Dota 2 Lone Druid Guide

Grow your bond with your Spirit Bear, and your wisdom and determination to serve nature with our Dota 2 Lone Druid Guide

Alongside his Spirit Bear, Lone Druid’s wisdom and animalistic strength invoke fear in every foe of the forest whenever they hear him roar.

Lone Druid is a ranged Universal Hero who may change to melee form with his ultimate ability. He starts the game in ranged form, with a decent 560 HP and 231 Mana, along with low damage of 38 and armor of 1.3. He has the highest movement speed in the game, at 325.

Lone Druid (LD) is difficult to play, as there is quite a bit of micromanagement involved. He and his Spirit Bear have separate inventory slots, making them like two Heroes. He is good at farming and a deadly split pusher. With a proper item build, the deadly duo becomes near impossible to stop once on their beastly rampage.

Abilities

Credit: Dota 2 Wiki

Let’s sharpen our teeth and claws by learning about the ability kit of the grizzly scholar.

• Summon Spirit Bear – Lone Druid summons a Universal creep-hero Spirit Bear with 0 base attributes and can equip items. His connection with his powerful friend is a blessing and a curse, as the bear cannot attack if it moves more than 1100 distance from LD and causes 20% of his max HP as damage upon death to Lone Druid. The bear also gets 90 HP and 5 damage bonuses per Hero level. If LD dies, so will his summoned bear.
  
  Spirit Bear (Summoned Unit) – Lone Druid’s companion has a maximum armor of 14, 28 damage, 400 movement speed (425 with level 10 talent) and 6 armor (14 with level 15 talent). The bear has 4 abilities; Return, Demolish, Savage Roars and Entangling Claws. The bear also has its own Aghanim’s Scepter and Shard upgrades.
  
  • Return – Allows the Spirit Bear to teleport back to Lone Druid after 3 seconds of channeling.
  • Demolish – Grants 33% bonus magic resistance and up to 40% bonus building attack damage.
  • Entangling Claws – Attacks have a 20% proc chance of rooting enemies, dealing up to 60 damage for 2.8 seconds
  • Savage Roar – (described below)
  • Aghanim’s Scepter Upgrade: Allows the Spirit Bear to attack at any range from Lone Druid, and survives even if he dies.
  • Fetch (Aghanim’s Shard Upgrade): Spirit Bear roots a targeted unit or rune and drags them towards LD for 2.25 seconds. If the target is an enemy, the bear is slowed by 20% and deals up to 300 damage. 

• Spirit Link – Lone Druid and his companion are connected in spirit, sharing armor, life and speed. The ability grants both an attack speed bonus of up to 64 and shared armor of up to 20%. Furthermore, all damage inflicted by the Spirit Bear heals LD by up to 65%. This ability can be upgraded by Aghanim’s Scepter.
  
  • Aghanim’s Scepter Upgrade: LD breaks his link with his Spirit Bear and connects to an allied hero, sharing the Spirit Link Bonuses with them for 20 seconds. Armor and attack speed bonuses are increased by 35% and damage done by the ally heals Lone Druid and vice versa. The Spirit Bear is feared for the duration of the transformation unless it has its own Aghanim’s Scepter.
• Savage Roar – Lone Druid and his bear roars fiercely, causing fear amongst nearby enemies in a 375 radius. The enemies are sent scurrying for up to 2 seconds, with their movement speed boosted by 20%. Casting Roar on LD or his bear puts both of their Savage Roars in cooldown down to 20 seconds (12 with level 15 talent). Upgrading the ability with Aghanim’s Shard also grants a basic dispel and boosts allies in a 700 radius with 15% movement speed and 40 attack speed bonus for 5 seconds.
• True Form – Lone Druid slowly transforms into a raging bear, becoming a more durable version of himself with melee attack for 40 seconds. He also gets bonus armor of up to 12 and HP of up to 1500 (2500 with level 25 talent) and gains improved versions of his bear’s Demolish (20% more bonus damage) and Entangled Claws (10% more chance). 

Talents

• Level 10 – +25 Spirit Bear Movement Speed or +200 Health
• Level 15 – +8 Spirit Bear Armor or -8s Savage Roar Cooldown
• Level 20 – 0 Entangling Claws Cooldown or -50s True Form Cooldown
• Level 25 – +1000 True Form and Spirit Bear Health or -0.1 Spirit Bear Base Attack Time

Dota 2 Lone Druid Guide – Tips 

Lone Druid is an adaptive carry who excels in pushing and farming, especially in the early game, thanks to his durable Spirit Bear ability. With his Savage Roar to counter ganks and his Spirit Link for more armor and lifestyle, LD usually has an easy lane. With his True Form giving him more durability, he can root enemies with his and his bear’s Entangling Roots to take them down or utilize his Demolish ability to take down towers quickly.

Lone Druid is usually played as a carry and focuses primarily on getting his items on the Spirit Bear. He can easily buff his bear and allies with teamfight items and put more damage-based items on the bear to give it high kill potential. He can easily take hits thanks to his tanky True Form’s immense HP and armor bonus.

LD needs to spend most of his time farming in the early game and getting some items on his bear before daring to push towers or take teamfights. Focus on getting some movement and damage items on your bear. Keep your finger on Savage Roar at all times to ensure you are ready to survive any ganks.

Dota 2 Lone Druid – Pros and Cons

Here are some of our Druid’s best and worst traits. 

Pros:

• Great at pushing
• Spirit Bear is strong throughout the game
• Versatile itemizations options
• Durable in teamfights
• Great at split pushing

Cons:

• Spirit Bear scales less than Lone Druid
• Requires micromanagement skills
• Highly dependent on Spirit Bear
• Fragile in Druid Form
• Both LD and his bear have a low base attack 
• Spirit Bear gives a large amount of gold and experience upon death 

How to play Lone Druid

Step into the shoes of the Druid with this short guide, and learn to navigate him and his bear companion to certain victory. 

Starting Items

Get into the lane with a Tango, Healing Salve, and Iron Branch for regen and cheap attributes. As long as you have good positioning, these will keep you alive.

Give your Spirit Bear a Quelling Blade and Orb of Venom, as both will give you a better chance of landing last-hits and denies and harassing any enemy that strays too close. 

Early Game

Pick up your boots for yourself or your bear as per your need. Getting a Magic Stick also helps you get a burst heal when needed and is effective against a spell-spamming lane. Furthermore, a Wraith Band’s attributes will help you survive and farm.

For your bear, getting a Boots of Speed along with a Blight Stone or Orb of Venom will allow him to run around and harass opponents without consequences. Remember to keep your bear alive; feeding it to an enemy early-game will be very bad for you. Focus on farming and chip away at towers whenever you are left alone. 

Mid Game

If you had an excellent early-game, mid-game should be where you lock your fate with proper itemizations. Due to his versatility, choosing which route to take might need clarification. Usually, a Tranquil Boots is enough for your Hero, while you should get a Phase Boots, Mask of Madness and a Desolator for single target damage or Maelstrom for more attack speed and farming potential.

If you are rich, you might even decide on rushing an early Radiance, as it lets your Spirit Bear cut creep waves and lanes and farm them with the burn damage. If you get many kills, go for a Skull Basher to lock down your enemies further. 

Late Game

The later the game goes, the deadlier you get, with over 12 inventory slots to fill. Remember to get an Aghanim’s Scepter on your Hero to give your bear untethered attack. Pick up a Mjollnir, Assault Cuirass or Moon Shard for higher attack speed and armor. If you have trouble with spell damage, get a Black King Bar on your bear and a Pipe of Insight on your Hero.

Putting an Abyssal Blade or Monkey King Bar also gives your Spirit Bear immense damage and lockdown potential. If you want to assist your allies in teamfights, getting an Aghanim’s Shard or Crimson Guard will help immensely. If you split-push lanes and regroup during teamfights, you will have no trouble taking down the enemy Throne.

Dota 2 Lone Druid Counters

Here is a list of Heroes that make life difficult for Lone Druid and his Grisly companion, no matter how good you might be.  

• Winter Wyvern – Her Cold Embrace protects her allies from the Druid and his bear’s physical damage. Furthermore, she can easily force the duo to take out each other or their teammates with a well-timed Winter’s Curse.
• Lich – His Frost Blast and Sinister Gaze can slow, trap and kill the Spirit Bear in the early game. Furthermore, if Lone Druid does not have good micro, a Chain Frost can spell certain doom for the bears.
• Outworld Destroyer – His Arcane Orb heavily damages Lone Druid and his Spirit Bear. His Astral Imprisonment can trap the Spirit Bear from attacking, and if the two are too close together, the Druid and his bear can be devastatingly damaged by Sanity’s Eclipse.
• Grimstroke – His Ink Swell can also help his allies focused by the bears to survive. Most importantly, Soulbind can always reliably connect the two and open them up to deadly combos. 

Conclusion

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