Dota 2 Tips: A Beginner's Guide to Hero Roles

Carry

Carries are the heroes that can obtain the greatest power and utility as the game progresses. (It is so derived from the act of "carrying" a team; that is, to bear the responsibility for ultimate victory.) They tend to be those who become extremely powerful later in the game as compared to other heroes once they amass enough levels and items. They are the ones expected to have the highest number of kills at the conclusion of the game and tend to be those that directly tackle the structures and the Ancient upon the team becoming powerful enough. Carries typically lack early game power, but they scale well by late game; thus, the items they carry are an essential part of their build. Most carries rely on right-clicking, using sheer attack power to overwhelm their enemies. Carries tend to have high base movement speed.

Disabler

Disablers are Heroes whose abilities are more focused to reliable crowd control, whether by single target or by area. Though fundamentally Support, they can act as Initiator in a gank when the number of enemy Heroes to be killed is few in number - a true Initiator's cooldowns are best saved for a large confrontation. They often lane with the team's carry to malign any attempts on their life. Disablers tend to have low base movement speed.

Lane Support
Lane Supports or Babysitters are Heroes who help their team's Carry control the lane in the early stages of the game. They are able to either repel enemies from your team's carry and thus keep them safe, or to allow the carry to continuously stay in the lane using abilities that replenish either health or mana. Common traits of Lane Supports are long-ranged right-click attacks and abilities that are highly useful from level 1 and up. They should always lane with the team's Hard Carry, as aside from supporting them, their lack of dependence on gold and levels means said Carry can take all the farm for themselves without running the risk of soloing a lane.

Initiator

Initiators are heroes who can safely and advantageously start a team fight. These heroes typically have strong area of effect damage or disable or some skill to affect the positioning of the enemy team. Many of these heroes rely completely on a Blink Dagger or Force Staff to get the proper positioning to initiate a teamfight, while a select few, such as Elder Titan, do not require this asset. Although it is common for an Initiator to be a Durable hero, this is not always the case; fragile heroes such as Enigma and Vengeful Spirit are adept at initiation.

Jungler

Heroes that can kill neutral creeps in the jungle without dying are called Junglers. Having a hero in the jungle leaves one lane open for a hero to solo. This allows both the jungler and the solo laner to get solo experience. Junglers usually have abilities that summon minions, take control of neutrals, offer lifesteal and/or give the hero high damage output early game. Abilities like these are crucial for heroes to jungle effectively.

Support

Supports are heroes whose purpose is to keep their allies alive and give them opportunities to earn more gold and experience. Supports will usually come with skills, such as healing spells or skills that disable enemies; and generally have low damage output (but often with a powerful-yet-situational ultimate). Like Semi-Carries, Supports are not dependent on items (with some exceptions), and thus, most of their gold will be spent on items for the benefit of the team such as Animal Courier, Observer Ward, Sentry Ward, and Smoke of Deceit.

Durable

Durable heroes (or "Tanks") are heroes who have the potential to sustain large amount of incoming damage from the enemy. They tend to have large amounts of HP, HP regeneration, armor, or magic resistance. They often have abilities to mitigate damage, avoid damage completely, or disable assailants. Strength heroes almost invariably perform this role because their primary attribute, Strength, also grants HP.

Despite the fact that most Durable heroes in Dota 2 cannot literally force enemies to attack targets (only Axe, Legion Commander, and Auroth may do this), they effectively play the role of absorbing most enemy damage output in a teamfight. This is accomplished by:

1. Outputting an AoE effect which severely maligns the enemy, so that the enemy must kill the durable first; for example Undying's Flesh Golem which increases all damage to hostile units in its radius.
2. Being the first one to engage the enemy in a teamfight. The enemy will respond by unloading abilities and items on the durable because a) the enemy cannot see the durable's allies and is tricked to believe the durable is alone for easy kill b) the enemy cannot reach the durable's allies because they are too far away c) the enemy is inexperienced and prematurely attacks the first hostile target in sight. The result is that the durable will probably survive because of his high durability; when the allies charge in, most of the enemy's skills are on cooldown and the battle becomes much more favorable. This tactic will not always work against seasoned opponents, however.
3. Using an ability to force enemies to attack the Durable rather than his or her allies. The only example of this currently in-game is Axe.
4. Being the only target that can be readily attacked; a strategy that works best when the Durable's allies are ranged heroes.

In summary, a durable in Dota 2 is a durable hero with high survivability who often initiates a team battle and ideally is able to manipulate the enemy to damage the durable instead of the allies.

Nuker

Heroes that are able to deal an enormous amount of damage in a burst. These heroes often have abilities that have a low cooldown that work well in combination with each other that allows them to have high damage output in a short time span. These heroes are often great gankers, as they can travel to another lane and nuke down enemy heroes.

Pusher

Pushers are heroes who focus on bringing down towers quickly, thereby acquiring map control. If they succeed, they often shut down the enemy carry by forcing them away from farming. They typically have skills that fortify allied creep waves, harm multiple enemy creeps and/or heroes at once, summon minions, or deal massive amounts of damage to enemy towers.

Escape

Escape heroes are heroes equipped with one or more escape mechanisms which allow them (or sometimes their allies) to avoid damage and abilities while retreating or repositioning themselves during a teamfight or gank. Escape heroes are particularly suited to soloing the "suicide lane" or short lane, as they can turn situations where death is inevitable into a temporary delay in farm. Escape mechanisms include movement speed buffs, invisibility, teleportation (such as Blinking), and evasion. Many carry heroes also have escape mechanisms to give them the survivability they need to continue farming and killing.

Information in this blog was taken from this webpage.