Dota 2 Guide: Dota 2 Best Offlaners of Patch 7.22d

Dota 2 is closing in on its biggest tournament of the year, The International. It is natural for Valve to tweak some changes here and there to make the game balanced before the competition begins. The company has done exactly that by releasing a minor patch v7.22d on 30 June 2019, after the EPICENTER Major ended. Although there were not many major changes in the patch, some were really interesting and have had a significant impact on the heroes of the game.

Offlane is going to be a very important position in this patch. The meta provides versatility to play both solo and dual offlane. We will discuss some of the best heroes one can play to win games in this patch.

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#1 Phoenix

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Phoenix was not buffed in any way in the recent patch v7.22d. However, the hero was buffed in 7.22c and was getting into the meta since the 7.22 major update. The reason why this hero is so good is simple, it scales really well in the late game and has ample impact in the early game from the laning stage to the 10-15 minute mark. Phoenix has an amazing talent tree which is one of the most useful talent trees in the game. There is the +90 gold talent at level 10 which gives significant amount of gold to the hero, then there is +40 Fire Spirits Damage Per Second(DPS) at level 15, which is insane damage and has no cast point time. Phoenix also has great level 20 and 25 talents which are game dependent and flexible. Phoenix has an amazing Scepter ability which enables the hero to Sun-Ray from the Supernova egg. Additionally you can also save a teammate with your Supernova, this goes to show how useful the spell is.

For item choices, a Hand Of Midas is a very important item on Phoenix, as the hero is level dependent. Other early game items include an Urn of Shadows into Spirit Vessel and Veil of Discord. You can then go into making Scepter and other late game situational items like Shivas, Refresher or Hex.

#2 Night Stalker

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Night Stalker is probably the most annoying hero to face at the moment, especially if your team has heroes with great escape. Night Stalker was strong from the very early game, however he used to fall off as a late game hero but that is not the case right now. The hero is overpowered to some extent considering how he has an AOE silence with Crippling Fear which cannot be dispelled and lasts eight seconds at night time. The hero's talent tree grants him good benefits and late game potential.

Item choice for Night Stalker are pretty straightforward. You make Phase Boots, couple of Bracers to soak in some magic damage and be tanky early in the game. You can then proceed to make a Radiance, Abyssal Blade and Nullifier for the late game. A BKB and Blink Dagger pickup in the mid game is always handy for this hero. Other situational items include Solar Crest, Heaven's Halberd and Heart or Assault Cuirass. Whatever items you make keep in mind that Nullifier coupled with Crippling Fear can permanently disable a hero for a good amount of time, this is one of the most advantageous item builds for the late game.

#3 Tide Hunter

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Tide is an ideal offlane hero, he is tanky and can dish out tons of damage. Tide was always a great hero for his AOE ultimate ability which can stun multiple enemies and set up kills really nicely for teammates. However, the change to his ability Anchor Smash has done wonders for the hero. He now scales pretty well in the late game considering that Anchor Smash does damage based on Tide’s attack damage, it also uses all attack modifying items like Desolator's minus armour or Skadi’s slow.

Item build on the hero is Phase Boots, Soul Ring for mana and bracers for early game. Mid game should see Tide with Blink Dagger, strength items which increase his damage adding to Anchor Smash or maybe strict damage items like Daedalus, Desolator and Radiance could also be good item choices. There can be many other situational items like Shivas, Helbert or Refresher.

#4 Enigma

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I wouldn't have included this hero on the list considering it can be countered heavily by some commonly picked heroes like Silencer, Sniper etc. and has a high cooldown ultimate spell which gives enemies a window to show aggression on the map. However, what most people neglect is his ability to turn fights around even in the ultra late game situations. Enigma is born to fight and turn late game scenarios in his favour. His third skill Midnight Pulse does Pure damage and can deal up to 63% of enemy’s max health as damage. This means high HP heroes will basically melt in this skill when coupled with Black Hole. Enigma has good farming mechanics and great talent tree which helps reduce spell cooldown if you want that.

Items on Enigma include a Hand of Midas which goes best with the cooldown reduction talent at level 15, you can skip Midas if you want to take +150 Gold talent, Blink Dagger and BKB. Other mid to late game items include Scepter and Refresher Orb.