The Dota 2 Competitive Hero Tier List for February 2019 includes data from 7.21 and 7.21b, for a total of 524 games. The heroes are split in five groups.

All heroes are arranged in five tiers based on their draft rate. The tiers are viewed as clusters of data, and each hero is placed in the one they are closer the most.
The requisites for each tier never change. The goal is offering a neutral comparison that shows how the meta evolves over time.
The win rate has no effect on the tiers, but is included for further info. The tiers depend only on drafts (picks + bans), and aren't affected either by the win rate of a hero, or by their performance in pub matches.

This tier list contains all pro matches played from February 1st to 24th during patch 7.21 and 7.21b, including ESL One Katowice 2019 and MDL Macau 2019.

Past Tier List: January 2019

More: Updated Dota 2 Hero Tier List

Quick links

Tier 1 - Tier 2 - Tier 3 - Tier 4 - Tier 5

All tables are responsive and sortable. If you are using a phone, turn it sideways for a full view. Otherwise, zoom in or click the grey area of each table to swipe and sort them.

Tier 1

Name	P+B	P+B%	Picks	Picks%	Bans	Bans%	Win%
Tiny	390	74.4%	178	34.0%	212	40.5%	46.6%
Elder Titan	361	68.9%	113	21.6%	248	47.3%	56.6%
Juggernaut	354	67.6%	149	28.4%	205	39.1%	48.3%
Outworld Devourer	332	63.4%	104	19.9%	228	43.5%	49.0%
Sven	331	63.2%	161	30.7%	170	32.4%	44.7%
Lifestealer	321	61.3%	132	25.2%	189	36.1%	55.3%
Magnus	305	58.2%	59	11.3%	246	47.0%	50.9%
Earth Spirit	302	57.6%	143	27.3%	159	30.3%	48.3%
Keeper of the Light	298	56.9%	125	23.9%	173	33.0%	51.2%
Lich	297	56.7%	136	26.0%	161	30.7%	50.7%

Hand of Midas is back

Hand of Midas has been almost completely neglected by pro players during the previous patches, but recently its popularity exploded. I dedicated the entire analysis to this item because the reasoning behind its comeback is quite complex.

We will examine each topic in detail, but here is a quick summary:

Hand of Midas buffed: cooldown and attack speed.
Less gold and experience available: deny mechanic, trilanes, and creep gold bounty.
Battle Fury nerfed.
Changes to primary attribute bonuses and related items.
The rise of strength cores.

Recent changes to Hand of Midas

IceFrog tends to buff heroes and items that are underused, so he slowly improved Hand of Midas from 7.16 onwards, in an attempt to bring it back into the meta.

The cooldown of its active ability “Transmute” has been reduced from 100 to 90 seconds, and the attack speed bonus has been increased from 30 to 40.

After the recent surge in popularity, Valve reduced the gold bonus provided by Transmute from 200 to 180 in 7.21b, but honestly this adjustment isn’t sufficient to rebalance its pick rate as several factors influence it.

The attack speed bonus alone is excellent. For example, Hyperstone grants 55 attack speed for 2,000 gold, while Hand of Midas gives 40 attack speed for 2,150 gold.

Considering the gold cost, this is a huge amount of attack speed for an item that also gives you additional gold and experience over time, and that can be used situationally to deal with siege creeps and most summons.

There is less gold and experience available on the map

Patch and gameplay changes reduced the amount of gold and experience available during the game. The impact is bigger in the early and mid game as many heroes (particularly cores) need to reach a certain level or purchase a particular item to unlock their next power spike.

Ultimately, Hand of Midas is the perfect (only) solution to the matter because it is able to create extra resources that normally are not present on the map.

Trilanes. In the past tier list, I have talked extensively about the return of the trilanes. With three heroes sharing the same lane, there is less experience available for the core.
Deny mechanic. Patch 7.20 changed the deny mechanic: now denies no longer give the denier 25% XP.
Less gold from lane and neutral creeps. 7.21 reduced the average gold bounty of melee creeps by 3 and replaced the primary jungle’s ancient camps with big camps.

Burning Nightmare loading screen for Chaos Knight - Valve

Battle Fury nerfed

Hands of Midas has been a solid item already for different patches, but it wasn’t used also because there were better options in the early game, such as Battle Fury and Wraith Band.

After the changes to cleave brought by 7.20, Battle Fury became extremely popular as a farm accelerator item.

Prior 7.20, the cleave mechanic ignored the amount of armor possessed by a hero, while now it works as a normal physical damage type. To balance this change, IceFrog increased both the damage and the radius of Battle Fury.

This is a nerf against heroes with high armor values - and generally against most heroes in the late game - but at the same time, it is a buff against opponents with a poor base armor, such as creeps.

Battle Fury became more efficient than in the past as a neutral creeps killer, so many heroes abused it. An extreme example is Terrorblade: his illusions do not benefit from the extra raw damage nor from the cleave effect, but many players still bought it to accelerate the farm speed of the hero.

7.21 massively nerfed Battle Fury as the percentage damage bonus against non-hero units changed to be a fixed amount. Before, the passive Quell provided a bonus equal to 50%/25% of the base attack damage, while now it grants only a flat 24/7 attack damage bonus.

Wraith Band and primary attributes changes

7.20 removed Ring of Aquila from the game because it was overused both in pub and pro games, but simultaneously it drastically buffed Wraith Band, Null Talisman, and Bracer.

These items (Wraith Band in particular) were so efficient that most players stacked three or more of them in every game.

The situation calmed down a bit after consecutive nerfs from 7.20b to 7.20e, but these early game items were still overpicked, so Valve readjusted the meta again in 7.21:

Heroes no longer gain 25% more benefit from their primary attributes (affects attributes from both items and the hero)

Before, all the heroes had extra benefits from their primary attribute; which were particularly strong for agility-based heroes as the earned attack speed, armor, and movement speed. They became dominant in the mid-late game, and quite resilient thanks to all the extra armor.

Now, stacking stats items (such as Wraith Band) provides a lot less value than in the past.

Also, starting from 7.21, all the heroes received an extra amount of primary attributes for free:

All heroes’ primary attribute growth values increased by 15%

The two changes above increased the attractiveness of items that are not attribute-based, and influenced also the popularity of Hand of Midas thanks to the substantial 40 attack speed bonus at a fair price.

Ferocious Heart loading screen for Ursa - Valve

Hand of Midas is overused in pubs

Hand of Midas is not a must-have item on all the heroes.

Pro players do not use it in every single game, but as usual in pubs we tend to copy the strats showed by pros and to inflate them, so now there are too many Hand of Midas in our daily games.

If you buy a Hand of Midas while your team is having the upper hand, you will just delay your whole match and power spike timings, so the enemies will have the time to comeback.

To be honest, the situation is not terrible because players in both the teams are committing the same mistake, but you could still be smarter and exploit this weakness to close the game with a suitable early-mid game pusher such as Lycan.

Hand of Midas is harder to punish now because all the item timings are delayed following the nerf to the melee creeps gold bounty, but not all the heroes require a farm accelerator item.

Generally, Hand of Midas is very effective if your hero lacks abilities to farm gold and experience, but it is pretty much useless on a hero with AoE spells and who has no use for the extra attack speed.

Beside the bonuses, Hand of Midas also helps your item progression. This is particularly significant on heroes who are rushing expensive items such as a Radiance.

For example, you could buy a Sacred Relic quickly, but then the opponents will notice your progresses and start contesting your farm and space, which will delay the completion of the item and thus your next power spike.

Hand of Midas can make a difference in such as a situation because even if the resources you can access are limited, the extra gold provided by the item might be enough to build the Radiance before the next team fight.

Tier 2

Name	P+B	P+B%	Picks	Picks%	Bans	Bans%	Win%
Dark Seer	258	49.2%	122	23.3%	136	26.0%	50.8%
Razor	250	47.7%	94	17.9%	156	29.8%	55.3%
Brewmaster	236	45.0%	104	19.9%	132	25.2%	60.6%
Grimstroke	233	44.5%	126	24.1%	107	20.4%	36.5%
Nature's Prophet	225	42.9%	89	17.0%	136	26.0%	51.7%
Kunkka	224	42.8%	77	14.7%	147	28.1%	46.8%
Troll Warlord	213	40.7%	92	17.6%	121	23.1%	51.1%
Doom	209	39.9%	106	20.2%	103	19.7%	49.1%
Pugna	204	38.9%	62	11.8%	142	27.1%	40.3%
Terrorblade	198	37.8%	75	14.3%	123	23.5%	50.7%

The rise of strength cores

Agility-based heroes led the meta during the previous patches as they were the ones who benefitted the most from primary attribute bonuses and related items.

Of course, also strength-based heroes had their own bonuses and could just stack Bracers, but their benefits were just not comparable to the ones provided by agility.

Now that 7.21 removed the extra bonuses, agility heroes do not scale as well as before in the late game, and strength ones had the chance to reappear in the meta as safe lane cores.

Hand of Midas is a valuable item on many strength heroes because they frequently lack farming abilities and attack speed.

Lifestealer is a perfect fit for the meta

Everything we learnt so far about the current meta explains Lifestealer’s place in the tiers.

Lifestealer is a well-rounded hero. He doesn’t have to rely on particular items in the early game because his abilities already grant survivability via magic immunity and life steal, extra attack speed and damage, and a handy slow for early fights.

Therefore, he can focus his attention on greedy items such as Hand of Midas, which is of great help for his item progression because one of his biggest weaknesses is the lack of farming abilities.

Hands of Midas synergizes well with two Lifestealer’s abilities: Feast and Open Wounds:

The extra attack speed is valuable in combination with Feast. Thanks to this passive, Lifestealer’s attacks damage the enemies and heal himself for a percentage of his target’s max health. It is helpful in a meta were strength heroes are becoming more popular as they have a high amount of health points.
Open Wounds slows the target and provides healing based on a percentage of the damage dealt to that unit. Lifestealer can quickly heal himself using this ability on a high-HP neutral creep and instantly killing it with Hand of Midas’ Transmute.

Ravenous Fiend loading screen for Lifestealer - Valve

Lifestealer - Radiance and movement speed

If we take a look at the items bought by pro players on Lifestealer during February, we find out that Hand of Midas (109) and Sacred Relic (123) are among the most picked ones.

Completing a Radiance solves any farming speed issue and grants a power spike. Its average purchase time was 19:38 in February, but if you are able to stomp the game, it is possible to finish it from minute 15 onward.

Finally, Lifestealer is now one of the fastest heroes in the game because 7.21 increased his movement speed from 310 to 325.

Mobility is a great perk on melee auto-attackers as they actually need to reach the target to deal damage. Also, agility-based heroes no longer earn extra movement speed via the attribute bonus, so Lifestealer can’t be kited easily anymore.

Patch 7.21 buffed the Phase Boots’ active movement speed bonus from 20%/10% to 22%/10%, so with them Lifestealer is able to reach an outstanding 445 movement speed. Of course, these are the most bought boots on him during February, with 110 purchases in pro games.

Tier 3

Name	P+B	P+B%	Picks	Picks%	Bans	Bans%	Win%
Undying	188	35.9%	59	11.3%	129	24.6%	44.1%
Chaos Knight	186	35.5%	75	14.3%	111	21.2%	60.0%
Dazzle	185	35.3%	69	13.2%	116	22.1%	50.7%
Chen	178	34.0%	64	12.2%	114	21.8%	57.8%
Medusa	173	33.0%	57	10.9%	116	22.1%	47.4%
Shadow Shaman	173	33.0%	107	20.4%	66	12.6%	52.3%
Batrider	171	32.6%	70	13.4%	101	19.3%	45.7%
Rubick	168	32.1%	123	23.5%	45	8.6%	51.2%
Timbersaw	167	31.9%	61	11.6%	106	20.2%	49.2%
Beastmaster	163	31.1%	73	13.9%	90	17.2%	52.1%
Phantom Assassin	161	30.7%	95	18.1%	66	12.6%	48.4%
Tidehunter	161	30.7%	69	13.2%	92	17.6%	36.2%
Puck	160	30.5%	83	15.8%	77	14.7%	42.2%
Tusk	156	29.8%	80	15.3%	76	14.5%	35.0%
Oracle	154	29.4%	81	15.5%	73	13.9%	50.6%
Huskar	154	29.4%	23	4.4%	131	25.0%	39.1%
Monkey King	134	25.6%	74	14.1%	60	11.5%	51.4%
Ember Spirit	133	25.4%	65	12.4%	68	13.0%	67.7%
Morphling	133	25.4%	48	9.2%	85	16.2%	43.8%
Ursa	124	23.7%	61	11.6%	63	12.0%	65.6%
Centaur Warrunner	123	23.5%	58	11.1%	65	12.4%	44.8%
Anti-Mage	120	22.9%	44	8.4%	76	14.5%	43.2%
Shadow Demon	115	22.0%	62	11.8%	53	10.1%	56.5%
Pangolier	112	21.4%	55	10.5%	57	10.9%	58.2%
Visage	112	21.4%	36	6.9%	76	14.5%	52.8%
Luna	110	21.0%	68	13.0%	42	8.0%	51.5%

Tier 4

Name	P+B	P+B%	Picks	Picks%	Bans	Bans%	Win%
Lone Druid	108	20.6%	37	7.1%	71	13.6%	56.8%
Enigma	102	19.5%	43	8.2%	59	11.3%	55.8%
Night Stalker	94	17.9%	43	8.2%	51	9.7%	46.5%
Phoenix	85	16.2%	49	9.4%	36	6.9%	57.1%
Faceless Void	81	15.5%	30	5.7%	51	9.7%	53.3%
Bane	76	14.5%	55	10.5%	21	4.0%	63.6%
Jakiro	71	13.6%	61	11.6%	10	1.9%	50.8%
Nyx Assassin	66	12.6%	49	9.4%	17	3.2%	65.3%
Shadow Fiend	63	12.0%	34	6.5%	29	5.5%	41.2%
Weaver	62	11.8%	37	7.1%	25	4.8%	37.8%
Dragon Knight	59	11.3%	39	7.4%	20	3.8%	43.6%
Death Prophet	59	11.3%	34	6.5%	25	4.8%	38.2%
Winter Wyvern	49	9.4%	40	7.6%	9	1.7%	55.0%
Phantom Lancer	47	9.0%	21	4.0%	26	5.0%	33.3%
Lycan	46	8.8%	20	3.8%	26	5.0%	40.0%
Viper	46	8.8%	24	4.6%	22	4.2%	70.8%
Lina	46	8.8%	27	5.2%	19	3.6%	40.7%
Leshrac	44	8.4%	34	6.5%	10	1.9%	44.1%
Queen of Pain	42	8.0%	25	4.8%	17	3.2%	40.0%
Slark	40	7.6%	25	4.8%	15	2.9%	40.0%
Bounty Hunter	39	7.4%	17	3.2%	22	4.2%	52.9%
Clockwerk	37	7.1%	23	4.4%	14	2.7%	60.9%
Enchantress	34	6.5%	17	3.2%	17	3.2%	64.7%
Disruptor	33	6.3%	28	5.3%	5	1.0%	50.0%
Slardar	31	5.9%	19	3.6%	12	2.3%	52.6%
Lion	30	5.7%	24	4.6%	6	1.2%	50.0%
Drow Ranger	30	5.7%	19	3.6%	11	2.1%	47.4%
Crystal Maiden	29	5.5%	23	4.4%	6	1.2%	52.2%
Dark Willow	28	5.3%	17	3.2%	11	2.1%	52.9%
Tinker	28	5.3%	13	2.5%	15	2.9%	23.1%
Legion Commander	27	5.2%	18	3.4%	9	1.7%	66.7%
Meepo	27	5.2%	6	1.2%	21	4.0%	66.7%

In tier 4 and 5 we find all the situational heroes. They are strong when paired with others, or against specific lineups. These heroes aren't bad, they just don't work in every game, so the pick and ban rates aren't outstanding.

Tier 5

Name	P+B	P+B%	Picks	Picks%	Bans	Bans%	Win%
Arc Warden	24	4.6%	13	2.5%	11	2.1%	61.5%
Bristleback	24	4.6%	16	3.1%	8	1.5%	37.5%
Witch Doctor	23	4.4%	20	3.8%	3	0.6%	50.0%
Naga Siren	22	4.2%	13	2.5%	9	1.7%	61.5%
Spectre	21	4.0%	11	2.1%	10	1.9%	54.6%
Venomancer	21	4.0%	9	1.7%	12	2.3%	44.4%
Underlord	20	3.8%	12	2.3%	8	1.5%	58.3%
Omniknight	19	3.6%	15	2.9%	4	0.8%	40.0%
Necrophos	18	3.4%	17	3.2%	1	0.2%	58.8%
Invoker	16	3.1%	14	2.7%	2	0.4%	35.7%
Templar Assassin	15	2.9%	7	1.3%	8	1.5%	57.1%
Treant Protector	13	2.5%	7	1.3%	6	1.2%	42.9%
Techies	12	2.3%	1	0.2%	11	2.1%	0.0%
Sniper	12	2.3%	9	1.7%	3	0.6%	44.4%
Vengeful Spirit	12	2.3%	10	1.9%	2	0.4%	60.0%
Mirana	12	2.3%	10	1.9%	2	0.4%	40.0%
Clinkz	11	2.1%	9	1.7%	2	0.4%	44.4%
Skywrath Mage	10	1.9%	9	1.7%	1	0.2%	33.3%
Warlock	10	1.9%	10	1.9%	0	0.0%	60.0%
Storm Spirit	10	1.9%	8	1.5%	2	0.4%	50.0%
Sand King	10	1.9%	9	1.7%	1	0.2%	66.7%
Abaddon	9	1.7%	7	1.3%	2	0.4%	28.6%
Axe	9	1.7%	6	1.2%	3	0.6%	50.0%
Spirit Breaker	8	1.5%	3	0.6%	5	1.0%	66.7%
Broodmother	8	1.5%	5	1.0%	3	0.6%	20.0%
Earthshaker	7	1.3%	6	1.2%	1	0.2%	50.0%
Pudge	6	1.2%	2	0.4%	4	0.8%	50.0%
Silencer	5	1.0%	2	0.4%	3	0.6%	0.0%
Wraith King	5	1.0%	5	1.0%	0	0.0%	20.0%
Alchemist	4	0.8%	3	0.6%	1	0.2%	66.7%
Bloodseeker	4	0.8%	2	0.4%	2	0.4%	50.0%
Ogre Magi	3	0.6%	3	0.6%	0	0.0%	100%
Riki	3	0.6%	2	0.4%	1	0.2%	50.0%
Zeus	3	0.6%	3	0.6%	0	0.0%	100%
Windranger	2	0.4%	2	0.4%	0	0.0%	50.0%
Gyrocopter	1	0.2%	1	0.2%	0	0.0%	100%
Ancient Apparition	1	0.2%	1	0.2%	0	0.0%	100%