Top 5 BEST DotA Underlords Builds 2021
This DotA Underlords build guide will teach you the top 5 best DotA Underlords builds for 2021.
If you’re playing DotA Underlords, you’re going to want to know what the best DotA Underlords builds are. This Top5 DotA Underlords Builds Guide will teach you exactly that. These DotA Underlords builds are fantastic go-to builds for both beginners and seasoned pros alike.
RELATED POSTS:
– Top 5 Best Individual DotA Underlords Units
– Best DotA Underlords Items in Every Tier
I’ve poured over 500 hours into DotA Underlords since it originally released. It tends to be my go-to game in between major game releases, and I’ll just play a match here and there whenever I find myself watching YouTube videos or otherwise screwing around on the internet. I’ve written guides on DotA Underlords for this site before, but they eventually became outdated as the game continued to be updated. Now that the updates for DotA Underlords seemed to have stopped, I feel like it’s time to write some more guides on how to play the game.
When you play DotA Underlords, you’re at the whims of RNG and you tend to have to build in whatever direction the RNG gives you opportunities for, so you have to be flexible. Still, these top 5 DotA Underlords builds should give you something to shoot for regardless of what units appear in your first roll.
Without further ado, here at the Top 5 BEST DotA Underlords Builds in 2021. Keep in mind these are for standard matches.
5. Knights / Trolls / Healers – Best DotA Underlords Builds
For this entry in the best DotA Underlords builds, you can do Knights / Trolls or Knights / Healers. It’s mostly the same units either way, and they both perform about as well as each other. Knights / Trolls is a little more offense-oriented and Knights / Healers is obviously more defense oriented. The difference is either maxing out Trolls and leaving Healers at level 1 or vice versa.
If you’re just beginning DotA Underlords I’d recommend Knights / Trolls as one of the first strats to get comfortable with because it performs decently and it’s fairly reliable to find the units for it. Whether you go Trolls or Healers, your core group is going to be the same.
In early game you want to pick up Chaos Knight, Batrider, Luna, Omniknight and Dazzle. That’s the core group, which gives you level 2 knights, level 1 trolls and level 1 healers. At that point, based on the units you’re getting, you can make an executive decision to upgrade those units to two or three stars or upgrade your level so you can place more units on the map.
Once you pick up Abaddon you may want to keep in mind that Abaddon tends to be the tankiest of the Knights. A lot of players tend to put him in a point position where he’s likely to be focused on. One way you can do this is by repositioning your characters into the corner like so:
Once you’ve got roughly that lineup, you’ll need to make the decision between whether you’re going to finish off Healers or Trolls. Here’s the best way to make that decision, in my opinion: Healers are better for mid-game and early late game. Trolls are better for late game. So if I think the game is going to go on longer, I tend to go with Trolls. If I think the game is going to go shorter, or if I’m losing in the mid-game, I tend to go with Healers.
If you’re going Trolls, your next pickups are going to be Shadow Shaman, then Sven, then Troll Warlord.
If you’re going Healers, your next pickups are going to be Enchantress, then Treant Protector, then Sven.
Both of these builds end at level 9, so there’s no reason to go to level 10. In fact, there’s little benefit from doing that. It’s far better to get 3 star units than to tack on an extra out of place unit into the build. 3 star Omniknight and 3 star Luna are especially helpful, as their 3 star bonuses are incredible.
If you’re going Trolls, your final build for this one of the best DotA Underlords builds should look something like this:
I like to have Luna, Troll Warlord and Sven, your main damage dealers, positioned in such a way that they’re not getting focus fired. I like to have Abaddon and Chaos Knight out in front. You should experiment with your positioning on your own, though.
If you’re going for Healers, your final build for this one of the best DotA Underlords builds should look something like this:
For positioning, it’s best to have Enchantress and Treant Protector on the edges because they don’t benefit from the Knights alliance and you want them to take a little damage so they build up the mana to cast their spells early. Again, you should experiment with the positioning, especially if you wind up with a 3 star Chaos Knight, which lets the Knights get the Knight alliance bonus regardless of whether they’re next to allied Knights or not.
For your Underlord, you can be quite flexible here. Any Underlord will work, so pay attention to the RNG abilities the Underlords get. If Hobgen gets his giant nuke skill, you might want to go with that. Overall, Jull tends to be the best and most reliable choice. But this particular build can work pretty well with almost any Underlord, although I might avoid Enno.
For items, Knights don’t have many glaring best-in-slot items (except for Necronomicon on Batrider, which is insanely good, especially if you have the Summoners alliance bonus from Shadow Shaman), but here are some good ones to look out for: the Paladin Sword, which will increase your party’s healing; Satanic, which is probably the best-in-slot item for Sven and Chaos Knight, Necronomicon, which is the best-in-slot item for Batrider, and either Moonglaive or Butterfly, which are great items for Luna.
This is not the best build in the game, but it is 1) super reliable, 2) a high B-tier, low A-tier build and 3) easy to remember for new players. But DotA Underlords isn’t always about the best build, because RNG is so important. If you get a roll on the first round or two with Chaos Knight, Luna and Dazzle, you can get really far out ahead and get this build so powered up that by the time anyone executes a “better” build, you’ve already run away with the game.
Knights / Trolls is definitely one of the best DotA Underlords builds and you should be aware of how to execute it if you plan to play the game.
4. Brawny – Best DotA Underlords Builds
Brawny, if played right, can be unstoppable when it comes to the best DotA Underlords builds. However, it’s a high-risk, high-reward proposition, much moreso than any of the other best DotA Underlords builds. Basically, if you get Brawny units early, you can start accumulating health to the point that your party has tens of thousands of HP in the end-game, impossible for any build to overcome. You’ll likely lose the early and mid-game, but if you can survive to late game, you’ll steamroll and be undefeated until the end.
The problem is, if you lose too hard in early or mid-game, you might just get knocked out, or, worse, your team is so weak they can’t defeat enough units to accumulate any meaningful amount of HP.
For the Brawny build, you actively don’t want a secondary alliance. You want to entirely focus on Brawny units. You will add a couple of units from other alliances later, but you want those units added at the right time and positioned in such away they get as few killing blows as possible.
The key Brawny units you’re looking for are Snapfire, Juggernaut, Beastmaster and Bristleback, and you can get all of those units early game.
Once you’ve got those four core units, you’re going to want to try to level them up to 3 stars. That’s your main goal. As your unit pool fills up, or new levels become easy to access, you’ll want to dump duplicates onto the field.
For example, if your Bristleback and Snapfire have duplicates, you’ll see something like this in the mid-game for this one of the best DotA Underlords builds:
While you’re doing this, you’re going to want to collect some other units into your bench, but you won’t be playing them until your core units level up to 3 stars, thus creating more room on the field. The key units to look out for here are Magnus and Puck. Magnus will complete both the level 1 Savage alliance and the level 1 Shaman alliance. Puck will complete the Dragon alliance, giving Snapfire a fantastic spell.
By late mid-game, your team for this entry of the best DotA Underlords builds should look something like this:
Now, you’ll want to get your team up to level 8 so you can start rolling for Axe, and just keep putting whatever duplicates you have available out onto the field to fill up space. The only other unit worth grabbing, if you get insanely lucky and 3-star every unit before you find an Axe, is a Brute unit of your choice, either Spiritbreaker, Lifestealer or Doom. Usually Spiritbreaker. However, once again, I’d mention it’s better to have duplicate 2 stars of any of the Brawny units than to toss in an extra unit, so only throw a Spiritbreaker onto the field if your Brawny units are already 3 stars and you need an extra unit.
In the end-game, your team should look something like this for this one of the best DotA Underlords builds, although most games will end before you find an Axe or shortly after.
As for your Underlord, you’re going to want Jull. Jull tends to not killsteal, is generally the best overall Underlord for any of the best DotA Underlords builds, and doubles down on the overall beefiness of this team.
For items, there are a lot of best-in-slot items to look out for. Foremost is a Stonehall Cloak, which you’ll want for Bristleback. In this build a Stonehall Cloak on Bristleback can mean him ending up with 20,000+ HP by the end of the game, because unlike the Stonehall Pike, there is no upper limit on how much bonus health the Cloak can give, and Bristleback tends to get most of the last hits. If you don’t roll a Stonehall Cloak, Octarine Essence and Vanguard/Blade Mail/Heart of Tarrasque/Radiance are all great on Bristleback.
Keep your eye out for a Moonshard to give to Snapfire, as her ability scales with attack speed. Puck does very well with an Octarine Essence. Juggernaut and Beastmaster tend to hold DPS or support items. Axe will be looking for similar items to Bristleback.
When it comes to the best Dota Underlords builds, Brawny is a really fun one because when you pull it off, it feels really good. Once you amass enough HP, you are essentially a boss encounter. There is very little any build can do to stop you.
Just make sure you don’t get knocked out, lose too much player health or get shut down from accumulating HP during the mid-game. You really need to snowball with this one of the best DotA Underlords builds. If you never get the snowball going, you will lose and you’ll lose big.
3. Assassins / Rogues – Best DotA Underlords Builds
Assassins / Rogues is a great and very reliable build and definitely among the best DotA Underlords builds. The only real problem with it is there are a handful of builds that beat it in a sort of rock-paper-scissors kind of way and if you’re encountering those builds and you’re not over-leveled, you tend to lose to them. It doesn’t do super well against Knights, for instance, or other very tanky builds. Still, you can get going early and run away with the game pretty easily. I’ve won a lot of games with Assassins / Rogues, and it’s a fun one.
Early game you’re looking for Phantom Assassin, Bounty Hunter, Queen of Pain, Meepo and Venomancer. You can leave Venomancer on the bench until you have space for him, he mostly exists just for the Poison, Summoners and Scaled alliance bonuses.
Early game your setup should look like this for this entry of the best DotA Underlords builds:
If you’re not finding a Meepo, you can use Antimage temporarily for a tank position character and to achieve the level 1 Rogues alliance bonus, just don’t get too attached, because Antimage is not part of the final build here.
Once you’ve completed that, which gives you level 1 Assassins and level 1 Rogues, you’re going to want to add Alchemist and Slark for the midgame. This is your core group, and you’re going to want them strong. Based on RNG, it’s up to you to decide whether to invest in upgrading these units or expanding your roster to add your next Assassin, which should be Ember Spirit.
By the end of midgame or beginning of late game, your roster for this one of the best DotA Underlords builds should look something like this:
Now, as late game begins, you’re going to have to make a hard decision, and that’s whether to gun it to level 10 so you can add your final Assassin and Sven to complete the level 2 Assassin, level 2 Rogue and level 1 Swordsman bonuses, or upgrade your current units.
The issue is this. Most of these units have fantastic 3 star bonuses. A 3 star Slark with a Mask of Madness basically wins the game automatically, so if you find yourself at this point with an extra 2 star Slark in your bench, you should aim for a 3 star Slark. 3 star Bounty Hunter is also incredibly good, as is 3 star Phantom Assassin. 3 star Meepo can also be wildly broken. So if the RNG gets you close to any of those 3 star bonuses, you should absolutely delay your leveling progress and get those 3 star bonuses ASAP.
Otherwise, keep leveling up and try to hit the final build for this entry in the best DotA Underlords builds, which will look something like this:
As for your Underlord, you basically have two choices. Jull, or Enno if you roll an Enno with All Out Attack. Personally, I decide entirely based on All Out Attack. If Enno gets All Out Attack instead of Yoink, I go Enno. Otherwise, Jull.
For items, there are quite a few best-in-slot items here you’ll want to keep an eye out for. First, Mask of Madness. Get 2 of them if you can, one for Slark and one for Phantom Assassin. Meepo is interesting, if you get him to 3 stars, put either a Heart of Tarrasque or a Horn of the Alpha for him, both of which are insanely broken. Horn of the Alpha summons a new Thunderhide companion each time Meepo splits, which is just absolutely insane. If it doesn’t look like you’ll get Meepo to 3 stars, toss a Vanguard on him and just be done with it.
Venomancer does well with a Necronomicon, you’ll want to pick up a Vladimir’s Offering if you have the option to, which you can toss on Bounty Hunter. Most DPS items like Butterfly, Bloodthorn and Monkey King Bar are also good. Moonshard is good. Skullbasher is good on Slark if you don’t roll a Mask of Madness. Maelstrom is good on Ember Spirit.
This is a fun, reliable build when it comes to the best DotA Underlords Builds. In my experience, this build tends to outperform the Knights / Trolls build while still being similarly reliable. Somewhat ironically, it tends to lose to the Knights / Trolls build, but tends to beat more builds overall.
2. Mages / Spirits – Best DotA Underlords Builds
When it comes to the best DotA Underlords builds, Mages tend to struggle early on, but they’re incredibly powerful in late game and can dominate in mid-game as well with a little bit of luck. There are very few counters to Mages / Spirits, so if you can hang on without losing too badly in the early game, you tend to come out on top in the end more often than not.
Early game you’re going to want to pick up Earth Spirit, Crystal Maiden, Storm Spirit and Lich, is roughly that order of priority for this one of the best DotA Underlords builds. It should look something like this:
This is not going to go well for you. You’ll probably lose most matchups unless you get lucky and get a 2 star Storm Spirit, Earth Spirit and Crystal Maiden early. Just hope you’re losing your matches by a little and getting 1-2 HP whittled away each time instead of getting big chunks of HP taken away. You mostly just want to survive this phase until you have 30 gold and can start getting bigger payouts at the end of each round.
In early mid-game you can start turning things around. You’ll want to add Ember Spirit and Puck. Replace Lich with Puck as soon as you find him. Hang onto your Lich if you have room, but he’ll probably be sitting on your bench for a long, long time after this point.
Once you have both the level 1 Mage bonus and the level 1 Spirit bonus, you should be able to start winning matches. As you gain levels, add in whatever duplicates of the Spirit units you have available so the Delta Attack goes off more often. Prioritize Storm Spirit.
At level 6 your team for this one of the best DotA Underlords builds should look something like this:
Your main focus should be upgrading your core units. Only switch to focusing on leveling if your roster gets full and there’s nothing you can throw away. You should collect new units but keep in mind you won’t be adding them to the field unless you happen to get a new level or you finish the 3 star version of one of your Spirits and it frees up room on the field.
The other units you’re going to want to look for are the Mage units, most especially Lina. You want to finish the Mage alliance bonus, but pick up Void Spirit if he happens to show up.
By level 8, your loadout will probably look something like this for this one of the best DotA Underlords builds:
Once you’re at that stage, you should be comfortably winning most matchups, assuming you have a few 3 star Spirit units and 4 total Spirit units on the field. Once you’re at this stage, as you head into the late game, you should finish the Mage alliance and add Void Spirit into the mix. If you manage to get to level 10, throw in another Human to get a level 2 Human alliance, preferably Dragon Knight for the Dragon alliance bonus with Puck.
At some point you’ll also probably want to adjust your positioning to the corner so you can better protect your more fragile units.
At the very end, your final build for this one of the best DotA Underlords builds should look something like this.
For your Underlord, you’re definitely going to want Jull. Without Jull, your Earth Spirit is often going to die before he’s able to participate in the Delta Attack. So… pick Jull. Don’t even think about anyone else. You need a tank for this one of the best DotA Underlords builds.
For items, luckily the game makes things easy for you. Pick up any item that’s colored blue, for the most part. Void Stone, Arcane Boots, etc. Here are some of the best-in-slot items: Octarine Essence for Puck; either Octarine Essence or Kaya for Storm Spirit; Vanguard or any other good survivability item for Earth Spirit; you’ll want a mana regen item for Ember Spirit especially early on because his mana pool tends to be the bottleneck for Delta Attacks, later on you can give him a DPS item if you want.
You want the big mana regen items for all your backline units, so pick up Scythe of Vyse and Eul’s Scepter if they show up. Refresher Orb is nice for Keeper of the Light.
Like most of the best DotA Underlords builds on this list, this is a really fun build. It’s fairly reliable, though not as reliable as Knights / Trolls or Assassins / Rogues and it’s really satisfying once you get it going. The main counter to this build is actually positioning characters in a certain way to avoid Delta Attacks, which most opponents won’t bother to do unless you get into a back and forth duel with one opponent at the very end of the late game.
1. Shamans / Healers – Best DotA Underlords Builds
When it comes to the best DotA Underlords builds, Shamans / Healers is definitely the #1 top pick. While it falls off a little in late game, it still performs decently. However, it absolutely dominates early and mid-game, so the strategy tends to be to get so far out ahead by late game that you’re unstoppable anyway, even as the effectiveness of the build drops off.
If you’re trying to get the Untouchable achievement, this would be the build to try to do it with.
For early game, you’re looking for Enchantress, Magnus and Nature’s Prophet when it comes to this one of the best DotA Underlords builds. If you manage to get 2 of those on the first round, you’ve basically won the first 3-5 rounds, because the Shaman alliance creature dominates those early rounds and you’ll outnumber your enemies.
In these early rounds, it’s usually better to put Enchantress out in front so her wisps can start healing your party early. Otherwise Enchantress will probably be the last to survive and just uselessly pelt enemies with her low damage spear while she takes forever to die.
From there, you’re going to want to finish off the Healers alliance. A lot of people go for Shamans / Savages. Rookie mistake. Shamans / Healers is where it’s at. You’ll still end up with some Savage bonuses, don’t worry, but Shamans / Savages requires you to go all the way to level 10, which most games won’t allow you to get to, and it has a huge power slump between levels 8 and 10. Healers is more consistent in my opinion, and is a better option when it comes to the best DotA Underlords builds.
Anyway, as you enter the mid game, you’ll want your lineup for this one of the best DotA Underlords builds to look something like this:
Once that’s complete, you’re going to want to look for the rest of the Shamans, Beastmaster and Lone Druid. As you enter late game, your build will look like this for this entry of the best DotA Underlords builds:
This is your core build. You’ll be level 8. At this point, it’s up to you whether to add more characters or focus on upgrading your characters to 3 stars, because you’ll likely only be able to do one or the other by the time the game ends, unless it goes on for a super long time.
If you do add more characters, you’ll need to choose between whether you want the level 2 Savages bonus, which increases summon damage every time a summoned unit attacks, or the level 2 Summoners bonus, which is a flat increase to summon damage. Either way, the next character to recruit is Lycan. Then, if you’re going Savages (which is worse, in my opinion), you’ll want Pangolier. If you’re going Summoners (the better option), you’ll want Shadow Shaman.
Your final level 10 build for this one of the best DotA Underlords builds should look like this, though, again, you’ll probably end the game at level 9:
You’ll notice I set up the positioning a little weird. I just like to put Lycan a little behind the frontline so he has to take a second to run up to it. It helps prevent him from getting focus fired and gives Magnus time to toss an Empower on him.
Of the best DotA Underlords builds, this is one of the most popular builds, so keep that in mind because the way DotA Underlords RNG works is you’re actually sharing a unit pool with the other players in the game, so if one or more players are going this build, you’re going to struggle to get the units you need to pull it off. Actually, keep that in mind for all of these builds.
Also for this build, once again, keep in mind that it falls off late game where other builds can quickly dispatch summoned units and won’t be overrun by them. So oftentimes what happens with this build is you complete a winning streak or two at the start and then get completely rolled in the endgame. It’s like the opposite of the Brawny or Mages builds. So you have to dominate early, and you have to get enough of a gold lead that you hit level 10 when other players are hitting level 8 or so.
For this particular build among the best DotA Underlords builds, you have some flexibility about which Underlord you choose. Annesix can be a good choice since you have tanking covered and she benefits from the Summoners bonuses. Hobgen’s nuke can be good. And you can never go wrong with Jull.
As for items, there are a few best-in-slot items to look out for. Necronomicon is fantastic on Nature’s Prophet. Definitely grab that if you get the opportunity. Paladin’s Sword is great for any build with Healers. Absolutely get a Refresher Orb if one appears and throw it on Lone Druid, as it allows him to summon 2 bears. Kaden’s Blade is near broken on Shadow Shaman thanks to his ridiculous attack speed. Tanking and support items are good for the front lines. Lycan does well with most DPS items, or a Satanic.
RELATED POSTS:
– Top 5 Best Individual DotA Underlords Units
– Best DotA Underlords Items in Every Tier
That about covers it when it comes to the best DotA Underlords builds for 2021, hopefully these DotA Underlords builds will serve you well. Since the game seems to no longer be updated, this guide will probably still be applicable forever until the game eventually gets shut down. Be sure to check out the main page for more RPG game guides. Also be sure to check out the DotA Underlords section for more guides for this game.
