The warm yet fiery ambiance of Lina the Dragon Slayer, certainly doesn’t come off as a strong carry pick on paper. Lina’s skill set deals overwhelming magic damage on top of spamming skills to deal even more physical auto-attack damage.
She’s quite literally a glass cannon, and relies on item builds to compensate for mobility, disables, and survivability. In fact, her pub win rate is at a measly 47.9% yet she ranks twelfth on the Most Picked Heroes list.
Yet, Lina is one of the best Carry Heroes in the current meta.
Lina’s win and pick rates as of January 2023
Lina in DPC 2023
If there’s anything that Dota 2 esports offers besides the adrenaline rush over an elaborate play, it’s the hero trends. The Dota Pro Circuit 2023 (DPC 2023) could shed light on why and how such a soft carry hero, which often gets caught easily, still ranks well among pro players.
In contrast to her pub win rate, Lina has an average 64.8% win rate across all regions in DPC 2023. She is often first-picked for the hard carry role or otherwise, banned, so the pros are certainly up to something.
For starters, Lina has a heavy dependency on staying in fights for as long as possible. Hence, opponents hoping for a flawless counter on Lina would be strong initiators, who contest against her. Even then, these jump-heroes do not scale well against Lina in the midgame, who could have merely two late game items, BKB and Gleipnir, to go Rambo.
Item’s defining the Lina Trend
An affordable Falcon Blade for stats goes a long way for Lina to farm sustainably. At only 1125 gold and three components (excluding recipe), it offers mana regen, attack damage, and a decent 200 health.
BKB needs no introduction for carry players and offers Lina a long-lasting 9-second grace period to remain untouched. In midgame, when most enemies carry heroes probably only have one similar survival/utility item and a farming item. There would not be any hero who could go head-on against Lina.
Gleipnir, on the other hand, offers the catch potential she lacks from her skill set. Effective against most support heroes, and even certain carry heroes. It is a useful utility item that keeps the enemy players at bay while Lina deals her monstrous damage output.
Lina Dota 2 Gameplay
Although BKB and Gleipnir are featured items for Lina, she benefits from items that work cohesively with her high damage output, such as Satanic for lifesteal. Satanic is a real lifesaver in late game where the opponent carries likely has decent physical damage output to pierce BKB duration.
Without Satanic to regain her lost health, Lina is a sitting duck at low health after BKB wears off. Silver Edge is yet another utility item that offers great value to Lina, such as invisibility to land the perfect Light Strike Array (LSA) stuns on an unsuspecting enemy.
Once again, showcasing Lina’s versatile item build after the two main items, so long as they increase her damage output.
Safe lane carry Lina Build
LSA or skill W is an unreliable stun due to its short range and long animation delay. As such, max out skill Q and E. Dragon Slave has a far AOE, making it great for finishing off fleeing opponents, while the Fiery Soul passive is her bread-and-butter for dealing heavy auto-attack damage at an absurd attack speed. Her ultimate, Laguna Blade, is icing on top of her massive damage output but serves as a great initiator to kill off squishy supports prematurely.
Arteezy’s Carry Lina Build
Contrary to the general skill build, Artour “Arteezy” Babaev starts off with LSA skilled going into the lane. This makes sense, considering it’s still an early-game stun, that can be great at harassing melee enemies away from securing last hits.
He also maxed out LSA and Fiery Soul over the typical Dragon Slave because he’s going for the auto-attack build. Also known as the physical damage build, many consider this alternative build to be more scalable. However, do keep in mind that the drafts matter when opting for this build, in which in this scenario, Lina was facing three melee carries.
Tiny, Pudge, and Lifestealer have strong resistance against magic, so the magic damage build wouldn’t be as viable. Additionally, Arteezy has an ally Mars and Clockwerk, whom he expects to set up the fights and make positioning his LSA stuns easier.
All-in-all, Lina is an all-rounder, who has great scaling into late games. Of course, she is still notoriously known for her poor escape mechanism if she gets ganked. However, even then, her entire kit as a hard carry pick or mid-pick, sets her up as one of the most popular carry heroes in DPC 2023 and pubs.
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