Countering faceless void lineups

So these Faceless Void based lineups have owned TI4, and they own pubs as well. How to play against them?
The idea is very simple : play Faceless Void as your carry, and pick a lot of heroes whose skills work in Chronosphere and allow to deal damage in chrono. Doing this allows you to own teamfights even in the early-mid game when Void doesn't have enough farm to deal damage in chrono. Example heroes to pick with Void are :

• Witch Doctor
• Jakiro
• Lich
• Invoker
• Death Prophet

It's very easy to lane a lineup like this, Void trilane with Witch Doctor/ Jakiro supports, Death Prophet mid, and Tidehunter offlane or something.

I think these kind of lineups are pretty OP because they wreck teamfights at any point in the game. Void is already a pretty broken carry because he's almost impossible to gank, the only way to prevent a Void from farming is to push his base. But you can't push against a lineup like this because they'll just do their cheap combo in chrono and wreck your team completely. Whenever I play a lineup like this I win, whenever I play against a lineup like this I lose, it's that simple. Chronosphere is basically Black Hole without the cooldown, and without the channeling part.
So they have ridiculously strong early and mid game, and unstoppable late game because they have a Void.

So...how to hard counter these lineups? I've tried lots and lots of things.

- Rat dota. This is the most obvious counter to pure teamfight lineups, but Faceless Void will just hunt down your Furion and solo kill him.

- Hard counterpicks. This works, but there are very very few of them. Most obvious is Silencer to ruin their initiation. But he needs to play solo mid/farming silencer not support. Omniknight works also because he counters both Void's damage in chrono and Death Prophet/ Witch Doctor's physical damage. But Omni needs to be farming also, he really needs that Aghanim's Scepter to counter-initiate from a distance and not be caught in chrono, and Refresher Orb really helps - but how do you farm with an Omni? doom bringer is an obvious counter to Void as well. Rubick is just meh. And I think that's it honestly.


Yesterday I *finally* won my first game against one of these Void lineups. But I really did some...pretty desperate/controversial things :)
I was playing safe lane Morphling. Got absolute freefarm. My team was owning the early game so we started to push at around 16 mins. Predictably, we got wrecked in teamfights by their stupid combo. And wrecked over and over again. Then it started being an absolute stalemate for 40 minutes when essentially nothing happened, and the only fights were at Rosh. During that time I started playing 100% rat dota, they had a Furion in their team so I was always on my own split pushing lanes just to counter Furion, and I ended up sniping a T3 tower and a rax.
And then, a big teamfight broke out. Void jumped in, and he was going to get a 4-man chrono including me if I didn't react at the last minute and act like a complete prick. I had my replicate waiting in another lane and I immediately pressed the Morph Replicate button, escaping the impending chrono at the last second and ditching my team to go push their base. My team got wiped ; but meanwhile, I got two sets of rax (^^). I sniped the last rax with Manta a few minutes later and got megacreeps. GG.
H[A]mstertamer, Bulldog would be proud :)

So...what other tips do you have against Void-based lineups that don't involve desperate Morphling ratting? :)

Well he didnt really own at TI4, carry void was really unsuccesfull, and offlane void was a bit overpicked and only good when picked by a team tht was good with him.

The reason carry void is good in pubs is because pubs suck at spreading out, and high teamfight teams are usually really good in pubs.

I have had that type of games, but you should be able to handle it if your teammates know what they are doing. For instance i had a game where i was alchemist, and void was wrecking me in fights, but if our venge who had a blink dagger would have focussed on swapping me and not getting caught in it herself it would have been an easy win.

So, counters to void.
Beastmaster, stops him from attacking alltogether even though bkb.
Bane, same idea, nightmare if no bkb, grip if he does have a bkb, enfeeble to lower his damage output. Both heroes are also good at stopping the followup if they will do more damage.

The heroes you listed.

Shadow demon disruption and OD's imprisonment.
Wisp relocate, especially good with tanky tiny.

Brewmaster to screw with the teamfight and stop followup. Tornado screws him over hard if he doesnt have BKB.

Morphling is decent with morph and his rat.
Lancer is hard to catch.

Naga, hard to catch and can stop the fight completely with song, kite him with ensnare. Also beats him in lategame.

Pudge with hook, can save someone or hook void.

TANKY TINY.

Treant with his root.

Venge with swap.
Warlock with his golem.
Wraith king with his 2 lives.

Remember as long as you have ghost, euls, blink, force, hex or anything instant like replicates then you shouldnt be caught in chrono unless he uses it without leap from fog.

Naga Siren is a great pick here - hang back, don't get caught in the Chrono, hit Song of the Siren as soon as it lands. Reset the fight with no Chrono, different ball game.

Omniknight with scepter obviously, you farm with him by buying Soul Ring and using Purification. The main thing is to get your team to acknowledge you need it and aren't playing as a #5.

Silencer - why not as a support? Ult works fine.

Tidehunter works pretty well, can ult from outside the chrono provided he doesn't get caught.

Keeper of the Light - to a point, Blinding Light will certainly screw up the Void.

Abaddon with a scepter (massive tanking value).

Obviously anyone who can get Void with a decent Orchid silence or hex from sheepstick, nuke him down before he can go, etc. You can also sometimes get greedy voids who'll waste their chrono ganking late game, or get caught out. The whole combo is reliant on him, so target him hard.

Yes, Besttmaster, Venge or Bane counter Void pretty well. But they don't counter his teammates who deal damage in chrono, and that's where the real problem is. Void is not the main damage dealer.



Really good on paper, but almost unusable in practice because 500/600 range is way too short and position-dependent. Long-range stuff like Fissure or Tornado is much more adapted, but he can just BKB to avoid it.



He'll get BKB or MKB eventually. But until then yes.




Oh god no. Void wrecks carry Naga, you have no idea. Song to sleep him? He'll make BKB. Naga can't deal with getting chronoed. And Naga is NOT a hard carry, she'll lose late game against Void even with a farm advantage. Carry Naga is all about flashfarming and I don't think that trying to outfarm a Void is a good plan.
Support Naga CAN work, yes, but Void will just dodge the song with BKB. But wince it *will* sleep Witch Doctor and friends, all right.



Tiny's Craggy Exterior only counters noob Voids who attack him without Black King Bar. Other than that, he can't really do anything honestly.



Sounds legit. Might try this one out, even though he counters only Void himself and not his teammates dealing damage in chrono. But indeed it DOES counter Void's BKB and ruins his chrono with a low-cooldown spell.

Dont forget the vision that beastmaster provides, you can easily prepare for the jump and stop whoever you want to stop.

Brewmaster is not about stopping void, it is about screwing with the followup. He provides the best teamfight chaos in the game.

You sir dont know what a radiance naga can do, she is a harder carry then void farm LITERALLY 4 TIMES AS FAST, and shouldnt even be chronoed EVER.
And she is an amazing rat hero, no one in the game provides as much map controll as she does.

And dont worry about not being able to push highground, 2 hearts solve that problem, you dont even have to enter the base to destroy it.

Tiny wisp is tanky enough to deal with void, even if he has BKB he still has to kill the tiny, plus they are also an amazing rat duo.

And it isnt that hard to disrupt a target with a shadow demon who has 1 mobility item, just position yourself well.

Positioning is the only reliable defense. If the enemy team is decent, everyone that is in the chrono will die, every time. You can mitigate the damage with stuff like SD (who *might* be able to save one ally), or BKB-piercing disable (which often won't matter since he probably has an allied DP/voker/WD/jugg etc), but the only real solution is to not let him get good chronos.

Pretty much this, with good positioning, you should only ever get 1 or 2 man Chronoed most of the time.

Best counter is probably Wraith King, the one Hero you don't want to waste a Chrono on. 8{3

Anyone that can jump and Silence/Disable Void before he can react is pretty good, e.g. Storm Spirit + Orchid Malevolence, Nightstalker + Void (the irony), most long Disables + Blink Dagger and finally Blink Dagger + DOOOOOOOOOOO000000000oooooooooo.........m 8{D

Vengeful Spirit, Shadow Demon and Outworld Devourer have been mentioned, and Bane might work in some Situations.

Omniknight is a possibility if you can get him some levels (and Farm if he's a Core), since it doesn't matter what anyone throws at you if you've got Guardian Angel + Repel on 8{3

Basically, learn to jump Void before he jumps you.

Why would a Void ever get MKB? Chronosphere already disables Evasion...

Thanks for the answers guys :)


Because despite being the master of Time, Void cannot deal well with being drunk because a panda is throwing beer at him.


Good positioning so that Void cannot get more than 1 or 2-man Chronospheres? When you replace Void by Enigma you realize how unrealistic that sounds. Why do people even pick Enigma in competitive if you can't get more that 1 or 2-man Black Holes? Same with Magnus or whatever. No, he's going to get a 3-man chrono, everything inside the chrono will die, and you'll have to fight 2 vs 5.

only if your teammates suck. and yes it is still worth to pick enigma without even using more then 2 man black holes, he is amazing even without it, you dont pick him for his ultimate. you pick him because he farms quick, pushes quick, and is amazing at defending towers with midnight pulse.

you are talking like void is completely broken and is almost an auto win, and almost all counters we list are dismissed by you with stupid reasons.
he is not a lycan you know.

Dude lycanthrope is so ez to counter. Faceless Void too. (such productive comment, much rage).


Now anyway, you don't have to counter the void in a game. You have to counter Chronosphere, which, implies good possitioning, and picking up stuff that works inside his chrono, best thing would be Venomancer, Shadow Shaman, heck, even Sand King.