Dota 2 Guide – A quick guide to owning pubs with Lion

Lion is one of the best support heroes if played right. Whether you want to play as an aggressive support or just set up fights for your carries to win, this hero can make or break a match.

Lion is predominantly a disabling support class - with a powerful stun, hex and mana drain it’s easy to keep your opponents from getting in any damage. You’ll want to play an off lane (one of the side lanes) and babysit a carry. Make sure you ward (Observer ward) your jungle and the rune on your side of the map in the laning phase. Opening fights with an Earth Spike (stun) is a good way to start, Hex an opponent that does a lot of burst damage or a support keeping the carry alive. Mana Drain opponents who are heavy on mana usage to stop them from using their abilities, or even opponents low on mana to completely disable them. Mana Drain will keep your mana topped up; you can also use this on enemy creeps.

There are two items builds for Lion depending on the type of group you have.

Aggressive Lion

If you find yourself in a group where there is a second support player you can go for the Dagon build. This will allow you to do massive burst damage, you will effectively have two ultimate abilities.

Items

Buy your items in the following order:

• Tango (one stack)
• Circlet
• Mantle of Intelligence
• Courier (if there isn’t one)
• Boots of Speed
• Ring of Regen
• Ring of Protection (You now have Tranquil Boots which you can use to heal yourself when you are out of battle)
• Recipe: Null Talisman
• Staff of Wizardry
• Flying Courier (if there isn’t one)
• Recipe: Dagon Level 1

From here on it is up to you to read your game to determine what to buy from here on out. You can either keep levelling your Dagon if things are going well, if you’re earning lots of gold with plenty to spare buy Aghanim’s Scepter and even a Blink Dagger.

Solo Support Lion

Being the only support hero does not mean you won’t get in a couple of kills of your own, it does however mean that you can assure your team wins every group fight. You are the ultimate disabling support and should go for the Mekanism build. This build will increase the team’s survival ability.

Items

Buy your items in the following order:

• Tango (one stack)
• Circlet
• Mantle of Intelligence
• Courier (if there isn’t one)
• Boots of Speed
• Ring of Regen
• Ring of Protection (You now have Tranquil Boots which you can use to heal yourself when you are out of battle)
• Recipe: Null Talisman
• Staff of Wizardry
• Flying Courier (if there isn’t one)
• Headdress
• Buckler
• Recipe: Mekanism
• Sage’s Mask
• Void Stone
• Recipe: Eul’s Scepter of Divinity (this item will allow you to target a unit and sweep it up in a cyclone for 2.5 seconds, adding to your disabling role.)

If the game is still going after this, you can go for the following items depending on how much gold you’re earning and how much time is left before it’s GG:

• Aghanim’s Scepter
• Veil of Discord
• Shiva’s Guard
• Refresher Orb

Use each one of Lion’s disabling abilities as often as possible and his ulti to secure a kill when a hero has less than a quarter HP left. Lion is more powerful than you think so don’t be afraid to initiate fights or use your abilities to escape.

How to spend your points (applies to both item builds)

• Level 1 – Earth Spike
• Level 2 – Mana Drain
• Level 3 - Earth Spike
• Level 4 - Mana Drain
• Level 5 - Earth Spike
• Level 6 – Finger of Death
• Level 7 - Earth Spike
• Level 8 - Hex
• Level 9 - Mana Drain
• Level 10 - Hex
• Level 11 - Finger of Death
• Level 12 - Mana Drain
• Level 13 - Hex
• Level 14 - Hex
• Level 15 - Intelligence
• Level 16 - Finger of Death

From here on out you only spend points in Intelligence.