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Best DotA Underlords Items in Each Tier

Not sure which DotA Underlords items to pick when the choice comes up? This best DotA Underlords items guide will help you make your decision.

If you’re playing DotA Underlords, you probably know that every few matches you have the opportunity to choose from one of three DotA Underlords items. If you’re new to the game, or even if you’re a veteran looking for some additional insight, you’re going to want to know what the best DotA Underlords items are.

RELATED POSTS:
– Top 5 BEST DotA Underlords Builds 2021
– Top 5 Best Individual DotA Underlords Units

As the game goes on, your item tier increases and the pool of items you get to select from changes. The items get increasingly powerful as the game goes on, but sometimes the best DotA Underlords items in early tiers are the best-in-slot items for specific characters, and you’re going to want to keep an eye out for them.

I have almost 600 hours of playtime in DotA Underlords so I know at least a little bit about which items are the best DotA Underlords items and which ones tend to be worth skipping. DotA Underlords tends to be the game I play when I want to kill some time or I’m listening to podcasts. Now that DotA Underlords has stopped updating I can finally write guides for them game without them becoming obsolete.

dota underlords best items playtime

Sometimes the best DotA Underlords items depend on your team composition, but in general, the items that really stand out tend to be pretty standard across teams. Obviously if you have a Mages team, you’re going to want magic items, or an Assassin team is going to want attack items, but some items are just in general really strong and some are just straight up duds.

With the introduction out of the way, let’s get into the best DotA Underlords items.

Tier 1 – Best DotA Underlords Items

Items in this tier: Claymore, Gloves of Haste, Kaya, Chainmail, Headdress, Hood of Defiance, Morbid Mask, Talisman of Evasion, Vitality Booster, Void Stone

When it comes to the best DotA Underlords items in tier 1, it depends on your build. If you have mages (or if you’re planning to use Ember Spirit on a Spirit Alliance team), you’ll obviously want a Kaya or a Void Stone. That’s a no brainer. If you have a choice between Kaya and Void Stone and you’re going Mages I’d go with Kaya, because 20% magic damage is huge and while eventually the Void Stone gets outclassed, there are no other bonus magic damage items in the game. Kaya goes great on Storm Spirit in particular.

If you’re going Assassins, I’d take the Gloves of Haste and never look back, because unlike the Claymore, bonus attack speed scales as your units improve. If the Gloves of Haste aren’t available, I’d go for the Morbid Mask, and then the Claymore in that order.

If you’re going Knights or Warriors or Heartless, the Talisman of Evasion or Hood of Defiance is a good choice, although often I’d still rather have the Gloves of Haste or the Morbid Mask.

In general I tend to avoid Chainmail, Headdress and Vitality Booster.

For this tier, I’d rank them in this order:

Gloves of Haste > Morbid Mask > Talisman of Evasion > Claymore > Hood of Defiance > Chainmail > Vitality Booster and then Kaya > Void Stone for Mages.

Tier 2 – Best DotA Underlords Items

Items in this tier: Armlet of Mordiggian, Desolator, Dragon Lance, Paladin Sword, Stonehall Pike, Quelling Blade, Blade Mail, Stonehall Cloak, Vanguard, Arcane Boots, Blink Dagger, Heaven’s Halberd, Barricade, Target Buddy

As with the other tiers, your choice of alliance and units really comes into play when picking the best DotA Underlords items. If you’ve gone Mages, you’ll probably want Arcane Boots. If you have healers, Paladin Sword might be your best choice.

If you have a unit that racks up a lot of kills like Spectre or Luna, Stonehall Pike might be a good option. If you have Bristleback, Stonehall Cloak can have a lot of payoff. Assassins get a lot of value out of Desolator.

Armlet of Mordiggian can be kind of good as a gimmick in the early and mid-game if you toss it onto a ranged DPS, but the risk is usually not worth it in my opinion.

Still, though, overall the best choice tends to be Heaven’s Halberd on most teams, and Vanguard if that’s not available. Heaven’s Halberd is just an incredible defensive item that really could qualify as a tier 3 item. Since it’s evasion and not defense, it scales better than the Vanguard, and disarming attackers is extremely useful.

In my games I find that I typically take Heaven’s Halberd or Blade Mail/Vanguard when it comes to tier 2 items. Quelling Blade is a dud. I don’t think I’d ever pick it up. I also don’t think Blink Dagger is particularly useful except specifically for Tidehunter.

While your team composition matters a lot here, I’d say roughly the breakdown for the best DotA Underlords items in this tier goes like this:

Heaven’s Halberd > Blade Mail > Vanguard > Stonehall Pike > Desolator > Paladin Sword > Target Buddy > Dragon Lance > Barricade > Blink Dagger > Armlet of Mordiggian > Quelling Blade. Then Arcane Boots would be second after Heaven’s Halberd for a Mages squad and mostly useless to everyone else.

Tier 3 – Best DotA Underlords Items

Items in this tier: Battle Fury, Mask of Madness, Skull Basher, Craggy Coat, Pipe of Insight, Witless Shako, Eul’s Scepter, Necronomicon, Octarine Essence, Silver Edge, Mango Tree, Crown of Antlers, Leg Breaker’s Fedora, Pirate Hat, Ristul Circlet

Tier 3 has a lot of great items in terms of the best DotA Underlords items and what you pick is going to depend heavily on your team setup. Let’s get some things out of the way.

If you have Phantom Assassin, Lifestealer, Slark, Drow Ranger or any other character that relies exclusively or almost exclusively on autoattacks, take Mask of Madness. That is the best item in this tier if you have any of those characters.

If you have Bat Rider, Puck or Nature’s Prophet, Necronomicon is extremely powerful. Although Octarine Essence is better for Puck in my opinion.

If you’re rolling Mages, Octarine Essence followed by Eul’s Scepter are going to be the best picks.

Pirate Hat can be helpful for Assassins / Rogues, and Crown of Antlers can be good for Heartless/Hunters because it lets to max out both alliances.

Battle Fury is pretty much only great on Ember Spirit, for everyone else it’s just okay at best, the cleave tends to not provide much extra damage.

Outside of those scenarios, just generally, Silver Edge is really good, Pipe of Insight is almost always great, and Skull Basher is alright.

I think the Craggy Coat and Witless Shako are not very good, especially if you’ve already got your tank the much superior Heaven’s Halberd.

I’d say the breakdown for the best DotA Underlords items in this tier looks something like this:

Mask of Madness (if you have a unit for it, otherwise worthless, skip it) > Necronomicon (if you have the right units, otherwise not great) > Silver Edge > Pipe of Insight > Skull Basher > Battle Fury > Eul’s Scepter > Octarine Essence > Mango Tree > Craggy Coat > Witless Shako. Obviously if you have Mages, Eul’s Scepter and Octarine Essense are top tier. Hats are situational, but mostly only the Swordsman one and the Hunter one have situations where they’re useful.

Tier 4 – Best DotA Underlords Items

Items in this tier: Butterfly, Dagon, Diffusal Blade, Kaden’s Blade, Maelstrom, Monkey King Bar, Moon Shard, Black King Bar, Eye of Skadi, Mekansm, Refresher Orb, Scythe of Vyse

In terms of best DotA Underlords items, every item in this tier is good so at this point it really depends on your team composition. Here are some things to consider.

If I have Trolls and I have Shadow Shaman, I almost always take Kaden’s Blade if it’s available because that’s a broken combination. Shadow Shaman’s attack speed with the Troll’s alliance bonus is ridiculous. It turns his physical attack from useless into probably the highest DPS thing on your team.

If I have Savages or Shamans, Refresher Orb is an absolute must because it allows Lone Druid to summon 2 bears. It’s also probably the best choice if you have Mages. Otherwise, eh.

I’d say my most picked items overall in this tier are Butterfly and Moon Shard. If a unit is going to get hit, like a Terrorblade or a Bounty Hunter, Butterfly. If they’re in a safe position, like a Luna, Moon Shard. Or if it’s Lifestealer, Moon Shard. I would pick those 2 items over most of the other damage dealing items except in very specific scenarios.

I’d say overall the breakdown for best DotA Underlords items in this tier looks something like this:

Butterfly > Moon Shard > Black King Bar > Refresher Orb > Scythe of Vyse > Monkey King Bar > Maelstrom > Dagon > Kaden’s Blade > Diffusal Blade > Eye of Skadi > Mekansm. However, keep in mind those specific scenarios. You’d rather have an extra bear than a Butterfly.

Or, if you have Mages, Refresher Orb > Scythe of Vyse > Dragon > everything else.

Tier 5 – Best DotA Underlords Items

Items in this tier: Bloodthorn, Divine Rapier, Radiance, Heart of Tarrasque, Satanic, Shiva’s Guard, Horn of the Alpha, Vesture of the Tyrant, Vladimir’s Offering

As with tier 4, everything is really good, so it depends heavily on your team composition. Let’s talk about specific scenarios.

If you have a 3-star Meepo, you’ll want either Shiva’s Guard or Horn of the Alpha, because the results are cartoonishly good. If you have Meepo in a summoning squad, you’ll want the horn so you summon boatloads of overpowered lizards. Otherwise I think the Shiva’s Guard is better.

The lizards from Horn of the Alpha aren’t really that amazing without a 3 star Meepo, I tend to only take it if I’m doing a summoning team with Shamans or if I have Meepo.

If you have Pudge or a high level Brawny team, Heart of Tarrasque can be game breaking because the passive healing can outpace the other team’s damage if your HP totals are high enough.

Satanic is really good for certain characters like Sven and Slark, but if you have a Mask of Madness for Slark it’s not really much of an upgrade.

Outside of those specific situations, Radiance, Vesture of the Tyrant and Vladmir’s Offering probably give the most benefit overall to most teams. Except Mages, as always, Vladmir’s Offering does nothing for them.

I would never take Divine Rapier, that’s a great way to throw the game. Bloodthorn I’d probably only take in specific situations, like with an Assassins team or if I had a big damage dealer who didn’t have a damage item yet because I got unlucky throughout the game.

Overall I think the breakdown for best DotA Underlords items in this tier looks like this:

Radiance > Vesture of the Tyrant > Vladmir’s Offering > Satanic > Shiva’s Guard > Heart of Tarrasque > Bloodthorn > Horn of the Alpha > Divine Rapier


RELATED POSTS:
– Top 5 BEST DotA Underlords Builds 2021
– Top 5 Best Individual DotA Underlords Units

That about covers it when it comes to the best DotA Underlords items for 2021. 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 best sure to check the DotA Underlords section for more guides for this game.

Author

  • Ryan Night

    Ryan Night is an ex-game industry producer with over a decade of experience writing guides for RPGs. Previously an early contributor at gamefaqs.com, Ryan has been serving the RPG community with video game guides since 2001. As the owner of Bright Rock Media, Ryan has written over 600 guides for RPGs of all kinds, from Final Fantasy Tactics to Tales of Arise.

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