Best Lane Partners for Dark Willow in Dota 2 for Easy MMR
| Tags: Dota 2
| Author The Old One
Here are the best lane partners for Dark Willow in Dota 2 to help you get the most out of the hero and climb ranks easily
Learning spell synergies and figuring out the combo between different heroes is part of what Dota 2 makes such a special game. With more than 100 heroes to choose from, hundreds of spells to memorize, and weird and interesting combos to master, Dota 2 throws a lot at you right off the bat. For a beginner, learning Dota 2 can seem pretty difficult at first.
So, how do you get better at the game? Simple – you take things one at a time.
If you’re a fan of Dark Willow and want to learn how to master her, you need to learn her lane synergies. Understanding which heroes work best with her will help you figure out how you can utilize the hero to its fullest potential.
In this article, we’ll look at the best lane partners for the hero so that you can help gain victory in your Dota 2 Pubs. Let’s hop in!
Top 5 Best Lane Partners for Dark Willow in Dota 2
Dark Willow is a Position 4/5 Support Hero that comes with multiple Disable abilities. Here are the five best heroes that work best with her as a lane partner:
Mars
Mars, as an Offlaner, enables many Position 4 Supports. His skill set and sheer tankiness allow his Pos 4 allies to land their spells with little to no trouble. And as it turns out, one of the best Offlane partners for this beastly hero is none other than Dark Willow.
Dark Willow can easily set up her Bramble Maze skill when Mars uses his Spear of Mars ability to pin an enemy hero to the tree. In addition, it also gives Willow a decent bit of time to charge up her Shadow Realm ability and turn it into a high-damage magic nuke.
Any lane facing Dark Willow and Mars combo in the early game is in for a bad time. The game impact of this duo isn’t limited solely to the laning phase, however. Even as the game goes late, the control that comes out from Mar’s Arena of Blood and Dark Willow’s Terrorize abilities is nothing short of insane.
Wraith King
The best thing about Dark Willow is how you can play him both as a Position 4 and a Position 5 support, depending on the game situation. She doesn’t need as much farm as some of the greedier Supports in the game, as she can easily dictate the flow of the team fight from outside using her spells.
If you play her as a Position 5 Support, here’s an excellent Carry to go with: Wraith King. The Skeleton King has fallen out of favor for the Pros for quite some time now. But in Pubs, at least in the Legend or Ancient brackets, he is still as popular as ever.
So, if your team is running a Wraith King Carry , and you picked Dark Willow, consider going to the lane together. The damage output of Wraith King and Dark Willow together, in addition to Wraith King’s Wraithfire Blast setting up for easy Bramble Maze connection, makes them a devastating combo in the Safelane.
You could also technically run a Wraith King, Dark Willow combo in the Offlane. Since the duo is pretty strong in the laning phase, you could bully the enemy Position 1 and force him to go into the jungle before he wants to.
Underlord
Another Offlane hero that synergizes well with Dark Willow’s impressive Area Control skills is Underlord. This hero is a powerful Tank that can deal significant damage in the early game. However, Underlord’s slow movement speed and the fact that his abilities are Area targeted, making it easy for the enemy to walk out of them, are his main weaknesses.
Dark Willow is one of the few heroes in Dota 2 who come with multiple AOE control abilities. Her Bramble Maze and Cursed Crown abilities take a while to learn how to use properly. But if your spell usage is on point, you can dominate any matchup with an Underlord at your side.
Underlord’s Firestorm ability does Percentage-based Damage to the Health of the enemy, making it pretty effective at bringing down tanky heroes at all stages of the game. If you manage to trap the enemy hero inside the Firestorm with Dark Willow’s control abilities, it almost always leads to an easy kill.
Axe
The Red Mist General, Axe, is definitely a one-man army as an Offlaner, but when he has Dark Willow to back him up during the landing phase, he becomes completely unstoppable. The impact that this duo has on the lane is insane, both in terms of damage output and control.
Dark Willow has a lot of control abilities, sure, but she can also dish out insane damage. If she manages to land just one of her spells, Axe can swoop in easily and get a Berserker’s Call connection. This easy setup from Dark Willow and the synergistic damage output from the duo make the lane difficult for any Pos 1 and Pos 5 duo.
And if the lane goes bad, for some reason, Willow can easily stack two creep camps near the Offlane Jungle for Axe to recover. Even if the lane fails for the duo, Dark Willow can enable Axe through stacking and pulling.
Juggernaut
We’ll end the list with another Position 1 Carry combo for Dark Willow for those who want to run her as the Position 5 Hard Support in their games. While Wraith King is a pretty great Carry to pair with the hero, if we’re going with Meta heroes, he won’t make the cut. In this case, the best hero to go with Dark Willow would have to be Juggernaut.
Think about it – Juggernaut’s Blade Spin ability is a high-damage spell in the early game. When Juggernaut uses the ability, the only thing on an enemy hero’s mind is to retreat back to safety. However, with a Dark Willow helping out the Jugg, retreating becomes extremely difficult for the enemy team.
Blade Spin, despite not being a stun of any kind, serves as an excellent set-up for Bramble Maze. Enemies caught in the Maze end up taking more damage from Juggernaut and either die or are forced to burn their consumables. And since both of these spells have a pretty low cooldown, the threat to kill is always present.
Let’s go Jex!
Whether you run her as the Position 4 Support or Position 5, Dark Willow is a formidable hero. The five heroes that we mentioned synergize perfectly with the Control and Damage Output of the hero. But don’t think these are the only viable ones. By experimenting with different matchups, you’ll be able to find more combos that work for you and your skill level.
Regardless, our guide should serve as a reference to showcase which type of heroes pair the best with this hero. Good luck!