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Ranking all the support items in Dota 2
This list is updated to Dota 2 patch 7.35b
Hello and welcome to Stafe Esports ranking of every (well most) of the support items in Dota 2.
In this article, we will be looking at the standard items you can expect to buy while playing positions four and five. While you can just rush a Dagon five and win some games, these items will usually give you a better chance of success.
Who am I and why should you care what I think?
If your first question is who the heck is "Why should I listen to you?" then my answer is...you don't have to.
The information in this series is based on my experience climbing to 7k MMR. I played support exclusively and through the thousands of hours of grinding pubs and casting professional games, I've picked up a thing or two.
Now it is important to note that this list is based on my playstyle and readers may find certain items to be better or worse than what my list suggests and that's ok. Not everyone is right all the time (except me).
So if you're new to the role, or you're stuck in your MMR grind, then this article aims to give you an idea of what to buy and maybe a new perspective on some items.
The best support items in Dota 2
Crimson Guard (3725)
Among the support items, Crimson Guards stands out as the item with the most awkward timing. There rarely seems to be a good situation that makes Crimson Guard worth buying.
The build-up is solid, an early Vanguard goes a long way to helping heroes survive. It is an expensive purchase though, costing 1700 and not very helpful on ranged supports.
A total cost of 3725 gold is expensive just to mitigate physical damage. You can afford Drums and Mekansm for less.
But the main weakness of Crimson Guard is that there is just never a good time to buy it on support heroes.
In the early game, it is too expensive and most of the damage being dished out tends to be magical, so Crimson Guard isn't even that helpful.
In the mid-game, physical damage starts to come online and Crimson Guard helps, but then another problem arises. Physical damage scales up quickly.
Blocking 120 damage per hit is nice when enemies deal 200 or so, but in no time that enemy Terrorblade or Phantom Assassin will start dishing out giant numbers and Crimson Guard will feel less than useless.
Still, there are very niche situations where Crimson Guard is useful and that's against carries that do physical damage to multiple targets.
Luna, Medusa, and Gyrocopter tend to focus on building stat items and hitting multiple targets instead of bursting one person down at a time. Against such foes, Crimson Guard is a decent (and just decent) purchase.
Overall, Crimson Guard is among the weakest support items in Dota 2 and rarely worth buying.
Drums of Endurance (1650)
Drums may be second on the listof support items in Dota 2 but it's a far better item than Crimson Guard and sorta-kinda-worth-buying-sometimes.
The stats on the item are very nice. You can get an early Wind Lace and never regret it. An extra seven strength and wisdom is a solid increase to a hero's health and mana. The Endurance ability is a nice speed boost, allowing teams to quickly bring down objectives, chase enemies, or escape nasty situations.
It just.... doesn't feel enough most of the time. 13% Extra movement is nice and all, but that is rarely enough to help someone escape a bad situation. It certainly helps but rarely enough, especially against a barrage of slows and stuns.
You also only get eight charges, which runs out sooner or later and then you're left with just a nice stat item. You could upgrade to Boots of Bearing to have unlimited charges of a better active but that is one of the most expensive recipes in the game.
Drums of Endurance is a nice item that doesn't break the bank and helps a team snowball. However, it's a little too low-impact, runs out of charges, and costs way too much to upgrade.
Mekansm (1775)
Unlike the previous two examples, Mekansm is a solid item to buy regardless of who you're playing against or what lineup you have. Heals are good and Mek restores quite a lot of health.
Mekansm heals a total of 1375 health for the team, that's an incredible amount to give back. No other item in Dota 2 provides as much health for that low price.
The build-up is also pretty good. An early Headress goes a long way to negating harassment in the lane, regenerating 270 hp total for the carrier and their lane partner.
There are two main issues though that prevent Mekansm from being placed higher on the list.
Unlike Crimson Guard, there is a clear time to buy Mekansm and that's as early as possible. A 275 heal is amazing early on, but once you're in the 20+ minute mark, it feels lackluster.
The item's second and more important flaw is that you rarely get the benefit of full healing from Mek. Too often one ally gets jumped, and loses 80% of their health and the Mekansm user has to decide if they wanna use the heal just for one ally or let them die to get a more "efficient" use.
And that's the major flaw here, Mek is amazing when the whole team has 60% health, but sadly most of the time the team is full health while one guy is at death's door, what do you do then?
My suggestion would be to make Mekansm heal 1200 health but the heal ignores full health units and instead heals damaged allies more, maybe double the value or so.
READ MORE: Five reasons Mage Slayer is dominating the Dota 2 meta
Featured Image Source: Valve
