Dota 2 can be an intimidating MOBA to get into without the help of friends or a guide to streamline the complexities of the game. One of the most substantial sources of hesitation that new players are greeted with is the amazing roster of 119 heroes that are all free to play from the start. Valve does provide a new player experience, which offers a limited draft of less-complex heroes in the picking phase, but if you want to play with friends, this may not be an option. If you want to jump into the excitement of All Pick as soon as you boot up the game, these are the heroes that we recommend you learn the basics with.
Table of Contents
Crystal Maiden
Ice truly is nice when you lock in Rylai, the Crystal Maiden. She is the go-to easy to learn support that most people start playing the game with. This is due to her amazing kit of abilities that are all straightforward to use. Crystal Maiden is usually played as the hard support, which lanes with the carry in most games. She can be played as the soft support, but this is less common in higher MMR matches.
What makes Crystal Maiden so strong and fun to play for new players are her abilities. Her first ability is Crystal Nova. Crystal Nova is an AOE, ground-targeted nuke that does decent damage at low levels and slows the enemy’s attack and movement speed. Many Crystal Maiden’s take Crystal Nova at level one as it allows you to harras both enemies in the safe lane while also trading right clicks with them in an advantageous manner. The scaling on this ability is not the best, and it is typically maxed after her two other basic abilities are maxed.
Frostbite is Crystal Maiden’s next ability, and it is a click-targeted root that disarms the target along with damaging them for 100 damage per second. When you cast this ability on all creeps, other than ancients, it lasts for six seconds and kills most large creeps. Frostbite is best used for catching a target that you want to go on or for harassing a target in the lane as they can not fight back for the duration. Frostbite also provides True Site for its duration, which is nice against elusive, invisible heroes.
Arguably the skill that makes Crystal Maiden the most beginner-friendly is her Arcane Aura. This is because Dota 2 can be a punishing game, and skills consume a lot of mana when compared to other MOBAs. Arcane Aura fixes this for Crystal Maiden and her team, as it provides a global mana regen aura. If you are having a rough game and struggling to have any impact, you should max out Arcane Aura as you will help your team by just staying alive. Once Crystal Maiden gets to level 15, she can get a talent that also provides a global magic resistance Aura with the mana regen.
Crystal Maiden’s final skill is her ultimate Freeing Field. This ability is an all-or-nothing, massive AOE channeled field of destruction. If the enemy team does not stun on incapacitate Crytal Maiden while she channels her ult it will do ridiculous damage, and it is fairly hard to get out of without a movement skill. Crystal Maiden gets 20 armor while channeling, which makes her incredibly hard to kill with right clicks alone.
Itemization on Crystal Maiden is fairly simple, as most supports will not get that much farm. Crystal Maiden is a support that you can skip Mana Boots on and go for Tranquil Boots due to her passive. After you pick up your boots, you can go two routes with your itemization. The more hard support players will go for basic support items like a Force Staff or a Glimmer Cape. The more flashy, playmaking support players will most likely prefer going for a Blink Dagger and Black King Bar. The blink dagger and BKB build let you blink in the middle of the enemy heroes and activate the black king bar for magical immunity while you use your ultimate. After you pick up your basic items, some luxurious options include Aghanim’s Scepter along with Octorine Core.
Overall, Crystal Maiden’s gameplay is very easy in the lane. She dominates most other lane supports, as long as you take good trades with the enemy and buy sufficient health regen. The biggest weakness of Crystal Maiden is her low life pool and overall susceptibility to nuke damage. As far as her talent selection goes, her talents are fairly balanced, and you can pick the ones that best fit the game that you are in.
Wraith King
When you lock in Ostarion, the king truly has arrived. For the longest time, Wraith king was in an exclusive club since he only had one active ability. This has made him the go-to hard carry for most people to learn since Dota 2’s inception. He now has “2” active abilities, but his new active adds little complexity to the hero.
Wraith King’s first and only targeted ability is Wraithfire Blast. This is a point-and-click stun that does moderate damage and slows after the stun’s duration. It’s a straightforward ability to use, and most carry players will put a single point in it to help out in the lane, but a lot of the time it won’t get maxed out until late game.
Next up we have Vampiric Spirit, which provides lifesteal for the King and his skeletons. Every two units that you get the last hit on provides Wraith King with a skeleton charge. Whenever you have any amount of charges, you can activate Vampiric Spirit and summon skeletons relative to the number of charges you had when activating the ability. These skeletons cannot be microed, but they will focus on anyone that Wraith King casts Wraithfire Blast upon. This ability as a whole allows Wraith King to farm quicker than most other beginner-friendly cores and allows him to push out lanes without exposing himself to a gank. The skeletons will prioritize enemy creeps over enemy units. Vampiric Spirit also allows Wraith King to recover from a tough lane in the jungle without any items, especially when combined with his next passive.
Mortal Strike is Wraith King’s third ability and one of the most satisfying to use. Mortal Strike provides Wraith King with a guaranteed critical strike whenever it is off cooldown. This allows for easy last hits, better harassment of nearby enemies, and a quicker pace in the jungle. Later in the game, when you have more items, you may even be able to take care of enemy supports in a few swings, thanks to Mortal Strike.
Wraith King’s final ability is his most iconic. Reincarnation does exactly what you think it does. It gives Wraith King a second chance at life on a cooldown. This cooldown is incredibly long at level 6, but when you get to level 18, it’s up a surprising amount of the time. Reincarnation allows you to get into the middle of the fights and initiate safely with your team. The only downsides are the massive cooldown at lower levels and the fact that if you don’t have mana, Reincarnation does not work. When it does go off, Reincarnation brings Wraith King back to life after a three-second delay, with full life and mana. Aghanim’s Scepter and Aghanim’s Shard both buff Reincarnation. His scepter grants his allies a seven-second extended lease on life when they die around him. His shard removes the mana cost of Reincarnation along with summoning three skeletons when he dies.
Wraith King is most commonly played as the hard carry, but he can also be played as the offlaner. This is due to his innate ability to tank along with his reliable stun. He also does not need much more than his ultimate and a Blink Dagger to have a massive impact in team fights. If you play him as hard carry, the most common first item is an Armlet of Mordiggian. Armlet provides you with tons of physical damage, armor, and a huge boost of life in the early game. After you get an armlet, the next most common items are Radiance and Blink Dagger. Radiance is better for farming, while Blink Dagger allows you to join your team in fights during the early game. Wraith King is pretty great as a carry as you can build most carry-centered items on him and they will work well. He is a blank canvas and you can fine-tune his itemization to fit the game at hand. If you learn how to farm fast and carry with wraith king it’s sure-fire way to increase your (matchmaking rating) MMR.
Ogre Magi
Get ready to tilt your opponents when you lock in Aggron Stonebreak, the Ogre Magi. Ogre Magi is one of the most fun and flexible heroes Dota 2 has to offer. Ogre Magi can be played as the soft support, the hard support, the offlaner, and even sometimes as the mid laner. This flexibility comes from the fact that Ogre does insane damage with just levels, scales well with farm, and is incredibly hard to take down.
Ogre Magi’s first ability is Fireblast. Fireblast is a stun with a fairly low duration and not much damage. It doesn’t scale that well, and in the laning phase it’s not the best for harassing. You will want to max Fireblast second as it has incredible synergy with Ogre Magi’s ultimate.
Ignite is a point-targeted damage over time debuff that slows, dealing damage over time and spreads to another random target once it is cast. Ignite does an insane amount of damage in lane, and allows you to out harass nearly any other Hero as long as they do not have a dispel. You should get Ignite level one nearly every game, and during the laning phase you should put at least 3 points into it. Ignite is the skill that makes Ogre such a fearsome laner.
Bloodlust is the most support-focused ability that Ogre Magi has in his kit and is typically maxed out last most games. It provides a substantial movement speed and attack speed bonus for any ally that it is cast on, including creeps and towers. You can set Bloodlust to autocast and it will automatically buff the nearest hero lacking the buff off cooldown.
Ogre Magi’s ultimate ability is his most outrageous. Multicast allows Ogre Magi to have a random chance to cast his abilities multiple times. This is why Fireblast does not scale well in lane. It has to be “balanced” around being cast four times in a row randomly. Multicast also allows Ogre to cast targeted items multiple times. This has great synergy with items like Hand of Midas, Scythe of Vyse, Dagon, and Ethereal Blade.
When it comes to itemization on Ogre, it depends on what position you want to play. If you are playing Ogre Magi as a support hero, then I recommend getting Mana Boots followed by a Force Staff or a Glimmer Cape. If you are looking to play Ogre in any other position, you want to get Boots of Speed and then immediately rush a Hand of Midas. Midas will allow you to scale your farm and levels quicker while not taking many resources off the map. After you get a Midas, you can pretty much get any point-targeted item and have a good time. If you want to blow up the enemies quickly, I recommend getting an Ethereal Blade and a Dagon. If you want to keep them controlled, you should get a Scythe of Vyse.
What makes Ogre so strong is the fact that he starts the game with 7.33 armor, his base regen is 5.5, he has a 3.3 strength gain as an intelligence hero, and ignite does a lot of damage in the early game. All of these factors allow him to be a lane dominator, and as long as you have adequate regen, you can bully most other heroes.
Bristleback
If you are looking for an obnoxiously hard-to-kill hero that does more damage when he is damaged, then look no further than Rigwarl, the Bristleback. Bristleback is one of the most durable heroes in Dota 2, as he is one of the few with percentage damage reduction. This makes countering Bristleback a difficualt task. His kit is easy to use and understand, and he does not require many items to feel impactful.
Bristleback’s first ability is Viscous Nasal Goo, which is a point-and-click slow that reduces the armor of the target. This effect stacks four times but can stack up to seven with his scepter. This ability makes Bristleback the king of chasing someone down the lane and diving their towers. As long as the target does not have a movement ability or a teleport scroll, Bristleback will eventually hunt them down.
Quill Spray is Bristleback’s second ability and one of his most dangerous. The quills don’t do much damage initially, but the damage stacks up every time you cast quills or your passive procs. This damage can get out of hand quickly and can decimate an entire team if they are not paying attention. Quill Spray has lots of synergy with spell lifesteal, and it can help to keep Bristleback healthy during the most intense engagements.
Rigwarl gets his character name from his passive ability, which is called Bristleback. Bristleback reduces the damage Rigwarl takes when he is facing away from the source of the damage, and it has a lesser reduction if the damage comes from Bristleback’s sides. This passive also has a side benefit of proccing Quill Spray every time Bristleback takes 210 damage from the rear. This allows Bristleback to stack up a massive amount of quills in a short amount of time if the whole enemy team focuses on him. If they do not finish him off, they are in for a bad time.
Bristleback’s ultimate ability is another passive called Warpath. Warpath provides Bristleback with attack damage and movement speed every time he casts a spell. This can stack up to nine times at max level, and it allows Bristleback to be a threat with his skills along with his right-clicks.
Bristleback is mostly played as an offlaner, but sometimes you will see him as a mid laner to counter another mid laner, or as a hard carry when paired with specific supports. When it comes to the itemization for Bristleback, you can build pretty much anything you want as long as it gives him more survivability against the damage that the enemy team has. Most people will build Phase Boots on Bristleback, or they will opt for a more team-based build with Guardian Greaves. After you get boots on Bristleback, you will most likely get either a Hood of Defiance if the enemies have a lot of magic damage or a Vanguard if they have lots of physical. Vanguard is also great if you want to cut the wave or do ancients with Bristleback. Late game, many Bristleback players tend to go for Heart of Tarrasque or Assault cuirass. You can scale Bristleback with attack damage, but most people opt to focus on survivability and the damage Bristleback gets from his abilities.
Overall, Dota 2 is an incredibly fun but complex MOBA to get into. The heroes on this list are the best Dota 2 heroes for beginners, perfect for when you are first starting the game. They offer a great balance of flexibility and easy-to-learn mechanics. Learning Dota 2 can be a daunting task, but once you learn the ropes it is one of the most enjoyable MOBAs on the market with the right gaming laptop for dota 2. If you invest the time and effort into learning the mechanics of the heroes and the map, you will easily excel past other players.