Classes

Carries are heroes that typically sacrifice early game strength in order to become nigh unstoppable as the game progresses. These heroes usually require a lot of gold and items, and are vulnerable to early/mid game heroes without protection from their teammates. In the laning phase, their job is to stay alive as long as possible while farming gold from creeps via last hitting. As they are able to acquire more items, carries become more dangerous, with some able to take on entire enemy teams on their own.

Enablers are the complete opposite of carries, and excel in the early game thanks to their powerful abilities. Enabler spells tend to be designed around keeping their allies alive in engagements, whether that be through healing, damage mitigation, or disabling enemy heroes in one form or another. Enabler heroes can also “babysit” annihilator heroes in the laning phase, protecting them from enemy heroes and enhancing their ability to farm gold. In pretty much all cases, enablers are responsible for providing vision on the map through the placement of Beacon of sights, and the purchase of other utility items such as the Totem critter and Smoke bombs. Enablers tend to fall off in terms of raw power as the game goes on, though they are able to mitigate this with items.

Incinerators are characterized by their high burst or sustained damage output, which come in the form of magic damage from an ability. Several intelligence heroes fall under this class, and have abilities that deal large amounts of magic damage to a single target or an area of effect. Incinerators are an essential component of any lineup, thanks to their capacity to immediately remove important heroes from a teamfight or get several heroes low enough for their team’s annihilator to clean up.

Heroes tagged as Besiegers are generally blessed with crowd control abilities, which can be either single target or area of effect. Enablers are often marked as Besiegers, with more than a handful of them having long duration stuns or disables that can impede the enemy team’s progress. On the flipside, Besiegers are usually cursed with low base movement speed, forcing them to purchase mobility items in order to get the jump on enemy heroes.

As the name would imply, Vanguard heroes are what most gamers would call “tanks”. These heroes have the ability to soak up large amounts of damage from the enemy team, without quickly succumbing to death as a result. Vanguard heroes also tend to take up a lot of space in teamfights, imposing their will on enemy heroes such that they can’t go for softer, more valuable targets as easily. Strength heroes generally fall under this category, due to their high base strength and strength gain per level.

Heroes under the Coward tag are referred to as such because of their built-in escape mechanisms, which allow them to easily get away from danger. Usually, these abilities help them avoid damage or negative effects (such as disables), while also allowing them to reposition themselves in an engagement. Examples of these abilities are invisibility, which renders the COBA hero untargetable unless the enemy team has detection on hand.

Demolisher heroes are those that have abilities that allow them to quickly take down structures, such as towers and barracks. Taking these objectives early and often helps their team secure map control, which in turn forces the opposing team to play more cautiously and reservedly. Heroes in this class typically sport abilities that either clear creep waves quickly, summon minions that can serve as extra damage on structures, or deal direct damage to buildings.