and snot.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Uses this a lot.
    Rigwarl (Killing Doom): "Who's. Doomed. Now."
  • The Rival: With Tusk. Both of them have several dedicated lines for meeting each other when on the same team, or killing each other otherwise.
  • Spam Attack: Both Viscous Nasal Goo and Quill Spray are very spammable with their very short cooldown and low mana cost, synergising well with Warpath, which increases Bristleback's damage and movement speed every time he casts a spell.
  • Spike Shooter: He is able to shoot the quills from his back.
  • Spike Balls of Doom: He's a living one.
  • Unstoppable Rage: His ultimate Warpath.
    Bristleback works himself up into a fury every time he casts a spell, increasing his movement speed and damage.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Bristleback's reliance on spamming low-impact spells means he feeds Magic Wand charges to enemies like nothing else and essentially gives his lane opponent free healing and mana in spades.
  • Worthy Opponent: He seems to enjoy fighting the Oglodi heroes (Axe, Disruptor, and Warlock).

    Bradwarden, the Centaur Warrunner 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/centaur_warrunner_1960.png
Voiced by: Tom Chantler

The centaurs of Druud consider combat to be the greatest form of art, their clans gathering annually at the Omexe arena to engage in gladiatorial duels. And of all the warriors to have fought in these proving grounds, none have matched Bradwarden, the Warrunner. Gaining widespread fame for his brutality in the arena, Bradwarden defeated every foe who dared challenged him until he reigned as the uncontested champion of his kind and received the Great Belt of Omexe. However, Bradwarden did not find satisfaction in this honor, as he realized that no other centaur would ever match his strength and skill. Seeking more powerful adversaries, the Centaur Warrunner left his homeland, seeking to prove that he is not only superior to all centaur warriors, but to every warrior in the world.

Centaur Warrunner's home is the battlefield, and all of his abilities show off his affinity for war. His first ability, Hoof Stomp, causes Centaur to slam down onto the ground, stunning and damaging nearby units. Centaur's second ability, Double Edge, causes his next attack to deal greatly increased damage based on his Strength—to both the opponent and himself. His third ability and a passive, Retaliate, inflicts a counterattack whenever Bradwarden is attacked, damaging his attacker based on his Strength. His ultimate, Stampede, causes every ally hero on the map to gain an incredibly large buff to their movement speed, the ability to walk through any unit, and will slow any enemy that they walk over, dealing damage to the slowed unit as they trample over their bodies.

In Artifact, Centaur Warrunner is a red hero. His Continuous Effect, Return, grants him +2 Retaliate. His signature card is Double Edge, a spell which grants a red hero +8 attack for one round, but also -8 armor.


  • Adaptation Name Change: His title was renamed from Centaur Warchief to Centaur Warrunner during the transition to Dota 2.
  • Badass Normal: Centaur possesses little supernatural power - just a big axe and a lot of brute strength.
  • The Berserker: Thanks to his huge HP pool, a passive that punishes attacks against him, and close-ranged spells, Centaur is played in a very aggressive manner.
  • Blood Knight: It's the centaurs' hat in this setting.
  • Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: Centaurs are a Proud Warrior Race who live to fight, and Bradwarden is no different. He wields a huge axe, with one of his moves having him swing it so hard that he hurts himself in the process.
  • Cast from Hit Points: Double Edge deals damage to both Centaur, his target and nearby enemies. As the damage is classified as Magical, it's not uncommon to see Centaurs building Pipe of Insight to mitigate the health cost.
  • Chariot Pulled by Cats: Work Horse causes a cart to manifest from nowhere behind Centaur, who can use Hitch A Ride to toss an ally there. While in the cart, the ally can still cast and attack normally, but cannot move independently or be targeted by opponents.
  • Counter-Attack: Retaliate deals damage to any unit attacking Centaur. Unlike similar abilites of other heroes, its reflected damage scales with Centaur's own Strength instead of the amount taken.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Good Stampede usage requires Centaur to have strong map awareness. Good Centaur players often use Stampede when they aren't even doing anything more dangerous than last hitting, but their ally on the other side of the map is going in for a gank or running from the enemy.
  • Dynamic Entry: Stampede boosts Centaur's allies to max move speed, dealing damage and slow to any units they run through. It works well with a Blink Dagger and Hoof Stomp stun, turning him into a powerful initiator.
  • Foe-Tossing Charge: Stampede essentially drives Centaur's team into one, allowing them to rush at the foe and trample them underfoot.
  • Gladiator Games: As the centaurs' culture revolves around battle, with gladiatorial combat as its preferred expression. Bradwarden is the champion of their tournaments, marking him as the greatest of their people.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: The Infernal Chieftain Immortal item gives Centaur a pair of glowing red eyes.
  • Healing Factor: Between his high strength level, regeneration talents, and tendency to build items like Heart of Tarrasque and Pipe of Insight, Centaur often ends up with a ridiculously high regen rate (100 hp per second or more). It's not unusual for Centaur to be brought to the brink of death during an enemy base push, and then have him heal to 100% during the counter-push to the enemy base without ever going to the fountain. Even in the middle of a fight, his regeneration basically adds several hundred hp or more to his already massive health pool.
  • High-Pressure Blood: Double Edge causes a jet of blood to squirt out from both Centaur and his targets... even from Treant Protector (a tree), Death Prophet (a ghost), or Enigma (a living black hole), etc.
  • Horned Humanoid
  • Lightning Bruiser: Not only does he have the highest Strength gain of any hero, but he's also scarily fast — especially with his ultimate, which lets him and all his allies charge at maximum move speed for a few seconds.
  • Magikarp Power: Incredibly durable, but unlikely to be killing anything early on due to his serious range issues and lack of mobility. Retaliate does, however, discourage enemy laners from trying to harass him, with a few early levels ensuring that they'll be taking almost as much damage as they deal to him. Once he gets his ultimate and farms a Blink Dagger, he becomes significantly more threatening as he blinks in, stuns you and everyone around you, and pops his ultimate so his entire team can chase you down with ease. And the high area damage from Double Edge, which effectively costs health instead of mana, means that with an early investment into health regen, Centaur can farm his Blink Dagger very quickly, on top of other items to boost his already monstrous durability.
  • Made of Iron: One of the tankiest heroes in the game, and unlike most tanky heroes, he has no abilities that boost his durability - his massive Strength growth just makes him obscenely tough by nature. It's not uncommon to see Centaur Warrunner walking around with over 2000 health before both teams' carries have finished farming up their first real item.
  • Mighty Glacier: Centaur is obscenely bulky and has a good amount of damage built into his kit, but the only thing he has resembling a mobility skill is Stampede, which is locked behind a semi-long cooldown. Becomes a Stone Wall during the late game as his damage output doesn't scale well compared to most carries.
  • Monochromatic Eyes: Intimidating, pure-white ones.
  • Natural Weapon: Bradwarden's hooves, used by Hoof Stomp.
  • Our Centaurs Are Different: Unlike centaurs seen in most other works, Bradwarden has a massive upper torso, horns and out-jutting lower fangs.
  • Proud Warrior Race: His culture has little to it other than violence.
  • Shockwave Stomp: Hoof Stomp is a stomp attack which stuns nearby enemies.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Double Edge, to the to the Pokémon move of the same name.
    • The name "Bradwarden" is likely a reference to a centaur in R.A. Salvatore's DemonWars series.
  • Super-Speed: Stampede temporarily boosts the movement speed of all allies to the cap of 550.
  • Super-Strength: He has the highest Strength gain in the game, at 4.6 per level.
  • Top-Heavy Guy: Contrary to most centaur depictions, his upper torso is even bulkier than the workhorse lower body.
  • Trampled Underfoot: Any poor victim passed over by Centaur's allies when Stampede is active is slowed and takes damage based on his Strength.
  • Victory Is Boring: His backstory. Upon becoming the greatest of his people, he quickly realized that he needed a challenge.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: By default, Centaur does not wear anything on his upper human torso.
  • Worthy Opponent: He regards Magnus as one.

    Chaos Knight 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Chaos_Knight_4485.png
Voiced by: Barry Dennen (Dota 2), Darin De Paul (Dota Underlords)

Chaos Knight is a Fundamental, an embodiment of the forces which compose the universe; in his case, he embodies chaos. The oldest Fundamental, he hunts the Keeper of the Light, another Fundamental who dared defy the first covenant and leave the progenitor realm from where they came. Riding upon his horse Armageddon, Chaos Knight travels from plane to plane, eliminating the Light in every world where it is present and never to rest until he has gotten rid of every trace of this rogue Fundamental from the cosmos. In his endless search, he has participated in thousands of wars and conflicts, but now he now finds himself drawn to the War of the Ancients, in which the Keeper of the Light has become a participant.

Chaos Knight spreads chaos on the battlefield, wielding the power of unpredictability. Chaos Bolt damages and stuns an enemy; the stun duration and damage dealt are proportionally opposed and chosen randomly, meaning that it can deal heavy damage while briefly stunning the target, immobilize them for a long time while dealing minimal damage, or something in between. Reality Rift teleports Chaos Knight, his target, and all of his illusions to each other, while slowing down the target's movement and attack speed. This spell is useful for dragging a foe into range so Chaos Knight and his illusions can wail on them. Chaos Strike grants Chaos Knight a critical attack that steals life whenever it comes off cooldown, with the power of the crit ranging from weak to devastatingly huge. Finally, Phantasm summons Chaos Knights from another reality in the form of powerful illusions, making him a one-man cavalry army.

In Dota Underlords, Chaos Knight is a tier 2 hero. His ability, Chaos Bolt, deals a random amount of damage and stun to an enemy.


  • Adaptation Species Change: While his background in DotA is not clear about his race, he used the model of the Orc Slave Master, who appears in the first Human mission of Warcraft III. He was changed to be an anthropomorphic embodiment of the universe in Dota 2.
  • Animal Motif: Horses, notably the sound effect for Chaos Strike is a whinnying horse.
  • Anthropomorphic Personification: He is the "sentient expression" of Chaos.
  • Anti-Escape Mechanism: With a Manta Style and Phantasm, he can completely surround someone with himself. This is of course, a rather short term proposition since you're surrounded by Chaos Knights beating the hell out of you. And if they somehow do escape, he can pull them back in with Reality Rift, which also slows them to further reduce the probability of escape.
  • Arch-Enemy: The being known only as "The Light". Particularly its embodiment, the Keeper of the Light.
  • Black Knight: He even calls himself a knight in blackest armor.
  • Blood Knight: Chaos Knight revels in a good battle, which is more evident in his voice lines in Underlords.
  • Chaos Is Evil: He's Chaos itself, and it's implied that he brings the apocalypse itself to entire worlds in his hunt for "The Light".
  • Contractual Boss Immunity: Phantasm illusions are treated as Strong Illusions, which means they cannot be instantly killed by spells like Hex and Life Drain which normally destroy illusions instantly.
  • Cool Helmet
  • Dark Is Evil
  • Dumb Muscle: Chaos Knight's main weakness is his abysmal starting Intelligence and Intelligence growth, which means that his abilities can very quickly deplete his small mana pool.
  • Dynamic Entry: Reality Rift opens a wormhole which Chaos Knight and his illusions jump through and reduces the armor of the poor schmuck getting caught by it.
  • Elite Army: Phantasm illusions are much more powerful than any other illusions in the game at max level and immune to abilities that instantly kill illusions, but has an extremely long cooldown compared to other illusion-creating abilities. Phantasm use will often revolve around keeping them alive to do as much damage as possible instead of throwing them away in droves like other illusion heroes.
  • Entropy and Chaos Magic: Chaos Bolt launches a bolt of unholy energy which not even Chaos Knight can predict.
  • Evil Counterpart: To Sven. Both are knight heroes with similar kits (a stun, a mobility skill that manipulates armor, a damage-boosting passive ability, and an ultimate that multiplies their damage output), but while Sven is focused on dealing massive damage to multiple enemies by himself, Chaos Knight uses multiple copies of himself to quickly destroy single enemies. Lore-wise, Sven is an honorable warrior, while Chaos Knight is a force of destruction. This was even more evident in the original Defense of the Ancients mod, where Sven was a devotee to a god of Order.
  • Evil Sounds Deep
  • Expy: Some see him as a parallel, and he even makes a few references to the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, considering his ability to summon three copies of himself.
  • Fireball Eyeballs
  • Four-Fingered Hands
  • Glass Cannon: Phantasm illusions do just as much damage as he does when fully leveled, but take twice as much.
  • Hellish Horse: Armageddon, his undead mount.
  • Horsemen of the Apocalypse: His horse's name is Armageddon and he can summon three copies of himself.
  • Horse of a Different Color: He invokes this by referring to some other heroes' mounts as horses in some of his responses.
    Chaos Knight (to Mirana): "That is an ugly horse you ride."
    Chaos Knight (to Batrider): "You taught your horse to fly?"
  • Humanoid Abomination: It's hard to tell with the armor on, but Chaos Knight is composed solely of chaotic energy.
  • Improbable Weapon User: He calls his weapon a "cudgel", though it has one end curved into a hook and Spikes of Villainy on the opposite and perpendicular sides.
  • "Instant Death" Radius: Once his ultimate is up, the range of his Reality Rift basically becomes this, as he can immediately pull you into a beatdown, often one-shotting squishier enemies outright.
  • Irony: Despite being the embodiment of chaos, he hunts down Keeper of the Light for going rogue.
  • Life Drain: Upon proccing, Chaos Strike grants the triggering attack lifesteal.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Possesses one of the highest base movement speeds, and his Reality Rift lets him jump right into an enemy. Being a Strength hero, he has a lot of health, and Chaos Strike grants him a boost to his damage and survivability thanks to the critical hit and lifesteal it provides.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: With Spikes of Villainy on the edges and center.
  • Mechanically Unusual Class: Phantasm and Chaos Strike make Chaos Knight a hard carry with late-game scaling rivalling that of Spectre or Anti-Mage, but unlike other hard carries he is a very slow farmer with no creep-clearing ability, and none of the farming items (Hand of Midas, Battle Fury, Maelstrom and Radiance) are good on him. On the other hand, he is actually useful in early fights due to Chaos Bolt and Reality Rift, which means that while a typical hard carry has to spend the early game farming until they get their core items, Chaos Knight can and must stick with his team if he doesn't want to fall off in the late game.
  • Monster Knight: Outwardly, he has the horse and armour of a medieval knight, but under that armour he isn't even remotely human.
  • Mounted Combat: The only knight-themed hero (barring Chen) with a mount. He'll even mock the others for not having steeds of their own (barring Dragon Knight).
  • Names To Run Away From Very Fast: Apart from Chaos Knight himself, his horse is named Armageddon.
  • No Name Given: Though he was originally named "Nessaj" in DOTA.
  • Pet the Dog: Chaos Knight seems to show a fair bit of concern for his horse. Surprisingly, to Keeper of the Light as well, if they're on the same team.
  • Physical God: As one of the four Fundamentals.
  • Randomized Damage Attack: Chaos Knight's right-click attacks have the highest damage range in the game (30), and Chaos Bolt inflicts a random but inversely-related amount of damage and stun. Upgrading the spell increases both the maximum and minimum values of both the damage and stun, but there's still a big difference between a 275 damage skill that stuns for 2 seconds, and one that does 100 and stuns for 4. Chaos Strike is unique among critical hit abilities in that its damage multiplier varies per hit, ranging from a piddly 120% to a hefty 245% at maximum level.
  • Random Number God: As his name implies, there is a lot of randomness and chaos that comes along with using Chaos Knight. Chaos Bolt deals a random amount of damage and stun, Chaos Strike is a Critical Hit with a random damage bonus, and even his damage spread is the highest in the game!
  • Self-Duplication: Phantasm illusions are actually copies of the Chaos Knight from alternate dimensions. With Aghanim's Scepter, this effect applies to all of his allies.
  • Sentient Cosmic Force: Chaos Knight is the sentient manifestation of chaos.
  • Sinister Scythe: The Bone Splitter cosmetic weapon is a scythe.
  • Surprisingly Sudden Death: Getting caught by Reality Rift while Chaos Knight has Phantasm active effectively means instant death for squishier heroes, and potentially even not-so-squishy heroes if he gets lucky with Chaos Strike.
  • Time Abyss: Being a Fundamental, he is literally as old as creation.
  • Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: One of his cosmetic horses, Ataxia, has six legs.
  • Volcanic Veins
  • Worthy Opponent: Considers Dragon Knight one, and unlike the rest of the knight-themed characters, doesn't mock him for not having a mount. He does note his lack of a horse, but it seemed more out of concern than outright malice.
    Chaos Knight (after killing Dragon Knight): "You did need a steed, didn't you?"
  • You Will Not Evade Me: Reality Rift teleports a target and Chaos Knight to each other while slowing them. Worse still, if Chaos Knight has illusions nearby, they will also all teleport and automatically surround and attack the target. With a level 20 talent, he can even pull targets who are spell immune which normally blocks the skill.

    Valora, the Dawnbreaker 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dawnbreaker_icon.png
"Darkness fears the break of dawn!"
Voiced by: Alejandra Reynoso

The Children of Light were an organization dedicated to the Keeper of the Light and his mission to purge the universe of chaos and darkness. For this purpose, they built great armies, but their greatest creation was Valora, an artificial warrior forged from the heart of a star, armed with a mighty celestial hammer and the will to spread light to the darkest reaches of the cosmos. But outside of destroying the monsters of primordial darkness, Valora was tasked with finding a source of great power that the Children of the Light believed would allow them to permeate the whole universe with light and forever extinguish the forces of chaos. But when Valora set out to find this source, she was met with failure, and the Children of Light were completely wiped out in the aftermath of this disaster. Valora was left alone, powerless and dormant, drifting through space until she eventually came to a rest on this world and was buried. It was not until many millennia later when the Phoenix came to this world that she was reawoken, recharged by the power of a star forge from the time of the Children of Light that was reactivated by the arrival of the wandering star. Though she only has a fraction of her power left, Valora is still just as determined to spread justice and light where it is needed.

Dawnbreaker is a potent Strength hero who shines in the heart of battle, laying waste to her enemies with her mighty warhammer while simultaneously benefitting her allies. With her first ability Starbreaker, Valora spins her hammer around three times, dealing damage to enemies before leaping up and slamming her weapon into the ground to damage and stun all foes in front of her targeted direction. Dawnbreaker is also able to hurl her weapon using her second ability Celestial Hammer, damaging any enemies in its flight path before landing on the ground. After 2 seconds, the hammer flies back to Dawnbreaker, dealing damage again and leaving a brief trail of fire that slows enemies caught in it while also damaging them over time. Dawnbreaker is also able to use the sub-ability Converge to call her hammer back before the two seconds are up, causing her and her weapon to meet up in the middle and setting off the fiery path early. Valora's third ability, Luminosity, is a passive that activates on every fourth attack she makes (counting any attacks made using Starbreaker as well), dealing bonus damage while also healing nearby allies for a percentage of her damage. Finally, Dawnbreaker's ultimate is Solar Guardian. With it, Valora causes a targeted area around a teammate to pulse with solar energy that damages enemies and heals allies within it. After a 1.6 second channeling delay, Dawnbreaker leaps to the targeted location, stunning and damaging any foes in the circle. This ability has global cast range, allowing Dawnbreaker to enter a fight, take down enemies, and aid teammates from virtually anywhere on the map.


  • Action Girl: One of the few female strength heroes, and a great star-powered warrior created for the purpose of vanquishing evil and darkness.
  • Amicable Exes: She used to date Mars when he was known as Ares, and they had adventures together and she's even affectionally called 'Valor'. For unknown reasons, they broke up, but they are still fine with each other, and if they're pitted against each other, Dawnbreaker doesn't sound as vicious if she beats Mars.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Was on the receiving end of this courtesy of Io. Upon her failure, she was forced into dormancy for "untold millennia", while the Children of Light were utterly decimated.
  • Dynamic Entry: Solar Guardian has her leap to the battlefield where an ally is located and stunning nearby opponents on landing, and she can do it from any points of the map, akin of having a secondary Boots of Travel. If a teamfight breaks while she's far away, Dawnbreaker can enter that team fight in instant. This skill is often considered a first amongst Dota 2 history to work like similar skills in other MOBA (such as Pantheon's Grand Starfall or Athena's Defender of Olympus), except Dawnbreaker gets one extra perk for being in Dota 2: If she has enough gold and her ultimate is off cool down, she can simply die at the beginning of the teamfight after the enemies spent a good chunk of their resources to kill her, buys back and makes a Dynamic Entry right back to the same battlefield, as if giving her a second life like Wraith King's ultimate or getting an Aegis of the Immortal.
  • Good Old Fisticuffs: After using Celestial Hammer, she can still attack normally with her fists, but cannot use her skills until the hammer returns.
  • Light 'em Up: Except for Starbreaker, all of Valora's abilities involve light to some degree.
  • Light Is Good: The Children of Light made her for the purpose of helping with Keeper of the Light's mission of spreading light to the cosmos, destroying the forces of chaos pursuing him and eliminating the vile monsters of the primordial night like Night Stalker, and generally she acts more like a protector battlemaiden offering her services and protection when she can. And at least, she has none of Keeper of the Light's pervert attitude.
  • The Power of the Sun: She has elements of the sun amongst her light, much like Phoenix. It makes more sense when you realize that in this verse, it was the Keeper of the Light who created the suns.
  • Spin Attack: Starbreaker has Dawnbreaker spin her hammer around three times, hitting nearby enemies, before unleashing a final blow in front of her.
  • Summon to Hand: After using Celestial Hammer to throw her weapon, it will automatically fly back to Dawnbreaker after a few seconds, leaving a trail of fire which slows down enemies. She can also use Converge to manually recall it while also flying towards it herself, bringing her halfway between the hammer and her current location.
  • Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Dawnbreaker can use Celestial Hammer to throw her weapon. Thankfully, she can call it back to her with Converge, and it automatically flies back to her otherwise. Both travels of the hammer deal similar damage if it hits the enemy.
  • Valkyries: Her datamining codename is 'Valkyrie', and generally she evokes the heavenly 'Battle Maiden' that makes her looking more like those valkyries. She's also huge and ripped as an alternative of making her a Brawn Hilda and wielding a hammer is evocative to another figure from the same myth: Thor.

    Lucifer, the Doom 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Doom_Bringer_3903.png
Voiced by: John Patrick Lowrie

Once a highly favored angelic general from a realm of light, Lucifer was found guilty of insubordination and punished for his sin. His name was tolled from the Bell of Vashundol and his wings were repeatedly branded until they burned away, and then he was then cast out. He fell screaming from the heavens, landing in a desert crater on the earth below. Unable to ever return to home, Lucifer now wanders between this world and the Seven Hells, burning, consuming, and slaying all unfortunate enough to cross paths with him. Known and feared by all as the Doom, Lucifer lashes out his anger upon all who live on this world, bringing hell with him wherever he goes.

Doom is well-known for one thing: his ultimate ''Doom'', which is widely regarded to be the hardest disable in the game. Beyond that, however, he's a versatile Strength hero who only grows more powerful as the game goes on, thanks to the mechanics of his kit. With greed and appetite, Devour has him eat a creep, instantly last-hitting it and giving increased regeneration and optionally the abilities of the devoured creep, which affords Doom considerable versatility in-game. After a delay, the creep is fully digested, granting Doom bonus gold. In case anyone has the brilliant idea of fighting Doom, Scorched Earth brings hellfire to his surroundings, damaging enemies whilst speeding up Doom himself. As the game drags on and enemies gain more HP, Infernal Blade begins to live up to its namesake; as it is an autoattack modifier that applies a ministun on hit, then burns the target for a percentage of its max HP. And of course, his ultimate Doom applies a debuff to a target that causes them to take massive Pure damage per second, as well as silencing them for the duration. If Doom has Aghanim's Scepter, then his Doom will also disable passive abilities, as well as freezing the duration as long as Doom himself is in close proximity. Whilst slow, possessing a weak early game due to his long initial cooldowns and abysmal mana pool, left uncontained, Doom will be more than happy to bring his hellfire to the battlefield. And given the chance, he will make the bell of Vashundol toll five new names.

In Dota Underlords, Doom is a tier 4 hero. His ability, Doom, silences an enemy for 20 seconds, prevents them from using items, and deals heavy damage over time.


  • Achilles' Heel:
    • The only thing that can stop Doom's ultimate is a Linken's Sphere. While Doom can counter this by using a single-target ability (like the Mud Golem's Hurl Boulder or Warpine Raider's Seed Shot) on the target beforehand, this can make or break an initiation since the very first spell cast can change the entire dynamic of a teamfight, and giving the enemy that fraction of a second can give them a solid advantage. In addition, this prevents Doom access to jungle creeps without a single-target ability unless he builds an item with one in order to break the Spell Block.
    • Lotus Orb, especially in the hands of a fast-fingered player. Since Doom's cast point is so long, if the enemy manages to buff the Lotus Orb on a hero Doom is facing after blinking, Doom might end up getting hit by his own ultimate.
    • Illusion based heroes are also a problem for Doom, but Morphling is his biggest counter. Replicate illusions take normal damage and can easily fool an enemy Doom since he can replicate anybody of his team to bait the ultimate. Not only that, but Morphling players commonly buy Linken's Sphere, making them even more difficult to Doom since he has to worry about the Linkens and if the opponent in question is either real or just another Morphling replicate.
  • The All-Solving Hammer: Doom's ultimate is treated as a potential answer to any hero-based problem because it works. It's basically a death sentence for anyone caught unprepared, and timed right, can turn 5v5's into 4v5's, especially when paired with the level 25 talent which shuts down passive abilities as wellnote .
  • Anti-Regeneration: Doom's ultimate is one of the few skills in the game that nullifies any and all health regeneration and healing received by the afflicted enemy.
  • Boring, but Practical: Compared to the much flashier Shadow Demon and Shadow Fiend, Doom doesn't seem all that threatening. But leave him to his own devices and he'll shut you down so hard, you might as well not bother.
  • BFS: Downplayed. While his sword is big enough to give him longer range than other melee heroes, Doom is pretty tall himself, and as a result the sword isn't quite oversized.
  • Big Red Devil: Large size, big horns, red skin, bat wings and hooves. Doom definitely fits this trope.
  • Cannibalism Superpower: His first ability, Devour, instantly kills the target creep and gives him bonus gold and whatever abilities it has.
  • Crack Defeat: Since Doom has an absolutely shitty early-game, most will take advantage of this by stomping him into the dirt, then promptly ignore him for a good 20 minutes or so, until he returns with several major items and proceeds to return the favour. Hard.
  • Cursed with Awesome: His punishment in his backstory is the source of his power.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Using Devour, as the creep abilities and auras can be extremely useful in the right situations. Devouring certain creeps can give you powerful jungling capability, devouring others can give you clutch abilities to use in teamfights such as purges and disables, and devouring still others can give you massive damage output for yourself and your team.
  • Doomy Dooms of Doom: Taken to its logical extreme with his ultimate, Doom.
  • Dumb Muscle: Doom is tied with Phantom Assassin, Troll Warlord and Lone Druid for having the lowest base Intelligence in the game. His mana pool is a measly 206 points at level 1, which only allows him to cast a few spells before running completely dry.
  • Evil Is Hammy: Is he ever. This is especially prevalent when using his ult or getting kills. Him screaming "YOU'RE DOOMED" at the top of his lungs is damn near impossible to miss, which is good for his team, as it's a sign some poor schmuck just got disabled for 15 seconds.
  • Evil Overlord: Lorewise, he is the most powerful demon of the Doom, Shadow Fiend, and Shadow Demon trio.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Has easily one of the most impressively deep voices in the game.
  • Fallen Hero
  • Fire and Brimstone Hell: He comes from one.
  • Fixed Damage Attack: Doom does pure damage, and penetrates magic immunity.
  • Flaming Sword: Which he puts to good use with the Infernal Blade ability.
  • Foil: To Bane. Bane is a Squishy Wizard who specializes in disabling carries and tanks. Doom is a tank (with some carry potential in the late game) who specializes in disabling casters.
  • Genius Bruiser: Despite being tied for lowest base intelligence, he has the sixth-highest Intelligence growth of all Strength heroes in the game (and ties with or beats all Agility heroes except Sniper). So once he gets a few levels in lane, his mana pool becomes somewhat more manageable.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: Literally.
  • Hellfire: His second ability, Scorched Earth, surrounds him with an aura of fire which boosts his movement speed and damages nearby enemies.
  • Hell on Earth: Scorched Earth is this on a smaller scale.
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: One of Doom's level 25 talents grants him 150% cleave.
  • Horned Humanoid: Two horns, in this case.
  • Hyperactive Metabolism: Eating a creep with Devour grants armor while digesting (as well as magic resistance with a talent).
  • Informed Equipment: Doom has extremely low Agility and one of the lowest base armor amounts in the game despite having the most visible armor on his in-game model. On the other hand, he's about as slow as you'd expect a giant demon wearing heavy armor to be.
  • Instrumental Weapon: Doom's Immortal weapon Soul Shredder is both an axe and a guitar at the same time, and comes packaged with a taunt in which Doom uses it to play music.
  • Item Caddy: Like Nature's Prophet and Alchemist, good Doom play revolves around using his abilities to get as much farm as possible, and turn it into powerful game-changing items. Devour lets him farm a Hand of Midas relatively quickly by accelerating his gold gain, and combined the two can let him snowball out of control if left alone.
  • Jack of All Stats: Because of his skill set (particularly his ability to get bonus XP and gold outside of farming, use any creep ability, and guaranteed put any enemy out of a fight for at least 15 seconds), Doom can be reliably put on any position (except hard support). His high base damage allows him to mid fairly decently and use the early levels to Doom enemies extremely early in the game which allow him to snowball, but he can also play as the safe lane hard carry and supplement his gold and XP gain in his team's jungle every time Devour is off cooldown, or get solo experience in the off lane (also supplementing his gold and XP gain in the nearby hard camp with Devour) and have an escape ability in Scorched Earth, or even roam, jungle and support if he consumes a creep with a good disable. Played as a carry Doom can stand in the middle of teamfights and beat the enemy down with his gold advantage, and played as a utility support he can easily farm up the support items his team needs and still turn any fight into a 4v5 with his ultimate.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Scorched Earth provides a movement speed bonus. If combined with a Kobold Foreman's Speed Aura or speed boosting items like Yasha, Doom can move pretty quickly, while his farming capabilities also allow him to buy all the items he needs to give himself extra attack speed.
  • Logical Weakness: One small weakness with Devour is that Doom only gets the gold bonus once he finishes digesting the creep. So, if he's killed while he's chewing it, not only does he lose unreliable gold due to the death, but he also loses the bonus gold from Devour.
  • Loot-Making Attack: Devour gives Doom bonus unreliable gold with every creep he eats after a short delay. It's one of reasons why Doom can be dangerous to leave alone to farm by himself despite the rest of his skill set, since if he can farm an early Hand of Midas, he can get out of control with his XP and gold gain.
  • Magic Knight: Despite being a Strength hero with respectable right-click damage, Doom is held back by his glacial attack speednote . However, he also packs a tremendous amount of magic damage and can also add more spells to his arsenal with Devour. Plus, he has Doom.
  • Magikarp Power: Early on, Doom's barely better than a jungle creep, and often worse, and is only good for getting his face punched in thanks to his literally nonexistant armor. Later on however, Doom is really good at being punched in the face and ignoring it, can shut down any one or two enemy heroes and promptly force them out of the fight, and be carrying enough auras to let regular creeps beat mega creeps.
  • Menacing Stroll: His default gait is a measured, Terminator-esque walk. Due to his size, it still allows him to keep pace with most heroes in the game.
  • Mighty Glacier: Doom's extremely low base Agility and growth and his incredibly slow base attack time mean that unless he stacks loads of attack speed items, he's going to be hitting very slowly. This also means that he has very little base armor and thus, despite his huge Strength growth, he's quite easily brought down without any armor items. But once he has farmed enough items with Devour and Hand of Midas, he's nearly impossible to bring down without resorting to magic nukes, which a Black King Bar, Hood of Defiance, Pipe of Insight or Linken's Sphere can easily nullify.
  • Mini Mook: If Doom dies with a Mud Golem (whose passive ability Shard Split causes it to split into 2 smaller Shard Golems when killed) devoured, he will split into two Doom Shards that can wear his cosmetic items, use the Shard Golem's Hurl Boulder ability and last 60 seconds exactly as normal Shard Golems.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Lucifer" and "Doom". Either one counts.
  • Number of the Beast: Referred several times in his backstory. He even got a major buff in patch 6.66!!
  • Oddly Shaped Sword
  • Onehanded Zweihander: Despite the size of his sword, Doom has no problem wielding or swinging it with one hand alone.
  • Obviously Evil
  • Obvious Rule Patch: 7.22 caps the level of creeps that Doom can Devour on each level of the ability. As this was after Devour was reworked to give health regeneration, the change prevents Doom from simply eating a Satyr Tormentor at level 1 and becoming nearly un-harassable with Dragon Knight levels of regen.
  • Playing with Fire: Scorched Earth burns the ground around Doom, and Infernal Blade wreath his sword in hellfire.
  • Percent Damage Attack: Infernal Blade burns away a percentage of the victim's health each second for its duration.
  • Power Nullifier: His ultimate, Doom, is a silence that also prevents healing, removes most of the target's positive buffs, all on top of inflicting damage over time, lasts extremely long (16 seconds) compared to similar hard disables like stuns or hexes while also completely ignoring debuff immmunity and can't be dispelled by any means whatsoever. Doom is universally regarded as one of the hardest disables in the game (if not the hardest), and it's often joked that it counters every single hero in the game because of this. It doesn't innately break passives, but that's where his level 25 talent comes in, shutting down their passives as well. Even buying a Linken's Sphere won't necessarily help you, as Doom can buy an Aghanim's Scepter to turn himself into a Walking Wasteland and have the Doom effect being applied to anyone close to him without needing to target them (it also has this effect on any enemy target as well, forcing the enemy team to run away from a now-vulnerable teammate). This leaves enemies with either the option of attempting to escape Doom and possibly dying anyway, or a desperate attempt to use their right-clicks to fight back, which rarely works against him if he has enough armor.
  • The Right Hand of Doom: Doom's Immortal item Zeal of Omoz Arkosh is a hideous (if not too blatantly grotesque) left hand. It even features a gaping mouth on his left forearm.
  • Satan: In line with Whole-Plot Reference, Doom's name is Lucifer.
  • See You in Hell: To any heroes he killed:
  • Shout-Out: Aside from being based on the Biblical Lucifer, Doom is a big shout-out to Final Fantasy:
    • His ability to copy neutral creep abilities by eating them is pretty much lifted directly from Final Fantasy IX's Quina, who in turn is based on the recurring Blue Mage class.
    • Before 6.86 patch he also had the skill LVL? Death, a spell in Final Fantasy series.
    • His ultimate, Doom is coming from Final Fantasy VIII although the mechanics are different.
  • Situational Damage Attack: If Doom has Aghanim's Shard, Infernal Blade deals an additional 150 damage and stuns for longer if the enemy's level is a multiple of 3 or above 24.
  • Skull for a Head: Apparently that's how he looks under the helmet.
  • Sophisticated as Hell: A large number of his less sophisticated lines actually use the term "hell".
  • Spell Blade: Infernal Blade allows his attacks to burn away a portion of the target's health every second for a short duration. It also scales with the target's max HP, meaning beefing yourself up will only make it hurt more.
  • Sudden Name Change: He was known as Lucifer the Doom Bringer in the original DotA, and was initially called Doom Bringer in Dota 2 before having his name shortened to Doom.
  • Tin Tyrant: In the Low-Violence mode.
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Doom's ultimate is often treated (fairly justifiably) as the solution to any teamfight problem, casting it on the most threatening enemy target (or the one with the most active abilities and teamfight items) to put them out of the fight, regardless of circumstances. Having trouble dealing with a farmed Phantom Assassin? Get his level 25 talent and Doom her to render her entirely useless. The Omniknight with the Mekansm, Crimson Guard and Pipe of Insight making it extremely hard to kill his teammates? Doom him and he can't use those items or cast his spells, making his teammates much squishier. That squishy Weaver with a Linken Sphere to block your ultimate? Get an Aghanim's Scepter and use Doom to yourself so that enemies within your presence will suffer from the effects of being doomed, Linkens be damned.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: Does his Back Story seem familiar? It should.
  • Wings Do Nothing: He has wings in the original DotA. Justified in Dota 2 where it was even described in his Back Story as only smoking stumps remaining.
  • You Are Already Dead: Killed or gotten away from Doom after he hits you with his titular spell? Check your health bar. Doom might just deal enough damage to finish you off and you can't try to heal your way through it nor mitigate it with a cheap Cloak or BKB due to dealing Pure damage that pierces through Debuff Immunity. And you can't even ask your teammate to kill you either as Doom doesn't allow one to Mercy Kill someone out of their misery.

    Davion, the Dragon Knight 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Dragon_Knight_1728.png
Voiced by: Tony Todd

Sir Davion was once a dragonslayer who had spent years tracking down a notorious Eldwurm known as Slyrak. By the time he had found his quarry, the legendary Slyrak had fallen prey to the ravages of age and disease, and Davion chose to let the now harmless dragon die in peace. As he prepared to leave, Davion heard the once-feared dragon beg for an honorable death. Agreeing to the dragon's request, Davion stabbed Slyrak's chest with his blade, but in that exact moment, the dragon pierced the knight's throat with its claws. As their blood flowed out and mixed together, Slyrak transferred his strength and wisdom to Davion through the Blood Route, sealing the ritual with his own death and transforming Davion into the Dragon Knight, a warrior able to to call upon the power of the Eldwurms whenever he wished.

Dragon Knight's durability and strength is rivalled only by a handful of other heroes, and few of them can outfight a well-played Davion on the offensive. Unlike other melee carries who are vulnerable in the early game, Dragon Knight can mitigate this weakness with his passive skill Dragon Blood, giving him a permanent armor boost as well as buff to his natural health regeneration, meaning that he can farm with impunity for much of the early game. His two main damaging spells are Breathe Fire, which deals magic damage in a line and inflicts the breath effects of Elder Dragon Form, and Dragon Tail, a Shield Bash that stuns an enemy in melee range. Dragon Knight's real offensive power lies with his ultimate, Elder Dragon Form. Activating this spell temporarily turns the knight into a powerful dragon for sixty seconds, temporarily boosting damage, turning his basic attacks and Dragon Tail ranged, and giving his attacks a temporary attack modifier which transitions from early game pushing power to late game teamfight dominance as he levels the ability, giving Dragon Knight ample time to tear his enemies apart. As the spell levels up, Dragon Knight will alter his Dragon Form into one of three variants, each getting more powerful and adding more debuffs as he levels it up. The first is a green dragon with Corrosive Breath, which causes poison damage over time. His second form is a red dragon with a splash attack that deals damage to everyone around him, and keeps Corrosive Breath in this form as well. His third form, a blue dragon, keeps his splash attack and poison damage and adds a slow effect that hits all enemies in the splash radius. Aghanim's Scepter allows him to access a fourth form, a black dragon with greater poison, splash, and slow powers, as well as increased range and great magic resistance.

In Dota Underlords, Dragon Knight is a tier 4 hero. His ability, Breathe Fire, emits a wave of fire that damages foes and temporarily lowers their damage. His Dragon alliance bonus ability, Elder Dragon Form, causes him to transform into a ranged dragon at the start of each round, with new effects depending on his level: the Green Dragon poisons his attack target, the Red Dragon gains splash damage, and the Blue Dragon slows the movement and attacks of hit enemies.


  • Achilles' Heel: Dragon Knight is very dependent on Elder Dragon Form to perform well, meaning he's only online half the time and making Aegis and buyback minimally effective—it's usually a better idea for Dragon Knight to take Cheese while leaving the Aegis to a teammate.
  • Adaptation Name Change: In the original DotA, Dragon Knight's name in Elder Dragon Form was Arc Honist. In Dota 2, he's called Davion in both human and dragon forms, and the dragon that serves as his Elder Dragon Form is now named Slyrak.
  • Ambiguously Brown: Not very easy to see under his helmet, nor most of his earlier cosmetics, but it's more notable with his later sets which have more open-faced helmets.
  • Anti-Magic: His black dragon form gains a large bonus to magic resistance.
  • Anti-Structure: The damage over time from Elder Dragon Form works on buildings. It's not much on paper, but since buildings have no magic resistance and do not regenerate health (except melee barracks and the Ancient), it quickly adds up.
    • While Davion is marked as a Pusher, he's a decidedly unusual one when it comes to handling structures. While most tower killers have some ability that either reduces tower armor, deals high damage to them directly, or summons units to Zerg Rush them, Davion doesn't really have any of the above (Elder Dragon Form gives him damage over time against them, but as mentioned, the damage is very minor) - what he does have is extreme durability with Dragon Blood, letting him push towers by being tankier than the tower and just hitting it until it collapses.
  • Baritone of Strength: He's voiced by a horror alumnus who brings his deep-voiced usually scary vocal chord to voice this badass dragon knight, whose voice becomes even deeper when he goes full dragon.
  • Boring, but Practical: Besides Elder Dragon Form none of his abilities are very flashy, two simple straightforward targetted spells and a defense boost, yet they're highly effective, and can even see him through mid-lane against the usually ranged opposition with far more fancier spells to boot.
  • Blood Magic: Slyrak transferred his powers and mind into Davion via mixing their blood.
  • Breath Weapon: He can use Breathe Fire to breathe cones of fire to burn his enemies, and Aghanim's Shard allows him to ignite a large area of ground with his dragon breath using Fireball. In dragon form, he attacks using poison/fire/frost breath instead of his sword.
  • By the Lights of Their Eyes: His eyes appear to glow from under his helmet.
  • Cast from Hit Points: While he has no abilities that do this naturally, Dragon Knight's high regeneration leads to picking up items that let him do this, such as a Soul Ring to dominate lanes and being one of the few heroes who can justify using Armlet of Mordiggian without any form of Lifesteal.
  • Cool Helmet
  • Cool Sword: With many variations from cosmetic items.
  • Disc-One Nuke: Dragon Tail while being absolutely worthless as a nuke, is incredibly powerful as a stun, with a full 2.5-second duration from level one. Comboing Dragon Tail with a more easily-landed stun such as Telekinesis or Wraithfire Blast, or especially with a tricky-to-land move like Leshrac's Split Earth can earn a first blood.
  • Dragon Knight: Sir Davion is a knight with dragon-like abilities thanks to receiving Slyrak's blood. As a result, he can breathe fire, regenerate more quickly, and even turn into a full-fledged dragon.
  • Enemy Mine: Davion seems to have this going on with Jakiro, as even if Jakiro is a dragon, they don't seem to like each other much. They don't have any ally lines either. Although Jakiro seems to act shocked whenever Davion kills him.
  • Eyeless Face: With the Kindred of the Iron Dragon cosmetic item, the model of Elder Dragon Form is turned into an eyeless, armoured iron dragon.
  • Fusion Dance: Between Davion and Slyrak.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: No matter what element his dragon form's normal Breath Weapon takes, Breathe Fire always breathes fire and applies the debuffs of his Elder Dragon Form, which in turn leads to him somehow freezing people by breathing fire at them.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: Must be a side effect of the dragon blood.
  • Healing Factor: Dragon Blood gives Dragon Knight a significant boost to his health regeneration.
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: When Elder Dragon Form reaches level 2, Davion's attacks in dragon form will deal splash damage in a small radius (a little more than twice melee range).
  • He Who Fights Monsters: He seems quite protective of dragons for a dragon hunter, probably absorbing a part of Slyrak's personality.
  • Knightly Sword and Shield: Befitting an honorable knight, Davion wields a sword and shield in battle in his human form.
  • An Ice Person: When Elder Dragon Form is maxed, the level 3 Blue Dragon's attacks also slow enemies' movement and attack speed.
  • Lightning Bruiser: In Elder Dragon Form, Davion gets a significant bonus to movement speed and his attacks become much more potent, inflicting damage over time and becoming ranged along with splash damage and an area-of-effect slow at higher levels, all while being as extremely bulky as he was in human form. His black dragon form with Aghanim's Scepter even boasts flying movement and resistance to disables, making him extremely destructive.
  • Little Useless Gun: His sword is practically the sword equivalent, being a short, one-handed sword of reasonable proportions as opposed to other Strength heroes using much larger and bulkier weapons, which could be the reason for his pitiful base damage.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: He's one of the game's few heroes with a shield and one of, if not the toughest.
  • Made of Iron: All but the most deadly physical damage dealers find dealing with him a chore, as he has a long-duration stun, ranged slow, base damage reduction on his nuke, and can easily have 75% physical damage resistance almost solely from Dragon Blood. And then he gets evasion, a Black King Bar, and takes the double Dragon Blood bonus talent...
  • Mighty Glacier: Dragon Knight is incredibly durable with natural stat growth and Dragon Blood, and can deal quite a punch in teamfights thanks to Elder Dragon Form's splash damage. However, he has no real mobility aside from a small speed boost from Elder Dragon Form. Of course, he also has plenty of ways to make the other guy slower than him to compensate, and Shadow Blade and Blink Dagger are always options.
  • Monster Knight
  • Named Weapons: His default weapon is named Wyrmblade.
  • Non-Standard Skill Learning: Unlike other heroes, Davion's ultimate has four levels, but only the first three can be learned normally; the fourth is only available by purchasing Aghanim's Scepter.
  • Our Dragons Are Different
  • Playing with Fire: Davion can breathe cones of fire with his first ability Breathe Fire.
  • Poisonous Person: In Elder Dragon Form, Dragon Knight's right-click attacks deal additional damage over time.
  • Power Echoes: His voice gains an echo while in Elder Dragon Form.
  • Power Gives You Wings: With the Kindred of the Iron Dragon cosmetic item, Davion briefly gains a pair of transparent red wings when using Dragon Tail.
  • Power Limiter: Breathe Fire reduces the base damage of its targets, making it difficult for Dragon Knight's lane opponent to last hit and supplementing his tremendous physical damage resistance.
  • Power Makes Your Voice Deep: Dragon Knight's voice in his Elder Dragon Form is deeper and has more echo than his original voice.
  • The Power of Blood: Used by Slyrak to give his power to Davion.
  • Power Up Letdown: In previous versions, only the first level of Elder Dragon Form had Corrosive Breath. Since Corrosive Breath affects buildings, players would often delay upgrading Dragon Knight's ultimate past Level 1 for the sake of keeping the excellent tower-killing power of the green dragon. Thankfully, Patch 6.78 let the red dragon keep Corrosive Breath, and 6.83 finally let him keep it no matter how many points the skill had.
  • Really Gets Around: He's taken more than one bar maiden to bed after a hard day's killing.
  • Retcon: Dragon's Blood changes the context behind the Mercy Kill Davion was planning to deliver to Slyrak, going from a dragon dying of age and disease to ending his suffering after he's mortally wounded during a battle against a dragon possessed by Terrorblade.
  • Scaled Up: His ultimate ability transforms him from a human into a powerful dragon.
  • Shield Bash: When Dragon Knight uses Dragon Tail in his human form, he uses his shield to stun the target.
  • Simple, yet Awesome: Dragon Knight is a very simple strength carry, who nonetheless is potent throughout most stages of the game. Valve themselves picked up on this, and Dragon Knight is used in the tutorial system to introduce players to Dota.
  • Stone Wall: In human form, he lacks any actual damage-increasing skills, but pulling him down before he does so to you is nevertheless very difficult. His level 25 talent can double the effect of Dragon Blood however, making him super tanky.
  • Super Mode: Elder Dragon Form turns him to a dragon with higher movespeed, ranged attack and stun, and a free orb effect. At max level with Aghanim's Scepter, he becomes even stronger, gaining improved abilities, resistance to disables, and the ability to fly over terrain.
  • Super-Toughness: He has great base armor, and Dragon Blood gives him absurd amounts of armor and HP regen, before he even starts getting items. It's not uncommon for Dragon Knight to have over 70% resistance to physical damage without any armor items, making him nigh-invincible in direct combat.
  • Tail Slap: When Elder Dragon Form is active, Dragon Tail becomes this trope.
  • Transformation Is a Free Action: Like Davion's other spells, Elder Dragon Form has no cast time, letting him transform instantly.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: Into elder dragon Slyrak.
  • You Have Researched Breathing: Dragon Knight's dragon form has wings and allows him to fly, but he needs max level Elder Dragon Form and an Aghanim's Scepter in order to actually fly over terrain.

    Kaolin, the Earth Spirit 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/earth_spirit_2079.png
Voiced by: Nolan North

Once a great general, the late Kaolin was immortalized in the form of a jade statue in his likeness leading an army composed of thousands of stone statues. These sculptures were left buried for thousands of years in the depths of the earth, but what nobody knew was that the great vein of jade used to create Kaolin's statue contained the spirit of the Earth itself, a Celestial who embodied the planet's life force. Cut off from the planet's life flow, the spirit inhabiting the statue of Kaolin took control of its new body, and over the course of a thousand years, it gathered its strength and dug its way to freedom. The reborn Kaolin now patrols the lands, fighting as a benevolent guardian of the earth and calling his stone army forth from the soil when needed.

Earth Spirit is a support hero with a wide array of disables in all of his basic abilities. Unlike most heroes, his abilities revolve around an innate ability, Stone Remnant, which allows him to place statues that can be used to augment his abilities. Using his abilities in tandem with these remnants, Earth Spirit can slow enemies with Boulder Smash, stun them and initiate with Rolling Boulder, and silence them with Geomagnetic Grip. His ultimate, Magnetize, inflicts nearby enemies with a damage over time debuff, and allows him to spread the slow and silence from his abilities to other nearby enemies while refreshing the debuff duration by using his Stone Remnants, stopping entire groups of enemies in their tracks. With good timing and skill he can initiate fights from a distance, and given the right circumstances can deal a surprising amount of damage to both single and multiple targets, all the while disrupting enemy positioning allowing for easy kills.


  • Adaptation Name Change: In the original DotA, Earth Spirit's innate skill was named Stone Caller, which creates a 'unit' named Stone Rock. In the transition to Dota 2, both are now called Stone Remnant, to fit with the Spirit heroes' Theme Naming.
  • Adaptation Species Change: In the original DotA Kaolin was a Pandaren, but this had to be changed for Dota 2 as Pandaren are owned by Blizzard.
  • Anti-Escape Mechanism: Earth Spirit is one of only two heroes in the game with both a stun and a silence (Puck being the other), and can cast both in an AoE. Toss in Boulder Smash's slow with the Stone Remnant, and he has a huge amount of disable potential, to say nothing of being able to apply the slow and silence to possibly the whole enemy team. Rolling Boulder can be used to catch up to fleeing enemies easily (and stun them down with a Stone Remnant). And because it places Earth Spirit on the other side of the target, it can then be followed up with Boulder Smash to force them back in the direction they were fleeing, most often where your other teammates are.
  • Ascended Meme: One of Earth Spirit's responses when meeting an allied Spirit Breaker is this:
  • As the Good Book Says...: Upon death, he can sometimes say "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
  • Black Mage: Earth Spirit's Intelligence growth is the third-highest amongst Strength heroes and fourth-highest amongst non-Intelligence heroes (only beaten by Bristleback, Sniper and Undying). Despite being a Strength hero, he is rather fragile and weak in direct combat, but all four of his skills can be a thorn in the opponent's side if used properly.
  • Body Horror: The ability lore for Magnetize has some pretty frightening implications.
    At the Earth Spirit’s call, the minerals in the blood and bones of his enemies rebel against the bodies they find themselves in.
  • Damage Over Time: His ultimate, Magnetize, deals heavy damage over time for 6 seconds, and its duration is refreshed each time an enemy comes in proximity of a Stone Remnant (on top of applying the debuff to other nearby enemies at the same time), allowing for over 30 seconds of continuous magical damage.
  • Defog of War: A Stone Remnant provides ground vision itself after Earth Spirit purchases Aghanim's Shard.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: All of his skills require management of your stone supply (it takes three minutes to build up a full 6-stone supply from scratch), very precise and careful positioning, lining up the shots, and chaining your combos. In particular, Boulder Smash requires exquisite aiming since, if you stand just a few pixels in a different angle away from a non-Remnant target move your mouse cursor even a few pixels off-course when kicking a Remnant, you can end up hitting the target in a completely different direction. In addition, initiating with Rolling Boulder can be extremely punishing since it will only stop when colliding with a hero, meaning that missing can send you way beyond your target and potentially feed the enemy a kill. However, masterful Earth Spirits can stun from long range, snipe escaping enemy heroes and give teammates additional initiation power using Boulder Smash; initiate or escape up or down cliffs and stop fleeing enemy heroes in their tracks with Rolling Boulder; save allies from pursuing enemies or silence an entire enemy team with Geomagnetic Grip; and unleash an astonishing amount of magical damage, debuffs and disables on the whole enemy team using all of the above combined with Magnetize. His pub winrate is consistently extremely low (as people with no idea of how he works try him and fail repeatedly), but he is a very effective hero to boost MMR for people who can play him, and he has remained a consistently solid pro pick since his introduction into Captains Mode despite a memetic status as a hero that only gets repeatedly nerfed and never buffed.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: He can summon stone sculptures from the earth and manipulate them.
  • Dynamic Entry: Rolling Boulder combined with a Stone Remnant lets him charge onto an enemy, damaging and stunning them on impact. It's the third longest ranged non-ulti initiating ability in the game (beat out by Spirit Breaker's Charge of Darkness and Puck's Illusory Orb). Boulder Smash can be used on allies for the same purpose.
  • Face of a Thug: Looks rather mean, but is actually a nice guy.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: His backstory is strongly based on the famous Terracotta Army of Ancient China.
  • Fastball Special: Cast on an ally, Boulder Smash can be used for initiation purposes (800 range is farther than a Force Staff can push). Cast on Stone Remnants, it can be used to snipe (as they get more than double the range) and stun enemies.
  • Genius Bruiser: While his base Intelligence is rather mediocre, Kaolin ties with Timbersaw for having the third-highest Intelligence growth of all Strength heroes (beat out by Bristleback and Undying), and also beats all Agility heroes in this category save Sniper. Combined with the comparatively low mana cost of his spells and the low cooldown on all but his ulti, late game he can cast his spells as often as needed so long as he has the Stone Remnants to back it up.
  • Glowing Eyes
  • Grievous Harm with a Body: Boulder Smash will damage all enemies that the smashed unit passes through, whether the smashed unit is friendly or enemy. Geomagnetic Grip can only be used on Stone Remnants and allies, but can be combined with Boulder Smash using a single Stone Remnant or friendly unit.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: One under-appreciated aspect of Boulder Smash is that it can be used to save allies in situations where you and a teammate are being chased down by the enemy team. Since it can be used to push the target in a certain direction, you can cast it to knock an ally up/down a cliff or further towards safety, giving yourself the enemy's undivided attention. Luckily, Earth Spirit also has Rolling Boulder to move himself as well.
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: Both Boulder Smash and Geomagnetic Grip can be used to slow and silence enemies in a very large area of effect (Geomagnetic Grip is the longest ranged non-ultimate silence), meaning that with good aim and crafty positioning it is possible to apply the stun or silence to most of the enemy team. Additionally, since Magnetize allows Kaolin to place the slow and silence debuffs from his abilities on all Magnetized heroes, you can slow and silence the entire enemy team. Oh, Crap! indeed.
  • Improvised Weapon:
    • The Stone Remnants are only consumed when used for Rolling Boulder and Magnetize, and in the latter case stays on the field for 5 seconds after applying the Magnetize debuff on nearby enemies. This means that a Stone Remnant that you used for a spell up to two minutes earlier will stay on the field, allowing crafty Earth Spirits to use them multiple times and in multiple teamfights long after the enemy has forgotten about them.
    • Boulder Smash can be cast on both enemies and allies, and Geomagnetic Grip can be cast on allies (including creeps). This means that not only can you improvise using leftover Stone Remnants, you can use nearby creeps to lay extra damage down with Boulder Smash.
  • Kung-Fu Wizard: Though he's a melee Strength hero, Earth Spirit's right-click attacks are weak and he relies mostly on his spells in a fight.
  • Limited Loadout: The most unique aspect of Earth Spirit gameplay is that you have to be extremely careful with your Stone Remnant supply, as opposed to your mana pool, because using too many of them in small skirmishes and ganks can render you useless in a major teamfight. This means that you may be forced to let a fleeing enemy escape just to conserve a Stone Remnant, since you'll need that Stone Remnant to pull off your full combo on the enemy team later. Much of the value in his Aghanim's upgrade isn't that you're moving your allies or enemies around, but simply because it's another remnant on its own separate cooldown.
  • Living Statue: A Celestial possessing a statue.
  • Meaningful Name: Derived from "kaolinite", a white clay mineral used in the making of porcelain and to provide the gloss on magazine paper.
  • Non-Standard Skill Learning: Earth Spirit is one of the only heroes in the game that has an "innate" skill; Stone Remnant becomes available at the start of the game along with one other (normal) skill but can't be levelled further. Stone Remnant is useless by itself and must be used in tandem with his other skills to form strong combos.
  • Power Trio: He forms one with Storm Spirit and Ember Spirit.
  • Punched Across the Room: Boulder Smash can be targeted on any kind of unit, enemies and allies and creeps and heroes alike, as well as on Stone Remnants. It can be used on enemies to either force them away (useful in the case of a melee carry) or to push them towards your teammates to beat down on.
  • Rock Monster: He's a spirit that inhabits a stone statue.
  • Rolling Attack: Rolling Boulder turns Kaolin into a boulder that picks up speed and distance if he hits a Stone Remnant along the way. It stops only when it reaches its full distance or it connects with an enemy hero, stunning the enemy if a Stone Remnant is used. What's more, it stops Kaolin on the opposite side of the impact, meaning that you're in a prime position to use Boulder Smash to punch the enemy hero back the way you came from.
  • Selective Magnetism: He can magnetize enemies to the ground or pull rocks and allies toward him.
  • Some Dexterity Required: Earth Spirit is a high APM hero, as his skills are very low cooldown and you may need to summon multiple Stone Remnants in the midst of a teamfight to keep your combo going (all while casting your spells), to say nothing of re-using old Stone Remnants and factoring in item abilities.
  • Synchronization: Magnetize passes on slows and silences from Rolling Boulder and Geomagnetic Grip, respectively, to all Magnetized heroes when one is affected by it. With maximum level Rolling Boulder and enough Stone Remnants, it's possible to apply an 80% movement speed slow on the entire enemy team half the time, even though Rolling Boulder can only hit one target at a time.
  • Taken for Granite: Enchant Remnant, an extra ability that is granted when Earth Spirit purchases Aghanim's Scepter, temporarily turns a target hero into a Stone Remnant (making them invulnerable in the process) that can be used to fuel his other abilities. What's so notable about it is that it can be cast on enemy heroes as well as allies, which can allow Earth Spirit not only to stop an enemy hero in their tracks, but also to reposition them like a Stone Remnant and effectively remove them from a teamfight or greatly displace them in a gank.
  • Telephone Polearm: His weapon is a rock pole twice his height with a flexible midsection, allowing the use as giant nunchucks (although he never uses them that way when actually attacking).
  • Too Awesome to Use: Stone Remnants can be this, since you might use them all only to need them later.
  • You Will Not Evade Me: Geomagnetic Grip can be used to pull an enemy hero towards Earth Spirit in conjunction with Enchant Remnant and Aether Lens (without the latter the range of Enchant Remnant is a pitiful 125).

    Raigor Stonehoof, the Earthshaker 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/earthshaker_3029.png
Voiced by: John Patrick Lowrie

Deep underground, an immortal spirit of the earth slumbered restlessly. From within its earthen tomb, it sensed the living beings who walked the surface and desired to learn more about them. When a series of powerful earthquakes struck the lands of Nishai, the spirit was freed from its prison and able to come to the surface. As the dust settled, the spirit created itself a body in the shape of a mortal beast with which to explore the surface world and gave itself the name Raigor Stonehoof. Storing his immortal essence in a magical totem of Nishian origin, the now-mortal Earthshaker sets out to experience life on Earth.

Earthshaker is a melee support and initiator hero who flattens his foes with an arsenal of ground-themed nukes and spells. Excelling at area-of-effect damage, his spells suffer from long casting animations but more than make up for it with their raw damage potential and the potential to stun any foe unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of his power. His first spell,Fissure, sends out a line of earth in a huge radius and stuns anyone who is caught in the blast, and can block off escape routes and knock dangerous foes out of a team fight. His second spell, Enchant Totem, will temporarily boost his auto attack damage to finish off any survivors. Aftershock gives all of his abilities bonus damage and very small -ranged area-of-effect stuns - which synchronizes well with Enchant Totem - and his ultimate, Echo Slam, has Earthshaker instantly slam his totem down on the ground, sending out a massive shockwave that deals damage to all enemies caught in its radius based on how many enemies were hit, with non-illusion heroes counting twice. No matter how overwhelming the odds might seem, a good Earthshaker can quickly level any playing field and leave his opponents eating dirt.

In Artifact, Earthshaker is a blue hero with the Active Ability Fissure, which stuns his neighbors for one round, and the signature card Echo Slam, a spell which hits all enemies and deals damage equal to the number of targets.


  • Adaptation Species Change: He was a Tauren in the first DotA; this was changed into a more ambiguous gorilla-bull hybrid for the remake for copyright reasons.
  • Ascended Meme: Raigor's ultimate is often called "dunk" by players or caster, or even himself... come 6.87, he can literally slam dunk opponents with his Aghanim's Scepter upgrade.
    CHAOS DUNK!!
  • Baritone of Strength: He is quite the ear-shaker.
  • Barrier Warrior: Fissure can not only stun but also temporarily create an impassible crevasse. Knowing how to use it to trap enemies (as well as not trapping your own teammates) is vital to mastering Earthshaker.
  • Black Mage: Although he's a Strength hero and has good durability, his base auto-attacks are fairly weak and he relies heavily on his spells to support his team (unless the player is going for the extremely situational "brawler" Earthshaker).
  • Calling Your Attacks:
    Earthshaker (using Fissure): Fissure!
    Earthshaker (using Enchant Totem): Enchant!
    Earthshaker (landing a 2/3-man Echo Slam): Echo Slam!
  • Carry a Big Stick: Raigor wields his totem as a mace when Enchant Totem is active.
  • Charged Attack: Enchant Totem gives him a massive damage boost for one attack, and with Aftershock can damage and stun every enemy in a small radius. It's one of the few damage amplifiers that stack with critical hits.
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu: Invoked on the enemy by Echo Slam. Against a lone hero it's pretty much an instant stun with hideously long cooldown; against a full team with creeps and summons thrown in, a Total Party Kill.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Earthshaker's bread and butter skill, Fissure. Bad Earthshaker players are prone to use this skill to block teammates, isolating them from the team and netting the enemies an easy kill or leave enemy heroes on the wrong side of the crevasse, allowing them to escape with an easy walk. However, good Fissure usage can provide great utility, able to block a lane in a gank, stop chasing/escaping enemies, snipe enemy heroes with its extreme range, isolate them from their teammates or otherwise trap them in unpleasant positions. At least a few games have been won because Earthshaker trapped a respawning enemy team/strong carry in their fountain, giving his own team a few extra seconds to finish off the Ancient before they could be stopped.
  • Disc-One Nuke: One should never underestimate the power of Fissure at level 1 - the 8-second barrier is probably among the most devastating effects for the heroes with no innate mobility. Unless able to bypass Fissure with skills like Batrider's Firefly or Timbersaw's Timber Chain, offlaners have to play extremely carefully against an enemy Earthshaker, because they're dead if he lands a good Fissure. It remains extremely useful across the whole game, and is the reason why Earthshaker can get away with being a hard support and getting a late Blink Dagger, unlike similar initiators like Sand King or Tidehunter.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: Well, Raigor is made out of dirt.
  • Dynamic Entry: When he uses Enchant Totem with Aghanim's Scepter, Earthshaker can jump to any spot inside a 900 AoE around him, giving him a built-in blink on a 5 second cooldown and making him almost as mobile as Anti-Mage.
  • Earthquakes Cause Fissures
  • Earthquake Machine: His totem is a supernatural variant.
  • Epic Fail: He has special responses for completely whiffing an Echo Slam.
    Earthshaker: Echo... Slam?
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With: An immortal spirit of the earth taking a mortal form to explore the world.
  • Glass Cannon: Despite being a Strength hero, Earthshaker is relatively fragile due to his low armour, mediocre Strength and his item build which consists of no durability items whatsoever, instead focusing on supporting and positioning to maximise the disruption from Fissure and the massive damage potential from Echo Slam. Proper usage of his abilities can cause the most burst damage in a few moments any hero is capable of in the entire game.
  • Ground-Shattering Landing: The animation for his ultimate, Echo Slam. Taken up a notch with Aghanim's upgraded Enchant Totem, which has Earthshaker launching himself into the air and landing totem-first. Especially if it's then followed up by the aforementioned Echo Slam.
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: Echo Slam deals bonus damage per every enemy unit within range without an upper limit, so hitting a lot of enemies is a requirement for it (although it's not unheard of for Earthshaker to use Echo Slam on lone enemies in ganks in the early game, just for the Aftershock stun and to squeeze out a bit of extra damage since it's the only ability he has without a cast time). This extends to its appearance in Artifact, where it hits all enemies and inflicts damage equal to the number of targets. Similarly, Fissure and Aftershock can both hit multiple targets, and with Aghanim's Scepter, Enchant Totem gains a cleave effect. Anyone standing in a group when Earthshaker shows up for a fight is bound to have a very bad day.
  • Horned Humanoid: Unlike Earthshaker's other head items, the Stoneforged Horns is not a hat, but actual horns.
    After realising the dangers of the living world, Raigor shaped himself towards a more aggressive form that would help him face the challenges that were to come.
  • In a Single Bound: Aghanim's Scepter allows him to pull off some truly impressive leaps.
  • Interface Screw: Fissure and Echo Slam shake the entire screen when cast.
  • Involuntary Group Split: Fissure can block off enemies from their allies, leaving them at the mercy of your team. Of course, it's also easy to rush this and cause more harm than good - you can easily block off your teammates, save enemy heroes or condemn your own.
  • Kung-Fu Wizard: Barring Enchant Totem, Raigor attacks with his bare fists, and is a melee Strength hero that's primarily still a spellcaster.
  • Luke Nounverber: Raigor Stonehoof is a case of 'Luke Noun-noun', a variant of this trope.
  • Magma Man: With the Bindings of Deep Magma cosmetic item, all of Raigor's abilities become magma instead of earth.
  • Nature Spirit: Raigor is a spirit of the earth that takes the form that we see in the game.
  • Obvious Rule Patch:
    • Prior to 6.81, Fissure will cause creeps to walk around them. This can be easily exploited by many players who laned him in the offlane in order to easily pull the creeps into the Ancient jungle thus causing many safelane carries to be starved of their farm when they lose a creep wave. 6.81 patched this exploit by having the creeps simply wait for the Fissure to disappear, thus limiting the players to merely using Fissure for pulling the wave closer to their tower.
    • In 7.29, in addition to giving him the ability to leap through great distances, Enchanted Totem allows his next attack to cleave through the enemy when Earthshaker holds an Aghanim Scepter. Come 7.30e, the attack no longer applies cleave to Ranged Heroes. This change does not affect Earthshaker in any way but is instead specifically targeted towards Morphling that Morphed into the former in order to deter the latter from dealing tremendous amounts of splash damage using the copied Enchant Totem ability.
  • One-Hit Kill: With Enchant Totem and Daedalus, his attack damage can be increased 12 times, and overlapping cooldown of the spell lets you immediately land another hit on the stunned target. This is enough to burst down not only supports, but carries as well. That is why the Critshaker build can be situationally very effective and fun to play.
  • Power Makes Your Voice Deep
  • Primal Stance: Despite having arms, Earthshaker stands on all fours.
  • Shockwave Stomp: With Aftershock, each of his abilities triggers an extra shockwave that stun enemies around him.
  • Spam Attack: Enchant Totem, a cheap spell used mostly to trigger Aftershock, since by itself, all it does is increase your attack damage for one attack on a hero that is rarely built as a right-click attacker.
  • Telephone Polearm: Wields a totem as a weapon.
  • Top-Heavy Guy: To the point that he has to support himself with his hands when walking.

    Elder Titan, the Worldsmith 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ElderTitan_1039.png
Voiced by: Jim French

At the universe's beginnings, the Titans were there to witness creation, and they took it upon themselves to continue the process. They shaped matter to their awesome will, and when that proved too simple, they reforged their own bodies to become mightier than ever. But although they were powerful enough to shape reality to their liking, they are not infallible. One Titan, known to us today as Elder Titan, stood out for his great ambition and innovation, but as he honed his skills with the world that we know today as ours, he made a grave mistake, which led to a cosmic shattering that cast him into his own broken world. From his error, the world of today gained its strange properties and diverse collection of denizens, the fragmented survivors of a now-forgotten disaster that fractured the cosmos. Blaming no one but himself for the cosmic fissures that made the world as it is today, the Elder Titan now eternally seeks a way to fix the damage he has done.

The Elder Titan is an initiator and nuker known for being able to inflict powerful damage and disables from a distance, unlike most other AoE initiators who require a Blink Dagger to get in range to cast their spells. This is thanks to his Astral Spirit, a spell which sends forth the spiritual essence of the Elder Titan to damage any foe who goes near it. The spirit can be moved around, and returns to the Elder Titan when recalled or after a certain period of time has passed; upon returning, it grants temporary bonus damage and armor for each unit that was damaged by the spirit. The spirit also inherits two of the Elder Titan's skills. Echo Stomp creates a shockwave after a brief channelling time, damaging all foes in a circular area and putting them to sleep, which disables them until they take damage. If the Astral Spirit is out when casting this spell, it will also use it, allowing Elder Titan to disable foes in two places at once or from a distance. Natural Order is a powerful passive aura which reduces the armor and magic resistance of nearby foes. When casting Astral Spirit, the magic resistance debuff is passed onto the spirit while the Titan keeps the armor debuff. At max level, it completely nullifies the base armor and resistance of nearby foes, greatly increasing the damage they take. Elder Titan's ultimate ability is Earth Splitter, a powerful spell which requires set-up to use properly: this ability causes a fissure to slowly form along the ground over a long distance; once it reaches a certain length it explodes and deals damage to enemies based on their maximum health. Due to its slow start, the enemies must be disabled beforehand as they could easily get out of its area before it takes effect, but Elder Titan can do this himself by using Echo Stomp and Astral Spirit to keep them in place. These spells make Elder Titan a great asset in teamfights.


  • Adaptation Name Change: He was known as Cairne Bloodhoof the Tauren Chieftain in the original DotA. As Cairne is an established Warcraft character, he became Elder Titan the Worldsmith in the port. Likewise, his second skill was renamed from Ancestral Spirit to Astral Spirit to fit his new flavour.
  • Adaptation Species Change: He was a Tauren in the first DotA, though for the remake he was changed to an original design for copyright reasons.
  • Anti-Armor: Since Natural Order removes a percentage of base armor and magic resistance from enemies (up to 100% when maxed), Elder Titan is an extremely powerful counter against Agility carries, who tend to rely on their Agility-boosted armor to reduce incoming physical damage, tend not to have the largest health pools due to not being Strength heroes, and are generally already weak against magic nukes anyway.
  • Anti-Magic: With Aghanim's Scepter, Elder Titan gains spell immunity while channeling Echo Stomp, plus two more seconds for each enemy hit.
  • The Atoner: Elder Titan dealt cataclysmic damage to the world long ago, and has since devoted himself to repairing it.
  • Boring, but Practical: Despite having some flashy skills such as Echo Stomp and Earth Splitter, high-level players will tell you that his best skill is Natural Order, a passive aura which reduces armor and magic resistance. It can seriously increase how much damage enemies take: at max level, it completely removes all of the nearby enemies' defenses.
  • Catching Some Z's: Around enemies put to sleep by Echo Stomp.
  • Charged Attack: Echo Stomp must be channeled for 1.4 seconds before it's released.
  • Damage-Increasing Debuff: Elder Titan's third ability and passive, Natural Order, reduces the base armor and any armor gained through Agility of any nearby enemy to zero, on top of effectively nullifying their base magic resistance.
  • Defog of War: As the Astral Spirit can move through all terrain, it can be used as a scouting mechanism to give vision over anywhere it walks. This makes it crucial for scouting the high ground around the enemy base's tier 3 towers for enemy positioning (as well as gathering bonus damage and movement speed for Elder Titan for any enemies it hits).
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Many of Elder Titan's spells take skill, timing and micromanagement to use, but utilized properly he can inflict heavy amounts of damage to the enemy team.
    • Echo Stomp channels for 1.4 seconds before it lands the sleep, meaning that alert enemies will often be able to easily dodge it, and it can be easily interrupted by player damage, foiling good initiations. However, it has a fairly wide area of effect, so good positioning of the Astral Spirit (such as in an area that the enemy must walk through in order to escape) will knock the enemy out for up to 5 seconds, on the same tier as Mirana's Sacred Arrow.
    • Astral Spirit lasts for a fairly short duration, and only moves as fast as Elder Titan himself, meaning that unless he builds movement speed items it has a hard time catching foes. However, it can move over impassable terrain, so good players can sneak it through woods to behind the enemy, and then recall it into them to cast Echo Stomp. Additionally, savvy players can pass the spirit through jungle camps, not just creep waves, and align themselves so that on its return it passes through even more targets, meaning that smart Elder Titan players can snag upwards of 150+ bonus damage with good planning.
    • It takes practice to get used to hitting with Earth Splitter - the 3.14 second delay is usually enough time for enemies to avoid it if they are not slowed or disabled. However, it is a very powerful scaling nuke that remains extremely useful throughout the entire game, and can be combined with Echo Stomp to catch multiple enemy heroes in its wake.
  • Earthquakes Cause Fissures: His ultimate, Earth Splitter, creates a fissure that expands very slowly, but upon completing its travel length will severely damage any enemies that happen to be in the area, on top of lining them up with the fissure and slowing them down, making them easy targets for finishing off with AoE spells.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": He is only known as the Elder Titan.
  • Fixed Damage Attack: Earth Splitter deals damage equal to 35% of the targets' max HP (17.5% Physical, 17.5% Magical).
  • Forced Sleep: Foes hit by Echo Stomp are put to sleep, which lasts much longer than conventional disables do but can be woken up by player damage.
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: All of Elder Titan's skills deal damage over large areas and make him a very powerful hero in teamfights. Should the enemy team ever bunch up, they stand the danger of all getting hit by the Astral Spirit (giving Elder Titan a massive amount of bonus damage and movement speed when it returns), getting knocked out by Echo Stomp, and then losing over a third of their maximum HP as Earth Splitter implodes on them due to Elder Titan reducing their defenses with his Natural Order aura, all the while he's ready to start chasing and right-clicking them down the moment the crack implodes (along with his teammates).
  • Jack of All Stats: Since Elder Titan is fairly level- and farm-independent (often all he needs is level 11, some mana and a mobility item), and has a good laning stage, he can be played in almost all positions from the solo off-laner to mid to safe lane support - hard carrying being the only role he can't fulfill.
  • Lead the Target: Both Echo Stomp and Earth Splitter have fairly long delays and can be easily avoided, but if pulled off correctly they might sleep enemies for 5 seconds and cut down their HP by 35% respectively.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Astral Spirit gives Elder Titan bonus damage and movement speed for each enemy it passes through. In the case of enemy heroes, it gives him +5% movement speed and +40 damage per hero, so catching four heroes with the projection (to say nothing of any creeps that happen to be standing around) will give him a minimum of +20% movement speed and +160 attack damage, which, combined with his Natural Order aura, means that he'll be hitting almost as hard as if he were carrying a Divine Rapier.
  • Long-Range Fighter: Despite being a melee hero, Elder Titan can contribute quite well to a fight without having to get close, as Astral Spirit allows him to afflict enemies with Natural Order and cast Echo Stomp from afar while Earth Splitter has a very long cast range.
  • Magic Knight: While Elder Titan is usually played as a support and mostly valued for his array of disables and nukes which allows him to set up kills on the entire enemy team, he can also augment his physical damage by using Astral Spirit and negate his foes' armor with Natural Order, allowing him to dish out a fair amount of physical damage himself without too much farm.
  • Mirror Routine: Long before the Astral Spirit became a controllable second unit, the DotA Ancestral Spirit would mimic Tauren Chieftain's movements, moving in reverse directions related to him (if you move backwards, it would move away from you, and if you moved left from the casting point it would follow you).
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He is responsible for the war between Radiant and Dire by shattering the Mad Moon.
  • No-Sell: One of Elder Titan's level 25 talents grants him spell immunity when Astral Spirit is active.
  • Our Minotaurs Are Different: Despite no longer being a Tauren, the Elder Titan still retains his bovine head design.
  • Our Titans Are Different: A large vaguely bull-like humanoid who created the world of Dota 2 (and shattered it).
  • Physical God: He forged the very world in which the game takes place.
  • Self-Duplication: Astral Spirit allows Elder Titan to safely initiate teamfights from afar, or to snipe escaping enemy heroes.
  • Shockwave Stomp: Elder Titan's first skill, Echo Stomp, channels for a short duration, and upon landing damages all nearby enemy units and knocks them unconscious, causing them to wake up only when the debuff expires or they take player-based damage. It's a unique disable in that it can be used to pick off enemies one by one without worrying about dealing with the rest unless someone casts an AoE spell.
  • Shout-Out: His skills' lore has references to The Bible.
  • Some Dexterity Required: Playing Elder Titan well requires good micromanagement of the Astral Spirit. It's not nearly as heavy as that needed for other heroes (like Meepo or Chen) however and you won't die if you mess it up.
  • Summon Magic: He can summon his spirit form with the skill Ancestral Spirit.
  • Superboss: Before being added in DotA version 6.60, Tauren Chieftain (the former name of Elder Titan) was a secret bonus boss in 6.59b.
  • Telephone Polearm: Not only his hammer, but an even bigger totem on his back.
  • Time Abyss: As stated in his lore, he was witness to the birth of the universe, and is also implied to have created the 4 Fundamentals.
  • Vampiric Draining: Any unit that gets touched by Astral Spirit will take damage, and upon returning to Elder Titan, he gains movement speed and attack damage for a short duration based on how many creeps and heroes it managed to pass through.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: He never wears a shirt.

    Huskar, the Sacred Warrior 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Huskar_390.png
Voiced by: Dave Fennoy

Huskar was a warrior of the Dezun Order. Intending to sacrifice himself in battle to the gods of the Nothl Realm, his life was saved against his will by the Shadow Priest Dazzle, who had pulled him out of the afterlife so that the Dezun Order could use him to expand their power through war. Like all who return from the Nothl realm, Huskar was irrevocably transformed by his time there, his blood now literally burning with power. However, he was not happy, for by bringing Huskar back from the dead, Dazzle had robbed the Dezun warrior of his place among the gods and cheated him out of his birthright. Enraged by his own denied sacrifice and at the prospect of being reduced to a pawn for the Dezun Order, Huskar left to seek a fight truly worthy of dying in, throwing himself against impossible odds so that he can return to his rightful place among his gods in the Nothl Realm.

A rare ranged Strength hero, Huskar is all about entering into the fight and killing his foes while he is under fire, soaking up as much damage as he can. He specializes in fighting at low health, as his Berserker's Blood increases his attack speed and health regeneration based on how much health he is missing, making him exponentially more dangerous when his health is at critical levels. Huskar can lower his health more quickly to benefit his passive using his Burning Spears which causes Huskar's basic attacks to deal damage over time at the cost of dealing damage to himself per throw. Burning Spears damage stacks with itself, allowing a low-health Huskar to quickly burn away an enemy's health. To bolster his survivability in combat, Huskar can unleash Inner Fire to blow away enemies and disarm them, letting him poke them apart at his leisure. The crux of Huskar's reckless playstyle is his ultimate Life Break, a leaping strike that instantly burns away a large percentage of his target's current health on impact while massively slowing them. This ability also significantly damages Huskar himself, but if he plays his cards right, this "drawback" can be much more troublesome for the enemy than it is for him.


  • Achilles' Heel:
    • As Huskar needs to be at low health in order to deal sufficient damage, Axe's Culling Blade and Necrophos' Reaper's Scythe will almost always finish him off.
    • Huskar is heavily reliant on self-healing via health regeneration (which he gets from Berserker's Blood), lifesteal, and toggling the Armlet of Mordiggian to keep his health at the perfect spot where he benefits from increased attack speed without being at risk of being burst down. Spirit Vessel and Eye of Skadi lower all healing received, greatly lowering his ability to survive fights, while Ancient Apparition's Ice Blast not only removes his ability to gain HP at all, it also kills him instantly when his health drops below a certain threshold, which he will likely reach if his health was already low.
    • While Huskar does have ways of mitigating all kinds of damage except Pure damage (for which he needs a Black King Bar), his reliance on regeneration to stay alive at low health means burst damage can cause serious problems for him, particularly Physical damage (e.g. massive crits from Daedalus or Coup de Grace) due to his low armor and the need to cast Inner Fire manually.
    • Break effects, such as from Viper's Nethertoxin or a Silver Edge can eliminate his self-healing from Berserker's Blood.
  • Adaptation Species Change: Was a troll in DotA. His Dota 2 species is not identified, but it's the same as Dazzle and implied to be a troll still.
  • Amazing Technicolor Population: Blue-green skin.
  • Anti-Magic: Berserker's Blood gives Huskar bonus magic resistance, allowing him to easily shrug off nukes at low health.
  • Anti-Regeneration: When upgraded with Aghanim's Shard, Inner Fire reduces all healing received by affected heroes by 50%.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: One of Huskar's two talents at level 25 is the ability to make Burning Spears damage turn to Pure (which means that it cannot be reduced under any means except from damage reduction passives) and fully pierce Spell Immunity (which at level 25, the carries would very likely carry a BKB as one of their items). While that undeniable sounds overpowered, the problem is that if at any point Huskar reaches that high level, then the outcome is pretty much already decided as at that point you either snowball way ahead of the enemy, or you fall behind and die to carries with equal or higher farm than you that have farmed a Silver Edge to break his Berserker's Blood passive or Spirit Vessel from supports that would reduce his healing rate. Subverted when you look at the big picture, since the alternative talent is an attack range bonus, which is of questionable value on Huskar because Life Break lets him easily keep enemies within reach; between the two, Pure damage on Burning Spears is generally the preferable option.
  • Back from the Dead: Although somewhat unwillingly.
  • Bash Brothers: With Dazzle when they're both on the same team, and justified in both their backstory and gameplay. Dazzle's skills can make Huskar an unstoppable machine of destruction with the unholy combo of Shallow Grave + Berserker's Blood.
  • The Berserker: His entire skillset revolves around intentionally remaining at low health and suicidally charging into the enemy team without much concern for his own safety.
  • Bloody Murder: His abilities are attributed to his blood being a volatile substance. As he can't actually sling his blood at enemies, he instead douses his spears in the stuff.
  • Can't Catch Up: Because of his weakness to physical and pure damage, Huskar scales very badly into the late game - while he has a strong early-mid game presence, he falls off extremely hard in the late game, because any true carry will kill him in a second without the help of a support that synergises well with him like Dazzle or Oracle. Burst damage-based heavy nukers like Lion or Lina can also end up killing him too quickly for his regen to make any difference.
  • Cast from Hit Points: Huskar spends hit points to use Burning Spears, and his ultimate, Life Break, costs a ton of his current health.
  • Combat Medic: While it's no longer the case due to the ability in question being removed, Huskar could heal allies using Inner Vitality.
  • Combat Sadomasochist
  • Combination Attack: Can create a particularly fun and nasty one with Necrophos if Huskar has Aghanim's Scepter. Life Break shaves off up to 65% of the target's HP. Reaper's Scythe deals damage based on missing HP. Unless you have sufficient magic resistance or immunity, they will kill you regardless of whether you have 1 thousand or 1 million health. Kind of ironic, as Necrophos is usually considered one of the classic counters to Huskar.
  • Critical Status Buff: Berserker's Blood gives Huskar bonus attack speed AND health regeneration based on his missing health. Its bonuses peak at 10% health, making it incredibly hard to remove that last sliver of health before Huskar takes the enemy down.
  • Death or Glory Attack: Life Break. Either Huskar, the other Hero, or even both die once it's used, since it costs a third of his health and puts him in point-blank range. Often times, however, most players using Huskar know just when and in what situations to use his ult to utterly annihilate their target.
  • Death Seeker: His ultimate goal is to find a fight worth dying in.
  • Defector from Decadence: Left his people to find a more worthy cause to die for.
  • Dual Wielding: Throwing spears in one hand, dagger in the other.
  • Dynamic Entry: Huskar's contribution to most teamfights is to jump onto the easiest or most threatening target with Life Break (and taunt them if he has Aghanim's Scepter), use Inner Fire to push other enemies away and stop them from fighting back, and then deal as much damage as possible while counting on his regen to stay alive or die trying.
  • Glass Cannon: Huskar becomes this late game. His damage output is still high, but Berserker's Blood becomes less useful alongside nukes, and the enemy team's main damage source becomes their carry's right-clicks, which will kill Huskar in a second because of his abysmal armour. His ability to disarm and taunt enemies does allow him to remain useful outside of his damage output, though.
  • Glorious Death: Huskar wishes to die in a Heroic Sacrifice so he can find his place among the gods. Unfortunately for him, Dazzle saved his life in a way that also rendered him immortal, making him unable to accomplish this goal.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom
  • Healing Factor: Huskar's Berserker's Blood heals him for a percentage of his Strength stat; the lower his health, the more it heals.
  • I Can Still Fight!: Basically the entire point of the character, as Huskar gains health regen and attack speed as his health drops. For most heroes, dropping to half HP or less means they have to be careful or run for the hills. For Huskar, that means he's just getting started; unless you hit him with a huge burst of damage, he'll just keep regenerating at ludicrous rates while poking you to flaming bits.
  • In a Single Bound: Life Break starts with a fairly magnificent leap that can cover some impressive ground. If he gets Aghanim's Scepter, Huskar can even do this once every four seconds.
  • Javelin Thrower: More like a javelin-throwing Rambo.
  • Kryptonite Is Everywhere: Huskar's high-risk, high-reward strategy, revolving around fighting at low health and surviving with high regen, but no damage resistance whatsoever, gives him a lot of exploitable weaknesses:
    • Enemies that prey on low-health heroes, like Necrophos and Bloodseeker, can take advantage of his self damage.
    • Any sort of burst damage will often kill him instantly, from giant nukes like Finger of Death and Dagon to crits like Coup de Grace and Daedalus or just anyone that hits really hard, like Ursa and Sven.
    • Break removes the attack speed and regen bonuses from Berserker's Blood, leaving him a sitting duck.
    • Just ganging up on him with teammates or illusions can give him problems, as Huskar has very little area-of-effect damage or escape ability aside from Inner Fire.
    • Anything that interferes with regeneration, such as Spirit Vessel or Eye of Skadi; Ancient Apparition's Ice Blast stops regeneration entirely, making him almost as much of a counter as Necrophos.
  • Life Drain: When upgraded with Aghanim's Shard, Inner Fire heals Huskar for a percentage of the damage dealt to enemies.
  • Lightning Bruiser: He gains great mobility with Life Break, lots of attack speed with Berserker's Blood and has a large health pool while hitting fairly hard, allowing him to go from Mighty Glacier to this.
  • Mighty Glacier: Despite being able to dish out loads of damage, Huskar has pitifully low Agility and gain meaning that he attacks very slowly unless he's at very low health.
  • Mutual Disadvantage: Against Razor. Eye of the Storm, which deals physical damage and chooses the enemy with the lowest HP percentage, will melt Huskar because of his low armour and tendency to remain at low HP, but other than that, the main weakness of Razor is that he has no stun, and you *really* need to stun Huskar to stop his DPS. Besides, Life Break is both a slow and an anti-tank skill and Razor really hates this, but then Blade Mail is pretty good on Razor too. As a 1 vs 1 mid matchup, Razor can steal Huskar's damage but it still won't stop Burning Spear harass which is Huskar's main damage source early game, and Razor risks getting zoned out.
  • Percent Damage Attack: Huskar's ultimate, Life Break, shaves off a percentage of his target's current HP, at the cost of a similar fraction of his own. When he's at low health (which he almost always will be), this lets him cut off half (or more) of a full-health enemy's HP at a cost of a few points of his own. This makes him a massive counter to Strength-based carries, since he can possibly remove over a thousand points of health from his target with a single attack.
  • Playing with Fire: Huskar can use Burning Spear to light his spears on fire using his hitpoints, and Inner Fire to create an exploding circle of fire around himself.
  • Pointy Ears
  • Practical Taunt: With Aghanim's Scepter, Life Break taunts the target, forcing them to attack Huskar. Given that Huskar wants to be at low health, Life Break applies an attack speed slow, and the existence of heroes that are not Huskar on his team, this can be quite deadly.
  • The Rival:
    • With Dazzle when they're on opposite teams, and justified in both their backstory and gameplay. Dazzle's skills can make him useless if he's on the enemy team.
    • Huskar apparently sees Axe as this as well, according to his response lines; their love of battle and tendency to charge blindly into the fray, as well as Axe's ability to annihilate Huskar with Culling Blade
  • Spam Attack: Huskar + Berserker's Blood - around 20% of his health = a lot of spears being flung around.
  • Spell Blade: Burning Spear sets Huskar's spears aflame, dealing damage over time with his regular attack.
  • Taking You with Me: Even if the target manages to survive his ultimate and kill him, they'll likely have several stacks of Burning Spear eating away at their low health, meaning that they'll likely die in a few seconds.
  • This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: The Berserker's Blood rework in 7.20 (which replaced its magic resistance bonus with health regeneration) is supposed to mitigate this problem, as prior to this patch Huskar only saw use in professional games as a surprise last pick against magic-heavy teams, as due to Berserker's Blood he was all but unkillable by such teams (especially when combined with Dazzle or Oracle), but only one serious right-clicker could make his life a living hell (due to his lack of armour and tendency to remain at low HP). Later iterations of the character made him more versatile and gave him more utility.
  • Top-Heavy Guy: Huskar's legs seem a little too thin to support his massively-built torso.
  • Turns Red: If Huskar's Berserker's Blood reaches its maximum stack (meaning that he'll be at extremely low health), Huskar will be about twice his normal size and surrounded by a glowing red aura. He also gains massive attack speed and HP regeneration buffs.
  • Violation of Common Sense: Huskar is at his best when he's at low health. Burning Spear can quickly eat up Huskar's health. As a result, most Huskar players use Burning Spear to intentionally nearly kill themselves in order to maximize his damage potential. Likewise, Life Break is often used to insert Huskar into situations that most heroes would usually run from, such as initiating against a hero that has much more health than he does, and he's all but encouraged to walk around with Armlet of Mordiggian toggled on due to the mechanics of Berserker's Blood (which is suicidal for most heroes because they can't sustain the massive health drain).
  • Walking Shirtless Scene
  • Worthy Opponent: Sees Bloodseeker as this. Given that Bloodseeker's kit seems to be tailor-made for fighting Huskar (Blood Rite and Rupture deal pure damage, which bypasses Berserker's Blood while preventing and punishing Life Break respectively, while Thirst increases Bloodseeker's physical damage output as Huskar's health drops), this is fairly justified.
  • You Are Already Dead: Burning Spear deals heavy damage over time, stacks with each attack, and it cannot be removed at all. Combined with Huskar's lightning fast attack speed with Berserker's Blood, enemies who have no way to quickly heal are very likely to succumb even if they manage to escape or kill Huskar. Furthermore, Huskar's ultimate Life Break - when used properly - has the potential to be SO incredibly devastating and crippling to its target that being hit with it is often a death sentence for most heroes; a popular guide to Huskar describes it best:

    Kunkka, the Admiral 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Kunkka_4108.png
Voiced by: Jon St. John

Admiral Kunkka was once at the head of the Claddish Navy, a mighty fleet tasked with defending his island nation. Having been at war with the Demons of the Cataract for several years, Cladd's foes eventually launched an all-out attack against the Trembling Isle. With the assistance of ancestral spirits summoned by Cladd's Suicide-Mages, Kunkka's fleet was just barely able to drive the Demons back. But in the midst of the chaos, the abyssal god Maelrawn the Tentacular rose from the deep and laid waste to both sides, churning water and wind to create a colossal storm. Although the Demons were forced to retreat, the Claddish Navy was equally devastated. The sole remaining ship in Kunkka's fleet was his own, now a spectral apparition replaying its final moments for eternity. But some are skeptical as to whether Kunkka himself survived his own ship's destruction, believing the present Admiral is too a phantom; not even Tidehunter, the one who summoned Maelrawn on that fateful day, is certain himself.

As both a carry and an initiator, Kunkka strikes a balance between physical prowess and magical offense. Although many of his spells have long cast times and require careful timing and map awareness, good Kunkka players can easily set up teamfights or take a powerful enemy out of commission. Tidebringer, his first spell, a passive and his main source of offensive utility in lane, periodically cleaves on hit, dealing a healthy amount of physical damage to every nearby enemy. Unlike most cleave effects, this damage reaches far beyond its initial target. His second spell and main nuke, Torrent, creates a delayed geyser at a location that damages, stuns, and slows any unwary enemy caught in its area of effect when it activates. X Marks the Spot places an X under the feet of any hero, ally, enemy, or even Kunkka himself. After a short period, or when Kunkka manually reactivates it, the target is teleported back to their original position, synchronizing well with his other spells. His ultimate, Ghostship, summons the spectral remains of Kunkka's flagship on a collision course with an area of his choosing before violently falling apart. Not only will enemies standing in the impact be damaged and stunnned, but any allies standing in its wake receive a swig of rum, increasing their movement speed and delaying a percentage of incoming damage until the effect ends, turning the Admiral and his mates into a fighting force to be reckoned with.

In Dota Underlords, Kunkka is a tier 4 hero. His ability, Ghost Ship, summons a boat which crashes into foes, stunning and damaging them in a large area.


  • Alpha Strike: Because of his extremely limited mana pool, Kunkka players must carefully decide when and where they'll cast their spells, since even a max level Kunkka will easily chew through at least half his mana pool casting only a handful of spells if he hasn't built any mana pool increasing items (as he will likely be building raw damage in order to splash physical damage on the enemy through Tidebringer). If a Kunkka decides to cast all three of his spells in a single teamfight (potentially dealing upwards of 900 area-of-effect magical damage on top of the stuns and disables, and before even factoring in Tidebringer), he'll spend upwards of 500 mana, rendering him unable to use even a TP Scroll afterward.
  • Anti-Escape Mechanism: X Marks the Spot helps land his skills by returning an enemy to target location after a few seconds' delay. His other three aimed abilities can let him kill enemies well out of sight.
  • Arch-Enemy: He and Tidehunter hate each other's guts (although, given the nature of the game, it's played up as more of a Sitcom Arch-Nemesis relationship). To give you an idea, Kunkka has twenty-five different responses just for killing Tidehunter.
  • Booze-Based Buff: The buff provided by his ultimate, Ghostship, is called Kunkka's Rum, which reduces all incoming damage by up to 50% (depending on level) and deals the remainder as non-lethal damage afterward.
  • The Captain: Admiral, to be exact. Sadly, the vessel he captained was destroyed by Maelrawn, turning it into his Ghostship.
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Before a patch fix Kunkka bots could perfectly aim Torrent to hit invisible players despite the bot having no legit way of knowing that player was there. To quote the patch note itself: "Fixed Kunkka being a dirty cheater when using Torrent."
  • Cool Sword: Kunkka's sword, Tidebringer, is inhabited by the soul of a fallen Claddish warrior, enabling it to periodically summon a wave of water upon attacking. Cosmetic items offer other cool options, such as the Plunder of the High Seas (which is made out of coins), BladeBiter (made of water), and the Inverse Bayonet (a gunblade).
  • Critical Hit Class: While Kunkka has no natural ability to crit, Tidebringer splashes all enemies in front of him with over 100% cleave damage (meaning that it ignores armor). This means that smart Kunkka players will abuse this by building, a Daedalus (or two) to inflict critical hits (and increase the chances of landing a crit if more than one is bought), a Shadow Blade to initiate (and to apply the 175-bonus damage), and damage items to increase his raw attack power. A lucky crit that also procs Tidebringer will deal a massive crit damage to all targets in an area, potentially resulting in a Total Party Kill.
    Kunkka, buying Crystalys: "Yes, Fish and Crits!"
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: 7.06 reworked Ghostship's targeting mechanics: instead of spawning a fixed distance behind Kunkka and crashing a fixed distance in front of him, he can now designate the crash site and the ship's spawn location will be adjusted accordingly. However, this does not apply to the Aghanim's Scepter upgraded Ghostship, which still always spawns at Kunkka's location.
  • Difficult, but Awesome:
    • Both Torrent and Ghostship have extremely long delays, so they're very hard to land. However, a good Kunkka can cast X Marks the Spot and Torrent combos to lock down enemies, and even toss Ghostship into the mix for a combo that will deal a massive amount of damage to a group of enemies before cleaving them in two with Tidebringer. A bad Kunkka that can't Lead the Target well is more likely to hear this:
    • Tidebringer is a powerful area cleave but is hard to bring off due to it only proccing once every few seconds (meaning that you'll have to refrain from attacking until just the right moment). However, properly used, a smart Kunkka player can use nearby creeps (and even enemy summons in a teamfight) to splash through the enemy's armor and hit the entire enemy team at once. This is lessened with how not many people realize that it's an auto-cast spell that was set on 'on' by default, thus technically they can turn it off when the spell is ready and then fire at will by hitting W on the main target.
    • X Marks the Spot has more utility than preventing enemy Heroes from escaping. When cast on an allied Hero, it provides double the delay that it would for an enemy Hero, allowing them to either temporarily move to another part of the map to push or counter-push, or initiate on the enemy with a guaranteed method of return (provided that Kunkka can time the return well). This means that a TP scroll can be used to go back to base to quickly heal up and then get back into the fight, an ally can TP to counter-push a tower and then return back to the front lines, or an ally can chase a fleeing enemy and finish them off and then return to safety. Even better, Heroes with invulnerability abilities such as Shadow Demon, Puck, and Outworld Devourer can simply use them to break the return if the X-marked hero doesn't want to.
  • Evolving Weapon: Tidebringer is both Kunkka's weapon and a levellable passive ability.
  • Exactly What I Aimed At: When chasing or harassing, Kunkka players often aim Tidebringer not at a hero, but at a creep, and let his massive splash hammer the heroes behind it.
  • Flying Dutchman: Ghost Ship summons the ghost of his ship to ram his enemies.
  • Four-Star Badass: He was once Admiral of the Claddish Navy.
  • Ghost Pirate: It's been hinted at in his Back Story that he might have been killed in the crash, but no one truly knows. The Seaborne Reprisal set just rolls with it and gives him a more appropriate appearance for one. Also suggested by one of his responses:
  • Going Down with the Ship: Referenced in one of his losing responses.
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: Tidebringer turns his main melee attack into this every once in awhile, giving him a damage buff and letting it cleave for full damage in a very wide radius. Build a Daedalus or two and see as he murders the entire enemy team in one attack.
  • Jack of All Stats: Kunkka is a hero who sees play as both a core and a support. As a core, he builds damage and crit items in order to deal large amounts of damage to several enemies with Tidebringer. As a support, he uses his spells to lock down the enemy for the carries on his team to focus down. The other benefit of a support Kunkka build is that since he isn't spending so much time farming physical damage items to buff up Tidebringer, he can actually build items to extend his mana pool and allow him to cast his spells without limit.
  • I Have Many Names: Kunkka had more distinct alternate names than just about every other hero in the original DotA. In addition to "Kunkka," he bore the names "Daelin Proudmoore," "CoCo," and "Captain Obvious."
  • Lead the Target: Both Torrent and Ghostship have to be manually aimed with fairly long delays.
  • Long-Range Fighter: In spite of being a melee Strength hero, Kunkka is not recommended to directly manfight at close range unlike other carries like Sven, Ursa, Troll, Phantom Assassin, etc. His real strength is to barrage his enemy with water geyser or ghost ships or manipulating their locations from afar, and only closing in just for one Tidebringer strike, which can hit multiple enemies behind his intended target, it also has a wide range and when properly itemized, it can deal absurd damage against the enemies he just barraged from afar.
  • Magic Knight: Kunkka has a wide array of powerful magic spells and nukes, but he's also well known for being able to splash absurd amounts of physical damage across the enemy team as well, making him one of the few examples of a Magic Knight who remains strong in both categories throughout a match. His only real limitations are the difficulty of landing his nukes, his relatively low manfight potential and his small mana pool.
  • Making a Splash: He is able to summon geysers from underneath his enemies, and his sword is able to splash enemies with water.
  • Named Like My Name: The hero is named after the artist who did a lot of the splash artwork for the original Dota.
  • Named Weapons: His sword is called Tidebringer.
  • Oddly Shaped Sword: Tidebringer
  • Officer and a Gentleman: Though he can be snarky towards his enemies, Kunkka is a polite, friendly, and well-dressed admiral.
  • Pirate Parrot: Kunkka's parrot Lieutenant Squawkins, available as a courier.
  • Ramming Always Works: Ghostship always destroys itself upon crashing at the targeted point, though it matters little since it is a Flying Dutchman.
  • Seadog Beard: A truly magnificent one at that.
  • Soul Power: The lore for Tidebringer:
    A lost Claddish soul inhabits Kunkka's trusty Tidebringer, empowering it to destroy demons of the Cataract.
  • Spell Blade: Kunkka's sword Tidebringer is able to deal bonus cleave damage every few seconds.
  • Splash Damage Abuse:
    • Very much so, his play style based on dealing massive Splash Damage with hard-to-land abilities.
    • In previous versions, Cleave damage was based on the armor of the primary target. This meant that, with Tidebringer ready, hitting a low-armor target such as a creep would sometimes end up doing more damage than actually attacking an enemy hero (of course, you'd have to aim it properly so the enemies actually get hit by the cleave). Later patches made Cleave damage be reduced by the armor of each target individually, making this ineffective, but even later patches made Tidebringer's cleave damage hit harder than the original attack, bringing the strategy back.
  • Stealth Pun: He specializes in Splash damage.
  • Talk Like a Pirate: Downplayed; he doesn't roll his R's like the usual example, nor does he have the stereotypical accent, but he does use a handful of nautical phrases.
  • Teleport Interdiction: X Marks the Spot can be used on enemies who are trying to flee, as they will be brought back to the X after up to 4 seconds no matter how far they've gone.
  • Threatening Shark: The Prize of the Saltworn Mariner item turns Kunkka's Ghostship into a giant shark.
  • Total Party Kill: If a farmed Kunkka lands a Torrent + Ghostship combo on your team, don't expect to survive to the end of the stun. Especially if he has Daedalus.
  • Treasure Map: The inspiration for his third skill, X Marks the Spot.
  • Water-Geyser Volley: Anyone caught inside a Torrent will get launched high on the air before slamming into the ground.
  • "X" Marks the Hero: The scar on his forehead. Plus he has a more literal example in X Marks the Spot.

    Tresdin, the Legion Commander 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/legion_commander_small_1200.png
Voiced by: Merle Dandridge (Dota 2), Tara Platt (Dota Underlords, Artifact)

Leader of the famed Bronze Legion of Stonehall, Tresdin and her men saw their skills put to the test when their home was suddenly attacked by a mysterious army of monstrous invaders known only as the Abyssal Horde. Fighting her way to a dark rift of unknown origin from where the attackers had emerged, Tresdin met face to face with their vile champion. The two fought a spectacular duel, their strength and fierceness equally matched. But eventually, Tresdin vanquished her horrible foe while her army took care of the lesser monsters, with the invaders' portal closing soon after. But despite the Bronze Legion's victory, Stonehall was left in ruins, and so Tresdin rallied the few surviving soldiers, swearing that they would get their revenge on whatever forces had sent the Abyssal Horde.

Legion Commander is a hero whose main claim to fame is her ability to snowball out of control if she starts off on the right foot. Overwhelming Odds, her first spell, summons a rain of arrows which deals damage in an area of effect. For each enemy in its radius, the damage dealt increases, and Legion Commander gains a temporary movement speed buff. Her second skill is Press the Attack: this buffing spell removes debuffs from an ally and increases their attack speed and health regeneration. It's useful for casting on yourself or allies to heal and improve damage output. Moment of Courage, Legion Commander's third ability, is a passive which grants her a chance to counterattack with increased lifesteal when hit. This ability greatly improves her survivability, especially when she has large amounts of attack damage. This damage can be obtained through Legion Commander's ultimate ability: Duel. Challenging her opponent to a fight to the death, both she and her target will be forced to hit each other with basic attacks for several seconds. If one of them dies, the other is the winner and gains a permanent increase in attack damage, and if Legion Commander comes out victorious, she instantly receives Press the Attack to make use of it. By choosing her targets wisely, Legion Commander can theoretically attain infinite attack damage. Enemies should take care to not let this hero get her way, or they may eventually find themselves facing an unstoppable warrior whose attacks are unmatched.

In Artifact, Legion Commander is a red hero. Her Continuous Effect is Moment of Courage, which grants her +2 Retaliate. Her signature card, Duel, is a spell that makes an allied red hero fight any other unit.

In Dota Underlords, Legion Commander is a tier 3 hero. Her ability, Duel, targets an enemy and forces it into a duel where they attack each other. The winner gains permanent bonus damage. The Dragon alliance grants her the Will of the Bullsnake passive, restoring 50% of her health when she wins a duel.


  • Achilles' Heel:
    • Since Duel doesn't ignore ethereal form, using Ethereal Blade (which lasts 4 seconds on allies compared to Duel's 5.5 second duration when maxed) on a Duel target will make it very difficult for Legion Commander to get proper Duels off except if she's really, really fat. It's a good thing for Legion Commander Ethereal Blade is an expensive and situational item, otherwise she would be unplayable.
    • Bane as a whole can ruin her Duel attempts, but Nightmare (a spell that can be learned as early as the start of the match) in particular can shut her down due to the invulnerability and sleep status that gets passed around between the duelists every second, resulting in a stalemate that can only be broken by the duel timing out, by outside intervention, or by one of the two duelists dying from the Scratch Damage that Nightmare inflicts. Case in point. Aghanim's Scepter, which gives her free 8-second spell immunity when Duelling, is a must-buy item for Legion Commander if Bane is on the other team.
    • Dazzle can disrupt Duel a lot as well; an upgraded Poison Touch critters you, preventing you from fighting, Shadow Wave can mean the difference between winning and losing a close battle, and Shallow Grave can prevent a teammate from dying, at least until Duel is over.
  • Affirmative Action Girl: In the original DotA, every single Strength hero is male, due to the lack of appropriate Warcraft III models. In the transition to Dota 2, Tresdin's gender was changed, becoming the first female Strength hero in the game.
  • Ambiguously Brown: While other non-European heroes in the game have a specific ethnic aesthetic (Chen has an Arabic style to him, Anti-Mage looks like a South Asian monk, etc.), Tresdin does not. She has light brown skin and blue eyes (itself a very rare combination in real life), and her armour is all over the place (see Culture Chop Suey below). She is partially modelled on her voice actor, who is Afro-Asian.
  • Badass Normal: Tresdin has little magical ability, yet can still take down Physical Gods and Eldritch Abominations alike by challenging them to a Duel to the Death.
  • Bald Head of Toughness: In the Tip of the Spear comics, it's revealed that beneath the helmet, Tresdin shaved all her hair off. She used to have Boyish Short Hair when she was young, too. Her baldness, combined with her berserker abilities and role as an Action Girl whelp fulfill this trope. That said, the Cowl of the Errant Soldier gives her longer hair.
  • Bears Are Bad News: If her quotes are to be trusted, Tresdin seems to be even more distrustful to bears than any other creatures. Normally when killing a hero, she'll say "Never Trust An X" in normal speed, but against Ursa or Lone Druid, she will have a small pause before saying 'bear' in extra growling disgust.
  • The Berserker: Duel momentarily turns her and her opponent into mindless warriors who only think about hitting each other. Once she amasses enough victories to boost her damage to sufficient levels, she can be played in this way all the time: the immense lifesteal from Moment of Courage will grant her great survivability on top of the damage, allowing her to leap into the fray and come out victorious.
  • Blood Knight: So much she makes Luna look almost peaceful!
    Legion Commander: It's said that a truly brilliant general can win without fighting. I'm not a brilliant general, I'm a Legion Commander. And I just want to win.
  • Born into Slavery: As revealed in the comic Tip of the Spear.
  • Bring It: Duel's animation consists of this.
  • Combat Medic: Press The Attack greatly boosts the target's regeneration and applies a strong dispel, removing nearly all negative buffs from the target. While generally used on Legion Commander herself to give an advantage over a Duel target with the regen and attack speed, it can also be used to heal up an ally or bail them out of a bad situation.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Ironically, despite Duel being framed as an honorable one-on-one fight between Legion Commander and her opponent, her kit is designed such that the player needs to make her Duels as one-sided as possible. Likewise, savvy Legion Commander players will always be looking for easy Duel victories whenever possible. In fact, it's not even necessary for LC to be the one that actually kills the opponent; any of their teammates can get the kill, but as long as the opponent is under the effects of Duel when they die, LC is still declared the "Winner" and gets the damage increase (in fact, you'll often need your teammates to help set up duels you can "win" in the early game).
  • Commanding Coolness: Despite ostensibly being a General in rank, Tresdin is still referred to by the title Legion Commander.
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu: Overwhelming Odds deals more damage for every enemy caught within it.
  • Counter-Attack: Moment of Courage immediately procs an extra attack on whatever enemy Legion Commander is attacking (most often the one that hit her) whenever she's hit by an auto-attack, and lifesteal a portion of that attack.
  • Culture Chop Suey: Her cuirass, helmet and back banners are evocative of the samurai, but she also wears a Viking-style furred collar, and her armour is sculpted and made of bronze like that of the ancient Greeks. That she looks neither Greek, Norse nor Japanese does not help either.
  • Darker and Edgier: Her backstory has gone through two drafts, with the first one being significantly less dark than the current one.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Knowing when to start a Duel is one of the most important things a Legion Commander needs to know. Done correctly, Tresdin can easily double her base attack damage without items before the match is over; done poorly, she'll fall off easily late game, or worse, the other team will have gained plenty of free attack damage. As a result, picking targets requires knowing if she will survive the fight, knowing that she will not be targeted by other members of the enemy team in the interim, and whether the enemy can outclass her without spells or items.
  • Dual Wielding: Her Arcana item, the Blades of Voth Domosh.
  • Duel to the Death: Her ultimate forces an enemy hero to fight her in one-on-one combat; neither character can cast spells for its duration. The winner of the fight gains a permanent damage boost.
  • Easy Logistics: Averted in Tip of the Spear, where her second Marcus is understandably concerned about the situation of their legion's food supplies after winning an extended siege, supposing to her that no one in the legion should starve if the cavalry manage to go to Stonehall and bring back enough wagons of food for them in twelve days.
  • Fantastic Racism: She's something of a bigot towards non-humans, as evidenced in her Duel lines or when killing a rival. It's part of the Mythology Gag with her voice lines; DotA's Legion Commander used the model and quotes of Grand Marshal Garithos, another example of Fantastic Racism and a pro-human supremacist. Practically Played for Laughs considering that her racism extends to things like trees, fish, things she doesn't even know how to classify, and bears (especially bears).
  • Fireball Eyeballs: When she has her Arcana equipped, the demonic power causes her eyes to glow a bright fiery orange.
  • Four-Star Badass: She's a commander, but does plenty of fighting herself.
  • Frontline General: She'd rather be dishing out the pain in the frontlines herself than stay back and formulate a strategy for her troops. That being said, it's a bit Downplayed in Tip of the Spear where she watches the battle unfold away from it on her horse until she spots an excellent moment to lead a cavalry charge into the enemy's left flank.
  • Gender Flip: Her original DotA version was a man.
  • Gunboat Diplomacy: The Tip of the Spear comic sees her hoping to get coffee from a small city. With her insisting to her second that if they aren't serving them coffee in three hours, they'll move on instead, she's obviously hoping to make use of this to have the city be annexed for Stonehall with little fuss.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: With the Blades of Voth Domosh, swords made by a trickster armorer, she becomes a demonic being herself.
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: Overwhelming Odds gains bonus damage for every enemy within its area of effect.
  • Honor Before Reason: Duel forces both Tresdin and her target to attack each other, regardless of whether they'd survive the resulting fight (which the opponent usually won't, if you're playing Legion Commander properly).
  • Hot-Blooded: All the way from when she was a slave girl. Her response to being told that anyone in the Legion could challenge the commander for the title and having an offer to join? Immediately join and rush the Commander. Actually a Subverted Trope - that backstory was her bullshitting. The Legion actually just made her Left for Dead via execute by bludgeoning after capturing her hometown, but she lived to stow away with them and then gradually work her way up from the bottom. It's impressive in its own way to join the people who considered you a waste of time and tried to off you though...
  • Ink-Suit Actor: She bears an uncanny resemblance to her VA, Merle Dandridge.
  • Just You and Me and My GUARDS!: While Duel forces both Tresdin and her target to attack each other, there's nothing stopping their teammates or summoned units from getting involved. Defied with her Aghanim's Scepter upgrade, which makes her and her Duel opponent highly resistant to all damage that doesn't come from the other. This however, doesn't say anything about non-damage aid, like having an ally stun them or heal you. Gets rather ridiculous with heroes with Bash or a Skull Basher.
  • Knight in Sour Armor
  • Leeroy Jenkins: While successfully winning duels increases her damage, losing duels increases the damage of her enemy. A Legion Commander that continually loses Duels can quickly buff the enemy team to a point where it is nearly impossible to battle back.
  • Life Drain: Moment of Courage is one of the highest rated lifesteal abilities in the game, allowing Legion Commander to regain up to 80% of the damage she deals as health. With enough farm and Duel victories, Legion Commander can be extremely hard to bring down in a fight since she can potentially lifesteal more health than the enemy can deal to her, and Press the Attack makes a lot of debuffs ineffective while giving her even more health.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Tresdin has plenty of health, plus the ability to attack and heal quickly with Press The Attack and Moment of Courage, move faster with Overwhelming Odds. And since she already has a built-in source of damage in the form of Duel, she often needs very few damage items (so she can win Duels in the mid game) and can focus on durability, disables and mobility.
  • Mage Killer: While under the effect of Duel, neither Tresdin or her target can cast spells or use items, forcing enemy mages to rely on their (typically) weak right-click attack in order to survive, and in most cases these mages are also squishy heroes that will have difficulty surviving a Duel without the help of an ally. Flavor and lore-wise, some of her dialogue also highlights her disdain of mages.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Many of her killing blow lines go 'never trust a *insert whatever race/class the killed character was*'. The original Tresdin's dialogue was based on the Warcraft III character Grand Marshal Garithos, who was a pro-human racist and famously had the joke line 'never trust an elf!' Some of them are pretty ridiculous, which was probably Valve's intent. "Never trust a fish" when killing one of the Slithereen heroes and "Never trust a tree" when killing Treant Protector or Nature's Prophet, for example. If she kills Ursa or Lone Druid she'll say "Never trust a...BEAR!" And then there are certain heroes such as Faceless Void and Morphling whose death prompts the line "Never trust a—what are you anyway?"
    • Likewise, Tresdin's old male model (also based on Garithos) had a prominent mustache and beard, and rode a horse. In this game, she has dialogue complimenting people for their mustaches, beards, and mounts; and in the Tip of the Spear comic, Tresdin's predecessor to the title of Legion Commander is all but identical to her (or rather his) old DotA model.
  • Power Gives You Wings: When she uses Press The Attack with the Immortal Legacy of the Fallen Legion equipped, the target will temporarily gain a pair of wings.
  • Power Nullifier: During a Duel, both Tresdin and her opponent are prohibited from using spells and item active abilities.
  • Power Up Letdown: Legion Commander's Aghanim Scepter reduces the Duel cooldown, make it last longer and reduces damage received for both Tresdin and the opponent by 50% from anyone not within their duel. While a useful upgrade to have in uncoordinated pubs, in coordinated pro-level games this upgrade is completely detrimental as LC's allies won't be able to burst down the target quickly enough for her to gain the bonus damage since the purpose of using the ultimate is to lock down a high priority target and kill them as quickly as possible before their allies have a chance to retaliate, something which would have been harder to do if Legion has a Scepter in her inventory.
  • Proud Warrior Race: Stonehall. The city has multiple legions constantly waging war on various cities, conquering them, offering all able-bodied men a chance to join, and repeating. Ends up being their downfall when the City is invaded by demons and all their armies are off conquering.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Speaks like this in several of her voice lines.
  • Rain of Arrows: When Overwhelming Odds is used, Tresdin orders the archers of Stonehall to pepper the area around herself with arrows.
  • Screaming Warrior: While she does have an indoor voice, Tresdin is easily one of the louder heroes in the game when picking fights and especially when casting Duel:
  • Shout-Out:
    • One of her rare lines references a famous line from the Fallout series.
    • Another references US General George Patton's famous WWII speech.
  • Shown Their Work: The Tip of the Spear comic's Title Drop discusses what actual historians believe to be a common pattern in the psychological layout of a formation of pre-gunpowder troops - the braver men will be up front, while the rest will naturally prefer to keep away from the fighting and leave the frontlines to their own devices from a close-but-safer distance. Tresdin also performs the classical tactic of cavalry striking into the enemy's flank within the comic.
  • The Smurfette Principle: For six years (from 2013 to 2019, when Snapfire was added), Tresdin was the only female Strength hero in the game, and then regained the status in 2023 when Snapfire was changed into a Universal hero.
  • Solo Class: Legion Commander's playstyle revolves around solo killing as many enemy heroes as possible with Duel and snowballing out of control with the bonus damage. In practice, though, Duel is more often than not used to set up ganks and teamfights by rendering a target helpless for her allies to wail on.
  • Tainted Veins: These appear on her when she's using her Arcana; they're visible even over her armor.
  • Trophy Room: Downplayed example - the Tip of the Spear comic sees her admiring the standard of a city she just captured. The background of the next page sees the standard being added to a collection of a bunch of other standards inside her command tent.
  • Up Through the Ranks: Got all the way up to the rank of Legion Commander when she was nothing but a slave girl that wasn't even initially accepted into the Legion proper (they just tried to execute her via beating after conquering her hometown, but she was only Left for Dead rather than actually dead).
  • Wreathed in Flames: Her banners and parts of armor become permanently lit on fire with her Arcana equipped.

    N'aix, the Lifestealer 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Lifestealer_1781.png
Voiced by: Bruce Miles (Dota 2), Darin De Paul (Dota Underlords)

N'aix was once a thief, until he was captured by the Vile Council of Devarque and cursed with immortality before being thrown into the dungeons for eternity. The endless torment of solitude twisted his body and wore away at his his sanity, until eventually, his mind was completely gone and he no longer dreamt to escape. One day, a wizard was locked up in the same cell as N'aix. Inspired by his cellmate's presence, the sorcerer devised a plan to break out of prison: he would send his consciousness into N'aix and command him to launch a suicidal attack against the guards to distract them while he returned to his own body and escaped. However, N'aix's overwhelming insanity proved too great for the wizard to control, and instead, their minds were merged, reawakening Na'ix's desire to be free. Hearing the wizard's wish to escape as a faint voice in his head, Na'ix broke free of his chains and began taking over the bodies of the guards, using them to create a path to his freedom before consuming them. Although Na'ix is now free in the physical sense, he remains a prisoner of the Master, the wizard that attempted to take over his body now reduced to a voice in his head that he is compelled to obey.

Lifestealer is a carry hero who feeds as he fights, bolstering his survivability by allowing him to heal himself with every attack. His first ability is Rage, which grants Lifestealer increased movement speed as well as spell immunity for a short time. One of Lifestealer's defining abilities is his passive Feast, which heals him by a percentage of his victim's maximum health on each attack. In order to prevent foes from fleeing, Lifestealer has the passive ability Ghoul Frenzy, which slows down any enemy's movement upon dealing autoattacks against them and passively increases his attack speed. This spell also causes any ally who attacks the target to be healed for a portion of the damage dealt, including magic damage. Lastly, Lifestealer is feared for his ultimate ability, Infest, which allows him to hide inside of a creep or allied hero, giving them bonus movement speed. While hiding, he regenerates health over time, and when he's ready, he can then emerge in a shower of blood which damages nearby foes. If he infests a creep, Lifestealer also takes over its mind, controlling it and becoming able to use its abilities; when he emerges, he consumes it and heals for its remaining health. This spell is a great way to either escape by jumping into a creep, or surprise foes by hiding inside of an ally in order to trick foes into thinking a two-on-one gank is a one-on-one. Aghanim's Scepter also allows Lifestealer to cast Infest on enemy heroes, where for five seconds, he can periodically deal basic attacks on the target while disarming them. His Aghanim's Shard unlocks a new ability, Open Wounds, which allow Lifestealer to apply a debuff that grants any attacker lifesteal dealt against the target.

In Dota Underlords, Lifestealer is a tier 3 hero. His ability, Feast, is a passive which steals a portion of his target's maximum health to heal Lifestealer.


  • Achilles' Heel: The downside to effectively having Black King Bar as a basic ability instead of an item is that you're in big trouble if the enemy silences you before unleashing their chain of disables. Against enemies like Skywrath Mage, Death Prophet, or anyone with Orchid Malevolence who can do so instantly, Black King Bar might be a worthwhile purchase just to avoid these scenarios (against magic or stun-heavy teams, it can be worthwhile due to his magic immunity time being almost doubled).
  • Action Bomb: The "N'aix Bomb" strategy in a nutshell. Get in some hero good at making a Dynamic Entry (think Spirit Breaker, Storm Spirit, or Anti-Mage, or an initiator with a Blink Dagger like Tidehunter or Earthshaker), wait for your moment, then pop out with explosive force.
  • And I Must Scream: Which is worse? Having your mind shattered from an eternity of imprisonment or having your consciousness trapped in this being's vortex of madness with no real physical form of your own?
  • The Berserker: N'aix's playstyle involves hiding himself inside an ally (usually one with high mobility) to jump straight into the enemy team, pop Rage, then start to rip all of them apart.
  • Bloody Murder: Lifestealer emerging from his host after using "Infest" results in a huge explosion of blood that deals damage to enemies caught in it. Makes sense when you use it on a creep, since you're tearing it apart from the inside while emerging, but somehow this happens even when you were infesting an allied hero, who somehow takes no damage from having their guts exploded.
  • Body Horror: Not only does he look nasty himself, but his ultimate, Infest, involves him burrowing into the target and lying dormant. At any point, N'aix may jump out, killing his host instantly if it's an enemy creep.
  • Chained by Fashion: In addition to the symbolism of not being truly free.
  • Chest Burster: He can burst out of a unit through Consume after infesting it and the icon for the skill even resembles the ones from Alien.
  • Close-Range Combatant: At melee range, Lifestealer can rapidly tear through enemies while rapidly healing himself thanks to Feast. Beyond that, he has absolutely nothing; Infest has a decent damage radius but the damage is negligible compared to his attacks, and his only gap closer is Open Wounds for slowing down a target from range (which in turn requires Aghanim's Shard).
  • Combat Medic: Of an unusual variety with Open Wounds, which makes all damage a target take return half that much in health.
  • Cool, but Inefficient: Assimilate is mechanically interesting and allows for some truly silly Infest shenanigans, but doesn't really do much for Lifestealer. The ability to swallow allies for a quick save could come in handy, but given that Infest is usually on cooldown once Lifestealer enters a fight, he has no real ways of getting out of one beyond murdering the enemy team, in which case the save can mostly be ignored, and the Scepter itself gives no tangible benefits to Lifestealer as a DPS core. And you can't get rid of the Scepter once you buy it. Unsurprisingly, when Lifestealer was reworked in 7.23, Assimilate was removed and his Scepter upgrade was changed to benefit Infest instead.
  • Death of a Thousand Cuts: Lifestealer's damage per hit is rather low. However, he has a metric crapton of attack speed, letting him attack extremely quickly even with only a few items, which in turn gives him enormous healing from Feast, which in turn lets him claw enemies to death over the course of a few dozen attacks while shrugging off any damage they throw his way. Of course, Lifestealer generally also wants items to let him deal actual damage, turning the "thousand cuts" into "thousand gashes".
  • Department of Redundancy Department: Lifestealer can steal 3 different values from each autoattack, his Feast lifesteal, Open Wounds lifesteal, and any lifesteal items he bought, the latter two also lifestealing off of Feast's bonus damage.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Punishment for thievery and deception? An immortal lifetime of suffering.
  • Double Entendre: Players often use Infest as a "come inside me" joke.
  • Evil Is Visceral
  • Extreme Omnivore: He doesn't feed just on flesh, he feeds on anything alive. This includes trees, giant golems, ethereal beings, and just about anything else.
  • Friendly Fireproof: You'd think that having Lifestealer burst out of them in a huge shower of blood would be bad for most heroes' health, but thanks to game mechanics, it doesn't harm his allies at all.
  • Grand Theft Me: After casting Infest on a unit that is not an allied hero, Lifestealer takes direct control of it, giving him access to its movement and abilities. Even more, the old version of the ability did not take control right away but instead gave Lifestealer the sub-ability Control to steal the unit, and until he uses Control, the unit will still appear normal to enemies (neutral creeps will still appear as neutral, and their lane creeps or summoned units will not switch sides). This gave Lifestealer the element of surprise, although enemy players can still attack the unit in question once Lifestealer has control of it once they realize that he's inside.
  • Great Escape: Jump into an enemy creep with Infest, run for the hills with the speed bonus, then if you can't shake the enemy, pop out and activate Rage and either try to take whatever pursuit you have down or simply use the disable-immunity and slow to make a run for it. His Aghanim's gives his host body Rage to shrug off most disables and run away even faster, and if they catch up to him somehow, Infest will probably be off cooldown, letting him simply jump into another creep and lead the enemy on a wild goose chase. It can also let Lifestealer facilitate an ally's escape as well with the Rage boost.
  • Healing Factor: While hiding with Infest, Lifestealer rapidly recovers health over time. If he gets focused too hard in a teamfight, he can hide inside a teammate for a few seconds and then pop out good as new.
  • Horror Hunger: Feast lets Lifestealer heal himself with each attack, indicating that as he strikes, he tears off bits of his opponent and eats them. Open Wounds has a similar effect, as the bleeding wound it inflicts makes it easier to devour the opponent (though it gets a bit weird when the likes of Io, Treant Protector, and Enchantress get in on the life-draining action).
  • Human Resources: When he uses Consume on an infested creep, Lifestealer devours it, healing himself equal to the victim's HP.
  • Hunter of His Own Kind: In a meta sense. Feast makes Lifestealer, a tanky hero with high HP, a good counter to other tanky heroes with high HPnote .
  • I Die Free: Referenced in some of his dying responses and even said in verbatim.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: He'll feast on anyone, including fellow Oglodi.
  • Invulnerable Attack: Aghanim's Scepter allows Lifestealer to use Infest on enemies, allowing him to attack the target while remaining inside them for a few seconds.
  • King Mook: Originally one as a Ghoul that looked rather similar to the ones used as the Scourge's melee creeps in the original DotA.
  • Life Drain: As befitting his name, three of Lifestealer's abilities steal HP from enemies and give it to him, or in the case of Open Wounds, him and his teammates.
  • Ludicrous Gibs: Any non-hero unit consumed by N'aix explodes violently, splattering blood in a radius of a dozen meters. The explosion is so powerful it damages enemies in a huge radius.
  • Mighty Glacier: Just as with other low-mobility melee carries in the game, kiting is the bane of Lifestealer. No matter how much damage he can dish out, he is still useless if he keeps getting slowed and is unable to approach his enemies, though Infest helps this problem somewhat by allowing N'aix to temporarily borrow one of his allies' mobility.
  • More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Just look at him.
  • Mythology Gag: Lifestealer's passive ability Ghoul Frenzy shares the same name as the passive ability of Ghouls from Warcraft III, which the original hero was modeled after.
  • No-Sell: When N'aix uses Rage, he becomes immune to magic.
  • Noun Verber: His title, Lifestealer, should make it clear that his abilities grant him a large amount of lifesteal.
  • Our Ghouls Are Creepier: He used the model of a Warcraft ghoul in DotA, and he remained a Zombie Ghoul in DotA 2.
  • Primal Stance: He walks on all fours.
  • Puppeteer Parasite: Can infect enemy and neutral creeps using Infest and then take control of them.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Rage, which makes N'aix immune to magic and gives increased movement speed for a few seconds.
  • Was Once a Man: One of Bristleback's rival lines refers to Lifestealer as an Oglodi, like Axe. You can kind of see it in N'aix's face (mostly the nose) and skin tone (close to Warlock's, who, like Lifestealer, hasn't gotten much sun over the years).
  • What the Hell, Player?: He will call you out if you buy Vladmir's Offering on him, since he obviously doesn't need to buy lifesteal when having natural access to it is the basis of his kit, and eliminates the need to focus too much on defense so he can pile on the damage items. He's fine with you buying Satanic, however.
    "You had to buy lifesteal?"

    Mars, the First Son of Heaven 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mars_icon.png
Voiced by: Trevor Devall

The God of War, son of Zeus, had spent many lifetimes doing what he likes best: incite mortals into bloody conflict. But even for him, this eventually grew tiresome, and likewise, the condemnations of his fellow deities, including his father, wore down on him, for they were frequently no better him. In order to sate his boredom and exact his vengeance, the deity declared war on the other gods, rejecting his old name and taking upon the appellation of Mars. He now fights to tear down the old pantheon and install a new one in its stead, with him at the top.

Mars is a tanky melee hero who can turn the tides of war with his initiation abilities. His first ability, Spear of Mars, throws his lance forwards, damaging the first hero it hits and dragging them back; if the victim hits a wall or tree, they are pinned in place and stunned. God's Rebuke, his next skill, is an attack with Mars' shield that inflicts a critical hit with True Strike to all enemies in range while knocking them back and dealing extra damage to heroes. Bulwark is a passive that greatly increases Mars' durability: his powerful shield decreases all attack damage he takes from the front and sides. Finally, Mars can use his ultimate ability, Arena of Blood, to ensure his dominance: this spell creates a large circular pit, blocking enemies from entering, leaving, or attacking through the wall. This arena is surrounded by undead legionnaires who strike foes who try to escape, pushing them back and damaging them. The synergy of his ultimate ability should be obvious thanks to his two other spells which can push enemies back into the walls for increased damage.


  • Aggressive Negotiations: A huge supporter of this kind of diplomacy.
    Mars: (when poked a lot) Diplomacy? Ha! Why it's no different than war! Face off against your enemy and take measure of their weakness. Then, threaten that which they hold most dear. If they resist? Beat 'em to death with an olive branch.
  • Always Accurate Attack: God's Rebuke has True Strike, meaning it ignores evasion.
  • Amicable Exes: He used to be in a relationship with Dawnbreaker when he was known as Ares, and they had many adventures with him giving her a pet name 'Valor'. They broke up for certain reasons, but they are still willing to work for each other just like old times. When put against each others, Mars in particular take it rather hard that they have to fight each other.
  • Ancient Grome: Although he's named after a Roman god, his design combines Roman and Greek elements. His shield is Greek but decorated with Roman religious symbols (which, ironically, symbolise Jupiter and not Mars), and he wears a Greek chiton together with Roman pteruges. This is intentional, as his backstory indicates that he only recently changed his name to Mars, implying that he used to be Ares, the Greek equivalent of Mars, but rejected the Greek pantheon in favor of forming a new one.
  • Antagonistic Offspring: He doesn't approve of his father Zeus. At all.
  • Anti-Escape Mechanism: Arena of Blood traps foes inside of an arena, preventing them from running away unless they have debuff immunity.
  • Barrier Warrior: Arena of Blood surrounds the targeted area in walls. Projectiles hitting it are blocked, enemies outside it cannot enter, while those inside will be hit and knocked back by undead legionnaires if they try to leave.
  • Big Ol' Eyebrows: He has huge, fiery-red brows roughly as long as his face is wide.
  • Blood Knight: Many of his lines indicate that he absolutely relishes in the carnage of war. Just as you'd expect from the God of War himself.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Very loud and excitable on the battlefield.
  • "Bringer of War" Music: Whenever Arena of Blood is active, a snippet of Holst's "Mars" would play to remind players to fight or die or die when he's on you. Even Mars hums to the song whenever move clicked or he kills an enemy while the ability is active.
    Mars: (when an enemy dies in Arena of Blood) They're playing my song!
  • Composite Character: Apparently he used to be much more savage and selfish in his early days, but then decided to fight for a greater cause, and changed his name. In Roman mythology, Mars had always been a wise god of just war, but his Greek counterpart, Ares, was a Blood Knight, so his backstory essentially implies that he used to be Ares but then became Mars.
  • Elemental Weapon: Spear of Mars leaves a fire trail behind it when upgraded with Aghanim's Shard.
  • Javelin Thrower: Although he mostly wields it as a melee weapon, Mars can also throw his spear with Spear of Mars.
  • Knockback: Both Spear of Mars and God's Rebuke can knock back enemies, which synergizes nicely with Arena of Blood, as enemies knocked into the arena's walls take damage.
  • Large Ham: His enthusiasm for war is very evident from his demeanor.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: With Bulwark, Mars uses his shield to block attacks, though it can't protect him from behind. He can also toggle it on to lock in the direction he's currently facing, which can be useful when retreating or repositioning.
  • Mighty Glacier: Mars has good damage and can be extremely disruptive in fights, and Bulwark makes him a tough nut to crack. However he lacks mobility, meaning Blink Dagger is a must-have for him since good positioning is important for all of his abilities.
  • Pinned to the Wall: If a hero hit by Spear of Mars is knocked into an obstacle, they are pinned in place and stunned.
  • Public Domain Character: Mars, the God of War from Roman mythology.
  • Shield Bash: God's Rebuke is a shield swing which pushes enemies away and deals a Critical Hit based on Mars's attack damage.
    Mars: The spear can't have all the fun!
  • Shout-Out:
  • Theme Music Power-Up: Arena of Blood plays a snippet of "Mars" from Gustav Holst's Planets Suite while active. He'll also occasionally sing bits of it.
  • War God: If you haven't figured it out already.
  • Warrior Undead: The Ash Legion, summoned by Arena of Blood and by Aghanim's Scepter-upgraded Bulwark, are a legion of undead warriors under Mars's service, assembled from the finest warriors ever to be felled by him in battle. If an enemy dies in Arena of Blood, Mars may consider adding them to the Legion.

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