Dota Guide - Tiny
Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 10:30 pm
This is a quick guide to playing the stone giant known as tiny. This is a pretty versatile hero, which can be played in many roles and can be played in almost any lane (off, safe, mid). The standard build for tiny is to max toss and ava, for max damage and kill potential around lvl 5 when you have bottle, but there can be some variance. I like to play tiny in the Slasher dota 2 way, which is to get lvl 1 craggy exterior so that you have +3 armor at level 1, which provides a much better laning stage. Tiny gets owned by quite a few ranged heroes such as viper, sf, invoker, sniper, huskar, lina, etc, and can be bullied out of lane by other mid heroes such as ember or storm. The problem with tiny initially is that he has a base armor of 0 and very low mana pool. By starting with a ring of protection, 3 tangos and a salve (or saving for quick bottle after the first wave or two), you have the sustain as many other melee heroes, with burst potential as well once you reach level 5 with lvl 2 toss/ava and lvl 1 passive. Assuming there is no sb, or an enemy ganking mid constantly, many people play the mid lane too safe, never trading with enemies and always focusing on cs alone. This is a mistake, as tiny has very high base damage, and with 6 armor from ring of protection and lvl 1 passive, he can trade quite well, and last hit easily. Do not be afraid to lose lot's of hp or to inflict damage to the enemy laners, as this will ensure safer farm, and lane dominance. Once you have your bottle, your ability to shove out the lane and contest runes is very high. With some luck from our savior RNjesus, you can pick up a regen, haste or DD rune, which can all be used to secure the lane, or to gank.
The standard build is either to start with stout and/or a ring of protection, 3 gg branches, and some sort of regen if you play in a side lane: mid lane can be a bit more greedy, especially if you can contest the beginning bounty rune. The first items to get is bottle then normal boots. Afterwards, farm the lane until lothar or blink is obtained. Afterwards, tiny's mobility is greatly enhanced and can become a ganker. Once loth/dagger is farmed, you want to finish treads. The core items on tiny, are always dagger/lothar, aghanims, treads, and AC. This is because tiny's ultimate Grow provides massive boosts in base damage, to the cost of lower base attack time. With treads on agility, the +10 agility from aghanims, and hyperstone AS later building into AC, you are now able to burst enemies with his innate spell combo, as well as securing a hit or two with subsequent stun. After the core items are completed, some situational items include buriza, mkb, manta style, bkb, butterfly, shiva, mjollnir, deso, heart, satanic, hex, etc. depending on the enemy lineup and what is needed for your team to win the game.
As a core, tiny should always build as bottle->boot->dagger/loth->tread->AC; this build is usually non-negotiable, as the hero has the ability to siege objectives incredibly fast, and can split push lanes, becoming a serious threat in the late game. As a support, tiny can be built with utilities items such as arcane boots, force staff, drums, soul ring, blink, hex, shiva, etc: this route is more based on ganking and creating space for the true position 1 hard carry to farm to inevitably carry the game. I believe dagon is a troll item on tiny. This is due to the fact as all it provides is a static increase of ~300 magical damage (after magic reduction calculation, and even less for heroes with pipe/hood/meepo) and some intelligence. Static damage items are pretty useless in the late game, where all heroes have 2500+ hp, high armor, and utility items such as force staff, pipe, meka, etc which keep allies alive. Damage from stat items, or physical damage items are what reign supreme, and are the main reasons why some heroes scale into the late game better then others. What dagon does not provide is IAS (increased attack speed), enhance effective hp (armor provides more hp, evasion provides more effective hp due to miss % etc.), and will not increase your farming speed. Aghanims is core in this patch 6.83 because it provides cleave and insane siege damage (building damage). In dota 2, tiny was reworked to have an active skill (tree grab) which provides siege damage for ~5 hits at a cooldown. In dota 2, tiny does not need aghanims to be effective, and can opt for other items such as crit, s/y, more attack speed items, etc.
My preferred build for tiny is to go dagger, treads, AC, lothar, mjollnir, aghanims, then late game replace treads with BOT. This is the standard build for most games, as mjollnir's active can be placed on himself or the main initiator hero to provide magical burst, as well as the passive bonus of the highest attack speed for 1 item slot in the game. This can always be replaced with butterfly, eblade or manta style (best for split pushing and base racing, as illusions have very high base damage and siege ability). Lothar and blink are great to initiate or pick off supports on the back lines, then walk away invis, or to re-position. If the enemy has many stuns, bkb is necessary, so mjollnir or lothar may need to be replaced. If the enemy is too strong to be fought 5v5, then desolator and manta style may be the best option to provide insane building damage (minus armor from deso and ac ~13 armor) and play rat style (split push oriented, avoiding big engagements). If the enemy has many core heroes with evasion, mkb may be needed. If additional lockdown is needed and you have allies who can deal high DPS, then hex may be a good alternative; these are all situational.
What many forget when playing tiny, is that he should never stop farming, like any other mobile/ganking position 1/2 hero like storm, ember, invoker etc. Tiny is pretty item dependent, and after a gank is done, or a team fight, he should retreat to the jungle, push out lanes, or to secure objectives. Tiny should not be played as a solo ganker, and this often can result in him struggling to remain relevant in hard games. Only gank as necessary to achieve more farm, or to secure objectives such as towers/rax/roshan. Once tiny stops farming, he cannot get his core items to be a late game threat. This is my main concern with players who build urn and dagon 1-5 on tiny. It simply isn't ideal, and will not work in most games, especially if the game mode is not APEM (mainly EM). Once his initial burst is complete, he will have no follow up to keep hitting, or to provide support to his team until cooldowns are ready.
Tiny is very strong against squishy heroes such as lina, leshrac, slark, phantom assassin, Meepo, broodmother, kotl, wisp, and many others. He is also surprisingly strong against heroes such as legion commander, huskar, void, and any other melee core who relies on closing the gap to secure kills due to his passive stun, and high armor late game. These heroes will need bkb as a core item to reliably deal with tiny in the mid-late game; which is an item no dps carry wants to purchase.
Tiny struggles against heroes such as juggernaut, lifestealer (percentage based damage, built in 8 second bkb), slardar (huge armor debuff), and viper (due to high magic reset, and lane presence), sniper with bkb, ursa with bkb, and pheonix (due to spirits decreasing AS dramatically).
BKB is the biggest counter to tiny due to his passive not proccing, as well as his stuns/nukes. Deso/MOC/AC is strong vs tiny early game when he is vulnerable to physical damage and armor reduction. Shiva's guard is also very strong vs tiny d/t the AS and MS slow.
Tiny's best friends are heroes who enable him to hit longer, harder, and faster. Heroes with many reliable stuns such as shaker, rhasta, lion, tidehunter, slardar, are all great lane partners with tiny. Wisp is amazing to increase tiny's MS, AS and mobility with tether, overcharge, and relocate. Invoker also works amazing well with high levels of exort/wex for alacrity to buff tiny, allowing him to shred enemies/objectives in seconds. Ogre magi's bloodlust and beastmaster's inner beast passive all increase tiny's AS resulting in increased overall DPS.
Please leave any suggestions on how to play this hero if I have forgotten. Tiny is quite an easy hero to learn and play, and is very versatile in his item options. Have fun playing DotA
The standard build is either to start with stout and/or a ring of protection, 3 gg branches, and some sort of regen if you play in a side lane: mid lane can be a bit more greedy, especially if you can contest the beginning bounty rune. The first items to get is bottle then normal boots. Afterwards, farm the lane until lothar or blink is obtained. Afterwards, tiny's mobility is greatly enhanced and can become a ganker. Once loth/dagger is farmed, you want to finish treads. The core items on tiny, are always dagger/lothar, aghanims, treads, and AC. This is because tiny's ultimate Grow provides massive boosts in base damage, to the cost of lower base attack time. With treads on agility, the +10 agility from aghanims, and hyperstone AS later building into AC, you are now able to burst enemies with his innate spell combo, as well as securing a hit or two with subsequent stun. After the core items are completed, some situational items include buriza, mkb, manta style, bkb, butterfly, shiva, mjollnir, deso, heart, satanic, hex, etc. depending on the enemy lineup and what is needed for your team to win the game.
As a core, tiny should always build as bottle->boot->dagger/loth->tread->AC; this build is usually non-negotiable, as the hero has the ability to siege objectives incredibly fast, and can split push lanes, becoming a serious threat in the late game. As a support, tiny can be built with utilities items such as arcane boots, force staff, drums, soul ring, blink, hex, shiva, etc: this route is more based on ganking and creating space for the true position 1 hard carry to farm to inevitably carry the game. I believe dagon is a troll item on tiny. This is due to the fact as all it provides is a static increase of ~300 magical damage (after magic reduction calculation, and even less for heroes with pipe/hood/meepo) and some intelligence. Static damage items are pretty useless in the late game, where all heroes have 2500+ hp, high armor, and utility items such as force staff, pipe, meka, etc which keep allies alive. Damage from stat items, or physical damage items are what reign supreme, and are the main reasons why some heroes scale into the late game better then others. What dagon does not provide is IAS (increased attack speed), enhance effective hp (armor provides more hp, evasion provides more effective hp due to miss % etc.), and will not increase your farming speed. Aghanims is core in this patch 6.83 because it provides cleave and insane siege damage (building damage). In dota 2, tiny was reworked to have an active skill (tree grab) which provides siege damage for ~5 hits at a cooldown. In dota 2, tiny does not need aghanims to be effective, and can opt for other items such as crit, s/y, more attack speed items, etc.
My preferred build for tiny is to go dagger, treads, AC, lothar, mjollnir, aghanims, then late game replace treads with BOT. This is the standard build for most games, as mjollnir's active can be placed on himself or the main initiator hero to provide magical burst, as well as the passive bonus of the highest attack speed for 1 item slot in the game. This can always be replaced with butterfly, eblade or manta style (best for split pushing and base racing, as illusions have very high base damage and siege ability). Lothar and blink are great to initiate or pick off supports on the back lines, then walk away invis, or to re-position. If the enemy has many stuns, bkb is necessary, so mjollnir or lothar may need to be replaced. If the enemy is too strong to be fought 5v5, then desolator and manta style may be the best option to provide insane building damage (minus armor from deso and ac ~13 armor) and play rat style (split push oriented, avoiding big engagements). If the enemy has many core heroes with evasion, mkb may be needed. If additional lockdown is needed and you have allies who can deal high DPS, then hex may be a good alternative; these are all situational.
What many forget when playing tiny, is that he should never stop farming, like any other mobile/ganking position 1/2 hero like storm, ember, invoker etc. Tiny is pretty item dependent, and after a gank is done, or a team fight, he should retreat to the jungle, push out lanes, or to secure objectives. Tiny should not be played as a solo ganker, and this often can result in him struggling to remain relevant in hard games. Only gank as necessary to achieve more farm, or to secure objectives such as towers/rax/roshan. Once tiny stops farming, he cannot get his core items to be a late game threat. This is my main concern with players who build urn and dagon 1-5 on tiny. It simply isn't ideal, and will not work in most games, especially if the game mode is not APEM (mainly EM). Once his initial burst is complete, he will have no follow up to keep hitting, or to provide support to his team until cooldowns are ready.
Tiny is very strong against squishy heroes such as lina, leshrac, slark, phantom assassin, Meepo, broodmother, kotl, wisp, and many others. He is also surprisingly strong against heroes such as legion commander, huskar, void, and any other melee core who relies on closing the gap to secure kills due to his passive stun, and high armor late game. These heroes will need bkb as a core item to reliably deal with tiny in the mid-late game; which is an item no dps carry wants to purchase.
Tiny struggles against heroes such as juggernaut, lifestealer (percentage based damage, built in 8 second bkb), slardar (huge armor debuff), and viper (due to high magic reset, and lane presence), sniper with bkb, ursa with bkb, and pheonix (due to spirits decreasing AS dramatically).
BKB is the biggest counter to tiny due to his passive not proccing, as well as his stuns/nukes. Deso/MOC/AC is strong vs tiny early game when he is vulnerable to physical damage and armor reduction. Shiva's guard is also very strong vs tiny d/t the AS and MS slow.
Tiny's best friends are heroes who enable him to hit longer, harder, and faster. Heroes with many reliable stuns such as shaker, rhasta, lion, tidehunter, slardar, are all great lane partners with tiny. Wisp is amazing to increase tiny's MS, AS and mobility with tether, overcharge, and relocate. Invoker also works amazing well with high levels of exort/wex for alacrity to buff tiny, allowing him to shred enemies/objectives in seconds. Ogre magi's bloodlust and beastmaster's inner beast passive all increase tiny's AS resulting in increased overall DPS.
Please leave any suggestions on how to play this hero if I have forgotten. Tiny is quite an easy hero to learn and play, and is very versatile in his item options. Have fun playing DotA