Need help mastering the hard support role in Dota 2? Keep reading! While you probably won’t secure many flashy solo kills, you can steer your team to victory when you play the pos 5 support role. Whether it’s creating a vision or saving your carry with clutch plays, your role is pivotal at every game stage.
This guide will unveil all the secrets to being a pro-level support player in Dota 2, from the laning phase to the late game. We’ll deep dive into basic and advanced gameplay tips and tricks, optimal item recommendations, and the best hero picks to boost your MMR!
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Dota 2 Hard Support Role Table Of Contents
What Is The Hard Support’s Role In Dota 2?
As the hard support, you have the lowest farm priority, so don’t be bummed out if it’s 20 minutes into the game and you’re still rocking brown boots. Put simply, you don’t need flashy items to shine. Your ability toolkit is enough to have a substantial game impact and lock down enemy heroes.
You need to be ready to adopt a sacrificial role. Relinquish any gold to your core—and yes, that means not stealing the safe lane farm! Instead, stack the neutral creep camps to amplify your core’s GPM/CS. When you’re in the lane, focus on denying creeps and only secure last hits if your carry can’t.
It’s the carry’s responsibility to keep creep equilibrium, but you should also pull neutral creep camps wherever necessary. Most importantly, your primary focus as a hard support in Dota 2 will be to create vision by warding and de-warding to avoid surprise ganks by the enemy team.
Pro Tip: We recommend reading our guide on the soft support role in Dota 2. This will help you grasp the subtle differences between the hard and soft support roles and their respective priorities.
Tips & Tricks For Playing Hard Support In Dota 2
Now that you know the basics of how to play as a hard support in Dota 2, let’s go over some advanced tips to elevate your gameplay to Divine+.
Harassing
In the early game, offer lane support to your carry by harassing the enemy offlaner and zoning the enemy soft support. Your default harassment should be auto-attacks. Spells are powerful but also deplete your mana. Only use them to boost attacks or secure a kill when the enemy has low HP.
If you’re a melee hero, try to tank the enemy’s aggression and find the right moment to initiate. As a ranged hero, take advantage of your distance and focus on harassing the enemy core to disrupt their farm and item progression. Just avoid drawing creep aggro, as it can spoil the lane equilibrium.
Pro Tip: Your primary job is to babysit your carry, but be sure to seize opportunities to rotate to the mid-lane to help defend against a gank, secure a kill, or refill the mid’s Bottle if you’re TPing from the Fountain.
Team Fights
In the mid-game, your role shifts and becomes more team and objective-focused. Try to sync your movements and ability cooldowns with your cores to take strategic fights near key objectives like the enemy Tier 2 towers and Roshan. Winning these team fights can directly swing the game’s balance.
Taking fights on the enemy’s side of the map is often preferable. That’s because even if you lose the skirmish, it will take them longer to cross into your territory, giving your team a chance to respawn and defend. That said, you should place wards around where you plan to be most active!
Pro Tip: After a team fight, don’t mindlessly return to farming. Instead, seize the opportunity to take objectives when the enemy heroes are dead. Every second counts in Dota 2!
Positioning and Buy Backs
As the hard support, you’re the most vulnerable target in team fights. It’s great to absorb nukes and stuns (rather than your carry), but the longer you survive, the better! your death is far less game-changing than the carry, do your best to stay out of sight and avoid getting picked off to the best of your ability.”
On that note, in the event of your death, always save for a buyback so you can be present for crucial fights or to contest Roshan. As a hard support in Dota 2, you should avoid using your teleports frivolously and preserve them for joining fights.
Best Items For Playing Hard Support In Dota 2
As a hard support, you’ll have a tough time getting luxury items. But that’s okay—you don’t need them! Prioritize items that benefit the entire team. This includes items that can heal or save your allies.
These are some core items for a hard support in Dota 2:
- Observer and Sentry Wards: Use these to secure map control by creating vision or denying the enemy vision.
- Smoke of Deceit: Use these to initiate ganks. The user and nearby allies briefly turn invisible (undetectable by Wards and vision-reliant spells). The invisibility is lost within the range of an enemy hero or tower.
- Arcane Boots: Besides providing bonus movement speed, this item replenishes 250 mana to nearby allies within its AoE.
- Ghost Scepter: When activated, the user temporarily becomes ethereal and immune to physical damage. It’s perfect against high DPS cores like Phantom Assassin.
- Force Staff: This item pushes a target unit 600 units in the direction they’re facing—perfect for dodging certain crowd control abilities.
- Glimmer Cape: Provides 25% magic resistance. When cast, the targeted unit turns invisible and blocks up to 300 magic damage for 5 seconds.
- Aghanim’s Scepter and Shard: Depending on the hero, it can either upgrade or grant entirely new abilities.
Other strong items include Eul’s Scepter of Divinity, Solar Crest, Mekansm, Lotus Orb, and Medallion of Courage.
Note: While it helps to know about the above items and which to use, it’s even more important to adapt to the unique conditions of the game.
Best Hard Support Heroes In Dota 2
Looking for the best hard support in Dota 2? We’ve got you! This hero tier list should help you confidently choose the right support for your draft. As always, you’ll want to use your own judgment and counter-pick according to your matchup.
| Tier | Heroes |
| S-Tier (the best heroes) | Chen, Crystal Maiden, Mirana |
| A-Tier (great anytime) | Techies, Lion, Undying, Shadow Demon, Bat Rider, Terrorblade |
| B-Tier (good situationally) | Vengeful Spirit, Grimstroke, Gyrocopter, Pugna, Phoenix, Enchantress, Nature’s Prophet, Io, Enigma |
Note: These hero recommendations are accurate for Dota 2 patch 7.35c and are courtesy of analyst zquixotix. The relevance of these heroes may shift with meta changes and future updates.
Playing The Hard Support Role In Dota 2
With these tips, you should be well on your way to improving your MMR in Dota 2 when playing the role of hard support. But there’s still one message we cannot stress enough: you need to adapt to the game’s flow to be successful. Also, be sure to watch top-tier support pro players like iNSaNiA and Miposhka to see how these tips play out in a live setting! For even more Dota 2 action, check out our wide range of betting options, from esports like Dota 2 and League of Legends to traditional sports! But that’s not all. You can leverage lightning-fast withdrawals, a generous welcome bonus, and more when you place your Dota 2 bets today!
