But First, a Disclaimer
In this article, we will not be using stats to determine which safe-lane duos are the best, but it’s good to know what works best statistically.
Instead, we will use our own power rankings and analysis to determine the top 5. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get to it:
Image credit: Gosu.ai
In Dota 2, if you have the power of someone enabling you throughout the game either as synergy or as a way to boost some of your aspects can make you very strong and hard to handle. If you don’t know who that special champion might be for your pick, or don’t know how to pair them, we got you covered!
In this article, we will present the strongest safe-lane duos of Dota 2’s current patch.
Playing
Dota Underlords alone is fun, but with a friend, it’s even better!
In this
article, we’ll discuss how the strategy in Duos is different than the strategy
when playing alone (in standard mode). Of course, it’s the same game, but there
are a couple of key differences you need to understand (together with your
partner) in order to have consistently good results!
The biggest
difference in Duos is how you approach your long term strategy in the game.
There are a few extremely important differences from standard which change the
dynamics of the game:
Shard HP
You
obviously want to run totally different strategies so that you are looking for
entirely different heroes in the shop (not doing this will reduce your chances
for upgrades a great deal and will lose you the game).
This means
that if you are running Warrior/Warlock and your partner Assassins, you’ll have
different priorities in the mid/late game (once you reach 50g and lvl7/8). The
Assassins build will want to stay on lvl8/9 and roll for the maximum amount of
three-star upgrades, while the Warriors build would like to invest in levels to
reach lvl10 and the higher tier heroes. This dissonance is dangerous because
you’ll neither optimize your upgrades nor your levels – the Warriors player
will be hard-pressed to lvl up to 10 on his own fast enough (it takes twice the
XP it does in solo), while the Assassins player will be searching for upgrades
on his own, while opponent players would be rolling together and finding
upgrades almost twice as fast.
The right
move in this situation would be for the Warriors player to adjust his build
into something that works well-enough with upgrades so that the Duo can stay on
lvl8/9 for longer and roll. That would be Warriors/Hunters or if you insist on
Warriors/Warlocks – some kind of
Warriors
Warlocks iteration with a
damage-dealer like Arc Warden.
Upgrade value vs Lvl Value
In solo standard
mode, level value builds are generally a bit better and have been dominating
the meta in the last month(s). Here, however, things are different simply because
you can find your upgrades twice as reliably and frequently.
The scales
tip in favor of upgrade value builds or in other words: the best Dota
Underlords Duos builds are the builds that love searching for upgrades more than they do levels and high-tier units.
Those would be most
of the lvl9 builds in our Dota
Underlords Builds Tier List (Assassins, Knights, Hunters, Scrappy, Brute, Elusive), and none of the lvl10 builds.
That said, it’s definitely possible to play lvl
value builds as well (Warriors, Mages, etc.). After all, they don’t mind
updates as well, but when you do so make sure that both of you are playing such
builds so that both of you can push for higher levels faster.
Riki + Grimstroke
Image Credit: Valve Corporation
Our third awesome safe-lane duo is probably one of the most difficult ones to play against – Riki with Grimstroke.
Riki is a hero that depends on snowballing (a term used to describe when a hero is on a streak and gets several kills one after another), does not want to AFK-farm, and to be active and aggressive on the lane, and after the lane.
Riki is a hero that naturally wants to close the gap with the enemy hero, and Grimstroke’s E is a spell that needs a someone just like that. A very good DPS, plus a Stun at the end means a Riki is always able to jump in and out of fights. That’s what makes this combo one of the deadliest on the safelane.
Economy & Upgrades
The overall
game plan is the same as in solo/standard – you want a good economy for the
late game.
The reality
of finding upgrades for two boards, however, means that it’s much harder to
save gold. This doesn’t mean you should go to an extreme – rolling early is as
much of a mistake as before, because you still want to save as much gold as
possible. At the same time, not buying upgrades in order to save more gold is
just as much of a mistake — falling behind in upgrades as a team means you’ll
lose your HP too fast to even reach the late game.
The rules
of thumb re simple:
Tip: to maximize your team’s economy, make use of the “send gold” functionality to keep both players above 50g. E.g. you are both on 60 gold, but your partner finds upgrades that cost 20 gold while you don’t find any. Your partner buys the upgrades and falls to 40g. Instead of spending your 10 surplus gold, send it to your partner to keep them at 50 and to maximize your team’s interest income.
Drow Ranger + Undying
Since Drow Ranger is the top tier carry of the patch, we think she deserves to be mentioned twice in this article.
Image Credit: DotaTV (Image put to cause chills in your system because of Aquila)
Drow with Undying is probably one of the easiest lanes to execute since it doesn’t require much for it to work. It’s merely the synergy of a really tanky lane bully with a strong range hero that can abuse the space made for her.
This lane has an astonishing 58.35% win rate, probably as a result of it being easy to play and Drow being that good of a hero this patch.
Magnus + Phantom Assassin
Magnus has been one of the most contested picks in the competitive Dota 2 games, and a very high pick/ban hero in pubs lately (last months). In this patch, he found his place as one of the best Position 5 heroes of the meta, and here’s why.
Being able to double-stack, give empower to the carry (basically a free battle fury) makes this combo one of the most successful and feared combos as of now.
Phantom Assassin is one of the best scaling heroes in the game, but its problem lies in its inability to farm as fast as the other heroes without having its Battle Fury. But Magnus does this best – enabling cores to elevate their farm.
Drow Ranger + Vengeful Spirit
As seen in the highly-scientific picture, this is the duo that has performed the best in the last months based on stats.
Image Credit: reddit u/rhett_ad
There are so many things that benefit these heroes – people abuse how strong Drow Ranger is with the new Venge Aura giving more Agility
and more Attack Range (125) on top of the hero being a very strong and annoying laner to play against.
Spectre + Warlock
Last but not least, we have decided to put the lower MMR specialty in the safelane, and that is Spectre with Warlock.
Main reasons this combo is very strong:
It makes for an insane amount of damage as the game progresses since Spectre scales well and is not so hard to execute.
The result? Having almost 59% win rate across all brackets. So think about it next time you pick your safe-lane duo in Dota 2.
Conclusion
Safe-lane duos change as the patches progress. Some get developed randomly, some existed from before but needed some sort of a buff or change to be viable again.
What is key for a safe-lane duo to be popular and strong is ease of execution and the chemistry between the heroes with a common goal between them for the duration of the game.
Don’t be afraid to experiment, it’s not a bad thing, especially if you do it with a lot of confidence!
