* While Broodmother can hide in the trees with Spin Web, Primal Beast's ability to trample trees down can give him an edge in catching her.
* Insatiable Hunger will not do much vs Primal Beast's onslaught of disables.
* While Silken Bola can slow Primal Beast down, it's not enough to stop Trample from doing more damage than Broodmother can do back.
* Spawn Spiderlings will be destroyed by Onslaught and Trample very easily.
* Hard carries who just want to farm and be left alone will not appreciate Primal Beast, heroes such as Medusa,
Drow Ranger...
* Void Spirit's AoE damage make short work of Broodmother's spiderlings
* Even in she is within the range of her spiderwebs from Spin Web Broodmother cannot escape Void Spirit's mobility.
Additional:
* Void Spirit's AoE damage make short work of Broodmother's spiderlings
* Broodmother cannot escape Void Spirit's mobility, even in her webs.
* Heroes who take a long time to become strong are in for a rough mid game, such as Outworld Destroyer,
Magnus,
Medusa, and
Anti-Mage.
* Bristleback reduces most of Broodmother's and her spiderlings' damage.
* Quill Spray will hit any spiders in its proximity, hindering Broodmother's fighting and farming capabilities.
Additional:
* Quill Spray destroys spiderlings, and hits Broodmother even when she's regenerating in her webs. This makes Bristleback one of her hardest counters in lane.
* Other heroes who has armor and slow debuffs won't allow Medusa to disengage from combat: Tidehunter,
Bristleback,
Slardar.
* Illuminate wipes out Broodmother's spiders and prevents her from pushing the lane. It also gives vision to reveal where broodmother is hiding in the trees.
* Heroes with extremely slow movement speed will cripple against Solar Bind: Medusa,
Viper
Additional:
* Will-O-Wisp will keep Medusa busy after she got hit by
Blinding Light.
* Kraken Shell makes Tidehunter take nearly no damage from Spiderlings.
* Anchor Smash kills Spiderlings in one or two casts, should Broodmother try to swarm Tidehunter with them.
* Other heroes who has armor and slow debuffs won't allow Medusa to disengage from combat: Tidehunter,
Bristleback,
Slardar.
* Kunkka's entire kit is great for taking out multiple units at once.
* Tidebringer's cleave will split through a wave of spiderlings.
* X Marks the Spot is great for dragging Broodmother back out of her web for Kunkka's team to set up on her.
* Torrent and Ghostship will demolish any spiderlings within the radius.
Additional:
* X Marks the Spot prevents Broodmother from escaping.
* Tidebringer can clear Broodmother's spiders if they get in range.
* Burning Spear's damage over time can rapidly burn Medusa's mana and health alike.
* Inner Fire can slow and disarm Medusa and also allow Huskar to follow up with Life Break.
* Broodmother and her Spiderlings need to be very careful during the laning stage against Jakiro, as Jakiro can take down Broodmother's Spiderlings, preventing her from pushing as well as gaining a good amount of gold.
* Echo Stomp can impede Broodmother's ability to push towers due to its low cooldown and long sleep duration.
* Astral Spirit can provide Elder Titan large amounts of damage, armor, and movement speed from her spiderlings.
* Natural Order negates Broodmother and her spiderling's base armor and magic resistance, increasing most damage dealt to them.
* With Smoke Screen, Riki will silence and catch Medusa in a surprise with high miss chance flushing her from positions easily in team fights.
* He can deal a huge amount of damage through Cloak and Dagger, even through Mana Shield.
* Anti-Mage easily destroys Mana Shield with Mana Break, especially once he has
Manta Style.
* Anti-Mage effectively avoids Stone Gaze with Blink, and can reinitiate after its duration is over.
Additional:
* Mana Break burns Medusa's mana easily, especially when coupled with a
Manta Style.
* Can easily initiate on Medusa with Blink, burning her mana or forcing her to use Stone Gaze.
* Mana Void is effective against Medusa's big mana pool and mana usage, presenting a huge hazard to Medusa's allies around her since her Mana Shield still gives her some protection if she has mana.
* Caustic Finale allows Sand King to easily kill Broodmother's Spiderlings throughout the game.
* Sand King can usually catch a split pushing Broodmother with Blink Dagger and Burrowstrike.
Additional:
* Burrowstrike can be used as an escape or initiation against Broodmother.
* Sand Storm quickly kills any spiderlings caught inside if Sand King can manage to stun them.
* Echo Slam's damage potential increases phenomenally due to Broodmother's hordes of spiderlings and spiderites.
* Long ranged Fissures can hit Broodmother if she runs into the treeline at the edges of the map.
Additional:
* Aftershock in combination with
Enchant Totem prevents Broodmother from continuing to attack Earthshaker without being repeatedly stunned.
* Echo Slam is greatly amplified by Spiderlings, often instantly killing Broodmother, her swarm, and anyone else unfortunate enough to be nearby.
* Earthshaker's vast amount of stuns makes it difficult for Broodmother to continue attacking enemies (to continue lifestealing with Insatiable Hunger) without Black King Bar.
* Ice Blast prevents
Insatiable Hunger lifesteal,
Spin Web regeneration and quickly kills spiderlings.
* Your AoE abilities should make quick work of her spiderlings.
* Berserker's Call can catch Broodmother in her web, as well as groups of spiderlings. This is particularly effective when Broodmother attempts to push towers with her spiderlings.
* Counter Helix destroys spiderlings very quickly and earns Axe a good deal of gold.
Additional:
* Berserker's Call forces Broodmother and her spiderlings to attack, allowing for large amounts of pure damage to be done through
Counter Helix.
* Axe can take advantage of Medusa's awfully low HP to insta-kill her with Culling Blade, making it extremely difficult for her to farm for items to compensate for the lack of strength during early and mid-game while Axe is continuously harassing around.
* Mana Shield reduces the effectiveness of Counter Helix.
* Stone Gaze makes it very difficult for Axe to initiate on Medusa and her allies.
* Greevil's Greed makes Broodmother’s spiderlings far more valuable to Alchemist making it important that he does farm them as opposed to other heroes where the spider's bounties are negligible.
* Acid Spray makes it difficult to attack Alchemist in lane without losing some spiderlings to the damage over time, potentially giving him farm he wouldn't have otherwise.
Additional:
* Alchemist can easily farm Spiderlings with Acid Spray and Greevil's Greed.
* Alchemist's Chemical Rage nullifies Broodmother's Insatiable Hunger
* Ion Shell is a very powerful weapon against Broodmother's Spiderlings and makes her laning much harder.
Additional:
* Ion Shell zones out Broodmother in the laning phase, and can kill her spiderlings if used on one Spiderling in a group.
* Vacuum can pull Broodmother out of the treeline.
* Spiderlings are a good source of farm for Necromastery and can be quickly killed with
Shadowraze.
* Shadow Fiend is a natural Black King Bar carrier, protecting him from any of Broodmother's abilities.
* Requiem of Souls combined with
Eul's Scepter of Divinity can potentially kill Broodmother before she gets a
Black King Bar.
* Medusa cannot chase Slark in any way and has no disable beyond her ultimate, making her unable to stop him getting away and regenerating before coming back to finish her off.
* Essence Shift particularly removes 1 intelligence point per hit, thus lowering Medusa's mana pool's cap and leaving her much more vulnerable in prolonged fights.
Additional:
* Medusa is especially vulnerable to Essence Shift, as both strength and intelligence contribute to her effective HP, while agility contributes to her damage.
* Dark Pact when timed right can be used to dispel Stone Gaze right after it petrifies Slark, allowing him to keep attacking Medusa throughout the duration.
* Medusa's tankiness doesn't help her very much against Fury Swipes in long teamfights.
* With no escape mechanism and a slow movement speed, getting jumped on by Ursa usually spells a quick end for Medusa in the early game.
Additional:
* Ursa's status resistance from Enrage reduces duration of Medusa's Stone Gaze.
* Ursa can stack damage with Fury Swipes easily against her Mana Shield in a prolonged team match.
* Medusa lacks mobility or escape mechanisms.
Earth Spike and
Hex can neutralize her strong damage potential and allow for
Lion's team to focus her down.
* In addition to easily breaking her commonly bought Linken's Sphere with its low cooldown,
Mana Drain can quickly drain her
Mana Shield, making her far less tanky.
* Mana Drain, along with
Hex, destroy illusions instantly, which may be extremely helpfull and efficient against core builders of
Manta Style, like
Medusa herself.
* With Static Link, Razor can effectively make Medusa useless in teamfights by reducing her main damage output. It can, however, be blocked by a
Linken's Sphere.
* Plasma Field allows Razor to get on top of Medusa, slowing her already slow movement speed to a mere crawl.
* Eye of the Storm capitilizes on Medusa's low armor and causes her to be very vulnerable, even through
Mana Shield.
* Ball Lightning and
Electric Vortex will catch Broodmother before she has a chance to retreat, and is able to catch her through the trees.
* Conversely, Ball Lightning also allows him to easily escape Broodmother, as she has no way to prevent him from using it before getting Orchid Malevolence.
* Tiny can quickly clear Spiderlings with his active abilities and cleave.
* Sleight of Fist keeps Ember Spirit invulnerable until he hits every unit in its area of effect allowing him to stall for large amounts of time against Broodmother and her large amounts of spiderlings, or potentially damaging them enough if equipped with an item to improve wave clearing such as
Battle Fury or
Maelstrom to prevent her pushes entirely.
* Flame Guard will damage any of Broodmother's spiders in an area, deterring her from attempting to kill him. It can also be used during Sleight of Fist to amplify damage done.
* Fire Remnant allows Ember Spirit an escape from Broodmother that is unaffected by her Incapacitating Bite.
* Heroes who cannot fight back during Arena of Blood in the early and mid game: Abaddon,
Anti-Mage,
Broodmother,
Luna,
Sniper,
Troll Warlord,
Weaver,
Clinkz.
* Bulwark can make each of Medusa's attacks target him instead, reducing Medusa's contribution on team fights.
* Spear of Mars stuns Medusa and also pushes her away from teamfights, taking advantage of Medusa's low mobility.
* Arena Of Blood blocks Medusa's attacks from outside the arena.
* Medusa's
Stone Gaze forces Mars to choose between getting petrified, or turning his vulnerable back on Medusa.
* Reactive Armor prevents Broodmother's spiderlings from being able to effectively harass Timbersaw in the lane.
* Timber Chain's high mobility makes Silken Bola's slow irrelevant, unless Broodmother already bought her Orchid.
* Silken Bola's miss chance doesnt affect Rizzrack that much because he does not rely on his autoattacks much.
* Lotus Orb items for Timbersaw make Silken Bola useless.
* Timbersaw's abilities can destroy any trees that Broodmother attempts to hide in and his AoE abilities can quickly clear her Spiderlings.
Additional:
* Spiderlings deal almost no damage against Reactive Armor. They also die quickly from Timbersaw's AoE abilities.
* Broodmother has no mobility ability except the movement speed buff from Spin Web, allowing Timbersaw to easily escape her
Silken Bola with
Timber Chain.
* Timbersaw's tree-cutting abilities make it difficult for Broodmother to hide, especially near the edges of the map.
* Heroes that build Diffusal Blade or can fit it well into their item build will also make Medusa much less tanky:
Riki,
Naga Siren,
Terrorblade,
Juggernaut,
Spectre,
Slark.
* Broodmother,
Nature's Prophet,
Phantom Lancer by their nature offer very good target for Splinter Blast and Winter's Curse.
* Heroes with area of effect abilities that increase in power based on the number of units struck: Earthshaker,
Legion Commander,
Grimstroke.
Additional:
* Stroke of Fate can deal heavy damage to Broodmother and her spiders, and with enough spiders it can kill her instantly.
* Phantom's Embrace provides vision on Broodmother when she's fleeing into the trees.
* Heroes who produce many summons will have a hard time against Storm's Dispel Magic during teamfight: Broodmother,
Enigma,
Nature's Prophet.
* Heroes that build Diffusal Blade or can fit it well into their item build will also make Medusa much less tanky:
Riki,
Naga Siren,
Terrorblade,
Juggernaut,
Spectre,
Slark.
* Mass summoning heroes: Broodmother,
Nature's Prophet and
Enigma all have summons Puck can clear clear with Illusory Orb and Waning Rift instantly, due to their summons having low health.
* Broodmother's spiderlings and spiderites do almost nothing against Dragon Knight.
Additional:
* Breathe Fire will clear Broodmother's spiderites while significantly damaging her spiderlings and decreasing their damage output.
* Dragon Blood's added armor and regen mitigates the damage done by Broodmother and her spiders.
* Elder Dragon Form at level 2 and above applies splash damage to Dragon Knight's auto attacks.
* Heroes reliant on illusions or summons: Broodmother,
Chaos Knight,
Naga Siren.
* With her passive Split Shot, Medusa can be easily interrupted by Spiked Carapace during combat, especially during her precious
Stone Gaze.
* Mana Burn quickly destroys Mana Shield, especially if Medusa only increases her mana pool by bolstering intelligence (which has the added bonus of increasing Mana Burn's damage).
* Uncontrollable damage from Mystic Snake and
Split Shot can trigger Spiked Carapace.
* Medusa lacks single target damage, making a Burrowed Nyx Assassin hard to kill.
Additional:
* Vendetta burns a significant amount of mana on hit, and the damage from the ability drains Medusa's mana pool even further.
* Due to the passive nature of Mystic Snake and Split Shot, it can possibly proc Nyx's Spiked Carapace if he's within range of Medusa's abilities and isn't invisible.
* Medusa lacks single target damage, making Nyx with Aghanim's Scepter extremely hard to deal with if Medusa is the team's main damage source.
* Heroes with very little to no area-of-effect abilities will struggle greatly against Broodmother: Sniper,
Phantom Assassin,
Nyx Assassin,
Bane,
Visage,
Bounty Hunter.
* Enchantress can be easily overwhelmed with Broodmother's spiderlings from Spawn Spiderlings and Enchantress can only control one of them with
Enchant and she has no good waveclear (Spawn Spiderlings can also kill creeps controlled with Enchant).
* However, Untouchable's attack speed reduction can make it difficult for Broodmother to kill Enchantress even with any form of spell immunity.
Additional:
* Enchantress's lack of AoE abilities allows Broodmother to swarm her with Spiderlings.
* Spawn Spiderlings can kill enchanted creeps.
* However, keep in mind that Untouchable makes it harder for Brood to actually hit Enchantress, even if Broodmother is spell immune.
* Enchantress often has a small army of neutral creeps, allowing Medusa to hit her with a later bounce of her Mystic Snake.
* Broodmother can kill Enigma's Eidolons with Spawn Spiderlings, and spawn her spiderlings in their place. And Enigma can't use
Demonic Summoning to instantly kill spiderlings at once.
* Without the protection from Black King Bar, Broodmother can cancel Enigma's
Black Hole with
Bloodthorn and make him more vulnerable to damage. Broodmother can also buy
Abyssal Blade to cancel Enigma's
Black Hole even through
Black King Bar.
* Silken Bola causes Enigma's attacks to miss a lot and renders him more vulnerable to magical damage. And if Broodmother takes 400 AoE
Silken Bola, then she will be able to use to cause Enigma's Eidolons to miss their attacks as well. In addition, Enigma does not like to buy items to provide him true strike such as
Bloodthorn,
Monkey King Bar,
Witch Blade and it's upgrade
Revenant's Brooch.
* If Broodmother is lucky enough to survive being trapped in Black Hole, she will be able to recover her lost health with
Insatiable Hunger.
* Aghanim's Scepter gives Broodmother access to
Spinner's Snare, which allows her to create invisible lines on her webs from
Spin Web that will root Enigma, deal damage over time to Enigma and reveal Enigma if he unwittingly steps on them, disrupting his attempts to initiate with
Black Hole, prevent him from using
Blink Dagger, while also alerting Broodmother on his attempts to ambush her and her allies.
Additional:
* Broodmother can kill Enigma's Eidolons with Spawn Spiderlings, and spawn her spiderlings in their place. But remember that Enigma can do the same to Broodmother's spiderlings with
Demonic Conversion and
Midnight Pulse.
* Without the protection from Black King Bar, Broodmother can cancel Enigma's
Black Hole with
Bloodthorn and make him more vulnerable to damage. Broodmother can also buy
Abyssal Blade to cancel Enigma's
Black Hole even through
Black King Bar.
* Silken Bola causes Enigma's attacks to miss a lot and renders him more vulnerable to magical damage. And if Broodmother takes 400 AoE
Silken Bola, then she will be able to use to cause Enigma's Eidolons to miss their attacks as well. In addition, Enigma does not like to buy items to provide him true strike such as
Bloodthorn,
Monkey King Bar,
Witch Blade and it's upgrade
Revenant's Brooch.
* If Broodmother is lucky enough to survive being trapped in Black Hole, she will be able to recover her lost health with
Insatiable Hunger.
* Aghanim's Scepter gives Broodmother access to
Spinner's Snare, which allows her to create invisible lines on her webs from
Spin Web that will root Enigma, deal damage over time to Enigma and reveal Enigma if he unwittingly steps on them, disrupting his attempts to initiate with
Black Hole, prevent him from using
Blink Dagger, while also alerting Broodmother on his attempts to ambush her and her allies.
* Medusa's Split Shot can make quick work of Enigma's Eidolons and take advantage of their considerable bounty.
* Medusa can also kill Eidolons with her Mystic Snake that can also greatly damage Enigma and drain some of his mana.
* If Medusa activates Stone Gaze at the start of a fight, it can make initiating and landing an effective
Black Hole exceedingly difficult, because
Stone Gaze can cancel Enigma's
Black Hole even through spell immunity, which can discourage Enigma from even trying to initiate with
Black Hole.
Additional:
* Medusa's Split Shot can make quick work of Enigma's Eidolons and take advantage of their considerable bounty.
* If Medusa activates Stone Gaze at the start of a fight, it can make initiating — and landing an effective
Black Hole exceedingly difficult.
Stone Gaze can cancel Enigma's
Black Hole even through spell immunity, which can discourage Enigma from initiating with
Black Hole.
* Chen's low mobility and lack of AoE abilities makes him an easy target for Broodmother and her Spiderlings.
* Broodmother can easily pick off Chen's creeps with Spawn Spiderlings, and by ambushing them through terrain in her web.
Additional:
* Chen has no area-of-effect spells to deal with Broodmother's spiderlings and must rely on his creeps to take care of them.
* Spawn Spiderlings can kill Chen's creeps and spawn spiderlings in their place.
* Spin Web allows Broodmother to disrupt Chen's jungling.
* Silken Bola will cause Chen and his creeps's attack to miss more often while also making them more vulnerable to magical damage, especially if Broodmother picks 400 AoE
Silken Bola talent.
* Broodmother is a natural Bloodthorn wielder, which will allow her to prevent Chen from trying to save himself with
Hand of God while also making him more vulnerable to damage, and when combined with
Insatiable Hunger, it will spell a quick and certain death for Chen.
Bloodthorn's passive ability will also reduce any spell damage Chen tries to inflict with his creeps.
* Spinner's Snare from
Aghanim's Scepter allows Broodmother to create invisible lines on her webs from
Spin Web that will root Chen and his creeps, deal damage over time to them and reveal them if they unwittingly steps on them, disrupting Chen's jungling even more while also alerting Broodmother on their attempts to ambush her and her allies.
* Medusa's Split Shot can easily kill Chen's creeps.
* Mystic Snake can quickly kill Chen's creeps and deal intense damage for every killed creep while also draining their mana with each bounce.
Aghanim's Scepter upgraded
Mystic Snake can also disable both, Chen and his creeps upon impact.
* Mana Shield will make it impossible for Chen to burst down Medusa.
* Stone Gaze can disable Chen from using
Hand of God to save himself or his allies.
* Phantom Assassin's single target abilities make her very helpless against swarms of Spiderlings without Battle Fury.
* Because Phantom Assassin is always reliant on critical strikes, Broodmother will usually have enough time to use Spin Web to save herself.
* Silken Bola can cripple Phantom Assassin greatly due to her being 100% reliant on physical attacks.
Additional:
* Phantom Assassin's single target abilities make her very helpless against swarms of Spiderlings without Battle Fury.
* Because Phantom Assassin is always reliant on critical strikes, Broodmother will usually have enough time to use Spin Web to save herself.
* Silken Bola can cripple Phantom Assassin greatly due to her being 100% reliant on physical attacks.
* Heroes with disables that ignore spell immunity will render Phantom Assassin quite useless in teamfights throughout the game: Axe,
Enigma,
Vengeful Spirit,
Doom,
Bane,
Beastmaster,
Pudge,
Medusa,
Warlock.
* Heroes with summons: Lycan,
Broodmother,
Visage,
Nature's Prophet,
Warlock.
* Lifestealer's low mobility makes him easy to kite.
* Stone Gaze pierces Rage, wasting its cooldown and making Lifestealer unable to fight.
* Heroes with very little to no area-of-effect abilities will struggle greatly against Broodmother: Sniper,
Phantom Assassin,
Nyx Assassin,
Bane,
Visage,
Bounty Hunter.
* Heroes with cleave or multi-target attacks can quickly take on Familiars and reduce Visage's firepower like Gyrocopter,
Kunkka,
Magnus and
Medusa.
Additional:
* Visage's familiars are easy targets to Split Shot.
* Mana Shield will resist Soul Assumption instances without effort.
* Doom does not disable Mana Shield. As such, Doom's damage is largely mitigated by her mana shield. Additionally, Medusa is not reliant on her abilities to be effective during a teamfight, making Medusa an unproductive hero to target.
* Medusa is an ideal Linken's Sphere carrier. Should one be purchased, and without any additional disables, Doom may find that few opportunities exist to effectively lockdown, disable, and kill Medusa.
* Though Mirana can clear waves of Broodmother's spiderlings with Starstorm, Broodmother will often stick with her spiderlings from
Spawn Spiderlings, which in combination with the huge speed provided by
Spin Web can make it hard for Mirana to hit her with
Sacred Arrow.
* Broodmother commonly buys Orchid Malevolence and it's upgrade
Bloodthorn, which allows her to prevent Mirana from escaping with both,
Leap and
Moonlight Shadow and from fighting back with
Starstorm.
Additional:
* Though Mirana can clear waves of Broodmother's spiderlings with Starstorm, Broodmother will often stick with her spiderlings from
Spawn Spiderlings, which in combination with the huge speed provided by
Spin Web can make it hard for Mirana to hit her with
Sacred Arrow.
* Broodmother commonly buys Orchid Malevolence and it's upgrade
Bloodthorn, which allows her to prevent Mirana from escaping with both,
Leap and
Moonlight Shadow and from fighting back with
Starstorm.
* Drow Ranger's lack of mobility makes her easy prey for Broodmother and her Spiderlings.
* Mana Shield makes it very difficult for Bloodseeker to gain his Thirst bonuses.
* Rupture rarely kills Medusa through Mana Shield.
* Viper's lack of escape and durability means he can be ran over in a laning stage by Spawn Spiderlings.
* Broodmother can bring Viper down quickly with Insatiable Hunger activated.
* Charge of Darkness provides shared vision over its target, keeping track of heroes who rely on invisibility, mobility, or illusions: Riki,
Broodmother,
Phantom Lancer
* Heroes with summons and illusions as Spirit Breaker has no strong AoE capabilities to deal with them: Chaos Knight,
Phantom Lancer,
Terrorblade,
Naga Siren,
Broodmother,
Warlock,
Visage,
Nature's Prophet,
Shadow Shaman,
Lycan.
* If Medusa activates Stone Gaze before Spirit Breaker reaches her with Charge of Darkness, the charge will inevitably fail.
* Medusa has three ways to counter Spirit Breaker's Charge of Darkness: Stone Gaze can disable Spirit Breaker's Charge of Darkness if he faces Medusa directly.
Aghanim's Scepter upgraded
Mystic Snake can disable Spirit Breaker and cancel his Charge of Darkness if it hits him. And
Cold Blooded provided by
Aghanim's Shard that can cast a single-targeted
Mystic Snake at Spirit Breaker if he uses Charge of Darkness on her.
* Mana Shield and overall tankiness allows Medusa to easily survive Spirit Breaker's initiation. And to make things worse, Spirit Breaker is not a common
Diffusal Blade nor
Disperser wielder to counter this problem at all.
* Overall, any attempt for Spirit Breaker to gank and kill Medusa will hurt him more than the other way around.
* Like with Bane, Bounty Hunter's single-targeted arsenal of abilities make him an easy target for Broodmother and her Spiderlings.
* Broodmother often buys Orchid Malevolence and it's upgrade
Bloodthorn, which allows her to stop Bounty Hunter from escaping with
Shadow Walk.
Additional:
* Bounty Hunter's single-targeted arsenal of abilities make him an easy target for Broodmother and her Spiderlings.
* Broodmother often buys Orchid Malevolence and it's upgrade
Bloodthorn, which allows her to stop Bounty Hunter from escaping with Shadow Walk.
* Split Shot can destroy Tombstone Zombies and Tombstone itself while still damaging heroes.
* Broodmother can destroy Nature's Prophet's Treants with Spawn Spiderlings and summon spiderlings in their place.
* Broodmother loves buying Orchid Malevolence, which can prevent Nature's Prophet from escaping with Sprout and Teleportation.
Additional:
* Sprout cannot protect Nature's Prophet if Broodmother puts down a web.
* Nature's Prophet's low mobility means he is defenseless against Silken Bola.
* Spiderlings can absorb much of the damage from Wrath of Nature.
* Chain Frost can bounce to the Spiderlings that Broodmother spawns.
* Should Luna choose to buy Manta Style, Medusa will be able to kill illusions from them with
Split Shot and
Mjollnir, which is a common item on Medusa.
* Mystic Snake allows Medusa to easily harass Luna and steal mana from her, preventing Luna from retaliating with
Lucent Beam.
* Medusa can survive Eclipse thanks to
Mana Shield, which can cause Luna to struggle greatly in bursting down Medusa and force her to buy
Diffusal Blade and it's upgrade
Disperser.
* Even with Black King Bar, Medusa's
Stone Gaze will still be able to disable Luna, which could even discourage her from counter-initiating with Eclipse.
* For the same reasons, Medusa makes a very powerful ally for Luna when they are in the same team.
Additional:
* Should Luna choose to buy Manta Style, Medusa will be able to kill illusions from them with
Split Shot and
Mjollnir, which is a common item on Medusa.
* Mystic Snake allows Medusa to easily harass Luna and steal mana from her, preventing Luna from retaliating with
Lucent Beam.
* Medusa can survive Eclipse thanks to
Mana Shield, and since Luna is not a hero that often goes for
Diffusal Blade, she will struggle greatly in bursting down Medusa.
* Even with Black King Bar, Medusa's
Stone Gaze will still be able to disable Luna, which could even discourage her from counter-initiating with Eclipse.
* For the same reasons, Medusa makes a very powerful ally for Luna when they are in the same team.
* Her Mana Shield is too tough for Lycan to break.
* Mystic Snake can hit for a massive damage once it spread between his summons.
Additional:
* Can be easily petrified despite his speed.
* Summoned wolves will be targeted by Split Shot or Mystic Snake
* Broodmother can easily clear Wraith King's skeletons with Spawn Spiderlings and summon spiderlings in their place.
* With Diffusal Blade, Broodmother can prevent Wraith King from reincarnating unless Wraith King has his Aghanim's Shard.
* Spiderlings melt away Living Armor almost instantly.
* The vision from Eyes In The Forest may prove dangerous for Broodmother, however.
* Support heroes with low mobility can be slowed further by Incapacitating Bite, and swarmed by Spiderlings for an easy kill: Shadow Shaman,
Visage,
Dazzle,
Rubick,
Lich.
* Heroes with summons like Broodmother,
Enigma,
Nature's Prophet; or illusions, like
Naga Siren,
Terrorblade are effective at keeping the choke points and rune spawns safe from Proximity Mines.
* Heroes with Linken's Sphere as core item: Weaver,
Morphling,
Medusa.
* Heroes with blind of some sort can be a bad choice for Monkey King to go on: Broodmother,
Riki,
Keeper of the Light.
* Clockwerk lacks burst damage, and that makes him vulnerable to heroes who can recover themselves and turn the fight around to their advantage after Clockwerk finishes his initiation. Additionally, Clockwerk hates buying Dagon and
Ethereal Blade, which are the only itmes that can help him deal with heroes who can recover themselves and turn the fight around to their advantage:
Faceless Void,
Terrorblade,
Ursa,
Weaver,
Broodmother,
Slark,
Abaddon,
Wraith King,
Lifestealer.
* Any hero who can counter-initiate in anticipation without getting caught in Reverse Polarity: Sven,
Omniknight,
Enigma,
Luna,
Naga Siren,
Mars,
Jakiro,
Venomancer,
Elder Titan,
Faceless Void,
Rubick,
Keeper of the Light,
Pugna,
Invoker,
Spectre,
Alchemist,
Treant Protector,
Lina,
Oracle,
Zeus,
Shadow Shaman,
Phoenix,
Razor,
Huskar,
Batrider,
Kunkka,
Tidehunter,
Wraith King,
Sand King,
Medusa,
Dawnbreaker.
* Support heroes with low mobility can be slowed further by Incapacitating Bite, and swarmed by Spiderlings for an easy kill: Shadow Shaman,
Visage,
Dazzle,
Rubick,
Lich.
* Heroes with illusions and summons can manfight Night Stalker: Terrorblade,
Beastmaster,
Broodmother.
* Support heroes with low mobility can be slowed further by Incapacitating Bite, and swarmed by Spiderlings for an easy kill: Shadow Shaman,
Visage,
Dazzle,
Rubick,
Lich.
* Illusion-based and multi-unit heroes can take advantage of Chaos Knight's lack of area damage: Naga Siren,
Phantom Lancer,
Broodmother
* Heroes with plenty of summons, such as Broodmother or
Nature's Prophet can have their minions soak up most of your Paralyzing Cask.
* Heroes with a lot of burst damage, especially those who rely on casting spells: Lina,
Zeus.
* Heroes with both illusions and summons, for Io has nothing to deal with multiple enemies at once outside from Spirits's weak area-of-effect: Beastmaster,
Broodmother,
Chaos Knight,
Lycan,
Naga Siren,
Nature's Prophet,
Phantom Lancer,
Shadow Shaman,
Terrorblade,
Visage,
Warlock,
Wraith King.
* Oracle cannot easily deal with swarms of units, making him weak against heroes like Phantom Lancer or
Broodmother.
* Heroes that build Diffusal Blade or can fit it well into their item build will also make Medusa much less tanky:
Riki,
Naga Siren,
Terrorblade,
Juggernaut,
Spectre,
Slark.
* Medusa's Split Shot and
Mystic Snake combined with
Mjollnir, a common item for Medusa, will whittle down all of Naga Siren's illusions, including Naga Siren herself.
* Medusa's Stone Gaze can disable Naga Siren even for the duration of
Song of the Siren and even if Naga Siren is spell immune, discouraging Naga Siren from even trying to use
Song of the Siren to save herself or counter-initiate against Medusa.
Additional:
* Medusa's Split Shot and
Mystic Snake combined with
Mjollnir, a common item for Medusa, will whittle down all of Naga Siren's illusions, including Naga Siren herself.
* Medusa's Stone Gaze can disable Naga Siren even for the duration of
Song of the Siren and even if Naga Siren is spell immune, discouraging Naga Siren from even trying to use
Song of the Siren to save herself or counter-initiate against Medusa.
* Heroes that build Diffusal Blade or can fit it well into their item build will also make Medusa much less tanky:
Riki,
Naga Siren,
Terrorblade,
Juggernaut,
Spectre,
Slark.
* Heroes who can summon illusions and summons because Terrorblade has no abilities to deal with multiple enemies at once outside Reflection: Shadow Shaman,
Naga Siren,
Broodmother,
Lycan,
Enigma,
Chaos Knight,
Phantom Lancer,
Shadow Demon,
Dark Seer,
Nature's Prophet,
Invoker,
Morphling,
Visage,
Grimstroke with
Aghanim's Scepter.
* Swashbuckle can be used for Pangolier to escape or kill Broodmother's spiders. Combined with
Lucky Shot Pangolier can potentially disarm Broodmother preventing her from lifestealing off enemies.
* Shield Crash can be used for wave clear to deal with Broodmother's spiders.
* Rolling Thunder can be used as an escape or a means of initiating on Broodmother.
Additional:
* Swashbuckle and Shield Crash quickly destroys Broodmother's spiderlings and spiderites.
* Lucky Shot's disarm is very valuable when dealing with a Broodmother during her Insatiable Hunger.
* Split Shot will keep attacking Pangolier even when he is rolling around.
* Stone Gaze stuns Pangolier during Rolling Thunder, or forces him to roll away.
* Great Cleave clears Spiderlings quickly to increase gold income.
* Warcry shields Sven and his allies against Broodmother and her Spiderlings.
Additional:
* Great Cleave cleans up Spiderlings quicker than most spells, as it ignores their magic resistance.
* Sven is a natural Black King Bar carrier, protecting him from Silken Bola, Spawn Spiderlings and
Orchid Malevolence.
* Warcry and
God's Strength allow Sven to easily out-damage Broodmother.
* Mana Shield makes it very hard for Sven to burst her within Storm Hammer's stun duration.
* Stone Gaze makes it very difficult for Sven to fight Medusa at any stage of the game.
* Mystic Snake can slow Sven down enough for allies to capitalize on his commitment in a fight.
Additional:
* Stone Gaze allows Medusa to easily kite and kill Sven.
* Mana Shield negates much of Sven's burst damage.
* Medusa is a fairly immobile hero that deals damage around her with Split Shot. Sniper should outrange her and should stay out of harm's way from Split Shot.
* More importantly, Sniper should have enough attack range to fire at Medusa during her Stone Gaze without turning to stone, so the ultimate is mostly wasted against him.
Additional:
* Sniper can outrange both Medusa's arrows and Stone Gaze, allowing him to focus her down during a teamfight.
* Sniper is completely helpless against Broodmother's abilities, and can be seriously damaged by Spiderlings in lane, especially when Shrapnel is on cooldown.
* Overwhelming Odds's damage stacks with each enemy unit in its radius. If this hits Broodmother and a large number of spiders it can deal significant amounts of damage.
* Moment of Courage has a high chance to proc if Broodmother and all of her spiders are attacking her.
* Duel can keep Broodmother in place long enough for Legion's team to kill her.
Additional:
* Overwhelming Odds is great at killing many stacked up spiderlings, thus giving Legion Commander a large buff.
* Duel is a reliable way to lock down Broodmother, preventing her from running into the treeline.
* Mana Shield makes Medusa very hard to take down in Duels.
* Stone Gaze stops Legion Commander from Dueling altogether, regardless of who she targets.
* Heroes with summons can find their summons eliminated easily by Lina, like Broodmother,
Nature's Prophet, and
Chen.
Additional:
* Light Strike Array in combination with
Dragon Slave can easily clear Broodmother's spiders.
* Laguna Blade offers extensive damage that can kill Broodmother early on or before she is able to use Insatiable Hunger in attempts to salvage a fight.
* Heroes with a lot of burst damage, especially those who rely on casting spells: Lina,
Zeus.
* E.M.P. allows Invoker to burn Medusa's mana to weaken Mana Shield.
* Medusa's lack of mobility makes her easy to kite with Invoker's spells.
Additional:
* E.M.P. is a large mana burn nuke which can hit Medusa's Mana shield with enough damage to lose even more mana.
* Deafening Blast disarms Medusa's ability to deal pseudo-AOE damage during teamfights.
* Cold Snap allows the opposing team to repeatedly stun Medusa in short succession, preventing her from successfully casting her ultimate due to its long cast time.
* Broodmother can kill Invoker easily in the early game with her Spawn Spiderlings and her spiderlings.
* Broodmother is both an Orchid Malevolence and a
Nullifier carrier. As she can farm it early, she can kill Invoker easily.
* Silencer burns easily through her effective HP from Mana Shield, by taking away her intelligence.
* Arcane Curse punishes her repeatedly casting
Mystic Snake to keep her mana pool high. He can force her to use
Manta Style before he has cast
Global Silence and
Medusa usually does not want to build
Black King Bar.
* Broodmother relies less on abilities and more on right-clicks.
* Spiderlings can overwhelm Silencer, who has mediocre armor and no escape tool.
* Death Pulse can easily wipe out Broodmother's spiderlings if they're too close while also offering Necrophos a source of regeneration for Broodmother's harass in lane.
* Ghost Shroud prevents Broodmother or her spiderlings from damaging Necrophos temporarily until Broodmother buys
Nullifieror
Revenant's Brooch.
* Heartstopper Aura will regenerate lost health and mana for every spiderling or spiderite Necrophos manages to kill.
* Mana Shield can tank most of the damage from Reaper's Scythe; with sufficient mana, the kill threshold drops significantly.
* Necrophos has a movement speed equal to Medusa, and is easy to chase down with a slowing item in Medusa's inventory.
* Fiend's Grip provides mana drain, which can heavily damage Mana Shield and prevent Medusa from using
Stone Gaze.
* Even if she does use Stone Gaze, Nightmare can buy enough time to protect allies and reset the fight.
Additional:
* Fiend's Grip leaves Medusa defenseless, since not only does it deal damage, it also drains mana.
* Bane's single-targeted arsenal of abilities make him an easy target for Broodmother and her Spiderlings.
* Broodmother often buys Orchid Malevolence and it's upgrade
Bloodthorn, which allows her to cancel
Fiend's Grip, and completely shut Bane down.
Additional:
* Bane's single-targeted arsenal of abilities make him an easy target for Broodmother and her Spiderlings.
* Broodmother often buys Orchid Malevolence and it's upgrade
Bloodthorn, which allows her to cancel
Fiend's Grip, and completely shut Bane down.
* He can use either his own or his double's Flux to bypass the spellblock from Linken's Sphere, using the leftover Flux +
Spark Wraith to slow Medusa's already low move speed to a crawl.
* Arc Warden has a farming advantage with double Hand of Midas, and can generally bully Medusa with other items that benefit from duplication.
* None of Arc Warden's abilities are very effective against Broodmother and her spiderlings.
* A good Broodmother looks to end the match early while Arc Warden, a very item reliant hero, thrives in longer matches.
* Arc Warden has no innate disables to stop Broodmother from lifestealing with Insatiable Hunger and shredding through his relatively lower armor.
* Other heroes who has armor and slow debuffs won't allow Medusa to disengage from combat: Tidehunter,
Bristleback,
Slardar.
* Medusa cares less than other heroes about armor reduction, since
Mana Shield blocks 70% of all damage without taking armor/magic resistance into consideration. This makes 60% of your Corrosive Haze ineffective until Medusa's mana is drained.
* Earthbind prevents Broodmother from escaping Meepo's attacks.
* Poof will quickly clear any nearby spiders.
* Broodmother often picks off single target heroes. With Meepo's Divided We Stand, it gets a lot harder once every Meepo Poofs in.
* Poof won't damage Medusa and she can use Stone Gaze to disable all of Meepo's clones.
* Mystic Snake will easily become the bane of Meepo early game.
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Broodmother
* Heroes with no AoE abilities will struggle against Phantom Lancer:
Phantom Assassin,
Broodmother
Medusa
* Phantom Lancer with
Diffusal Blade will very quickly burn Medusa's mana, making Mana Shield significantly less effective.
Doppelganger's 1 second invulnerability can be used to dodge Medusa's petrification from Stone Gaze, as well as Mystic Snake.
*
* Phantom Lancer's illusions outnumber Medusa's targets from Split Shot, likely shielding his team in the process.