List of offlane and mid heroes

What are some good off-lane and mid heroes. I would like the basics and maybe some weird and original choices. Also any advice on playing in the hard lane would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for reading.
:3

I guess you're looking for solo heros for offlane. Popular choices these days are heroes who are hard to kill and also have AoE nukes for flash farming. Puck, Magnus, Dark Seer, Windrunner, Beastmaster, Clockwerk, Tidehunter.

Or you can get invisible heroes who can soak up EXP, deny pulls, and get the occasional last hit. Then you're looking at Bounty Hunter, Broodmother, Clinkz, and Weaver.

The last option is for minion-summoning heroes who can contest the lane like Lone Druid, Enigma and Nature's Prophet.

Some questionable offlaners I've excluded are KotL, Treant Protector and Timbersaw. Not the most useful against a good team in the offlane.

Yeah, generally you want specific heroes for a solo hard lane to allow you some farm, survival and to hold the tower as long as possible. I'd add Mirana to the list above, and KOTL can also do a job (provided they haven't got Nyx running support). Yeah not convinced about Timbersaw either Peach. Ranged heroes make it easier to compete for hits and denies, but the most important thing is a good escape.

Some tips:

- Make a late choice on your hero, and be prepared to change it up depending on which heroes the opposition are likely to put in that lane. E.g. Weaver can be fantastic against some heroes, but the likes of Drow Ranger can completely destroy you with Silence + Frost Arrows. You need to have the right escape for the job.

- Play cautiously and be very aware of the position of their support hero, how much stun they have, etc. Yes you want to deny/LH as much as possible, but you can't afford to feed them. Be prepared to sit near your tower or hide in the trees getting xp if necessary.

- Observer Wards are almost always worth buying, get there fast and ward their pull camp, and possibly the middle of the nearby woods too. This stops them controlling the lane properly, denies farm to their support player and means you'll get more safe last hits and xp.

- Take plenty of regeneration, you're probably going to need it. Try and get a Magic Wand ASAP too. Good support players will try to completely harass you off the lane, find a good balance between fighting back and not giving their carry a chance to finish you.

- Be aware of their jungler if they have one, and their mid player, yup you're starting to see why those wards are so vital.

- If you don't ward their pull camp, or they deward it, try to nip in for some cheeky LHs with your long range nuke (if you have one) when the lane starts going forwards rapidly.

- You can pull their creeps through the woods straight to your tower, ideally use a minion to do so. Generally you want to mess up the normal flow of the lane as much as possible.

- If you're playing radiant hard lane you can use the neutral camp on the right just past the bridge to pull your own lane!

Mid heroes are usually those that benefit from more exp for earlier ganks, and can (as mentioned) do flash farming or have a great escape.

For example, Queen of Pain has both a great AoE and a blink, so she's a pretty great mid-laner. Magnus, Lone Druid, Invoker, Gyrocopter are some other examples of mid heroes.

Mid heroes needs to have great Rune control, and very often buy a bottle for the purpose of staying in lane or ganking Top or Bottom after getting enough farm on the initial laning.

Mid:
-Batrider (really easy to dominate lanes with napalm, one of the best lane controllers)
-Bloodseeker (can heal from harassment)
-Death prophet (can spam nuke to farm and push)
-Invoker (high damage and flexibility)
-Kunkka (can farm and harass easily with passive)
-Magnus (can spam nuke to farm)
-Mirana
-Necrolyte
-NS (needs levels to gank)
-Nyx (needs levels to gank)
-OD (can spam imprisonment => enemy has no mana => dominate lane)
-Pudge
-QoP
-SF (needs last hits and levels)
-Sniper (long ranged and can farm safely)
-Storm spirit
-TA
-Tinker (needs farm for BoT)
-Tusk
-Zues

Offlane (hard lane):
-BH (invis)
-Beastmaster (can stack and pull ancients)
-Clinks (invis)
-Clockwerk (can rocket to farm creeps from afar)
-Dark seer (can iron shell to farm creeps while staying safe)
-Kotl (can also farm with nuke afar)
-Lich (deny your creeps to keep lane closer to your tower)
-Lone druid (can use bear and scout, to farm safely, or to cut enemy creeps closer to your tower)
-Magnus (can spam nuke and skewer for escape)
-QoP (can escape easily)
-Weaver (can escape easily)
-WR (escape easily and long ranged nuke for some gold)

Your goal as an offlaner is to soak up as much exp or gold as possible WITHOUT dying. This can sometimes means you will still be level 1 when everyone else is level 4-6. As long as your other lanes are winning and you aren't feeding, you've done your job correctly.

Here's a more in-depth guide to offlaning: http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1955gd/role_play_the_offlaner_a_new_weekly_discussion/

If you're level 1 when everyone else is 4-5, it's long overdue for you to leave your lane. If you can't even soak up 4 creeps' worth of exp in 4-5 minutes, what are you still doing down there?

Go jungle instead.

That's a good idea as well. If they completely zone you out and you can't even get any gold, then yeah go help gank other lanes or jungle. If however you can still get 1 or 2 creeps per wave, it's better to stay in your lane and be level 1. That way, you can defend if they decide to push. And also you can catch up on exp quite easily once they have concluded they can't kill you and leave to help other lanes, or through ganks.

Generally, the choices of off-lane heroes allow you to farm in some form, so there's really a very small chance that you would have trouble leveling. That is one of the reasons for choosing the heroes listed above. Most of them have a way to farm fairly safely (be it with minions, invisibility or a great escape). If you are still level 1 5 minutes in, you're doing it wrong. ;)

These are the top 5 mid and solo Heroes in the current meta:




Mid lane:

• Batrider: great mid Hero, feared for his Sticky Napalm + Firefly combo that can easily kill any mid. Countered a lot by a Magic Stick.
  
  
• Nyx Assassin: one of the top picks in the current meta, this Hero works well both as a hard support and as a ganker in mid lane. Professional players usually rush a Blink Dagger on him too, but the most common build is probably the Dagon one. Great initiator and ganker, countered by magic immunity and invisibility detection.
  
  
  Magnus: another teamfight Hero that needs fast levels and a Blink Dagger as soon as possible. He can push the lane with Shockwave so he can safely take runes, and can escape with Skewer. Countered by wards on his high ground and ranged harassers.
  
  
• Queen of Pain: this Hero works well both as a teamfight Hero and as a mid game carry. As soon as she gets her Black King Bar, the enemies will have to be very careful. Countered by silence and stuns/entangle abilities.
  
  
• Storm Spirit: SS is a side carry that, provided he gets his Orchid Malevolence in a short amount of time, can win a game by himself, thus letting the hard carry farm in the safe lane for a long time. Countered by silence and ranged attacks, since all his abilities are for close-range combat.

Solo lane:

• Nature's Prophet: this is the most used solo laner at the moment for many reasons. First, the current meta uses a double-carry strategy involving two heroes that need farm, a teamfight Hero and two supports. Since the teamfight Hero usually takes the mid lane, a farming-oriented solo laner is very important: usually, furion players farm their Ring of Basilius in lane and, past level 3, spend a lot of time jungling, coming back to the off lane only if needed. Countered by track abilities when Sprouted to TP to base ( Track, Amplify Damage, Thundergod's Wrath, the true sight of Assassinate...) and silence.
  
  
• Bounty Hunter: another good offlaner that can farm with Jinada and safely get experience thanks to Shadow Walk. He kind of takes takes both the farming and the teamfight role, since his Track gives a lot of gold.
  
  
• Clockwerk: a teamfight Hero that doesn't need much farm, but can easily control a solo lane. His Power Cogs help in escaping from bad situations and the Rocket Flare lets him farm from far away. The Mekansm build is the most common one in competitive games, but Drum of Endurance and Force Staff also work as first items. Countered by blink-like abilities and silence.
  
  
• Dark Seer: this Hero was very popular once, now he's less picked but still has a huge impact in teamfights; with just a Soul Ring and a Mekansm, DS can harass the hell out of the enemy safe lane with mass Ion Shells and support his team with healing and Surge. Countered by chainstuns in lane and, obviously, silence in teamfights.
  
  
• Weaver: personally, one of my favourite solo Heroes. If he manages to get some farm, he can easily push with just a Ring of Aquila up his sleeve or gank an enemy without needing damage-increasing items. He's either played with the standard Drum of Endurance + Yasha build or a fast Linken's Sphere if you can afford it by ~25 minutes; other common items are the Medallion of Courage and the Monkey King Bar as a first DPS item. Countered by silence, a lot.

Special mention to Lone Druid: the Spirit Bear can pull the enemy creeps behind your tower, so you can farm without losing any last hits and forcing the enemy tower to take some damage while at the same time preventing the enemy supports to pull and get experience.