As some of you probably know, I started a new account on the Asia server since I moved to Korea. I used the opportunity to experiment with heroes I generally don’t play, and obviously had middling results. Recently I decided I was going to climb back up to about the rank level I honestly belong at (Diamond-ish), and this is my genuine observation.
Arthas is the best carry hero on the entire roster. He does literally everything, and allows you to punish mistakes from inferior players better than just about any hero. He fits in both the Main Tank and Bruiser category, and you can spend a good bit of the early game providing XP/waveclear for your team since bad players (silver/gold leagues) tend to miss soak a lot. He trades up against most heroes in lane, and can stall all the good pushers. His kit scales well from 1-20 and he is one of the best flankers in the game. He also hard-counters about 1/4th of the roster, but is never a bad pick.
Raynor is currently the best “carry” primary DPS. I prefer Sylvanas, but she actually requires your team mates to not be as dumb since most of her power turns on later in the game. If you are trying to climb and you need to draft into the DPS slot, Raynor is your man. He has everything: sustain, burst, solo lane potential, pairs well as a “carry” dps. He is especially strong early on, and scales moderately into the late game. He has no significant “power spike” level, so he always allows you to push bad players and you are never putting your head into your hands as your allies jump into a fight and you are down a talent tier – Raynor doesn’t care, his damage is always relevant.
Tyrande is the obvious “carry” support for all the low levels. Morales is a very close 2nd, but requires you to have a carry DPS. If you can convince someone to go Valla/Raynor/Lunara, you can just follow them around on Morales and watch as the enemy team constantly overextends. That being said, often your team will just draft mindlessly into whatever they want, and this is where Tyrande shines. She is never bad – you can have respectable damage numbers, secure kills, provide vision (very key for pinging allies away from bad situations), scales well from 1-20 and gives you tons of flexibility for correcting allied mistakes with her rapid cleanse. My #1 gripe with Tyrande is that I have to try really hard when I play her.
To give everyone an idea, I am currently 8-1 on Tyrande, 9-1 on Arthas, and 7-1 on Raynor basically focusing entirely on carrying my team to victory. I’m no Grand Master, just a solid Diamond player. Thoughts?
Edit: I should also mention that I don’t speak Korean, so I’m literally doing this without comms. It is much easier to carry if you can get your team mates to listen to you. This is for mindlessly drafting into one of the core mandatory slots (tank/ranged/support) so you can power level yourself to a rank where your options open up significantly. I only play other heroes if the draft is getting really wonky – then I pull out heroes like Valeera to counter specific things (Murky and Tracer come to mind). All games are played in Ranked.
Isnt Asia/KR “meta” significantly different from all others? What I mean is, what works in KR doesnt have to work everywhere else, at least in highest ranks.
For example Arthas doesnt seem to be THAT popular in EU/US.
Tyrande is obvious “carry” in all ranks. Good choice.
Well arthas is the hero with which danatan got his bronze5->master run with only 8 losses total (over 100 wins), so Arthas is definitely not a bad hero for asserting your advantage consistently. He was pretty much an arthas one-trick at that time though, so I guess it’s also points more to the idea that you should just spam your best hero if you want best results (and that could be a very different hero for different people). Btw, arthas was very rarely played at that time too (apart from Danatan spamming it).
P.S. That run was in 2016, you can still see it on hotslogs, if interested (account: TenLoseMax).
KR meta is only different in that they are very good at drafting to formula. I would say in 90% of my games you get: Tank, Bruiser, Ranged Dps, Healer, Flex (usually mage or melee assassin).
I expected that in Gold+, but they were drafting like this even from 5->1 Silver
I don’t just mean voice chat, I also mean typing out to your team. Just a few general “nudges” can help considerably. And once you get into high Gold / low Platinum, voice chat lets you dominate.
My best hero to carry is Thrall at the moment. He is really really flexible and you don’t give away your draft if you pick him early.
He can be played as solo lane or as third melee. He has amazing poke, good follow up, both ults are really good both to engage/peel, he has a lot of sustain and does a lot of damage.
I’m 8-0 with him this season and almost every game I get MVP with most amount of hero damage.
Yes, Tyrande is good at all ranks – and probably my favorite of all the supports. That being said, the lower the rank the easier it is to “carry” your team on her. When player her at the silver level, I was able to be #2 damage and outheal the enemy healer by 40% pretty regularly. It made closing kills and saving allies who get in bad spots so easy with her long-range stuns and combo abilities. At higher level she is very solid, but supports don’t really “carry” after about Platinum very well.
And Thrall is not flexible because he is an off-lane. You can sometimes squeeze him into the flex slot against certain teams. Generally when you are “carrying”, you need to be able to draft into one of the primary 3 roles: Tank, Healer, Ranged DPS. This doesn’t mean the other roles (offlane/flex) aren’t important, but they won’t let you carry a team of potatoes.
Also, I’ve decided that drafting as the 3rd or 4th pick is pretty much always the best when carrying. By then you already know a few of your own team’s picks, and can draft into the obvious void. You only want to fill one of the primary 3 roles, but you also want your team to be relatively well-rounded. You don’t want to draft a Thrall as the #2 pick and then end up without anyone wanting to play tank or support – which generally means you’ll only have one or the other, significantly lowering your chances of winning.
I disagree with that. Thrall is one of the most flexible heroes in the game. You can use him for almost everything. I have a lot of contact with people that played open division/HGC and they all said Thrall was one of the best things to draft early because you don’t expose your strategy and draft. The enemy team never know if that thrall is an offlaner or a third melee.
I also disagree that you need to play tank/healer/ranged to carry. You can carry pretty well with melee assassins or offlaners. You just need to pick an impactful hero that usually have waveclear and sustain, and thrall has that.
I’m carrying every game, even getting amazing comebacks, with Thrall. 8-0 this season with top siege/hero damage in every game.
He should be banned for this. That’s not okay. Intentionally throwing so you get placed in bronze 5 then stomping your way up to master is such a terrible thing to do.
I’m doing my second run like that. Just for fun. It’s not that hard to get to bronze5 and you don’t necessarily need to throw intentionally, just need to pretend to be a noob and do something stupid when it matters to lose games. Noone will notice, noone will report. Everybody happy.
You could be killing left and right, doing everything right, but just make sure to die first in game-ending team fight and you’re on good path to bronze.
If you are asking for the best generalist for teams that really have no clue what they’re doing, I’d say it would have to be someone good at waveclear, killing, soaking and being there when it means something and doing damage.
I want to say dehaka but he’s kind of lacking in straight up killing everyone, but he can spoonfeed clueless assassins kills with good drags.
So my list:
Fenix
Clears waves, holds solo lanes moderately well, uses shield to mitigate damage.
Tychus
Can blow up targets, has OK aoe enough to clear a wave, good poke, just all around decent.
KTZ
Even if he’s a backline squishy he can kill 2 people nearly instantly which sets up positive returns.
Raynor
Self heal, camp grabbing power, incredibly safe ranged AA damage, has a pseudo peel in the form of a massive knockback+slow, all good.
List is in no particular order, I don’t really think you can hardcarry with melee unless you are enabled by the enemy team which is unreliable.
