Supporting in 7.20
One of our biggest complaints about 7.19 overstaying its welcome was that the support meta got really stale by the end of the patch. There was only a handful of viable supports you could first- or second-pick in a regular pub match and not set your team up for a loss.
We would like to say that 7.20 drastically changed all this, but the reality will not necessarily agree with us. There is still a rather limited pool of heroes on support positions that work best when picked early and there are still heroes that are hard to execute, without meaningful payoff.
That said, there are several key differences between this patch and the previous one. The first big difference is that it is actually ok to pick core heroes in the first couple of rounds during the draft. You still don’t want to set your mid up against their natural counters, but first or second phase pick of Phantom Assassin, Juggernaut or many offlane heroes is a viable course of action. That means you sometimes get to pick supports in the middle of the draft and it can make open up a lot of possibilities.
The second biggest difference is that despite there still being a pool of subjectively or statistically better heroes, it is significantly bigger than it was in the previous patch. Today we are going to look at some of these heroes and discuss why exactly they are worth playing and exploring further in the new patch.
Bane
Bane got his Enfeeble reworked and now it reduces attack speed instead of damage, while also increasing the duration of negative effects on affected enemies. While it does look very interesting on paper, the majority of Bane players still default to maxing out Brain Sap and Nightmare first, so the end result is that the hero isn’t that different from what we had in 7.19.
In this case, it is a good thing. Bane is still decently tanky, still trades exceptionally well, has a great, low commitment setup and a spell immunity-piercing disable. It is the reason Bane was successful in the previous patch and is the reason he is successful now.
Dazzle
Despite being often played in the core role, Dazzle is still an amazing support. Bad Juju gave the hero this small, extra push to make him competitively viable, while later patches made him almost perfectly balanced—the hero wins only slightly above 50% of his games and doesn’t look overpowered in the pub environment.
The most frequent mistake support Dazzles make is that they ignore Poison Touch past the first level. Sometimes they have this build in mind at the start of the game, sometimes they “adjust” to bad lane, trying to survive it better. Both of these reasons lead to wrong builds 99%.
For many old players the idea of a healer Dazzle is ingrained, but it is really hard to play Dota this way in the current meta. You absolutely need this second level of Poison Touch, since it is a massive power spike for your lane presence and can turn around a bad start. Otherwise you are simply trying to salvage a bad situation, making it even worse.
Second mistake is the infatuation with the Medallion of Courage. It was a great item for the hero and an early 
Blight Stone can be devastating in lane, but the Medallion and Solar Crest are now best suited for core heroes—the upgrade is very expensive.
As a 5th position support, personally, I had the most success going for Arcane Boots and trying to build Mekansm and Guardian Greaves if the game goes very late. Having the Greaves Aura and the active effect on a 20s cooldown tramples anything else in the price range. 950 recipe for Mekansm being the most expensive component for the early-to-mid game also makes this approach quite consistent.
When it comes to playstyle, players will have to adjust. Previously, in most cases, using Weave, saving a teammate with Shallow Grave and then blindly running into the fray in the hopes of baiting a non-AoE stun and a couple of auto-attacks was the best course of action.
Now you want to be in the fight continuously, you want to keep on reducing enemy armor and in the later stages of the game you absolutely want to squeeze out maximum utility out of Shallow Grave every 7.5 seconds.
Grimstroke
Ink Tendrils can now be fully charged from a single hero and it makes the ability ridiculously good in lane. Despite some minor nerfs, this change alone resulted in Grimstroke going from backline support with clutch disengagement tools to a full-on aggressor in lane.
With 600 starting HP and 3 Armor the hero is far from being the tankiest of supports and works best in lanes with either an extra stun or a hero who likes to run into a group of enemies. However, even after the nerfs in the 7.20d patch, his lane presence is very intimidating.
Top it off with a very early +90 GPM talent and you have a great support who is strong in lane, has great spells for midgame and can even afford good single target items in the later stages.
Jakiro
Jakiro benefits greatly from having strong lane presence, but is also made a lot more appealing with how the games are slightly shorter in the new patch. People are finally pushing and taking towers, several pushing heroes are in the meta and it means Liquid Fire gets to be an awesome spell.
Depending on the situation, Jakiro can also go for higher teamfight presence, making him quite flexible. While Dual Breath is probably the best level one spell and Liquid Fire is devastating when winning lanes, if you see the game going long and expect a lot of teamfights, maxing out Ice Path will likely yield the best results.
Unlike many currently popular supports, Jakiro gets his GPM talent quite late, but he also gets +30% XP at level 10. This talent allows him to enter midgame with access to the better versions of his abilities, all of which are pretty powerful.
The hero does fall off in the very late stages of the game and it is still better to push the advantage he gives your team around 20-30 minute mark. Though, when combined with powerful setup heroes like Faceless Void, he can remain relevant in terms of damage output throughout the whole game.
Lich
Frost Shield is probably one of the best support abilities in the game and it makes Lich great. It is good in lane, on both offense and defense. It is good in midgame and it is absolutely amazing in the late game, where the majority of damage is physical auto-attacks. Coupled with massive cast range and low cast point, it makes for a very powerful tool at Lich’s disposal.
His only slightly above 50% win rate, however, is easily explained by his other abilities. There is nothing particularly exciting about Frost Blast—its usefulness is getting lower and lower as the game progresses, but it is pretty decent in lane.
Sinister Gaze, Lich’s new ability, is probably one of the worst spells in the game—120 mana for a 1.6 second disable with a 500 cast range and a 30 second cooldown. Don’t get me wrong, a disable is a disable and it can turn fights and save allies, but Sinister Gaze is just so underwhelming. It is not in an AoE, it caps at 2.4 duration as a channelling ability and its secondary effect of moving the enemy closer to you is pretty much purely cosmetic.
Every single other disable in the game is better than Sinister Gaze and, yet, Lich is very much a playable hero with decent winrate. Frost Shield is that good. Max it out first, use it in a timely manner and you will win your games.
Lion
Giving Lion scaling options skyrocketed his winrate in higher level pubs. It also made him a more popular hero.
Lion was never truly bad. Ever since patch 7.12, which decreased the manacost of level 1 Earthspike, the hero was in a decent place. He was a hard counter to Slark, he had several disables and could fully sustain himself in lane in terms of mana. Sure, he paid for it with low starting stats, but when played smartly he could be a babysitter and an aggressor.
Everything above is still true, with the exception of being a counter to Slark. This small push of getting 50 extra damage on Finger of Death for successful kills is not what made the hero significantly stronger, but rather what made people notice him and start analyzing and exploring his potential playstyles. Turns out a level 15 +150 GPM talent is great and Lion can eventually get to some big items, if needed.
Variety of disables means that he is guaranteed to be relevant in midgame, while his nukes do make a big difference in the later stages. As long as Lion is played well, with decent positioning and spell usage, he can be a very strong support.
Shadow ShamanAnother great disabler who sacrifices some teamfight presence for extra pushing potential. Lack of GPM talent definitely hurts Shadow Shaman and a +20% XP one is not good enough of a substitute, but there is place in the game for first pick Shadow Shamans still.
First of all, when coupled with some tanky hero who can disrupt the enemy positioning and draw the majority of aggro, Shadow Shaman is significantly stronger in lane. He is extremely squishy, but his right click damage and early game nukes can easily swing the lane in your favor.
Secondly, Shaman does a lot more with space, compared to Lion. Not in terms of gold to effectiveness conversion, where the heroes are more or less equal, but in terms of map control and pushing power. The enemy team can absolutely leave the enemy Lion pushing the lane, since he does it very slowly. Shadow Shaman demands an answer, while his carry is farming the jungle.
This means the enemy team is either wasting time and resources on ganking a support hero or that they gank a core, but potentially lose a tower in the process. Good map awareness and understanding of the game are probably more significant for a good Shadow Shaman game than positioning and spell usage.
Closing Thoughts
These seven heroes are currently among the more successful support heroes in the game, at least in terms of statistics. That generally makes them good first pick material and if you know how to play them at your MMR you won’t create a statistical disadvantage for your pub teammates.
It doesn’t mean, however, they are the only good support heroes in the game. They are just the most ubiquitous and your teammates are probably going to better understand how to play with you on their team. There are still reasons to deviate from these seven picks, especially in the later portions of the draft, though do keep in mind that communication is key, and you can’t assume your lane partner or your whole team will know how to play with you.
First?
Yay, Jak and SS are getting some more attention.
Sinister Gaze seems to be all about ganking off map with a high damage burst partner-in-crime, or winning time by preemptively catching a key hero off guard in a team fight's periphery. This is a rather niche job for this spell, but it does it quite well. Also, if the spell had been a strong disable instead (a root, hex or stun) it would surely have made Lich too strong during the early game. For these two reasons your claim that Sinister Gaze is perhaps the worst spell in the game sounds preposterous.
Lol goodluck playing Lich after he was nerfed as fuck and turned into shitty little sup from being destroyer of lanes. -4% winrate at 7.20
Sinister Gaze, a massive repositioning spell combining very well with cast range talent & lens(since lich requires much more mana this patch) is "one of the worst spell in the game" - Dotabuff 2018. Fun fact: do you know sinister gaze can make victims walk through terrain?
@super.zolo I have almost 80 percent win rate as support lich since 7.20 came out. I miss sacrifice but he is crazy strong right now.
Wait, why not go 1/3/1 on bane? do you not get slightly more sleep time with the enfeeble? Not to mention it would benefit your ult as well.
@Zadira's
Nightmare cast range. You need extra points to actually use the spell in fights without being blown up.
@Fire
"Massive re-positioning tool"... 280 units moved without talent or aether lens is a cosmetic effect. I've played 9 (8 won) games on the hero in Immortal rankings and not once did it comes into play massively. Even in the game where I've built lens. And the only reason I've built lens is because the game was already won at that point and I wanted to test if it actually works meaningfully the way you describe and some people might theorycraft about without actually playing the hero.
There is some chance you can drag someone over the cliff with it, but it is really small. Watching qualifiers (most of them), I think there was only one instance where a hero got dragged over the cliff, but not in a meaningful way, since he was dead regardless.
Even with lens and talent you get 475 units moved. That requires wasting gold on lens, getting to level 20 AND, most importantly, not getting +2s Frost Shield at level 20. Don't do that, it is bad.
Hero's in a good place, despite Sinister Gaze being the worst disable in the game by a huge margin. Then, again, as I said, disable is a disable. It will always be useful and 0-cast point is very good. It's just not as good as any other disable in the game.
This Jakiro and Void relationship is very funny, when Void is his team, Jakiro benefit off course, but when Jakiro enemy team and is out of chrono, Void has to choose either eating prey over burning lava or ignore the disabled one and go after the Twin head instead :D
Edit : Jakiro is enemy team
Still feel Undying should have been here
@KawaiiSocks with the shutdown. Moving past that, do you disagree with the balance the hero has between his skills at the moment? By that I mean is it ok that he has an underpowered skill to compensate for a strong one, or should he have more of an even reliance on his skills?
For the record I think it's good to have heroes that have only one good thing to do and have to work hard to make the rest of their kit useful. it's like old Tidehunter, just a tanky boi with medallion/diffusal active and a big stun. You didn't NEED those other things. You just needed the stun mostly. Also, Gush might give it a run for worst disable in the game. Pros and cons for Gush.
It's perfectly normal for a hero to have a "signature" spell, something that makes them very powerful in the right game. The reason we have 95%+ picked or banned heroes in most major tournaments and during the International each year is because every single hero is unique and brings something or a combination of some things to the table that no other hero does. It is what makes Dota beautiful, diverse, smart, strategic and tactical.
It is also only possible because every single hero in the game is free—business side of things doesn't completely devour and destroy gameplay design space like in other low-quality mobile-like games.
So, yeah, I fully agree that it is good heroes in Dota sometimes have their "good" and "bad" spells. The way I prefer to think about it is "how strong the effect is" combined with "how often it matters". Basically "situationally awesome" might be more or less equal to "always decent". "Rarely awesome" = "situationally decent", etc. etc. etc.
On this spectrum Sinister Gaze is "always way below average". It is still "always". It is still way below average.
Somehow, somewhere in the world of Dota it balances out in the end across all heroes, for a surprisingly balanced gameplay, given the complexity of the game.
Except for Terrorblade. This hero essentially has three ultimates. Fuck him.
Also, to avoid confusion, Sinister Gaze is, in my opinion, the worst "hard disable" (fear, stun, hex, taunt) in the game—something that doesn't allow your enemy to control their hero or use abilities. I'd take it over slows and would have to look at the enemy heroes/items before thinking of whether in this particular game I'd trade Sinister Gaze for Halberd, Nullifier or Orchid Active.
For the record, I'd never trade Lion or SS Hex, Earth Spike, Shackles, Fiend's Grip or any other hard CC in the game for any of these actives.
I'd probably take halberd active over Gaze in games against something like Huskar. 5 Second Disarm on a 18 second cooldown is straight up better in this case. (again, 2.4 s on 30s cooldown... welp)
I'd take Orchid active over Gaze in games against heavy casters or heroes who rely on mobility. 5 second silence on 18 second cooldown. You get the idea.
But at the end of the day it is still a hard disable, it is never truly bad. It's just worse than other hard CC and the secondary effect is cute, but not particularly useful in most cases. Though the fact that Lich now has a hard disable, shitty as it is, still makes him a better hero overall. Lich would be absolutely and completely broken if he had even something like Sven's Hammer, Earth Spike, Light Strike Array, Shackles etc.
@MM.Ugh Brock Hall, does Gush count as a disable? It should be considered a slow and armour debuff.
Lich bad disable is a compensation on his ridiculous frost blast nuke early game and frost shield which can reduce 60% dmg and deal a total of 300 dmg over 6 scnds, not to mention chainfrost dmg is high with slightly lower cooldown.
Go tide with Meteor hammer aghanim desolator daedalus. and assault cuirass
Meme hammer to boost his early damage output and synergise with ravage
Agh upgrade (area gush) synergises with the new anchor smash desolator and can instantly reduce 13 armor (17 armor with talent) and if coupled with AC, it will be more devastating.
Daedalus can be picked up if you get 250 dmg talent and perhaps u can kill supp with just 1 gush + anchor smash
Is Venge finally a strict offlane double, e.g. pos4?
^venge pos 4 was the meta a few patches ago, imo she’s just too good to play as 4 rather than 5
I mean, Lich sinister gaze is underwhelming. BUT keep in mind, Lich has no means of stun since removal of chain frost ministun. So Lich probably will go from post 5 into greedier 4th post
where the fuck is rubick
@sadboys stealing kills in a pub near you
out of topic, but don't you think tide's talents need a rework to make him playable? :(
What about Ogre Magi?!
Yep. Ogre, Venge and Warlock were forgotten, as well as CM, AA and the silent one. I'd say Disruptor exists, too, but compared to 2016 he's weaker.
Regarding venge 5 - imma fan of first picking this hero, but she feels risky vs a serious dual offlane. If you don't kill, you will probably be harrassed out due to no sustain and insufficient attack range.
But it's probably me playing party queue and facing people 2k mmr better. In that scenario, Warlock or Dazzle are easier.
im tired of all this alpha male shit and being a pos 1. I am horribly bad when laning not mid, and there are always retards who instalocks mid, so i am moving on to being a pos 5 support which i am much mjch better at in the side lanes. any tips?
dont play supports, it is so not alpha! Only carry gives you mmr
How is Undying not mentioned on this list? Easily the best support in the meta right now. You literally cannot zone this hero out of lane, and he is such an annoying harrasser. His mid-game fighting abilities with Tombstone and Flesh Golem can very easily win you teamfights and snowball your team to victory.
Honorable Mention: Winter Wyvern! She’s kinda weak in the laning phase until you hit 2-3 and put points in Ice Blast. But once you hit that, if the enemy even walks up to the creep wave, they’re going to take a lot of damage. Wyvern’s one of the few supports that still has a Lvl 10 gold talent, so she’ll almost always have items in the mid-late game, and she’ll always have enough gold for wards. Her ult also scales incredibily well because of it piercing spell immunity and it giving attack speed to the targets around the hero you ulted. So if the other team has a Slark or PA on their team, they’re going to get bonus attack speed plus the damage they’re doing, to the hero you ulted. Basically any support is insta-dead and any offlaner is probably dead as well. She goes well in lane with cores like Juggernaut, Slark, and Wraith King who benefit from her healing and like a support with a slow with them.
TL;DR
Undying is the best support in this meta, and Winter Wyvern is really, really good right now.
@KawaiiSocks not a single thing I disagree with there. Your concept of situationally awesome vs always decent is one I often use to back up heroes that have poor winrate because they are situational heroes played in the wrong situation. More to the point, it's how I explain why they don't need a rework, because 50% winrate is not necessarily the goal.
I love the idea that the game can do this only because all heroes are free. It explains why many other games have inflexibility in design for their heroes. If you can't have access to all heroes, then the ones you DO have access to better be able to do anything you need. At that point, why even HAVE different heroes if they all do the same thing?
@JesterMaroc
https://dota2.gamepedia.com/Disable
It isn't a hard disable, but I'd characterize it as a disable nonetheless. The armor aspect would be....debuff would be the umbrella term but I'm actually unsure what non-cc debuffs are called collectively. To be clear, I'm referring to things like status amp (enfeeble), minus armor, magic amp (shotgun), minus regen (spirit vessel) etc.
I am very surprised no one's even mentioning Keeper of The Light. I've been recently winning games 8/10 of the time with him on Ancient.
@No Handshake, 'Sinister Gaze-worst disable' might be an overstatement but it's certainly a contender. Channeled, single target, no damage and brings the enemy closer to him, a squishy support like Lich doesn't want that. Still it's an upgrade to the hero. He essentially has a new ability that can make an impact throughout the game. Sacrifice was only super useful in the laning stage. Losing the early lane control impact from this ability is a hard hit for the hero, but the mana benefit can be resolved with items.
I think the buff it Sinister Gaze needs is for it to affect multiple targets within a vector targeted cone. Thoughts?
I think if they dropped the disable time down and made it scale up, but made it an AOE spell, it would make more sense. Then it synergizes with lichs ult.
Orge Magi is very safe pick right now. The early hp regen allows him to lane and deny very easily. Then grab a 15 min midas and rush agh and eblade. Once you have the +40str talent, you can easily sit in the frontline and harass with ignite. A very solid frontline hero is needed in high skill pubs to kind of protect your ranged cores.
Sinister Gaze makes Lich a counter to Bristle Back. Is definitely not just cosmetic.
а стало еще хуже теперь их всего 5 ,огр ,дазл,дарк вилоу ,гримсероук и лион.
1st
Grimstronk major imba.
2nd
Who the fuck maxes sleep LOL!
3d
Rhasta is still weak unfortunently.
Also it doesnt mather if you pick first or last if you are good you are just that good if you are bad it wont mather you will lose anyways.
Especially since 99% of you play ALL-TARD going for -CM aka real dota then it has some effect.
would be nice a post about offlaners, tusk, sand king, dark seer, balanar a lot of them got improve in ways that can play other roles.
nice post nice content.
Mathc ID 4261255007 . See REPLAY Sir VALVE i need this acc. to banned more issues to come if you want this acc. played again 219645381
@Study Time Dood, I think making sinister gaze AOE will make it too strong, because then it basically becomes blackhole with no damage in terms of team disable. I think with Lich's current strength in frost shield he doesn't need a buff to other abilities. If sinister gaze really needed a buff it could be something like increased cast range so that you can cancel tps and other channeling abilities from a longer distance away.
Had a few games where sinister gaze provided a lot of kills though. Well the cores did the kill but 2.4secs is a big thing when setting a kill. In one of my matches Weaver couldn't use any skill and Drow Ranger just frost arrows his arse to death.
Glad to see the community is actually active and open to discussion now.
What are your thoughts about Oracle?
@Saint Perth
The Drow silence likely was a larger factor than the gaze though, six seconds of silence is more than enough to take care of a glassy weaver. He relies very heavily on being able to double his life in fights or escape after a big dive, the silence neuters the part he cares about, similar to disarming a huskar. I can't stress this enough: never play Weaver against a silence skill hero. A hard disable is never 'bad' to have, but I agree with Kawaii that it's the least impactful hard disable in the game, even malifice is better (although it's close).
Sinister gaze is situationally awesome, particular if you vs a Bristle or with a dusa.
It is fairly good if you are with a Bristleback too. It feels really good if you manage to cliff someone with it, but thats way harder then with a Rubik.
It is also a Tp cancel.
Still, worst disable in the game sounds about right.
There is also some underappreciated synergy between monkey king and lich. Monkey is getting 4 hits on your with every frost armor unless you are windranger or something, gaze is pretty good with monkey ult (if lich is in the ult, he actually doesnt mind people being moved close to him).
Why is Omniknight not on the list?
@KawaiiSocks wondering about your thoughts on Dark Willow this patch? Love to play her but she just feels so underwhelming now
@KawaiiSocks. I have one question. Visage? Acknowledging he isn't an ideal position 5 (though in pubs, he'll suffice), and that he can be run in a variety of roles, he is definitely a viable roaming P4 support, that provides an acceptable laning phase, and comes with upwards '4th core' potential. The hero has the highest support win rate in Archon (56.8%), the highest win rate OUTRIGHT in both legend (57%) and ancient (59%), and is second highest ranked support in anything above that. He scouts, stuns, slows, nukes, is a good carrier for utility and team support items. How is he not even mentioned here? For those who mid him - he could've also been discussed in terms of 'mid heroes', possibly? Either way, worth a mention considering the notable chart dominance. (Crazy stat: 4 birds at level 3 - 600 dps, before Gravechill, and without considering the hero itself; Chain stun assuming you resummon - 12 second AOE stun).