Hero Difficulty

This article is a guide mainly meant for new players to help choose heroes to learn. Note that a high rating on a hero does not means that you should not try to play and learn that hero. Every player has different strengths and weaknesses. A hero with an Advanced rating might come easy to you while some heroes rated as Beginner might be difficult to you.

This article rates a heroes difficulty in six different aspects of the game. Those individual ratings get then added up and form a final rating. While reading this article keep in mind, that the final ratings are not a measure of hero strength. Dota 2 is a very well balanced game with most heroes being of about equal strength regardless of their difficulty rating.

If you do not agree with some of the content of this guide please use this articles discusson page to discuss what should be changed.

Explanation
As mentioned before, the heroes difficulty gets measured in six specific areas of the game. The difficulty gets displayed as a number from 1 to 5 with 1 requiring the least skill and 5 the most. Whilst this list is supposed to be as accurate as possible, keep in mind, that this guide represents the opinions of the people who edited it and does not reflect set values.

Knowledge
The amount of knowledge about heroes, abilities, items, … that is required to play the hero effectively.
 * 1) Requires basic knowledge about the game and the own hero.
 * 2) Requires the player to know which heroes to jump.
 * 3) Requires knowledge about other players heroes, abilities and items.
 * 4) Requires advanced knowledge; adapting item builds to the game.
 * 5) Requires advanced knowledge about all heroes, abilities and items.

Awareness

 * 1) The hero requires basic awareness of the close surroundings of the hero.
 * 2) The hero requires basic awareness of the entire map.
 * 3) Needs to be aware of his surroundings to escape from ganks or to land long range skills.
 * 4) Needs to be aware of the state of the game, as well as the positions of enemies.
 * 5) Needs to be aware of what's happening around the map to land global skills or to gank enemies.

Positioning

 * 1) The hero has no special requirements in terms of positioning.
 * 2) The hero has abilities that rely on good positioning, but is useful even without them.
 * 3) The hero has abilities that rely on good positioning and are important to hit.
 * 4) The hero constantly has to be in the correct positions to save people/counter-gank
 * 5) The hero heavily relies on good positioning to stay alive (has no abilities to escape and is squishy)

Farming

 * 1) The hero needs no items to be relevant in the game
 * 2) The hero needs some farm in order to become relevant
 * 3) The hero needs a lot of farm; has an easy time getting it
 * 4) The hero needs a key item quickly
 * 5) The hero needs a lot of farm; has a hard time getting it

Mechanics

 * 1) Simple spells; no exact timing or quick reactions necessary
 * 2) Non-targeted spells; quick reactions necessary
 * 3) The hero relies on good item and ability usage to be effective.
 * 4) The hero needs to control multiple units.
 * 5) The hero needs to control multiple units with different abilities or relies on quick reflexes to stay alive.

Survival

 * 1) The hero can die without being heavily punished for it.
 * 2) The hero needs to stay alive long enough to get off a key spell.
 * 3) The hero needs to continually use abilities in fights to be useful.
 * 4) The hero gets punished heavily for dying
 * 5) The hero absolutely can't afford to die.

Final Rating
For the final rating these six numbers get added together. The final rating can range from 6 (the easiest) to 30 (the hardest).

The Rating Chart

 * Note:, , , , , , , , , , and  are not present in the original PlayDota guide and were added by community members.

Conclusion
As you can see, there are more heroes and aspects with yellow and red rating than green rating! Now you know why they say DotA has a steep learning curve!