What is an Offlaner in Dota 2?
Dota 2 is a heavily team orientated game, requiring players to adopt certain roles and choose certain heroes to increase their odds of winning. There are five positions within dota. Depending on your playstyle, there are Five distinct roles that you can choose from in the game- Hard Support, Soft Support, Offlaner, Mid-laner and Hard Carry.
This article will be focused on the Offlaner.
The Offlaner is Dota 2’s position 3 hero. The offlaner is more often than not, a tanky hero that absorbs considerable damage off the enemy team, forcing them to use a lot of resources to shift the focus of the enemy team from their allies. They start their laning stage in the offlane, hence the name, which is the lane that is opposing the enemy’s safelane carry.
They are usually strongest in the early to mid game and can usually offer their team some sort of utility. They are usually strong initiators or counter-initiators and serve as the backbone in any team composition. They differ from the position 2 mid-laner in that they prioritize less on farming and mobility and more on concentrating pressure upon the enemy team.
15. Underlord
The abyssal monstrosity that resides just beyond the fiend’s gate, Vrogros the Underlord is a commander of legions, a dictator, a conqueror. Underlord gets his name rightfully so as being the ruler of the underworld, a subterranean fortress that pays homage to the horrors and darkest creatures of Dota 2 mythology. This hulking mass sends chills down anyone’s spine, a grotesque enslaver that bends the knees of even the sturdiest of champions.
Underlord’s skill set can be found through the following link:
https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Underlord
Reasons why you should pick Underlord as an Offlaner:
- Tower over your enemies! He is a huge and monstrous “hero” if you can call him that. He is one of the largest heroes you can pick in the game.
- His passive ability allows him to be resilient to damage. This combined with his relatively high strength gives him the ability to tank damage, making him a prime candidate for frontlining and pushing enemy positions
- He can create a pit to entrap enemies which compliments well with his nuking ability. Both skills have a large Area Of Effect (AOE) that makes him extremely dependent as a source of crowd control and damage especially in teamfights
- Underlord can summon gates at his will, repositioning entire teams to anywhere he chooses across the battlefield.
- Due to his skill set that is highly effective at all stages of the game, he can spend more of his gold on items that increase his tankiness and buff his team. Items such as Mekansm, Pipe of Insight, Lotus Orb, Vladmir's Offering and Rod of Atos are examples of some staple items you can purchase as Underlord.
- He has the ability to spam his nuking ability to clear waves of creeps, fast-tracking his gold-farming and allowing him to catch up in the jungle if
14. Mars
Mars needs no introduction. The God of War is a crusader and powerful deity who doesn't need any special powers or reliance on magic to help him in combat. He wields a mighty spear and a bulwark to fearlessly brutalize enemies, forcing them into submission. If you are a player who enjoys impaling enemies with skill shots and heavy damage, then Mar’s is the right choice for you. However, it is definitely worth having a couple of practice rounds with this hero due to his slightly harder mechanics and harder to hit spells.
Mars’ skill set can be found in the link: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Mars
Reasons why you should pick Mars as an Offlaner:
- He is a naturally strong combatant that has a wide range of position altering abilities. He can push the enemy back and forth, forcing them into corners that they do not want to be back up to in.
- Mars is no coward. He faces his adversaries head on. He takes considerably less damage to attacks that hit him from the front, making him a prime choice for absorbing enemy auto attacks and frontlining for his team.
- All of Mars active abilities have a certain amount of AOE damage, meaning that he can cripple multiple enemies at once
- Mars can summon an arena around him, forcing enemies to stay in a locked engagement with the champion duelist himself.
- Mars is played exclusively as a combo hero, meaning that you will do huge damage figures if you hit all your spells correctly. While this can be challenging at times for new players, it is particularly rewarding when you can hit your combo. More often than not, a successful combo most likely guarantees a kill.
13. Legion Commander
You want to play a hero that’s badass? There’s no hero more badass than Legion Commander. Wielding a fearsome halberd with the banners of Stonehall coursing in the wind behind her, she inspires allies, thrives in the adversity of overwhelming odds, and challenges any hero that she deems worthy in a fight to the death! The hero is played quite differently compared to other offlaners. She is less about tanking and more about destroying a key target of the enemy team right off the bat. This hero rewards fast and active play, so if your playstyle is more intune with swift decisiveness and proactive play, then this is the right hero for you!
Legion’s ability list can be found in the link: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Legion_Commander
Reasons why you should try Legion Commander as an Offlaner:
- Stunning sound and ability animations. Playing legion commander is rather aesthetically pleasing to both your eyes and ears!
- Huge nuking ability that theoretically has an infinite amount of damage depending on how many enemies there are grouped together
- Legion Commander is a dueling specialist. Her abilities allow her to manfight her targets with a considerable advantage at her side.
- Like Mars, Legion Commander is a rather combo heavy hero. Proper execution of her skill set is needed in order to optimally play this hero to her full potential. Once again, it is important to practice her skills a few times beforehand. However, the payoff with a successful combo is rather satisfying and rewarding!
- Her signature ability, Duel, allows her to lockdown a target in a battle to the death. The winner receives damage which can have no cap! This means Legion Commander can theoretically have the highest right click auto attack damage in the game if she obtains enough duel victories over the course of the game. At this point, she can overpower even the strongest of carries in the game.
12. Chaos Knight
While Chaos Knight is considered by many as a position 1 carry hero, one cannot deny his existence in the offlane is still one to be highly reckoned with due to his insanely high damage output and rather reliable single-target lockdown abilities. Chaos Knight is an emissary of Chaos and the bringer of armageddon. His fearsome abilities invoke confusion and disarray which he utilizes in his ever-ending crusade to extinguish the Light from the Dota 2 universe.
You can find his skill list as follows: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Chaos_Knight
Reasons why you should pick Chaos Knight as an Offlaner:
- Chaos Knight boasts considerably high damage throughout the game, meaning that he is viable in most matchups
- Chaos Knight's high lockdown stun and harassment abilities allow him to destroy his opponents safe lane, making him a reasonable hero to pick against greedier line-ups. This means that sometimes you are able to close the game even from the get-go of the early game due to the sheer dominance you offer in the Offlane.
- Chaos knight rarely loses his lane and even if he does, he still has amazing farming abilities that can allow him to catch up.
- Chaos Knight has a fairly simple ability list making him easy to learn and quick to master.
- Chaos Knight has one of the longest duration single-target stuns in the game, meaning that the enemy hero isn’t going anywhere if they’re hit.
- Chaos Knight ultimate can summon duplicates of himself to terrorize his opponents. Unlike other illusion heroes, Chaos Knight’s illusions are renowned for dealing full damage, meaning that Chaos knight has one of the highest burst damage numbers in the game.
11. Dragon Knight
Davion the dragon knight is one of Dota 2’s most iconic heroes. Bonded with the blood of an elder dragon Skylark, Dragon Knight has incredibly resilient properties that make him the prime candidate for engaging into fights and tanking damage. Dragon Knight is a fearsome adversary and a consistent damage dealer wielding both the power of his blade and flame in the palm of his hand.
You can find his skill list as follows: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Dragon_Knight
Reasons why you should pick Dragon Knight:
- He has simple but powerful abilities and is one of the best core heroes to learn with.
- Dragon Knight has relatively high health regeneration and armor thanks to his passive ability meaning he doesn’t need to spend much on consumables in the early game. This allows him to trade efficiently during the laning stage.
- As the offlaner, Dragon Knight excels in hand to hand combat, brushing off physical attacks with his mighty shield. When hand to hand combat doesn’t quite cut it and the odds are stacked against him, he can transform into a mighty dragon that evolves in power as he levels up!
- He is incredibly tanky, especially against opponents that rely on physical attacks such as Juggernaut and Wraith King. This makes him a prime candidate for being able to soak up damage and be at the frontline
10. Dark Seer
Dark Seer is a unique offlaner in that he is a heavily team-orientated hero. This means that he requires proper team coordination and allied support in order to be the most effective. Most of his abilities are used as initiating or counter-initiating tools and have a huge Area of Effect. This means that he excels in team fights and being in the midst of enemy heroes. As a new player, it is most recommended to play him with a couple of friends that you can verbally communicate with. He is certainly one of the harder heroes to dominate within your local matches, but is exceptionally rewarding as the skill level of the player goes up.
You can find his skill list as follows: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Seer
Reasons why you should try Dark Seer:
- Dark Seer works well with an aggressive lane partner. He has one of the best Damage-Over Time abilities in the game. However, it requires Dark Seer to essentially “stick on” to his opponent in order to maximize the damage.
- Dark Seer has a respectable escape ability that can be used to help allies as well
- Dark Seer’s signature spell “Ion Shell'' allows him to farm at multiple places at once. This enables him to flash farm critical items that his team needs. This can range from aura items that his team may require such as Shiva’s Guard, Mekansm and Crimson Guard to initiating devices such as Blink Dagger and Aghanim's Scepter.
- Dark Seer can pull in and group all enemies within a large radius into a centralized spot for your team to make the most efficient use out of their AOE abilities.
- Dark Seer can create powerful illusions of his opponents which he can use under his command.
9. Pangolier
One of the only agility-based Offlaners we have in this list, Pangolier is a swift, mobile and flexible hero designed to disrupt enemy positions and disarm hostile carries. He is a rather eloquent individual that mixes flair with violence, reminiscent of the masked Spanish vigilantes. He is a smooth criminal so if your playstyle is one where you like dashing in and out of the fray with coolish suave and deadbeat charm, then Pangolier is the right hero for you.
You can find his skill list in the link: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Pangolier
Reasons why you should pick Pangolier:
- Unlike most of the tanky offlaners that we are used to seeing, Pangolier has a somewhat different playstyle. He is as swift as he is agile. Pangolier has one of the most nimble skill sets in the game, allowing him to flourish across the battlefield dealing respectable damage and disorientating foes.
- He can be difficult to learn due to his rather skill-based abilities, requiring considerably more time in practice to master than most of his offlane counterparts. However, Pangolier can be exceptionally powerful and hard to kill once you have played enough games with him.
- His ultimate allows you to crash through the battlefield, allowing you to become a nuisance and disrupt enemies. You are magic immune during this time, making you almost impossible to lockdown and kill.
8. Doom
Lucifer, the devil in mortal form, Doom is one of the heroes that immediately instill fear and sows doubt into his enemies. A towering agent of evil and despair, Doom brandishes an infernal blade that rips through squishy and tanky targets alike. His dominance in the lane and reasonable strength gain make him a well rounded offlaner that has a good balance between tankiness and damage. If you are all about chasing down unworthy opponents and devouring targets to absorb their abilities to use as your own, then Doom is the right hero for you.
Doom’s skills and abilities can be found via the link below:
https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Doom
Reasons to choose Doom:
- Doom has a natural gold-farming ability that allows him to build up a reserve of gold exceptionally fast without needing to constantly farm. This enables him to participate in more team fights whilst also having some stable items early on into the game.
- Doom can destroy high health pool targets with the swing of his blade that doubly disrupts his foes.
- Doom’s ultimate ability can essentially nullify one hero on the enemy team, causing them to take considerable damage over time and be useless during the long debuff. The enemy target cannot use any abilities or items during this time. This makes most engagements he takes favorable as the enemy team is essentially a man-down during the duration of Doom’s ultimate.
7. Necrophos
Necrophos is a unique hero in that he is an intelligence hero that essentially plays as a tank. He has a large resource of necromancy spells that tilts the balance between life and death itself. Typically named the Grim-Reaper of Dota 2, Necrophos is a potent hero to choose when there are ample amounts of physical damage coming from the enemy team or if the enemy team heavily relies on the use of their auto-attack based hard carry. If you enjoy standing amidst the enemy’s team and being the center of attention, Necrophos has you covered!
Necrophos’ skills and abilities can be found via the link below:
https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Necrophos
Reasons to choose Necrophos:
- Necrophos is deceptively tanky. He has a large amount of burst heal abilities which double up as damage abilities.
- Necrophos has one of the best sustaining abilities in the game. For every life he takes, whether it be a small critter or a hulking hero, Necrophos gains passive health and mana regeneration. This makes his spells spammable and essentially free to use. As such, Necrophos is one of the best blow-for-blow traders in the game, able to cripple his opponents bit by bit.
- Necrophos has decent farming mechanisms, allowing him to build more items that can either provide utility to his team or beef himself up into an unstoppable tanky machine.
- Necrophos can cover himself into a ghostly shroud that prevents him from taking any physical damage and amplifies healing effects. This makes him the perfect weapon to deal with right click based heroes such as Phantom Assassin, Slardar, Legion Commander and Weaver.
- Necrophos’ ultimate is a point target ability that essentially gives him a reaper’s scythe to cut down enemies that are reasonably damaged. The damage is based on how much health the opponent is missing. This means Necrophos is highly effective against critical targets such as position one hard carries as well as high health pool targets that are hard to bring down.
6. Timbersaw
Rizzrack the lumberjack is as fun of a hero to play as he is powerful. This mentally unstable tree killing Keen (A race of humanoid goblins in the Dota 2 Universe), has no shortage of damage abilities. He cuts through high health pool strength heroes like they are made of butter and zooms past even the fastest of heroes. Though he is a bit harder to learn than the other offlaners, he is extremely tanky against physical damage dealers and very mobile. Players wishing to learn an extremely fun and enjoyable hero will do right to choose Timbersaw.
Timbersaw’s skill set: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Timbersaw
Reasons to choose Timbersaw:
- Timbersaw rewards high skill with high damage numbers. Most of his spells do pure damage. This sort of damage is rare in the game and ignores enemy armor and magic resistance.
- He can be a very mobile hero. The hero whips out a chain that latches onto a tree and pulls him towards it. If you miss the tree, this can sometimes cost you your life.
- Extremely spammable spells. Your spells all have very low cooldowns which you can utilize to punish your enemies for getting near you
- Extremely tanky in the early to mid game. This hero is generally dashing into enemy front and backlines like a madman. This causes the enemy to either flee and regroup, or take huge amounts of damage whilst being unable to kill this tree murderer.
- He has some funny voice lines that make him even more enjoyable to play.
5. Bristleback
We’re now into the elite tier list andthe top five best offlaners to start off as a newbie. First off we have Bristleback!
Want to play one of the tankiest heroes in the entire game? Want to feel unkillable and deal a huge amount of damage while engaging and running away? Well if you like winning games, Bristleback has always been one of the most solid offlaners since the beginning of the game’s revival and is the prime choice for beginners and professionals alike.
Bristleback’s skill set can be found in the link below: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Bristleback
Why Bristleback is a great offlane choice:
- The hero can serve as one of the game’s most tankiest heroes. Bristleback is so tanky he can withstand even the strongest attacks, tanking even the enemy fountain itself! The only drawback is that Bristleback needs to be facing away from the enemy’s damage for him to receive the largest damage reductions.
- The hero has incredible physical damage both from his auto attacks as well as his quill sprays that can stack up to a ridiculous amount of times. He can do upwards of 350 damage from his auto attacks just from his passive ability. This is essentially the same as a divine rapier, the strongest damage item in the game. This means that he can essentially 3 hit an enemy support.
- Bristleback usually builds items that make him tankier as he already dishes out a lot of damage, meaning that he is even harder to kill.
- He is able to do damage whilst moving, meaning that even if you are running away or running towards an enemy, you can be consistently doing damage.
4. Axe
His name is Axe and he wields an Axe. The hero is a brutish warrior who taunts his enemies into attacking him before finishing them off with a skull crushing decapitation. The hero loves propelling into battle and does significantly more damage the more enemies he has attacking him. Like Timbersaw, he does pure damage which is not negated by any armor or magical resistance. He has a magic immunity piercing taunt that controls enemies at all stages of the game. He is relatively tanky meaning he is a viable choice as a frontlining core. All in all, Axe is a potent well-rounded hero that any team is lucky to have.
Axe’s skill set can be found in the link below: https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Axe
Why Axe is a great offlane choice:
- Axe does well against single target opponents as well as hordes of enemies. He is noticeably an anti-carry in that he aims to make the opposing team’s position one and two carries life a living hell by turning the damage that they do upon themselves.
- Axe has an incredibly strong laning stage due to his high health regeneration and skill trading abilities. This allows for aggressive plays to bully the opponents safe lane.
- Axe’s finishing move, his ultimate- the Culling Blade, instantly neutralizes enemy targets that drop beneath a certain health amount. This is honestly one of the most satisfying ultimates in the game if landed correctly and you are rewarded with permanent bonus armor for the remainder of the game.
- Axe’s skill set promotes fast-paced play, so understanding your timings is crucial in order to play this hero effectively. That being said, the hero’s skillset is fairly simple to understand and can be mastered relatively quickly.
3. Centaur Warrunner
The general theme of offlaners is that they should be frontliners and tanks for the rest of the team. This is often true, allowing you to soak up the enemies spells, providing vision for the rest of your team to counter-initiate and clean up. Centaur Warrunner fits the offlaner job description perfectly. True to his brutish race, Centaur charges headfirst into the enemy ranks, stomping his hooves and crushing his foes with his mighty axe. If you like being the fearless spearhead of your team, then Centaur Warrunner is the right hero for you!
Centaur’s skills and abilities can be found via the link below:
https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Centaur_Warrunner
Reasons to choose Centaur Warrunner:
- Centaur Warrunner has the second highest strength stat gain in the game. This means he has one of the largest health pools in the game meaning that he is especially hard to take down.
- Those foolish enough to face centaur off one on one, have not only his huge health pool to contest with, but also the fact that he returns damage upon getting hit!
- Centaur’s damage output is considerably high. The only drawback is that he uses his health as a compromise to unleash the full power of his abilities. This is usually offset by his higher than normal health pool which makes using this ability more forgiving
- He is able to charge in at maximum speed with his allies to surprise enemies!
2. Night Stalker
Night Stalker is the embodiment of darkness. Balanar, the winged first-born of the night, is a fiend of nightmarish evil that utilizes the cover of the shadows to unleash his full power. The Night Stalker is one of the oldest inhabitants of Dota 2 history, predating the first sunlight. He is distinctly unique in that his abilities all revolve around the time of the day during your Dota 2 Matches. If fear is your weapon of choice, then this hero is ripe for your taking into the offlane.
Night Stalker’s skill set can be found here:
https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Night_Stalker
Why is Night Stalker a good choice:
- Balanar is played differently to most heroes in the game in that his abilities become enhanced during night times. He only has a fraction of his power during the day but is still a formidable force.
- Night Stalker’s skill set allows him to stalk his prey and dismember them in a shroud of darkness. Enemies caught in his shadow are likely dead in the water being unable to escape his fiendish grip.
- Night Stalker is able to control the night, switching even the brightest of days into darkness at his command. With this enhancement, he gains the power of flight and bonus damage, coursing through the night on leathery wings that sound the shrill song of defeat for his enemies.
- Night Stalker is a fearsome initiator that likes to stay one a particular enemy during a fight, rendering them incapable of fighting back.
- Night Stalker’s skill set is easy to learn and can be played almost outright by beginners with a solid level of impactfulness.
1. Tidehunter
The bread and butter of Dota 2’s prime offlaning candidates. If there is a Kraken in Dota 2, then Tidehunter easily earns that title. Appropriately nicknamed Leviathan, Tidehunter is the king of the oceans and master of the waves. Due to the crushing power of the sea, Tidehunter has evolved to develop a thick hide that is resistant to both physical and magical damage alike. He is an immense being that enemies generally refrain from initiating upon, in fear that they may unleash the ravage and rage of the ocean.
Tidehunter’s skills and abilities can be found via the link below:
https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Tidehunter
Reasons to choose Tidehunter:
- He has incredible strength stats that give him a giant health pool and physical brawling strength
- Tidehunter is renowned for being one of the most classic offlaners due to the balance between power, tankiness and effective crowd control utilities
- Tidehunter has a passive shell that removes debuffs as he receives damage, making him great for wasting enemy spells that could have been potentially used on your allies
- Tidehunter’s ultimate ability is one of the most powerful AOE damage and stun abilities in the game. Used amongst a crowd of enemies, this ability has the potential to single-handedly win a teamfight, let alone game! There are not many other abilities that come as impressive as this one!
- Tidehunter’s frontlining capabilities, damage mitigation abilities, respectable damage abilities and crowd controlling mechanisms make him one of the oldest, most in-tune offlaners to date. His skill set is fairly simple to connect, yet his ability to masterfully control this hero has no limits. Tidehunter is the perfect candidate for the eager beginner to get their hands on!
