Study

The kings and queens of team fights, these heroes dictate when and where teams clash; usually with a repertoire of huge area of effect abilities. These range from dealing massive damage, having long stun durations or providing position manipulation. It can be quite intimidating to be an initiator, because sometimes it leaves your team’s success resting solely on you and your reactions. When everything goes right however, nothing else will give you the same grin.

A huge fish beast from the depths of the sea, Tidehunter is one of the most effective initiators due to his signature massive AoE stun ultimate. Ravage has started and ended many a teamfight all by itself, incapacitating entire teams for almost three seconds with a wave of tentacles - more than enough time for your friends to drop their own devastating combos. Blink Dagger is a must have item when playing a Tidehunter.

Kraken Shell makes him tough, giving him a flat damage reduction and the ability to shrug off debuffs. It’s effectively a free Stout Shield at worst, even with just one point in it, making him hard to kill all game long. 

That immunity means he’s naturally slow, so Gush is a fantastic skill for catching up to fleeing prey while also dealing decent damage, and applying an armour reduction to take them down quickly afterwards. Meanwhile Anchor Smash is a cheap and spammable small AoE, which also reduces enemy damage when it hits. Enemies cornered by Tidehunter very rarely get to use all their assets.

Warlock uses demonic forces to do his bidding: punishing his enemies, or helping his allies. If you prefer to not be in the thick of things - unlike our fishy friend Tidehunter - Warlock is your devil-worshiping man. Most of his abilities have a huge area of effect range, which makes him ideal for team fights.

Again it’s the ultimate that actually operates as the intiation tool. Chaotic Offering summons a massive golem from the sky, also stunning everyone in a wide radius. Even if Warlock is killed after casting his ultimate, he can still control his golem and continue to contribute from the grave. It’s popular to get an Aghanim’s Scepter, which gives you two golems for double the trouble.

Fatal Bonds causes 25% of all damage to be shared to other units under its effects. This essentially buffs the damage of any spell so long as damage against all targets is useful. Upheaval is risky due to it being a channeled ability, but if ignored slows enemies in a huge area, increasing over time and rendering them helpless.

Shadow Word serves dual-purpose as a heal or damage over time, depending on if the target is friendly or otherwise. Overall, Warlock is a highly useful support to have around who still gets to cause a little chaos.

The sea queen is another ultimate initiator, but this time it, Song of the Siren, doesn’t do any damage. In fact, it leaves opponents completely invulnerable. However, they’re also stunned for the entire seven second duration while they remain in a massive AoE around Naga, letting her and her team escape or engage at their leisure. It’s more than long enough to TP out while the ability to cancel it early means any long-casting-time spells can be set up.

A secondary way to do this on single heroes is Ensnare, which locks a single target in place for a few seconds. It doesn’t prevent attacks or spellcasts that aren’t movement-based, but against many heroes taking away the movement is enough to either escape or prevent them from doing so.

It’s also a good setup for Naga’s other abilities. Mirror Image summons three illusions that deal a fraction of her damage, but more than enough if they’re all attacking the same target. They’re very easy to kill early on and don’t have much impact, but later can easily count for a hero by themselves.

They’ll also echo casts of Naga’s last ability, Rip Tide, a small AoE around herself that deals decent damage and lowers the armour of anything it hits. That scales in a very friendly way with the illusions but in general just means quick deaths. Remember that all this can be easily put together on an enemy team via Song of the Siren. As you improve, learning to micro the illusions to kill jungle camps, split push and generally be a skill god will be a good thing to do, but in the early stages it’s fine to just press Q and right-click opponents down.