Team Composition Guide

The Basics

While teams can vary with what specific heroes they use, there are some base guidelines to how most teams should be constructed.

Jungler

A jungler is necessary for practically any team. Junglers become very powerful in the late game and are able to give XP buffs to the whole team. The best junglers are stack characters, as stack characters gain huge late game buffs for killing jungle enemies.

Ganker

A ganker is somebody who patrols lanes and helps defend when needed. They need to be able to make kills and get out quickly. This means that any heroes with high burst damage are very strong gankers.

Support

A support character is very helpful, as it can protect vulnerable characters. Without a support character, your squishy laner characters will die quickly. Any heroes with healing or shielding effects are strong support characters.

Tank

The goal of a tank is to soak up a lot of damage. While I find them pretty poor, they can be very helpful when played correctly as they can protect your laners as effectively as a support character.

Crowd Control

Crowd control characters are characters that use AoE and stun effects on lots of little enemies.

Laners

Laners are people who push and defend lanes. They are the core of your team. You will have a very tough time winning without a laner on each lane. The goal of a laner is to deal as much damage as possible.

The Best of Each

Now that you know what each position is, you need to find the characters that do each thing effectively.

Dekker- Crowd Control

Feng Mao- Jungler/Ganker/Laner

Gadget- Laner

Gideon- Laner

Grux- Jungler/Laner

Howitzer- Laner/Crowd Control

Kallari- Ganker/Laner

Murdock- Laner

Muriel- Support

Rampage- Tank/Jungler

Sevarog- Tank/Jungler

Sparrow- Laner

Steel- Tank/Crowd Control/Laner

Twinblast- Ganker/Laner

Jungler

Feng Mao and Sevarog are probably the best junglers because they can gain stacks, which allow them to deal massive damage in the late game. Rampage is next, as he can gain XP quickly in the jungle because his regen allows him to not have to recall as much. Grux is probably the worst of the viable junglers, as his stack effect only reaches 200 health and is therefore relatively insignificant.

Ganker

Kallari is probably the most effective straight ganker, as he can deal lots of burst damage and flip back into the shadows. Feng Mao is a pretty strong ganker simply because he is both a ganker and a jungler, meaning you don't need to take up valuable team space by using him. Twinblast is also pretty good at ganking, as he deals decent burst.

Support

Muriel is the only true support character, and is powerful enough that probably every team should play her.

Tank

Steel is probably the best tank, as he can soak up the most damage of all of the characters. Sevarog is a fine tank, but is better used in the jungle. Rampage is a pretty strong tank, but he can't take as much heat as Steel.

Crowd Control

I don't recommend using a straight CC character because they are pretty useless against heroes, so I don't find Dekker to be that strong. Steel is a very strong crowd control character and couples as a tank, making him ideal. Howitzer's slow effects are decent CC, but Steel's stuns are better in my opinion.

Laner

Many characters can lane and be effective, but some shine brighter than others. Murdock is easily the best laner, as his ultimate ability deals ridiculous amounts of damage. Grux, Feng Mao, Kallari and Steel all can be effective laners, but are better used elsewhere. Every other laner is fairly interchangeable and is mostly a playstyle choice.

Hero Synergy

When building a team, you can't just throw a bunch of different heroes in and expect it to work. You have to combine abilities to make your team work fluidly. This is why I recommend a combination of CC and AoE, as those work together quite well. I'd also recommend having a Tank, a Support and a DpS all working one lane, as the three roles combine quite effectively. I personally would combine Steel, Gideon and Muriel, as Steel's CC and Gideon's AoE combine effectively (Stun+Black Hole!) and they all fill the three primary laning roles.

The Best Team Composition

Now that you know the best characters at each spot, as well as the synergies that work well, you can start building a team. When starting off with a team, you need to have a Murdock and a Muriel, as they are just too powerful. You also want somebody who can jungle, which gives us either Sevarog or Feng Mao. I personally am a fan of Sevarog, as his stacks give him more lategame benefits and ganking with his ultimate is extremely powerful, as the knockback from it can push enemy heroes into a trap. Also, I find that the corruption affinity is more powerful than other affinities. Now that you have these 3 pieces, you need two more characters. If you want to take my advice and add Steel and Gideon, that would probably be the best option. However, you can use two DpS characters like Twinblast and Sparrow instead. Thirdly, you could try it with a DpS character or Tank laning and Kallari or Twinblast ganking. Personally, I find that the best composition is thus:

Sevarog- Ganking and jungling in the early game, laning in the late game. Replacements: Feng Mao, Grux, Rampage

Murdock- Laning DpS. Replacements: Twinblast, Kallari, Sparrow

Muriel- Laning support. Replacements: None

Steel- Laning tank/CC. Replacements: Dekker (for CC), Rampage (for tanking)

Gideon- Laning DpS/AoE. Replacements: Twinblast or Sparrow for DpS, no replacement for AoE