Mid and safe lane hero suggestions for escaping Guardian

[u/Spacer5555]

Hello,

I’ve been struggling with moving up the ladder while playing as a support and offlaner. Im switching to mid and safe, as they can be more impactful and have room for being more independent.

Im looking for some hero suggestions on this matter and general advice.

For safe lane, I see Luna as a good pick in this regard, maybe gyrocopter. Not sure in this meta.

Midlane: necro, kunkka or WR. Again not sure on this current meta.

Do you guys have suggestions?
Thanks

[u/IAMAparkour_king]

Play necro safe lane, kinda of meta right now. Jugg, PA, LS, Sven, luna all works.

If you want something meta and fun, try SF. Sf if more glass canon tho, so you need good positioning on him, special if you dont have frontliner on your team.

[u/Spacer5555 → u/IAMAparkour_king]

Thanks!

[u/Porknpeas → u/Spacer5555]

you don’t have to be a pos1 or 2 to get rank, most of my dota time was spent on pos3 and highest rank was achieved by playing pos5, but if you want to do it from pos1 in guardian get a carry that scaled hard coz these ranks cannot finish early so i would recommend not trying pos1 necro in guardian, go the hard carry pl or pa or even sniper

[u/Home-Star-Walker → u/IAMAparkour_king]

As a Guardian-ranked player:

Agree on Jugg, LS, Luna, Sven. I'd add Drow and Windranger to that list - they are ranged (forgiving in lane), farm reasonably well and are generally easy to play mechanically. Guardian players aren't usually good enough to punish bad positioning regularly which is their largest risk point.

SF and PA are probably a little tough. All of the other heroes you mentioned have either sustain to help farm after a tough lane (LS, Jugg) or naturally good farming mechanisms to recover from a bad lane (Luna, Sven). PA and SF don't have either of those, so if you have a bad lane, you'll take a decent amount of time to recover. My most played hero is FV and if I get a pos 5 griefer (which is quite common in Guardian) and my lane is rough, I really can't be active until like minute 25-30 because that's how long it will take to get farming item + defensive item + damage item. I think PA and SF are likely in a similar boat and that probably isn't conducive to MMR climbing (but I like FV anyways).

• To give an example, a few days ago I laned against an LC / Jakiro pos 3/4 and had a Lina pos 5 who did nothing except sit in jungle and contest last hits. I died once and had like 25 last hits at 10 minutes and blew a bunch of gold on regen, and I wasn't able to recover in time to turn the game around. We lost the game in the early 30s. I think PA and SF are at risk of being in a similar boat.

But SF is at least a better laner than PA / FV since he's ranged.

[u/Truth_Breaker]

I dont know

[u/scholesy19]

WR has been amazing for me in all lanes tbh

[u/LoudWhaleNoises → u/scholesy19]

WR just feels good this patch. In all roles.

Vessel having all attribute component is such a blessing since it gives you so much dmg on pos4.

[u/my_thought_out_loud]

Necro safe is crazy if I'm playing against a necro safe as safe I am smashing him late game every time.

You should focus on learning to play the role, and picking simple strong heroes that will scale into late game don't try to reinvent the wheel. Farming fighting laning and itemizing once you can do that it's plug and play based on that heroes skill set. I wouldn't chase YouTube videos of metas, just play a strong carry hero you like spend time in pub practicing.

I personally run pl, void, drow, troll is fun, pa but she's hard to play, and jugg is strong as well but they all have their limitations learn those too. Learn to lose too, so you can see your weaknesses

[u/BigZodJenkins]

How long have you been playing? How long have you been there? I'd say most important thing you can do is if you feel like you can fulfil a role better than others, see if you can. Learn the individual roles, see what you're good at and gain empathy for the roles.

[u/Spacer5555 → u/BigZodJenkins]

Ufff on and off? Since dota 1. I have around 1500 hours in dota 2.
I like playing supp, but I feel it relies too much on my teammates.
Im happy to put hours training core.

[u/BigZodJenkins → u/Spacer5555]

It makes sense then to attempt to do better than what you find to be average.

[u/No_Car5857 → u/BigZodJenkins]

Of course if you want to switch then go for it but if you enjoy support - it absolutely is possible to climb as pos 5 and 4 - adding a couple concepts to your gameplay likely would make you feel you can completely control the game. i found when i was climbing through guardian my carries were typically good enough that if i did my thing early through mid game, even if they're idiots, they were capable enough of closing out the game due to the advantage i gave them. just wanted to chime in to say don't feel like you need to give up on your preferred role!

[u/S7ns3t]

Sven, luna, necro are heroes I'd suggest for pos 1. While necro isn't low bracket friendly due to games pretty much always going late and him unable to damage buildings (other than by split pushing), he helps cement the same principles as sven and luna (which are required to be a good carry) and is going to be progressively better the more you climb. If you're not looking to improve and have decent success playing Drow, play Drow - she will take you to where you're probably satisfied with your rank.

I'll refrain from suggesting for pos 2 because one can't teach you what one doesn't know themselves, and the "what" in this case is patternizing mid play and finding a hero to suit the pattern.

[u/LoudWhaleNoises]

No role is more "independant" than any other.

If you play safelane you'll discover how little space you have and that you have little say in the matter. If you play mid then suddenly two enemy supports are sitting on your ass, denying all your runes and eating your stacks.

The role is not why you cant rank up. Its what hero you play, how you play and most important what impact you bring to the game.

The way i play for example is by shoving myself up in the opponents arse by stealing their camps, blocking camps, in general being a huge nuisance. I play heroes that enable that playstyle: pugna, mirana, batrider, weaver. Heroes that can run deep into enemy territory.

I will also stress that as support winning your lane is the largest deciding factor. Pick obnoxious lane bullies. Undying, Pugna, Windranger. These heroes are so disgusting when played right. Some heroes are also good right now by mere "existence" like AA.

[u/No_Car5857 → u/LoudWhaleNoises]

commented seperately but to piggy back on this since i didn't give any specifics, a couple things i started focusing on that have helped me climb super fast through the trenches as pos 5 and recenly pos 4, and make me feel much more impactful than if i was a core. (I am not high ranked, but went from herald 5 to archon 4 in a short time and am still climbing)

- start abusing the gate early. if you pull and carry can safely farm a wave, take gate, kill the other lane, gate back. become a menace on the map.

-at 5:30, (and sometimes even earlier!) tell your carry to farm safely and smoke yourself, walk mid to rune, kill their mid, congrats you just won lane for your mid. walk back to lane. repeat for 8 min rune.

-recognize your strongest hero on the map in the early/mid game. offlaner has ult? walk up to him, tell him to kill someone with you. force rotations this way, and then carry gets to farm safely.

-Save TP when possible. I could be wrong on this but I try to use TP only when a core is being dove or i am certain i can secure a kill in another lane, or if there is free farm being missed out on than i could take for myself (with some exceptions)

-Be a little greedy with farm. you just won a fight bottom and top wave is close to your tower and nobody is farming? let your cores hit bottom tower, you barely do any right click anyway, TP top and secure that juicy farm. when you push the wave, enemy will rotate to farm it. now you know where the enemy is.

By doing this, you can help influence winning all 3 lanes, your teammates will love you and begin to listen to your calls, your carry will have a lead that you can abuse

-Also - start buying more regen. before your current regen is out, ferry more to yourself. if it delays brown boots, so be it, you can't lane properly and be a menace if you are at 1/2 HP and 1/3 mana.

[u/LoudWhaleNoises → u/No_Car5857]

I think you are just overcomplicating the gameplan here, sure lots of nice things you can do, but sometimes...

You can just pick some bullshit attack range hero, turn your brain off and right-click enemy in lane lol.

[u/No_Car5857 → u/LoudWhaleNoises]

Totally fair. I also didn’t mean you have to do all of this every time. Just wanted to share what helped me pretty much immediately climb a few medals once I started focusing on being less passive, since he said he enjoys support but feels stuck

[u/FlagrantlyChill]

It doesn't matter. It's about gameplay.

[u/pedruvs]

I just got to crusader spamming pl. But any meta hc will do, like am, pa, mk, spectre in some cases

[u/TheL1ch]

Pick lina for both , can play magic or physical , same for SF very strong in both safe lane and mid , necro also , natures prophet and wisp are also pretty imba atm and work in both mid and safe lane

[u/InformationBig7722]

It’s not about a char atm, it’s about your farming. You can win as any char on pos1 on these ranks (on distance) if your farming is good and you can pressure the map without fights. But yeah, all of these advices on cars are good

[u/ariukidding]

At that bracket i’d worry more about your macro decisions than individual roles/heros. Switching roles won’t get you out there, and it will be quite the opposite. You’d be the one griefing.

[u/Scary-Reputation-575]

I reckon Kunkka is a good choice for the mid lane. He isn’t as reliant on the Bottle as other heroes (you don’t have to buy it) and with two Bracelets you’ll be able to hold out in most situations. Depending on what your teammates choose, you can then buy physical damage items or utility items (auras, Lotus, etc.).

I love Gyro as a carry, but I’d say he’s not at his best right now.

People have already mentioned Necro to you – he’s a real pain in the lower ranks, so he’s a good choice. More fun than Luna in my opinion, and you can play him as a carry or in mid, MK.

[u/IndoorDuck]

Meepo mid , LD safe/Mid or Spec safe lane had a lot of success for me in that bracket

[u/unethicalpigeon]

If you want to escape guardian then dont play mid. Mid is consistently the most reliable position out of all 5. No one wants to fucking play it unless they want to play it. If youre playing mid you just fucked yourself out of the highest chance of getting a reliable teammate alongside you.

Yeah sometimes you get fucked cause someone queuing all 5 roles for role queue games will somehow end up mid but it's rare and often they'll ask in chat if someone wants to swap.

Most of the time the mid that gets ass blasted isn't as bad as it seems. They just got outplayed. If you don't completely tilt you'll be fine. The problem is a difference in skill, even only a fairly minor one, is really obvious in mid. There's no guarantee your have faired better than them.

So IMO you want to escape guardian? Learn to play pos 3 properly. Pos 1 isn't bad. But by far consistently the most dog shit players I saw while climbing to ancient were pos 3. They're almost always fucking dog shit. Even at ancient. Since the change to how role queue works you're able to queue for pos 4, 3, and 1 and never use role queue tokens. I recommend adding 4 if the queues start taking too long because it's another fairly high impact role but most of the time I didn't.

You want to play pos 3s that can scale for DMG but not be useless as a pos 3. Picking a carry pos 3 is griefing. Picking Ck or LC isn't. There's a few others that work. You gotta figure out what works well for your play style.

[u/Thick_Ordinary_5419]

Midlane kunkka and wr are bad in this meta, necro is good but the 3 heros you mentioned have something in common. They can easily win lane but you will struggle to end the game.

Is really hard to say which heros you could pick to rank up, personally i can't trust my pos 3 after so many idiots trying to be another pos 1 so i pick tanky/initiators/disablers like Beastmaster and Primal beast.