Top Tier Carries In The Current Meta
Image by Livia Prima
Everyone’s favorite and most hated position - the carry. This player is your key to victory so make sure you keep him nice and safe while he’s farming. Make sure to never steal the last hits or your carry might retreat into the jungle at level three.
One of the best things about new patches is that you get to see new heroes in your games but that only lasts a few weeks. Here are four top tier safe lane carry heroes and you’ve probably played with one of them in 90% of your games.
Lone Druid
Arguably the hero of the patch, Lone Druid. From unseen and unplayed before the patch to seen and played all the time, Lone Druid was one of the most changed heroes in the Outlanders update. In the Divine/Immortal bracket, this man and bear duo has a win rate of 55.47% and a pick rate of 3.17%
A lot of the changes were covered in this previous post but the basic gist of it is that the Spirit Bear was buffed and Lone Druid’s survivability was buffed. He’s now strong in every stage of the game from laneing, to farming during mid-game, to late game carrying.
The most popular way of playing Lone Druid is to maximize the Spirit Bear and Spirit Link abilities as soon as possible, skipping other spells. At level nine you get a value point in Savage Roar, then your talent, then the ultimate.
Talent-wise, the build seems to be to take +250 health at level 10, then +10 Spirit Bear armor, then 0 second entangle cooldown, and finally 0.25 Spirit Bear attack time.
Ursa
The return of the bear? Ursa was a forgotten carry for the past few months before this patch but is now back and the 2nd most winningest safe lane carry in Divine/Immortal bracket. He has a pick rate of 15.72% and a win rate of 55.47%.
Ursa had his Earthshock spell reworked, it now causes you to bounce 250 units ahead and slam the ground. This change has revived his laneing game because now he’s a threat to kill anyone in lane by building up Fury Swipes stacks and being able to keep up with the new Earthshock. Some people have even started skipping buying Blink Dagger because of the new bounce.
The ability build looks to be to max Fury Swipes with a value point in Earthshock at level two. You level your ultimate when you get it and after maxing Fury Swipes you max Overpower and then Earthshock.
For talents, at level 10 the +2 mana regen is more popular than +8 strength and it has a higher win rate as well. After level 10, +14 agility is more popular, followed by +16 Fury Swipes damage, and then Enrage gaining 80% status resistance is more popular at level 25 although +600 AoE Earthshock has a +3.6% higher win rate.
Drow Ranger
In the latest shuffle of in meta heroes, Drow Ranger is back in the top tier list. The evil archer sits with a 54.78% win rate and a 15.18% pick rate in the Divine/Immortal bracket.
Drow Ranger had her global presence removed and has a new AoE damage ability. Last patch she would sit in the jungle and press E to push out all the waves to give her more space to farm the jungle until she was 3-6 slotted.
Valve decided to kill this playstyle and now she can’t instantly kill creeps when her ultimate procs and doesn’t have her global ability. What she does have is a new AoE damage ability that fires off many arrows that apply Frost Arrows. After being forced to leave the jungle and join in team fights, Drow Ranger is now one of the top carries. There may be a lesson in this.
The build seems to be to maximize Multishot and after that Frost Arrows. Skill your ultimates as soon as you get it and get a value point in Gust at level 8.
Talent-wise, at level 10, +5 all stats is only about 30% more popular than +20 movement speed and has a 0.4% higher win rate. At level 15, +12 agility is picked 84% of the time, and at level 15, +35% Multishot damage is also picked 84% of the time. At level 25, there is an almost 50% split between 40% cooldown reduction and +15% Marksmanship chance.
Void Spirit
It’s not new for new heroes to be overpowered and strong. We saw Snapfire featured in the top support meta post and now Void Spirit is in the top carry post. Void Spirit has a 54.22% win rate and a 4.06% pick rate in the Divine/Immortal bracket.
I’ve noticed that when playing against a Void Spirit, it’s hard to win. I usually play heroes with high mobility like Mirana, Clockwerk, Riki, or Lina and even with those heroes, it’s hard to escape Void Spirit when he’s chasing you. He’s one of those heroes that can pop up out of nowhere, cover large distances quickly, disable you for a long time and do enough burst damage to kill you before you can react.
The popular build for Void Spirit is to max Resonant Pulse and Dissimilate, and then your ultimate, and once those spells are maxed, then start building Aether Remnant.
The popular build for talents is to get +30 damage at level 10 (even though it has a lower win rate than the other option), +100 Resonant Pulse damage next, -7 second Astral Step charge reduction, and then 200% Astral Step crit at level 25.
Final thoughts
When the community knows which heroes are good, they sure do play them a lot. I see these four heroes in my games a lot and it’s not too fun to play against them and boring to play with them, especially Lone Druid.
Hopefully, many more heroes will emerge as very strong so there can be more diversity in games.
What do you guys think about these heroes? Which heroes do you think are strong right now? Which heroes do you hate playing against? Love playing with?
tiny?
no tiny weirdchamp
Tiny's ultimate bonus armor is so disgusting. Kinda hope that they will revert his no-AGI change and tone down his bonus armor as well.
void kekw. His winrate now around 40-50%
slark is very overpowered with the new aghs. surprised it isnt even on the list.
no pl kekw.
Man, you guys need proofreaders for your posts. It's not "laneing," it's "laning." Looks really sloppy for a website that's wishing to be taken seriously.
The most winning (or just use the highest winrate)
Laning
Content is nice, keep it up!
nice i'd like more details on how Void Spirit is being played, since the nerf it feels better at creating space than carrying
why is there no pl?
ez drow
I still hate teammate invokers so I ban it.
I hate going against tiny right now he feels strong in any position.
You are showing void spirits win rate since release. As someone said above, since the last nerf he is sub 50%
I still see shadow in my room
If you win lanes you win game
Happy to see Lone Druid return to the meta, very hard to counter in scrub tier, which is where i dwell..
аххаха тракса
хочу увидеть как авторы статей на этом сайте начнут юзать Правописание в ворде))
Wat? How
Well, Lone druid talent guide is shit if you wanna play lone don't take 10+ ARMOR at level 15 instead take -12 Savage roar you, level 20 dont take 0 entangle instead take -40 true form YOU SHOULD KNOW WHY IM SAYING -40 true form and of course lvl 25 -0.25 bear attack time. you will thank me later.
I think you mean level 20 for "and at level 15, +35% Multishot damage is also picked 84% of the time. "
а где пудж
Tiny, Bloodseeker, PL??
I don't understand how Juggernaut became so bad suddenly. Literally spammed him to 6k a year ago . He has the worst wintrate in the game because of the amount of players playing that hero. The devs should really buff his ulti cooldown man. Can't see a hero like jugg just disappear from the game.
just counter the enemy and you win 4HEad
Only if the game was that easy, counter picking doesn't mean anything unless u can execute the draft and the timings based on it.
Just pick Razor.
Your TI9 predict sucks
i want pudge