* Chain Frost can bounce to the Spiderlings that Broodmother spawns.
* Webbed areas can be used to hit and run, covering distance hastily weakening her on the way and initiating ganks.
* Even though Medusa can hunt down Spiderlings easily when given enough range, Silken Bola will cause her attacks to miss and get her swarmed in no time.
* Medusa usually does not build a Black King Bar to benefit from Mana Shield fully while Broodmother can fit a
Diffusal Blade to burn away all of Medusa's mana.
Additional:
* Spin Web will allow Broodmother to pick her own fights and sometimes slip away to ambush Medusa.
* Though Medusa's Split Shot and Mystic Snake can help Medusa deal with Broodmother's spiderlings, Broodmother will create too much of them for her to handle, allowing her to outnumber Medusa's targets from Split Shot and shield her team in process.
* Anti-Mage can withstand magical burst damage much better than other carries, making him effective against nukers: Lich,
Necrophos,
Oracle, and
Leshrac.
Additional:
* Although he can be effective against Anti-Mage in an aggro offlane, Lich has a hard time nuking down Anti-Mage in the midgame due to his Counterspell.
* All of Lich's abilities are also targeted, which makes it much harder to disable Anti-Mage.
* In the lategame, Anti-Mage can easily pick off Lich with Blink, and the high mana cost of Chain Frost along with Lich's large mana pool makes him vulnerable to
Mana Void.
* Blink allows Anti-Mage to escape Chain Frost.
* 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.
* Heroes that depend on disrupting fights with ability combos or big ultimate abilities are vulnerable to the long stun of Fiend's Grip: Disruptor,
Death Prophet,
Enigma,
Faceless Void,
Invoker,
Lich,
Magnus,
Mars,
Medusa,
Outworld Destroyer,
Phoenix,
Puck,
Queen of Pain,
Shadow Fiend,
Treant Protector,
Underlord,
Winter Wyvern,
Witch Doctor,
Zeus.
* 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.
* 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.
* 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.
* 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.
* Chain Frost can bounce to the treants that Nature's Prophet summons.
* Nature's Prophet's Sprout can be used to isolate and burst down the squishy Lich.
Additional:
* His treants can prevent Chain Frost from jumping to Nature's Prophet or his allies.
* 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.
* Weaver doesn't care much about Lich's slows thanks to Shukuchi.
* If he sees Chain Frost is targeting him, he can easily isolate himself with Shukuchi so that it stops bouncing around.
* Unless Lich bursts Weaver immediately, Lich has no hard disables or silences to prevent him from using Time Lapse.
* 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.
* Queen of Pain can easily escape Chain Frost thanks to Blink.
* His low survivability makes an easy kill for Shadow Strike,
Scream of Pain &
Sonic Wave.
* 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 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.
* 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.
* Heroes who lack burst damage will have a hard time against Mars: Phantom Lancer,
Nature's Prophet,
Lich.
* 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.
* 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 with low health: Lich,
Crystal Maiden,
Lion.
* 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.
* 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.
* Other heroes who has armor and slow debuffs won't allow Medusa to disengage from combat: Tidehunter,
Bristleback,
Slardar.
* 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.
* The haste provided by Dark Seer's
Surge or a {Rune:Haste} renders your slows ineffective.
* Heroes with powerful nuke can waste their precious abilites on her Refraction during a ganking attempt or chaos combat: Lich,
Lina,
Sniper,
Outworld Destroyer
Zeus
* Other heroes who has armor and slow debuffs won't allow Medusa to disengage from combat: Tidehunter,
Bristleback,
Slardar.
* 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.
* Lich does not pose a big threat to Zeus in teamfights, as his spells don't have great cast range and Zeus should be too far back for a Chain Frost to bounce among him and his allies.
* Lich has a low health pool, allowing Zeus to burst him down quickly.
* Heroes with a lot of burst damage, especially those who rely on casting spells: Lina,
Zeus.
* Phantom Assassin can easily escape Lich's slows with Phantom Strike.
* Phantom Assassin's Coup De Grace can be used to burst down the squishy Lich.
* 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.
* Poof combo puts all of the Meepos very close together, making them vulnerable to Frost Blast's AoE slow and multiple bounces from Chain Frost.
* 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.
* Heroes with nukes: Bane,
Lich,
Lion,
Skywrath Mage
* Enchantress often has a small army of neutral creeps, allowing Medusa to hit her with a later bounce of her Mystic Snake.
* 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.
* Lich's constant slows with Frost Blast and
Chain Frost will slow Dragon Knight to a crawl, especially in a crowded teamfight.
* 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.
* 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'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.
* 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.
* Split Shot can destroy Tombstone Zombies and Tombstone itself while still damaging heroes.
* Lifestealer's low mobility makes him easy to kite.
* Stone Gaze pierces Rage, wasting its cooldown and making Lifestealer unable to fight.
* 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.
* 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.
* Frost Blast and
Chain Frost can kite Troll Warlord effectively.
* Frost Shield can single-handedly waste most of the duration of Battle Trance, due to the extreme resistance to physical damage Frost Shield provides. In addition, Troll Warlord is incapable of switching targets during Battle Trance, so he cannot pick an easier target.
* Troll Warlord has little to no ability to regenerate HP, so Frost Blast together with
Frost Shield can harass him effectively.
* Chain Frost can eliminate Chaos Knight's Phantasm army, especially after he clumped up using
Reality Rift.
* Frost Shield will heavily reduce his army's effectiveness.
Additional:
* Lich's Chain Frost, especially after obtaining its respective talent that provides unlimited bounces, can take out all of Chaos Knight's illusions quickly.
* An Aghanim's Scepter-upgraded
Sinister Gaze can hypnotize Chaos Knight and his illusions while also draining his already low mana pool.
* Frost Shield helps offset the armor reduction from Natural Order.
* Lich's Chain Frost forces Io to either give up providing buff to his ally with
Tether or suffer devastating damage with his tethered ally.
* Lich can easily use Sinister Gaze to disable Io from getting away with
Tether or
Relocate.
* 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.
* Chain Frost can deliver high amounts of damage to Lone itself and his bear if they do not separate fast from each other.
Additional:
* Chain Frost will bounce between Lone Druid and his bear, forcing them to separate or suffer high amounts of damage.
* Heroes with Linken's Sphere as core item: Weaver,
Morphling,
Medusa.
* 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.
* Heroes with a lot of burst damage, especially those who rely on casting spells: Lina,
Zeus.
* Heroes with large magical AoE damage will fare well against Omniknight: Lich,
Ancient Apparition,
Jakiro,
Disruptor.
* 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.
* Heroes with low health will die easily during Duels, and can be farmed for damage in the early game: Crystal Maiden,
Lich,
Techies,
Rubick
* 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 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.
* If Thirst activated, Lich doesn't slow Bloodseeker.
* If he sees Chain Frost is targeting him, he can easily isolate himself with Thirst or forces Bloodseeker to build Blade Mail can cause Lich to accidentally kill himself with Chain Frost.
* Even Lich builds Glimmer Cape or
Force Staff are suicidal item against Bloodseeker when he is affected by
Rupture.
* Mana Shield makes it very difficult for Bloodseeker to gain his Thirst bonuses.
* Rupture rarely kills Medusa through Mana Shield.
* 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.
* Hard carries who just want to farm and be left alone will not appreciate Primal Beast, heroes such as Medusa,
Drow Ranger...
* Supports who can slow him to the point Trample does very little damage in the lane are also not fun: Lich,
Ogre Magi,
Winter Wyvern.
* Lycan doesn't care much about Lich's slows thanks to Shapeshift.
* Chain Frost can bounce to the wolves that Lycan summons.
Additional:
* Lich possesses a lot of slows, which Lycan doesn't care about when he Shapeshifts.
* Lich has no in-built escape, which makes him a good target for Lycan.
* 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
* 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.
* Chain Frost can deliver high amounts of damage to Arc and his clone
* 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.
To start select enemy heroes in the field above. It's intended to be used with multiple heroes. The more enemy heroes you provide the better results you will get.
This website was made to help you in pick stage of online game Dota 2. It calculates rating for each possible counterpicks based on tips from web-based database made up entirely of user contributions Dota 2 wiki.
You will get the list of recommended hero counters with a list of tips written by Dota 2 wiki contributors explaining why it's good against the particular hero. In comparison to other similar websites, which show only rating based on average hero win rate from dotabuff or similar service.
Take it with a bit of grain of salt, especially if the recommendation has a low rating (<= 1), some heroes
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Lich
* Lich is going to have a hard time nuking Huskar because of his high health regeneration from
Berserker's Blood.
Life Break and
Burning Spear.
Armlet of Mordiggian, even a maxed out Frost Blast will struggle to finish Huskar off.
* Lich is a squishy support without an escape mechanism, making Lich an easy kill thanks to
* Once Huskar has
Medusa
*
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.
*