Mid Heroes and their Counters

Hey guys,

I'm trying to create a guide to the most common mid heroes, and how they stack up against each other. What I'm really looking for is match ups where at equal skill, one hero has a fairly clear advantage over the other - how to counter the other team's picks. This is for mid lane solo only, and levels 1-7.

This has turned out to be a fairly mammoth task, even for a little roster of 15 heroes, as there's so many potential match ups, and I haven't played enough of them to have an informed opinion on each one.

So I'm hoping people on here will help out by giving a view on heroes they know, compared to the heroes listed. Feel free to provide more info if you like!

Pudge
Silencer
Bloodseeker
Shadow Fiend
Puck
Huskar
Viper
Queen of Pain
Outworld Destroyer
Invoker
Razor
Storm Spirit
Tinker
Sniper

For example, I've been working on Pudge and Silencer so far. This is what I've come up with:

Often in Dota, the mid lane battle can be vital due to it's knock on effects on the other lanes, and level advantage that comes with having a solo lane. Skill will always be the most important factor here, regardless of hero choice - but quite often, mids are picked on personal preference, rather than looking at how to counter the enemy. And certain heroes can be very effective against others...

This guide will only cover the most common heroes, and is by no means comprehensive or 100% accurate - I haven't personally tried out each combination a hundred times against players of different skill. However, they are based on informed opinion and experience from many sources, and I'll be happy to update the guide with feedback from the comments section if you can make a persuasive argument.


Pudge The Butcher

Pudge is one of the most common, and feared, solo mid heroes. A skilled Pudge can use his Meat Hook / Rot / Dismember combo to terrorize squishy heroes and other lanes alike.

How to play against him:

Pudge needs a clear line for his hook to connect, so try to keep creeps between you and him at all times, and try to avoid standing still. For a dangerous roamer like Pudge, it's important for your team to ward properly so you see the ganks coming.

Pudge - Good Against: Shadow Fiend / Razor / Storm Spirit / Tinker / Sniper
Bad Against: Silencer / Huskar / Viper
Ok Against: Puck? / Bloodseeker? / Queen of Pain? / Outworld Destroyer? / Invoker?

Counter Heroes:

Silencer Although a bit squidgy, Silencer has the tools in his armoury to make Pudge's early game hell if he's careful. Curse of the Silent is a good harassment tool, draining Pudge's small mana pool, and he'd have to use Hook in order to dispel it - Rot doesn't count.

Glaives of Wisdom allow Silencer to hit hard, providing additional harassment and last hitting power. Finally Last Word breaks Pudge's combo, making it difficult to hook and then stun you.

Huskar It takes a good Pudge to deal with Huskar in the middle lane. Huskar hits hard with his Burning Spear, making it difficult for Pudge to farm or risk using Rot. Huskar also has his Berserker's Blood and Inner Vitality, making it hard for even Pudge to kill him.

Viper Another good mid DPS hero, Viper lacks Huskar's strength, but makes up for that in range. Again, he makes it difficult for Pudge to farm with his Poison Attack, but has to be more careful than Huskar.


Silencer

Good Against: Pudge / Storm Spirit / Huskar
Bad Against: Razor / Bloodseeker / Shadow Fiend
Ok Against: Puck? / Tinker? / Sniper? / Viper? / Queen of Pain? / Outworld Destroyer? / Invoker? (not sure on how some of the interactions work here, is QOP a counter?)

Silencer is another reasonably popular mid player, able to harass and farm effectively. They key to countering him is to have a cheap skill that you can activate frequently to avoid Curse of the Silent, or enough health regen to not be too effected. A smart Silencer will put more points into his Glaives of Wisdom at this point, so you still need a hero who can compete with him there.

Good Against:

Pudge
Storm Spirit
Huskar

Counter Heroes:

Razor Static Link is what makes him a good counter - a single level in it allows him to cast a 20 mana spell whenever Curse of the Silent is used - leaving him well ahead on the tradeoff. Plasma Field can also be very effective against the relatively squishy Silencer.

Bloodseeker Bloodrage allows Bloodseeker to turn the tables on Silencer somewhat, but he has to be careful of both extra damage harassment, and his own limited mana pool. As long as he can last hit and deny effectively his health regen should keep him relatively healthy.

Shadow Fiend He hits hard, and his Shadowraze is pretty spammable.

Bloodseeker

He can take harass because of his Blood Bath, and he can silence for a short period of time (Blood Rage) He has ****py harass.

Good Against:
Zeus?
Invoker
Puck
other skill reliant, non-nuke heroes
Most melee mid laners

Bad Against:
Tinker (nukes will get you low hp, even with your silence)
Sniper? (early game his harass can be healed with blood bath)
Huskar (ult takes away 50% of your usually full hp, far ranged with good dmg + fire spears harass)
far ranged auto-attackers
good nukers

You should add Doom Bringer to the list. He's the best counter to Pudge since Pudge cant do **** vs Doom Bringer.

Doom bringer is like a counter to most heroes with its doom ultimate and farming potential.

Some other counters are
Pugna,Enchantress,Bane - Anti-DSP
Sliencer,KoTL,AntiMage - Anti-Caster
Huskar,Naix,Nercotyle - Anti-Tank

Add Zeus in there.

Pudge is actually very easily countered, if you're a decent player. Juke the hook (or stand behind creep), and notice when he is mia. Also, heroes with blink are good, up until level 6.

Huskar is good against anyone except Brood.

Best counter vs Bloodseeker - just try ALWAYS to carry a TP-scroll once he hits lvl 6. Then, when he ults you, you simply use TP scroll to get out savely. He got not a single tool to disrupt you from porting, only if he got another mate ganking with him to stun you, for example. But then you're most likely going to die anyways^^

While many people will often pull the "Doom is the counter to everyone!" card, I find this to be really un-true.

Firstly, he has a very low win-rate. One of the worst, if I'm not mistaken. He just isn't a very feasible hero. He has two strengths as I see it, the first being his Devour giving him high DPS. The second being Doom, as this keeps a single target from doing much of anything during a fight. His weaknesses are a many, though. In lane, even with a lot of HP, he suffers from a lack of armor, making him easy to bully out of lane. He doesn't have a lot of lane presence and has no escape mechanism really, as well he has no stun.

Secondly, while you may be able to silence ONE person for a long time, it isn't too terribly disruptive with the exception of putting it on Storm Spirit. It doesn't often net a kill necessarily, though if paired up with a stun or slow (some other way to prevent escape) it can, especially against blinkers. Unless you are INITIATING with Doom, then chances are most spellcasters that Doom would stop cold have already gotten their important spells out.

This is just how I see it. He requires too much farm and unless fed and given a really early gold advantage, he seems to fade away later on.

Silencer

I list these counters assuming you're using a max-Curse strategy as Silencer.

I hate being against a good Invoker in mid as Silencer. Popping Curse on him is pointless because he'll either just harass with Cold Snap or pop Alacrity on himself if you stay too far out of his range, and if he's going Quas Wex it'll become freaking hard to kill him after lvl 6 or so.

Venomancer is also pointless to curse. He'll most likely be spamming his Plague Wards anyway.

Silencer does best Drow Ranger and Viper in mid if it doesn't occur to them to manually cast their auto-cast abilities. Viper's only spell is his Ultimate and Drow's is her Silence, so Curse will take a lot out of them unless they realize that manually casting an auto-cast breaks the Curse.

A good counter to pudge is actually the invoker.

With cold snap, invoker can literally shut down pudge as the rot will activate the cold snap so badly that pudge wun be able to chase or dismember. Even when hooked, coldsnap can be casted faster than dismember which will make it impossible for pudge to dismember given that it is a channelling spell.