Top Meta Hero Builds for Week 0

Econ
3 min readJan 13, 2024

The admins decided we needed a forced scrim week even though the vast majority of returning players are RD2L veterans and know the drill at this point.

If we are going to have forced scrims, it’s important to start off with some good team chemistry and best practices, so here’s some totally meta builds for those who haven’t been keeping up with all the patch changes.

Position 5 Anti-Mage

This hero was clearly designed to be a hard support

Theory: Hard support AM has everything you could ever ask for in a Position 5. Mana break guarantees you can out-trade harass in lane, he’s got a combined Linken’s Sphere and Lotus Orb — a similar effect on Lotus Orb is a TIER 5 ITEM — with a 3 second cooldown, and a HARD STUN on his ultimate. For comparison, Shadow Shaman doesn’t have a single spell that offers a hard stun, only a channeled disruptable stun and a hex.

Is that not enough?

What’s that? You want MORE from a support? Well, with blink he can easily blink in and save an ally within 1200 range! That’s just 50 range short of the range on Ravage.

Build

Core: Brown boots, force staff, Aghanim’s Shard (a combined Lotus Orb/Linken’s sphere on ally for 1400 gold).

Optional/Extension

Spirit Vessel, Boots of Bearing, Eul’s Scepter, Octarine Core, Scythe of Vyse, Battle Fury

Universal Viper (1/2/3/4/5)

Viper spammers salivating at new tech

Theory: Now that Viper’s level 25 makes him a Universal hero, it’s time for a build that can take full advantage of his new potential typing. What makes this build so powerful is that it gives you the best of everything — damage, armor, mana regen, health regen, attack speed… you get it all with this build, which is also universal in that it can be used in any role from position 1 to 5.

Build

Core: Hand of Midas, power treads, four ultimate orbs.

Extension

In any order: Linken’s sphere, Skadi, and Helm of the Overlord in any order. After acquring all three, turn the final ultimate orb into an additional Eye of Skadi

Hard Carry Elder Titan

Greek mythological depiction of Elder Titan without pants. Pants are not part of the core build.

Theory: Imagine spending 3500 gold to remove 6 armor when you could remove 100% of a hero’s base armor and magic reduction. If that isn’t enough, his shard allows you to sleep an enemy and reposition yourself next to them, allowing him to quickly get into the backlines and take down supports.

Build

Treads, Battle Fury, Echo Saber, Shard, Daedelus, Satanic, Assault Cuirass, Harpoon

Optional

Sange and Yasha, Linken’s Sphere, Divine Rapier x 3, Desolator

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Econ

Statistician, Gamer, Fed Watcher, Activist Investor