The 15 least-played heroes in Dota 2

Dota 2 is an ever-changing game as its meta ebbs and flows with the tide. As more powerful heroes rise to the top with every major update, other heroes fall hard, only to be revitalized a few updates later. However, there are some consistent exceptions to this rule, because there are some heroes that are almost never picked, no matter how much they are buffed.

The least-picked heroes in Dota 2

Despite the ever-changing metagame, there are a few heroes that are barely picked on a consistent basis. These heroes have historically never done well in a pub setting, and here are the most recent pick rates for each.

With the millions of matches played across eight different brackets, these heroes have always been under-picked. What is the reason for that? Let us take a little deep dive into each hero to find out where the problems lie.

15) Earth Spirit

Earth Spirit is one of the most exciting heroes to watch in professional matches. Unfortunately, the same does not translate to pub games because the hero is quite complex to play. Earth Spirit also requires a good level of coordination between the player and his teammates, which is generally not possible in a pub environment with random players.

To be successful with this hero in ganks, you need to be able to hit all of his spells successfully. A failed roll can open the enemy up to counterplay, and his ultimate ability, Magnetize, has a fairly small area of effect, making it difficult to land for unfamiliar players. The level of mechanical skill and practice you need to succeed with this hero deters newer players from even trying to play him, leading to his low pick rate.

14) Lone Druid

Lone Druid’s low pick rate is much easier to understand because he is a micro-intensive hero. While it’s less demanding in this regard than some of the other heroes on this list, ensuring that the hero and his bear stay alive in fights while dealing damage is difficult for most players. He has a very high skill cap and can be absolutely devastating in games where he has no counters.

Lone Druid is more effective in lower skill brackets, where enemies don’t necessarily have the best map awareness. When fights break out, a sudden push from Lone Druid can result in the loss of several barracks if players don’t take notice. Nevertheless, his high skill cap, and potential of death when his bear dies, deter most players from trying to play him.

13) Io

Io is a powerhouse in competitive games. While he is almost always either picked or banned in the first phase of drafting, his visibility in pub games is almost non-existent. This is because the hero is highly dependent on having a dominant or survivable lane partner in the early game and a good level of communication to pull off ganks and escapes as the game goes on.

While there was the potential of a mid Io and a carry Io build some time ago, those paths have been constantly nerfed to the point where Io’s best role is a pure support once again. The other niche builds have not been enough to bring him back to the peak core potential of a bygone era. Now Io only seems to perform well in pubs when you’re in a party queue where you can communicate with your allies and coordinate fights better.

12) Bane

Another staple of pro games, Bane has always been a reliable, BKB-piercing hero with great laning potential. He was the top position 5 hero a year ago, but since the nerfs to his Nightmare and early laning hit, he was picked less often, even in the top brackets. While his Fiend’s Grip is still as potent, there are better heroes who can do his job in the current meta.

Bane struggles in pubs because the hero is highly reliant on proper positioning. While this issue is less of a problem in higher brackets, Bane does not perform as well below Immortal rank. The channeling issue of his Fiend’s Grip is somewhat mitigated by an Aghanim’s Scepter purchase, but realistically, position 5 heroes need other items to survive and be useful first. All of these factors contribute to a low pick rate for a hero who was once a powerful game dominator.

11) Shadow Demon

With the downfall of the illusion meta a couple of years ago, Shadow Demon has been losing his impact even in the highest brackets. The hero does not provide much in terms of disables, he is highly reliant on his level six spike to be able to kill heroes, his one nuke depends on consistent stacking, and most players don’t know how to use his new Disseminate a spell effectively.

His one great use case was to create illusions of powerful stat-based heroes like Luna, allowing for easy high-ground pushes with no risk. Though that gameplay style has been nerfed, he can still be effective as a counterganker with his Shard ability. He truly shines when he acquires an Aghanim’s Scepter, but yet again, we fall into the same Bane-sized hole of a problem here.

10) Meepo

Meepo was once the account boosters’ premier choice of hero. He is highly mobile, can flash farm the jungle and push lanes effectively, while being able to gank at a moment’s notice. So why isn’t he picked more often? First of all, he’s literally four heroes, which again adds a micro aspect to the game that players find difficult to execute. Secondly, if one Meepo dies, they all die, making him a high-risk, high-reward hero—and in the hands of new players, it’s generally not rewarding.

Meepo takes a lot of time and practice to master. He can get by with minimum items as long as he has the level advantage, which he gains by simultaneously farming jungle camps and lanes. The problem here is that most players are not very good at taking advantage of this and will get punished if they spend too long alternating between Meepos. These factors have led to his terrible pick rate.

9) Dark Seer

Dark Seer is a powerful lane dominator and is the bane of most melee carries. Almost always played in the offlane, he is known for pressuring lanes and taking down the tier 1 tower in under 10 minutes, given a free lane. He is also one of the few heroes in the game that can passively farm and push lanes by plopping down a couple of Ion Shells on his creep waves. So why the low pick rate?

Well, apart from pushing lanes effectively, the hero has little solo kill potential. This is essential in a pub environment because offlaners are generally aggressive playmakers that are there to take the heat. Dark Seer is mostly invisible while he pushes lanes, and when he does show up to fights, he needs a well-coordinated team to take advantage of his Vacuum and Wall of Replica combo. Since these concepts don’t translate well to pub games, he is not a very popular pick.

8) Lycan

Like Lone Druid, Lycan is another micro-intensive hero—but while Lone Druid is mostly independent and can farm lanes while dominating heroes, Lycan requires a bit more finesse until he hits level six. Even after that, he has no reliable slow or stun to catch enemy heroes who can just teleport out when he decides to gank them.

Lycan’s main skill lies in pressuring lanes and being a nuisance by taking towers. If the enemy responds to him, he can easily fight back with his army of summons. If the fight doesn’t seem to be going in his favor, he can Shapeshift out of there. Despite this, the micro aspect and the lack of playmaking potential for an offlaner leaves him with a very low pick rate.

His one saving grace was his Aghanim’s Scepter ability, but since a lot of his best ally matchups with Wolf Bite seem to be out of the meta, that build is now pretty niche too.

7) Batrider

Widely known as being one of the most difficult heroes to lane against, Batrider always seems to be dipping in and out of the meta between patches. He is a difficult hero to buff because his innate skillset can lead him to be too overpowered with some tweaks. This is why the hero is usually just reworked from time to time, but he is always a pain to play against. With so much going for him, why is he not picked as much?

That’s because Batrider is another high skill cap hero. He relies on his Sticky Napalm early game, which can be countered by a magic wand and positional awareness. His Firefly and Flamebreak are not as powerful as they used to be, and his Flaming Lasso can be countered by Linkin’s Sphere and Lotus Orb. His current game state is not the strongest either, but he might see more play after another buff or two comes his way.

6) Elder Titan

Elder Titan was a hero that most players simply did not understand how to play. His Spirit was difficult to control while managing the hero, his Stomp had a fairly long channel time, and his ultimate was highly reliant on landing the Stomp itself. However, the biggest learning curve for the hero lies in his Natural Order aura. It has a small AoE, and most players just didn’t know what the ability really did.

The popularity of the hero surged during TI10 when he was one of the most picked position 5 heroes. Even though his aura was finally understood by players spectating the game, that still left the rest of his abilities hard to land successfully. If an Ancestral Spirit into an Echo Stomp into an Earth Splitter did not happen in that order, most ensuing ganks would fail, and that opened up a lot of counterplay potential against the hero. He is still a niche pick against heroes like Terrorblade, though.

5) Broodmother

The top five heroes on this list are all micro-intensive heroes, which should tell you all you need to know about why they are barely picked. Broodmother is first on this list, and her entire gameplay revolves around dominating an area of the map and consuming all of its resources while pushing lanes simultaneously. This is done through her Spin Web and Spawn Spiderling abilities.

While this seems fairly straightforward, the problem here is that she is easily countered by most of the meta heroes in this patch. Heroes like Earthshaker thrive on the mismanagement of her Spiderlings, leading to her quick demise. The worst part about playing the hero is if Broodmother ever has a bad early start, her movement and domination potential is severely limited, almost always leading to a loss for her team.

4) Brewmaster

Brewmaster splits himself into three (and eventually four) Brewlings, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, active and passive abilities, and auras. If this doesn’t sound intimidating to you, it does to 98.75 percent of the Dota 2 population, because his pick rate is absolutely abysmal. This was further exacerbated by adding micro potential to his once purely passive ability, Drunken Brawler.

While his laning is pretty straightforward—dominating the lane with Cinder Brew and Thunder Clap with an appropriate lane partner—beyond that lies the problem. Once he hits his level six spike, the hero gets exponentially stronger, but the problem is that most players are unaware of how to best make use of him. His best plays usually only come from Brewmaster specialists, and they are quite rare.

3) Beastmaster

A powerful hero in his own right and currently one of the top three offlaners in the meta, Beastmaster suffers from the same success that plagues heroes like Lycan. He is a powerful lane dominator, gets a massive level six spike with a BKB-piercing disable, and can flash farm with the help of his dominated creeps. The low pub pick rate paints a different story, though.

This is because the hero is mechanically difficult to play for most players. His Boar is easy to feed to enemies, giving them a significant exp increase while not contributing as much as it did earlier. His Wild Axes are hard to land effectively as well. To top it off, low-level players don’t understand aura effects all too well, making them undervalue their potential in fights. These factors combined with the micro-intensive nature of Beastmaster’s summons contribute to the low pick rate.

2) Visage

Visage was a highly-contested pick in the recent TI as both an offlaner and a midlane hero. His potential to be a carry and support as well is considerably high, making him a jack-of-all-trades hero, provided players can use him to his full potential. More often than not, they don’t seem to be able to. The addition of his Familiars just makes it more difficult for players in general.

Visage’s lane presence is almost negligible before he hits level six. A bad start for him could mean a bad game later, and good players punish the hero as much as possible. His Familiars are very powerful, but if they die, they have a long cooldown to respawn, during which Visage is extremely vulnerable. His aura is also not properly understood by lower-level players, leading to his death and the constant death of his Familiars when they go out of range, making him difficult to play and learn.

1) Chen

Chen is undoubtedly the king of micro in Dota 2. His Holy Persuasion lets him control up to four neutral or lane creeps, giving him a significant early-to-mid game spike in power. He is also one of the heroes who can effectively jungle if he needs to, although we don’t recommend it. His lane presence becomes overwhelming once he hits his level three spike and can control two creeps.

The problem with the hero should be pretty apparent here. A whopping 99.15 percent of the player base simply ignores this hero in their pub games. It is just too much effort to safely micro Chen to make sure he doesn’t die in fights while successfully switching between four other creeps and using their abilities effectively. He is the hero with the highest skill cap in the game, and the handful of Grandmaster Chen players are truly a terror to behold on the battlefield.