The Dota 2 Competitive Hero Tier List for May 2020 includes data from patch 7.26c for a total of 617 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 May 1st to 28th during version 7.26c.

Past Tier List: April 2020

More: Updated Dota 2 Hero Tier List

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%
Ember Spirit	573	92.9%	218	35.3%	355	57.5%	56.0%
Death Prophet	426	69.0%	88	14.3%	338	54.8%	42.1%
Shadow Demon	424	68.7%	134	21.7%	290	47.0%	51.5%
Dragon Knight	408	66.1%	162	26.3%	246	39.9%	54.3%
Pangolier	395	64.0%	145	23.5%	250	40.5%	44.1%
Grimstroke	369	59.8%	213	34.5%	156	25.3%	45.5%
Timbersaw	360	58.4%	48	7.8%	312	50.6%	50.0%

The division in tiers is never perfect, and sometimes the heroes at the limit between the highest tiers have similar draft rates.

Ember Spirit

Ember Spirit is the most contested hero in competitive games during May, and the most picked one at the Divine rank with a 22.64% pick rate.

First of all, I want to talk about his itemization because there are still many players who ask if the Battle Fury build is viable, and the reasoning behind items such as Spirit Vessel, Blade Mail, etc. Today, we will review each item in detail.

Most bought items by pros

These are the most bought items on Ember Spirit by pro players during May:

Magic Wand: 212
Bottle: 189
Phase Boots: 165
Wraith Band: 134
Spirit Vessel: 109
Aghanim’s Scepter: 71
Black King Bar: 67
Maelstrom: 63
Eul’s Scepter of Divinity: 53
Desolator: 49
Blade Mail: 37
Power Treads: 34
Linken’s Sphere: 15
Radiance: 14
Shiva’s Guard: 13
Heaven’s Halberd: 12
Boots of Travel: 10

The list doesn’t include consumables and basic items.

The Battle Fury build was abandoned

There are mainly two reasons behind the Battle Fury’s lack of popularity:

Cleave changed into a conic shape.
Sleight of Fist’s new placement.

Cleave

Starting from patch 7.00, Cleave uses a trapezoid-shaped area, instead of a circular one.

Initially, the Battle Fury’s trapezoid had the following values: 150 starting radius, 520 distance and 280 end radius. Patches 7.02 and 7.03 increased the end radius from 280 to 330, and the distance from 520 to 625.

The old Battle Fury inflicted damage in a circular area of 560 diameter around the target, while the current one is pretty much a cone, so you don’t damage anymore all the units around your target, but mostly the ones behind it.

The cone AoE is quite big, thus you can still exploit the Battle Fury in many situations, however, this change must be combined with the one that affected Sleight of Fist.

The following picture, by reddit user SmoothRide, visualizes the Cleave shape with Sven (image from patch 7.00, now the distance increased by 100)

Sleight of Fist

Now, Sleight of Fist places Ember Spirit in front of the target, from the direction of his casting location, rather than randomly around the hero. This change was introduced in patch 7.00.

You can orient yourself to get the most out of Sleight of Fist instead than relying on your luck, but in most cases it is less effective than the old system because you may have to place yourself in odd positions, while before you could just spam the spell without thinking too much.

If we consider both changes, the Cleave effect on Ember Spirit got significantly nerfed.

Physical build

Icefrog balanced these nerfs with several buffs to Sleight of Fist’s damage: over several patches, the attack damage bonus against heroes went from 20/40/60/80 to 40/80/120/160 in version 7.20c - the damage doubled!

Also, we have two talents to further boost this ability:

Level 25 gives +2 Sleight of Fist Charges
Level 20 gives +65 Sleight of Fist hero damage

If you don’t want to play a magic build, you can still use a physical one. Don’t build Battle Fury, but get Desolator, Daedalus, etc. Even if the interaction between Cleave and SoF was nerfed, the single-target damage of SoF has been buffed drastically over time.

In the past, we had the late game carry Ember Spirit with Battle Fury, Daedalus, Divine Rapier, who was able to oneshot the whole enemy team.
Afterward, this build was replaced by the magic damage one, that turned him into a mid-game powerhouse.
Nowadays, while magic is still effective, Ember is mostly an utility core: you only need a couple of items to snowball, and afterwards you can build any item required by the team to counter a certain opponent, and as Ember Spirit you also farm these utility items faster than most of your teammates.

Tier 2

Name	P+B	P+B%	Picks	Picks%	Bans	Bans%	Win%
Lycan	345	55.9%	72	11.7%	273	44.3%	51.4%
Keeper of the Light	340	55.1%	88	14.3%	252	40.8%	39.8%
Phoenix	338	54.8%	123	19.9%	215	34.9%	56.9%
Beastmaster	326	52.8%	140	22.7%	186	30.2%	53.6%
Void Spirit	324	52.5%	153	24.8%	171	27.7%	40.5%
Mars	320	51.9%	130	21.1%	190	30.8%	46.9%
Rubick	308	49.9%	208	33.7%	100	16.2%	50.5%
Queen of Pain	301	48.8%	161	26.1%	140	22.7%	53.4%
Batrider	291	47.2%	79	12.8%	212	34.4%	57.0%
Oracle	290	47.0%	134	21.7%	156	25.3%	50.0%
Chen	274	44.4%	76	12.3%	198	32.1%	55.3%
Earthshaker	259	42.0%	165	26.7%	94	15.2%	54.6%
Nature's Prophet	255	41.3%	94	15.2%	161	26.1%	52.1%

Spirit Vessel

Counters HP regeneration

Spirit Vessel’s active ability Soul Release is a great counter against any hero with regenerative abilities, such as Alchemist, Huskar, Necrophos, Troll Warlord, Mars, Morphling, etc, but Ember Spirit buys it even when they are not picked.

Ember Spirit mostly causes damage over time: you want to spam Sleight of Fist and Searing Chains while Flame Guard is active, extending the fights in order to keep using your abilities.

In such a battle, the capacity to reduce the enemy’s HP regeneration has a bigger impact than when using casters such as Queen of Pain or Void Spirit, who tend to burst and kill their targets as soon as possible.

Cheap, solid stats, built to fight

Urn of Shadows has a very low price of 840 gold, and it grants some stats, armor, mana regeneration, and health regeneration (with the active ability), which enables Ember Spirit to use his spells more and stay in fights for a longer period of time.

If you get some early charges, you can snowball, get even more charges, and easily upgrade the item into Spirit Vessel, which has added damage potential.

Currently, the Dota 2 meta is very combative, so this item works great, and Ember Spirit is a perfect carrier because he can farm it quickly, he fights a lot, and he is usually positioned inside the range required to gain charges.

Aghanim’s Scepter

Aghanim’s Scepter is a must because it improves your cast range, number of charges, and Remnant travel speed, which increase your survivability, mobility, and even damage.

I suggest to skip it if you are not a veteran Ember Spirit because you may not be able to exploit it yet.

Fires of the Volcanic Guard loading screen for Ember Spirit - Valve

Phase Boots

Phase Boots are the best choice if you are going to play aggressively, which happens most of the time as Ember Spirit.

Power Treads are a viable option if you are going to jungle a lot as switching stats helps alleviating your mana issues, thus you can farm faster.

Mana problems

I briefly talked about Ember Spirit’s mana issues, so let me explain what you can do to mitigate them (beside the potential Power Treads).

In the early game, buy Bottle and try to get every single rune.
Consumables are always welcomed, but do not abuse them too much.
Infused Raindrops are amazing in the laning phase because they grant both mana regeneration and survivability.
Magic Wand when viable.
In extremis, leave a Remnant near the tower and teleport in base: you will get back with full mana and a charged Bottle.

Later on, you won’t have issues anymore because you will have extra mana and regeneration from items such as Spirit Vessel, Blade Mail, Aghanim’s Scepter, Eul’s Scepter of Divinity, etc.

Blade Mail

Blade Mail is another efficient item. For 2000 gold it combines armor, damage, intelligence (mana), and a very useful active ability. There are not many other items that incorporate such stats, and thanks to the cheap cost it is relatively easy to farm for a core.

Ember Spirit relies heavily on his cooldowns while fighting as he must spam his abilities, move constantly, and avoid being killed.

Blade Mail works as a pseudo Black King Bar because it discourages the opponents from attacking you as they don’t want to die from their own damage.

Whenever you are in a dangerous situation where you need a few extra seconds to trigger an ability to escape death, activating Blade Mail is a great option because it can give you 4.5 seconds of time.

Desolator

Desolator is one of the most cost-effective physical damage items. It also helps against towers.

Even if your build isn’t focused on physical damage, it is always nice to have it in the team because it reduces the armor of the enemies affected, and Ember can apply it AoE thanks to Sleight of Fist.

More items

Black King Bar is a must-have in every game, unless the opponent team has literally 0 disables. Ember Spirit is completely useless if stunned, disabled, or silenced.

Eul’s Scepter of Divinity doesn’t provide only movement speed and tons of mana regeneration, but it is also helpful to dispel yourself, in order to deal with Orchid Malevolence users. Similarly to Blade Mail, it also gives you extra time for your cooldowns.

Even if Maelstrom has been nerfed in recent patches, it is still a solid item on Ember Spirit, and Javelin in particular has a great value paired with Sleight of Fist.

Tier 3

Name	P+B	P+B%	Picks	Picks%	Bans	Bans%	Win%
Monkey King	218	35.3%	107	17.3%	111	18.0%	54.2%
Phantom Lancer	214	34.7%	83	13.5%	131	21.2%	51.8%
Centaur Warrunner	208	33.7%	104	16.9%	104	16.9%	51.0%
Riki	203	32.9%	69	11.2%	134	21.7%	58.0%
Morphling	203	32.9%	84	13.6%	119	19.3%	51.2%
Treant Protector	199	32.3%	61	9.9%	138	22.4%	50.8%
Troll Warlord	196	31.8%	88	14.3%	108	17.5%	43.2%
Tusk	184	29.8%	106	17.2%	78	12.6%	52.8%
Kunkka	175	28.4%	73	11.8%	102	16.5%	54.8%
Templar Assassin	171	27.7%	71	11.5%	100	16.2%	42.3%
Weaver	148	24.0%	88	14.3%	60	9.7%	51.1%

Create space and control the game

Thanks to his innate mobility and skillset, Ember Spirit is one of the best heroes in the game to create space for your position 1 carry.

His early game is great, and the current meta item build improves it even more, and enables him to snowball and gain the upper hand in ganks and teamfights, however, later on he is not able to carry the game on his own because he is not anymore the ultra carry with massive crits.

The late game Ember Spirit is a hero capable of dealing sustained damage over time, and that can control map and fights thanks to his abilities and items, such as Vessel Spirit, Eul’s Scepter of Divinity, Heaven’s Halberd.

Situation in pub games

Ember Spirit is extremely popular at Divine, but his pick rate decreases at lower ranks, and overall his win rate is below 50%. There are many causes behind this situation.

Ember is very difficult to play and has a high skill ceiling. In order to succeed with Ember Spirit, you must truly understand the hero and practice him for a large number of games.
It is easy to make mistakes and lose the match. As a snowballer utility hero, even if you have a great early game, it is easy to fall off with a few misplays: be aware that any reckless act can be punished.
- With such a wide potential item pool, building the wrong item, or building an item at the wrong time, can ruin your entire game.
- Bad positioning can result in getting killed, which may give the enemy carry the gold to build the right item to deal with you.

There is a very small room for mistakes with Ember Spirit, and thus his win rate is not high.

Moreover, players in pubs tend to not group up and fight, but they often prefer to split up and farm lanes and jungle. Even if Ember is capable of killing 10 enemies in 15-20 minutes, ultimately his team is not able to capitalize on this advantage as both teams have the time to relax and farm.

Ember Spirit is one of those heroes that is often popular in the competitive scene, so I believe that Valve nerfed and adjusted him over time based on that particular environment, which leads to such random results in pub games.

Tier 4

Name	P+B	P+B%	Picks	Picks%	Bans	Bans%	Win%
Clockwerk	132	21.4%	77	12.5%	55	8.9%	63.6%
Ancient Apparition	127	20.6%	58	9.4%	69	11.2%	56.9%
Bristleback	126	20.4%	49	7.9%	77	12.5%	36.7%
Terrorblade	124	20.1%	59	9.6%	65	10.5%	39.0%
Necrophos	122	19.8%	58	9.4%	64	10.4%	41.4%
Naga Siren	120	19.5%	36	5.8%	84	13.6%	47.2%
Storm Spirit	120	19.5%	73	11.8%	47	7.6%	48.0%
Bane	113	18.3%	86	13.9%	27	4.4%	57.0%
Enchantress	110	17.8%	68	11.0%	42	6.8%	57.4%
Enigma	109	17.7%	60	9.7%	49	7.9%	48.3%
Slark	104	16.9%	43	7.0%	61	9.9%	44.2%
Vengeful Spirit	97	15.7%	66	10.7%	31	5.0%	54.6%
Venomancer	96	15.6%	36	5.8%	60	9.7%	52.8%
Lich	96	15.6%	81	13.1%	15	2.4%	44.4%
Nyx Assassin	93	15.1%	45	7.3%	48	7.8%	55.6%
Razor	93	15.1%	41	6.7%	52	8.4%	51.2%
Puck	91	14.8%	41	6.7%	50	8.1%	39.0%
Faceless Void	88	14.3%	45	7.3%	43	7.0%	51.1%
Ursa	87	14.1%	55	8.9%	32	5.2%	49.1%
Legion Commander	83	13.5%	49	7.9%	34	5.5%	46.9%
Shadow Fiend	75	12.2%	55	8.9%	20	3.2%	45.5%
Disruptor	72	11.7%	62	10.1%	10	1.6%	35.5%
Clinkz	72	11.7%	43	7.0%	29	4.7%	46.5%
Invoker	71	11.5%	39	6.3%	32	5.2%	56.4%
Pugna	71	11.5%	31	5.0%	40	6.5%	51.6%
Mirana	69	11.2%	54	8.8%	15	2.4%	51.9%
Spectre	67	10.9%	44	7.1%	23	3.7%	59.1%
Axe	66	10.7%	45	7.3%	21	3.4%	48.9%
Broodmother	63	10.2%	17	2.8%	46	7.5%	58.8%
Dazzle	62	10.1%	21	3.4%	41	6.7%	57.1%
Medusa	61	9.9%	28	4.5%	33	5.4%	60.7%
Io	61	9.9%	5	0.8%	56	9.1%	60.0%
Leshrac	59	9.6%	32	5.2%	27	4.4%	53.1%
Luna	58	9.4%	45	7.3%	13	2.1%	60.0%
Techies	54	8.8%	2	0.3%	52	8.4%	100%
Witch Doctor	53	8.6%	41	6.7%	12	1.9%	41.5%
Jakiro	52	8.4%	51	8.3%	1	0.2%	52.9%
Abaddon	51	8.3%	39	6.3%	12	1.9%	43.6%
Gyrocopter	50	8.1%	33	5.4%	17	2.8%	48.5%
Lina	49	7.9%	26	4.2%	23	3.7%	38.5%
Anti-Mage	49	7.9%	25	4.1%	24	3.9%	56.0%
Bounty Hunter	47	7.6%	24	3.9%	23	3.7%	58.3%
Tidehunter	45	7.3%	30	4.9%	15	2.4%	53.3%
Juggernaut	42	6.8%	26	4.2%	16	2.6%	42.3%
Undying	40	6.5%	20	3.2%	20	3.2%	35.0%
Ogre Magi	39	6.3%	33	5.4%	6	1.0%	45.5%
Viper	39	6.3%	16	2.6%	23	3.7%	56.3%
Earth Spirit	38	6.2%	33	5.4%	5	0.8%	42.4%
Huskar	38	6.2%	9	1.5%	29	4.7%	44.4%
Winter Wyvern	37	6.0%	28	4.5%	9	1.5%	64.3%
Phantom Assassin	37	6.0%	29	4.7%	8	1.3%	48.3%
Underlord	36	5.8%	22	3.6%	14	2.3%	36.4%
Meepo	36	5.8%	8	1.3%	28	4.5%	25.0%
Lone Druid	36	5.8%	17	2.8%	19	3.1%	58.8%
Skywrath Mage	35	5.7%	31	5.0%	4	0.7%	58.1%
Bloodseeker	34	5.5%	21	3.4%	13	2.1%	57.1%

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%
Tiny	31	5.0%	27	4.4%	4	0.7%	51.9%
Visage	30	4.9%	18	2.9%	12	1.9%	61.1%
Alchemist	30	4.9%	16	2.6%	14	2.3%	37.5%
Shadow Shaman	30	4.9%	23	3.7%	7	1.1%	34.8%
Brewmaster	29	4.7%	17	2.8%	12	1.9%	35.3%
Sniper	29	4.7%	22	3.6%	7	1.1%	68.2%
Wraith King	28	4.5%	24	3.9%	4	0.7%	33.3%
Dark Willow	27	4.4%	23	3.7%	4	0.7%	26.1%
Lifestealer	27	4.4%	15	2.4%	12	1.9%	73.3%
Outworld Devourer	21	3.4%	8	1.3%	13	2.1%	62.5%
Zeus	21	3.4%	12	1.9%	9	1.5%	58.3%
Snapfire	20	3.2%	20	3.2%	0	0.0%	35.0%
Silencer	20	3.2%	15	2.4%	5	0.8%	40.0%
Slardar	19	3.1%	13	2.1%	6	1.0%	46.2%
Windranger	16	2.6%	13	2.1%	3	0.5%	53.9%
Sand King	16	2.6%	14	2.3%	2	0.3%	50.0%
Doom	14	2.3%	12	1.9%	2	0.3%	50.0%
Crystal Maiden	14	2.3%	14	2.3%	0	0.0%	64.3%
Chaos Knight	13	2.1%	13	2.1%	0	0.0%	46.2%
Dark Seer	13	2.1%	6	1.0%	7	1.1%	33.3%
Arc Warden	12	1.9%	10	1.6%	2	0.3%	40.0%
Omniknight	11	1.8%	7	1.1%	4	0.7%	0.0%
Elder Titan	9	1.5%	8	1.3%	1	0.2%	25.0%
Magnus	8	1.3%	7	1.1%	1	0.2%	71.4%
Drow Ranger	8	1.3%	5	0.8%	3	0.5%	20.0%
Spirit Breaker	7	1.1%	6	1.0%	1	0.2%	33.3%
Sven	7	1.1%	7	1.1%	0	0.0%	28.6%
Night Stalker	6	1.0%	6	1.0%	0	0.0%	50.0%
Tinker	6	1.0%	4	0.7%	2	0.3%	100%
Lion	5	0.8%	5	0.8%	0	0.0%	40.0%
Warlock	4	0.7%	4	0.7%	0	0.0%	50.0%
Pudge	1	0.2%	0	0.0%	1	0.2%	-

Heroes not drafted

All the heroes were picked or banned!

Header image (Loading Screen of the Smoldering Sage for Ember Spirit) and hero icons: Valve - Statistics: DatDota