Talk:Role

Jungler and Tank are not roles, they are properties. Junglers have the ability to spend the laning phase in the jungle. It however has little relevance after the early laning phase, when everyone has the ability to jungle.

This isn't LoL. there is no "Tank" role. Any competent team will focus the tankier heros last, or even during the fight, as in Dota, stacking health and armor has diminishing returns compared to carries that stack dps. Going around "having everyone's attention" is hoping that the other team is bad. Tanky can be used as an adjective. Heros such as tidebringer and pudge can be harder to kill in the earlier game, but during the fight, they don't do much after they use their ults. One the flipside, heros such necrolyte, death prophet, and lesrahc build tanky items because their skills allow them to dps during a fight. The exception being Axe who can actually force enemies to focus him.
 * You're not the first one to not consider Tank and Jungler a role, I also agree with that. The problem is, the roles are directly taken from Valve's own role distribution, which is what our wiki normally follows. The roles on the hero's pages wouldn't change until Valve changes it, but if others are willing to provide a good explanation on why heroes can be played as what role, they will be welcomed to add that in our soon to come guide section. Redefining history 09:27, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Please update the role system to Valve standards
Why don't we stick to Valve's role system? It's pretty strange that Carry and Semi-Carry are both considered a primary role. The prefix "Semi-" implies that it is a secondary, and not a full role. Valve's system (taken from cyborgmatts blog):

"DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Carry"   "Carry" "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Disabler" "Disabler" "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Babysitter" "Babysitter" "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Initiator" "Initiator" "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Jungler" "Jungler" "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Roamer"   "Roamer" "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Tank"   "Tank" "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Pusher"   "Pusher" "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Support"   "Support"

"DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Carry_Sub"   "Will become more useful later in the game if they gain a significant gold advantage." "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Disabler_Sub" "Has a guaranteed disable for one or more of their spells." "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Babysitter_Sub" "Helpful in the early-game laning in protecting your team's carry." "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Initiator_Sub" "Good at starting a teamfight." "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Jungler_Sub" "Can farm effectively from neutral creeps inside the jungle early in the game." "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Roamer_Sub"   "Can focus on moving around the map instead of farming creeps early in the game." "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Tank_Sub"   "Has the ability to last longer in teamfights." "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Pusher_Sub"   "Can quickly siege and destroy towers and barracks" "DOTA_Hero_Selection_PipTooltip_Support_Sub"   "Can focus less on amassing gold and items, and more on using their abilities to gain an advantage for the team." - derFreiBierFred, 28 April 2012


 * Semi-Carry does not mean it is a "secondary role", but rather that they have lesser item dependency while also having lesser potential at late game compared to hard carries. Example is Mirana, who can dominate early game but cannot beat opponents like Anti-Mage in a battle if both are equally farmed up.
 * Also the list is probably incomplete. They haven't placed a description for ganker but they provided an icon. Same goes for support but vice versa. Denmax 11:21, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

New Roles Page
I feel like this new page needs some cleanup. The babysitter section just seems silly to me since babysitting is just one of the many things a support can do. Also, why is viper one of the sample babysitters? On his page he is refereed to as a Carry / Tank / Roamer, and I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to have a carry babysitting another carry. I also really don't like how supports and semi-carries are stuck on the bottom as Other Roles even though they are two of the most important roles in the game. Just my two cents. Curly Brace


 * This role system has been developed by Valve (see my post above). I personally think it is far from perfect, but it is really hard to find a consensus on an open platform such as this wiki. That's why we should stick to the "official" data, I believe they will improve and re-think their role distribution.
 * I agree, Viper shouldn't be an example for a babysitter. Yes, he can harass very well, but in practice neither professional teams nor pubbies will play him as a babysitter. We should stick to very distinct and clear examples here. The 3 Heroes chosen to represent "gankers" do not make the role very clear, we need some variation in there (I miss an Intelligence ganker that ganks with nukes or disables in there).
 * I don't agree to your statement about semi-carries however. The prefix "Semi-" implies that it's not a full role.


 * //EDIT: Okay, I switched some Hero examples around. Tell me what you think. I replaced Dazzle with AA in the support category so I can put Dazzle in the babysit category instead without mentioning a Hero two times on this page. It's not that I think Dazzle is not a supporter ;) - derFreiBierFred, 12 May 2012

Definitely an improvement. A made some revisions to the examples as well, adding Sand King and Brewmaster as initiators, Phantom Lancer as a pusher and I put Riki back in as a Ganker. I know you wanted some variety in there with Shadow Demon, but I think Riki is a much better example of a Ganker. The idea of the examples is to be able to look at that hero and instantly see why they fit that role, and while Shadow Demon can be used to Gank very effectively, I think he is a much more versatile hero which makes him not as good of an example. That's just my opinion anyway, if you don't like it feel free to change him back. The only area I'm unsure about is Roamers. I feel like Earthshaker, Vengeful Spirit, and Crystal Maiden would all fit better in other categories (ES Initiator, VS Baby Sitter, and CM Support). Then again, I'm not really sure who would be a good example of a Roamer so those three might just be the best examples there are. Curly Brace


 * Basically roamer is almost always a secondary job, as much as is jungler and tank are. Roamers are Heroes who can sacrifice their early game by staying out lanes to ward, gain map control, and help with ganks. In a sense, the "roaming" role is non existent after laning phase because most of everyone will be roaming anyway, much like jungling. Gankers are heroes who are extremely effective at ganks - and usually are ones that need to earn the kill in a gank (as a source of farm). Ganker might also be a common secondary role similar to support, but it can also be a primary role. Example is Lina. Denmax 11:32, 14 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The examples of Roamers are perfect for me, I would've choesen these exact three heroes as well, as they are the most commonly used roamers in high level play for some years now.
 * What I dislike about the three ganker-examples is that it looks like gankers are right-clicking melee heroes that deal a large portion of their DPS in physical attacks. I miss a pure caster/nuker/disabler in there, e.g. Lion, Puck, Shadow Shaman, QoP, Tinker... - derFreiBierFred, 14 May 2012


 * Okay I see your point. For the sake of variety I put Queen of Pain in there.  She has a nice slow, a couple of solid nukes, a great movement skill, as well as decent right click power, so she kind of has a little bit of everything, and shows off some more variety as far as Gankers go.  Curly Brace

The current official roles
I see in the client itself we seem to have "support" rather than "roamer", and "lane support" rather than "babysitter" - should we make this change? Fizz 17:20, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe most/all the hero pages already use the official terminology anyways, so yes, we probably should. -Baloroth
 * The whole structure of the page should be changed to reflect the in-game roles, methinks. --Kroocsiogsi 19:53, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Controversial statement about kills
The article currently has the following statement: " A Support should always forfeit kills to the team's Carry, only performing a kill if none of his allies are able to do it." This is very debatable, many high-level players and casters said that in many situations kills for the support are better since stronger supports make carries farm safer. Shouldn't this statement be removed? It's more of an opinion than a fact. 187.107.80.84 20:58, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * zz Yes, nearly all supports also have the important role of semi-carry mid-early fighter as their skills are being leveled before carries are strong enough in the late game, although Valve doesn't acknowledge it and I haven't yet elaborated on it in the article. Feel free to replace it with a more accurate statement all the same though. --Immanot 03:35, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Laning suggestion when there's a jungler in the team
''Although having two solo lanes and a Jungler produces a significant gold and experience advantage, it increases exposure to enemy ganks. To alleviate this, make sure your second solo hero is a Semi-Carry in the long lane (bottom for Radiant and top for Dire).''

This statement not only contains a bad suggestion (in most situations, not always) but it also sounds like it's objectively true: it tells us to make sure to follow it. Although making the lanes composition as close to 2-1-2 certainly makes it simpler for newbies to implement this strategy, I feel it maybe could propose other lanes compositions and definitely should be re-written in a tone that shows this is quite a subjective topic.


 * I agree; it also misidentifies the long lane. I'm going to remove that part; this page is in bad need of a rewriting anyway.-- Stupid Lemon Eater  22:26, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

It still doesn't look too good, especially the following statement: ''Junglers typically have skills that allow them to convert neutral creeps, summon minions, or sustain themselves through damage; and the ability to Jungle is found in Heroes of all classes. ''. I also think the solo lane could be explained a bit better, although I find that a proper explanation would take too much space in a section dedicated to jungling heroes. As far as I know there isn't any page regarding lane setups, perhaps it'd be useful to create one? It could even help cleaning up this page, as some information could be moved there and make the Roles page more simple and clean.

Supports & kills
"Supports should always try to forfeit kills to any teammate who is more reliant on items than they are, only performing a kill if none of their allies is able to do it. "

Is this indeed true?

https://www.reddit.com/r/learndota2/comments/ai2yt1/how_badly_should_a_supp_avoid_taking_kills/ <- apparently people disagree.